#144 Wild Honey Pie with Phoebe Lorde of Another Kind of Mind
OK WE’RE FINALLY HERE!! Let’s get down to it. During the creation of the White Album as tensions built among the ranks of the Beatles, the members often found themselves working on their own tracks in different studios, sometimes bringing in other members as needed, or working by themselves. While John and Ringo tended to a mix session for Revolution 9, which Paul hadn’t been a part of, Paul was in another studio overseeing overdubs on his own “Mother Nature’s Son.” Following work on that tune, and feeling a creative streak, Paul demoed a (still) unheard song, “Etcetera,” and then began building a track based on a guitar riff he came up with in Rishikesh. Adding additional guitars, percussion, and wild vocal acrobatics, Paul and the staff of Abbey Road finish the evening by mixing this weird track, and using their hand against the tape machine to manipulate the speed of the song, giving it it’s even weirder sonic warble. In about an hour “Wild Honey Pie” was born, a track that had no real precedent in 1968, as far as it it’s experimental nature and sound. It’s weird, disjointed, grooves, and works within itself in ways that don’t always make sense in passing listens. In headphones, it reveals how dual guitars weave together to form this strange, almost atonal melody, while the man who, at the time, had arguably the greatest voice in popular music throws his voice around in ways others wish they could. It’s Paul at his experimental best, giving you just enough to do be different and not overstay its’ welcome, and it’s the beginning of a through-line that appears throughout his career, whether in his early home solo works, the synthy-strangeness of McCartney II, his collabs with producer Youth as The Fireman, all the way up to his tape loops and sounds he created for his Rockdown album, McCartney III. As Julia puts it, “Wild Honey Pie” walked so “Temporary Secretary” could run. But fear not, listener, Julia’s just as perplexed at this ranking as you might be.
Joining us this week to talk about this track is the fantastic Phoebe Lorde, one of the hosts of Another Kind of Mind, which, in our humble opinion, is one of the best Beatle-pods around. Challenging well-worn tropes and narratives about the band, and examining their history with more nuance and deeper, more candid discussion, AKOM is part of a rejuvenation of the discussion of the legacy of the Beatles, refreshing the story and opening it up to new light after all these years. We’re big, big fans. With Phoebe along for the ride, we touch on all kinds of points, like trying to break through historical biases in the Beatles’ story, finding the space to be creating, defining “experimentation,” the weirdness of 1964 Beatles songs on an album called “Beatles 65,” and much more! Be sure to listen and subscribe to Another Kind of Mind anywhere you get podcasts, and follow along on their socials on Twitter @akompodcast and on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/anotherkindofmindpod.
What do you think? Too high? Too low? Just right? Let us know in the comments on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/rankingthebeatles, Instagram @rankingthebeatles, or Twitter @rankingbeatles! Be sure to check out RTB’s official website, www.rankingthebeatles.com! Enjoying the show, and wanna show your support? Buy Us A Coffee!