Who Rules Supreme Lennon or Presley?

winston · Post by **winston** » Mon Aug 29, 2005 6:26 pm

"And why compare Lennon to Elvis, and not McCartney to Elvis? He unfairly gets knocked for not being a great writer"

Generally I think Paul's a great writer of sappy silly songs. Having said that the Lennon-McCartney team provided balance to each other and wrote some of the best pop songs ever written.

The thing I liked about John was that he was a real person warts and all. What you saw was what you got. He was not pretentious or on guard all the time. He did not try to massage his image he was just who he was.

As for Paul, well every time I think of him now an image of him shortly after Johns passing always pops into my mind. A BBC camera crew caught up with Paul on the street where the interviewer asked Paul how he felt after he heard of Johns passing. Paul said "ah yer, it's a drag init" and kept going.

Such feigned compassion, so shallow and full of himself. Yep Paul compared to Elvis? Nope. Not in my books.

jingle_jangle · Post by **jingle_jangle** » Mon Aug 29, 2005 7:37 pm

Brian, all I can say is:

Yep. I always have had this "take" on Paul, and your last sentence says it.

He's still a killer bass player and one half of one of the world's greatest songwriting duos. Too bad the other half isn't around to counteract that sappiness.

winston · Post by **winston** » Mon Aug 29, 2005 7:56 pm

Agreed Paul,

McCartney's bass playing is among the best in his style of playing bass which I consider to be somewhat melodic.

My favorite bass player of all time is Jack Bruce. He can play chops like no one else I have ever heard.

Give him a stand up he is right at home. Stick him in front of a piano and he is great.

I don't think Paul would have pulled off playing intricate fills and rhythm patterns or even come up with them for that matter(like Jack did)if he would have had the chance to play in Cream.

Jack Bruce is what I would call a great bass player.

jingle_jangle · Post by **jingle_jangle** » Mon Aug 29, 2005 8:01 pm

I agree completely. I still play my vinyl copy of "Songs for a Tailor" when I want to be awestruck...

winston · Post by **winston** » Mon Aug 29, 2005 8:10 pm

Listen to (if you have not already) the BBM album "Around the Next Dream" with Baker,Bruce and Moore.

Unbelievable stuff. Just as good and arguably better than much of the Disraeli Gears and Wheels of Fire material.

Gary Moore plays like Clapton of yesteryear. Superb album. I wish that they had stuck it out together.

apollo11 · Post by **apollo11** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 1:11 am

About the "drag" quote, you have to look at it in context. McCartney has alwas been a talker when interviewed, and will take minutes to answer a single question. That whole quote and interview was about two seconds long, as it was all he said. He had the microphone in his face and didn't want to talk, which you could tell by his expression. He lost a heck of a lot more than any of us did on that day, and that is the way he handled it.

rictified · Post by **rictified** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 4:08 am

Yeah I agree Andrew, I probably wouldn't have been so diplomatic as him after I lost someone that was that important in my life.

Jack Bruce was great and is one of my favorite bass players but he stood on Mac's shoulders. Mac was really the first melodic bass player in rock (they've been doing that in jazz for many years). Mac changed the face of rock bass playing forever, without him there would have been no Jack Bruce. Tim Bogart was another great bass player from that era, actually there were a lot of them, Jack Cassidy also springs to mind.
I don't think a lot of people realize just how influential he was, he inspired a million bass players to take up the instrument including this one and not just because he was a Beatle, no one had ever played electric bass like him before in pop music. He made it prominent in the music, an integral part, he had a flair that no one else really had. People actually noticed the bass when he played right from the beginning.

I can't really compare Elvis and Lennon, both are equally important to me in their respective spheres. Both were giants, and neither will ever be forgotten for their respective contributions.

wayang · Post by **wayang** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 6:40 am

Hmmm...Elvis vs. Lennon...one could compare In The Ghetto with Imagine...or Blue Hawaii with Help!...but I just have to picture two things to decide where I come down on this one: meeting with Nixon to become a volunteer narc vs. the Toronto Peace Festival.

Lennon went out standing for something...not to mention standing, period.

jingle_jangle · Post by **jingle_jangle** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 8:27 am

I agree. Elvis did seem constipated toward the end.

sowhat · Post by **sowhat** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 8:29 am

To me, Elvis is superior in the vocals domain, and as far as writing goes, given we know Elvis never wrote a line, there can't be any comparison... And Elvis' image was probably more attractive for female... this kind of thing. A symbol, no less. Okay, it all depends on which criteria you use...

shamustwin · Post by **shamustwin** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 9:12 am

Lennon got goofy after the Beatles. Elvis had nothing to offer after the army. Comparing them in their prime (w/Beatles, pre-army) all I can say is they were both phenomenons, both shook up the established order pretty much the same. They both died young, so that's why I assume there's any comparison being made at all.

brammy · Post by **brammy** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 9:34 am

I think Dane makes a good point. At his death Lennon was just starting a whole new phase of his life. It seemed like he been able to put the craziness behind him (party by revoving himself from the public scene) and was indeed "starting over".

Elvis, on the other hand was in a real mess when he died... both literally and drug/brain/body wise.

None of which makes any comment about their relative greatness at thier heights of popularity, but in my mind it makes Lennon's death all the more tragic.

wayang · Post by **wayang** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 9:54 am

Just a practical thought...Elvis could have used about a dozen fewer 'bodyguards' and Lennon, at least one more...

admin · Post by **admin** » Wed Aug 31, 2005 1:51 am

Dane: Regrettably, one of life's greatest challenges is fostering a climate early on that enables people to be protected from themselves.

I consider that both Elvis Presley and John Lennon had difficulty in this regard which compromised the quality of their lives, the full extent of which, we will probably never know.

jingle_jangle · Post by **jingle_jangle** » Wed Aug 31, 2005 6:53 am

Peter, out of all the posts you have made, this one required the most thought on my part.

The phrase "protected from themselves" seems to indicate a turn of philosophy that I perhaps have not given enough thought to in the raising of my own 4 children, aged 35 down to 8.

Are you referring to the human-natural inclination to go overboard when confronted with excessive freedom or excessive discipline, and the necessity for regulation to prevent burnout?

I've always espoused teaching and encouraging self-protection, but that's a long way from protecting one from one's own self.

Could you please clarify further?

Offsite is OK. I realize this in a tangential topic to most Rickenbacker discussions.