DIDN'T WRITE THEIR OWN SONGS?!?!

[Sharon A. Lesakowski]

The following appeared in The Buffalo News, Thursday, 12/7/95:

"Yeah, Yeah, Yeah"

The Wall Street Journal pointed out, in the wake of the recent
Beatles TV retrospective, that although plenty of footage
showed the Beatles performing, very little showed them
"composing" their songs. Well, that could be because they
didn't. A friend of ours, a local jazz veteran (he demands
anonymity, for obvious reasons), insists that's the case. "The
Beatles didn't write their songs," he scoffs. "They had ghost-
writers. Billy Preston was one. It was common knowledge among
musicians. Come on," he said, "To write such a huge number of
catchy hits, you would have to be a big genius. And the
Beatles?" He burst out laughing. We admit he has a point.
We've seen Lennon and McCartney talk, and though flip and cute,
they never exactly showed the smarts of Cole Porter.

HAS ANYONE OUT THERE EVER HEARD SUCH TRASH BEFORE??? What I'm
asking is that anyone who reads this respond to The Buffalo
News as kind of a protest. How they could actually print this
is beyond me. While I could not find an E-mail address any-
where in the paper, the fax number is (716)856-5150 and the
snail mail address is The Buffalo News, One News Plaza, Buffalo,
NY 14240. Send your responses to the attention of Mary Kunz,
who writes "Buzz" (the section this appears in). And if it
isn't too much trouble, could you reply by e-mail to me if you
choose to fax or write. I'd like to get an idea if we've caused
much of a stir.

They didn't write their own songs? Yeah, right!

[CluelessJoe]

On Dec 09, 1995 01:35:08 in article <DIDN'T WRITE THEIR OWN SONGS?!?!>,

'br...@freenet.buffalo.edu (Sharon A. Lesakowski)' wrote:


>A friend of ours, a local jazz veteran (he demands
>anonymity, for obvious reasons), insists that's the case. "The
>Beatles didn't write their songs," he scoffs. "They had ghost-
>writers. Billy Preston was one.

Sharon,
I'm guessing that the "Buzz" reporter of your paper wrote this story
without pointing out the notion it is ludicrous simply because it is
OBVIOUSLY ludicrous. If that same jazz veteran claimed that he frequently
plays clubs on Mars, you wouldn't expect the reporter to add the editorial
comment, "Our paper would like to express skepticism about the existence of
these Martian gigs . . ."
--

cluel...@usa.pipeline.com

12/9/95

[d.]

In article <DJApq...@freenet.buffalo.edu>, br...@freenet.buffalo.edu
(Sharon A. Lesakowski) wrote:

> The following appeared in The Buffalo News, Thursday, 12/7/95:

[snip]

>
> They didn't write their own songs? Yeah, right!

I personally know a couple of people who really believe this to be the
case. They can't back up the assertion with any kind of facts other than
what this person is quoted as saying (real musicians know this to be the
case, etc.), but the general belief is that the Beatles were/are some sort
of corporate conspiracy. One guy said to me, "No one could be THAT
good!" Of course, this statement is strange in and of itself...if no one
could be that good, then how do the songs exist at all?

Anyway, I just change the subject when I'm around these folks; they can
believe what they want. They are missing out on a lot, but that's their
choice. It's a little annoying to see it in a newspaper though.

--
nort...@mindspring.com
http://www.mindspring.com/~northcut/no-thing.html

[Richard Bell]

I'm not even going to respond to such trash.
OOPS... I just did.
--
Richard Bell
rich...@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca
Polka?... Did someone say polka?

[bspurr]

In article <DJApq...@freenet.buffalo.edu>, br...@freenet.buffalo.edu (Sharon A. Lesakowski) says:
>
>

>
>HAS ANYONE OUT THERE EVER HEARD SUCH TRASH BEFORE??? What I'm
>asking is that anyone who reads this respond to The Buffalo
>News as kind of a protest. How they could actually print this
>is beyond me. While I could not find an E-mail address any-
>where in the paper, the fax number is (716)856-5150 and the
>snail mail address is The Buffalo News, One News Plaza, Buffalo,
>NY 14240. Send your responses to the attention of Mary Kunz,
>who writes "Buzz" (the section this appears in).
>

>They didn't write their own songs? Yeah, right!

I'm with you. Does anyone know what the e-mail address for
the Buffalo news might be? Please post it (and maybe e-mail
me since I don't have time to look through every message
in this busy newsgroup) if you do since I don't have access
to a fax machine. Maybe they should also run a story alleging
that Michael Jordan doesn't really score all those points a
game just because noone else is capable of doing it. Some
body has got to be the best at everything, and in music,
it's the Beatles.

byron

[Lee Gregory]

cluel...@usa.pipeline.com(CluelessJoe) wrote:

>On Dec 09, 1995 01:35:08 in article <DIDN'T WRITE THEIR OWN SONGS?!?!>,
>'br...@freenet.buffalo.edu (Sharon A. Lesakowski)' wrote:
>
>
>>A friend of ours, a local jazz veteran (he demands
>>anonymity, for obvious reasons), insists that's the case. "The
>>Beatles didn't write their songs," he scoffs. "They had ghost-
>>writers. Billy Preston was one.
>
>

Years ago there was a nut named Joseph Crow who was a jazz trumpeter.
He claimed that the Beatles music was created in Communist
think-tanks. Since the Beatles were not "world-beaters in school"
(Crows words) , then it would be impossible for them to create the
sophisticated music attributed to them.

What a bunch of crap.

Mr. Crow faded into obscurity. The Beatles didn't. I think he was a
bit jeaolous.

Lee Gregory
ASLAN Web Design
Creators of Beautiful WebSites
for Businesses and Individuals
http://www.aa.net/~gregfam/aslan.htm

[PATD...@delphi.com]

- News as kind of a protest. How they could actually print this
- is beyond me. While I could not find an E-mail address any-
Why are you surprised the Buffalo News has been turning into a trash
garbage paper as I have told them many times lately. Actually I was expect
ing it to be written by that morn Tony Vilanti. But obviosuly more than one
writer at the news needs his head examined....they should all go to a
group nut doctor
Media Queen

Rainbow V 1.11 for Delphi - Registered

[PATD...@delphi.com]

Quoting cluelessjoe from a message in rec.music.beatles
- I'm guessing that the "Buzz" reporter of your paper wrote this story
- without pointing out the notion it is ludicrous simply because it is
- OBVIOUSLY ludicrous. If that same jazz veteran claimed that he
Your missing on this one the idiot at the news actually believes the
story thats scary they really think they have a scoop...the paper is
turning into an idiot trash mag... The local stations are having a
ball with the "scoops" this Buzz is printing these days....MORONS
as I have told them more than once..

[cuddl...@gmail.com]

Many truths have come to light in recent years regarding music from that golden age of the Sixties & Seventies. There was an entire documentary made called "The Wrecking Crew" about a group of studio musicians that played on most of the hits from the Sixties and into the Seventies. It has come to light that much of the early Led Zeppelin material was stolen. So it's not so far fetched to think the Beatles were groomed to be a money making machine and had a group of musicians recording for the in the studio and writing songs for them. I'm not saying I believe it or can prove it. I'm saying it's a possibility. John Lennon is quoted as saying "They're just songs. They're just words. They don't mean anything." Odd thing to say if this was your art, career, and your life's purpose from a young age. But if the songs came from somewhere else, then that statement makes perfect sense. Ringo Starr on 2 occasions talks about "the writers." Quincy Jones was quoted as saying The Beatles couldn't play. Their musicianship was awful. George Martin one time said John or Paul would brings songs to him, and they would be terrible. Well, maybe they did try to write something from time to time, but it just couldn't cut it.

[geoff]

On 7/05/2020 4:33 pm, cuddl...@gmail.com wrote:
> Many truths have come to light in recent years regarding music from that golden age of the Sixties & Seventies. There was an entire documentary made called "The Wrecking Crew" about a group of studio musicians that played on most of the hits from the Sixties and into the Seventies. It has come to light that much of the early Led Zeppelin material was stolen. So it's not so far fetched to think the Beatles were groomed to be a money making machine and had a group of musicians recording for the in the studio and writing songs for them. I'm not saying I believe it or can prove it. I'm saying it's a possibility. John Lennon is quoted as saying "They're just songs. They're just words. They don't mean anything." Odd thing to say if this was your art, career, and your life's purpose from a young age. But if the songs came from somewhere else, then that statement makes perfect sense. Ringo Starr on 2 occasions talks about "the writers." Quincy Jones was quoted as saying The Beatles couldn't play. Their musicianship was awful. George Martin one time said John or Paul would brings songs to him, and they would be terrible. Well, maybe they did try to write something from time to time, but it just couldn't cut it.
>

What a load of crap.

The Wrecking Crew did not write the songs of the hoards of artists they
supported - they were the studio musicians who performed many of the
backing tracks for individual vocalists, and sometimes for bands when
the members were not good enough to be on the record, or in some cases
the 'bands' not actually being real instrumentalists at all. They may
have had some input into some in not many of the arrangements. They did
not play on 'MOST' of the hits of any era - they did play on MANY of the
hits of a particular genre from some specific record labels or studios.


The Zep stuff ? 'Inspired by' or 'reminiscent of' is not the same as
'stolen'. In blues (from where many of their early influences came)
there is a limit to musical forms and subject material into which nearly
all falls.

Ringo talking about 'the writers' referring to John, Paul, and George. Doh.

John especially, was famous for throw-away lines belittling his and The
Beatles work. He took pleasure from shocking people and causing mischief.

Quincy Jones can be a bit of a dick - a great musician and producer
sometimes, but jealous of GM and of questionable taste. Does he think
Michael Jackson was a great musician ? Ha ha.

The cover-songs that The Beatles recorded and performed in the early
years were not under any pretense to be their own. GM did contribute
parts to some of the arrangements, even compositions if you like. He was
their PRODUCER.

Paul's musicianship was high, the other's more than adequate. What they
lacked was the ability to formally notate it, which GM did where necessary.

GM misquoted , or taken extremely out of context.

geoff

[Norbert K]

On Thursday, May 7, 2020 at 12:33:17 AM UTC-4, cuddl...@gmail.com wrote:
> Many truths have come to light in recent years regarding music from that golden age of the Sixties & Seventies. There was an entire documentary made called "The Wrecking Crew" about a group of studio musicians that played on most of the hits from the Sixties and into the Seventies. It has come to light that much of the early Led Zeppelin material was stolen. So it's not so far fetched to think the Beatles were groomed to be a money making machine and had a group of musicians recording for the in the studio and writing songs for them. I'm not saying I believe it or can prove it. I'm saying it's a possibility. John Lennon is quoted as saying "They're just songs. They're just words. They don't mean anything." Odd thing to say if this was your art, career, and your life's purpose from a young age. But if the songs came from somewhere else, then that statement makes perfect sense. Ringo Starr on 2 occasions talks about "the writers." Quincy Jones was quoted as saying The Beatles couldn't play. Their musicianship was awful. George Martin one time said John or Paul would brings songs to him, and they would be terrible. Well, maybe they did try to write something from time to time, but it just couldn't cut it.

Quincy Jones has essentially retracted his claims about the Beatles. He also privately apologized to McCartney, who assessed Jones' claims as the product of a guy who was "getting on in years." It's a good thing, because Jones' claims about the Beatles don't hold up. (Look into the specific song Jones produced for Ringo. There is no session drummer "tearing things up," as Jones claimed, on a part Ringo couldn't play.)


Lennon did claim on one occasion that his songs were essentially meaningless. He was in a drugs-and-Yoko phase at the time, IIRC, and in a clearer state of mind probably would have said something different. BTW, even if his songs were "meaningless" it doesn't follow that someone else wrote them! How do you explain all the demos and alternate takes that have come out?

I believe Zeppelin has indulged in plagiarism on at least a few occasions. I'll buy that.

[Norbert K]

There's a modern variation on this conspiracy I've heard from members of the chemtrails crowd: The Beatles were created by the CIA to distract the American public from the Vietnam War.

[Norbert K]

In fairness to Quincy Jones, he has named instances of musical lifting that are believable. For example, he once said that Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" was based on part of a Donna Summer song.

I find this believable because Jones had worked with both artists, and he worked in particular on "Billie Jean" from the ground. And when I checked the Donna Summer song out, there were definite similarities.

[geoff]

On 8/05/2020 8:14 am, Norbert K wrote:
> In fairness to Quincy Jones, he has named instances of musical lifting that are believable. For example, he once said that Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" was based on part of a Donna Summer song.
>
> I find this believable because Jones had worked with both artists, and he worked in particular on "Billie Jean" from the ground. And when I checked the Donna Summer song out, there were definite similarities.
>

Yeah but 'based on' and 'similarities' are not plagiarism.
If they were, then there would be no 'original' music left in the world
since long ago.

geoff

[super70s]

On 2020-05-07 06:17:13 +0000, geoff said:

> The cover-songs that The Beatles recorded and performed in the early
>
> years were not under any pretense to be their own. GM did contribute
>
> parts to some of the arrangements, even compositions if you like. He was
>
> their PRODUCER.

I doubt many fans at the time even knew the difference unless it was an
established hit like "Act Naturally" or some of Carl Perkins' old songs.

I went for many years thinking "Slow Down" was a L/M original.

[prim...@gmail.com]

The Beatles wrote all of the best songs. Early
covers were not equivalent in quality anyway.
Except "Slow Down" was a really cool song, and
almost equal to the Fabs typical compositions.
So the conclusion is, hell yes, they, with occasional
help from George Martin, conceived and wrote their
own songs from first chord to last, unlike any other
guitar centric bands of that era. Totally unique
band arrives with a million ideas and takes pen to
paper and just does it! Songsmiths above any other
guitar centric band anywhere, period. That's exactly
what happened, and no proof exists to support the
other side of this fake news hot air horseshit claim.
They possessed maturity beyond the years, and practised
their songwriting art with great seriousness. They were
hungry to produce the finest songs that they could conceivably write, and were spectacularly successful. And
many times they had little time to write, the beancounters
pressing them relentlessly for more output, which they
delivered on, despite the pressure. No other band wrote so
much quality material in such small amounts of time.
Willy

[R Kellog]

On Saturday, December 9, 1995 at 3:00:00 AM UTC-5, Sharon A. Lesakowski wrote:
> The following appeared in The Buffalo News, Thursday, 12/7/95:
>

> "Yeah, Yeah, Yeah"
>
> The Wall Street Journal pointed out, in the wake of the recent
> Beatles TV retrospective, that although plenty of footage
> showed the Beatles performing, very little showed them
> "composing" their songs. Well, that could be because they

> didn't. A friend of ours, a local jazz veteran (he demands

> anonymity, for obvious reasons), insists that's the case. "The
> Beatles didn't write their songs," he scoffs. "They had ghost-

> writers. Billy Preston was one. It was common knowledge among
> musicians. Come on," he said, "To write such a huge number of
> catchy hits, you would have to be a big genius. And the
> Beatles?" He burst out laughing. We admit he has a point.
> We've seen Lennon and McCartney talk, and though flip and cute,
> they never exactly showed the smarts of Cole Porter.
>
>

> HAS ANYONE OUT THERE EVER HEARD SUCH TRASH BEFORE??? What I'm
> asking is that anyone who reads this respond to The Buffalo

> News as kind of a protest. How they could actually print this

> is beyond me. While I could not find an E-mail address any-

> where in the paper, the fax number is (716)856-5150 and the
> snail mail address is The Buffalo News, One News Plaza, Buffalo,
> NY 14240. Send your responses to the attention of Mary Kunz,

> who writes "Buzz" (the section this appears in). And if it
> isn't too much trouble, could you reply by e-mail to me if you
> choose to fax or write. I'd like to get an idea if we've caused
> much of a stir.
>

> They didn't write their own songs? Yeah, right!

So who wrote the songs in this paranoid scenario, and why are there signatures everywhere that continued into the solo work?

[dreamsci...@gmail.com]

well all you really have to do is look in the Official Big book of Beatles Music (Published by EMI/Capitol Records).. has all the chord charts, music and lyrics.. there you will find the original composers are credited and many of them are not Members of the Beatles. The Beatles also played a tons of covers and songs written by other people/bands so the truth is The Beatles did have "Ghost Writers" but they did write some of their own songs to =)

[R Kellog]

And which songs credited to Lennon & McCartney were ghost-written? Who are the ghost writers?

[Syd Beatle]

We need to find out. No chance in hell they went in to the studio with practically NOTHING, not even any songs written, and came out 30 days later with Rubber Soul, fully written, arranged, produced, and recorded. Why on earth would the likes of George Martin and EMI even take a chance on such an absurd scenario as that? A lot of the backing tracks must have been put together, perhaps precorded by studio musicians. This explains why they never played much of anything from those 2 66 albums.

[Syd Beatle]

and before someone jumps on it, yeah yeah, I know there were 4 out of the 16 Rubber Soul songs that were demo'd in some form prior to the sessions. that still leaves 12 fully completed songs that appeared, allegedly, 100% out of thin air, in that absurdly compressed time frame. okay, no wonder they never played that stuff live- they never played it at all is what it sounds like.

[Norbert K]

There are innumerable recordings of the guys -- that is, John, Paul, George, and Ringo -- working on the Rubber Soul songs. The guys' musical signatures are all over the finished work.

There's no intelligent reason for imagining that some mysterious unnamed force created the album.

Do you also believe that Paul McCartney died and was replaced by a lookalike/soundalike/play-all-the instruments-alike?

[Mack A. Damia]

Those of lower intelligence embrace conspiracy theories because they
do not require any deep thought - or ANY thought for that matter.
Actually, they have lazy minds, and these silly theories are the
easiest way to explain their twisted reality.

[RJKe...@yahoo.com]

In fairness, Rubber Soul was a departure in some ways. It was obviously the Beatles, but they were evolving fast..

[curtis...@gmail.com]

They cranked out "I Wanna Be Your Man" in a matter of minutes, didn't they?

Even if only a handful of the RS songs were written when they entered the studio, they almost certainly had all sorts of ideas lying around.

The reasons for their decision to stop touring are well known.

The guys worked exceptionally fast by today's standards, cranking out two albums a year.

[Mack A. Damia]

Same era.

60% of all Americans think that the JFK assassination was a
"conspiracy". No evidence has ever been discovered and authenticated
to support this. Lazy thinking.

Interesting reading:

https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/the-lone-gunman/

[Norbert K]

The JFK assassination conspiracy theories have been around longer than I can remember.

I puzzle over how conspiracism has become so widespread, and how the conspiracies people embrace (the Trump & Q sh*t) have become so crazy. Is it the drugs people take today? Has mental illness become vastly more common? Have people simply gotten stupider?

[Mack A. Damia]

On Sat, 6 Nov 2021 09:02:06 -0700 (PDT), Norbert K

Good question. The JFK conspiracy theories started just after the
assassination. Many refused to believe that one lone, mentally
disturbed gunman could kill the most powerful man in the world. To
them, it didn't make sense. Remember Clay Shaw and Jim Garrison? That
conspiracy went nowhere, but many still embrace it.

But the "Dumbing Down of America" really started in the Reagan years.
Republicans started to infiltrate state school boards and "dumb down"
the curricula. It was all about "control", and in a large part, it
worked. Check out American history books in red states for an
example.

[geoff]

Surely the JFK thing has far more justification that the various Q-shit ?

geoff

[Norbert K]

Well, most JFK murder conspiracists will provide some sort of tortured reasoning for their favored hypothesis (of which there are dozens, if not hundreds). The Q-nuts simply take their leader's loony claims on faith.

[Norbert K]

On Sunday, November 7, 2021 at 12:20:19 AM UTC-4, geoff wrote:

When "Q" is identified, I predict we'll learn that he's a videogame-playing kid who knows absolutely nothing about science, history, international relations, or the U.S. Constitution. He's a creator of juvenile science fiction who preys upon the paranoid, the drug-addled, and the mentally ill.

[Mack A. Damia]

On Sun, 7 Nov 2021 17:20:08 +1300, geoff <ge...@nospamgeoffwood.org>
wrote:

Did you read the link that I posted? Some enlightened person in Texas
got tired of all the nonsense and went through the various aspects of
the conspiracy theories and debunked them all very effectively.

Qanon? Different strokes. Paranoia is alive and unwell in the U.S.

[Norbert K]

The article you posted a link for is good. The JFK assassination conspiracy theories arose from an unwillingness on the part of many people to accept that this important and famous person could be murdered by a nobody. So conspiracies arose out of a craving for consolation.

Q is different from the JFK conspiracies in that its claims are blatantly ludicrous (they do not deserve investigation) and its predictions persistently prove false. Q's predicted "Storm" was first supposed to take place in 2017. The accumulated false predictions have led some onetime Q followers to leave the movement in disgust -- while others apparently *like* to be duped.

[Norbert K]

There's a video on Youtube in which somebody named Vince Russo interviews somebody named Mike Williams purportedly on the theme of "Proof the Beatles Didn't Write Or Play Their Own Songs."

Obviously the hypothesis is insane, but I was willing to give it a listen as a critical exercise. I thought it might be useful to debunk Williams' bad arguments. The problem is that Williams began his "presentation" by denying that there was any such thing as Covid 19! I fast forwarded through that -- only to find Williams rambling on about how the various national leaders were beholden to some sinister and unnameable higher force.

He had completely forgotten what he had come on the show to do and was merely promoting paranoia -- any paranoia.

[Mack A. Damia]

There appears to be a "mass hysteria" among many on the right based on
insane theories.

[Norbert K]

Can you imagine what a traditional conservative Republican -- a Barry Goldwater, a Ronald Reagan, even a Richard Nixon -- would think about what their party has become? They would think today's Trumpian, Q-Anon-accepting supposed Republicans were completely insane. And they would be correct in this thought.

[Joe Mahoney]

Yeah, and "Ringo's" drum parts were actually Bernard Purdie.

This nameless jazz musician obviously doesn't know what a "ghost writer" is. There's camera footage of Billy Preston working with the Beatles. And they credited Preston with his contributions.

[Mack A. Damia]

On Mon, 8 Nov 2021 04:51:48 -0800 (PST), Norbert K

The ones you mention would disassociate the Trumpsters, et al from the
mainstream Republican party. I wish we had guys like Dwight
Eisenhower around.

I don't think Biden will run in 2024. I don't know about Harris, but
I would be willing to vote for Republican Adam Kinzinger under the
right circumstances.

[Norbert K]

Kinzinger was impressive today on the January 6 Committee.

A pot-Trump Republican who is conservative for real, who understands the US Constitution and who doesn't deal in paranoid delusions or kiss Putin's ass? What an anomaly.

I'd vote for him in the right circumstances (i.e., depending on who the Democratic nominee is) too.