"My interpretation is that we are looking at what money will do for us a little bit more in terms of lifestyle rather than dollar amount," Rob Williams, managing director of financial planning at Charles Schwab told FOX Business. "Wealth today is more about healthy relationships with family/friends, good health and career flexibility than having more money."
The Schwab survey also noted that just about one-third (35%) of Americans have plotted their goals and documented a financial plan. And, of those who do, seven in 10 say it makes them feel more in control of their finances. Nine in 10 say they feel confident they will reach their financial goals.
Williams also says social media has become a platform Americans are increasingly using for financial, investing and savings advice, "which shows that many Americans are keeping their financial goals top of mind."
"Baby, You're a Rich Man" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles that was released as the B-side of their "All You Need Is Love" single in July 1967. It originated from an unfinished song by John Lennon, titled "One of the Beautiful People", to which Paul McCartney added a chorus. It is one of the best-known pop songs to make use of a clavioline, a monophonic keyboard instrument that was a forerunner to the synthesizer. Lennon played the clavioline on its oboe setting, creating a sound that suggests an Indian shehnai. The song was recorded and mixed at Olympic Sound Studios in London, making it the first of the Beatles' EMI recordings to be entirely created outside EMI Studios.
Lennon wrote his portion of the song after attending the 14 Hour Technicolor Dream, an all-night festival held at London's Alexandra Palace that served as a key event in the emergence of the counterculture in the UK. His lyrics address the "beautiful people" of the 1960s hippie movement and combine with the chorus to present a statement on the universality of non-material wealth. The lyrics have also invited interpretation as a message to the Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein, and alternatively as a comment on fame. George Harrison performed the song during his visit to San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district in August 1967, at the height of the Summer of Love. The track later appeared on the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour album. Parts of it were used in their 1968 animated film Yellow Submarine.
That's a combination of two separate pieces ... put together and forced into one song. One half was all mine. [Sings] "How does it feel to be one of the beautiful people, now that you know who you are, da da da da." Then Paul comes in with [sings] "Baby, you're a rich man," which was a lick he had around.[5]
"Baby, You're a Rich Man" was the result of combining two unfinished songs written by Lennon and McCartney,[6] in a similar fashion to "A Day in the Life" and "I've Got a Feeling".[7][8] The working title, based on Lennon's verses, was "One of the Beautiful People",[8] to which McCartney added the "Baby, you're a rich man" chorus.[9] In a 1980 interview, Lennon described it as "two separate pieces ... forced into one song".[5] The two songwriters worked on the composition at McCartney's London home, on Cavendish Avenue in St John's Wood.[10]
During the 1960s, "beautiful people" was the term adopted by Californian hippies to refer to themselves.[11] According to author Barry Miles, who was among the leading figures in the UK underground in 1967,[12] Lennon drew inspiration for the song from newspaper articles on the emerging hippie phenomenon.[13] It is thought that McCartney wrote his section about the band's manager, Brian Epstein.[14] Lennon's lyrics are in the form of a question-and-answer exchange, similar to that used by him and McCartney in "With a Little Help from My Friends". Musicologist Walter Everett writes that the song "asks an unnamed Brian Epstein what it's like to be one of the 'beautiful people'"; Everett adds: "This appellation was used of both communal hippies and those who mingle with the most celebrated entertainers."[15] Lennon claimed that the meaning of the song was that everybody is a rich man,[16] saying, "The point was stop moaning. You're a rich man and we're all rich men."[14] George Harrison said the message was that all individuals are wealthy within themselves, regardless of material concerns.[17][nb 1]
According to author and critic Ian MacDonald, Lennon was most likely inspired to write the verses after attending the 14 Hour Technicolor Dream, an all-night festival held at Alexandra Palace in north London on 29 April 1967.[19] Attended by 10,000 people,[20] this musical and performance art event was a fundraiser for the proprietors of the underground newspaper International Times, after a police raid had forced the closure of their offices;[21] in MacDonald's description, it marked the first large-scale coming together of Britain's "beautiful people".[19] Writing in 1981 on the musical and societal developments of 1967, sociomusicologist Simon Frith said that this event was one of the "multi-media happenings" that reflected the new aesthetic represented by English psychedelia, whereby "Dancing became less important than listening" and fashion embraced vivid colours while retaining "the mod concern for looking smart". Frith added: "Psychedelia was essentially elitist but the joy of psychedelic pop was that it made everyone part of the elite."[22]
Author and critic Kenneth Womack comments that the lyrics appear to "address issues of wealth and celebrity" for listeners unfamiliar with the countercultural concept of "beautiful people".[27] The song reflects the Beatles' disdain for consumerism and materialism, a theme that, inspired by the band members' use of the hallucinogenic drug LSD, they introduced in the lyrics to Revolver tracks such as "And Your Bird Can Sing". Authors Russell Reising and Jim LeBlanc highlight the lines "You keep all your money in a big brown bag inside a zoo / What a thing to do" as particularly dismissive of the acquisition and hoarding of material wealth.[28] The same authors recognise an element of ridicule towards some of the "beautiful people", specifically those that, in Lennon's words, travel no further than "As far as the eye can see" and, even then, see "Nothing that doesn't show".[29] Music critic Tim Riley identifies a droll quality in the answers that Lennon provides to his own questions. With regard to the song's message, he writes: "It's clear that they understand their position: if the Beatles are beautiful people, by extension their listeners become beautiful people ('Baby, you're a rich man, too')."[30]
During the session, Lennon changed a line in the chorus to "Baby, you're a rich fag Jew".[17] According to author Bob Spitz, this was either a joke at the expense of Epstein or a provocation in reaction to the band's former moptop image.[56] Spitz writes that the session tapes also reveal Lennon improvising similarly "wicked" remarks about McCartney, Ringo Starr and Jagger.[57] Partly as a result of these disruptions, the Beatles required twelve takes before they achieved a satisfactory rhythm track.[58] The group enjoyed working at Olympic Sound, which was an independent facility, free of record company control.[59] They returned to Barnes on 14 June[60] to record the basic track for "All You Need Is Love".[61][62][nb 7]
The single followed soon after Sgt. Pepper, which historian David Simonelli describes as "the most important cultural moment of 1967" through its resonance "across every boundary of class, age, gender, race and geography".[77] Both records provided a soundtrack to that year's Summer of Love, a phenomenon that marked the full emergence of the 1960s counterculture.[67][78] The Beatles were viewed as leaders of the counterculture and, during July and August, pursued interests related to the same utopian-based ideology.[79][nb 8] In a 1970 interview, when asked about Haight-Ashbury, the district of San Francisco that represented "the city of the beautiful people" in 1967,[82] Lennon recalled that he was "all for going and living" there, but "George went over in the end."[83] During this visit, on 7 August, Harrison was handed an acoustic guitar in Golden Gate Park[84] and briefly performed "Baby, You're a Rich Man",[85] leading a crowd around in a manner that press reports likened to the Pied Piper of Hamelin.[67][86]
Although the visit was viewed as the Beatles' endorsement of a youth movement that they helped inspire,[84] Harrison was disappointed at how Haight-Ashbury represented a haven for dropouts and drug addicts, rather than a community looking to explore the possibility of enlightenment that LSD presented.[87] On his return to London, he shared this disillusionment with Lennon.[88] The pair subsequently became avid supporters of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's Transcendental Meditation technique,[89][90] after the Beatles had attended a seminar by the Maharishi in Bangor, Wales, where they publicly disavowed LSD on 26 August.[91] In light of this development, author Nicholas Schaffner wrote that "Baby, You're a Rich Man", like "Strawberry Fields Forever", revealed the "redundant" aspect of repeated LSD "trips" after the initial sense of spiritual euphoria awakened by the drug, in that the songs "tend[ed] to provide more riddles than solutions".[67]
Against the Beatles' wishes, Capitol Records, EMI's North American affiliate, included "Baby You're a Rich Man" and other tracks from the band's 1967 singles on the US album Magical Mystery Tour, released in November that year.[92][nb 9] In the company's rush to prepare the album, a duophonic (or "mock stereo") mix of the song[97] was used for the stereo version of the LP.[92] While parts of the song were used in the 1968 film Yellow Submarine, it was not included on the accompanying soundtrack album.[10][31] The sequence for "Baby, You're a Rich Man" appears towards the end of the film, when Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band have been released from the paralysis initiated by the Blue Meanies' hatred of music.[57] Later editions of the US single include a voice saying the end of the word "Seven" or "Eleven" before the track starts.[53]
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