The White Album was an extraordinary collection. I had to learn how to play some of the clever guitar pieces such as "Blackbird".

Lennon's beautiful song for his Mother proved to be a great exercise as I played it using only barre chords. Plus the lyrics have a purifying effect when sung. Cohen's "Suzanne" is another song that has that effect on me.

A nice benefit for us is the first part eerily describes how we chat with each other.

Half of what I say is meaningless.
But I say it just to reach you
Jessica.

Heh.

Fab Factootie

Lennon borrowed the first line of "Julia" from Gibran. It shouldn't surprise that the great lyricists know all the great poets.

"Half of what I say is meaningless; but I say it so that the other half may reach you."

<Tiles>

Awesome quality on "Julia" track. I didn't know the line came from <Kahlil Gibbon>, but this fits in well with the recent ape theme around these parts.

A boy gave me a copy of <Kahlil Gibran's> "The Prophet" once.

Great poem. The boy not so much. I ended up burning the book on a little pyre in my courtyard. That felt quite good actually. Turns out futile angry gestures actually work out sometimes.

Here is another pram by John Lennon for you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xL1...

FUN FACT: My mom played the kazoo on this track.

You should also check out this film about John and his relationship with his mother- I give it two BUMS UP.

<krmr> Tks mstr for Edith Piaf!

Wonderful, thanks old pal.

Here is <Rita Mosquito> for you, one of my favorite songs by a French group:

Just occurred to me that you may not know what the hey barre chords are. Here's a good picture from Wiggypeetoya. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barre_...

There's no better way to strengthen the left hand...or the right if you happen to be Jimi or Sir Paul.

Another song I played this way was the very amusing Phil Ochs song, "Draft Dodger Rag".

I play a pidgin folk guitar. The old cliché of hitchhiking with a guitar is a life I lived for a couple of years.

When you are sitting around a campfire and start playing Sir Paul's "Blackbird", the effect is immediate and profound.

Perhaps one reason for its beauty is it's based on a Bach piece that Paul and George learned early on - Bourrée in E Minor.

So many people have played it that it has become incorporated into music's DNA. Here is one of my favorite versions by Jethro Tull on one of my favorite albums - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2RN....

When Beethoven was asked if he was a genius, he said he knew of only two geniuses in music - Bach and Handel.

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<Tree Planting>

I love that "On the Beach" by <Neil Young> and I'm not surprised Nick Cave recommended it. It's not a pop song, not a rock song, something else altogether.

I know that record and I think it is one of Neil's "hidden gems."

Here is one of my favorite tracks from that record- I think he is playing some kind of "mellotron" synthesizer on, but I don't actually know what a "mellotron" is. Beautiful lyrics and sad sad sad like all the songs on this album:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxUb...

<Hozza> heh well me <Travis> and <Ohio> have been running an apish theme around these parts for months now.

The "monkey ranker" used to be a random generated pick for the <McLovin/Ohio> games prediction contest and I would routinely finish below the monkey in the standings. I was eventually asked to stop playing the contests. Ok I wasn't, but I certainly should have been.

I never quite understood how the "monkey ranker" worked, but many smart people tried to explain it to me, including <Eyal> years ago, and <Ohio> recently spoon fed me two very thorough explanations about how the monkey ranker actually works.

But he may as well have been trying to explain it to a cat.

I'm not really a "thinker" per se, <Hozza>.

On other news I downloaded a huge highlight reel featuring every goal scored in the World Cup, and I've just finished watching the first 36 game highlights so far. You know those African teams are strong, fast boys who can stay on the ball, but they seem to lack the technique to finish. I think African football may be on the upswing in the future though. They didn't lack for chances in the early rounds.

I saw <Van Persie> and <Robin Hood> score a few goals so far- no lack of technique there. Not surprising the Dutch put in a good show with those two up front. You know who else has technique is that Croation @#$% <Periwinkel>. Very tough lad. He made the most of his opportunities in a game I saw where he finished on two goals on the highlight.

<Messi> can finish, no worries there eh? And <Mueller> too. Did <Mueller> win the coveted "Golden Shoelace" for most goals in the event? I think he may have scored 30 in the game against Brasil alone.

<Hanh> offer thanks for detailed information on Ad Block and Ad Block Plus. I run them both.

<"Get your hand of my thigh" brand Timpons>

I hadn't heard the <jethro Tull> "creme broule" yet, but I don't hear any guitar on it? Are you referring to the legendary "flute guitar"?

Here's an early recording from Jessie's blues period.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Unms...

Here are some proper geeter versions of the Bullray by Batch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7aD...

John Williams playing the whole shebang. Perhaps you didn't know that before becoming a leading movie scorer, Williams was a pretty fair country geeter man. The ads are disturbing here but having the whole set shows Bach's unbelievably inexhaustible imagination. The Boo Ya is about 10 minutes in. The following Gigue is astonishing. One of the posters called it unplayable.

<Thanh> heh nobody can defeat the Stooges in maths or logic.

<Forrest Timp>

Man that's some fine picking to be sure. That's really the same <Robin Williams> who does every hollywood soundtrack?

QUESTION: Why does the guitar make all classical music sound Spanish?

:-)

It's a long story.

King Kong
http://youtu.be/cmixe-Dii0Y

<Tape>

Brilliant! The first appearance of Kong, still scary after all these years.

On a closely related topic, I just downloaded this film which I haven't seen before-

Behold, the appearance of MECHAGODZILLA: