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Read the original blog post6.04am
31 March 2008
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Recorded: 13 March 1973
Producer: Richard Perry
Released: 2 November 1998
John Lennon: vocals, piano
George Harrison: electric guitar
Klaus Voormann: bass guitar
Ringo Starr: drums
Available on:
John Lennon Anthology
Written by John Lennon in 1970, I’m The Greatest was eventually recorded by Ringo Starr in 1973. A studio version with Lennon’s…
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11.42pm
15 May 2015
Offline I wanted to give a shout out (as the kids used to say) to this Lennon song. Not only are the lyrics clever, with that tongue-in-cheek irony typical of Lennon, but musically it’s cool, particularly the bass line. I get great satisfaction from playing along, following the bass line with my bass strings on my acoustic guitar, and occasionally trying out my own variants, but mostly following in lock-step. I wonder, what possessed Lennon to, at the point his chords go floating down from E, to Ema7, to E7, to E6 (with bass notes E-D#-D-C#…) — to then have the bass start back up at E and go quickly down these stairs of half notes:
E-D#-D-C#-C-B-Bb-B-C — landing back on B for the main B7 vamp?
This little bass riff doesn’t seem very Lennon-like, but I’m sure glad he did it.
A ginger sling with a pineapple heart,
a coffee dessert, yes you know it's good news...
5.55pm
22 December 2013
Offline One of John’s absolute Best post-Beatles… Perfect for Ringo… THIS was the closest thing to a Re-Union that we ever really got, while all of them were still with us… Paul is on the album and Klaus fills in for him admirably on this record… There’s a certain Magic present here that’s noticeably absent from nearly all other post-Beatle records… There’s another thread discussing “best openers” of Beatles’ albums and this one surely stands up to the others… There’s a “shock value” element present to virtually ALL of their ‘Really Great Openers’…
1, 2, 3, 4!… and suddenly the entire Planet was NEVER the same again… the ‘A Hard Day’s Night ‘ chord… the jetliner that lands to open the ‘White Album ‘… the list goes on… then comes along the “down to earth” Ringo claiming to be The Greatest!… Up there Rings… Up There…:-)
The following people thank Billy Rhythm for this post:
Pineapple Records, SgtPeppersBulldog
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