Category: Make It Stop

Overall, I wouldn’t rate this as their worst track.  I don’t much like the song, but it goes well enough until that cheesy organ break comes along.  That break might be their worst moment.  I went back to All The Songs to refresh myself on just what they were thinking.  Turns out George played a fast-vibrato guitar part that John liked but George Martin rejected as too edgy.  So Paul recorded an organ solo worthy of a déclassé 60’s supper club.  Was he being funny on purpose?  Were they just ready to be done with it so thought, “fuck it, it’s filler anyway,  leave it there and let’s move on?”  

Of course everyone, no matter how great, steps in it every now and then.  Beethoven wrote Wellington’s Victory, an embarrassing piece of garbage celebrating, as the name suggests, Napoleon’s defeat. He’d once been a fan of Napoleon, dedicating his explosively innovative 3rd symphony to him.  He later removed the dedication in disgust after Napoleon crowned himself emperor, and subsequently wanted to rub Napoleon’s nose in it after Waterloo.  Defensive and touchy about the work, Beethoven probably knew it was trash. It seems to me that such music (i.e. written for overtly political or moralistic  purposes) is usually garbage.  John Lennon’s preachy songs  come to mind.  But I’d love to hear what pops into your bastardly heads in the Great Artist/Shitty Work category.