Faul McCartney

So, since the mid-sixties people have been saying that Paul McCartney was murdered in 1966 and replaced by a double that is taller, with detached earlobes and a different shaped head, along with other subtle physical changes.  He looks uncannily similar and his voice sounds the same, but no, he is some guy that looks like Paul, who people nickname "Faul."  There are clues in the lyrics, back masking and album covers, like the fact that Paul is barefoot and walking out of step with the other Beatles on the Abbey Road cover or the back masking in Revolution 9 -- "Turn me on, dead man."  Or "I buried Paul" in "Strawberry Fields Forever" (which was actually "Cranberry Sauce," which makes sense because of the "s" sound at the end).  Fans also like to show Faul's slip-ups when he is doing TV interviews, like the fact that he couldn't remember how many years the Beatles had been together.  The famous quote was, "My fans know my history much better than I do."  He was in his sixties at the time - it would be perfectly normal for him to forget things.  Also, as a former Beatle and as probably the most famous and well-liked Beatle, the man has probably done more interviews than almost any musician.  Obviously he's going to make some mistakes because of the sheer number of interviews he has done.

You could write an essay on all the clues pointing to Paul's "death."  Someone should, or maybe they already have.  Apparently, he was murdered in a car crash by some government hit men because he was against the info war that government was trying to start.  Or something crazy like that.  It makes for a great story, definitely a great idea for a movie script, but I don't believe it at all.

Paul McCartney is always standing out in the album covers and photos after 1966, but could that maybe be because he was the fan favourite and the star of the band?  No, no, the Beatles are trying to tell us that Paul is dead.  That is the only thing it could be.

Anyway, The worst part is that believers of this conspiracy hate all the post-1966 "crap" churned out by Paul McCartney and the Beatles.

So let's compare the music written by "the real Paul" to the music of "Faul"...

The real Paul (post-1966):
(I am including all the 1966 hits that he wrote, because I don't know when he "died")

I Saw Her Standing There (with John Lennon)
Please Please Me (with Lennon)
Love Me Do (with Lennon)
Love Me Do (with Lennon)
It Won't Be Long (with Lennon)
I Want to Hold Your Hand (with Lennon)
From Me to You (with Lennon)
She Loves You (with Lennon)
Can't Buy Me Love
Eight Days a Week (with Lennon)
Ticket to Ride (with Lennon doing most of the work on this one, although Paul thought of the awesome drum part)
Yesterday
I'm Looking Through You (with Lennon)
We Can Work it Out (with Lennon)
Eleanor Rigby
Yellow Submarine

Faul (Post-1966):

Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band (that's right, one of his first songs after replacing the "the real Paul" was this!!)
With a Little Help From My Friends (with Lennon)
When I'm Sixty-Four
A Day in the Life (with Lennon)
Maxwell's Silver Hammer
Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da
Martha My Dear
Blackbird
I Will
Helter Skelter
Let it Be
The Long and Winding Road
Get Back

Faul's solo work (many, many, many albums, by the way):

Another Day
C Moon
Silly Love Songs
Let 'em in
Wonderful Christmastime
Ebony and Ivory
Say Say Say (with Michael Jackson)
Dance Tonight
Ever Present Past
Live and Let Die

I noticed a few things... Before 1966, most of his songs were very traditional, 1950s-style rock-and-roll ditties.  Also, he had a little help from his friends -- John Lennon co-wrote most of the songs before he "died."  The only hits he wrote himself before '66 were "Yesterday", "Eleanor Rigby", "Yellow Submarine" and "Can't Buy Me Love".

I also noticed that Faul seems to be a pretty awesome songwriter.  "Blackbird," "Let it Be," "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," "Helter Skelter," "Ob-La-Di," etc.  And his voice and musical style is still quite similar to the pre-1966 style, although the songs are more innovative.

Also, I noticed that their songs started getting deeper and more harmonically complex around 1965 and 1966, with "Eleanor Rigby" and "Yellow Submarine" and the albums "Revolver" and "Rubber Soul."  This means that the quality of the music getting better or worse does not line up with the year Paul allegedly died.  Instead the music was gradually getting better and better, peaking in 1968 and 1969, I would say.  This might have something to do with new musical innovations as the years progressed, the fact that they were visiting different countries and the fact that they had started to smoke marijuana (1964) and do acid (1965).  I think the more valid argument is not that losing Paul in a car crash ruined their further music, but that doing weed and acid in the mid-sixties made them write much better music!

In fact, if I had to choose between losing all the pre-1966 Beatles songs or all the post-1966 Beatles songs, I think I would get rid of the original Paul stuff.

In short, if McCartney died and was replaced by a look-a-like, I like the new guy better.

The Ultimate A to Z List of Canadian Musicians and Bands

This just in... the best of Canadian Music from coast to coast, from A to Z!  

The only problem is that I couldn't find a band for X!  If you know one, please help me out!  That elusive X...

Yes, it's that big a mystery!

So... without further ado, I give you... the LIST!!! 

Alexisonfire
Barenaked Ladies
City and Colour
The Dears
Emily Haines and the Soft Skeleton
Feist
Great Big Sea
Hail the Villain!
ill Scarlett
Joni Mitchell
K-OS
Little Miss Higgins
Metric
The Nylons
Owen Pallett
Protest the Hero
Quartetto Gelato
Rush
Sarah Harmer
Tragically Hip
David Usher
Gilles Vigneault 
Rufus Wainwright

X

Neil Young
Zeus




And that's all for now.   

I have recently found another great website to check out.  It's called funtrivia.com.  As the title suggests, it's a trivia site where people take quizzes, write quizzes, play games and compare scores.  I started using it to study for music tests and to learn about jewelery for my job at the Farmer's Market, but it's addictive.  The advantage is that even though I'm having fun, I'm still learning new things.  

I've loved quizzes since I can remember, especially personality quizzes.  They're one of my many guilty pleasures.  Personality tests are almost always inaccurate, but there is something soothing about being asked innane questions and then being sorted into a meaningless category.  For some reason I really like tests and quizzes, even when they are for school.  They're like playing a game.    I also really like writing quizzes and trying to trick people and teach them new things.  If I were a teacher, which I might be someday, that would probably be one of my favourite things about teaching.  Yes, that's right.  Not the children.

Another thing about funtrivia is that although anyone can post a quiz on the site, like Wikipedia, the editors put a lot of effort into ensuring the quality of each quiz.  In order to even start writing my quiz, I had to...

1. Get an account

2. Take 50 quizzes to get a feel for how quizzes are written

3. Take five quizzes on how to write good quizzes

4. Read the quiz-making guidelines

And then once I started writing the quiz, I was only allowed to write a 10-question quiz, without true-or-false questions or fill-in-the-blank questions to be submitted to a quiz EDITOR.

The statistic on this site is that 80% of first quizzes are sent back for corrections by an editor.  Quiz-writers are told not to even try to submit their quizzes if they have spent less than 15 minutes on them.  It is a strict site, but the quality is excellent.  

I'm really enjoying it.  I've taken 92 quizzes and I've published 2 quizzes.  

You should try it out if you enjoy writing or taking quizzes!

Good night, everyone!

Crowded singing

For the past few months I and another hundred or so students have been working on a piece by Monteverdi called "Vespro della Beata Vergine" (The Monteverdi Vespers).  It is an hour-long piece for an enormous 8-part choir or two enormous 4-part choirs, soloists and a medium-sized chamber orchestra with thirteen movements.  We had our concert tonight so it is finally finished and I am very happy that it is over and we don't have rehearsal for another week.

Why am I telling you this?  For the last two months rehearsals have been very hard to bear because of overcrowding.  It wasn't as bad as a factory farm or a Japanese subway station, but it is pretty close to it. Even during the concert, when we are expected to give our best performances, we were still squished together.  It was almost like rehearsing in a crowded setting was a practice for the crowdedness of the performance.  And instead of desks, we had to sit in black uncomfortable folding chairs so we could fit everyone in the classroom we rehearsed in.  I got especially frustrated last week when I was rehearsing with this massive choir for two hours every day.  It would be hard to find a bigger place to rehearse and perform without paying a lot of extra money, but I felt that this overcrowding negatively effected our singing.

In the last few rehearsals, which dominated my weekend (instead of, you know, having a social life or at least getting some homework done), our director and other students noticed some serious problems: bad tuning in almost every section, no facial expression, people not watching the conductor, people texting in rehearsal, tentative rhythm, people still not getting some of their pitches.  I think some of this might have been improved if people weren't packed in like sardines at the front of the church.

When we were performing, all dressed up, ready to go, if I moved my arm slightly, it would touch the person next to me, and I'd end up touching them if I leaned back.  I actually felt my back hurting a few minutes into the piece.  I also could barely see the conductor and since I was between two people, I couldn't move to be able to see him better.  By the end I was exhausted.  If you've ever been in a choir, you know how annoying all of this is.

In conclusion, I wish I had more room in choir because then I would probably sing better and not be as bored and cranky and tired.

Now I'm going to go and write some darned good fanfiction gosh darn it!

P.S. Damn it, Janet!

Hello, pleased to meet you!

So this is my very first blog post.  Pretty exciting. I wasn't sure what to write about on this first blog and I think this first post will be short.  I've seen other blogs about cooking, sewing, creating art, singing, being a waiter, doing people's makeup, so many things.  The one theme I'm seeing is that it has to be something creative and interesting.  And although I'm an undergraduate singer studying voice at university, I don't really want it to just be about that.  I'm also really into writing poetry and prose, reading, exploring music, travel (although I'm not rich enough to do that regularly), vegetarianism, cooking, drawing, languages, swimming and many other things.  I want to start writing songs soon, because it sounds like fun.

I work at Wal-Mart during the summer (although I plan on finding something better next summer), and I might come back for the dreaded Christmas season, so I will probably have quite a few horror stories to tell.  It's really not that bad, but sometimes really screwed up shit happens.

I'm a soprano.  Some have said that I'm a coloratura.  I myself am not sure.  I sing opera, art songs, oratorio, etc but I also love to sing other genres like big band (I am actually in a big band), jazz, rock, folk, alternative rock/indie, etc.  I'm open to pretty much all styles of music and I love new music, sometimes even when it's dissonant or really unusual.  I love music, basically.  The one genre that I only slightly like is hip-hop/rap.  I find that a lot of those songs take songs that have already been written, make that the loop and then do a rap over it that doesn't do the song justice.  They really like to do this with classical music for some reason.  I guess the contrast.  Anyway, I do like some rap/hip-hop but mostly I'd rather listen to the Edge (if you've heard of that radio station).  I'm pretty sure I want to be a singer and/or a music teacher when I get older.  At least something sort of having to do with music.  But I'm not completely sure.  So I have officially decided that this blog will be about self-discovery.  Thus the title which quotes the "Logical Song" by Supertramp.

I'm also a left-wing agnostic and I live in Canada, just to give you a little vague personal information.  I have two brothers and a dad, but sadly my mom died of cancer over the summer.  It's been really hard to get used to, but I think it has helped me grow up a lot.  I still really miss her every day.

I love writing.  I deal with my feelings that way pretty much on a daily basis.  I recently finished "The Artist's Way", a course in creativity by Julia Cameron and I still do morning pages and occasional artist dates.  Morning pages have really helped me express my feelings in writing.  I'm not sure if they've helped my creativity.  But because of them I can write a lot.  I can just write and write and write.  Thanks, Julia Cameron!  So I hope you have good eyes, should I choose to go on a blogging/writing binge.

All the blogs I've seen look really interesting.  It's a nice way to let out what you have to say and to have your own space to write, create, have fun, interact.  Better than your own website?  I don't know.

It would be nice for my friends to read this blog but I'm worried that I might want to write about people that I really hate or love, or things that I don't want people I know to know about.  It's hard to explain, but I like my privacy.  So I have decided to be anonymous.

Also, I recently quitted facebook.  I had an essay due and I don't think I would have finished it if I didn't quit.  It's also not very useful.  It's just a sophisticated stalking tool.  I felt like I was getting way too obsessed with other people and their lives.  I'd constantly check my news and the walls of guys I like, check out friends of friends.  Really weird.  And also there's that odd feeling when you talk to your friend and you ask "How was your weekend?" and they say "Oh great.  I went surfing and sang karaoke in a bar with my friends" or whatever, but you already know, because their status says "Great weekend.  Went surfing and sang karaoke at a bar until 4 am with my buddies."  But you ask anyway, because, well, you don't want them to know that you know.  Very strange.  I don't need to know all this information about people.  If I need to contact people I'll email them.  But I still want something fun to do online other than email and youtube.  And this is actually kind of productive at the same time.  In conclusion, facebook is the devil and blogging sounds like a good alternative.

That said, I welcome you to my blog I hope it entertains you, and me.