The History of Literature #147 – Leo Tolstoy

Tolstoy

When asked to name the three greatest novels ever written, William Faulkner replied, “Anna Karenina, Anna Karenina, Anna Karenina.” Nabokov said, “When you are reading Turgenev, you know you are reading Turgenev. When you read Tolstoy, you are reading because you just cannot stop.”  And finally, there’s this compliment from author Isaac Babel: “If the world could write itself,” he said, “it would write like Tolstoy.”

But who was Leo Tolstoy? How did he become the person who could write War and Peace and Anna Karenina, two of the pinnacles of the novel form – and two of the greatest achievements in the history of human civilization? Why did he stop writing novels, and what did he do with the rest of his life?

In this episode, host Jacke Wilson takes a look at the life and works of Count Leo Tolstoy, one of the most fascinating and revered figures in all of literature.

Links and Other Treats:

More of a Chekhov person? You might like Episode 63, where author Charles Baxter talks about how important Chekhov has been to him.

For a look at Anna Karenina’s “French cousin,” check out Episode 79 – Music That Melts the Stars – Madame Bovary.

Love the Russians? Listen to more in Episode 130 on the great poet Anna Akhmatova and her surprising affair with sculptor Amedeo Modigliani.

Why did Tolstoy hate Shakespeare? Learn more in Episode 104 – King Lear.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature. Find out more at historyofliterature.com, jackewilson.com, or by following Jacke and Mike on Twitter at @thejackewilson and @literatureSC.

FREE GIFTS! The gift-giving continues! This month, we’re giving away a copy of Nabokov’s Lectures on Russian Literature and an Amazon.com gift certificate for the book of your choice. Sign up at patreon.com/literature to be eligible to win. Good luck!

The History of Literature #120 – The Astonishing Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) might be the most enigmatic poet who ever lived. Her innovative use of meter and punctuation – and above all the liveliness of her ideas, as she crashes together abstract thoughts and concrete images – astonished her nineteenth-century readers and have retained their power to delight, puzzle, confound, and enlighten us today. Who was this quiet person in Amherst, Massachusetts, and how did she come to write such unusual poems? Host Jacke Wilson celebrates Emily Dickinson and her special genius – and offers some thoughts on how we can benefit from studying different forms of genius, whether it’s John Lennon describing his childhood or Icelandic chanteuse Björk, interviewing herself.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature. Learn more about the show at historyofliterature.com. Contact the host at jackewilsonauthor@gmail.com.

FOR A LIMITED TIME: Special holiday news! Now for a limited time, you can purchase History of Literature swag (mugs, tote bags, and “virtual coffees” for Jacke) at historyofliterature.com/shop. Get yours today!

The Genius and the Diva, Part II: Joplin/Kristofferson version

Wonderful Reader PS capped off our magnum opus on Carole King and Aretha Franklin with a link to an amazing in-depth look at the song “Me and Bobby McGee.” Here’s songwriter Kris Kristofferson describing the first time he ever heard Janis Joplin singing his song “Me and Bobby McGee,” shortly after Janis had died:

“The first time I heard Janis Joplin’s version was right after she died. Paul Rothchild, her producer, asked me to stop by his office and listen to this thing she had cut. Afterwards, I walked all over L.A., just in tears. I couldn’t listen to the song without really breaking up. So when I came back to Nashville, I went into the Combine [Publishing] building late at night, and I played it over and over again…”

Read the whole story of a songwriter and his masterpiece over at performingsongwriter.com. Thanks, PS!

The Genius and the Diva: On Carole King and Aretha Franklin

There are many archetypes for creative genius. Almost all of them involve being lonely in some way. How many creative spirits have been frustrated, trapped, or doomed? It’s part of the job to be misunderstood. Living alone with one’s genius: it’s a special kind of hell.

Then there are geniuses who are out there in the world, who have collaborators, whose greatest achievements include working with others. Lennon and McCartney. Scorsese and DeNiro. Key and Peele. That’s a less lonely way to go. Seems like a lot more fun.

And then there’s the special case of a songwriter who has someone else – someone great – perform his or her works. You might be a great singer yourself. You might even make your own song a hit. But Sinatra could make your song a standard.

Just imagine what it must be like to hear your song interpreted by Sinatra, sung in that once-in-a-lifetime voice.* To hear your music, your creative activity, the product of your mind and talent – to hear all that escalated to something beyond perfection.

(*”Yeah,” Bing Crosby reportedly said when someone referred to Sinatra’s voice this way. “But why did it have to be in my lifetime?”)

Dolly Parton – no performing slouch herself – wrote a beautiful little song about a man she was leaving behind.

And in this clip she was singing that to the man she wrote it for, the man who hosted the show she was outgrowing, Porter Wagoner (you see him at the beginning and end of the clip).

Such a beautiful little song. A beautiful little song.

And then…

Good lord. Poor Whitney, such a tragic story. But let’s set that aside and recognize what she did to this song, how her majestic power turned it into something for the ages.

This song as at least three iconic moments. There’s the first one, “If I…” Chilling.

And there’s the part at the 0:50 mark, where she looks to the side, aware at what she’s about to unleash on all of us. The way her voice will give us goosebumps.

And then there’s the most famous of all, the part at 3:20, where she kicks into a higher gear. That’s the part that every singer of this song has to reckon with: are you as good as Whitney? Because we in the audience know what Whitney sounds like, and we will be hearing that even as we listen to you. In some ways that’s the moment in pop music, there is none other quite like it.

It’s like the Nessun Dorma of pop music. (You know what part of Nessun Dorma I mean. But just in case, start paying attention around 2:10:

Look at his face! That is a man in the grip of anxiety and exhaustion. Calling forth all his powers.)

What did Dolly think of Whitney covering her song? Was she upset at being transcended? Not at all! Whitney Houston can sing any song of mine she wants, said Dolly. As a performer, Dolly might have felt a little outshone. But as a songwriter, she recognized that being the writer of the most famous ballad in the universe was not too shabby. (Royalty checks probably didn’t hurt either.)

Okay, so all this brings me to what I really want to talk about, which is Carole King. A great American songwriter, one of our best. She was, in fact, part of a collaboration that Lennon and McCartney admired. (“We want to be the next Goffin and King!” they said, early in their careers.) She wrote a bunch of hits for Motown.

Then, the story goes, the demo record of her singing her own songs got passed around so much in the music industry that someone finally said, Jeez, what are we doing, why don’t we just put this out. And voila, Tapestry was born. Number one album for Ms. King. Now she’s a singer too, a performer, in addition to being a songwriter.

And hey, you might like Carole King singing her own songs. I certainly do, just as I like Dolly singing hers. My guess is I’d like Puccini singing Nessun Dorma, if only there were a recording of it. There’s something lovely about the simple, pure version of the song, in the voice of the person who originally wrote it.

Here’s an example of this, with Carole King singing It’s Too Late.

Cool, smooth, full of heart. An adult song. For adults.

This song went to number one. Try to imagine pop music today with anything like this at the top of the charts. What a great time that was for music.

Don’t get me wrong: I love Carole’s voice, and I love what she does with this song.

But Carole also wrote songs for others. And one of those others was Aretha Franklin.

Aretha! The Queen! That’s a test for any songwriter. If you’re writing a song for Aretha, your song damn well better hold up. If not, Aretha will blow your song away, exposing its shortcomings, just like she blew away all the young divas at the diva contest in 1998. (Sorry, Mariah! Sorry, Celine! The queen is still on her throne.)

But what if your song holds up? What if it’s so good it can inspire the singer to do her best work? That’s what Carole King did for Aretha. Carole volleyed this one over the net to Aretha. And Aretha smashed it back.

We’ve had that song now for almost 50 years. It’s as fresh today as it was then. Aretha owns that song. The rest of us just get to visit.*

*Some of us are more privileged visitors than others.

So that’s the backdrop for what happened a few weeks ago. All that history – and with history comes the passage of time, and we know what that means. All things pass. Even the mighty fall. And time is not especially kind to singers. Voices fade and crack. We know this happens, and we know it’s natural. There should be more beauty in this then there is, just as we should enjoy the lines on the foreheads of Hollywood stars more than we do.

So here’s what happened. Carole King was honored by the President for a lifetime achievement award at the Kennedy Center. It’s a great tribute to a worthy candidate. Her body of work is unbelievable, and she seems like a very classy lady and a great presence in the music industry. I don’t know if she’s genuine, but my impression is that she is, and I hope it’s true. I hope she’s not fake, I hope I’m not mistaken. I hope she’s an example of talent that made its way through the showbiz landmines with her integrity intact.

The ceremony continues, wonderful, wonderful.

And then…Aretha comes out. Carole King blows her a kiss, hey thanks for coming. Everyone politely applauds.

And – this seems to be what’s happening in the room – everyone settles in. Not expecting much. Oh, she’s going to sing? That’s nice. Nostalgic. Hopefully it’s not too embarrassing. We’ll clap politely because we’ll remember the days when she was young and could really sing, we’ll remember how good her voice was once upon a time. She deserves to be on that stage, even if she’s no longer quite the person she was…

And then Aretha sits down at the piano and blows everyone away. The Queen. The 73-year-old queen.

The headline was Obama wiping a tear away. That’s his generation: this is the music he grew up with. Aretha sang at his inauguration. Hearing the song in person, live, after it meant so much to you for your lifetime–well, I’m getting to that point in my life too. Tears come out of nowhere sometimes. It’s the past’s way of tapping you on the shoulder. Hey. Remember me? I’m here. I’m part of you. Good times and bad. Deal with me, my friend.

So that’s the headline, because he’s the president. But take a look at Carole King. She has a past too. She has a lifetime of writing songs, of dedication to music. All the years when songs poured out of her, when she knew she was good, but she didn’t know just how good. And then the part of her life when Aretha showed her what her own song could do, when placed in the hands of a fellow artist. A fellow genius, with a voice gifted from the gods.

Look at the surprise and emotion on Carole’s face. She’s excited to see her sit down at the piano. For two seconds, you see nostalgia and appreciation on her face. I love this woman, she’s meant so much to me as an artist and a person.

And then the moment at 0:28, when her face absolutely jumps with excitement – oh my god, she’s singing, and it’s just as awesome as ever.

Fifty years later. A lifetime of hearing her song in this voice. And it’s still continuing.

It’s the gift that Carole gave Aretha, and the gift that Aretha gave back to Carole.

And here’s the great thing about this particular gift exchange: the rest of us were in on it too.

 

Embrace Your Inner Beatle! “I’m So Tired”

Back to coins for this week’s randomizing method. Seven quick flips to allow the gods of genius and creativity to have their say, and…

Oh gods. Excellent choice. But are you feeling okay? Feeling droopy? Has the work of inspiring creativity gotten you down? Or are you just admiring one of John’s favorite songs? In any case, here we go with…

“I’m So Tired” (Lennon-McCartney, The White Album)

Where to begin? This is one of those songs that critics dislike but listeners don’t forget. That voice! Those words! Like so much else on The White Album, it goes straight to our brain.

I know, I know: why is this millionaire tired? He doesn’t haul bricks or drive a forklift, he doesn’t work two jobs, he’s not on the night shift. He plays music and does drugs and eats whatever he wants. Stop complaining! Continue reading

The Tao of the Beatles: “Lady Madonna”

Hail Muse! O ye gods of genius and creativity! Give us a random Beatles song from our randomly chosen random generator… this time we drop an Artemisia stem onto our random Beatles-song selector…and…

Oh boy! Our first real Paul song. Oh, I know, we had “The End,” but this is the first full-blown, get out of the way, a train-of-talent-is-coming-through-and-his-name-is-Paul song.

“Lady Madonna” (Lennon-McCartney, Past Masters Volume Two)

“Lady Madonna” is one of those earwormy tunes that the Beatles cranked out around the time of the Magical Mystery Tour album, that forgotten little period in between the colossal albums Sgt. Pepper and the White Album. Albums are the thing, right? The pinnacle of artistic achievement from, oh, 1965 to whenever iTunes killed them off? A radio hit is great and all, but fans of the artist measure them in terms of albums.

So we critics bounce from Rubber Soul to Revolver to Sgt. Pepper to Magical Mystery Tour (sort of) to the White Album to Yellow Submarine (sort of sort of) and Let It Be and Abbey Road, analyzing and categorizing and comparing…and we forget that in those days, the Beatles released singles too, and that these were not included on the albums. (The idea the Beatles had was that you didn’t want to make your fans pay twice for the same song.)

So as a collector or even just a fan, you have a whole other album’s worth just of songs—songs like “Day Tripper” and “Penny Lane” and and “I Am the Walrus” and “Hey Jude” and “Paperback Writer” and a dozen others. Songs the whole world knows. Not on an album.

Including this one, which is as good as any of them. So much life and energy! Where does all that spirit come from?

MAYBE FROM THE PIANO…

Those pounding chords! You picture a man playing for a big concert hall with no microphones. Just a man and the strings and the strength of his hands on the keys. And the joy in his heart that hits those bluesy chords, turning the blues into something uplifting. Someone like this:

Hmmm…Paul played the piano, sure…but did he INVENT that opening riff?

Nope. Not exactly. Check this out: Continue reading

The Beatles and You: Finding Inspiration in Abbey Road’s “The End”

Ugh, my big plans for the blog this year have run into some real-life snags. More posts soon, I promise!

On the other hand, I’ve been enjoying this trip through the Beatles catalog and exploring the genius and creativity behind it. So here we go with another spin of our Jacke Wilson Randomizer… the wheel spins… the marble drops into place… and…

Oh no. Really?

The End (Lennon-McCartney, Abbey Road)

(The clip is of three final songs* of Abbey Road, Golden Slumbers, Carry That Weight, and The End. This is the recommended way to listen to The End (it builds, it builds, it builds!). The End starts at 3:07 if you want to skip ahead.)

*Yes, I’m aware of the mistake-snippet Her Majesty that got tacked onto the end of Abbey Road. And no, I’m not counting it. In this post, we shall end with the proper end. The End.

THE SELECTION

Never has it been more difficult to stick to the song chosen by the gods! If I was doing this in any sort of order that made sense, The End would come last. Because, of course, it was The End for the Beatles: the final song on the final album they recorded, the majestic triumph Abbey Road. The story goes that after the bitterness of Let It Be, they agreed to close out the Beatles with a real album, a spectacular one, one with George Martin at the helm and the four of them applying their powers in a final unified way. An album by a band, not just four individual musicians working sort-of-together a la the White Album.

So Abbey Road was the end. And The End was the end of the end.

How do you cap off such a preternatural run of brilliance? For a brief period these guys owned the world. Music and inspiration flowed through them like the spirit of God flowing through four angels.

Yes, I can get carried away. But come on! Here’s a list of the 100 greatest Beatles songs, presented by Rolling Stone. Number 100 is Hello, Goodbye. Number 100! A catchy, compelling song that beat out I Am the Walrus to be the A side!  (For more Walrusing, check out our last choice of the gods.) And perhaps most to the point, a song that was a number-one hit.

What other band has a song that went to number one as their 100th-greatest song? Really, you have a band in mind? Well, tell me: did they write all the songs themselves? In seven years ?

For that kind of whirlwind achievement I think you need to look across centuries. Who else is comparable? Keats? Shakespeare? Picasso? Mozart? Bach? Alexander the Great?

CLIMBING THE FINAL PEAK

So what do you do when you’ve done everything possible? For the Beatles, you top yourself, once again, with something new. That’s The End.

Oh, sure, you say. The End isn’t even the best song on the album! There’s Oh! Darling, for example, and Here Comes the Sun, and of course the Medley from Heaven, and the criminally underrated You Never Give Me Your Money (listen to this podcast episode for a brilliant and amusing defense of the song). Come Together was on this album! And Something!

Where does The End fit among all this genius? Continue reading

Embrace Your Inner Beatle! (“I Am The Walrus”)

Whoa. The dice tumble, the dial spins…and the gods have chosen!

Oh, ye gods. What a sense of humor you have.

A work of genius? Yes. It’s a big one this time. A landmark in weird, mindblowing creativity. In context, maybe the strangest song ever written, and yes, I’m including Revolution 9 in that calculus. I think this song is stranger.

Yes, that’s right, we’ve landed on…

“I Am The Walrus” (Magical Mystery Tour, Lennon-McCartney)

Man. This is the Beatles in full flower. In fact, it used to scare me a little, when I was ten and listening to these songs for the first time. Not just because of the drugs, although I sensed that something was going on, something that grownups had warned me against. But because it felt to me insane.

There’s a great piece in the Anthology where they talk about John going insane at Shea Stadium. (“A little bit mad,” was Ringo’s quote, I think.) Look at him in this video, especially at the end:

That look—wild, exhausted, exhilarated, sweating, grinning, tipped out of our normal world and entering into some strange manic place—I’m not sure John intended to travel to this place, but whenever he found himself there, he knew what to do. Continue reading

Embrace Your Inner Beatle! Nowhere Man by John Lennon

nowhereman

THE SELECTION

Aha! This week we use the perfect randomizer: four spins of a Life board game dial. Szzzzzzzzz-tika-tika-tika…. and the gods of creativity have chosen!

NOWHERE MAN (LENNON-MCCARTNEY, RUBBER SOUL)

Oh, wow. Once again, the gods seem to have looked out for themselves. Here’s another divinely inspired song, or at least divinely delivered. More on that later.

“Nowhere Man,” from the album Rubber Soul, was written in what John later called his “fat Elvis” period, when he was unhappy, bitter, isolated, troubled, uncertain. Oh, you never knew that? You never knew he was suffering? Here’s Paul:

I think at that point, he was a bit…wondering where he was going, and to be truthful so was I. I was starting to worry about him.

(Gee, Paul, you think? I mean, the guy only wrote a song called Help!) Continue reading

Embrace Your Inner Beatle! Long, Long, Long by George Harrison

BeatlesWhiteAlbumPortraits

EXPLORING THE TAO TE BEATLES

As with your consultations of the I Ching, trust the gods to select the song to serve as the basis for your creative contemplation. Close eyes. Breathe deep. Open eyes. Work out elaborate system to guarantee randomness that is harder than hell to actually get right. Fill Post-Its with numbers. Throw out. Try again. Try twelve-sided die. Try twelve-sided die and six-sided die in combination. Rip Post-Its into tiny pieces. Say, “F–k you, numbers, start cooperating, this is a spiritual thing!” Finally devise system to produce one song from the Beatles catalog, chosen at random. The gods are pleased: they shall select the song. It is the Way. Move on quickly before mathematical flaws in randomness system become apparent.

Close eyes. Inhale. Exhale, whispering jai guru deva om.

Open eyes and prepare to throw dusty Tibetan coins. Realize you’ve misplaced Tibetan coins. Use two Hungarian forints and a Canadian quarter instead. Trust that it is the Way.

Produce randomly generated song.

#152 – Long, Long, Long (from the White Album)

THE CHOICE

Oh, wow! The first installment and the gods have chosen a George Harrison song! Then again, is that such a surprise? The gods look after their own.

George Harrison was of course the Quiet Beatle. And “Long, Long, Long” is the Quiet Song. Literally, it has to be the quietest song in the entire Beatles catalog. I used to struggle with this as a kid, lying in bed in the darkness in my crackerbox palace listening to the White Album. Sometimes I wasn’t sure if I were asleep or awake. The middle part of the song grows louder, and the ending rises…but for the most part the song drifted in and out of my consciousness like a quasi-dream. The song ends the album’s third side; the needle lifting from the vinyl was louder than the song.

Well, maybe that’s as it should be. The song is addressed to God, and it’s as quiet as a prayer. Not one of the chanting Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep prayers, with a little boy kneeling at the edge of his bed and shouting out what he wants and who he wants blessed. No, this is not that. This is an aching, agonizing search for meaning, full of humility and gratitude and hope. It’s the hushed cry of someone on a lifelong spiritual journey. An imploration. A humble entreaty. Supplication set to music.

It’s been a long, long, long time
How could I ever have lost you
When I loved you?

It took a long, long, long time
Now I’m so happy I found you
How I love you

So many tears I was searching
So many tears I was wasting, oh oh

Now I can see you be you
How can I ever misplace you?
How I want you
Oh, I love you
You know that I need you
Oh, I love you

Wow. Just beautiful.

The Beatles started recording the song at two thirty in the afternoon, worked through the night, and stopped at seven the next morning. There is something so right about this. It’s the long night of a soul not at rest. Or coming to rest, just before dawn.

GENIUS IN THE SHADOWS

What was it like to be George!? Imagine you’re creating something with your closest childhood friend. You’re fourteen or fifteen years old. What do you do together? Play sports? Program computers? Write plays? Okay, let’s say the two of you write plays.

You meet another kid from across town who writes plays too. The three of you write plays together. You’re having a blast. You dream that someday you’ll have a play on Broadway. Why not? Kids are allowed to dream.

You put on a play by, say, August Wilson. Maybe Tony Kushner. Wendy Wasserstein. Throw in a Shakespeare or two to impress the grownups. David Mamet for some street cred. People start coming to the plays! This is fun! The three of you take turns playing the lead parts. People around town start asking when you’re going to be putting on the latest from Suzan-Lori Parks or Tracy Letts. Well, no, you hear your friend say, we actually thought we’d write our own plays. That’s our plan.

Really? you think. Write our own plays? Wow.

And then, by the time you’re twenty, your friend, that kid you knew on the bus when the two of you were anonymous teenagers riding to school, turns out to be THE GREATEST PLAYWRIGHT EVER. Well, maybe except for THAT OTHER GUY YOU MET, who is JUST AS GOOD. And the two of them HAVE DECIDED TO SHARE CREDIT AS CO-AUTHORS OF EACH OTHER’S PLAYS. And THOSE PLAYS ARE SUDDENLY HAILED AS THE MOST POPULAR AND SUCCESSFUL AND CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED PLAYS OF ALL TIME, LEAVING YOU TO WONDER JUST WHOSE IDEA IT WAS TO HIT THE ALL-CAPS BUTTON ON THIS STRANGE CRAZY LIFE YOU’RE SUDDENLY LIVING.

So that’s your new reality: your friend is a genius, as is your other friend, and everyone in the whole world suddenly knows it. But hey, they tell you, you can still be IN our plays, we need actors after all, so we might as well use you, we have some residual loyalty toward you.. And guess what? We’ll still play parts in your cute little plays, when we have some extra time. It’s one of the great satisfactions we have, to see how much success we’ve bestowed upon you! Chin up there, old friend. You’re still one of us. Just, um, don’t forget how lucky you are, ha ha, did we say that? Well, we didn’t have to, because the newspapers are saying it for us. Boy, there are alotta talented actors around who’d love to be in our plays, wouldn’t they? I mean, if you ever decided you wanted to do something else, there would be TONS of actors who…just kidding! Chin up, chin up!

Sound crazy? It’s basically what happened to George. And here’s the thing: GEORGE WAS GREAT TOO. He had to keep up with John and Paul, first of all, which he and Ringo don’t get enough credit for. Paul and John could come strolling in with some brilliant idea for a song as if they had angels humming tunes in their ear (and who knows, maybe they did), but it’s not like they came in with full arrangements and handed out sheet music. They came in with tunes, or ideas, or vague general descriptions (John), or demanding technical specifics (Paul). Imagine if that was you in that band, asked to learn a new song, AND learn to play it in a way that meets the approval of one of two very different creative geniuses, AND come up with a solo or something of your own—something that doesn’t irritate the creative genius but manages to strengthen the song without ruining it. Oh, and of course, you can’t let it sound like anything you’ve done before, because originality is prized. In fact, you might need to do all this on an instrument you just started playing a few days ago.

How long would it take you to come up with your part? What would seem fair? A couple of months? A few weeks?

Well, what if you had a day? Or an HOUR? What if you had to do it on the spot with the tape rolling and John or Paul ASSUMING you could play it right? That was how it was for George and Ringo. And they came through.

But we don’t need to limit George’s genius to his playing, because he himself was a brilliant songwriter. I’m sure we’ll cover those in future weeks (it is the Way) but let’s just note his songs on Abbey Road (“Here Comes the Sun” and “Something”) are as good as anything else on that album. But of course, it was their last album. The Beatles broke up before they could fully harness George’s power as a songwriter. He had just turned twenty-seven.

Read that last sentence again. What have you done with your life?

THE WAY, THE WAY, THE WAY

The mysterious ending of the song was completely fortuitous. Apparently Paul hit a low note on the organ, which caused a bottle of wine sitting on a speaker to vibrate, and…well, listen to this part again. I’ve cued it up to the 2:25 mark:

That’s Paul holding the note, the wine bottle rattling, George wailing, and Ringo rolling with the tremble before George strikes a jangly chord (the minor version of the chord that starts “A Hard Day’s Night”), and Ringo caps things off with the deadening snare drum beat. The coda expresses the theme of the song: it’s the sound of searching and self-annihilation, of life and of death, of questions begetting more questions and resolution without resolution but with resignation and relief—all in one beautiful and eerie and devastating thirty-second stretch. This is where song stretches into sound, just as life stretches into suffering which stretches into understanding and peace. The Beatles didn’t plan any of this (the vibration), but they knew what they had when they heard it. You can almost sense their excitement as they recognize the gift from the sound gods (the divine tremble) and jump on board, as they did whenever the Cosmic Harmony Bus swung by their stop. The Beatles never waved the bus past to wait for the next one. They jumped on and rode as far as they could.

One more time for the tremble:

Man, these Beatles were tapped into something holy. And to think my randomization process, which was designed to allow a spiritual force to select a song from the Beatles catalog, chose THIS song first? The hair on the back of my neck is standing up.

It’s 6:21 a.m. where I am. Time to wrap this up. Something very bad could happen if I don’t finish by seven. Something will be angry. So let’s jump to…

UNLOCK YOUR INNER BEATLE!

This week, apply your creative energies to the deepest and most powerful questions of your personal spiritual journey. Don’t be afraid of exposing emotional vulnerability; recall that only through humility and honesty can you achieve your greatness. Embrace cosmic harmonies and karmic accidents.

(And when all else fails, a little triple-time boogie piano with some aching chord changes (inspired by Dylan’s Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands!) can’t hurt.)

Feel free to share this post with all your creative friends. And if you turn out to be particularly inspired by George and his Song of Search, let me know. Share your thoughts in an email or the comments. Together we can say our quiet thanks to the saintly (and much missed) George Harrison. Spiritual Quester. The Dark Horse. The Quiet One. And our genius in the shadows.

Happy Monday! Have a good creative week, everyone!

(Note: while most of my sources have stretched over too many years for me to try to trace them all, I’m particularly indebted to the excellent book Revolution in the Head by Ian Macdonald.)