In general, I agree with the overall content of the top ten, though I might slide some of them around a bit (my personal favorite for the Number One spot vacillates between “Hey Jude” and “Something”).   Here, then are Rolling Stone’s Top Ten Beatles songs, with a bit of side commentary:

(10) While My Guitar Gently Weeps

The words and music are George Harrison’s, but the famously weeping guitar solo is all Eric Clapton.  This cut from 1968′s The Beatles (the so-called ”White Album”) was originally demoed by George on just an acoustic guitar, with slightly different – and, in the case of one verse, much more depressing — lyrics.  Here’s that demo — and it’s actually a  more haunting performance than the wailing version on the final album:

(9) Come Together

Originally written by John Lennon wrote as the anthem for Timothy Leary’s failed bid for governor of California, “Come Together” features some of Lennon’s most cryptic lyrics (a delight in wordplay in the vein of Edward Lear), a snaky bass line, and some of the best drumming of Ringo Starr’s Beatle career.  (Also of note:  the creepy opening, which sounds like Lennon is stage-whispering “shhhhhook!” It’s actually Lennon saying “shoot me!” as he claps his hands — with the clap reverbed and echoed under the bass line.)

Here’s Lennon performing the song in 1972 at Madison Square Garden (you can get it on his posthumous Live in New York City album):

(8) Let It Be

Rehearsed and recorded during the tumultuous “winter of discontent” that eventually produced their final album, the Beatles shelved the song — and all the tapes from the sessions — until 1970, when they were handed over to master producer Phil Spector to cobble something together. McCartney was never happy with the version Spector put together for the Let It Be album, with its heavy scoring and choir, and preferred something closer to this version, seen in the Let It Be film (look for Billy Preston wailing away on the keyboard):

(7) Hey Jude

As I said above, this one usually gets my vote for number one. It starts simply and, with each chorus, builds in a deceptively dramatic manner. The words are terrific, the sentiment genuine, never cloying, and Lennon and McCartney have never harmonized better.

(6) Something

To me, this is the sleeper on the list — and vies with “Hey Jude” as my pick for number one. It’s about as perfect a song as George Harrison ever composed, but McCartney’s wandering bass line is the icing on the cake. Without it, it would be a very different song indeed.

(5) In My Life

One of John Lennon’s most introspective songs, this is one that usually ends up on the lists that the more hard core Beatles fans put together, while those less familiar with the Beatles usually go, “Huh?” That’s probably because “In My Life” was never released as a single, appearing in the middle of the second side of Rubber Soul (thats track 11 for those of you who don’t remember vinyl. And get offa my lawn.) That makes it a bit of inside baseball, but its appearance in the top ten is well-earned.

(4) Yesterday

While it’s one of the most-recorded songs in history, McCartney — its primary composer — and the Beatles were somewhat nervous about this one, fearing it would ruin their rock and roll cred. For that reason, they refused to release it as a single in the United Kingdom (Capitol, their US record label, had no such qualms, and wisely released it in autumn 1965, where it sprinted to number one.)

Here are the Beatles — mostly McCartney, solo — following a cheeky intro from George Harrison:

(3) Strawberry Fields Forever

In late 1966, the Beatles were considering putting together an album of songs about their respective childhoods, to include a song McCartney had written about a street in Liverpool called “Penny Lane” and Lennon’s surreal nod to a Salvation Army garden near his childhood home. Ultimately — and in a move Beatles producer George Martin regrets to this day — “Penny Lane” and “Strawberrry Fields Forever” were packaged as a single (“Penny Lane” gets the Side 1 bragging rights) and the childhood album was scrapped in favor of the Sgt. Pepper motif.

The best-known story of the song involves George Martin splicing together two different versions of the song — which were also in two different keys — by slightly altering their speeds to put them in the same key. Hence, the rather druggy sounding lyrics. You can hear the splice at the 1:00 mark in the video below:

(2) I Want To Hold Your Hand

While I might argue that “She Loves You” is the better composition, “I Want To Hold Your Hand” was the song that kicked off Beatlemania in the United States in 1964, so it backs into the Top Ten for historical significance. Here are the Boys, performing on Thank Your Lucky Stars in England in 1963. And look! They’re not plugged in!

(1) A Day In The Life

While I like “Hey Jude” better, I can’t argue with this one as the top pick. The final cut on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is not only a fantastic song, nearly operatic in scope, but it also embodies the working styles and relationship of John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Inspired by a number of newspaper stories, Lennon wrote the opening and closing verses, but lacked a “middle eight.” McCartney, meanwhile, had a snippet of a song — about a man waking up, getting out of bed, and catching a bus to work — that he thought might fit into Lennon’s overall structure. They decided to use a symphonic crescendo between the two pieces and . . . well . . .

It worked. And it still does.

Sam and Friends went on the air in the Washington, DC area — on WRC, our local NBC station — in May 1955.  It was initially a five-minute performance that aired after the local news, and became so popular that it was eventually given two high-profile spots in the WRC lineup, airing immediately before the highly-rated Huntley-Brinkley Report, and then several hours later before the rapidly-ascending Tonight Show.

The fact that Sam and Friends was Jim Henson’s springboard onto the national scene already makes it worthy of inclusion in the Smithsonian.  But Sam had more going for it than even that – for among its cast members was a milky-green puppet named Kermit.  He wasn’t a frog then, and wouldn’t be for several years. But his simple design gave him enormous versatility as a puppet, and he quickly became Henson’s go-to character.  Kermit would be revamped and overhauled in the coming years, eventually becoming (in Henson’s words) “frogified,” but the basic design held.  Take a look at him here, posing with Harry the Hipster on the left and Sam on the right (I snapped this with my camera phone, and I apologize in advance for its shakiness):

Harry, Kermit and Sam

Despite their age — included in the collection is one of Henson’s very first puppets dating back to 1954, a rat named Pierre — the puppets are in beautiful shape, due to some careful restoring and first aid.  They’ll be put on display in the American History Museum in November, as part of the revamped (and incredibly popular) exhibit that includes the Ruby Slippers, Fonzie’s jacket, and Archie Bunker’s chair. (Do I have to explain any of those references?  I didn’t think so.) 

Deservedly, there were great gobs of press there.  Here’s a great piece from the Associated Press, and its video piece is just below:

…and here’s a nice piece from NBC news — which, in a way, gets bragging rights.

Have a good weekend!

Don’t get me wrong, I like some of the changes — notice, for example, that you’ll see drop down menus when you drag across the tabs above, instead of having the pages listed down the right hand side.  And behind the scenes, they’re allowing a lot more flexibility in formatting that I might play with in the coming months.

But it also arbitrarily shook up the way photos are formatted, which has resulted in some pages (such as Circle of Friends) looking  messy, as the text doesn’t wrap around photos as it used to.  It also benched some of the coding I use to track traffic and search words.  So I’ll have to clean up some of the mess and recommission some of my code.   However, this should not affect your regularly scheduled programming.

BIO guru Jamie Morris sent out a heads up the other day to note that many of the remarks and sessions from the Compleat Biographers Conference in May have been made available by the University of Massachusetts — our hosts that day — for your viewing pleasure.  And just so you don’t have to go and find them, here they are:

First, here’s the opening session, with welcoming remarks by Ray Sheppard, and the opening address by Pulitzer Prize winner Debby Applegate (The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher), who discusses the need for an organization like BIO, where writers can get together to learn from and support each other (Her stunning “I don’t know what to tell you” story comes at about seven minutes in):

Next, here’s a panel on Trends in Biography, where journalist D. Quincy Whitney, Henry Holt senior editor Helen Atsma, and biographers Gayle Feldman and Megan Marshall (The Peabody Sisters) discuss the future of biography — and, at times, publishing in general:

Next , here’s Harriet Reisen (Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women), editor Carole Deboer-Langworthy, Beatrice Mousli (Virginia Woolf), and Steve Weinberg (Armand Hammer: The Untold Story) discussing one of the most surprisingly difficult parts of writing a biography, Selecting A Subject:

Now it’s the keynote speech by Jean Strouse, winner of the first BIO Award (there’s a bit of organizational housekeeping to take care of before Ms. Strouse speaks — her keynote begins at about 17 minutes in):

Next up, biographers Debby Applegate, James Bradley (Flags of Our Fathers), Anne C. Heller (Ayn Rand and the World She Made), and editors Yen Cheong and Lissa Warren head up a lively discussion on Marketing Your Biography. It’s one thing to write it; now how do you ensure it finds readers?

Finally, here’s a fun session — courtesy of Melissa Nathanson (who’s working on a bio of Justice Blackmun), Charles J. Shields (Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee), Will Swift (The Roosevelts and the Royals), Nancy Kriplen (The Eccentric Billionaire: John D. MacArthur–Empire Builder, Reluctant Philanthropist, Relentless Adversary), and Kitty Kelley (Oprah) — on Dealing With The Family of your chosen subject:

Like what you see? C’mon, how could you not? If you’re not a member already, think about joining BIO. Go here.

It’s this wonderful fellow right here.

Here’s the way it was reported on Galleycat:

Jim Henson Biography Acquired By Ballantine

Biographer Brian Jay Jones has sold a biography of the late Jim Henson–the genius behind the The Muppet Show and Fraggle Rock. The project is currently untitled.

Jonathan Lyons of Lyons Literary negotiated the deal with senior editor Jill Schwartzman. Jones is the author of Washington Irving: An American Original, and is working with the blessing of Henson’s family.

Here’s more from the release: “The biography begins with Henson’s days as an early TV pioneer, innovative artist and businessman who created a whole new way to present puppetry in a popular art form for television and motion pictures. It will also cover Henson’s famous creations, such as The Muppet Show, Fraggle Rock and his important contribution to the development and success of Sesame Street, and describe his groundbreaking artistic and technological work that continues to this day.”

To say I’m incredibly thrilled, delighted, honored, and humbled to be working on such a project would be a colossal understatement.

I’m all for it, though I have an admittedly biased angle:  Abbotsford was an important place to Washington Irving.  In the summer of 1817, Irving — one of  American literature’s great gatecrashers and an enormous fan of Scott — presented himself, and a charmingly mooched letter of introduction, unannounced at Scott’s front gate. As he was waiting to see whether he would be received, here came Scott — and Irving never forgot his first glimpse of the Scotsman, shuffling up the hill from Abbotsford:

He was tall, and of a large and powerful frame. His dress was simple, almost rustic. An old shooting coat, with a dog whistle at the buttonhole, brown linen pantaloons, stout shoes that tied at the ankles, and a white hat that had evidently seen service. He came limping up the gravel walk, aiding himself by a stout walking-staff, but moving rapidly and with vigor.

Sir Walter Scott

Scott was an admirer of Irving’s first book, A History of New York, and eagerly welcomed the 34-year-old American.  Scott was in the midst of yet another round of improvements and renovations to the castle, which he had initially erected as just a small villa in 1812, and Irving — always an early riser — would awaken each morning to find Scott already up and about and shouting orders at his carpenters in his distinctive Scotch burr. 

Overt the next few days, Scott hosted Irving at his family table, showed Irving his novel Rob Roy — still only in printers proofs that Scott was reading and correcting — and steered him around the property and surrounding countryside. “Every night I returned with my mind filled with delightful recollections of the day,” Irving wrote, “and every morning I rose with the certainty of new enjoyment.”

And then there’s one of my favorite Irving-Scott moments: caught in a rainstorm one afternoon, Scott wrapped his tartan around himself, then pulled Irving into a thicket to get out of the rain.  Motioning for Irving to sit beside him, Scott draped the tartan over Irving’s shoulders, literally taking his young admirer under his wing — a gesture Irving never forgot.

When Irving left Abbotsford three days later, Scott shook his hand warmly. “I will not say farewell, for it is always a painful word,” Scott said. “But I will say, come again . . . come when you please, you will always find Abbotsford open to you, and a hearty welcome.”

“The days thus spent I shall ever look back to as among the very happiest of my life,” Irving wrote later.  And when it came time to build his own home, Irving remembered Abbotsford, incorporating small architectural nods to Scott’s home into Sunnyside — but more importantly, Irving remembered his reception at Abbotsford, and would ensure that Sunnyside would always be as warm and welcoming.

I’m glad  to hear that Scotland’s Heritage Lottery Fund is bringing this treasure back to its former glory — and I look forward to visiting it. For more information on Abbotsford, click here.

Ha ha! No, actually, it’s “What is this ‘Project Blue Harvest’ reference anyway?”

(My fellow Star Wars nerds can stop reading and come back tomorrow.)

Back in the early 1980s, when George Lucas was hard at work on Return of the Jedi — the final installment of the Star Wars series, until later, when it wasn’t — speculating on the plot of the final film was something of a parlor game.  Would Han Solo survive? (rumors were that he wouldn’t, since Harrison Ford now had the Indiana Jones franchise and was on his way to making Serious Films) Was Darth Vader really Luke’s father? (many argued that Vader had lied, and that some sort of change-up was coming down the line in the final film) Who was this other hope Yoda spoke of? (Leia?  Chewbacca? Or, god help us, the hopelessly cheesy Lando?)  To keep information from leaking out — and to throw nosy reporters and fans off the scent — Lucas and his film makers began production on Jedi under a fake working title, a horror film called Blue Harvest (tagline: “Horror Beyond Imagination!”) As Jedi producer Howard Kazanjian said later:

When shooting Jedi in the United States, we called the film Blue Harvest. Camera slates, invoices, hotel reservations, call sheets, production reports, and crew hats and T-shirts all read Blue Harvest. So when a visitor would ask, ‘what are you shooting’ and we said Blue Harvest, they went on their way. Can you imagine what would have happened if we had said, ‘We’re shooting the next film in the Star Wars trilogy’?

In fact, if you watch the special features on the Indiana Jones DVD boxed set, you’ll see Steven Spielberg in one scene wearing a baseball cap emblazoned with a Blue Harvest logo.  And I want one.

Anyway, since the publication of Washington Irving: An American Original in 2008, I’ve been pursuing another project, involving those Really Amazing People you keep hearing me talk about.  But until we could all make it come together, I promised them — and myself, since like most writers, I’m a notorious jinx — that I would keep quiet about it.  For a while, then, when asked what I was working on, I would hem and haw and deflect or say I wasn’t really sure.  Eventually, however, I settled into admitting that, yes, I did have a project I was pursuing, which I started referring to as “Project Blue Harvest.” And it just sort of stuck.

So, given the origins of the name, then, you might rightly ask if my project has anything to do with Star Wars?  Am I, perhaps, pursuing a biography of George Lucas?

The answer is:  No. While there is a remote Star Wars connection, my subject is not George Lucas.  It’s someone even more exciting than that. And I’ll tell you who it is this later this week.

* It was “Ticket to Ride,” and the jangly opening was actually played by Paul McCartney, on a left-hand strung six string.  Now you know.

You can see Irving over on the Monitor’s website right here.