THE BEATLES – "Lady Madonna"

Doesn’t look like anybody has much to say about this one.

I heard a lot of this on that French Exchange. (I seem to remember hearing a lot over there of The Who’s I Can See For Miles too, also Nights In White Satin, The Days of Pearly Spencer and Judy In Disguise by John Fred and his Playboy Band)

I didn’t like it much at the time. It seemed trite, as if even I could tell The Beathles were a busted flush by now. I like it much more now. I like its playfulness, which is so characteristically Beatles. The repeated “see how they run” can still raise a chuckle.

Rosie

I’d been a die-hard Beatles fan from the outset–still am, to be honest–but “Lady Madonna” was the first of their singles that I really, really didn’t like. As I recall, I refused to believe it was actually the Beatles! (Hey–I was still a kid and thus prone to fits of irrationality at times.)

I think Tom has put his finger on the problem–the recording itself projects a sense of irritation. And, yes, there’s something snide about the whole thing–it gives the appearance of making a social commentary, but like most of McCartney’s attempts at social/political statements, it winds up being pretty indefinite or ambiguous. It’s as if to tell a mother on the dole that it’s really just too bad that she’s poor and possibly to imply that it’s her own bloody fault for having all those kids. That’s easy enough to say when one is rich, of course. (“Did you think that money was heaven-sent?” No, did you, Paul?)

The cynical backing vocals of “Paperback Writer” are back, and can a kazoo–a freaking KAZOO!–be anything but mocking?

What’s evident in retrospect is the extent to which they all sound so tired–of each other, of being the Beatles. Implosion isn’t pretty.

I like this record, but only due to the “Seeeeee how they ruuuuun” bit. Apparently the kazoo noise was just John and Paul humming through their hands. How disappointing!

Macca seems to like it as it was one of the first Beatles tunes he played live with Wings in 1976, and on every tour thereafter I believe.

I’m in agreement with most of the others, this is a bit of a water-treading time-marker for the Fabs. Supposedly based on something called Bad Penny Blues.

The “will this do” atmosphere is especially odd given that this was recorded after their time in India with the Marharishi when the three principle songwriters supposedly wrote hundreds of new songs between them. (Lennon in particular getting songwriters diahorrea in the midst of two dry spells).

I’ve just checked Lewisohn: ‘Lady Madonna’ was recorded on the 3rd and 8th of February, which is pre-India (John & George went on the 15th, Paul & Ringo on the 19th). They seem to have made an intentional decision to put out a single while they were away. John wanted ‘Across The Universe’ but they never got a good enough recording for a single.
And of course they mananged to knock off ‘Hey Bulldog’ while they were shooting the video for this. Perhaps the rush involved here is what we can hear on these two, at least, but the upside is that you can hear more sense of purpose than in anything else they’d done since Sgt. Pepper. Some critics detect a deliberate effort from Paul to try and bring the band back down to earth, hence the deliberate retro stylings here, but it’s still hampered by the fact that they can’t think straight after all the drugs. I think he’s trying to be positive about the mother [influenced by memories of his own?] but it drifts too much.
Still, the piano playing is good. Apparently they used an old microphone to get the right sound. The version you tend to hear on CD has a ludicrous amount of stereo separation, which is good for appreciating the details at the expense of the whole; of course the original 45 was in mono, and I wonder whether it made any more sense that way.

I refused to believe it was actually the Beatles!

Well, remember, by this point the CIA had assassinated Paul and replaced him with a double.

I think the sarcasm in McCartney’s writing and the Beatles’ singing isn’t aimed at the mother, but at the sentimental notion that poverty enobles the poor. The line “Did you think that money was Heaven sent?,” in this reading, isn’t a jab at the mother, but rather at the kind of banal nostrum dispensed in a bored minister’s sermon. And I think Tom is perceptive in saying that the day-to-day slog recounted in the lyrics is informed by the tedium and frustration that had crept into the job of being a Beatle by early 1968.

In Mojo’s recent listing of the band’s 100 best songs, either Dan Penn or Spooner Oldham noted that a handful of their late recordings managed a surprising mastery of the Southern soul idiom, this being the first to do so. I think this is one aspect of the song that still makes it sound strange as a Beatles single. I remember when it came out that hearing the piano as the lead instrument on a Beatles single was jarring, as well. And, as a nine-year old in a small Ohio town, hearing the word “breast” on Top 40 radio was a shock.

Nobody’s mentioned it, so I’ll close by saying I’ve always liked Ringo’s drumming on this. Good light swinging feel to it – I don’t know if he played with brushes, but in my memory, that’s how it sounds.

‘Lovely Rita’, ‘Sgt. Pepper’, ‘Fool On The Hill’, ‘Martha My Dear’, ‘Rocky Raccoon’, ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’ are all Paul’s songs. So is ‘Michelle’ actually, but I’m not sure that counts as a character song just because it’s got somebody’s name in it.

‘Dr. Robert’ is John, though.

Well done, Tom Ewing!

#10 – I was at Ronnie Scott’s last weekend and the house trio played a rather sweet arrangement of this, introduced with the story of Ronnie being grabbed from the stage on the spur of the moment to record the solo at 3am, the Beatles having so enjoyed a night out at the club following a hard day at Abbey Road. The pianist said it was unconfirmed, so I’m glad to see corroboration (of sorts!) on this thread.

The version of Across The Universe deemed not good enough came out on a World Wildlife Fund album later in ’68 and is gorgeous – I wonder who thought it didn’t cut it as an A-side? Also recently recorded was George Harrison’s It’s All Too Much, which would have made for a spectacular single, with its feedback-ridden/cuss word (?) intro. The fact that bossy Paul wrote all the A-sides bar two from now until the end of the Beatles’ career goes some way to explaining their hissy split. Lady Madonna is fine and fun, Fars meets Humph down the Rovers Return, but – like Hello Goodbye – pretty thin compared to some of the stuff his bandmates were writing

Strange that for a Fats Domino retro-homage, this actually sounds like one of the Beatles’ more modern recordings to me. It must be either the speed of it, or some sort of confused piano -> keyboards -> synthesizers progression in my mind. Whatever it is, I’ve always liked it. Too bad it only reached #4 in the US. 8/10 sounds right.

#28 Good suggestion. A bit more brass than “Lady Madonna” but I still hear the resemblance. Goes to show how some sounds, like well done jazz, continue to hold up over time, but others, like many of the number ones of 1952-55…not so much.

I have only vague memories of this from the time. My parents had bought Sgt Pepper and I’d listened to that repeatedly and I’d watched ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ at Christmas (and listened to the EP as well). Whether my family’s Beatle needs were sated by the time this came out I don’t know.
I like this as a throwaway piece of Beatles ephemera but with the ‘see how they run’ line being recycled from ‘I am the walrus’ there are signs that Beatles pop had begun to eat itself

Beatles on autopilot. Nothing noteworthy about this track I’m afraid. 4/10.