8 Beatles Songs that directly influenced Prog

When you have a band as popular as the Beatles, it's almost a given that they'd influence any genre of music. There's Jazz, Musak, Soul, and even Electronic covers of the music. However, Prog still owes a great debt to the Beatles in particular for using their fame to create rather than to cash in during the 1966-1969 era. By making daring decisions that could be heard by many, countless young minds turned to experimenting with Rock music. These songs in particular are worth a mention:

"Norwegian Wood" (On Rubber Soul)
This one is notable for the sitar. By his interest in Indian music, George Harrison introduced the west's youth to non western instruments for the first time. While Prog in Europe and North America didn't use all that much of this stuff, it did make it more acceptable for non typical rock instruments like the flute and violin to work thier way in.

"Rain" (Single)
The beginning of Backmasking on Record. Again, there's no overabundance of this in Prog, but it paved the way for further studio trickery.

"I'm Only Sleeping" (On Revolver)
This overlooked gem is the best example of a number of songs where The Beatles did something pop, but fairly progressive pop. The movements flow in a way atypical of 1966, and tore down more barriers.

"Tomorrow Never Knows" (On Revolver)
This trippy song is one of the best precursors for both prog and psychedelia. John Lennon showed here exactly what can be done with a little bit of fooling around with the 60's rock formula. Also heavily employs sound effects and other prog staples.

"Fixing a Hole" (On Sgt. Pepper)
See "I'm Only Sleeping"

"A Day in the Life" (On Sgt. Pepper)
The crowing moment of the Beatles' career. In this 5 minute epic, they accomplish what many bands can't do in 20. "A Day in the Life" more than any other song challenged to-be-prog musicians to dream big.

"I Am the Walrus" (On Magical Mystery Tour)
This one needs no explanation.

"Revolution 9"(On The White Album)
This tape collage was one of the first of it's kind (the actual first was "The Return of the Son of Monster Magnet" by Zappa and the Mothers a good 2 years earlier). However, while Zappa remained a cult figure, the Beatles got this out onto the world stage. Lots of Krautrock follows similar patterns and ideas.

Gong- Flying Teapot

Gong is a Canterbury collective which over its history has been home to tens of members. Australian guitarist and vocalist Daevid Allen (ex-Soft Machine) formed Gong in 1967 after being denied entry into the UK due to visa problems. As a result, Gong was based in France, but is best considered to be a British Band. They have a large back mythology known as Planet Gong. While it was hinted at on prior albums, this 4th effort is the first of the so called "Radio Gnome Invisible Trilogy", focusing on the protagonist Zero the Hero. Like many psychedelic albums, it's difficult to follow it all. The members on Flying Teapot were Allen, Steve Hillage (guitar), Gilli Smith (vocals), Didier Malherbe (woodwinds), Tim Blake (keyboards/vocals), Laurie Allan (drums), Francis Moze (bass/keyboards), and Richard Houari (percussion).

The album starts off with "Radio Gnome Invisible", a catchy little tune that uses psychedelic saxophone to lure the listener into a trip. The lyrics sound sort of like babble to me. Evidently, a pig-farming Egyptologist named Mista T Being is sold a "magick ear ring" by an "antique teapot street vendor & tea label collector" named Fred the Fish. The ear ring is capable of receiving messages from ta certain Planet Gong via a pirate radio station called Radio Gnome Invisible. Noodling and noises that stoned people make ensue! Afterward, the close to 12 minutes of "Flying Teapot" carry us away from the Canterbury scene into pure, hard edged, Hendrix-esque tripping. If you're a fan of late 60's stoner rock, this is your dream. The story here is Mista T Being anf Fred the Fish go into a cave in Tibet and get very drunk while chanting "Banana Nirvana Mañana" over and over with a guru. Good stuff.

Just for kicks, the entire story that was going on on side A gets thrown out the window, as we shift away from it, leaving them having a good ol' time in the cave. The stuff about Zero the Hero starts up, as he receives a vision of Pot Head Pixies from the planet gong. The Pixes are green with propeller heads, and they fly around in teapots. The song "Pot Head Pixes" is amongst the best pop songs in Prog history. The "I am, you are, we are crazy" chorus is extremely catchy and wonderful to listen to, and it jumps around with a pleasant Canterbury feel."The Octave Doctors and the Crystal Machine" is a transition piece of synth noise. Next up is"Zero the Hero and the Witches Spell." Zero does not feature here, instead there's some interesting scat vocals, Latin percussion, sax, guitar distortion, and more psychedelics for 9 and a half minutes. The story then resumes with the last track, "Witches Song- I am your Pussy". Zero the Hero offers his Fish and Chips to a cat who turns out to be the Good Witch Yoni, who gives him a potion. The story is continued on the next album in the series, Angel's Egg. "Pussy" is another very Canterbury Scene song, with lots of sax. The lyrics are also discretely sexual and the f bomb is used freely.

Flying Teapot is hard to classify. While it has the defining elements of the Canterbury Scene: it includes some of the 15 or so core members (Allen and Hillage), uses lots of woodwinds, has some jazz like structure, and has its overall feel at parts. However, there's a good 25 minutes of pure psychedelia here to space out to. By breaking the traditional structure, Gong is amongst the most progressive of the progressive rock bands. The only problem here is the ridiculous story which adds nothing.

Seaming two styles together effortlessly into a unique work of Prog, Flying Teapot earns a higly respectable Grade of A-.

Progressive Linguistics

With Italy month come and gone and France month just around the corner, I've been thinking about langague and how it relates to prog. For a genre with so many international scenes, there's a great variety. There's a little bit of prog in almost every major world language. Therein lies a dilema: how can one understand all of the lyrics on the deep topics Prog rock indulges in?

I'd argue to some extent that it doesn't really matter all that much. For better or worse, English has become the dominant lingua franca of the world. This leads to two effects on prog: either singing in English despite it being a non-native language (common in Romance Language and German Speaking nations), or sticking to instrumentals (Common in the Benelux nations, Scandinavia, Germany, and to a lesser extent France). On one hand, in a genre so focused upon the instrumentation, this is not a problem at all. Many of the great guitarists, drummers, bassists, and keyboardists have come from outside the anglophone world to make great leaps forward in their craft. This theoretic state of "lyrical irrelevance" has done a great amount to spread prog into areas of the world where English is poorly understood.

The Sapir–Whorf Theory in psychology states that an individual's mother language influences their way of thinking an perception of the world. For example, the Pirahã language in the Amazon has no word for numbers above one, just a word for one and many. Tests have shown a distinction inability to perceive and function with even counting amongst these people.

This leads to a conclusion that singing in non-native languages on prog records is foolish. Since the lyrical intent of a song will be thought of in the mother tongue first and then translated, those special thoughts that are shaped by the language will be completely lost. This leads to a loss in the true message. Even sillier is to invent a new language (Magma with Kobain), as then no one will get the message and pretension ensues. Additionally, while a good portion of instrumental prog is intentionally vocal-free, to remove non English lyrics would be a silly practice. Language is a beatiful part of a person's existance, and they should use it fully in communicating thier ideas.

This leads to the question of the prog fans: should you learn languages to understand progressive lyrics? I would say no, not solely for prog. I speak one other language besides English: French. I'd say I'm at an intermediate level after 5 years in school and some outside studies of mine. Ange's Emile Jacotey is the only French language Prog album I have heard in full, and my results with it have been mixed. Parts of it I could get at the first listen, parts I'm slowly translating in my head, and others are going way to fast for me. To really get the fullest from Prog in that language would require basic fluency, which takes an immense amount of time and effort. I have many other reasons I take French however, parce-que je veux utilizer la français pour communication et culture. Rather than wanting to listen to prog and then learning a language, one should want to learn a language and then listen to its prog.

The Mahavishnu Orchestra- The Inner Mounting Flame

Time for the Prog Blog to take a dip into Jazz Fusion for the first time. The Mahavishnu Orchestra is perhaps the most famous collective within the field. Formed by John McLaughlin (guitar) in 1971 with the concept of a Jazz group featuring the violin, he made a formidable lineup con siting of Rick Liard (bass), Billy Cobham (Drums), Jan Hammer (keyboards), and Jerry Goodman (violin), some of the best jazz men of their age. They recorded and released The Inner Mounting Flame in '71 to great reception.

The album gets right into business with "Meeting of the Spirits", which introduces the mystic form of guitar Hammer uses from here on out, mystical violins, and McLaughlin's distinct playing of guitar. He plays incredibly fast against a mid-tempo background for mystic effect. Next up is a slow grove jam into guitar fest called "Dawn", not to dissimilar from what Miles Davis was doing at this time in history. Noonward Race is a strange experiment of incredibly fast guitar distortion and violin playing. Then comes "A Lotus on Irish Streams", a beautiful little classical piece. It's slightly new age, strange for something from 1971.

Side B contains the violent "Vital Transformation". This another guitar/violin workout, but the drums join in too for great effect. It does have the air of fear from a transformation. Then we've got "Dance of the Maya", which is another Davis/Coltrane-esque piece of slow feeling built up over 7 minutes. The tracks "You Know You Know" and "Awakening" close of The Inner Mounting Flame in style, repeating the major themes of aggression and passiveness with great contrast.

The power of this album hinges on the musical ability. For non musicians, it might seem like just another album, but they all play with such speed (especially McLaughlan) that it's almost uncanny. Their style wasn't all that unique despite the jazz with violin's concept, but in the end the sheer gusto of the album makes it worth it. However, it's a little repetitive, and there's a tendency to get the songs mixed up with each other. It's truly an album rather than a collection of songs on this one.

A kaleidoscope of sounds and noises to nourish the mind, The Inner Mounting Flame earns a solid Grade of B.

Birth Control- Plastic People

Time for a trip back to Germany. Not all music from that country is Krautrock, and this is an example of German Heavy Prog. Birth Control started out with straight up hard rock in the early 70's, but on this 1975 album and the followup, Back Dooe Posibilities, they went in a prog directinon. Members at this time included Bernd Noske (vocals/drums), Bernd Held (keyboards), Peter Föller (bass/vocals), and Bruno Frenzel (Guitar/vocals).

The album starts of with the bombastic title track. This song has some funk and fusion tendencies, but is generally symphonic. The guitar work here is a not dissimilar to Steve Hackett's with Genesis. "Plastic People" creates a very spacious, sun-soaked feel, carries it along at moderate tempo with high volume. It's very complex for a group just off hard rock. Next up is "Rockin' Rollin' Roller", which sounds like California pop meets Prog Rock, done by a group of Germans. Towards then end it starts to get spacey and much harder. Afterward we have "My Mind", which employs violin heavy for a slow, hard rock assault. The keyboards here make this one hell of a spooky trip after the 4 minute mark.

Plastic People continues on to side B with "Tiny Flashlight", my favorite track on this album. It's central riff will get stuck in your head. It's one of the less progressive, more hard rock and commercial songs, but it's a keeper for it's different repeated sections. "Trial Trip" follows, and it's more or less similar to "My Mind" earlier. Still rather good, but not quite up to par with what came before. Finally, the album closes with "This Song is Just for You", which has combines many themes from earlier, particularly "Rockin' Rollin' Roller", and also comes of as a bit of a relaxed low.

Birth Control did a good job here. It's not a very German album, and they sing fantastic English for non-natives. The album goes have a flaw in that it cools off a little bit towards the end, but overall it keeps bouncing around with some funky bass and creative keyboards. It's a shame they hadn't started doing this earlier.

A nice cast of Hard Prog without sacrificing accessibility or creativity, Plastic People gets a Grade of B-.