Ep. 247: "George Martin's Butt"
Merlin: Hello.
Merlin: Hi, John.
Merlin: Hi, Merlin.
Merlin: How's it going?
Merlin: Merlin, ma'am.
Merlin: John, John, John, John.
John: So you had a big morning, huh?
John: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: Huge morning.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Merlin: Whoopsie daisy.
Merlin: Whoopsie doopsie.
Merlin: Lots of big announcements from Apple.
Merlin: And so I was kind of on the hook to watch that.
John: Yeah.
John: Did you live blog it?
Merlin: Oh, you know, just, you know, in texting to people.
Merlin: I think it's kind of unseemly to do that stuff in public, you know.
Merlin: To live blog or live simulcast?
Merlin: I see why people do it, but, you know, we're already watching it.
Merlin: We can see it because it's there.
Merlin: But what about your hot takes?
Merlin: What about all the hot takes?
Merlin: I got steamy hot takes.
Merlin: You kidding me?
Merlin: What about, you know, fix my, I don't know.
Merlin: yeah fix my yeah fix well yeah you know they're gonna they're working on the app store the app store is gonna look like it's too much to cover it's too much to cover with the scope that we already have today but that's exciting it's like ipads you get computers uh you can drag things it's exciting you got this guy over here got the fakak to arab
John: And over here is Lonnie and Jugdash.
Merlin: You're way more awake than me.
Merlin: It's a little after 1 p.m., and you're very awake.
John: This is a good time of day.
John: I woke up at a natural time when my body naturally rose to awakeness, and then I had some time to just, you know,
John: Play a little game of threes or two.
John: That's good.
John: Think about the day.
John: Look at Wikipedia for a while.
Merlin: Yeah, I got morning rituals.
Merlin: I got morning rituals along those lines.
Merlin: As I get older and seriously, my brain is seriously going.
Merlin: It's really going.
Merlin: So one of the things I do is I do a very old man thing, which is when my family is getting ready.
Merlin: It's good places.
Merlin: Everybody's getting ready.
Merlin: And I'll say, good morning.
Merlin: And I'll say, today is Monday.
Merlin: And I'll say, Monday, we have drop off at camp.
Merlin: We have pick up at camp.
Merlin: We have preparing for the trip.
Merlin: And they kind of look at me a little bit weird.
Merlin: Because I'm like, you know, I'd like to think this is for all of us.
Merlin: But, you know, let's be honest, it's mostly for me.
Merlin: Because if I don't think about it, you know, I may not do it.
John: Well, you know, there are these miraculous vitamins that just by coincidence, I happen to be an authorized dealer.
John: And I'm going to hook you up with a whole set of supplements and dietary additives.
John: Is this like those brain crystals that make you smart?
John: Yeah.
John: What it also does, Merlin, is it builds muscle mass.
John: It builds muscle mass.
John: And it burns fat.
John: So pretty much I've got the secret right here for you.
John: And don't worry about how much it costs.
Merlin: You would let me in on that?
John: Today only, I would just because we're friends.
Merlin: Oh, my God.
Merlin: Thank you, man.
Merlin: I could definitely use that.
Merlin: So tomorrow morning, I'll say it's Tuesday, and I'm going to take some new powders.
John: You need a little hammer and pestle, and you just sit and grind them up.
John: I'll bring it into the family stand-up meeting, the morning stand-up meeting.
Merlin: all hands meeting do you guys have an all hands meeting we do we do uh yeah well you know we have we have an ad hoc format i mean this is not interesting to our audience but sure yeah we'll call family meetings anybody is empowered to call a family meeting and oh really you yell out family meeting and then one other person says okay stand by and then and then everybody gathers and you have a huddle and you talk about whatever family meeting
John: That's nice.
John: That's really nice.
John: That feels really nice.
Merlin: You know what it is?
Merlin: It's that in addition to my brain becoming a less powerful organ, it's also that one way I keep the demon dogs at bay is to make sure that we've thought through things we need to think through.
Merlin: Because I hate being upended by not having thought through something that should be thought through.
Merlin: You do like to think through things.
John: I'll confirm that for our listeners.
Merlin: you know it's stuff like i feel like it's inexcusable in some ways it's it's personally inexcusable for me if i just space something i really should have remembered like if i don't bring the tickets to something like that's silly like why would i you know but the thing is if you're not thinking through the thing that you're going to do it's very easy to do that and so you have to have you know sort of compensatory muscles in a real world sense that like help you from being a dumbass
Merlin: Do you idiot check?
Merlin: Mm-hmm.
Merlin: How extensive is your idiot check program?
Merlin: Compulsive.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: No, I mean, it's all kinds of things.
Merlin: Like when I'm traveling, I have a whole list of things that I'm really neurotic about.
Merlin: Like, make sure that the pilot light is on.
Merlin: Make sure that the heat is turned down.
Merlin: And yeah, it gives me a lot of pleasure to tick that off of a list.
Merlin: But even when leaving the house...
Merlin: i have learned to like sort of check myself before i wreck myself and i still screwed up i forgot to wear coupons for the bookstore that we were going to and i forgot to bring them because i hadn't thought through i hadn't thought through that kind of trip now i remembered to bring the refill cup because we're going to the cinema i remember that right oh then that's a that's a major i mean that's a big discount oh you kidding me it's like half price yeah shit shit dog and uh no what about you what's your what'd you call it the idiot check
John: Well, yeah, let me ask you, if you're leaving a hotel room, do you check drawers that you are certain you've never even opened?
John: Yes.
John: Like you go around the room and check the drawers, even though you never opened them the whole time you've been in there?
John: Oh, I do way more than that.
Merlin: The big one for me is, and I've gotten better about this over time, but it used to be I would always leave a phone charger or some kind of plug thing.
Merlin: Like, oh, I'll utilize this area behind the chair and put that there.
Merlin: The first thing I do is look for all of those things.
Merlin: I consolidate everything that needs to go into one or two areas.
Merlin: That's one thing.
Merlin: So like anything that's extraneous goes into the area of things that have to go.
Merlin: And then, yes, I will check every outlet.
Merlin: And then as far as the drawers, I will not only check all the drawers, but I will leave them open in a staggered way as though they've been burglarized.
Merlin: So that I'll remember I'll have a visual cue.
Merlin: You've already checked this area.
John: You've checked this.
John: Yeah.
John: Isn't that terrible?
John: Well, I mean, you know, the only reason I ask is that it's a familiar feeling.
John: But being on tour with four guys in a rock band, what a tour is is basically 40 opportunities in a day to leave something behind.
John: Oh, I see what you're saying.
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: You open the back of the van and you start staging stuff to load it in.
John: And if you're not careful, you'll leave something sitting out there.
John: And then you move it into the hallway and then you move it into the backstage and then you move it onto the stage.
John: And each one of those opportunities...
John: is a new chance to forget something key.
John: And then backstage, and then you run it all out at the end of the night, but plus the merch and plus the money.
John: And then you get to a hotel.
John: And in a lot of cases, you have to move some of that stuff into the hotel because you don't want to leave it outside.
John: Yes.
John: And then back and forth.
John: And so we got into the habit of just shouting idiot check at each other.
John: Anytime it seemed like we were all comfortably...
John: seated in a place like ah we're there everybody sits down it's like idiot check ah and you know you have to go back and retrace all your steps and invariably like the most expensive guitar is leaning up against the the the fire door that's not the way your brain is really is working at the time and you don't want to be the one guy in your platoon who forgot his helmet like that like everybody has to have their stuff and
Merlin: Especially if, I figure if you're staying in a hotel, you're probably mostly living out of a bag.
Merlin: You're not unpacking.
Merlin: But even then, I feel like this is just a good rule of thumb in general, is always act like you're about to be called into service.
Merlin: You're going to have to go run.
Merlin: Maybe it's an earthquake.
Merlin: Maybe it's zombies or vampires.
Merlin: But always keep stuff close enough to you that to the extent possible, you could know you have everything important without having to think about it.
Merlin: So don't take stuff.
Merlin: Don't spread out at Starbucks.
Merlin: Keep it in your bag.
Merlin: Take out one thing at a time.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: That's just one way.
Merlin: Another bulwark against madness for me.
John: Keep it in your bag, man.
John: Keep it together.
John: Well, do you know the famous story?
John: I'm not talking out of school here.
John: This was years ago.
John: This was decades ago.
John: But one of Death Cab for Cutie's earliest tours that they took with us, the Western State Hurricanes, my band at the time.
John: We went down to Austin and back.
John: And I don't know if you are familiar with the story of Nathan Lewis.
John: Death Cab's original drummer.
John: But Nathan was and is a genius.
John: Like, everyone who ever saw him play, and it was hard when you saw Death Cab for Cutie when they were really young.
John: They were so on fire.
John: They were such an incredible band.
John: But everyone walked away saying, my God, that drummer.
John: He really was.
John: He was just like, you know, Ben wrote a lot of the drum parts, but Nathan just transformed them.
John: He was otherworldly, but he was one of those otherworldly musicians that kind of just didn't appear to... Like, drumming was kind of not really the most important thing in his life, you know?
John: And when you have somebody that has that kind of talent, and all of us at the time were just, you know, struggling so hard and desperate to have that kind of gift...
John: And well, then you meet somebody that has that kind of gift and they sort of feel like, oh, yeah, I mean, you know, I drum, but it's not really, you know, it's not really what I want to do.
John: It's just it kind of it's devastating.
John: Or I mean, it's you feel offended because it's because he has such a gift.
John: I met a kid a couple of years ago.
John: I judged a contest like a teenage band songwriting contest thing, teen band contest.
John: And there was one band that was just head and shoulders, not only above all the other teen bands, who were great, all the best bands in the town.
John: But these guys were just like...
John: They were ready, right?
John: They were 20 years old and they had the songs and the vibe and this wonderful lead singer and these incredible tunes.
John: And it was just like, these guys are going to be the biggest band in America.
John: They had it.
John: And their guitar player, who was phenomenal and who wrote all the songs, considered the band just kind of a thing he was doing
John: Because on the side, because what he really wanted to do was like go to college and get a degree in chemistry and work in a lab.
John: And the other kids in the band, all of them knew what all of them felt what they had and they all wanted it so desperately.
John: And I was the so they won the contest.
John: Right.
John: And then I did a thing that I never do, which is I went to them and said, let me help you through this next stage.
John: Like, let me advise you.
John: because you're incredibly gifted and I see that you're lost.
John: This is good enough to not screw up.
John: Yeah.
John: Just let me sit with you and like, I'll hear you out.
John: And then let me just make some couple of recommendations about where, what to do next.
John: And we got together and you know, this guy kind of was just looking at his fingernails like, yeah, this isn't really what I want to do with my life, you know?
John: And what can you say?
John: All you can say is like, great.
John: I mean, I'm happy that you have something that you want to do more, but you're this is like the thing everybody wants.
John: You have it.
John: Yeah.
John: I mean, I guess.
John: And part of it is being young and you just don't, you know, you feel like, well, I'm good at this.
John: I'll be good at everything.
John: But Nathan.
John: I mean, just such an extraordinary guy.
John: And in the end, music wasn't his thing.
John: He wanted to work in social services.
John: And he lives in San Francisco now and helps people.
John: But on this famous tour, we left Seattle.
John: We drove for three, four days or whatever to get down to Austin.
John: We arrived in Austin.
John: They were loading into their showcase.
John: And Nathan said...
John: Did any of you guys remember to get my snare?
John: And they all stood up and they were like, what do you mean, did we remember to get your snare?
John: And he was like, well, I mean, it was there in the practice space.
John: Nobody grabbed it?
John: And...
John: When they got back home like three weeks later after this extremely long tour that we did with a succession of completely borrowed snares...
John: In their totally empty practice space, right in the center of the room, there was the snare in its little staircase sitting just in the center of the room.
John: And it was like, wow, you know, this was maybe the second time they'd ever left town.
John: It was like, forgot the snare.
John: That's an important drum.
John: That's a key element.
John: Oh.
Merlin: I mean, if you didn't have one of your particular, like your third favorite Zildjian crash cymbal, you could survive.
Merlin: You didn't remember your mallets, you know?
John: But I'd say that's one of the two critical drums.
John: So anyway, that's a line we still use on each other all the time.
John: Hey, did any of you guys remember my snare?
John: Any of you guys see my snare?
Merlin: I'm sure I've told you this one before, but I learned this from a pal of mine in high school who, as it happens, was the guy who drove us to concerts a lot.
Merlin: And he started this.
Merlin: I don't know if he invented this.
Merlin: He's the first person I ever knew to do it.
Merlin: Is that when you got in the car, once everyone was in the car, you had to take your ticket out of your pocket and you had to hold it to your forehead.
Merlin: And then everybody had to do it at the same time.
Merlin: Everyone looked at each other and everyone acknowledged that you could see a ticket on every single person's forehead.
Merlin: and you know of course you're reluctant at first but he knows where he speaks he's driven to tampa and had and realized one person forgot their ticket well that you know kind of scotches the evening for everybody that's that's not fun and as stupid as that is there were ample times that the uh the challenge ticket was demanded and there was at least one person that did not have it because it works it's like stop trusting your brain to be a brain you know
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: So yeah, we idiot check all the time and I'm, I'm, I'm pretty good at, you know, then that includes like under the bed, under the, behind the shower curtain.
John: It's, it's, it's always where you least think behind the door, you know, is where stuff ends up.
John: You just have to go and you have to shout it right.
John: Like idiot check.
John: And sometimes you'll idiot check and then someone else will come through behind you and find your iPhone charger that you left behind the chair.
Merlin: That happens all the time.
Merlin: You get blind to whatever it is that you're looking for.
Merlin: You're looking for, like, your brain's looking for the wrong pattern or something.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And there's, I mean, I feel like there must be a balance to be struck.
Merlin: That's somewhere between, like, whatever and, like, constantly, like, fretting and neurotic about it.
John: There must be somewhere in between.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah, like opening the drawers of things that you've never even you never even looked at until you started searching for stuff.
John: Exactly.
Merlin: But I'm telling you this one stuff like, you know, look behind the chair, look under the desk, look in.
Merlin: Oh, you forgot when you were in a good mood and arrived, you put stuff on the top shelf of the closet.
Merlin: Like you're going to be there for one night and you're putting stuff in the closet.
John: You're in a good mood.
Merlin: Yeah, I mean, I'm unpacking guy.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I don't know how you did it, man.
Merlin: It's stressful.
Merlin: It must be stressful touring.
Merlin: I can't even imagine.
John: It's crazy.
John: One night in Montreal, we went after the show to some cafe and sat there and had a good old time and got up and went for a long walk and walked.
John: I mean, Montreal is a huge city, much, much bigger than anyone gives it credit for.
John: And we walked and walked and walked all the way across town.
John: And I suddenly realized that I had left the bag with all of the money we'd made on the tour.
John: just sitting next to my chair in the cafe, just left it there.
John: Oh no.
John: And so I sprinted and you know, I'm not much of a sprinter.
John: I'm more of a, you know, I'm more of a walk down there and fuck all those cows than I am, uh, like a run across Montreal kind of guy.
John: Yeah.
John: And, uh, ran and ran and ran and ran and ran pant, pant, pant, pant, pant.
Uh,
John: And this was before there was any kind of call a car service.
John: And I think I stopped on a couple of street corners and tried to hail cabs.
John: And then I was like, that won't work.
John: All these cabs are going the wrong direction.
John: Ran and ran and ran.
John: Finally roll into this place.
John: And there's the bag.
John: Just sitting there.
John: Just sitting there.
John: Nobody had messed with it.
John: Wow.
John: Nice cafe.
John: I thanked everyone in the place.
John: They all applauded.
John: So it was it was good luck in that instance.
Merlin: But I'm pretty good about pretty good.
Merlin: I don't want to jinx myself.
Merlin: But I mean, I had a similar this is not interesting.
Merlin: But one time I remember I was camped out somewhere.
Merlin: I was reading something.
Merlin: I was writing something.
Merlin: And I went about my business.
Merlin: And I think it was about an hour later.
Merlin: I went, where's my backpack?
Merlin: and it was actually outdoors it was like near a busy street i had left my backpack like on the street pant pant pant pant pant pant running running running running running running and it was totally just sitting there totally undisturbed which is pretty crazy because i mean we have people going through our trash six times a day so like i'm used to the idea that very few things are left undisturbed in this city right everything's disturbed here
John: Yeah, but it's amazing, like hiding in plain sight.
John: I just thought about this this morning because I often leave my barn door open.
John: And this isn't the beginning of a dirty joke.
John: Just whatever you do, don't touch my daughter.
John: I have a barn door.
John: That's part of my barn.
John: And sometimes I just leave it wide open.
John: And it's counterintuitive because the barn is full of tools and full of other things that you wouldn't want people to steal.
John: But it is, I think, like things get broken into in my neighborhood sometimes.
John: Like my next door neighbor had a boat on a trailer and some kids broke into the boat.
John: Like, what do you think you're going to find in a boat?
John: I mean, I guess a flare gun.
John: But I just leave my barn door wide open sometimes for weeks at a time.
John: And I think it just sends the message.
John: There's nothing in here.
John: There's nothing in here even worth closing the door.
John: And as far as I know, the only people that go in that barn and molest anything are the raccoons that go in and eat all the cardboard boxes.
John: The door's not going to stop them.
John: Well, that's true too.
John: But yeah, it's the hiding in plain sight thing, I guess.
John: If you're walking through the neighborhood and you're like, should we go under that tarp and break into that boat or should we walk into that barn?
Merlin: I think this is a...
Merlin: this is not going to go for lots of things in life.
Merlin: But one thing I've learned, I feel like a little bit from having a kid, my kid's pretty good with remembering.
Merlin: Well, she's not good at remembering things, but she's pretty good at not losing things.
Merlin: Mostly we lose a lot of jackets that she takes off at recess and forgets about.
Merlin: Um, right.
Merlin: But I think in some ways, I think it's when you're traveling, it's a little bit like planning to go to the beach.
Merlin: We're like whatever you bring to the beach.
Merlin: And this is a little extreme.
Merlin: But when you go to the beach, you need to figure there's going to be sun.
Merlin: There's going to be sand.
Merlin: There's going to be a lot of water.
Merlin: You know, don't bring anything with you to the beach that would not stand up well to sun, sand and or water.
Merlin: Because that's why you're going to the beach.
Merlin: You're going to the beach because those are the performance characteristics of a beach.
Merlin: And I think it's kind of like that with travel, too.
Merlin: Don't bring heirlooms in a packed suitcase if you can possibly avoid it.
Merlin: Because, you know, it's a way of just asking yourself, what could I afford to lose?
Merlin: And then kind of plan around that.
Merlin: nice and then uh beatles book i was reading there was a story when they're beginning the book in late 65 and i guess uh they were they were doing a gig i think in northern england and one of the guitars was poorly secured it was like i think george's like favorite old gretch and just went flying off the back and got run over and it's like uh it just breaks your heart to think about that well think about all the great instruments of all the great players that have been stolen and lost and
John: You know, I think, what is it, like, Jaco Pistorius' most famous bass was just missing, and there are all these instruments, like key...
John: instruments in the moments of of music that got stolen on the back of a venue or something brian may takes his original guitar on the road like probably not there are there are people who do and the thing about brian may right is that what if he does take that guitar on the road
John: It's not like he's throwing it in the trunk of his car.
John: There are probably three people that their only job is to make sure that that guitar is fine at all times.
Merlin: Yeah, Espinall is not going to space, you know, tying it down, right?
John: Yeah, it's, you know, I think that, I think, right, like Clapton took...
John: blackie and Billy Gibbons takes, you know, golden slumbers or whatever the fuck his guitar is called.
John: Um, and, uh, golden showers, uh, like those guys, how they do use those instruments still.
John: Yeah.
Um,
John: sting and his 52 uh telecaster base he's got a fender yoga base a yoga base so i think those do kind of still get used i mean prince's famous telecaster with the with the leopard spot
John: pit guards still he still would trot that thing out yeah yeah i mean when you're traveling at that level like keith richard probably can bring pretty much whatever he wants because he's got a whole like you know force around him yeah but keith richards could also throw a 59 less paul into a bandsaw because who the fuck cares there's a lot of great rolling stones particular fret that i think that this you know
John: The Stones, I think their instruments kind of came and went.
John: There are guitars out there, and this is the crazy thing, that there are people that... I mean, I was just looking online not very long ago at guys that...
John: collected old who amplifiers like smash you know that no no like like the uh a company called sound city made some custom heads for pete townsend and that company became high watt and high watt continued to make sort of custom heads for pete all through the early to mid 70s and i think as he i mean as those amps i mean they kind of just got garage sailed
John: Sort of like what happened at Abbey Road, right?
John: They had a garage sale and they sold like the Mellotron, the Abbey Road Mellotron, and they sold all the custom built
John: like red six desks or whatever lenny kravitz has one of the desks from abbey abbey road because he just was like i don't know if they were exaggerating but matt from oranger said they had uh the board from i think the uh the brothers board from like pet sounds yeah but we'll see there's a lot of that stuff right because
John: How many really great recording desks are there?
John: There are a lot.
Merlin: But the Mellitron that played on, you know, like Sgt.
Merlin: Pepper, that's kind of a big deal.
John: It's kind of a big deal.
John: But even that little stuff of like, you know, the desk that we used to record the first couple of Long Winters records was the desk from Hollywood Bowl.
John: And so you get this kind of feeling of like, wow, think of all the music that went through this board.
John: And that's a real, that's a thing.
Merlin: Is this Hall of Justice?
John: Hall of Justice, yeah.
John: It was a quad eight desk, which is, you know, kind of a, they're a boutique-y, not boutique-y, they're an unusual kind of, of the era kind of board.
John: But I've recorded through the board where Bob Marley recorded
John: one of his early records in london wow um you know that it's a thing that gets talked about when you sit down in a recording studio like oh this board was the one from uh you know from sausalito or from ocean way or whatever but when you think about god the oh so there's there's there's these websites of these people that are like i bought this amp
John: at a pawn shop and I turned it over and it had the who stenciled on it and so I looked it up it turns out that this was one of like nine amps that Pete Townsend used
John: uh in the course of you know the 70s who that kind of thing happens all the time i guess i can't find i can't find a used shirt that fits me it's not yellow and people are finding fucking pete townsend's amp yeah i guess you just you you just have to be shopping in the pawn shops that it's that pete townsend's amp is likely to show up in i mean i don't think that person found it in ames iowa yeah right right yeah probably were in london or something but still
John: Pretty hot.
John: Because things didn't matter to people then.
Merlin: They didn't have the same mythology and reverence about the same things that we do today.
Merlin: They might have reverence for quite different things back then.
John: I think you're right.
John: I remember when radio stations in the United States were transformed
John: Forming themselves into digital because CDs had supplanted not only LPs, but also carts, right?
John: Like carts were a thing that were used in radio that were like an eight track tape player, basically.
Merlin: They were totally using those in the 90s at ours.
Merlin: Yeah, right.
Merlin: A lot of the local music they played, they would just put on carts as well as the, you know, PSAs and stuff like that.
John: Well, and right around the time that I started touring, like late 90s, early 2000s, radio stations were kind of all changing their
John: their build so that it was all kind of going to computers and it was going to be digital hither thither.
John: And a lot of these radio stations had custom built amplifiers and compressors, like, you know, stuff made by Ampeg in the fifties, like whole walls of these beautiful, uh, universal audio and, and other like really, really now really valuable, uh,
John: outboard gear and they were just pulling that stuff out and tossing it in the dumpster uh because they were going to they were going digital and and that stuff was it was already valuable but on a very kind of low secondary market of people that were trading 1176s it cost money but the people that were working in these radio stations weren't in weren't
John: And so it just seemed like I was walking through the college radio station in Davis, UC Davis, and they had their whole hallway was full of what had been their old studio, all these like tape machines and stuff.
John: And they were just it just kind of was out there under tarps.
John: And I think they were just wheeling it.
John: They were just somebody was going to come in a dump truck or or in a pickup and take it all away.
Merlin: There's an element of our nominal topic this week that comes up in some of this, which is that I don't know quite how to phrase this.
Merlin: It takes a while, and it takes some changes, it takes some quality, it takes a while.
Merlin: For stuff to become art, or for stuff to seem precious.
Merlin: And so that's one reason I think we get so interested in the, what you might call, ephemera of previous eras.
Merlin: So like, you know...
Merlin: we've all seen you know this famous painting or we've all seen like you know there's a first edition of this book stuff anybody could see was really valuable but like to see like the personal effects of someone like you know on the lines of your dad right where you could see their receipts and you could see all this little stuff or you could see this is a maquette of what became a very famous statue or this is you know i'm saying like this is one of the various copies of this document that existed it's
Merlin: I wonder how much people had that same sense of reverence, because that really feels like something, especially with rock music, that was more common starting in the 70s.
Merlin: The nostalgia and reverence was not for the current generation, necessarily.
Merlin: It was not for the previous generation.
Merlin: It might be two generations ago.
Merlin: So that's why, in the 70s, you might want a 50s rock and roll poster that's an original.
Merlin: But I mean, even then, like, you know, there's there weren't as many Paul Allen type people around at that time to gobble up all that ephemera and want to put it somewhere.
Merlin: I feel like that is like an 80s and beyond kind of thing.
John: I think it is.
John: I mean, there was always there was always someone who recognized that this was George Washington's sword and that that meant something.
John: Right.
John: Because we have George Washington's sword, several of them still.
John: And whoever when George Washington died, whoever had that sword.
John: Definitely told their grandkids that they couldn't play with it.
John: That was George Washington's sword.
John: But if people had always thought the way we think now, we would have every single pair of John Adams' socks.
John: We place such a tremendous value on all that ephemera.
John: And most of it throughout history is lost to time, right?
John: We don't have Genghis Khan's stirrups.
John: And I do think it started in the 80s.
John: I don't think in the 70s or 1950s rock poster probably meant that much.
Merlin: Well, you know, I'm even thinking, like, because obviously people collected records.
Merlin: And you might be really proud of your collection.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: But the real the purpose was still to have records that you could play and you wanted all the records and you might want rare records.
Merlin: But maybe there's some you didn't play so much.
Merlin: But, you know, it's very different from I mean, perhaps an extreme example is like in the world of comics where you can do this thing called grading, where there's this this one organization where you send your comic.
Merlin: They evaluate the the quality of it in this really rigid way.
Merlin: And then they put it inside, they encase it in plastic, which is called blocking.
Merlin: And so, you know, the thing is, though, I mean, sure, if you've got, you know, like the first Superman comic and something like that, like obviously you want to really take care of it.
Merlin: But like, how many of your comics do you really want in a slab of plastic?
Merlin: It kind of defeats the purpose of having the comics.
Merlin: Therein, I think, albeit in an extreme way, therein lies the distinction.
Merlin: You know, if this is Pearl Jam's van, like, are we supposed to look at it?
Merlin: Are we supposed to drive around in it?
John: You know?
John: Yeah.
John: Well, and there have always been, right, what were the classic things to collect?
John: Coins, stamps, art.
John: People kept a hold of Stradivarius instruments.
John: Nice save.
John: Stradivari.
John: Stradivari.
John: Stradivari.
John: People, you know, there have always been things that were held in high regard instruments.
John: such that they were passed down.
John: Antiques, if you will, right?
John: But, yeah, this other thing that you're talking about... It becomes a deliberate object.
Merlin: Like, this has stopped to be what it was intended to be, and now it's just an object to be collected and looked at and traded.
John: Exactly.
John: Chris Ballou's gold spray-painted boots on display at the Experience Music Project...
John: are a great example of a time when we really, I think around here, thought that it was a weird moment, right?
John: Because we recognize that Jerry Garcia's finger, if you had it in a box, it was worth money now.
John: And here we were sort of feeling like in the early 90s that we were replicating San Francisco in the late 60s or the mid 60s.
John: We were replicating that whole experience.
John: And therefore, we had better grab all of this stuff like Chris Ballou's boots and put them under glass because one day they would be worth something.
John: And it's funny because times have changed.
John: I mean, I think probably Chris Ballou's boots under glass were worth a lot more than
John: in 1998 than they are now uh because people were there was a market for them then and now it's like oh yeah do you want crisp blue boots i know where you can get those you go here's basically like hogs um yeah he wears a you know he's going through a pair every year he's got a whole stack of them beanie babies fidget spinners gotta catch them all but listening to sergeant pepper uh this this brand new uh remix of sergeant pepper
John: That you might have heard about.
John: Right at the end of the day in a life, a day in the life, the day in a life, there's, you know, they hit that enormous piano chord and the chord rings out.
John: And we all know the story, right?
John: And we can picture them all sitting there, you know, three to a bench on these grand pianos.
Merlin: Yeah, it was like three guys, three pianos, and you can hear the chair squeak at the end.
John: And you hear the chair squeak.
John: Did you hear it?
John: That's exactly what I'm saying.
John: And the thing is, there's no way that you can't hear it because as they were remixing this, I mean, every compressor in the country was pointed at that chair squeak.
John: So that we would, so that it was there.
John: You know what I mean?
John: Like that fucking chair squeak is the whole game because it, it scratches that itch for all of us.
John: Like the chair squeak.
John: Whose, whose butt was it?
John: Ringo's butt?
John: Was it George's butt?
John: I thought it was George Martin's butt.
John: It was George Martin's butt squeak.
John: And the way it plays into the whole thing, like, all right, you guys, you know, everybody quiet.
John: We're going to hit this chord.
John: And then just be quiet.
John: Let it ring out.
John: And then somebody fucking squeaks.
John: In that sense, I bet it was Paul.
Merlin: Oh, man.
John: You got a hard on for Paul.
John: But...
John: But at any other time, you know, that would have been – any other time pre-Beatles, I think that absolutely would have been edited out.
John: The mix would have – they would have – even if they'd been trying to do the thing, they would have said, well, we'll mix it out at the chair squeak, right?
John: And even now when you're recording, it's a big question whether or not to leave those things in because I think –
John: in the days of four and eight track recording if if a mistake got made
John: Got left in it just got left in and didn't have options Yeah, and that is part of the sound that we love about old records and now that you have the option I mean you can go in and monkey with the Waveform and take chair squeaks out while leaving the the Main sound, you know, you could keep the chord in and take the chair squeak out because you could pinpoint what it was and
John: So now the question is, do we leave that mistake in as an effect almost?
John: Do we leave it in to make it sound like it's rawer than it is?
Merlin: Well, there's some things where if you fixed it, you'd mess it up a little bit.
Merlin: Like going back and listening to the raw tracks on, I don't know what the word for it is, but the take that they used, the basic tracks, you hear flubs.
Merlin: It happens.
Merlin: And do you want that taken out?
Merlin: That's part of how the song sounds.
Merlin: Or when Paul...
Merlin: This is not even on one of the stony ones, but on If I Fell, the second time he sings the bridge, his voice cracks a little bit, and you can hear him laugh just a little bit on the second bridge.
Merlin: Like, oh my God, don't take that out, because I point that out to my daughter every time it comes on.
Merlin: Like, don't take that out.
Merlin: That's part of the song.
John: Well, so that, I think, is a nice segue into the question of whether or not you remix Sgt.
John: Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
John: That's right.
Merlin: Yeah, and I mean, we don't need to turn this into yet another long article or video about this, but the basic idea was 50th anniversary, George Martin's son, and if you have more information or can correct me, do that, but my understanding is they went in, they got the...
Merlin: To the extent possible, the original tracks, meaning like the un-bounced down, un-speed corrected, like original tracks from Sgt.
Merlin: Pepper, and then wanted to reconstruct it for mainly around sound quality to keep, make it still the versions that you're familiar with.
Merlin: But again, the stereo and the mono mixes of these things were so different, and they wanted to create a really good-sounding stereo mix that still honored the way it was put together, but also bringing out sounds that you just couldn't hear in the various versions in the past.
Merlin: Right.
John: And now we have it.
John: Now we have it.
John: And I have listened to it and the old stereo mixes.
John: Not exactly back to back, but I listened to one and then, you know, listened to the other and was just kind of thinking about the two things.
John: And they're markedly different.
John: Listening experiences from the pre-existing stereo in particular the original stereo mix and the and this latest mix You know they're they are they're very different very different song to song and The whole experience of the album is very different and I'm I went into it.
John: I think with the with the assumption that I was gonna be
John: down on it it's like why tinker with this right well yeah it's the george lucas thing again you know like yeah we have the technology why you know we have the technology to to have the original tracks but with the chipmunk singing over it but what you know um like why put a cgi job of the hut in it
John: That's kind of a deep reference there.
John: I'm not sure.
Merlin: Some listeners will get it.
Merlin: But you were prepared to... So going into it thinking maybe this isn't a good idea and you were kind of a little bit preloaded to not be into what you heard.
Merlin: What did you think it was going to be?
Merlin: Did you think it was going to be too refreshed, too modern, wouldn't respect the old sound?
Merlin: What were you worried it would be?
John: The thing is...
John: The stereo mixes of those records were bad.
John: And we all know that they were bad.
John: They've always been bad.
John: Like you said last week, they were an afterthought.
John: The band was all there for the mono mixes, and then there was this new fad, stereo, and everybody went home and left it to...
Merlin: Which at that point was a little bit like turning your existing movie into 3D.
Merlin: You were going to be trying to cater to this specialized market that was actually not your primary channel that you were selling into.
Merlin: but there were also, I mean, there are pretty big differences in some cases of the speed of it.
Merlin: In some cases, a little bit of arrangement.
Merlin: And, and I mean, famously like Ringo's drums did not sound good in stereo.
Merlin: He's a very nuanced player.
Merlin: And a lot of that was really lost.
Merlin: Um, especially in the stereo mix.
John: Oh, well, the reason that it was lost is that they didn't yet know, I mean, this dawn of stereo, right?
John: They didn't know how to mix.
John: So Ringo's,
John: Ringo's drums aren't, it's not stereo that doesn't serve them.
John: It's that at the time it wasn't clear to them.
John: Like, here's the standard that we all use now, right?
John: When you bring up a mix, a stereo mix of a song, the drums are right up the middle.
John: And so what right up the middle means is you've got these knobs that are called pan knobs.
John: And you can pan a sound all the way into the left headphone or all the way into the right headphone.
John: Or you can bring them sort of there.
John: It's 60% in the right headphone and 40% in the left headphone.
John: And what that does is in your mind when you're listening to it, it makes it sound like the instrument is kind of over in...
John: It's in that side of the room, but it's not all the way over.
John: But in that case, the entire drum set.
Merlin: The entire kit.
Merlin: You're more trying to emulate.
Merlin: The part about that seems so crazy in retrospect is you wouldn't think to mix each, well, you didn't have the ability to mix each drum differently, different effects, different panning, different gait, different everything on each drum to create a new drum sound.
Merlin: It was more like emulating where the drums were in a room.
Merlin: And often as not, it was almost all the way hard right or hard left for most of the instruments.
John: Right, which does not emulate the sound of drums in a room.
John: That's the crazy thing.
John: Like so much of mixing is to trick your brain.
John: So if an instrument is equal in both headphones, it sounds like it's straight ahead.
John: It sounds like it's right in front of you.
John: I mean, it sounds like it's appearing right inside your mind in a way.
John: And when we mix records now, it's understood in the main that the drums are mixed right in the middle,
John: And the bass is mixed right in the middle, and the lead vocals are mixed right in the middle.
John: That's where you want them.
John: And then all the other stuff, your pianos, your reverbs, your backing vocals, your guitars, your strings, everything else is kind of panned around the sphere.
John: So you put your lead guitar over here, you put the tambourine over there, and that's how you get that stereo field.
John: But you don't want...
John: an entire drum kit with all that's going on in a drum kit.
John: You don't want it mixed hard left.
John: And if you do put something there, you can't put anything else there.
John: The drums take informational space, right?
John: So what made those mixes terrible is that on a lot of songs, and the thing is every song they did a different
John: They did a different thing.
John: But there were quite a few songs where the entire kit, like you're saying, is just all the way over.
John: There it is.
John: Like fixing a hole.
John: The drums are completely, completely left.
John: And the piano is completely left.
John: And the bass is completely left.
John: And so the rest of the song...
John: It's all over here on the right, you know, all the like bling blangs and chink chanks and the singing and the vocals.
John: And it's like, that is crazy.
Merlin: That's such a strange decision.
Merlin: And to me, a classic example with the Ramones, it's kind of funny and I don't mind it, that it's all bass over here, all guitar over there.
Merlin: If you listen to it with one speaker, you can hear one or the other full stop.
Merlin: But that's what that's with three instruments and vocals.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And it's kind of it's kind of cute.
Merlin: But like, I'm kind of surprised that passed the sniff test, even for the early days of stereo.
Merlin: It's such an odd decision because it's not if you have headphones on, it's not fun to listen to.
John: Well, and I don't I think one of the things was people didn't really they weren't mixing with headphones.
John: Yeah.
John: You listen to it through the big speakers and then you switch and you listen to it through the little speakers and then you listen to it in headphones and then you listen to it in the cheap little dime store speakers.
John: And every time you hear different things poking out, you know, you put headphones on.
John: You're like, oh, no, we're we've been working on this all day and it sounds like shit.
John: And you have to go back and start over.
John: But if you do it on the headphones, it's the same thing.
John: You listen to it on the speakers.
John: It's like, oh, no, that's not right.
John: And so what they were doing is sitting in this room listening to it on speakers, and I think they thought, well, let's make it sound like the band is over here and the singer's over there.
John: That makes good sense.
John: If we're going to do the stereo, we might as well really do it so people can really hear the definition, the separation.
John: And I think if you're sitting in your living room, if you're like in a Maxell magazine ad and your black sunglasses sitting in your chair...
John: with your glass of wine about to spill, listening to your music coming out of your big hot speakers, it probably doesn't sound as unusual because you're getting room reverb, your ears are picking up stuff.
John: It's the isolation of headphones where if it's not in your right speaker, your right ear isn't going to hear it.
John: And that's what makes it sound so trippy.
John: So,
John: So to say that those stereo mixes of Sgt.
John: Pepper are like sacred somehow, I guess it's not defensible because there's there's they were such some of them were just like, well, that was a.
John: That was a mistake.
John: I mean, you were right at the gate of mixing in stereo, and that's not how we ended up doing it.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: And also, for this new and very ambitious and very, I can use that word, nuanced material, it's a shame that it came across sounding a little thin.
Merlin: you don't really hear a rock band in there.
Merlin: It's very difficult.
Merlin: I mean, first of all, just the magic of what they are doing with bouncing this stuff down on the equipment that they had.
Merlin: It's incredible.
Merlin: It's absolutely incredible.
Merlin: And it really was the, they were helping create the future of music that we're still living with today with what they were, the hacks that they were doing to try and like change the tapes piece and get this onto there and bounce these down to this.
Merlin: It's all great.
Merlin: But I mean, but the thing is the material, it always seemed like the material was thin because the sound was thin in some ways.
John: Do you know what I mean?
John: Although being for the benefit of Mr. Kite is pretty thin.
Merlin: Well, that's just in terms of disclosure and getting this out of the way.
Merlin: Like I said last week, I would still count Sgt.
Merlin: Pepper as probably maybe my fourth favorite Beatles record.
Merlin: But it's never been because of the production.
Merlin: It's just because there's not as many songs that I adore on here.
Merlin: There's a handful of songs I really, really like.
Merlin: I'm glad they were getting ambitious.
Merlin: I'm glad they were trying stuff.
Merlin: I think it's a very successful, very good record.
Merlin: Is it the greatest album of all time?
Merlin: I don't think it is.
Merlin: I don't think the material is their strongest.
Merlin: And so I don't mean to berate the Beatles.
Merlin: I mean, I don't mean to punch down to the Beatles here.
Merlin: I check my privilege.
Merlin: um but uh but but you know that's that's the thing though but i guess i'm putting this so poorly but the problem is that the the material is is unusual it's slight it's got weird instrumentation and like so obviously if they were trying to put out like a thrash metal album and it sounded like that it would be an abject failure from the very beginning it's just some of the songs i mean they're very there there can be very strong songs with good parts but i just i'm saying that like for the past 50 years it has not benefited from the fact that
Merlin: That it really, it didn't, you couldn't hear the rock music in it.
Merlin: You know, even when it was like a vaudeville song, you couldn't appreciate like how Paul's bass sounds, like every note he hits.
Merlin: And this is before we even get into Ringo's drums, which is going to be like three hours of this podcast for me.
Merlin: yeah but that's that's where it's been and if you if you wanted a robust great sounding make sure you could still go back and listen to mono but mono is like black and white it's like when i show apart from the movie duck suit my daughter does not want to watch anything in black and white it feels it's a castrated color movie to her i don't know if that's her words it doesn't sound like her let me do another take on that one um you know i agree about the record and listening to it listening to it like i did uh
John: the last couple of days thinking about it, you know, it's really clear that something in Paul really wanted to write this musical music.
John: He wanted to write music for his mom.
John: He wanted to write this sort of Edwardian, hey, you know, kind of like music that you would hear on the boardwalk in Brighton in 1912.
John: Like eager, old-timey, show-busy music.
John: Yeah, and music that was, I mean, those songs that Paul writes in that music hall style are really all ages.
John: You know, from 9 to 90, anybody is going to be able to enjoy it.
John: It's not, it's not, the songs are not dark.
John: They're fun.
John: And they're old-timey.
John: And he really, really wanted to explore that sound.
John: And what I've always loved about the Beatles and what scared me about them when I was 10 and really wanted to be scared by the Beatles was that those songs in the context of the Beatles were terrifying.
John: Because what the fuck are these people on?
John: You know?
John: And compared to, I mean, you have one of these Paul songs like, and then right next to it is like, why don't we do it in the road or something?
John: And taken together, it's wonderful.
John: It's a wonderful part of the Beatles.
John: But imagining, as I so often do, what it was like to be John Lennon and sitting there thinking that you are an avant-garde artist...
John: And then Paul comes in with it's getting better all the time or lovely Rita.
John: And John just like had to be feeling the had to be.
John: I mean, we all know he was.
John: He was just feeling this resentfulness at what he perceived to be Paul's corniness.
John: So Sergeant Pepper, the whole vibe of the record was Paul saying, I've got it.
John: Why don't we pretend to be a band?
John: And if we pretend to be a band, then all my cornball musical stuff won't be us, will it?
John: It'll be a funny band.
John: And he's presented it in that way that Paul loves to sort of revise history.
John: Here we go.
John: Here we go.
John: He's presented it as like, no, you know, it was my attempt to be very arty, wouldn't it?
John: But really what was motivating him was he wanted to do a kid's record almost.
John: And then the weird arty stuff...
John: He had to contend with George, who was riding a magic carpet around.
John: And Lennon, who was already starting to come unglued.
John: He was having a hard time.
John: Yeah, he was hitting a rough patch.
John: And then you get the magic of them all together, and you throw it together, and here's this extraordinary record.
Yeah.
John: I was, you know, the famous story, right, about here comes Paul with it's getting better all the time.
John: And then Lennon comes in with can't get much worse.
John: And it's like, oh, that's the there it is right there.
John: The Lennon McCartney Frisian.
John: But what really stands out is that Lennon's backing vocals in that tune.
John: Are so.
John: Much of a fuck you to the song.
Merlin: It's almost like he's singing along on the radio with a song that he doesn't like, and so he does a squeaky grandma falsetto.
John: Yeah, yeah.
John: I can't complain.
John: Can't get no worse.
John: His tone, his choice of the way he sings, his intentional out-of-tuneness are like a contemptuous contribution to the song.
John: He's actively hating it as he performs it.
John: And it's amazing that he got away with it, that whatever their dynamic at the time and their dynamic with George Martin was that he could do that.
John: And I think probably Paul was gritting his teeth.
John: And saying like, oh yeah, that's very good.
John: You know, that's very creative.
John: And somehow it got through, somehow Lennon managed to say like, no, that's what this tune needs.
John: It needs me like mocking it throughout.
John: And it's not just the, you know, it's not just can't get much worse.
John: It's like every note out of his mouth.
John: And then when Paul's harmonies come in, they're beautiful and perfect.
John: So
John: That ugliness didn't extend to the harmonies that Paul put on, right?
John: Paul was still trying to keep it fun.
John: You hear that throughout this record when you really zoom in on it.
John: But they were still nominally friends at that point.
John: They hadn't.
Merlin: the thing hadn't decayed but the signs were there yeah yeah absolutely and but it is funny how they you the more you learn it's with when you apply some genetic criticism to this and you know things and you hear stories and you read things but it it's strange though that like it's strange and it's fortunate that they were able to hold it together as long as they did to to you get something like strawberry fields and and penny lane
Merlin: Such different songs, such different approaches, but we as the audience can appreciate those.
John: Well, they did those first, right?
Merlin: That was the first thing they recorded, yeah.
John: I think Strawberry Fields was the very first thing.
John: Can you imagine how much better this record would be if it had those two songs on it?
John: And just those two songs, right?
John: Especially Penny Lane.
John: They're both total peak Beatles, right?
John: The total triumph.
John: And Penny Lane is a classic Paul-like song for all ages.
John: And Strawberry Fields is Lennon on his drug thing.
John: And
John: And yet they're not on that record.
John: And so you get a little bit of the subpar Beatles, and still it's considered the greatest record in history.
John: If we had those two songs on that record, it would be, I don't know, God, such a much better record.
John: I still don't understand that whole...
Merlin: I think, well, in a little bit of reading about this, it sounds like they felt like they were cheating if they were releasing singles off of an album.
Merlin: Their typical set was, you know, you're going to get these 10, usually 10 songs, plus a single.
Merlin: And in this case, is it technically the first double A side?
Merlin: What about Don't Be Cruel and Hound Dog?
Merlin: I mean, isn't that a double A side?
John: That is some record...
John: record talk that i'd i can't join in i have no idea it sounds like a double a side but i think back then i think hound dog era they weren't released as double a sides they were released as uh a b and then then the djs flipped it over and they were like whoa right and it became a double a but the beatles released it intentionally as a double a side right right right totally i'm gonna get mail about this did i get that right is it hound dog and don't be cruel
John: I don't want to get an email about that.
John: It seems like such a squandered opportunity, but then I'm the guy that put Commander Thinks Aloud on an EP.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: So look at you.
Merlin: Yeah, look at me.
Merlin: It's weird, though.
Merlin: I mean, when I listen to it, I go, hmm, I like that song.
Merlin: I like that song.
Merlin: I like this other song.
Merlin: But, you know, it's for me as an album, and I'd like to get to the sound stuff, because I think that's where the story is for me on this one.
Merlin: but um i mean there are even more shambly things i like like i would i think i would prefer the white album to this that there's a lot of shamble on there and it's really sad that they only play on like what one or two songs on that whole album together other than that like they never were recording at the same time apart from like happiness is a warm gun supposedly
Merlin: But, yeah, I mean, I started listening to this when I was about 13.
Merlin: And, yeah, so, I mean, I've been told my whole life I'd heard this was, like, the greatest album of all time, and I really liked it.
Merlin: I think at that time, even at that time, I think there were others I liked a little more.
John: But...
John: Yeah.
John: Well, Revolver and Rubber Soul are both way better albums.
Merlin: I discovered Revolver after Sgt.
Merlin: Pepper.
Merlin: So I had the Blue Album and the Red Album, as they're now called.
Merlin: And that's what I really kind of cut my teeth on, was listening to those over and over and skipping Lady Madonna.
Merlin: But those albums were huge for me.
Merlin: And then I don't know, it might have been Abbey Road because I really got into the Beatles through my cousins who are five and ten years older, respectively.
Merlin: And so Abbey Road, I think, was the first album of theirs I really loved because I'd heard it a lot.
Merlin: And then I kind of backed into it by Sam.
Merlin: But it wasn't until college.
Merlin: I don't think it was until I had a CD player my second year of college that I really heard Revolver.
Merlin: And that pretty quickly became my favorite.
John: I didn't listen to the White Album until I was in high school, but Revolver was the first Beatles record I had because when I moved to Alaska to live with my dad, I think one of my older siblings had been up there to visit in the early 70s or something.
John: And there were three...
John: what was it there was revolver these were eight track tapes that were at my dad's house that i discovered wow uh hidden among the count basie tapes there was revolver there was jackson five there was bridge over troubled water um that may have been it but those three records i immediately collected and put
John: into my dad's car, which had an 8-track tape player.
John: And we listened to them... Because he had a friend... This is what's crazy about the time.
John: He had a friend that owned a record store that was capable of making his own 8-track tapes.
John: Like mixtapes on 8-track.
John: And so he would make mixtapes for my dad of all this Glenn Miller stuff.
John: And so my dad had all these private reserve 8-tracks of his favorite...
John: um, you know, his favorite jazz stuff.
John: And then I had these three pop records and any chance I got, I would slip my pop record in and he would listen to it, you know, and kind of like, yeah, it's good.
John: Uh, let, you know, he'd let me listen to it for a while.
John: But so revolver was the, my first and only Beatles record for a long time before I did what a lot of
John: early Beatles fans from the from the 70s and 80s did which was I got the blue album and then I got the red album that's the same order I got him in the backwards order yeah blue and then red and between the blue and the red I mean I was covered Beatles wise and was kind of scared to listen to the records themselves and
John: until probably, yeah, junior year in high school, maybe.
Merlin: It's not something I'm proud of, but given my budget and my interest, a lot of my entrees into bands that became my favorites were through best ofs or greatest hits, just because it was the most economically viable way.
John: Well, and that was the time.
John: I don't know if I've ever listened to an Eagles record, but I've listened to the Eagles' greatest hits.
Merlin: You see the most popular album of all time.
John: Yeah, that's all you need, really.
Mm-hmm.
John: But so so so Revolver isn't just I mean, it's I think the best Beatles record, but also it's burned into me, like burned into my young emotions so powerfully that I can't separate it from.
John: From being 10 or being 14 or, you know, it's like it's been with me my whole life, basically.
John: But this record was one of the ones I was scared to listen to on its own.
John: And when I listened to it finally on its own, that fear was confirmed.
John: Because I was, like so many things, when you love them, I was scared to be disappointed by the thing that I loved.
John: Yeah.
John: You know, if I hear a perfect work, like, I love My Bloody Valentine's record.
John: Loveless.
John: Loveless.
John: I love it.
John: I love it.
John: I love it.
John: I love every minute of it.
John: And I am very resistant to listening to the other music made by My Bloody Valentine.
John: I just don't want to tarnish the thing that I love with any missteps.
John: I don't want to hear his folk record.
John: I just want to keep the perfect thing.
John: And the Beatles were so perfect through so much.
John: Have you ever heard the other greatest hits, the brown one called Love Songs?
Yeah.
Merlin: Oh, yeah, it came out in the 70s.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, I remember that.
Merlin: That was a popular one.
Merlin: Yeah, it looks like it's leather-covered.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
John: It's an incredible mixtape, is what it is.
John: It's a very unusual combination of those songs, and it's just like a weird... It's a very weird listen, and an emotional listen.
John: It's their...
John: It's their sappy tunes, I guess, for lack of a better term.
John: And taken out of their context and put into this record.
John: It also was on my turntable a lot growing up.
Merlin: 1977.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: I still have all that stuff, too.
John: All those vinyls.
John: Go ahead.
John: No, I'm just saying I should have gotten my Sgt.
John: Pepper out and listened to it on the record player.
John: Amazon Prime.
Merlin: So this thing came along, and I learned about it from... I think I... I'm already forgetting.
Merlin: But I think I heard about it from an interview with Giles Martin on All Songs Considered, the NPR show.
Merlin: And I didn't even realize it was out yet.
Merlin: I'd heard it was coming, but again, why am I going to pay attention to that?
Merlin: It's not my favorite.
Merlin: You're talking about this remix.
Merlin: Yeah, the remix.
Merlin: It had been out for, I guess, a week or two when I heard this interview.
Merlin: And the nice thing in this interview is it's...
Merlin: They basically he Giles will like he'll talk about some part of a song he plays usually plays the I think he usually starts with the stereo mix then plays the mono mix might have been backwards and then third plays the new one.
Merlin: And I could really, really hear the difference.
Merlin: And, you know, again, dead rock and roll ears, but I mean, I heard stuff on there.
Merlin: I just didn't, I don't remember ever hearing or even knowing was on there.
Merlin: And I instantly, as soon as it was over, I jumped over to music, Apple Music, where it was already up.
Merlin: And like I said, I listened to it three times Saturday before last.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: So I was, I, you know, I went into it before my first listen, I went into it ready to like it.
Merlin: So you went into it ready to be sort of meh.
Merlin: And then how did you, I still don't, I have a guess what your feeling is.
Merlin: I bet it's complicated, but mostly positive.
John: Well, yeah.
John: So the bass sounds amazing, but it sounds modern, you know, like the way that the bass is compressed and the, the, I mean, what you hear in the bass is this incredible sound.
John: Like, Paul took a lot from Carol Kay.
Merlin: You hear his plectrum.
Merlin: You can totally hear, would it be pet sounds at this point?
Merlin: But there's so much he does that's very Beach Boys.
Merlin: He's really into it.
Merlin: You know, he's into that tone.
Merlin: Especially something like, with a little help from my friends.
Merlin: I mean, it almost sounds like he's deliberately aping a Beach Boys part.
John: Yeah, this vibe, right?
John: And it's so cool to hear it given a modern treatment.
John: Because now the bass... So for most of the tunes now, there are some tunes where the original mix kind of already sounded like a modern mix.
John: Just because as they were throwing frogs at a wall, one of them stuck every once in a while.
John: But
John: So the bass and the drums are just so much more... Well, they're just in the mix, finally.
Merlin: That sounds like a bass.
Merlin: These sound like real drums, and you can hear them.
John: And if you put them side to side, if you just listen to Fixing a Hole...
John: The drums sound like they're squashed into a can on the left-hand side.
John: Then you listen to the new version of it, and the drums are just where they belong.
John: They're in the room.
John: There they are.
John: You hear them, and you're able to hear them, and it sounds like a band, like you're saying, and it sounds like rock music.
John: There's no way you can go back to that other mix and defend it as anything other than
John: like what it was which is the historical that's the artifact right this is if you had a choice between listening to the two things you kind of can't unhear that difference yeah but i would choose the new one if i was gonna if i was if i was washing the dishes and wanted to turn on my sonos and play one of the two i would play the new one it just sounds amazing but the but the treatment of the bass and the and it's less
John: True, I think, in the treatment of the drums, which kind of just sound, they're just there, but the bass is really treated like a modern bass.
John: And so you get all the sound of it.
John: And it feels very just like, wow, it's warm and punchy.
Merlin: Let's just call it what it is.
Merlin: I think at that time, I'm going to guess, you weren't really supposed to notice the bass.
Merlin: You weren't supposed to really hear the bass as an instrument.
Merlin: I mean, maybe it's a little different with somebody like John Entwistle, where he's, you know, like a marquee player.
Merlin: But as great as Paul's parts were...
Merlin: um i mean you might lose it alongside the left left hand of the piano playing or something if you're not listening carefully it wasn't meant to stand out in the way that by the time he's in wings it feels like it's getting a little bit louder every album well and what's what's funny is that even in the original mix of lovely rita
John: The bass and the vocals are so front.
John: Like the bass is absolutely the only thing going on in that track because the entire rest of the band, everything is mashed over in the left channel.
John: Like the right channel is, and this is what's crazy.
John: I didn't ever realize this about Lovely Rita, but all the shaker sounds, the egg shaker in that tune.
John: Yeah, it's a lot of percussion.
John: Well, except the egg shaker is all voice.
John: It's them going.
John: Wow.
John: And I never heard it before this, before I listened to this new mix.
John: And then I went back and listened to the old mix.
John: It's even more evident in the old mix.
John: They're, they're seriously like, I can't believe they're not laughing.
John: I think I hear them laughing.
John: I mean, they're just like lovely Rita.
Yeah.
Merlin: They're doing that to the whole tune.
Merlin: You wonder, was I not listening carefully before?
Merlin: I was listening on When I'm 64.
Merlin: I almost thought they used a different vocal, because when he says, grandchildren on your knee, and I'm like, wait a minute, what was that?
Merlin: Has he always done a jokey rolling of the R's on that song, and I just never heard it before?
Merlin: Was I not listening carefully, or is this really that much clearer?
Merlin: Because it's unavoidable when you're listening to it on headphones.
Merlin: He's doing a funny English guy voice.
John: Isn't that crazy?
Merlin: Had you noticed that before?
John: I knew that because I am so on the hunt for his camp.
John: Any bit of his campiness, I put a little crime scene flag.
John: Like bullets after a drive-by?
John: Here's some blood splatter over here, and he's rolling his R's here.
John: And, you know, I say this with the utmost love.
John: I don't believe that they could be what they are without it, without him doing that.
John: But I won't let it go by.
John: But so if you listen to lovely Rita and start and hear that in the voice, then you realize almost all the percussion is them making mouth sounds.
John: Except for there's one percussion part that I really think is just Lennon going like this, just tapping the mic with his finger.
John: Wow.
John: And you're going like, you guys, you know, you have drums there, too.
John: Like, do you have to be doing that?
John: So weird.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I just can't say enough about the drums, though.
Merlin: I mean, the point I was trying to make earlier about like, well, you got the material and whether you like it or not, but like, you know, did you mean it to sound this thin?
Merlin: And, you know, probably not.
Merlin: Probably not.
Merlin: But with Ringo's drums, he is...
Merlin: he is a very talented and but very subtle very understated player but the difference is when you can really hear the drums in dan the life it's profound when you actually his floor toms change the way his floor tom sound on this remix changed this album for me i'm actually not exaggerating that if there's any sound i notice more than any other it's the incredible amount of personality in his very understated fills especially on the floor tom it's a revelation it's a different album
John: He's just, and he's, his part in day in the life is, is just basically fills.
John: He's just, it's just fills.
Merlin: The bass track is him doing a chicken shaker.
Merlin: And then I just think he went back and just added fills.
John: So here's what I, so listening carefully to the original mix of day in the life, I heard all this stuff I had never heard before.
John: That I couldn't believe I had never heard before.
John: That is, for the most part, completely straightened out in this redo, in the modern mix.
John: So at the start of Day in the Life, the lead vocals are hard right.
John: The bass and the drums are center.
John: And then as the first verse goes, the lead vocals slowly pan to the center.
John: So they're way, way right at the top of the tune.
John: And then all of a sudden you're kind of like, wait a minute, what are they?
John: And they're doing it slowly enough that in my whole life I never noticed they did it.
John: Yeah, I don't remember that.
John: And then they're in the center at the end of the first verse.
John: And then...
John: Love to turn you on.
John: I'd love to.
John: The first time.
John: That starts hard left.
John: Love to turn you on.
John: And then Paul's voice in the middle of the tune, in the bridge, comes in hard right again.
John: He's like...
John: singing that whole thing out in your right channel.
John: That's Woke Up, Got Out of Bed?
John: Yeah.
John: And then the... They're sitting in the studio, turning the pan knobs back and forth.
John: The ahs are swimming around in the stereo mix.
John: And then when it comes out of that part... So at the top of the tune, the vocals are hard right.
John: the the second half of the tune the vocals start hard left and the band is mixed hard right and it's just like they they must have they were sitting in the studio like what do we do next that's what that's what i would do 20 years later on a four track when i was high yeah yeah like oh i know second verse let's do let's do a complete reversal of what we did on the first oh look at me i'm acts as bold as love
John: And if you listen to the new mix, the drums are in the middle, the bass is in the middle, the vocals are in the middle.
John: It's like, it sounds a hundred times better.
John: But it's a completely different listening experience.
John: Like, it's not...
Merlin: any it's not even the same there's a couple songs there's some of the songs in the middle um you know i don't even have the listing in front of me but you know it starts out big you get those first three songs which are such a such a rock block and then you know i think things really pick up toward the end but it gets a little you know like a little slows down a little bit gets a little saggy in the
Merlin: in another age with a mono or stereo mix just about the last thing that i would put on after working at mcdonald's would be let's say good morning good morning whereas now there's so many of these songs that are so much more menacing and weird and like and like objectionably weird like oh what is going on in this song you can now you can hear how weird the song is and now so now i listen to good morning good morning first of all the horns
Merlin: The timbre of the horns, it has that you're-in-the-room honkiness that you only hear on a real horn.
Merlin: And to hear that big opening, to hear that, it was shocking to me.
Merlin: But the part that blew me away, if I ever knew or remembered that Ringo has two parts on there that he does in really fucked-up triplets, I don't remember it.
Merlin: But when he does it this time, it sounds like this death metal end of the universe.
Merlin: Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba.
Merlin: I don't remember that being on there, but you listen to it now, and it sounds like the Huns are invading.
Merlin: It's crazy.
John: Well, and Paul's bass is right in there with him.
Merlin: And he's doing a weird plucky, like, tonk, tonk, tonk sound, right?
Merlin: Isn't he doing a really strange, maybe high up near the tailpiece?
Merlin: He's doing something really offensive, and it sounds great.
John: It is.
John: It's offensive.
John: And there are a couple of times when you're like, is that...
John: How did that even make it into the take like that it because it's muted But like it I think it's gonna be near the tailpiece with a very hard pick is what it sounds like it's very very percussive It's yeah, or I don't know.
John: I'm remembering the right one Yeah, I was thinking that it was a that it was sort of a felt pick but that he was he does this thing where he's almost out of
John: he's he's syncopated but he gets out of syncopation but it still is in rhythm there are a couple of things in that bass line that are like yeah right it has a sinister vibe yeah it's a sinister sounding tune and that's another one the original mix of that the entire band was just crammed into the left channel there was so there's no way you would have heard it you wouldn't have heard any of this that we can hear now because it's just like
John: It was completely thrown left, and then the horns were thrown right.
Merlin: Okay, I'm closing iTunes, because I had it on for a second.
Merlin: It was very scary.
Merlin: I closed it.
Merlin: Oh my god, it sounds so good.
John: That's really great.
John: The only thing that I...
John: the only stand i make on good morning up from either version is that it starts with a fucking rooster crow which is like no but it was may have been the first time that ever happened like i know let's put barnyard song sounds in it and then all the barnyard sounds at the end where you're like no don't do that you're this isn't a pink floyd record
John: Not yet.
John: But the best part of it is, speaking of Pink Floyd, right at the end of Good Morning, there's a chicken that hands off to the lead guitar of Sergeant Tepper.
John: And that's so Pink Floyd.
Merlin: There's that tune on the final cut.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: Like in movies, you get a match cut.
Merlin: Like the ape guy throws the bone up into the sky and it turns into the spaceship in 2001.
Merlin: It's a musical match cut.
John: There's one in Final Cut where there's a saxophone solo.
John: Oh, no.
John: Like Roger Waters sings a note and holds it and then it turns into a saxophone.
John: And there's no way.
John: I've listened to it a hundred times in the headphones.
John: You just cannot decide when his voice and the sax, where the blend is.
John: It just is seamless.
John: He just sings this.
John: and it just turns into a sax solo.
John: It's really like, well done, Pink Floyd.
Merlin: Supposedly John's demand was each animal had to be followed by an animal that would either eat or terrify the preceding animal.
John: Really?
John: Yeah, supposedly.
John: There's one thing in the stereo mix that I missed, or another thing that when they redid it, they...
John: They didn't do and I was surprised that they didn't do it in When I'm 64 there's a thing in the old mix because Because it's so screwed up because the vocals are all left
John: And the band is kind of in the middle.
John: And then Lennon's voice is hard right.
John: And the horns are coming in and all this stuff.
John: Because the stereo field is so crazy.
John: There's a little moment where, you know, where the bell goes ding, bonk, ding, bonk, dun, dun, uh, you know, that little section.
John: Yeah.
John: And the bell is on one side, and the reply, the band reply is on the other.
John: Oh, that's nice.
John: That's good use.
John: Yeah, it's a very brief, like, bam, bump, bam, bump, bump, bump, you know, and it's cute and it's cool.
John: And they didn't do it in the redo, and I missed it.
John: It was a small little detail that they could have done.
John: You know, the bell didn't have to be...
Merlin: the bell didn't have to be drenched in reverb and be up the middle you know it could have been they could have but but because the band was in the center it they didn't maybe have the option to do that trade-off man i'm a small thing but yeah but you get very personal about these things i i honestly don't have that much really intelligent stuff to say as ever it's just it's mainly that i was i was really surprised uh and delighted by what how much more i enjoy listening to this particular album
Merlin: this way.
Merlin: It's so much better.
Merlin: I don't want to beat this to death, but it's less cockamamie.
Merlin: And there's something about going back and listening to those original tracks and how they recorded them, and you're like, there's totally a rock band inside here.
Merlin: Not that everything has to be over the top, but...
Merlin: On the one hand, you don't appreciate the forcefulness of the band arrangement of the Sgt.
Merlin: Pepper reprise.
Merlin: There's no way.
Merlin: You will never hear that song the same after hearing this new version.
Merlin: Because you realize what a fucking Led Zeppelin song it is.
Merlin: It sounds like the Immigrant song, like years before the Immigrant song.
Merlin: It's just pounding.
Merlin: Whereas at the same time, on even something like She's Leaving Home, you may not totally appreciate the delicacy that's there or the subtlety that's there.
Merlin: So it's opened up the entire spectrum of the way that this album can be appreciated by letting you hear so much more of what's actually being played.
John: So this is where I get back to my initial worry or my initial hot take.
John: Yeah.
John: Which is that as I was listening to it, I...
John: I don't know why.
John: I wasn't being a brat.
John: I was not sitting here looking for a reason to be a brat.
John: I was just listening to it with my mind empty.
John: And then a thought came into my head, which was, oh, this will sound much better in the lobby of the Ace Hotel in Palm Springs.
John: And I was right.
John: You know what I mean?
John: Like, hmm.
John: This record, you couldn't really have played in the lobby of a hotel, a cool hotel before, because it was too kooky.
John: If you did play it, it was like, if you're standing over by the elevators, all you hear is the tambourine and John Lennon making... And mouth sounds.
John: Yeah, mouth sounds.
John: And now, this record, which we all acknowledge is a classic, now we can play at all the modern places that we play music.
John: In the elevator, in the lobby, in the car, in the...
Merlin: Oh, I see.
Merlin: This is a secondary tertiary concern.
Merlin: They're going to take this record you want to listen to with headphones, and they're going to start sticking your face.
John: Well, not that, but that the intention of this is that we listen to music differently now.
John: And part of the reason that we needed this was that we couldn't listen to this record in our contemporary way.
John: It was just unintelligible.
John: And so it has been made...
John: To conform to the way that we hear music now.
John: Right.
John: And so there are two.
John: I think that this record is for two groups of people.
John: And one of them is one of the groups of people is everybody.
John: Here's a record now that is for everybody and all the people that have never listened to Sergeant Pepper before will get a chance to hear it.
John: It will be everywhere again.
John: Just before we started the show, I looked briefly and it's like in the top five on the charts right now.
John: Oh, wow.
John: Wow.
John: You know, like here it is, world.
John: The thing you've always been waiting for.
John: This is the new version of episode four, except it didn't ruin it.
John: Right.
John: It didn't put Jabba the Hutt in it.
John: It's real.
John: It's good.
John: This thing.
John: And the other group of people that this is for is Beatles historians like you and me who will sit for two hours and talk about fucking the what what pick Paul McCartney used.
John: Right.
John: Because it's fast.
John: It's another one of a hundred fascinating glimpses into what the Beatles did and what they were.
John: But so.
John: But it does fall into the category of not the Beatles in the sense that this isn't what they did.
John: Even when they made mistakes, even when they made a bad mix of an album.
Merlin: It's not canonical that it's something where because other people were working on this in the absence of them and George Martin.
John: Well, yeah, and it's just like you get what you get and don't be upset.
John: Yeah, we got the Beatles and they were great.
John: We can and I think now will endlessly.
John: dissect them and it is great it's fascinating i love it every time i hear a isolated track or i mean they could have mixed this a hundred different ways they could have just put all the drums to the right this time instead of to the left and i would have listened to it and cackled well there's a similar thing that happens in the like the star wars fan community where there's several different kinds of things that people will release but two general kinds of things that i've looked at
Merlin: on the one hand you have people who are doing what's called a fan edit which is like they do their own version with source material with other material with cgi material they'll go in and basically make the movie the way they would like it to be or some creative remix of their own design you know this is how they want it to be and then at another end of that spectrum is people who are trying to like basically do a the most faithful reconstruction of the highest quality version
Merlin: of the original Star Wars movie that you could get, the highest quality non-tinkered with material, and then put together a movie based on that.
Merlin: And there's all kinds of other stuff in between.
Merlin: I have a friend who did something called The Phantom Edit, where he went in and he did, it's not exactly a fan edit, it's not like fan fiction, but he minimized the amount of times that the Rasta guy talks.
Merlin: Jar Jar Binks.
Merlin: Thank you, Jar Jar Binks.
Merlin: But but that's so does this risk falling into that kind of like fan fiction territory?
John: The thing is that the the involvement of George Martin and his son.
John: Is like this is the last thing right that can be given that imprimatur of like George Martin touched this with his finger on his way out the door.
Right.
John: And so if this record had come out and it was Danger Mouse got a hold of the original tracks and remixed Sgt.
John: Pepper...
John: i don't know what i would be sitting here thinking about it or saying well this probably would not exist if it weren't for love which you know love it or not is it's a very interesting idea i think well implemented for what it is not really something i would want to return to a lot but it's interesting that his in some ways his trial run for this was helping his dad to do this mashup album right which i didn't listen to and what and the parts of it that i've heard out in the wild i've always been kind of astonished by and like whoa
John: that's weird and cool.
John: And then I realized, Oh, it's love.
John: And then I immediately am like, I don't want to listen to that.
John: I don't, I don't, I don't know what that is.
John: I don't, you know, it's like, I'm like a six year old when there's a piece of parsley in their food.
John: What is that?
Merlin: You didn't notice it for five bites.
John: There's green stuff in this.
John: I can't eat this.
John: Sudden parsley.
John: But, um, but so, so,
John: George gave this his blessing and it's like, okay, it is, it then is within what we'll call the, the cannon, the larger cannon.
John: And I, and like his string arrangements are, you know, are so extraordinary that,
John: And, like, She's Leaving Home, which was always a song that affected me very powerfully as a kid.
John: I was a sentimental kid.
John: Oh, me too.
John: And that whole idea of... Daddy, our baby's gone.
Merlin: When they would sing that line, I'd just be like, ugh.
Merlin: It's very sentimental and schmaltzy in some ways, even now with a kid.
Merlin: But, like, at the time, I was like, oh, God, this is what I must feel like to be a parent.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Yeah, yeah, super schmaltzy, you know, just like Cats in the Cradle and the Silver Spoon.
John: I would sit and weep at the radio when that song would come on.
Merlin: And honey, I miss you, and I'm being good.
Merlin: I'd love to be with you if only I could.
John: I know, all these emotions, I didn't even know what I was crying about, you know, but now when I listen to She's Leaving Home,
John: There's something about the sentiment now that I feel is really callow.
John: That's really, you know, 27-year-olds trying to interject themselves into a dynamic.
John: Like, I'm assuming that the girl who's leaving home is like...
John: I don't think that she's going away to... She's not like 18.
Merlin: I think that she's... I think she's 15 or 16 and she's going to sow her wild oats in Swinging London.
John: Oh, no.
John: I always heard it as that she was 24.
John: Oh, really?
John: Yeah, and had committed to being... She's Eleanor Rigby.
John: Yeah, she'd committed to being the spinster...
John: daughter living with her parents that's why they're so i like yours so strangely over connected to her you know how could she do this to me like if she's 15 it's just like our daughter ran away but this this feeling that that she had that she was a part of that nuclear family that
John: you know that her mother was codependent it was it and it felt like she had been released somehow she'd finally and maybe through rock music had had felt like i've got to get out of here and had gone and gotten her first job so that part of it is is what i always got so emotional about but paul and john both
John: make these lyrical choices that are snide, that are snide toward the parents.
Merlin: Yeah, never a thought for ourselves when in fact it's only themselves really that they're thinking about.
John: Yeah, right.
John: They're sarcastic and contemptuous of the parents standing there like having this boo-hoo.
John: And I never heard that
John: I never heard it as boldly before.
John: And it took me out of the tune for the first time in my life this time, listening to it carefully.
John: And I was like, you know what, you guys?
John: You don't fucking know everything.
John: Right?
John: But all right.
John: Slow your roll.
Merlin: All right.
Merlin: All right.
Merlin: Also, to quote a friend of the show, Bill Janowitz, you know, actually fun is one of the easiest things to buy.
Merlin: It's one of the few things that's actually pretty easy to buy.
John: interesting interesting good point because he's saying fun's the one thing money can't buy but no actually you know there's a lot of other stuff that's way harder to buy than fun fun and you know and she's having fun waiting to have an appointment with a man from the motor trade that doesn't really sound like she's having fun it sounds like she's you know she's starting her life but it's not it's not gonna be fun my friend let the crushing begin what
Merlin: Have fun, honey.
John: Have fun storming the castle.
John: I would like to call attention to that I had never really, really heard before was in Getting Better, a song that
John: That even though it sounds so much better in this mix, I feel is more and more reprehensible all the time.
Merlin: It really feels like something that should have been consigned to Magical Mystery Tour or Yellow Submarine soundtrack.
John: I mean, getting better and being for the benefit of Mr. Kite both could have could have gone on to Magical Mystery Tour and made that a whole album, a whole album that I didn't like.
John: But Paul's lyric, me hiding me head in the sand.
John: It's Jar Jar Binks.
John: It used to be our young man.
John: He's fucking Jar Jar Binks.
John: Oh, I wanted to go back in time and take a plane.
John: Grandchildren.
John: Push open the door, walk down in there, grab him by the Nehru collar and shake him.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I'm from the future.
Merlin: Come with me if you want to live.
Merlin: All right, August, I'll be coming along then.
Merlin: Bob's your uncle.