Patientman63
Well-Known Member
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/ar...make-bitter--Martin-Samuel.html#ixzz1texWXJEz
Maybe it was the song. There is something rather wonderful about the coda to Hey Jude, something very affecting. They were at a peak then, The Beatles.
Hey Jude was recorded during sessions for their epic White Album, when they had their own record label, complete artistic freedom and were on top of the world. If the band wanted the first single on Apple to be seven minutes long, if Paul McCartney wanted a sing-a-long fade-out lasting four minutes, that's how it was.
'Paul walked over to the grand piano and said, "Hey, lads, have a listen",' recalled Ron Griffith of the group Badfinger, the first to sign to Apple. 'He then played a full concert rendition of Hey Jude.'
McCartney's vision for the song was unflinching. He told George Harrison to stop playing a guitar response to every line. 'The movement you need is on your shoulder,' sang McCartney. He didn't know what it meant, either. 'I'll fix that later,' he told the band. John Lennon said he should keep it in. 'It's the best line in the song,' he insisted.
When it came to the final chorus, the orchestra - 10 violins, three violas, three cellos, two flutes, one contra bassoon, one bassoon, two clarinets, one contra bass clarinet, four trumpets, four trombones, two horns, percussion, and two string basses - were paid double time to stay behind and clap and sing along.
'Astonishingly transcendental,' said former Yale professor and musicologist Alan Pollack, on the coda of Hey Jude. 'What could have been boring is instead hypnotic.' Lennon was more concise. He called it McCartney's masterpiece.
And even now, when 45,000 Sky Blues stay behind on the final whistle to celebrate a milestone victory over Manchester United, by singing the na-na-na chorus, and inserting City at its end, the emotion on display, even for neutrals, is greatly moving. On Monday it felt like a spell, and, sure enough, like saying Candyman three times into a mirror, it brought forth Beatles disciple Liam Gallagher, who gave an impromptu press conference, underlining the fact that City always shaded Manchester's music wars, too.
The Fall, New Order, Oasis and Doves versus Mick Hucknall - we should really leave it there - Terry Hall of The Specials and The Stone Roses on United's side (although you will notice the colour scheme in the iconic Pollockesque portraits of the Roses is sky blue and white, due to photographer Kevin Cummins being an absolute City nutter and singer Ian Brown not spotting his mischief).
Anyway, we seem to have digressed somewhat, but the point is this. Imbued in City's moment of glory was inescapable sadness, too: because this club is the last. For as long as UEFA remain in charge of the purse strings of English football, we will never tread this path again. The door is shut now.
This is the last group of fans who can be lifted from mediocrity by the fairytale: the one where a very rich man flies in bearing gifts and transports a club to the heavens. And surveying the sheer pleasure that it brought one half of Manchester on Monday, we have to ask: how did football allow this to happen?
How did the sport permit a single man's idea of what is right and preferable to erase one of the most potent forces for good in the game? Money from outside, coming in, to make dreams come true. What on earth was wrong with that?
Forget Portsmouth, forget Leeds United, forget the financial disaster stories that are trotted out to make fans think like accountants and turn their fun, their weekend release, into an extension of mundane, recession-blighted existence.
This is not about spending money a club does not have, or ruinous owner loans that are given and then just as unthinkingly recalled. The focus here, specifically, is on the Abu Dhabi project and others like it, when a very rich man gives - without expectation of return - money to a football club to have a right old go.
Take City away and what would this season have brought? A 13th Premier League title for Manchester United. Unlucky for some; mainly those who seek variety. Here comes another one, just like the other one.
There are competitions throughout Europe that will become wholly one-dimensional after this. It is why we need City to finish this job now, to win at Newcastle United on Sunday, then against Queens Park Rangers and form a powerful rivalry across town.
We cannot rely on the old ways, football's natural rhythms, the ebbs and flows caused by successful investment or unfortunate mismanagement.
UEFA will protect the worst from themselves and the best from the others, so City are the last of it. The era of austerity is upon us and there won't be too many singsongs from here.
Maybe it was the song. There is something rather wonderful about the coda to Hey Jude, something very affecting. They were at a peak then, The Beatles.
Hey Jude was recorded during sessions for their epic White Album, when they had their own record label, complete artistic freedom and were on top of the world. If the band wanted the first single on Apple to be seven minutes long, if Paul McCartney wanted a sing-a-long fade-out lasting four minutes, that's how it was.
'Paul walked over to the grand piano and said, "Hey, lads, have a listen",' recalled Ron Griffith of the group Badfinger, the first to sign to Apple. 'He then played a full concert rendition of Hey Jude.'
McCartney's vision for the song was unflinching. He told George Harrison to stop playing a guitar response to every line. 'The movement you need is on your shoulder,' sang McCartney. He didn't know what it meant, either. 'I'll fix that later,' he told the band. John Lennon said he should keep it in. 'It's the best line in the song,' he insisted.
When it came to the final chorus, the orchestra - 10 violins, three violas, three cellos, two flutes, one contra bassoon, one bassoon, two clarinets, one contra bass clarinet, four trumpets, four trombones, two horns, percussion, and two string basses - were paid double time to stay behind and clap and sing along.
'Astonishingly transcendental,' said former Yale professor and musicologist Alan Pollack, on the coda of Hey Jude. 'What could have been boring is instead hypnotic.' Lennon was more concise. He called it McCartney's masterpiece.
And even now, when 45,000 Sky Blues stay behind on the final whistle to celebrate a milestone victory over Manchester United, by singing the na-na-na chorus, and inserting City at its end, the emotion on display, even for neutrals, is greatly moving. On Monday it felt like a spell, and, sure enough, like saying Candyman three times into a mirror, it brought forth Beatles disciple Liam Gallagher, who gave an impromptu press conference, underlining the fact that City always shaded Manchester's music wars, too.
The Fall, New Order, Oasis and Doves versus Mick Hucknall - we should really leave it there - Terry Hall of The Specials and The Stone Roses on United's side (although you will notice the colour scheme in the iconic Pollockesque portraits of the Roses is sky blue and white, due to photographer Kevin Cummins being an absolute City nutter and singer Ian Brown not spotting his mischief).
Anyway, we seem to have digressed somewhat, but the point is this. Imbued in City's moment of glory was inescapable sadness, too: because this club is the last. For as long as UEFA remain in charge of the purse strings of English football, we will never tread this path again. The door is shut now.
This is the last group of fans who can be lifted from mediocrity by the fairytale: the one where a very rich man flies in bearing gifts and transports a club to the heavens. And surveying the sheer pleasure that it brought one half of Manchester on Monday, we have to ask: how did football allow this to happen?
How did the sport permit a single man's idea of what is right and preferable to erase one of the most potent forces for good in the game? Money from outside, coming in, to make dreams come true. What on earth was wrong with that?
Forget Portsmouth, forget Leeds United, forget the financial disaster stories that are trotted out to make fans think like accountants and turn their fun, their weekend release, into an extension of mundane, recession-blighted existence.
This is not about spending money a club does not have, or ruinous owner loans that are given and then just as unthinkingly recalled. The focus here, specifically, is on the Abu Dhabi project and others like it, when a very rich man gives - without expectation of return - money to a football club to have a right old go.
Take City away and what would this season have brought? A 13th Premier League title for Manchester United. Unlucky for some; mainly those who seek variety. Here comes another one, just like the other one.
There are competitions throughout Europe that will become wholly one-dimensional after this. It is why we need City to finish this job now, to win at Newcastle United on Sunday, then against Queens Park Rangers and form a powerful rivalry across town.
We cannot rely on the old ways, football's natural rhythms, the ebbs and flows caused by successful investment or unfortunate mismanagement.
UEFA will protect the worst from themselves and the best from the others, so City are the last of it. The era of austerity is upon us and there won't be too many singsongs from here.