Hitch a Ride is the best song on the “Boston” record.  One of the best guitar solos ever imo.

Hal Cohen

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Thanks for calling out Boston. One of the first two albums I ever bought with my own allowance money was their debut, along with Al Stewart’s ‘Year of the Cat’. Top to bottom that Boston album is a gem. “More Than a Feeling” was not my favorite, despite its undeniability. “Rock and Roll Band” was a young, music-loving daydreamer’s paradise. If you were in, and a fan, this was their creation story, the rock and roll dream painted in technicolor sound that you could sing right along to (or try to anyway) and feel like it could be your own story. Scholz is underrated as a pure musical master, and I would go to bat for Brad Delp as one of the best singers of that, or any era. Sad he’s no longer with us.

“Smokin” still passes the volume knob test and is a pure burner of a track. “Hitch a Ride” is just a gorgeous and moving melody. Still get chills when that guitar solo kicks in. And yes, “Foreplay/ Long Time” is a classic. When the snare hits twice to segue into the main song it sparks a kind of euphoria that only great music can bring.

Call it Classic, call it corporate, call it what you will, but mostly call it timeless. Just plain great music.

-Chris Horvath

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Bob-Wow. You brought back waves of feelings with this piece. When “More Than A Feeling” came out, we were amazed at the clean, new sound of it—like nothing we’d heard before. It was an anthem of our High school Senior year, and we played that first Boston eight track in our cars incessantly as we cruised our little Kansas town. Life was good!  Thanks for bringing back those memories.

Bruce Dyson

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Amen.  I was music director of BCN when the demo (the original) was brought into the station by Paul Ahern, their manager.  It was reel to reel and we put it on a cart which were used mostly for station I.Ds and spots.

There were a couple of us in the studio and it took maybe 30 seconds to say ‘holy s..t’.  We played that song every hour the first few days, which we never ever did.  The rule was no song could be played more than once every other shift.

It is one of the best rock songs ever, if we are being honest.

John Brodey

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Trivia:

When I was a teenage recording artist signed to Epic Records, my Jimmy Ienner production company produced single “Rock & Roll President” was released on the same day in 1976 as 2 other singles by new, unknown Epic artists: “More Than a Feeling” (Boston) and “Play That Funky Music White Boy” (Wild Cherry”) – so I was in good company!

🙂

Wallace Collins

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I loved reading this about Boston. It was definitely a “guilty” pleasure back then. My favorite story was while living in LA (for the third time), I remember listening to Jones’ Jukebox one afternoon in the mid-2000’s and hearing mention how much he loved Boston when they came out but couldn’t tell anyone because he was “punk” rock and anti-corporate! But he was jealous of those guitar tones that he knew he could never get!

Weirdly my two favorite Boston tunes were/are “Hitch A Ride” and “Let Me Take You Home Tonight!”

Cheers

David George

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I still shamefacedly have that Boston album, it belonged to Steve Jones, Sex Pistols guitarist and Jonesys Jukebox host;  he absolutely loved it.   Like you said Boston were uncool so Steve’s adoration seemed strange.    But, his post Pistols group, The Professionals, with drummer Paul Cook, put out some great tracks with his power guitar chords overdubbed maybe 10 times, paying symphonic homage to Boston and, probably, Phil Spector.   The vocals were, sadly, not on a par but the sound…..wow!    Just Another Dream and 1-2-3 are on YouTube – the proof is in the pudding.

Its almost the end of October and its sunny and 14 degrees on this side of the ocean;  something’s definitely not right.

Muchos

Fachtna O Ceallaigh.

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Everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY in my high school had this on 8-track in their Chevelle, their GTO, their Olds Cutlass 442. EVERYBODY. Many, many joints smoked on lunch hour in those cars (nearly every day) to Boston’s first album. To call it ubiquitous, doesn’t come close to describing the unbelievable impact it had on anybody who was alive then. I’d bet the farm that every single one of my classmates can sing every f…ing word of every song on that record. Me too. And THAT, my friend, will never happen again. Ever.

Sad. We were lucky, Bob.
Really, really lucky.
Counting my blessings.

Pete Kehoe
Journeyman musician (still)
Northern Michigan
(Currently in Amsterdam)

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Didn’t know about Scholz’s affinity for the James Gang.

Now that you mention it…

The endings of “More Than A Feeling” and “Tend My Garden” do kinda take similar musical paths.

Marty Bender

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“More Than A Feeling” is pure genius.  I owned it within 12 hours of first hearing it on the radio in September of ’76.  Skipped school to buy it.

Chris Herrmann

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The Boston debut was my first album I purchased, at the ripe age of 15.  I split the purchase with my younger brother, it still has the $2.98 price sticker from our local Kresge’s (Five & Dime store).

I retained possession and it hangs above our pool table, along with several other landmark albums shared by my wife and I.

I was never a huge Boston fan after that first, but the debut holds up quite well.  There’s no shame in that!

Al Jones

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I was 14, going on 15 and getting serious about practicing guitar when this came out and it nearly wiped out everything that I had been listening to up to then. It’s hard to overstate just how electrifying and inspiring this was at a time when most mainstream rock wasn’t anywhere near as well-crafted. Make no mistake: this song, and in fact the entire album are perfect.

And when Brad Delp sang “I dream of girl I used to know”, at 15 I had yet to have that as a personal experience. But now, of course, that line has me choked up pretty much every time.

Philbillie

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More Than A Feeling was the song that captured what my girlfriend at the time and I had when we first started out.  That Boston is  not in the Hall Of Fame when a whack of less significant acts are – I won’t name them – is criminal.  That Boston pretty much invented the ‘Power Hits’ radio format has never been chronicled.  That Boston was the hinge that opened the door to Van Halen etc has never been credited.  I was very fortunate to be assigned as the photographer at the Toronto daily I was working at – a year before I became ‘the critic with a camera’ – to capture the band at Maple Leaf Gardens.  Got some great shots of Delp and even went to the after party and hung with Tom and the opening act, one Rick Derringer.

Bottom line, we were young and about as carefree a demographic that ever existed.  And “those old songs” were no more than five or ten years old.  The “sound of infinite space” as I used to describe Boston’s production was the perfect match for an America that was moving forward from Vietnam with unlimited potential.  Like Boston, it wouldn’t last long.  But if you were there…wow.

Personally I think rock died with The Sex Pistols.  Shot the whole spectacle full of holes so to speak.

But, geez, Boston.   Sounded great in the car with my arm around my girl.

Thanks Bob

Jonathan Gross

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“Foreplay/Long Time” is the deathless Boston track. It’s that hint of prog that draws you in and Delp’s vocal on the final verse after that organ break is pure FM joy. Too bad about him, by the way.

I was thinking about this topic the other day while looking at the streaming numbers for “Midnights.” Will anyone be talking about or listening to that record 46 years from now? It’s so boring! Even my 18-year-old daughter who professes to love Taylor says, and I quote: “she just makes so much…and now it’s all the same.” Maybe I am just too old to get it and it is the “Satisfaction” of its day. But I don’t think so.

Best

David Vawter

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This was great and as always you are spot on.

 

I remember when the album was released in September of 1976. Our local rock station in my  hometown Columbus OH played just about every song on the record which is unheard of. I was starting college and yet I still love this album to this day.

 

That said, how many freshmen in college today will still listen and enjoy their present day music in 46 years….my answer is none!

Steve Gerardi

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I turned 17  August 29, 1976. Like every year, Mom took me to the “record store” – usually Wallich’s or Licorice Pizza – to pick out my birthday gifts.

Of course, the debut from Boston was on my list… along with the latest from Grand Funk, Al Stewart, REO Speedwagon, and Hall & Oates.

 

1976 was a transitional and/or landmark year for many established Rock icons. Many released one of their best (Aerosmith, Thin Lizzy, Steve Miller)… many not one of their best (Led Zeppelin, Alice Cooper, Eric Clapton).

 

“Boston” is as important as “RAMONES”.

 

I’ve played (blasted) the song at least a few times in each of the last 46 years…

 

Thanks for a great read, Bob.

Bruce R. Kilgour

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Boston was a gateway into hard rock for me.  The guitar sounds are heavy yet smooth and melodic.  What many took for corporate,  I took for a style.  It was the soundtrack of my childhood.

I remember riding with my dads 4H group on a rented coach bus in 76 from cedar rapids Iowa to Washington DC.

We had two 8 track tapes for the whole ride, John Denver back home again and the 1st Boston album. The Boston tape got played until the bus could sing along. It ended up getting stretched and unplayable from the use during the return trip.

I’m fine with John Denver but I still adore that 1st album.  Peace of Mind was the song that got me.

David Fink

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Ah Bob , what a spot-on analysis! Here I am driving in urban Johannesburg blasting ” All Right Now” and I’m sixteen again. Music is more than a feeling, it`s life.

Benjy Mudie
South Africa

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Hey man, great piece of writing. 14 year old me bought this album when it came out and wore it out, probably the second or third LP I’d bought with dough from my paper route and mowing. Today, my 16 year old is a big fan of “Peace of Mind” along with a pile of old and new tracks from all over.

Tom Grueskin

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Prompted by your email, I listened to Boston this morning driving down the Autobahn to work today.  A few thoughts crossed my mind:

1) Memories very similar to yours from 1976 came rushing back.  The feeling of community that came from knowing that there were millions of kids in high schools across the country simultaneously discovering and enjoying the same soundtrack was, well, more than a feeling.

2) Years ago in New York, I noticed there were hipster parents who’d dress their kids up in little Ramones t-shirts.  Can you imagine our parents dressing us up in Benny Goodman or Percy Faith t-shirts?  The music on the radio in 1976 was *ours* … with no meddlesome parental involvement.  That was nice.

3) Can you imagine a hit song (or whatever passes for one these days) with an organ as a lead instrument?  An *organ*!

Sincerely,
Gunnar Miller
Frankfurt Germany

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Wow!  Keen insights on the Fall of ‘76, Bob. En point, as usual.

I was a wanna-be teenager, 12 years old, living in the west San Fernando Valley, Canoga Park. I lived and breathed rock ‘n roll, particularly what was coming across the airwaves from KLOS and KMET (“The Mighty Met!”).  I thought it was great that Paul Thomas Anderson put those billboards of KMET into “Licorice Pizza”, his retro movie from last year. Those billboards were everywhere in LA at that time and rock ‘n roll radio was the king of the airwaves.  KMET had that clever gimmick of the call letters being upside down on the billboard ads and on their T-shirts…who’d ever done that before??

And speaking of Licorice Pizza, that was the closest record store for me, in Canoga Park, on Topanga Canyon Blvd.  It was like Mecca for me and my friends.
It’s funny to remember, because now they’re synonymous with “hopelessly obsolete”, but 8 track tapes at that time were as prestigious as LPs and were actually more expensive than LPs.  For those of us who didn’t have quality home stereo systems, 8 track tapes were the logical choice because you could do what my brother did which was to rig up a used car stereo 8 track player in our bedrooms and of course they were, in our part of the world, what we were playing as we sped around the Valley in his car.

There was no way in hell our parents were going to buy us an actual quality stereo system like you describe, but nonetheless, my friends and I could all mimic the rapid-fire descriptions of Pioneer, Kenwood and Marantz systems from the ubiquitous radio ads for Cal Stereo…a boy could dream.

The discussions on the playground would be about what songs we heard on the radio the night before and the concerts that had been announced that were coming to LA that we had zero chance of going to (triple bill of Aerosmith, Lynyrd Skynard and Rick Derringer at Angels Stadium!!)

You’re right:  terrestrial radio is a mere shadow of it’s gloried past:  another jock in the same caliber as Mary Turner was Jim Ladd, on KMET.

Other albums that were getting heavy play in my brother’s ‘69 Plymouth Fury’s 8 track tape player that Summer and Fall along with Boston’s first album were Blue Oyster Cult’s Agents of Fortune, Led Zeppelin’s The Song Remains The Same, Wings At The Speed Of Sound and…um…Kiss Destroyer 🙂
Thanks again, Bob!

Darriel Arnott

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From: Mike McLeish and many more

Greetings from down under.

I loved your piece on More Than A Feeling. The timing was personally fortuitous because I’d just the other day watched Rick Beato deconstruct the song in one of his ‘What Makes This Song Great?’ episodes.

You may well have seen it. Hell, you may well know Rick.

But just in case…

https://bit.ly/3ziTTOR

Mike

Melbourne, Australia

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Boston?  Unique solitary game-changer.  Gathered up everything every other hard rock pop band had done in a studio up to that point, and took it a step farther.  Moved the goal posts.  One and done.   Paul Lanning

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Thank you for the reminder.

Graduating class of ‘76, Queens, NY.

So, as you can see, we need all the help we can get.

I think Scholz must have also liked Tommy James and the Shondells.

And in return, Tommy liked Tom.

And everyone envied The Who.

Who wouldn’t?

Brad Delp *sigh*, if ever there was a voice so alive, it was his.

In closing, I bought an Electro Harmonix Rock Man from the source the first year it came out.

I’m sure you’re not surprised to learn that  I lost it years ago.

Jon Weiss

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Nice article on Boston.  I still remember, when I was a music dealer in the ’70s, cracking the shrink-wrap on that first album and playing it in the store.  People would walk in and immediately be going, “Who is THIS?!”  That was all it took, that thing sold like hotcakes.  We sold the album for $4.79 back in those days. $6.99 for the 8-track, but by this time, LPs were the thing — if you were serious about the music, you had a turntable.  If you were REALLY serious you had a Technics turntable.

I saw Boston in concert twice.  The first time I went with friends, and the driver of the car was one of those guys who only went to concerts to chase girls, he wasn’t really into the music, so we wound up being late and having to sit far back from the stage.  I vowed then and there that I wouldn’t go to a concert again unless I was in control of the transportation, so I could make sure to be there on time, and I’ve stuck to that to this day.

The second time was at Red Rocks in Colorado, which is the best concert venue in the western US, this was the tour in which they brought in a ringer to hit the high notes that Brad Delp could no longer reach.  Hearing “More than a Feeling” in that place was pretty magical, let me tell you.

After that stellar debut album, the second album did almost as well but wasn’t quite as good, and from then on they went slowly into the toilet, with mostly dreck-filled albums dribbling out every eight years or so.  I never saw a group hit such heights so fast, only to keep releasing albums that took years and years to make but weren’t very good.

Mike Blakesley

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Hi Bob — that Boston album was a wild ride for everyone involved.

Tom Scholz was an engineer working at Polaroid up in Boston area when he recorded his demos.  Lennie Petze, I recall, played a big part in signing the band.  John Boylan, at the time an Epic staff producer, served as producer, but has written that he did not do much as Scholz turned his demos into the first Boston album.

The wonderful Paula Scher wrote about the process of design of that starship guitar album cover in her book, “Make It Bigger.”  I was in those meetings as the band’s product manager at Epic in New York.

Boston was adamant about having a guitar on their cover.  They even brought in their own sketch, which Paula and I both determined, pretty immediately, would have been completely inappropriate.  That put us on the spot, we had to come up with an alternative fast.  Paula bought some time with her wicked sense of humor suggesting a pot of beans or Boston Creme Pie on the cover.  The idea that won the day — addressed the band’s desire for a guitar (and came from a combination of inspiration and desperation) — was the huge spaceship which is really a Les Paul guitar but because of the elongated perspective, is not obvious.  Roger Huyssen brilliantly painted that cover.

The record took off like a rocket at radio, thanks to the strength of the music and the dedication of the Epic promotion staff.  Boston needed a lot of help to get them ready for live performances.  Al DeMarino of Epic artist development played a large role there.  All the guys were willing, but not experienced beyond the bar band scene.  In the end, they were good students, Brad Delp had a great voice to compliment Scholz’s vision, and the record was on its way.

All-in-all, it was a great example of a label getting behind a great piece of music, each department doing its job.  We had great leadership at Epic under Ron Alexenburg.  At least up to then, Boston was the fastest selling first release by a new band in the history of the industry.

It is an achievement of which we are all proud.

Jim Charne

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I was never a Boston fan… but I can’t help thinking that they altered the course of my life.

I’m from NH. I was born in 1972. I was a kid in the 80’s when I truly was turned on to music. My town was small, about 19,000 people, and we had a s..tty local top 40 radio station.

My beacon for music was WBCN out of Boston.  We could get the signal in my town. It wasn’t always strong, but by dial was always pegged to 104.1. We got a lot of “local” music on ‘BCN, including Boston.

In 1986 I was a freshman in high school. There was a girl I was crazy over. She was a freshman too.  She went to a junior high in a nearby (smaller) town and I had never seen her before. I can still recall the day I first laid eyes on her. That was it. I was long gone.

Throughout the entire school year, I tried to get to know her. I finally started to make headway and knew I had a chance. Then one weekend, I went to a party at “the cliffs,” a teenage hangout spot in the woods that overlooked the town.

I met a girl, a junior, that was interested in me. When we met, Boston was playing on the boom box. She was a Boston freak. She wouldn’t stop talking about them, let alone singing every word.

Long story short, we connected and then started dating.

I was completely caught up in the fact that I was a freshman, she was a junior, and she chose me. Like a fool, I abandoned the pursuit of the freshman girl I was nuts for.  I blew it!

F..king Boston. Every time I got in her car Boston was playing. I tried to change the cassette, she’d pop it back in. Boston all the damn time!

I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to dump her.

All the while the freshman I was interested in started dating a senior and did for the next three years. Destiny was put on hold for me.

To this day I can’t listen to Boston without thinking of the one I let get away.

I threw it all away… for Boston!

Judd Maracello

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Warner Brothers passed on Boston. My late friend and WB promo guy Charlie McKenzie heard the cassette playing in an A&R man’s cubicle and when he found out the label had passed on it, took the cassette to friends at Epic …. Or so the story goes I was told back then……..

Michael Fremer

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Rolling Stones, led zeppelin, CSNY, Neil Young, the Pretenders, Rockpile, Clash, the Doors, Foghat, The Grateful Dead, George Harrison, Steely Dan, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Television, Kraftwork, Elvis Costello, Sex Pistols, Ramones, Iggy Pop, Jackson Brown, Kiss, Talking Heads, Jethro Tull, Isley Brothers , Supertramp, Ted Nugent,

The 70’s Baby, they call it Rock for a reason

Alan Fenton

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I was in college in the early 90’s when my roommate got a CD player in his car. First CD player either of us owned so we had to go to the local Walmart to get a CD to play while we drove around. It had to be something where we wouldn’t get annoyed with a bunch of filler, so we went with Boston. Such a great soundtrack for driving around, looking for trouble.

Jeff Neely

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After reading that I made it 602,878,three hundred and 28.  Thanks for the warm and fuzzy email on a dark and rainy Vancouver day

Rob Severyn

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Brilliant post and good to know I’m not the only one looking in the rear-view mirror wondering about people I know I’ll most likely never see again but their faces, their unique voices and their laughter still resonates in my head, often as it hits the pillow some memory will whoosh into my thoughts and I’ll think, yes I’ll revisit them again tonight in my dreams. It’s a miracle we are on this planet, it’s a miracle ‘our’ sperm hit our Mother’s egg and it’s a miracle that we lived these last bunch of incredible decades with it’s collective artistry in songs, acts and even movies. The golden years, in that LA sun too.   Bless you for your words Bob.

Eddie Gordon

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Funny enough I was driving in Boston today and on came “More than a Feeling” from Boston and I had many of the same feelings you express here.

Ronald C. Pruett, Jr.

David Paich is the primary songwriter, keyboardist and a vocalist in Toto. He also co-wrote Boz Scaggs’s “Lowdown” and “Lido Shuffle,” and worked on Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” and too many other records to count. David talks about what it was like growing up the son of legendary Hollywood arranger Marty Paich, what it’s like working your way up in the business, on the road with Sonny & Cher and in the studio, and the success of Toto. Paich has just released his first solo album, “Forgotten Toys,” we talk about the record and so much more!

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/david-paich/id1316200737?i=1000584057882

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/e1624485-51e7-4f13-ad83-7e42fbf61f04/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-david-paich

https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast/episode/david-paich-207979571

This is a cash grab. Just in time for Christmas…

Let’s start with the new stereo version. For the first time in his history of remixing the Beatles, Giles Martin has come up with a final version very similar to the original product. I was stunned, because I find every other remix in this series sacrilegious, execrable, I believe they should all be destroyed, for fear they will become the standard in the future. Alas, this is not a problem with “Revolver.”

And the mono CD doesn’t sound as big as Giles’s remix, but it’s totally faithful. What I mean is certain instruments are emphasized beyond the original in the stereo remix. Like the cowbell in “Taxman” I heard just now. Then again, how are people listening to these records, if you’re using earbuds, does it make a difference?

And I fired up the big rig solely because it has the only CD player I possess. And I must say, the sound was impressive. But how many people have the equipment to reproduce this sound? And let’s be clear, it’s something you feel as well as hear, you’re in the sound, and that’s an experience that’s familiar to us from the seventies that today’s generations may be completely unaware of. With the bass pumping and the highs clear… Now that we have hi-res streaming, does that mean people will be incentivized to purchase better playback systems? No, unless listening becomes fetishized, like vinyl. You know, where you listen and that’s the only thing you do. Music has been relegated to the background, but when “Revolver” was released it was positively foreground.

And I was stunned there wasn’t a vinyl disc included in the package, with the aforementioned fetishization. And one thing we know is vinyl sounds different, even if it’s inherently not as pristine as the original digital production. But “Revolver” was cut analog, and listened to via vinyl, tape wasn’t even a thing, so maybe that would be the definitive product.

Wait a second, there is a vinyl version, but they didn’t send that to me, because vinyl production is backed-up and the costs are higher and the $199.98 package is sold out. Once upon a time, the music was for everyone, now it’s for a chosen few who probably won’t even listen to it more than once, if that. Whereas “Revolver” was cheap upon original release, and we played it ad infinitum, the records showed the wear, the scratches, the fingerprints, the dust. The music remains the same, but the world has completely changed.

But, once again, the remix is a change.

And if you want the original experience, check out the mono. It’s a bit flat, but it’ll remind you of what you were hooked on to begin with. And the weird thing that probably nobody involved in this production realizes is by time “Revolver” was released mono was history in America, we all bought stereo albums. After being told our heavy tonearms would kill stereo records mono records were made the same price, not a dollar less, and the industry reneged on this wear and tear problem and soon mono albums disappeared…why can’t we get the original stereo mix?

Even if in many cases we listened to our original albums on mono systems.

As for the extras in this package… That’s no longer a big thing, especially after the documentary and those multiple CD album packages of thirty years ago. Curios.

So the redo of “Revolver” is not really news, EXCEPT…

EXCEPT WHAT?

The CD is no longer the standard. You remember when the original “Revolver” CD came out in the late eighties? Well, maybe you don’t remember that either, but they put out the Beatles CDs in batches of four, the initial albums were in mono, the ones after that were in stereo, and we were all stunned how good they sounded, when nothing from that era sounded as good. Was it George Martin? The studio? The engineers? All of that. But was there more sound to be extracted?

That’s all I was interested in, a hi-res version, which I saw no hype about, all I’ve been reading is hosannas about the remix from people who weren’t even alive when the album was originally released.

But I decided to do research online and it turned out on the package’s site there was a link to a few tracks on all the streaming services, including Qobuz, the hi-res standard. And I clicked through and listened.

Now that’s a revelation. I can’t say enough about hi-res music, BECAUSE YOU CAN HEAR THE DIFFERENCE! Of course you need an external DAC to even reproduce this sound, ergo the Dragonfly Cobalt, but the final “Revolver” product is 24-Bit 96kHz as opposed to CD quality, 16-Bit 44.1 kHz.

I’m listening to the CD quality version on Qobuz right now. Sounds good. But when I put on the hi-res take…

It’s an entirely different record.

Then again, it’s the remix of “Taxman” I’m listening to, so it’s not exactly apples to apples.

But let me be definitive, the hi-res streaming version of “Taxman” is superior to the CD, both CDs, the remix and the mono.

But you can’t stream the mono yet. That’ll happen Friday.

So my recommendation to you is to skip this package and just buy an external DAC and subscribe to Qobuz, for at least the free term.

Of course you can hear hi-res on Apple and Amazon too. And they’re both very good, a definite improvement over CD quality, but, going back and forth…the Qobuz version is still a bit better, there’s more bottom, there’s…

And the Apple version is in Atmos. But unlike almost all the other Atmos remixes, it sounds akin to the stereo version, it’s not an issue of the vocals being lower or…

So do you really care?

The 50th anniversary of “Revolver” already came and went. There’s no exact hook.

But, even though people argued that “Rubber Soul” was the best album during the era, and some eventually cottoned to the “White Album,” and for some reason everybody is down on “Sgt. Pepper,” unnecessarily so in my book, the status, the reputation, the evaluation of “Revolver” has only risen. Even though the original American version lacked three tracks of the English one.

And I’d like to impart to you how big “Yellow Submarine” and “Eleanor Rigby” were during the summer of ’66, but unless you were alive at the time I can’t, you’ve got no frame of reference. We read all these chart statistics, about some act having x number of number ones, besting the Beatles. NO ONE BESTED THE BEATLES! Everybody knew the above two songs, YOU COULDN’T ESCAPE THEM!

As for the rest of the album…

“To lead a better life

I need my love to be here”

“Here, There and Everywhere” was the new “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away,” a mellow non-single standard. And both were played on our guitars, we’d sing them together, regularly.

As for “Got to Get You Into My Life,”… It wasn’t released as a single until 1976, long after the band broke up, it was just another album track.

But that was the magic of “Revolver,” unlike “Rubber Soul,” it had both hit singles and album tracks.

It opened with “Taxman” which we only understood on the surface, because many of us weren’t even paying taxes, and none of us was that rich living in England.

And no one ever talks about “I Want to Tell You,” with its indelible riff, a progenitor of what became standard on FM radio the year later, with Cream and other bands, but the key track…

“Turn off your mind

Relax and float down stream”

1966. Most people hadn’t yet smoked marijuana. Most people weren’t that hip. We listened to “Tomorrow Never Knows,” but it took us years to fully understand it. And it’s tracks like this that built John Lennon’s reputation. He might not have written as many hit singles as Paul McCartney, but McCartney couldn’t come up with stuff like “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Tomorrow Never Knows.”

Listening to “Tomorrow Never Knows,” John Lennon is still alive, right there in the speakers, revealing truth like a pied piper, it’s all there for you to understand and digest.

So, “Revolver” was a monumental album. Giles Martin has not tarnished its reputation. But this project is a lot about nothing…

Except for the hi-res release.

https://www.thebeatles.com/announcing-revolver-special-editions-0

Stream today: https://thebeatles.lnk.to/Taxman2022Mix

“The doctor says he’s comin’, but you gotta pay in cash”

“Life in the Fast Lane

Eagles

None of my doctors take insurance.

Oh, if I’ve got to go into the hospital, if I need a major procedure, I’m covered, shy of that…

You don’t want to save money on your health care, no way. A friend in England was delineating a health problem, and he said he learned from living in the U.S. that you’ve got to have a physical every year. They don’t do this in the U.K. And he went and they found a progressive disease and if you’re waiting for symptoms to arrive, it’s oftentimes too late.

You’ve got to go to the doctor, just ask Warren Zevon.

And you’ve got to have insurance.

I was stopped at a light yesterday and I saw a mom with a sign asking for cash for her son with leukemia. I wondered what went on there, because this is something insurance covers, I know, I’ve got it. But maybe they had no insurance, maybe they’re here illegally. I mean can’t the system help this kid?

No, the system is…

Well, this is interesting. The self-reliant want to drown the government in the bathtub, leaving us all to buy private insurance, but if you can find someone who loves, even likes their insurance company…well, I’ve never found one. And the old days of lifetime employment are gone. So many are independent contractors, with no benefits, they need to buy their own health insurance. And those under 35 feel invulnerable, it can’t happen to them. And they’re right, odds are with them, but in truth they are susceptible to health crises, never mind an accident where they break a bone.

And, in truth, if you have an accident that requires immediate attention you can be seen at the emergency room at no cost. That’s the law. So if you’re dead broke, you’re covered, for the big things anyway, other than the emergency, you’re screwed.

So I believe in the big doctor. In every facet of medicine there’s an expert. In your town, in the United States and in the world. Chances are you don’t need to see that expert, but I have had to, more than once. You see everything can’t be easily diagnosed, everything can’t be easily treated, which is why you don’t want to see the generalist, but you want to see the expert who sees the condition all the time.

That’s another reason I won’t live in the hinterlands, why I’m never leaving Los Angeles…THE HEALTH CARE! I can recount the lousy health care I’ve gotten in the country, but instead of pointing at the pitfalls, let me focus on the opposite end, the zeitgeist, the best.

In truth practicing medicine is not the road to wealth it once was. Remember when the doctor was the richest person in your town? Those days are long gone. Back in the eighties we had a doctor friend making $225,000 a year. You know how much he makes today? $225,000 a year. No one works independently, they all work for the system, and the system has requirements. And usually that has to do with the number of patients you must see a day. It’s staggering. Fifty. The pressures are astounding. And the documentation! You have to satiate both the medical group and the insurance companies. You’ve got to hire people just to fill out the forms.

And if you’re a patient… You’d better front-load your questions, because unless you’re in an obvious crisis, you’re going to get a very short period of time. It’s positively hit and run.

For everybody other than those willing to pay.

My internist left the medical group, he wanted to practice medicine his way. He charges whatever he wants, and he’ll file the insurance forms, you might get a few cents on the dollar, but that’s your issue, not his. So the annual physical now costs around $2000. But this is the guy who diagnosed my aforementioned cancer. And the service? I usually don’t bother calling a doctor, what for? I’ve found oftentimes they don’t even get back to you at all. And if they do…it’s hours or days later and oftentimes you’re unavailable yourself. But my guy, you’re not only gonna hear from him the same day, but within hours, assuming it’s not an emergency…an emergency will get him to the phone right away. He answers his e-mail promptly and I want to reinforce, I’M PAYING FOR THIS SERVICE!

And he won’t take Medicare. Too many hoops to jump through, too much paperwork.

Nor will my heart doctor. I pay this heart doctor nearly two grand a year. And I’m not in crisis. And I’d rather not pay the money, but my friend Judd, who I grew up with, he keeled over from a heart attack two falls ago. He was 67. As was his father, who died of a heart attack at the same age. Do I think he saw a doctor? Sure. Did he see someone like my heart specialist? No way. Even my internist, he says if you come regularly and do what he says, you won’t die of a heart attack. But you’ve got to pay for that service.

And I went to this heart doctor and she said I was near heart attack. I didn’t believe it, but she did these special tests and created a medication program tailored to me. All that stuff you read in the newspaper? That’s general information, not specific to you. The people saying to forget an annual physical, that you don’t need a colonoscopy every five years? IGNORE THEM! And yes, after seeing this heart doctor my numbers aligned, they’re where they should be.

As for mental health… If your therapist takes insurance, fire them and get someone new. None of the psychiatrists in Los Angeles takes insurance. They’ll give you a form, that you can file, but you’re on your own.

And squeezing money from insurance companies is a game unto itself. They’re always denying claims based on codes. And then they deny stuff that is exorbitant relative to most people, but if you’re sick, you need it. And you can’t tweet or even e-mail them, to get the process going you really have to talk to someone, who has no ability to make a decision, it’s an endless ordeal, an endless time suck. The goal is to make you give up and pay for it yourself.

And then for the vaunted Medicare…

First and foremost, you should see what I pay. By time I pay for the government part, the supplemental plan and the drug plan, I’m at two-thirds of what I was paying in the old, pre-65 days, which was over four figures a year.

However, it’s not only my internist who doesn’t take Medicare, my dermatologist doesn’t either. Dermatologists have the quickest appointments extant. Five minutes frequently. Fifteen minutes is a rarity. Today I got an hour. But it cost me $490. No billing, I had to whip out my card before I left, and if I wanted to use credit, I’d pay another 3.5%, so I used my debit card. That’s the equivalent of cash these days. Nobody other than the super-rich carries a wad of cash today. You need at least a grand, a couple of thou in your wallet to cover expenses. And the people you do see with this amount of cash? Usually it’s undeclared. They got paid in cash, they’re paying in cash, the IRS is clueless. Another way the wealthy profit in our tax system. But the IRS, which has already been cut off at the knees, must continue to be held back, because… The rich should get away with it? You’re not even itemizing deductions, for the rich, tax forms are…LET THE GAMES BEGIN! Look at Trump, on trial right now!

As for my money…

I took a 30% haircut on my investments. On my cash I’m losing 10% a year. And I don’t see any low-hanging fruit to make more. I’m o.k., don’t worry about me. But what if someone has a family? How do they make it? MANY DON’T!

And the aged. You can’t live on Social Security. It’s going to get really ugly folks, many of those boomers who took Social Security early…they’re gonna outlive their money. You can’t get a job when you’re ninety, not even as a greeter at Walmart.

But no one likes to plan for the future, which inevitably comes, unless you off yourself. And people have been doing that on a regular basis recently, especially men, they call them “deaths of despair.”

And the men who refuse to see the doctor, believing they’re immune. Warren Zevon is the poster boy for this. Didn’t go to a doctor until too late, and then he died of cancer.

So you’re not going to live forever, that we know for sure, how are you going to navigate your health care?

BUY INSURANCE! For all the negative I’ve outlined above, you don’t want to go bare. It’s not only the aged who get cancer. Most people who go bankrupt do so as a result of health care debts. And many of them DO have insurance. Never cancel your car insurance, your health insurance… Don’t go out to eat, drive an old car. Believe me, when your number comes up, no one is going to jump out of the woods and make you whole. Odds are low that you lose the health care lottery, but it happens.

AND GO TO THE DOCTOR, EACH AND EVERY YEAR!

I’ve never ever had a precancerous cell. It seemed I was immune.

Until today.

My PSA, my prostate stuff is pretty good, I’m one of the rare men who can say this. But I’ve got a lot of other stuff wrong with me that almost no one else has, like my pemphigus foliaceus.

Which it took four doctors to diagnose. Most patients see five in a year, it took me eighteen months to be diagnosed. No one could get it right. And by time they did, I had to go into the hospital. But I live in Los Angeles, where I was referred to someone had studied at Johns Hopkins, the epicenter of pemphigus treatment. What are the odds I’m going to find this even in other cities?

So if you’ve got undiagnosable symptoms, keep seeing new people. Research. Go to see the big expert, even if you have to journey to another city. Money means nothing if you’re dead.

Sure, there are hypochondriacs, but for all the ink they get, proportionately they’re very few in number. The issue isn’t them clogging up the arteries of the health care system, but the people not utilizing it, or underutilizing it.

And the longer you live… You’re gonna get ill. You may not take any pills now, but you will, believe me. And if you don’t, you’ll pay the price. Like the woman I know who refused to take blood pressure medicine, who turned to alternatives, and then had a stroke.

That’s another thing. If you’re truly sick… GO TO SEE A WESTERN DOCTOR! Oh, I believe in acupuncture, but in truth I’ve had better success with physical therapy. But the distrusting elite hear you’re ill and tell you about all these cockamamie remedies. Like CBD. Every study shows no effect. I’ve tried it…nothing. But the dopers love it, it’s part of their religion, DON’T LISTEN TO THEM!

But CBD is painless. And muscle aches are usually a minor issue.

Oh, another thing, your body will tell you if you’ve got a problem. LISTEN TO IT!

Better to be ahead of the game, and capture it at the physical, like the rogue superbug in my urine.

But you don’t want to think about it, you’re squeamish, you’re healthy, it’ll never happen to you.

But it will.