Past Masters Volume 2
You know my name. Look up the number.
Hi Son,
I mentioned earlier that the beginning of my adolescence was spent listening to Hip Hop and R&B. It wasn’t until high school when I began laying the foundation for my appreciation of Rock. I had heard several Beatles songs prior to high school on mainstream radio. Many of them were pre-Rubber Soul songs like “Ticket to Ride,” “Help!” and “A Hard Days Night.” I hadn’t gotten my hands on any of their albums when I started listening to them. It was a couple of compilations that got me familiar with their discography. The first was “The Red Album” which contained several of their mainstream hits between 1962-1966. Some of those hits were post-Rubber Soul and included some tracks from Revolver.
I honestly can’t remember exactly how I inherited the Red Album, nor can I remember how I got a copy of their “Past Masters, Volume 2” on CD. It was one of the most random albums I ever received. You would think I had gotten a hold of Past Masters, Volume 1 and then somehow found Volume 2. I never found Volume 1 or even tried to obtain it. The tracks on both volumes of Past Masters were commercial releases, not included on their 12 originally released albums in the UK. There were a handful of tracks I had heard up to this point, but several of the others were very new to me. Here is a list of tracks that hit my ears for the first time putting this CD into my Discman.
Day Tripper
We Can Work It Out
Paperback Writer
Rain
Lady Madonna
The Inner Light
Hey Jude
Revolution
Don’t Let Me Down
The Ballad of John and Yoko
Old Brown Shoe
Across the Universe
You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)
The track that probably stands out, given the popularity of their catalog is “Hey Jude.” I had heard of Hey Jude several times, but had not listened to it until I was a Junior in high school. It instantly became one of my favorite Beatle-songs, to where I pretty much memorized Paul’s ad-libbing during the second half of the song where it’s a constant repeat of “Na. Na, na. Na, na, na, na. Na, na, na, na. Hey Jude.” Especially his emphatic “Hey Judy, Judy, Judy, Judy! Owww! Wowww!” It really is one of the several masterpieces composed by Paul and John.
“Day Tripper” has a fantastic riff throughout. “Rain” has an incredible bass line to start the track, which reverberates throughout the song. “Lady Madonna” features a violin that provides a perfect soundtrack to the lyrics of the song. “The Ballad of John and Yoko” has an infamous lyric, “The way things are going. They’re gonna crucify me.” Back in that time, you don’t use a term that is interpreted as comparing yourself to Jesus Christ. “Across the Universe” is a euphoric melody that started my understanding of their “psychedelic” era. The entire 15-track list is a phenomenal collection of songs that largely weren’t on the mainstream radio stations I listened to as a kid.
The closing track is probably the most eclectic song of Volume 2. It’s largely a track with the repeated lyric, “You know my name. Look up the number.” The music constantly changes throughout the song. It begins with a “standard” Rock and Roll background, but goes through a piano section, a bongo and maraca section, and other interesting sections. The first time I heard this song, I was listening to it with a friend. The last section is a character who just mumbles for about 1-2 minutes. It made me laugh out loud to the point of tears. All I could think of was a Frankenstein-type of character just pacing around a room making constant random mumbling. A vision of the monster popped into my imagination similar to the monster in the movie “Young Frankenstein.” That movie is truly a treasure that I hope I introduce to you sometime.
The movie is a spook off written and directed by Mel Brooks. I saw it a couple of years prior to hearing You Know My Name (Look Up the Number). The actor who plays the monster is Peter Boyle. Later in life Boyle would be known as Ray Barone’s father in the sitcom “Everybody Loves Raymond.” He was a mumbling, groaning character with a bald head and hair around the rim of its head. It really is a balding Frankenstein’s monster. I thought it was hilarious. So I imagined this character in the final section of You Know My Name (Look Up the Number). I still kind of have the same vision when I hear the song, but it’s nowhere near as funny now as it was 25 years ago for me.
Past Masters Volume 2 was a transformational album for me when it came to music. Soon after immersing myself in this CD, I began collecting the studio albums of the Beatles on CD. I was completely hooked to the Beatles my Junior and Senior years of high school. Rather than spend my time listening to Alternative Rock, which was an up-and-coming genre in the mid-to-late 90s, I was much more interested in the Fab Four. I had made the argument growing up that almost every rock band was significantly influenced by the Beatles after the 60s. Maybe they were(are), maybe not. I was pretty ignorant in thinking my musical opinion was better than everyone else. It was not, but that realization will be for another time and another album.