User talk:JG66

Hey kids. If you want to discuss a change I've made to an article, please use the article's talk page, not this one, so that other editors get a chance to weigh in.

If it's more big-picture stuff (rather than specific edits), or if you want to be funny, or rude, then come on in ... (Did you bring your guitar with you?)

For all previous messages, please see talk archives for 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021.

Welcome

Welcome! Hello, JG66, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{help me}} before the question. Again, welcome! Aboutmovies (talk) 07:47, 5 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! Other useful pages:

Seeking input

Hi! Would love your thoughts on a thread I've started over at WP:SONGS. Please chime in, if you can. Thanks! — The Keymaster (talk) 10:35, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The Keymaster, blimey, that's bizarre – I was literally just posting there when you posted here! JG66 (talk) 10:40, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@JG66 Ha, nice! Thanks for adding your two cents over there. I think we're pretty much on the same page with these issues. Although, given some of the responses there, I think I'm more confused about what to do than I was before! — The Keymaster (talk) 23:59, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The Beatles and the Historians

Beyond any of her individual conclusions, the book mostly works around the larger picture of how the literature has evolved over time. With that in mind, I think you should give it a read from front-to-back – it was actually pretty enjoyable too. Now is a great chance, since its price has come down to to CA$37.85 on Amazon, CA$17.99 for the Kindle version (unfortunately for me, I got it from my local bookstore when it was still CA$66.99 ...).

One point she makes is that Lewisohn's influence has pushed recent authors to include footnotes or endnotes to source their statements, whereas previous authors would include only a bibliography or nothing at all. The thing I'm hopeful for is that her book will prove influential on the Beatle books that haven't been written yet. She began it as a way to introduce her history students to historiography and historical method with a fresher topic than WWI or the French Revolution; I read both The Landscape of History by John Lewis Gaddis and What Is History? by E. H. Carr when I was studying some history, both of which Weber refers to, but I think her book serves as a much clearer introduction to the methods of source analysis. From the statements I've heard Robert Rodriguez make on his podcast, he seems to be fully onboard after reading it, but I have no idea if he has any plans to write any more books.

As for her not having read and discussed every possible book, I think that was inevitable given how many have been written about the band, which I know you've alluded to before. Instead, she focused on some of the most influential, comparing the differences between three editions of Shout!, three of Lennon: The Definitive Biography and four of The Beatles: The Authorised Biography. She's covered others on her blog and in her more recent podcast.

One point Weber makes about Doggett is that, through no fault of his own, he is the only one to have written such an in-depth look into the breakup period, which means he looms large in all discussions of it. I sent her a request that she review Ken McNabb's book, And in the End: The Last Days of the Beatles, and she told me she had it on request at her library, but it sounds like she's put things on hold for the moment because of her young kids. I know that she and Diana Erickson discussed Doggett in a yet unreleased podcast interview. The first part of their discussion, mostly covering the band's early years, was posted a year ago. I asked Diana in September when the second half would drop and she said in the next month, but it unfortunately still hasn't materialized. I'm excited for that one because, as you mentioned at the "Eleanor Rigby" talk page, Weber has mostly been positive in her mentions of Doggett, whereas Erickson, as one of Paul's biggest advocates (in case you aren't familiar, she loves Wild Life, something even I can't do), has regularly critiqued Doggett's conclusions. Anyway, before this post spirals too far, I'll end things here. Tkbrett (✉) 13:02, 15 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Tkbrett: Hey, I'd very much like to read ETW's The Beatles and the Historians in full. I'm lucky enough to have been given so many Beatles books for free over the last few years. I think the last Beatles book I actually bought was The Cambridge Companion to ..., late last year, having previously milked all I could from Amazon or Google previews. But if there's one more I'd get, it would be The Beatles and the Historians.

I hear you on ETW's historiographical approach and remember reading her references to those others books (mentions them both in the YouTube clip at "Eleanor Rigby", as I recall). I just also remember reading statements she makes in her book and thinking at the time, "Hang on, Erin, aren't you presenting that – that assumption as fact, saying what's 'correct' – in the very same way as those bad historians you've highlighted at the start [when she cites the models outlined by Gaddis and Carr, I believe]?"

It's not about whether she's read and discussed every possible book on the Beatles, not at all. More about the ones that don't seem to receive a mention, and particularly ones that, from what I see, are generally viewed as almost go-to texts on the area being discussed, or at least are far better known than some of the ones she selects. I can't give examples, I'm afraid – I'm just recalling the overall impression I had, years ago, from when I read (and screenshot [sorry, Erin]) a decent portion of the book. But like you, I do hope her work informs the approach other writers take in the future; in fact, I think it already has.

With Doggett's Money, have to say that reading it was akin to a eureka moment for me. So gratifying at the time to read a text that explores McCartney's psyche, and not idly (through, say, weighing up his various statements on one particular issue from many interviews, over decades), because of McCartney's continuing popularity and extremely high profile, and the resulting influence his version of events has on our understanding of the Beatles story, certainly in the 21st century. The epiphany I'm alluding to is after I'd read years and years of interviews with McCartney, in Mojo, Uncut, perhaps Rolling Stone, often tying in with Apple campaigns; and from that point of view, I think Doggett shows what is so often lacking in Beatles literature: respect for the reader's intelligence. At least: for anyone who read these interviews at the time and wondered why many music journalists, Beatles historians and biographers appeared to take a latter-day McCartney statement at face value, even if some of them do recognise a self-serving aspect in his general demeanour. This is what I meant by ETW taking what she wants from Doggett – holding him up as an authority (which he undoubtedly is), on one hand, yet then appearing to ignore things he writes that don't sit quite as snuggly with the narrative she presents. That's the way it felt to me, and there I was, looking for something eureka-ish from The Beatles and the Historians; I thought I'd be right on the same page as her.

I don't mean to zoom in on McCartney when discussing the Doggett book, btw, but he was always the PR Beatle, right? (Equally, I could be wrong about Doggett being in some way pioneering on this issue – influential, definitely. I hear Chris Salewicz wrote a very insightful biography on McCartney in 1986, so perhaps there's much of the same there.) Erin's comment about the legacy of Lennon Remembers really chimed with my reading of too many Beatles books – about how "fact" became determined by "which side spoke loudest and gave the most interviews". But does she then apply what you'd image would be due scrutiny to the influence of the ex-Beatle giving the most interviews through the 1990s and into the 21st century, and how his readiness to engage with a nostalgia-primed media might inform writers and shape the story? Obviously, I need to read the book in full. JG66 (talk) 13:24, 17 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Michelle (song)

Your action is wrong. If you want to complain about non-existent chart at that time, then the Kent Report didn't exist then, as were many if not most of the charts given there, and you could reasonably delete them, particularly if they are not sourced. You should take this up at the template talk page, and get it fixed. Why did you undo, for example, the Norwegian one if you want to keep the one in Beatles? Why don't you fix the Dutch one, which wasn't named such? So on and so on. Your action is just inconsistent and unreasonable. Hzh (talk) 07:49, 30 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Precious anniversary

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:44, 9 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Gerda. Thanks so much, and I hope you're well. Best, JG66 (talk) 01:14, 11 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Maxwell’s Silver Hammer

Geoff Emerick didn’t even work at the July 9-11 sessions for “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”, so he wouldn’t have known what went on that day. The balance engineer was Phil McDonald and the tape operator was John Kurlander, so Geoff didn’t work on those three days and that was why I deleted his recollections. 60.241.226.102 (talk) 14:02, 24 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]