“Mother's Little Helper”, front cover of EP
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MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVES/WEEKLY ROCK POLL POST
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Name: Keno
E-Mail: keno@fairpoint.net
Subject: Poll Post for the week starting Monday, February 6
Date: Monday, February 6, 2023
Time: 2:31:32 AM
Remote Address: 216.245.78.27
Message ID: 321397
Parent ID: 0
Thread ID: 321397
The new week is here, and that means it’s time to talk about our 3 new weekly polls in this Poll Post! I’m sorry about the polls starting up almost 3 hours late, and with this Poll Post posting even later, but so goes life, and this crap seems to be happening to me regularly these days.
We of course start off talking about the Stones Poll, where we enter week 1,226 of voting and week 117 of rating all of their songs. This week's new question is asking this: Rate the Stones song “Mother's Little Helper”, from zero (lowest) to 10 (highest).
“Mother's Little Helper”, front cover of EP
Recorded between December 3 and 8, 1965, then released in the UK on the album Aftermath, in April, 1966, and finally released in the U.S. as a single on July 2, 1966, which made it into the U.S. Top 5, at number 4. It was later also included on the U.S. LP release Flowers , in 1967, and also on many of the band's greatest hits LPs. The lyrics to this one was written by Mick Jagger, while the music came about from Keith Richards, Brian Jones, and Bill Wyman while they were working in the studio, but as was usual for the Stones, only Jagger and Richards were credited for the work.
"Mother's Little Helper" was one of the early Stones drug songs, about pill popping (aka: abusing prescription pharmaceutical drugs), in this case, a little yellow pill, the downer called Valium. Valium was a brand-new drug at the time, and in a very short time, it became the Western world's most widely prescribed drug. A 5 milligram (mg) dose of valium came in the color yellow, with a blue valium pill being a 10mg dose (and always harder to get). In the song, the housewife/mother sung about, is said at first to take 2 yellow pills at a time, but then, just a short time later, it's noted that she needed to take 4 more pills at nite, and then finally, 4 pills at one time with each new dose/usage. She gets so addicted to them, that she finds herself taking them as soon as she leaves the doctor's office - "outside the door, she took 4 more", as she was now totally dependent on the drug and heading for an overdose. Things were very different back in those days (and for the following 20 years or so to follow), where doctors had no restrictions on prescribing many such pills to just one person (as long as they weren’t under 21 or so), which today, isn’t the case at all.
The music to "Mother's Little Helper" was definitely an Eastern influenced rock song. At first it was believed that the song featured Jones on sitar, but that wasn't case, as it was Brian playing the lead on his brand new 12-String Vox Mando Guitar, while making it to sound like a sitar. Some claim it's actually a 12-string electric Rickenbacker that he played, but that's unlikely, and the only video around showing Brian playing the song live in concert with the band, showed him playing the Vox Mando and not the Rickenbacker. It should also be noted that Wyman's distorted fuzz bass guitar contribution was significant to the songs' sound, too, with his using a Maestro FZ-1 Fuzz-Tone box to get the sound just right.
The lineup for this song, according to the studio session logs, was: Mick Jagger – Lead Vocals; Brian Jones – Lead 12-String Vox Mando Guitar; Keith Richards – Backing Vocal and Acoustic Rhythm Guitar; Bill Wyman – Fuzz Bass Guitar; Charlie Watts – Drums.
To rate this week’s song, just click on the following link: Stones Weekly Poll.
Last week at the Stones poll, we asked this: Rate the Stones song “Emotional Rescue”, from zero (lowest) to 10 (highest) .
“Emotional Rescue” cover of the song’s CD
I know that most Stones fans just flat out hate disco, and I'm that way myself. But ER has always been an exception for me, as I very much like this number and while I rated it in my last review of the song, several years ago - a 9.4, after playing the song last week, I gave it a 10 rating for my vote. Only 21% of my fellow Stones fans agreed with me on that rating, and the top rating most of you gave it was an 8, with 24% of the vote, while another 23% gave it just a 7 for a second-place finish. Well, it doesn’t matter to me any, I still like the song, even if it is disco, plus the truth is, for a Stones disco song, it actually did score high, compared to the other ones that we rated so far.
To see the full, finial results from this poll, just click here: Stones Weekly Poll - week 1,225. Or, to take a look at the song and where it ended up in the Sones song standings, just click on here: Stones Song Ratings & Standings - List Page 5
Okay, now and as usual, we will have a look-see at this week’s Classic Rock Poll, as we enter week 863 of voting, and where we will vote in what will be the final run of a Rock Poll series (if you haven’t read up on this news yet, see the post down below, the one from Saturday, about why the Rock Poll is coming to an end), and it’s a 4 parter at that. So, the question is: What's the saddest song about being unhappy? (Part 1 of 4)
What’s the saddest song about being unhappy?
Now notice how the question is being asked, as we aren't looking for, nor voting for, the best song out of the 82 songs that we will choose from in the next 4 weeks. But what we are looking for, is what you feel is the saddest song written about being unhappy. There is a big difference between the 2 and with such a question, you don't have to even like a song to vote for it, as long as you think it's the saddest written and recorded song - and that could be the reason why you don't like the song in the first place.
To see the songs that are listed in Part 1, and then to vote for the one you end up choosing, just click on this link: Classic Rock Poll.
Last week at the Rock Poll, we voted in the finial part of this question: What is the greatest all-time intro to a Rock Song? (Part 3 of 3)
Revolution, Iron Man, 2000 Light Years From Home The 3 top voted on songs from Part 3
The greatest all-time intro to a Rock Song went to The Beatles "Revolution" (the fast version) - with its Acid Guitar lick played by John Lennon, along with a hard single drum beat by Ringo Starr, and also John's giant scream to start it off, coming in first with 5.6% of the vote. While I didn't vote for this one myself, I can totally dig the result, as yes, it is excellent song opening, indeed! The song that I voted for, placed, with 5.5% of the vote, and that song was "Iron Man" by Black Sabbath, which starts of with Bill Ward's simple drum beat, followed by Tony Iommi's demonic guitar riffing & Ozzy's demonic like spoken words "I am Iron Man!"; what a kick off, indeed! I still think it's the all-time best opening to any rock song, and I'm not even a big fan of the band… The Stones took third place in the polling, with two less votes than "Iron Man", with their song, "2000 Light Years From Home", a number that they had Brian Jones to thank for his opening playing to the song, playing several different instruments, including the Mellotron and the electric Oscillator among them, and along with some help from Bill Wyman's heavy fuzz bass guitar and Keith Richards’ 12 string guitar.
To see the full, finial results from last week’s Rock poll, just click on the following link: Classic Rock Poll, week 862. Or, to see the Top 10 list for this poll (and other past Rock polls), just click on this link: Top 10 List Page, Page 18.
We close out the Poll Post as usual with week 615 of the Beatle Poll, and week 49 of rating their songs. The Fab question for this week asks this: Rate the Beatles song, “Lady Madonna” , from zero (lowest) to 10 (highest)
“Lady Madonna” One of several different single sleeves used
Like the Beatle song that we rated last week, "Paperback Writer", this week's number, "Lady Madonna", was mainly written by Paul McCartney, but then had lyrics added to it that John Lennon wrote to help finish up the song. It was recorded between February 3rd and 6th in 1968, and then released a month later on March 15, 1968. A short running tune time wise and a rare Beatle Boogie-woogie number at that, thanks to the piano heard in the song. This single was the very last one released by the Beatles on the Parlophone label in the UK, where it went all the way to number 1, and also the last release for the band on Capitol Records in the States, where it made it to number 2 on the official charts.
Paul said his inspiration for the song came after seeing a photograph in a National Geographic magazine article of a woman breastfeeding her baby, and which was titled "Mountain Madonna". He also noted that when he first started to write the ditty, he wanted it to be in a Boogie-woogie style and sang the early bits of the song using a Fats Domino impression. John suggested to Paul to make the mother in the song an exhausted single mother, trying to make it on her own while raising her children. Paul then decided to add in all of the days of the week to the song, describing what was happening to her on each day in her life of being this single mom (or, I should say, “mum”, since we are talking about a Brit here). He also said later that he totally forgot to include the day Saturday in the lyrics, the only day that was missing, and noted that he never realized he made that mistake until many years later!
If you watch the video that’s included for this song at the voting page, it makes it appear that John played the piano on the song, from the footage taken in the studio one day. But no, it's totally Paul playing piano here, as some of the studio film was taken when another song was being recorded by the band. The correct lineup for this one was: Paul McCartney – Lead Vocal, Piano, Bass Guitar, Handclaps; John Lennon – Backing Vocal, Lead Guitar, Handclaps; George Harrison – Backing Vocal, some Lead Guitar Riffs, Handclaps; Ringo Starr – Drums and Handclaps; with.... Ronnie Scott – Tenor Saxophone, Bill Povey – Tenor Saxophone; Harry Klein – Baritone Saxophone; Bill Jackman – Baritone Saxophone; and of course, George Martin was the Producer. To rate this song and vote in this week's Beatles poll, just click on this link: Beatles Weekly Poll.
In last week’s Beatle Poll we asked this: Rate the Beatles song, “Paperback Writer”, from zero (lowest) to 10 (highest)
“Paperback Writer” Beatles song from ’66
So, just how well do you think "Paperback Writer" rated last week? Well, I know, that’s a dumb question, since you more than likely know it scored a 10, with 77.5% of the vote. To see just how close this one got to the Top 10 in the Beatle song ratings standings (it was real close), click here: The Beatles Song Ratings and Standings Page . Or, to just take a look at the poll’s finial results from last week’s question, just go there: Beatles Poll, week 614.
Well, that does it for this week's Poll Post. Lucky for me, I wrote most of this Poll Post yesterday (late Saturday) as I was feeling much better and felt like writing some. Only the results to last weeks polls were written tonight (okay, that’s now - last nite), and no, things weren’t as good for me today health wise, so thank goodness I didn’t have a lot to write tonight. Let me tell ya, it really sucks when you can’t breathe on your own.
Anyway, I do hope everyone has a good week ahead, and thanks for voting in our polls!
Keno
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