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I think it is revolutionary for a 18 year old Paul McCartney to write a song about an old person nearing death. This demonstrates that the Beatles did really think about the process of life and its challenges from birth to day in a complete way and the possible answer. Solomon does that too in the Book of Ecclesiastes when he looks at life UNDER THE SUN. I am going to spend two posts looking at this song WHEN I’M SIXTY-FOUR and break it down.
Why did Paul write a song about an old person nearing death called WHEN I’M SIXTY-FOUR in 1961 when he was 18 years old? “When I get older losing my hair…Will you still need me, will you still feed me, When I’m sixty-four?, You’ll be older too…Yours sincerely, wasting away..” Maybe one reason was that he lost his mother at a young age.
Paul’s friend Johnny Cash in 2001 was filmed by the famous photographer Annie Leibovitz (who I am featuring in today’s post). Below I have posted a portion of the article, “From Annie Leibovitz: Life, and Death, Examined,” by JANNY SCOTT, October 6, 2006. The ironic thing to me is that Johnny Cash’s last two song video’s pointed out that Christ is the only answer to the problem of death, pain and suffering and that repentance is the only way to get God’s forgiveness for sin or else you are heading toward a sure judgement. I hope both McCartney and Leibovitz will find that the answer to find meaning in life is found in putting your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. The Bible is true from cover to cover and can be trusted.
King Solomon was the wisest man who ever lived and he said at the end of his life, “The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil.”
When I’m Sixty-Four- The Beatles
The song WHEN I’M SIXTY-FOUR appeared on the album SGT. PEPPER’S and that is the reason I have included the 27 minute episode THE AGE OF NONREASON by Francis Schaeffer. In that video Schaeffer noted, ” Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band…for a time it became the rallying cry for young people throughout the world. It expressed the essence of their lives, thoughts and their feelings.” I think that even in the 1960’s when many young people thought they were indestructible the Beatles touched on the subject of death in their songs A DAY IN THE LIFE and WHEN I’M SIXTY-FOUR on the album SGT. PEPPER’S where on the cover there is a scene of the Beatles’ own burial.
How Should We then Live Episode 7 small (Age of Nonreason)
The Beatles – When I’m Sixty-Four
When I’m Sixty-Four
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For the 2004 television film, see When I’m 64 (television film).
“When I’m Sixty-Four”
The 1996 US jukebox single release of the song, as the B-side to “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds“
Song by the Beatles from the album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
Released
1 June 1967
Recorded
6–21 December 1966,
EMI Studios, London
Genre
Pop[1]
music hall[2]
Length
2:37
Label
Parlophone
Writer
Lennon–McCartney
Producer
George Martin
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Bandtrack listing
[show]13 tracks
“When I’m Sixty-Four” is a song by the Beatles, written by Paul McCartney[3][4] (credited to Lennon–McCartney) and released in 1967 on their album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Composition[edit]
The song is sung by a young man to his lover, and is about his plans of growing old together with her. Although the theme is ageing, it was one of the first songs McCartney wrote, when he was only 16.[3] It was on the Beatles playlist in their early days as a song to perform when the amplifiers broke down or the electricity went off.[5][6] Both George Martin and Mark Lewisohn speculated that McCartney may have thought of the song when recording began for Sgt. Pepper in December 1966 because his father turned 64 earlier that year.[5][6]
Lennon said of the song, “Paul wrote it in the Cavern days. We just stuck a few more words on it like ‘grandchildren on your knee’ and ‘Vera, Chuck and Dave’ … this was just one that was quite a hit with us.”[7] In his 1980 interview for Playboy he said, “I would never even dream of writing a song like that.”[4]
Instrumentation[edit]
A clarinet trio (two B-flat soprano clarinets and a bass clarinet) is featured prominently in the song, unusual in most music genres, but particularly in the context of rock and roll. Scored by Martin, he said they were added at McCartney’s request to “get around the lurking schmaltz factor” by using the clarinets “in a classical way.”[6] In the song’s final verse, the clarinet is played in harmony with McCartney’s vocal: an unusual method of harmonisation, especially in 1967. Supporting instruments include the piano, bass, drum set, tubular bells, and electric guitar.
Recording[edit]
The song was recorded on 6 December 1966, during one of the first sessions for the as-yet-unnamed album that became Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. There were multiple overdub sessions, including the lead vocal by McCartney on 8 December and backing vocals by McCartney, Lennon, and George Harrison on 20 December. The clarinets were recorded on 21 December.[8]
The song is in the key of D-flat major. Recorded in C major, the master take was sped up to raise the key by one semitone at the insistence of McCartney. Martin remembers that McCartney suggested this change to make his voice sound younger.[9] McCartney says, “I wanted to appear younger, but that was just to make it more rooty-tooty; just lift the key because it was starting to sound turgid.”[3]
Release[edit]
The song was nearly released on a single as the B-side of either “Strawberry Fields Forever” or “Penny Lane“, but instead it was decided to put out a double-A-sided-disc of those two and include “When I’m Sixty-Four” on the Sgt. Pepper album.[10]
Cultural references[edit]
McCartney’s children recorded a special version of “When I’m Sixty-Four” at Abbey Road Studios as a surprise present for McCartney’s 64th birthday in June 2006, and played it for him at his birthday party. They changed the lyrics to fit the occasion with the help of Giles Martin. At the time, by unfortunate coincidence, McCartney was recently separated from his second wife, Heather Mills; they later divorced. [13][14]
In the 2007 comedy film Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, McCartney (played by Jack Black) and Lennon (played by Paul Rudd) are arguing, and Lennon quips, “I wonder if your songs will still be shit when I’m sixty-four.”
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“When I’m Sixty Four”
When I get older losing my hair
Many years from now
Will you still be sending me a valentine
Birthday greetings, bottle of wine?
If I’d been out till quarter to three
Would you lock the door?
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I’m sixty-four? You’ll be older too
And if you say the word
I could stay with youI could be handy, mending a fuse
When your lights have gone
You can knit a sweater by the fireside
Sunday mornings go for a ride
Doing the garden, digging the weeds
Who could ask for more?
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I’m sixty-four?Every summer we can rent a cottage in the Isle of Wight
If it’s not too dear
We shall scrimp and save
Grandchildren on your knee
Vera, Chuck & DaveSend me a postcard, drop me a line
Stating point of view
Indicate precisely what you mean to say
Yours sincerely, wasting away
Give me your answer, fill in a form
Mine for evermore
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I’m sixty-four?
Ho!
Song facts
From The Beatles Rarity:
[…] Many Paul McCartney fans are aware of Paul’s fondness for holidays in Jamaica, and that he has taken quite a few vacations there over the years. Another music legend by the name of Johnny Cash liked the place so much that he actually bought a house there. On one of Paul and Linda’s mid-1980′s trips to the island, Johnny invited them over to his house for dinner, and while Paul was there, he penned the song […] while looking at the moon. The song is called “New Moon Over Jamaica.”
In May of 1988, Johnny showed up at Paul’s studio in England wanting to record the song, for inclusion on his upcoming album Water From The Wells Of Home. He had brought along Tom T. Hall, another country singer friend of his and the two of them had made a few modifications to the song. Paul shared a vocal with Johnny on the song and also played bass. Tom and Linda McCartney sang harmony vocals. […]
TO CHANGE:
Unlike Johnny’s country version, Paul’s demo is done with a reggae beat. On June 18, 1995, Paul featured his reggae demo of the song, segued with Johnny’s version, in his Oobu Joobu radio show and that is the version I give you here
Paul McCartney On Working With Johnny Cash
Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash, December 4, 1956 (Credit: HarperCollins/Getty/Michael Ochs Archives)
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Mental Health Break— “Hurt” and “God’s Gonna Cut You Down”
posted by Kristina Robb-Dover
image: http://www.beliefnet.com/columnists/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners/files/2014/08/index.jpg
Johnny Cash has been dubbed “the philosopher-prince of American country music.”
Before his death, Johnny Cash had been dubbed “the philosopher-prince of American country music.” (Photo credit: http://www.factmag.com)
Today’s break for restless souls looking for the More we’ve yet to find comes from Johnny Cash’s album American V. A Hundred Highways. “God’s Gonna Cut You Down,” first recorded by Cash in 2003, the year of his death, was released in 2006 posthumously; and is an old American gospel folk song, now put to Cash’s deep, brooding drawl in a particularly winsome rendition.
I’d like to think Cash would be comfortable at our intersection: he was both a saint and a sinner, having lived much of his life addicted to prescription drugs; he was a womanizer, even cheating on his beloved wife June Carter; yet he also had a great big heart for other sinners, spending much of his time singing in prisons, and at the end of his life, his very last album Hurt seems to be the work of an artist who has wrestled with God and made peace.
The accompanying music video for “God’s Gonna Cut You Down” was made after Cash’s death:
In finding that, I also stumbled upon the video for Cash’s song “Hurt”—the crown jewel of his last album by that same name. In the song you’ll see a man at the end of his life reflecting upon his “empire of dirt” and contemplating both the transience of his life and his capacity for eternity, as well as his need for a God on a cross:
Ron Wood, George Harrison, Johnny Cash, Roger McGuinn, Bob Dylan, perform
Bob Dylan and John Lennon in a taxi talking about Johnny Cash
The 1969 Bob Dylan-Johnny Cash Sessions: 12 Rare Recordings | Open Culture
Johnny Cash & June Carter by Annie Leibovitz
Reese Witherspoon and Joaquin Phoenix by Annie Leibovitz for Vogue 2005 (Walk The Line)
Rosanne Cash with her father Johnny before his death in September of 2003, in a photo by Annie Leibovitz.
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Photo by Annie Leibovitz below:
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From Annie Leibovitz: Life, and Death, Examined
Tony Cenicola/The New York Times
Annie Leibovitz preparing her show at the Brooklyn Museum, which is to open Oct. 20. It is drawn from her book “A Photographer’s Life, 1990-2005.” More Photos >
By JANNY SCOTT
Published: October 6, 2006
IN the days after the death of Susan Sontag in December 2004, Annie Leibovitz began searching for photographs for a small book to be given out at the memorial service. She started with other people’s photographs of Ms. Sontag, then turned to her own, taken during the 15 years they spent together. That exercise turned into what she has described as an archeological dig: an unearthing and sifting of a decade and a half of work, love, family life, illness, deaths and births, adding up to “my most important work,” she said in an interview this week. “It’s the most intimate, it tells the best story, and I care about it.”
The photographs, published earlier this week by Random House in a book titled “A Photographer’s Life 1990-2005,” will be shown at the Brooklyn Museum in an exhibition opening Oct. 20. The collection interweaves the professional and the personal, the public and private, in startling ways. It includes many of the bold, often carefully composed portraits of celebrities, musicians, artists and presidents for which Ms. Leibovitz became famous at Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair. There is Sarajevo in 1993, ground zero in September 2001. And there is previously unseen “personal reportage” on her big and exuberant family, her parents, her life with Ms. Sontag, the births of her three daughters, Ms. Sontag’s illnesses and death, and the death of Ms. Leibovitz’s father six weeks later.
Little seems to have been held back. The still smoking World Trade Center ruins have been juxtaposed with a shot, by Ms. Sontag, of Ms. Leibovitz, naked three weeks later, on the day before she goes in for a Caesarean section. Her mother, sister and niece lie, intertwined in grief, on a bed where her father has died hours before. Ms. Sontag’s body rests on a table in a funeral home, decked out valiantly in a pleated dress from Milan.
But it is the photographs of Ms. Sontag, taken in a hospital room at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle a month earlier, barely recognizable but unmistakably dying, that Ms. Leibowitz says proved the most contentious in conversations with friends and family about making the pictures public.
“Let me be very, very clear about this,” she said in a long conversation in her studio in Greenwich Village, during which she alternated between speaking openly about intimate corners in her life that the photographs inevitably expose, and seeming to regret having said anything at all. “Every single image that one would have a possible problem with or have concerns about, I had them too. This wasn’t like a flippant thing. I had the very same problems, and I needed to go through it. And I made the decision in the long run that the strength of the book needed those pictures, and that the fact that it came out of a moment of grief gave the work dignity.”
It’s a complicated question.
“You don’t get the opportunity to do this kind of intimate work except with the people you love, the people who will put up with you,” Ms. Leibovitz said, speaking not just of Ms. Sontag but of her parents, her children, her five brothers and sisters, who she says became one another’s best friends, growing up in a military family perpetually on the move. “They’re the people who open their hearts and souls and lives to you. You must take care of them.” But when she began sorting through 15 years of magazine assignment photos and personal photography in August 2005 for a book she had long ago promised her publisher, the personal pictures were the ones that captivated her. She would weep for 10 minutes, then return to the photographs. “I found myself totally taken over by the personal work,” she said. “I thought it was so strong and so moving.”
She spent five days that month in the complex of stone barns she owns on 200 acres in Rhinebeck, N.Y., working on the book with Mark Holborn, an editor and publisher who has collaborated with other photographers on their books. They tore down the divide between Ms. Leibovitz’s photographs that had been taken on assignment and her personal images, interweaving them in one narrative spanning 15 years in the world and her life. Her landscape photographs became the punctuation, “pauses and commas in the storytelling.” At the end of five days, she said, “it was the first time in my life you know you have something that is good or important or that matters.”
Yet Ms. Sontag was a private person, Ms. Leibovitz said: “If she was alive, of course this work wouldn’t be published. It’s such a totally different story that she is dead. I mean, she would champion this work.”
Ms. Leibovitz herself seems ambivalent about how much to surrender. She resisted including an introduction; the photographs were “a small movie,” she said; they should speak for themselves. An editor, Sharon Delano, convinced her that “it was important to explain myself, and explain myself once,” Ms. Leibovitz said. An 11-page introduction grew out of several months of conversations with Ms. Delano. “She was absolutely right,” Ms. Leibovitz said. “I love the introduction. It’s just like a clearinghouse for myself.”
But who gets to explain themselves just once these days? The introduction is a gem of lucidity and understatement. (Ms. Leibovitz introduces the fact of her relationship with Ms. Sontag as an aside, in a dependent clause: “who was with me during the years the book encompasses.”) Now the book is coming out, and she is called upon to talk. “This gets personal,” she said, stopping herself one of several times during the interview. “I have to save some of it for myself. I’m trying to figure this out.” You have to become an actor, she complained; but you don’t want to stop feeling. “In the long run I don’t think this book is helped by talking about it,” she said. “I worry about talking about it. Here I am talking about it.”
Ms. Leibovitz, who is 57, made her name in the 1970’s and early 1980’s as chief photographer for Rolling Stone, shooting musicians and others in provocative poses, like John Lennon, naked and pink, curled around Yoko Ono, fully clothed in black, just hours before he was killed. In 1983 she became the first contributing photographer for Vanity Fair. She shot the famous 1991 cover photograph of Demi Moore, naked and pregnant. She was the official photographer for the 1996 summer Olympics in Atlanta. Other work has included photographs for advertising campaigns for American Express, the Milk Board, “The Sopranos.” Those photographs tend to be meticulously composed, humorous and in strong, saturated color.
She shot her personal photographs with a 35-millimeter camera, sometimes a Leica, in black and white, with Tri-X film, the way she started at the San Francisco Art Institute in the late 1960’s. There are photographs of her parents, her siblings, a flock of nieces and nephews on the beach; of room-service breakfast with Ms. Sontag at the Gritti Palace in Venice; of her parents, asleep in bed, elbows akimbo and pillows askew, a small grandson sandwiched in between. She never took a lot of personal photos; she would throw a few rolls in a box, let them go undeveloped for months. Ms. Sontag complained she did not take enough.
Annie Leibovitz – A Vida Através das Lentes (Life Through a Lens)
Featured Photographer today is Annie Leibovitz
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Charlie Rose – Annie Leibovitz
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John Lennon with a Kodak Instamatic by Annie Leibovitz
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Annie Leibovitz and Jann S. Wenner in the Rolling Stone offices at 625 Third Street in San Francisco. 1973. Photograph by Annie Leibovitz.
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Elizabeth II, Buckingham Palace, London, March 28, 2007. Photograph by Annie Leibovitz.
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Obama Family Portrait Annie Leibovitz
Annie Leibovitz
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Annie Leibovitz
Leibovitz in February 2008
Born
Anna-Lou Leibovitz
October 2, 1949 (age 65)
Waterbury, Connecticut, U.S.
Nationality
American
Education
San Francisco Art Institute
Known for
Photography
Anna-Lou “Annie” Leibovitz (/ˈliːbəvɪts/; born October 2, 1949) is an Americanportraitphotographer.
Early life[edit]
Born in Waterbury, Connecticut, on October 2, 1949,[1] Anna-Lou Leibovitz is the third of six children of Marilyn Edith (née Heit) and Samuel Leibovitz.[2] She is a third-generation American; her father’s parents were Romanian Jews.[2] Her mother was a modern dance instructor of EstonianJewish heritage. Her father was a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force. The family moved frequently with her father’s duty assignments, and she took her first pictures when he was stationed in the Philippines during the Vietnam War.[3]
At Northwood High School,[4] she became interested in various artistic endeavors and began to write and play music. She attended the San Francisco Art Institute,[4] where she studied painting. For several years, she continued to develop her photography skills while holding various jobs, including a stint on a kibbutz in Amir, Israel, for several months in 1969.[5]
Career[edit]
Rolling Stone magazine[edit]
When Leibovitz returned to the United States in 1970, she started her career as staff photographer, working for the just launched Rolling Stone magazine. In 1973, publisher Jann Wenner named Leibovitz chief photographer of Rolling Stone, a job she would hold for 10 years. Leibovitz worked for the magazine until 1983, and her intimate photographs of celebrities helped define the Rolling Stone look.[5]
While working for Rolling Stone, Leibovitz became more aware of the other magazines and learned that she could work for magazines and still create personal work, which for her was the most important.[citation needed] She sought intimate moments with her subjects, who “open their hearts and souls and lives to you”. [6]
She was awarded The Royal Photographic Society‘s Centenary Medal and Honorary Fellowship (HonFRPS) in recognition of a sustained, significant contribution to the art of photography in 2009.[citation needed]
Inspirations[edit]
Photographers such as Robert Frank and Henri Cartier-Bresson influenced her during her time at the San Francisco Art Institute. “Their style of personal reportage—taken in a graphic way—was what we were taught to emulate.”[6] Leibovitz has also cited Richard Avedon‘s portraits as an important and powerful example in her life.[citation needed]
The Rolling Stones[edit]
Leibovitz photographed the Rolling Stones in San Francisco in 1971 and 1972, and served as the concert-tour photographer for Rolling Stones Tour of the Americas ’75. Her favorite photo from the tour was a photo of Mick Jagger in an elevator.[7]
Joan Armatrading[edit]
In 1978 Leibovitz became the first woman to photograph Joan Armatrading for an album. She did the photography for Armatrading’s fifth studio album To the Limit, spending four days at her house capturing the images.[8] Liebovitz also did the photography for Armatrading’s live album, Steppin’ Out.[citation needed]
John Lennon[edit]
On December 8, 1980, Leibovitz had a photo shoot with John Lennon for Rolling Stone, and she promised him he would make the cover.[9] She had initially tried to get a picture with just Lennon alone, as Rolling Stone wanted, but Lennon insisted that both he and Yoko Ono be on the cover. Leibovitz then tried to re-create something like the kissing scene from the couple’s Double Fantasy1980 album cover, a picture Liebovitz loved, and she had John remove his clothes and curl up next to Yoko on the floor. Leibovitz recalls, “What is interesting is she said she’d take her top off and I said, ‘Leave everything on’ — not really preconceiving the picture at all. Then he curled up next to her and it was very, very strong. You couldn’t help but feel that he was cold and he looked like he was clinging on to her. I think it was amazing to look at the first Polaroid and they were both very excited. John said, ‘You’ve captured our relationship exactly. Promise me it’ll be on the cover.’ I looked him in the eye and we shook on it.”[10] Leibovitz was the last person to professionally photograph Lennon—he was shot and killed five hours later.[11]
The photograph was subsequently re-created in 2009 by John and Yoko’s son Sean Lennon, posing with his girlfriend Charlotte Kemp Muhl, with male/female roles reversed (Sean clothed, Kemp naked),[12][13] and by Henry Bond and Sam Taylor-Wood in their YBA pastiche October 26, 1993.[14]
In 2011, Leibovitz was nominated alongside Singaporean photographer Dominic Khoo and Wing Shya for Asia Pacific Photographer of the Year.[citation needed]
From Vanity Fair: “For many of New York journalism’s future luminaries—and at least one of Hollywood’s—the strike created an opening for their more literary pursuits. From left to right, Robert Silvers, Calvin Trillin, Nora Ephron, Gay Talese, Pete Hamill, Tom Wolfe, and Jimmy Breslin, photographed by Annie Leibovitz.”
Other projects[edit]
In the 1980s, Leibovitz’s new style of lighting and use of bold colors and poses got her a position with Vanity Fair magazine.[15]
Leibovitz photographed celebrities for an international advertising campaign for American Expresscharge cards, which won a Clio award in 1987.[citation needed]
In 1991, Leibovitz mounted an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. She was the second living portraitist and first woman to show there.[11]
In 1991, Leibovitz had been made Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government.[11]
Also in 1991, Leibovitz emulated Margaret Bourke-White‘s feat by mounting one of the eagle gargoyles on the 61st floor of the Chrysler Building in Manhattan, where she photographed the dancer David Parsons cavorting on another eaglegargoyle. Noted Life photographer and picture editor John Loengard made a gripping photo of Leibovitz at the climax of her danger. (Loengard was photographing Leibovitz for The New York Times that day).[citation needed]
In 2007, major retrospective