Orson Welles Narrates an Animated Parable About How Xenophobia & Greed Will Put America Into Decline (1971)

in Current Affairs, Film | October 18th, 2024

More than 50 years and 10 pres­i­den­tial admin­is­tra­tions have passed since Orson Welles nar­rat­ed Free­dom Riv­er (1971). And while it shows signs of age, the ani­mat­ed film, a para­ble about the role of immi­gra­tion, race, and wealth in Amer­i­ca, still res­onates today. Actu­al­ly, giv­en the cyn­i­cal exploita­tion of xeno­pho­bia dur­ing this most unpres­i­den­tial of pres­i­den­tial cam­paigns, you could say that Free­dom River strikes a big­ger chord than it has in years. That’s why we’re fea­tur­ing the ani­ma­tion once again on Open Cul­ture.

The back­sto­ry behind the film deserves a lit­tle men­tion. Accord­ing to Joseph Cavel­la, a writer for the film, it took a lit­tle cajol­ing and per­se­ver­ance to get Orson Welles involved in the film.

For sev­er­al years, Bosus­tow Pro­duc­tions had asked Orson Welles, then liv­ing in Paris, to nar­rate one of their films. He nev­er respond­ed. When I fin­ished the Free­dom Riv­er script, we sent it to him togeth­er with a portable reel to reel tape recorder and a siz­able check and crossed our fin­gers. He was either des­per­ate for mon­ey or (I would rather believe) some­thing in it touched him because two weeks lat­er we got the reel back with the nar­ra­tion word for word and we were on our way.

Indeed, they were.

Direct­ed by Sam Weiss, Free­dom Riv­er tells the sto­ry of decline–of a once-great nation laps­ing into ugli­ness. Despite the com­fort­ing myths we like to tell our­selves here in Amer­i­ca, that ugli­ness has always been there. Xeno­pho­bia, greed, racism (you could add a few more traits to the list) are noth­ing new. They just tend to sur­face when dem­a­gogues make it per­mis­si­ble, which is pre­cise­ly what we’re see­ing right now. For­tu­nate­ly, Welles’s nar­ra­tion leaves us with room to hope, with room to believe that our cit­i­zens will rise above what our worst lead­ers have to offer.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent

Orson Welles Nar­rates Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner in an Exper­i­men­tal Film Fea­tur­ing the Art of Gus­tave Doré

Is It Always Right to Be Right?: Orson Welles Nar­rates a 1970 Oscar-Win­ning Ani­ma­tion That Still Res­onates Today

Future Shock: Orson Welles Nar­rates a 1972 Film About the Per­ils of Tech­no­log­i­cal Change

An Ani­ma­tion of Orson Welles’ Famous Frozen Peas Rant

Learn Data Analytics & AI with Google, and Fast-Track Your Career

in Data, Online Courses | October 17th, 2024

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We’re liv­ing in the age of data and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI). Every sec­ond, vast amounts of data are being gen­er­at­ed, processed, and ana­lyzed. And increas­ing­ly AI plays a cen­tral role in how that data gets man­aged. For com­pa­nies, gov­ern­ments, and indi­vid­u­als alike, under­stand­ing data is essen­tial. This makes Data Analytics—especially when accom­pa­nied by AI skills—a valu­able asset for most pro­fes­sion­als.

Enter Google, which recent­ly launched a pro­fes­sion­al cer­tifi­cate in Data Ana­lyt­ics–one that will “have you job-ready in less than 6 months.” Offered on the Cours­era plat­form, the Data Ana­lyt­ics Pro­fes­sion­al Cer­tifi­cate con­sists of eight cours­es, includ­ing “Foun­da­tions: Data, Data, Every­where,” “Pre­pare Data for Explo­ration,” “Data Analy­sis with R Pro­gram­ming,” and “Share Data Through the Art of Visu­al­iza­tion.” And now the course sequence has incor­po­rat­ed videos explor­ing how to lever­age arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence when work­ing with data. Over­all this pro­gram “includes over 180 hours of instruc­tion and hun­dreds of prac­tice-based assess­ments, which will help you sim­u­late real-world data ana­lyt­ics sce­nar­ios that are crit­i­cal for suc­cess in the work­place.”

Upon com­ple­tion, students–even those who haven’t pur­sued a col­lege degree–can direct­ly apply for jobs (e.g., junior or asso­ciate data ana­lyst, data­base admin­is­tra­tor, etc.) with Google and over 150 U.S. employ­ers, includ­ing Deloitte, Tar­get, and Ver­i­zon. You can start a 7‑day free tri­al and explore the cours­es here. If you con­tin­ue beyond the free tri­al, Google/Coursera will charge $49 per month. That trans­lates to about $300 after 6 months, the time esti­mat­ed to com­plete the cer­tifi­cate.

Final­ly, it’s worth men­tion­ing that any­one who enrolls in this cer­tifi­cate before Novem­ber 30, 2024 will get access to Google AI Essen­tials at no cost.

Explore the Data Ana­lyt­ics Cer­tifi­cate by watch­ing the video above. Learn more about the over­all Google career cer­tifi­cate ini­tia­tive here. And find oth­er Google pro­fes­sion­al cer­tifi­cates here.

Note: Open Cul­ture has a part­ner­ship with Cours­era. If read­ers enroll in cer­tain Cours­era cours­es and pro­grams, it helps sup­port Open Cul­ture.

The Night When Luciano Pavarotti & James Brown Sang “It’s a Man’s World” Together (2002)

in Music | October 17th, 2024

Luciano Pavarot­ti and James Brown are remem­bered as larg­er-than-life per­form­ers with an almost myth­i­cal-seem­ing pres­ence and dis­tinc­tive­ness. But it was­n’t so very long ago that both of them were active — and even active onstage togeth­er. In the video above, the King of the High Cs and the God­fa­ther of Soul get togeth­er on “It’s a Man’s World” in 2002. It hap­pened at the penul­ti­mate Pavarot­ti & Friends con­cert, one of a series of year­ly ben­e­fit shows that ran between 1992 and 2003, and also fea­tured the likes of Andrea Bocel­li, Grace Jones, Sting, and Lou Reed.

“It’s a remark­able per­for­mance on so many lev­els,” writes Tom Tei­cholz at Forbes.com. “James Brown is in top form, his voice strong and pure. He com­mands the stage, and he dom­i­nates — he is in every sense an equal to Pavarot­ti, who sings in Ital­ian with great sub­tle­ty, finesse, and emo­tion. The video is filled with moments of grace — such as when Brown, with a mag­is­te­r­i­al wave of his arm cedes the stage to Pavarot­ti to sing his solo, or when Brown says ‘my Bible says Noah made the Ark’ as if it was tru­ly HIS Bible.”

What’s more, this is hard­ly the James Brown only slight­ly exag­ger­at­ed by Eddie Mur­phy in those Sat­ur­day Night Live hot tub sketch­es a cou­ple of decades ear­li­er. “Brown’s per­for­mance is not about his staged the­atrics, not about his danc­ing, not even real­ly about Brown’s trade­mark grunts and growls,” Tei­cholz writes. “This is about singing and get­ting the song across,” a mis­sion cer­tain­ly not hin­dered by the kind of of orches­tral back­ing they have. “It’s a Man’s World” might seem like the kind of song you “could­n’t sing today,” at least if you take its title at face val­ue. But in any case, how many singers today would want to be sub­ject to com­par­i­son with this par­tic­u­lar ren­di­tion if they did so?

Relat­ed con­tent:

Pavarot­ti Sings with Lou Reed, Sting, James Brown and Oth­er Friends

Aretha Franklin Takes Over for an Ail­ing Luciano Pavarot­ti & Sings Puccini’s “Nes­sun Dor­ma” at the Gram­mys (1998)

Rare Video Cap­tures 29-Year-Old Luciano Pavarot­ti in One of His Ear­li­est Record­ed Per­for­mances (1964)

Two Leg­ends: Weird Al Yankovic “Inter­views” James Brown (1986)

The Best Com­mer­cial Ever? James Brown Sells Miso Soup (1992)

Is Opera Part of Pop Cul­ture? Pret­ty Much Pop #15 with Sean Spyres

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities and the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

George Harrison Explains Why Everyone Should Play the Ukulele

in Music | October 16th, 2024

George Har­ri­son loved the ukulele, and real­ly, what’s not to love? For its dain­ty size, the uke can make a pow­er­ful­ly cheer­ful sound, and it’s an instru­ment both begin­ners and expert play­ers can learn and eas­i­ly car­ry around. As Harrison’s old friend Joe Brown remarked, “You can pick up a ukulele and any­body can learn to play a cou­ple of tunes in a day or even a few hours. And if you want to get good at it, there’s no end to what you can do.” Brown, once a star in his own right, met Har­ri­son and the Bea­t­les in 1962 and remem­bers being impressed with the fel­low uke-lover Harrison’s range of musi­cal tastes: “He loved music, not just rock and roll…. He’d go crack­ers, he’d phone me up and say ‘I’ve got this great record!’ and it would be Hoagy Carmichael and all this Hawai­ian stuff he used to like. George was not a musi­cal snob.”

“Crack­ers” may be the per­fect word for Harrison’s uke-phil­ia; he used it him­self in the adorable note above from 1999. “Every­one I know who is into the ukulele is ‘crack­ers,’” writes George, “you can’t play it and not laugh!” Har­ri­son remained upbeat, even dur­ing his first can­cer scare in 1997, the knife attack at his home in 1999, and the can­cer relapse that even­tu­al­ly took his life in 2001. The ukulele seemed a sweet­ly gen­uine expres­sion of his hope­ful atti­tude. And after Harrison’s death, it seemed to his friends the per­fect way to memo­ri­al­ize him. Joe Brown closed the Har­ri­son trib­ute con­cert at Roy­al Albert Hall with a uke ver­sion of “I’ll See You In My Dreams,” and Paul McCart­ney remem­bered his friend in 2009 by strum­ming “Some­thing” on a ukulele at New York’s Citi Field.

In his remarks, McCart­ney fond­ly rem­i­nisced: “When­ev­er you went round George’s house, after din­ner the ukule­les would come out and you’d inevitably find your­self singing all these old num­bers.” Just above, see Har­ri­son and an old-time acoustic jazz ensem­ble (includ­ing Jools Hol­land on piano) play one of those “old numbers”—“Between The Dev­il and Deep Blue Sea”—in 1988. The song even­tu­al­ly wound up on his last album, the posthu­mous­ly released Brain­washed. Just below, see Har­ri­son, McCart­ney, and Ringo Starr sing a casu­al­ly har­mo­nious ren­di­tion of the 1927 tune “Ain’t She Sweet” while loung­ing pic­nic-style in a park.

In Hawaii, where Har­ri­son owned a 150-acre retreat, and where he was known as Keo­ki, it’s said he bought ukule­les in batch­es and gave them away. The sto­ry may be leg­end, but it cer­tain­ly sounds in char­ac­ter. He was a gen­er­ous soul to the end. Just below, see Har­ri­son strum­ming and whistling away in a home video made short­ly before his death. You can hear the hoarse­ness in his voice from his throat can­cer, but you won’t hear much sad­ness there, I think.

And for good mea­sure:

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Musi­cians Re-Imag­ine the Com­plete Song­book of the Bea­t­les on the Ukulele

Watch George Harrison’s Final Inter­view and Per­for­mance (1997)

George Harrison’s Mys­ti­cal, Fish­eye Self-Por­traits Tak­en in India (1966)

The Ukulele Orches­tra of Great Britain Per­forms The Clash’s “Should I Stay Or Should I Go”

Seri­ous­ly Awe­some Ukulele Cov­ers of “Sul­tans of Swing,” “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” “Thun­der­struck,” and “Smells Like Teen Spir­it”

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

The Fake Buildings of New York: What Happens Inside Their Mysterious Walls

in Architecture, History | October 16th, 2024

You can’t go on a walk with a seri­ous enthu­si­ast of New York his­to­ry with­out hear­ing the sto­ries behind at least a few notable, beau­ti­ful, or down­right strange build­ings. Yet most long­time New York­ers, famed for tun­ing out their sur­round­ings to bet­ter strive for their goals of the day, tend not even to acknowl­edge the struc­tures liable to catch the atten­tion of out-of-town­ers. Take 58 Jorale­mon Street in Brook­lyn Heights: “From the out­side, it looks like your typ­i­cal town­house,” says urban explor­er Cash Jor­dan in his video above — but then you notice its blacked-out win­dows, bunker-like met­al cladding, and appar­ent­ly un-open­able door.

Though it was indeed a town­house when first built in 1847, 58 Jorale­mon Street was hol­lowed out and con­vert­ed into one sub­way-sys­tem vent back in 1907. But the build­ings right on either side remain res­i­dences, one of which, as Jor­dan finds, sold not long ago for $6 mil­lion.

In a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent, more iso­lat­ed con­text stands the Streck­er Memo­r­i­al Lab­o­ra­to­ry on Roo­sevelt Island. Built in 1892 as a lab­o­ra­to­ry for City Hos­pi­tal, it opened as “the first insti­tu­tion in the nation for patho­log­i­cal and bac­te­ri­o­log­i­cal research,” an activ­i­ty it makes sense to keep apart from a dense urban envi­ron­ment. Aban­doned in the nine­teen-fifties, it lat­er became anoth­er sub­way facil­i­ty, specif­i­cal­ly a pow­er con­ver­sion sub­sta­tion.

Jor­dan also vis­its a fake build­ing well out on Pier 34, and one that also pro­vides a func­tion essen­tial to New York tran­sit: ven­ti­lat­ing the smoke and exhaust out of the Hol­land Tun­nel. Owned and oper­at­ed by pub­lic agen­cies, these struc­tures per­form well-doc­u­ment­ed and entire­ly non-secret func­tions. The same can’t be said of the last and most strik­ing fake build­ing Jor­dan intro­duces, a win­dow­less Bru­tal­ist tow­er con­struct­ed in 1969 at 33 Thomas Street in Low­er Man­hat­tan. Owned by AT&T, it seems once to have been a tele­phone switch­ing sta­tion, but has late­ly been rumored to be a “huge dooms­day bunker.” That’s one the­o­ry, any­way, and the build­ing’s sin­is­ter appear­ance could inspire count­less oth­ers. Not that many locals are imag­in­ing them, obey­ing as they do one of the cen­tral com­mand­ments of Man­hat­tan: don’t look up.

Relat­ed con­tent:

The Sto­ry of the Flat­iron Build­ing, “New York’s Strangest Tow­er”

New York’s Lost Sky­scraper: The Rise and Fall of the Singer Tow­er

An Intro­duc­tion to the Chrysler Build­ing, New York’s Art Deco Mas­ter­piece, by John Malkovich (1994)

The Old­est House in New York City: Meet the Wyck­off House (1652)

Archi­tect Breaks Down Five of the Most Icon­ic New York City Apart­ments

A 3D Ani­ma­tion Shows the Evo­lu­tion of New York City (1524 — 2023)

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities and the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

Peanuts Creator Charles Schulz Shares with a 10-Year-Old Kid the True Meaning of Good Citizenship

in Comics/Cartoons, Life | October 16th, 2024

In 1970, when 10-year-old Joel Lin­ton asked Charles Schulz, the cre­ator of Peanuts, “What do you think makes a good cit­i­zen?” Schulz sent the young­ster a short but pithy reply:

Dear Joel:

I think it is more dif­fi­cult these days to define what makes a good cit­i­zen than it has ever been before. Cer­tain­ly all any of us can do is fol­low our own con­science and retain faith in our democ­ra­cy. Some­times it is the very peo­ple who cry out the loud­est in favor of get­ting back to what they call “Amer­i­can Virtues” who lack this faith in our coun­try. I believe that our great­est strength lies always in the pro­tec­tion of our small­est minori­ties.

Sin­cere­ly yours,

Charles M. Schulz

When this let­ter sur­faced in 2019, Schulz’s wid­ow com­ment­ed, “I con­tin­u­al­ly find com­ic strips that could have been writ­ten for today’s audi­ence.” “This says what needs to be said now.” Need­less to say, the same mes­sage bears repeat­ing in 2024.

via Kot­tke

Relat­ed Con­tent 

23 Min­utes of Charles Schulz Draw­ing Peanuts

Umber­to Eco Explains the Poet­ic Pow­er of Charles Schulz’s Peanuts

How Franklin Became Peanuts’ First Black Char­ac­ter, Thanks to a Car­ing School­teacher (1968)

Take a Tour of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Ennis House, the Mansion That Has Appeared in Blade Runner, Twin Peaks & Countless Hollywood Films

in Architecture, Film | October 15th, 2024

There are more than a few of us who’d enjoy the oppor­tu­ni­ty to live in a house that appears in Blade Run­ner; there are rather few of us who would val­ue that oppor­tu­ni­ty at $23 mil­lion, the ask­ing price giv­en in the 2019 Archi­tec­tur­al Digest video on Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1924 Ennis House above. Yet even beyond the Wright pedi­gree and the Blade Run­ner pres­tige, the house has also appeared in a host of oth­er films, a screen résumé that begins nine years after its con­struc­tion, when it made its screen debut as the man­sion of a lady auto tycoon in Michael Cur­tiz’s Female.

In the decades that fol­lowed, it went on to pro­vide set­tings for pic­tures — usu­al­ly genre pic­tures — like The House on Haunt­ed Hill, The Day of the Locust, The Replace­ment Killers, and Rush Hour. “The Ennis house appar­ent­ly tran­scends space and time,” says the nar­ra­tion of Thom Ander­sen’s doc­u­men­tary Los Ange­les Plays Itself. ” It could be fic­tion­al­ly locat­ed in Wash­ing­ton or Osa­ka. It could play an ancient vil­la, a nine­teenth-cen­tu­ry haunt­ed house, a con­tem­po­rary man­sion, a twen­ty-first-cen­tu­ry apart­ment build­ing, or a twen­ty-sixth-cen­tu­ry sci­ence lab where Klaus Kin­s­ki invents time trav­el.”

The Ennis House soon became visu­al short­hand for the home of wealthy, flam­boy­ant­ly sin­is­ter B‑movie vil­lains. That makes all the more notable its use in Blade Run­ner (a film that made sev­er­al clichéd Los Ange­les loca­tions fresh again), which turns it into the tow­er where Deckard lives. Even the set-built inte­ri­or of his apart­ment uses the same Mayan-motif tiles as the house­’s famous con­crete-block exte­ri­or. But the real rooms of the Ennis House have also received plen­ty of screen time, not just in the movies but also on tele­vi­sion — and even tele­vi­sion-with­in-tele­vi­sion, in the case of Twin Peaks’  fic­tion­al soap opera Invi­ta­tion to Love.

As the last of Wright’s Mayan Revival hous­es, the Ennis House marks the end of his attempt to break into south­ern Cal­i­for­nia. The archi­tect him­self lat­er admit­ted that it had exceed­ed rea­son­able scale: “That’s what you do, you know, after you get going, and get going so far, that you get out of bounds,” he said. “I think the Ennis House was out of bounds for a con­crete-block house.” Like much of Wright’s work, it also proved bet­ter to pho­to­graph than inhab­it; despite its most recent and ambi­tious ren­o­va­tion being com­plet­ed just a few years ear­li­er, it end­ed up sell­ing for $5 mil­lion below ask­ing price. I appre­ci­ate Blade Run­ner as much as any­one, but $18 mil­lion is still more than I’d pay for a 40-minute walk to the sub­way.

Relat­ed con­tent:

That Far Cor­ner: Frank Lloyd Wright in Los Ange­les – A Free Online Doc­u­men­tary

A Beau­ti­ful Visu­al Tour of Tir­ran­na, One of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Remark­able, Final Cre­ations

Inside the Beau­ti­ful Home Frank Lloyd Wright Designed for His Son (1952)

When Frank Lloyd Wright Designed a Dog­house, His Small­est Archi­tec­tur­al Cre­ation (1956)

What Frank Lloyd Wright’s Unusu­al Win­dows Tell Us About His Archi­tec­tur­al Genius

12 Famous Frank Lloyd Wright Hous­es Offer Vir­tu­al Tours: Hol­ly­hock House, Tal­iesin West, Falling­wa­ter & More

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities and the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

Johnny Cash & The Clash’s Joe Strummer Sing Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song” (2002)

in Music | October 14th, 2024

In 1958, Mer­le Hag­gard saw John­ny Cash play in San Quentin, and went on to sing hon­est coun­try songs for coun­try out­laws. In 1982, future Rage Against the Machine gui­tarist Tom Morel­lo saw Joe Strum­mer play with The Clash in Chica­go and went on to play angry right­eous rock for angry punks. Both Cash and Strum­mer, who died less than a year apart, were musi­cal prophets in their way, inspir­ing oth­ers to pick up their mes­sage and car­ry it to the com­mon fan. The same, of course, could be said of Bob Mar­ley. And though those three would like­ly have dif­fer­ent def­i­n­i­tions of the word “redemp­tion,” they shared a belief in music as a force for good.

Just above, hear Cash and Strum­mer sing Marley’s “Redemp­tion Song,” with Morel­lo on gui­tar. Record­ed dur­ing the ses­sions for Cash’s last album, the Rick Rubin-pro­duced Amer­i­can IV: The Man Comes Around, the duet hap­pened more or less by chance.

Says Rubin, “Joe was com­ing every day, because he loved John­ny Cash, and he just hap­pened to be in L.A. on vaca­tion. And he actu­al­ly extend­ed his trip a week longer just to come every day and be around John­ny.” Rubin also record­ed a solo take of Strum­mer singing “Redemp­tion Song” (below), which appeared on Strum­mer’s final album, the posthu­mous­ly released Street­core.

“Orig­i­nal­ly, the song was sup­posed to be a duet, and we record­ed it as a duet,” Rubin con­tin­ues, “But, just in case, both John­ny and Joe sang the whole song sev­er­al times” on their own. The duet ver­sion appears on the third disc, titled Redemp­tion Songs, of the released Cash box set Unearthed, which fea­tures out­takes and alter­nates from the Rubin-pro­duced Amer­i­can Record­ings series of Cash cov­er songs. Seems fit­ting some­how that one of the last songs both Strum­mer and Cash would record would be this one, and that they would sing it togeth­er. As one site suc­cinct­ly put it, the record­ing rep­re­sents “the first true punk rock star and the last. Togeth­er for­ev­er.”

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Bob Marley’s Redemp­tion Song Final­ly Gets an Offi­cial Video: Watch the Ani­mat­ed Video Made Up of 2747 Draw­ings

Bob Marley’s “Redemp­tion Song” Played by Musi­cians Around the World

Did Joe Strum­mer, Front­man of The Clash, Run the Paris and Lon­don Marathons?

“Joe Strummer’s Lon­don Call­ing”: All 8 Episodes of Strummer’s UK Radio Show Free Online

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

The Amazing Recording History of The Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun”

in Music | October 14th, 2024

The most streamed Bea­t­les song isn’t “She Loves You,” “Hey Jude,” or “All You Need Is Love.” It isn’t even “Yes­ter­day.” If you were about to guess “Some­thing,” you’re on the right track, at least as far as the source album and song­writer. In fact, it’s George Har­rison’s oth­er sig­na­ture song “Here Comes the Sun,” which has racked up 1,433,830,334 Spo­ti­fy streams as of this writ­ing, near­ly a mil­lion more than “In My Life” right below it. The You Can’t Unhear This video above breaks down what makes “Here Comes the Sun” stand out even amid the for­mi­da­ble Bea­t­les cat­a­log, from its con­cep­tion through its record­ing process.

Though it comes off as a sim­ple song — whose invit­ing qual­i­ty may well have some­thing to do with its out­sized pop­u­lar­i­ty — “Here Comes the Sun” turns out to be the result of a tech­ni­cal­ly com­plex and uncon­ven­tion­al process fair­ly char­ac­ter­is­tic of the late Bea­t­les. Start­ing with a melody craft­ed while play­ing an acoustic gui­tar in Eric Clap­ton’s gar­den (hav­ing recused him­self from yet anoth­er busi­ness meet­ing), Har­ri­son enriched it with such tech­niques as run­ning his gui­tar through a revolv­ing Leslie speak­er meant for an organ and hav­ing his hulk­ing Moog syn­the­siz­er trans­port­ed to Abbey Road so he could add a lay­er of elec­tron­ic sub­lim­i­ty.

At this point in the life of the Bea­t­les, every­one involved could sure­ly feel that the band’s end was near. Regard­less, none of the Fab Four was quite work­ing in iso­la­tion, and indeed, the “Here Comes the Sun” ses­sions — which, of course, end­ed up on Abbey Road, the final album they record­ed — rep­re­sent some of their last work as a unit. It’s not sur­pris­ing that such a con­text would pro­duce, say, John Lennon’s grim­ly descend­ing “I Want You (She’s So Heavy),” which ends side one; what star­tles no mat­ter how many times you hear it is the gen­tle opti­mism with which Har­rison’s side two opens imme­di­ate­ly there­after, espe­cial­ly if you’re not turn­ing an LP over in between.

Even in iso­la­tion, “Here Comes the Sun” has made such a cul­tur­al impact that Carl Sagan lob­bied for its inclu­sion on the Voy­ager “Gold­en Records,” which were launched into out­er space with the intent to give oth­er forms of intel­li­gent life a glimpse of human civ­i­liza­tion. The Bea­t­les also liked the idea, but they did­n’t own the nec­es­sary rights; those belonged to the label EMI, who in the rec­ol­lec­tion of Sagan’s wid­ow Ann Druyan demand­ed a pro­hib­i­tive fee for the song’s use. Had it been includ­ed, per­haps it could’ve end­ed up the first inter­galac­tic hit song — one enjoyed in the orbit of anoth­er sun entire­ly.

Relat­ed con­tent:

The Bea­t­les Release the First Ever Video for “Here Comes the Sun”

Hear The Bea­t­les’ “Here Comes the Sun” With a Re-Dis­cov­ered George Har­ri­son Solo

Flash­mob Per­forms The Bea­t­les’ “Here Comes the Sun” in Madrid Unem­ploy­ment Office

How George Mar­tin Defined the Sound of the Bea­t­les: From String Quar­tets to Back­wards Gui­tar Solos

Watch George Harrison’s Final Inter­view and Per­for­mance (1997)

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities and the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

When Leonard Cohen Guest Starred on Miami Vice (1986)

in Music, Television | October 14th, 2024

Leonard Cohen was Canada’s answer to Bob Dylan. While best known per­haps as a singer-song­writer who penned the tune “Hal­lelu­jah” — which was cov­ered by Jeff Buck­ley, John Cale and just about every­one else under the sun — he was also at vary­ing points in his col­or­ful life a poet, a nov­el­ist, a law stu­dent and a Zen monk. Well, you can add to this list guest star on Mia­mi Vice. Yes. Mia­mi Vice, Michael Mann’s decade-defin­ing crime series that some­how made stub­ble, pas­tel col­ors and Don John­son cool.

Appear­ing on the episode “French Twist,” Cohen plays Fran­cois Zolan, a French secret ser­vice agent who is up to no good. Though he’s in the episode for only a cou­ple of min­utes and almost all of it on the phone, Cohen just man­ages to ooze men­ace. You can see him and some tru­ly breath­tak­ing exam­ples of ‘80s fash­ion in the clip above.

Mia­mi Vice had a habit of cast­ing music icons. Lit­tle Richard, Frank Zap­pa, Miles Davis, Willie Nel­son, and Eartha Kitt also appeared in the series. But, unlike Cohen, they didn’t act in French.

Below you can see a mon­tage of 20 rock stars who appeared on Mia­mi Vice dur­ing its run.

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

When Frank Zap­pa & Miles Davis Played a Drug Deal­er and a Pimp on Mia­mi Vice

The Poet­ry of Leonard Cohen Illus­trat­ed by Two Short Films

How Leonard Cohen & David Bowie Faced Death Through Their Art: A Look at Their Final Albums

Young Leonard Cohen Reads His Poet­ry in 1966 (Before His Days as a Musi­cian Began)

Jonathan Crow is a writer and film­mak­er whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hol­ly­wood Reporter, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low him at @jonccrow.