Album Art: Eddie Floyd - "Knock On Wood"

Nostalgia 77 - Mockingbird (ft. Josa Peit)

Yamit Mamo - My Angel Put The Devil In Me

Album Art: Santana - "Santana"

Can you see the 9 Faces?

:-)

Album Art: Baroness - "Yellow and Green"

The National - I'll See You in My Dreams

View from the Hill - No Conversation

Earth, Wind & Fire - That's The Way Of The World

Quantic and his Combo Barbaro - New Morning

Lizzy Parks - Raise The Roof

Van McCoy - Do the Hustle (with Pan's People)

Why Must I Cry - Peter Tosh Cover

White Town - Your Woman

Clare and the Reasons - Everybody wants to rule the world

Clare and the Reasons - Wake Up (You Sleepy Head)

Clare and The Reasons - Pluto

Rudimental - "Not Giving In" ft. John Newman & Alex Clare [Official Video]

Terry Callier (24 May 1945; died 28 October 2012)

 

guardian.co.uk; Adam Sweeting

Terry Callier at the Jazz Cafe in London in 2001. Photograph: David Levene

From his beginnings in jazz, folk and soul music onwards, the singer and guitarist Terry Callier, who has died aged 67 after suffering from throat cancer, struggled to find the popular recognition his varied talents deserved. Nonetheless he released a string of enduring and influential albums and, during the 1990s, enjoyed a creative rebirth in the UK when his supple, soulful music was feted by the acid-jazz movement and he collaborated with Beth Orton and Massive Attack.

Callier was born in Chicago and raised in the north side of the city. Partly inspired by his mother's enthusiasm for singers such as Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday, he sang in amateur doo-wop groups in his teens, and found himself in the midst of a remarkable group of local musicians including Curtis Mayfield, Jerry Butler and Ramsey Lewis.

In 1964, he was signed to Prestige Records by the producer Samuel Charters, with whom he cut his first album, The New Folk Sound of Terry Callier. Featuring just an acoustic guitar, two bass players (an idea Callier borrowed from the jazzman John Coltrane) and Callier's gentle but hugely expressive voice, the album stands today as a minor masterpiece. However, it was not released until 18 months later because in the meantime Charters had disappeared to Mexico, taking the master tapes with him. Look at Me Now, Callier's debut single, came in 1968, when he signed with Chicago's renowned blues label, Chess.

Callier earned a living by playing gigs in New York and Chicago until he was contacted by Butler in 1970 and recruited to his salaried group of songwriters. "Our job was just to write songs and learn about the music business," Callier told the journalist Angus Batey. "That was incredible." The following year, the Chess producer Charles Stepney approached Callier for songs. Callier supplied The Love We Had (Stays On My Mind), which was recorded by the Dells and was successful enough to prompt a recording contract for Callier from the Chess subsidiary Cadet. He made three solo albums under Stepney's guidance: Occasional Rain, What Color Is Love and I Just Can't Help Myself; commercial reward did not match their critical acclaim and Cadet ended Callier's contract.

Hope was rekindled when Elektra Records came calling in 1977, though Callier refused to have any truck with the prevailing disco boom, and his two Elektra albums continued his string of commercial flops. His Elektra mentor, Don Mizell, quit the label in 1979, and Callier was dropped shortly afterwards.

When his daughter, Sundiata, who was living with Callier's ex-wife, told him she wanted to stay in Chicago to attend school, Callier realised he had to have a steady income. "She needed me and the music business just didn't seem like a viable option at that point," he said. He secured a staff job as a computer programmer at the University of Chicago, and relegated music to a mere hobby for the next decade and a half.

However, as the 90s dawned, Callier was amazed to be told that he had become an icon of the British soul-jazz scene, thanks to a single, I Don't Wanna See Myself (Without You), on an obscure label. This had caught the ear of cutting-edge DJs such as Eddie Piller, who dropped in on Callier in Chicago and invited him to perform at the 100 Club in London. His subsequent string of shows at the Jazz Cafe became legendary for the devotion he aroused in his listeners.

Callier sang two songs with Orton on her EP Best Bit and he was signed to Gilles Peterson's Talkin' Loud label, for which he cut the albums Timepeace (featuring Orton) and Lifetime, both suffused with a sense of faith and yearning for redemption. After his record deal collapsed following a round of record company mergers, the independent label Mr Bongo stepped into the breach and released the live album Alive and a studio album, Speak Your Peace, which featured a duet performed and co-written with Paul Weller.

Callier was sacked from his computer programmer's job and concentrated once more on music, dividing his time between the UK and the US. He recorded six acclaimed albums between 1999 and 2009. The last of these was Hidden Conversations, on which he was joined by Massive Attack, with whom he had collaborated on the single Live With Me, a Top 20 hit in 2006. "You can make accessible music and still sing about love and peace and truth and life and death," said Callier in 1996. "In the end, those are the only things that matter."

He is survived by his daughter.

• Terry Callier, musician, born 24 May 1945; died 28 October 2012

• This article was amended on 31 October 2012. The New Folk Sound of Terry Callier was released 18 months after it was recorded, rather than four years. Callier signed with Chess in 1968, rather than 1963.

Dave Matthews Band - Write a Song

Howlin' Wolf - Smokestack Lightning

Lucio Battisti - Ancora Tu

Garbage - The World Is Not Enough

Taken By Trees - Large

Rudimental - Feel The Love (ft. John Newman)

Tomasz Stańko Quartet - Lontano: Trista

Surface - Only you can make me happy

Ren Harvieu - Do Right By Me (Live for BBC Introducing)

Skip James - Devil Got My Woman

Dr Robert - Digging Your Scene (live @ MUCCHIO TV)

Ten City - Thats The Way Love Is

Elvis Costello & The Brodsky Quartet - The First To Leave

Elvis Costello & The Brodsky Quartet - Who Do You Think You Are?

Elvis Costello & The Brodsky Quartet - I Almost Had A Weakness

Ben Harper - Jah Work

Ben Harper & Relentless 7 - Lay There & Hate Me

La Prochaine Fois (The Next Time)

Chocolate Genius Inc | Enough For You | A Take Away Show

Agnes Obel - Smoke and Mirror

Nerina Pallot - Turn Me On Again

Nerina Pallot - 'Turn Me On Again (Acoustic)

Nerina Pallot - Put Your Hands Up

Blood Orange - Champagne Coast

Taken By Trees - Dreams

Slowdive - Catch the Breeze (Live)

Jewel - Barcelona

Pale Saints - 06 - Hunted - Live, Brixton 1991

John Coltrane - Naima (Belgium 1965)

Florence & The Machine - Spectrum (Say My Name) [Calvin Harris Radio Edit]

Imogen Heap - Thriller

Bon Iver at AIR Studios (4AD/Jagjaguwar Session)

St Vincent 4AD Session

Blonde Redhead 4AD Session

M. Ward - Outta My Head

Jo Hamilton - There It Is

Martha & The Muffins - Echo Beach [totp2]

Róisín Murphy - The Only Ones (Video)

Portishead - Humming

James Blake - The Wilhelm Scream

James Blake - Limit To Your Love

Pepe Deluxe - Go Supersonic from Phillip Van

Norah Jones - After the fall

Blonde Redhead - Here Sometimes (4AD Session)

Smith & Mighty , Calton

Jeff Buckley - Interview + Live Performances On Musiqueplus ( May 28th 1...

Jeff Buckley - Grace (BBC Late Show)

David Bowie - Lady Grinning Soul

David Bowie - 7 Years in Tibet (great live ver)

Björk - Play Dead (Official Video)

Björk - Hyperballad live HQ

Mallu Magalhães - Velha e Louca

Morcheeba - Col

Morcheeba - Otherwise

Morcheeba - Blindfold

Oumou Sangaré - Djorolen

Israel Vibration - Prophet Has Arise

Rodriguez - Crucify Your Mind

Sixto Diaz Rodriguez (also known as Rodriguez or as Jesus Rodriguez) is an American folk musician, born in Detroit, Michigan on (1942-07-10)July 10, 1942. He was named 'Sixto' (pronounced seex-tuh) because he was the sixth child in his family. Rodriguez's parents were middle-class immigrants from Mexico, who left in the 1920s. In most of his songs he takes a political stance on the cruelties facing the inner city poor.


This video features scenes from Summer with Monika (Swedish: Sommaren med Monika) a 1953 Swedish film directed by Ingmar Bergman.

Ukulele Orchestra of GB - Shaft

Lloyd Cole's "Don't Get Weird On Me, Babe"

Lloyd Cole's second solo album, 1991's Don't Get Weird on Me, Babe, was about a half-decade ahead of its time. If it had come out in 1996, after Richard Davies' Cardinal project, the High Llamas' Gideon Gaye, and the new belief in indie circles that Pet Sounds and Burt Bacharach were musical icons worthy of veneration, this would have slotted right in. In the year bracketed by My Bloody Valentine's Loveless and Nirvana's Nevermind, Don't Get Weird on Me, Babe (title courtesy of Raymond Carver) was considered a self-indulgent oddity. In retrospect, however, it's clearly one of Lloyd Cole's finest works. The album is divided into two distinct parts. One (the first half in the U.S., the second half everywhere else) is more of Cole's trademark literate, jangly guitar pop, featuring the sterling "Tell Your Sister" and the uncharacteristically rocking "She's a Girl and I'm a Man," the closest Cole ever came to an American hit single. This side features a core band of Fred Maher (who co-produced) on drums, Matthew Sweet on bass, and Robert Quine on guitar. That trio also appears on the other half of the album, but that set of six songs is dominated by a full orchestra arranged and conducted by Paul Buckmaster. Buckmaster's dramatic orchestrations add an entirely new dimension to the darker-edged songs without drowning them in Mantovani-style glop. In fact, the arrangements are rather low-key, especially on the haunting, hushed "Margo's Waltz," a gorgeous song with a jazzy bass part by Leland Sklar, subtle vibes, breathy female backing vocals, and almost subliminal brushed drums. Strongly reminiscent of Bacharach's most restrained '60s work -- especially during ex-Commotion Blair Cowan's lovely Hammond B3 solos -- "Margo's Waltz" is among the three or four best songs Cole has ever written. However, it's only one of many highlights on this exceptional, underrated album.


By Ravi @ allmusic.com



Tracklist


01 Butterfly    3:05
02 There For Her    4:05
03 Margo's Waltz    4:03
04 Half Of Everything    7:05
05 Man Enough    4:03
06 What He Doesn't Know    4:04
07 Tell Your Sister    3:32
08 Weeping Wine    2:38
09 To The Lions    2:40
10 Pay For It    6:20
11 The One You Never Had    2:30
12 She's A Girl And I'm A Man    4:15





Lyrics


Butterfly

You were an innocent child before I laid my hands on you
And all that pain that you held inside
Was just waiting to bloom in a darkened room
And you just flew right into the light and came alive
My little butterfly

Well you'd never known love and you'd never known pain
But you found out that they were just like wine and champagne
You could drink a little more, then you hurt a little less
And you get that butterfly feeling underneath your dress
And your promises will turn into lies
Then you will fly
My little butterfly

Now I'm lying here babe on your side of the bed
And I've got unclean thoughts flying through my head
And I'm thinking about love, yes I'm thinking about pain
And I'm thinking about some way that I might feel good again
Yes I'm thinking about my little butterfly



There For Her

Sometimes I get to thinking
I'm a hurting kind of guy
Why'd that woman leave me for a lesser kind
If you don't know now, then you never will
Is what she said
She said I didn't listen
Well I know that that's untrue
She said I didn't understand her
Well I guess that you do
Well I guess you do

Summer came around
Her old blanket on the floor
I woke to the slamming of the door
Then the rain came
And I just let it pour all over me

Sometimes I get to thinking
I've been wronged by my own kind
Downed by my own undertakings
Now I'm down by the water, black water
And I'm looking in

She said I wouldn't miss her
Well you know that that's unfair
She said I wasn't there for her
Well I never would have been there
No sir, if not for her

Summer comes around
And I miss that woman more
I guess I'll get me somewhere by the fall
When the rain comes
Well I'll just let it pour all over me

Sometimes I get to thinking
I'm a hurting kind of guy
Why'd that woman leave me for a lesser kind
If you don't know now, then you never will
Is what she said

Summer comes around
And I miss that woman more
I guess I'll get me somewhere by the fall
When the rain comes
Well I'll just let it pour all over me



Margo's Waltz

She said don't worry baby
I'll do my own crying
I'm a big girl now
Now I'm gonna be okay
Yes I'll find a new way of living
You know I will

And you lie there without sleeping
And you stare at your wall
And you realize you're not weeping
You don't need her anymore

You say don't hate me baby
It won't hurt you if you do
You got no reason not to
She'll kiss you on the head
Says there's no easy road for leaving
If it hurts you too

And you lie there without sleeping
And you stare at your wall
And you realize you're not weeping
You don't need her anymore

You walk by the old place
Looks like just any other place
Yeah that's what you say
You say I'll be okay
Yes I'll find a new way of living
Sure I will

And you lie there without sleeping
And you stare at your wall
And you realize you're not weeping
You don't need her anymore
And you lie there without sleeping
And you stare at your wall
And you realize you're not weeping
'Cause you don't need her anymore
You guess that it's over



Half Of Everything

You walk in my house with her lipstick over your face
You tell me you got news for me well, do you think I can't see straight?
Do you think I can't recognize her perfume on your clothes
You tell me you got news for me well, I don't need to be told

Let me guess, she's looking for a little peace of mind
I don't want to cause any more pain but could I please have what's mine?
She's got such a pretty please I never could say no
Well just take her half of everything and then please go

Now I know right now you're thinking I'm some crazy kind of fool
But the truth of the matter is I'm just like you
She's some kind of voodoo woman, she said she can't use me anymore
That's what she said to me she said, I can't use you anymore

I don't need your lovin', I don't need your kissin'
I don't need for you to tell me all that I've been missin'
I don't need your lovin', I don't need your kissin'
I don't need for you to tear me down and tear me down again

Every time you give a little more, she could still use a little more
Every time you give a little more, she could still use a little more
And when you can't give a little more, she could still use a little more
She could still use a little more, she could still use a little more

Tell her that she done me, that she done me good
Tell her that she done me, like a lady should
I never ever seen her and I hope I never do
I might have to show her just what love can do

The sun ain't gonna shine, and the rain is gonna fall
'Cause I put a spell on you
And all the years I cried, all the years that I tried
To save a stillborn love
I know what you're thinking, pretty soon I'll howl at the moon
But you better believe me, 'cause I was just like you
Mister read the writing on the wall, get out while you're still whole
While you're still breathing

I don't need your lovin'
(I don't need your lovin')
Kissin'
(I don't need your kissin')
Lovin', no I don't need
Tear me down again
(I don't need your lovin')
Mmm lovin'
(I don't need your kissin')
Mmm kissin', and I don't need
Tear me down again
(I don't need your lovin')
Yeah
(I don't need your kissin')
No, I don't need her to tear me down again




Man Enough

Now that the low life has no meaning
'Cause you've been there, now you're gone
But your heart won't keep from cheating
It's stringing you along

Stranger to me, well what's the lowdown
Are you man enough to pray
For a better way of living
I believe I've lost my way

Oh May, could you please hold me
I believe I might fall
I believe that I might fall

Could there be a better way of living
Better than the easy way
Could the wretched be forgiven
Are you man enough to pray

Wore my heart upon my sleeve
To court the wretched and the free
But if by chance I'd lost my way
Would you help me find it babe

Oh May, could you please hold me
I believe that I might fall
I believe I might fall

Now that the low life has no meaning
'Cause you've been there, now you're gone
But your heart won't keep from cheating
It's stringing you along

Wore my heart upon my sleeve
To court the wretched and the free
But if by chance I'd lost my way
Would you help me find it babe

Oh May, could you please hold me
I believe that I might fall
I believe that I might fall

Wore my heart upon my sleeve
To court the wretched and the free
But if by chance I'd lost my way
Am I man enough to pray

Am I man enough to pray
Are you man enough to pray
Are you man enough to pray



What He Doesn't Know

If I told you that I'd never really cared
And if I told you that I'd never cried you'd know that I lied
You'd know I lied
And if I told you that I'd found somebody new
It wouldn't make it any easier and what he doesn't know
Won't hurt at all

You know just as well as i that he's a better man than I
And i know you know

Guess I never got around to telling you
I guess that if I told you now then I'd have nothing to lose
Well I think of you
'Cause if I told you that I'd found another girl
It wouldn't make it any easier and what he doesn't know
Won't hurt at all

You know just as well as I that he's a better man than I
You know just as well as I, you know just as well as I
He's a better man than I, he's a better man than I could ever be




Tell Your Sister

I've got a little piece of paper with your name written on it
Got a head full of attitude and nowhere to put it
Tell me why don't you come down to rue morgue avenue
Why don't you come down
Soil your pretty feet on the dirty ground of Rue Morgue Avenue

Well there's a chapel on the corner where I'm doing my crying
There's a limit to my patience, what d'ya say fay let's get married
Down on Rue Morgue Avenue
They say the world keeps on turning, everything remains the same
Well my heart's burning and I say everything must change
Why don't you come down to Rue Morgue Avenue
Why don't you come down
Soil your pretty feet on the dirty ground of rue morgue avenue
Rue Morgue Avenue

Rita Mae, tell your sister she's unkind
Tell your sister well, I don't mind
Tell your sister, she's got mine

Why don't you come down
Soil your pretty feet on the dirty ground
I got a four letter word, starts with the letter L
Can't bring myself to say it 'cause it's making my life hell
Why don't you come down to rue morgue avenue
'Cause I've been drinking all night and all day
Just trying to picture your sweet face
Down on Rue Morgue Avenue
Down on Rue Morgue Avenue
Down on Rue Morgue Avenue

Rita Mae, tell your sister she's unkind
Tell your sister well, I don't mind
Tell your sister, she knows where, where I lie
Down on Rue Morgue Avenue
Down on Rue Morgue Avenue
Down on...
Down on Rue Morgue Avenue
Down on Rue Morgue Avenue




Weeping Wine

If every lover that you'd ever known
Could turn around would you take one
Or would you really rather be alone
And fool around if and when you might please
Well I don't know babe if you ever have been told
But you're a tough one to play for
I tried to be what you were looking for
Now I'm not sure if you ever really knew

You know the world won't wait, babe you're crying too late
And you're drinking on borrowed time
And the last thing you need is me and my weeping wine
I guess that the last thing you need is me and my weeping wine

You sit around sticking pins in dolls
What's there to fall down and die for?
You're looking fine baby it's well known
Why does your story have to be so short?
Well pretty soon babe you're gonna show your age
'Cause you're drinking on borrowed time
And then the last thing you need is me and my weeping wine
I guess the last thing you need is me and my weeping wine

You know the world won't wait, babe you're crying too late
you're drinking on borrowed time
And the last thing you need is me and my weeping wine
Yeah I guess that the last thing you need is me and my weeping wine
Me and my weeping wine
Me any my weeping wine




To The Lions

I lost my girl on monday
Looking for some sympathy
I went to church directly
The lord was not there for me
Didn't go to work on tuesday
Got to drinking around noon
I lost my heart to a mean bartender
She knocked me off my stool

Now the world's spinning round too fast lord
Won't you let me off on the corner
You know a man could take to sinning
All he needs's a little push in that direction

I lost my job on friday
Said a lack of discipline
I went to church directly
Peter said he was not in
I hit the bar on sunday
Looking for some discipline
I sold my soul to the mean bartender
She said I'm born again

Now the world's spinning round too fast lord
Won't you let me off on the corner
You know a man could take to sinning
All he needs's a little pushing
You time it just right
You could send me to the lions tonight




Pay For It

Strange to see you babe, ain't nothing down here free
Did you lose your ticket, hope you weren't looking for me
Now I'm still wearing the scars I got from being your fool
You messed me up pretty good babe I didn't mean to rule you

Remember when I first saw you babe you were looking pretty good
Said you were looking for love, well then why didn't you
You just sat there taking everything you could get
Never thought one day you might have to pay for it

Well did you ever dream baby one day you might fall
And feel your back against the wall
Well did you ever dream baby one day you might crawl
Did you ever dream

Now when you're putting on your face I guess that you feel kinda low
Knowing that you passed your best and you got nothing to show
Well baby you know just as well as I some fool is gonna fall your way
Only this time around you might have to pay for it

Well did you ever dream baby one day you might fall
And feel your back against the wall
Well did you ever dream baby one day you might crawl
That's what I said
Did you ever dream, baby
When you had no need, baby
Did you ever dream
That you might have to pay for it
I do believe that you might have to pay now
Well did you ever dream baby one day you might fall
Yeah and feel your back against the wall
Well did you ever dream baby one day you might crawl

(improvise)

Strange to see you baby
Mmm strange, very strange
'Cause you messed me up good
Yes you messed me up
Messed me up pretty good now didn't you baby
Mmm, took me a long time, to get back here
But I swear I didn't mean to rule you
Yeah I swear I didn't mean to rule you
How do you mend what you didn't mean to do
'Cause I swear I didn't mean it
I swear I didn't mean it
And I swear I didn't, swear I didn't mean to
Swear I didn't mean to rule you
I swear, but you messed me up
You know that you messed me up good, do you now
You messed me up good, yes you did
Yes you did now now, baby
'Cause I'm looking at you now
And you're paying now, yes you are now
I swear, and you never dreamed that
And you never dreamed that
No you never dreamed that
But you're paying now
Mmm you never dreamed that
Mmm I'm looking right at you now
And you're paying now, yes you are




The One You Never Had

Well I don't know but I've been told and
Seen what you've left behind
And I don't know if I like what I see
When it's knocking at my door

And you don't know if you're laughing or crying
And I don't know if I care
'cause I know right here
I've got me something that you never had
You might laugh but what are you looking at?
Sending your own valentines to the one you never had

Well I don't know but I've been told and
Seen what you've left behind
And all those ladies you left standing on the corner
They're laughing at you now

(You never had, you never had)
So you drink all night and you sleep all day
'Cause you see what you've left behind
And standing on the corner, hey lady got a quarter
She's passing you by

And you don't know if you're laughing or crying
And I don't know if I care
'Cause I know right here
I've got me something that you never had
You might laugh but what are you looking at?
Sending your own valentines to the one you never had



She's A Girl And I'm A Man

She said she didn't understand and so she guessed he was deep
He swore he'd never been to college and was too tall to be
So as she led him to the slaughter thinking she'd be laughing last
Now the lady in the question is his better half

She's gotta be the stupidest girl I've ever seen
She don't care who, why, where I've been
She's got a right to be, with all that's wrong with me
But she doesn't wanna understand that she's a girl and I'm a man

He thought that women and drink would make a man out of him
But the extent of his studies left a jaded man
So as she led him to the altar he was easily led
And when they asked him if he did, well then this is what he said

She's gotta be the stupidest girl I've ever seen
She don't care who, why, where I've been
She's got a right to be, with all that's wrong with me
But she doesn't wanna understand that she's a girl and I'm a man

Well she's a girl and I'm a man
She's a girl and I'm a man
She's a girl and I'm a man
She's a girl and I'm a man
She's a girl and I'm a man
She's a girl

She's gotta be the stupidest girl I've ever seen
She don't care who, why, where I've been
She's got a right to be, with all that's wrong with me
But she doesn't wanna understand that she's a girl and I'm her man

Every time she's near me
She gives me a new reason to be alive
Try to get right
Yeah she looks right through me
She says you're not cool, you're just like me
You're a stupid man
Get over here, hold my stupid hand
She's all right, yeah...

You wouldn't understand, sister is a man fan
She's gotta be the stupidest girl I've ever seen
She don't care who, why, where I've been
She's got a right to be, with all that's wrong with me
But she doesn't wanna understand that she's a girl and I'm a man

Lloyd Cole - 'There For Her (Live)

Live performance on 'An Eye On The Music' TV show.

Lloyd Cole - Butterfly (Live)

Live performance on 'An Eye On The Music' TV show.

Giorgio Moroder - Knights In White Satin

Radiohead - How to Disappear Completely

Melody Gardot - Love Me Like a River Does

Melody Gardot - Your Heart Is As Black As Night

Piney Gir - Letting In The Sunshine

Sam Browne - Letting in the Sunshine

The Controllers - Stay (Extended Club Version)

Dont Let Love Get You Down - Archie Bell & The Drells

Malcolm McClaren - In The Absence Of The Parisienne

Why are the Beatles so popular 50 years on?

The Fab Four's music endures because it mirrors an era we still long for, says Adam Gopnik.

Over there this summer you are celebrating, as all of us over here know, a decades-old anniversary of uncanny auspiciousness: the Jubilee of an institution that has lasted far longer than many thought possible, transcending its native place in Britain to become a source of constant, almost unbroken reassurance to the entire world.

I'm referring of course to the truth that in a very few weeks we will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first concert, and first photograph, of the four Beatles.

I'm looking at the picture now. It shows the Beatles, as they would remain, together, John, Paul, George and now at last Ringo in place at the drums, taken in that afternoon before one of their first public appearances on 22 August 1962.

Hello, Goodbye First public appearance with Ringo Starr as drummer in August 1962Last photograph of the group was taken exactly seven years later

And now I am looking at another photograph that shows the four in the very last photograph that would ever be taken of them - from 22 August 1969, exactly seven years later, to the day and, from the looks of the light, perhaps the hour.

There is something eerie, fated, cosmic about the Beatles - those seven quick years of fame and then decades of after-shock.

They appear in public as a unit on 22 August and disappear as a unit, Mary Poppins like, exactly seven years later. Or take their beautiful song "Eleanor Rigby". Though Paul McCartney can recall in minute detail how he made the name up in 1965, it turns out that in St Peter's Woolton Parish Church cemetery, just a few yards from where Paul first met John on 6 July 1957, there is a gravestone, humble but clearly marked, for one Eleanor Rigby.

Paul must have made an unconscious mental photograph on that fateful day and kept it with him through the decade. Even things that they did in a pettish rush become emblematic: they took a surly walk across Abbey Road because they were too exhausted to go where they had meant to go for the album cover, and now every American tourist in London walks the same crossing, and invests their bad-tempered stride with charm and purposefulness and point.

Flickr user Mark Douglas gave his own rendition of the Abbey Road cover using a camera-timer and merging images of himself The Beatles remain. It is no accident that the Queen's Jubilee, that other one, ended with Macca singing four Beatles songs. It wasn't just nice; it was only fitting. (Though it's a shame Ringo wasn't there to do the drumming.)

There's a popular video my kids like called "stuff people never say". Well, they don't say "stuff", and one of the things the video insists that people never say now is "I don't like the Beatles."

Everyone liked them then, and everyone likes them now. My own children fight with me about the Rolling Stones and are baffled by the Spinal Tappishness of Led Zeppelin (why do they scream in American voices?)

Find out moreA Point of View is usually broadcast on Fridays on Radio 4 at 20:50 BST and repeated Sundays, 08:50 BSTAdam Gopnik is an American commentator and writes for The New YorkerOr listen to A Point of View on the iPlayer

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But the Beatles are for them as uncontroversial as the moon. Just there, shining on.

This is strange. Had the same thing been true for our generation - that the pop music that superintended our lives dated from before World War I - it would have been more than strange, bizarre. Why have they lasted?

The reason we usually give is that they reflected their time, were a mirror of a decade, the 60s, that we still long for.

But the longer that I have listened to them and the more that their time recedes into history, the more vital they sound.

I wonder, even, if truly historic pop figures don't always have a backwards relation to their time. Charlie Chaplin, one of the few artists to have a comparable allure, was at work after World War I, the era of the automobile and the machine gun, one of the most disruptive moments in human history.

But Chaplin's work, rooted in Victorian theatre and the Dickensian novel, evokes the values of the time before.

The city in City Lights and The Kid is the London of 1890, not the New York of 1920. His art, energetic on the surface, was elegiac beneath.

Charlie Chaplin's films evoked the values of a previous era I think this is true of the Beatles, too. The Beatles were not provocateurs, though often mystics, and their great subject was childhood gone by, and what to make of the austere, rationed, but in many ways ordered and secure English world that they had grown up in, and that was now passing before their eyes, in part because of the doors they had opened.

Their most enduring work, the singles Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane tell on one side of the dream memory of a Liverpool garden where a lonely alienated boy could find solace, and on the other of a Liverpool street where a bright, sociable boy could see the world.

Remembered sounds - of brass bands and 20s rick-a-tick ornament their music and children's books. The Alice books particularly, fill their lyrics.

Sexual intercourse may have begun, as Philip Larkin says, with their first LP, but their subsequent ones rarely had too much intercourse with sex.

Their greatest hit singles, She Loves You, and Hey, Jude are songs of avuncular counsel, wise advice given by one friend to another who has got in over his head in a love affair. Peter Sellers did a hilarious piece as a middle-aged Irishman in a pub, using the words of "She Loves You" as natural dialogue passed over the pub table. "You know it's up to you. Apologise to her." It worked not because it was so incongruous but because it sounded so congruous, so sensible.

Landmarks such as this one found their way into Beatles' songsThe Beatles' music endures, I think, above all because we sense in it the power of the collaboration of opposites. John had reach. He instinctively understood that what separates an artist from an entertainer is that an artist seeks to astonish, even shock, his audience. Paul had grasp, above all of the materials of music, and knew instinctively that astonishing art that fails to entertain is mere avant-gardism.

We see the difference when they were wrenched apart: Paul still had a hundred wonderful melodies and only sporadic artistic ambition, while John still had lots of artistic ambition but only a sporadic handful of melodies. But in those seven years when John's reach met Paul's grasp, we all climbed Everest. (Not an arbitrary choice by the way: Everest was to be the title of their last album, and the place they had meant to go before they ended up going outside to Abbey Road instead.)

The Beatles' gift was for harmony and their vision was above all of harmony

The fatefulness of their climb haunts many million others. I had moved with the girl who was to become my wife to New York city in the late fall of 1980, and it was with joy that we saw a birthday greeting from Yoko to John and Sean fill the sky just after we got there. That John was back at work in the studio, after five years away, as we soon learned he was, seemed a good omen for us. We were together in our tiny new home late at night when he was killed, just across the park. We might have heard the shots.

I don't think I've ever quite recovered from that night. My essential faith in the benevolence of the universe was shattered. Some compact that, at 20, I thought the world had made with me - that things turned out well, that you ended up in New York with a girl you were in love with and the Beatles across the park - seemed betrayed.

Or rather, I learned in a rush that night the adult truth, which is that the world makes no compacts with you at all, and that the most you can hope is to negotiate a short-term treaty with it - an armistice, which the world, like a half-mad monarch, will then break, just as it likes.

The Beatles were masters at harmonisingThe Beatles' gift was for harmony, and their vision was above all of harmony. And harmony, voices blending together in song, is still our strongest symbol of a good place yet to come.

In the world of symbol and myth that music can't help but create, melody lies behind us, and calls us, as John's beautiful song "Julia" does, to our memory of a better past, or what we want to think was one.

Harmony as symbolic form always lies ahead, as the realised-here herald of a better world where all opposites will sing together as one. That's why even Bach and Handel ended their greatest works with a chorale - to cheer us on to a world we might get to by hearing a chorus that sounds like it's already got there.

Art makes us alive and aware and sometimes afraid but it rarely makes us glad. Fifty years on, the Beatles live because they still give us that most amazing of feelings: the apprehension of a happiness that we can hold, like a hand.

The Durutti Column - Without Mercy

The Durutti Column - Sketch For Summer

Young Marble Giants - Final Day

Joy Division - Shadowplay

Esperanza Spalding - Little Fly music video

Album Art: Terry Callier - "What Color Is Love?"

Album Art: Donald Byrd - "Street Lady"

The Clientele - Winter on Victoria Street

India Arie - Video

Erykah Badu - Window Seat

Joe Bonamassa - Stop (Royal Albert)

Mulatu Astake - "The Way To Nice" Live in Sao Paulo

Blue Roses - "Doubtful Comforts"

~ first 3D camera-shift music video!

Syl Johnson - Wind blow her back my way

Dennis Alcapone - Wake Up Jamaica - Live 1973

Nicky Thomas - Is it because I'm black?

Lisa Miskovsky - Why Start A Fire

J-Live - Satisfied + Dub

Love Unlimited - Move Me No Mountain

Tomasz Stankos - Terminal 7

Emeli Sandé - Next To Me

Sarah Vaughn - Make Yourself Comfortable

Dubstar - Stars

Freeez - Southern Freeze

J.T. Taylor - Feel The Need

Gil Scott-Heron -- The Bottle

Tindersticks - No More Affairs

Living Colour - Solace Of You

Siouxsie & The Banshees - Hong Kong Garden (BBC Session 6/2/78)

Lauryn Hill - I Find It Hard To Say (Rebel Studio Version)

LKJ - Fite Dem Back

Ziggy Marley & The Melody Makers - Tipsy Dazy

Ziggy Marley - Keep On

Anthony Hamilton - Souls On Fire

Walk off the Earth - Somebody That I Used to Know

Kimbra - Settle Down

Gotye - Somebody That I Used To Know

Music and Cities

Mark Twain once famously wrote that "A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes". An astute observation of how people can interact. Actually false, metaphorically true. Similarly, you can ‘actually’ travel around the world in another way without putting your shoes on - through music and song. Whilst this is often the consequence of mood (of the music, or of you whilst listening), or of memory (how many of us have holiday songs that remind us of a particular vacation?), or indeed of instruments used (the Steel Drum brings you instantly to the West Indies, the Kora to West Africa), sometimes the globetrotting is as literal as the title of the song itself. Here as an example of what I mean...


Jewel - Barcelona
Kaki King - Montreal
Jeff Buckley - Vancouver
Blonde Redhead - Oslo

33 Degrees Of Stax