Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Julia

Today we hear John's ballad to his mother, "Julia". He's the only Beatle to perform on this track, making "Julia" the only song to feature only Lennon. Also, he uses a finger-picking style of guitar known as "Travis-picking" that he'd learned from musician Donovan while in India. 

According to Wikipedia:
"Julia" was written for John's mother, Julia Lennon (1914–1958), who was knocked down and killed by a car driven by a drunk off-duty police officer when John was 17 years old. It was also written for his future wife Yoko Ono, whose first name, which literally means "child of the sea" in Japanese, is echoed in the lyric "Oceanchild, calls me."
The long, drawn-out "Julia" in each chorus is like a slow wave rolling in the ocean (in keeping with the theme of the song). The lyrics present themselves, in bits and pieces, as almost a love song to the sea itself--to John, his mother and Yoko were probably as hugely important to his life as the ocean, making it a fitting metaphor. The factoid that interested me the most was where he got the opening lines: 
The line "Half of what I say is meaningless, but I say it just to reach you" was a slight alteration from Kahlil Gibran's "Sand and Foam" (1926) in which the original verse reads, "Half of what I say is meaningless, but I say it so that the other half may reach you".
Overall, I find it a very soothing song--the perfect lullaby. 

That's all for today. See you tomorrow. :)


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Heard It Tally: 37
Songs Completed: 155

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