I made the point that many of the songs in Abbey Road's Long One medley aren't songs at all but song fragments but Dig It takes that to the extreme. A 12 minute semi improvised jam over the most unoriginal chord sequence known to man, only 50 seconds was worth salvaging.
It's not a song, it's a mildly amusing outtake that belongs on something like Anthology.
The Beatles hadn't released a cover since Act Naturally in 1965 and Maggie Mae was to be the last. A traditional folk song about a Liverpool prostitute sung in exaggerated scouse accents (Mary McCartney had always taught Paul to 'talk posh' and Lennon was brought up in a fiercely middle class household) it had enough charm to be a great track – if only the band could have made it through an entire take.
I'll agree with all of that.
ReplyDeleteI've heard some of the full takes of Dig It. I said some because I got bored waiting for something that never seemed to happen - for something interesting to occur.
Maggie Mae, like you said, could have been really good if they had recorded a full length version of it.
I've heard, erm, bootleg material from these sessions (10 discs worth), and they didn't seem to be that interested, if truth be told. This snippet of Maggie Mae shows that "not caring" attitude that was basically the feeling for the whole thing as evidenced more on the bootlegs.
Yeah - it was probably The Beatles at their lowest ebb - which makes Abbey Road all the more remarkable
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