SONG TITLE: CRY BABY CRY
PERFORMER: THE BEATLES
SONGWRITER: JOHN LENNON / PAUL MCCARTNEY
YEAR OF RELEASE: 1968
This song is compelling as hell, but it is a little difficult to get a handle on, and it gets lost in the overall brilliance of the White Album. The lyrics do make literal sense, but the point is not obvious. They give details of the day to day personal lives of a king and queen. There is no punchline, or obvious significance to the story.
The lack of meaning, I think, is the point. The melody is quiet and melancholy. With the royal talk, the little bit of phase shifting in the acoustic guitar, and the accordian, there is a sense of being suspended in dream time. Something's wrong in dreamland; there is a sense of emptiness, and foolishness. "Cry, baby, cry. Make your mother sigh. She's old enough to know better." I suspect this is all some heroin induced hallucinatory reflection of his take on the Beatles themselves: foolish pampered rich people.
The Beatles were known for being bonus babies; they frequently threw in a hot melodic idea at the beginning or end of a song which was not repeated. This one is particularly good, and really completes the song. All the fancy production tricks drop away as Paul pleads forlornly "Can you take me back where I came from, brother can you take me...baaack." That lonesome high note on the last "back" is just the saddest thing. This makes perfect sense, and needs no further explanation.
THE BEATLES ARE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE
MUSIC SUSTAINS THE SOUL
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Aaman
A single review? Is this the new trend? I must get on it:)
This is so much more insightful than the norm - thanks
2 - Matthew T. Sussman
You want insightful, Aaman? Wait till I start reviewing my Kraft singles.
3 - godoggo
Didn't I read this before?
4 - Al Barger
You might have read it on my MoreThings site. It's been there awhile, but I don't think I've published it here. I did a site search.
5 - Al Barger
You're welcome, Aaman. I often prefer writing about individual songs for several reasons. Whole albums at a time, things tend to get glossed over. Particularly with Beatles records, there's a lot to parse out. Think what you'd get writing even this modest length in one White Album review- for every single song.
6 - Aaman
I am currently gaining new insight into the songs of the Grateful Dead, thanks to an annotated edition of their lyrics, unfortunately the book itself gives me far less insights than my own readings
7 - Vern Halen
Cry Baby Cry is one of the great lost Lennon tunes, much better than Imagine, which got beat up pretty good on Blogcritics a couple of weeks ago.
8 - GoHah
For a better, more cohesive "White Album," take out the following flyover filler:
"Wild Honey Pie"
"Don't Pass Me By" (sorry, Ringo)
"Why Don't We Do It In The Road"
"Revolution 1"(pointless alternative to superior
original)
"Revolution 9" (just plain pointless, too-long
experiment)
9 - GoHah
And "Long, Long, Long"
10 - Rodney Welch
I say, don't change a thing. Even the throwaways are great. And I think of "Revolution 9" as an audio Godard film; a work of inspired cut-up spontaneity that seems to follow some strange structure, like free jazz.
11 - GoHah
good enough--I'm the the kind who thinks Sgt Pepper seems dated and overrated in parts (I always skip "Within You, Without You" and "She's Leaving Home," for example)and think Rubber Soul is wildly inconsistent (Revolver, though, is perfect).
12 - IgnatiusReilly
gee, just imagine what heights The Beatles could have reached if only you had been there to advise them, GH.
13 - GoHah
well, Ignatius, in my deepest delusions of grandeur, I am the Voice Of My Generation. Now about this Dylan feller . . .
14 - Voice Of All Generations, reborn, literally
Uh, oh--the delusions are back...
15 - Al Barger
I wouldn't want to lose anything from the album. Even the lesser songs are interesting texture and serve a purpose. "Wild Honey Pie" isn't one of their best tracks, the weakest thing on the album, but it's catchy at that, and adds a unique bit to the flavor of the whole. Plus it's pretty short. It's only 61 seconds. You might consider it more of an extended segue between "Ob La Di" and "Bungalow Bill" rather than really a full fledged song.
"Don't Pass Me By" is a really unique Ringo expression, and a totally cool song. That's one of the top couple of expressions of pure Ringonicity in the whole Beatles catalogue.
"Revolution #1" is great too. It's a very different arrangement and effect. It's halfway to being another song entirely.
And don't EVER disrespect "Why Don't We Do It in the Road." That's a totally righteous rock and roll JAM. That's got to be the best song Little Richard never wrote.
"Revolution 9" is just nonsense as any kind of MUSIC. If we were going to lose something, this would be it. But at that, the track is cool freaky texture. I usually skip over it. 8:13 is WAY too much texture without musical substance. Still, it's pretty cool.
I also have a soft spot for the track personally, having fond memories of discovering it circa 1988 on an early CD jukebox. I innocently played this in a Chi Chi's bar during Friday night happy hour one psychedelic evening. Those rising waves of discomfort across the bar were GREAT. It was like a little live "react to art" project, with the live random bar chaos building out of the record. It was COOL.
16 - GoHah
Al--Rev#9 was on a jukebox? I can see the appeal of playing that in mixed company. I played Lou Reed's abrasive "Metal Machine Music" a couple times at closing time at the record store I worked at to gently remind people we were closing. Did the trick.
17 - Al Barger
It was the first CD jukebox I'd ever seen, and it had both discs of the White Album. On one hand, these things dramatically expand the number of selections. On the other hand, they expand they expand MY choices for mischief. Yee-haw!
18 - Vern Halen
How did you manage Metal Machine Music a couple of times? Once all the way through was enough for me.
White album - take out Rev9 & Rev1 & replace with Hey Jude & Revolution (the single) respectively - then it's a go.
19 - Elvira Black
I first heard the White Album at twelve and now that you bring it up, it is still one of the most amazing and innovative pop albums of ALL time.
In addition to the coda you mention, the fact that it segues into Revolution 9 is burned into my hard-wired Beatle-fan synapses.
I also can never listen to or think of the White Album without imagining Charles Manson and his followers using it as fodder for paranoic-fueled plotting out in the California desert.
Cry Baby Cry is one of the most poignant of all the extraordinary songs on this masterpiece of an album. I wouldn't change a thing about it.
20 - zingzing
re: the bashing of revolution #9.
ok... revolution #9 is a brilliant song. as pure sound, tape manipulation, and for the furthering (is that a word?) of classical and experimental music, it doesn't come much better.
ever heard of stockhausen? riley? reich? maybe you have, maybe you haven't. those are just the some of the more common names in early electronic music (not so much riley), or musique concrete (not so much reich), or minimalism (not so much stockhausen), or just mid-20th century classical music. the brilliance of revolution #9 is that it was a) heard by a gazillion people, and b) actually just as good, or maybe even better, than anything those other names did.
the beatles were pop. they knew pop, they almost invented it as we know it. they also had better music taste than you (except george). lennon made this (paul had nothing to do with it, although he had been the first beatle into experimental music, and is also responsible for most of the good ideas on "tomorrow never knows...") because he was fascinated by this type of music. he was also one of the great tune-smiths of his day. he couldn't help but make a "pop" version of this experimental music.
if you'd just listen to the damn thing, you might enjoy it. ever listened to it the whole way!? more than once? got a brain? got some adventure in your heart? god damn it. listen.
btw-was cry baby cry ever released as a single? don't think so... could be wrong... but i doubt it... i thought that hey jude/revolution was the single released around this time... and lady madonna/inner light...
21 - Al Barger
Zingzing, I thank you for reading my column, and for taking the time to think out a response.
However, "Revolution #9" is just not a good piece of music. Indeed, it's questionable to even call it "music." Music is about PATTERNS of information, generally melody, rhythm and/or harmony. "Revolution #9" has none of that.
A lot of people have heard that little wank off session- because it's sandwiched in amongst REAL songs like "Helter Skelter" and "Rocky Raccoon" and- special personal fave- "Piggies." Absolutely NO ONE would have given a rat's ass about that silly recording of the mating calls of the avant garde if it wasn't coming out of the guy who wrote "Strawberry Fields Forever."
And DUDE, you SO don't know who you're talking to if you don't think I've ever given that album a good listen. I obsess on Beatle records like some folks fixate on their King James Bibles.
On a technical note, I don't think "Cry, Baby, Cry" was ever released as a single. That's more a technical point of our review framework here, reflecting that I'm writing about this one song rather than a whole album
22 - zingzing
i wasn't talking to you so much al. rev #9 is music. no doubt about that. it has patterns, rhythm and momentary melodies. it's just more abstract than the "REAL" songs around it. who knows if people would have cared about rev #9 if it hadn't been on a beatles record. it was a little late in the game (reich, riley and stockhausen were doing this stuff earlier), but it certainly was good. classical critics snub it, pop critics snub it, but whatever, it's fucking perfect as what it is.
i'm sure you have listened to this album a lot. probably more than i have. you actually have some decent things to say about rev #9 in some of your earlier comments (i think that was you)... i'm just saying it's better than you think, and everyone else should give it a fair listen (you should give it another shot...)
23 - zingzing
opinions are opinions. where's michael j. west!?
24 - Michael J. West
Did somebody call my name?
I actually thought "Revolution 9" was compelling and ingenious when I was 12. (I'm pretty sure nobody has uttered the previous sentence in the history of the universe.) Al, I don't doubt you've combed through the White Album thoroughly, but I wonder if you've spent as much time on "Revolution 9" as you have on the other tracks. The patterns are there in abundance; in particular, the rhythmic patterns are essential to the track (Lennon framed the whole sound collage atop the rhythm track from "Revolution 1," then erased said rhythm track from the final mix).
All that said, I LOVE "Cry Baby Cry" even more than "Revolution 9." And I see your acoustic guitar and accordion (or is it a harmonium?), and raise you the piano vamp for loveliness.
25 - GoHah
Rev#9?--doesn't have a good beat, can't dance to it (um, that's Dick Clark-referenced humor, for all you Stockhausenmaniacs), even after the first couple dozen real-old-real-fast listens. But then I don't have a brain, nor adventure in my heart. I do have an opinion, though--and that's all it is, fer chrissakes, a fuckin' opinion.
Thanks--Voice of All Generations reborn literally