66. Beautiful Night (
Flaming Pie, 1997)
Spotify YouTube
(Paul #28)
I might have made a “mistake” here, because I think this song is perfectly composed, arranged, and performed, so I kept moving it up the ranks. However, I don’t enjoy it personally as much as the last several below it, and since these are my “favorites,” I should have posted it earlier. This isn’t scientific. :(
Anyway, this song is freaking gorgeous, and there is nothing about it I can criticize; it’s simply not a style of song I enjoy as much as others. Paul got the band back together for this one, with both George Martin and Ringo making contributions that elevate the song enormously, and Geoff Emerick doing an excellent job of engineering as well. The melody of this song is so strong that it doesn’t get weighed down by Martin’s heavy – but tasteful and appropriate – orchestration. My favorite part of the song is when you think it’s going to fade out like a typical ballad, but then suddenly it speeds up and reprises musical ideas from the bridge and the chorus.
And there’s Ringo, just holding it all together in such a loving way. On songs like this and “In My Life,” that is the word that always comes to me for Ringo’s performance – loving. This song was actually 10+ years old, but Paul had never been satisfied with any previous recordings of it. Having just worked with Ringo again on “Real Love” and “Free As A Bird,” Paul asked him to work on a few songs on
Flaming Pie, and he even ordered an exact replica of the drum kit Ringo had used on those songs to be delivered for the recording sessions. I’ve read several accounts from various people at the sessions, including both Paul and Ringo, regarding how lovely they were working together. One directive from Paul is to listen to the “daft stuff” at the very end: “l think everyone who makes a record has that option, to leave the daft stuff on at the end. You nearly always fade it out but at the end of ‘Beautiful Night’, it had been such a good take that Ringo started having fun, acting like he was a doorman, throwing people out. I love that so much. lt’s very Beatley. lt’s a very Beatley idea to do that, because we did a bit of that in the group… Beautiful Night actually sounds a bit Beatley too… ln fact, I swear that at the end of Beautiful Night, you can almost hear a sort of very John Lennony voice in there. Listen to it. Check it out.” Yessir.
Yesterday(?) I referenced the sequencing of
Flaming Pie, which I think is outstanding. This is the penultimate song on the record, which might seem where some people would end the album, but instead, immediately after this huge, grand song, Paul had "Great Day," which you'll remember as a simple, acoustic bit that sounds like a "porch song." Not only is that a perfect way to follow the musicality here, but I even love the titles, as a "beautiful night" is followed by a "great day."
Even OH was a fan of this song: “Listen to Ringo go. Yeah, I like that song a lot. It’s not my kind of music, obviously, but it’s clearly the kind of music they want to make when they get together, and they did it very very well. I generally abhor arena rock, I don’t like taking in music in those situations, but that’s how you make arena rock, right there. That’s big in all the right ways. All that other stuff, like the horns that came in, it all seemed appropriate, not like an ad hoc decision. And the drumming at the end was as good as Ringo’s drumming in the
Abbey Road medley. If you don’t have a super-strong drummer…everything he does is so musical and embedded in the song, fully in service of what’s being played. He’s the perfect player. When you first start a band, everybody wants to show off or have a thing where they stand out, but it seems like the more talented you are, the more likely you are to want to do that, but what every band needs is somebody who just hits on the one and the three and shuts the #### up. He just never does more than he should, ever. I can’t believe Ringo is the most personable one of the Beatles. I’ve never met a drummer who wasn’t a ####### weirdo. There’s something about thinking in rhythms or patterns or whatever that does something weird to their brains. But Ringo’s just like, ‘Hey, want a pint?’”
UP NEXT: WGTB, one nation underground...
And agree the lyrics are especially good. Only problem I ever had with the song is that I find a few lines to be a bit arrogant - notably the "just follow me" one you noted. I like your interpretation though - will need to reflect more on that. When I discovered this album I was at that rebellious period in my life (which is not to say that I was particularly rebellious). A few years later I recall scrawling some of these lyrics along with a few lines from a Joe Jackson song on a bathroom wall in a half-a$$ed protest of some BS power nonsense the management of the local supermarket was pulling on us teenager part-timers. Yeah, that was my way of standing up to the man (no pun intended Joe Jackson): anonymously scrawling lyrics to a 20 year old song on the bathroom wall at the local supermarket. FIGHT THE POWER! 
This. Is. Amazing. Love that story so hard.
