(The Hit Hammer is where I'm reviewing each #1 song on the Billboard Hot 100. Starting from when the chart started in 1958 and eventually working my way to the present. To see my inspiration and more information about this blog, please CLICK HERE)
The Beatles - "Hello, Goodbye"
Hit Number 1: December 30, 1967
Stay at Number 1: 3 Weeks
At a time where the Beatles main go-to for songwriting was randomness and simplicity, it's not hard to see them come up with something like "Hello, Goodbye". It's said that the song arose in a game of word association with Alistair Taylor, who was the Beatles manager Brian Epstein's assistant, and Paul McCartney. As Taylor recalls, he went to McCartney's house to ask him how he went about writing his songs. McCartney took Taylor to a harmonium, and as he began to play, he asked Taylor to call out the opposite to each word he sang. McCartney never really answered Taylor's question, but the two sat at that harmonium calling out things like "stop/go", "high/low", "black/white", and of course, "hello/goodbye". That's how "Hello, Goodbye" was born.
To this day, McCartney claims it to be one of the easiest songs he's ever written. The song isn't even about anything. It's all just a bunch of "You say (insert word here)" and then "I say (insert opposite word here)". That's pretty much the song. It's also noted for its strange coda of "Hela, heba, helloa" being repeated, which is said to be an improvisation by the band, and the band just unexpectedly broke out into this chant at the end of the song. I guess whenever you're rolling with a bunch of weirdness and randomness, you just continue to ride that wave. It's a very strange song, to say the least.
"Hello, Goodbye" is a song that divides a lot of people, with some praising the care-free nature of the song. But then, you've got your share of people who criticize the Beatles for releasing something so naive in stature, and even in an era with weird stuff like "All You Need Is Love" being released by the band, "Hello, Goodbye" is pretty weak. I'm more in line with the latter. But why does this song suffer so much? Just listen to it. The band pours a lot of grand instrumentation into the song, with mellow strings, murmuring guitar plucking during the chorus, and an escalating piano riff during the verses. That's only scratching the surface on the stuff you hear in "Hello, Goodbye"; just name an instrument, and it probably has some sort of a part in the song. What I'm saying here, is that the production into the song must have been insanely expensive. And they use all of that for something like "Hello, Goodbye"? This is a song that sounds like a 3-year old wrote it, and it only takes the mind of one to come up with "Hello, Goodbye". I'm not one to usually criticize Paul McCartney's songwriting skills, as he's one of the best in the business, but we all have weak moments in everything we do. "Hello, Goodbye" is a weak moment. It's a weird drug trip in a song, and one that can easily give the psychedelic era a bad rap. It's hard to even consider this as part of the psychedelic movement. It's just way too simple and elementary-level for my liking. So on that note, I'll say goodbye to "Hello, Goodbye" and move on.
GRADE: 3/10
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