In article <36790997.7881@sans.vuw.ac.nz> Grace Millar
<grace@sans.vuw.ac.nz> writes:
>Ray Martinez wrote:
>> 
>> jud.mccranie@mindspring.com (Jud McCranie) wrote:
>> 
>> >What do you think is the most underrated, under-appreciated, or
>> >not-well-known Beatle song?
>> 
>>         "Good Morning, Good Morning". Great song. I love
>> the lyrics. A vintage Lennon put-down.  (although  I
>> don't know who he was referring to.)
>
>I always thought he was talking about himself.  Except the totally
>bizarre beginning, it seems to reflect quite well some of the feelings
>which he might have been having.  If you take as a starting point that
>the she in "Go to a show you hope she shows" is Yoko then the rest
>follows quite easily. 

Only I don't think this song has as much to do with autobiography in this
instance, except to use personal ennui to fuel the portrait he paints in
his lyrics. And what a portrait it is! 

At this time, John was still in his "Where is she?" mode, and some of that
feeling is communicated here. But I don't think the "she" here is
specific, and I don't think the protagonist is necessarily John himself...
though it could be, I suppose.

>The whole sequence where the protaganist goes out comes home wanders
>around flirts a big and hopes to meet the girl fits if you make that
>first assumption - the edgy/bored feeling reflects some impressions I've
>got in interviews.  

It also fits with the song as a whole, which is really about a man being
blasted by emptiness on all sides, and wanting something---love, one has
to guess---to fill his life. There's the appearance of substance in his
life; but there's nothing more substantive than a mirage of his dream. 

I'm no musicologist, and wouldn't even pretend to be one, but the sheer
raucousness of the song always struck me as entirely apropos, an
arrangement that embellishes the lyric. Blaring horns (courtesy of Sounds
Incorporated); the jarring chorus of "Good morning", repeated not
soothingly like a mantra but intrusively like the advert which inspired
it; the relentless percussive thrum and lacerating lead guitar break....

No wonder the man in the song is numb. No wonder he's got nothing to 
say!
 
>Also it puts an interesting spin on "I've got
>nothing to say but its OK", needing to write a song but having so little
>inspiration that you base it around an ad seems to reflect that emotion.

It's not just the advert though that's bedeviling the writer; it's his
whole life. 

I was pondering why there were comments that the opening "didn't seem to
fit" the rest of the song. It's true that I had invented some logical
leaps of faith for myself to try to explain the lyrical scenario, but I
never tried to really think what might tie it all together. This little
exercise helped me hear it with a different focus for the first time. 

Count me in as one of the folks who thinks "Good Morning, Good Morning" 
is a work of masterful cohesion, in words and music. It's one of John's
brilliant little social commentaries, a short story that would have worked
well had it been given literary bones and flesh. But he was a songwriter
and a singer, and that's where his real symmetry develops. 

We know something about the way this song evolved---the Kellogg's advert
is a good clue. In the medium there is the message. And this is a tune
more heavily influenced by John's attentiveness to media than most.

Knowing that, why not see whether the first verse is easier to parse when
you understand what's going on? 

	"Nothing to do to save his life, call his wife in..."

"GMGM" is nothing if not episodic; and I suspect what's happening here is
that the singer is switching from one visual or aural medium to another,
looking for stimulus or meaning.

TV is omnipresent; could that be what we're watching here? The first line
shows high drama (a movie, perchance?); then something new's on the
screen. The structure of this line is similar but it presents a far more
benign outcome: 

	"Nothing to say but what a day, how's your boy been?..."

If those two lines were meant to be taken together, as part of the same
scene, then the juxtaposed lines are too callous and cruel. As irony, it's
a clever conceit, but it throws the verse out of whack with the rest of
the song...and I don't think that's what Lennon intended. Now John could
be writing, in this first verse, a satire on the disengagement of the
medical profession, which is how it can be read, but I don't think that's
what he's really doing. 

This doesn't seem an intentionally false, melodramatic start, to me, nor
does it seem quite so bizarre as it might have in isolation. We have to
trust John to know what he's doing.

Lennon's mind leaps nimbly here, it doesn't stumble and create lyrical
conundrums. We're being led from one place to another as if channels are
being changed *for us* by someone in search of something to pique an
otherwise benumbed consciousness. The art of it is that this seems
random...but it's quite otherwise!

These are channels that change from line to line, verse to verse, and the
vision Lennon creates shows the staccato drift of a mind in search of
meaning. We tune in and tune out, as guided by the composer. A bit of
drama, a bit of soap opera; the gradual retreat to some real-life query at
hand and a musing response: 

	"Nothing to do it's up to you;
  	 I've got nothing to say but it's O.K..."

The mind wanders, the body wanders:

	"Going to work don't want to go feeling low down
	Heading for home you start to roam then you're in town..."

Like a plethora of broadcasts, we see a similar discontinuous day, where
the singer can't decide where he wants to be (surely this resonates with
anyone who faces the workday with angst). And no one else has it any
better, the singer tells us: everything's closed, everyone's languorous; 
there isn't a single spark of scintillation to be found. No matter where
he goes, no matter what he seeks, it's a letdown. Old or new, "nothing has
changed, it's still the same". 

Night's a different matter, but how different is it really? The pursuits
seem to shift, interest appears to grow, but there's a sameness to it;
the habitual teatime, evening telly ("Meet the Wife" was a weekly TV
show). It's the illusion of cool. This is chase without capture ("Watching
the skirts you start to flirt, now you're in gear"); desire without
denouement.

I'm amused at a dim echo here of the anticipation expressed in "Norwegian
Wood", where the singer clearly hopes something will happen ("Go to a
show, you hope she goes"); is there anyone who thinks he'll get lucky this
time? You want him to be...but the way his life is squeezed between
suburban prattle and spiritual paralysis makes you wonder whether he'd
ever break free from the torpor that holds him firm.

>He was also at the start of a patch of very little writing (although
>practically everything he did record could only be described as pure
>genius :) so it could have something to do with that.

I'll go with you on that tangent. I really believe that "GMGM" is one of
Lennon's works of genius. It's a persona we've seen emerge before from his
songs----someone who's been hurt often enough, spurned often enough ("I'm
A Loser", "Norwegian Wood", "Girl"), who's now crawled into a shell so
impregnable that none of life's clangor gets through. Neither does any of
life's real joy. 

This retreat is his solution to the white noise with which he surrounds
himself---and his song expresses the end of his protest against it. 

	"I've got nothing to say but it's okay".

If "GMGM" weren't surrounded by so many other songs of similar genius,
I think it would be easier to hear Lennon's deft artistry.

Even as it stands, it's worth another listen!
-- 
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"Forces' sweetheart, I'm your twin."
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saki@evolution.bchs.uh.edu