Don't pass this by

#19 - A song from your favourite album

 G.H.Hardy and John Littlewood formed what is considered to be perhaps the most fruitful collaboration in the history of mathematics. Central to this was a set of four "axioms" they imposed on themselves as long as they were to work together. These were as follow:

1. It did not matter whether what they wrote each other was right or wrong.
2. It was not necessary for either to read, let alone reply to, the other's letters.
3. While it may occur by circumstance, both should preferably not work on the same thing at the same time.
4. Any paper they published would be under both their names regardless of how much either had contributed to it, even if not at all.

It was the fourth, I believe, that was the most important, as was also demonstrated by the collaboration between John Lennon and Paul McCartney, which worked on the same principle, and which is also held to be the greatest in its field. Most of the songs credited to Lennon/McCartney were, in fact, due in large part to only one or the other of them. This kind of collaboration is considered to be an important reason for The Beatles' success.

This continued in The Beatles (also known as The White Album), though the album is known for being indicative of the rift that had developed within the group by that time, so much that it was said to be more of a joint album by four artists than that of a single band. It did, though, bring out the best in all four of them, if you ask me. The White Album exhibits what The Beatles were really capable of, especially their versatility. (Think of songs like While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Ob La Di, Ob La Da, Rocky Raccoon and Helter Skelter all in one album.) Without more ado, here's today.

"Mother Nature's Son", from The Beatles, by The Beatles.

A really beautiful song written by McCartney (credited to Lennon/McCartney, of course), inspired by his time in India.

Listen to every single song on the album. They're all brilliant. And there are 30 of them.

Paul's Broken a Glass

#1 - Your favourite song

This one is hardly ever constant, so here's the current one:

"You've Got to Hide Your Love Away", by The Beatles, from "Help!".

"... basically John doing Dylan", as McCartney puts it, this one has a folksong feel to it, indeed quite reminiscent of Bob Dylan's protest song style, with little accompaniment - just an acoustic guitar and a tambourine, flowing dreamily and effortlessly - something I love in a song, sadly quite rare too.

The title is from an alternate take that can be found in Anthology 2.

This was quite a tough choice to make over a couple of others, but I figured the others would make it somewhere else on the list anyway.