"What do you think is the Beatles' best album?" 42.6>3

[deflatormouse]

Yes 52 would work for fool on the hill

Steve

Oh definitely. Keeping perfectly still. He's not really a fool, that's just what people call him. He's grinning, though- could be that he's onto something.

Sounds like meditation. Very 52.

 

[Trojina]

Not read all this thread but noted the stuff about 'Strawberry Fields'. It was a real place near where John Lennon grew up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strawberry_Field

 

[deflatormouse]

I did not know that (i'm not a huge beatles fan or anything, though i realize i'm giving a different impression.
Nevertheless, i think my interpretaion of the title holds, and it isn't a hugely original or idiosyncratic reading of the song- i think that's how it's generally understood by those whove picked it apart.
Maybe it was a place he would go when he wanted to be alone and escape reality? (Or more likely, he just liked the name for his song).
There is also a Strawberry Fields a couple of miles down the road from me, in Central Park opposite the building he lived in (Yoko still lives there- personally i'm a bigger fan of her instructional art pieces than of the Beatles).but as it was named for him in memoriam, obviously not an inspiration for the song.

 

[deflatormouse]

Hexagram 52 : the Fool on the Hill
"Roll Over Beethoven : Hexagram 51
(lots of shocks, like thunder)
You know, my temperature's risin'
And the jukebox blows a fuse
My heart's beatin' rhythm
And my soul keeps a-singin' the blues
Roll over Beethoven and tell Tchaikovsky the news"

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds : Hexagram 34
(actually, the words are very surrealistic, but somehow the image is vigorous)

The part you quoted of Roll Over Beethoven (a Chuck Berry song adapted by the Beatles, if I'm not mistken) sounds more 31ish to me? Being posessed, inspired or moved by an invisible force that overtakes the body and soul and then is released as singing... But the song on the whole, its title especially... is really about the fledgeling rock n' roll movement as an insurrection, challenging and threatening to take the place of the exalted classical music establishment... The "folk" art pitting itself against the "high" art. "Roll over" in this case means "step down, move aside, get out of our way." Or even "surrender, concede to defeat." This is extremely 15.5: Invade and dethrone the immodest. Auspicious.

Re: Lucy, yes, I was thinking about "which hexagram would describe surrealism?"
That is a tough one. It could be 38 once again, the disparate pairings of images: newspapers with taxis, etc. i think there's probably a better solution in there somewhere, though... This is a good challenge.
The title and refrain, to me, point explicitly to hexagram 1. Not just because of the literal sky, but this feeling of the infinite, sky as the limit... But the verses, yeah, surrealism.

There are lines that seem to describe altered states of consciousness, or moments when the subconsciousness is not only accessed deliberately but brought to the foreforont of awareness. I am writing something about 61.3 and how it relates to shamanic ritual and intiation... (Come to think of it, that line, with its beating and singing, would also apply to the excerpt from 'Roll over Beethoven' above). But there is something more playful and colorful about surrealism as an ethos, and particularly in this song, that this fails to capture. It's almost a fantasy realm.

I think 52 for the fool on the hill is absolutely spot on.

 

[loverofknowledge]

Deflatormouse, A brilliant analysis of the music and an intriguing perspective on the corresponding hexagram. You surpass yourself. How do the changing lines figure in?

47 to 38 so it's 47.1.5.6 to 38

Hexagram 47: Distress
Statement: Distress. Continue. For a pure and great person: fortune. No fault. What is said is not trusted.

Line 1 comment: Buttocks distressed by tree stumps. Entering a dark ravine. For three harvests, meeting no one.
Line 2 comment: Distressed with wine and food. Vermilion sashes come from all directions. Gain by making offerings and worshipping. Going: misfortune. No fault.
Line 6 comment: Distressed by vines and creepers. With anxious speech and acts, one repents. Repent and go forward to fortune

Yeah, 47 with 38 relating? Or the other way around...
Oh, that might be my favorite Beatles lyric. It's about the loneliness of being a "thinking different" person or going against the grain.
"No one i think is in my tree, I mean it must be high or low" = nobody understands me, nobody is on my wavelength so i guess that means i'm either brilliant or defective, genius or crazy. If you read the song that way the words aren't really that surreal or anything.
If Strawberry Fields is his own little world or bubble... 47 is that imprisonment of one's own making. The "Forever" part - the "to hell with all you guys, I'll never turn Greek! Spartan for life!!" That title and refrain- "Strawberry Fields Forever!" is the stubborn and rip-roaring celebration of, and the misguided pledge of loyalty to an estranged and utterly defeated nation (identity and ideology)- population one.

 

[loverofknowledge]

It's not logical but 34 for Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds still feels right to me. 34 is Thunder in the Sky: something big and important.

What you say about 51 and Roll Over Beethoven is interesting. Doesn't a Thunder Clap make sense of this historical sensation: Rock and Roll dismantles classical music?

I think of 31 as not quite as electric as you describe -- it's lake on top of a mountain. Your perspective is interesting.

51 Roll over Beethoven I rather like, too, because of the thunder -clap like beats to it, which cause me to feel as 51 describes: (excited, afraid, ecstatic)

Hexagram 51: Thunder
Statement: Thunder everywhere. Thunder comes frighteningly. People laugh and exclaim. Thunder terrifies for one hundred miles, but do not lose the ladle of sacrificial wine.

The part you quoted of Roll Over Beethoven (a Chuck Berry song adapted by the Beatles, if I'm not mistken) sounds more 31ish to me? Being posessed, inspired or moved by an invisible force that overtakes the body and soul and then is released as singing... But the song on the whole, its title especially... is really about the fledgeling rock n' roll movement as an insurrection, challenging and threatening to take the place of the exalted classical music establishment... The "folk" art pitting itself against the "high" art. "Roll over" in this case means "step down, move aside, get out of our way." Or even "surrender, concede to defeat." This is extremely 15.5: Invade and dethrone the immodest. Auspicious.

.

 

[loverofknowledge]

I agree with you about 44 -- good suggestions

And about Norwegian Wood (54)


Let It Be : Hexagram 2

I like Long and Winding Road for 53 but would prefer:
a) something about courtship leading to marriage
b) something with a mountain image

 

[rosada]

How about 24 for The Long and Winding Road?

 

[deflatormouse]

It's not logical but 34 for Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds still feels right to me. 34 is Thunder in the Sky: something big and important.

What you say about 51 and Roll Over Beethoven is interesting. Doesn't a Thunder Clap make sense of this historical sensation: Rock and Roll dismantles classical music?

I think of 31 as not quite as electric as you describe -- it's lake on top of a mountain. Your perspective is interesting.

51 Roll over Beethoven I rather like, too, because of the thunder -clap like beats to it, which cause me to feel as 51 describes: (excited, afraid, ecstatic)

Yes, I take your point about 51: It is the "WARNING!" label of hexagrams, isn't it? It's kind of announcing this threat of danger, but it's more about the threat than the danger. I like very much how this applies to "Roll over Beethoven." I do think 31 can be pretty intense, probably more appropriate to the experience of hearing and reacting to music (in the text of 31, you see the audience reaction but not the show, like the camera is turned the wrong way around, as in this song where he's describing his reaction to hearing another song on the radio - we're only seeing the reaction), but it doesn't necessarily draw attention to itself or contain the element of a threat or warning as 51 (or 15.5, which carries the threat and also addresses the simplicity of Chuck Berry compared to Beethoven. And is kind of shocking actually in that it's not how you'd expect that unassuming 15 to behave). For the sound of rock n' roll, the electricity (literally, of the guitars etc), yeah, that's not a 15 thing

Re: 47 (Kun)
"Kun refers to a deep pit dug on Zhou battlefields to imprison a wild and belligerent, defeated enemy officer. Kun means isolation, oppression and entanglement. For the captive, loss is made repeatedly worse by struggling against the odds." - Liu Ming

Gotta laugh at "buttocks distressed by tree stumps... for three years meeting no one" vs. "no one i think is in my tree"... both talking about a long isolation (if 3 years sounds like a lot, it's nothing compared to "forever").

2nd line... Vermillion sashes = the self-congratulatory accolades that have become more burdensome than helpful ("it sure is hard to be someone/I must be a genius!"), dismissing those around you (friends, peers presumably who are reaching out to offer their support) as inferior or incapable of understanding = biting the hand that feeds you ("Distressed with wine and food") when you ought to be grateful ("gain by making offerings"). I read a long time ago that around the time this song was written, Paul McCartney took LSD for the very first time, even though he was wary of the drug himself, just so that he could better understand Lennon, a frequent user, out of concern that Lennon had become withdrawn. But Lennon's subsequent attitude of rejection only had the effect of reinforcing the disparity between them: "Distressed with wine and food" - that's exactly what it means. Of course going (on a military expedition) isn't going to work, because you're surrounded and you've exhausted your resources. What's left of Strawberry Fields is just the one belligerent officer in the pit who won't turn Zhou.

line 6: the "vines and creepers" of his encroaching self doubt are unwanted but by binding him down, they have the effect of calming him enough that he begins to seriously question his stubbornness- "anxious speech and acts" = "Always, no, sometimes- think it's me. Ah, yes, I mean, uh, no, that is, I think, um..." Doesn't sound too sure of himself, does he? But in this case, that self-doubt is his ticket to freedom, and it's from this position of doubting himself - not his captors - that the military expedition, now that it's against his own hardened and false identity, would benefit.

Wow, that was much easier than i thought...


The best I can do for Lucy in the Sky so far is something like 22>1 - an illustration of the otherworldly, ornamentation of heaven (Now, if you want a real challenge, which hexagram would "I am the Walrus" be? "Semolina pilcher dripping from a dead dog's eye" indeed.)

And this one is obvious, but I'm gonna say 33 for "Piggies"

 

[loverofknowledge]

Yes, -- nice, but deflator mouse suggested "Get Back " for 24
I wonder if there's another hexagram for The Long and Winding Road -- something patient, devotional, a bit melancholy? (53 is nice but don't we need a mountain based song?)
(I claim Hexagram 10 for Penny Lane)

How about 24 for The Long and Winding Road?

 

[loverofknowledge]

Pretty amazing reading, Deflatormouse, of 47 to 38. Inspired!
You seem to have a strong imaginative identification -- and bond -- with Strawberry Fields forever -- and , for that matter, with hexagram 47.

I'm still claiming Hexagram 34 for Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. I know it's not logical, but I believe in it (unless you can find a Ram caught in the hedges song from the Beatles, I say let's allow Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds for 34!).

I am the Walrus: Either Hexagram 21 (splitting from reality and the status quo)
or maybe Hexagram 27 (I am the egg man)
I say Hex 21 -- it's the feel of it,Splitting !!

 

[deflatormouse]

Follow up reading. I couldn't resist. This one is an actual reading, like my initial post.

"How would you describe surrealism?"

56.2.3.5 > 44
"wandering, wayfinding" > random or arbitrary coupling ("chance encounter")
or the coupling of strangers?
I think of Ginsberg and his hydrogen jukebox.

I haven't quite got this yet...

 

[loverofknowledge]

P.S. It will be a great contribution if we finish our lexicon of Iching / Beatles
That is the pheasant captured!

56.2.3.5 for Surrealism
Here's a Surreal Song: Tomorrow Never Knows
" But listen to the colour of your dreams
It is not living, it is not living"
***********************************************

HERE'S MY RIFF ON THE QUESTION

Wanderer, Wayfarer, Chance Encounters -- the hydrogen jukebox, and other weird phenomena, which push the lines between real and imaginary

56.2 - the traveler stops for lodging, gains servants, wealth: virtuous

56.3 A traveler sets fire to his lodging, loses his servants. Firm harshness

Notice: these are opposite attitudes of the traveler, -- senseless according to mundane logic

Surreal: the dream and the waking states merge, with paradoxical and contradictory results.

That is, a thing can be gained and then destroyed, in the imagination, and what we build in mundane reality gets dismantled in the dream -- (and in art) .

Line 5 comment: Shooting pheasants. One arrow vanishes. In the end, there is honor and authority.

Surreal: here as the outcome of the apparent contradiction -- and reward (the pheasant) -- the traveler gains honor and authority, in having vanquished the duality between dream and reality. Is the pheasant real or imagined? Sounds a lot like "peasant" doesn't it? is he wealthy or poor? The dream logic of surrealism allows for both.

Hex 44: one must be bold and unconventional -- like a woman who will never marry -- in order to embrace surrealism

 

[loverofknowledge]

Do you want to know a Secret
58.2 to 17


A Taste of Honey -- 27

Hexagram 27: Nourishing
Statement: Nourishing. Pure fortune. Watch the jaws and what one seeks to fill one's mouth.

The image Thunder below the mountain: nourishing. The noble one is careful in speech and temperate while eating and drinking.


Twist and Shout -- 16
(the shaking, exploding, the music)

Hexagram 16: Delight
Statement: What delight! Gain by naming allies. Move armies.
The image Thunder explodes, shaking the earth: delight. The early kings made music, glorifying virtue as the highest offering to God, and so they were worthy of their ancestors.

 

[deflatormouse]

Funny, I was just about to take a stab at Penny Lane...
I'm curious, why hexagram 10?

Penny Lane was the flipside of Strawberry Fields, and it is a perfect about-face: another oath of allegiance, but this time, it's Paul's: to a flourishing community of people and relationships, their shared resources, their needs of each other: the ties that bind them. and so if I was going to assign a single hexagram for Penny Lane, I would have said 48. The place where the whole village gets water. A community resource that benefits everyone by bringing them together. And it's perfect in that it follows Strawberry Field's 47... what comes after the pit of resistance, integration into the community. its pair. of course. I would definitely vote 48 for Penny Lane, then.

And if I was going to do a full hypothetical reading like with Strawberry Fields, it would be 48>37

There is a lot of discourse on the relationship of those two songs (a double A-side originally), and all of it, really... it fits that pair in the sequence like a glove.

Very nice take on 56>44

I don't even know two of the three songs in your last post.
51 is taken for roll over beethoven, but it does mean "shake".... so also corresponds to twist and shout
16 to me is more lounging around with a book, maybe a comfortable chair than shaking it (baby). The Linus blanket of hexagrams. The thing that makes you feel happy because you know you're comfortable and safe, not because you're manic and excited.
So 16 is kind of like Happiness is a Warm Gun.

 

[loverofknowledge]

DeflatorMouse: I am sometimes just going by the title and the basic metaphor involved. Penny Lane: the lyrics do follow a walk, along a road, just as 10 does : past the barber, to the corner, the firetruck, then to the roundabout. Along the way, there are impressions, insights, growth, and dangers. Similarly in 10.
You see, you are going deep into the song, -- finding a correspondence with 48, and I can see that, too.But I am guided by the surface rhetoric of lane (road) and 10 (walking).
For 48, I would look for something about Water.

This is an interesting observation:
"There is a lot of discourse on the relationship of those two songs (a double A-side originally), and all of it, really... it fits that pair in the sequence like a glove. "
Between Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane? (Did you grow up among musicians? just curious...)

I'm open to your idea about hexagram 16.


But I think that you and I agree on many/most of them. There are just several about which we have different perspectives.
This exercise is way more fun than what I'm doing!!
PS- Do you want to know a Secret, Twist and Shout, and A Taste of Honey
are all EARLY Beatles, long before their surrealistic songs
My proposal for Do you want to know a secret -- 58.2 -- I rather like.

 

[deflatormouse]

DeflatorMouse: I am sometimes just going by the title and the basic metaphor involved...
You see, you are going deep into the song

I think both approaches are fine. For the purpose of this exercise, I would say it's probably more important to thoroughly pick apart the Zhouyi than the Beatles' songs. The value of all this imho may be as a memorization aid more than anything else: by corresponding lines and hexagrams to Beatles songs that a lot of us have had firmly etched in our memories since childhood probably (whether we particularly like them or not, isn't the point). To that end, it doesn't benefit to see a Beatles song from a new angle, and I'm not picking them apart for the purpose of this thread: these are just the understandings I've had of those songs for years, otherwise it wouldn't help me memorize the Zhouyi. Whatever your idea of the song (or title) is, that's what will help as a reminder...

Yes it's fun

Personally I think it would further the memorization benefits to work with individual lines more and hexagrams less.

I do know Twist and Shout but not the other two, unfortunately; figured they were probably early songs as their first few records are the ones I'm least familiar with.

 

[loverofknowledge]

Hexagram 16: Delight
Statement: What delight! Gain by naming allies. Move armies.

I've got a Feeling


While my guitar gently weeps

30.3 to 21


She's Leaving Home

41.5 to 61

41.5 -- she must leave home, it is her destiny, and her fortune, thus decreasing her involvement with her family. She follows her inner sincerity

OR: it could be 56 (traveler)



I had a silly idea, of asking the YI, which is the favorite BEATLE? But it would not be nice to ask Yi to choose.

 

[deflatormouse]

Twist and Shout, by the way, was a blatant and deliberate rip off of 'La Bamba'
What's the hexagram for plagiarism?

 

[loverofknowledge]

I looked for information about this, just quickly, but did not find anything.
Well, did they have a deal, maybe --(rather than ripping off)?
Like Chuck Berry and the Beatles re: Roll Over Beethoven? -- sharing the rights?
Different bands can offer renditions of the same song, right? or was there deception involved?

Twist and Shout, by the way, was a blatant and deliberate rip off of 'La Bamba'
What's the hexagram for plagiarism?

 

[loverofknowledge]

What about Nowhere Man?

Here are some more :

Hexagram 20 : I'm Looking Through You

Hexagram 14: Baby You're a Rich Man

Hexagram 5: Wait (on Rubber Soul Album)

"It's been a long time
Now I'm coming back home
I've been away now
Oh how, I've been alone
Wait till I come back to your side" etc.

 

[loverofknowledge]

Thanks for all the information, Deflatormouse. Now, I understand more about how the music business works. It sounds like some of what the Beatles did was not unethical -- rather the practice in the industry (performance and publishing rights being distinct) while some of it was rather dubious. I still like their songs. I hope some of the other artists profited in the meantime. I tend to assume (unfortunately) that music, the arts, and many other cultural fields, will not reward talent fairly. It is what I have observed.

 

[deflatormouse]

I like all those suggestions, was thinking of 14 for Baby you're a rich man myself.

I wrote and erased a bunch of posts re: plagiarism and copyrights. I'm sincerely sorry for bringing it up, as I do not think this is the right venue. If anyone wants to read into this more, sources far more informed than myself have written volumes on it. If you want to, message me privately and i'll recommend one or two.

You don't have to look hard if you want to know. Even the Wikipedia page on 'Twist and Shout' says "The intro sounds very similar to "La Bamba" by Ritchie Valens."

 

[loverofknowledge]

Hi, I did read your posts ! thank you for them (you are very well informed)
yes PM may be the better place for the discussion

 

[steve]

Hexagram 51 could relate to Helter Skelter

 

[loverofknowledge]

Yes, that's a good suggestion.
To complete the Beatles Lexicon , we need to think of songs for:
hexagrams
1, 6,7,8,9,12, 13 , 15 , 18, 19 , 22, 25, 26 , 28, 29, 30, 32, 35, 37, 40 , 41, 43, 46 , 48, 50, 57, 59, 60, 62
And possibly a few more (which were tentative)
like 53: Long and Winding Road (I like that but I'm wondering if a mountain theme is better) and we touched on the changing lines of a few (which I'm counting, both the hexagram with the changing line and the relating hexagram)
So we've done about half or more than half.

 

[steve]

Happiness is a warm Gun from the white album might work for 29, or 41 not sure which would suit best

 

[steve]

19 maybe for ob la di ob la da

6 We can work it out

 

[steve]

I just thought

Fixing a hole is Perfect for 18 from SGT Peppers

 

[rosada]

Check out the lyrics to The Long and Windy Road (that leads back to your door).
They are the words of one who has experienced splitting apart and now is longing to return.

53. Development (Gradual Progress) is about courtship leading to marriage.
24. Return is about forgiveness and returning to home and innocence.