Talk:I've Just Seen a Face

The personnel section

It seemes very clear that there is a 12-strings guitar on the original recording, both the "bass-like" part and the solo. In Dave Rybaczewski's book(?) which is reference number 2, http://www.beatlesebooks.com/seen-a-face, it's also written that George Harrison plays 12-strings guitar. Is it just for anyone to change it? Then it can't say "per Ian MacDonald". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Widnes (talk • contribs) 21:35, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

American Album

This song and “It’s Only Love appear on the American version of Rubber Soul. Perhaps we should mention that in the infobox? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.179.74.21 (talk) 20:59, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Contemporary reviews

I'm on the lookout for contemporary reviews but haven't been able to find any. I see Derek Johnson reviewed Help! for the NME because it's mentioned in the reception section of the album's page. I haven't been able to find it on worldradiohistory.com, presumably because it's one of the ones missing from their British collection. JG66, do you have access to Sutherland, Steve, ed. (2003). NME Originals: Lennon? I see that it is used as a source for the Johnson review on Help!. Cheers. Tkbrett (✉) 13:04, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

I also see that Richard Green had a review in the 24 July 1965 issue of Record Mirror. Unfortunately it seems to only be available beihnd a paywall at RocksBackPages.com. Tkbrett (✉) 17:51, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

Both pieces are just track-by-track descriptions (and very shallow at that) – it would be very generous to describe them as "reviews". Rock criticism hadn't really begun at this stage, and there's no critiquing to speak of in either one, unfortunately. JG66 (talk) 19:04, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, JG66. Regarding your mention of the Miles page number, I was using the eBook found on Google Books. For the longest time, I hadn't realized that his books The Beatles Diary Volume 1: The Beatles Years and The Beatles: A Diary – An Intimate Day by Day History are actually two different things. It was somewhat difficult to find a used paperback copy of the former, but I finally found one and ordered it today. Once it comes in I will change it to the paperback's page number. Tkbrett (✉) 14:08, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

Guitar solo

Jean-Michael Guesdon & Philippe Margotin write in their book that Paul played the guitar solo, but again, how realistic is that? The solo is being played on a 12-string guitar and so it obviously would've been George playing it, since there was no left-handed 12-string guitar for Paul to play. 220.245.23.160 (talk) 03:04, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

G&M are in the minority here, which is why I have their position tucked into a note alongside different authors' opinions. Nice catch on the twelve-string – G&M think Paul played it with his Epiphone Texan, which is a normal six-string, so I've specified this in the note. Tkbrett (✉) 14:35, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for your help. 220.245.23.160 (talk) 03:19, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

FAC changes

JG66, per your comments during the FAC, I have made quite a few reductions to the page. If it isn't too big an imposition, I'd appreciate hearing what you think. A lot of authors have similar things to say about the song, so I tried consolidating them into single sentences rather than just cutting individual authors out completely. A lot of the material in the CRVB version section was added before I made a page for Beatle Country; now that a lot of info is covered in that article, I take your point that it's no longer necessary to have it on the IJSaF page. Anyway, thanks again for your critiques, I really do appreciate your candid thoughts. Tkbrett (✉) 23:46, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

I think reducing the lead to three paragraphs is a major improvement already, although the third para could be trimmed even further, imo.

Overall – and it's probably what I said in the FAC – the article suffers from the inclusion of what I see as too much tangentially related information. I sort of get the feeling you've consulted (almost) every McCartney/Beatles source you can find; the point I was trying to make on this in the FAC is, you can find hundreds more, so why stop there – why not include, say, Jonathan Gould, Kenneth Womack, Alan Clayson, Paul Du Noyer, Howard Sounes, Bill Harry and Chris Salewicz as further views on each and every point along the way? (Of course I'm not suggesting you should.)

The Genre subsection is an area where this is really noticeable. We need to ensure that the different views on the song's genre are represented and with suitable weight, but that's all. So, to lessen the feeling of overkill there, I'd move Tim Riley's point that the lack of bass guitar on the Beatles recording contributed to the song's country aspect down to Recording; besides, the fact that it was the first Beatles track without any bass guitar is a notable detail that belongs under Recording anyway. Richie Unterberger's point that Face was "probably the most bluegrass-soaked rock song of the 1960s" is something that belongs under Legacy, and moving it there will help lessen the over-stuffed aspect of Genre. I'd be looking for more opportunities along those lines. (Again, we should merely be representing the range of folk rock/folk/country/bluegrass views with due weight, so do we really need someone called Carl I. Belz to up the country quotient, and Peter Doggett to do the same for folk rock and folk set to bluegrass?)

On the issue of too much detail, I'd cut that note 2 in Background entirely. Or perhaps keep it just to list the three McCartney tunes. And, as you say, the section on the Charles River Valley Boys version can be drastically reduced (halved in size, surely).

Release is another area that come across as a sort of depository for each and every opinion ever uttered on the song's placement on US Rubber Soul, and it becomes a bit of a slog to read. It's partly down to author attribution appearing each time. Can we not just state, supported by two or more unnamed sources, that Capitol's sequencing of "I've Just Seen a Face" to open the album heightened the record's folk rock characteristics? Similarly – to my way of thinking – we can make the point, without any attribution, that US Rubber Soul masked or misrepresented the extent of the Beatles' progressiveness in late '65 and/or their musical direction at that time. Also, Courrier's comments there ("unfortunately" buried on Help!, "deserved visibility" on US Rubber Soul) are acclamatory; he clearly admires the song, but whether any of these commentators personally like or dislike it is not appropriate in that section. I'd ditch Courrier's presence entirely, in fact. The only thing that's useful from him is how opening with "Face" made the US album more folky, but that can be incorporated in the general statement on US Rubber Soul being presented as a folk rock album, without author attribution. I'd move Sheffield's "magnificent one-two punch ... the only case where the shamefully butchered U.S. LP might top the U.K. original" down to Retrospective assessment and legacy. I don't see Laura Turner's opinion that Face and "Norwegian Wood" made a "powerful" opening pairing as really worthy of inclusion at all. If we simply mention that the folky Wood follows Face on the Capitol LP, that'll provide good, logical context for statements about folk/folk rock US Rubber Soul, but Sheffield's quote, combined with his "most romantic [song ever]" bit, is far more effective.

I don't know if any of that helps. I hasten to add, Tkb, I'm confronted by the same sheer-wealth-of-coverage–based decisions and dilemmas all the time on Beatles song articles, and I know it's not easy. I've been doing a lot of work at "Rain" just recently because, GA or not, it was pretty poor and shallow in terms of capturing what no end of reliable sources recognise as notable about that song. Right now under Composition, there's a long quote from Allan Kozinn focusing on the role of McCartney's bass playing where the author mentions musical counterpoint, harmonised fourths in the singing, a "slightly Middle Eastern tinge" – all of which appear to be relevant to that section as well as Recording. But the fact that Kozinn states that the bass part as in some way "ingenious" is acclamatory. So it's possible I might leave mention of counterpoint, Eastern aspect, etc, to musicologists under Composition, and take a simplified version of Kozinn's comments to Reception. Similarly, with all that's written about Lennon's messiah-like pronouncements in "Rain", his channelling of an enlightened LSD/spiritual mindset to present an us-and-them division that typified countercultural thinking, etc, I know I'm bound to go kersplatt with regard to adding details on all this from the various sources; then, I'll have to pare it all back ... happy days.

I could always focus on writing less on article talk pages and on just doing the work in article mainspace, of course. Sorry to go on so much ... JG66 (talk) 06:54, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

I appreciate how incisive this all is – it makes it a lot easier to figure out where the particular areas for improvement are. I think the genre and release subsections are a lot more to the point now. Do you think the CRVB section can be cut down any more? I feel the first and third paragraphs in that section are an appropriate length and level-of-detail now, though I'm not sure where to cut from the second paragraph, going through the differences between versions.

I was also surprised when I saw "Rain"'s dilapidated state considering its GA status, but then I think it was also the Beatles WikiProject's first ever song GA, way back in 2008. I had a similar feeling running into Freak Out! – it became an FA in 2007 and is definitely not up to today's standard. Also, I know exactly what you mean by the overwhelming coverage. I've found it easier to cover some of the smaller deal songs, like "I'm Down", where nearly everything written about that song can make it on the page. Based on Zmbro's suggestion, I've been trying to expand "Come Together", but it's by far the biggest song I've tried to work on and that sense of drowning in the literature is hard to get away from. Tkbrett (✉) 22:36, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

Hi again JG66. Lest I become too big a thorn in your side, I was wondering how you think things are looking now? I've chopped quite a bit in the last two weeks and I'm happy with where things are at now, but I always appreciate hearing your thoughts. No worries if you feel unmotivated to look at the page more – you've already given me a lot to work with here. Tkbrett (✉) 18:29, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

Hi. I'll try to read the article again soon – but can't say the subject (this particular song) is of tremendous interest to me. If it's okay I'll just dive in and make changes where I think they're needed; takes too much effort/energy trying to explain each point here. Cheers, JG66 (talk) 05:33, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

That'd be wonderful. And yes, no worries about how long it takes. I really appreciate all the patience you've extended me. Tkbrett (✉) 13:55, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

Hi Tkbrett, I've had a go, but I don't really feel I've achieved much. Ended up going 'round in circles over presentation of the points in Background & inspiration. I think/hope there is some improvement there; it's worth bearing in mind that MacDonald happens to handle the point about Len–Mac imbalance over 1964–65 where he does – at the start of his discussion of "I've Just Seen a Face" – partly to set the scene for the Beatles' return to the studio for the first time in over a month. I think that section now flows better, but it's not perfect.

Under Recording, I figured it was quite appropriate to bring out part of the attention given to the 14 June session (from footnote to main text) because it's clearly a notable aspect of the day's recording. Similar for details on folk rock records under Release. If the latter seems a bit heavy, maybe just name the other artists in the text and give the specific singles as an aside (in a note). Have to say, I find the inclusion of the O'Grady boxed quote about US Rubber Soul slightly confusing: he starts by saying Face represented the Beatles' "new direction", then he says it wasn't in fact their new direction at the time. I'd be tempted to paraphrase much of what he says, in Release para 3. If Face was viewed as the LP's "signature song", as he appears to say, then that's obviously significant and deserves to be stated outright. (At the same time, I despair at some of the things Beatles authors write/declare ... Was it really viewed as the signature song on Rubber Soul US, do you know? It's the first I've heard of this.)

I didn't really give the rest of the article much attention, I'm afraid. (I just wasn't "feeling" it.)

One final complaint – since I'm on a roll!! – I find those bundled citations things impossible to work with. It's all well and good to make things pretty-perfect before doing the virtual equivalent of sending final page proofs to the printer, but here on Wikipedia, where no article's content is set in stone, it discourages further improvements, because there's an extra level of housework to contend with. So much time spent fiddling about reworking those fucking precious harvard bundles when all you're trying to do is change the structure of a couple of sentences ... It's sort of like a plasterer or painter having to operate within the confines of their work area being a pristine show home at the same time. Need to get my head someplace else now. JG66 (talk) 06:42, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

Thanks JG66 for all the time and patience you've afforded me here. I really dig a lot of the changes – just improving the prose in parts has made for both a snappier and more interesting read. As is probably apparent, I don't have much experience writing things that aren't boring technical pieces. I'd like to think I've been improving as a writer in the last few months, but obviously it's slow going.

Regarding the O'Grady quotation and the "signature song" status he lends "Face", I think its something I've picked up on in researching – essentially every time an author discusses the North American Rubber Soul, they mention the song and the feeling it gives the album, with only cursory mentions of the album's other changes. I appreciated O'Grady's quotation because I thought it best summarized the view of several authors.

I appreciate your dislike of the harvard bundling. I've gone back and forth on different styles. I like this formatting mostly for allowing verifiability without the need for citations littered through a sentence. Tkbrett (✉) 00:24, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

Illinois IP comment

Regarding a since reverted edit made by an Illinois IP, stating that "McCartney has been quite clear more than once that the song was written about the first time he ever smoked weed, courtesy of Bob Dylan": this is incorrect. I believe the editor is confusing this song with "Got to Get You into My Life". In Many Years from Now, Paul says "Life" is about pot (Miles 1998, p. 190) but doesn't make any mention on the lyrical significance of "I've Just Seen a Face" (Miles 1998, p. 200). (Also, parenthetically, I believe the view that "Life" is about pot has since been cast into doubt. Steve Turner's research in Beatles '66 indicates Paul has wrongly dated his first taking LSD to late-1966, when the experience actually seems to have happened in December 1965. Turner goes on to conclude "Life" is actually about LSD, despite what Paul may say in Many Years from Now (Turner 2016, p. 34–35); I suppose that's a discussion for the "Life" page though.)

The IP editor also states "[Paul] repeated it again in his two-volume Lyrics released in August 2021". I can't verify this since I don't have the book, though a search of the GoogleBook indicates Paul does not mention "Face" once, while "Life" comes up quite a bit. The only secondary source authors I've found that have discussed possible lyrical inspiration for "Face" are Guesdon & Margotin 2013, p. 248; Norman 2016, p. 196 and Davies 2019, p. 320, each of which point to Jane Asher. Those three books are used to support this claim in the article. Tkbrett (✉) 13:48, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

genre

Is it country? Is it western? "Country and western" is a sloppy, discredited term that shouldn't be used in an FA. Cheers Spicemix (talk) 12:02, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

This was something mentioned in the first FAC. As I understand it, the country and western genres were originally independent but amalgamated through the 1950s and 70s. In the 1960s, "country and western" was the term of choice, whereas today we just call it "country". This is the term Paul uses in his authorized biography: "['I've Just Seen a Face'] was slightly country and western from my point of view". Just as we avoid anachronisms in place names (MOS:PLACE), I believe we ought to avoid anachronisms in genre names. Tkbrett (✉) 12:35, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

Yes, outdated, anachronistic. They are understood now to be two different genres, as is reflected in the names of the two WP articles linked at the top of this thread. Thanks. Spicemix (talk) 13:54, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

What I mean is it would be anachronistic to describe the song as country when the term in the mid-1960s was instead country & western. Several sources cited in this article follow that convention too. I think it's similar to the standard of MOS:PLACE, which has us write that Rubber Soul charted in West Germany, not Germany. Tkbrett (✉) 14:06, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

It's misleading to put a discredited genre in the infobox. If there is historical context for the term in this case, as you say, then that should be made clear in the body of the text. As it stands it will mislead some people and vex others. The facts about West Germany are very well understood. This case is more like calling 1920s German expressionism degenerate without any context. Spicemix (talk) 10:09, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

For what it's worth, mine opinion is that country and western is correct ~ as the term of the time it's what one would normally expect to see, so it would be wrong to change it; the term is wlinked at least three times in the article, and the first six words of the linked article make it clear that both terms can be used. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to put a note indicating that the C&W was the term used at the time, for extra clarity, though that is why we link between articles, right? As for the "degenerate" example, that's clearly different in that it was a word adopted, given a different meaning, purposefully, in order to convey a value judgement about the subject. Happy days ~ Lindsay^Hello 15:57, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

I've Just Seen A Face (From "Across The Universe" Soundtrack) External Link

Is there a rationale for including this link, given "Sites that are inaccessible to a substantial number of users, such as sites that work only with a specific browser or in a specific country." would normally be avoided, as per WP:ELNO #7? Is there no other source for this video? Skullcinema (talk) 12:50, 14 June 2022 (UTC)