Beatles Week 2011 Day 2 – “Octopus’ Garden”

Octopus’ Garden

Tell Me Why considers the song a “feeble rewrite of ‘Yellow Submarine’ complete with underwater effects.” BeatleSongs doesn’t have much to say about the song other than offering up that it is only the second song Ringo wrote for the group.

Ringo left the group for a while during the Let It Be sessions. Before that he walked out on the sessions where the group was recording songs for The Beatles (commonly known as The White Album). Obviously, there was a lot of dissatisfaction and frustration going on. If you know your Beatles history, you know the last few years were rough. So, while on vacation during one of the times when Ringo was taking a break from the band, he wrote the song expressing his desire to get away from it all.

A few nights before Christmas I took August, Dela and Kyle downtown. AmazonLocal was having a deal for the local Duck Tour which offers a seasonal ride to see the downtown holiday lights. The Ducks are the tourist vehicles which were previously used in World War II that can travel on land and in water. The Ducks are a fun way to see a city, and we did it once in Boston and again here in Seattle. Those were summer tours, and this would be a completely different experience, staying not only on land, but essentially sticking to the downtown core at night only to see the various lights and whatnot.

Laura stayed home and put Xavier to bed while I took the 4 other kids. It was a good deal, and this was certainly a fun thing to do. I wish Laura had been able to come along. I’m also a little glad she didn’t because we were able to get her a Christmas present while we were out.

So we get downtown, park, find the loading area, etc. As we are getting on board, I got suckered into posing for one of those stupid photographs that you’re going to have to pay for at the end of the ride. I just wanted to get on the vehicle. Oh well.

Getting on board proved fun. There were four seats in the middle, then four seats in the back. We were a party of 5. I started asking people to move so that we could all sit together. I got some really nasty looks. Eventually somebody pointed out there were seats up at the front. And there were! August and Kyle sat in one bench seat, Ciárán and I sat opposite them, and Déla sat behind me in a bench seat by herself.

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blog christmas 2011-2It was a fun ride, checking out the lights downtown. Massive snippets of Christmas songs, and since we were sitting up front, August got picked for the random audience participation section. During “Frosty The Snowman” the driver gave August a top hat and scarf, and had him parade up and down the aisle.

blog christmas 2011-6Unfortunately, I had left the flash on for the camera, so I didn’t get many pictures, since the sensors were trying to work and by the time they figured out the flash wasn’t needed we had moved on. Oh well. A least I got a couple of pictures, but not nearly as many as I should have.

Afterwards we went to the downtown carousel which is an annual project for charity. The kids had fun on that as well. One turn on the carousel and then off to home and bed. A fun night out.

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Perhaps, however, one of the best better souvenirs of the night isn’t the memories, but the standard picture that I got suckered into paying for. Normally I detest these things, my wife especially. And the cost is ridiculous. It was quicker and easier, however, for me to simply fork over the cash at the time and appease the kids.

It wasn’t until we got home that I was able to actually look at it. We look a little goofy, but the expression on Ciárán’s face is priceless. It’s as if he is saying “There will be no mirth here.”