When I first heard Michael McDonald singing John Lennon's "All You Need is Love" from The Beatles "MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR"(1967) album, I found it to be, all at once, incredibly touching, moving and profound. The performance is from McDonald's HOME SERIES of concerts with this one from April 20th, 2020 for the Earth Day Festival in Santa Barbara, CA that year. Thousands gathered to celebrate environmental action and lifted up the work that still needed to be done. As Michael always seems to be able to do, he takes a song and makes it feel as though he had written it himself. It is a magical gift!
    I have always seen John Lennon as a great innocent. There was always something so very innocent, almost naïve, in his lyrics and yet, as it was and is with "All You Need is Love' - his words become very profound in their simplicity as well.
    I recently posted an image, a faux poster, that I created from a generic cityscape with a pile of rubble superimposed on top of it, and its title was "TRUMP: The Vengeance is Mine Tour - 2021-2025." This is, in fact, the very dire state of affairs here in the USA. And so, the message from within this wonderful song becomes all the more timely. Please read the lyrics to the 3 verses:

[Verse 1]

There's nothing you can do that can't be done
Nothing you can sing that can't be sung
Nothing you can say, but you can learn
How to play the game
It's easy....

[Verse 2]

Nothing you can make that can't be made
No one you can save that can't be saved
Nothing you can do, but you can learn
How to be you in time
It's easy....

[Verse 3]

Nothing you can know that isn't known
Nothing you can see that isn't shown
There's nowhere you can be that isn't where
You're meant to be
It's easy....

    To be clear, if it was so "easy" would we, the USA, have elected this very petty, spiteful small man who aspires to be a "King" once? Let alone TWICE?!?!? I think that John Lennon would be sick to his stomach had he lived to be watching this unfold here. Wishing and believing does NOT make this a world filled with "love" - "peace" - and "flower power"!.

    With the songs of The Beatles, one just learned them, could sing them - all without a thought about meter and even structure. But when one looks at The Beatles version of their own song, at times with alternating bars of 4/4 and 3/4 - all fitting perfectly with the lyrical content. It's remarkable how complex it actually was. But, these things can happen when one is composing by instinct more than any theoretical constructs. Here we have great and enduring art.
    Michael McDonald's very soulful reading of the song is all done in 4/4 without losing any of the magic of the original. It becomes fascinating that, what he did do, is that he made the phrases 7-bars each - where normally, one would expect that they would 8-bars each. It's a wonderful little touch that only enhances the flow and the message in the lyrics. There are a couple of great little harmonic embellishments that appear in the Chorus or Refrain ("All you need is love...") where, as it is a ballad, Michael treats the harmonies as: ||: Gmaj7 / F/G / | Cmaj7 / Cm6 / :|| These are beautiful and sophisticated touches without losing the feeling of the song.
    No matter what is going on, I remain the eternal and everlasting hippie that I am.

    PEACE & LOVE, Steve