Aaaaahh, February, the beloved runt of the Gregorian calendar. A short month long on contrasts. How can we fit everything into you? You have the oddest and most pagan holiday (Feb 2nd) fast-tracking Bill Murray for sainthood and throwing poor Saint Valentine (Feb 14) in with the late winter sales and treating him like some two-bit neighborhood matchmaker who everyone scorns when a relationship falls apart. Then you have the crimson wrapping of Valentine's gifts laying like a bloody scarf against the whiteness of the year's largest snowstorms. Kind of looking like the flag of England pictured below:
Two themes stand before us during the year's shortest month. The most important is Black History Month, of course, and that celebration deserves its own playlist which is to be published at the end of the week. But another theme is that this month, sixty years ago, a little band from Liverpool, England stepped foot on American soil on the seventh of February and played live on the Ed Sullivan Show on the ninth. Over seventy million people were watching, sixty-nine of them teenage girls and the last million acting just like them. Looking at old news and concert clips, this ravenous army of adolescent females make the early nineties Blockheads (like my sister) look like Mickey Mouse hour. C'mon, "Hanging Tough" versus "Can't Buy Me Love?" The verdict is clear.
So call this month "Fab February" or those Liverpudlian Lads the "Feb Four."
There are two things to remember about the Beatles: the first is they were incredibly prolific in their rather compact time together as a band (twelve studio albums in ten years). And the second is that because of their popularity and enormous skillset, there was a lot of controversy and studio intrigue attached to The Beatles that took on some rather ghoulish overtones. The band kept their noses clean for the most part. They didn't court the devil like Jagger and the Stones or have members with debilitating mental illness like The Beach Boys. They were NOT a party to catastrophes like Altamont but they also missed the boat on Woodstock and the Monterey Pop Festival.
And yet no band quite captured the 1960s quite like The Beatles. Did they lead the decade or did they merely reflect it? Or did they reign over the 1960s from afar like some mischievous Greek Gods. Or mop top muses from Merseyside.
Conspiracy Land
As captains of the British Invasion, The Beatles were credited with the mainstreaming of rock and roll as well as the growing dominance of English as the globe's lingua franca. But if you take the risk of coming to America and find fortune and success, the threat of rumor and cover-up is some sort of proxy for envy. There are people still out there, for instance, who think Lennon and McCartney should switch places; that John Lennon is still alive and that Paul McCartney has been deceased since a fatal car crash in November 1966.
The "Paul is dead" found widespread favor across college campuses in 1969 after DJ Russ Gibb based in Michigan spent the hour exploring it and gathering clues from Beatles fans and WKNR FM listeners. And there was no shortage of clues some of which Lennon strategically planted in various songs for continued publicity. Songs such as Glass Onion on the White Album and Strawberry Fields Forever on The Magical Mystery Tour were pored over obsessively. No lyric or Beatlemania artifact was off-limits. Teenage boys and girls held a concrete focus as they played records backwards, breathless as they would be over a Ouji board or a spiritualist church gathering in the 1890s. Album covers were a rich fertilizer for clues. The date of Paul's demise was itself very specific not like the clumsy and ill-advised rumors during the pandemic like the superior benefits of ivermectin and how computer chips in the COVID vaccines can cross the skin/blood/muscle barrier. Yes, this one had real legs, so much so that national newspapers covered the story.
Armchair investigators even agreed on the date of Paul's death by car accident: the 9th of November, otherwise known as the Day of Fate in German history. It was actually the date I returned to America ("back in the USSR USA 🇺🇸"). It also squares with the date that John met Yoko. Also John was obsessed with the number 9. It kept surfacing in his life through birthdays, special dates and harbingers on the street. After a reporter found Paul tucked away on a Scottish farm with his family and wrote about it, some of the rumors declined. On the record, John Lennon was livid, according to this excellent Rolling Stone magazine article. Rolling Stone reporter, Bob Sheffield, wrote "John Lennon, calling the same Detroit radio station on October 26th, fumed, “It’s the most stupid rumor I’ve ever heard. It sounds like the same guy who blew up my Christ remark.”'
Aaaaahhh, yes, the "Christ remark." That hot mess didn't have Paul's foot in the grave but certainly had John's foot in his mouth. In a British paper, John had spoken of the decline of Christianity and the rise of rock'n'roll and how the Beatles were more popular than Christ. The response in Britain was muted.
The exact quote as captured by British jounalist, Maureen Cleve, for the Evening Standard:
"Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue about that; I'm right and I'll be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first – rock 'n' roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me."
But when a managing editor provocateur and the head editor provocateur of Dateline Magazine, a progressive teen tabloid that took on controversial issues, John's quotes were repeated for maximum impact in the rag and copies delivered to college campuses around the country. Word spread across the Bible Belt and churchgoers, even teen fans, took part in book burnings. Promoters cancelled concerts and The Beatles were so shaken that they never toured again. McCartney, rightly, saw the phenomenon as "hysterical low-grade American thinking" and compared the Bible Belt Bonfires to Nazi book burnings. Lennon eventually gave an awkward apology on live television while low-key defending his right to free speech.
The mayhem also overshadowed the release of Revolver, what the band and eventually many music critics, deemed the Fab Four's most mature work to date. Harrison nearly quit the group but stayed on the promise that the band only focus on studio work.
Twelve Studio Albums + Twenty-Five Top Tracks
And it's a wonderful thing that Harrison made this demand. Twelve. That is the number of studio albums the Beatles made in ten years. How is that number not a reflection of Christ?
It should be noted that the twelve albums were released in the UK while America ran away with seventeen. Don't be surprised at the seventeen. While it may seem that America was blessed with more Beatles songs that the rest of the world never got to experience, it's more likely that because of our hyper-capitalist system, fewer Beatles tracks were divvied up over more items to purchase. The Brits caught on quickly to the ways of the American system. Actually, I take that back; they virtually created it.
Critics and fans often divide the trajectory of those ten years into early, middle-apex, and late-stage Beatles and Beatlemania.
Their middle period contains their best work, many music fans and critics argue, for this is the apex of Beatles mountain. Each of the gems above have battled for best album ever. The sitar, a twangy, whistling guitar-like instrument originating from India, was perfectly introduced to Western audiences on Rubber Soul's "Norwegian Wood" by George and then makes an "all-out excursion" on Revolver's "Love You To," a track totally in the hands of George. This was the introduction of the Indian-inspired "raga rock" to a mass American audience.
Rubber Soul is a terrific album but it almost sounds like a set of men's rights anthems. "Run for Your Life," for example, is a straight-up call for domestic violence. George's "Think for Yourself" is all spit, vinegar, and cynicism and this is an excellent article on how it changed pop music forever. Rubber Soul is like John, George, Paul, and Ringo all getting dumped by their girlfriends at the same time. Even the cover looks a little dark and sinister. They look like four hooligans who you wouldn't want to meet in a back alley.
Perhaps though this darkness is the right reprieve after five albums of cotton candy. Rubber Soul also contains some of the edgiest material as well as the most musically elegant tracks to date. "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)," "Nowhere Man," and "If You Won't See Me" stand out as faves.
Sargent Pepper's can speak for itself. It is lush and fun and orchestral. It placed The Beatles as pioneers in Baroque Pop and became the soundtrack for The Summer of Love with its June 1967 release. This one contains mellodramatic ballads like "She's Leaving Home" and the mystical "Within You Without You." I agree with one Wikipedia editor who wrote, "A key work of British psychedelia, Sgt. Pepper is considered one of the first art rock LPs and a progenitor to progressive rock. It incorporates a range of stylistic influences, including vaudeville, circus, music hall, avant-garde, and Western and Indian classical music."
Late-Beatles Finale
The Beatles, in their late-stage, operated in a state of tension at the end of their tenure. Partly this was the result of natural ageing; men start to branch off into romantic relationships and suddenly the girlfriend becomes a wife (in many heterosexual instances), along with the house, the mortgage, the kids, and all the attendant responsibilities with each. The stakes are raised. People get grumpy and have less tolerance. Differences are highlighted. The skillset of most men in their 30s increases greatly, however, and they trust their ear and their guts and their experience. And these were not mortal men. We're talking about The Beatles: Saint John, Saint Paul, Saint George, and Saint Ringo. Whatever happened to that fifth Beatle? He was walking in the desert barefoot somewhere when he looked back ("Don't Look Back in Anger) at what he left behind and immediately turned into a pillar of salt.
But when lovers break off into discrete dyads, the band can suffer, even dissolve. Drugs, pride, and artistic differences played a part. It was supposed to be Bros before Onos!
The only double album, entitled simply The Beatles (colloquially referred to as The White Album) is considered the first post-modern musical album ever made----lots of irony and self-referential lyrics (I hate this condescending side of the Beatles). While "Sargeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" is a generally happy, sometimes maudlin (think "She's Leaving Home") album of baroque cosplay, The White Album is a different beast. It's post-modern pastiche. How can one album contain George's brooding, dark "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" with Paul's loving ode to his childhood dog, an English Sheepdog pictured below named Martha. "Martha My Dear," I think is my favorite Beatles song. It is an opulent, orchestral piece of Baroque musical art and it's devoted to a childhood dog. What's not to love?
Following The White Album was Yellow Submarine which sounds almost like it was meant for kindergarten. Then we end the studio albums with diamonds Abbey Road and Let It Be.
Not bad for twelve studio albums released in just six years.
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In Eighth grade, I set out to read every Beatles biography I could get my hands on as well as purchase all of the Beatles albums in sequence. I needed to know that cultural touchstone. In my library career, two of my colleagues, Gregg and Ashley, and me are putting on a monthly trivia event. The Beatles lend themselves to trivia. So if you are in Woburn on the late afternoon of the 23rd of March, come to our trivia event. One of my categories: Meet the Beatles.
The Ones That Needed to Be Pruned
Notes and References
- Miles, Barry (1997). Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now. Henry Holt & Company. ISBN 978-0-436-28022-1.
- Savage, Jon (2015). 1966: The Year the Decade Exploded. London: Faber & Faber. ISBN 978-0-571-27763-6.
- Gilmore, Mikal (25 August 2016). "Beatles' Acid Test: How LSD Opened the Door to 'Revolver'". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 16 December 2016.
- Rodriguez, Robert (2012). Revolver: How the Beatles Reimagined Rock 'n' Roll. Milwaukee, WI: Backbeat Books. ISBN 978-1-61713-009-0.
- MacDonald, Ian (2005). Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties (3rd ed.). Chicago Review Press. ISBN 978-1-55652-733-3.
- Donnie Lonegan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jNiGOb-b8A
- The Beatles - You're Gonna Lose That Girl (SUBTITULADA) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuDT9EhzzuE
- Ed Sullivan Show: https://www.thebeatles.com/60-years-ago-today-beatles-perform-ed-sullivan-show-tv-audience-73-million
- The Beatles Spreading English https://www.diggitmagazine.com/papers/beatles-and-globalization-sixties
- John is Alive https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/weird-news/bizarre-john-lennon-alive-conspiracy-21051384
- Paul is Dead https://www.cjr.org/analysis/misinformation-paul-mccartney-dead.php
- Russ Gibb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russ_Gibb
- Day of Fate, 9th of November https://www.iamexpat.de/expat-info/german-expat-news/day-history-why-november-9-such-significant-date-germany
- More Popular than Christ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/More_popular_than_Jesus#cite_note-FOOTNOTEMiles1997293-294-48
- Hysterical, Low-Grade... https://www.rollingstone.com/feature/when-john-lennons-more-popular-than-jesus-controversy-turned-ugly-106430/
- The Beatles Discography https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles_discography
- Something Called Skiffle https://nypost.com/2017/08/10/the-beatles-were-so-great-because-of-something-called-skiffle/
- The Scream https://www.edvardmunch.org/the-scream.jsp
- Think for Yourself https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/george-harrison-the-beatles-song-changed-music/
- Pioneers in Baroque Pop https://www.musicalexpert.org/what-is-baroque-pop.htm
- Sgt. Pepper's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sgt._Pepper%27s_Lonely_Hearts_Club_Band
- All Time Top 1000 Albums https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Time_Top_1000_Albums
- Trivia at Woburn Public Library https://woburnpubliclibrary.assabetinteractive.com/calendar/tanner-trivia-2/
