The Beatles: Time to let it be?

[dipsydoodle]

Imagine there's no Beatles. It's easy if you try. No "Hey Jude" below us. Above us, only Dylan. When John Lennon's totemic song rang out at the Olympics closing ceremony last week, accompanied by his image cast in polystyrene relief, it showed that no musical director can ever imagine a world without Lennon or McCartney. Which is a pity because isn't it time, on this 50th anniversary of the Cavern Club performance, that Britain finally got over The Beatles?

Maybe it's because I'm a Scouser. More than that, I went to the same school as Lennon, which used to be called Quarry Bank. Those of us sneaking out to Calderstones Park for a cigarette had to dodge busloads of tourists taking pictures.

Maybe I have always had enough of them. In any case, we Liverpudlians are already over The Beatles. When I ran a magazine in Liverpool, 20 years ago, we managed to fill our pages with cutting-edge music, from the new nightclub Cream to local bands, without once mentioning the Fab Four.

I'm not saying we shouldn't recognise their contribution to music, occasionally. They got there first, and some of their songs were sublime. But why must every national event, jubilee, X Factor series, or sporting occasion, have to feature The Beatles? How many of the athletes (average age: 26) in the Olympic stadium last week would have requested a Beatles song if they had had the choice? What did the teenage audience watching at home think? Did the rest of the world groan like me?

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/the-beatles-time-to-let-it-be-8060067.html

IMHO it was George who was the star anyway and he''ll be the one most fondly remembered.

[Nostradammit]

1. The Counterpoint (From the same article...)

Just as a young Paul McCartney and John Lennon first listened in wonder to Chuck Berry and Little Richard, there was a similarly humble but no less joyous beginning to my first hearing The Beatles. At a very young age, I saw the Fab Four on a black-and-white television and, apparently, immediately began to dance.

This somewhat embarrassing image of unfettered joy has been and will be, repeated in living rooms around the world for as long as footage of The Beatles is shown. It is right that we continue to celebrate the group because we owe them so much. As the music critic Anthony DeCurtis once pointed out, they are like a young artist who died tragically before his time. Generations of musicians and bands simply set out to complete the sketches they provided. But since those heady days of the 1960s, no one has yet improved on the original.

Following Paul McCartney's performance at the Olympics opening ceremony there has been a morphing in some quarters of English modesty into a paranoia about how our behaviour might make us look on the public stage: a fear of being a braggart or a bore. Few other countries or cultures would have such hang-ups.

More than any other band of the time, The Beatles merged high and low in a way that set the tone for the democratisation of culture for the next half century.


More at:


http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/the-beatles-time-to-let-it-be-8060067.html

[dipsydoodle]

2. Thanks

You'll appreciate I was restricted by copyright and it was good you saw a way to use another 4 paras for the counterpoint.

[orpupilofnature57]

3. We were pissed when mom insisted on watching..

Ed Sullivan show instead of our favorite ' Lost in space ' . Little did I know mom was turning us on to the first glimpse of the greatest phenomenon in history ,which took us from dancing to thinking .Hence more than any other band in history ,they're day by day contribution in the 60's is why they're shoved down our throats today ,like Lady Gaga WON'T be tomorrow. And IMO John Lennon was the Beatles and Paul was their science officer , Ringo was lovable and George was the hippie.

[Art_from_Ark]

7. Lost in Space and Ed Sullivan were both CBS programs

Sullivan came on Sunday nights, Lost in Space debuted on Wednesday nights. The first Lost in Space episode was broadcast 3 days after the final Beatles appearance was aired on Ed Sullivan (September 15 and 12, 1965, respectively). The Beatles made their first appearance on Ed Sullivan on February 9, 1964

[orpupilofnature57]

8. Thanks ,now I'm searching to see the tv schedule

for what it was we wanted to watch instead ,Dad thought the ( The Beatles ) were a trapeze act. Maybe it was something on Disney.

[Art_from_Ark]

10. Could have been Disney

or "The Wonderful World of Color" as it was known back then. My mom always insisted on watching Disney, although I must admit I wasn't very interested in it if they weren't showing any cartoons (with one exception: "The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh&quot .

[orpupilofnature57]

11. Guess what ? ' The scarecrow of Romney Marsh ' is just

what it was ,and it started at 7:30 pm NBC , She must of preempted it , sending me in to a life of paying homage to the ' Fab Four ' and all that went with it ,thanks Mom. I don't ever remember seeing ' The scarecrow of Romney Marsh ' must have been all those screaming girls at that " Really Big Shoe " .

[Art_from_Ark]

13. Amazing

Back in those days, we almost always spent Sundays at my grandparents' house. If we stayed late enough, we'd end up watching Ed Sullivan with my grandparents. If we returned earlier, we'd watch Disney at our house. That must have been one of those nights when we returned earlier

By the way, Lost In Space was one of one of my favorite shows back then. But it was on at the same time as Batman. I couldn't make up my mind which one to watch, so my mom settled it by convincing me that Batman was a "silly" show. LOL.

[orpupilofnature57]

14. I got to talk to Guy Williams once on the telephone.

[WCGreen]

4. They opened up pop music, broke through the formulas that others have played to death...

Last edited Sun Aug 19, 2012, 07:19 AM - Edit history (1)

The Beatles were from a generation before me and I was 12 when they broke up, but their music is timeless...

The reason why their will never be another band like the Beatles is simply because they knew music from every genre that was alive up until then.

When they were cutting their teeth in Hamburg, they would have to play ten to twelve hours a day and play every kind of song that the sailors shouted out.

They took bits and pieces of tunes and mashed them together in order to create music that is still loved by millions of people.

That's why they were so good for so many albums, they dared to stretch their music and refused to be stuck in any formulaic pop genre.

Look at their cord structures in their songs, look at the pacing, the lyrics matching the music in tone and meaning.

They wrote and recorded over 150 songs in the span of about seven years and they never repeated themselves.

George was cool, but the other two, weill they gave us pop music with a base in everything from High Classical to show tunes to Jazz and did it well.

I wondered why I still love the Beatles today It wasn't because the music takes me back to a better time. Those years that they were on the top of the charts was the worst years of my life. But maybe I was so infatuated with their music because it made me think of something beyond my shitty room, my crappy home life and my seriously awkward social skills..

Anyway, Sir Paul is getting on, he looks and sure he struggles, but he is still out their doing what he loves and what is wrong with that. You can turn the music off, no one was forcing anyone to watch the show.

[DonCoquixote]

5. here is why I disagree

OK. let's go ahead and say that there was "op music" before the Beatles.
Let's even admit that they were admitted to fame because they played bad covers of Black Music in the beginning,which is another way of saying they stole R & B.
Let's even grant that their legacy is indeed one of the most abused in history, from Noel Gallagher to Commericals.

I will agree to all of those things.

However, what the Beatles have two things that keep them current:

One :Their influence is still very much felt. From Africa to the Americas to Asia and Australia, there are still musicians being influenced by the Beatles. Whether it is Harmonized chorus, or a catchy line that can be dissected into different layers to get different meanings, bands are still following the Beatles lead. It is as current if as if they were still around.

Two: Innovation. What sets the Beatles apart is that, while they set many of the templates that are in use, they also broke them, even when money was at stake. From throwing in Psychedelic elements, to orchestral elements, to electronics, the Beatles showed how to break past your own template to achieve excellence. Now, many artists have tried to "reinvent" themselves,it is almost mandatory to do so to be considered a serious artist, but the Beatles were the first to show that yes, you can make new music without destroying what made you great.

Granted, the way the legacy was abused is awful,especially "imagine." Yes,I realize it is a leading candidate for "atheist equivalent to a Hymn" as it does not have the Soviet baggage of "the Internationale." However, we all know that John Lennon would have been leading the protests against the security measures. Hell, can you imagine on 9-12-01, when rockers were either signing sad dirges or patriotic war hymns, if he just got out his Guitar and sang "Give peace a chance?"

[orpupilofnature57]

6. Eloquently Correct!!!!!

Lennon was the thinking persons Elvis.

[cleduc]

9. "George who was the star anyway"

All four were popular at the time but George was pretty shy and quiet - arguably had the least star power. Lennon was probably the main mouthpiece when they spoke to the media and was popular with many because of his wit ("Would the people in the cheaper seats clap your hands. And the rest of you, just rattle your jewelry." Performance for Queen Elizabeth and British Royalty). Paul seemed to be regarded as the "cutest" - the ladies seemed to like him the most for that.

Lennon-McCartney wrote the vast majority of their songs and all but a very few of their hits so the music media at the time tended to give them more credit than the other two.

They started out as a pop rock band. Upbeat, catchy melody with fairly straightforward lyrics. But they transformed in front of us and I guess that's a key to why they were so special. Their lyrics evolved to make social statements and some of it was like deep poetry with folks searching for all the meanings. They evolved by using techniques in the studio - way beyond a four piece band and broke new ground there - both with sounds and orchestration backing up some of their songs (George Martin). Their music diversified from simple rock to more complex pieces and a variety of types of music (country, blues, ballads, anthems, some classical overtones, and mixtures, etc) and they broke the 3 minute barrier for a pop song. Throughout that evolution, they produced wonderful melodies that held it together and sustained it's appeal.

I was helping my teenage kids with their ipods. Like other teenagers, I thought they were going through the usual popular artists of the day. But I found both had much of the Beatles collection and they didn't get them from me or their Mom. Like Beethoven I guess, great music will survive the ages.

In 2011, the Beatles were credited with elevating US digital music sales for the first time in a decade when their material became available to iTunes. (somehow my kids had it on their ipods years before) and Abbey Road remained the top selling vinyl album - so the old fans were still buying.

[TeamPooka]

32. well said

hear hear!

[Proud Corporate Dem]

12. They were overrated.

[orpupilofnature57]

15. Check your Rosetta stone ,,and who rates?

[Proud Corporate Dem]

17. I don't know but I just never really cared for the Beatles much. They were all on LSD.

Bunch of losers. Bad example for the kids. We should not be promoting drug users. It could make us look bad.

[orpupilofnature57]

18. What's a winner look like?

Better still ,what's a proud corporate Dem?

[Proud Corporate Dem]

19. Try some Barry Manilow if you want some good music.

Not a drug head.

Nothing wrong with being a proud corporate Democrat.

[orpupilofnature57]

20. I didn't judge , I just wondered . Barry wrote some

of the best commercial tunes and tunes for commercials in history, so I can see why he's your Lennon ,Proud Corporate Dem. What songwriting team wrote the most in history?

[Proud Corporate Dem]

21. Is that a trivia question? I give up.

[orpupilofnature57]

22. Me too ,Dad didn't care for the Beatles either.

[DonCoquixote]

26. unless the corporartions you like

are dismantling democracy itself,which, sadly, most are.

[Politicalboi]

30. LOL!

Barry Manilow, who didn't even write the song "I write the songs" LOL! He ain't music, and he didn't write the song.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

28. are you sure you're in the right place?

you sound, sort of, you know, Conservative..........

[Politicalboi]

29. LOL!

Bunch of losers that will be remembered over ANY shit that has come and gone since. Kurt Cobain, now that's a loser. He will NEVER be Jim Morrison. That loser thought just by dying on the same day meant something. I'm glad he finally got his wish. Loser.

[LeftishBrit]

16. Disagree. The Beatles were great!

And, note to the writer: by the way 'Imagine' was NOT a Beatles song: it was a John Lennon solo, after the Beatles had broken up.

[Igel]

23. Eh.

If the past stifles the present in a democratized culture, it's because most people prefer the past to the present. They think it better satisfies their needs.

In the 1990s American and German lit swamped the Czech literary scene. It wasn't necessarily what publishers wanted to publish. It was what readers wanted to buy. The indigenous writers and literati were irate about it. Let's assume there are 20 popular writers at any given time. Each year, they can turn out a certain amount of literary production. If you have a population of 10 million and you're just considering the year's output, there might be some really good stuff; odds are it won't be as good. Now, if your up against writers from a cohort of over 400 million literature, fairly prosperous people and you're picking the best for the last 40 years you're facing some stiff competition. So the foreign and the past swamped the present in the 1990s Czech literary scene.

The solution was the same in both cases: For the musicians and the writers to actually produce material that readers wanted. Or to produce less popular material that the musician or writers liked, and be happy that there are at least some others that support it, rather than rant about how superior they are and how boring and pedestrian those lesser being, the "majority," are.

As for the Olympics, if you're looking at cultural contributions you don't want to focus on the here-and-now. What's the contribution of Russian music and literature to world civilization and culture? Pussy Riot? Only if "world civilization" is defined to be a very, very small number of people.

[nightscanner59]

24. I couldn't help NOT to let this one be:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/113718874

[Judi Lynn]

25. Wow! Woof! Great. Didn't even know he did that one. Infectious. Thanks!

[dipsydoodle]

27. Wasn't released until after he died

Its on the Brainwashed cd.

The guy on a gypsy rhythm guitar is Joe Brown who played I'll see you in my dreams in the finale of the Concert for George at the Albert Hall and the guy on the piano is Jules Holland who's worth checking out too.

[rug]

31. In 1962, how many people were talking about songs from 1912?

The Beatles, and the culture in which they thrived, were a watershed.

[dipsydoodle]

33. Some humour from the past - 1963