Posted in: Rock by NickyB on September 24th, 2009 | 1 Comment
Coming together.
“Beatle music is when we all get together,” John Lennon said once of the greatest rock band in history. “You know if I want to sound like, ‘Come Together’ or ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’, which I always did and always do, or whatever it is I want to be—and Paul wants it to be whatever he wants it to be and George, etc, etc. So when the combination works you come out with what we call Beatles music.”
Even after nearly forty years since the Fab Four split, Beatles music continues to be the soundtrack of many peoples’ lives today. Their timeless songs remain at the pantheon of popular music and their coolness has not diminished one iota. If anything, certain new trends seem to wallow in short-lived embarrassment in comparison.
I was born the year the band officially broke up in 1970. I have no memory of when they first took my imagination, but I have my mother to thank for weaning me on them as she constantly played their records at home. She also had the luck to catch them live during their Australian concert tour in 1964, after a young eager suitor wanted to impress her on a date.
“I remember how angry I was with the audience. They wouldn’t shut up and ruined any hope of us actually hearing the music,” she told me. “I also remember how surprised I was at the color of John Lennon’s hair, which was a chestnut red, and I just couldn’t keep my eyes off Paul.”
Any romantic thoughts my Mum might have had about her date quickly faded in the background as Paul McCartney stayed at the forefront of her mind. He has remained her favorite member of the group ever since. As for me, Paul’s more accessible music spoke to me first and his cheery demeanor seemed far more inviting than the cantankerous and weird John. The day Lennon was tragically assassinated in 1980 in the foyer of the Dakota Building I remember thinking it served him right for being so crazy and for marrying that idiot Japanese woman, Yoko Ono, who was responsible for breaking up my favorite band. Needless to say my initial and shameless ten-year-old callousness softened as it finally dawned on me what a courageous genius John Lennon was.
boom mctavish September 24th, 2009 at 6:20 pm
ringo is the unsung hero of the beatles. he added humour and genius in equal amounts and stopped them becoming overly serious in their collective persona.
those songs are timeless, and EVERY single recording session i have been to as a musician or drum technician, the beatles have come up as a musical reference point to draw inspiration from.
quite simply, their work is still the benchmark for pop and rock music. their association with george martin took them to every point of the musical compass and define so many different styles of song that there was not much else for people to do with music after the beatles. They had already set the template and it was so successful the template remains immovable.
The beatles contribution to popular culture is unfathomably large, and their work will be among the few pieces of culture that will endure the next nine decades of the century will currently inhabit, and most likely well beyond.
Boom Mc Tavish