The country was still in bewildered grieving that February evening when we gathered around the old black-and-white Motorola television set to see what all the fuss was about.
Just 79 days earlier, the trajectory of our world shifted dramatically when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, virtually before our very eyes, it seemed. We were a nation that was seriously wounded, treading our anxiety through time, uncertain about ... everything.
We may have been seeking relief.
Little did we know that that impossible trajectory was about to shift again. Both seismically and sonically, in fact.
So our family sat down and watched The Ed Sullivan Show that night in rapt anticipation. We'd already heard about this overhyped musical group with the funny-but-clever name called The Beatles, and the big attraction – their long hair – was what we wanted to see the most. In an era of buzz cuts and flattops – this was 1964, mind you – The Beatles were almost comically outrageous to our eyes.
When
their images appeared on the screen, we mostly kind of smirked, I
think. The song they sang, "All My Loving," was incidental to us. For
myself, I didn't know that much about music then, didn't follow any
particular groups or singers. My folks were into show tunes, with my dad
a big fan of a barbershop quartet, The Buffalo Bills. My parents
actually saw them perform in The Music Man on Broadway. Suddenly,
the Bills were constantly on our console turntable. That's what we
listened to. And maybe some jazz that dad liked. Dave Brubeck, Stan Getz.
Mom leaned toward the classical, although she'd listen to current radio. Meanwhile, I flipped baseball cards and ho-hummed
my way through adolescence.
The Beatles performed two more songs in that opening set, including, ironically,
"Til There Was You" from The Music Man, and then, unforgettably,
"She
Loves You," with the iconically relentless hook "Yeah, yeah, yeah" that has been identified with The Beatles forever after. Later in the show, they sang "I Saw Her Standing There" and "I Want to Hold Your Hand." Wow. Who else could pull off five songs on Ed Sullivan? The Beatles seemed like they
were having a good time that night. It's hard to believe that was 57
years ago, but a cultural milestone had clearly been carved.
My world immediately changed the next day when I went to school. I was laboring through seventh grade at an age when I was halfway scared of and halfway curious about girls. But the girls on that Monday morning could talk about nothing but The Beatles. They passed notes to each other. They giggled. They drew stick-figure pictures of their favorite Beatle, all the while proclaiming they loved Paul or John or George or even that goofy Ringo. The Beatles 4-Ever, they wrote to each other. I didn't get it.
I didn't get it for a couple years until I had a girlfriend who was also a Beatles fan. Then I started listening. I started tapping my foot to Ringo's beat, I started bobbing my head to the melodies. The lyrics struck home. "Help", "Yesterday", "Norwegian Wood", "Eleanor Rigby", "Penny Lane" and "Michelle" had caught my attention. In 1967, I had a summer job at the community swimming pool, when Sgt. Pepper hit the airwaves as well as the pool's PA system, and I was reeled in like a 20-pound bass in a fishing tournament. I finally caught up to them in real time.
• • •
The years rolled by.
I bought books about The Beatles. I watched the documentaries and anthologies. I bought all their albums and then bought all of their CDs. You could track their obviously steady progression as artists from album to album, each one going a little step further than the last.
All totaled, they had 20 No. 1 hits, basically from 1964 to 1969. About three a year. Get out of here. All while indelibly changing the recording industry with their overdubs, multitracks and tape loops.
• • •
I bring all of this up because I've been engrossed by Peter Jackson's recent three-part series The Beatles: Get Back. Jackson culled over nearly 60 hours of archival footage from the Let It Be
sessions, filmed by director Michael Lindsay-Hogg in 1969, which more
or less documented the breakup of the band. Jackson's work shows some of
that, but even more remarkably the footage he selected puts on display
the incredible songwriting process behind The Beatles.
Mostly,
that process appears to be the result of inspired improvisation. Just a group of
friends gathered around each other strumming away. No written notes. In
fact, The Beatles could not read sheet music. They wrote down their
lyrics, but not their melodies. Somehow, the music just poured out of
them. Freely. Irresistibly. They knew their chords and chord
progressions, but did they know music theory? Does it even matter?
As
the film shows, many of the tunes we know now were identifiable right from
the get-go. Some of the songs they were working on for Let It Be
(they had a self-imposed deadline to create and practice 14 songs over a
three-week span that were intended either for television or a live
concert) ended up in the Abbey Road album or on George's epic All Things Must Pass.
George was already becoming a prolific songwriter in his own right, maybe even moreso than John at
this point. He'd already had "Something" well in the works,
and "Here Comes the Sun" was about to rise a few weeks hence in Eric
Clapton's garden.
Some of the songs developed out of simple nonsense vocalizing. Paul's "Get Back" started
off as a protest against anti-immigrationists, and particularly of the
views of Parliament xenophobe Enoch Powell. I wish the song had been
published as such instead of in its familiar final form because it would
be so timely in today's world. It was edgy and on point.
That
said, the documentary may not be for everybody. The first and second parts are each
three hours long, and unless you are a dedicated Beatles fan, there may
not be much, if any, mystery or intrigue to be found here. The first
part took place in spacious Twickenham Film Studios, the second part at
newly-created Apple headquarters on Savile Row. The only action essentially comes from
conversation, harmony and guitar, drum or piano riffs.
But that's more than enough. If you are an authentic Beatles fan,
this film is pure, unalloyed gold. We're allowed to sit in with them via some stunningly vibrant video footage: we become almost as ever-present as Yoko. And it's not all gloom here. Sometimes the sessions are
joyful. Sometimes wistful. Sometimes humorous. Sometimes awesome.
There is a touch of sadness here, too. John is murdered just 10 years after this documentary is filmed. George dies in 2001 of lung cancer that had spread to his brain. In some ways, we are watching holy ghosts perform.
But, my gosh, how young they all looked in this footage. Not one of them had of yet turned 30. They're just kids. Incredibly talented kids.
My own Beatlemania actually continued a few weeks before Jackson's work debuted when Kim purchased Paul's "The Lyrics" for me as an early Christmas present. The two-volume set offers Paul's thoughts on many of his Beatle creations as well as many of his Wings tunes and in its way is just as revealing as Jackson's film in detailing Paul's songwriting process.
This is also Paul's opportunity (he's now 79 years old) to set the record straight (okay, pun intended) as he sees it. His collaboration with John on every song they wrote as Beatles was always tagged as a "Lennon/McCartney" tune, thus forming a timeless partnership as recognizable and substantial as Rodgers and Hammerstein or Gilbert and Sullivan, to name two.
But in "The Lyrics", Paul declares "McCartney/Lennon" if he is the principle writer of a particular piece. This makes perfect sense to me. John, for example, had no input at all on "Yesterday", so why should the credit line go to Lennon/McCartney? Is McCartney a victim of his own ego here? Is he justified? Perhaps, perhaps not.
So what?
To this day, I still have my occasional Beatles binge sessions, listening to two or three of their albums in a single sitting. By now, I've become a discerning listener. Sometimes I try to isolate Ringo's drumming, to follow in my head his beat and his fills. Sometimes I'll focus on George's lead guitar and appreciate how he grew as an artist and a musician while introducing synthesizers and sitars to the band. I appreciate the seemingly effortless and precise harmonies they emulated, with a nod, toward the Everly Brothers. I recently discovered, more than 50 years later, the simple finger snaps of John, George and Ringo at the end of Paul's "Here, There and Everywhere" and I almost shouted with glee at the revelation.
Imagine that. Jumping out of my chair and shouting with glee at The Beatles. The Beatles 4-Ever.
