The Beatles

The Beatles
I am not ashamed to admit that the first and only Beatles album I physically owned was 1, given to me by a relative for Christmas. This is a source of derision for my friends who spilled out of the womb singing “Hey Jude.” The truth is that the Beatles didn’t have much of a direct impact on me until the world starting telling me that they should. (Indirectly, well…I was a big Oasis fan, but that’s a story for another post.)

I attended a middle school dance not long after 1’s release where the DJ claimed that there was a band that people had been “requesting all night long” and that he’d finally throw them a bone. He then played some weird Beatles megamix that wasn’t so great for dancing but splendid for inviting 12-year-olds to scream “She loves you/Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!” in each other’s faces.

1 is actually a remarkable album showcasing the band’s mastery of the short pop single – few of the tracks break the 3-minute mark. It’s a fine collection of their standards that gets pretty weird near the end. I loved “The Ballad of John and Yoko” and especially “Lady Madonna” because I never really grasped how either of these songs could be number ones, at least not in today's world.

Nobody needs me to tell them that Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is pretty great, so let me just say that Sgt. Pepper’s is real fucking good. The highlight for me is “With a Little Help From My Friends,” which of course sounded so alien to me after The Wonder Years pounded Joe Cocker’s devastatingly lonely version into my brain. These days I prefer the goofy Ringo Starr-driven version. It’s got a sweet, bouncy camaraderie that's fitting for a song about the people who tolerate and indulge your petty insecurities (and create beautiful harmonies to compensate for your utilitarian singing voice). Now I can’t imagine it being any better without Starr’s lilting nasal vocal.

Pound for pound, Sgt. Pepper’s is comparable to its major creative impetus, the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds. Perhaps the highs aren’t as high, but “Getting Better” and “A Day In the Life” are nice pieces of work.

My earliest Beatles “experience” was with The Beatles (White Album), for which I pegged them as some sort of novelty country-western outfit. When I had my fill of “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” and “The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill,” I would switch to the only other Beatles CD my parents owned, Anthology, and cue up “Twist and Shout.” I'd like to say that this confused chronology was the reason I gave up on the Beatles for a while, but the truth is that my Weird Al cassettes weren't going to listen to themselves.

I don’t recall ever making it past “Bungalow Bill” on The Beatles – unless you count “Birthday,” which fit the silly personas I had created in my head for the group – but I have come to realize that riffing on the novelty of pop music is one of the main themes of the album, which is peppered with self-deprecation and satire. “Back In the U.S.S.R.” is Dr. Strangelove plugged into a Marshall stack and “Happiness Is A Warm Gun” still has the Charles Schultz estate pissed, I imagine. Finally, I love the fact that Lennon and McCartney wrote most of the songs for this record – the band’s most playful by far – surreptitiously during a meditation retreat where they were explicitly instructed not to work. It means that two of the greatest musical talents of our time kept evolving through their connection to the world and other people, not knocking about in some sealed creative fortress native to monolithic geniuses and demi-gods.

The Beatles is also a cipher for decoding the four personalities that could soothe and enrage each other. Paul unleashing his inner vaudevillian (“Martha My Dear”) while trying to maintain some sort of rock cred (“Helter Skelter”). George writing interesting and melancholy songs that aren’t full of interminable sitar bullshit (“While My Guitar Gently Weeps”). Ringo just trying to act like when we all still a family and happy together (“Don’t Pass Me By”). And John the artiste blessing us with his avant-garde sound collage (“Revolution 9”) that also happens to contain our first Yoko Ono sighting. It’s a record that goes a long way in establishing the members of the Beatles as ‘problematic’ archetypes – each predictable in their own way but still capable of anything in their little collective of one-upmanship.

“Glass Onion,” a John song, is the most telling of the lot. In a salacious interpretation, “Onion” is Lennon’s frustration with the band’s detours into pop nonsense and minor dalliances with a groovy worldview. Referencing multiple songs in the back catalog, he seems kind of irritated that none of them are as ostensibly useful as a bauble that can let you “See how the other half lives.” He might even be pointing a holier-than-thou finger at McCartney – “Well here’s another clue for you all/The walrus was Paul” – even though John was the one behind “I Am the Walrus.” Or he’s just having a laugh. Point is, The Beatles sounds like it pushed everyone significantly closer to the breaking point. Though not a sustainable model for any band, it did lead to an especially transcendent two and a half years of music.

Oh yeah, Abbey Road is pretty good too. “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” is a waste of time but the side two medley more than makes up for it with its supreme ambition and callbacks to their prowess with songs lasting 150 seconds or less. Abbey Road is also, in my opinion, their most impressive album from a vocal standpoint. “Something” and “Octopus’s Garden” simply fit George and Ringo, and there’s some great about-to-burst-into-tears singing on “Golden Slumbers” that's even better than the dramatic blubbering on “The Long and Winding Road.” But Paul is the winner here, demonstrating a knack for rock vocals after “U.S.S.R.” and “Helter Skelter” with the wrenching “Oh! Darling.”

Among the chaff are some introspective highlights from Rubber Soul, including “Norwegian Wood” and “In My Life”…and also “Drive My Car,” perhaps the filthiest Beatles song (hint: the car is Paul’s penis). Also, is it such a surprise that a dour, pretentious, annoying Beatles movie musical would be titled after the dour, pretentious, annoying “Across the Universe”?

Revisiting the Beatles has confirmed two things for me: one, you miss out on a lot when all you have is a greatest hits album; and two, I am more of a McCartney than a Lennon. To me, Paul is the one element without which the Beatles could not have existed, a self-conscious, striving dude that people could relate to apart from the preternatural musical gifts. In my notes for this post I was actually harder on John. Part of me still feels put off by a smug and sarcastic manner that becomes more prevalent in the band’s later work. That’s the way it comes across to me, at least – the proto-hipster.

But he was still capable of letting his guard down in his songs, his emotional distance unable to conquer the deepest pain of anyone in the band. The “hurt Beatle” was an enigma, a poet, and a brute, seemingly determined to have people indulge him as an adult in a way that he wasn’t as a child. And he wasn’t busy proving what a nonconformist he was, the boy came out, sharing his passion for rock ‘n roll with other like-minded kids. Whenever I hear “Don’t Let Me Down,” I can’t help but wonder if he really wrote it for Yoko (as he claimed) or for himself.