Curse of Beatlemania

LewRockwell.com ^ | 1/12/2002 | Joseph Sobran

[Nan48]

Heck, I learned how to sing harmony by singing along with the Beatles on the radio. I absolutely adored them when I was in high school. I remember buying one of their 45's and my mom making me take it back to the store because she thought the Beatles were a bad influence on me. That was really hard thing for me to do in my young life. As the Beatles got into drugs and weird stuff, I lost interest in them. I still like many of their songs, though.

[ActionNewsBill]

Did you write that post with a tinfoil hat on?

Tin-foil hat, and a complete tin-foil suit for that one! ;>)

[BluesDuke]

don't forget the beatles' cover of burt bacharach's "a taste of honey." the stanzas are, well, what can you do with that, anyway, but the choruses, esp. the walking bass, are truly outstanding.

The Beatles did some interesting things when they covered others' material - John Lennon's singing of Arthur Alexander's "Anna" is absolutely gut-ripping; and if there's a more revealing Beatle cover than George Harrison's version of Carl Perkins's "Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby," I don't know where it is. Perkins's song was a classic piece of male hormonal braggadoccio, but in Harrison's voice it sounds like the idea of everybody trying to be his baby scares him shitless. But my original point was that the Beatles did not set out to put their cover versions on their singles, and usually had no control over it (in the first couple of years, anyway) when it happened outside of England.

[RightOnline]

"The Beatles = A very early model for N Sync, Boyz-2-Men, Menudo, Backstreet Boys, Duran Duran, New Edition, etc., etc., etc. Find some cute, semi-talented guys, put them together into a band making pre-fab music, market them to 7th grade girls, make money, disperse and let the guys try it on their own."

You must be young. Didn't happen that way. The Beatles were a decent rock 'n roll band that learned their chops and paid their dues in Liverpool dives and German strip clubs. They were a road-hardened band long before they ever took their first trip to the States. The "cute little boy bands" thing isn't very new. The Beatles sure didn't start that...............but the examples you give certainly ARE pre-fabricated acts designed to get prepubescent girls to part with their parents' dough.

"Now they're starting with the girls; see Britney Spears."

Nope. You're about fifty years too late. Girl acts have been pre-packaged (individual "singers" or girl groups) since the '50's, certainly...........and it can be intelligently argued that this began long before then.

[Reaganwuzthebest]

Lennon did a great job on Twist and Shout also.

[BluesDuke]

The Beatles name was due in part to a play on Beatnik a fifties counterculture group.

Not even close. They'd been big fans of Buddy Holly and the Crickets, both Holly's music and the group's name, and they were playing around with insect names for themselves when the idea of beetles hit them. It was John Lennon (it figures) who couldn't resist the pun to allude to beat music, as rock and roll was called at the time in Liverpool. Hence, the Beatles. (When they first dreamed up the name, they still felt self-conscious about such a short name; the thing in Liverpool at the time was a long name for a group, so they came up with the ridiculous tag the Silver Beatles, dropping "Silver" by 1960.)

[geaux]

Please see Reply 47. I didn't express myself as clearly as I would have liked.

And you're right re: girl bands.

[Psycho_Bunny]

"But Bernstein was surely over the top when he called Lennon and McCartney the greatest composers of the twentieth century"

lol....Bernstein actually said that!?!?

Just off the top of my head I can think of Piston, Stravinsky and R. Strauss, each of whom completely outclassed Lennon and McCartney's work on every level.

Bernstein's recordings of Beethoven's 9 symphonies always made me question his judgment but, now I know he was just plain goofy.

[BluesDuke]

Btw, you could be right about Page's initial LP being a Deluxe (Deluxes weren't made until I believe '69), but it was his '59 Standard that was his prize axe (and the one to which he is associated).

Gibson did make a Deluxe model Les Paul in the latter 1950s; they hadn't in the beginning (the guitar was born in 1952; I actually had a chance to buy a 1952 Les Paul for three thousand dollars. I hesitated. Silly me.)

[Reaganwuzthebest]

George Harrison always insisted the Beatles got their name from a Marlon Brando movie (can't remember the name) that had a motorcyle gang called the beatles. John Lennon denied that and gave the version you cite.

[UnBlinkingEye]

You're right, about the Crickets, beat music and the search for a similar name. I thought beatnik figured into it too, maybe not, anyway beatniks preceded the Beatles. I thought John said it had something to do with a man appearing on a flaming pie who told him the name...

[MarkWar]

>It appears that your memory is faulty. *We* had the Beach Boys, but since Jefferson Airplane didn't release their first record until '65, and the Doors until '67, they weren't around at the time you were claiming (February 1964 was when the Beatles appeared on Ed Sullivan.)

Ummm, by the time my friends and I got around to caring about the Beatles, it was already late in the 60s and we were able to choose among the Doors and the Airplane and others (Zappa existed, too...).

(People lose sight of how diverse the US music scene was -- and, beyond the pop albums, there was a thriving live music scene back then and just about every city had a dozen or so "local" bands that had sounds all their own.)

(And people lose sight of just how influential US bands really were. Paul & John have spoken of how "pressured" they felt to produce songs as popular and as good as the Beach Boys. If I remember right, Helter Skelter was thought of and recorded as a direct attempt to "out rock" some Beach Boy song... And, of course, Pete Townsend has often spoke of how his notion of a "rock opera" came after listening to some Zappa album (or some Zappa thing with Captain Beefheart...))

Mark W.

[UnBlinkingEye]

I've hated them since high school in the late 70s, when they were rammed down my throat time and time again by radio stations that couldn't get enough of the simpering whines of their love lyrics and ersatz pseudo protests.

By the late 70s around the Seattle area, none of the radio stations played much Beatle music, where were you?

[BluesDuke]

George Harrison always insisted the Beatles got their name from a Marlon Brando movie (can't remember the name) that had a motorcyle gang called the beatles. John Lennon denied that and gave the version you cite.

You have to remember that the Beatles were as notorious for their put-ons and jokes at their own expense as they were for the other things. (Remember the famous tall tale, which Lennon spun in a Liverpool newspaper: A man on a flaming pie descended down and said, "From this day forward you are Beatles with an 'A'.") Several biographers of the group have alluded to the Buddy Holly connection being the most likely source for their name.

[UnBlinkingEye]

Paul & John have spoken of how "pressured" they felt to produce songs as popular and as good as the Beach Boys.

Back in the U.S.S.R. was the Beatles tribute to the Beach Boys.

[JimVT]

): There was a lot of hype. But all the hype in the world isn't going to sell a bad product

Sorry I have to disagree here.

Ricky Nelson: "I went to a garden party"....no more than three note changes throughout.

Nancy Sinatra: "These boots are made for walking"

Then there was the flute freak, James Galway, who gained the usual top fame until his records stopped selling.

Well, I don't mean "flute freak".

He is/was an accomplished flautist...but the Mad Ave folks turned him into 'big seller' for their advantage.