FREE ESSAY ON THE BEATLES

THE BEATLES

The origin of the phenomenon that became the Beatles can be traced to 1957 when Paul
McCartney (b. 18 June 1942, Liverpool, England) successfully auditioned at a church fete
in Woolton, Liverpool, for the guitarist's position in the Quarrymen, a skiffle group led
by John Lennon (b. 9 October 1940, Liverpool, England, d. 8 December 1980, New York,
USA). Within a year, two more musicians had been brought in, the 15-year-old guitarist
George Harrison (b. 25 February 1943, Liverpool, England) and an art school friend of
Lennon's, Stuart Sutcliffe (b. 23 June 1940, Edinburgh, Scotland, d. 10 April 1962,
Hamburg, Germany). After a brief spell as Johnny And The Moondogs, the band rechristened
themselves the Silver Beetles, and, in April 1960, played before impresario Larry Parnes,
winning the dubious distinction of a support slot on an arduous tour of Scotland with
autumnal idol Johnny Gentle. By the summer of 1960 the group had a new name, the Beatles,
dreamed up by Lennon who said 'a man in a flaming pie appeared and said you shall be
Beetles with an a'. A full-time drummer, Pete Best (b. 1941, Liverpool, England), was
recruited and they secured a residency at Bruno Koschminder's Indra Club in Hamburg. It
was during this period that they honed their repertoire of R&B and rock 'n' roll
favourites, and during exhausting six-hour sets performed virtually every song they could
remember. Already, the musical/lyrical partnership of Lennon/McCartney was bearing fruit,
anticipating a body of work unparalleled in modern popular music. The image of the group
was changing, most noticeably with their fringed haircuts or, as they were later known,
the 'mop-tops', the creation of Sutcliffe's German fiancee Astrid Kirchherr. The first
German trip ended when the under-age Harrison was deported in December 1960 and the
others lost their work permits. During this turbulent period, they also parted company
with manager Allan Williams, who had arranged many of their early gigs. Following a
couple of months' recuperation, the group reassembled for regular performances at the
Cavern Club in Liverpool and briefly returned to Germany where they performed at the Top
Ten club and backed Tony Sheridan on the single 'My Bonnie'. Meanwhile, Sutcliffe decided
to leave the group and stay in Germany as a painter. The more accomplished McCartney then
took up the bass guitar. This part of their career is well documented in the 1994 feature
film Backbeat.
In November 1961, Brian Epstein, the manager of North End Music Store, a record shop in
Liverpool, became interested in the group after he received dozens of requests from
customers for the Tony Sheridan record, 'My Bonnie'. He went to see the Beatles play at
the Cavern and soon afterwards became their manager. Despite Epstein's enthusiasm,
several major record companies passed on the Beatles, although the group were granted an
audition with Decca on New Year's Day 1962. After some prevarication, the A&R department,
headed by Dick Rowe, rejected the group in favour of Brian Poole And The Tremeloes. Other
companies were even less enthusiastic than Decca, which had at least taken the group
seriously enough to finance a recording session. On 10 April, further bad news was
forthcoming when the group heard that Stuart Sutcliffe had died in Hamburg of a brain
haemorrhage. The following day, the Beatles flew to Germany and opened a seven-week
engagement at Hamburg's Star Club. By May, Epstein had at last found a Beatles convert in
EMI producer George Martin, who signed the group to the Parlophone label. Three months
later, drummer Pete Best was sacked; although he had looked the part, his drumming was
poor. An initial protest was made by his considerable army of fans back in Liverpool. His
replacement was Ringo Starr (b. Richard Starkey, 7 July 1940, Dingle, Liverpool,
England), the extrovert and locally popular drummer from Rory Storm And The Hurricanes.
Towards the end of 1962, the Beatles broke through to the UK charts with their debut
single, 'Love Me Do', and played the Star Club for the final time. The debut was
important, as it was far removed from the traditional 'beat combo' sound, and Lennon's
use of a harmonica made the song stand out. At this time, Epstein signed a contract with
the music publisher Dick James, which led to the formation of Northern Songs. On 13
February 1963 the Beatles appeared on UK television's Thank Your Lucky Stars to promote
their new single, 'Please Please Me', and were seen by six million viewers. It was a
pivotal moment in their career, at the start of a year in which they would spearhead a
working-class assault on music, fashion and the peripheral arts. 'Please Please Me', with
its distinctive harmonies and infectious group beat, soon topped the UK charts. It
signalled the imminent overthrow of the solo singer in favour of an irresistible wave of
Mersey talent. From this point, the Beatles progressed artistically and commercially with
each successive record. After seven weeks at the top with 'From Me To You', they released
the strident, wailing 'She Loves You', a rocker with the catchphrase 'Yeah, Yeah, Yeah'
that was echoed in ever more frequent newspaper headlines. 'She Loves You' hit number 1,
dropped down, then returned to the top seven weeks later as Beatlemania gripped the
nation. It was at this point that the Beatles became a household name. 'She Loves You'
was replaced by 'I Want To Hold Your Hand', which had UK advance sales of over one
million and entered the charts at number 1.
Until 1964 America had proven a barren ground for aspiring British pop artists, with only
the occasional record such as the Tornados' 'Telstar' making any impression. The Beatles
changed that abruptly and decisively. 'I Want To Hold Your Hand' was helped by the band's
television appearance on the top-rated Ed Sullivan Show and soon surpassed UK sales. The
Beatles had reached a level of popularity that even outshone their pre-eminence in
Britain. By April, they held the first five places in the Billboard Hot 100, while in
Canada they boasted nine records in the Top 10. Although the Beatles' chart statistics
were fascinating in themselves, they barely reflected the group's importance. They had
established Liverpool as the pop music capital of the world and the beat boom soon spread
from the UK across to the USA. In common with Bob Dylan, the Beatles had taught the world
that pop music could be intelligent and was worthy of serious consideration beyond the
screaming hordes of teendom. Beatles badges, dolls, chewing gum and even cans of Beatle
breath showed the huge rewards that could be earned with the sale of merchandising goods.
Perhaps most importantly of all, however, they broke the Tin Pan Alley monopoly of
songwriting by steadfastly composing their own material. From the moment they rejected
Mitch Murray's 'How Do You Do It?' in favour of their own 'Please Please Me', Lennon and
McCartney set in motion revolutionary changes in the music publishing industry. They even
had sufficient surplus material to provide hits for fellow artists such as Billy J.
Kramer, Cilla Black, the Fourmost and Peter And Gordon. As well as providing the Rolling
Stones with their second single, 'I Wanna Be Your Man', the Beatles encouraged the Stones
to start writing their own songs in order to earn themselves composers' royalties. By
1965, Lennon and McCartney's writing had matured to a startling degree and their albums
were relying less on outside material. Previously, they had recorded compositions by
Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly , Carl Perkins, Bacharach And David, Leiber And Stoller and
Goffin And King, but with each successive release the group were leaving behind their
earlier influences and moving towards uncharted pop territory. They carried their
audience with them, and even while following traditional pop routes they always invested
their work with originality. Their first two films, A Hard Day's Night and Help!, were
not the usual pop celluloid cash-ins but were witty and inventive, and achieved critical
acclaim as well as box office success. The national affection bestowed upon the lovable
mop-tops was best exemplified in 1965, when they were awarded MBEs for services to
British industry. The year ended with the release of their first double-sided number 1
single, 'We Can Work It Out'/'Day Tripper', the coupling indicating how difficult it had
become to choose between a- and b-sides.
At Christmas 1965 the Beatles released Rubber Soul, an album that was not a collection of
would-be hits or favourite cover versions, as the previous releases had been, but a
startingly diverse collection, ranging from the pointed satire of 'Nowhere Man' to the
intensely reflective 'In My Life'. As ever with the Beatles, there were some pointers to
their future styles, including Harrison's use of sitar on the punningly titled tale of
Lennon's infidelity, 'Norwegian Wood'. That same year, the Byrds, Yardbirds and Rolling
Stones incorporated Eastern-influenced sounds into their work, and the music press
tentatively mentioned the decidedly unpoplike Ravi Shankar. Significantly, Shankar's
champion, George Harrison, was allowed two writing credits on Rubber Soul, 'Think For
Yourself' and 'If I Needed Someone' (also a hit for the Hollies ). During 1966, the
Beatles continued performing their increasingly complex arrangements before scarcely
controllable screaming fans, but the novelty of fandom was wearing frustratingly thin. In
Tokyo, the group incurred the wrath of militant students who objected to their
performance at Budokan. Several death threats followed and the group left Japan in poor
spirits, unaware that worse was to follow. A visit to Manila ended in a near riot when
the Beatles did not attend a party thrown by President Ferdinand Marcos, and before
leaving the country they were set upon by angry patriots. A few weeks later Beatles
records were being burned in the redneck southern states of America because of Lennon's
flippant remark that: 'We are more popular than Jesus now'. Although his words passed
unnoticed in Britain, their reproduction in an American magazine instigated assassination
threats and a massed campaign by members of the Ku Klux Klan to stamp out the Beatle
menace. By the summer of 1966, the group were exhausted and defeated and played their
last official performance at Candlestick Park, San Francisco, USA, on 29 August.
The controversy surrounding their live performances did not detract from the quality of
their recorded output. 'Paperback Writer' was another step forward, with its gloriously
elaborate harmonies and charmingly prosaic theme. It was soon followed by a double-sided
chart-topper, 'Yellow Submarine'/'Eleanor Rigby', the former a self-created nursery rhyme
sung by Starr, complete with mechanical sounds, and the latter a brilliantly orchestrated
narrative of loneliness, untainted by mawkishness. The attendant album, Revolver, was
equally varied, with Harrison's caustic 'Taxman', McCartney's plaintive 'For No One' and
'Here, There And Everywhere', and Lennon's drug-influenced 'I'm Only Sleeping', 'She Said
She Said' and the mantric 'Tomorrow Never Knows'. The latter has been described as the
most effective evocation of a LSD experience ever recorded. After 1966, the Beatles
retreated into the studio, no longer bound by the restriction of having to perform live.
Their image as pin-up pop stars was also undergoing a metamorphosis and when they next
appeared in photographs, all four had moustaches, and Lennon even boasted glasses, his
short-sightedness previously concealed by contact lenses. Their first recording to be
released in over six months was 'Penny Lane'/'Strawberry Fields Forever', which broke
their long run of consecutive UK number 1 hits, as it was kept off the top by Engelbert
Humperdinck 's schmaltzy 'Release Me'. Nevertheless, this landmark single brilliantly
captured the talents of Lennon and McCartney and is seen as their greatest pairing on
disc. Although their songwriting styles were increasingly contrasting, there were still
striking similarities, as both songs were about the Liverpool of their childhood.
Lennon's lyrics to 'Strawberry Fields Forever', however, dramatized a far more complex
inner dialogue, characterized by stumbling qualifications ('That is, I think, I
disagree'). Musically, the songs were similarly intriguing, with 'Penny Lane' including a
piccolo trumpet and shimmering percussive fade-out, while 'Strawberry Fields Forever'
fused two different versions of the same song and used reverse-taped cellos to eerie
effect.
It was intended that this single would be the jewel in the crown of their next album, but
by the summer of 1967 they had sufficient material to release 13 new tracks on Sgt.
Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Sgt. Pepper turned out to be no mere pop album but a
cultural icon embracing the constituent elements of the 60s' youth culture: pop art,
garish fashion, drugs, instant mysticism and freedom from parental control. Although the
Beatles had previously experimented with collages on Beatles For Sale and Revolver, they
took the idea further on the sleeve of Sgt. Pepper, which included photos of every
influence on their lives that they could remember. The album had a gatefold sleeve,
cardboard cut-out figurines, and, for the first time on a pop record, printed lyrics. The
music, too, was even more extraordinary and refreshing. Instead of the traditional breaks
between songs, one track merged into the next, linked by studio talk, laughter,
electronic noises and animal sounds. A continuous chaotic activity of sound ripped forth
from the ingenuity of their ideas translator, George Martin. The songs were essays in
innovation and diversification, embracing the cartoon psychedelia of 'Lucy In The Sky
With Diamonds', the music-hall pastiche of 'When I'm 64', the circus atmosphere of 'Being
For The Benefit Of Mr Kite', the eastern philosophical promise of 'Within You, Without
You' and even a modern morality tale in 'She's Leaving Home'. Audio tricks and surprises
abounded, involving steam organs, orchestras, sitars, and even a pack of foxhounds in
full cry at the end of 'Good Morning, Good Morning'. The album closed with the epic 'Day
In The Life', the Beatles' most ambitious work to date, featuring what Lennon described
as 'a sound building up from nothing to the end of the world'. As a final gimmick, the
orchestra was recorded beyond a 20,000 hertz frequency, meaning that the final note was
audible only to dogs. Even the phonogram was not allowed to interfere with the
proceedings, for a record groove was cut back to repeat slices of backwards-recorded tape
that played on into infinity. While Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band topped the
album charts, the group appeared on a live worldwide television broadcast, playing their
anthem of the period, 'All You Need Is Love'. The following week it entered many of the
world's charts at number 1, echoing the old days of Beatlemania. There was sadness, too,
that summer, for on 27 August 1967, Brian Epstein was found dead, the victim of a
cumulative overdose of the drug Carbitrol, together with hints of a homosexual scandal
cover-up. With spiritual guidance from the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the Beatles took
Epstein's death calmly and decided to look after their business affairs without a
manager. The first fruit of their post-Epstein labour was the film Magical Mystery Tour,
first screened on national television on Boxing Day 1967. While the phantasmagorical
movie received mixed reviews, nobody could complain about the music, initially released
in the unique form of a double EP, featuring six well-crafted songs. The EPs reached
number 2 in the UK, making chart history in the process. Ironically, the package was
robbed of the top spot by the traditional Beatles Christmas single, this time in the form
of 'Hello Goodbye'.
In 1968 the Beatles became increasingly involved with the business of running their
company, Apple Corps. A mismanaged boutique near Baker Street came and went. The first
Apple single, 'Hey Jude', was a warm-hearted ballad that progressed over its seven-minute
duration into a rousing singalong finale. Their next film, Yellow Submarine, was a
cartoon, and the graphics were acclaimed as a landmark in animation. The soundtrack album
was half instrumental, with George Martin responsible for some interesting orchestral
work. Only four genuinely new Beatles tracks were included, with Lennon's biting 'Hey
Bulldog' being the strongest. Harrison's swirling 'Only A Northern Song' had some
brilliant Pepperesque brass and trumpets. Although 'It's All Too Much' was flattered by
the magnificent colour of the animation in the film, it was not a strong song. With their
prolific output, the group crammed the remainder of their most recent material onto a
double album, The Beatles (now known as 'The White Album'), released in a stark white
cover. George Martin's perceptive overview many years later was that it would have made
an excellent single album. It had some brilliant moments that displayed the broad sweep
of the Beatles' talent, from 'Back In The USSR', the affectionate tribute to Chuck Berry
and the Beach Boys, to Lennon's tribute to his late mother, 'Julia', and McCartney's
excellent 'Blackbird'. Harrison contributed 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps', which
featured Eric Clapton on guitar. Marmalade took 'Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da' to number 1 in the
UK, while 'Helter Skelter' took on symbolic force in the mind of the mass murderer
Charles Manson. There were also a number of average songs that seemed still to require
work, plus some ill-advised doodlings such as 'Revolution No. 9' and 'Goodnight'. The
Beatles revealed that the four musicians were already working in isolated neutrality,
although the passage of time has now made this work a critics' favourite. Meanwhile, the
Beatles' inability as business executives was becoming apparent from the parlous state of
Apple, to which Allen Klein attempted to restore some order. The new realism that
permeated the portals of their headquarters was even evident in their art. Like several
other contemporary artists, including Bob Dylan and the Byrds, they chose to end the 60s
with a reversion to less complex musical forms. The return-to-roots minimalism was
spearheaded by the appropriately titled number 1 single 'Get Back', which featured Billy
Preston on organ. Cameras were present at their next recording sessions, as they ran
through dozens of songs, many of which they had not played since Hamburg. When the
sessions ended, there were countless spools of tape that were not reassembled until the
following year. In the meantime, a select few witnessed the band's last 'public'
performance on the rooftop of the Apple headquarters in Savile Row, London. Amid the
uncertainty of 1969, the Beatles enjoyed their final UK number 1 with 'Ballad Of John And
Yoko', on which only Lennon and McCartney performed.
In a sustained attempt to cover the cracks that were becoming increasingly visible in
their personal and musical relationships, they reconvened for Abbey Road . The album was
dominated by a glorious song cycle on side 2, in which such fragmentary compositions as
'Mean Mr. Mustard', 'Polythene Pam', 'She Came In Through The Bathroom Window' and
'Golden Slumbers'/'Carry That Weight' gelled into a convincing whole. The accompanying
single coupled Lennon's 'Come Together' with Harrison's 'Something'. The latter song gave
Harrison the kudos he deserved, and rightly became the second most covered Beatles song
ever, after 'Yesterday'. The single only reached number 4 in the UK, the group's lowest
chart position since 'Love Me Do' in 1962. Such considerations were small compared to the
fate of their other songs. The group could only watch helplessly as a wary Dick James
surreptitiously sold Northern Songs to ATV. The catalogue continued to change hands over
the following years and not even the combined financial force of McCartney and Yoko Ono
could eventually wrest it from superstar speculator Michael Jackson.
With various solo projects on the horizon, the Beatles stumbled through 1970, their
disunity betrayed to the world in the depressing film Let It Be, which shows Harrison and
Lennon clearly unhappy about McCartney's attitude towards the band. The subsequent album,
finally pieced together by producer Phil Spector, was a controversial and bitty affair,
initially housed in a cardboard box containing a lavish paperback book, which increased
the retail price to a prohibitive level. Musically, the work revealed the Beatles looking
back to better days. It included the sparse 'Two Of Us' and the primitive 'The One After
909', a song they used to play as the Quarrymen, and an orchestrated 'Long And Winding
Road', which provided their final US number 1, although McCartney pointedly preferred the
non-orchestrated version in the film. There was also the aptly titled last official
single, 'Let It Be', which entered the UK charts at number 2, only to drop to number 3
the following week. For many it was the final, sad anti-climax before the inevitable, yet
still unexpected, split. The acrimonious dissolution of the Beatles, like that of no
other group before or since, symbolized the end of an era that they had dominated and
helped to create.
It is inconceivable that any group in the future can shape and influence a generation in
the same way as these four individuals. More than 30 years on, the quality of the songs
is such that none show signs of sounding either lyrically or musically dated. Since the
break-up of the band, there have been some important releases for Beatles fans. In 1988
the two Past Masters volumes collected together all the Beatles tracks not available on
the CD releases of their original albums. The first volume has 18 tracks from 1962-65;
the second, 15 from the subsequent years. Live At The BBC collected together 56 tracks
played live by the Beatles for various shows on the BBC Light Programme in the infancy of
their career. Most of the songs are cover versions of 50s R&B standards, including nine
by Chuck Berry. The first volume of Anthology, released in November 1995, collected 52
previously unreleased out-takes and demo versions recorded between 1958 and 1964, plus
eight spoken tracks taken from interviews. The album was accompanied by an excellent
six-part television series that told the complete story of the band, made with the help
of the three remaining Beatles, and by the single release of 'Free As A Bird', the first
song recorded by the band since their break-up. This consisted of a 1977 track sung by
Lennon into a tape recorder, and backed vocally and instrumentally in 1995 by the other
three Beatles and produced by Jeff Lynne. It narrowly failed to reach number 1 on both
sides of the Atlantic, as did the slightly inferior 'Real Love' in March 1996. The
reaction to Anthology 2 was ecstatic. While it was expected that older journalists would
write favourably about their generation, it was encouraging to see younger writers
offering some fresh views. David Quantick of the New Musical Express offered one of the
best comments in recent years: 'The Beatles only made - they could only make - music that
referred to the future. And that is the difference between them and every other pop group
or singer ever since'. Anthology 3 could not improve upon the previous collection but
there were gems to be found. The acoustic 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps' from Harrison is
stunning. 'Because', never an outstanding track when it appeared on Abbey Road, is given
a stripped a cappella treatment. The McCartney demo of 'Come And Get It' for Badfinger
begs the question of why the Beatles chose not to release this classic pop song
themselves. In the course of history the Rolling Stones and countless other major groups
are loved, but the Beatles are universally and unconditionally adored.
Bibliography
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