Reclaiming the Beatles

This past weekend I read Ian MacDonald's Revolution in the Head : The Beatles' Records and the Sixties, courtesy mr. rekluse. What emerges is the amazing tension generated between Lennon and McCartney across a wide variety of dimensions. Lennon was cynical, screaming, self-expressive, whereas McCartney was optimistic, melodic, and distant (a writer of novels, as Lennon pejoratively dubbed some of his output), and it was this inherent duality and ambivalence which their tiny studio injected into the West's social organism just as it was entering the crisis of the 60s (so much so that some historians speculate that The Beatles actually caused the upheavals of the 60s). We X/Y kids can scarcely imagine what excitement the second Rock-n-Roll insurrection (the first being Chuck Berry et al in the 50s) created in the youth at that time, one which won't likely be repeated in these fragmenting times. The Beatles more than anyone probably helped encourage the proliferation of bands we see today, as they were one of the first combos to write AND perform their own material, opening the door for the countless DIY projects (ahem, Salamone Bros.) glutting the market today.

Also of interest was their method of song creation, expertly tracked in McDonald's book. The group existed in a constant sea of media -- newspapers, magazines, tellies -- and got the vast majority of their inspiration from this potent stew of information (one can only wonder what Lennon would have wrought with Google at his side) which they remixed and spat back into the system, inspiring whole new rounds of feedback. Firmly situated in the midst of this tide pool themselves, they were like participants in a cybernetic (feedback-driven) pop Machine, and each turn of the critic/creator crank whipped Pop-rock into a further frenzy of Rita-like proportions which is still churning with fury even today. That Michael Jackson owns the bulk of their catalog is only further proof that The Beatles are a potent meta-meme subtley driving events long after their demise.

Bigger than Jesus? Perhaps. We can only hope that, 2000 years from now, the followers of Lennon/McCartney/Harrison/Starkey aren't establishing Dominion over a dying planet and keeping their children in ignorance.

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