2008 Woodie Awards
Best band ever: The Beatles
Kevin Kenealy/Pounce Editor
Issue date: 10/26/07 Section: Arts and Entertainment
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The four long hair mop tops played catchy simple songs to many screaming teenage girls and put the country into a wave of energy known only as "Beatlemania."
The story of the Beatles forming is almost one of fairytale nature.
Paul and John
Paul and John both came from similar backgrounds - Paul was a son of a classical musician and learned to play piano at a very young age. It was said when he bought his first guitar, he brought it up to the upstairs bathroom, locked the door, and played for hours on end. He came from a family in a more affluent neighborhood, but was poor in the sense that he saw his mother pass away at a young age on a hospital bed.
John Winston Lennon had a similar childhood, yet he was from a poorer neighborhood. At a very young age, his parents split and John was temporarily tugged on between his mum and dad.
His dad, a seafaring explorer wanted to take young John with him and (according to his dads' account) had to decide whether to stay with him or go off with his mom, Julia. He said him. Julia had asked again, but John still said his dad. Then when Julia was about to go out of the door and up the street, John ran after her. That was the last his dad ever saw or heard until he was told he was a Beatle.
Julia died when he was an adolescent in a terrible car accident and he was sent to live with his aunt, Mimi who basically let him get away with anything. The love song, "Julia," on the White Album is about his mother.
So when Paul and John met, two troublesome school boys who took their talents out on music, it was fate at its best work. In a church concert in 1957, John and his group, the Quarry Men were to play. A young, but already talented Paul McCartney was there playing "Twenty Flight Rock" already. It is said that when John saw Paul play that song, it was understood that he would become a part of his group.
I don't have much to say about young George, besides the Quarry Men, with the addition of Paul, met the youngest Beatle sometimes later (through a friend, I believe). Although a youngster, George quickly improved at guitar and became a staple in the band's repertoire.
Ringo, or Richard Starkey, was not added as part of the group sometime later when the group was seriously pending their first record deal, but the manager said they needed a new drummer or the record wouldn't be cut.
A tough decision, as then drummer Pete Best was a longtime friend of John's, but even John knew for a long time that extra strides needed to be taken seriously. Richard Starkey was a steady, established drummer already at the time and was the oldest member. He had already seen the band play a live show and was asked to fill in as drummer. He filled in and stayed. Good fortune for Ringo; not so much for Mr. Best. To be or not to be?
Why are the Beatles my favorite?
There are so many reasons and tangents to that question. So I'll use a few words to describe why I like them: change, fun, emotion
I realize liking the Beatles may seem cliché almost. I mean there must be thousands who love the Beatles. But I have my reasons. While many of their songs are simple, especially their early ones, they're catchy and aroused many people at a time when rock and roll was taboo really.
1964 was the Leave it to Beaver age. So when "I Want to Hold Your Hand" became a hit, the world of rock turned on its back. Sure, there was Elvis and Bill Haley and the Comets before. But now we have this super group, singing about love and putting some power behind it. And not all their early love songs were all so poppy. I particularly, only like songs like "I Want to Hold Your Hand" or "I Saw Her Standing There" for their rock and roll value, but lyrically there as simple as apple pie.
By the time of Hard Day's Night their love song progression hit a high. One of my favorite love songs of all time is "And I love Her" on the Hard Day's Night album, a slow love song with maraca backdrops that run through every piece of your heart.
Change
The Beatles were about change, when the world was about change. I feel almost like I lived the 1960s. I feel almost out of place in today's era, caged in a cocoon of apathy. But that's for another article.
Many people say the Beatles changed on Rubber Soul or on Sgt. Peppers or Revolver. While the changes the group made on those albums is readily apparent, change was evident in subtle ways before that.
On Help! (1965), John Lennon calls out for Help! in the title track. He called it his fat Elvis period. While a number of catchy songs do appear on Help!, the songs are more sophisticated, as in the beautiful "Tell Me What You See" a song about a lover seeing another in their eyes. In "I've Just Seen a Face" it sounds as Paul doesn't take a breath through the entire song. The song "Yesterday" at the end of Help! is still perhaps Paul's most beautiful song.
But the apparent change did occur with Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Peppers. They did what they wanted. By 1966, they played their last live performance (except for the Let it Be rooftop show) at Shea Stadium, citing the screaming fans drowned out their playing anyway.
Like the decade, the Beatles experimented with more. More instruments, more drugs, more ways of thinking. The experimentation was seen and felt in their music. Their hair grew; their facial hair covered their old boyish charm. They were growing as the world was growing. It wasn't just music; but it was channeled within in their music.
As in "Within You, Without You," my favorite song on Sgt. Peppers, George spontaneously strums the sitar (a very hard Indian instrument to play) and gets the psychedelic feel portrayed in the song, in the change of times. "We were talking/About the space between us all" he sings.
Whereas the 1967 Sgt. Peppers was a drug album, the 1968 White Album was supposedly an absence of a drug album, done through Eastern meditation methods and spiritual inner workings.
Some call it their best work; the White Album is two discs worth of songs from "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" to a song called "Piggies" - a funny song about the greed of society.
It's amazing that following the White Album, the Beatles stayed together long enough to complete two wonderful albums - Abbey Road and Let it Be.
During Abbey Road, John's Yoko Ono was in the studio constantly and the group argued over much of the production work. Ringo didn't even play drums on "In the End" and everyone pretty much knew it was over. But for it being over, the album is considered one of the best ever made.
Fun and Emotion
I like this group because they had fun it what they did. Nothing was taken too seriously, as life shouldn't be taken. Even when they got older and their albums took a more sophisticated approach, they inserted light-heartedness here and there.
They played on top of the rooftop of Apple Studios to promote Let it Be without caring what others think. Fun. Whatever they did, seemed to embody a free flowing, fun energy that should be rock and roll.
Because they put such an energy into their music, the fun, or loving, or thoughtful emotions is then projected from myself. When it comes down to the bare bones, the Beatles music makes me feel good. Plain and simple. And I'll let it be at that.
You say Hello.
I say Gooodbye.
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