The Beatles

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The Beatles

“If you think about it, for almost any moment, any mood that you might be in, there's probably a Beatles song that will address that mood, that feeling, that set of emotions. I don't know that that can be said about very many groups, if any”

Actor, director and filmmaker Ron Howard

In 1961, John F. Kennedy became president of the United States, ushering in hopes for a new era of leadership.

His youth, charisma, and eloquence stimulated people everywhere to share in his optimistic vision and dreams of great exploits.

His assassination in November of 1963 hit hard and plunged many around the world into mourning and apprehension. That same November day, the Beatles’ second album “With the Beatles” was released in the United Kingdom. Their first, “Please Please Me” was released in the UK in March of 1963.

Sixty years ago, this past February, the youth of the world started to overcome the impact of the loss of President Kennedy as four new voices emerged, those of the Beatles.

Four young lads from Liverpool appeared three times on the Ed Sullivan show and made a global impact on music and youth that has lasted until today.

I was eleven years old when I first saw them on a wintery Sunday night in February of 1964.

Their music was fun, exuberant, and, quite simply, mesmerising. Their presence was an overwhelming change from artists with pomaded pompadours.

Their charm, wit and irreverent view of the world matched a musical ability and intense creativity that would always keep them one step ahead of the rest.

While their first compositions were simple and straightforward, they followed up with more complex tunes and more sophisticated lyrics as time went by.

They first visited India in 1965 and made yogic meditation a mainstay of Western society. They brought the music of Ravi Shankar to Western audiences and expanded music from rock and roll to transcendental meditation and a spiritual search.

Their later music melded the surrealism of Dali and the theater of the absurd of Samuel Beckett, producing some songs of great depth and others that seemed nonsensical and let the imagination run wild. They quickly mastered the art of studio recording, taking it to new heights and opening the door for the complex compositions of other groups like Pink Floyd.

They opened a channel for many British groups to conquer global markets and made the U.K. a major global musical powerhouse.

The Beatles’ music quickly went far beyond the teenybopper market as mainstream contemporary adult artists began covering many of their songs. Frank Sinatra claimed that “Something” was one the most beautiful songs ever written and “Yesterday” has been covered by dozens of major artists.

Their ability to consistently transcend market niches and age groups was remarkable. Indeed, my son probably knows more Beatles songs and more about the group than I do, and he was born in 1988!

The Beatles were also the first to use pop music as a powerful political tool. Many artists and bands that accompanied the Beatles in the 60’s like Peter, Paul, and Mary, Crosby Stills Nash and Young, and Bob Dylan never had the reach of this band across the years. Indeed, about the only band left from that era are the Rolling Stones who continue to fill stadiums as octogenarians. But their music is basically rock and lacks the musical range and depth of the Beatles.

Each of the Beatles had great success in their solo careers after the band broke up.

George Harrison’s “All Things Must Pass”, his second solo album in 1971 put him on the map as a major solo artist. His album “Concert for Bangladesh” that same year showed the power of rock music to transcend borders and social classes and to bring the global community together to address major socio-political issues.

This was an influence behind the global “Live Aid” concert in 1985 that brought rock and pop groups from around the world to raise awareness of and funding for the famine in Ethiopia.

George Harrison brought eastern mysticism and spirituality to mainstream pop music as well as too Western youth, as well as haunting guitar sounds with “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”, “Here Comes the Sun”, and “Something”.

John Lennon brought a biting social commentary to many of his songs that he continued later in his career when he went solo – songs like “Working Class Hero”.

Paul McCartney brought tremendous lyricism with such songs as “Yesterday” “Michelle”, “Hey Jude” and “Let it Be”.

Ringo Starr had “Yellow Submarine”, “Octopus’s Garden” that while lacking in the sophistication of his colleagues’ compositions, did create an ambience of fun.

The Beatles as a group were always greater than the sum of their parts. Their synergies in composing, their lyrics, their arrangements, harmonies, and their public personas were overwhelming in a very positive way.

Their legacy continues to this day, and their solo works, while never as powerful as their work together, remains impactful.

John Lennon’s solo work culminated with his last album “Double Fantasy”, released shortly before he was tragically murdered in 1980.

George Harrison continued to perform and record until he passed in 2001 from cancer.

Paul McCartney continues to record and perform for tens of thousands of fans every year at 82 years of age, and Ringo Starr at 83 recently teamed up with Paul to produce and record one of John Lennon’s unreleased songs (Now and Then) using artificial intelligence (AI) to replicate John and George’s voices.

This song reached number one some fifty-five years after their last number one song together, “The Ballad of John and Yoko”!

Many of us who lived the Beatle phenomenon are now nearing our end.

But not the Beatles.

Their music appears set to last forever, and I am sure that some enterprising producers will use AI to produce new and different variations of Beatles songs for future generations as old unreleased tracks are found and processed.

I hope I am still around to enjoy a few of them!

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