To quote one of the Beatles' songs, maybe I should have known better. As a writer myself, I sometimes get accused of taking my music a little too seriously, as well as having somewhat of a tendency to over-analyze what the Kinks' Ray Davies once reminded us is, after all, "only Jukebox Music."
But if you think that rock writers like myself have a tendency to sometimes overthink and intellectualize pop music, what do you suppose happens when you give a similar assignment to a group of philosophy professors? Well, what you get is a book pretty much like this one.
The Beatles And Philosophy is part of a series of books examining popular culture and philosophy from an academic perspective, which covers everyone from U2 and Bob Dylan to one book with the curious title of Bullshit And Philosophy (I may have to request that one). In this volume, 20 such academics are brought together to write a series of essays examining The Beatles' impact on popular culture as well as its links to the various schools of philosophical thought.
The writers offer their takes on the lyrics to songs from "Strawberry Fields Forever" to "Sexy Sadie," and essentially proceed to analyze, intellectualize, and, well, philosophize, how they link to disciplines such as idealistic monism, existentialism, and philosophical postmodernism, as espoused by philosophers ranging from Aristotle to Hegel to Marx.
Which makes my brain hurt, too.
Personally, what I expected from this book going in was more of an examination of how the Beatles' music impacted the youth culture of the sixties, and by way of extension impacted the entire world. Yet, in chapter after chapter here the writers grab my interest at first by zeroing in on the finer points of the Beatles' massive musical and cultural impact, and then proceed to lose me altogether by drifting into the sort of weighty, academic discussion that, to be perfectly honest, just went way too far over my head.
At the very least — since the Beatles are the presumed subject (and selling point) here — I would have liked to see a more even split between the recording studio and the university lecture hall. As I noted above, I probably should have known better going in. If you think that us rock writers can be a little too analytical, these guys analyze circles around us here. Reading this book was enough to make me swear to never write anything about music again that goes beyond "it's got a good beat and I can dance to it."
Article comments
1 - Natalie Bennett
This article has been selected for syndication to Advance.net, which is affiliated with newspapers around the United States. Nice work!
2 - Glen Boyd
Thats great Natalie -- thank you so much.
-Glen
3 - Gordon Hauptfleisch
Congratulations! This article has been selected as an Editors' Pick.
4 - Jon Sobel
I agree with Gordon - I'm going to stay away from this book - but I really enjoyed your review! I read the Buffy the Vampire Slayer book in this series, and it varied - some of the articles were quite interesting, others pretty lame. But Buffy really did delve into philosophical issues quite a bit. Beatles lyrics, though - good as they are, that sounds like a stretch.
5 - Glen Boyd
Jon, the book basically is what it is. As far as very dry academia goes, I'm sure this would probably be considered something very well done. It just isn't for everybody, and "everybody" in this case would include myself, Gordon, and apparently you as well. Your average Beatle fan is going to find this to be pretty damned dull, and that is understating it, believe me.
Anyway, thanks for the comment Jon.
And thanks for the pick Gordon.
-Glen