In Praise of The Beatles - Page 2

                   all the signs predicted doom, for the post war baby boom,             
           but in the black and white living room, four figures of salvation loomed...

In the shadow of the nuclear bomb, Kennedy’s death, and civil rights upheavals, the Beatles music blew a crazy whirlwind of optimism, youth and giddy bedlam over America. The screams of young girls were deafening, the number one records began stacking up, they became overnight millionaires, which made the adults take notice. You couldn’t look anywhere in the media without coming across something or other about the Beatles. Serious music critics carefully analyzed the songs, in pedantic elucidation like “the major tonic sevenths and ninths built into their tunes, the flat-submediant key-switches... the Aeolian cadence at the end of 'Not a Second Time’...” designed to give them some form of old school legitimacy. Such statements bewildered the Beatles themselves, who were musically unschooled. Today, those distinctive chords, progressions, and harmonies are generally referred to by musicians as “Beatle chords,” or “Beatlesque.”

Paul McCartney would soon write and record “Yesterday,” which erased any doubt that the Beatles were creating enduring classics. A teacher at Boston’s Berklee School of Music told students at the time that he was convinced that McCartney could never have written the song by himself, implying that Paul must have sought ‘professional’ help, from someone like, for instance, a Berklee teacher, in its composition. Frank Sinatra initially slagged them mercilessly in press interviews. Several years later he recorded “Yesterday,” and would come to call Harrison’s “Something,” the best love song ever written, mistakenly referring to it as a Lennon-McCartney tune.

That was how it was. The old regime was revealing itself to be addled and in the way. It was time to be given the boot. The Beatles ushered in the changing of the guard.

I was twelve at the time of their arrival, and I’d been waiting. I loved Chuck Berry, he was an early hero. His songs spoke of kids at school, cars, girls, American tales of clean-cut, everyday life. I was entranced by the raw guitar, the intelligent lyrics, the plain-spoken wisdom, and humor in clever wordplay. My older brother had initiated me into his music, a year or so before the Beatles arrival, since I’d missed it when it first was on the radio. He explained the car chase in "Maybelline," the humor in "Too Much Monkey Business."

We had a vinyl record in my house called Chuck Berry Twist, which was a rehash collection of his hits, put out to go along with the Twist dance phase. There was no picture on the cover, and I assumed he was white. I finally saw what he looked like – older, another color, oddly handsome, charismatic, sporting a leer and a wink. I was bewildered, captivated, didn’t know exactly what to make of him. He seemed impossibly worldly, exotic, he couldn’t fit the part of a personal hero – too different, and there was the matter of his prison sentence for taking an underage girl into Mexico, which I of course couldn’t relate to or understand at all.

Article Author: Will Brennan

Will Brennan lives in Salem, MA with his love Andrea, their dogs Chloe and Raven, and their cats Jake and Roxy. His first novel, Love in Vain Blues, is being considered by several publishers. Along with writing, he really likes music.

Visit Will Brennan's author page — Will Brennan's Blog