The Beatles

There was a documentary on IFC last night about Yoko Ono- pretty interesting stuff. Lots of Lennon footage, obviously, and Camille Paglia (groan) ranting about why she hates her so much. You can really see why people turned on her like they did...it's really rare for big famous people to get involved with very avant-garde, intellectual folks. Paglia specifically claims that Yoko "took away" Lennon's English wit yet in every clip you see of them, he's witty and sharp as ever. I think some people just couldn't stand that he really fell in love and it was with somebody very edgy and dangerous to the mainstream.

Anyway...the lyrical argument does hold up, I think. But by the same token, there are some really smart pieces of wordplay, wit, and insight. I believe the simplicity was willful, the result is that they're lyrics that are quite universal and approachable on a very fundamental level. Possibly even anti-intellectual to a degree. Compare that to Cohen, Zappa, Prine, etc. where that isn't so much the case. I do think that Lennon in particular got a lot more interesting later on, mostly when had something to really stand for other than just making pop records. But once again, you're looking at huge and very diverse body of work. Some stuff, inevitably, is going to suck.

Some of the Beatles' stuff _is_ kid's music. You didn't even cite "Yellow Submarine" and that was specifically written to be children's music. Funny, that's the stuff I like _less_, the stuff with not so much "playground effect". Some of it's still interesting, but compared to "A Day In the Life"? No contest.

There's more to music than just the lyrics. I love Roger Waters for his lyrics but musically he's okay. I think David Gilmour is better for the music. The Beatles have such a wide range that their lyrics range from whimsical (Yellow Submarine) to pretty deep (A Day in the Life, Revolution). They may have been a boy band but I think they were quite a bit more than that.

It's tough to formulate an arguement on an iphone, especially in a room full of Beatles fans all holding hands and singing "all you need is love"...

But.

1/ They were o.k. musicians, not great, any first year jazz student could play their entire catalogue. Remeber that Ringo is famously awfull on the drums and until Moe Tucker was probably the worst drummer in pop/rock (I still like Velvet Underground, just saying she's "technically" a bad drummer). Not that I like Deep Purple (and their lyrics were even worse then the Beatles) but they were good musicians in a pop/rock kind of way at that time. Zappa had the best musicainship in this field during this time.

2/ It's not that I think their kids music is the best they've done.. I just think they were very good at it and in that catagorey they are unequaled in their time. In other songwriting fields they were mediocre... for me that is.

3/ They were good singers, Beach Boys were probably better, tighter more complex harmonies all around but they were good singers, I won't try to take that away from them.

4/ They were good songwriters.. not lyrically, but melodically and that is worth something. I haven't noticed if someone mentioned it yet but George Martim was awesome for that band and his orchestration throughout their later work is a large reason why we still listen to them/have these discussions today.

On a final note a lot of people try to tell me that the Beatles or Ornette Coleman or... were musical firsts. Remeber that music had been VERY deeply explored by the European Orchestral movements long before this stuff came around. It is easy to forget as we don't see it talked about much anymore but it is important to remember the contributions that came before... not just the 1960's but the 18/17/16/1560's as well (and inbetween).

I do like the Beatles, I think they were a GREAT kids band... and that is never a bad thing.

Anyone hear They Might Be Giants new kids album... it's great... seriously.