One thought I keep coming to is that the music of the Beatles is synonymous with the lives the Beatles lived. Their work is one of the few cultural sparks that is not only formed by the past, their present as they were crafting thier work and informs thier post-Beatle existences. We don't get to Sgt. Pepper without Revolver, and we don't get to "I Feel Fine" without "Love Me Do". Then, we don't get "My Sweet Lord" without "Long, Long, Long". Nor do we get Rose Red Speedway without Abbey Road, or we get the Bee Gees's Sgt. Pepper film without Danny Boyle's Yesterday. This is a critical analysis of work compounded on work to create work or to undo work in other cases.
Here is the transformation of a group of people who lead extraodinary lives, crafting extraordinary music. And to some it lead them to some great ends.
Now, I'm not talking about a casual fan, but like a serious, hard-edged research nerd where the minutial is split into minutual upon minutial. Where the hamburg days are examinations of not theier exploits, but decontructed to the point of what songs were played, and how it filtered into thier American Tours. Breaking the myth making into hard concise facts that turn the Beatles into mere historical figures of popular music. The Beatles are one of the few musical acts that has crossed into obsessive fandom that rivals the Marvel continuum, Star Wars original trilogy or JRR Tolkien's legendarium. The company these fandoms share is an accessability, a finality and a cononical congruance. The initial works do not change, but a refashioned over time to suit the new fan over time. Much like Star Wars's new interations for each new format or a generation rediscovering the works of Tolkien, the Beatles are endlessly packed for each generation in it's own way, sparking interest big and small. That on it's head is so interesting to me that a band that only was commercially successful IN IT'S LIFETIME FOR ONLY SEVEN YEARS, has continued to be the base of modern pop/rock music and culture. The endless fascination of the pop group known as the Beatles has been written about, talked about and documented, but how do we bring all that content together and weed out the unnessesary that gets us to the heart of the matter.
These blog posts will be a step-by-step guide on to how to become a well formed Beatle fan, by a a self professed well-formed Beatle fan in some way to establish some kind of canon of Beatle works that includes books, films, subjects and, of course the music that gets to the heart of Beatle fandom in all it's bizarreness.
I had little to go on when I became a Beatle fan, I grew up in the Anthology-era were the intgerst for he Beatles was renewed a second time, resulting in a flurry of books, films and compilations. Here's my attempt to put everything into context of the music.
So where do we start? The music, of course.
The Red and the Blue Album
When discovering the Beatles, and music in genreal, I remember the day my mom got me a copy of The Red Album (The Beatles / 1963 - 1966), Chuck Berry, His Best, vol. 1, Elvis Number 1s and Chuck Berry - Rock and Roll Rarities. These four CDs shaped my life in so many ways, resulting in my love and obsession for guitar rock music. I played all four endlessly, scratching the bottom of the discs until they were unplayable and skipping. While I did not own a copy of the Blue Album and by the time I listened to it, I had most of the Beatle CDs and "essentially" not use for it, the importance of these two compilations for the fans of the 70's, 80's CD Beatles fans and the Anthology babies is of immense porportions. Being that there was not internet, or Spotify, terrestrial classic rock and oldies radio played some Beatles, but not a lot. What these two compilations did was provide an extensive primer to the Beatles work. Compiled by Alan Klein in 1973, nearing his deaprture from Apple Records, the sets were created in response to a bootleg compilation called Alpha Omega by AudioTape, inc released in 1972. Sequenced alphabetically, the comp included recent Bealte solo hits and tracks. To stamp it out, EMI put out the "Red" and "Blue" albums the following year. "Red" and "Blue" tracklisting include s smattering of singles, and choice album tracks. Unlike the ABKO Rolling Stones compilations from the early 70's, there are no oddies, alternative takes, mixes, or curios, these are straightforward renderings of the Beatles ovure with no fat inbetween.
The Red Album covers 1963 to 1966, from "Love Me Do" to Revolver. The Blue Album covers 1967 to 1970, from "Strawberry Fields Forever" to Let It Be. Later these were re-released in late 2023 to include the notorious "last Beatles song" "Now and Then", but more on that later. These serve perfectly to give you all the goods, no holds barr on what the Beatles were all about. Having all the Bealtes hits in four CDs is a boon, you can carve out the musical changes.
The Red Album
The Blue Album
- Strawberry Fields Forever" (non-album single, 1967 (UK)
- "Penny Lane" (non-album single, 1967 (UK))
- "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" (from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1967)
- With a Little Help from My Friends" (from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1967)
- Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" (from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1967)
- "A Day in the Life" (from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1967)
- All You Need is Love (non-album single, 1967 (UK))
- I Am the Walrus (B-side, 1967; included on Magical Mystery Tour EP & LP, 1967)
- Hello, Goodbye (non-album single, 1967 (UK))
- The Fool on the Hill (from Magical Mystery Tour EP & LP, 1967)
- Magical Mystery Tour (from Magical Mystery Tour EP & LP, 1967)
- Lady Madonna (non-album single, 1968)
- Hey Jude (non-album single, 1968)
- Revolution (non-album B-side, 1968)
- Back in the U.S.S.R." (from The Beatles, 1968)
- "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" (George Harrison; from The Beatles, 1968)
- Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" (from The Beatles, 1968)
- Get Back (non-album single version, 1969)
- Don't Let Me Down (non-album B-side, 1969)
- The Ballad of John and Yoko (non-album single, 1969)
- Old Brown Shoe (Harrison; non-album B-side, 1969)
- Here Comes the Sun (Harrison; from Abbey Road, 1969)
- Come Together (from Abbey Road, 1969)
- Something (Harrison; from Abbey Road, 1969)
- Octopus's Garden (Richard Starkey; from Abbey Road, 1969)
- Let It Be (non-album single version, 1970)
- Across the Universe (from Let It Be, 1970)
- The Long and Winding Road (from Let It Be, 1970)
The Beatles Anthology
Growing up an Anthology baby, the Apple produced documentary was THE ultimate guide for me getting into the history of the Beatles. It aired in three nights on ABC in six seperate segments or episodes on Sunday 19 November, Wednesday 22 November, and Thursday 23 November 1995. The UK airing was done in eight episodes between 26 November and 31 December 1995. I remember vividly being at my grandparents house watching it with my mom and uncle, missing the later episodes as per my bedtime being a 5-year-old. My grandfather dutifly recorded it off the air and I essentially had a bootleg VHS copy of it until the DVDs came out in 2003.
The 1995 documentary the Beatles Anthology replaces the unsanctioned The Compleat Beatles, a MGM documentary from the 1980's expertly narratred by Malcolm Macdowell, that covers the Beatles history in two hours. The Beatles Anthology, plus the CD companions, was a masterclass in concise storytelling, simultaneous in myth-making and debunking myths of the Beatle world. Featuring interviews of insiders including the Beatles themselves, the project was culled from the ashes of a prior documentary compiled by Bealte rodies Neil Aspinall and Mal Evans called the Long and Winding Road. The Long and Winding Road was less of the documentary but more of a compilation of TV appearances, interviews, performances and film clips stringing together the history of the band. Early cuts sirculated in the bootleging scene and was also the inspiration for the Rutles All You Need is Lunch (more on that later).
Antholgy formed my view, and many 90's babies, of who the Beatles were, thier importance on the 60's and beyond, music and their history. It's a great primer for those who want to get a good idea of what the whole Beatle thing was all about. While touching on a number of subjects, it's not a complete history of the group, it moves at a quick pace and fancifully skips over touchy subjects that the group nor the inner circle do what to talk about. The Bealtes Anthology itself is the rebranding of a myth which brandishes the music, the story, the films, and the miscelleneous into an overarching plot. The music is synonymous with the Beatle life, and vise versa, one begets the other in the creation of the work. Between all the music performances, music videos and footage of Paul, George (looking grumpy) and Ringo hanging out at Paul's Hogg Hill Mill Studio, Anthology is a great visual representation of who and what the Beatles were. You get familiar with the characters of the film immediately, knowing them possibly even better than your own family. I'll go into further detail into the somewhat unsuccessful Anthology multimedia project later, but after the documentary series, and the trilogy of Anthology CDs, in 2000 came the Anthology book containing interviews used and left out of the documentary.
Coupled together, the Anthology series and the Red and Blue compliations is ground zero for establish a Beatles fandom.
The cast of characters are assembled, their story is played out from tip to toe. The concert's opening tune begins with a harmonica blast and ends with the swell of an orchestra (or a silly, gruny guffaw if you wanna split hairs about it.) Start here and we will come back shortly.
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