Beatles 50th Anniversaries to the End of Beatles 50th Anniversaries
21 Songs For 7 Reasons
How good is your memory? If you have heard this before, you surely don’t remember the words or when you heard them:
“Anacin –
the headache remedy with the special combination of ingredients to relieve pain, to relax tension, soothe irritability” – Anacin, and by
Pillsbury –
makers of light, fluffy Pillsbury refrigerated biscuits and a complete line of fresh dough foods in the dairy case.”
These are the first in a large batch of annoying commercials that ran at the beginning of The Ed Sullivan Show on Sunday, February 9, 1964 just before the public would get to see the world’s most in-demand musical performers, The Beatles.
I’ve been loving the first of many future Beatles 50th anniversaries – their inspiring, shocking and life-altering first Ed Sullivan Show appearance, in black and white. Color film was not needed – what people were about to see and hear was provocative, exciting, inspirational and transcendent enough.
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Beatles 50th Anniversaries
In 2014, “it was 50 years ago today” refers to the 50th anniversary of
The Beatles’ appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” “She Loves You,” “Can’t Buy Me Love, “I Saw Her Standing There” and the other initial wave of Beatles’ hits, and
A Hard Day’s Night film (“I fought the war for your sort. — I bet you’re sorry you won.”)
In 2015, “it was 50 years ago today” will refer to the 50th anniversary of the
Help! film (“so the police are extended giving the famous protection for which we are justly proud in this country, for a finger, eh”) and
Rubber Soul (“and when I awoke I was alone this bird had flown. So, I lit a fire isn’t it good Norwegian wood?”).
In 2016, “it was 50 years ago today” will refer to the 50th anniversary of
Revolver (“I know what it’s like to be dead, I know what it’s like to be sad and she’s making me feel like I’ve never been born”)
their final tour and final scheduled concert on August 29, 1966 at Candlestick Park, San Francisco.
In 2017, “it was 50 years ago today” will refer to the 50th anniversary of the release of
Sgt. Pepper (“and the bag across her shoulder made her look a little like a military man”) and
Magical Mystery Tour (“corporation t-shirt stupid bloody Tuesday, Man you’ve been a naughty boy you’ve let your face grow long”).
In 2018, “it was 50 years ago today” will refer to the 50th anniversary of the
Yellow Submarine film (“if you are listening to this song you may think the chords are going wrong, but they’re not. We just wrote it like that”) and
The Beatles, better known as The White Album (“you were only waiting for this moment to be free”).
In 2019, “it was 50 years ago today” will refer to the 50th anniversary of
Abbey Road (“you only give me your funny paper”).
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END of
Beatles 50th Anniversaries
In 2020, “it was 50 years ago today,” will refer to the 50th anniversary of
Let It Be (“phase one in which Doris gets her oats”), the breakup of The Beatles, the release of
Paul McCartney’s first solo album, McCartney (“I used to ride on my fast city line singing songs that I thought were mine alone, alone”), the release of
George Harrison’s first solo album, a gigantic triple album, All Things Must Pass (“watch out now, take care, beware of greedy leaders, they take you where you should not go while weeping atlas cedars they just want to grow, grow, grow”) and the release of
John Lennon’s first solo album, Plastic Ono Band (“I don’t believe in Elvis, I don’t believe in Zimmerman, I don’t believe in Beatles…I was the walrus but now I’m John, and so dear friends you’ll just have to carry on, the dream is over”).
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To continue from my past two (2) posts about The Beatles…. I left off with a collection of songs that I felt would work well for these groups and/or ideas:
children
aging adults
rockers
mystics
politically motivated
cry in your beer
The groups/purposes I want to highlight today are:
humanists
optimists
lovers of love songs
community activists
weddings
divorcees
ponderers
To continue from the last post – humanists will still want to save the world with “All You Need Is Love,” “Let It Be,” and “The Word,” optimists will be optimistic with “Good Day Sunshine,” “It’s Getting Better,” and “Here Comes The Sun,” lovers of love songs will sing “If I Fell,” “And I Love Her,” and “I Will,” community activists will be inspired by “With A Little Help From My Friends,” “We Can Work it Out,” and “All Together Now,” weddings will still feature “Something,” “In My Life,” and “When I’m Sixty-Four,” divorcees will be haunted by “Carry That Weight,” I’m A Loser,” and “Hello Goodbye,” and critics will still argue over the meanings of “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds,” “Strawberry Fields Forever,” and “I Am The Walrus.”
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songs for humanists
songs for optimists
songs for lovers of love songs
songs for community activists
songs for weddings
songs for divorcees
songs for ponderers
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Their final words on their final album* were meant to inspire: “And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.”
THE END
* (By “final album,” I am referring to the last/final album The Beatles recorded – Abbey Road. The final Beatles album to be released was Let It Be.)
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Your lists seem to be very heavily weighted with songs from what I call their “drug-induced” years, i.e. ‘Rubber Soul’ and all albums afterwards. These are the ones where I think they spoke to many more people. Once we entered Vietnam “Be True to your School” (not a Beatles song, but you get the point) just didn’t make much sense, hence the widespread appeal of their later, more “meaningful” albums. Keep the posts coming!
On a different note, I’m looking for future posts on the beginnings of hip-hop 🙂
I’m glad you brought that up, David. I think pre-Rubber Soul, The Beatles were in their “personal pronoun” period as the songs were usually directed “From Me To You.” (It’s pun time here early this morning!)
Roger McGuinn tells a great story of what happened when The Beatles and Bob Dylan met. The Beatles were huge fans of Dylan and Dylan was impressed with them musically. But Dylan shocked them by saying to them, “you guys have nothing to say.” In other words, your lyrics tend to be vapid and boy-girl romance-y like. The song titles do support the lightness (“lite-ness”) as well as proof that The Beatles’ “personal pronoun” period was really in effect:
I Saw Her Standing There
I Want To Hold Your Hand
I Wanna Be Your Man
If I Fell
Ask Me Why
She Loves You
And I Love Her
Tell Me Why
There were hints that things were changing even before Rubber Soul, with the song, “Yesterday,” with the film, “Help!” and especially the song, “You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away.” (I’ll get into that song and that film in another blog post as it is loaded with things many of us in 1965 did NOT catch but I feel were present in the lyrics and music.)
When Rubber Soul came out, it became obvious The Beatles and especially their lyrics were a lot different, more mature and changing. Songs such as:
The Word
Nowhere Man
In My Life (retrospective)
Norwegian Wood
Run For Your Life
Girl (The Beatles seem to be toking on a joint immediately after they sing, “ah, girl” – listen to the huge inhaling in John’s “singing”)
I’m glad you wrote what you did as it has led me down this interesting path! More on that later….
Hip hop and the beginning of hip hop…. I can give you my take and early experiences. The best thing about that would be the view of a really curious outsider who can relate to it differently than those who are raised in it and for whom it is a natural “language.” I have studied hip hop and its beginnings but what I can offer will be unusual! You, my friend, are the better hip hop source! But I will be able to get into some very interesting behind-the-scenes action from my vantage point of having worked in a lot of hip hop cases. I still do a lot (even more now) in hip hop and feel very comfortable in hip hop with the most important issues and especially from certain musical, historical and legal viewpoints.
Thank you for all of your great thoughts and suggestions!
Great story about Dylan meeting the Beatles! Undoubtedly we have him to thank for giving them the idea of re-examining and changing their vision.
I have ideas for future posts! We can trade ideas when you get down here.
In the meantime, listen to this and tell me that this band would have sounded like this without the Fab Four.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LnKUD_OztRE