The Beatles

Praise the Lord.
Praise God with trumpet sound… with lute and harp!
Praise God with tambourine and dance… with strings and pipe!
Praise God with clanging cymbals… with loud clashing cymbals!
Let everything that breathes praise the Lord.
From Psalm 150

Part of me has always envied that apparent majority of my generation who seem able to do without models of heroism – who call on no figurehead to spur their own aspirations. Sometimes I think those people see the world more clearly than I do, and are certainly less vulnerable once heroism is exposed as equivocal – as it always will be. But another, more fundamental part of me believes heroism is a genuine and miraculous thing, when genuinely found; that for all the disappointments encountered elsewhere, it’s worth holding dear, when genuinely found. And I know there will never be another thing like the Beatles because there will never again be such popular heroes as they chose to be.
Delvin McKinney, The Beatles in Dream and History, 366

When the Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show, it was the last time a live performance changed the course of American music, and when they became purely a recording group, they pointed the way toward a future in which there need be no unifying styles, as bands can play what they like in the privacy of the studio, and we can choose which to listen to in the privacy of our clubs, our homes, or, finally, our heads. Whether that was liberating or limiting is a matter of opinion and perception, but the whole idea of popular music had changed.
Elijah Wald, How The Beatles Destroyed Rock ‘n’ Roll, 247

John Lennon was killed December 8, 1980 by a man who couldn’t separate his own reality from John’s. I was about half way through my senior year in college. George Harrison succumbed to cancer in 2001. Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr have released new music in the past couple of years. Still the Beatles live on.

Last week, September 9, 2009, witnessed the release of the entire Beatles catalog on remastered CDs. A mono box set of 11 of the 14 CDs is sold out. The Beatles songs are now part of a video game. The week before the release, USA Today had a cover story on the group and the new releases. A recent issue of Rolling Stone, a publication I subscribed to faithfully while in college, had a cover story on the Beatles break-up, 1969-1970. The Beatles live on.

John met Paul in June of 1957, two years to the month before I was born. Nevertheless, the Beatles music has been a part of the soundtrack of my life. I remember hearing “I Saw Her Standing There” on a 45 owned by an older second cousin when I was still in grade school. My sister, in junior high, ordered an album through Scholastic Books, and on that album was “Blackbird.” I was probably about ten. While I was in junior high and high school, there was a persistent rumor that the Beatles would get together again for a concert or an album. It never happened. There was a joke about musically obtuse people during those years – “He didn’t know Paul McCartney was in a group before Wings.”

What was it about this group that captured our imaginations so, and still does? There is the music – wonderfully catchy, beautifully harmonic, played with joy and sensitivity, creatively written and exceptionally well-played and produced. Some have speculated that the Beatles arrived in America when needed most, in the grief-filled months following the assassination of President John Kennedy. Maybe they assuaged our grief and brought a life-force, a spirit, to our land. For many of us, their music remains indispensible – just look at the kind of things people still write about them - - - changed the face of popular music in a way no longer possible, embodied a certain heroism. They were not perfect people, but their music was (and is) joy and delight. They sought to use the platform of their music to send messages about peace and love – naïve, maybe, but who can fault them for that?

I recall in one of the summers of my youth staying up late watching “the late movie” on television and seeing an ad for a Beatles compilation. After playing snippets of so many songs that were already familiar, a British voice over was heard - - - “There’s never been a group quite like the Beatles.” I think that disembodied voice spoke truth. Their music still brings joy and dancing, and for me, also evokes praise, even praise of God.

With Faith and With Feathers,

David