tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/the-beatles-11694/articles
The Beatles – The Conversation
2024-02-27T19:52:03Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/218555
2024-02-27T19:52:03Z
2024-02-27T19:52:03Z
The ghosts of the past: Pop music is haunted by our anxieties about the future
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578067/original/file-20240226-28-10l8gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3888%2C2572&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Wax figures of the Beatles in Madame Tussauds Berlin represent the pop stars in their youth — the two surviving members, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, are in their 80s.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 2011, pop music scholar Simon Reynolds was already observing pop culture’s fascination with its own past, noting that “we live in a pop age <a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-ca-retro-rock-20110710-story.html">gone loco for retro and crazy for commemoration</a>.”</p>
<p>For Reynolds, this obsession with the past has the potential to bring about the end of pop music culture: “Could it be,” he asks, “that the greatest danger to the future of our music culture is … its past?” </p>
<p>The situation has not improved in the years since Reynolds voiced his concerns. Our fixation on the popular music of previous decades threatens our future by stifling originality.</p>
<p>Thanks to recording technology, and now to more recent developments in artificial intelligence and machine learning, we find ourselves more and more in a spectral present, thoroughly haunted by the ghosts of pop music’s past.</p>
<h2>Ghostly presence</h2>
<p>This type of hauntedness can provoke anxiety. Hauntology, a theoretical concept originating in the work of French philosopher Jacques Derrida, was later <a href="https://www.collectiveinkbooks.com/zer0-books/our-books/ghosts-my-life">applied to musicology by critic Mark Fisher</a>. Hauntology is concerned with memory, nostalgia and the nature of being. The present is never simply “present,” and the remnants of our cultural past always linger or return.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/are-you-haunted-by-ghosts-of-the-past-and-phantoms-of-your-future-welcome-to-the-spooky-realm-of-hauntology-191843">Are you haunted by ghosts of the past and phantoms of your future? Welcome to the spooky realm of hauntology</a>
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<p>A ghost, in literature, folklore and popular culture, is a presence from the past of something or someone that no longer remains. Is a ghost, then, from the past or of the present? As hauntology would insist, a ghost is paradoxically both at the same time.</p>
<p>In November 2023, pop phenomenon the Beatles released a “new” song titled “<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/beatles-new-song-now-and-then-1234868643/">Now and Then</a>.” It received a rapturous reception from fans and critics alike, and was soon topping the charts in the United States and the United Kingdom, becoming the fastest-selling single of 2023.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The Beatles’ 2023 track “Now and Then.”</span></figcaption>
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<p>The song features a lead vocal track by the late John Lennon, salvaged from a demo recording he made at home in the late 1970s, just a few years before his murder in 1980. It also includes archival guitar tracks from the late George Harrison.</p>
<p>The two surviving Beatles, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, contributed new bass, drum, vocal and guitar parts (McCartney even played a slide guitar solo mimicking Harrison’s sound and style), and producer Giles Martin (son of legendary Beatles’ producer George Martin) provided a string arrangement and a tapestry of background vocals lifted from other iconic Beatles songs.</p>
<p>“Now and Then” was also celebrated for the technological sophistication of its production, and specifically for its use of <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/2/23943290/now-and-then-the-beatles-new-song-ai">artificial intelligence</a>. Using software that could tell the difference between a human voice and other sounds on a recording, Lennon’s voice was isolated and reanimated, allowing McCartney and Starr to perform alongside their long-deceased bandmate. </p>
<h2>Final masterpiece</h2>
<p>“Now and Then,” in addition to being a “new” Beatles tune, is likely also the group’s last: there are no more old recordings to resurrect, and McCartney and Starr are both octogenarians. </p>
<p>Indeed, according to music critics like <em>The Guardian</em>’s Alexis Petridis, “Now and Then” is an emotionally satisfying “act of closure.” It stands on its own as a genuine addition to the Beatles’ catalogue, wrapping up the band’s career and “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/nov/02/the-beatles-now-and-then-review">never stoops to deploying obviously Beatles-y signifiers</a>.”</p>
<p>Music journalist Jem Aswad, writing in <em>Variety</em>, characterizes “Now and Then” as a “<a href="https://variety.com/2023/music/reviews/the-beatles-new-song-now-and-then-review-1235777477/">bittersweet finale</a>.” While Aswad is mildly critical of the song as an “incomplete sketch,” he insists at the same time that any further criticism is just unwarranted sour grapes, concluding that it is “an unexpected pleasure that marks the completion of the group’s last bit of unfinished business.”</p>
<h2>Haunted, ghostly</h2>
<p>Some critics, however, echoing Reynolds’s concerns, found “Now and Then” decidedly less praiseworthy. Josiah Gogarty’s brutal review, published in <em>UnHerd</em>, argues that the song serves as “a sign of our <a href="https://unherd.com/newsroom/the-beatles-now-and-then-is-a-sign-of-our-cultural-doom-loop/">cultural doom loop</a>,” and likened it to a “séance, calling forth the warbling and the jangling of the dead.”</p>
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<p>The recording includes McCartney’s count-in at the beginning and some studio chatter from Starr at the end, as if to reassure listeners that the song is a product of living musicians. </p>
<p>At the same time, the song is eerily placeless or ahistorical, caught somewhere between past and present: a haunted, ghostly thing, evidence of a pop culture that has long ceased to evolve. </p>
<h2>Limiting the future</h2>
<p>The problem is the way songs like “Now and Then” are imbued with nostalgia: they threaten the future and limit the possibility of the emergence of new ideas.</p>
<p>Fisher feared the effect of this sort of nostalgia giving rise to “<a href="https://www.collectiveinkbooks.com/zer0-books/our-books/ghosts-my-life">a cancelled future</a>.” We can readily imagine such a future, because we already inhabit it: a future of never-ending tours by impossibly decrepit rock bands, countless re-boots of old movies and television shows, the fetishization of all that is vintage. </p>
<p>Even the most stunningly progressive technological developments — such as the AI that made “Now and Then” possible — turns out to serve a regressive purpose, namely to resurrect the Beatles. </p>
<p>A generous take on “Now and Then” would be to view its arrangement and production as capturing and amplifying the meaning of the song lyrics: “Now and then I miss you … I want you to return to me.” These lyrics suggest the presence and absence theorized by hauntology, which is cleverly reflected in the song’s haunted soundscape. </p>
<p>Less generously, “Now and Then,” rather than an act of closure, simply continues an ongoing trend of looking backwards in pop music. It indicates that our insecurities about our future ensure we will remain forever entangled with its ghosts.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218555/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexander Carpenter does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Artificial intelligence helped produce the Beatles’ 2023 hit “Now and Then.” But despite the sophisticated technology, the song reveals our obsession with the past and our anxieties about the future.
Alexander Carpenter, Professor, Musicology, University of Alberta
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/217171
2023-11-28T13:41:05Z
2023-11-28T13:41:05Z
Merriam-Webster’s word of the year – authentic – reflects growing concerns over AI’s ability to deceive and dehumanize
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561970/original/file-20231127-24-mzbshd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=306%2C721%2C5664%2C4221&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">According to the publisher’s editor-at-large, 2023 represented 'a kind of crisis of authenticity.'</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/analog-collage-with-female-portrait-and-her-mirror-royalty-free-image/1304922773?adppopup=true">lambada/E+ via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When <a href="https://apnews.com/article/merriam-webster-word-of-year-2023-a9fea610cb32ed913bc15533acab71cc">Merriam-Webster announced</a> that its word of the year for 2023 was “authentic,” it did so with over a month to go in the calendar year. </p>
<p>Even then, the dictionary publisher was late to the game.</p>
<p>In a lexicographic form of <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/words-were-watching-christmas-creep-slang-definition">Christmas creep</a>, Collins English Dictionary announced <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/nov/01/ai-named-most-notable-word-of-2023-by-collins-dictionary">its 2023 word of the year</a>, “AI,” on Oct. 31. Cambridge University Press <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/nov/15/hallucinate-cambridge-dictionary-word-of-the-year">followed suit</a> on Nov. 15 with “hallucinate,” a word used to refer to incorrect or misleading information provided by generative AI programs. </p>
<p>At any rate, terms related to artificial intelligence appear to rule the roost, with “authentic” also falling under that umbrella.</p>
<h2>AI and the authenticity crisis</h2>
<p>For the past 20 years, Merriam-Webster, the oldest dictionary publisher in the U.S., has chosen a word of the year – a term that encapsulates, in one form or another, the zeitgeist of that past year. In 2020, the word was “pandemic.” The next year’s winner? “Vaccine.”</p>
<p>“Authentic” is, at first glance, a little less obvious.</p>
<p>According to the publisher’s editor-at-large, <a href="https://www.wbbjtv.com/2023/11/27/whats-merriam-websters-word-of-the-year-for-2023-hint-be-true-to-yourself/">Peter Sokolowski</a>, 2023 represented “a kind of crisis of authenticity.” He added that the choice was also informed by the number of online users who looked up the word’s meaning throughout the year.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561966/original/file-20231127-27-1x4zx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Print ad with a drawing of a thick book accompanied by the text, 'The One Great Standard Authority.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561966/original/file-20231127-27-1x4zx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561966/original/file-20231127-27-1x4zx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561966/original/file-20231127-27-1x4zx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561966/original/file-20231127-27-1x4zx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561966/original/file-20231127-27-1x4zx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1154&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561966/original/file-20231127-27-1x4zx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1154&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561966/original/file-20231127-27-1x4zx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1154&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A 1906 print ad for Webster’s International Dictionary advertised itself an an authoritative clearinghouse for all things English – an authentic, reliable source.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/advertisement-for-websters-international-dictionary-by-g-news-photo/478181481?adppopup=true">Jay Paull/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>The word “authentic,” in the sense of something that is accurate or authoritative, has its roots in French and Latin. The Oxford English Dictionary has identified its usage in English as early as the <a href="https://www.oed.com/dictionary/authentic_adj?tab=meaning_and_use#33027938">late 14th century</a>.</p>
<p>And yet the concept – particularly as it applies to human creations and human behavior – <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-new-science-of-authenticity-says-about-discovering-your-true-self-175314">is slippery</a>.</p>
<p>Is a photograph made from film more authentic than one made from a digital camera? Does an authentic scotch have to be made at a small-batch distillery in Scotland? When socializing, are you being authentic – or just plain rude – when you skirt niceties and small talk? Does being your authentic self mean pursuing something that feels natural, even at the expense of cultural or legal constraints?</p>
<p>The more you think about it, the more it seems like an ever-elusive ideal – one further complicated by advances in artificial intelligence.</p>
<h2>How much human touch?</h2>
<p>Intelligence of the artificial variety – as in nonhuman, inauthentic, computer-generated intelligence – was the technology story of the past year.</p>
<p>At the end of 2022, OpenAI publicly released <a href="https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt">ChatGPT 3.5</a>, a chatbot derived from so-called large language models. It was widely seen as a breakthrough in artificial intelligence, but its rapid adoption led to questions about the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/06/technology/chatbots-hallucination-rates.html?smid=tw-share">accuracy of its answers</a>.</p>
<p>The chatbot also became popular among students, which compelled teachers <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/chatgpt-schools-plagiarism-lesson-plans/">to grapple with how to ensure</a> their assignments weren’t being completed by ChatGPT. </p>
<p>Issues of authenticity have arisen in other areas as well. In November 2023, a track described as the “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/02/arts/music/beatles-now-and-then-last-song.html#:%7E:text=It%27s%20a%20wistful%20postscript.,after%20the%20Beatles%20broke%20up.">last Beatles song</a>” was released. “Now and Then” is a compilation of music originally written and performed by John Lennon in the 1970s, with additional music recorded by the other band members in the 1990s. A machine learning algorithm was recently employed to separate Lennon’s vocals from his piano accompaniment, and this allowed a final version to be released. </p>
<p>But is it an authentic “Beatles” song? <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/21/magazine/the-beatles-now-and-then.html">Not everyone is convinced</a>.</p>
<p>Advances in technology have also allowed the manipulation of audio and video recordings. Referred to as “<a href="https://theconversation.com/events-that-never-happened-could-influence-the-2024-presidential-election-a-cybersecurity-researcher-explains-situation-deepfakes-206034">deepfakes</a>,” such transformations can make it appear that a celebrity or a politician said something that they did not – a <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/07/30/1190970436/how-real-is-the-threat-of-ai-deepfakes-in-the-2024-election">troubling prospect</a> as the U.S. heads into what is sure to be a contentious 2024 election season. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/generative-ai-is-forcing-people-to-rethink-what-it-means-to-be-authentic-204347">Writing for The Conversation in May 2023</a>, education scholar Victor R. Lee explored the AI-fueled authenticity crisis.</p>
<p>Our judgments of authenticity are knee-jerk, he explained, honed over years of experience. Sure, occasionally we’re fooled, but our antennae are generally reliable. Generative AI short-circuits this cognitive framework.</p>
<p>“That’s because back when it took a lot of time to produce original new content, there was a general assumption … that it only could have been made by skilled individuals putting in a lot of effort and acting with the best of intentions,” he wrote.</p>
<p>“These are not safe assumptions anymore,” he added. “If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, everyone will need to consider that it may not have actually hatched from an egg.”</p>
<p>Though there seems to be a general understanding that human minds and human hands must play some role in creating something authentic or being authentic, authenticity has always been a difficult concept to define.</p>
<p>So it’s somewhat fitting that as our collective handle on reality has become ever more tenuous, an elusive word for an abstract ideal is Merriam-Webster’s word of the year.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217171/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roger J. Kreuz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Innovations in AI seem to be spurring interest in what is or isn’t real, accurate and human.
Roger J. Kreuz, Associate Dean and Professor of Psychology, University of Memphis
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/217346
2023-11-19T13:00:19Z
2023-11-19T13:00:19Z
Now and Then: How composition choices made John Lennon’s music memo into a Beatles song
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559968/original/file-20231116-25-g5g3in.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=45%2C2%2C1599%2C769&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Now and Then finds a place alongside Beatles' songs like We Can Work it Out or Girl which move between major-key and minor-key sections. A still from the song's video.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(YouTube)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/now-and-then-how-composition-choices-made-john-lennons-music-memo-into-a-beatles-song" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>The Beatles’ “<a href="https://www.goldradiouk.com/artists/the-beatles/ringo-starr-last-song/">last song ever</a>,” released 61 years after their first single, was bound to be significant. </p>
<p>But how did John Lennon’s lo-fi, 40-something-year-old cassette recording of <em>Now and Then</em> — deemed <a href="https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/why-george-harrison-originally-blocked-the-upcoming-final-beatles-single-fucking-rubbish">“fucking rubbish”</a> by George Harrison during the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/music/the-beatles-now-and-then-documentary-premiering-cbc-1.7014053">failed 1995 attempt</a> to revive the song — become an instant <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-67381253">No. 1 chart hit</a> and worthy addition to the Beatles’ catalogue in 2023? </p>
<p>Beyond the <a href="https://www.nme.com/features/music-features/the-beatles-now-and-then-final-song-ai-documentary-peter-jackson-music-video-inside-story-3527104?fbclid=IwAR2lTygUCfYjjrAoqgJX19Vwtp7ykMHmf_fd5dAMXygunvbac6v8f0_lEPY">AI-assisted</a> salvage of Lennon’s voice from the noisy cassette, it is worth examining Lennon’s raw materials, and the strategies that made the unfinished <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-67285117">late-1970s</a> musical sketch a Beatles’ song.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption"><em>Now and Then</em> official music video.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Personal music memo</h2>
<p>Had Harrison told Lennon himself that the song was rubbish, Lennon might have responded, “Well I’m not finished with it yet, am I mate?” </p>
<p>Lennon’s original <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/nov/02/now-and-then-listen-to-the-final-beatles-song-john-lennon-paul-mccartney-ringo-george-harrison">“demo tape”</a> was not made for formal presentation (to a music publisher, for instance). </p>
<p>It was a personal memorandum to capture basic song ideas — something musicians do all the time. If they stopped there, <em>Yesterday</em> would be <a href="https://www.insider.com/paul-mccartney-yesterday-original-title-scrambled-eggs-the-beatles-2021-10"><em>Scrambled Eggs</em>,</a> and the Rolling Stones’ <em>Satisfaction</em> would be one minute of Keith Richards’s signature riff and <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/satisfaction-comes-to-keith-richards">45 minutes of snoring</a>. </p>
<h2>Unorthodox compositional form</h2>
<p>The surviving two Beatles decided to finish the song in 2023, bringing in producer Giles Martin, son of George, the <a href="https://www.nme.com/news/music/giles-martin-wanted-to-rip-off-his-dad-george-for-the-beatles-now-and-then-3536272?fbclid=IwAR3VATdqJWRWEci4YdzOIcCF7IIfaK-zrPZx8DA9VzvtEnpX_zlnixl6ujQ">celebrated fifth Beatle</a>, and incorporating Harrison’s guitar parts from 1995. The <a href="https://amoralto.tumblr.com/post/164029803633/tape-labels-and-official-lyrics-sheet-w-jeff">lyric sheet</a> from these sessions, marked up by producer Jeff Lynne, suggest Lennon hadn’t titled his song-in-progress.</p>
<p>What likely bothered Harrison most about Lennon’s recording was its unorthodox application of verse-chorus song form. In verse-chorus form, the chorus typically provides the main “hook.” </p>
<p>Verse-chorus songs occassionally feature a “pre-chorus,” which follows the verse to set up the chorus. </p>
<p>Another section common in verse-chorus songs is the bridge, usually a contrasting musical idea introduced only after the verse and chorus. </p>
<h2>Delayed chorus</h2>
<p>On Lennon’s recording (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xk88M4ABo_4&ab_channel=DavidBennettPiano">heard in this musician’s video</a>), Lennon introduced a bridge-like section where a pre-chorus would normally go. But rather than propelling the song toward the chorus, it meanders awkwardly, delaying and undermining the arrival of the chorus hook. </p>
<p>John most certainly would have revised this. In his absence, Martin and the remaining Beatles opted for the only solution available: cutting Lennon’s misplaced, unfinished pre-chorus/bridge and composing a new bridge.</p>
<h2>Most Beatles’ songs in major keys</h2>
<p><em>Now and Then</em> plays on the <a href="https://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/the-science-of-music-why-do-songs-in-a-minor-key-sound-sad-760215">contrast between major and minor tonalities</a>. Major keys are commonly described as “bright” or “happy,” while minor keys are often described as “dark” or “sad.” </p>
<p>Major-key songs dominate the Beatles’ catalogue, comprising <a href="https://www.aaronkrerowicz.com/beatles-blog/now-that-youve-found-another-key-beatles-songs-in-minor-keys">roughly 81 per cent</a> of their recordings. Only four per cent remain entirely in minor keys, including <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oolpPmuK2I8&ab_channel=TheBeatles-Topic"><em>Come Together</em></a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAe2Q_LhY8g&ab_channel=TheBeatles-Topic"><em>I Want You</em></a>.</p>
<p><em>Now and Then</em> is among the remaining 15 per cent of Beatles’ songs that move between major-key and minor-key sections, alongside <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCfqsM_XAcc&ab_channel=TheBeatles-Topic"><em>We Can Work It Out</em></a> or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8l3ntDR_lI"><em>Girl</em></a>.</p>
<p>Lennon’s verse for <em>Now and Then</em> is among the most minor-laden sections of any Beatles song, opening with alternating minor chords. Mired in minor darkness, Lennon engages a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1qvgn0KY1M&ab_channel=StevenBaur">harmonic sleight of hand</a> reminiscent of Beethoven or Schubert, shifting abruptly to a major-chord refuge (on the sixth scale degree). But this ray of brightness is illusory; listeners feel the inevitable pull back to minor-key darkness. </p>
<h2>The sound of nostalgia?</h2>
<p>As musicologist <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520232082/conventional-wisdom">Susan McClary</a> explains,
this particular compositional strategy evokes “Never Never land.”: it “variously radiates hope, escape or nostalgia for a lost arcadia … but it takes only a half-step drop in the bass to return the piece to harsh, unmerciful reality.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSPAbGs6mpA&ab_channel=StevenBaur">Lennon’s melody</a> and his descending opening phrases strongly imply a melodic resolution to the home pitch (A). Following the aforementioned glimmer of major-chord brightness (on “make it through”) and its slide down to the E dominant chord (“it’s all because of …”), Lennon pauses dramatically. </p>
<p>Finally, Lennon intones the last word (“you”) over the inevitable return to A minor. But rather than the expected melodic resolution down to the home pitch, Lennon clings hauntingly to a dissonant note (B) one step above, before ending with “you-ooh-ooh-ooh” — a trademark vocal ornament.</p>
<h2>Seeking relief in the chorus</h2>
<p>Pop convention would grant a major-key payoff at the chorus, but Lennon’s pre-chorus/bridge thwarts any such gratification. So the 2023 Beatles cut it, opting for a conventional move directly to the major-key chorus.</p>
<p>The reward is bittersweet. Rather than moving upward to the stable, conventional major key alternative (the so-called relative major), the chorus falls a whole step to G major. Lennon’s melody seeks to ascend, but the melodic leap (on “I miss you”) is tinged by a passing minor chord (a common strategy to evoke longing, as in the opening melodic leap of the classic <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSZxmZmBfnU&ab_channel=Movieclips"><em>Over the Rainbow</em></a>.)</p>
<p>This is not the magical moment we have so often experienced with the Beatles, Beatle-esque strings notwithsanding. Rather than transcendence, fond remembrance settles into resigned acceptance.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/APJAQoSCwuA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption"><em>Now And Then - The Last Beatles Song</em> (Short Film from The Beatles).</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Admirable guitar tribute, but not Harrison</h2>
<p>The transcendent gesture comes with the newly composed instrumental bridge, which does move up to the satisfying relative major. McCartney’s soaring slide guitar is a beautiful invocation of Harrison’s melodic sense and phrasing. But it is unmistakably not the Beatles’ late, inimitable guitarist. It is hard not to hear this loss in McCartney’s tribute. </p>
<p>Equally painful is the impossibility of Lennon and his bandmates working his pre-chorus/bridge section into the song. It contains some of the most expressive moments on Lennon’s recording. </p>
<p>Their last song offers a real experience of a glorious past, but makes painfully audible what has been lost.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217346/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Baur does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
For their “last single” Now and Then, the remaining 2023 Beatles kept John Lennon’s chorus, but changed where it fell. This necessary “repair” meant losing some of Lennon’s most touching passages.
Steven Baur, Associate professor of musicology, Dalhousie University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/217194
2023-11-16T14:27:57Z
2023-11-16T14:27:57Z
New Beatles and Rolling Stones music owes much of its success to the psychology of nostalgia
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559118/original/file-20231113-17-dclgt5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=37%2C273%2C1879%2C919&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Beatles wave to fans after arriving at New York's Kennedy Airport in 1964.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Beatles_in_America.JPG">US Library of Congress</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Throughout the 1960s, the Rolling Stones and the Beatles were engaged in a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/17541328.2015.1014166?needAccess=true">friendly rivalry</a>. Despite being amicable in person, they were <a href="https://books.google.nl/books?hl=en&lr=&id=EkouBQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP15&dq=rolling+stones+vs+the+beatles&ots=9B9zM46VyK&sig=pvr_uWAnVMsv5mBqPgxpE0Ik8tA&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=rolling%20stones%20vs%20the%20beatles&f=false">in competition</a> for record sales, cultural influence and aesthetic credibility.</p>
<p>Despite their enormous popularity, however, not even the most ardent fans of either band would have expected that such a competition would still be going on more than 50 years later. And yet, the Stones recently reached <a href="https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/rolling-stones-top-uk-charts-with-new-album-hackney-diamonds-2023-10-27/#:%7E:text=1%20on%20the%20UK%27s%20Official,charts%20in%20Australia%20and%20Germany.">number one on the UK album charts</a> with their album Hackney Diamonds, and the Beatles <a href="https://www.billboard.com/music/chart-beat/the-beatles-now-and-then-leads-uk-midweek-chart-1235471276/#:%7E:text=Also%2C%20%22Now%20and%20Then%22,is%20the%20stuff%20of%20legend.">have done the same on the singles charts</a>. </p>
<p>But how much of this recent success is down to the quality of the songs themselves, and how much is to do with nostalgia? </p>
<p>Both bands have remained commercially and culturally significant since the 1960s, and both have had recent commercial successes prior to their new releases. The Beatles’ 50th anniversary re-release of Abbey Road <a href="https://www.udiscovermusic.com/news/beatles-abbey-road-returns-to-no-1-uk/">topped the UK charts in 2019</a>, and the Stones’s No Filter Tour – which ran between 2017 and 2019 – was one of the <a href="https://www.billboard.com/lists/billboard-boxscore-top-10-tours-all-time-elton-john-harry-styles/coldplay-a-head-full-of-dreams-tour-2016-17/">highest grossing</a> tours of all time.</p>
<p>Even more recently, Peter Jackson’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/beatles-get-back-documentary-reveals-how-creativity-doesnt-happen-on-its-own-182380">Get Back documentary</a> showed that the Beatles still have immense cultural capital, 51 years after splitting up. As for both bands’ latest releases, however, their success may be more down to us attaching pre-existing positive memories to their music.</p>
<h2>Reminiscence bump</h2>
<p>Music psychologist <a href="https://books.google.nl/books?hl=en&lr=&id=d-2DYVjNVpQC&oi=fnd&pg=PT238&dq=music+and+emotion&ots=aqVsjjyNTB&sig=CkIZ_i2KImB0pD5k3JVmzl_qFYs&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=music%20and%20emotion&f=false">Patrik Juslin has observed</a> that episodic memories linked to music often arouse emotions, such as nostalgia. Listening to any new music from the Stones or the Beatles will naturally remind fans of our early experiences in listening to them. If those memories were good, we may experience a “<a href="https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20140417-why-does-music-evoke-memories">reminiscence bump</a>” – a psychological term to describe when music or other triggers take us back to exciting times in our lives, when we experienced things for the first time.</p>
<p>When <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001s14w/the-one-show-01112023">The One Show</a> broadcast an exclusive <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APJAQoSCwuA&list=PL0jp-uZ7a4g_wUzbgU_US9V7h-HR1TyIh&index=3">short film</a> detailing the making of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AW55J2zE3N4">Now and Then</a> the day before its official release, it left the BBC show’s hosts visibly emotional. Later, music broadcaster Lauren Laverne, <a href="https://www.radiotimes.com/audio/beatles-now-and-then-lauren-laverne/">who introduced the film</a>, admitted: “I cried like a baby! And I never cry.”</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KnTrujDrez4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The One Show’s hosts are emotional after hearing the new Beatles track.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The reason for such emotion? The song involved all four Beatles performing on the same track, something most fans never thought they’d experience again. Paul McCartney felt the same way, <a href="https://www.limerickleader.ie/news/arts---entertainment/1338316/now-and-then-first-beatles-song-in-decades-will-be-released-today.html">commenting</a>: “It’s quite emotional. And we all play on it, it’s a genuine Beatles recording.” </p>
<p>The opportunity to hear the Beatles together again, one last time, is an irresistible prospect regardless of whether the song is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhWKxnpQXGk">any good</a>, worthy of the <a href="https://exclaim.ca/music/article/despite_paul_mccartneys_insistence_now_and_then_isnt_worthy_of_the_beatles">Beatles name</a>, or can be considered an <a href="https://variety.com/2023/music/reviews/the-beatles-new-song-now-and-then-review-1235777477/">official Beatles release at all</a>.</p>
<p>And when the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Opxhh9Oh3rg">music video</a> (directed by Jackson) was released, with the aid of some – slightly heavy-handed – trickery, we were able to see the Fab Four united again. It was hard not to get swept up in the poignancy of it all.</p>
<h2>Rolling nostalgia</h2>
<p>As far back as 1989, the Rolling Stones were described in an <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-09-10-ca-2670-story.html">LA Times headline</a> as “Just Rolling on Nostalgia”. Many of the previews of Hackney Diamonds spoke about how the album reflected “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/oct/22/the-rolling-stones-hackney-diamonds-review-convincing-echoes-of-the-band-in-its-pomp">the band in its pomp</a>” and how it included “<a href="https://ultimateclassicrock.com/rolling-stones-hackney-diamonds-album-review/">classic Stones signposts</a>”. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/oct/18/the-rolling-stones-hackney-diamonds-review-jagger-polydor?utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=fb_us&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR2N7t4kt-mqSv1T80sTkWRIE5hcD2v3BxVOIxSLo76uY4FmiZ1z23rWwv8">Much was also made</a> of the fact that the band’s late drummer, Charlie Watts, played on two of the tracks, and that he was joined by their former bassist, Bill Wyman, on the song Live By The Sword. This reunited the version of The Rolling Stones from the mid-70s to the early 90s.
For this reason, the Evening Standard’s Martin Robinson described the track as carrying “<a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/music/the-rolling-stones-hackney-diamonds-album-review-b1112603.html">considerable emotional weight</a>”.</p>
<p>On his YouTube channel, Justin Hawkins, frontman of The Darkness, shared <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHnvNgEsOWs">a clip of him listening</a> to the new Stones song Angry. After hearing Mick Jagger’s count-in, Hawkins pauses the track and says: “Brilliant! It’s exactly what you want to hear.” Later, he praises the Keith Richards solo as being “classically Keith”.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-music-heals-us-even-when-its-sad-by-a-neuroscientist-leading-a-new-study-of-musical-therapy-214924">How music heals us, even when it's sad – by a neuroscientist leading a new study of musical therapy</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>And that’s just it. They may not be doing anything different to what they did 50 years ago, but as long as the music <a href="https://www.proquest.com/openview/3af3ab743dd43181d98c555b01d589db/1.pdf?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=536309">evokes memories that speak to the heart</a>, it’s enough for most fans. </p>
<p>Whether this is the last new music we’ll hear from these two titans of popular music remains to be seen. But the nostalgia towards them is only going to increase as time goes on, meaning that if they do release any more tracks, they are likely to be even more popular.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217194/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Glenn Fosbraey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Both bands have remained commercially and culturally significant since the 1960s.
Glenn Fosbraey, Associate Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Winchester
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/216920
2023-11-03T15:48:02Z
2023-11-03T15:48:02Z
Now and Then: enabled by AI – created by profound connections between the four Beatles
<blockquote>
<p>In 2023, to still be working on Beatles music … to release a new song the public haven’t heard, I think it’s an exciting thing. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Not surprisingly, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-67207699">Paul McCartney was positive</a> about the appearance this week of what has been trailed as the “last” Beatles song, Now and Then.</p>
<p>Much has been made of <a href="https://www.billboard.com/music/rock/paul-mccartney-ai-final-beatles-song-1235352398/">AI being part of the production</a>. Machine learning was used to <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/world-cafe/2023/11/02/1208848690/the-beatles-last-song-now-and-then">recognise John Lennon’s voice</a>, and then isolate it from other sounds – a piano, a television in the background, electrical hum – to make it usable in a new recording. It also comes amid a slew of Beatles-related activity recently – a <a href="https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/documentaries/beatles-celebration-night-bbc-newsupdate/">new podcast series</a>, Peter Jackson’s epic 2021 documentary <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/sep/26/beatles-final-days-get-back-let-it-be-john-harris-peter-jackson">Get Back</a>, new versions of the famed <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/beatles-red-and-blue-sheffield-1234706610/">Red and Blue</a> compilation albums, and a Paul McCartney tour, during which he is playing some of the Fab Four’s back catalogue.</p>
<p>The commercial juggernaut seems unstoppable, so it’s perhaps easy to be cynical about a “new” song from a band that broke up in 1970, two of whose members are dead. Certainly, Now and Then does raise questions about how technologically mediated releases relate to collective artistic output, and what it means to be a band.</p>
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<h2>Collective creativity in bands</h2>
<p>In many ways, though, the AI label is a red herring, and this new song – which actually has its roots in a John Lennon demo tape from 1977 – demonstrates a continuing pattern. The Beatles and their narrative provided a seminal example of how bands work, and seemed to be ploughing the furrow for others. </p>
<p>From their original formation as schoolboys (Ringo joined in 1962 when they started recording), to their enormous financial success and cultural impact, the Beatles laid down templates that others have followed. <a href="https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/nostalgia/july-6-1957-day-beatles-9594637">Lennon and McCartney’s first meeting</a> at a church fete in 1957 is now the stuff of legend.</p>
<p>Their <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-beatles-revolutionised-music-by-putting-the-record-centre-stage-56103">innovations in the studio</a>, assisted by producer <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/George-Martin">George Martin</a>, helped to make recordings – especially albums – a central feature of the popular music experience. They emerged into professional practice together, splitting as they formed new relationships and moved onto the next phases of their life while still relatively young men.</p>
<p>Bands are simultaneously social groupings, creative units and economic entities. The economic “brand” can obviously run on for many years after the others have stopped. There is also long history of posthumous releases, including <a href="https://www.loudersound.com/features/jimi-hendrix-6-essential-posthumous-albums">Jimi Hendrix</a>, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/6fmq/">Elliott Smith</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/prince-why-five-years-after-his-death-the-purple-one-still-reigns-159166">Prince</a>, even Otis Redding’s defining hit <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/inside-otis-reddings-final-masterpiece-sittin-on-the-dock-of-the-bay-122170/">(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay</a>. Demo recordings, unheard live performances and radio broadcasts are all established parts of artists’ catalogues.</p>
<p>This becomes complicated, though, when the act in question is a collective with deceased members whose presence on the recording is technologically facilitated. A key example is the Beatles 1995 <a href="https://ultimateclassicrock.com/beatles-free-as-a-bird/">Anthology</a> project, which saw the surviving members revisit John Lennon demos from a cassette given to McCartney by Yoko Ono, and add new parts to finish the songs.</p>
<p>This wasn’t entirely unique. Queen’s <a href="https://www.udiscovermusic.com/behind-the-albums/queen-made-in-heaven/">Made In Heaven</a>, in the same year, saw the band finish songs that Freddie Mercury worked on in the studio before he died. But it did involve resurrecting fragments of home recordings to clean them up for the commercial market.</p>
<p>The technology wasn’t sufficient at the time to properly isolate Lennon’s voice on Now and Then, so it was abandoned until Peter Jackson used machine learning to remove noise from source recordings for Get Back. By this time George Harrison had died, so this technology allowed McCartney and Starr to return to the song, incorporating Harrison’s guitar solo from the aborted 1990s attempt.</p>
<figure>
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<h2>Come together</h2>
<p>We can, then, consider the process behind this latest song in evolutionary rather than revolutionary terms. The possibilities of multi-track recording since the 1950s mean it’s long been the case that musicians have worked separately on the same song. As <a href="https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/brexit-news-the-beatles-white-album-60s-70s-john-lennon-wider-cultural-35006/">George Harrison said of The White Album</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There was a lot more individual stuff … people were accepting that it was individual. I remember having three studios operating at the same time. Paul was doing some overdubs in one, John was in another and I was recording some horns or something in a third.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Even when the Beatles were together, many canonical songs were the work of only one or two of them. McCartney wrote <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXTJBr9tt8Q">Yesterday</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Man4Xw8Xypo">Blackbird</a> alone, and is the only Beatle who plays on them. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-1OgNqBkVE">The Ballad of John and Yoko</a> didn’t feature Harrison or Starr.</p>
<p>And the former band members played on each other’s “solo” records too. There are more Beatles on Harrison’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNL40ql4CYk">All Those Years Ago</a>, or Lennon’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-SSa-D1i-M">Instant Karma</a> than on some of the band’s tracks. They all played separately on Starr’s 1973 album Ringo.</p>
<p>So Now and Then continues longstanding practices, going back to their heyday. Its status as the final Beatles song, though, reveals technological limitations. AI can create convincing facsimiles, but can’t replicate the facts of who actually played or sang the various parts, which is a central plank of what constitutes a band.</p>
<p>Audiences <a href="https://eprints.ncl.ac.uk/file_store/production/215862/EA14B274-3E9F-47EC-94FF-5B7AF6167671.pdf">ascribe authenticity</a> to music in many ways, and core among these for bands is the line-up – some acts <a href="https://theconversation.com/ac-dcs-back-in-black-at-40-establishing-rock-bands-as-brands-143473">have effectively replaced key members</a> within the brand, others have had <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/7-times-when-replacing-the-lead-singer-of-a-band-did-not-work/">less success</a>. It’s often a source of debate, at least, with “<a href="https://livemusicexchange.org/blog/stoned-again-adam-behr/">classic</a>” line-ups being those that earn the audience stamp of authenticity.</p>
<p>So what of the song itself? It won’t supplant the likes of Hey Jude or Help in The Beatles’ musical pantheon. That bar, though, is high and the plangent piano-led ballad has a familiar yet distinctive arrangement, steeped in nostalagia but affecting on its own terms nevertheless. Lennon’s voice is clearer than on previous reconstructions and the harmonies sound like, well … The Beatles.</p>
<p>In that sense, what’s at the heart of this project is the presence – even spectrally – of the actual four people who made up the creative and social underpinning for the brand. The “last” Beatles song sees them demonstrating the importance, even as a coda to their recording career, of the interpersonal connections that set things in motion in the first place.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216920/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Behr has received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the British Academy.</span></em></p>
This new last Beatles song, enabled in part by AI, demonstrates the importance of the profound and lasting connections between the four musicians.
Adam Behr, Senior Lecturer in Popular and Contemporary Music, Newcastle University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/216981
2023-11-03T02:44:41Z
2023-11-03T02:44:41Z
Is Now and Then really a Beatles song? The fab four always used technology to create new music
<p>Over the past few weeks, Paul McCartney has been touring Australia to play through three hours of his musical legacy – from Beatles and Wings favourites to solo material, and some unexpected deep cuts. </p>
<p>A particularly moving pair of songs was the bookending of McCartney’s performance of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuuOAA9ekbg">In Spite of All the Danger</a> (the first song the band recorded as The Quarrymen) and the performance of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12R4FzIhdoQ">The End</a> – one of the last songs the Beatles recorded together. </p>
<p>The encore featured <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTZ804WxpGg">I’ve Got a Feeling</a>, in which McCartney and his late bandmate John Lennon “sang” together, performing alongside footage from the rooftop performance from the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-beatles-get-back-review-peter-jacksons-tv-series-is-a-thrilling-funny-and-long-treat-for-fans-172404">Get Back documentary</a>. Hearing McCartney’s current vocals alongside Lennon’s from the 1960s was poignant for both the crowd and McCartney. </p>
<p>These moments of connection over the decades between McCartney and Lennon are made stronger by the release of the new, and last, Beatles single, Now and Then. </p>
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<p>Now and Then is one of four songs from a Lennon demo cassette provided by Yoko Ono and given to Paul McCartney in 1994, with a handwritten title: For Paul. The remaining Beatles finished Lennon’s demos for <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODIvONHPqpk">Free as a Bird</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax7krBKzmVI">Real Love</a> for the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles_Anthology">Anthology</a> release in 1995. </p>
<p>While these songs may have lacked a little of the original magic, with John’s voice sounding more distant and thin compared with Paul’s, the scarcity of new material allowed fans to embrace the songs, warts and all. At the time, Now and Then was deemed too tricky to complete, as John’s voice was buried in the mono mix of his home-recorded piano. It sat there for 28 years.</p>
<p>Fast forward to 2021 and a new AI tool developed by film-maker Peter Jackson to separate audio sources on Get Back could now be used on Lennon’s old demo. John’s voice is now clear, present, and free to be flown in seamlessly over any new arrangement. </p>
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<p>It has a natural expression, captured in that not-overthought, early-demo moment. </p>
<p>George’s archived acoustic guitar take was added, with Paul providing updated piano, slide guitar and bass. Ringo added his distinctive feel remotely from Los Angeles. </p>
<p>Giles Martin, son of George, and keeper of the production flame, contributes a suitably Beatles-esque string arrangement that taps into many of his father’s well-loved stylistic traits. </p>
<p>There are insistent quarter-note pulsing rises, sitar-esque bends, and a final switch from four in a bar to three, reminiscent of The End from Abbey Road.</p>
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<h2>Is this a Beatles song?</h2>
<p>Due to the use of AI tools to finish Now and Then, and the song having been recorded without the Beatles in a room together, some may ask “is this really a Beatles song?”.</p>
<p>After the release of Get Back, audiences were able to experience what it felt like to be in the room with the band, watching their ideas form, seeing them joke and laugh, and also the tensions that happen with a group of creative people who have experienced a lot together.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-beatles-get-back-review-peter-jacksons-tv-series-is-a-thrilling-funny-and-long-treat-for-fans-172404">The Beatles: Get Back review – Peter Jackson's TV series is a thrilling, funny (and long) treat for fans</a>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557379/original/file-20231103-25-tvzm08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The four Beatles in front of Big Ben" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557379/original/file-20231103-25-tvzm08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557379/original/file-20231103-25-tvzm08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557379/original/file-20231103-25-tvzm08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557379/original/file-20231103-25-tvzm08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557379/original/file-20231103-25-tvzm08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=584&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557379/original/file-20231103-25-tvzm08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=584&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557379/original/file-20231103-25-tvzm08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=584&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">‘The fab four in a room, playing together, often seems essential to their sound.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/search/the-beatles">Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>Get Back is relevant here for many reasons. </p>
<p>The first film version of this footage <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_It_Be_(1970_film)">Let it Be</a> by director Michael Lindsay-Hogg was released briefly in 1970 with the album, and painted the last days of The Beatles as a dark, acrimonious time, and cemented Ono’s role as alleged “villain” in Beatles lore. </p>
<p>Jackson’s new version Get Back reframed fans’ perceptions of The Beatles’ breakup, the relationship of the surviving members, and their ongoing legacy. In the 1990s the Anthology film and albums captured a new generation of Britpop-loving Beatles fans, and the release of Get Back and Now and Then may do the same for another generation.</p>
<p>The fab four in a room, playing together, often seems essential to their sound. However, the Beatles were always fascinated by recording technology – from reversing tape loops in Taxman, to using Lennon’s voice through a Leslie speaker cabinet for Tomorrow Never Knows, to the musique-concrete Revolution 9, where the band cut a variety of tape loops and sounds together.</p>
<p>Using current music technology was always part of the band’s creativity, and with Now and Then, they are still engaging with technology to make new music, albeit in a slightly different way. </p>
<p>Will it be remembered as fondly as their other songs in the canon? </p>
<p>Perhaps – or perhaps not. But that is not the heart of this release. </p>
<p>John and George are gone, however, we still have Ringo and Paul with us to complete this new and final Beatles track. </p>
<p>Despite the time, distance and technology, Now and Then finishes a long and winding conversation that began in the early 1960s, and has now come to a thoughtful and musical end. </p>
<p>With time, it allows fans to reframe John’s love letter to Yoko as a message to Paul, the band, and even the fans. </p>
<p>Perhaps that will be its enduring value: “I know it’s true…And if I make it through, It’s all because of you”.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/sgt-peppers-at-50-the-greatest-thing-you-ever-heard-or-just-another-album-77458">Sgt Pepper's at 50 – the greatest thing you ever heard or just another album?</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216981/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The Beatles have released a new track - using new technology to strip Lennon’s vocals out of an old demo casette tape. Will this be part of Beatles canon?
Jadey O'Regan, Lecturer in Contemporary Music, Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Co-author of "Hooks in Popular Music" (2022), University of Sydney
Paul (Mac) McDermott, Lecturer in Contemporary Music, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney, University of Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/210598
2023-08-14T12:25:46Z
2023-08-14T12:25:46Z
3 ways AI is transforming music
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542381/original/file-20230811-32504-6469wf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C42%2C9428%2C5250&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Musicians and producers can already utilize AI to realistically reproduce the sound of any instrument or voice imaginable.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/blue-musical-instrument-wall-royalty-free-image/1283143454?phrase=digital+musical+instruments&adppopup=true">Paul Campbell/iStock via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Each fall, I begin my course <a href="https://et.iupui.edu/departments/mat/research/machine-musician-lab1/">on the intersection of music and artificial intelligence</a> by asking my students if they’re concerned about AI’s role in composing or producing music.</p>
<p>So far, the question has always elicited a resounding “yes.” </p>
<p>Their fears can be summed up in a sentence: AI will create a world where music is plentiful, but musicians get cast aside.</p>
<p>In the upcoming semester, I’m anticipating a discussion about Paul McCartney, who in June 2023 announced that he and a team of audio engineers had used machine learning to uncover a “lost” vocal track of John Lennon <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/13/paul-mccartney-says-ai-got-john-lennons-voice-on-last-beatles-record.html">by separating the instruments from a demo recording</a>. </p>
<p>But resurrecting the voices of <a href="https://www.wired.com/2011/12/ueki-loid-speech-synthesizer/">long-dead artists</a> is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what’s possible – and what’s already being done.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/jun/23/paul-mccartney-says-theres-nothing-artificial-in-new-beatles-song-made-using-ai">In an interview</a>, McCartney admitted that AI represents a “scary” but “exciting” future for music. To me, his mix of consternation and exhilaration is spot on. </p>
<p>Here are three ways AI is changing the way music gets made – each of which could threaten human musicians in various ways:</p>
<h2>1. Song composition</h2>
<p>Many programs can already generate music with a simple prompt from the user, such as “Electronic Dance with a Warehouse Groove.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frobt.2021.680586/full">Fully generative apps</a> train AI models on extensive databases of existing music. This enables them to learn musical structures, harmonies, melodies, rhythms, dynamics, timbres and form, and generate new content that stylistically matches the material in the database.</p>
<p>There are many examples of these kinds of apps. But the most successful ones, like <a href="https://boomy.com">Boomy</a>, allow nonmusicians to generate music and then post the AI-generated results on Spotify to earn money. <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/spotify-removes-ai-generated-songs-platform">Spotify recently removed many of these Boomy-generated tracks</a>, claiming that this would protect human artists’ rights and royalties.</p>
<p>The two companies quickly came to an agreement that allowed Boomy to re-upload the tracks. But the algorithms powering these apps still have a <a href="https://scholarship.law.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1108&context=jlt">troubling ability to infringe upon existing copyright</a>, which might go unnoticed to most users. After all, basing new music on a data set of existing music is bound to cause noticeable similarities between the music in the data set and the generated content. </p>
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<img alt="Yellow and pink poster attached to a lamp post that reads 'artificial intelligence plus human stupidity equals bangers.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542358/original/file-20230811-17-o479w3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542358/original/file-20230811-17-o479w3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542358/original/file-20230811-17-o479w3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542358/original/file-20230811-17-o479w3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542358/original/file-20230811-17-o479w3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542358/original/file-20230811-17-o479w3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542358/original/file-20230811-17-o479w3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A poster for the AI music service Boomy in Austin, Texas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/poster-for-the-ai-music-creation-service-boomy-austin-texas-news-photo/1475137303?adppopup=true">Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Furthermore, streaming services like Spotify and <a href="https://music.amazon.com/">Amazon Music</a> are naturally incentivized to develop their own <a href="https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/amazon-music-strikes-playlist-partnership-with-generative-ai-music-company-endel12/">AI music-generation technology</a>. Spotify, for instance, <a href="https://dittomusic.com/en/blog/how-much-does-spotify-pay-per-stream/#:%7E:text=Spotify%20pays%20artists%20between%20%240.003,holders%20and%2030%25%20to%20Spotify.">pays 70% of the revenue of each stream</a> to the artist who created it. If the company could generate that music with its own algorithms, it could cut human artists out of the equation altogether.</p>
<p>Over time, this could mean more money for giant streaming services, less money for musicians – and a less human approach to making music.</p>
<h2>2. Mixing and mastering</h2>
<p>Machine-learning-enabled apps that help musicians balance all of the instruments and clean up the audio in a song – what’s known as mixing and mastering – are valuable tools for those who lack the experience, skill or resources to pull off professional-sounding tracks. </p>
<p>Over the past decade, AI’s integration into music production has revolutionized how music is mixed and mastered. AI-driven apps like <a href="https://www.landr.com">Landr</a>, <a href="https://cryo-mix.com">Cryo Mix</a> and <a href="https://www.izotope.com">iZotope’s Neutron</a> can automatically analyze tracks, balance audio levels and remove noise. </p>
<p>These technologies streamline the production process, allowing musicians and producers to focus on the creative aspects of their work and leave some of the technical drudgery to AI. </p>
<p>While these apps undoubtedly take some work away from professional mixers and producers, they also allow professionals to quickly complete less lucrative jobs, <a href="https://mackie.com/en/blog/all/8_Ways_Earn_Money_Music_Production.html">such as mixing or mastering for a local band</a>, and focus on high-paying commissions that require more finesse. These apps also allow musicians to produce more professional-sounding work without involving an audio engineer they can’t afford. </p>
<h2>3. Instrumental and vocal reproduction</h2>
<p>Using “tone transfer” algorithms <a href="https://mawf.io">via apps like Mawf</a>, musicians can transform the sound of one instrument into another. </p>
<p>Thai musician and engineer <a href="https://yaboihanoi.com">Yaboi Hanoi’s</a> song “<a href="https://youtu.be/n2bj5R5o9mE">Enter Demons & Gods</a>,” which won the third international <a href="https://youtu.be/1VH-0EAXutU">AI Song Contest</a> in 2022, was unique in that it was influenced not only by Thai mythology, but also by the sounds of native Thai musical instruments, which have a non-Western system of intonation. One of the most technically exciting aspects of Yaboi Hanoi’s entry was the reproduction of a traditional Thai woodwind instrument – <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/501870">the pi nai</a> – <a href="https://youtu.be/PbrRoR3nEVw">which was resynthesized</a> to perform the track.</p>
<p>A variant of this technology lies at the core of the <a href="https://www.vocaloid.com">Vocaloid voice synthesis software</a>, which allows users to produce convincingly human vocal tracks with swappable voices. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/03/05/ai-voice-scam/">Unsavory applications of this technique</a> are popping up outside of the musical realm. For example, AI voice swapping has been used to scam people out of money. </p>
<p>But musicians and producers can already use it to realistically reproduce the sound of any instrument or voice imaginable. The downside, of course, is that this technology can rob instrumentalists of the opportunity to perform on a recorded track.</p>
<p><audio preload="metadata" controls="controls" data-duration="14" data-image="" data-title="Using tone transfer, a singer's voice is turned into the sound of a trumpet." data-size="296160" data-source="Jason Palamara" data-source-url="" data-license="CC BY" data-license-url="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">
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Using tone transfer, a singer’s voice is turned into the sound of a trumpet.
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jason Palamara</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a><span class="download"><span>289 KB</span> <a target="_blank" href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/audio/2861/tone-transfer-vocal-to-trumpet.mp3">(download)</a></span></span>
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<h2>AI’s Wild West moment</h2>
<p>While I applaud Yaboi Hanoi’s victory, I have to wonder if it will encourage musicians to use AI to fake a cultural connection where none exists.</p>
<p>In 2021, Capitol Music Group made headlines by signing an “AI rapper” that had been given the avatar of a Black male cyborg, but which was really the work of Factory New non-Black software engineers. The backlash was swift, with the record label roundly excoriated <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-62659741">for blatant cultural appropriation</a>. </p>
<p>But AI musical cultural appropriation is easier to stumble into than you might think. With the extraordinary size of songs and samples that comprise the data sets used by apps like Boomy – see the open source “Million Song Dataset” <a href="http://millionsongdataset.com">for a sense of the scale</a> – there’s a good chance that a user may unwittingly upload a newly generated track that pulls from a culture that isn’t their own, or cribs from an artist in a way that too closely mimics the original. Worse still, it won’t always be clear who is to blame for the offense, and current U.S. copyright laws are contradictory and woefully inadequate to the task of regulating these issues.</p>
<p>These are all topics that have come up in my own class, which has allowed me to at least inform my students of the dangers of unchecked AI and how to best avoid these pitfalls. </p>
<p>At the same time, at the end of each fall semester, I’ll again ask my students if they’re concerned about an AI takeover of music. At that point, and with a whole semester’s experience investigating these technologies, most of them say they’re excited to see how the technology will evolve and where the field will go. </p>
<p>Some dark possibilities do lie ahead for humanity and AI. Still, at least in the realm of musical AI, there is cause for some optimism – assuming the pitfalls are avoided.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210598/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jason Palamara does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
AI can streamline the painstaking work of mixing and editing tracks. But it’s also easy to see how AI-generated music will make more money for giant streaming services at the expense of artists.
Jason Palamara, Assistant Professor of Music Technology, Indiana University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/199987
2023-03-14T19:05:20Z
2023-03-14T19:05:20Z
Tangy apricot Bavarian whip, fried rice medley and bombe Alaska: what Australia’s first food influencer had us cooking
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512826/original/file-20230301-20-tc17uc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C4%2C1608%2C1029&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/42353480@N02/5757760150/">Ethan/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Our food choices are being influenced every day. On social media platforms such as YouTube, Instagram and TikTok, food and eating consistently appear on lists of trending topics. </p>
<p>Food has eye-catching appeal and is a universal experience. Everyone has to eat. In recent years, viral recipes like <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2021/02/11/baked-feta-pasta-recipe-tiktok/">feta pasta</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-dalgona-coffee-the-whipped-coffee-trend-taking-over-the-internet-during-coronavirus-isolation-137068">dalgona coffee</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/are-butter-boards-bad-for-you-an-expert-view-on-the-latest-food-trend-192260">butter boards</a> have taken the world by storm. </p>
<p>Yet food influencing is not a new trend. </p>
<p>Australia’s first food influencer appeared in the pages of Australia’s most popular women’s magazine nearly 70 years ago. Just like today’s creators on Instagram and TikTok, this teenage cook advised her audience what was good to eat and how to make it.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-australian-womens-weekly-spoke-to-50s-housewives-about-the-cold-war-145699">How the Australian Women's Weekly spoke to '50s housewives about the Cold War</a>
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<h2>Meet Debbie, our teenage chef</h2>
<p>Debbie commenced her decade-long tenure at the Australian Women’s Weekly in <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page4814245">July 1954</a>. We don’t know exactly who played the role of Debbie, which was a pseudonym. Readers were never shown her full face or body – just a set of disembodied hands making various recipes and, eventually, a cartoon portrait. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511604/original/file-20230222-14-yy4h34.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A short blurb on Debbie, and two photos of hands cooking." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511604/original/file-20230222-14-yy4h34.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511604/original/file-20230222-14-yy4h34.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=183&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511604/original/file-20230222-14-yy4h34.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=183&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511604/original/file-20230222-14-yy4h34.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=183&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511604/original/file-20230222-14-yy4h34.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=230&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511604/original/file-20230222-14-yy4h34.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=230&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511604/original/file-20230222-14-yy4h34.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=230&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Debbie’s first appearance in 1954.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Trove</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Like many food influencers today, Debbie was not an “expert” – she was a teenager herself. She taught teenage girls simple yet fashionable recipes they could cook to impress their family and friends, especially boys. </p>
<p>She shared recipes for <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page4925379">tangy apricot Bavarian whip</a>, <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page4819441">fried rice medley</a> and <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page4807813">bombe Alaska</a>. Debbie also often taught her readers the basics, like <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article52249448">how to boil an egg</a>.</p>
<p>Just like today, many of her recipes showed the readers step-by-step instructions through images. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511605/original/file-20230222-14-p4xv3j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An unappetising bowl of rice." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511605/original/file-20230222-14-p4xv3j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511605/original/file-20230222-14-p4xv3j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511605/original/file-20230222-14-p4xv3j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511605/original/file-20230222-14-p4xv3j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511605/original/file-20230222-14-p4xv3j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511605/original/file-20230222-14-p4xv3j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511605/original/file-20230222-14-p4xv3j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Debbie’s fried rice medley from 1958.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Trove</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Teaching girls to cook (and be ‘good’ women)</h2>
<p>Debbie’s recipes first appeared in the For Teenagers section, which would go on to become the Teenagers Weekly lift-out in 1959. </p>
<p>These lift-outs reflected a major change taking place in wider society: the idea of “teenagers” being their own group with specific interests and behaviours had entered the popular imagination.</p>
<p>Debbie was speaking directly to teenage girls. Adolescents are still forming both their culinary and cultural tastes. They are forming their identities. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511606/original/file-20230222-24-ocpxyv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511606/original/file-20230222-24-ocpxyv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511606/original/file-20230222-24-ocpxyv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511606/original/file-20230222-24-ocpxyv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511606/original/file-20230222-24-ocpxyv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511606/original/file-20230222-24-ocpxyv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511606/original/file-20230222-24-ocpxyv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511606/original/file-20230222-24-ocpxyv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Some tips from Debbie in 1960.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Trove</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For the Women’s Weekly, and for Debbie, cooking was deemed an essential attribute for women. Girls were seen to be “<a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page4818166">failures</a>” if they couldn’t at least “cook a baked dinner”, “make real coffee”, “grill a steak to perfection”, “scramble and fry eggs” and “make a salad (with dressing)”. </p>
<p>In addition to teaching girls how to cook, Debbie also taught girls how to catch a husband and become a good wife, a reflection of cultural expectations for women at the time. </p>
<p>Her <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page4920059">macaroon trifle</a>, the Women’s Weekly said, was sure to place girls at the top of their male friends’ “matrimony prospect” list!</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/more-than-just-masterchef-a-brief-history-of-australian-cookery-competitions-169840">More than just MasterChef: a brief history of Australian cookery competitions</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Food fads and fashions</h2>
<p>Food fads usually reflect something important about the world around us. During global COVID lockdowns, we saw a rise in <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-historical-roots-of-your-lockdown-sourdough-obsession-137528">sourdough bread-making</a> as people embraced carbohydrate-driven nostalgia in the face of anxiety.</p>
<p>A peek at Debbie’s culinary repertoire can reveal some of the cultural phenomena that impacted Australian teenagers in the 1950s and ‘60s. </p>
<p>Debbie embraced teenage interest in rock'n'roll culture from the early 1960s, the pinnacle of which came at the height of Beatlemania. </p>
<p>The Beatles toured Australia in June 1964. To help her teenage readers celebrate their visit, Debbie wrote an editorial on how to host a <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article48077701">Beatles party</a>. </p>
<p>She suggested the party host impress their friends by making “Beatle lollipops”, “Ringo Starrs” (decorated biscuits) and terrifying-looking “Beatle mop-heads” (cakes with chocolate hair). </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511609/original/file-20230222-18-5du7tf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511609/original/file-20230222-18-5du7tf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511609/original/file-20230222-18-5du7tf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=243&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511609/original/file-20230222-18-5du7tf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=243&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511609/original/file-20230222-18-5du7tf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=243&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511609/original/file-20230222-18-5du7tf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=306&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511609/original/file-20230222-18-5du7tf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=306&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511609/original/file-20230222-18-5du7tf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=306&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The terrifying mop-heads.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Trove</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article55185376">A few months later</a>, she also shared recipes for “jam butties” (or sandwiches, apparently a “<a href="https://slate.com/culture/2013/03/the-beatles-and-the-mersey-beat-in-the-latest-blogging-the-beatles-how-the-beatles-popularized-the-sound-of-liverpool.html">Mersey</a> food with a Mersey name”) and a “Beatle burger”. </p>
<p>We can also see the introduction of one of <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/language/italian/en/article/spag-bol-how-australians-adopted-a-classic-italian-recipe-and-made-it-their-own/9ogvr96ea">Australia’s most beloved dishes</a> in Debbie’s recipes. </p>
<p>In 1957, she showed her teen readers how to make a new dish – <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article48076527">spaghetti bolognaise</a> – which had first appeared in the magazine <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article46465023">five years prior</a>. </p>
<p>Debbie was influencing the youth of Australia to enthusiastically adopt (and adapt) Italian-style cuisine. It stuck. While the recipe may have evolved, in 2012, Meat and Livestock Australia <a href="https://www.mla.com.au/globalassets/mla-corporate/marketing-beef-and-lamb/last-nights-dinner.pdf">reported</a> that 38% of Australian homes ate “spag bol” at least once a week.</p>
<p>Our food influences today may come from social media, but we shouldn’t forget the impact early influencers such as Debbie had on young people in the past. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511610/original/file-20230222-25-i49d2i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511610/original/file-20230222-25-i49d2i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511610/original/file-20230222-25-i49d2i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511610/original/file-20230222-25-i49d2i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511610/original/file-20230222-25-i49d2i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511610/original/file-20230222-25-i49d2i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511610/original/file-20230222-25-i49d2i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511610/original/file-20230222-25-i49d2i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Debbie’s take on the now Aussie favourite, spag bol, in 1957.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Trove</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/getting-creative-with-less-recipe-lessons-from-the-australian-womens-weekly-during-wartime-133792">Getting creative with less. Recipe lessons from the Australian Women's Weekly during wartime</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199987/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lauren Samuelsson received funding from an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship when undertaking this research.</span></em></p>
Teenage chef Debbie commenced her decade-long tenure at the Australian Women’s Weekly in July 1954 – and her recipes could help with your ‘matrimony prospects’.
Lauren Samuelsson, Honorary Fellow, University of Wollongong
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/182380
2022-07-07T15:18:33Z
2022-07-07T15:18:33Z
Beatles ‘Get Back’ documentary reveals how creativity doesn’t happen on its own
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/472168/original/file-20220703-24-ksha7t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C91%2C3045%2C2323&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Beatles appear backstage at EMI studios in London in June 1967. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/beatles--get-back--documentary-reveals-how-creativity-doesn-t-happen-on-its-own" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Is music legend and ex-Beatle <a href="https://www.paulmccartney.com/">Sir Paul McCartney</a> a creative genius?</p>
<p>Not according to Edward P. Clapp, a principal investigator at the <a href="http://www.pz.harvard.edu/who-we-are/people/edward-clapp">Harvard Graduate School of Education</a>’s Project Zero. The project aims to understand and nurture “<a href="http://www.pz.harvard.edu/who-we-are">learning, thinking, ethics, intelligence and creativity</a>.” </p>
<p>In a recent video interview with me, Clapp said he instead sees McCartney, or any other artistic figure who could be seen as a creative genius, as playing the role of a creative producer — one who synthesizes influences and information.</p>
<p>“I dispute the idea of genius, wholeheartedly … I don’t believe in it,” he said. “I think people, all people, have the capacity to participate in creativity.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.routledge.com/Participatory-Creativity-Introducing-Access-and-Equity-to-the-Creative/Clapp/p/book/9781138945265">Clapp’s theory of “participatory creativity”</a> replaces the notion that creative output emerges solely because of a creative individual working alone in a studio or high up in a candle-lit garret. </p>
<p>While the individual participates in their own unique and important way, what also matters is the matrix of people, objects and events within which ideas develop. </p>
<h2>Creative process in action</h2>
<p>I called Clapp after teaching his book <em>Participatory Creativity: Introducing Access and Equity to the Creative Classroom</em>. I wanted his take on <em>Get Back</em>, director Peter Jackson’s three-part, eight-hour Beatles documentary based on 56 hours of meticulously restored film and 150 hours of audio from the making of the 1970 album <em>Let It Be</em>. </p>
<p>In particular, I wanted to talk about a scene in which McCartney creates the song “Get Back,” one of the Beatles’ most enduring hits, in around two minutes flat, as if from thin air. It’s a remarkable, fly-on-the-wall view of the creative process in action.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Auta2lagtw4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Official trailer for the documentary ‘Get Back.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I’d shared this scene with a cohort of students in the <a href="https://education.uottawa.ca/sites/education.uottawa.ca/files/description_of_cohort_options_2015-2017.pdf">Imagination, Creativity and Innovation</a> program at the <a href="https://www2.uottawa.ca/faculty-education/">Faculty of Education at University of Ottawa</a>. The program supports <a href="https://education.uottawa.ca/sites/education.uottawa.ca/files/description_of_cohort_options_2015-2017.pdf">teaching and learning as creative and esthetic experiences</a>.</p>
<p>The notion of participatory creativity has major implications for any person or organization concerned with the creation of innovative ideas or artistic expression. It means recognizing and putting in place the means to foster creativity as a collaborative process. </p>
<p>Participatory creativity also fosters equity by turning away from the more traditional ideal of the individual “genius” celebrated in western culture — figures like Picasso or Steve Jobs — who are most often male and white. </p>
<h2>Breaking down the ‘Get Back’ scene</h2>
<p>In the scene showing McCartney working out “Get Back,” one moment McCartney is strumming and humming wordlessly. The next, the sound, rhythm and even the lyrics are largely set. </p>
<p>How does this jibe with participatory creativity?, I asked Clapp. Doesn’t it prove <a href="https://www.usmagazine.com/entertainment/news/paul-mccartney-how-the-cute-beatle-spread-his-wings/">“the cute Beatle”</a> was a creative genius?</p>
<p>Clapp said no, and proposed some elements that combined in that moment like alchemy. </p>
<p><strong>Pressures and timing:</strong> “Band having a hard time, kind of calling it quits, entered the studio without any material, came out of the studio some time later with some of their best hits,” said Clapp. </p>
<p><strong>The other Beatles, vibe in the room:</strong> “Paul’s there. George and Ringo are there. John’s late again. And they’re like, ‘Oh, John’s late again.’ They’re kind of dismissive of that. So there’s attitude, there’s tone, there’s mood. That’s present in the room,” he noted. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Detail of part of the cover of the Beatles album 'Let it Be' showing John Lennon." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/472393/original/file-20220704-20-72tsd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/472393/original/file-20220704-20-72tsd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472393/original/file-20220704-20-72tsd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472393/original/file-20220704-20-72tsd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472393/original/file-20220704-20-72tsd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472393/original/file-20220704-20-72tsd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472393/original/file-20220704-20-72tsd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Let it Be’ was the last album the Beatles released.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>Acting forces in creativity:</strong> It’s not just people who influence outcomes, Clapp explained. “Sometimes actors are non-sentient beings,” he said. “They are forces, objects and things. All of that stuff, that non-human stuff [is] playing a role.” That includes instruments: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“There’s a guitar that’s playing a role … Paul brings some emotive aspect to it — he doesn’t have a plan. He’s working something out.… So, [we see] he and the guitar, and the emotion in the room that’s kind of pessimistic and cynical and dismissive, maybe even hostile. In that little triad — Paul, guitar, mood and tone — we’ve got three different actors.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>My own analysis revealed additional ways the song’s creation was collaborative:</p>
<p><strong>Societal tensions:</strong> The film points out that there were tensions in England in 1969 around immigration, with racist politicians like <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/04/enoch-powell-rivers-of-blood/558344/">Enoch Powell</a> arguing that Black immigrants from England’s former colonies should be sent “home” — back, so to speak, to where they once belonged. Clapp agreed that this was another factor in the song’s creation. </p>
<p><strong>The class system:</strong> McCartney mimics the upper-class accent of <a href="https://variety.com/2021/music/news/michael-lindsay-hogg-director-let-it-be-get-back-1235130999/">Michael Lindsay-Hogg</a>, director of the 1970 documentary <em>Let It Be</em> during the <em>Get Back</em> clip. Along with his band-mates, Liverpudlian McCartney was an interloper in the London arts scene. “Get Back” reflects the ongoing dilemma of the outsider and whether and to where they should return. </p>
<p><strong>Additional people:</strong> <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/radio/day6/flooding-and-pipelines-woody-the-talking-christmas-tree-indigenous-land-title-the-fifth-beatle-and-more-1.6263170/how-american-keyboardist-billy-preston-became-known-as-the-fifth-beatle-1.6263180">Billy Preston</a>, who plays keyboard on the song, is a friend from the band’s days playing in Hamburg, Germany. His upbeat presence affects the atmosphere. </p>
<p><strong>Fans glimpsed out the windows of the recording studio:</strong> During the final rooftop concert in the London streets beyond, crowds gather in the streets. McCartney’s desire to “get back” to playing live is often discussed in the film.</p>
<p><strong>Music knowledge and skill:</strong> During the film, the band plays or ad-libs <a href="https://www.beatlesbible.com/features/get-back-let-it-be-sessions-complete-song-list/">more than 400 songs</a>, their own compositions plus rock ‘n’ roll standards, contemporary hits, jazz standards from their parents’ era and ad-libbed ditties. “Get Back” emerges from and in dialogue with this remarkably diverse repertoire. </p>
<p>“Paul just kind of comes at it with the most obvious two words you can think of, which are just ‘get back,’” said Clapp. </p>
<p>But then there’s the ambiguity of the phrase “to where you once belonged” — as though the return is impossible, leaving the song in a bittersweet position between desire and regret.</p>
<h2>Ignoring the individual?</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/472169/original/file-20220703-13-mr8idu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man in a white shirt unbuttoned at the top collar smiling." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/472169/original/file-20220703-13-mr8idu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/472169/original/file-20220703-13-mr8idu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=630&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472169/original/file-20220703-13-mr8idu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=630&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472169/original/file-20220703-13-mr8idu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=630&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472169/original/file-20220703-13-mr8idu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=791&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472169/original/file-20220703-13-mr8idu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=791&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472169/original/file-20220703-13-mr8idu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=791&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Paul McCartney seen in 1969.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I asked Clapp if participatory creativity ignores the agency of the individual. After all, it’s McCartney who comes up with the music and lyrics. </p>
<p>“That’s a huge misconception,” he said. “A participatory approach to creativity highlights the contribution of the individual because the individual uniquely participates in the development of creative ideas in their own individual way.”</p>
<p>In Clapp’s scholarly writing, he notes that “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99163-4_3">many purported creative individuals may spend much of their lives alone</a>” with their work. </p>
<p>But he also emphasizes principles highlighted by researchers who have examined the phenomena of creativity: in this solitary time, <a href="https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/keith-sawyer/group-genius/9780465093588">they draw on past collaborations</a>. They also engage with the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2017.11.006">technologies or tools of predecessors</a> and they “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99163-4_3">work in relation to an often complex polyphony of current and historical audiences</a>.”</p>
<p>The world requires creative responses to a myriad of issues; the message of participatory creativity has never been more urgent.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182380/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John M. Richardson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Paul McCartney appears to compose the smash hit ‘Get Back’ from thin air in a clip from the Beatles documentary of the same name — but experts propose at least eight other factors behind it.
John M. Richardson, Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Education, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/177454
2022-04-22T01:35:23Z
2022-04-22T01:35:23Z
What is toe jam? From harmless gunk to a feast for bugs
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456809/original/file-20220407-14-flir0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1000%2C664&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/young-girls-toes-healthy-beautiful-wellgroomed-1371423317">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.healthline.com/health/all-about-toe-jam">Toe jam</a> can be a source of fascination, disgust or barely noticed. It can be a sign you need to wash your feet or rethink your choice of footwear. It can also lead to major health issues.</p>
<p>Toe jam, the gunk and debris between your toes, has even made it to a Beatles song.</p>
<p>But it was unlikely John Lennon was thinking about foot hygiene when he wrote the lyrics to the second verse of <a href="https://genius.com/The-beatles-come-together-lyrics">Come Together</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>He wear no shoeshine, he got toe-jam football</p>
<p>He got monkey finger, he shoot Coca-Cola</p>
<p>He say, ‘I know you, you know me’</p>
<p>One thing I can tell you is you got to be free.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uSM5MpKSnqE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Yes, The Beatles really mentioned toe jam in Come Together (YouTube).</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What is toe jam, actually?</h2>
<p>Toe jam isn’t a medical term. There is no formal medical term to describe the dead skin cells, sweat, sock lint and dirt that combine in the small and often cramped spaces between our toes.</p>
<p>Toe jam can have the consistency of soft cheese or cake crumbs. It can smell or be odourless. And its colour can range from white to grey-brown.</p>
<p>You’re more likely to create toe jam if you wear closed-in shoes when it’s hot, or gumboots that don’t allow sweat to evaporate.</p>
<p>Poor foot hygiene will certainly make it more likely you’ll develop toe jam. That’s because sweaty debris accumulates in between the toes if you don’t pay attention to cleaning these areas in the shower or bath.</p>
<p>Toe jam may also be more likely if your feet sweat a lot for other reasons. For instance, we know <a href="https://www.racgp.org.au/afp/2009/september/sweaty-smelly-hands-and-feet">sweaty feet</a> can be a problem for children and adolescents, who have more active sweat glands. And some people have a serious medical condition called <a href="https://www.sweathelp.org/index.php">hyperhidrosis</a>, where they sweat excessively.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/anhidrosis-why-some-people-apparently-like-prince-andrew-just-cant-sweat-127280">Anhidrosis: why some people – apparently like Prince Andrew – just can't sweat</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Is toe jam like athlete’s foot?</h2>
<p>The collection of sweat and dead skin between toes provides bacteria living naturally on our skin the chance to thrive. </p>
<p>These bacteria, which include ones in the genus <em>Brevibacterium</em>, feed on sweat, releasing molecules that give the characteristic “cheesy” <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-do-feet-stink-by-the-end-of-the-day-125037">smell of sweaty feet</a>. Brevibacterium is also used to ripen some cheeses.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457034/original/file-20220408-19484-ox4ymj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Soft cheese, cut in slices" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457034/original/file-20220408-19484-ox4ymj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457034/original/file-20220408-19484-ox4ymj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457034/original/file-20220408-19484-ox4ymj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457034/original/file-20220408-19484-ox4ymj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457034/original/file-20220408-19484-ox4ymj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457034/original/file-20220408-19484-ox4ymj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457034/original/file-20220408-19484-ox4ymj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">No wonder your feet smell cheesy if you don’t wash them properly.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/cheeseboard-sliced-yellow-limburger-cheese-top-1343151806">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This warm and damp environment is also a perfect site for <a href="https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/tinea">tinea pedis</a>, a fungal skin infection you might know as athlete’s foot. </p>
<p>Signs of tinea might be soggy white skin between your toes, which can be itchy, and red areas, a sign of skin damage. <a href="https://dermnetnz.org/topics/athletes-foot">Damaged skin</a> between toes might develop small fluid-filled blisters and may also bleed if the weak skin is torn.</p>
<p>So while toe jam isn’t the same as tinea, it might provide the perfect conditions for the fungus to grow.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-do-feet-stink-by-the-end-of-the-day-125037">Why do feet stink by the end of the day?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>How serious is toe jam?</h2>
<p>Generally, toe jam is a minor health problem. You can <a href="https://www.racgp.org.au/getattachment/233c1fdf-8802-471e-9828-f792110c30d1/Sweaty-smelly-hands-and-feet.aspx">manage it</a> with good foot hygiene. And if you develop tinea, you can use a short course of an anti-fungal treatment you can buy from a pharmacy (see below).</p>
<p>It is quite a different prospect, however, for a person living with a chronic disease such as diabetes, someone who has poor vision (so can’t see toe jam or its complications developing), or who may be unable to reach their feet due to limited mobility.</p>
<p>Diabetes not well controlled with diet and exercise, or drugs, increases the <a href="https://www.diabetesfeetaustralia.org/">risk</a> of a person having reduced blood flow (peripheral arterial disease) and reduced feeling in their feet (sensory neuropathy). </p>
<p>Broken skin between the toes caused by tinea can become infected rapidly, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3248359/">increasing the risk</a> of:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>infection spreading to the foot and leg (cellulitis)</p></li>
<li><p>infection of the bone (osteomyelitis)</p></li>
<li><p>gangrene (dead tissue caused by lack of blood flow)</p></li>
<li><p>amputation of a toe, part of the foot or leg. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>So early identification of tinea in a vulnerable person is especially important to prevent complications.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/life-on-us-a-close-up-look-at-the-bugs-that-call-us-home-25754">Life on Us: a close-up look at the bugs that call us home</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>4 ways to avoid problems</h2>
<p>Here are our four tips to avoid problems with toe jam, including developing tinea and its complications:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>wash the spaces between your toes and dry them carefully after a shower or bath, and after swimming. Gyms and swimming pools are a common place to pick up a fungal infection on your feet so it’s a good idea to wear thongs to reduce the risk of tinea</p></li>
<li><p>if possible, avoid wearing footwear that doesn’t allow sweat to evaporate (such as closed-in shoes made of synthetic material and gumboots). Going barefoot, when there is no risk of injury, will also allow sweat to evaporate</p></li>
<li><p>treat sweaty feet by using an <a href="https://www.racgp.org.au/afp/2009/september/sweaty-smelly-hands-and-feet">anti-perspirant</a> containing aluminium chloride. More severe cases of hyperhidrosis may be managed using drugs, such as <a href="https://www.dermcoll.edu.au/atoz/plantar-hyperhidrosis/">Botox</a> injections to the feet. Fungal infections (<a href="https://dermnetnz.org/topics/tinea-pedis">tinea</a>) should be treated using over-the-counter antifungal creams such a terbinafine or clotrimazole. Resistant infections might require a course of prescribed antifungal medicines</p></li>
<li><p>pay attention to <a href="https://www.healthline.com/health/all-about-toe-jam#when-to-see-a-doctor">signs</a> indicating an infection is spreading from the foot. These could be pain and swelling in the toes, or red streaks along the foot and up the leg. This requires an urgent visit to a podiatrist or doctor.</p></li>
</ol>
<h2>Footnote</h2>
<p>Lennon mentions a “walrus gumboot” in verse three of Come Together. The final line of verse two says “you got to be free”. The cover of The Beatles album Abbey Road shows Paul McCartney walking barefoot (second from the left).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457039/original/file-20220408-18-vvxes4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Beatles album Abbey Road propped up behind turntable playing a record" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457039/original/file-20220408-18-vvxes4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457039/original/file-20220408-18-vvxes4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457039/original/file-20220408-18-vvxes4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457039/original/file-20220408-18-vvxes4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457039/original/file-20220408-18-vvxes4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457039/original/file-20220408-18-vvxes4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457039/original/file-20220408-18-vvxes4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Maybe The Beatles were onto something.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/naples-italy-10032019-fabulous-beatles-depicted-1334880947">Imma Gambardella/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Maybe the Beatles did know a thing or two about toe jam and foot health.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/beatles-abbey-road-at-50-is-a-marker-of-how-pop-music-grew-up-in-the-1960s-124433">Beatles: Abbey Road at 50 is a marker of how pop music grew up in the 1960s</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/177454/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Caroline Robinson is affiliated with the Australasian Council of Podiatry Deans and the Australian Podiatry Association.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Luke Donnan is affiliated with the Australasian Council of Podiatry Deans and the Australian Podiatry Association.</span></em></p>
Toe jam was mentioned in a song by The Beatles. Maybe they knew a thing or two about foot hygiene.
Caroline Robinson, Associate Professor Podiatry, Charles Sturt University
Luke Donnan, Lecturer in Podiatry, Charles Sturt University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/169914
2021-12-03T13:43:17Z
2021-12-03T13:43:17Z
‘The Beatles: Get Back’ glosses over the band’s acrimonious end
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/435425/original/file-20211202-15-1ov4pyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C8%2C2986%2C1922&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Did Paul McCartney, right, and Ringo Starr hire Peter Jackson for a rescue operation?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/ringo-starr-and-sir-paul-mccartney-introduce-the-new-video-news-photo/88098772?adppopup=true"> Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the new film “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9735318/">The Beatles: Get Back</a>,” “Lord of the Rings” director <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001392/">Peter Jackson</a> tries to dispel the myth of the the Beatles’ breakup. </p>
<p>In 1970, Michael Lindsay-Hogg released “<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/original-let-it-be-movie-michael-lindsay-hogg-peter-jackson-get-back-1250561/">Let It Be</a>,” a film documenting the band’s recording sessions for their eponymous album. The movie depicted George Harrison arguing with Paul McCartney – and it hit theaters shortly after news of the band’s breakup emerged. Many filmgoers at the time assumed this depicted the days and weeks during which everything fell apart. </p>
<p>By the time it hit theaters, nearly 16 months after filming, this rehearsal footage got mistaken for a completely different time frame.</p>
<p>In 2016, Jackson gained access to Lindsay-Hogg’s original footage. Over the course of four years, he edited it into an eight-hour, three-part series, thanks to a streaming deal with Disney+. </p>
<p>In their press rounds, both Jackson and McCartney have been eager to recast the legacy of this period. </p>
<p>“I kept waiting for all the nasty stuff to start happening, waiting for the arguments and the rows and the fights, but I never saw that,” <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/nov/20/i-just-cant-believe-it-exists-peter-jackson-takes-us-into-the-beatles-vault-locked-up-for-52-years">Jackson told The Guardian</a> and others. “It was the opposite. It was really funny.”</p>
<p>“I’ll tell you what is really fabulous about it, it shows the four of us having a ball,” <a href="https://www.nme.com/news/music/paul-mccartney-says-the-beatles-get-back-documentary-changed-his-perception-of-their-split-3095528">McCartney told The Sunday Times</a> after seeing the film. “It was so reaffirming for me.” </p>
<p>It seems to be working: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/11/arts/music/beatles-get-back-peter-jackson.html">A recent New York Times headline proclaimed</a>, “Know How the Beatles Ended? Peter Jackson May Change Your Mind.” </p>
<p>A lot of these sessions contain the irrepressible gags that made the Beatles famous. (Lennon and McCartney singing “Two of Us” in grandiose Scottish brogue almost steals Part Three.) But in their interviews, Jackson and McCartney accentuate the positive as if to paper over the acrimonious <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/pop-culture-news/paul-mccartney-says-he-sued-beatles-save-band-s-music-n1235898">history of lawsuits</a>, <a href="https://www.billboard.com/music/rock/beatles-catalog-paul-mccartney-brief-history-ownership-7662519/">the loss of the Lennon-McCartney publishing catalog</a> and the lurching solo careers that followed.</p>
<h2>A muddled chronology</h2>
<p>The timing of the theater release of the “Let It Be” sessions seeded confusion over how the group unraveled. </p>
<p>“Let it Be” was shot in January 1969, just weeks after the “<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/review-the-beatles-white-album-186863/">White Album</a>” hit stores.</p>
<p>The band then put these tapes aside to work on the larger project they intuited from this material, “<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-beatles-revolutionary-use-of-recording-technology-in-abbey-road-124070">Abbey Road</a>,” which they completed seven months later. </p>
<p>The split actually came at a September 1969 meeting, when <a href="https://theconversation.com/inside-the-beatles-messy-breakup-50-years-ago-130980">Lennon told the others</a> he wanted a “divorce.” They persuaded him to keep his departure quiet until the band completed some contract negotiations. Then, in March 1970, <a href="https://theconversation.com/inside-the-beatles-messy-breakup-50-years-ago-130980">McCartney publicly proclaimed</a> he was “leaving the Beatles” to release his first solo album. </p>
<p>An epic descent into suits, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/the-courtroom-hit-parade-the-beatles-top-ten-lawsuits-414216.html">countersuits</a> and press squabbles ensued. Harrison even wrote a song called “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xzdw2WcSmb0">Sue Me Sue You Blues</a>.” </p>
<p>Only in May 1970 did the “Let It Be” album and film come out, with the band’s messy divorce as the backdrop. </p>
<p>After the initial theater run, “Let it Be” fell from view. For decades, the only way you could get a glance of it was through a black market copy. The Andy Warhol-esque, <a href="https://www.artforum.com/print/196704/the-value-of-didactic-art-36733">so-real-it’s-boring verité style</a> – the non-narrative approach then in vogue – flummoxed even 1970 audiences.</p>
<p>But because the “Let It Be” album and film came out after “Abbey Road” – which was released in September 1969 – it quickly got mistaken for telegraphing their breakup, <a href="https://www.nme.com/news/music/paul-mccartney-says-the-beatles-get-back-documentary-changed-his-perception-of-their-split-3095528">a belief that the Beatles themselves seemed to internalize</a>.</p>
<p>The Beatles’ own traumatic memories of this period kept the raw footage from this project in the vaults for over 50 years. In the meantime, bootleggers published nearly all of its audio.</p>
<h2>Conflict brewing</h2>
<p>Now at significant remove, the remaining Beatles – McCartney and Ringo Starr – <a href="https://variety.com/video/peter-jackson-get-back-beatles-secrets/">seem to have hired Jackson</a> for a rescue operation, disingenuously dubbing the film a “documentary” when they, in fact, served as executive producers alongside their Apple Records directors, Jeff Jones and Ken Kamins.</p>
<p>In response to Jackson’s three-part series, which coincided with the release of <a href="https://variety.com/2021/music/reviews/get-back-book-review-beatles-let-it-be-transcripts-1235087090/">a book of transcripts from the “Let it Be” sessions</a> and McCartney’s songwriting memoir, “<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-paul-mccartneys-the-lyrics-can-teach-us-about-harnessing-our-creativity-170987">Lyrics</a>,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/11/arts/music/beatles-get-back-peter-jackson.html">media outlets</a> <a href="https://www.onlymelbourne.com.au/the-beatles-get-back">around the world</a> appear to have embraced this new version of history: that these sessions actually scanned as lighthearted, that – poof! – the scars had vanished.</p>
<p>But the strange and beguiling thing about Jackson’s edit rises from how it displays an unstable mixture of groove and conflict.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Auta2lagtw4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The trailer for ‘The Beatles: Get Back.’</span></figcaption>
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<p>Despite the walkout from Harrison and continuous disagreements about what the project was – first a TV show, then a feature film and album, which needed a rooftop concert for a “payoff” – the band ultimately rallied to write the now-classic tracks “Something,” “Oh! Darling,” “Octopus’s Garden,” “She Came in Through the Bathroom Window,” and “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer,” along with Lennon’s “Polythene Pam” and “I Want You.” </p>
<p>So Jackson’s “Get Back” clarifies the Beatles’ resolve to resume work and put their extra-musical squabbles aside. The music pulls them inexorably forward, and they trust these early song fragments enough to carry them. They have had bust-ups and walkouts and uncertainties and failures, and always found their way through. For Lindsay-Hogg and 1970 audiences, this all seemed bewildering and tense – the band kept a tight lid on internal rows. To the Beatles themselves, and to anyone who’s ever worked to keep a band together, it felt about par.</p>
<p>Telling the average person to watch eight hours of freighted doubt and raw, undeveloped material is a big ask. <a href="https://www.theonion.com/new-beatles-doc-gives-man-greater-appreciation-for-how-1848132216">As The Onion joked</a>, “New Beatles Doc Gives Man Greater Appreciation For How Long 8 Hours Feels.”</p>
<p>But there is a moment in Part Two of Jackson’s series – the first day on the set when Harrison doesn’t show up – when the rest of the band sits around talking about the situation. McCartney suddenly goes quiet. The camera lingers on him, and you can see him drift into a thousand-yard stare as he contemplates the looming uncertainties. He doesn’t quite tear up, but he does look as unguarded as he ever does, and markedly tentative. </p>
<p>The moment catches hold because it’s so out of character – McCartney rarely displays himself unveiled, without pretense. The shot lingers and takes the measure of the man and the project, how much they have to overcome and how precarious everything suddenly feels. </p>
<p>[<em>Over 140,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletters to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-140ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p>In retrospect, the miracle is not that they finished “Let It Be,” but how these sessions served as the warmup for their final lap, “Abbey Road.” After upending expectations with the contrasting breakthroughs of “Sgt. Pepper” and the “White Album,” figuring out what to do next would have confounded lesser souls. </p>
<p>That five-decade gap where fans waited for a refurbished “Let It Be” tells you a lot about how fraught January 1969 seemed to its four principals – and how deep those scars went.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/169914/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim Riley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
In their press rounds, director Peter Jackson and Paul McCartney have been eager to recast the legacy of the band’s final years.
Tim Riley, Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director for Journalism, Emerson College
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/172533
2021-12-03T11:35:13Z
2021-12-03T11:35:13Z
The Beatles: Get Back and the magic of seeing chords become anthems
<p>Filmed in January 1969, the documentary “Let It Be” follows The Beatles rehearsing and recording songs for their 12th studio album of the same name. It also includes footage of the legendary rooftop concert by the group, which would be their last public performance together. </p>
<p>Reaction to the <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/original-let-it-be-movie-michael-lindsay-hogg-peter-jackson-get-back-1250561/">film</a> was lukewarm at the time. The British Film Institue’s Monthly Film Bulletin regarded it as “rather tedious” and the response to the accompanying album fared no better. Writing in the New Musical Express, journalist <a href="https://worldhistoryproject.org/1970/5/8/the-beatles-release-let-it-be">Alan Smith said</a> the record would stand as a “cheapskate epitaph, a cardboard tombstone, a sad and tatty end” to a glittering and epoch-defining musical career.</p>
<p>But now a new documentary series by director Peter Jackson has re-imagined the film in three lengthy and detailed segments. Thanks to an array of fresh footage, Jackson’s film sheds new light on this period and the band. </p>
<h2>Pop music on film</h2>
<p>Pre-publicity for the Get Back project emphasised the work that had gone into restoring the original footage. </p>
<p>The kinds of painstaking technical processes that WingNut (Jackson’s production company) deployed are typical of remastered films and music. These techniques are a key way of marketing the repackaging of old material. With a run-time of eight hours, the huge scope of Get Back is in-keeping with the contemporary penchant for extremely <a href="https://www.focusfeatures.com/the-sparks-brothers">long films</a>, indulgent director’s cuts and expanded LP box sets featuring multiple versions of songs.</p>
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<p>In all these fields, “more” is equated with “best”. However, with Get Back, the initially impressive gloss of the restoration project soon fades as the real fascination lies in the raw and intimate footage of the original project. </p>
<p>We can view Let It Be as a continuation of the fine tradition of cinema verité – documentaries that sought to represent the truth as objectively as possible. With music documentaries, this tradition began with DA Pennebaker’s 1967 Bob Dylan film <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRV-Kou9yh4">Don’t Look Back</a> followed by Maysles brothers’ <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ax_q6vp5FqU">Gimme Shelter</a> and Michael Wadleigh’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTsq3eacP3E">Woodstock</a> (both 1970). </p>
<p>In Get Back, the whistle-stop preamble that Jackson provides, the labelling of every song played (no matter how ephemeral) and the contextual historical information which frames the group for a modern audience are all nice touches. But it is the raw excitement of the original footage that makes the film really soar.</p>
<h2>A happier bunch</h2>
<p>That’s because this version of the story also sheds new light on what was initially remembered as a depressing watch – the Beatles bickering and stuttering their way to a final rupture. As he watched the hours of film footage, Jackson witnessed a more positive and warmer picture of the group emerging. This is reflected in the previously unseen sequences where the group laugh and lark about and where good humour and encouragement, rather than arguments, shape the mood. </p>
<p>The Let It Be album project (also originally titled Get Back) emerged in early 1969 out of the ashes of the recently released “<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/review-the-beatles-white-album-186863/">White Album</a>”. As writers <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles:_An_Illustrated_Record">Roy Carr and Tony Tyler</a> noted, the White Album “indicated the passing of the Beatles as a group…on this LP they act as each other’s session men”. </p>
<p>This idea of the Beatles fading as a coherent unit and writing more as individuals is something I also explore in <a href="https://headpress.com/product/the-beatles-white-album/">my own book</a> on the LP. But it would seem that the desire with the original Get Back was to return to a more communal way of creating songs, jamming and improvising towards a final version that was unencumbered by recording studio trickery. </p>
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<p>The magical evolution of a song from a few chords and snatches of lyrics to a complex arrangement is one of the most fascinating aspects of Get Back. The song “Get Back” itself is a prime example. Developing out of Paul McCartney strumming a few chords on his bass, the song’s journey in the film culminates in a triumphant full-blown version in the famous rooftop sequence that closes both films. For Beatles obsessives and less devoted bystanders alike, the chance to eavesdrop on how pop songs are actually made – a normally secretive and mysterious process – is revelatory.</p>
<p>Get Back, while split into three episodes, is eight hours long, which might be daunting for many viewers. While it would have been nice to see this documentary on the big screen, streaming has afforded Jackson this length. I think this was a deliberate choice by Jackson to fully immerse the viewer in the slow grind of producing great pop songs.</p>
<p>The famous rooftop concert, viewed from any angle, is truly magnificent, a “shining hour of absolute extreme excitement” as the Beatles own press officer <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/apr/04/as-time-goes-by-derek-taylor-beatles-review">Derek Taylor</a> put it. Publicists tend to exaggerate but in this case the description is spot on, the mundane nature of the performance (especially after all the big talk about concerts in Arabian deserts and ocean liners) demonstrating that often it is the simple things that can mean so much.</p>
<p>The purpose of the album was to allow the Beatles to “get back” to their deep roots as a performing band. As this dream faded it became “let it be” – an expression of resignation and closure. Now, with Jackson’s version, “Get Back” means something different again; a return to the original project but also to the Beatles and their legacy, which, well into the 21st century and with the help of this film, still seems firmly assured.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/172533/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Goodall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Get Back shines a light on the love that still existed between the Fab Four.
Mark Goodall, Senior Lecturer Film and Media, University of Bradford
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/171822
2021-11-25T19:01:42Z
2021-11-25T19:01:42Z
Friday essay: Yoko, Linda, Get Back and shifting perceptions of the women of the Beatles
<p>When the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Auta2lagtw4">official trailer</a> for The Beatles: Get Back was released in October, commentary across social media often referenced how harmonious and collegial the band looked in the footage. Undoubtedly, much of the anticipation surrounding Peter Jackson’s docu-series was its suggestion that the Beatles’ final years were much less acrimonious than previously believed. </p>
<p>In tandem with this, another set of comments focused on Yoko Ono’s inclusion in the jovial preview. After all, the 1970 Beatles documentary Let It Be, directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg – which was created from the same 60-plus hours of footage – has not only served as supposed evidence of the group’s disintegration, but as “proof” that artist Ono, John Lennon’s then girlfriend and soon-to-be wife, played a major role in the world’s greatest rock band <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/why-the-beatles-broke-up-113403">splintering apart</a>. </p>
<p>Given that docuseries director Peter Jackson is also a lifelong Beatles fan, he was likely familiar with how the “Yoko-broke-up-the-Beatles” narrative was often mapped onto Let It Be, and has continued as popular discourse today. </p>
<p>Little wonder that The Beatles: Get Back trailer included Paul McCartney quipping, “It’s going to be such a comical thing like in 50 years’ time: ‘They broke up because Yoko sat on an amp.’” </p>
<p>Shots of Yoko smiling, dancing with John, and sitting with Ringo’s wife, <a href="https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/50-years-ago-today-beatles-8634736">Maureen Starkey</a>, depict her as a welcome, observant guest rather than an intrusive figure in the Beatles’ workspace. </p>
<p>Similarly, this can be said for the other major female figure present at the filmed Get Back sessions, Paul McCartney’s future wife, American photographer Linda Eastman. While she did not face the extreme criticism that Ono initially received for partnering with a Beatle, by the early 1970s she would be the punchline for cruel jokes about McCartney’s <a href="https://www.salon.com/2018/12/14/wings-was-a-better-band-than-paul-mccartney-or-his-critics-thinks">post-Beatles group Wings</a>, of which she was a founding member. </p>
<p>In this way, Jackson’s trailer suggested the potential to reframe Ono and Eastman in the Beatles story and its continuing cultural legacy.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/on-the-intimate-and-character-revealing-photographs-of-linda-mccartney-pauls-wife-and-a-stunning-artist-170957">On the intimate and character-revealing photographs of Linda McCartney – Paul's wife, and a stunning artist</a>
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<h2>The Beatles: Get Back</h2>
<p>The Beatles: Get Back, the three-part Disney+ series, follows John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr throughout January 1969 as they practice and record songs that would appear on their final two albums, with the majority of them making up their 1970 swansong, Let It Be. </p>
<p>Since the Beatles stopped touring in 1966, filming the group was in conjunction with a proposed TV special. The Beatles also wanted to record an album featuring live performances, which reflected their early history of electrifying club gigs. While the TV program was cancelled, the footage became the documentary Let It Be. </p>
<p>The story that emerges from Jackson’s retelling is how the Beatles worked together during what was a transitional time. Both Lennon and McCartney – to varying degrees – are shown as regularly inviting girlfriends Ono and Eastman to the recording sessions. Though Ono’s presence is the more documented of the two, both couples would marry by March 1969.</p>
<p>In the series, Ono’s attendance at the Get Back sessions is not introduced. She is simply there, often sitting close to Lennon while the band works out new songs or runs through old favourites. Sometimes she is raptly attentive to the music, smiling and rocking along to the beat, while in other moments she is involved in her own activities – often reading and writing.</p>
<p>Mostly, hers is a quiet but constant presence on film, though interspersed with a few avant-garde jam sessions with both Lennon and McCartney. In those moments, her singular voice comes through loud and clear. </p>
<p>Though McCartney has <a href="https://www.nme.com/news/music/paul-mccartney-165-1259175">said that Yoko’s initial presence at the recording studio felt uncomfortable</a>, such sentiment is not on display here. McCartney seems an enthusiastic participant in these sonic forays – not looking at all annoyed that his musical partner’s girlfriend is getting in the mix, if even just for fun. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433843/original/file-20211125-25-1228pcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433843/original/file-20211125-25-1228pcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433843/original/file-20211125-25-1228pcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433843/original/file-20211125-25-1228pcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433843/original/file-20211125-25-1228pcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433843/original/file-20211125-25-1228pcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433843/original/file-20211125-25-1228pcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433843/original/file-20211125-25-1228pcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, and George Harrison in The Beatles: Get Back. Photo courtesy of Apple Corps Ltd.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Disney+</span></span>
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<p>Eastman, meanwhile, is introduced to viewers by way of McCartney’s own introduction of her to members of the film crew. Most of the interspersed close-ups of Linda are of her photographing her future husband and his band mates, which references the fact that Eastman was already a rock photographer when she first met McCartney in 1967. </p>
<p>Other shots of Linda depict her quietly regarding Paul as he focuses on his work. Elsewhere, she is depicted as a young mother, when she brings daughter Heather to the studio, and as a true Beatles enthusiast, when she jokingly argues with director Lindsay-Hogg over who is the bigger fan of the band.</p>
<p>For contemporary viewers encountering such scenes, it might be difficult to understand how Ono’s or Eastman’s presence could have been perceived as a disturbance or distraction by some fans and cultural observers when the Let It Be film debuted in 1970. </p>
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<h2>Cultural changes since Let It Be</h2>
<p>But there have been many changes in music and culture since Let It Be premiered over 50 years ago. Shifting perceptions of both Yoko Ono and Linda McCartney since 1970 will likely foster different interpretations of the footage – any directorial or editorial decisions aside.</p>
<p>For instance, from the advent of punk and new wave onward – with many women performers adopting those genres – Yoko Ono became a <a href="https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/1366-kim-gordon-tune-yards-and-6-other-musicians-on-why-yoko-ono-matters/">musical icon in her own right</a>. Meanwhile, Linda McCartney may have received flak for her involvement in Wings, but her work for animal rights, promoting vegetarianism, and a clear dedication to family life won over some original and latter-day fans prior to her death in 1998, <a href="https://www.thelist.com/387119/inside-paul-mccartneys-marriage-to-linda-eastman/">a trend that continues today. </a> </p>
<p>Posthumously, her photography continues to be exhibited around the world and <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/culture/art-and-design/not-just-mrs-mccartney-sir-paul-celebrates-linda-s-remarkable-gift-20210802-p58f2x.html">praised by many</a>.</p>
<p>In terms of wider cultural change, the seemingly fixed nature of women’s roles both professionally and personally was greatly challenged through second-wave feminism soon after Let It Be’s release. Arguably, both women’s reputations within Beatles history likely benefited from a cultural movement that advocated for female individuality and agency. </p>
<p>Though second-wave feminism did not take off until the early 1970s, the 1960s was still a transformative decade for women. This is demonstrated by both Ono’s and Eastman’s careers and their status as divorcees. However, even before these two women entered the Beatles’ sphere, the way the band interacted with women and addressed them in their songs often proved forward-thinking. </p>
<p>Female photographers, journalists, fellow musicians, and fans were included in the Beatles’ world early on and treated respectfully. While the postwar era still favoured men as the dominant participants of society, each band member and the Beatles’ music itself nonetheless created an exciting, new space for girls and young women to boldly engage with cultural life. No wonder their initial presence elicited screams.</p>
<h2>Women and the Beatles: on-set and behind the scenes</h2>
<p>If the footage that comprises The Beatles: Get Back can allow us to review and reconsider Yoko Ono and Linda McCartney within the Beatles’ later history, it can also serve as a jumping-off point for re-examining how women (both real and fictional) are situated within the Beatles’ first feature film, A Hard Day’s Night. </p>
<p>Since the Beatles’ films can help audiences better understand the band’s cultural impact, looking at their 1964 debut as a bookend to Jackson’s docuseries can provide insights into how women fit into an epic story that continues to fascinate contemporary audiences.</p>
<p>A Hard Day’s Night was directed by Richard Lester and premiered soon after the Beatles achieved international fame. The film aims to replicate the band’s experiences during the height of Beatlemania. Performing as fictionalised versions of themselves, John, Paul, George, and Ringo are introduced onscreen running from screaming, mostly female fans as they catch a train to London. </p>
<p>Though girls and young women were often considered their core audience at this time, the band’s subsequent encounters with them in the film are relatively brief: serenading teenage schoolgirls on the train, responding to journalists at a press event, chatting and dancing with young women at a nightclub, or walking past dancers backstage at the TV studio. And, of course, there are screaming girls at the bands’s actual performance.</p>
<p>While the film helped capture girls’ excitement about the Beatles in early 1964, the stories off-camera tell of different relationships. </p>
<p>The then 19-year-old Pattie Boyd, <a href="https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/pattie-boyd-first-meeting-george-harrison-the-beatles/">who would marry George Harrison in 1966</a>, was cast as one of the schoolgirls in the film. In other words, she met her future husband through her career as a model and actress. And, while some female reporters are depicted interviewing the Beatles early in the film, behind the scenes it was London Evening Standard journalist Maureen Cleave who was one of the band’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/nov/08/maureen-cleave-british-journalist-who-championed-the-beatles-dies-aged-87">very first champions in the mainstream press</a>. Indeed, young women were at the forefront of <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/37JQP17zj2rpjKcnNjWy48N/five-women-who-wrote-rock">nascent rock journalism in the mid-sixties, often interviewing the Beatles. </a></p>
<p>While no women are shown in the film taking pictures of the Beatles as they arrive in London, their first (unofficial) band photographer and friend <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/may/17/astrid-kirchherr-obituary">Astrid Kirchherr</a>, whom they had met four years earlier while performing in Hamburg, was on set taking photos for German magazine Stern. </p>
<p>Kirchherr’s significance in the Beatles story also extends to the different sartorial styles and music genres she introduced into their world. In these respects, though the “screaming fan” became the main female image connected to the Beatles at this time, it is a limited view of girls’ and women’s engagement with the band both before and during Beatlemania. </p>
<p>Women were always important to the Beatles, not just as a fan base, but as people whose opinions and ideas mattered to them. By the time the Get Back footage was filmed, this aspect of the band remained unchanged.</p>
<h2>What we can learn from The Beatles: Get Back</h2>
<p>Returning to The Beatles: Get Back, it is not only the depiction of Ono and Eastman that demonstrates women’s inclusion within Beatles history. Though they are the two most dominant female figures in the docu-series, George Harrison’s wife Pattie Boyd makes a brief appearance while Ringo Starr’s wife Maureen Starkey – an early Beatles fan in Liverpool – continues to show her enthusiasm for the group’s music in a few key scenes. </p>
<p>Some female employees of the Beatles’ Apple enterprise, as well as two dedicated fans – part of the <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/love-them-do-the-story-of-the-beatles-biggest-fans-69186/">Apple Scruffs fan collective</a> who would wait outside the band’s Savile Row headquarters – make brief, if noteworthy, appearances in the film. With the Apple Scruffs in particular, the adolescent, screaming fans of 1964 are now quietly observant teenagers hoping for a brief audience with their favourite Beatle.</p>
<p>Interest in the Beatles remains evergreen with many newly published books and myriad podcasts available to today’s fans. Peter Jackson’s docu-series will undoubtedly inspire new cohorts of enthusiasts. For those with a longer history observing the Beatles, this intimate view of the band at the end of their career may prompt a revaluation of what they have believed about the band’s final years and breakup. </p>
<p>The Beatles: Get Back both provides a new window into the dynamic relationships within the band itself while posing a challenge to those who, for whatever reason, still insist that Yoko Ono’s role in the band’s history was a negative one. </p>
<p>It also reminds viewers that one of the greatest stories of the 20th century is not only predicated on the friendship and talent of four British musicians, but on the people who have loved them. </p>
<p>Paying closer attention to how women have been part of this phenomenal story helps us to better understand the Beatles in their time and the band’s continuing appeal.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/171822/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christine Feldman-Barrett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Women were always important to the Beatles, yet Yoko Ono, in particular, faced extreme criticism for partnering with John Lennon. How does Peter Jackson’s Get Back present Ono and Linda Eastman?
Christine Feldman-Barrett, Senior Lecturer in Cultural Sociology, Griffith University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/172404
2021-11-25T08:01:58Z
2021-11-25T08:01:58Z
The Beatles: Get Back review – Peter Jackson’s TV series is a thrilling, funny (and long) treat for fans
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433796/original/file-20211124-22-10o8y2l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C478%2C4993%2C3236&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo courtesy of Apple Corps Ltd</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Beatles’ Get Back project, undertaken in January 1969, has finally been completed. Again.</p>
<p>For most of the last 50 years it has been known as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_It_Be_(1970_film)">Let it Be</a>, a film and LP record released in 1970. The project, conceived by Paul McCartney, was originally intended to be a television special documenting the band’s preparation for a live concert (their first in two and a half years). Because of the performance element, the Beatles decided to get back to their roots and only develop material that could be played without adding overdubs. </p>
<p>As it happened, the concert didn’t go ahead, the Beatles famously deciding instead to play a short unannounced gig on the roof of their headquarters. The TV special became a feature film, and the audio was handed over to the “wall of sound” producer, Phil Spector (leading to controversial results). </p>
<p>Meanwhile, in the early 1980s, the Beatles withdrew the film version (a fly-on-the-wall documentary directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg) from circulation.</p>
<p>Lindsay-Hogg’s Let it Be is remembered as a portrait of a band in the process of breaking up. And indeed, George Harrison did briefly quit the band early into the four-week project, though Lindsay-Hogg’s documentary does not cover this episode. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433853/original/file-20211125-17-14zc63j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433853/original/file-20211125-17-14zc63j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433853/original/file-20211125-17-14zc63j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433853/original/file-20211125-17-14zc63j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433853/original/file-20211125-17-14zc63j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433853/original/file-20211125-17-14zc63j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433853/original/file-20211125-17-14zc63j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433853/original/file-20211125-17-14zc63j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">George Harrison in Get Back.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Walt Disney Pictures, Apple Corps, WingNut Films</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Let it Be was seen as a downer in part because the Beatles, especially Lennon, were keen to trash it in the light of the band’s breakup (which occurred just weeks before the release of Let it Be, both film and album). As Lennon said in December 1970, the shoot was “hell”, and Spector was “given the shittiest load of badly recorded shit”.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/paul-mccartneys-the-lyrics-an-extraordinary-life-in-song-171603">Paul McCartney's The Lyrics: an extraordinary life in song</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A different tenor</h2>
<p>While the newly released The Beatles: Get Back, directed by Peter Jackson, covers Harrison’s departure and return, Jackson’s film is tonally different from Lindsay-Hogg’s. According to Jackson, the dour account of Let it Be is inaccurate, since there is much “joy” and friendship evident in the 60 hours of film and 150 hours of audio tape that has been sitting in a vault for half a century.</p>
<p>Much of this audio has long been available as bootlegs, informing written accounts of this period of the Beatles’ history. The audio without the video, however, doesn’t always tell the whole story. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hmDy9x3AUc0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>While Jackson and his team haven’t shied away from the moments of friction, ennui, and aimlessness experienced by the band, the tenor of Get Back is more upbeat than Lindsay-Hogg’s version (though there is perhaps more levity in that film than Jackson or its reputation allows). </p>
<p>But Get Back is not just a recut of Let it Be; it is a documentary in its own right, a film about the making of a film. Lindsay-Hogg is now a character in the drama of trying to work out what the project is about, and how it will end. </p>
<p>Unlike the cinema verité style of Let it Be, Get Back gives much-needed context in the form of titles naming the protagonists and songs, as well as explaining what is happening. The use of a day-by-day countdown to the live performance gives the otherwise shapeless events a sense of narrative and even tension. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nSrCk1icisI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>Get Back was to be a feature film with a theatrical release, but COVID-19 led to a rescheduling and reconceptualising of the work, so that it became a documentary for Disney+. Recent reports were that the series would be a three-part series with a six-hour running time. </p>
<h2>The climactic rooftop concert</h2>
<p>As it turns out, that running time is closer to eight hours. (Let it Be is a mere 80 minutes long.) Almost all of these eight hours show the Beatles at work on a sound stage (at Twickenham Film Studios) or in an ad hoc recording studio (put together in the Beatles’ Apple headquarters, when – after Harrison’s walkout – it was decided that Twickenham wasn’t conducive to creativity). </p>
<p>The Apple studio is clearly more pleasant, and the tone is further lightened when the Beatles are joined by an outsider, their old friend Billy Preston, on keyboards (a crucial moment for the project). </p>
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<p>There is nevertheless something of a hermetic feel to most of Get Back, so that when the Beatles and Preston head up to the rooftop to play in public – the cinematic “payoff” that the band and Lindsay-Hogg had been looking for throughout the project – there is a palpable sense of release. </p>
<p>And the famous rooftop concert, presented with creative use of split screen, is stunningly good (and is also, for the first time, presented in its 42-minute entirety). </p>
<p>After the countless run throughs and takes of the same songs over the preceding weeks (as well as numerous covers and early Beatles tunes), the sense of energy and the quality of playing gives the film the climactic moment that it needs, complete with police officers demanding, albeit politely, that the Beatles stop breaching the peace of London’s West End. </p>
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<h2>Cigarettes, cups of tea, and white bread</h2>
<p>Get Back is very different from Let it Be in part due to Jackson’s editing, especially his use of montage, which produces a dynamic, sometimes frenetic, energy. Beyond these stylistic elements, Get Back is notable as a technical feat. </p>
<p>It looks and sounds astonishingly good, not something that was ever said about Let it Be. Jackson and his technical team have employed the kind of film restoration techniques used in his war documentary <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7905466/">They Shall Not Grow Old</a> (2018). </p>
<p>The vision in Get Back is beautifully saturated, sharp, and less grainy than Lindsay-Hogg’s film. Harrison and Starr, in their sartorial splendour, often resemble their cartoon equivalents from <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063823/">Yellow Submarine</a> (1968).</p>
<p>If there is anything unvarnished about Jackson’s film it is the sight of people apparently living off cigarettes, cups of tea, and white bread. Also notably “historical” is the homosocial nature of the project; almost all of the active participants are men. Even Yoko Ono, who sits beside Lennon throughout, is almost entirely silent (save for her vocal participation in a couple of impromptu jams).</p>
<p>While the film has been painstakingly restored, the soundtrack has been almost remade. Much of the audio was recorded on mono quarter-inch tape. Jackson’s technical team used machine learning to effectively “remix” these mono tapes, allowing Jackson to hone in on individual voices masked by other sound sources (voices or musical instruments).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433854/original/file-20211125-19-e4obm5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433854/original/file-20211125-19-e4obm5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433854/original/file-20211125-19-e4obm5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433854/original/file-20211125-19-e4obm5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433854/original/file-20211125-19-e4obm5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433854/original/file-20211125-19-e4obm5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433854/original/file-20211125-19-e4obm5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433854/original/file-20211125-19-e4obm5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Lennon in Get Back.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Walt Disney Pictures, Apple Corps, WingNut Films</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/revolution-50-the-beatles-white-album-remixed-106784">Revolution 50: The Beatles’ White Album remixed</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This is an extraordinary technological breakthrough, allowing key conversations to be heard properly for the first time, and for the remixing of the play throughs and rehearsals of songs, which weren’t being recorded as “takes” on the eight-track system. </p>
<p>Get Back is a treat for any Beatles fan. It’s a reminder, too, if one is needed, that some classic songs were recorded for the project. (Given that McCartney supplied at least three of these classics – Let it Be, The Long and Winding Road, and Get Back – it’s unsurprising that he has long been unsatisfied with the way they were originally showcased.) </p>
<p>But Jackson’s film isn’t all sweetness and light. Lennon, for instance, is dismissive of Harrison’s I, Me, Mine, and he makes a throwaway joke about Bob Wooler, a Liverpool disc jockey whom Lennon assaulted in 1963. Also notable is the relative absence of George Martin, who largely hands production duties to his sound engineer, Glyn Johns, surely a sign that Martin found something amiss with the project.</p>
<p>And indeed numerous sequences show a band lacking focus and discipline.
Get Back, then, is unquestionably a mixed bag: thrilling, compelling, and funny, but also sometimes just a little boring.</p>
<p>In this, Jackson has been true to the original project. His extraordinary TV series is essential viewing for anyone interested in popular music.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/172404/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David McCooey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
An extraordinary technological feat, Get Back looks and sounds astonishingly good.
David McCooey, Professor of Writing and Literature, Deakin University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/171603
2021-11-15T19:04:33Z
2021-11-15T19:04:33Z
Paul McCartney’s The Lyrics: an extraordinary life in song
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431866/original/file-20211115-19-yzteh0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C0%2C5291%2C5235&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Paul McCartney photographed backstage at the television show 'Thank Your Lucky Stars', Birmingham, England, 1963</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">© MPL Communications Ltd</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: Paul McCartney, The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present, ed. Paul Muldoon, Allen Lane, 2021.</em></p>
<p>The Lyrics recounts Paul McCartney’s life and art through the “prism of his songs”. Despite its apparently unambiguous title, The Lyrics is not an exhaustive collection of the words to songs written or co-written by McCartney over his 60-year career. Rather, it brings together, across two volumes, 154 songs, some of which are universally known, and some of which are minor and/or off the beaten track of McCartney’s discography. </p>
<p>As well as reproducing the texts of these songs, The Lyrics includes commentaries by their author. These commentaries are based on 50 hours of recorded conversations, undertaken between 2015 and 2020, with the poet Paul Muldoon.</p>
<p>Muldoon, as editor, shaped these conversations into coherent mini essays, deleting his own voice in the process. The resulting product, richly decorated with over 600 photos and reproductions of memorabilia, is a kind of “self-portrait in song”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431868/original/file-20211115-19-1ngec75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431868/original/file-20211115-19-1ngec75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431868/original/file-20211115-19-1ngec75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=876&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431868/original/file-20211115-19-1ngec75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=876&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431868/original/file-20211115-19-1ngec75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=876&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431868/original/file-20211115-19-1ngec75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1101&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431868/original/file-20211115-19-1ngec75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1101&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431868/original/file-20211115-19-1ngec75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1101&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Paul during a Beatles recording session at Apple Studios, London, 1969.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Paul McCartney / Photographer: Linda McCartney</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many songs are covered no doubt for their musical and/or literary importance. But many others, if not most, are included because they allow an entry into certain themes or periods of McCartney’s life. The commentary on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDcDCZGcZj8">Rocky Raccoon</a>, for instance, leads into an anecdote about McCartney requiring stitches to his lip from a drunk doctor (an experience that indirectly led to all four Beatles sporting moustaches in <a href="https://www.thebeatles.com/sites/default/files/styles/max_1300x1300/public/2021-05/beatles%20finished.jpg?itok=s693uTVh">1967</a>). </p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mc4KqEFkzTI">On My Way to Work</a> (from the 2013 album NEW) allows McCartney to talk about his first job as a delivery man, which leads into the oft-repeated Beatles’ ur-narrative of when McCartney met John Lennon at a church fete in 1957. </p>
<h2>Writing the unexpected</h2>
<p>McCartney’s primary strength (sometimes considered a fault by detractors) is melody, rather than words. And while it’s the case some of his lyrics can be facile even in their musical contexts, McCartney can be a fine lyricist. His lyrics, as he points out in his commentaries, often traffic in the unexpected (in the sense of the surreal and/or the nonsensical) and the comedic.</p>
<p>These characteristics are also observable in McCartney’s commentaries. The account of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVv7IzEVf3M">She Came in Through the Bathroom Window</a> begins with the deadpan observation that </p>
<blockquote>
<p>My mum was a nurse and my dad loved words, so I was the only one in my class who could spell ‘phlegm’. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>McCartney – who long stood in Lennon’s shadow as a lyricist – most clearly came into his own as a lyricist with <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuS5NuXRb5Y">Eleanor Rigby</a>, which was the first of McCartney’s songs to receive wide praise for its lyrical content.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/two-of-us-inside-john-lennons-incredible-songwriting-partnership-with-paul-mccartney-147857">Two of Us: inside John Lennon's incredible songwriting partnership with Paul McCartney</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>McCartney’s lyrics often revel in word play, and his wit, often seen by critics as a sign of facileness, is surely one of his great strengths. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJag19WoAe0">Maxwell’s Silver Hammer</a>, from the Beatles’ Abbey Road (1969), was publicly dissed by Lennon and George Harrison at the time of its release, and it has often stood as an example of “bad McCartney”. </p>
<p>But the song is blackly comic, and it shows McCartney’s understanding of the comic potential of multisyllabic rhyme: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>PC Thirty-One said, we’ve caught a dirty one <br>
Maxwell stands alone. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>(It’s not surprising that, as well as the obvious rock'n'roll antecedents, McCartney refers to the influence of the earlier Tin Pan Alley songwriters, such as Cole Porter and the Gershwins.) </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431869/original/file-20211115-23-7hlehp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431869/original/file-20211115-23-7hlehp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431869/original/file-20211115-23-7hlehp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431869/original/file-20211115-23-7hlehp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431869/original/file-20211115-23-7hlehp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431869/original/file-20211115-23-7hlehp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1120&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431869/original/file-20211115-23-7hlehp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1120&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431869/original/file-20211115-23-7hlehp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1120&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Paul during the recording of London Town, Virgin Islands, 1977.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© MPL Communications Ltd</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As well as showing McCartney’s attraction to wit, Maxwell’s Silver Hammer highlights a feature noticed by both him and Muldoon: the use of the vignette. As Muldoon notes in his introduction, McCartney </p>
<blockquote>
<p>has the capacity to render a fully rounded character from what might otherwise be merely a thumbnail sketch. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In songs such as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuS5NuXRb5Y">Eleanor Rigby</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYvkICbTZIQ">Paperback Writer</a> and<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI6C7L66zq8"> Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey</a>, McCartney presents self-contained sketches of characters and situations, often bringing together the mysterious and the mundane. </p>
<p>This latter characteristic is most obviously found in the Beatles’ <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usNsCeOV4GM">A Day in the Life</a>, where McCartney’s section (“Woke up, fell out of bed …”) is placed within the psychedelic splendour of the greater body of the song by Lennon.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/usNsCeOV4GM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>The mix of the extraordinary and the ordinary is a leitmotif that runs throughout The Lyrics. With his customary emphasis on parents, family, education and work, McCartney is also open to the unexpected and anarchic.</p>
<h2>Ghosts behind the music</h2>
<p>But there is also an elegiac feeling to this collection, with numerous references to McCartney’s late parents, and his late wife, Linda. The death of his mother, Mary, when McCartney was 14, is repeatedly evoked. In his commentary on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDYfEBY9NM4">Let it Be </a>(famously inspired by a dream about “mother Mary”), McCartney cites two lines from Hamlet, a play he learnt at school.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/on-the-intimate-and-character-revealing-photographs-of-linda-mccartney-pauls-wife-and-a-stunning-artist-170957">On the intimate and character-revealing photographs of Linda McCartney – Paul's wife, and a stunning artist</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Hamlet is a play about ghosts and hauntings and there are plenty of ghosts – in the form of lost friends and colleagues, most obviously Lennon – in The Lyrics.</p>
<p>But there is a more literary and musical sense of hauntedness in McCartney’s songs, something apparent in this book, with its emphasis on precedents, mimicry, and revisionism. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nS5_EQgbuLc">Back in the USSR</a>, for instance, is a parody of Chuck Berry via the Beach Boys.</p>
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<p>The Lyrics reminds us McCartney’s greatness is his ability to inhabit styles and genres and make them his own.</p>
<p>What is extraordinary about this ability is not just McCartney’s facility, but also his range; from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVfaf43W9cM">Rupert Bear (We All Stand Together)</a> to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLWSQRNnGY8">Helter Skelter</a>, from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdcSFVXd3MU">Here, There and Everywhere</a> to his classical work (represented here by an aria from the Liverpool Oratorio), there seems to be almost no style that McCartney can’t turn his hand to.</p>
<figure>
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<p>In his foreword, McCartney compares The Lyrics to an “old snapshot album”, that vernacular storehouse of haunting presences, memory and loss. Like a photo album, The Lyrics can be dipped into anywhere, and one can find the serious and frivolous, the straightforward and the enigmatic, side by side. What is amazing is that these “snapshots” are, for the most part, the work of one person.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/171603/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David McCooey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Through 154 songs, Paul McCartney gives us an insight into his life. There is an elegaic feel to this book, which showcases the many sides to McCartney’s songwriting.
David McCooey, Professor of Writing and Literature, Deakin University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/170987
2021-11-08T13:43:11Z
2021-11-08T13:43:11Z
What Paul McCartney’s ‘The Lyrics’ can teach us about harnessing our creativity
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430512/original/file-20211105-10121-1g0tdfp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=23%2C4%2C3076%2C2091&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">For Paul McCartney, songwriting involved a convergence of memory, experience and happenstance.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/paul-mccartney-singer-songwriter-with-wings-and-former-news-photo/2630533?adppopup=true">Evening Standard/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In his new book “<a href="https://variety.com/shop/paul-mccartney-memoir-1235103060/">The Lyrics</a>,” Paul McCartney divulges the origins of 154 of his most significant and enduring songs. </p>
<p>Although each song’s provenance is unique, the compendium is an unprecedented resource for those hoping to better understand both McCartney’s own creative process, and, more broadly, the human creative process.</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=SIl5WVYAAAAJ&hl=en">As a behavioral scientist</a>, I’ve tried to do just that in my own research into creativity. That work has led me to conclude that the insightful or “<a href="https://hbr.org/2014/03/how-to-have-a-eureka-moment">Eureka!</a>” moment is largely a myth – an altogether naïve and fanciful account of innovation. </p>
<p>Ingenuity actually arises from a far less mysterious combination of historical, circumstantial and accidental influences.</p>
<h2>A long and winding road to ‘Eleanor Rigby’</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/10/25/paul-mccartney-writing-eleanor-rigby-beatles">In a book excerpt</a> published in the Oct. 18, 2021, issue of The New Yorker, McCartney recounts, in rich and scrupulous detail, the fascinating origins of “Eleanor Rigby” – <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/100-greatest-beatles-songs-154008/a-day-in-the-life-182132/">a track that some critics view as one of the Beatles’ greatest songs</a>. </p>
<p>McCartney puts the lie to the stale canard that this 1966 song was the result of some sort of fully formed vision that came to him out of the blue. Instead, he underscores the unscripted and haphazard nature of his songwriting process. You might even say that “a long and winding road” – to use the name of another Beatles track – led to “Eleanor Rigby.” </p>
<p>There’s the way snippets of memory inspired him – his mother’s bedside jar of Nivea cold cream and his doing a hodgepodge of odd jobs for an elderly woman; the role of sheer coincidence, such as his happening to spot the name “Rigby” on a tombstone or on a shop sign in Bristol; and the practical consequence of certain choices, like replacing “Hawkins” with “Rigby” and “McCartney” with “McKenzie” because of the confusing associations to possible surnames. </p>
<p>These various strands converged to catalyze a melancholy song that’s perhaps the Beatles’ most marked departure from the rhythmic pop sound found on upbeat tracks like “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pGOFX1D_jg">Love Me Do</a>.”</p>
<h2>An intricate web of cause and effect</h2>
<p>Without knowing the full story, people often believe that the creative things we make and do arise by premeditation – by design.</p>
<p>I propose a dramatically different account in my new book, “<a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/As_If_By_Design.html?id=wQg3EAAAQBAJ&source=kp_book_description">As If By Design: How Creative Behaviors Really Evolve</a>.” </p>
<p>In the book, I point to the origin and evolution of a wide variety of innovations, such as the butterfly stroke, the high-five, the Heimlich maneuver, the moonwalk and the Iowa caucuses.</p>
<p>Because of their striking suitability to the situation, all of them seem to have been ingeniously designed in advance. But, more often than not, these creative acts have actually arisen thanks to an intricate web of cause, effect and happenstance.</p>
<p>Consider the butterfly stroke. The technique wasn’t instantly invented by a swimmer who one day decided to create an altogether new and faster stroke.</p>
<p>Instead, <a href="https://dailyiowan.com/2018/10/11/the-university-of-iowa-birthplace-of-the-butterfly-stroke/">three key factors helped give birth to the butterfly stroke</a>.</p>
<p>First, the context: In the 1930s, University of Iowa swim coach David Armbruster was working tirelessly with his swimmers to improve their breaststroke speed.</p>
<p>Then, there was serendipity: Armbruster happened to notice one of his swimmers, Jack Sieg, playfully using a sideways dolphin kick underwater to produce great speed.</p>
<p>As a result, Armbruster and Sieg experimented with the combined windmill arm stroke and belly-down dolphin kick to achieve unmatched speed.</p>
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<img alt="Man coming up for air while swimming." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430513/original/file-20211105-10429-nv4d5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430513/original/file-20211105-10429-nv4d5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430513/original/file-20211105-10429-nv4d5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430513/original/file-20211105-10429-nv4d5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430513/original/file-20211105-10429-nv4d5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430513/original/file-20211105-10429-nv4d5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430513/original/file-20211105-10429-nv4d5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">U.S. Olympic swimmer Mark Spitz performs the butterfly stroke.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/portrait-between-1968-and-1972-of-the-american-swimmer-mark-news-photo/104404157?adppopup=true">Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Creating a new swimming stroke was never on the agenda. Indeed, these changes made to the breaststroke were never sanctioned. Only decades later did the so-called “butterfly stroke” receive sanctioning as a separate Olympic event.</p>
<h2>Perspiration leads to inspiration</h2>
<p>When it comes to the creative process, there is no one correct way or approach, and what works for Paul McCartney might not work for another talented songwriter.</p>
<p>Consider Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Lang’s “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RM_MWAX5TQ">Simple Song #3</a>,” which he wrote for Paolo Sorrentino’s first English-language feature film, “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3312830/">Youth</a>.”</p>
<p>Because of the movie’s intimacy and emotionality, Lang wanted to write lyrics that might be whispered to a lover. So he deployed a highly unusual method: typing “when you whisper my name I …” into Google search to see what came up. </p>
<p>“I got thousands of pornographic things and terrible things and things that were so specific I couldn’t really use them,” <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/01/how-to-write-a-song-with-google/423396/">he told The Atlantic in 2016</a>. “But I got a general catalog of what people say to their loved ones that they don’t want anyone else to hear.” </p>
<p>From this list, Lang chose a few that aligned best with his melody and produced a desirable result. </p>
<p>Lang had no inkling of what the final lyrics would before he began. His process could be thought of as the behavioral analog of biology’s evolutionary law of natural selection.</p>
<p>Then there’s Academy Award-, Tony Award- and Grammy Award-winning composer Stephen Sondheim, who actually wrote an ode to the songwriting process in his 1992 song “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQ7Di5XLUq0">Putting It Together</a>.” </p>
<p>The patter-paced lyrics are a tribute not to inspiration, but to perspiration. </p>
<p>Sondheim writes of how composing a song is no easy matter; it demands considerable time, hard work and persistence. You must start with a firm foundation. Then, step by step, piece by piece, you must build upon it, honing the piece along the way, so that each brick signifies a real improvement.</p>
<p>Sweating all of the numerous details in the process of “putting it together” doesn’t guarantee a payoff – the hit you seek may turn out to be a miss. But to Sondheim, any successful song requires this sort of painstaking effort.</p>
<p>Of course, the creative process plays a role not only in the arts, but also in sports, politics, science and medicine. Regrettably, most people blithely believe that genius, inspiration, insight and foresight are the dominant forces that foster game-changing innovations. </p>
<p>That’s why authoritative accounts like those of Paul McCartney, David Lang and Stephen Sondheim are so valuable. They’re objective explanations that better measure up to scientific scrutiny and avoid the knee-jerk impulse to evoke musty tropes like insight and genius, which really explain nothing at all.</p>
<p>[<em>Over 115,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletter to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-newsletter-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=100Ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/170987/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Edward Wasserman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The ‘Eureka!’ moment is a myth – an altogether naïve and fanciful account of innovation.
Edward Wasserman, Professor of Experimental Psychology, University of Iowa
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/165127
2021-09-13T12:13:38Z
2021-09-13T12:13:38Z
‘Imagine’ at 50: Why John Lennon’s ode to humanism still resonates
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420554/original/file-20210910-19-y8luzb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C694%2C2220%2C1633&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Fifty years ago, did John Lennon tell us not to pray?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/photo-of-john-lennon-news-photo/80800975?adppopup=true">Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Fifty years ago, John Lennon released <a href="https://theconversation.com/john-lennons-imagine-at-50-a-deceptively-simple-ballad-a-lasting-emblem-of-hope-167444">one of the most beautiful, inspirational</a> and catchy pop anthems of the 20th century: “Imagine.” </p>
<p>Gentle and yet increasingly stirring as the song progresses, “Imagine” is unabashedly utopian and deeply moral, calling on people to live, as one humanity, in peace. It is also purposely and <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-04/imagine-50-years-john-lennon-beatles/100238128">powerfully irreligious</a>. From its opening lyric, “Imagine there’s no heaven,” to the refrain, “And no religion too,” Lennon sets out what is, to many, a clear atheistic message.</p>
<p>While most pop songs are secular by default – in that they are about the things of this world, making no mention of the divine or spiritual – “Imagine” is explicitly secularist. In Lennon’s telling, religion is an impediment to human flourishing – something to be overcome, transcended.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://www.pitzer.edu/academics/faculty/phil-zuckerman/">scholar of secularism</a> and a devout fan of the Beatles, I have always been fascinated by how “Imagine,” perhaps the first and only atheist anthem to be so enormously successful, has come to be so widely embraced in America. After all, the U.S. is a country that has – at least until <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/341963/church-membership-falls-below-majority-first-time.aspx">recently</a> – had a much <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/07/31/americans-are-far-more-religious-than-adults-in-other-wealthy-nations/">more</a> religious population than other Western industrialized democracies.</p>
<p>Since being released as a single on Oct. 11 1971, “Imagine” has sold millions, going No. 1 in the U.S. and U.K. charts. And its popularity has endured. Rolling Stone magazine named “Imagine” as the <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/500-greatest-songs-of-all-time-151127/aretha-franklin-respect-36873/">third greatest song of all time</a> in 2003, and it regularly tops national polls in Canada, <a href="https://radioinfo.com.au/news/imagine-voted-best-gold-hit/">Australia</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/jan/07/johnarlidge.theobserver">the U.K</a>.</p>
<p>Countless recording artists have covered it, and it remains one of the most performed songs throughout the world – the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZaXRQIjR68">opening ceremony</a> of this year’s Olympics Games in Tokyo featured it being sung by a host of international artists, a testament to its global appeal.</p>
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<p>But not everyone is enamored of its message. Robert Barron, the auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles, <a href="https://nypost.com/2021/07/25/imagine-blared-at-the-olympics-is-a-totalitarians-anthem/">responded to the recent Tokyo rendition</a> by lambasting “Imagine” as a “totalitarian anthem” and “an invitation to moral and political chaos.” His issue: the atheistic lyrics.</p>
<p>Numerous attempts have been made since “Imagine” was released to reconcile Lennon’s anthem with religion. Scholars, those of faith and fellow musicians have argued that the lyrics <a href="https://www.odt.co.nz/opinion/faith-and-reason-imagine-really-atheist">aren’t really atheistic</a>, just <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/imagine-the-anthem-of-2001-83559/">anti-organized religion</a>. Others have taken the sledgehammer approach and just changed the lyrics outright – CeeLo Green sang “And all religion’s true” in <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/cee-lo-green-outrages-john-lennon-fans-by-changing-lyrics-to-imagine-202240/">a televised rendition</a> on New Year’s Eve 2011.</p>
<p>In interviews, Lennon was at times <a href="http://www.beatlesinterviews.org/dbjypb.int3.html">ambiguous about his beliefs</a> on religion and spirituality, but such ambiguity is at odds with the clear message of “Imagine.” The song’s irreligious ethos is frank. The first verse speaks of there being “no heaven,” “no hell” – “Above us, only sky.” In such clear, distilled words, Lennon captures the very marrow of the secular orientation. To me, Lennon is saying that we live in a purely physical universe that operates along strictly natural laws – there is nothing supernatural out there, even beyond the stars.</p>
<p>He also expresses a distinct “here-and-nowness” at odds with many religions. In asking listeners to “Imagine all the people, livin’ for today,” Lennon is, to quote the <a href="https://www.upworthy.com/ever-heard-of-union-hero-joe-hill-hes-missing-from-most-history-books-today">labor activist and atheist Joe Hill</a>, suggesting there will be “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8qoB1XwtHM">no pie in the sky when you die</a>,” nor will a fiery eternal torture await you.</p>
<p>Lennon’s lyrics also give way to an implied existentialism. With no gods and no afterlife, only humankind – within ourselves and among each other – can decide how to live and choose what matters. We can choose to live without violence, greed or hunger and – to quote “Imagine” – exist as a “brotherhood of man … sharing all the world.”</p>
<p>It is here that Lennon’s <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-secular-life/202002/what-is-secular-humanism">humanism</a> – the belief that humans, without reliance upon anything supernatural, have the capacity to create a better, more humane world – comes to the fore. Nihilism is not the path, nor is despondency, debauchery or destruction. Rather, Lennon’s “Imagine” entails a humanistic desire to see an end to suffering.</p>
<p>The spirit of empathy and compassion throughout the song is in line with what <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1948550612444137">scholarship</a> has <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13674670310001606450?src=recsys">found</a> to be strong traits <a href="https://www.stmarys.ac.uk/research/centres/benedict-xvi/docs/benedict-centre-understanding-unbelief-report.pdf">commonly</a> <a href="https://phys.org/news/2021-02-atheists-believers-moral-compasses-key.html?utm_source=TrendMD&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Phys.org_TrendMD_1">observable</a> among <a href="https://news.berkeley.edu/2012/04/30/religionandgenerosity/">secular men and women</a>. Despite attempts to tie Lennon and “Imagine” to blood-lusting atheists <a href="https://sojo.net/articles/why-john-lennons-imagine-actually-not-great-song">like Stalin and Pol Pot</a>, the overwhelming majority of godless people <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/311795/living-the-secular-life-by-phil-zuckerman/">seek to live ethical lives</a>.</p>
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<p>For example, <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/08/21/staunch-atheists-show-higher-morals-than-the-proudly-pious-from-the-pandemic-to-climate-change/">studies have shown</a> that when it comes to things like <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/05/24/the-group-least-likely-to-think-the-u-s-has-a-responsibility-to-accept-refugees-evangelicals/">wanting to</a> <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jrs/article/32/3/502/5298199?login=true">help</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/socofthesacred/status/1427973457703211012/photo/1">refugees</a>, seeking to <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13644-020-00396-0">establish affordable health care</a>, <a href="https://www.prri.org/research/fractured-nation-widening-partisan-polarization-and-key-issues-in-2020-presidential-elections/">fighting</a> <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2015/10/22/religion-and-views-on-climate-and-energy-issues/">climate change</a> and being sensitive to <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1088868309352179">racism</a> and <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/09/28/religiously-unaffiliated-people-more-likely-than-those-with-a-religion-to-lean-left-accept-homosexuality/">homophobia</a>, the godless stand out as particularly moral.</p>
<p>Indeed, secular people in general <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2011-10474-001">exhibit an orientation</a> that is <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1368430211410996?casa_token=lAvYSk5xzI8AAAAA%3AzyF9nW4T0_p6nuM_v2NIiZLkEuar1rhGQdg2J7Qy2NLmu3c-yiWb4zFoeVnMpOKC3FiIpKXO9y17bfQ">markedly tolerant</a>, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15327582ijpr0202_5?src=recsys">democratic</a> and <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-secular-life/201807/religion-secularism-and-xenophobia">universalistic</a> – values Lennon holds up as ideals in “Imagine.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.salon.com/2019/11/09/the-unbearable-wrongness-of-william-barr/">Other studies reveal</a> that the democratic countries that are the least religious – the ones that have gone furthest down the road of “imagining no religion” – <a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479878086/society-without-god-second-edition/">are the most</a> safe, humane, green and ethical. </p>
<p>“Imagine” was not the first time Lennon sang his secular humanism. A year before, in 1970, he released “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MqKXjclNHw">I Found Out</a>,” declaring his lack of belief in either Jesus or Krishna. Also in 1970, he put out the haunting, scorching “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCNkPpq1giU">God</a>.” Beginning with a classic psychological explanation of theism – that humans construct the concept of God as a way to cope with and measure their pain – “God” goes on to list all the things that Lennon most decidedly does not believe in: the Bible, Jesus, Gita, Buddha, I-Ching, magic and so on. In the end, all that he believes in is his own verifiable personal reality. Arriving at such a place was, for the bespectacled walrus from Liverpool, to be truly “reborn.”</p>
<p>But neither “I Found Out” nor “God” achieved anywhere near the massive success that “Imagine” did. No other atheist pop song has.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Phil Zuckerman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Regularly topping lists for ‘greatest song of all time,’ the former Beatle’s classic 1971 song is taken by many as an atheistic anthem.
Phil Zuckerman, Professor of Sociology and Secular Studies, Pitzer College
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/159166
2021-04-21T10:02:50Z
2021-04-21T10:02:50Z
Prince: Why, five years after his death, the Purple One still reigns
<p>It seems strangely characteristic of Prince that, despite passing away five years ago, it can feel as if he never left. Apart from the sheer volume of his hits on radio playlists and streaming platforms, his performances are a staple of the flow of social media content that conflates past and present. </p>
<p>There’s some irony in that what is probably his <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SFNW5F8K9Y">most widely circulated performance</a> – close to 100 million views on one YouTube channel alone – is on someone else’s song, where he steals the show with a barnstorming guitar solo on The Beatles’ While My Guitar Gently Weeps at an all-star tribute to George Harrison. But the moment also perfectly encapsulates why he still seems present all these years after his death, and decades since his dominance of the upper reaches of the charts. </p>
<p>From his sudden appearance halfway through the song, to throwing his guitar in the air and marching off-stage imperiously at its conclusion, it’s a crystallisation of technical mastery, showmanship, supreme confidence (bordering on arrogance) and humour. Pulling grimaces, falling backwards into the security staff, he simultaneously parodies the trope of the “rock guitar hero” while providing a textbook example of it in action – antithesis and apotheosis in one.</p>
<h2>Reinventing the music game</h2>
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<p>This capacity for seemingly winning the game while refusing to play by the rules is what has allowed his persona, as well as his music, to remain salient. For despite his jaw-dropping technique and stagecraft during acts like the Harrison tribute and his <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WYYlRArn3g">2007 Superbowl Performance</a>, his legacy retains an air of mystery.</p>
<p>This is partly a factor of his musical range, as well as his distinctiveness. From the outset, Prince was an exceptional multi-instrumentalist, capable of recording entire albums himself, and a hard taskmaster. Indeed, aged 20, on his first album he <a href="https://www.esquire.com/uk/culture/a35469515/prince-paisley-park-alexis-petridis/">played 27 instruments and clashed with experienced production crew</a>, his creative choices sending the album three times over its budget. His individualism was reflected in a musical output that synthesised the gamut of popular forms – funk, soul, R&B, pop – and at the height of MTV’s power he crashed into mainstream rock on his own terms.</p>
<p>A part of his enigma, though, also resides in his prodigious talent and remarkable work rate. Few artists have matched his ability to produce such a constant stream of releases over the course of his career (Bob Dylan is a possible exception). But what marks Prince out is that the material he made public was the tip of the iceberg. He recorded constantly, taking on all-night recording sessions after gigs, and using mini-studios installed on his tour buses. The 37 studio albums he released in his lifetime are a fraction of his work, the contents of his famed “vault” running to “<a href="https://www.vulture.com/2018/09/prince-vault-archivist-michael-howe-interview.html">thousands</a>” of unreleased songs, according to his archivist Michael Howe, including complete albums and finished videos.</p>
<h2>Still in control</h2>
<p>This is the context for the forthcoming release of Prince’s Welcome 2 America album in July, originally recorded in 2010-11 and the first fully realised studio album to come out after his death. Posthumous releases are, of course, nothing new. From Buddy Holly, through Hendrix to Kurt Cobain, they’re a staple of the recording industry. There’s a wide range of types, and quality, of such releases – from works in progress finished off by collaborators to rough-and-ready demos. What distinguishes the prospect of “new” studio work from Prince is his emphasis on control over his output, and frequent capacity for shelving finished pieces. The work will be his own vision, undiluted by latter-day production decisions or guesswork.</p>
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<p>The title track, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJtxSdTL488">Welcome 2 America</a>, is redolent of his blend of smooth funk, angular jazz, pop vocals and a spoken word track that looks askance at his surroundings. With echoes of his 1987 state of society address, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EdxM72EZ94">Sign ‘O’ The Times</a>, it takes swipes at disposable, online culture:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>information overload<br>
Welcome 2 America<br>
Distracted by the features of the iPhone<br>
Go to school to become a celebrity<br>
truth is a new minority.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Ten years on, his concerns resonate in an era of anxiety over the effects of the web on political culture.</p>
<p>Indeed, for all that his legacy circulates online, Prince himself was chary of the internet and had a variable and fractious relationship with it, alternatively providing exclusive online releases and <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2015/7/2/8882527/prince-streaming-music-spotify-tidal">withdrawing his output from Spotify</a> (until 2017, when his music became available on <a href="https://qz.com/908109/prince-music-is-now-on-all-streaming-services-which-prince-wouldve-absolutely-hated/">most streaming services</a>). This was all part of his lengthy battle to retain control over his music. The same struggle that saw him temporarily change his name to an unpronounceable glyph and inscribe “Slave” on his face in protest at his treatment by his label Warner <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-36107590">in the early 1990s</a>.</p>
<p>Ultimately, his steadfast refusal to compromise – even if it meant that there were some erratic releases and an awkward relationship with industry during his lifetime – lends the vast body of work in his vault an unusual authority. As well as the sense that he wasn’t finished, it’s also clear that we haven’t heard the last of him yet.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/159166/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Behr has received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the British Academy. </span></em></p>
Ahead of the release of the artist’s posthumous album, a sense of awe and mystery around his huge archive of unreleased music remains
Adam Behr, Senior Lecturer in Popular and Contemporary Music, Newcastle University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/147175
2020-11-02T19:06:33Z
2020-11-02T19:06:33Z
My best worst film: Across the Universe is a Beatles jukebox musical masterpiece
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365152/original/file-20201023-14-1bip31e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C2%2C1914%2C1074&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sony Pictures Entertainment</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In a new series, our writers explore their best worst film. They’ll tell you what the critics got wrong – and why it’s time to give these movies another chance.</em></p>
<p>In 2007, Columbia Pictures released the psychedelic <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0445922/">Across the Universe</a>, using 33 songs by The Beatles to form a story of young bohemians living in New York during the Vietnam War era. </p>
<p>Liverpool dockworker Jude (Jim Sturgess) heads to the US in search of his American father, where he becomes friends with Princeton dropout Max (Joe Anderson) and Max’s sister, Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood). </p>
<p>Max and Jude move to New York, sharing a flat with Prudence (T.V. Carpio), a lesbian runaway from Ohio; Sadie (Dana Fuchs), a Janis Joplin-like soul singer; and the Jimi Hendrix-like Jo-Jo (Martin Luther McCoy), who is fleeing the race riots in Detroit. When Lucy’s boyfriend is killed in Vietnam, she also moves to New York, where she and Jude fall in love. </p>
<p>The film is in a near-constant state of song — there are only 30 minutes of spoken dialogue – ending with the cast uniting in a rooftop performance of “All You Need is Love”. This mirrors The Beatles’ own <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/01/30/beatles-played-london-rooftop-it-wound-up-being-their-last-show/">final performance</a> on the rooftop of the Apple Corps building in London in 1969. </p>
<p>The movie was <a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/across_the_universe">blasted</a> for its saccharine, hippy-dippy, sanitised depictions of the 60s. Critics called it commercialised fodder for bourgeois audiences who lacked any real engagement with the politics of the period – but <a href="http://www.screeningthepast.com/2017/12/a-double-layered-nostalgia-the-sixties-the-iraq-war-and-the-beatles-in-julie-taymors-across-the-universe-2007/">I think</a> the film actually asks something more complex of its audience.</p>
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<h2>A star director, a critical flop</h2>
<p>Director Julie Taymor is most well known for her stage musical The Lion King (1997), for which she became the <a href="https://www.tonyawards.com/news/women-making-history-at-the-tony-awards/">first woman</a> to win the Tony Award for best direction of a musical. While she has mostly worked in theatre and opera, her films before Across the Universe included <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120866/">Titus</a> (1999) and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120679/">Frida</a> (2002).</p>
<p>In the early 2000s, musicals based on popular songbooks experienced <a href="https://www.cheaptheatretickets.com/mamma-mia-jukebox-musical/">renewed popularity</a> on stage and screen, and shows like <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0319931/">American Idol</a> (2002–), where contestants regularly sing 60s and 70s songs, became major hits. </p>
<p>The combination of a Beatles soundtrack and a star director should therefore have been a formula for a hit. But even with its popular soundtrack and Taymor’s credentials, Across The Universe did not replicate the success of other jukebox movie musicals of the decade like <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0203009/">Moulin Rouge!</a> (2001) or <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0795421/">Mamma Mia!</a> (2008).</p>
<p>The film was a total flop at the box office, <a href="https://bombreport.com/yearly-breakdowns/2007-2/across-the-universe/">making</a> just US$29.6 million (A$41.8 million) against a production budget of US$70.8 million (A$99.9 million). It was slammed by critics.</p>
<p>Time Out <a href="https://www.timeout.com/london/film/across-the-universe">described Across the Universe</a> as “often so embarrassing to watch that you’ll be checking over your shoulder to check that no one’s looking.”</p>
<p>Stephen Holden from the New York Times <a href="http://movies.nytimes.com/2007/09/14/movies/14univ.html">called it</a> “unadulterated white, middle-class baby boomer nostalgia”.</p>
<p>But these sentiments miss the beauty and the artistry of Taymor’s reinvention of the music and the period.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"779464802523574272"}"></div></p>
<h2>Our personal connection to pop music</h2>
<p>Particularly interesting about Across the Universe is the way it activates a nostalgic longing for the counterculture of the 1960s through an <em>absence</em> of The Beatles – it is not a biopic about them, nor do they appear in the film. </p>
<p>Taymor uses The Beatles as a recognisable language. The characters take ownership of the songs’ sentiments, using popular music in the way ordinary people do all the time. </p>
<p>While Mamma Mia! completely decoupled ABBA’s songs from their origin, Across The Universe involves the audience in remembering The Beatles’ music, deploying these memories to make sense of the film and its reworking of the 1960s.</p>
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<p>Jude and Max bond over their shared rejection of society and become involved in a free-wheeling group of artists; Jo-Jo, dejected after his brother is killed by the National Guard, joins Sadie in creating experimental music; Prudence runs away from home as she struggles with her sexuality. </p>
<p>All along, the Beatles’ songs allow the audience insight into young characters who struggle with identity, expression and emotional development. With glorious artistic direction and enthusiastic choreography, Taymor reworks the famous lyrics for new characters and a new narrative. </p>
<p>In I Want You (She’s So Heavy), the originally erotic song lyrics are sung by a frightening Uncle Sam during Max’s drafting appointment. Uncle Sam reaches out from his poster and drags Max into an aggressive medical examination that becomes a dance sequence with an army sergeant. </p>
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<p>The song ends with Max and the fresh recruits carrying a giant Statue of Liberty through the Vietnamese jungle as they sing “she’s so heavy”. </p>
<p>This number resembles a trippy music video, relying on Taymor’s distinctive mix of theatrics, animation and puppetry. An originally sexy song becomes a frightening commentary on the senseless war in Vietnam.</p>
<p>When Max returns, he sings <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXWMt4vkQ80">Happiness is a Warm Gun</a> in a hospital ward with other injured soldiers. He hallucinates a vision of a beautiful nurse (Salma Hayek) who multiplies, administering morphine to the patients. The melancholy and nonsensical nature of the first verse is presented as Max’s incoherent ramblings to Lucy.</p>
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<p>Across the Universe understands the ways a reworked cover version can be used as personal expression. I Want to Hold Your Hand is sung by the closeted Prudence as she pines after a fellow cheerleader. </p>
<p>A once cheerful upbeat pop song about a cutesy love interest turns into a slow lament of lost love. </p>
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<p>Taymor <a href="https://cdm15963.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15963coll9/id/156020/rec/24">says</a> she set out to reimagine the film musical by harnessing the power of music videos as an alternative to traditional production numbers. The film successfully combined the film musical and the music video years before <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1327801/">Glee</a> (2009-15) used the same format when <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o1W_bvpE8U&ab_channel=MusicOfGlee">gay cheerleaders sang</a> to each other.</p>
<p>Across the Universe was dismissed for its cliched pastiche of the 1960s. But if you consider the way the film re-purposed the music for a new 60s without the Beatles, Taymor reinvigorated both the film genre and the music we thought we knew.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/147175/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Phoebe Macrossan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
It was a box office flop, panned by critics. But in using the songs of the Beatles to craft a story of Vietnam-era America, Julie Taymor reinvigorated the film musical.
Phoebe Macrossan, Associate Lecturer/Sessional Academic, Queensland University of Technology
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/147857
2020-10-09T15:40:05Z
2020-10-09T15:40:05Z
Two of Us: inside John Lennon’s incredible songwriting partnership with Paul McCartney
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362629/original/file-20201009-23-1t18rew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C208%2C1524%2C1018&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Greatest pop songwriting team ever?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">United States Library of Congress</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>John Lennon was acutely aware of his place in the musical lineage, and the strengths and weaknesses of his own songwriting. His tendency to speak in bold strokes – “Before Elvis there was nothing!” – belied at times both the variety in his work, and its complicated legacy.</p>
<p>Lennon would have been 80 years old on October 9, and his son Sean’s recent <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p08t4mx9">interview with Paul McCartney</a> highlights a few aspects of how their partnership shaped popular musical practice. McCartney recalls seeing Lennon around locally – on the bus, in the queue for fish and chips – before their famous first meeting at the <a href="https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/nostalgia/july-6-1957-day-beatles-9594637">Woolton Fête</a>, noting with approval at the time Lennon’s nascent identification with the Teddy Boy sub-culture.</p>
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<p>Importantly, their shared social milieu was an important foundation for the musical partnership. Sean Lennon also wonders about his father’s insecurities as a musician and a feeling that: “Somehow he wasn’t officially a true musician, and everyone else was.”</p>
<p>McCartney’s response is telling: “I don’t think any of us were, tell you the truth. And I think that was a very good, strong thing about us, actually.”</p>
<p>Part of the significance of The Beatles as a phenomenon, and the Lennon-McCartney partnership within that, was that its overwhelming industrial and creative success helped to ingrain the “band” as a modus operandi for making popular music into common cultural currency. </p>
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<p>The self-taught, peer-driven mode of music making that emerged from early rock and roll and skiffle was solidified as the next generation of its exponents – including Lennon and McCartney – took advantage of the relaxing social conditions as the 50s gave way to the 60s, and closed the gap between amateur and commercial activity. </p>
<h2>Joint ventures</h2>
<p>Mick Jagger once referred to the Beatles as a “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rolz1VasS4&feature=youtu.be&t=1m45s">four-headed monster</a>”. Indeed, The Rolling Stones’ own creation myth – a youthful Jagger and Keith Richards re-kindling a childhood friendship at <a href="https://www.kentonline.co.uk/dartford/news/blue-plaque-honours-birthplace-of-31457/">Dartford train station</a> over a chance encounter and a package of blues records – occupies a similar place in the historical narrative to Lennon and McCartney’s first encounter.</p>
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<p>An important underlying aspect of how such partnerships worked, however, is that as well as springing from self-taught musicianship, and the rough-and-tumble of social lives away from the formal demands of school and adult society, they combined what had hitherto often been separate functions – that of songwriter and performer. This wasn’t exclusively the case in rock. </p>
<p>The role of the songwriter as a marker of authenticity in rock music – singing one’s own compositions – drew from a Romantic wellspring, harking back to the 18th century, of artists as a source of inspiration and value beyond being mere entertainers. It also drew from folk traditions, as singer-songwriters asserted their individuality – Bob Dylan is a case in point here. </p>
<p>But there was a <a href="https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/327341082.pdf">growing sense of authenticity in bands</a>, residing in the membership as well as the music. It mattered, for instance, when Ringo Starr contracted tonsillitis and was replaced for part of a tour of Australia by replacement drummer Jimmy Nicol. And songwriting partnerships such as Lennon-McCartney, and Jagger, Richards (as they appeared in the credits) were at the heart of this.</p>
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<p>They were also central to the power dynamic within bands. There was – and is – a financial advantage to being credited as a songwriter on top of being a performer in terms of the rights and royalties that accrue. A band is a partnership on several levels: social, creative and financial. Indeed, some acts have deliberately reoriented their arrangements to account for this. </p>
<p>R.E.M., the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/ruthblatt/2014/02/03/six-surprising-things-that-u2-and-the-red-hot-chili-peppers-have-in-common-other-than-a-spotlight-at-the-super-bowl/#473929a7fc23">Red Hot Chilli Peppers and U2</a>, for instance, made a point of co-crediting all band members regardless of who wrote a particular song or passage. And Queen shifted to such an arrangement and away from individual composers’ credits, partly as a way of reducing intra-band disputes about which songs to choose as singles.</p>
<h2>Moving apart</h2>
<p>In the case of the Beatles, Lennon and McCartney had ceased to co-write the songs several years before the band actually split, although as performers and bandmates they continued to help shape them in the production process. Tensions across one of these axes might be sustainable. The Beatles took divergent paths as the 60s wore on, as is natural enough for school-friends as they move through adulthood and start families. </p>
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<p>But by the end of the decade, simultaneous divergence in the creative, social and financial pathways made the partnership unmanageable. “Musical differences” is often jokingly referred to as a proxy for personal enmity. But in truth, the various threads are often hard to fully disentangle.</p>
<p>Ultimately, Lennon and McCartney complemented one another as personalities and as musicians. McCartney’s melodic facility smoothed over some of Lennon’s rougher edges. Lennon’s grit added texture and leavened some of McCartney’s more saccharine tendencies. </p>
<p>Their legacy, though, was more than just musical. Their success coincided with, and helped to shape, an explosion of youth culture as both creative and commercial enterprise. </p>
<p>We can’t know, of course, what would have happened had Lennon lived to 80, especially given that – their business problems receding into the past - his personal relationship with McCartney had become warmer again by the onset of the 1980s. With the hurly-burly of the Beatles behind them, they found common ground over the more prosaic matters of middle age. </p>
<p>As McCartney <a href="https://www.nme.com/news/music/paul-mccartney-299-1297236">put it</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We’d chat about how to make bread. Just ordinary stuff, you know. He’d had a baby by then – he’d had Sean – so we could talk babies and family and bread and stuff. So that made it a little bit easier, the fact that we were buddies.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But the fact that their evolution as songwriters and as friends took place in tandem is still felt in the emergence of popular musical enterprises from schoolyards and youthful peer groups in rock and beyond.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/147857/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Behr has received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council </span></em></p>
For a decade after they met as teenagers, Lennon-McCartney was the most potent songwriting partnership in pop music.
Adam Behr, Lecturer in Popular and Contemporary Music, Newcastle University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/142096
2020-07-07T14:59:15Z
2020-07-07T14:59:15Z
Arts rescue package: don’t forget small venues – they’re where big stars learned their trade
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346108/original/file-20200707-194405-pt8uae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C3000%2C1976&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What if The Beatles hasn't been talent-spotted at The Cavern Club in Liverpool?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">littlenySTOCK via Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Icons – and gigs – come in all shapes and sizes. July 6 marks the anniversary of the day that Paul McCartney and John Lennon first met at <a href="https://www.beatlesbible.com/1957/07/06/john-lennon-meets-paul-mccartney/">Woolton Fête in 1957</a>. Sixty-three years later McCartney has played at massive and historic events: Olympic ceremonies, Royal Jubilees, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSoYvI9t3ug">Live Aid</a> and, of course, stadiums and arenas around the world. </p>
<p>In the precarious, socially distanced atmosphere of COVID-19 it’s becoming just about possible to imagine a small outdoor gathering such as Woolten Fête taking place again. But the timeframe for music venues reopening is less certain. This is a major concern – by McCartney’s <a href="https://www.prsformusic.com/m-magazine/news/sir-paul-mccartney-throws-weight-behind-grassroots-venues/">own account</a>, it’s the “grassroots clubs, pubs and music venues” that shaped his craft as a performer. As he said in 2016: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Artists need places to start out, develop and work on their craft and small venues have been the cornerstone for this.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>COVID-19 and the lockdown have imperilled artistic activity and creative industries across the board – and the £1.57 billion rescue package from the UK chancellor of the exchequer, Rishi Sunak, offers much-needed breathing room for museums, venues, cinemas, galleries and theatres alike. </p>
<p>But much will depend on how this is administered – not just across the different art-forms but within these sectors: from the Royal Opera House to the small venues, including the Cavern and the Casbah Coffee Club where the Beatles cut their teeth. From the major cities to the smaller towns. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346117/original/file-20200707-194401-xupv2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346117/original/file-20200707-194401-xupv2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346117/original/file-20200707-194401-xupv2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346117/original/file-20200707-194401-xupv2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346117/original/file-20200707-194401-xupv2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346117/original/file-20200707-194401-xupv2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346117/original/file-20200707-194401-xupv2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">John Lennon’s band The Quarrymen, the day he met Paul McCartney.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Given the scale of the crisis, resources are finite but it’s important, where possible, not to view it as a zero-sum game. A key feature of the relationship between the grassroots clubs, the concert halls and the arenas is interdependence – an <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19401159.2015.1125633">ecology</a> where diversity of venues, as well as music styles, provides not only a pathway for musical careers but a cultural system where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.</p>
<h2>Cultural and economic value</h2>
<p>Oliver Dowden, the culture secretary, talks of preserving the “<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-53302415">crown jewels</a>”, such as the Royal Albert Hall, while the prime minister <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/157-billion-investment-to-protect-britains-world-class-cultural-arts-and-heritage-institutions">spoke of local venues</a>. Both are vital. The grassroots sector has been described as the “<a href="https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/sites/default/files/download-file/ACNLPG_Supporting_Grassroots_Live_Music_100519.pdf">research and development</a>” arm of the music industries and without these spaces it will be hard to produce the McCartneys of the future. This is not just a question of star power.</p>
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<p>Music is a significant contributor to the UK economy – around £5.2 billion per annum <a href="https://www.ukmusic.org/assets/general/Music_By_Numbers_2019_Report.pdf">according to UK Music</a>. And live music – at £1.1 billion in 2018 – is central to that. The days in which live performances were secondary to recordings have passed. Consumer spend on live music <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09548963.2014.925282">outpaced recordings in 2008</a> and the sector overall – to say nothing of individual careers – relies on the live experience.</p>
<p>To that end, the government’s announcement can be viewed as an investment as much as a bailout, urgently needed though it is. Nor do the economic figures tell the whole story. The UK Live Music Census of 2017 (which I worked on) demonstrated how venues are embedded into their localities, woven throughout the lives of audience members as well as musicians. <a href="http://uklivemusiccensus.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/UK-Live-Music-Census-2017-full-report.pdf">As one respondent told us</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I feel part of something greater as I’ve shared something beautiful with a crowd, even if I haven’t spoken to them; it makes me feel like I’m part of a community.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Small venues were also the category that had been most visited by respondents to the audience survey (78% had attended one in the previous 12 months) and this foundation for local and national musical life means that “heritage” spreads out beyond storied concert halls like the Albert Hall. Local live music has been a focus of <a href="http://livemusicexchange.org/wp-content/uploads/Facilitating-Music-Tourism-for-Scotland%E2%80%99s-Creative-Economy-Behr-Ord.pdf">tourism</a> as well as home consumption. </p>
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<p>As the licensee of Camden Town’s Dublin Castle put it when explaining how the venue was simultaneously <a href="http://livemusicexchange.org/wp-content/uploads/The-Cultural-Value-of-Live-Music-Pub-to-Stadium-report.pdf">a community resource and a part of a bigger cultural picture</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We get people travelling from Japan who come to The Dublin Castle because they know that Amy Winehouse played there and she used to frequent the bar. And they sit down and they’re thinking ‘I’m drinking where she drank’. And I think that makes you feel that you’re part of that scene which you want to belong to.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Nurturing the grassroots</h2>
<p>Despite its role in shaping Britain’s musical milieu, the grassroots sector hasn’t had it easy. Under pressure from <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/feb/16/uks-first-live-music-census-finds-small-venues-struggling">urban development and gentrification</a>, a spate of closures has led to the realisation that, once lost, these spaces are hard to replace. </p>
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<p>The <a href="http://musicvenuetrust.com/">Music Venue Trust</a>, which played a major role in lobbying for the recent injection of funds, did much to galvanise and give a more unified voice to what had hitherto been quite a disparate group of businesses – something that is, after all, a part of their appeal.</p>
<p>The imminent threat to hundreds of venues might be allayed, then, but they aren’t out of the woods yet. Brexit still looms on the horizon – and recent research has shown that the beyond the problems this may cause <a href="https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/what-affect-has-brexit-had-on-the-music-industry-1-6534435">for touring musicians</a>, there could also be knock-on effects from the cultural sector <a href="https://www2.aston.ac.uk/lss/research/lss-research/aston-centre-europe/projects-grants/blmp-report-i.pdf">to local employment</a> more widely. </p>
<p>A mapping exercise <a href="https://pec.ac.uk/blog/birmingham-live-music-map-in-times-of-covid-19">currently underway in Birmingham</a> demonstrates the difficulty of disentangling the fates of local scenes, national industries and international networks. The chancellor’s rescue package is a vital first step in maintaining the global stepping stones from Woolten Fête to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6DfG7sml-Q">Shea Stadium</a>. It’s important that it isn’t the last.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/142096/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Behr has received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council.</span></em></p>
Chances are your favourite band started out learning the trade at a pub or small club. Venues like this are under threat like never before.
Adam Behr, Lecturer in Popular and Contemporary Music, Newcastle University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/138239
2020-05-15T12:10:28Z
2020-05-15T12:10:28Z
How Little Richard helped launch the Beatles
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335186/original/file-20200514-77239-rsfw2n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">During their 1962 residency at Hamburg's Star-Club, the Beatles had the opportunity of a lifetime: opening for Little Richard.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/1st-may-the-beatles-posed-in-hamburg-germany-during-their-news-photo/184067810?adppopup=true"> Horst Fascher/K & K Ulf Kruger OHG/Redferns via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049263/">The Girl Can’t Help It</a>” is a 1956 film by Frank Tashlin about a young woman, played by Jayne Mansfield, who dreams of being a star vocalist. Some consider it <a href="https://search.proquest.com/docview/1514901325?pq-origsite=gscholar">the first rock ‘n’ roll music video ever made</a>; built into the story line were full versions of song performances by Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent. But Little Richard’s music was the star of the show – so much so that his song “The Girl Can’t Help It” became the movie’s title.</p>
<p>At a small Liverpool movie theater, a 14-year-old Paul McCartney watched the hit film, mesmerized by the energy, talent and charisma of Little Richard, who had a cameo performing “Ready Teddy.”</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Little Richard performing ‘Ready Teady’ in ‘The Girl Can’t Help It.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While Little Richard certainly left an impression on the talented young McCartney, he couldn’t have imagined that, in less than a decade, the two would take the stage together. </p>
<h2>Building towards the big moment</h2>
<p>A year later, McCartney met John Lennon, who was performing with his band in the back of a churchyard. The two quickly learned that they shared a love of American rock ‘n’ roll, and both were big fans of “The Girl Can’t Help It.” McCartney’s audition for Lennon even included a rendition of Eddie Cochran’s “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q08oC_34Mcc">20 Flight Rock</a>” from the movie. Lennon asked him to join the band.</p>
<p>The two started practicing together <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1990-05-15-9002090515-story.html">and dabbled in songwriting</a>. When penning tunes, McCartney and Lennon often borrowed a formula that Little Richard had made his trademark: three chords played with a contagious, driving rhythm and blues feel. </p>
<p>George Harrison joined them, along with Lennon’s art school buddy, Stuart Sutcliffe. They started performing together in Liverpool at venues like the <a href="https://www.beatlesstory.com/blog/2017/04/21/the-jacaranda-a-legendary-liverpool-venue/">Jacaranda</a> and the famed <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/09c1/1e24502ce96eefa1d50e5f0726e6f08799ce.pdf">Cavern Club</a>. Staples of their sets included covers of the Little Richard classics “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4gGFk2P854">Long Tall Sally</a>” and “Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey.” </p>
<p>As their popularity grew, they were invited to perform residencies as the house band at the Indra and Kaiserkeller clubs in Hamburg, Germany. Playing every night allowed them to hone their live chops; by the time they returned to Liverpool and the Cavern Club, they were seasoned performers, and the crowds at their shows swelled. The next year, they toured the U.K. with Roy Orbison and Del Shannon. And then the group got their biggest break yet: <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=iEpDeqa3FMsC&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=beatles+and+the+star-club&ots=FrRcmn-PmV&sig=qtyToKhWbkmWZnXJi8z8kDPscYg#v=onepage&q=beatles%20and%20the%20star-club&f=false">They were asked to be the opening act for Little Richard</a> at the brand new Star-Club in Hamburg in late 1962 for 14 shows.</p>
<p>Little Richard was riding high. From 1956 to 1959, he <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=IqOf0-1z6ckC&oi=fnd&pg=PP7&dq=the+Beatles+and+little+richard&ots=KeOQxGoheY&sig=8VW67RCvn1NiHTFIvHmQD-6hiQY#v=onepage&q=the%20Beatles%20and%20little%20richard&f=false">scored 18 hit singles</a> with his unique combination of wailing vocals, energetic piano playing and flamboyant style.</p>
<p>Not only did McCartney and Lennon get to meet their idol, but they also <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=xKx9c7m1FgoC&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=beatles+and+little+richard&ots=lguFK0vSDI&sig=_TbX5BvGGB0RDqvE1FxbtOqil28#v=onepage&q=beatles%20and%20little%20richard&f=false">got to observe and spend time with Little Richard backstage</a>. Little Richard would later recall helping McCartney hone his vocal style <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2CqEzy3iv4&t=1696s">in the green room</a>. And once their residency in Hamburg concluded, Little Richard joined the group in Liverpool to see them perform at the Cavern Club. He got a glimpse of what was to come; impressed by the group’s energy, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyPHSsw7tiQ">he foresaw success for the band in America</a>. </p>
<h2>Sticking with what Richard did best</h2>
<p>When the Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein secured them <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Beatles/jl6NDQAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=beatles+decca+rejection&pg=PA561&printsec=frontcover">their first audition with Decca Records</a> in early 1963, Epstein decided that the band should play a set list that sounded more refined than the tracks the group had performed in Hamburg. So in front of studio executives, the group played “Three Cool Cats,” “Besame Mucho” and “The Sheik of Araby.” There’s a reason you might not recognize these songs. The record company wasn’t impressed and decided against signing the band. </p>
<p>[<em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>When another opportunity presented itself to audition for <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Beatles/zQwIDQAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=beatles+emi+contract&pg=PA631&printsec=frontcover">George Martin</a> and <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Beatles/zQwIDQAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=beatles+emi+contract&pg=PA631&printsec=frontcover">the Parlaphone label</a>, the band didn’t make the same mistake twice: They returned to the hard-driving Little Richard-style rhythm and blues that they had mastered under his tutelage in Hamburg. They were offered a contract, provided they find a better drummer, which is where Ringo Starr enters the story.</p>
<p>In late 1963 the group recorded their first album, “<a href="https://www.thebeatles.com/album/please-please-me">Please, Please Me</a>,” in 10 hours over the course of one day. It was basically their live show from the Star-Club. Tracks like “I Saw Her Standing There,” “Please, Please Me” and the album’s final song, “Twist and Shout,” borrowed heavily from the style of Richard. On the album, Lennon’s voice is noticeably harsh; it sounds raw and edgy – just like the man they had been studying in Germany. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1259260124750897153"}"></div></p>
<p>A few months after this recording session, the group <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Sundays_with_Sullivan/_GxrEv8RnSYC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=beatles+ed+sullivan&printsec=frontcover">famously appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show</a>, which catapulted them to international stardom.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/How_the_Beatles_Changed_the_World/NR8eAwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=beatles+most+successful+group+of+all+time&printsec=frontcover">The rest is history</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/138239/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Clint Randles does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
When a 14-year-old Paul McCartney watched Little Richard in the hit film ‘The Girl Can’t Help It,’ he couldn’t have imagined that the two would one day take the stage together.
Clint Randles, Associate Professor of Music Education, University of South Florida
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/130980
2020-04-10T12:12:04Z
2020-04-10T12:12:04Z
Inside the Beatles’ messy breakup, 50 years ago
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/326989/original/file-20200409-165427-i79n2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=100%2C8%2C1658%2C1069&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Who broke up with whom?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-beatles-celebrate-the-completion-of-their-new-album-sgt-news-photo/3297187?adppopup=true">Anurag Papolu/The Conversation via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Fifty years ago, when Paul McCartney announced he had left the Beatles, the news dashed the hopes of millions of fans, while fueling false reunion rumors that persisted well into the new decade. </p>
<p>In a press release on April 10, 1970 for his first solo album, “<a href="https://www.beatlesbible.com/people/paul-mccartney/albums/mccartney/">McCartney</a>,” he leaked his intention to leave. In doing so, he shocked his three bandmates.</p>
<p>The Beatles had symbolized the great communal spirit of the era. How could they possibly come apart? </p>
<p>Few at the time were aware of the underlying fissures. The power struggles in the group had been mounting at least since their manager, Brian Epstein, died in August of 1967. </p>
<h2>‘Paul Quits the Beatles’</h2>
<p>Was McCartney’s “announcement” official? His album appeared on April 17, and its press packet included a mock interview. In it, McCartney <a href="https://www.beatlesbible.com/1970/04/10/paul-mccartney-announces-the-beatles-split/">is asked</a>, “Are you planning a new album or single with the Beatles?”</p>
<p>His response? “No.” </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325794/original/file-20200406-104477-gkg4w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325794/original/file-20200406-104477-gkg4w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325794/original/file-20200406-104477-gkg4w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325794/original/file-20200406-104477-gkg4w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325794/original/file-20200406-104477-gkg4w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=999&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325794/original/file-20200406-104477-gkg4w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=999&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325794/original/file-20200406-104477-gkg4w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=999&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Daily Mirror took McCartney at his word.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Daily Mirror</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But he didn’t say whether the separation might prove permanent. The Daily Mirror nonetheless framed its headline conclusively: “Paul Quits the Beatles.” </p>
<p>The others worried this could hurt sales and sent Ringo as a peacemaker to McCartney’s London home to talk him down from releasing his solo album ahead of the band’s “Let It Be” album and film, which were slated to come out in May. Without any press present, McCartney <a href="https://www.beatlesbible.com/1970/03/31/paul-mccartney-ringo-starr-letter-john-lennon-george-harrison-let-it-be/">shouted Ringo off his front stoop</a>.</p>
<h2>Lennon had kept quiet</h2>
<p>Lennon, who had been active outside the band for months, felt particularly betrayed.</p>
<p>The previous September, soon after the band released “Abbey Road,” he <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/why-the-beatles-broke-up-113403/">had asked</a> his bandmates for a “divorce.” But the others convinced him not to go public to prevent disrupting some delicate contract negotiations. </p>
<p>Still, Lennon’s departure seemed imminent: He had played the Toronto Rock ‘n’ Roll Festival with his Plastic Ono Band in September 1969, and on Feb. 11, 1970, he performed a new solo track, “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZQny1XxOdI">Instant Karma</a>,” on the popular British TV show “Top of the Pops.” Yoko Ono sat behind him, knitting while blindfolded by a sanitary napkin. </p>
<p>In fact, Lennon behaved more and more like a solo artist, until McCartney countered with his own eponymous album. He wanted Apple to release this solo debut alongside the group’s new album, “<a href="https://www.thebeatles.com/album/let-it-be">Let It Be</a>,” to dramatize the split. </p>
<p>By beating Lennon to the announcement, McCartney controlled the story and its timing, and undercut the other three’s interest in keeping it under wraps as new product hit stores.</p>
<p>Ray Connolly, a reporter at the Daily Mail, knew Lennon well enough to ring him up for comment. When I interviewed Connolly in 2008, he told me about their conversation. </p>
<p>Lennon was dumbfounded and enraged by the news. He had let Connolly in on his secret about leaving the band at his Montreal Bed-In in December 1969, but asked him to keep it quiet. Now he lambasted Connolly for not leaking it sooner. </p>
<p>“Why didn’t you write it when I told you in Canada at Christmas!” he exclaimed to Connolly, who reminded him that the conversation had been off the record. “You’re the f–king journalist, Connolly, not me,” snorted Lennon. </p>
<p>“We were all hurt [McCartney] didn’t tell us what he was going to do,” <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/lennon-remembers-part-one-186693/">Lennon later told Rolling Stone</a>. “Jesus Christ! He gets all the credit for it! I was a fool not to do what Paul did, which was use it to sell a record…”</p>
<h2>It all falls apart</h2>
<p>This public fracas had been bubbling under the band’s cheery surface for years. Timing and sales concealed deeper arguments about creative control and the return to live touring. </p>
<p>In January 1969, the group had started a roots project tentatively titled “Get Back.” It was supposed to be a back-to-the-basics recording without the artifice of studio trickery. But the whole venture was shelved as a new recording, “Abbey Road,” took shape.</p>
<p>When “Get Back” was eventually revived, Lennon – behind McCartney’s back – brought in American producer <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Phil-Spector">Phil Spector</a>, best known for girl group hits like “Be My Baby,” to salvage the project. But this album was supposed to be band only – not embroidered with added strings and voices – and McCartney fumed when Spector added a female choir to his song “The Long and Winding Road.” </p>
<p>“Get Back” – which was renamed “Let it Be” – nonetheless moved forward. Spector mixed the album, and a cut of the feature film was readied for summer. </p>
<p>McCartney’s announcement and release of his solo album effectively short-circuited the plan. By announcing the breakup, he launched his solo career in advance of “<a href="https://www.beatlesbible.com/albums/let-it-be/">Let It Be</a>,” and nobody knew how it might disrupt the official Beatles’ project. </p>
<p>Throughout the remainder of 1970, fans watched in disbelief as the “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0HfT_a3bIw">Let It Be</a>” movie portrayed the hallowed Beatles circling musical doldrums, bickering about arrangements and killing time running through oldies. The film finished with an ironic triumph – <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/01/30/beatles-played-london-rooftop-it-wound-up-being-their-last-show/">the famous live set on the roof of their Apple headquarters</a> during which the band played “Get Back,” “Don’t Let Me Down” and a joyous “One After 909.”</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NCtzkaL2t_Y?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Beatles played their last live show in a January 1969 concert staged for the documentary ‘Let It Be.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The album, released on May 8, performed well and spawned two hit singles – the title track and “The Long and Winding Road” – but the group never recorded together again.</p>
<p>Their fans hoped against hope that four solo Beatles might someday find their way back to the thrills that had enchanted audiences for seven years. These rumors seemed most promising when <a href="https://longreads.com/2019/06/24/took-you-by-surprise-john-and-pauls-lost-reunion/">McCartney joined Lennon for a Los Angeles recording session</a> in 1974 with Stevie Wonder. But while they all played on one another’s solo efforts, the four never played a session together again. </p>
<p>At the beginning of 1970, autumn’s “Come Together”/“Something” single from “Abbey Road” still floated in the Billboard top 20; the “Let It Be” album and film helped extend fervor beyond what the papers reported. For a long time, the myth of the band endured on radio playlists and across several greatest hits compilations, but when John Lennon sang “The dream is over…” at the end of his own 1970 solo debut, “<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/john-lennon-plastic-ono-band-108294/">John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band</a>,” few grasped the lyrics’ implacable truth. </p>
<p>Fans and critics chased every sliver of hope for the “next” Beatles, but few came close to recreating the band’s magic. There were prospects – first bands like Three Dog Night, the Flaming Groovies, Big Star and the Raspberries; later, Cheap Trick, the Romantics and the Knack – but these groups only aimed at the same heights the Beatles had conquered, and none sported the range, songwriting ability or ineffable chemistry of the Liverpool quartet.</p>
<p>We’ve been living in the world without Beatles ever since.</p>
<p>[<em>Insight, in your inbox each day.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=insight">You can get it with The Conversation’s email newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130980/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim Riley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Unbridled ambition and bruised egos created an irreparable fissure.
Tim Riley, Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director for Journalism, Emerson College
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/127174
2019-11-27T19:37:53Z
2019-11-27T19:37:53Z
‘The Wall’ cemented Pink Floyd’s fame – but destroyed the band
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304127/original/file-20191127-112545-1219h0q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=14%2C4%2C3118%2C2046&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Roger Waters continues to perform 'The Wall' even after leaving Pink Floyd.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Hungary-The-Wall-Concert/27b0a8c0ffa240b48003094e1c0abdbb/35/0">AP Photo/MTI, Balazs Mohai</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Forty years ago, on Nov. 30, 1979, the English progressive rock band Pink Floyd released its 11th studio album, “The Wall.” </p>
<p>Featuring 26 tracks, two records and an operatic story line, the concept album would go on to become the No. 2 bestselling double album in history. But it would also mark the last time Pink Floyd’s core members – Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Nick Mason and Richard Wright – would record an album together.</p>
<p>Years of touring and financial stress had taken their toll. The egomania of one member, Waters, during the recording of “The Wall” would be the tipping point.</p>
<h2>Tensions mount</h2>
<p>The unchecked egos of band members can often be difficult to rein in, and often lead to acrimony – to the point where the band breakup has almost become a cliché. </p>
<p>Tensions among the four members of The Beatles – John Lennon and Paul McCartney, in particular – famously led to <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/why-the-beatles-broke-up-113403/">the band’s breakup in 1970</a>. Conflict between guitarist Johnny Marr and vocalist Morrissey <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/why-its-great-the-smiths-broke-up-117660/">triggered Marr’s decision to leave The Smiths</a>. And let’s not forget The Eagles, which broke up on such bad terms that drummer and vocalist Don Henley said the band would reunite “<a href="https://wcmf.radio.com/blogs/kane-o/25-years-after-fact-hell-freezes-over-again">when hell freezes over</a>.”</p>
<p>By the time Pink Floyd started recording “The Wall” in January 1979, tensions had been simmering for years.</p>
<p>“<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/pink-floyds-dark-side-of-the-moon-10-things-you-didnt-know-201743/">The Dark Side of the Moon</a>,” released in 1973, had catapulted Pink Floyd to superstardom. But the band members struggled over how to build off the success of “Dark Side” and make another hit album.</p>
<p>They had already fought among themselves when recording their follow-up albums, 1975’s “<a href="https://www.thisdayinmusic.com/classic-albums/pink-floyd-wish-you-were-here/">Wish You Were Here</a>” and 1977’s “<a href="https://consequenceofsound.net/2017/05/pink-floyds-animals-pulls-no-political-punches-40-years-later/">Animals</a>.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304135/original/file-20191127-112526-19labqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304135/original/file-20191127-112526-19labqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=249&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304135/original/file-20191127-112526-19labqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=249&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304135/original/file-20191127-112526-19labqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=249&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304135/original/file-20191127-112526-19labqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304135/original/file-20191127-112526-19labqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304135/original/file-20191127-112526-19labqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">From left to right: Roger Waters, Nick Mason, David Gilmour and Richard Wright.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/Pink_Floyd%2C_1971.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Roger Waters, the band’s bassist and co-lead singer, took charge for “Wish You Were Here.” He decided which tracks would appear and essentially dictated the album’s conceptual themes, which included alienation, a critique of the music industry and a tribute to former bandmate Syd Barrett, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/12/arts/music/12barrett.html">who had left the band in 1968 due to mental health struggles</a>. </p>
<p>In the process, Waters ended up cutting the songs, “Raving and Drooling” and “Gotta Be Crazy” against the wishes of guitarist and co-vocalist David Gilmour.</p>
<p>“Dave was always clear that he wanted to do the other two songs,” <a href="https://www.loudersound.com/features/how-wish-you-were-here-was-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-pink-floyd">Waters recalled</a>. “He never quite copped what I was talking about. But Rick did and Nicky did, and he was outvoted, so we went on.”</p>
<p>Perhaps feeling suffocated by Waters, Richard Wright and David Gilmour took a stab at solo albums in 1978, with Wright releasing “Wet Dream” and Gilmour debuting the self-titled “David Gilmour.” </p>
<p>Reflecting on his first solo album, <a href="http://www.pink-floyd.org/artint/circus.htm">Gilmour said</a> it “was important to me in terms of self-respect. At first I didn’t think my name was big enough to carry it. Being in a group for so long can be a bit claustrophobic, and I needed to step out from behind Floyd’s shadow.”</p>
<h2>The shadow of ‘The Wall’</h2>
<p>“The Wall” would be the band’s next project – and, again, Waters asserted control. </p>
<p>Waters was partly inspired by an infamous incident that took place during the “In the Flesh” tour, which promoted the album “Animals.” Annoyed by the sound of firecrackers – and feeling as if the crowd wasn’t listening to their music or lyrics – <a href="https://nationalpost.com/entertainment/music/planned-pink-floyd-opera-in-montreal-owes-existence-to-the-time-roger-waters-spit-on-fan-in-1977">Waters spat on the audience</a>. He later mused about building a wall between him and his fans. The seed for “The Wall” was planted. </p>
<p>In July 1978, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=vkpISAAACAAJ&dq=The+Making+of+Pink+Floyd+The+Wall&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiomujiyormAhVDRqwKHcCgCuYQ6AEwAXoECAEQAg">he presented a 90-minute demo</a> to the rest of the band, proposing two concepts for the next album: “Bricks in the Wall” and “The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking.” </p>
<p>The band members agreed to make an album focused on the first of the two. It would be about the struggles and isolation of rock stardom, and its central character would be named Pink Floyd. </p>
<p>The name of the character belied the fact that this would largely be a one-man show. As musicologist Allan F. Moore <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.46254">observed</a>, “Waters’ growing megalomania, much in evidence on ‘The Wall,’ became harder to handle.”</p>
<p>The fact that the album’s central story was semi-autobiographical, based on Waters and former band member Syd Barrett, probably didn’t help matters. The motif of walls symbolized the defense mechanisms Waters had built up against those who might hurt him: parents, teachers, wives and lovers. Some lyrics dealt with the death of his father, others with infidelity.</p>
<p>If David Gilmour had ideas for ways to contribute to Waters’ vision, they were barely incorporated. Waters did include fragments from demos associated with Gilmour’s solo projects. But in the end, Gilmour only received three co-writing credits – for “Run Like Hell,” “Young Lust” and “Comfortably Numb.” Drummer Nick Mason and keyboardist Richard Wright didn’t receive any at all.</p>
<figure>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Young Lust’ is one of only three songs on which David Gilmour received a writing credit.</span></figcaption>
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<p>On the track “Mother,” Waters even brought in Toto drummer and session percussionist Jeff Porcaro to replace Mason. On Mason’s limited drumming abilities, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090413165017/http://www.classicrockmagazine.com/news/vintage-pink-floyd-interview-part-1/">Roger Waters recalled</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“It’s got 5/4 bars in it. Nick, to his great credit, has no pretense about that, it was clear that he could not play it. He said ‘I can’t play that.’ Or maybe somebody said to him, ‘Nick, maybe you should get somebody else to play this because you’re struggling.’”</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>The aftermath</h2>
<p>Today, “The Wall” is considered by many <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/500-greatest-albums-of-all-time-156826/pink-floyd-the-wall-152799/">to be one of the best albums in rock history</a>. But it marked the last time the four members of the band would record an album together.</p>
<p>Keyboardist Richard Wright left, only to return later as a salaried sideman during Pink Floyd’s tours in 1980 and 1981. Pink Floyd – minus Wright – went on to record its 1983 album, “The Final Cut.” Waters eventually quit Pink Floyd in 1985 and sued members Gilmour and Mason in an attempt to stop them from using the band name, arguing that Pink Floyd was “<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-24157591">a spent force creatively</a>.”</p>
<p>Waters lost, and Gilmour and Mason went on to record three more albums under the name Pink Floyd: 1987’s “A Momentary Lapse of Reason,” 1994’s “The Division Bell” and 2014’s “<a href="https://theconversation.com/in-pink-floyds-river-time-is-endless-33707">The Endless River</a>.”</p>
<p>None would match the critical or commercial success of “The Wall.”</p>
<p>The making of “The Wall” reflects a common experience faced by many other rock bands: how creative tension and competing visions can deteriorate relations between band members. </p>
<p>Luckily, Pink Floyd was able to keep it all together to record one final masterpiece.</p>
<p>[ <em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/127174/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark E. Perry does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The story of the album, which was released 40 years ago, is a classic tale of how bands struggle with unchecked egos and competing visions.
Mark E. Perry, Director of Music Industry Program & Assistant Professor of Musicology, Oklahoma State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/124070
2019-10-01T20:25:32Z
2019-10-01T20:25:32Z
The Beatles’ revolutionary use of recording technology in ‘Abbey Road’
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295038/original/file-20191001-173375-wjvi1s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A fan carries a copy of 'Abbey Road' as he traverses the infamous crosswalk that appears on the album's cover.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Britain-Beatles/e99384fb0ee949ef860494d82de0dd12/23/0">AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>With its cheery singles, theatrical medley and <a href="https://www.biography.com/.image/ar_16:9%2Cc_fill%2Ccs_srgb%2Cfl_progressive%2Cg_faces:center%2Cq_auto:good%2Cw_768/MTE5NDg0MDYyMjg5MTM1MTE5/bio_abbeyroad_promojpg.jpg">iconic cover</a>, The Beatles’ 11th studio album, “<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/beatles-abbey-road-890229/">Abbey Road</a>,” holds a special place in the hearts of the band’s fans. </p>
<p>But as the album celebrates its 50th anniversary, few may realize just how groundbreaking its tracks were for the band.</p>
<p>In my forthcoming book, “<a href="https://www.routledge.com/Recording-Analysis-How-the-Record-Shapes-the-Song/Moylan/p/book/9781138667068">Recording Analysis: How the Record Shapes the Song</a>,” I show how the recording process can enhance the artistry of songs, and “Abbey Road” is one of the albums I highlight.</p>
<p>Beginning with 1965’s “<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/50-years-of-rubber-soul-how-the-beatles-invented-the-future-of-pop-59132/">Rubber Soul</a>,” The Beatles started exploring new sounds. This quest continued in “Abbey Road,” where the band was able to deftly incorporate emerging recording technology in a way that set the album apart from everything they had previously done.</p>
<h2>Sound in motion</h2>
<p>“Abbey Road” is the first album that the band released in stereo only.</p>
<p>Stereo was <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Inventor-of-Stereo-The-Life-and-Works-of-Alan-Dower-Blumlein/Alexander/p/book/9780240516288">established in the early 1930s</a> as a way to capture and replicate the way humans hear sounds. Stereo recordings contain two separate channels of sound – similar to our two ears – while mono contains everything on one channel. </p>
<p>Stereo’s two channels can create the illusion of sounds emerging from different directions, with some coming from the listener’s left and others coming from the right. In mono, all sounds are always centered.</p>
<p>The Beatles had recorded all their previous albums in mono, with stereo versions made without the Beatles’ participation. In “Abbey Road,” however, stereo is central to the album’s creative vision.</p>
<p>Take the opening minute of “Here Comes the Sun,” the first track on the record’s second side. </p>
<p>If you listen to the record on a stereo, George Harrison’s acoustic guitar emerges from the left speaker. It’s soon joined by several delicate synthesizer sounds. At the end of the song’s introduction, a lone synthesizer sound gradually sweeps from the <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Understanding-and-Crafting-the-Mix-The-Art-of-Recording-3rd-Edition/Moylan/p/book/9780415842815">left speaker to the listener’s center</a>.</p>
<p>Harrison’s voice then enters in the center, in front of the listener, and is joined by strings located toward the right speaker’s location. This sort of sonic movement can only happen in stereo – and The Beatles masterfully deployed this effect.</p>
<p><audio preload="metadata" controls="controls" data-duration="13" data-image="" data-title="The introduction to 'Here Comes the Sun' showcases stereo's range." data-size="218927" data-source="" data-source-url="" data-license="" data-license-url="">
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The introduction to ‘Here Comes the Sun’ showcases stereo’s range.
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<p>Then there are Ringo Starr’s drums in “The End,” which fill the entire sonic space, from left to right. But each drum <a href="http://www.curvebender.com/rtb.html">is individually fixed in a separate position</a>, creating the illusion of many drums in multiple locations – a dramatic cacophony of rhythms that’s especially noticeable in the track’s drum solo.</p>
<p><audio preload="metadata" controls="controls" data-duration="15" data-image="" data-title="'The End' peppers listeners' ears with a panoply of drums." data-size="242751" data-source="" data-source-url="" data-license="" data-license-url="">
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‘The End’ peppers listeners’ ears with a panoply of drums.
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<h2>Enter: The synthesizer</h2>
<p>In the mid-1960s, an engineer named Robert Moog <a href="https://www.wqxr.org/story/moog-synthesizers-dynamic-musical-history/">invented the modular synthesizer</a>, a new type of instrument that generated unique sounds from oscillators and electronic controls that could be used to play melodies or enhance tracks with sound effects. </p>
<p>Harrison received a <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-beatles-as-musicians-9780195129410?q=everett&lang=en&cc=us">demonstration of the device in October 1968</a>. A month later, he ordered one of his own.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295053/original/file-20191001-173337-d0fnki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295053/original/file-20191001-173337-d0fnki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295053/original/file-20191001-173337-d0fnki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295053/original/file-20191001-173337-d0fnki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295053/original/file-20191001-173337-d0fnki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295053/original/file-20191001-173337-d0fnki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295053/original/file-20191001-173337-d0fnki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Robert Moog poses with one of his synthesizers in a 2000 photograph.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-Domestic-News-North-Carolina-U-/3e77d51ac1e3da11af9f0014c2589dfb/9/0">AP Photo/Alan Marler</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Beatles are among the very first popular musicians to use this revolutionary instrument. Harrison <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Beatles-Recording-Sessions-Official-1962-1970/dp/B004UOC08C">first played it</a> during the “Abbey Road” sessions in August 1969, when he used it for the track “Because.”</p>
<p>The synthesizer ended up being used in three other tracks on the album: “Here Comes the Sun,” “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” and “I Want You (She’s So Heavy).” </p>
<p>The Beatles didn’t incorporate the synthesizer for novelty or effect, as the Ran-Dells did in their 1963 hit “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAUuqpFLLvQ">Martian Hop</a>” and The Monkees did in their 1967 song “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TCOggiUGHk&feature=youtu.be&t=82">Star Collector</a>.”</p>
<p>Instead, on “Abbey Road,” the band capitalizes on the synthesizer’s versatility, creatively using it to enhance, rather than dominate, their tracks. </p>
<p>In some cases, the synthesizer simply sounds like another instrument: In “Here Comes the Sun,” the Moog mimics the guitar. In other tracks, like “Because,” the synthesizer actually carries the song’s main melody, effectively replacing the band’s voices.</p>
<p><audio preload="metadata" controls="controls" data-duration="10" data-image="" data-title="In 'Because,' the synthesizer mimics the voices of band members." data-size="171698" data-source="" data-source-url="" data-license="" data-license-url="">
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In ‘Because,’ the synthesizer mimics the voices of band members.
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<h2>A dramatic pause</h2>
<p>In 1969, the LP record still reigned supreme. The Walkman – the device that made music a more private and portable experience – <a href="http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1907884,00.html">wouldn’t be invented for another 10 years</a>.</p>
<p>So when “Abbey Road” was released, people still listened to music in a room, either alone or with friends, on a record player.</p>
<p>The record had two sides; after the last song on the first side, you had to get up, flip the LP and drop the needle – a process that could take about a minute.</p>
<p>The Beatles, conscious of this process, incorporated this pause into the album’s overall experience.</p>
<p>“I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” ends side one. It’s full of energetic sounds that span the entire left-to-right spectrum of stereo, bounce from lower to higher frequencies and include sweeps of white noise synthesizer. These sounds gradually amass throughout the course of the song, the tension growing – until it suddenly stops: the point at which John Lennon decided the tape should be cut. </p>
<p><audio preload="metadata" controls="controls" data-duration="14" data-image="" data-title="The end of 'I Want You' is like the climax of a speech being cut off." data-size="228959" data-source="" data-source-url="" data-license="" data-license-url="">
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The end of ‘I Want You’ is like the climax of a speech being cut off.
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<p>The silence in the gap of time it takes to flip the LP allows the dramatic and sudden conclusion of side one to reverberate within the listener. </p>
<p>Then side two begins, and not with a bang: It’s the gentle, thin guitar of “Here Comes the Sun.” The transition represents the greatest contrast between any two tracks on the album. </p>
<p>That gap of silence between each side is integral to the album, an experience you can’t have listening to “Abbey Road” on Spotify.</p>
<p>“Abbey Road,” perhaps more than any other Beatles album, shows how a song can be poetically written and an instrument deftly played. But the way a track is recorded can be the artist’s final stamp on the song.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/124070/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>William D. Moylan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
As the album celebrates its 50th anniversary, an expert in sound recording details how the band deployed stereo and synthesizers to put a unique artistic stamp on this iconic album.
William D. Moylan, Professor of Sound Recording Technology and Music, UMass Lowell
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.