Expert: Elizabeth - 5/9/2010

Question
Hello Elizabeth,
I am an eighth grader from Indiana. I am doing a research project about the Beatles.  For this project i am required to interview an expert on my topic. I Have only a few questions for you and I hope they won't take too long to answer.

1.  What was the first Beatles’ song you heard? Where did you hear it?

2. How did you become interested in the Beatles?

3. What is the most unusual question a person has asked you about the Beatles?

4. When I first found out that the Beatles used and abused drugs, I was disappointed in them and almost stopped listening to them. How did you react?

5. Many of the Beatles songs are what some people would call provocative. Do you believe that you should look for the meaning in a song to like it, or that you should like it because the sound appeals to you?

6. Do you believe that the 2006 film Across the Universe or the 1978 film Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is a better recreation of the Beatles' music? Why?

7. When and why exactly did the Beatles split up? Was it caused by any one member of the Beatles, or was it a group problem?

8. What is one thing that most people do not know about the Beatles that was a big part of the group?

Thank you for taking time to answer my questions.

Answer
Usually, I don't help with school projects (I'm a middle school music teacher during the day; there's an honesty an integrity policy I try to follow), but your questions seem interesting and less focused on obtaining answers easily gained in research, so I'll help.

1) I'm what's called a second generation Beatles fan:  My parents were teenagers during the Beatles' heyday, so they were the perfect age for the fandom.  My first specific memory of the Beatles was my parents buying the first Beatles CD releases in 1987.  But hearing an actual song?  It was "Come Together," while listening to the oldies station with my mom.  This was around the same time.

2) I had been a casual listener of the Beatles music my whole life, but soon after the Anthology series came out, which contains many early versions of songs, that I developed the obsession that eventually led me to sign up for this website.  As a musician myself, I was particularly interested in the intricacies that led to these masterpieces.

3) Most recently: "Did you know 'Martha My Dear' is about a dog?"  (Yes I did.)  Honestly, most of the questions I've been asked have been on the "normal" side.

4) You have to understand something:  If you can find a rock star from the 1960s that did not abuse drugs, I will be shocked.  Do I not respect John Lennon for being a heroin addict in the 1960s?  Yes.  Do I not respect Paul McCartney for having a cocaine habit in the 1960s?  Yes.  Do I not respect Ringo Starr for being a severe alcoholic in the 1980s, so much so that he beat his wife and eventually had to go to rehab?  Yes.  

In a George Harrison interview from the early 1970s, he seems visibly upset at the accusation that kids were using drugs because he used drugs.  He has no regrets about what he did, and he knows that he does not want kids to do something just because he did it.  He even insists that the media is partly to blame for publishing stories about his drug use in the first place.

I try not to let a person's personal choices reflect on how I like their music.  The Beatles might have written songs while on drugs, or wrote songs about drugs - but they never used drugs while recording in the studio.  They understood that drugs would not make their music sound better on tape.

5) The Beatles' music is no where near as provocative as other rock bands - that's why they had such mass appeal.  There are some Beatles songs with meaning - and some without.  In fact, John Lennon wrote an attack song against fans who looked too much into the meaning of his works: It's "Glass Onion" from the White Album.  

Case in point:  The BBC, in 1967, banned three songs on Sgt. Pepper from the radio because of drug references: "With a Little Help from my Friends" for the line "I get high with a little help from my friends," "A Day in the Life" for the line "I'd love to turn you on," and "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" because it spelled out LSD.  While the first two drug references were intentional, the third wasn't one at all - It was based on a drawing John Lennon's three year old son had done.

6) There are good Beatles covers and bad Beatles covers.  I happen to think both of these movies are terrible; they are lame attempts to shove in as many Beatles references as possible into one plot line.  The Aerosmith cover of "Come Together" is decent, though.  There are a couple of Beatles covers that I think are pretty good, though: Joe Cocker's cover of "With a Little Help from My Friends" and The Mamas and the Papas' version of "I Call Your Name."

7) The Beatles, in my opinion, began to break up after their manager, Brian Epstein, unexpectedly passed away in 1967.  After that, the Beatles felt like that had no direction in their careers.  They made the Magical Mystery Tour film, which was a flop.  They, as individuals, were beginning to develop interests in things that were not Beatle-related.  Their cooperation deteriorated as months went on, and during sessions for the White Album, Ringo couldn’t take it anymore and quit.  He came back to find that the others had covered his drum kit in flowers.  During the recording/filming of the Let It Be album/movie, George had an argument with Paul and quit, but also came back.  Tensions were very thick during Let It Be, and after that, it was pretty much assumed by all that Abbey Road would be the last album.  After that album was completed, John announced that he was leaving the group permanently.  Paul announced it to the world in a press release accompanying his first solo album.

The only people who caused the breakup of the Beatles were the Beatles not wanting to be Beatles anymore.  A lot of people blame it on Yoko Ono; she just happened to be around at the wrong time.

8) None of the Beatles could read music notation.  Most of them had absolutely no formal music training at all.  (Paul McCartney took a few piano lessons in his early 20s, and that’s it.)  So where did all of these elaborate arrangements in the later Beatle tracks come from?  Their producers, George Martin above all.  Some of the accompaniments were sung to George Martin by one of the Beatles and transcribed for orchestral instruments, (the French horn solo on “For No One,” the trumpet solo on “Penny Lane”) and other times, the parts were just written by George Martin himself (the keyboard solo on “In My Life”).  If there anyone who deserves the title of “Fifth Beatle,” it would be George Martin.