Beatle Juice

The world is currently in the process of going a bit insane (more so than usual) over the fact that it's now been fifty years since The Beatles recorded Love Me Do, thereby inventing music. Hard to believe that it's been half a century since the human race was freed from millennia of not being able to produce melodic sounds from instruments, hit objects in a rhythmic fashion, or formulate structured sets of words about holding people's hands. I suppose time just flies like that.

Sorry for the cynicism, Beatles fans. It's not that I don't like the Fab Four - on the contrary, they were indisputably talented musicians and songwriters, with many songs that deserve their immortalisation - but the effect of being subjected to relentless hero-worship of the band is, for me, akin to scoffing down a year-old tuna mayo sandwich. See, over the decades, some of their more obsessed fans seem to have developed the idea that the band innovated every single thing they ever did from thin air, like the god of music happened to be throwing constant lightning bolts down over Liverpool. As if there was no such person as Chuck Berry. Or Bo Diddley. Or Ray Charles. Or Bobby Parker. And they evolved from writing disposable pop songs to more serious tracks without meeting Bob Dylan. And they picked up sitars and started playing Indian music without hearing The Kinks song See My Friend. (These are all influences that The Beatles themselves openly acknowledged, but that seem to pass some fans by. And who can blame them? That whole "music-god-Liverpool-lightning-bolts" theory is obviously so much more plausible).

The mark of a good genius lies in how they take their influences and stitch them together, with a sprinkle of originality, to make something new and compelling. The mark of a good fan lies in how they accept the place their heroes take in the tapestry of artistic history, without trying to tear them from that tapestry and place them on a pedestal. You don't need to go around claiming that Paul McCartney discovered notes that never existed before, or that George Harrison invented the sitar, or that Ringo Starr's life was the basis for The Matrix, or that John Lennon really survived his assassination and has lived for the last forty years disguised as MC Hammer. Surely it's enough that they existed, and recorded some pretty cool songs?

On which note, I'll wish you a happy fiftieth Beatles anniversary with that song they adapted from an American blues riff, with lyrical touches from late Fifties rock & roll. Enjoy!