Through The Span Of
Generations The Beatles Songs Still Live
Remember The Beatles Songs?
As an avid Beatles fan, I love
everything about them. I think that there were three main
ingredients, which led to their amazing success: the quality
of the song writing, the strong vocals and the musical
experimentation.
Their development was fascinating to
observe. Beatles songs began as catchy tunes with a few
soulful ballads. It was almost unheard of in the early 1960s
for pop groups to write their own compositions.
Lennon and McCartney were unusual in
that regard and wrote songs for other people too, such as
the Rolling Stones.
Who Influenced The Beatles
Songs?
The lyrics started to go beyond the
conventional boy meets girl scenario. The group were fans of
Bob Dylan and were influenced by his lyrics that were full
of imagery and metaphor. John Lennon said later that he
thought that pop songs and poetry had to be two separate
things until Dylan showed that they could be combined.
The Beatles And
Drugs
Hallucinogenic drugs also became an
influence in Beatles songs, although some words were cited
as drug references when that wasn't the case. Equally, some
drug references got through unnoticed. In the heady days of
1967, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds from Sergeant Pepper's
Lonely Hearts Club Band was said to be about a drug
experience.
In fact, the title was taken from a
school painting that John's young son had done and the
lyrics were inspired by Alice in Wonderland, which John
reread every year.
The fab 4 evolved musically too and
this was aided by the creative partnership with their record
producer, George Martin. Martin was a classically trained
musician and he was able to interpret the ideas that the
group had and the sounds that they wanted.
Beatles songs were the first
mainstream songs to use tape loops, backward tapes and
alternating the speed of tapes. They recorded in the Abbey
Road studios belonging to EMI, where many orchestras made
their records. This was significant as there would be
instruments lying around that weren't usually used for pop
music. The Beatles and Martin made clever use of
them.
The Moog Synthesizer And Beatles
Songs
Striving for an unusual sound was
always important to the Beatles. The haunting opening bars
of Strawberry Fields Forever is played on a theramin. The
invention of the moog synthesizer also made a contribution,
able to electronically simulate virtually any sound e.g. the
barrel organ on
For the Benefit of Mr. Kite. George
Harrison introduced pop music to the wonderful Indian sitar
on Norwegian Wood and Within You, Without You. Beatles songs
led the way and proved that critical and commercial success
could be combined.
A Personal Story About Beatles
Songs
Last weekend my son came home for a
visit from college. He asked if I would help him with a
project for one of his classes.
For one of his general education
courses he needed to take a class in music appreciation.
Each person in the class was to bring a collection of songs
from a group or artist that was popular in their
parent’s era. He signed up to bring a collection of
Beatles songs.
I made him promise that he would point
out to the class that his father is much older than I am and
that the collections of Beatles songs were from his music
library. Having set these parameters we began looking
through the old albums that my husband and I still
keep.
The "Old" Parents And Their Beatles
Music
My son had never paid too much
attention to our music selection. I think he assumed that
his parents would not have anything that he would want to
listen to. He was very surprised at the number of albums
that we still have and that we still have a turntable to
play them on.
We pulled out a number of Beatles
songs that dated back to the early 60’s all the way to
the Anthology album. I explained that I had purchased the
Anthology Album at the Mall of America when it was first
released. They still have a number of new releases on vinyl
for the British that come to shop there.
We selected several Beatles songs to
play and sat around eating popcorn and going through the
rest of our music selections. When my husband arrived home
he joined us and started playing some of the less known
Beatles songs for my son.
My son really enjoyed some of these
off beat Beatles songs. One of my son’s friends called
to see if my son wanted to go to a party with him. My son
asked him to come over to listen to music at our house
instead.
I ordered pizzas and we all stayed up
late going through the music selections and talking about
things that my son and his friend had done as they were
growing up. It was a very enjoyable evening.
The Generation Gap
Narrows
When we went to bed that evening I
told my husband that I think we had started a new stage in
our relationship with our son. We had spent the evening
relating as friends rather than parents and child.
I was grateful to the professor that
had assigned the lesson of collecting Beatles songs. Music
has always been a big part of my husband’s life, yet he
and our son had never shared an evening of music together. I
have a feeling that music will play a greater role in their
future relationship.
Final Thought About The Beatles
Songs
If you haven't listened to songs by
the Beatles before or, if your collection is in the attic
gathering dust, I suggest you discover or rediscover this
1960s pop music. You might just find a whole new attitude
toward this classic sound.
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