#6 -- The Beatles

Come Together (fantasy)

A day in the life of a typical American, nearly 50 years after The Beatles' disbanding, still involves a good chance of hearing or reading about them; which is all one need consider when judging their greatness.  

There's a place for a fresh face in our pantheon of 14 immortals, but this isn't it (that space will open up soon, however, as we approach #1).

Something about the Beatles is so adorable ("I Want To Hold Your Hand") and yet so revolutionary ("Yellow Submarine") that there's been a tendency to date the decline of civilization to 1970 and their breakup.  Why the strong feeling?

Because they knew when to quit; even though the follow-up question is still 'why'?  Why'd it happen that way?

Help  in deciphering The Beatles journey from wise-cracking band-of-brothers to estranged break-up is found, I'd suggest, in what happened between '65 and '69.  What had been their slightly longish hair became decidedly uncut.  What had been their attempt at being 'pop' became absolute cutting edge.  What had been songs about love and loss became "I Am The Walrus".  So what makes people inward-looking, slightly at a loss socially, detached from prescribed behavior?  One Majestic Jest on a magical mystery tour, indeed.

I will merely say that if The Beatles were their 1965 selves in '69 they might have seen a way forward.  They might have taken a good many years off to pursue their own projects and relationships, remained friends who occasionally joked over the phone, gotten together for special charity fundraisers, and told the world they'd make one more record, but didn't know just when.  My guess is that the prospect of a future reunion, code-named, perhaps, "One After 909", might have kept them all alive until something like the turn of the century, when they could've put everything into that one more recording.   But then, I've always liked the line "...tomorrow may rain, so I'll follow the sun".  Exit left.  So, perhaps this press release could simply never have been:

"Let-It-Be Studios, London, April 9th, 1999, The Beatles' entered the studio today, three decades after their last recording session, to begin work on what will be their final studio album with an expected release date of new year's day 2001"

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Each band or performer is graded on four things:
  1.  Innovation
  2.  Influence in my life--as a typical American
  3.  Integrity: the band's approach to music (just making a buck or honing a craft?)  
  4.  Immortality--am I, a typical American--still eager to hear their music

10/8/9/8 = 35 out of a perfect 40

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Lucy-in-the-sky-with-diamonds --> 12-year-old birthday boy:  The very first rock 'n roll record I ever owned was Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.