Beatles: Studio Magic

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Beatles fans loved them to go on tour; there were record crowds at their concerts, both in England and abroad.  But, let's face it; their performances on tour were never very good.  They are most definitely not among the great tour bands.  (Perhaps, since they disbanded, road band equipment has improved greatly, and musicians have learned to better manage their sound on tour.)  Inevitably, the touring stopped around late 1965, and the Beatles became primarily a group that recorded in the studio.

Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was an album that broke new ground in many ways.  It was one of the earliest "concept" albums, i.e. an album centered around a unifying idea, in this case, a music-hall variety show.  Almost every song is a winner, though few of them were ever released as singles.  The title track, Sgt Pepper's Lonelyhearts Club Band, is both unremarkable musically, and a familiar landmark of the album! It's declamatory style is very unique, but it isn't a desert island track, by any means.  With A little help from my friends is a brilliant piece of songwriting, sung by Ringo Starr.  It is hard to put a finger on what makes the song so great, but it is an essential piece of Beatle culture. Then comes Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, an amazing song that in retrospect seems clearly inspired by the prevailing drug culture, but still managed to connect at a purely musical level.  (There were at least a few songs of that time that had no connection to drugs at all, either in their performance, or their subject matter, but were sung with a certain edge to them, using a style inspired by artists who really were under the influence.  C'est la vie.) The next few songs are favorites of mine, including Fixing a Hole (with a slightly megaphone-like music-hall sound) and Getting Better.  She's Leaving Home (which used a string ensemble), and When I'm Sixty-Four both attracted both popular and critical attention, and are really good songs, though the former is rarely played these days.  For the benefit of Mr Kite is a circus-poster inspired piece, and Lovely Rita a paean to a meter-maid.  There is a George Harrison song inspired by Indian music, which ends with a horse-laugh:  Within you, without you, and of course the stunning A Day in The Life, with the closing piano chord that was celebrated for many years (the Forever Chord).

The Beatles project for the second half of 1967 was Magical Mystery Tour, which was conceived as a TV special, featuring a tour with the Beatles, which was to be condensed down to a musical variety show and an album.  Some memorable songs did come out of this, though few outside Beatles Fandom found the video footage of much interest.  (I personally was surprised at how graceful all 4 Beatles were, physically.  John Lennon, particularly, was a graceful man.)  The Fool on the Hill is a gorgeous, atmospheric song, and Lennon's I am the Walrus is equally stunning, a song that matched the whimsical, humorous poetry of Lennon with a memorable tune and imaginative instrumentation.  I'm at a loss for words to describe the impact of this song at the time it was released, especially for established Beatles fans, and I can't even imagine what effect it must have had on those just being turned on to the Beatles for the first time.  (I hate to rely on YouTube for musical clips, because the visuals sometimes distract from the impact of the pure sound, but a black screen isn't much of an improvement, either.) Hello Goodbye is a deceptively simple, short song featuring Paul's vocals, and All you need is Love is an offering by John Lennon, a very epigrammatic and enigmatic statement about the philosophical environment they were living in. It is impressive that they embraced the philosophical challenges they faced, rather than sidestepping them.  This stuff is difficult to write about objectively, since we know a great deal about these people, and it is tempting to extrapolate backwards, to guess what seeds these songs revealed that would later grow into major themes, feelings and problems.  Hello goodbye seems to point at communication problems among the Beatles, and between them and their financial and logistical staff, while All you need is Love suggests that Lennon focused on the big picture, possibly ignoring many details, which presumably concerned McCartney more acutely.

Next up: Decline and Fall, the fabulous, tragic last albums by the Beatles

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