Legends in Song: The Beatles
Written: Nov 20 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: The Music
Cons: the interpretations
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| teddiec's Full Review: Rock and Pop |
Urban Legends. Music, (along with movies and parking stories) has been the focus of more than it's share of them and The Beatles, both as a group and particularly John Lennon and Paul McCartney individually, have probably been the focus of more tales, misconceptions, and speculation concerning their music than all the rest put together. Possibly because some of the lyrics are especially unusual, combined with the time and the drug use. Saying it doesn't make it so.
I don't doubt there are some that would seek to 'read ' things that aren't accurate into every song the Beatles ever recorded but for the most part, the misconceptions I'm aware of are little more than active imaginations .
Despite denials and explanations from the members themselves, some people will unfortunately always cling to the more scandalous urban legends.
What follows are a few examples from some songs I truly love. Sure, most of us are already familiar with both the rumors and the facts-but that I might help just one misguided soul.....
Hey Jude
Hey Heroin? I'm ashamed to admit that there was a time when I thought it was an ode to the drug myself. Among the interpretations that I'm aware the song is about: Heroin, Catholicism, the band, John leaving the band, John's heroin addiction, John's love for Yoko Ono, Julian, or Paul himself.
So, who or what is Jude? In a 1973 interview with Paul Gambacini in, Paul McCartney himself said:
"I was driving to see Cynthia Lennon, just after John left her. I liked Julian (John and Cynthia's son), he's a nice kid. In the car I was singing a song like "Hey, Jules". I don't know why it was "Hey, Jules". It seemed like a good name."
In another interview in 1980, John Lennon told David Sheff :
"Paul said it was written about Julian, but I think it is about me. "Jules" and "John" sound very similar. He didn't want me to leave Cynthia, but in the song he is saying, "It's O.K., you can leave her."
In a much earlier interview, in 1968, John told Jonathan Cott:
"When Paul first played "Hey Jude" I said It's about me, but Paul said, No, it's about me."
I believe them both. Either way, the song carries no sinister message or reference and when I listen to it, I now think of a sweet child and new beginnings.
Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
Or was it really meant to read as "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds ?
When this song was released it was widely believed that it was written about LSD. Some people still believe it, although John Lennon said in many interviews that the lyrics were partly inspired by the "Wool and Water" chapter in Through the Looking Glass, by Lewis Carroll. But the title, surely it suggests a reference to the drug? Nah, an interesting coincidence, but just a fluke. The actual inspiration for the title was much more interesting anyway. According to John Lennon, this title was also inspired by his young son, Julian, when he showed him a picture he'd drawn in nursury school of his friend, Lucy O'donnell. Julian said it was Lucy, in the sky, with diamonds.
*A copy Julian Lennon's drawing can be seen at: http://www.getback.org/bpix/lsdpic.jpg
Strawberry Fields
Strawberry Fields is one of the most beautiful songs ever written. Located near an orphanage, not far from McCartney's Penny Lane, Strawberry Field is a place where Lennon played as a boy.
But in 1969, the rumor that would set up a thousand speculations implied this song was one of the building blocks in a (highly collapsable) conspiracy theory.
Although there are those that believe today that the words "I buried Paul" were sung by Lennon (in a metaphoric reference to competition) many people took the line literally and so went the 'Paul is Dead' nonsense.
Aside from the fact that Paul McCartney was/is very much alive, there are the interviews where John insists he said "cranberry sauce". At the end of Strawberry Fields on the Anthology 2 album, you can hear "cranberry sauce" twice, and then "calm down, Ringo".
This legend is particularly interesting because so many took the original rumor and ran with it. The conspiracy grew to include 'clues' scattered throughout several albums, that suggest Paul had died in a car accident. Some versions of the story say that upon learning of his death, the remaining Beatles hatched a plot to cover it up by replacing him with a look-a-like (who, by the way, won a Paul McCartney look-a-like contest, the results of which were never made public.)
Plastic surgery was done to correct minor differences and Paul was reborn. Grief!
The "clues" included some pretty hard stretches, though just enough to keep conspiracy theorists busy.
The cover of the The Butcher Album alone seemed to fuel the fire, it's gory implications running rampant. The Yellow Submarine was considered his coffin. Paul is sitting inside a trunk (coffin) on the cover of Yesterday and Today. The photo for Magical Mystery tour shows everyone wearing white but Paul, who is dressed in black. And so on, and so on.
Every photo became suspect, every nuance an implication. Literally hundreds of lyrics became either misheard or misinterpreted as references (not to mention all the 'backward lyrics' many swore were hidden messages). In actuality, it seems that the songs didn't fit the story so much as the story was created from the songs as they went along. A huge list of these ridiculous comparisons can be found at :
http://4urbanlegends.4anything.com/network-frame/0,1855,7106-89176,00.html
Fortunately for us all, Paul McCartney lives, as evidenced by his continued musical genius (no way 'Billy Shears' could have learned to imitate that!)
There is one thing I heard that I absolutely believe, and that is regarding the song, I am the Walrus.
It's not too hard to accept that the John Lennon, tired of having their lyrics overanalyzed, purposefully wrote the most off the wall peice he could-even so far as to make up new words for it.
I ~heard~ that John even said to his friend, Pete Shotton, when he finished it, "Let the f*ckers work that one out."
Recommended:
Yes
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