Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand
London calling, now don't look at us,
All that phoney Beatlemania has bitten the dust.
London calling, see we ain't got no swing,
'Cept for the ring of that truncheon thing...
This will be an admittedly biased and flawed meditation. I know that Patti for one will disagree with me right off the bat but here goes:
I fucking hate the Beatles. I have for many years.
I don’t think I did when I first heard them (while chewing Fruit Strip gum on the rug and doing a wooden jigsaw, circa 1964. The song:”I wanna hold your hand”) or, obviously, when I bought my first and only Beatles recording (circa 1972, upon getting my first cassette player. After listening to the enclosed demo tape‘s electronic rendition of Für Elise a few hundred times, I saved up a huge amount of money and bought my first tape: Abbey Road. I can still hear Octopus’ Garden warbling and warping as the batteries wore down).
When did the loathing begin?
I know it was fully set when my stepfather, Mike, said to me, “There are two types of families: those that like the Beatles and those that like the Rolling Stones. We like the Stones, who do you like?” Characteristically pathological as the question was, I had no problem already agreeing that at fourteen, I was on the Stones’ team.
Maybe I sensed fairly early on that The Beatles just simply weren’t cool or genuine or truly rock ‘n roll.
It was due partly to the lads themselves: The matching moptops. The uniforms. The glibness. The saccharine movies. The lack of anger or outrage – all irony and tongue-in-cheekery.
There were their PR contrivances like ‘bigger than Jesus’ or ‘Paul is dead’ or ‘Give Peace a chance’. And the whole Indian Maharishi thing, while interesting in a multicultural, sampling-new-fruit kind of way, was immediately cultified and iconized. Once the Beatles branded enlightenment, it was unlikely that anyone would ever genuinely be able to reach it again and India became awash with hippies and their smelly backpacks.
And how quickly the Fab 4 become tediously bourgeois with MBEs and celebrity wives. Sir Paul — two mincing steps from Elton John, maybe three from Barry Manilow (incidentally, he started painting in his 40s and then had a retrospective and monograph published. The paintings are crap but
judge for yourself). John - granted the ‘coolest’ and ‘edgiest’ of the four — filthy rich on Central Park West, gets blown away by a fan and is immediately deified. (And who remembers Brian Jones?) George dies a middle-aged death. Ringo becomes the Gap/Visa/Doritos/Charles Schwab/Pizza Hut Stuffed Crust Pizza Spokesman, a craven grotesque.
He's as blind as he can be,
Just sees what he wants to see,
Nowhere Man can you see me at all?
But the true reason I hate the Beatles isn’t the Beatles. It’s the context of the Beatles.
It’s not the music, it’s how and where I hear the music. It’s the deeply ingrained commercialization of everything they made, the re-re-re-re-release of their hits to great acclaim and hype and jingling cash registers.
It’s Beatlemania. It’s Musak. It’s the Queen. It's the painted Rolls Royce. It's Yoko. It's Linda. It's the whole idea of Classic Rock (which I always associate with middle-aged men in tinted glasses and those skimpy beards).
It’s the fact that I can easily imagine George W., Laura, Condy and Rummy debating their favorite Beatles song. I can imagine fucking Cheney listening to the Beatles. Can you picture any of them listening to the Stones? (Maybe). But the Pistols? The Clash? The Specials? Skynrd? The Kings of Leon?
Alright, whether you agree with this demented, poorly reasoned rant, I hope you get a larger point:
Art and context are really hard to separate.
Mona Lisa shower curtains. Van Gogh Sunflower beach towels. Ed Hopper mousepads. Picasso coffee mugs. Beethoven’s V doorbells. Outkast cel phone ring tones. They distort what we think of the originals and make it impossible to ever look at it properly again. Even if we are standing in the Louvre, in front of the Giaconda herself, we can’t really see the painting (and I’m not talking about the glare of camera flashes bouncing off her Plexiglas shield). It’s too loaded with baggage. Almost everything in Culture is embalmed in commercialization, intellectualization, exploitation, and post-modern regurgitation.
So we collect rare reissues, B-sides, obscure early works, yearning for authenticity, hoping to see or hear clearly for the first time, to hear the Beatles not as they sound in those grainy, endlessly retreaded clips of the Shea stadium concert or the Sullivan show, but as they might have sounded if you were actually standing there in a cellar in Liverpool or Hamburg in the summer of ‘60.
The more we are given to see, the less we can see. The barrage of advertising, television, web pages, and shop windows, force us more and more to retreat into our skulls, peering through a thick grimy window of associations. Today is yesterday. JF Kerry is JF Kennedy. Bush Jr. is Bush Sr. Britney is Madonna is Marilyn. I say hello, you say goodbye. Nothing is what it is.
The trick is to decontextualize, to see reality for what it actually is, divorced from distorting associations. And what a trick that is. I need to shake my head, slap myself in the face, run my skull under a cold fauce, and be here now.
The more I draw, the more I realize this lesson.
The more I realize this lesson, the more I need to draw.
A record of my exploration into all aspects of drawing, illustrated journaling, creativity, and the inspiring aspects of art. By the author of "Everyday Matters," "The Creative License", and "An Illustrated Life" and other books.
Comments
I agree with some points of your essay and disagree with others, but I don't think I'll mention my specific opinions of it.
I'm just going to comment on the drawing. It's gorgeous! I love it..rich colours..nice line weight. The drawing itself proves how much we need to open our eyes more to this world and keep drawing everyday. Thanks for the inspiration once again!!
Posted by: Amy | August 3, 2004 10:13 PM
Interesting...I was never a fan of any rock stars, oddball that I am....The price of fame seems to be this extreme commercialization and thus a reduction to ordinariness like mousepads. Warhol, a commercial artist, made his fame making the ordinary into "art" (good or bad depending on your taste, though he's made the history books). Since his death, his estate has sent his works to every museum in the world and makes money selling mousepads, mugs, greeting cards, etc.etc. Too much exposure and the lowering of art into kitsch seems to be a big part of our society today, hmmm?
Posted by: Marja-Leena | August 3, 2004 10:32 PM
Sure, but what's more commercialized than the Stones' "Start Me Up" for Windows and Ford? Beatles, Stones, everything goes through the sausage grinder if the price is right.
Posted by: Karen Winters | August 4, 2004 03:34 AM
Almost forgot ... I really like the bug!
Posted by: Karen Winters | August 4, 2004 03:36 AM
This one sounds like you're having some tough days, Danny. Hope you're OK.
Posted by: Rita | August 4, 2004 08:03 AM
STOP IT!!!!! Just take a deep breath and listen to yourself...that's enough...calm down and take a nap or something...then you'll feel better...I'm sure of it..~Fern
Posted by: fern | August 4, 2004 08:05 AM
Ok..I must admit I didn't read your entire post before I commented...had a hard time getting past all that anti-Beatles propaganda you were spouting...
Now... the open-minded, being that I am trying to be is getting what you were getting at...I am a "getter"..thank you,~Fern
Posted by: fern | August 4, 2004 08:09 AM
Who's fault is it?
Maybe the Woodie Guthrie folks will land in agreement with you. I don't usually like such exotic delicacies, but your beatles are food for me this morning. Burp!
Wanna get Jack's pals together and release a cd burping Got To Get You Into My Life and Eleanor Rigby etc?
Posted by: patti Gregory | August 4, 2004 08:27 AM
Hi Danny! Your drawings are terrific. Esp. the beetle one --and I don't like bugs but I'm liking your bug :-)
About your entry...it never felt that way to me. I do enjoy their music..I grew up in the 70s. I think I just had differant experiences of it than you must have because for me thats a nice memory.
Our public library got Paul McCartney's book of paintings when it first came out. I checked it out. It seemed very expressionist to me and I do like expressionism (Chagall is my favorite) and also abstract paintings. I enjoyed his work. But thats just me.
I'm loving your blog BTW! I'm starting to do journal drawings for my journal. You're very inspirational you know :-)
Posted by: Pat | August 4, 2004 08:32 AM
hhhmmm, the beatles, rolling stones, throw in elvis too they're alright, i don;'t listen to either for innovation tho; frankly often i'd rather listen to the source: leadbelly, howlin' wolf etc....
i don't know, i hear your complaints, but what's worse, appropriation that's more popular because it's white boys on guitars,at a time when players who created the original music couldn't play in some venues or get a cup of coffee at certain restaurants, had fight to cast a vote let alone have the opportunity in the music business to make substantial money.
OR commercialization that decontextualizes and diminishes the humanity that created and celebrated it?
Posted by: andree | August 4, 2004 08:39 AM
i, for one, fully agree and have often looked for the words to express my complete indifference toward the beatles despite my love of music. well put, danny.
gorgeous drawing!
Posted by: dr dandelion | August 4, 2004 11:04 AM
In the novel White Noise, two characters visit “The Most Photographed Barn in America.” This scene (from page 12) is what I always think of when I think about how context screws up our perceptions:
“No one ses the barn,” he said finally.
A long silence followed.
“Once you’ve seen the signs about the barn, it becomes impossible to see the barn.”
He fell silent once more. People with cameras left the elevated site, replaced at once by others.
“We’re not here to capture an image, we’re here to maintain one. Every photograph reinforces the aura. Can you feel it Jack? An accummulation of nameless energies.”
There was an extended silence. The man in the booth sold postcards and slides.
“Being here is a kind of spiritual surrender. We see only what the others see. The thousands who were here in the past, those who will come in the future. We’ve agreed to be part of a collective perception. This literally colors our vision. A religious experience in a way, like all tourism.”
Another silence ensued.
“They are taking pictures of taking pictures,” he said.
Posted by: Jessica | August 4, 2004 11:26 AM
You know what's crazy? I've gotten cynical
even about waterfalls and sunsets.
I don't enjoy them as much as i once did because all i see are cheesy postcards and greeting cards and personal ads and god only knows what other cynical things I see...
Can't I enjoy a good sunset once in a while without thinking of some dopey hallmark shite?
decontextualize...
maybe we'll draw when you come visit?
Posted by: andrea | August 4, 2004 11:40 AM
yep I'm a stones girl despite mick being such an arse... I've managed to wear out my cd of 'You can't always get what you want'
f a b u l o u s !
Posted by: m | August 4, 2004 05:16 PM
I must be some kinda freak 'cause i was there and I remember the 60's.....and i still love the be-at-les and the stones.
Posted by: meredith | August 4, 2004 10:06 PM
Information is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom, wisdom is not truth, truth is not beauty, beauty is not love, love is not music, music (and drawing whilst listening to it) is the best. ~ (paraphrased from Frank Zappa)
...beyond that it's all just a matter of personal taste.
Hearing Beatles songs reminds me of my childhood, and for that I am grateful, as "Time keeps on slippin' slippin' slippin' into the future" and I often lose sight of it (my childhood I mean)
Great drawing of a beetle Danny!
:-)>
Posted by: Cameron | August 5, 2004 03:37 AM
Hey Danny,
I love the drawings, as usual, but I was disturbed by all the anti-Beatles diatribe. I totally agree with you about the disgusting hype and marketing that has surrounded the Beatles, and all rock/movie/media figures since we were young, but you miss the most important point. The Beatles made some great music. To me, nothing else matters as much. Of course the Stones made some great music as well, and it's a matter of taste which you prefer now. But why play the game of "my choice is better"? The only Beatles song you actually mention in your text is among their worst ever ("Octopus' Garden") and you seem to have started buying their records when they were already in decline. I belive that history will look back at some of the Beatles best songs (on Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt Pepper) as among the greatest music of the 20th century.
Posted by: Elliot | August 5, 2004 10:13 AM
Finally Danny I find something we disagree on. I do believe that even after the grossest (a word?) commercial use of a work of art, like the Mona Lisa, it is still possible to view it as a piece of artwork and stand in awe of its artistic essence. I've had this experience several times when confronting works of visual and sculptural art that have been coopted by advertising or whatever. I stand there looking at the piece, see the strokes, the handwork and immediately am sucked into the artistry of the creator. Even if your mind immediately flips back to the current usage of those images in our culture, like Adobe's use of Venus on the half shell, I still have those moments of pure enjoyment of the original.
Perhaps this separation is possible because there is always something fabulous about standing in the presense of an original and the media world we live in can't deliver originals to our doors, only copies, and adulterations.
I don't seem to have the same ease with music however, as tunes get in your head and I'm less likely to go to a rock concert and hear the "original." Though at orchestras and string quartets I've still been transported by what others might consider over exposed music.
I think it's part of being human that art of any kind, visual or music gets into our brains and bounces around. The way images and music get used is part of our society and so we have to deal with that if we want to be in this society. Frankly, I believe, there were people complaining in Michaelangelo's day when he did the Sistine Chapel, "Look how he's reducing the Bible to some glib illustrative shorthand." (Remember back then EVERYONE COULD DRAW EXCEPTIONALLY WELL, and Leonardo dismissed Michaelangelo's skill with some slight about abnominals that looked like peanuts [or whatever legume was around then].) After all, that's what the Sistine Chapel is, illustrations of a story (albeit one of faith) for the masses who can't read, to inspire them to faith.
And aren't all these images in someway that are coopted being used to inspire the masses in a different way now? It's the nature of culture and group dynamics.
But I remember in the early 70s when I stood next to the Pieta, already a progressive pagan, and felt absorbed in its beauty. No use of that image on Corn Flakes or Cell Phones or dress labels could ever dislodge those intense moments of reaction to the orginial; ditto Leonardo's the Last Supper which had already been placed on so many calendars and greeting cards, selling a product even so. Yet in person the piece still inspires.
To use examples closer to the ones you use, Van Gogh's work has been used commercially and yet even though I don't particularly care for his work, when I see it in person, any intermediary view of it I might have had, however commercialized, disappears. Ditto Warhol's work (who understood the coopting of visual images).
So I think it is possible to have that original relationship one on one with the art again, but I think it would be naive to crave only that. Part of what makes great art great is what society does with it. That tells us something about the art, and something about the society in which it was created and the society which follows.
Sadly what it tells us isn't always positive stuff, but if we want to be students of culture, it tells us stuff we need to know about society and ourselves.
Roz
Posted by: roz | August 6, 2004 12:15 PM
dear danny,
i was absolutely a stones girl, still am but a documentary on Sargent Pepper made me go back and listen without the hype. I had to conclude that whilst the Stones played great Blues the Beatles were the innovaters. Paul's sweetness made John gag a bit and put the ironic into it.The combination was wonderful sometimes. They both lost it afterwards. Everytime I hear Jealous guy or woman I see a weak bloke cowtowing to a contol freak . (Brian Ferry pulls it off because he not a crawler)Imaine is like my 17 year olds take on politics, and one can only wish it was that easy.
Posted by: Gerry | August 8, 2004 10:28 AM
You hate the Beatles? I am covering my ears and doing the "La la la, I can't hear you!" song (Oh wait! I guess I should be covering my eyes.)!
I am such a Stones fan, but I also love the Beatles. I don't think we have to choose!
Posted by: karenleigh | August 10, 2004 01:17 PM