Some may mock, but little now surprises me about the continuing interest in the Beatles. In fact, the further we get from them, the bigger they become.
There was a period in the mid 1970s when it seemed as though their star might dim, that they would be superseded by newer, more successful, more popular groups and singers, and that new styles, new sorts of music would eventually make the Beatles old hat, rather dated, very Sixties. In terms of facts and statistics this has happened, with new people such as Michael Jackson selling huge numbers of individual albums, breaking some of the Beatles’ sales records. But in the end the Beatles, as a creative force, never did fade away. Whenever there’s a poll of musicians, of pop fans or just of the general public, the Beatles are always rated up there as the most important, most influential, most loved, most fab group in the history of the universe. Well, in the minds and memories of living people. Sergeant Pepper is usually hailed as the greatest album and its cover as the best cover ever.
Sales of their old songs and albums, repackaged and reissued, as with Anthology, continue to sell in their millions. In 2000, the compilation of their number-one hits topped the charts in 34 different countries.
Early in the 1980s I was asked to be an outside examiner for a student doing a PhD on the Beatles’ lyrics at London University. I thought it was a hoax. I couldn’t believe that such a respectable university would be agreeing to such a thing. Now it’s totally commonplace. Today there are schools, colleges and universities all over the world where the Beatles are taught, studied, analysed and researched.
More books come out every year on the Beatles than ever before, and every week there is a Beatles conference going on somewhere. Japan, for example, has on average 40 Beatles events a year and has its own magnificent museum devoted to John Lennon. There are dozens of full-time Beatles lookalike groups from dozens of different countries, playing full-time in clubs and concerts all around the world.
Relatively late in the day, Liverpool woke up to the tourist possibilities created by their own local lads. The city now has a hotel called Hard Day’s Night, its airport has been renamed Liverpool John Lennon Airport, and each year hundreds of thousands of people go on Beatles tours. Paul’s council house, now under the care of the National Trust, is open to the public, as is John’s semi where he lived with his Aunt Mimi.
I reckon that there are about 5,000 people around the world today who are living on the Beatles — writers, researchers, dealers, academics, performers, souvenir merchants, conference organisers, tourist, hospitality and museum folk. Even at its height, Apple, the Beatles organisation, never employed more than 50 people.
The price of Beatles memorabilia is now scarcely believable, especially for anything said to be original. In 2008 the manuscript of ‘A Day in the Life’ was sold by Bonhams in New York for £1.3 million. A set of the Beatles’ autographs on a photo can sell for £5,000 — compared with £50 in 1981 when the Beatles market first began.
In 1975 we had a burglary at home and one of the items stolen was a copy of the Sergeant Pepper album, signed to me by all four. I claimed £3.50 on the insurance, which was the replacement cost of the album. There was no value in the signatures, except sentimental. Today it’s worth around £50,000.
I had a loss of a different kind a few weeks ago. For 40 years, since this book first came out, I’ve had the original prints of Ringo’s four photos of the Beatles, which he took specially for the book, hanging on the hall wall. I hadn’t realised that the upstairs lavatory was leaking, till mould began to appear on the frames. Alas, three of the prints are now ruined.
I’m always amused today when I hear Italian or other European football crowds singing ‘Yellow Submarine’ — with their own words, of course. I often wonder if Sony, who now own the copyright of the Beatles catalogue, will try to charge a fee to the TV companies who transmit the singing. It would probably surprise most Italian footer fans to find it was a Beatles song.
Daniel Levitin, a professor of music at McGill University in Montreal, predicted in 2007 that Beatles songs and lyrics are now known by so many people around the world that in 100 years they will be seen as nursery rhymes. ‘Most people will have forgotten who wrote them. They will have become sufficiently entrenched in popular culture that it will seem as if they have always existed, like “O Susannah”, “This Land Is Your Land” and “Frère Jacques”.’
In 2007 a judge in Montana, USA, while sentencing a man for stealing beer, showed off his knowledge of the Beatles in his summing up. The accused, when asked what sentence he should get, had apparently replied, ‘Like the Beatles said, “Let It Be”.’ This inspired the judge to work 42 different Beatles titles into the final judgement that he delivered:
It does not require a Magical Mystery Tour of interpretation to know The Word means leave it alone. I trust we can Come Together on that meaning. If I were to ignore your actions I would ignore that Day in the Life on 21 April 2006. That night you said to yourself, ‘I Feel Fine,’ while drinking beer. Later, whether you wanted Money or were just trying to Act Naturally, you became The Fool on the Hill… Hopefully you can say When I’m Sixty-four that I Should Have Known Better…’
Old archives get trawled for supposedly unseen and unheard films and tape recordings or unpublished, unknown photos of the Beatles. Usually they’re just the same old shot but from a slightly different angle or more out of focus, but that doesn’t stop photographers from recycling them in books and exhibitions, or printing and selling limited editions signed by the photographer, for hundreds of pounds.
I can’t criticise, of course, having dug out those old lines of George’s, and I’m always a sucker for any ‘new’ pix. I’ve just bought one myself which I’d never seen before, taken in Carlisle, my home town, in 1963 when the Beatles were appearing at the Lonsdale Cinema. It’s a shot of them in a lift, with the female lift attendant looking very fierce. It makes me smile. The photographer was Jim Turner of the Cumberland News — and yes, I got him to sign my print.
As well as new stuff turning up, old stuff constantly gets turned over and reassessed, in case there are angles or oddments missed first time round. I thought all the BBC’s records about Beatles appearances had been exhausted, but in 2008 Spencer Leigh, a writer on popular music, went through some old and dusty BBC files and found that in 1962, after the Beatles had an audition in Manchester to appear on a radio programme, the producer had made some written notes. These included: ‘Paul McCartney no, John Lennon yes. An unusual group, not as rocky as most. More country and western, with a tendency to play music. Overall — yes.’ I suppose it is a fairly interesting contemporary comment, as it’s usually assumed that Paul always had the more acceptable singing voice.
Then there are the geeks and anoraks who endlessly analyse Beatles lyrics, hoping for fresh insight, or who produce stats no one else had thought we needed.
Ben Schott, well known for his Miscellany, produced a ‘Beatles Miscellany’ that appeared in The Times in June 2007, part of a special pull-out supplement to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Sergeant Pepper. (Anniversaries: they’re an excellent excuse for more coverage.) In it, he analysed all Beatles songs to discover the most popular words, i.e. the ones that occur most often. He listed 114 words in order of frequency. At the top were You (260), I (178), To (149), Me (137) and Love (125). Down at the bottom were Yesterday (11), Hand (10) and Lonely (10). Fascinating, huh.