The Beatles

DEEP IN THE winter of 1965 the Beatles released an album titled Beatles for Sale that contained such songs as "I'm a Loser," "Baby's in Black," "Mr. Moonlight." They were nice songs all and strikingly performed as usual, but that album left one with the distinct feeling that the Beatles were treading water, that they were not uncovering any fresh musical resources, that they were not making any further additions to the existing stock of their achievement. Instead, that album represented a consolidation, a wrapping up of all the Beatles' loose ends in a last burst of splendid careful craftsmanship.

Three years later The Beatles seems to mark a similar stage in their development--an album of working out themes that have been previously revealed and so an album making up in style for what it lacks in content. One is, of course, grateful for everything the Beatles do. These 30 songs, complete with your basic piquant photographs in a ridiculously overpriced package, are a rich pleasure; but still one misses the sense of discovery, the excitement of hearing something that lingers on half-understood in the senses, the irritating stimulating grain of dust that turns into a pearl. Such was that prophetic slowing down of tempo and space to harpsichord backing right in the middle of "We Can Work It Out" and I remember the swirling artful mess that turned out to be "Strawberry Fields."

However, these two particular examples of "revolutionary" songs indicate a phenomenon that ought to moderate one's sense of disappointment with The Beatles. This is that the Beatles have always tended to innovate in single releases rather than on their albums--when the breakthrough comes it is in one staggering, concentrated dose. This process is quite different from Bob Dylan's, for example, who evolves musically in well-marked steps from album to album. Dylan's single releases are almost incidental to his overall output.

Not so with the Beatles. It is impossible to understand the musical and artistic development of the Beatles except by considering their singles from year to year. To list only some of their most extravagant feats the musical career of the Beatles proceeds through "I Want to Hold Your Hand" to "Can't Buy Me Love" to "We Can Work It Out" up to the pivotal "Strawberry Fields" and then through "A Day in the Life" and "I Am the Walrus" to, most recently, "Hey Jude."

All of these mind-busting advances were made in isolation in the sense that they do not belong on any of the albums. "A Day in the Life" was so out of place on Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band that the Beatles felt compelled to close the album theme just before the song came on.

ON ONLY ONE of their albums have the Beatles taken a fundamental step forward to compare with their achievements on the singles. That record was Rubber Soul, which brought about the supreme liberation of rhythm-and-blues by injecting an unprecedented controlled melody into the rigid structure of thumping drums and bass. In doing so, Rubber Soul significantly dissolved this structure by making it technically and spiritually possible to fuse a lurching tune onto stuttering, free drums. This development led the Beatles directly through the half-successful numbers "Rain" and "Tomorrow Never Knows" to its culmination in the masterpiece, "Strawberry Fields."

The Beatles does not contain the seeds of such a revolution. It is a traditional Beatle album and as such it consists of a collection of measured and highly crafted songs; therefore it is mandatory to have it around. Nevertheless, even within this limited perspective the record leaves one with a nagging sense of non-fulfillment.

Among "non-revolutionary" songs there are--to make further categorical (timidly, pun intended) distinctions--"good" songs, "bad" songs, and "arresting" songs. Once, the Beatles had a near-monopoly on good and arresting songs--this is no longer true. Leaving aside such heavyweights as the Rolling Stones and the Who, even lesser luminaries like Donovan, the Kinks, and Traffic have produced their share of Beatle-quality rock-and-roll. This being so, one is proportionately less impressed with the Beatles as the quantity of their quality work declines. When, out of 30 songs that are clearly not setting new standards, so very few of them are worth frothing over by one's old standards, one cannot restrain a certain sense of dismay. In fact, the Beatles have provided us with such moving delights in the past that it would be unworthy of us not to be disappointed by their failure to live up to our wildest expectations.

Arresting Songs:

"Birthday" comes through as the outstanding song on the album, fitting into the great "It Won't Be Long"-"Anytime At All"-"Daytripper" tradition with a strong and majestic Harrison guitar line, complemented by shouting hard-rock singing. It is a fertile blend of rhythms featuring a vivid piano (Nicky Hopkins?) answering Harrison's tasteful and beautiful guitar breaks.

"Happiness is a Warm Gun" is a terrifying song about suicide written no doubt by Lennon. For all his self-parody in "Glass Onion" Lennon does handle images masterfully in this song to convey a real sense of personal anguish. He speaks of himself in the third person,

Lying with his eyes while his hands are busy Working overtime

A soap impression of his wife which he ate

And donated to the National Trust.

Done in the "Walrus" style with its affinity for messages of impending doom the song leaves me frozen, dreading for Lennon.

The sneaking suspicion that the Beatles stayed away from the blues for so long because they were incapable of it disappears after "Yer Blues." Lacking a guitar virtuoso like Jeff Beck or Clapton, the Beatles have fashioned their own version of the medium, a kind of pop-blues that is faithful to the spirit and style of the real blues. It is so exciting to hear the Beatles play the blues that one is tempted to wish that they might fully commit themselves to it.

George Harrison has come up with one of his finest songs in a long time with "Savoy Truffle," which is all about getting your teeth pulled out because you have had too many irresistible desserts to eat. Written with uncommon (for Harrison) felicity the song is uncommonly (for Harrison) witty

You might not feel it now

But when the pain cuts through

You're going to know and how

The sweat is going to fill your head

When it becomes too much

You're going to shout aloud --Creme tangerine.

Bad Songs

Using the term "bad" for the Beatles always means using it in a relative sense. Nevertheless, the entire slew of slow love songs on the two records, presumably McCartney's work, are surprisingly undistinguished. The '30's type ballads ("Sexy Sadie," "Honey Pie") have lost their novelty and much of their charm, remaining now as just so much old-fashioned schmaltz, "I Will" and "Julia," the love songs, are not inventive or gripping enough. McCartney's great period of love ballads seems over because he has not done much since the fervent days of "Things We Said Today" and "And I Love Her" and "Girl." Songs like "Blackbird" and "Mother Nature's Son" are done much better by the Incredible String Band and that is that.

Good Songs

The rest of the songs on the album are of varying degrees of goodness, with many many Beatle-like touches of genius (the glittering horns and Paul's singing in "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da"; the two tempos in "Helter-Skelter"--Ringo's medium and George's very fast and the precise interchange between them; the ponderous massive build-up to an electrifying flourish in "I'm So Tired"); but they are too often only unsustained touches.

Typical of such half-heartedness is the treatment of the song "Why don't we do it in the road?" A song with such a simple structure needs, and is ideally suited for, extensive musical exploration. The Beatles waste this opportunity with pedantic and sluggish guitar work and a generally uninspired musical conception, though Ringo tries hard. As a result the song falls flatter than it might have; particularly so because the shock value of the first line--"Why don't we do it in the road?"--is undercut by the second line which goes "No one will be watching us."

When the Beatles sing good night it is to "Everybody Everywhere," and it is true because we are all caught up in this fierce love-hate (but mostly love) affair that we will never be able to explain to our children. Mad records and glad records and bad records and sad records and one day it will all end. But it hasn't yet, I don't think. Where is the foolhardy soul who dares to admit that he thought in 1965 that the Beatles were all washed-up?   --SALAHUDDIN I. IMAM