Stamped January 1, 2007
BRITAIN HAS PRETTY MUCH BESTOWED upon them all the honors any Brit can get in a lifetime, including making them knights of the realm. They are John, Paul, George and Ringo, otherwise known as the Beatles. They do not require family names, the first names are enough to identify them. Now Britain has decided to give them the ultimate honor—in the case of two of them, John and George, past their lifetimes. That is to make them postage stamps.
The stamps feature covers of Beatles albums in the original vinyl in which they came out. They are irregularly shaped, jagged at the edges, the picture at front lying on stacks of other Beatles albums. The stamps, says the Royal Mail, mean to “celebrate the Beatles’ extraordinary cultural contribution to Britain.”
I couldn’t be happier. Though it’s not without irony that the Beatles have become an official feature of British post at a time when fewer and fewer people are using paper-based mail, or “snail mail.” I’ve always associated the Beatles with the experimental and cutting edge, blazing paths and leading the way. But no matter, it is still a huge honor.
But the Beatles’ cultural contributions go way beyond the isles off Calais to extend far across the seas. I myself grew up on the Beatles. The ’60s when the Beatles exploded into the scene, musical and otherwise, were my elementary (Grades 2 to 6), high school and college years (1st and 2nd). Which is to say that they were around pretty much throughout my school life. They were companion, comfort, and guide. In quite a long voyage of discovery that began with the innocent and exuberant “She loves you yeah, yeah, yeah,” and ended with the bittersweet and emotionally expansive “Let It Be.”
I’ve since listened to other things. I’ve listened to (and loved) all kinds of music, from opera to rock (and its hybrid rock opera), from jazz to New Age, from standards to sub-standards. I’ve even listened intently to punk, particularly when my kid took to it at one point in his high school life: We used to go to Claro M. Recto, which is punk heaven, a particular enclave there shaped like a “U” selling everything from T-shirts of the Sex Pistols et al. to various punk paraphernalia. Hell, I’ve even listened to techno and “emo.” I can’t imagine a world without music—I’ve always thought Herbert Von Karajan’s version of Beethoven’s Ninth was as near to heaven as you could get on earth. A world without music is the end of all life, at least as I know it.
But the Beatles will always have a special place in my heart.
That the British Royal Mail has turned the Beatles into postage stamps is well past due. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think Jamaica has already done that to Bob Marley. The honor is more than richly earned in the Beatles’ case. I don’t know of any group, nearly five decades removed, that still sounds as contemporary today as they did during their time. That is the greatest honor that can be bestowed upon anyone; more than medals, or knighthood, or gracing the mail, that one is listened to across generations apart from across borders, across time apart from across space. I’ve never ceased to be amazed that the crowd that squeezes itself into 70s Bistro during its Beatles nights is made up largely of the 20s and below and not my generation.
When I was growing up in the ’60s, the songs of Frank Sinatra, or heaven forbid those of Rosemary Clooney et al., did not have that kind of effect on us. Yet they were only two or three decades removed from us. For all practical purposes, they might as well have been a century so. The Beatles are five generations removed from this one, yet my own kids and their friends know the Beatles songs as well as I. Time Magazine’s panel of judges was right to pick Lennon-McCartney as the most influential songwriters of the 20th century, besting even Cole Porter and the Gershwin brothers.
There’s even a new Beatles album in the market, “Love,” which consists of Beatles songs arranged by George Martin originally for the legendary Cirque du Soleil. Martin, of course, is the “fifth” Beatle, the fellow who made the orchestral arrangements on the Beatles’ songs and steered Paul McCartney into the classical path. (Lennon didn’t like straying too far from his rock-and-roll roots, and said so.) “Love” has had mixed reviews. I personally found some of the (re)arrangements glorious, but unless you’re a Beatles fan, I don’t know that you’ll find much that’s new in it. But long after they broke up 35 years ago, the Beatles continue to make (musical) waves.
From where I stand (with much weaker knees) though, their songs have taken on added meanings, some of them as wryly ironic as their own humor. Last year, I wanted to write about Paul McCartney turning 64 (June 18), but I got waylaid by one thing and another. McCartney, of course, wrote “When I’m 64,” which came out in “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” in 1967. He was a young man then, pledging eternal love to a loved one, imagining how cozy things would be when they got to be that age. One month before McCartney got to be 64, he separated from Heather Mills, and is currently locked in bitter divorce proceedings with her. Alas, life doesn’t always imitate art. It did offer me whole new vistas from which to view the innocence of my youth and the guilt of my age.
Quite incidentally, I wonder what kind of surprises life will spring on Paul Simon on Oct. 13, 2011. By then, he will turn 70. I still remember his lines in “Old Friends” (from the 1968 album “Bookends”): “Old friends, sat on the park bench like bookends … How terribly strange to be 70 ….” But that’s another story.
Kind of floods you with memories. Kind of makes you feel old and young at the same time.
Happy New Year, everyone.
http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view_article.php?article_id=41067
The stamps feature covers of Beatles albums in the original vinyl in which they came out. They are irregularly shaped, jagged at the edges, the picture at front lying on stacks of other Beatles albums. The stamps, says the Royal Mail, mean to “celebrate the Beatles’ extraordinary cultural contribution to Britain.”
I couldn’t be happier. Though it’s not without irony that the Beatles have become an official feature of British post at a time when fewer and fewer people are using paper-based mail, or “snail mail.” I’ve always associated the Beatles with the experimental and cutting edge, blazing paths and leading the way. But no matter, it is still a huge honor.
But the Beatles’ cultural contributions go way beyond the isles off Calais to extend far across the seas. I myself grew up on the Beatles. The ’60s when the Beatles exploded into the scene, musical and otherwise, were my elementary (Grades 2 to 6), high school and college years (1st and 2nd). Which is to say that they were around pretty much throughout my school life. They were companion, comfort, and guide. In quite a long voyage of discovery that began with the innocent and exuberant “She loves you yeah, yeah, yeah,” and ended with the bittersweet and emotionally expansive “Let It Be.”
I’ve since listened to other things. I’ve listened to (and loved) all kinds of music, from opera to rock (and its hybrid rock opera), from jazz to New Age, from standards to sub-standards. I’ve even listened intently to punk, particularly when my kid took to it at one point in his high school life: We used to go to Claro M. Recto, which is punk heaven, a particular enclave there shaped like a “U” selling everything from T-shirts of the Sex Pistols et al. to various punk paraphernalia. Hell, I’ve even listened to techno and “emo.” I can’t imagine a world without music—I’ve always thought Herbert Von Karajan’s version of Beethoven’s Ninth was as near to heaven as you could get on earth. A world without music is the end of all life, at least as I know it.
But the Beatles will always have a special place in my heart.
That the British Royal Mail has turned the Beatles into postage stamps is well past due. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think Jamaica has already done that to Bob Marley. The honor is more than richly earned in the Beatles’ case. I don’t know of any group, nearly five decades removed, that still sounds as contemporary today as they did during their time. That is the greatest honor that can be bestowed upon anyone; more than medals, or knighthood, or gracing the mail, that one is listened to across generations apart from across borders, across time apart from across space. I’ve never ceased to be amazed that the crowd that squeezes itself into 70s Bistro during its Beatles nights is made up largely of the 20s and below and not my generation.
When I was growing up in the ’60s, the songs of Frank Sinatra, or heaven forbid those of Rosemary Clooney et al., did not have that kind of effect on us. Yet they were only two or three decades removed from us. For all practical purposes, they might as well have been a century so. The Beatles are five generations removed from this one, yet my own kids and their friends know the Beatles songs as well as I. Time Magazine’s panel of judges was right to pick Lennon-McCartney as the most influential songwriters of the 20th century, besting even Cole Porter and the Gershwin brothers.
There’s even a new Beatles album in the market, “Love,” which consists of Beatles songs arranged by George Martin originally for the legendary Cirque du Soleil. Martin, of course, is the “fifth” Beatle, the fellow who made the orchestral arrangements on the Beatles’ songs and steered Paul McCartney into the classical path. (Lennon didn’t like straying too far from his rock-and-roll roots, and said so.) “Love” has had mixed reviews. I personally found some of the (re)arrangements glorious, but unless you’re a Beatles fan, I don’t know that you’ll find much that’s new in it. But long after they broke up 35 years ago, the Beatles continue to make (musical) waves.
From where I stand (with much weaker knees) though, their songs have taken on added meanings, some of them as wryly ironic as their own humor. Last year, I wanted to write about Paul McCartney turning 64 (June 18), but I got waylaid by one thing and another. McCartney, of course, wrote “When I’m 64,” which came out in “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” in 1967. He was a young man then, pledging eternal love to a loved one, imagining how cozy things would be when they got to be that age. One month before McCartney got to be 64, he separated from Heather Mills, and is currently locked in bitter divorce proceedings with her. Alas, life doesn’t always imitate art. It did offer me whole new vistas from which to view the innocence of my youth and the guilt of my age.
Quite incidentally, I wonder what kind of surprises life will spring on Paul Simon on Oct. 13, 2011. By then, he will turn 70. I still remember his lines in “Old Friends” (from the 1968 album “Bookends”): “Old friends, sat on the park bench like bookends … How terribly strange to be 70 ….” But that’s another story.
Kind of floods you with memories. Kind of makes you feel old and young at the same time.
Happy New Year, everyone.
http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view_article.php?article_id=41067
posted by dqfan06 @ 7:04 AM
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