The Beatles

I was aware of them as a little kid, but didn't get properly into them until I was 14, when I pinched the (2) albums my dad owned off him (Pepper and Mystery), and then bought up the others myself.

I tracked down (for myself) the Monkees DVD where Tim Buckley closed one of the episodes, and I played it for the kids, they enjoyed it a lot.

I then found The Beatles' "Help" DVD, and again I played it for their entertainment, as reported on in the thread "So, should I let Amber and Alice see the Beatles' "Help" film?;

At this point, they thought The Beatles were a follow-on from The Monkees, in fact I remember Alice singing "Hey hey we're the Beatles" at one point.

Since then, I hadn't really made a point of getting them 'into' The Beatles, but Alice, being the musical one, has made a point of learning all there is to know about them (and has given chapter and verse to various music teachers about the specifics of the "Twist and Shout" session..)

the only person my age I know who's REALLY into the Beatles had parents from Liverpool who loved them. He genuinely rates Kula Shaker which is a bit wtf for a 23 year old. He's already married though.

I had a phase at about 12 when I thought 'This Boy' was the deepest shit ever recorded (lol) and that was it. I think apart from listening to And Your Bird Can Sing on YouTube a few times, I've never actually put a Beatles song/album on out of choice.

Grew up w a bootleg of Yellow Submarine on VHS, and I remember talking about it on the bus to school and stuff. I was way into it. Must have been 5 or 6. That tape also included Magical Mystery Tour! And we had another one (that I didn't find until I was a teen) that had The Compleat Beatles with Malcolm McDowell narrating.

they were definitely part of the kids canon for me, all my friends liked the early beatles stuff when we were 10 or 11. we sang "i want to hold your hand" at our school's spring concert.

when i was 14 or 15 i really, really got into them. probably the first band that i just plunged into and checked out albums and books from the library and totally immersed myself in them. they were fun and accessible and also had a weird, mysterious druggy vibe that captured my fascination. i started smoking pot a fairly young age and i was blown away that "walrus" had the chant at the end that seemingly goes SMOKE POT SMOKE POT EVERYBODY SMOKE POT EVERYBODY SMOKE POT that freaked me out but also seemed really cool

btw i just shut down my brain to anyone who says that the walrus chant is saying something else. i don't care if i'm wrong, to me it will always be SMOKE POT SMOKE POT EVERYBODY SMOKE POT EVERYBODY SMOKE POT

Ha, I didn't hear it like that until I was in college, and I'd first heard "Walrus" when I was 6. I did ask my mom what an acid trip was, though (having read Lennon's quote about writing the first lines on an acid trip).

We learned a lot of Beatles songs in primary school, Yellow Submarine and Octopus' Garden were definitely in our songbooks. And I learned a lot of the popular songs from watching the Beatles cartoon on tv, iirc they would play an animated clip of the songs and have a bouncinig-ball singalong type thing

then in high school a friend made me a copy of Sgt Pepper, and another friend had this weird Reader's Digest collections of Beatles cassetes, like 6 of them that had all the songs. We got mum the blue and red compliation sets on CD for her birthday, and those became a household staple most weekends.

To be completely honest I spent most of my life only knowing the hits. I hadn't really listened to that many complete albums except Pepper til the re-release campaign, and then I started gobbling them up.

I think boomers hadn't yet infiltrated education when I was in grade school. The idea of singing Beatles songs in class, or at an assembly, would've garnered reactions from some parents and teachers along the lines of "You let our kids sing commie drug music!"

We sang Yellow Submarine and When I'm 64 in primary school, maybe a few others I'm forgetting.

Oh and my class once did a dance routine to Maxwell's Silver Hammer. It got quite violent as you can imagine.

RIP Jackie Lomax:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KT7HMdUEBI4

That song rules so hard. Wish the George version wasn't so savagely lo fi.

Yeah, isn't it great? I first heard this on the radio once in the mid-80s; there was a dj on the big Chicago FM rock station who would play relatively obscure stuff like this from time to time. It blew my mind, sounding like a white album outtake that was better than 1/3rd of the white album.

Octopus's Garden was definitely in circulation - thanks to its position on Raffi's One Light, One Sun (1985). I'm pretty sure I never understood it as a "Beatles song" until I heard Abbey Road as a teenager.

I just heard about 'A Toot and a Snore' bootleg:

"Lennon was producing Harry Nilsson's latest album, Pussy Cats, when Paul and Linda McCartney dropped in after the first night of the sessions, aka "the Jim Keltner Fan Club Hour", at Burbank Studios on 28 March 1974. They were joined by Stevie Wonder, Harry Nilsson, Jesse Ed Davis, May Pang, Bobby Keys and producer Ed Freeman for an impromptu jam session.
Lennon was in his "lost weekend", separated from Yoko Ono and living in Los Angeles with Pang. Although he and McCartney hadn't seen each other in three years (and lashed out at each other in the press), according to Pang they resumed their friendship as if nothing had happened. The jam session proved not very productive musically. Lennon sounds to be on cocaine and is heard offering Wonder a snort on the first track, and on the fifth, asks someone to give him a snort. This is also the origin of the album name, where John Lennon clearly asks: "You wanna snort, Steve? A toot? It's goin' round". In addition, Lennon seems to be having trouble with his microphone and headphones.
Lennon is on lead vocal and guitar, McCartney sings harmony and plays Ringo Starr's drums (Starr, who was recording with Nilsson at the time but not present at the session, complained at the next day's recording session that "McCartney always messes up me drums!").[2] Stevie Wonder sings and plays electric piano, Linda McCartney is on organ, Pang plays tambourine, Nilsson provides vocals, Davis is on guitar, Freeman (who was producing Don McLean in the neighboring studio) fills in on bass, and Keys plays saxophone.[3]
The events of this night are intriguing to Beatle fans as it is the only known instance of the former songwriting team playing together between their 1970 formal breakup and Lennon's murder in 1980. Aside from informal, special occasions such as weddings, collaborations of more than two ex-Beatles were rare after the band's bitter 1969-70 split, especially between Lennon and McCartney, whose conflict was the most pronounced and long-lived of all the post-split infighting."

haha that recording is so shite they NEVER find a groove

and yea they're all coked out of their minds

i've heard a bit of the AB Road bootleg (100+ hours of audio from the Let It Be sessions, from the video reels i think) and damn it sounds fun. stuff like paul demoing "oh darling" (solo piano). and i love hearing beatles talk.

Yeah, I've heard a bunch of that as well. George was OBSESSED with "I Shall Be Released."

I think I've heard some of that; they rehearse "She Came In Through The Bathroom Window" and Lennon provides running commentary ("Protected by a silver spoon" "a bloody spoon, bloody spoon, bloody spoon"). It's interesting, but doesn't seem like it would stand up to multiple listens.

Actually, it might be from Let It Be...I think they rehearsed a bunch of Abbey Road during those sessions.

yeah, that boot is awful -- it's one of those releases that kind of defines how obsessive Beatles fans will latch onto anything unreleased. Having Stevie Wonder on it is almost like a joke by god

lennon seems like a bro, offering toots

the nilsson documentary on netflix is great but a real bummer :(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SE49bsxGTFM#t=45

Turntables and the Beatles who loved them: http://www.capitol6000.com/recordplayers.html

Tom Ewing via Ned Raggett:

Somewhere there's an alternative universe where the boomers spent as much emotional and financial effort on protecting the 60s' political gains as they did in this one on making sure people still knew who The Beatles were.

why should we accept at face value this idea that the persistence of the Beatles canon is a Baby Boomer conspiracy? why shouldn't we blame Generations X & Y for the undoing of these political gains?

I actually think that the cash spent on reversing the (possibly overstated actual) political gains far, far outgrosses Beatles-related spending.

why shouldn't we blame Generations X & Y

because nearly all the Democrats who made this possible are boomers, led by the Clintons.

blame boomers for the politics but each new generation p much discovers/advocates the beatles for themselves, I know that's a cliche but I've seen it happen 100x

So progressives failed because they spent all their time proselytizing the Beatles? Lol.

Saw McCartney play last weekend. 23 Beatles songs.

"When I'm 94" cheap shot here

beatles have a lot of catchy tunes and ppl tend to like em when they hear em

you act like baby boomers strap us down in some kinda open eyelid clockwork orange beatles machine

timellison you only saw mccartney last weekend because you were strapped down clockwork orange style, right?

Sort of convenient that no other decades made promises for the future.

what 1960s political gains? i thought nixon was elected in 68.

Once the major civil rights legislation was done, more of the political gains were made in the first half of the '70s, until Reagan, Clinton and the whole sad bunch cut all the non-rich loose.

i was just being cynical

tom ewing's quote up there is too dumb to actually contemplate seriously

see also: most things written by music critics

critics bloggers

each new generation p much discovers/advocates the beatles for themselves

And reactionary politics

I've just been trapped in a room (not literally) at work having to listen to some early Beatles (might have been the first album - how the fuck would I know?) Jesus, but how I hate all that yakky-dakky Merseybeat stuff.

Yakky-dakky?

Girl, shake that yakky dakky (that yakky dakky)
Twist and shout

It's a phrase of my own invention for relentlessly chirpy Scouse shite.

The world is treating me bad yakky dakky

Actually pronounced yachy dachy

You know, if you break my heart I'll go
And yakky-dakk again

Yakky Dakky
What have you done?
You've made a fool of everyone

Yakky Dak, don't talk back!