The Counterculture, the Straight Society, and the Beatles
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Myles Libby 10/14/09 CORE 2638 The Counterculture, the Straight Society, and the Beatles The counterculture of the mid to late 1960’s had an enormous impact on the musical and artistic culture of the era. Many artists were products of the underground scene, while others were legends before the scene emerged. In such cases, due to the influence of the counterculture, the development of different sounds and new images of particular groups is easily noticeable. One such group, the Beatles, is of great importance due to their unusually extreme popularity worldwide. Analyzing their career from start to finish, it is effortless to see and hear how they altered their appearance, image, and more importantly, their musical styles over time. Looking at early albums created by the Beatles, such as With the Beatles and A Hard Days Night, we see a generally constant theme. Their music tends to be very poppy and their lyrics very straightforward, made up of mostly boy/girl love stories, such as their early single ‘Love Me Do.’ At this point in time, for the fans at least, the Beatles seemed to be an image (the ‘fab four’) rather than a strong, musically talented influence. Discussing one of the early American tours, Ringo Starr describes, “I never felt people came to hear our show, I felt they came to see us.” (Beatles Anthology Part 5) Both Paul McCartney and Starr seemed to feel that because of the immensity of the screams and the poor quality of the speakers, the result of the music must have been very poor; but that’s not what mattered for the fans. Throughout the entirety of the show there were girls screaming, sweating, and fainting as if it was the last day of their lives, proving that before their psychedelic phase, the Beatles were already legendary in the eyes of their fans. At this point in their careers, the Beatles were not countercultural, and neither were their fans. There is no doubt the Beatles were dedicated to the quality production of their music, it just wasn’t anything extremely too experimental or unorthodox. Their music was liked by all demographics of the population, they were the ‘fab four’ that girls crushed on and they were happy with it. Unknowingly at the time, the Beatles were legends in the young minds of future ‘hippies’ and ‘freaks,’ as well as the ‘straights’ on the other hand. This popularity is one of the reasons the group had such an enormous countercultural influence on the underground scene in years to come. A turning point in the music of the Beatles was the production of Rubber Soul in 1965, just as the underground scene began to pick up momentum in both London and San Francisco. They moved away from the poppy beats of ‘Love Me Do’ to more rock influenced tracks. Such tracks contain heavy electric guitar riffs as in ‘Drive My Car’ and ‘Think for Yourself.’ Rather than boy/girl love themes that their previous music was built around, their lyrics began to evolve. This is evident in many songs such as ‘Nowhere Man’ and ‘Im Looking Through You.’ These lyrics are less straightforward and more open-ended for different interpretations. They can be read literally as well as figuratively, depending upon the imagination of the listener. The music itself also began to change with new experimentations. The most noticeable can be framed in ‘Norwegian 1 Wood’ with the debut of Harrison’s sitar, an instrument that was not typically used in their particular context. The significance of Bob Dylan in this article is important to note. Dylan was one of the first influences on the counterculture. Moving away from folk and toward rock n’ roll was tough for his traditional fans to grasp, but it opened up gateways and helped influence the birth of the counterculture: growing away from the straight society and toward a more unorthodox musical and artistic culture. Dylan was very influential on the Beatles as well; his electric guitar and rock songs were definitely complimentary to the direction they were heading in at the time. At the release of Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited , the Beatles, as well as a new, emerging group of fans, appreciated it. Noticing a good reception from this new audience, the Beatles recorded Rubber Soul . The characteristics of this album (discussed above) are very comparable to those of Highway 61 Revisited . That being said, it is important to note that the emergence of the counterculture held an influence on the early musical shifts of the Beatles, and vice-versa. Why is it that John Lennon and the Beatles, as well as the counterculture, appreciated Dylan’s new musical style as much as they did? One reason may have been the introduction of marijuana and its increasing popularity in the underground scene. One night when John Dunbar was out with Paul, he recalls running into Lennon, “I lit some hash in a little hash pipe I had – ‘What are you doing man?’ He was very paranoid.” Shortly afterward, Paul McCartney commented on their behavior during the production of their second film, Help. “By this time, we were beginning to smoke a bit of pot and we were getting a little bit more laissez faire about the whole thing.” (Miles, 2003, p.80) 1 At the same time, the counterculture was growing and following the lead of the Beatles as they took a more ‘laissez faire’ approach their work due to the influential use of LSD and weed. Their next album, Revolver , contained lyrics that only hippies in the counterculture were able to relate to. ‘In Eleanor Rigby’, “Ahh, look at all the lonely people,” and in ‘I’m Only Sleeping,’ “Please don’t wake me, no don’t shake me, leave me where I am.” These references went against the ideals of the ‘straights’ who always had something to do, and became influential to the hippies who used the philosophy of living in the present; living only for today. This gave the freaks courage as they were able to relate to the Beatles in ways that the straight society could not. These two albums, Rubber Soul and Revolver are quite similar; they were a large step forward in the progression of their talents, “…we were just starting, I feel, to really find ourselves in the studio. You know, what we could do, which was over just being the four of us playing the instruments and our vocals.” (Beatles Anthology disc 3) This portrays their departure from their ‘fab four’ image to a more musically innovative group. Their music took another turn with the release of Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band in ’67 when the counterculture was at its peak. This is when the group really hit its psychedelic rock phase, which supported counterculture ideals. This becomes obvious when listening to the album in its entirety. Obscure, drug-related lyrics accompanied by experimental ‘psychedelic’ musical styles make up most of the songs. In ‘She’s Leaving Home’ we hear the use of a harp, providing an almost ‘dreamy’ feeling. Also in this track, the guitar never leaves the C chord, which would have been unusual for the Beatles to do on their earlier albums, but it was fitting for this particular 1 Miles, B. 2003. HIPPIE. (London) 2 album as the group progressed into new musical realms. On ‘Lovely Rita’ we see vocal experimentation with the fading “aaaahhhhhhhh” at the start of the song. ‘Within You and Without You’ could be used as a musical, lyrical, and instrumental interpretation of the psychedelic genre. The Beatles, in the creation of Sgt. Peppers , were now writing for two audiences. The first audience, the younger generation of the underground, was appealed to by the production of psychedelic rock, which contained sounds that were particularly appealing to the heightened, drug-influenced senses of the freaks and hippies. At the release of the album, the Beatles were legends of their own time; their drug references would influence vast numbers around the globe. “There was a pecking order in the higher reaches of the underground, and if the Rolling Stones were princes on the scene then the Beatles were kings.” (Miles, 2003, p.251) 2 The straight society, sensing the growing influence of the counterculture, felt like they had to do something. In order to limit the Beatle’s influence of drugs on the counterculture, the BBC went as far as placing a ban on several of the songs that contained ‘suspected drug references. This did not affect the popularity of these songs. What separates the Beatles from other groups in the psychedelic era is the fact that Sgt. Peppers appealed to a second audience: the straight, older generation of the ‘60’s. As opposed to the Jefferson Airplane who, in their album Bathing at Baxters (the name in itself was a reference to acid), created only psychedelic songs and drugged up anti-straight culture lyrics; the Beatles produced songs that the straights, as well as the hippies, enjoyed. For example, it is likely that ‘When I’m Sixty-Four’ was liked by the straights, and possibly even written for the older folks, while songs such as ‘Within You Without You,’ was probably liked more by the heads. Even the album covers stand as an example; on the surface, Sgt. Peppers is a happy, childish picture that the straights could smile at. But after spending time looking at it, as the tripped out hippies did, there are many aspects that would begin to pop beneath the surface, such as the marijuana plants at the bottom of the cover and other things that were left for the viewers own interpretation.