I Don't Have Time For The Beatles

“Before Elvis, there was nothing.” – John Lennon




t ain’t no sekrit to most folks that know me that I ain’t much of a Beatles person. Usually my nonchalance where these fellers is concerned is misconstrued as a hatred, and I must admit that I have fueled such a perception on more than one occasion with such flagrancy as “Fuck the Beatles” and other colorfully metaphorical statements. But in reality, my feelings for the Beatles are really just summed up in a blatant disregard for them, much in opposition to the typical reverence most of the rest of the

music world treats them with.

You see, it’s not that I have some kind of unmitigated hatred for the Beatles, nor is it even that I contest their abilities as songwriters and musically creative entities. Only a fool would hold up a musical masterwork such as “Sgt. Pepper’s” and claim that it is not a credible and valid contribution to the development of music in the 20^th century western world. My problem is basically that I do not believe they deserve the kind of worship that they have received since their advent. The Beatles got their foot in the door of the music world by standing on the shoulders of others who were far more deserving of the credit, but were constrained by circumstances far beyond their control.

Look at it this way. American music, from its very beginnings, has basically been a story of two intermingling and colliding (and sometimes incestuous) musical heritages. These would be Black music, rooted in the native stylings of ancestral Africa and its Caribbean associates, and the musical traditions of old world Europe. In the birth throes of American music these two roots very quickly become hard to sharply delineate, but with the advent of recorded music one thing becomes very clear: it was difficult to market “black music” to “white audiences”.

The result, as any good student of American history knows, was the “race record” debacle. It was obvious very quickly that what was regarded as black music (as early as what can be categorically defined as blues, jazz, and swing) was popular with youthful white audiences. But the companies producing the recordings could not market the black versions directly to white audiences because of the prevailing segregative mentality of the United States. So, the record companies had to side-step the race-issue by having white artists record versions of the popular black pieces that were then acceptably marketed to the white music consumer.

Anyone who knows anything about music prior to the Beatles knows this tale, so I am likely preachin’ to the choir with this bit, but it’s an important point in my argument against Beatles deity-ship, so I am loathe to skip it. The race record bit really comes into fervent play with the rise of “rock n roll” and the drama it stirred in America’s youth and societal relations in the mid 20^th century. Drama or not, record producers were poised to sell. But even with the mass hysteria and thirst for the driving new music, they still were unable to sidestep the race record process. Legend has it that during one of the re-recording sessions, Pat Boone even tried to grammatically correct his cover of Fats Domino by testing out “Isn’t That a Shame?” Apparently it was bad enough that this music was corrupting the morals of the youth, Boone couldn’t permit it to corrupt their grammar as well (the corruption was not perceived as bad enough, however, to cause record companies to give up the opportunity to make an exploitative buck).

At this point in my diatribe, most folks see where I am headin’ and begin to point out that Elvis Presley (who I do not disregard, it should be mentioned) was guilty of crimes similar to those I am about to lay at the feet of the Beatles. My answer to that attribution is that never once during his career did Elvis Presley ever disconnect himself from the fact that he was a white musician appropriating the stylings of black music. In fact, Presley so revered the black artists he culled songs from that he admittedly attempted to preserve every nuance of the original performers in his renditions. And as the story progresses, note that The Colonel perceived the volatile nature of the rock n roll game Elvis was playing in direct relation to the music’s preconception as a vehicle of black culture inappropriate for the white youth of America. When Elvis returned from the army, The Colonel deliberately recreated his ace-in-the-hole as a pop star, eradicating the connection to the controversy of rock n roll and its undeniable “blackness”.

This said, enter the Beatles on the rock n roll music scene of America in the early 1960s. When the Beatles arrived in America, they were performing music in the stylings of American rock n roll. It wasn’t anything new or different from the controversial domestic music that had been raging for nigh on a decade. The ultimate difference was that the Beatles were NOT American. Here were four white males from England, with no connection to the American south nor the struggle of the American Black, that were playing music proven popular and marketable to an American white audience. But they were not black, nor were they white American artists covering black tunes. They were British and therefore perceived as a new phenomenon… and the record companies, beleaguered at the process of race recordings, snapped up this misconception and ran with it.

It does not need to be pointed out that the success garnered by the Beatles because of this strange twist of fate enabled them to explore and experiment and become the admirable musical phenomenon they were later in their career. But in their wake, the “British Invasion” that followed essentially squelched American music. American blues, rock n roll, AND the birthing phenomenon of garage rock were pushed to the side of the road in favor of an onslaught of bands from across the pond who were performing black American music, but did not have to go through the race record process because there were thousands of miles of ocean covering up the tracks linking them to their black American musical roots.

It could be conjectured that the movement of black music into the realm of Soul was reactionary against the denying of deserved credit to black artists in the market of rock n roll. And then it is interesting to note that when record companies conjured up their own white versions of soul exemplified by girl vocal groups and beach party nonsense, black musicians seemed to have again been forced to find some new musical voice in Funk. Funk, of course, was mimicked and repackaged for white audiences by record companies as Disco.
Looked at in this manner, American musical history can be perceived as a process of record companies trying to figure out how to most effectively and efficiently market a black musical enterprise to a white audience in an American culture plagued by racism and segregation. Ultimately it seems that the birth of hip-hop and rap coincided with positive cultural and race relation effects of the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s and 1970s. The evolving societal climate enabled record companies to finally abandon the recreation and mimicking of the race record process and today we see the rap and hip-hop phenomenon directly marketed to youth culture regardless of racial or ethnic background.

But what about those black artists of the mid-century who never got the success, credit, and recognition warranted them for their undeniably important contributions to the evolution of American music as we know it? People laud the Beatles and their supposed creative genius, pointing fingers at the masterfully crafted studio works these British invaders were enabled to create using the revenue from their massive success as regurgitators of an already established musical styling. What if the Cab Calloways and the Muddy Waterses and the Lightnin’ Hopkinses and the Chuck Berryses and the Big Joe Turners of American music had been permitted to have such unmitigated financial success? What might those remarkably creative entities have created for us? Perhaps nothing, but it is hard not to wonder what may have come down to us were the furor of rock n roll not snatched away from these men and handed over to four mop-headed cover artists from England, simply because of the fact that they did not have a direct connection to the race struggle marring America’s musical history.  Lennon's famed quote that I began this diatribe with exemplifies this lack of exhibited connection.

Does anyone remember Ted Nugent remarking for the need to keep rock n roll “white”? What fostered such an ignorant statement? Why were the black rock n roll bands “In Living Color” and “Body Count” considered such a novelty? In my opinion it is because the event we know as the Beatles obscured for the common person the fact that rock n roll is at its core a black musical invention. Why does it seem that only such a small part of the American black populace acknowledges rock n roll or the mid 20^th century as part of their cultural and musical heritage? Because socially, that time in American history was brutal to them as a culture, so much so that they were not even allowed to take rock n roll with them as their own creation. It had to be handed over to the Beatles.

In the big scheme of things, the Beatles cannot even really be held accountable for what happened. They can be exonerated as pawns of the music industry and walk away from the whole mess with clean hands and consciences. Besides, who is to deny someone the making of a dollar when the opportunity is offered to them? And also, there is no contest to the premise that what the Beatles created later on in their career was indeed musically valid and important. But for me, the notion that the Beatles were somehow the most amazing, most incredible, most significant thing to ever occur in the history of music in the western world is a difficult pill to swallow.

This said, I will continue to disregard the Beatles. There is too much out there musically that is of equal or more importance that I would rather be focused on. In short, I just ain’t got the time fer them.

- Squeezebox Sam