In article <3553BE1A.7E623916@ix.netcom.com> Terrence <tgc3@ix.netcom.com> writes:
>
>Your post was, in fact, far less critical of the
>Beatles' music than the average poster to this thread.

If you searched through ten years of my posts to rmb, I don't think you'd
find *anything* critical of them. Quite the opposite. Some might say I've
got no objectivity left. :-)

saki wrote:

>> Perhaps, but the Beatles were actually quite conservative in their lyrical
>> structure. Sticking to a tried-and-true formula of predominantly love
>> songs is a dead giveaway. :-)
>
>It sounds as if you're implying that the Beatles where an artistically 
>conventional band.  You *can't* be saying that. 

You're correct, I'm not. But they followed certain formulae in lyrics and
musical constructs---formulae that would catch the ear of listeners
accustomed to pop, rock-n-roll, and even more traditional balladry of the
last, say, 100 years (their lyrical themes are preponderantly
conventional;  "love" in all its human permutations makes up the majority
of Lennon & McCartney's, as well as Harrison's, thematic explorations). 

But while using themes of great resonance, one can build one's artistry to
new heights. I think the Fabs took standard pop music and turned it on its
ear, while miraculously *retaining* a lot of what made pop music familiar.

This type of talent isn't easily categorized, but it indicates their level
of intuitive genius.

>  I'll agree that they were pretty much a bubble gum
>pop band very early but history shows clearly that this period 
>was relatively brief .

See, I don't even go for the "bubble gum" appellation. They weren't at all
on the level of lyrical hokum. Some of their earlier songs were
deceptively simple ("I'll Get You" sounds that way to some) but if you
trace these songs down to their roots, you discover something new in the
mix of words and melody.

>My point is that there is comprehension through poor grammar, 
>and that being strict
>about rules of grammar is stifling to the concept of rock and roll 
>as music for the
>everyman.  

But the Beatles weren't following rules because they loved rules; far from
it! They used conventions because those standards were most easily
embraced by their listeners...and because, frankly, they too loved those
standards. One lesson they rarely forgot was that there must be a route of
communication between artist and appreciator. Elvis and Chuck and Buddy
spoke to them, in meaning and sound. The Fabs spoke to us too.

They themselves knew what they liked in pop music, and they were good
students of other pop purveyors---Chuck Berry, Elvis, Buddy Holly and
other superlative early rock artistes. Rock and roll seemed rebellious,
but that was in its beat (in the earliest days) more than in its lyrics.
Later the lyrics broke out of what was expected. I think the Fabs' own
"The Word" was one of those lyrical revolutions.

The primary themes of rock and roll music were like those of any era---the
angst of breakup, the glory of first infatuation, the solemnity of loss.
But that wasn't just what rockers felt.

Some of the most poignant lyrics I've ever read (read because the music
has vanished) come from the late medieval period, and rate as highly as
anything turned out by the Fabs...or anyone:

	Westron wind, when wilt thou blow?
	The small rain down can rain.
	Christ, if my love were in my arms
	and I in my bed again!

(Note the less-than-reverent use of the epithet...brings to mind a certain
lyric in "Ballad of John and Yoko". :-)

Here in a few words by an anonymous songwriter is an emotion as
power-packed as anything written by George Gershwin or L&M or...pick your
own favorite! But the yearning of what is gone---who knows whether it'll
ever return?---is as powerful as the awful pain of "Yer Blues" or the more
subdued, baffled bereftness of "Yesterday".

>Just because the Beatles used relatively good grammar only means that
>they were reasonably intelligent and articulate.  It doesn't disprove my
>theory that rock
>is immune from criticisms of grammar.  Using bad grammar doesn't mean being
>unintelligible.

No, and a number of regional verbal variants come into play in rock
dialects ("I can't get no satisfaction"). But to *describe* grammatical
constructs in the Beatles' lyrics is not the same thing as *criticizing*
grammar. Grammar can be used to clarify as well as obfuscate. :-) It can
even be used to celebrate!

Someone said that they thought the shift from third to second person in
"And I Love Her" was syntactically a mistake. I suggested how it could be
intentional. Someone else suggested that "I Need You" also had unnatural
grammar; I countered by demonstrating how the phrase in question was in
fact perfectly intelligible, and even grammatical. That shouldn't suggest
to anyone that rock carries less power because it's based in
intelligibilty, or because it follows rules of syntax and semantics.

>BTW, I am a man but some have debated the 'gentle' prefix.  ;-)

Well, considering your civil response, I'd go ahead and give you the title
anyway. :-)

>Yes, but the Beatles were amateurs in that they were not trained as 
>musicians or
>songwriters.  And they didn't use a template to guide them through 
>their career.

It's true that for the most part they weren't officially trained. But I'd
argue that they *did* use "templates", the kind they absorbed from
hundreds of pop songs they heard over the radio in their youth---from Bing
Crosby to Vera Lynn to Big Bill Broonzy to the Everly Brothers and Motown
and beyond. 

Their mix of influences is so complex that one can hardly follow the
manner whereby they synthesized all that they felt and loved from music. 

This too was one of their greatest accomplishments...all the more so
because their own songs sound so fresh and new to the ear. It's a rare
talent---maybe one beyond formal training---that can make that kind of
creative leap!

>They *never* said "This is the way it's supposed to be done so that's how
>we'll do it."  As a matter of fact, a more likely scenario would be 
>"This is the way it's supposed to be done so we know what we won't be
>doing."

I think they did both. I believe that they imitated musical typology that
they loved, and did so openly---straining to hear how Buddy or Chuck or
whoever got *just that sound* out of his guitar, and then trying to
duplicate it. I think Buddy Holly was a stronger influence than John ever
acknowledged, but it was that lyrical pattern---among others---that the
Fabs worked hard to duplicate. 

And by the time they'd learned to duplicate it as well as anyone could,
the transcended it. That part I don't quite understand yet. I'm not sure I
ever shall. 

And there were other styles they tried and left behind---skiffle, even a
faint attempt at a Shadows parody. I can almost imagine the lad sitting
round the Lennon or McCartney telly and swearing they'd *never* do the
stage choreography, nor clunking guitar passages, that the Shadows
did---yet the Shadows were enormously popular in the UK in the early
sixties. 

The Beatles' only hope was breaking free of convention, in that sense. So
they did the most sensible thing---the interwove concentionality with
imagination, and turned it into something new...something that even today
musicologists and lyrical scholars try their damndest to typify, but
can't quite get with the same eloquence carried by the music itself.

Maybe that's because the real epiphany of the Fabs' musical miracle comes
from the sounds they made, and the words they sang.

And that's probably what they would have wanted, above all other things.

-- 
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"I've got nothing to say but it's okay."
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saki@evolution.bchs.uh.edu