The Beatles

A little background for you....

I have always had a strange relationship with The Beatles. On the one hand, aged about five, I owned a plastic Beatles guitar, so they were the first musical memory I had, along with a vague knowledge of Elvis. A lot of their output was easy for a young child to sing - the puerile "she loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah" was probably the first I learnt, to the frustration of my parents, who hated me saying "yeah" instead of "yes". The accursed Yellow Submarine was number one in primary school playgrounds all over the country.

In the mid sixties, The Beatles were simply everywhere, even for five-six year old kids like me. On the other hand, as the years went by and I started to develop a musical taste, I found the edgy, bad boy, rebellious appeal of The Rolling Stones far more attractive. Even at eight or nine, I viewed The Beatles as "goody-goodies" - despite the flower power garb and later-era beards - and The Stones as the exact opposite. I knew which side my bread was buttered. Musically too, the riffy, bluesy decadence of The Stones' sound was what I wanted, not what I viewed by 1968 as twee, as I certainly did The Beatles' pre-1965 output.

So, you will have gathered by now that The Beatles are not the holy grail for me. Far from it.

Despite owning everything they recorded - including the much-valued "Beatles In Mono" box set - David Bowie, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Roxy Music, Mott The Hoople, Van Morrison, The Clash and The Jam just for starters are far more important to me on a day-to-day basis.

There are also parts of their output I do not consider worthy of a supposed "rock group" - mainly dreadful McCartney whimsy, music hall pastiches or "Yellow bloody Submarine". Rock group my arse. Led Zeppelin were a rock group. Mott The Hoople were a rock group. Nazareth were a rock group. Etc etc etc. The Beatles properly rocked on surprisingly few occasions. However, their sheer variety of compositions was such they remain almost unclassifiable. There is no doubting that they were thoroughly unique.

However, all that said, I was lucky enough to develop my musical taste in the said sixties and there are some Beatles songs that are indelibly imprinted on my entire consciousness.

I could tell you exactly where I was when I first heard them - Good Day Sunshine (on my parents' enormous, bulky reel to reel tape machine); Hello Goodbye (on the top deck of a bus one evening before Christmas in Leicester with my Mother, and it was played by some teenagers on their transistor radio); Hey Jude (over the Tannoy before the match at Leicester City v West Bromwich Albion in October 1968); Lady Madonna and Let It Be (at home at the kitchen table listening to the radio with my Mother).

So, like it or not, The Beatles will forever be a part of my life. Ain't nothin' I can do about it. As a non-proper fan I will try to do their remarkable output justice.

Click on the album images for the in-depth reviews -