About the Beatles it’s hard to write anything new. The Beatles already have their chroniclers: their Lewisohns, their Ryan & Kehews, their MacDonalds. Everyone with any claim to be the Fifth Beatle already has a book to their name.
One thing that is certainly left, and a thing that is accomplished with fearless dilettantism by Jeff Walker in his book Let’s Put The Beatles Back Together Again, is the job of pruning what exists. This book is a veritable orchard of the resulting bonsai trees. To put it more crudely, this is a listmaker’s wet dream. 1
Walker structures the book around the idea that, contra Lennon’s song ‘God’, the dream is not over. That is to say, there is a way to claw back the Beatles’ solo careers and construct a Beatlesque canon. To do this, Walker proposes a thought experiment. Suppose the Beatles, upon officially splitting up, had made a pact to continue to group their best recordings together under the moniker of the Beatles Recording Collective (the BRC).
Some amusing hypotheticals fall into place here. John still dies on December 8, 1980, but he ‘survives’ as ‘ghost-John’ as a recording artist through the virtue of having a fair bit of unreleased work in the can.2 They still release their various solo albums, although the best tracks (‘Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five’ but not ‘No Words’ from Band on the Run) are creamed off and packaged for the BRC.
I realise I am struggling to say what this book is. I would say it is best described as a piece of conceptual art, as much as it is a ‘list’ book. At its heart is the notion of digging out ‘Beatles-worthy’ (as Walker puts it) songs from the post-Beatles period.3 A subjective – and subjunctive – cataloguing which is very much of our time. The idea of wresting programming duties from the artist is the sine qua non of the iPod playlist. It’s a notion positively encouraged by the digital world we’ve surrounded ourselves with. As someone who runs what I’d like to think of as a discriminating music blog, I am all for eclecticism. Out with the overrated! Down with the merely popular! (Indeed, at one point, Walker refers to people whose appetites are sated by Best Of collections as ‘cultural plebeians’.)
To me, this is where the book comes into its own. The BRC’s Black Album, a 1973 four-record boxed-set which juxtaposes the former Beatles’ best solo tracks. So, to take four tracks at random, George’s ‘What is Life’ is followed by John’s ‘Instant Karma’, followed by Ringo’s ‘It Don’t Come Easy’, itself followed by Paul’s ‘Another Day’. (Interestingly, Walker relates that George made a very similar collection in 1971 for Beatles fans who couldn’t wait for the boys to reform.)
Walker’s selections (for that is what matters here, if we’re honest; not many people will buy a book like this for its elegant prose style) are admittedly quirky at times: the Get Back sessions are abundantly represented, despite much of the material being, to my ears, a motley collection of ragtag miscellanea that Spector rescued from ignominy. However, I found the author’s quirkiness endearing rather than irritating. Commendation must go to him for representing each of the Beatles fairly: I myself wouldn’t know where to start with Ringo. (See the APPENDIX for the choices of his that I appreciated the most.)
Moreover, there is a marvellous boldness to the writing and to the choices. A boldness which rests somewhere on the assumption that the Beatles’ albums are better listened to selectively. I managed to repress the pedant in me who knows that, under all this, there’s a question-begging value judgement about what counts as Beatlesque. It’s not an easy question to answer, nor is Walker the type to ponder such philosophical questions. But perhaps that’s the point. It’s easier to classify the Stones’ output. (Ballad or rocker? Gutsy or psychedelic? Bluesy or progressive?) But the Beatles’ work frequently eludes such categorisations. That is why we love it. That, I might add, is the best definition of what is ‘Beatlesque’.
I often think, while reading Beatles-related books, by people who are clearly obsessed with the band, I like the Beatles more than you! You know more about them, have troubled yourself to listen to poorly recorded bootlegs, have better access to their private data, but I don’t think ‘Till There Was You’ will ever be a filler (Walker dismisses it, preferring the group to be seen as a ‘path-breaking rock ’n’ roll band’), or that ‘Crippled Inside’ is ‘weak material’. But then, perhaps I am closer to idolatry than I realise.
All this is no more than to say that this is not a book for completists, but for fantasists. And that is also appropriate: the Beatles were, after all, in the job of fantasising for a generation.
That’s, on the face of it, it. But the book does double duty as a repository of biographical data and contextual information about the song selections. Here I found Walker’s pruning superb. You may know that John Lennon had a pony as a child, but I hadn’t seen that mentioned before, and I certainly don’t know many writers who would dare to be literal enough to mention it in the context of ‘Dig A Pony’. (And I mean that as a compliment.) You might not think it adds much to your appreciation of the song, but I think it does.
Furthermore, the timelines Walker provides are helpful, but beyond that, they often have their own unexpected pathos, the week leading up to Lennon’s death in December 1980 in particular.
I should mention that although it is very informative, this is not a dry book, by any means. There is plenty of gentle humour: the short section entitled ‘Ringo’s Guide To Impressing A Bond Girl’ (in short: nearly get killed together) was a big favourite of mine. And how can you not love a book with the chapter heading ‘Getting Past George’s Obsession With Eastern Religion’?
I haven’t even touched on many of the problems the book deals with felicitiously. To select one, the book raises the interesting question of how you go about compiling a great Beatles live album. Walker shows how it could be done, and I would not be surprised if someone at a record company is listening and taking notes. Imagine if Walker was to catch someone at EMI’s ear about the live album. (After all, the hotchpotch that was Lennon’s Acoustic (2004) did pretty well in the States, even if it wasn’t a hit in the UK)
In summary: This is a well-meaning and worthwhile project, accomplished with good humour and a lightness of touch, despite the enormous effort involved. I cannot fault Walker’s meticulous research, which has encouraged me to seek out in particular some Harrison and Starr material that I might otherwise have not bothered to find, buried as they are on sometimes middling albums. Certainly this is a good antidote to the complacent, who think they might have listened to everything the Beatles had to offer them.
(I’d also like to thank Walker for pointing me towards this breathtaking clip of Yoko ‘singing’ with the Beatles minus George during the Get Back sessions. Why wasn’t it on Let It Be... Naked?)
1 Full disclosure: The author kindly sent me a copy of the book.
2 In fact, this is very much what happened in 1995 and 1996 with the two demos Free as a Bird and Real Love.
3 Walker even steps in to rejig the existing Beatles catalogue, which to me was a step into heresy, and a certain defensive reflex snapped into place at this point. This section, which begins the book, might have been better off in an appendix, as to me it is the least palatable of Walker’s suggestions. (And, yes, I agree he has a point about the Past Masters series being an unsatisfactory compromise, but I have such an indomitable respect for the albums, I can’t see fit to meddle with them.)
Walker structures the book around the idea that, contra Lennon’s song ‘God’, the dream is not over. That is to say, there is a way to claw back the Beatles’ solo careers and construct a Beatlesque canon. To do this, Walker proposes a thought experiment. Suppose the Beatles, upon officially splitting up, had made a pact to continue to group their best recordings together under the moniker of the Beatles Recording Collective (the BRC).
Some amusing hypotheticals fall into place here. John still dies on December 8, 1980, but he ‘survives’ as ‘ghost-John’ as a recording artist through the virtue of having a fair bit of unreleased work in the can.2 They still release their various solo albums, although the best tracks (‘Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five’ but not ‘No Words’ from Band on the Run) are creamed off and packaged for the BRC.
I realise I am struggling to say what this book is. I would say it is best described as a piece of conceptual art, as much as it is a ‘list’ book. At its heart is the notion of digging out ‘Beatles-worthy’ (as Walker puts it) songs from the post-Beatles period.3 A subjective – and subjunctive – cataloguing which is very much of our time. The idea of wresting programming duties from the artist is the sine qua non of the iPod playlist. It’s a notion positively encouraged by the digital world we’ve surrounded ourselves with. As someone who runs what I’d like to think of as a discriminating music blog, I am all for eclecticism. Out with the overrated! Down with the merely popular! (Indeed, at one point, Walker refers to people whose appetites are sated by Best Of collections as ‘cultural plebeians’.)
 |
| Best Of collections are for ‘cultural plebeians’, according to Walker. |
Walker’s selections (for that is what matters here, if we’re honest; not many people will buy a book like this for its elegant prose style) are admittedly quirky at times: the Get Back sessions are abundantly represented, despite much of the material being, to my ears, a motley collection of ragtag miscellanea that Spector rescued from ignominy. However, I found the author’s quirkiness endearing rather than irritating. Commendation must go to him for representing each of the Beatles fairly: I myself wouldn’t know where to start with Ringo. (See the APPENDIX for the choices of his that I appreciated the most.)
 |
| Not many of us know where to start with Ringo. |
I often think, while reading Beatles-related books, by people who are clearly obsessed with the band, I like the Beatles more than you! You know more about them, have troubled yourself to listen to poorly recorded bootlegs, have better access to their private data, but I don’t think ‘Till There Was You’ will ever be a filler (Walker dismisses it, preferring the group to be seen as a ‘path-breaking rock ’n’ roll band’), or that ‘Crippled Inside’ is ‘weak material’. But then, perhaps I am closer to idolatry than I realise.
All this is no more than to say that this is not a book for completists, but for fantasists. And that is also appropriate: the Beatles were, after all, in the job of fantasising for a generation.
That’s, on the face of it, it. But the book does double duty as a repository of biographical data and contextual information about the song selections. Here I found Walker’s pruning superb. You may know that John Lennon had a pony as a child, but I hadn’t seen that mentioned before, and I certainly don’t know many writers who would dare to be literal enough to mention it in the context of ‘Dig A Pony’. (And I mean that as a compliment.) You might not think it adds much to your appreciation of the song, but I think it does.
 |
| This could so easily have been John. |
I should mention that although it is very informative, this is not a dry book, by any means. There is plenty of gentle humour: the short section entitled ‘Ringo’s Guide To Impressing A Bond Girl’ (in short: nearly get killed together) was a big favourite of mine. And how can you not love a book with the chapter heading ‘Getting Past George’s Obsession With Eastern Religion’?
 |
| Before developing his spiritual side, George learned to play the invisible Theremin to a professional level. |
In summary: This is a well-meaning and worthwhile project, accomplished with good humour and a lightness of touch, despite the enormous effort involved. I cannot fault Walker’s meticulous research, which has encouraged me to seek out in particular some Harrison and Starr material that I might otherwise have not bothered to find, buried as they are on sometimes middling albums. Certainly this is a good antidote to the complacent, who think they might have listened to everything the Beatles had to offer them.
APPENDIX: Songs Walker’s Book Has Highlighted For Which I Would Like To Thank Him
| George Harrison | Apple Scruffs Awaiting on You All Devil’s Radio Lay His Head Handle with Care (The Traveling Wilburys) Life itself The Lord Loves the One Beware of Darkness Hear me lord Wah-Wah What Is Life |
| Paul McCartney | Golden Earth Girl Lifelong Passion - The Fireman Beware my Love Cafe On The Left Bank Helen Wheels That Would Be Something Uncle Albert-Admiral Halsey |
| Ringo Starr | Blindman It Don’t Come Easy Oh My My |
(I’d also like to thank Walker for pointing me towards this breathtaking clip of Yoko ‘singing’ with the Beatles minus George during the Get Back sessions. Why wasn’t it on Let It Be... Naked?)
1 Full disclosure: The author kindly sent me a copy of the book.
2 In fact, this is very much what happened in 1995 and 1996 with the two demos Free as a Bird and Real Love.
3 Walker even steps in to rejig the existing Beatles catalogue, which to me was a step into heresy, and a certain defensive reflex snapped into place at this point. This section, which begins the book, might have been better off in an appendix, as to me it is the least palatable of Walker’s suggestions. (And, yes, I agree he has a point about the Past Masters series being an unsatisfactory compromise, but I have such an indomitable respect for the albums, I can’t see fit to meddle with them.)
2 comments:
Nice book and nice share thank you!
What did I share, though?
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