You Say You Want A Revolution?

In case you didn’t know, it’s Beatles Week on the BBC. It coincides with the celebration of the last Beatles album Abbey Road and contains numerous documentaries about the impact the four mop tops from Liverpool had on the world. Now, there’s no doubt the Beatles had and still have an absolutely massive influence on the world in a cultural and musical sense. However, the programme I watched last night, entitled ‘How The Beatles’ Rocked The Kremlin’, was taking their far reaching influence just a bit too far The programme basically went on to suggest that The Beatles ‘influenced’ Nakita Kruschev’s aggressive stance towards America in the early nineteen sixties (in case you don’t know, the former head of the USSR announced during his ‘spat’ with John F Kennedy that “we will bury you”) and a certain gang of Communist Bandits lead by Fidel Castro in Cuba is, frankly, utterly absurd! And to also suggest that the Beatles had a hand to play in the fall of communism was also quite ridiculous to suggest as well as 1989 – 1991 was over two decades after the Beatles split up and moved on so I think it’s pretty ridiculous to suggest that Mickael Gorbachov was listening to “Can’t Buy Me Love” when thinking up his reforming of the Soviet Union and brought down the wall in Berlin in a heat of musical emotion and sentimentality But, and it’s a big but, the peace movement, with John Lennon and his screaming irritating bride at the helm did have a certain impact on world peace after the blue touch paper was lit by the likes of Woodstock and the American Hippy movement of the late nineteen sixties. Lennon merely picked up the pieces and put it in the public eye by staying in bed for a week being wanked off by Yoko. It was also one of the finest publicity stunts in history may I point out. So! What lasting impression and influence did the Beatles leave on this old planet? We would have no Oasis for a start (er, sorry, we don’t have Oasis anymore should I say). We would also have no influence on the singing at the Kop at Anfield, ask your arld’ fella about it if you get a chance. There would also be none of the famous Mop Top haircuts that the Americans so famously wowed themselves over (Stuey would have never designed his Lego haircut either). And most important of all (to me that is) there would be no Rolling Stones. In case you didn’t know, The Beatles gave The Stones a ‘hand up’ in 1963 by letting them do a cover version of ‘I Wanna Be Your Man’. The Stones were kind of struggling by then and, in my opinion, have a lot to thank The Beatles for. Seriously though, and probably the most important thing of all we have to thank the Beatles for is not necessarily down to the Beatles, but down to George Martin and the sound he managed to ‘capture’ for them. I’m not saying it was all his work as no doubt the Fab Four had some sort of input in how they wanted to sound, but, without Martin’s influence do you really think they’re sound would have made the dramatic transformation from “Love Me Do” to “Tomorrow Never Knows”? Personally, I think not. Psychedelia was, in my opinion, born from this period and one of the most radical (and exciting) sounds in music was born. And finally, in Liverpool, the birth place of the Beatles, we have been given the Matthew Street festival. Ah the Matthew Street festival. The epitome of culture in Liverpool where you can spend a whole weekend walking around town with a case of warm Carling under your arm, getting absolutely fucking socked (in August), avoiding plenty of shite (and some good) covers bands, tripping over prams the size of Tiger tanks owned by Asbo families from Kirkdale, getting the train home with a load of Peter Kay sounding wools singing “she love you yeeeeeeeeeeeah yeeeeeeeeeeeeeah yeaaaaaaaaah” and finally avoiding the carnage at one thirty in the morning when hundreds of people who have had far too much to drink who have decided to decorate their clothes with a dirty donna kebab whilst knocking fuck out of someone who accidentally stole their taxi in the queue. I’m sure that’s not the vision of peace John Lennon was hoping for when the Beatles spilt up to be honest. Mol