The Beatles (band): Difference between revisions

Four lads from Liverpool -- [[John Lennon (Music)|John Lennon]], [[Paul McCartney (Music)|Paul McCartney]], [[George Harrison (Music)|George Harrison]], and [[Ringo Starr (Music)|Ringo Starr]] -- who released some albums in [[The Sixties]], and are credited by many for changing the face of rock music, while for others they were at least major pioneers of the new style of pop rock, and a major force of [[The British Invasion]]. For many people, they are also the face of [[The Sixties]]. Which is not bad work, really.

 

 

The Beatles were the first band in history to make music video equivalents to their own songs, which every musician does now. They played themselves in three fictional films: the [[Mockumentary|pseudo-documentary]] ''[[A Hard Days Night (Film)|A Hard Days Night]]'' (1964), the [[James Bond (Film)|James Bond]] parody ''[[Help (Film)|Help]]'' (1965), and the critically-panned surrealist television film ''[[Magical Mystery Tour (Film)|Magical Mystery Tour]]'' (1967); they were also the subject of the [[Documentary]] film ''[[Let It Be (Film)|Let It Be]]'' (1970). Their [[Celebrity Toons]] equivalents starred in two very different [[Band Toon|Band Toons]], each with a distinct set of character designs for the Fab Four. [[The Beatles (Animation)|Their wacky 1965]] [[Animated Series]] was the first made-for-TV cartoon based on a real band (or any real people), and therefore both the [[Ur Example]] and [[Trope Maker]]. Meanwhile, the 1968 feature ''[[Yellow Submarine (Animation)|Yellow Submarine]]'' brought kid-friendly psychedelic imagery to the masses.

* ''Rubber Soul'' (1965)

* ''Revolver'' (1966)

* ''Magical Mystery Tour'' (1967)

* ''The Beatles'', better known as "[[The White Album (Music)|The White Album]]" (1968)

 

* [[Abbey Road Crossing]] (The album cover from ''Abbey Road'')

* [[Day in The Life]] ([[Captain Obvious|Duh.]])

* [[I Am He As You Are He]] ("I Am the Walrus")

** Recordings of their late live performances indicate just how sick they were of touring, with many of their songs being played at near-double speed, in order to get the concert over and done with as quickly as possible.

** George Harrison in particular was vocal about how, for him at least, the appeal of being a Beatle had worn off around 1966-1967, because of the above and because he was getting tired of Lennon and McCartney constantly treating him as the younger sibling of the group with regards to his own efforts at writing.

** The boys have admitted that the majority of their movie ''[[Help]]!'' was filmed in "a haze of marijuana," and that this was part of the reason that they didn't bother to take much creative control of the movie.

* [[As Long As It Sounds Foreign]]: "Sun King".

* [[The Beat Generation]]: The name of the band was partially inspired by the Beats and Lennon in particular named [[Jack Kerouac]] as an influence. [[Allen Ginsberg]] later on became friends with the band, with [[Paul McCartney]] actually playing guitar on one of Ginsberg's albums.

* [[Bifauxnen]]: "Well you should see Polythene Pam/She's so good-looking but she looks like a man..."

* [[Biopic]]: ''[[Backbeat]]'' (1994) depicts the group's Hamburg days, and in particular the relationship between John Lennon, Stu Sutcliffe, and the latter's girlfriend/muse Astrid Kirchherr.

** ''Nowhere Boy'' focuses on Lennon and his complicated family history, but also dramatizes his meeting with McCartney and the formulation of the band.

* [[B Side]]: The Beatles' B-sides often weren't the typical throwaway song. Among the notable Beatles tracks released as B-sides were "This Boy", "She's A Woman", "Yes It Is", "Rain", "The Inner Light", "Revolution" (!!), "Don't Let Me Down" (!!!), and "Old Brown Shoe".

** Sometimes they had two songs that were so strong they wouldn't even say one was the A and the other the B: "We Can Work It Out"/"Day Tripper", and, even more powerfully, "Strawberry Fields Forever"/"Penny Lane". This practice was invented by the Beatles, and is now usually referred to as a "Double-A Side".

* [[Call Back]]: In the middle of "Carry That Weight" they break into a new verse of an earlier '"Abbey Road'' track, "You Never Give Me Your Money", then they switch back to "Carry That Weight".

** The lyrics of "Glass Onion" consist almost entirely of references to the band's previous songs, including "I Am the Walrus", "She Loves You", "The Fool on the Hill", "Fixing a Hole", and "Strawberry Fields Forever". In the latter case the song even includes a little snatch of flute as a musical echo of the original's introduction.

* [[Careful With That Axe]]: The creepy screaming on "Revolution 9", Ringo's quite unsettling "I'VE GOT BLISTERS ON MY FINGERS" at the end of "Helter Skelter", and John Lennon's full-throated scream (after a blistering opening guitar riff) on the single version of "Revolution".

* [[Cash Cow Franchise]]: During the sixties and since 1989. A re-release by the Beatles is as newsworthy as a new release by [[U 2]].

** For the technically-minded Beatles fans and music recording geeks, there is the handy, epic tome ''Recording The Beatles" by Brian Kehew and Kevin Ryan, a thoroughly exhaustive 540-page book chronicling the techniques, recording equipment, and studio-owned musical instruments used by the Beatles during the making of their music. The hardcover deluxe-edition book, available via Curvebender publishing, will set you back a good $100.00.

* [[Celebrity Toons]]: As noted above.

** According to John Lennon in a 1980 interview, Paul was visiting John in New York City (during one of their very few friendly meetings post-breakup) and they were actually watching SNL. Apparently, they strongly [[What Could Have Been|considered going down to the studio]] but decided not to.

** George did show up in a subsequent episode in 1976, wherein he demanded the money. "$750 is pretty chintzy."

* [[Concept Album]]: ''Sgt. Pepper's'' is widely considered to be one of popular music's first concept albums, although there's little about it that intrinsically makes it such. Lennon admitted that after the first two songs they abandoned the "concept", picking it up only for the reprise of the title track.

* [[Concept Video]]: The Beatles were among the first to make music videos. The video for "Strawberry Fields Forever" is a [[Concept Video]].

** "I want you, I want you so bad, I want yoooooouuuuu, I want you so bad, it's driving me mad, it's driving me mad..."

** "It's All Too Much", especially the blistering opening note.

* [[Everything Sounds Sexier in French]]: "Michelle" has a line in French, and a line in English, that mean the same ("these are words that go together well") and are sung to the same tune.

* [[Evolving Music]]: "Revolution 1" was initially recorded as a single, despite being a loping, ten-minute blues number that morphed into a chaotic sound collage. The Beatles decided to put this version aside, and instead recorded "Revolution" for the single - a faster, harder-rocking version of the same song. "Revolution 1" eventually appeared on '[[The White Album (Music)|The White Album]]'' with its first four minutes standing alone, and portions of the bizarre ending incorporated into the separate "Revolution 9."

* [[Sixth Ranger|The Fifth Beatle]]: Billy Preston was called this after he joined The Beatles for [[Let It Be]]. [[George Martin]], Mal Evans, Neil Aspinall, [[Brian Epstein]] and Stuart Sutcliffe have also been called "Fifth Beatle"'s.

* [[Le Film Artistique]]: ''[[Magical Mystery Tour (Film)|Magical Mystery Tour]]''.

** [[The Hero]]: Paul

** [[The Lancer]]: John. He was, however, pretty displeased about Paul assuming leadership of the band, since was he technically the one who started it.

** [[The Smart Guy]]: George

** [[The Big Guy]]/[[The Chick]] : Ringo

* [[Flanderization]]: All of the Beatles were annoyed at the simplistic roles and stereotypes they were reduced to in the media as the 'Fab Four' (John the 'funny' one, Paul the 'handsome' one, George the 'quiet' one, Ringo the 'normal'/'dull'/'sad' one, etc).

** In modern times, the Lennon/McCartney writing partnership tends to be oversimplified as 'Lennon wrote all the [[True Art Is Angsty|angsty]], [[True Art Is Incomprehensible|complex]], rebellious and therefore 'good' songs, whereas McCartney wrote all the [[Silly Love Songs]] and fluffy album filler.' This not only tends to unfairly deny McCartney the credit in several cases, but collapses entirely when you remember that Lennon wrote "Mean Mr. Mustard" and "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" (although he did say that the latter was [[In the Style Of]] Paul) and McCartney wrote "Eleanor Rigby", a song about the human struggle with loneliness with a [[Downer Ending]], and "Helter Skelter", one of the hardest rock songs the band ever recorded and one frequently classified as "proto-metal". Lennon ''did'' tend more towards [[Creator Breakdown]] in later years, though...

** "We Can Work It Out" is the best example of this, with Paul writing the optimistic, yet arrogant refrain - "Try to see it my way...We can work it out" - while John wrote the pessimistic "Life is very short, and there's no time..." middle eight (with the time signature change as George's sole contribution to the song).

* [[Four Philosophy Ensemble]]: John is the cynic, Paul is the Optimist, George is the Realist, and Ringo is the Apathetic.

** Interestingly, early on their personas were presented as Paul being sanguine, John being choleric, George being melancholic, and Ringo being phlegmatic.

* [[Garfunkel]]: Ringo in public perception, though the band reported he was the one who kept them together.

* [[Genre Roulette]]: The albums post ''Rubber Soul'' go everywhere: folk, psychedelic, Indian, avant-garde...

* [[God Is Love Song]]: "Long Long Long".

* [[Grand Finale]]: The Long Medley on Side Two of ''Abbey Road'', ending with, well, [[Exactly What It Says On the Tin|"The End"]].

* [[Gratuitous Panning]]: Early stereo mixes of albums separated entire tracks to one side. All Beatles albums were mixed in mono and different people handled the stereo mixes. It wasn't until ''Abbey Road'' that they actually did an album in stereo (''Her Majesty'' starts entirely on the right, and moves until it's entirely on the left by the end of the song.)

** John's neglected son Julian has admitted that he was much closer with Paul than his father.

* [[Jukebox Musical]]: Three of note, not counting ''Yellow Submarine''.

** ''LOVE'' (2006) -- This is the only one of the three that [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_(Cirque_du_Soleil) actually involved] the Beatles, and it's not a standard example of the trope, but a [[Cirque Du Soleil]] show. This live theater super-production (in a specially-built showroom at the Mirage Hotel, Las Vegas) sets the company's trademark acrobatics and dancing to remixed versions of the group's original recordings, creating a metaphorical telling of their career and impact. The development of this show became the subject of the documentary ''All Together Now''.

** ''[[Across the Universe (Film)|Across the Universe]]'' (2007) -- Director Julie Taymor brings us a movie that uses cover versions of Beatles songs to recount the love lives, political exploits, and other adventures and misadventures of 1960s youths. Very much a [[Love It or Hate It]] experience.

** A [[Broadway]] show called ''Beatlemania!'' was around in the 1980s. A home video release of it, however, was plagued with problems. Glenn Burtnik (who played [[Paul McCartney]] in the show) does many Beatles-themed tribute concerts nowadays.

* [[Lampshaded Double Entendre]]: "I Saw Her Standing There". "Well she was just 17/You know what I mean/And the way she looked/was way beyond compare..."

** "A Day in the Life"

** "Strawberry Fields Forever" is the canonical example. It fades out with a gorgeous swarmandel before fading back in with a dissonant mellotron, vicious drumming, trumpets that sound like ambulance sirens, and (most disturbingly) John Lennon's slowed-down voice saying "CRANBERRY SAUCE".

*** Even worse if you're a little kid and you think it's "I buried Paul." Ever since then, that song's end is the sound of death to her.

** The disonnant swirling effects at the end of "Blue Jay Way".

** The manic laughing sound effect at the end of "Within You Without You", meant to bring relief to the heaviness of the lyrics. It didn't work.

* [[Lead Bassist]]: Sir Paul is a Type A, B, and C

* [[Live Album]]: ''Let It Be'' was supposed to be this, with the band rehearsing and recording their new songs live. The sniping and tension within the band (as well as the creative funk John Lennon was mired in at this time) led to several songs being dubbed or altered in the studio, most infamously Paul's "The Long and Winding Road". However, despite all the band's problems seven tracks were still laid down live: "I've Got a Feeling", "One After 909" and "I Dig a Pony" from the Apple rooftop performance, and "Get Back", "Two of Us", "Dig It" and "Maggie Mae" from studio performances. ("Don't Let Me Down", left off the album after being released as the B-side of the "Get Back" single, was also recorded live.)

** ''Please Please Me''. The Beatles recorded "Love Me Do" and "P.S. I Love You" for their first single on Sept. 11, 1962, with no overdubbing. They did the same for their second single, "Please Please Me"/"Ask Me Why", on Nov. 26, 1962. After "Please Please Me" shot to the top of the UK charts, EMI wanted an album in a hurry. The Beatles and George Martin convened in the studio on February 11, 1963 and over a little less than ten hours recorded ten more songs, which were added to the A and B sides of the first two singles, with relatively few overdubs, and put out as an album.

** ''The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl''. Out of print for many years.

* [[Lonely Funeral]]: "Eleanor Rigby" provides the page quote.

** Also, "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window" and "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill".

* [[Lounge Lizard]]: Paul's [[Funny Moments (Sugar Wiki)|hilariously sleazy]] nightclub crooning in "You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)".

** "[[Kansas City]]"/"Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey!"

* [[Metal Scream]]: "Revolution", "Helter Skelter"

** [[Broken Record|Number nine, number nine, number nine...]]

** The single, "Revolution", is a ''much'' faster and heavier (and louder) version of "Revolution 1". As Giles Martin said on the sleeve-notes for ''Love'', "even today it defines 'distortion'."

** [[The Rutles (Music)|The Rutles]].

* [[Mohs Scale of Rock and Metal Hardness]]: Mostly levels one through three, but there are a few individual songs that are harder.

* [[Money Song]]: Subverted with "Can't Buy Me Love", played straight with their cover of "Money (That's What I Want)"

* [[Monster Fangirl]]: Rose and Valerie in "Maxwell's Silver Hammer".

* [[Never Learned to Read|Never Learned to Read Sheet Music]]

* [[New Sound Album]]: Pretty much every of one their albums from ''Rubber Soul'' forward could be considered one of these.

* [[No Ending]]: Both sides of the ''Abbey Road'' album. "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" ends abruptly in the middle of a riff, after three minutes of repeating the same sequence of chords. John Lennon told engineer Geoff Emerick to "cut it right there", and Emerick did. "Her Majesty" was originally slated between "Mean Mr. Mustard" and "Polythene Pam", but the band decided to delete it. The tape engineer who clipped it out of the master cut out the last crashing guitar chord of "Mean Mr. Mustard" along with "Her Majesty", but missing the last note of "Her Majesty", which was left at the beginning of "Polythene Pam". Then he spliced "Her Majesty" onto the end of the master tape after 14 seconds of silence, creating a [[Hidden Track]] that ends one note too soon. The band liked the effect and left it that way. (The cut was a test-run of the crossfading and editing sequence, on rough mixes, ''not'' the final edit (if you notice, in the album version the final chord of "Mean Mr. Mustard" is also missing but because the new sequence makes it redundant; the final chord of "Her Majesty" is totally absent though). The "Her Majesty" part, however, ''is'' the original clip tacked on to the final master just the same it was in the rough edit.)

* [[The Notable Numeral]]: "The Fab Four".

* [[Obsession Song]]: "For No One" and "Julia". "I Will" kicks it up a notch - the singer is obsessed with the ''hypothetical'' someone he could fall in love with.

* [[Ode to Intoxication]]: Did you think "Got to Get You Into My Life" was a love song? It is. A love song about how much [[Paul McCartney]] loved to smoke marijuana.

* [[One Woman Song]]: "Michelle", "Eleanor Rigby", "Julia", "Lovely Rita", "Lady Madonna", "Polythene Pam".

* [[Only Sane Man]]: "The Fool on the Hill". The [[Trope Namer]].

** Played straight with "Taxman", a song protesting, uh, [[Exactly What It Says On the Tin|high taxes]].

* [[Punny Name]]: Apple Corps. Especially since it's '''''always''''' spelled "Corps" (and thus pronounced "core"). John loved wordplay.

*** During the recording of "I'm Down" Paul self-criticised one of his takes as "plastic soul" (you can hear it in ''Anthology 2''). So ''Rubber Soul'' is actually a ''double'' pun.

*** Supposedly, Paul once overheard some black musicians using the term "plastic soul" to describe [[The Rolling Stones (Music)|Mick Jagger's singing]]. So the title might have also been a playful, in-joke [[Take That]] to the Stones.

** Also, the name "Beatles" itself, though hardly anyone notices anymore, because everyone grows up knowing "The Beatles".

* [[Putting the Band Back Together]]: Fourteen years after John's death, the other three reunited for ''The Beatles Anthology''. During this time, Paul, George, and Ringo worked on fleshing out two of John's demos, "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love".

** Real Life Writes the Song: "Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite!", "A Day in the Life", "She's Leaving Home", "Blue Jay Way", "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window", many others. Lennon in particular did this constantly.

* [[Rearrange the Song]]: The two different versions of "Revolution" released in 1968--the original low-key version, actually released second as "Revolution 1" on [[The White Album (Music)|The White Album]], and the hard-rocking version released as the B-side to "Hey Jude".

* [[Record Producer]]: George Martin.

* [[Refrain From Assuming]]: Usually averted.

* [[Retraux]]: "Honey Pie" was already a song done [[In the Style Of]] [[Cole Porter]], but the effect is strengthened by having one line--"Now she's hit the big time"--sound like a scratchy old record being played on a tinny old record player.

* [[Rhyming With Itself]]: "Met" with "met" in "I've Just Seen a Face" and "better" with "better" in the first verse of "Hey Jude".

** "She's Leaving Home" was also based on a newspaper article, about a girl running away.

* [[Rooftop Concert]]: The band's final performance on the roof of the Apple Corps. building is the [[Trope Codifier]], often recreated in various media as a [[Shout Out]] and [[Homage]].

* [[Scatting]]: "La la la la la la" chanting on the otherwise wordless "Flying" (off ''Magical Mystery Tour''). More famously, "Hey Jude" with it's four minute coda of "Na na na na na na na, na na na na, hey Jude".

* [[Self Backing Vocalist]]: Usually averted - the person who'd written the song took lead vocals (with some exceptions, especially involving the songs they gave to Ringo) and the other two (Ringo usually opted out) joined on harmonies. Exceptions were mostly Paul: "I Will", "Wild Honey Pie"... John also had a duet with himself (interpolating lines) on "Julia".

* [[Serious Business]]: It eventually got to the point that they had to stop touring after 1966, because their fans would reach such levels of hysteria that not even the band itself could hear their music.

** Perhaps the ultimate case of [[Serious Business]] is the fact that John was murdered by one crazed fan, and George and his wife nearly stabbed to death by another.

** They would actually learn from word of mouth who knew this chord, or who knew that chord, and would drive around in their van to wherever they needed to get to, drive back home and then they'd know how to play chord x.

** The "Get Back" project was an effort to, uh, get back to this. It met with mixed success due to the dissension in the band.

* [[Translated Cover Version]]: "Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand" ("I Want To Hold Your Hand") and "Sie Liebt Dich" ("She Loves You"), both in German.

* [[Triumphant Reprise]]: "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)"

** They were the [[Trope Maker]] for, basically, ''the entire music industry'' as it stands today. The idea that real bands play their own instruments, the idea that real bands write their own music, the idea that real bands should get mega-popular and make gajillions of dollars: all these originated with the Fab Four. (They also made the music industry the financial juggernaut it is today, since all the money that ''was'' going to the session musicians and songwriters and stuff ended up in the record companies' pockets instead.)

*** It is worth noting that the Beach Boys, in the early years when they were stictly a surf band, were also writing their own songs and playing their own instruments, and their first singles were recorded and released before those of the Beatles ("Surfin' Safari" gave the Beach Boys their first US Top 40 hit in June 1962, "Love Me Do" gave the Beatles their first UK Top 40 hit four months later). However, by the time of ''Pet Sounds'', Brian Wilson was using session musicians extensively, not only for the orchestral instrumentation, but the basic rock instruments as well. The Beatles were, with few exceptions, responsible for their own basic instrumental backing for the entirety of their career. Furthermore, as recording artists, the two bands are nearly exact contemporaries, just on different sides of the pond. Given that, it's probably fair to say that the Beatles, with their overwhelming popularity, were the ones who changed the industry more.

* [[Urban Legends]]:

** The [[Paul Is Dead]] theories, all based on supposedly hidden messages on the Beatles album covers and song lyrics.