I listen, trying for fresh ears,\u00a0to the Beatles. With map-making ears, witness ears,\u00a0not the child\u2019s ears that found Beatles music ancient and quaint, compared to the 70’s music that wouldn\u2019t have existed without it. I am listening for the radio the day She Loves You<\/i> debuted, for the Striking New Magic. \u00a0 It\u2019s easy for me to see the leap from the magnificent She Loves You<\/i> to the magnificent A Day In the Life<\/i>.\u00a0 Tonight, though, I am listening for what is magnificent about the leap from the radio milieu to the Beatles’ performance on the Ed Sullivan Show. What could rumble in under Miles Davis for making tectonic changes in the music mind?<\/p>\n
On the radio: Motown! Chuck Berry! \u00a0And on some stations, the Sun Records artists. Not to mention the richness of 1960’s Country Music, \u00a0plus all that Vegas music, Sammy Davis and Jersey quartet harmonizing. And sexy, sexy you want? Let me slip into a more comfortable font… Tony Bennett<\/span>. \u00a0Need we say Elvis?\u00a0Amid all this music and celebrity, too, the Beatles produced a tidal wave. \u00a0What features made them hit\u00a0so hard?<\/i><\/p>\n Could the miracle be<\/i> \u2018extensive vamping?\u2019\u00a0 I wonder about these typical Beatles chord changes, did they invent them out of thin air<\/em>?\u00a0 The tunings?\u00a0 How much of it was the sexy racy subject matter from socially plausible potential target audience mates \u2013 white guys, nice looking guys, singing about love.\u00a0 So many of us are here on account of the fab four.\u00a0 And then it turns out they really were fab.\u00a0 George Harrison.\u00a0 John Lennon.\u00a0 artistically brave.\u00a0 They are so influential they can\u2019t be written about<\/b> anymore. They made us listen to a much bigger bite of the Universe. \u00a0What was the response to their meteoric transformation?\u00a0 Was there a wave of rejection, like when Dylan went electric?<\/p>\n Suddenly the stack of waxed paper heats to the point of transparency.\u00a0 I want to know why an albeit great thing might be so many times more intense than other truly great things.\u00a0 Knot.\u00a0 Convergence.\u00a0I dreamed of the Beatles last night.\u00a0 Perhaps their power is Shamanic, and it just can\u2019t be told because the Shamanic can never be told.\u00a0 Isn\u2019t that right.<\/p>\n I played hookie to sit in the car and drink up\u00a0satellite radio’s track from David Crosby\u2019s new album, Croz<\/em>. It is exquisite, David Crosby, nailing David Crosby. David Crosby told the satellite radio that the Ed Sullivan Beatles show was the start to the rest of his life.<\/p>\n And the Mamas and the Papas and the whole Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger thing, too.\u00a0 what is the convergence of the Beatles and the Monterey Pop Festival? with Haight Ashbury?\u00a0 Who drew tielines?\u00a0 I want to see them.\u00a0 What\u2019s the line look like between the Beatles and The Who? Led Zeppelin? and Paul Simon, maybe suddenly, huh, we could hear each other, we could hear ourselves, and it didn\u2019t take too long did it, working working working are the artists, all the way through the changes.<\/p>\n Let’s not forget one-hit and few-hit Beatles-esque bands like The Turtles. \u00a0Song-wise, there was enough musical magic just sketching one of the Beatles’ moments that the velveteen Monkees came real. \u00a0And not that the Beach Boys deserve to be in the same paragraph with the Monkees and the one-hit wonders, but\u00a0Rhonda Rhonda help me git \u2018er outta my heart, how about Brian Wilson, undeserving of the Salieri yolk, peddling and peddling to overtake the Beatles, having sort of an underdog\u2019s shot in what turned out to be one aspect of the Beatles\u2019 work. and that when Wilson heard\u00a0Sgt Pepper<\/em>, he snapped.\u00a0 He gave up. \u00a0Seriously. \u00a0Mr. Kite. \u00a0What was to be said?<\/p>\n The amplifier.\u00a0 The radio.\u00a0 They made the music jump.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure academics have died of word poisoning writing about the Beatles\u2019 relationship to technology, and a whole separate plague of over-thinking about the Beatles as more than one metonym: one for audience response, and another for meteoric celebrity, a third for musical genius.\u00a0 I want to know how they all four of them got into my dream last night. \u00a0George stood sideways in the doorway of my studio, his back and shoulder illuminated by my work, his face under darkness of the hallway shadow, just looking.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I listen, trying for fresh ears,\u00a0to the Beatles. With map-making ears, witness ears,\u00a0not the child\u2019s ears that found Beatles music ancient and quaint, compared to the 70’s music that wouldn\u2019t have existed without it. I am listening for the radio the day She Loves You debuted, for the Striking New Magic. \u00a0 It\u2019s easy for … Continue reading she loves you yeah yeah yeah<\/span>