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Save the Beatles! The Rescued Albums: 1970-1982
I actually wanted to send this as a private message, but I couldn't get the Contact radio button to work. I apologize to you and the other readers in advance if anything below isn't appropriate for a public discussion.
I received Save the Beatles! as a Christmas gift, and I've just finished reading it. I wanted to contact you regarding my thoughts about the book, about the ideas contained therein, and to touch base with you about some of my own past inspirations.
First, a little about where I'm coming from: I'm a big fan of both the Beatles and the genre of alternate history, so your book is a very happy intersection of interests for me. I've written a self-published novel available on Amazon called Walk Away Dreaming, which is my own exploration of an imagined world where the Beatles stay together (shameless plug!). There are many other scenarios around this concept, of course, and even a movie (Yesterday), all of which take a different approach.
There's no right or wrong way to imagine this, obviously, but being a fan of positive, or at least positive-but-poignant, alternate histories in general as opposed to dystopian fantasies, I am always fascinated to see how other people explore ideas like this.
So I was very eager to read your book, and let me say, it did not disappoint. You presented a scenario that was eminently plausible and a great pleasure to read, and it was a lot of fun to read through your process for constructing the "fused" albums and to imagine enjoying the final albums as they were created. It was also fascinating to hear you make use of your recording background to create the bits on the website that allowed us to hear the transitions, crossfades, etc. between tracks – something that those of us who have taken part in this exercise usually have to settle for constructing mentally. I thank you for your book and commend you for the research and work that went into it.
It is inevitable that there would be differences and even disagreements regarding content (although I consider that all of your albums work, and work very well). No one hundred chimpanzees with typewriters, placed in a room for a hundred years, would come up with exactly the same 14 tracks for a hypothetical Beatles album, whether constructed out of "imaginary" songs that never existed in real life or out of the solo material that was actually available. There are areas of difference, though, that I felt the need to express in a more fundamental way before continuing further.
For that, here's a little more about where I'm coming from: after spending many years seeking spiritual answers, I ended up returning about fifteen years ago to the Catholic faith I was brought up with, and I've tried to grow within it since, not blind to the foibles and weaknesses of the Church structure as constructed by us dumb humans but focusing on the message that, however obscured it can be at times, is very much there.
I gather from your writings that you are at least a skeptic when it comes to questions like divinity and the afterlife. Your belief system isn't any of my business, and you commendably had the good grace not to wear it on your sleeve in the book. (If my take on this is wrong, I apologize in advance.) Our appreciation of music and indeed of most things are nonetheless inevitably colored by our beliefs, and these are probably the most foundational questions of all. I submit that your perception and mine of the work of both the group and the ex-group, especially George's work, differs in part because of our likely differing perceptions of the world around us in spiritual terms.
As an example, consider George's song "Hear Me Lord." You are a bit dismissive of the song, describing it a number of times as "preachy." I don't.
Now, that's not to say that George wasn't quite capable of being preachy, nor that he did unfortunately make songs that fit that adjective. (George, in fact, was too often the worst kind of preachy. Every priest, preacher, or homilist I've ever known who was any good knows that when you're admonishing people, it's best to address them in the first-person plural: "We all forget about God sometimes'" This is both a) true and b) humanizing, because it admits the preacher's own weaknesses. George instead often took the tack of writing in the second-person plural: "You people forget about God!" This draws your attention away from the message and back to the preacher, because it implies that he's morally better than you, which leads you wonder by what authority he makes that claim.)
But I don't think "Hear Me Lord" is one of those songs. It's not a preaching; it's a prayer, which is something entirely different. A prayer (unless it's a smug prayer of the Jerry Falwell variety: "Thank you, Lord, for not making me a fornicator like those people') is by definition a supplication; as such, it implies a certain humility. When George sings "Help me Lord, please/To love you with more feeling," that suggests that he's not loving God with enough feeling now. The listener is free to join in or not as he or she desires, but to me, at least, it doesn't come across as preaching.
There are other songs discussed in the book where I feel you either downplay the faith/religion coloration George is bringing to the song, or where it seems you don't fully understand it. Religious people and non-religious people tend to have different mindsets, and it's important to understand that George's faith underlay pretty much everything he wrote, whether he was specifically writing about that topic or not. So, for example, "Be Here Now" really does have a faith element to it; "being in the present" is to be understood at one level as being in the presence of the divine. (It's not all there is to the song, of course, but it is there.) Similarly, "Love Comes to Everyone" – one of my favorite George songs – is not just about "love" but about divine love. At times you even seem a little baffled; you describe "Within You Without You," for example, as an "ode to nothingness" and interpret "Dehra Dun" to suggest that "the road is all there is'; I would suspect George would consider both songs to mean something very different.
Please understand, none of this is meant negatively, and in fact you generally have quite an open mind about these things; I was (pleasantly) surprised that you liked "Life Itself" as much as you did, since that song is another prayer, and a rather explicit one at that. Is the gentleness of George's approach on that song the reason for the difference?
I freely admit to my own biases, such as when listening to John's work. Perhaps alone in the world, I don't much care for "Imagine." Not because of its antireligious content specifically, but more because I think that its "idealism" which so many people love is just the same old Marxist song-and-dance dressed up with candy flavoring. For this reason, it falls for me into the same category that you put your finger on regarding that album: an underlying feeling of dishonesty. To me (and maybe only to me) "Imagine" tries to do for some very specific ideas the same thing "Jealous Guy" tries to do for beating up one's wife, or that "How Do You Sleep" tries to do for trashing one's best friend: it attempts to put a candy chocolate coating around something that would be bitter to the taste otherwise. Coming as it does right after JL/POB and its honesty-at-all-costs paradigm, I can't appreciate that song.
Speaking of JL/POB, I actually have a higher opinion of that album, despite the fact that John (apparently) comes after faith not just in "God" but throughout the album ('There ain't no Jesus gonna come from the sky'). The thing about JL/POB is that whatever else it is, it's honest – brutally honest, when it comes to that (and that's why the album is as you said easy to admire but hard to listen to: no one likes going under the scalpel for a pleasant listen on a Saturday afternoon).
So for a believer (or, at least, for this believer) "God" comes across as a challenge. When John sings "I don't believe the Bible" and "I don't believe in Jesus," a believer's knee-jerk response is to say "Well, I do!" But John's song challenges you: Do you really? Is that actually what you believe, or are you just following something you were taught as a child, or following social convention – letting yourself be seen by potential business contacts in church on Sunday so that they consider you a fine and upstanding guy? Or do you really, genuinely believe this – and if so, what does that mean? Do you try to act like you believe it, starting with that little command about "love one another'? John's song on that first album is to me far stronger than "Imagine" precisely because it doesn't let you off the hook.
Whew'having gotten that off my chest, let me reiterate: what you did was fantastic, and well worthwhile, and a great read, and a brilliant approach to the alternate-Beatles concept.
I'd like to pass along to you one of my own song lists, from my book (shameless plug!). This is for the final Beatles album, in 1975, titled Goodnight Vienna (yes, I was aware of the Liverpudlian meaning of the term; that's precisely why I chose it). The scenario is that the group, after adding a fifth member in 1968 (who? Read the book!), has mutually decided to "retire" the Beatles after releasing one last album and performing one last world tour. The song list makes more sense in context, of course, but I am interested in your opinion of it. The song "Walk Away Dreaming," which gave the title to the novel, is an "imaginary" song written by that fifth member; the title is based on Boston's "More Than a Feeling," so you can use that song as a rough analogue for the sound and feel I imagine "Walk Away Dreaming" to have.
The final song running order, which I have changed a bit since the book was published (if I do a second edition, I'll incorporate the changes), is as follows:
Side One:
Venus and Mars
Rock Show
Love in Song
What You Got
Be Here Now
Picasso's Last Words (Drink to Me)
Side Two:
Imagine (I'm assuming it's written with more "universal" lyrics, more like "All You Need is Love')
No Words
Intuition
Junior's Farm
My Love
You
Side Three:
Venus and Mars (reprise)
Walk Away Dreaming
Bluebird
Whatever Gets You Thru the Night
Dark Horse
Letting Go
Side Four:
#9 Dream
Bless You
(It's All Down To) Goodnight Vienna
Mind Games
Mull of Kintyre
Crossroads Theme
Some notes on the above: In my story, the group has remained together, and they record all these songs together in the studio, which inevitably means at least some of them will sound quite different from the recordings we know. Yes, I know I'm a knave for imagining "Imagine" with some different words; so sue me. The placement of the last three songs was critical: "Mind Games" is meant to be their Last Big Statement to the world (I really, really love that song). "Mull of Kintyre," for which I assume Paul's inspiration struck two years early, is meant to mirror the end of Lord of the Rings, where Sam Gamgee returns home to the Shire after the big world-saving adventure: it's the Beatles essentially going home after the big Beatle adventure. And "Crossroads Theme" is exactly the kind of joke the Fabs would have chosen to intentionally close out their last big masterwork.
Thank you for letting me bore you with my thoughts and ramblings. And again, thank you for the book – it was quite a pleasure.
Posted by Rick Prescott on January 19, 2022
Mike,
Thanks so much for reading the book and for all your kind words. I will definitely check out your book! And thanks for your message. I take no offense at any of your comments, and feel like this is exactly the sort of discussion I hoped to start. (Sorry the contact button didn't work. It is supposed to just open your email client so you can write me an email...)
I'm generally reticent to talk about faith uninvited, but here I will consider your message an invitation, and try to keep it brief. For the record, I was born Lutheran, and am currently active in the United Church of Christ, where my wife is a pastor. I am also a composer, conductor and performer of a great deal of sacred music. (Please visit LHPMusic.com and click on the "Sacred" tab for some samples, or check out this recent performance of one of my pieces.) Professionally, I spent nearly 20 years as a church musician. My undergrad degree, however, is in Philosophy, which instilled an important element of critical thinking that I bring to everything I do. As such, I take the questions, expressions and principles of faith very seriously, and find them worthy of deep consideration.
And I can certainly see how my use of the word "preachy" in reference to some of George's work is an unhelpful shorthand in a faith context. As you surmised, it really has much more to do with tone than content, though another element is even more important: universality.
As a composition, "Hear Me Lord" would certainly qualify as a psalm of lament, a modern version of something like Psalm 130. It features traditional, well-formed chord progressions and structure, and the recording is also very fine, with outstanding musicianship and vocal work. A lot of great ingredients are there, and it is a beautiful prayer. (And please know that nothing I say here is an attempt to change your opinion about it.)
But when I compare it, as you did, to "Be Here Now," I perceive the latter song as more successful because it speaks in a language that is universal, reaching for something bigger than the world's rainbow of religions. To me, "Hear Me Lord" sounds smaller because it is populated by such extensive repetition of the word "Lord," which can be off-putting to people whose own faith does not center around that particular conception of God. (I know that Catholicism continues to embrace such a characterization, but not even all Christian denominations retain it. For example, the United Church of Christ and even some Lutheran denominations avoid the word "Lord" because of the subjugation and exploitation implied by the historical lord-peasant model. Personally, I like "Source" best.)
So when I describe "Hear Me Lord" as "preachy," I am intending (clumsily) to indicate that George's specific choices of tone and text work against a universal understanding which would include everyone across all faiths. Beatle fans had grown accustomed to that sort of universality, because the group avoided endorsing any particular way of believing. Imagine how different the reception might have been for a single called, "All You Need Is Christ's Love." (Yes, some places would have rejoiced!)
Unfortunately, some of George's choices, especially early in his solo career (which was, not coincidentally, also early in his spiritual studies) can feel to listeners like he is espousing a specific relationship to God, a specific way to pray, and a specific spiritual context that they may not share. To the unchurched, most of "Hear Me Lord" could sound like unwelcome proselytizing – despite, as you keenly point out, the fact that it is actually just the sort of prayer/cry/lament that every human feels the need to make at some point or another. George had hit the bullseye when his guitar gently wept for humanity, but he asks his audience to accept something different and much more specific – potentially exclusionary – in songs like "Hear Me Lord."
The issue sort of came to a head when, on the Dark Horse tour, he changed the lyrics of "In My Life" to "In my life, I loved God more." To some fans, it is a move toward what they already believe and there is no problem. To others, it is a move away from something they may believe and it is a big problem. But to most Beatles fans, it is simply an unwelcome collapsing of a universal into a specific, and the desecration of a song by bringing in an aspect which wasn't there to begin with.
Generally, when I say "preachy" in the book, that's all I really mean, though George also engaged in more direct forms of preachiness, as you note. I cannot think of another pop musician who actually wrote and released such oracles and jeremiads. And while I've always been impressed by his courage in that regard, the commercial implications were entirely predictable. As every prophet knows, nobody wants to hear such things, even if they are the truth and heeding the warnings might make things better. (Cue the obligatory COVID reference.)
A couple more specific responses: The lyrics to "Dehra Dun" are wonderfully ambiguous. However, the seminal phrase "beggars in a goldmine" suggests to me a central idea: What we seek is all around if only we looked. It is in that sense that the "road" on which we travel is, in some meaningful way, actually what we seek. Admittedly, I may be hearing it that way because it squares with what I believe. It's hard to know exactly what George meant.
"Within You Without You" is more complicated, of course. Admittedly, "ode to nothingness" is much too flip, but it refers to the lyric, "you're really only very small, and life flows on within you and without you." That concept seems straight from taoism, but is also found in many other belief systems, i.e. the need to vacate oneself, divest of ego, and accept our infinitesimal place in the cosmos – our fragility and temporary nature between two infinities – in order to overcome the limitations of physical beingness. My comment was not meant critically. I love the song, the track, and the ideas. Again, George was incredibly brave to try and introduce such complexity to pop music, and the other Beatles (with George Martin) get credit for not immediately turning the other way.
All three of George's "Indian" tracks with the Beatles seem to hit their mark squarely, without placing limits onto what the listener might hear and believe as a result. They are all built on universal notions, which is one of the reasons they are as timeless as the rest of the catalog, despite the fact that the sound of sitars is, in some ways, tied closely to the mid-60s. The fact that he seemed to have mastered that sense of universality is what makes some of his early solo literature such a departure, and so potentially problematic for a general pop music audience.
Still, I can absolutely see the problem you raise. When the book gets revised, I will definitely take that into account.
And I also appreciate your issues with "Imagine" and "God." For one thing, I don't actually believe that "God is a concept by which we measure our pain." To me, that sounds more like just one of John's clever provocations than an actual statement of something he believed, or wanted us to believe. And I bet he felt differently about it 24 hours later. Still, a provocation like that really does ask for some serious consideration, for which I am grateful to him. As you imply, if I don't believe that, what do I believe? I'd be much more likely to write, "God is a comfort by which we temper our pain."
And though I'm willing to "imagine" with John a different type of world, his lyric has the odor of magical thinking. I don't specifically object to imagining "no religion, too," but that could be a breathtakingly bleak world, given how much people get from their belief systems. I'd rather imagine a world where the distinction between knowledge and belief was more widely understood and accepted, as we each search for meaning in our own way, on our own schedule, with our own resources, and without interference from dogma, persecution, or injustice. Alas, that doesn't make as good a lyric! (One of the many reasons I've never had a million-selling single! On a side note, I also always twitch a little when he gets to "all the people." The accent should be on the first syllable of "people" – an important lyric-writing principle that I learned by close listening to Sondheim. But that's a nitpick, of course.)
Finally, great track listing! The idea of the Beatles actually recording all of these tracks together would make it all the more wonderful. And I'm certainly intrigued to know who the Mystery Beatle might be! I'd guess Yoko, but I KNOW she'd never have settled for only one track on a double album!
Thanks again for writing. Best to you.
Posted by Mike Lenio on July 6, 2024
Hello Rick:
Did you ever get an opportunity to read "Walk Away Dreaming"? If so, what did you think (without giving away too many spoilers, of course).
Peace and love,
Mike Lenio
Posted by Mike Lenio on July 7, 2024
Also, your thoughts above are lovely and perceptive, and I thank you very much for your clarifications. The differences and variations in approach between, for example, UCC and the Catholic Church are fascinating - and they reinforce what you are saying about the need for universality. That sort of universality, after all, is what made the Beatles so special in the first place - and it's why we're having this conversation.
Posted by Mike Lenio on July 10, 2024
By the way, I've started going through the exercise, which I'm sure other readers have too, of taking the leftover songs and making them into solo albums. John didn't have enough stuff left over to give us very much in that regard, so I did some of his leftovers as singles. Here's an interesting 45 release I came up with: Happy Xmas (War Is Over)/Oh Yoko! (Released November 1972)