Speaking of the Beatles as Romance Merchants who embraced pantheism is very appropriate to me. I simply wonder if there was any romance to begin with. Listening to the Beatles today, for me, I hear a very vague (and I mean very vague) Graham Greene melancholy and post-war fallout. Their romantic or erotic longings seem paralyzed; beyond immature, even for their ages at the time; and stilted as if they grew up without adults; and for this, they come off very much as boys of great loss acting out to hide their inability to rebuild and grow. I never quite understood why people separate the Beatles into two periods- both their early period where they took love rather casually, and as the book Revolution in the Head intimated, and their conscious push to propagate pantheism and queer society is all there from their inception and it leaves me rather cold.

The merchants part really stands out. It was a business decision to write the “You” Songs that speak directly to their audience. But can you really romance an audience like that? And if you get rid of those songs, are there any left in the Beatles songbook that is actually romantic to a specific other? The only one I can think of is the gorgeous Something…the rest of the songbook is filled with heartbreak with no longing [but not the sort of heartbreak you find in the old bluesmen or their contemporaries like the Beach Boys; this is in some ways more artificial or disconnected- It's Only Love sounds like John Lennon never could get close to an erotic feelings in fear of losing a part of himself even a tiny bit.]

…diffuse pantheism, impersonal serial dating or moments of lust; or again, in mostly John Lennon,these deep love songs dedicated to his mother. How weird is it that the biggest pop band of its generation had some of their best songs (In My Life, Julia, Let It Be) are about their mothers…someone call the psychiatrist! These are men in arrested development.

I must admit that one of my favorite songs is off Revolver, and I often get close to calling it the best Paul McCartney song, is For No One…the artsong is well crafted, the lyrical turns (mixing past, present and future tense) are ingenious and it may be one of McCartney’s most direct and intimate songs…but the title captures it all: The romance the Beatles merchandised was FOR NO ONE…kinda creepy and sad when you think about it.

The John Lennon who wrote It’s Only Love knew nothing that the John Lennon who wrote the underrated Real Love knew….it only took him something like 36 years to figure it out, like a flattened man.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ze7MjZmKZRc

“All my plans and schemes,
gone like some forgotten dream,
All I was really was doing
was waiting for you.”

You’ve had a lot of great posts lately that I’d like to comment on but I hope you don’t mind if I digress a bit and bring this to your attention:

Last night, Paul McCartney joined the remaining members of Nirvana and they played an original song the four of them had written together.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=PIWdotxMKC4

It was a Bo Diddley-ish sort of hard rock song; I’ve seen some people are comparing it to Helter Skelter.

I’m just surprised that even at his age McCartney still has quite a range and the power to sing to this sort of song. Listen to the falsetto near the end!

That’s why I have to go Kansas City/Hey Hey Hey and I’m Down as some of my favorite (pre-Revolver) Beatles songs. They have some of the greatest rock and roll vocal performances this side of Little Richard!

Now that I think about it, they may have peaked at Beatles For Sale! Hah!