Ian Leslie has released what looks to be a fascinating book about the Beatles and more specifically the relationship between Lennon and McCartney. I thought that I too might as well get in on the act and talk about the Beatles story and why it is so remarkable, mysterious and compelling.
Most curiously, there are a lot of musical geniuses with a lot of interesting stories. I hoover them up, even for musicians I don’t particularly care for. But the stories behind the Beatles deepens one’s appreciation of their music like no other. Everything seems so unlikely, so fanciful — it astounds that things turned out as they did, every little detail enriching one’s appreciation of the music.
And so I start with the greatest of all the Beatles mysteries:
There Was No Sign The Beatles Were An Excellent Band
A surefire way for a band to sound off is having a bad drummer; a surefire way to sound good is having a flashy guitarist or singer. And the Beatles had a bad drummer in Pete Best, rather humdrum guitarists in Lennon and Harrison and, while their singing voices were pretty good, you certainly wouldn’t describe them as flashy (their harmonies popped only after being signed!).
Granted, the Beatles were the most popular live act in Liverpool. Alas, that did not immediately translate to the studio — and, regardless, no one knows who the most popular bands at the time were from Manchester, Leeds or Birmingham.
Decca gets the narrative raspberries for turning down the Beatles, but another three record labels were also as unimpressed by the Beatles. Parlophone eventually signed them up principally because George Martin, their eventual producer, thought they were a cheeky and amusing bunch even though musically they sounded utterly unremarkable.
So as a band they didn’t appear to be all that interesting. How about their songs?
There Was No Sign The Beatles Were Outstanding Songwriters
Before being signed, the Beatles had only written one song that would turn into a hit: Love Me Do, which isn’t particularly interesting as compositions go, and only got to 17 on the UK charts as their first single anyway.
Please Please Me and From Me To You were the follow ups and both hit number 1. Again, not particularly remarkable and they would have easily been forgotten if not for what came next.
What came next: She Loves You, which became the then best-selling UK single of the time and doubled the combined sales of their previous three singles.
There was no hint of anything as good as She Loves You in their kitbag. It’s a quantum leap in songwriting and hookcraft.
And if it weren’t for a thitherto unremarkable producer, it might never have had that necessary punch and polish…
There Was No Sign George Martin Was A Musical Transmuter
Before the Beatles, George Martin had never worked with a rock and roll band. Martin’s previous experience was involved with completely forgettable comedy recordings, classical music and light orchestral pop. Everything he was doing in the studio for this newfangled rock and roll, Martin was doing on the fly.
And don’t let Martin’s toffy accent misguide you: Martin’s success was self-made. He was a humble working-class boy with a special talent for music and he developed his skills in the classical style of the upper-classes but with none of the snobby baggage. So when the Beatles were cracking jokes at Martin’s expense at their audition, the teasing and general bantering demeanour endeared him to the group because there was no class divide.
That endearment and general solidarity extended to their working relationship. Martin worked with the Beatles, sharpening them and developing them but never directly moulding them. On She Loves You, Martin brought out the hook, sharpened the harmonies, made it sparkle. Without Martin, the She Loves You turning point would never have been realised so effectively.
And maybe too without Ringo…
There Was No Sign Drums Could Be A Weapon
Drums were never a thing before She Loves You.
Sure, there was the Bo Diddley drum beat or some of the more raucous Little Richard numbers. But those drums never propelled the song, never made it stick out.
And right from the outset, the tom-tom fill that heads into the rush of the yeah-yeah-yeahs that smack into the falling-over snare at the end of the phrase is pumping sizzle that Martin recognised as fire and duly amplified in the mix.
All this means that the Beatles went from a drummer who couldn’t keep a steady rhythm to their tearaway hit featuring drums of unprecedented prominence in about a year.
And not only was Ringo an excellent drummer, he gelled with the band on a personal level better than Pete Best ever did. Ringo was a massive upgrade without a single trade-off! And all this was worked out basically by happenstance after they had been signed.
I realise this is now getting a little longer than expected and I’m only at She Loves You. Maybe there’ll be a part 2 to this some time soon, maybe there won’t; but for now, there’s this.