Welcome to Track Chatter

Welcome to Track Chatter. We’re two long-time friends who’ve been listening to, talking about, and playing music together for a helluva long time. And although we’re now separated by an ocean, we’ve managed to keep up a regular chatter, so we thought we’d go ahead and share some of our thoughts and discussions with the larger world (or all seven of you who are reading this).

On Track Chatter, each entry will be a discussion about a particular song. The ‘blog is set up as a dialogue, so you’ll see us swapping thoughts, raising questions, and trying to shed a little light on what makes certain songs so timeless or dated; what makes them listener friendly or more dependent on close listening; in short, what makes us love them, hate them, or not give a damn.

Phase One

To kick things off, we thought why not go ambitious: we’re going to have a look at The Beatles. In response to the recently released, re-mastered set of original UK LPs, with each entry we’ll choose one Beatles’ track from each of those releases. We’ll go in chronological order, starting with Please Please Me and ending with Let It Be. For the most part we’ll be discussing lesser-known tracks, songs that might let us re-evaluate the band without having to worry about the expectations and familiarity that come along with so many of their monster hits. But on some occasions we’ll try to tackle one of those big hits and see if we can’t find anything new to say about it.

Why The Beatles? That’s a damned good question. Before we get to talking different tracks, we might as well answer it.

So, Lew, is there anything to say about The Beatles that hasn’t been said? Or, to put it more specifically, in today's world of fractured media and ghettoized musical tastes, are The Beatles really relevant any more? Is there anything they still have to tell us about popular music?

Lew: Short answer, yes. Without overcomplicating things, I think that the question of relevance can be problematic, since it seems to raise the question; relevant to who? However, I think that The Beatles are highly relevant in the sense that an understanding of their work helps to provide a genealogy for musical gestures made by contemporary musicians; a sort of history lesson, I guess. Whether their songs still speak to our social context is more debatable. How do you answer that question?

Aaron: I guess there are a few things I’d like to pick up on in what you’ve said. First, the question of relevance will be important to the overall nature of this blog. I’d say relevant to music fans . . . or maybe relevant to fans of pop culture in general. With all the interbreeding today between music, film, literature, television, etc., can a person be “up” on those things without considering The Beatles. At least in terms of influence, I’d have to say their legacy is so huge, that at least some passing knowledge of their music is necessary. At this stage, however, it’s often difficult to separate their music from their image or their place in history – their role as some sort of cultural marker. Attempting to delineate that separation is one of the things I’m excited about with this project. I think your last question is important though, and gets to the heart of what we might be trying to do here. Do their songs speak to our social context? I don’t know. I’m sure that will come up as we discuss individual tracks. For now I’d have to say, I think so. But I’m getting long-winded here, so I’ll pass it back to you. I’d love to hear what you have to say about that.

Lew: Well, I think that in terms of relevance, you're right that the songs of the The Beatles, and their overall cultural impact, is something that's still a perceptible influence on pop culture and art. I also agree with what I think you're alluding to, when you talk about distinguishing their music from their place in history - at this stage The Beatles are such a massive part of the "culture industry" (most visibly in the US, mainly because some Europeans seem to be in denial about their role as a musical and cultural influence), that it's very difficult to interpret their music on its own terms, which I would say does a disservice to some really innovative pop songwriting. I tend to be of the opinion that canonization by the "establishment" (I use that term with some irony) shouldn't be a death sentence for a piece of art. And, I'd go so far as to say that it's mainly in rock music, and the other forms that have sprung up around urban culture, that you encounter these issues of authenticity. You don't run across people saying things like "Mozart was the original boy band" or whatever. But I think that the distrust of music that's recognized above the subcultural level has a lot to do with the fusion of capitalism and art that took place in the 20th century. It's something that has to be gotten around, if you're really trying to appreciate the art itself. What's your approach to that?

Aaron: Well, my approach, and I don’t know if this works – if it can work – for everybody, is to try and listen to them as a band. I’m biased. I grew up in a house in which there was no question about the Beatles being “good” or “relevant.” They were just there, and I listened to them a lot. In a way, they were almost like background music to my childhood. So I never really thought about not liking them. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve tried to separate my nostalgia from my appreciation of them as a rock band (and I do think they’re a rock band, in addition to being a great pop band). As a result of their being part of the culture industry, there are so many factors that go into any one individual’s approach to The Beatles that can hamper actually listening to them as a band: what’s their background; were they authentic and original or just magpies and copycats; Paul v. John; was Ringo any good. Questions like that. Those kinds of discussions are interesting, don’t get me wrong, and I’ve spent many a long night rapping on the old Beatles/Stones debate. But I don’t think any of those questions really speak to the music of the band – the notion that the four of them (along with George Martin) spent over a decade trying to push rock music in new directions (mostly with success), while at the same time remaining an incredibly tight rock and roll outfit. If you listen to the original recording of “Love Me Do” for instance, you hear a band that’s playing pop, but that’s also swinging (thank you, Ringo), and they’re tight as hell. Fast forward to something like the second side of Abby Road, and you’ve still got a band rocking out, still very tight, only now they’ve taken the notion of a rock “song” and turned it inside out. Yet it’s still extremely listenable (I’d say it kicks ass, but that’s just me). At this point in time, the superfluous questions about them are too numerous and too entrenched in the culture to be gotten past completely, but I think if we’re going to answer a question about relevance or whether their songs are still able to speak to the contemporary social context, we have to make an effort to focus mainly on the songs, and less on all those other questions, as interesting as they may be. Does that make sense?

Lew: Well, I think you're right to try to see them as a band; that is, to keep their music separate from the more culturally entrenched aspects of what most people know about the Beatles. We may have struck on this before, but I think that it's exactly that cultural entrenchment – the fact that they are such givens in Western European music – that leads some people to disregard them. Speaking for myself, I know I've definitely heard so much hype about a popular band/book/movie that I started disliking it. That kind of thing may play out even more intensely with the Beatles, because they aren't only popular - they're considered fundamental. Conversely, I also think that the Beatles are sometimes revered blindly for similar reasons, and that's really just as bad. But anyway, I guess that's the whole point of this discussion: In order to give the Beatles a fair shake either to succeed on their actual merits, rather than as a band who had the right ingredients to be in the right place at the right time, or fail in the light of a critical analysis, we really need to listen to their songs and try to make a fresh evaluation. I'm looking forward to it.

Aaron: Me too, and that seems like a great place to end this introductory discussion. We’ve hit on a lot of issues that I guess will come up again, and perhaps some of our readers out there might have something to add.

Coming Soon: We’ll discuss a surprising, lesser-known track from the Beatles’ first UK release, Please Please Me.

In the meantime, we welcome any questions, comments, or corrections that any of you out there reading might have.