Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:02:42 — 280.9MB)
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS
First off, listeners: kindly indulge the first 15 minutes, which represents an audio document of 1968 (January through end of August). It’s one thing to know what happened that year, but it’s quite another to hear the immediacy of actual sound, both news and music. 1968 was a convulsive stream of history and it is with that context in mind that we can come to a better understanding of the world The Beatles operated in.
Second: this conversation was an attempt to discuss how the Beatles and their audience interacted at a critical moment: between the triumph of Sgt. Pepper and the year of breakdown. Candy Leonard, author and sociologist, is ideally suited to illuminate this dynamic. Her book, Beatleness, explores “how The Beatles and their fans remade the world.” As always in such discussions, a certain amount of meandering occurs, and therefore a lot more than 1968 is fair game in this conversation.
Check out more of Candy’s writings here: http://beatleness.com/beatleness-blog/
Too US centric, the first 15 min montage particularly. Episodes like these is where I miss Richards UK/European input and viewpoint
Was Grosvenor Square, the May ’68 Paris demonstrations, Prague spring, and the UK musical acts in the montage too US-centric?
I’m not sure what you felt was missing, but the effort to be inclusive was made and furthermore, one works with the material one has and not the material one wishes one had.
Paris riots of 1968 Huge – big significant event. Enoch Powell’s rivers of blood speech also quite significant in 1968.
I love a lot of your work Robert, and admire your literary ability, fantastic memory, and passion of the Beatles which I share. Just sometimes I miss the old double act (yes, I know he was a jerk sometimes) and the UK viewpoint. Thanks for all your hard work I do enjoy most of it
Thanks for the backhanded compliment! I did consider the “rivers of blood” comment for the montage and the only reason that I didn’t was that I had already used it once, on the Beatles/politics show. Otherwise, I was very careful checking both US and UK charts for what songs were in play, and also I chose to end the montage with the 1968 Democratic convention audio (you can’t top spontaneous cries of “The whole world’s watching!” and the simultaneous convergence of this event, plus “Street Fighting Man” and “Hey Jude”).
The two biggest stories in ’68, best I could tell, were Vietnam and the global opposition to it, and civil rights. I therefore tried to cover as much as I could the world reaction to the former, while also tacitly including the Esher “Revolution” as reaction to the Paris demonstrations. There’s an art to this and I chose to serve that, rather than simply run down a checklist.
Clearly the biggest event of 1968 was my 11th birthday. Or is that me-centric? I guess it’s all about perspective. Keep up the amazing work Robert.
oh man, this sounds pretty good. I’m down! (Down on the ground)
Interesting thesis presented here.
I think the Beatles burst Edward Bernays’ American bubble. The USA was gripped by a pathological conformism and this is a stubborn fact when you view the media products of the times -this is why their hair-style created such impact.
There is an enigmatic energy that Rock and Roll possesses- its embrace (by both the audience and artist) enables some form of neural liberty and activity of thought.
I look forward to reading your book, Cathy Leonard.
As always, a great podcast Robert (I was actually reading Lennon’s evolution comments at the same time you mentioned it in the podcast-synchronicity? -lol-Great to hear Lennon could be just as ‘thick’ as his disciples sometimes.
Thanks again.
I was born in December ’68 and I am the biggest Beatles fan on the planet. This is all too personal.
Born Jan 65, Felt the vibe as a kid. Mostly musically. Beatles, Byrds, Beach Boys, Monkees and the Band. The sound of the 60’s covered my ears from ugly realities.
Funny that Candy mentions You Can’t Do That, one of John Lennon’s first “jealous guy” eruptions. I was amazed when I read the autobiography of Viv Albertine of the Slits. She talks about her reaction to the song as a young girl in a surprising way. To her, it impacted her as “wow, here’s a boy actually talking about his feelings openly!” Not the sort of take you’d expect.
What were the 12-songs Candy thought defined The Beatle philosophy?
The songs are We Can Work It Out, The Word, Think For Yourself, Rain, Nowhere Man, Love You To, Tomorrow Never Knows, All You Need Is Love, Within You Without You, All Together Now, Black Bird, and Give Peace A Chance.
Great show as always Robert. 🙂 Thank you so much for the wonderful deep Beatle conversations. Look forward to hearing more from Candy Leonard on more of your podcasts and hope she’ll have another excellent book.
Hi Robert I usually don’t like other people singing Beatles songs so I approached the film Acoss the Universe with some trepidation. But I was wrong. It was a superb evocation of life in the 60s . Could you do a podcast talking to the scriptwriter and the director. The designer would be great to. Cheers Luca
Ok. Yeah. Hmmm. Ok usually SATB shows are very good (with the caveat of the incredibly strange habit of playing an entire Beatles tune after someone on the episode has mentioned the title.) And sometimes SATB episodes are absolutely outstanding, genuinely contributing something important to our understanding of the group.
And then there are episodes like this one. Real head scratchers. With the proverbial gun to my head I have no clue what the host is getting from this guest. Firstly I love it when female voices show up on the show. Very important. But ideally -as with all guests-they’re bringing insight or perspective to the show. That didn’t happen here. We’re out of luck on this one. The guest offered precious little fresh material here. And more than once she got things wrong. As in extremely/ you didn’t do your research/ the audience is better informed than you are/ wrong. Always an awkward situation.Hopefully after the missteps on this show the guest is reminded how important is to KNOW, or at least have a damn good idea before you speak.
The host does a dynamite job with SATB. This and Another Kind Of Mind are easily the best Beatles shows out there.