Show Notes
The Beatles were a pop/rock group and were and are a phenomenon that has been a major part of my life and my psyche for over 30 years, ever since the day in about 1988 when a boy in his early teens brought up on mainly commercial 1980s music suddenly encountered music that was largely new to his ears but which had been created 25 years previously. The music I'd known up to that point mainly featured the 'self-conscious synths' of the New Romantics and the 4-minute single created by gifted songwriters but with an overemphasis on production and electronic technology. Through the compilation 'A Collection of Beatles Oldies... But Goldies', which spanned the singles and most famous album tracks from 1963 to 1966, I marvelled first at the 2-minute immediacy of 'She Loves You' and 'I Want To Hold Your Hand' from '63, so direct, exciting and driven by guitar and voices that were young, raw and uninhibited with the power and energy to immediately excite the ears and lift the spirit. From there came the still catchy but more world-weary 'Ticket To Ride' from '65 and then the next sensation of 'Eleanor Rigby' from '66, 3 years on from 'She Loves You' but a quantum leap in terms of progress. Rather than go through the incredible Beatles story and try to make it my own, I'm instead going to just jump to one small but significant aspect that perhaps typifies both their appeal and what we are all striving for. In around 2010, I watched some video clips of Beatles expert Mark Lewisohn, a veteran of many reference books and radio specials about the group, discussing a forthcoming trilogy of Beatles books called 'All These Years' that he was writing and which would eventually offer the complete story up to the split in unprecedented detail and drawing from truly obsessive full-time research. Even when I saw the length of the first one released in late 2013 (900 pages, with an 'author's cut' edition of 1700 pages!), I didn't really believe that there could be much information that a seasoned Beatles expert like me hadn't already come across. Tackling the author's cut this year, it turned out to be a 3-month odyssey of steady reading and one fantastic revelation after another, giving a much clearer sense of why the Beatles became so big. Bear in mind that this first book of the trilogy, entitled 'Tune In', only takes the story up to the end of 1962, where The Beatles are on the cusp of fame but without a hit single to their name, so the utter powerhouse that The Beatles have already become is at this point without the force of the now-legendary Lennon-McCartney songwriting partnership and their incredible creations that have been with us 50 years and are probably going to last for as long as music is appreciated. What comes across clearly from 'Tune In' is that The Beatles were stars from about 1961, 2 years before anyone outside their immediate part of the world (the north-west of England) and one city in Germany had ever heard of them. After an incredible Hamburg apprenticeship which encompassed 415 stage hours in 14 weeks from August-December 1960, followed by a mind-boggling 503 hours in 92 straight evenings from April-July 1961 and would include 3 more visits of varying lengths in 1962, the basic elements of their appeal were already there, and they had a following which was intensely loyal and already showing signs of becoming obsessional. They weren't the only band to log this approximate number of hours on stage in Hamburg, but crucially they were the ones who seemed to take full advantage of the remarkable opportunity to grow that the relentless Reeperbahn slog, which began on the 20-year anniversary of the first Nazi bombs hitting Liverpool, afforded. To cut a very long story short, they learned incredible stagecraft, being able to take all the various elements of the music they loved and meld them into something hard rocking but also soulful, soaring harmonies of incredible beauty contrasting with a relentless beat and the raw brill
More from Glass Onion: On John Lennon
The podcast finally makes its (not-quite) comeback with a welcome returning guest, Dave Thurmaier of 'I've Got A Beatles Podcast'. Dave & Antony's main topic is the appearance of John Lennon and George Harrison for 2 shows in September/October 1967 on the Frost Programme, hosted by genial host David Frost, to discuss their then-current 'new thing', namely Transcendental Meditation.
To celebrate the recently-passed 7th anniversary of the first episode of Glass Onion way back when, we welcome Matt Williamson of the 'Pop Goes The 60s' you tube channel to discuss an intriguing and entertaining documentary from 2004. From the long-running UK arts and culture programme 'The South Bank Show', which had earlier brought us 'The Making of Sgt Pepper', comes an exploration of John Lennon's influences and musical loves by way of the portable jukebox he apparently brought on tour with him in 1965 and 1966, having loaded it with 40 of his favourite choons. Matt and Antony also touch on the argument and fine line between inspiration and plagiarism, and the differences between 'black' and 'white' voices and music, both of which the documentary explores in a fairly gentle way. We also assess how John's own music stacks up against some of his idols, a lot of whose songs he covered
And so we bring to an end Glass Onion's 7th year… John Lennon's 1975 is mostly remembered for being the year that he became a father for the second time and dropped out of the music biz for 5 years, apparently to become the most famous househusband in the world (the jury's still out on that one). Before he did that though, he front-loaded the year with the usual frenetic activity you'd expect from a year in the life of our hero. There were albums and singles of his own, musical collaborations with others, his final ever live appearance, interviews for TV, radio and print, lots of written letters to friends and family, some Beatle contact, a public appearance here and there, lawsuits and his ongoing fight with America's powers that (probably shouldn't) be. Oh, and he also found time for a sudden change in his lovelife, his past lover quickly consigned to (Lennon) history. Best wishes for the season Enjoy!
For our final offerings of the year, we present a 2-part look at 1975, the year of Antony's birth. As is traditional, we first cover the year itself in terms of world events, births & deaths, films and (non-Lennon) music, before turning to the John Lennon events of the year.
David 'Ghosty' Wills is back once more to look at another biopic that's not really very good (we'll do something classic next time, I promise!), though our levels of (non-)appreciation of 2010's 'Lennon Naked' differ slightly Christoper Eccleston gives something of a powerhouse performance as a very brutal and cutting version of John Lennon, starting in 1964 but mostly focusing on the 1967-71 period. All the main events of that time in John's life are covered here, with a soap-opera style reminiscent of the previously reviewed 'John & Yoko: A Love Story'. Antony and Ghosty also discuss biopics in general, and the difficulty in capturing charismatic figures and writing dialogue worthy of them There'll be another Glass Onion 2-parter to round off 2025, the first part due to come out in November Enjoy!