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Letter to the editor

The long and winding read: 'Can't Buy Me Love'

The latest word on the Beatles and their legacy proves not to be the last word.

By Gregory McNamee, Special to the Times
Published November 18, 2007

Can't Buy Me Love: The Beatles, Britain, and America
By Jonathan Gould
Harmony, 670 pages, $27.50

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The Beatles, in their earliest incarnation, formed 50 years ago. Their most famous album was released 40 years ago. They broke up 37 years ago. Their leader was murdered 27 years ago. His chief collaborator just turned 65.

And hundreds of books have been written about them.

Given the antiquity of the Beatles (and antiquity seems the right word, considering that the median age of the American population at the last census was 35) and the considerable library already devoted to the band, the last word should have been said years ago.

Yet new books continue to appear, notably Bob Spitz's vast biography of the band, The Beatles, published late in 2005. By all rights, it should have settled every question, but it had iconoclastic moments that floored some of the faithful: George not a saint? Paul an egomaniac? John a junkie?

Jonathan Gould is less of a Blue Meanie. But he, too, departs from the hero worship that characterizes early books about the group, whose official mythology goes something like this: In the beginning there was John, the scruffy rebel who dazzled the good burghers of Liverpool with song and story. Then came Paul, the doe-eyed champion of all things bright and chirpy. Then there were George, the quiet one, and Ringo, who was - well, Ringo. The four looked out onto the world and saw that it needed righteous noise, and they provided it in great abundance so that all could be well.

Against that, Gould offers some useful and sometimes unpretty social history, recounting the effect the emergence of the group had on British sensibilities, still battered and depressed 20 years after World War II. The Beatles were in the right place at the right time, but it was clear as well that they were friends if not exactly equals, their spirit-lifting camaraderie and class-twitting manner a rebuke to the Colonel Blimpish uptightness of the day.

"It is simply a kind of mass pathology," said the group's manager, Brian Epstein. "They have an extraordinary ability to satisfy a certain hunger in the country."

That they did - and they did a good job with other countries, too. Opening America for the British Invasion, they generated enormous amounts of money, much of it swallowed up by Inland Revenue. (John, Paul, George and Ringo got medals out of the deal.) Usefully, Gould reminds us that the Beatles arrived on the American scene only weeks after the assassination of John Kennedy, lifting spirits here as well.

Unusual observations

On the history, Gould is good - less good than Jon Savage in England's Dreaming: Anarchy, Sex Pistols, Punk, and Beyond, set in the post-Beatles era, but good all the same. In the end, though, this is a long and winding read: Gould tends toward the professorial when he is writing of the band's music, which he does at much length and to sometimes puzzling effect.

It seems beside the point, for instance, to characterize Paul McCartney's rollicking Lady Madonna as "willfully inconsequential," said song having advertised no pretensions to being the next Ring Cycle. And it borders on the pompous - but pomposity is no stranger to the Beatles library - to venture that John Lennon's Yer Blues "is a reminder of the cultural realism that distinguished the Beatles from so many of their musical contemporaries in Britain." If eagles picking at the eyes of children of the universe amid noosed musical genres constitutes realism, then I'll retract the criticism - but if it's cultural realism you want, then I'd suggest spinning the Stones.

At many points, the Beatles savant will sometimes be moved to wonder what Gould is talking about and what he's been listening to. Is there a drum solo in Dear Prudence? Perhaps at some frequency only dogs and aliens can hear. Is it possible to enlist the Beatles in the ranks of the Mods? The Who, certainly, but, as Ringo remarked in A Hard Day's Night, asked whether he was a Mod or a Rocker: "I'm a Mocker."

Is the Night Before segment in Help! really reminiscent of a Marx Brothers routine? Gould thinks so, but on what evidence it is hard to say. Is John Lennon's It's Only Love really an embarrassment? Gould thinks so, too - and that it was written "to capitalize on the growing enthusiasm for folk-rock in the United States," which misses more than one point.

Such moments may prompt the knowing reader to issue a Lennonesque primal scream. At too many levels, the book works best for those who weren't there, as a learned survey of a time gone by and a cultural force that played a large role in it.

Can't Buy Me Love has many virtues, but foremost among them is that it offers the last word on only a few details. Even after this sprawling tome and all those decades between then and now, there's plenty left to say.

Gregory McNamee writes about music, film and other aspects of pop culture for several publications, among them the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

[Last modified November 15, 2007, 11:52:02]