The Beatles' Genius

I recently have been reading through a special edition of Rolling Stone, "The Beatles 100 Greatest Songs."  It has been a exhilarating trip down the penny lanes of nostalgia and creative genius.

I think the enjoyment comes from recognizing and relishing their genius, which was so unique, so fresh and challenging, so overpowering that, in the span of eight short years, they revolutionized the world of music, and the world generally.  How did they do it?  How did they go from Liverpool to the Ed Sullivan Theatre to Strawberry Fields to Abbey Road, from Yesterday to Tomorrow Never Comes to A Day In The Life to The End in the short span of eight years?  Seeing in pictures the physical transformation of the group is fascinating, from the close cropped hair of the early years, to the mop tops of their American invasion, to the John-Lennon-is-Jesus hippie look of the later years.  What would it have been like to have witness that evolution--no, revolution--in real time.  I remember my dad relating to me the sheer excitement he felt when taking the newest Beatles LP out of its sleeve for the first time.

The creative collaboration between John and Paul was propulsive, ecstatic with energy, and yet some of their very best songs were written by George.  Ringo seemed to be the perfect complimentary personality for the group, congenial and comedic.  What would have happened if they hadn't been pushing each other?  It's interesting that early in their careers, they didn't really even consider themselves talented song writers.

The external rivalries and collaborations with their contemporaries are also fascinating.  Bob Dylan and John Lennon had a decades-long rivalry going.  Paul and Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys were constantly trying to one-up each other:  Rubber Soul begat Pet Sounds which begat Sgt. Peppers which eventually begat Good Vibrations.  Chuck Berry, Elvis, Eric Clapton, the Rolling Stones, and most other contemporary rock and rollers and folk rockers figure prominently in the Beatles' development, yet they also seemed ahead of the curve, pushing and exploding the envelopes, dragging the rest of the musical and cultural universe along with them.  The songs are all forty-plus years old, and yet they sound as energetic and pertinent as ever.  Timeless.

It all happened so fast.  Eight years ago I was just graduating from medical school, which still in some ways seems like yesterday.  But in eight years, John, Paul, George and Ringo changed the world.  They weren't even thirty when they broke up.

There are such interesting parallels in their music that matched their trajectory as a group, from the explosive energy of the early chords that heralded their arrival, to the psychedelia of the middle drug-infused years, to the mature, contemplative ballads of the later years.  And yet the music was sublime every step of the way.  It's as if they simultaneously created and mastered this new form of musical expression.  They couldn't have known that Let It Be would be the title track for their last released album, or that the final song from their final recording session, which would become Abbey Road, would be entitled "The End" and finish with lyrics "And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make."  The long and winding road came to a presaged ending.
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But I guess the simplest reason that reading about the Beatles songs is enjoyable is because the music is just so good, and so familiar.  I think we all have imprinted in our brains, in a literal way, the massive original creative output of these four boys from Liverpool.  Hearing these songs, or even just reading about them, instantly trips multiple pleasure switches in the brain.  It's almost like some of these songs exist independent of their creators, like they were melodies and harmonies and lyrics that the Beatles didn't so much write as discover, digging them out of the ether of the cosmos, polishing them, and then leaving their indelible fingerprints all over them.  In some cases, like Yesterday and Blackbird, that is true:  Paul woke up and fell out of bed with the fully formed song buzzing through his brain.  Sometimes, genius is a work of persistence, and sometimes a product of inspiration.  In the Beatles case, it was seemed almost like an organic, synergistic and semi-spontaneous phenomenon.

Here are the top fifty songs from Rolling Stone's list.  I don't quite agree with all of their placements, but how can you argue, when their perfection was so prolific?

1. A Day In The Life
2. I Want To Hold Your Hand
3. Strawberry Fields Forever
4. Yesterday
5. In My Life
6. Something
7. Hey Jude
8. Let It Be
9. Come Together
10. While My Guitar Gently Weeps
11. A Hard Day's Night
12. Norwegian Wood
13. Revolution
14. She Loves You
15. Help!
16. I Saw Her Standing There
17. Ticket to Ride
18. Tomorrow Never Knows
19. Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
20. Please Please Me
21. All You Need Is Love
22. Eleanor Rigby
23. Abbey Road Medley
24. Happiness Is A Warm Gun
25. Here, There, And Everywhere
26. If I Fell
27. You're Going To Lose That Girl
28. Here Comes The Sun
29. Can't Buy Me Love
30. We Can Work It Out
31. You've Got To Hide Your Love Away
32. Penny Lane
33. I Am The Walrus
34. Eight Days A Week
35. Paperback Writer
36. I Should Have Known Better
37. She Said She Said
38. Blackbird
39. Day Tripper
40. For No One
41. Get Back
42. I Feel Fine
43. Drive My Car
44. All My Loving
45. No Reply
46. Don't Let Me Down
47. Things We Said Today
48. The Ballad of John and Yoko
49. The Night Before
50. Got to Get You Into My Life