The Beatles - All You Need Is Love

1967 was a great year for Beatles fans, it was the year the albums “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band” and “The Magical Mystery Tour” came out, and those are two of my favorite Beatles albums. Before the release of second album, “The Magical Mystery Tour” The Beatles were asked to contribute to “Our World” which would be the first live global television event. Naturally The Beatles, being bigger then Jesus at the time, were asked to participate and perform a new song. This was a great opportunity for the biggest band in the world, arguably ever, to send a message to fourteen different nations live.

The Beatles were changing at the time mostly because John Lennon was changing his focus. Legend has it that Bob Dylan was very critical of John Lennon and the Beatles when he first met them. Dylan was very entrenched in the hippie culture and the message of peace, love and drugs they were espousing, and Dylan had invested a huge part of himself and his music towards forwarding these messages of political change. Meanwhile The Beatles were singing songs about holding hands and being in love, but to be fair the Beatles were writing amazing songs that happened to be about holding hands and being in love.

Supposedly Bob Dylan has these choice words for John Lennon when they met:

“Yo John... Enough of this teenybopper crap! ‘Help!’ is a real cry for help! Show me you have a pure heart, show me you have something to say.”

This quote comes from the fine people at: http://thoughtcatalog.com/chris-castiglione/2015/01/what-bob-dylan-said-to-john-lennon-that-changed-his-career/

I highly doubt that the above quote is accurate, but I have always been told that Dylan said something to that affect to the Beatles, and more specifically Lennon, however the above quote was the best representation I could find online. Regardless the point is Dylan had a huge affect on Lennon and afterward a more serious and sage like Lennon began to send many an important message to the world, and among his first bits of wisdom he would share is “All We Need Is Love.”

So the scene was set, The Beatles had such a huge audience what they said in their songs could change the world, and with the opportunity to perform on international live television their audience would not only broaden even further but their words could reach many listeners. John Lennon knew what the world needed to hear, a simple but universal truth “All You Need Is Love.” Later that year the hit song would be included on “The Magical Mystery Tour” album and would later appear on “The Yellow Submarine” album/soundtrack.

The song is credited as a Lennon McCartney creation and that makes a lot of sense, Paul McCartney had an almost unnatural talent for writing catching lovable pop rock songs and “All You Need Is Love” feels like such a song, but the political drive, the desire to inspire the world towards cooperation and understanding clearly the message of John Lennon it is hard not to credit him more so for the creation of this song.

But perhaps we should give some credit to Bob Dylan.

If Bob Dylan had not provoked/shamed John into trying to make a difference, or prove he had a “pure heart,” the high lord of hippies may never had made such a strong effort to do so much with his music to encourage peaceful revolution.

It is one of the often overlooked charms of The Beatles how they managed to write so many upbeat songs while living through such political charged challenging times, all the more so, while they, especially Lennon, actively engaged in the turmoil of many potentially ugly debates. It is easy to criticize, and it would have been easy for The Beatles to present a song on the “Our World” broadcast denouncing the political rivals of the UK or some of the long lived backward ideas still held by the populous. It would have been even easier to write and perform another fluff pop rock song. However they did something else entirely, they told the world what it needed to hear and reminded everyone who listened something they had always known, but easily taken for granted, that all we really need is to love one another.

This is where credit to Dylan should be halted, because the key difference between Lennon and Dylan is cynicism. While both men are clearly politically aligned, and have many similar messages and philosophies they share with us via their music Lennon is so much more embracing of the world and its people. No meaningful slight is intended toward Dylan in this remark, it is just amazing how positive Lennon could always be, maybe it was from years of hanging out with McCartney, I do not know.

I have always found it difficult to write about The Beatles, because their history and influence is so huge, and so well documented and discussed, that it is nearly impossible to add anything. It is possible that I am way off the mark connecting various Beatles tales and events together to accumulate to the creation of the great song “All You Need Is Love,” and maybe I am overselling the importance of that track. It is always possible that The Beatles and songs like “All You Need Is Love” had a subtle rippling effect on all of us that ultimately changed the world is many positive ways that no one could ever hope to connect all the dots.

Anyway long story short, Beatles theories are numerous, the importance of The Beatles cannot be overstated, and yeah... all you need is love.

- King of Braves.

John Lennon - Working Class Hero

I remember back in Cayley grade school. That’s where I was when “alternative” music became main stream. It took little thought on my behalf to recognize that ‘alternative’ would mean more often the not an alternative for rock music, or put more bluntly it was an alternative for good music. So I spent the majority of my teen years listening to Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and The Who, when life gives you lemons….

Back then Greenday was just a new and untalented punk band. They became popular because the sound they accidentally created could be credited as somewhat original and also it fit in with the new wave of alternative music. Furthermore angsty teens at the time identified with them since both were deliberate attempts to break away from the norm for no reason at all. Sadly those were the good days….

Back then Greenday was nothing more then a sub par group that could easily be ignored and just as easily forgotten. But now, with their aggressive selling out they are hard to stomach even in small dozes.

Greenday sold out.

Don’t listen to Greenday, their dumb ass fans, or the liberal thinkers of North America who praise Greenday as a politically and socially aware group with something to say. Nothing could be further from the truth. Telling everyone how dumb George Bush is after he has an approval rating below 30% is not controversial; it’s safe. Pretty easy to be daring when you know at least two thirds of the country agree with you, or more accurately put when you agree with two third of the country you can be sure whatever you say will be well received.

Don’t get me wrong, I am against George Bush and his cabinet as much as the next person is. I was one the first people I personally know to say out loud that I thought the Iraq war was stupid, but unlike the current drama queens at the time I was optimistic. I hoped America went in got Sadam and got out. Made no sense why they were targeting him, sadly he was the lesser of evils in the Middle East compared to Iran and Saudi Arabia’s dictatorships, but still Sadam is easily evil enough to warrant execution. My optimism evidently failed, and now the war is a shit show and I keep wondering why they continue to damage their already tarnished reputation by staying where they are clearly not wanted, not by the Iraqis or even their own American populace. I fully agree with Eddie Vender when he said, “When you start a war for reasons that turn out to be false you deserve to lose you job.” Well done Eddie, you are a politically and socially aware musician.

I was swearing mad when I saw Greenday’s latest music video. Like most untalented musician after getting lucky with a few poorly written accidental hits they can’t come up with much more they just take from someone else. It is called a cover song, and frankly if you were going to cover a song wouldn’t you want to do something new with it, make it your own? Apparently not, since nothing innovate or creative was done whatsoever with Greenday’s John Lennon cover of “Working Class Hero”.

Have you seen the video? Could you literally feel yourself becoming stupider for having watched it? Or like me where you so enraged you were ready to take a flight to Los Angeles just so you could pick a fight with Greenday? The video depicts the current problems in Durfar, which is to my limited knowledge is a brutal civil war, fought primarily due to ethnic differences. The video shows victims who have seen the horrors of ethnic cleansing and genocide. There are many mentions of rape and murder of young people. Terrible stuff, absolutely horrible, and nothing to do whatsoever with the song “Working Class Hero.”

Working Class Hero is a song that describes the feelings of dread in the hearts of youth when they live within a structured society based on class. Massive amounts of information are thrown at you when you are young as well as the demanded importance of discipline. After they have broken your spirit with fear and anxiety then they expect you to be a normal person and think rationally enough to make big decision about what to do with yourself and your life. However John was quick to put a sliver lining in the song, because despite your fears and all the terror society has put in you, you can always be a ‘working class hero’. Just be yourself, work hard, and everything will be alright. It is a very meaningful song. It has nothing to do with genocide or civil war or anything like that. At the same time the crisis in Durfur has nothing to do with working conditions or the class structure.

Sadly Greenday is not wholly to blame for this act of de-evolving human intelligence, “Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur” is a whole compellation of John Lennon covers that have nothing to do with the tragedy. At least, the profits in theory are going towards benefiting Amnesty International’s campaign to help alleviate the crisis. But if you have any kind of a mind you should know by now that must acts of charity like this are usually just excuses to make money, and this has Yoko Ono written all over it. What do you do when your genius husband dies? Just keep making money off his incredible talent. Sigh.

I got into another rant this month sorry. Don’t compromise your taste with un-innovate modern bands, when in doubt remind yourself how wonderful the classics are.

Until next month, keep on rocking in the free world.

- Colin