Beatles (The) British pop group founded in Liverpool in 1960. The original members were John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Pete Best, replaced by Ringo Starr in 1962 (originally Richard Starkey).
“Love Me Do” was their first UK hit. A string of subsequent hits created the international phenomenon of ‘Beatlemania’ in 1964.
Most of their songs were officially penned by Lennon and McCartney, although their respective influence on individual songs varied considerably.
The band stopped giving public performances in 1966, turning its energy to the studio-specifically to the rock and roll classic, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band. Their producer, George Martin, says he had a significant impact on the outcome of this record.
The group split, bitterly, around 1970. Their last studio album, Abbey Road, was recorded with separate sessions being held for each member of the band.
This was unprecedented at the time and, to fans, seemed to indicate growing tensions among band members. George Harrison, for instance, apparently once said that McCartney told him how to play his guitar, which the guitarist resented. And issues over the growing presence of Yoko Ono were becoming standard fare for the tabloids and rock media, as was Lennon and McCartney’s growing acrimony.
The Swiss psychologist Carl Jung developed a psychological classification system based on four main types. For Jung, the whole and healthy mind strove to integrate the four types of thinking, feeling, sensation and intuition.
Could part of the Beatles’ unparalleled popularity be a result their collectively representing Jung’s four archetypal types?
According to this schema, Lennon would be the thinking type, Paul McCartney the feeling type, George Harrison the intuition type and Ringo Starr the sensation type.
The Beatles’ contribution to music will probably be forever etched in the history of mankind. Even begrudging or perhaps sarcastically tinged respect is implied, for instance, in “Afraid” from David Bowie’s record Heathen (2002):
I believe in Beatles
I believe my little soul has grown
And I’m still so afraid…
The so-called Fab Four combined Rock and Roll, simple blues and complex jazz, as well as ‘lounge lizard,’ orchestral and international music forms.
After the end of the Beatles, Lennon released several lp’s and resided in New York with his wife Yoko Ono. He continued to enjoy commercial success with songs like “Imagine,” “Mind Games,” “Whatever Gets you Through the Night,” “Give Peace a Chance,” “So this is Christmas,” and “Just Like Starting Over.”
But Lennon became more than a mere rock star; he became an icon representing worldwide peace and the lunacy of war. In 1980 he was shot and killed by a deranged fan.
McCartney did a critically acclaimed solo album and formed the highly successful band Wings, continuing to be a prominent musical force in the 1970’s.
Harrison released the commercially successful All Things Must Pass (including “My Sweet Lord” and “Isn’t it a Pity”) and several other albums. Starr has been in films and recorded singles and albums.
In 1995 the single “Free as a Bird” was released. This was a song written and hastily recorded by Lennon in 1977. McCartney asked Ono if the remaining Beatles could collectively add to any of Lennon’s unreleased material. Ono gave permission for this single but it arguably isn’t a true Beatles song, per se, because Lennon himself did not agree to its release.
Image Source:
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Photo resized from original “still my guitar gently weeps” taken by Tres at flickr.com, Creative Commons non-Derivative License.
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