You Say You Want a Revolution:

Beatlemania, the Swinging Sixties and

the Beatles

University of Liverpool ELC

Summer Pre-Sessional

Live Lecture 19th August 2015

Dr. Simon Finnigan

Who Were The Fab Four?

Beatle Landmarks in Liverpool

Musical Impact

If greatness is measured in terms of commercial success and popularity, the Beatles are the greatest popular musicians of the 20th century. Moreover, the changes in the music industry wrought by their success make it unlikely that their impact will be surpassed.

Phil Hardy, The Faber Companion to 20th Century Popular Music, (Faber: London, 2002), p. 65.

The Broader Cultural Impact

They […] influenced music, politics, fashion and culture like no other group before or since. Because of their popularity […] the history of the Beatles has become a cultural story or narrative.

Petrie, Sivertsen & Pennebaker, Things We Said Today: A Linguistic Analysis of the Beatles, Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts, 2008, 2 (4), p.197.

The Quarrymen

The Beatles-Early Years

• Hamburg 1960

1963- The Breakthrough

The Beatles in Three Periods

• Stage One 1960-1964 extensive touring in the UK and overseas. Songs written and recorded quickly. Subjects are simple emotions and romantic love. Key Songs: I Want To Hold Your Hand, She Loves You, Love Me Do, From Me To You

Beatlemania in the UK

Beatlemania Goes Global

A New Kind of Pop Music Movie

The Beatles capture the zeitgeist

Capturing the Changing Times

Sexual intercourse beganIn nineteen sixty-three(which was rather late for me) -Between the end of the "Chatterley" banAnd the Beatles' first LP.

Annus Mirabilis, Philip Larkin

Beatlemania- Something New

But there was nothing, truly, ever like the Beatles: the personalities, the songwriting, the freshness of their look and sound, the palpable exuberance they radiated on stage, on record or simply talking off the cuff. […] no British act had ever come remotely close to generating the same degree of heat, hysteria and pan-cultural recognition.

Shawn Levy, Ready, Steady, Go! Swinging London and the Invention of Cool, (Regency Press: London 1998), p.89.

Beatlemania at Buckingham Palace

The Evolving Beatles

Shea Stadium 1965

Shea Stadium 1965

The Beatles in Three Periods

• Stage Two 1965-1967

• Most creative and significant output. The band stop touring and concentrate on producing studio recordings. Songs are more complex and deal with a greater variety of topics. Key songs: Eleanor Rigby, In My Life Strawberry Fields Forever, Penny Lane

1967- The Summer of Love

The Beatles and Swinging London

London had become the hot location for fashion, photography, film and music … [and] The Beatles were synonymous with this cultural movement, leading it in new directions with the reflections of their surroundings.

Philip Norman, Shout! (Clarendon Press: London, 1982), p. 96.

A New Counterculture Beatles

Art Imitating Life or Life Imitating Art?

The Beatles weren’t so much causing the great social and psychological changes of that era as mirroring them. […] The key was they picked up on certain special ideas before their competitors and took these ideas into the enquiring side of the mainstream.

Ian MacDonald, “The Psychedelic Experience”, 1000 Days That Shook The World: Psychedelic Beatles 1965-1967, (1994, Mojo Press: London), p. 31

The Beatles in Three Periods

• Stage Three 1968-1970 group visit Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in India.

• Output in creative terms is high but the group are working more as individuals and relations in the band deteriorate until they split in 1970. Key songs: Hey Jude, Get Back, Here Comes The Sun, Let It Be

Let It Be-The Beatles Break Up

Times of Trouble

And in the end….

“And in the end,

the love you take

is equal to

the love you make”

Want to see more of the Beatles?

• http://www.beatlesstory.com/

• Liverpool’s Beatles Story Museum and Exhibition

Want to see more of the Beatles?

• http://fab4tours.co.uk/

• Take a taxi tour around famous Beatles sites in Liverpool.

Beatleweek in Liverpool