I Protest

After reading an article that the Rock and Roll Emporium in Huntington Beach would be featuring never-before-seen photos of a Beatles press conference regarding the release of "Revolver", I felt a sense of obligation. A story I wrote in 1965, "Endless Voyage", was responsible for "Yellow Submarine", "Eleanor Rigby", and other Beatles songs, and "Eleanor Rigby" and its concern for how to handle the world's lonely people led to "Sgt. Peppers", "Let It Be", and who knows what else. "Revolver" was and perhaps is the home of "Yellow Submarine" and "Eleanor Rigby". I couldn't be there at the moment depicted in the photos, but I could touch that moment just the same.

Based on previous experiences of this kind, I anticipated that Paul McCartney might somehow - or- another make his presence felt by me, that he and I are on the same page enough for us both to realize my doing this meant.... something - or - another.

The instant I walked into the Rock and Roll Emporium, I experienced what I expect anyone who goes there experiences. I was descended upon by someone who worked there, who was anxious to accommodate me by trying to ascertain my interests. However, the particular salesman I encountered went even further than this. He engaged me in a detailed discussion of The Beatles, asserting that these photos clearly showed great animosity between Lennon and McCartney, they had only one more live concert after the photos were taken and after that The Beatles essentially disbanded by limiting themselves to things like making "Sgt. Peppers" and only creating music in recording studios. I basically disagreed on every point. However, it all reminded me a little bit of something.

It reminded me of the time someone played the devil's advocate with me by demanding to know why John Lennon should make another album, hadn't he already done enough. A transparent effort to provoke my response. On that occasion, I was conscious that my words would likely be taken directly back to John Lennon, that this possibility was scarcely a secret. And so I put something into it, and came up with what would become the opening of the song, "Starting Over". Minus Lennon's insertion on that song/album opening of a subtly cynical twist, buried close to the surface of his intonation, on the question of whether our life together really is so special, together, is it really so precious. There may also perhaps have been a grain of this same cynicism in the answer I initially gave, but if there was, it was only my way of expressing that I possessed the ability to support, if necessary, the position, "hadn't he done enough already (is more really necessary)?"

So when I responded to the Rock and Roll Emporium salesman, while at the same time looking at the photos of The Beatles facing the world for the first time on the subject of "Revolver", I again sensed that here I might not be speaking directly with the person who in actuality was at the other end of the real conversation.

The salesman made it very difficult for me to sound nice about Paul McCartney. He mentioned how McCartney presumably made George Harrison storm out of the studio at some point, perhaps while recording The White Album, due to wanting to play Harrison's guitar part. A similar problem between McCartney and Starr. "Oh well, he just likes to provoke a certain kind of reaction, he enjoys getting in people's face," I said in McCartney's defense. It was not unlike the symbolic inference I intended when I said to a (different) Lennon intermediary that Lennon must feel he has to shout about something. Lennon found a place for that one on his "Double Fantasy" song, "Losing You".

While speaking to the Huntington Beach salesman, who represented that period in Beatles history as a battle between Lennon and McCartney, I found it important to state my view that Lennon was the genius of the group, that he had the cosmic oneness, but needed help bringing that into the world. It stands to reason that it would have been too much of a coincidence for there to have been more than one genius in The Beatles, so if you have to pick one, I say Lennon. I believe the depth of Lennon's part in "Double Fantasy" establishes once and for all that, though his genius took form in what in many ways is a simplistic medium, Rock and Roll, he was able to be more artistically profound than anyone since.... perhaps Dostoyevsky. Perhaps that is an apples and oranges comparison. Which isn't to say McCartney isn't great as well.

Afterwards I was concerned that I may have said things that, on some level, might strike McCartney as deliberately hurtful. This was not my intent, and my concern on this partly influenced me to title the blog I wrote yesterday in relation to a McCartney song I was a major influence on. I am not one who wishes to generate animosity. Though I don't mind offending Republicans.

Today it was announced that Paul McCartney, in an upcoming Q Magazine interview, confesses he was a failure at writing protest songs. To hear him say this must surely bring to mind how he measures up, in this regard, against John Lennon. John Lennon, who gave us "Give Peace A Chance", clearly beats McCartney in the protest song game. Okay, in the peace song game, same thing. Doesn't this subject instantly provoke a Lennon vs. McCartney comparison, Lennon emerging the victor?

At one point, as a major influence on John Lennon, it occurred to me that it might serve if I were to make a deliberate, conscious effort to wear Lennon's shoes in the area of peace / protest songs. Lennon was gone, perhaps something fell to me, even if none but a few might consider this the situation. And so I set to work on the only song I've ever done that was inspired by the possibility of an obligation to destiny.

In so doing, I believe I came to one of the same places Lennon must surely have come to in creating "Starting Over". The problem: generating an innocent feeling that could be shared by the masses, a common push, yet a feeling that does not devolve into the kind of false start that makes it ever-impossible for the masses to try again someday. The powerful, inner resource of humanity to come together and do something could transform into stale chewing gum from an overly insistent leader trying to force the matter. So dangerous a possibility that the leader shouldn't even try, but instead just turn around and walk away, let's keep the good memories intact? "Starting Over" has Lennon in the persona of an older-ish man trying to resurrect a '50s-ish sound to give rebirth to a dying relationship. A man for whom the '50s still sort of live, so why can't he simply summon this and make it all happen again as it did before. My song, "(Build It All Up Into A) Brand New River of Love" (copyright January 1999) was turned by Sting into "(Building Up A) Brand New Day". The spirit of the new millenium on New Year's Eve, 1999, midnight, NBC; the spirit of the Obama Inauguration Party, at the climax of the night, performed for the new president, accompanied by Stevie Wonder, whose harmonica began as my saxophone, if the truth be told. But who am I, just someone who can't even afford a photograph of the Beatles press conference on the subject of "Revolver".