The Beatles Are Here!

by Penelope Rowlands

  I think the reason the Beatles are arguably the greatest band in history is that you can close read the songs harmonically or texturally, but they operate on so many levels at once. The vast majority of Beatles fans are nonmusicians; what makes the work so great is that the craftsmanship doesn’t need to be recognized as such. It’s satisfying because it’s simultaneously very sophisticated, yet incredibly simple and emotionally direct—and those are qualities that I look for in music.

  Vera, Chuck and Dave

  by Roy Blount Jr.

  I WAS BORN at the same time, roughly, as the Beatles, so when they hit the U.S. I was too old for mass hysteria. In retrospect, that may seem a shame. But having done puberty in the American South in the prime of Little Richard, I was not quick to see the pressing need for Liverpudlian rhythm and blues. And I was busy: in graduate school, scraping up acquaintance with Old English as a hedge against future unemployment. Soon I would be married. And approaching parenthood. And (hi-ho!) fulfilling a military obligation, incurred before I had any reason to suspect there might be a war. A Hard Day’s Night struck me as slaphappy—callow compared to, say, Duck Soup. Did I mention that the Beatles were my age? And way ahead of me careerwise. And having much more fun.

  But you couldn’t maintain asperity toward the Beatles for long. The night before my daughter was born, her mother and I were dancing at Arthur, the club named for what Ringo—in reply to an interviewer’s earnest query—called his haircut. One thing the Beatles were, that so few rock gods have been, was droll.

  If you want to know what’s wrong with pop culture today, compare the Beatles’ “When I’m Sixty-Four” to the current hit song “Young and Beautiful.” The latter was composed for the soundtrack of Baz Luhrmann’s largely appalling adaptation of The Great Gatsby. The singer, Lana Del Rey, projecting an amorphously supra-ironic persona, asks us, over and over, “Will you still love me when I’m no longer young and beautiful?” When all she has left is her “aching soul”? Yes, she assures us, over and over, we will still love her.

  But I don’t love her already. Even when I was her age, I wouldn’t have loved her. When I was her age I found a great deal more poignance and human interest in the comical appeal, “Will you still need me, / Will you still feed me . . .”

  A book can’t afford to quote published song lyrics extensively, and at any rate those of “Young and Beautiful” would gum up my keyboard, so I invite you to check out their godawful poetry online. Then set beside them the excellent light verse of “When I’m Sixty-Four.” Pfft goes “Young and Beautiful.” It’s like putting salt on a slug.

  The music of “Young and Beautiful” is grandiosely goopy, all the better to glom together words that have no intrinsic rhythm or coherence: “Channeling angels in a new age, now/ Hot summer nights, rock and roll. . . .”

  “When I’m Sixty-Four,” on the other hand, is as clickety and ingenious as syncopated clockwork. Looking back on this song, of which he was the primary author, Sir Paul McCartney said, “I liked ‘Indicate precisely what . . .’ I like words that are exact, that you might find on a form. It’s a nice phrase, it scans.”

  Yes. Does anybody but Paul and me even know what scans means anymore? Can you, for instance, enjoy regular meter’s potential for fascination? Does regularity make you shudder? Look at the lyrics of “When I’m Sixty-Four” laid out sans music. Every line (with one semi-exception) begins and ends with a stressed syllable. In each verse, the first and fifth lines are the same meter (bum ba-ba bum ba, bum ba-ba bum), as are the second and sixth and ninth (bum ba bum ba bum), and the seventh and eighth (bum ba-ba bum bum). And in each case the third (bum ba bum ba bum ba bum ba bum) and fourth (bum ba bum ba bum) go off on their own little trip. Each of the first, fourth and (except in the first stanza) fifth lines is halved by a comma. There are six question marks in a song that is one long question.

  Two of the three bridges both go metrically like this:

  You’ll . . . be . . . bum . . . bum . . . bum

  And if ba bum ba bum

  bum bum bum bum bum

  These lines sing themselves, but even the ones with identical meter sing differently. The song’s potential monotony is relieved not only by clarinets, tubular bells, and eerie vocal background harmonies, but also by the sense: the mix of chipper and wistful in “who could ask for more?” is related to but different from that, two verses later, in “yours forever more.”

  And then there’s the other little bridge, about renting a cottage on the Isle of Wight.

  bum ba bum ba bum ba bum ba bum ba

  bum ba bum ba bum

  The other two bridges slow the pace, pulling back from the jumpiness of the verses. In this unique bridge, those first two lines (or maybe they amount to one line with extra beats squeezed in) are propulsive. Then the third line, “If it’s not too dear,” taps the brake to set up the other slow-down bridge, about scrimping and saving and the grandkids. Call this song nostalgic foolery if you like, but if you listen you can hear a real couple of people (Paul’s parents if his Mum had lived?) back and forth in it.

  “Rooty-tooty” is how Paul described “When I’m Sixty-Four.” He was a teenager when he wrote it, on his father’s piano, after his mother died. Juvenilia about old age sounds iffy, and many years after the boys bunged this quaint-seeming number into Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Paul called it “very tongue-in-cheek and that to me is the attraction of it.” But I don’t find this song condescending, and I am seventy-two.

  In his own maturity, Paul has stressed—excessively, in my view—that the song is a goof: “I mean, imagine having three kids called Vera, Chuck and Dave.”

  Well. You might say no one formal enough to name a child Vera would name another one Chuck—but these are grandkids, might have different parents. Sir Paul at sixty-four had three grandchildren: Arthur (not named, I assume, for Ringo’s hair), Elliott, and Miller. Pretty uniform, that string, but try working it into a song. Whereas “Vera, Chuck and Dave” can hold its own, for memorability, with any of these:

  Tom, Dick, and Harry

  Tinker to Evers to Chance

  Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John

  Manny, Moe, and Jack

  Wynken, Blynken, and Nod

  Hart, Schaffner & Marx

  Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young

  Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner, and Beane

  Huey, Dewey, and Louie

  Emerson, Lake & Palmer

  Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego

  Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail

  Hungerdunger, Hungerdunger, Hungerdunger, Hungerdunger, and McCormick

  Hines, Hines, and Dad

  The eldest, Vera, veracious but severe, probably overbears the bouncy Chuck, when the three of them get together; but plain cheerful Dave steps in to mediate. That’s my sense of the Fab Three. You may have your own. But surely we can agree about how niftily the three names move in sequence: Veee-ra [just a bit of a pause between beats, for the comma] Chook and [two ds together] Dave.

  Some commentators have assumed that Paul’s original version was just the tune, to which John supplied the words, but Lennon’s own recollection was, “We just wrote a few more words on it, like ‘grandchildren on your knee,’ and stuck in ‘Vera, Chuck and Dave.’ ” We, you notice. I like to think John tossed in “Vera,” Paul added “Chuck,” and Ringo, after a moment: “Dave.”

  John might have thought of Vera Lynn, whose songs (“We’ll Meet Again” for instance) bolstered Britons during World War II. Or, being John, he might have flashed on Vera the hitchhiker in the movie Detour, one of the meanest dames in film noir. (The three principal characters in Detour are Vera, Charles Jr., and Al.) Conceivably he knew of Vladimir Nabokov’s selflessly collaborative wife, Vera. Who knows? I named an elephant Vera once, for the movie whose screenplay I wrote, Larger Than Life. All I can say is, Vera seemed a good name for an elephant.

  Frank Sinatra, we are told, loved “When I’m Sixty-Four” and called Paul to ask for som
ething like it. Paul dredged up another little ditty from his teens, about a woman who lets men dominate her, called “Suicide.” Sinatra hated it. “He thought I was having a go,” Paul reminisced years later. “He was like, ‘Is this guy for real?’ ”

  Mysticism and psychedelics aside, the Beatles had many a go, all right, but they were for real. I knew it as soon as I heard “Vera, Chuck and Dave.”

  Linda Belfi Bartel, fan

  (the girl on the far right in the photo)

  WHAT CAPTURED ALL of my memories of my youth is when the Beatles hit America.

  I can still see their faces from when they appeared on Ed Sullivan for the first time. I was either in eighth or ninth grade, sitting in front of our black-and-white TV, watching The Ed Sullivan Show and screaming and screaming so, you know, we couldn’t hear them.

  There was just something about them. They had such sweet faces. I remember the charming twinkle in Paul’s eyes. I liked George, though. I knew all the women in the world wanted Paul. So in my own silly mind I figured I had a better chance getting George. That was the only reason. It was the stupidest thing, but that’s why.

  My parents were sitting in the living room with me. I think probably my brother walked out of the room at that point—we’re five years apart, me being the oldest. My sister was there, too. She and I are eight years apart. She watched me acting like a nut, you know, sitting there and screaming to a television set.

  I think of how patient my mother used to be, back when we had these old 45 records and played the songs over and over again. I’d listen while doing my homework; I just played and played and played them. I would not have the patience my parents did, listening to that music over and over and over, playing the same song or two. But they never one time complained.

  You could buy these big, life-size posters of the Beatles back then. Everybody put them on their doors or on their walls, but not me! I had George Harrison on my ceiling, over my bed. My sister and I shared the room. What’s so hysterical is that she tells me I would yell at her. She couldn’t walk over to my side of the room and look up at the ceiling without me getting mad because I didn’t want to share the Beatles with her. I’m surprised she still loves me.

  ABOUT SIX MONTHS after they did The Ed Sullivan Show, the Beatles performed at Forest Hills Tennis Stadium. I remember that night like I was transported back in time. I met with my cousin, Joann [Flood]. She says we went there by train—I’ll have to take her word about that. I remember sitting way, way up in the top of the stadium. It’s mayhem. Everybody screaming, wanting the Beatles to come on stage. We’re, like, “Come on!”

  The Righteous Brothers opened for the Beatles. Everyone was booing them to get off the stage, including me. If you could have heard them booing! Then it dawned on us—these guys are really, really good. The stadium went from screaming and booing and “Get them off the stage” to “Man, you guys are really incredible” and really getting into their songs and their music. They sang “Unchained Melody.” They soon became famous in their own right.

  Then, finally, the moment comes, the Beatles come on stage. Thousands of girls at the top of their lungs, screaming. They probably heard us in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The screaming! It was out of control. Absolutely. The girls were kind of swooning, including myself. I was screaming and screaming at the stage.

  Then I remember thinking, “What are we screaming for? We came here to hear them but we can hear nobody but ourselves.” I’ve always been the adventurous one. I started yelling at the girls around us, “Be quiet, we can’t even hear them! We can’t hear them sing!” I swear the stadium started taking on a different tone. It got a little bit quieter so we could actually hear their music. I remember that moment like I was there now.

  And I remember the day of the sign. I made that big banner in the apartment in the Bronx where my cousin Joann lived. My parents must have driven me there from our home in Monsey, New York. I probably had the posterboard because my father, John Belfi, was a commercial artist. He was a famous cartoonist. I would have brought the pictures and lettering down to Joann’s apartment with me.

  I sat on the floor to make the poster. There was a long hallway when you came into her apartment. It was where Joann’s brother and I always danced. We danced there to the Beatles and everything else. I made the poster there.

  After I got it all together I noticed that, in my excitement, I didn’t even spell Beatles right. My father was drawing cartoons for the New York Times and everything and I couldn’t even spell “Beatles!” I had to go in and shove the L in there somehow. If you look at the picture, the L is a little higher than the rest.

  ON THE DAY the Beatles came to town, the day the photo was taken, we got there early enough that we could stand toward the front of the crowd and hold the poster. We were there before their limousine arrived. When it pulled up, I broke through the police barricades. I ran underneath them and around the police horses and got to the limousine. I must have had a handkerchief with me—we didn’t really use Kleenex back then—and I rubbed it all over the car.

  Imagine, I turned out to be a senior vice president, but I was the little rule breaker when it came to an opportunity to get close to a star!

  On the whole train ride back home, I was yelling at my cousin: “Don’t touch my hand! Don’t touch my hand! It’s the hand that touched the Beatles’ car!” And she was yelling back, telling me to shut up.

  I don’t remember the photograph being taken. We were so caught up in the excitement. So much happened. I only saw it many, many, many, many years afterward, when Joann sent it to me. I never knew it had been taken. It was, “Oh my God, look at that!” It was so amazing.

  I don’t think I ever got over my feeling for the Beatles, but the obsession itself probably ended when I graduated from high school.

  YOU HAVE UPS and downs in your life. My first husband—I got married when I was nineteen—was killed in a car accident when I was twenty-three, after we had two kids. Many years later, at the very end of 1999, I moved to Texas to marry a Houstonian I met in Phoenix. He died five years afterward from cancer. I stayed. I’ve lived in Houston for thirteen years.

  I’ve had a lot of sadness in my life with different deaths. I lost my baby granddaughter at birth just six months ago tomorrow. Shortly after that, my mother passed away.

  It’s not been easy, but I’m happy now. I’m engaged to a good man. I work for a community association company and really love what I do. I have three wonderful kids, two girls and one boy, and three grandchildren. They are joy.

  ROCK AND ROLL was such a vital part of our lives. I don’t think the newer, younger generations have the memory of the fantastic music that we had growing up. You learned the words really quickly and you sat there and sang along with them. To this day if you hear their music you still remember the words and you sing along to it.

  I just love that era. When they have the oldies on the radio, say the Platters singing “In the Still of the Night,” you know every single word. That’s how it was with the Beatles. I could sing probably 90 percent of their songs and not miss a word. Their music touched your soul in places that no other group did.

  The number one thing about music now is that I don’t even understand what they’re saying. They mumble. It’s really sad. That said, if there’s hip-hop on, I’ll get up and dance to it.

  Every time my cousin Joann and I talk, for some reason we go back to the Beatles. Whenever we talk about them, there’s such a jolting connection between us. It’s like it warps us back in time to when we were kids. Just a few months ago there was a Beatles special on and I called Joann and we were singing, watching it on TV, me in Texas and her in Arizona.

  We take away memories that are special to us. That’s what the Beatles did for me, created special, special memories. For Joann, too—her health has been really bad for most of her life. When we talk about these memories, she just gets giggling.

  Instead of dwelling in negativity, you can replace it with happy m
emories, like being a teenager, sitting on the floor probably six inches away from The Ed Sullivan Show on the TV, screaming your bloody head off.

  The era of the Beatles is so special. Just talking about them now, I’m like a little kid. I’m bippy-bopping around, dancing, getting goose bumps thinking about that time in my life.

  Their music talked to you. It touched your soul and it made you joyous.

  It still does.

  David Dye, radio show host

  I WAS IN Swarthmore Junior High School when the Beatles arrived in the U.S. Beatlemania was pretty universal. It was something that affected everybody. It was a cultural language that everybody spoke at the time.

  With Philadelphia area kids, there were sort of two schools. There was the Motown school, the R&B school—these were people who were aware of the Beatles but who were not quite as into them as me and my friends.

  I was into Motown but the Beatles had a special place.

  The first 45 of theirs I bought was “I Want to Hold Your Hand” with “I Saw Her Standing There,” on the flip side. What a great value! Two fabulous songs and I played it to death. I just remember how personally exciting it was to hear the harmonies and to hear these great songs.

  I had the Ed Sullivan experience like everybody else. I remember my father watching with us and he’d say “Dave, the guy in the back, the drummer, that’s the mother,” because they all had long hair. It was like “Okay, Dad, thanks.”

  I loved everything Beatles and I saw the movies and I did all the things that everybody did.

  My parents went to England and brought me back a British copy of Revolver. That album and Rubber Soul are at the heart of my love of the Beatles. They’re the records that had the most profound effect on me. I really love folk rock and these records are as close as the Beatles came to that. Each one is just exquisite. They actually changed my taste in music.