From Beatlemania to Dyschronia: Some Thoughts on 'Now and Then'

Screenshot from the official video (dir. Peter Jackson) 

for 'Now and Then', by The Beatles

 

 

I. 

 

As a young child, I was never a Beatles fan: they were my teenaged sister's favourites, but meant nothing to me. To quote Sid Vicious: "I didn't even know the Summer of Love was happening. I was too busy playing with my Action Man." [1]

 

And later, as a young punk, I despised the Beatles: I was happy, like Joe Strummer, to affirm 1977 as a kind of Year Zero in which the Fab Four along with Elvis and the Rolling Stones were deemed irrelevant and the past effectively abolished. 

 

(I was happy also when - according to Malcolm - Glen Matlock was thrown out of the Sex Pistols on the grounds that he was secretly a Beatles fan.) 

 

And, in the years since, I haven't been persuaded to change my view or reconsider my relationship to John, Paul, George, and Ringo. But I have been enchanted (and disturbed) by their new single ...

 

II. 

 

Released a few days ago - and billed as the Beatles' final song - 'Now and Then' [2] appears to bring poignant closure to the story of a band who formed in 1962 and broke up in 1970. 

 

But, as I'll suggest below, it also seems to mark the end of something more than that, which is why such a simple ballad has resonated so profoundly with so many people - including those who, like me, have never been subject to (or infected by) Beatlemania [3].     

 

Originally written and recorded as a demo tape by Lennon in 1977, 'Now and Then' was considered as a Beatles reunion single for their 1995–1996 retrospective project The Beatles Anthology, but this idea was quickly abandoned due to technical issues at the time (namely, Lennon's vocals could not be separated out and cleaned up).

 

However, thanks to AI-backed audio restoration technology, the track has now been reimagined and reworked and the result is pretty astonishing - as is the music video directed by Peter Jackson. So well done to Paul and Ringo and all those who contributed to the project, including the ghosts of John and George [4] and producer Giles Martin [5]. 

 

Fans and critics are almost universally happy with the result, although, paradoxically, the song and video make many people upset at the same time; even some of those who were not born in the 20th-century have been moved to tears. 

Obviously, most people have experienced individual loss and can feel nostalgic for their own past. But it seems to be more than that; people seem to be mourning something collectively, not so much as a generation, but as a people, as a culture.

 

So, how has Beatlemania - which began with hysterical joy  - terminated in mournful melancholia? 

 

 

III. 

 

You don't need to be Mark Fisher to understand what's going on here (although reading Fisher's work is certainly advantageous): we are being invited to join Paul and Ringo (and the ghosts of John and George) in a temporal loop (or time trap) where sounds and images from earlier periods get promiscuously mixed up.

 

The classic Beatles sound, "its elements now serenely liberated from  the pressures of historical becoming" [6], has been recreated via a machine. At first, we are astonished and amused; the montaging of discreet time periods is so perfect that we no longer quite know when or where we are. 

 

But then the sadness and unease creeps in, until, eventually, it all becomes a bit hellish and one realises with despair that such indiscretion ultimately leads to stasis and cultural inertia.

 

The Beatles were once genuinely something New: and they promised us the future. But with this final song the Fab Four imprison us in a perpetual present haunted by the past (and enhanced with AI-backed technology). 

 

What seems like an act of poignant closure, is actually anything but and, ironically, despite its title, this song belongs neither to Now nor Then, but to a timeless (and nihilistic) zone that some term dyschronia. 

 

This is what No Future looks like ...         

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Sid Vicious speaking in an interview with John Ingham, Sounds (Oct 1976). 

[2] The Beatles, 'Now and Then', (Apple Records, 2023). To watch the official music video dir. Peter Jackson, click here. The video features never-before-seen film of the Beatles, including scenes filmed during the 1995 recording sessions for Anthology, home movie footage of Harrison, and new footage of McCartney and Starr performing.

[3] Dismissed by The Clash in their 1979 single 'London Calling' as phoney, Beatlemania is actually a genuine, well-researched and well-documented cultural phenomenon. 

      The term was coined by the British press in 1963 to describe the scenes of hysterical adulation accorded to the group - particularly by adolescent girls - whenever (and wherever) they performed or appeared in public. Commentators rightly compared this to religious fervour with a very obvious sexual component. As an international phenomenon, Beatlemania surpassed in intensity and scope any previous examples of fan worship - even Elvis didn't make the girls scream (and literally wet their knickers) like John, Paul, George and Ringo. The Daily Telegraph published a disapproving article in which the scenes of mass worship were likened to Hitler's Nuremberg Rallies. Questions were asked in Parliament - Beatlemania was becoming a police and public safety issue. Lennon wasn't wrong to claim that the Beatles had become by 1966 more popular than Jesus amongst the young.    

      Eventually, disenchanted by their own fame, the Beatles quit touring and as they mutated from a pop group into a progressive, psychedelic rock band, so their fan base changed and Beatlemania in its most frenzied and delirious form passed as quickly as it had arisen. Now, Beatlemaniacs were looked down upon by the group's more mature, more sophisticated audience interested in serious matters, serious music, and facial hair (man). 

      The last mass display of fan adulation took place at the world premiere of the Beatles' animated film Yellow Submarine (dir. George Dunning) held at the London Pavilion in Piccadilly Circus, on 17 July 1968. There was very little screaming, but traffic was brought to a standstill.

 

[4] John Lennon was murdered in December 1980; George Harrison died of cancer in 2001.   

[5] Readers who are interested in knowing the full-story of how the song came to be can click here to view a 12-minute documentary film, Now and Then - The Last Beatles Song (written and directed by Oliver Murray, 2023) on YouTube.

 

[6] Mark Fisher, 'The Slow Cancellation of the Future', in Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures, (Zero Books, 2014). 

In Memory of a Man from U.N.C.L.E.

David McCallum (1933-2023) as Illya Kuryakin 

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964-68)

 

 

Thanks to Tom Cruise's big-screen reboot, many people believe that Mission: Impossible was the greatest secret agent series of the sixties. 

 

But it wasn't.

 

At any rate, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. was far more fun and whilst I remember pretending to be Napoleon Solo as a child - and obsessively wearing a Man from U.N.C.L.E. flicker ring until it eventually cut into my finger [1] - I don't recall wanting to be Jim Phelps or a member of the IMF. 

 

Obviously, the two shows share certain similarities; both, for example, have implausible (some would say ridiculous) storylines and both have fantastic opening theme tunes [2]. But I preferred The Man from U.N.C.L.E. to Mission: Impossible because it was more lighthearted - or more camp, as Susan Sontag would say [3].

In other words, it didn't seem to take itself too seriously - and that's something I loved as a child and still like today. It's why, for example, I prefer the Monkees to the Beatles; Adam West's Batman to the brooding figure of the Dark Knight as played by Christian Bale; and Roger Moore's Bond over Daniel Craig's 007. 

 

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. also had the advantage of having David McCallum as Illya Kuryakin playing alongside Robert Vaughn as Napoleon Solo. And that was a big advantage, as the Scottish actor proved to be hugely popular with the viewing public; particularly the younger audience who loved his Beatle-style haircut in contrast to Vaughn's clean-cut appearance and who inundated the actor with adoring fan mail [4].

 

But McCallum wasn't just eye-candy for pre-teen girls; he was an excellent actor and received two Emmy Award nominations in the course of the show's four-year run (1964–'68), for his role as the enigmatic and intelligent Russian-born agent.

 

Sadly, McCallum died yesterday, at a hospital in New York, one week after his 90th birthday. Like a lot of other people - particularly of my generation - I will remember him fondly as someone who, partnered with Robert Vaughn, captured my imagination as a child.  

 

 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] I also had a die-cast toy car made by Corgi with figures of Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin which popped in and out of the car windows firing guns when you pressed on a button protruding through the car roof (see the image above at the end of the post).

 

[2] The main theme for Mission: Impossible was composed by Lalo Schifrin and is noted for unusually being in 5/4 time. Click here to play the Season 1 opening titles.

      The theme music for The Man from U.N.C.L.E. was originally written by Jerry Goldsmith, although other scores were produced by other composers and the changing musical style reflected the show's different seasons; some, using brass instruments and martial rhythms, were intended to be dramatic; others, using flutes and bongos, were deliberately more jazzy. Click here for the opening title sequence to the Season 1 episode 'The Giuoco Piano Affair' (Nov 1964), featuring Goldsmith's original theme.

 

[3] See Sontag's famous essay of 1964, 'Notes on Camp', which can be found in her first collection of essays, Against Interpretation (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1966). 

 

[4] Originally, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. was conceived as a vehicle for Vaughn and McCallum's role was intended to be peripheral. McCallum, however, managed to turn the character of Kuryakin into a pop cultural phenomenon and, recognising his on-screen chemistry with Vaughn, McCallum was given co-star status by the show's producers. Incredibly, while playing Kuryakin, McCallum received more fan mail than any other actor in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's history - including such popular stars as Clark Gable and Elvis Presley.

 

 

Better Than the Original: On the Joy of Cover Versions

Alien Ant Farm lead vocalist Dryden Mitchell and Bubbles lookalike in the video 

for their 2001 version of Michael Jackson's 'Smooth Criminal' (1988)

 

 

I. 

 

If there's one thing I like, it's a great cover version; that is to say, a new interpretation of a song which exposes the fallacy that the original recording, or one closely associated with a well-known artist, is always the best. 

 

The fact is, there is no definitive version of a song and, in as much as a song is usually written before it is ever performed or recorded, all versions are essentially covers. 

 

Even the songwriter or composer, cannot claim to exercise complete control or final authority over his work; la mort de l'auteur isn't just a phenomenon within the world of literature, you know (or, at any rate, certainly deserves to be extended into other areas, including popular music, where - even in a post-punk environment - too much reverence is paid to the artist and they still unironically hang a star on their dressing room door).  

 

And so, just as the singer must release the song from the page on which it's written, so must the listener also liberate the song from the recording and refuse any limit upon how they hear or understand it. The magic and the meaning of a song depends on the impressions of the listener, rather than the passion of the performer, or the intentions of the songwriter.

 

Anyhoo, having briefly set out my theoretical reasons for loving cover versions, I'd like now to discuss what makes a great cover version ...

 

 

II.    

 

Having selected an old song that one wishes to cover, it's important to remember that one isn't merely obliged to rework or reinterpret it; one must also find a way to update the song so that it sounds fresh and contemporary. Avoiding what Barthes calls the mere stereotype of novelty, one must make New (which is another way of saying make sexy).  

 

And whilst it's respectful to give a nod in some manner to the artist one is covering, one must not remain unduly faithful; high-fidelity is undesirable and one doesn't want to be seen simply as a tribute act and a cover needs to be more than a cheap imitation or the next best thing compared to the original. Ultimately, as Neil Tennant once said: the cover has got to sound like you [1]. 

 

It also needs to be aimed at a different (and possibly a wider) audience than the (so-called) original. Forget about crowd-pleasing.      

 

 

III.

 

It only remains for me now to provide some examples of great cover versions - or, at any rate, cover songs which I happen to like ... 

 

Initially, I was going to provide a list or, if you like, a chart. But then a top ten became a top twenty and a top twenty a top forty ... And so, rather than do this, I've decided to simply mention several of my favourite cover versions and discuss one of these in detail.

 

Let's begin with two songs that I have already written posts on: 'My Way' by Sid Vicious, released as a single by the Sex Pistols in 1978 [2], and 'Common People' by William Shatner, on the album Has Been (2004). Both of these tracks are perfect cover versions: as I explain here and here.

The next track I'd like to mention is Serge Gainsbourg's amusing version of 'Smoke Gets In You Eyes', on the album Rock Around the Bunker (1975), which contained songs relating to the Third Reich and which drew upon Gainsbourg's experiences as a Jewish child in Nazi occupied France. 

 

Along with nine original songs, Gainsbourg included this cover of 'Smoke Gets in Your Eyes', written by Otto Harbach and Jerome Kern the 1933 Broadway musical Roberta, because it was said to be one of Eva Braun's favourites. Click here to play.   

Speaking of French singers ... I would like to also give a shout out to Marie Laforêt and her 1966 version of the Rolling Stones' hit 'Paint It Black' - retitled as 'Marie-douceur, Marie-colère' - click here. As the song is also given completely new lyrics, it's arguably a different work altogether - though the tune's the same [3].

 

Then there's Siouxsie and the Banshees working their alchemy with the Beatles track 'Dear Pudence', released as a single in 1983 [4]. It would be the band's biggest UK hit, reaching number 3 in the charts (much to their surprise). What amuses me is the manner in which they add a sense of darkness and menace to the original hippie vibe (despite the sunny blue skies). Click here to play.  

 

Finally, there's arguably the greatest of all covers: Alien Ant Farm's punky nu-metal version of 'Smooth Criminal' by Michael Jackson, released as a single from the album Anthology (2001): click here. 

 

This track only got to number 3 in the UK, but was a huge number 1 smash in the US. Like Sid's version of 'My Way' and Shatner's cover of Pulp's 'Common People', it is just perfect - as is the video directed by Marc Klasfeld, which references numerous Jackson music videos.  

 

The fact that I love it - even though I'm not a Michael Jackson fan - is not the point; the point is that MJ also loved it and so do many of his fans and those who might be wary of white artists coming along and messing with the work of a legendary black performer - as many so-called reaction videos on YouTube make clear [5].   

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Neil Tennant, vocalist with the synth-pop duo the Pet Shop Boys, knows a thing or two about producing a great cover; his 1987 version with Chris Lowe of the song made famous by Elvis in 1972 - 'You Are Always on My Mind' - is often said to be the greatest cover version ever (which it isn't, but it certainly deserves a mention, and a listen: click here to see them performing it on Top of the Pops). 

[2] Somewhat ironically, the Sex Pistols were rather good at covering other people's songs; click here for their take on 'No Fun', by the Stooges (originally the 'B' side of 'Pretty Vacant' (1977), but this is the remastered version from the 35th anniversary edition of Never Mind the Bollocks (2012)); and click here for their version of '(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone', made famous by the Monkees, as found on The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1979).    

 

[3] A 1983 cover of 'Paint It Black' by the American punk band the Avengers, which I also like very much, is rather closer to the original: click here. 

[4] Siouxsie and the Banshees had previously covered another Beatle's track from the White Album (1968) - 'Helter Skelter' - which can be found on their debut album Thev Scream (1978): click here. 

[5] See for example this reaction by Jamel_AKA_Jamal, or this one from Rob Squad Reactions. 

Amechania

Reworked image from

A Guide on Greek Mythology 

by chubbyeol_jones on wattpad.com

I. Help!

 

In an interview with Playboy in 1980, John Lennon confessed that far from being simply a commercially upbeat number, the song that served as the title track for both a 1965 feature film and album was, in fact, a genuine (if subconscious) cri de couer from someone who felt he was no longer in control of events following the Beatles' rise to global superstardom: 'I was fat and depressed and I was crying out for help.'*

 

Funnily enough, after 1,634 days in Essex exile caring for my mother (who is in her 90s and in the advanced stages of Alzheimer's) - that's 1,634 days continuously, without a break, and without any professional assistance, training, or experience - I understand exactly how Lennon felt ...

When I was younger, so much younger than today

I never needed anybody's help in any way

But now these days are gone, I'm not so self-assured ...

 

And now my life has changed in oh so many ways

My independence seems to vanish in the haze ...

 

Yep, that's about it - you nailed it John!

 

And although I do appreciate the Little Greek being 'round (most of the time), I'm increasingly obliged to turn to the Ancient Greeks for extra support when I'm feeling down ...

II. Aμηχανία

 

When I say the Ancient Greeks, I mean in particular the Sophists; i.e. those teachers in the fifth and fourth centuries BC who specialised in subjects including rhetoric, music, and mathematics and instructed young men in the art of virtue and how to live to their full potential.

 

The Sophists were particularly interested in providing philosophical protection against the feeling of helplessness; i.e., a dreadful feeling of being overwhelmed by events outside of one's control: 

 

"Suddenly all the trappings of competence [and agency] we have built up against the blows of fate seem useless, and from one moment to the next people sink back into a state of almost archaic helplessness."**

Naturally, the Sophists had a name for this feeling of powerlessness - amechania - and, whilst little discussed today within philosophy, it was one of the most important concepts within ancient ethics: "It literally describes the lack of mechané, which means the cunning or the device [...] we can use to get out of a situation of existential difficulties ..." [266]  

 

German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk, whom I'm quoting here, goes on to explain:

 

"Amechania describes the situation in which human beings are denied what the Greeks believed made them wholly human, that is, the ability to retaliate against attacks, being equipped with options for action or, as we would say today, being in full control of their agency. As soon as people sink into amechania, they land in a situation that just doesn't seem appropriate for human beings. Ancient Sophism thought more profoundly on this point than the Academy. According to Sophism, the meaning of all training, both spiritual and physical, is that people react against the extreme situation of amechania [...]" [266-67] 

 

Sloterdijk concludes:

"The legacy of Sophism became part of Stoical ethics that wanted to develop human beings as creatures that would never be helpless. This ethics is based on the postulate that humans should always be able to do something, even in situations in which the only possible thing they can do is to remain calm and composed." [267]

- Or break up the band ...

 

 

Notes 

* To read David Sheff's September 1980 interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono (published in the January 1981 issue of Playboy), click here. The section in which he discusses writing 'Help!' is on page 3.

 

** Peter Sloterdijk, 'Questions of Fate: A Novel About Thought', a conversation with Ulrich Raulff, in Selected Exaggerations, ed. Bernhard Klein, trans. Karen Margolis, (Polity Press, 2016), p. 266. Future page references to this work will be given directly in the text. 

 

Play: The Beatles, 'Help!', single released (July 1965) from the album of the same name (Parlophone, August 1965). The song was written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney and recorded 13 April, 1965. Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing. A black and white promotional film, dir. Joseph McGrath, was made in November 1965 for use on a Top of the Pops end of the year special: click here. 

 

You Say You Want a Revolution ...?

I.

Initially, Black Lives Matter was a civil rights movement for a younger, angrier, more woke generation of activists and campaigners concerned about issues to do with racial justice and equality. But it seems to now be in the vanguard of a broader movement demanding a full-scale cultural revolution and an end to what they perceive to be a violently oppressive and institutionally racist old order.

Of course, we've seen this call for a total transformation of everyday life (and the subsequent humiliation or destruction of one's enemies) before: in Hitler's Germany in the 1930s, for example; and, more recently, in Mao's China in the 1960s.

It wasn't pleasant then and it isn't pleasant now. Nor do I think it's going to end any happier. Restrictions on freedom of speech and the insistence that everyone toe the politically correct line or face the consequences, never do. Nor do attempts to sanitise the past and purge society of undesirable elements. 

To protest and to rebel may be justified; and, doubtless, there are many old habits, customs, and ideas that need to be challenged. But to destroy works of art and historical artefacts in the name of an ideology that believes itself to be infallible and morally superior is something we should be extremely wary of.

For I think the poet Heinrich Heine was right in 1820 and he's still right now, two hundred years later: Where they burn books, they will also ultimately burn people. To their credit, even The Beatles understood this; as their counter-revolutionary track 'Revolution' demonstrates ...


II.

Inspired by anti-war protests and student uprisings, John Lennon's lyrics express sympathy with the need for radical social change, but serious reservations over the violent tactics adopted by some on the so-called New Left. The song concludes that there's no need for direct action as everything's gonna be alright (that is to say, ideals of peace and love will triumph in the end). It also explicitly dismisses the cult of personality surrounding Chairman Mao.

Of course, countercultural comrades and hardline communists of every variety immediately branded Lennon a traitor and collaborator. They were shocked not only by his Transcendental fatalism, but by his humour and expressed need to see details (or a plan) for how a revolution might work. The New Left Review dismissed the song as a 'lamentable petty bourgeois cry of fear' and even the French film director Jean-Luc Godard denounced the Beatle for his apoliticism and suggested that he and other band members had been corrupted by money.

Duly chastened by the criticism he received, Lennon subsequently declared himself to be a revolutionary after all. However, in an interview shortly before his death in 1980, he again voiced his rejection of political violence and terror and reaffirmed the more pacifist sentiments expressed in 'Revolution': 'Don't expect me on the barricades unless it's with flowers.'           

To be honest, I don't have much affection for Lennon. But I admire the stand he took here and his scorn for the militant asceticism and extremer than thou snobbery of those on the far left openly motivated by resentment and hatred. And I think that those who call naively for revolution today and pose with clenched fists held aloft, should stop to consider that they ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow ...

Play: The Beatles, 'Revolution', B-side to the single release 'Hey Jude', (Apple, 26 August 1968): click here.

Note: the above promo film, dir. Michael Lindsay-Hogg, was first broadcast on Top of the Pops (BBC One) on 19 September, 1968. 

See: Daniel Chirot, You Say You Want a Revolution?, (Princeton University Press, 2020). In this new study, Chirot - a Professor of Russian and Eurasian studies at the University of Washington - examines why most modern revolutions have ended in bloodshed and failure and what lessons they hold for today's world of growing extremism. The image above is from the front cover to this text.