Hey Darling Ones,

I have a tendency to get a little shouty when people bring up how The Beatles are the best band of all time. The shoutiness is so consistent that some of my friends have decided that I do not like The Beatles. Some of them even preface Beatles-related comments with “I know you don’t like them, but. . .”

This is not true. I love The Beatles. I love them so much I hardly given them any thought, kind of like my wrists. They’re just there doing their thing not needing any thought from me. The Beatles are very important to me. During a particularly rough patch of my young adulthood I would check out their records from the Chippewa Falls Library and make endless mix tapes of their songs. I’m not very good with their albums. I am excellent with their songs.

Even so, I still get shouty about The Beatles always being labelled the best. It’s not hard to be “the best” when you are literally only competing against like 1/3 of the population, namely other white men. It’s the same as claiming to be the 6’5″ Spinster Goddess of Minnesota when you’re pretty sure there are zero other 6’5″ Spinsters in Minnesota.

If all things were equal would The Beatles continue to be considered the best? What would a rock & roll landscape look like were there no racism, homophobia, transphobia, sexism, patriarchy, etc? Hell, would The Beatles continue to be considered the best if the history of rock & roll wasn’t consistently being written by white men? It’s a thought exercise. We will never know. It’s something to keep in the back of your mind when you roll out the G.O.A.T. label. And yes, it holds true for all the arts.

The Beatles have been on my mind because I’m a human who uses social media here in November 2021 when Disney+ dropped “Get Back,” a gazillion-hour documentary about the making of The Beatles’ “Let it Be.” Not to be confused with The Replacements’ “Let it Be,” which is my personal favorite of all the “Let it Bes.” For the record, I have not watched any of this documentary because I do not have Disney+ at the moment.

My twitter stream has been flooded with comments about how endlessly fascinating The Beatles’ creative process is.

I’m puzzled because I wholly believe in the words of Patron Saint of All the Things Dolly Parton when she wrote in her Songteller book that nobody cares about the process. She even adds that sometimes she wants to share her process, but it feels too egotistical.

Apparently The Beatles had no such worries about being seen egotistical. And why would they? Do men even realize they can be too egotistical? Or is that a term we mostly hold for people that aren’t men? Usually when a man gets to that level of ego we call him a genius, creative or otherwise.

Here’s what I wonder, would anyone watch a gazillion-hour-long documentary about anyone else’s creative process? The only one I could come up with is maybe Prince. For sure, it’d have to be a musician because I bet the rest of them would be boring as fuck to watch. My creative process is: I stared at the wall while licking my upper lip and then I typed seven words and deleted three of them.

I want to watch “Get Back” to see if it’s as interesting as everyone claims, though my fear is it’s going to be a lot of bloated, mythologizing of a band that is already over mythologized. If it’s one thing I know for certain rock & roll fans of the dude variety have an endless capacity to eat up really boring garbage about bands they love (all-male bands, obviously).

Resisting the urge to sign off with a Beatles’ lyric,
Jodi

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In the epic battle of The Beatles vs. The Stones, I come down firmly in The Stones camp. That doesn’t mean, however, that I don’t also love The Beatles. In fact, I’d say The Beatles were the soundtrack to my 19th year. That’s not how I old I was when Beatlemania hit US shores. No, it was 1991 and I had discovered old Beatles’ records at the Chippewa Falls Library. I played The Beatles so often the winter of 1991 that one of my younger sisters still loathes their music to this day.

Even with that small-scale Beatlemania, much of what I knew about the band is the kind of information you get from pop culture osmosis. The kinds of facts you’re not sure how you learned, but know nonetheless. From Liverpool, played in Hamburg, screaming girls on Ed Sullivan, Maharishi, Yoko, Lennon shot in 1980. . . that kind of stuff. Also, who hasn’t heard about the mysterious “fifth Beatle?”

If you read Baby’s in Black the fabulous graphic novel by by Arne Bellstorf, you’ll learn all about one of the candidates for fifth Beatlesdom, Stuart Sutcliffe and the time The Beatles spent in Hamburg.

For real Beatlemaniacs this book might be old hat, but for me it was a revelation. I knew nothing of Stuart Sutcliffe, the brooding artsy Beatle who falls in love with a German art student Astrid Kirchherr.

The book focuses on Astrid and Stu’s relationship and how despite a language barrier, they fall in love. It’s really sweet. Astrid’s pretty rad. She’s a photographer who hangs with all kinds of artists and convinces Stuart to go to art school in Hamburg. She’s the woman who took those early Beatles’ photos where they all have Elvis-y pompadours, before they adopted the mop-top look that was popular with the Hamburg artsy crowd.

As Astrid and Stu’s love grows he has to make a choice between the woman he loves and the band. As you know he didn’t choose The Beatles. If you’re already familiar with this story you know how it ends. I had no idea. After finishing the book I proclaimed, “that’s the saddest fucking thing I ever read.”

It is and it’s good. Baby’s in Black is one of those great books that are engrossing and entertaining while being totally educational at the same time.

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“Let it Be” has never been a particular favorite of mine. I tend to like the more happy, poppy Beatles rather than the melancholy, soaked with meaning Beatles. I’m more “I Want to Hold Your Hand” than “I am the Walrus.”

Usually in times of great fear and turmoil, my internal jukebox turns to “Confetti” by The Lemonheads. I could never explain why that song, it just works. The lyrics aren’t particularly comforting or even, well, meaningful.

But on Friday, when the test results weren’t in our favor my brain clamped onto “Let it Be” and has not let go. I think the Catholicism of my youth has flared up through the grey matter and latched onto something that I can accept on an intellectual level. I have very definite beliefs about Lennon & McCartney, Jesus & Mary I’m not so sure about. But you know, we Catholics dig on Mary. And here I am in an hour of darkness and Paul McCartney’s comforting me. It’s weird.

I’m being purposefully oblique here. I don’t feel comfortable explaining in any kind of depth what is going on. The specifics don’t matter, I suppose. My mom is sick and I am scared. That’s about all I’m comfortable sharing right now.

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We’d been listening to “All My Loving” for about 30 minutes straight, and Liam decided he’s obsessed with The Beatles.

“What do The Beatles look like?” He asked.
I Googled up some pictures. “That’s what The Beatles look like.”
“Hmm,” he said, a little puzzled. “I thought they would look like ants.”
“Well beetles the bugs look like ants kind of. The Beatles look like these guys.”
“Oh,” he said. “They’re kind of silly. Where do they live?”
“Well, two of them are dead now.”
“WHAT? THE BEATLES ARE DEAD? I LOVE THE BEATLES!”
“They’re really old,” I said. “They were around when grandma was a kid.”

Later, after another 48 renditions of “All My Loving” as sung by a stuffed bear, the Tibbles were playing outside. We have a rule where they have to play where they can hear me and be in the house by the count of ten if I call them. It works for us.

At one point Nolan came running in, kind of whiny and scared.
“What side is this?” he asked, waving his left hand in front of me. “Left or right?”
“Your left.”
“An orange beetle landed on my left neck and it scared me.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. I screamed and brushed it away.” Nolan reenacted the events.
“Did it bite you?” I asked.
“No.”
“So what are you upset about?”
“He was really mean to me.”

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