A book to read - Revolution in the Head

I am now going to recommend a book that a large proportion of you wouldn't dream even of picking up in a bookshop to scan its contents. But you should read it anyway. Even you, Oliver Kamm.

And now I will explain why.

The volume in question is Ian MacDonald's Revolution in the Head.

What is it? It is a song by song account of the Beatles recording career. And on the surface of it, that is all it is. But I think it is really a very profound book indeed.

Stick with me for the next bit.

I was reminded of Revolution in the Head yesterday for an extremely nerdy reason. The excellent Hugo Rifkind had written in his People column about Beatles producer Sir George Martin and his relationship with Ringo Starr.

On several occasions (and this was the latest of them) Sir George has apologised to the Beatles first drummer Pete Best for pushing him out of the group in favour of a session man, and to Ringo for replacing him with a session musician when he first turned up at Abbey Road.

Yet in both cases he has got the chronology wrong. He can't have done quite as he said. He had Ringo play the drums on Love Me Do first and got the session man in later.

So Revolution in the Head gives you so much detail about the Beatles that you can start challenging participants on what they actually did.

Why on earth would you want to do that?

Well, it is quite interesting to note how fallible human memory is. But that's not the real reason I want you to buy and read Revolution in the Head.

The first real reason is that the introduction contains a brilliant argument about the 1960s and its place in history.

MacDonald explains that to understand the counter-culture we first have to understand the culture. You will never look at that era, its politics and its art, in the same way again once you have read his book.

The second reason is the light it sheds on a very old controversy. Is the personal behaviour and political view of an artist relevant when assessing their artistic output? MacDonald answers in the affirmative and goes on to make his case song by song.

Anyone who is familiar with the Beatles will realise that his evidence is very strong indeed.

But even those with little interest in the music will learn of how drugs, personal issues and the politics and ideas of the era shaped the music.

I really think you will find it worthwhile.

Comments

[MIKEY]

Awesome book - well spotted!

[Christopher Hobe Morrison]

So we are being told that there are wonderful things here, but we aren't being given any idea what they are. It seems like you don't even know what the book really tells us unless you buy it. Does it really help to understand anything about the 60's and the Beatles, and is it at all worth reading? There isn't enough here for anybody to know.

[ColinH]

MacDonald's argument is that the popular culture of the 60s had three strands to it: 1 - a post-religious materialistic individualism that sought instant gratification; 2 - the psychedelic pacifism of the so-called 'hippies'; and 3 - the New Left s prompting for revolutionary change. The Beatles represented all threee strands, to varying degrees. It was the first of these strands that dominated, and fed into the triumph of the New Right decades later. Contrary to the claims of conservatives that the lefties and hippies most represented the 60s, MacDonald argues that the first strand was the strongest and most influential. He also argues that The Beatles represented a meeting-point between older traditions of patient musical craftmanship, and a modern search for instant gratification (which has subsequently led to mechanical and formulaic repetition).
Just as MacDonald suggests that biographical factors have an impact on the music of the Beatles, so it may be that his own life has affected his essay, which can be read - reductively - as a fogeyish complaint against post-60s/70s music and culture. IMac committed suicide in 2003, and his comments can be understood (quite movingly) as a curious form of farewell.

[I CRAUSE]

Looks like the saps that read the Times are lukewarm if they can't bash reds, which is what at least 3 of the Beatles were, more or less.
If you want conservatives from the period, perhaps there's a book about the Moody Blues doing the rounds.
That should be exciting.
In fact a lot of you probably would prefer it, I'd guess.

[cje]

I agree-the book is a very serious piece of social & cultural criticism disguised as 'another book about the Beatles'.

McDonald is particularly severe on the contradictions of the New Right's critique of the Sixties (which Conservative 'moderniser's might have some sympathy toward; though they'd have to accept that the Sixties bashers, such as Keith Joseph, played an important role in
furthering the free market 'counter-revolution').

There are also some good essays in his The Peoples' Music.
All this makes McDonald's suicide in
2003 particularly sad.

It is a great book. I lost it in an airport a few years ago. I gotta buy it again!