The Musical Journey of The Beatles

The Quarrymen. Jonny and the Moon Dogs. The Silver Beetles. The Beatles. 

John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, known as the Fab Four, were the members of this more than just successful English rock band of the 20th century. How did this magical amalgamation come into being? 

Well, it all started with the teenaged John Lennon and Paul McCartney discovering music together in July 1957. Then George Harrison joined them in 1958 followed by a vocalist called Stuart Sutcliffe and drummer Peter Best in 1959. The name The Beatles was conjured up by Lennon. It was a wordplay between the words ‘beat’ and ‘beetles’. In 1960 the Beatles worked in Germany where Ringo Starr joined them, but he did not become a permanent member of the band yet because Peter Best was still the main drummer. Then in November 1961, Brian Epstein became the official manager of the Beatles. This man did wonders to the image of the group. He gave the boys new haircuts, made them wear suits, ties and classic shoes. 

Up until then, the Beatles lived and worked in Liverpool, England. But in January 1962, they went to London and recorded fifteen songs at the Deccan Records. This became a similar routine wherein they regularly travelled to London and auditioned for different labels. Epstein was keen to get the newfangled band a record deal. But every major record label in the UK including the Deccan rejected them until the band passed an audition held by Parlophone’s George Martin at the Abbey Road Studios. This was only a partial pass because Martin did not like Peter Best and recommended someone else in his place. With that, Best was fired, Ringo Starr became a permanent member and The Beatles, as we now know them, officially came into being. 

They say ‘success is not easy, and it’s certainly not for the lazy’. The Beatles proved this right by literally working like dogs during their early days in 1960 as a band starved of fame and recognition in Hamburg, Germany. They played at a seedy, former strip club called Indra were they were only paid £2.50 per day. For this below-average pay, the band worked tirelessly in a gruelling schedule of 7-8 hours every night without a day off for the whole of three months that they stayed in Hamburg. To top this off, where they stayed was even worse. They lived behind the screen of a trashy cinema right next to a stinky old ladies toilet from where they used cold water from the urinals to wash and shave. When on stage in the club they had to play very loud and indulge in desperate on-stage behaviour (later to be known as their signature on-stage antics in the USA in particular) to keep the attention of the audience and to get them to buy more drinks. It was the same punishing routine (minus bad lodgings) when the band got transferred to another club, the Kaiserkeller. But after 600 hours of working under such hellish conditions in Hamburg, The Beatles finally returned to the UK, all thanks to George Harrison’s deportation due to being under-aged. Later, when Lennon was asked about his experience in Hamburg, he recalled that they genuinely put their heart and soul into their music when in Germany and the hardships they faced there helped build their confidence manifolds. 

Today, no living person who is familiar with The Beatles will think of them without the image of the Fab Four passing through their inner vision at least once. The band was unique mainly because of the drastic difference in the persona of its members. Four became the magical number and Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr were the perfect quartet. Because of the varied musical tastes and inclinations of each of the four, the sound of the band was ever-evolving. 

Among the four, Paul McCartney, the lead vocalist and bassist, had the most diverse taste in music, which covered the entire musical spectrum from plain folk to acid rock and metal. That’s why we could see the man penning the words for the song ‘Blackbird’ as well as the eccentric ‘Helter Skelter’. We can attribute such inclinations of McCartney’s to his early musical upbringing by his father, who was a Jazz pianist and trumpeter. 

While McCartney was a perfectionist by nature, John Lennon was the exact opposite. He was known for composing parts of albums within a few hours paying little or no heed to the loose ends. Lennon’s style of music was highly influenced by Bob Dylan, so his songs were folkish and rhythmically guitar-powered and the lyrics quite socially conscious. His personality can be best portrayed in songs like ‘All You Need Is Love’ and ‘Revolution’. 

Then came George Harrison with his ‘Within You Without You’ and ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’. Harrison had gotten deeply passionate about Indian Spiritualism and meditation after The Beatles’ visit to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s ashram in India. Therefore, his taste in music majorly sat with classical and Indian compositions. Harrison penned both the songs mentioned above and their lyrics proved that he was as capable as Lennon as a lyricist. 

Richard Starkey, known more famously as Ringo Starr, as his latter name suggests was driven towards country music. Though The Beatles did not showcase country styles in their songs, Ringo had a distinctive drumming technique which was more stylistic than technical. While his general Western “Ringoism” (as his style of drumming later came to be known) reflected in songs like ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ and ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’, his country-inflected drumming is quite prominent in ‘Don’t Pass Me By’ and ‘Octopus’s Garden’. 

As we all know, George Martin was the renowned record producer for The Beatles. But what most of us fail to see is the amount of impact he had in the music the Fab Four created due to which he is to this date silently called the Fifth Beatle. Martin had a strong western classical music background having studied the piano and oboe at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, England and used this knowledge to his best efforts in helping the band ‘find their sound’. He would listen to the initial acoustic guitar compositions of Lennon and McCartney’s songs and add missing elements to them, sometimes even playing some piano pieces (in early records). He also wrote out charts and conducted musicians. Something to be keenly noted, not only did he arrange music for some top charted Beatles songs like Penny Lane (a technique called Modulation was used here), A Hard Day’s Night and Help!, he also scored Baroque orchestrations in Yesterday, Eleanor Rigby and In My Life. 

An interesting thing about The Beatles is that they cannot be placed under one type of band; not then, not even now (with so many genres of music being discovered endlessly). But tracing the evolution of the music is less complicated than pinning them to a particular genre. In the beginning, the band mostly concentrated on playing songs that were either rock-n-roll or R&B-based pop. Rock And Roll Music and I Want To Hold Your Hand are apparent examples of the above descriptions, respectively. But soon, the band began to function on multi-genres and cross-styles, which included mixtures of rock-n-roll, blues, soul, country and simplified versions of jazz. Indian and other Oriental cultural music also began to get added to this bizarre yet exquisite sounding mixture from 1965 onwards. The “Beatlemania” heightened when the band further sophisticated their mixed style with psychedelic experiments and multiple classical-sounding creations. To be on par with their prodigious creations, the members’ talents and skills naturally grew, and they went from mere guitarists and drummers to multi-instrumentalists. For instance, Harrison began to infuse pieces played on exotic instruments like the Indian sitar, ukulele, darbouka and tabla into many of the songs so intricately that only a sharp ear would be able to tell what instrument was being played where; the best example for this is Within You Without You which is packed with the sweet resonance of so many Indian classical instruments that the listeners eventually stop paying attention to detail and merely enter a musical trance. 

The Beatles are said to be the proud producers of certain new types of genres that had never before existed. To list down a few: Acid Rock – Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, Proto-Metal – Helter Skelter, Jangle Pop – A Hard Day’s Night, Folk-Rock – I’ll Be Back, Power Pop – She Loves You, Art Rock – Tomorrow Never Knows, Stoner Music – Yellow Submarine, Doom – I Want You (She’s So Heavy), Prog – Eleanor Rigby. Though it can be agreed that they neither intended to create such genres nor did they log songs under them (this was mainly done by music producers while analysing The Beatles music in the later years), it is still a fact that these over-the-top songs led to the evolution in their music throughout the years. Since this evolution of theirs had a heightened level of magnitude and complexity, it was simply impossible to visualize their progress until very recently when one Mr Sambhav Jain took to the internet to showcase a simple exhibit he had created using visual technology and statistical database of all the records on The Beatles based on the different genres, the time period, the album name and several other filters. (The link to his webpage is highlighted in my bibliography) 

Among at least the 132 songs The Beatles produced, some of the most noteworthy were the following. I Want To Hold Your Hand became the number one hit in the USA when the band played it as their debut song in the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964. A Day In The Life came to be known in the late 80s as the ‘masterwork of the band’ with its newspaper themed lyrics and its “orchestral orgasm” as Martin called it. The song has been at the top of the list ever since. While My Guitar Gently Weeps would be the song that gave Harrison the same level of importance as a lyricist as Lennon and McCartney always received. Eric Clapton’s solo in the work added even more credibility to the song’s already heart-touching feel and it went on to become one of the greatest guitar songs ever made. I fell in love with the song as soon as the introductory guitar track began to play. The background track of the bass guitar also caught my attention because of its rebellious vibes. Another song that I liked a lot was Blackbird, which has a lullaby feel to it. Again my love for this song had to do with the simplicity of the lyrics and the song itself not to mention the complex classical guitar work. But my all-time favourite by The Beatles would be the first-ever song I heard of theirs, Eleanor Rigby. The mesmerizing violin and cello music in the background along with the layered chorus immediately caught my fancy. Still, the poetic and almost satirical lyrics themed on loneliness and death were the starring elements in the song that made it to the top of my list. Some of my other favourites are Strawberry Fields Forever (mainly for Starr’s drum sequence during the chorus), Let It Be, Love Me Do (the second song I listened to) and the evergreen Yesterday. 

From musicians, The Beatles soon turned into celebrities acting in their own movies eventually becoming cultural icons. This shift further intensified after the 60s when the band began to compose serious music heavily rigged with feelings of protest and social unrest that was caused by events like the Vietnam conflict and JFK’s death. The members stopped wearing suits and began to inspire the American dream of Individualism in their stage personalities; this added more value to the band’s name since the band stayed on track with its audience and the then culture. 

But this very Individualism that made The Beatles so unique ultimately led to the end of the band as well. Lennon had always wanted the leadership position in the band since he was the founder. But he also dreamed of a life outside The Beatles. McCartney, on the other hand, centred his life on the band. Moreover, while Lennon went through a bitter and depressing (on his part) domestic life, McCartney enjoyed the publicity brought on by the band’s popularity and could be seen attending all social events. This again forked the journey of two of the most successful songwriting duos in the field at that time. Harrison’s falling out with the band timed in during their visit to Rishikesh, India where his peers began to dislike the ways of the ashram they were living in, contrasting Harrison’s passion for spirituality and meditation. Ringo also began to write his songs inspired by the others which is when the members each began to go their separate ways. They saw each other as supporting musicians and disrespected each other’s art constantly out of spite. Though there is more to this complex story, we could conclude that these were the key reasons why The Beatles finally split up and ceased being a band. 

The split had its worst effects on John Lennon and its best on Paul McCartney. Lennon fell in love with artist Yoko Ono and released an album that was quite well received. The couple were known for their activism in opposing the Vietnam War but after the birth of their son Sean Lennon, Lennon became family-oriented and stopped focusing on music. Then a lunatic fan assassinated him in 1980. In contrast, McCartney continued to create music and became a very successful composer bagging the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductee twice and the GRAMMY-award 21 times! He was also knighted in 1997 for his contribution to music, which to this day he continuous to do. As for George Harrison, he released a much-acclaimed triple album under the title All Things Must Pass. He co-founded the platinum-selling group Traveling Wilburys and was also a two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductee. Harrison passed away in 2001. Finally, Ringo Starr also released three successful solo albums after the breakup. His album titled Ringo took the second position in the Billboard 200 charts and has permanently claimed a platinum status. He produced the famous Born to Boogie and has also acted in several movies. His recent photography endeavour led him to compile a book titled Photography, which contains 250 unseen photos of his life and that of the former band. 

Many from today’s generation assume that the great legacy of The Beatles will be lost within the next few centuries. This fear is not unrealistic because our generation is bogged down with a gazillion albums and the infinite number of songs and artists surfacing every day. In this Age of Electronic Music, it is truly hard to find someone who appreciates music from former centuries since there are too many options and very little incentive to pay attention to “old music” when so much of “new music” is on-trend. But youngsters must familiarize themselves with musicians like The Beatles if they ever wished to be part of an era that produced revolutionary music and musicians. So as long as kids of this era listen to and appreciate the music woven by these legends, be it at their own disposal (like me) or through their parent’s influence (like many of my peers), their work and the permanent mark they left in the world of western music would forever live on.