Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties Book

I'd really like to give this book 3 1/2 stars, and need to point out that this reading follows my consumption in the summer of 2007 of Lewissohn (Chronicles), Hertsgaard (A Day in the Life, Turner (A Hard Day's Write), and the incomparable Pollack (whose work on the Beatles can be found online at ). I think this covers the landscape of serious, published track-by-track analyses of the Beatles' output circa 2008 and would like therefore to propose a hierarchy of reads/summary of each (after considering the Ian MacDonald).

First, in treating MacDonald, I should say that it has been critically regarded by many (including Pollack) as THE definitive musicological treatment, I suspect in large part because it was the first to attempt something so grandiose in scale (MacDonald assigns each track a number for later reference 1-186 in chronological order by date of first recording session, with inserts for recordings of covers, though his book stops short of separately numbering initially unreleased takes and bootlegs). That such a work had to wait until 1994 to see the light of day should come as little surprise, given that it took 30+ years for EMI to enlist the services of Lewissohn to carefully catalogue, confirm, and assure the release of everything worthwhile and otherwise that the Beatles recorded. The difference between Lewissohn and MacDonald is the difference between historical reportage (including track and take numbering, timing, and edits, full session credits, etc.) and a critical analysis (including references to Fluxus, the New Left, and Marx).

MacDonald beefs up Revolution in the Head by including a 37 page doctoral dissertation on how the legacy of the past is to screw up the present (more on this below), and a browsable-but-unreadable 70 page chart that considers the Beatle's 7-year recording history alongside current and cultural events a la Timetables of History. Still and all, the meat of MacDonald's book, and that for which it is surely best known, is this track-by-track analysis (the length of each vignette depend partly on how important/influential MacDonald regards the track in question - the widely panned, but admired "Revolution 9" gets 4 ½ pages - and partly how much it speaks to him - "Blue Jay Way" gets less than ¼ page. That's surely his prerogative, but readers be warned… there is no attempt here at consistent criticism. To read MacDonald is to enjoy the rantings of a highly-educated blogger.

There are plenty of intriguing observations here, for example, in his argument that Lennon's "I Am the Walrus" is "a song of self-definition amounting to a manifesto,… defensive to the point of desperation." (p. 215) Or in his statement that McCartney's "Why Don't We Do it in the Road?" sans Lennon's participation was successful retaliation for being similarly excluded from "Revolution 9." However, these are somewhat counterbalanced by the occasional ponderous comment. MacDonald is generally not a Harrisong fan, panning "Here Comes the Sun" as "a little too faux-naif to appeal to those lacking the requisite sweet tooth," "Something," a song that even Frank Sinatra went ga-ga over, by saying the maturity of "Sinatra's version… is incongruous with what are, in truth, callow sentiments," and "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" as evincing "a dull grandiosity predictive of the simplified stadium music of the Seventies and Eighties." - pp. 285, 278, and 242, respectively.
Not that you expect to universally share any critic's taste. But what to make of the painful lit-crit babble prologue: "As late products of the spiritual crisis Western civilization has been undergoing since the inception of the scientific outlook, the Beats were part of a venerable historical succession. The 'death of God', with its concomitant loss of both a moral reference-point and our ancient faith in personal immortality, began percolating down into society from its origins among scientific scholars around four hundred years ago. As its influence spread,… [blah, blah, blah]… the late 18th-century Sturm und Drang and Gothic movements,… the Symbolists and Surrealists… [yadda, yadda, yadda]." - p. 6?

Or worse, what to do with a conclusion that could reasonably lead one to believe that the author is the kind of jerk who simply considers the music he grew up with superior to everything since? From page 299, "[W]hen examining the following Chronology of Sixties pop, readers are aware that they are looking at something on a higher scale of achievement than today's - music which no contemporary artist could claim to match in feeling, variety, formal invention, and sheer out-of-the-blue inspiration…. [t]he same can be said of other musical forms - most obviously classical and jazz…" In one snooty blow MacDonald appears ready to dismiss the heydays of Waters and Gilmour, Page and Plant, Zappa, Simon, Springsteen, Gabriel, Bono, Edge, and Clayton, and etc., to say nothing of Marsalis, Parsons, Reich, Adams, Sondheim, Xenakis, and on and on, likewise unwilling to contemplate the possible coming of the Bela Flecks, Sufjan Stevenses, and Greenwoods and Yorkes, etc.

So, in a nutshell, my hierarchy of Beatlesology. Read:

(1) Hertsgaard - overlooks some tracks here and there in favor of the big-album picture, but generally captures the music and the biography.
(2) Pollack - every bit as thorough as MacDonald (arguably more so with the luxury of coming later), digs into structure, form, and chord progressions, albeit with the breezy, informal quality that befits a blog.
(3) Lewissohn - or skim, actually. Full of intriguing trivia that nonetheless sheds light on not only the genesis of the Beatles' recordings, but their relative import and influence makes this an extremely readable reference book.
(4) MacDonald - take a pass, or else simply pick out vignettes on those tracks which have piqued your curiosity.
(5) Turner - literary exegesis of lyrics the majority of which its authors gave acknowledged short shrift. Amusing trivia and too rare insight to be worth the bother except as a companion to the Hertsgaard.

Or just put the tracks on your iPod and hit shuffle. At the end of the day, that's still the best way to appreciate the music.