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

[Carvill John]

That link to a PDF about the Beatles that 'Alice' sent crashed my browser! Anyway a lot of what was quoted from it seemed a bit confused to me. I'm especially puzzled by the assertion that Lennon's father first met him when John was 5 years old. Anyway, it is John's Aunt Mimi who is usually quoted as bemoaning John's 'faked' Scouse accent. Care must be taken when considering the highly complex subject of 'Class & The Beatles'. 
 
 

The best book I have ever read about the Beatles, Ian MacDonald's 'Revolution in the Head' is very much focused on the Beatles' records, but also contains the most accurate and incisive analysis of how the phenomenon of The Beatles related to the tenor of The Sixties, and all the social changes going on, etc.
 
 

Amazon link:
 
 
 
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Revolution-Head-Beatles-Records-Sixties/dp/0099526794/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1250507812&sr=1-1
 
 

Guardian obit on MacDonald:
 
 
 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2003/sep/08/guardianobituaries.artsobituaries
 
 
 
Beatles wiki entry:
 
 
 
http://www.beatleswiki.com/wiki/index.php/Revolution_in_the_Head
 
 

"That the twin phenomena of 'The Beatles' and 'The Sixties' were integral to one another is a theme which runs right through MacDonald's book. With subtle forcefulness, he uses the records the group made to illustrate how in tune with their times they were, and how they also played a role which was broadly similar to that played in America by Bob Dylan, in that they had a significant hand in shaping those times (although they had a much more globally pervasive effect). The Beatles changed the world; sometimes - indeed, maybe even mostly - when they weren't even trying to: 
 
 
 
'Indeed, the American folk-protest movement had thrust plain speaking so obtrusively into the pop domain that every transient youth idol was then routinely interrogated concerning his or her 'message' to humanity. If it has any message at all, that of I WANT TO HOLD YOUR HAND is 'Let go - feel how good it is'. This though (as conservative commentators knew very well) implied a fundamental break with the Christian bourgeois status quo. Harbouring no conscious subversive intent, The Beatles, with this potent record, perpetrated a culturally revolutionary act. As the decade wore on and they began to realise the position they were in, they began to do the same thing more deliberately.' "
 
 
 
- Which points up how 'revolutuionary' those early records, eg. I Want To Hold Your Hand, were.
 
 
 

 
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