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

[Bekah]

Re Ian McDonald's interesting essay in "Revolution in the Head:"
(quite interesting)


"Fabled Foursome, Disappearing Decade"
In this essay, Mac Donald argues that the Beatles represented a  
meeting-point between three cultural trends that were crucial to the  
1960s (at least in the economically developed world): that is, a  
materialistic individualism that formed the main stream of popular  
thought and behaviour; the revolutionary radicalism of the New Left;  
and the psychedelic pacifism of the so-called ‘hippy’ movement.  
MacDonald reaches the unusual conclusion that the New Left and the  
hippies had little lasting influence upon the mainstream, and that, if  
anything, they represented reactions against it.

MacDonald begins by remarking that the 1960s was the decade in which  
various cultural phenomena that had been current in elite circles for  
some time came to spread throughout society. The most significant of  
these was the collapse of religious belief in favour of a  
materialistic viewpoint that, according to MacDonald, eroded the idea  
that happiness was to be deferred until the afterlife, or for future  
generations. This viewpoint fostered the notion that instant  
gratification is permissible and is, in any event, made feasible by a  
period of economic well-being, and by technological developments that  
made available a wide range of pleasure-giving goods and services –  
from labour-saving domestic devices to hi-fi systems and  
hallucinogenic drugs. In short, the deferential, staid 1950s gave way  
to the sensual, libertarian 1960s.

This was, MacDonald emphasizes, a popular phenomenon upon which, in  
the end, the urgings of both the hippies and the New Left had little  
effect. In this way, he suggests, it is ingenuous for conservative  
politicians and commentators to blame contemporary problems upon  
leftist radicals and hippies because the legacy of the 1960s –  
frequently interpreted in terms of social and economic malaise – is  
not substantially that of either dissenting group, but rather that of  
the materialistic and acquisitive individualism upon which the  
electoral triumphs of the New Right in the 1980s were based. To put it  
crudely, the children of the 1960s, so determined to do their own  
thing, became the adult voters of the 1980s who were determined to own  
their own things, and so put leaders such as Thatcher and Reagan in  
power.

The early Beatles’ records, then, represented the prevalent mood among  
the young of liberation, joy and freedom. Although this mood prevailed  
in much of their later recordings, MacDonald’s analysis proposes that  
this positive frame of mind was subverted by the darker tones of much  
of their later work. This was in keeping with the contemporary  
critique of the ‘affluent society’ voiced by the New Left and the  
hippies as a reaction against all that remained of the authoritarian  
order, hidden beneath the thin veneer of consumerist contentment.

The New Left advocated the violent overthrow of capitalism but,  
influenced by what MacDonald regards as the instantaneity of 1960’s  
aspirations in general (the insistence on having everything in the  
present rather than work gradually and patiently towards the future),  
they lacked a rigorous or realistic strategy. In any event, claims  
MacDonald, the idea of attacking the very consumerism that had given  
the masses unprecedented levels of physical comfort, as well as the  
optimism expressed in the music of The Beatles, had little general  
appeal. (Similarly, the record of most Iron Curtain countries seemed a  
less-than-tempting prospect to all but a tiny minority in the West.)  
Moreover, the increasingly individualistic nature of mainstream  
society militated against the collective orientation of the New Left  
model, and had the effect of diverting radical politics into a series  
of fragmented single-issue interests (ecology, gender, race) whose  
demands did not necessarily demand the overthrow of capitalism.

The hippie movement, too, was adversely affected by the rise of  
individualism and by the creature comforts offered to the masses by  
consumerism. The hippies, MacDonald argues, preferred internalized,  
spiritual change, frequently based upon the advocacy of psychedelic  
drugs (the “revolution in the head”), to violent revolution as a  
riposte to the alienating effects of life in contemporary Western  
society, but this type of dissent, while collectivist in that it  
sought to break down the barriers imposed by ‘straight’ existence, was  
also marked by the individualism and instantaneity (apart from other  
more immediate dangers) inherent in drug use.

MacDonald demonstrates that, among the Beatles’ members, it was John  
Lennon who was most strongly associated with both the New Left and  
with psychedelic pacifism, while at the same time acknowledging  
Lennon's complex and contradictory attitudes towards these subjects.  
Paul McCartney, despite his dabblings with the artistic avant garde,  
is most representative of mainstream thought and behaviour. George  
Harrison, through his faith in Indian religion, is proposed as the  
only Beatle to offer a coherent belief system that would offer an  
alternative to the cultural quandaries thrown up by the 1960s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_in_the_Head:_The_Beatles%27_Records_and_the_Sixties

Bekah


On Aug 17, 2009, at 5:38 AM, Heikki Raudaskoski wrote:

>
>
> On Mon, 17 Aug 2009, Carvill John wrote:
>> 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.
>
> It's an impressive book, often challenging one's preferences. At least
> mine - "Good Morning" succeeds, "Lucy in the Sky" doesn't, sez  
> MacDonald...
>
>
> Heikki