2023-11-27 09:31:14
The English satirist Craig Brown (Hayes, 1957) is the author of ‘1, 2, 3, 4. The Beatles marking time’, a kaleidoscopic approach to the history of the Liverpool group that subverts all the conventions of musical biography with captivating results. Considered the best book about the Fab Four to appear in recent years and distinguished with several important awards, the Contra publishing house now publishes it in Spanish with careful translation by the musician Ibon Errazkin.
When and how did you discover los Beatles?
My first memory related to them, which I mention in the book, was when at Christmas 1964 my three brothers and I received as a gift some very uncomfortable ‘Beatle’ wigs made of plastic. You could say that I knew the Beatles more for their hair than for their music. And I also remember that my parents and her friends were very worried about the “yeah, yeah, yeah” that they sang in ‘she loves you’, which they considered intolerable Americanism. Some time later I learned that when Paul McCartney and John Lennon wrote the song, Paul’s father asked them if they couldn’t change the chorus and say “yes, yes, yes.” Those “yeah, yeah, yeah” opened an important generational gap.
There are thousands of books about the Beatles. How did you convince your editors that it was a good idea to publish another one?
Well, he had written a book about Princess Margaret [‘Ma’am Darling’] and it had worked well. It was written in a slightly humorous style, with many short chapters, not necessarily in chronological order, and mixing biographical episodes with jokes and other things. So I proposed to my editor to make a book about the Beatles in that same style. He realized that the 50th anniversary of the group’s breakup was just around the corner. [en abril de 2020], and he asked me if I could have it in 18 months, which is not too long a period for a book of these characteristics. But I think that pressure gives the writing an interesting energy.
It’s a very pop energy, with those short chapters like songs two minutes and that mix of genres.
Exact. In some way I wanted to do something like the ‘White Album’, where short songs are mixed with more experimental things and where there is space for the light, the fun, the melodic, the dramatic and the avant-garde.
“The Beatles were generous with their success, but in all stories of rise there are corpses along the way”
In the book he seems more interested in talking about the Beatles’ dentists than about his music.
Dentists are very important in the Beatles story! [Risas] The truth is that I am not a musician and I do not see myself qualified to talk about music with a certain degree of depth. And I think everyone already knows the Beatles’ songs and has internalized their music. On the other hand, I was very interested in explaining the story of all those people who were at some point in the Beatles’ orbit and saw how that experience deeply marked the rest of their lives.
In many cases, in an unfortunate way.
Yes, although I don’t think they can be blamed for that. In fact, the Beatles were quite generous with their success, but in all rise-to-the-top stories there are dead bodies along the way. The case of Pete Best [primer batería del grupo, reemplazado justo antes de la grabación del primer ‘single’] is the best known, but there are also people like Jimmie Nicol, who is barely mentioned in other books. Nicol filled in for Ringo Starr during a tour and became a member of the Beatles for 10 days. What seemed like a stroke of luck ended up derailing his life, because Jimmie could never get over the fact that he was no longer a Beatle and things went pretty badly for him.
The most tragic example is perhaps that of Brian Epstein, the group’s manager, to whom he dedicates the first chapter of the book and also the last.
I’m fascinated by Brian Epstein. He was an essential part of the success of the Beatles and then, on a personal level, he was the one who knew how to manage that success the worst. He had that grown-up, sensible, elegant guy look when in reality he was taking quite a few more drugs than John Lennon himself. That’s why I wanted to start and end the book with the scene in which Brian Epstein walks down the steps of [la sala de conciertos] The Cavern to see the Beatles for the first time. It could be said that thanks to that visit the group’s ascent to heaven took place, but perhaps it was also the cause of Brian’s descent into hell and death after only seven years. It is a very interesting counterpoint.
His book puts a lot of emphasis on how the group’s success caught earlier generations off guard. He completely threw them off, didn’t he?
Yes, it was difficult for them to assimilate. But I also try to be fair to those people who reacted to the opposition. My father and father-in-law fought in the Second World War, so when they were between 18 and 23 they had some horrible experiences. After only 20 years, they saw the Beatles having a great time at that same age, so it is perfectly understandable that they felt a mixture of grievance and envy.
Still, it’s amazing how quickly the Beatles made a lot of things obsolete. And a lot of artists.
Suddenly, almost overnight, big stars like Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Noël Coward or even Cliff Richard, who was the same age as John Lennon, realized that they were out of fashion. And, of course, they didn’t react well. That thing about going out of style, by the way, is something that never happened to the Beatles, which is quite remarkable.
“Overnight, stars like Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley and Cliff Richard discovered they were out of fashion. And they didn’t react well”
He writes that in the midst of Beatlemania the way in which fans affirmed themselves as such was by choosing one member of the group over the others. What was yours?
I guess I should say Paul. And after writing the book I still think the same thing. At the end of the 70s, Paul was an easy target because he was presented as a rather simple guy, a ‘showman’ who wanted to please everyone, while John was the complex artist with concerns. That perception was consolidated when John died, and he became a kind of martyr, a saintly figure. I think lately people are starting to realize how important Paul was, not only for his incredible musical contributions but also for his role in keeping the group moving. You can see it in [la serie documental] ‘Get back’: Everyone else is yawning, exhausted or bored, and he’s always pulling the cart. He was the driving force behind the Beatles. He was also the one who knew how to enjoy the group’s success the most.
The story of how McCartney dropped by a random Bedfordshire village one day and ended up at a dentist’s house playing ‘Hey Jude’ on a children’s guitar is very revealing of how comfortable he felt in his skin.
That’s how it is. I’m going to tell you something interesting related to that story. Recently, I went to talk about the Beatles at a place called Chelsea Arts Club in London, a private club with a slightly bohemian atmosphere. Shortly before going on stage, a woman in her 60s approached me, asked me to sign the book and told me that she wanted to show it to her father. And it turned out that she was Shuna, the dentist’s daughter, the owner of the guitar that Paul played ‘Hey Jude’ on that day. It was an extraordinary meeting.
Have you had more encounters of this type after the publication of the book?
The truth is that yes. I live in Suffolk, on the east coast of England. One day a couple of years ago, I was walking in the countryside and I ran into a person I vaguely knew who was accompanied by another woman. And she said, “Craig, I want to introduce you to Melanie Coe.” Melanie Coe! The girl who inspired the lyrics to ‘ella She ella’s leaving home’, which I talk about in the book! There, in the middle of a Suffolk field! That is one of the great things about the Beatles, that they are still alive in the memories of so many people that they still foster those types of incredible coincidences.
“No other group has ever endured the pressure that the Beatles had to endure.”
Perhaps the most amazing thing about the Beatles’ story is that none of them had turned 30 when it all ended.
The speed with which they experienced everything is something that never ceases to surprise me. Between ‘I want to hold your hand’ and ‘Why don’t we do it in the road’ only five years pass! At 23, they already carried the weight of the world on their shoulders. They saw themselves in the role of having to lead their generation, and not just in music. No other group has ever endured the pressure they had to endure. Every album they released had to sound completely different from the previous album and from every other album, and it also had to point out the direction in which pop music would go so that the Rolling Stones could follow six months later. My father-in-law used to say that they were like the Pied Piper of Hamelin, leading the children of his time away from his parents. Everyone was behind them.
What do you think of ‘Now and then’, the Beatles’ last song?
I think the video is amazing; very exciting and also a little sinister. The song is good, but I don’t quite buy that it’s a Beatles song. In fact, it’s a song that John didn’t think was good enough to continue working on. If it had been released in the Beatles’ era, it would have been a b-side at best. But any Beatles song is better than nothing and it’s made a lot of people happy, so it’s probably a good thing it’s out there.
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