A new Beatles blog? Do we really need a new one? The idea is to examine the Beatles from both east and west. From Prague with the Lennon Wall a constant reminder of the Fab Four, the Beatles seem to live on. The period of their eternal youth corresponds with the Prague Spring and all its hope for a thawing relationship between the superpowers. Something about the Beatles reminds us of the Cold War. They were ambassadors of globalization, ambassadors of Liverpool, ambassadors of a new beginning. Now the time seems right to approach them again, to see where and who we were in those distant, halcyon days, and to reflect on where and who we are today in a world the Beatles helped make, but a world which is moving quickly away from what the Beatles, if we dare speak for them, wanted it to be. And also to see the Beatles into the future, faded like Ozymandius on some desert plain.
Back in the USSR. Did we ever really leave? The 20th Century was rocked by war and revolution, but in many ways we were just running in place. The four lads from Liverpool become carriers of our dreams, they were a part of our lives and touched on something far greater than any individual usually obtains. And yet in another way they were Everymen, hapless figures in a drama on the global stage, swept along in the same currents of history like the rest of us. John Lennon paid a heavy price in the end, for his fame singled him out and made him a target. The Beatles became larger than life, and yet they were trapped by that image in the end. The Beatles were heralds of their generation, of post-WWII Britain, and their formula, and it was a very good one, was to sing of love and optimism. The USSR crumbled, and yet the West somehow swallowed something of the totalitarian spirit in 1989. Slowly we become global citizens and yet the USSR just won't go away It may be gone, but it lurks offstage, waiting for a grand return. For every step forward, it seems we take two back. The Beatles broke up quite early on, in retrospect it looks like a very smart move.
Paul wrote Back in the USSR as a kind of throwback reference to their earlier sound. Referencing the Beach Boys and Hoagy Carmichael, the lyrical trick in the chorus of "Back in the US, back in the US, back in the USSR" slyly unites the two superpowers and jokingly infers that the USSR is a great place to be. Considering the global population is twice what it was when the song was written and the increasingly frightening spectre of global warming, to be on some peaceful collective farm along the Volga might not be so bad. We're not in any hurry to return to a totalitarian state, are we? The Cold War is over, isn't it? You don't know how lucky you are.
A new Beatles blog? Do we really need a new one? The idea is to examine the Beatles from both east and west. From Prague with the Lennon Wall a constant reminder of the Fab Four, the Beatles seem to live on. The period of their eternal youth corresponds with the Prague Spring and all its hope for a thawing relationship between the superpowers. Something about the Beatles reminds us of the Cold War. They were ambassadors of globalization, ambassadors of Liverpool, ambassadors of a new beginning. Now the time seems right to approach them again, to see where and who we were in those distant, halcyon days, and to reflect on where and who we are today in a world the Beatles helped make, but a world which is moving quickly away from what the Beatles, if we dare speak for them, wanted it to be. And also to see the Beatles into the future, faded like Ozymandius on some desert plain.
Back in the USSR. Did we ever really leave? The 20th Century was rocked by war and revolution, but in many ways we were just running in place. The four lads from Liverpool become carriers of our dreams, they were a part of our lives and touched on something far greater than any individual usually obtains. And yet in another way they were Everymen, hapless figures in a drama on the global stage, swept along in the same currents of history like the rest of us. John Lennon paid a heavy price in the end, for his fame singled him out and made him a target. The Beatles became larger than life, and yet they were trapped by that image in the end. The Beatles were heralds of their generation, of post-WWII Britain, and their formula, and it was a very good one, was to sing of love and optimism. The USSR crumbled, and yet the West somehow swallowed something of the totalitarian spirit in 1989. Slowly we become global citizens and yet the USSR just won't go away It may be gone, but it lurks offstage, waiting for a grand return. For every step forward, it seems we take two back. The Beatles broke up quite early on, in retrospect it looks like a very smart move.
