Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties
Encyclopedia
Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties is a 1994 book by British
music critic and author Ian MacDonald
detailing every record The Beatles
ever produced. It was published in revised forms in 1997 and 2005, the second following MacDonald's death in 2003.
MacDonald took a song-by-song approach in the book and carefully anatomised every song The Beatles recorded, drawing attention to broad themes, particular examples of inspiration and moments of human frailty alike. The book also includes his essay "Fabled Foursome, Disappearing Decade", an analysis of the social and cultural changes of the 1960s and their aftereffects as the introduction.
The book was first revised in 1997 and included material that had been released by Apple Records
between 1994 and 1996 (Live at the BBC
, the Anthology
series). Additionally, MacDonald made minor changes in accordance with selected books that had been released since the first publication, most notably Barry Miles
' official biography of Paul McCartney
, Many Years from Now
. In 2002, it was edited into The Beatles' No. 1 Hits. The edit featured a new, shorter introduction, and only featured the essays on the songs on The Beatles' chart-topping album, 1. A Second Revised Edition was published in 2005 according to plans MacDonald had made prior to his death in 2003. A 2008 printing of the book claims Third Revised Edition on the cover and Second Revised Edition inside.
Although the majority of Beatles' songs were composed by Lennon and McCartney, with some contributions from George Harrison, the cover photo of the alleged Third Revised Edition (right) shows Lennon and Ringo Starr
.
The Preface to the Second Revised Edition notes the death of George Harrison in November, 2001, and the continued popularity of The Beatles into the twenty-first century.
The Preface to the First Revised Edition briefly discusses the British art school scene that spawned The Beatles, and notes some of the differences between British and US culture that affect the two nations' respective views of The Beatles.
The book continues with the ambitious 37-page introductory essay 'Fabled Foursome, Disappearing Decade', which is described below.
The body of the book is entitled 'The Beatles' Records' and is divided into four parts.
Part One, 'Going Up', covers all of The Beatles' early recordings up to and including 1965.
Part Two, 'The Top', covers the years 1966-67.
Part Three, 'Coming Down', covers the years 1967-70.
Part Four, 'Looking Back', briefly covers the solo careers of each of The Beatles, as well as the 'Free As A Bird' and 'Real Love' recordings.
Each part is broken down into a series of entries that cover every song recorded by The Beatles. Each entry consists of a list of the musicians present on the recording of that song, the instruments they played, the date (or dates) of the recording, the producer(s) and engineer(s), and the dates of the UK and US releases. What follows for each entry is an essay (of varying length) based around the song being listed.
The next part of the book is a 78-page Chronology of the 1960s which, on a month-by-month-basis, lists events in The Beatles' career alongside significant events in UK pop, current affairs and culture.
What follows is a bibliography relating to The Beatles and the 1960s in general, a glossary of musical and recording terms, a Beatles discography, an index of songs (and the keys they are played in) and, finally, an index to the main text.
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 emphasises, 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 disingenuous 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 1960s' 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 internalised, spiritual change, frequently based upon the advocacy of psychedelic drugs, 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.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
music critic and author Ian MacDonald
Ian MacDonald
Ian MacCormick was a British music critic and author, best known for Revolution in the Head, his forensic history of The Beatles which borrowed techniques from art historians, and The New Shostakovich, a controversial study of the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich...
detailing every record The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
ever produced. It was published in revised forms in 1997 and 2005, the second following MacDonald's death in 2003.
MacDonald took a song-by-song approach in the book and carefully anatomised every song The Beatles recorded, drawing attention to broad themes, particular examples of inspiration and moments of human frailty alike. The book also includes his essay "Fabled Foursome, Disappearing Decade", an analysis of the social and cultural changes of the 1960s and their aftereffects as the introduction.
The book was first revised in 1997 and included material that had been released by Apple Records
Apple Records
Apple Records is a record label founded by The Beatles in 1968, as a division of Apple Corps Ltd. It was initially intended as a creative outlet for the Beatles, both as a group and individually, plus a selection of other artists including Mary Hopkin, James Taylor, Badfinger, and Billy Preston...
between 1994 and 1996 (Live at the BBC
Live at the BBC (The Beatles album)
Live at the BBC is a 1994 compilation album featuring performances by The Beatles that were originally broadcast on various BBC Light Programme radio shows from 1963 through 1965. The monaural album, available in multiple formats but most commonly as a two-CD set, consists of 56 songs and 13 tracks...
, the Anthology
The Beatles Anthology
The Beatles Anthology is the name of a documentary series, a set of three double albums and a book focusing on the history of The Beatles. Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr all participated in the making and approval of the works, which are sometimes referred to collectively as the...
series). Additionally, MacDonald made minor changes in accordance with selected books that had been released since the first publication, most notably Barry Miles
Barry Miles
Barry Miles is an English author known for his participation in and writing on the subject of the 1960s London underground. He has written numerous books and his work has also regularly appeared in left-wing papers such as The Guardian...
' official biography of Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...
, Many Years from Now
Many Years From Now
Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now is a 1997 biography of Paul McCartney by Barry Miles. It is the "official" biography of McCartney and was written "based on hundreds of hours of exclusive interviews undertaken over a period of five years" according to the back cover of the 1998 paperback edition...
. In 2002, it was edited into The Beatles' No. 1 Hits. The edit featured a new, shorter introduction, and only featured the essays on the songs on The Beatles' chart-topping album, 1. A Second Revised Edition was published in 2005 according to plans MacDonald had made prior to his death in 2003. A 2008 printing of the book claims Third Revised Edition on the cover and Second Revised Edition inside.
Although the majority of Beatles' songs were composed by Lennon and McCartney, with some contributions from George Harrison, the cover photo of the alleged Third Revised Edition (right) shows Lennon and Ringo Starr
Ringo Starr
Richard Starkey, MBE better known by his stage name Ringo Starr, is an English musician and actor who gained worldwide fame as the drummer for The Beatles. When the band formed in 1960, Starr was a member of another Liverpool band, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. He became The Beatles' drummer in...
.
Structure
The book begins with prefaces to each edition.The Preface to the Second Revised Edition notes the death of George Harrison in November, 2001, and the continued popularity of The Beatles into the twenty-first century.
The Preface to the First Revised Edition briefly discusses the British art school scene that spawned The Beatles, and notes some of the differences between British and US culture that affect the two nations' respective views of The Beatles.
The book continues with the ambitious 37-page introductory essay 'Fabled Foursome, Disappearing Decade', which is described below.
The body of the book is entitled 'The Beatles' Records' and is divided into four parts.
Part One, 'Going Up', covers all of The Beatles' early recordings up to and including 1965.
Part Two, 'The Top', covers the years 1966-67.
Part Three, 'Coming Down', covers the years 1967-70.
Part Four, 'Looking Back', briefly covers the solo careers of each of The Beatles, as well as the 'Free As A Bird' and 'Real Love' recordings.
Each part is broken down into a series of entries that cover every song recorded by The Beatles. Each entry consists of a list of the musicians present on the recording of that song, the instruments they played, the date (or dates) of the recording, the producer(s) and engineer(s), and the dates of the UK and US releases. What follows for each entry is an essay (of varying length) based around the song being listed.
The next part of the book is a 78-page Chronology of the 1960s which, on a month-by-month-basis, lists events in The Beatles' career alongside significant events in UK pop, current affairs and culture.
What follows is a bibliography relating to The Beatles and the 1960s in general, a glossary of musical and recording terms, a Beatles discography, an index of songs (and the keys they are played in) and, finally, an index to the main text.
"Fabled Foursome, Disappearing Decade"
In this essay, MacDonald 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 individualismIndividualism
Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, or social outlook that stresses "the moral worth of the individual". Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and so value independence and self-reliance while opposing most external interference upon one's own...
that formed the main stream of popular thought and behaviour; the revolutionary radicalism
Political radicalism
The term political radicalism denotes political principles focused on altering social structures through revolutionary means and changing value systems in fundamental ways...
of the New Left
New Left
The New Left was a term used mainly in the United Kingdom and United States in reference to activists, educators, agitators and others in the 1960s and 1970s who sought to implement a broad range of reforms, in contrast to earlier leftist or Marxist movements that had taken a more vanguardist...
; and the psychedelic pacifism
Pacifism
Pacifism is the opposition to war and violence. The term "pacifism" was coined by the French peace campaignerÉmile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress inGlasgow in 1901.- Definition :...
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
Afterlife
The afterlife is the belief that a part of, or essence of, or soul of an individual, which carries with it and confers personal identity, survives the death of the body of this world and this lifetime, by natural or supernatural means, in contrast to the belief in eternal...
, 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
Libertarianism
Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...
1960s.
This was, MacDonald emphasises, 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 disingenuous 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
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
and Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
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 1960s' 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
Consumerism
Consumerism is a social and economic order that is based on the systematic creation and fostering of a desire to purchase goods and services in ever greater amounts. The term is often associated with criticisms of consumption starting with Thorstein Veblen...
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
Iron Curtain
The concept of the Iron Curtain symbolized the ideological fighting and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1989...
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 internalised, spiritual change, frequently based upon the advocacy of psychedelic drugs, 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
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
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
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...
, despite his dabblings with the artistic avant garde, is most representative of mainstream thought and behaviour. George Harrison
George Harrison
George Harrison, MBE was an English musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other...
, 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.