peace and love, man!
Aug. 18th, 2003 10:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nigeltdeWatched Bend It Like Beckham last night, and the blond chick's mum was bugging me the entire time, I knew I knew her from somewhere. So, to imbd...and hey! It's Nina from Turely Madly Deeply! I love her! BiLB wasn't as good as I expected, but it was ok. And Jonathan Rhys Myers was hot hot hot, and his lips weren't even that disturbing!
I've been having a Beatles renaissance over the last couple of weeks, and just last Tuesday we covered them in my pop music course (and in the something I didn't know, but is probably a crock anyway, category: some guy's written a thesis on the 'hidden meanings' in Beatles songs, and apparently 'Michelle' was written by Paul not as a love song to some French girl but to John, who he felt couldn't understand him. And the line 'these are words that go together well' references the previous song on Rubber Soul, 'The Word' [which is apparently about LSD (what isn't?)]).
Anyway. I was thinking about how the Beatles, more so than any other band including Zappa (atMOI), just make me feel happy, make me grin, make me feel lighter. I mean, they have their share of serious, sad and depressing songs, but on the whole there's something so infectiously joyous about their work; I challenge anyone to listen to 'Hello Goodbye', or 'Twist and Shout' for instance, and not be cheered up.
And that lead me to thinking about what the Beatles mean to me, and I realised I see them as this kind of portal to happier times. I don't mean to happier times when I was a kid, although that is a part of it, because my parents used to play them all the time, but to the 60s, and, more specifically, the whole hippie era/ethos.
Now believe it or not, I wasn't alive during the 60s. No lie! And I know that things were pretty much as bad then as they are now, and as they always have been. Maybe even worse, because the Vietnam War? Kind of a nasty affair, as you know. But for me, the hippie movement is, like, the epitome of human development, the best of all philosophies, and I really am a hippie at heart, no matter how depressed and cynical I get. Now, I think that Peace and Love, well, won't ever really be universally attainable, and are far to simplified and vague to be goals as such. But as ideals? Can you find much better? So when George sings 'with our love, we could change the world', I tend to get a bit teary, because my god, that sentiment. I think it's really beautiful. Cheesy, but that nice kind of cheese, mozzarella or something, not the crap with the mould all through it.
And on top of all that, they were simply supreme songwriters and performers. My god, does it get much more anthemic and powerful than those nah nah nah's at the end of 'Hey Jude'?
I'll probably grow up and become a disillusioned, cynical, miserable bastard. Many days I'm more halfway there. But for now? Thinking about this has given me a new course of action: when I get too down, I'll grab some chocolate, stick on Sgt Pepper's, just chill out, and maybe recapture some of that hippie spirit :-)
I've been having a Beatles renaissance over the last couple of weeks, and just last Tuesday we covered them in my pop music course (and in the something I didn't know, but is probably a crock anyway, category: some guy's written a thesis on the 'hidden meanings' in Beatles songs, and apparently 'Michelle' was written by Paul not as a love song to some French girl but to John, who he felt couldn't understand him. And the line 'these are words that go together well' references the previous song on Rubber Soul, 'The Word' [which is apparently about LSD (what isn't?)]).
Anyway. I was thinking about how the Beatles, more so than any other band including Zappa (atMOI), just make me feel happy, make me grin, make me feel lighter. I mean, they have their share of serious, sad and depressing songs, but on the whole there's something so infectiously joyous about their work; I challenge anyone to listen to 'Hello Goodbye', or 'Twist and Shout' for instance, and not be cheered up.
And that lead me to thinking about what the Beatles mean to me, and I realised I see them as this kind of portal to happier times. I don't mean to happier times when I was a kid, although that is a part of it, because my parents used to play them all the time, but to the 60s, and, more specifically, the whole hippie era/ethos.
Now believe it or not, I wasn't alive during the 60s. No lie! And I know that things were pretty much as bad then as they are now, and as they always have been. Maybe even worse, because the Vietnam War? Kind of a nasty affair, as you know. But for me, the hippie movement is, like, the epitome of human development, the best of all philosophies, and I really am a hippie at heart, no matter how depressed and cynical I get. Now, I think that Peace and Love, well, won't ever really be universally attainable, and are far to simplified and vague to be goals as such. But as ideals? Can you find much better? So when George sings 'with our love, we could change the world', I tend to get a bit teary, because my god, that sentiment. I think it's really beautiful. Cheesy, but that nice kind of cheese, mozzarella or something, not the crap with the mould all through it.
And on top of all that, they were simply supreme songwriters and performers. My god, does it get much more anthemic and powerful than those nah nah nah's at the end of 'Hey Jude'?
I'll probably grow up and become a disillusioned, cynical, miserable bastard. Many days I'm more halfway there. But for now? Thinking about this has given me a new course of action: when I get too down, I'll grab some chocolate, stick on Sgt Pepper's, just chill out, and maybe recapture some of that hippie spirit :-)
