I have (re)watched The Beatles Anthology. I'm pretty certain, apart from clips that come up on YouTube, this is the first time I've rewatched it since it was first broadcast in Nov/Dec 1995, and I have a few thoughts about a) The Beatles and b) watching The Beatles anthology.
It is quite a staid documentary - that is my first thought. It potters along. There are only six talking heads throughout - McCartney, Harrison, Starr, George Martin, Neil Aspinall, and, a little bit, Derek Taylor (and, of course, the voice of Lennon, usually from 70s interviews). All inner circle. Fair enough, it is not a series about the Beatles per se, it is a series by The Beatles. It is openly canon. Imagine it nowadays with various tabloid journalists and modern fans and rival bands, they'd probably have wives and children too, and some of that would provide interesting context, and a lot of it wouldn't.
Of course, it was not as exciting to me this time around as when I first watched it. But, it dawned on me pretty early on in the rewatch, Anthology was when I really first found out about The Beatles. I mean, I knew about the Beatles by 1995, but only in a pretty limited way. At home, we had the Oldies but Goldies tape (hits up to about 65), my aunt had Sgt Pepper, I'd heard a few other songs, but the Beatles didn't get played that much on the radio, not as much as Queen and Elton John etc. I'd have known the ones that were taught at school - Yellow Submarine, When I'm 64, I'd have known Hey Jude, Strawberry Fields, Let it Be, I don't know if my knowledge went much deeper than that of their later years. So, watching and listening in autumn 1995, it was all revelatory and thrilling. Whereas now, of course, I know it all already, several times over.
So, what, if anything, did I notice this time around? Two main things, linked together. It's about McCartney and Harrison. So much written about McCartney and Lennon, but McCartney and Harrison is just as important, in a good and and a bad way. These are the two who always knew each other, a school year apart. These are the two who stood together on stage, singing into one mic, whereas Lennon is usually on his own on the other side, standing face-on.
This is the most beautiful thing I really noticed this time. The, for want of a better word, choreography of the Beatles as a live band. McCartney with his left-handed bass, Harrison with his right-handed lead, the melodic heart of the band, leaning into each other, singing their harmonies, George stepping away when Paul's on lead, then, with perfect timing, coming up for the chorus. I'm not sure I've ever seen another band so perfectly use three voices and three guitars. The vocal sound of the Beatles is one of the all-time great vocal sounds, not as revered as the Beach Boys or CSN, but just as memorable, and that's Paul and George singing into one mic together working off John a few metres away. So wonderful.
And then there's the other thing with Paul and George - the overbearing older brother thing, which never went away, and you can see it really clearly in the doc, even in the 90s when they're all cheery and nice. Paul is trying his best not to annoy George, George is just about putting up with it.
It's quite something to hear the hurt vitriol with which Harrison speaks about McCartney in 70s interviews - "Paul McCartney ruined me as a guitar player", and, of course, we all saw that painful tension between then in 'Get Back'. By the 90s, they're equals - Harrison has done Here Comes the Sun, Something, While Me Guitar ... he's done All Things Must Pass, he's organized the concert for Bangladesh, he's produced Life of Brian. Paul knows they're equals now, but still ...
The series has been edited somewhat since 1995, including tacking on an extra "making of" episode, which shows some of the recording of Free as a Bird. It is funny to think about Free as a Bird now. It was, when released close to Christmas 95, considered rather disappointing, both critically and commercially. It reached Number 2, kept off the top by Robson and Jerome. I wonder if it had been released out of the blue, rather than after everyone had been enjoying several weeks of classic Beatles song, it would have fared better. As it is, listening to it now, I had, ironically, a powerful sense of nostalgia for 1995, hearing a song with a pretty melody which was everywhere for a short period of time but which I've hardly heard in the intervening 30 years.
I have been trying, self-indulgently, to figure out my exact chronology of musical discovery in late 95. Time it was and what a time it was etc ... when Bob Dylan came up in Episode 2, I couldn't quite remember if I had already had Dylan tapes made for me by Stephen Bovey and Jeremy Levine, whether I was already saying "Aah, yeah, here comes my hero Bobby D" or whether it was literally this episode that prompted me to get into Dylan.
And, most pertinently, at what point did Alex Frith copy for me the Red album and the Blue album? Was it before Anthology, during Anthology, or after Anthology? Mindblowing to think about the Red and the Blue album as well, to remember, when I listened, how many of the songs I didn't know (this makes me think he made it for me just before the show was broadcast) and heard, all at once, for the first time ... Drive My Car, Girl, Nowhere Man, Revolution, In My Life, Penny Lane even, I Am the Walrus, Lady Madonna, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Don't Let Me Down, John and Yoko. Nuts. That 56 song collection, first issued in 1973 (it was expanded recently, but we'll ignore that) is really, obviously, the most sustained collection of brilliance there is in pop songs. 56 songs across 8 years. Arguably, the only slight drop-offs are Ob-La-Di and Old Brown Shoe. And what of the songs that aren't included?
To name a few - I Saw Her Standing There, If I Needed Someone, Happiness is a Warm Gun, For No One, Here, There and Everywhere, And Your Bird Can Sing, Got to Get you Into My Life, Blackbird, Twist and Shout, Oh! Darling, Helter Skelter, She’s Leaving Home, Tomorrow Never Knows.
Imagine (not Imagine, of course ...) another band making a 56-song Best of covering eight years and not having room for those songs ...
As well as red and blue albums, I think Alex also taped me the White album a while after that, and I also did buy Anthology 3 - I had that before I had Abbey Road and Let it Be, so the Anthology versions were my first experience of some of those songs. The other great thing about Anthology 3 was that it had an early version of All Things Must Pass and McCartney laying out Come and Get It for Badfinger. Genuinely, I remember Come and Get It was my favourite song on the whole thing for a while ...
And the one other thing I thought, watching Anthology, was about death.
The series talks about Stuart Sutcliffe, but then, somewhat weirdly/disrespectfully, doesn't mention him dying. Maybe in the 1995 broadcast, Backbeat was so recent that that was a given for most viewers, but still.
But, then, I thought (and I saw someone else talking about this as regards McCartney recently). the Beatles have so many deaths running through their history. Paul's mother in 56, John's mother in 58, Sutcliffe in 62, Brian Epstein in 67, Mal Evans in 76 ... all just absolute core people to the core people.
And then, of course, you think, how strange that Paul McCartney remained the most cheerful man in the world, then to lose Lennon, his wife Linda, George - all of those people by the time he was 60.
So, to end with McCartney - it remains pretty extraordinary that he was, all at the same time, the bossy annoying one, the organiser, the workaholic one, the adaptable one (prepared to bunk with Ringo, prepared to switch to bass), the more financially savvy one, the cute boybandy one, the first heavy rock one, the melodic genius, the lyrical master, the keeper of the flame. Some fellow.
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