"Why This Band Plays On" -- NYT Op-Ed piece on The Beatles

[mcscajun]

(I posted this earlier today in the Lounge, but someone suggested this needed the greater exposure of the GD. They're right.)

By MIKAL GILMORE
Published: August 24, 2005

Los Angeles

FORTY years ago this month, the Beatles began their second major tour of America with a performance at Shea Stadium in Queens. It's an event worth noting: more than 55,000 people attended that night, Aug. 15, 1965. It set a world record at that time for a pop concert, and it was the biggest public moment of the Beatles' remarkable career.

(snip)

Which raises a number of questions: Why do we continue to pore over the Beatles' high points? Why is it that those lifetime-ago moments still fascinate us? In part, of course, it's simply because there's such an undeniable epic arc in both the Beatles' story and in their music. Certainly, they possessed an extraordinarily intuitive skill for filling the needs of their times, and for realizing the potential of their own talents.

But there's another reason, just as important, that accounts for the lasting appeal of their history: The Beatles demonstrated that musical and social change could emanate from the shared spirit of the same body politic.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/24/opinion/24gilmore.htm...

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The piece also included a poem that Allen Ginsburg wrote about his experience attending The Beatles' appearance at the Portland Coliseum a week after their Shea Stadium concert.

Portland Coliseum

The million children
the thousand worlds
bounce in their seats, bash
each other's sides, press
legs together nervous
Scream again & claphand
become one Animal
in the New World Auditorium
- hands waving myriad
snakes of thought
screetch beyond hearing
while a line of police with
folded arms stands
Sentry to contain the red
sweatered ecstasy
that rises upward to the
wired roof.


Hyphenate had an interesting reaction to this poem of Ginburg's. See her post from the Lounge:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=105&topic_id=3908863&mesg_id=3909219