A Beatles O.G. braces for another re-invention

It's a process which began this week in 1973

When the Beatles first entered my life I was 12. That was 1962. I was 22 this week in 1973 when the Red and Blue compilation albums came out. At the time I bought this copy of the first collection as a kind of mopping-up operation. It was the only way to make sure I had access to all the things I had owned on 45 back in the previous decade. These had been scribbled over in biro, left at the houses of ex-girlfriends or otherwise fallen by the wayside in an era when hanging on to things hadn’t yet been invented.

Even for an O.G. fan like me, who can still recite all the Beatles singles in release order (and has difficulty entirely trusting anyone who can’t) the release of these two albums, primarily aimed at the UK where their singles had rarely been on their albums, seemed like the final crossing of the t’s and dotting of the i’s in the Beatles story. It was surely the end. I wasn’t to know that it was only the beginning of a story in which they would be repackaged for succeeding generations according to taste, fashion and the steady growth of their myth. Even as early as 1973, a quiet revisionism was at work. On my red album there was no sign of the R&B covers that had actually made their name in 1963; no “Twist And Shout” and no “Roll Over Beethoven”. This was already a different group, and it was being prepared to face the 70s.

When the accident of your birth has meant that you lived the career of the Beatles in real time you have to keep reminding yourself that later generations got on the bus at stops further along the route and therefore their Beatles will be a different Beatles. I wrote about this in my book “Hope I Get Old Before I Die”. For people growing up in the 70s the Red and Blue albums were as much a fixture in the record collections of their parents as the original cast recording of “My Fair Lady” had been for mine. Even George Martin’s son Giles told me he first heard them on a cassette when he was a 13 year-old trying to avoid skiing. The Smash Hits generation of the 80s caught up with them when the death of John Lennon proved such a powerful news story it brought about the realisation that the deceased had been in a band with Paul McCartney from Wings, a band which, what’s more, sounded a bit like ELO on occasions. The Britpop generation of the 90s found them thanks to the recommendations of Noel Gallagher and the release of “Anthology”, which was packaged with all the gravitas in the world and could just as easily have been called “Archaeology”. In 2000 the last huge hit of the CD era was The Beatles “1” . The Peter Jackson “Get Back” films presented them for the first time as adults, which meant they fitted nearly into 2021, by which point even the newest bands were anything but teenagers. The Beatles are clearly a brand and a band for all seasons.

And now this week brings news of the actors set to play them in the four individual biographical movies which are the next stage in Apple's campaign to keep its most valuable asset alive. They're all up and coming hot names and yet funnily enough all too old to be in the Beatles, who were unimaginably young by today's standards when they were starting the fire which is still smouldering today. The youngest of the cast is 28, which is a year older than the youngest Beatle George Harrison was when he wrote "The Art Of Dying". At that stage, as Harrison recalled, the four of them had already "given their nervous systems" in order that the rest of us should have some great memories.

The interesting thing about this latest re-invention of the Beatles is that it will probably still be in the air as the group itself falls out of living memory. At this point the fictional Beatles will take over from the real thing. Once there are no longer any living members of the group they will be just another valuable slice of corporate-owned I.P.. The actual flesh and blood Beatles will recede to be replaced by an image as endlessly malleable as Marilyn Monroe's has been since her death in 1962. In the years since then Marilyn’s example has been cited in order to win every argument. The same will happen to the Beatles.

I expect the films to make much of John, Paul and Ringo's missing parents as it seeks to bring out the pathos of their four individual stories. You only have to look at those actors to realise that's what they will be projecting. Cool, which nobody talked about when the Beatles were together, will be the rule. I wouldn't expect much of the kinetic crackle they produced when the four of them came together. They were the ultimate “we”; that’s what the world loved about them. By virtue of separating the four individual strands the film will presumably appeal to those who believe genius is something that certain people have rather than something which magically occurs when personalities and circumstances coincide. In the parlance of our time it will no doubt tell their truth. It's due to come out in 2028. I shall be 77.