The Beatles - With the Beatles
- FaceOff - עימות חזיתי
- 3 days ago
- 4 min read
Written By: Moti Kupfer
Album review - The Beatles - With the Beatles
Release date - 22.11.63
Label - Parlophone
Genre - Rock and roll
In 1975, director Ken Russell's surreal musical film "Lisztomania" was released. The film was about the dramatic life story of the 19th century classical pop star, composer and pianist Franz Liszt.
The term "Lisztomania" was coined by the poet and writer Heinrich Heine in response to the mass fan hysteria that accompanied his performances.
About a century later, the cross-border hysteria returned again, called "Beatlemania".
"Beatlemania" is a "mass psychosis" that struck Britain, the United States, and the rest of the world towards the mid-sixties in everything related to "The Beatles", especially among young teenage girls.
"Beatlemania" was characterized by complete hysteria about everything related to the band, from their hairstyles, clothing, and more.
Gatherings of female fans were documented at sites where the band members visited, with an emphasis on airports, and of course deafening screams during performances, how deafening? To the point where the members of the "The Beatles" could not perform properly due to the deafening noise, which damaged the quality of their playing.
The phenomenon forced the band members isolation when they went on tour, due to the fear of being harassed, even in their free time.
Ultimately, the phenomenon of "Beatlemania" hastened the retirement of "The Beatles" from live shows in 1966, after feeling disgusted by the insane number of performances they had done so far, and the poor quality of the performances due to the the hysteria in the audience.
"Those years were a continuous hell for us", said George Harrison in his autobiography "I Me Mine".
The term "Beatlemania" was first used at the end of 1963, a year that was exceptional in its chart success for "the Beatles". In March they released their debut album "Please" Please Me" which topped the British album chart for 30 consecutive weeks, while it gave way to their second album "With the Beatles" which was released on 22.11.1963, and created a streak of 21 weeks at the top of the British album chart. In total, "the Beatles" dominated the album chart for 51 consecutive weeks.
Eight months after their debut album, "The Beatles" continued with the formula that had worked so well with short classic rock songs. The album featured six covers of Motown R&B songs, and eight original songs, seven by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and a debut by George Harrison, whose next song would not appear until the album "Help" two years later. Ringo Starr's contribution to the album (beyond drumming) focused on backing vocals on the song "I Wanna Be Your Man" and his diverse record collection that included blues and country, exposing his bandmates to many songs.
The album was released in Britain on Friday, November 22, 1963. To Americans, this date sounds a little less festive. While demand for the newly released album was at record levels in Britain, including pre-orders of half a million copies, an event occurred across the Atlantic that shocked the world. It was early afternoon in the United States when three shots were fired at the motorcade of US President John F. Kennedy, seriously wounding him. Shortly after 1 p.m. US time, news anchor Walter Cronkite announced with a sad face the death of the president and the transition of Vice President Lyndon Johnson into the new president.
That tragedy completely shocked the entire American nation, on the day of "With the Beatles" release, and this album would later turn out to be part of the healing process of American society, at least from the perspective of the youth who would focus on admiration for "the Beatles" instead of focusing on grief and mourning for their dead president.
The lyrics of the songs dealt mainly with love and its derivatives, but Lennon and McCartney sometimes played with word games, as can be seen in the opening song "It Won't Be Long", in which the word Yeah is mentioned no less than 56 times. The word games here between "It Won't Belong" and "till I belong" were one of Paul McCartney's hobbies, who studied literature at school.
In "All I've Got to Do" John Lennon admitted that he was inspired by From Smokey Robinson's songs along with the "Miracles".
"All My Loving" was written by Paul McCartney while shaving one morning and thinking about his then-girlfriend Jane Asher. It was the first time McCartney wrote the lyrics before composing the melody.
The fourth track on the album, "Don't Bother Me," was Harrison's first lyrical contribution to a "Beatles" album. It was a song he wrote while he was sick with the flu and resting in a hotel between shows. Naturally, the song has a dark and pessimistic mood, telling the story of a guy whose girlfriend has left him and is looking to isolate himself from the world.
"Little Child" seems like a simple love song, in which a child who is afraid of the dark asks his responsible adult to stay with him until morning. Who among us as a parent hasn't encountered such a request from their child? In fact, the song has a more complex meaning, especially in light of the period in which it was written. In the early 1960s, rock and roll music was considered to have a negative impact on young people. Many parents forbade their children from listening to it. "The Beatles" changed this by appealing to the general public, both young and old. The song was inspired by Walt Disney's film "Robin Hood."
The dark and serious album cover, was a reflection of what was going on in the souls and minds of the fab four, who felt that they are growing up quickly. The photo was taken by the Sunday Times photojournalist Robert Freeman, who had photographed jazz musicians such as John Coltrane and Dizzy Gillespie, among others. "The Beatles", who loved black and white photography, showed Freeman photos from their Hamburg concerts that included plays of light and shadow, and asked him to create a similar image.
For Listening: Spotify, Apple Music
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