The Beatles: Still something to say

 

There was a new Beatles magazine on the shelves of my local newsagent the other day. I had to pick it up, because actually incredulous that someone thought there was something new to say about the Fab Four. That after all the articles, books, movies and everything, there was something new to say.

So I put it back and got my usual 2000ad and then turned back before I even got out of the store and bought the Beatles thing too because I had to know what more there is to say. I had to know.

The Beatles were the only band my mum ever gave a shit about, and I still got the Beatles tapes my mate Chris put on cassette tape in 1990 - I can still hear the hiss and pop of vinyl on the Let it Be and Magical Mystery Tour albums he used to tape them. It's easy to get a bit sick of the fab four - I had to tap out 20 minutes into that Get Back thing, just couldn't do it - but their songs still sound as sharp as ever.

So the magazine sat in the 'to read' pile by the dresser, sandwiched between some Criminal trades and some unexpected Groo. There was no rush, but I still had to know. Can there be anything new?

What I found is that there isn't much to say about The Beatles themselves, but you can still find new ways to listen to their biggest tunes, or watch their strange little films, or just groove to their peace and love vibe.

The lives of the blokes behind these immortal tunes have been thoroughly mined - you can find what George was doing on a random September afternoon in 1967 with relative ease - and there's only so much of that you can take before it gets bogged down in inane trivia

It's nothing to take away from their achievements, one of the most legitimately moving things I've ever seen was the Fab Four's visages finally appearing at the end of a Cirque du Soleil show.

But the music they made, you could write about that forever, and this magazine turned out to be full of fine writers just appreciating this shit for the ages. The short articles put everything in the right context, but it's the music that matters.

The story of the Beatles has been told over and over again, but it's heartening to see there is always something new to say about the music itself. Each song contains the infinite, if you look and listen hard enough.