All You Need Is Jesus

by John Waters

The movie Yesterday imagines a world without The Beatles.  Continue Reading »

17 Sep 2019

Carl’s Rock Songbook #75: Bayles on the Beatles Beating Motown

by Carl Scott

Martha Bayles’s expertise, which besides her punchy prose is the main attraction of her Hole In Our Soul , extends beyond the p’s and q’s of American popular music, but also covers the impact various theories of modernism and art had upon the music’s development. She is . . . . Continue Reading »

11 Dec 2012

Carl’s Rock Songbook #74: Bayles on Beatles Music

by Carl Scott

Can’t talk about the 60s, especially 60s “Love,” without dealing with the Beatles. Last time we were occupied with one of their so-so late 60s numbers, but here we’ll be giving them their real due, by considering their early style. Let’s begin with this , part of a recent . . . . Continue Reading »

7 Dec 2012

Carl’s Rock Songbook #73: The Beatles, “All You Need Is Love”

by Carl Scott

Musically, not that impressive, an instance of the Beatles’ rock-meets-music-hall mode, but winsome enough if you don’t listen to it often. It’s fun, and it knows it’s sing-song-y. Irony-hounds might even ask whether that hints at some kind of reversal being the true message. But, no, the . . . . Continue Reading »

6 Dec 2012

Carl’s Rock Songbook #72: The Beatles, “It’s Only Love”

by Carl Scott

Back to where our world begins, the 1960s. The English word “love” can refer to a number of different sorts of love that other languages, classical Greek particularly, kept more distinct in their vocabulary. The distinctions between agape, philos, and eros, for example, are fairly . . . . Continue Reading »

29 Nov 2012

Carl’s Rock Songbook #44: It Was the Dawning of the Age of the Harpsichord

by Carl Scott

When I hear the harpsichord in Vivaldi or Bach, if I picture anything, it would be rococo drawing rooms—George Washington asking Jane Austen for the pleasure of a dance. When I hear it in pop, perhaps thanks to Peanuts and the great Vince Guaraldi , I picture green lawns and white . . . . Continue Reading »

23 May 2012