Rock 101
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Anthology 2, the second two-CD collection of Beatles archival material, delivers what volume one didn’t: a convincing account of the basis for the band’s utter musical and technological domination of pop music for a key period in the mid-60s and of course its reputation in the years since. It’s the (necessarily incomplete) sound track to Lewisohn’s book, and indeed, he supplies the liner notes. This record’s centerpiece is not “Real Love,” the three surviving members’ second ghoulish tampering with a work tape from John Lennon’s late solo career. Rather it’s the leadoff tracks of the set’s second disc. Here we hear the development of Lennon’s “Strawberry Fields Forever,” from a cautiously plucked acoustic demo to a variant of its crushing final electronic version. We revel in massive constructions like “Strawberry Fields,” “A Day in the Life,” and “I Am the Walrus” for the way they balance tensions, first between the songs’ studied lyrical surrealism and their intimations of humanity (in “Strawberry Fields,” the insistence of Lennon’s vocals; in “I Am the Walrus,” emotional moments like the “I’m crying” refrain bubbling up through the “yellow matter custards” and “semolina pilchards”), and second between the gentle acoustic feel of certain instruments and the reverberating electronics of others. The result is something inhuman and alive, real and hyperreal all at once.
Occasionally Lennon, McCartney, and producer Martin were brought down by their fellows. George Harrison is represented here by an alternate version of “Taxman,” in which he is not grateful for being born in a country that allowed a complete dweeb like himself to be a millionaire and having to drive away weeping girls with a stick at the age of 25. Still, one is finally left with a sense of something like respect for a band that rigorously innovated while enjoying a level of popularity that should have prevented it. What comes through again and again is the band’s unerring taste. They were helped a great deal by Martin, and taste is perhaps not the word to use for a song like “I Am the Walrus.” However dazzling each track here is, the finished version has more weight, more gravitas, more balance and truth. What they made and how they did it was different from what came before, and, as teen idols come and garage bands go, remains persuasive and dominant to this day. It’s called rock.
