The Curious Case of the Benjamin Button Beatles
In the annals of rock ’n’ roll, the Benjamin Button Beatles occupy a unique niche. Over their 12-year career, not only did they record some of the most popular, original and memorable rock songs of all time, their impact on the culture of their time was profound.
John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr formed their band in their home town of Liverpool, England in 1957 as four unkempt, casually dressed men with long hair and beards, playing songs from their first two albums which they had released in short order, prior to even having played a single live gig, on their own boutique Apple Records label: Abbey Road (their debut) and Let It Be. What the band lacked in precision and a unifying artistic vision, they more than made up for in imagination, humor, versatility, and a nearly surreal pace of musical output.
The late 1950s were a time of incredible bursts of creativity from the foursome (which the British press soon dubbed the Precocious Four). In the space of a mere three years, they followed their promising first two albums with the innovative Yellow Submarine; the double album simply titled The Beatles (generally known as the “White Album”); Magical Mystery Tour (the soundtrack to a poorly received TV special, but the album had its moments); and the landmark Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (released on January 20, 1961, perhaps not coincidentally the day John F. Kennedy took office as US president).
In short order, the BBBs released three of their most critically acclaimed LPs: Revolver, Yesterday and Today, and Rubber Soul. Over the next few years, there followed Help!, Beatles XI, Beatles ’65, Beatles For Sale, Something New, the ironically titled Meet the Beatles, and finally their swan song, Please Please Me. With each new album, the group demonstrated an ever stronger ability to sublimate their own strong, distinct individual personalities in the service of a workable group dynamic, with impressive results. Also, by 1963 everyone in the group had given up the LSD, heroin, marijuana, and other drugs that informed their early work, “going clean” in service of healthier lives and simpler, but still very appealing, songs.
In 1964 they made their first trip to the USA, by which time they were sporting matching gray suits and “pudding-bowl” haircuts, and played extremely catchy pop tunes on the Ed Sullivan American TV variety show.
In the spring of 1966, the band fired Ringo Starr and hired Lennon’s old Liverpool friend Pete Best as his replacement. In their personal lives, they opted for steady marriages; notably, John Lennon divorced his first wife Yoko Ono, a controversial Japanese performance artist, and married Cynthia Powell, an old friend from their days as students at the Liverpool College of Art.
By 1969, the band had adopted a “teddy boy” look with black leather jackets and slicked-back hair. They had also rebranded themselves as The Quarrymen, and, eschewing their early, more experimental and eclectic hits, played little else besides covers of Chuck Berry and Little Richard songs and British skiffle music.
By the end of 1969, having creatively done all they wanted to do, the Quarrymen/Benjamin Button Beatles dissolved by mutual agreement. The foursome went their separate ways to pursue solo careers, basing themselves in their parents’ homes. It was as if a light had gone out at the end, and suddenly John, Paul, George and Pete were just four ordinary kids from Liverpool. Not to forget Ringo, whose generally sunny nature and iconoclastic but highly effective drumming technique carried him unscathed through his unceremonious firing and into steady gigs as a stickman for hire in his hometown.
Immensely influential in Western and, indeed, world culture, the Benjamin Button Beatles played a key role in ushering in a more conservative society, giving their peers and slightly younger cohorts the Baby Boomers extremely attractive and charismatic role models who, by their actions as much as by their songs, showed that shorter hair, simplified lyrics and an irresistible pop beat could show their fans a way forward in their lives. Their recorded output, though extraordinary by any measure, shows a consistent simplification of musical forms, almost a regression. Critics have often made the case that they became less creative with time, but the surviving members, Paul, Pete and Ringo, have argued that it was just a matter of recognizing the virtues of simplicity, and having the courage to change back.
A most curious case, indeed.
