When George Harrison of the Beatles passed away in 2001, it was an untimely reminder that despite their godlike status, the Beatles would not last for ever. Their songs might, but the creators of the most memorable music in rock history had suddenly been reduced by half. It was tragic when John Lennon was gunned down in 1980, but with George’s passing the time had come to honour the Beatles and their contribution to music and youth culture and salute the way many of us Kiwi ‘baby boomers’ viewed our very existence.
The Beatles took over the world. Even New Zealand was not immune. At the height of their powers in 1964, during the initial Beatle ‘explosion’, the British band toured New Zealand and for eight frenetic days turned the country on its ear. Those of us who were there and followed their royal progress now look back with wistful pleasure to those heady days when the Beatles burst on to the scene and left no stone unturned in redefining rock music and youthful aspirations.
It wasn’t all beer and skittles. There was a certain amount of upheaval as New Zealand strengthened its conservative ramparts and reactionary forces came out of the woodwork. It was a bit like an invasion, but the Beatles came in peace and enriched many young lives. Along the way, they endeared themselves to older generations, worried parents and baffled noise-sensitive octogenarians. Even city and town fathers came to the party with civic receptions and unctuous announcements of ‘changing times’.
Then, and even to this day, the Beatles acquired adherents from younger generational groups. The music could not be denied. Beatle music has that peculiar magic of always being ‘in fashion’. The strength of the songs has passed the test of time. Indeed, John Lennon once said of ‘I am the walrus’ that it would always be ahead of its time. Not for the first time, he was right.
In 1964, with the Beatles at the helm, nothing seemed impossible. The passage of forty years has reminded us that life imposes its own restrictions. When the Beatles broke up, John Lennon announced in song that ‘the dream is over’. Back then, this was true in the sense that the Beatles’ supernova reign had reached the end of the long and winding road. However, no one could deny the ongoing influence of the Beatles’ music and the very value system the Beatles had inspired. ‘Don’t dream it’s over,’ New Zealander Neil Finn implored in song several years later. It could have been a direct rebuttal of Lennon’s sentiments, or simply a fine Beatlesque ballad that reminded Kiwis – and the world – just how pervasive the Beatle hubris continued to be.
Rutherford’s splitting of the atom, Hillary’s ascent of Everest, the All Blacks beating the Springboks in 1956: such momentous events are part of Kiwi folklore. The 1951 waterfront strike and the 1981 Springbok tour are blips we wish could be expunged from our past. However, another tour, that famous ‘eight days a week’ in 1964 when the Beatles included us in their global blitzkrieg, needs to be honoured as a special time that will never happen again in quite the same way.
For the past ten years, I have felt the time was right to celebrate the Beatles’ tour of New Zealand. The passing of George Harrison in 2001 added an urgent dimension. Now, in the year 2004, it is twice times ‘twenty years ago today,’ as Paul McCartney so memorably put it in Sergeant Pepper. In an age when repackaged Beatles music still rockets to the top of world charts, when compilations of once-discarded out-takes and warm-up tracks sell millions of copies, it is high time. For many New Zealanders of the new century, the Beatle fringes may have fallen out and Rickenbacker guitars lie gathering dust in corners, but the essence of the Beatles survives. Just the other day, down on a Waikato farm, I heard an aging arch-conservative whistling ‘Eleanor Rigby’, which is not an easy tune to whistle.
Who knows – the influence of the Beatles may begin to fade as we enter an unenlightened age of high-tech tribal chants and digital noise. The lofty sentiments of freedom and peace, ideas championed by the Beatles, may be chopped down by a shallow and hollow hedonism. The consequence of this could be the imposition of restrictions on Kiwi society that may see ‘dangerous’ influences like Beatles music consigned to the burning pyre.
In the meantime, it seems right to commemorate a special time, a splendid time, when thousands of believers helped ward off the forces of negativism and darkness. ‘Beware of darkness,’ the late George Harrison sang in one of his post-Beatle dirges. It behoves us to heed the warning. We don’t know how lucky we were to come within the Beatles’ orbit.