Guess which two are included in the documentary?
The Beatles performed four numbers: two John songs and two Paul songs. So, was “All My Loving” featured four separate times in Anthology to keep the ratio of Paul songs to John songs “in check?” The Beatles Anthology also features two numbers from a famous early television appearance, on the Swedish show Drop In. That can’t be an accident or coincidence. Still, the totals for the first four episodes are telling: out of a total of 94 songs or snippets shown performed, 41 are John, 41 are Paul, 10 are George, and 2 are Ringo. I am sorry, gentle readers, I have failed you. The documentary is so basic, ham-fisted, boring, amateur, repetitive, bland, and awful that my pen, paper, and I could stand counting things for only five hours. To prove this, I began to re-watch the entire thing, meticulously keeping a list of all the featured performances.įULL DISCLOSURE: I only got through half of it this time. I am now convinced that, going into The Beatles Anthology, the documentarians were tied to a casual or legal agreement to feature Lennon and McCartney equally. Plus, in Anthology’s captured live performances, lead singer status grants even more “Front Man Facetime” in the documentary. After 1963, the lead singer of a song is pretty good indicator of who the principal songwriter was. Though every song the two men wrote during the period of 1961 to 1970 was credited to “Lennon-McCartney,” John and Paul didn’t collaborate on songs to the extent that people may think. I puzzled and puzzled until my puzzler came through, and I realized why “All My Loving” is featured four separate times. “Whoops!” I said to no one as down the rabbit hole I tumbled. The other three, not so much they were only parts of larger concerts where other songs were performed.) Then why are we treated to four identical performances of “All My Loving”? What could possibly be the reason? Even with the expansive canvas of eleven full hours to fill, why repeat that song so many times? Were the performances stylistically different? (No, they are exactly the same, except for their locations.) Were the specific performances of historical note? (As the first song performed on their famous first Ed Sullivan Show appearance, yes. George Harrison, who died in 2001, was alive for the Anthology project and sat for hours of interviews, as did bandmates Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr.Īs I watched the Anthology over two cold January days, I wondered why any documentarian would feature four separate performances of the song “All My Loving” over four episodes of the series. He is represented by archival television and radio interview snippets. John Lennon was assassinated in 1980, fifteen years before The Beatles Anthology was put together. My thesis here is a simple one: It’s the winners who get to write the history.
0 kommentar(er)
