Hi,
Been traveling for some months. Mike, I've listened to your tape, felt like
watching an old movie ( that's a compliment ) and will talk to you in private.
This msg is aimed at Ernie: just to prove I'm not the only one who doesn't care
much about the Beatles! You pulled the fight! :-)
Best wishes,
Caio
Here it goes:
Celebrity and Mortality
by Joseph Sobran
Toward the end of his all-too-brief life, the great pop singer and jazz pianist
Nat "King" Cole phoned his record company. The switchboard operator answered:
"Capitol Records, home of the Beatles." Cole slammed the phone down in disgust.
Understandably. Cole had been one of Capitol's first great stars, and here the
company that owed him so much was identifying itself with four upstart kids from
England-who were, by Cole's standards, hardly musicians at all.
Today, when a Beatle dies, it's like another Kennedy expiration. The world falls
all over itself in fulsome eulogies, as if a great cultural and spiritual light
had been snuffed out. When Cole died of cancer in 1965, there was none of the
silly fuss we saw last week at George Harrison's passing. It was just a sad
moment; we had lost a classy entertainer, and it was enough to say that.
Nothing against the Beatles, mind you. I never joined in the Harry Potter-scale
enthusiasm they inspired in my generation, but I liked them well enough, and
they produced a half-dozen or so good songs, tunes that stay with you. Not bad,
but nothing great. I long ago quit playing their records, which don't wear well;
whereas I still listen to Cole often.
I always marvel at the way his smoky voice handles standards like "Caravan,"
"Ain't Misbehavin'," "Don't Get Around Much Anymore," "A Cottage for Sale,"
"These Foolish Things," "Once in a While," "You're the Cream in My Coffee," and
others too numerous to list. Romantic, polished, witty, singing every note
perfectly and endowing every word with meaning, he was a superb interpreter of
the finest American pop music. He didn't always choose the best material, and he
was unfortunate in some of his arrangers; but the records he made with his own
trio and with Billy May hold up extremely well.
One way to appreciate Cole is to try singing along with him. You'll quickly
realize how deceptively easy he makes it sound. His timing is flawless, he
reaches every note without the slightest strain, and he can hold a note
indefinitely. His style is as subtle as it is powerful.
And George Harrison? Nice fellow, mediocre musician. We know far too much about
his personal life; not that it was disgraceful, merely uninteresting. He dabbled
in Hinduism and adopted an air of profundity that never bore fruit in his work;
his pseudo-spiritual song "My Sweet Lord," far from expressing depths of Eastern
mysticism, was such an obvious rip-off of the old Motown hit "He's So Fine" that
I wasn't surprised when he was successfully sued for copyright violation. If he
didn't realize what he was doing, he had no ear for music. He also didn't have
much of a voice.
This sounds harsher than I intend it to. I merely mean that Harrison's work
can't stand up under scrutiny. Like most rock music, it's childish. In order to
celebrate him, you almost have to talk the kind of nonsense we were hearing so
much of last week.
Nat Cole's personal life was probably far more interesting, but nobody cared
much about it, and he liked it that way. He was content to be an entertainer,
and he took pride in his work without losing his modesty.
The Beatles were not so much entertainers as celebrities. Everyone knew their
music wasn't meant to be savored, or even listened to; their screaming fans made
them inaudible, proving that the music wasn't the point. Celebrity-worship was.
The adoration they received made them self-important, John Lennon most
egregiously. He quickly succumbed to the temptation to make public
pronouncements on politics, religion, sex, and art, proving only that he took
himself as seriously as his fans did. He became brooding, shocking, and
generally as "artistic" as all get-out. It was dramatically apt that he should
be shot by a crazed fan.
Pure, distilled celebrity - as the man said, being famous for being famous. The
Beatles inevitably broke up, each supposing he could take his share of the
group's fame and be independently interesting. Maybe start a new religion or
something. After Beatlehood, the sky's the limit.
Maybe those of us who have never been Beatles shouldn't judge them too severely.
That degree of celebrity would test anyone's maturity, never mind four boys in
their twenties. Still, we might reflect on the fact that none of Nat Cole's fans
ever tried to shoot him.
December 22, 2001
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