Neil V.

Rosenberg
Folklore Department
Memorial University of Newfoundland
St. Johns, Newfoundland, Canada

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~~~

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TAKING POPULAR CULTURE SERIOUSLY: THE BEATLES

Geoffrey Marshalls article, On Taking the Beatles Seriously:
Problems of Text, (Journal of Popular Culture, I11 1969, p. 28-34)
is one of those rare articles that misses the point in a truly provocative way. Marshall states (quite correctly, in the opinion of this
reader) that the Beatles are worthy of the same sort of attention as
classical performers and jazz greats. He asks that they and their publishers behave in a responsible way, a way befitting the presentation
of serious art. This is taking popular culture too seriously and
not seriously enough.
Marshall seems t o assume that the techniques of the student
of art literature and music can be applied to popular culture-if only
popular culture will conform t o the rules. Yet why should it? The
Beatles obligation t o their public is t o entertain. They do this by
means of colorfully packaged phonograph recordings. Period.
This limited obligation did not begin with the Beatles, nor
with rock music. Jazz researchers of the thirties and forties and the
more recent students of blues and country music discovered very

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JOURNAL OF POPULAR CULTURE

early that few performers (the trade jargon is artists) were concerned with annoying details such as where and when and by whom
songs were recorded. Moreover, errors of transcription were (and
are) rife in hillbilly songbooks in the same way that they are in the
published texts of Beatles songs. This is because popular performers
from A.P. Carter to the Beatles consider the text as sung to be their
basic statement, and the only one necessary. To borrow Marshalls
words, you are supposed to estimate syntax from listening.2
We cannot expect performers or their recording companies
to regularly and carefully provide texts or recording data. We cannot
expect it because it has virtually nothing to do with record sales.
When words and recording data are important to sales, record companies provide them-as in the brochures included with Folkways
and Folk Legacy recordings which print the often obscure words of
folk performances and which are aimed at serious students of folksong; and as in the neat discographical data provided by RCA Victor
for their Vintage Series of jazz, pop and folk reissues, aimed at
moldy fig collectors. The printing of texts for several Beatles
albums cannot be interpreted as a standard which has not been approached often enough. It is, instead, a clever gimmick which increases the salability of the record-especially amongst those who
take the Beatles seriously, and interpret the printed jacket as evidence
of the Beatles poetic seriousness. However, no serious artist-writer
or musician-is obligated to give his audience anything more than
his creation, which is the recording itself in the case of the Beatles.
I t cannot be denied that we need to learn as much as we can
about every aspect of the Beatles if we are to understand what they
are doing and how they are doing it. But if we are going to take the
Beatles seriously then we must do the serious research ourselves.
The files are there at Capitol, EM1 and Apple records; the Beatles
have been interviewed in the past and will be interviewed in the
future. As this is written the most recent issue of Rolling Stone has
an extended discussion of the Abbey Road recording by George
H a r r i ~ o n .Other
~
Beatles data of the sort Marshall asks for is buried
in scores of similar (though more ephemeral) sources that form the
printed wake of rock music and its parallel forms.

THE BEATLES

55

It is doubtful that the careful printing of all the Beatles song

texts will satisfy many scholars. Why not go one step further and
transcribe the texts from the records using the International Phonetic
Alphabet? Wouldnt this be more accurate? And shouldnt the
music be transcribed, too? The musical arrangements published in
the authorized Beatles song books raise the same kind of questions
as the texts.4 It seems obvious that each serious scholar will have to
make his own transcriptions, depending on the aims of his study.
In short, the Beatles have yet to encounter their Boswell or
their Francis James child. We cannot expect John, Paul, George and
Ringo or their various publishers t o act in either of these roles.
Yet it is not a completely uncharted sea. In fact the major problem
facing any serious student of the Beatles is becoming acquainted
with and sifting through the vast amount of data available. Some
of it can be found, no doubt, in the Archives of the Center for the
Study of Popular Culture at Bowling Green University. Another
center containing valuable data of this sort is the John Edwards
Memorial Foundation at U.C.L.A. Much data is or was on the newsstands.
Taking popular culture seriously must involve research techniques which fit the media. Boobs or not, we must get it for ourselves
and not expect popular culture to hand it to us on a silver platter. 5
NOTES
See D.K. Wilgus, An Introduction to the Study of Hillbilly
Music, Journal of American Folklore, 7 8 (1965), 200.
Marshall, 31.
3George Harrison on Abbey Road, Rolling Stone, No. 44
(October 18, 1069), 8.
4For example, see Matching Music Book: Revolver, Chicago,
Hansen Publications, 1966. Transcriptions which parallel these (and
present similar problems) are discussed by Judith McCulloh in

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JOURNAL OF POPULAR CULTURE

Hillbilly Records and Tune Transcriptions, Western Folklore, 26

(1967), 225-244.

5I wish to thank Ann M. Rosenberg and Richard E. Buehler

for reading and criticizing this article.

* * * * * *
The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet
1970

by

John P. Kowal
that was about fifteen years ago,
I mean we grew up on that stuff
it was a bad model for life anyway
I never had an older brother
or younger brother, or any brother
at all
and Mom was never so almost-glamorous
and hip
and Dad never had all the right answers
and understood us like a peer,
and solved all the problems for everyone
at the High School
and we didnt live in Southern California
and we never had our own rock n roll
band and a serving counter, but we did have a
for-red kitchen table
and Dad never had an easy job
and we never had two cars
and the girls werent that good looking
and high school wasnt that good
and the weather wasnt always perfect
and Mom and Dad didnt always come up with that
clutch answer and save the high school dance
and who went to a soda shop after school?
and Mom and Dad worked hard and were tired
I can still remember Mama
even without Peggy Wood
and Father knew best, despite Robert Young