More On The English Class System

In my post of November 26, 2010, I described our John's comment on the British class system.  Basically, John was making a sarcastic remark on the exploitation of the working class by the ruling class.

The bull that the English media was propounding in the mid-1960's was that the British class system was dissolving under years of "unprecedented prosperity" in England.

The American writer Tom Wolfe went to London at that time and in an essay called "The Noonday Underground" concluded that class stratification was alive and well in England---and the kids knew it:

     "There is hardly a kid in all of England who harbors any sincere hope of advancing himself in any very striking way by success at work.  Englishmen at an early age begin to sense that the fix is in, and all that work does is keep you afloat at the place you were born into."  

The real Beatles were useful to publicly promote the myth.  But at the Royal Command Performance they thumbed their noses at being used by the British ruling class and their media front men to push the myth.  And the two "instigators" of the rebellion--John and Paul--were replaced.

Our Paul and our John stepped into this social-political minefield and our Paul ended up fighting for his life to survive it.

Is "The Trojan Women" Another View of The Beatles' Woes?

In my post of June 11, 2014, I was talking about Jane Asher's role in the 1966 English adaptation of Euripides' play The Trojan Women.  I thought it was an intriguing title, so I read the play and the content was even more intriguing given the woes of The Beatles.

Give it a thought for a minute:  the original Beatles--John Lennon and Paul McCartney--were, I believe, replaced immediately following the Royal Command Performance concert of November 4, 1963.  The real John married Cynthia Powell on August 23, 1962.  The real Paul first met Jane Asher on April 18, 1963.  When the real John and the real Paul were replaced, our John and our Paul acquired the public personas and--publicly--the relationships of the real John and Paul.  I believe that reality was the theme of The Trojan Women.

In ancient times, armies warred and the victors plundered the wealth and captured the people of the vanquished.  The officers of the winning army would divide up the women as they wished:  "marrying" some of the women, making servants of the other women.

Look at the public photos of our Paul and our John--Cynthia and Jane were at their sides at The Beatles' movie premieres; they were together attending plays; they even went on vacations together.

Ronald Duncan who wrote the English version of the play was a pacifist and there is an anti-war element to the play, but the focus was on the despair of the women who survived when their husbands, fathers, sons, etc. were killed by the invading army.

I think Duncan might have had some knowledge of The Beatles' "rotating personnel" and decided to talk about the wife and girlfriend plight through the play.

I think Jane Asher was, in part, playing herself as the character Cassandra.  In the play, Cassandra was to become the concubine of Agamemnon and possibly be secretively wed to him.  Cassandra vows revenge and predicts she will see him killed.  We'll take the action as far as the brink of her being a concubine.  As she goes off stage she says:  "Dong!  Dong!  Toll the wedding bells!"  Which Paul was Cassandra predicting the death of?

The other interesting figure was the character Andromeda.  I think Duncan had an eye toward Cynthia Lennon when he wrote the character's lines.  Andromeda's husband Hector was killed and she had a small son who was killed by the Greeks in the play.  Julian Lennon lived, but part of the "terms of silence" might have been the threat of Cynthia's son dying if she didn't play along.

Jane and Cynthia worked themselves free of what must have seemed like an never-ending nightmare when the third version of Paul and John took over and established lives of their own.

But there was definitely the atmosphere of the ancient conduct toward women and families that I believe Ronald Duncan so deftly converted into a commentary on The Beatles with his adaptation of The Trojan Woman.

Other Voices, Part 14: A Message From Motown?

I heard a Smokey Robinson and The Miracles song last week that interested me because I had never heard it in Detroit (and I grew up there) and because it sounded like it might be about Paul and his song, "Yesterday."

The song is "Yester Love", recorded on December 12, 1967 and released May 13, 1968.  I probably never heard it in Detroit because it was recorded for Motown's European label, Tamla.  Tamla-Motown records were released in England by Parlophone, who recorded The Beatles' records.

Smokey Robinson used his usual wordplay on the word yesterday.  One of the lines of the song reads:       Today I'll be on my way to love my yester love.
Remember Paul's song, "I'll Be On My Way"?

I thought there might be backmasking on "Yesterlove" and, in fact, there is:

     In the reversed song at:
0:08-0:18:  Say goodbye to me (x3)
1:06-1:12:  Say goodbye to me (x2)
1:36-1:43   Say goodbye to Mickey (x2)

This isn't Smokey Robinson wanting to say goodbye to The Miracles, because, from what I've read, he didn't start wanting to retire from performing until 1969.  And, true, he doesn't say Paul, but because they released it on the Tamla label meant for an English audience, it might have been a message about the real Paul and our Paul.


Note: To let people know that The Miracles wanted people to understand there was intentional backmasking on the song, the beginning chords on the reversed song are the same as the ending chords on the forward song:   a clever way to alert people of the backmasking.