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MeIf anyone needed a reminder of the enduring nature of the Beatles, the past few weeks have provided a glut. First, there is a small matter Dungeon Lane BoysPaul McCartney’s 20th studio album, described as “a funky, guitar-driven album” by the Guardian.
When England announced their World Cup squad, the theme song was Come Together, which was played together a film about New York’s leading youth it’s a video of a young, puckish John Lennon. That same week Stephen Colbert was played from his final episode of The Late Show with Paul McCartney translation of Hello Goodbye.
In the small town of Felixstowe, 70 people gathered to campaign for “Beatles Day” and redoing the Sgt Peppers coverwhere a week goes by without “new” findings souvenirs and paintings teaming up with the Fab Four.
At the other end of the scale, Peter Murrell, the disgraced former SNP leader who admitted cheating this week, is a fan – and used party money to buy a special Beatles set set for £1,475.
Ian Leslie, best-selling author of John and Paul: A Love Story in Music, said the UK was in the midst of a new wave of Beatlemania reminiscent of the 1990s revival. “We just started to realize that their culture was great,” said Leslie, who thinks the band has been misjudged by the Rolling Stones over the years.
“That race is useless; they moved to their own plane.” You think of Shakespeare: we still read Marlowe and other Elizabethan playwrights, but the bard is – like the Beatles – in a different category.
The Beatles hold a special place in the British cultural mind. Their music has resonated for over 60 years, while the band’s relationships, breakups and tragedies provided a psychodrama that still resonates today.
Leslie said the latest interest comes from Peter Jackson’s eight-hour documentary Come backwhich gave the audience a keen and intense look at the group. Undoubtedly the next big event for the Beatles will be the four Sam Mendes’s albums dedicated to the members of the band, which are due in 2028, which are coming up in culture and are expected to overshadow Jackson’s films in terms of their influence.
Mendes’ film, which is dedicated to a different member of the group, seems to want to restart the discussion of conflicts and relationships, with Paul Mescal as Paul McCartney, Harris Dickinson as John Lennon, Joseph Quinn as George Harrison and Barry Keoghan as Ringo Starr. It’s not the only movie project in the works: Christian Schwochow’s BBC drama Hamburg days it’s making again.
Cultural critic Simon Reynolds, whose book You’re still dreaming is out in June, said the group’s transformation from pop rockers to psychedelic journeymen in less than a decade made them “the biggest hit that ever happened in pop music”.
They also had a British revolution that punched above its weight. Reynolds said. “Here is this small, tired, suppressed culture thousands of kilometers away that unexpectedly meets – I would say, with the Stones and the Beatles – covering the country.”
When it comes to the Fab Four and their portrayal in the movies, opinions have already started. Pattie Boyd, ex-wife of George Harrison, who will be portrayed in upcoming biopics with Aimee Lou Wood, he was angry not affiliated with Mendes or his team.
Leslie said that if the Beatles’ drums are loud now, they will be turned up to 11 when Mendes’ films are released. “It’s going to be like a second wave of Beatlemania,” he said.
It’s a band that people said, in 1963, might have one year of luck. Now 60 years will be the biggest cultural moment of the year.
