ROBERT FREEMAN
And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make."
The Beatles ended their final album with these words 40 years ago this September. But, as we all now know, this song on Abbey Road, simply called The End, signalled nothing of the kind. Four decades on, the Beatles are back - bigger than ever.
On Sept. 9, 2009 (or 09/09/09, in case you didn't get that), Apple Corps Ltd. and EMI Music will release digitally remastered versions of all 12 of the Beatles' original studio albums as well as two compilation albums.
On that same day, the much anticipated The Beatles: Rock Band hits the stores. The 45-song catalogue includes such high-voltage hits as I Saw Her Standing There and Get Back. Personally, though, I'm looking forward to watching a whole new generation of Fab Four wannabes attempt to play and sing along with John Lennon's seriously twisted I Am The Walrus.
Although all this music has long been available on both vinyl and CDs, expect spectacular sales. After all, when the CD 1 - featuring all of the Beatles' No.1 hits - appeared in 2000, it sold more than 12 million copies in the first three weeks.
In many ways, the Beatles never really left us. Despite a relatively brief eight-year recording career, their music remained vibrant and relevant even as a parade of other pop-culture phenomena - from disco to punk to rap - waxed and waned.
If this were all due to baby-boomer nostalgia, it wouldn't be so noteworthy. But that simply isn't the case. Among the fans who will snap up those remastered CDs are many young enough to be Paul McCartney's grandkids. And let's face it: Boomer nostalgia doesn't really cut it for the Rock Band crowd.
Similarly, the Beatles sound - that distinctive blend of vocal harmony, rich instrumentation and infectious melodies - continues to influence much younger musicians. Think of performers such as California's She & Him (a.k.a. Zooey Deschanel, 29, and M. Ward, 35) or Canada's own Rufus Wainwright, 36, and Joel Plaskett, 34.
One of the unique things about the Beatles was their ability to both anticipate and reflect what was happening in the 1960s and to profoundly influence nearly every aspect of popular culture, from hairstyles and clothes to political discourse. While they had particular appeal to youth, their music always bridged the generations. That old vaudevillian Ed Sullivan gave them their big American break and even Frank Sinatra covered (badly) a few of their hits.
This pan-generational appeal remains intact. LOVE, Cirque du Soleil's ambitious reimagining of the Beatles' musical legacy, has wowed crowds in Las Vegas since 2006 - even though Vegas audiences typically skew older and squarer (think Celine Dion or Elvis at his nadir). By contrast, audiences for Julie Taymor's equally ambitious 2007 movie Across the Universe definitely skewed younger. It didn't hurt that the film featured hot young actors Evan Rachel Wood and Jim Sturgess in lead roles, voicing spirited renditions of Beatles favourites.
So what accounts for the Beatles' remarkable staying power? For people of a certain age (I count myself among them), it's an intriguing question.
Although only eight years old at the time, I can clearly recall huddling around the family TV set in Edmonton that fateful night in February, 1964, when Ed Sullivan introduced the Beatles to North America. As the teenage girls swooned and the Liverpudlians charged their way through She Loves You and I Want To Hold Your Hand, some part of me knew that the ground had shifted and things would never be quite the same.
I was far from alone. In Converse, Tex., nine-year-old Steve Earle had a similar reaction. As Mr. Earle, now a music legend in his own right, described in a recent tribute essay, "I bought She Loves You the next day and every subsequent single as they were released. I had the fanzines, the model kits, the toy guitar, hell, I even had a Beatle wig until the next-door neighbour's basset hound ate it."
None of us then could have guessed at the band's longevity. Part of the secret, I believe, is that the Beatles were constantly evolving. Unlike many of their contemporaries - think the Dave Clark Five or Herman's Hermits - they didn't remain loveable mop tops for long. They packed an incredible amount of experience and experimentation into those eight brief years.
As a result, we can go back and listen to the soundtrack of a decade, whether it's the early exuberance of It Won't Be Long or the hard-earned wisdom of later songs such as Let It Be.
Through it all, though, is a strong streak of joy and hope, which I think helps to explain why this music has stood the test of time. They started out singing about the love between a boy and a girl and ended up singing about the love that could change a world. The common thread is a positive, life-affirming vision that is as appealing in a decade marked by terrorist attacks and ill-fated desert wars as it was in an era shadowed by Vietnam and political assassinations.
There is also an endearing innocence to much of the Beatles songbook, perhaps best summed up by Philip Norman, author of Shout!: The Beatles In Their Generation: "Other rock bands or singers may sell more records or make more money, but none has ever been more loved than the Beatles. And if you play a Beatles track to a small child now, as much as any other time in the last 40 years, they instantly love it, this quality of love that the Beatles immediately created between them and their audience."
As long as that bond endures, so too will the Beatles. And like Strawberry Fields, that may be forever.
Brian Bergman is a Calgary-based writer and editor.