The British Invasion - The Beatles and The Rolling Stones

The Beatles

I still remember the day, that I heard The Beatles for the first time. Ten years old, sitting on my desk doing homework. Mathematics. I guess. Just dropped the writing. The vocals, the harmonies, the catchy chorus and the “yeah-yeah” made me forget everything and I began drumming with my pencil and ruler. No. 17 on the Danish Top Twenty, and It was just the start. I combed my Elvis-hair far away, washed out the grease and started a stubborn fight to keep my hair long. I do not think my parents understood the importance of free-growing hair. It lasted some years.

"She Loves You"

Musically The Beatles were a revelation and for a typical Danish school boy with a very limited English vocabulary (has it been better?), it was not that difficult to singalong. Every new album changed direction, Revolver, Rubber Soul, Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club (my first LP), the strange double EP, Magical Mystery Tour, The White Album, which bristle in all directions and my undisputed Beatles-favourite, Abbey Road. I discovered, that George Harrison had been suppressed by Lennon-McCartneys endless creativity, but when the band was cracking and slowly breaking up, songs like While My Guitar Gently Weeps and Something were stand out tracks. It was not, that I was bored by Lennon and McCartney, but George just sounded fresh, a bit naïve, but extensively nice.

Rubber Soul changed the lyrics, but

The Fab Four never lost their touch, not even when they were writing new songs all by themselves. Lennons Strawberry Fields Forever, combining childhood nostalgia with his present, clearly depressed state of mind and McCartneys one man show, Fool on the Hill, never get me bored. Not at all.But the Beatles-lyrics has always seemed less relevant for me than the music. Especially up to Nowhere Man (Rubber Soul 1965) the songs were banal, formula pop song lyrics about love. And nothing else. Then the songs got more personal, while the band members slowly were drifting apart from each other. Maybe that killed the controversies and the compromises, and conclusively left a little space for the suppressed weeping guitar. I do not know. But the latest recorded album, Abbey Road, released in September 1969 was a monumental epitaph, a tour de force, eminently produced by the master, George Martin (1926-2016). Let´s forget the Phil Spectorized Let It Be (1970).

Maybe I am offending the Holy Grail, but the Beatles-lyrics constantly lagged behind the music,

The Rolling Stones

The Stones went in a different direction than the Beatles. Musically their combination of rhythm and blues with pop music turned out to be rough and provocative. When Satisfaction and Let´s Spend the Night Together took the love song to a more concrete, physical level, The Beatles seemed like a bunch of nice guys compared to The Stones. The controverses between multi-musician Brian Jones and Jagger/Richards led to Jones´ dismissal in 1969. Shortly after Brian Jones drowned in the swimming pool at his farmhouse in East Sussex. The drug abuse was part of The Stones´ image, and the lyrics often related to the band members experiences from drugs. The Beatles were much more discreet about their encounters and experience with LSD, marihuana etc.

"Street Fightin´ Man"

Some Stones-hits can be categorized as having a historical narrative, but the lyrics never got really interesting. At least Street Fightin´ Man was referring to uproar and protests among young people in the wake of the Vietnam War. Jagger told later, that he got the inspiration from the violent clashes, when the police and activists started fighting in connection to a demonstration in front of the American embassy in London. The song was a big single hit, taken from the fine album, Beggars Banquet. The song was not officially banned, but some radio stations in the USA dropped the controversial song. But it still remains as one of the few songs from The Stones with political content

.In the last part Jagger sings:

Hey, said my name is called Disturbance
I'll shout and scream, I'll kill the king
I'll rail at all his servants

Well, now what can a poor boy do
Except to sing for a rock and roll band?
'Cause in sleepy London Town
There's just no place for street fighting man, no

Get down

"Gimme Shelter"

My personal Stones-anthem I no doubt Gimme Shelter from Let It Bleed (1969). The opening of an intense album. Keith Richards guitar that slides up the chords in a way, I´ll never manage and then:

Ooh, a storm is threatening
My very life today
If I don't get some shelter
Ooh yeah, I'm gonna fade away

War, children, it's just a shot away
It's just a shot away…

Simple, effective, But does not stand out compared to the likes of Pete Townshend and Ray Davies.

Don´t get we wrong. I really enjoy The Stones, especially the Mick Taylor-period.