Postcard from Bishkek

It was forty five years ago today, back in 1966, (when I was an impressionable 13 year old), that an event took place in San Fransisco which was to be a milestone in musical history, even though we didn’t realize it at the time.  It was the last time that “The Beatles”, (The Fab Four of John, George, Paul and Ringo), gave their last concert performance before paying fans.

That not to say that it was “the day the music died” … as the group continued producing “studio albums” which included much of their better known work: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (in 1967), The Beatles (more commonly known as the White Album, in 1968), Yellow Submarine (in 1969), Abbey Road (in 1969) and Let It Be (in 1970).

Indeed, it was to be another three years before an irrevocable split was to break the group up, Lennon announcing to the others in September, 1969 that he was leaving the band.  They had just recorded their twelfth and final album, “Let it be”, which was released in May the next year.   Despite rumours to the contrary, they were never to reform and give a “reunited” concert or issue a “reunited” album – although individual members of the group were to collaborate and perform together, occasionally appearing on each other’s albums.

The death of John Lennon in New York intervened but, even if hadn’t been shot, it is doubtful that the group would have come together again.

They had already indicated that live concert performances were something they wanted to move away from, in favour of studio recording.  When plans were being laid for their second film, “Help!”, they apparently presented the producers with a list of things they wanted to see in the film, and those that they didn’t, arising from their experience of filming “A Hard Day’s Night” – including “no film of concert performances”.

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The Beatles have a remarkable place in the history of popular music, partly for the range of their music and their resulting influence on the subsequent development of popular music but mainly for their sheer popularity, (which led to John Lennon’s infamous controversial assertion that they were “more popular than Jesus”).  The phenomenon of Beatlemania swept through, not just Britain, but also America and, so it seemed, the whole world.  Beatle haircuts and collarless jackets became the rage – even I had them, (well, the jacket, my hair didn’t lend itself well to the hairstyle).

Their influence even reached into the Soviet Union and they are still a recognized force here in Kyrgyzstan today.

There are groups, for example, that perform Beatles numbers in restaurants whilst diners tuck in to whatever they have ordered from the menu.  They have quite a wide repertoire covering most of the classics – but, for some reason, Yesterday is clearly everyone’s favourite.  On one occasion I was at a Sixtieth Birthday party for an acquaintance.  It was a grand affair in a restaurant with people seated at several large round tables.  From time to time, guests were called up in turn to make a toast and present their gift … that much I had expected, but what took me by surprise was the fact that everyone also sang a song.  I was quite perturbed – you’ve probably never heard me sing, but if you had, you would understand why.  Even though I used to sing in the school choir, I find it hard to maintain a tune, and I never very few songs through from beginning to end. It was quite an international gathering and people sang songs in different languages, so when it was my turn to be called upon the master of ceremonies said something like: “We’ve heard songs in Kyrgyz and Russian, Uzbek and Tajik, French and German.  Now we are to be treated to one in English.”  I stood uncertainly and one of the guests at my table sensed my unease and whispered, “Ian, sing Yesterday … everyone knows it and will sing along with you.”  For the record: – although Yesterday is one of the songs that I do know all the way through, I chose a different song.

On another occasion, I was invited as a dinner guest by a swimming coach whop had represented the Soviet Union at one of the Olympic Games, and at one point in the evening he rose from the table and said, “Ian come with me, I have something to show you.”   I didn’t know him particularly well, so I was intrigued as we left his daughter to entertain the other guests and he led me through his large, (large for Kyrgyzstan, that is), apartment.  He led me into a room where there stood an old reel-to-reel tape recorder and he carefully selected and mounted a tape and pressed the “play” button.  I listened, but all I could hear was a crackly white noise.  “What do you think of that?”, he asked.   Confused and nonplussed, I asked what I was listening to, and he explained.  It was a recording he made back in the 1960’s, when he was a student, of a Radio Luxembourg broadcast, which at that time was “illegal” in the Soviet Union.  The “white noise” that I was listening to was a Beatles song.  I strained my ears … could it be?, well, maybe behind all that crackle I could detect some music and, yes, maybe I could recognize it as a Beatles song – but, to this day, I am not certain.

There was even talk at one time that an enterprising entrepreneur wanted to set up a Beatles Museum somewhere in the Issyk Kul oblast, but nothing seemed to come of it.

But it’s not just us “old fogies” who revere the Fab Four and their work … I have a friend, a twenty year old student, who can quote whole songs at me … and not just Yesterday.

Even the kids know who the Beatles were, although they don’t rate the songs as highly as more contemporary music.  I have to admit that when I listen to some of the less well known songs, I think they have a point … but, as I point out to them, it’s a part of history – and, more importantly to me, it’s a part of my youth.  I grew up with the Beatles, and they were an important influence in my life, along with the likes of  Batman and Robin, Superman, the Bash Street Kids, Deparate Dan and Roger the Dodger, Tom and Jerry and Doctor Who, The Archers and Alistair Cooke, David Bowie and James Taylor … and so the list could go on.

I try to point out to them that many of the songs were “ground breaking” in their day, when they were first released.  It is difficult, however, to explain the impact made at time by the raw power of early hits like  She Loves You, or of soulful ballads like Eleanor Rigby, or the psychedelic Magical Mystery Tour and Yellow Submarine, and especially of the iconic Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album, which seemed to represent the embodiment of social cultural revolutions of the 1960 – the Swinging Sixties.

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I can’t help wondering what they will have look back on with reverence and nostalgia when they reach my advanced age. What influences, people, events will help to shape what they eventually become.  Just as we didn’t know, as John, Paul, George and Ringo left the stage for the last time, back then in 1966, what was to follow … we’ll just have to wait and see.    

 

 

Tags: Expat, History, Me, Reminiscences