Posted on 08/06/2010 11:24:26 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
I find myself in an unusual and slightly strange situation: I am in disagreement with Cardinal George Pell. This has never happened to me before, and I’m not sure that I like it. In a sermon last week, the cardinal had a go at the Beatles, and in particular John Lennon, whom he described as “the best known of the Beatles, who once claimed they were better known than Jesus Christ”.
Well, so he did: but John Lennon wasn’t the same phenomenon at all as the Beatles. Cardinal Pell attacked in particular Imagine, in which, as the cardinal reminds us, “Lennon urged his listeners to dream of a world where there was no heaven, no hell… Lennon was working for a peace resulting from the disappearance of religion… We are gathering some of the fruits of his mistaken teaching today…” All true: but Imagine had nothing to do with the Beatles, it was a much later solo production.
Imagine is undoubtedly a hateful piece, with all that ludicrous blether about “the brotherhood of man”, which reminded me at the time of something Harold Macmillan, that great friend of Mgr Ronnie Knox, once said: “How can you have the brotherhood of man, if you don’t accept the Fatherhood of God?”
But I repeat: John Lennon wasn’t the Beatles. And as Cardinal Pell also said: “The Beatles had more than a touch of genius.” As the Osservatore Romano put it: “It’s true… swept up by their success, they lived dissolute and uninhibited lives, but, listening to their songs, all of this seems distant and meaningless. Their beautiful melodies… live on like precious jewels.”
One could go on and on, not simply about the melodies, but the words: the pathos and deep understanding of loneliness of Eleanor Rigby; the almost Chestertonian gratitude for the beauty of creation that comes over in songs like Here Comes the Sun, and:
Blackbird singing in the dead of nightJohn Lennon, in particular, seems to have totally shaken off the Catholicism of his childhood: but did he really? And what about the rest of them? They were brought up, don’t forget, in the Liverpool Catholicism of pre-Worlock days, when children learned all the basic Catholic prayers by heart: that tends to stick, even if at an unconscious level. And on at least one occasion, it emerges fully in what is for me the most beautiful (in both words and melody) of all their songs, Let It Be: a title and refrain which surely in context can only be a reference to the Angelus response “let it be to me according to your word”, which they must all have repeated hundreds of times. And if this song isn’t a most touching and powerful Marian hymn, I don’t know what else it could possibly be. It’s surely quite explicit:
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
When I find myself in times of troubleListen to it again, all the way through; I cannot even read its lyrics out loud without tears. I rest my case.
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it beAnd in my hour of darkness
She is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be
Let it be, let it be
Let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom
Let it be….And when the night is cloudy
There is still a light that shines on me
Shine on until tomorrow, let it beI wake up to the sound of music
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be…
....Imagine is undoubtedly a hateful piece, with all that ludicrous blether about “the brotherhood of man”, which reminded me at the time of something Harold Macmillan, that great friend of Mgr Ronnie Knox, once said: “How can you have the brotherhood of man, if you don’t accept the Fatherhood of God?”
But I repeat: John Lennon wasn’t the Beatles. And as Cardinal Pell also said: “The Beatles had more than a touch of genius.” As the Osservatore Romano put it: “It’s true… swept up by their success, they lived dissolute and uninhibited lives, but, listening to their songs, all of this seems distant and meaningless. Their beautiful melodies… live on like precious jewels.”
this time last year
people didn't want to hear
they looked at jesus from afar
this year he's a superstardear john
who's more popular now?
i've been listening to paul's records
i think he really is dead-- Larry Norman, Reader's Digest
from his 1973 MGM/Verve release
Only Visiting This Planet
A rather touching turn of phrase...
He was half of the primary writing team and an outspoken idiot.
His "bigger than Jesus" comment wasn't just "of the moment".
He continued the point.
http://beatlesnumber9.com/biggerjesus.html
"Christianity will go," he said. "It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue about that; I'm right and I will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first - rock 'n' roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me."From his "apology"
John: "Well, originally I pointed out that fact in reference to England. That we meant more to kids than Jesus did, or religion at that time. I wasn't knocking it or putting it down.
" It's them twisting it that ruins it for me"
I was just saying it as a fact and it's true more for England than here. I'm not saying that we're better or greater, or comparing us with Jesus Christ as a person or God as a thing or whatever it is.
McCartney's mother was Catholic and his father was raised Presbyterian but had no religion.
The McCartneys were not Massgoers and McCartney's mother died when he was 14.
Paul McCartneys mother was named Mary and she died when he was young. This line is a reference to her.
The song “Blackbird” was about the civil rights movement of the 60’s.
He was a pre-Vatican II Catholic, and this was a sort of “blended” reference.
“Mother Mary” in Let it Be refers to Paul’s mother, Mary. Blackbird refers to a black girl and the civil rights struggle. That said, there is much spirituality and even Christianity in the Beatles music. I think George was raised Catholic. For my money, his “All Things Must Pass” deals with death as beautifully as you will find in a pop song.
A. the most overrated band ever
B. McCartney was the engine of the band
C. Jesus rose from the dead. Try that one, Lennon.
George Harrison was a Hindu (Hari Krishna) at one point.
Not sure where his beliefs were at the time of his passing.
I wonder what the ZZ Top song "Mexican Blackbird" was about? ;)
This is a good point. Many of the images in their songs come from their pre-Vatican II childhoods. They were older than I, so they had actually had more years of pre-Vatican II than I did. But the images were still recognizable at that time.
Because of the Incarnation, the Christian religion is a religion of images. Muslims, who hate creation and think that their god is an abstract, vengeful being who issues laws simply because he feels like it and has no predictable way of behavior, hate images. That’s one of the big differences.
That’s why it is possible to find traces of the Our Lord, the Christian God, in completely secular things.
Lamentably, this is dying out as our society and even our churces de-Christianize.
I always thought the Beatles were vastly overrated.
That’s not what he has said in interviews. He has said that during a hard time in his life, his mother came to him in a dream telling him that it would be alright. But everyone is free to believe what they want to.
I have started coming around to the thought that George was the most talented of the Beatles, but he was just more picky about what he wanted to record, whereas Lennon and McCartney would just record anything and saw what would stick.
The imagery that he used would be familiar to any Catholic, and it was familiar to him. You are thinking in terms of proseletysing or preaching, where people consciously come up with words, probably because Protestantism and even post Vatican-II Catholicism are short on naturaly imagery. Look at the crummy art they both produce.
The Catholic world was drenched in imagery, and, as I said, it was a blended image. “Mother Mary” always referred not to one’s own mother, but to the Virgin.
As I said, McCartney stated differently, several times, but you can believe what you want.
“A. the most overrated band ever”
...this article is reminding me that I’m about to spend a week with my doofus, Beatles praising brother in law at a family reunion. He wears Beatles t-shirts every day. Plays Beatles songs every night during dinner and on top of all of this, he’s a lib from Maine! Sickening! I avoid him at all costs by keeping a “Nat Sherman” cigar lit most of the time. He hates cigar smell.
Ummm...I’m as Catholic as they come, and I do not see “Let it Be” as any sort of Marian hymn. It’s not. Paul McCartney’s mother, who died when he was very young, was named Mary. He named one of his daughter’s Mary.
I wouldn’t want to claim the Beatles as any sort of Catholic/Christian group. They did WAY more harm than good. And we as a society are still paying the price.
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