Gary Hall’s Weblog

Please answer either Yes or No to each of the ten questions below. The correct answers are printed at the bottom of the page.

1) – These days you will often hear bands such as Oasis, Coldplay and Keane bleat on about how the Beatles’ have been a massive influence on their music.  After carefully considering the music that these bands make, do you feel that the Beatles’ influence has been a good thing?

2) – Ross Cameron (PHD), a lecturer in philosophy at the University of Leeds claims that when Sir Paul wrote the line ‘her name was Magil and she called herself Lil, but everyone knew her as Nancy’ in the song ‘Rocky Racoon’, that our old mucca Macca was “elaborating Frege’s sense/reference distinction’.   Would you agree?

3) – During his glory years, George Martin had Geoff Emerick at his side, the world’s greatest session musicians at his beck and call, access to the best studio technology money could buy and an unlimited budget.  Do you think that he could have made better use of his time working with more talented artists of the day such as Scott Walker, Brian Wilson, Bob Dylan and the like?

4)  – If you discovered that your son or daughter had been invited to go to a birthday party which featured for their entertainment a performance by Fab Four puppeteer, Mr. Puppet, would you still be prepared to allow your child to attend?

5)  – Do you find it ironic that, every time a Fab Four fan buys a Beatles-based product, a portion of their hard-earned cash will end up in the pockets of Yoko Ono (the woman who, allegedly, broke up the Beatles) and, in a roundabout way, once the divorce case is settled, Heather Mills McCartney (who, allegedly, broke Paul’s heart)?
 
6)  – As you are no doubt aware; in order for a song to receive heavy rotation on the radio it must be safe, bland, obvious, repetitive and appeal to the lowest common denominator. Bearing that in mind, would you be surprised to discover that the most played song on radio of all time is ‘Yesterday’ (formerly ‘Scrambled Eggs’) by the Beatles?

7)  – If Led Zeppelin had employed Ringo instead of John Bonham as their drummer, would they still have gained their reputation as the greatest live rock ‘n’ roll band on earth?

8) -There are tens of thousands of people in the world today who will openly declare Sergeant Peppers to be their favourite album of all time.  Would you agree that this statistic, more than any other, offers cast iron proof of just how low the combined intelligence quotient of the human race has sunk?

9) – Please study the following facts carefully:

Fact One – Love - the latest musical monstrosity the Fab Four industry is using to part the band’s fans from their cash – has a recommended retail price of £15.99

Fact Two - Cortimoxazole – according to the charity Global Movement For Children – is an antibiotic that prevents life threatening infections in HIV infected children (of which there are over four million in Africa) and costs less than half a penny per day per dose per child.

Would you agree that the money required to purchase a copy of the Love CD would, perhaps, be better spent on the latter? 

10) - Even though John was hardly in the same league as the likes of John Fogerty, Bob Seeger or Gary US Bonds as a rock ‘n’ roll singer, when he put his mind to it he was, undeniably, the best singer by far in the Beatles. However, would you also agree that on tracks like ‘Across The Universe’ and ‘Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds’ when he chose to sing in that ‘Oh please Sir it wasn’t me, it was Wiggins’ voice of his that he wasn’t really doing himself any favours as a vocalist?
 

 The Answers
1) No
2) No
3) Yes
4) No
5) Yes
6) No
7) No
8) Yes
9) Yes
10) Yes

How did you score?

(0-3) - You need to pull your socks up, STOP following the herd and START following your heart.

(4-7) - You are still displaying some disturbing signs of longing to fit in and merge with the masses in order to be able to take the easy road through life. Be careful, the next step down this slippery slope could find you standing in a queue at your local Tesco’s with a Franz Ferdinand CD in your shopping trolley and a smug look on your face, convinced that you’re breaking new ground!

(8-10) - Thank you for taking the time to read my book, let me take this opportunity to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Beatle-free New Year.

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     ‘It’s like a school of thought for me’
      (Dominic Monaghan discussing his belief in the Beatles’ ‘teachings’)
      ‘One and one is two’
      (An example of the Beatles’ ‘teachings’)

Unaccustomed as I am to watching movies about midgets squabbling over jewellery (in fact given the choice of watching Lord of The Rings or spending equal man hours studying the ingredients of a tomato ketchup bottle in Dutch, I’d plump for the latter) I was unaware of who Dominic Monaghan was, until one night a few months back when I happened to be watching the Jonathon Ross show by mistake and he was on as a guest. 

I’ll be honest; I was really starting to warm to Dom Dom with that rather endearing ‘sometimes I just want to run away, learn to play the hurdy gurdy and breed pigs’ charm of his, until all of a sudden – for no apparent reason and with absolutely no prompting whatsoever from Jonathon or the studio audience – he blurted out to the nation that he ‘loves to talk about the Beatles’.  So intrigued was I by this outlandish declaration that I decided, when time permitted, I would definitely make it my duty to delve a little deeper into Dom Dom’s disturbing desire to discuss deified dinosaurs. 

From information I have since managed to acquire (all freely available on the Internet) I’ve discovered what may well prove to be one of the main reasons for this fascination with the Beatles; it turns out that Dom Dom actually has the musical taste of a 15-year-old middle class schoolgirl.  Consequently, only having the likes of the insipid piano-driven drivel of Coldplay, or those ‘don’t worry these kids are too young to remember the Bunnymen’ bass lines of Interpol as reference points with which to compare the Mop Top’s music, it is understandable, I suppose, that Dom Dom developed this fixation for all things Fab Four. 

A fixation, apparently, so severe that it not only involves the poor lamb listening to their music on a regular basis, but also believing wholeheartedly in the band’s ‘teachings’, and even going so far as to have a line of their lyrics tattooed upon his left shoulder. 

After resisting the temptation of other ‘classic’ lines of wisdom from the pen of Lennon & McCartney such as ‘Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da life goes on brarrhh’, ‘I am the egg man oh, they are the egg men’ and  ‘I must not be so oh, oh, oh, oh’, Dom Dom finally decided to adorn his body for the remainder of his natural life (unless, of course, his record collection should dramatically improve whereupon laser treatment could be considered) with the words ‘Living Is Easy With Eyes Closed’ from the ditty ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’.
     
      (Note to any Fab Four fans reading this by mistake: we’re fully aware at freespeechbooks.com that the line ‘living is easy with eyes closed’ is in fact a metaphor, we’re just astonished by how weak it is)

Ok, I know what you’re thinking – ‘I blame the tattoo artist’, right?  Well, to some extent I agree.  Dom Dom should certainly have been offered a selection of alternative lyrical options to ‘Living Is Easy With Eyes Closed’, which, although still including the word eyes (them being the windows to the soul and all that) are not gauche, grammatically ungainly, lazy, semantically misguided, or indeed such a bone of contention for referees, bus drivers and ornithologists. However, Dom Dom is a big lad now and old enough to make up his own mind. Therefore, even though the tattoo artist responsible will have to live with the fact that he’s scarred a man for life with sixth-form poetry, ultimately; the customer is always right. 

Naturally, working in an industry where the obligation to be Fab Four friendly is stifling, Dom Dom will be actively encouraged by the majority of his colleagues to continue spreading his hell-fire brand of Fab Four Fundamentalism, whilst meeting little resistance from the more evolved industry insiders who – for obvious reasons – will remain silent.  That is why it is absolutely imperative, with so many kids these days being influenced by their hero’s taste (or lack of it), that for the sake of musical evolution, you should do everything in your power to help Dom Dom see sense if you ever get the opportunity.

If you are lucky enough to bump into Dom Dom on your travels, I’ve devised a very simple exercise, which you can utilize to test his faith in the Beatles’ ‘teachings’.  It’s called the All You Need Is Love challenge.

      (The All You Need Is Love challenge is also recommended for use during ‘the talk’ with any strain of Fab Four fan {apart from the Beatle Head} when you feel that he or she may be confusing a song that has genuine integrity and is worthy of your attention, with one that’s main melodic refrain was openly lifted from the nursery rhyme ‘Three Blind Mice’)
      
In order to successfully execute this exercise all you have to do is ask Dom Dom – in as polite and friendly manner as possible – if he would be prepared to take the All You Need Is Love challenge’.  If he agrees, which I’m sure he will, as he’s renowned for taking time out to mingle with his minions, simply ask him the following question: 
    
“If I were to commence my studies of the Beatles’ ‘teachings’ by evaluating the credibility of their song ‘All You Need Is Love’ as a valid concept, in order for me to be absolutely convinced that love really is all you need, am I to assume that Rolls Royces, mansions and fur coat collections are optional extras?”  

That’s it! That’s all you need to do, just plant the seed of reality inside Dom Dom’s conscience and let him go away and begin to scrutinize the bands’ ‘teachings’ at a deeper level in his own time, as I’m sure, being a bright lad, he will do.  Once he starts to realise that it’s actually his sacred cows who have been milking him (not just financially, but musically, spiritually and emotionally) for all these years, I’m convinced he’ll be desperate to put his days of doing it in roads, holding hands, digging ponies, fixing holes and residing in submarines behind him and move on.  In fact, given time, Dom Dom may one day progress to a higher level of enlightenment where, assuming he does shun the idea of laser treatment, he’ll have the lyrics  ‘take what you need and leave the rest’ tattooed onto his other shoulder as a way of balancing out his yin and yang, maan!
     
      Now say the following prayer with me for Dom Dom:
     
      Dom Dom, yer daft ‘un, pull your socks up
      You’ll soon be a middle-aged man
      These Beatles’ ‘teachings’ are all well and good
      Whilst your main form of transport’s a pram
    
      If you’re looking for guidance on living your life
      Try Krishnamurti, the Dali Lama or Christ
      Not some long since disbanded lightweight beat combo
      Whose back catalogue is way overpriced

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