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How The Beatles still grip Liverpool ...


EssentialTension
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[quote name='operative451' timestamp='1455618623' post='2980667']


I sort of feel sorry for liverpool actually - its a microcosm of the general british 'hey, remember in the past when we did something good?' er, no, i wasn't born and neither were you..?

Do a new thing, liverpool!
[/quote]

I do wish sometimes I could shake off the old woolly liberal shroud and say stuff like this!

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[quote name='operative451' timestamp='1455618623' post='2980667']
'proper' blues of the 'Disability-Fruit-Surname' variety
[/quote]

:lol:
But don't be so narrowminded! It can be a vegetable as well! :D
Oh, and extra points if <surname> is a former US president. [b]Blind Lemon Jefferson[/b] is a classic of course, one of many classics, and both Lemon and Jefferson were even his real names.
I'm Slantin' Banana Clinton, but I can't explain that one without the help of... er... that woman... Miss Lew. :D

Er... Liverpool. Grip. Beatles. :blush:
Carry on!

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Blue, I understand where you're coming from.

As I said, there are many who have no idea of what the Beatles spearheaded in term of musical and cultural change, but you'll have a tough job changing many minds on here.

"Just another band" wouldn't be generating the significant interest in Liverpool, and resultant jobs, that there is today, some 60 years after the event. That's unique and a measure of what the band achieved back then and still represents today.

John Lennon might have called the Beatles "just a band". You can bet your life he didn't believe he was writing "just some songs". A usual he was just lashing out at McCartney.

Edited by chris_b
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[quote name='timmo' timestamp='1455620243' post='2980686']
I assume that many people have listened to Sgt Peppers as that was one of their best albums. I really can see why people would hate them after listening to that. Awful album.
[/quote]

+1 The Beatles in hippy phase were/are firmly banned from my record/cd/MP3 player. Still like their earlier stuff, but the later phase is a nono. Each to their own, though.

Edited by colgraff
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Interesting reading on the american side.

What I have always suspected from what people who were there have told me about the beatles, they didn't start a revolution, they just arrived at the right time to capitalise on it. Aparently the same is true in the US:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/11584335/The-Beatles-did-not-spark-a-musical-revolution-in-America.html

And more significantly on people who moan about current music, How hip-hop has been the biggest revolution in popular music since the 50s:
http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/music/news/a34831/hip-hop-beatles-rolling-stones-study/

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[quote name='blue' timestamp='1455591057' post='2980521']
I'm going to make it to Liverpool someday one way or the other. And when I get there I'm going to kiss the ground.
[/quote]

Having spent quite a bit of time in Liverpool I'd advise against it. Like a lot of the creative cities in England they were creative because they were sh*tholes with nothing else to do in. However it has been gentrified a bit now so maybe you'd catch less diseases doing it.

Loads of Beatles stuff there and yes, The Beatles are pretty much unquestionably both the most important band of all time and probably the most important thing in Liverpool still.

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[quote name='EssentialTension' timestamp='1455623281' post='2980730']
That's exactly what he's wrong about.
[/quote] I agree. It shows the absurdity of the "you had to be there " comment. I wasn`t even born when The Small Faces called it a day. By saying that, it seems Blue is saying that the Beatles were only of a time period, I think he mistakes people not liking the Beatles as some sort of a personal affront for some reason.Like many people who are not Bealtes fans, they appreciate the legacy and what they did for pop music, but you don`t have to like them. I hate rap and hip hop, but can appreciate they have contributed a lot to music.
I think I have strayed a long way from the original topic now

Edited by timmo
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[quote name='operative451' timestamp='1455618623' post='2980667']
I sort of feel sorry for liverpool actually - its a microcosm of the general british 'hey, remember in the past when we did something good?' er, no, i wasn't born and neither were you..?

Do a new thing, liverpool!
[/quote]

+1000

I've said it so many times before, but when I started going to gigs over the water in late 70s early 80s, there was none of this Beatles nostalgia crap, bands clearly wanted to created their own scene and they did... the bunnymen, wah heat, the teardrops, omd, frankie etc etc ...

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I first started visiting Liverpool in the 50s as a wide-eyed 5 year old, when my Grandfather was an immigration officer and took me with him around the docks. I was shocked by the decline that had set in by the mid 60s. I am once again a regular visitor as one off our daughters lives there. What I see is a city that has picked itself up enormously over the last 20 years. I cannot think of a day when we have walked through Albert Dock without seeing visitors with their SLR cameras, in or out of season. As previously said it is not all about the Beatles, but even Bob Dylan took time out to visit John Lennon's home. Personally I would rather visit the Tate or the Walker art galleries, but you cannot unlink a city from its heritage.

The city still has a hard edge but it is moving forward, too.

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[quote name='JellyKnees' timestamp='1455625809' post='2980781']
+1000

I've said it so many times before, but when I started going to gigs over the water in late 70s early 80s, there was none of this Beatles nostalgia crap, bands clearly wanted to created their own scene and they did... the bunnymen, wah heat, the teardrops, omd, frankie etc etc ...
[/quote]

Me too - we weren't interested in our Dad's music, we wanted our own. So we'd make the pilgrimage from Chester to Erics, and watched all sorts of oddness from Pink Military to the Mighty Flock Of Seagulls, Big in Japan to Those Naughty Lumps. Rock'n'Roll was/is/should be about newness, rawness and individuality even if you're wearing the same clothes as the rest of your tribe. S'not about living in the past, but living for now and being yourself!
Or maybe it's not... Maybe it's about product, or about re-living the glory days of your youth - depending on your perspective!

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I haven't spent much time in Liverpool, but it must be very sad to live in a place that is so caught up in its past, or more accurately one aspect of its past. It was a great trading city with a people full of humour but who have a reputation of being a little bit, erm emotional. There a few other places in the UK that are known for such a narrow slice of their past. As far as I know there is no tribute to the Rolling Stones in Dartford, there isn't a huge number of roundals in Woking, and I'm not sure theres many punks left on the Kings Road.

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[quote name='4stringslow' timestamp='1455579021' post='2980488']Perhaps it's a cultural thing ;)[/quote]

Hopefully - when I did this painting I used gen-yoo-ine River Mersey water. A friend of mine in NYC said it was a genius idea and to quote him "those crazy yanks will love it". Now I'm still working out how best to flog it.

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[quote name='Big_Stu' timestamp='1455641436' post='2981018']
Hopefully - when I did this painting I used gen-yoo-ine River Mersey water. A friend of mine in NYC said it was a genius idea and to quote him "those crazy yanks will love it". Now I'm still working out how best to flog it.


[/quote]

That's definitely Mersey river water - I'd recognise that shade of brown anywhere.... :)

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[quote name='Nicko' timestamp='1455639960' post='2980992']
I haven't spent much time in Liverpool, but it must be very sad to live in a place that is so caught up in its past, or more accurately one aspect of its past. It was a great trading city with a people full of humour but who have a reputation of being a little bit, erm emotional. There a few other places in the UK that are known for such a narrow slice of their past. As far as I know there is no tribute to the Rolling Stones in Dartford, there isn't a huge number of roundals in Woking, and I'm not sure theres many punks left on the Kings Road.
[/quote]

I grew up there. It's not caught up in the past any more than anywhere else to be fair. It's just the same as people coming to London to go to Tussauds or the Tower or whatever. You don't notice less when you live there than you notice adverts for musicals on the Tube in London. Much like London, there are plenty of other reasons to visit.

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[quote name='bigjohn' timestamp='1455647175' post='2981121']
I grew up there. It's not caught up in the past any more than anywhere else to be fair. It's just the same as people coming to London to go to Tussauds or the Tower or whatever. You don't notice less when you live there than you notice adverts for musicals on the Tube in London. Much like London, there are plenty of other reasons to visit.
[/quote]

In some ways there's a drive for Liverpool (or any other place known for a particular part of its history) not to catch up. The visitors who come to see Liverpool because of the Beatles don't want contemporary Liverpool, they want the Liverpool they've seen from the 60's.

It's all very hyperreal.

People who know it through channels other than the Fab Four don't see the 'Beatles Liverpool' that visitors do - like you say, bigjohn, posters on the Tube - nice analogy.

Edited by ahpook
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[quote name='bigjohn' timestamp='1455647175' post='2981121']
I grew up there. It's not caught up in the past any more than anywhere else to be fair. It's just the same as people coming to London to go to Tussauds or the Tower or whatever. You don't notice less when you live there than you notice adverts for musicals on the Tube in London. Much like London, there are plenty of other reasons to visit.
[/quote]

I hope you are right, but the article in the OP suggests otherwise.

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