Post by nowheregirl on Aug 26, 2007 16:36:11 GMT 1
How I Riled John Lennon
Stephen Bayley
Sunday August 26, 2007
Forty years ago, the (muted) celebrations for my O-levels were overwhelmed by the Beatles' Sgt Pepper album. It was an amazing moment. The band had just done the first global telecast with the infectious singalong 'All You Need is Love', but the album had more resonance still. Music critic William Mann compared Lennon and McCartney to Schubert, and the gap between high culture and pop was closed for ever. Philip Larkin called them 'unreachable, frozen, fabulous'.
From my desk at Quarry Bank School, Liverpool, I then composed a letter to John Lennon. Quarry Bank was the result of an odd educational experiment that began when an errant Eton master persuaded Liverpool Education Authority to try to see it his way.
We had masters who wore mortarboards, reprimanded us in Latin; we had a tuck shop, did prep and spoke Greek. Alumni included architect James Stirling and Lib Dem pioneer Bill Rodgers, but Lennon remains the most famous of them all.
To anyone who knows Liverpool in general or Quarry Bank in particular, Sgt Pepper is drenched with meaningful imagery. So, sucking my pencil, I wrote to Lennon demanding close analysis. Was 'the one and only Billy Shears' the same Mr Shears who was head of history? By some fluke the letter arrived, he read it and replied in detail. Besides insights into Pepper iconography, Lennon gave me my best lesson in writing: 'Just let it roll.'
While his reply was funny, kindly, and fascinating, my letter had apparently riled him. He told me: 'The mystery and shit built around all forms of art needs smashing', while he told his close friend Pete Shotton, 'I'll show the f**kers,' by whom he meant little Quarrymen like me, bent on interpretation. His revenge on me and the analysts was the composition later that year of 'I am the Walrus' (released 24 November, 1967), crafted to be meaningless, to dismay 'experts, textperts, choking smokers' and to defy interpretation.
I imagine it would annoy Lennon to know that we now think 'Walrus' is a minor miracle of pop surrealism, but it would surely have wryly amused him to know that next weekend the Summer of Love is to be celebrated by the sort of people who rattle their jewellery from the front row. As part of the Revival Meeting of period motor racing at Goodwood, Lord March is hosting a Pepper-themed party. I know because he has invited me.
What would Lennon be thinking? 'You get your tan from standing in the English rain.'
Stephen Bayley
Sunday August 26, 2007
Forty years ago, the (muted) celebrations for my O-levels were overwhelmed by the Beatles' Sgt Pepper album. It was an amazing moment. The band had just done the first global telecast with the infectious singalong 'All You Need is Love', but the album had more resonance still. Music critic William Mann compared Lennon and McCartney to Schubert, and the gap between high culture and pop was closed for ever. Philip Larkin called them 'unreachable, frozen, fabulous'.
From my desk at Quarry Bank School, Liverpool, I then composed a letter to John Lennon. Quarry Bank was the result of an odd educational experiment that began when an errant Eton master persuaded Liverpool Education Authority to try to see it his way.
We had masters who wore mortarboards, reprimanded us in Latin; we had a tuck shop, did prep and spoke Greek. Alumni included architect James Stirling and Lib Dem pioneer Bill Rodgers, but Lennon remains the most famous of them all.
To anyone who knows Liverpool in general or Quarry Bank in particular, Sgt Pepper is drenched with meaningful imagery. So, sucking my pencil, I wrote to Lennon demanding close analysis. Was 'the one and only Billy Shears' the same Mr Shears who was head of history? By some fluke the letter arrived, he read it and replied in detail. Besides insights into Pepper iconography, Lennon gave me my best lesson in writing: 'Just let it roll.'
While his reply was funny, kindly, and fascinating, my letter had apparently riled him. He told me: 'The mystery and shit built around all forms of art needs smashing', while he told his close friend Pete Shotton, 'I'll show the f**kers,' by whom he meant little Quarrymen like me, bent on interpretation. His revenge on me and the analysts was the composition later that year of 'I am the Walrus' (released 24 November, 1967), crafted to be meaningless, to dismay 'experts, textperts, choking smokers' and to defy interpretation.
I imagine it would annoy Lennon to know that we now think 'Walrus' is a minor miracle of pop surrealism, but it would surely have wryly amused him to know that next weekend the Summer of Love is to be celebrated by the sort of people who rattle their jewellery from the front row. As part of the Revival Meeting of period motor racing at Goodwood, Lord March is hosting a Pepper-themed party. I know because he has invited me.
What would Lennon be thinking? 'You get your tan from standing in the English rain.'
