I spent my last semester of university in London, where I lived alone in a flat, oceans away from anyone I was close to. Though I loved (and love) London deeply, and eventually I made some pretty good friends and got more accustomed to being alone, it was still initially very isolating. Before this time, I hadn’t really gotten into the Beatles. I enjoyed the idea of them in a vague sense, knew a song or two. But for some reason (British invasion in reverse?), while I was over there, I listened to the Fab Four for hours at a time each day, combing through full albums at a time. On days when waking up alone in a foreign country was a lot to cope with, as I had my coffee and got ready to start my day, I’d play Octopus’s Garden or Here Comes the Sun, and just feel so much better.
For this reason, I take a novice-but-enthusiastic-loving-novice perspective to my viewing of Ron Howard’s new Beatles documentary, The Beatles: Eight Days a Week: The Touring Years, rather than the practiced perspective of long-time devotees. Watching the film, I believe the biggest contribution it makes is its deeply humanizing perspective, clips of mischief spliced next to recent interviews of Sir Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, with their fond chuckles and far off looks in their eyes. “We just wanted to play,” Ringo says in a recent clip.
The biggest running theme, in all the interviews conducted, seemed to be how their music, and the shared experience of their performances brought people together. A starry-eyed Sigourney Weaver nostalgically recalls straightening her hair with cans for a Beatles concert as a girl, how everyone was “loving them together.” Whoopi Goldberg describes the effect they had on her growing up, saying they made everyone feel included, and how love of their music brought all kinds of people together.
Another facet of their touring career which was certainly new information for me was the role they played in desegregating concerts in America. Quite frank when asked their thoughts on possible segregation at the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Florida during their 1964 tour, Paul says, “It’s stupid...you can’t treat human beings like animals. “ Ringo echoes this in his present-day interview, simply saying, “We played to people. We didn’t play to those people or that people - we just played to people.” Considering the high-grossing nature of Beatles concerts, it’s safe to say that this was a big move toward desegregation (at least in concerts) from both an economic perspective, and one of conspicuous social example. (Dr. Kitty Oliver on The Beatles' role in desegregation)
Howard’s portrait is one lovingly drawn with great attention to the vulnerable side of the absurdly famous group. Still teenagers when it all took off, fame and tour life took a toll on the band, and their camaraderie and brotherhood (and impish antics) were a sustaining force in their lives, and perhaps one of the only consistencies as they traveled country to country, continent to continent, constantly in a state of adjustment. This sense of inability to attach, ground shifting constantly underfoot, and the toll that this ending up taking really starts to come through in 1965’s album, Help! - particularly its title song. John describes its writing as by far the most autobiographical they’d written at that point: “It was just me singing ‘Help!’ and I meant it.”
Ron Howard’s footage really gives a sense of them as humans, and reminds us that this music we so deeply connect with, and individualize through its unique connection to each of us, comes from humans just as fallible and vulnerable as ourselves, who were feeling the pressures of life and using it in artistic catharsis to create some of the most memorable music in history.
For these and many more reasons, I give you the entirely unsponsored recommendation: get a Hulu free trial and watch it if you have a spare minute. Eight Days a Week will warm the icy cockles of your lonely-heart-club-band.
(It also features cute black and white photos of the band before their iconic suit-wearing days, looking endearingly messy in jeans and sans-matching haircuts playing back in Liverpool- but until then, here's some Cavern Club footage of their oldest video recording.)
