13. The Beatles (Part II)

Soon after he'd owned up to using acid, early summer 1967, I did an interview with Paul McCartney and he was into a whole different level from anything I'd ever read by him before. No put-downs, no jokes, no frivolity whatever - he was most solemn and his eyes focused somewhere far beyond the back of my head. 'God is in everything,' he said. 'People who are hungry, who are sick and dying, should try to show love.' Having gone through acid, the next inevitable step was that the Beatles went into meditation: George Harrison climbed his mountain with the Maharishi and soon the others had swung behind him, they'd renounced acid and devoted themselves to lives of total spirituality. Undoubtedly, all of this was a major triumph for Harrison. it must have been sweet indeed to have Lennon and McCartney follow his lead, and he made the most of it, he came out on TV and looked beatific and scattered dicta like chaff. 'This is going to last all our lives,' he said, and he sat crosslegged on the floor. Meanwhile, during the first weekend that the Beatles spent with the Maharishi, September 1967, Brian Epstein had died, aged thirty-two. Inevitably, being so successful, he'd been the butt of much schnidery within the industry, and, generally, he'd been rated pretty low. Paraphrased, the party line was that he was really a less-than-averagely shrewd businessman but he'd gotten lucky one time, very lucky, and he'd happened to be hanging round as the Beatles came by. Also, beyond incompetence, he was meant to be weak, vain and maudlin. Most of this was true. Just the same, I liked him. The main thing about him was that he wasn't moronic, he wasn't even entirely fascist. He wasn't much criminal and he didn't have people beaten up and he didn't automatically scrabble on his knees each time someone dropped sixpence in a darkened discotheque. More, he read books and went to theatres and understood long words. No use denying it: he was intelligent. By the conventions of British management, this was all eccentric to the edge of insanity and it changed things, it set new standards. After Epstein, managers became greatly humanized: they weren't necessarily any more honest but they were less thuggish, altogether less primitive and, sometimes, they even liked pop itself. Beyond the Beatles, of course, Epstein had handled whole Liverpudlian armies - Gerry and the Pacemakers, Billy J. Kramer, Cilia Black, the Fourmost, Tommy Quickly. In the beginning, around 1963-4, these were all hugely successful but, mostly, they were light on talent and, Cilia excepted, they didn't sustain. Still, Epstein always stayed remarkably loyal to them, never kicked them out. Partly this was due to injured pride, but partly it was conscience, principle, integrity - the whole bit. Just how much did the Beatles really owe him? Well, he was no Svengali, no alchemist and, obviously, they would have happened without him. He wasn't greatly imaginative, he pulled no outrageous strokes for them but he was steady, painstaking, and he didn't flag. Occasionally, his inexperience betrayed him into raw deals but, taken overall, he worked well for them. Most important, he was a mother figure - he cared for them, reassured them, agonized on them, nagged them, even wept for them. He needed them. Even towards the end, when they'd outgrown management and would no longer take orders from anyone, he was always there, always available, devoted and doggy as ever. He could always be fallen back upon. And, most of the time, his advice was good and they took it rightly. After all, in all the time he managed them, they never once made fools of themselves. His major problem was anti-climax. Having managed the Beatles, having helped make maybe the biggest entertainment phenomena of this century, he still had to manage the rest of his stable and he'd been a lonely, neurotic man at the best of times but, in his last two years, he got quite frantic - he financed bad plays that flopped and promoted tours, sponsored a bullfighter called Henry Higgins, turned the Saville Theatre into a would-be pop shrine, and he kept thrashing about for new diversions to keep himself amused. Nothing worked. Everything bored him. Already, in the last days of Epstein's life, the Maharishi had been taking his place as resident mother, as adviser and comforter in chief (a development that must have struck him as a betrayal), and now, with Epstein dead, the guru had the field all to himself. Like I said earlier on, meditation was a logical progression from acid, just because it did the exact same things for you as acid did, except that acid-love was artificially-induced and nirvana was natural. And so, when the Beatles jumped, half the hip end of pop followed dutifully behind them, Donovan and the Beach Boys and Mick Jagger, Eric Burdon and the Doors, and the Maharishi's Indian headquarters got all clogged up with hair and hippie beads. As for the guru himself, he was less than impressive and, by spring 1968, the Beatles had left him. Meanwhile, Christmas 1967, they'd showed Magical Mystery Tour, their first self-produced film, and it was bad; it was a total artistic disaster. It was the first real failure they'd ever had but still it made profits and hardly weakened them at all. That's just how secure they'd become - they were establishment, institutionalized, and nothing could touch them. More important, they launched Apple. In the beginning, this was conceived as a huge artistic and business complex, covering records and films, merchandising and electronics and music publishing, TV and literature, plus any other assorted media that might arise, and it was going to straddle the world in one vast benevolent network, handing out alms to anyone and everyone that deserved them. Young poets that couldn't get published, musicians and designers and inventors, unrecognized talents, everyone, they were to come straight to Apple and the Beatles would review their case in person, the Be...

https://www.beatles.ru/books/paper.asp?id=2419

Это тринадцатая глава из книги Ника Кона (Nic Cohn) "Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: The Golden Age of Rock" посвящённая Битлз, разбитая здесь на две части:
https://www.beatles.ru/books/paper.asp?id=2418
https://www.beatles.ru/books/paper.asp?id=2419

В журнале "Ровесник" (октябрь, 1985) был напечатан перевод этой главы, причём, очень сокращённый:
Рок как есть. Битлз
Ник Кон
https://www.beatles.ru/books/paper.asp?id=2417

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Несколько отрывков из книги и их переводы в различных изданиях:
Next come the Fab Four, the Moptop Mersey Marvels, and this is the bit I've been dreading. I mean what is there possibly left to say on them?
...All of them came from working class or lower-middle-class backgrounds in Liverpool...
...Meanwhile, the Beatles had begun to move up a bit...
...And musically, they'd become competent and they had their own sound, a crossbreed between classic rock and commercial R&B, and they were raw, deafening, a bit crude but they were really exciting. At least, unlike any other British act ever, they didn't ape America but sounded what they were, working-class Liverpool, unfake, and that's what gave them their strength, that's what made Brian Epstein want to manage them.

Перевод:
Далее перейдем к великолепной четверке, Moptop Mersey Marvels (чудо с копной на голове с берегов реки Мерси) и я этого немного побаивался. Я имею в виду, есть вообще что-то что о них ещё не сказали?
...Все они вышли из рабочего класса или ниже среднего класса Ливерпуля....
...В то же время, Битлз начали постепенно двигаться вверх...
...И в музыкальном плане, они стали компетентными и у них был свой собственный звук, смесь классического рока и коммерческого ритм-энд-блюза, но они были сырыми, оглушительными, немного незрелыми, но они были действительно захватывающими. По крайней мере, в отличие от других британских артистов, они не подражали американским исполнителям, их звучание было таким, какими они были на самом деле, как рабочий класс Ливерпуля, не фальшивым, и это было то, что давало им силу, то, что побудило Брайана Эпштейна стать их менеджером.

...они начали медленно, но верно прогрессировать. У них появляется свой "саунд" — сырое, оглушающее и резкое звучание. При этом они не копировали американцев, как другие британские ансамбли, а откровенно показывали себя такими, какими они были на самом деле — ливерпульцами из рабочих семей, не обладавшими светскими манерами и изысканной речью, но зато никогда не притворявшимися, как другие эстрадники...
https://www.beatles.ru/books/paper.asp?id=2410
Клуб и художественная самодеятельность (июль, 1980)
П. Аркадьев, музыковед

Теперь пора перейти к великолепной четверке, к этому ливерпульскому чуду - "Битлз". Признаться, мне было страшно приступать к этой главе: что еще я могу добавить к тому, что уже сказано о них? И все-таки попробую. Начну я, пожалуй, с того, что они не копировали американцев, как другие британские поп-артисты, а откровенно выставляли себя такими, какими были на самом деле. Вот в чем была их сила.
https://www.beatles.ru/books/paper.asp?id=2417
Ровесник (октябрь, 1985)
Перевод с английского А. Соколов

Эти переводы (более чем 30-летней давности) интересны тем что, они верны (переводы хорошие), хоть и значительно сокращены по сравнению с оригиналом. Это весьма примечательный факт, т.к. в те же годы в журнале Ровесник печатались переводы, в которых порой проскальзывала неточность и даже откровенная выдумка.