Friday Five: Best Beatles

I am currently directing a show for the Arrowtown Entertainers as part of Arrowtown Autumn Festival. It is called Beatlemania 64 and, unsuprisingly, is set in 1964 and features many songs from that era, predominately tunes by The Beatles. I have, therefore, been listening to a lot of their work over the past couple of months and have resumed my erratic relationship with their music.

When I first heard The Beatles, I loved them. They were jolly, had sing-a-long tunes, and were a lot better than most of the disco pap on the radio (I grew up in the 70s). Then I became a fan of punk. The Beatles - especially the hippy trippy stuff - was music for my parents' generation, and no self-respecting teenager listened to their parents' music: we had our own.

In later university years, their stuff was played and plundered and sampled at clubs. I appreciated their talents, thought it made for good cover material, but preferred The Stones. Then Oasis came along - the latest in a long line of Beatlemaniacs, and we had to hear all over again how wonderful they were. Everybody loved the Beatles, and if you wanted an ounce of individuality or point of difference, then they could not be your band of choice.

Now we are trying to get everyday people (who can sing but would be the first to admit they are not 'singers') to imitate their harmonies. And I am struck once again by their talent, but also their energy and enthusiasm. I'm still not a fan of the drug-addled Sgt Pepper days (I can't say I've ever heard a song that I thought would be improved by a sitar, a kazoo, or maracas - or a ukulele for that matter, but that's another story), but I admit they have produced some fine tunes in their time.

5 Favourite Beatles Songs:

1. I Saw Her Standing There - one of the first songs of theirs I ever heard, and they made teenage romance sound cool rather than ooky
2. If I Fell in Love with You - so simple and effective and honest
3. Eight Days a Week - happy, happy, happy, and then they throw in a minor chord or two for the angst
4. Eleanor Rigby - I'm a sucker for a cello and the double string quartet arrangement on this track is excellent. Like Simon & Garfunkel's A Most Peculiar Man, the year before, it was quite a shock for a happy go lucky band to sing a song about loneliness, isolation and depression - and it was so good!
5. Paperback Writer - love the intro; love the harmonies; love the heavier bass; love the lyrics - as a wannabe writer myself, I would probably have to say this is my favourite!

Fifties Icons

My latest directing project is for a local community group, The Arrowtown Entertainers. One of their number, Dave Dustan, has written a play called Cribbies set in 1959 in Arrowtown. The swinging sixties had not yet arrived and folk arrived in Arrowtown from Invercargill, Dunedin and various places roundabout with the sole intention of relaxing.

They stayed in 'cribs' (baches in the North Island; holiday homes to the English) during their holidays. The kids played down by the river all day, the dads dreamed about building shacks without planning permission, and the mums just dreamed in the warm Central Otago sun. There was apparently no crime or stress, but plenty of socialising and rock 'n' roll (and binge drinking actually, but we'll overlook that for now).

To get myself in the mood for the era, I visited the excellent Lakes District Museum and spoke to the lovely Angela Verry (the exceptionally helpful education officer). She shared her research with me including some fantastic interviews with the original 'cribbies' and some artefacts. You'll recognise the furniture and the decor from your grandma's houses.

The flying ducks on the wall are something of which every collector seems to be proud. They remind me of Vera Duckworth on Coronation Street and were always shorthand for 'completely lacking in class'. A lot of the items such as formica tables, velvet pictures, chrome and vinyl chairs, plastic thermos flasks etc, are utterly ghastly.

Although I realise that everyone's taste is different (although less and less these days as we are all dictated to by the Internet arbitrator - controlled by petulant and precocious teenagers, apparently), I would like to know when does something stop being naff and ugly, and become retro and chic, if ever?