love is only heaven away ...

Tonight in the car I cried with joy listening to the Beatles “new” album, Love. “Here they are, the Beatles!” shouts Ed Sullivan, and then the joy and exuberance begins. Sure, they were stylish and smart and witty and young. But it was also a damn fine song. We forget just how good that one song was, with that one special chord that even then hinted at the impeccable craftsmanship to come. The expectation when I was growing up was that we would finally discover the new Beatles. We’re older now. And it turns out that we didn’t need the new Beatles at all. The originals were just fine. And it’s still such a feeling…that I can’t hide. I can’t hide. I can’t hide.

It’s remarkable that the music remains so relevant forty years on, how it still sounds so contemporary. It’s not like listening to an old Billie Holiday album, for example, and believe me when I say that I’m not maligning the artistry of Billie Holiday. But her best music was recorded at the dawn of recording technology, and the fidelity will always mark it as such. Which has its charms, to be sure. There’s something magical about her timeless voice and those timeless melodies that even low fidelity cannot suppress. But the audio quality instantly marks her music as originating from a different age. That will never be an issue with the Beatles, even though they began with the limitations of four-track technology (and yes, I know all about their discovery that “bouncing” down to one track allowed them to add as many tracks as they liked…which expanded the aural canvas but resulted in what a Rolling Stone writer once referred to as “the goofy stereo of early Beatles records.”).

Could anyone else have produced the collage masterpiece that Love truly is? I believe it was Olivia Harrison who said in a promotional video that only George Martin knows the content of each track the Beatles ever recorded. It’s a true marvel to hear such familiar music presented in a completely different way. I’ve not been as immersed in the concept of a particular album in years, perhaps a decade, perhaps even more. Love is as brilliant in its own way as the suite that is side two of the original Abbey Road album. I’ve written before (and will likely do so again) that I believe Abbey Road to be the best album from the Beatles catalogue, not Sgt. Pepper as the consensus seems to be. And I still believe it. But despite the fact that Love contains no new music (how could it?), it makes an artistic statement of its own.

“This is Johnny Rhythm, saying good night to ye’s and God bless ye’s." What a sweet way to end the album, with a fragment probably originating from a fan club Christmas disc. Only George Martin would have thought of that.