THE BEATLES - When the tones learned to walk

26. November 2015

The Beatles

THE BEATLES - When the tones learned to walk

As is so often the case, at the beginning coincidence was the godfather. Until 1964, it was common for pop acts to appear on television to present their latest songs. When Richard Lester finished the Beatles movie "A Hard Day's Night" he omitted the performance of the song "You Can't Do That" at London's Scala Theater due to lack of space. At the end of 1964, the makers of the "Ed Sullivan Show", which had been the door opener for the US market for the Beatles in February, asked Lester to broadcast exactly this recording. Lesters employee John Victor Smith edited the recordings into a short clip that imitated the aesthetics of the film. It was the first time that the Beatles could be seen on television without being in the studio themselves.

Inspired by this experience, the group went to Twickenham Studios a year later to record clips for their songs "Day Tripper", "We Can Work It Out", "I Feel Fine", "Help" and "Drive My Car". The idea behind the session was that the Fab Four, the concerts, would gradually renounce each other until they disappeared completely from the stages of the world in 1966, but could still present themselves to a worldwide audience in this way. Thus they always remained present in the fast-moving pop business. "It was the first independently produced pop films to be made for an international market, and so they can be seen as the birth of the music video," film historian Bob Neaverson analyses.

In May 1966 the Beatles went one step further: For the single "Paperback Writer"/"Rain" she recorded several clips. Some show the band performing the songs in the Abbey Road studios. The highlight, however, are the films made at Chiswick House. Here you can also watch the musicians hanging out in the parks and in a greenhouse. Ringo Starr cuts a somewhat unfortunate figure: While his colleagues have their guitars with them, transporting the drum kit to the location proved to be too cumbersome, which is why he has to play air drums...

Lesen Sie mehr im eclipsed Nr. 176 (Dez. 2015/Jan. 2016).