Over Memorial Day weekend I attended a high school graduation in Albuquerque. One of the graduating senior boys gave a speech in which he used car parts as a metaphor for the components of one's personality or identity. It was a clever piece he'd co-written with a friend, delivered with wry humor. Afterwards, the head of the school -- a man I'd estimate was in his 60s -- took the stage and thanked the student, quipping: "Baby, you can drive my car anytime."
Thud. Thunderous silence mixed with scattered, bewildered titters.
The next night at a graduation party, the kid who'd given the speech was standing around with a few friends and the uncomfortable subject came up.
"What was that?" he said. "'Baby, you can drive my car?!?'"
"It was creepy," said one of the girls.
I piped in: "It was creepy -- because it was totally inappropriate and made no sense. Unless he was attempting to seduce you. He was just trying to make a Beatles reference for some reason."
"Oh!" exclaimed a couple of students.
"I didn't even think of that," said the boy. "But still, it was creepy."
It was probably even creepier for those of us who did recognize what the old guy was lamely attempting to invoke. These kids were 16 and 17, so naturally I felt a little... old, having to mention what I'd thought was an obvious, if still undeniably incongruous and awkward, reference. Then again, one of them had earlier quoted Taylor Swift (sarcastically) and I didn't get that, either.
But I felt a mild shock at that moment, registering something that I'd long known intellectually, but had never quite experienced quite so viscerally before. As George Harrison memorably (for some of us) sang, "All things must pass." Even the ubiquity of the Beatles' catalog. You can have a profound, revolutionary impact on the popular culture of your time and -- in the case of Paul and Ringo, I guess -- outlive it in certain respects.
Once again, what was widely shared cultural currency not long ago has been consigned to the dimly remembered past. No, I'm not really that surprised, and I'm not complaining, but I just never thought I'd live to see the day when teenage kids wouldn't immediately recognize the phrase "Baby, you can drive my car" ("Beep-beep-mm-beep-beep yeah"), or didn't know that the song occupied the first track on "Rubber Soul." (On the UK Parlophone pressings and subsequent CDs, not on the US Capitol album; Capitol stuck it on the "Yesterday... and Today" collection -- you know, the one that originally had the infamous "Butcher cover"...)
I don't know why this threw me. I mean, they did vaguely remember the song when I reminded them. But this wasn't just any old tune: It was The Beatles -- a big part of mid-20th century history. To me, not immediately recognizing it is something like not knowing the first four notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, or the first line of "Moby Dick," or what Mount Rushmore is. I mean, everybody's familiar with this stuff, aren't they? The Beatles were a worldwide phenomenon and our awareness of them and their popular songs is something we share as sentient beings, alive in this particular place and time. It's now in our DNA. Isn't it?
My parents and grandparents knew the Beatles (even when they were appalled by that "She loves you, yeah yeah yeah" noise on the "Ed Sullivan Show"!) -- and I knew their music, from Cole Porter to Nat King Cole. I wonder how long it will be before the pop-cultural heritage we share today -- whether represented by pop stars like Michael Jackson or Madonna, or movies like "The Godfather" or "Avatar" -- are obscure historical footnotes most people have never actually heard or seen, even if they're vaguely aware of their existence. Perhaps within your lifetime?
As for Taylor Swift... I don't know. Maybe 10 years? 20?
P.S. Last summer when I went into the hospital to have a pacemaker installed and get an atrial ablation I was singing "Ba ba ba-ba ba-ba ba ba-ba, I wanna be ablated" and people my own age and younger didn't know the Ramones -- who are probably more famous now (like the Pixies and Pavement) than they were when they were originally making music. Weird.
... to be continued...
82 Comments
Dammit that is depressing, is my immediate reaction to this story. I'm not going to become an adherent of Eastern mysticism tho. It just sucks. Meaning is fleeting. What you care about and that which gives your life meaning passes away and then you pass away. Dead forever. And not long after you die people will forget you and it will be as if you never existed. Even the Sun is gonna die. Here Comes the Sun? Not forever. The Universe is going to "die" too. Expand forever and the stars will go out and new ones wont form anymore and it will be one pitch black void for countless eons of time. We are nothing.
Maybe less than that for Taylor Swift. I am 27, I wouldn't have gotten that Beatles reference though I am not unfamiliar with them.
I was hanging out with 18-19 year olds some months ago, I was equally or more appalled to find out they didn't know Zombie or the Cranberries. They didn't even know Moby. Less so many references about them. And yes, one of them, to the surprise of the rest, didn't know any Beatles song, though he had heard about them. I kid you not.
Poor Jim. You're just feeling old, pal. I can relate. The idea of a shared cultural experience is obviously a key factor in how someone is remembered. The Beatles are still hugely popular. They are appreciated for their great music (as they should be) and acknowledged for the role they played in popular culture. But it's impossible for a 21 year old to think of The Beatles the way you or I do. They simply cannot "feel" this great art with the urgency and anticipation of someone who is living in the moment that it was created. The Beatles, Cole Porter and Beethoven will be fine. There will always be people who appreciate and connect emotionally with great art but the resonancy of the shared culural expeience is fleeting and cannot be duplicated. As the saying goes, you had to be there.
I am old. But I'm not as old as I feel!
I too have wondered something similar to what you're asking, Jim. I'm an Elvis fan and I sometimes wonder what he sounds like to folks who don't care for his music or think he sounds "old fashioned". I get it that Elvis squandered much of his talent and that he is, perhaps, seen by some as an arrogant pretty boy or whatever. But I don't get how someone can hear his voice and not be captivated or moved. Does it sound different to younger generations? Will The Beatles, at some point, seem ridiculous and quaint? I don't know.
I do know that I often see quotes from people I respect greatly (Jerry Lee Lewis, for example) regarding what a great artist Al Jolson was. I love old music and find that my musical tastes generally lean towards things which follow certain American traditions. Jolson would seem to fit right in there but I find his performing style ridiculous and annoying. I've tried to appreciate him but have decided it just aint gonna happen. Maybe that's what Elvis sounds like to certain younger people. Maybe at some point that will be the general consensus. Maybe that's what you mean by "historical footnote". It's shocking for you or I to imagine The Beatles as irrelevant but maybe it's inevitable.
Well, I grew up in a house that listens to the Beatles, and I know it isn't Baby Boomers buying all those copies of Beatles: Rock Band...
There's hope!
Out of all the hippity hop songs out today; baby you can drive my car is offensive to a high school student ? I think you should've piped in that these kids need to get over themselves.
What an idiotic comment. It's like an old creep grabbing your arm at a party, and he suggests that you two hook up since that's what the kids do nowadays.
Sure, some people my age might be listening to music with graphic lyrics, but his comment was profoundly creepy.
That graduating senior must have read Carl Sagan’s “The Dragons of Eden,” which also features an extensive automotive metaphor for human consciousness.
It's unsettling when something that’s been popular since its debut suddenly and unexpectedly dies out or becomes culturally irrelevant. Another example: “I Love Lucy.” Growing up in the ‘90s “I Love Lucy” was still everywhere in American pop culture. It was THE staple of Nick@Nite, and I remember well when they’d schedule hours worth of “I Love Lucy” episodes in “Summer Block Party” marathons. I had an “I Love Lucy” board game, trivia book, and other collectibles. Now, where, pray tell, can you see it broadcast these days? Maybe at 6:00 a.m. on TV Land? Suddenly, near the start of the 2000s, “I Love Lucy” all but vanished from the airwaves—certainly from primetime. Nick@Nite now airs “Roseanne,” “The Cosby Show,” and “Full House,” appealing to a younger generation of TV watchers clinging desperately to their own “classics,” but uninterested in anything made before their lifetimes.
I realize cultural reference points are by default in a state of flux, but are there really no constants? Will someone quipping “Leave the gun, take the cannoli” indeed be met with blank stares one day?
No joke: I was ten seconds into Rubber Soul when I hit Scanners this morning. Seeing the album cover and your headline made my brain short circuit for a few moments! =O
So, I'm 34 and I grew up listening to the Beatles and I have plenty of friends my age that enjoy the same passion for the fab four that I do. That said, even I've been gobsmacked over the years as I've discovered that there is a very large percentage of people MY age that would have a hard time recognizing more than a few Beatles songs, let alone be able to name ANY of the band members. Even more shocking to me is that people are unaware of the overwhelming cultural (and musical) significance of the band. So, yeah, a lot of 20th century culture will definitely be eliminated from the cultural conscience within my lifetime. (Ebert's essay this week on frisson is a good reference point here too because it talks on the cultural shift towards the consumption of short videos over long form films, regardless of quality)
This is actually sort of funny to me, since I had almost the *opposite* experience about ten years ago (I'm 29, BTW). One of my coworkers was roughly my age, and seemed to have the standard listening habits of our age group - top 40, hip-hop, (post)modern rock, practically nothing that existed before, say, 1990.
Then one day he whips out the Beatles' "1" CD, I voice my surprise, and he says he just likes them, with a friendly tone of "c'mon, who DOESN'T like the Beatles?"
So I think to myself, hey, maybe what some say is true, the Beatles really will become one of those truly eternal artists that are enjoyed for generations, regardless of what else we're listening to a hundred years from now.
Now I'm back to wondering if they (and the "classic rock" age in general) will ultimately end up more like, let's say Cole Porter. Highly respected. Widely recognized as a figure. But how many people actually listen to his material day to day, and how many could identify a particular melody or couplet? It's a pretty big "gray zone" of familiarity, and we're slipping toward an "oh yeah, I've heard of them" kind of vagueness.
I know this makes me sound like "get off my lawn!" but it seems like every generation becomes more and more ignorant/uninterested/etc in the art that was created before they were born. And I'm not just talking music, although that art form does seem particularly susceptible to this issue.
I think if it was anybody other than the Beatles, I'd say no great loss. I'm sick of boomers who glorify the '60s as if it didn't have just as much crappy art as any other decade. And if some of it fades into twilight, that may just help the really good stuff stand out even more.
But if the freakin' BEATLES aren't good enough to last, we're pretty much left with nothing. :|
I have never met anyone under the age of 30 who has seen an entire silent movie who wasn't a film student, a film critic or a filmmaker. Still waiting for that to happen.
I've almost stopped quoting the Marx brothers because nobody gets the references anymore (unless they're a film student, critic or -maker -- and even then the reference often draws slightly confused expressions). The idea that the general public would one day know almost nothing about Groucho Marx -- except the faint perception that, back during the distant past, he was considered funny -- is something I have a hard time wrapping my head around. And I myself was about eight years old when Groucho died!
All things must pass, indeed.
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. Do I dare to eat a peach?
This weekend as we were leaving the house somebody asked me, "Have you got everything?" Which is always my cue to quote Groucho: "Never had any complaints yet." I'm not sure how many of the people I say this to even realize there's a joke in there, but I can't help myself. The Marxes and W.C. Fields probably reached the apotheosis of cultdom in the '60s and '70s (it was kind of a big deal when "Animal Crackers" was re-released in 1975, and Fields posters were ubiquitous in head shops). Groucho and Fields are among the cultural icons on the cover of "Sgt. Pepper." Maybe they'll all come back 'round again...
(I was going to make a bad joke about your final line being an Allman Brothers reference, but they may be even more obscure than Prufrock now...)
"...and upon closer examination...As a matter of fact, this NEEDS closer examination. In fact, it needs a nightgown!"
Good gosh, Matt, look at this: Today's the anniversary of T.S. Eliot's 1964 dinner invitation to Groucho. They corresponded for years: http://j.mp/bZz5fp
"I have never met anyone under the age of 30 who has seen an entire silent movie who wasn't a film student, a film critic or a filmmaker. Still waiting for that to happen."
If the internet counts as "meeting," wait no longer. :D
I've even seen MORE THAN ONE! And laughed at all the right parts. (Unless it's Nosferatu, in which case I just marvel at the special effects that kick the ass of most CGI.)
I admit that in general, I'm more interested in the "modern" era (whatever range of years that means), but I'm trying to at least dip my toes into all the different periods/styles. Otherwise, it's like those people who eat the same damn thing for lunch every day. I'd go insane. I guess I'm just too inherently curious about experiencing different things.
And then there's the people who differ not so much in taste, but in basic...the right word isn't coming to me, but I'm thinking of the people who go see a movie, not so much because they're curious about it, but because it's something fun to do with your friends on a Saturday night. Different needs/expectations.
All this talk, year after year, about the disconnect between critics & the public...I think it would help if we just face a question that seems to get overlooked: "What are you hoping to get out of this experience?"
I'm 19, am not a film student, maker, or critic, yet I have seen silent films. But I've never heard of "Baby, you could drive my car". And I'm not sure I know who Taylor Swift is.
Pop culture really isn't tied down to any specific generation or era, now. With the internet, it's just as easy to listen to Rudy Vallee, Mamie Smith, or the Beatles as it is to Lady Gaga. Or to watch the Marx Brothers as Swift (in fact, it may even be easier, since many Marx bros. movies have been uploaded on Youtube, but nothing from Swift).
Same here I'm 25 and I've seen Nosfertau, Doctor Faustus, The General and I own a box set of Charlie Chaplin movies. I do have a brother who is a filmmaker but I saw most of this stuff before he did and I've seen more movies than he has. I also have another brother who has seen all the movies I listed above and watched the Decalog when he was 15. He's 19 now. We've also watched a lot of these movies with friends and they liked them.
There are "young" people out there who do like older stuff, but I'm not able to guess why. For us--we spent a lot of time at our grandparents when growing up, so we watched a lot of Nick@Nite, AMC (before Mad Men and when it was more like TCM)and TCM. Also, we lived for several years outside of the US (my parents were missionaries), so we when we returned we rushed to catch up, using books and the internet as pop culture filters and became culture gourmands. Plus, we're open to art from other cultures. So if you want to talk Marx Brothers with someone under 30, look for one of us weirdos whose pop culture was formed by their grandparents and who either grew up abroad or was homeschooled.
Thanks for sharing that with us, Jim. Push-pin in the human timeline!
Ken Griffey Jr. retired! Now I feel REALLY old! The Griffey era started when I was hitting puberty and evolving from a baseball fan to a hardcore baseball fan. Knowing that the Griffey era is over is a smack upside my head. That's what's funny about being an adult; your outlook on life doesn't drastically change from year-to-year as it did when you were under 20 so you don't really notice how old you're getting until you pass a landmark such as the demise of the cultural currency of the Beatles, the retirement of a sports icon, the death of an actor/director, etc.
I'm 26, and I didn't care for the Beatles at all until the end of college. My adolescence was filled with a lot of '90s angsty pop/alternative stuff - my tastes had to mature a bit before I could appreciate the Beatles. Which is really ironic given that they started off making pop for teenagers that older folks didn't understand, but there you have it.
My impression is that people of pretty much all ages *respect* the Beatles - note the success of Beatles Rock Band - but a lot of kids haven't really *listened* to them. Give them a few more years.
I don't see the big deal. In addition to being 45 years old, the song is relatively obscure and it's probably the worst song the Beatles ever recorded. The only reason I know the song is because Douglas Adams referred to it in an essay and he got me curious enough to download it (and I'm 35).
I'm actually impressed that the favorite bands of my 20 year-old nephew are AC-DC and Green Day, bands that have either been around longer than he's been alive or darn close to it. Even more impressive, it was his father who turned him on to those bands.
When I was a kid in the sixties, I wasn't listening to a lot of Johnny Ray or Glen Miller, which I would have had to do to sink my roots as deep as he has. Heck, even Elvis seemed old-fashioned to me.
I'd venture to say that kids now are probably more up on their musical history than we were. They just don't go back half a century. Well, we didn't either.
Yeah... The Beatles are as far away from 2010 as music from the late 1910s-early 1920s was from the mid '60s.
It's incredible kids even know the Beatles exist.
All this really proves is that the kids had bad taste in music. Nothing else.
This isn't that surprising to me. When I was in high school in the mid-90's, I was made fun of (in a harmless way) for wearing a Beatles shirt. Most kids aren't interested in anything older than 2 or 3 years.
What kids need more than anything is exposure. I didn't find The Beatles until I was 15; my uncle lost his job, moved in with my family for about a year, and promptly introduced me to The Beatles and Neil Young. I needed someone older than me to point me in the right direction or loan me an album; FM radio sure wasn't pointing me back any further than 1985 (if even that). So maybe the
It is a little sad to know that there are some young people who don't know the pleasure of this music, but The Beatles won't fade away anytime soon...not if the good folks at Apple Records can help it. But seriously, there are people today who listen to Hank Williams and Chuck Berry. Those people will pass it down to their children and so on and so fourth. The Beatles can never be the phenomenon they once were on the Ed Sullivan Show, but the general public is going to forget them or their music any time soon.
And though you haven't met me, Matt, I saw my first silent film, "Metropolis", at 21, while attending Bible college.
The Beatles are a great example, the perfect jumping off point, really. Few pop culture phenomena compare.
My wife and I thought on this very topic, only about Harry Potter. Of course, the memories of those agonizing waits between books, the midnight releases, the won't-stop-til-I-finish sessions are still fresh in our minds. But by the time our first child picks up Sorcerer's Stone (or has it read to him), that book will be a quarter-century old.
I love The Beatles' music, but I don't find them a particularly hip or worthwhile reference. I don't consider them part of the culture any longer. Just a matter of time before it happens to the things I grew up with.
Fun Aside: Small children all over the country are having trouble spelling the word "we". Can you guess how they spell it?
If it's any consolation to Matt Zoller, who laments that nobody under 30 who isn't a filmmaker/ film-critic/ film student has seen a silent film, I'm going on 21 and I've seen "The Crowd," "Nosferatu," "The Wind," "Metropolis" (alas, not the restored version!), "Intolerance," and a whole host of Keaton and Chaplin's films. ("Sherlock Jr." and "Modern Times" being my favorites) And I hope to get around to "The Passion of Joan of Arc," "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari," and "Sunrise" soon.
I got curious about this, so I checked on some numbers. Someone who was 16 in 2010 was born in 1994. In that year, the average parent was 24 when their first kid was born. In other words, they were born in 1970 -- which is to say, they were born the year the Beatles broke up. Not only are these kids in no way old enough to really "get" the Beatles in some sense, in many cases even their parents are not old enough to have really experienced the cultural juggernaut firsthand.
To put it another way, I am 25 right now. If I had a kid tomorrow, and you waited 16 years until 2026 and asked her about Michael Jackson, she'd probably say "huh?" Because not only will my kids never have lived in a world where he was huge, even I only remember the phenomenon secondhand -- my earliest clear memories of him are from when he was first accused of abusing a child. He absolutely had a huge influence on pop music as we know it, but I'm not sure it's something you can be expected to have osmoted if even your parents weren't really around for it in the first place.
On the other hand, this is the age of digital everything, so maybe future generations will grow up hearing everything that's ever been committed to mp3. It's kind of a nice thought.
The Beatles still have the power to set me in the right frame of mind as I venture out into the world. Their music will always be there when I need it, even though the band broke up over a decade before I was born.
Psychedelic Rock is still kicking, and has evolved quite a bit.
I highly recommend you check out Circulatory System and Olivia Tremor Control to see what the style is up to these days.
This reminds me of a stat my friend quoted to me once, something like 70% of grade school students can't recognize Bugs Bunny. I didn't think to ask him to cite his sources but just the thought of this sent shivers down my spine. I guess because it made me feel a bit older, granted I'm only 27 and didn't catch Looney Tunes as part of a double feature with a newsreel and the latest chapter of Spy Smasher...I had to watch that later on VHS.
And this also got me thinking of my generation and the whole Nick at Nite thing mentioned earlier. I grew up fairly aware of things of the past, certainly the Beatles (thanks Oldies 98, WOGL), but also TV shows and certainly movies. Not only that but I could recognize in the ephemera of pop culture, advertisements, references made in TV shows and movies, music, etc. a link to the past, artists who grew up with that stuff and were incorporating it into their work in various media. But then I realized something else, I was a student of film always, I was constantly absorbing everything about this stuff because I loved it so, so things like a Doo-Wop advertisement for Nickelodeon, seen as a child, wouldn't be lost on me. I would say, well that's doo-wop...because I was and continue to be a nerd. I got Metropolis waiting for me at home (haven't gotten around to it for whatever reason) but it certainly wouldn't be the first silent film I've seen. When I was 12 I fell in love with Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin and started watching their shorts, picking up collections on VHS. I even saw some of Buster's later, sobering, talkies like Speak Easily. I would watch serials, as mentioned, like Spy Smasher and The Green Hornet, Captain Midnight and Captain Marvel (probably one of the best made). Old Radio shows? You got it! Filmmation cartoons from the 60's? But of course! Gilligan's Island? Why the hell was I watching Gilligan's Island? I should have been listening to Metallica and laughing my ass off at Beavis and Butthead but no...well I did watch Beavis and Butthead but only in secret, later I found out my dad did likewise.
So I suppose I, and others like me, are more susceptible to, say, a nostalgia not of our own generation. Kids nowadays (Christ it's weird to say) seem more interested in subsuming the culture of the last decade, the 80's seem to be the cutoff point...probably because of the prevalence of suburban culture/a very white paradise. Kids like keyboards and goofy looking crap and the 80's got 'em. Blame it on Family Guy, which I fear to be the repository for pop culture dross of the last 20 or 30 years as parents must explain to their kids who the Cavity Creeps are. Soon the parents won't even know.
Maybe this is a radical evolutionary step in popular culture. That eventually everything catches up to a zero point and everything, music, movies, etc. are experienced in the immediate all pervasive now and then dropped immediately, so that you are constantly only experiencing what is NOW and nothing else, no memories persisting.
Or maybe I continue to be a nerd and only care about this stuff so I'm informed and the films I make are thus informed as well.
I miss you Nick at Nite.
I had a similar Looney Tunes experience recently, talking with my five-year-old pal Wilson. He was telling me about a Tom and Jerry cartoon he thought was funny (in an Itchy and Scratchy kind of way -- though he's not familiar with "The Simpsons") and I asked him about Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote and Bugs and Daffy and Sylvester and Tweety and Elmer Fudd... and he didn't know them at all. Horrors! I plan to rectify the situation immediately.
The Beatles have been ancient history for a long time. When I was in college in 1978, the movie “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” came out, starring the Bee Gees, Steve Martin, and the ancient-even-then George Burns among others. I was in a record store (remember those?) in a mall and overheard a couple of adolescent girls who were flipping through the records. They were looking for the movie soundtrack of Sgt. Pepper’s but came across the original Beatles album.
One girl said, “This says ‘Sgt. Pepper’s’ but it looks funny. Is this it?” Her friend replied, “I don’t think you’d like that. It’s… old.”
I nearly went over to set them straight and let them know that they were holding the real thing, not some cheesy knock-off done for a quick buck. But I held my tongue, because I knew I’d just be seen as some out-of-touch old guy. I was 20.
I've always believed this has more to do with the splintering of our attention due to the explosion of cable channels and online information. Growing up in the 1970s with only 3 networks and just as many local channels (and I'm talking about a metropolitan city, Miami), I got home from school and couldn't wallow in the children's shows that wallpaper the Cartoon Network or the Disney Channel. Atari had only just come out so there was only so long before I got sick of playing Asteroids or Space Invaders. So if I wasn't reading a book, I was enjoying "adult" shows like STARSKY AND HUTCH, BARNABY JONES, I LOVE LUCY, STAR TREK. Sunday mornings were spent watching 30 to 40-year-old B&W monster movies on Creature Feature, OUR GANG shorts, The Three Stooges. Exposure to pop culture signposts from other eras undoubtedly included the myriad cultural references they would pepper their own product with.
The cultural reference touchstone library is much narrower today.
I had to weigh in here as a devout Beatles fan for the past 35 years or so. (I mean devout--that's where my pseudonym comes from.) I knew their music before 1975, but I really DISCOVERED them as a teen.
There are still plenty of Beatles fans who are teens. I'm actually amazed at how many I find. All those copies of "1" weren't just sold to baby boomers! Kids respect their music, listen to it, and enjoy it. They may not study it and the group the way I do, but don't count them out yet.
I think part of what happened with that remark was that it was so out of context from the song that the audience probably didn't get it. "What's that guy on, man? WTF did he just say?" Something like that.
Final quick plug: The remasters are a MUST-HAVE for any serious fan--stereo AND mono.
Do not fear, these kids will learn about the Beatles in their 20s. I still believe that any self-respecting rock enthusiast will eventually feel compelled to delve deeply into the Beatles catalog. It just isn't going to happen before they turn 18 in most cases.
The other thing is, I bet the vague knowledge of the song that some of the students showed had a bit more to do with their experiences with Beatles Rock Band.
It's amazing hot closed off the younger generations are becoming; there seems to be a feeling that whatever is contemporary is of higher quality and offers a more complete experience than past works. I'm twenty-five and I've been watching silent films since I was in high school (and I became a Marx Brothers fanatic around then too)--and no, I'm not a filmmaker, critic, or student, but I've always seen great value in movies made before my time. Also consider all the people that won't watch films with subtitles! They're missing out on some of the richest experiences film has to offer! Just think of all the incredible Herzog, Kurosawa, Bergman and Tarkovsky (to name just a few) movies they're missing out on--movies I can't live without!
Although it doesn't necessarily surprise me that kids aren't familiar with The Beatles, it is rather depressing. One of my co-workers (he must be about twenty-one or twenty-two) hadn't even heard of David Bowie, which was completely shocking to me.
And if you think the ignorance/apathy of kids towards past movies and music is startling...just consider the world of literature. There are an overwhelming amount of people that only read literature for school, as if it's some sort of draining chore. While movies and music continue to offer great modern choices, what living authors can match up to the past? The only truly great author still living and writing today is probably Thomas Pynchon and even his greatest work, Gravity's Rainbow, is thirty-seven years old. How many of the new generation will read anything by James Joyce, Virginia Woolf or William Faulkner if they're not forced to? Or how about Kafka, Dostoevsky or Proust for that matter?
Okay, I've ranted and raved...I just get depressed about the direction society seems to be heading toward. All these incredible movies, this great music, and life-changing books are readily available, yet people all-too-often only pay attention to what's new.
Would you all listen to yourselves? You apparently have no sense of irony, or you would realize this article and the thinking behind it is freaking hilarious!
I didn't lament that nobody under 30 who isn't a critic/filmmaker/film student has seen a silent film. I was just saying I'd never personally met one, in the non-virtual world. Maybe I've just had bad luck or bad timing or something, who knows.
I'm not coming at this from a "get off my lawn, kids!" perspective. I'm just noting that art forms/genres/modes of expression that were once considered common coin start to fade after a while, for reasons discussed in some detail throughout this thread.
I'm really glad you're seeking out silent films, though. That's fantastic. I didn't really start seriously watching them (except for Chaplin, who was on PBS a lot) until I was in college, study, you guessed it, film.
I'm 41 years old, firmly in gen x, and this stuff is now happening to me often, even with my gen y "peers" .I was at lunch recently with a group of about 10 coworkers, most of whom were 25-34 years old. We were splitting the bill, and the group wanted to leave roughly a 30% tip (it made the math work). We'd had bad service, average food, and I said we should tip less, followed with " Don't make me quote the tipping speech from Reservoir Dogs".
Nothing but blank stares back. I was shocked. They'd all seen Pulp Fiction, of course, but nobody in the group besides me and the only other 40+ guy had seen RD. I couldn't believe it. I'm still upset about it.
I'm 30. I love the Beatles and have since I was a teenager. I've never been much into "current" music, although every once-in-a-while someone comes along that I like. I'm more into 60's 70's and 80's music.
The other day I was at a restaurant. At the counter they had a bunch of CD's - "M&M's (candy) Presents Groovy Summer Hits" or something like that. It was a bunch of songs from the 60's. I forget all that was on it, but for example it had "California Dreamin'". I was looking at it, getting all excited and was just about to ask how much, when the girl (my age, if not older) at the counter said, "You can take that if you want it." And then, incredulously: "You know who them people are? I never heard of any of that stuff!"
I didn't say anything, but, really? Nothing on it? There were maybe one or two groups or songs that I wasn't familiar with, but most of it seemed to me pretty common-knowledge stuff.
I've also seen plenty of silent films and try to see "classics" when I get the chance. And I love the Marx brothers.
However, I've always thought I'd have been better off in another era. I don't really belong to this time.
I'm 25, a HUGE Beatles fan, and my tastes in general tend to gravitate towards the past rather than the present. That being said, I find many references that I make to films, tv, and music to be lost on my peers. Then again, many of the references I make are obscure to those of any age group for that matter, especially in regards to The Beatles.
At times I'll find myself referencing the films "Help" or "A Hard Days Night," only to be met with blank stares, even from serious Beatles fans. Don't even get me started on what happens if I drop a line from the somewhat-obscure Beatles cartoon series that ran from 1965-68...even many hardcore Beatles fans have no idea what the hell I'm talking about then, ha.
What can I say? I'm odd like that.
Well this is certainly a huge kneejerk reaction. Just because some kids don't recognize a Beatles song doesn't mean they're slowly fading away into obscurity. Far from it. After all, in the past few years, we've gotten the Beatles remasters, Across the Universe and the Beatles Rock Band, all of which have been huge hits.
There's a very simple way to make sure any kid grows up to be a Beatles fan: just make sure you show them the film "Yellow Submarine" when they're four or five years old. Follow it soon afterwards by "Help!" (and, once they can handle black and white, "A Hard Day's Night" too) and they'll be a fan for life. Worked for me! (I'm 24.)
Nick, right on. I myself was hooked by the cartoon series...MTV used to run it back in the mid 1980's, and my parents taped just about every episode for my brother and I to watch.
If you haven't seen it, it's incredibly cheesy, and quality control was quite lacking to put it nicely. Still, it's entertaining in a "so bad it's good" way, and most kids under the age of nine or so won't even notice.
I first saw "Help" and "A Hard Days Night" when USA ran them on Christmas Eve back in 1991. I didn't actually see "Yellow Submarine" until I was about 14. Love them all.
I have to admit, I'd probably have pegged "Baby, you can drive my car" for a Bobby McFerrin reference, rather than a Beatles reference.
But I'm always amazed when cultural references I learned from my parents draw a blank stare nowadays. Fibber McGee's closet? September Morn? Huh?
I think this generation may be a little different and it would depend largely on which kids you talk to. I would guess if the kids today listen to rock music, the kind played with a small band with a couple amped guitars, a bass and drums, if they listen to metal or hard rock, they may go back to the 70's with Led Zepplin, they may even be curious enough to listen to Hendrix and eventually they will find the Beatles.
If on the other hand they strictly listen to dance or hip-hop, they might go back to Madonna or Michael Jackson from the 80's and even disco from the 70's. But there will likely be a break. Because I don't believe the Beatles' music relates to this. Modern pop songs are heavily computerized and engineered. These kids might not care about old rock 'n roll.
Oh boy, read this while listening to the soundtrack to Help. On the weekend I watched Hard Day Night.
If they don't get the reference what does this say about the Beatles version Rockband?
They knew the reference, it just wasn't a very funny joke. It's a common thing among today's youth to be faux outraged at authority figures. "How could he SAY that?!" They didn't get it because they didn't want to get it. I've been listening to the Beatles since I was 13 and I wasn't alone among my peers. I'm 23 now, by the way.
Well, yes, it was an ad lib that didn't make sense -- an inappropriate reference, whether you recognized the song he was quoting or not. I just found myself taken aback when I realized these nearly college-age students didn't connect the remark with the song. Is it not on Beatles Rock Band? (See previous post on "Indomitable Spirit and Internet logic": It was a lousy use of a Beatles quotation [famous title and chorus] AND some students didn't recognize it as a Beatles quotation. Causal connection, or two independent truths? Either way, that's what happened.)
My kids are 6 and 2, and are huge Beatles fans. Nick R. is right on - they love "Yellow Submarine (the song, though, haven't seen the movie). That song is more than 40 years old now - it would have been like me listening to Cole Porter when I was that age, or Bing Crosby, or something. And in fact I did, but also my mom was a hippie, so the Beatles and Bob Dylan and whatnot. It's weird that I'm passing on another generation's pop culture to my kids, but hey, quality is quality.
The Beatles are still extremely popular, even among teens, and likely always will be. And it's not so bad that teens didn't immediately know what is probably not even one of their top 25 or 30 most recognizable songs.
The more troubling story is that a school official could have listened to this song for decades and not realized that it's about sex!
Any way you slice it, the reference sucked.
It was cringe inducing regardless of generation
or recognition of the reference. Yet another
example of how "the man" doesn't get it... but
another notation for our collective memory.
He obviously thought he was being clever... and failed. I wonder what (if anything) he thought he meant, or if it was just supposed to be a tortured expression of approval: "Hey, you made a good speech using a car metaphor. Baby, you can drive my car anytime!" No, there's a missing link there somewhere...
A couple of years ago when George Harrison died, my wife and I watched "Help!" for the first time in years.
They got to the line in the song where they say, "When I was younger, so much younger than today..." and I'm looking at these rosy-cheeked boys and thinking, "How could they BE any younger?"
This attempt making a profound statement based on a-non event really fails. Beatles are huge but expecting everyone to remember every single line of every single one of their songs is both unreasonable and unrealistic (and perhaps was as much so in the 60s).
What I'm trying to say is, considering theat student's reaction they actually knew what the teacher was referencing but couldn't place it. Not a big deal.
Profound? Who said anything about profundity? The anecdote is open to interpretation. As I said above: See previous post on "Indomitable Spirit and Internet logic": It was a lousy use of a Beatles quotation (famous title and chorus) AND some students didn't recognize it as a Beatles quotation. Causal connection, or two independent truths? However you interpret it, those things happened.
Bob K: "The more troubling story is that a school official could have listened to this song for decades and not realized that it's about sex!"
Yeah, that is a little weird, isn't it?
I wonder what part of "... and maybe I'll love you. Beep-beep-m beep-beep, yeah," the old guy didn't understand.
Just last week I had this conversation with my friend's 16 year old daughter when we were talking about horror films:
Her: "I really love The Fog."
Me: "You mean the original one from the 70s, right?"
Blank stare, then:
Her: "No, the real one."
Oh well.
I'm really not surprised the kids wouldn't know a Beatles' reference. I am completely out of touch with even the most basic pop culture reference points today. I know who Taylor Swift is, but couldn't identify her let alone name a song. And when I do music quizzes at Sporcle, I not only don't know many of the songs in the quiz, I've never even heard of the groups (someone chose to call themselves Modest Mouse? Really?) Last month something called "Justin Bieber" hosted SNL. I had to Google it. And someone named Katy Perry topped Maxim's Hottest Women list. Back to Google.
Is there any such thing as a universal, timeless cultural reference point? Maybe "The Wizard of Oz." In fact, I suspect if there are any enduring touchstones like this, they are films/TV show aimed more at kids because these seem to get recycled generation after generation (I know "Oz" isn't entirely a kids' movie, but it certainly appeals to, and sometimes scares, the youngsters.) And maybe a few superheroes like Superman and Batman can be tossed in as well.
I graduated about nine years ago. The Beatles had broken up over thirty years before I graduated, but my friends and I were all avid Beatles fans and most people I know to this day (mostly in their mid-20s) remain Beatles fans.
I think this may have been a statistical abberation. Either that or you might find these things go in waves. I graduated around the time "1" came out and there was a lot of renewed interest in the Beatles. That renewed interest will happen again. They are the most important and arguably the best rock band ever, and that will not be diminished with time, any more than the importance of Bach or Mozart or Beethoven or Gershwin or Ellington have diminished over time.
I am 21 and have been completely obsessed with the Beatles since high school. My room is a shrine to them. I alone make up for at least this auditorium of kids who didn't get the reference.
I think the off-the-cuff Beatles quotation was probably aimed more at the adults in the crowd than the students, but it failed to get a response because the reference itself was... let's say not well thought-through. I don't know how many students didn't know he was quoting the Beatles, just that those responsible for the speech and some of their friends didn't seem to recognize it as such the next night. If we could ever assemble that graduating class again, I'd love to see a show of hands for how many knew the song he was referencing. Then I'd like to hear the individual interpretations of what they thought (or what they thought he thought) he was saying by quoting it.
I'm 35, and I can't remember a time when Beatles music wasn't in my life. (No pun intended.) Although my Baby-Boomer parents weren't die-hard fans of the group they owned a few of the albums. I can still recall "Here Comes the Sun" spinning on the turntable when I was nursery-school age. My appreciation for them, however, developed in my late high school and college years of the early / mid 90's when alternative or grunge rock was the dominant force in music.
Now I have a son, who is eight years old, and he has loved listening and dancing to tracks from "Rubber Soul" or "Revolver" since he was a toddler. His favorites are "Eleanor Rigby," and . . . "Drive My Car."
I am reminded, a couple of years ago I was listening at work to the Beatles "1" CD in my office (that I was listening to a CD itself dates me!), and a much younger coworker asked me what I was listening to, because (paraphrased): she thought she'd heard a couple of the songs before, and she really liked those she heard, and would like to hear more -- when I said it was "The Beatles" she was surprised, but at least she'd heard of them...
I'm 26 and the Beatles are still well-known. There were a bunch of Beatles obsessives I knew during high school who I have no doubt could've quoted all the lyrics from memory (me included). One of my buddies is a bassist in a successful (well, financially anyway) rap metal group, and he can quote all the songs from memory. The band is still known by more people, generation to generation, than any other band. The guy above who said that in 1978 in a record shop some girls were calling Sgt Peppers silly looking and the Beatles old, kind of illustrates the point here. Every generation has morons. 2 years after those girls said that, John Lennon was shot and it was the story of the year - the Beatles weren't old or silly. Seventeen years after those girls said that came Anthology, and the Beatles were huge again. And on and on.
So - fear not?
I'm 41. When I was a kid (1970s early 1980s), my next door neighbor used to come over with his portable record player and play Beatles records. So I kind of knew and liked them because of that. Later, when the classic-rock radio trend started in the 80s, and all the Beatles records came out on CD, I became a much bigger fan than before. Personally, I started collecting Beatles CD's almost from the get-go, which had slightly weird consequences. For example, to me, Sgt. Pepper brings back memories of 1987, my freshman year at university, because that's when the CD came out - not 1967 (two years before I was born).
In maybe 2002, a British friend and I were talking about the Beatles for some reason and he mentioned that a lot of people my age didn't know about them. My response was, "if you don't like the Beatles, you don't like music." He said, "I'm quite relieved to hear you say that." I also remember that my late grandmother, who was born around 1920, would grudgingly admit "they had some good tunes" when the subject of the Fab Four came up, even though she was from the generation with probably the strongest antipathy for the whole 60s counterculture. The fact is that people who know anything about music respect the Beatles, independently of age, nationality or other musical preferences. Among music lovers, the only exceptions are some misanthropic types who just enjoy being provocative (like that guy from Oasis who slagged Paul McCartney). It is perfectly clear to any music fan that, although the early albums were too teenybopper and had too much filler, by the time of Rubber Soul and everything that came after it, Lennon and McCartney were songwriting masters at the top of their game - it is so obvious that it's just not worth arguing about.
Having said that, there are also a lot of people who aren't music fans, or just like a different kind of music, or simply haven't had time to explore music deeply enough to encounter the Beatles. We should not be shocked that this group exists, or that the percentage of the population that falls into it has tended to increase as the years pass. The Beatles were an enormous presence in popular culture, but popular culture is, by nature, ephemeral - it inherently values the new over the old, even if the quality is the same, or worse. The high school kids at that event were simply typical high school kids in that, if they were into music at all, they were into the music that they encountered first - whether it was the current top 40, or "American Idol" singers, or whatever. I know this because I used to be like them; when I was their age, I was listening to stuff like Tears for Fears, Mr. Mister, and the Hooters. Give them time.
By the way, I was listening to "Meet the Beatles" earlier today - never heard this combination of tracks before because the CDs correspond to the British albums, not the American ones. But the energy and freshness of tracks like "It Won't Be Long" really holds up. No one should worry about the legacy of the Beatles. As long as our technological civilization exists, so will they, thanks to the immortality the Internet makes possible - there are going to be people who read this article and read the comments and feel curious enough to download Beatles music and encounter it for the first time. We should envy them that first-discovery experience, not resent them because it hasn't happened yet.
The fact is my generation had the Beatles and many of yours didn't. Too bad for you.
I found this interesting to read after coming home from a 5-day Beatles music festival (I went with my family; My dad is a huge Beatles fan. We have a room in our house dedicated to all things Beatles). While a lot of the bands playing were older, there were a few bands that were definitely 15 and under. It was a family festival with a lot of children. I don't think the music is going anywhere. I'm 26, and I still consider them my favorite band of all time.
My first reaction was how creepy the reference is in context--it's a love/lust song, after all. "And maybe I'll love you" and all that.
Out of context, yes--it would just seem incomprehensible.
I'm not surprised (I'm 23, and a few years ago I'm sure that probably only 10% of the kids would get it, though I was one of them) about the not getting the Beatles. It must be weird though--to come to that realization unexpectedly.
A note to the parents out there - when dealing with teenagers, one must be devious. When my young ones were in that stage, I made a deal with them. When they wanted a new CD, I would buy it for them on the condition that I would also buy them a CD of my choice and they had to listen to mine first - all the way through at least once. So, for every NKOTB, Oingo Boingo, or Madonna CD that entered our abode (can we say the 1980's?), so did a Jimi Hendricks, a Pink Floyd, The Doors, The Beatles. I did the same thing with the neighborhood kids at Christmas. It was funny to see my neighbors dancing in the kitchen to Steppenwolf, blaring from their son's stereo upstairs behind his closed door. If he only knew!
The key is exposure to all sorts of music. I just returned from a road trip with my almost 31 year old son. In his car, the stack of CD's with the current artists also included some oldies from before the Beatles - Frank Sinatra and Louis Armstrong. After encouragement from me, my 32 year old daughter has developed a taste for classical music. And they both know The Beatles, The Stones, even Tommy James and the Shondells.
Yes, "Drive My Car" is in the track listing for Beatles Rock Band. I don't own it myself, since I don't really care for fake guitar / karaoke. One has to consider the type of game Rock Band is. The person who buys it is making a fairly large investment, even if they're not buying their plastic instruments with it. Chances are, they've bought every Rock Band game so far and are fairly well acquainted with classic music. Also, this person probably knows every Beatles song inside and out and will probably beat the "story mode" of the game playing each instrument individually.
Most people of my generation know Rock Band as a party game, since it works best with four players. That means the majority of people play four or five songs at a friend's house to try it out, or do it sloppy drunk at a party, or just watch someone else embarrass themselves. Since the Beatles catalog is not available digitally (legally) there's not an easy way to buy singles. It's also played on oldies radio and not on what kids would normally listen to. I think "Drive My Car" is relatively underplayed and not as pop culture defining as stuff like "All You Need Is Love" or "I Wanna Hold Your Hand." They probably wouldn't get a "Back in the USSR" joke either.
Jim -
Two coincidences:
- Over the same weekend, I was perusing my VHS tapes (TV shows recorded off cable) prior to throwing them out as obsolete, and one happened to be a "Wings concert". This reminded me of the WIDESPREAD joke of the late 80's which ends with the punch line "and then my daughter said 'you mean Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings ?' ". Nowadays, as you found out, kids know neither Wings nor the Beatles (despite a Beatles revival in the late 90s). It is a clear example of the Buddhist concept of "impermanence".
- Right after reading your column, my wife showed me a trailer for a movie biopic of John Lennon called "Nowhere Boy". It seemed to clash with your column, in that the style of the movie seemed to clearly target the college art house cinema crowd. So, no one in the target audience will have a clue who this is...
Wait, how'd we go from teenagers not recognizing a line from "Drive My Car" to "Kids don't know the Beatles and college students don't have a clue who John Lennon is"? You can't be serious.
Jim, I only hope The Godfather becomes less revered in the cultural fabric soon...so the darn Blu Ray set goes down in price! Oh how I want that thing...but not at its current price. Yet, like Golem, I shall wait patiently for the wheel of time to turn so my precious may come to me.
re: MZ Seitz: There are some people here and there that are trying with silent film, at least in regards to Chaplin. I went to a screening of four Chaplin shorts, including mini-masterpieces The Immigrant and the Adventurer, and there were a lot of parents with kids (one of which brought an actual baby, which was completely uncalled for), and for the most part they were all attentive and undisruptive. Chaplin is definitely the best way to get children into silent film early on, hook em while they're young (or, if you're like me, and your parents have any inkling you might be a film critic/filmmaker, Citizen Kane at age 8)
At first I wasn't sure if I had heard this song, but that YouTube clip refreshed my memory: I have. I doubt I would have gotten the reference, though.
It would have been a real kicker if the head of the school had tried to make a reference to Richard Lester's Beatles movies as well.
It's the parents fault! It's always the parents fault.
@MattPatt's comments remind me of an old boss of mine. She was most definitely a product of the 60s and would often reminisce—with older coworkers—about the music of "her" day as well as television programs from that era. As for my opinion, she would wave her hands and proclaim that I was "too young to have lived through" the 1960s. Yes, that was surely true. Yet occasionally I would remind her that there are whole industries devoted to making sure I have access to the music and entertainment from decades past. In fact, I was even quite familiar with a Shakespeare, a Mozart and a Beethoven—despite the fact that I was not living through their own productive years.
It is indeed clever to figure that the average parent of today's sixteen-year-olds were born in 1970. Yet this does not preclude these parents from knowing and enjoying the music of The Beatles or any other "historic" band. Nor should the parents necessarily be ignorant of their historical impact on popular culture. In fact I am one of these parents (though I waited an extra decade before producing a child) born post-Beatles. For Christmas last year I bought my kindergarten-aged child the Beatles' Mono Box Set and he's been slowly going through the catalog (he's only on With the Beatles but hey… he's got a lifetime). He's even seen a Shakespearean play at his school and has listened to Mozart and Beethoven. And though @Matt Zoller has now been introduced to many "under the age of 30 who has seen an entire silent movie" I can add another: my son. He I have tickets to see the 1924 Peter Pan when it screens at the Orpheum later this month (and if the 1956 The Red Balloon counts then he's already seen one).
It is possible for generations to know what came before their own. One just needs a slight bit of curiosity and a willing teacher. So when it comes to youthful ignorance—I blame the parents!
I can appreciate the Beatles as much as anyone else, but let's face it. That's not one of their better songs. I don't see it as a sign of parental neglect that teenagers don't know it. But then, I prefer the Who or the Kinks.
As for Taylor Swift, I personally can't think of anyone I know that even listens to her. Music has become compartmentalized; no band in the last twenty years had anything near the cultural impact of the Beatles. I don't see this as a bad thing.
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