By Rivy Poupko Kletenik, JTNews Columnist
Dear Rivy,
I thought the Beatles Grammy Salute marking the 50-year anniversary of the British invasion was over the top. That so many friends watched and thought it was the be all and end all was beyond my understanding. When I was young, I remember a rabbi and teacher telling us the Beatles broke down all barriers of decency in the world. At the time, of course, I disagreed. Now I wonder why we allow pop culture to so invade our psyches, not to mention our children’s. I think their music is somewhat subversive. What do you think about the Beatles and their music?
The Beatles and I go way back. In fact, John Lennon made a guest appearance at my and my twin’s 6th birthday party. (Yes, I have a twin — more about that some other time.) There we were, in our basement on Beechwood Boulevard in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood, cake and ice cream at the ready — and out comes John Lennon! Okay, so it was my older sister dressed in black and white, holding the balalaika my father had brought back from a recent trip to Russia, lip synching while our record player played “I Want to Hold Your Hand” in the background. To us, impressionable, trusting and starry-eyed Hillel Academy kindergarteners, it was John Lennon. And let me tell you something — that was the best birthday party ever. It was June 1964, just months after the start of the British Invasion on the Ed Sullivan Show on February 9 of that year — it was dreamy.
Back then, as now, there’s something magnetic about the Beatles and so much that is still so universal about their music. Some songs offer an intense truth. Some have playful humor and lightheartedness. I admit it, barely a lyric or melody of theirs is unfamiliar to me. Their music became all-American, the soundtrack of our lives as it permeated our very existence. That said, only a fool on the hill would say their songs are 100 percent kosher. There’s the hand holding, twist and shouting that would have rabbis frowning, not to mention of drug culture innuendos that swirled around them that make a few religious fans squirm. However, on this 50th anniversary of the British Invasion, let’s consider some of the loftier Beatles’ tracks through a Jewish lens.
Shall we kick it off with a song released in 1964, titled “Can’t Buy Me Love?”
Say you don’t need no diamond ring and I’ll be satisfied
Tell me that you want the kind of thing that money just can’t buy
I don’t care too much for money, money can’t buy me love
This sounds awfully similar to the jolting words from the Song of Songs, our own canon’s nod to romance. King Solomon interrupts his flowing sensual intimate love poem with a strikingly sobering cautionary message in Chapter 8;
Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it; if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, he would utterly be contemned.
Message clear: You cannot buy love and anyone who thinks he can is a fool. An enduring lesson — the earlier learned the better. This notion might even extend past the romantic; all the wealth in the world cannot purchase friendship, self-esteem, or the delight of self-actualization and fulfillment. The most precious things in life are not for sale — a solid stance we can all get behind.
Up next? A 1967 song written by Lennon and McCartney for Ringo Starr. An endearing song whose cover by Joe Cocker brings many of us back to that nostalgic 1980s television show “The Wonder Years,” where it introduced the program each week: “With a Little Help from My Friends.”
What would you think if I sang out of tune
Would you stand up and walk out on me?
Lend me your ears and I’ll sing you a song
And I’ll try not to sing out of key
Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends.
Mm, I get high with a little help from my friends.
Mm, going to try with a little help from my friends.
A rock song given over to extolling the values of friendship. What could be bad about that? It croons out core ideas intrinsic to lasting companionship and rapport, values similarly emphasized in our tradition’s Pirke Avot. At the query of his teacher Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai, “What is the best trait for a person to pursue in life?” Rabbi Joshua responds, “A good friend.” ‘Nuf said. We all get by with a little help from our friends.
This 1968 song was written by George Harrison as a test, or perhaps an exercise, in determining the veracity of the Eastern idea of things “being meant to be” versus what he perceived as an American conviction of coincidence. He opened a book and the first phrase he read was to become the song. What his eyes landed on was the phrase “gently weeps.”
I look at the world and I notice it’s turning
While my guitar gently weeps.
Every mistake, we must surely be learning
Still my guitar gently weeps
These mystical words and the musical arrangement of the song strike a chord of melancholy and a gentle inevitable pattern of our lives. Kind of kohelet-like, wouldn’t you say?
The wind goes toward the south, and turns about unto the north; it turns about continually in its circuit, and the wind returns again to its circuits.
There is no denying the talent, the sheer genius of the Fab Four. Their songs, though they reflect a specific zeitgeist, capture a magical time in many of our lives, a common spirit, offering even a few profound thoughts not at odds with Judaism. As per Rabbi Meir’s approach to the scholar apostate, Elisha Ben Avuyah, perhaps we need to become adept at eating the fruit and discarding the pit.