Editorials

Your Mother Should Know

Here, There And Everywhere
I think it first occurred to me when I was listening to “I Am the Walrus” one day, although I had probably known it all along. “This sounds a hell of a lot like metal,” I thought. Actually, listening to the dissonant, morbid melodies that John Lennon plays on the mellotron at the beginning of that track, I’m willing to go further. This doesn’t just sound like metal. It sounds a hell of a lot like death metal. Throw in the twisted symphony of eight violins, four cellos and three horns, and now I’m thinking this sounds a hell of lot like black metal. Lennon’s vocal? It is threatening (the song was banned by the BBC because of offensive lyrics). “GOO GOO GA JOOB,” while not a death vocal as we know it today, sounds nonetheless like the first unclean vocal ever recorded. Listen at the end, the 3:25 mark. This shit is absolutely bizarre; the most sinister sounds I would hear on an album until perhaps Mercyful Fate’s Melissa and Don’t Break the Oath. What is more disturbing? Lennon shouting “JOOBA JOOB” as loud as he humanly can, mug pressed into the mike, or a choir of children chanting "Oompah, oompah, stick it up your jumper” played backwards? Might as well flip a coin… And have I mentioned yet that this song was recorded in September of 1967, two and a half years before the release of Black Sabbath’s self-titled debut?

Lennon, who always enjoyed mocking his audience for finding his music fascinating, described the song in these terms:

In those days I was writing obscurely, a la’ Dylan, never saying what you mean but giving the impression of something, where more or less can be read into it. It’s a good game, I thought, ‘They get away with this artsy-fartsy crap.’ (The Beatles Anthology, p. 273)

But he also told the following story, which shows he was wryly aware of the effect the song had on the human psyche:

I sat in a restaurant in Spain and the violinist insisted on playing ‘Yesterday’ right in my ear. Then he asked me to sign the violin. I didn’t know what to say, so I said, ‘OK,’ and I signed it, and Yoko signed it. One day he’s going to find out that Paul [McCartney] wrote it. But I guess he couldn’t have gone from table to table playing ‘I Am The Walrus.’ (The Beatles Anthology, p. 175)

But maybe it wasn’t “I Am The Walrus” that awakened me to how heavy The Beatles were. Maybe it was Lennon’s “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” off the band’s last studio effort, Abbey Road. Yeah, sure the verse is lounge-type jazz/rock. But the chorus, that riff they slowly and crushingly fade out on—if this came out today it would be called “progressive doom metal.” God, is this section heavy. It’s like an impending fate that you can’t shake free off—the guitar creeping on, Ringo Starr (one of the truly underrated drummers) working the snare and toms while grooving ominously on his cymbals, and George Harrison throwing a final curve with the evil white noise hiss of a Moog synthesizer. When the song just inexplicably and suddenly ends in the midst of all this chaos, I can’t help but think of “Pull Me Under” or an artistic impression a band like Opeth might make. And speaking of Dream Theater—listen to Lennon on the organ on this track. Isn’t this pretty much the kind of stuff Kevin Moore has earned his living with? And last but not least, these harmonies—these fucking wonderful harmonies—“SHE’S SO HEAVVVVYYYYY…”—this is what made bands like King’s X possible!

Perhaps it wasn’t “I Want You,” though. Maybe it was “Strawberry Fields.” You know, the twisted harpsichord? Ringo beating toms that sound like massive bass drums? Backwards cymbal hits added to the mix? The simultaneously morose and uplifting lyric that makes you feel like you’re in a dream? Harrison striking bizarre notes on the tabla harp while Starr beats the skin off his snare drum? You think this one is over at the 3:33 mark. But it’s not. They come back in with the most morbid reprise you will ever here. The drums pounding, Harrison waxing evil again on the tabla and bizarre voices in the background, one of which clearly says “I bury Paul.” How did a song this terrifying obtain lasting commercially popularity? It is truly a testament to the band’s genius.

Or, if not “Strawberry Fields,” perhaps it was “A Day In The Life.” “I’D LOVE TO TURRRRRNNNN YOOOOUUUU ONNNNNN…” Those dissonant, sinister piano strokes and McCartney conducting a forty-one piece orchestra on top of it; working them into some bizarre, rising crescendo that sounds like a swarm gathering. The backwards, looped voiceovers at the end, Lennon fucking with us one last time on what is regarded by many as the greatest album ever made, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

And, while we’re on the subject of tape loops, maybe it was “Revolution 9” off the White album. I remember turning the lights off in my living room when I was eight years old or so and listening to this track on the phonograph with my friends. It scared the living hell out of me. The disturbing cacophony of cars honking, sinister voices, babies crying, men screaming in agony, mobs rioting, guns firing, twisted chamber music—it is hard to listen to. Lennon described it as follows:

The slow version of ‘Revolution’ on the album went on and on and on, and I took the fade-out part and just layered all this stuff over it. It has the basic rhythm of the original ‘Revolution’ going on with some twenty loops we put on; things from the archives of EMI. I was getting classical tapes, going upstairs and chopping it and making it backwards and things like that to get the sound effects. There were about ten machines with people holding pencils on the loops—some only inches long and some a yard long. I fed them all in and mixed them live … ‘Revolution 9’ was an unconscious picture of what I actually think will happen when it happens; just like a drawing of revolution.

With A Little Help From My Friends
A dawning realization came over me that there were no other bands I knew of that were recording music like this during the period of 1967-1969. Led Zeppelin didn’t hit the shelves until January of 1969. High Tide’s Sea Shanties was also released in 1969. Budgie didn’t land until 1971. And we’ve already mentioned Sabbath—1970.

As these bands are generally regarded as the creators of heavy metal, the next question to be answered was, “Were they influenced by The Beatles?” The answer, as I discovered, is ‘sure.’

Jimmy Page of the aforementioned Led Zeppelin described the influence of The Beatles in an interview with Led-Zeppelin.com:

When the [Rolling] Stones first started they were doing really good interpretations of Muddy Waters songs and all that Chess catalog. They weren't the only ones, of course … You had The Beatles in Liverpool with "Please Mr. Postman," and it really wasn't the same deal as what was going on down South [London], but it got very popular and changed what was going on. It wasn't so much, for me, their music, but the fact that they wrote their own songs and all of a sudden they opened the door for any band that could write songs. I started doing studio work. That's the big change they made on the music scene." (Interview with Led-Zeppelin.com, December 1999)

Tony Hill of High Tide, what do you have to say about the Fab Four?:

…Everybody wanted to be The Beatles and then the Stones … The precedent [of a band writing its own material] had been set by [them]. They just covered for the sake of the audience … I bought a Gretch [guitar]. The Jet Firebird! The Beatles influence. (Interview with Furious Green Thoughts, November 2000)

And Sabbath legend Ozzy Osbourne put it thusly in an interview with NY Rock:

Shortly before I left school, The Beatles got popular and they were my first addiction. I could switch off, forget my surroundings and dive into the music. It was something magical, almost a spiritual experience for me. Of course, my dad hated it. Way back then, The Beatles were revolutionaries and their music was revolutionary music. You know, they were considered to be a bad influence because they gave the kids ideas, the ideas to do something else with their lives than waste it in factories or become plumbers. For adults, it was a dangerous thing. But for us, they were heroes. (Interview with NY Rock, 2002)

NY Rock was baffled, stating, “It's a bit hard to imagine that Black Sabbath was inspired by The Beatles,” but so it was.

In 2004, Ozzy again mentioned The Beatles as a chief influence in interviews, and told Guitar Center:

The biggest break in my life came when The Beatles hit. They totally sucked me in and I thought, ‘That's my way out, my music.’ I used to fantasize, as all kids do, about Paul McCartney marrying my sister and all that crazy stuff. That set me off into music and my first gig ever, at the fire station in my hometown. (Interview with Guitar Center, 2004)

And if Ozzy was overly medicated during these interviews, were there other metal legends to corroborate his story? How about Rob Halford? What stuff put him on “the path to metal”?:

Well, there wasn’t any metal apart from Black Sabbath. I was checking out early stuff like Hendrix, The Doors, Cream, Yardbirds, some early blues, The Beatles...lots of stuff with melody. Metal was invented by Sabbath, Priest and Maiden. So we just went that route. (Interview with Modern Fix, 2002)

Need affirmation from the fathers of extreme metal? How about Quorthon of Bathory confessing "I am a big fan of The Beatles" to Online Panzer Magazine in 2003?

Or Dave Mustaine of Megadeth telling Shockwaves Magazine, "My roots are really Led Zeppelin and The Beatles," in 2001?

Or Tom Warrior of Celtic Frost telling H2CF, "My musical influences are, of course and correctly, Black Sabbath, but also, and heavily, The Beatles..."

Or Abaddon of Venom hailing the artistic integrity of Paul McCartney:

…You know, Paul McCartney could have continued doing Beatles songs for the rest of his life, but he didn't do that. Wings sound quite different from the Beatles. It wasn't as commercially successful as the Beatles stuff, but what the hell. (Interview with The 7 Gates of Hell, May 1996)

Even modern metal gods hail the lads from Liverpool. Listen to how Mikael Akerfeldt of Opeth defines the genre itself:

People call us a metal band and I am happy with that. Metal to me is a very wide term. It is not just 100% speed all of the time. To me, metal is ranging from The Beatles onward. (Interview with Chronicles of Chaos, 2001)

Akerfeldt used an interesting analogy in describing the band’s relationship with producer Steven Wilson to an interviewer this year:

It’s almost like… I can imagine what The Beatles had with George Martin, especially when they’re tripping on acid saying something like, ‘I want the vocals to sound like I’m inside an orange.’ You know, totally fucked up stuff like that. (Interview with KNAC.com, March 2004)

You Say Goodbye...
Do I have an evil twin? Ladd, you say, less than two years ago you wrote an editorial titled Who Created Heavy Metal? and never so much as mentioned The Beatles while providing your answer: Black Sabbath. Well, listen—I grew up on Long Island. I’m 33 and I never really had a truly original thought in my life until the last two years. I’m still learning, still figuring it out.

Who Created Heavy Metal? was not an original piece of writing. It was largely an effort to collate conventional wisdom on the subject and encourage debate (yes, I actually do respect your opinions and try to learn from them). In any case, I don’t go back on anything I said in that piece:

That said, I am haunted by the fact that I can’t think of anything pre-Sabbath that sounds as much like modern heavy metal—melodically, harmonically—as “I Am The Walrus.” The acid rock of bands like Cream sounds dated to me—the lasting innovations made by such groups seem to have been more technical in nature (equipment), less artistic. There is nothing in the music of The Yardbirds, save loud guitars, that tells me how Dimmu Borgir exists today. But when I hear the sepulchral strings and strident vocals of “Walrus,” I can see the first link in a long chain.

Come Together
Lennon himself was aware of The Beatles’ connection to the metal genre. He argued that “Ticket To Ride” was “one of the earliest heavy metal records … It was pretty fucking heavy for then … if you look at what the other people were playing” (beatles-discography.com). I don’t know if I’d go that far—although in context there is probably much truth to the boast. But by the time The Beatles had progressed to the noisy, distorted guitars of “Helter Skelter,” there was no doubt they were far more than an innocuous boy band.

Thankfully, there are many metalheads who recognize the contribution of The Beatles to the genre they love. When George Harrison passed away in 2001, fans posted tributes on the Internet like this one:

I am a metalhead, but I do like The Beatles a lot. I love "Let It Be" and "Revolution" and I am deeply saddened by Harrison's death. Without The Beatles, there probably wouldn't have been too much metal. I respect The Beatles’ albums as much as Reign in Blood and Iowa. (Roadrunner Records In the Pit forums, April 2002).

Just remember that before there was “Long Since Dark” there was “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds.” Before there was a Black album there was a White album. Before there was Century Media Records there was Apple Records. Before there was Headbangers Ball there was “Hard Day’s Night.” Hell, even the long hair...yep, it started with The Beatles’ mop-tops.

Any way you cut it, the Fab Four’s influence on the heaviest of music’s genres is indelible and enduring.

By: Ladd Everitt

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