The Beatles and McLuhan: Understanding the Electric Age

by Thomas MacFarlane

Overview

In the 1960s, The Beatles would address like no other musical act a radical shift in the cultural mindset of the late twentieth century. Through tools of “electric technology,” this shift encompassed the decline of visual modes of perception and the emergence of a “way-of-knowing” based increasingly on sound. In this respect, the musical works of The Beatles would come to resonate with and ultimately reflect Marshall McLuhan’s ideas on the transition into a culture of “all-at-once-ness”: a simultaneous world in which immersion in vibrant global community increasingly trumps the fixed viewpoint of the individual.

By engaging with recording technologies in a way that no popular act had before, The Beatles opened up for exploration the acoustical space precipitated by this shift. In The Beatles and McLuhan: Understanding the Electric Age, scholar and musician Thomas MacFarlane examines how the incorporation of electric technology in The Beatles’ art would enhance their musical impact. MacFarlane surveys the relationship between McLuhan's ideas on the nature and effects of electric technology and The Beatles own engagement of that technology; offers analyses of key works from The Beatles' studio years, with particular attention paid to the presence of cultural metaphors embedded in the medium of multi-track recording; and collates these data to offer stunning conclusions about The Beatles’ creative process in the recording studio and its cultural implications. This work also features the first published transcriptions ever of the complete filmed conversation between John Lennon and Marshall McLuhan on their respective ideas, as well as an interview between MacFarlane and McLuhan’s son and executor, Michael McLuhan, on his father’s and the Beatles’ legacy.

The Beatles and McLuhan will interest scholars and students of music and music history, recording technology, media studies, communications, and popular culture.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780810884335
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	10/26/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	194
File size:	6 MB

About the Author

Thomas MacFarlane teaches courses in Music Theory and Composition at New York University while also working as a composer and a writer. He is author of The Beatles' Abbey Road Medley: Extended Forms in Popular Music (Scarecrow Press).
Thom MacFarlane is an independent author and composer based in New Jeresy, USA. His research has focused on the relationship between music, sound recording, and human culture. His doctoral dissertation on the Beatles' Abbey Road Medley was adapted into a book in 2007. In 2012, he completed The Beatles and McLuhan: Understanding the Electric Age, in which the ideas of Marshall McLuhan were employed to explore the aesthetic qualities of multi-track recording. That book also featured the first complete published transcription of a conversation between John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and Marshall McLuhan on their respective ideas. In 2016, he created a listener's companion on the works of singer-songwriter Billy Joel, and in 2019, a study on the music of George Harrison. His latest book, Lennon and McCartney: Painting with Sound, explores connections between music, sound recording, and the visual arts.

Table of Contents

List of Figures vii

Acknowledgments ix

Preface: Every Sound There Is xi

Part I Living in Acoustic Space 1

Chapter 1 Notes from the Electric Age 3

Chapter 2 Who Is McLuhan? 13

Chapter 3 Mapping Acoustical Space 27

Part II I'd Love to Turn You On 39

Chapter 4 The Simultaneous Worlds of Sgt. Pepper 41

Chapter 5 Mystery Tours in the Global Village 59

Chapter 6 Revolution: Splitting the Definitive 77

Part III We Are All Together 99

Chapter 7 The Poetry of Sound 101

Afterword: Cliché as Probe 113

Appendix A Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono (December 20, 1969) 117

Appendix B John Lennon and Yoko Ono Meet Marshall McLuhan (December 20, 1969) 123

Appendix C Interview with Michael McLuhan, MPA (March 23, 2012) 143

Bibliography 159

Index 165

About the Author 169

Editorial Reviews

The Beatles and McLuhan: Understanding the Electric Age includes the first ever-complete transcription of the filmed conversation between John Lennon and Marshall McLuhan, as well as an interview with Michael McLuhan regarding his father’s legacy and that of The Beatles. The Beatles and McLuhan: Understanding the Electric Age will be of interest to scholars and students interested in music, music history, recording technology, media studies, and popular culture.” —Leonardo Music Journal

“Anyone who is interested in an intense history of the Beatles, the book The Beatles and McLuhan is an exciting, instructive and valuable asset. Recommended.” —From Me to You

“You never heard the Beatles like this before. . . .In his remarkable study—for it is just that—MacFarlane assesses the true relevance of the music that the Beatles made within this period and how the music of this band became a palimpsest for the theories of Marshall McLuhan. . . .[The book] make[s] a great statement about the advent of the digital era, the mapping of our own cultural history and its preservation—thanks to hot and cool media in the digital era.” —Jazz da Gama

From the Publisher

Anyone who is interested in an intense history of the Beatles, the book The Beatles and McLuhan is an exciting, instructive and valuable asset. Recommended.

From Me to You

You never heard the Beatles like this before.. . .In his remarkable study—for it is just that—MacFarlane assesses the true relevance of the music that the Beatles made within this period and how the music of this band became a palimpsest for the theories of Marshall McLuhan.. . .[The book] make[s] a great statement about the advent of the digital era, the mapping of our own cultural history and its preservation—thanks to hot and cool media in the digital era.

Jazz da Gama

The Beatles and McLuhan: Understanding the Electric Age includes the first ever-complete transcription of the filmed conversation between John Lennon and Marshall McLuhan, as well as an interview with Michael McLuhan regarding his father’s legacy and that of The Beatles. The Beatles and McLuhan: Understanding the Electric Age will be of interest to scholars and students interested in music, music history, recording technology, media studies, and popular culture.

Leonardo Music Journal