Thursday, January 6, 2011

Opposition to saving Ringo's birthplace

Two recent articles in the UK press - here and here - highlight the feeling among some that Beatles-worship has become an overbearing cultural force and needs to be checked. This, the argument goes, is evidenced by the zealous campaign to save Ringo's early childhood home.

Excerpt from the first:
Such, anyway, is yet another episode in a story that has long since ballooned into absurdity: the transformation of the Beatles into a national religion – arguably bigger than Jesus, as John Lennon infamously put it. X Factor contestants must, by law, deliver warblesome readings of Let It Be and The Long and Winding Road; each time Sir Paul McCartney ventures out to hack out his versions of the hits, the public is encouraged to think something miraculous is afoot; Yoko Ono, bless her, keeps the posthumous Lennon machine grinding on.


Excerpt from the second:
Perhaps still kicking themselves that the Cavern Club was never preserved in its original form for future moptop-loving generations, the Beatleologists have gone barmy on the preservation front in latter years. The childhood homes of Lennon and Sir Paul McCartney are both National Trust attractions, and even the zebra crossing on Abbey Road has just been given Grade II listed status.

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