Sitting On A Cornflake

“That’s typical of Paul. It’s so silly of me to stay at the hotel. It’s just that he’s so insecure. For instance, he keeps saying he’s not interested in the future, but he must be because he says it so often. The trouble is, he wants the fans’ adulation and mine too. He’s so selfish; it’s his biggest fault. He can’t see that my feelings for him are real and that the fans’ are fantasy. Of course, it’s the trouble with all the boys. When I first met them I liked them all. Then, when I found out I liked Paul more, the others became angry with me.”

Unlike other bands of their era, the Beatles have never descended into “nostalgia act” territory. Instead, even after the announcement of the band’s breakup in 1970, the group has maintained its cultural and musical relevance. In the decades since the Beatles’ breakup, their image has undergone several transformations. In Dreaming the Beatles, Rob Sheffield describes how the Beatles’ image and influence changed according to decades. The 1970s brought a sense of deprivation, a type of mourning concerning their breakup. By the 1980s, the Beatles were bound by a nostalgia surrounding psychedelia and hippie culture, represented in magazines such as Rolling Stone. It was the 1990s that brought a new relevance to the band’s music, with the Beatles Anthology documentary (and accompanying CDs) attracting renewed attention to the group. The decade culminated in the surprise success of the 1 compilation, a collection that reintroduced the music to second- generation fans and their children. Sheffield argues that during this decade, the Beatles were untethered from 1960s symbolism. During the 1990s, “if for you rock and roll is about nostalgia, the Beatles are your best weapon. If for you rock and roll is the long, hard fight against nostalgia, the Beatles are also your best weapon.” Their timeless quality appeals to younger generations while maintaining the loyalty of older fans. While the Beatles indeed represent a specific time period, their music and words address issues as meaningful today as they were during the Summer of Love: politics, war, sex, drugs, art, and creative liberation.