When I was in grammar and middle school, writing term papers, my father offered me some advice. Apparently, it had worked for him during his own inglorious academic career. He told me to pick an obscure topic that my teacher knew nothing about; which probably explains why one effort was devoted to zeppelins. That way he wouldn’t be well enough informed to correct me and punish me with a bad grade.
Considering my own mediocre academic record, I doubt my instructors were fooled. And then there’s the unfortunate message that my father’s admonition sent: research and hard work is less likely to be rewarded than the dazzling properties of B.S.
Perhaps it’s for that reason that I’ve always admired people who have the courage to put themselves on the line, believing they can add something new to well trod subjects and stories that many others have previously explored. I’d add Seth Rogovoy, an author, music critic and WAMC contributor, to that list. Had Rogovoy taken my father’s advice he’d have steered well clear of the subject of his incisive new book Within You Without You because many tomes have been written about the Beatles and its individual band members.
Rogovoy’s contribution to the canon is an entertaining volume about George Harrison and the author’s deconstruction of his music. Could it be my dad’s lazy influence that one of the things I appreciated about the work is that some of the chapters feel no longer than a Beatles song? When we got together to discuss the Beatles and Harrison recently over lunch at the Bartlett House in Ghent, NY Seth said, “I think there’s no doubt in my view that he had the most artistically creative and successful career certainly in the 1970’s. The first solo Beatle to get a #1 album and to have a string of #1 hits.”
I’m not suggesting that there isn’t anything left to be said about the Beatles. Only that I wouldn’t have had the nerve to try, even if my career as a music critic dated back to high school on Long Island during the 1970’s, as Seth’s did. On the other hand, writing about the Beatles pretty much guarantees you a captive audience. Peter Jackson’s 2021 eight-hour documentary about the making of the band’s 1970 album Let It Be felt an appropriate length, if not slightly rushed.
Seth had me at page 1. That’s where he introduces John, Paul and Ringo. “And then there was George,” he writes near the top of page 2. “What interested me,” he told me, “was talking about about him as a musician and as a person and as a cultural celebrity who didn’t believe in fame.”
Unable to resist the tug of hubris I thought that I could contribute to Rogovoy’s appreciation of the Beatles if only because at 71 I’m seven year old than him. So what, you might reasonably ask? Well, my advanced age allowed me the opportunity to watch the Beatles famous introduction to American audiences on the Ed Sullivan show on February 9th, 1964. Even as a ten-year-old I knew something thrilling was afoot, that this was bigger than music, that American civilization was entering a new era and I was going along for the ride. I didn’t lord my ambient expertise over Seth — he doesn’t seem easily impressed — so I neglected to mention that during the Beatles inaugural visit to the United States my father escorted me past police barricades, restraining screaming teenage girls, and into the Plaza Hotel (it was across the street from his office) so that both he and I could experience the cultural phenomenon in person.
And no, we didn’t see the Beatles. We walked into the lobby and right back out — “Authority is ninety-eight presumed and two-percent delegated,” my dad instructed me as passed through the security perimeter, unchallenged by legions of NYPD cops assigned to prevent the adolescent hordes from breeching the hotel.
Seth explained, “I went into this wanting to write that George deserves a co-equal place at the table for his efforts in helping shape and create and perpetuate the sound of the Beatles. I always kind of root for the underdog. I was always a Mets fan.” His book doesn’t just analyze Harrison songs that I was frankly unaware that George rather than Lennon and McCartney wrote — “Something,” “Here Comes the Sun” — but he sometimes breaks the tunes down lyric by lyric, note by note.
Since I’m a musical ignoramus I purchased a copy of Within You Without You and sent it to my friend Paul Chiten, a Los Angeles based musician and Beatles aficionado to get his take on Rogovoy’s contribution to the oeuvre. He enjoyed it a lot, though he thought that the author might have tried too hard to prove his thesis that Harrison was the musical equal of Lennon or McCartney. “George was very hot and cold,” Paul opined. “He could do some real drivel and he could do some brilliant stuff.”
Paul went on, “George was the best guitarist of the three. As a singer he couldn’t measure up to Paul and John. As a songwriter he could come up with amazing gems but he didn’t have the consistency of being able to do hit after hit. But when he was at the top of his game he was completely up there with his bandmates.”
It was George who introduced the Beatles and much of the rest of the Western World to Indian music, instruments such as the sitar, and the mysticism that went along with it. My friend Paul confessed that he was unaware of Harrison’s mother Louise’s contribution to the song “Piggies,” until he read Within You Without You.
George was back in Liverpool sitting at the family’s kitchen table laboring over the lyrics to “Piggies” when he asked his mother, “What rhymes with ‘something lacking?’ According to Rogovoy, Louise instantly replied “A damn good whacking” earning a footnote in musical history.
Seth may even have gained insight into himself and his family while spending five years laboring on his Harrison project. “My dad was a CPA,” he told me. That undoubtedly contributed to his appreciation of Taxman. “I just loved that song,” he said. “I thought it was so rocking and funny and clever.”
Ralph Gardner, Jr. is a journalist who divides his time between New York City and Columbia County. More of his work can be found be found on Substack.
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