Dandelions In Still Air: The Withering Away Of The BEATLES

I was speaking with a friend via phone the other night on the comparative merits of current product (there is usually no other word for it) and personas of such waning superstars as Mick Jagger, Dylan, Lou Reed, Joe Cocker, George Harrison, and John Lennon. “It’s like they’re all having this contest,” my friend sniggered, “to see who can be the biggest zombie.”

I agreed with him to a certain extent, with the possible exception of Dylan (revivified, at least in terms of being a hot contender or contention again, by Blood on the Tracks) and Lou Reed (who is a professional zombie and can cackle in the grooves instead of up his sleeve}. And the more I thought about it, the more it seemed to me that of all the washed-up, moribund, self-pitying, self-parodying erstwhile pop giants to survivfe the Sixties, the four splintered Beatles may well have weathered the paH and decay of the Seventies the worst.