Liverpool Assignment #2

Going to Liverpool was one of my favorite things I’ve done during the whole trip so far.  Although visiting Darwin’s house was an amazing experience, I found Liverpool to be an exciting aspect of the trip and really allowed me to have a different view of the things we’ve learned about in class.  Learning something about the Beatles is one thing but actually going to the place that their stardom began is another.  During just two days in Liverpool I learned much more about The Beatles and their early lives than I imagined I would. After visiting the Beatles Museum, riding the Magical Mystery Tour Bus, listening to Beatles Tribute bands at the Cavern Club and going on a tour of John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s homes, I felt like I had really had the full Beatles experience! Their adolescence, growing up in Liverpool would surprisingly impact each member quite a bit.  I learned not only about their young lives but also how exactly they did effect their futures.

When I found out that I got the opportunity to go on a tour of John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s homes I was unbelievably excited!  When we went on the Magical Mystery Tour, we got to drive by and get out and take pictures of their homes but I was in shock when I found out we would get to go inside of them and that they had been restored to look exactly like how they did at the time each of the boys were living there.  First was Johns’ house called Mendips (AKA his Aunt Mimi and Uncle George’s house) where he spent most of his time.  The most interesting part to me was the fact that John really didn’t seem to have it very rough.  They lived in a rather middle class neighborhood in suburbia and weren’t bad off.  Although I did learn that Mimi would host college students at her home during the school year, which I’m sure made things a little more difficult for John growing up with strangers in his house for only a little while.  The reason he wasn’t living with his mother and father Julia and Alfred Lennon during the early years of his life was because they abandoned him.  When John was only 5 years old his father made him choose whether he wanted to stay with his mother in Liverpool or go live with him in New Zealand.  John chose to stay but Julia wasn’t the most successful mother.  Her younger sister Mimi took over and John then moved into the house that I got to tour.  I learned that Mimi was a bit strict when it came to the company John allowed himself to be surrounded with and also his style of music.  She very much opposed him playing in a rock and roll band.  Unlike his mother who bought him his first acoustic guitar, Mimi wanted him to finish school and become something important.  Around the time when Julia came back into John’s life, she left again only this time permanently.  While walking home from Mimi’s house, Julia was hit by a car and killed. 

John says later that he felt like he had lost his mother twice, once when she abandoned him and he had to live with Mimi and again when she passed away in July of 1958.  This obviously had a huge impact on his life.  When Paul McCartney entered John’s life, there wasn’t necessarily an automatic connection, but when both of their mothers died there was certainly a close bonding present, possibly an unspoken one.  Loosing a parent at any age is difficult but for the boys they were both still teenagers.

The way that John’s mother influenced him while she was alive and present in his life was definitely through music.  She taught him to play banjo and he then learned how to transfer banjo chords onto the guitar she bought him.  He was also always allowed to practice playing music at her house without worry.  Since Mimi didn’t like rock and roll, she was hesitant about him playing at all.  Julia impacted John even after her death and through her absence, which is probably why he wrote the song Julia for her later in his life on The Beatles (The White Album).

John’s mother taught him about music and so did Paul’s.  When I went to Paul’s home I stood in the living room where they used to play records and piano and sing every night after dinner.  Paul and his brother were taught by their parents about melody, harmony, and how to sing.  Paul later said that this is why it came so naturally to him to sing falsetto and become so easily harmonized with John.  Paul’s father would also play classical music on his record player for the boys because he wanted to like it instead of rock and roll.  This might have been what caused Paul to write songs using more piano and classically influenced pieces.  His parents quite obviously cared about him enough to push him to do well, specifically in school.  He was accepted into grammar school where he met George Harrison on the bus to school.

The proximity of the 4 Beatles homes in Liverpool was another thing that I was surprised to find allowed them to become a band.  Once Paul had joined forces with John in the Quarry Men, he suggested George Harrison join their band because he was an amazing guitar player even at such a young age.  John was skeptical but once Paul introduced the two and he played for him, he was in.  They met on their bus ride to school and in about 15 years they were together as possibly the most famous and influential band of all time.

Another aspect of our trip to Liverpool that made me think was the Magical Mystery Tour Bus ride that went to all the important sights that inspired the boys to write some of their most famous songs.  A place where “nothing is real” and there’s “nothing to get hung about” that seemed to influence John in a tremendous way; Strawberry Fields Orphanage.  Although we didn’t get to go in, we did get out of the Magical Mystery Bus and take pictures in front of the bright red gate that says Strawberry Fields.  I learned during the tour that Strawberry Fields was a place that John would go as a young man to be alone and hang out.  His Aunt would tell him that he’d get in trouble for trespassing but he didn’t seem to care.  Obviously the song is about this place but I feel like there is a lot of deeper meaning(s) that could be interpreted from it because it was so influential to him as a boy.

Growing up in Liverpool influenced The Beatles as people and as a band.  Obviously other things along the journey helped The Beatles and their success but going to the place where they started really helped me to understand how they became famous.