John Lennon described what Bowie did in his glam rock days as “just rock ‘n’ roll with lipstick on”. I was in the lipstick camp. But if Ziggy was from Mars (magical realism with a dash of science fiction) and the Beatles were from Liverpool (trippy social realism) then of the Fab Four, my heart-throb was Ringo. Screeeeam! His wit, deadpan expression and how unbothered he always seemed at the height of the Beatles’ fame made him all the more alluring. When I discovered he joined the band after a summer job drumming at Butlin’s, I loved him even more.
As it happens, George Harrison might be my favourite songwriter out of these four blazing talents – Something is a truly uncanny love song. It’s hard to convey a mood that is onside with ambivalence and certainty at the same time. And when I cook spaghetti to My Sweet Lord, I appreciate its yearning to see and know something unknowable. Harrison was a Hare Krishna devotee. An older friend once told me that in the ’60s, after chowing down lots of psychedelic drugs, there was a split between those who delivered themselves to spirituality and those who dragged themselves to psychoanalysis.
New Statesman
