FAREWELL TO BRITAIN THROUGH BEATLES: BEATS
CULTUROLOGY
CURRENT ISSUES OF SCIENCE AND INTEGRATED TECHNOLOGIES
For Romanians, and especially for those living in the Western parts of the country, this was the window to the real life that was lived in the Western society. Even though there is no direct subversive message against Ceaușeșcu, the band was seen, as the epitomy of British culture and Western society in general, with all of its freedoms.
After 1989-1990 and the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, the society here opened to everything new that came from the Western world. But, as a youngster, in the 1990s, one could find that, OK, the beats of the 90s were very important, especially the beats coming from the West, there was a need to be up to date in terms of cultural and political, of course, aspects. But it was a very important thing also to recover, to archaeologically rebound, to find or reconnect to the roots of our first look in the Western society. And so, there was a very important coming back into our culture, from Beatles, from the Rolling Stones and from other musical gods of the Western society.
Why? Because only in the 90s we were able to really enjoy them and to find all the data that surrounds these artists.
At the beginning, in the 70s and the 80s, Romanians only knew that the Beatles is a great rock band from Great Britain, they heard nothing about who is Paul McCartney as an individual, who is John Lennon, or who is Mick Jagger. It was just the music that came through… the Wall.
In the 90s and afterwards in the 2000s in Romania, the field of cultural studies that reflected upon influences from the West, from the East, and how the Romanian society was re-building itself after the fall of the communist regime commenced to study Beatles, Rolling Stones, the movies from Britain and America, that influenced the young generation.
Needless to say, in Romania, over 70% of the people speak English, understand English, can watch a movie or listen a song in English, to a tune and understand it.
English is the most frequent foreign language spoken here. It is because of the globalization and the influence of English around the world and the need to speak English, to work at a job that needs this capabilities, but it also is surely a cultural fondness to the British language and civilization, and to the British in general.
In academia, even in Philology, that the most solicited branch of study is English, we have the most students studying English, more than French, German and any other language and culture, almost even more than Romanian. The national platform “Study in Romania” [2] provides information about the study programmes from Romania that are also taught in English. More than 250 programmes nationwide are reported to be taught exclusively in English: 94 for Bachelor level, 164 for Master and 8 PhD programmes. The prevalence of English doesn’t concern only universities, but there is an influence in our private lives, in our regular, daily language, we now speak
‘romgleza’ – or should we translate it, ‘Romglish’.
So our “predisposition” to the British, to the English-language culture, is foremost.
And Brexit was a thing that hit Eastern cultures, including the Romanian one, in a big way, in a major way. Brexit showed us, and I’m sorry to say this, Brexit showed us that our idols, that our leaders of culture, that we looked upon with great admiration…
left us behind. Of course, this discourse is not meant to be dramatic, but to depict how this fracture was felt by a certain generation. Probably one of the issues in Brexit was
that of the immigrants from Romania and Poland in Great Britain. It could be the bureaucracy in European Union, as the government says, as the British government says, we are not familiar with the bureaucracy in Great Britain and how it is different from that of Brussels. We don’t live there and see if the amount of money that UK paid to Europe is higher than that paid from Europe to UK.
But we think that on social level, the thing that made the British vote for Brexit was perhaps also the presence of these immigrants from Eastern Europe in their cities, in their neighborhoods. It is widely known and discussed that the “leave” vote focused on immigration [3, 4]: “Nearly three-quarters (73 per cent) of those who are worried about immigration voted Leave, compared with 36 per cent of those who did not identify this as a concern, the research found, showing the discrepancy in views about immigration between Remain and Leave voters.” [4]. We found this aspect a bit strange, that Britain was not able or willing to incorporate this kind of people and this makes you wonder why.
Because Britain, after the Second World War, and even before, but mostly after, in a different state of existence, after it wasn’t an empire anymore, Britain was the most immigrant friendly country in Europe.
Beginning with the 50s and 60s, Great Britain launches one of the great turns both in cultural, social and political sciences. Becoming the most open society, a multicultural melting pot of immigration waves and promoting rights and freedoms, UK brings a societal shift: the individual does not belong to the state anymore, but vice versa. We saw that was Britain is able to integrate Pakistani, Indians, other kind of out-of-European Union nations, and now, in the recent decades, it cannot cope with Europeans – or, let’s be non-politically correct and say – second grade Europeans – from the Eastern part.
And this is a question with two roots: it’s a question for the British people – why they can’t melt inside their society these people that came from Eastern Europe, but could melt better people who came from Far East, so it’s a question for the Brits, but it is also a question for us, the Eastern Europeans that came to Great Britain. Why weren’t they accepted there as well as the others? We don’t have the answer, but we’re not sure that the governing bodies of Britain are serious about finding it. What does this had to do with Beatles?
The connection between Beatles and Brexit is not random. Beginning with the 50s and 60s, Great Britain launches one of the great turns both in cultural, social and political sciences. Becoming the most open society, a multicultural melting pot of immigration waves and promoting rights and freedoms, UK brings a societal shift: the individual does not belong to the state anymore, but vice versa.
Beatles is the first British band which brings social topics in music and, at the same time, creates a music for “common people” (to quote another British band, Pulp). The
‘Fab Four’ cluster New Orleans’ blues, Memphis’ rock’n’roll, America’s folk (through Bob Dylan) and fuse all these influences into a simple music which doesn’t look for heroes or exceptional characters anymore. In the 60s, when they came to the scene and appeared as the new group that shook the world with the new beat they were coming from a society in Liverpool, from the low parts of the society in Liverpool. They were
CULTUROLOGY
CURRENT ISSUES OF SCIENCE AND INTEGRATED TECHNOLOGIES
not representing the high culture of Britain. They were representing the new lads, the sons of the lads that fought in the Second World War, that wanted nothing to do with nationalism, with the proud Brit military honour, they just wanted to live free in a society that was not made for the elites, but was curtailed for the common people.
Beatles’ output stands up against the British conservative society (where high classes prevail) and emphasize instead the ordinary: “the blue suburban skies” of Penny Lane are not only those of Liverpool, but of each and every one of us. Their songs become the mirror carried along the road, in a resurrection of realism in pop music, 100 years after this aesthetic mode and Stendhal’s dictum were famous.
Bridging up with the US, Beatles becomes also a pop culture export to both America and Eastern Europe. Without having such major influence in the former communist block like Pink Floyd, or a powerful and marked political message, the band still foregrounds freedom of expression, democracy, globalization – key aspects which will be constantly renewed in cultural studies.
Beatles represented a sort of de-centralisation – culturally speaking, a current that flows against the mainstream, a dissident fringe, as Pierre Bourdieu says about the literary field. After the Second World War, Britain was shattered, economically, but kept going with the same discourse, with the same speech of the great nation, that could not penetrate permeate to the common people. And as the common people raised into this beat revolution, they brought a new perspective to the culture of Britain, a new perspective to the economics of Britain, a new perspective to the way they influenced politics in Great Britain. And Beatles was one of the main players in this field.
In the past, let’s say two decades, the postcolonialist studies talked about the emergence of the multiplicity of centres in such countries, the emergence of the ‘non-elite’ people – the new common people that are not elite in Britain today are the immigrants.
Today we need a new Beatles – if there is possible – a new message that can incorporate the culture, the good will, the might, let’s say it so, of the lower sheets of society, the new entrances, the immigrants, that want to break free with their discourse into the discourse of Britain. Despite all that, we can see the dawn of a new era in Britain, like in the 60s and the 70s, but the 60s mainly. After Brexit, after the pandemics, after the great recession in the 2010s, where Britain’s economy was low, there will be new voices. Because from the fall there will come the rise and as Beatles was the main group in that period that showcased the fall in the British society, and put the bricks to build the new society, so we’ll find maybe in 10 years’ time some other group that will hold the flag to the renaissance of the new British society.
However, it appears that Britain doesn’t “imagine there’s no countries” anymore.
“Why she had to go, I don’t know, she wouldn't say/ I said something wrong, now I long for yesterday”. Today’s Brexit shows that Britain is against melting in the EU “as one”, trying to keep a national identity and territory, to separate from its own children and heritage. Hopefully Britain will regain trust in the European countries, and the European countries will regain love for Britain. We can say that here, in Eastern Europe, the love for Britain was actually never lost. But, somehow, “there will be an answer”.
References:
1. A preliminary version of the paper was presented at It was fifty years ago today.
An Academic Tribute to The Beatles, 17-19 June 2021, https://beatlesinlisbon.wordpress.com/.
2. https://www.studyinromania.gov.ro/fp/index.php, last accessed: 27.12.2022.
3. Watt, Nicholas. (2016). EU referendum: Vote Leave focuses on immigration, BBC, 26.05.2016, available online at https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36375492, last accessed: 27.12.2022.
4. Bulman, May. (2017). Brexit: People voted to leave EU because they feared immigration, major survey finds, Independent, 28.06.2017, available online at https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/brexit-latest-news-leave-eu-immigration-main-reason-european-union-survey-a7811651.html, last accessed:
27.12.2022.
ECONOMY
CURRENT ISSUES OF SCIENCE AND INTEGRATED TECHNOLOGIES