Wednesday 10 March 2010

I cannot explain

I was born the year The Beatles split up, in 1970. When I was 17, a friend gave me a mix tape with some lesser well knowm Beatles songs on. For the first time, I listened properly to The Beatles. I experienced an instant epiphany. This music was vital, alive, full of attitude, humour, anger and slyness. Not the banal pop fluff I had previously regarded The Beatles as. I was hooked. From that moment on, I began a process of investigation which over 20 years has dipped in and out of periodic obsession.
I am obsessed by The Beatles. This curation is in part my own personal investigation into why.
After listening to the songs over and over for years and years, reading countless biographies and studies, from the esoteric to the hagiographic, watching documentaries, mockumentaries (well, one) and wearing out my Anthology DVDs, I am no closer to being sated. But I cannot explain why The Beatles mean so much to me.
PS I LOVE YOU is an attempt to understand, to uncover and examine this question. By working with other artists, making my own work for the show, and also by documenting the process of the project, I am trying to understand myself and my own peculiar obsession (ok I know I'm by far not the only one). Having the opportunity to play with the wealth of Beatles 'stuff' ,which they generated directly as cultural product, and indirectly in the world's response, allows me to move from a position of passive awe to active investigation, interpretation and exploration of the question -
why do we need to be fans?

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