A lot of people on the Aftrword have a good knowledge of The Beatles. Two host a wonderful podcast, Nothing Is Real, that challenges if we really know The Beatles.
Now, there is a golden opportunity to study a masters degree. (I presume the fee will be around £10,000). The drawbacks are that it is in Liverpool University (of course) and it is “future facing” on the band’s impact on heritage and culture. (Some of us don’t have a very long future to face). There is no word on who the lecturers might be. Mark could tune out of writing his magnum opus for a short time to run a workshop. Paul might show up. It’s possible that Ringo will be given the task of selecting the Starr student. A dissertation on The Rutles would be diverting but I suspect How The Beatles Weaponised The Remix has a better chance of a merit.
If you the time to spare, all you need is love and cash.
Any takers?
I would LOVE to do this. Once I have won the lottery I’m definitely going to book a place on the course.
I’ve always loved being a student. I always think when I retire with lots of money (spoiler alert – it’s not gonna happen) I would just spend the rest of my life drifting through various uni courses.
Turning art into work is a surefire way to kill it stone dead.
People might like Shakespeare if they hadn’t been made to study him at school.
Or he’d have been allowed to die a natural death, like the music of, say, Savoy Brown.
Why is Liverpool University a “drawback”? Finest in the country 😉 Not sure there is anything new here, such or similar courses have been offered in the city for at least a decade.
You forget Tigger’s a blue.
He doesn’t.
So he prefers Everton University?
An oxbridge man, is he?
Excellent. Ducks or drakes? Crap at spying, mind
What have you got against Liverpool University?
It’s a long way away for most people in the world. This is being sold everywhere. I guess that might make it virtual but I expect they are hoping things will be ‘normal’ by the time it starts.
Liverpool has a huge overseas student percentage, especially from China. Not such a long way, apparently
There is no logic to your claim that it being in Liverpool is a draw back. Stick a pin in a map and anywhere you land is “a long way away for most people in the world”.
At the minute, I’d rather stay home.
Because dat land’s duh place yewww luv, and dere you’ll stay.
(sorry)
I think I graduated from Liverpool University, without even applying for a place there. To start with, my nursing courses (RGN/RSCN) were done on the wards and at the training centres in the hospitals. But we did the last year at Liverpool University, as nurse training had moved to be University based. It was a bit of a pain, because previously I could turn up to classes without leaving the building I lived in, but it also meant I could wander round the record shops at lunchtime or after we’d finished for the day. I didn’t feel very studenty, as unlike those workshy layabouts, we were having to also do a full 37.5 hour week on the wards most weeks. But technically, I was a Liverpool University student for the fourth year of my training.
Saw a few bands at the University too. The Blow Monkeys and Milltown Brothers spring to mind. Manchester University used to get much better bands, so I saw more over there. I’d have packed nursing in to study the Beatles though, as that’s what I was doing in my spare time anyway.
I saw Dr Feelgood at Liverpool Uni in 1975. One of the best gigs I’ve ever witnessed.
Another band that makes me wish I was born much earlier than I was.
Will any of them (tutors or students) have even a passing knowledge of Rock ‘n’ Roll?
Uncut, Mojo, RC etc., and their readerships, appear to be pretty clued up on anything post-65, but the actual music that the Golden Generation (the Americans call them the Lucky Few) listened to as teenagers?
Considerably less so.
Liam Gallagher on Larry Williams?
That would be short conversation.
Funnily enough, it’s only when he’s talking about Little Richard, Elvis, Eddie, Gene etc. that McCartney gets really animated in an interview.
Why shouldn’t they? The tutors would probably be of an age to have delved deeply into the history of the music and its antecedents (newsflash – you didn’t have to be there to acquire a good understanding – see also: History). And the students…are there to learn about it, are they not?
First thing you should read on this course is Billy Bragg’s Skiffle book, closely followed by The Uses of Literacy. You can’t know the sixties without knowing the fifties.
Sounds like a guaranteed way of stopping enjoying their music. Isn’t the magic in the simultaneous tremors in heart, head and loins? Does it need lectures and course work to get a qualification? John Lennon would have been utterly mystified.
Lectures in a Masters degree? Bwahahaha!
“Give us 10 grand – now here’s a library card, you’re on your own, dickhead”
12 years ago and it was a Canadian first
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-merseyside-12292054
Cuh! It’s been going for years!
Ouch! Poor old Stripey McSix-listens is getting some aggressive pushback here for simply performing his sacred duty.
Just as “a shark needs to keep swimming to stay alive”, our site only sustains its existence provided someone pops up with a Beatles thread – however flimsy the premise – at least once a fortnight..
Ok. I’ll level with you. The reason Liverpool as the venue is a drawback is that Liverpool doesn’t just claim parentship of The Beatles but claims it is responsible for everything they achieved. The truth is that they couldn’t get away from the place quick enough and both Hamburg and London can make a good case that they shaped The Beatles even more. Looking at the detail of the course, it clearly promotes the idea of The Beatles being a product of their Liverpool heritage, alone. If I signed up, I can see myself getting involved in quite a few rows with the tutors. I expect academic neutrality is a standard requirement for a masters, but I can’t imagine Liverpool Hope University would provide that.
Interesting!
Well they were all born there, met there, started playing in the band there and first achieved local and then national success while living there (including playing almost 300 gigs at the Cavern in one year), so pretty important I would say. Lewisohn’s book is a great eye opener as to what they went through in the city and surrounding area in those first few years. Hamburg was very important but comparatively much less time spent there (a few months in total).
I do like “The Beatles Story” at Albert Dock which concentrates on the early years in much detail then hastily goes through the later stuff, almost saying “they then went on to make Sgt Pepper’s and some other albums in London …”
That’s what I’m talking about. All well and good up to, say, 1964. After that…
A certain amount of sanitisation is inevitable. Tourists are civilians almost by definition so it’s not surprising that they want to gloss over the non “mums-and-dads” bit of their history.
There’s a sense in which Liverpool almost stopped them from becoming from what they became, even though naturally it formed them as people. In Liverpool they were just three blerts strumming guitars. In Hamburg they became the Beatles – even the Beatle haircut is from Hamburg.
I have to say that I found the Beatles Story a bit of a disappointment. It creates a mock up of the Cavern and Mathew Street, and the recreation of the Mersybeat office is quite nicely done, but very light on artifacts. The later years are almost ignored.
I’m really glad we went there a couple of years ago – we did a taxi tour, which is far better value than the bus, as well as a walking tour following a guide book. It does make you realise that an awful lot has disappeared, as well as the fact that they’d buggered off the that there London as soon as they made it.
Think I would agree. And I have been to Liverpool with several different people who wanted to see it and ended up going around 3 or 4 times.
Never did the taxi tour, but the National Trust tour of Lennon and McCartney’s houses was superb, also done that a few times. Also did the bus tour once which went outside all the houses (also George and Ringo), that was pretty average, but not too pricey.
And I lived there for 4 years and never bothered doing anything except hanging out on Mathew St a bit!
Amen on the houses. I don’t think you’d even have to be interested in the Beatles to enjoy that because the houses are so beautifully preserved/restored. It’s like Beamish!
When all’s said and done, this is one of those Boutique Degrees for comfortably-off people who have either already done OK in life or are likely to do OK due to their social position. Potentially lucrative for Liverpool Hope University, I suppose.
It’s of no practical use to anyone though, and an office cleaner’s son or daughter who’s the first ever to get to university from their family is unlikely to sign up for it.
Like doing History of Art, no-one does this who expects to have to work for a living afterwards.
Is that you, Meghan?
Wait – what? The Beatles were from Liverpool? Why did nobody say?