THE BEATLES
543
separate and therefore countable, utterly and inarticulately alone.
Is this merely a bit of visionary ghoulishness, something seen on a
"trip?" No, good citizens can find it, like everything else in the song,
in the daily news - of how Scotland Yard searched for buried bodies
on a moor by making holes in the earth with poles and then waiting
for the stench of decomposing flesh.
Lennon and McCartney in their songs seem as vulnerable as the
man in "A Day in the Life" to the sights and sounds by which
dif–
ferent media shape and then reshape reality, but their response isn't
in any way as intimidated, and "turning on" isn't their only re–
course. They can also tune in and play the game, sometimes to show,
as in "A Day
in
the Life," how one shaped view of reality can be
mocked out of existence by crossing it with another. They
mix
their
media the way they
mix
musical sounds or cross lyrics of one tone
with music of quite another - with a vengeance. It's unwise ever
to assume that they're doing only one thing or expressing themselves
in only one style. "She's Leaving Home" does have a persistent cello
background to evoke genteel melodrama of an earlier decade, and
"When I'm Sixty-four" is intentionally cliched throughout both in its
ragtime rhythm and in its lyrics. The result is a satiric heightening of
the love-nest sentimentality of old popular songs in the mode of
"He'll build a little home / Just meant for two / From which I'll
never roam / Who would, would you?" The home in "When I'm
Sixty-four" is slightly larger to accommodate children, but that's the
only important difference: "Every summer we can rent a cottage /
In the Isle of Wight,
if
it's not too dear / We shall scrimp and
save / Grandchildren on your knee / Vera Chuck
&
Dave." But the
Beatles aren't satisfied merely with having written a brilliant spoof,
with
scoring, on their own authority, off death-dealing cliches. In–
stead, they quite suddenly at the end transform one cliche (of senti–
mental domesticity) into another (of a lonely-hearts newspaper ad–
vertisement) thereby proposing a vulgar contemporary medium suit–
able to the cheap and public sentiments that once passed for nice,
private and decent: "Send me a postcard, drop me a line, / Stating
point of view / Indicate precisely what you mean to say / Yours sin–
cerely, wasting away / Give me your answer, fill in a form / Mine
for evermore / Will you still need me, will you still feed me. / When
I'm sixty-four."
