Posts

Posted on

Antietam and the War of Ideas

    The American Civil War has so many teaching points and moments of inspiration for those concerned with the preservation of western civilization’s higher ideals that it bears constant review and re-focus. Though framed as a battle between “free” and “slave” states, it reached violent fruition in 1861 as a rebellion initiated by states determined to maintain their own principles of governance and a federal government determined to preserve a national union of states. It became clear in a short time that the battle over a state’s right to self governance and self determination, assumed by all to be a likely brief spasm of violence, had evolved into a cataclysmic trans-continental struggle for multiple principles of individual rights and individual servitude, with entirely opposing views as to who’s rights and who’s freedoms were being subjugated.
     By 1862 the war was assuming a frightful mass and scope predicted by few in power and the costs in lives and economy was beginning to reach into every household. The Union government holding dramatic advantages in infrastructure, manpower, and economic capacity found itself floundering in the most important expression of the righteousness of its argument to hold the union together along its former construct – victories on the battlefield. How does one win the victory of ideas when the means to enforce them are not present? How long will ideas maintain their energy when the sacrifices required to defend them reach epic levels without an end in sight? These were the extraordinarily difficult circumstances that were placed upon President Lincoln as 1862 was rushing to a close. He had faced a year of enormous financial and manpower commitment on his nation’s part placed in the hands of a sluggish and peevish General McClellan, who devised expensive and crawling campaigns on the Virginian peninsula that despite overwhelming capacities placed in his favor, never felt he was given remotely sufficient support, and achieved no headway against a superior general named Lee and his flexible, rapid movement modern tactics. Thousands of deaths and tens of millions of dollars of equipment lost, and the result of the Peninsula war and ignominious Union withdrawal. President Lincoln was caught in the crosshairs- no country would absorb loss forever and no country would fight on principle forever. If he was to re-frame the war onto a framework that potentially could survive the enormous pain and trans-continental scope of the evolved war – turning the war into a battle test no longer of the rights of states but rather, the Rights of Man – he needed a victory, and he needed it now.
     September, 1862, brought this moment to a pressure point just outside of the little town of Sharpsburg, Maryland along a creek named Antietam. General Lee now fully in charge of the Army of Northern Virginia, the primary military expression of the confederate states, felt the time was right and his force quality advantage sufficient to press the battle for the first time into the Union states,  potentially drawing the north into a truce that would accept the south. The north had shown no conclusive ability to marshall forces and multiple examples of inept generalship. Lee recognized his own limited window for achieving the necessary victories and aggressively moved to press a conclusion. On September 17th, 1862, on Antietam Creek 40,000 confederate soldiers and 75,000 union soldiers clashed in the most violent single  day expression of war in American history, with a resultant 23,000 casualties in one 24 hour period.   The elements of the battle are legendary both in their heroism and moments of ineptness, but are brought to incredible and intense focus, in what has been immortalized in the battle for “the Cornfield” – where thousands of men fought blindly  and frequently in vicious individual hand to hand combat with no perspective other than their own and their comrade’s basic survival.  It is in the Cornfield that North’s legendary Iron Brigade comprised of Midwesterners primarily from 2nd, 6th , and 7th Wisconsin Voluntary Infantry , as well as elements from Indiana and Michigan, held their ground and beat back the previously unconquerable forces of Stonewall Jackson, and earned their fearsome reputation that lasted through the rest of the civil war.


     The enormous scope of the battle and its horrifying cost riveted the nation on both sides of the conflict.  McClellan had at last succeeded at halting a confederate army and although not conclusive, forced Lee to retrench his forces back into Virginia, thereby ending any hopes for the south of a conclusive end to the conflict in their favor.  

     For Lincoln it was the victory he needed to convert the war into a battle for principles worthy of its size and cost.   On the basis of the battle result at Antietam, he determined to make the Civil War rather than a second american revolution desired by the southern states, a final resolution of the loose ends of the first american revolution, to put to final test the principle that all men are created equal and that this country could not survive without the universal acceptance of that idea.   Antietam allowed Lincoln the philosophical breathing space he needed to put forth the Emancipation Proclamation – and the war between the states became the battle for freedom and the end expression of the highest ideals of western civilization.

Posted on

The President as the Portrait of Dorian Gray

   Every four years several dozen individuals contemplate themselves as taking on the mantle of the Presidency of the United States and immortalizing themselves as the select leader of the most powerful nation on earth.  It is an enormous prop to the ego, and entering into the job most see the progressive withering of the individual preceding them as more a consequence of the character flaws of that individual, rather than any sum effect of the burdens of the job.  The ego provides a negligent purview of the true cost physically and mentally of being the singular person responsible for the most powerful military and greatest economy on earth.

     In a relatively short period of time, however, with little recognition on their part, the crushing hyperbolic pressure and microscopic focus of each decision inevitably and profoundly effects them.  The time demands and the continual focus and responsibility become overbearing.  They become churlish, defensive, and reactionary to events and particularly to any personal criticism.  None are immune, and the physical deterioration becomes apparent over time, like fresh fruit exposed to air and temperature.

     Oscar Wilde wrote the famous treatise on hedonism, youth, and the ravages of age in “The Portrait of Dorian Gray”  in which the lead character sells his soul and in return, transfers all the ravages of his sin and age to his portrait and living, for a time, in immortal youth.   The Presidency is essence, the living portrait of Dorian Grey, where the ideal of vigor, confidence, and youthful energy sold to the public every four years in an orchestrated marketing campaign gives way to a lasting portrait of the idealist in decline, his powers diminished,  his whithered image magnified for all to see.  He has become King Lear in the winter of his professional life, reduced to trying to re-create the lost vitality and energy of the original portrait, with the reality of the current portrait only increasing the skepticism of the public’s faith with each passing view. 

      So goes Obama.              So goes all that have come before him.

and… exactly why do they want this job again?
<

Posted on

Country Guitar Master

     We are frequently biased when we think of musical masters of the guitar to the technical virtuosos classically trained like Segovia, or the electric guitar giants such as Eric Clapton or Les Paul.  Country music has a bit of a “bumpkin” reputation associated with guitars used as props and casually strummed, but the superficial bias is totally unfair.  Revolutionary, technically prodigious playing has come out of America’s backwoods and has produced some superior guitar master musicians such as Chet Atkins, Doc Watson, and Glen Campbell.  One of the least recognized, and maybe in the guitar finger picking style the most capable virtuoso, was the little known Jerry Reed.

     Jerry Reed is perhaps most physically recognized for his sidekick role as “Snowball” to Burt Reynolds in the 1970’s movie series “Smokey and the Bandit”.  His media role was the stereotypical “good ol’ southern boy” that was assumed by the rest of America to be the sum parts of this talented musician.

     Jerry Reed, however, could play the guitar with the best of them and was a spectacular performer in the finger picking style.  His musical career began in the late 1950’s, but took off when the King,  Elvis Presley, determined to record Reed’s solitary country hit “Guitar Man”, hired Reed himself to perform the guitar licks on the song as it seemed no studio musician and certainly not Elvis himself was capable of the rapid fire crystal clear musical delivery.  Presley used Reed in several other collaborations, and eventual Reed’s capacity to additionally sing and write led to Nashville success.  The 1970’s were a popular time on television for country music inspired television shows, with Hee Haw, Glen Campbell Good Time Hour, and Johnny Cash Show offering previously underexposed performers such as Reed and Chet Atkins a national stage for their unique skills.  Reed, a naturally ebullient man, never failed to create live performance electricity and often brought out the best in his fellow musicians in duets.

     Jerry Reed is one of those faces you’ve seen but don’t quite place, but deserves to be remembered as an American virtuoso.  He died in September, 2008, at age 71 of complications from emphysema, but thankfully we have a video record to treasure of his extraordinary capabilities and unique style.

Posted on

The World Drives Toward a Nuclear Future; We Remain in Park

   The focus on Iran’s nuclear program for its potential development of nuclear weapons obscures somewhat the progressive demand  by many countries across the globe to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels by development of nuclear energy capacity.  The presence of the majority of fossil fuel deposits in the hands of a very few countries has lead to dangerous reliance on the ability of these countries to maintain and protect a stable supply and meet the increasing demand.  The nearly limitless capacity of the atom to supply energy and its reputation as a “cleaner” alternative to carbon due to its low CO2 footprint has made it an increasingly attractive option for energy – except in the United States, the originator of the nuclear plant.  The commitment is particularly strong in France, where over 80% of its energy grid needs are met by nuclear plant kilowatt production and less than 10% reliant on fossil fuels.

     The United States, once the world leader in nuclear energy science and nuclear energy production, has taken a progressively backward attitude regarding the capability of nuclear energy, and despite multiple economic shocks secondary to unstable supply, has become increasingly reliant on imported fossil fuels.   The current number of functioning nuclear power energy plants in the United States is 104, producing as of 2007 806.4 trillion kilowatt -hours of energy to the United States energy grid, or 19.4% of the total energy requirement total (U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis).   Impressive as this may sound, no new permits for construction of nuclear plants have been permitted by the U.S. government since 1970, and no new plants have come on line since the early 1980’s.   Additionally, despite holding the world’s forth largest reserves of elemental uranium required for nuclear fuel , the United States supplies only 8% of its current uranium needs and imports the rest from countries like Russia, Australia, and Canada.  

    How did the pioneer country of nuclear energy become the backwater for nuclear power development?  It was pretty much the power of a Hollywood movie.  ” The China Syndrome”  a 1979 movie  suggesting sloppy and devious quality of oversite at an imaginary nuclear power plant resulting in a nuclear accident was released just 12 days before a real nuclear accident occurred with a partial core melt down at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania.  Despite the essentially benign outcome of the Three Mile incident with no permanent long term identified contamination or health risk, the juxtaposition of the two events, one fantasy and one real, sealed in the public consciousness a new found abhorrence of the idea of living with nuclear risk.  The consequence was no further plant development and worse no further nuclear energy science support for the next thirty years.  The objective focus on nuclear plant risk in the United States has shown the nuclear industry to have maintained by far the safest record in the U.S. industrial world, with only 0.13 industrial accidents per 200,000 worker-hours, over 15 times safer than any other manufacturing process(Reuters 03.27.09).  The secondary issue of nuclear waste storage received sufficient histrionic coverage to result in the halting of utilization of Yucca Mountain, Nevada as a nuclear waste repository in 2008, and the United States, unlike France, has not developed a modern nuclear waste re-processing facility that typically can recycle up to 97% of waste into usable fuel. 

     President Obama finally proposed the re-initiation of modern nuclear plant development for the United States with two proposed permits in 2009 for plants in Georgia, but as of yet with no progress in Congress to move the permits into action.   19 states currently have no nuclear power plants and only 21 states produce at least 20% of their energy grid demand from nuclear power, lead by Illinois with 11 plants and 47% of the power grid supplied.  It is well past time that we considered the consequences of our continuing reliance on fossil fuels and our negligence of the the power of the atom and its objective risks, compared to every other source of energy.  The rest of the world isn’t going to wait for us to get over our nuclear neuroses.

Posted on

Hey…You’re Going The Wrong Way!

     A terrific ad recently created by Fred Davis of Strategic Perception, one of the more creative Republican media ad producers, and underwritten by Citizens For The Republic has been furiously making the rounds of the blogosphere and soon to be publicly disseminated.  In a perseptive inverse mirror effect it recalls precisely for the modern generation the extremely influential commercial put forth by Michael Deaver’s brilliant team for President Ronald Reagan’s re-election campaign of 1984.  Deaver wanted everybody to quietly reflect on President Reagan’s success in restoring optimism as a fundamental  quality in Americans as they preceeded with their daily lives, and see it as a direct result of his leadership.  Mr. Davis frames the exactly identical emotional argument but in modern, darker shadows that remind all that the current sense of foreboding and uneasiness about the future also is a result of leadership, but leadership steering the nation’s ship toward failure and pessimism.

     The dominant argument is that there is a right way and wrong way to leadership and it projects eventually to all Americans who man the ship of state, that the ship’s captain knows what is necessary, or that he increasingly has no clue.  This is a message of enormous  influence because it seeks to ennuciate in quiet but direct terms what increasing voting majorities have been feeling and whispering to themselves, but progressively acknowledge is a feeling their neighbors carry as well.

     In 1984, more than any other issue, the sense that America had escaped the turbulence of the previous two decades and returned to a stable and positive direction that benefited everybody was overwhelming.  It lead to President Reagan’s re-election in a crushing landslide of 49 states to one for Walter Mondale.  Mr.Davis is now seeking to achieve the same overwhelming emotional reaction, but this time, that an immediate turnabout is in order, if there is to be relief from the progressively darker and stormy direction of the American Dream. 

Watch the two commercials side to side – I think Mr. Davis  just may be on to something.

 1984  –  Morning in America

 2010  –  Mourning in America

 

Posted on

Brooks Comedy Perfection

     Working together on the western homage/farce Blazing Saddles, Gene Wilder intimated to Mel Brooks, the writer and producer of Blazing Saddles, that he had an idea for another homage movie based on the 1930’s classic Frankenstein.  Brooks intially stated the world hardly needed another sequel to the Frankenstein monster, which produced so many pale imitations over the years.  Thankfully, Wilder convinced Brooks the concept of a young Frankenstein scientist who wanted nothing to do with his family legacy was a funny idea, and the creation of the two, Young Frankenstein (1974) , approaches comedy cinematic perfection. 

     Brooks recognized the importance of  being respectfully true to the look and feel of the original while creating a madcap alternative universe to the original horror movie.   The movie look had the soft sheen black and white so reminiscent of the beautiful cinematography of the 1930’s, with the titles, fades, scene changes, and pace a perfect representation of the best technicians of the golden age of cinema.  Brooks additionally obsessively obtained original props from the original Frankenstein movie laboratory to capture the crucial scene of life creation bringing the intensity of the first movie to energize Brook’s version.  He structured a beautiful technical trellis upon which Wilder laid a magnificent madcap dialogue and screenplay and the result is a movie I have seen scores of times and have yet to avoid collapsing in laughter.

     Modern cinema has tried so many times to capture the art of making comedies that reflect back on classics but never have come remotely close to special achievement of Brooks, Wilder, and a terrific supporting cast.  The truth of the matter is that though Mel Brooks is as capable of the off color remark as the next guy, he truly loves cinema and  is darn good at the cinematic art.  Not every movie Mel Brooks has created has met the standard of great cinema – but Young Frankenstein is as good as it gets.  If its been a while, or your first viewing ever, prepare for a real treat.

Posted on

Independent Voters Back On The Swing Set

     One day before the 1998 election for Senator for the state of Wisconsin, I was conversing about the election with a good friend, a self described “independent” voter.   The election was one of those elections that provide the best of democracy in action.  Two very intelligent men, Russ Feingold, Democrat, and Mark Neumann, Republican, with absolutely diametrically opposed views and principles on how society should function and government’s role in it, had a run a campaign amazingly free of negativism and attack, and loaded with insightful debate.  My friend, a committed voter, a day before an election with the sharpest of contrasts in principle ever offered , lacking the usual associated personal baggage tied to either candidate, found himself unable to make up his mind between the two.   Both candidates in his mind had merits, he said; he was finding it difficult to do his usual deciding “gut check”.   The two candidates had defined themselves to a razor’s edge, and he could not decide which way to “feel right” about his vote.

     I was and am still amazed by his indecisiveness in that most focused of elections, won narrowly by Mr. Feingold by 35,000 votes out of 1.62 million.  It started my internal debate, however, on the elements that differentiate my thinking from the so called independent voter.  Why didn’t the independent voter of 1998 fail to settle on a single candidate’s vision of the American ideal – the vote separation of 50% to 49% indicates in a state evenly divided by Democrats and Republicans, that the independent voter split right down the middle.  What is the value of a “gut check”, when the candidates, both quality individuals, are separated only by their principles?  Is it possible to be swayed by both the concept of governmental regulation to guard against damaging outliers and limited government that guards against the suppression of individual incentive?  Is it conceivable to support aggressive taxation to promote “fairness” in society, and at the same time, agree that taxes should interfere as little as possible with entrepreneurial spirit and resultant job creation?  Can one believe in the avoidance of all foreign military entanglements and at the same time support the troop structure that makes such entanglements possible?

     My eventual conclusion regarding the philosophical underpinnings of my friend’s indecision and the independent voter in general, is that a set of priniciples regarding what best serves the future vision of the country takes second place as to whether the current atmosphere “feels right or wrong”.   In 2000, the country seemed prosperous and at peace, but had dealt with eight years of clintonian ethical lapses – an indecisive election that after some 103 million votes cast, came down to a few hundred contested votes in Florida.  In 2008, the election brought a massive Democrat wave to Washington, providing  opposition proof majorities to the house and Senate and a strong Presidential mandate, a reaction to the “wrong direction” aggressive foreign policies of the Bush years.  Now in 2010, it appears the independent “swing set” is swinging again toward a “wrong direction” election, looking to remove the very philosophical tenets they voted for in waves in 2008. 

     The Constitution of the United States brilliantly lead us to this pendulum of philosophy, preventing the extremes of principles of societal philosophy such as communism or fascism from ever taking hold.  In modern times however, we are absent that other bedrock concept that drove the founders defining that great document – “we hold these truths to be self evident; life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”.   It might do well for the “independents”to subscribe to this little bit of bedrock philosophy in forming their decisions regarding America’s future.  Maybe then, we can finally get down to the business of solving our problems in a disciplined fashion, and not equivocate on the basis of a lack of “feeling”. 

    How did my friend vote in that prinicipled election?  It really doesn’t matter; he was bound to change his mind again the next chance he got.

Posted on

A Neighbor’s Fight To The Death

     Something awful is enveloping the proud Mexican nation south of our borders.  A vicious and dangerous war between the Mexican government and drug cartel warlord armies have since 2006 taken the lives of over 28,000 Mexicans, and with no end in sight, threatens to extend its spasm of violence across the porous American border.   This under reported war is approaching the ferocity and brutality of a fight to the death survival match that puts at risk the Mexican republic and its fragile economy in a way thought inconceivable but a few years ago.

     The New York Times reports a recent battle that took place a mere 18 miles from the American border that had all the makings of a modern war battle between two well stocked armies.  The United States has long flourished under the ability to maintain thousands of miles of undefended borders with previously peaceful neighbors of Canada to the north and Mexico to the south respectively.  This has been the presumed status of the borders since the exploits of Mexican bandelero and peasant hero Pancho Villa’s incursions into the United States in 1916, and the U.S. ill-conceived reaction with General John Pershing’s expeditionary force that unsuccessfully searched northern Mexico for him throughout 1916 into 1917.  World War I’s expansion mercifully brought the American expedition to a halt, and relative peace has existed ever since.  That peace is now in peril, particularly along Mexico’s northeast border with Texas, where some of the most vicious fighting just across from El Paso has occurred.  In Arizona, the refugee response is imperilling the local economies and social systems to absorb, and on several occasions, armed violence has spread across the border with the murder of border ranchers who have managed to “get in the way” in an effort to defend their homes.

     The origins of the war are complex and involve the United States from many angles.  The first is reflective of the insatiable appetite for south and central American drugs in American society that makes the transport and sale of such “crops” a enormously lucrative and powerful draw for Mexican crime cartels to take the associated risks they are now taking.   The second is the porous border that the U.S. has neglected for decades and allows, in addition to the 12 million illegal laborers that have crossed it, the presence of a steady group of drug smugglers that feast on innocent people to act as mules for the drug contraband.  Third, the ironic success of the Colombian government with the help of the United States starting in 2002 to stamp out what was once the temple of narco-terrorism in Columbia , has forced the  redirection of the traffic and tactics of the narco-terrorists into Mexico.  Fourth, the government of President Felipe Calderon declared war on the Mexican cartels from a position of significantly less strength than the Colombian Uribe. Calderon’s government has been much more susceptible to intimidation and in some cases corrupt officials that have undermined the goals of utilizing the professional Mexican army against his own nation’s well armed thugs.  The death totals are staggering in the nation seen as the U.S.’s neighbor and prominent economic trading partner.

     The battle may yet require the concerted action of U.S. forces now patrolling the border with Mexico and this runs untoward risks with unclear outcomes between the two long standing neighbor countries.  The United States is best served by standing well clear of any effort to “assist” the Mexican government in a military fashion (see Pershing’s folly), and at the same time focusing on returning the respect for law and governance on its own territory, by being firm on drug laws, firm on the rights of citizenry, and firm on the role a border plays in the preservation of a country’s nationhood.   As for Mexico, the struggle is deep rooted, structural, and tied to the tradition of a lack of  governmental agencies, corruption free,  with integrity the population can trust. In a world where the bandelero and the local federal officer vie for the bribe, and the central government is powerless to defend the citizen against either, the citizen has little choice but to keep his head down,  let the two battle it out for supremacy, and hope all along that they simply kill each other off and leave him alone.  Not exactly the scenario that promises a early end to a devastating war.

Posted on

Tea Party Ascendant

     In one of the most notorious political mis-steps in political history, the democrat party’s denigrating of the grass roots movement known as the tea party may be its undoing in the elections of 2010.   The primary races of September 14th  are showing with progressive clarity the strength and will of tea party activists to upset the establishment cart and convert the direction of the American political scene to something more in keeping with their political vision.  Derided as racists, nativists, bumpkins, and intellectual midgets, the width and the breath of tea party continues to grow and achieve its aims against all odds of establishment support and establishment money.  Starting with the spectacular win of Scott Brown in the bluest of blue states in Massachusetts, to the governor victories in Virginia and New Jersey, the overthrow of senate incumbents like Spector in Philidelphia and Murkowski in Alaska, and the primary night  victory of  Christine O’Donnell in Delaware, the momentum of the tea party into a formidable force is clear.

     The origin of the tea party mentality for vigorous push back against perceived governmental overstep is a treasured American tradition.  The original Boston Tea Party, on December 16th, 1773,  forcably dumped  the tea cargo of East India Trading Company into Boston Harbor as a pointed protest against British policy of securing a tax against the colonists without their sense of fair representation of their views.  Samuel Adams, cousin of John Adams and a member of the Sons of Liberty group that organized the protest, philosophized the underlying process of trying to achieve change in the face of establishment resistance:

“It does not take a majority to prevail…but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.”

     The modern tea party lives this to a “T” – the sense of an overbearing government unwilling to respect the need for obtaining the advised consent of the people for the bank and subprime bailouts, stimulus bill, cap and trade, and healthcare “reforms”, lit the fire and created the uniting impulse of many people with completely diverse agendas into an organized force.  What has been so surprising to establishment figures has been the depth of emotional attachment to arcane ideas like constitutional constructionism, fiscal accountability, pride in individual libertarian traditions, and revulsion against forced public planning instead of private enterprise.  These are crystallized into what tea partiers see as the unique American calling. So spoke our friend Samuel Adams again:

“Our contest is not only whether we ourselves will be free, but whether there shall be left to mankind an asylum of earth for civil and religious liberty.”

        The initial sense that the tea party movement would dissipate in the soft focus of principle in the face of the hard knocks that form the reality of American politics has proved erroneous.  If anything the election coming on November 2nd portends an amazing forcewave of political revolution.  It doesn’t appear that the genie is going back in the bottle any time soon.  Change, real change, appears on the way.  Mr. Adams, one more time:

“The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution, are worth defending against all hazards: And it is our duty to defend them against all attacks…Among the natural rights of all citizens are these: first, a right to life, secondly to liberty, thirdly to property; together with the right to defend as best as they can.”     

Posted on

45 Years Ago, Seems Like Yesterday

     On  September 13th, 1965 the Beatles released a single in the United States that they had been arguing for months about.  The signature Beatles sound was a carefully developed synthesis of the rockabilly roots and rhythm beats of the so called Merseybeat produced by local bands from Liverpool by the Mersey River, such as Gerry and the Pacemakers, and Americans such as Buddy Holly and the Crickets.  Time perfecting their craft in Germany gave the Liverpool lads a somewhat harder edge that they were quite proud of, and they clearly saw themselves as a rock and roll band.  They had leapfrogged everybody in the highly competitive British music scene to position themselves as THE music act in Britain and became concerned when Paul McCartney suggested a solo ballad be included in their next album.  He had obtained the whole of the song as the legend goes in a single dream, and worried for some time given its unique birth as a finished melody that he had possibly heard it elsewhere and taken it as his own.  When performed for others , all felt it was unique, but unlike anything the Beatles were writing or performing, and therefore, not likely the type of thing that would promote the group. 

     The original lyrics were space fillers, “scrambled eggs, my baby how I love your legs.”  Eventually McCartney tinkered with the song until inspiration brought to him the linear lyrics that secured the ballad.  George Martin, the band’s producer, saw the song in keeping with a long line of troubadour songs and positioned it solo with backing of a string quartet, to the dismay of the other band members.  John Lennon is quoted as saying, “Paul’s lyrics did not resolve into any sense. They’re good, but if you read the whole song, it doesn’t say anything, you don’t know what happened.  She left, and he wishes it were yesterday.” (beatles interview database).   Most disconcertingly, it put Paul out in front in solo – was this now Paul or was this still the Beatles?  It is hard now to believe, given the eventual historical breakup and solo carreers, but in 1965 it matter to all members of the group.  Finally, with hesitation, the song was included in the HELP! album supplementing the Beatles recent movie and released as a single.  And all hell broke lose…

     Yesterday spent four consecutive weeks number 1 in American charts and remained the most played song on American radio for the next eight years.  It has conclusively become the most covered song ever, with over 1600 versions by various artists publically recorded.  With its ballad form and string quartet it change the Beatles forever into performers experimenting in the recording studio, rather than a live performing group.  The demands of creating a new sound with each album became a challenge that eventually consumed their comfort with each other, and strained this most prolific of composition duos, Lennon and McCartney to the point of complete fracture.

       All that from a song…