Proletariat Blogging in the Heart of (UK) Predatory Capitalism! Exploring the Interface between Matter and Perception, Chinese Buddhism, Daoism, Hakka Ethnography, and All Aspects of Radical Politics, History, Psychology and Philosophy – 全世界无产者联合起来!
A leaked source has suggested the title will be ‘Five Billion Dollars Beneath the Waves’ – whilst EMI are rumoured to be in negotiations with Ringo Starr regarding a ‘Special Re-Release’ of his ‘The Beatles’ hit single – ‘Yellow Submarine’! King Charles is said to have paid tribute by flushing a flower down one of the toilets of Buckingham Palace (facing West) – whilst the Daily Mirror has changed it’s lead head line from tributes ‘flood in’ – to tributes ‘roll in’! Yes, it’s hypocrisy aplenty!
Heinz Edelmann’s depiction of The Beatles consists of the lower part of the body being larger than the upper part of the body – this is the basic contradiction that is responsible for creating the dramatic effect. The lower part of the body (from the waist down through the legs to the feet) is ‘feminised’ through the hourglass type angles used. At the time, this was very unusual but fits-in very well with today’s gender-aware society. Perhaps it is an allusion to the ‘non-binary’ reality of contemporary identity (male, female, intersex and asexual, etc). Whether Heinz Edelmann intended any of this is a matter open to debate. His ‘Nazi’ attitudes would suggest not. My view is that the ‘Blue Meanies’ are in reality the British Police Service which was busy in the late 1960s launching ‘drugs raids’ against all and sundry (including against John Lennon and Yoko Ono)! As the British Police ‘confiscated’ the cannabis herb (and prevented it from being smoked) – they were referred to as the ‘Blue Meanies’! As it is not politically correct to speak about the British Police in negative terms – the real identity of the ‘Blue Meanies’ has to remain ‘hidden’ and ‘obscured’ from today’s youth!
As Heinz Edelmann had no direct input with the storyline, an interesting question is why he was permitted to state the false opinion (also included on the Blu-Ray but obviously recorded sometime ago) that the film ‘Yellow Submarine’ was ‘anti-Communist’ (it is not) – or that the ‘Blue Meanies’ were supposed to be the ‘Red Meanies’? He makes one further (ludicrous) claim – namely that there is ‘no difference’ between Nazi Germany and the USSR – an opinion straight out of the CIA handbook that defines and guides US anti-intellectualism! I suspect that if The Beatles had become aware of Heinz Edelmann’s ridiculous opinions at the time, they would have ‘withdrawn’ from the film and the project would have crashed and burned. If the casual reader peruses the internet today – Heinz Edelmann’s false opinion is strewn across endless websites – simply because that is what the agency of US anti-intellectualism wants the world to think! Thank goodness the music of The Beatles is stronger than these attempts at disinformation!
As for its surface structure – I think that with the ‘Yellow Submarine’ we are seeing the essence of how the Monty Python team presented their ideas to the world! As Monty Python sketches are available all over the internet and streaming services – most people are better acquainted with this form of communication than they are with that seen in the ‘Yellow Submarine’! This tends to give the inverted notion that the Monty Python methodology came before the ‘Yellow Submarine’ – but we all know that this is not true! Just a quick perusal will demonstrate to the average viewer that Terry Gillian must have been inspired and motivated by The Beatles output and philosophical intent (which seems ‘Anarchic’ at this point and definitely ‘Existential’). The working-class norms that all four Beatles were brought up within are there – but so is the ‘freedom’ from this conditioning – and that’s all the ‘Yellow Submarine’ represents! The problem was the difficulty of psychologically conveying this ‘freedom’ whilst still being physically ‘stuck’ in exactly the material conditions assumed to have been thrown-off due to some type of superior insight! This is the ‘idealism’ of The Beatles! It was their millions of pounds which gave them an enhanced sense of ‘choice’ whilst living within a capitalist society. Immense wealth and success constituted the foundry within which the superstructure of the ‘Yellow Submarine’ was hammered out – whilst the imbibing of LSD was the bottle of Champaign (or non-descript ‘infrastructure’) that was smashed against its side – and which launched it into the stream of human consciousness! Do with it as you will.
SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 