under the rock

MY GOD, IT'S FULL OF STARS: (L-R) Alicia, Stevie, Bono, Slash, Steven, Alison and Billie Joe cap off the Grammys with "Across the Universe."

Words Are Flowing Out

by Michael Pelusi

Why "Across the Universe"? Of all Beatles songs, why was that one picked for ensemble repackaging at the Grammys by a great many pop superstars — Bono, Norah Jones, Brian Wilson, Stevie Wonder, Velvet Revolver, etc. — in the name of tsunami relief?

One reason might be that the song first appeared on a benefit album, the 1969 No One's Gonna Change Our World, which supported the World Wildlife Fund. Also, the Beatles, it seems, never really finished the song; Capitol/EMI has released four versions over the years, none particularly definitive. Maybe that's why it's so prone to reinterpretation (recently by Fiona Apple and Rufus Wainwright).

The main problem with using "Across the Universe" as a benefit song is that, like a lot of psychedelic-era John Lennon songs, while not bereft of meaning, it strolls rather languidly to its point. "Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter box." A beautiful line, but it relates to charity how?

In the hippie days, you could get away with being unclear for a good cause, especially since the World Wildlife Fund album was probably just supporting the environment in general. But this is a very specific, as well as cataclysmic and horrific, event. A song that traffics in vagaries, however gorgeously constructed, seems like a bad fit.

But, oh, there's that chorus: "Nothing's gonna change my world." As performed by the Beatles, it becomes, like "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "A Day in the Life," a psychedelic song about real life, a beckoning of the private world to provide protection from the nefarious real one. By the time the Beatles started to record this song in early '68, the acidy Summer of Love was over. Bear in mind that Lennon would soon leave his first wife for a Japanese avant-garde-ist and put his career on the line to protest the Vietnam War, and the song may begin to truly make sense.

Of course, at the end of the Grammy performance, the chorus was miraculously changed to "Something's gonna change my world," which I assume was intended to be hopeful and "We Are the World"-like but actually sounds kind of ominous. Nor did it help that many singers felt it necessary to embellish the melody with allegedly emotive caterwauling (worst offenders: Alicia Keys and, as usual, Steven Tyler). Only Billie Joe Armstrong sang with the right inflection and actual soul.

Not to say that tsunami relief isn't a worthy and very necessary cause. But can we leave the Beatles out from now on? Between Super Bowl halftime and the upcoming Broadway musical, it's hard enough to be a fan. And I thought it was tough when I was a preteen in the late '80s.

Nothing's gonna change undertherock.blogspot.com.