BABY, YOU CAN DRIVE MY CAR
Communism, Hypnotism and the Beatles – David A Noebel
At any one given moment, my mind churns with a Taylor Swift tune, a nostalgic TV jingle, and a deep sense of existential dread that I’m living a meaningless existence – all while worrying I’m sub-optimally recycling to the scourge of oceans and The Children’s future.
At the time of reading this booklet, I was simultaneously playing All Too Well and the Um Bongo song on an infinite loop in my head, while wondering whether I’d gotten Brown Bin Day right. The prospect that this is all apparently the fault of the Beatles, the 1960s British rock band that was “more popular than Jesus”, was, then, somewhat comforting…
This 1965 US booklet, penned by Reverend David A Noebel and published by the Christian Crusade, is here to warn us of “The Communist Master Music Plan”. The ‘Red Scare’ and McCarthyism were in decline come the 60s, however, so I gather this reaction was more about ‘blasphemy’ and the threat to America’s conservative Christian patriarchy than Beatlemania as a communist conspiracy. (Interesting piece about this here.)
Noebel’s is a grave and alarmist 15-page thesis, followed by a whopping 159 detailed footnotes that the more dedicated of students are urged to research themselves.
The thesis hinges upon the work of Ivan Pavlov, a Soviet and Russian psychologist mostly known for his work in conditioning. We jump from seemingly authoritative information of Pavlov’s salivating dogs to hypnotism and music, and the “nerve-jamming” of children, to teasing what this all has to do with the Beatles and hysterical teenagers, and the general collapse of America’s good, upstanding Christian society.
Noebel’s first point of business is, obviously, the nerve-jamming of children, and a couple of children’s record labels that he urges people to boycott. Several paragraphs are dedicated to the dangers posed by children’s song The Little Puppet, which, apparently, constitutes a hypnotic induction (lyrics include “down deeper and deeper”). It’s either turning young brains into neurotic, psychotic mush and/or indoctrinating them into communism – I’m unclear. (And what’s sadly ironic, of course, is that capitalism has done just as fine a job in turning brains to mush and preparing us to be the factory puppets that Noebel fears.)
Finally, we come to mostly incoherent fearmongering about the Beatles and mass hypnosis. I’m sure Beatlemania must have been a troubling time for religious conservatives in the States watching teenagers expressing (religious-type) ecstasy at “four mop-headed anti-Christ beatniks” from Liverpool. But, intwined with authoritative Pavlovian references, is disturbing rhetoric about cleansing and fighting in the name of Christianity and for the ‘true’ conservative, patriarchal face of a nation. I write this on 5 July, a day after yet another mass shooting in America; this kind of rhetoric strikes me as infecting America with far more tragedy and danger than messages of peace and love from a rock band.
Given the choice between being ‘hypnotised’ by a failing patriarchal status quo or by the prospect of a progressive, inclusive, safe, kind and different future, I know who I’d choose to ‘drive my car’.
You can read the booklet here in pdf should you wish.
