BABY, YOU CAN’T DRIVE MY CAR
Communism, Hypnotism and the Beatles – David A Noebel
At any one given moment, my mind churns with a popular music tune penned by some casual collector of global music scene trophies, a nostalgic yet-dangerously-offensive 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 (5 July, some time ago, originally), I was simultaneously playing Taylor Swift’s All Too Well and the Um Bongo song on an infinite loop in my head, while wondering whether I’d gotten Gardening Waste 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. It was a lot of work keeping up with the latest music shenanigans; one wonders at which point preachers found themselves lurking the outskirts of concerts with spies, spooks, perps, suits and, of course, gonzo-journos – all selflessly protecting The People from excitable teens and hopeless-yet-peaceable masturbators, amen.
This particular 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 demise of “America’s” good, upstanding society.
Noebel’s first point of business is the nerve-jamming of children, and his beef against a couple of children’s record labels 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 mush and/or indoctrinating them into the outdated trend for ‘communism’ – I’m unclear. (And what’s sadly ironic, of course, is capitalism has done just as fine a job of frazzling brains than Noebel fears of granular nuances in beliefs about acceptable factory working conditions.) Either way, how jobs /‘jobs’ for nouveau hereditary rich kids with nihilism will work was – and still is – a uniquely American preoccupation.
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. Given that modern human gatherings, from sports and politics, to music gigs and social media stunts, ‘bake in’ some degree of fervour/hysteria/reaction to establish social proof to, eg, mark cultural/political significance, sex appeal, or hero-dynamics, etc, on- and off-screen, I suggest that the struggle remains against the kleptocracy rather than poets, artists, writers, thinkers, carers, weirdos, and creatives. But – as the old rockers and Svengalis of music retire amid a truly dystopian muddle of contracts, literal and beelzebubblian, that aim to secure legacies for friends and (cough) Families forevermore – at which point ‘The Music Industry’ became part of the corrupt kleptocracy is a redeeming question for all involved in past, present, and future efforts to make pleasant sounds for God and The Devil both.
You can read the booklet here in pdf should you wish.
