Would John Lennon be the icon he is today with a 1989 Beatles Reunion sponsored by Gatorade?

Unfortunately, in the popular culture, you can outlive your usefulness. Lennon dying at age 40 at the hands of a madman meant that he could never live to become irrelevant.

Would we remember James Dean the same way if he had been forced to make a living as the third lead in Aiport '77 or a security guard in The Towering Inferno?

If Elvis Presley had died in 1969, he would be remembered completely differently and there would be no Elvis impersonators because there would be no white jump suit.

Same with Michael Jackson. If he had died in a car wreck in 1990, he would be remembered as the biggest pop star as all time - and there would be a strange air of mystery about his personal life. A few biographies would pop up every five years with some strange allegations. But it would be a small piece of the overall picture.

Just something to ponder.

Does a great live show.

And does Amex commercials.
And cheesy Super Bowl halftime shows.

People like Paul because he is Paul.

If he had died after "McCartney," there would be religions in his name.

That's the point.

When I think of Stevie Wonder, I don't think of I just called to say I love you. I think of Talking Book.

When I think of Willie Mays, I don't think about his time with the Mets. I think of him rounding second base and his hat flying off his head.

At this point, on some level, we all want Paul McCartney to go to an island somewhere and stop writing music. Because it's not going to be good.

In recent years, I can only think of two artists who pulled themselves from the brink of self-parody and that's Springsteen and Dylan.

Dylan went 20 years between good albums. Now, he can't make a bad one.

Springsteen went 15 years. Now, his live shows might be the best they've ever been.

And the two albums before it weren't too shabby either.

I went to his show a couple of years ago. I had really high expectations that really fell flat. All of the arrangements were different and I could barely detect the songs I love. To a certain degree, I understand his desire to change and not play the same song for 40 years. On the other hand, I just don't enjoy the new stuff that much.

in Muscle Beach Party.

Yeah. I'm old.

10 years of crappy songs in the 70s by Paul and Wings made me think Lennon really wrote all their "coauthored" songs.

Paul is/was a musical genius who desperately needed to be popular. Some of the stuff he did with Wings is so damn catchy it should be classified as a drug. But it's not exactly high art.

I just think Paul didn't have the balls to walk into a studio with Lennon and play Silly Little Love Songs or Ebony and Ivory. I think they were a great example of the sum being greater that the parts.

The best description Paul gave was that we would sit in front of the group and play "I have to admit it's getting better" and everyone would nod and then at some point, John would start humming "It can't get much worse." And Paul would realize how much greater his song just became.

I imagine that John added the edge to Paul's songs and Paul made John's songs danceable.

I would love to know how "The Ballad of John and Yoko" was written. Because my guess is that it started as some whiny folk song and Paul added an insanely great bass line to it and made it something you can break the speed limit to.

I think that's more in the category of urban legend. Lennon and McCartney weren't true 'collaborators' to much of an extent beyond their initial pop days. From the Beatles For Sale era or so on they wrote their own stuff without a lot of core input from the other, with notable exceptions, like A Day in the Life (and I don't think you'd exactly call that "cowriting"). I think it wasn't the writing of the song so much as the recording and production of the song that they collaborated most on.

and Lennon's solo output is largely shit.

I sometimes wonder which way he would have gone if he'd lived.

It's kind of like leaving a party too early rather than too late, you know?

Always leave them wanting more.

Geroge Friederic Handel should have thrown in the towel at the age of 54, before he wrote The Messiah

Grandma Moses should never have even thought about painting at the age of 90

We are talking pop stars here.

And, yes, John Lennon was a pop star. His job was to write and perform catchy tunes.

That probably wasn't the precise way it was written in his job description when he hooked up with the various princes and archdukes, but essentially that is how he earned his talers and pfennigs.

He probably should not be in that list.

But he is also never on lists of "political icons" like John Lennon is. It really wasn't until the 20th Century that we demanded that our popular performers be more than popular performers.

One of the things I adore about Bob Dylan is how little he seems to give a shit about his place in the culture. All he wants to do his write and sing his songs. Joan Baez has a great moment in that Scorsese documentary where she explains having to tell activists thousands of times that Bob is not coming to their rally, Bob does not care about their rally, and when are they ever going to goddamn catch on to that fact.

One of the interesting things with Michael Jackson is that the minute he became messianic is the minute he started to suck as a songwriter. "Heal the World" might be the single worst song in the history of everything.

And yes, going back to your original question, I think the "Gatorade Beatles' Reunion" would have been a bit tacky. But then again, the Beatles gave up on live performances back in 1966 or so, 4 years before their breakup.

By '89, Paul was pretty much doing the entirety of Sgt Pepper on stage.

Look...if Fleetwood Mac and The Eagles could re-unite, it's a goddman lock that there would have been a Beatles reuinion had John lived. The money would have been utterly staggering.

I'm sure they were offered bundles of money for a reunion several times back in the '70s, as far as that goes. But as John sang

I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go 'round and 'round
I really love to watch them roll
No longer riding on the merry-go-round
I just had to let it go

There is that famous story of how they were together the night that Lorne Michael offered them $3000 to play on Saturday Night Live and they nearly went to the studio to take him up on it.

Like I said, if Don Henley and Glenn Frey could work together again, ANYONE can work together again for a big enough payday.

I think they would have done three or four songs at a Prince's Trust concert in the mid 80s...and then finally hit the road with George and Ringo in 90 or 91.

I don't think $3000 would have been much of an incentive to someone who counted their respective fortunes in the tens of millions.
But it's all speculation now anyway, since not one but two of them are gone now. Any truth to the rumor that Ringo and Paul are getting hooked up with Pete Best?

That was the joke. Lorne Michael came out every week and kept upping the offer by a few hundred dollars.

"You guys can divide it up anyway you want. If you want to give Ringo a little less, go ahead."

That's what made it so funny. I remember watching that broadcast.

Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin would be destroying right now. Based on what I've heard it's never going to happen for those bands.

Sometimes there are second acts. Sinatra outlasted his irrelevancy, dropped the crooning for phrasing, and became a respected musical titan.

popular again.

But you've got a point. Can't see Lennon every doing a Gatoraide sponsored concert. Yoko wouldn't let him. :)

Which seems perfectly reasonable.

Not that I'm complaining.

Ponder that.

John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
Martin Luther King was assassinated.
Malcolm X was assassinated.

Them two N****s got shot!

They've become parodies of themselves.


Then again.... Paul McCartney, Paul Newman, Clint Eastwood, and MANY others disprove your point.

Know what I mean? I know what you're saying, I'm merely making an observation.

born in South America in the 1600s, and never met Ringo? Important questions.

He was content to let the past be the past and to work on what he was interested in at the moment.

He also never seemed caught up in the kind of score keeping that McCartney is into (be it with money or credit for past work)