Does "Take: Make" = "Receive:Contribute" ?
Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998

Iain fights the power:

>Kent raises my hackles sky-high

> >Finally, let me quote the ever indispensible
> >Beatles:

>For one thing, the Beatles are *totally* disposable.
>Their only contribution to my world is a yardstick of >a total lack of
quality. Just look at all the >imitators....

Far be it from me to argue with a modern young Brit about the merits
of the Beatles (other than to note the giant shadow they cast over the pop
music history of the last half-century). Obviously, a 37-year-old Yank
from NYC and a mid-twentysomething Englishman will have radically
different impressions of such a seminal UK band.

Similarly, many urban Americans of my cohort find it impossible to
confront the awesome iconic power of Elvis Presley, the uber-American teen
idol, without the armor of heavy irony. "Just look at all the imitators,"
as you say. Sometimes it may take a more distant observer to listen
without prejudice and thereby see another nation's cultural artifacts more
clearly than do the natives. (And then again... did anybody catch HK star
Jackie Chan's winning rendition of that Elvis song--"I can't help falling
in love with you?"--on a recent Letterman show? Mucho weird!)

To wit, Chuck D. speaks (one) truth to power:

Elvis was a hero to most
But he never meant shit to me
He was a straight-out racist
Simple and plain
Motherfuck him and John Wayne
-- Public Enemy, "Fight the Power"

Or something like that.

Thus I won't argue but I *will* quibble on matters of interpretation.

> >And in the end the love you take
> >Is equal to the love you make

>Another piece of unmitigated tosh from the pen of >John Lennin. Of
course it's not going to be equal. >Nothing ever is. Some people will get
a neat balance, >some will be net receivers, and some net contributors.

I've found that Lennon's lyrics tend to inspire reflection long after I've
stopped humming. I think your analysis overemphasizes "equal" while
slighting "the love you take" and "the love you make." I agree with you
that, rather than representing a balance sheet, this equation is
inherently unequal. "The love you take" may be what the individual
derives from love but the "love you make" suggests the synergistic energy
of the couple, the combined power of the joining that makes love. In
contrast, the words "receiver" and "contributor" imply a simple
transaction. Rather than the difference between giving and receiving,
this lyric makes me contemplate the possible chasm between the individual
and the group. The individual parts may well be less than the whole. Or
vice versa.

I'd wager that these issues had a certain relevance to John and the
other disintegrating Beatles as they completed their last album
(*very* near the end of which this lyric is sung, btw, in perfect
harmony).

I still don't know what to make of "Her Majesty."

Do all such pop equations literally mean what they say? Does "Silence =
Death" as the AIDS activists teach us? Or is one the result of the other?
Not all equals are equal after all.

Now that I've utterly confused myself with my cleverness, I will say
"Good night."

Sleep tight,

Kent