Wednesday, February 1, 2017

Did a Post-Modernist Philosopher Write Songs for the Beatles?

"People who are sentimental about the Beatles will find it hard to believe that they were pumped up and used by the Illuminati to introduce soft drugs among middle class American youth. They were also a vehicle for the introduction of mind control 'trigger words' into everyday jargon."
--Preface to The Beatles and the Aquarian Conspiracy

I've previously shared how I came across a book (probably produced by John Birchers) that proposed that the Beatles were puppets for Communism, in the service of the Kremlin. The argument was put forth that considering how primitive their early recordings were, their later sophistication could only have been achieved with the aid of masterminds behind the Iron Curtain.

This past week a friend shared with me a variation of this theory. The Beatles did not write their own songs. Rather the Beatles were manufactured by a secret Jesuit corporation known as the Tavistock Institute. Their aim: the degeneration of our generation.

The actual author of the Beatles' songs, according to the conspiracy theorists, was a philosopher named Theo Adorno.

Adorno was familiar to me, a post-modern European philosopher born in 1903 who died before 1970. In many respects he was a very interesting guy. Here's a brief (probably too lengthy) excerpt from his Wikipedia bio that touches on his ideas and background.

Amidst the vogue enjoyed by existentialism and positivism in early 20th century Europe, Adorno advanced a dialectical conception of natural history that critiqued the twin temptations of ontology and empiricism through studies of Kierkegaard and Husserl. As a classically trained pianist whose sympathies with the twelve-tone technique of Arnold Schoenberg resulted in his studying composition with Alban Berg of the Second Viennese School, Adorno's commitment to avant-garde music formed the backdrop of his subsequent writings and led to his collaboration with Thomas Mann on the latter's novel Doctor Faustus, while the two men lived in California as exiles during the Second World War. Working for the newly relocated Institute for Social Research, Adorno collaborated on influential studies of authoritarianism, anti-semitism and propaganda that would later serve as models for sociological studies the Institute carried out in post-war Germany. Upon his return to Frankfurt, Adorno was influential to the reconstitution of German intellectual life through debates with Karl Popper on the limitations of positivist science, critiques of Heidegger's jargon of authenticity, writings on German responsibility for the Holocaust, and continued interventions into matters of public policy. As a writer of polemics in the tradition of Nietzsche and Karl Kraus, Adorno delivered scathing critiques of contemporary Western culture. Adorno's posthumously published Aesthetic Theory, which he planned on dedicating to Samuel Beckett, is the culmination of a lifelong commitment to modern art which attempts to revoke the "fatal separation" of feeling and understanding long demanded by the history of philosophy and explode the privilege aesthetics accords to content over form and contemplation over immersion.

His chief work centered on the theory of Positivism, which is essentially an a priori rejection of Divine Revelation.

The source of this theory that Adorno wrote the songs that made the Beatles famous is a man named John Coleman who claims to have been a secret agent in British Intelligence.

Of course, this kind of proposed theory may simply be a device -- like a fishing lure -- to attract readers to a blog like this one which appears to be a catch-all conglomeration of conspiracy theories ad infinitum.

What's curious to me is that these conspiracy proponents make the Beatles, Stones and Grateful Dead out to be the puppet influencers of Western culture. One argument to support the idea is how the boys from Liverpool were from workingclass families and there's no way they could have that much talent.

As if the only way to write hit songs is to be a Ph.D.?

My primary argument against the notion of Adorno writing their songs would be to then ask who wrote all the articles in the magazines like Rolling Stone and Creem that hid Adorno's tracks? I recently finished reading The Letters of John Lennon and one would be hard pressed to find any suggestion of a cranky philosopher helping him write songs that made him famous. When he explains the story behind Sexy Sadie it sure sounds believable to me.

One final thought, while we're here: who wrote Bob Dylan's songs? Hard Rain, It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleedin'), Visions of Johanna.... He was just a kid, a college dropout after one semester. The answer is quite transparent: it was the a secret society of former CIA agents known as The Wind. (Hence, Donovan's secret code message to youth: Catch The Wind.) They were the only ones capable of creating such influential material so that Hollywood keeps including his songs in all their movies and all these hundreds of other musicians do cover versions.

Meantime, life goes on all around you.

EdNote: Beatles photo borrowed without permission. Original painting by ennyman.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

HELL NO....no post modern composer old square wrote Beatles songs, tinfoiler, lol.

Popular Posts