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- Something Happened - March 6, 2023
John with Paul ascendent in the House of George, thanks
It had to happen . . . . a book-length Beatles-based personality quiz, with explications of each type. Fortunately, the authors, Adam and Roger Jacquette, write with enough wit and panache to make it fun and illuminating.
Beatles fans won’t be too surprised at the traits linked to each member (for example, Pauls can be overbearing, and are soppy when they’re in love, duh), but there’s more depth to each characterization than I expected in a book of this type. If you take the quiz, you’ll end up with both a “major” type (the band member you resemble most closely, in terms of personality), and a “minor” type (the one you resemble second most closely). The explanations of what people with different major/minor pairings are like at work, socially, and in romantic situations are quite interesting.
Worth checking out if you enjoy a little psychologizing with your Beatles (and hey, if you didn’t, would you be reading this blog?)
Related posts:
Albert Goldman and Hunter Davies on Beatles Biographies
Beatles Reggae covers
First bass
The breakup, viewed from 1974
A literary White Album
Dullblog Calendar
You gave me the answer
Interview with Lennon biographer Tim Riley
Red stalks, green bars
"How the Beatles Destroyed Rock and Roll"…
And your "Birds" can sing
Aspiring or inspiring?
I haven’t seen the book before, but I wonder if the authors were aware of, or inspired by, “Shades of a Personality”.
I believe we all have the “four-headed monster,” as Mick Jagger so aptly defined them, inside us.
J.R., I don’t know the book you mention, but “Beatleology” seems to draw from a number of classification systems, including Myers-Briggs. One of the aspects of the book I found interesting is that the authors classify each of the Beatles as having a major and a minor Beatle “type” — and their analysis is pretty insightful.
Shades of a Personality was a rejected screenplay.
At the end of 1966 producer Walter Shenson announced, “We are more less agreed this time that the Beatles should not play The Beatles. They will play four characters who look, think and talk like The Beatles but are different characters.”
This was the mindset of the working script for the third Beatles movie, tentatively titled “Beatle 3”. Since schedule conflicts prevented Richard Lester from directing the new Beatles film, Michelangelo Antonioni was announced as a possible director.
The storyline sounds like an early version of the Quadrophrenia project, realized by the Who in 1973. The script called for a man (to be played by Lennon) suffering from a three-way split personality, with the remaining Beatles playing each of these personalities. The project wasn’t rejected outright, but simply fell between the cracks in the hectic schedule of the Beatles in 1967.
J.R., that’s fascinating — I’d heard of a screenplay like that, but didn’t connect it with that title. Would have been something to see, especially if Antonioni had directed it!
Speaking of Antonioni, I’ve heard that Paul was in the party scene in Blow-Up. Maybe he got left on the cutting-room floor…
The idea of this book makes me sweaty, probably because the received wisdom on all these guys is so fekockte. Paul–the guy who basically ran the group from 1967-70–is the soppy sentimentalist, while John, who basically immolated his entire self on the grease fire of romance, is the hard-bitten realist. George, the only Beatle who managed anything like a successful career outside of music (Handmade), is the dreamy mystic; and Ringo…well, let’s just say that everybody inside the group called Ringo essential, while everybody outside the group thought he was “history’s luckiest bit-player” or whatever P. Norman called him.
Now, the idea that Lennon himself contained each of the four dominant notes, that’s interesting, and rings true to me whenever I read it.