YouTube Gold: We Can Work It Out
The Beatles, still having fun in 1965
From a 2024 perspective, the Beatles are almost unimaginable. Their songs are more than a half a century old now and you hear them in elevators and commercials and, well, everywhere.
They have become deeply intertwined with the culture.
By the late 1960’s, they were tired of the hoopla, Beatlemania and each other. None of them much wanted to do it anymore and they famously broke up after the rooftop concert in London.
In the early ‘60’s though, when fame still seemed desirable and they were a fresh act, the Beatles were like nothing else. You can get a sense of that in this video of We Can Work It Out. It’s very simply filmed and much as you would expect, except that John Lennon is on keyboards here.
You can see the playfulness before the world weary/wary attitudes set in, with John mugging for the camera and Paul McCartney being, well, Paul.
This song was released in 1965. The band would last just five more years and in just 15 years, Lennon would be gunned down in his adopted home town of New York. James Taylor, who lived nearby, heard the gun shots and close friend Keith Richards was so enraged that he picked up his hand gun and went looking for the killer.
This video was from a much more forgiving time. It’d be nice to find something like that for our age too.