“The prophet follows the idea wherever it goes, and ideas, by their very nature, like to travel to dangerous places.” —Liel Liebovitz 1
Hello everyone,
Before we get started on Beautiful Possibility next week, I wanted to take a few minutes and introduce myself, since most of you have never heard my voice before. And I also wanted to share some housekeeping details with you, about how all of this is going to go — since next week, we’re going to jump right in and start, without any of the usual podcast-y introductions.
If you’re one of those people who always skips the introduction and goes right to the first chapter, I get it. I sometimes do the same. The thing is, there’s a better-than-average chance that in about three weeks, you’ll be back here reading this again, so feel free to put a pin in it and come back to this when it’s of interest.
Back in March of 2024, when I initially announced Beautiful Possibility, I’d already been working on it for two years. I didn’t realise then that it would take another full year of work before it was ready to share with you. But here we are, in the bleak midwinter and in a much different and darker world than the one in which I began writing this project with so much relatively innocent joy.
Nonetheless, this project is still joy, though less innocent now. It’s never been anything but joy, really, despite larger events and the smaller frustrations of the creative process. Which is why I feel a little self-conscious about releasing this series right now, given the state of the world. I worry that I’m failing to read the room. But I think maybe it’s okay, because more than anything else, Beautiful Possibility has things to say about love — things that might help more than most things are going to help, in finding our way through the dark.
So on to the housekeeping notes. First, let’s set some expectations.
Since I’m neither a musicologist nor a music critic, this won’t be a “music podcast" in the way we’ve come to understand music podcasts, although we will certainly talk a lot about the music. Since I’m not a historian, it also won’t be a “history podcast,” although we will certainly talk a lot about the history. It won’t even really be a “podcast,” per se, as much as it is a book on tape, with each episode as a chapter, and some bonus material in between.
What Beautiful Possibility is, is my attempt to write the book I was hoping to find when I fell in love all over again with The Beatles on a cold winter’s night in the woods of Maine. Whether I succeeded or not, we’re all about to find out.
And what I am, among other things, is a mythologist and a storyteller, and that’s how we’re going to consider the story of The Beatles, or rather the story of the story of The Beatles, because as I hope to show you, it’s outgrown its ability to be written about and understood through the harder-edged frames of history and music criticism. It’s become too big for the ways in which we try to understand its hold on us and its place in our world.
Re-telling this story from a mythological perspective doesn’t mean this series hasn’t been extensively researched. It has been. I have a background as a professional researcher. Over the past three-plus years of writing Beautiful Possibility, I’ve made multiple research trips to Liverpool and London, as well as to Hamburg. I’ve met with and exchanged emails with Beatles historians, biographers and journalists, university academics and librarians, archivists and museum curators. And I’ve been blessed to spend time with people who were there when it all happened, including Cavern Girls and Quarry Men and Rosi, who told me stories of working behind the bar at the Kaiskerkeller all fifty-six nights of The Beatles’ first Hamburg residency in 1960. 2
There are more details to share with you about my research methodology, but I suspect that won’t be of interest to most of you until after the third episode — at which point it's likely to be of great interest, so we’ll talk about research methods in more detail when we get there.
There are, however, a couple of research-adjacent things to note in advance—
I’ve borrowed much of the approach for this series from the brilliant second season of Cocaine and Rhinestones, and as such, some of the episodes are quite long. It would be a lot easier to present the whole series only in written form, but I realise it’s more practical for most people to listen than to read, which is why Beautiful Possibility will be available in both written and podcast form, even though, again, it’s not a “podcast” so much as it is a book in audio (and written) form.
Because of the limitations of audio, the written version will be much more complete than the podcast version, since the podcast version won’t, obviously, include the photos, videos, links and most of all, many of the footnotes that provide additional context and commentary.
The most important thing I want to share with you in advance is this—
We’re going to go to some provocative and controversial places in this series — they’re mostly beautiful places, filled with love, but they’re also places the mainstream Beatles world has for decades decided are strictly off limits.
After careful consideration, I’ve chosen to ignore the “No Trespassing Signs,” so obviously careful research has been especially important — that’s part of why it took so long to write this series. As such, there are lots of footnotes, including a lot of extra context and commentary.
So again, the written version will be more complete than the podcast version, with all the little extras not possible with audio. Also, corrections and additions will only appear on the written version.
The difference between the written and the podcast version matters especially when it comes to the research that’s verbatim quoted. As many writers do, I sometimes use ellipses to shorten a quote that’s long or disjointed or rambly, to make it more readable — provided doing so doesn’t change the meaning. But if I do that, I will always provide the full, unedited quote with its context and source in the footnotes, to avoid any concerns about another Mark Lewisohn situation.3 Those kinds of footnotes also obviously won’t be shared in the podcast version because that would be silly, but it’s important if you’re only listening to the audio to know that you might not be getting the full quote.
I’ll also occasionally share very short bonus episodes, usually on Thursdays but don’t hold me to that. I’ve christened these bonus episodes “Rabbit Holes,” as a nod to John and Paul’s love for Lewis Carroll. Rabbit Holes are much less polished, much less pretty and much much shorter. Think of them as studio outtakes worth including on a box set. As George might say, they’re extra texture.
Speaking of George, it’s probably not a terrible idea to tell you up front that while Beautiful Possibility is concerned with the story of The Beatles as a whole, this series will focus almost exclusively on Lennon/McCartney. This isn’t out of a lack of respect or appreciation for George and Ringo and their importance to the story, it’s because the story I want to share with you here is best told by focusing on John and Paul.
Okay, next housekeeping item.
There will be occasional profanity in this series. From the Fabs, and also from me. As a wordsmith, words are the raw material of my craft, and to tell this story as it deserves telling, I need all the words, not just the polite ones, in the same way that a visual artist needs all the colours on the palette. Also, to offer some perspective, when it comes to things to be offended by, profanity is fairly trivial in comparison to the offensive realities of everyday life as it’s currently unfolding. Nonetheless, if there are tiny ears involved and you’re sensitive about exposing them to the full breadth and beauty of the English language, be forewarned.
Beautiful Possibility will be hosted here on substack, and because I’m not entirely trusting of any third-party platform, especially one with difficult-to-access tech support, I’ll also publish the series on my personal webpage at faithcurrent.com. It won’t be as pretty there, formatting-wise, but it will be functional, should it need to be.
In terms of structure, Beautiful Possibility consists of three parts, and each part will consist of around ten or so episodes.4 I know it would be less confusing to call the three parts ‘seasons,’ except that they’re not seasons. When the series is complete, the three parts together will form a complete body of work because again, this is more of a book than a podcast. So... parts, not seasons. We will all just have to embrace the confusion.
Anyroad, Part 1 consists of nine episodes. In those nine episodes, we’ll talk about why the story of The Beatles is even more important than most people realise, why that story as its been told over the years is in such bad shape, what we can do to fix it, and why it matters — now more than ever — that we do fix it. We'll also talk about why a large percentage of what’s been written in even the most “definitive” books about the Fabs may not actually be true, and that there might be a much more complex and magical story waiting to be discovered.
In Parts 2 and 3, which are not yet written and will come after a break, we’ll re-tell the story of The Beatles in a way that I’ve come to believe is more truthful, more profound, and most of all, more beautiful than the story as it’s been told for so long.
Episode 1 will be released a week from today, on Monday, February 24, and new episodes every Monday thereafter until we run out of episodes. There is a chance that at a certain point, I’ll shift the schedule to a main episode one week and a Rabbit Hole the next, because I’m still finishing the final few episodes and might need a bit more time to do that.
After that, we might do a Q&A, if there are enough interesting questions. And then, since Parts 2 and 3 are outlined, but not yet written and research is still in progress, there will be a break of indeterminate but significant length after Part 1.
And speaking of questions, because Beautiful Possibility is going to venture into controversial territory, and because it will take most of the series to lay out why we’re going to that controversial territory, it doesn’t take a psychic to predict that the reaction — especially from episode three forward — will include a lot of premature jumping to conclusions and a lot of emails sharing those conclusions, some of them quite enthusiastically in ALL CAPS and lots of !!!!!.
I realise I’m whispering into the wind to ask y’all not make these snap judgements or send those emails, but I’m asking anyway.
The culture has taught us to think about complex topics in black or white and to rush to judgement, sometimes before even reading or listening to the material in question, just based on what we think it’s going to say, or how it’s going to be said. But please do keep in mind that much of what we’re going to talk about in this series is not anywhere close to as simple and clear-cut as it might initially seem. Beautiful Possibility is a journey that will take the full nine episodes and beyond to unfold and I hope you will come along with an open mind, and maybe more important than that, an open heart.
Speaking of emails and such, I’ve deliberately made it difficult to contact me, for the same reason as comments on The Abbey have always been disabled.
The intention in either case isn’t to shut off dialogue, it’s actually the opposite. I’m releasing this series into the world with the goal of changing the way we write and think about The Beatles. That change can’t happen if you’re interacting directly with me instead of going off and talking about this series elsewhere with people who are not me.
The same is true with email — if you’re emailing wanting a conversation with me, that’s a conversation I’m hoping you’ll have with someone who is not me, because that’s how this series is going to reach people — especially since I don’t have the time or the skill to do any kind of self-promotion.
Also, I have a complicated relationship with sharing my work, especially this work, the writing of which has been more like a love affair than a creative project.
Paul McCartney once said about sharing his paintings that—
“When I do a piece of music, I am used to people saying, “Oh, I like it,” or “I don’t like it.” I am used to somebody having an opinion on it, and it can somehow erode your pleasure in having done it. It is like giving birth to a baby, and then you have got to show it to everyone and sometimes you can be a bit jealous about that. You are proud to show it off, but you lose a little innocence, a little something that was in your heart, and you have to give it to other people. It is life, you know.” 5
So I’m going to need some time to get used to the idea that this work, which has been so intensely just mine for so long, is now not just mine. Of all of the things that have caused me anxiety relative to sharing Beautiful Possibility, sharing something so deeply important to me is the one I'm the most nervous about.
You can, however, contact me indirectly via email through my assistant, Robyn. She’ll save up questions for a possible Q&A at the end of Part 1. And if you are a fellow writer or researcher with a research-related question, I’m happy to pay forward the help I’ve had by helping you, if I can.
Otherwise, please don’t be disappointed if I don’t respond to your email (or your substack note).
This lack of response on my part also isn’t to cut off dialogue or out of elitism. It’s because if I’m dialoguing on email with people individually, I’m not working on the series. It took me three years to write the first part of this series, in part because of distractions. I’d prefer it didn’t take three years to write the second part.
Speaking of help from fellow writers and researchers, I had a lot of it in putting this series together, including from other Beatles scholars and writers who have generously shared their points of view and additional research, and who’ve connected me with further resources. I appreciate all of them, but to be clear — and this is going to become important — Beautiful Possibility is a personal labour of love, and I take sole responsibility for every word of it.
Finally, my writer’s vanity demands I offer two final qualifications —
First, the written versions have not been formally proofread. Good proofreading is expensive, and my budget was not infinite. I chose to spend it on research rather than on finding misplaced commas. So there are probably some typos.
And second, I used to bitch about people using inconsistent verb tenses in their writing — mixing past and present. I mean, how hard could it be to tell the difference between past and present? But the story we’re about to tell careens from past to present and the future, sometimes within the same sentence, and involves people on both sides of the veil, then and now, and the tenses are complex enough that I gave up sorting them out. I swear I will never bitch about anyone’s inconsistent tenses again, because mine in this piece are wildly inconsistent. It is what it is.
And thank you all, too, for your patience and for being here and for loving the Fabs.
Until next week, peace, love and strawberry fields,
Faith
The story of the story of the Beatles
Listen. Subscribe. Pass it on.
Liel Liebovitz, A Broken Hallelujah, W. W. Norton & Company, 2014, p. 84.
You can read about Rosi and my trip to Hamburg here. https://www.beatlesabbey.com/p/filth-and-longing-at-the-crossroads
If you’re not familiar with the problems that have recently come to light about Mark Lewisohn’s research, or if you don’t know who that is, we’ll get to that when we get to research methods.
Probably. But I thought Part 1 would be four episodes and it became nine, so one never knows.
Paul McCartney, The Paintings, Bullfinch, 2000, p. 56.
