The Long and Winding Road (To Ruin) or Eight Days a Week (Of Woe): Mormon Apostle Blames the Beatles for Society's Ills

[Shulem]

Deep Purple: My Woman from Tokyo. Smoke on the Water. Good stuff.

Yeah, I remember that.

After retiring not long ago, I inherited with the purchase of a home in central Arkansas, some amazing vinal albums all in near mint condition. Would you believe? Here are just some of those 45's:

Deep Purple, Smoke On the Water
David Bowie, Space Oddity
Tommy James, Crimson and Clover
Tommy James, Mony, Mony
Beatles, Jet
Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody
Beatles, Hey Jude
Alice Cooper, Generation Landslide
Archies, Sunshine
Monkees, Mommy and Daddy
Ringo Starr, Oh My My
Cher, Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves
Bee Gee's, How Deep is Your Love
Michael Jackson, Ben
Bette Midler, Delta Dawn

etc.

I also inherited lots of albums to include:

John Denver
Carpenters
Best of Bee Gees
Cher, Half breed
Statler Brothers
Michael Jackson, Thriller
Three Dog Night, Harmony
Barbara Streisand, Memories
Chicago, 17
Handel Messiah, Philharmonic Orchestra
Barry Manilow, Trying to get the Feeling
KC and the Sunshine Band
Best of Bread
Barbara Streisand, A Star is Born

etc.

But, my most precious album in MINT condition and still wrapped in the original cellophane having never been opened and incased in the opened original brown shipping box is:

Creedence Clearwater Revival (Best of), 1978, by K-Tel International, Inc.

Wow, just wow.

[MG 2.0]

Deep Purple: My Woman from Tokyo. Smoke on the Water. Good stuff.

Yeah, I remember that.

After retiring not long ago, I inherited with the purchase of a home in central Arkansas, some amazing vinal albums all in near mint condition. Would you believe? Here are just some of those 45's:

Deep Purple, Smoke On the Water
David Bowie, Space Oddity
Tommy James, Crimson and Clover
Tommy James, Mony, Mony
Beatles, Jet
Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody
Beatles, Hey Jude
Alice Cooper, Generation Landslide
Archies, Sunshine
Monkees, Mommy and Daddy
Ringo Starr, Oh My My
Cher, Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves
Bee Gee's, How Deep is Your Love
Michael Jackson, Ben
Bette Midler, Delta Dawn

etc.

I also inherited lots of albums to include:

John Denver
Carpenters
Best of Bee Gees
Cher, Half breed
Statler Brothers
Michael Jackson, Thriller
Three Dog Night, Harmony
Barbara Streisand, Memories
Chicago, 17
Handel Messiah, Philharmonic Orchestra
Barry Manilow, Trying to get the Feeling
KC and the Sunshine Band
Best of Bread
Barbara Streisand, A Star is Born

etc.

But, my most precious album in MINT condition and still wrapped in the original cellophane having never been opened and incased in the opened original brown shipping box is:

Creedence Clearwater Revival (Best of), 1978, by K-Tel International, Inc.

Wow, just wow.

Those were the days my friend, we that they’d never end. We’d sing and dance forever and a day. We’d live the life we choose, we’d fight and never lose. Those were the days, oh yes, those were the days. (From memory, by the way ).

When I came up to BYU after my mission my family stayed in California along with my rather massive vinyl record collection. They moved up to Utah and somehow all my records disappeared. Sad.

Maybe for the better. It was hard enough to focus on school and work without the added distraction of the “devil’s music”.

I gradually moved away from listening to hard rock and settled on soft rock and other genres. Of course, with a bit of Edgar and Johnny Winters and Mountain (Mississippi Queen), etc., on YouTube now and then.

Sorry Gadianton, I’m human.

Nowadays, it’s mostly podcasts. Sean Carroll, Michael Shermer are two that I have on my playlist consistently. Apologies to Gadianton again for not being a strict fundamentalist. Listened to a Carroll podcast today with Mary Roach. I highly recommend it. She is a hoot.

Regards,
MG

[Dr. Sunstoned]

Let's not forget the classic 1970s dance anthem, Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple. This was on the play list at my very first college dance at Deseret Towers, Sept. 1973.

[huckelberry]

Oh yeah, I'm not a fan of Lennon's "Imagine".

Why not? I don’t think you really understand the song. You heard “Imagine there’s no heaven”…“and no religion too” and jumped to a conclusion that it was an anti-God and anti-Religion song. Which it isn’t.

Questions, I think you have a good and interesting observation here. I am sure some folks hear it as against religion, it certainly implies criticism. Does religion take people away from real world problems and hope? I have little doubt that can happen.

But the song presents a vivid hope for a better world. There are religious folks who can appreciate that hope being made visible in the imagination. Yes like all you need is love leaves out a lot of real world problems but the song is art creating an image of the value of love.

I am happy to believe love is bedrock and both songs say that (and are a bit revolutionary for it).

[I Have Questions]

Stupid is, stupid does...without learning anything.

Regards,
MG

Q. E. D.

[I Have Questions]

Why not? I don’t think you really understand the song. You heard “Imagine there’s no heaven”…“and no religion too” and jumped to a conclusion that it was an anti-God and anti-Religion song. Which it isn’t.

Questions, I think you have a good and interesting observation here. I am sure some folks hear it as against religion, it certainly implies criticism. Does religion take people away from real world problems and hope? I have little doubt that can happen.

But the song presents a vivid hope for a better world. There are religious folks who can appreciate that hope being made visible in the imagination. Yes like all you need is love leaves out a lot of real world problems but the song is art creating an image of the value of love.

I am happy to believe love is bedrock and both songs say that (and are a bit revolutionary for it).

Yes. It’s a plea for a more united world, where divisive labels don’t exist. It’s a very uplifting song. I suspect it is more reflective of what Christ was really teaching than, say, how Mormonism goes about it with its separate kingdoms, male and female divisions, excommunications etc. MG 2.0 either doesn’t understand the song or he approves of divisiveness.

[Gadianton]

MG, I'm glad you have a balanced "cafeteria Mormon" life. However, everything you just wrote betrays the fact that even if the LDS church is true, the Book of Mormon is ancient, and all that, it doesn't matter to anybody. Any person whether it's you, me, or IHAQ, can live a common-sense lifestyle; we have no need to listen to the prophets of the true Church. You demonstrate this.

[MG 2.0]

MG, I'm glad you have a balanced "cafeteria Mormon" life. However, everything you just wrote betrays the fact that even if the LDS church is true, the Book of Mormon is ancient, and all that, it doesn't matter to anybody. Any person whether it's you, me, or IHAQ, can live a common-sense lifestyle; we have no need to listen to the prophets of the true Church. You demonstrate this.

Of course it matters. To know that God exists as our Father and that Jesus is the Christ is no small thing.

Regards,
MG

[huckelberry]

I think church leaders are right in being concerned about the music of the day and the possible negative influences it can have over the hearts and minds of young people and even those that are not so young.

I liked the Beatles. I also like Led Zepplin. But if those two rock groups and many others I could name were and/or had been the major drivers/influences in my life

So, here's the problem, MG. I knew you were going to say you liked the Beatles. The care-free beach bum from SoCal who listened to the Beatles. It's not possible for you to "like the Beatles", to be in good standing with God, and for the Beatles to have triggered many of societies serious ills like an apostle said. That's like saying I like smoking, but not to the exclusion of everything else.

It's cafeteria Mormonism, if you're looking for a good example of that. It reinforces what I've suspected, that Mormonism is just what you grew up with, and you're really attached to the comfortable life that went along with it as a whole. You'd have no friction if you advocated for your faith congruent to how serious you actually take it. If it was just like, "hey, it's a good church" and there's lots of good churches and this just works for you, everyone is like, "oh cool, enjoy it". But you're obsessed with the party line, that it's the only true church, that the leaders are God's mouthpiece for the entire world. That unless people visit and revisit, and test the seed over and over until they accept it that they've doomed themselves.

If your church is the only pure source of truth on the planet and everyone who rejects it or hasn't heard about it is missing out so much, then when a prophet says the Beatles are directly responsible for many ills of a society as a whole, then that means you quit liking the Beatles immediately.

Gadianton, I do not remember any Mormons I grew up with who were so f Ed up in their fundamentalism to immediately quit liking the Beatles.

People are cafeteria what ever they are at least from what I see and the world is much better for it.

I am going to add what keeps popping for my mind. I think that polygamy involved a suppression of romantic feelings and the substitution of duty. The Beatles were much about all the dimensions of romantic love. There is a clash. I remember however that those Beatles songs were well liked at church dances. Mormonism may have divided feelings on the subject.

[Doctor Steuss]

One of these days I need to dig out my D&C commentary that was published by the church back in the 1920s, and scan some pages to share. Amongst the timeless prophetic wisdom of the One True Church (TM) is a stern warning against the "dangers of ragtime music."