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Monday, Nov 23, 2009
None of this is to diminish the ways in which Epstein, as a homosexual Jew, felt himself to be an outsider. But Epstein was always an outsider -- the "artistic" type in a family he loved but was separated from by his sensibility and temperament. The beloved Jewish elder son, he showed no interest in the Epstein retail business, and before he finally settled in and made a success of the record department at his family's store, he had tried a semester at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and had a furiously unhappy stint in the Royal Army Service Corps.
"In My Life" gets at the pride and sadness of Epstein as outsider -- the desire to belong and the knowledge that he couldn't be anything other than what he was. But finally it gets at something more important than his Jewishness or homosexuality, more important than the question of whether his death by overdose in 1967 was accidental (as it was ruled) or intentional.
What's fully unexpected about the book is the way it finally explains the protectiveness that Beatles fans have always felt toward Epstein. Simply put, we loved him because he was us. In the inner circle and yet outside it, Epstein lived out the most intense version of the longing the Beatles created in all of us who heard them: the desire to be one of them.
The message of the Beatles -- not just the message of their music but the message of the combined force of their personalities -- was that it was possible to imagine a world where the basics of work and love were sweetened and strengthened by the bonds of camaraderie, a camaraderie that was not exclusive but that yielded to whoever heard the message, understood and wanted to be part of it.
The interaction between the Beatles and their fans, defined forever in the concert sequence that ends "A Hard Day's Night," combined the ecstasy of immediate, open communication with the sadness of two parties kept from each other. "Singing to you like this is my only way to reach you," Bryan Ferry sang in the most sublime Roxy Music number ("Just Another High"), articulating the gap that always exists between performer and audience. And as the ultimate Beatles fan, the one whose belief and dedication made it possible for them to become the Beatles, Epstein could not cross that final gap.
For me, the most touching moment in the book is the story of Epstein spending a Beatles concert at the back of a hall letting himself go, screaming along with the girls in the audience. The stock footage of girls screaming and crying at Beatles shows has over the years become a bit of a joke, a way of saying, even for some people who participated, "Look at those crazy kids." But there has never been anything crazy about those kids. Epstein responded to the Beatles in a way that has little to do with his homosexuality and everything to do with the ineffable, surging joy the band communicated.
One has never had to be a straight teenage girl or a grown gay man to fall in love with the Beatles. I'm a straight man who has been in love with them since my father kept me up to watch their debut on "The Ed Sullivan Show." I knew in my gut why those girls were screaming, and when I see the climax of "A Hard Day's Night" I know in my gut why they were crying, because I'm usually crying with them. The Beatles provoked the feeling Lester Bangs once described watching Elvis: "an erection of the heart."
"In My Life" settles once and for all the question of who the fifth Beatle was. For the best years of their career it was Epstein, who carried the same torch as millions of other Beatles fans. Tomorrow, the fifth Beatle will be whoever hears their music, or sees their movies, and falls just as deeply in love.
