The Lennon Wall

Posted on December 1st, 2007 by admin

Once in a while a piece of writing on some music-related topic will come out of left field and knock you flat on your ass (case in point, Dylan’s Chronicles). Today I refer the reader to Harvard grad student Dave LaFontana’s paper “You Say You Want a Velvet Revolution?”, published with permission on the Beatles Ottawa website.

This is a really fascinating read. It addresses the Beatles’ cultural and political influence during the Cold War, mainly from the point of view of those on the Soviet Bloc side. The paper does a nice job of shedding light on many parallel events, opinions and figures, while remaining readable and relatively compact. Very worthwhile.