Communist Music

You’re far from the first to see this:

I have to say, those are the Beatles?

I have this book! (Only because I’m an amateur Beatles historian–it has accrued some cult notoriety amongst Beatlefans.)

It’s completely crazy. If you good people are familiar with the works of Jack Chick, you’d recognize the similarly grandiose/histrionic/zealous writing style, not to mention the shared absurdity of the subject matter.

The book attempts, essentially, to make a case for the Beatles’ music (actually, for all rock AND folk music, except the Beatles get top billing here because their name at that time could sell elevators to Geronimo) being a kind of hypnosis insidiously designed by “the Soviets” to enslave the USA by brainwashing its youth. Meanwhile, I’m not sure Mr Noebel understands what hypnotism actually is, since his hypotheses read more like a B-movie script than anything, unblinkingly purported to take place in a world in which one can create mindless automatons with a few well-placed “hedonistic rhythms” and phrases. Really!

Mr Noebel is still at it, too, having written over 50 of these types of books, the most recent of which was published in 2007. He’s continued to revisit the topic of music as well, at the very least having written a sequel to this work as well as one in which he purports that John Lennon was not only again the tool of “the Soviets” but also a direct agent of Satan this time around. Furthermore, he had the good taste to release this tome in the immediate aftermath of Mr Lennon’s murder, perhaps remembering the boost in sales he engendered with the earlier book.

A word to any library staff considering weeding this–this book is valuable! Selling your weeded copy online to Beatles ephemera nuts like myself could net your institution a cool $100.

I lost you on Soviets inventing rock n roll. I don’t think a single riff got through the iron curtain in those days! They were all “Vee vill bury you!” and other overt threats. Maybe if they could have rounded up a turntable that worked…

Wow. Is that really supposed to be the Beatles on the cover? I can’t tell who’s supposed to be who!

@Lurker–The pamphlet you linked to is the precursor to the book above; Noebel read it, got in touch with “Dr” Hargis, and the rest is history. It’s also significantly rarer than the book, more like $1000 than $100 to collectors. Good luck finding a copy, though.
PS: Thanks for reposting that link. I learned more from web 1.0 gurus like Bill (Splut) Young and James “Kibo” Perry when I was in high school than I did when I was actually *in* high school…

Okay this is my first comment after months of browsing this website – and the more I read it, the more I am in love with Holly and Mary.

This book is really epic…

I have a lot of friends from Lithuania, which is a former part of USSR. I asked everybody there : pop music was practically forbidden during Soviet times. Not explicitly forbidden, but the state-owned broadcasting would not play it, and the state-owned record shops would not import them anyway. Typically Soviet : why bother forbidding itwhen you can just cut it into oblivion ?

My ex-Soviet friends told me they listened to pop music anyway, through foreign radios – reportedly, the Polish broadcasting, despite being ruled by a Communist regime too, was more lenient and did broadcast some pop music. One Lithuanian baby-boomer, when he learnt I work for Belgian radio, hugged me in memory of pop music program we broadcasted in is youth and he was able to hear through long waves (I wasn’t even born but still…).

As for the records, it was still possible for them to find some through black market – you have a friend whose brother got a pal that works on the docks of St Petersburg and he got you an original copy of ‘Abbey Road’ that you will duplicate for your other friends. According to my Lithuanian friends, once again, you didn’t risk to be sent to gulag for that, but it was just practically a difficult process.

During the late years of USSR, pop music was officially introduced as part of Gorbachev’s policies. The state-owned record company Melodya printed records with your favourite artist’s names written in cyrillics and a complete biography on the back. I have such a print of Peter Gabriel’s ‘So’ album and, thought unable to understand a single word of Russian, I can read cyrillic – its name is literaly spelled ‘Piter Gaybriel’ and the enormous biography on the back of the sleeve includes such words as ‘Genesis’, ‘Mike Rutherford’, and ‘Broadway’.

After such a story, it is quite difficult to believe the theories of Mr Noebel, ain’t it ?

not just any Beatles, evil zombie Beatles

Good Lord (no pun intended), Ringo took a few hard whacks to the face in that first book cover. Are we certain they didn’t draw in one of the Monkees instead? And thank you MGM and Fantasio for your very informative posts, I feel a little bit smarter now. 😀

I enjoy that in the link it is expressly stated that the organization paid for his `color television`.

HEY!! You’ve got to hide your wealth awayyyy!