#band dynamics

[kafkaontheroad]

Ma and Pa Blur !!

[torchlitinthedesert]

It’s weird how narratives stick around, even after they’ve been debunked. Philip Norman’s Shout!, hugely influential as the first “serious” Beatles bio, is now seen as biased. Norman himself has climbed down, admitting that as a John stan he was unfair to both Paul and George. (I don’t think he’s apologised to Ringo yet, but no doubt that will come when he needs the money and decides to do a Ringo biography.)

So when Norman writes Paul joining the Quarrymen, he’s bitchy about it: carefully deploying quotes to say that Paul was big-headed, he was catty, he bitched about how the others played, he was a Machiavellian plotter. When you compare it to interviews or memoirs from the surviving Quarrymen, it becomes clear that Norman was cherrypicking; they’ve got good and bad things to say about John, Paul, George, and each other, including plenty of positive memories of Paul. I’ve certainly seen posts debunking Norman by comparing sources (or just by giggling over his image of Paul as bossy baby diva.)

But that still frames the early days in Norman’s terms: it’s still asking Precisely How Annoying Was Teenaged Paul McCartney? The story you don’t get, and which is surprisingly rare in Beatle narratives, is this one: Paul joined the Quarrymen, and transformed its musical standards (not least by bringing in George). He joined a ramshackle skiffle group whose lead singer couldn’t tune his guitar and whose two guitarists could only play in banjo chords. Next thing you know, they’re the kind of band whose members will go on multi-bus odysseys across Liverpool in search of a new chord.

Acknowledging that isn’t belittling John. Just the opposite: it shows just how exciting and inspiring he must have been. Paul and George were music nerds, and Liverpool was full of baby skiffle and rock’n’roll groups. They had plenty of other options. But no, John’s was the band they wanted to join. John’s charisma was enough to make Paul rebel against family expectations, and George accept a leader who was quick and slapdash about things that George would devote long, hard hours to getting exactly right. Paul and George’s talent and dedication were enough to make John buckle down and rehearse. And they all thought it was worth it.

It also set up a pattern for how they would work together. Just as they’d sought out that B7 chord, George and Paul went right on exploring new sounds - Indian music for George, electronic music for Paul. And having found them, they offered them to John. So George’s sitar first appears in Norwegian Wood, Paul’s tape loops in Tomorrow Never Knows.

Later still, when John’s insecurities kicked in, he was uncomfortable with that. He insisted to interviewers that he’d written the Norwegian Wood riff, or complained that he should have stuck with his original idea of chanting monks for Tomorrow Never Knows. But again, it doesn’t devalue John to recognise the others’ contributions. It shows how he inspired them, how the Beatles worked as a unit, how they made each other better. (Can you imagine George offering the sitar to Paul first, or Paul suggesting the tape loops made their first appearance on a George song? I can’t.) Ignoring what Paul and George gave John is to ignore a big chunk of what made John special.

Anyway, I’m almost tempted to read Shout!, just to see how often Norman’s spite is a distraction tactic to stop you noticing Paul, George, or Ringo doing something important.

[danaes-silver-hammer]

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Noel: Well, if you think about it, [The Beatles] was the first ever group dynamic. Y'know, Ringo the glue that holds it all together, he's mates with everyone (...) Paul and John are the two creative, they're at loggerheads all the time, and George is kinda the younger "oh, can I have some sweets?" "Fuck off." (laugh) Y'know, so it's the first group dynamic. But it's a group dynamic that has gone all the way through the music business up until today, d'you know what I mean? Like Bonehead, for instance, in Oasis, Bonehead was the Ringo. He was the glue when it all— Bonehead was mates with everyone, d'you know what I mean? And me and Liam were of course the de facto band leaders. So yeah, there's a group dynamic that's... And they were the first.

[aishxteruu]

𝐒𝐔𝐈𝐊𝐄𝐍水圏 (genshin band au)

A light will shine in the darkest of shadows; the new beginning is in a hue of vermillion. From where they stand, flourishing roses blooming in all their splendor and grandeur are souls attuned to their own uniqueness, their own sound. And from the wilderness, flowers bloom from the drought of your heart upon their song. The young light-blue-haired lad closed his eyes, savoring this very moment. Hearing the loud applause everywhere boosted his confidence, making him want to play more and more. "Ah… I'm finally here at last," he thought. Ajax. Hu Tao. Albedo. Kaeya. This stage was where they belonged.

The young lad loves to play his strings alone where no one is judging him. There he can listen to only his soothing notes and nothing else. Chongyun was a shy person to begin with, but he really wanted people to hear his songs. He was indulged in his music until his only friend, Hu Tao, disturbed him.

"CHONGYUN!!!" the brunette girl greeted him.

The young lad couldn't help but frown at Hu Tao. "Energetic and loud as always, huh," he thought. Chongyun stopped and looked out the window, pretending that he was done playing his guitar.

"Hey! I heard you play," Hu Tao snickered. The light-haired lad blushed from embarrassment, hoping she was lying. "It was beautiful, though. Don't be shy to play some for me and teach me sometimes," she added with a smile. Chongyun replied with a small smile and continued to play his strings.

He and the brunette lass became friends in no time, and Hu Tao helped Chongyun cope with his shyness. It wasn't long until Chongyun heard that someone was looking for band members. He instantly got interested but was too shy to approach the person. This ginger-haired man seemed too pushy—it was like he wouldn't stop until you joined his group, which was a bit creepy for Chongyun. He found out that Hu Tao was picked by the ginger-haired man from the streets, and she helped him join as a guitarist.

He met two more members that he never knew he'd be friends with: Kaeya, the flirtatious guy who would definitely flirt with anybody he saw; Albedo, the quiet bassist who Chongyun heard was forced to join this group; and then there was the ginger-haired man, Ajax. He was somehow funny to be with but sometimes pushy. Ajax sometimes unexpectedly treated them to anything, which made him the sugar daddy of the group. Kidding.

Before they played as a whole, the young lad looked at his bandmates and chuckled, for he never expected to have a group of friends such as them.

"Ready to play for everyone, Chongyun?" Ajax asked him with a smile.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The beat finally started and Chongyun picked up his pace on playing his strings. Now, 𝐒𝐮𝐢𝐤𝐞𝐧 was finally on the stage, playing with their hearts' content, pouring their energy to play their song for everyone.

"𝐈'𝐦 𝐚𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐲," Chongyun inaudibly replied.

Because of them, he would've never reached this place. Because of them, people could now hear his notes. And for that, 𝒉𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒌𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒎 𝒃𝒚 𝒑𝒍𝒂𝒚𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒈𝒖𝒊𝒕𝒂𝒓 𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒍𝒐𝒖𝒅.

© 2025 | Do not repost / copy / translate. Original work by @aishxteruu — reblogs are love. 💌

[no-reply95]

“John was the central personality in that group of four. To some extent all of the interpersonal relationships were driven by the desire to be the one standing next to John.

That dynamic is what drove them on and arguably what would drive them apart.

We see it early on in Paul’s jealousy of the position occupied by Stuart Sutcliffe.

We see it in George’s disappointment in his failure to keep John at his side after the Maharishi fell from grace.

Despite John’s lack of engagement on George’s songs, George was more than happy to move back up to stand beside John after 1970. And to be fair John had in late 1969 expressed regret at how George had been sidelined.

George expressly said he would join a band with John at any time, but not with Paul.

Of course John would, perhaps inevitably, pull away again. And this time the rift was substantial - the accounts of their argument in 1974 are quite shocking.

I would say that that drive to be John’s partner - or perhaps in George’s case to position himself as custodian of John’s ‘no bullshit attitude within the group - still informed much of the dynamic after 1980, and maybe even how Paul has shaped the narrative right up to date.”

Bolding is mine… Source is the Nothing Is Real Podcast Facebook group (author is co-host Steven Cockcroft)

Thoughts? I’ve put mine below a cut.

So this POV isn’t original, this is something Lewisohn definitely alludes to in Tune In (I can’t remember the exact quote but he says something to the effect that “everyone’s closest relationship in the band was with John”.

I don’t doubt that the desire to be closest to John drove some of the tensions (although pretty notable that Ringo is largely excluded from this narrative) that’s not my issue though, my issue is: what about John’s desires within the band? Who was John’s closest relationship with? How did John’s desires impact the relationship dynamics during and after the band?

This comment and Lewisohn’s in Tune In sets John up as an object/prize but how John saw the other Beatles was also a key informant of the relationship dynamics in the band. I think Paul being the last primary (sorry Ringo) Beatle standing has warped a lot of the perspectives when it does come to the way we see the band’s story (I.e. I think in some corners we only see things from Paul’s perspective since we don’t have John and George around to answer for themselves and Ringo tends to just support Paul’s POV). I think making John a bit of a cardboard idol of worship and not an active participant in the band dynamics is one way there’s been a diminishing understanding of the what and why of how things unfolded for the band…

[eppysboys]

The Saturday Evening Post assigned reporter Al Aronowitz to follow The Beatles around for a few weeks after they landed in New York. Aronowitz, in an article published in March, went so far as to call Ringo “the most popular of the Beatles in America” who “evokes paroxsyms of teen-age shrieks everywhere by a mere turn of his head, a motion which sends his brown hair flying.” John Lennon, of course - perhaps a bit jealously - put his drummer in his place: “I just look at Ringo and I know perfectly well we’re not supermen." Aronowitz, despite his opinion of Ringo’s stateside popularity, was also a keen observer of the group’s dynamic: ‘He sits with his drums behind the group as the other three perform, and he rarely sings, although that is what he would most like to do. At twenty-five [sic] he is the oldest of the Beatles, but he is at the bottom of what sociologists would call their pecking order. When he joined the group it had already had a record contract, and the unspoken feeling in the quartet is that Ringo was hired by the other three. When they disagree on anything, Ringo is the last to get his way. “You’d be nowhere,” Paul McCartney says to him in the ultimate squelch, "if it weren’t for the rest of us."'

Ringo: With a Little Help by Michael Seth Starr, on Al Aronowitz’s view of The Beatles in 1964

[daddy-ul]

i want you to get started on the fact that james created a little ninja star logo for them

TO BE QUICK (for once in my life)

The ninja star logo was sketched/created by James in that era. It's made of 4 Metallica Ms, one for each of them, and together they form the ninja star!

Now. One could go off the fact that they together form a weapon and lose themselves in what could that metaphor mean.

BUT!!! the thing that is sure is that it's a symbol of unity, and the symbol chosen to represent the new era. The logo for the band changed and the ninja star showed up.

James drew it thinking about them together. So...

The irony, right?

It takes four people to form a ninja star, to form metallica. Four.

And in James' head for sure one of those M was Jason. Not Cliff, not in that moment. (Of course Cliff is part of metallica forever, not saying the opposite)

And not a lot years later.... the same dude, who DESIGNED a sign of unity, drove away one of the four M. The desire to keep him near, to be together, was the breaking point. Tragic irony.

AND!!!!!!

This was not on purpose, but-- Idk abt you, my dear anon duder, but if I think abt Rob during a tallica gig, I think about him in that long black metallica tank top WITH THE NINJA STAR ON IT.

He used it an awful lot during the DM era, and I loved it!!! And it was the first ever tallica album in which every damn song was credited to ALL of them (for my fellow queen fans.... a parallel for you: The Miracle)

And here it is, the symbol of unity, on a band member chest, in a band who is now rock solid and truly glued as a ninja star in a way that is good and makes everyone involved happy.

So... a lot of feelings and thoughts abt that lil ninja star.

[dontshutusdown]

The way that Louis and Zayn can't sit still and then there's Niall who loves signing autographs so much he didn't even switch places. Haha, I miss these lads so much. Such young unstoppable happy lads.