Love and Let Die
James Bond, The Beatles, and the British Psyche
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- $25.99
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- $25.99
Publisher Description
A deep-dive into the unique connections between the two titans of the British cultural psyche—the Beatles and the Bond films—and what they tell us about class, sexuality, and our aspirations over sixty dramatic years.
The Beatles are the biggest band in the history of pop music. James Bond is the single most successful movie character of all time. They are also twins. Dr No, the first Bond film, and Love Me Do, the first Beatles record, were both released on the same day: Friday 5 October 1962. Most countries can only dream of a cultural export becoming a worldwide phenomenon on this scale. For Britain to produce two iconic successes on this level, on the same windy October afternoon, is unprecedented.
Bond and the Beatles present us with opposing values, visions of the British culture, and ideas about sexual identity. Love and Let Die is the story of a clash between working class liberation and establishment control, and how it exploded on the global stage. It explains why James Bond hated the Beatles, why Paul McCartney wanted to be Bond, and why it was Ringo who won the heart of a Bond Girl in the end.
Told over a period of sixty dramatic years, this is an account of how two outsized cultural phenomena continue to define American aspirations, fantasies, and our ideas about ourselves. Looking at these two touchstones in this new context will forever change how you see the Beatles, the James Bond films, and six decades of cross-Atlantic popular culture.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The James Bond films and the Beatles "were arguing for futures that were entirely contradictory," according to this scintillating study from journalist Higgs (William Blake vs. the World). The two cultural phenomena are, Higgs contends, the clashing Freudian embodiments of Thanatos (the death drive) and Eros (love): Bond, the emotionally numb guardian of the British Empire, is an arrogant, cold-blooded operative who uses violence as a means to protect the status quo, and most of the women he sleeps with die. The Beatles, working-class upstarts who scoffed at the establishment, were the dream lovers of countless teenage girls, and their songs wielded "enormous emotional power." Higgs builds his case around evocative profiles of the Beatles and their fandom—"When girls scream at boybands, the sound is at a higher pitch, simultaneously constant yet out of control"—and of Bond's evolving persona and his real-life alter-egos, including his creator, Ian Fleming—whom Higgs writes had a "romanticized imperial imagination" and allowed his racism to seep into the Bond books—and Bond's first screen avatar, Scottish actor Sean Connery. The result is a thoughtful romp through pop culture that's full of fresh ideas and sharp connections. Alison Lewis, Frances Goldin Literary.
