The Beatles Have Become a Museum

Paul McCartney is helping to open up one of the most famous addresses in music history, 3 Savile Row, including access to the rooftop where The Beatles played their final public performance in January 1969. Which raises an interesting question. Why on earth do people still care?In this episode of Mark and Pete, we wander from a cold London rooftop into much deeper territory. The Beatles broke up more than half a century ago. Most of the people now visiting Beatles sites weren’t even born when John, Paul, George and Ringo were together. Yet thousands still make the pilgrimage, cross Abbey Road, pose for photographs and now, potentially, stand on the very roof where music history was made.What’s going on there?We discuss the extraordinary staying power of The Beatles, the strange human desire to touch history, and why modern culture increasingly sells experiences rather than things. We also ask whether places become special because of what happened there, or because of the stories we tell about them afterwards.Along the way there are reflections on nostalgia, celebrity culture, musical genius, Liverpool tourism, rooftop concerts, and the curious fact that human beings seem unable to stop creating pilgrimages, even after abandoning many traditional forms of religion. If people no longer travel to shrines, they often end up travelling to recording studios, football grounds and famous street crossings instead.As usual, there is a biblical perspective lurking in the background, a few observations that may or may not be entirely fair, and the sort of conversation that starts with Paul McCartney and somehow ends up discussing the nature of meaning itself.Not bad for a roof, really.