Gary Kendall

58 | EVANSTON | NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF MUSIC TECHNOLOGY WHO TEACHES A POPULAR BEATLES COURSE

The first year [1992] I offered the class they were, at that time, keeping statistics on what courses were requested. It's different than registration we have now. Immediately, it was the most requested course in the history of Northwestern. The first year I offered the class I put an ad in the daily newspaper because I was afraid that not enough people would show up. I was wondering if I'd have enough registration for the class.

Almost everybody has a favorite Beatle. Usually the biggest pull is between John and Paul. I lean a little bit more on the John side myself. I recognize it's characteristic of people's personalities. I have good friends who are Paul people.

There's one really important difference between John and Paul's personalities, which is largely the way that they handle pain. John was very upfront about pain and Paul tries to soften it. You see how they deal with loss encoded in their songs.

Breaking down the myth that Yoko Ono was the cause of the Beatles breaking up and discovering that she's had an incredibly interesting and challenging life -- that's usually a shock. I think a lot of people have trouble giving up the mythic story. Even after you got all the facts, it's like, "Well, I still think she broke up the Beatles" -- or they recognize that she was really far ahead of her time. She is a great example of a person who is a very liberated woman living through very difficult things. She could be a role model.

All of my all-time favorite Beatles songs are going to be John songs. One of them is a favorite of a lot of people, "In My Life." Another favorite song is "Dear Prudence."

I'm a big Prince fan. I think Prince is a phenomenal musician. He's probably my other big interest in pop music.

I follow what's going on with Paul McCartney and Heather Mills but I don't follow it with a passion for the earlier years. It seems to be part of another story.

The cover that the Breeders do of "Happiness is a Warm Gun"-- that's one of my favorite covers. For me a good cover is a performance of a song where you can see some qualities in the song brought out that maybe the original performance didn't have. There's some terrible covers, too. The Carpenters do a cover of "Ticket to Ride" where all the R & B influences are pretty much taken out of the song and also the gender roles are reversed.

A lot of the students in the class heard the music because they heard it from their parents. Because there's a generational bridge, very often the class becomes kind of a conversation point between them and their parents.

Rummana Hussain

GARY KENDALL