Men of Ideas? Popular Music, Anti-Intellectualism and the Beatles

Abstract

Although the Bruce Springsteen song ‘No Surrender’ does not go on to reveal which three-minute record provided so much, in December 1980 on the evening following John Lennon’s murder in New York, the singer had prefaced his show at The Spectrum in Philadelphia by declaring: ‘The first song I ever learned was a record called ‘Twist And Shout’ … if it wasn’t for John Lennon, we’d all be in a different place tonight’ (Garbarini et al. 1980: 22).