The Beatles’ Lyric Genius
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Friargate Quaker Meeting House (Map)
Event details
The extraordinary quality and enduring appeal of the Beatles’ songs has led Professor Campbell to seek the secret of their songwriting virtuosity. Musicologists have succeeded in identifying this in their music but what about the lyrics? Whereas the popular tendency is to focus on meaning, Professor Campbell’s original approach reveals the genius evident in the widespread use of rhetorical structures while also directing attention to their unique lyric legacy.
Colin Campbell was one of the first sociologists to join York University in 1964 in the new department of Politics and Sociology. He served as Head of Department for five years, and continues to enrich the community as an Emeritus Professor. Profoundly committed to tackling fundamental sociological questions, he eschews the traditional emphasis on specialization, being renowned for his work on religion, consumerism, cultural change and action theory. And not least, The Beatles. Here, he has fascinated audiences with his unique insights on the band’s lyrics and their general cultural impact.
This is one of a number of events in the Summer/Autumn programme organised for members of York Civic Trust. But non-members can also attend.
About the speaker
Colin Campbell
Colin was born in Sutton Coldfield in 1940. He obtained his first degree, a BSc. (Econ.), from London University in 1961 and started teaching at the City of Birmingham College of Commerce in the same year. Three years later, in 1964, he moved to York as an Assistant Lecturer in the new combined department of Politics and Sociology. He then obtained his Ph.D., as an external student of the University of London, in 1968.
Colin has been at York ever since, acting as Head of Department from 1990 to 1995, while he has been Emeritus Professor since October 2006. During his period at York Colin has had several spells as a visiting academic at universities at home and abroad. Thus from 1974 to 1976 he was a Visiting Associate Professor at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver; in 1994 he was a Research Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford; in 1998 he was Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute for Cultural Pluralism in Rio de Janeiro, while in 1999 he was Visiting Research Fellow at the Humanities Research Centre at the Australian National University in Canberra.
Colin is married, with two children and five grandchildren, and lives in Fulford.
More information about Colin’s books can be found at Amazon Author Central.