Beatles and Humour, The: Mockers, Funny Papers, and Other Play - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1501379356 ISBN 13: 9781501379352

Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic, 2025

Synopsis

The Beatles are known for cheeky punchlines, but understanding their humor goes beyond laughing at John Lennon’s memorable “rattle your jewelry” dig at the Royal Variety Performance in 1963. From the beginning, the Beatles’ music was full of wordplay and winks, guided by comedic influences ranging from rhythm and blues, British radio, and the Liverpool pub scene. Gifted with timing and deadpan wit, the band habitually relied on irony, sarcasm, and nonsense. Early jokes revealed an aptitude for improvisation and self-awareness, techniques honed throughout the 1960s and into solo careers. Experts in the art of play, including musical experimentation, the Beatles’ shared sense of humor is a key ingredient to their appeal during the 1960s—and to their endurance. The Beatles and Humour offers innovative takes on the serious art of Beatle fun, an instrument of social, political, and economic critique. Chapters also situate the band alongside British and non-British predecessors and collaborators, such as Billy Preston and Yoko Ono, uncovering diverse components and unexpected effects of the Beatles’ output.

About this title

About the Authors

Katie Kapurch is Professor of English at Texas State University, USA. Her previous books include Blackbird: How Black Musicians Sang the Beatles into Being-and Sang Back to Them Ever After (2023) and Victorian Melodrama in the Twenty-First Century: Jane Eyre, Twilight, and the Mode of Excess in Popular Girl Culture (2016).

Richard Mills is Programme Director and Associate Professor in English Literature and Popular Culture at St Mary's University, Twickenham, UK. He is the author of The Beatles and Fandom (Bloomsbury, 2019) and co-editor, with Lee Brooks and Mark Donnelly, of Mad Dogs and Englishness (Bloomsbury, 2017) and, with Katie Kapurch and Matthias Heyman, The Beatles and Humour (Bloomsbury, 2023).

Matthias Heyman is Assistant Professor in the Arts at Vrije Universiteit Brussel and Lecturer at Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel, Belgium, where he is the Vice-chair of Research. He also is Postdoctoral Fellow at LUCA School of Arts, Leuven and freelances as a double bassist. He has a forthcoming monograph on jazz bassist Jimmie Blanton.

Edition details

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1501379356
• ISBN 13: 9781501379352
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 276
• Editor: Kapurch Katie