Goodbye John

Liverpool Echo - Morning Edition - October 10th 1938

Local Woman Killed In Automobile Collision

Rept F. Mackenzie - A local woman has been killed in an automobile collision close to Strawberry Fields Children's Home within the Woolton district at approximately 9 p.m. The victim, named as Miss Julia Stanley, was crossing Beaconsfiled Road road on her way home as the driver, named by the local constabulary as a Mister Isaac Epstein, drove with 'clear inability to associate sobriety with the ability to drive an automobile' as stated by a representative of Merseyside Police. Potential charges against Mister Epstein have not fully come to light. Family have been informed and Miss Stanley, twenty-four years of age, is survived by immediate family of four sisters and parents.

So what are the implications of a world without John Winston Lennon?
 
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hammo1j

Donor
Paul McCartney - Won Opportunity Knocks and got to number 16 in 1975 with Love Me don't Leave Me

George Harrison - Session Musician who wrote 1982 Eurovision Winner What is Love For?

Ringo Starr - Retired after 40 years as the Steward on the Manchester to London line.
 
That does seem quite eerily accurate. I wonder who would lead the British music invasion of the USA, if anyone...
 
But would Brian Wilson have the inspiration and friendly competitiveness from The Beatles to ascend to dizzying and truly original heights as he did with Pet Sounds? The irony is that the aborted 'Smile' album may have very well appeared in 1967-8, though with a far more conventional West Coast 'beach' sound.
 
Paul McCartney - Won Opportunity Knocks and got to number 16 in 1975 with Love Me don't Leave Me

George Harrison - Session Musician who wrote 1982 Eurovision Winner What is Love For?

Ringo Starr - Retired after 40 years as the Steward on the Manchester to London line.
Probably not. Luck does not greet the same people in all histories.

Paul McCartney: School teacher. That's what he thought he'd be without the Beatles, anyway.

George Harrison: Wannabe rocker from the 1950's Liverpool scene. Never got an in. Currently a book shop owner or something like that.
George used to hang around the bands, and used to hang around Rory Storm hoping to get into the Hurricanes. He was also an admirer of Lennon. Lennon brushed him off initially, and Rory Storm probably wouldn't let him in. He was pretty young.

Ringo Starr: Drummer for the hit band Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. Knowing what he did in the OTL, he probably goes solo, but petered out. Or maybe he could pull a Phil Collins and take the lead over from Rory. Rory didn't have a great voice, which resembled the punk singers that would come in later decades. Ringo's voice isn't the greatest either, but as we've seen, it proves workable if limited in octives.

"Rory Storm and the Hurricanes/whatever they'd change their names to" were the biggest Liverpool band of the Beatles era, even more so than the Beatles. Without the Beatles, they have a good shot at rising to prominence. But, again, Rory Storm didn't have the greatest voice. Under Rory, they were also doing nothing more than covers of early and old rock and roll. They'd need to break through that.
 
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In other news, Pete Best avoids ever approaching fame, and thus does not become jaded at the Beatles.

The more interesting question here is how music evolves without the Beatles, who were a very key part in how music developed, around. Certainly George Martin could help mold another troupe into improvement, but the Beatles did have a unique creativity which would not be in other groups in the same way.
 
You, you killed him! Damn you, damn you Polarity to hell! :p

Anyways, the impact of no Beatles is staggering. While some may ascertain they are overrated what they did for music can not be understated. They had a helping hand in more then just one genre of music.
 
Significant butterflies for the following people not already mentioned:

Yoko Ono - probably remains an obscure artist.
Julian and Sean Lennon - never born, obviously
Brian Epstein - music journalist? No overdose?
Linda Eastman - never meets Paul McCartney?
Mark Chapman - ideas?

Minor butterflies:

Frank Sinatra - With the Beatles never existing, Cranky Franky likely never gets to butcher Harrison's "Something" ("Stick around Jack, she might show").

Stuart Sutcliffe - dies as in OTL, but in obscurity.

Allen Klein - already mistrusted by the Rolling Stones, doesn't get to put the Beatles on his CV.

Imelda Marcos - Never gets offended when the Beatles fail to appear at an official function in Manila.

Michael Jackson - doesn't buy the entire Beatles catalogue, and spends his money on something else

Ravi Shankar - still immensely popular inside India, but with almost no recognition in the west.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi - any ideas?

Wings and the Travelling Wilburys never exist. The Concert for Bangla Desh is never held.

Who sings the final song at Live Aid in 1984?

Who narrates "Thomas The Tank Engine?"

Abbey Road in London is just another street. Nobody thinks it unusual to walk across the pedestrian crossing.

Sadly, "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Imagine" are never written, recorded or released. Happily, neither is "When I'm Sixty-Four" or "Ob-La-Di"
 
What keeps Stuart Sutcliffe, Pete Best, George Harrison, and Paul McCartney from forming a band?
The fact that in the OTL, they got damned lucky, and damned lucky because of John Lennon and his Quarrymen/Silver Beatles/Johnnie and the Silver Beetles/whatever other lineup of the group taking them on.

Stu Sutcliffe was an artist and only went into music really because John Lennon wanted him along. George Harrison was an under aged kid and a wannabe back in the day. Paul McCartney met Lennon at 15 and started from there. I think Pete Best was just the son of the Casbah Coffee Club owner who got in because they needed a drummer and they played in the basement there.

Lennon was like a rolling stone and these men were all moss to him. Whatever variations may have come later, and if they became independent later or equal partners, and if Paul McCartney got bigger than him, or whatever, John Lennon was the center of the Beatles universe if you look at it. These people got into music, or got their opening on a bigger stage at least, because of Lennon. And taking into account the Beatles as they were were lucky to get picked up, it's doubtful luck will shine on these men alone, and especially since they probably won't get into music the same. The only one I think will actually have any shot would be George Harrison. But, he's still an under-aged wannabe hanging around all the Merseyside rockers.

If you mean from forming a band together, what keeps them from doing that is they probably won't have any connection to each other sans Lennon.

Without Lennon, there are no Beatles, no careers for Paul and George, and none of anything that came from the Beatles, period.
 
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Without Beatles how change the pop music and pop culture?
For exemple,no long hairs in late 60s and 70s?
I think the long hair would still come in some way; it was an extension of youth rebellion forces already in progress.

But the whole makeup of everything would be different. You can have good bands fill the void (again, I cite Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, which I think would eventually become The Hurricanes fronted by Ringo Starr) but it'd never be the same. There's so much the Beatles affected that it's hard to list.
 
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