Playing Beatles songs as a blueprint for piano improvisation, there is so much the feeling of the sea, the ocean, in their melodies, harmonies and rhythms; the adventure of seafaring imparted by Liverpool. You feel the lure of the moist salt air, the fresh invigorating breezes soft, sometimes becoming wild tempests, love of nature-women-God.

You might even call them the Sea Beatles in the manner of the Beach Boys...but not the Sea Turtles.

The Beatles making my point overly emphatically and overly literally, hasya rasa being one of many things they executed to perfection and beyond.

Come to think of it, the night I conversed with George Harrison, including singing an Indian raga for me, George mentioned having gone surfing that day, or at least attempting to surf.

There are existing photographs of George enjoying a sandy beach with his family in the Liverpool area. I imagine the other Beatles being beach goers, too, but I don't believe anyone ever asked them about this. Believe me, if I an have opportunity to meet Paul, Ringo or both, I will most definitely bring up this subject of how life alongside a major ocean and a major river helped shape their musical personalities.

Keep in mind how the largest ships in the world docked in Liverpool on a truly breathtaking scale - photos I've seen are staggering - and how the majestic Mersey River runs through the city.

The ocean air was likely much fresher and invigorating when the Beatles grew up in Liverpool in the forties and fifties. Remember how water generates negative ions, the future Beatles riding the vibrational tide of their seaside and riverside milieu, really second nature to them. Imagine how delicious the local seafood was irrespective of social classes.

During the 19th century Liverpool actually had the busiest and wealthiest port in the world. The Nazis bombed Liverpool every other day in 1940, the birth year of both John and Ringo, because the majority of war supplies entered Great Britain by way of the Liverpool docks. This was a city by the sea with the raw grit of survival, determination and eventual conquest, contrasting with the more tranquil oceanside cities of the South Bay up to Malibu in Los Angeles County.

As stated in teachrock.org: "The Beatles and other European youths saw the U.S. as a land of hope and optimism. With American support, the Liverpool docks once again filled with ships in the postwar years. As Marshall Plan aid helped rebuild Liverpool’s economy, the transmission of American culture—especially movies and music—also inspired the area’s youth. Merchant seamen known as the Cunard Yanks traveled to New York City and returned to Liverpool wearing American fashion and carrying American recordings, including Blues, Country, and Rock and Roll."

I'm going to do my best to talk to and email people who grew up in Liverpool simultaneously with the Beatles to see what their feelings are in terms of how influential the Atlantic Ocean and the Mersey River were in the lives of Liverpudians.

My sense is the supercalifragilisticexpialidocious vocal harmonies of both bands were primarily touched by the Four Freshman who George Martin was exposed to in America. The Beach Boys were already here, of course. Just about every time I hear the Four Freshman, only learning about them in recent years, I register Beatles and Beach Boys before the conscious thought.

I once received a hand signed letter from George Martin and may write about that, too.

- Michael Robinson, December 2022, Los Angeles

© 2022 Michael Robinson All rights reserved

Michael Robinson is a Los Angeles-based composer, programmer, pianist and musicologist. His 199 albums include 152 albums for meruvina and 47 albums of piano improvisations. Robinson has been a lecturer at UCLA, Bard College and California State University Long Beach and Dominguez Hills.