The Beatles as Prophets

[steepholm]

This is a question I asked on Facebook some while ago, but never got an answer to. It's only half-facetious.

The Beatles were sometimes reviled by the punks in the 70s, but in 'Polythene Pam' they predicted with eerie accuracy the punk fashions of seven years later: bin liners, kilts, military boots. Coincidence? Did Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren just take their ideas from Beatles lyrics? Was there already some proto-punk scene in 1969 to which the Fab Four were referring? Or is something more supernatural going on? In short, is Abbey Road the Sortes Vergilianae of our time?

Thoughts?

Comments

[jadelennox]

In that way that one collapses all subculture from the decades right before one was born into a formless mass, it always felt like a vaguely mods/rockers thing to me, but looking it up I am clearly wrong.

[hoodcp.wordpress.com]

Still not living in Yellow Submarines ;-)

[calimac]

I think Lennon said he knew a woman who dressed that way??

[steepholm]

That would make sense. She was obviously ahead of her time.