Labi Siffre on the everlasting impact of The Beatles: “A lot cleverer than they confessed to”
From funk-fueled floorfillers to beautifully gentle love songs, Labi Siffre has always boasted a unique power as a songwriter and composer, even if that power didn’t always foster mainstream success or hit records.
Entering the musical world during the early 1970s, Siffre’s folk-oriented work seemed at odds with the prevailing sounds of prog rock, glam, and mindless pop dominating the charts at that time, but therein lies the inherent appeal of the songwriter.
Even in those early years, the captivating nature of Siffre’s work was split between his incredible prowess as a songwriter, and his refusal to contort himself to the prevailing trends and pop sounds of the time. How else could the same person write ‘I Got The…’ and ‘Bless The Telephone’ in the same lifetime?
In the creation of those very disparate masterpieces, Siffre was always indebted to his endlessly broad range of influences, incorporating everybody from jazz master Charles Mingus to the architect of electric blues, Jimmy Reed. Particularly during his early years, though, there was one group whose influence neither Siffre nor anybody else could avoid: The Beatles.
From the moment that the ‘Mop Tops’ burst onto the scene in 1962 with ‘Love Me Do’, their life-altering potential was made immediately clear. Not only did John, Paul, George, and Ringo construct some of the most revolutionary recordings of all time, but they opened up the eyes of an entire generation – Siffre included – to a new way of thinking. “For musicians of my generation,” the songwriter recently declared on YouTube, “if any of them say The Beatles didn’t influence them, they’re lying. Simple as that.”
Recalling that transformative moment when the Fab Four entered his life for the first time, Siffre continued, “I was still at home when ‘Love Me Do’ came out and it was odd, because at that time I was a Jimmy Reed fanatic and I heard it and it was kind of – there’s a blues thing here going on.”
Seemingly, the band’s ability to incorporate a vast range of musical styles and influences into their easily digestible sound was a key part of their appeal for Siffre. “The interesting thing about the Beatles is that they were a lot cleverer than they confessed to,” he laughed.
“They were an odd mixture for me,” the songwriter said of their inherent sound. “They were really into Motown and they were into rock and roll – proper rock and roll: Little Richard and Fats Domino, real rock and roll, […] and clearly an interest in, what we would call, old time British music hall. Odd, but you wouldn’t have Sgt Pepper’s without those three things.”
Just as they did with countless other artists across the globe, The Beatles exposed Siffre to an entirely new world, which he certainly carried into his own material. Although the ‘It Must Be Love’ songwriter has never overtly adopted the music hall traditions, the core sonic diversity of his own work does parallel the breadth of The Beatles’ output. Still, as Siffre himself shared, this is not a particularly unique story.
The Beatles changed everything, not just in the music world but for global pop culture in general. If you want to talk about defining moments or cultural turning points in the 20th century, the release of ‘Love Me Do’ is up there with the most influential. There’s no two ways about it.
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