Lennon-McCartney and Harrison: In the Crow's Nest of the Sixties

(This article appears in abbreviated form in Eric Francis's Planet Waves newsletter: today's special issue, "Yesterday and Today," commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Beatles landing in America. Yeah, yeah, yeah!)

“We were all on this ship in the sixties, our generation, a ship going to discover the New World. And the Beatles were in the crow’s nest of that ship.” --John Lennon

So much has been written about the significance of the Uranus-Pluto conjunction of the mid-1960s that it has overshadowed the meaning of Neptune in Scorpio (1956–70). If Neptune rules music, drugs, mystery, and the collective imagination, and Scorpio immediately brings to mind sex, power, and the underworld, put the two together and what do you get? Sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll.

And if the Beatles were situated in “the crow’s nest,” they did not all see, or report, identical findings to their youthful baby boomer generation.

The songwriting team of Lennon-McCartney was a formidable force. John Lennon’s and Paul McCartney’s Suns were both in the communicative air element (John’s in Libra, Paul’s in Gemini). The trine between the two musicians’ Suns manifested in mutual inspiration and what Beatles producer George Martin deemed “a healthy competition.” John and Paul rarely wrote songs together—but often wrote in each other’s presence, sought out each other’s feedback, and helped each other with lyrics. Their mutual agreement was that whoever wrote most of a song sang the lead (with the exceptions of songs expressly written for their band mates). The finest Lennon-McCartney composition, “A Day in the Life,” was the result of two separate, unfinished songs grafted together into pure genius. This song also perfectly symbolizes the opposition between their Moons: John, the explosive “teddy boy” and drug-oriented, intellectual iconoclast, had an Aquarius Moon; Paul, the magnanimous, regal, pop-oriented showman, had a Leo Moon. This lunar opposition magnetized John and Paul to each other from the day they met and formed the duo’s backbone--first in a positive way (riding to what John called “the toppermost of the poppermost” together) and later in bitter, backbiting enmity.

George Harrison was also in the crow’s nest--but he was in his own private corner, as one might expect from a Pisces Sun and Scorpio Moon. On Beatles albums George was a hapless victim of what John referred to as “the Lennon-McCartney carve-up.” In the early days of the Beatles success, when the rest of the band was able to tolerate Beatlemania, George hated it--and wrote the sulky “Don’t Bother Me” to underline his repulsion. In 1965, during the Uranus-Pluto conjunction, George first came across the sitar. Through his subsequent study of this difficult instrument and Eastern philosophy, was responsible for bringing the East to the attention of the “new world” of hip sixties Western culture—-and he continued to support the Maharishi even after his band mates became disenchanted with the yogi. Apropos of his Scorpio Moon, George was also the first Beatle to explicitly reference sex in a song: on Revolver’s “Love You To” (1966). He and John bonded over many LSD trips when Paul abstained, yet this bond did not translate into a Lennon-Harrison songwriting team. George’s water-sign vision, which ranged from cynical (“Taxman”; “Piggies”) to mystical to just plain beautiful (“Something”), continued to be overshadowed by the Lennon-McCartney duo. When the Beatles began to bicker during the White Album sessions, George brought in a fellow Moon in Scorpio, Eric Clapton, to play on his impressive "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." However, George and Ringo, the two sensitive water signs, both took turns walking out of an increasingly tense studio atmosphere dominated by Paul's perfectionism and John's growing heroin addiction and his insisting on keeping Yoko not just in the studio, but next to him at all times. To the rest of the world in 1968, the Beatles were still together, but the rot was setting in. As George's songwriting efforts grew more confident and prolific, he felt so stymied by the Lennon-McCartney fortress that his first solo effort, All Things Must Pass, was a triple album.

It is no coincidence that the Beatles tenure in the crow’s nest ended in 1970, the same year Neptune left Scorpio. There was no longer a deep, unfathomable ocean to traverse; Neptune in Sagittarius was more akin to a spaceship.

Sometimes We Have to Go Backward in Order to Go Forward

...so sayeth New York City's Metropolitan Transportation Authority, but it's very true on a cosmic, astrological level as well -- though just like the MTA, major delays are small consolation when you need to get someplace right now.

As we enter the final week of Venus retrograde in Deep Freeze Capricorn, my head's-up advice (which I hope that I myself will be able to follow) is to make the first five days of February count -- and I mean really, really count. This is because we will have barely recovered from six weeks' worth of Venus retrograde when Mercury turns retrograde, ensuring that communications, plans, travel, and contracts will face delays and get snagged on snafus for the remainder of the month (for those of you who want exact dates, Mercury retrogrades on 2/6 at 4:43 p.m. ET and turns direct 2/28 at 9 a.m. ET).

And PS, the day after Mercury turns direct, Mars stations retrograde for nearly three months. That is a shit sandwich I'll describe in a future posting, but in case you are wondering, no, it is not at all common to have three inner planets turning retrograde within a three-month period. Right now, all you need to know is that you have five full days in which Mercury, Venus, and Mars are all direct. Five full days in which to move forward, even if it turns out to be baby steps.

Venus Retrograde in Capricorn: The Winter of Our Discontent / Mars in Libra: It's Just Not Fair!

Greetings, my lovelies and uglies. If you are not having a Happy New Year so far, relax. You happen to be in tune with various planetary factors that are combining to mitigate against the bluebird of happiness.

For starters, Venus is retrograde in Capricorn, and will remain retrograde till January 31. I am no meterologist, but the extreme weather conditions throughout much of the U.S. (a shit load of snow and record-breaking low temperatures rapidly followed by unseasonably mild air, then seesawing back to deep freeze) seem to reflect this particular planetary affliction.

Also, the government (symbolized by Capricorn) seems rather retrograde these days, in both senses of the word. Venus has as much to do with money as it does with relationships (due to its being ruled by Taurus as well as Libra), and the jury is still out on whether or not EUC (extended unemployment compensation) will be reinstated for over 1 million long-term unemployed individuals -- the Senate will vote on it this coming Monday. The official December jobs report is grim, but given the current chilly, uncompassionate, downright cruel climate, I am not at all optimistic that the EUC will be reinstated -- and if it is, it will surely come with a slew of grim Terms & Conditions.

I am the furthest thing from a Republican, yet I have become increasingly disenchanted with the Democrats, who did not include this crucially needed extension in budget deals last month before the long winter recess, despite their knowing that the Republicans would stonewall their asses off on agreeing to this extension unless other painful cuts were made to "pay for it" (unlike, say, the recent government shutdown or endless wars). People often speak of President Obama's excessive compromising with the Republicans, and how it reflects the challenge of Obama's being our first black president who cannot ever appear to be an Angry Young Black Man. However true this may be, this does not let off the hook all the other Democrats who are supposedly serving their constituents (i.e., We the People). Now, I am not by any means claiming that all Democrats are rat finks -- that would be like claiming that all baby boomers are evil narcissists, that all Gen-Xers are whiny cynics, and that all Millennials are entitled, selfie-and-social-media-crazed nitwits. But as a group, the Democratic Party has made a conscious choice to throw We the People under the bus. And why? 1. Because in this Pluto-in-Capricorn era, so many of them are in the 1% club and are in no danger of ever becoming unemployed. 2. Because they all depend on the same endorsements from the Big Bad Wolf of Wall Street that the Repubs also depend upon to get their fat-cat asses into power.

Ain't Pluto in Capricorn grand? Except for window-dressing issues that can turn on a dime or be compromised out of existence, and with the understanding that Democrats are more "Centrist" while the GOP has moved slightly to the right of Nero, are we in fact being served by the government we elected, or are we being perpetually bitch-slapped?

Which brings me to the fruitless lament of Mars in Libra: "It's just not fair!" It's fruitless because Mars is hamstrung in the sign of Libra. Mars in Libra is obsessed with the concept of fairness, but doesn't know the first thing about how to fight fair. Mars in Libra is a paradox: it is a trussed-up chicken ready to be thrust into a hot oven and basted with sweet-smelling compromises, but it is also a butcher. Mars squared (squore?) Pluto on December 30, will repeat this square with Mars retrograde on April 23, and happen a third time with Mars direct on June 14 (which happens to be Flag Day -- I wonder if this will translate into many flags being burned in protest?). To further complicate matters, Uranus in headstrong Aries is also involved with Mars and Pluto, resulting in a T-square. We have been dealing with the Uranus-Pluto square since June 2012, but I am very much concerned that this T-square will translate into escalating cruelty and outbursts of protest by increasing numbers of the desperately disenfranchised that may be squashed by Big Brother-style surveillance.

For the most part, Pluto in Capricorn has been a thorn in the sides of people who are not 1%-ers, at the tippy-top of the mountain (did you know that mountains are ruled by Capricorn?). It is small solace that eventually, Pluto in Capricorn will be the ultimate undoing of Big Business and corrupt governments -- just as Pluto going through any sign ultimately transforms or destroys all things associated with that particular sign -- because we are here now, and it fucking hurts. The gap between the haves and the have-nots has reached canyon-width proportions, and as of yet, there has been no WPA-style program to help the millions of so-called takers and moochers who are too goshdarned lazy or stupid to pull themselves up by their bootstraps to become successful entrepreneurs (aka job creators, the geniuses who are sitting on record-breaking profits while refusing to hire, offshoring like crazy, and overworking and/or underpaying their current employees). I don't know if there ever was a time in U.S. history when the almighty dollar was not valued above all else -- but with Pluto in Capricorn, there seems to be zero pretense of anything else being of value. All that puritanical, no-pain-no-gain, I've-got-mine-so-screw-you nastiness is hiding, all right -- in plain sight, in plain business-speak. And perhaps saddest of all, the very people who are getting screwed over the most are the ones who are most likely to vote for Far Right puppets who would rather step in dog shit than consider the most basic needs of the neediest.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. How quaint, and how out of date. Far more accurate would be Right to Life Until You Are Born, Liberty Savings Bank, and Happiness Is a Warm Gun.