Tony Palmer's "All You Need is Love"

[GoogaMooga]

Perhaps you remember Tony Palmer's 17-part TV series on the history of popular music, "All You Need is Love". I watched it on Danish TV in 1977, and it was my first real introduction to the history of popular music, stretching from ragtime and right up to the mid-70s. Now Netflix is showing the Beatles episode of the series. Big as they were, they got a whole hour to themselves. Of course, that is not nearly enough to do them justice, and the episode ends when Epstein dies, so we don't even get the whole story. Also, it says the film was digitally remastered by Isolde films in 2007, but you couldn't tell, for the original TV image was not very high definition. This is a typical half-assed Netflix solution, obviously they should have offered the whole series for streaming. But what makes the series still relevant today, are the hundreds of hours of interviews, which were the basis for the series, often with people long deceased. For instance, the Beatles episode features the only interview with Brian Epstein's mother. Personally, I'd love to see the episode with the Phil Spector interview again, as Uncle Phil rarely granted interviews to anyone.

[Charlie O.]

I watched it a few years ago and came to the conclusion that Tony Palmer hated his subject matter.

[Quaco]

That series was cool for exactly the reason you state, googs. Interviews with original ragtime and blues people who never got another chance to do one, and footage of people in their prime (Oldfield in the studio). I have only watched a few of them though. I need to see the rest.

I watched it a few years ago and came to the conclusion that Tony Palmer hated his subject matter.

Certainly seemed to be of the opinion that glam rock signaled the fall of mankind or something!

[Charlie O.]

Actually, I just realized I was thinking of another of his projects - All My Loving.

[Quaco]

Actually, I just realized I was thinking of another of his projects - All My Loving.

Wherein "We're Going Wrong" signaled the fall of mankind. It does seem like he was trying to make a loss-of-innocence, end-times point with these things. Was it in order to not just be a fluff thing glorifying popular music, to try for something deeper? Or did he really feel so negative?