LOVE Is The Code

I'm shouting all about love. What is so magical about the word love, other than the fact that it makes the word "Code" when you stick a flat mirror horizontally in the middle? Is it because no matter how many people write songs about flattops and revolutions, LOVE is still number 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 on the charts? Is it because "love is a many splendored thing," as Ringo sang on the "Sentimental Journey" album? Funny how no one seemed to mind that Ringo was competing with "Let it Be." Is it because love makes the world go round? [The Over-The-Top Department has suggested that from space, the world looks like a mandala or magic circle and love does in fact make it go round]

It was in the title of the very first Beatles single, "Love Me Do." It turned up a lot in those early records (She Loves You, Can't Buy Me Love, All My Loving, etc.). But in 1965, love took on a new meaning in the Beatles music when John wrote, "The word is love" in the song "The Word" from Rubber Soul. The first epistle of John in the New Testament contains the simple phrase "God is love." In Biblical interpretation "The Word" refers not only to scripture, but to the deity itself.

Paul's first real attempt to strike out on his own resulted in the instrumental "Love In The Open Air" for the movie "The Family Way."

People interested in the Rotten Apple Series have been disappointed that after a big buildup, all that has been "revealed" about the "Love Code" is that the word "Love" becomes the word "Code" when mirrored. Nearly everyone expected something major to follow and it appears that nothing has and maybe nothing will. If we do want things to progress, I think we need to look back at LOVE.

Long before anybody heard of Iamaphoney, people had suggested that the word "Love" was hidden in the cover art of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.





By this time, the Beatles had moved on from the boy/girl love songs that featured prominently in their early work, but LOVE remained a central feature. "All You Need Is Love" became the anthem of a generation. Many people in the United States consider the Beatles as catalysts for social change, giving them credit for the uprising against the war in Viet Nam and for promoting advances in civil rights on one hand and blaming them for the rise of drug abuse, teen pregnancy and the country's turn away from organized religion on the other. As Ringo would later sing, it was "all in the name of love."

Love is old, Love is new.

In 1970, a 30-year-old John Lennon released his groundbreaking Plastic Ono Band LP. The work was stark and shocking, containing lyrics so blunt and honest, Roy Carr and Tony Tyler, authors of "The Beatles Illustrated Record" paraphrased a review of the time this way, "He placed his balls defiantly on the line; out of sheer respect, the train ground to a halt." Yet amidst all of that brutal honesty, John sang, "Love is real."



Love is the one thing that the Beatles never outgrew. John continued to sing "Love is the answer" on his "Mind Games" album. Love was the resolution to Paul's "Tug of War" and its companion "Pipes of Peace." George often intertwined love with the power of God in songs like "Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth)" "Love Comes to Everyone" and "Maya Love." And "Love" was the thing that was able to reunite the Beatles, even with at least two of them dead, in Las Vegas of all places.



Love was in the title of four songs on Ringo's latest studio CD, and when he needed to contribute an extra song for a promotional gimmick, he added a fifth (It's Love). Although Ringo can't get as many people to buy his records these days (Liverpool 8 peaked at #94) he did manage to get quite a few to gather and various places around the world yesterday to share greetings of "Peace and Love." He got quite a bit of press coverage too. Ringo sang on his "Time Takes Time" album, "We don't know a thing about love." Maybe we don't.

There is power in Love. Even Aleister Crowley seemed to know that. In that red book that was in Suitcase #1 it says: There is no bond that can unite the divided but love: all else is a curse.
It also says: Love is the law, love under will.

I'm not a Crowley expert and I don't know how that jives with him refusing to help fellow mountain climbers in an avalanche on Mount Kangchenjunga, but that question is for someone with more expertise.

Paul sang, "You've got the power of love, and love has the power, to make it come true." George sang, "When we use the power provided free to everyone, this is love."

And Ringo, who communicates quite regularly in the form of Tee Shirts, doesn't disappoint in the latest cover of his new live CD and DVD released today.



Several people have complained (understandably) that "The Love Code" means nothing. It doesn't require any special type of artistry. The word "LOVE" written anywhere will look like the word "CODE" when you put a horizontal flat mirror in the center (although there is at least one interesting symbol that is exclusively found in the Beatles mirrored LOVE logo --- It is also interesting to rotate the Beatles mirrored LOVE logo 90 degrees).



But I am wondering if we are looking at this from the correct perspective. Maybe the code exists in LOVE, in a way that goes beyond that silly mirror trick. Maybe there is a deeper meaning in what Iamaphoney is trying to say and we are missing it. Maybe the code is not in the word "love" but in the LOVE itself.

Try to work with LOVE for a while and report back to me if anything magical happens.