I'm sad to make it known that I grew up largely ignorant of The Beatles. I will blame this mostly on my parents(I have no one else to blame and I'm not about to start shouldering responsibility for anything). My childhood consisted mostly of Neil Diamond, courtesy of my dad, and old honky-tonk type country courtesy of my mom. There were periodically some other things that got played but that was honestly 90% of the music I heard in my house. I didn't have any older brothers or sisters to show me what was cool so I was left to my own devices and like most kids, made really bad music choices. This may not seem like such a big deal to most people, but I'm supposed to have better musical taste than some of the unnamed garbage I listened to. Of course I heard the various ubiquitous Beatles songs that everyone hears: Twist and Shout, She Loves You, I Want To Hold Your Hand, etc. I was 23 and spending an enormous amount of time outside scraping paint off of my old house. I needed something to listen too and the alternative music station I normally listened too wouldn't have been looked upon too kindly by my neighbors so I listened to the oldies station. I'm a fan of the oldies so this wasn't too bad, until I had heard Gary Pucket sing about some Young Girl one too many times. I found an old Beatles mix tape and popped it in. It had mostly the early poppy stuff, but had some gems like Old Brown Shoe and Eleanor Rigby. It kept me interested and I really grew to love The Beatles.
I started acquiring CD's, though I still don't have all of them, much to my wife's surprise. I still need to buy Yellow Submarine just so I can get "Only a Northern Song" and "Hey Bulldog". I think The Beatles were the first to make music videos. I really need to somehow compile the various videos into one DVD to play at home when my kids want to watch something and I just can't take one more Disney flick.
I really didn't intend on telling my history with The Beatles, but the fact of the matter is, their music is a big part of my life. I have a lot of memories that flood back whenever I hear a particular song, or conversely when a memory comes to me it's often accompanied by a Beatles tune. When my wife and I were in L.A. for two weeks I had only one thing that I had to do, the rest was mostly left to her, I wanted to find the street "Blue Jay Way" where George Harrison wrote the song of the same name while waiting for his friends to get to the house he was renting in the Hollywood hills. After searching for a couple of hours I can see why, in the fog, his friends had a hard time finding it. Oddly enough, Simon and Garfunkel wrong the song "Bridge Over Troubled Water" at the same house. I think the house belonged to some music agent and he let various people use it when he wasn't around.
I don't think a lot of people have taken the time to really appreciate The Beatles because they don't know much beyond the Please Please Me days. Anyone that has listened to an album over and over again knows that you start to hear new things, nuances, little guitar riffs, interesting lyrics, etc. The Beatles catalogue from Rubber Soul on is like that, but on steroids. It's mostly due to The Beatles and their producer really understanding how to create an interesting song, but some of it is due simply John having a great sense of humor. His various tips, tricks and hints as to Paul being dead are testament enough to that fact. Rain was the first song that anyone played vocals backwards. It wasn't really meant for any other purpose than to add something interesting to the song, but it's a great example of them always looking for something new. That same era also showcased their harmonizing vocals, Rain, Paperback Writer, Nowhere Man, etc. While writing "Norwegian Wood" George really felt like some additional element was needed. He happened to be experimenting with the sitar at that time and put a little in the song. It added a great textural element that made the song that much more interesting. Now...if I could just figure out what that song was about.
Many that are unfamiliar with the actual history of The Beatles figure that much of their music library was influenced by psychedelic drugs. The truth is that Sgt. Pepper is the only album that came from their drug experiments. George Harrison, the first to really embrace the 60's drug movement was also the first to stop using drugs. He went out to San Francisco in 1967, during the summer of love to experience what he hoped would be a a really enlightening community. What he found was a bunch of drugged up and drunk homeless people lazing around begging for food. Needless to say he was a little disappointed. It was after this experience that he decided to stop using LSD, though I think he still used marijuana, but the effects are far less extreme. He later stated that had he found (eastern) religion first he wouldn't have ever used the drugs. He had been searching for that spiritual state of mind. Suffice it to say, Yellow Submarine, I Am The Walrus, and others are not drug songs, just fun little ditties that came from the imagination of the most famous song writing duo to ever grace our auditory nerves.
My wife scoffs at my elitist Beatles test, she thinks I'm a music snob of sorts, especially when it comes to The Beatles. With that said, I've found my little test to be fairly accurate. I have found that a real Beatles fan never has a favorite song. They often have a favorite album, which usually ends up being the White album, probably due to the number and variety of songs, but never a favorite song. That's not to say someone that really likes The Beatles can't have a favorite, it's just that if someone has really listened to The Beatles a lot, they have a hard time narrowing down the catalogue, and the songs vary so much in feeling and emotion that it's impossible to put a pin in any one song as THE song.
