...Me and The Beatles...

First of all, I can't believe that the Blogger dictionary doesn't know The Beatles, and remove the squiggly "you spelled this wrong" line underneath it. How sad. It sorta diminishes this post before I even start, but I guess I could have kept my mouth shut and none of you would have known.

It is not a common thing that you can pinpoint the moment your life changed, and I am not exaggerating at all that I could easily do that when it comes to the Beatles.  As a matter of fact, with the help of Trav, I bet he could tell me, almost to the minute, when my life changed.

Mr. Brande, 10th grade History/Social Studies teacher at Silver Lake Regional, who knew he would be the catalyst for a momentum shift in my musical life that would change the way I approach art - maybe he knew, and it was certainly his intention, but I wonder if he knew.

I walked into his History class on Wednesday, December 23rd, 1992, I think it may have actually have been 5th period, but i am not entirely sure, and Brande sat us down to tell us that, because it was the last day before Christmas break, we'd watch The Compleat Beatles, which you can watch on Youtube and I embedded Part 1 here:



I sat, and watched, and its hard as an adult to remember at time when I listened to Beatles songs with zero context - the thoughts of "I've heard this before" or, "Mrs. Donavan used to sing this to us in First Grade," were the depths that my thoughts went to.

Until Eleanor Rigby came on the screen. I don't think I had ever heard that - the deprivation of not hearing that song literally may be the closest to child abuse that my parents ever came - until the moment it came on the screen during the Compleat Beatles.  


The song was completely mesmerizing to me, and it broke me down quickly. I don't know what I was listening to at that time of my life, I know I was still into Bel Biv Devoe, and I owned some Fresh Prince albums, and I am sure I was into the High 5 At 9 on whatever JAMN 94.5 was at the time...but the point isn't to list off things that people will remember, it is to refresh my own memory of my relationship with the Fab 4.

The next day, Christmas eve, I took out my parents old album collection and searched high and low for Revolver, so I could listen to Eleanor Rigby.  I remember talking to my mom about what album Eleanor Rigby was on, there was no internet or itunes, no way to remember the albums and songs except asking your Mum...

I went to great lengths to listen to my parents vast Beatles collection on vinyl. The stereo system was downstairs, and my bedroom was upstairs, and I actually sent speaker wire outside the house up to my bedroom, and plugged in the speakers so I could play albums downstairs, and listen in my room while I played Super Nintendo. My parents vinyl collection included Sgt. Pepper, Let it Be, Magical Mystery Tour, The White Album and a few others.

That collection was supplemented over the years by cassette tapes mostly, and then gradually onto CD's. By the time I hit college I owned every second of Beatles music available to the consumer world - and the release of the Anthology albums and TV shows was something I'll never forget - it was a real taste of what it felt like to hear something "new"...

This commercial spoke to me so completely



It's almost 20 years later, and I still own it all, and don't listen to it enough. I really ache for the feeling of listening to those songs on vinyl during nights and weekends, and I am amazed by how good that really sounded.  I miss the feeling I used to have about the Beatles, and I'll never find it again, and it's sorta sad, but it's a fantastic memory I have of childhood.