In his LiveJournal, Mark G. Harris asked me: What do The Beatles mean to you?
Here you go, Mark G. Harris.
If I were older than “thirty-five,” I would tell you that I was a little kid sitting in my family’s living room in Columbus, Georgia, when the Beatles were on the Ed Sullivan Show. I would tell you that we watched them because my sister and brother were older than me and already knew What Was What. And that after seeing them, we got a Beatles wig. We traded Beatles bubblegum cards with all the neighbor kids. If I were older than thirty-five, I would tell you that I can still smell those cards as well as see them, and I wish I still had them. The Ed Sullivan Show was black and white and so were the cards.
I could tell you that along with the other kids in the neighborhood, we dreamed we were either going to grow up and be Beatles or marry Beatles. As a child, my favorite was Paul. One of our neighbors was pregnant–maybe the first time I was really aware of a pregnant woman–so I stuffed a ball under my shirt and pretended that I was going to have Paul’s baby. Paul and I lived in a little playhouse behind the home of a family a block or two away from my parents.
I could tell you that I got older and forgot my childhood obsession with Paul. But on the verge of adolescence, I’d be riding down the highway in my parents’ Dodge Dart, my mother and father in the front seat; my sister and I in the back. It would be a wintry Alabama night. “Hey, Jude” would come on the radio, and one by one, we’d all start singing it. To this day, when I hear “Hey, Jude,” I’d be right back there. My father is alive, my mother is young, and my sister will always have a better voice than I do.
A couple of years later, I’d be friends with Riley, who loves the Beatles. We’d spend our teenage years sitting on various front porches, lawns, couches, and beds, and he would always have a guitar and he would always play Beatles music. At some point, he would play and sing “And I Love Her” for me. I’d hope I could still get him to play that for me when we were a hundred years old. It would still make me feel like a teenage girl with everything good and bad about growing up ahead of me, even though I thought I was already grown up.
Riley would love John Lennon best. Because he somehow lost the large photo of John that came in his White Album, I would give him mine. Decades later, I’d tell my brother this. My brother would be sitting with my sister and me in the living room of his Nevada cottage listening to the White Album. There would be snow outside, and deer would walk nearly to the front door. A few minutes later, my brother would take his John Lennon picture from his White Album and give it to me. To this day, his unexpected and generous gesture would put tears in my eyes every time I thought of it.
Back when Riley was preaching the gospel of John Lennon to me, I would have realized that I’d stopped loving Paul. Instead, I’d be obsessed with George. The mystical Beatle. The spiritual Beatle. For the rest of my life, something gentle and gently humorous about George would outlive him and be a little flame inside of me. Riley would show that he accepted that I loved George more than John by buying me “All Things Must Pass,” George’s debut three-disk solo album. I would still have that album in the window seat of my Texas home.
However, it would be John Lennon’s “Imagine” that completely blew me away because it would make me think beyond all the boundaries that had been imposed on my mind. I would suggest it as our senior class song. Our choir teacher would nix that suggestion. We would then choose a song she liked even less. As a result, our graduating class would not be allowed to sing a class song. Somehow, I think John Lennon would have liked our rebellious disposition at our tiny rural school in North Alabama.
After going other places, marrying and divorcing other people, and rediscovering each other as friends, Riley and I would be living again in the same town. However, I would be away, visiting my boyfriend, in December of 1980. We would come back from dinner and turn on the radio in his apartment and hear awful news. I would cut my visit short, get in my car, and drive through the night to get to Riley, because of my understanding that he would mourn John Lennon intensely and would need to be with someone who got that about him.
And that, Don Henley, would be for us, the end of the innocence.
There would be other Beatle memories…and funny stories…and connections (including a business association between some of my friends and my childhood obsession, Paul McCartney; or a dream I had one night about Ringo Starr and me on an adventure in a limousine; or Timothy J. Lambert sitting at the Imagine mosaic at Strawberry Fields in NYC’s Central Park, singing “Give Peace a Chance” after September 11, 2001)…and other losses.
But now that I’ve told you all that stuff that couldn’t be true if I’m only thirty-five, I’ll just sum it up by saying that for me, the Beatles transcend place and time. They taught me the strength and danger of collaboration. They expanded my mind, honed my emotions, brought me friendship, inspired my writing, and represented the magic and pain and joy and promise and accomplishment and dream and sometimes the waste of my generation.
Ultimately, I could string together lyrics from their songs and sum up everything I believe about life and art. Or I could just say… All you need is love.
Previous posts about Riley:
i just luv how you put feelings and ideas into words.
Thank you. =)
As someone who is over 35, I’m amazed by what you wrote. It hurt and it lifted me up.
Thank you.
You’re welcome, and thank YOU for what you said. =)
Thank you so much.
You’re welcome. =)
Wow. Just…wow. Reading your entry made me think, not necessarily about what the Beatles meant to me, but about how much a part of my growing up they were. My mother, of all people, introduced me to them, and your post made me think about various Beatles moments. I can honestly say I can think about so many from when they were together and after they broke up.
I can’t say I’ve had a “Beatles moment” since college, other than the nostalgic feeling I get when I hear “Something,” “Norwegian Wood,” and “The Long and Winding Road,” or the many other tunes that would create a list too long for this medium. However, after reading your entry. I can think back to my formative years and see the Beatles as a common thread weaving through my childhood, teen years and early 20s.
Isn’t it amazing how much a part of our lives their music is? And they were together such a short time, too, which makes it all the more amazing what impact they had.
What a cool post.
I was going to be married to Paul McCartney, too.
I remember my parents very kindly breaking the news to me when I was nine years old that John Lennon had been killed. (I am just a little over 35, but not much.)
I used to have “The Beatles Greatest Hits” and played tune after tune on my keyboard. I think the book is still around somewhere, at a friend’s house. It was one of the Best Presents Ever.
I am just “a little over 35,” too, ha ha ha. (I wish.)
Thanks for sharing your Beatles memories. I didn’t know you played. Cool. That makes you a more recent wave of British Invasion. Other than 1776 and 1812, that always works out rather well for us. 😉
I don’t play, any more. I never really learned other than by bullshitting my way through. I can’t even read music any more. 😉
Yeah, I’ve been here eight years now.
What The Beatles Mean to Me
Wow, when I read this it woke me up out of my Live Journal slumber. How can I not react to this. Becky, your story made me cry.The Beatles are a part of so many peoples lives, and each of us have something profound to say about how they’ve been sewn into the fabric of our lives. For me, the Beatles reared their mop topped heads many times during my life. When they first played the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964 I was a year and a month old. So I never saw them live, but as a child all I heard in my house was their music because my Aunt Angie was a teenager who played them every day. I remember visiting my uncle Gino’s house and hearing “Hey Jude” one summer day, and like you, singing the end “na na na na ” over and over again as if it was a hymn. I remember having Beatles dolls and plastic guitars as a kid, but I wanted drums and to pound away like Ringo. I took up drums and have been a performing drummer my whole life.
Later, after going through many Beatles phases and re-discoveries, John’s death changed my life. For me, December 8th, 1980 was a double hit.
My 12 year old godson David, a cute, curly-haired blond boy delivering his papers for the second time was run over by a drunk driver 2 hours before John was murdered. The car pinned him up against a fence,broke through the fence with David still pinned to the front of the car and down a steep embankment towards the Bronx River Parkway.
He died a terrible and cruel death. That night, week and month, I cried tears of confusion, tears of disappointment. I hated the world for taking away two beautiful people so violently and unnecessarily. It never leaves me. Today, as I pass the section of repaired fence, where David was hit, on the way to my brothers house, I hear John’s “Dream No. 9″ in my head…”so, long ago, was it in a dream, was it just a dream?” I wish it was just a dream, but it is a sad reality of my life that will never leave me.
On a good note: I always wanted to be a famous musician, so working for Paul McCartney for the last 4 years has made me feel fame just by being so close to it. In 2004, Timothy and I went to London, and were given a private and very guarded tour of Abbey Road Studios of which I was able to sneak some shots of the interior. We stood right where they did when they recorded in Studio A. It was haunting and surreal. We visited Liverpool on a rainy day (when is it sunny in England anyway?) and went to John’s House, Paul’s House, Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields my camera was smiling and my whole life as a musician and music-lover, suddenly felt complete. When Timothy and I met Paul last year in his small office with only 6 people in the room, and he was a foot away from me, I almost wet my pants. When we design CD’s and materials for him and currently a website, we hear back comments from him, get scraps of paper from him with hand-written scribbles, that you can be assured are hermetically sealed and in a safe place! He has that effect on the world. No other artist is so beloved. No other artist has brought the world together with their music like the Beatles did and how lucky are Tim and I to have been in such intimate situations with him. At our last meeting, Tim and I were right there just feet away, laughing with him, and 5 hours later among 22,000 people! The Beatles and Paul belong to us all. That’s what makes them so great. But, each of us have taken them into our lives, into our hearts and into our living rooms as if they belong to no one else. We covet them and in our own personal way belong to just me and you.
The Beatles have united us all through their music. I guess organized religion has a lesson or two to learn from John, Paul, George & Ringo.
Peace & Love
Paul
(p.s. thanks Becky!!! Your story was amazing)
Re: What The Beatles Mean to Me
Damn, Paul, you awoke from your slumber and made me cry my eyes out. I’m so sorry about the tragic death of David. I know you relive that loss every year when people talk about John Lennon’s death. I will think of David now whenever I hear that song and wish for his soul and energy to know nothing but the cradling embrace of the universe.
And thank you for your comments about Sir Paul. I was careful not to drop names, because those are yours and Timmy’s stories to tell (or to NOT tell, as the case may be). 😉
Becky, this is one of the coolest best entries I have ever read. I’m so touched by it I can’t even be snarky, that’s saying something
that was me by the way