I am immersed in all things Beatles right now–especially the music–as I write the final chapters of A COVENTRY WEDDING. (Did you already know that title? Or is this the first time I’ve mentioned it? It’s my editor’s choice, and I didn’t find out until recently. It’s a good thing he told me, as it made me realize I needed to put a wedding in the book. Good to know, right?)
The above button, when I spotted it online, reminded me of when I bought this album.
When I was in college, I became aware that there was a gap in my familiarity with Beatles music. I knew all the early songs–not that I was born then, of course, my being only 35 now, and all–and I knew all The Breakup Approacheth music (which remains as wonderful to me as it was the first time I heard it–probably also before I was even born, ahem). I was writing a paper one afternoon, alone in our old house on Twelfth Avenue in Tuscaloosa, when a song came on the radio. I fell instantly in love with the song and its singer, so I called the radio station and asked about it.
“You’re kidding me, right?” the DJ asked. “You don’t know whose song that was?”
“No,” I said.
“It’s a BEATLES SONG. It’s ‘Here, There and Everywhere.’ How can you not know that?”
Grateful that my friend Riley would never, ever know that I didn’t know that, I said, “Okay, so who was singing it? Because that wasn’t the Beatles. I’d have recognized the Beatles. And there were no female Beatles.”
“That was Emmylou Harris.”
“Who’s Emmylou Harris?”
DJ: (longsuffering sigh)
So the first time I could scrape together some money, I bought this album:
thereby beginning my decades-long admiration for Emmylou Harris. And later, when I was no longer an impoverished college student but an impoverished teacher, I bought the Beatles’ Love Songs album so I could have both versions. “Here, There and Everywhere” remains one of my favorite songs, and you can bet it will be mentioned in A COVENTRY WEDDING.
You can make me (and Riley) happy and listen to the original on YouTube.
Previous posts about Riley:
October 14, 2007
December 27, 2006
June 24, 2006
December 8, 2005
September 30, 2005
I’ve got YouTube back!
“The Breakup Approacheth”… I’m unforgivably Beatles-ignorant. It’s neat that you have your own classifications for their different eras. It’s neat, period, listening to [reading about] your relationship to your favorite music, and I could sit at your knee all day with it.
That song’s special and lovely– never heard it, before. What a foursome of minstrels below, in my garden, they sound like! Thanks. : )
After the novel’s finished, I’ll make a list of songs referenced. Maybe I’ll even go all Marika on y’all and send CDs.
Do go all Marika!!!! I like that I’m a verb now. I want one… I have no Beatles music….and I think you should introduce me.
Also, Mark, just for you, I put a scene in Lady’s Ryde restaurant so I could describe it. And then, in one of those lovely moments of which I’m fond, that helped create a twist I hadn’t expected later in the book. Very cool.
I’m honored and stunned. You’re a stunner, Becky.
I’m unforgivably Beatles-ignorant.
Yeah, me too. I know all the hits, but there are too many other songs that I don’t know. I plan to get all their albums hopefully sooner than later.
Becky, I love a lot of the Beatles’ songs. Interestingly, I like them done by other artists MORE than by the Beatles.
I love me some Emmylou Harris. One of my faves is Emmylou and Guy Clark “I Don’t Love You Much Do I”
I will probably have to get some more Emmylou for my iPod.
Yeah, you mentioned the title before.
How can they put a wedding in it if you don’t say there is one first? *scratches head*
Oh, and you’ve given me an earworm now. 🙂
If your earworm is still with you, I hope it’s not driving you crazy. =)
Nah. I love the Beatles 🙂
The book sort of starts with a wedding that isn’t taking place, and in some version of a proposal or synopsis that I talked over with my editor, I definitely said that I wanted the book to take place in June because that’s the month of weddings. So I can see why he thought there’d be a wedding. And it’s no problem–I just had to make a mental shift and figure out how to play with my plot. It turned out to be a bit of a fun challenge to do what I wanted and still make the novel match its title.
Aha! All becomes clear 😉
I’m looking forward to the book 🙂
Oh what memories that song has. My brother was in Vietnam in 67/68 and I used to make hin cassette tapes. One day I was playing the Revolver album and my mom heard that song. She started crying and I asked her what was wrong. She said she just missed him so much. She made me put it on the next tape I made for him as a song from her. I guess the song means a lot of different things to people.
It is one of the finest song that McCartney wrote and sang, and the simple production that George Martin gave it made it memorable. Sometime less really is best. Glad to her it inspired you in Coventry Wedding. Now stop reading this and finish those last chapters.
Btw, I have every Lp the Beatles released — and nothing to play them on.
Thank you for sharing that story. =)
Revolver is such a good album.