John, Paul, George, Ringo, and Me
I stared intently at the slightly darkened shade of white, set against the gray - black background. Seconds? Minutes? Hours? When mesmerized, time is unimportant. I slowly looked up at the long two-story white building, the warm sun beating down on the glass doors; doors that have seen god-like creatures pass through, decade after decade. I knew it wasn’t Iowa, so maybe it was heaven.
In a flash, my moment was broken. A car gently honked at a slow, ambling barefoot man, dressed in a suit and open collar shirt, with a cigarette dangling from his right hand. His friend snapped picture after picture, memorializing for him what escaped Moses at Sinai, Caesar at the Rubicon, or Cartier at the St. Lawrence.
Two strangers, and hundreds of others, were all there to pay homage, to worship at the artistic temple of Abbey Road Studios – home of my favourite rock band, the Beatles, and whose location implies its own religious connotations.
For the purpose of this article, I recognize that what I am about to say may be controversial. I know dubbing the Beatles as the “greatest band of all time” is a cliché, but I don’t really care. My parents tell me that just like radio listeners in the early 1960s, the first Beatles’ song I ever heard was “Love Me Do,” which occurred between an Olympic hockey game and my first feeding. And like all those teenagers fixing the dial on their radios, I was hooked.
As a child, I knew I needed help to get through my life, and I know that I will still need them when I’m sixty-four.
In school, when my friends debated which member of One Direction was the hottest (Niall, of course), I swooned over George Harrison, wondering why he only got to put one song on an album. every time I exclaim “Here Comes the Sun.” You think even the Beatles could have worked it out.
By high school, I learned to appreciate all of them: Paul McCartney, John Lennon, and even Ringo (don’t forget Ringo!). While Lennon and Harrison died before I was born, the fact that we are living in a time where McCartney still breathes allows us to brag that we walked this earth at the same time as modern-day Mozart. In one of their most famous concerts, the Beatles faced a packed Shea Stadium, full of screaming teens. Now, Paul and Ringo play separately, to differing sized crowds, drawing a wider age range. Their concerts are pieces of history that we can hear and witness.
In fact, the volume of music the Beatles produced in their short time together is only rivaled by the maestro of Salzburg. The four Beatles first entered the recording studio together in November 1962 and the final time the four lads from Liverpool recorded together was August 1969. That was only 82 months. Less than seven years. It will take me longer to write a Ph.D than it took the Beatles to write 12 albums.
When the band broke up in 1970, none of the Beatles were even 30 yet, and still none of them could read or write music. What did those four 20-somethings produce in 82 months? They produced a dozen albums and a total of 227 songs, many unique and memorable. They sold hundreds of millions of records and topped the music charts again and again. The song “Yesterday” alone has been covered over 3,000 times.
No song is the same and neither is any album. Take, for instance, my second favorite Beatles’ album, Help! On that record, the band gave us “Yesterday,” perhaps one of the melancholinist songs, and rocking “Dizzy Miss Lizzy.” The range displayed in this one album is incredible. How I used to wish my name was Michelle, just so I could have a Beatles’ song sung about me. When I realized the name Reagan doesn’t rhyme with many words, I investigated Rita, Prudence, Lucym and even “Polythene Pam.” You should see the look on the face of Social Insurance staff when you say you want to be named “Eleanor Rigby.”
This is not to say that four musicians who grew up in working-class England did not bring with them cultural biases and questionable social perspectives. They did. There are songs with covert, and overt, misogyny. There are lyrics across their albums that are problematic, particularly in the songs from Rubber Soul and Hard Day’s Night. These albums must be approached with a bit of mistrust. I mean, how did the band that created “Something” also come up with “Run for Your Life”?
The appeal of the Beatles is more than just music. Last winter, a six-part documentary on the recording of “Let It Be,” the final Beatles’ album released to the public, appeared on music streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music.. The digitally remastered film overseen by famed director Peter Jackson gave viewers an intimate seat to view magic happening. We cannot watch Beethoven compose a symphony or the Wright Brothers design a plane, but the movie allowed us to see the band at work. They are so alive in the film John cracks jokes; Paul plays with his stepdaughter; Ringo experiments with percussion beats; and George pouts, faced with another album with just one song. (He would release a three-disk album only months after the Beatles dissolved).
When watching the musical creations, it becomes even more tragic that only a decade later, John Lennon would be laying on a New York City sidewalk, cut down by a murderer's bullet after stopping to sign an autograph.
Today, when I listen to a Beatles’ song, I still feel they are singing just for me. And I truly love that feeling. They speak to me through their songs of sadness (“Yesterday”), songs of heartbreak (“You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Way), songs of travel (“The Long and Winding Road”), and songs of getting bad grades (“Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”). They sing to me songs of nonsense (“Ob-La-Di, Ob-la-Da”) and songs of aging (“When I’m Sixty-Four). I could go on enumerating the musical revolution the Beatles caused, but I know readers may now be tired of my magical musical tour.
Maybe I love the Beatles because there are four of them, and there are four people in my family. Each of us correlates to one of them. Maybe I love them because their tunes are some of the most well-known in the world. Hum a bar or two, and almost anyone will be able to tell what it is. Maybe I love them because they are cute. Maybe I love them because, no matter what, their music calms me. Maybe I love them because I just do. Life is full of unanswerable questions.
Some may prefer the Stones, Led Zeppelin, Stillwater, or Macklemore, but give me the Beatles over anyone else, anytime. There are many things I am going to forget – that is simply being human. However, I know that I will not forget how I feel listening to the opening chords of “Don’t Let Me Down” or the guitar riffs of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” I will never forget the words to “Blackbird” or the randomness of “Rocky Racoon.” I hope I never do.
Header by: Sarah Kaye
