How this all got started

Don’t stop to think; what were their names? If you said “John, Paul, George and Ringo” you may be getting old. If you are having trouble figuring out who these people are, you might as well go do something else, I don’t think you’ll understand.

Every few years there seems to be a Beatles moment; on Saturday, October 28, 2005, one crashed down on me. Maybe because a new bio came out Tuesday—but I don’t think so. I’d run across a reference in a book to “the saddest song the Beatles wrote” and put the first greatest hits album on to hear “Yesterday” which I assumed was the song the author meant. Several of the songs kept sticking in my mind and I couldn’t root them out even by playing the whole series. So I gave up and started playing 1994s 6 hours of the Beatles Anthology that I had video-taped off the TV – which I enjoyed a great deal.

I was 22, in bed with Asian Flu and just barely pregnant with my daughter when the first whisper hit in the US. I then lived with carpet sample rugs, a couch made of an interior door with legs and foam pads in a little bitty frame house on some hidden back street beside the railroad tracks. No, I wasn’t one of the screaming girls ready to do almost anything to get within sighting distance of them. I was 10 years too old for that to begin with and not that sort of “fan” in any case. At the time they were, in John Lennon’s words (much, much later) “just another rock band”. There were many rock bands and many of them are still remembered and played an important part in the history of our times. I just remember thinking it was a strange name and wondering if with the change in spelling they had changed the pronunciation.

Were the Beatles special? Yes, I think they were. A lot because “the boys” were distinctive, “clean-cut” and handsome. They were also very appealing. They were “nice” boys and they had a very special ability to communicate that they were having fun. And for a good many years they simply did have fun with what they were doing and who they were. They were doing something they really loved doing and were monumentally successful at it.

But why am I obsessing about them and why now? I haven’t completely figured that out. In some ways the story of the Beatles was also the story of the best of the 60s (most decades start late and bleed over a bit into the next.) Simple nostalgia for my youth? I think the words and tunes are haunting me because then we had hope and that’s something really difficult to find these days. What makes the difference? Then the main enemy was comfort and complacency. Now it’s unashamed greed and a good bit of hostility towards just about everyone the activists of the 60s wanted to help. Womens’ Lib became Feminism became Feminatzies and political correctness. Alleviating the vicious abuse of the mentally ill in asylums became street people. When all legal bars to integration were destroyed, the African American community concentrated on education and economic issues – concerns of the middle classes.

The music of my teens was rock-and-roll–I was 15 and at band camp (clarinet, bass clarinet, bassoon, drums, french horn) when Rock Around-the-Clock came out and we learned to do the bop. I never realized until I took up this research that I heard Rock Around The Clock within a week after it hit the top of the charts. Did you know that bop differed geographically? Although a pretty untypical 15-year old, I was just as blown away by it as anyone. Didn’t do any of us in small town Tennessee much good, no sock-hops or soda shops to dance in though I do remember dancing a bit at one of the two drug stores. As Rock and Roll began to wind down and I inched out of my teens, I renewed my early interest in folk. I heard The Beatles differently from the way younger people did. Remember that I was part of the “between generation” as in between the depression and WWII. There weren’t very many of us. I’ve never done the fan thing–not for Elvis, not for Bo Diddley, not even for Pat Boone (though I still know the words to Love Letters in the Sand).

I was a “folkie”, not really a performer (didn’t play guitar although I did buy a dulcimer) but I still know the words to hundreds if not thousands of songs. I eventually knew quite a few of the performers well enough to spend evenings at the musicians table when I lived in an apartment right across the street from the back door of the Steamboat Lounge, a jazz club which had “Hootnanny Night” on Sundays. My then husband and I rarely missed it. Later we hung out at The Shadows in Georgetown (Washington, DC neighborhood) and knew the house musicians well enough that we were invited to be part of the “Live at” audience for their (Carol Hedin and Donal Leace) shared album. [1963 The Cellar Door opens at 34th and M Streets, NW. WAMA Hall of Fame singer/songwriter Donal Leace headlined with blues (and folk) singer Carol Hedin opening the show. The club soon becomes known as “The Home of Donal Leace.”] Except to those who knew it as the home of Carol Hedin!

If you’ve read Barry Miles book on Paul McCartney, I spent time in those barely furnished rooms with instruments all over the floor, cheap wine and lots of philosophy. (Not much pot in my background, I’m allergic to it.) I was on the staff of an underground newspaper and, through my job with the American Jewish Committee, did support organization for a number of huge demonstrations.

Yes, I do remember (not at all well as I will explain) seeing them perform on Ed Sullivan on February 9, 1964. No, I didn’t see their subsequent appearances. My father died on the 12th. The rest of the 60s for me were pretty full of work, motherhood (a single mother from 1965 on) and a bit of swinging, mostly around Washington, DC. I became a serious jazz fan and hung out at several of the jazz clubs in that town including Blues Alley with the Ramsey Lewis Quartet. Keeter Betts was the bassman and I recognized his “walking bass” in Paul’s bass. Tommy Chase, the opening act, took me home safe the only time I ever got drunk. Somewhere in Northern Virginia for the Tee Carson Trio with Wilbur Little on bass and at least two other jazz venues in town. Not to mention some nameless ‘blind pigs’ (after hours bars.) Also visited Mr. Henry’s pub on Capitol Hill (where I lived) and heard Roberta Flack doing “The First Time”, a lovely song I first heard from Carol Hedin. My across-the-street-neighbor even invited me to ride up to that huge rock concert in the summer of 1969 but I decided that walking 8 miles from the closest we were likely to be able to park wasn’t a good choice with a 5-year old along!

I recognized many of the later Beatles songs but I’ve never been someone who knows who did this or that song. Radio simply isn’t very good about giving out the names unless they are doing a top whatever session. As my daughter said at the Beatles tribute band concert she took me to; “I didn’t know Come Together was a Beatles song.” Well, neither did I until I got into this research.

Of course the most important question is do I think I finally cured myself of having their songs running through my mind? You can suggest maybe better songs to have running through my mind? Obviously there have been great and wonderful songs written and/or performed by other soloists and groups during my lifetime. However I don’t think that any single individual group has produced quite so many remembered and welcome songs. I have come to the conclusion that I can easily deal with having Beatle songs in my head. After all it could be Swinging or, Goddess preserve me, Achy Breaky Heart. No, I’m not picking on country music, let’s not remember Teen Angel or Chapel in the Moonlight either.

In the course of this pleasant research I’ve also written a book, which might somewhat explain why it’s gone a bit slowly. I’ve watched the full 8 video-tape set of the Beatles Anthology a great many times. Actually I found when I got seriously into finishing the book, that having it on, not very loud, helped me get work done. I don’t necessarily pay much attention but when I look up I know what year it is and what’s going on and there’s always good music to listen to. If you haven’t watched the Anthology, I highly recommend it.

A new friend, met through this Beatles interest, has provided me with all the groups music, well, all that was formally issued except for the Anthology CDs, and I have rediscovered old favorites and heard a good few of their songs I hadn’t heard at the time and my respect for the band has grown very great.

Remember, I’m just about Ringo’s age (he was the oldest of the Beatles) but Paul and my birthdays are 2 days (and 2 years) apart which I tend to believe has given me some special insight into him. Fair warning, my respect for Paul has grown a great deal and I don’t like John a bit better then ever.