In The End

The bottom-most of the bottom lines of who broke up the Beatles is that we killed the Beatles.

We killed them because we couldn’t be satisfied with what they had given us. We wanted more; louder, happier, sadder. We wanted more music, more movies, more concerts. We wanted to know every thing about them, more photos, more intimate moments when their true feelings showed – or we thought they did.

Not believing that they were ordinary humans who had limits we asked them to solve the world’s problems, put a man on the moon (oh, I’m sorry, someone else did that) and comfort us when nour boyfriends acted like idiots. We had literally eaten them down to their skin and bones and,  not being Jesus after all, they declined to let us go any further.

But we continue to want them, more of them. Their songs do as much for us noe – or nearly – as they did then but every out-take, every sneeze or sniffle on tape is treasured. I expect one day there’ll be a bidding war on Ebay for possession of a genuine John-fart with authenticating certificates – at which point we’ll have succeeded in consuming him utterly with our need, our love.

So go now and light a candle for your memory of all they did and continue to do just for us. Beatle Paul gave a concert last night for about 1,000 people and those lucky few tell us of it in words as broken and emotional and transfigured as any of the classic “15 year old girls” could have uttered.