It was fifty years ago that The Beatles rocked our world on the Ed Sullivan Show. Where were you? I was eight; sitting around the television as usual with the family on Sunday night waiting for the ‘shew’, but there was nothing usual about February 9th 1964. The moment is magnified. The Beatles, well they were the big bang of music.
Their songs became the anthem to all the snapshots of our life, and the soundtrack to a world that went from the four-piece boy band to the dimensions of Sgt. Pepper in a blink. There was a lot going on in ’64; the Vietnam War, Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment, President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, and Martin Luther King received the Noble Peace Prize. We were in a world that was interpreting itself.
I grew up with the influence of the Beatles, first a teenybopper, collecting 45’s, and Beatle cards. We used to play ‘Beatles’ in the schoolyard at recess; groups of four strumming air guitars and beating drums, singing the melodies with mock British accents. I listened to the same songs over and over again on my record player, lifting the needle and placing it on my favourite tunes. I saw them in concert at Maple Leaf gardens. I can remember what I wore, a turquoise pop-top with little white balls that pranced against my midriff, and matching copped pants. I held my brother’s hand tight. I can still feel the pulse of the crowd in my chest. Later, I searched album covers for clues, and interpreted the lyrics, opened my mind to new orchestrations, instruments, sounds, and ideas.
Then, the Let it Be rooftop concert in 1969. Beatlemania ended, but their reach grew deeper and remains, still. Their songs of love, rallied to calls for peace. Singing along with Strawberry Fields, Hey Jude and Let it Be, Blackbird, All you Need is Love, Norwegian Wood, A Little Help from my Friends, we owned the songs, they flowed through us. They marked precious and precarious episodes in our lives.
We changed right along with them. Grew up. Found ourselves. Created different lives. Experimented with ideologies. Embraced, protested, and loved. We went from the innocence of catchy little tunes like I want to Hold your Hand, to Lucy in the Sky, in a psychedelic explosion of all things possible.
There are places I remember, all my life, though some have changed, some forever, not for better, some are dead, and some remain….
Strawberry fields forever….
Peace and love
Jacqui
YOU SAW THE BEATLES!! I KNEW YOU WERE COOL BUT THIS TAKES THE CAKE!
I STILL OWE YOU A MOOD RING!
Your purple two tone shag carpet was so groovy!! I too, remember the joyful concentration of knowing exactly where to carefully place the record needle on the spinning album..
over and over again.. feeling connected to something greater than ourselves, music was the religion of our soul… still is such an important way for me to connect with humanity
Your writing catches my feelings, and emotions. You have such an exceptional style of writing that is so personal and so vibrant.
It’s a Jubilee … “the long and winding road … the wild and windy night that the rain washed away” … we wake up and realize years, decades, lifetimes are behind us, but every day is a new day and it’s nice to remember.
Thanks, Jacquie.
The lyrics reference daily problems of life and how God helps to answer these everyday troubles.
I have appreciated every single comment, message board post, e-mail (including some awesome
essays. s music has drawn on many diverse genres; the critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine describes
him as a “pop encyclopedia,” able to “reinvent the past in his own image”.