the Beatles

I was born at the end of 1959. My sisters, five and six years older than me loved the beatles and listened to their music. It was a part of my life. I remember the stacks of albums,and looking at the art and photography, soaking in every detail trying to figure out who the people on the cover of sergeant peppers lonely hearts club band were, I knew Shirley temple and marylin monroe, . I played lots of hooky from school often Mom would need to run errands and I would get to be alone at home and my alone time would turn into music time, We could stack several albums onto the turntable and lay under the piano where the stereo was perfect. A beatles album or two would always get played along with anything else that caught my eye. My parents didnt listen to rock and roll. Mom is a classically trained pianist so their music collection was quite straight. Dad Loved vicki Car, they did like dixie land jazz, herb albert, and of course broadway musicals .. The beatles to me were so cool, why dont we do it in the road had to be the nastiest thing I had ever heard and I remember one my sisters yeling along as she listened to it. It was liberating. The beatles broke up when I was 10. Later on I bought my own albums,starting with Elton Johns goodbye yellow brick road, and moving on to my all time favorite, Pink Floyd. The beatles were gone. John Lennin was killed the year I got married. I dont think I understood him at all then. I really didnt know anything more than what my young mind imagined from looking at the album art as a kid. There has been something in the air these last few years. another beatle mania of sorts. Last fall we were in Las Vegas. I love to see shows, and after doing a bit of research I decided the best show in vegas was LOVE the Cirque du Soleil show.. Well it was amazing. It was that acid flashback I had been waiting for all my adult life. Of course over the years I have sung along to all the beatles music, the words were always easy to hear but i dont know if I really thought about all the meanings or how beautifully the music was written. Walking out of that theater, they play all you need is love and everyone sings along. It hit me pretty hard, this music is part of humanity. Here we are among hundreds of people from all over the world and they are all singing along. A few weeks later we saw across the universe, a beautiful movie by Julia Taymor. The movie was perfection, Beatles music, beautifully sung and glowingly illustrated to tell a story in this fantastic movie. So beautiful. It made me want more. I just finished watching the beatles anthology. It was fascinating. made me ache, made me smile. made me miss George Harrison, and John Lennin. Made me want to listen to more music. Such a privilege to see these old interviews, to see a time line of the beatles and to see them being creative. but most of all I was struck by how much good music they made and so happy that I can still listen to it.