The Beatles

[mrspickles]

Thanks ratscabies! I had forgotten about Come and Get It - I was thinking Baby Blue and Day After Day.

[ratscabies]

I think the Paul demo of Come and Get It is on Anthology 3 (?). Not sure. I heard it on SiriusXM’s Beatles channel a few days ago.

I forgot about Baby Blue. I thought a third possibility was No Matter What.

[mrspickles]

Sept 6, 2019 18:34:38 GMT -4 ratscabies said:

I think the Paul demo of Come and Get It is on Anthology 3 (?). Not sure. I heard it on SiriusXM’s Beatles channel a few days ago.

I forgot about Baby Blue. I thought a third possibility was No Matter What.

And that one too!

[ratscabies]

Sept 6, 2019 14:56:59 GMT -4 believeland said:

Considering I'm an 80's baby, The Beatles have always been a part of my life. I also grew up in a weird time where Ringo was the drummer in that band my mom really liked and he was the conductor on Thomas the Tank Engine. Their music and images are just woven into my life.

My three year old has fallen hard for the music. He has been picking up and strumming a ukulele since he was a year old and his favorite to play is "Honey Pie." I also get a kick out of him singing "I Want to Hold Your Hand" when he reaches for me. And it's a hilarious to hear his little toddler voice request Sgt. Pepper by screeching out "Billy Shears" from the backseat of the car.

It just amazes me how this band has tugged on my kid's heart, the same way it did for my mom when the songs were first released. Shortly after my mom's 64th birthday my son started asking to hear "When I'm Sixty-Four" all.the.time. My mom was 13 when that song came out and I just find it remarkable that all these years later her grandson sings it to her.

You have done well with your 3-yr-old, grasshopper! Keep it up!

My nephew came into my living room one day while I was watching the 64-65 Beatlemania disc of Anthology. He flopped into the recliner next to me, and with all the teenage disdain he could muster, sneered, “Who are THESE poseurs?”

I said, “Simmer down there, smartass! First of all, these guys practically INVENTED the girls-screaming-at-boy-bands paradigm. Second if all, look closely at the drummer. His name is Ringo Starr, but you may call him Mr. Conductor!”

He sat up straighter, and displayed a bit more respect after that. He’s a fan now.

Little twerp made me a great Uncle a year ago...

[missjennifer]

Sept 6, 2019 14:56:59 GMT -4 believeland said:

Considering I'm an 80's baby, The Beatles have always been a part of my life. I also grew up in a weird time where Ringo was the drummer in that band my mom really liked and he was the conductor on Thomas the Tank Engine. Their music and images are just woven into my life.

My three year old has fallen hard for the music. He has been picking up and strumming a ukulele since he was a year old and his favorite to play is "Honey Pie." I also get a kick out of him singing "I Want to Hold Your Hand" when he reaches for me. And it's a hilarious to hear his little toddler voice request Sgt. Pepper by screeching out "Billy Shears" from the backseat of the car.

It just amazes me how this band has tugged on my kid's heart, the same way it did for my mom when the songs were first released. Shortly after my mom's 64th birthday my son started asking to hear "When I'm Sixty-Four" all.the.time. My mom was 13 when that song came out and I just find it remarkable that all these years later her grandson sings it to her.

I've got this great book that came out in the early 2000s called Two Of Us--journalist Peter Smith tells about how he and his seven-year-old son bonded over young Sam's discovery of The Beatles. Peter talks about how much The Beatles appeal to children because so many of their songs feature charming melodies and colorful characters--almost a Victorian or Edwardian fairy-tale atmosphere.

As for me, I got into The Beatles when I was between eleven and twelve, in 1984. Oh, I was aware of them before and enjoyed what little I knew of them, but they were more or less "that group I'm vaguely aware of and know a couple of songs by". Then, in the spring of 1984, the Philadelphia Inquirer ran a mini-series of articles about rumors--and among them was the Paul Is Dead rumor. I was both utterly creeped out and utterly fascinated, as only an eleven-year-old can be by something weird and morbid like this. I started paying more attention to the songs on the radio and the album covers in the record stores. (My parents didn't have any Beatle albums...they were somewhat older than my friends' parents, closer to The Greatest Generation than to the ex-hippies.)

I bought The Love You Make, which was out around that time, but so much of it went over my head (and the dreary tone of the book sort of turned me off). Then I read Ron Schaumburg's Growing Up With The Beatles, which a friend of mine also owned. For some reason, this book gets a lot of scorn in some fan circles--the writer of Fab Four FAQ calls it "embarrassing." But I've always liked it. It's a sort of Wonder Years-ish take on the Beatle years, as Ron connects his own life (he was eleven in 1963 when the Fabs hit America) growing up in the peaceful Midwest and gaining new perspectives on life beyond his narrow circle to the Beatles growing as musicians and as people--and as the Fabs broke up and went their separate ways, Ron left for college in California. (It was written before John was killed, which makes his final address to John, "Survive well, John," that much more poignant.)

As I said, I don't understand why some people diss this book, but then, I found a lot of affinity in this story of a sheltered suburban eleven-year-old discovering The Beatles since at the time I was, well, a sheltered suburban eleven-year-old discovering The Beatles.

(Ron seems to have it together professionally and personally--he lives in my home state of NJ, works in medical communications and education, and invented and marketed a Trump-mocking card game called Trump-It. )

[ratscabies]

I also love Schaumburg’s book! He was on our local TV afternoon chat show pimping it when it came out. Even as an adult, he was such an endearing nerd about it. I begged my mom to take me to the mall Waldenbooks after dinner to buy my copy. It disintegrated over the years, but I got a replacement on eBay a few years ago.

Come to think of it, I was about...um...11 when it came out....

[chiqui]

I had Ron's book too. I was a teen when I read and thought it was neat, but still a little silly. I think it was published in 1979? At that time, even though the Beatles had long disbanded, Beatlemania was still going strong. The group was no longer present, but their looooong shadow was. That shadow took a very long time to fade. I think it's doing so now. They will always be classics as the Beach Boys are, as Led Zeppelin is, but they are not at the forefront of the public imagination as the "collective voice of a generation." That's long past.

Post-Beatles youth seem to think of their childhood and teenhood idols with fondness, but they don't remain in their lives as presences. I don't think anyone who liked the Spice Girls or the boy band of the day, or even more highbrow groups like U2, follow them fanatically and take them as templates.

[ratscabies]

Sept 11, 2019 15:18:36 GMT -4 chiqui said:

I had Ron's book too. I was a teen when I read and thought it was neat, but still a little silly. I think it was published in 1979? At that time, even though the Beatles had long disbanded, Beatlemania was still going strong. The group was no longer present, but their looooong shadow was. That shadow took a very long time to fade. I think it's doing so now. They will always be classics as the Beach Boys are, as Led Zeppelin is, but they are not at the forefront of the public imagination as the "collective voice of a generation." That's long past.

Post-Beatles youth seem to think of their childhood and teenhood idols with fondness, but they don't remain in their lives as presences. I don't think anyone who liked the Spice Girls or the boy band of the day, or even more highbrow groups like U2, follow them fanatically and take them as templates.

Fanatically, no. But I do love Emma “Baby” Bunton’s solo albums.

Didn’t see that coming. I expected Sporty to be the breakout Spice Girl.

[kostgard]

I ran across the video today.

I love the Playing for Change project. They always have these amazing collaborations of musicians from around the world.

This one is "The Weight" from The Band, and has Robbie Robertson of The Band playing on it. It's one of their better ones.

And Ringo playing drums on the song. Which is why I'm really here - what is this dude's secret? He's 79 years old. He looks amazing.

[Deleted]

Nice interview with Paul and his Daughters Mary and Stella from Newsnight so don’t mind the Brexit in the title it gets a brief mention it’s mostly about Linda’s work.
I like at the end Mary’s sort of challenge to herself about getting thru a day without a Beatles reference of any sort.