Somewhere back there in the early 60's came my first glimmer of Beatles awareness .
It was during some free time in a grade school class. A girl was writing the names of well-known songs on the blackboard, and when the subject of the Beatles arose, several kids rattled off their songs, "Please, Mr. Postman" being the only one I remember her putting on the board.
When I asked who the Beatles were, I was treated as though I'd been in a cave somewhere. But I was serious. I truly didn't know who they were.
Being 10 in 1964, my attention was divided between various the fads that came and went like clockwork.
There were the Duncan yo-yo artists that would descend on our school and captivate the masses with their transparent orange, green, red, and blue yo-yos, doing things with them that we could never hope to accomplish.
I wanted them just because of the colors, but when I got an imitation copy later, I stopped using it after about ten minutes. Not only could I not "walk the dog" with one, but the frigging string would knot up and tangle.
Finally frustrated with the whole business, I found that my version of the "Around the World" trick was the best release for frustrations. I would let the yo-yo go all the way to the end of the string, then whip it round and round and at some point either the string would snap or I'd just release it into the air. Watching it soar off through the sky- now there was a trick I'd never seen the experts do.
There was "Flubber," a transparent and gelatinous glob named after the movie of the same name. After a few hours of handling and playing with the toxic and gelatinous mess, I broke out in a case of hives that the allergy doctor had no cure for, aside from some head- shaking and a discourse on the evils of marketing.
Then came "Silly Putty," the awesome and much-maligned "Superball," and its companion product, a golf ball version that supposedly flew a quarter mile, on its way through several windshields and picture windows.
Then there were the collectible cards: The Man From Uncle, James Bond- and the Beatles, sneaking into the fray around '65 or '66.
I never owned any of the latter, knowing of them only because my friend Dick Gunsolus showed me one he'd swiped from his sister Judy. They looked okay, but they were pictures of guys, so big deal.
The cartoon show was running by fall of '65, as well, which was also one of the few times I could hear the songs in their entirety, the only other avenue coming by way of snippets I heard on the transistor radio I'd gotten for my birthday or at Christmas.
But even then, though some of the songs sounded cool, they didn't stay with me or become part of my subconscious, unlike some of the classical music I'd heard. Peter and The Wolf. The Nutcracker Suite. That kind of thing.
Then again, that isn't entirely true. It was the songs being played on the radio that drove many of us to the record stores to make our frenzied purchases.
Due to the normal poverty of youth, I didn't have the funds to buy albums, only the occasional 45. So I had to rely on the radio, and hope that my timing was good. If so, I'd catch one of the older Beatle tunes like "I Saw Her Standing There," or "Michelle," or "I Want To Hold Your Hand."
In fact, it was that way for all the tunes I liked. Since my mom didn't listen to music much, and Dad was into Mitch Miller, country-western or The Tijuana Brass, my chances of hearing the good stuff while in the car or at home were abysmal.
It was AM radio that kept me and other kids- at least those who were too poor to afford albums- in touch with the world of rock and roll.
As to the Beatles, I was familiar with a string of their hits, thanks to radio, but it was like corresponding with a distant relative or friend- too far away to create a lasting emotional connection. Too distant to have much of an impact on one's life in any substantial way.
And maybe it was better that way. More of a normal way to live. More normal than developing a one-way relationship with a group of rock and roll musicians by way of music that seemed written for me and me alone.
It wasn't until 1967 and "Magical Mystery Tour" that the Beatle light came on, and stayed on.
I don't remember which store I bought it at, or how I got the money. All I remember is that it cost about $3.99, and I couldn't wait to get home and tear the plastic wrap off it.
I looked at the album cover in wonder- not so much at the artwork, but in the realization that I finally held a Beatles album in my hands- one I wouldn't have to give back to anyone. It was mine.
Once we returned home, I ran upstairs to my room, tore off the plastic wrap, and slid the LP out of it protective paper sleeve.
Black and shiny it was, the inner label a black background encircled by the iconic Capitol spectrum band of color, one-quarter of an inch wide, dust particles already getting pulled onto its pristine surface by the vinyl's electrostatic discharge, like tiny meteorites crashing onto this most flat of planets.
I opened my portable record player, reverently slid the center hole of the LP down and around the turntable pin. Then I turned on the power and with surgical precision placed the sapphire needle into the first track groove.
And then the music began.
Even coming out of that cheap 5" speaker it sounded great. Beatle music in my own bedroom. Life couldn't get any better.
But after waiting through the first four tracks- which were by turns great, and okay- and in the case of "Blue Jay Way," just downright weird- life did get better, as my favorite song started: "Your Mother Should Know."
And when it ended, I was able to do something AM radio had never allowed- I could listen to it again.
After that, the strange experience known as "I Am The Walrus," was too much to bear- and I reverently flipped the album over to Side Two.
"Hello Goodbye" being almost as infectious as "Your Mother Should Know," I enjoyed what followed, but was again floored by the last track, "All You Need Is Love."
Surely music didn't get any better than this.
Of course, after five or ten repeated listens, anything can get old, which is exactly what happened in this case. But now the fever had hit. I had to have more Beatles. The hunt was on...
And the next sighting wasn't long in coming.
My neighbor Eric, invited me over to his folk's place one day where he played tracks of Sgt. Peppers for me. But it wasn't the same kind of music. It was the Beatles, but it was stranger, more experimental sounding. And what was the other word people were using to describe it? Psychedelic.
And for a time I didn't care too much about purchasing it.
Time passed, and 1968 rolled around. I was at church on a youth night, and noticed one of the guys carrying around a white album. There was nothing on the cover. But then he told me that it was a Beatles album.
What? An album with no cover?
While I was out of the room he played a cut or two. As such, I didn't hear either of them- only his answer for someone who felt the Beatles' lyrics were too weird, to which gave an enlightened reply: "No they aren't, if you understand what they are trying to say." His slightly aloof answer implied that at least he was enlightened.
Wondering for days what the album was all about, I finally caught a break when the local radio station- 62 KGW- announced that they would be playing one track each hour- or was it every half hour?- from the White Album, as it was known.
And what I heard alternately thrilled or puzzled me. Gone were the bouncy introspective tracks from MMT or earlier days. But again, trying to gauge the worth of an album via radio was like trying to herd cats- you just can't get them all.
And so it was that somehow during those early months of '68, I got my hands on a copy of the White Album.
I got it home and opened it up, but before I could even get to the albums proper, I was greeted by four color photos, one each of John, Paul, George and Ringo. And then there was that great poster.
But that only momentarily distracted me. I pulled out album #1. Gone was the Capitol color ring, replaced by a larger-than-life image of a green apple sliced in half. It looked too cool.
But it was time for the music.
"Back In The USSR" was first, its power and raucous energy knocking me for a loop. There was more than a trace of Beach Boys singing and chord structure, along with a great guitar solo. Catching my breath after it ended, I listened to part of "Dear Prudence," then moved on.
"Glass Onion", featuring a Lady Madonna-like string section was fascinating, in a sinister way, then came the ever-infectious "Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da". What an awesome song.
As I went on through the songs, I was taking a musical trip similar to that embarked on by Alice- through a wonderland that embraced nearly every musical style, the trip getting stranger as it went along before coming to a definite, though somewhat unsettling, end.
Country-western, blues, hard rock, psychedelic, folk, protest, ballad, and even a touch of classical- they were all there.
Of course, the songs weren't all winners. I couldn't- and still cannot- stand listening to "Wild Honey Pie," "Don't Pass Me By," "Why Don't We Do It In The Road."
But that excrescence is more than made up for by the beauty of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," "Blackbird," "I Will," "Julia," and "Mother Nature's Son."
There was the silliness of "Bungalow Bill" and "Rocky Raccoon," balanced by the dark and foreboding "Happiness Is A Warm Gun," "Yer Blues," "Helter Skelter" and "Cry Baby Cry."
In fact, balance may be the reason why the White Album continues to satisfy to this day. The sacred and the profane, the quiet and the explosive, the domestic and the savage, nature and apocalypse- it's all there, yet done in a manner that only the Beatles could pull off.
And when the final strange and nightmarish sounds of "Revolution #9" have faded away, "Good Night" lulls us into an uneasy sleep. "Now it's time to say Good Night. Good Night, sleep tight."
I may sleep tight, or I may not, depending on which songs from the White Album are still running through my head.
So 1968 came and went, as did the first part of '69 and "Yellow Submarine," me missing both the album and the film of the same name.
But such was not the case with Abbey Road.
Again, my visual introduction to a new Beatles album came about not in the store or in a magazine, but with someone carrying the album around in public- a great marketing tool, if I say so myself.
I was attending a drum section practice at a local school building and a drummer named Steve came into the room with Abbey Road tucked under his arm. While I didn't get to handle the disc, as Steve was keeping it well-guarded, I did see that photo- the one of the Fab Four crossing the street- and in the fashion of all icons, its image was burned onto my mental retina.
And what with the smattering of tunes I'd heard on the radio- "Here Comes The Sun," "Come Together," "Something," and "I Want You,"- I knew I had to get this disc somehow, somewhere.
As usual, I was broke. But the hunt was on: the hunt for an opportunity to listen to the album, that is.
Problem was, aside from Steve- who lived all the way across town, and wasn't really a friend- I knew no one that owned a copy of Abbey Road.
Reading the reviews in the Rolling Stone and other places didn't help, merely fanning the ever-increasing flames of curiosity about what wonders the disc truly held. After all, this was a Beatles album!
Then came the break I'd been looking for. My drum and bugle corps was attending a weekend training session at Camp Colton, out in the country.
The cabin some of us guys were staying in had electrical outlets and lights, and for the first time, someone had brought a record player.
Probably the same person who brought a copy of Abbey Road...
Gone were my plans for working up the courage to speak to that cute girl I'd been admiring from afar for weeks. Forgotten were the practical jokes and the little acts of vandalism I planned on committing with friends.
Abbey Road and I were in the same room.
For the first few hours, there was a crowd between me and the record player as the lucky owner spun tracks from the album, the sliced apple image spinning round and round as that music flowed from cheap speakers. But soon the novelty wore off, and the crowds dispersed, and at some moment during the evening, everyone drifted off- and I found myself holding the LP in my hands.
On went the disc and I began listening, amidst the heavy smell of wood smoke and Douglas Fir.
"Come Together."
"Something."
I was in musical. heaven again, thanks to the lads from across the sea.
"Maxwell's Silver Hammer." The melody was so bouncy and the lyric delivery so refined that I missed the sinister underlying message about Maxwell the serial killer- but I was young. What did I know?
"Oh Darling" thrilled as only a belted-out torch song can, though "Octopus's Garden" put a damper on the proceeding temporarily.
But then came "I Want You," followed by what was to become one of my favorite songs of all time: "Here Comes The Sun."
I played it several times, never quite able to absorb all the joy it elicited, but trying anyway.
Sated- for the moment- I moved on to "Because," but impatiently skipped through it to discover the orchestral glories of "You Never Give Me Your Money," "Golden Slumbers" and the rest.
After the listening session ended, I knew it was only a matter of time before I'd own the album. I just didn't know when.
The weeks passed and one day I was taking one of my weekly drum lessons from Melba, a lady whose two boys were drummers in the corps. I found out that her oldest son owned a cassette of "Abbey Road," and after some restrained pleading the owner loaned me the tape. Soon I was at home, listening to that music once again.
But I was still on the sidelines: merely a listener, not the owner of that little white plastic box with the narrow slots through which the tape roll could be seen.
Realizing I'd soon have to relinquish control of the cassette, I sat down and wrote out the lyrics for every song. It took a while, but for some reason I felt I now owned at least a part of "Abbey Road."
And though I never referred to the sheets of paper again, that act of transcription tided me over until the blessed day when I procured my own copy of the album.
The next year saw the release of "Let It Be," and once again I had to have the album. After the previous stellar efforts, it was a letdown, though the beauty of "Across the Universe," "The Long and Winding Road," and the title tune nearly made up for all that was going wrong with (and for) the Beatles, as a group. The Apple slice on the LP label was still there, but now it was a ripe red color, a sure sign that a harvest of sorts was overdue.
It was over the lunchroom intercom at high school one April morning that we all heard about the Beatles breaking up. Not since the Kennedy assassination had I felt so shocked, which in the end only caused myself and all other fans to clutch their Beatle albums even more tightly.
It was probably for this reason- a sort of mourning for a group everyone loved- that I jumped at the chance to purchase any and all musical offerings from Lennon. McCartney, and Harrison.
"All Things Must Pass" was first on the list, and though sound was muddy and the recording itself poorly engineered, I was basking in the warmth of Beatles-style music: "My Sweet Lord" and "Isn't It A Pity" and "All Things Must Pass."
The mystique generated by that spinning apple label was almost tangible, though George's albums were the only ones carrying it, as far as I can remember.
Then came "McCartney," carrying tunes that he had been writing and rehearsing even before The Breakup. The presence of the Beatles continued on in spirit, even if the four former members were at now odds with each other, big time.
"Imagine," Lennon's early effort, was yet another slice of former Beatle music, but distinctly John's own take on things. By his tone I could tell there was no way that he would try to continue on musically, as he had before.
1971 and 72 came and went, and soon I was off at college in Eastern Oregon, where tragedy struck during the first few weeks of dorm life. I came back from class one day and there on the floor was "Abbey Road," the evil smile of a large chunk broken off of it, the result of my jackass roommate not cleaning up after listening to my records.
I was so incensed that I had several friends help me move into another room two floors up and on the other end of the dormitory that same week. I kept the remainder of the album for several years, such was the nature of my mourning.
For the next couple years I expanded my listening habits to classical and other things, checking back once in a while with Sir Paul and John, though George wasn't doing much at that time.
Then came some major lifestyle changes as I embarked on a church mission to Argentina in 1975.
Mission rules were in place in an effort to keep young elders' minds on The Work and off of girls or other distractions- especially raucous and irreverent rock music. But after a year or so of listening to Bartok and Bach and Beethoven tapes, I began working with an elder who liked the Beatles.
The only problem was that he liked the older stuff, all that music I'd dismissed from 62-64, with the exception of "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" and "I Saw Her Standing There," of course.
He would listen to the same couple tapes every week during our one day off. And as I listened, I started to hear some things I liked.
"Tell Me Why." "If I Fell." "Slow Down." "Things We Said Today."
And I found Beatlemania starting to rise, phoenix-like, out of the ashes of my ignorance. I thought I'd heard all the good Beatle music, but I was wrong.
"No Reply. "Baby's In Black." "I'm Loser."
I was starting realize that I had heard a few of these before- but now I was listening with new and more mature ears.
"Mr. Moonlight." "Slow Down." "Every Little Thing." "I Don't Want To Spoil The Party." "The Word." "The Night Before."
And though it was only a couple tape's worth of Beatle music, I knew I had found buried treasure.
The following years brought with them the occasional McCartney album, or good stuff by John, or various Beatles compilations- but it just wasn't the same.
Then, in the mid-90's, came "Anthology I," followed by numbers II and III. And for the first time in years the magic was back.
Here were released versions of Beatles songs that I- and millions of others- had never heard.
I stood at a listening station, chills running along my spine as I marveled at an acoustic version of "Something."
An alternate take of "I'm Only Dreaming."
A successive set of recordings documenting the construction of "Strawberry Fields."
And an even better version of Ringo plaintively singing "Good Night."
Life was good.
And now, 15 years later, I'm in my 50's. And what am I doing? Scrambling from store to store amassing a collection of the newly-remastered Beatles albums.
Will it never end?
I hope not...