Still on the Beatles..

It was on this day, then, that we listened, cried, screamed and went nuts. But I have to admit now, in retrospect, that I really didn’t get it. All the while that I worshiped the Beatles, I was a good 10 years behind them in age, and so their meaning was probably not my meaning. And I’m not even talking about the regular transcription mistakes. How long til I realized that they were NOT singing: “Trying to rule the days that are ohhhhhhh” (Across the Universe) or “Darling he sobs in the night when there’s nobody there” (Eleanor Rigby)?

“Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” was probably obvious to anyone hearing it on the side of the ocean, but in Poland (I was back in Poland from ’66 onwards), it was just pretty and somewhat sexy. Good to dance to. With Bulgarian wine on the side rather than LSD. Or “Strawberry Fields” – tell us the words, tell us the words! --my Polish girlfriends would ask. And so I’d talk about how dreamy it was, you know, all that “living is easy with eyes closed …” And my absolute favorite “Fool on the Hill” (round and round and round and round and rooooound….) – I knew the words perfectly, but I had only a hazy understanding of what they meant.

I grew up with the Beatles. There is no question that they were the single most important, sustained musical force in my life. In my own quirky adolescent way, I imagined I was deeply immersed in their message. “I read the news today, oh boy…..” That is the power of song.