The New Beatles Song

I was a very wee thing when I was given my first Beatles single- my first ever record, in fact- by a friend of McMums. She was a genius present giver. It was a copy of I Wanna Hold Your Hand, from Shepherd's of Gateshead, and I've still got it in it's original cover. I preferred the 'B' side, This Boy. I thought the way the Beatles sang 'I wanna hold your hand' sounded like 'I wanna hold your hen'.

I grew up with them as a sound track. I bought a silver-grey plastic guitar brooch with my pocket money; it had a bubble of clear plastic in the middle with George Harrison's photograph in it. He was my favourite, and John Lennon next. I didn't like Paul McCartney- somehow I thought he was an actor, and the others weren't.

I watched their films: Magical Mystery Tour on TV one Christmas, and I took my baby brother to see Yellow Submarine at The Tatler Cinema off the Haymarket in Newcastle upon Tyne. He loved it, but was scared of the Blue Meanies (so was I, and I still am). I knew the band travelled to India and came back fascinated by sitars. I wasn't wild on their hippy phase because by then I realised that they were older than me, and I didn't want to grow up to be a hippy lady, all flowery and decorative and pretty. Their music started to sound congested (I suppose that must have been the George Martin phase), and I started to prefer bands that sounded simpler, like Slade. Then they split up and everyone was Terribly Upset, but I don't think I was. It just seemed logical that they would grow out of themselves, just as I'd grown out of them.

Afterwards, I quite liked George Harrison's records and some of John Lennon's. I admired Paul McCartney for making the banned Give Ireland Back to the Irish, but hated Mull Of Kintyre, which just sounded fake to me. I was upset when George got taken to court over My Sweet Lord, but then completely understood when I got into girl group music when I was fifteen, and heard He's So Fine properly in context. 

I cried when John Lennon was shot. What a pointless thing to happen.

The experience of punk rolled everything back to zero. A lot of music from before that time started in retrospect to resemble a house of cards, ever-closer to toppling over with its self-importance. I started listening to a lot of reggae and later, a lot of rockabilly and hillbilly music.

I revisit Beatles songs occasionally, but I prefer listening to Northern Soul or the new offerings of my contemporaries. No-one has made me listen to The New Beatles Song, so I haven't heard it. Ethically, it all seems a bit suspect: a bit like finally obtaining control of John Lennon and George Harrison when they can't talk back and say 'no'. I think if I'd had an urge to seek it out, that factor alone might have put me off. 

But having watched aghast as Cliff Richard (yet again) complained in a recent TV interview about his records no longer getting played on the radio, I also think 'How much fame do you need, famous musicians?'. Part of the appeal of music and bands is their mysteriousness. If you know everything there is to know and hear everything there is to hear, where is the unanswered question that keeps you curious?

It could be that I'm missing out on the Listen Of The Century, but I am perfectly able to live with that. The Beatles as a quasi-religion, I'm perfectly able to live without.

Au revoir!