Let's Get Back to Business
Hello. It’s been a while since I wrote anything here, and there’s a reason for that. George Carlin had a joke — I think it was on his album “Class Clown” — about a smart-ass Catholic schoolboy who asked his instructor, “Hey fodder…if God is so powerful, can he make a boulder so big that he himself can’t lift it?” Imagine Carlin saying that in a heavy Brooklyn accent.
I’m not saying I’m like God in any way. For one thing, I exist, ha ha ha! The last post I wrote here was about Fantastic Four #1, and I had a bunch of ideas for more posts about the early days of Marvel Comics, when the company was still like the Wild West. Like that FF post, the other posts I had in mind would have taken time, research, and thought. I was excited about them — but then I got a full-time job, one that I like, but one that also keeps me pretty busy.
Still, I kept thinking about those posts. And then it hit me that I could write other stuff that might not be such a heavy lift, if you will. So, if you’ll permit me, we’ll start here…
THE BEATLES AND ME, PART ONE
It was the summer of 1969, and I was a small boy riding a yellow school bus from my suburban neighborhood in Pomona, NY, to Camp Ramaquois, a nearby day camp. At the time I had some problems with my ears, which meant that I was not allowed to go swimming with the other kids.
This was the age of the portable transistor radio, which helped revolutionize the way people listened to music. Groovy young people carried them everywhere, tuning in to their favorite stations to hear the latest tunes.
One of my counselors let me listen to his radio during swim time, and it wasn’t long before I was hooked on pop music. That summer I distinctly remember hearing these songs, which I’ve checked against the list of Billboard Top 100 hits to confirm that they really did come out that year:
• “Aquarius / Let the Sun Shine In” - The 5th Dimension
• “Wedding Bell Blues” - The 5th Dimension
• “Proud Mary” - Creedence Clearwater Revival
• “Bad Moon Rising” - Creedence Clearwater Revival
• “In the Year 2525” - Zager & Evans
• “Someday We’ll Be Together” - Diana Ross and the Supremes
• “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” - Marvin Gaye
• “A Boy Named Sue” - Johnny Cash
• “Get Back” - The Beatles
• “Something” - The Beatles
• “Come Together” - The Beatles
This was my first real experience with the Beatles. I sort of remember seeing the Beatles TV cartoon — they started a few years earlier, but they didn’t make much of an impression on me, possibly because they were terrible.
But hearing their music on the radio during that less than joyful time? That got through to me. Back home I started fiddling with the knobs on my Zenith AM clock radio and listening to WABC, where I got to hear DJs like Harry Harrison and Cousin Brucie Morrow.
Around the same time I was gifted a Panasonic cassette recorder, which I used as countless other kids did: to record music off the radio. I didn’t like the way the disc jockeys would talk through the introductions to the songs, so I wouldn’t push the record button until the moment before the singer would start singing. Oh, how I wish I still had one of those tapes!
A year or two later I was in the middle of a stretch during which my paternal grandfather kept taking me to movies (more on this another time). One of them was “Yellow Submarine,” which must have been in rerelease. The wild graphics, inventive story, bizarre characters, and, of course, the music really burned their way into my psyche, and it was at that point that I truly became a Beatles fan. In the summer of 1974 I saved up $100 from doing odd jobs and bought a little all-in-one record player/stereo. The first record I bought was the soundtrack to “Yellow Submarine” — a terrible choice, since the B side of the record was all orchestral music from the movie. But I didn’t care. That first side was good enough for me, even though ( I learned much later) some of those songs were Beatles cast-offs that had been deemed not good enough for their other albums. For the record, those songs were “Hey Bulldog,” “It’s All Too Much,” “All Together Now,” and “Only a Northern Song.”
Before long I bought a few more Beatles albums, including “Help,” “Abbey Road,” and “Hey Jude,” a late period U.S. singles compilation going back to 1964 with “Can’t Buy Me Love.” I wanted to learn more, though, so I picked up this book.
This big 12-inch by 12-inch book guided me through the history of the Fab Four in a basic sort of way, with the focus on their recorded output.
As a grown-up sort of person, I now have all the Beatles records – CDs and box sets, mostly, but also a couple of vinyl albums. I also have nearly every George Harrison album, most Paul McCartney albums (there are a lot!), most John Lennon albums, and a few of the better Ringo albums. And I have shelf full of books on the Beatles, from Philip Norman’s “Shout!” to Mark Lewisohn’s “The Beatles – Tune in Vol. 1” and beyond.
Currently I’m reading “A Cellarful of Noise” – the 1998 rerelease of Brian Epstein’s 1964 memoir. This edition, packaged for Rhino Records by Byron Preiss (a name that should be familiar to many comics fans), adds a bunch of ancillary material, bringing the page count up to a whopping 200! Still, it provides a fascinating window into those early years, and it’s funny to watch Brian try to downplay his feelings about the Fabs: Ringo wasn’t good looking enough, Paul was moody and difficult, George cared more about money and cars than music, and John could do no wrong.
I’ll keep on reading books about the Beatles and buying whatever new releases they scrape out of the EMI vault. Because, at the end of the day, I am a fan through and through.
I’ve wondered about the origins of Beatles fandom! And that camp photo is phenomenal, haha! Thanks for sharing!