Sundays With John, Paul, George, Ringo & Dad

I have always been a Beatles fan. Its one of the few Father-Son activities that did NOT traumatize me. I am a Beatles Fan because of my Dad.

Almost every Sunday morning when I was a kid, my Dad would play Beatles albums. He would either be reading the paper or making breakfast or both. I am not sure why he did it, or why my mother let him do it, but he did.

He had them on vinyl and played them on one of those big console stereos. You know those ones that we like 4 feet long, made of wood, and you would open the top and record player would be inside. If your parents didn't have one, your grandparents probably did.

I thought he had tons of albums, but he only had one actual album Revolver. The rest were compilations albums like Hey Jude, Beatles ’65 and Beatles IV, which were all made up of different singles and B-sides.

So that was my first exposure to The Beatles. The rest until I came into my own as a fan was scatter shot. I remember asking who John Lennon was and why it was one the news that he died. I was told because "he was a Beatle". It didn’t register much for me. I think I was much more invested in whether Han Solo would die after being frozen in carbonite. Although to bring those two worlds together, I remember thinking it was sad that he died, because now he would never get to see the next Star Wars movie. Thankfully John Lennon was spared the Ewoks.

The next piece came when HBO started showing Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. My sister and I thought it was great. I remember my Dad sort of proudly showing me The Beatles album in the store. I also remember turning my nose up at it because all the songs were by The Beatles and not by The Bee Gees and Peter Frampton. Thankfully I got over my Bee Gees over Beatles phase.

It wasn’t until high school that I got into The Beatles on my own. I bought Sgt. Pepper on tape, and satisfied with my purchase I moved on to the White Album also on tape. I still hate Revolution #9. I also discovered that you had to have a good tape deck to listen to The Beatles. Mine always seemed to have the right channel go out and so I would literally only get to hear half of the songs. I later upgraded to Abbey Road, Let It Be and Past Masters Vol. 2 on CD. I not long after, adopted "Hey Jude" as my official Sad Song. To this day when I get REALLY depressed, like "dumped by your girlfriend" depressed, I listen to "Hey Jude" on repeat until I feel better.

My liking of The Beatles also made long family trips a little better music wise. This was preferable to the infamous “Huey Lewis Incident” of 1984. Upon being lost in Tallahassee, my Father declared of Huey Lewis’ Sports album “ALL HIS SHIT SOUNDS THE SAME” and then unceremoniously ejected the tape. Huey Lewis was replaced by Boz Scaggs and has not been heard on any family trip since. In the early 90’s my Mother crassly asked on one trip “Can’t we listen to something other than The Beatles.” My Mother and Father are now divorced.

I have always said of The Beatles that they were the one thing that my Father and I agreed on, that we disagreed on. I was always more into Sgt. Pepper/ White Album/ Abbey Road Beatles, while he was more into the Love Me Do / I Want to Hold Your Hand Beatles. And while we appreciated the other, we are firmly in our respective camps. We don’t fight over it, we just agree to disagree.

This has all come about because there has been a Beatles blitzkrieg the last few weeks with all the Remastered CDs and Rock Band game coming out. I have been wondering “Why?” Why The Beatles and not like The Dave Clark Five or Herman’s Hermits. I know enough about business to know that you don’t release something unless there is a market for it. So why 40 years after the band has broken up and two members have died, is there still such a market for this band?

I mean sure, you can debate the quality of the music and how it stacks up other bands, til the end of time. Most everyone does. But I think it’s beyond whether the music was "good" or not. I think it's that we are not going to get anymore Beatles albums. They existed for a finite period of time, which will not come again. They haven’t been “Prequelized” or “Rebooted”. And each time a big Beatles event happens, it does not seem like such an OVERT mad dash for cash.

For me, hearing Beatles songs reminds me of being a kid. It reminds me of a time, where I didn’t worry about my job or where the money was going to come from. A time when my problems only seemed huge, but in retrospect in the grand scheme of things were actually very small. It just reminds me of Sunday mornings and breakfast with my Dad.

Jason