Beatles Songs

On New Year's Eve, two friends of mine and I sat around tweaking with our new electronic gifts. J. had his new boom box, which he was playing downloaded pop songs from; and M. had his ipod, which had recently-loaded Beatles songs on it. As we dabbled in special foods we had made that day and indulged in nice wines, we took turns listening to select Beatles songs from the ipod, intermittently enjoying the Christmas and other songs playing through the room. There was something like a parallel universe about it, something Dj vu, something nostalgic and powerful and profound about listening to my teenaged favorites like Paperback Writer (Dear Sir or Madam will you read my book/It took me years to write, will you take a look?) and Ruby Tuesday (Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday/Who could hang a name on you?) and Come Together (He say I know you, you know me/One thing I can tell you is/You got to be free/Come together, right now/Over me) and Eleanor Rigby (Eleanor Rigby, picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been/Lives in a dream/Waits at the window, wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door/Who is it for?/
All the lonely people/Where do they all come from?/All the lonely people/Where do they all belong?)

But more, Beatles songs recall history, individual pieces earmarking select moments or impacting events. And Beatles songs, at the same time, remind of us what we no longer have, who we are no longer blessed with. On September 12, 2001, on the early morning commute show, stations were playing select Beatles songs, those done by the brilliant soloists (after the Beatles split), specifically, John Lennon's Imagine: You may say I'm a dreamer/But I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us/and the world will live as one.

The Beatles' songs are mouthpieces for a generation, for many generations. (Notice how kids today will take to Beatles songs as if they were NOT old fogy music, as if the Beatles were jamming now, and not over 45 years agoon 45s, at that?) The Beatles' songs are testimony and testament to great movements (of course Revolution comes to mind. Beatles songs are reminders of who we were, how many brilliant minds we had access to (and still do, thankfully), why we listen to works about, think about, and write about the spiritual and heartfelt responses to cultures and their values and actions.

The Beatles' songs are, it sometimes seems, all we have left.