Here's what I wrote on Facebook today, "Here's another quick story:this was the first real Beatles album I ever bought and it was in the months after I graduated from college. I'm not sure why it took so long. In college I had the Blue and Red best of albums and I guess that was working out okay. I'm really happy that this was the first proper Beatles CD I ever bought, from front-to-back, I consider it their best one. The music and the lyrics were so awesome and psychedelic that it was conscious expanding. The autumn that I bought this album, I was still delivering pizzas, so anytime I hear a song from Revolver, I can still smell pizza or steak and cheese subs. It's a delicious memory."
What's there to say about the Beatles that hasn't already been said? They're the most influential band of the last 60 years and you can make an argument that they're the most influential band since a bunch of neanderthals first got together and started rhythmically banging rocks and sticks together at the same time.
Some of my earliest memories are from The Beatles. I can dimly recall being a toddler and going into my parents' bedroom before the crack dawn begging to watch television. Back in those days, TV wasn't a 24/7 thing. For most channels, the broadcast day would begin at 5:55 AM and end at 1:00 AM. Those five-ish hours where there was no programming would be filled with a test pattern and music from a local radio station. When I'd awake prior to start time, my Mom would plop me down in front of the TV, find my favorite station (WLVI Channel 56 forever!) and tell me to listen to the music and watch "The Wheel", which is what I'd call the test pattern, mostly because it looked like a wheel.
The one song that I remember most from my wheel watching was the Beatles "Good Day Sunshine", which is one of the songs featured on this album.
As I grew older, the Beatles' music was always around. I think that it was REM front man Michael Stipe who described it as "elevator music". The reason isn't because it's as banal and soulless as the music that was once played in elevator, but because it's everywhere all the time.
In junior high school, my music teacher spent a half year explaining to us, in great detail, about the "Paul is Dead" rumor. A lot of that explanation used lyrics and music from Revolver. One of his biggest pieces of "evidence" were the opening lyrics, "She Said, She Said". Unfortunately, since there was no internet around in 1987, I don't think that my teacher knew that the lines, "I know what it's like to be dead" were spoken by Peter Fonda to John Lennon while the former was tripping on LSD at a Hollywood party.
The Blue Album, which I referred to above, was an album that I listened to a lot in college. There were more than a few cuts from "Revolver" on that as well.
In any event, when I finally put on the album and listened to it, I had a flood of memories rushing back to me. Even though it was brand new, it felt like something that I had been very aware of almost since birth.
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