The Beatles - 1967 - 1970

Well, with all the hoopla surrounding The Beatles' coming to America fifty years ago and the subsequent British Invasion of Rock N' Roll (which really made things shitty for a lot of American bands), I figured I'd give a listen to one of the very few Beatles albums I own.  I don't dislike The Beatles, I'm just kind of ambivalent about them.  I'll say this much, though; the current generation that has decided The Beatles are "just another pop band" or that there were other bands that were "better" or "more influential" are completely full of shit.  Sure, I like The Rolling Stones a lot more, but I was a little kid when The Beatles were active, and I knew the words to tons of their songs, watched their Saturday morning cartoon and generally just thought The Beatles were great, just like everyone else on the entire planet.  No other Rock N' Roll or popular music icon has come anywhere near the influence of The Beatles. Not Elvis, not Sinatra, not Led Zeppelin, not The Velvet Underground.  So if you're one of those revisionists, just fuck off now.  Like it or not, The Beatles are a one time phenomenon.  No one will ever grab the world's attention like they did, and the reason they were able to do it is because they were unbelievably good at what they did.

I'm trying to remember how old I was when I bought this record.  I think I was in the summer of fifth grade, so that would be eleven, so that should make it 1973, which is actually the year this came out.  There was a commercial on TV for some bootleg collection of Beatles songs called Alpha Omega, and I used to say the announcer's spiel and crack up my friends.  We were stealing beers out of open garages and Blueberry Tiparillo's from the drugstore and hanging out in the woods or in forts that we made.  We'd split a couple beers and start goofing on whatever it was we goofed on, and I can remember a friend named Mark that would always ask me to "do the Beatles guy," and I'm sure my voice was three octaves too high, but I'd say the spiel in my best attempt at a cockney accent.  "Order two-day, The Bee-ulls...Alpha Oh May Uh," and Mark would laugh his ass off.  It may have been funny because I did it so poorly, I don't know.

My mom and dad went out of town that summer for a week.  It must have been around a time when my best friend, Chris was on vacation, because I stayed with Jeff's family.  I don't know where my brother and sister stayed, but I'm pretty sure I didn't talk to them all week.  My mom gave me an envelope to give Mrs. Joyce for letting me stay that had some money in it for my food (and probably her headache because I wasn't nearly as tame as her kids), and she gave me some spending money.  Ten bucks, I think.  To me, that was rich.  The minute I got it I knew exactly what I was going to do with it.  I was going to Daisy Music and buying a real Rock album, the kind older kids bought.  Not some Top 40 album from Woolworth's (with music performed by some faceless group like The Sound Alikes).  I was going to a real record store, and getting something cool.

We rode up to Daisy Music, probably the day my parents dropped me off, and I looked at every record in the store.  I still do that, if I can.  I like smallish stores so that's possible, but I hate thinking that I may have bought the wrong record because I didn't get all the way to the end and missed something I've wanted forever.  So I went through everything, and then I went back towards the beginning and looked at The Beatles 1967 - 1970 and 1962 - 1966.  They were both double albums, but I had ten bucks and I could get either one.  I started thinking about it, and since I was born in 1962 I decided that even though I was buying older music either way, I would buy the more recent collection.  Besides, I like blue better than red.

You may not know this, but back then records were expensive.  I know, if you buy new vinyl now they ain't cheap, but believe me, I never got ten bucks a week for anything.  That's probably how much money my paper route made me.  A few years later I can remember buying six packs of Labatt Blue for $2.22, so when I dropped $6.99 or $7.99 on this it was a major expense for my eleven year old ass, and my mother wasn't happy (she never was when I bought records for some reason).  I could have went to the movies with my friends (and the only movie playing in our theater in 1973 was The Sting, which I had seen, and it was the only movie there for at least a year or more).  I could have done a lot of things, but I bought a double album and blew just about everything I had.

I remember taking it back to Jeff's (I wasn't allowed to go home and hang out in the empty house and back then the neighbors would have come and dragged me out and called Jeff's parents, so I didn't), and his older brother was home. I don't remember his name, but I didn't like him.  He was older and he was totally uncool.  He had a few records, but they were decidedly UN-Rock N' Roll.  But, he had built a Heathkit integrated amp and he had an AR turntable and a pair of Dynaco bookshelf speakers.  So while I didn't like him much, he taught me a lot about stereo equipment and sound in general.  He let us sit in his room and listen to my new Beatles album on his nice stereo, which was probably the only time that record was treated nice, because when it got to my house it got crushed on my GE Portable!

So what do I think of the record after all that?  I guess I gotta say, I think it's not too bad.  I mean, I'm not just ga ga over The Beatles, so for me this and Revolver often seem like all I really need.  I like Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane.  They're nice songs.  Strawberry Fields, A Day in the Life and I Am the Walrus are the kinds of things Mr. Demkowicz (see my HOF for him) would spend hours playing parts of, and picking up his needle and replaying that part after he explained what studio trickeration The Beatles had invented during the making of those songs.  Sure, they're pretty groundbreaking and they're a part of not only the American psyche, but the entire world's psyche.  Almost all these songs are the kind of thing I probably skip when it comes on the radio, but if someone comes over, it's a great album to own, because people really love it and I genuinely like it.

I'd have liked a little more White Album, but I didn't get to pick this (I'd have loved to have grabbed the handful of songs on that album I really like and put them here so I'd not feel like I should buy that record some day).  There was a time I could listen to While My Guitar Gently Weeps over and over.  I don't know exactly why that was.  It seems like a nice song, but I don't know why I found it utterly profound for awhile when I was a teenager.  That was the thing about my History of Rock class - Demkowicz said The Beatles were the best and he spent a lot of time proving it to us.  I think he may have even said that they were like Beethoven or Mozart.  In 500 years everyone would still love them.  I kind of think Baby Boomers always found themselves as a generation more than the greedy, selfish nitwits I think they turned in to.  Before you get your knickers into too much of a knot, I said As A Generation.  Not as groups of people.  But for every John Lennon there's a dick like John Boehner.  Make that two dicks for every John Lennon.  That's how we got to where we are now.

Man, I'm really wandering here.  Let's get back to my record!  Ya know two songs that I always loved?  Revolution and Magical Mystery Tour.  Hey, what teenager doesn't want to be part of some kind of cool ass revolution that changes the world and makes it fair?  I know I did.  But then again I think I thought a revolution was having long hair, wearing funny T shirts, listening to Rock N' Roll and getting high.  I think most of us kids in the USA in the 70's thought that.  It's too bad that's not all it takes, because I think we could get a lot of people to sign up.  We all work way too hard anyway, and we only live once, so why did we let a bunch of rich people tell us two weeks a year is more than enough vacation?  Man, we're kinda stupid as a species.  Anyway, I love Revolution.  The guitars are great, the sentiment is cool and it's just a killer Rock N' Roll song.  I don't know why I like Magical Mystery Tour so much.  I just do, and one of the things I like most is Ringo's drumming.  I tend to think he's just this side of Meg White usually, but I just love his sound on that song.

Now, I will blaspheme The Beatles a bit and say I don't like Hey Jude.  Or Octopus' s Garden, Across the Universe or even much of The Long and Winding Road.  Hey Jude is way too long.  I get bored with it.  Octopus's Garden sounds like a kid's song (nothing wrong with children's music, but I'm not a child) and the others just leave me cold.  Then again, there's twenty-eight songs on here.  That's a lot.  That's value for money, but I think the record is pretty full and might sound better a little shorter.  I still like this record quite a bit, overall, so don't think I'm complaining, because I'm not.

Now I know this isn't my original copy.  I had the Apple labels on the poor record I destroyed.  I think around ten years ago I was cleaning out something under my mom's TV stand (probably setting up a new TV or something) and I came across this in the cabinet.  It's in pretty decent shape, a little crackly now and then, but really only noticeable on headphones.  I asked her where she got it and she said, "I think you left it."  There's no way I left it, because I never bought another one, and this one has blue Capitol labels.  I don't care which labels I have, and when push comes to shove other than being a little bass shy, this record sounds pretty darned good, if you ask me.  The cover is nice and I think it was a lucky find.  Maybe mom had a boyfriend for awhile?  Who knows.  But whoever left it there, thanks.  I like it.  Not as much as I did when I bought my own, but I like it just the same and it reminds me of the way my town used to be, and the way I used to be when I didn't have to worry about what would happen if I just spent all my money on records.