One of my favorite things about this book and why I wanted to read it in the first place, is Sheffield’s assertion that everyone has their own Beatles story and that the Beatles were, are, and will forever be a presence in popular culture because of our own story with them–and the fact that nearly everyone has a “Beatles story”. On page 9 Sheffield says “But being born on the same planet as the Beatles is one of the ten best things that’s ever happened to me”. I couldn’t agree more!
Here’s my Beatles story :
One of my earliest memories in life was of watching MTV as a kid and seeing the video for “Imagine”. I was captivated—at 3 or 4 years old! I remember thinking that the white room and the piano music were so beautiful. But as a child, I was terrified of She Who Must Not Be Named. I honestly thought she was a witch! Watching the video for “Imagine” never left me, and as a teenager when the Anthologies came out, my friends and I dived in again, and we started our Beatles vinyl collections too. In my 20s I met my HLP (Hetero Life Partner : more than a best friend but not a biological sibling), and we bonded over our mutual love of rock music. We made a list of “The Greats”–the people we just HAD to see before we died, and Paul McCartney was at the top of our list. We saw him the day before I moved away from the city we lived in together, Minneapolis (Prince!), and his show was life changing. I feel like that’s the day life really STARTED….everything before that was just “pre-Paul”. At my husband’s suggestion, our son’s middle name is McCartney, and we’re hoping he gets qualities that the name implies : creative, lover of music, funny, persistent, earth-conscious, and above all, someone who is about LOVE. And wouldn’t you know it, after I gave birth and spent a couple days in the hospital, what was my nurse’s name?–Yoko. Go figure.
What’s your Beatles story?
