Cheryl (muted, from the bathroom): “What time is it?”
Me (looking at my watch with the giant digits): “Nine-oh-nine. [Pause a beat] You know what song that always makes me think of?”
Cheryl: “Uh, lemme see… mmm … [lowering and softening her voice] ‘Number nine … number nine … number nine…’”
“No, this one:
“I always thought that song was one of the last ones they ever wrote, ‘cause it appears on the last album they put out, that one from the rooftop concert when they were breaking up, Let It Be. It’s got all those sophisticated, late period Beatles’ songs like Get Back, The Long and Winding Road, Across the Universe, and of course, Let It Be.”
“No?”
“No, it seems that was on of their very early songs. They just never recorded it until the end. So for decades I thought it was the product of John Lennon as he entered his 30s. Turns out it was the very first song he ever wrote – when he was 17.”
“No, it doesn’t sound like that, does it?”
“Yeah, when I heard an early version of it, 20 years ago, for the first time, I got a whole new vision into just how sophisticated musically they were at such a young age.”
In the clip above, recorded at the legendary Cavern Club in Liverpool in 1962, all of the essential Beatles’ motifs are there: mop-top head shaking screams and screeches from Paul, a primitive guitar solo George, John sounding ironically serious with a hint of a smirk, and John and Paul putting their rhythm and bass guitars up front in the melody, then finishing with an off chord.
I was reading a magazine on my iPad during our conversation, and I switched into a mode which has only become possible as the 21st century started to unfold. I moved from one song to another, across the years, trying to find more evidence for the Beatles’ universal hold on our youth. I was in the Anthology 1 (Disc1) CD, so I started flitting over alternative versions of their very early recordings: Love Me Do, Please Please Me. Proceeding to some Power Pop from their golden first year in America: Can’t Buy Me Love, I Saw Her Standing There, which led quickly into rock ‘n roll covers: Money, Twist and Shout, Roll Over Beethoven….
Ooops. Beatles … Chuck Berry … Beach Boys! Back in 1964, the mop toppers from Liverpool were batting the RnR birdie back and forth with the bushy bushy blonde hairdo’d boys from Hawthorne over the Chuckster’s net. So, shift to Surfin’ USA (a blatant rip-off of Berry’s Sweet Little Sixteen.)
With the magic of digitized music – it really is magic to us vinyl children – I can not only pop from song to song at the flick of a finger, but jump in and out when ever I like. No need to spend a full 2:30 on “…inside/outside/USA/down Doheny way …” I can just jump through the whole exhausting soundtrack which taunted me with the teenage life I never lived: I Get Around, Fun,Fun,Fun, Shut Down, Little Deuce Coupe, Be True To Your School, California Girls, Help Me Rhonda… and then on to Pet Sounds: Wouldn’t It Be Nice, Sloop John B, Caroline No, God Only Knows. Finishing with the mushroom’d magic of Good Vibrations.
A time machine right in my lap. I looked at my watch. It was 9:39. Thirty minutes spent dreamily re-living feelings from 50 years ago. I looked up. Cheryl had stopped humming along about ten minutes ago; she was now desperately trying to read in bed. Which of course would be impossible for her with music playing; she’s not one of those who can read while listening to music.
I turned off the iPad, and resigned myself to winding down the day. Long and Winding Road, indeed.
I didn’t know you were enthralled by the technology allowing you to flit through the parade of songs. I just thought you were simply reminiscing. Nice evening diversion, eh?