At first, I used to be shocked at how very saturated I’d been all these years with out even understanding it. Apart from the music itself, there was additionally the necessity to know all the pieces there was to know in regards to the band’s historical past, particular person personalities, the dramas with wives and ex-wives, the youngsters, the brothers, the sisters, the dad and mom, the aunts. I used to look at each Feb. 25 (George’s birthday), June 18 (Paul), and July 7 (Ringo) and Oct. 9 (John). I’d purchased and instantly learn, usually a number of instances, each ebook about them that I may discover. The web had solely made it worse. I’d been saturated.
The primary Beatle-free days had been robust. Quickly per week glided by. A month. And one thing occurred. It was as if I’d woken up from a deep sleep and was now accessible anew to the musical world. Wonderful grace.
Nonetheless, there have been moments of overwhelming nostalgia.
“Shut your eyes and I’ll kiss you, tomorrow I’ll miss you” was the melody that hit me proper within the coronary heart about six weeks into my No Beatles food regimen. Ditto “Can’t Purchase Me Love,” a music for operating and leaping and falling down just like the Fabs did in “A Arduous Day’s Night time,” even in case you’re a grown man ready in line at a submit workplace. However I held quick.
Quickly sufficient, hassle got here knocking within the type of “Get Again,” the three-part, practically eight-hour documentary detailing the making of what would turn out to be the 1970 “Let It Be” album. When the movie was first launched in November, I stored getting texts, emails and telephone calls from different obsessives who for some purpose thought I used to be going to pay to look at what I hear is an awfully lengthy present about songs that I do know from side to side however that I’ve by no means been on hearth about. For me, early Beatles equals greatest Beatles. My Beatles all costume alike, have the identical haircuts, tour the world and go “Woo!” My Beatles don’t dig ponies. My Beatles don’t even come up with the money for to provide George his personal microphone.
It mattered not that I stated, to everybody, loud and clear, “I don’t care.” Folks ran round that like a 15-year-old fan operating round a police barricade at Shea Stadium in 1965. Billy Preston’s keyboard mastery, they stated, should be witnessed, as should the development of the music “Get Again” and even the great restoration for its personal sake — the colour, the sound. I’m going to be an outdated man quickly, I informed them, and I should not have eight hours to commit to “Get Again.” I’ve purchased each Beatles album on LP, 8-track, cassette, CD. It’s sufficient.
None of those individuals knew, in fact, that I’d stop. Even now, I discover the repeated calls for that I watch and focus on “Get Again” dangerously acquainted:
“Have a drink!”
“Have a smoke!”
“Have a cupcake!”
“Have a Beatle!”
However why return? Do the Beatles care if I reside or die, if I’m comfortable or unhappy?
One of the best rationale, in the long run, got here from a member of the band itself. George says, in an interview on the TV present “West 57th Avenue” in December 1987: “It’s Beatles this, Beatles that, Beatle, Beatle, Beatle, Beatle. Ultimately it’s like ‘Oh, sod off with the Beatles,’ you realize?”