Of all these friends and lovers...

In my boredom and solitude here in the cold Latvian nights, I have turned to the only friends I can - The Beatles. Yes, documentaries on Youtube are abundant, sweetly filling many hours of time. So for lack of anything else to write tonight (the day went well, I started using down time to study for the GRE), I will write on my favorite topic in popular culture as if I too were being interviewed in a Beatles' documentary. If you don't want to hear about it, I don't blame you - stop reading now. For the rest, maybe only my Dad, keep reading:

Dad was a big fan. The first time I can ever recall hearing about The Beatles I must have been only 6 or 7. We were in a poster shop for some reason and I saw a poster of the coolest car I'd ever seen, it was a Lamborghini I think and I wanted it. I remember my dad, with a quirky smile, holding up another poster, asking if I didn't want that one instead. I still remember it today. It was this very picture:

"Who are they?" I asked. They were 4 guys with long, grungy hair, nothing cool to a kid. My Mom said, "no you don't want them" as she pushed Dad out of the way with that "oh brother" type of attitude. Dad just smiled and said something like, "they were The Beatles and they were the coolest band ever." The Beetles? huh? Well, to a young child, even if they were the coolest ever, 4 guys were no where near as cool as a sweet looking car so naturally, I got the Lamborghini poster and that was that.

Although Dad was a big fan, the only Beatles music he had were two cassettes: one had a recording of Abbey Road on one side and the old Hey Jude album on the other, and the other was Revolver. I'm not sure if it was because money was tight or because Mom didn't like them or what that he only had those two (probably a mixture of both). I remember however, my Dad putting Hey Jude in one day as we were driving or something (I was around 9 at the time) and it was like the greatest thing I'd ever heard. After that I listened to it over and over and over again on my little tape recorder. Oh, it was so good, every time I just loved it. I was hooked. Dad would point them out on the radio and give me history about the songs and whatnot. It was great.

That year for Christmas I received the red album on cassette tapes. Yes, the Greatest Hits (1963 - 1966). I can't tell you how great it was. Three months later I got the blue album (Greatest Hits 1967-1970) for my birthday and again, it was so good. For the next five years, those 30 or so songs became my own personal soundtrack. When happy, I'd listen to one of those tapes. When sad or frustrated, I'd listen to one of those tapes. It seemed like every emotion I ever had, The Beatles catered to it. They still do.

I remember watching TV one Saturday night and Dad was just flipping through the channels and stumbled upon A Hard Day's Night on PBS. I never knew they made a movie! Imagine my excitement when Dad told me they had others too. It was like nothing I'd ever seen before! I actually got to see The Beatles play their songs and run around (that's all the film entails really). I was in heaven. I thought that those 4 guys were the absolute greatest guys in the world! After that, we just had to watch Help!. Again, it was like a whole new world had been opened up to me. I just loved every second of it. After seeing them, not only did I love their music, I wanted to be them (Girls may have had their crushes on one of them, but I wanted to be Paul McCartney. As I've grown up(wait...I'm a grown up? I didn't think grown-ups wanted to be anyone else?), George has become my favorite and naturally, he's the one I want to be, even now).

For my 12th birthday, I wanted to go to the Hansen Planetarium to see The Beatles' lazer show. Oh man, words can't express how incredible that was. I was so into it that I vividly remember Dad telling me to stop singing because I might be disrupting the people around us.

Naturally, when I wanted to learn guitar around the age of 14, it was Beatles' tunes with which I taught myself. To this day, there is nothing more therapeutic than rendering the introspective You've Got to Hide Your Love Away.

When I turned 16, I used some birthday money and went out and bought my very first Beatles' album on cd. It was A Hard Day's Night. I couldn't wait to get home and play it. And I did, over and over and over. Then with the money I earned lifeguarding, each pay check I'd go out and buy an album. Every time I'd come home, go into my room, shut the door behind me, and just listen to the entire album. I remember so well how amazing all the new songs I'd never heard before were, the ones that I never heard on the radio or on the Greatest Hits - songs like I've Just Seen a Face and Getting Better and I've Got a Feeling. These previously unheard of and seldom aired songs just blew my mind.

There was one time when I was in my room just jamming out, pretending to be Paul, holding a pretend bass, shaking my head and lip-syncing to All My Loving when Mom walked in. I felt a little foolish. As a young boy I wouldn't have felt embarrassed, however, I was probably 17 then.

At the very early stage of my affinity, I well remember watching a Paul McCartney concert that was broadcast on TV with Dad. It was awesome to see an aged Paul still rock. It had never even occurred to me that The Beatles had grown up. Upon realizing this, I asked what had happened to The Beatles. Dad told me. I was completely heartbroken. My heart actually ached. It was absolutely awful. I feel the same feelings now when it doesn't work out with a girl. This was real heartache. In my mind, The Beatles were like family - my best, most intimate friends.

Many years have passed since I was first introduced to the Fab Four and in those years there were always times of great happiness and times of sorrow and grief and all the times in between. In each of those times, no matter what I felt, The Beatles sang to me. I have loved other groups as well - Led Zeppelin comes in at second, followed by the Grateful Dead and Pink Floyd and others. None of them, however, carry the same emotion, the same feelings that The Beatles do. For instance, just 2 days before I was to leave Nicaragua as a missionary, Let It Be came on the radio as we were in a taxi. I cried. It was such an emotional time. I was ecstatic to be going home but at the same time so sad to leave the people I had grown to love so much. The timeless message sunk deep into my heart as I realized it was my time to move on to a different stage in life.

I know all this may sound pretentious and superfluous; you're entitled to think that. But just today, I put on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and immediately, it was like I was in a different world. And I'm entitled to that world.