Mind Games
Forty four years ago today, I had a guitar lesson with my uncle’s friend Jim Farmer. My uncle let me borrow his acoustic guitar for the lessons, which cost a mean four bucks for 30 minutes. I had the friends and family rate, otherwise my folks would have had to shell out a whole extra dollar for the half-hour lesson.
There were two music books I was given for the lessons. One was what ever the equivalent of Dick and Jane Learn Guitar was for a 10-year-old in 1980, where I could patiently practice (in theory, in reality I never really practiced at all) the notes to Mary Had a Little Lamb and other non-stop-pop hits of the day. The other book was the Bible though, it was the chords for all the early Beatles songs. I could practice (which, once again, I never did) the chords to Hard Day’s Night or I Saw Her Standing There.
Even at the age of 10, I was fully aware that when it came to the music of the past 20 years, there was the Beatles and then there was everyone else. Partly this was the influence of the culture at large. Sure, the Beatles broke up (officially) on the day I was born, so they were always going to be partly a symbol of a bygone era. On the other hand, the Beatles had broken up only a decade before. Now that I’m much older than 10, I still consider any album that came out a decade ago in 2014 as some kind of newfangled fad for kids.
But the biggest reason the Beatles were THE BEATLES was because of my Uncle Robert of the borrowed guitar and the friend giving me the discounted music lessons. I was an only child, so I couldn’t depend on a big brother or a big brother’s friends to key me into what was cool. My uncle was my mom’s younger brother by a decent amount of years, so he was only about a dozen years older than me. Every cool record or band I discovered before the age of 12 was a result of being able to rifle through his record collection. Alice Cooper, the Stones, Deep Purple’s Made in Japan. Most importantly, the Beatles. And it was more than just flipping through the vinyl. He’d patiently try to explain the difference between Paul’s voice and John’s voice to me. We’d listen to the Beatles in his car as he patiently “babysat” me after school, although to me, it was just hanging out with the coolest guy I knew who just happened to be my uncle. I remember driving through the snow listening to the Beatles A-Z on the local rock station. Watching A Hard Day’s Night and Help at my grandparents house on the giant console TV while he still lived at home.
Eventually, I got my very own Beatles record, the red vinyl double LP 1962-66. For anyone just missing out on the original wave of Beatlemania, the 1962-66 and 1967-70 collections were the Rosetta Stone of Beatles collections, just as the three Double CD Beatles Anthologies probably were for the generation after mine. So I started out as a hardcore Early Beatleser, at some point in my more “sophisticated” teen years pledging my allegiance to the 1967-70 anthology. Now I’m here and back again and could very well believe A Hard Day’s Night is indeed the height of all they accomplished. The Beatles are a vast ocean.
So I vividly remember my guitar lesson of December 8, 1980. My too small hands struggling to slowly strum the magical chords to She Loves You, paying my four dollars and then being picked up by my mom after 30 minutes.
Later that night, of course, John Lennon was killed.
This was the first Titanic news story of my life, the JFK assassination was my parents generation, Lennon was my generation.
It’s been 44 years. A lot of time for reevaluation and evolving tastes and every other thing under the sun. John wasn’t the peace and love ray of sunshine, but who could live up to that. Most of your heroes are going to end up being at least a little bit of an asshole. I’ve learned to appreciate Paul a lot more for trying to keep the whole show on the tracks. George holds a place closer to my heart. Ringo will always be Ringo.
It’s been 44 years. George is gone now too. So is my uncle, one of those heroes who never disappointed.
Paul and Ringo are still here for a little bit longer. One day they won’t be, but their music will be.
Oh yeah, the guitar lessons didn’t last much longer for me. So I didn’t inherit the mantle of Lennon on the December day as I awkwardly stumbled through his chords. That’s okay, somehow, not being all that inclined to competently play music has only made the listening over all these decades all the more magical.