I was sitting with my family, enjoying the 50th anniversary of the Beatles on CBS, when I heard Paul McCartney say those words. He was telling the story of how he and John Lennon were writing the song “I Saw Her Standing There.” Seeing this legend talking about writing such a timeless song like it had only happened yesterday was very surreal. It felt like someone saying, “I remember when we wrote Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”
Saying this out loud prompted my dad to chime in. He remembered the first time he heard the Beatles. He watched them on the Ed Sullivan show with 73 million other Americans. Like the rest of America, he was instantly hooked, and proceeded to rebel against his parents by soaking up every bit of Beatles he could. My mom first heard Obladi-Oblada in Venezuela, before she came over. It’s still her favorite Beatles song, and one of her favorites of all time. But, hard as I tried, I couldn’t think of the first Beatles song I heard.
I definitely remember the songs. I know them as well as my abc’s and my jingle bells. I imagine I heard it was while I sitting in the car with my mom, listening to the oldies station, being way too young to appreciate good music and wishing that she’d change it to radio Disney or something like that. I’m told was an Elvis kid anyways, so at least I wasn’t too far off on the good music spectrum.
Regardless, I know now how much they influenced everything else I love. All the other songs by all those other bands were all inspired by the Beatles. Even I’m inspired by them in my songwriting.
Never in my wildest dreams will I ever be as good of a song writer as Paul or John, nor as good at guitar as George. Hell, I’m probably never even going to be a Ringo. (Who I still love by the way. He puts on one hell of a show.)
But that’s alright. We all need our musical gods to worship and aspire to. Our musical saviors, so to speak. Not that anyone has made that comparison before. 🙂
-Gonnamove
Shame on The Universe 
What do you think?