Which Beatle Songs Were Playing During Happenings In Your Life? | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

My dad was not a fan of the Beatles music. I think that the only song he had ever willingly listened was Something (the version sung by Sinatra). When he passed away the funeral was held at the Catholic church he had attended for the last 5 years of his life. Instead of a choir, the services featured a small musical group consisting of 3 singers and a guitarist. During the funeral one of the songs they performed was Let It Be . I thumbed through the hymnal book and found it, so it must have been at least occasionally sung by the congregation during regular service. Unfortunately the composer was credited as Traditional, so I’ll never know if he realized he was singing a Beatles song.

I was in a rock band in the mid-sixties. The father of our rhythm guitarist (Doug) was an officer in the US Army. Each member of the band picked a song to learn/play and he chose a song named The Ballad of the Green Berets. This song was popular on the radio and was kind of a patriotic dirge built around military style drumming. First verse:

Fighting Soldiers from the sky
Fearless men who jump and die
Men who mean just what they say
The brave men of the Green Beret

Definitely not a dance song. We all disliked playing it and harmonizing behind Doug’s vocal, but a deals a deal. At the very last drumbeat of the song, the lead guitarist would twang his guitar as hard as he could (think Hard Days Night with a strong measure of whammy bar) and we would go into Day Tripper (yeah) and the party would start again. That moment became a smiley smile insider thing for the band and I even started to look forward to it. Doug wasn’t to thrilled the first few times, but he eventually loosened up as well. We would all hit that first line hard; “GOT A GOOD REASON FOR TAKING THE EASY WAY OUT”. I was never in another band, but still remember the thrill of kids dancing to our bands stuff. 

For the summer of 1971 I was driving a 1964 VW Bug (the model with the little moon roof). It came with the original AM radio, so I bought a used 4-track tape deck at the flea market. The deck came with one tape, Let It Be . I always planned to get some more tapes but by then everyone was switching to  8-track and 4-track was hard to find. Once we were on a road trip to Yosemite and a friend brought along a few tapes. Incredibly the tape had been in the deck for so long it was stuck. So that summer I listened to the Let It Be album almost every day. For some reason the only song that still stimulates that memory is I Me Mine , especially the guitar solo. Unfortunately the car was totaled that fall and the last time I saw the deck it was hanging sideways outside of the glove compartment (tape still stuck). Even getting broadsided by a two ton pickup truck could not dislodge that Let It Be tape.

After Sgt. Pepper was released there was a lot of curiosity about how the Beatles were going to perform live. Though widely known now that they had quit the road, it certainly was not known then. Many people thought that the format of the Pepper album (the crowd noise at the beginning, introducing Billy Shears, “We’d love to turn you on”) hinted at a perhaps more intimate/theatrical stage show sans the Beatlemania. So a few weeks later when it was announced that the Beatles would take part in the first worldwide satellite broadcast, I was excited that I would finally get my answers; first among them, would they appear in costume as the Lonely Hearts Club Band? So for several hours on a Sunday afternoon I waited through each countries presentation (as I remember things like opera, folk dancing, and urban planning). * Finally the first strains of the French National Anthem play and then there they were, “Love, love, love”. I dug All You Need Is Love and bought the single the first day available (one of the few I still have because I put the picture sleeve and 45 in my scrapbook) but the performance confused me. No group shots, everyone seated, John without a guitar… So no answers about future live shows could be derived from the broadcast, but at least there was a live audience that wasn’t screaming. 

*It should be said, prior to the internet things were a lot different. Now if you miss something on tv you can catch it again the next day. In the 60s if you missed something that was it, you were out of luck. In fact I never saw this broadcast video again until Anthology was released 25 years later. Martha (or maybe Pepperish) asked me once why I attach so many pictures to my posts. In the 60s the only pictures you had access to were ones you cut out of magazines or the newspaper (posters were swell as well). They were a precious commodity that you coveted and enjoyed sharing with your friends. So now being able to have almost every picture ever taken of the Beatles available at will is something I have no power to resist.

I remember peeking in on the forum a year or so ago and reading a discussion regarding sexual orientation (I believe it started with a comparison of health class curriculum). I think it is the result of a real cultural Revolution that there are so many categories and personal choices. One of my favorites is Emma Watson, who describes herself as self-partnered. This is a great response to give if trying to explain your sexual preferences and you just don’’t wanna (so nonthreatening-love Emma).

For most of the sixties, the sexual mores of he 50s were still in place and men were in charge. There was a certain order of conduct and contact between the sexes that traditionally lead to various degrees of intimacy (the unwritten 3 date rule was a thing). Couples would go steady after that which meant a commitment a bit above boyfriend/girlfriend. Should note- for any of the LGBTQ categories, coming out was not an option unless you wanted to be shunned or subjected to violence. I had a male friend come out to me on his HS graduation night. Once he realized I was not shocked he opened up about what was going on behind the scenes with that community. He was on the track team and he asked me if I ever noticed anything odd. He pointed out there wasn’t a single person on the team that played another sport and they hadn’t placed in one race the entire year. I’m sure stories like this were common throughout the world.

As the sixties went on a few things started to change. Probably number one was the availability of birth control pills. This gave females a lot more control over their sexuality. The feminist/liberation movements also made the 50s traditions seem archaic. At my high school this all seemed to come together overnight. As the 60s ended so did the dress code for women, who until that time had to wear dresses (of a certain length) or they would be sent home. I think of that amazing day (hundreds of years of convention abandoned) as the beginning of the changes that are common now.

It was in this environment that a girl in my class (who I knew through a friend) asked if I was going to the large Moratorium Day anti-war march in San Francisco. I was and she offered a place to stay (her brother was out of town) in exchange for a ride. Note-I identified as heterosexual with a strong leaning toward the romantic. My ethereal ideal was expressed in the song Here, There And Everywhere (to love her is to need her everywhere). However the actual physical scenario I desired was perfectly conveyed in the Beach Boy’s song Wouldn’t It Be Nice.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could wake up
In the morning when the day is new?
And after having spent the day together
Hold each other close the whole night through?

So we drove up to San Francisco Friday evening and got to the apartment pretty late. Saturday was the march and there were a ton of people there and we heard a lot of inspiring speeches and sang Give Peace A Chance many times. Sunday there was a large concert planned in Golden Gate Park, so we headed back to the apartment. The pad was like walking into the intro to Within You Without You ; walls covered with tapestries depicting Hindu deities and  permeated with the smell of sandalwood incense, ceremonial tea set arranged on a redwood slab. The place was stocked with food and drink. Usually staying in SF for a march would mean sleeping at a crash pad, so this was very unusual. We made dinner, drank and smoked, played records, and talked Revolution into the night. There was a water bed with a huge sheep skin rug on top. When morning came I felt like I was living WIBNice, that feeling like your life has just begun and you are walking on clouds. We held hands all day, went to the concert, and drove home where I dropped her off with a kiss. That was the last time I ever spoke to her other than a passing hello. I guess the last thing in the world she was looking for was a relationship (or maybe she was already in one). For me up until then, I really thought I was the type of person who could not have the feelings those songs promise without the presence of LOVE (or even luv). The whole experience made me take a hard look at myself and in particular I learned to watch out for my heart. When you are young it is usually a good idea to keep an open mind because well, unless you can truly perfect the art of self-partnering things will happen. As Tom Paxton sang:

It’s a lesson too late for the learning
Made of sand, made of sand
In the wink of an eye my soul is turnin’
In your hand, in your hand

Anyone who has participated in an end of life vigil knows it isn’t like in the movies. There aren’t final speeches, a candle lighting, perhaps a prayer or a song, a person closing their eyes and the end arriving. More often the experience unfolds over a period of time and whatever you may have planned becomes less of a focus. My brother’s wife was a victim of leukemia and after several remissions, bone marrow transplant and several experimental treatments had sadly run out of options. Because she had been given untested drugs the hospital could not release her to a hospice setting. There was a wing that was set up for final care patients. The lights were set low and everyone including the nurses spoke in a whisper. All of the patients were DNR so the sound on the monitors was set very low, all you could hear was a very quiet beep…beep…beep. My brothers and I share a spiritual connection to a Moody Blues album named Seventh Sojourn, so  we determined that would be the perfect music to go (as in one of the lyrics) “Beyond the reach of the nightmare come true“. For the first 24 hours or so we played that CD through her headphones near constantly. Occasionally her breathing would become slow and we would gather around her holding hands. Each time she would recover and the process went on. The second day I went down to my car to find some other CDs. Most of what I had was inappropriately loud, but I did have a copy of Wild Life that we started playing for her. Finally late on the second night her breathing got very shallow. We could barely hear Tomorrow through the headphones; Oh, baby, don’t let me down tomorrow/Holding hands we both abandon sorrow. When she stopped breathing the beeping stopped and changed to a solid hum. The nurse came in confirmed she was gone and switched off the equipment. The last sound she heard on this earth was Paul singing Oh, for a chance to get away tomorrow. I hope it brought her some peace.