How You Got Into The Beatles | Page 10 | Fab Forum

I got into them by being bored at my friend’s place one day. He put on a Beatles record owned by his mother. It ws Live at the Hollywood Bowl. We just kept listening and listening til we knew it word for word. Bored another day, we decided to form a band, even though none of us could play any instruments, and learnt as we went; always trying to be like the Beatles.

Since I was born in 1962, I don’t remember much about the Beatles when they were together as a group, except how my father “finally” broke down and brought  my older sister (14 at the time) to see Yellow Submarine at the cinema.  She did have the album Meet the Beatles, and I can remember being impressed by the album cover photo. Later, we didn’t have a decent record player when I was a teenager, so I listened to FM Radio.  Not really attracted to disco, I listened to “oldies” stations (WIOF, their slogan “Magic 104”, and WWYZ FM 92) that played music mostly 10 to 20 years old, from the late 50s through the 60s. The second pop record album I ever bought (at age 18) was the British version of Help !, based on the record store dealer’s suggestion that the British versions have better vinyl and more songs per album (although I think I paid around $12 and had to special order, while other American albums were $7.69 at his store). 

I continued to buy albums, including some reprints of the British EP’s that had songs not on albums. But what really made me a bigger Beatles fan came with the 1982 or 1983 radio program called “The Beatles: The Days in Their Life.” This was a 30 hour program for radio that started with the Liverpool days and played each song from each album/EP/single in the order they were issued, giving the stories behind them. It even included Decca outtakes like My Bonnie , and other obscure things like their version of How Do You Do It , and Sie Liebt Dich , all the Christmas greeting recordings for the fan club, etc. They were connected by a running narrative of how their popularity grew, with interviews from the Beatles, Brian Epstein, George Martin, one of their guitar instructors, Pete Best’s mother, Cavern Club goers, Tony Barrow, Derek Taylor. And about a year later came Peter Brown’s book, which I bought and read. This was all in my college days, when all I really spent money on was music and stereo systems. Near the campus we had a repertory theater that showed Let It Be , A Hard Days’ Night, and Yellow Submarine .  I can even remember a Saturday night when my roommate and I played I Am The Walrus and Revolution #9 backward on the turntable, creeping us out as it “confirmed” the Paul Is Dead rumors.