Did John break the Beatles?<\/p>\n
Last week I heard "I’ll Follow The Sun" on XM.<\/p>\n
I loved "Beatles ’65".\u00c2\u00a0 It coincided with seventh grade, bar mitzvah parties
and my addiction to skiing.<\/p>\n
Actually, I got the album for Hanukkah.\u00c2\u00a0 Not that I needed a special occasion
to acquire it.\u00c2\u00a0 I would have scraped together the $2.52 from my bookcase to
buy the album at Korvette’s, you see you NEEDED the Beatle albums, EVERYBODY
had them.\u00c2\u00a0 If you went to somebody’s house and they didn’t own each and every
record, you judged them negatively, they were completely OUT OF IT!<\/p>\n
But there were two I ultimately never bought.\u00c2\u00a0 Until I was in my thirties.\u00c2\u00a0
Because they just weren’t good values.<\/p>\n
One was "Something New".\u00c2\u00a0 Which seemed redundant since I already owned "A
Hard Day’s Night".<\/p>\n
The other was "Beatles VI".\u00c2\u00a0 I mean I already owned the single of "Eight Days
A Week".<\/p>\n
But, it turns out that "Beatles VI" has my favorite Beatle song ever, "Every
Little Thing".<\/p>\n
What a perfect confection.\u00c2\u00a0 The intro ALONE!\u00c2\u00a0 Never mind the acoustic guitar,
Ringo’s steady drumbeat and the bass.\u00c2\u00a0 But the reason I melt every time I
hear it is John Lennon’s voice.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s not just singing the words, he feels them,
he means them.<\/p>\n
You know how it is when your best friend knocks on your door in the middle of
night, bursting with the story of meeting a girl?\u00c2\u00a0 THAT’S what "Every Little
Thing" sounds like.<\/p>\n
"Every Little Thing" appears on the English equivalent of "Beatles ’65",
"Beatles For Sale".\u00c2\u00a0 It’s the CD of theirs I play most.<\/p>\n
It’s got that other gem from "Beatles VI", "What You’re Doing", with another
heartfelt, no, EMOTIONAL, vocal from John.<\/p>\n
And "No Reply" and "I’m A Loser" from "Beatles ’65".<\/p>\n
We watched John Lennon grow up.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s hard to believe the guy singing for
peace only half a decade later could have even WRITTEN "Every Little Thing".\u00c2\u00a0 But
as you grow older you see things, you gain experience, and nothing ages you
more quickly than traveling the world in a constantly glaring spotlight.<\/p>\n
And all these years later, it’s the latter-day John Lennon that is the icon.\u00c2\u00a0
The guy who revealed his inner pain, and stood up for what he thought was
right.<\/p>\n
But listen to the early records.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s fascinating.\u00c2\u00a0 The conundrum.\u00c2\u00a0 A
cynical man who believed in the power of music.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve seen the footage.\u00c2\u00a0
Even from ’64.\u00c2\u00a0 Lennon was cheeky.\u00c2\u00a0 Challenging interviewers.\u00c2\u00a0 He had no patience for ignorance and just by being himself he could piss people off.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, remember
the controversy he sparked by saying the Beatles were bigger than Jesus?\u00c2\u00a0
Which, in an era when "Time" asked if God was dead on its cover, was true.\u00c2\u00a0 But
this same guy, he could sing directly from his heart.\u00c2\u00a0 In elation.\u00c2\u00a0 As an opened
wound.\u00c2\u00a0 There was no filter.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s this John Lennon who hooked us.\u00c2\u00a0 Who broke
the Beatles.<\/p>\n
Oh, I don’t want to denigrate Paul McCartney’s talent.\u00c2\u00a0 But we didn’t BELIEVE
in Paul.\u00c2\u00a0 He was cute, you could fall in love with him, but you didn’t think
he’d understand you, that you could truly BE him.<\/p>\n
Not that I formulated this theory until yesterday.<\/p>\n
I was on the floor in Felice’s house, doing my back exercises, and "Please
Please Me" came over XM’s Sixties on 6 being broadcast via her iMac.<\/p>\n
Oh, I know every nuance, but it was never one of my favorites.\u00c2\u00a0 Then I heard
"Come on"…\u00c2\u00a0 There’s this way John sang gutturally.\u00c2\u00a0 From deep down inside
himself.\u00c2\u00a0 An honest wink to the audience’s heart.\u00c2\u00a0 On the surface it was just a
pop song.\u00c2\u00a0 But in reality, it was much more.\u00c2\u00a0 It was another human being
TESTIFYING!<\/p>\n
Then again, "Please Please Me" wasn’t the first American hit.\u00c2\u00a0 That was "I
Want To Hold Your Hand".\u00c2\u00a0 Then I thought of the exact same part.\u00c2\u00a0 An element of
that song that ENRAPTURED US!\u00c2\u00a0 That made us true believers.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s the bridge…<\/p>\n
And when I touch you I feel happy inside Actually, my ten year old sensibility filtered through the speaker in the By time John goes back into the verse, we’re sold, we’re on the bus.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Did John break the Beatles? Last week I heard "I’ll Follow The Sun" on XM. I loved "Beatles ’65".\u00c2\u00a0 It coincided with seventh grade, bar mitzvah parties and my addiction to skiing. Actually, I got the album for Hanukkah.\u00c2\u00a0 Not that I needed a special occasion to acquire it.\u00c2\u00a0 I would have scraped together the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-3v","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
It’s such a feeling that my love I CAN’T HIDE, I CAN’T HIDE, I CAN’T HIDE!<\/em><\/p>\n
dash of my mother’s Falcon told me the lyric was "I get HIVES!", but it didn’t
make a difference.\u00c2\u00a0 Frankie Valli was singing with power, but this guy MEANT IT
in a way that nobody else on the radio did.<\/p>\n
like the coolest guy you’ve ever known has opened up his heart and invited you
to be a member of his club.\u00c2\u00a0 I’d say why the fuck not, but the truth is this
sound, the way he sang "I can’t hide", the same way he sang "Come on", which we
heard AFTER, it was IRRESISTIBLE!<\/p>\n