It's nice to see some fans of Lewis Carroll here. I don't know if you're aware that those books have a special connection with The Beatles. John and Paul were both big fans of his books. They were inspiration for some of their lyrics (like the Walrus), Paul had little statues of Alice characters in his garden at Cavendish, and he gave John a first edition of "Alice in Wonderland" as a gift. But that's off-topic; this is supposed to be about how we discovered The Beatles. Here's my story:
I was a little kid when they came to America. I was probably the only person living then that didn't see their debut on the Ed Sullivan Show. But I had to watch my older cousins go crazy over them. I thought they were very silly (my cousins, that is) but I did find their songs very catchy, especially "I Want To Hold Your Hand" and "I Saw Her Standing There."
Then, when I was a bit older, one of my brothers bought Rubber Soul and Yesterday and Today. I fell in love with their music, especially the acoustic guitar songs. My sister was an alto and I was a very strained soprano. We would work out the harmonies on songs like "If I Fell", and anticipating the advent of Beatles Rock Band by 40 years, we used croquet mallets as pretend guitars to play along to tunes like "We Can Work It Out." Eventually I got a real guitar and, armed with a thick Beatles songbook, taught myself to play. I could even do a reasonable version of "Blackbird." I have to confess Paul was always my favorite, not because he was the Cute Beatle (ok, it was a little bit of that) but because I always loved his songs and his voice.
By the time I went off to college, however, it wasn't cool to like The Beatles or Paul McCartney. I was listening to completely different music. Eventually, like many baby boomers, I realized that the new stuff coming out just didn't have the transformative effect on me that music in the 60's had. There would be an album once in awhile that captured my imagination, but it was never quite the same. Music became much less important in my life.
Then a few years ago I was faced with months of medical treatment and recuperation. I decided to make a playlist of all my very favorite music to help get me through it. Most artists, I discovered, had just one or maybe two songs worthy of my playlist. My very favorite groups, like The Who, the Doors, and Buffalo Springfield, got 4 to 6 songs. But when it came to The Beatles, I discovered that I couldn't narrow down my list to just 6. Heck, I couldn't even do a top 20! As I listened to their music I realized that they were in a class by themselves, and always will be. So I became a fangirl all over again.
