For the last couple of years, I’ve actively avoided listening to The Beatles. I have to do that every so often, because the sounds are so familiar, so thoroughly blended into my brain chemistry, that they can turn into sonic wallpaper unless I deliberately put some distance between myself and the music.<\/p>\n
Every time I go back to the *oeuvre*, as I have recently, it surprises me which songs exert the strongest attraction. This round, it’s the older, scruffier work — the sheer exuberance of “She Loves You” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand”, Ringo’s cow bell and Lennon’s menacing lead vocal on “You Can’t Do That”, the cheesy but endearing sentimentalism of “P.S. I Love You”, and the\u00c2\u00a0group’s astonishing leap in sophistication — lyrically, musically, thematically, technically, even vocally\u00c2\u00a0–\u00c2\u00a0between those early recordings and, say,\u00c2\u00a0“Ticket to Ride”, only a year or so\u00c2\u00a0later.<\/p>\n
The Fabs were inspirational to me as more than just music. The way they approached their art — as a living, growing, ever-evolving, ever-changing endeavor — has been the way I’ve chosen to approach my work as a writer. (Not that I’ve ever created anything nearly as memorable as “Ticket to Ride”, let alone the walruses, racoons, and warm, happy guns that were soon to follow.)<\/p>\n
No big point here, or anything. I just wanted to jot down a few words on the subject because listening again made me smile.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For the last couple of years, I’ve actively avoided listening to The Beatles. I have to do that every so often, because the sounds are so familiar, so thoroughly blended into my brain chemistry, that they can turn into sonic wallpaper unless I deliberately put some distance between myself and the music. Every time I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/stevegerber.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/stevegerber.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/stevegerber.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stevegerber.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stevegerber.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/stevegerber.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/stevegerber.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stevegerber.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stevegerber.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}