A 1965 teenager

As I've mentioned before, I don't believe that vinyl sounds better:  instead, I enjoy the ritual of it, plus imaging that the (used) LP I'm playing was listened to by someone else ten, twenty, thirty years ago.

Case in point:  today I picked up the Beatles album Help! -- not a reissue - for AU$25 (about US$20).  There's light scuffing (but no scratches), and the cover has some minor damage -- so it's not of "collectable" quality.  Still totally playable, of course. 

It's a good album -- I really like most of the songs (and the rest are good, as well:  no clunkers).  It's the third(?) CD I bought (at least among the first five):  #1 was a Devo live album, and #2 was Tom Petty's Full Moon Fever album.

I can imagine a teenager, 1965-ish, having saved up his or her allowance, sitting on the bedroom floor listening to this.

--GG

Open letter to Paul McCartney and Ringo and all songwriters

I live in Australia -- so December is actually during the summer -- so people keep their windows open (unless they have the windows open).

As I waited for the train this morning, to commute to work, I heard a pair of young children singing -- loudly! -- "Yellow Submarine".  I did a quick web search:  it was released in 1966 -- a few years before **I** was born, and at least a full generation -- probably 46 years before those kids were born.

And yet:  they knew the song.


That must to amazingly gratifying as a songwriter or recording artist (Paul, Ringo) -- to have little children singing, unprompted, a song you recorded nearly half a century ago.

Your song is embedded in popular culture.

Can't get much better than that.


--GG

I wish

I had loaded some Beatles songs onto the kids' mp3 players. I had also loaded some of the songs that I wrote and recorded. 

Boy #2  asked me who did “Yellow Submarine”. I told him that it was by the Beatles.

A little while later one of my songs came on. He asked me, “Are you part of the Beatles band?”

I wish.:)


--GG