My turn.
When I was a kid, my aunt gave me a bunch of singles, and when we got home I sat on my bedroom floor in front of a little cheap record player. I remember it was red, probably looked something like this.
Anyway, I played one platter after the other, but I can’t tell you what they were because they failed to leave an impression.
But there’s one, just one… I slide this 45 onto the player without looking at it, gently placed needle to groove, and “KAPOW!” when I heard those notes, the instruments and blended voices, it was like lightning exploded inside my skull.
It’s difficult to describe how it shook me, how in awe I was, but by the end of the song I knew I’d found what I was looking for (without knowing I was searching for it in the first place). Pressed on vinyl I found the thing that changed the course of my life. At that moment 2 things were clear: I knew I needed to hear more of these Beatles. And I needed to get a guitar, write my own songs and make my own cellarful of noise.
My first, an old Washburn acoustic, looked like this…
I remember once going to a guitar clinic thingy, and the host’s talking about how all us guys (because it was all guys) would stand in front of the mirror and practice posing with our guitars, trying to look cool to impress the girls… and I’m thinking, “No, no, no, that’s not how it was for me!” Everyone’s laughing, but I’m not relating to this at all. Music gave me a voice (I was painfully shy), when I heard Lennon singing “Nowhere Man” it was like getting permission to bare your soul. You mean, when I feel like a loser or a nothing, I can put all that hurt and frustration into a song just like he did? Posing in front of a mirror would have felt like cheapening the gift.
I love the Beatles, their personalities, and the craft that went into making that music - I treasure how they were there for me through the years (their songs matured along with their fans - the screaming 13-year-old girls grew up and went to college, and the music evolved with them, from Beatlemania to Peppers to Abbey Road). When life was hell, they made it bearable. When I felt like celebrating, their sound was the sound of that celebration, and if I was around a girl who left me tongue tied, it was their lyrics I turned to for help There’s a lot of things that mattered to me in entertainment, MST3K among them, but nothing meant as much as The Beatles.
Where it all began - my first Beatles single.