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I'm pleasantly surprised at how many 30-somethings have raised their hands in this thread.  Always a bit fascinating to me, really, because a) I'm in that category myself (turning 31 next weekend, mates), and b) for some time I've labored under the assumption that I was an anomaly for being a BeatleHead despite the fact that I was born a solid decade after they'd ceased to be a band.  I like hearing how other people my age managed to discover the lads from Liverpool, how we ended up getting sucked into Beatlemania years after it was popular.

I discovered The Beatles when I was 11, and The Disney Channel started playing “A Hard Days Night” as part of their regular movie line-up.  Much like George Martin, I suppose, I was drawn to their personalities – especially their wit and humor – which, let's admit it, are very accurately portrayed in that movie.  I found out a short time later that my dad had been a BeatleHead in the late 60s and early 70s, and he showed me his collection of US-release vinyls (Meet the Beatles, Beatles '65, The Beatles Second Album, Yesterday and Today, Hey Jude , etc)

That Christmas, I was given my first guitar, and I promptly set about borrowing The Beatles CDs from the library, putting them on cassette, and playing along in my room.  Musically, as a guitarist, I cut my teeth on The Beatles – I would play along with those tapes for hours and hours on end.

I can still remember the tingly feeling I got when I heard “Blackbird ” for the first time, and how I searched frantically for any fellow guitar player who could teach me the proper fingerings.  The gentleman who finally did teach it to me will always be a hero of mine (even if he did get a few of the voicings wrong, as I would discover years later).

From learning the music and watching the movies, I moved pretty quickly to reading books about them.  I think it was a full-blown obsession at that point: I had to know everything there was to know about their recording sessions, their lives behind the scenes, the inspirations for their songs – it was all deathly important and fascinating.

Along with The Beatles, and through their influence, I came to love the music of that era: Simon and Garfunkel, The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, The Monkees, The Byrds – you know the rest.  I listened to the local oldies station almost exclusively until I was about 16.

Like Alissa, I've lived with the blessing and curse of being an “old soul”.  I've gotten used to people being unaware of what I'm referencing when, for example, I step outside into a cold winter chill and – almost instinctively – say, “It's cold … it's a cold place.”  The few people in my life that share, to whatever degree, my love of The Beatles have invariably become my closest and most enduring friends.

About me: obviously, I'm a musician.  Guitar and piano mostly (I learned piano by figuring out how to chunk out guitar chords on the keys, starting with “Let it Be” and “Hey Jude “), although I can survive on most any fretted instrument (bass, mandolin, uke, whatever).  And as a songwriter, I also have a long-standing love affair with words and word-play (Lennon's books were nearly a spiritual discovery).  Thus, my two main hobbies: music and writing.  By day, I work in technology (web site development, programming, project management, and other sorts of stuff that happens while I'm busy making other plans).

After reading Joe's mini-bio here, I think I'd like to meet him someday.  I'm sure we'd get along fabulously. 🙂

Oh, and Alissa: I'm not Canadian, but I did live there for a few years.  I like to think that I'm an honorary citizen, because I know about the Loonie and the Toonie, the superior candy selection, the wild range of potato chip flavors, and milk-in-a-bag.  I credit Canada for my present-day habit of putting cream in my tea (something no decent US citizen would think of doing on his own).

Joe said:

A fellow ukulele player too.

Well, let's not get crazy.  I only said I could survive on the uke if I needed to, not that I'm an actual uke player. 🙂

I will admit, I cheat when it comes to the other instruments.  I've had to play both mandolin and banjo in an orchestral setting, and I managed to pull it off by re-tuning both instruments to match standard guitar tuning.  I say it's legit – it's the tone and timbre they were after, so no one would have cared how I tuned the little buggers.

McLerristarr said:

I dislike war, organised religion, fascism and American spelling (sorry to any religious people or Americans – no offence intended!).

It’s spelled “offense”.  Make a note of it.

(Only kidding, of course.  Welcome to the forum!)