Introduce yourself to the forum! | Page 221 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

Oof I’m completely new to forums and all that jazz but I’m excited to be apart of this community! So here goes nothing: 

Hello! My name’s Madison and I’m currently a junior in a high school located in the lovely suburbs of Pittsburgh, PA. I’m a swimmer on my school’s varsity swim team (where at every practice I sing Beatles songs to myself while swimming long laps and doing particularly challenging workouts) and I play the trumpet (Interestingly, Paul’s first instrument) in the marching and jazz band, though I’m currently about to start taking guitar lessons and I’m extremely excited! I’m also the current Literary Editor of my school’s magazine, stage manager for the Drama Club, and a member of Model UN. In my free time (if I have any), I enjoy learning about and immersing myself in the culture and music culture of the ’60s and ’70s (including The Beatles, obviously), watching good TV and movies, and reading books. I’m also an amateur artist, as well as a writer of short stories and poems that I hope to publish one day. Sgt. Pepper ‘s is ~currently~ my favorite Beatles album and I’m extremely looking forward to seeing Ringo in concert this summer!!

[Sorry for the tangent lol]:

My love affair with the Beatles is one that is kind of hard for me to streamline when talking about it linearly, but I’ll try my best! Like nearly all kids of my generation, the Beatles have always been present in the backgrounds of our childhoods. It seems that through all of my life I’ve known Beatles songs, even before I knew the Beatles were a thing that existed. I’ve seemed to always know about Sgt. Peppers and Abbey Road because of how ingrained they are in pop culture, and songs like “Eleanor Rigby ” and “Lucy”  and “Hey Jude ” and “Yesterday ” and “Here Comes The Sun ” and “Come Together ” have always, always been in the back of my mind seemingly since birth! The earliest memory I have of actually knowing where I knew a song from was the Sesame Street CD that my mom played in the car for me that had Elmo’s cover of “Drive My Car ” on it! That’s why it’s hard for me to pinpoint a time in my life where I really “found out” about the Beatles. They’ve just always been a constant, present thing in the culture I was born into (even though no one in my family was or is a Beatlemaniac, though I am in the process of slowly converting my younger sister). Consequently, I can only really pinpoint when and where and how my obsession and absolute pure love and fascination with them catalyzed. It all started in the seventh grade, where I decided that it was about time that I listen to these famous British guys and figure out why Apple Music keeps recommending them to me. Seventh grade was my Emo PhaseTM, so at the start, I wasn’t too keen on listening to this kind of pop and hippy rock n’ roll, but I gave in and downloaded all of their greatest hits and listened. My emo reaction: meh, it’s okay. Which, thinking back on it now, I’m kind of mad at my past self for being so underwhelmed! I don’t know my thoughts or opinions verbatim, but I do know that I gave up trying to become a fan after a couple listens of “Please Please Me ” and “Help ” (the songs, not the albums. 12-year-old me wasn’t so cultured as to listen to entire albums unless it was Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge by My Chemical Romance.) I ended up returning to the Beatles my sophomore year after “Savoy Truffle ” was played on Ezra Koenig’s internet radio show Time Crisis (highly recommend btw if you’re a Deadhead or overall music fanatic, though might be hard to find if you don’t have Apple Music). This rediscovery was further encouraged by my friends at the time, who were casual Beatles fans and made song recommendations. That year, I gave the Beatles another chance, this time through the point-of-view of a new, non-emo me. I already was more familiar and comfortable with classic rock through my newfound and casual love of 70’s rock, as well as my love for Britpop, which introduced me to Beatles-influenced 90’s bands that had a big hand in shaping my musical tastes and inclinations, such as Blur and Oasis. I first fell in love with what is known as The White Album , the first Beatles album that I listened to all the way through when I started my sophomore exploration of the Beatles discography. My friends thought it was an odd place to start, but I did it because I already loved some of the tracks on it (“Happiness Is A Warm Gun ” and “Savoy Truffle ” and “Ob-Lah-Di, Ob-Lah-Da”). I absolutely fell in love with it and for a whole month, it was all that I listened to! I loved the wackiness that was incorporated, it really changed my perspective on the Beatles as artists. “Honey Pie ” and “Martha, My Dear” caught my attention (I love Paul’s “granny” songs), as well as “The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill ” and “Rocky Raccoon ” for being just straight weird. “I Will ” and “Julia ” and “Blackbird ” tugged at my heartstrings tremendously. “While My Guitar Gently Weeps ” especially introduced me to George as a prominent figure. To this day, The White Album is in my top 5 all-time favorite albums. Next, also quite oddly and on a whim, I downloaded the entirety of With The Beatles and then fell in love with that, too. Their second album really made me appreciate the earlier stuff that I brushed away before. I know every track by heart, tracks that I found that most people (even fellow Beatlemaniacs, in my experience) have overlooked. I listened to With the Beatles even more than The White Album . It was on repeat all the time over and over and over again. I started listening to these songs all the time. I was intimidated by the other albums though, scared off by the fact that I might be disappointed. Boy, was I wrong! Last year, I watched the movie Across The Universe and fell in love, which I’ve since watched six times. Then I watched Nowhere Boy, which is what really turned me into a hardcore Beatlemaniac, introducing me to the lore of the Beatles and their mythical backstories and individual lives. I then made it my mission to listen to every single Beatles song– which I did, bringing us to today. I’m a relatively fresh Beatles fan, but I am so so indescribably passionate. Without them in my life right now, I don’t know if I’d be the same person. They’ve changed me forever and I unconditionally love them like a dear friend. I just get so emotional about them and I love them so so much, and I’m excited to be apart of this community that feels the same! I’m gonna end it here because if I continue I’m pretty sure this is gonna turn into a whole book (if it hasn’t already), but I still have so much more to say and talk about, which I’m sure I’ll get a chance to in these wonderful forums! Thank you and I’m excited to be here!