Beatley Moments | Page 84 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

At work the other day, I had “Abbey Road ” playing in the stereo.  This guy came in, who I absolutely can’t stand.  The guy is just insufferable, a total jerk all the time for no reason.  I try to serve him as little as possible and let my suck-up slut of an assistant manager deal with him.     He’s a drummer and he thinks he’s hot s**t for that, too.  Anyways, so he’s at the counter, and “Come Together ” is playing.  He states, all cocky, “This is Paul McCartney “.   I’m like, “Actually, it’s The Beatles..  and it’s John Lennon ‘s song“.  BAM!    Man, I love burning a******s like him!  

I just remembered something that happened about a year ago. I was at my cousin’s house, and I was talking to her. I brought up The Beatles, and she got mad. She said stuff like, “I don’t like The Beatles! They stole Yellow Submarine from that kids’ songs CD! And they made a bunch of money off of the stolen song!” Or something like that. We got into a huge discussion about when The Beatles recorded Yellow Submarine and when the kids’ songs CD was made and other songs that The Beatles “stole.” Eventually, I convinced her that The Beatles came first.

This memory I’m going to describe was a combination of weird, vaguely unpleasant, and fascinating.  One day at the end of the school year near the beginning of summer, I’m sitting in the college library way up high on the 5th floor at a window seat.  It’s quiet (as a library should be) and I’m reading.  Then I hear the metallic sounds of someone slowly unchaining a bicycle way down below outside on ground level.  Presently, whoever it is starts singing “Oh Darling” — very slow cadence, and very deep baritone.  After a line or two, I could have sworn it was an acquaintence of mine, a fellow student.  The more the song went along, the more I was convinced it was that guy.  I knew he had recently gone through a terrible break-up with his girlfriend.  So it became clear that he was singing this to express his pain.  But the singing was very slow and emotionless, almost like a robot, and very deep baritone — and VERY LOUD.

It soon occurred to me that he was singing this song, and so loudly, because he knew his ex-gf was somewhere inside the library within earshot.  I sat there, not wanting to leave my comfortable little nook I had myself planted in, but also not wanting to suffer hearing the ENTIRE SONG.  I also felt a sense of acute embarrassment for my acquaintence for some reason.  (The windows were sealed shut, no way to lean my head out and shout out “shut the #*@(&$ up!).  So, I just sat there until it was over.  And it took me a few minutes to get that out of my head so I could get back to my studies.

I might have told this before here (but I’m too lazy to look).  Back in the 1970s, I was standing at a bus stop in a dreary part of the city, the sky was grey and bleak, and everyone was just standing there waiting for the bus looking glum.  Then these two young black guys came strutting by, singing “All the lonely people, where do they all come from”.  Couldn’t help but surmise that they were pointedly taking a dig at all these sad white folks.

How about “Why Don’t We Do It In The Road?”