With The Beatles

某ブログでビートルズの話を読んで思い出したので。

I don't remember the exact situation but my very first encounter with the sound played by foreign musicians was The Beatles.  My sister borrowed from the fiance of our cousin a set of cassettes which recorded the radio show that played the complete Beatles sounds.  Yes, the complete set of their musics from Please Please Me to Abbey Road.

I feel fine, All my loving, A hard days night and Can't buy me love.  Those songs literally rocked and rolled me and it made me completely tired of those pop songs by cute Japanese girls when I was, I believe, 11 or 12 years old.

My sister also bought (or borrowed?) a paperback that simply printed all the lyrics of the Beatles songs, again from Please Please Me to Abbey Road.  The book and the songs were THE English text book from which I learned most "English language" I think I have now.

I remember the quiz at an English class in the high school when our teacher challenged her students to create an English statement that used the syntax that went "Subject verb object doing something" at the end of the class.  My answer was "The song I like best in the Beatles repertoire is "I Saw Her Standing There".".  A few others also answered "I saw her standing there" and it was funny when we saw her surprised that many of us wrote the same phrase and she did not know the song.  She then read my answer and knew what happened.

To my surprise, I sometimes found myself understanding at last what a song was describing, even in the last month, when I was listening to "Livin' On A Prayer" by Bon Jovi on my iPod, I was actually listening to Ob la di ob la da.  It was like a movie in my head that the old guy was sitting on his couch while his wife was out at the bar singing rock and roll.  He may have lost his job at the dock and she may have dreamed of running away, but baby it's okay, someday.

Happy ever after in the market place, Molly lets the children lend a hand

Desmond stays at home and does his pretty face

And in the evening she still sings it with the band

Life goes on, how the life goes on.

Will you still be sending me a Valentine, birthday greetings, a bottle of wine ...

Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm sixty four.

Happy Valentine's Day.