Well, it’s that time of the year again. The holiday season has been sprung upon us, and for many music fans young and old, that often means gifts of Beatles products. I remember one of my best Christmases ever was when I received LP copies of Abbey Road and Let It Be one year when I was but a young teenager. And so, the cycle seems to continue as my nephew, who is currently 12 years old, expressed an interest in the band himself last year when he purchased his mom a copy of the Beatles’ CD 1 last year. He’s approximately the same age that I was when I began my excursion into the Fab Four’s music, so I figured the time was just right to get him into the most influential band ever.

When I started out, it was with Rock And Roll Music Volume I that I picked up cheap simply because I wanted to hear the Beatles’ version of “Money (That’s What I Want)”, a song I had always enjoyed. But greater thrills awaited me beyond that song. I remember how thrilled I was to figure out that “I Saw Her Standing There” was by The Beatles (it had always been a favorite tune of mine, but I didn’t know who had done it up to that point), that “Kansas City/Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey” really rocked, and that “Rock and Roll Music” and “Roll Over Beethoven” were presented here in two of the best cover versions ever. Needless to say after that point, I expressed my need to hear more Beatles music to my mom who was delighted at the prospect and began my “official” journey as it were with 1962-1966 (or the “Red Album” as it has come to be known).

For my nephew, I decided to just go the album route, to introduce him to the Beatles via a couple of their complete works, and not by a singles collection. After all, I figured he had gotten a good taste of the band through 1, so it seemed like a good a time as any to get more than his feet wet. I decided to start him off with Revolver and Sgt. Pepper. Personally, the White Album is my favorite Beatles album, but his mom already had that for the family on CD. So I remembered how blown away I was when I first heard Sgt. Pepper. I still think it’s an album you need to sit down and experience as a complete work your very first time through. At the time of my first experience with the record, I recall being so happy that I hadn’t ruined the trip by having heard the selections taken from it on the 1967-1970 collection.

To get lost in “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds”, or “Fixing A Hole”, or “Lovely Rita”, or “A Day In The Life” and feel it like it was the first time again is an enviable position to be in. Oh, I had heard some of those songs before on the radio, like “Lucy”, but to hear them in their complete context was just stupefying. I had seen how the album was made time and time again on the biopic The Compleat Beatles, but to finally hear “Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite” and the opening cue of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” finally let me in on the great secrets. Sgt. Pepper might not be the best album the Beatles created, but it damn sure remains a wonderful piece of music, and one that still captures the hearts and imaginations of many music fans.

Revolver seemed like a no-brainer. At least when comparing it with Rubber Soul. It at least held a bit more excitement for me when I first heard it as a kid. There’s just something downright sinister about the proceedings, whether it be in the backwards guitar of Lennon’s beautiful “I’m Only Sleeping”, or the creepy imagery that saturates McCartney’s “Eleanor Rigby”, Revolver is chock full with memorable characters and sounds. I can only imagine what my nephew’s reaction might be the first time he hears “Tomorrow Never Knows” for the first time. Or how about “She Said, She Said”, even? I recall feeling very odd when I first heard that line, “You’re making me feel like I’ve never been born”. It struck me as surreal and profound all at once. But then there’s also the fun of “Yellow Submarine”, the soul of “Got To Get You Into My Life”, and the oft-imitated, never duplicated perfection of “Good Day Sunshine”. Ah hell, you know what I mean. You’ve probably been there yourself as much as I have.

It’s still just amazing how much the Beatles influence people from all over the world. And if you find yourself really enjoying their music, then you might often find yourself listening to nothing but during those initial excursions into their albums. Yes, these guys fucking created whole chunks of rock and roll as we know it today. This why I can never understand people who say “I hate the Beatles”. What is there to hate? Seriously. You might not like everything the band did, or even most of it, but the Beatles were the band that had at least one song that could be enjoyed by most anyone. They had the throw away love songs like “She Loves You”; they had introspective work like “In My Life” and “I’m Looking Through You”; they had weird, beautiful things like “Rain” and “Paperback Writer”, and “I Feel Fine”; they had silly, fun things like “You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)” and “I Am The Walrus”; they had furious rock like “Helter Skelter” and “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”; and then they had the songs that everybody knows like “Get Back” and “Come Together”.

They also had George Harrison, who recently passed away at the age of 58. For my money, George had the best song of all on Rubber Soul with “If I Needed Someone”. Without Harrison, would there have been the trip to India that resulted in all the great songs that formed the White Album? I think “Long, Long, Long” is not only often overlooked, but also better than “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”. His trilogy of songs that appear on Revolver are also exceptional. “The Inner Light” was the best of his sitar-based songs, and “It’s All Too Much” from Yellow Submarine was just fantastic. Again, it’s the best song on the album. Harrison pulls out all the stops and creates not only the Beatles finest psychedelic experience, but one of their best rockers ever. Who knew?

Throughout the always interesting, yet sometimes a bit too serious video version of Anthology, George consistently weighs in with some absolutely funny commentary throughout. Ringo may have been the “goofy” one, and John the smart-ass, but George was genuinely the funniest of them all. He was wry, dry, and always sold the punch line when you least expected it. I have to say, though, that I am more enamored of his work with the Beatles than his solo output. Of course, I could probably say that for all of them, but I tend to find that even All Things Must Pass is patchy. The original third LP that housed the “Apple Jam” sessions is still tedious to sit through. And I can’t say that Cloud Nine has really worn well over the years. And no one really tends to discuss albums like Gone Troppo, Extra Texture and 33 1/3.

At any rate, it’s sad to see George go, as it was when Lennon’s life ended. But the great music lives on, and will undoubtedly continue to do so. The music of the Beatles and its influence cannot be measured. It’s a career that will not and cannot ever be reproduced as far as a universal musical influence goes. Forty years on and we’re still marveling over a set of albums that forever changed the course of pop and rock music’s history. So perhaps you, too know someone this year who could use a bit of the Beatles in their lives. Hell, it certainly beats oh…just about everything else you could pick music wise for a gift. I kid, of course, but there still is a bit of truth in that statement. Anyway, Happy Xmas to all, have a Wonderful Christmastime and all that other silly in-joke stuff that I could put in here. Ah, and I wouldn’t mind receiving one of those hard to get original pressings of The Beatles Christmas Album myself.

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