HAVE YOU HEARD OF THE BEATLES?

HAVE YOU HEARD OF THE BEATLES? When Nick was 8, he came home from school one day, and said excitedly, “Mom, have you heard of the Beatles?” It’s hard for members of later generations to realize what it was like to be there when the Beatles were bringing out new music and movies and changing the world. People in my generation remember vividly the moments when they heard certain songs. A friend said at the time that the Beatles had brought back the idea that a song would have a beginning, a middle and an end. The Beatles were also unusual because they grew and developed. Here is a site —whose proprietor is a member of a generation which comes after the Beatles—which does a wonderful job of reconstructing and evaluating the growth of the Beatles. As one example, I never knew that the standard view of ABBEY ROAD was that one side of the record was John’s side and the other side was Paul’s side, much less the reasons why this generalization isn’t quite right (and not just because “The secret weapon, of course, is George.”)