Can't Buy Me Love

Dour.  That’s what my husband said I looked like today.  It was after we started talking about “Rain”, the Beatles-impersonator show traveling the country and also on public TV.  I told him I have no desire to see a group of Beatles-impersonators, especially when they don’t look much like the Beatles.  And there are plenty of performers who do at least as good a job at covering their songs.

Maybe it has to do with my age.  When you talk about seeing the Beatles I’m instantly back in junior high—grade school we called it then.  In 1964 the Beatles exploded on the American music scene.  Their live performances cost something like $40 a ticket. A whole lot of money back in the ‘60’s.  The Beatles were going to perform in Kansas City. A friend of mine was going with her dad.  I was incredibly jealous, as only a young teenage girl can be.  My parents would not have considered taking their almost-fourteen-year-old daughter to a rock concert. And certainly not in another city.  I didn’t even ask.  They also didn’t approve of these young radicals with the long hair.
  

As a thirteen year old in a working class, Germanic household, I had no rights.  I was not allowed to play the radio without permission.  When my parents were at home they chose the station to which the TV or radio was tuned.  My father made the initial decision.  If he was not home my mother made the choice.  If they both went out my older brother and I were allowed to play music with the proviso it was not so loud as to disturb the neighbors. I counted my self exceedingly lucky to be able to persuade my parents to tune into the Ed Sullivan show the night the Beatles appeared.  Somehow I saved the money to buy the 45 of “I Want to Hold Your Hand.”  For my 14th birthday, my brother gave me my first 33, “A Hard Day’s Night.”

The Beatles back then were viewed as a curiosity by my parents’ generation. My uncle at a family gathering had his four young sons imitate the Beatles.  Apologies to my cousins, who nonetheless have grown up to be fine, no-longer-young men.  But I was horrified.  Their impersonation was blasphemy.

My husband asked me today whether I had gone to the Beatles St. Louis concert in 1966.  After all, this was just a couple of years later and the Beatles had come to my home town.  By then I had started to work a summer job (no pay, but tips as a carhop at Ted Drewes) so I had a little money.  For some reason I cannot remember the Beatles even coming to St. Louis in 1966.  But I’m sure if my husband remembers such a concert it happened.

No, I never did see the Beatles in concert.  By 1966 I was listening to Simon and Garfunkel, the Kinks and other such rock and roll and folk music, whenever I could get command of the radio.  A best friend from high school reminded me recently that in 1966 I had ran up to her at her locker and said “There’s a song you HAVE to hear: ‘The Sounds of Silence.’”  I don’t remember that incident either.  What’s the old saying? “If you remember the ‘60’s you weren’t there.”  I guess this means I was there.

I’m still listening to Simon and Garfunkel, either together or alone. And recently we went to Bloomington, Indiana to see Paul Simon.  I’m still crazy after all these years about him and his music. The Beatles-impersonators, on the other hand, are never going to transport me back to the 13 year old who wanted desperately to see them live.   Rather, they remind me of my cousins, with their longish hair styles and air guitars, mocking the Beatles.

Today I hear Beatles music on the radio, my iPod, and in elevators.  The experience of seeing them at a live concert is gone forever.