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 bout
six months ago I bought my kids (eight and ten years old) the new
Beatles CD "1" — which, of course, is the best-selling
CD in a decade.
The kids were
somewhat puzzled and disappointed by the gift and asked who the
Beatles were. I said they were the hottest band back when I was
growing up. They asked if the Beatles were bigger and better than
the Backstreet Boys, and I said absolutely not, but you listen to
the CD and tell me what you think. Big mistake.
They are now both unremitting Fab Four fanatics. I come home and
they've got the CD player revved up to full-volume blasting "I
Wanna Hold Your Hand," "Can't Buy Me Love," ""Hey
Jude," or some other Fab Four hit. They're favorite is "Yellow
Submarine," which if I hear one more time, I will smash that
CD player into 1,000 pieces. But the great joy of kids is they allow
you to relive your youth and I come home and I hear that music and
I think , damn, I had forgotten how good a song "Day Tripper"
is.
Justin was asked to write a poem in his fourth-grade class and he
had writers block so he plagiaristically wrote:
Dear Sir
or Madam will you read my book, it took me years to write, will
you take a look….
He got busted.
Justin didn't understand that EVERYONE, including his teacher knows
the words to "Paperback Writer." But it was impressive
that he could recite every word to the song.
Justin and Will represent the third generation of kids who think
that the Beatles music is the best thing they've ever heard. For
the Beatles to be the number-one band in America today, is the equivalent
of the kids in the 1960s listening to the music of the 1920s on
their record players. My prediction is that my great great great
grandchildren will be listening to the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts
Club Band and that in 2050 the best-selling album will be Abbey
Road.
It's cliché to say that Lennon and McCartney wrote the soundtrack
of the '60s. The truth is that they've written the soundtrack for
every subsequent decade. They were quite simply history's greatest
entertainers. Any arguments?
This morning it was painful to tell the kids at breakfast that George
Harrison was dead. Will was adorable, he said, "But dad, I
thought Paul was the one who was dead." And Justin thought
about it and said: "Now I guess there can never be a reunion."
That made me incredibly sad. I remember when I was in college and
heard the news that John Lennon (my favorite Beatle) was dead and
I felt the world had been raped. I wore black for a week.
Conservatives should forever appreciate George Harrison for a lot
of reasons. Not the least of these is that he wrote our anti-tax
anthem "Taxman." It goes like this:
Let me tell
you how it will be, here's one for you 19 for me.
If 5% appears too small, be thankful I don't take it all.
Cause I'm the taxman, and you're working for no one, but me.
That was written
when Britain had a 95% top tax rate (thus "one for you, 19
for me). George was one of the first supply siders.
George's "Concert for Bangladesh" in Madison Square Garden
— a terrific soundtrack, by the way — was really the first
rock charity concert and raised several million dollars for the
starving people in that heart-breaking war-torn country. His song
My Sweet Lord, for which he was unfairly sued for plagiarizing the
tune of the Chiffon's "He's So Fine," is one of the great
religious rock songs ever.
John and George are dead. They're in rock'n'roll heaven. And you
know they've got a helluva band.
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