Beatlephobia

“Look. He’s eighty-six,” my wife said, showing me a recent picture of Ringo Starr.

Impressive, I thought. But instead of saying so, I pulled out my phone and found a recent picture of Mick Jagger.

Because I never liked the Beatles very much.

I was a Rolling Stones person. Led Zeppelin. Pink Floyd. Not forgetting Hendrix.

The Beatles often seemed too goofy, almost unbearably cute. “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” reminded me of something a wedding band would play while everyone was waiting for the cake.

I could defend my choices, too. The Stones had range, from blues covers to the extraordinary run from Beggars Banquet through Exile on Main St. Pink Floyd transformed itself from the Syd Barrett psychedelia of The Piper at the Gates of Dawn into The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, and eventually The Wall. Led Zeppelin could move from hard blues to folk, acoustic ballads, and experimentation without ceasing to sound like Led Zeppelin.

And yet.

In my determination not to be impressed by Ringo, I started thinking about the Liverpool 4.

“Love Me Do” came out in 1962. Seven years later they were recording Abbey Road.

Seven years.

More remarkable still, in 1968 the same band that made that wedding oompah-oompah also gave us “Blackbird,” “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” and “Helter Skelter,” that screaming proto-heavy-rock assault. Plus “Revolution 9,” an eight-minute avant-garde sound collage. All on the same album.

I still don't particularly like “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da.” But perhaps that is no longer the point. What I hear now, when I listen to the Beatles, is something I didn't appreciate then: not a musical grab bag, a request set for everybody, but an almost reckless willingness to stop being what had worked yesterday.

Many bands have changed enormously. Some of my favorites did. But very few evolved that much, that quickly, while producing so much music along the way.

I looked again at the picture my wife was holding.

“Still,” I said, “Mick is eighty-three. And have you seen how that man moves?”