The music of our lives

As usually happens on my dayoff, I start the day early listening to music or end it late doing the same thing. I have a very narrow window of interest when it comes to my personal music. It involves the music of the Sixties and Seventies.

Every now and then, however, I get to pick up a few truly extraordinary and beautiful pieces of music from outside this generational confinement of musical choices. But by and large I am convinced that truly great and meaningful music stopped with my generation

Come to think of it, though, it is not as narrow as two decades worth of music may seem to suggest. The music of the Sixties and Seventies is, on the contrary, quite extensive. This was an era when musical output literally exploded.

No other era can match the sheer productivity of this period. The Beatles, for example, which typifies this period, and which I am a very great fan of, produced an incredible array of compositions in the seven years (1963-1970) that they were actively together.

The music of The Beatles has in fact gone beyond generational. No other records by any other artist, group or solo, living or dead, can outsell The Beatles over time in any music store today. If you do not believe me, go to a music store and ask.

The music of The Beatles not only continues to be available and to sell, they continue to be played in a wide variety of media even to this day, more than 40 years since they broke up and left a void that is impossible to fill, ever.

There is even a television commercial (I think I saw it on CNN) in which the lyrics of the song “In My Life” by The Beatles is narrated by actor Sean Connery. It is one of the most beautifully-worded songs of The Beatles, and hearing it in this manner is simply moving.

My collection of Sixties and Seventies music is also quite extensive. I take great effort to collect them because I know that, with the exception of The Beatles and a few other notable groups of the era, they are songs that are no longer available conventionally.

That is why one of my favorite pastimes whenever I find myself in a mall is to always visit a music store and just browse around, hoping that, if I get lucky, I can come across some reissued CD of music that I still don’t have. I have been quite lucky to-date.

This week, I ended my dayoff (Monday) late by listening to The Beatles’ very first album “Please Please Me.” And as I always do when listening to music, I simultaneously read over and over again whatever it is that is written on the album cover.

From these readings, I continually make side comments to my wife Arlene, who for whatever reason, has made it a point to stay beside me when I enjoy my music. Maybe she also loves it. Or maybe it is just a precaution, in case I get too carried away by my emotions. Whatever.

Anyway, as I was listening to the “Please Please Me” album, my attention went to the year the album was released, which was 1963. Not that I did not know. It’s just that from time to time, some info you already know just suddenly becomes more interesting now than before.

So I told Arlene: “You know, The Beatles released this album the year before you were born. And here you are, listening to them.” I don’t know if the disclosure meant anything to her, because I suddenly was seized with a new realization.

While The Beatles was formed in 1960 and had their first single “Love Me Do” out in 1962, it was not really until 1963 with the release of “Please Please Me” that the phenomenon the world would call “Beatlemania” would set in.

In other words, the 50th anniversary of “Beatlemania” is just two short years away in 2013. It would have been a great occasion to have a reunion of the “Fab Four.” But of course that will never come to be, ever.

The deaths of John Lennon and George Harrison have shut the door to that possibility forever. But wouldn’t it be great if Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, the two surviving Beatles, could get together one last time, for the sake of all who have been touched by their music.