Double Fantasy was the first album I ever bought. And it was the only album I ever returned for a refund.
I was 15, and it was early 1981, and John was dead. I knew John had been a Beatle, but that was it. I didn't know most Beatle songs. My mom loved "Something" and she had the single. So I knew that song, and the B side, "Come Together," but I don't remember knowing other Beatles. I was just not clued into music that wasn't on Top Forty.
I had heard "Starting Over" and "Woman" on the radio, and I really liked them. So I went to our local K-Mart and bought the album. I took it home, and I was horrified. What the heck was this Yoko Ono DOING? I had bought an album that was half great songs and half screaming! I was terrified! I put the record back in its sleeve and back into the cover and I went right back to K-Mart to return the album. The manager said I could exchange it. But I didn't know any other music, certainly none I wanted to buy. At that moment, the only other thing I wanted to buy was Beatles stuff, and they didn't have any. After looking around for a while I asked the manager to please give me a refund because there wasn't anything else I wanted. He acquiesed, and I went home.
I ended up not buying any Beatles music for many years, because those of you old enough will remember that the radio stations at that time ended up having Beatles-on-the-brain and had weekends where they played every single Beatles album. So I taped almost all the albums off the radio. For almost two years after that, I pretty much only listened to Beatles and new wave stuff on KROQ. It was late 1982 before I bought another album.
I felt really bad that I hated Yoko's "songs," too. I wanted to like her music. I didn't know anything about her at the time, except that she was John's wife, and he loved her very much. I could tell that from the cover. And I look kind of like John Lennon from the side when I am kissing my woman.
A tangential Beatles-related thing --- I and my brother and sister exist because my mom picked up my dad from across a crowded club in Germany by mouthing the words to "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" while looking suggestively at him and gesturing. It worked. I exist because of the Beatles. No wonder they are the musical yardstick by which I measure everything else.
6 comments:
Don't ask me why this stuck out to me but how can you know what you look like in profile while kissing your "woman" caveman!
I do it in public. People take pictures. And "Caveman?" Because I said "my Woman," like the song title? But also, I seriously DO use the phrase "my woman." I'm not married, and while I usually say "g/f" for girlfriend, it's really not a girlfriend/boyfriend relationship. She's my beshert, my spouse, my significant other, my woman. I'm her man. If that makes me a caveman, then I am proud to be a caveman because my woman is so wonderful and special that she's worth more than rubies, she brings me good every day, she works her wool and flax with eager hands,she's like merchant ships bringing food from afar, her lamp doesn't go out at night... many women do noble things, but she surpasses them all. So I am naturally possessive. She's my woman, and I love being possessed by her, so there.
Iguess I should have put a smiley face on the caveman thing.
If you had put a smiley face, I wouldn't have been inspired to do the whole rant and I wouldn't have quoted the whole Shabbat proverbs thing. and i am going to read the proverbs thing to my WOMAN right now at shabbat dinner! So there. ;-)
So you're saying I did a good thing?:)
Exactly. And my g/f hadn't heard that Proverbs 31:10 and the rest were read by the husband to the wife on Shabbat. And it all applies to her, so it was nice. Although reading it every Shabbat would stop it being special. That's the danger with all of our routines, though, isn't it? How often do we say "I love you" and not really feel it? Anyway.
Oh. the Proverbs right above this one are cool as well... Proverbs 31:6-7 directs us to give alcohol to the hapless and embittered, so they can forget their sorrows and poverty. Next time I am in Santa Monica and there's a homeless guy with a sign saying "NEED MONEY FOR BEER" I will remember that Proverb and give him money.
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