Murphy's Earbuds

Transit Odyssey, Morning, Sunday, May 30:

The Beatles, Complete Catalogue IPod shuffle

I still get my car serviced in Jersey, OK?!?! The gas/tolls/transit expense is a lot less than the difference in price between my tried and true mechanic and some guy I don't know in Brooklyn - and as long as my mom is nice enough to cart me around, I will continue to do so, thankyouverymuch.

It may sound silly, but I kinda like the transit odyssey. I get to take this train to that train to that bus to that car to that plane etc. etc. and all the while, I can listen to music, read, take in the sights, or just have some "me" time. As much as I love my home, there are one zillion distractions that keep me from just thinking. When I am bound to another's schedule (i.e. NJTransit, or the MTA) and have nothing but my shoulder bag's worth of distractions, I tend to reflect, self examine, insert cheesey self-help term here, a little bit more. It's nice. Better yet, sometimes I get to invest and inordinate amount of time intently listening to music I am just getting to know or am rediscovering.

So I was taking a shower yesterday morning and listening to Q104.3 and they were doing their "Breakfast with the Beatles" show. It made me remember (because I forget now and again), that I used to be an absolute Beatles fanatic. I have all the CD's, most of the records, used to have a bunch of T-shirts, knew how to play all the songs, wore Beatles vests to my proms, even went to Beatlefest for a few years. I even remember that when I was a senior in HS, my friend and I left all of our notes at home and had to do a full period Beatles presentation completely off the cuff. We got an A. It was all over the top, really. I used to lament the breakup of the band even though it occured seven years before I was even born. So when I headed out for the train, I decided to just set the Beatles playlist to shuffle. While I can't remember every song I listened to (I was actually working on yesterday's post at the time), I do remember thinking to myself: I know every single one of these songs - and every one has SOMETHING of a landmark in it, has at least one interesting bit, or in most cases is just damn incredible.

So far, I have written posts on about half of what I've listened to since the this blog started. I try to leave out the really passive or circumstantial listening. I try to post when something moves me or reminds me of something. For most of yesterday morning's Beatle Mix, it would have been a non-post kind of experience, but then "Help" came on. I have always appreciated this song. I have always loved the way it moves between the strummy, nostalgic sounding verses and the big desperate sounding choruses - punctuated by the shout harmonies and descending guitar and bass lines in perfect octaves. Problem is (or was): I never got it. I guess i never listenened to it at a point in my life when I could understand that John was actually singing something. I wrote this off as a craft song rather than an emotional one. That is: pre-Revolver (yes, even most of Rubber Soul comes off as trite - though not interesing), BOTH John and Paul were writing (for the most part) very composed songs. Not neccessarily about any of their actual experiences, but rather, written as a staff songwriter would write them. As their career moved along and the both grew up, John started writing very very very personal lyrics, whereas Paul (for the most part) further developed his craft but continued to write very "composed" sounding, throw-offy-type numbers. While "Hey Jude" and "Martha, My Dear" are certainly about actual people (or dogs as the case may be) in his life, there are still far more songs ("Honey Pie", "Here, There, and Everywhere", "The Fool on the Hill", and yes, even the great "Yesterday") that, while interesting, rate much higher on the craft/concept scale than on the John dominated emotional/visceral scale. Geez, you could write a book on this crap - I'm sure someone already has. Anyhoo, I guess I still believed that "Help" still fell into the former category of impersonal songs, but listening to it as a twenty seven year old that has finally come to terms with his age (though John was only twenty five when he wrote it) and the small bumps in the road he's had to face, I could bring an entirely new realm of experience to this song. I listened from an entirely new angle and was moved, practically to tears. Big ups to John Lennon.