Beatles-Freak's Reviews

I was born the day after the Beatles recorded “Love Me Do.” I’ve always found the timing of these two events to be significant. My arrival on this planet coincided with the Beatles beginning their recording career. Our stars are aligned.

I was too young to appreciate the band when they were still together. My only clear memory of hearing their music back then was when a local radio station blasted “Here Comes the Sun” after the solar eclipse in early 1970. I didn’t fall in love with the group until I was eleven. But once I fell, I fell hard.

I started playing guitar, using a Beatles songbook as a guide. Sketching pictures of the Fabs improved my drawing skills. Listening to their albums brought me incalculable relief as I dealt with the pressures of adolescence. Paul and Ringo’s cheerful optimism lifted me up, and John and George’s fuck-’em-all attitude carried me through.

And then John died, shortly after I started college.

I won’t try to explain here how much his murder affected me. Suffice to say, it marked a clear delineation in my relationship with the band – before December 8, 1980, I lived in hope that my favorite group might someday reunite. After that horrible day, the Beatles represented a part of my childhood that was forever gone.

That’s not to say I didn’t keep loving them. But my life went on. I graduated from college, moved away from home, and left my collection of Beatles LP’s behind at my parents’ house. (I relied on a few homemade mixtapes of my favorite tunes when I needed my Beatles fix.) I worked at a number of jobs. I got married. I started having babies.

Before long I was in my thirties, living in California, the mother of three beautiful girls. The radio in my van was permanently set to AM 710 – Radio Disney. My only regular connection to the Fab Four was occasionally pulling out my VHS copy of Yellow Submarine to entertain my daughters. Then in 1998, I became pregnant once more. Late in my second trimester, the baby died.

It was a horrible summer. The miscarriage left me numb. My husband was between jobs, so money was tight and we couldn’t go visit my family out east. The California sunshine beat down on me relentlessly, offering neither the respite of a sympathetic rain shower or a shady spot to slip into to drink some lemonade.

And then a small miracle happened. A local radio station that was changing hands announced that during its two-week transition-of-ownership period, it would broadcast an all-Beatles format. I switched my dial and tuned it. And the sadness slowly started to lift. The all-Beatles station became a surprise ratings hit, and the new owners decided to keep the format going for a few more months. By the time the station finally switched over to a Big Band playlist, I had asked my sister to send me my album collection from Cincinnati.

The boys were back in my life, just as they had been when I was a teenager.

The years went by, now once again set to a Beatles soundtrack. Then my life took another dark turn. In March of 2015, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I underwent the usual invasive treatments – chemotherapy, radiation, surgery. I was fortunate to have a fantastic medical team and loving family to support me. But I also had another set of wingmen in my corner, who played a major role in my mental recovery – the Fabs.

Throughout my months of treatment, I would lie on my living room couch, too weak to get up and put on a CD, and sing Beatles tunes in my head to bring me solace. I quickly discovered the band had written a song to fit almost every emotion I was going through. Some of their comforting songs are obvious (“Let it Be”), while other numbers reflected my fear (“Help!”) and general frustration (“Don’t Bother Me”).