Wednesday, July 04, 2012

Something

It's hard to imagine, think, grasp, that most of the people in this video are dead.

So many of us grew into adults with the Beatles at our side. They are remembered today by the raucous crowds and their silly interviews, for their pilgrimage to mysticism and drugs, for their break-up and solo careers.

Four kids from Great Britain, thrust center stage into the dissonance of a generation. We remember them for their music, for Ed Sullivan, for the tragedies that somehow sought them out, leaving only two still standing.

I downloaded $40 worth of their songs from iTunes. Along with the flashbacks of my youth, the music reminded me of how much we all wanted to find love, the love described in their songs, the sweet romantic love, the kind they each found in their lives, despite and not because of their fame.

I know this is not the best quality video of the Beatles. Or maybe it is, not in a technical sense, but in a romantic sense. They lived the dream. Not of fortune, nor of fame. They set a standard for love, deep, all encompassing, impassioned love. We owe it to ourselves to fight that good fight, to wherever, to whoever, it takes us. We owe it to ourselves and we owe it to them.

2 comments:

David M Gordon said...

Nice video, nice post. I especially like your clever use of the word "dissonance" that ably captures the zeitgeist.

Meanwhile, with all the tumult about them, the Beatles were busy creating wondrous songs just like this one. Nothing dissonant about that!

Roger said...

Sharing comments with A and dmg brings back pleasant memories.

When I think of true love these days I tend to think of the words "as you wish" as capturing the essence of it. Love involves willful capture and surrender.

The difficulty for us is the fear of the unknown in both the capture and the surrender. We don't want to throw caution to the wind, but we do want to lose ourselves in the love of another. Love expresses itself best in freedom and liberty. Love "wishes" always the best for the one loved.

The Beatles tapped into this core truth with their lyrics. Their longings and imagination resonated with ours. And they sang beautiful harmony with lots of raucous, unrestrained joy.

Today marks the third day into my seventieth year and I know less and less about everything, with the possible exception of love :)