With the 50th anniversary of The Beatles’ American invasion, it seemed every radio station on the air was frozen on the set of that first performance from The Ed Sullivan Show. From the backseat of our car, all three children listened intently to a string of hits, including “She Loves You,” “All My Loving” and “I Saw Her Standing There.”
What I love about the Beatles is that every note is feel-good music defined. I was in a particularly venomous mood, starting this morning when Doug used up all the hot water shaving his head while I filled our bathtub with seventy gallons of Arctic Ocean. There’s just something about every Beatles song ever recorded (with the possible exception of “Eleanor Rigby” and anything inspired by Yoko Ono) that puts you in a better mood than you were in when it started. To me, that is one of the greatest legacies a group of musicians can leave behind.
At the culmination of “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” there was a thoughtful silence in the backseat.
Eva was the first to break the silence.
“Why were they screaming?” she asked.
I laughed and flicked off the radio. “Those are the girls in the audience,” I explained. “They’re not girls anymore—now they’re Grandma’s age. But they were screaming because they loved the Beatles so much.”
“Why were they screaming if they loved them?” she probed.
“Well, someday you’ll meet a boy that you will love so much, you’ll understand.”
(Well, technically she may never meet Knox Pitt or whichever heartthrob of the 2020s will leave her deprived of all sleep, food and oxygen. But it’s too early in the game to explain the difference between love and infatuation.)
“Oh,” she finally deduced, one eye squinted as she does when she’s being analytical. “Is that why you were screaming at Daddy this morning?”
One of life’s unjustifiably crappy little twists: from now on, every time their father pisses me off, he will transform into a rock star and I, his love-crazed fan, before our children’s very eyes.
With every domestic dispute, he might as well flick on the stage smoke, sign my boobs and call it a day.