Life at the speed of sound

I was only five years old when the Beatles broke up and yet their music has been the overarching soundtrack of my life.

While I remember a few of the songs from my childhood — Got to Get You into My Life, Paperback Writer, The Long and Winding Road, Let It Be — for the most part my love of their work came after the fact, through listening to albums made before my time.

It’s fair to say I’m a superfan. I’ve read the books, got the CD boxed set, am the proud owner of a Beatlemania trivia game, visited the famous Cavern Club and the cavernous Liverpool Cathedral, where Paul McCartney was rejected for the choir at age 11.

I often think how lucky I am to have been born during the Beatles era. It’s like winning the musical lottery, or being in 18th-century Vienna during Mozart’s day. Perhaps it’s just that you identify with the heroes of your own time, and yet the Beatles always seemed to speak directly to me.

And still do, both as a group and individually.

I spent the weekend with The Boys of Dungeon Lane on repeat. Paul McCartney’s new album is an injection of hope at a time when many of my musical idols are already gone or are octogenarians (and, thankfully, showing us how vital and creative those years can be.)

The Rolling Stones, Elton John (a mere 79), McCartney and Ringo Starr all have new albums this year — with Paul having played bass on the last two Stones albums. How mind-blowing is that? (“You start playing and they show you the song, and I start thinking, I’m playing with the Stones!” Paul told an interviewer at the New Musical Express, reliving his own fanboy moment.)

I don’t remember when music was not a driving passion in my life. Because I had older siblings, at first, I listened to the world through the songs they loved. Don’t Pull Your Love, by Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds, always puts me in the back seat of a big white car being driven down dusty rural roads by my soon-to-be brother-in-law, when he and my oldest sister were courting. A Spaceman Came Travelling, by Chris de Burgh, blew my mind (no illicit substances required) as a kid wearing headphones, lying on the carpet exploring the album collection of another sister’s boyfriend.

I remember the pattern of roses climbing up my bedroom wall and the thick fog blanketing the ocean at dusk the first time I heard the atmospheric I’m Not in Love, by 10cc, and thinking it sounded like a Paul McCartney song.

I remember the first tune I heard when Newfoundland’s first FM radio station went live — Is She Really Going Out with Him?, by Joe Jackson. The first music video I ever saw was Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ Refugee, when videos were used as late-night filler on the local private TV station, six years before MuchMusic launched in Canada.

I loved David Bowie throughout his chameleonic career. Space Oddity was the unofficial theme song of a friend’s dorm-room parties — with said friend now having retired after a noteworthy career as a prosecutor.

When did we get old?

As a teenager, I drove my poor mother mad with my incessant fandom. I bucked the trend and crushed on John Oates of Hall & Oates, vowing I’d marry him some day. (But I was fickle; my love was not true. I’ve matured musically and now prefer Daryl Hall.)

On a boat tour in Bath, England, the guide asked if we were there because it’s the setting of the Regency romance series Bridgerton.

“No,” I said, incredulously. “I’m here because of Tears for Fears.”

I’ve been fortunate enough to see many of the artists I love: Burton Cummings (four times), Gowan, Leonard Cohen, Sir Elton, Tears for Fears, Bowie, Tina Turner, Chris de Burgh, Paul Young, Sting, The Waterboys — all vivid memories that have stayed with me (thus far).

I never got to see Paul McCartney live — my biggest musical regret — and now his voice has lost some of its range and strength. (Listen to 1968’s Helter Skelter or 1973’s Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five if you need a reminder.)

Still, standing in the kitchen and listening to the plaintive, Eleanor Rigby-ish strains of Momma Gets By or the Blackbird-esque Days We Left Behind from his new album, I am moved anew by his empathetic songwriting, his unmistakable voice and musical ingenuity.

“Nothing stays the same,” Paul sings. “No one needs to cry / Nothing can reclaim / The days we left behind.”

Perhaps not, but it sure as heck is wonderful to hear new music from an artist whose work has enriched my life a thousandfold.

Pam Frampton lives in St. John’s.