A version of this piece originally appeared at You Offend Me You Offend My Family.
It was 20ish years ago today…
It was 20ish years ago today…
The first pop music I ever heard clearly was Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and if your experience is the same, then you scarcely need read this preamble. The vinyl record belonged to my father. I was very young and had only a vague concept of music being in two categories: 1) All my father's classical records, in which I had begrudging compulsory interest, and 2) something called rock music, which was on the radio. Self-image having formed well before musical vocabulary, I knew that rock was the cool category, and that I could not possibly belong to the cool category. In terms of "having musical taste," I mainly knew the opening theme to the Battle of the Planets cartoon. Bach and Brahms and Beethoven were things that happened in an adult world: pleasant, settled, defined. But next to these 3 big B's in my dad's record collection, there was this one record by the Beatles.
Since it was the only album that didn't have an old man in a white wig on the cover, I was fascinated by its kiddie-friendly colors. And anyway, I had to figure out how this record player thing worked at some point or other. I put Sgt, Pepper on side A and carefully placed the needle.
And the rest, as you know, is Earth-bound magic.
