Jonathots Daily Blog
(2158)
(Transcript)
“She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah …”
God, I desperately needed that.
At twelve years of age, going through puberty, it would have been wonderful to have a “she” that loved me. Yeah.
But when the Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show February 9th, 1964, my parents refused to let me watch. They didn’t know anything about the Beatles, they had just seen a picture, and from that had determined that the young gentlemen from Liverpool were freaks, queers, girls, Communists and immoral.
So instead, they sent me to church, where I got to listen to our preacher expound upon Peter and the lame man at the Gate Beautiful.
Lame.
I returned home, realizing that the Ed Sullivan Show was not over yet, hoping that I could still negotiate permission to watch the last part and hear the Beatles’ final selections. My father, even more irritated, refused. He turned the channel to Bonanza–an episode called The Cheating Game.
Yes, I felt cheated.
Even though I liked the Ponderosa, I did not want the Cartwrights on this night. I needed the Beatles.
Yet the next day, when I went to school, out of some sense of fierce loyalty, I explained to my friends, who were ablaze with excitement over the performance by Paul, John, Ringo and George, that these guys were freaks, queers, girls, Communists and immoral. (Honestly, I didn’t even know what most of the words meant.)
What happened next was chilling to my bone. Rather than arguing with me, my friends looked at me with a combination of horror and pity. They couldn’t even imagine how miserable I must be … Beatle-less.
So over the next few months I broke out of my shell, slipped over to my friend’s house and listened to the Beatles. This eventually led me to Herman’s Hermits, the Monkees, and even a little taste of the Animals and Jimi Hendrix. To that revolving play list I added the Oak Ridge Boys, Beethoven, Strauss and Sousa.
As the diversity of my musical taste increased, so did my openness and willingness to accept others and absorb new ideas.
Music saved my young soul from turning into a lame man, which certainly would not have been the gate to anything beautiful.
I never got to hear the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show. But on the long and winding road … they rocked my world.
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