A Day in the Life

I had what you might call a synchronous moment the other day.  I was peevishly scanning through radio stations; on the hour-long drive to Portland on Sunday, NPR was inexplicably out-- its normal station had been replaced by a dull static and it was bookended by a Christian call-in show on one side, and some Spanish crooner on the other.  Not to sound narrow minded or anything, but I never listen to anything but NPR on the radio, and without wasting my time or yours in trying to explain why that is so, I will just skip that and say that I certainly didn't plan on finding anything of remote interest while pounding the Tune button.

Then I heard the unmistakable harmonies of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, in what had to be a Beatles song, only one that I had never heard before.  I stopped my channel surfing at once.  The song soon ended (before I had the wisdom to pay attention to some of the lyrics, so I could find out later what it was), and the announcer came on with his honey-voice, welcoming me to the Beatles Basement, and declaring the purpose of the show to be in honor of Sir George Martin's 83rd birthday.  It took me a second to remember who George Martin was-- ah yes, the producer of all the Beatles records-- and I almost changed the channel again.  But then I thought, hmm, well, might as well listen to some classic old Beatles songs.  Even if you never need to hear "Hey Jude" again, you can still always manage to hear it one more time.  Better than fire and brimstone, any day.

Then a clip of Martin speaking came on, and he told a story about how John approached him before the making of Let it Be and said, "We're not going to need any of that production crap on this album."  Apparently John wanted each song to be an organic whole, recorded and preserved in its integrity from beginning to end.  And so Martin obligingly went home.  Only problem was, Sir George recounted, sometimes it would take 20, 50, even 75 takes before they'd get a song right, if they got it right at all.  Which of course did not exactly lead to harmony within the recording studio.  By the time they shelved the project (out of frustration maybe?), Paul called George Martin and asked him to come back.  The product of Martin's return was Abbey Road.  Of course, I was transfixed.

So when "Day in the Life" came on, I heard the song with brand new ears.  And hearing a Beatles song, especially a really good one, for the first time, is a pretty shattering experience.  The hairs on my arms stood up on end.  First John's ghostlike and melancholic lines, "I read the news today, oh boy..." and then Paul's perky piano interlude: "Woke up, fell out of bed... ."  What an incredible song!  I will confess, that by the time that intense piano chord is struck at the end, my chin was quivering a bit.

But I think the experience was enhanced by the fact that it was the Sunday morning of what was turning out to be an awesome weekend: I went for a great hike with a new friend, Adam and I went house-hunting, we had some other new friends over for dinner...  It's like I was being escorted right into a new life that was very excited to have me.  New house, new friends, new town.  And then, right when I'm rushing headlong into the future, here are The Beatles all over again.  Those four Liverpoolians did no small work of flooding my mind with the existential blasts of childhood.  If my metaphor isn't too irritating, I'd like to venture that life is a little bit like lasagna.  There's old stuff, that you love so much.  You know, like The Beatles, and listening to their records with your little sister when she was so young and cute, and being in that old house that you can still smell and imagine but will never see again.  But the new stuff piles on, and you forget about the old stuff for the most part, but sometimes at very well-timed moments all that new stuff sort of comes to a head to make you love the old stuff that much more.  Funny thing is, I'll probably look back at these crazy novelties one day and have a little sniff of nostalgia.  And there might even be a Beatles song playing.  But anyway, what I'm trying to say is, and the reason I sort of weirdly mentioned lasagna at all in the first place: it's all about the layers.