Speaking Words of Wisdom

I was introduced to The Beatles in 2000 by the album 1. My parents played it over and over again in the car for years. As I grew, my favorite songs changed from "Eight Days a Week" and "A Hard Day's Night" to the ones further through the album (which is organized chronologically) such as "Hey Jude" and "Let it Be." Though I liked the music and I appreciated the apparent significance given to The Beatles by their fans, I didn't understand the what the big deal was; I had heard music just like this by countless other people on the radio. In fact, it was probably because I had listened to so much popular music as a kid that I liked The Beatles at all.

It wasn't until college, when I had most of a minor in music under my belt that I realized why The Beatles were so extraordinary.  The year The Beatles played on the Ed Sullivan Show (1963), the biggest hits were songs like "Louie, Louie" and "It's My Party" that you'd find on oldies stations nowadays. In 1966, when Sgt. Pepper's came out (think "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and the tambura-laden "Within You Without You"), the top of the charts were Frank Sinatra and the Beach Boys.

The Beatles' music defined the course of popular music, then reinvented it before the rest of the industry had time to catch-up. More than this, they inspired musicians in every genre of music. This is wonderfully illustrated in the performances by other legendary artists at the presentation ceremony of the Gershwin Prize to Sir Paul McCartney which aired on PBS tonight.