In previous posts this week I talked about how the smell of freshly cut grass transports me back to a more carefree time – to the summers of the 1960’s and 70’s, and how those memories also bring my parents to mind. Today I am again… reminiscing.

I have recently been listening to, and finished, a podcast series about the songs of Paul McCartney. Every episode covered a specific song each of which provided me a nugget or two about those songs that I was unaware of previously. But rather than talk about what I have learnt I want to talk about how, in the same way as the sweet smell of freshly cut grass can transport us, so can the sound of a song. 

I will begin by setting the scene. I was fortunate to live my early years in the 1960’s. Admittedly this was only my first eight years but it was enough – enough to hear the music of the Beatles first hand, when they were together, still a band, rather than hear it following their acrimonious split. 

Although hearing music at that time was only about how the song or the piece of music sounded – it was unimportant to me who was singing the song or playing the tune, who had written it or what the story was. It was all about the sound. For example, the music for the Royal Fireworks and the Water Music for me was all about the wonderful sound I was hearing during a primary school assembly one morning. It was irrelevant to me that this music was written by a composer called Handel – that name probably made me laugh as a child, or the history behind the music. The rousing tunes, the wonderful melodies stuck in my mind enough for me to tell my dad about them as soon as he walked in from work that evening. A short while later dad presented me with an vinyl LP of the Royal Fireworks and the Water Music. I was so proud of what was probably my first ever album. I recall vividly the photograph on the album cover of a colourful burst of fireworks exploding into the black sky over the river Thames in London. I have enjoyed a wide variety of classical music to this day. 

But back to the Beatles. All these decades later I feel a sense of privilege to be able to remember certain songs of the Beatles when they were released as singles – almost a sense of I remember because I was there sort of thing. A couple of examples are, Yellow Submarine that was played many times on the weekend morning UK radio show Junior Choice hosted by the late Ed ‘Stewpot’ Stewart. Other songs I remember from the time are Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, Strawberry Fields and Michelle, all songs that have memorable melodies and catchy choruses, also snippets of lyrics that stuck in the mind at the time – ‘Michelle, my belle’ and ‘Let me take you down…Strawberry fields forever.’ For me those and many other songs sound as good today as they did in my early years, but they have more meaning today when I listen to the music of the 60’s while I am in my 60’s.

But there is one song in particular that is probably my favourite Beatles song of all of them. I will talk about this one in my next post…