"NO REPLY"

 

A few weeks ago was the 60^th anniversary of the Beatles performing on “The Ed Sullivan Show.”  Despite what one of my riders said last month, The Kinks were not better than The Beatles. At different points in my life I have found that certain Beatle songs mean a lot more to me.  Here's a few that come to mind:

"YESTERDAY": In 1977/1978 when I was a new Beatle fan, the words, "I believe in yesterday" were very important to me.  I wasn't sure where I was going after high school, what I was going to major in and if I would meet the girl for me. The future was a big question mark and I wasn't looking forward to it.

"IF I FELL": Dating my future wife in the early 1980's, when I drove over to see her I would always sing this song,(badly of course), but I knew I was falling in love with her. Today, when I hear the song in the car I still sing it and think of her.

"HEY JUDE": In the mid-1990's I was working at a business school and sharing an office with an amazing graphic artist, Gary. (He happens to be the only reader of my blog in Highland Park, NJ) The radio was on one day and a high school student heard the song end and liked the song, but didn't know what it was.  At the age of 24/25, I felt very old telling her it was, "Hey Jude."

My oldest daughter made this for me on Father's Day in 2018 with some of the words of The Beatles.

"A HARD DAY'S NIGHT": When I started working very long days, 12, 14,16 and sometimes 19 hours, I thought about this song frequently.  "It's been a hard day's night and I've been working like a dog, it's been a hard day's night, I should be sleeping like a log."

"PAPERBACK WRITER": I do remember in high school or college hearing this song and thinking how cool it would be to actually be a paperback writer.  And it was only a few months ago that my book came out and every time I hear this song, I say, "I am a paperback writer."  "Dear Sir or madam will you read my book, it took me years to write, will you take a look?"

"NO REPLY": It's not one of the best known Beatle songs, but it's about a guy trying to reach a girl. In my case I have found over the last several years a different meaning for it.  It seems to happen a lot that I reach out to someone by phone or email and they don't reply.  As my friend, Larry, my only reader in Bridgewater, NJ. said, "It's just common courtesy." Maybe common courtesy like common sense, isn't that common anymore?