Many moons ago, I was in a band. My friend Michelle played bass, my
boyfriend Jeff played guitars and sang, my roommate Paige drummed, and
I played guitar and sang. We only had one gig, a going-away party for
Michelle and me, who were embarking on a two-month road trip around the
States; shortly after our return, we moved from Providence to
Minneapolis and New York respectively. The, er, smoke has clouded my
memory of the few songs we played – I think there was a cover of “Why 
Don’t You Smile Now,” a song by a pre-Velvets Lee Reed band – but I do
remember our name: the Fiendish Thingees.

Pop trivia question: Where’d that name come from?

Bingo
Ringo: A “fiendish thingy” is what George Harrison called an explosive
device that was curled at the Beatles in the classic Richard Lester
movie Help!

Paige
and I were obsessed with this deadpan, madcap adventure – probably had
something to do with that aforementioned smoke. Recently, I got to
revisit my love for the flick that, along with the earlier
Lester-Beatles movie A Hard Day’s Night, is widely considered
the antecedent of music video (“Show me the blood test!” says Lester in
the documentary disc that accompanies the DVD). As I’ve mentioned before, I rented it for my five-year-old son, and now, he’s a Beatlemaniac.

It
is one of the deepest pleasures of my adult life to hear my son singing
in his wee little earnest voice, “Help! I need somebody/ Help, not just
anybody.”

The Beatles were one of the first groups I got
obsessed with as a kid myself (there was also the Jackson Five). They
were already broken up even back then, but it didn’t matter: There was
something timeless about those million-dollar melodies and their
cheeky, appealing personalities. In the liner notes for the Help! DVD,
Martin Scorcese quotes the critic Geoffrey O’Brien saying that “the
Beatles’ music possessed a beauty so singular it might almost be called
underrated.” As the filmmaker notes, it’s absurd to call the
most-acclaimed group in history underrated, and yet, so it is. I’ve
heard these songs a million times – and admittedly, for years, even
decades, I hadn’t bothered to play a Beatles disc. But rehearing them
now with Cole, the sheer number of perfect compositions is
overwhelming. Even a five-year-old can tell.

I know it’s not
very blogoteric new-discovery coolhuntery to write, in 2008, about the
Beatles. But I believe that, as in literature, it’s always important to
go back to the classics, and pop music simply does not get any better
than “Ticket to Ride” (that syncopation!), “You’ve Got to Hide Your
Love Away” (most beautiful sad song ever?), “You’re Gonna Lose That
Girl” (those harmonies), [your favorite Beatles song here].

It
was Ringo’s birthday earlier this week, and he had a wish: for everyone
to make the peace sign and say, “Peace and love.” Very ‘60s, but also,
very today.