So disappointed...

Some memories from our childhood are inexplicably prominent.

One such memory for me was of riding in the car (a VW rabbit hatch-back) with my family. Probably on our way for Pizza in Auburn... but the destination wasn't salient. We were listening, as we often did, to the Beatles.

I asked if Lennonwere singing the song. Which song, I don't recall: with the amount of Beatles we played in the car, it all bleeds together.

"No, that's Paul", they said.

The next song came up. I asked if this song was sung by Lennon.

"No, it's Paul. Paul does all of the singing. John just does some back-ups. And Ringo gets thrown a bone for the silly songs."

I wasn't convinced. But these were my parents, and I decided to trust them.

Today, I was listening, as I very occasionally do, to the Beatles. Specifically, Come Together. And I noticed some minute detail that I hadn't noticed before, and decided to look the song up on Wikipedia. An interesting article, actually: I recommend reading it. About half-way through, however, was a section that explicitly states which band-member was responsible for what voice.

And it was sung by Lennon.

Looking around Wikipedia at a few of my other favourite songs (Because, Something, I Want You, etc), I noticed that, in fact, many of these songs were sung by Lennon (or Harrison).

I feel so betrayed!

For years I have visualized these songs as sung by McCartney... and the internalizations are all false. It's like I have to re-write all of these songs in my mind. I've lived all these years with wool pulled over my eyes, assuming the lead singer did most of the singing. It's a belief system built on lies.

It's like I don't even know the Beatles anymore!

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Dude, your folks were half right - Lenin did *not* sing any of the songs at all. OTOH, John LENNON sang quite a few :-).

Jeremy Rice said...

WHAT?!?

Does this mean that Beatle didn't also lead a bloody revolution in Russia!?!

Holy fuck.

This is just so shocking. I mean I must just be so monumentally naive.

Jeremy Rice said...

(I fixed this. Thanks.)

: )