The Doors get their most iconic track booted this week. "Good," says everyone not still in high school or college.
"(PLEASE NOTE I DID NOT REFER TO THE LYRICS AS 'POETRY')."
meet the (satanic) beatles
I was in high school not all that long ago, and I was considered a “weirdo” for wearing Beatles t-shirts.
To be fair, I was a weirdo. My parents moved us to a tiny mountain town from a big, northern city, which was weird enough for the locals.
There was nothing for a 14-year-old to do in this town but listen to music, fuck, or go to church. Since my family wasn’t in any sense religious, and I was way too awkward for a boyfriend, that left music for me to want and worship.
We were on food stamps at the time, which meant I was limited to my parents’ meager CD collection or whatever was on the radio. I recorded loads of music off the radio, but it was all very mainstream or oldies or country. There was no college radio for hundreds of miles, no underground record stores, and no reliable internet access for a few years yet. To this day, I have huge swaths of musical knowledge that are missing thanks to this lack of exposure. On the “up” side, however, I never went through a Dave Matthews Band phase.
And so, partly due to circumstances of my location and partly due to the fact that I was a skinny little anachronism (more on that some other time), I delved into the world of the Beatles. Why The Beatles? Pure practicality; Rubber Soul was the only CD my parents had that wasn’t Christmas music, Broadway or opera.
Pictured: My entire music collection, circa 1993
I bolstered my “collection” whenever a local station would have a “Beatles weekend” or something. (I think I taped most of Abbey Road off the radio.) I knew I had gaps in my catalog, so I went to the library and checked out books and read the “whos” and “whys” of their recording sessions. That stuff got me interested in all the bizarre “Paul is dead” conspiracy theories.
Ever the skeptic, I recorded all the songs that supposedly had “backwards messages” in them on an older cassette tape — the kind that had little screws holding it together instead of being glued like newer cassettes. This was a major advantage because I could undo the screws, thread the tape around the other way, and listen to all the backwards music…forwards. Once I was tired of that, I listened to one speaker, then the other, and heard all the studio chatter and nearly-erased harmonies they left on their songs. I was fascinated; not even my parents had any idea all that was there. I felt like a codebreaker.
Proud of myself, I told my grandmother about what I was doing. She was tickled and sent me a couple of Beatles t-shirts. Socially awkward me just wanted to fit in with everyone at my new high school, and I thought some might think I was a little bit cool for even knowing who the Beatles were. But the response I got to wearing a Beatles for Sale tee to school one spring morning was not what I’d expected:
People told me that I was going to hell.
No, they were not kidding. No, they weren’t saying it just to be mean.
The offending graphic.
Like the Civil War, I guess these people had not forgotten the whole Lennon/”bigger than Jesus” thing. Classmates and teachers told me that The Beatles were drug-addled atheists who put secret, satanic backwards messages in their songs, and I should stop “worshiping” them immediately for the good of my immortal soul.
But it’s just music, I’d protest. But it’s just your soul, they’d respond. They reminded me that Lucifer used to be the music director in heaven.
I was never told that I was going to hell before, and it was a pretty damn disturbing thing to hear from grown-ups and peers alike. For a moment, I actually questioned myself and my doings. Doubt crept into my mind, and I wondered if maybe my parents were wrong, and maybe I was wrong.
For the next 15 years, I’d hear a variation on “you’re going to hell” at school, in public, at work, among “friends”; it was always there, like heavy flatulence in a small room.
But I’m glad I was first told I was going to hell for listening to the Beatles.
Why? Because after that flickering moment of “what if they’re right?” panic, I was overwhelmed with the knowledge that what they were telling me was total bullshit.
It was a turning point for me: I started not to care if I fit in. In fact, I realized that fitting in would doom me to the greatest hell I could imagine: a life unexplored, full of devils around every corner, and utterly lacking in empathy.
So thanks, Beatles, for helping me not to be afraid of that which is not understood. Also, your music is still fab.
Wow! What an amazing story!
If it’s an comfort I didn’t feel like I fit in either. I wasn’t told that I’d go to hell. But certainly I can relate to not fitting in. It was the cool thing to hate school – and I genuinely loved it )at least, once I didn’t get beaten up anymore). Weird, maybe. But I figured that if I had to go to school for 1/3 or so of my life for the next 13 years I might as well get something out of it… I thought most everything was interesting. I actually hated the idea to have to specialize. … Anyway. I didn’t like the “nerd stamp”. A friend of mine was worse off. Late in high school he got bad grades on purpose to gain the love, or at least acceptance, of others – who, of course, thought he was insane for throwing away the grades they secretly wished they had. Then at university it all changed. I guess they all were “nerds” and I didn’t have to play down what I knew or could do any more. I remember feeling so excited to meet people from all over the world – rather than just Germans and more Germans in the little town I grew up in.
Thanks, Stephie!
It’s funny; I spent so much time in the South trying to fit in that I used to think something was wrong with me because I didn’t. Once I moved away and out on my own, I realized that none of it mattered anymore, and that there *were* people out there who were more on my wavelength, to use a cliched term. Besides — being a “nerd” now is cool, right? 😉
Well I must have led a sheltered life is all I can say!! Undoing tapes and rewinding them to hear them backwards WOW wish I’d been there. Great story Jen.
What can I say? Boredom + overactive imagination can lead to some great things! lol
LOVED this. If I knew you in high school, I would have thought you were bad ass! 🙂 Well written too! I love your blog!
Thanks so, so much Heather! I could’ve used a friend like you in high school. 🙂