$\"\"$ <\/a>
Pictured: My entire music collection, circa 1993<\/p><\/div>\n
I bolstered my “collection” whenever a local station would have a “Beatles weekend” or something. (I think I taped most of\u00a0Abbey Road<\/em> 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<\/em> stuff got me interested in all the bizarre “Paul is dead” conspiracy theories.<\/p>\n
Ever the skeptic,\u00a0I 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.\u00a0I felt like a codebreaker.<\/p>\n
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<\/em>\u00a0tee to school one spring morning\u00a0was not what I’d expected:<\/p>\n
People told me that I was going to hell.<\/p>\n
No, they were not kidding. No, they weren’t saying it just to be mean.<\/p>\n
$\"\"$ <\/a>
The offending graphic.<\/p><\/div>\n
Like the Civil War, I guess these people had not forgotten the whole Lennon\/”bigger than Jesus” thing.\u00a0Classmates 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.<\/p>\n
But it’s just music, <\/em>I’d protest. But it’s just your soul<\/em>, they’d respond. They reminded me that Lucifer used to be the music director in heaven.<\/p>\n
I was never told that I was going to hell before, and it was a pretty damn disturbing thing to hear\u00a0from 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.<\/p>\n
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<\/em>, like heavy flatulence in a small room.<\/p>\n
But I’m glad I was first<\/em> told I was going to hell for listening to the Beatles.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
It was a turning point for me: I started not<\/em> to care if I fit in. In fact, I realized that fitting in would doom me to the greatest hell I <\/em>could imagine:\u00a0a life unexplored, full of devils around every corner, and utterly lacking in empathy.<\/p>\n
So thanks, Beatles, for helping me not to be afraid of that which is not understood. Also, your music is still fab.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was in high school not\u00a0all 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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[13],"class_list":["post-250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","category-words","tag-the-beatles","span_1_of_3","masonry-entry","col-","loop-entry col clr","cat-3","cat-4"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.late2theparty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.late2theparty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.late2theparty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.late2theparty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.late2theparty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=250"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"http:\/\/www.late2theparty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":404,"href":"http:\/\/www.late2theparty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250\/revisions\/404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.late2theparty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.late2theparty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.late2theparty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}