The Beatles Are Here! (30 page)

But then I went to the show, and I said to myself, “All right, they were pretty good. It wasn’t a
complete
waste.”

So then I was listening to the Beatles’ music because my dad was playing it a lot and I thought, “You know what, actually, they’re pretty good!” And my friends started getting into them and we were listening to them and oh my god, we were raving.

If I hadn’t gone to the show I probably wouldn’t really like them. But I went to the show and started listening to the music and I really got into them. My friends and I are crazy about them.

I think what I like most about the Beatles is that they were constantly looking for ways to stay ahead, and they weren’t afraid to speak their minds and write about what really mattered to them. I mean they each had their own quirks, like John had his wit, and George had his spirituality, and Paul had his charm, and Ringo had his subtle sense of humor.

I THINK IT
was last year that we went through this whole phase, this crazy phase, and four of my friends dressed up as the Beatles for Halloween. We made Sgt. Pepper costumes and that was when there was a huge snowstorm over here [in the wake of Hurricane Sandy] and nobody was allowed to go out trick or treating but we went out anyway because we’d made these costumes and we were all excited. My friends and I would spend hours upon hours discussing the Beatles.

We were obsessed. It’s not as obsessive now, but the Beatles are still one of my favorite bands.

Probably George is my favorite.

There are a lot of bands in our school, I don’t know if you’ve heard of them, there’s Dead End, Rocking One Way, and just a bunch of student-formed bands. Some of them have said, “Oh, you know, the Beatles have influenced us.” So I think there are other kids in school who listen to them.

Independence Day, 1976

by Will Hermes

I
TOOK THE
E train down to Battery Park with a couple of friends. After unsuccessfully trying to sneak into office high-rises to view the ships, we bought Bud tall boys and wandered the streets with the hordes. We came upon an impromptu TriBeCa street party: some people in a second-floor loft had moved two club-size speaker cabinets into the window, and
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
was thundering out of them. A crowd gathered, dancing and shouting along. People opened their coolers and passed around beers; some precious joints made the rounds. . . .

Happy birthday, America.

For many, pop music still began and ended with the Beatles.

CONTRIBUTORS

Linda Belfi Bartel
is a senior vice president of a management company in Houston.

Roy Blount Jr
. is the author of twenty-three books, including
Alphabetter Juice, or
The Joy of Text
and
Long Time Leaving: Dispatches From Up South
and a panelist on NPR’s
Wait, Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me.

Jamie Nicol Bowles,
a painter, art dealer, mother, and wife, is a lifelong Beatles fan. She grew up in Independence, Missouri, and now lives in San Francisco.

Vickie Brenna-Costa
lives in Bronxville, New York. She is an artist, lover of music, Francophile, and, more important, David’s mother.

Anne Brown
works for the National Audubon Society. She spent her earlier years as a general contractor in partnership with her husband; they live in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Peter Ames Carlin
is the author of
Bruce
, a biography of Bruce Springsteen.

Peter Duchin
is a bandleader and pianist.

David Dye
is a disc jockey and the host of the nationally syndicated radio show World Café.

Barbara Ehrenreich
is a journalist, political activist, and author.

Renée Fleming
, the legendary opera singer, is known for the breadth of her repertoire. Her recordings include a rock and roll album,
Dark Hope
.

Joann Marie Pugliese Flood
is a photographer in Phoenix, Arizona.

Debbie Geller
was a producer for the BBC and the author of
In My Life:
The Brian Epstein Story
. She died in 2007.

Henry Grossman
’s photographs of the Beatles are featured in two recent volumes:
Places I Remember
and
Kaleidoscope Eyes
.

Will Hermes
is a journalist and critic.

Janis Ian
is a songwriter, singer, musician, and author. She won a Grammy award for the audio version of her memoir,
Society’s Child
, in 2012.

Pico Iyer
is the author of two novels and eight works of nonfiction, starting with
Video Night in Kathmandu
.

Billy Joel
is a musician and composer.

Judy Juanita
is a playwright. Her first novel,
Virgin Soul
, was published in 2013.

Gabriel Kahane
is a composer and songwriter. His works include the acclaimed
Craigslistlieder
and a musical,
February House
, which was commissioned by New York’s Public Theater.

Verlyn Klinkenborg
is a member of the New York Times Editorial Board and the author, most recently, of
Several Short Sentences About Writing
and
More Scenes from the Rural Life
.

Cyndi Lauper,
the singer and songwriter, won the 2013 Tony Award for Best Original Score for both music and lyrics (for
Kinky Boots
).

Michael Laven
ended the sixties by driving his ’65 Mustang from the East Coast to California, just missing the Summer of Love. He has had a career in the technology industry based in San Francisco and London.

Fran Lebowitz
is a writer and wit.

Will Lee
, a jazz and rock musician, is the founder of, and bassist for, the Fab Faux. His latest album is
Love, Gratitude, and Other Distractions
. He has recorded and/or performed live with all four Beatles.

Tom Long
is a former roadie and soundman.

Phillip Lopate
is a novelist, essayist, and critic. His most recent books are
Portrait Inside My Head
and
To Show and to Tell
.

Greil Marcus
is a journalist and music critic who has written extensively about rock ’n’ roll.

David Michaelis
is the author of biographies of Charles Schulz and N. C. Wyeth. His next one, of Eleanor Roosevelt, will be published in 2015.

“Cousin Brucie” Morrow,
a disc jockey for WABC-AM in New York City when the Beatles arrived, is now a host on SiriusXM Satellite Radio.

Mary Norris
, a longtime copyeditor at
The New Yorker
, is the author of the forthcoming book
Between You and Me: Confessions of a
Comma Queen
.

Sigrid Nunez
’s most recent book is
Sempre Susan: A Memoir of Susan Sontag.
She is currently working on her seventh novel.

Noelle Oxenhandler
’s essays have appeared in many national and literary journals. Her latest book is a memoir,
The Wishing Year.

Joe Queenan
is the author of eleven books, including, most recently,
One for the Books
.

Penelope Rowlands
, the author of
Paris Was Ours
,
A Dash of Daring,
and other books, is the editor of this collection.

Tom Rush
is a singer and songwriter with roots in folk music and the blues. His albums include the folk-inspired
What I Know.

Anthony Scaduto,
Bob Dylan’s first biographer, has also written biographies of Mick Jagger, Frank Sinatra, and others.

Carolyn See,
author of nine books, is a regular book reviewer for the
Washington Post
. She is working on a memoir.

Lisa See
’s new novel,
China Dolls
, will be released by Random House in May 2014.

Leah Silidjian
is a student at Mahopac High School in Mahopac, New York.

Gay Talese
’s many books include the memoir
A Writer’s Life
. He’s now at work on one about his half-century marriage to the well-known book editor Nan Talese.

Laura Tarrish
is a designer/illustrator in Portland, Oregon. Her company is Bridgetown Papers.

David
Thomson
writes about movies. His numerous books include the frequently updated classic
The Biographical Dictionary of Film
.

Vicky Tiel
is a fashion designer and the author of the memoir
It’s All About the Dress.

Amanda Vaill
is the author of the bestselling
Everybody Was So Young
and other books. Her
Hotel Florida: Truth, Love, and Death in the Spanish Civil War,
is due out from Farrar, Straus & Giroux in April 2014.

Véronique Vienne
, a design critic and teacher, is the author of the bestselling
The Art of Doing Nothing
, among other books.

SOURCES AND PERMISSIONS

(alphabetical by author)

The letter by Vickie Brenna-Costa, as well as her comment on Facebook, are reprinted with her permission.

The diary excerpt by Anne Brown is reproduced with permission of its author.

The Bruce Springsteen excerpt is from
Bruce
by Peter Ames Carlin. New York: Touchstone, 2012

Barbara Ehrenreich’s paragraph is from
Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy.
New York: Metropolitan Books, 2007.

America’s Beatlemania Hangover
was originally published online on BBC.UK.com and is reprinted with the kind permission of the Estate of Debbie Geller.

Excerpt from “1976: These are the Days, My Friends” from
Love Goes to Buildings on Fire: Five Years in New York
That Changed Music Forever
by Will Hermes. Copyright © 2011 by Will Hermes. Reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber, an affiliate of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.

The quotations from Billy Joel—excerpted from a class discussion that took place on October 1, 1994—are reprinted here with the permission of the Trustees of Columbia University.

My Four Friends
by Cyndi Lauper is reprinted with the permission of Atria Publishing Group, a part of Simon & Schuster, Inc., from
Cyndi Lauper: A Memoir,
by Cyndi Lauper and Jancee Dunn. Copyright © 2012 by Cyndi Lauper. All rights reserved.

The email dated 1/18/13 from Phillip Lopate is reproduced with the permission of its author.

The Greil Marcus text is from an interview with him in the
L.A. Review of Books
, 4/27/12

The Back of the Album
is Copyright © 2005 by David Michaelis. First published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in
Rereadings,
edited by Anne Fadiman. Reprinted with permission by Melanie Jackson Agency, LLC.

In Love with Gorgeous George
by Penelope Rowlands was first published, in somewhat different form, in the August 2007 issue of
Vogue
.

Anthony Scaduto’s excerpt is from his
Bob Dylan: An Intimate Biography
. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1971.

Chic and Shriek Mingle at Paramount Benefit Show
by Gay Talese, is Copyright 1964 by New York Times Company. Reproduced with permission of New York Times Company via Copyright Clearance Center.