and...in the end...

 

    The "last" Beatles song is now in the musical mainstream...a coda to their contributions to popular music history.

    And their "swan song". 

   Which would, obviously, be more poetically appropriate were we talking about, say, The Byrds as opposed to the Fab Four.

    But that's a rimshot for another rock and roll reminiscence.

    Let's talk "Now and Then".

    First, I don't want to spoil the party, but it's only fair to offer up a truth...from me to you.

    Opinions about songs...and the singers/songwriters that perform/create them...are second only to politics when it comes to subjectivity, bias, personal preference and passionate support or rejection.

    Put much less ethereally and much more in your face.

    Opinions are like elbows and assholes.

    Everybody's got 'em.

    And somewhere along the way, some well meaning soul started spreading the idea that we are all "entitled" to our own.

    Opinions. The arm joints and rectal orifices come with the knee bones connected to the thigh bones.

    Standard equipment. And pretty much a requirement.

    Like that "Tru-Coat" under the chassis of that new car.

    You may not want it or think you need it.

    But even Jerry Lundegaard knows you just need to suck it up and..let it be.

    The problem with that well meant, inevitably metastasizing 'idea' was that too many of our fellow "we", as in "we, the people" immediately, and to this very day, misinterpret the applicable meaning of the word "entitled".

    It means you can durn sure have an opinion. In fact, you just go on ahead and have all the ding damn opinions you want.

    You're "entitled".

    As to whether or not your opinion(s) turn(s) out to be an insightful,savvy, visionary point of view...or simply a ridiculous declaration of dung....well, determining that is a long and winding road.

    Which brings us back (in the U.S.) to "Now and Then".

    The "last" Beatles song.

    If you're pressed for time and would appreciate a "could we skip the verbose yada yada yammer and just cut to the chase" sum up, well, here comes the sum. (And I promise there's an end in sight to these ba da bum bump 'Beatle puns'....)

    Some people think "Now and Then" is the lamest recording ever issued with the words "The Beatles" on prominent display.

    Some people think "Now and Then" is okay, could go either way.

    And some people....actually, a lot of people....think "Now and Then" is the most important musical composition on the timeline of musical compositions. 

    All of which makes any further discussion/debate/discourse on the matter pretty much a hello...goodbye.

    (Okay...that's it.)

    At this point, it's more than reasonable for you to wonder, aloud or where your mind is wandering, where it will go (it's really hard to stop once started), as to why I'm still writing here, given that I just explained the obvious uselessness of further discussion/debate and/or discourse on the matter.

    Truth told, there are myriad reasons I feel inspired to share the full two cents of my perspective re' "England's Phenomenal Pop Combo" (if that reference draws a blank for you, then you most surely reside in the first two categories of those offering their own two cents on "Now And Then"), but, total truth told, I'm simply in a mood to offer my own opinion.

    After all...I'm entitled.

    Any time at all. 

    (Okay, let's just resign ourselves to the fact that I'm gonna wear out way past my welcome with these feeble Fab fun puns)...

    Not that I need any validation for said opinion (those who know me well are doing hilarious spit takes as we speak), but on "release day" this past week, I actually found a kindred spirit, opine wise.

    Geoff Edgers is a journalist and National Arts Reporter for the Washington Post. He wrote and posted a "review/essay" early in the morning of release day, clearly hours before any of the rest of us had a chance to ingest and/or invest in the recording. Before I even heard the recording, I found myself nodding along with much of what Edgers offered. And once I heard the release, I knew the nods were properly placed.

    Here's some key excerpts from what he offered.

 

This isn’t just a Record Store Day novelty pressed for collectors; this is the final creative collaboration of the most important rock band that ever existed. So listening once more on my headphones, with my deadline approaching, I wish I could somehow approximate how I felt when I heard “In My Life,”  or “We Can Work It Out.”

Is that too much to ask? Of course it is. McCartney and Starr owe us nothing at this point. Yet to just accept it at face value, to put a Beatles stamp on it and not think about that 60-year legacy, feels almost disrespectful.

“Now and Then” is not terrible. It starts slow and picks up a little as the rhythm section kicks in. There is a minor-key melancholy in Lennon’s composition. But ultimately, it’s kind of mundane.

But “Now and Then” exists, and I’ve listened to it about enough, and because it is the Beatles, the bar is high, and expectations are higher. That “Now and Then” will now be included on the reissued “1967-1970,” otherwise known as “The Blue Album,” makes my point. A passable song is simply not good enough when you’re sharing vinyl with “Strawberry Fields Forever,” “A Day in the Life” or “Let It Be.”

Please listen to it. Form your own opinion. Then, when you’re done, put on “The Red Album” or “Blue” or any of the 13 studio records the Beatles made, and you’ll maybe get a tinge of what it feels like to be 7 years old with your dad’s turntable pumping the most glorious music into the living room, perfect songs that simply can’t be matched.

 

      There's not a lot I can add that wouldn't be beating a dead Beatle (not that that's going to end this piece any sooner), but, put simply....

    Yeah, yeah, yeah....what he said.

    And speaking of adding....what I would only add is this.

    In 1996, the late movie critic Roger Ebert wrote a witty intelligent essay on "A Hard Day's Night", the Fab's first film (1964) from the cultural tsunami that was "Beatlemania". Savvy throughout, Ebert parked it over the center field wall with his wrap up.

 

The innocence of the Beatles and "A Hard Day's Night" was of course not to last. Ahead was the crushing pressure of being the most popular musical group of all time, and the dalliance with the mystic east, and the breakup, and the druggy fallout from the '60s, and the death of John Lennon. The Beatles would go through a long summer, a disillusioned fall, a tragic winter. 

But, oh, what a lovely springtime.

 And it's all in a movie.

  

    You might find it odd that writing of the 'now' of "Now and Then" reminded me of an Ebert review of a long ago Beatle movie.

    Allow me.

    I claim 'editorializing rights' because I was there at the outset. That is to say that I was twelve years old the night they appeared on Sullivan, got my first guitar (Sears Silvertone, likely less than twenty bucks) that Christmas, began writing songs from the git go that sounded an awful lot like either She Loves You and/or I'll Follow The Sun, bought every album and single faithfully, pursued a songwriting/song playing (mostly writing) career that lasted from 64 to the mid 1990's (from whence I spent the next twenty in radio where a lot of Beatles crossed my boulevard)...in short, I was a Beatle kid, a Beatle teenager, a Beatle young adult...and a Beatle old guy....and that, if nothing else, gives me license to offer "expert witness" testimony as to who and what they were....what they became....

...and where it has, as of this week, come to a 'conclusion'.

    And rest assured....I won't simply rewrite/restate the POV offered up by Mr. Edgers a few paragraphs ago. I've already made the point that he and I are on the same AM/FM frequency.

    But my gut (heartfelt) feeling about "Now And Then" as grand finale?

    It conjures up the same feeling that kept me from going to open casket wakes/funerals for, so far, all of this life.

    Sensitive, emotionally attuned, artistically delicate flower that I am, I am easily impressed.

    Not like "you can easily impress me", necessarily. My laminated Cynic ID attests to that.

    More like I am easily impressed upon. Affected, touched, swayed, moved by much and many, much and many more than most anyone who knows me might ever suspect. (although I laugh/and I act like/a clown/inside this mask/I tear up every year when George Bailey gets rescued by the good folks in Bedford Falls)

    And when someone in my mind/heart/life shuffles off...I want to remember them alive, in whatever personality that was on display.

    The last thing I want to see is them lying in a box.

   At this writing, all of my faculties are still in relative working order.

   There will, more than likely, come a time before final room checkout, when that won't be the case.

   And I want to remember, through whatever haze settles in on my horizon, those four guys and that band for the cultural tsunami that was Beatlemania, the groundbreaking uniqueness of "We Can Work It Out", the 'wow' of "Paperback Writer", the madness that made sense of "I Am The Walrus", the staggering genius simplicity of "In My Life", the OMG of "Revolver", the splendid time guaranteed me by "Sgt. Pepper"....

...and not the "big" finish of a well intended but average piano "doodling" by a master craftsman who would have very likely have taken no offense had he heard what George Harrison called it thirty years ago when the remaining Fab Three took a shot at "re-imagining" (this time no pun intended) it....

"...rubbish..."

    George was a nice guy. Maybe he was just low on his fiber intake that day. Or maybe he was taking the liberty that he, and only three others in this life, could take.

    Being blunt honest with a Beatle....about a Beatle song.

    Cue Taylor.

    Beatlemaniacal fans are gonna love, love, love, love.

    Less frenzied fans are gonna give it a polite thumbs up, if only 'now and then' (hang in there, it's almost over)

    As for this Beatle kid?

    Thanks again, Roger.

    It absolutely was a lovely springtime.

    That came to a poignant and perfect conclusion in September of 1969.

    With this.....

    "And in the end/ the love you take / is equal to the love/ you make"

    Yeah, yeah.

    (Spared you the third yeah, you're welcome)

    It was primarily a Paul lyric.

    But even John knew a fellow master craftsman when he heard one. And worked with one. And became a brother to one.

    Why, it's even likely that John brings that one up, sitting around trading tales with Elvis and Jimi and Janis and Crosby and Mike and Davy and Peter....

....every now and then.