At some point we have all wished for a time machine…

I was 13 1/2 years of age (it was important to mention the 1/2 back then) and had been in high school for about 6 months. There was a guy I went to school with called Keith who played the drums and although I didn’t realise at the time played them in a way very similar to his namesake in The Who.. We became friends through a mutual love of music.

My musical tastes were completely unformed and I bought 7″ singles of songs that I liked from the radio. One day Keith came to school and handed me a record and I remember thinking at the time how heavy it was obviously because it was a double album. The albums was predominantly red in colour and had a picture of these four guys who were looking over the edge of a balcony in what looked like an apartment block. The album was The Beatles 1962-1966.

I got home that afternoon and immediately put it on my parents radiogram as I didn’t have my own record player at the time. The sound that came out of those speakers was something that transformed and excited me in ways that I previously hadn’t experienced. The energy, excitement and joy that every one of these pop songs was filled with almost made me giddy.

Inside was a pull out sheet which contained all of their albums with tracklistings and I poured over this night after night looking at the covers and memorising the songs. For weeks after getting this record I would call out to my mum or dad, whichever of the two was closest asking which Beatle sang the song I was listening to. They must have answered those questions hundreds of times before it started sinking into my brain. I loved every song, but I loved John’s songs that little bit more…

I had a birthday rapidly approaching and I had decided that I wanted a guitar as this is where my future clearly lay. A friend of mine had an old nylon string acoustic with an action that would have made most people weep and for $20 it was mine. Mum and Dad ponied up the money and with the rest of the money I received from relatives I headed off to Toombul Music and bought Please Please Me. I had decided early on that I was going to buy the albums in chronological order and so with pocket money savings and earnings from doing a milk run (yes people used to have milk delivered to them) I slowly pieced together this musical jigsaw. I remember asking my mum to pick up Rubber Soul for me when she was out shopping one day and was told by the guy at the record store a week later that she had actually asked for Rubber Boot! Fortunately he knew I was a Beatles fan and worked out what she actually wanted. I started to learn guitar but my teacher was very technical and wanted me to read music and play songs like English Country Garden and Tammy when I just wanted to learn D G and A so I could belt out Twist & Shout although B minor was still along way off which made playing This Boy impossible. In reflection those lessons were great but eventually I went out and bought The Beatles Complete sheet music and taught myself. I was devastated on December 8th 1980 John was murdered. We had moved to Australia from the UK when I was five and my immediate family was all I really knew and death hadn’t ever touched me. John was the first death I ever experienced. I collected every newspaper clipping for months after and had relatives in the UK send me out anything they had from their newspapers.

When I turned 18 a relative came out from the UK for a holiday and bought me a cd player which started the Beatles cd journey for me..

Again there was only one way to buy them and it was chronological. I missed the big vinyl albums but now I could listen to songs at the push of a button rather than lifting the needle up and finding the starting groove…

Years later I was working for a record company when I got an offer to come and work at EMI. After being there two weeks we had a conference which was great as I got to meet everyone in the company as there was only 4 of us in Brisbane at the time and so I virtually knew nobody. One of the Sydney reps at the time, Mike came up and asked me how I was liking it so far and I said it was a dream job for me because it was the home of The Beatles and without missing a beat he replied ” That’s why we are all here mate”

A week ago a sampler of the remastered tracks came through and I threw it straight into the stereo. As luck would have it my favourite Beatles song of all time was on the compilation Rain and I went straight to it. It was like the song had been opened up before me. I had heard this track hundreds of times before but this time I was “hearing” the song. There was nothing different, no added extra bits just everything was so much clearer and I appreciated those sounds and harmonies like never before…

Today a box arrived at the office and it was the entire catalogue. I carefully pulled the plastic off of Please Please Me as I sat in the car ready to drive home… By the time I pulled into my driveway Twist & Shout was just finishing although admittedly I did have to listen to Misery, Ask Me Why and There’s A Place twice during the trip

For awhile tonight on the drive home I was 13 1/2 years old again so I guess in some ways time machines really do exist…