If you’re not already sick of the Beatles, pay attention. You’ll get your chance. Sooner or later you’re going to hear “Love Me Do” or “Yesterday” or “Let It Be” for the millionth time and you’re going to snap. You’re going to completely lose your shit and blaspheme the most sacred pop cultural icons of the last half-century. Unfuckingcool. Disrespecting the Beatles is a sacrilege equivalent to wiping your ass with the Shroud of Turin. Even your closest friends will turn on you like a pack of hyenas. Regardless of how correct your assertion that the Beatles’ catalog has been beaten like a dead horse, pounded into a veritable grease spot by every oldies station, department store, choir teacher, and wedding band in the Western Hemisphere, you will be treated like a pariah for mentioning it. God forbid you should blurt out something similarly salient like the fact that “goo goo goo joob” makes no fucking sense. Hey, if Jesus could speak in tongues, then surely the Beatles can sing in gibberish, right? After all, they’re bigger than He is, and that’s the point really. No one in their right mind would argue that the Beatles (or Jesus for that matter) aren’t good. They’re damned good (not Jesus; Jesus is blessed good), but it may be possible to have too much of a good thing. For instance: BMI estimates that “Yesterday” has been recorded more than 3000 times and played more than 7 million. Is it time to scream, ”Enough!?” For an astounding number of people, the answer is, “Never,” which is why more than 20 Austin musicians will be going to the University Baptist Church this Friday to help Will Taylor and Strings Attached perform the entirety of the Beatles’ White Album. This certainly isn’t the first take on the material, but it should prove to be an interesting and uniquely local one. You might even meet a Beatles fan or 200.
This article appears in May 19 • 2006.
