A suitable beginning...

How I first met The Beatles?

My Dad's copy of the Red Album LP. I don't think he had the Blue Album, or if he did I never saw it.

When?

When was Beatles music never a part of global society after 1962? But I guess I remember being about 7 or 8 and putting the Red Album on the record player all by myself, plugging in the headphones with the giant-sized ear pads (which were so tight on your head they would squash your face up till you were one big pair of lips) then sitting on our Seventies couch with the inner record sleeve on my lap and reading along to the lyrics as each song played.

First favourite song?

Besides the obvious rugrat-oriented Yellow Submarine, I was particularly fond of She Loves You because as a wee kid I liked the story element of it. I could clearly picture the four beatles standing talking to some heartbroken lassie who was telling them about how upset she was and asking them to pass on a message to her boyfriend, and the fab four trotting off, finding the guy, and telling him if he didn't pull his finger out he was basically going to f*ck up the best thing to ever happen to him.

First favourite beatle?

Don't think I had one till much later (about 12 years old) when I read the Hunter Davies authorised biography. Not much contest really, the walrus was always John as far as I'm concerned! Though I suppose with his tragic death having taken place while I was a child he was probably more in my consciousness than any of the other three, particularly post-Dec 1980.

Somehow I don't remember his murder, though my old school friends have since told me that the day it was on the news we talked about it all the way to primary school (a 20 minute walk, longer if you doddled, but no family car school runs in those days). I have no memory of that, but I do recall Imagine being in the charts, which was immediately re-released after he died, and really liking the song (the simplicity of the lyrics and ideas within are tailor made for children as much as for adults who know better about the complexities of human nature) and the video even more so (for some reason the all white room and piano seemed to appeal to me).

I'm away now to put on my Red Album CD (forgive me, oh gods of vinyl), the track listing of which, in my humble, though let's face it correct on this occasion, opinion contains more perfect expressions of genius than any other artistic collection in the history of the world (maybe excepting the collected works of Shakespeare but the Red Album only has 26 of the 200+ songs the Beatles ever recorded, so not really a fair fight eh Will?).