The Experiment: Day 15 ~ The Beatles. Abbey Road. 1969. Where Were You?

The Beatles. Abbey Road. September 29, 1969. I was 15. I don’t remember much from that time in my life, but I remember Abbey Road, I know all the words to all the songs, I bet a lot of you remember them too. Where were you when this album came out, how old were you, what do you remember about this time? Whenever I hear Here Comes The Sun I feel happy, and full of hope, and as if all things are possible. I think I will be listening to this song a lot today.

Okay, this song wasn’t on Abbey Road and there’s some funny business at the beginning of this video but it’s the originalΒ Hey Jude and the video is really something. They were SO YOUNG. And so were we. It will take you back. Many of us have children that never knew this music. Many of them do now. If you ask me, that’s when music was music! And I remember it all as such an innocent time but it wasn’t. The Vietnam war was raging on. Social unrest. Violence on college campuses. We think of all of the violence now, and it is here, and it is terrible, but those were not carefree times. And yet there was this music, and it carried a lot of us a long way.

And I’m wondering what music can carry me along now? Nothing like the music of the 60’s and 70’s. I was just a wee bit young to be a bonafide hippy, but I am a hippy in my heart, and I want to reclaim that feeling now. I want to listen to the Beatles because they make me happy, their early music, Abbey Road.

(Not to mention Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Sigh. It came out in 1967. I wanted so badly to find an original of the Beatles “When I’m 64” but I couldn’t find them doing it. I will be 64 on my next birthday, and I will be listening to that song!)

Were you alive in 1969 when this music was born? Where were you, what were you doing? I really want to know. Please write your memories in the comments here on the blog, it would make me so happy to hear them. Amidst it all I want to remember the happy times, even if we were just in our bedroom listening to this music over and over again and singing and crushing on Paul or whichever was your favorite Beatle. (Oh baby I was PAUL all the way!)

Today the sun is shining and the Beatles are playing here in my studio and I am happy. I am happy right now, in this very moment. Where are you? Talk to me…

(And if you weren’t alive yet then but you came to love this music too, tell me how you found it and what it means to you. I’d really love to know.)

 

The Experiment ~A 365 Day Search For Truth, Beauty &
Happiness:Β 
Day 1 ~ Introduction To The Project
β€œDo or do not. There is no try.”
Yoda

Comments

  1. Well Maitri… In 1969 I was THREE years old! LOL So I don’t remember much about this time. But I loved reading your memories!

    • Ah, Wysdom, thank you so much for your kind words. Do you remember anything of the late sixties/early seventies? Did you ever come to hear and like this music? I’m just sitting here, kind of melancholy and nostalgic, thinking my thoughts and dreaming my dreams. It’s nice to have you here… πŸ™‚

  2. Oh yes, I remember the Beatles music well because I was also in my mid-teens like you. I was caught up in the Beatlemania, their appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show and occasionally getting to listen to an actual record instead of just the songs on the radio.

    I ended up marrying a young man who was a total fan of the Beatles and still is. Needless to say we have listened to their music over and over again across the years. He owns many books about them and frequently watches You Tube videos of performances or interviews. I still appreciate their music but my interest in the other things has dulled quite a bit over time. A case of overexposure I think. πŸ™‚

    • Ah yes Joan, REAL RECORDS! That’s what my youth was all about. And I think inasmuch as there were and are many wonderful bands there was never anyone like the Beatles and I don’t think there ever will be again. There was something magic about them and I’ve not seen, in my 63 years, another band that created like they did and whose popularity spanned generations. That music will hold up forever.

  3. oh my, listening to Here comes the sun, and Hey Jude, took me way way way back, but freshly so. the Beatles just NEVER get old. And paul’s angelic face singing in Hey Jude, so beautiful to be almost feminine… i was already in grad school when my roommate susan and i listened to sergeant pepper’s lonely hearts club band, stoned, lying on the couches in our rent controlled apartment living room… “I’d Love to TURN You ONNNNNNNnnnnn” remember that? oh my. they were masters in experimentation and evolution. i doubt there will ever be another group as fascinating and talented and bravely creative with such magnetized auras…

    Let it be, is another delicious wonder….

    xo
    ka

    • Oh Katya, what a time that was, and their music still holds up and is beloved decades later. When I hear Here Comes The Sun I feel lifted up, happy, as if there is hope and possibility and yes! Here comes the sun, and it will keep on rising each day and I can rise too. And isn’t Paul just so precious singing Hey Jude! His face, it was angelic. I’m so glad you enjoyed it. Sometimes we have to to go back to that which was so precious, and remember. I think it helps us hold on today. And yes, Let It Be, and oh, John Lennon singing Imagine. And so many more. I love you Ka, and yes, I adored Sgt. Pepper’s! I loved it all… And I love you! πŸ™‚

  4. My last year in HS. All the pressures of applying to colleges- what did I want to do with my life? What were my friends going to do- would we still be as close? And the Beatles were the soundtrack to our lives. When I turned 64 I did sing that song to myself quite a lot- sometimes in my head, sometimes out loud. I say play what makes your soul happy. (and I still sing songs I learned in grade school for just that reason.)

    • Ah Lorraine, you are SO right… the Beatles music WAS the soundtrack to our lives. And I love that you sang When I’m 64 when you turned 64. I had to laugh listening to it yesterday because I remember when that album came out and I loved it and I would sing loudly to all the words and I’d think, “64! That’s EONS away! Light years away!” And now I will be 64 in 6 months and how did it all go so FAST? Sigh… But listening to their music I have such incredibly sweet memories. And yes this music does make my soul happy, and I will continue on and on listening to it forever. Long Live The Beatles!!! At least their music, it will last and last long after the last of them are gone…

  5. Shari Thompson says

    Dear Maitri,
    I was listening to the Beatles on YouTube today and thinking some of these very thoughts. Yes, it was time of great upheaval and uncertainty. I was certain that the younger generation had life figured out then. In 1969 I was 13 years old, the year that I watched Neil Armstrong walk on the moon on my birthday.
    I love what you are doing with this blog and reaching out. You inspire me! love, Shari

    • Oh Shari it’s so good to see you here honey, thank you so much for coming, reading and commenting. It means more to me than you could possibly know. And oh, Neil Armstrong, that walk on the moon, it seems like YESTERDAY! But so much time has passed, and I think it’s important that we keep these memories alive. As we grow older our sweet memories are our greatest resource I think. And it makes me so happy that you love this project I am doing. I really do want to reach out and touch people. And I’m sending you a gentle, warm hug this morning. Have a sweet day my friend…

  6. I was also 15 and a bona fide hippie living in Hawaii. And yes, those were happy days even with all the bad stuff going on. In fact my Dad had come back from VietNam (Air Force ) a year before that so it was a relief for my whole family to have him home again. I agree…that was real music back then.

    • Sheila! A hippy in Hawaii! My goodness, how exciting! How did we ever get from there to here? But those memories can carry us, can remind us that we have done so much in our lives, that all things are possible! We may not be young girls swooning over our favorite Beatle anymore, but that music lives on and on and takes me back and there are good memories there. I need those. I hope this post brought up some good memories for you too honey. Sending you a hug…. πŸ™‚

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