“I’m so glad, that she’s my little girl!
She’s so glad, she’s telling all the world.
That her baby buys her things, you know.
He buys her diamond rings, you know.
She said so!
I’m in love with her and I feel fine!”
The Beatles – “I feel fine” – 1964 – Lennon/McCartney
What could be better than cruisin’ down the road in the summertime, windows down and the wind blowin’ back your hair (if you have any left) and the radio cranked up to blast out one of your favorite tunes.
When you hear one of those songs that you instantly recognize from the opening riff and you just have to reach over and turn up the sound, you just know that a little part of your youth has come back to life.
For me, “I feel fine!” is a song that I know the moment that I hear John Lennon’s familiar feedback guitar. It is a signature riff – the first recorded use of feedback on a record. The song is credited to “Lennon/McCartney” but it was written by John. With Beatles songs, you can pretty much tell who wrote it by who sings lead vocals.
The Beatles are gone. John and George are dead, Ringo recently turned Seventy and Sir Paul buys “Just for Men” in 55 gallon drums. The music that they left us, however, will live on forever.
And so life goes on. As each day passes, we creep a moment closer to our date with fate. Life goes on, with you or without you. No matter how hard we mash our foot on the brake pedal of life, we cannot slow down or turn back time.
But we can turn up the radio for our old favorite songs and blast out the tunes that helped define our lives.
When I am feeling down, nothing brings my mood back faster than listening to that good old rock ‘n’ roll music that I loved in days gone by. It truly doesn’t matter what it is – Stones, Beatles, Detroit rock music, the British Invasion or Motown – my blood flows again with renewed vigor and my foot starts tapping out the beat.
For each of us, there is that song, one that brings back memories of the “good old days” or that lost love.
What is yours?
William Stephenson Clark
PrairiePopulistsAndProgressives.net 