I keep thinking I’m going to run out of things to write about The Beatles. I keep proving that notion wrong, at least to myself.
I recently enjoyed the final night of Paul McCartney’s Freshen Up Tour. He played to about 50,000 fans at a sold-out Dodger Stadium, where I last saw him five years ago. In fact, I included the setlist of that previous concert in the appendix of my second book, Endless Encores.
My key observation then was that Paul was as committed to his new music as he was to his historic catalog. That is what has allowed him not only to stay in the game for six decades, but to remain at the top of his own game—that constant hunger for reinvention. That is what has made him not just an artist, but a legend.
I had a new observation this time, partly about us, and partly about much more than us.
We are aging through time. These songs are becoming a constant.
Our memories are a snapshot in time. These songs bridge those snapshots.
We are temporal, driving the arcs of our lives. These songs are a continuum.
We will not be here forever. These songs could be.
These songs are ours to enjoy, but they don’t belong to us. They don’t even belong to Paul or The Beatles. They belong to the world.
These songs are universal. They bring us together. They make us happy. They make us remember.
We connect the dots of our life’s timelines from song to song, and in the moment of a single song played back at various points throughout those long and winding roads.
I remember first listening to “Sgt. Pepper” as a child and it takes me back to the record store where I bought the album. I remember first listening to “Band on the Run” as an adolescent and I am back in the hallways of school. I remember first listening to “Here Today” and I am transported to that sad December day when I was in college and John was murdered.