Much reflection on the music that has so deeply informed my life these days. I thought (this morning, while I was running my two miles before fruit breakfast) of how short the Beatles’ moment was for a young observer in the US. Of course I was aware of them in a general sense from the Ed Sullivan appearance, from the films and the background music of cultural life, to the point of anticipating the release of Sgt Pepper’s; the White Album was the first Beatles record I owned, so let’s make 1968 my first full-on engagement with the Beatles, and the break-up, followed by the release of Let It Be, is only three years later. Three years is not long, especially in the retrospect of the timeline of rock history, especially in the retrospect of a lifetime. Even if (as a USian) one had been paying close attention all along, 1964-1970 is only six+ years. That’s a huge cultural impact in a very abbreviated window.
(Reflecting on retrospect also reminds me that one of the chart-toppers in my adolescence was the bathetic ‘Reflections (Of My Life)’ by The Marmalade, also from 1970.)