dear john, paul, george and ringo,

I just watched the Beatles-inspired musical 're-imagination' of the 60's "Across the Universe". It was incredible. It made me want to be the artist that I was in my late teens. It remembered to me the Beatles era for me, which was high school.

I remembered stumbling upon the Beatles, digging deeper and deeper into their catalogue. (My parents were stoked, they're kid was finally listening to something that they could relate to. It was some sort of unrealized connection that we shared, mystical to me, glaringly obvious to them. The Beatles were a part of a social revolution. My parents were very active in anti-governmental movements...)

I was so purposeful on more. More Beatles. First it was 'Love Me Do' then the album 'Rubber Soul'. Once 'Abbey Road' and 'Let It Be' rolled around, I was a goner. A goner for those melodies and timeless platinum words. I remember being in eleventh grade, listening to 'Across the Universe' and thinking, 'i never want this song to end'. Looking back, I didn't have the life experience to really paste together what it all meant, myabe I still don't...but. Shit. "Nothing's gonna change my world." COME on. Very few songs make me tear up with the first few chords. I remembered wishing that after every verse that there could be, would be more. There was never anyone or anything to speak to me like the Beatles did. Now, certainly, I am a sheep that has fled the flock. I have put down my Beatles cd's for more modern sounds.

My darling love and I sat there, together thru the haze of rose candle and the scent of warming wine, and witnessed the pull on American culture that the Beatles actually had. So. That's that. Rent "Across the Universe". It made me want to be the girl I thought I was gonna be during those simple, sweet and innocent days in high school. Hearing different voices, different interpretations perform those songs really displays how timeless and imaginitive, ahead of their time that those 4 men and their work really was.

Strangely, I am moved most by the music and culture of the late 60's and early 70's. There was such honesty and clarity in the unknown. People challenged the state and the government with abandon. People were done being afraid, they were taking the country back. The Beatles were indicative of this. It was a time rife with love and darkness, people just feeling their way out. Now, those people are fat and tired, zombie-fied with the reality of kids graduating college or supporting their disabled spouses...hoping to maybe break even at the end of the month. So fast they all burned up, as soon as it was en vogue, the movement, the dissidence was finished.

Anyway, late night ramblings aside. "Across the Universe" inspired me artistically, emotionally. I remembered who I used to be and who I thought I should have been. So. Here goes. I've been pointed towards more Beatles and again...I'm listening. :)