EDUCATION MATTERS:Thoughts on love at first sight

My wife and I went to see “Love,” the Cirque du Soleil tribute to the Beatles at the Mirage in Vegas. It brought me back to that moment in 1964 when I got my first look at them on the Ed Sullivan Show. It was then that I instantly fell in love with their music. They were the Fab Four mop-heads from Liverpool, who brought a new look and a new sound to rock ‘n’ roll. And, just to add to their enormous appeal, our parents didn’t get them.

My students today also cannot comprehend what it was that made them so popular with my generation. Anyone under the age of 50 would have difficulty grasping how much the country changed 43 years ago when the Beatles came to America.

Nor can a younger generation comprehend who and what Ed Sullivan was to America. Every Sunday, 50 million people (more than half the total viewing audience) sat down to watch his show. The night that the Beatles first appeared, more than 70 million tuned in and, for most of us teenagers, it was a night we’ll always remember. They were different from anything that we had ever seen. We’d been fed a steady diet of Bobby Vinton and Frankie Avalon, and the No. 1 song just before the arrival of the Fab Four was “Dominique” by the Singing Nun.

The day after that show, many of us young lads in the country came to school with hair combed down as far as we could manage, which in my case wasn’t very far. (Back then we all got something called a “regular boy’s haircut,” which was the signature of a “well-groomed young man.”)

The Beatle’s non-conformity was as irresistible as their music. Their rebelliousness was playful, not menacing, and the songs they wrote struck a chord with young people all around the world. Their albums always had one great song after another, unlike most groups then (and now) that had one or two signature songs on an album with eight or nine losers.

When I began to grow my hair longer, my dad came to associate that most unpleasant style with the advent of the Beatles and so he developed a life-long animosity for them. For many years my mother held them in equal contempt, and tended to lump them in with more strident groups that followed (i.e. the Rolling Stones). But, having the superb musical sense that she does, she has in recent years “discovered” the Beatles. Which leads me to the possible conclusion that I may, before I leave this earth, learn to appreciate rap music.

The timing of the Beatles in 1964 was perfect. We baby boomers were just coming onto the scene.

This year was to become a definite line drawn in the sands of popular culture. It would feature music coming from different places and using different modes to convey it. Everything before the Beatles sounds ancient, whereas music after them still sounds relatively modern today. By revolutionizing the ways that music is composed, by incorporating different styles of music, from blues to folk, from country to classical, the Beatles expanded the very framework of rock ‘n’ roll.

Every new album, every new song was a step, sometimes a leap, forward. When I was 14, I was singing “I Want To Hold Your Hand” and three years later my favorite all-time album, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” was released. I was graduating from high school and the Beatles were graduating from an earlier innocence. There was a message to some of their music that had unmistakable social or political overtones. In spite of that, there were still millions of us all around the world who were captivated and, in very important ways, united by their music.

Some would argue that in their latter stages, the Beatles became controversial, were anti-establishment/ counterculture, promoted drug use in their lyrics, were the anti-Christ, etc. Agree or disagree with their politics or their social commentary, one thing stayed the same throughout the ‘60s and that was the quality of their music.

My daughters love the Beatles and so will my grandson when he’s just a little older and able to appreciate the classics. A good percentage of my students over the years (including the present crop) are devoted fans of the Beatles, and that tickles me to no end. They were a band of my generation and they are a band for the ages.

I know it’s a few days after Valentine’s Day, but let me say that I do believe in “love at first sight” since it has overtaken me twice in my life — once in 1964 with the lads from Liverpool, whose music I will love for all of my days, then once again five years later when I first laid eyes on my wife, Nadine, who I will also love for the rest of my life. Like the song says, and truer lyrics were never written, “All You Need Is Love.”