Performer: The Beatles
Songwriters: John Lennon, Paul McCartney
Original Release: single, Magical Mystery Tour
Year: 1967
Definitive Version: None
Happy New Year! We begin
2013 with one of the oldest songs and oldest stories on this here list.
Like most kids my age—well,
most kids in general—my first movie was a Disney flick. I couldn’t tell you
which one it was, but I’m sure it was something like Dumbo or Peter Pan or Snow
White or God Knows What.
I’m also pretty sure that it
was at the North High Drive-In, way up north of Columbus on Rt. 23. When I was
a little kid, the drive-in seemed to be almost to Delaware. It was only later
when I became a young adult that I learned that the North High Drive-In was
only just north of I-270 outside of Worthington.
It was a standard drive-in,
I suppose. Dad would borrow my grandfather’s big green station wagon and back
in to the parking spot, so he could raise the liftgate and we could watch out
the back. The North High had one of those funky little playgrounds in front of
the screen that had swings and a merry-go-round. I have a memory of being there
in my pajamas, running around.
(I also have memories of
being there much later with Beth when the drive-in’s fare still consisted of
movies that featured Bambi as a character, but where the terms Flower and
Thumper took on a whole new meaning.)
Disney animation was the
sole of my early movie-going experience when my aunt Nan—Dad’s youngest
sister—offered to take me to an animated movie of a different type, likely in
1969. (I don’t remember the year.)
I loved my aunt Nan, as you
can imagine. Nan was as close to an older sibling as I had. She was (well, is)
13 years younger than Dad, which makes her 10-1/2 years older than I am. I
mean, I was 7 when she graduated from high school, and when she turned 16, she
had a bright yellow Camaro that she called the Banana.
And it was in the Banana
that she picked me up to take me to my first non-Disney movie—my first movie in
a theater—and the movie was Yellow Submarine.
To say that my aunt Nan was
a Beatlemaniac would be getting it just right. I remember she always seemed to
have posters and pictures in her bedroom and in the basement of the Fab Four.
(She also bought one of the first U.S. printings of Yesterday and Today and
steamed off the false cover to reveal the original “Butcher” cover beneath.)
I bet she had seen Yellow
Submarine at least several times before taking me—my guess is she would have
had to assure my parents that I would be OK amid all the hippies at the flick,
or at least that the movie wasn’t so drugged out that I would be bored. I don’t
know. Whatever, although I don’t recall the sensations I felt watching Yellow
Submarine, I know that I loved it instantly.
Within days, I had a
Nan-drawn Boob poster on the door to my bedroom and a very colorful paperback
version that I could read myself. Best of all, aunt Nan gave me a stack of
Capitol 45s that featured many of the songs that were in the movie, including
Yellow Submarine, Lucy in the Sky and this song.
I had a glorious baby-blue
with white trim Decca Phono suitcase record player in my bedroom. (The lid
opens to reveal the turntable, and the speakers detatched from the main box.)
And I would play those records to death while imagining I was doing battle with
the Boob and the Boys against the evil Blue Meanies.
The funny thing is I never
became a full-fledged Beatlemaniac even though, obviously, all the pieces were
in place for that to happen. I didn’t like the real-life black-and-white
Beatles who either were always being chased by screaming girls or fighting
amongst themselves in some boring studio.
I mean, what’s the fun in
that when you can be on a yellow submarine hightailing it through the Sea of Monsters?
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