A Precious Time Capsule

For passion, be it observed, brings insight with it; it can give a sort of intelligence to simpletons, fools, and idiots, especially during youth.
Honore de Balzac

The Beatles will go on and on.
George Harrison

Recently, I splurged and purchased the documentary The Beatles Anthology—a five dvd set. It was my Christmas gift to myself.

I was ten years old when, like most people in the United States on that momentous Sunday, I sat in front of the family television set, enthralled with the Beatles’ performance on the Ed Sullivan Show. It was the event that unleashed Beatlemania upon the world.

A year after this critical marker in the history of music, my family moved to Nicaragua; and although Nicaraguan radio stations played the Beatles, like everywhere else, the English group’s creations didn’t saturate the airwaves as they did in the States—not even close.

During my Nicaraguan adolescence I missed out on the madness of the latter half of the US sixties. Instead, I grew up in a nation where events occurred at a much slower pace—although Nicaragua was gradually edging toward profound changes as well. But the Beatles weren’t part of our national reality and, as a result, I missed out on most of their work as it was being released. For instance, “I Am the Walrus,” my favorite Beatles’s song, came out when I was fourteen, but I only heard it for the first time when I was nineteen.

Thus, as a result of being tucked away in Central America, I didn’t really grow up a true Beatles’s fan. In fact, Nicaraguans were so far removed from the rock music scene that Mick Jagger, who married into the culture and traveled to Nicaragua to meet Bianca’s family, once stated in an interview that he loved the country because the entire time he strolled through the streets of pre-earthquake Managua only one young music fan recognized him. The anonymity, he said, made him feel like a normal person.

But Jagger’s lack of celebrity also showed how far removed we were from the cutting edge musical developments of the rest of the world.

Oddly, it was the movie Woodstock—an event that didn’t include the Beatles—that helped break the musical barrier. The film captured the imagination of Nicaragua’s youth and made us demand more rock music over the airwaves. A couple of radio stations complied and soon we were being introduced to wide range of new music ranging from Chicago and Cat Stevens on through Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull, and Emerson, Lake and Palmer. It was during this exhilarating and intense exposure to English-language music that I became a rabid rock fan.

But by then, however, the Beatles had become fossilized in my mind, still stuck in early 1964, the year my family left the States, and forever singing “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and “She Loves You.” And what helped keep the group locked in this time was that in spite of the tidal wave of rock music emerging over the airwaves in the early 70s, all I kept hearing of the Beatles were their singles which, although pleasant, failed to show the true genius and scope of their oeuvre.

It wasn’t until a couple of years after the Beatles had broken up—when I was back in the States attending college—that at the urging of friends, who loaned me their albums, I started to listen to the Beatles intently. And although the halcyon days of the band had certainly passed, I became a huge fan; not only did I devour all of their music, but I read virtually every book written about them.

What I enjoy most about The Beatles Anthology is that the documentary brings the legacy of the four British musicians vividly back to life as the filmmakers allow the members of the group to tell their story in their own words: from their Liverpool beginnings to their disintegration after the recording of “Abby Road.”

And recently, shortly after Christmas, over a period of a week, I was once again sitting in front of the television, mesmerized by the Beatles. Not only did the documentary help fill some of the gaps of the heady years that I missed while living in Nicaragua, sheltered from the storm of Beatlemania, but at times it allowed me to look into the group’s creative process. What’s more, it was a joy to listen to Paul, George (who was still alive at the time of production), and Ringo reminisce about one of the most extraordinary tales in the annals of entertainment.

Although at the end of the documentary I was sad to say goodbye, I soon found consolation in knowing that by owing this collection, what George Harrison once said about the group has now become tangibly true: for fans, like me, “The Beatles will go on and on.”