daily java

Daily Java:

The fool has said in his heart, there is no God. (Psalm 53:1)

I love the Beatles and like listening to them. I still remember the first time I heard one of their songs. 1964 in eighth grade – “I Want to Hold your Hand.” It was so different.

All I had heard of them was that my parents (along with 95% of all adults I ever listened to) didn’t like them. They were revolutionary, discordant rock and roll, the devil’s own music.  Mop top degenerates, singing mindless lyrics (“Yeah, yeah, yeah!”)

But secretly (little revolutionary I was) I liked them. I grew into their songs and even sang some of them in a quartet in choir. We went around to various functions – 2 girls, Marian Armstrong and Cathy Clawson – and 2 boys – me, of course, and either Stan Van Horn or Paul Francis – and sang Beatles songs in such a good way no one could refuse to hear it.

Musically the Beatles were very good. So when they broke up I was upset, but kept up with the individual Beatles. So I listened to John Lennon’s Imagine and thought it was cool, neat, heavy, man. But as I got older I began to realize that the man was an idiot with an idiot’s view of paradise.

“Imagine there's no heaven, it's easy if you try, No people below us, above it's only sky, Imagine all the people, Living for today. Imagine there's no countries, it isn't hard to do, No need to kill or die for and no religions too. Imagine all the people, Living life in peace. Oh, You, you may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope some day you'll join us And the world will be as one.”

Beautiful melody, inane lyrics to the max. A world of just happy people all standing around with flowers, loving each other, peace reigning. And all because the people had finally realized the futility of religion.. All of us living in peace, doing – something. I am not sure what we would all be doing in such a vacuous world.

But that song impacted a generation and is now viewed as an anthem of a perfect world. Just get rid of all that religion stuff, all that God stuff, just don’t worry, man. Let it all hang out and do your own thing, baby.

Of course, that is the recipe for a world going to hell, but we would go to hell so musically, led by a guy who fooled himself and a whole generation of people.

There is no world without God and only a fool would say so. Romans 1 says that you can see God in everything you look at and that we all worship him innately, just automatically. We are made that way because we are made in God’s image.

We are made to serve him and life will never be any good until we do. There will always be something missing as long as we are not serving God.

As I said, I liked the Beatles and listened to them a lot over the years. I still do. But there is a difference between listening to something and subscribing to it.

Without God life is nothing, no matter how beautiful the song may be that says otherwise.

the first time i heard the beatles

I remember hearing my first Beatles song. She Loves You, Yeah, yeah.

1963 – I was in seventh grade, in gym class. Freeport Junior High in Freeport, Texas. Girls on one side in those ugly one piece gym suits, boys on the other. No mixed gym classes in those days.

For some reason, someone had brought in a record player, one of those units that had the speakers come off the player and set along side.

They put on a record. I listened to it and it was different. I asked someone who that was. They said it is that new group, the Beatles.

I wasn’t sure. I thought I had heard a preacher or someone talk against them at some point (preachers hated anything new in those days) so I wasn’t sure if I liked them or not.

I don’t know why anyone had a record player in the gym class or why they would play someone as avant garde as the Beatles.

But I will never forget hearing them for the first time.

I have listened to them now for almost five decades. I watched them flame up then flame out. I watched the individual Beatles do their stuff over the years and heard the songs they sang.

Some of them were great. Some of them – like John Lennon’s Imagine, one of the most inane pieces of gibberish to ever masquerade as music – were stupid.

But I have always liked them.  Or at least I liked their music.

And I remember the day I heard their music the first time on an elevator. It was You Say You Want A Revolution played by someone like Montovani’s Strings or the like. I realized at that time, we had passed a point. What had begun as counter-cultural became standard and mainstream.

It began to dawn on me then that I heard them a lot in the malls, that easy listening, the music that used to be lush orchestras, had become soft oldies rock.

Now our children listen to them and you can buy a t shirt with their pictures on it in Target.

One of these days I will hear them for the last time. I won’t know it at the time, but it will dawn on me that I no longer hear the Beatles. At that point, I suppose I will be ready to die.

My generation is already resented by many of the young people for what one called our “Cultural Death Grip.” I figure ten more years of that death grip and it will begin to loosen.

We will all begin to die and something else besides our music will take the Beatles’ place.

I wonder what.

the beatles

I have always been a fan of the Beatles, since their coming to America. I have also recognized them from the beginning as weird guys.

They are a perfect example of really good singers, but not really great guys. It is doubtful that, apart from their music and celebrity, the average person would even be able to stand them.

John was weird, Paul couldn't even read music and tried too hard to be cool, George was a Hare Krishna and Ringo was always kind of strange with his peace and love, peace and love.

Musically they were great, seminal performers who, single-handedly, changed the face of popular music. They picked up every fad that came along and, from all reports, argued constantly. It was no wonder they broke up.

John was considered to be the intellectual one but went on to make up silly songs. Stuff like "Give Peace a Chance", "Cold Turkey"; "Instant Karma! (We All Shine On)"; "Mother"; "Power to the People"; "Imagine"; "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)"; "Woman Is the Nigger of the World"; "Mind Games"; "Whatever Gets You thru the Night". Imagine had to have been the dumbest song ever written in the history of the world.

Paul went on to form Wings, which I did like,  turned out some really good stuff including one symphony and kept his cool even in the midst of a bitter, acrimonious divorce. But his comments the other day at the Obama concert showed him to be a real fool.

George had a great look, but spent so much time singing about Hare Krishna and even got into a lawsuit over stealing the Chiffons’ song, He’s So Fine, and making it My Sweet Lord.

Two are dead, one tragically and one from excess. Paul is making a fool of himself with putting down President Bush, and Ringo is doing so by going around saying Peace and Love, Peace and Love.

I still like to hear them, but they are living proof that singers, though talented people, were just musicians.

Anytime we try to elevate musicians and actors above what they do, we get in trouble. Expertise in one thing
does not guarantee success in another. The Beatles were proof of that.