What event set off your Beatles obsession?

As we are (potentially) only a few days from an announcement re: the Beatles remasters/iTunes/iPod extravaganza, I was wondering ... What particular event led you to become an obsessive fan and/or collector of the Beatles? Was it simply discovering them for the first time? Did it take a while to get hooked, or was it instantaneous? Were you a casual fan and then something tipped you over the edge, as it were?

I really started checking them out around 1986 (I was 10 years old). A family friend had "Rock and Roll Music" on cassette (that's all we listened to, back then, at least in the midwest in the days before CD players were available/affordable!). I borrowed it and made a dub and really dug it. At the time I was still into the Monkees (a la the MTV thing) and actually liked them more ... It took a little while for me to get into the fabs ... then .......

For my 12th birthday in 1987 (October), I got my first walkman, a really snazzy "hi-fi" JVC model with Dolby and Chrome/Metal capabilities (those were the days, eh?). I also got a copy of Sgt. Pepper's. I had never heard a proper Beatles album before. I remember very vividly listening for the first time ... After the first listen, I really didn't know what to think ... I really liked it and was struck by the cohesion -- It all really seemed like one 40 minute piece. I think that was what I dug the most about it ... After another listened, that was all I listened to for quite a while ... I don't even remember which album I got next ... probably the White Album for xmas ... and then it started all over again.

After that ... forget about it! I was truly obsessed ...

 

From birth I think. My mother was (is) a big fan of their early period (up until AHDN or so).

In 1978, at age 11, I started buying my own albums, and almost immediately I started buying Beatles albums. This was in response to my older cousin's tales of her music class at junior high during which they discussed the Beatles at length and in particular the "Paul is Dead" hoax. I asked my mother to tell me more about them and her response was "They were controversial" (i.e. they took drugs). Therefore my first purchase was Sgt. Pepper. The rest, as they say, is history.

 

I'm still waiting for it to happen.

 

It was sometime in the fall of 1977. I was 10 at the time. Someone that we knew made a comment about how great the Beatles records were. Actually, the full context was that I said that no true rock band would have voilins in the music. Our guest pointed out that the Beatles did and they were a great rock band.

The next day I asked by Dad if there were any Beatles records in their collection. He paused and said that my mother had one somewhere. It turned out to be 'Meet the Beatles'. I put the record on my old square schoolroom phonograph and let 'er spin. Wow. Floored. Stunned. And that was just the first track.

That was the moment that I recognized that the Beatles were otherworldly. It would take another 10 years before I would have all of their albums (on cd). Now thanks to this place, I realize that I do not posess good-sounding versions of any of these records. The next step is to collect the bunch on vinyl - assuming that the new remasters are the FUBAR that so many expect them to be.

I certainly wouldn't call myself obsessed or even a collector. But my respect for the music and the artistic growth of the band cannot be understated. And it all came from 'And I Saw Her Standing There'.....

David

FWIW, I still have that lp. It is nearly unplayable now, but it clearly holds some sentimental value.

 

"Flowers in the Dirt" - I was about 12 when it came out.

Friend had it - played it and I became obsessed with "My Brave Face".

When I found out it was the same guy who sang in the end credits of "Spies Like Us" I got really excited.

I asked a used record dealer at a flea market where I could buy Paul McCartney stuff and he sold me a vinyl copy of "Back to the Egg" and a cassette of "Band on the Run".

After that, I learned about his earlier group. The Beatles were just a bunch of guys on the oldies station as a kid until I starting putting Paul and "those guys" together in my mind.

To most here, I guess it really seems backwards - so of course I love The Beatles, but growing up it was more of being "the earlier stage" of Paul's career.

In high school I started to break down who did what and appreciate the other guys for who they were and are...

Jeff

 

THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW.

 

Oh goodness I don't know. I've always heard their music from my folks, they had a bunch of original vinyl. As a kid I enjoyed Honey Don't a lot, I recall. Now I'd have to say my fav is the White Album or MMT. Just part of my musical cloth I guess. I've gained more appreciation over time, as I've learned more about music and about the times. It's such a wonderful body of work that I look forward to enjoying from time to time just as long as I can.

 

[B].!!!1964!!![/B]

 

And not only the original 1964 appearances but the mid-period "Beatles on film" videos, "Penny Lane" and "Strawberry Fields Forever". This was musical perfection in 1967 (as well as 2007).

 

1973 the year of the 'second wave of beatlemania'. I found my sisters copy of Beatles '65, and that was it for me.

 

Ed Sullivan 1964

 

Plus the "Rain" promo film, which I think I saw on the Sullivan show, too.

 

Birth. My brother played them all the time. I grew up with great music in the house.

 

Two things:

Give My Regards to Broad Street: I remember seeing the movie and loving the songs. I think I was 10 or 11 at the time. This was more of the start of the Macca obsession, but it was Beatle related.

Nicholas Shaffner's The Beatles Forever book: I used to absolutely study this book by my best friend's house around the same time. It was his parents' book. I was simply fascinated by the photos of all the record sleeves and memorabilia. The true start of my Beatles obsesssion

 

I thought it'd be fun to see "Beatlemania" on stage when I was 12. Now I loathe "tribute" bands, but back then the concept sounded cool. Loved the show and that got me into the Beatles big time...

 

Ed Sullivan for me, too.

 

In May 1992, I was riding in my father's Mustang on a warm Sunday afternoon. At maybe about 5-6pm, "A Day In the Life" came on the radio. I was blown away. I bought Pepper on CD the following month, and couldn't stop playing it. I already had MMT and the "White Album" on cassette for years, but hearing "A Day In the Life" that day and then buying Pepper really set it off.

 

Ditto.

 

I always liked them, but in 1973 or so (when I was 13), with my first little stereo, my first set of headphones, and my first UK press, I really got into them.

I'd always liked my older sister's US copies of Meet The Beatles, The Beatles Second Album, Sgt. Pepper's and the UA A Hard Days Night, but when I picked up a Parlophone stereo of Rubber Soul that year, I was really wowed...I thought "I've really been missing something here". I sent a letter to the UK EMI address on the back cover and asked about mail order purchases and eventually got PPM through Revolver. Hooked.

Dale

 

I'm a youngin'... 1995. The Beatles Anthology. I was already introduced to oldies music thanks to my mom (she loved Roy Orbison, Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Elvis and such) and didn't like it until I heard The Beatles. I didn't even want to watch the Beatles Anthology (I was ticked off it was interrupting my other shows) but I watched it out of curiosity and I fell in love with the music, I think it was the beginning with "In My Life" clip that did it to me.

I can't wait for the remasters, after buying "Love" and hearing it in Surround and then the mono mixes on The Beatles Capitol Albums, I can't wait. If there's a Beatles iPod I will buy it and give my dad my current 60 gig one.

 

The year was 1974 and I was 11. I was playing an album by the DeFranco Family (remember them?) in my room when a friend came over. He said his mom had a Beatles album and wondered if I wanted to hear it. After he had run home and returned, I cued up the record and was floored by "I Want to Hold Your Hand". The album was MEET THE BEATLES. I asked for and received MTB for my next birthday and my obsession took off from there.

 

For me it was the release of 1962-1966 and 1967-1970 on CD in 1993 that did it. I didn't buy any of the albums on disc, but knew that these comps would be essential. I figured that they would provide all the Beatles I'd ever need.

Flash forward 14 years and I have all of the 1987 CDs, BBC, Anthologies, Yellow Sub Songtrack, LIB Naked, the Capitol boxes, etc. I'd call that an obsession.

 

You know when people say "the Ed Sullivan show" and then go on for a bit about the impact of seeing the Beatles that first time, it doesn't always explain some of the bigger things going on then...which I sometimes think a lot of us who were there also forget when saying ..."the Ed Sullivan show".

Think about it for a minute....at the moment the Beatles hit the stage on Sullivan that Sunday night on February 9, 1964, it had only been 11 weeks or so since Kennedy was assassinated ...and then that weekend where Oswald was killed right in front of us on tv. 11 weeks. We HAD been living in the world of "Leave It To Beaver" up before November 22, 1963.

On November 22, we're all thrown into the Kennedy thing.....this incredibly, life-altering, dark, depressing, surreal, unbelievable, one-bad-thing-after-another weekend. Which absolutely numbed millions and millions of people here in the U.S. I was just a kid, but old enough to fully understand what was going on. I felt everything that everybody else was feeling.

11 weeks later, this incredibly happy event occurs on Sullivan. Despite the great set they played and how new and exciting the Beatles looked, I felt that Sunday night, that their presence was also one of the few good, happy things that millions of Americans had seen amidst 11 straight weeks of dismal pain.

The Beatles bombed out here all through 1963 when Kennedy was still alive. I remember when Please Please Me bombed and didn't get higher than the top 20 or 30. I remember the little AP stories in the summer of 1963 about the Beatles in overseas news...and how we (friends of mine at school) would look at their promo pictures in the news stories and laugh about how weird they looked.

Our entire mindset ...as a country...was way different by February 9, 1964. It was the talent of the band that made their everlasting fame happen and I suppose it was an inevitable thing, but I'll tell ya....we here in the US were desperately NEEDING something good to show up after those horrible weeks preceeding the Beatles appearance on Sullivan. That fact alone opened up the hearts of millions...maybe billions ..of people who were ready to accept anything positive that the universe could manage to eek out.

 

According to my family, it was birth.
-mk