Your Mother Should Know

In fall of 1967, Magical Mystery Tour was released.

Earlier that summer, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band had been launched with great fanfare. Even Time magazine got involved with a cover article about how the band worked with the London Philharmonic.

Conversely, Mystery Tour rolled up unexpectedly. That day, I was having lunch at Massey Secondary School. One of the usual group at our table was away at some appointment. Shortly after lunch period began, he came through the backdoor into the cafeteria. He was exuberant and waving a record album high over his head. As he made his way to our table, some people rose from their seats to follow him.

It was our first look at the Magical Mystery Tour album: for us at the time, an event of epoch discovery. The Beatles wore animal masks in the cover picture. (Gasp! Which Beatle was which animal?) The cover unfolded to reveal a picture book aside – first time a record album had a book inside. As the people at our table looked through the pictures, word spread. A crowd gathered around. People were standing on nearby tables to get a glimpse, everyone fascinated with pictures inside with The Beatles on a bus tour.

As I was looking at the picture of John Lennon with a shovel full of spaghetti, I realized that Woolco, the only store in South Windsor that sold records, would have a limited supply. I got up and shot out the back door of the cafeteria, and ran nonstop through the back campus and the three blocks to my house. I jumped on my old bike and peddled hard to Gateway Plaza. Already, kids were ahead of me, grabbing their copies. I secured mine, bicycled home then ran back to school relieved that I had my copy of the new Beatle album, which I would be playing over and over that night.

By this time, it was half way through the next period. I expected to get sent to the office for a late slip. Likely, I’d be given a detention. However, in the school, my teacher was standing in the hall chatting with a couple of others. I understood why when I got to my classroom. Half the students were gone.

It seemed to me that nearly half the school was either out to buy the new Beatle album or gone to somebody’s house to listen to it.

It is impossible to explain the hold the Beatles had on the youth of the 60s. There has been nothing so popular since. The first three Beatles albums at one time were the top three sellers on the Billboard charts for music sales in North America. At the same time, five of their singles held the top five spots on the singles chart. And the phenomenon took off from there.

In their day, they were original in many ways and it is an understatement to point out that they were trend setters. They were the trend setters. Not just as musicians, but as thinkers. An obscure example – their manager was openly gay. This was influential. Beatles fans were unlikely to be intolerant knowing the Beatles had a gay manager.

The fab four were hard working young men who loved the music and were not afraid to try new things. In the turbulent 60s, The Beatles showed the baby boom generation that, for some, life could be what you make it. You say you want a revolution… you’d better free your mind instead.

I feel very fortunate to have grown up in the 60s, when there was an explosion of great music, from Miles Davis to Mungo Jerry, Soul sounds, California sounds, the Philadelphia sound, Chess Records, Motown, psychedelic, blues, the British invasion... It was a trip. And The Beatles were driving.