Last night I could not sleep so I slapped on the ipod and set it for random play. About 3 songs in "A day in the life" by the Beatles came on and It brought up a very vivid memory of the first time I had heard the song. It must have been 1982 and I was up at my grandparents cottage in Cadillac MI. I was up there with my family and my cousins from Wisconsin. My grandparents had a clock radio that projected the time on the ceiling it was mechanical and it would slowly change every minute. It was really late and my brother and my cousin were already asleep. When the piano intro started up and John Lennon started singing " I read the news today..." I knew it was the Beatles but it was not like any of the Beatles I had ever heard because my folks only had the
Red Album on 8-track. It was dark and ominous like the moonlit shadows of the trees coming in the windows that night. It seemed lonely and like I was, lying there feeling like I was the only person awake up in Cadillac that night. The lyrics were not of the "I want to hold your hand" type I was used to hearing from the Fab Four, they were downright scary to me at the time, violent in a Richard Cory kind of way in the first verse. Then Paul appeared in the song with his alarm clock and sings his little ditty in the middle, now that was the Beatles I knew. He did not stay for long as he was swept away by Johns ahhhs and back to what I thought was a Wold War Two reference about there being "4000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire" then the orchestra whirled around and went faster and faster until.... Duuuuuuuunnnnnnnn... the apocalyptic piano chord brought the whole song, and for a second for me, the whole world to an end. I don't remember if they played any other songs after that, but I think after that night I knew that there were deeper things going on in the world of music than I was used to hearing.
