Music Sounds Better With You #2

'Hey Jude' - The Beatles (c.1988?)

Picture the scene: it's been one of those archetypal school discos (in our case, a joint one with the neighbouring girls' school) where boys and girls stand in opposite corners for most of the night, in mortal fear of one another, meeting only fleetingly in the middle of the room for Coke and Mars Bars. And yet this one song seems to have broken the ice, and got even the most shy and gawky squits to interact with the opposite sex (yes, I'm counting myself in that number). In the car on the way home, I mention the song - 'Hey Jude'. "Oh, The Beatles", says my dad. I am MORTIFIED. That's, like, from the 1960s, old, parent music - and definitely NOT cool.

Skip forward to September 1998, and my local pub. It's a leaving party for a friend who's about to join the Merchant Navy, everyone's joyously drunk, there's karaoke - and every single person in the place is bellowing out the "Na na na na" bit of 'Hey Jude' with nary a thought of pitch and tune. Some are standing on tables, some can barely stand at all, but everyone - including yours truly - has a beaming grin on their face. A fantastic song. How things change.

The Beatles inspired a love of bands and artists whose careers began or even began and ended before my passion for music was fully formed, and ensured a preparedness to eschew the NOW in favour of the ETERNAL every now and again - The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, David Bowie, The Ramones, Joy Division, Frank Sinatra, The Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys, Dexys Midnight Runners...