The Necessity

4. The Beatles - The Beatles
I discovered the Beatles in the summer following my senior year of high school. A week after graduation, I moved out of my parents' house in Rupert to a friend's house in Boise. I paid for my room by doing yardwork and painting. Needless to say, this afforded me plenty of time to listen to a myriad of Beatles albums that I found at the Library(!). Of course, I had heard plenty of Beatles songs before, but I had never really listened to a full Beatles album; there is a huge difference between hearing "Michelle" and hearing Rubber Soul. In essence, it was the Beatles' focus on the album as art that became so important to me. I could probably write a few volumes on the Beatles and my thoughts of their music at this point, but I'll keep it to just some simple comments on the one album that has become more important to me than any other.
The Beatles (the White Album) is not a historically acclaimed album like Sgt. Pepper or Abbey Road. In general, the White Album has a lot more acoustic, singer-songwriter type stuff on it, and that's why I was initially drawn to it. Tunes like "Blackbird" and "Mother Nature's Son" became inspirations for my own songs, none of which ever actually sounded like Beatles tunes really. I was stuck by how eclectic the album was, by the way in which the Beatles emulated and satired musical styles from the Beach Boys to Bob Dylan to Tin Pan Alley. The contrast between "Why Don't We Do it in the Road?" and "Goodnight" and "Piggies" is almost ridiculous. At any rate, the White Album more than piqued my interest in the Beatles and because of that, I spent the rest of that first summer away from Rupert and my family immersed in Beatles albums. So it was John, Paul, George, and Ringo that ushered me into my freshman year of college, not a moment too late.