I remember the day just like it
was just yesterday. It was one morning early in 1963 and I strolled into my mum’s
cosy kitchen without a care in the world. She was busy preparing lunch and, as
ever, she had the radio on. She’d have been hoping they might play Tony Bennett
or Frank Sinatra or, better still, her favourite disc, What Do You Want to Make Those Eyes A Me For? by Emile Ford &
The Checkmates.
Up to that point music had been
a bit like wallpaper to me; it was there all around me all of the time but it
was pretty easy to ignore. It didn’t engage me. But that morning I heard a
joyous, infectious, melodic, pleasing sound that stopped me in my tracks and, quite
literally, changed my world.
The sound I heard was Please Please Me and I soon discovered
this magic came from four Liverpool lads called The Beatles. I became obsessed
by both the single and the group. Soon I’d a cheap record player and, a few
months later, was also the proud owner of Please Please Me (the long playing
record). Another six albums and four years later, I thought I’d it all figured
out when they hit me (and the rest of the world) with what has arguably become
the most important album ever released: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts’ Club Band.
During the summer of 1967 I was
still living in Northern Ireland, getting ready to leave for London in fact.
I'd bought Sgt. Peppers the day it was released but hadn't had a chance to
listen to it too much, preoccupied as I was then by trying to secure gigs for
my first group, The Blues By Five. But I had liked the album; most certainly
I’d liked it a lot. Then, one Saturday evening, I was at this party in a church
hall in Cookstown, up in the heartland of Northern Ireland in Co. Tyrone. Up
until this point Cookstown was famous for having one very broad street which
ran the whole way through the townland. The street was so broad that legend had
it pedestrians brought a flask of tea and some sandwiches with them so they
could take a break mid-way across. Now, to me, Cookstown was going to become
famous for something entirely different.
All the walls and ceiling of
the church hall were covered with a mass of colourful posters, streamers and
balloons. The music was great and, as they say up in those parts, the craic was
ninety. We just sat back and let the evening go. People were talking, laughing,
joking and dancing. Some were sitting around, drinking and having a good time
and then someone put the Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album on a
record-player they’d wired up direct to the PA system.
One by one the party-people
stopped talking and chatting and the noise and bustle of the party died down completely
until the entire crowd present was being seduced by this beautiful and
inspiring music. People were smiling and loving it. Happiness was spreading
from one person to another with the same power and speed panic can move through
a gathering. It was wonderful to be there. It was certainly a thrill. Every new
track drew everyone deeper and deeper into this new world. Our new world, a
world created for us by The Beatles. It was like everything they had ever done
had been leading up to that point. Every note of music they had ever played,
every song they had ever composed had been in preparation for this moment: the
moment they captured with Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. It didn't
matter that perhaps the Revolver album might have been a better album. It
didn't matter that touring had nearly destroyed our band. It didn't matter that
I didn't have someone there with me to love and share this with; there was
already more than enough love in the air. Nothing really mattered apart from
the wonderful sounds filling the speakers and the fact that the Beatles had
fulfilled their unspoken promise to us. This album wasn't a great album because
it sold lots of copies. The album sold lots of copies, purely and simply,
because it was a great album. Yes, maybe even the perfect album.
And the thing about the party
that night in Cookstown was that we were all sharing it, sharing the pleasure.
And as it was being shared, the pleasure grew. When John Lennon started to sing
A Day In the Life, I swear to you I
felt shivers run down my spine, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up and
my throat went dry. I could feel my nostrils tightening as though tears were
going to flow. I bet you not one person in that hall felt any different. No one
moved a muscle for fear of spoiling the mood. As the last note, the E Major,
drifted into silence, everyone was left stunned and speechless. It was like a
mass turn-on but instead of the buzz being incited by a drug, it had been
induced by the show The Beatles had wanted, needed to present to us. This was
the show they knew they could never do on stage as the moptops to their
screaming fans. But they felt they could do it by sending it out to us in the
form of the Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album. I know that
probably sounds as if I may have been indulging in some of the stimulants that
had even managed to make it as far as Cookstown in those days. I wasn't. I
never felt the need to. But you really had to be there, in Cookstown on that
spectacular summer evening, to know what I'm on about. It was a perfect moment.
It was one of those moments that rarely happen in your life but when they do,
well then you have to try and find some way to savour the magic moments and cherish
and protect them in your memory. All I can tell you is that as we strained to
hear the disappearing E Major, there was the most incredible feeling of elation,
yes… even euphoria. When all that was left was the crackle of the needle on its
final revolution everyone started to clap their hands. We didn't know what else
to do. We just clapped and clapped and then clapped some more.
You'll never ever meet anyone
who can tell you what it was like the first time the 1812 Overture was
performed, or what it was like sitting in the Olympia Theatre in Dublin when
The Hallelujah Chorus was receiving its world premiere. In fact, I can
guarantee you won't. Time has drawn a line under both of those. But, with hand
on heart, I'm happy to tell you that for me what those audiences felt could not
have compared with the experience I felt while listening to The Beatles'
masterwork that night in Cookstown.
It was never the same again. I
never ever experienced that same buzz again. I don't tell you that with the
slightest regret. I am proud to have been alive in that time and enjoyed that
once in a lifetime experience. I still love and enjoy listening to the record.
But it just may have been the communal spirit between all present at the party
that special summer evening in Cookstown that made the Beatles playback so
extraordinary. I suppose for an experience to have been so special meant that
it certainly wasn't going to be an experience which could be repeated
frequently, if ever.
And it all came from the music;
the music of The Beatles.
And here we are fifty years
later (nearly to the day) and we’re enjoying that music and those moments once
again and to mark this special 50th Anniversary celebration I wanted
to share a D.I. Christy Kennedy (short) mystery, entitled: Sgt. Flynn’s Lonely
Hertz Club Band, which was inspired by the Beatles eighth album or, as it was
known to the EMI accountants, PCS 7027.
Thanks to the Fab people at Fahrenheit Press a Kindle version is available now. And talking about available now, there is also a Christy Kennedy (short) mystery included in the current (July/ August) edition of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. The Kennedy story is called Harry Potter & The Shadow of the Forger's Throne, I hope you enjoy both.
Cheers
pc