Beatles in my Radio

Children always seem to have these weird assumptions as they come to terms with the world they're living in. As they grow up these assumptions are replaced with fact and slowly the magic of childhood dies. 


I remember realising that I could jump from the garden table flapping my arms as many times as I like, but I would never fly. I also remember learning that the stories my dad told me about Neil Armstrong and the alleged man on the moon were not the same thing. I used to think that the poor guy got left behind and I used to always pray for him to find a way home. It was only later I learned the difference between seeing a man's face in the moon and actually being a man on the moon.


Slowly but surely, you start seeing how the world fits together and it starts making sense. The more sense it makes, the less fun it is. Luckily, to this day, I have a constant reminder of my carefree take on the world. 


My dad is a huge Beatles fan. I remember it being pretty much the only music that he ever played in the car. The effects of this are still present in my taste in music today. Long road trips were the best because we got to listen to all the songs without interruptions. I loved the Beatles and the thing that I found the most fascinating about them was how they could sing for all that time. You see, I used to think that the Beatles lived inside the radio. I used to think that all musicians lived in the radio. I always imagined them in a little city. When it was their turn, they stood on a little platform and performed. 


I always admired the stamina of the Beatles. They could play for hours without stopping. The lazy people on the radio would only sing one song at a time, but the Beatles would sing twenty songs easily. It sounds silly now, but I think that's why they're my musical heroes even today. They were amazing.


Things started to get confusing for me when someone on the radio said that it was the anniversary of the death of John Lennon, one of the Beatles. I kind of knew what it meant when someone was dead and it confused the heck out of me. If he had died, then how on Earth was he still singing in the radio? My poor head couldn't wrap around this new bit of information.


It wasn't long after that that I confided in one of my parents (I can't remember which one) that I thought that people lived in the radio and I was worried about the Beatles not being able to perform anymore. They calmly explained  the concept of recording, which I'm sure went way over my head, and managed to convince me that there were no little men in the radio.


I now know a fair bit about recording, I even did job-shadowing at a small recording studio, but every time I listen to the Beatles I like to remember the little men in my radio who used to play the soundtrack to my childhood. Gone, but not forgotten.

How I imagined them in my radio