"If It's Funny Try And Understand"

So I was watching A Hard Day's Night this evening, mostly because it has one of the best soundtracks ever (it's a toss-up between Hard Day's Night and Help!, really), but also because it's just a great flick--funny, wry, and well-paced. But one of the things I noticed (and it always strikes me as strange, everytime) is, during the final concert scene, the way the girls in the audience are just going batshit crazy.

Now, as anyone who knows me even halfway well can atest, I am a very obvious music fanatic in general and Beatlemaniac in particular. I love their music, and I think that a big part of me would not exist in any real sense if their music didn't exist. If nothing else, the Beatles allowed my father and I to bond when I was younger. Some of my fondest memories are of sitting in the living room floor after dinner, listening to Beatles records and my father descirbing what it was like when these albums first came out. The Beatles are the reason I love music so much, really.

But I've never understood the way girls just seemed to...freak out over the Beatles. I think I've mentioned it here before (in fact, probably the last time I watched A Hard Day's Night), but it still boggles my mind. I mean, it's music, and sure, music is great, and these guys are the best, but c'mon, it's nothing to cream your shorts over (and really, there were girls who got a little too...excited, shall we say, at Beatles shows. S'truth). Maybe these people were simply more capable of passion and enthusiasm than we are today, though I doubt it (since most of these people are the parents of people my age).

I'll probably never understand it, but hey, I'm not batshit crazy like these people were, right?

~chuck

Song of the Moment: The Beatles, "Can't Buy Me Love"