My Dad Tried to Get Me to Shun the Beatles

[Cue music] Picture yourself in a black El Dorado, with dark leather seats and a body so wide. Everyone smiles as you drive by the flowers with a grill so incredibly high-

I remember sitting in the front seat of my dad's Cadillac in the late 1970s. I must have been about four years old. Both of us were seatbelt free as we drove around town, doing errands and listening to hits on FM radio.

In my formative years, listening to music already ranked high on my list of favorite pastimes, along with:

• Mastering pinball on our Evil Knievel pinball machine in the garage.

Congratulations if you made it this far in the story and have any idea what I'm talking about. This means you've either survived on the planet for more than four decades or are incredibly hip to 70s nostalgia.

Continuing down the road, I couldn't help but sing along to one of my favorite songs.

Here comes the sun, doo-doo-doo-doo

Here comes the sun, and I say

It's alright -George Harrison

My dad took a drag off his cigarette and casually rolled the dial on the dash until he locked in on a different station.

Upon stopping at the light, he looked over and regarded me quizzically. "Are you a Beatles fan like your mom?" I didn't get a chance to respond. Without missing a beat, my dad emphatically explained, "The Beatles are shit, but the Stones are it. The Stones are where it's at."

My music history lessons continued later at home. My dad would spin LPs on his turntable while I was expected to sit at attention on our chartreuse tapestry couch. I'd listen to his music and ponder over the psychedelic album covers propped up next to his quadraphonic stereo.

Just listen," my dad would muse, "doesn't it feel like the music is taking you somewhere?" My dad might've been 2,000 light-years from home, but as far as I could tell, I was still sitting on the happenin' bright yellow/green couch in our living room. Not wanting to disappoint my dad, I would nod my head in agreement.

Secretly, as a young child, I related way more to "Here Comes the Sun" (Beatles) than "Here Comes Your 19th Nervous Breakdown" (Stones). There'd be plenty of time to get acquainted with breakdowns when I got older, but that's a different story.

The Beatles vs. Stones conundrum was probably the first time I encountered such blatant musical discrimination/intolerance.

The preposterous, black-and-white notion that "if you like band X, then you cannot like band Y."

There's an old joke from the movie The Blues Brothers (1980):

"What kind of music do you usually have here?" asks Elwood. "Oh, we got both kinds," answers the bartender. "We got Country and Western."

After being mercilessly pummeled with beer bottles and trash, Elwood and Jake ditch their blues set for some boot-scootin' boogies. When in Rome, right?

I don't think I ever had to hustle like the Blues Brothers to avert an ass-whooping from pissed-off local yokels. But if I'm honest, there were times when I didn't admit to liking certain music or pretended to like something that I didn't like, just to fit in. This was especially true when I was a teen in the early 90s.

Musical comparison games of "this is better than that" were common and hard to avoid. The music scene had also broadened. So many choices: Headbangers intermingled with Gangsta Rappers, Punks, Goths, Deadheads, Grunge Kids, Rastafarians, and more in the halls and malls.

When my peers couldn't peg what music scene someone was into (i.e. by their Doc Marten's/dreadlocks/heavy gold chains with massive dollar signs), they demanded to know what was jamming in their cassette/CD player. It let them know who was in and who was out, who was part of their tribe.

As an adult, I don't come across the "oh, you listen to that; I thought you were cool" juvenile mindset very often. Now, most of us Gen-Xers like what we like and don't give a flying fig what other people think.

Our music will always be part of who we are. We get older, and we accumulate new identity qualifiers. For me: wife, mom, writer, guzzler of flavored sparkling water…Admittedly, some of my identifiers might not sound as rousing as Riot Grrrl or Hip-hop Head, but you catch my drift.

Talkin' bout his g-g-generation-

Back to my dad, I'm not trying to put him down. His rejection of the Beatles likely stemmed from his masculinity as much as from his taste in bands. The early to mid-60s Beatles of his teen years were literally drowned out by screaming pubescent (and prepubescent!) girls. Not a good fit for a guy in his prime.

I can also see why he resonated with an edgier band like the Rolling Stones. After all, the Beatles were only asking to hold your hand in 1964. Apparently, by 1965 that request wasn't delivering enough satisfaction for the Stones. By the end of 66' (the year my dad graduated from high school), Mick and Keith upped the ante and recorded "Let's Spend the Night Together."

As for me, "It's only rock 'n' roll, but I like it."

I adore the Beatles and The Rolling Stones! It's ludicrous to think that two of the biggest bands from The British Invasion are somehow mutually exclusive forces.

My classic rock game is still raging strong. This metal mama is rooted in wailing lead singers, grinding electric guitars, pulsing bass lines, thundering drums, and amps that go up to 11 on a scale from 1 to 10!

But let's be real. I've mellowed out a bit. Listening to Led Zeppelin in my car after raiding the classic rock t-shirt collection at Target is usually about as hardcore as it gets around here.

Times have changed. My kids haven't had the pleasure of cruising in a classic Cadillac the size of a barge. But I've carried on my dad's tradition of exposing them to plenty of oldies but goodies. To be fair, I let them stream their current pop infatuations at least as often as I "get the Led out."

Most importantly, I never tell them what they should like. Music should be appreciated, never indoctrinated.

*This story was originally posted by the author on 5/17/22 on Medium.com