How I Discovered: The Beatles (Part One: 1962-1965)

This post is not really fair, because I never really "discovered" the Beatles. They have always been a part of my life; in fact, the earliest memory I have of music at all is hearing "Love Me Do" in the back of my family's white Chevy Suburban.

In light of this, I've decided to approach this post a little differently. In two posts, I'll be writing a sentence about what each individual album means to me, along with an estimate of when I got the album, if possible. The albums will be listed in chronological order, with three exceptions: I count Abbey Road as the Beatles' last album because it was the last recorded, even though Let it Be was their last release. The Past Masters albums, as collections of the band's singles, include songs from the band's entire career; thus, I will be using them as a sort of interlude between the two posts.

I listened to Please Please Me quite a bit after I purchased the 2009 remaster during my sixth grade year, and the song "Misery" in particular reminds me of my unsuccessful stint as a competitive swimmer for Wave swim team. The song "Boys" is the first song I played with two of my best friends in a band setting.

With the Beatles was the first Beatles album I bought digitally after the Beatles' catalog was made available on iTunes, but I didn't buy it until late sophomore year as far as I can remember. I consider it one of the peak "Beatlemania" albums.

A Hard Day's Night was purchased and played constantly throughout my sophomore year, especially early on. It is not a particularly sad album, but it always reminds me of a fun, exciting, complicated, and ultimately painful relationship with a girl.

Beatles for Sale must have been purchased around the same time. It contains arguably the Beatles' worst song, "Mr Moonlight," but also many of my favorites like "What You're Doing" and "No Reply."

I got Help! from one of my best friends, Jack around fifth or sixth grade. I had known some of the songs, like "You're Gonna Lose That Girl,"for much longer, but overall the sound of the album brings me back to middle school and bus rides on Quest Academy field trips.

Rubber Soul is an incredible album. I bought it around the same time Jack bought Help!, and all throughout sixth grade I had it on rotation with Sgt. Pepper, Abbey Road, and Please Please Me in my mom's car. It is the last album the Beatles released before they really started to let loose in the studio and shows glimpses of what wonderful songwriters they were becoming.

I bought Past Masters, Volume One in a record store in Chicago two years ago. I was already familiar with most of the songs in one way or another ("Sie Liebt Dich" had been a joke among Jack and me since we were seven years old), but it was nice to actually own the album itself.