Song 551: This week the playlist recognizes I Saw Her Standing There by The Beatles, written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. A lot of people saw something amazing on The Ed Sullivan Show on the second Sunday night of February, 1964, but that evening (2/9), my family and I knew nothing about it. Over the next few days, at the junior high, I heard a bunch of fellow students speaking about Beatles, and I wondered whether a new insect infestation was predicted, or if a popular new VW model had just hit the road. When I finally asked a friend what everyone was referring to, he laughed at how the neighborhood wise guy could be so clueless about the current cultural moment. He did tell me the story, though, and then my whole family gathered by the TV on the next Sunday night to find out what we had missed. My younger brother and I felt we had never seen anything as captivating as the Fab Four, but only a couple minutes into the appearance, my older brother said, “This is just junk. Let's turn this off!” The parents and grandparents agreed with him, but younger brother and I insisted on seeing the complete segment, and we got the other five to comply with our wishes. The performance included this tune, which I truly relished, and in the following weeks, now that JPG&R had rocked my world, for fun, my good friend Brian Johnson and I crafted a parody of the lyrics: Well, she was just 48 and a bit overweight and the way she looked was way beyond repair. I'd rather dance with a stumbler when I saw her lurking there. This being 2/14, it seemed like an appropriate time to add a love song by the quartet that created the finest collection of RnR love songs ever, and who have not yet been outdone, over 5 decades after they disbanded. Happy V Day! You know what I mean.
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