Walking down Penny Lane

Warning : This blog is very Beatles centric and will not be of much interest if you’re not familiar with their music.

Have you ever had a week that revolved around a certain topic or person or place or ….. a rock band? Last week was one such week for me.

MONDAY – Its just another day
I was flying out for a client engagement and was headed to LaGuardia airport. Most of the New York cabbies now have a little television in the back. It doesn’t broadcast regular channels and instead has these relatively short magazine type stories that most passengers could complete watching during the course of their ride. As the taxi entered Central Park to get to the east side of Manhattan, I heard the Beatles singing ‘Love me do’. I usually use taxi commutes to make phone calls and wasn’t paying attention to the television. Until the Lennon-McCartney duo began belting one of their early songs, at which point my radar went up and I began focusing my attention towards the screen. Quickly hanging up the phone I started watching a 10 minute clip on the life of the Beatles transporting me back to college when my friends and I used to eat, drink and sleep this band along with many of the classic rockers. The Beatles however were the Kings. Humming my way through check-in and boarding, this was turning out to be a great way to start my week.

As I stowed away my luggage into the overhead compartment of the aircraft (do I sound like a flight attendant making an announcement?) I took out the book I would read on the way. Haruki Murakami’s ‘Norwegian Wood’. For those of you that may not know, ‘NW’ was part of the Beatles ‘Rubber Soul’ album and one of the first Western songs that had an Indian musical instrument, the sitar being played by none other than George Harrison.

TUESDAY – A day in the life
Last summer I had worked with a television production house on conceptualizing and filming the pilot episode for a food and travel show to be aired on NDTV. Long and uninteresting story – didn’t continue with them and decided to move to New York City instead. A few weeks ago I heard from one of the guys I had worked with on the show (called Around the World in 85 Plates) that it was now being aired. I had been meaning to google it and see if I could watch an episode on the net. Finally on Tuesday I got the laptop out in my hotel room and did just that. I could hardly believe my ears when the anchor began the show by saying that he was in Liverpool outside the Beatles museum! The entire episode had the Beatles as a backdrop! And while the show in itself was strictly okay, I was tickled pink watching my favourite band making an appearance so soon into my life again!

WEDNESDAY – Day tripper
Wednesday was a non-Beatles day although their songs periodically would make their way into my head. Sometimes I would just break into one at my desk and get ‘a look’ from the guy who sits next to me followed by ‘a grin’.

THURSDAY – Eight days a week
Thursday was just a miserable day. I had been fighting a cold for the past week and was getting tired with all the fighting. So I wasn’t in the greatest mood which my co-workers who sit around me noticed right away (they have 4 of us consultants sharing a large open cubicle area). Mike, of the ‘look and grin’ fame, suggested that I should borrow his MP3 player (not an iPod) and listen to some music to get me out of the funk. ‘I have 3 CD’s of the Beatles in there’ he said. He really didn’t have to say more. As I listened to Abbey Road, the last album recorded by the Beatles I felt like here comes the sun into my life. As Maxwell’s silver hammer came down my demeanour started on an upswing. Because was soulful as was Something, probably the best song written by George Harrison. No surprise that the album was on the Billboard 200 for 149 weeks! And on my charts forever :)

FRIDAY – A hard days night
Woke up in the morning and began going through my mail. As usual there were 2 movies from Blockbuster and as I looked at the first one, I broke into a smile. My Beatles week hadn’t quite come to an end. I was going to be watching ‘Across the Universe’, a movie that has songs from the Beatles and characters named after their songs - (hey) Jude, Lucy (in the sky with diamonds), (sexy) Sadie, Max(well’s hammer), (dear) Prudence ….you get the drift. The movie had got great reviews when it came out and I could hardly wait to watch it. I popped the disk into the player early Friday evening, singing all their songs and loving every moment of the movie. A must-own by the way!

SATURDAY – Good day sunshine
The week was coming to an end. I was meeting a friend who was in the States from the mother country. Since I live one block from Central Park, I give everyone the grand tour of the park when they visit. We walked past the Dakota building where Lennon lived and walked into the section of the park called Strawberry Fields dedicated to the memory of John Lennon. The memorial consists of a mosaic, a gift from Italy, with ‘Imagine’ etched in the center. This part of Central Park has become a pilgrimage site for Lennon fans who place flowers and incense on his memorial every day.

It was a perfect end to my unplanned Beatles week. And as I continued to head away from Strawberry Fields, I thought it would be so cool if Lennon’s dream portrayed via his song ‘Imagine’ could ever become reality. Imagine all the people living life in peace … imagine that!