Stale

Often, I feel I fell between. Between generations, between countries. Too young for the British Invasion, too old for Punk.

But I always listened to the Beatles. They were, if anything, the soundtrack behind my life. I may have gotten a little tired of the more popular of their songs as played on the radio, but the B-sides emerged, "I'm Only Sleeping." And the solo works continued. Over the past five years or so, I've finally gotten sick of all of them. Nor have I ever really heard covers of their stuff that interested me. Too sappy, too gentle, too muzak, too sucking-up without enough difference. It took me a long time, but I got thoroughgoing tired of John, Paul, George and Ringo - as they were. I suppose it says a lot about how good they were that it took me so long. Ok, I still have a soft spot for George Harrison, who I think is the most-underrated Beatle. (McCartney could have stopped at "I Saw Her Standing There" and I'd never have missed him, long before Wings. The most overrated of the lot.)

This is actually a bit disappointing to me. That no current artists can take those songs and turn them into something new. And the nature of recorded music is that, eventually, it will get tired and old. It really is important to turn new hands to old tunes. And no artist should be enshrined, because art must be freshened and altered, constantly. Dead music goes stale.

And we get Earworms.