Richie was eighty-five this past Monday. That is to say, Richard Starkey, Ringo Starr, was eighty-five earlier this week. On the face of it, that's completely nuts, because it would mean that I Want to Hold Your Hand, the song that was their first #1 in the USA, would be sixty-plus years old....WTFO? Nearly everyone I encounter daily wasn't even alive yet when that happened. How is this possible?
I'm trying and failing to imagine popular music without The Beatles--and the drummer in the band who created a significant piece of the soundtrack to my growing up years, the guy who was talking 'bout Boys (hey hey, bop shuop, m'bop, bop shuop) and who had a matchbox holding his clothes is E-I-G-H-T-Y_F-I-V-E. Is nothing sacred?
I rewatched A Hard Day's Night not that long ago-and, yeah, my age is showing; it was brilliant. It is a postcard from another time when we all were a lot less complicated in a world that disappeared and was replaced by one with sharpened elbows and a kick drum mixed with static. And while I'm aware of what we've lost through the years, I'm less sure of what we've gained.
Ringo saw two of his former bandmates die-one murdered by a crazed fan and the other by cancer from a lifetime of cigarettes. He snagged a Bond Girl and watched as Cirque du Soleil introduced another generation to the Magical Mystery Tour that was The Beatles.
Those who listened then are now older than our fathers who growled at us to 'turn that crap down' when the Beatles/Stones/Dave Clark Five/Byrds/and ten thousand other long haired bands came blasting out of the three inch speaker in that transistor radio we each had.
We thought those days would last forever. Ringo Starr is eighty-five, and on behalf of all of us, no longer twelve-year-olds from back then, here's to many more.
-bill kenny
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