The Shadow-gloom and Weight of the Sacred

I don't like Greatest Hits albums. I don't want to hear a collection a band's most popular songs from an extended time period, rather I want to hear what a band creates in a given moment of time. There are some exceptions: Chronicle by Creedence Clearwater Revival, Billy Joel's Greatest Hits Vol. 1 & Vol. 2, and U2's Best of collections come immediately to mind as being retrospectives that I enjoy. I actually prefer CCR's Chronicle to any of their studio albums and, though I prefer U2's studio albums to their Best of collections, I nonetheless find it marvelously pleasing that the individual songs from various U2 albums released across a given decade can be strewn together in a Best of collection and still maintain the sonic grandeur and depth of their original context.

I never imagined myself listening to a Beatles retrospective album (I'm not counting the three Anthology albums, which are not collections of greatest hits but of demos, outtakes, and rarities). At our house, We own a copy of both the "Red Album" (The Beatles/1962-1966) and the "Blue Album" (The Beatles/1967-1970) and not once have I ever inserted those CDs into my car stereo or imported them into iTunes. When I listen to the Beatles, I want the Beatles experience. I want the experience of Sgt. Pepper's or Abbey Road. When I hear "Come Together," I want it followed by "Something." And, I want to experience that magisterial ending that can only exist when one listen's to Abbey Road from start to finish. Similarly, I don't want to hear just the song "Sgt. Pepper's," I want that experience, that moment in time when a band connects with something magical (which the Beatles always managed to do) or flounders under the weight creativity. (I have previously written of my love affair with Sgt. Pepper's, specifically the song "A Day in the Life" in this post.)

Well, I think I have a new retrospective to add to that list of "exceptions to the rule." For the last month, the Queen Bee and I have been listening to Beatles 1--a collection of their songs that made it to number one on the Billboard charts--as we drive about in the car, and I have been loving it. I can't think that I'd ever rather listen to the Beatles 1 as opposed to Sgt. Pepper's or Rubber Soul, but the daughter and I have been having great fun to it because it has the songs she likes--"Yellow Submarine," "Ticket to Ride"--and plenty of my favorites, too. We take turns. The Queen Bee choses a song, then I chose a song. The Queen Bee almost always choses "Yellow Submarine" on her turn, and that can get old, but I do love how much she loves that song. Every now and again, she surprises me with "Can we listen to 'Ticket to ri-yi-yide?'" I always make sure to get in "Come Together" on one of my turns because I like it when the Queen Bee sings along: "soup!" [sic]

Beatles 1 is giving the Queen Bee and I some great memories.