Off Beat Beatles Songs

Last weekend my son came home for a visit from college. He asked if I would help him with a project for one of his classes. For one of his general education courses he needed to take a class in music appreciation. Each person in the class was to bring a collection of songs from a group or artist that was popular in their parent’s era. He signed up to bring a collection of Beatles songs. I made him promise that he would point out to the class that his father is much older than I am and that the collections of Beatles songs were from his music library. Having set these parameters we began looking through the old albums that my husband and I still keep.

My son had never paid too much attention to our music selection. I think he assumed that his parents would not have anything that he would want to listen to. He was very surprised at the number of albums that we still have and that we still have a turntable to play them on. We pulled out a number of Beatles songs that dated back to the early 60’s all the way to the Anthology album. I explained that I had purchased the Anthology Album at the Mall of America when it was first released. They still have a number of new releases on vinyl for the British that come to shop there.

We selected several Beatles songs to play and sat around eating popcorn and going through the rest of our music selections. When my husband arrived home he joined us and started playing some of the less known Beatles songs for my son. My son really enjoyed some of these off beat Beatles songs. One of my son’s friends called to see if my son wanted to go to a party with him. My son asked him to come over to listen to music at our house instead. I ordered pizzas and we all stayed up late going through the music selections and talking about things that my son and his friend had done as they were growing up. It was a very enjoyable evening.

When we went to bed that evening I told my husband that I think we had started a new stage in our relationship with our son. We had spent the evening relating as friends rather than parents and child. I was grateful to the professor that had assigned the lesson of collecting Beatles songs. Music has always been a big part of my husband’s life, yet he and our son had never shared an evening of music together. I have a feeling that music will play a greater role in their future relationship.

• No Oasis Reunion As Liam Talks About New Band
  
  Liam Gallagher has told Sky News his new band's album will be the "the best record you'll hear for the next 50 years".
  


• Tom Jones on course to top album chart
  
  Welsh singer set to knock Eminem off top spot with 40th studio album, Praise & Blame, but hints at collaboration with rapper It's not unusual to be loved by anyone, as Wales' favourite crooner has been reminding us for a good 45 years. It is, on the other hand, slightly out of the ordinary to be loved by so many that you manage to chalk up a number one album in your 70s, as Pontypridd's finest ...
  


• Sound check: Why Katy Perry's new album actually stinks
  
  It actually stinks, says Katy Perry of her new album Teenage Dream, released by EMI in a month's time. Ordinarily that would be for the public to decide, but in this instance she's right.
  


• Imagine no new artists, just endless re-releases
  
  The old ones are the best, or so the saying goes. This, clearly, is what the record business would have us believe: barely a week goes by without a so-called classic album being dusted off and given the legacy-edition treatment. And this has already been a bumper year. In March Sony re-released a trio of Jimi Hendrix albums in honour of the 40th anniversary of the guitarist's death while The ...