The Beatles
Come Together / Something

It happens that you were born in the early Sixties and you're a child in elementary school, it happens that the Beatles are in your head anyway, whether you like it or not, even if you hum the songs of Zecchino D'Oro, the latest by Massimo Ranieri or the jingle (yes, jingle, not yet spot...) of the Olio Sasso... Maybe you know "Yellow Submarine" or "Michelle," just to name them, but the Fab Four buzz in your head even if you're six years old and don't know the titles, since you mess up the lyrics while singing them.... The TV, the radio, even piped music, no one even knows what that was today, but it used to broadcast RAI stations with music without background noise, a real beauty. Mom, at home, turned it on at eight in the morning and during the summer, we realized she kept it on all day, listening to everything, sure, she didn't understand all she was hearing, but she didn’t disdain classical music either, and so Debussy and Mozart met and strolled together in the airwaves.... Then it happens that you have three or four older cousins, all miniskirts and hair styles defying all laws of gravity, who walk around their house in their underwear or barely more, and climb rickety chairs, asking you, a little schoolboy, to hold the chair, while they dreamily apply posters of Paul McCartney, Jimi Hendrix, Mal dei Primitives, Mick Jagger, and Alendelòn on the walls of their little room, all aligned with the utmost nonchalance in a show of fierce looks and hairstyles that, seen by their maternal aunts, make them shake their heads, but where will these kids end up, now that from behind you can't tell them apart from their girlfriends anymore?

So it happens that you held the chair for them, and they climbed up and you dared a look as far as you could, with those mile-long legs, up, up, a little further up, and they pretended to be scandalized by you always looking up while they leaned over with the thumbtacks putting up the posters... I wandered around their houses always hopeful of catching those three-four centimeters of exposed thigh, or that blouse so low-cut that, well, I didn't even know yet why they interested me so much... And then all that music, blaring, almost always sung in English, and their loud considerations, among themselves, on whether Jim Morrison or Ringo Starr was more beautiful (sexy wasn't used yet...), beautiful, yes, but with that big nose....

And the 45s, dear God, the 45s.

Stacked, mostly without covers, in columns of twenty or thirty, one on top of the other, the Traffic on the New Trolls, the Animals on Gianni Morandi, with their colorful labels from which you learned the names of the record companies, Durium, RCA, then that almost always green Italian label, the one of Battisti and the Formula 3... And the label with the green apple on one side and with the apple cut in half on the other... Sure, the covers were interesting too, there you would see who the Rollinstonnz were and what Georges Moustaki looked like... And the Beatles, still them, who had an entire shelf dedicated to them, all 45s, all with well-kept covers, them, yes, you had to ask permission to access the Beatles' vinyls, but I was the male cousin, for goodness' sake, they had to teach me something, right?

It happens that you pick one at random and read it, pronouncing the English as it's written: "The Beatles - Come Together / Something," bluish cover with the silhouettes of the Four in pink and the titles in yellow. The cousin who's in middle school, studying English, promptly corrects you with the right pronunciation. You put it in the record player, the Gelosino, powder blue, and press play.

You sit on the carpet, the Gelosino on the cousin's bed, full of scattered 45s....

And what music is that? But aren't they the ones from Miscéll and Iellosabmarinn? It starts with a "Shhhhhhh," then noises, more than sounds, drums, cymbals, rolls, and the one singing ("It's Gionlennonn," says the cousin, such a know-it-all...) does it in such a fierce and exciting way that it's better than the Miccgeggher of Satisfescion, then he goes "Shhhhhhh" again and resumes singing as before, then everyone together, a few seconds, then again "Shhhhhh" and sings again, there, now he says "Camciughedder," says the cousin, hush a bit, I'd like to say, let me hear the world running, the people panting, screaming and writhing, the gunshots, the worker protests and that divine sound, my gosh, what is it, round and metallic, amazing... "It's an electric guitar, it's George who's the lead guitarist...."

Now I land an elbow that silences her for a bit, the Bitols start with their "Shhhhhh" again, but what delight, they do it again, and Gionlennonn or whatever his name resumes singing with complaints and swaying, then chaos, all together, now you understand the TV images of those dirty long-haired kids, the Ippiss, now you understand why they get so agitated hearing their music, and there must be so much of this, music this exciting, colorful, wavy, never regular, even melodic but modern and irreverent, that's right, that makes them dance in the mud and on the seashore, boys and girls with ribbons on their heads and bare feet....

It happens that you stand up, pretend nothing happened and when the sulking cousin, after the elbow jab, puts the record back, you wait for her to turn, lean towards the mirror and touch up her lipstick, if the aunt sees her she'll scream it's too much... it's a matter of a second, you've seen exactly where she placed Comciughedder and with a quick grab you snatch it and hide it in your school satchel, between the reading book and the graph notebook.

You take it home, on the bus you open the bag and look at it, with the silhouettes walking. At home you hide it among the 45s of Morandi and Pavone, those are what mom buys, and Fred Bongusto, that's how we're faring. The cousins never asked it back from me, if they knew I was the one who took it, for sure they would have wanted it back and two slaps from mom, the kind that left the ring mark, wouldn't have been avoided.

It happens, finally, now, almost fifty years later, that that 45 is still there, among my 45s, with its worn and faded blue, with more noise than a military radio, tested by many sapphire and diamond needles.

Sure, I've now heard voices more raucous and sharp than Giolennonn, I've heard Gionnirotten and Igghipopp, Ozziosborn and many others, all pissed and screamed at the max.

It happens that you listen to it again, Camciughedder, several times a year, I consider it one of the peaks of the Bitols, more than "A Day In The Life" and on the same exalted level of "Tomorrow Never Knows," but now my ear tuned to so much music hears Lennon singing raucously and saying assorted obscenities, McCartney with the "rubbery" bass dribbling through the chords and pumping Ringo's kick drum which, from his side, chops squared rhythms while Harrison plays few notes, the right ones, ringing and precise in space and time, what they have to be.

But I no longer see disheveled kids dancing brokenly, disheveled girls with (few) fringe dresses, masses of workers marching in protest nor people running... And that sound, that jumble of jingles, rolls, whispered and whining voices, clangs and falsettos....

And that "Shhhhhhhh"......