Jackie O., 20, a junior at Indiana University majors in
history and
is from the suburbs of Chicago. She loves the Beatles.
"When I was little everybody was really listening to all sorts of
music, well whatever was popular on the radio and I was the dorky kid that
liked the Beatles for the reason that my Dad liked the Beatles and that it
was played a lot in our house, so I loved the Beatles. And its kind of a
sick, twisted fascination that I have developed with them, like sometimes
I start crying listening to their albums, especially Abbey Road, their
last album, really, it's a big thing in my life. I think every member of
the band contributed a piece to Abbey road, and each song reveals a hidden
sadness about the bands breaking up. Paul really knew what he was talking
about when he ended the album with the words 'the love you take is equal
to the love you make."
"In eighth grade the Beatles
anthology came out, and everyone jumped on
the Beatles bandwagon and this was very annoying to me, even hurtful, due
to the fact that the Beatles to me are like this treasure that should not
go in and out of style like some pop-culture 'Brittany Spears-esque' icon.
They are something that should be held and learned about through the years
just because they are so amazingly interesting."
"John Lennon. John Lennon is definitely one of my icons in life; he is
brilliant, fascinating, and dark. I read a book called The Many Lives of
John Lennon in high school and I was just so fascinated by him and by how
crazy he really is. I mean when I think of the most complex individual on
earth I think of John Lennon. He became this superstar and everyone
thought it was just like "oh John" he was so messed up and it wasn't even
the drugs. He had anorexia and all sorts of psychological problems due to
his mother, which a lot of his songs are about."
"And like still, even though he's this creepy individual he's still my
favorite person and the man that I want to marry is going to be like John
Lennon. I don't doubt it, men that I'm attracted to in life have 'John
Lennon-esque' personalities, like the leader but he's kind of quiet but
he'll still say something profound and it's just craziness."
"I want to name my kid Lennon, after John Lennon. And every song is
good, you cannot find a Beatles song that is not entertaining even their
earlier songs, a lot of them were covers, and they're just so much better
than the original song. There's this Beatles cover band called American
English that plays around the suburbs of Chicago, and I love American
English, whenever they are playing, a group of friends and I always go,
and we are always in the front row screaming, and those people know that
we just love them."
"The night before my cousins wedding rehearsal dinner I went to an
American English concert and I love John, like John Lennon is one of the
main reasons I love the Beatles. So we decided to go hunt down the
members of American English after the concert, as they were leaving and be
really dorky and say 'can we have your autograph' and I didn't have any
paper with me, so the man that poses as John Lennon signed my arm with
permanent marker, the night before my cousins wedding rehearsal dinner.
And I took a picture with him that is in a picture frame, on my desk, in
my room. But this signature, not even John Lennon's, but some random
man's, was stuck on my arm, and I had to wear an evening gown and had
scribble on my arm and was made fun of for a long time, which was awesome.
But then I had to explain how worth it this was."
"I don't understand sometimes why people don't see it; they were just
like N'SYNC on crack that is what the Beatles are. They are this boy
band that just got out of control. Everyone was obsessed for the time
being, and then they went into the studio and said 'we're not doing
concerts because no one can even enjoy concerts' people could not hear the
Beatles because of all the screaming, people were fainting, you know dying
at these concerts, so they said 'hey were going to go into the studio' and
that's where early Beatles, like N'SYNC Beatles became like Beatles Bach,
Beethoven. So they went into the studio and they created these brilliant
pieces of music."
"George Harrison, oh my god, American English, I have so many
American English stories because of the fact that I love the Beatles so I
now love American English, that's the cover band I was talking about
before. Ok, so Louise Harrison, George Harrison's older sister was going
to be at an American English concert. I drove an hour and fifteen minutes
to see this concert just to see Louise, George Harrison's sister, and to
receive a 'Harrison hug'. I felt like a little piece of George touched my
heart."
Sara Brady
Obsessions