This past Thursday was Global Beatles Day, commemorating the 59th anniversary of a June 25, 1967 worldwide television satellite broadcast that included the introduction of a new song by the Beatles: "All You Need Is Love." It closes this week's show (with music by the Dahlmanns serving as encore). Nothing you can do that can't be done, nothing you can sing that can't be sung. It's easy!
My relationship with the song has been as ever-changing as the world in which Paul McCartney later said we live in. Loved it! Liked it. Sort of liked it. Tolerated it. Could do without it...no. Never quite got that far, though I came kinda close. Like its author John Lennon's similarly Utopian tune "Imagine," the earnest plea of "All You Need Is Love" eventually felt too simplistic to me, too...naive? Yeah yeah yeah.
As I age, as everything around us seems increasingly committed to becoming a world without love, the sentiment expressed in "All You Need Is Love" (and in "Imagine") feels almost punk in its pleasantly defiant rejection of hatred, of ill wishes, of the malevolent forces serving as real-life Blue Meanies in a dreary planet-wide remake of Yellow Submarine.
To Hell with those guys.
If it's obvious to say we need love, then it's just as obvious to acknowledge that, sure, we need more than just love. We need strength, we need courage, we need determination. We need a path forward, and we need the will to keep moving on that path.
Yet the Beatles are essentially correct. If love isn't the only thing, it may be the most important thing. Without it, we won't progress at all. Without it, we are nothing.
Is love all we need? No. But it remains a damned good start.
From Syracuse, with love. And this is what rock 'n' roll radio sounded like on another Sunday night in Syracuse this week.
This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, streaming at SPARK stream, and on the Radio Garden app as WESTCOTT RADIO.
You can read all about this show's long and weird history here: Boppin' The Whole Friggin' Planet (The History Of THIS IS ROCK 'N' ROLL RADIO). You can follow Carl's daily blog at Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do).
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Carl's new book Guitars Vs. Rayguns! Short Stories And Other White Lies is available! Read about it here. Autographed copies of Carl's previous book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) are available here, and you can still get Carl's previous previous book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones from publisher Rare Bird Books. If you like the books, please consider leaving a rating and/or review at the usual online resources.
TAMAR BERK: Skipping The Cracks (n/a, The Restless Dreams Of Youth)
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