Who got you into The Beatles?

[hokeyboy]

My sister made me watch Across the Universe.

She hot?

[Prudence_Arcadia]

Like many others, it was my Dad. I can remember hearing the crackling of the vinyl back in oh, '76 when I was about 2. He enjoyed playing the "less popular" songs, and loved playing their later stuff. As a child, he showed me "Yellow Submarine" -he had seen it in the theatre, and it was a fun bonding experience. When I was about 11 or 12, he let me borrow all his 45s and LPs and it was nonstop Pepperland in my room! I used to display the records about my room, I always felt they were too pretty to have filed away in a corner. I had bought myself The Red Album on cassette--twice! (I think my first tape was stolen or just lost). Always enjoyed playing this on road trips cos it was music the whole family could all agree on.

Now that I am a mom, I purchased the Rockabye Lullubies CDs of the Beatles. (there are two and I highly recommend them!) and the songs were played every night for my infant daughter. Now that she is nearly 4, she is very into the actual Beatles music. It's another generation, and even "Grandpa" gets to participate again! He loves to tell her stories of what the songs are about, what inspired them and funny stories of his youth when they were in heavy radio rotation. (i.e. as a boy, he hassled the local dressmaker whose name was Prudence to come out and play)

I plan for this holiday to take my copy of my game and let my Dad and Mom check it out. Maybe if I plug a few beers into him, I can get him to sing (He can sing well, but even at 6'5" tall, he is shy) but we shall see! I know he will get a trip out of it and especially seeing his granddaughter belt out "Here Comes the Sun" (proud to say she does sing in key, *whew*). My daughter also likes that the Beatles "share" singing their songs (you know how important that is to young kids, LOL)

I think it's fabulous that such a band can reach out to 3 generations. *smile* A definite bonding experience!

[CrashingEchelon]

I never really paid much attention to The Beatles due to my "old music is bad music" mindset and what helped me get over that was Rock Band 1 and 2. Also on a side note, HMX early games, Frequency and Amplitude, helped to break that.

The first song I ever really heard where I knew it was The Beatles was a video on newgrounds.com that someone made for Maxwell's Silver Hammer. That song single handedly blew my mind over how dark it is. Over the years I have heard a lot more songs by them but never realized it was them.

My curiosity peaked with the announcement of The Beatles Rock Band. So I planned on buying the game on day 1 with no prior knowledge of the band other than of their existence and who the members were.

My first real exposer to the Beatles was The Beatles Rock Band. So thank you Harmonix for introducing me to such a great band that influenced a lot of modern music.

[Psychonaut]

Harmonix actually introduced me to The Beatles. As a matter of fact, I knew the band since my childhood, never listened to their songs, who knows why, never paid attention. It's odd because I tend to hate today's music and listen to the "good old stuff" all the time. But, I did listen to some McCartney songs and did in fact enjoy them, to some extent.

Almost a year after The Beatles Rock Band was announced, I decided to break the curse and listen to The Beatles. It was finally the right time, a right age to truly appreciate the music.

After the first couple of songs, I realized that I've discovered a band of incredible genius. The songs are priceless masterworks. A week before the game was released, I went crazy over The Beatles. I listened to every song, I read everything I could find about them. I memorized their history. On Sep 9, 09, it seemed that I've been a hardcore Beatles fan for ten years.

I appreciate what you did, the Harmonix team, thanks for this Game of the Year.

[HotMangoChutney]

It was actually my friend (who is also now my current roommate) who got be into them the summer between 7th and 8th grade. Well, that completely opened the floodgates for me to explore other classic rock groups...which make up the majority of my favorite bands. I threw away my MC Hammer and Technotronic tapes and never looked back.

[fuselage321]

I got into them at that same time, at least for people my age!

[LeoModesto]

I've came to this forum looking for someone to play the game online with (as the matchmaking process is often slow and brings up people of varying skill sets, and nobody I know owns the game), until I stumbled upon this topic. I've read every single post in it and I don't regret it. There are lots of wonderful stories, and even those people who write short "my dad listened to them all the time" made me smile. This is definitely the best read I've had in a forum in ages.

With that said, I feel like my contribution is not going to be as strong, but I'll try my best to make sense of all my memories and share the story of how I've become the raging Beatlemaniac that I am today. I've been meaning to do it for a while, although I didn't want to bother other people who couldn't care less - which is why I'm thankful this topic is here.

The Beatles have been part of my life ever since the beginning - although through varying degrees. They've grown on me lately to an absurd degree, as has music in general, and now they are my single favorite band, with George Harrison as my favorite musician of all time.

As a kid, I used to watch a lot of cartoons on television. Living in Brazil, the TV stations never gave cartoon shows much thought - and the concept of an "adult cartoon" was fairly alien at the time. As such, they would show The Simpsons every saturday morning, and my family always made a point to watch it. Most of the adult humor in it, I believe, went through my head and I didn't realize what it all meant, but I enjoyed how smart the show was, I liked how they were a believable family besides everything, and I thought it was really quirky how they were yellow.

One day, the episode I was watching with my brother was the one with Ringo Starr in it. That's the earliest Beatles-related memory I have, seeing Homer and Bart finding all those Ringo paintings in their attic. It's still one of my favorite episodes up to this day. I've always known the Beatles from little references like this, saw people talk about them on television - I even knew who John Lennon was. But I never gave it much thought - not that I disliked the music, but it seemed to me like what they'd done was "Hey Jude" and a couple of repetitive pop songs I didn't care about. Boy, was I wrong.

As a kid, I also have very fond memories of sitting on the kitchen table with some crayons, drawing away while my mother did housework and played one of her tapes or CDs. Now, she is a fan of neither the Beatles nor rock music, but she had a big admiration for this "sertanejo" (I guess you could say they're a mix of soft rock, pop, folk and country) duo and owned all their records. I have their earliest songs memorized and even though I've never particularly cared for them, there was one song among the ones on her record that really stood out. It was stunningly beautiful.

It was a cover of "And I Love Her". I wouldn't know it was a Beatles song until many years later, but when I did, I instantly set out to hear the original. And I fell in love with it.

My brother has also been a big influence on me music-wise. We've always shared a bedroom, and as such, I was pretty much forced to always listen to the same stuff as he did. I didn't mind, however - I liked it all. Creedence Clearwater Revival, Steppenwolf, Queen and some brazilian bands all came to me through him. One such band, Legião Urbana (I greatly recommend you to look them up on YouTube) stood out for me and remains my favorite local band. One of their songs, Dezesseis, which I liked for the unusually (for them) heavy guitar and the beautiful ending, referenced a song I'd never heard before named "Strawberry Fields Forever".

I've listened to the song years later, and realized it was so different from what my initial perception of the Beatles was - this wasn't four identical "pretty boys" in moptops singing "yeah yeah yeah" - it was deep, it had fantastical lyrics, and its psychedelic ending surprised me.

I've also grown to appreciate the Beatles' early years as more than just "silly pop songs" thanks to my uncle's copy of Past Masters - Volume One, which I believe my brother borrowed from him and never gave it back. Him and I have played this disc so much it's completely worn out, and the box hinge is broken. But the disc still sits next to my computer until this day, and every once in a while I like to flip through the sleeve. This uncle, I must add, was a big musical influence to both of us as well - he was the "rocker" of the family. It's true that everyone in my father's side of the family has an admiration of classic rock music - even up to my grandmother, who herself is a big fan of, of all things, Pink Floyd (which I also adore) - but he was the one who had all those records from various bands and I'd always look through the sleeves and stuff.

But I wouldn't become a REAL fan until, years later, my brother had gotten a couple of songs from Anthology in his computer's playlist (I think he'd gotten them from a friend).

One such song was the acoustic demo for "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", a song I'd heard about but never actually listened to.

I was fascinated. The lyrics were so strong, and the guitar playing was so melancholic, it gave the song this otherworldly mood. I was particularly stunned by the final verse, which was cut from the final version of the song for some reason. I have a hard time understanding why - I feel like it's the strongest bit of the lyrics. Which isn't to say I don't like the electric version - I love it, and it was learning that Eric Clapton plays the solos that have led me to seek out more of his music - but the acoustic version is always going to have a special place in my heart.

The day George Harrison died is still a vivid memory in my head - well, sort of. I knew who the Beatles were, I thought they were okay, and I heard in the news that another one of them had died. I thought, "that's a bummer" and didn't give it second thought. I didn't even know the name of the one who had died or what instrument he played. After the aforementioned acoustic demo incident, however, I wish I could have gone back in time and kicked myself in the groin for not caring about who had just passed away.

My love for the Beatles started to grow exponentially, culminating with me finally watching the movie "Across the Universe" when my brother rented it last year. One song made it for me - it was a song I'd never heard before, but it was so moving and had such smart lyrics I set out to hear the original and learn more about who had written it. That song was "Something", which is now officially my favorite song ever, and its author is my hero. After Something, I've made a point to listen to every song by The Beatles, familiarize myself with their story (I actually used to believe it was John Lennon's death that had caused the end of the band - ha!) and, particularly, with Harrison. Now, I'm the biggest Beatle nut I know.

Ever since I've first played Guitar Hero, I've wanted to see some of my favorite bands in a game of this kind. When I heard the first rumor about a Beatles-related game, I thought: "Never happening, but wouldn't that be something". Then the first video for the game came out, and it completely blew me away. I watched it over and over, and looked on gaming news sites daily hoping more info on the game would become available. The first time I saw a new video, I'd feel like I was in the 60s watching them in Shea Stadium - I almost felt like being one of those screaming girls myself, despite being a man and completely straight.

This was the first time I've ever preordered anything, and I must say I don't regret it. I've never waited more anxiously for a game before (despite being a gamer my whole life) and it only helped fuel my love for the Beatles even more, leading me to familiarize myself with their instrumentation (I'm particularly impressed by the bass lines in most songs) and seek out to watch their movies, collect any kind of memorabilia I might find (My brother got us a pair of Beatles keychains - an Abbey Road one for him, one with their whole trajectory for myself - I love it), listen to their solo careers (I love George's), and I'm just waiting to be able to have enough money to get some DLC for the game. Really looking forward to Rubber Soul in December, as it's my favorite album overall. But I still want to see, above anything, Strawberry Fields Forever - their first psychedelic song I've heard and the one dearest to me from that period.

Wow, sorry for such a long post, it's just that there wasn't just one moment that made it for me, it was pretty much a scaling progression of fandom... which exploded with the game Thanks, Harmonix, and thanks, Dhani. Your music is great, too.

[Beatles4ever62]

I heard Let It Be in the 4th grade. Later I listened to my older sister's records. Beatles music helped me survive some pretty crappy times when I was a teen.

[Dirt008]

Harmonix

[ASDodge]

I guess I am bit of an old-timer here then. I grew up on The Beatles. I was Born in the early 60's and they were THE dominant music of my childhood in the 60's. SO, The Beatles got me into The Beatles.