The magic of good lyrics

Watching the film "A Hard Days Night" on Netflix took my back into the 60s and Sydney in Australia where I first saw it. The film made in 1964 is a zany depiction of a day in the bands life interspersed with the memorable tracks that had set the world of Pop Music alive. 

Living in Sydney and experiencing the ups and downs of being a single chap far away from home I well remember not only seeing the film but how certain tracks seemed to capture my mood.

The film opens with 'Its Been a Hard Days Night' a lively upbeat song something in the mould of the opening tension of Bill Haley's, Rock Around the Clock in the film 'Blackboard Jungle'.  Hayley's staccato drum rap as the film starts, the screen is black, "One two three o'clock four o'clock rock", the background music hit the kids I was one. It set the rebellious pace for the outburst of teenage angst across the country, there was no turning back.

The Beatles were a Anglicised Rock Band, their image manufactured by Brian Epstein but their music and lyrics live on to this day. "If I fell in love with you and I promise to be true" we're the words and the emotions which struck a cord in that relatively naive time when innocence was still to play for. If you had been dumped and were walking home feeling lost and despondent, its lyric seemed to be in tune with your feelings. "I should have known better with a girl like you", the driving sound of the Lennon's harmonica was more upbeat but still expressed that male yearning to find a girl who he could respect and go steady with.

The ritual of courtship amongst all but a fringe group "the players" was slow and ponderous. The time scale for taking a girl out was controlled by the "last bus" or a long walk home if and when you missed it. The fervour in the bus shelter and that last kiss was the most we could ask for since everyone knew 'the limits' in a time where pregnancy meant an early marriage, and no argument. There was no pill, no clinic no option since "society" expected both parties to do the honourable thing.

It seems such a far off time, so different from today's, single parenting, sex on demand society where respect is measured in how many times you do it not the converse.

The music of that era lives on because it was good and spoke then to the youngsters. The same people who today, even with their arthritis, still remember with fondness the partners we took out when the world was a much simpler place.