Orginally posted on an earlier version of my blog, the post below still holds true.
Where do I even start? I don’t think another TV show ever meant as much to me as The Wonder Years. As I grew up watching the show as a child, I wanted to be Winnie Cooper. I loved her look. I wanted to have the same long brown hair and dark brown eyes. She even looked great when she pouted, which occurred just about any time she talked to Kevin. Something intangible about the show, and Winnie Cooper, stuck with me through the years.
That isn’t even to mention the star of the show, Kevin Arnold. How could any girl resist all of the attention and love he gave Winnie? I don’t think any adolescent girl has ever been as greatly admired and loved as Winnie Cooper. None of it seemed to matter to her. Of course, that is exactly what frustrated me with the show; it is also what made the show great. The audience never knew week to week whether or not Kevin and Winnie would be together. In the end, it wasn’t to be. Winnie went off to study art history in Paris and Kevin went on to start a family of his own, without her. Here is a link to a wonderful Top 10 of Winnie and Kevin together.
When I started The Mixtapes project on Ramblings of a Misguided Blonde, I knew that I would eventually have to address my love of the Beatles. Where to begin? As a result, I let nearly a year go by. Now, the decision has been made for me. We will start at the end.
I never dreamed that I would get the opportunity to write about a “new” Beatles release. Here I am, almost a month after the fact, doing just that. As a girl born a few days after John Lennon’s untimely death, a fan who witnessed the release of the Anthology Project during her high school years, it feels a fitting conclusion to all that the Beatles have achieved over the decades. Over the last month, I’ve watched as the reactions to “Now and Then” itself, the music video, and the mini-documentary came rolling in. Unsurprisingly, there is no consensus.
My only criticism of the “Now and Then” project: the lackluster design for the single. However, considering the rerelease of the “Red” and “Blue” compilation albums, it somewhat makes sense.
Beatles fans appear to be solidly in two camps. The first group is dismissive, stating that “Now and Then” will never rank among their greatest hits. Of course it won’t! How could it? That is not the point. Advances in technology aside, they state that it never should have been made. I’ve also heard “fans” (I purposely use that term loosely) complain that video clips of John and George used in the official video are too “irreverent.” I still have a hard time understanding that criticism from self-professed fans.
My response is simply this: Did you understand the Beatles – the band and the then young men who created it – at all? Their humor is a huge part of what made them so great. Their humor still holds up today. They simply would not have been the Beatles if you took humor out of the equation. I love that I can laugh at images of two men who are long gone and dearly missed in a newly released music video.
Then there is my favorite: “Now and Then” sounds too much like John Lennon’s solo work from the late 1970s. Of course it does. That is exactly what “Now and Then” represents, if only a demo. John did record it in the 70s, and as the Beatles disbanded in 1970, he likely meant for it to be a solo effort. However, that is only part of the story.
“Now and Then” is also one of a handful of unfinished demos that Yoko Ono gave to Paul McCartney upon John’s death. During the Anthology Project, Paul, George, and Ringo completed two of the other demos, “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love.” At the time, both songs climbed the charts and introduced the Beatles to an entirely new generation of fans. By the way, both songs, along with their music videos, still hold up – even if some fans are now calling for them to be “cleaned up” as well.
Even though I didn’t think about it at the time, it makes sense that there was supposed to be a third song released with the Anthology Project. It was released in three parts after all. That third song? “Now and Then.” It just took a few decades, Peter Jackson, and new technology lovingly called “MAL” for it to come to fruition.
Personally, I don’t think that the Beatles could have ended on a better note. It is nostalgic, almost timeless, and with its humor, the video is even better. It is a true love letter from Paul and Ringo to George and John – not to mention all of us, the fans. So, to Sirs Paul and Ringo, thank you! Once again, the Beatles will be rediscovered by an entirely new generation of music junkies.
On a sidenote, even the 5th Beatle, George Martin, was there in a sense. In his absence, his son Giles Martin, who just happened to play a huge role in the orchestration of “Love,” helped put those finishing touches on “Now and Then.”
If you stick around long enough, you’ll realize just how much I adore the Motown girl groups of the early ‘60s. Yet, Be My Baby by the Ronettes is perhaps my favorite. There is something downright haunting about the song and Ronnie Spector’s voice. In fact, some of my favorite Christmas songs are versions sung by the Ronettes as well.
Be My Baby demonstrates Phil Spector’s wall of sound so well. In fact, I can’t imagine the Ronettes sound without it. Yet, here I am probably the only person on the planet under the age of 50 to know what Phil Spector’s wall of sound is or who Phil Spector was. The funny thing is that it didn’t always work so well. I normally love it in the girl group music he helped produce, and yet, The Long and Winding Road and most of the Let It Be (1970) album is overproduced. I actually understood why the Beatles, led by Paul McCartney, released a stripped down version called Let It Be… Naked (2003) decades later, reimagining the entire album without Spector’s wall of sound. I actually prefer Naked.
Sadly, Ronnie, who happened to have befriended the Beatles at the height of their (and her) fame, passed away in January 2022. Her legacy lives on, and frankly, I can’t imagine a time when Be My Baby won’t be considered an absolute pop gem.
Ah, My Girl! I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know or love the song. I think it comes with being a girl who grew up in Michigan. As much as I love the song, it is the movie My Girl (1991) that holds the most memories. Per usual, Grandma Reid took my sister Erica and me to see it in the theater.
At that point in 1991, I was 10 years old and could relate to Vada. I happen to be roughly the same age as the protagonists (Vada and Thomas J.), and frankly, I could see myself becoming fast friends with Vada. She loved to write, had a great sense of fashion, and seemed like a lot of fun. I could imagine us dishing about our crushes as only preteen girls can. I felt for her when Thomas J. died.
After the movie, we headed over to KMart where my sister and I purchased a Temptations/Four Tops CD to share. The fact that we “shared” a CD highlights just how young we were. For the record, my sister and I have never had the exact same taste in music. I can think of only one other CD that we both purchased later on in our teen years. It wasn’t so much that our musical taste varied that much, it is just that we were very different teenage girls. Some of our best arguments were over what music to play in the car on that all-important 10 minute drive to school.
My Girl is timeless. It represents my love of Motown and will always remind me of the movie and a simpler time in my life.
Ramblings of a Misguided Blonde 