Ben Lorentzen

I wrote my first song when I was eleven. Elvis was my hero up until a cousin suggested that there might be someone even better than him. It was a band from England, he called them Beatles. So I had to check them out, went to the library and found a double, red lp with four big smiles shining down upon me over a railing. And all I did was look up to them over the next five years. I don't think I seriously listened to much else in that period. Thus, when I was about sixteen I knew my Beatles story, my Beatles catalogue, my Beatles pictures, my Beatles favourite. It happened to be John Lennon. Who happened to be shot just as I started to get into them. I discovered the Beatles, John Lennon got shot and I wrote my first song. Landmarks in many boys/ girls upbringing. I still remember the song. It's a song of repentance, of judgement, of longing, of prayer. The themes have stayed with me until this day. Religious some may ask. As in opium. I went to see Joaquin Phoenix act out Johnny Cash, and I would have to reply with a yes. I went to see Nick Cave and Bob Dylan and still my answer is yes. I watch tv and someone beg for money in return for salvation, in return for Jesus making us rich, and my answer is no. Hell, no. What's your strongest Beatles memory? I'm eleven or twelve and I sit in my favourite spot at the library; right under the dangling wires of speaker and headphone cables. I have a huge book on the Second World War in my lap and I watch a picture of four men, hung in Warzaw 1942, while Paul McCartney sings about Elanor Rigby and all the lonely people. More than sixteen years later. I still write songs. I don't listen to the Beatles anymore. It's there anyway. I don't have to hear it again. Glued right underneath the surface of consciousness, and it doesn't matter if Michael Jackson owns them, if all of us are stealing from them, like nothing changes when someone rushes in and steals Scream and Madonna. It's too late. They are already there, right underneath the surface, trickling through our brains, our hearts, our bones. That's where I hear them. That's where I meet them. That's where I like to be.