Important: Anyone who likes music and likes words and likes reading words about music should read Nick Hornby’s Songbook. I should hope that it would inspire you to think hard about songs you love and why you love them. And now back to regularly scheduled programming.
I first heard this song at a point in time I initially dubbed as “much too late,” meaning: Where was this song for the first 20-plus years of my life? I could have been listening to it and chewing it up and digesting it this entire time and I’m only now experiencing it? But these thoughts were fleeting, and pushed aside in favor of just taking the song in again. And again.
I like the Beatles. I’ve met few (if any?) folks who claim to “hate” them, and few folks who claim to “love” them and then give me concrete evidence to support this declaration. My brother falls into the latter category; his fascination and fondness comes from some sort of organic place where music and culture and history converge into some sort of divine emotive stew.
It was he who introduced me to this song, my favorite of their catalog.
Thanks, brother.
“Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)” / the Beatles (1965)
the sloppy copy 