When I was a little boy, perhaps six years old, I and all of my friends thought that the Beatles were for us. Yes, of course we understood, on some level, that older people liked them too.
I don’t believe we made any distinction at all between different sorts of older people. Whether they were sixteen or sixty, they were just those slightly unfathomable grownups, people who clearly weren’t us. But whatever those people thought, we were quite convinced that the Beatles made music for six year olds.
We would listen to those songs endlessly, dance to them, know all the lyrics, and in general groove to the mysteriously beautiful perfection of every Beatles tune. And we sincerely believed what we were told — that this was all because of four geniuses from Liverpool.
When I grew up, I learned that what we had believed was not quite correct. An essential component of that perfection was the man often referred to as the “fifth Beatle” — George Martin. Sure, Lennon and McCartney were one of the great songwriting teams of all time. That will never be in dispute.
But without Martin, those songs would never have possessed the aural sheen, the sonic perfection, the delightful use of surprising instrumentation, the sophisticated and daring arrangements, that we recognized and responded to even as little children. We didn’t know why we were mesmerized by this music, but we knew, without a doubt, that we were in the presence of somthing extraordinary.
George Martin passed away yesterday, at the age of ninety, peacefully at home, as I understand it. He was a man in harmony to the very end. How fitting, for here was a man who helped to give the world profound and beautiful harmonies that will continue, for centuries to come, to delight children of all ages.