Close your eyes and listen. Hear that tinny, repetitive noise? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe it's the soundtrack in the cafe you're sitting in. Perhaps it's blaring in the lounge room of a really boring acquaintance who won't let you leave. Could be the radio in your car. Or just your local supermarket.
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No matter where this torture is applied, there seems to be no escaping it. So isn't it time we said enough? Isn't it time for us all to come together and put an end to one of the greatest blights the Baby Boomers have inflicted on modern life – the Beatles?
Sure, you might think there are a few more excruciating things in life to endure than the constant background noise of the Drab Four. And yes, you're right. A Bill Shorten press conference springs to mind.
But that's only because you're afraid to say out loud what many of us have always known. So come on, come on. Please please me by repeating the following truism. The Beatles are the most overrated product of the past half century.
Is there no limit to their insidious reach? Check out your local cinema. Chances are it is screening a documentary by the former Happy Days actor and acclaimed director, Ron Howard, called Eight Days A Week – The Touring Years, another gushing homage to the group. Last weekend, Paul McCartney headlined a group of ageing '60s performers at Desert Trip in the US, where fans parted with more than $150 million in tickets.
Of course, Beatles fans will tell you the ongoing attraction of the band is evidence enough of their pure genius – their ability to "transcend" musical genres ("My God, how did George Harrison come up with the idea of introducing a sitar into Norwegian Wood?"); their willingness to revolutionise fashion and social mores; their intuitive knack for reflecting the desires and hopes of that generation who grew up in the 1960s. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Truth is, McCartney has often laughed aloud at the devout religion that sprang up around the band – and the myth they were innovative musicians ahead of their time. When you're that rich you can laugh as often and as loudly as you want.
Yet for decades the rest of us have remained silent, over-awed by the sheer magnitude of respect for the Beatles, mystified by the fact that we just didn't get the lyrics or the basic three-chord structures. But with age comes courage and now more of us are willing to step out and ask questions. Raise our concerns. You know, like, what the hell were the Beatles going on about in Come Together when they sang:
Here come old flat top
He come groovin' up slowly
He got joo-joo eyeball
He one holy roller ...
Please explain. And if you can do that, a Nobel Prize awaits the genius who knows what I Am The Walrus is all about.
Of course, there is a simple explanation for why a generation like the Boomers still cling pathetically to the Beatles. Isn't it just a reminder of an era when millions of them set out to change the world – only to fall prey a few years later to the lure of money, materialism and a job at Macquarie Bank?
Maybe they are right in one respect. The Beatles certainly do reflect their times. Their tinny sound, their drug-addled lyrics and their incomprehensible "spiritual" journeys, various swamis and Yoko Ono in tow, culminated in a cash cow that continues to ring cash registers around the world
Isn't that what the '60s were really about – and what they became?
So come on, people. The Beatles have had their day. Please. Just let it be.