Speaking of Origins....

... Am I confusing you yet?

The Beatles? On a blog about queer women?..... Where you goin' with this, Moffatt??

I got to pondering about origin stories thanks to Wolverine and his aptly-titled new film. And The Beatles are, quite possibly, the greatest chapter in my Coming Out Origin Story.

I grew up in a house filled with music. My Dad has played in countless bands since he was a teenager and he went to great lengths impressing a diverse selection of music on my sister, my brother, and myself.

And naturally, The Beatles were introduced to us at a VERY early age. Once the excitement and wonder I felt for Sharon, Lois, and Bram and Sesame Street wore off, The Beatles took their place as The Greatest Band EVER (according to Moffatt). Who knew the British Invasion would continue well into the 1990s? Go figure.

Between the ages of six and nine, I was ecstatic over the tapes (yes, cassette tapes) my Dad would present me with each Christmas. It was a whole new world of melodies and rock 'n' roll to obsess over for the new year..... and it was all supporting a kind of preconscious attraction to women through the power of catchy lyrics.

Quoi?

It's true -- some would call it "misinterpretation," but I prefer to think of it as "Dyke-ification." Instead of imagining myself as the object of the singer's attention, I found myself identifying with The Fab Four and their penchant for beautiful, free-spirited women.

The lure of "Long Tall Sally" and "Lovely Rita" were too much for my pre-adolescent mind to handle. 

And, oh, the promise of a song like "Back In The USSR": Gorgeous girls from the Ukraine, Moscow, and Georgia, all playing their balalaikas and keeping "[their] comrade warm" -- I mean, OBviously I should have been their comrade, am I right?

I wanted to be the chivalrous singer of "You're Gonna Lose That Girl" and rescue my dream girl from her deadbeat boyfriend.

I wanted to find "just the girl for me" and I would "want all the world to see we've met," just like Paul sings it in "I've Just Seen A Face."

I wanted to feel the fresh, compelling, and all-too-magnetic pull of the girl depicted in "I Saw Her Standing There" (even IF she was "just seventeen".... though I would have still been in elementary school when I first heard that track, so it was the lure of the ~older woman~ working there).

Even now, I sit and listen to The Beatles with a sly grin and a wink to my younger self. So, not only do their songs form the soundtrack to the carefree period of my childhood, their music has formed the basis of my identity as a queer woman.

Impressive, to say the least.

I doff my hat to thee, John, Paul, George, and Ringo.