Day 278. It is being. (5/8/13)

Right. This is going to start light and then it's going to get fairly heavy fairly quickly and I've been very deliberately not writing this one for quite some time now for reasons that will become clear fairly soon.

I've been trying out a new pair of earphones over the last couple of days and I've been giving them 'the Beatles test'. 'The Beatles Test' is a fairly obvious thing; I've lived, slept, ate, drank, dreamt, read, listened, watched Beatles for so much of my adult life that I know them pretty much inside out, know exactly how they should sound so I can judge how well any sound product works by how the Beatles sound on it. Anoraky I know but there you are, that's what I do, that's how obsessed I am.

So I'd started with side two of Abbey Road because as accomplishments in recording go that's pretty much at the pinnacle; you can hear every instrument as a separate sound so you can get the true feel of the tone. Satisfied with the result I moved to Revolver, quite simply the greatest album ever produced by human beings. There are no arguments, there are no alternatives, we hold this particular truth to be self evident; Revolver invented everything.

And as I hit the end of the album a song stopped me in my tracks and reinforced my long held belief that there are certain times when only one specific piece of music makes sense.

In the wake of 9/11, in the week that followed, all that I could listen to was Bob Dylan's 'Highway 61 Revisited' from the album of the same name; its apocalyptic edge of near hysteria, the rhythm section's relentless gallop toward oblivion, its demand for the promotion of a 'next world war', all these nervy visions of terror were the only things that made sense. I couldn't find comfort in there but it was the only noise that 'fitted'

Which brings me back to Revolver, brings me back to 'Tomorrow Never Knows'. How great is 'TNK'? This is how great it is, how much of an achievement in the progress of a band's career 'TNK' is; in the space of two years The Beatles went from the loveable mop top era of 'She Loves You' to the 'there is no sound for what we're trying to do, we'll need to invent new forms of sound to do this lads', from picking up guitars and drums, counting 1,2,3,4 and hitting the beat with a verse, chorus, verse, chorus, middle eight, chorus, repeat to fade formula to backwards guitars, tape spools, fractured drum beats, echoing stoned voices and droning unidentifiable instruments.

They went from 'You think you've lost your love, well I saw her yesterday' to quoting the Tibetan Book of the Dead 'Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream, it is not dying, lay down all thoughts, surrender to the void, it is shining.'

Next time anybody compares any other act to the Beatles point them at this song and laugh long and hard.

And other than its sheer, obvious genius how is Tomorrow Never Knows applicable here?

This;

A few years ago I lost a friend, a workmate, a man that I respected, possibly the most intelligent man that I've ever met. It was sudden and it was shocking and it was utterly senseless and the most stupid thing that I've ever known happen. He wasn't working with me at the time, he'd got his own store, he was 'in a good place' with both work and his own home life; happily married, a doting father, the kind of father we all try to be. He just was. I hadn't seen him for a couple of months, hadn't spoken for a week or two. He was taken very ill, very suddenly over a weekend and on the Monday the warning was to expect the worse.

On the Monday night I drove home from Speke to Netherton in the dark. Twenty miles, takes about half an hour. I had Revolver in the car, I often do. I spent the whole journey with Tomorrow Never Knows on repeat. Exactly as I've been doing all the way through writing this.

It was a letting go, a reassurance that it was okay, that it was horrible for us (and whatever it was for us was absolutely nothing compared to what it was for his wife and children and family and that's why I've always been reticent to put it here) but it was happening and he was leaving us and moving on somewhere else and this was the time.

And Tomorrow Never Knows was the only thing that could possibly make sense of all this in any small way for me.

Turn off your mind, relax and float down stream

It is not dying, it is not dying

Lay down all thoughts, surrender to the void

It is shining, it is shining

That you may see the meaning of within

It is being, it is being

That love is all and love is everyone

It is knowing, it is knowing

That ignorance and hatred mourn the dead

It is believing, it is believing

But listen to the colour of your dreams

It is not leaving, it is not leaving

Or play the game "Existence" to the end

Of the beginning, of the beginning

Of the beginning, of the beginning

Of the beginning, of the beginning

Of the beginning, of the beginning

I can't tell you the date that Simon passed away. I can't even tell you the year. I'm sure that I could find out, the order of service for his funeral is still in the study but that's not the point; there's something in my head that won't allow me to remember the date although I remember everything that happened around that time, although I remember his birthday (it's within days of mine).

I worked with Simon for a long time across three different stores, he started in Liverpool on the day that I came back from Leeds. I have music on my iPod that's there because he introduced me to it and, in some bootleg based cases, actually gave it to me.

I still work in a building that we worked in together for a good couple of years. A very good couple of years. Every inch of the building reminds me of him in some way every single day. Not just me, there's a lot of us who feel exactly the same way. He's always there.

And he's there every time that I play 'Tomorrow Never Knows'.

And I play it a lot.