ABC Dig Music

I'm a big fan of the Beatles and have all their albums, including some on LP. Unfortunately, I'm excluded from entering this competition as I wasn't born in 1970. I didn't 'arrive on the scene' until six years later. It's a shame as I would have loved to win a digital radio...

I'll never forget hearing A Day in the Life for the first time - on the day I bought the mono Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band. It was like nothing I had ever heard before! I had to play it all over again and again. Is there anything to match that 'cacophonic' crescendo? Fortunately my landlady was away that weekend - she would've gone mad.

The Beatles stopped being a boy band the same year I graduated to grammar school. This was the second big coincidence in my life, the first being that I was born the year Einstein died.

Looking forward to my Beatles boxed set!

The first album I ever received was The Beatles Help. Since then I have been a big fan. My best Beatles recollection is The Beatles tribute night that was held in the Shebeen Bar at Port Fairy several years ago. Artists playing at the Festival played different Beatles numbers and it seemed to go on forever. The band would strike a cord and the audience would know every word to every song. By the end of the night people were on tables, dancing and singing and the vibe was amazing. The crowd ranged in age from teenagers to early baby boomers and the music was timeless. This was one of the most fun music nights I have ever had (and there have been a few) and it is incredible how much a part of our lives these songs were and how many happy memories their replaying brought back. What a great way to celebrate The Beatles by having a Beatles weekend, unfortunately I live in the country and don't have digital radio so hopefully I will win the competition!

I don't remember when the Beatles split. I would've been too young to know much about them. I do sort of remember John Lennon's death. I was home sick from school when it was announced on television. I wasn't sure whether it was real or part of the fever. It was too weird to be true but it was.

Hello, Goodbye,
April 10, 1970 seems as if it was only yesterday. It was a day in the life… misery… I thought I’ll cry instead, like dreamers do… perhaps it was the day the music died, or was it just a stop on a magical mystery tour? As a nowhere-man in first-year high school at the end of 20th century’s fastest decade I, like a fool on the hill, cried help! And turned to something the others were listening to, looking here, there and everywhere hoping for a little help from my friends but it only felt like a helter skelter – but you can’t do that, going round and round like a revolution when I needed to slow down. Over the years, tastes and styles changed as I traveled the long and winding road. I thought that it was getting better but in the end but I want to tell you that I know a secret, it’s on the tip of my tongue, that by Christmas time I will be flying. But wait! I said to myself! We can work it out through these hard days nights even if I’m so tired, so don’t pass me by, don’t make me cry baby cry- that means a lot to me. I’ve got a feeling there’s no point in asking what next, because tomorrow never knows. Now I feel fine and glad all over because I should have known better, in spite of all the danger, to doubt not a second time the quality of the music and instead let it be.
The end.
Good Night.

p.s. I love you

Memories of the 60's and 70's are vague at best, but I do recall as an immature 12 year old that I knew all of the lyrics to every Beatles song and would sing along with the radio every time a Beatles song was played. I never realised then that they would become legends of a generation and an inspiration to so many artists of today.

If I happen to hear a Beatles song today, I still sing along.

Hi Beatles Fans,

My early memory is of being 3 years old and the album with "She Loves You" being played over and again in our house. Then there was "Penny Lane", my favourite. Later I loved "Hey Jude", "Something" and "I Want You". Then there's John Lennon's "Imagine" and George Harrison with "Here comes the Sun" and Paul McCartney with "Live and Let Die".

Rock on Ringo and Paul!

Dad had the opportunity to interview the Beatles for ABC's "This Day Tonight" in 1964, when they came to Adelaide. The whole city lined the road from the airport to the Adelaide Town Hall. I wasn't born and can't remember that!

Cheers,
Kate

The Beatles have always been a part of my life. I was twelve years old and listening late one night to my old Bakelite valve radio behind my head on top of my bunk-bed. I was laying there, more aware of the faint smell of ozone than the music being played, when the intricate simplicity and humanism of Let It Be captivated me. The news accompanying the playing of that song stunned. How could it be over just at the moment when I had been fully awakened? ,

Why only on Digital Radio - Not Digi? Us poor Canberra persons miss out on this iconic event!

The Brighton Hippodrome, 1964, hysterical girls screaming, shouting, crying, fainting. Short pauses from the crowd as John Lennon tries to speak, before the screams of ecstasy drown out his luvly Liverpudlian voice again. The Fab Four persist in trying to be heard through the din. I catch snatches of “She Loves You, Yeah Yeah Yeah” but their wry grins only encourage more hormone-induced shrieks. We can’t hear a note of their music or a word of their lyrics but there they are, the Fab Four – in the flesh – a heart-palpitating, dizzying, sight that none of us will ever forget.

I grew up on Merseyside in the 50s and early 60s. But I was ten years (almost to the day) younger than Paul so I didn't get to see The Beatles then. I remember a night when one of my older cousins, Sheila, visited on her way back from a dance at (I think) the Grosvenor Ballroom, Wallasey. She said "I'm giving up on Elvis, I've just seen a better act".

The first record I ever bought was I Want to Hold Your Hand. I was 11 years old, and had just heard it at a kids' party (where I also learned about "spin the bottle", but that's another story). All my friends were completely mad about the Beatles, and we awaited every new release with breathless pre-teen anticipation.

A few years later (1968 I think), I won a phone-in competition at a local Sydney radio station. I was the first to work out that "Drofstobba" was "Abbotsford" backwards. For this, I won 5 Enid Blyton books, and got to have a tour of the radio station, accompanied by a couple of other prize winners.

We were all ushered into a studio, and the person in it produced a copy of the single of Hey Jude/Revolution, which had arrived at the station by aeroplane that day and had not been heard publicly. We were told we were the first people outside the station to hear it, and that it would not be played anywhere on radio until later that day. I remember what a remarkable song Hey Jude was was for the time. At over 7 minutes, it seemed a little subversive, and the radio station clearly didn't like its length at all! Still, they played it, long fade out and everything.

It's pretty hard to believe that was all over 40 years ago. The music still sounds as fresh as the day it was born to me!

Thanks a lot. Don't the out of touch elites
at the abc realize that there are beatles fans outside
the mainland capital cities?

I cannot imagine my life without the Beatles.They have influenced my love for music and gave me the persistence to learn and play Guitar with their Music book "BEATLES Complete" driving my desire to sing & play every song I could manage.One of my greatest memories was listening to their "White album'' that my eldest brother played while he studied late into the night as l lay in bed waiting for the next song to weave its way from the last.The love of the Beatles music from such a wide array of ages helped jump generational gaps with my Mum (when learning to play & sing) telling me "That's not the way it goes" and correcting me with a passion for the music they had made.It has made many a great night with family & friends sing a longs, most knowing words to many songs especially "Hey Jude".My Kids have grown up listening to their music and know just about as much of their history as my memories allow.What a positive affect they have had in this world, their music will be loved,remembered forever!

As a baby boomer living in London I remember the dullness of the country until The Beatles came along. It was the sheer joy in their music that made it special. Teenagers were waiting for something to happen. America had Elvis and Motown all we had was Cliff and the Shadows, Billy Fury and Tommy Steele who were poor attempts at the real thing. Along came The Beatles and it all changed. They were the first group I ever saw play live. In March 1962 they did a tour with American's Chris Montez and Tommy Roe as the headliners and played on the stage of my local cinema in Romford. During the tour, due to their growing popularity, The Beatles were promoted to end the first half of the bill. They did about 20 minutes but they were magic and everything changed from then on. The audience listened to them in silence and only went crazy at the end of each song. By the time they did their Christmas Show 9 months later you could no longer hear them for the screams and Beatlemania, swinging London, Carnaby Street, flower power, hippies and all the rest that followed in the sixties took off. England and popular music haven't been the same.

I'm new to dig radio. I have a digitial radio, a digital TV and internet connection. Which is best to use for Beatles broadcast. What do I set the dial to? How do I find the actual broadcast?

I came to Australia from England in 1964, the same year The Beatles toured Australia. I was only 9 years old and was not allowed to go to the concert. When we came I had two records, the single She Loves You and the EP Twist and Shout. I still have these records today. I remember going on a holiday to Adelaide in either 1965 or 66. We stayed with one of my brothers friends who had a few Beatles albums. I was sitting on the floor with their record player and playing the album Help. I played each side several times over -- it was the highlight of my holiday. The day John Lennon died. I was devastated. A friend came round and we listened to Beatles music, a radio station was playing non stop Beatles. It was a tragic and emotional night.

I was a 10 year old when a mate told me that the Beatles were breaking up. How could this be? My elder brothers had filled our house with their music for as long as I could remember, making it the soundtrack to my life to that point. For years my dad's old wooden tennis racquet had taken on a new role as a Rickenbacker. I had stared for many hours in the bathroom mirror wishing my prickly crewcut would grow into a moptop. Night after night was spent arguing with my parents to swap my thick plastic framed glasses for the wire framed granny glasses that John wore. How dare they leave me?

It would be another year before I could actually afford to buy my own Beatles record....Let it Be, and another 2 long years before my parents bought me a record player to play it. Every news story of a Beatles reunion had me hoping. I still remember the horrible day ten years later when, working in a pharmacy workshop in my first holiday job, the radio told me that John had died. And so it was really over.

But just the other day, listening to my own sons practicing Beatles chords on their (real) guitars in their bedrooms, somebody spoke and I went into a dream.....

I first became aware of The Beatles during late 1963 when I was 11 years old. Their music, while of a similar vein to their peers ie. Gerry and the Pacemakers and Brian Poole and the Tremeloes, was 'different' and just struck a 'chord' with me. I didn't have a record player until I was 13 and listened as often as possible to 3AK and followed every minute on TV during their Australian tour in June 1964. My parents wouldn't let me go to Festival Hall as this phenomenon of populist music was totally foreign to them (I certainly wasn't alone as a few of my mates got reports of the concerts from big sisters and brothers). I collected all their albums and followed their various activities through the radio and Go-Set newspaper (notably reports from Ian Meldrum). In mid-1967, my parents had their TV repaired and when it was returned home the TV guy (from the local record shop) had (I like to think) the first copy of SPLHCB in St. Albans with him, for ME! In 1970 I left high-school and started work miserable with the knowledge that the greatest band ever was no more. I went to see 'Let It Be' at the Rapallo cinema and saw the sad vibes that were happening to the group during 1969. During 1970 there was a boycott of overseas music on local radio for a period of time. However, when the dispute was resolved, 'whose' music was played almost non-stop again! Fast forward to 1980 and the impossible occurred; I still have moments when I cannot believe (let alone understand) what happened. The passing of George was very tragic also and every time I watch the 'Concert for George' ................

Hi New to Dig Radio,

You can hear ABC Beatles on digital radio - you may need to re-scan your stations but it will appear as a special one-off station called 'ABC Beatles'. You can also listen online via the links on this page. It won't be on digital TV. It's important to note that 'ABC Beatles' is seperate to Dig Music, it's whole new temporary station just for this weekend.

It's going to be a big weekend - enjoy!

Why is this wonderful stuff only being netcast in mono?

It was June 1964, I was so excited I couldn't leave the lounge room, where I was getting getting dressed in front of the TV for another day at school, watching The Beatles arrive in Australia. Mum said to me: "You'd like to see their show, I bet!". All day long at school my mind was definitely not in the classroom as my daydreams took me to another world.

When I got home that afternoon I couldn't believe my eyes when my mother gave me a ticket to The Beatles at Sydney Stadium! Now, I was on another planet!

The train trip to the stadium, with my trusty Agfa camera, a fresh roll of black & white film and my precious ticket, seemed to take forever.

The opening acts got us all revved up then, suddenly, from my seat on the wooden bench a few rows from the back, I heard the lucky mob near the dressing rooms erupting in ear shattering screams. This was it, The Beatles finally 'arrived'. The next 30 minutes or so went in a flash, helped by my overactive camera shutter and the popping flash bulbs. Trouble was, every time I went to take a photo, the boy in front of me jumped into the air so I got lots of photos of the back of his head! No matter, in one of them you can just make out the shape of Ringo's drums, that was enough to give me a lifetime's indelible memories.

I started an interst in the Beatles after hearing Get Back and seeing an add for "The Beatles latest and greatest Album - Let it Be" on TV - Happening 71? I think. I bought Let it Be for $5.75 after conning a dollar from my brother and sister to make up the total. I couldn't afford the box set that was $8.00 but managed to pick up the get Back book from Myer at $1.00 on a surplus book table. Unfortunately it fell apart and I put pictures up on my display board. I eventually got the box set at the now defunct Beatles Shop for $275 second hand - a major appreciation from $8.00. I still enjoy collecting all releases from Paul, Ringo and posthumous releases from George and John. My youngest daughter (9) likes to hear the Beatles in the car but is not impressed that my collection has taken all her wardrobe space. I hope Macca comes to Australia in his 2010 tour as he is still an incredible live performer.
Thanks for the Beatles Special but it is a pity it is not on DIG radio where a set top box can pick it up.

My first memory of the Beatles is as a 3 year old in 1967. My parents took me to a house party and I have a clear memory of sitting on a couch listening to Sgt Pepper. Im sure I was sitting, staring unfocussed into the room because I remember someone coming over & asking if I was OK. I told him I was listening to the music. I can still see his smile. He left me to the music. Ive been a fan ever since.

There's not a hour In My Life when I don't think about the Beatles or their songs...even When I'm Only Sleeping.

Not everyone (yet) had a Digital Radio. I'm listening over the Internet - and being in WA have to overcome the 2 hour time difference - and what I am hearing is in MONO.

What a waste of an opportunity for a quality netcast.

(And, I met John once, and had a long conversation with Paul another time.....)

Hot HOT summer day '68. On the floor of the lounge at the holiday house at Port Elliot.
Should have been at the beach but Sgt Pepper's was on the new AWA stereo.
Waiting for the creaky chair in that long ending - so we could play it again.
How I loved Lucy in the Sky...
Thanks ABC for Digital radio.

My first Beatle memory is at age 3 (1964), bouncing up and down on the back seat of my mum's VW singing 'She Loves You' and my big brother, Ray (aged 13) commenting 'Hey, he sounds just like Paul!'

The Beatles had a profound effect on my younger years and their songs and inventiveness really opened my eyes and ears to the world of music, which up until 63 had been so boring and lacklustre. As a kid entering high school and adolescence I suddenly discovered what being a teenager was all about! The Beatles gave us a music our parents hated, and we loved them for it! Clothing styles,footwear, hairstyles, language & slang, even attitude, were all influenced by the lads from Liddypuddle. The Lennon books "A Spaniard In The Works " and "In His Own Write" were so amusing and became part of our group's culture. The first single I bought was "I wanna hold your hand" and the first album was "Beatles For Sale", and from there I collected 'em all avidly. (I even shed tears when I found my mum had tossed out my scrap-book of Beatles clippings, photos and keepsakes.)
But there came a time, soon after "Sgt Peppers" and "Magical Mystery Tour", when the group started to lose their sense of being cool among many of us, as Cream, Hendrix, Traffic and a host of others started to turn our perceptions to other sounds and heavier music. Funny then, that much later my taste for the band returned, and I came back to listening to the songs of my youth. Probably a sign of getting old! Still, The Beatles were a great band and the deaths of Lennon and Harrison mark major losses to music and reminders of mortality to the baby boomers' generation

It's unusual that being told to "Fook off" should be one of my greatest memories, but it is.

I grew up in Esher in Surrey, just down the road from where George Harrison lived in a walled estate called Claremont. They lived in a bungalow that had huge walls around it and a massive wooden door that was inevitably closed when we cycled up to pay homage.

Well, one day it was open and so my brother and I (aged 12) parked the bikes at the end of the drive way and wandered in because Patti was at the front window having a chat with a few people - it was as if she was holding court. I did my best to explain that I was a local because in fact I used to caddy on the golf course that was part of the Claremont Estate.

I was already in love with the Beatles and everything they represented, but from that point on Patti became the most beautiful woman of my life (sorry darling, but you know what I mean!), her angelic beauty almost stuck in aspic in my mind.

The spell should have been broken when George came roaring up the driveway, got out with his burly minder and told us to "fook off". It didn't, though. To this day, I still find George the most interesting of the Beatles, the one who achieved most in his post Beatles career, though who is still ridiculed by those Lennon-obssessed critics who think he was lightweight. May he rest in peace with "Life of Brian" running as a loop commemorating a great and very eclectic life.

The memories are real. The time stands still

You can pick lines from any of their songs – mix them up and it is still poetry
We are all together
Speaking words of wisdom
Except for me and my monkey
I’ve got a feeling
You let your knickers down
See how they fly
What are you going to play
Don’t let me down
Jai Guru Deva, om

A school mate claimed that Elvis was better than the Beatles – we laughed and laughed. We had seen the dawning of a new age!

The humour – the Goons… John was up there with Spike. The movies: A Hard Day’s Night, Help!

At school we sang “ Love me Do” “She was just a 103” we played “ Roller Derby” in the playground and screamed “ I wanna hold your hand “ as we spun each other around.

oompa oompa stick it up ya jumpa – we translated that into our school war cry!

I read the news today, oh boy!

Paul is Dead – we listened to Chris Winter on 2BL trawling over all the “facts” as to why Paul was dead. I did not believe it

I saw a film today, oh boy

I went to the State Theatre in Sydney to see the film Let It Be – and I did not believe it. They were a part of my life.

When I heard that John had been shot I sat in my car with the radio blaring “ John is dead !!!” .. I did not believe it…I’m crying.

George being bashed by an intruder and then getting cancer – that doesn’t happen to a Beatle!

For my 50th we just had to have a Beatles theme – We had the pedestrian crossing out front, Lucy in the sky (well stuck in a tree), a yellow submarine in the pool, John & Yoko in the shower, Strawberry Fields, even Elvis made an appearance!

The Beatles live on!

come on abc 20kpbs for the webcast you can do better than that, we cant all get dab+ radio you know.

I grew up with the Beatles - born 1952 (today is my 58th birthday), I was e.g. 10 years younger than Paul. Luckily, my whole family adored almost all music. When Paul said he thought of John and himself as another Rodgers and Hammerstein, I understood - R&H musicals were, are, my all-time favourite musicals. Also luckily, not only did my brother, like me, love music and wanted to hear everything he could, he was four years older than me. So when the Beatles’ (and any other 60s) music emerged, he was, with his friends, in effect scouting for me - so I was way ahead of my contemporaries in hearing and exploring the Beatles at a substantive (not fan) level.

I first heard the Beatles from a transistor radio in our suburban Brisbane backyard when I was 10 years old. The song was "Twist and Shout” - it was a live broadcast, broadcast (?January 1963) before the release of the Please Please Me album. THIS IS THE SPECIAL MOMENT I WANT TO HIGHLIGHT (and which cannot possibly be fully communicated to someone who didn’t hear the Beatles at the time - without having heard anything that came after them). To me, though I’d heard a lot of music (of course only mainstream music - I was only ten), the first few seconds was the strangest sound I had ever heard. By the end of the song, I knew this was the start of the next era of music. I’m reminded of Louis Armstrong’s words on first hearing Charlie Parker - he described it, deprecatingly, as Chinese music. Well, the first bars of Beatles music to reach my little ears was equally strange to me - but unlike Louis’s repulsion, I was, within seconds, entranced. I remain so to this day.

The first Beatles song I ever heard from the radio was "The Long and Winding Road" when I was twelve. It was their last single which then turned into my first Beatles hit. From that day onward, they changed my next 40 years...

When I was in my secondary school, I dreamed to form a band and learnt to play guitar where today I am still as awful as I was. After school, I was lucky enough to work in Wea Records which became today's Warner Music. After years of hard working till 1984, my family decided to move to Sydney. I did not stayed long and returned to Hong Kong by giving up my citizenship because I believed my destination in music...

It was a tough time while you are on your own, I only worked as a publicist for some local independent acts. Then, a band's boom took place and one of the band invited me to be their manager which at the time I had no idea what I supposed to do. After another couple of hard working years, one of the band I signed finally became the biggest band in this little British Colony. Unfortunately, in 1993 the lead singer of this band Beyond died in a tragic accident during a TV shooting in Japan...

Everybody thought it was an end, a full stop in history. almost ten years later, the remaining three members got together for a little tour which turned out into their biggest. Something I never expected and later I found out Beyond became the biggest Chinese rock band on earth...

Since 1999 I re-settled in Sydney. Though I am no longer in the music business but it is so amazing to find out that there are still a lot of young Beyond fans around. They are not just came from Hong Kong or China but small places like Solomon Island and Vanuatu.

Without the Beatles, I might never be a band manager and Beyond might not be existed. We can not compare the two bands but they shared the same ideal ... There's nothing you can do that can't be done, nothing you can sing that can't be sung...

Thank your John, Paul, Goerge and Ringo. LOVE, all we are need is love...

We love The Beatles and play them a lot: Cathy voice, Jill flute, Jeff guitar and guests. We have been exploring and enjoying Beatles music and culture for years. We like to jam with similar musos in Melbourne area, any instrument is good. Contact via Dig.

At first I had vague memories of the beatles from trips in the car when I was around 5. It grew on me through the years - ofcourse, and as per the intention of the beatles, I liked the 'whimsical' kids songs - Bungalo Bill, All Together Now, Yellow Submarine, Octopuses Garden. But then my father opened up the wonderful world of Lennon, Harrisons and Mccartney, even Starrs (Don't pass me by etc) song writing. Still listen to them all the time now - the anthology, all the movies etc. Their profound effect on music is immeasurable, their music and influence echoing through the world for even 50 years after The Beatles.

Now if I don't listen to the Beatles for a while, I get withdrawel symptoms! I just crave it, and crave the game Beatles Rockband, for which I love playing as it lets the players get closer to the Beatles than ever before.

Listening to each album in full, notably Sgt peppers and Revolver, opens ones soul up to musical immersion of a brilliant level. So now I am a Beatles Fan boy, and always will be, and am ever grateful for the beatles music. The Beatles has had a massive effect on my teenage years/childhood and has moulded me into the person I am - from the seeds of Beatles being planted in my early years , growing throughout and coming to full bloom at the end of my teenage years. I am appreciative for their MASSIVE amount of hits, not one of their songs is "bad."

These days bands struggle and slave away in the studio for years to produce an album with AT MOST 5 songs that are great, however in the 60's the Beatles were pumping out an average of an album or so a year, and nearly every song on each was MARVELOUS. Right now I am listening to the Beatles Marathon on DIg Radio and am grateful to the ABC for sharing this musical magic to Australia.

At first I had vague memories of the beatles from trips in the car when I was around 5. It grew on me through the years - ofcourse, and as per the intention of the beatles, I liked the 'whimsical' kids songs - Bungalo Bill, All Together Now, Yellow Submarine, Octopuses Garden. But then my father opened up the wonderful world of Lennon, Harrisons and Mccartney, even Starrs (Don't pass me by etc) song writing. Still listen to them all the time now - the anthology, all the movies etc. Their profound effect on music is immeasurable, their music and influence echoing through the world for even 50 years after The Beatles.

Now if I don't listen to the Beatles for a while, I get withdrawel symptoms! I just crave it, and crave the game Beatles Rockband, for which I love playing as it lets the players get closer to the Beatles than ever before.

Listening to each album in full, notably Sgt peppers and Revolver, opens ones soul up to musical immersion of a brilliant level. So now I am a Beatles Fan boy, and always will be, and am ever grateful for the beatles music. The Beatles has had a massive effect on my teenage years/childhood and has moulded me into the person I am - from the seeds of Beatles being planted in my early years , growing throughout and coming to full bloom at the end of my teenage years. I am appreciative for their MASSIVE amount of hits, not one of their songs is "bad."

These days bands struggle and slave away in the studio for years to produce an album with AT MOST 5 songs that are great, however in the 60's the Beatles were pumping out an average of an album or so a year, and nearly every song on each was MARVELOUS. Right now I am listening to the Beatles Marathon on DIg Radio and am grateful to the ABC for sharing this musical magic to Australia.

I will never forget the day when I first discovered The Beatles.

Unfortunately the year was 2008, not 1964 when I discovered the Beatles. I was 14 and up until then, music was only sound, until one rainy day I turned on the TV to open my ears to a wonderful song, featuring a beautiful man wearing Granny Glasses sitting at a white piano and singing his heart with words. It was beautiful. It was like nothing I had ever heard before. It was John Lennon's Imagine.

I immediately turned to my mother, ''Mum, tell me about John Lennon'' and that she did, she explained about his death which made my heart sink (I had never felt this way before, and I didn't even know him!), but made me feel alot better when she told me of his life in the land of Submarines (The Beatles, of coarse!).

Though my mother grew up with ABBA, she managed to find me a Beatles record, Rubber Soul, among her vast 70's collection. My eyes welled up when I put the needle to the grooves of the record. I had never heard such a sound! I knew I would love them forever!

Though I cannot pin-point one single great moment I have had with The Beatles, each moment I live in my everyday life as a Beatlemaniac is a wonderful experience on it's own.

So it just goes to show, The Beatles have inspired many generations. Even though I am only 16, I am not afraid to admit that I'm a Beeatlemaniac, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah!

Standing in front of the family radio on the mantle peice and listening to "when I saw her standing there" when I was 16 changed my life. Grew my hair, looked like Ringo, bought every album and EP as they came out and played them on my portable record player and my sisters friend's home built stereo.

I fell in love to the beatles and grieved to the Beatles when it was over. Watched them on the TV as they arrived at Essendon Airport. and was late for work and was glued to the tv with friends all weekend as they came to the window way up on the Southern Cross Hotel. I stood on the tramtracks in Swanston Street as they walked out on the Balcony of the Melbourne Town Hall.

Weeks of shoving my tranny into my ear to listen to "Long Tall Sally" on the train home from work as I lusted after Sue who loved Elvis and "Little Egypt".

Months of "with the Beatles" and Beatles for sale with another passionate love and painful end.

Queued up for hours to see "Hard Days Night" and remember all their hits on our car radio as we surfed the south coast.

Remember Paperback Writer played on the radio by Pete Smith, on the mud track to Bells and my first hearing of Michelle after I fought with my best friend.

Hours of study as a young married man with a young family, studying for my Accounting exams listening to "Bang Bang Maxwell"

Sign posts of my life have been marked by Beatles events and releases and re-releases. Each one touches my soul as much as the first. Each track I hear takes me to a time and a place.

I recall the emtpiness I felt as I heard, at a BBQ, that John Lennon had been murdered. I was there with my children after separating from my wife.

So I have moved from the family radio to listening to this magic Beatles broadcast on my PC, every track defines me and at the grand age of 63 I look forward to playing their music as I learn the guitar.

I don't want to win the box set, of course I already have it. I just wanted to tell you how I connect to my life through the Beatles. My favourite beatles track "Things we said today". Don't know why and it is just a breath in front of dozens of others.

Thank you Beatles

Steven

I remember when we were at Grade 6, a number of boys were more interested in the Beatles than in us (girls) ! We absolutely had a great time during the adolescent years when we danced to the wonderful beats of the Beatles! There was Beatles music 'here, there and everywhere'. Now that I am in my 50s, I have yet to find a band that is anywhere near the calibre of the legendary Beatles ! ......."Oh, I believe in yesterday."

I don't have a specific favourite "Beatle memory". My favourite Beatle memory is every time I listen to them.
:)

I have 2 early memories.
The first was a send up of the Beatles on Brisbane's TV Chanel 7 program Theater Royal run live on Friday nights. Four individuals in black & white horizontal stripes looking like some kind of insects lumbered around the stage to the song "Love Me Do". At the end a big hand holding an apparently giant can of insect spray appeared in camera and let them have it. Down they went. Quite funny but it got me interested in this new group.

The second was in the 1967 world wide television hookup "Our World". The scene was the recording studio as the Beatles were recording "All You Need Is Love". As we viewed the orchestra firing up the announcer said something like " these are not just rock & roll youngsters these are symphony men."

i can't enter the competition because i am not yet 18 but i made both my parents enter! haha!
our beatle memories are all different, my favourite memories must be either
1. hearing the bycyclops line in in the yellow submarine for the first time
or
2. seeing and meeting the fab four this year (even though they weren't the real beatles)

I have lived with the Beatles all my life. I can remember being about 5 years old and hearing "She Loves You" for the first time, and my father raving about it. My mother took me to see a Hard Day's Night, and I was scared because of all the girls screaming in the theater!! I saw Paul McCartney sing Yesterday on the Ed Sullivan show, and watched them everytime they appeared on TV when I was a kid. I danced to "Im down" on the Oriana as we travelled from Canada to Australia when I was 8 years old. I saved my pocket money to by EPs and then LPs and still have all of them stilll in the plastic covers I bought to protect them! I thought the end of the world had come when Paul McCartney announced the end of the Beatles.

When the Beatles Anthology was shown on television, I told all of my friends not to call me, and put everything on hold so that I could watch it without interruption.

Trite but true - they have been the soundtrack of my life - I play them when Im happy, or when Im sad, and when I play my Beatle records I am immediately tranpsorted back to a more innocent, happier, less complicated time

When the break up was announced it was almost anti-climactic. There had been reports and rumours circulating for nearly a year and, to add to this, John Lennon had already released a solo album - "Live Peace in Toronto" and Paul was about to release his first solo effort.

I have happier recollections of the 1967 Beatles. In March 1967 I was an eighteen year old teacher at a rural Queensland primary school and the Beatles (and my lengthening hair) were my links with the 'civilized world'. On the day that the "Strawberry Fields Forever/ Penny Lane" was to be released both for airplay and in the shops I took my small red transistor radio to work and, as soon as I dismissed my Grade Three class for Morning Tea, I opened the top draw of my desk and heard the wonderful strains of "Strawberry Fields" on the local radio for the first time. The rest of the day passed in a blur and when I arrived home, there in the mail was my pre-ordered copy of the new single. It had found its way to my remote post code.

Four months later I arranged for my sister back in Brisbane to collect my copy of the "Sgt Pepper" album, also on the day of its release. I literally wore out that first copy of "Pepper" and had to buy another copy a few years later by which time the wonderful gate fold sleeve had been replaced. However, the new sleeve also included the song lyrics, a concept which had been another revolutionary feature of the album when it was released in July of 1967.

About one month after the release of "Sgt Pepper" I attended a University of Queensland Vacation School for teachers from remote parts of the state. I surreptitiously snuck my little portable gramophone into my room at St Leo's College and turned the volume down when I put "Pepper" on the turntable lest the thirty and forty somethings with whom I was sharing the corridor should become distracted from their studies. To my enormous surprise, the main topic of conversation at dinner tables throughout that week was the new Beatles' album. Truly, things had changed! A revolution was taking place.

I have a number of Beatles memories dispite being younger than a teen at the time. There was the the music, the cartoons, the ep's brought home by the older brothers, the first album I bought which was Sargents Pepers (I was still in primary school). I had a scrap book with all the many (over the top) articles of the time, claiming they had some insight into the inner workings of the world, if only it was really so! They did make very interested in music which has stayed with me for my life. I have met a number of people who did have a beatles number zero over the years (they actually met them). One recently I met one a plane to Chicago. He worker for the American army and had noticed I had a Rolling Stones Magazine with a Beatle's artilce. He admitted to growing up at the same time in Liverpool and related a memory of Paul and John walking down his street with John carrying a monkey on his sholder. It made me wonder if the song "everybody's got something to hide except for me and my monkey" was another semi auto-biographical song of John's? Then again probably not.

ABC,
In case you're wondering, Renee has both parents consent, support and encouragement to enter this competition and is using an e-mail address controlled monitored by both of us. We are both well over 18.

My favourite memory was The Beatles stepping of the airplane in Australia, everyone was going crazy and they looked so full of life bounding of the tarmac. It's a picture in my head that never fades.

Beatles music spans 3 generations in my family. But alas, together we have been 3 times unlucky in actually seeing the Beatles live-:
My mother had purchased a ticket to a Beatles concert in Liverpool and she was not allowed to attend the concert, because her parents thought the Beatles too wild!!
Years later my mother then married and moved to South Africa where the Beatles were banned from touring South Africa after John Lennon said that they (The Beatles) were more popular than Jesus Christ!!
I am now living in Australia and have a daughter who is envious of anyone born in the 60's-70's because they had the opportunity to see The Beatles - she continually says she was born in the wrong generation!!