Across The Universe

I have always said that I pay way too much attention to the music I listen too. It goes without saying that music is truly the soundtrack to life. I’ve also been a Beatles fan for as long as I can remember and I’ve written on numerous occasions about what great writers I feel that Lennon and McCartney were. I think the biggest difference between these two and other songwriters is that in most cases music is defined by life, in the case of Lennon and McCartney I think life was defined by the music. In other words, what came first the chicken or the egg? In the Beatles case I think the music came first. Their music defined an entire generation.

I hope the preceding paragraph makes sense and if you’re still with me I need to tell you about a movie Maegan and I saw last night. The name of the flick is “Across The Universe” and it’s a musical about life in the 1960’s. It starts in the early part of the decade and goes through the draft, the war and social unrest that was probably the closest this country came to all out revolution since the Civil War.

It’s a typical love story, boy meets girl, boy gets separated from girl and boy reunites with girl. Basic chick flick and being the chick I usually am I liked the story. There is, however, much more to it than that. There is the music.

“Is there anybody going to listen
to my story,
all about the girl who came to stay?
She’s the kind of girl you want so much
It makes you sorry,
still you don’t regret a single day.”

From the opening scene with a guy on the beach singing the opening verse to “Girl” to the end of the movie with Bono singing “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” it’s a journey through the music of my youth and I’m sure many of yours too. The music does not go through any chronological order, instead it, more importantly, goes in the order of the story.

“I've just seen a face,
I can't forget the time or place
where we'd just met, she's just the girl for me
And I want all the world to see we've met
Na na na na na na”

One thing I’ve always admired about the music of “The Beatles” is how the songs range from the most simplistic to the most complex. The lyrics quoted above are such an obvious choice for when the main characters first meet and start to fall in love. So obvious you’d almost think it would be too easy and some other choice could have been made yet so obvious that there is no way any other choice would work as well.

The whole movie is like that. If you know your Beatles catalog then you can see where each scene is going. If you aren’t overly familiar with the library of songs then it’s a pleasant surprise when a song begins and you say to yourself, yeah, I remember that song. The real beauty of seeing the movie last night is where I saw it. I live in a college town. Michigan State University is basically what is the city. The crowd was all students whose parents probably weren’t even born when The Beatles broke up. During the first 15 or 20 minutes of the show the crowd was talking and laughing at some of the references. After about the 20 minute mark the crowd became much more attentive and really got into it. By the end of the movie many of the kids stayed after to see the credits. Listening to them as they walked out I heard nothing but raves. Maegan loved it too. I know I’ll go see it again and needless to say, I encourage all of you to do the same. No, it’s not one of the great movies of all time but I truly enjoyed it.