When I was about 8, I got into the Beatles in a big way, after staying at a house in Dromana that had a copy of Abbey Road on LP, and listening to it every day for a week. Of course they’d been broken up for 8 years then, but I started collecting all the albums on cassette, a little later spurred on by the events of December 8th, 1980.

By the mid-80s I had a turntable, and in 1987 I upgraded to the record of Sgt Pepper (bought 20 years to the day since the first release, I do believe) and the White Album (collectors’ edition in white vinyl).

When I got my first CD player in 1989, the first CD I got to play on it was Abbey Road. Subsequently I’ve collected the other official releases on CD (though I didn’t get all the Anthology series — there’s only so many alternate takes of She Loves You that one can take). Though they don’t often get an airing on the CD player, when they come up on random play on the iPod, I generally greet them like old friends.

Though two of the Beatles have left this Earth, their music lives on.

On the train yesterday morning, two earnest young men of about 19 or 20 were discussing music. One was enthusiastically telling the other about the recent Let It Be “Naked” release, how in particular the version of “I’ve Got A Feeling” crapped all over Phil Spector’s original mix.

I was born a little after the Beatles split up. These guys would have been born about 15 years later.

What’s the bet that in 1000 years, as people are queuing for the teleport, they’re still debating the merits of Phil Spector’s production on Let It Be?

It would seem that some great music is timeless.