Lately, I’ve been haunted by an unsettling thought: maybe I don’t actually like the Beatles. But everyone loves the Beatles! Those four Liverpudlians with their collarless suits and catchy choruses. Here Comes the Sun and Yellow Submarine were the soundtrack to my childhood. My best friend and I played Let It Be at the talent show, and I learned the bassline to Dear Prudence instead of whatever my middle school orchestra was playing that week. But I wonder whether I really like these songs or simply the nostalgia I associate with them.
The other day, I asked Mother Earth: “Who was your favorite Beatle?”
“George,” she said.
Same as me—Something, Piggies. I nodded in agreement, but she looked at me, puzzled.
“How did you know George? The dung beetle who lived over a million years ago?”
She told me about him—his strong walk, his relentless dedication to rolling balls of shit across the dirt. He worked through heat and thunder and floods, kept the soil breathing, fed forests without ever asking for thanks.
And just like that, the ground beneath me felt a little more sacred. Because somewhere, in the great archive of Earth’s memory, there was a beetle named George who mattered—just like the rest of us. Just like George the musician and Jorge, my father’s best friend from high school in Miami.
“Tell me more about George,” I proposed. And she did.
And now I think I don’t love the Beatles. I just love the feeling of loving something that meant something to the people I love. I only ever loved the soundtrack of a memory. But maybe that’s enough. Maybe music doesn’t have to be yours to belong to you. And we have the Georges—the beetles, the Beatles, and all the others—to thank.
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