'It's Easy'

I've written on my other blog a bit about the impact The Beatles has had on my life. Like so many people my age, I was raised on the band's music, movies and ideals, and have come to regard John, Paul, George and Ringo almost as family members.

The music of The Beatles is comfortable and familiar. It's consoled me. It's encouraged me. It's entertained me. It's inspired me. The songs are sentimental, powerful, spiritual, universal, personal, optimistic, dangerous, sullen, silly. The songs hold within them a million stories, a unique memory for each listener, and because of those connections Beatles lyrics have become mottos and philosophies.

The greatest theme in Beatles' songs is love. The Cirque du Soleil tribute to the band is called "LOVE" because that word appears in Beatles' lyrics more than any other. Over the course of its short recording career, the band explored love in its many forms, from the personal to the universal, the romantic to the spiritual.

Aside from the fact that the band wrote such incredible music, maybe it's this focus on love that has kept the songs spinning for nearly five decades, and will keep them in heavy rotation for decades more.

"All You Need Is Love" is, for me, the pinnacle. It's such a beautiful and honest song, optimistic and introspective. It's a song I gave to my niece and nephew when they were born. It's a song that keeps teaching me lessons, and probably always will.

Saying "all you need is love" is a trite but absolutely true. The longer I live, the more I understand how powerful and essential love is, love for others and, as importantly, love for yourself. It multiplies and expands and, if you let, can envelop your whole world.

Though I know this to be true, it's so hard to live it, so hard to really take it in, let it take over. Those moments that I do, though, I feel invincible.