The Cavern

I thought I had a plan for the evening when I walked into the Cavern Club in my converse shoes. But who was I fooling when I decided to have a quick pint and they started playing all my favourite Beatles songs? 

When I was little my father used to play the Beatles for me all the time, just like his parents used to play them for him when he was little. Of course whilst the Beatles days of fame did actually occur during his lifetime, he would have been in single digits for the majority of that time and John Lennon was shot when he was only a teenager. But just like my dad clung to their rock and roll music throughout his life, I've clung to it too. In fact, some of my greater memories include my dad and I listening to a Beatles song or too, one of the few bands he played for me over time with the very emphatic hope that I would love like he did from Blur to the Who and the Dandy Warhols. My dad has a particular taste in music, you could say. 

I started to learn the piano when I was in primary school, and my dad bought me a piano - nothing flash, just a big beast of an instrument that needed to be tuned almost before every practice session, but it was lovely and I wishes more than anything I hadn't given up in frustration at too young an age to appreciate musical talent. 

But of all the music books we had, and I'm sure there was some interesting ones, one of the best was actually a collection of song sheets designed for the guitar made up of many different Beatles songs. It had the lyrics of every song it mentioned, too, and to this day I never really knew where it came from or where it went to. I do know however that more than one road trip throughout the west of our Red Dirt country was comprised of sing a longs with the song book as reference. It was with this book that I learnt all of the lyrics to Obla-di Obla-da (Life Goes On), and i haven't ever forgotten them to this day.

Like Monty Python, the Beatles are something my dad and I have always had. And standing in the Cavern with my pint I started to feel sentimental, truly missing my dad for the first time in months because if anyone would have loved this as much as I, it would have been him. There was no one in the world who I would have rather come to the Cavern with.

My family hails from Liverpool, funnily enough my mother's side and not my father's, and well, we rather came from Limerick in Ireland before stopping for an extended stay in Wallasea across the Mersey from Liverpool's main hub. My nana grew up in the post-war city and was still here in her youth when John, Paul, Ringonand George burst onto the scene in 1957 long before they made it to Abbey Road. My nana, more adventurous and wonderful than she has ever given herself credit, came to the Cavern and saw the four lads play to the utter envy of the rest of us born long after those underground days. 

Liverpool and the Cavern itself have huge importance to myself and my family, at least the way I see it, and so when I decided to come down to Mathew street on my wander through the city for the very first time, I really did only plan for a look in to start off with. 

But then they played my favourite Beatles and Kinks songs and I knew it wasn't going to be the quick stop I'd intended. What was the use when I suddenly wanted to dance for the next few hours, and keep that cider coming? Hats off nana, you knew how to party. And dad, heck knows you'll be here next time. 

I threw Grandad in for good measure when Elvis filtered into the play. 

Sam xox