You’re listening to Luke’s English Podcast. For more information visit teacherluke.wordpress.com
Hello and welcome to episode 3 of the podcast. Thanks very much for listening and downloading, and possibly subscribing to the show using iTunes, that’s fantastic. In today’s show we’re going to be talking about music and I’m going to talk to my Mum about The Beatles because she was a big Beatles fan in the 1960s. I’m also going to respond to a couple of emails that I’ve had and then in the last part of the podcast, the language part, I’m gonna talk about habits, habits and behavior in the past. So things like ‘use to’ and ‘would’ and some other useful language. So stay tuned for that.
Now, I’ve had an email from Alessandro in Italy in response to the question that I asked at the end of the last podcast. That question was: What kind of music is popular in your country at the moment? Is it kind of English language music or do you have music that is just exclusive to your country? And Alessandro from Italy says that, he still thinks that ‘Opera’ is the most famous Italian music, of course. Everyone knows Opera, erm, people like Luciano Pavarotti, Andrea Bocelli of course that’s the most famous Italian music, but also in Italy, Rock music is very popular and they have all English language bands, the ones we have, obviously have here as well. Things like, you know, U2, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Coldplay. All these really big bands are popular in Italy as well. But also there are lots of Italian Rock bands. They’re really popular there but (they) aren’t very well known outside of Italy and I think this is probably true in most countries, erm, I know it’s true in Japan, that there are big very successful bands, they’re just famous in that country and because the lyrics are not in English, they’re not famous in America or in the UK. So it’s probably, hmm, a bit lazy, in terms, sort of British people. We don’t listen to very much music that isn’t in English. We’re probably missing out on quite a lot of good music. So thanks very much for your emails. I appreciate that very much and remember, if you want to email me, you can. It’s luketeacher@hotmail.com and I love hearing from you. So send me your emails and all your comments and stuff and I’ll get back to you through the podcast.
Ask the girl what she wanted to be She said baby, can’t you see I wanna be famous, a star of the screen But you can do something in between Baby you can drive my car Yes, I’m gonna be a star Baby you can drive my car And maybe I’ll love you
A little bit of Beatles there. That was ‘Drive my car’ from the ‘Rubber Soul album’ and I’m playing that because the Beatles and Apple Corps which is their company and EMI music have finally decided to re-release all of the Beatles studio albums in remastered form. So they’re all going be digitally remastered and so that means you’ll be able to listen to them and hear them sounding better than they’ve ever sounded before. Some of the albums that they released, particularly the early ones were recorded in mono, and there are CD versions of those albums in mono but now they’re going to be digitally remastered, so that they’ll sound really crystal clear and perfect and they’ll be all in stereo which obviously makes the listening experience a lot better. Now, right, so with me here now, is my Mum.
LUKE: Hello Mum
Mum: Hello Luke
LUKE: How are you?
Mum: I’m very well.Thank you.
LUKE: Now, umm, I thought that I’d talk to my Mum today because she used to be, back in the sixties, a massive Beatles fan. Is that right?
Mum: That’s right, yes.
LUKE: Okay, so, umm, right, so I hope you don’t mind if I ask you some questions.
Mum: No, that’s okay.
LUKE: Umm, so how did you first hear about the Beatles then when you were younger
Mum: Umm, oh, it’s very hard to remember but I can, I have, do have one memory of being on the school bus and hearing two other girls talking about this group
LUKE: yeah
Mum: called the Beatles and looking at pictures of them and saying ‘ which is your favorite?’ and I think maybe that was the first time I heard of them but I, I really can’t remember the first, the actual first time.
LUKE: Yeah, now they, they were a really massively popular band, weren’t they?
Mum: They were
LUKE: I mean, everyone was crazy about them. Umm, so, you obviously heard about them from some friends and then started
Mum: And then started to talk about them and look at pictures of them, listen to the music and I didn’t actually buy any records of theirs until the 2nd LP which was called ‘With the Beatles’ which my parents bought me because I didn’t really have much money of my own in those days.
LUKE: That’s nice of them. How old was you in those days, tell me?
Mum: Umm, I would have been about twelve or thirteen, I suppose.
LUKE: Twelve or thirteen, so you would have been the target audience really
Mum: Hum, I suppose so, yes.
LUKE: So why did you like them? Well, they were so popular but why, why did you like them?
Mum: Oh, it’s very hard to explain why. Umm, they were, they were just so unusual, just so different, all the Pop music we’ve had up ’til then seemed to be mainly from America. I mean there were one or two the English people like Cliff Richard and Adam Faith. Umm, but they were just so different. I mean the first time I ever saw a group, you know with three guitars and drums. Before it was just a singer.
LUKE: They had something else about them, didn’t they?
Mum: Oh yes!
LUKE: They had a kind of personality
Mum: Yep !
LUKE: They had a good sense of humor, they were sort of charismatic
Mum: They were from Liverpool, which, and so they had these wonderful Liverpool accents which, um, of course I didn’t really know about in those days. I had never heard about another Liverpudlian I think.
LUKE: Yep
Mum: And they were very witty and very funny and very quick and just wonderful really.
LUKE: Right, so, did you actually ever see them?
Mum: I did, I saw them twice. I think the first time I saw them was in 1963 I think in Wolverhampton and then I saw them again in Birmingham the following year.
LUKE: So they were probably playing in a theatre or something like that, right? Umm, I can’t remember were they were in Wolverhampton. It was probably a Cinema or a Theater or somewhere like that and in Birmingham there were the Odeon in New Street which again was a Cinema but it had a stage and so it could be used for concerts as well.
LUKE: So, what was the experience like? I mean, what was it like actually seeing them, what was the audience like, first of all?
Mum: The audience was completely hysterical. We were all screaming and shouting and it was, I remember, the compere the shows sort of, that’s the man who did, who introduced the acts. When it got to the Beatles because they were the last on the bill and he sort of start the audience up even more by saying ‘Do you want to see them, do you want to see them?’
LUKE: And everyone was like ‘Yeah,
Mum: Everybody was shouting and screaming and the curtain came up and we could see their feet, and then we could see their legs and then you could see them and then the music started and that was all extremely exciting.
LUKE: There’s lots of video footage of The Beatles concerts where they’re playing and you can’t really hear the band. You can just hear all this ridiculous screaming .
Mum: Yes, that’s what is was like. I don’t really think we could hear them properly at all.
LUKE: So, it was just total madness, really.
Mum: Yeah, absolutely.
LUKE: Yah, Yah, I expect probably at the time because it was the early 1960s, young people didn’t really have anything, you know, interesting like The Beatles. They just, I mean, I think, I might be wrong but I think that life was kind of boring, right?
Mum: Umm, no, I never thought it was boring. It’s just the way it was in those days but it was very different from the way it is today. There wasn’t
LUKE: Now, now teenagers have just got so much, so many, you know so much music, so many, hmm, movies and all kind of things there to entertaining them.
Mum: And it’s so much more accessible than it was in my day. You had to actually go to the cinema or buy a record.
LUKE: Yeeah, Yeah
Mum: There was no downloading stuff from the internet or watching DVDs or anything like that.
LUKE: Right, so erm, which Beatle was your favorite because everyone had a favorite Beatle, didn’t they?
Mum: My favorite Beatle was, it was a toss-up between John and Ringo.
LUKE: Yeah, okay
Mum: I think, mainly my favourite was John, because he was so outrageous.
LUKE: Yeah, he was controversial, wasn’t he?
Mum: He was
LUKE: Yah, okay, so just the fact that he was controversial and outrageous, that, that
Mum: That was mainly it, yes he was very witty and very funny.