The Beatles at 50 (Well, in America Anyhoo)

Anyone who's read extensively about the recordings of The Beatles know that their incredible success enabled them the hours and hours they took to get every song perfect, be it dozens and dozens of takes. Still, Penn Jillette's take on how it affected his life is refreshing:

When I first heard The Beatles, as a child, I thought they walked into the recording studio with a genius idea and they executed that idea perfectly.

Every note, every word, every la da da dadada was planned and just had to be laid down on wax. The recordings were perfect. The Beatles were geniuses and that's how geniuses created works of art.

Then I bought my first bootleg record.  As I turned up my mom's record player loud what I heard changed my life. I heard The Beatles making mistakes. I heard them fumbling around to find their genius.  It had versions of the songs that were different. It had The Beatles trying different tempos, different lyrics and different ideas. It had The Beatles fighting. I heard The Beatles failing. I heard The Beatles working.

I still believe The Beatles started with ideas. They had feelings in their hearts and thoughts in their minds they wanted to express. But learning that they didn't have perfect blueprints from their genius was a revelation. It inspired me to start to practice and rehearse the stupid ideas that I had.