Okay, after a long-winded introduction, we finally get back to 1963; which, by sheer coincidence, was also the year that I became a fully-fledged teenager; what better way to be welcomed into the fold than by the best in the business, who were, in my humble estimation, the Beatles.

When they came out with their first ever single, Love Me Do, it sounded just that little bit different from all the rest of the music coming out at the time; not a lot different, but enough to convince a load of teenagers - and I guess record company executives as well - that here at last was something worth checking out.

Looking back, I have to admit it wasn't an overwhelmingly sensational debut, but if you view it in the grander scheme of things, it probably more than accomplished what all debut singles are supposed to do:

Namely, make us sit up and take notice. Imagine you are at a dinner party and you want to make an announcement, you would first have to attract everyone's attention before you launch into what you want to say. Now there are two ways to do this: you can either make a grand entrance by dimming the lights and playing a fanfare while you jump onto the table, or you can simply tinkle a glass and make an appropriate grunting noise like "Ahem...". The Beatles, of course, being true British gentlemen, obviously preferred understatement; and that is why, ladies and gentlemen, we ended up with Love Me Do as the first single; it was simply the Beatles' way of politely saying "Ahem". After thirty-seven years of endless debate and analysis, I am convinced that is the only reason why they didn't come out with a more jaw-dropping debut.

After all, to be honest, the melodies wasn't that great nor were the harmonies as sweet as vintage Everly Brothers, but you could feel there was something about them that you couldn't quite put your finger on. It was probably a combination of style, originality, and a rawness and freshness to their sound more than any stunning musical achievement at that stage, but the reasons, whatever they were, were was of no consequence at the time: the important thing was that they sounded great and they looked and acted exactly like what any newly-certified teenager then would want to look and act like - if only given half a chance.


And then came Please Me, which made them the undisputed crown princes of the British music scene - not to say there was much interesting happening there anyway, what with old King Cliff wobbly on his throne and his mind already on higher callings. I thought at the time that was pretty good for a few months' work, but I would soon learn that behind all this seemingly easy success was a lot of hard work to get to where they were with their music, with long and hard apprenticeships in Liverpool and Hamburg. In fact, if the teachers at school had pointed this out to those of us in the back row of Form 1E, it probably might have changed our perspective on the benefits of dedication and hard work; it never happened, of course, and these qualities remained as elusive as the possibility of avoiding weekly detention. But I digress.
Finally, after what seemed an infinitely long wait, here at last was something that hit the nail right on the head: good honest music, fabulously alive and of the moment, as if custom-made for the new genetically improved breed of teenagers - namely us! - who were among the first to come of age in a vastly changing world those would sweep us along at breakneck speeds.
And swept along we indeed were, like sampans in a tropical typhoon. As the list of Beatles singles, and then albums, grew longer and longer, we saw the unfolding of the many cultural and social changes that would change the face of Hong Kong as we had known it as children. Later on, the Beatles' music too would start to change as they themselves matured as people and as musicians, moving away stylistically and lyrically from the confines of the simple pop tune, away from the La-La land of pure teenage fantasy. It mirrored our own developing awareness that there was something out there, looming just beyond our adolescent self-absorption, called the big wide world, where, soon, we would have to take our first tentative steps.

So, meanwhile, what did we teenagers do in that metaphorical typhoon? Well - at the risk of belaboring the analogy - some stayed safely at home while the daring went bodysurfing in the churning whites of Big Wave Bay. And me? I got drenched, prowling the empty howling streets with a friend, trading harmonies on Nowhere Man, and wondering what the next Beatles single would sound like.