----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Myers" <mmyers1446@yahoo.com>
>But to me they helped me realize the possibilities of my LIFE... to 
>be creative, to oppose the Viet Nam war while in college, to think 
>outside the box, to realize there was this whole material world out 
>there that I did not necessarily have to conform to... I need to be 
>redundant here and say that for me, they were a life-altering force 
>more powerful than my professors, my employers etc etc

So...in that case, my parents were my Beatles, but unfortunately, my 
mom couldn't carry a tune and my dad lost interest in music when Patsy 
Cline's plane went down.

>I have been reading a lot of the replies, and it seems that many of 
>the posters have picked bands that made them think of new musical 
>possibilities, or perhaps some act that really struck a chord with 
>them (sorry, bad pun).... but most of the comments seem to be more 
>about the quality of the music that these other bands have devised... 
>am I totally off-base here?

>I guess what I'm saying is that the Beatles were so much more than 
>the music to me... and I haven't read too much along those lines in 
>these other thoughtful replies...

Can't speak for anybody else, but in my own case, I never looked to 
pop music to teach me the big life lessons.  Not to say it's not 
important to me -- obviously it is, given that I've built a career 
around it -- but music is important to me in and of itself, not as a 
philosophical conduit. Even the musicians who I *do* consider 
influential in how I've shaped my worldview, it's more about the ideas 
underpinning their music than the music itself, if you get what I'm 
saying.

S