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Song Info (from Beatlesongs):”And I Love Her” is on the A Hard Day’s Night album and was 65% written by McCartney and 35% by Lennon. By 1972 there were 372 cover versions of it. In 1984, Paul said, “…it was a nice tune, that one. I still like it.”

Growing up in church, I heard often about the word “love,” particularly as it was used in the Bible. There were three main Greek words translated “love” in the New Testament: eros, philos, and agape. The first refers to a romantic or sexual love (the word “erotic” is derived from this), the second to a friendly or brotherly love (“Philadelphia” comes from this), and the last, agape, refers to an unconditional love, a giving love, a sacrificial love.

This last one is the most difficult one. We like to do things that are easy for us and serve our needs. Agape, though, requires us to give and serve and meet the needs of someone else, regardless of how difficult that can be at times. It can be hard enough when everything’s normal, but when the other party has hurt you or ignored you or damaged your trust, well, it gets very, very difficult. It’s only natural to want to protect oneself from hurt, whether that be physical or mental.

The reason this topic is on my mind lately is… well… I’ve been in a relationship with someone difficult for quite some time now. She’s mean to me and my friends, she has total disregard for my wishes, she expects to be waited on at all times, her breath is terrible… and sometimes she hisses at and bites people.

Some of you have met Nutmeg, so you know what I’m talking about. Nobody likes her. …except me. I don’t know why, but I do love the little monster. Part of it’s probably because I’m the only person she likes, I’m sure – when I’m the only one here, whatever room I’m in, she’s there. Another part is that I know I’m all she has. If I didn’t love her and keep her, no one else would take her.

She does purr and cuddle, so I guess it’s not completely selfless of me, but I think for the most part that I love her more than she “deserves.” And isn’t that kind of the point, though? Most of us have done rotten things and don’t really deserve love, so it’s all the more special when someone does choose to love us.

I suspected Beatles Week might run on past Christmas this year and I wondered what I might do when it did. Luckily, The Beatles themselves solved my problem for me.

On December 4, 1995, the group released “Free As a Bird,” their first new single in 25 years (source), using a tape John Lennon had recorded in 1977 and building around that with harmonies and more music by the remaining band members. The song was released on a mini-CD with three other studio recordings, one of which was “Christmas Time (Is Here Again).” I’ll let the album notes describe it from here:

From 1963 to 1969 the Beatles gave members of their official fan club a special gift at Christmas: a record unavailable elsewhere. The 1967 disc was titled “Christmas Time (Is Here Again)” and extracts from a song of that name were scattered among the sketches. Issued here for the first time is an uninterrupted recording of the number. Superimposed near the end are some spoken-word seasonal greetings, taped in 1966, followed by a John Lennon.

So this year for Christmas, I would like to wish you and yours a very merry Christmas and would also like to let The Beatles do the same from 1967. Click the following link to stream the song or right-click and save it before listening (it’s a little over 4 Mb):

Song Info (from Beatlesongs):”We Can Work It Out” was released in the US on December 6, 1965, as a double A-sided single with “Day Tripper.” It was 70% Paul and 30% John, with a similar mix of optimism (“we can work it out”) and impatience (“life is very short and there’s no time”). Paul’s inspiration was his then-girlfriend Jane Asher.

I’ve always liked this song. Aside from it being the basis for my favorite Beatles Tie, (I’ve always regretted not buying it when I had the chance), it always seemed so upbeat and encouraging. I’d always thought this song was an exhortation to, you know, work things out. I mean, it’s right there in the title, after all.

I have this weird relationship with music, though, where I can hear a song a bunch of times without really hearing it. I can’t hear lyrics all that well, which has resulted in me hearing things like “Benny took and he ate a ball of my corn” from the Beach Boys’ “Sloop John B” (real line: “Then he took and he ate up all of my corn”). But this song seemed pretty straight forward:

We can work it out,
We can work it out.
Life is very short, and there’s no time
For fussing and fighting, my friend.
I have always thought that it’s a crime,
So I will ask you once again.

“We can talk this through, we can figure it out, and we should stop fussing because it’s not important in the grand scheme of how long we’re given on this earth.”

Those are great sentiments and things we could stand to put into practice… but it’s only half the picture of the song. Since that’s the chorus and it has the musical hook, that’s the part we tend to remember. But the verses tell me a different story:

Try to see it my way,
Do I have to keep on talking till I can’t go on?
While you see it your way,
Run the risk of knowing that our love may soon be gone.

Try to see it my way,
Only time will tell if I am right or I am wrong.
While you see it your way
There’s a chance that we might fall apart before too long.

Turns out what he’s really saying is “You’re wrong, I’m right, and the sooner you figure that out and start doing things my way, the better off we’ll be.” That seems a bit more familiar, since that’s pretty much what we all do. At the same time Paul’s singing this to Jane, Jane’s singing the exact same thing back to him.

We’re never going to find someone who agrees with us on everything. Every topic, every issue, has two or more sides, If both sides are completely convinced theirs is the correct view, a compromise won’t make anyone happy. and it seems the answer to Rodney King’s question of “Can’t we all just get along?” is a resounding “NO!”

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to the conclusion that the best I can do is state my position and my reasons for having that position. Getting angry with someone because they don’t have the same views I do is, well, dumb. Its basis is an unrealistic egocentric worldview – “All others must conform to my way!” – and will forever cause that person to be angry at any and every one.

I’m trying to level up my ability to disagree with someone without hating them or getting angry at them. I’m still in my starting area, so I’m pretty low-level just yet, but quests are constantly presenting themselves, so I should be able to get more and more XP as time goes on. The real difficulty in most of the quests is that questee usually doesn’t have the same goal, and there are many instances of anger and namecalling. I get more XP and the rewards are greater if I don’t respond in kind, but it takes a lot longer to play that way.

Proverbs 20:3 says that “Keeping away from strife is an honor for a man, But any fool will quarrel.” (NASB) While that doesn’t mean “run away from problems,” it pretty clearly says quarrelers aren’t a special breed.