Visiting The Beatles’ Apple Studio Brought Me the Most Important Door of My Entire Life
I’ve been through a lot of doors in my life: the doors to my high school gym on the day of my graduation, the grand entryway of the castle on my wedding day, the large airplane hatch on the day we landed permanently in Hawaii, the entry to our first Hawaii freelance office, our first long-term apartment in Hawaii. Every one of these portals has a unique story with profound meaning.
But one door had the most significance for me:
The Beatles Apple Studio on 3 Savile Row
I’ve been listening to the Beatles ever since I was little. I learned their songs by heart and to play simplified versions on the piano, with which I would serenade our family friends at gatherings and parties. Ever since that young age, every pivotal, heart-wrenching, and deep moment of my life could be defined by a Beatles song. Every upheaval, heartbreak, victory, every soaring joyful moment or depressive situation–all would have at least one Beatles tune as its motion picture soundtrack.
The Beatles and a few other oldies bands have been the most enduring of my life. I sang “Golden Slumbers” to my grandmother Cecilia in her casket at her funeral, but I also await the day I can sing it to my own baby to lull him or her to sleep each night. “Yesterday” was the permanent anthem for every low moment as I experienced it, and “Here Comes the Sun” tinkles like crystal rain drops on my ears every morning when I wake up.
Regardless of life phase and taste in any particular song or band, the Beatles have grown with me and accompanied every small and large moment I’ve ever known.
The Beatles have been the longest love affair of my life, and I know it will continue until I die.
In 2010, on our Honeymoon, Nate and I stopped in London for a few days prior to traveling north to visit his relatives. On one of our daily walks through the city, we walked through Savile Row to spy the tailor shops and snap photos. As Nate snapped away at other buildings, I happened upon a door to an abandoned townhome scrawled with messages and graffiti. As I inched closer to the door, I noticed the names in the messages: “Dear John…”, “Paul, John, I love you…”, “Paul, John, George, Ringo…”
This was Apple Studios, the location of the famous final rooftop concert (wiki article). What a find!
As I stood there, reading the incredible outpouring of gratitude, admissions of love, personal messages and stories, I became overcome with emotion, welling from deep within. My own intense appreciation and gratitude, love and grief, sadness and happiness compounded and meshed themselves into one bulky plug in my throat and chest, pounding and demanding to be let free. Hot tears seared my cheeks and my heart beat like a drum. I sat on the steps and prayed, thanking the Heavens for what the band had done for me throughout my life.
And, though Instagram didn’t really exist back then (it took off about a month after this), I made sure to document the moment.
The building is still unoccupied. I believe it’s been left as is and created as a historical site to commemorate for future generations exactly the same thing that the house signifies for me. I’ve never seen a more beautiful door in my life.
Rock on, Lovecats!
Mae Xx
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