So there I was last week, having just penned yet another epochal review about semaphore, returning my copy of NUJV! to the shelves. It slots in just after A Hard Day’s Night and before Rubber Soul, chronological order being strictly observed after the grand overlordship of alphabetical order. Except Rubber Soul wasn’t there.
Imagine, gentle reader, my distress; it should, nay MUST be there! Remembering back to the Great Miles Davis Crisis of 2017*, I stifled a despairing howl and sank to the floor in utter despair before swooning like a minor character in an Austen novel.
Upon regaining consciousness I girded my loins, screwed my courage to the sticking point and searched the shelves on either side, calmly and methodically at first and then with increasing levels of panic and desperation.
Then it hit me. The only viable explanation. I had been the victim of a ruthlessly cunning and hideously selective burglar. Why anyone would want to break into my house and steal a single not very valuable Beatles LP was a mystery to me. My copy was a late 60’s reissue, nothing special.
So I checked on my Discogs account and my music collector database. Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
Thinking logically there can only be two feasible explanations:
- MI5, NSA, FBI, NASA, SMERSH and EMI were perpetrating some form of digital outrage upon me, for reasons as yet unknown**.
- I have genuinely never owned a copy of Rubber Soul.
It is the least likely of the two scenarios but I had genuinely and wrongly assumed I owned a copy of Rubber Soul, why wouldn’t I? it isn’t a great favourite of mine but surely I had bought a copy on eBay back when LPs were cheap? apparently not.
It was an odd moment, I am not in fact omnipotent but my memory is sharp, especially for LPs and this was a bit weird. What next? will I find that I just dreamed that I own a record player? or that I invented Biff Byford and nobody else has ever heard of him?
The glitch in the matrix has been repaired and normal service has been resumed, thanks to payday.
Has anybody else had a similar experience?
1090 Down (still).
*I’m still too upset to talk about it in detail, but I had shelved My Funny Valentine (1965) after Filles De Kilimanjaro (1968) and In A Silent Way (1969). AFTER!! It had probably been that way for about 5 months before being discovered during a routine shelf audit. I still struggle to look people in the eye.
**probably to do with a conspiracy involving Covid vaccinations, giant lizards, chemtrails, Area 51 and Van Morrison; surely you can connect the dots yourself?