The Beatles didn’t ruin me. At least, I don’t think so.

Sixty-two years ago, teenagers were discovering a new LP (that’s vinyl talk for the 33 rpm, long play format). It was called “Meet the Beatles!”

Just entering my teens, I was one of many millions who listened to the album, and listened some more, and liked it very much. Without trying to memorize the lyrics, I was quick to sing along with the record as it played—and even in my mind after the player had stopped. I called that “RF” (record flashback).

“Those Beatles will ruin you,” I was warned by a fellow from an older generation.

“Their music has a beat like the rhythm of your young heart,” he continued. He seemed somewhat confused about the “beat,” but predicted it would hypnotize me, or something dreadful like that.

Then he shook his head in disgust while his crew cut remained undisturbed and said, “Don’t you ever let your hair grow like that!”

Unperturbed by his advice, I continued listening (and singing along) to songs like “I Saw Her Standing There” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” My favorite was the last track on side one, “All My Loving.” I thought I sounded just like Paul when I sang that one.

I learned those songs before I ever noticed a girl standing there (wherever that was), or had any hope of holding her hand, or much less, offering her all my loving. I only thought of those tunes as simple little love songs with catchy melodies.

Beatlemania, if I ever fell under its spell, never hypnotized me into any bizarre behavior or caused my hair to become long and shaggy. Listening to Beatle music didn’t become an obsessive, exclusive musical pursuit for me.

Before I first heard The Beatles, I had enjoyed other popular music. I had dreamed about Johnny Cash’s teenage queen, caught a falling star with Perry Como, found breaking up is hard to do from Neil Sedaka, and accompanied Jan and Dean to Surf City. I’d been around some.

Through the years I continued to collect Beatle records, yet my collections encompassed a variety of musical artists from Joseph Haydn to Allen Jackson, from Frank Sinatra to Fleetwood Mac, from Linda Ronstadt to Ray Charles—all kinds for all times.

Since the breakup of the famed British band, I’ve followed each of the four as solo artists. Paul McCartney has always been my favorite, and now during these last days of May, I’m enjoying listening to his newest offering, “The Boys of Dungeon Lane.”

In recent years I attended a Paul McCartney concert. He was without the other Beatles, and I was without my wife at that performance. I thought about her, though, as I listened to the music that night. She had become the special girl I saw standing there—the girl whose hand I wanted to hold.

When Paul began singing “All My Loving,” I knew what I had to do. Right then and there, I called her on my cell phone. She answered exactly at the right moment. She heard Paul singing “All my loving, I will send to you. All my loving, darling I’ll be true.” After those couple of lines, I hung up without saying a word.

She knew it was me.

She knew The Beatles hadn’t ruined me.