I came to the Beatles late. I was more of a pop kid.

I started watching the Beatles: Get Back documentary late one night when I was bored. Peter Jackson’s eight-hour documentary of the Fab Four compiled from hours and hours of unseen footage that would ultimately become their bittersweet breakup album Let it Be. 

The doco is captivating and evocative from the moment John, Paul, Ringo and George walk into the Twickenham Film Studios. It is breathtakingly beautiful, warm and hypnotic. There is a deep pleasure in watching the band unearth, mould and transform a song from a few clumsy notes from McCartney’s Hofner bass.

The doco becomes so compelling, lucid and riveting that at times I found myself spontaneously sobbing and uncontrollably giggling in the space of 15 seconds. And the agony of a world without Lennon’s sophisticated and revolutionary wit, is impossible to translate.

Since the show, I have been converted to the Beatles church. I have listened to Abbey Road and Let it Be…Naked (Not that Phil Spector-produced swill, right?) dozens of times. I am slowly working my way back through the Beatles vast and expansive back catalogue.

So now wherever I go, I breach the Beatles gospel like a religious freak relentlessly knocking on your door on a 40-degree day.

I expected my daily novena to the Beatles temple would be greeted with hugs and embraces from the brethren. There would be softly spoken words like ‘you have travelled far brother, but you have finally made it’. Welcome. There is a kaftan waiting for you inside and a vinyl copy of the White Album will be delivered to door in the coming days’. It is a safe place here brother, so we can speak freely of Yoko Ono’.

Nup. I would get more pleasure if I hugged a cactus.

The disciples of Paul John, Ringo and George are a bunch of annoying, pretentious wankers. The scholarly-like snobbery is so layered with passive aggressive disdain for folk not schooled in Beatles music, you expect to suddenly burst into flames in their presence.

I get that Beatles’ fans see themselves as belonging to some monastic order that must keep the Fab Four faith burning for ever. The Beatles faithful have a devotion I never witnessed before, but the obnoxious pretence is misplaced.  

I can do that with books or movies. But I’ve never had the urge to punch someone in the nose for not reading Dostoevsky’s the Idiot. I’ll admit I’ve come close. 

Despite the endless, deranged derision from Beatles tragics, for not owning a copy of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, I like to think there is a certain level of seriousness and tenderness with my relationship with music.

The last three albums I listened on Spotify were: Snail Mail’s hauntingly beautiful Valentine; Herbie Hancock’s Sextant and the splendid debut album from Springtime featuring Gareth Liddiard, (Tropical Fuck Storm, Jim White (Dirty Three drummer) and Necks’ pianist Chris Abrahams. Not exactly bland. But Beatles fans are rarely roused by anything beyond 1970.

There is an interrogation with Beatles fans I’ve haven’t come across with other bands. Rolling Stones music-lovers are like, ‘you’ve listened to Exile on Main St.? I’ve just added you on Facebook and do you like your Chai Tea with fennel?’ Bob Dylan fanatics are just bitter recluses so you never actually get to see one, let alone chat about an album.

Then there is the belligerent Beatles bully. You know the one. In his late 50s, wearing denim jeans, converse sneakers and a faded and slightly torn Fugazi t-shirt that barely covers his bulging girth. He used to have a Beatles quilt and lunchbox as a kid and the first ever song he played on his guitar was a Lennon and McCartney song. Hell, all his milestones are associated with the Beatles.

 Probably named his goldfish John and Paul. Definitely had a stray dog in the early 80s called Ringo.

I mentioned recently to a guy at dinner party I hadn’t heard the whole of the album Revolver. I saw him moments later pulling out jumper cables and a battery from the kitchen cupboard, which I think he planned to use on me.

I’ve come to learn, the most terrifying line you will hear from a Beatles devotee is: do you know what that song is about? Even if you mumble, um, yes, I do know what the song is about, it doesn’t matter because the Beatlemaniac is already shivering like a crack addict about to tuck into his breakfast pipe. There is an admirable ruthlessness to their storytelling but I am always looking for a corkscrew to plunge into my arm or a bathroom window to leap through. And you don’t want to make any abrupt movements or regrettable sounds while the petulant punce is labouring on about the true meaning of Maxwell’s Silver Hammer, because this will only elicit the flickering intensity of an epileptic goat.

Then it happened. An aging local musician waltzed up to me two weeks ago with the look on his face like someone had told him I had weeks to live. He’d obviously heard about my Beatles misgivings. He stroked my hair like a lover and started yabbering on about the brilliance of the Beatles doco. He saw himself as my saviour.

He was bulging with facts.

He paused long enough to let me blurt out I adored Harrison’s version of Old Brown Shoe in the doco. He didn’t know the song. Given I could only understood every third or fourth word, I’d dismissed it as a mild seizure of some kind. I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt, so I tried again.

To convey my new found love for the Beatles, I jokingly said I wanted the song the Two of Us added to my funeral songs. He wanted to know how it went. I felt an unrecognisable rage boiling inside and for a brief moment I seriously thought about slapping him across the face just in case he was having multiple seizures. I understood the intolerance and inadequacy fans felt towards me. I had to get away from this person. I’m only coming to the Beatles story, but he was a musical moron. So anyway, you pretentious Beatles bastards, I get it.  

But if you do see me walking along the streets with a Beatles t-shirt, feel free to stop and punch me in the nose.