It’s been 50 years, really?

Oh, man. I cannot believe this got past me … but it did.

On April 10, 1970 — that’s 50 years ago, folks — Paul McCartney announced casually in an interview that The Beatles had broken up. The music ended. The greatest rock ‘n roll band in history was no more.

That’s how it came about. Paul McCartney told us.

I have said before that the group founded by John Lennon, who then asked Paul McCartney to join him, who then brought along George Harrison to play with the two of them and then hired Ringo Starr to replace the drummer that none of them liked … they helped raise me.

I saw their performance on the “Ed Sullivan Show” in 1964. I followed them closely. I came of age about that time. Their music would end up fueling the my musical taste right on through to the present day.

They recorded so many great songs. They wrote such wonderful music. They, indeed, helped a generation of young people come of age. They helped raise us all.

Of all the music I have heard over the years, one song stands out. It is the only song I remember where I was when I heard it for the first time. It was the second half of a song I heard initially in September 1968. I turned on a transistor radio in a U.S. Army barracks in Fort Lewis, Wash. I listened to the end of a song that went on seemingly forever. It was “Hey Jude.”

I fell in love with that melody. On the spot. Right then and there.

It became a sort of anthem for me. I cannot hear it enough.

Less than two years after hearing what I consider to be the greatest song ever recorded, they would call it quits. They went their separate ways.

It was — gulp! — 50 years ago. Wow! I still miss those guys.