Mesa Musings:

Never in my wildest dreams, as I listened to the Beatles sing “I Want to Hold Your Hand” in January 1964, did I imagine that that song would live much beyond spring training at Dodgertown.

Amazingly, nearly 50 years later, it’s still with us.

Though the Lennon/McCartney lyrics are not as ancient as the words of, say, Homer (2,700 years), the Apostle Paul (2,000 years) or William Shakespeare (500 years) — or as fraught with meaning — “I Want to Hold Your Hand” has established a longevity that, candidly, defies understanding.

How has this happened?

My 10-year-old grandson prompted me to examine this matter in some detail when I recently visited him in North Carolina.

In addition to being a fan of Kobe Bryant, anything with a New York Yankees logo on it, and the University of North Carolina Tar Heels, he loves the Fab Four and faithfully listens to their music.

“Grandpa, have you ever heard of the Beatles?” he naively asked earlier this month after my wife, Hedy, and I arrived at his snowy Carolina abode.

“Of course I know the Beatles,” I responded, stifling an impulse toward sarcasm. I mean, they were the band of my youth.

He then inserted a CD into his player, and Hedy and I listened to — and subsequently began to sing along with — “I Want to Hold Your Hand.”

“You mean, you know the words?” he gulped incredulously. Was it so shocking to think that two ancients might actually have some knowledge of a rock group?

“Certainly we know the words,” I replied. “I was 18 when that song came out, and, as a result, I became a Beatles fan. What amazes me is that you know the words!”

The song, which was actually released in the U.S. in December 1963, became the subject of a skit that I participated in as an Orange Coast College drama student in January 1964.

Four of us did a fairly creepy parody of the Lennon/McCartney song and titled it “I Want to Hold Your Foot.”

I think we received a rather generous “B” from our instructor for the effort.

We broke out “air guitars” before such instruments were fashionable.

One of our parody verses went something like: “Yeah you, got that something/I think it’s understut/When I say that something/I want to hold your foot.”

We also managed to work in phraseology about a “chiropodist” (foot doctor).