I remember the first time I encountered people who hated the Beatles. Not people who found them overrated or preferred someone else. People who appeared to regard admiration for the Beatles as a character defect. I was early twenties. They were late teens and devoted to punk rock, which had arrived carrying lists of cultural ancestors requiring execution. The Beatles had been praised too often. Their importance had been repeated until, for some, rejecting them became proof of independent thought.

This fascinated me. Musically, I could find no end to their inventions, the strange architecture, the one chord experiments, the doors hidden inside apparently simple songs. To me, their brilliance self-evident. But I was new to the city. I wanted friends. More specifically, the girl with the green hair. This was not the ideal moment to point out the sped up harpsichord solo on “In My Life”. I concealed my enthusiasm. I understood the terms: certain preferences granted admission; others left you standing outside in the wrong clothes.

Game on.

Last night I read about Geddy Lee’s support for Brad Bradford. What interested me most was not the endorsement but the anguish in the comments. So much disappointment, disbelief and denial. Some insisted Lee could not understand the politician he supported. Others wrote as though the artist they had admired for decades had suddenly been replaced by an imposter. The possibility that Geddy Lee’s convictions might have emerged from his own life as a Torontonian, from what he has witnessed, valued and concluded over many years, seemed beside the point. His assigned role was not to possess an independent political judgment, but confirm theirs.

This is the sound of the herd insisting it is composed entirely of individuals.

I recognize the sound because been there, done that. How many times the pressure to conform, and how many times I surrendered before even admitting there was pressure? How often have I called an opinion my own when I merely found it waiting among the people whose approval I wanted? The question became more urgent after returning to school. I repeatedly encountered an older instruction there, dressed with contemporary haircuts: Think as we think, or you are no longer one of us.

The girl with the green hair is long gone. The Beatles survived my betrayal. But the audition continues, some part of me is still deciding which records to hide.