The Beatles Do the Coltrane Changes

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The first chord didn’t leave home. It disappeared. It took a freight elevator through the ceiling, came back wearing another key like a secondhand suit, and nobody asked questions. That’s how the night worked.

The bass carried a pocketful of bricks. The trumpet polished the moon with old bourbon breath. Every drummer knows clocks are liars, so he beat circles into squares until geometry started dancing.

The Beatles showed up without luggage. They’d heard there was a shortcut from Liverpool to the far side of harmony. Somebody whispered, “Major thirds,” like it was the name of a train nobody admits exists. They climbed aboard anyway.

The room folded into Cubist postcards. Saxophones bent around corners. Cellos grew extra shadows. Every face had yesterday on one cheek and tomorrow on the other. The bartender kept pouring the same drink into different dimensions.

Nobody got lost.

The song simply refused to stay in one neighborhood. It jumped rooftops—C… E… A♭… then back again before your cigarette knew which way the smoke was leaning. The chords changed hats faster than carnival grifters.

Outside, the dogs barked in impossible time signatures. A black cat watched the whole affair with the tired patience of a piano tuner who’d already heard the end of the world twice.

Morning arrived wearing a dented trumpet for a halo.

Someone asked what key they’d been playing in.

The band laughed.

“All of them,” said the bass.

“And none of them,” answered the moon.