The Beatles in my life
Paul McCartney is 70.
In his prime, he was the
cutest, most appealing member of The Beatles, the British singing group who defiNED THE YOUTHFUL enthusiasm of my era in the 1960s. Like a psychedelic patchwork, it blew my mind that McCartney made it past his 50th birthday, BOOSTING MY CONfiDENCE THAT OUR GENERAtion would indeed enjoy a longer, more FULfiLLING LIFE.
We are now in our swinging sixties counting grandchildren among our prized possessions; it feels good that the same kind of music that we listened to
I was 19 years old and I had ringside tickets to The Beatles’ live concert in Manila at the Rizal Memorial
Football Stadium. It was a disaster. The acoustics were bad; the noisy fans drowned every note, but
stIll, tHE nIGHt wAs fillED wItH mAGIC.
in our adolescence is still around to give pleasure to all including the younger generation. One particular favorite is The Beatles’ In
My Life as dramatically recited in a poem by seasoned actor, Sean Connery.
Another Beatlemania work remains effervescent to me: The Beatles’ animated film odyssey titled The Yellow Submarine
that was first released in 1968. It surprised cinema critics that for the first time, an animated film broke box-office sales despite it not being made and bankrolled by Walt Disney. My grandson, Gab, liked the catchy tunes and number rhymes in this film and was instantly hooked becoming a die-hard Beatles fan like his “Nonna.”
I was 19 years old when I saved my full month’s allowance to secure ringside tickets to The Beatles live concert
in Manila held at the open field of the Rizal Memorial Football Stadium. It was a disaster. The acoustics were bad, the noisy fans drowned every note and the poor choice of songs was a big disappointment. But still, the night was filled with magic when my steady date literally reached for my hand when the Fab Four sang, “I want to hold your hand.”
Some years after, I made a stopover in London. Not wanting to visit the usual touristic attractions, I opted to join a Beatles walking tour. “There are places I remember,” sang The Beatles and for three hours, the tour would take me to those places around London
that were identified with the Beatles that were guaranteed to trigger a heavy dose of the yesteryear, like hearing the Beatles sing, “Get back to where you once belong…”
Handy with a map, I found the Marylebone Tube (Bakerloo Line) and met up with tourist guide Richard Potter who was dubbed as the “Pied Piper of Beatlemania.” Richard said that the interest in The Beatles has never waned.
First stop was Boston Place: the scene of the Hard Day’s Night film where The Beatles were running down the road being pursued by screaming fans. The camera caught George Harrison falling on the pavement bruising himself. It was an accident but the director chose to simply keep the camera rolling.
Second stop was 34 Montagu Square: the apartment of John Lennon and his new bride, Yoko Ono, when they indulged the paparazzi posing nude on their honeymoon.
Next was the house at 57 Wimple Street that belonged to Paul’s girlfriend, Jane Asher. Interestingly, Jane was the sister of Peter Asher of the Peter & Gordon fame; Peter & Gordon also made a name for themselves in the early 1960s with such hits like A
World without Love (“Please lock me away and don’t allow the day…”), Nobody I Know and I Don’t Want To See You Again, composed by John Lennon and Paul McCartney exclusively for them.
Richard related how one night, Paul stayed too late with Jane so he missed the last train out of London; Jane’s father invited him to spend the night as their guest. Paul stayed for three years. John Lennon was also a frequent visitor at Wimple Street and together with Paul wrote I Want to Hold
Your Hand in Jane’s house. For the next three years, Paul and Jane were a romantic twosome and Paul composed
And I Love Her for Jane. But when the relationship soured, Paul wrote I’m Looking Through You.
In 1963, Paul woke up with a lingering melody on his head so he rushed to the piano to play the tune. Paul had no formal training in music so he could not read or write notes but had a good “ear” for music. He was convinced that he had heard the tune from someone else before and for several months, he kept playing it hoping someone could identify it for him. Since no one came forward to claim it, he decided to add lyrics. He began by playfully singing, “Scrambled eggs, you have big, fat and ugly legs…” Finally convinced that the melody came to him in a dream, therefore an original and a product of his own imagination, he added the formal lyrics and called it Yesterday. Richard said that since 1965, this song has been recorded by 2,500 (and counting) different artists.
Finally, Richard told us to board a Northbound Jubilee Line to St. John’s Wood station. The famous picture on the Abbey Road zebra crossing was taken on Aug. 8, 1969. The photographer had to stop traffic and he stood on a stepladder in the middle of the road. Fans came from all over the world to reenact that famous walk.
I asked a student backpacker from Canada to do just that for me and she snapped the picture from across the road next to a rotunda to keep her safe from moving cars. The result? Two cars stopped — one from each side of the road — to allow me to cross solo while the drivers nodded with patience. “Love is all you need,” the driver sang and I heard several cameras click.