h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The BBC started in 2001 a new website called; "The Nation's House of Music Memories" and I had just put my first steps at the internet and discovered this project by accident.

At that moment there was nothing to séé about that project.
So I thought, that íf I would write my very own "music memory" about "Yesterday" by The Beatles, it would end in an enormous catalogue, somewhere hidden in the BBC-digital archives.

But I didn't mind, as long as this memory would "survive my personal life", so to speak.
We all want to conquer death, by leavingbehind, don't we?

So I wrote my story at a saturday evening late, "just for histories sake", so to speak.

After a few months, I was very surprised, to see my own story at the BBCi site about Memories.
It was one of about thirty stories they had selected.


But now, oktober 2003, the whole project has been cancelled and that's why I put the exact story here in my Journal.
Because of the story itself and as a "memory about my memory".

P.S. I do speak about "my daughter". Well, I have four, in the age between 20 and 27 and their mother is from the U.S.A. ,but lives in The Netherlands.




"Yesterday, remembered by Alfredo, Amsterdam. BBCi



When I was five years old, my four year old sister, Astrid, died of leukaemia. Because of this and a number of other reasons I became a loner as a child.


In my family we were about the first to wear long hair and listen to the Stones, Beatles etc. When I heard the music of the Beatles it was for me an experience like drinking water in the desert; the warm melodies, the vivid lyrics with some melancholy (I'll follow the sun/every little thing/ you've got to hide your love away/things we said today/I'll cry instead/tell me what you see/I've just seen a face; all songs that evolved more and more as the Beatles went on.


But in 1965 I – at home – heard for the first time the poetic, melancholic song Yesterday with lines as ; "I'm not half the man I used to be, there's a shadow hanging over me, oh yesterday came suddenly". Not realizing how deep the wounds inside were, I felt understood and uplifted. More and more the Beatles became like friends/brothers to me, although I was (and am) too self-willed to hang any photo of anyone in my room. For me, 'being a fan' was that I let myself be inspired by musicians and not becoming a clone. But the friendship within the Beatles was for me also inspiring; "it did exist, and how colourful".


So, at high school in Amsterdam, some teachers knew I loved the Beatles and liked to sing Yesterday a capella. And every time, when I was thrown out of class I walked around the school through the long corridors, along other classes. On many occassions my English teacher would ask me to come into his classroom and sing Yesterday. Every time I sang it with great pleasure, forgetting half the lyrics and sometimes singing much to high (without giving up), but I enjoyed it very much and so did some of the people listening.


Now my daughter lives in New York and has her own modern dance group and sometimes I am allowed to inspire her with the music of the Beatles; it fits in her sunshine character. The last one I played down the phone to her was Dear Prudence.


Their music is very dear to me, but I hardly ever talk about it and listen to it a few hours in a year or two. I cherish it in my heart and the songs found their own way, far away from 1965-1975. With many thanks to The British pop culture."


Alfredo, Amsterdam, 2001.

P.S. This was the old BBC-Link;
http://www.bbc.co.uk/aboutmusic/memories/wijkalfred.shtml

Below is a posting by me at a talking point at H2G2 in 2005



Born in 1951 Amsterdam, I was lucky to grow up with music of the Beatles. I already described that in "my music memory`-Yesterday` as part of a BBC-project in 2001. It has been ended.

Besides "Yesterday", Paul created songs as "Blackbird", "Eleanor Rigby",etc.
In 1970 I even sung the song "blackbird" continuously in a Spanish prison, because they arrested me for "roaming Spain". A song, so full of beauty, so inspiring, uplifting, comforting.

So his music had a great impact on me.
In my BBC-Music Memory I wrote that "I hardly talk about the Beatles and listen to their music once every two years. But their songs have found their own way, far away from 1960-1970".

That was true when I wrote that `memory`, but because they had put my music memory at their website I became more and more interested in their solo music, their background and personalities. Since then I regularly talk about it,like once every two months.


So I went to the music library of Amsterdam and listened to music of Paul and of George, John and Ringo.
John's music I had known scince they were there in the seventies.

When I heard music of the Wings, I thought I was in a drugstore while they had music as wallpaper.
I was perplexed.
Of course I realized that the emotional mix of the four musicians had created their songs, `their ówn Beatles songs` included.

But thís??
He appeared to have written even the song "silly lovesong" as his reaction to critics who were irritated by his lovesongs during the Wings period.
I think you can `torture` someone with it.

But Paul being Paul, he can sometimes be very open.
I remember him saying in an interview around 2000; "Well, when I hear the music of Wings nów, it feels like a watery infusion of the music of The beatles, but I did not experience that in those days`.

One needs a strong character to say what he said.

But even after Wings, until this day in 2006 it´s far away from what he ever wrote.
It´s almost, well I´ll stop here.


John on his own was far better, but also John could create songs far below what he had done before. Songs that sound very tardy, almost like graveclothes, although I have never heard graveclothes making music.
But without a doubt John gave me many songs that accompany me since I heard them for the first time.

But Paul.. It intrigues me, how this can happen.


I just read today in a new Dutch magazine, that Ringo had about ten years a home at `de Prinsengracht` in Amsterdam ,but that he sold it.
www.revolvermagazine.nl But the `14 pagina´s Beatles` are not worth bying it. 6 euro´s.

I may sound just old and grumpy all the way. Well it´s as it is.
Still astonished what Paul made in the last 30 years.

But, while I cannot understand it, I can still easily `forgive` him, because what he did in the sixtees is absolutely the production by a genius, as John´s was too.


Greetings from Amsterdam

Well, this might be an eye- and earopener for who are interested in their music; "The official top 100 Beatles Sites"


http://top.dmbeatles.com/

Saw "Timewatch - Beatlesmania" last night (Jan. 2007)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/programmes/timewatch/index.shtml

Music of the Beatles?;I'm even grateful I grew up with their music, especially music around 1966/67.

John,Paul,George and Ringo; it may sound naïve, but I believed and still do they were/are really nice guys with an inspiring friendship.
Yes.
And of course, they're júst as human as anyone else.

Beatlesmania?; makes my stomach turn inside out.