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.
I thought, that íf I would write my very own memory about "Yesterday" by The Beatles, it would end in an enormous catalogue, somewhere hidden in the BBC-digital archives.


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 the stories they had selected.


But now, oktober 2003, the whole project has been cancelled and now I thought; "well, why not put it here".

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,



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.

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.