A Conversation for Sir James Paul McCartney MBE - singer/songwriter and musician

No Subject

Post 1

Alfredo

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.

I didn't mind, as long as this memory would "survive my personal life", so to speak.
We all want to conquer death, by leaving something behind, 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, october 2003, the whole project has been cancelled and that's why I put the exact story here.


P.S. I do speak about "my daughter". Well, I have four, in the age between 21 and 29 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 heard at home for the very fírst time the poetic, melancholic song "Yesterday" by Paul, 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. The friendship within the Beatles was for me also very inspiring; "it did exist, and how colourful".(These days my own four daughters(21-29) have a same kind of very close friendship)


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 one of my my daughters 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" by Lennon.


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 1962-1970. With many thanks to The British pop culture."


Alfredo, Amsterdam, 2002.


P.S. As Paul confirmed in later interviews these days, he never met the same quality level of music with Wings as he did in his Beatles period. Yesterday was almost completely done by himself.
To me, the music of Wings was almost tarnishing.


Yesterday - by Paul.

Post 2

Alfredo

Of course I forgot to give it a subject.

As you can guess; "Yesterday".


Yesterday - by Paul.

Post 3

Galaxy Babe - eclectic editor

A smiley - rose for your sister, and a smiley - hug for you


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