Area 77

I’m taking a two hour Music of the Beatles class that meets twice a week this semester and this first week was great. In yesterday’s class (Thursday), I got a little emotional because the proffessor played a song written by Paul in 1984 for the Everly Brothers who had just then reunited. I had never heard that song before and I plan on posting it sometime soon.

Anyway, I got back home and immediatly put on the Beatles Anthology, an in-depth documentary of the band. I just got done finishing off the whole series, which is almost ten hours long with all the special features and everything. Which actually is a miracle by itself because it’s in region two! And as far as I know, my laptop is still locked on region one.

I’ve watched this series many times and I always seem to forget that starting from the last five minutes of the last episode through the special features DVD I am basically crying non-stop. I feel really silly talking about it because I’m hoping everyone has seen the whole thing and knows what I’m feeling.

It took a whole lot of work to create the documentary alone and interview the surviving Beatles but two new Beatles songs were made for the Anthology as well. And all FOUR Beatles were on it. Old recordings of John were used and then remixed with new lyrics and music by Paul, George and Ringo. “Free As Bird” and “Real Love.” In the special features there’s footage of them working on them at a studio and it’s just so beautiful and sad at the same time. You look at it and say “wow! That’s actually them together NOW!” But then it kills me when I also realize that no, it isn’t now anymore. George is not here NOW.

The music videos of the songs are bitter sweet as well. “Free As A Bird” is sort of a video collage of snap-shots of old video footage plus references to their songs. Beatles fans would easily recognize the nurse selling poppies, the newspaper taxi, the Magical Mystery Tour bus, the Blue Meanie, and so on and so on.

“Real Love” had intimate clips of the three working on it in the studio as well as images of certain Beatles memerobilia floating up into sky. Guitars, the a drumset, John’s white piano, the Sgt. Pepper uniforms. Really tough for me to watch.

I never had a favorite Beatle. I always would say that Beatles are your own children, you love them all equally. (I heard that expression somewhere but I don’t know from what.) But George is the one that really breaks my heart when I think of him or hear his songs. Maybe it’s because I still kick myself for not becoming a Beatles fan at least a year earlier. I would have been able to love him (and the rest) while he was still alive. I would have been able to mourn his death and celebrate him the day he died like millions of others had.

George died on November 29, 2001 from lung cancer. He was a smoker ever since his early teens. Before we left class on Thursday, the Prof. said “next time you think of lighting up, just throw it all away and say ‘George Harrison.’ He would like that.”

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P.S. Click the image for an awesome desktop wallpaper.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 1st, 2007 at 4:34 am and is filed under Campus, Music, My Life, TV/Movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.