A Musical Journey

The return from our cruise in December was lengthy and onerous. We arose at 4:00 am, Swiss time, took a cab to the airport, flew to Munich, had a five-hour layover there, flew to Chicago, then to Minneapolis after another layover. That was about 26 hours of travelling without sleep. I find it nearly impossible to sleep on the narrow and crowded seats of overseas planes, so I was uncomfortable throughout. Lucky for me, they now have those little television sets on each seat-back and a wide variety of viewing choices. On the flight from Germany to Chicago, I watched three full-length films and numerous sit-coms or other shows. The odd thing was that all three films involved music that has inspired or moved me at various stages during my life.

The first film was one that many of you have probably seen, a cute little movie called Yesterday. If you don’t know the improbable plot, it involves a present-day British musician who awakens from a bad accident to discover that a 12-second power blackout worldwide left him as the only person on Earth aware of such things as Coca cola, cigarettes, Harry Potter, and, most important for him, the songs of the Beatles. As he struggles to remember the lyrics of their vast musical catalog and begins playing their songs in public, he is hailed as a musical genius, and he skyrockets to fame. I was a Beatles fan from the beginning. I watched them perform on The Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964, and I memorized each of their albums as they came out. Each night at 10:00, a Chicago radio station played the “Top 3 Most-Requested Songs.” I tuned in to hear what were invariably three straight Beatles songs every night. At a school talent show, my sister, Deb, brother, Dan, and I planned to sing I Wanna Hold Your Hand. After hearing our voices, though, we were told to lip-sing the song, which we did with terrible wigs and fake instruments. I remember vividly where I was when I heard that John Lennon had been murdered. Thus, the film touched a chord in me and brought back the joy I felt when I first discovered their songs. And unlike most rock bands that followed, the Beatles seemed to thoroughly enjoy what they were doing. They smiled, laughed, joked with the press and the audiences, and, in general just had a great time. Just look at album covers from the Rolling Stones or the terrible hair-bands of the ‘70s and ‘80s; they look angry and more focused on posturing than doing anything true. Himish Patel, the lead actor in the film, plays the role with a mixture of energy and reverence. I especially enjoyed the fact that he didn’t try to imitate John, Paul, Ringo, or George, and he didn’t try to produce a note-for-note recreation of their songs. Instead, he used his own, authentic voice to channel the music, usually in a stripped-down, acoustic version that helped the viewer truly hear the lyrics. I watched Yesterday again this week with Kathleen, and the effect was the same: it made me smile.

The second one I saw was a lesser-known film that came out last year called Fisherman’s Friends. This is a based-on-fact film about a group of fishermen from small village in Cornwall, Wales who sing sea shanties as they work before organizing a singing group to entertain their neighbors. A producer is tricked into thinking his London record company wants to sign them, so he moves to the village to try to convince them that this is a good idea. The man becomes a laughingstock in London and is viewed as a money-hungry outsider in the village, but he gradually comes to believe in both the group and the simple lifestyle of the villagers. Eventually, they record a top-ten album that makes them famous around the world. The film is fairly formulaic, along the lines of Waking Ned Divine, The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill but Came Down a Mountain, and Dark Horse: The Amazing True Story of Dream Alliance, and not everyone will enjoy it as much as I did. As in Yesterday, however, the authenticity of the music shines through, and the viewer can share in the sheer joy that the performers experience while singing. Once again, the traditional nature of the music in the film brought me back to an earlier time in my life. While searching for new material in my career as a folk singer, I discovered traditional music, and I often pilfered the melodies from those public-domain songs to write my own topical songs about the current events of modern-day Chicago. If you see nothing else from this film, try to find the scene where these fishermen go on a London pub crawl while their manager tries to stir up interest in the group. At one point, they teach a hip, young London crowd a traditional seaman’s song called “What Do You Do with a Drunken Sailor?” The group of hard-drinking Welshmen sings the shanty with such relish, that the entire bar gradually joins the reprobates in a rousing version of the traditional song. It’s a delicious scene.

Finally, the third movie I saw was called Blinded by the Light. The based-on-fact film explores the experiences of a Pakistani immigrant in late-1980’s England. The teen suffers from repression at home from his conservative parents, the fact that his “otherness” makes him unattractive to girls at his school, and racial discrimination everywhere. When another South-Asian immigrant turns him on to the music of Bruce Springsteen, however, his entire world opens up. The boy feels as if—finally—there is one person who understands how he feels. Instead of trying to fit into a world that rejects him at every turn, he is inspired to embrace a personal rebellion built around the lyrics of the Boss. I discovered Springsteen in college in 1975, and I joined the Columbia Record Club (for the 3rd time) in order to get his entire catalog of 3 albums for a reduced price. With that initial order (buy 10 or 12 records for a penny, with the agreement to purchase a certain number of others over the next two years), I also received Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks album. I alternated playing Born to Run and BOTT over and over again—much to the consternation of my roommates. I couldn’t believe that anyone could write such beautiful poetry accompanied by rock or folk-rock music. At parties in which far too many beers had been consumed, my cross-country teammates and I would sing along at the top of our lungs, “Tramps like us, baby we were born to run!” The protagonist in the film is similarly affected when he first hears Bruce’s songs. Further, as in Yesterday, the actor’s singing has a purity and integrity that is so often missing from the over-produced, synthesized music that dominates today’s top-selling charts.

In 2006, Springsteen recorded an album called The Seeger Sessions, and featured traditional songs that had often been often performed by folk artist and political activist, Pete Seeger. He put together an extraordinary and eclectic band of talented musicians from a variety of genres, and the resulting music is exquisite. This CD brought together all three things that I found in these films. The energy and simple joy of playing with expert musicians jumps off of every cut on the album, just as with the songs in Yesterday. The continuing appeal of traditional songs when done well is readily evident, as in Fisherman’s Friends. Finally, the raw power of Bruce’s voice and the passion he brings to music remains as strong in the 21st Century as they were in 1975 when I first heard Born to Run. Here is a clip. Play it LOUD and try not to sing along. Especially, pay attention to the faces on the band and the audience. They were having fun. That’s what music is supposed to be about and seldom is. These three films reminded me of that fact.