As I wandered round the beautiful harbour of Es Castell in Menorca, I was suddenly captivated by the sound of music wafting towards me on a gentle breeze, from a nearby bar. I recognised the distinctive sound, but I just couldn’t place the lyrics or quite put a name to the group.
The beautiful harbour of Es Castell, as dusk approachesI stood and listened. Enjoying the melody of an unknown, but somehow familiar tune. Then the next song struck up and I smiled, the penny dropped at rapid speed. “Can’t Buy Me Love” by the Beatles was one I couldn’t fail to identify! Yet, even this sounded somewhat ‘different’.
Intrigued, I made my way to the bar and used my ‘O’ level (that’s GCSE in current currency) Spanish to stumbling effect. Somehow grasping my drift, the bar owner passed me the CD case: “The Beatles – Live at The BBC”. It was one I had never seen before; strange because I own all 13 albums and a number of compilations.
Most of the tracks were taken from radio recordings made at the BBC in the early 60s before they became the world’s premier group. I grabbed a ‘cerveza’ and sat down to listen. The tracks had a certain rawness to them, but contained an undeniable spiritual energy which connected with me. I was reminded of their days in Hamburg, Germany, playing clubs such as The Kaiserkeller. Long nights where they honed both their vocal and guitar talents.
These days were to stand them in good stead when they were catapulted to fame. Days where they were paid 300 marks (about £50) for a recording session as a backup band for Tony Sheridan, with no royalty rights—not a lot of money, even in the early 1960s!
Days and long nights which must have taken their toll – physically, mentally and spiritually. There must have been times when they indeed felt like crying, were tired of waiting for their big breakthrough….but kept on hoping.
John, Paul & George on stage in HamburgI bought the CD upon my return home and was delighted to hear the song “Crying, Waiting, Hoping” amongst the line up. This song was unusual in that it was George who took lead vocal, not John or Paul. It was also written by Buddy Holly, not Lennon & McCartney. To my amusement it was on their set in their audition for Decca records in January 1961. This audition now takes its place in record label folklore, as the Beatles were rejected by producer Mike Smith with the rationale:- “Guitar groups are on the way out”……More Crying, Waiting and Hoping for them, with dollops of anguish thrown in for good measure.
Yet, thankfully for me and millions of others throughout the world, the Beatles kept faith with their talents and broke through in 1963 to become known as “four lads who changed the world” .
How often in our lives are we left “Crying, Waiting, Hoping”, because things don’t turn out as we’d planned? Maybe we have some wonderful dream or vision, which seems to be dashed by circumstances apparently outside of our control.
The first verse of the song “Crying, Waiting, Hoping” is:-
'Crying, waiting, hoping you'll come back
I just can't seem to get you off my mind
Crying, waiting, hoping you'll come back
You're the one I love, I think about you all the time'
Maybe Buddy Holly wrote this as a love song to the woman he was missing from his life. But what if the ‘one I love’ is a cherished dream or vision, a dream which seems to be vanishing over the distant horizon?
The anguish expressed in the song about this cherished dream then, to me, becomes almost ‘blues-like’ in its heartfelt expression.
Bono from U2 explains how The Bible’s Psalms are like the blues for him :-
‘Explaining faith is impossible….Vision over visibility….Instinct over intellect…A songwriter plays a chord with the faith that he will hear the next one in his head. At age 12, I was a fan of David, who wrote many of the Psalms. He felt familiar, like a pop star could feel familiar.
A lot of the Psalms feel like the blues to me. Man shouting at God – “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me?” (Psalm 22)
Abandonment, displacement, is the stuff of my favourite Psalms. It’s in his despair that the psalmist really reveals the nature of his special relationship with God.
Honesty, even to the point of anger.
The Psalms did for me what solid, even rigorous, religious argument could never do, they introduced me to God, not belief in God, more an experiential sense of GOD.’
When I was in my teens the Beatles gave me an outlet for my teenage blues spirituality. They seemed to ‘know’ just how I was feeling at certain times in my life.
As a shy teenager the words to “To know her is to love her” expressed my angst about the girl I admired from afar…across a crowded classroom:-
'To know know know her is to love love love her.
Just to see her smile makes my life worthwhile.
Yes just to know know know her is to love love love her
and I do, and I do, and I do. And I do, and I do, and I do.
Why can't she see, how blind can she be?
Someday she'll see that she was meant just for me.'
Many years later, I have come to appreciate the heartfelt anguish expressed through The Psalms. As one of my friends says: ‘The Psalms are incredibly honest. They rock when life stinks.’ And incredibly over half of the 150 Psalms in the Bible are of the ‘My God, my God why have you forsaken me, blues variety’.
The Celtic Christian Saints of the 7th Century used to learn all 150 Psalms off by heart. The Psalms, together with the four Gospels of the Bible, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, were their staple spiritual diet. For Aidan who established the Celtic Church on the beautiful Holy Island in the North East of England, these were the essentials which he enthusiastically encouraged everyone to learn as a disciple of Jesus.
The Beatles as disciples in the music business had their disciplines in the late 50s and early 60s, as they practiced their guitar chords until their fingers bled and sang until their voices could take no more.
....To be continued
