Notes from a Beatle fan

When I was young, I fell in love with The Beatles through osmosis. My parents had cassette tapes and, earlier on, a long-playing record or two of their ballads. Played amidst the 90s rock songs of my brothers, the words of which I could never understand, their songs stood out because their melodies were catchy, their lyrics were simple, and yet, their sentiments were often deep and always relevant. I promptly decided then and there that I had been born in the wrong decade—and in the wrong country. And that I was going to marry the young Paul McCartney.

Flash forward almost two decades later, and, like many others in the whole wide world, I’m still a big fan of The Beatles and I still carry a small torch for Paul. I named my blog, “Like Endless Rain Into a Paper Cup,” after my favorite line in one of my favorite songs, “Across the Universe.” For my Plurk widget, I used words from the same song, “Words are flying out.” Small things, but they really make me smile.

Paul McCartney hit the headlines a few years back because of his divorce with Heather Mills. More than the reasons for the divorce from the former model, who more recently appeared in Dancing with the Stars, what really captured my attention was the irony in his divorcing Mills when he turned 64. That year, I remember reading many articles playing up this irony—and one answer that I still can’t forget to this day: I don’t know if it was his daughter who said it, but asked whether Paul should feel bad about divorcing at 64, the answer was, what he was singing about in “When I’m 64,” he already had it with his first wife Linda. Touché.

Paul was also back in my heart after my surprise encounter with him in The Lake House (starring Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves) through his magical love song “This Never Happened Before.” It wasn’t at all mentioned in the publicity for the film, at least in the Philippines, but when I saw that scene, my heart made an instant connection and I wasn’t at all surprised to see him credited for it. John Lennon was always considered the genius, but I really like Paul for his keeping things deep, yet simple.

Recently, the film musical Across the Universe was a big hit. It didn’t premiere here, for some reason, but you can catch it this month as it’s currently playing on HBO. One bleak night, I went home a little bit down, and I automatically switched on the television, catching the scene where the girl, Lucy, sings “If I Fell In Love with You,” and it was an instant pick-me-upper, even as it enveloped the sadness I felt. I’m not sure everyone would agree, but for Beatles fans like me, Across the Universe is the biggest Beatle-related project so far in this century.

Even more recently, I encountered this piece of news about the real Lucy who inspired the song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” The commonly-held belief is that this song was written about LSD, but the truth is that it was inspired by a sketch a young Julian Lennon did of his nursery school friend Lucy in the 1960s. He proudly showed it to his dad, saying, “That’s Lucy in the sky with diamonds!” Apparently, Lucy O’Donnell-Vodden has fallen ill with lupus and Julian has rekindled his friendship with her by sending her a bunch of flowers, gift certificates for plants (as gardening is one of the few things she’s still allowed to do), and an offer of friendship.

I no longer think I’m going to marry Paul McCartney. He now looks too old and it seems like he has finally met his match in his new girlfriend, power woman Nancy Shevell. But the groupie in me is fighting the urge to google if any of the Beatles kids are still available.

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