The Long and Winding Road

I don’t have very many happy memories from junior and senior high school.  I’m not sure how I would have survived had I not discovered this little group called the Beatles. My obsession with their music was one of the few things my classmates really knew about me. We were on a high school band trip to Hibbing High School (Taj Mahal) years before that high school’s most famous alumni forever changed my life. We were doing a shared concert with the Hibbing High School band and were in the ornate cavernous auditorium waiting for the home band members to join us. There was a piano at the edge of the stage so I meandered over, sat down and began to play the chords of ‘Let it Be.’ I found myself leading my band mates in an impromptu version of the song. Afterward a couple of my friends said that was one of the most amazing things they’d experienced. 

What my classmates didn’t know was almost every morning as I prepared to go to school during my final year of public education, I listened to a tape recording of the movie ‘Let it Be’ on my Sony Walkman that I hand recorded from the VHS copy I made from a Betamax rental of the movie. It’s such a sad movie, documenting the breakup of the group. Paul was the only one showing any enthusiasm or desire to be in the band anymore. John mostly looked sad with Yoko by his side. And George and Ringo barely said a word, seemingly only there because they were supposed to be there, not because they wanted to be. And that summed up how I felt about my last year in high school. I just wanted it over with so I could get on with whatever was next, the rest of my life.

The movie begins with Paul playing piano, Ringo by his side. He’s playing a classical sounding piece that may or may not be a McCartney original. I loved the melody, so melancholy and longing. There’s an abrupt cut to John howling the vocals to ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ so raw and powerfully, My favorite moment in the movie, aside from the joyous closing roof top concert that the London cops shut down for creating a public disturbance, was right before the concert, with the band still in the studio and Paul sings “The Long and Winding Road.” It’s a different version from the released version, minus the Phil Spector over the top strings and angelic choir. And there’s a single word change that stands one of my favorite Paul songs on its head… the movie version changes the released version from “anyway you’ve never known the many ways I’ve tried” to “anyway you’ve always known the many ways I’ve tried.” This subtle change makes the song less sad. If the person the singer is singing to has ‘always’ known the many ways he’s tried and still has abandoned him it means she’s less likely to take him back than if she’s ‘never’ known and can be better made to understand the singer’s efforts. I’m not surprised Paul ultimately made the choice he made but I wish John would have talked him out of it.

The high school me read in one of the many Beatles books I read that during the ‘Let it Be’ sessions they sang over a hundred songs, some originals, some covers. The author of the book joked if only K-tel could have gotten the rights to the songs, a joke that only those of us very old will laugh at.  I bought some bootlegs from the sessions when I was in college and the Beatles’ released outtakes over the years. But high school me could have never imagined that a new movie, Peter Jackson’s ‘Get Back’ would one day be made, eight hours out of sixty plus hours of what was recorded but mostly not included in Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s 1970 film. The one I listened over and over to and still love. And imagine if high school me would be told he’d watch the new movie streamed online on his iPad after plopping $7.00 down for a Disney+ subscription. How is any of this possible?

The purpose of the new movie seems to be to show the original was a bit misleading. Yes, the band was clearly breaking up but what had made them so special in the first place was the whole worked because the pieces fit so well together bringing out the best in each other. The best part of seeing the ‘new’ footage is to be reminded how frickin witty and funny John Lennon was. He seems much more alive in ‘Get Back’ than ‘Let it Be.’  My other favorite part is hearing early versions of songs that ultimately appeared on solo records, John’s ‘Gimme Some Truth,’ ‘Jealous Guy,” Paul’s ‘Teddy Boy’ and in particular, George’s ‘All Things Must Pass” a song contradicting the message of Paul’s ‘Get Back.’

Did we really need ‘new’ Beatles material in 2021 fifty one years after the footage was recorded? Probably not. Is eight hours of seeing rehearsals and incomplete conversations meant for anyone who isn’t a Beatles’s fan? Nope. But the power of ‘Get Back’ is an illuminating look into the creative process. Seeing a great band, four friends who went on a magical mystery tour together, develop germs of song ideas into something wonderful and meaningful is absolutely mesmerizing.

Some of the scenes in ‘Get Back’ appeared in ‘Let it Be’ but in a much different context. The conversations are longer and given broader meaning. This slight change was meaningful to me. Looking back at junior and senior high school and how miserable I was given a lifetime of other experience that gives better understanding and meaning to all that came before, I can now say it wasn’t as bad as I remember. I had good friendships and I was able at times to be myself with others accepting and wanting more of that. I wouldn’t be where I am today had everything that happened then hadn’t happened. Kind of like an earlier John song which apparently they sang during the ‘Let it Be’ sessions that sadly isn’t included in ‘Get Back.’

There are places I'll remember
All my life though some have changed
Some forever, not for better
Some have gone and some remain

All these places have their moments
With lovers and friends I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life I've loved them all

But of all these friends and lovers
There is no one compares with you
And these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new

Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more

Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more

In my life I love you more

 

Kung Flu

Before we get to our agenda, I’m going to do something I’ve never done as the chair of this board. I’m going to use a point of personal privilege to make a few comments about the events that happened in Georgia this week. Because the events were the culmination of the growing violence against members of our communities. I attended an event hosted by CAAL last week about the fear that growing violence has created throughout the communities we are tasked with speaking for. The fear that exists thoroughly depressed me.

I grew up in Roseville, MN, at the time, a very white Twin Cities suburb. There was one other student of color in my kindergarten class, Sally Murakami, also Japanese American. Growing up through the years, all of our classmates assumed Sally and I would become girlfriend/boyfriend and get married. I liked Sally but had no interest as a kid, in marrying her and resented how our classmates assumed the two of us had a mutual connection just because we looked similar and different at the same time. I’m sure Sally felt the same.

The first time I realized I was a different race from my classmates came when Tommy Hanson teased me about my yellow face. I thought he was referring to how earlier, my brother and I were messing around with my sisters’ makeup, and I must have not washed some of it off my face. I didn’t know what Tommy was teasing me about until he kept teasing me and my Mom gave me my first lesson about racism and a common slur against Asians is having yellow skin.

Over the years through my K-12 experience there were a few other slurs directed at me and some painful micro aggressions directed my way but most have fallen out of my memory, whether deeply suppressed or because they didn’t register enough in my mind to remember. I do remember in college working my part time job at Kmart during a time when the American auto industry was struggling given the growing popularity of Japanese cars when a middle age white woman walked by holding up a package of men’s underwear and said to me, “American made.” Her choosing to use underwear to demonstrate her point made me chuckle, but the hatred in the tone of her voice pierced me to my soul. This was probably the most defining moment of my understanding the extent of how hatred is embedded in racism. There is no separation between the two, they are intricately intertwined in an insidious way.

We all have just endured an existentially life altering year. The turn of the page to 2021 hasn’t exactly gone much better starting with the racially charged January 6 insurrection against our democracy, to what happened this week in Georgia. I’m sure our council will step into a necessary leadership role. Sia helped us take a baby step forward with her statement yesterday. All of us community board members have been appointed because we are seen as leaders within the communities we represent. I would love to talk with each of you individually about your thoughts about how we as the council can best lead those we speak for in state government, out of the fear of violence, physical, verbal, emotional... Because I personally am really struggling with knowing what to do next. It’s exhausting to live in this space.