“The following #POPCreators entry was submitted by Daniel Aloc, an aspiring rock journalist and music writer. Submissions under POP! Creator Community appears “as is,” without any editorial intervention.
Here’s his piece dedicated to his father titled, “My father loved The Beatles“:
The Beatles is not as popular as Jesus Christ — I’m not going to argue that. Nevertheless, the band remains a household name more than half a century since its historic breakup in 1970. Something that not even today’s most popular K-pop groups would ever achieve. It is no wonder that even the Beatles’ movie, “Yesterday,” which I think is Danny Boyle’s worst film to date, became a worldwide box-office hit.
Who has not listened to “Hey Jude,” “Let it Be,” “Yellow Submarine,” “Here Comes the Sun,” “Help!,” or “I Saw Her Standing There”? Ask a Millennial or Gen-Z’er about his favorite Beatle, you would either get John Lennon or Paul McCartney. Although I’d pick George Harrison hands down, the one Beatles’ song that holds a special place in my heart is the Lennon-McCartney composition “In My Life”.
The song means a lot to me as my father used to sing it when he was still alive. A Beatle fan himself, he would always include it in the list of songs that he wanted me to download for his new music player. I will never forget him singing along to this song when he would drive me home from school in my elementary years. He would sing it in karaoke on special occasions or on a normal day while doing the laundry.
Aside from The Beatles, he introduced to The Doobie Brothers, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and Simon and Garfunkel just to name a few. He once told me that he and my mother went to the concert of Don McLean at Folk Arts Theatre, but the tickets was sold out so they just listened outside the venue in a “starry, starry night.”
When my father slipped to unconsciousness as he battled with lung cancer three years ago, we would play his favorite songs as we tried to wake him up, hoping that we could talk to him even for the last time. But as George Harrison once pointed out, “All things must pass. None of life’s strings can last.”
One of the highlights of the 1965 album Rubber Soul, which was also my old man’s favorite album of The Beatles, “In My Life” was Lennon’s first personal song about his life. According to him, its original lyrics was based on a bus route that he used to take in Liverpool, England, which included various sites seen along the way, such as Strawberry Field and Penny Lane. He ended up discarding this idea for a more generalized reflection on his childhood. These original references, however, were revisited with the songs “Penny Lane” and “Strawberry Fields Forever,” both credited to Lennon-McCartney.
“In My Life” was the song played at the memorial of grunge icon and Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain. “That day, after everyone had said their piece, this next song came over the speakers. And everyone got to celebrate Kurt’s love of The Beatles one last time together,” Dave Grohl remembered in an appearance on BBC Radio. Interestingly, Cobain took his life on April 5, 1994, exactly 37 years when my father was born. When I think about it, I’m amazed by the irony of how the song reminds me of Cobain’s tragic death and my father’s birthday. In any case, they both loved The Beatles.
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