The Sgt. Pepper drumskin date has been interpreted as September 10th. or October 9th., but I think it's November 10th. I mentioned in the first post that Paul wanted to clue people in that he was both Paul and Ian Iachimoe. The drumskin has 10 and IX, the backward Roman numerals for the number ELEVEN. So given the English way of putting day before month in dates, the drumskin reads November 10th. The Beatles--with I believe both Paul and John replaced--began work on the Sgt. Pepper album on November 25th., 1966 with the recording of Strawberry Fields Forever. They (or what I believe was Paul's replacement) worked on Penny Lane beginning December 29, 1966. The executives at the Beatles' recording company, EMI, wanted a new single, and George Martin packaged SFF and Penny Lane, not coincidentally, I believe.
On Penny Lane, there's a line about a pretty nurse selling poppies from a tray. Artificial poppies have been sold in England since 1921 by The British Legion (now called The Royal British Legion) to support programs to help ex-service men and women and their families. They chose the poppy as their symbol because the poppy was the only thing which grew in the Flanders and Picardy regions of Belgium and Northern France when those areas were devastated after fierce fighting during World War 1. John McCrae, serving in the Canadian armed forces, saw the war-torn areas and the fields of poppies and wrote In Flanders' Fields:
In Flanders' fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders' fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe;
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high,
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders' Fields.
Another poem that is often recited at Remembrance Day ceremonies is For the Fallen:
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.
Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.
They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and the morning
We will remember them.
They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.
But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the night;
As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.
Another poem that is often recited at Remembrance Day ceremonies is For the Fallen:
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.
Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.
They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and the morning
We will remember them.
They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.
But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the night;
As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.
The two significant tie-ins to the Paul mystery are that the day World War 1 officially ended (and when Poppy Day is held) is NOVEMBER 11TH., the day after Paul was officially pronounced dead in the rumors. If you look at the fields of red Flanders Fields poppies (as in the poster above), you can easily see them as STRAWBERRY FIELDS of poppies. And it was at the end of SFF that you can hear someone saying, "I buried Paul."
I think the (new) Beatles wrote remembrance tributes to Paul McCartney.
No comments:
Post a Comment