Why I Can’t Stop Crying Thinking About that Paul McCartney Video
I was not expecting to be sobbing within seconds of waking up Friday morning. And not just baby sniffles. But a good, twenty-minutes of all-out, thank-god-I’m-not-on-a-subway ugly tears.
And it wasn’t even for the usual reasons I might spontaneously combust into waterworks: the gradual decimation of our democratic norms and institutions by a foreigner-scapegoating, crytpto-fascist tyrant. (Though truth be told, it may have a little to do with that, too. But more on that later. If I remember to come back to it. Note to self: come back to it.)
Instead, what made me feel every feel (plus ones I hadn’t tapped in centuries) was a viral video. Yes, every day we are bombarded by social media mavens exalting that this is the piece of content you have to see/ read/ feel.
And yet, the video of James Corden taking Paul McCartney on a musical journey back to the Liverpool of its roots, cut through all the clutter. And my cold, dead heart. It touched me in ways that I never expected. Nor can I stop thinking about. Needless to say, that’s a pretty good video.
When I first clicked on it, I had incredibly modest expectations. I enjoy Corden’s boyish ebullience/ fan child schtick. I figured I was in for 5 minutes of cute Beatle-esque karaoke and then it would be off to my day job, never having thought about it again.
Instead, it was all I can think about. It was 22 minutes of tears followed by more tears, topped off by avalanches of even greater tears.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjvzCTqkBDQ
So now, I’m trying to figure out why it struck me in such a primal manner.
Sure I’m a Beatles fanatic. I have versions of everything they put out. And insanely strong opinions about whether I prefer the British or American track listings. But it couldn’t just be that.
Some of it was the unbridled shock and joy on the faces of Scousers of all ages as they realized it was really him. THEIR PAUL had returned.
A lot has to do with how kind and compassionate Paul is to the Liverpudlians that quickly gathered as news spread of his return.
But I also think, much has to do with feelings and emotions that I am projecting from my 52 years of Beatle worship. This video wasn’t just about this video: It was about parents that are no longer with us. It was about our own kids, now grown and moved on from our nurturing nests.
Because that’s how large Paul and the lads loomed in so many of our lives. It’s the one band I remember my own parents playing for me. Listening to Meet the Beatles. Dancing in my own crib to Sgt. Pepper’s. My now deceased Dad splicing our beloved home movies using the White Album as our mini-screen.
And then cut to 30-something years later. Both my babies rocking to sleep in my arms to their favorite Beatles songs. I can’t think of “Blackbird” or “In My Life” or “I’ll Follow the Sun” without thinking of a soothed infant, just as enthralled by the same melodies their own dad was when he was a baby himself.
So there’s that. And finally, and perhaps most saliently, I like many thousands the worldwide, were just ready for a good, intense outburst of feeling. Every day we wake up to unremitting bleakness. To the punishment of society’s most vulnerable. To betrayals and circumventions of our core beliefs and liberties.
So, during a week when the BEST news is that kids won’t be held in cages, just families, maybe we needed one break. One respite. One march down memory lane and Penny Lane with everyone’s genial Uncle Paul.
Perhaps it reminded us that joy exists. That there are still more things that unite us than divide us. Maybe it break back echoes of being rocked to sleep or doing the same to our own little ones. Or maybe it was just a really sweet video.
Whatever it was, I say “thank you James Corden.” And “thank you Paul McCartney.”
I, like a lot of people, needed those 22 minutes more than you’ll ever know.