Joe Mari’s postcript to Yesterday

Filipino music icon Jose Mari Chan went to watch the movie Yesterday and emerged from the theater much taken by the film’s premise.  As a result, the singer-songwriter not only thoughtfully considered the concept of a world without the Beatles. Unimaginable. There also emerged lots of memories about his long “relationship” with the legendary group and the way their music influenced his work.

Here are Jose Mari’s thoughts in his own words:

“The Golden Age of OPM, most music lovers would agree, was the period 1973-1990.  It was this time period that saw the likes of George Canseco, Willy Cruz, Rey Valera, the Apo Hiking Society, Ernani Cuenco, Nonong Pedero, Hotdog, Freddie Aguilar, Louie Ocampo, etc. If you had interviewed them I am sure that most would admit the influence that Beatles Music had on their songs.

“What the film Yesterday reiterated and emphasized was that Paul McCartney and John Lennon changed the face and soul of pop music. So, all these songwriters creating their music at the time, could not help but be touched by the genius of Lennon & McCartney.

“My very first recording in 1967 was Afterglow, which the millennials are not very familiar with.  Firstly, because it has not been revived by any of the new generation of singers and secondly because radio stations no longer play the song. But if you listen to it now, you would hear the unmistakable touch of the Beatles.  I invite music lovers to listen to another song of mine from my 1968 album, Deep In My Heart. The song is entitled Leave You. You will most probably imagine John Lennon singing my song.

“In the film Yesterday, the main character Jack said that the song Yesterday is the greatest song ever written.  Indeed, it ranks up there among the greatest. I can easily list down as many as 30 personal favorite songs written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon but let me mention some significant ones that influenced me greatly.

“As early as 1971, I had composed a Counterpoint to Here, There And Everywhere which is now part of my Golden Collection CD. A straight admission of being a huge fan. My 1989 album Constant Change has a song entitled So I’ll Go so obviously inspired by the Beatles that arrangers Yaron Gershovskly and Janis Siegel of the Manhattan Transfer have arranged it to sound like something straight from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. I invite you to look it up. So I’ll Go, both my original rendition of it in my Constant Change album and the Yaron Gershovsky-Janice Siegel interpretation in the album The Manhattan Connection.

“I am proud to say that I have been blessed with two Album of the Year awards from the recording industry: Constant Change (1989) and A Heart’s Journey (2002). In both albums, the color of the Beatles is splashed all over. In A Heart’s Journey for example, I wrote A Day In The Life Of A Song (How much more obvious can I be). My lyrics to that song contain 27 Beatles song titles. It’s my ultimate tribute to the Fab Four. I invite music lovers to check out the song on Spotify and see if they can identify the Beatles song titles in my lyrics. 

“What’s in my bucket list? In the film, Jack’s wistful dream was fulfilled when he met the 78-year-old John Lennon. As for mine, it is to meet Sir Paul McCartney. The closest I got to him was in 2004 when my sons Joe and Mike and I sat front row center at his Helsinki, Finland concert.” 

I do not know if Jose Mari was already writing songs before he discovered the Beatles or if he began composing because he was inspired by the Beatles. But no matter, it would have been a monumental loss to Original Pilipino Music to be bereft of the music of Jose Mari Chan. Yesterday was based on a strange Twilight Zone kind of idea but I say the picture truly stokes a lot of troubling, scary what ifs…