Turn me on, dead man.

Ever since I went to the "New Music Group" concert on Tuesday, I have been thinking about the Beatles and Revolution No.9, which was played for our listening (lack of) pleasure at the concert. (Josie thought it would make for great Halloween background effect, though.) What was surprising to me was that, in the program notes, the only reference made to Paul was that he was not a part of recording Revolution 9.

And that was odd to me, because if I think of Revolution 9 at all, I think of Paul. Because of the "Paul is Dead" hoax, or whatever it was. If you are so young that you don't know what I am talking about, even Wikipedia has an article on the "Paul is dead" hoax, and there is actually an entire website dedicated to the topic. More than one, actually.

But in the program notes for the concert, there was nothing about the whole Paul is dead thing. The notes just discussed John and Yoko and George and the musical experimentation / sound-recording experimentation of the time. And then we listened to the track. Played forwards.

They didn't even play it backwards! So all these poor young people who weren't alive when the "White Album" was released in 1968 don't realize that if you play Revolution 9 backwards you really do hear, repeated over and over "Turn me on, dead man. Turn me on, dead man." In a very weird, electronic-sounding way, but definitely there. You don't need to have a fabulous imagination to hear it; it is just audible to any ears.

In 1968, I was ten years old, turning eleven in that December. My dad (who was born in 1915) was an early adapter of technology, getting an early start with things like cars and tractors and airplanes, and photography and radios and sound recording equipment (etc.), so we had a fabulous reel-to-reel tape system. My older siblings were 13, 16 and 18, and way more into popular culture than I was, so my brother made sure that we experimented with the tape recording of the "White Album" ourselves, so that we could hear with our own ears whether or not you really could hear "Turn me on, dead man" when Revolution 9 was played backwards.

And I thought I was the coolest kid ever, when at the lunch table at school there was conjecturing about whether or not Paul was really dead, and the Revolution 9 "evidence" was brought up and other kids wondered if you really could hear "Turn me on, dead man," I could say "It's true!" because I had heard it myself.

So, at Tuesday's concert, I wanted to stand up and say "Hey, why didn't you play it backwards! That's the best part!" But I didn't do it.

Now, thanks to the internet and its many resources, you can just go to this website, and hear "Turn me on, dead man" for yourself. But who is to say it really comes from playing the original track backwards? They can just put up any old sound file and call it whatever they want. No, it was much more believable and impressive back in 1968, when you had first listened to the track forwards, and then you had played the same tape backwards, your very own self, and heard the message, "Turn me on, dead man." First time: chills up and down your spine, and you and your sisters and brothers all look at each other, eyes wide in incredulity, because you really didn't think it would be there. But it was!

It's a small, small world

Here's my "it's a small world" story for this week:

As you know, Josie and I play in BYU's Balinese gamelan, Bintang Wah-Yu. This summer, our director, who is also into "new music" got talking to a composition professor who is totally into "new music" and ended up commissioning a piece for gamelan and amplified viola. The composition professor who wrote the piece is Christian Asplund.

The piece is really odd, but oddly fun to play, and oddly simple (compared to traditional gamelan, which is actually extraordinarily difficult) and oddly melodic some of the time. We have been working on the piece for the last month or so, preparing two of its seven movements for performance. It is different, too, in that we use a score to play from, instead of just memory.

So, we performed movements one and three at the "New Music Group" concert last night. Josie and I both were not terribly excited about it, because we are not really "new music" fans, being quite happy with the "old music", thank you very much. However, our performance was really good, with lots of energy, and the audience really liked it.

What is interesting is that, while listening to the first half of the concert, some of which was not exactly my favorite listening experience, I was reading the program and especially the biographies of all the professors whose "new music" was being performed--usually by them, too. So I read Christian Asplund's biography, and thought, "I didn't realize that he is Canadian!"

So after the concert, I went and said that: "I didn't realize you are Canadian; because I am, too." So we compared notes. He was born in Calgary, but grew up in Ontario. I was born in Taber; his parents were from Lethbridge and Raymond, my mom was from Raymond. So I asked a good Alberta question, "What was your mom's maiden name?" And it was Strong. I knew that I knew Strongs, but which Strongs? I couldn't remember.

Well, Christian's mom lives here now; his father died about twenty years ago. His mom is Patricia Strong Asplund, and she was at the concert, so I met her and we talked for awhile. I told her my mom was a Hancock from Raymond, and she said that Keith Hancock was one of her really good high school friends, and they used to do a lot of double dating with each other, not on dates together, but each of them with a date, and all four together.

So when I got home I looked in the Raymond History Book. There were no Asplunds, and no Patricia Strong in the index. So I just turned to the Strong section and started reading. And of course, I found her. Because Joe and Marie (Redd) Strong's oldest daughter was named Patricia. Which makes her LeRon's first cousin, since his mom is "Aunt Marie's" younger sister. I thought Patricia was too old to be LeRon's cousin, until I remembered that Keith Hancock is my cousin, so duh...if I can have a cousin that old, so can he.

And oddly enough, when we lived in Raymond, we lived in Joe and Marie Strong's old house.

So, there you have it. Who knew that Christian Asplund is not only Canadian, but he is Michael Torrie's second cousin? And of course, since Colleen and LeRon are like fourth cousins (the Redds descend from a Wintch girl who married a Bryner, and we descend from her brother Casper) dating back to the 1800s in Switzerland...so Josie and I are related to Christian Asplund, too. Just a long ways off. Who knew?

Am I True to Myself? By Edgar Guest

I have to live with myself, and so
I want to be fit for myself to know,
I want to be able, as days go by,
Always to look myself straight in the eye;
I don’t want to stand, with the setting sun,
And hate myself for things I’ve done.
I don’t want to keep on a closet shelf
A lot of secrets about myself,
And fool myself, as I come and go,
Into thinking that nobody else will know
The kind of man I really am;
I don’t want to dress up myself in sham.
I want to go out with my head erect,
I want to deserve all men’s respect;
But here in the struggle for fame and pelf
I want to be able to like myself.
I don’t want to look at myself and know
That I’m bluster and bluff and empty show.
I can never hide myself from me;
I see what others may never see;
I know what others may never know,
I never can fool myself, and so,
Whatever happens, I want to be
Self-respecting and conscience free.

Just because I felt like posting this today...

I remember Helma Barton, one of my grandma's friends, quoting Edgar A. Guest, this poem and others (like Making a House a Home, for example). And President Monson quotes Guest pretty often, too. My parents used to quote snippets of poems, less frequently the whole thing. And I think that maybe our kids and grandkids are missing out, because a poem can be a very effective and memorable way to put good ideas across. I have had the first couple of the lines of this poem running through my head for most of my life, and you know, I think that has been a good thing.