Hello Goodbye
Album: Single (later included on Magical Mystery Tour)
Author: McCartney
Another #1 song for the group in both the United Kingdom and United States. According to Beatlesongs the promotional video was banned by the BBC because Paul was obviously lip synching. John apparently didn’t like the song that much either. Oh well. Tell Me Why analyzes the song thusly: “It’s the kind of song McCartney can write in his sleep, and he probably did.” Ouch.
What a year it’s been. I won’t go into everything that’s been going on in my life (those last three words the title of another famous Beatles song) over the last year, instead I’ll just highlight a couple of things since rejoining the online social network Facebook.
I had joined Facebook years ago, but drifted off due to… whatever. After a multi-year absence I hopped back online and have been participating on a fairly regular (almost daily) basis.
Hello – I reconnected with a roommate of mine from 17 years ago. He was around when my first son was born and his birth mother disappeared. He was also the bass player and primary songwriter in the band I was in. I freely admit that I wasn’t a very good roommate (I wound up having to move out because I couldn’t pay rent). I remember one year for Christmas he got me West Side Story on laserdisc (this was years before DVDs came out) and I didn’t get him anything.
After I moved out we dropped out of contact as our lives drifted further and further apart because we had less connecting us (the band we were in had broken up). I decided to do a search for this guy on Facebook, and lo and behold, he was. Turns out his life took a completely different direction as well, and while I don’t feel comfortable saying who he is or where he works, I will say my 6 year old son understands and appreciates just how cool my old friend’s current job is.
Goodbye – I learned that my cousin Jake had died through a post another of my cousins made. I wrote a blog post about that. It just goes to show how the world has changed over the last 50 years. Sure, one can talk about how in the last 5, 10 or 15 years thins are drastically different, but if you look back to what our social interactions were like 50 years ago, it’s not just a generational change. There are fundamental differences in communication, and I’m not just referring to text messages via cell phone.
You can lament the changes, about how everybody has a cell phone that’s always on and people are always connected somehow. That’s a fair complaint, but it is also the reality of the world that needs to be accepted. We still need to come up with some accepted rules of conduct for this 9still relatively new) level of connectivity we share, either actively or passively, but wishing things would change is not constructive.
Frankly, I’m glad for this new connectivity, because I learned of a significant event that I otherwise might not have through an online social network. Sure, I should make more of an effort to connect via more traditional methods, such as face to face and phone calls, but right now this is about all I can manage with my very busy life chasing my kids around.