Was Monday a unique, historic day – a day you will never forget? There was something to be said for that, although it is difficult to stomach when Donald Trump says it while patting his chest. In any case, it was one big family day where family members, overcome with emotions, embraced each other as if their lives depended on it – which in a sense it did.
This happened in Tel Aviv with the released Israeli hostages, but also in Ramallah on the West Bank and in Gaza where released Palestinians arrived.
What I will remember most are the images of the Israeli mother who happily embraces her son in a building somewhere, while she shouts: “My life, my life! You are my hero!” Just remain unmoved by that. The boy, I understood his name was Nathan, laughed speechlessly. His mother still looked young, at first I thought she was greeting her husband.
Mother and son reunited – on this day in particular it had to make an indelible impression on me. In the afternoon I went to the cinema with my wife One to One: John & Yoko to see, Kevin Macdonald’s documentary about John Lennon and Yoko Ono.
On the way from the nursing home to the cinema, I explained to my wife who The Beatles were and the controversial role Yoko, a new love of Lennon’s, had played in the band’s existence. How discord arose because the other band members did not accept her involvement. It would even have meant the end of The Beatles.
It seemed to get through to my wife somewhat, although you can never be sure. Every now and then we came across a dog with its owner – moments where my information had no chance.
I brought her along because she always responds with gratitude to everything that has to do with music. It could be a folk singer who performs in her nursing home with a repertoire full of Amsterdam canals and facades and ‘the foot of that old Wester’, but also a CD with arias by Pavarotti or a good music film.
I had hesitated about the documentary about John and Yoko after reading the favorable reviews. Did the film contain enough music? The hesitation turned out not to be entirely unjustified. The film has too few musical highlights – it is not really intended for that, I suspect. It is mainly about the relationship between Lennon and Ono in the early 1970s when they settled in New York.
The musical highlights came from a benefit concert for mentally handicapped children. Yoko sings about her first child who was kidnapped by her father and Lennon sings about his mother Mother. I’ve never heard him sing it so movingly. The lyrics cut through your soul as if you heard it for the first time: Mother, you had me but I never had you/ Oh-oh-oh, I wasted you, you didn’t want me/ So I gotta tell you/ Goodbye, Goodbye. To end in deep despair: Mama, don’t go/ Daddy come home/ Mama, don’t go/ Daddy, come home.
Pathetic? Not if you sing it like Lennon does.
No more than that mother in Tel Aviv sounded pathetic when she shouted: “My life, my life! You are my hero!”
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