On the plane ride home from Vancouver, I decided to have a go at their in-seat entertainment system. I found in there a film called Nowhere Boy. It’s apparently a prequel to Backbeat, which is about the friendship of a young musician named John Lennon and a painter named Stuart Sutcliffe. Who would’ve thought that mostly unnoticed film would need a prequel was a bit nuts, but it was surprisingly good.

Nowhere Boy instead focuses on Lennon and his broken home. Raised by his Uncle George and Aunt Mimi. Mimi is strict, while George is fun loving. George dies an untimely death, and this affects Lennon and puts him into the rage we see later in Backbeat. Lennon also reconnects with his mother Julia and learns more about the disappearance of his father Alf¹. Lennon is enamoured with his mother, and the image of Elvis Presley, who together inspire him to become a rock and roller.

Lennon starts The Quarrymen, an skiffle group, with his friends from school. Eventually he meets a younger boy named Paul McCartney, who impresses him with his performance of “20 Flight Rock,” and eventually in a brief scene we see George Harrison join the band. Thus most of the cast of Backbeat is together by the end of the film.

One of my favourite points in the film is an interchange between Paul, John, and Julia after they find out McCartney’s mother died.

Julia to Paul: So awful, your mother being taken away from you.
John: She had cancer, what’s your excuse?

The film overall is really about Lennon’s unhealthy relationship with his mother. The two are more like friends at best and lovers at worst than a mother-son relationship.

Overall it’s not a bad film, and adds some damn good backstory for Backbeat, and might even be better than Backbeat itself. Now it’s been a long time since I’ve seen Backbeat, but if I recall, the band went on to be rather big, maybe it’s time for a sequel studying that part of their career.

1. Who names a character after an alien-muppet from an ’80s sitcom? [↩]

This message brought to you by the Liberal Party of Canada, we won’t rape your ears.

• Fuck you Miller, relying on outside sources to fund one of the most important infrastructures in Toronto.
• Fuck you McGuinty, you know the entire province relies on the city of Toronto.
• Fuck you Harper, just cuz.
• CBC wants to know how French are you… in other news, la SRC ne se soucie pas comment l’anglais que vous soyez.
• Smitherman wants to take the Chertien/Martin approach to governance… he might win my vote.
• Surgery in Windsor, not a good idea. Is there anything that’s a good idea in Windsor?
• Who cares? No one uses Bing or Yahoo!
• As often as I’ve had brunch at Sneaky Dee’s, I’ve never had their Huevos Rancheros.
• The Parliamentary Budget Officer takes a look at Canada and its long term financial future.
• I think I need to puke…
• Sharon Jones is coming to Toronto in May, but she’s playing the Sound Academy. Any other venue, and I’d be there with bells on. I absolutely refuse to visit that venue.
• Most god-awful recipes I’ve ever seen. (thanks Terri)

For volume 1, click here.
For volume 2, click here.

On Friday night I went to see $100 at the Horseshoe Tavern, and I knew right then that I should include them in this ongoing series of awesome lyrics.

With only one album, one EP, and two seven inch records in their limited catalogue, there’s not much to choose from, but the it seems nearly every song has something worth talking about. Whether it’s songs about the hostile relationship between mother and her transexual son, self-righteous men who impose their beliefs on a lesbian couple, suicide on the TTC, or sloppy lovers, it’s easy to find something to talk about.

Instead of these, I chose the song “Fourteen Hour Day,” which is a tale of a woman and her husband, a miner in Timmins. Wishing to be able to lay down with her husband, when he’s busy working a fourteen day as the foreman in the mine. They spend their years toiling away, hoping for something better, until the end.

There’s a dip here in the mattress,
Beside me where you lay.
I can’t bear to lie here, oh I weep my night away,
You know I weep my night away.

I’ll grab that shovel darling,
March up to your grave.
Dig a hole right next to yours and next to you I’ll stay,
Yeah, next to you I’ll stay.

The pure sadness and desperation of hers is heartbreaking.

How does one end an era? John Lennon did it with a simple statement.

I don’t believe in Beatles