In the documentary “Searching for Lin Zhao’s Soul,” filmmaker Hu Jie investigates the life and execution of a young woman who struggled for human rights in China.
The struggle for human rights has been an ongoing battle throughout history. Many heroes, like Martin Luther King Jr., are justly lauded for their work. But for each person we celebrate, there are thousands of forgotten heroes who also stood up to oppression and gave their lives to make the world a better place.
Lin Zhao, who was born January 23, 1932, was a student at Peking University in China when she was imprisoned for speaking out on behalf of students who were being persecuted during Chairman Mao Zedong’s Anti-Rightist Movement in the late 1950s. Lin was a writer who wrote articles and poems. And when her captors forbade her to use pens, she used a hairpin dipped in her own blood to write on the walls of her cell.
On April 29, 1968 the People’s Republic of China executed Lin Zhao by gunshot.
With memory of her seemingly lost to history, filmmaker and independent historian Hu Jie encountered her story. And he quit his job so he could investigate Lin’s struggle for civil rights and bring her story alive in the documentary, “Searching for Lin Zhao’s Soul” (Sometimes translated as “In Search of Lin Zhao’s Soul.”
The movie, released in 2012, won Best Film at the Sunshine Chinese Documentary Film Festival. If you can track it down, there is a version of the moving documentary about Lin Zhao with English subtitles that periodically appears on YouTube.
The last surviving Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr use recordings of John Lennon and George Harrison to create the final Beatles record, “Now and Then.”
The Beatles have released what will be their final song, “Now and Then.” The surviving Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr finalized the track using old recording of John Lennon and George Harrison.
McCartney and Starr explain the origins of the song in the short documentary below. The track originated after John Lennon’s widow Yoko Ono gave the surviving Beatles three recordings of songs written by Lennon before he was killed. McCartney, Starr, and Harrison used two of the three songs earlier. They had created new Beatles songs in the 1990s to along along with the Anthology documentary about the Beatles. Those two songs were “Free As A Bird” and “Real Love.”
The third Lennon song that McCartney, Starr, and Harrison tried to turn into a Beatles song in the 1990s was “Now and Then.” But this Beatles track was not completed at that time, perhaps partly or mainly due to George Harrison’s disdain for the song. Or, according to McCartney’s more recent version of events, the song was not finished due to technical and time constraints. One of the challenges was that Lennon’s demo recording did not have a clear enough separation between his voice and the piano.
But a jump in time has made the new track possible. Director Peter Jackson, in creating the Beatles documentary about the making of the Let It Be (1970) album, The Beatles: Get Back (2021), used a new technology. It allowed him to separate out the voices of the Fab Four in the original film footage from that session. This technology would also allow the Beatles to separate out John Lennon’s voice from the piano on “Now and Then.”
Then, producer Giles Martin, son of Beatles producer George Martin, added in guitar parts that George Harrison had created when the three Beatles worked on the song in the 1990s. Ringo Starr recorded a new drum track, while McCartney added bass and other instruments, including a slide guitar track as a tribute to Harrison. McCartney’s voice joins Lennon’s voice in the background during the song, and McCartney also added the line “always to return to me” in the lyrics.
Now and then, I miss you; Oh, now and then, I want you to be there for me, Always to return to me.
And so, we have what is likely the last Beatles song we will ever have created by the four actual Beatles. While it may not be a match for some of their masterpieces, it is great to hear John singing with the other lads again. Check out the official video for “Now and Then.” The video mixes old footage of the four Beatles with today’s Paul and Ringo, leading the viewer to imagine them all together again. It might even bring a few tears to your eyes.
What do you think of the new song? Leave your two cents in the comments.
Micky Dolenz is releasing a cover of R.E.M.’s “Shiny Happy People,” a song that was itself inspired by the music Dolenz created with the Monkees.
Micky Dolenz and the Monkees once inspired Michael Stipe and R.E.M. to create the song “Shiny Happy People.” The song became a hit for the band when it was released as a single following its appearance on their fantastic 1991 album, Out of Time. This month, the Monkees connection to the song comes full circle as Micky Dolenz of that band releases his version of R.E.M.’s “Shiny Happy People.” The song appears on an EP of R.E.M. covers called Dolenz Sings R.E.M. (2023).
Micky Dolenz reports that one of the inspirations for creating the R.E.M. covers project was to repay the members of R.E.M. for being fans of the Monkees. One might imagine that the singer whose wonderful talents have often not received its due might have found a connection to a song as popular and maligned as “Shiny Happy People” that was also discounted by some as being too poppy for R.E.M. Like the Monkees, though, “Shiny Happy People” had a deeper origin story, with a title inspired by Chinese propaganda posters and written not long after the Tiananmen Square uprising.
For the new recording, Dolenz worked with producer Christian Nesmith, son of his former bandmate Mike Nesmith (who passed away in 2021). Their goal was to re-imagine the R.E.M. tracks on Dolenz Sings R.E.M. Thus, he does not merely provide a note-by-note- cover of the songs. Instead, he brings his own musical background with a psychedelic touch to the songs. Check out his version of “Shiny Happy People.”
Dolenz Sings R.E.M. is officially released on November 3, 2023. The other songs on the EP are “Radio Free Europe,” “Man on the Moon,” and “Leaving New York.”
In 2002, Steve Earle released “Jerusalem,” about hope for the people in a troubled land that remains ever as troubled today.
It is difficult to find any optimism out of what is going on right now in Israel and Gaza. But in 2002, during another period of darkness in the world, Steve Earle tried to find some hope in his song “Jerusalem,” the title track of his 2002 album. There, he sang a fine day where “all the children of Abraham / Will lay down their swords forever in Jerusalem.”
And there’ll be no barricades then; There’ll be no wire or walls; And we can wash all this blood from our hands, And all this hatred from our souls.
At the time of the album’s release, William Bowers, who was not a fan of Earle generally, in a Pitchfork review mocked such a utopian take on the complicated situation in the Middle East. Bowers saw some attempts to follow John Lennon’s “Imagine” but finds such a plea ultimately doomed for a land divided by religion and race. He concludes, “the song is dang hard to take seriously.”
Earle, though, realizes his song’s dream is a long-shot and, as he explains in the video below, that the dream may remain a dream until he dies. And in the lyrics, he sings, “maybe I’m only dreamin’ and maybe I’m just a fool.”
It is foolish to think of any hope now during all of the horrors going on while people are suffering and dying. But maybe trying to imagine peace is not a bad thing to do, even if it feels futile at the moment.
“I’d Rather Go Blind” originated out of a heartbreak in prison and a B-side to a single to become a classic Etta James song.
It is difficult to think of a more soulful sound than of Etta James singing “I’d Rather Go Blind.” Her original recording of the song is one of the great classic records. But she also sometimes welcomed someone to sing the song with her on stage. On more than one occasion she joined voices to sing “I’d Rather Go Blind” with the great New Orleans voice Dr. John.
Etta James, who was born on January 25, 1938 and passed away on January 20, 2012, reported in her autobiography that she first heard the song that would become so associated with her while visiting a friend named Ellington “Fugi” Jordan in Chino Prison in 1967. Fugi had written the song while developing his musical abilities in prison.
Fugi, who was born in 1940, passed away on June 18, 2020. There is not a lot on the Internet about him, which is odd for someone who wrote such a classic song as “I’d Rather Go Blind” and who was big in the Fresno music scene. His obituary in the Fresno Bee notes that among other accomplishments, he collaborated with Black Merda on a psychedelic funk track called “Mary Don’t Take Me on No Bad Trip” in 1968. His 1994 CD The Cold-Blooded City They Call the ‘No’ featured the rap song, “The City of Fresno.”
The songwriting credits for “I’d Rather Go Blind” often include Etta James and Billy Foster (of The Medallions) in addition to Fugi’s name. James reported that she helped Fugi finish the song but gave the co-songwriting credit to Foster, her boyfriend and songwriting partner at the time, for tax reasons.
At least one website, however, reports that Fugi denied ever meeting James in prison. Fugi, who spent time in prison for desertion and robbery, said that he had written the song by himself sitting at a piano in San Quentin Prison after a break up with his girlfriend.
Fugi’s original name for the song was “I’d Rather Be a Blind Man.” Below is him singing the song.
Despite the different stories, it is clear that Fugi wrote most or all of “I’d Rather Go Blind,” while in prison, and it is easy to hear the beautiful despair in the lyrics and music. Beyond that, we know James recorded “I’d Rather Go Blind” at the FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. The song appeared on James’s album Tell Mama (1968), having first been released as a B-side in 1967 to the album’s title track song, “Tell Mama.” That’s right, one of the most emotionally heartbreaking popular songs ever recorded originally was a B-side.
Although she is the original and most known singer of the song, it has been covered by many artists such as B.B. King, Marcia Ball, Rod Stewart, Little Milton and Beyoncé for the Cadillac Records film soundtrack. James also participated in an amazing performance of the song where she shared the stage with another person, singer-songwriter Dr. John. Below, Etta James and Dr. John sing “I’d Rather Go Blind” on the Midnight Special TV show in 1975.
I’m not sure who came up with the idea of creating a duet between Dr. John and Etta James on one of James’s classic songs. But the above duet from 1975 clearly made an impact, leading the two to reunite on the song more than a decade later.
Here, Dr. John and Etta James reunited on “I’d Rather Go Blind” in 1987 on the TV show A Blues Session: BB King And Friends.
What is your favorite version of “I’d Rather Go Blind”? Leave your two cents in the comments.
