Track 8: The Beatles on 100.3 by Stephanie Mei
The chorus rings in my ear, Don’t let me down / Don’t let me down (I’m on Facebook parsing the words BEATLES HERE, CRY HELP, AND RUN FOR THEIR LIVES. Manila Bulletin’s headline on July 4, 1966. I thought it was a meme until I read the post, quoting the band. “There were all the government officials or police, who were trying to punch us and yelling and waving fists at us,” says George. From Ringo: “There’s the famous story of John and me hiding behind these nuns, because we thought, ‘It’s a Catholic country—they won’t beat up the nuns.’” It happened here, in this smoggy, dense and dizzying city, but no one’s told me the story, not a single version, or that we were even on the Beatles map, to prove those years were the Golden Ages, or the most torturous, corrupt. The truth exposes all, eventually: the big leaders and their big rivals. Meanwhile, Martial Law kids, promised first-world prosperity—if only people obeyed—became parents obsessed with discipline and denied their kids freedom. Mom and I lost a friend in each other. When she drove me to university and back home every day, we did not speak. We only bobbed our heads to jangly electric guitars), a harmony built on a howl.
Stephanie Mei is a Chinese Filipino writer who explores her relationship with her home, nature, and art through essays. Her works have appeared in In Short: A Journal of Flash Nonfiction, The Tiger Moth Review, diaCRITICS, Spellbinder, The Lumiere Review, Anak Sastra, The Ekphrastic Review, and After the Art, among others. Outside of literature, she likes agroforestry, embroidery, and cat reels. Born and raised in the Philippines, she now lives in Switzerland. Instagram: @houseblessing_
