Abstract
This paper reflects on some of the parallels and intersections in the life and work of García Márquez and the Beatles, and delves into the connections between their seemingly related composition of literary, visual, and musical artifacts during the 1960s. Thus, specific, and at times unexpected, correspondences unfold: themes like solitude and dementia, characters like Rebeca Buendía/Eleanor Rigby or Remedios, la bella/Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, ships like the yellow train/the yellow submarine, journeys to the bottom of the sea and to fictional places like Macondo/Pepperland that question reality and authority, and even the lives and deaths of John Lennon and García Márquez. By examining Beatles songs and films and with close reading of several chapters from Cien años de soledad and from several short stories and opinion columns written by García Márquez, I unravel an exciting implicit collaboration between Colombia’s most famous writer and one of the world’s most celebrated musical bands.
Highlights
Esta tarde, pensando todo esto frente a una ventana lúgubre donde cae la nieve, con más de cincuenta años encima y todavía sin saber muy bien quién soy, ni qué carajos hago aquí, tengo la impresión de que el mundo fue igual desde mi nacimiento hasta que los Beatles empezaron a cantar
This paper highlights the parallels and intersections in the unreal and magical realist worlds created by Gabriel García Márquez and the Beatles by grounding their works in the literary, visual, and musical artifacts of the 1960s cultural revolution
By examining Beatles songs and films and with close reading of several chapters from Cien años de soledad and from several short stories and opinion columns written by García Márquez, this essay unravels an exciting implicit collaboration between Colombia’s most famous writer and one of the world’s most celebrated musical bands
Summary
The Chronicles of the Indies that made such a staggering impression on Sir Walter Raleigh certainly resemble solitary ventures into fantasy in spite of being for the most part accurate accounts of reality. Goodall holds that McCartney relied on the tradition of modal melody he was familiar with as a child to write this song He points out the eighteenth-century Anglo Celtic folk song “The Lover’s Farewell” as a lyrical and musical model for “She is Leaving Home.” The fictional and real-life female characters associated with all of these runaways girls are looking to escape from confinements of loneliness and incomprehension. The clever use of modulation (the change from one tonality to another) alters the mood of the song and creates an impression of instability and unpredictability This is equivalent to the wavering effect García Márquez achieves with the baffling story of Remedios, la bella, who is but one of several examples of bridges between real and magical jurisdictions in the novel.
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