Here Comes the Sun

[fabrisse]

So I've been discovering The Beatles 40 years later, and, as I think I mentioned before, finally heard the Abbey Road album for the first time back in September.

I've been doing my reading, too. And one of the things that astounds me is the whole "I was there" aspect to having lived in London while they were creating music. Obviously, the point of view of a 6-8 year old is not terribly useful for much of it, but there is one little revelation I had today about Here Comes the Sun.

My mother and father both suffered from depression while we were living in London. There were many reasons for it, including the fact that my Dad wore a US Army uniform to his job once a week and people felt compelled to comment by putting dog crap in our mail box on a regular basis.

Dad's talked to me about feeling suicidal then, how easy it might have been to step in front of the train as the Tube came barreling into the station, but I only know obliquely about Mom's. She won't admit to it.

One thing I remember vividly is praying for a sunny day on my seventh birthday. I got it, just for the record. I prayed for sunlight not just because I was an American kid not used to overcast English weather, but because the period of 1967-69 had the fewest sunny days per annum since they began recording it. (I'm trying to find confirmation of this. Years ago, pre-Google, I stumbled on that fact at a website and went "well, that explains a lot" in view of my own struggles with SAD. Now I can't find what query I entered to get the data. *sigh*)

The British start out with fewer sunny days than the average American gets (*waves at Seattle and Vancouver* Not you lot, the rest of the US and Canada.). If I'm remembering my ten year old facts correctly, there were only about sixty-five over both years. Many of them came during the first summer I was there leading to a heat wave that killed quite a few elderly people at least partially because many of them only owned wool underwear.

But knowing how little sun there was during that period of time puts the wonder of "Here Comes the Sun" into an interesting perspective.

Comments

[moria923.livejournal.com]

Growing up in Southern California, I never understood what people meant by "talking about the weather". I mean, I knew it was an expression for banal conversation, but I didn't know there was much conversation to be had, even of the banal sort. I finally "got it" when I spent a summer in London.

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

Yeah. London defines weather conversation for a great many people. *G*