Mourning John in Jogja

En route from the stacks to the cashier at Gramedia Sunday we unexpectedly broke into an impromptu chorus of Hey Jude. It was possible the song was playing in-store; otherwise the girl was carrying it in her head and it burst out just as she was being passed at the pen stand. 

Bright red Gram uniform, black trousers, early twenties and unscarved. (As unlikely as it seems in Indonesia, Gramedia might have been able to enforce a non-scarf policy. Difficult otherwise to account for the uniformity. The same regime had been suggested at one or two of the larger department stores further down Malioboro.)

—   Hey Juuuude

(Picking up…) Don't make it bad.

Judging by the smile, the tuneless, rasping voice was never mind.

—   Take a saaaad song

…And make it beeetter.

Charmed the gal proper. Oh wow! A real film star almost-Beatle in the flesh, walking tall in Jogja. Certainly a White. And the topi! The hat!

Small wonder the love choked up and could continue no further. 

The aircon made it difficult to know whether the low hum through the store had issued from the three dozen red colleagues standing at their stations. 

Raised chins and a distinct buoyancy had up-tilted Gramedia’s floor on Malioboro that Sunday afternoon.

Crossing the river in the evening a large wooden bird-house on a balcony caught the eye. Darting traffic, a buzzing head and the rail-line on the other side had distracted on all the previous passes there. 

A large, weathered aviary with four or five openings facing the street on the upper, narrow ledge. A few days later morning light revealed a ramshackle knock-up that had been assembled over some long period, with various oddments protruding.

The householders here did not sit out on the balcony watching the traffic or the trains pass, nor their neighbours below along the lane. From inside the front room there they heard the birds returning, clattering lightly against the wood, perhaps each identifiable by their particular manner—something like dad back with his Gladstone bag removing his coat and trudging up the stairs.

Ten/twelve days before there had been a series of Beatles originals at Semesta that had one lingering, reluctant to leave. Yesterday. She Loves You. Roll Over Beethoven. All authentic un-remastered, contrary to the usual case in Sin’pore.

In some strange way the early 60s purity seemed to issue that night at the café, as outside on the roadway the becak drivers dismounted on the rise and pushed their chariots from behind, cars and bikes slowing to round them. 

Every so often one checked to see whether there were any bare feet among the Sisyphuses.

All My Loving. She's Got a Devil in Her Heart. Ticket to Ride.

Lesser, minor tracks from the time were suddenly ringing all heart, light youthful lyrics that far transcended the genre. 

The boys were still pouring out their Liverpudlian souls from the speakers here in what was perfect fidelity, with the volume a tad low in the garden setting a certain strain for passages that seemed to slip by overhead. 

One had hardly mourned John at all at the time of his death thirty-five years before. That had needed to be left to the older, impassioned fans. For many friends back then the killing had struck hard. 

That night All My Loving in particular poured out a yearning like it must have done from the original transistors held up to the ear by the teenagers of the time; tenderness channelling directly like lovers’ whispers drilling into the brain. 

The youthful voice through the overhead vines at Semesta in Old Town Jogja, on the rise from the right bank of Kali Code, produced a distinct vein of remorse for the murdered Beatle. 

         Here the parents of the Jogja youth, and their parents too, had missed these songs first time round.