Yesterday, The Beatles, and Me

The Movie Yesterday and My Very Own Beatles Story. No. Really. Well, sort of. "Let me take you down, 'cause I'm going to, Irish Green Fields ... [Sing along now]." So. I had a great relationship with the Notre Dame Marching Band. I had taught lots of its members Intro to Philosophy, where we had tons of fun. In fact, one semester, I was worried about the second exam in that huge class. Lots of students had done poorly on the first exam, and I knew they'd be nervous. I had to change the atmosphere. So, once the hordes had taken their seats in the large auditorium and we were ready to hand out the hundreds of exams, lots of doors suddenly banged open in the back, scores of young thinkers swiveled around to see what was going on, and the Notre Dame Marching Band came into the room, playing the famous fight song! The Freshmen jumped onto their chairs, yelling and clapping and singing along. The song ended in a thunderous ovation and the band left. It was shocked, happy pandemonium. And everyone scored higher on that exam. Everyone.

But that's not the story I want to tell. I had just written the first rock and roll fight song for a university, called The Fightin' Irish Are Back, to celebrate our new coach Lou Holtz turning the team around and returning it to its legendary greatness. I had talked to previous championship coaches like Ara Parseghian and Dan Divine to get the lyrics just right. Champion sportswear had decided to make up a special T Shirt to celebrate the song, with a big version of the mascot Leprechaun on the front, playing my sunburst 1964 Fender Stratocaster rock guitar with my initials on the headstock: TVM. The front of the shirt would say The Fightin' Irish Are Back. The back of the shirt would announce: Bringing Back the Rock and Roll. I would assemble a studio band and record it soon. An NBC Affiliate would do a music video. It was all planned out. But then that October I got a call from the famous Coach Holtz himself. He had heard about the song. He asked me to wait a year to release it. I asked why. He said, "This year, we'll have a winning season, but next year we'll win the national championship, so if you can hold it for a year, it can be our celebration song." I said, "I will if you will." And that was football history. National Champions: 1988.

But that's not the story I want to tell. I had written out the song and decided I wanted to start it with a guitar solo borrowing from the classic Notre Dame Fight Song. I'd call the Band department and get permission. They were my buddies. It would be no problem. So I told them my plan and that I probably needed written permission to use part of the famous tune they played all the time. "Boy, Professor Morris, your song sounds great! But we don't own the rights to our fight song."

What? "Who owns it?" The band guy said, "Paul McCartney." Whaaaaaaat?

He had bought it as an investment. So I had to talk with his lawyer in New York to get the permission I needed. A Beatle owns the rights to our fight song. Notre Dame has to pay him every time it's played in the stadium. Yep. SIr Paul's attorney turned out to be a nice guy. He said to me, "We'll give you seven bars of the song for free. But if you use one note beyond that, it will cost you more money than you can even imagine." I used exactly seven bars. I sang and played the guitar part and we had great musicians to fill out the band. When it was mixed in my absence, another musician had come into the studio and listened and said, "How the hell did you get Boz Scaggs to do a Notre Dame song?" Yeah, that was me. Boz Tom. And so we released the recording just in time for the championship season and the song was launched with the T shirts and Regis Philbin played it on his national morning show and danced to it, and whenever you went to a game you could hear it on the radio and on boomboxes around the stadium in lots of the tailgate parties.

And so, I know from first hand experience how utterly remarkable it was for Paul and Ringo to give permission to the new movie Yesterday to use SO MANY of their songs. MUCH more than seven bars. There's a reason you never hear Beatles songs in movie, soundtracks or on tv commercials. The rights are that dear, that controlled and pricey. But then, one movie comes along and does the impossible and uses song after song after song. Paul and Ringo loved the concept and made it happen. Relationships do rule the world. The seemingly impossible can happen. After all, the Beatles did. So if you see it or have seen the new film and agree with me that it's a remarkable movie, I wanted you to know how remarkable it really is that it got made at all. The gang who wrote and produced it had the luck of the Irish for sure. And, there's only one thing left to say.

Hey, Dude: Go Irish!

PS: Someone just posted on FaceBook a low tech digital conversion of the original tape, with its cover and liner notes pictured. Just so you guys will know that I'm not just making this up. Ha! So for The Fightin' Irish are Back, go here and turn on your speakers loud:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnO3awjlFi4&fbclid=IwAR3VlLIUPNjqPeIM0ylICixMM5PB3wq243oD5QMoge81AWRMW0572CoW3II&app=desktop

The Power of What You Wear

When I was a graduate student at Yale and got my first part time job teaching at the nearby University of New Haven, I was really nervous about commanding a classroom by myself. I had no track record as a teacher. I had no evidence I could be great at this. It's one thing to be a top learner, and another to pass it on, although as I was later to learn, the two are deeply connected. We never really master something at the deepest level until we've taught it to others. But that's another blog.

At the time I was an avid runner. I did about six miles a day through the woods of Connecticut. And it made me feel great. After hours of intellectual work in the morning, I'd lace up my New Balance running shoes and go out on the road where I'd often experience the first exhilaration of the day. After ten or fifteen minutes, I'd be inwardly flying, in total flow, and expanding my consciousness. It was great. My enjoyment of those runs was such that even lacing up my shoes beforehand gave me a confident tingle of anticipation forthe great stuff that was soon to come.

I don't know how I decided to do it, but it occurred to me one day that I had this great pair of light tan tall leather hiking boots. I decided I'd wear them to teach, and that each day, as I laced them up and tied them on, I'd visualize a great class, smiling students, laughs, intellectual revelations, and a great experience had by all. It got to the point where just putting on those boots gave me a sense of power and confidence. They became my superhero boots.

Years later, I was a professor at Notre Dame. Like most of my colleagues, I taught in wrinkled khakis and tennis shirts, wearing whatever shoes the weather demanded. But one semester while I was on leave of absence, which was a coveted opportunity to focus on creative work, I was supposed to write a couple of books. And it wasn't happening. I'd sit down and draw a blank. And this went on day after day. My mother had modeled some in her youth, and often bought me suits I'd never wear, except when it was really necessary. One day, it came to me out of the blue that maybe if I dressed up in a suit and tie before showing up to write, I'd be taking myself more seriously as a writer. So I did. And the wildest thing happeed. Ideas poured forth. The muse liked what I had on. So I continued the practice.

Then when I returned to the classroom, I decided that I'd show my students special respect by dressing up for them. Their presence became the special occasion. And they loved it. At the time, it was very different for a professor my age to show up in a suite and tie, or s sport coat and bright bow tie. I then brought into the classroom the new power I had discovered in the study while writing. When I dressed like it was an important occasion, it became one. And I found new power for the challenge.

Does this always work? Some new psychological studies seem to indicate there may be more to it than we might suppose. There's been a recent claim that wearing a suit may even help you think in a more formal and abstract way, transcending the details of what you confront and reaching out creatively to new insights.

Of course, I'm telling you this as I sit at my desk in a crazy tie-dyed T shirt and khaki shorts. So, don't get carried away. But still, consider that how you dress may send signals, not only to others, but also to your own subconscious. And perhaps you can set up the signals as I've done a few times in my life. Then, when you're entering an uncertain or challenging situation, those shoes, or that suit, or that lucky tie may just give you a boost.

So, maybe I need to go change.

When to Take a Risk

"And he found out that if he wanted to fly, he first had to jump."  - The Little Paris Bookshop, 141.

"If you don't take any risks, life will pass you by." - The Little Paris Bookshop, 188.

A few days ago, I told the story of being stuck in a Costco store for an hour after the intended day's shopping was done. I just had to wait. And rather than let either frustration or boredom have a run at me, I decided to take positive action and explore the books and the wines in the shop. As a result, I made some wonderful discoveries - the big, engaging supernaturalist novel by David Mitchell, The Bone Clocks, and a wonderful new book by Nina George called The Little Paris Bookshop, which is set mostly on a river barge that's been turned into a bookstore, and is really a story about risk and love. And, oh, yeah, there was also an amazing 2010 Bordeaux red for $16.95 - a vintage where you'll often pay hundreds of dollars a bottle. But $16.95? I took the risk. And it was really nice.

Risk.

When I chose to leave a tenured full professorship at Notre Dame to launch out on a mission as a public philosopher, people said two things to me that gave me pause, and actually kept me up for a couple of nights: "Do you realize all that you're giving up?" And: "How do you know you can sustain this new adventure?" They were asking me to consider the clear sacrifices I was making, and the lack of guarantees I had about my new venture. That was 20 years ago, this month.

Those are two questions that can always be asked about anything new. And they should be pondered. What are you giving up by doing this? What are you getting by doing this?

Whenever you leave one thing, or form of life, or comfortable way of engaging the world, and take up something new, there is, presumably, both risk and reward. You should indeed reflect on both.

There's a general truth in life: No risk, no reward. It's of course the cousin of "No pain, no gain." Every time we commit to anything new, anything that involves a new path forward, we risk our hearts, our status in the eyes of others, sometimes our finances, and of course, always, possible failure. Whenever there's a fork in the road that's unmarked, and we choose to choose and keep moving, we risk picking the wrong path, one that won't be right for us, in the deepest ways. But risk is inescapable in life. Given that truth, we want to take the best and most reasonable risks we can, given who we are and what we most properly value - however crazy they might seem to onlookers. What does your heart tell you? What does your head say, as well? And can you get them to agree? If you don't take any risks, life will certainly pass you by.

Reasonable risk contemplates the ration of risk and reward, as well as whether worst-case-scenario possibilities would still allow you options to move forward in a different way. Some risks have possible downsides that would clearly end your adventures on earth. In fact, many do. Some are worth that risk. Others aren't. Some risks could potentially wreck havoc, while still allowing you another chance in the game. And in each such case, you should make sure you're fully committed to the potential rewards before launching out in the face of such risk. But since, in the most general sense, some form of risk is really unavoidable, we should indeed be prepared to embrace the risks that seem right for us, the ones that can potentially grow us and our positive impact on the world, starting with those fellow citizens of the world who are closest to us.

Life is a dynamic flow that at best involves protecting some things and letting go of others, as we move and change and grow. Risk is about release, but it's also about reaching out for something new and great.

The New York Times and many other news outlets recently ran glowing obituaries on a remarkable man, Nicholas Winston, who, as a young 29 year old clerk at the London Stock Exchange, visited Czechoslovakia, saw a need, and did some amazing things to save the lives of 669 Jewish children from the growing Nazi threat, and despite the tremendous risks he took, lived to the ripe old age of 106, from which vantage point he could see the 6,000 descendants, and counting, of those he saved. When he was asked to reflect on his choices, he said, "Why do people do different things? Some people revel in taking risks, and some go through life taking no risks at all." His risks had consequences for good that will go on forever. Yours can, too.

We should all be willing to take the risk, however big or small, that can have great consequences for good. We should consider what we're releasing, and what we're reaching for, and when conviction propels us onward, we can listen to the concerns of others without letting those worries stop us from taking the risk that seems right.