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Until next time - Majken xx
Now and Then
November 2nd, 2023, a new - and last? - song from The Beatles was released. Now and Then, it’s called, and it was (honestly) quite an emotional moment for me when I first listened to it. The song itself is beautiful - in my humble opinion - but the story behind it is also quite interesting.
In 1977 John Lennon recorded the song as a piano demo in his home in New York, however, he didn’t get to do much about it. Fast forward to January 1994: Yoko Ono hands over the tape - which included several songs - to Paul McCartney. The surviving band members got together and recorded the song, Free as a Bird, in 1995, and also they started working on Now and Then. However, the quality of the tape was so bad that George Harrison refused to send it out into the world. The standard of the song would be too low, he said. And so the project was shelved. At least until the development of digital techniques made it possible to improve the old tape to such a degree that a proper song could be made of it. Harrison had passed away at this time, but his widow, Olivia, agreed on his behalf, saying that Harrison would, had he still been alive, “wholeheartedly” joined in on completing the track.
As a warm-up for the Now and Then release, BBC made a six-episode programme in which the British actor Martin Freeman tells the story of the Beatles from A-Z with many interesting new-old sound clips. It’s really well made!
Crime stories - I; Write a story that you’ll like
What makes a great detective story? How do you become a successful writer? Anu Anand, the host of The Cultural Frontline, has interviewed American crime author Michael Connelly, one of the world’s bestselling crime writers (he’s sold more than 80 million books worldwide).
“I’d write a book about it if I knew”, Connelly says (yes, please do!). “I think”, he continues, “it was Michael Jordan, the basketball player who said “The harder I work, the luckier I get”, and that’s kind of been my work ethic,” Connelly explains. When his books landed at the top of the bestselling lists, it wasn’t an overnight success. “I got lucky, and things happened,” he says, explaining how the right person wanted to make a movie, and then, well, then things started rolling.
So, what advice does Connelly have for all aspiring writers? “The best thing you can do is keep your head down and write a story that you’ll like,” he says, “you have to have this belief that if you’ve written something that you like, there’ll be someone out there who’ll like it too.”
Now, besides interviewing Michael Connelly, Anand also presents two fascinating podcasts…
Crime stories - II; True Crime in Africa
…They’re both podcasts on true crime stories that take place in Africa, which isn’t something we see very often these days. One is the series The Missionary by American-Kenyan journalist Halima Gikandi. It’s about the young American missionary Renee Bach, who, back in 2009, created a nonprofit organisation in Uganda to fight child malnutrition. However, ten years later, hundreds of children have died at Mrs. Bach’s facilities and the podcast investigates the question: how could this happen?
More African true crime investigations occur at Paul McNally’s podcast Alibi: A man, Anthony De Vries, was convicted for double murder and robbery in South Africa under apartheid. His sentence was 17 years in prison; however, when Paul McNally and his team started to dig into the case, it turned out that De Vries might be innocent.
Alibi proudly presents itself as “Africa’s first investigative podcast series.” The podcast was produced in January 2017, but the creator, Paul McNally, didn’t stop there. Now, he’s also active in Develop Audio, an organisation that is “creating a community of African journalists and empowering them to build better audio journalism,” as its site says. You can listen to McNally’s and some of his African colleagues’ podcasts here.
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‘On History and Writing’ is a blog post from me to you in which I share historically rooted real-life stories from around the world - told in exciting and creative ways - along with thoughts that circle the creative process of writing non-fiction texts. I post an email once every fortnight. If you're not already a subscriber, you are welcome to join the list. Thanks for reading! Majken xx
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