Of Michaels and lyrics

BENCHWARMER

Ramon Dacawi

Those privileged to have known Michael Jackson  up close and personal remember a kind, gentle soul aching for a childhood denied by early celebrity status.  The whole world saw in him a fellow caring human who, at the height of stardom, wrote and composed (with Lionel Richie) “We Are The World” as theme for that fund-raiser for famine-stricken Africa . 

Following his death, media poured in details and anecdotes on the life of the entertainment and musical genius. These flashes reminded us of our own mortality, triggering  flashes of our own encounters in life, however remote and far-fetched these may be compared to those of the King of Pop. We, too, have our own music even if it pales compared to those of the celebrities assembled for “ USA for Africa ”.

Memory ricochets to our own far more quiet seasons in the sun with fellow lesser mortals who had since gone ahead, and to our moments with fellow ordinary people still with us. We discovered how their own, ordinary lives were and are as lyrical as those of luminous starts above us, those whose music expresses what we can only feel.

Like most up here in these mountains, I’m hooked on folk and country. My mind bounces to the lines of “The Fields of Athenry, a ballad set during the Great Irish Famine of 1945-50. It tells of a fictional Michael, a young man about to board a prison ship for Australia .

Down on her knees outside a prison wall, Michael’s wife laments: “Michael, they’re taking you away/ For you stole Trevelyan’s corn/ So the young might see the morn/ Now a prison ship lies waiting in the bay.” Michael replies: “Nothing matters, Mary, when you’re free/ Against the famine and the crown/ I rebelled, they cut me down/ Now you must raise our child with dignity.”

It’s one of Pete St. John’s notable contributions to the long list of musical jewels from the Emerald Isle, topped by the famous dirge “Londonderry Air” we know as “Danny Boy”.  Ireland’s national soccer team saw fit to adopt “The Fields…” for its anthem. The piece, after all, relates to the patriotism and rebellion of Irish resistance figures the likes of Michael Collins against England ’s centuries of dominion over Ireland.

Pete St. John wrote his  other hit – “The Rare Old Times” – after this Irish rover returned home to Dublin . In it, he mourns “as the grey unyielding concrete makes a city of my town”. We, the soon-to-be feeble (to borrow from Maggie, another Irish folk), can swear he could have written that lament for Baguio , a city reeling from commercial progress and urban sprawl.

Time was when  our own breed of folk and country artists the likes of Bubut Olarte, March Fianza and Alfred Dizon would have been keen to adopt “Rare Old Times “ as  anthem for the feeble effort to save what remains of our urban environment.  Particularly, I’m referring to that tiny patch of balled pine beside the Baguio Convention Center that the Government Service Insurance System, which acquired the lot by presidential fiat, was then determined to turn over to the giant mall SM. SM had planned to cut down the trees and turn the area into a four=building,13-storey condotel complex ironically dubbed “Baguio Air Residences”.

To our relief, GSIS  eventually had a change of heart and spared that patch of green, later selling it to the city government. For that, we can dedicate to GSIS  Billy Dean’s “If There Hadn’t Been You” in gratitude.

The late Philippine Star columnist Art Borjal fell for the song the moment he heard it. His copy was a gift, from Nino Joshua Molintas, then an 11-year old Baguio boy whose deliverance from a congenital heart defect he had arranged. 

Borjal printed in full the lyrics, ass his  own way of thanking those who contributed to the boy’s healing, among them pedia-cardiologist Emerenciana Collado and U.S.-based surgeon Serafin de Leon.

“A man filled with doubt, down and out and so alone,” the lines begin. “A ship tossed and turned, lost and yearning for a home/ A survivor barely surviving, not really sure of his next move/ All of this I would have been if there hadn’t been you."

Wanting to pass on the lyrics and melody to the boy’s Samaritans, Borjal dropped by  a music shop and ordered all the copies to send. A salesgirl, thinking he heard it right, pulled out from the shelves an album and handed it to Borjal. It was “Thriller”, containing “Blllie Jean”, one of Jackson ’s platinum singles.

Nino, so christened for his uncanny resemblance to the Infant Jesus, was the youngest of four boys of the late Michael (Miguel) Molintas, a pony boy at Wright Park ,  and Maria Paz “Datsu” Infante, a Spanish mestiza and scion of a sugar hacienda clan of Bacolod .

Nino is now 27. He kept a promise with his mother and three brothers when they buried  their father, pony boy Mike Molintas, after he succumbed to heart disease: Walang iwanan.

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Now that we're at it, here's a redo of “Mountains of Mourne”, an Irish ballad written by the 19th century musician Percy French, revived by Don Mclean as centerpiece of one of his records. I wish folksinger and weekly paper editor Alfred “Pacyay” Dizon would belt it out one of these nights:

 “Oh, Alfred this road is a terrible sight/ With people all working by day and by night/Sure they don’t sow potatoes, nor cabbage, nor beet/ But there’s gangs of them annually digging  our streets.

 “At least when I asked them that’s what I was told/ So I just took a look at this repairing of roads/ But for all that I find there, I might as well be/ Where the dug-up gravel don’t sweep down to the sea.

 “I believe that when writing a wish you expressed/ As to know how the contractor would have it pressed/ Well, if you’ll believe me, when asked to a “bull” (session, that is)/ They don’t put enough blacktops to press at all.

 “Oh I’ve seen them meself and you could not in truth/Say they were bound to their timetables and all/Do write a column or editorial piece, Alfred dear/ About their diggings being swept down to the sea.” (e-mail: mondaxbench@yahoo.com for comments).