My wife Jeanette, my son Jan Isaías and myself deeply appreciate Moisés Szarf`s sweet and kind gesture to dedicate The Ethereal Connection to the memory of our beloved son and brother Juan Isaac Raydán Bastidas, who is now connected to an unknown world for us, and surely from that dimension, as a musician and a Beatle lover and of other musical groups, he also appreciates this beautiful dedication.
Our family and Moisés’ have been connected for several decades. Jeannette and Rosita, Moisés’ mother, have shared many scenarios of their lives, their psychology professions and families until we all have turned into relatives beyond consanguinity ties. Also, our beloved Juan Isaac adopted the career of both mothers and he became a brilliant student of psychology. This summer he would have graduated at Universidad Católica “Andrés Bello” in Caracas, Venezuela, where Jeanette and Rosita graduated too.
In the year 1994, sharing one day at Moises’ house in Caracas, we started to compare in chronological order the cover records of U2 and The Beatles’ ones, and to our surprise, Moises started to see a coincidental chronological parallelism between the record covers art of both bands. This issue seems to me a very interesting, perceptive and creative discovery by Moises: to vision a kind of subtle connection of U2 with The Beatles. Obviously, this connection (if it’s true) reveals a profound admiration of U2 towards the Liverpoolian boys. What we found was very satisfactory for me.
I am 23 years older than Moises and this experience makes me remember my adolescence, which had communion with the music, the joy and philosophy of The Beatles. These heroes of my youth made my life joyous with their music, rebelliousness, flowers and messages: “Life is very short, and there’s no time for fussing and fighting, my friend”; “Say the word and you’ll be free, say the word and be like me, say the word I’m thinking of, have you heard the word love. It’s so fine, it’s sunshine, it’s the word love…”
I wish to share some sentences of a letter Juan Isaac wrote to me in 1996, on my birthday: “For me The Beatles have been 4 great men of the earth, each one with his joy and slightness, their humor, their jokes and the greatest composers, poets, dreams and eternal fantasies makers who have stayed included in our hearts for ever…”
Juan Isaac’s musical connection with The Beatles is so transcendental and mysterious, that during his funeral, his beloved brother Jan Isaias, also a musician, played the Beatles’ songs Juan Isaac loved so much, and surely will continue to love from eternity. Among the songs listened to that day were: “A Day in the Life” and “All you Need is Love”. This last song was played several times and it was sung by the family, his girlfriend and friends, like a hymn, an echo of ethereal and eternal connection, which accompanied his farewell.
It seems to me truly interesting that a new generation has found musical-cultural-artistic resonance with another older generation. The eternal-young spirit of The Beatle has echo in the young spirit of U2.
All this makes me remember the year 1967, when The Beatles released Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. I used to say to my adolescence friends that they were such good musicians they would be heard beyond the year 2000, that they would be close to the great classic composers like Beethoven, Mozart, Handel and many others. To say this in El Tigre, a little Venezuelan eastern town, was a juvenile intrepidity, because in those days rock music was heard by a small young elite of Venezuela big cities. And the year 2000 seemed so far away in space and time.
Moises’ vision makes me wonder: in what degree did U2 intervened in all of this? If it is a conscious tribute, an unconscious channeling, or anything in between. It also makes me contemplate the possibility of it all being a cosmic illusion of our part, in any case I say, ¡Well done Moises! I admire your tenacity and persistency. I am sure many of U2 fans will be glad for it and they will have a new conversational topic to share through this website. What matters is that the connection is made within you, and you had the guts, strength, and good will to share it with us, bringing us closer. As George Harrison said: “We were talking - about the space between us all - And the people - who hide themselves behind a wall of illusion - We were talking- about the love we all could share - when we find it”.
