The Beatles' Flying: A Pocketful of Insights by Tim Hatfield

"You deserve to have loving, supportive people in your life, friends." 

--Tim Hatfield

Phil Fitzpatrick at Dylan Fest
Art Show

I routinely start more blog posts than I publish. I mention this because when poet/Dylanologist Phil Fitzpatrick passed away last weekend I decided to assemble all my blog posts about him as a tribute. This is how I discovered Tim Hatfield's thoughtful reflections on the Beatles' song "Flying." It had been lying dormant, incomplete, on an idle page in my blog queue. Evidently it was in need of this special occasion to be brought to light.

I can't recall ever reading anything about the song "Flying" before, though I'm sure it must have been noted in one of the Beatles volumes I'd read. This past year Phil had shared with me what his Harvard buddy Tim Hatfield had written and I even went so far as to lay it out on this page. Phil also said I should interview Tim sometime since we are all Beatles fans. 

There's a great backstory behind the writing of this piece. In the midst of the pandemic, when things were most uncertain, Hatfield set about to write uplifting words of comfort and encouragement to his circle of friends to help them get through these difficult times. He'd committed himself to writing one email a day using Beatles songs as the seed for each daily missive.

It's only natural that a man who had made a career of counseling others and helping them get through hard times would in his retirement continue this habit of thinking of others. By the time he'd covered every Beatles song and added a few bonus tracks, he decided--perhaps was prodded--to package these thoughtful meditations into a book, aptly titled, The Beatles: All their songs with encouraging words for challenging times.

 

In the intro he tells how this little collection of reflections were initially sent to a circle of maybe 28 friends, but as the messages of love and hope continued the circle grew to near ten times that number. Now it's a Kindle eBook that you can read on any device by downloading the app.  

Sitting with Phil in the John Bushey Studio @ KUMD 

Reading these made me wonder if there will be a body of writing that gets tagged as Pandemic Literature. Part of the book's power is how it reflects the period it was written in. Hatfield wrote each missive as a means of lifting up the spirits of his friends.    

Having read the first thirty stories, here's the impression I get. The book strikes me as a series of daily love letters to Hatfield's readers. The words were written with tenderness and compassion. He's an able researcher who pulls together insights about the songs from several sources, not only for the benefit of Mr. Kite but for all of us. Simultaneously you can feel his love and admiration for the Beatles and their music. 

Even though the most trying times of the pandemic are behind us, the life lessons Hatfield conveys remain relevant.

Hatfield and our mutual friend Phil have been part of a circle of Harvard friends for near 60 years. Phil forwarded to me and (with permission) I'm sharing it here. Decades-long friendships are very special.

Tim Hatfield: Fitz, just as a reminder that you've been immortalized in the body of the Beatles book (as well as the "Acknowledgments" page), here you go. No tunneling today, sir. Keep pushin'. Love, Hats 

#182 “Flying” from Magical Mystery Tour

Full disclosure here – the hard work on this entry was done by my good friend, college buddy, and fellow Minnesotan and Beatles fan Phil Fitzpatrick. “Flying” is one of his favorite Beatles songs, and he not only wrote a very detailed and astute piece about it, but also sent it along to me with the understanding that I could use it in any way I wished. This is very luxurious, and a welcome breather from months of daily Beatles Uplifts. So, thanks very much to you, Fitz, and you’ll recognize your work here in abbreviated fashion, filtered through me.

Paul took the lead in composing “Flying” as incidental music for their made-for TV film “Magical Mystery Tour” in Britain. As an instrumental track, all four Beatles were credited as songwriters for “Flying,” which had the working title of “Aerial Tour Instrumental.” It is an intentionally simple twelve-bar piece, repeated three times as aerial shots of Icelandic landscape (originally outtakes from Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove) play on the screen in the film. Most notably, the dominant sound of the dreamy song is a mellotron, a kind of early synthesizer, which Lennon learned how to play from Mike Pinder of the Moody Blues. Lennon also played an organ, there were multiple tape tracks and sound effects (forward and backwards), and the only voice track was a series of chants by the group. 

The overall feeling from “Flying” is peaceful and relaxed, which I daresay we could use a little more of during these stressful, uncertain times of pandemic, social ferment, and binary politics. Be safe and be well, everyone. And for those of you who are fortunate enough ever to have ridden Soaring at Disney World, imagine yourself on that ride while you listen to this.

The above excerpt is from:

When We Find Ourselves in Times of Trouble: The Beatles

(All their songs with encouraging words for challenging times)

By Tim Hatfield

To purchase your copy, (strongly recommended to all Beatles fans) go to www.amazon.com, search “Tim Hatfield Beatles” 

or click THIS LINK

You can download a free app to read the ebook on your device.

Related Links
Hatfield, Tim. The Beatles: All their songs with encouraging words for challenging times. Kindle Edition. 

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Lara Fabans: More Insights from the Edge

This is part two of the interview we did last weekend. Lara Allen Fabans might look like just another mom in the park with her eight year old daughter, but then you notice the laptop and iPort and as you peek (you're not supposed to peak over peoples' shoulders, but sometimes we do) you see she's working on an Internet marketing campaign or analyzing demographic data or maybe merging online registrations with lead generation data or possibly helping a company register new URLs.

Ennyman: What is “data mining for retention”?

Lara Fabans: Some sites have registration. Your hope is that these people regularly visit your site. I worked with one client where we were able to track the rate of registered users, and how many clicks they did before leaving the site. We were going to get down into categories to find out what were the most popular, and test how to improve retention. Some people used to measure time rather then page clicks, but you know, the phone rings, someone pops into your office, and it artificially increases the time, so I'm glad they've moved past that.

Another metric is how long does someone stay on your email list, or how long do they continue to buy your product. Most items that are quickly consumable such as vitamins or diet products have a retention rate of about three months. So, knowing that, you need to ensure that you are bringing in enough new customers each month to keep your revenue steady.

Enny: I regularly get asked questions about viral marketing. Isn’t a viral type of campaign dependent in part upon the culture of the company? Can you point to any examples of really successful viral campaigns?

Lara Fabans: I think most Viral Marketers are trying to get the hype of viral marketing to go viral :-) The key is to have something noteworthy that people want to recommend.

And the best way to do that is have a Recommend This To a Friend form right on the web page, or even a squeeze page to capture them before they leave.

The most fun viral campaign that I remember was in the very early 90s, you called National Discount Brokers, and the IVR had "If you would like to hear a duck quack, press 7." You pressed 7, and a duck quacked, and then it said "thank you" and hung up. It was so silly that we sent it to everyone we knew. Sadly, in 2006, Ameritrade bought National Discount Brokers and removed the duck quack which goes to show that they have no sense of humor.

Most people point to the "End of the Internet" page which said you've reached the end of the internet and it was really a good squeeze page. You were supposed to put in your name and email address and that of a friend, and then you were supposed to go back to the beginning of the internet. There's a high curiosity factor which is vital in viral campaigns.

A viral campaign has to be interesting, be something real (no one will recommend it if they feel gypped), and make the person really curious about what's going to happen next. And I suspect even a "stodgy" company could do something interesting that has high curiosity as long as it has the proper tone that they're comfortable with, and it's directed to an appropriate group.

Enny: In my world, measurement is a critical component of success. How come people don’t make a greater effort to measure their marketing results?

Lara Fabans: I suspect people are taking shortcuts. They get overwhelmed with the data, and ignore it, or don't know how to properly test. I suspect they're trying to save money by not having someone on staff who could generate these statistics with recommendations. I also suspect people don't have marketing plans. The purpose of the plan isn't necessarily to follow it, but to think things through.

That being said, you don't want to get bogged down in process. That's why the analysis and testing are so important. You put a stake in the ground, analyze how well you did, make a few more tests, and then keep moving forward. You can be nimble and still have analytics being done.

Enny: Being so young you seem to have a lot of interesting experience under your belt. What has been your biggest achievement thus far? Of what are you most proud?

Lara Fabans: I'm on the downhill side of 40 which, I suppose, makes some thing I'm a baby & others think I'm ancient. I learned to love learning from my father, and think it keeps us young. He's retired but working on iPhone applications. Go Dad!

My crowning achievement is my daughter and my marriage. I'm proud of having some really long term friendships in my life, and even though four of them have moved far away, we maintain the bonds.

I've made huge mistakes along the way, but I view them as learning experiences and keep moving forward. I can choose to think about the positive or the negative, some would say. Pish, I think about them both pragmatically and analytically. Experiences are neither positive nor negative. It's our response to them that matters.

Enny: A lot of companies still seem to be clueless when it comes to internet marketing. What, in your opinion, are the first areas to focus when a business undertakes an internet marketing initiative?

Lara Fabans: They need to realize that it's a different type of marketing and requires its own plan. Direct marketing is a "push" whereas internet is a "pull." You need to find the best way to pull eyeballs to your presence. In addition, we've moved from the age of information to the age of recommendations (swiped that from a blog). It helps to put useful information out to build up your reputation, and then have people recommend you, your company, your products, your services, your information, etc.

And what companies really hate is that it takes time. If you start it now, it may take as much as a year to build up a strong reputation. And they don't want to wait. They want to do 500 cold calls which yield 50 leads which yield 3 sales and know that it takes a month. Unfortunately, if they don't start working on the online reputation, their competitors will be light years ahead of them when they wake up.

Those that fail to create an internet marketing strategy will be left behind with the horse and buggy. Like Borland, and Tandem. And all of the newspapers. (ok, maybe not the WSJ).

Enny: Thank you, Lara, for your contributions here and to all whom you have helped in the past and will advise in the future. If I had more time, I think I'd like to pick your brains for a book on eCommerce. I am totally confident you'd be a gold mine of insights that would be of value to any business serious about profiting from opportunities the net has placed at our mutual fingertips.

The very best to you, in all things.

Where's Waldo?

My son was born in 1986. The Waldo books emerged in 1987. When we got Micah that first Where's Waldo?, searching for that skinny guy in the red and white striped sweater enthralled the whole family. Whether he three or four or five I have no recollection, but I do know that dad enjoyed it as much as the boy.

Well, on Easter Sunday I was driving my mom home from her winter digs in Tampa, and guess what? I now know where Waldo is. It's a town in Florida between Gainesville and Jacksonville. Here's a snapshot I captured as we were passing through.

Today I am in Pennsylvania. Tomorrow I take a bus into NYC for the New York International Auto Show. It will be a whirl of a day, returning late, and then waking to go with my three brothers to Bridgewater NJ where we went to high school and did most of our growing up.

Also being celebrated is my brother Don's 50th birthday. Half a century! That's a big one.

I doubt there will be access to blog the next few days, but hey, you can always go back to June or July for some fresh material.

Wherever you are and whatever you are doing today, make the most of it. And I hope you feel a little better now that you know where Waldo is.

On the Road Again

Well, it's pre-dawn darkness here, early Monday morning. My bags are packed and I'm ready to go.... Heading to Las Vegas for a quick lube show at Mandalay Bay and what do ya know, I'm also doin' the Con Agg show at the Convention Center once I get in the flow.

If all goes according to plan, I may also be performing at Pounders tonight, an open mic stand up comedy club. It brings my family shame when I do this, but hey, you only go around once in life. They say I am not cut out for comedy, that I am too serious. Plus, bad timing. My brother concurs. "Ed, you're not funny." O.K., that's throwing down the gauntlet. That's waving a red flag in front of a bull. And maybe they are right, so I have changed my name. If you ever see it in lights, you will know it's me: Eddie Danger. And in all likelihood those who know me best are right, so I'm not quitting my day job.

Meantime, life goes on all around us. Smile and have a great day.

You, Too, Can Make A Difference

"At some point in your life, you probably had someone believe in you when you didn't believe in yourself. They scripted you. Did they make a difference in your life? What if you were a positive scripter, an affirmer of other people?" ~ Stephen Covey