Why I love Boyhood’s Black Album

A personal discussion of Ethan Hawke’s liner notes

I have watched a lot of films.

In my ‘less-social’ years there used to be weeks where I’d hole up in my apartment and watch 2-3 films a night. And my favorite films, I’d watch them over and over. I must have seen Lost in Translation about 5 times.

Wait, who am I kidding… I don’t have to guess. I’ve been keeping track of all the films I’ve watched since 2007. (That’s about the time my compulsive list-o-mania began. When I set up a LastFM account to register what music I listened to, made a WhatIWatch account for all my movies and, a little later, complimented this with a GoodReads account for books. Anyway, let’s not get sidetracked).

I can confirm that I’ve seen Lost in Translation 6 times, that I’ve seen Garden State 5 times, Let the Right One In 6 times, Drive 4 times, Wall-E 5 times and The Motorcycle Diaries 3 times. To name a few. I can also confess that I’ve watched a total of 1284 films since 2007. Or actually: I’ve seen 987 unique films, which means the other 297 were rewatch-sessions. Best year? In 2008 I saw 278 films. Worst year? In 2013 I only saw 89 films. In my defence: I have a girlfriend now.

OK, so we’ve confirmed that I’ve watched a lot of movies. The statistics also show that I can get kind of obsessed with certain films in specific. A lot of these films are etched into my brain. Parts of them at least.

I love the ending scene of Lost in Translation, where Bill Murray’s character hurries after Scarlett amidst the crowded streets of Tokyo. They share one last kiss, he whispers something tender in her ear and they’re off.

I used to love the Garden State scene where Zach Braff, Natalie Portman and Peter Sarsgaard are shouting into the ‘infinite abyss’, while Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘Loneliest Boy in New York’ takes over.

A lot of the scenes of the Motorcycle Diaries infested my brain and eventually inspired me to pack a bag and solo-travel the same route through Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina as Gael Garcia Bernal’s Che did.

I’m probably not unique in this, but films can completely take over my imagination and inspire me to do/think/desire new things (whether or not I actually pursue them varies a lot).

I’m completely aware of the ‘fake’ nature of films and I’m not delusional about it or anything. I’m not desperately waiting for my Hogwarts letter to arrive, a pack of Dwarves to knock on my door or a box-sized robot to become my best friend. The only exception might be that I’m actually pretty sure of the fact that — for a little while — I was desperately in love with Natalie Portman (like all awkward boys who’ve ever watched Garden State).

Anyhow… I love the power of cinema, I love to be swept away, but I also love to learn everything about the production, about the real people in front of and behind the camera and about all the literary, musical and other such sources that have inspired or influenced the film and its makers.

That’s why I might have fallen head over heels for a ‘new’ scene that I recently feasted my eyes and ears upon: the Black Album scene from Richard Linklater’s film Boyhood.

I’ll list my reasons below and describe each and everyone of them. Hang tight. Like a famous ogre once said: “I’m like an union. I have layers.”

• The scene itself and its place in the film
• The film as a whole
• Ethan hawke’s personal story
• The featured object
• The Beatles
• Childhood memories

The scene itself

The ‘boy’ (Mason) just turned 15. He and his younger sister are being picked up by their father (who divorced their mom 10 years earlier) accompanied by his new wife and their newborn son.

Their father has traded his iconic Pontiac GTO muscle car (which was prominently featured earlier on) for a boring familyman-appropriate minivan. This move symbolizes the father actually growing up and taking responsibility for his ‘new family’, which he wasn’t able to do back when he was 23 and got his first set of kids.

Mason is disappointed and grudgingly reminds his dad of a conversation he still recalls from when he was 5, in which his father hinted that the boy would get the GTO when he’d reach the age of 16. His father denies this and tries to downplay this alleged promise. In hopes of changing the mood and (material) subject, he asks his wife to hand him a gift he intended for his son. With one eye on the road and one eye on Mason, he introduces the present. His little monologue is a loose version of the intro of his liner notes:

Mason,

I wanted to give you something for your birthday that money couldn’t buy, something that only a father could give a son, like a family heirloom. This is the best I could do. Apologies in advance.

Mason opens the wrapper and reveals ‘The Black Album’. Mason Sr. continues:

The only work I’ve ever been a part of that I feel any sense of pride for involves something born in a spirit of collaboration — not my idea or his or her idea, but some unforeseeable magic that happens in creativity when energies collide.

This is the best of John, Paul, George, and Ringo’s solo work, post-BEATLES. Basically I’ve put the band back together for you. There’s this thing that happens when you listen to too much of the solo stuff separately — too much Lennon: suddenly there’s a little too much self-involvement in the room; too much Paul and it can become sentimental — let’s face it, borderline goofy; too much George: I mean, we all have our spiritual side but it’s only interesting for about six minutes, ya know? Ringo: He’s funny, irreverent, and cool, but he can’t sing — he had a bunch of hits in the ’70s (even more than Lennon) but you aren’t gonna go home and crank up a Ringo Starr album start to finish, you’re just not gonna do that. When you mix up their work, though, when you put them side by side and let them flow — they elevate each other, and you start to hear it: T H E B E A T L E S.
Just listen to the whole CD, OK?

I was just about floored by that point. Loved it.

In many ways it’s an important moment for them.

Mason Sr. has grown up, quit the loose life and finally has accepted his responsibilities of a family man. Not only to his new family, but also to his other kids, Mason and Samantha. Meanwhile, Mason Jr. is also moving on to a new stage and gets a wake-up call and a reminder of his father’s care and love.

The film as a whole

I still can’t get over the fact that this film was actually shot over the course of 12 years. How Linklater managed to pick a 6 year old boy and envision a film that will see him grow up, right up until his 18th birthday. It’s amazing to see this boy transform in front of you on the screen. The more I learn about how the film was made, the more depth it gets.

Gathering from what I’ve read, they were only shooting for about 1-2 weeks each year. There wasn’t a strict script or anything. Apparently, Linklater also made the rule for himself that he would never let the boy experience anything in the film, that he hadn’t already experienced in his own life.

They stayed in touch over the year and I can only try to imagine how their communication must have been. What would Linklater have been to the boy? Some kind of surrogate father? Or the crazy uncle he spends his summer holidays with? Or the old best friend you can tell all your secrets?

It’s all guessing of course, but it seems to me that it was an honest, workable and not-too-invasive production process. Most of the (child) actors, weren’t really involved in any other films during those 12 years (only Linklater himself modestly featured the boy in one of his other projects), so I’d like to imagine they lived a pretty normal life. I do hope that — because of the “not-filming-it-until-you-experienced-it rule — the boy didn’t feel any pressure of having to experience certain things in order to keep the film juicy enough, but he doesn’t seem to be that kind of boy. As far as I can tell of course. All interpretation.

Anyway, the film feels extremely intimate. You see this entire family (of actors) age and grow up and I’d very much like to imagine they were a tight bunch in real life as well. The boy must’ve had a real father, but I’d like to think he also has a close relationship with his film-father Ethan Hawke and his director-dad Richard Linklater. And those two guys… they must be best buddies. And obsessed with time-documenting films. They’ve worked together on this twelve-year-spanning film, but also did the Before Sunrise trilogy in which they shot three movies over the course of 18 (!) years (1995, 2004, 2013) in which Ethan Hawke — again — plays the same character that we check in with every 9 years to hear him philosophize and explain how his life, relationships and thoughts are going and flowing.

I’ve always loved those special director-actor relationships (Wes Anderson — Bill Murray, Steve McQueen — Michael Fassbender, David Cronenberg — Viggo Mortensen, Ridley Scott-Russel Crowe), but this one might win the crown.

So a scene like the one we’re talking about, in which a lot of history, emotion and relationships come together, feels even so much stronger when you realize the relationships of these people in real life and the way this movie has been made. The blurred lines between fact and fiction.

Ethan Hawke’s personal story

As I said earlier, a lot of the actors’ personal lives got mixed into the film. No object is more testament to that fact, than this very mixtape.

Ethan Hawke based his character on both himself and his own father. His father was a Texas insurance agent that only found real love in his second marriage, much like Mason Sr. in the film. Hawke himself is also divorced and shares custody over his (and Uma Thurman’s) kids. The songs Ethan plays on his guitar during the film, are songs he wrote for his own children. That’s pretty intense I would say.

Even more so is the fact that the mixtape his character gives to his son, including the liner notes and introductory words, were completely real and originally a gift Ethan gave to his daughter Maya. The liner notes that were published online were the adapted ones that mention Mason and Samantha, instead of this Maya, but you can’t help but think a lot of the lines must’ve come straight out of the original.

Maybe the lesson is: Love doesn’t last, but the music love creates just might.

Your mom and I couldn’t make love last, but you are the music, my man.

“And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love…”

I love you. Happy birthday.

Your Dad

The actual object with liner notes

I’m a big sucker for elaborate (musical) movie props. I love how many items in films can be the loved product of many hours of labour, carefully thought out and crafted, only to appear on screen for a split second.
The ‘Black Album’ is a great example of that. It started with Ethan Hawke, who compiled the mixtape and composed an original set of liner notes for his ‘real life’ daughter Maya. I don’t know how it came to be, but he ended donating it to the film. He kept the track list, the anecdotes and personal notes, but rewrote them to match his ‘film son’. And they actually made a (or maybe several) copy of the physical.

On the other hand, it also makes you wonder if this was such a classy move on Ethan Hawke’s account. By donating this personal piece to the film, he adds an extra dimension to its appearance in the film. At the same time, he cheapens the ‘real’ album and notes he once gave to his daughter. I can imagine that if I were her, I’d be pretty pissed of that my dad took this awesome personal gift that had been intended just for me, and gave it to the entire world. Of course actors need to give up a lot of their personal lives for their job, and end up putting a lot of their personal stories and experiences into their acting, but still…

That might be the one — not un-important — side note to this whole story.

Ethan’s liner notes continued:

I guess it was the fact that Lennon was shot and killed at 40 (one of Lennon’s last fully composed songs was “Life Begins at 40,” which he wrote for Ringo — I couldn’t bring myself to include it on the mix as the irony still does not make me laugh) and that I just turned 40 myself that conjured this BLACK ALBUM. I listen to this music and for some reason (maybe the ongoing, metamorphosing pain of my divorce from your mother) I am filled with sadness that John & Paul’s friendship turned so bitter. I know, I know, I know, it has nothing to do with me, but damn it, tell me again why love can’t last. Why do we give in to pettiness? Why did they? Why do we so often see gifts as threats? Differences as shortcomings? Why can we not see that our friction could be used to polish one another?

The Beatles

Another layer: The Beatles.
Any song, any book, any film, any THING that refers to the Beatles in such a way, is alright in my book.

The Beatles, though only together for several years, made — in my opinion — an amazing collection music that spans all the different sounds, styles, (lyrical) themes and emotions I have come to appreciate in music. The musical arrangements; ranging from simple chords and Ringo-beats to expanding orchestral arrangements and experimental ventures. The lyrics; sometimes simplistic or humorous, sometimes politic, always honest and heartfelt.

Ethan Hawke writes:

I read a little anecdote about when John’s mother died:
He was an angry teenager — a switchblade in his pocket, a cigarette in his lips, sex on his mind. At a memorial service for his “unstable” and suddenly dead mom (whom he’d just recently been getting close to), he — pissed off and drunk — punched a bandmate in the face and stormed out of the memorial reception. Paul, several years his junior — a young boy, really, who didn’t yet care about girls, who was clearly UNCOOL, and who was let into the band despite his lack of badass-ness and sexual prowess due to the fact that even at 14 he could play the shit out of the guitar — chased John out onto the street saying, “John, why are you being such a jerk?”
John said, “My mum’s fuckin’ dead!”
Paul said, “You never even once asked me about my mum.”
“What about her?”
“…My mum’s dead too.”
They hugged in the middle of the suburban street. John apparently said, “Can we please start a fucking rock ‘n’ roll band?”
This story answered a question that had lingered in my brain my whole music-listening life: If The Beatles were only together 10 years and the members of the band were so young that entire time, how did they manage to write “Help,” “Fool on the Hill,” “Eleanor Rigby,” “Yesterday,” “A Day in the Life”? They were just 25-year-old boys with a gaggle of babes outside their hotel room door and as much champagne as a young lad could stand. How did they set their minds to such substantive artistic goals?
They did it because they were in pain. They knew that love does not last. They knew it as extremely young men.

And here’s where the personal character development of Ethan Hawke’s character kicks in and the added significance of the album unfolds. Because this is not a compilation album of Beatles tunes, it’s a compilation of EX-Beatles songs. Ethan’s Mason Sr. has lived and loved and struggled with romantic love as the ‘young man’ he’d been up to that point. But since this scene symbolizes growing up — the new wife, the new baby, the minivan, the ‘growing a pair and taking responsibility as family man’ — it makes sense that the album revolves around the ‘new Beatles’.

In his words:

With the BLACK ALBUM, we get to hear the boys write on adult life: marriage, fatherhood, sobriety, spiritual yearning, the emptiness of material success — “Starting Over,” “Maybe I’m Amazed,” “Beautiful Boy,” “The No No Song,” “God” — and still they are keenly aware of this fact: Love does not last.
I don’t want it to be true. I want Lennon/McCartney to write beautifully together forever, but is that really the point? I mean if the point of a rose was to last forever, it would be made of stone, right? So how do we handle this idea with grace and maturity? If you’re a romantic like me, it’s hard not to long for some indication of healing between the two of them. All signs point that way.

So it’s not only an amazing gift for his son, but a benchmark of his own growth.

Own childhood

Of course, one of the reasons why I loved this scene so much, is the fact that I can relate to it on a personal level. That always helps.

My parents were divorced before I was born. Growing up me and my brother and sister would spend every other weekend with my father and his wife. During the drive up to Haarlem, we’d talk and sing songs, but we’d mostly be listening to my father’s homemade cassettes. He had a typical ’90s-dad’-like taste in music, with some odd variations in the bunch. We’d be listening to Sting, Lou Reed, Tears for Fears, Crowded House, Alanis Morissette, Tom Waits, Pink Floyd and of course… a lot of Beatles and McCartney/Wings solo-stuff. To my father The Beatles were the most important embodiment of music and he made damn well sure we were spending plenty of time With The Beatles. And I’m extremely grateful for that.

As a die-hard Beatles fan, my father cherished a special sort of disdain for the Rolling Stones. He never ever put on Stones records and only in my late teen-years did I work through their catalogue, actually kind of liking it, but I do agree it’s a different league from The Beatles. That’s why I couldn’t suppress a smile when I read this little part of the liner notes:

The irony/punch line of this story is another story I once heard: When the “Hey Jude”/”Revolution” single was hot off the press, the boys had the mischievous idea of bringing their own new single to a Rolling Stones record-release listening party. Mick Jagger says that once the Fab Four arrived and let word of their new single slip — just as Side 1 of the Stones’ big new album was finishing — everyone clamored to hear it. Once The Beatles were on, they just kept flipping the single over and over. Side 2 of BEGGARS BANQUET never even found the needle.

Anyway… a lot of parts in the film and quite a lot of elements in the relationships between the divorced parents and the kids felt very true to me and recognizable in many ways.

No hope for love?

Someone pointed out the fact that this lengthy piece mostly breathes a lot of heartbreak and nostalgia, and doesn’t offer a lot of hope. The bottomline for both Ethan and his character Mason was about not being perfect and about growing apart, but was still aimed at highlighting the magic that can happen post-breakup.

So here’s another little Beatles-anecdote

Once when John was asked whether he would ever play with Paul again, he answered: “It would always be about, ‘Play what?’ It’s about the music. We play well together — if he had an idea and needed me, I’d be interested.”

I love that.

The ties that bind remain. Despite the hearbreak, splitups and alleged rivalry, they remained bound.

And I would like to believe that their love never waned. Hearing Paul McCartney performing the song Here Today live back in 2010 & 2012, I swear I could still hear it in his voice. The words ring true and the feelings are real.

Here Today

And if I say I really knew you well
What would your answer be?
If you were here today
Ooh ooh ooh, here today

Well, knowing you
Youd probably laugh and say
That we were worlds apart
If you were here today
Ooh ooh ooh, here today

But as for me, I still
Remember how it was before
And I am holding back the tears no more
Ooh ooh ooh, I love you, ooh

What about the time we met?
Well, I suppose that you could say
That we were playing hard to get
Didn’t understand a thing
But we could always sing

What about the night we cried?
Because there wasn’t any reason
Left to keep it all inside
Never understood a word
But you were always there with a smile

And if I say I really loved you
And was glad you came along
When you were here today
Ooh ooh ooh, for you were in my song
Ooh ooh ooh, here today

And without much further ado, here’s the full track list. I’ve made a Grooveshark playlist that contains nearly all the songs: http://grooveshark.com/#!/playlist/Beatles+The+Black+Album/99600123.

Also: check out the entire set of liner notes Ethan Hawke wrote here: http://www.buzzfeed.com/ethanhawke/boyhood-the-black-album

The Black Album

Disc 1:
1. Paul McCartney & Wings, “Band on the Run”
2. George Harrison, “My Sweet Lord”
3. John Lennon feat. The Flux Fiddlers & the Plastic Ono Band, “Jealous Guy”
4. Ringo Starr, “Photograph”
5. John Lennon, “How?”
6. Paul McCartney, “Every Night”
7. George Harrison, “Blow Away”
8. Paul McCartney, “Maybe I’m Amazed”
9. John Lennon, “Woman”
10.Paul McCartney & Wings, “Jet”
11. John Lennon, “Stand by Me”
12. Ringo Starr, “No No Song”
13. Paul McCartney, “Junk”
14. John Lennon, “Love”
15. Paul McCartney & Linda McCartney, “The Back Seat of My Car”
16. John Lennon, “Watching the Wheels”
17. John Lennon, “Mind Games”
18. Paul McCartney & Wings, “Bluebird”
19. John Lennon, “Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)”
20. George Harrison, “What Is Life”

Disc 2:
1. John Lennon, “God”
2. Wings, “Listen to What the Man Said”
3. John Lennon, “Crippled Inside”
4. Ringo Starr, “You’re Sixteen You’re Beautiful (And You’re Mine)”
5. Paul McCartney & Wings, “Let Me Roll It”
6. John Lennon & The Plastic Ono Band, “Power to the People”
7. Paul McCartney, “Another Day”
8. George Harrison, “If Not For You (2001 Digital Remaster)”
9. John Lennon, “(Just Like) Starting Over”
10. Wings, “Let ‘Em In”
11. John Lennon, “Mother”
12. Paul McCartney & Wings, “Helen Wheels”
13. John Lennon, “I Found Out”
14. Paul McCartney & Linda McCartney, “Uncle Albert / Admiral Halsey”
15. John Lennon, Yoko Ono & The Plastic Ono Band, “Instant Karma! (We All Shine On)”
15. George Harrison, “Not Guilty (2004 Digital Remaster)”
16. Paul McCartney & Linda McCartney, “Heart of the Country”
17. John Lennon, “Oh Yoko!”
18. Wings, “Mull of Kintyre”
19. Ringo Starr, “It Don’t Come Easy”

Disc 3:
1. John Lennon, “Grow Old With Me (2010 Remaster)”
2. Wings, “Silly Love Songs”
3. The Beatles, “Real Love”
4. Paul McCartney & Wings, “My Love”
5. John Lennon, “Oh My Love”
6. George Harrison, “Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)”
7. Paul McCartney, “Pipes of Peace”
8. John Lennon, “Imagine”
9. Paul McCartney, “Here Today”
10. George Harrison, “All Things Must Pass”
11. Paul McCartney, “And I Love Her (Live on MTV Unplugged)”