The Long and Winding Road is the epic and fortuitous title of the Beatles' final work. Written in 1970, this poignant ballad was released exactly one month before their break up. It became their 20th and final number-one hit.
Until now.
In forty-eight hours, the Beatles will bring closure to some unfinished business by releasing their first new song in over thirty years. Using an old cassette tape (see graphic above if you are Gen Z) and new technology, they were able to recreate John Lennon's voice and record Now and Then, his final creative work.
Written shortly before his death in 1979, Now and Then was one of four unfinished original works that Lennon left behind. The remaining band members (McCartney, Starr, and Harrison), aka the "Threatles," recorded and released three of the works as a part of their 1995 Anthology project - leaving Now and Then un-recorded and unheard for another thirty years. Dubbed "the last Beatles song," no one other than Paul and Ringo knows what to expect.
An inexplicable attack and an insidious disease mean that John Lennon and George Harrison will never hear the results of this final project. But on Friday, the Beatle's nearly seventy-year Long and Winding Road will be complete.
The Long and Winding Road is the perfect soundtrack to a music educator's career. For most of us, what likely started with delight in a small elementary music room evolved into a beloved activity, friend group, college major, and life-long professional career.
Your pathway is uniquely yours as, throughout your career, you have impacted many students, performed many works, and assumed many roles, in different places and schools. But the journey is a shared one, with students, colleagues, and spouses joining along. The journey was yours to choose, but make no mistake, you were never traveling alone.
The road was never straight, the path never clear, and it was rarely easy. You stayed true and never waivered. And to be clear, when the time comes, your journey will end, but the Long and Winding Road continues.
Retirement, life choices, and other events will eventually take us all from our classrooms but the release of Now and Then reminds us that after we lay our batons down, others will pick it up and finish the job.
Friends and colleagues, young and old, will carry the torch and complete our unfinished business. They will do it for us, just as you did for someone who came before you. As I write this, someone else is standing on the podium at Tempe High School where I stood for more than a decade, continuing the work I started with students I've never met - just as I did for Dr. Stephen Peterson, and he did for Bernard Curry. The list goes on and on.
While I no longer stand on that podium, teach in that room, or roam the halls of that campus, I am still profoundly impacted by my time there. I would not be where I am today had I not walked the path I did yesterday. I would like to think that my former students would say the same thing. While they no longer march their drill or play their horns, their journey as a part of that program still impacts them in profound ways.
Perhaps the Beatles said it best in their final work.
The long and winding road
That leads to your door
Will never disappear
I've seen that road before
It always leads me here
Read the verse above again but do so visualizing those words coming from a student, and the door leading to your classroom.
Profoundly different, isn't it?
Listen, the work of changing kids' lives with music never ends, but our time on this professional pathway is finite. Although I am no longer in a classroom, I will always be a music educator. I just took (a couple of) different turns than you might have, but again, same journey, different pathway.
As I wander down this professional pathway, In My Life, I need to look back on the Long and Winding Road every Now and Then.
Have a great November everyone. Looking forward to Friday.
- Scott
p.s. Tomorrow, I will be sending you a "bonus" article. It's content I wrote for my Patron group a couple of weeks ago - the response was significant enough that I wanted to share it with the rest of you. Look for it tomorrow.