{"id":393,"date":"2022-06-18T14:33:16","date_gmt":"2022-06-18T18:33:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpclassroom.cortland.edu\/medieval-england\/?p=393"},"modified":"2022-06-21T15:58:10","modified_gmt":"2022-06-21T19:58:10","slug":"here-come-ol-flat-top","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpclassroom.cortland.edu\/medieval-england\/here-come-ol-flat-top\/","title":{"rendered":"England is in my ears…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ever since I was ten years old, I\u2019ve had a longing to explore everything that England had to offer. This is in large part due to my ever-growing obsession with British musicians, starting with the Beatles and carrying on to Bowie, the Smiths, Harry Styles, all the way back to the Beatles again. I\u2019d be lying if I said that being closer to this scene wasn\u2019t a main motivation of mine when learning about the possibility of this study abroad trip. I of course got so much more out of it, but I\u2019d be doing a disservice to myself to not indulge you in all the stuff that sparked my passion for this country in the first place.<\/span><\/p>\n

Beginning in the city of Manchester, which I believe became incredibly underrated due to jet lag and only getting one full day there, we had a lovely little stop in the John Rylands Library. Prior to our visit, Dr. Insley had us think about what came to our minds when we thought about Manchester, and I\u2019m still upset about not bringing up the Smiths and earning those brownie points with him, but regardless I was able to get a taste of the Smiths and more at this library. The pop culture section was more than likely not where I was supposed to spend the entirety of this visit, but I just couldn\u2019t<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
Johnny Marr’s Guitar<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

help myself. The library was chock full of artifacts and articles regarding some of my favorite musical acts, memorabilia across the board, but the two coolest pieces in there came from Manchester\u2019s own. One being a scroll of sorts in which you can see the genius of the band New Order unraveling as your eyes glide down the piece of paper. And the other, which was my personal favorite, was being able to see Johnny Marr\u2019s guitar in the flesh, a guitar on which he wrote some of my favorite early Smiths’ songs (\u2018Accept Yourself\u2019 and \u2018Handsome Devil\u2019 are great cuts off of Hatful of Hollow.<\/i>)<\/span><\/p>\n

The surplus of record stores over there was immaculate, and I would recommend that any music fan indulge themselves at least once, although not any more than that. If you do, you leave the country with 20 records that you have to stuff in your carry on because you don\u2019t trust the airlines to take care of them in your suitcase and your left with insufferable back pain and a hold on your bank account because, much like dollars, pounds do not grow on trees (it was all worth it.) Not only was I able to see how much the people here cared about their music through the number of shops, but in the way the shops operated as well. Most record stores had to put out only the sleeves, and they give you the actual records after purchase as a result of preventing theft. One shop store owner said without doing it that way, they would have to have security guards patrolling every store. I also don\u2019t take my record store<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
Abbey Road Graffiti<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

trips for granted as this was one of the few times I was able to strike conversations with locals, and I received plenty of tips regarding whatever city I was in as well as plenty of music recommendations that I would\u2019ve never heard otherwise.<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps the most gargant<\/span>uan moment of it all for me was getting to cross Abbey Road, which if anyone in the future cares to visit, do not, I repeat, do not take the tube to the station called Abbey Road, it is 10 miles away from the actual road and you will be sad. But once we eventually got there, I mean to be in the presence of where some of my heroes stood and recorded some of the greatest music of all time was nothing short of surreal. Not only that but to see the people that were there from all over the world to bask in that glory as well, it was quite breathtaking, and I don\u2019t think words can aptly describe the amount of emotion that I felt in that very moment, heels and toes touching the surface that is immortalized on my own record shelf and millions of others.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Paul McCartney walking across Abbey Road (2022 Colorized)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

No matter where I went there was always something for me to engage in musically. Whether it be the woman\u2019s gorgeous rendition of \u2018Don\u2019t Think Twice, it\u2019s Alright\u2019 (American I know) outside of the York Minster or the man I saw going absolutely ham on the keys in the tube station. There was so much not only to see in England, but to hear, and the only thing I can say I regret is not hearing more of it.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

P.S. Happy birthday Sir Paul McCartney!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ever since I was ten years old, I\u2019ve had a longing to explore everything that England had to offer. This is in large part due to my ever-growing obsession with British musicians, starting with the Beatles and carrying on to Bowie, the Smiths, Harry Styles, all the way back to the Beatles again. I\u2019d be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":304,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-london","category-manchester","entry"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"samuel.zarrelli","author_link":"https:\/\/wpclassroom.cortland.edu\/medieval-england\/author\/samuel-zarrelli\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Ever since I was ten years old, I\u2019ve had a longing to explore everything that England had to offer. This is in large part due to my ever-growing obsession with British musicians, starting with the Beatles and carrying on to Bowie, the Smiths, Harry Styles, all the way back to the Beatles again. I\u2019d be…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpclassroom.cortland.edu\/medieval-england\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpclassroom.cortland.edu\/medieval-england\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpclassroom.cortland.edu\/medieval-england\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpclassroom.cortland.edu\/medieval-england\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/304"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpclassroom.cortland.edu\/medieval-england\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wpclassroom.cortland.edu\/medieval-england\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpclassroom.cortland.edu\/medieval-england\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpclassroom.cortland.edu\/medieval-england\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpclassroom.cortland.edu\/medieval-england\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}