Harry V.

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Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford Commencement Address http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc (copy&paste) is a reminder to all of us, never give up on your Self. When, at the age of 16, I asked my father, who was a highly skilled classical musician, permission to visit the School of Arts in Amsterdam (1961) to become a pop-musician he raised an eyebrow and after short delibaration, refused to let me go. I went to a trainingcollege for teachers, (my parents both being teachers I didn’t know what else to do), learned a lot there, but kept making my music and developing my writing skills. I dropped out of trainingcollege at the age of 18, went for a sabatical year to Antwerp, learned a lot there too, working the streets and taking little jobs like sweeping trains & bars to keep my head above water.

After a few months my father payed me a visit there, went with me to “The Muse”, The cafe for musicians and musiclovers in those days, and my dad said the next morning: “This is something I have always wanted to do. Stay here, I’ll tell Mom you’re doing o.k.!”

When I came back a year later I met Petra, my first wife. Sharon, our first beautiful daughter was born in 1971, to be succeeded in a matter of 2 years by Melina and Zaira. I had taken an office job at the Ministry of Roads & Bridges, making a good living out of it, and we were happy. I kept making music and writing through it all.

Then, in 1981, the Ministry decided for a reorganisation that swept everybody, all my colleagues and myself, off their feet: like pawns on a chessboard we were moved to other positions where we might “function better”. This resulted into a major depression for many of my wonderful colleagues and myself.

I decided to fight back. My chief of staff said: “There’s no chance in hell you’ll be taken seriously, we can’t back you up, the Union won’t back you up, you’ll be all alone out there, a babe in the woods!”

Now my writingskills kicked in, I went home on sickleave, and three days later I had finished my manifest, a protest directly addressing the Minister, about my entire career from day 1 till the reorganisation. I argued that untill now everybody had functioned to a T, we were a great team, helping others where we saw fit on our own accord, we delivered clockwork quality! After the reorg. everybody was told to keep their noses to the grindstone, show no initiative to help others, only to enhance our own interest. I analized the situation and gave several solutions, it was a little book that read like a filmscript!

I sent my copy to the ministry and handed my chief of staff another copy. It kicked in like a bomb. Unexpectedly 2 higher officials and my chief decided to back me up, thus risking their own careers as well. God bless tehm! To make a long story short: it was a success, my colleagues got their old jobs back, but they “let me go” with a golden handshake...

So there I was, back to square one, living on an alowance based on my old salary, but substantially less, with my girls getting ready for college.
I was angry and depressed, my family and music were the only solace; I made the best of it by giving guitarlessons for a number of years, building all by myself a little school that, after 2 years of trial & error, was visited by 30 to 40 students weekly!

Then, at the end of the 80’s, 2 weeks before he died, my dad payed me a visit. We talked a long time, about how I had grown up to see my Mom fall ill with Alzenheimer when I was 8, how I was the last son to stay after my brothers went to University, and later abroad to build their lives, how I had never complained about the load of this cargo,
and how mistaken he had been to turn down my wish to go to the school of arts. It was only then he revealed he was not just a teacher, only then he told me he was an outstanding pianist but during the pre war crisis had decided to maintain his family through teaching. I was totally surprised, but then I remembered, vaguely, one Xmassevening long ago, I might have been 6 or 7, he sat down behind the old piano and touched the keys...Rachmaninov floated into the room, I said: "That's beautiful -", then he stopped - I never heard him play again..

He concluded: “I should have given you permission to go to Amsterdam, you never let go of your music (I had commenced writing “We Got Angels”) no matter what you had to do! I can only say this: don’t ever let go of your music, no matter what, and don’t ever, like me, get caught in a job you do not enjoy!”

Like I told you, 2 weeks later he died, peacefully, in his sleep, after taking his daily afternoon stroll along the Lake in Veere, God must have loved him a lot.

2 dots connected, there is much more, because in spite of my neverchanging wish to be a musician life took me along many byways, where, again, I learned a lot, of which I’ll tell you later.

Maastricht,
friday september 4 2009

That took a long time, young as they were the Sons Of The Rain completed their studies and swarmed out to different parts of the Netherlands, finding jobs and founding families. I was left alone with a partly finished concept, and in 1990 had my first severe attack of what is generally called Chronic Fatigue Syndrom. A giant hand swept me down, that’s how it felt, one day I was still more or less okay, the next day I could not even walk accross my room, every single bone and fibre of my body aching. Recovery was painstakingly slow, for three months I scampered about in my little apartment, and I couldn’t play a decent note, let alone sing.
Finally I managed to make some recordings on a minidisc, first playing, than singing, things I had always done simultaneously, and this was a learning process. I became aware of what I was really playing; having trusted the little engine that had never let me down before I had untill then performed by instinct, now I had to play note for note, becoming aware of all weaknesses and flaws , an interesting experience.
It took to 1992 to finish We Got Angels and I sent the CD to Radio Limburg. In april of that year Fons Geraedts came to my place with a portable Uher tapedeck, and we talked for hours, after editing there were 60 minutes of interview about the hows and why’s of the songs and about one month later they broadcasted the entire interview and after that, the entire CD, uninterupted – it was a little succes, my telephone didn’t stop ringing for a week, many little gigs followed, and suddenly everybody in Gronsveld where I lived, knew who I was. Still I didn’t fully realize what had happened; only years later it became clear to me that, rather than being a musician, I had discovered the writer in me.
Life happened, in 1998 I met Anet, my second wife, and she kept me busy writing lovesongs until she departed in 2004.
Anet was very ill (diabetes) when I met her, my friend Geoffrey Powell introduced me to her, and very soon we got together, we both felt we were meant for each other. Her doctor told me she was really in dire straits, not having much more than a year left in her. Love proved him wrong, one year became two, and finally six, one of the happiest times of our lives. We placed an invisible fence around us, with a door that would only open to trusted friends and my children.
From behind that fence came some of the best stuff I would ever write – it appaers that my decision to leave showbizz alone and totally dedicate myself to living with Anet made me more careless of what people might think of my music; not having to mind what the audience might need simplified my music, without fear of using cliche’s the lyrics came out in a natural flow – and she loved every bit of it. You’ll begin to see where I want to take you: not minding the starmaker machine the music and the writing improved, I was more productive then ever.




This resulted in 2 CD’s, “Indian Summer” and “On Air”, both still to be published, because the recordings were really crude and meant for personal use only. Various other projects became finished, “De Vlam in het Hout”, 3 instrumentals connected with sounds of nature (one augustevening in ’85 I had made recordings in the woods nearby, and some songs) and paintings, among which a series of 14 about the Passion of the Christ – I had made sketches in the early 90’s before I met Anet and written 14 poems to go with them, together it became a charming booklet that I gave to the Sisters of Emaculate Conception to be used in their work at schools – but this is an entire story in itself, I’ll tell you some other time about a period of depression and healing that took place, this all happened while I was working on We Got Angels.

When Anet went to the other side, even though I was prepared for this, a period of total silence followed, no words appaered, her spirit still hovering around me I took long walks, only a year later ideas came trickling through; in march 2004 mrs. Ding Zilin appaered on German TV, her hair had turned snowwhite, but she proudly spoke of her son and the foundation of The Movement of the 4th of June. This rekindled the old flame, I dusted off the tape with the BBC doc “The Gate of Heavenly Peace”, I cut little samples from the soundtrack, using 27 to make loops and soundeffects, added a guitartrack, loaded 2 CD players, 2 minidiscs and 1 DVD player, and, microphone in hand, I mixed in one take “Heavenly Peace”.
Then words flooded in, all by themselves, resulting in songs in Dutch, for the first time I expressed my feelings in my native language. This became “Onder de Maan”, Gaston and Tobi helped me to make a beautiful little CD we are very proud of.
Even then I didn’t mind the outside world, I still wrote as if living behind that safe little fence I talked about, but slowly we became aware there was something new: 3 men in a studio, carelesly experimenting with sounds and recordingtechniques. Gaston discovered that he is not just a soundengineer, he’s a producer, somebody who brings people together, makes them work together, having ideas we would never have had ourselves, but every time we followed his advice the music improved. Take it from me: he IS a producer, one of the finest you can imagine, and a true friend. I called the finished product “Dreimaen”, dialect for three men. We had amongst ourselves decided that, even though music is our medium, what really ties us together is a friendship strong enough to weather some heavy storms – you see, another thing More Important Than Music.



A few months ago I was again approached by the Sons of The Rain, they are all back living in Maastricht and sometime soon we’ll get together to speak of the songs that started it all, they told me that throughout the years they never stopped listening to the music and they still want to play it. They too have a friendship More Important than Music – this is what keeps us together, and I guess it’s why we still want to play, regardless of what any one thinks.What goes around comes around, today I watched the news and heard that Hu Jia has received the Sacharov Prize for Human Rights, having asked the International Community to investigate what really happened in 1989 he has been convicted of dissident activities against the Republic, serving a three year sentence in jail.
This breaks my heart, but if Hu has the strength and courage to run this risk, we cannot fail him and all these beautiful people who touched me so long ago and made me what I am; a man who refuses to forget. This is my drive: to let you and if possible the entire world, even all the way to China, know that we saw them; that, when hearing names I see faces, expressions varying from hope to despair, I even know what their voices sound like – even now I’m writing this I’m overwhelmed, they saved my life back then, now look what’s happening still, we cannot do nothing.

Some of you have heard some of my music, but did you pay attention to the words, musicians hardly ever listen to the lyrics, but I know they are powerful; two years ago they turned into graffity when Project Aware gave a party in the Westergasfabriek in Amsterdam, Charcoal en We Got Angels were projected on the walls, I have seen dozens of people spelling them out silently, taking their time – when these words work in silence, why are there so few people who hear them in song?
Nick McGrath, who wants to help me playing his beautiful bass, said to me the other week:”For the first time I find myself listening to lyrics, are you aware that, in various parts in the world, we may turn into personae non grata when we publish?” He wants to take that chance.
Bei Dao writes:“Words are the poison in a song” – look him up on Wikipedia and freeze at the power of his words, they cut so much deeper than anything I ever did, yet, even in my feeble writings, without knowing what I did, there seem to be echoe’s of what he writes, though I’ve never laid eyes on his poetry untill recently, when I was looking for a Photo to be used as a cover for Heavenly Peace.
Go to iTunes Store, look for We Got Angels, Harry Versluijs, you’ll find We Got Angels, Heavenly Peace and Misschien Vannacht, produced by Gaston.





This is why I write, because there are so many things so much More Important Than Music, my children, my wife, my friends and the people I love, all the way to China, who don’t know me but they kept me alive, that is why I want to sing. Stick with me now, I want to say “Thank you all” even if it turns us into personae non grata, some one has to say

THANK YOU
THANK YOU THANK YOU –

without you I would be somewhere else, some one else, I would probably not want to know - I might not even be alive today.
Only yesterday airways have opened up from Taiwan to China, for the first time in 60 years, today Hu Jia receives a dubious Award, Cui Jian is on My Space, Bei Dao lives in California, Chai ling went to Harvard if I’m not mistaken, today the man in front of the tank hasn’t been found yet, he disappaered into the crowd, and tomorrow some agent in China will start rummaging about in 20 year old files when I publish these words, for now only to be read by you, because you are friends of friends, More Important Than Music.
Me.
We-

Let’s take a deep breath now -

there are so Many Things More Important Than Music- even though it’s all we have. Yehudi Menuhin once said:”We may never achieve real peace, peace comes in bits and pieces, at best when we play we may have a few minutes of genuine Peace”.
Let’s do this!


Love you!

Harry V

Yes. You are, even though we never met. Music’s about Life, it’s about touching Life, The Touch of Life, it’s about finding out Who We Really Are!
That’s most important. That’s what I want to know – who are you really?
Who am I – without this - without you?
This is how it started:
1989 was a year to remember: the Berlin Wall came down, in China young people tried to move things around, for a better China and thus, for a better world.
In 1989 I also met the members of a local heavymetalband, Sons Of The Rain. Having heard me play on local radio they approached me and asked me to write material for them. We were worlds apart, but sometimes extremes do meet, we got together and played, improvising, so I could get the feel of their music. I was pleasently amazed at the wonderful mix of Jethro Tull, Metallica, U2 and other stuff they had turned into a genuine sound of their own; they played their own songs, the names are just an indication of wat it sounded like.
So I went home, excited but not really knowing what to write. We had conferred about this and agreed on the theme: Children & War. Just like the students in China they were young and idealistic. Then news began to seep through about Tienanmansquare, finally culminating in what we all remember: the 4th of June, the man in front of the tank...
It didn’t hit me at once, only by the end of ’89, when I saw the documentary “The Gate Of Heavenly Peace” made by BBC Hongkong, a flame was kindled that wouldn't die, no matter what happened. What I wanted to write had come to me, it found me. My VCR in standbymode I recorded it – and saw history being made –
I watched it again and again. My daughters being the same age as these wonderful students and workers, I was totally impressed – it takes young people to turn things around, that much became clear to me.
Three things stuck by me after the countless times I watched this:
Cui Jian, performing on the square, singing his song “Nothing To My Name”. Subtitles helped to get the jist of his lyrics.
Chai Ling, she was 23 years old, in a long interview, concluding with the words:”Never forget what these children have done for you.”
Mrs. Ding Zilin, author and professor of Beijing University, speaking of the loss of her son Tien.
I couldn’t resist Cui’s music, based on his lyrics I wrote “Charcoal In The Snow”, and 11 songs followed, forming the concept titled “We Got Angels.”
Mrs. Ding Zilin’s story left a lasting impression, understanding that repercussions would certainly follow we decided to keep a lid on publishing for the time being, until we might receive notice that the most prominent students and their professors would be out of the woods ....

Next sequel to Heavenly Peace, blog 2, will appear in a matter of days.