Rafael Álvarez Cordero- My UNAM, the Beatles and memories

• We cannot help but regret that today entire fortunes are spent promoting inane songs.

My dear old man, there are times when it is a true pleasure to be old, and last Monday was one of them, unforgettable.

Our Faculty of Medicine organized a concert to celebrate Doctor's Day and we went there Alicia and I went to the Sala Nezahualcóyotl, which was packed with the expectation of hearing something unusual: a concert with music by the Beatles.

Yes, from the hand of the incredible director, Don Jesus Medina, and the choir coordinator, Óscar Herrera, we began to hear something that transported us to the 60s. Imagine, dear old man, that I suddenly saw myself, along with my mother, in 1962 in Trafalgar Square, hearing that unforgettable music in the middle of hippies and miniskirts; imagine Aliciawho seemed to relive his teenage years singing and dancing to the Beatles.

And so it was, dear old man, for more than two hours. Listen to the musicians, masterfully directed by Jesus Medinawhose contortions highlighted the chords of the Liverpool quintet, while in the background, more than a hundred singers sang choruses with the unforgettable lyrics of Yesterday, She loves you, Michelle, Hey Jude, Eleanor Rigby, Norwegian Wood, Yellow Submarineand When I'm 64.

Fortunately, there were many old people in the room, who enjoyed the same, sang the same, and delighted in every minute with the joy that the director, all the musicians and the singers communicated; It was a wonderful trip to the past that we lived through, an unforgettable time that you most likely also experienced, because we had to live through a wonderful transformation of popular music, and you remember our Mexican singers and the little actresses in miniskirts, and the go gó dances, and so many experiences in that time of training, before becoming “serious people”.

And when reflecting on the music, the wonderful chords of that unforgettable quintet, to think about the messages of all kinds that they left us in each song: joy, rejoicing, love of life, reflection on the world, hope and faith in the future, and understand the meaning of that musical revolution that changed the entire world, we cannot help but regret that, for the sake of commercialization and banality, today entire fortunes are spent promoting inane songs, corridos tumbados, lyrics of twerking and so many more nonsense, and we perceived that in a part of the attendees, especially young people, who did not listen to the music, who did not understand the message, and who, following the sad current custom, dedicated themselves to recording the concert with their cell phones!; They did not come to hear or enjoy unforgettable music, they came to record to save sounds and images that they neither understand nor mean anything to them!

We must thank our UNAM Faculty of Medicine for the magnificent idea of ​​celebrating another October 23 in this way; It is in some way a tribute to excellent music and the good taste of doctors, as well as a reminder that good music never dies.

Doctors and all health personnel, nurses, orderlies, laboratory technicians, radiologists, researchers, etc., deserve all the recognition, especially in current times, when health services and those who work throughout the country have suffered like never before. had been seen.

And long live my Faculty of Medicine, thanks to which I am what I am.

*Doctor and writer