The King Versus the Fab Four

Most of us here in the Philippines have one plan on November 1 every year. That is to remember and celebrate the lives of our loved ones who passed away.

We pray for them to be peaceful eternally.

However, some have other things in mind aside from visiting and offering peace for their departed loved ones.

There is another group of Filipinos that awaits November 1 for another thing, which is the battle that will settle it all, hopefully: Elvis versus The Beatles.

Promotion of the show grabbed from RJ Society of Music Facebook page

DZRJ 100.3 offers the entertainment of having fans give out reasons and the power of their votes for their chosen party. Some would go for Elvis, some would go for the Fab Four. 

Ramon 'RJ' Jacinto, the main man of the show and the radio network is a musician himself and a very musically-inclined musician. He has his own radio network, recording studio, and brand of guitar, and other musical instruments for him and his band to use, which he also shares to people via his music shop, RJ Guitar Center, all throughout the country.

Since I was a child, my family and I have been tuning into DZRJ every Sunday morning for his show wherein he plays requests that our parents, and probably, your parents also, love to hear. In that show, I saw that he was quite a Beatles fan too. He'd play Beatles hits often, although there's a chance that the requests were just to have Beatles' songs always.

It was always good listening to and watching his show, and up until now, we still do.

Going back to the battle of the greats, I could remember that Elvis won on the first time that I heard about it. However, the Beatles got it in the next year, and the next year, and the next year. If my memory played it rightly. 

There was even a running joke in the show about the reason why Elvis is being beaten in the tally of votes by The Beatles by the start of the program in the morning. RJ said that it was because Elvis fans were either still visiting in the cemetery, or already resting in the cemetery for good ( Do correct me if this memory was wrong again, thanks!) Anyway, that was a joke that I found funny since I was a very avid Beatles listener during my childhood. We were raised listening to the Beatles music. Our music knowledge sort of evolved with the Beatles as the beginning. In the show, RJ would alternately play their songs, hits after hits after hits. Just imagine the bliss it brought to us back then.

I could remember that Elvis fans would catch up by noon, however, by afternoon everything you could hear would just be Beatles' songs, which means they have already won the battle for that day.

Yesterday, November 1, 2018, I tuned in to their station in the radio and in the television and found out no battle anymore. Apparently, the battle has stopped for a couple of years now.

It's sad that as we grew, the show had also grown fond of the battle. It's maybe because the fans have grown older and older, or maybe the technology now is more reliable back then, all we need is one click to see Elvis and the Beatles play and hear their songs.

The memory will live on though. Just like the legacy of two of the greatest, if not the greatest, music acts of all time, Elvis and The Beatles.