The Beatles in Venice

Coincidence level: 5/10 Category: Is it destiny?

There was a post about name doubles: this one is about song doubles. And they revolve around two German women I met while traveling.

When I started my travels I met a German woman named Steffi in London. We had some witty banter that began with her saying “My take on you so far… you’re a little seductress. And by little I mean big.” I asked her if she was sure she wasn’t projecting, and she answered, “Touché, you’re witty and pretty, I like that.”

“I’m sure everyone has said everything possible to you about ‘love,’” I said back, and sent her the song Foreigner song I Want to Know What Love Is. She replied “Tuuuuuune,” and that it made her laugh.

Later that day as I was running along the Thames she sent me a Curtis Mayfield song: Move on Up.

After London I found myself in Porto, and then Lisbon, all the while still in contact with Steffi. I messaged her an audio clip from Lisbon, where I Want to Know What Love Is was playing in the hostel where I was staying.

From Lisbon I went to Lagos, where I heard Move on Up one morning in a cafe where I was having avocado toast. Told Steffi about it.

And finally, a couple days later, right in the middle of the most prominent square in Lagos, a live band played the Foreigner song, I Want to Know What Love Is.

Later I messaged Steffi the video, saying “I swear it’s following me around,” to which she replied, “You’re manifesting it because you keep looking for it, so it finds you. It’s called the observer effect. It’s a Heisenberg thing, modern physics Sweetheart.”

I didn’t think much of it at the time, and I certainly didn’t remember her saying that (this is me writing this now having looked through my Whatsapp archives).

Oddly enough, when I made it to Sevilla, I looked at a Spotify playlist that my ex from London had shared with me (we’d just broken up that summer), and it contained a newly added song as of that week from the band Skunk Anansie. The coincidence was that Steffi had dated the front woman from Skunk Anansie.

After Sevilla I went to San Sebastian, where I randomly started listening to the Beatles’ song Come Together. I even added it to my playlist – the one and only Beatles song to actually live on any of my playlists. I made a friend Veronika who would be important to the story later.

Long story short, I met up with Steffi in Tuscany, went to a cute little island town off the beaten path just south of Florence, called Porto Ercole. We had Aperol spritzes on a golf course, discovered breathtaking towns hidden in thick brush like Pitigliano, bathed in natural hot springs, enjoyed sunsets on the beach (I walked in the water even), and seafood dinners full of scampi and shrimp. We might’ve even eaten lobster. We feasted, drank too much, fought a bit. She was on something, driving manically at one point at 100km down a 50km road and pulling over just to change the music. Needless to say, we parted ways after a short-lived trip.

I had to admit I was a little heartbroken. I didn’t know where to go, but Veronika, the friend from San Sebastian, happened to be in Venice and invited me to meet her. Fun fact, Veronika coincidentally had the exact same birthday as my mother.

The night I got to Venice, on the way to my accommodation, right on the grassy lawn was a live band playing the Beatles’ song Come Together. I had to chuckle.

After Italy I met some friends in Munich for Oktoberfest. After which, I met a nice German girl named Andrea, who introduced me to the wonderful and vast Englischer Garten. As she led me to the park, we spoke about how she played piano growing up, and launched into a discourse about music that somehow landed on the Titanic theme song. No idea how.

A couple days later we met again for a tour of the Glyptothek, and afterward sat outdoors drinking white wine while I played her a couple songs on my baby guitar.

“I’m going to have that song stuck in my head now,” she said of my strums of Wicked Game by Chris Isaac.

I moved on to Berlin, where I heard Wicked Game playing in a dressing room (sent her the audio), and then to Prague, where a man played the Titanic theme song on the Charles Bridge on violin (sent her the video). She remarked that it was something out of a Disney movie, and there were even seagulls in the background of one of the most gorgeous bridges I’d ever seen.

. . .