Brazilian Man Sings The Beatles’ “Yesterday” as Doctors Perform Brain Surgery on Him

It’s a bit­ter­sweet scene. Actu­al­ly, more bit­ter than sweet. The video above doc­u­ments a recent oper­a­tion where doc­tors removed a brain tumor from Antho­ny Kulkamp, a 33 year old Brazil­ian banker, all while he sang and played The Bea­t­les’ “Yes­ter­day” on the gui­tar. Clear­ly the song was­n’t an arbi­trary pick, not with lyrics like:

Yes­ter­day, all my trou­bles seemed so far away
Now it looks as though they’re here to stay
oh, I believe in yes­ter­day

Sud­den­ly, I’m not half the man I used to be
There’s a shad­ow hang­ing over me
Oh, yes­ter­day came sud­den­ly.

There was a point to singing “Yes­ter­day” and oth­er songs. Sur­geons were able to mon­i­tor Kulkam­p’s cere­bral activ­i­ty and ensure that his sen­so­ry, motor, and speech areas remained unharmed dur­ing the oper­a­tion. Dr Jean Abreu Macha­do, a clin­i­cal direc­tor at the hos­pi­tal in Brazil, told The Tele­graph: “By keep­ing the patient awake dur­ing surgery, these areas [of the brain] can be mon­i­tored in real time. A kind of map­ping of impor­tant areas can be done.”

Mr. Kulkamp was dis­charged from the hos­pi­tal last Wednes­day, and we hope to see him play­ing some­thing opti­mistic before too long. Maybe a lit­tle “Here Comes the Sun” …

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Sci­ence of Singing: New, High-Speed MRI Machine Images Man Singing ‘If I Only Had a Brain’

This is Your Brain on Jazz Impro­vi­sa­tion: The Neu­ro­science of Cre­ativ­i­ty

The 10-Minute, Nev­er-Released, Exper­i­men­tal Demo of The Bea­t­les’ “Rev­o­lu­tion” (1968)