Could you visit a city, only for a bar in it, and which is also, technically, fictional? Well, I just did!

The recreation of Rick’s Café in Casablanca, Morocco

It’s 12 o’clock on a Wednesday. Regular crowd’s shuffling out. There’s an old man sittin’ next to me. Maybe thinking of his whiskey and trout… 

You can sing the lines above to the tune of Billy Joel’s Piano Man (1971), if you like. Because I am talking about a piano man, named Issam Chabaa, who looks a bit like Billy (with a French-beard) himself.

The track he played twice this night, though — much to the expected excitement of everyone — is the soothing, jazz-influenced, ‘As time goes by’. This is at the Rick’s Café in Casablanca, Morocco. 

Earlier, I’d requested an encore from Issam. 

What did I yell from my seat by the balcony, with majestic columns, arches, overlooking his piano on the ground floor? “Play it again, Sam!”

That movie line is an example of the Mandela Effect. Everybody believes Ingrid Bergman said it in Michael Curtiz’s GOAT classic, Casablanca (1942). 

Upon hearing Dooley Wilson (Sam) play the nostalgic number, Ingrid (Ilsa) actually says, “Play it once, Sam, for old time’s sake; play it Sam, ‘As time goes by…’”

I quote from memory. That’s the recall value of Casablanca. 

The bar in a still from the 1942 film named after the Moroccan city

At Rick’s, I........

© Midday