with

the
i} beatles

- ‘Revorded by | aM (6
a
i Gr
eee
We .
PAlcler Carter roma
TWetisinh Slr

ae oft aa em tele z ,

E
 $35.00 US.

BATLES ANTHOLOGY
PFOR THE FIRST TIME,
‘:

esTORY OF THE BEATLES—

THE BEATLES.
This extraordinary project has been made possible because
Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr agreed to
tell their combined story especially for this book. Together
with Yoko Ono Lennon, they also made available the full
transcripts (including all the outtakes) of the television and
video series The Beatles Anthology. Through painstaking
compilation of sources worldwide, John Lennon's words are
equally represented in this remarkable volume. Furthermore,
The Beatles opened their personal and management archives
specifically for this project, allowing the unprecedented
release of photographs which they took along their ride to
fame, as well as fascinating documents and memorabilia from
davatamateliiteceelalemelsn(eaae

What a book The Beatles Anthology is! Each page is brimming

with personal stories and rare and vintage images. Snapshots
from their family collections take us back to the days when
John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and
Richard Starkey were just boys growing up in Liverpool.
They talk in turn about those early years and how they came
com (e)iain salem oy-tale Mdat-lanW coll leant) comaelanel enon aam-tceltratemaate
world as John, Paul, George and Ringo. Then, weaving back
and forth, they tell the astonishing story of life as The
Beatles: the first rough gigs, the phenomenon of their rise to
fame, the musical and social change of their heyday, all the
way through to their breakup. From the time Ringo tried to
take his drum kit home on the bus to their eagerly
anticipated meeting with Elvis, from the making of the Sgt.
Pepper album to their last photo session together at John’s
house, The Beatles Anthology is a once-in-a-lifetime collection
, of The Beatles’ own memories.

rP Interwoven with these are the recollections of such

Poe
Ssociates as road manager Neil Aspinall, producer George
nd spokesman Derek Taylor. And included in the
photographs are materials from both Apple and
ned their archives for this project. This,
y;, providing a wealth of previously
h word and image.

, The Beatles Anthology is,

hy. Like their music, which
| Ourlives, it's warm, frank, funny,
ere is The Beatles’ own story.
 BEATLES
Ameer
Oe tL OO UGLY

li

* THE BEATLES {4

a? |
| with

hs FRecorded ty THE BEATLES. Hascagg

Satie ApADON UB EANA H OUI
i a

AY THE CAVERN cvs

Mi thew Street, (off North john St)
BEATLES
Pewee
et OO" FG AY

CHRONICLE BOOKS
SAN FRANCISCO
 Copyright © Apple Corps Ltd. 2000
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form
without written permission from the publisher.

“Apple”, the Apple logo, “Beatles” and “The Beatles” (in both cases with and without
the stylised letter “T") are all trademarks of Apple Corps Ltd.
The Chronicle Books logo and “Chronicle Books” are trademarks of Chronicle Books LLC.

Portions of the text originally appeared in "The Playboy Interview: John Lennon and Yoko Ono’
Playboy Magazine (January 1981). Copyright © 1980 by Playboy. Reprinted by permission.
All rights reserved. Interview by David Sheff.

Printed in Hong Kong

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available.

ISBN 0-8118-2684-8

Distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books,

9050 Shaughnessy Street, Vancouver, BC V6P 6E5

ee eo Regis eg ON ee 2

Chronicle Books LLC

85 Second Street, San Francisco, CA 94105
www.chroniclebooks.com

First Edition published 2000.

Cover Painting: Klaus Voormann and Alfons Kiefer

Editorial Direction:
GENESIS PUBLICATIONS, GUILDFORD

Editorial Team:
BRIAN ROYLANCE
JULIAN QUANCE
OLIVER CRASKE
ROMAN MILIsIC

Consulting Editor:
DEREK TAYLOR

Art Direction:
DaviD Costa, Wherefore ART?, LONDON

Design:
NIcKy PAGE
DAN EINZIG
FIONA ANDREANELLI
SIAN RANCE
RACHEL GODFREY

Clearances:
BRYONY CRANSTOUN
JEREMY NEECH

Executive Producer:
NEIL ASPINALL
 EDITORIAL NOTE
Many books have been written about The Beatles, but this is In a very small number of cases it has not been possible to
their own permanent written record of events up until 1970. date a quotation accurately (even though it contains John’s
words); in this event, the words, but no date, are included.
The text attributed to Paul McCartney, George Harrison
and Ringo Starr, and the supplementary text by Neil For additional historical context, a small number of original
Aspinall, Sir George Martin and Derek Taylor, comes in quotations by Paul, George, Ringo and others from the period
part from the interviews from which the television and up to 1970 have also been included. These have also been
video programmes The Beatles Anthology were made, and dated using the two-digit year suffix, as with John’s words.
includes substantial material which was not included in
either. Further major interviews were conducted with Paul, The photographs, documents and memorabilia reproduced
George and Ringo specifically for this book. come from a wide variety of sources. George Harrison, Paul
McCartney and Ringo Starr have each granted access to
The text attributed to John Lennon comes from an their private archives during the compilation of this volume.
enormous wealth of worldwide sources researched over Furthermore, unrestricted access was granted to the
several years (again, specifically for this book), including photographic and documentary archives of Apple, as well as
print and broadcast media, and public and private archives. the archives of EMI. This is in addition to the work of the
These sources are credited at the back of this volume. The other photographers and agencies represented, who are also
text has been arranged to follow the book's chronological credited at the back of this volume, where the reader will
structure and to maintain the pace of the narrative. To allow find, too, selected captions which clarify the content of
the reader to place John’s quotes in their correct historical certain photographs and other illustrations.
perspective, each quotation is suffixed by the date it was
spoken, written or first published. The year of the quotation This book has been prepared for publication by the
is represented by the last two digits only, such that, for editorial team at Genesis Publications for Apple, with the
example, 1970 is represented by ”. The date generally co-operation of the late Derek Taylor who consulted on the
applies to all text preceding it until another date is reached. book up until his death in 1997.
 JOHN
LENNON
HAT CAN There were five women that were my family. Five strong, intelligent,
beautiful women; five sisters. One happened to be my mother. My
mother just couldn't deal with life. She was the youngest and she

mel YOU ABOUT

couldn't cope with me and | ended up living with her elder sister.
Those women were fantastic. One day | might do a kind of Forsyte
Saga about them, because they dominated the situation in the family.*°

MYSELF WHICH
The men were invisible. | was always with the women. | always heard
them talk about men and talk about life, and they always knew what
was going on. The men never ever knew. That was my first feminist
education.”

YOU HAVE NOT The worst pain is that of not being wanted, of realising your parents
do not need you in the way you need them. When | was a child |
experienced moments of not wanting to see the ugliness, not wanting

ALREADY FOUND
to see not being wanted. This lack of love went into my eyes and into
my mind.
| was never really wanted. The only reason | am a star is because
of my repression. Nothing would have driven me through all that if |

OUT FROM
was ‘normal’.”!

Sometimes | was relieved to have no parents. Most of

my friends’ relations bore little resemblance to

PIoOSE WHO
humanity. Their heads were filled with petty-cash
bourgeois fears. Mine was full of my own ideas! Life
was spent entertaining myself, whilst secretly waiting
to find someone to communicate with. Most people
were dead. A few were half-dead. It didn’t take much

moO) NOT LIE? to amuse them.”

Most people never get out of it. Some people cannot

I wear glasses. Being born on 9th see that their parents are still torturing them, even
when they are in their forties and fifties. They still
October 1940, I wasn't the first Beatle to have that stranglehold over them, their thoughts and
their minds. | never had that fear of, and adulation
happen. Ringo, being born on 7th July for, parents.°

1940, was. Although he didn't happen as Penny Lane is a suburban district where | lived with
my mother and father (although my father was a
a Beatle until much later than the rest of us, having sailor, always at sea), and my grandfather. | lived on a street called
Newcastle Road.*°
played with his beard at Butlins and things before That's the first place | remember. It's a good way to start — red
brick; front room never used, always curtains drawn, picture of a horse
realising where his awful destiny lay. and carriage on the wall. There were only three bedrooms upstairs,
one on the front of the street, one in the back, and one teeny little
Ninety per cent of the people on this planet, especially in the West, room in the middle.”
were born out of a bottle of whisky on a Saturday night, and there was
no intent to have children. Ninety per cent of us were accidents — | After I left Penny Lane, | moved in with my auntie, who lived in the
don't know anybody who has planned a child. All of us were Saturday- suburbs in a nice semi-detached place [251 Menlove Avenue, Woolton]
night specials. with a small garden and doctors and lawyers and that ilk living around,
not the poor, slummy image that was projected. | was a nice clean-cut
My mother was a housewife, | suppose. She was a comedienne and a suburban boy, and in the class system that was about a half a niche
singer. Not professional, but she used to get up in pubs and things like higher-class than Paul, George and Ringo who lived in council houses.
that. She had a good voice. She could do Kay Starr. She used to do this We owned our own house, had our own garden; they didn't have
little tune when | was just a one- or two-year-old. The tune was from anything like that. So | was a bit of a fruit compared to them, in a way.
the Disney movie — ‘Want to know a secret? Promise not to tell. You Ringo was the only real city kid.*° | think he came out of the lousiest
are standing by a wishing well.’ area./He doesn't care, he probably had more fun there.”

My mother and father split when | was four and | lived with an auntie, The first thing | remember is a nightmare.”
Mimi.”!
Mimi told me my parents had fallen out of love. She never said | dream in colour, and it's always very surreal. My dream world is
anything directly against my father and mother. | soon forgot my complete Hieronymus Bosch and Dali. | love it, | look forward to it
father. It was like he was dead. But | did see my mother now and again every night.”
and my feeling never died off for her. | often thought about her, though
I'd never realised for a long time that she was living no more than five or One recurrent dream, all through my life, was the flying bit. I'd always
ten miles away.” fly in time of danger. | remember it as a child, flying around, like

JOHN LENNON 7
 swimming in the air. I'd be swimming round where | lived or somewhere | was passionate about Alice in Wonderland and drew all the characters.
| knew very well usually. The other times in dreams | remember are | did poems in the style of ‘Jabberwocky’. I used to love Alice, and Just
‘nightmarish, where there'd be a giant horse or something and whenever William. | wrote my own William stories, with me doing all the things.
it would get near to a danger point | would fly away. | used to translate Wind in the Willows, | loved. After I'd read a book, I'd re-live it all.
it to myself, when I used to dream it in Liverpool, that it was that | That was one reason why | wanted to be the gang leader at school. I'd
wanted to get away from the place.”! want them all to play games that | wanted to play, the ones I'd just
been reading.”
Some of my most vivid dreams were about me being in a plane, flying
over a certain part of Liverpool. It was when | was at school. The plane I did fight all the way through Dovedale [primary school], winning by
used to fly over time and time again, going higher and higher. psychological means if ever anyone looked bigger than me. |
One really big one was about thousands of half-crowns all around threatened them in a strong enough way that | would beat them, so
me. And finding lots of money in old houses — as much of the stuff as | they thought | could.”
could carry. | used to put it in my pockets and in my hands and in sacks,
and | could still never carry as much as | wanted. | must have had With the fact that | wasn’t tied to parents | would infiltrate the other
ambition without realising it — a subconscious urge to get above people boys’ minds. That was the gift | got, of not having parents. I cried a lot
or out of a rut.” about not having them, but I also had the gift of awareness of not
being something.*°
You dream your way out until you actually, physically get out of it. |
got out.” I was shot at once for stealing apples. | used to go thieving with this kid.
We used to ride on the bumpers of tram cars in Penny Lane and ride
| have exactly the same feeling anybody does about their home town. | miles without paying. I'd be shitting myself all the time. | was so scared.
have met people who don't like their home town. Probably because I nearly fell off while riding on the bumpers.”
they've had a lousy time. | had a happy, healthy childhood in Liverpool
and I like it. It doesn’t stop you living somewhere else or going | was the kingpin of my age group. | learnt lots of dirty jokes very
somewhere else, it's still my home town.™ young; there was a girl who lived near who told me them.”

Liverpool is where the Irish came when they ran out of potatoes, and it's I wasn't taught anything about sex. | learnt it all from the bog walls. |
where black people were left or worked as slaves or whatever. We were knew everything when | was about eight. Everything had been shown,
a great amount of Irish descent and blacks and Chinamen, all sorts. everybody had seen dirty pictures, everybody knew all the perversities
It was going poor, a very poor city, and tough. But people have a and the naughty things that there were — you just found out. When we
sense of humour because they are in so much pain, so they are always are free of our guilt and hypocrisy about it, sex will take its rightful
cracking jokes. They are very witty.” And we talk through our noses. | place in society — just part of living.
suppose it's adenoids.”
Edinburgh is one of my favourite dreams. The Edinburgh Festival and
We were a port, the second biggest in the Tattoo in the castle. All the bands of the
England. The North is where the money was world's armies would come and march and
made in the 1800s. That was where all the play. The favourites were the Americans,
brass and heavy people were, and_ that's because they swung like shit — apart from the
where the despised people were. We were Scots, who were really the favourites. |
the ones that were looked down upon as always remember feeling very emotional
animals by the Southerners, the Londoners.” about it, especially at the end where they put
all the lights out and there's just one guy
There were two famous houses [in Woolton]. playing the bagpipes, lit by a lone spotlight.
One was owned by Gladstone -— a Och aye.”
reformatory for boys, which | could see out
my window. And Strawberry Field, just I was obviously musical from very early, and |
around the corner from that, an old Victorian wonder why nobody ever did anything about
house converted for Salvation Army orphans. it — maybe because they couldn't afford it.”
(Apparently, it used to be a farm that made
strawberries.) As a kid | used to go to their John and Julia [When | was young] | was travelling to
garden parties with my friends Ivan, Nigel Edinburgh on my own to see my auntie, and
and Pete. We'd all go up there and hang out and sell lemonade bottles. I played the mouth organ all the way up on the bus. The driver liked it
We always had fun at Strawberry Field.* and told me to meet him at a place in Edinburgh the next morning and
he'd give me a fantastic one. It really got me going. | also had a little
| was hip in kindergarten. I was different from others. | was different all accordion which I used to play — only the right hand — and | played
my life. It's not a case of ‘then he took acid and woke up’, or ‘then he had the same things on this that | played on mouth organ, things like
a marijuana joint and woke up’. Everything is as important as everything ‘Swedish Rhapsody’, ‘Moulin Rouge’ and ‘Greensleeves '.”!
else. My influences are tremendous, from Lewis Carroll to Oscar Wilde
to tough little kids that used to live near me who ended up in prison. It's | can't remember why | took it [harmonica] up in the first place — |
that same problem I had when I was five: ‘There is something wrong must have picked one up very cheap. I know we used to take in
with me because | seem to see things other people don't see.’ students and one of them had a mouth organ and said he'd buy me one
if | could learn a tune by the next morning. So | learnt two. | was
| was always a homebody; | think that a lot of musicians are — you write somewhere between eight and twelve at the time; in short pants,
and you play in the house. When I was wanting to be a painter when | anyway.
was younger, or write poetry, it was always in the house.*®
There's an exam in England that they hang over your head from age
| spent a lot of time reading“Hanging around the home never bothered five, called the Eleven Plus: ‘If you don't pass the Eleven Plus, you're
me. | enjoy it. I love it.*° | thought it was because I was an only child. finished in life.’ So that was the only exam that | ever passed, because |
Although I had half-sisters, | lived alone. | always tripped out on my was terrified.
own or in books.”! (After that exam's over, the teacher says you can do whatever you
want. So | just painted.)
| always had this dream of being the artist in a little cottage in a little
road, My real thing is just to write a little poetry and do a few oils. It
1 . ® he

| looked at all the hundreds of new kids [at Quarry Bank grammar
seemed like such a dream, living in a cottage and wandering in the trees.” school] and thought, ‘Christ, I'll have to fight all my way through this

8 JOHN LENNON
lot,’ having just made it at Dovedale. There was some real heavies there. men selling newspapers. I'd never really noticed them before, but all the
The first fight I got in, | lost. | lost my nerve when I got really hurt. Not way home that day they seemed to be everywhere. It got funnier and
that there was much real fighting; | did a lot of swearing and shouting, funnier and we couldn't stop laughing. | suppose it's a way of hiding
then got a quick punch. If there was a bit of blood, then you packed in. your emotions, or covering it up. | would never hurt a cripple. It was
After that, if | thought someone could punch harder than me, | said, just part of our jokes, our way of life.”
‘OK, we'll have wrestling instead.’
I was aggressive because | wanted to be popular. | wanted to be the All kids draw and write poetry and everything, and some of us last until
leader. It seemed more attractive than just being one of the toffees. | were about eighteen, but most drop off at about twelve when some guy
wanted everybody to do what | told them to do, to laugh at my jokes comes up and says, ‘You're no good.’ That's all we get told all our lives:
and let me be the boss. | suppose | did try to do a bit of school work at ‘You haven't got the ability. You're a cobbler.’ It happened to all of us,
first, as | often did at Dovedale. I'd been honest at Dovedale, if nothing but if somebody had told me all my life, ‘Yeah, you're a great artist,’ |
else, always owning up. But I began to realise that was foolish; they just would have been a more secure person.”
got you. So | started lying about everything. They should give you time to develop, encourage what you're
I only got one beating from Mimi — for taking money from her interested in. | was always interested in art and came top for many
handbag. | was always taking a little, for soft things like Dinky's, but years, yet no one took any interest.”
this day | must have taken too much.”
It's like when they ask you, ‘What do you want to be?’ | would say,
When | was about twelve, I used to think | must be a genius but ‘Well, a journalist.’ | never would dare to say, ‘An artist,’ because in the
nobody'd noticed. | thought, ‘I'm a genius or I'm mad. Which is it? | social background that | came from — as | used to say to my auntie — you
can't be mad because nobody's put me away — read about artists and you worship them in
therefore I'm a genius.’ | mean, a genius is a form of museums, but you don't want them living around
mad person. We're all that way, but I used to be a the house. So the teachers said, 'No, something
bit coy about it — like my guitar-playing. If there's real.’ And I'd say, ‘Well, present me with some
such a thing as genius, | am one. And if there isn't, | alternative. They'd suggest veterinarian, doctor,
don't care. | used to think it when I was a kid dentist, lawyer. And | knew there was no hope in
writing my poetry and doing my paintings. | didn't hell of me ever becoming that. So there was never
become something when The Beatles made it; I've anywhere for me to go.*°
been like this all my life. Genius is pain, too. It's
just pain.” They only wanted scientists in the Fifties. Any
artsy-fartsy people were spies. They still are, in
| always wondered, ‘Why has no one discovered society.®°
me?’ In school, didn't they see that I'm cleverer
than anybody in this school?” Even at art school they tried to turn me into a
If | look through my report card, it's the same teacher — they try to discourage you from painting
thing: ‘Too content to get a cheap laugh hiding —and said, ‘Why not be a teacher? Then you can
behind this,’ or, ‘Daydreaming his life away.’ paint on Sunday?’ | decided against it.”

| daydreamed my way through the whole school. | BVA At school I saw a lot wrong with society. | revolted
absolutely was in a trance for twenty years because x
¥aX
the same way as all my colleagues. Anyone who
exe
it was absolutely boring. If | wasn’t in a trance, I se
had anything didn't fit in with the school
wasnt there — I was at the movies, or running curriculum, and all my reports from Quarry Bank
around.” were on the line: ‘He is clever, but doesn't try.’ |
lh he take
was a particularly offensive schoolboy. | am one of
I used to embarrass authority by chanting out a John, right, outside 251 Menlove Avenue your typical working-class heroes. Mine was the
weird version of ‘The Happy Wanderer’ at same sort of revolution as D. H. Lawrence's — |
inappropriate moments. | was suspended for a spell. | think it was for didn't believe in class and the whole fight was against class structure.”
eating chocolate in prayers or ducking a swimming instructor;
something daft like that.” | always was a rebel because of whatever sociological thing gave me a
chip on the shoulder. But on the other hand, | want to be loved and
One maths master wrote, ‘He's on the road to failure if he carries on this accepted. That's why I'm on stage, like a performing flea. Because |
way. Most of them disliked me, so I'm always glad to remind them of would like to belong. Part of me would like to be accepted by all facets
the incredible awareness they had. of society and not be this loudmouth, lunatic, poet/musician. But |
But there was always one teacher in each school, usually an art cannot be what I'm not. What the hell do you do? You want to belong,
teacher or English language or literature. If it was anything to do with but you don't because you cannot belong.”
art or writing, | was OK, but if it was anything to do with science or
maths, | couldn't get it in.”! I was fairly tough at school, but | could organise it so it seemed like |
was tough. It used to get me into trouble. | used to dress tough like a
When I was fifteen | was thinking, ‘If only | can get out of Liverpool and Teddy boy, but if | went into the tough districts and came across other
be famous and rich, wouldn't it be great?” Teddy boys, | was in danger. At school it was easier because | could
control it with my head so they thought | was tougher than | was. It was
I wanted to write Alice in Wonderland, but when you think, ‘Whatever | a game. | mean, we used to shoplift and all those things, but nothing
do I'm never going to topple Leonardo,’ you get to thinking, ‘What's the really heavy. Liverpool's quite a tough city. A lot of the real Teddy boys
use?’ A lot of people had more pain than me and they've done better were actually in their early twenties. They were dockers. We were only
things.”! fifteen, we were only kids — they had hatchets, belts, bicycle chains and
real weapons. We never really got into that, and if somebody came in
I wouldn't say | was a born writer; I'm a born thinker. I'd always been front of us we ran, me and my gang.’
able at school — when they want you to imagine something instead of
giving you a subject; | could do that.” The sort of gang I led went in for things like shoplifting and pulling
girls’ knickers down. When the bomb fell and everyone got caught, |
At school we used to draw a lot and pass it round. We had blind dogs was always the one they missed. | was scared at the time, but Mimi was
leading ordinary people around.” the only parent who never found out. Most of the masters hated me like
I suppose | did have a cruel humour. It was at school that it first shit. As I got older, we'd go on from just stuffing rubbish like sweets in
started. We were once coming home from a school speech day and we'd our pockets from shops, and progressed to getting enough to sell to
had a few bevwvies. Liverpool is full of deformed people, three-foot-high others, like ciggies.””

JOHN LENNON 9
 Aunt Mimi

I'm not a tough guy. I've always had to have a facade When he was twenty, and then when he was thirty,
of being tough to protect myself from other people's he thought they'd cool down a bit. Then when he
neuroses. But really, I'm a very sensitive weak guy.”' got in his forties he thought they'd cool down, but
they didn't, they went on: sixty, seventy... until he
I'd say | had a happy childhood. I came out was still dribbling in his mind when he couldn't
aggressive, but | was never miserable. | was always possibly do anything about it. | thought, ‘Shit!’
having a laugh.” because | was always waiting for them to lessen, but |
suppose it’s going to go on forever. ‘Forever’ is a bit
We [Mimi's husband and I] got on fine. He was nice too strong a word — let's say you go on until you
and kind. [When] he died, I didn't know how to be leave this body, anyway. Let's hope. Maybe the game
sad publicly — what you did or said — so I went is to conquer it before you leave, otherwise you
upstairs. Then my cousin arrived and she came come back for more (and who wants to come back
upstairs as well. We both had hysterics. We just just to come?).”
laughed and laughed. | felt very guilty afterwards.”
| remember a night, or should | say day, in my teens
Mimi was looking after me on her own and she " when | was fucking my girlfriend on a gravestone
wanted to keep up this semi-detatched house and > and my arse got covered in greenfly. This was a good
not go down, and so we took students in at one Wy lesson in karma and/or gardening. Barbara, where are
time. 2. en you now? Fat and ugly? Fifteen kids? Years of hell
She always wanted me to be a rugby type or a with me should have made you ready for anything.
chemist. | was writing poetry and singing since she had me. All the What's so sad about the past is it's passed. | wonder who's kissing her
time I used to fight and say, ‘Look, I'm an artist, don't bug me with now.®
all this maths. Don't try and make me into a chemist or a vet, | can't
do it.’ America used to be the big youth place in everybody's imagination.
I used to say, ‘Don't you destroy my papers.’ I'd come home when | America had teenagers and everywhere else just had people.”
was fourteen and she'd rooted all my things and thrown all my poetry
out. | was saying, ‘One day I'll be famous and youre going to regret it.” We all knew America, all of us. All those movies: every movie we ever
saw as children, whether it was Disneyland or Doris Day, Rock Hudson,
I'd seen these poems around, the sort you read to give you a hard-on. I'd James Dean or Marilyn. Everything was American: Coca-Cola, Heinz
wondered who wrote them and thought I'd try one myself. Mimi found ketchup — | thought Heinz ketchup was English until |went to America.
it under my pillow. | said I'd been made to write it out for another lad The music was mainly American before rock'n'roll. We still had our
who couldn't write very well. I'd written it myself, of course.” own artists, but the big artists were American. It was the Americans
coming to the London Palladium. They wouldn't even make an English
When | did any serious poems, like emotional stuff later on, | did it in movie without an American in it, even a B movie, because nobody
secret handwriting, all scribbles, so that Mimi couldn't read it.” would go to the movie. They'd have a Canadian if they couldn't get an
American.”
My mother [Julia] came to see us one day in a black coat with her face
bleeding. She'd had some sort of accident. | couldn't face it. | thought, There was no such thing as an English record. | think the first English
‘That's my mother in there, bleeding.’ | went out into the garden. | loved record that was anywhere near anything was,Move It’ by Cliff Richard,
her, but I didn’t want to get involved. | suppose | was a moral coward. | and before that there'd been nothing.”
wanted to hide all feelings.”
Liverpool is cosmopolitan. It's where the sailors would come home on
Julia gave me my first coloured shirt. I started going to visit her at her the ships with the blues records from America.” We were hearing old
house. | met her new bloke and didn't think much of him. I called him funky blues records in Liverpool that people across Britain or Europe
Twitchy. Julia became a sort of young aunt to me, or a big sister. As | had never heard about or knew about, only the port areas.
got bigger and had more rows with Mimi, I used to go and live with
Julia for a weekend.°” There is the biggest country-and-western following in England in
Liverpool, besides London. | heard country-and-western music in
[Twitchy was] otherwise known as Robert Dykins or Bobbie Dykins. Liverpool before | heard rock'n'roll. The people there — the Irish in Ireland
Her second husband — | don't know if she married him or not; little are the same — they take their music very seriously. There were
waiter with a nervous cough and the thinning, margarine-coated hair. established folk, blues and country-and-western clubs in Liverpool
He always used to push his hand in the margarine or the butter, usually before rock'n'roll.”
the margarine, and grease his hair with it before he left. He used to keep
his tips in a big tin on top of a cupboard in the kitchen, and I used to As kids we were all opposed to folk songs because they were so middle-
always steal them. | believe Mother got the blame. That's the least they class. It was all college students with big scarfs and a pint of beer in
could do for me.” their hands singing in la-di-da voices, ‘l worked in a mine in Newcastle,’
and all that shit. There were very few real folk singers, though | liked
I'd always had a fantasy about a woman who would be a beautiful, Dominic Behan a bit and there was some good stuff to be heard in
intelligent, dark-haired, high-cheekboned, free-spirited artist (a la Liverpool. Occasionally you hear very old records on the radio or TV
Juliette Greco). My soul mate. Someone that | had already known, but of real workers in Ireland singing, and the power is fantastic. But mostly
somehow had lost. Of course, as a teenager, my sexual fantasies were folk music is people with fruity voices trying to keep alive something
full of Anita Ekberg and the usual giant Nordic old and dead. It's all a bit boring, like ballet: a
goddesses. That is, until Brigitte Bardot became minority thing kept going by a minority group.
the love of my life in the late Fifties. (All my Today's folk music is rock'n'roll.”!
girlfriends who weren't dark-haired suffered my Folk music isn’t an acoustic guitar with a
constant pressure to become Brigitte. By the singer who talks about mines and railways,
time | married my first wife= who was a natural because we don't sing like that any more. We
auburn — she too had become a long-haired sing about karma, peace, anything.”
blonde with the obligatory bangs. | met the real
Brigitte a few years later. | was on acid and she In our family the radio was hardly ever on, so |
was on her way out.)’ 8 got to pop later: not like Paul and George
who'd been groomed in pop music coming over
| read some guy saying about the sexual the radio all the time. | only heard it at other
fantasies and urges that he had all his life. people's homes.”!

In the garden at Menlove Avenue

10 JOHN LENNON
The Bill Haley era passed me by, in a way. When his records came on I still love Little Richard, and Jerry Lee Lewis. They're like primitive
the wireless my mother would start dancing around, she thought they painters. Chuck Berry is one of the all-time great poets; a rock poet, you
were so good. | used to hear them, but they could call him. He was well advanced of his
didn't do anything for me.” time, lyric-wise. We all owe a lot to him,
including Dylan. I've loved everything he's
This fella | knew called Don Beatty showed me done, ever. He was in a different class from the
the name Elvis Presley in the New Musical other performers. He was in the tradition of
Express and said he was great. It was the great blues artists but he really wrote his
‘Heartbreak Hotel’. | thought it sounded a bit own stuff — I know Richard did, but Berry really
phoney: ‘Heart-break Hotel’. wrote stuff. The lyrics were fantastic, even
The music papers were saying that Presley though we didn't know what he was saying half
was fantastic, and at first | expected someone
like Perry Como or Sinatra. ‘Heartbreak Hotel!
[fm
ai
Bii7yi
the time.”
In the Fifties, when people were virtually
seemed a corny title and his name seemed singing about nothing, Chuck Berry was
strange in those days. But then, when | heard writing social-comment songs, with incredible
it, it was the end for me. | first heard it on metre to the lyrics. When | hear rock, good
Radio Luxembourg. He turned out to be rock, of the calibre of Chuck Berry, I just fall
fantastic. | remember rushing home with the apart and | have no other interest in life. The
record and saying, 'He sounds like Frankie world could be ending if rock'n'roll is playing.
Laine and Johnnie Ray and Tennessee Ernie It's a disease of mine.”
Ford!’”!
That's the music that brought me from the
I'm an Elvis fan because it was Elvis who really provinces of England to the world. That's what
got me out of Liverpool. Once | heard it and made me what | am, whatever it is | am. | don't
got into it, that was life, there was no other know where we'd have been without rock'n'roll
thing. | thought of nothing else but rock'n'roll; and | really love it.”
apart from sex and food and money — but that's
all the same thing, really.” John with Uncle George Rock'n'roll was real, everything else was unreal.
It was the only thing to get through to me out
People have been trying to stamp out rock'n'roll since it started. It was of all the things that were happening when I was fifteen.”
mainly parents who were against rock'n'roll. The words had a lot of I had no idea about doing music as a way of life until rock'n'roll hit
double entendre in the early days. me. That's the music that inspired me to play music."
They cleaned it up for the white audience, a lot of it. That black
stuff was very sexual. They made Little Richard re-record ‘Tutti Frutti’. When I was sixteen my mother taught me music. She first taught me
Whatever was going on, they had to clean up a lot of words. Elvis did how to play banjo chords — that's why in very early photos of the group
‘One Night With You’. The original was ‘One Night Of Sin’ — ‘One I'm playing funny chords — and from that I progressed to guitar.”
night of sin is what I'm praying for.’ The words were pretty good; they
were street words or black words.” | remember the first guitar | ever saw. It belonged to a guy in a cowboy
suit in a province of Liverpool, with stars and a cowboy hat and a big
They've been saying it will never last ever since | heard about it, and it's Dobro. They were real cowboys, and they took it seriously. There had
always written in the papers that it's dying. It'll never die. It's been been cowboys long before there was rock'n'roll.”
apparent in all the music since it began. It came out of its roots of blues
and rhythm-and-blues and jazz and country. It was really a combination I used to borrow a guitar at first. | couldn't play, but my mother bought
of black and white music. That's what finally made it.” me one from one of those mail-order firms. It was a bit crummy, but |
played it all the time and got a lot of practice.®
There have only been two great albums that | listened to all the way
through when | was about sixteen. One was Carl Perkins’s first or I played the guitar like a banjo, with the sixth string hanging loose. My
second, | can't remember which. And one was Elvis’s first. Those are the first guitar cost £10. All | ever wanted to do was to vamp; | only learnt
only ones on which I really enjoyed every track.*° to play to back myself.”

On things like ‘Ready Teddy’ and ‘Rip It Up’ I have visions of listening When | got the guitar I'd play it for a bit then give it up, then take it up
to the record when | was younger. | remember how the London- again. It took me about two years, on and off, to be able to strum tunes
American label looked. | remember playing it to my auntie and she without thinking. | think | had one lesson, but it was so much like
was saying, ‘What is it?’ Or | remember dance-hall scenes where we school | gave up. | learnt mostly by picking up bits here and there. One
were all dancing.” of the first things | learnt was ‘Ain't That A Shame’ and it has a lot of
memories for me. Then | learnt ‘That'll Be The Day’. | learned the solos
Buddy Holly was great and he wore glasses, which I liked, although | on ‘Johnny B. Goode’ and ‘Carol’, but | couldn't play the one on ‘Blue
didn't wear them in public for years and years. But Buddy Holly was Suede Shoes’. In those days | was very much influenced by Chuck Berry,
the first one that we were really aware of in England who could play Scotty Moore and Carl Perkins.”!
and sing at the same time — not just strum, but actually play the licks. |
never met him, | was too young. | never saw him live either. | saw The best quote Mimi ever said was: "The guitar's all right for a hobby,
Eddie Cochran. | saw Gene Vincent and Little Richard, but I met John, but you'll never make a living at it.’ (Fans in America had that
them later. Eddie Cochran was the only one | saw as a fan, just sitting framed on steel and sent it to her, and she has it in the house | bought
in an audience.” her; she has it looking at her the whole time.)”

Little Richard was one of the all-time greats. The first time | heard him About the time of rock'n'roll in Britain — | think | was about fifteen so it
a friend of mine had been to Holland and brought back a 78 with ‘Long would bé about 1955 — there was a big thing called ‘skiffle’, which was a
Tall Sally’ on one side, and ‘Slippin’ And Slidin’’ on the other. It blew kind of folk music; American folk music with washboards, and all the
our heads — we'd never heard anybody sing like that in our lives, and all kids from fifteen onwards had these groups.”
those saxes playing like crazy.
I listen to country music. | started imitating Hank Williams when | was
The most exciting thing about early Little Richard was when he fifteen, before | could play the guitar — although a friend had one. | used
screamed just before the solo; that was bowling. It used to make your to go round to his house, because he had the record-player, and we sang
hair stand on end when he did that long, long scream into the solo.” all that Lonnie Donegan stuff and Hank Williams. He had all the

JOHN LENNON 11
 Below: John’s copy of ‘Rock Island Line’

records. ‘Honky Tonk Blues’ is the one I used to do, Presley was just shoplifting. We used to look at shops at night, but we never got
country, country-rock. Carl Perkins was really country, just with more round to doing it.”
backbeat.”*
Mimi had said to me that I'd done it at last: |was now a real Teddy boy.
We eventually formed ourselves into a group from school. | think the Iseemed to digust everybody, not just Mimi. That was the day that |
bloke whose idea it was didn't get in the group. We met in his house the met Paul.”
first time. There was Eric Griffiths on guitar, Pete Shotton on
washboard, Len Garry, Colin Hanton on drums and Rod [Davis] It was through Ivan that I first met Paul. Seems that he knew
on banjo — and somebody named Ivan [Vaughan]. Ivan Paul was always dickering around in music and
went to the same school as Paul. thought he would be a good lad to have in the
Our first appearance was in Rosebery Street — it group. So one day, when we were playing at
was their Empire Day celebrations. They had this Woolton, he brought him along. We can
party out in the street. We played from the back both remember it quite well. The Quarry
of a lorry. We didn't get paid. We played at Men were playing on a raised platform
blokes’ parties after that; perhaps got a few and there was a good crowd because it
bob, but mostly we just played for fun. We was a warm, sunny day.”
didn't mind about not being paid.”
[It was] the first day | did ‘Be Bop A
The Quarry Men is the name of the group Lula’ live on stage.*° ‘Be Bop A Lula’ has
before it turned into The Beatles. The always been one of my _ all-time
original group was named after my school, favourites. It was at a church-hall
which was Quarry Bank and had a Latin garden féte, and I was performing with
motto which meant ‘out of this rock’ — that's a mutual friend of Paul's and mine.
symbolic — ‘you will find truth’. Another mutual friend who lived next
Anyway, we always failed the exams and door brought Paul along and said, ‘I think
never did any work and Pete was always worried you two will get along.” We talked after
about his future. | would say, ‘Don't worry, it'll the show and | saw he had talent. He was
work out,’ to him and the gang that was around me playing guitar backstage, doing ‘Twenty Flight
then. | always had a group of three or four or five guys Rock’ by Eddie Cochran.”
around with me who would play various roles in my life,
supportive and subservient. In general, me being the bully boy. Paul could play guitar, trumpet and piano. That doesn't
The Beatles became my new gang. mean to say he has a greater talent, but his musical education was
| always believed that something would turn up. | didn't make plans better. | could only play the mouth organ and two chords on a guitar
for the future. | didn't study for the exam. | didn't put a little bit on the when we met. | tuned the guitar like a banjo, so my guitar only had five
side, | wasn't capable. Therefore | was the one that all the other boys’ strings on it. (Paul taught me how to play properly — but I had to learn
parents would say, ‘Keep away from him.’ Because they knew what I the chords left-handed, because Paul is left-handed. So | learnt them
was. [he parents instinctively recognised | was a troublemaker, meaning upside down, and I'd go home and reverse them.) That's what | was
I did not conform and | would influence their children, which | did. | doing — playing on stage with a group, playing a five-string guitar like a
did my best to disrupt every friend's home. Partly out of envy that | banjo — when he was brought around from the audience to meet me.*
didn't have this so-called home. (But | did. | had an auntie and an uncle
and a nice suburban home. This image of me being the orphan is Paul told me the chords I had been playing weren't real chords — and his
garbage because | was well protected by my auntie and my uncle, and dad said that they weren't even banjo chords, though | think they were.
they looked after me very well.)* He had a good guitar at the time, it cost about £14. He'd got it in
exchange for a trumpet his dad had given him.”!
I think | went a bit wild. | was just drifting. | wouldn't study at school,
and when | was put in for nine GCEs | was a hopeless failure. Even in | was very impressed by Paul playing "Twenty Flight Rock’. He could
the mock | got English and art, but in the real one I didn’t even get art.” obviously play the guitar. | half thought to myself, ‘He's as good as me.’
I'd been kingpin up to then. Now, | thought, ‘If | take him on, what will
I was disappointed at not getting art at GCE, but I'd given up. All they happen?’ It went through my head that I'd have to keep him in line if I
were interested in was neatness. | was never neat. | used to mix all the let him join. But he was good, so he was worth having. He also looked
colours together. We had one question which said do a picture of like Elvis. | dug him.”
‘travel’. | drew a picture of a hunchback with warts all over him. They
obviously didn't dig that.” Was it better to have a guy who was better than the people | had in? To
make the group stronger, or to let me be stronger? Instead of going for
We knew that the GCE wasn't the opening to anything. We could have an individual thing we went for the strongest format — equals.”
ground through all that and gone further, but not me. | believed I turned round to him right then on first meeting and said, ‘Do you
something was going to happen which I'd have to get through — and | want to join the group?’ And he said ‘yes’ the next day as | recall it.*°
knew it wasn't GCE.
Up to the age of fifteen | was no different to any other little cunt of Paul had a trumpet and had this wild theory that he'd actually learnt
fifteen. Then I decided I'd write a little song, and I did. But it didn't how to play the oldie ‘When The Saints Go Marching In’. He just blew
make me any different. That's a load of crap that | discovered a talent. | away as hard as he could, drowning out everything we were trying to
just did it. I've no talent, except for being happy, or a talent for skiving.” do. He thought he was doing a great job on the tune, but we didn't
recognise any of it!®
| was always thinking | was going to be a famous artist and possibly I'd
have to marry a very rich old lady, or man, to look after me while | did Now George came through Paul.*°
my art. But then rock'n'roll came along, and | thought, ‘Ah-ha, this is the Paul introduced me to George and | had to make the decision
one. So | didn't have to marry anybody or live with them.” whether to let George in. | listened to him play and said, ‘Play
“Raunchy".’ | let him in and that was the three of us then, and the rest of
| didn't really know what | wanted to be, apart from ending up an the group was thrown out, practically.”
eccentric millionaire. | had to be a millionaire. If | couldn't do it without
being crooked, then I'd have to be crooked. | was quite prepared to do We asked George to join us because he knew more chords, a lot more
that — nobody obviously was going to give me money for my paintings than we knew. We got a lot from him. Paul had a friend at school who
- but | was too much of a coward. I'd never have made it. I did plan to would discover chords, and these would be passed round Liverpool.
knock off a shop with another bloke, do it properly for a change, not Every time we learnt a new chord, we'd write a song round it.

12 JOHN LENNON
 We used to sag off school and go to George's house for the in sky-diving for the use I was at lettering. I failed all the exams. | stayed
afternoon. George looked even younger than Paul — and Paul looked on because it was better than working.”
about ten, with his baby face.
It was too much. George was just too young. | didn't want to know I maintained abstract art was easy, and chucked paint everywhere, and
— at first. He was doing a delivery round and seemed a kid. He came they all said it was rubbish. | said, ‘Prove it,’ and they did.”
round once and asked me to go to the pictures with him, but |
pretended | was busy. | didn't dig him until | got to know him, Mimi I went in for painting. Really | wasn't a painter, | was a book illustrator.
always said he had a low Liverpool voice, a real whacker. She said, ‘You But I wasn't interested in illustrating. I liked the painting at school
always seem to like lower-class types, don’t you, John?’ “ because they were more fun. All my friends were in that mob and they
had more parties. So | wanted to be a painter, but I'd never have made
Paul and | hit it off right away. I was just a bit worried because my old one. | had no career that would have done me any good lined up.
mates were going and new people like Paul and George were joining, l_always felt I'd make it, though. There were some moments of
but we soon got used to each other. We started to do big beat numbers doubt, but I knew something would eventually happen.”
like ‘Twenty Flight Rock’ — funny, really, because we were still meant to
be a skiffle group. ‘Let's Have A Party’ used to be my big number.” When | was seventeen | used to think, ‘I wish a fucking earthquake
would happen, or a revolution.’ Just to go out and steal. If I was
There was no point in rehearsing for non-existent dates. But we went on seventeen I'd be all for it, because what have | got to lose? And now I've
playing together just for kicks. Usually in each other's homes. We kept got nothing to lose. | don't want to die and | don't want to be hurt
the record-player going a lot of the time, playing the latest American physically; but if they blow the world up, we're all out of our pain then.
hits. We'd try and get the same effects.” Forget it — no more problems.”

You'd go and play at the dance hall, and the real Teddy boys didn't like I was staying with Julia and Twitchy this weekend. The copper came to
you, because all the girls would be watching the group — you had the the door, to tell us about the accident. It was just like it's supposed to
sideboards and the hair and you're on stage. Afterwards the guys would be, the way it is in the films, asking if | was her son and all that. Then
try and kill you, so most of fifteen, sixteen and seventeen was spent he told us, and we both went white.”
running away from people with a guitar under your arm. They'd always
catch the drummer; he had all the equipment. We'd run like crazy and She got killed by an off-duty cop who was drunk, after visiting my
get the bus because we didn’t have a car. I'd get on the bus with the auntie’s house where | lived. I wasn't there at the time. She was at the
guitar, but the bass player — who only had a string bass with a tea chest bus stop and he ran her down in a car.”
— used to get caught. What we used to do was throw them the bass or a
hat and they'd kick and kill it, so you could escape.” It was the worst thing that ever happened to me. We'd caught up so
much, me and Julia, in just a few years. We could communicate. We got
When | left Quarry Bank | went to Liverpool College of Art with an idea on. She was great. | thought, ‘Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it. That's really
that I might finish up drawing gorgeous girls for toothpaste posters.” fucked everything. I've no responsibilities to anyone now.’ Twitchy took
it worse than me. Then he said, ‘Who's going to look after the kids?’
I think they. asked me years ago rather vaguely if | would like to go back And I hated him. Bloody selfishness.
and look, but | saw enough of it when | was there. | have fond We got a taxi over to Sefton General where she was lying dead. |
memories, not too fond though. didn't want to see her. | talked hysterically to the taxi driver all the way,
ranted on and on, the way you do. The taxi driver just grunted now and
The headmaster [of Quarry Bank], Pobjoy, recommended me to go to again. | refused to go in, but Twitchy did. He broke down.”
art school. He said, ‘If he doesn't go there he may as well just pack up
life.’ So he arranged for me to go. | developed a great sense of humour That was another big trauma for me. | lost her twice. Once when | was
and met some great people and had a laugh and played rock'n'roll. (Of moved in with my auntie. And once again at seventeen when she
course, | was playing rock'n'roll during all this time at grammar school, actually, physically died. That was very traumatic for me. That was
developing the basic form of the music.)™ really a hard time for me. It made me very, very bitter. The underlying
chip on my shoulder that | had got really big then. Being a teenager and
| wasn't really keen. | thought it would be a crowd of old men, but | a rock'n'roller and an art student and my mother being killed just when |
should make the effort to try and make something of myself. | stayed for was re-establishing a relationship with her.*°
five years doing commercial art.”
| went because there didn't seem to be any hope for me in any other It helps to say, ‘My mummy’s dead,’ rather than, ‘My mother died,’ or,
field and it was about the only thing | could do, possibly. But | didn’t do ‘My mother wasn't very good to me.’ (A lot of us have images of parents
very well there either, because I'm lazy.™ that we never get from them.) It déesn't exorcise it — bang, gone — but it
helps. First of all you have to allow yourself to realise it. |never allowed
College life was so free | went potty. myself to realise that my mother had gone. It's the same ifsyou don't
allow yourself to cry, or feel anything. Some things are too painful to
| was an art student when Paul and George were still in grammar school. feel, so you stop. We have the ability to block feelings and that's what
There is a vast difference between being in high school and being in we do most of the time, These feelings are now coming. out of me,
college. | already had sexual relationships, already drank, and did a lot feelings that have.been there all my life: And they continue to come
of things like that.*° out. | don’t know if every time I pick up a guitar I'm going to sing about
my mother. | presume it'll come out some other way now.”
They all thought | was a Ted at art college when | arrived. Then | All art is pain expressing itself. | think all life is, everything we do,
became a bit artier, as they all do, but I still dressed like a Ted, in black but particularly artists — that’s why they're always vilified. They're
with tight drainies.” | imitated Teddy boys, but | was always torn always persecuted because they show pain; they can't help it. They
between being a Teddy boy and an art student. One week I'd go to art express it in art and the way they live, and people don't like to see that
school with my art-school scarf on and my hair down and the next week reality that they're suffering.
I'd go for the leather jacket and tight jeans.” When you're a child you can only take so much pain. It literally
Arthur Ballard, one of the lecturers, said | should change a bit, not blocks off part of your body. It's like not wanting to know about going
; wear them as Bight. He was good, Arthur Ballard; he helped. me, kept me to the toilet or having a bath. If you don't do it for a long time, it
when others wanted to chuck me out. But | wasn't really a Ted, just a accumulates. And emotions are the same, you accumulate them over the
er. |was only pretending to be one. years and they come out in other forms: violence or baldness or short-
ver liked the work. | should have been anWena d or in the sightedness.”!
g school because it seemed groovy. But | found myself in
I didn't turn
t up for something, so they had just put me in that. | even got confirmed at about seventeen, for very materialistic reasons. |
ere allneat fuckers in pettening, Thinmight as well have put me thought | had better do something in case | didn't make it.

JOHN LENNON 13
 I'd always suspected that there was a God, even when | thought I was an We used to play blues at college. We were allowed to play rock'n'roll by
atheist. Just in case. | believe it, so | am full of compassion, but you can infiltrating, by playing blues. They'd only let you play trad jazz on the
still dislike things. I just hate things less strenuously than | did. art-school record-player, so | got myself voted onto the committee so
| haven't got as big a chip about it because maybe I've escaped it a bit. | we could play rock'n'roll. We could get the snobs by playing blues,
think all our society is run by insane people for anyway; Leadbelly and whatever it was in
insane objectives. those days.”
| think that's what I sussed when I was
sixteen and twelve, way down the line, but | | met Cynthia at art school.
expressed it differently all through my life. It's Cynthia was a right Hoylake runt. Dead
the same thing I'm expressing all the time, but snobby. We used to poke fun at her and mock
now | can put it into that sentence, that | think her, me and Geoff Mohammed. ‘Quiet please,’
we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends. we'd shout, ‘No dirty jokes. It’s Cynthia.’
But I'm likely to be put away as insane for We had a class dance. | was pissed and
expressing that. That's what's insane about it. asked her to dance. Geoff had been having me
on, saying, ‘Cynthia likes you, you know.’ As
I'm not afraid of dying. I'm prepared for death we danced | asked her to come to a party the
because | don't believe in it. | think it's just next day. She said she couldn't. She was
getting out of one car and getting into engaged.
another.” | was triumphant at having picked her up.
We had a drink and then went back to Stu's
| was pretty self-destructive at college.* | was a [Stuart Sutcliffe’s] flat, buying fish and chips on
drunk and smashed phone boxes. On the street the way.
in Liverpool, unless you were in the suburbs, I was hysterical. That was the trouble. | was
you had to walk close to the wall. And to get jealous of anyone she had anything to do with.
to the Cavern it was no easy matter, even at I demanded absolute trust from her, because |
lunchtime sometimes. It's a tense place.” wasn't trustworthy myself. I was neurotic,
taking out all my frustrations on her. She did
It was mainly one long drinking session, but leave me once. That was terrible. | couldn't
when you're eighteen or nineteen you can put stand being without her.
away a lot of drink and not hurt your body so | was in a blind rage for two years. | was
much. At college | always got a little violent on either drunk or fighting. It had been the same
drink, but I used to have a friend called Geoff Mohammed, God rest his with other girlfriends I'd had. There was something the matter with me.”
soul, who died. He was a half-Indian Arab and he would be like a
bodyguard for me. So whenever I'd get into some controversy he would My education was sorely lacking; the only thing we did learn was fear
ease me out of it.*° and hatred, especially of the opposite sex.”
As a teenager, all | saw were films where men beat up women. That
Everybody hung round in this club called the Jacaranda, which is near was tough, that was the thing to do, slap them in the face, treat them
the art school in the centre of Liverpool. And we started hanging round rough — Humphrey Bogart and all that jazz. So that's the attitude we're
there before we really formed a band — when there was just me, Paul brought up with. It took me a long time to get that out. That isn't
and George.” reality.
The way | started understanding it was thinking, “What would
The first thing we ever recorded was ‘That'll Be The Day’, a Buddy happen if I said to Ringo or Paul or George: "Go fetch that. Put the
Holly song, and one of Paul's called ‘In Spite Of All The Danger’. ” kettle on. Somebody's at the door..."’ If you treated your best male
friend the way you treat your woman, he'd give you a punch in the
| got more confidence and used to ignore Mimi. | went away for longer fae,”
spells; wore what clothes | wanted. | had to borrow or pinch, as | had no
money at college. | was always on at Paul to ignore his dad and just My childhood was not all suffering. We saw these articles in the
wear what he wanted.” American fan mags that said, “Those boys struggled up from the
slums.’ | was always well dressed, well fed and well schooled, and
He wouldn't go against his dad and wear drainpipe trousers. And his brought up to be a nice lower-middle-class English boy. That's what
dad was always trying to get me out of the group behind my back, | made The Beatles different, the fact that George, Paul and John were
found out later. He'd say, ‘Why don't you get rid of John, he's just a grammar-school boys. Up until then all rock'n'rollers, basically, had
lot of trouble. Cut your hair nice and wear baggy trousers.’ Like | been black and poor: rural South, city slums. And the white had been
was the bad influence because | was the eldest, so | had all the gear truckers, like Elvis. Buddy Holly was apparently more of our ilk, a
first usually.” suburban boy who had learnt to read and write and knew a little more.
But the thing of The Beatles was that we were pretty well educated
I lived rough all right. It was a dirty old flat [in Gambier Terrace]. | and not truckers. Paul could have gone to university. He was always a
think we spent about four months there, practising and painting. It was good boy. He passed his exams. He could have become, | don't know
just like a rubbish dump. There must have been seven of us in the same —~ Dr McCartney. | could have done it myself if | had worked. I never
place. It was in a terrible condition. There was no furniture, just beds. worked.*°
And as we were just loafing about, we didn't really think of it as a home.
The others tried to tidy it up a bit but we didn’t bother — except | think | think sometimes of the friends who left school at the same’time as me,
| bought a piece of old carpet or something. | left all my gear there when | made up my mind to go to art school. Some of them went
when | went to Hamburg.® straight to nine-to-five jobs and within three months they looked like
old men. Fat chance of that ever happening to me. The great thing is
| had a friend who was a blues freak; he turned me on to blues. He was never having to be in an office — or anywhere. | like to live on the spur
the same age as me and he‘tinderstood rock'n'roll — he knew what Elvis, of the moment; | hate to make forward plans.
Fats Domino and Little Richard were all about, but he said, ‘How about
this?’ It didn't take my love of rock'n'roll away and it added the real Who knows why The Beatles happened?
blues to my consciousness. The blues is real. It's not perverted, it's not It's like the constant search for why you go down one road and why
thought about, it's not a concept — it's a chair. Not a design for a chair, you go down another. It has as much to do with being from Liverpool,
or a better chair, or a bigger chair, or a chair with leather or with design or being from Quarry Bank grammar school or being in a household
it's the first chair; chairs for sitting on, not chairs for looking at or where the library was full of Oscar Wilde and Whistler and Fitzgerald
being appreciated. You sit on that music,” and all the Book of the Month Club.”

14 JOHN LENNON
 PROGRAMME
STALLS — SIDESHOWS — ICE CREAM — LEMONADE
Teas and Refreshments in large Marquee situated behind the hut.

2-00 p.m. PROCESSION leaves Church Road, via Allerton 3-30 p.m. MUSICAL SELECTIONS by the Band of the
Road, Kings Drive, Hunt’s Cross Avenue; returning to Cheshire (Earl of Chester) Yeomanry. Band-
to the Church Field. 5-00 p.m. master: H. Abraham.
Led by the Band of the Cheshire Yeomanry.
Street Collection by the Youth Club during the
(By permission of Lt.-Col. G. C. V. Churton, M.C.,
procession. M.B.E.).

3-00 pm. CROWNING OF THE ROSE QUEEN (Miss

Sally Wright) by Mrs. THELWALL JONES. 4-15 pm. THE QUARRY MEN SKIFFLE GROUP.

3-16 pm. FANCY DRESS PARADE. 5-15 pm. DISPLAY by the City of Liverpool Police Dogs.
Class 1. Under 7 years. By kind permission of the Chief Constable and
Class 2. 7 to 12 years. Watch Committee.
Class 3. Over 12 years.
|
Entrants to report to Miss P. Fuller at the Church :
GARDEN FETE
|

\s Hall before the procession. 5-45 pm. THE QUARRY MEN SKIFFLE GROUP.
ST. PETER'S CHURCH FIELD
| ar | ee VII COV SS. ns Dn i i hi hi bi Li bi ha i ha a hh a)

} |

8-0 p.m. GRAND DANCE in the CHURCH HALL

[e] Je) Xe} 3 EDWARDS BAND also The Quarry Men Skiffle Group

TICKETS 2]-
REFRESHMENTS AT MODERATE PRICES.
Saturday, 6th July, 1957
at 3 p.m.

Gin ~ sole
RANTS

gv AF ,
 PAUL
McCARTNEY
WAS BORN Mum was a Catholic, Dad was a Protestant. They got married quite
late, and had me when they were around forty. My mother was a
midwife and we were always given the midwife's house wherever she
worked. We always felt like a pioneer family in a wagon train. No

IN WALTON sooner would we be established in one house than we would be moved

to a new one, on the outskirts of Speke, say, where they hadn't built the
roads yet. We'd live there for a while and then it would be ‘whipcrack
away’, and we were moving again. It was all right; we adjusted. They

HOSPITAL ON were frontiers, the outskirts of Liverpool, where we were sent. | had a
very secure childhood, though. | have one brother, one and a half years
younger than me, Michael.
Liverpool has its own identity. It's even got its own accent within

ISTH JUNE 1942. about a ten mile radius. Once-you go outside that ten miles it's ‘deep
Lancashire, lad’. | think you do feel that apartness, growing up there.
As a child, Liverpool was trams. You'd get to the end of the tram
route and the driver would go to the controls
My mother was a nurse and came at the other end to drive back. Reminders of
the war were all around. We played on bomb-
sites a lot and | grew up thinking the word
from Fazakerley, Liverpool. My dad ‘bomb-site’ almost meant ‘playground’. | never
connected it with bombing. ‘Where are you
going to play?’ —'I'm going down the bombie.’
was born in Everton and was a We said words like ‘shell-shock', never
realising their true significance. There used to
be a guy in a demob suit who walked along
cotton salesman who’‘d left school twitching. People would ask, ‘What's wrong
with him?’ —‘Oh, shell-shock.'
I remember winters. They were like being
when he was fourteen. in Siberia, getting chapped knees in short
trousers. The insides of my knees and thighs
always had red chap-marks from the wet and
the cold, and the wind whipping them. | was a
boy scout, but | didn’t get many badges — |
got a bivouac badge for camping out. And |
remember there were always millions and
millions of car tyres down on the dock, which
we'd play amongst.
I used to go down to the docks a lot. | had
very romantic feelings about them. | had a
mate whose father was the dockmaster of Herculaneum Dock, and |
stayed there one night. A Spanish boat came in and we wanted to
practise our Spanish, since we'd just started learning it at school. The
only phrase | practised was ‘non rapidamente’, because they kept talking
too fast and we didn't know the word for ‘slowly’. | remember one
Spanish guy on deck having his hair cut.
There was a market called St John’s until we were teenagers, and
then it got turned into a car park or something. | have good memories
of the market. You'd hear a guy shouting, ‘What am | bid for this
crockery?’ He'd start off saying, ‘That lot's worth fifty quid, and I'm not
even asking twenty. I'm not even asking ten. ‘Ere you are, lady, three
quid the lot.’ He'd stack it all up precariously — all the plates would be
amazingly balanced — and then bang them down, proving what great
crockery it was. There was always someone in the audience, a plant,
who would say, ‘I'll have them,’ and fhen everyone would rush in. You'd
be tempted to buy them even if yotf didn't have three quid and didn't
need a lot of plates, because he was $tich a good salesman. | loved that.
We used to go down Dunge@@ Lane to the beach where the
lighthouse wasfon the Mersey shoreline. Two lads who were tougher
than me robbedjme of my watch thére one time. | was ten. They lived
in the next street — their Garden backed onto ours — so all | had to say
was, ‘It's him, Dad. He gatime watch’ We reported them to the police,
and they went fo court and got pufaway, silly guys. | had to go and
gainst th em. | 7 first time in court

Pee - m

5"tieiel ea
 Jim Mac’s Band — Ballroom, Liverpool (Jim McCartney sits third to right of drum)

~~ WR | oe ‘a x
roasting hot day near the swimming pool,
when out of the Calypso Ballroom came five

a 199 Oe
ge ' nt a
SS guys from Gateshead. And they all looked
alike. They each had on a little tartan flat cap,
with a grey crewneck sweater, tartan shorts,
pumps, and carried white towels under their

¥
ws
arms. They walked in a line across to the pool
to have a good old swim and | noticed
everyone's heads turn and go: ‘WHO'S
THAT?’ In that second a penny dropped for
me and I realised the power of looking
something. They won the talent contest at
Butlins that week for whatever they did — and
you just knew that they would win.

My dad was an instinctive musician. He'd

played trumpet in a little jazz band when he
was younger. | unearthed a photo in the Sixties
which someone in the family had given me,
and there he is in front of a big bass drum.
That gave us the idea for Sgt Pepper: The
The school I went to was an old ex-public school, the Liverpool Jimmy Mac Jazz Band. My dad is sitting there as a 24-year-old in his tux
Institute. It was very dark, dank and gloomy — it seems almost with my Uncle Jack next to him. Uncle Jack played trombone. It was all
Dickensian, looking back on it. You started aged eleven and were very ‘family’.
immediately in the third year. It was a hangover, because years before Dad played the trumpet until his teeth gave out. Later he tried the
you would have gone there aged nine. There were all these little crazies: clarinet, but that was a disaster and we'd laugh at him. He would play
‘Why am | in the third year when this is my first year?’ piano at home. We always had a piano. (It's a great-sounding piano,
A lot of people don't like school. | didn’t like it very much, but | which I still have. It was bought, incidentally, from North End Music
didn't dislike it; and | quite enjoyed bits of it. | enjoyed English Stores, NEMS. Brian Epstein was the son of Harry Epstein, the owner,
literature because we had a good master. What | didn't like was being and my dad bought his first piano from Harry. It is all like that in
told what to do. Liverpool, pretty intertwined.) | have some lovely childhood memories
If I tried to get the bus at school it was always full, but if |walked for of lying on the floor and listening to my dad play ‘Lullaby Of The
a quarter of an hour down to the pierhead where they started I could Leaves’ (still a big favourite of mine), and music from the Paul
get on an empty bus and pick a prime seat (which was upstairs at the Whiteman era (Paul Whiteman was one of his favourites), old songs
front, or back, depending on what the mood was). There was a little like ‘Stairway To Paradise’.
period later in my life when | would take a pipe To this day, I have a deep love for the
up onto the top deck of a bus and sit there piano, maybe from my dad: it must be in the
feeling like Dylan Thomas or someone, genes. He played the piano from when I was
reading Beckett plays or Tennessee Williams. born through until | was well into The Beatles.
As kids we went to Sunday school. My And you can start to see where I'm coming
mum liked to see us go. We didn’t do much from when you hear an old number like
else in the way of religion. Of course, everyone ‘Stumbling’, which is a very clever tune. Dad
did the usual things, like sing the hymn at told me what was clever about it; he was my
school assembly in the morning. I grew to like — ah, musical education. There was none in school;
a lot of hymns that way. (When I started F we never got music lessons. He would always
writing, | remember asking people, ‘What does point out things like the chord changes at the
this sound like? How do you like this song?’ beginning of ‘Stairway To Paradise’. Later, he'd
And they'd say, ‘Well, it sounds a bit like a tell us we should do that one with The Beatles.
hymn. It was one of the damning things We'd say, ‘Dad, Dad... “Build a stairway to
people said about some of my early numbers.) Dad plus pipe with the boys on Welsh hill (Paul is on the left) paradise’? Please!’
But | developed my religious philosophy at We were listening recently to ‘Like
the pierhead. It was like Speakers’ Corner. You always had the Dreamers Do’, one of my early songs — and George and | looked at each
Catholics arguing with the Protestants. The Protestant would say, other and he said, ‘That's your old man, that's “Stairway To Paradise.’
‘What my friend over there is telling you is all wrong. There is no such So a lot of my musicality came from my dad.
thing as mortal sin, you're not born a sinner.’ And then the Catholic guy | remember my dad would often have a mate round and he would
would start up: ‘My friend over there doesn’t know that there is such a say, ‘Now, he can really play.’ There was one fellow called Freddie
thing as mortal sin, and if you don't get rid of your guilt you will burn in Rimmer, a pianist. | did talk to him later, and he didn’t think he was that
hell and damnation.’ They couldn't get it together, even though they great, but to me as a child he was playing rich, juicy chords — the like of
were both Christians. The Irish problem, the Middle-Eastern problem — which I had never heard. He played the same things as my dad,
it's all down to that. ‘Chicago’ and all the old jazz songs. They were interested in funny time
| was exposed to many religious arguments on the pierhead, and | signatures without knowing it.
came to the conclusion that ‘God’ is just the word ‘good’ with the ‘o’ Dad was a pretty good self-taught pianist, but because he hadn't had
taken out, and ‘Devil’ is the word ‘evil’ with a 'D' added. Really, all that training himself, he always refused to teach me. | would say, ‘Teach us a
people have done throughout history is to personify the two forces of bit, and he would reply, ‘If you want to learn, you've got to learn
Good and Evil. And although they've given them many names — like properly.’ It was the old ethic that to learn, you should get a teacher. It
Jehovah or Allah — I've got a feeling that it's all the same. would have been OK for him to teach me, but | respect the reason why
One memorable thing-of importance happened when | was about he wouldn't. In the end, | learnt to play by ear, just like him, making it
eleven. My mum and dad and my brother and | went to Butlins holiday all up. | did then take lessons, but I always had a problem; mainly that |
camp. | have a photograph of me there in short trousers and school didn’t know my tutor, and I wasn't very good at going into an old lady's
blazer — a chubby little kid. (You would never wear your school uniform house — it smelt of old people — so | was uncomfortable. | was just a kid.
going on holiday, but | think it was all | had — my posh gear.) My 1 quite liked what she was showing me, but then she started setting
brother took the picture. I'm in front of a hot-dog corner, which we homework: ‘By next week | want you to have learnt this.’ | thought it
thought was dead hip: an American hot-dog stand! was bad enough coming for lessons, but homework! That was sheer
So | was standing there in my school cap and everything, on a torture. | stuck it for four or five weeks, and then the homework really

18 PAUL McCARTNEY
got difficult so | gave up. To this day | have never learnt to write or read could feel the party rise and the atmosphere building, and at about
music; | have a vague suspicion now that it would change how I'd do eleven he'd come up to me and tap me on the shoulder — ‘All right, son,
things. go for it.’ That would be it: ‘Carolina Moon...’ and everyone would
My father did write a song — only the one, to my knowledge — and cheer. He was always right, the timing was always spot on. | used to
many years later | said, ‘Dad, you know that song you wrote: “Walking keep going for hours and hours, and it was good practice. It was a lot of
In The Park With Eloise"? He said, ‘Il didn't write it — I just made it up.’ my training. Later on, people wanted me to do ‘Let It Be’ and other
Anyway, | told him that I'd recorded it with some friends of mine in - songs of mine at these do's. But | never wanted to. It didn’t seem kosher.
Nashville. One of the friends was Chet Atkins, and he'd brought along My dad was also a great crossword-puzzle man, and used to tell us
Floyd Cramer. We got together and made a little recording of the song kids to practise crossword puzzles — it would improve our word power.
specially to play to my dad. Having left school very early, he'd had
Dad had told me: ‘Learn the to educate himself. He taught me
piano, because you'll get invited to words that no one else knew and | was
parties. He'd always play on New the only kid in my class who could
Year's Eve. Our family always had big spell ‘phlegm’. He had met a lot of
New Year's Eve parties. They were people at his workplace whom he
some of the best parties | ever looked up to, so he and my mum
remember, because everyone got believed in education and in furthering
together. yourself. | think a lot of my ambition
We kids were allowed to help comes from them.
behind the bar, which was a few Dad could also be quite shy. My
crates and a bit of table. We were parents didn’t tell me about sex, they
taught that if someone asked for a were too embarrassed. Dad used to try
‘gin and it’, it was gin and Italian, and to tell me, but it came out all wrong.
that ‘rum and black’ was rum and He'd say, ‘See those two dogs over
blackcurrant. We learnt how to do it there?’ and I'd say, ‘Well, throw some
all: ‘If they want beer, get it from cold water over them.’ — ‘No, no, what
that barrel there, and if they want I'm trying to tell you is...’ He'd try to
mild, that’s there.’ It was wonderful, Cousin Bett and son Ted, with Paul on Ted’s pushchair tackle the subject like that; but | found
because everybody would get pissed out from the other kids, anyway,
out of their arses. Old Uncle Jack, a wheezy old man, would say, ‘All when | was about eleven: ‘Don't you know?’ they'd say. ‘Where have
right, son. Have you heard this one?’ and tell the best jokes ever. A you been?’
really good joke is a great acquisition for me, it's like gold bullion. | But he was great; very well meaning, and always upwardly mobile.
don't remember Uncle Jack ever coming up with a bad one, they were He didn't actually move very far up himself, but he aspired heavily and
always killers. There'd be him and my Uncle Harry, drunk out of their so did my mum. Because she was a nurse, my brother and | were always
minds. And at midnight on New Year's Eve at Uncle Joe's house in going to be doctors, which we could never have achieved because we
Aintree, a piper would come in — just a neighbour — and it was lovely; were too lazy. That was the kind of environment | was in.
very, very warm. My mum dying when I| was fourteen was the big shock in my
When I used to talk to John about his childhood, | realised that teenage years. She died of cancer, | learnt later. | didn't know then why
mine was so much warmer. | think that's why | grew up to be so open she had died.
about sentimentality in particular. | really don't mind being sentimental. My mum wanted us to speak properly and aspired to speak the
I know a lot of people look on it as uncool. | see it as a pretty valuable Queen's English. One of my most guilty feelings is about picking her up
asset. once on how she spoke. She pronounced ‘ask’ with a long ‘a’ sound. And
The New Year's party would traditionally be my dad's night. | only I said, ‘Oh — “aarsk"! That's “ask", mum,’ and I really took the piss out of
took over as the New Year's Eve pianist from him because he had her. When she died, | remember thinking, ‘You asshole, why did you do
arthritis and he couldn't do it any more. There was an older man called that? Why did you have to put your mum down?’ | think I've just about
Jack Ollie, married to a cousin of mine, who'd come up with a pint for got over it now, doctor.
me and plonk it on the top of the piano. He'd stand and listen to me, My mother's death broke my dad up. That was the worst thing for
and as he sipped his pint he'd say, 'I like it, | like it — I like it.' That's all me, hearing my dad cry. I'd never heard him cry before. It was a terrible
he'd say, and just buy me drinks. blow to the family. You grow up real quick, because you never expect to
I haven't done it for a while, but part of my rebbrtolne was ‘Red Red hear your parents crying. You expect to see women crying, or kids in
Robin’, and ‘Carolina Moon’. | had a lovely uncle, Ron, who would the playground, or even yourself crying — and you can explain all that.
come up and say, ‘All right, son. Now, you know “Carolina Moon"?’ and But when it's your dad, then you know something's really wrong and it
I'd say, ‘Yeah.’ He'd say, ‘Well, don't play it yet, wait till I tell you. I'll shakes your faith in everything. But | was determined not to let it affect
give you the OK.’ I'd wait and everyone would get steamed up, you me. | carried on. | learnt to put a shell around me at that age. There was
none of this sitting at home crying — that would be recommended now,
but not then.
That became a very big bond between John and me, because he lost
his mum early on, too. We both had this emotional turmoil which we
had to deal with and, being teenagers, we had to deal with it very
quickly. We both understood that something had happened that you
couldn't talk about — but we could laugh about it, because each of us
had gone through it. It was OK for him to laugh at it and OK for me to
laugh at it. It wasn't OK for anyone else. We could both laugh at death
— but only on the surface. John went through hell, but young people
don't show grief — they'd rather not. Occasionally, once or twice in later
years, it would hit in. We'd be sitting around and we'd have a cry
i oe together; not often, but it was good.

| mrs
|
Now Mum was gone there were chores to be done: | had to do the fire

marks...£1, i
aaa and a bit of cleaning.
did have a couple of
But we also made a point of playing out, too. We
aunties, which was a blessing. Auntie Milly and

cin Auntie Jinny came on

because I could come
Tuesdays, and that was a golden day in my week
home and not have to do anything. They'd have a
CRME, LAA,
dinner waiting for me and | could just flop in a chair and go to sleep
aca ,
EAL coop tb AMMLE
Class Teacher.

Teacher. a a
El ector pise- Tlead
~~ pastes nore 4 Seba oe
» :
"PAUL McCARTNE) 19
 Sketches from Paul's schoolbook

It was this tragedy that led John to be a wild guy, a

| learnt to cook some things. I'm a reasonable cook. | used to
Ted. There was a lot of aggression around Liverpool;
take a tin of tomatoes and boil them down to make a very good
there were lots of Teddy boys, and you had to try to
tomato purée. Even when we started getting known, playing the
avoid them if you saw them in alleyways. If, like John,
clubs in Liverpool, my dad would show up at the Cavern with
you were a guy who had lived on his own, you had to put
half a pound of sausages and throw them at me — and that would
be dinner. | would be expected to go home, stick them under the up some kind of a front. So he grew long sideburns, he had
grill and make some mashed potatoes — I'm a good mashed-potato a long drape jacket, he had the drain-pipe trousers and the
maker to this day. crepe-soled shoes. He was always quite defensive because
I went occasionally to watch football. My family team was of that. | would see him from afar, from the bus. This Ted
Everton and I went to Goodison Park a couple of times with would get on the bus, and | wouldn't look at him too
my uncles Harry and Ron. They were nice memories for me, but 7 x\ hard in case he hit me, because he was just that much
| wasn't that keen on football. (The Beatles weren't very sporty at all.) < NN older. That was before | got to know him.
When | went to the match it was the witticisms that | liked. You'd Ivan Vaughan was a friend of mine born on exactly
always get the comedians in the crowd; they must be the people who the same day as me. (He was a smashing fellow, who unfor-
invent jokes. | remember being at one game and a guy had a trumpet tunately got Parkinson's disease and has died.) Ivan was also mates with
and was commenting on the game musically. Someone would have a John. Ivan said to me one day, "The Woolton Village Féte is on
shot at goal which would go way, way over the top and he'd play: ‘Over Saturday’ — he lived near John in Woolton — 'Do you want to come?’ |
the mountains, over the sea.’ Very skilful. said, ‘Yeah, I'm not doing anything.’
My dad bought me a trumpet for my birthday, at Rushworth & It was 6th July 1957. We were fifteen years old. | remember coming
Draper's (the other music store in town), and I loved it. There was a big into the féte; there was the coconut shy over here and the hoopla over
hero-thing at the time. There had been Harry James — The Man With there, all the usual things — and there was a band playing on a platform
The Golden Trumpet — and now, in the Fifties, it was Eddie Calvert, a with a small audience in front of them.
big British star who played ‘Cherry Pink And Apple Blossom White’ — We headed for the stage first, because as teenagers we were
all those gimmicky trumpet records. There were a lot of them around interested in music. There was a guy up on the platform with curly,
back then, so we all wanted to be trumpeters. blondish hair, wearing a checked shirt — looking pretty
I persevered with the trumpet for a while. I learnt good and quite fashionable — singing a song that |
‘The Saints’, which I can still play in C. I learnt my C loved: the Del-Vikings’' ‘Come Go With Me’. He didn't
scale, and a couple of things. Then | realised that | know the words, but it didn't matter because none of
wasn't going to be able to sing with this thing stuck in us knew the words either. There's a little refrain which
my mouth, so | asked my dad if he'd mind if | swapped goes, ‘Come little darlin’, come and go with me, | love
it for a guitar, which also fascinated me. He didn't, and you darling.’ John was singing, ‘Down, down, down to
I traded my trumpet in for an acoustic guitar, a Zenith, the penitentiary.’ He was filling in with blues lines, |
which I still have. thought that was good, and he was singing well. There
It was OK as a first guitar. Being left handed, | was a skiffle group around him: tea-chest bass, drums,
would play it upside down. Everyone else had right- banjo, quite a higgledy-piggledy lot. They were called
handed guitars, but I learnt some chords my way up: A, The Quarry Men because John went to the Quarry
D and E — which was all you needed in those days. | Bank school, and I quite liked them.
started writing songs, because now | could play and I wandered around the fair and then Ivan and |
sing at the same time. | wrote my first when | was went backstage. The band were getting ready to move
fourteen. It was called ‘Il Lost My Little Girl’ — ‘I woke indoors, into the church hall for the evening show.
up this morning, my head was in a whirl, only then | There was some beer being drunk. Really, | was too
realised, lost my little girl, uh, huh, huh.’ It's a funny, corny little song young for that then, but, ‘Sure, I'll have a sip.’ | was trying to be in with
based on three chords — G, G7 and C. | liked the way one melody line the big lads who, being sixteen, were into pre-pub drinking. We went to
went down and the other went up, which | think is called contrary the evening show and that was good, although a fight almost broke out;
motion. It was a very innocent little song. All my first songs, including wed heard that the gang from Garston was coming over. | was
that one, were written on the Zenith; songs like ‘Michelle’ and ‘I Saw wondering what | had got myself into. | had only come over for the
Her Standing There’. It was on this guitar that | learnt "Twenty Flight afternoon and now | was in Mafia land. But it all worked out fine, and |
Rock’, the song that later got me into the group The Quarry Men. got on the piano.
Eventually, it got the worse for wear. My cousin lan was quite a John was a little afternoon-pissed, leaning over my shoulder,
good carpenter (he and his dad were builders), and he repaired it for me breathing boozily. We were all a little sloshed. | thought, ‘Bloody hell,
with a brace unit and two-inch screws, the sort used for holding up who's this?’ But he was enjoying what I was playing, ‘Whole Lotta
shelves. It's actually been properly restored now, and looking better Shakin’ Goin’ On’ in C; and | knew ‘Tutti Frutti’ and ‘Long Tall Sally’.
than it ever looked. Then | played guitar — upside down. | did ‘Twenty Flight Rock’, and
John was the local Ted. You saw him rather than met him. | know knew all the words. The Quarry Men were so knocked out that |
John’s story, and as | got older | realised it was his childhood that made actually knew and could sing ‘Twenty Flight Rock’. That's what
John what he was. His father left home when he was four. | don't got me into The Beatles.
think John ever got over that. | talked to him about it. He would I knew all the words because me and my mate lan James had
wonder, ‘Could he have left because of me?’ Of course he couldn't, just got them. He and I| used to get into all these records and
but I don't think John ever shook off that feeling. write down the words. "Twenty Flight Rock’ was a hard record to
Instead of living with his mother, he went to live with his Aunt get; | remember ordering it and having to wait weeks for it to come
Mimi and Uncle George. Then Uncle George died and John in. We'd buy from Curry's or NEMS. We used to go around shops
began to think that there was a jinx on the male side: father left and ask to hear a record, and then not buy it. They used to get very
home, uncle dead. He loved his Uncle George; he was annoyed but we didn’t care — now we knew the words. | never
always quite open about loving people. All those had a very big record collection.
losses would really have got to him. His mother lived I often pedalled around Woolton at that time, going to see
in what was called ‘sin’ — just living with a guy by Ivan. I lived a bike ride away, in Allerton. (You could walk through
whom she had a couple_of daughters, John’s half the golf links, so it was quite handily placed for me and John. It was
sisters, Julia and Jacqui; very nice people. John important then whether you lived near each other or not. There were
really loved his mother, idol-worshipped her. | no cars for kids in those days.) Pete Shotton, who was in The Quarry
loved her, too. She was great: gorgeous and funny, Men, was cycling around too, and we met by chance. Pete was a close
with beautiful long red hair. She played the ukulele, friend of John’s. He said, ‘Hey, Paul, it was good the other day, and
and to this day, if | ever meet grown-ups who play we've been having a talk. Would you like to join the group?’ I said, I'll
ukuleles, | love them. She was killed, so John’s life have to think about it.’ But |was quite excited by the offer, so — through
was tragedy after tragedy. Ivan —I agreed to join.

2 PAUL McCARTNEY
 Haley's ‘Rock Around The Clock’ as its theme
tune. The first time | heard that, shivers went
up my spine, so we had to go and see the film,
just for the title song. | could just about scrape
through the sixteen barrier. Even though | was
baby-faced, | was just able to bluff it in the
grown-up world; but George couldn't. He had
all the attitude, but he really was young-
looking. | remember going out into his back
garden and getting a bit of soil and putting it
on his lip as a moustache. It was ridiculous, but
I thought, ‘He looks the part — we'll get in.’ And
we did. It was a teenage juvenile-delinquent
film, and we were quite disappointed: all acting
and talking!
I actually went to see Bill Haley at the
Odeon. | think it was twenty-four shillings.
Consequently, | was the only one who could
go, because no one else could save that
amount. | didn't have any source of income; |
had to save for quite a long time. | was very
single-minded about it: once I'd had that
tingle, | had to go. | remember | was in short
trousers — for a rock'n'roll concert! It was great,
although Vic Lewis and his orchestra had the
first half of the show. | thought that was a bit
A great thing about Liverpool, Newcastle, Glasgow and the of a swizz — I wanted Bill all the way.
provinces, is that they all have places with famous names, and the first I had film heroes. Fred Astaire was always one of my big heroes, he
gig with The Quarry Men was on Broadway — in Liverpool. (We made was just so suave and debonair. | liked his voice a lot. Marlon Brando we
our first record in a little demo studio in Kensington, Liverpool.) For my were all very keen on. Robb Wilton, a comedian, whose autograph | got
first gig, | was given a guitar solo on ‘Guitar Boogie’. | could play it once. One of my relatives was a stage-door keeper at the Liverpool
easily in rehearsal so they elected that | should do it as my solo. Things Empire, and he'd get autographs for me. I'm generally quite good
were going fine, but when the moment came in the performance | got natured about giving autographs (not always, but generally) and it's all
sticky fingers; | thought, ‘What am | doing here?’ | was just too because | used to collect them myself at the Empire stage door, from the
frightened; it was too big a moment with everyone looking at the guitar Crew Cuts, people like that. And the fact that they treated me well
player. | couldn't do it. (I never played a solo again until a few years never left me.
ago.) That's why George was brought in. I once wrote to Craven Cottage, Fulham Football Club, for Johnny
I knew George from the bus. Before | went to live in Allerton, | lived Haynes's autograph and it's a special little tingly memory for me of it
in Speke. We lived on an estate which they used to call the Trading coming back in the post. Sir Peter Scott | wrote to. (I was a skiving
Estate. (I understand now that they were trying to move industry there bastard when you think about it, but I always thought nothing ventured
to provide jobs, but then we didn't ever consider why it was called a nothing gained.) Peter Scott had a TV show and he used to draw
trading estate.) George was a bus stop away. | would get on the bus for various birds every week. | wrote to him, ‘Can | have the drawings of
school and he would get on the stop after. So, being close to each other them ducks if you're not doing anything with them?’ | got a polite reply.
in age, we talked — although I| tended to talk down to him, because he The telly showed us most of what was going on then. I'd first heard
was a year younger. (I know now that that was a failing I had all the way about ‘Rock Around The Clock’ on telly, and even Maharishi. Granada,
through the Beatle years. If you've known a guy when he's thirteen and the local television station, saw to it that anyone wandering through the
you're fourteen, it's hard to think of him as grown-up. | still think of region was nabbed and interviewed. So we would hear about all those
George as a young kid. | still think of Ringo as a very old person things; rock'n'roll films — The Blackboard Jungle, Marlon Brando in The
because he is two years older. He was the grown-up in the group: when Wild One (I was a bit disappointed with The Wild One).
he came to us he had a beard, he had a car and he had a suit. What But it was music that I loved. There have been times when I've
more proof do you need of grown-upmanship?) been feeling down, and then I've heard a particular song and it has
I told John and the other Quarry Men about this guy at school lifted me. Me and my teenage mate lan James both had fleck jackets
called George: ‘He is a real good guitar player, so if you're thinking of with a little flap on the breast pocket, and we'd knock around the
guitar — this is your boy.’ They said, ‘OK, let's hear him, then.’ fairgrounds and places. If we were feeling lousy, we'd go back and play
George could play ‘Raunchy’ so well it really sounded like the an Elvis 78 — ‘Don't Be Cruel’ — and we'd be right up there again. It
record. We were all on the top of an empty bus one night and | said, could cure any blues.
‘Go on, George.’ He got his guitar out and sure enough he could play it, | remember being in the assembly hall at school one day — it was a
and everyone agreed, ‘You're in. You've done it.’ It was rather like me free period and all us kids were hanging out together. Somebody pulled
knowing the words to Twenty Flight Rock’. With out a music paper, and there was an advert for
George it was: ‘He's a bit young, but by God he ‘Heartbreak Hotel’. Elvis looked so great: "That's
can play “Raunchy” well.’ George was like our him, that’s him — the Messiah has arrived!’ Then
professional guitarist from then. Later, John did when we heard the song, there was the proof.
play some Chuck Berry-style solos, but he gave That was followed by his first album, which | still
over the solo chair to George and became known love the best of all his records. It was so fantastic
as rhythm guitarist. we played it endlessly and tried to learn it all.
John was at art school by now. | was fifteen, Everything we did was based on that album.
John was almost seventeen. It seemed an awful lot I went off Elvis after he left the army. | felt
at the time. If we wanted to do anything grown- they tamed him too much. It was all wrong — Gl
up we worried about George looking young. We Blues and Blue Hawaii. | know they have kitsch
thought, 'He doesn't shave... can’t we get him to value to a lot of people now, and | have also
look like a grown-up?’ heard people say that they liked Elvis best when
Once, George and | had gone to see the film he was fat and bloated in Vegas, because there
The Blackboard Jungle. It starred Vic Morrow, was an edge, a fear that something was going
which was good, but more importantly it had Bill wrong, which they could be voyeuristic about
Dad and ‘the smalls’ — 20 Forthlin, Liverpool

PAUL McCARTNEY 21
 Danger’
The original 1958 shellac disc featuring ‘That'll Be The Day’ and ‘in Spite Of All The

But | like him best around 1956, when he was young and gorgeous and John was Buddy and | was Little Richard or Elvis. You're always
someone when you start.
had a twinkle in his eye; when he had a sense of humour, plus that great
voice. He was an incredible vocalist. Try and do it sometime — we all Rock'n'roll wasn't all I liked in music. Kids these days must find it
have — and he is still the guvnor. The video Elvis Live in '56 is great, but
hard to imagine a time when rock'n'roll was only one of ‘the musics’.
Now it is the music. There is a huge spectrum, from pop to serious blues
it was just one year later that he went to Hollywood and the light had
gone out of his eye. In that video he performs like he's playing to an
players. Back then I wasn't necessarily looking to be a rock'n'roller.
audience of screaming girls, but by his actions he is saying, ‘I don't When | wrote ‘When I'm Sixty-Four’ | thought | was writing a song for
believe in this screaming.’ Every line, he is reacting. It is an incredible Sinatra. There were records other than rock'n'roll that were important
performance, which | love still. Elvis made a huge impression on us. to me. And that would come out in The Beatles doing songs like ‘Till
Chuck Berry was another massive influence with ‘Johnny B. Goode’. There Was You’.
We'd go up to John’s bedroom with his little record-player and listen to | had an elder cousin, Elizabeth Danher (now Robbins). She was
Chuck Berry records, trying to learn them. | remember learning quite an influence on me. She had a fairly grown-up record collection,
‘Memphis, Tennessee’ up there. and she would say, ‘Have you heard this?’ She was the first person ever
| saw Eddie Cochran on television, too: Ob Boy!, | think it was. to play me ‘My Funny Valentine’ — ‘Don't change a hair for me, not if
Most of the other guys like Cliff Richard and Marty Wilde were good you care for me.’ The words were good. For the same reason I've always
singers, but Eddie was suddenly the first one who played guitar. He was liked Chuck Berry, who writes great lyrics.
playing ‘Milk Cow Blues’ and had a Gretsch guitar with a Bigsby Betty would play me records like Peggy Lee's ‘Fever’. Peggy Lee did
vibrator, and it looked very glamorous. ‘Till There Was You’ as well. | didn’t know that was from the musical
The Girl Can't Help It is still the great music film. They had always The Music Man until many years later. (Funnily enough, my company
treated music films as B pictures up till then, or used music just as a now publishes the music from that show.) This led me to songs like ‘A
theme tune, as in The Blackboard Jungle. Or those little black-and-white Taste Of Honey’ and things which were slightly to the left and the right
productions with an Alan Freed as the personality, and lots of of rock'n'roll.
what they thought were ‘black acts’. To us it was not John's, George's and my tastes were all pretty much in
just a black act, it was Clyde McPhatter! We common. We shared our influences like mad. And when
idolised these people and we always thought John would show another side to his musical taste, it
they were given crummy treatment — until would be similar to what I'd been brought up on, like
The Girl Cant Help It. There is a famous my dad's music. One of John’s favourite songs was
moment at the beginning when Tom ‘Don't Blame Me’. It is a really nice song that |
Ewell takes the screen. He says, ‘Wait a believe his mother had shown him, another one
minute,’ and pushes the picture out so it was ‘Little White Lies’. We would learn the
becomes a wide screen. Then he clicks chords to some of these. But the main feeling
his fingers and it changes from black- was for the rock'n'roll and that was what we
and-white to colour: the big epic, started to devour.
exactly what we wanted! Then Jayne When we weren't playing parties or talent
Mansfield comes on and the game's contests we would listen to other guys on
over, and the guy's glasses break. At the guitar, and it became a quest to find chords and
same time, Little Richard is singing “The records. It was like looking for the Holy Grail.
Girl Can't Help It, and then Eddie We would hear of some guy in Fazakerley — was
Cochran does ‘Twenty Flight Rock’. And that a long way away! It was, of course, in
Gene Vincent sings ‘Be Bop A Lula’, which Liverpool but it was like going across the world
was the first record | ever bought. | still love for us: this guy knows B7! We must all go ona
that film. journey. So a little crowd of us would get on
There were lots of people coming up then. the bus there. It would be enough that he
Buddy Holly was completely different; he was knew B7. We'd sit down: ‘Oh guru, we
out of Nashville, so that introduced us to the hearest thou knowest B7. Please show it
country-music scene. | still like Buddy's vocal to us.’ — ‘Certainly, kids.’ Then we'd go
style. And his writing. One of the main things home: ‘Wey-hey, we know E, A and D —
about The Beatles is that we started out writing now let's get B7.. We didn't know
our own material. People these days take it for exactly how to do the last part of B7 for
granted that you do, but nobody used to then. a while.
John and | started to write because of Buddy A rumour reached town one day that
Holly. It was like, ‘Wow! He writes and is a there was a man over the hills who had
musician.’ the record ‘Searchin’ by The Coasters.
We'd always watched the Elvis films checking Colin, the drummer with John’s skiffle
to see if he could play guitar, and he could — a little group, knew him and so there was a great
bit. He wasn't bad; he held the shapes. Some trek to find the man, and indeed we found him.
guitarists’ held like wallyville. We'd think: "That's not a And relieved him of it. It was too big a respon-
shape, that is not a chord,’ so it would be: ‘Goodbye — we sibility for him to keep. We couldn't return it. We
don't like you any more. You mustn't strum the guitar if you can't just had to have it; it was like gold dust. ‘Searchin’ became
play. Put it down and dance.’ But you could tell that Buddy played the a big number with The Beatles; we always used to do it at the Cavern.
solo on ‘Peggy Sue’. We were very attracted to him for that reason, and (There were little groups of fans there who gave themselves names. One
the fact that there was always ‘Holly/Petty’ or 'Petty/Holly’ on the group was called The Woodentops and there were two girls, Chris and
records, so we knew he was one of the writers. We tried for ages to Val, who would shout in their Scouse accents, ‘Sing “Searchin’", Paul.
learn the intro to ‘That'll Be The Day’, and finally John found it. Buddy Sing "Searchin’”.’)
did it in F with a capo, but we didn't know that so we did it in A. That was how we found things out — going on a bus somewhere to
lohn was very short-sighted. He wore glasses, but he would only see a man with a record, or to teenage parties. Kids would come with a
wear them in private. Until Buddy Holly arrived on the scene he would handful of 45s — a little shopping bag full of them. And great villainy
never get them out because he felt like an idiot, with his big horn- went on then, of course. As people got more and more drunk we used to
rimmed glasses. So he was constantly banging into things, he used to nick their records.
make a joke out of it. Another friend of his at college, Geoff, was even I'd started fiddling around on my dad's piano again. | wrote ‘When
more short-sighted. John and Geoff used to have very funny moments I'm Sixty-Four’ on that when | was still sixteen (it was all rather tongue
going around town: two blind guys who wouldn't put their glasses on. in cheek) and I never forgot it. | wrote that tune vaguely thinking it
But when Buddy came out, the glasses came out too. John could go on could come in handy in a musical comedy or something. Like | say, |
stage and see who he was playing to. In our imaginations back then, didn't know what kind of career | was going to take back then.
 Stuart's Hofner Bass

| remember standing at the bus stop, thinking, ‘If only I could win We went to Phillips in Kensington, which sounded very posh. John
£75,000 on the pools and have the bare essentials of life — a guitar, a car sang ‘That'll Be The Day’, and the B side was ‘In Spite Of All The
and a house.’ | couldn't even think of anything else. My dad gave me ten Danger’; a self-penned little song very influenced by Elvis. John and |
shillings once and, as far as | can recall, that's the only person in my sang it and George played the solo.
whole life who's ever given me anything for free. When we got the record, the agreement was that we would have it
for a week each. John had it a week and passed it on to me. | had it for a
I would often sag off school for the afternoon and John would get off week and passed it on to George, who had it for a week. Then Colin
art college, and we would sit down with our two guitars and plonk had it for a week and passed it to Duff Lowe — who kept it for twenty-
away. We'd go to my house because there wasn't really anywhere else. three years. Later, when we were famous, he said, ‘Hey, I've got that
Dad was at work. We'd get a pipe out and smoke some Typhoo tea to first record.’ | ended up buying it back for a very inflated price. |
feel like adults. (It didn't taste too good.) We'd both have acoustic have since had some replicas made. | don't want to play the
guitars and we'd sit opposite each other and play. It was great, shellac because it would wear out, as demos in those days
because instead of looking into my own mind for a song | could | HOFNER would. But it's great to have.
see John playing — as if he was holding a mirror to what | was At that time | was playing guitar too. In fact, at one time
doing. It was a good way to write. there were only three of us in the band, and we were all
‘We wrote songs together. | wrote them down in an exercise guitarists — George, John and me. We were playing here and
book and above them it always said, ‘Another Lennon/McCartney there, around Liverpool, and after a while everyone else had
original.’ Next page, ‘Another Lennon/McCartney original.’ It was dwindled away to get jobs, go to college, whatever. We would
just the lyrics and indications of the chords. We would have to show up for gigs just with three guitars, and the person booking us
remember the melodies, with indications of the ‘oh's that would be would ask, ‘Where's the drums, then?’ To cover this eventuality we
the back-up vocals; | had no way of writing them down. There were would say, ‘The rhythm’s in the guitars,’ stand there, smile a lot,
no cassettes and you could hardly go to the expense of getting hold bluff it out. There was not a lot you could say to that, and we'd
of a Grundig tape-recorder. You had to know somebody who had make them very rhythmic to prove our point.
one. We did know one person, but we didn’t record much on it — we We heard there were opportunities on talent shows like
weren't that interested in our own material early on. The whole deal Carroll Levis's Discoveries. Carroll Levis was a rather portly
was to remember the songs we'd written. John and | had an unwritten Canadian gent with blondish hair. We thought Canadians were
law, which was that if we couldn't remember them, then how could like Americans, so they were very special to us. They could easily
we expect people who hadn't written them to remember them? get into entertainment, as Hughie Green did — just because of
We did ‘Love Me Do’ and ‘I Saw Her Standing There’, and got the their accent: ‘Ladies and gennelmen...’ Oh wow, he's professional!
basis of a partnership going. One of us would come up with an idea In 1959, we got on Levis's Discoveries and went to Ardwick in
and then it would see-saw. So there was a mild competitiveness in Manchester. We rehearsed our set on the train over from
that we were ricocheting our ideas. ‘Love Me Do’ was very much G Liverpool. We did ‘Think It Over’ and ‘Rave On’.
and G7, C and D — not too hard. The harmonica is a great bit. John We failed miserably in the contest — we always got beaten. We
was a good harmonica player. He had a chromatic one, which is never won a talent show in our lives. We were always playing little
more like Stevie Wonder's — it was a little square, so he had to learn late-night ones at pubs and working-men’s clubs. We were inevit-
how to get the blues sounds out of it. ably beaten by the woman on the spoons, because it was eleven at
We were learning our skill. John would like some of my night and everyone was well tanked up, they didn’t want to hear
lines and not others. He liked most of what | did, but the music we were playing. It was always the fat old lady with a
there would sometimes be a cringe line, such as, ‘She pair of spoons who would beat us hands down. We
was just seventeen, she'd never been a beauty queen.’ would come back on the bus saying, ‘We shouldn't
John thought, ‘Beauty queen? Ugh.’ We were have lost to her, you know, she wasn't that good.’ —
thinking of Butlins so we asked ourselves, what ‘She had a certain something about her, on the
should it be? We came up with, ‘You know what | thighs, you know?’ — ‘No, we were better, we really
mean.’ Which was good, because you dont know were: they were all pissed.’ We had to buoy
what | mean. ourselves up after every failure.
We were learning together and gradually the Stuart Sutcliffe was a friend of John’s from art
songs got better and most of what we called our college. Stuart had sold a painting for £65. (He
‘first hundred’ (which was probably about five — used to paint in the style of Nicolas de Staél, his
we would lie our faces off then to get anyone to favourite artist. The paintings were basically
notice us) were written in my house in Forthlin abstract — to us it looked like throwing on a bit
Road. Then we had to waft all the tea-tobacco of paint and wiggling it about a bit.) So what
smell away and get out before my dad came do you do with £65? We all reminded him
home and caught us. over a coffee: ‘Funny you should have got
In those early days, you could go to the that amount, Stuart — it is very near the cost
local studios and, as long as you could get the of a Hofner bass.’ He said, ‘No, | can't just
money together — five pounds, which was a lot spend all that.’ It was a fortune in those days,
for kids to find — you could cut a record. You like an inheritance. He said he had to buy
would show up with all your equipment and wait; canvases or paint. We said, ‘Stu, see reason, love.
it was a bit like a doctor's waiting room. When the A Hofner, a big ace group... fame!’ He gave in and
group or the performer before you had made bought this big Hofner bass that dwarfed him.
their record, you would go into the studio The trouble was he couldn't play well. This
and a guy would come in, adjust a few was a bit of a drawback, but it looked good,
microphones and you would sing. Then it so it wasn't too much of a problem.
was back out to the waiting room for fifteen minutes while he processed When he came into the band, around
the tape (I think it was tape, though it went straight onto shellac), and Christmas of 1959, we were a little jealous of him; it was something |
off you went. It was a very primitive recording. didn't deal with very well. We were always slightly jealous of John’s
We made a shellac disc like that in 1958. There were five of us: other friendships. He was the older fellow; it was just the way it was.
George, John, Colin Hanton, ‘Duff’ Lowe and me. Duff was a friend of When Stuart came in, it felt as if he was taking the position away from
mine from school who could play the piano. He could play the arpeggio George and me. We had to take a bit of a back seat. Stuart was John’s
‘at the beginning of Jerry Lee's ‘Mean Woman Blues. That was the age, went to art college, was a very good painter and had all the cred
reason he was in. No one else we knew could play arpeggios right up that we didn't. We were a bit younger, went to a grammar school and
the piano keyboard; we could do one broken chord and pause, and then weren't quite serious enough.
So, with whatever occasional drummer we had — and there were a
do another and pause again — he could go right through with the
correct fingering. few — that made five of us.

PAUL McCARTNEY 23
 GEORGE
HARRISON
WAS BORN IN | had two brothers and one sister. My sister was twelve when | was
born; she'd just taken her Eleven Plus. | don’t really remember much of
her from my childhood because she left home when she was about
seventeen. She went to teacher training college and didn’t come back

12 ARNOLD GROVE, after that.

My grandmother — my mother's mother — used to live in Albert
Grove, next to Arnold Grove; so when I was small I could go out of our
back door and around the back entries (they called them ‘jiggers’ in

PIV ERP OG. Liverpool) to her house. | would be there when my mother and father
were at work.
My father's father, whom | never knew, was a builder, and he built a
lot of the great Edwardian houses in Princes Road, Liverpool. That was

IN FEBRUARY 1943. where all the doctors and other professionals lived. They knew how to
build in those days: good masonry, bricks and timber. Perhaps my
interest in architecture comes from my grandfather. | like to see nice
buildings, whether it be a little cottage with a
My dad had been a seaman, but thatched roof or St Pancras Station. | always felt
that life was to go through and grow and make
opportunities, make things happen. | never felt
by then he was driving a bus. My that because I was from Liverpool | shouldn't
live in a big mansion house myself one day.
Our house was very small. Two up and two
mother was from an Irish family down — step straight in off the pavement, step
right out of the back room. The front room was
never used. It had the posh lino and a three-
called French, and she had lots of piece suite, was freezing cold and nobody ever
went in it. We'd all be huddled together in the
kitchen, where the fire was, with the kettle on,
brothers and sisters. My mother was and a little iron cooking stove.
A lot of the garden was paved over (except
one bit where there was a one-foot-wide
Catholic. My father wasn't and, flowerbed), with a toilet at the back and, for a
period of time, a little hen-house where we
kept cockerels. There was a zinc bathtub hanging on the backyard
although they always say people who weren't wall which we'd bring in and fill with hot water from pans and boiling
kettles. That would be how we had a bath. We didn't have a
bathroom: no jacuzzis.
My earliest recollection is of sitting on a pot at the top of the stairs,
having a poop — shouting, ‘Finished!’ Another very early memory is as a
baby, of a party in the street. There were air-raid shelters and people
to be anything. were sitting around tables and benches. | must have been no more than
two. We used to have a photograph of me there, so it's probably only
because | could relive the scene when | was younger, through the
photograph, that | remember it.
Arnold Grove was a bit like Coronation Street, though | don't
remember any of the neighbours now. It was behind the Lamb Hotel in
Wavertree. There was a big art-deco cinema there called the Abbey,
and the Picton clock tower. Down a little cobbled lane was the
slaughterhouse, where they used to shoot horses.
In the early days, the city of Liverpool was really busy. The Mersey
was very prominent with all the ferry boats, and the big steamers
coming in from America or Ireland. There were many old buildings and
monuments; slightly dirty, but basically nice. And amongst all the fine
buildings were big bombed-out areas that had never been cleared.
(Even until the day in 1963 when I left Liverpool there were still many
patches full of rubble from direct hits.) Going shopping, there would be
crowds of people on one or other bomb-site, watching a bloke in
handcuffs and chains inside a sack, trying to escape. There were always
people doing that kind of thing — the Houdini syndrome.
Tramlines ran through cobbled granite streets, and overhead, the
tram cables. We went everywhere on the tram, and we'd go on the
underground train across to the Wirral. By the time I had a bike, buses
had replaced the trams, and they ripped out all the tramlines and
asphalted over the cobbles.

George, his mother and his sister Louise

GEORGE HARRISON 25
 GEORGE: Me and my mum, with guitars and bottles of Drambuie.

the front step and closed the door and went in. She had to do that on a
couple of occasions.
Priests used to come round to all the houses in the neighbourhood
collecting money. We weren't particularly bad, but there were some
really awful families in some houses. They'd switch all the lights off,
turn the radio down and pretend they were out. My dad was making
probably £7 10s a week, so a donation of five shillings, which he would
give, was quite a lot of money. | never saw people out of work at that
time. | was probably too small to notice. When you're young you're just
dealing with day-to-day things, as opposed to following world politics
or anything else outside your life.
They built a large church out of all the donations. Before that, there
was a temporary church in a big wooden hut. It had the stations of the
cross around it, and that’s my earliest remembrance of wondering,
‘What is all this about?’ OK, I could see Christ dragging his cross down
the street with everybody spitting on him, and I got the gist of that; but
it didn't seem to make any sense.
I felt then that there was some hypocrisy going on, even though I
was only about eleven years old. It seemed to be the same on every
housing estate in English cities: on one corner they'd have a church and
| have memories of being taken around by my mother when she on the other corner a pub. Everybody's out there getting pissed and
went shopping on Saturdays. I used to be dragged around, seeing old then just goes in the church, says three Hail Marys and one Our Father
ladies whom she always seemed to know and had to visit. They and sticks a fiver in the plate. It felt so alien to me. Not the stained-glass
probably weren't that old, but when you are a child anyone over twenty _ window or the pictures of Christ; I liked that a lot, and the smell of the
seems old. incense and the candles. I just didn’t like the bullshit. After
And there were news theatres — cinemas in little period buildings — Communion, | was supposed to have Confirmation, but | thought, ‘I’m
that would show cartoons and the Pathé Pictorial News. They wouldn't not going to bother with that, I'll just confirm it later myself.’
have any main features and a show would be about fifty minutes long. From then on, | avoided the church, but every Thursday a kid would
So you could do your shopping and when you got tired go and have a come round to herald the arrival of the priest. They'd go round all the
coffee, go to the news theatre, watch a few cartoons, then go and streets, knock on the door and shout, ‘The priest's coming!’ And we'd all
continue shopping. go, ‘Oh shit,’ and run like hell up the stairs and hide. My mother would
When | was very small | joined the Cubs, which was at a Catholic have to open the door and he'd say, ‘Ah, hello Mrs Harrison, it's nice to
church. called St Anthony's of Padua — a hell of a long way to go to see you again, so it is. Eh be Jesus...’ She'd stuff two half-crowns in his
Cubs! (I had to fly there Alitalia — the only airline with hair under its sweaty little hand and off he'd go to build another church or pub.
wings.) And when we got home Akela would thrash us to sleep with her
woggle. My mother used to go to church occasionally, at the usual | had a happy childhood, with lots of relatives around — relatives and
times — Easter, Christmas and that — and as a kid I would get taken with absolutes. | was always waking up in the night, coming out of the
her. | went to Communion aged eleven. But | avoided the rest because bedroom, looking down the stairs and seeing lots of people having a
by then we'd moved out to Speke. party. It was probably only my parents and an uncle or two (I had quite
| didn't really like school. | remember going to the infant school for a few uncles with bald heads; they'd say
a while. That didn't please me too much. | have three recollections of . they got them by using them to knock
Dovedale Road Infant School: the smell of boiled cabbage, a little girl pub doors open), but it always seemed
who had blond curly hair and a Peter Pan house in the corner of the that they were partying without telling
room, made by all the kids. me. | don't remember too much about the
Then | went to Dovedale juniors. That was quite good because there music. | don't know whether they had
was a lot of sport. There was football and messing about. | used to think music at the parties at all. There was
I was able to run pretty quick, and I liked playing football. | think all probably a radio on.
kids think they are good, but really they are useless. John was at In those days the radios were like
Dovedale when | was there. We were both in the same schoolyard but | crystal sets. Well, not quite. The radios
didn't know him — probably because when I was in my first year, he was had batteries: funny batteries with acid in
in his last. them. You had to take the battery down
to a shop on the corner and leave it with
I was still at Dovedale when we moved to Speke. | now lived in Upton them for about three days to charge up.
Green, No. 25. They'd been building new council houses out there with We'd listen to anything that was
bathrooms and kitchens. We'd been waiting for a new house for years played on the radio: Irish tenors like Josef
and eventually we got to the top of the list and moved there. Locke, dance-band music, Bing Crosby,
Speke is on the outskirts of Liverpool going away from the docks. It people like that. My mother would
was quite a way out, about a forty-minute bus ride. As the Mersey river always be turning the dial on the radio
winds upwards, it becomes narrower at Widnes and Runcorn. Out there until she'd found a station broadcasting
were all the factories built in the Forties — Bryant and May (who made in Arabic or something, and we'd leave it
matches) and Evans Medical Supplies. Dunlop had a place right on the there until it became so crackly that you
edge of Speke airport. On the airport perimeter was a great-place, Speke couldn't hear it any more. Then she'd
Hall, an old Tudor building. tune in to something else.
We were just a stone's throw from Widnes. I used to go all the time | remember as a child listening to the
down to Oglet, the shoreline of the river. The tide would go out miles records my parents had — all the old
and the riverbed would be all mud. People would go up and down it on English music-hall music. We had one
motorbikes. | would walk for-hours along the mud cliffs of the Mersey record called ‘Shenanaggy Da: ‘Old
and through farm fields and woods. | liked the outdoors. Shenanaggy Da, he plays his guitar...’
| remember some nasty moments after we'd moved to Speke. There but the hole in the middle was off centre
were women whose husbands were running away and other women who so it sounded weird. Brilliant. There was
were having kids every ten minutes. And men were always wandering another called ‘Fire, Fire, Fire, Fire, Fire’.
round, going into houses — shagging, | suppose. | remember my mother It went: ‘Why do all the engines chuff-
having to deal with someone who'd come around cursing and swearing chuff? It's a fire, fire, fire, fire, fire.’ It had
about something or other. She got a bucket of water and threw it from loads of verses, with sound effects of fire

16 GEORGE HARRISON
engines and crowds gasping and people trapped up some building. It childhood illnesses. | had a really sore throat, and this one year the
was a double-sided 78. When it ran out on one side, it said, ‘Eh, turn me infection spread and gave me nephritis, an inflammation of the kidneys.
over lads and I'll play you some more.’ And when you turned it over it I was in Alder Hey Hospital for six weeks on a non-protein diet: |
went back into the refrain and another twenty verses. had to eat spinach and horrible food. It was during this time that | first
I don't understand people who say, ‘I only like rock'n'roll,’ or, ‘I only wanted to get a guitar. | heard that Raymond Hughes, who used to go
like the blues’ or whatever. Even Eric Clapton says he was influenced by to Dovedale — | was now at the Institute and hadn't seen him for a year
‘The Runaway Train Went Over The Hill’. As | said in my own book, | — had a guitar he wanted to sell. £3 10s, it cost. It was a lot of money
Me Mine, my earliest musical memories are things like ‘One Meatball’ by then, but my mum gave me the money and | went to Raymond's house
Josh White, and those Hoagy Carmichael songs and others like it. | and bought it.
would say that even the crap music that we hated — that late Forties, It was a real cheapo horrible little guitar, but it was OK at the time. |
early Fifties American schmaltz records like ‘The Railroad Runs saw that it had a bolt in the back of the neck. Being inquisitive, | got a
Through The Middle Of The House’ or the British ‘I’m A Pink screwdriver and unscrewed it and the whole neck fell off. | couldn't get
Toothbrush, You're A Blue Toothbrush’ — even that has had some kind it back on properly, so | put it in the cupboard in two pieces and left it
of influence on us, whether we like it or not. All that is in me somehow, there. Finally — it seemed like a year later — my brother Pete fixed it
and is capable of coming out at any point. It shows in the comic aspect back together for me. Now it had a concave neck, so the most you
of some of our songs, like the middle of ‘Yellow Submarine’. could get out of it was a couple of chords. All the frets buzzed and the
strings hit the frets.
My dad had played a guitar when he was in the Merchant Navy. But
when there was no work, he gave up being a seaman and sold it. When |
started playing, he said, ‘I had a friend who plays,’ and somehow he still
knew him, and he phoned him up. His name was Len Houghton and he
had an off-licence that he lived above. On Thursdays he would be
closed, so my dad arranged for me to go down there each week on that
night for two or three hours. He'd show me new chords and play songs
to me like ‘Dinah’ and ‘Sweet Sue’, and Django Reinhardt or Stéphane
Grappelli sort of tunes. Songs of the Twenties or Thirties, like
‘Whispering’. It was very good of him.

Aintree racecourse, Liverpool, 1955

You can hear something and think that you don't like it, and think
that it's not influencing you. But you are what you eat, you are what you
see, what you touch, what you smell and what you hear. Music has
always had a transcendental quality inasmuch as it reaches parts of you
that you don't expect it to reach. And it can touch you in a way that you
can't express. You can think that it hasn't reached you, and years later
youll find it coming out. | think, as Beatles, we were fortunate that we
were open to all kinds of music. We just listened to whatever happened
to be on the radio. That was the main thing in those days. With Arthur Kelly
My eldest brother, Harry, had a little portable record-player that
played 45s and 33s. It could play a stack of ten records, though he only By this time I'd met Paul McCartney on the bus, coming back from
owned three. He kept them neatly in their sleeves; one of them was by school. In those days they hadn't brought the buses into the housing
Glenn Miller. When he was out everything was always left tidy; the development where | lived, so | had to get off the bus and walk for
wires, the lead and plugs were all wrapped around, and nobody was twenty minutes to get home. Paul lived close by where the buses then
supposed to use it. But as soon as he'd go out my brother Pete and | stopped, on Western Avenue. Just nearby was Halewood, where | used
would put them on. to play in the fields. There were ponds with sticklebacks in. Now there's
We'd play anything. My dad had bought a wind-up gramophone in a sodding great Ford factory there that goes on for acres and acres.
New York when he was a seaman and had brought it back on the ship. So Paul and | used to be on the same bus, in the same school
It was a wooden one, where you opened the doors; the top doors had a uniform, travelling home from the Liverpool Institute. | discovered that
speaker behind and the records were stored in the bottom. And there he had a trumpet and he found out that | had a guitar, and we got
were the needles in little tin boxes. together. | was about thirteen. He was probably late thirteen or
He'd also brought some records from America, including one by fourteen. (He was always nine months older than me. Even now, after
Jimmie Rodgers, ‘the Singing Brakeman’. He was Hank Williams's all these years, he is still nine months older! )
favourite singer and the first country singer that | ever heard. He had a As | became a teenager, | first heard Fats Domino's ‘I'm In Love
lot of tunes such as ‘Waiting For A Train’, ‘Blue Yodel 94’ and ‘Blue Again’. That was what | would call the first rock'n'roll record | ever
Yodel 13’. The one that my dad had was ‘Waiting For A Train’; that led heard. Another record from when I was still a schoolboy was The Del-
me to the guitar. Vikings’ ‘Whispering Bells’ — I still remember the sound of the guitars on
Later there were people like Big Bill Broonzy and a Florida country- that. And then, of course, ‘Heartbreak Hotel’. That just came out of
and-western singer called Slim Whitman. He made big hits out of the somebody's radio one day and lodged itself permanently in the back of
tunes from the film Rose Marie. The first person | ever saw playing a my brain. Elvis, Little Richard and Buddy Holly influenced us very
guitar was Slim Whitman, either a photo of him in a magazine or live much, and to this day theirs is my favourite rock'n'roll music
on television. Guitars were obviously coming in. The pop scene then was mixed. There were the big stars — the Fats
I'd just left Dovedale Junior School and gone to the big school, the Dominos, The Coasters and Elvis — and then artists that you heard
Liverpool Institute, when | went into hospital. | got sick when | was records by, but never really saw much of; maybe a photo in a fan
twelve or thirteen with kidney trouble. | always used to get tonsilitis; magazine. Then there were the British artists, such as Tommy Steele

GEORGE HARRISON
 (the first pop or rock star in England) and later Cliff Richard. And the The skiffle boom had started in my early teens. Lonnie Donegan
Larry Parnes lot: Billy Fury and Marty Wilde, and others. It was had a much bigger influence on British rock bands than he was ever
exciting, because it was the first time you ever saw a pink jacket or a given credit for. In the late Fifties, he was virtually the only guitar
black shirt, or a Fender Stratocaster or any electric guitar. player that you could see. He was the most successful person, and had
When you started seeing a performer come to the Liverpool Empire the highest profile. He had a great voice, a lot of energy and sang great
and they'd got an amplifier, it was so exciting. It was not like these days, songs — catchy versions of Leadbelly tunes and things.
when you've got so much to select from that you can have your own | loved him. He was a big hero of mine. Everyone got guitars and
taste, a different taste from somebody else. In those days it was a case of formed skiffle bands because of him. Skiffle came out of the blues, but
beggars can't be choosers. We were just desperate to get anything. the way it was performed made it accessible to us white Liverpudlians. It
Whatever film came out, we'd try to see it. Whatever record was being was dead cheap — just a washboard, a tea chest, a bit of string, a broom
played, we'd try to listen to, because there was very little of anything. It handle and a £3 10s guitar. And it was a simple way into music because
was only a few years after rationing. You couldn't even get a cup of a lot of the songs had just two chords, and the maximum was three.
sugar, let alone a rock'n'roll record. There were so many great songs; train songs like ‘Midnight Special’,
I remember once how I'd got the money and | wanted ‘Rock Around ‘Wabash Cannonball’ and ‘Rock Island Line’ — hundreds of really good
The Clock’ by Bill Haley and I'd asked somebody in the family to get it for tunes that had their origins in black slave culture.
me. | couldn't wait to get that record. They So everyone was in a skiffle group,
came home, and they gave me a record and Orel. Craed Getimry\Go€Qa% Beam and whilst most of them faded away the
said, ‘Oh, they sold out of Bill Haley, so |
got you this one.’ It was The Deep River eee SL tes mg
Anewared upe RBurwrwosres uy
tl. : ones that were left became the rock
bands of the Sixties. There was a folklore
about those bands. | remember there was
Boys. | thought, ‘Oh no, fuckin’ hell.’ It was
such a disappointment. That was the first a band called Eddie Clayton (that Ringo
record | didn't get. I've learnt in my life that was in for a while) and we thought, ‘Hey,
you mustn't disappoint people who are these are good.’ A little later | formed a
counting on you. skiffle group called The Rebels, with
I wasn't able to see Buddy Holly when Arthur Kelly and my brother, who had a
he came over, other than on the London guitar that he'd found in somebody's
Palladium TV show. When Bill Haley garage. We only played one gig, at the
came to Liverpool, | couldn't afford a British Legion Club.
ticket. It was fifteen shillings — which was When | was thirteen or fourteen, |
a lot of money for a schoolboy. | always would sit at the back of the class and try
wondered where Paul got his fifteen to draw guitars: big cello guitars with ‘f
shillings from, because he got to see him. holes, and little solid ones with
But | went to the Liverpool Empire in 1956 to see Lonnie Donegan, cutaways. I was totally into all that. | even tried making a guitar, which
and people like Danny and the Juniors, and The Crew Cuts (they did was very bold. In ignorance you can do virtually anything. | only took
‘Earth Angel’ and ‘Sh-Boom’, which was a cover version of The woodwork for one year in school; | wasn't that good at it, but | wasn't
Penguins’ original). that bad either. The things we did were very simple: a dovetail joint and
I saw quite a few shows, the best being the Eddie Cochran one. This a chamfered edge. | must have read somewhere about how to make a
was a couple of years later. He was backed up by an English band. | guitar, because there's no way | could have come up with the concept
remember Eddie Cochran well: he had his black leather waistcoat, black on my own.
leather trousers and a raspberry-coloured shirt. He came on doing | got some three-ply wood. | first drew the shape that | wanted, then
‘What'd I Say’, and as the curtains opened he had his cut it out. (It was like a Les Paul shape, but it had ‘f’ holes.) It had a
» back to the audience, playing the riff. | was watching hollow body, and on the inside of the back and the front | cut out little
his fingers, to see how he played. He had his Gretsch squares. | fitted dowelling into the holes to hold the front in place.
» « guitar, the one in all the pictures, with a black Gibson Then | soaked and bent the wood that went around the edge. It was
Ris pick-up and a Bigsby tremolo. It was the orange Chet very rough and a bit lumpy where it was glued on. The big mistake |
i Atkins 6120, like the one I| later used on the Carl Perkins made was with the neck, which I couldn't make in one piece because |
E/ TV special, with the ‘'G' branded in the wood. He was a didn’t have a piece of wood big enough. | made it go to just beyond the
bead very good guitar player and that's what | remember most. nut, with the head as a separate piece. | dug out the back of each and
Ti I was very impressed by not only his songs (because he screwed in an aluminium plate to hold them together. | filled it all over
had a lot of very good songs including ‘Summertime with wood filler, bought the tail-piece, the bridge, the machine heads,
Blues’, ‘C'mon Everybody’ and ‘Twenty Flight Rock’), but the nut, and put the strings on. | put the ‘f holes in and even varnished
by his cover numbers, like Ray Charles's ‘Hallelujah, | it in sunburst colours. It must have taken me ages. Then, as | tightened
Love Her So’. up the strings, it just ripped itself apart. In frustration, I threw it in the
There was a funny break in-between songs. He was shed and never spoke to it again.
standing at the microphone and as he started to talk he The Hofner President was the first decent guitar that | had. It had
put his two hands through his hair, pushing it back. And a
ER
ATLL
big cutaway cello 'f holes, based on the big Super Gibson guitars. |
girl, one lone voice, screamed out, ‘Oh, Eddie!’ and would sit around for hours, playing and trying to figure things out. |
he coolly murmured into the mike, ‘Hi honey. | used to sit up late at night. | didn't look on it as practising, more
thought, ‘Yes! That's it — rock'n'roll!’ learning. It was the only thing | really liked. When I had a new set of
And, of course, he brought with him the strings I'd take all the old ones off, and I'd polish the guitar and clean it
great secret from America — the unwound and make it really impeccable.
third string. Years later, | became ‘friendly with In the very early days I'd bought a guitar manual, which showed the
Joe Brown, who had toured with Eddie, and finger positions for some chords. After | met Paul | showed him the
learnt about the unwound third string. When | manual. He still had the trumpet at that point. We looked and worked
listen to early Beatles recordings, one thing out some chords, like C, F and G7. But it only showed the first two
that's very apparent to me is a little piece fingers of the C chord and the same with F; so I had to re-learn them
that | play on the third string which is like later. | remember feeling a bit annoyed about that: ‘Why didn’t they
three notes. It goes ‘de diddle dum’, which show the full chord in the first place?’
if I'd had an unwound, lighter-gauge third | remember discovering inversions, when you learn all the chords
string, | could have done it in one bend. around the bottom of the neck. Suddenly | realised how all the shapes
In those days | wasn't smart enough to transform up the neck — all the same chords inverted higher and higher.
think, ‘I'll put another second string on in It was great, just working that out. Then when | was a bit older someone
place of the third, so I can bend it.’ But gave me a Chet Atkins album and | started to try and figure out tunes
Eddie Cochran had that all sussed out. with different chords.

First guitar, a £3 10s Egmond

28 GEORGE HARRISON
 Left: Upton Green, Speke Centre: Hitchhiking with Paul Right: South Liverpool Weekly News, 4th May 1957

Intense excitement is shown above by the clenched fists of George Harrison and
Jim Kelly, who were watching the Cup Final on the projection television in the
Speke Congregational Church Hall on Saturday last,

Spectators in church hall saw cup final

still had hardly any money. We had a little stove,

virtually just a tin with a lid. You poured a little
I was never a technical guitar player; there was always a better player meths into the bottom of it and it just about burned, not with any
around. There was a bloke who went to school with Paul and me who velocity. We had that, and little backpacks, and we'd stop at grocery
ended up in The Remo Four — Colin Manley; he was one of those guys shops. We'd buy Smedley’s spaghetti bolognese or spaghetti milanese.
who could copy Chet Atkins when he'd been playing two tunes at the They were in striped tins: milanese was red stripes, bolognese was
same time. Somehow | never had the patience. God knows how | ever dark blue stripes. And Ambrosia creamed rice. We'd open a can, bend
made anything of myself. | used to sit there and practise as a kid, but | back the lid and hold the can over the stove to warm it up. That was
couldn't sit there forever; | wasn't that keen. what we lived on.
My first girlfriend was Rory Storm’s sister, Iris Caldwell. She was We got to Paignton with no money to spare so we slept on the
really nice and had cotton wool in her bra. (She probably didn't ever beach for the night. Somewhere we'd met two Salvation Army girls and
think she was my girlfriend. You never know when you're young; you they stayed with us and kept us warm for a while. But later it became
just fancy somebody, or someone's in the same room as you, and you cold and damp, and | remember being thankful when we decided that
end up thinking they're your girlfriend.) So | knew Rory before | knew was enough and got up in the morning and started walking again. We
The Beatles. I'd met Iris a couple of times and went round to her house went up through North Devon and got a ferry boat across to South
and hung out.’They had a little basement that they were trying to turn Wales, because Paul had a relative who was a redcoat in Butlins at
into a coffee club. That seemed to be the craze in the Fifties. Rory was Pwllheli, so we thought we'd go there.
an athlete. | remember a couple of times | came to have a date with Iris, At Chepstow, we went to the police station and asked to stay in a
and Rory would come running up to his front door sweating and cell. They said, 'No, bugger off. You can go in the football grandstand,
panting, and checking his stop-watch, because he'd been training. and tell the cocky watchman that we said it was OK.’ So we went and
Rory’'s real name was Alan Caldwell. Ernie was their dad. They were slept on a hard board bench. Bloody cold. We left there and hitchhiked
a great family and were very friendly to all of us. Later — after we'd come on. Going north through Wales we got a ride on a truck. The trucks
back from Hamburg and were doing loads of gigs in Liverpool and the didn't have a passenger seat in those days so | sat on the engine cover.
North of England — we used Rory’s house as a place to hang out when Paul was sitting on the battery. He had on jeans with zippers on the
we got back to town after shows. His mother Vi would make endless back pockets and after a while he suddenly leapt up screaming. His
pots of tea and toast for us all. zipper had connected the positive and negative on the battery, got red
Ernie was a porter in his spare time in the local hospital, Broad hot, and burnt a big zipper mark across his arse.
Green Hospital. He used to sing songs to the patients. He was a really When we eventually got to Butlins, we couldn't get in. It was like a
nice fella, and a window cleaner by occupation. After we'd arrived late German prisoner-of-war camp — Stalag 17 or something. They had
at night, he'd go to bed and they'd all make jokes about him, but in a barbed-wire fences to keep the holiday-makers in, and us out. So we
nice way. He was a simple, quiet, mild-mannered bloke. By the time he had to break in. (Ringo started off playing there.)
died, we'd already made our records and left Liverpool. The sorry story
| heard was that after Ernie died, Vi and Rory both committed suicide. Paul moved from Speke to Forthlin Road in Allerton, which was very
Iris later married Shane Fenton, who became Alvin Stardust. close to where John lived on Menlove Avenue. Paul had realised by
One year, Paul and | decided to go hitchhiking. It's something then that he couldn't sing and play the trumpet at the same time, so he'd
nobody would ever dream of these days. Firstly, you'd probably be decided to get a guitar. We had started playing and were hanging out in
mugged before you got through the Mersey Tunnel, and secondly school at that time, and when he moved we kept in touch. He lived
everybody's got cars and is already stuck in a traffic jam. I'd often gone close enough for me to go on my bike. It would take me twenty minutes
with my family down South to Devon, to Exmouth, so Paul and | or so. (I'm amazed when | go back now by car: what seemed like miles
decided to go there first. then is really only a three-minute car ride.)
We didn't have much money. We found bed-and-breakfast places There was a guy at the Liverpool Institute, lvan Vaughan, that lived
to stay. We got to one town, and we were walking down a street and by John, who introduced Paul to him. John already had a reputation, he
it was getting dark. We saw a woman and said, ‘Excuse me, do you was the character of his school and he knew it. | met John a little later (1
know if there's somewhere we could stay?’ She felt sorry for us and don't recall where) and they asked me to join the group, The Quarry
said, ‘My boy's away, come and stay at my house.’ So she took us to Men. John was in the art college by this time. | don’t know what I felt
hers — where we beat her, tied her up and robbed her of all her about him when I first met him; | just thought he was OK. At that age |
money! Only joking; she let us stay in her boy's room and the next only wanted to get into music. | think that with anybody you meet who
morning cooked us breakfast. She was really nice. | don't know who sings or is into music like that, you just buddy with them instantly.
she was — the Lone Ranger? John's mother had taught him some chords. His guitar was cheap
We continued along the South Coast, towards Exmouth. Along with a little round sound-hole. It only had four strings. John didn’t even
the way we talked to a drunk in a pub who told us his name was Oxo know that guitars should have six strings. He was playing banjo chords
Whitney. (He later appears in A Spaniard in the Works. After we'd told big extended finger chords. | said, ‘What are you doing?’ He thought
John that story, he used the name. So much of John’s books is from that that was how it should be. So we showed him some proper chords
funny things people told him.) Then we went along to Paignton. We —E and A and all those — and got him to put six strings on his guitar

GEORGE HARRISON 29
 The Quarry Men had other members, who didn't seem to be doing soon after we first met — powder-blue drainpipes with turn-ups. | dyed
anything, so | said, ‘Let's get rid of them, then I'll join.’ Nigel Whalley them black as well. And I had black suede shoes from my brother.
Aunt Mimi's husband was George Smith, and his brother was our
had a tea-chest bass and he was in the group for a week, and Ivan was
there and a couple of others — one called Griff (Eric Griffiths), the English teacher at the Institute. He was a little effeminate, to say the
guitar player. They came and went, and after a while there was only least, and always had a silk hankie out of his top pocket. His
John, Paul and me left. That seemed to go on for a while. We played a mannerisms and the way he talked were to us early-teen boys pretty
few weddings and parties. John, Paul and I played at my brother Harry's hysterical, and all the boys called him Cissie Smith. He was always
wedding — drunk. We played the Cavern once. It was still a jazz place saying, ‘They're not school shoes, Harrison. Come and stand in the
and they tried to kick us off, because we were rock'n'roll. Chewers’ Corner.’
| would see quite a lot of John; he used to come round to my house. That outfit of mine was very risky, and it felt like all day, every day,
My mother was a big fan of music, and she was really pleased about for the last couple of years | was going to get busted. In those days we
me being interested in it. She'd been the one who'd bought me the used Vaseline on our hair to get the rock'n'roll greased-back hairstyle.
guitar and she was really happy about having the guys around. And Also, you were supposed to wear a cap and a tie, and a badge on your
John was keen to get out of his house because of his Aunt Mimi, who blazer. I didn't have my badge stitched on, | had it loose. It was held in
was very stern and strict. He was always embarrassed by Mimi and he'd place by a pen clipped over it in my top pocket, so | could remove it
swear at her. easily, and the tie.
Paul and | used to skive out of school and try our best to
pretend not to be grammar-school boys. We would hang
out with John in the evenings. But in the school days we'd
also go out at lunchtime — even though you weren't allowed
out without a special dispensation from the Pope. We'd
have to leg it out of school, go around the corner, dispose
of as much of our school uniform as possible and then go
into the art school. (The building was connected onto the
Liverpool Institute.)
It was unbelievably relaxed there. Everybody was
smoking, or eating egg and chips, while we still had school
cabbage and boiled grasshoppers. And there'd be chicks and
arty types, everything. It was probably very simple, but from
where we came from it looked fun. We could go in there
and smoke without anyone giving us a bollocking. John
would be friendly to us — but at the same time you could tell
that he was always a bit on edge because | looked a bit too
i
4 young, and so did Paul. | must have only been fifteen then.
/
7

Above: John, Paul, George and... Dennis — Dinahs Lane

_IVETpoo Right: After brother Harry's wedding

CAMERA

Paul drew
ae
IOMEWOI |

the tigure of the woman

WaS TITteer

| remember going to John's house once,

soon after we met. | was still at the Institute
and | looked a bit young. We were trying
to look like Teddy boys — and I must have
looked pretty good, because Mimi didn't
like me at all. She was really shocked and
said, ‘Look at him! Why have you brought this boy round to my house? | remember that the first time | gained some respect from John was
He looks dreadful, like a Teddy boy.’ And he'd say, ‘Shut up, Mary, shut when I fancied a chick in the art college. She was cute in a Brigitte
up.’ So he would come round to my house a lot and my mother would Bardot sense, blonde, with little pigtails. | was playing in Les Stewart's
give us little glasses of whisky , band. (1 was in two bands at the same time — there weren't many gigs,
I'd started to develop my own version of the school uniform. I had one in every blue moon. He lived on Queen's Drive by Muirhead
some cast-offs from my brother. One was a dog-toothed check- Avenue, so | was hanging out with him as well and learning music in the
patterned
‘ PAA
sports coat,ye whrth
cry A
I'd
'
had
e
dyed
e 4
black to use. as my school hope of making a couple of quid.) Anyway, Les had a party at his house
blazer.
my
The
|
colour
1
hadn't ; quite taken, so it. still
L, :
had a slight
‘
check and the Brigitte Bardot girl was there, and I pulled her and snogged her.
| had a shirt I'd bought in Lime Street, that | thought was so Somehow John found out, and after that he was a bit more impressed
was wnite with pleats down the front, and it had black with me.
broidery along the corners of the pleats. | had a waistcoat that John Les played banjo, mandolin and guitar. | met him through a fella
en me, which hed got from his ‘uncle’ Dykins (his mother's who worked in a butcher's shop. I'd got a job there as a delivery boy
; oytrien nd),( Mr Twitchy
Mr Twitchy | Dykins. I It was
: uj
like an evening-suit is
waistcoat — on a Saturday; the guy there had a Dobro guitar (the first one | ever
re
sted,
‘
with1 lapels. The
oh.
trousers John also gave me, saw) and knew Les. Les was a good player: Leadbelly tunes and Big
 Below: George with early girlfriend, Jennifer Brewer, at Binfield Heath

Bill Broonzy and Woody My dad never had a trade, but

Guthrie — more like rural blues he had the idea that all his three
and bluegrass, not rock'n'roll. sons would have different trades.
I'd play along with his band — | ae
My eldest brother was a
don't even remember its name — et
mechanic, my second brother did
am
and we did a few parties. It was panel-beating and welding. So
there at a gig in a club in Dad thought, ‘George can be an
Hayman’'s Green in West Derby electrician, and then we can have
that | heard about another club our own garage.’ For Christmas
being built at No. 8 Hayman's Dad bought me a little kit that
Green. | was taken down there opened up and inside were
and | looked into the cellar that screwdrivers and tools, and |
was to become the Casbah. thought, ‘Oh God, he really does
That's when | first met Pete want me to be an electrician.’
Best. It was some months later That was depressing, because |
that | remembered Pete and the had no chance of being one.
fact that he had his own drum My dad got me into an exam
kit, and got him to join us so we to get a job with the Liverpool
could go to Hamburg. Corporation, and | failed it mis-
Paul and | got to know Stuart erably. It wasn't deliberate — |
Sutcliffe through going into the just didn't pass. | was no good at
art college. Stuart was a thin, maths. It was very embarrassing,
arty guy with glasses and a little because the people who went to
Van Gogh beard; a _ good work for the Corporation weren't
painter. John really liked Stuart exactly the sharpest people
as an artist. Stuart obviously around. | went down to the
liked John because he played the Labour Exchange and they said:
guitar and was a big Ted. Stuart ‘Go down to Blackler's, the shop
was cool. He was great-looking in town. Somebody is required as
and had a great vibe about him, a window-dresser.’ The head of
and was a very friendly bloke. | window-dressing at Blackler's
liked Stuart a lot; he was always said, ‘Sorry, that job's gone. But
very gentle. John had a slight go up and see Mr Peet.’ Mr Peet
superiority complex at times, but was the head of the maintenance
Stuart didn’t discriminate against department. He gave me a job as
Paul and me because we weren't an apprentice electrician, which
from the art school. He started is what my dad really wanted
to come and watch us when we me to be.
played at parties and he became | wanted to be a musician and,
a fan of ours. He actually got though there was no justification
some parties for John, Paul and me to play at. It was just the three of us, for it and no qualifications, when the group got together we all had an
mostly. And John was always trying to con his Students’ Union into amazing, positive feeling about being in the band full-time. | don't know
buying equipment for our group. He did eventually get an amplifier, so why — we were just cocky. It was felt that something good was going to
we had to play there occasionally. | can't even remember if we had an happen. But then, in those days, something good would be getting to
act; we must have learnt a few tunes together. do a tour of Mecca Ballrooms. That was a big deal!
One art-school party in Liverpool, in a flat in the students’ accom- My father had something to do with the Liverpool Transport Club
modation, was the first all-night party | ever went to. It was even in Finch Lane and he got The Quarry Men a gig there once, on a
designated an all-nighter: the rules were that you had to bring a bottle Saturday night. It was a dance hall with a stage and tables and people
of wine, and an egg for your breakfast. So we bought a cheap bottle of dancing and drinking. My dad was pleased and proud that he'd got us to
plonk from Yates’s Wine Lodge and put our eggs in the fridge when we appear there. We had to play two sets.
arrived. The great thing about the party (and I'm sure John and Paul We played the first set of fifteen or twenty minutes and then, in our
would agree) was that somebody had a copy of ‘What'd | Say’ by Ray break, we got really drunk on black velvet, the craze at the time — a
Charles, a 45rpm with Part Two on the B side. That record was played bottle of Guinness mixed with half a pint of cider (not champagne). |
all night, probably eight or ten hours non-stop. It was one of the best was sixteen, John was eighteen, Paul seventeen, and we had about five
records | ever heard. | puked up next morning. Cynthia was there, and | pints of it. By the time we had to go on again, we were totally out of it.
remember saying drunkenly to her, ‘I wish | had a nice girl like you.’ We embarrassed ourselves and everybody else, and my father was very
Panto Day in Liverpool was when students from Liverpool pissed off: ‘You've made a show of me...’ and all that. That was the club
University and the art college collected money for local causes. It was a where Ken Dodd got his big break.
Rag day. Everyone dressed up weirdly with make-up and could do just In December 1959, we had an audition for Carroll Levis, who
about anything they liked: jump onto buses without paying, with tins hosted a Discoveries TV programme. | don't know that anybody was
for collecting money; go into shops, and generally go around the city ever discovered on that programme, and nobody ever won anything.
having a laugh. Paul and | weren't students, but we decided it was a lark; You keep going on and on and on, whilst he sold tickets to the theatres
so we met at John’s place in Gambier Terrace, the flat he was sharing with lots of free artists performing. At the end of the show the
with Stuart, dressed up and joined in. John and Stuart had more clapometer would tell you who had won, and the next week there'd be
collecting boxes than they should have so they gave a couple to us. another show.
After a few hours collecting we went back to Gambier Terrace and We were doing the show in Manchester, under the name of Johnny
broke open the tins and took all the money. There was probably about and the Moondogs. This was a period when John didn't have any guitar
four shillings in pennies. | think his ‘guaranteed not to split’ guitar must have done so. We
I left school and was out of work for ages. Months elapsed after performed ‘Think It Over’ with John standing in the middle with no
school had finished; the school holidays were over, everybody had gone guitar, just singing with a hand on each of our shoulders. Paul and |
back and | was still not getting a job, and not going back to school. | were on our guitars — one pointing this way, one that way — doing the
used to borrow money from my dad. | didn't want a job — | wanted to be back-up voices. We thought we were really good, but because we had
in the band. But it got a bit embarrassing when my father kept saying, to catch the last train back to Liverpool we didn't have time to hang
‘Don't you think you'd better get a job?’ around and wait to see if the clapometer registered anything for us

GEORGE HARRISON 3
 THE UNITED LIVERPOOL HOSPITALS
ROYAL LIVERPOOL CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL
VELEGRAPH ROAD HESWALL

ADMIT ONE VISITOR

Patients Name

en
Ward... Henge
Date of Issue........ 7

enna
aea ae
 RINGO
STARR
WAS BORN I don't remember the war and all the bombs, although they did actually
break Liverpool up a lot. Our neighbourhood was really bombed. We
had to hide a lot, I've been told since; we used to hide in the coal cellar
(it was more like a cupboard). | remember big gaps in the streets where

DNaseBi houses had stood. We used to play on the rubble when | was older, and
in the air-raid shelters.
My very first memory is of being pushed in a pram. | was out with
my mother, my grandma and my grandad. | don't know where we were,

1940 AT NO. 9 but it must have been countrified in some way, because we were chased
by a goat. Everybody was so frightened, including me. People were
screaming and running because an animal was chasing us. | can't
imagine it was in Toxteth or Dingle!

MADRYN STREET, We've always been ordinary, poor, working-class on both sides of
the family. My mother's mother really was very poor. She had fourteen
kids. There's a rumour that my great-grandmother was fairly well off —
she had chromium railings round her house. Well, they were very

LIVERPOOL 8. shiny anyway. Perhaps | just made that up. You know what it's like:
you dream things, or your mother tells you things, so you come to
believe you actually saw them.
My real name is Parkin, not Starkey. My
There was a light at the end grandad was named Johnny Parkin. When my
grandfathers mother remarried, which was
pretty shocking in those days, she married a
of a tunnel that | had to get to, Starkey, so my grandfather changed his name
to Starkey, too. (I went to have my family tree
done in the Sixties, but | could only trace back
and I came out like that, and two generations — and they couldn't find me! I
had to go to my family to find out, and even
they hadn't wanted to say anything in case the
then | was born. There was lots press found out.)
Dad was a baker; | think that's how my
parents met. He worked making cakes, so we
of cheering. In fact my mother always had sugar through the war. When I was
three he decided that was enough of that, and
he left us. | was an only child, so from then it
used to say that because | was was just me and my mother, until she remarried
when | was thirteen.
| have no real memories of my dad. | only
born, the Second World War saw him probably five times after he left, and I
never really got on with him because I'd been
brainwashed by my mother about what a pig he
started. | don’t know what that was. | felt angry that he left. And I felt really
angry later on, going through therapy in rehab,
when | came to look at myself and get to know my feelings, instead of
meant, really; | never understood it, but that's blocking them all out. For me, | felt I'd dealt with it when | was little. |
didn't understand that really | had been blocking my anger out. You get
on with it; that's how we were brought up. We were the last generation
what she used to say. | suppose it was the only to be told, ‘Just get on with it.’ You didn't let your feelings out much.
Mum didn't do too much for a while. She was in a bit of pain after
my dad left, and she ended up doing any down-home job she could get
way they could celebrate, and it could be true — to feed and clothe me. She did everything: she was a barmaid, she
scrubbed steps, worked in a food shop.
We lived at first in a huge, palatial house with three bedrooms. It
you never can tell. was too big and we couldn't afford it now my dad had stopped
supporting my mother. We were working-class, and in Liverpool when
your dad left you suddenly became lower working-class. So we moved
to a smaller, two-bedroom place. (They were both rented — houses
always were,) It had been condemned as derelict ten years before we
moved in, bui we lived in it for twenty years.
The move was from one street to the next, from Madryn Street to
Admiral Grove — people around us didn't move very far. We went on a
van and they didn't even put the back up, because it was only 300
yards. | remember sitting on the back of the van. It's such a heavy
memory as a kid; you get used to being where you are. (Although, with
my poor kids we seemed to move every other week. )

RINGO STARR 33
 | don't remember the inside of our house in Madryn Street — | know can have a cup of tea when you come out of the theatre.’ It was ten
we never had a garden — but a lot of my pals grew up on the same street weeks later that they gave me the cup of tea, because that's how long it
and | went into their houses. | remember the Admiral Grove house, and took for me to come round. They'd gone in and found | had peritonitis.
that didn't have a garden either. It had a toilet down the yard; we never That was a heavy operation, especially then. They told my mother
had a bathroom. But it was home, and it was fine. We had two three times that I'd be dead in the morning. That was hard for her, and I
bedrooms: one for my mum, and one for me. realised later why she was so possessive. | was very lucky to survive.
In Admiral Grove there were the Poveys next door, and the Connors Even after coming round, | was barely conscious for long periods.
up the road. My grandparents lived on Madryn Street. You all moved in Hospital was a boring place. It becomes your world when you're in
around the grandparents in Liverpool. My mother's best friend, Annie for a long time — and | spent two years in there (the second year was
Maguire, also lived on Madryn Street. when | was thirteen). Suddenly that's your life. You get in a routine.
Now my dad had gone, | was brought up by my grandparents and You have all these friends who are ill as well, and then you start getting
my mother. It was strange because the grandparents were the parents of on your feet and you lose touch with them. My mum would come in
my father; they weren't my mother's parents. They really loved me and practically every day, and my grandparents. I'll never forget my dad
looked after me. They were great. They'd take me on holiday, too. coming in: he stood there with a notebook, because my birthday was
My grandmother was a big woman, Annie (I never called her Annie, coming up (I was six years old, going on seven), and he asked me,
of course), and my grandad was a little guy. He'd maybe have a drink or ‘What do you want, son?’ and he wrote it all down in this notebook! |
whatever and get into things, and she would roll her sleeves up, clench never saw him for years — he never bought me a damn thing. He wasn't
her fists, take up a boxing pose and say, ‘Come on, Johnny! Don't talk in my good books.
to me like that — get over here, you little bastard.’ A big girl, she was, I was put in a cot, so | got very good at picking things up with my
scrubbing steps and all, surviving. feet: pennies, bits of paper, anything that fell out of the cot. When I'd
She was also the voodoo queen of Liverpool. If I was ever ill, my been in the hospital about six months, | was really getting better and
mother would wrap me up in a blanket and take me down to my nan’s, could have come home in a couple of weeks. I'd got a little toy bus for
and she would fix me. She had two cures for everything: a bread my birthday. The cot had sides on, and the kid in the next bed wanted
poultice and a hot toddy — | loved those hot toddies! They were to see the bus so | leaned over to get it. It was about four feet off the
warm, and everyone would be fussing over me ground and | leaned too far, fell right out and
— the centre of attention. Being an only child, ripped open all the surgery scars. That was a
I was always pretty much the centre of dangerous time. They kept me in for another
attention anyway. . “S/H eng sabes six months for that.
Grandad loved the horses: ‘the gee-gees’.
ae | | a
I was in hospital for about a year and after
He'd come in and, if the horses had lost, he'd that | was convalescing, so I didn't go back to
be swearing and throwing the paper around — school for two years. There was no catching up
‘Those bastard nags, blah, blah...’ just like any at school in those days. | was always behind at
other gambler. Grandma would say, ‘Johnny, least a year. No teacher put his arm round me,
not in front of the child!’ and he'd be saying, saying, ‘Well, let me deal with you, son.’ | was
‘The bastards!’ It was all pretty exciting for me. just stuck in a class, always behind. | was the
He had his chair which he always sat in. joker, and would make friends with the biggest
He sat in his chair right through the war. He boy in the class for protection. | started to hate
never went and hid anywhere, even though school even more, and it became easier to stay
bricks were blowing out of his house; he just sat in his chair. So as a kid off. My mother would pack me off to school, but I'd just walk around
| always wanted to sit in that chair. He’d come in, and he would only the park with a couple of school friends. We'd write little excuse notes,
point and I'd have to move. But, of course, because it was his, it was the but always get caught because we couldn't spell.
only thing I wanted. I didn't learn to read until | was nine. My mother couldn't take much
When my grandad died, it was one of the saddest moments of my interest in that because she had to go to work, but | was taught by a girl
life. | was nineteen or twenty. They put him in the ground and that was who used to look after me, Marie Maguire. She was the daughter of my
just the saddest day. From that moment | knew I'd be cremated — I'm not mother's friend Annie, and she used to mind me when my mum went to
putting anyone through that terrible thing of digging a big hole and the pub or the pictures. Marie taught me to read with Dobbin the Horse.
putting me in.-It wasn't until that moment that I broke down. | couldn't (I can read, but I can’t spell — | spell phonetically.) | regret not learning
cry until they put him in, and then that was it. earlier: it means that your knowledge is so limited. | never took Latin.
School is a big event in my memory. St Silas's School. I'm not sure if John took the Latin and the painting.
I actually remember my first day, or if it's because my mother has told
me so many times. She took me to the gate that first morning — it was The Dingle was one of the roughest areas in Liverpool, and Toxteth still
just up the road, a couple of minutes’ walk. In those days your parents has quite a reputation. It was really rough. In those days there were still
took you to the gate and then just said, ‘Well, on your way.’ (There was gangs and fights and madness and robberies. But kids were fine, women
no sitting with you in class, getting you settled, like we did with our were fine and old people were fine. Nobody messed with those three
kids.) And I have a vision to this day of a huge building — the biggest groups of people. Nowadays — I'm disgusted — they're dragging people
building on the planet — with about a million kids in the playground, off wheelchairs and beating 90-year-old ladies. What absolute cowards.
and me. I was pretty fearful. If someone beat up an old lady back then, all the gangs in the
| walked home for lunch — as kids we could walk anywhere we liked neighbourhood would come and find him and beat the fuck out of him.
back then; there was no danger. Supposedly, | came home and said, They would not let that go down.
‘We've got a holiday.’ In my little way I said, ‘That's it for today, mum. Liverpool was dark and dreary, but it was great fun to a kid. Davy
She believed me until she saw all the other kids walking by the window Patterson, Brian Briscoe and me: we were the Three Musketeers, we
going back to school after lunch and said, ‘Get out of here.’ | don't were the Skull Gang, and the Black Hand Gang — this little gang of
remember ever enjoying school. | was always sagging off; | was only in three. We were going to do everything together. We were detectives,
school for about five years in all. we were cowboys and we went to the same school; we were really
close. Up to ten or eleven it was my world, and all those bomb-sites
At six and a half | was very ill with peritonitis. My appendix burst; it was were paradise. You didn't feel anything about the people who were
a huge drama. We were alLat home and | was dying with pain, so there bombed in them; it was just a big playground. ‘I'll see you on the
were quite a few of the family around. The doctor came and suddenly bombie,’ we used to say.
these people were lifting me up, putting me on a stretcher and carrying We used to walk everywhere as kids. My big ambition was to be a
me out of the house. I was put in an ambulance and whisked away. tramp, because they just walk to places. The three of us couldn't afford
When we got to the hospital, a woman doctor examined me, pressing to get the bus. We were eight or nine years old, and we would walk five
on my side, and it was the worst pain I've ever felt. or eight miles to Speke, to the park, to the woods that were out of
As they went to put me to sleep for my operation, they said, ‘Is there town. We used to follow the buses — ‘Oh, it went left!’ — and we'd run
anything you want?’ | said, ‘Can | have a cup of tea?’ They said, ‘You down that street and wait for the next bus to come along so we'd know

34 RINGO STARR
where it went. I didn't have a bike until much later on. My mother got or really frighten you by grabbing you: ‘Don't you touch our Frank
me a second-hand bike, and we cycled to Wales and back. | was so sore again!’ | was always on the losing end. In my head ! really wanted a big
afterwards that | lost a lot of interest in the bike. North Wales was only brother who could beat up the bastards who used to beat me up. | didn't
twenty or thirty miles away. have a father or a big brother, but my mother had many a fight for me.
| had many plans besides being a tramp, when | was a kid. | always If anybody bigger picked on me, she'd be down knocking on the door
wanted to be a merchant seaman. It was like an automatic thing for me, and would deal with them. She was very, very loving. | was an only
going away to sea: ‘I want to go and see those places, and | want to buy child and quite ill, so | was the apple of her eye.
those camel saddles.’ Everyone in Liverpool had a camel saddle in the Harry, my stepfather, came into the picture when | was eleven. He
corner; because in every other house someone went to sea and would worked as a painter and decorator up at Burtonwood, which was an
bring all this crap back. The good thing about it was they were bringing American army base. He made me laugh, he bought me DC comics; and
records and styles of clothes back. My first musical memory was when | he was great with music. He used to lay music on me, but would never
was about eight: Gene Autry singing ‘South Of The Border’. That was force any of it. He was into big bands and jazz and Sarah Vaughan,
the first time | really got shivers down my backbone, as they say. He while I'd be listening to stupid people. He'd say, ‘Have you heard this?’
had his three compadres singing, ‘Ai, ai, ai, ai,’ and it was just a thrill to That was always his line: ‘Have you heard this?’ He was a really sweet
me. Gene Autry has been my hero ever since. guy; all animals and children loved him. | learnt gentleness from Harry.
You could always tell the sailors: they were the best dressed. That I loved Harry, and my mum loved him — and then she said they were
was my plan — going away to sea. | was in the Sea Scouts. We'd go to a going to get married. She asked me, ‘What do you think?’ | was pretty
hall and drill, and play with rifles — that was the big thing. | was thrown angry for a while, because | was thirteen; but | knew if | said ‘no’, she
out because | ran away with a rifle. | never saw a boat. | was never in wouldn't have got married. It was a terrible position to be put in as a
anything too long; | always did something that annoyed people. kid. But I said, ‘Sure, great,’ because he was a good guy.
I did have some toys: Christmas came, and | got an orange and an The guy who owned the local sweet shop, Len, became a good
old cardboard box... That's not true — | got presents as much as my friend of my stepfather. | got a bit of work with him, marking the
mother or my aunties and uncles could afford. | always received a pack newspapers. | never actually went out and did a round — | avoided the
of sweets or some little toy. | was always swapping my toys anyway. cold — but I would do odd jobs for him, so I'd get the occasional sweet.
| always wanted something else. So somebody would That was quite lucky, because we still had ration
give me a nice present like a chemistry set, and I'd be books then.
swapping it for something else, and some of the It was a big day when the rationing ended, but it
family would be a little disappointed. | was never wasn't as though we could suddenly go out and buy
satisfied. | did a little stamp collecting, and collected sweets or butter or eggs, because we had no money.
Dinky cars, but swapping was my hobby. Me and In fact wartime rationing didn't make any difference
my friends used to steal bits and pieces from to poor people, because we were always rationed by
Woolworths. Just silly plastic things you could slip economics anyway. | got lucky the first time I was in
in your pocket. hospital because they wanted me to eat anything, so
All my collections | ended up giving away. My | lived on new potatoes and butter. A dollop of
collection of 78s | gave to my cousin, who sat on it. butter was big news in those days.
(When I left Liverpool | took the rest of my record
collection with me, but my mother wouldn't let me From about thirteen, things came into focus a little. |
take my Patsy Cline or Little Richard records — she felt Liverpool was dark and dirty; | wanted to get
laid claim to them.) out, to live somewhere there was a little garden. |
My grandad would bring bits of metal home, wanted to escape Admiral Grove. | didn't need to
cogs and wheels from the docks where he worked, move very far — just somewhere like Aigburth where
for me to play with. He was a boilermaker and one there was some green. | used to love the park; we'd
time he made me a train with a real fire in the sag off school and go to Sefton Park and Princes
engine. That was probably the most fabulous toy | Park. I have an affinity with green, the sea and space.
ever had. You could sit on it; it was quite big. I was With Geraldine McGovern at In my life | have had houses with lots of land, but it’s
always an entrepreneur, and | decided | would H. Hunt & Son's Christmas dance the view that | need. In Monte Carlo the view is to
charge people to have a ride. Or | would put on little the end of the Earth. It's the space; | need to be able
plays, and have zoos in the backyard. We'd have a spider in a jam jar — just to look. It doesn't have to be mine, as long as | can see it. If | had a
just local stuff, no lions or tigers. Once we had a dead cheetal’s skin, little house with half an acre on a hill I'd be OK, because | could see. |
again from a guy in the navy. It would cost you a halfpenny to come in. remember when Maureen (my first wife) and | and the kids moved to
On one occasion it cost you nothing to come in but a penny to go out — Hampstead. It was very nice, but | hated the garden — everywhere you
or you had to jump off the wall with an umbrella as a parachute! So we sat there was a bloody fence. So we got out; | just couldn't deal with it. |
were always trying to make a penny. think that's all down to Liverpool being so closed in.
| had a great scheme once, later on — | wasn't even that young by I'm still a bit of a mover, a tramp. I'm trying to stop, but it's
this time. | was going to call all these millionaires, including Frank something in me. Barbara (my wife now) and | laugh about it: we have a
Sinatra. Somehow | was going to get in touch to ask them to lend me a home, get it finished, decorate it, do everything — and then | feel,
million dollars. | wasn't going to touch it; I'd just have the interest. They ‘Shouldn't we move now?’
wouldn't realise this, and one year later I'd give back their million At thirteen | got pleurisy. Liverpool was a breeding ground for
dollars, thinking they wouldn't know about this scam! | never did tuberculosis, especially where | lived. I had lots of time off with bad
anything about it, of course. lungs, and it turned into tuberculosis: | was put in a greenhouse for a
I moved to Dingle Vale Secondary Modern School when | was whole year.
twelve, but I didn’t go there much either. The biggest memory | have of That second time I went into hospital, there was Sister Clark and
Dingle Vale is buying lunch, which was a small Hovis loaf. We'd take Nurse Edgington. Being thirteen or fourteen, it was puberty for me, and
out the middle of the Hovis and stuff it with chips. That was the best when the nursés-would kiss us goodnight it was all quite frisky: ‘Will
meal, because | hated the school dinners. We'd buy it outside, and then you kiss me goodnight, nurse?’ — and I'd get a really good kiss off a lot
go and sit on the swings and eat it. of them. They were all young (they weren't old, anyway): eighteen to
It was a hell of a walk to Dingle Vale — a good half an hour. We twenty. We'd never ask the sister to kiss us goodnight!
could either walk through Princes Park or down Park Road. | remember We had two wards separated by a partition, with girls in one ward
one time Brian Briscoe and | were walking through the park after it had and boys in the other. There was a lot of hot passion going on We'd
snowed, and ours were the first footprints in the snow, so we didn't go sneak in at night to the girls’ ward and fumble around. I'd stand there
to school, we just walked round the park all day making footprints. for hours trying to get a touch of tit. We all had tuberculosis, of course
There were always lots of little fights going on. If you had a fight spreading those damn germs to each other. You had your girlfriends
with a kid and you hurt him, the next day there'd be a huge guy waiting but it never lasted because once you got better you were out on th
for you at the school gate, and he'd either punch you out, or shake you town. It was part of growing up, and it was so slow in those days

RINGO STARR 35
 Outside the Calypso Ballroom, Butlins, 1960. Left to right: Johnny Guitar,
Ty Brian, Rory Storm, Lou Walters and Ringo

You'd go to the movies and try to get your cry. ‘lam nobody's child, mum.’ She'd say,
arm round a girl so you could stretch it ‘Oh, don't!’ ‘Climb Upon My Knee’ was
down a little and get a feel. another one they all loved.
I'd found out about sex at a very early When I was about fifteen, | used to sing
age, twice. Two girls told their mother that in the choir — for the money. I'd been to
I'd had their knickers off and was looking at Sunday school a little when | was younger.
them and feeling them. This was when | I was a Protestant — my mother had been a
was eight. We were all kids; we were just member of the Orange Lodge for a while,
looking and touching — the natural way of although not for long. On 17th March, St
growing up. It was like living on a farm. We Patrick's Day, all the Protestants beat up
had a friend whose sister we could all feel. the Catholics because they were marching,
We wouldn't do anything else; we'd just and on 12th July, Orangeman’s Day, all the
look at it and feel it, and all laugh. Catholics beat up the Protestants. That's
I actually lost my virginity in Sefton how it was, Liverpool being the capital of
Park at about sixteen. It was very weird: Ireland, as everybody always says.
two girls and a friend of mine on the grass
at the back of a fairground, and there was I never went back to school after thirteen. |
all the fairground music and Frankie Laine had to collect my sign-off papers one time
and millions of people around — and this was it, us in the grass and so that | could pick up the dole until they found me a job. | went to the
‘Ghost Riders In The Sky’! It was really exciting. And at that age, once school and said, ‘Excuse me, can | have the piece of paper to say that I'm
in and you want to live there. It was always on my mind for a long time. actually fifteen and that | was at this school?’ And they went through all
Before I went to hospital the second time, walking to school | used their files, everything, and said, ‘You never came to this school.’ | said,
to pass a little music store on Park Road. It had guitars, banjos, ‘Honestly, | came here.’ They found me in the end, but the fact is they
accordions and mandolins in the window, but I used to look at the. had no recollection of me ever being there. Then, seven or eight years
drums. There was one, a tom-tom, that used to freak me out and every later when we'd made it in The Beatles, they had ‘my’ desk at the school
morning walking to school | would go and look at it, and walking back garden party and were charging people to sit in it. They wouldn't know
I'd look at it again. It cost £26, which was a fortune. my desk from anyone else's.
Playing drums for me started in hospital in 1954, where, to keep us It was easy then for school-leavers to get jobs. | started work as a
entertained, they gave us some schooling. A teacher would come in messenger boy on the railways, and was there for five weeks. I'd gone to
with a huge easel, with symbols for instruments shown on a big piece of the railways because they used to give you suits — it was a good way to
board. She gave us percussion instruments: triangles, tambourines and get warm clothes. But they only gave me the hat before | had to leave: |
drums. She would point at the yellow and the triangle would sound, and was very disappointed. During my fifth week they'd sent me for the
she would point at the red and the drum would sound. I'd only play if medical, said, ‘Are you kidding?’ and discharged me. My sickliness left
they gave me a drum. me when | was about sixteen, so | was OK from then on.
| was in the hospital band. | started using cotton bobbins to hit on Then | worked on the St Tudno, a pleasure steamer that went from
the cabinet next to the bed. | was in bed for ten months: it's a long time, Liverpool to Menai in North Wales. | wanted to go deep sea, and this
so you keep yourself entertained; it was that and knitting. That's where | was an easy way to get my ticket. If you did three months on the local
really started playing. | never wanted anything else from then on. boats, it was easier to get on the big liners. | got as far as the day boats,
Drums were the only thing | wanted and when | came out | used to look but that was it. It was great for picking up chicks in the pub, because |
in music shops and see drums; that’s all I'd look at. My grandparents pretended | was in the Merchant Navy. I'd say ‘Yeah, just got back from
gave me a mandolin and a banjo, but | didn't want them. My Menai.’ They would say, ‘Oh yeah, when did you leave?’ and | would
grandfather gave me a harmonica when | was seven — nothing; we had a say, Ten o'clock this morning.’ And then they would tell me to piss off.
piano — nothing. Only the drums. | was terrified about conscription and the thought of being called
| was listening to music at this time. At fourteen | bought three up to the army. That's why | became an apprentice engineer, because
records: The Four Aces’ ‘Love Is A Many Splendoured Thing’, Eddie the army weren't taking apprentices in 1956 or ‘57. It got down to, ‘If
Calvert's ‘Oh Mein Papa’ and David Whitfield’s ‘Mama’. The Four Aces you've got a real job, we won't take you.’ It seemed the best way out for
lasted, and still holds up. | don't play the others too often now. me. The last place | wanted to go was in the army. My dad knew
I was never really into drummers. | loved seeing Gene Krupa in the someone in the pub who knew of a job at a firm called H. Hunt & Son.
movies, but I didn't go out and buy his records. The one drum record | | went there to be a joiner, but they put me on the delivery bike for
bought was ‘Topsy Part Two’ by Cozy Cole. | always loved country- about six weeks. | got fed up and | went to complain: 'Come on, I'm
and-western; a lot of it was around from the guys in the navy. I'd go to here to be a joiner, not on the bike.’ The man said, ‘Well, there's no
parties and they'd be putting on Hank Williams, Hank Snow and all places for joiners — would you like to be an engineer?’ So | became an
those country acts. | still love country music. Skiffle was also coming apprentice engineer, going to school one day a week and working with
through, and I was a big fan of Johnnie Ray. Frankie Laine was probably the guys the rest.
my biggest hero around 1956 — and | also liked Bill Haley. I went to see It was at this place — my last proper job — that | met Roy Trafford.
Rock Around the Clock in the Isle of Man. My grandparents took me We became great friends. We still are; although we don't see a lot of
there after | came out of hospital. The film was sensational because the each other, | still love the guy. He and | would go to the pubs (I was
audience ripped up the cinema, which was great to watch. | didn't join introduced to pubs at a young age, sixteen) and then to the Cavern. At
in, because | was a sickly child; | was just so excited that they were the Cavern we'd get a pass-out, go to the pub — and then go back in
doing it for me. and pass out!
My first kit came on the scene about this time. | bought a drum for Roy and | loved the same sort of music — we loved rock'n'roll. I
thirty shillings. It was a huge, one-sided bass drum. There used to be listened to Radio Luxembourg all the time. The reception was bad, but
lots and lots of parties then. An uncle would play banjo or harmonica, it was great whatever you got, because at least they were playing
my grandparents played mandolin and banjo; there was always someone different music. Alan Freed used to have a show on Sunday, and we'd
playing something. So | would bang my big drum with two pieces of always be at Roy's house listening to it. We'd hear rock'n'roll, and it was
firewood and drive them mad, but because I was a kid they would let me great. Roy and | would dress alike, and go and have our suits made
do it. They would say, ‘Oheyeah,’ and then just move me out. together, because we were Teddy boys. I'd have it in black and he'd
They would have played songs like ‘Stardust’, ‘That Old Black have it in blue. We did everything together.
Magic’, ‘You'll Never Know’ or ‘They're Building Flats Where The We were by the docks in Liverpool and each and every area had its
Arches Used To Be’ (that was Uncle Jim and Auntie Evy's big number) — own gang. It was like New York or Hamburg. | was a Teddy boy; you
all those old-time records, the sort of songs | had on my Sentimental had to be. Where | lived, you had to associate with some gang,
Journey album. Everybody had their party-piece in Liverpool — you had otherwise you were ‘open city’ for anybody. The choices were: you
to sing a song! My mother’s was ‘Little Drummer Boy’; she would sing it could either be beaten up by anybody in your neighbourhood, or by
to me, and | would sing ‘Nobody's Child’ to her and she would always people in other neighbourhoods (which | was, several times).

36 RINGO STARR
 There was a terrible thing in Liverpool where you'd walk past all you'd do was walk up and down roads, stand on corners, beat
somebody and they'd say, ‘Are you looking at me?’ If you said ‘no’ they'd someone up, get beaten up, go to the pictures... It gets boring after a
say, ‘Why not?’ and if you said ‘yes’ they'd get you anyway. So you while. | wanted to leave all that, and | started moving out of walking
couldn't win. There was no answer to that question. If you were in a with the lads when | started playing. Roy and I wanted to be musicians,
gang, you were safe. It must have been difficult for John, Paul and and we started leaving the gang life. Music possessed me and | got out. |
George because they were never in gangs. None of them were Teddy was nineteen when | finally made it out, thank God.
boys, really.
One time, Roy and | decided to go to the Gaumont cinema. When From 1957 the big craze was skiffle. It was based on American blues,
we came out, we walked up Park Road and saw the gang who used to bottle parties or rent parties, where it would be open house and people
meet on the corner. We knew them, but they said: ‘Come here.’ So we would pay a quarter or a dime towards the rent. You'd have someone
did, and they said, ‘We're going to Garston to with a jug, someone with a washboard, a tea-
have fights, so just hang out till we go.’ You e yy" ry Peer eretat. ¢ YUN ee
ae |
chest bass and a guitar — made-up instruments.
knew immediately that you could either say I thought about emigrating to the USA with
‘no’, and the whole gang would beat you up a friend called Johnny (1 don't want to give his
there and then, or you could go to where the second name because he may still be in hiding
fight was going to happen and take your — he had some difficulties a few years later!). |
chances. You could mingle with the crowd, rip wanted to go to Texas to live with Lightnin’
your belt off, just look OK and hope to God { Hopkins — the blues man, my hero. | actually
that the big guy in the other gang didn't : went to the Embassy and got the forms. This
pick on you. There were a lot of really angry was in 1958. We filled these in and, God, they
people around: Liverpool working-class, were hard, but when we got the second lot of
tough-gang shit. forms it was just too daunting: questions like,
I had a Teddy-boy suit. My cousin who ‘Was your mother's grandmother's Great Dane
went to sea — it all revolves around sailors — a communist?’ Like teenagers, we gave in. But
would give me his old clothes, and he was a we'd got lists of jobs to go to in Houston —
Teddy boy; so | had a big long jacket with factories that would take us. We were pretty
very tight trousers and crepe-soled shoes. But serious about it.
he was much bigger than me, so | had to strap In England there was Lonnie Donegan and
the pants up with a big heavy belt, which I'd The Vipers skiffle group. It was traditional jazz
put washers on. | started to dress like that and skiffle then at the Cavern (that’s why we
when | was sixteen. Then I began getting some started playing skiffle). Eddie Miles, Roy and |
money and buying my own clothes. Besides started a skiffle band together: the first band |
the money | made at the factory, we were was in — the Eddie Clayton Skiffle Group.
bartering and ‘borrowing and selling’ — quite a (There wasn't really an Eddie Clayton.) We all
bit of that went on. worked in the same place. Eddie was a lathe
operator, | was an apprentice engineer and Roy
was a joiner.
When someone in Harry's family died, he'd gone down to Romford
and there was a drum kit for sale for £12. The whole family collected
together and he brought this drum set to Liverpool. | was given it for
Christmas. Up till then I'd been playing drums at home — just
something I'd made myself from biscuit tins and pieces of firewood.
This kit was amazing. It wasn't a drum but drums: a snare, a bass drum,
a hi-hat, one little tom-tom, a top cymbal and a bass-drum pedal (1
didn't have to kick it any more).
| had about three lessons once | got interested. | thought, ‘Every
night I'll read music and learn how to play.’ | went to the house of a
little man who played drums, and he told me to get some manuscript
paper. He wrote it all down and | never went back! | couldn't be
bothered; it was too routine for me, | couldn't stand it.
Once I'd got my drum kit, | set it all up in my bedroom, the back
room, and off | went, banging away. And then | heard from the bottom
of the stairs, ‘Keep the noise down, the neighbours are complaining!" |
only ever did it twice and got shouted at both times, so | stopped and
never practised at home. The only way I could practise was to join a
group. | got the drum kit on Boxing Day and | was in a group by
February, so there wasn't a chance in hell that | could play by then. But
The washers and the buckle on the belt would be filed down sharp, neither could anyone else except the guitarist, who knew a couple of
and a whack from that would really hurt — all that Teddy-boy madness. chords. The rest of us were making it up. We had no sense of time —
People would have razor blades behind their lapels, so whoever grabbed though Eddie was a great player, one of those guys who, if you gave
them would get their fingers chopped off. It was deadly serious, because him any instrument, could play it. Very musical.
that's what life was about. I was working in the factory and we played for our fellow workmen
We were into area fights. | wasn't a great fighter, but | was a good at lunchtime in a cellar. With a few of the other guys from the factory
runner, a good sprinter — as | still am — because if you were suddenly on we built up the band. And then we started playing all the freebies we
your own with five guys coming towards you, you soon learnt to be. could get, playing clubs or weddings.
There was no messing about; it was, ‘You! Come here!’ — bang, bang. | We did a few weddings. Someone we knew would get married and
didn't knife or kill anyone, but | got beaten up a few times — mainly by we'd fetch the gear along and play for a few hours. Once a guy at work
the people | was with. It's that terrible gang situation where if you're not said, ‘You've got to come and play at this wedding,’ and then, cheeky
fighting an outsider you get crazy and start fighting among yourselves, git, ‘Can | join the group if | get you the booking?’ We said, ‘OK,’ and
like mad dogs. It was quite vicious. | have seen people lose their eyes; | he joined and said, ‘We're going to be all right here, it's a big fur-coat
have seen people stabbed; | have seen people beaten up with hammers. wedding. It's all shorts, there'll be none of that beer.’ They were all out
The gangs didn’t have names, but there were leaders. We were the at the pub when we arrived to set up. When they came back it was with
Dingle gang. There were several gangs in the area and you'd walk en medicine bottles full of brown ale — it was the roughest wedding I'd ever
masse to try to cause trouble; ‘walking with the lads’, it was called. But been to! ‘It's a real fur-coat do...’

RINGO STARR 37
 | became semi-professional: | was an engineer When trad jazz was the big thing, a skiffle group would play in the
during the day and'I'd play drums at night. | intermission, because they were cheap. You had to get a lot of gigs to
would go and play at dances in other make any money. In Liverpool, the Cavern was the place to play with
neighbourhoods with Eddie Clayton or some any band. There was a lot of screaming in there. When I played there
other band, and later with Rory. We would with Rory, we were thrown off because we were meant to be a skiffle
play, and the girls would always be group but Johnny Guitar brought a radio with him, and he plugged his
looking at the musicians, which would guitar into it and it suddenly became electric. So we were a bit more
piss the other guys off. So we'd be rock'n'roll. We were thrown off for being traitors: 'Get that damn
lucky to get out of those clubs noise off!’ They wanted ‘Hi Lili Hi Lo’ — that stuff. There were a lot of
without being beaten up, because we people in big sweaters. | was in black corduroy in those days — we
were in strange neighbourhoods were all like beatniks.
Y without our local mates. With Rory and the Hurricanes, we played loads of places, up and
My career started there. Then | down the country, and even abroad. When we came down to London
began going through bands in Liverpool: for a gig, | remember that we went to the Lyceum and no girl would
The Darktown Skiffle Group — that was the dance with us. As a group, the five of us would line up and pick on
biggest band at the time — then it was Rory one girl and we'd say, ‘Excuse me, do you want to dance?’ She'd say,
Storm, then with Tony Sheridan, then with ‘Huh? Crazy.’ And the next one would get the same, and | would say,
The Beatles. | played with a lot of groups. | ‘Excuse me, do you want to dance?’ — ‘Piss off.’ The only dance | had
practised with every group in Liverpool. We that night was with a French girl who didn't know any better. That's
were all intermingling in those days. We all how it happens.
got to know each other, so if someone was | was earning a bit of money, working and drumming, and | got my
sick or didn't turn up youd sit in with first car at eighteen. It was a big thing, because before that | was
di ; another group. dumped all the time. I'd have to go to gigs on the bus, so most of the
{un ey The drum kit I was using had a really time | could only take a snare drum, a cymbal and the sticks. I'd have to
cool snare and everything, but it was old. So beg to borrow the bass drum and the toms from the other bands who
in the summer of 1958 I went to my were playing that night. Sometimes | didn't get them. And on the
grandfather and borrowed £46 and took it down to Frank Hessy's music occasions we did take my equipment, going to the gig everyone was so
shop in town, where | bought an Ajax single-headed kit, which looked helpful, but after it they just split — so I'd be dumped with the lot. |
similar to the Ludwig Silver Pearl one. remember one miserable night when the rest of the band had helped me
| thought Rory Storm and the Hurricanes were great. They were the get my kit on the bus. | got off at my stop, and it was half a mile to the
first ones in Liverpool who really wanted to get into rock'n'roll. We house, and | had four cases. | had to run twenty yards with two cases,
were all playing skiffle before that, but they had a rock'n'roll blond hair keeping my eye on the other two left behind, then go back, pick them
attitude — Rory liked to be the big cheese, to be Mr Rock'n'Roll, and up and run forty yards with those, drop those, go back, and so on. It
Johnny ‘Guitar’ Byrne was Liverpool's Jimi Hendrix. was the most miserable thing and all | thought was, ‘Shit, | need a car.’
I'd left Roy and Eddie behind by now and was playing with The Johnny Hutch, another drummer, was making cars out of spare
Darktown Skiffle Group. They decided they wanted to stay as they parts — and from him I| got a Standard Vanguard. | loved that car. It
were — they didn't want to make it their careers. They stayed as gave me a terrible time: the tyres were always puncturing and it
engineers and joiners, got married, and did that, while | auditioned for wouldn't go into second gear, but | used to be so proud of it. It was
Rory and the Hurricanes. It was good; I knew all their songs — every hand-painted red and white, like a big ice-cream car. 'Hand-painted’
band was playing the same songs. | don't even know if Rory auditioned just meant he couldn't afford to have it sprayed, but I would always say,
anyone else, but | passed the test, they said ‘yes’, and | joined. It's ‘Oh, it's hand-painted, you know?’
interesting because Rory and, later, The Beatles both had the same first In 1959, the army decided that anyone born later than (I think)
impression about me. When | went for the audition | looked a bit rough: September 1939 would not be conscripted. I'd made it by ten months.
I was still in my black drape jacket with my hair back, looking like a That's when | thought, ‘Great, now we can play,’ and | left the factory
Ted, so they were a bit insecure about me. and decided to go professional with Rory. We had a big family meeting
when I asked to go with Rory and the band to Butlins, to play in the
Rock and Calypso Ballroom for £16 a week. Up to then | had been
playing just at night, or some afternoons.
I come from a long line of labourers and
soldiers, and | would have been the first in
our line to get a piece of paper to say he
was actually something — an engineer. |
remember my uncles, my aunties and the
boss of the factory saying, ‘You'll come
back in three months, and you'll only be
semi-skilled when you do.’ | said, ‘I don't
care. Drums are my life, | want to be a
musician and I'm going away with Rory to
Butlins to fulfil this dream.’ Which | did. |
stopped work at twenty. I've always
believed I'd be playing drums. That was my
dream, although through my life I've
forgotten that dream occasionally and let
substances take over.
We were down at the Jacaranda club in
Liverpool one afternoon, shortly before
we were to go to Butlins. They usually had
a steel band downstairs at night, but this
afternoon there were three guys down
there messing around on their guitars.
Rory, Johnny Guitar and | wandered down
to see what was happening there. | didn't
know them: it was John and Paul teaching
Stuart Sutcliffe to play bass. We were the

Far Left: ‘Hand-painted’ Standard Vanguard

professionals and they were the boys, the struggling artists. They
didn't have a big image in my head. They meant nothing in those days
— they were just a group of scruffs. We were ready to go to Butlins: we
had the suits and shoes that matched — black and white shoes, red
suits, red ties and a hankie — so we felt we were big time. (The reason
Rory Storm and the Hurricanes were the biggest band in Liverpool at
FONTENET
INSTA!! ATION
one time was the matching suits. Later on Brian Epstein started doing
that to The Beatles.)
We were away at Butlins for three months, and it was fabulous.
~ ® Q) - pee
When we first arrived there, we all picked names. That was when
Johnny Guitar picked his; and for me, it started because in Liverpool |
Bs N01 BiggAE Bui Th a
+. eX: ’
was still wearing a lot of rings, and people were starting to say, ‘Hey, >a

Rings!’ My name was Richard, hence Ritchie... and Rings. When we

A
eM > . xy o Pm
_
a

» 4 :
+ ae ~ |
changed our names, | called myself Ringo. It was going to be Ringo NS ed

Starkey, but that didn’t really work, so I cut the name in half and if
added an '‘r’. | had it put on the bass drum, and it's been that ever
since. We were working steadily, with a new
«-_-
-
&
me
£e A>

audience every week. It was the best place we

could have been. It was the summer months, When I was a kid, we'd never really been
and we weren't missing anything back in on holiday. We'd go up the coast to Seaforth
Liverpool. Winter was always the club time now and then, or across to New Brighton.
there. Rory was a real athlete. There was a For my big holiday | went to London with
piano behind the drums, and the finale of my mum and Harry when I was fifteen.
Rory's act was that he would climb on top of Actually we went to Romford, because that's
it, shake, and then jump over my head. This where Harry's folks were from. But | recall we
was fabulous! My favourite number was went to London for the day, and there's a
‘Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On’, photo of me with the Horse Guards and my
A new coachload of girls would arrive every hand patting the horse. We did all those
week at Butlins, and we'd be like, ‘Hi, I'm with things: Buckingham Palace, the British
the band, you know.’ It was paradise for that. Museum, the Tower of London. That was the
big day out. | went to the Isle of Man a
couple of times with my grandparents, so
that was like going abroad, but we never went to Europe.
I went abroad in 1962 with Rory and the Hurricanes, when we got a
job playing American army bases in France. The problem was we
needed a girl singer, because the army didn't want to look at us guys. So
we found a blonde girl in Liverpool (whose
name | can’t remember) and we went out
there and played in all those bases in
the wilderness.
On the way there, when we got off
the boat, we got on a train which was
supposed to go right through to Lyons —
but once it pulled into Paris, we were all
thrown off. It was frightening. The French
were fighting the Algerians at the time, and
there were cops with machine guns right in
my face because I had the big drum cases.
There'd be tears at the end of the week, and then a new coach. In a way Clutching my passport, all | could think of
it was part of the attraction of rock'n'roll. My main reason, of course, was to scream, ‘Anglais! Don't shoot!’
was to play, but you couldn't help but enjoy yourself at Butlins every The rooms we were in were very
week! | ended up living with a hairdresser in a caravan at Butlins. It was cheap, but the French food cost a fortune.
growing up. Everyone was on holiday. It's the same as goes on now, We had no money, and we were in doss
except that they go to Benidorm. houses. But we didn’t care because the
I got engaged to one girl, but it didn't last because she started to put audiences were great and the personal
the pressure on: it was her or the drums. That was a very poignant expenses were great. We could go and
moment in my life. I left her one night, and | got on the bus and buy hamburgers in the American canteen
thought, ‘Well, what happens if | don't go back?’ And | never went store and eat like kings for nothing,
back. | just wanted to play; it was more important to me. But | was because we were getting food for the same
engaged and | did love her, and she loved me, and we'd got our bottom rates as the soldiers. We weren't really
drawer started and made all the preparations that go into marriage. allowed in the mess, because we weren't
I sold the Standard Vanguard to another drummer in Liverpool, and American — and they kept trying to throw us
after the first three months at Butlins | bought myself a Zephyr Zodiac, out — but we would go in anyway, and stock
which | adored. | was The King in that car. | was The Big Guy With up with Hershey bars and hamburgers.
The Car, driving people around. | drove to the factory in it, parked it My apprenticeship was with Rory — we were
outside and went to see the guys still working there: ‘Hey, I'm really real professional. We'd go away to play and come
doing well!’ — because my wages had gone right up. I'd been getting £6 back to Livérpool. That's what I was doing while
a week in the factory and £20 a week at Butlins. | was loaded. John, Paul and George were still getting it
It wasn't all rosy; | was on the dole a lot, too, and | still have a piece together. We were doing so well that when the
of paper from the DHSS saying, ‘He left the factory to join a dance first offer came to go to Hamburg, we turned
band.’ There wasn’t that much unemployment then, and | could always it down. But in the autumn of 1960 we
work. But I had to join the dole queue. There were a lot of old winos in eventually went to play in Germany and
the queue, shaking — that was the first time | saw that happen. There that's where | met The Beatles. Whatever
were a lot of us queuing up, but it wasn't like it is now. happened to those guys?

RINGO STARR 39
1960-62

nineteen sixty to nineteen sixty-two

 JOHN: Once upon a time there were three little boys called John, George and Paul, by name christened. They decided to get together because they were the getting
together type. When they were together, they all wondered what forafter all, what for? So all ofasudden they all grew guitars and formed a noise. Funnily enough,
no one was interested, least of all the three little men. Sooo... on discovering a fourth little even littler man called Stuart Sutcliffe running about them, they said, quote:
‘Sonny, get a bass guitar and you will be all right,’ and he did — but he wasn't all right because he couldn't play it. So they sat on bim with comfort till he could
play. Still there was no beat, and a kindly old aged man said, quote: ‘Thou hast not drums!’ We had no drums! they coffed. So a series of drums came and went and
came. Suddenly, in Scotland, touring with Johnny Gentle, the group (called The Beatles called) discovered they had not a very nice sound — because they had no
amplifiers. They got some. Many people ask what are Beatles? Why Beatles? Ugh, Beatles, how did the name arrive? So we will tell you. It came in a vision — a
man appeared on a flaming pie and said to unto them, ‘From this day on you are Beatles with an A.’ — ‘Thank you, Mister Man,’ they said, thanking him.*

PAUL: It was John and Stuart who thought of the name. They were art This is a pub, a Saturday night, what else have you got?’ We said, ‘Well,
students and while George's and my parents would make us go to bed, we do “The World Is Waiting For The Sunrise.’ (I played the melody
Stuart and John could live the little dream that we all dream: to stay up and John did the rhythm.) He said, ‘Perfect, start with that, then do “Be
all night. And it was then they thought up the name. Bop A Lula”.’ He was good like that, and | would remember his advice
One April evening in 1960, walking along Gambier Terrace by years later when we were organising our shows.
Liverpool Cathedral, John and Stuart announced: ‘Hey, we want to call
the band “The Beatles’.’ We thought, ‘Hmm, bit creepy, isn't it?’ — ‘It's GEORGE: A lot was happening at the beginning of 1960. | remember
all right though; a double meaning.’ One of our favourite groups, The there was a show at the Liverpool Stadium in which Eddie Cochran was
Crickets, had got a dual-meaning name: cricket the game, and crickets due to appear, but he got killed a couple of days before so Gene
the little grasshoppers. We were thrilled with that — we Vincent topped the bill.
thought it was true literature. (We've spoken to The
Crickets since, and found that they hadn't realised that RINGO: | never forgave Eddie for that. | was so looking
we had a game called cricket. They never knew they forward to seeing him.
had a second meaning.)
GEORGE: It was held in a stadium where Pete Best's
GEORGE: It is debatable where the name came from. dad, Johnny, used to promote boxing. Ringo was in that
John used to say that he invented it, but | remember show with Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. We weren't
Stuart being with him the night before. big enough to play (we didn’t even have a drummer) and
There was The Crickets, who backed Buddy Holly, | remember thinking how we'd got to get our band
that similarity; but Stuart was really into Marlon together because the Hurricanes all had suits and dance
Brando, and in the movie The Wild One there is a scene steps — a proper routine. It was semi-professional; it
where Lee Marvin says: ‘Johnny, we've been looking for looked impressive from where we were sitting.
you, the Beetles have missed you, all the Beetles have Brian Cass had a band called Cass and the
missed you.’ Maybe John and Stu were both thinking Cassanovas that also played. (He disappeared a year or
about it at the time; so we'll leave that one. We'll give it so later, and those left became The Big Three.)
fifty/fifty to Sutcliffe/Lennon. Somehow Cass had the ability to get gigs, and one night
he put us in a show in a little club cellar, which was the first time we
PAUL: In The Wild One, when he says, ‘Even the Beetles missed ya!’ he played as ‘The Silver Beetles’. He'd actually wanted us to be Long John
points to the motorcycle chicks. A friend has since looked it up in a and the Pieces of Silver.
dictionary of American slang and found that it's slang for ‘motorcycle
girls. So work that one out! PAUL: He said, ‘What's your name?’ We had just thought of ‘The
Beatles’ so we thought we would try this out at the audition. Cass said,
JOHN: We had one or two names. Then we began to change the name ‘Beatles — what's that? It doesn't mean anything.’ (Everyone hated the
for different bookings, and we finally hit upon ‘The Beatles’. name, fans and promoters alike.) He asked John’s name. John, who at
I was looking for a name like The Crickets that meant two things, that time was pretty much the lead singer, said, ‘John Lennon.’ — ‘Right,
and from crickets | got to beetles. And | changed the BEA, because Big John... Long John... OK, Long John Silver.’ So we compromised
‘beetles’ didn't mean two things on its own. When you said it, people and had Long John and the Silver Beetles. We would do anything for a
thought of crawly things; and when you read it, it was beat music. job, so that's what we became.

GEORGE: Stuart was in the band now. He wasn't GEORGE: He perceived John as being the leader
really a very good musician. In fact, he wasn't a because he was the biggest, the pushy one. He was
musician at all until we talked him into buying a the leader when it was The Quarry Men, and he was
bass. We taught him to play twelve-bars, like ‘Thirty certainly the leader at this point. | think he is still the
Days’ by Chuck Berry. That was the first thing he leader now, probably.
ever learnt. He picked up a few things and he
practised a bit until he could get through a couple of PAUL: In May, Larry Parnes came to. town,
other tunes as well. It was a bit ropey, but it didn’t auditioning. He was the big London agent. His acts
matter at that time because he looked so cool. We nearly always had a violent surname. There was
never had many gigs in Liverpool before we went to Ronnie Wycherley who became Billy Fury; and a less
Hamburg, anyway. furious guy you have yet to meet. A sweet Liverpool
guy — the first local man who made it, in our eyes
PAUL: That spring of 1960, John and I went down to Marty Wilde was also in Larry's stable; he had another
a pub in Reading, The Fox and Hounds, run by my tempestuous surname. But Larry Parnes had some new
cousin Betty Robbins and her husband. We worked singers and was looking for backing groups, and
behind the bar. It was a lovely experience that came someone had told him there were a few groups
from John and | just hitching off down there. At the around in Liverpool. So he came up to the Blue Angel
end of the week we played in the pub as The Nerk Billy Fury came with him.
Twins. We even made our own posters. Allan Williams ran the Blue Angel and the
Betty's husband turned me on to showbusiness in a Jacaranda. He was the little local manager (little in
big way, and the talk we had with him about how we height, that is — a little Welshman with a little high
should do the show was very formative. He'd been an entertainments voice — a smashing bloke and a great motivator, though we used to take
manager hosting talent contests at Butlins, and been on radio. He asked the mickey out of him). He held the auditions in conjunction wit!
what we were going to open with, and we said ‘Be Bop A Lula’. He told Larry Parnes. All the groups in Liverpool were there and we were on
us: 'No good. You need to open with something fast and instrumental. of the bands.

THE EARLY YEARS +1

 aimee

w
|

ete

ern
*
 GEORGE: They were going to use the Blue What little pay we did get was used to
which in those days was called the take care of the hotels. And we all slept in
Wyvern Social Club, to audition back-up the van. We would argue about space. There
bands for Larry Parnes's acts. Beforehand we weren't enough seats in the van, and
went out and bought some string shoes with somebody had to sit on the inside of the
little white bits on top. We were very poor mudguard on the back wheel. Usually Stu.
ind never had any matching clothes, but we
tried to put together a uniform — black shirts JOHN: We were terrible. We'd tell Stu he
ind these shoes. couldn't sit with us, or eat with us. We'd tell
When we arrived at the club our him to go away, and he did — that was how
drummer hadn't shown up, so Johnny he learnt to be with us. It was all stupid, but
Hutchinson, the drummer with Cass and the that was what we were like.”
Cassanovas, sat in with us. | don't think we
played _ particularly well or particularly PAUL: We did OK on that tour, playing
badly. church halls all over Scotland, places like
Fraserburgh. It was great — we felt very
JOHN: We just had a stand-in drummer for professional. But we were endlessly on the
the day. And Stu couldn't play bass, so he phone to Larry Parnes's office, complaining
had to turn his back.” that the money hadn't arrived. (Years later |
said this on a radio programme and Larry
PAUL: We had to tell Stuart to turn the threatened to sue me, because his aunties
other way: ‘Do a moody — do a big Elvis had got onto him: ‘Larry, you didn't pay
pose.’ If anyone had been taking notice they those nice Beatle boys.’ That was a true
would have seen that when we were all in A, shame in his book.)
Stu would be in another key. But he soon caught up and we passed that For a while, when we returned, we became a backing group. We
audition to go on tour — not with a furious name at all like the other were still going around as The Silver Beetles — | think there's a few
acts, but with a guy called Johnny Gentle. posters of us with a double ‘e’ — but soon we started to drop the ‘silver’;
because we didn't really want it. John didn’t wish to be known as ‘Long
GEORGE: It was a bit of a shambles. Larry Parnes didn't stand up saying John Silver’ any longer and | didn't wish to be known as Paul Ramon — it
that we were great or anything like that. It felt pretty dismal. But a few was just an exotic moment in my life.
days later we got the call to go out with Johnny Gentle. They were We backed all sorts of people. It was a good little period and we felt
probably thinking, ‘Oh well, they're mugs. We'll send a band that professional learning other people's songs. Sometimes it was quite hard,
doesn't need paying.’ because we weren't that good at chords. They'd throw us sheets of
music and we'd ask: ‘Have you got the words, have you got the chords?’
PAUL: Now we were truly professional, we could do something we had We were very naive — one time we thought that the girl with one of the
been toying with for a long time, which was to change our names to artists was his wife. We kept calling her Mrs Whatever, and it took us
real showbiz names. | became Paul Ramon, which | thought was suitably ages to realise she was a girlfriend.
exotic. | remember the Scottish girls saying, ‘Is that his real name?
That's great.’ [t's French, Ramon. Ra-mon, that's how you pronounce it. JOHN: We had all sorts of different drummers all the time, because
Stuart became Stuart de Staél after the painter. George became Carl people who owned drum kits were few and far between; it was an
Harrison after Carl Perkins (our big idol, who had written ‘Blue Suede expensive item.”
Shoes’). John was Long John. People have since said, ‘Ah, John didn't
change his name, that was very suave.’ Let me tell you: he was Long GEORGE: We had a drummer, Tommy Moore, who had come with us
John. There was none of that ‘he didn’t change his name’: we all to Scotland. He was a funny kind of guy who played with a lot of
changed our names. different bands. He used to show up for a while and then not show up
So here we were, suddenly with the first of Larry's untempestuous again, and so we'd get someone else.
acts and a tour of Scotland, when | should have been doing my GCE We had a stream of drummers coming through. After about three of
exams. A lot of my parents’ hopes were going up the spout because | these guys, we ended up with almost a full kit of drums from the bits
was off with these naughty boys who weren't doing GCEs at all. that they'd left behind, so Paul decided he'd be the drummer. He was
quite good at it. At least he seemed OK; probably we were all pretty
JOHN: During my whole time at art school I used to disappear from crap at that point. It only lasted for one gig, but | remember it very well.
time to time. When my first exam came up | was with The Beatles in It was in Upper Parliament Street where a guy called Lord Woodbine
Scotland, backing Johnny Gentle. For the second, | was away with the owned a strip club. It was in the afternoon, with a few perverts (five or
group in Hamburg. Eventually | decided to leave whether | ever passed sO men in overcoats) and a local stripper. We were brought on as the
an exam or not, but when [ got back there was a note saying, ‘Don't band to accompany the stripper; Paul on drums, John and me on guitar
bother to come back.’ Believe it or not, I actually got annoyed.® and Stuart on bass.
She came out and gave us her sheet music: ‘Now here are the parts
GEORGE: | remember asking my big brother, ‘Would you pack in work for my act.’ We said, ‘What's that? We can't read it.’ She told us it was
and have a go at this if you were me?’ He said, ‘You might as well — you ‘The Gypsy Fire Dance’. We said, ‘Well, how does that go? What's the
never know what might happen. And if it doesn't work out you're not tempo?’ We decided to do ‘Ramrod'’ instead, because we knew it, and
going to lose anything.’ So | packed in my job, and joined the band full then ‘Moonglow’.
time and trom then, nine-to-five never came back into my thinking.
John was SUIII al ollege and Paul was doing an extra year at school. PAUL: The Grosvenor Ballroom in Wallasey was one of the worst
That
] i.
was =
professional gig: on a tour of dance halls miles
‘
up places; there would be a hundred Wallasey lads squaring up to a
in the Nort! around Inverness. We felt, ‘Yippee, we've got hundred lads from Seacombe and all hell would break loose. | remember
a gig!’ Th hat we were playing to nobody in little halls, one night a rumble had started before | realised what was happening. |
until the when about five Scottish Teds would come ran to the stage to save my Elpico amp, my pride and joy at the time.
in and lo is all. Nothing happened. We didn’t really There were fists flying everywhere. One Ted grabbed me and said,
know anythii because we were like orphans. Our shoes ‘Don't move, or you're bloody dead!’ | was scared for my life, but I bad
were full Ss were a mess, while Johnny Gentle to get that amp.
had a pos to play to ‘Won't you wear my ring
around your | : Elvis's ‘Teddy Bear’ — and we were JOHN: We'd been playing round in Liverpool for a bit without getting
crummy. Th in embarrassment. We didn't have anywhere, trying to get work, and the other groups kept telling us, ‘You'll
amplifiers ora do all right, you'll get work some day.’ And then we went to Hamburg.

44 THE EARLY YEAR

 4
OTLIVERPOOL.
~ GEORGE: We'd heard about musicians getting gigs in Stuttgart, where
there were American army bases. We knew that those kinds of gigs
were available around Germany, so it was an exciting thought.
The story behind our going there was that another Liverpool
| apa and the Seniors, had given up their jobs to do a
Larry Parnes. And when they didn’t get it, they were
Bt
all dally annoyed so they decided to go to bandon to beat 3
Larry up. Allan Williams said to them: ‘If you are going to
London you should take your instruments.’ He drove them
. down and got them into the 2I's (the club where Tommy ie
Steele had been discovered). They didn’t beat up Larry
Parnes, but they did go down well at the club.
Bruno Koschmider, a German promoter, saw them
there and hired them for his own club, the Kaiserkeller in
Hamburg, and they were there for a couple of months. K
He must have really liked them, because he then got in touch
with Allan Williams and said, ‘We want another Liverpool band, to
play at the Indra.’
Allan Williams offered the gig to us, ‘But,’ he said, ‘the fellow wants a
five-piece.’ We needed another person, since there were only the three
of us and Stuart. We were excited, but we thought, ‘Paul isn’t really the dodgy place — with gangsters, where
drummer. Where do we get one from?’ Then | remembered a guy I'd Dad giving me lots of advice,.aw therrewa
met who'd been given a drum kit for Christmas. His name was Pete sign. But this was The Big Thing. no
Best; the Casbah club was in his basement. af9 aes
JOHN: Allan Williams took us over in a. van. We went through
PAUL: Pete Best's mother, Mona — a very nice woman, an Anglo-Indian Holland, and did a bit of shoplifting there.”
—ran the Casbah in a part of Liverpool, West Derby. We'd started to go
round there and we'd ended up painting the place. GEORGE: We probably met with the van outside Allan Williams's club,
It was great to be involved in the birth of a coffee bar — they were the Jacaranda. There were the five of us and then Allan, his wife Beryl
such important’ places then. The concrete and wood in the basement and Lord Woodbine.
had been stripped and we painted each part a different colour. All of us It was cramped. The van didn't even have seats; we had to sit on our
lent a hand — John and George and all the others. And after we'd amplifiers. We drove down to Harwich and got the boat to the Hook
painted it up, it was our club — The Beatles used to play there. Pete had of Holland. Driving through Holland, | remember we stopped at
a drum kit so he would sometimes sit in with us. He was a good Arnhem where all the people had parachuted out to their deaths
drummer, and when Hamburg came up he joined us. He was a very (another little Winston Churchill trick). There were thousands of
good-looking guy, and out of all the people in our group, the girls used white crosses in the cemetery.
to go for Pete.
PAUL: The strangest memory for me is being asked at the borders if we
JOHN: We knew of a guy and he had a drum kit, so we just grabbed had any coffee. | couldn't understand it. Drugs, yes, guns, yes — we
him, auditioned him, and he could keep one beat going for long could understand booze or something like that; but a roaring trade in
enough, so we took him.” contraband coffee?
Anyway, we ended up in Hamburg very late one night. We got the
PAUL: I was still at school at the time of the Hamburg offer; hanging timing wrong, there was no one there to meet us. We could find
on, trying to take exams. | didn't want to leave because | didn't want to Hamburg from the map but then we had to find the St Pauli district,
put my life in a pigeonhole quite yet. | thought | might become a and then the Reeperbahn. By the time we found the street and the club
teacher — it was about all | could qualify for with a decent salary — but | it was all closed. There we were, with no hotel or anything, and it was
was scared to solidify my life in a block of cement. now bedtime.
There was a guy at art college who was twenty-four, and that We managed to shake up someone from a neighbouring club who
seemed very old when we were seventeen. | thought that if he could found our guy, and he opened up the club and we stayed the first night
keep going until that age without getting a job, then so could |. So I had in the little alcoves, on red leather seats.
my eye set on blagging around the sixth form, doing anything that
would protect me until | was twenty-four when | would have to decide GEORGE: Of course, on the first night we got there there weren't
what to do. Then Hamburg came up. arrangements for anything. The club owner, Bruno Koschmider, drove
Someone must have realised that there were a lot of good groups in us round to his house, and we ended up staying, all in the one bed
Liverpool, and how we were cheaper than the London groups, and Bruno wasn't with us, fortunately, he left us to stay in his flat for the first
didn't know that much so we would work long hours. We were a night and went somewhere else. Eventually he put us in the back of a
promoter's dream. We were told, ‘You can go to Hamburg and get £15 a little cinema, the Bambi Kino, at the very end of a street called the
week.’ Now, £15 a week was more than my dad earned. In fact the Grosse Freiheit.
teachers at school didn't earn more than that. So Hamburg was a real Bruno wasn't some young rock'n'roll entrepreneur; he was an old guy
offer. It was as if we had found a profession, and the money was there who had been crippled in the war. He had a limp and didn't seem to
too. | remember writing to my headmaster very proudly that summer: ‘| know much about music or anything. We only ever saw him once a
am sure you will understand why | will not be coming back in week, when we'd try to get into his office for our wages.
September, and the pay is — wait for it — £15 a week.’ It was a ‘that's The city of Hamburg was brilliant; a big lake, and then the dirty
more than you earn’ kind of a letter. part. The Reeperbahn and Grosse Freiheit were the best thing we'd ever
But first of all my dad had to decide whether to even let me go. | seen, clubs and neon lights everywhere and lots of restaurants and
pleaded. | knew he might not, because although my dad was not strict, entertainment. It looked really good. There were seedy things about it
he was a fairly sensible kind af bloke. This was letting his kid go off to obviously, including some of the conditions we had to live in when we
the famous stripper land, to the Reeperbahn — it was known to be a first got there.

THE EARLY YEARS 45

 en reading Shakespeare, Dylan Thomas and Steinbeck, so that when we came to
erience it was as students, a little bit as artists, in a way: ‘This will be good for
ne day We saw it differently from the other groups. | think we saw it as if we were
his was his time in Germany. It was a very rich period for experience because
he leash

vere to play was called the Indra, and it had a big elephant over the street to
1. Later with our Indian influence, it seemed funny that that should have been our

The Indra was at the far end of Grosse Freiheit, off the Reeperbahn, the main club
10 had iust opened up the club and put us on there.
area was full of transvestites and prostitutes and gangsters, but | couldn't say that
ere audience. | don't recall there being many people at all at first. It took a little while
the BIS
LI
SATHe
d of mouth built up, by which time the church across the street had made Bruno close
because of all the noise we were making.

PAUL: We lived backstage in the Bambi Kino, next to the toilets, and you could always smell
them. The room had been an old storeroom, and there were just concrete walls and nothing else.
No heat, no wallpaper, not a lick of paint; and two sets of bunk beds, like little camp beds, with
not very many covers. We were frozen.

JOHN: We were put in this pigsty, like a toilet it was, in a cinema, a rundown sort of fleapit. We
were living in a toilet, like right next to the ladies’ toilet.” We would go to bed late and be woken
up the next day by the sound of the cinema show. We'd try to get into the ladies’ first, which was
the cleanest of the cinema's lavatories, but fat old German women would push past us.°
We'd wake up in the morning and there would be old German fraus pissing next door. That
was where we washed. That was our bathroom. It was a bit of a shock in a way.”

PAUL: People would be coming in from the cinema to the toilets, and they would find these
little Liverpool lads going, ‘Morning,’ all shaving. ‘Ah, guten morgen, alles ist gut?’

GEORGE: | never used to shower. There was a washbasin in the lavatory at the Bambi Kino, but
there was a limit as to how much of yourself you could wash in it. We could clean our teeth or
have a shave, but not much else. | remember once going up to the public baths, but that was
quite a long way from the Bambi Kino. Later on, maybe the third time we visited Hamburg, we'd
go to Astrid Kirchherr's to wash. | don't think we bathed or showered at all when we were first
there, probably not even the second time.

yr

ae
ray 4 LTER«
lah. Bruno Kgschmider
HAMBURG-ST. PAULI
GreBe Ereiheit 36 ~Tel. 310763
(c
; 154 ‘ IL) A~6 id
16 THE EARLY YEARS
 Kaiserkeller
UE ok
¢ Kaiserhatte
4 ae e
'
; Hamburg

‘ ‘ Sanssougs
‘a4 wiKidstlerkeller 1
; Bremerhaven ]
‘ 4 Hauptansdirift: UB Ve
+ i¢ Hamburg 4, Gr Freiheit 36 fi
j ¢ Tel 310763
“ A 1
|)
hiA
‘1s Postscheckkonto: ;
06 | |") |!
Hamburg 2353 |
Bankkonto; « Pee
|
k A. G6. j
j 4 Commerzban

Ay-4 i aro HombureSt..Pouli 97

Pe" Konto Nr“ 13382
Diensted, aen22. 11460 | ‘ F } | Py iz
ai eb und “Pawsen | |) ie | OA
t { 4 ; J

1\ i he in | " “aren, | , \ { ae
eer « Meggie "Baalt xis" oN ie 4
os ae paesetese tec date , Bie
|. tg | oe
— | aay. en = at, Pauge eee |‘g
am |) | ar °) =623 7s ‘Uls : . i [\fp ‘ } i —~ *}
a - van fil) et
naant ~~!
tt” yo# oie aN
oA,00.of 4
1439a) hea
: oy de, ,
or : e é if
id | ae 2550 fet tp
"a ; . fr ie } e
{aa
Y jam we i
.

| | } f = Platffelce Pextpea4 PrLioiit. Ft 7

{ i 4

re Ve ile ak a f
ahsi
Hombre, enW220 November 1960,
GEORGE: This was taken when we first played at the Indra. | remember the outfits: a neighbour of Paul's made these lilac jackets and after a few wee t the Indra they melted, just dropped apart
PAUL: The neighbour was Mr Richards, a tailor. He lived next door to me at Forthlin Road. We picked out some material ourselves and tookit to him to make these jac
The others came to my house for fittings. Eventually, the sweat got to them

JOHN: We'd done the Johnny Gentle tour, but we'd only been on stage floor and throwing the mike about and pretending | had a bad leg
for a bit, for twenty minutes or so, because he'd be on most of the That was some experience.” We all did ‘mach shauing’ all the time
time.” In Liverpool we just used to do our best numbers, the same ones from then on.°
at every gig. In Hamburg we would play for eight hours, so we really |
had to find new ways of playing.” It was still rather thrilling when you PAUL: We had to actually invite the audience in, because we would be
went on stage. It was a little nightclub and it was a bit frightening playing to a completely dark and empty club The min we saw
because it wasn't a dance hall, and all these people were sitting down, someone wed kick into ‘Dance In The Street’ and rock out, pretending
expecting something. we hadn't seen them. And we'd perhaps get a few of them in W ‘e were
At first we got a pretty cool reception. The second night the like fairground barkers: see four people — have to get them!
manager told us: ‘You were terrible, you have to make a show — “mach It was good training because, at first, the n Jain thin
shau",’ like the group down the road were doing. 67 And of course looking at was the price of the beer. We would see
whenever there was any pressure point I had to get us out of it The couple come in and look at us Yeah pretty g¢ od

guys said, ‘Well, OK John, you're the leader.’ When nothing was going him and say, ‘One mark fifty We can't afford tl
on, they'd say, ‘Uh-uh, no leader, fuck it,’ but if anything happened, it leave W ‘e were saying to Bruno Bring the price
was like, ‘You're the leader, you get up and do a show.’ us in y Ou W ill get em in if you bring it dow:
We were scared by it all at first, being in the middle of the tough this we built a little audience We WO id

clubland. But we felt cocky, being from Liverpool, at least believing anything they wanted — our whole repertoire
the myth about Liverpool producing cocky people.” So | put my guitar (There was only one table filled.) ‘Yes.’ W.
down and | did Gene Vincent all night: banging and lying on the try to be maf&ryv ellous and make them want t
 GEORGE: Inside the Bambi Kino. Our
room was midway between the
cinema and the ladies’ lavatory, on
an old dark corridor that led up to
the fire escape. We used to sleep
there in a bare concrete room with
little cots and no windows.
Left: John in his undies outside
the Bambi Kino. Just in this door is
our concrete passageway, where
Paul and Pete burned the condom.

Yilm-F-oto-
Herstellung Hvon In
Ginter W
Ir “Post. und. Ans
Homburg Alteng |
. fed

JOHN: Me sightseeing. Hamburg, November 1960.

GEORGE: We were at the Indra for about a month, and then the club
shut down and we moved into the Kaiserkeller, where Derry and the
Seniors were. It was right at the time they were leaving. They'd finished
their two months and Rory Storm and the Hurricanes were coming out. GEORGE: In the Kaiserkeller we had to start earlier and finish later.
The Kaiserkeller was great — at least it had a dance floor. And all the They'd double us up with the other band, so we were alternating — first
tables and chairs were located inside pieces of ship. The tables were with Derry and the Seniors and then Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. In
barrels and there were ropes and nautical things around. the contract we had to play for six hours and the other band had to play
six hours, so it made it into a twelve-hour set. We'd do an hour, they'd
JOHN: There was beer and tables. And there was another group. do an hour and it seemed to rotate like that, day in and day out, for
They had brought Howie Casey over, with the Seniors — or maybe tuppence a month. But when you are a kid you don't care, really.
they were even there when we got there — anyway, they were playing We started hanging out with them. | think we'd met Ringo once
here, at Bruno's other club. They were pretty competent. They had before, in England. | know we all had the same impression about him:
saxes; they were really a together group. They had a black singer [Derry ‘You'd better be careful of him, he looks like trouble.’
Wilkie] who couldn't really sing, but was a real showman. So we had to Ringo seemed to us to be cocky. Relative to what we were like at the
compete with them at first, and we had to start putting on this show to time, the band he was with were very professional. Maybe they
get enough people into our club, even though they were owned by the wouldn't seem all that good now, but then they all had good
same person. Then they moved us in — with Rory Storm and Ringo. instruments, they had a full drum kit and they had uniforms, matching
They were professionals; we were still amateurs. They'd been going for ties and handkerchiefs. All their tunes were put into a routine, in a
years, and they'd been to Butlins, and God knows what, and they really running order, and they did it as a show. And Rory was out at the front,
knew how to put on a show.’ always trying to leap around and ‘mach shau’. Out of all the amateur
bands in Liverpool, they were the most professional. So when they
RINGO Hamburg was great [ went with Rory Storm and the came to Hamburg Allan Williams told us: ‘You'd better pull your socks
Hurricanes. No van for us — we had the suits — we went by plane, up because Rory Storm and the Hurricanes are coming in, and you
which was a thrill. But when we got there Koschmider wanted us to know how good they are. They're going to knock you for six.’
sleep in the back of the Kaiserkeller, because The Beatles were in the They would do their show and Ringo was the cocky one at the back;
back of the cinema and with the way he looked, with that grey streak in his hair and half a
Before us, Howie Casey and the others had been sleeping in the grey eyebrow and a big nose, he looked a real tough guy. But it
back of the club. I'll never forget when we arrived and they said: ‘Yes, probably only took half an hour to realise it was actually... Ringo!
this is where you live now.’ There were a couple of old settees with
Union Jack flags, which were our sheets. We said, ‘Are you kidding? RINGO: By the time we all got together in Germany, with them
We've got the suits!’ So Rory and | and the band all stayed in one room playing one club and us playing another, they were already great. Then
in the German Seaman's Mission, and that was luxury — absolute we ended up in the same club and The Beatles had the last set. I'd be
bloody luxury. semi-drunk, demanding they play slow songs.
| MET THE BEATLES WHILE WE WERE PLAYING IN
PAUL: Ringo used to come in very late at night. He liked the bluesy
GERMANY. WE'D SEEN THEM IN LIVERPOOL, BUT sessions, when there weren't very many people there. | can see what
THEY WERE A NOTHIN‘ [LE BAND THEN, JUST he liked, too. We were getting down by then, pulling out all the B
sides. We used to do a number called ‘Three-Thirty Blues’. | remember
PUTTING IT TOGETHER FACT, THEY WEREN'T Ringo would always come in, order a drink, settle back and request
.EALLY A BAND AT ALL. 'Three- Thirty Blues’.

18 THE EARLY YEARS

 RINGO: | was still a Teddy boy and I only
found out later from John that they were a
bit scared of me. John told me, ‘We used to
be a bit frightened of you — this drunk,
demanding slow songs, dressed like a
Teddy boy.’
They were great in Hamburg. Really
good — great rock. | knew | was better than
the drummer they had at the time, and we
all started hanging out some (not a lot); and
then we moved to the same club, and that's
when the battle started. We played twelve
hours on a weekend night between two
bands. That's a hell of a long time,
especially when in each set we were trying
to top them and they were trying to top us.

GEORGE: There was another thing: Pete

would never hang out with us. When we
finished doing the gig, Pete would go off on his own and we three
would hang out together, and then when Ringo was around it was like a
full unit, both on and off the stage. When there were the four of us with dare show them to anyone because they were little. There was always a
Ringo, it felt rocking. Chuck Berry song instead. ‘A Taste Of Honey’ was one of my big
numbers in Hamburg — a bit of a ballad. It was different, but it used to
JOHN: In Hamburg we had to play for hours and hours on end. Every get requested a lot. We sang close harmonies on the little echo mikes,
song lasted twenty minutes and had twenty solos in it. We'd be playing and we made a fairly good job of it. It used to sound pretty good,
eight or ten hours a night. That's what improved the playing. And the actually.
Germans like heavy rock, so you have to keep rocking all the time; We got better and better and other groups started coming to watch
that's how we got stomping.” us. The accolade of accolades was when Tony Sheridan would come in
from the Top Ten (the big club where we aspired to go) or when Rory
STUART SUTCLIFFE: We have improved a thousand fold since our arrival Storm or Ringo would hang around to watch us.
and Allan Williams, who is here at the moment, tells us that there is no band in
Liverpool to touch us. GEORGE: Saturday would start at three or four in the afternoon and go
on until five or six in the morning. We'd have breakfast when we
GEORGE: We had to learn millions of songs. We had to play so long finished. Everyone would be drunk — not just the band but the audience
we just played ‘everything. So it was all the Gene Vincent — we'd do and all the people in St Pauli. They'd all go and eat something and
everything on the album, not just a lazy ‘Blue-Jean Bop’, whatever. We'd perhaps drink more, then go to the fish market on Sunday morning (I
get a Chuck Berry record, and learn it all, same with Little Richard, the never did figure out why). We'd just wander around in the broad
Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Fats Domino — everything. But we'd also sunlight, pissed as newts, with no sleep. Eventually we'd go to bed.
do things like ‘Moonglow’, which we used to play as an instrumental. Then the Sunday show would start early, but not finish too late.
Anything, because we'd be on for hours — we'd make up stuff. For the early period the audience would be much younger, around
Hamburg was really like our apprenticeship, learning how to play in fifteen, sixteen, seventeen. At eight or nine o'clock they'd start to get a
front of people. bit older and after ten o'clock it would be eighteens and over only. By
two in the morning it would be the hardened drunks and other club
JOHN: We once tried a German number, playing to the crowd. owners, who'd all come around and hang out with our club owner.
We got better and got more confidence. We couldn't help it, with They'd all be sitting at a big table getting thrashed, chucking around
all the experience, playing all night long. It was handy, them being crates and bottles of Sekt, all kinds of schnapps — that's not to count
foreign. We had to try even harder, put our heart and soul into it, to get what we were drinking by buying our own drinks, because at this point
ourselves over.” Our performance was good then. We worked and we discovered whisky and Coke.
played long hours — good at that age, when you could get work.” And
we'd all end up jumping around on the floor. Paul would be doing RINGO: The Germans were fabulous, because if they liked you they
‘What'd I Say?’ for an hour and a half.” would send up crates of beer. And if there were people with money,
out-of-towners or the snobs of Hamburg, they would send champagne.
PAUL: ‘What'd I Say’ was always the one that really got them. That was We didn't give a damn, we'd drink it all.
one of our big numbers. It became like trying to get into the Guinness Gangsters would also come into the clubs, and they had guns, which
Book of Records — who could make it last the longest. It is the perfect we'd never seen before. People would come in and sit at the bar and
song; it has the greatest opening riff ever. And if you had a Wurlitzer drink until they fell off the stool, or they had no money left. They
(which we didn't) you could keep that riff going for hours. Then it wouldn't be shown to the door, they'd actually be kicked out of it to
went, ‘Tell your MAMA, tell your PAW. Gonna take you back to say, ‘Don't do that again.’
ArkanSAW. See the girl with the red dress on...’ We could string that
-out. Then the chorus: ‘Tell me, what'd I say?’ and you could keep that JOHN: All these gangsters would come in — the local Mafia. They'd
going for hours. Then it had the killer, ‘Oh yeah!’ — audience send a crate of champagne on stage, imitation German champagne, and
Participation. we had to drink it or they'd kill us. They'd say, ‘Drink, and then do
"What'd | Say.’ We'd have to do this show, whatever time of night. II
JOHN: As far as I know, that was the first electric piano on record that | they came in at five in the morning and we'd been playing seven hours
ever heard. ‘What'd I Say’ seemed to be the start of all the guitar-lick they'd give usa crate of champagne and we were supposed to carry on
records. None of us had electric pianos so we did it on guitar to try and My voice began to hurt with the pain of singing. But we learnt
get that low sound. Before that, everything was mainly licks like on from the Germans that you could stay awake by eating slimming pills
Little Richard rock'n'roll records, like ‘Lucille’ where the sax section and so we did that.” I used to be so pissed I'd be lying on the floor belhind
the guitar played it. ‘What'd I Say’ started a whole new ball game which the piano, drunk, while the rest of the group was playing. I'd be on
is still going now.” stage, fast asleep. And we always ate on stage, too, because we neve
had time to eat. So it was a real scene... It would be a far-out show
PAUL: We never thought to write our own songs over there. There was now: eating and smoking and swearing and going to sleep on stag
so much other stuff. | had written a couple of little things but I didn't when you were tired.”

THE EARLY YEARS 4°

 RINGO: This was the point of our lives when we found pills, uppers. wired. The down, adverse effects of drink and Preludins, where you'd be
That's the only way we could continue playing for so long. They were up for days, were that you'd start hallucinating and getting a bit weird.
called Preludin, and you could buy them over the counter. We never John would sometimes get on the edge. He'd come in in the early hours
thought we were doing anything wrong, but we'd get really wired and of the morning and be ranting, and I'd be lying there pretending to be
go on for days. So with beer and Preludin, that's how we survived. asleep, hoping he wouldn't notice me.
One time Paul had a chick in bed and John came in and got a pair of
{OHN: The first drugs | ever took, I was still at art school, with the scissors and cut all her clothes into pieces and then wrecked the
eroup (we all took it together), was Benzedrine from the inside of an wardrobe. He got like that occasionally; it was because of the pills and
inhaler...” being up too long. But we threw things at the Germans; all the bands did.

GEORGE: There was a bearded guy from a suburb of London, a Beat JOHN: We used to shout in English at the Germans, call them Nazis
Poet named Royston Ellis. He came up to Liverpool to read his poetry and tell them to fuck off.”
and we were used to back him. Ellis had discovered that if you open a
Vick's inhaler you find Benzedrine in it, impregnated into the cardboard PAUL: One of those days we were doing our stuff and some slightly
inside. (He later exposed this fact to the News of the World.) strange-looking people arrived who didn’t look like anyone else.
Immediately we felt, ‘Wey-hey... kindred spirits... something's going
JOHN: The beatnik, a sort of English version of Allen Ginsberg, was on here.’ They came in and sat down and they were Astrid, Jiirgen and
turning everybody onto this inside of an inhaler, and everybody Klaus. Klaus Voormann later played bass with Manfred Mann. Jiirgen
thought, ‘Wow! What's this?’ and talked their mouths off for a night. was Jiirgen Vollmer, who is still a good photographer. So was Astrid
In Hamburg the waiters always had Preludin (and various other Kirchherr, who was to be Stuart's girlfriend — they were the big love.
pills, but | remember Preludin because it was a big trip) and they were Anyway, they arrived, sat down, and we could see they had something
all taking these pills to keep themselves awake, to work these different. And we were also what they were looking for.
incredible hours in this all-night place. And so the waiters, when they'd
see the musicians falling over with tiredness or with drink, they'd give GEORGE: Astrid was the girlfriend of Klaus at first and they'd had a
you the pill. You'd take the pill, you'd be talking, you'd sober up, you row one night, so he'd gone off in a huff. He was pissed off with her and
could work almost endlessly — until the pill wore off, then you'd have he came down to this very bad area of Hamburg, where he would never
to have another.” have gone otherwise. He was walking around and he heard this noise
coming out of a cellar so he came into the Kaiserkeller, saw us and
GEORGE: We were frothing at the mouth. Because we had all these thought we were really interesting. He went back and told Astrid and
hours to play and the club owners were giving us Preludins, which were brought her and some of their friends — there were ballet dancers with
slimming tablets. | don't think they were amphetamine, but they were them — and they started coming in on a regular basis to see us. Astrid
uppers. So we used to be up there foaming, stomping away. and Klaus would come in most frequently. They liked our band and she
We went berserk inasmuch as we got drunk a lot and we played wanted to photograph us.
wildly and then they gave us these pills. | remember lying in bed,
sweating from Preludin, thinking, ‘Why aren't I sleeping?’ PAUL: They all liked the rock'n'roll and the quiffed-back hairdos, but
they were different; they all wore black. In fact, we got a lot of our look
PAUL: My dad was a very wise working-class guy, so he saw it all from them. They called themselves ‘Exis’ — Existentialists. They were
coming. As a lad going out to Hamburg on my own, I'd been not rockers or mods, but ‘Exis’.
forewarned: ‘Drugs and pills: WATCH OUT, right?’ So in Hamburg, We were still in rocker mode but, as | say, a little bit different from
when the Preludin came around | was probably the last one to have it. It the other groups: different material, different sense of humour. Stuart
was: ‘Oh, I'll stick to the beer, thanks.’ had got himself looking like James Dean. He would put his shades on
They'd all get high, and I'd come up just on the buzz. | remember and stand there with his bass — it was all a big pose. At first, they were
John turning to me, ‘Blah, blah, blah,’ saying, ‘What are you on?’ and | blown away by Stuart: they evidently weren't looking for musicianship
said, ‘Nothing, blah, blah.’ I'd be talking just as fast as them; their high — it was image. And when Stuart turned out to be a painter, and as John
would do it for me. was an art student and they were art students, there was this great
I really was frightened of that stuff, because you're taught when connection. So we had drinks with them and chatted, and soon really
youre young to ‘watch out for those devil drugs’. | actually saw the got to know them well.
dangers and tried to keep away from it at first. Looking back, I realise it
was only peer pressure; and to resist seems cooler now than it did at the STUART SUTCLIFFE: Just recently I have found the most wonderful friends,
time. It would have been rather wise and mature of me to say, ‘Hey the most beautiful looking trio I have ever seen. I was completely captivated by
guys, | don't have to do everything you do,’ but at the time it just felt their charm. The girl thought that I was the most handsome of the lot. Here was
like | was being a cissie. And that was the attitude that prevailed. I,feeling the most insipid working member of the group, being told how much
superior I looked — this alongside the great Romeo John Lennon and bis two
JOHN: The things we used to do! We used to break the stage down — stalwarts Paul and George: the Casanovas of Hamburg!
that was long before The Who came out and broke things; we used to
leave guitars playing on stage with no people there. We'd be so drunk, GEORGE: They were all very nice people. It was really good for us to
we used to smash the machinery. And this was all through frustration, meet them, too, because they were more cultured than the locals. They
not as an intellectual thought: ‘We will break the stage, we will wear a had a great appreciation for us, but they were very artistic and
toilet seat round our neck, we will go on naked.’ We just did it, through interesting in themselves. They were the arty crowd around Hamburg.
being drunk We started hanging out with them. We learnt more from them at
Paul was telling me that he and I used to have rows about who was that point than they learnt from us, including style. Klaus, Astrid and
the leader. | can't remember them. It had stopped mattering by then. | Jiirgen became real friends. Klaus later became a bass-player himself
wasnt so determined to be leader at all costs. If | did argue, it was just and played on many of my records and other people's. And Astrid
out of pride was so loving; she'd take us home and feed us. She helped us a lot,
All the argument trivial, mainly because we were fucked even just to let us have a bath. Astrid was twenty-two at that time,
and irritable with working hard. We were just kids. George threw and | was seventeen; she seemed so much older than me, and so
some food at me once on-stage. The row was over something stupid. | grown up.
said | would smash his im. We had a shouting match, but Eventually Stuart and Astrid got off with each other, Astrid was really
cute — so was Stuart; you can see from their pictures that they were.
]
that was all; | never did anytl 1g \nd | onc e threw a plate of food
over George. That's the only ’
violence we ever had between us.®
PAUL: We got in with these people very tight. Jiirgen and Astrid took
GEORGE: John threw all kinds of stuff over everybody, over the years. some early photos of us. We would go to their studio, as they had one
| can't remember that happening, but if he said it it must have (or they knew a man who did). We had never had this kind of
happened. There were times when he did throw stuff. He pretty treatment before.

50 THE EARLY YEARS

 ng 0.26803!

‘AS HAMBURG THAT

TT. THAT'S WHERE WE
LLY DEVELOPED. TO DEE E bRiieac
NTE GERMANS GOING!) HWW F612) Fesa gee
ioe” Aso. aR ies
x Genk
(WELLVE HOURS AT A TIME oy ERO ee ie
‘al Cnr =AP

B aa THERE WAS ; ae stmanand

souligner les bywhich
usuel)
ur Yous x:

BODY TO COPY FROM. grornem 20/6/00 Be

=PLAYED WHAT WE né le
IKED BEST AND THE = Edithbe fala| Se
60 + [and
ERMANS LIKED IT AS
ONG AS IT WAS LOUD.” ea cat
Be. ocr. $2, Ullelt Kol.
oN& TAL SALLS g ‘
S es, ARO uP netuse Wo Ka roucr Liverprst
ey

ec
agecks Cone york ZB LQ moMamr Lam casnvire

Coe.as all ax , a
célibataire
AR POO 2

Former nationality
...
d‘origine~
 1 and Astrid would take us to a seedy
ireround and photograph us against it,
to see how that side of things was done.
yur early hand-out photographs we would
srapher, ‘Can we go out on site?’ We
of image — it looks great. Glitter we

und a shop with leather jackets, which we

in Liverpool would have, and it was
ool. So that was going to be great for when
; ’
t back home.

EORGE: It was everybody's idea to wear leather as

soon as we saw it. Leather jackets were always the
thing — Marlon Brando — and jeans. In Germany they
had great leather, and our friends wore it. Astrid was
dressing like that when we were still just Liverpool
scruffs. She was the one who had the leather kecks
and the Beatle haircut.
We got friendly with a few other local people; the
waiters and the managers of the clubs. They really
got to like us because we went back to Hamburg
again and again.

AHH TE Ras
GEORGE: These early Beatles photographs are
s y fantastic. They were taken by Astrid at the funfair in
Hamburg (the truck we are sitting on carried pieces of
the rollercoaster). The Beatles look great. Astrid was
the one, really, who influenced our image more than
anybody. She made us look good

PAUL: It was still very close to the war

and all the people in Liverpool and on
our estate hadn't forgotten, so it was
good that we could meet young
Germans. All these kids coming in had
forgotten about the war, and this was
very good for our relationships with
those people.
It was strange for us. It was all very
different, the whole ambience of
Germany. Going to the Postamt to get
stamps. It was like being at scout camp
as a kid, where the post becomes very
important: when they were handing out the post you prayed that there'd
be two or three letters for you. If there weren't any you'd be gutted.
Here, the club managers would hand them to us and when we got
one it was great — we'd go off in a corner reading these long letters.

RINGO: One morning, when | first got to Germany, | was wandering

around, wondering where to go, and | bumped into Stuart in Grosse
Freiheit. | didn’t really know him at all, but he took me to a café that sold
pancakes and got me my first meal.
We all hung around together in the Reeperbahn and ate cornflakes
and pancakes together — that's how | learnt some German. The first word
| learnt was for cornflakes, and then | learnt Pfannkuchen (pancakes) and
Ei und Kartoffeln (egg and potatoes). The waiters would teach you to say
‘fuck off or ‘kiss my arse’ and pretend it was something else. So we'd say
it to someone, and they'd grab you by the throat and we'd say, ‘No, we're
English! He told me to say it!’
It was very rough in that area. So was Liverpool, but because we'd
grown up there we knew how to deal with it.

GEORGE: There were a couple of places we'd go to eat. There was a

very cheap, horrible place just around the corner from the Kaiserkeller,
down a little side street on the right. The customers were locals but
they all seemed to be war veterans — people with no legs or eyes or

52 THE EARLY YEARS

arms — and cats. We'd go there and have a horrible slap-up meal for PAUL: There were sailors everywhere. The waiters were all violent —
very little money. they had to be because fights would always break out; so it was a crazy
Much better than that, though, was Harald's. He used to give us time. But we loved it.
cornflakes, and egg and chips. And milk; that probably saved us — there
was lots of fresh milk in that street. We'd wake up in the morning and JOHN: We chose to roll a British sailor. | thought | could chat him
buy a litre of cold milk at a little dairy place opposite the Bambi Kino. A up in English, kid him on we could get him some birds. We got him
couple of times we got buttermilk and didn't know what it was. We drinking and drinking and he kept on asking, ‘Where's the girls?’
thought, ‘Phew! What's going on?’ It tasted curdled. We kept chatting him up, trying to find out where he kept his money.
We never made it. We just hit him twice in the end, then gave up. We
PAUL: Harald’s was on the Grosse Freiheit. They would serve didn't want to hurt him.°”
hamburgers called Frikadellen. (We could never understand why they
didn't call them ‘hamburgers’ in Hamburg.) Harald's was right near the PAUL: I used to get on Pete's case a bit. He'd often stay out all night.
clubs, but if you went round the back there was Chug-ou. That's the He got to know a stripper and they were boyfriend and girlfriend. She
place George was thinking of. It was a Chinese place just three hundred didn't finish work until four in the morning, so he'd stay up with her and
yards up the road, slightly off the Reeperbahn. Its great attraction was roll back at about ten in the morning and be going to bed when we
pancakes — ‘Pfannkuchen mit Zitrone bitte, und Zucker’ — pancakes with were starting work. | think that had something to do with a rift starting.
lemon and sugar. It was the only place that sold them; everywhere else Round about this time, Stuart and | got a little fraught, too. | claim
was ‘foreign food’ to us. My main memory of that place is that you that | was making sure that we were musically very good, in case anyone
could tell we'd been in there, because ours were the only plates that was watching. | felt we had to be good for any talent-spotters. People
were empty except for the gherkins — we didn’t understand miniature would now call that the perfectionist in me. I see it as trying to get it
pickles. So there'd always be two little gherkins left in our otherwise right, but not obsessively so. This did create a couple of rifts and I could
meticulously scrubbed plates. have been more sensitive about it. But who is sensitive at that age?
It was great to have pancakes; it was like Shrove Tuesday every day. Certainly not me.
The down side of it was that there were quite a few limbless old people Stuart and | once actually had a fight on stage. | thought I'd beat
sitting around; old guys with black berets who'd obviously been in the him hands down because he was littler than me. But he was strong and
war. And if you think about it, the war was only fifteen years before. we got locked in a sort of death-grip, on stage during the set. It was
We would see millions of veterans. And Germans all had uniforms — be terrible. We must have called each other something one too many
it for the dustman, the binman, or for the man who lays the tarmac. times: ‘Oh, you...’ — ‘You calling me that?’ Then we were locked and
These were war veterans so they would have a uniform or an armband, neither of us wanted to go any further and all the others were shouting,
but no arm or no leg. It was a very clear reminder of what had recently ‘Stop it, you two!’ —'T'll stop it if he will.’
happened. Our reaction as Liverpool lads was, ‘Ah well, we won the war
— don't worry.’ There was always that ‘don't mention the war’; but when JOHN: Paul was saying something about Stu's girl — he was jealous
it came to it we felt quite nationalistic, slightly gung ho about it. because she was a great girl, and Stu hit him, on stage. And Stu wasn't a
violent guy at all.”
STUART SUTCLIFFE: One thing I'm sure about since I've been
PAUL: Of course, all the big gangsters round there were all laughing at
here, I hate brutality. There is so much in this area... us because they were used to killing people. Here were me and Stu —
neither of us big fighters. None of this helped my relationship with
GEORGE: The problem with the nightclubs in Hamburg was that most Stuart or Pete.
of the waiters and the barmen were gangsters. They were tough guys,
anyway; they were fighters, and there would always be fights. RINGO: It was pretty vicious, but on the other hand the hookers loved
The most popular tune to fight to, not only in Hamburg but in us. They'd do my laundry — and the girls behind the bar were always
Liverpool too, was ‘Hully Gully’. Every time we did ‘Hully Gully’ there good to us.
would be a fight. In Liverpool they would be hitting each other with
fire extinguishers. On Saturday night they would all be back from the PAUL: Hamburg was quite an eye-opener. We went as kids and came
pub and you could guarantee ‘Hully Gully’! back as... old kids!
| remember there were many nights in Hamburg when they pulled It was a sex shock. There were the Reeperbahn girls, and then there
tear-gas guns out. But on one particular night you could smell the was a nicer class of girl who came in on weekends who had to go by ten
Players and Capstan cigarettes and we thought, ‘Oh, eh up, the British o'clock because the German police would make an Ausweiskontrolle (an
are here.’ Soldiers were in, and | remember telling one not to mess identity check). There were a few others who were a little more
around with the barmaid, that she belonged to the club manager — one ‘Reeperbahn’ and then there were the striptease artists, and suddenly,
of the tough guys. But this soldier was getting drunk, trying to make it you'd have a girlfriend who was a stripper. If you had hardly ever had
with the barmaid, and the next minute ‘Hully Gully’ was playing and all sex in your life before, this was fairly formidable. Here was somebody
hell broke loose. By the end of the song we had to stop playing because who obviously knew something about it, and you didn't. So we got a
of the tear gas. fairly swift baptism of fire into the sex scene. There was a lot of it about
and we were off the leash.
JOHN: Gangs of fucking British servicemen [would] try to stir things We were just Liverpool guys who, as far as we were concerned,
up. When we could smell Senior Service in the audience we knew there could not get arrested back home. In Liverpool all the girls wore very
would be trouble before the night was out. After a few drinks, they'd rigid girdles; it was medieval. Here, in Hamburg, they were almost
start shouting, ‘Up Liverpool’ or ‘Up Pompey’. [But later] they'd all be flashing it. And seemed to know what the score was. That was the proof
lying there half dead after they'd tried to pick a fight with the waiters of the pudding, that we could pull them. They were great-looking girls,
over the bill, or just over nothing. The waiters would get their flick- too, so it really was pulling the birds time. They were all barmaids; it
that you were mixing with, but we
knives out, or their truncheons, and that would be it. I've never seen wasn't your average sweet virgin

such killers.” were quite happy to be educated. We all got our education in Hamburg.
It was quite something.
GEORGE: They had truncheons, coshes, knuckle-dusters. There was a
shop just around the corner from where we lived where you could buy GEORGE: In the late Fifties in England it wasn't that easy to get it. The
all this stuff. They would have fights and beat the hell out of each other girls would all wear brassieres and corsets which seemed like reinforced
and then the bad guy would get thrown out of the back door, and so an steel. You could never actually get in anywhere. You'd always be
hour later he'd come back with reinforcements and then it was really breaking your hand trying to undo everything. | can remember parties
at Pete Best's house, or wherever; there'd be these all-night parties and
wicked — blood everywhere. It happened a lot, especially when the
troops came in. The seamen and the soldiers would come into town; I'd be snogging with some girl and having a hard-on for eight hours till
they'd all get drunk and inevitably it ended in blood and tears. And tears my groin was aching — and not getting any relie! That was how it
for the band, too, with the gas in our faces. always was. Those werent the days.

THE EARLY YEARS 53

 There's that side of it which will always. be there, with the differeng
xes and their desires and all that Testa Rossa-terone bubbling up. And
ere's the other side of it — the peer-group pressure: ‘What, haven't you
had it yet?’ It becomes, ‘Oh, I've got to get it,’ and everyone would be
Yeah, I got it.’ — ‘Did you get some tit?’ — 'l got some tit. —“Welf,
| got some finger pie!
| certainly didn't have a stripper in Hamburg. | know Pete met one.
[here were young girls in the clubs and we knew a few, but for me it
wasn't some big orgy. My first shag was in Hamburg — with Paul and
lohn and Pete Best all watching. We were in bunkbeds. They couldn't
really see anything because | was under the covers, but after I'd
finished they all applauded and cheered. At least they kept quiet
whilst | was doing it.

PAUL: We kept quiet, kept our faces to the wall and pretended to be
asleep. The rest of us were a little more experienced by then. George
was a late starter.
That was the intimacy we had. We would always be walking in on
each other and things. I'd walked in on John and seen a little-bottom
bobbing up and down with a girl underneath him. It was perfectly
normal: you'd go, ‘Oh shit, sorry,’ and back out the room. It was very
teenage: ‘Are you using this room? | want to have a shag.” And you'd
pull a girl in there.
That's why I've always found very strange the theory that John was
gay. Because over the fifteen years of sharing rooms, sharing our lives,
not one of us has an incident to relate of catching John with a boy. |
would have thought that kind of thing would be more prevalent, and
John’s inhibitions were certainly free when he was drunk.

RINGO: We were twenty (at least, | was)

and were going to all the strip clubs and it
was exciting. The closest I'd been to
anything like that in Liverpool was watch-
ing Nudes on Ice — those perspex boxes with
naked women in who couldn't move — and
suddenly, in Germany, it was in your face. |
was around all the clubs and we learnt to
stay up day and night.

JOHN: What with playing, drinking and

birds, how could we find time to sleep?

GEORGE: One time our friend Bernie

came out from Liverpool to visit us. One PAUL: “There was a curfew at ten o'clock every
day we were in a club and Bernie walked in night.; The German police would come up of stage
and said, ‘I've just had a wank off this great- and» announce; It is’ twenty-two Hours and val
looking bird in the lav.’ We all said, "That's young people under eighteen years must leave this
not a bird, Bernie!’ club. We are making an Ausweiskontrolle.’ Eventually
we got so used to it that we started saying it
PAUL: We set Bernie up. There was a club ourselves. We would do joke announcements. |
called the Roxy we all knew about. There knew a bit of German; George and | had learnt it
were some cracking-looking birds there; in school. (Everyone else had learnt French, but
they had deepish voices and they'd call you ‘my little schnoodel poodel’, they taught us German and Spanish.) So it was very handy and we
which was like ‘little sweetie’. We didn’t realise at first, but after being could do all the silly stuff. We eventually got a really big steaming club
there a few weeks someone put us straight — they were all guys. There full and they loved us.
were a few who fancied us because we were good-looking young boys.
And so Bernie came out and he was a Liverpool kid: ‘Eh, all right lads — GEORGE: We would be sitting up on the bandstand, waiting, while all
whoa, look at
|
2 her she's great!’ We all knew the score by then and we
1
this went on. The Kontrolle would turn on.all the club lights and the
said, ‘Yeah. I've had her, she's fantastic.’ The next day he came up and band would have to stop playing. Men would go around the tables,
said, ‘Ooh, | put me hand down there and she's got a fuckin’ knob.’ We checking IDs.
all collapsed ina heap
We grew up by experiencing this kind of thing, and got quite PAUL: We used to call them ‘the Gestapo’ — guys in very convincing
used to it. We spent all our money on drinking and generally having German uniforms, going around looking at all the kids’ passports. We
a sood time had never seen the like of it. In Liverpool you could go anywhere as
long as you didn't get caught in a pub, and certainly nobody came
GEORGE: The whole area, the Reeperbahn and St Pauli, was like Soho. round and asked you for your pass. | suppose it was all leftovers from
So if y iad a fev feeling merry and talking loudly the war.
vith a few friends, you woul tand out. We were in an area where
the whole pla vas in [here were places where there were GEORGE: It went on for two months before the penny dropped as to
donkeys shagging women or whatever — allegedly, | never saw it — and what they were actually saying: ‘Everybody under eighteen years old get
tling women and transvest ind all that. All we were doing out.’ | was only seventeen and | was sitting with the band and getting
rettis bit pissed and playing rock'n'roll, and maybe getting a bit worried, and eventually somebody did find out; | don't know how. We
occasionally. Not like the folklo: history books have didn't have any work permits or visas, and with me under-age they started
d and exaggerated it closing in on us; then one day the police came and booted me out.
 I had to go back home and that was right at a critical time, because
we'd just been offered a job at another club down the road, the Top
Ten, which was a much cooler club. In our hour off from the
Kaiserkeller we'd go there to watch Sheridan or whoever was playing.
The manager had poached us from Bruno Koschmider and we'd already
played a couple of times there. There was a really good atmosphere in
that club. It had a great sound-system, it looked much better and they
paid a bit more money.
Here we were, leaving the Kaiserkeller to go to the Top Ten, really
eager to go there — and right at that point they came and kicked me out
of town. So | was moving out to go home and they were moving out to
go to this great club.
Astrid, and probably Stuart, dropped me at Hamburg station. It was
a long journey on my own on the train to the Hook of Holland. From
there I got the day boat. It seemed to take ages and | didn't have much
money — I was praying I'd have enough. | had to get from Harwich to
Liverpool Street Station and then a taxi across to Euston. From there |
got a train to Liverpool. | can remember it now: | had an amplifier that
I'd bought in Hamburg and a crappy suitcase and things in boxes, paper
bags with my clothes in, and a guitar. | had too many things to carry
and was standing in the corridor of the train with my belongings around
me, and lots of soldiers on the train, drinking. I finally got to Liverpool
and took a taxi home — | just about made it. | got home penniless. It
took everything | had to get me back.
| had returned to England, on my own and all forlorn, but as it
CORES
y
ere sa eetict turned out, Paul and Pete were booted out at the same time and were
already back ahead of me. It seems Bruno didn't want The Beatles to
leave his club and, as there had been an accidental fire, he had got the
police in.
Bruno said that they were burning his cinema down and they took
Pete and Paul and put them in the police station on the Reeperbahn for a
few hours and then flew them back to England. Deported them. Then
John came back a few days after them, because there was no point in him
Asie
staying and Stuart stayed for a bit because he'd decided to get together
with Astrid. It was great, a reprieve, otherwise | had visions of our band
staying on there with me stuck in Liverpool, and that would be it.
eM =
STUART SUTCLIFFE: We finished at the Kaiserkeller last week. The police
intervened because we had no work permits. Paul and Peter the drummer were
|Grab tthe been #
rage a CB Are FMA Ont a 2
deported yesterday and sent in handcuffs to the airport. I was innocent this time;
accused of arson — that is, setting fire to the Kino where we sleep. I arrive at the
club and am informed that the whole of the Hamburg police are looking for me.
The rest of the band are already locked up, so smiling and on the arm of Astrid,
I proceed to give myself up. At this time, I'm not aware of the charges. All of my
Anny
belongings, including spectacles, are taken away and I'm led to a cell, where,
idbiewee bond without food or drink I sat for six bours on a very wooden bench, and the door
shut very tight. I signed a confession in Deutsch that I knew nothing about } a
nk fire, and they let me go. The next day Paul and Pete were deported and sent
home by plane, John and I were without money and job. The police bad
| — forbidden us to work as already we were liable to deportation for work
months in the country illegally. The next day Jobn went home. stay till
|Pckany tah)
of an old school
PAUL: Extracts from a letter | drafted to the German police in 1961, found in the back filth
back to Hamburg. January at Astrid’s house. At the moment shes washing ;all my muck ana
exercise bookof mine. | sent the co Mogg and eventually we were allowed to go
collected over the last few months. God I love her so much
| EB Rt RK Ca Wed yh 4
AE teak f,“ I< a: a,
- —— We = Leh
a ;
i se eas ANA. kar roves, 1

THE EARLY YEARS 55

: ho hk biUSincao st so Ak
a
 Pa

hey were all deported and | was left in Hamburg, playing he dropped the group and started
h another group olf musicians. It was quite a shattering working on the lorries, saying, ‘I need a
o be ina foreign country, pretty young, left there all on my steady career.’ We couldn't believe it. |
spent our money as we went along. | didn't have any to told him on the phone, ‘Either come or
ing stuck in Hamburg with no food money was no joke, you're out.’ So he had to make a decision
ecially just around Christmas. between me and his dad then, and in the
terrible, setting off home.’ I was feeling really sorry for end he chose me.”
d it was a pretty hungry business working my way back to
| had my amp on my back, scared stiff | was going to get it GEORGE: We got a gig. Allan Williams put us in touch with a guy
1ched, | hadn't paid for it. | was convinced I'd never find England.” called Bob Wooler, a compere on the dance-hall circuit. He tried us out
When | did get home, | was so fed up | didn't bother to contact the one night and put an ad in the paper: ‘Direct from Hamburg: The
thers for a few weeks. A month is a long time at eighteen or nineteen; | Beatles’. And we probably looked German, too; very different from all
didn't know what they were doing. | just withdrew to think whether it the other groups, with our leather jackets. We looked funny and we
was worth going on with.” | thought, ‘Is this what I want to do?’ | was played differently. We went down a bomb.
always a sort of poet or painter and | thought, ‘Is this it? Nightclubs and
seedy scenes, being deported, and weird people in clubs?’ Nowadays PAUL: We all wore black that we had picked up in Hamburg. All the
they call it decadence but those days it was just in Hamburg, in clubs Liverpool girls were saying, ‘Are you from Germany?’ or, ‘| saw in the
that groups played at, strip clubs. | thought hard about whether | should paper you are from Hamburg.’
continue.” Now, when George and Paul found out, they were mad at
me, because they thought, ‘We could have been working now.’ But I just JOHN: Suddenly we were a wow. Mind you, 70% of the audience
withdrew. You see, part of me is a monk and part of me is a performing thought we were a German wow, but we didn't care about that. Evenin
flea. Knowing when to stop is survival for me.*° Liverpool, people didn't know we were from Liverpool. They thought
Anyway, after a while | got to thinking that we ought to cash in on we were from Hamburg. They said, ‘Christ, they speak good Engusye s
the Liverpool beat scene. Things were really thriving and it seemed a which we did, of course, being English. :
pity to waste the experience we'd got, playing all those hours every It was that evening that we really came out of our shell and ee go. A
night in Hamburg.° We stood there being cheered for the first time. This was when we began
to think that we were good. Up to Hamburg we'd thought we were OK, if
PAUL: After Hamburg it wasn't too good. Everyone needed a rest. | but not good enough. It was only back in Liverpool that we realised the»
expected everyone to be ringing me to discuss what we were doing, but difference and saw what had happened to us while everyone elsewas -
it was all quiet on the Western front. None of us called each other, so | playing Cliff Richard shit.”
wasn't so much dejected as puzzled, wondering whether it was going to
carry on. or if that was the last of it.
| started working at a coil-winding factory called Massey and
Coggins. My dad had told me to go out and get a job. I'd said, ‘I've got a
job, [mina band.’ But after a couple of weeks of doing nothing with the
band it was, ‘No, you have got to get a proper job.’ He virtually chucked
me out of the house: ‘Get a job or don't come back.’ So | went to the
employment office and said, ‘Can | have a job? Just give me anything.’ |
said, ‘I'll have whatever is on the top of that little pile there.’ And the
first job was sweeping the yard at Massey and Coggins. I took it.
| went there and the personnel officer said, ‘We can't have you
sweeping the yard, you're management material.’ And they started to
train me from the shop floor up with that in mind. Of course, | wasn't
very good on the shop floor — | wasn't a very good coilwinder.
One day John and George showed up in the yard that | should have
been sweeping and told me we had a gig at the Cavern. I said, ‘No. I've
got a steady job here and it pays £7 14s a week: They are training me
here. That's pretty good, | can't expect more.’ And | was quite serious
about this. But then — and with my dad's warning still in my mind —1
thought, ‘Sod it. | can't stick this lot.’ | bunked over the wall and was
never seen again by Massey and Coggins. Pretty shrewd move really, as
things turned out.

JOHN: | was always saying, ‘Face up to your dad, tell him to “fuck off".
He can't hit you. You can kill him, he’s an old man.’ He treated Paul like
a child, cutting his ‘hair and telling him what to»wear at seventeen,
eighteen. But Paul would always give in. His dad told-him to get a job,

VAN 14
TEV | ama
ae cy: ;
 JADL! YSTEVIAZE!
RQCI'N TRAD. ATMOSPH ERE JOHN:
WE WERE
iF ALWAYS ANTI-JAZZ.
I THINK IT IS SHIT
MUSIC — MORE
STUPID THAN
ROCK'N'ROLL —
FOLLOWED BY
STUDENTS IN
MARKS AND
SPENCER
PUBLOVERSE

PAUL: We started getting gigs down the Cavern. The Cavern was GEORGE: Behind the air-raid shelters at school there used to be this
sweaty, damp, dark, loud and exciting. As usual we didn’t start out with smoking club; that's where | met Neil — smoking cigarettes in playtime.
much of an audience, but then people began to hear about us. We could I'd see him throughout our school years and by the time we left school
always entertain them. It became our strength later, whether playing he was living in Pete Best's house, the one that had the Casbah club in
live or making records — we always had something up our sleeve. the basement. Neil had a job as an accountant, and he had a little van,
so when we needed somebody to drive us around it occurred to us that
GEORGE: We used to play lunchtime dates. We'd get up and go down Neil might want to make some extra money — probably only about five
to the Cavern and play from noon till about two. It was very casual; shillings at the time. We put all our equipment into his van and he
wed have our tea and sandwiches and cigarettes on stage, sing a couple drove us to a gig, and he kept on with it. That became the makings of
of tunes and tell a few jokes. There was something that even Brian the road manager.
Epstein liked about all that, although he pushed us away from that to a
bigger audience. NEIL ASPINALL: They were doing a lot ofgigs in and around Liverpool at
the time. There were a lot of ballrooms and town halls and clubs like the Cavern
JOHN: In those old Cavern days, half the thing was just ad lib; what and the Iron Door and the Blue Angel that bands could play in, but they were
you'd call comedy. We just used to mess about, jump into the audience, mainly jazz clubs. They'd never let The Beatles play. You bad to try and force
do anything.” your way in. It was Kenny Ball/Acker Bilk sort of stuffatthe Cavern. They
might let a rock'n'roll group play in the break, before the main band came on, a
PAUL: We'd go on stage with a cheese roll and a cigarette and we felt jazz band.
we really had something going in that place. The amps used to fuse and
we'd stop and sing a Sunblest bread commercial while they were being JOHN: Jazz never gets anywhere, never does anything; it's always the
repaired. We used to do skits — I'd do an impersonation of Jet Harris same, and all they do is drink pints of beer. We hated it because they
from The Shadows, because he'd played there. He fell off the stage wouldn't let us play at those sort of clubs.°
once and I'd fall off it, too — you couldn't beat it.
NEIL ASPINALL: Often, after a gig, we'd go to a drinking club — maybe
JOHN: Neil's our personal road manager. He was in from the start — he the Blue Angel —and see what was happening and just hang out Everybody
went to school with Paul and George.™ knew everybody else. A lot of people in the different bands had gone to school
with each other so there was quite a bit of camaraderie, and plenty of rivalry
NEIL ASPINALL: It was when they came back from Hamburg that The as well.
Beatles needed transport to get them to the Cavern and other places. They were People used to say to me then, ‘What do you do?’ I'd stopped being an
using cabs at the time and all the money they were earning was going to the cab accountant or pretending to be one by this time and I said, ‘I drive the band
drivers. I had a van and needed the money, so Pete (I was a friend of his and around,’
and they'd say, ‘Yeab, I know that — but what do you do for a
living at his house at the time) told the others that I would drive them round. | living?’ Two years later, the same people were saying, “You lucky git, Neil.’
did that
for£4 a night, which wasn't bad: I'd make £7 a week, which was
better than the £2.50 I was getting as a trainee accountant. RINGO: Our band all came home to Liverpool, too. It was pretty hard,
L used to drop them offinthe van, go bome and do my correspondence trying to find jobs, and we couldn't make a lot of money. | was still
course, then pick them up later, and it developed from there. Soon, I wasn't doing playing with Rory, and The Beatles were on their own. We would do
the accountancy any more —I just didn't bother turning up — and was with the some gigs at the same venue and | started to go and watch them. I just
band on a permanent basis. It was great, because it was the start of the whole loved the way they played; I loved the songs, the attitude was great, and
rock'n'roll era in Liverpool and it was very exciting. | knew they were a better band than the one | was in.
[first met Paul when we were about eleven, though I didn't get to know him
as a friend until a number of years later. Ihad gone to grammar school with GEORGE: We began to get other gigs at dance halls. There would
him. We were both in the same class in the first year, then we went off into always be a bunch of groups on, maybe five, and we'd follow somebody
different streams. George was in the same school, but a year younger — we used and do our bit and it became more and more popular. They liked us
to smoke together, behind the air-raid shelter in the playground. because we were kind of rough, and we'd had a lot of practice in
Myfirst memory of Jobn is in Penny Lane in Liverpool. I think we were Germany. They couldn't believe it. There were all these acts going ‘dum
going to Paul's house. I was fifteen. People were into the skiffle then, and would de dum’ and suddenly we'd come on, jumping and stomping. Wild men
go to each other's houses and play instruments — there were no bands formed, as in leather suits. It took us a while to realise how much better wed
I recall. I remember this: getting off the bus at Penny Lane and we're all waiting become than the other groups. But we began to see that we were
there and I ask, ‘Who are we waiting for?’ A bus stops and a guy gets off with getting big crowds everywhere. People were followi
his arm around an old man that he is talking to — and walks off down the road. coming to see us personally, not just coming to danc«
In those days, when we were rocking on, becoming popula h
He was back in a few moments and somebody asked him, ‘Who was that?’
— T don't know, never seen him before.’ That was my first impression of Jobn: little clubs where there was no big deal about The Beat!
lot of those old nightclubs were just real fun. | think we v 1 good
‘What’ he doing with bis arm round some old guy he’s never met before?’ That
was Jobn Lennon. tight, little band.

THE EARI YEARS

 IOHN: One of the main reasons to get on stage is it's the quickest way Mutti found a houseboat for me and my then girlfriend to stay in.
of making contact. We went to see those movies with Elvis or The girls were coming over one time, Cynthia and Dot Rhone, and we
somebody in, when we were still in Liverpool, and everybody'd be needed a place. We found a rather nice little houseboat through her.
waiting to see them (and I'd be waiting there, too), and they'd all
scream when he came on the screen. We thought, ‘That's a good job.’ RINGO: At the Top Ten Club there were just bunk beds — and you
That's why most musicians are on stage, actually. It is a good incentive could have Mutti look after you! It was tough, but we were twenty years
for all performers. old, we didn't give a damn; it was fabulous. This was opening your eyes,
In the very early days, when we were playing dance halls, there were this was leaving home, this was leaving the country. Hamburg was
a certain type you'd call groupies now, available for ‘functions’ at the fabulous; | think when you are twenty everywhere's wild. To me
end of the night. Most kids would go home with their boyfriends or Hamburg felt like Soho.
whatever, but there was a small group that went for any performer.
They didn’t care if it was a comedian or a man who ate glass, as long as PAUL: We tried our ‘Beatle’ hairstyle in Hamburg this time. It was all
he was on stage.” _ part of trying to pull people in: ‘Come in. We are very good rock'n'roll!’

PAUL: It certainly wasn't all pleasure. We did a lot of hard slog. We'd GEORGE: Astrid and Klaus were very influential. | remember we went
play places and people would throw pennies at us. To disarm them we'd to the swimming baths once and my hair was down from the water and
stop playing and pick up all the coins. We thought, ‘That'll teach ‘em, they said, ‘No, leave it, it's good.’ | didn't have my Vaseline anyway, and
they won't keep throwing now,, We.had pockets full of pennies. I was thinking, ‘Well, these people are cool — if they think it's good, I'll
leave it like this.’ They gave me that confidence and when it dried
off it dried naturally down, which later became ‘the look’.

t<
JOHN: I remember one falleWe were at™hhere
were so many peoplerthat we told each othety Before that, as a rocker, | wore my hair back; though it
that thére must»be other managers around would never go back without a fight — it goes forward when |
and we'd get a lot of work out of it, What we wash it. (It just grows into a Beatle cut!) | used to have to put
didn't know was that the management had thick Vaseline on my hair to hold it back.
laid on lots of bouncers to stop the other _, | remember cutting John's hair one time, and | tried to get
promoters getting near. So nobody came-to
us, except this bloke from the management
who said he liked us and would give us a
S. “him to cut mine. We did it just as a joke, only the once, but |
don't think he cut mine as professionally as | cut his...

long series of dates at £8 a night. It was a JOHN: That was the last time | cut anybody's
couple of quid more than we were getting hain?
anyway, so we were pleased.”
GEORGE: And then we saw those leather pants
GEORGE: There were a lot of fights in clubs in and we thought: ‘Wow! We've got to get
Liverpool; that was after Hamburg, when we some of them!’ So Astrid took us to a tailor
started touring dance halls. who made us some Nappaleders — those
great pants. And we had found a shop in
PAUL: The Hambleton,ofallwas a place with a Hamburg that sold genuine Texas
reputation for fighes® One gig there, we were cowboy boots. It was just a matter of
playing ‘Hully®Gully’, andgthey turned__fire- trying to get some money. We may have
extinguishers on each,ether. By thesefid of the even paid for them ‘on the weekly. We
sone, everyone was*soaking wetedhd bleeding. all had little pink caps we used to call ‘twat
hats’ that we'd bought in Liverpool. So that
GEORGE: We Came baek. from Hamburger? became our band uniform: cowboy boots, twat
November 1960 and ‘went batkpoutsfeain in

a
hats and black leather suits.
April 1967. I'd become éeighteemwhén We.went
the second time so | was*"able to go back, and ; JOHN: We had a bit more money the second time,
whatever the problem was “ef Paul andPéte’s so we bought leather pants and we looked like four
deportation we managed to get fetid it. Peter Gene Vincents — only a bit younger.®
Eckhorn sorted it out. He was the ownePf,the Pe

Top Ten Club, where we were going to play; GEORGE: The Top Ten Club had a mike system called
and the fact he'd made that effort meant that he the Binson Echo. It was a silver and golden unit which had
was keen to get The Beatles, so we were happy to ‘a Small.Grundig tape machine with a little green light, that
work there would twiteh with the volume. That had a great echo — on
When we went back we were playing at the it you'd sound like-Gene Vincent doing ‘Be Bop A Lula’.
Top Ten and living above the club; a really We were backing up lots of people at the Top Ten.
grubby little room with five bunk beds. In the The singer Tony Sheridan was there — he had been
next room was a little old lady known as Mutti. there the first time as well, now he was the resident.
She was pretty stinky. She used to keep the toilets He'd managed to get himself a job working the club
clean — they were really bad up there. permanently and we used to back him.

PAUL: German toilets always have a lady to look RINGO: It was great being out there with Tony
after them and we formed a friendship with our Sheridan. I was there in 1962 backing him with Roy
one, Mutti. Every time you went to the toilet you Young, and Lou Walters on bass. It was all very
were supposed to leave ten pfennigs in the saucer. exciting. Tony was really volatile. If anyone in the
And if anyone was ever sick in there Mutti would club was talking to his girl he'd be punching and
come roaring out of the toilet with a bucket and kicking all over the place, while we'd just keep on
demand that the drunk cteap it up. You wouldn't jamming. Then he'd come back and join us, covered
see so many people being sickithere in blood if he'd lost. But he was a really good player.
»
*
 : sa Bepops HAMBURG ~ ST. PAULI Reeperbahn

| er ct Bvt; \
ae
Inster BoB Wwe ele

THe CAVERN>
DRE CLuUG |
MATHEW STREET
vere
Jb
LANC AS HHRE

rc = é Op pordr BAL Be
GEORGE: Tony Sheridan had an up-side
and a down-side. The up-side was that he
gst
was a pretty good singer and guitar player, and it was good to play
sna AAR,
by
eee
aciuemas
ne
BOE

bens
ERY;‘tu
along with him because we were still learning — the more bands we saw
and heard the better. He was older than us as well and was more
hardened to the business, whereas we were just getting into it, more
bouncy and naive. On that basis it was good to have Sheridan there; but
at the same time he was such a downer. He'd fled from England — some PAUL: We did a recording with Tony Sheridan, 'My Bonnie’, for Bert
kind of trouble — and was always getting into fights. | remember he Kaempfert, a band leader and producer. It was actually ‘Tony Sheridan
managed to cut the tendon in his finger on a broken bottle in a fight — und die Beat Brothers’. They didn’t like our name and said, ‘Change
fortunately, not on his guitar-playing hand. When he used his guitar to The Beat Brothers; this is more understandable for the German
pick after that, his injured finger stuck right out. audience.’ We went along with it — it was a record.
They used to have a talent night at the Top Ten Club, a Tuesday
evening. People from the audience would come up and sing and we'd JOHN: When that offer came we thought it would be easy. The
have to back them up. We did this for a while and we would really wind Germans had such shitty records. Ours were bound to be better. We
people up, take the piss out of them. did five of our own numbers, but they didn't like them. They preferred
| remember one bloke who came up, a sax player. At that time, we things like ‘My Bonnie’.” It’s just Tony Sheridan singing, with us
didn't know that much about music; all we knew were the names of each banging in the background. It's terrible. It could be anybody.”
key. This guy started playing his sax and we were playing along with
him when we decided to play a joke. We began to say among ourselves GEORGE: We recorded ‘Ain't She Sweet’, too. It was a bit disap-
another key, say D; someone gave the nod and we all suddenly changed pointing because we'd been hoping to get a record deal as ourselves.
into that key, pretending nothing had happened. The guy didn't know Although we did ‘Ain't She Sweet’ and the instrumental ‘Cry For A
what was going on, but he tried to follow. And then we whispered, ‘B Shadow’ without Sheridan, they didn’t even put our name on the record.
flat, to each other and we all changed key again. We were really That's why it's so pathetic that later, when we'd become famous, they
stretching this guy and he was trying desperately to find out what key put the record out as ‘The Beatles with Tony Sheridan’. But when it first
we were in and keep up with us. came out they'd called us ‘The Beat Brothers’.
There were other Germans who'd come on stage and try to sing We also recorded with Lou Walters. He was Rory Storm's bass
Little Richard and Chuck Berry songs without knowing the words. They player. He was a guy who thought he was a singer. He paid to have the
knew the sounds of the words but they couldn't really get them, record made himself, as we had done in
especially if it was something like ‘Tutti Frutti’. And the German accent Jim, Liverpool with ‘That'll Be The Day’.
doesn't really lend itself to rock'n'roll so it could be quite hysterical. The
funniest noteworthy story is how, back then, when we were still JOHN: Gene Vincent's recording of
performing the latest records, one was Johnny Kidd and the Pirates’ ‘Ain't She Sweet’ is very mellow and
‘Shakin’ All Over’ and it went, ‘Shivers down my backbone, shaking all \ high-pitched and I used to do it like
over...’ but the Germans thought we were singing ‘Schick ibn nach that, but the Germans said, ‘Harder,
Hannover’ — ‘Send him to Hanover’ — the German equivalent of ‘send harder’ — they all wanted it a bit
him to Coventry’. more like a march — so we ended
We were learning how to gel as a band, we learnt a lot of songs up doing a harder version.”
and we learnt a lot of improvising within all the songs we knew. We
gained a bit of confidence, but we were always looking for the RINGO: I recorded with
next thing, thinking if only we could get a recording. That was Rory over in Hamburg.
the big thing when we were in the Top Ten Club: you'd Somewhere out there is
hear, ‘Bert Kaempfert's here.’ — ‘Who the fuck is he?’ — an amazing acetate
‘Bert Kaempfert; you know, “Wonderland By Night’, which I'd like a copy
he's a record producer and he’s looking for talent.’ of. We did ‘Fever
—'Oh shit, we'd better play good then.’ and another track
 .
Oe
Ei eboren ;

Is néle
D OD ...

in,

(county
OCyerbad:
 oy nS aS So OBDISSOS
SONOS EGSOC COO ONE
ae (Familienname)
(Surname)
(Nom de famille)

eins
A eRe een eee Rene en eneeeOn
(Vornamen, Rufname unterstreichen)
ov
EReREOE Raee n eset ene eOEeeeeeOe eee shessnneaneneracsecnereneseene

(Christian names, underline name by which usually known)

(prénoms, souligner le prénom usuel)

See ath Ochaber 1440

né le

n ENGLAND
a
ae
(Kreis Land)
(county country)
(département pays)

1B 6 RIEPER RAHA
\ TOP; TERY COCO ge
A

VAAN Cv e

oe eben ewasesesseessooeerecsses

ne name by which usually known)

igner le prénom usuel)

Pe
| Cie rt eet t ett eed

Cc, J.ENGLARS
Ipasseeeeneens A202 Deseeterseeseenens: voces

Land)
country) | Perey
pays) eae
 JOHN: We were a good live band and, in general, it's pretty pleasant
memories of struggling along to Lord knows where. But at the time it didn't
seem any more fun than that. It was just you had a job or you didn't have a
job. When you look back on it, you realise how good things were, even
though at the time you might have thought, ‘Gor, we've got to play six hours a
night and all we get is two dollars and you've got to take these pills to keep
awake, man, it's not right.”
) We repeated the shows many, many times, but never the same. Sometimes
NOE nol
TH ae ts y we'd go on with fifteen or twenty musicians and play together and we'd create
Re Ni i ap something that had never been done on stage by a group before. I'm talking
disthgeis to ? about before we were famous, about the natural things that happened, before
instshute ae we were turned into robots that played on stage. We would, naturally, express
best Groups on Merseyside ; ourselves in any way that we deemed suitable. And then a manager came and
~ unl DNESDAY. | Sa ae Me said, ‘Do this, do that, do this, do that,’ and
7.30—11 p.m.
that way we became famous by compromise.
LESAY ONCERTAYNMENT

GEORGE: Stuart was engaged to Astrid and

after that trip decided that he was going to
leave the band and live in Germany because
Eduardo Paolozzi was coming to be the
lecturer at Hamburg Art College. Stu had
never really been that single-minded about
music. We liked him in the band: he looked
great and he'd learnt enough to get by, but
he was never totally convinced that he was
going to be a musician.
He said, ‘I’m out of the band, lads, I’m
going to stay in Hamburg with Astrid.’ At that point | said, ‘We're not going to
get a fifth person in the band. One of us three is going to be the bass player,
and it’s not going to be me.’ And John said, ‘It's not going to be me,’ and Paul
didn't seem to mind the idea.
Colin Milander, the bass player in Tony Sheridan's trio, had a Hofner violin
bass, which was really a rip-off of the Gibson bass. So when Paul decided he
was going to be the bass player he went out and bought one like Colin's.

PAUL: | really got lumbered with bass. Nobody actually wanted to play bass,
that’s why Stuart was playing it. We all wanted really to be guitarists, and we
were three guitar players to start off with.
There's something I'd like to get straight because it is kind of historical —
someone a few years ago said how it was my relentless ambition that pushed
Stu out of the group. We did have some arguments, me and Stu, but actually | just wanted
us to be a really cracking band, and Stu — being a cracking artist — held us back a little bit,
not too much. If ever it came to the push, when there was someone in there watching us I'd
feel, ‘Oh, | hope Stu doesn't blow it.’ | could trust the rest of us; that was it. Stuart would
tend to turn away a little so as not to be too obvious about what key he was in, in case it
wasn't our key.
When it became clear that Stu was leaving because of Astrid, | asked him in the
transition period to lend me his bass, which, for me, was upside down — although | couldn't
change the strings around in case he ever wanted to play it. By then | had learnt to play
guitar upside down, anyway, because John would never let me turn the strings around on his
guitar, neither would George — it was just too inconvenient for them to have to turn them
all back again.

GEORGE: Bill Harry started the Mersey Beat

newspaper in Liverpool in the summer of 1961,
soon after we'd come back from Germany. John,
who was at art college with him, would do funny
things for the paper.
John had a gift for writing and drawing and
speaking — particularly funny stuff. He had a
book which he wrote when he was at Quarry
Bank called the Daily Howl. It was quite big, the
size of the Beano annual. It was a kind of
newspaper with little jokes and cartoons —
schoolboy humour, but really good and nicely
illustrated. He was good at all that.

JOHN: | wrote for Mersey Beat. Some things went

into In His Own Write, and | used to write a thing
called 'Beatcomber’, because | admired the column
‘Beachcomber’ in the Daily Express. That's when |
NEIL ASPINALL: They went to AldershotinDecember; their first gig wrote with George, ‘A man came on a flaming
town South. | don't know that they were that popular down there yet pie...’ because even back then they were asking:
y eighteen people turned up! ‘How did you get the name, “The Beatles"?’”

62 THE EARLY YEARS

 JOHN: ‘GEAR’ IS A LIVERPOOL EXPRESSION said, ‘We'll stay a little longer,’ then we thought, ‘God, Spain is a long
FROM THE FRENCH DE RIGUEUR, MEANING way, and we'd have to work to get down there.’ We ended up staying
the week in Paris — John was funding it all with his hundred quid.
SOMETHING LIKE 'VERY COOL. We would walk miles from our hotel; you do in Paris. We'd go toa
place near the Avenue des Anglais and we'd sit in the bars, looking
good. | still have some classic photos from there. Linda loves one
where | am sitting in a gendarme's mac as a cape and John has got his
glasses on askew and his trousers down revealing a bit of Y-front. The
photographs are so beautiful, we're really hamming it up. We're
looking at the camera like, ‘Hey, we are artsy guys, in a café: this is us
in Paris,’ and we felt like that.
We went up to Montmartre because of all the
artists, and the Folies Bergéres, and we saw guys
walking around in short leather jackets and very wide
pantaloons. Talk about fashion! This was going to kill
them when we got back. This was totally happening.
They were tight to the knee and then they flared out;
they must have been about fifty inches around the
bottom and our drainpipe trousers were something like
fifteen or sixteen inches. (Fifteen were the best, but
you couldn't really get your foot through at fifteen, so
sixteen was acceptable.) We saw these trousers and
said, ‘Excusez-moi, Monsieur, ot did you get them?’ It
was a cheap little rack down the street so we bought a
pair each, went back to the hotel, put them on, went
out on the street — and we couldn't handle it: ‘Do your feet feel like they
are flapping? Feel more comfortable in me drainies, don’t you?’ So it
was back to the hotel at a run, needle and cotton out and we took them
in to a nice sixteen with which we were quite happy. And then we met
Jiirgen Vollmer on the street. He was still taking pictures.
JOHN: I was twenty-one/twenty-two before The Beatles ever made it in
any way. And even then that voice in me was saying, ‘Look, you're too JOHN: Jiirgen also had bell-bottom trousers, but we thought that
old.’ Before we'd even made a record | was thinking, ‘You're too old,’ would be considered too queer back in Liverpool. We didn't want to
that I'd missed the boat, that you'd got to be seventeen — a lot of stars in appear feminine or anything like that, because our audience in
America were kids. They were much younger than I was, or Ringo.” Liverpool still had a lot of fellas. (We were playing rock, dressed in
leather, though Paul’s ballads were bringing in more and more girls.)”
STUART SUTCLIFFE: Last night I heard that Jobn and Paul have gone to Anyway, Jiirgen had a flattened-down hairstyle with a fringe in the
Paris to play together — in other words, the band bas broken up! It sounds mad front, which we rather took to. We went over to his place and there
to me, I dont believe it... and then he cut — hacked would be a better word — our hair into the
same style.”
PAUL: John and I went on a trip for his twenty-first birthday. John was
from a very middle-class family, which really impressed me because PAUL: He had his hair Mod-style. We said, ‘Would you do our hair like
everyone else was from working-class families. To us John was upper yours?’ We're on holiday — what the hell! We're buying capes and
class. His relatives were teachers, dentists, even someone up in pantaloons, throwing caution to the wind. He said, ‘No, boys, no. | like
Edinburgh in the BBC. It's ironic, he was always very ‘fuck you!’ and he you as Rocker; you look great.’ But we begged him enough so he said ‘all
wrote the song ‘Working Class Hero’ — in fact, he wasn't at all working right’. He didn't do it quite the same as his.
class. Anyway, one of John’s relatives gave him £100 for his birthday. A His was actually more coming over to one side. A kind of long-
hundred smackers in your hand! Then it was a real windfall. None of us haired Hitler thing, and we'd wanted that, so it was really a bit of an
could believe it. To this day if you gave me £100 I would be impressed. accident. We sat down in his hotel and he just got it — the ‘Beatle’ cut!
And | was his mate, enough said? ‘Let's go on holiday.’ — ‘You mean me For the rest of that week we were like Paris Existentialists. Jean Paul
too? With the hundred quid? Great! I'm part of this windfall.’ Sartre had nothing on us. This was it. ‘Sod them all — | could write a
novel from what | learnt this week.’ It was all inside me. | could do
JOHN: Paul bought me a hamburger to celebrate. anything now.
| wasn't too keen on reaching twenty-one. | remember one relative
saying to me, ‘From now on, it's all downhill,’ and | really got a shock. RINGO: What a sight they looked when they arrived back!
She told me how my skin would be getting older and that kind of jazz.
Paul and I set off on a hitchhike to Paris. Well, it was going to be a PAUL: When we got back to Liverpool it was all, ‘Eh, your hair's gone
hitchhike but we ended up taking the train all the way — sheer laziness.” funny.’ —'No, this is the new style.’
We'd got fed up. We did have bookings, but we just broke them and We nearly tried to change it back but it wouldn't go, it kept flapping
went oft.‘ forward. And that just caught on. We weren't really into the coiffure. It
was like Mo's out of the Three Stooges. It fell forward in a fringe. But it
PAUL: We planned to hitchhike to Spain. | had done a spot of was great for us because we never had to style it or anything — wash it,
hitchhiking with George and we knew you had to have a gimmick; we towel it, turn upside down and give it a shake, and that was it. Everyone
had been turned down so often and we'd seen that guys that had a thought we had started it, so it became ‘the Beatle hairdo’.
gimmick (like a Union Jack round them) had always got the lifts. So |
said to John, ‘Let's get a couple of bowler hats.’ It was showbiz creeping JOHN: We go along with the trends, we always have done. To a degree
in. We still had our leather jackets and drainpipes — we were too proud we can make a trend popular — we don't usually invent clothes, we wear
of them not to wear them, in case we met a girl; and if we did meet a something we like and then maybe people follow us. Our original style
girl, off would come the bowlers. But for lifts we would put the bowlers was continental, because English people wore English kinds of clothes.
on. Two guys in bowler hats — a lorry would stop! Sense of Humour. Then continental styles caught on in England, too.”
This, and the train, is how we got to Paris | was ashamed to go on the Continent and say | was British before
We'd never been there before. We were a bit tired so we checked we made it. The Beatles have tried to change Britain's image. We
into a little hotel for the night, intending to go off hitchhiking the next changed the hairstyles and clothes of the world, including America —
morning. Of course, it was too nice a bed after having hitched so we they were a very square and sorry lot when we went over.”

THE EARLY YEARS

 3 AEE
SAT: DEC. 23e 730% Midnight
<3 TOP BANDS 3

* FUN! GAMES ! NOVELTIES‘ETC

\ BO
OXING Afternoon
OFF THE RECORD 3-530

| BIG
BEAT PAUL: Brian Epstein had a shop called NEMS. He was the son of the
25. ERRIFIC ATTRACTION- 3 Top Bands 3

7 asc owner, Harry Epstein. NEMS stood for North End Music Stores and we
bought our records there. It was quite a gathering place; one of the
shops where you could find the records you wanted.
We did well at the Cavern, attracted some big audiences and word
got around. What had happened was a kid had gone into Brian's record
store and asked for ‘My Bonnie’ by The Beatles. Brian had said, 'No it's
not, it’s by Tony Sheridan,’ and he ordered it. Then Brian heard that we
were playing 200 yards away. So he came to the Cavern and the news
got to us: ‘Brian Epstein is in the audience — he might be a manager or a
promoter. He is a grown-up, anyway.’ It was Us and Grown-ups then.

GEORGE: Brian came down the street and checked us out. |

remember Bob Wooler, the disc jockey, announcing, ‘We have with us
a Mr Epstein, who owns NEMS,’ and everybody going, ‘Oh wow. Big,
big deal.’
He stood at the back listening and afterwards came round to the
band room. We thought he was some very posh rich fellow: that’s my
earliest memory of Brian. He had wanted us to sign up, but | believe he
came a number of times before he actually decided to be our manager.

JOHN: He looked efficient and rich, that's all | remember.’

He tried to manage us, but he couldn't get through to us. It lasted
BRIAN EPSTEIN: On Saturday 28th October 1961, I was asked by a about a week: we said, ‘We're not having you.’ He didn’t take over as
young boy for a record by a group called The Beatles. It had always been our though he just walked in and said, ‘Right, cut your hair like that, put this
policy in records to look after whatever request was made. I wrote on a pad: suit on,’ any of that.”
“My Bonnie". The Beatles. Check on Monday.’ Paul wasn't that keen, but he's more conservative in the way he
[had never given a thought to any of the cine beat groups then up and approaches things. He even says that himself — and that’s all well and
coming in cellar clubs. They were not part of my life, because I was out of the good. Maybe he'll end up with more yachts
age group, andalso becauseIhad been too busy. The name ‘Beatle’ meant
nothing to me, though I vaguely recalled seeing it on a poster advertising a PAUL: At that age we were very impressed by anyone in a suit or witha
dance at New Brighton Tower and I remembered thinking it was an odd and car. And Brian was impressed with us; he liked our sense of humour and
purposeless spelling. our music and he liked our look — black leather
Before I had had time to check on Monday, two girls came in the store and So one evening we went down to the NEMS shop. It was very awe
they too asked for a disc by this group. This, contrary to legend, was the sum inspiring, being let into this big record shop after hours with no one
total of demand for The Beatles’ disc at this time in Liverpool. But I was sure there. It felt like a cathedral. We went upstairs to Brian's office » make
there was something very significant in three queries forone unknown disc in the deal. | was talking to him, trying to beat him dow: 12 the
two days. game: try to get the manager to take a low percentage. Aj
I talked to contacts and found what I hadn't realised, that The Beatles were tried as well, but he stuck at a figure of 25%. Hi
in fact a Liverpool group, that they had just returned from playing clubs in the now I'll be your manager, and we agreed
‘
steamy, seedy end of Hamburg. A girl I know said: ‘The Beatles? They're the With my dad's advice — | remember Dad had
greatest. They're at the Cavern this week. . manager — it all fitted and Brian Epstein became ou

THE EARLY YEARS 65

 . Epstein was serving in a record shop and he had nothing to do, it. It starts off terrified and gradually we settle down.” We recorded ‘To
aw these rockers, greasers, playing loud music and a lot of kids Know Her Is To Love Her’, the Phil Spector song, and a couple of our
x attention to it. And he thought, ‘This is a business to be in,’ and own; we virtually recorded our Cavern stage show, with a few omissions
— around twenty songs.”
at he thought he could, and we had nobody better so we said, We made tapes for Decca and Pye, but we didn't actually go to Pye.”
t, pecan do it.”
ein a daydream till he came along. We'd no idea what we ‘NEIL ASPINALL: I remember we bad to drive down to London on New Year's
g our marching gr: on paper made it all official.’ Eve 1961, because of The Beatles’ audition for Decca Records. (We’
somewhere in the Midlands. New Year's Eve was our firs i

GEORGE; It was snowing te remember going

studios. We just went in, set up o amps and played.
In those days a lot of t yck'n'roll songs were
from the Forties, Fifties ¢ , which people hac
was the thing to do if ye lave a tune: just roc
Brown had recorded a re ersion of ‘The
he pay went up only a was really popular on the TV show Six-Ff
: places. We would Boy!. | did the Joe Brow I sang ‘Sheik ¢
ent money for any gig ‘September In The Rait chose a number w
ifee from ¢€a Itwas unusual at tk
Honey’ - th
”, Rainbow’ and
were on a G
Judy Garland
happy to do i

NEIL ASPINAL
and bowing to t went down Shaftesbaril
end of the guitar bootshop Anello « Dateson one
snapped you unl We went into a club up by St Giles Circus.
it up and got on wit boring. Some of the women hadan after-eight shadow. We werestarving and
didn't look very tidy, sc Ince was, ‘Cut aqthe end of that and we went into a restaurant. All that we could afford was the soup.so they threw
this act up — get it more p e for the general public.’ us out and we went into Soho and got something there. London was all very
These suggestions were resisted a With the guitar strings, it meant exciting and new.
taking the whole thingeoff and putti one in: that took longer to do. And
the bowing—John would do it, but under protes He would flick bis hands GEORGE: We had met a London group who had what later became
about and he'd always add a little ; n the crowd — we knew known as ‘Beatle boots’. The first pair of those boots | ever saw was on
what he was doing andwe'd be aug, t but I don't think the audience that trip. They had elastic in the edges and | found out that they were
ever caug i. a made in a shop on Charing Cross Road called Anello.« Davide.
As for Decca's response, we didn't hear anything for ages, though
JOHN eally want to get in these Brian kept bugging them to find out; and in the end they turned us
bigger e — stop eating on stage, down. The funny thing is that it was by someone from one of those
stops ‘dum de dum’ bands, Tony Meehan, a drummer who had become big-
He said our look wasn't time as the A&R man for Decca. Prinene%ra famous story that Brian
right, me. We used to dress Epstein was trying to get him to say whether he liked us, whether we'd
how got the job or not. He replied, ‘I’m a busy man, Mr Epstein,’ and he was
- particu man ge to wear proper just a kid!
trouse square, He let us have
our o inc y.’ 1 ' JOHN: We went back and we waited and waited, and then we found
To us n was pert. . 1 fle he had the shop. out that they hadn't accepted it; we really thought that was it then, that
Any s got asi right. And a car, and a big was the end.
ho ' hell, you f his dad's or not, we Its too bluesy,’ or, ‘It's too much like rock'n'roll and that's all over
now,’ they used to keep telling us. Even in Hamburg when we
of making it or s audition for those German companies they would tell us to stop
. We stopped ch playing the rock and the blues and concentrate on the other stuff,
Bot more attention te because they all thought rock was dead; but they were wrong.”
ye and we smartened up.
PAUL: Listening to the tapes I can understand why we failed the Decca
in put in a lot of time audition. We weren't that good; though there were some quite
rom the start. interesting and original things.
%

nt around, smarming and JOHN: I listened to it. |wouldn't have turned us down on that. 1 think
ri —and they all thought high:mY it sounded OK: Especially the last half of it, for the period it was. There
6 get publicity was just a game. We us ed to‘traipse round weren't many people playing music like that then.” | think Decca
s of the local papers and musical papers asking t 1em to write expected us to be all polished; we were just doing a demo. They should
, because that’s what you had to do. It was ral we should have seen ourpotential.”
on pur best show. We had to appear nice for the reporters, even the
sry snooty ones who were letting us know they were doing us a favour. GEORGE: Years later, | found out they'd signed Brian Poole and the
We would play them along, agreeing how kind they were to talk to us. Tremeloes instead) The head of Decca, Dick Rowe, made a canny
We were very two-faced about it.” prediction: ‘Guitar groups are on the way out, Mr Epstein
| Brian would go from Liverpool to London. And he came back and
7 ‘said, ‘I've got you an audition.’ We were all excited: it was Decca. He'd PAUL: HE MUST BE KICKING HIMSELF NOW.
: met this Mike Smith guy and we were to go down there. So we went
~ down and we did all these numbers, terrified and nervous, you can hear JOHN: | HOPE HE KICKS HIMSELF TO DEATH!
r

THE EARLY YEARS 67

 AFTER HEARING
PAUL: There were millions of groups
around at that time — The Blue Angels, The
Running Scareds — but they were mostly
JOE Spo. PAUL: A lot of our tracks may not have
been ‘cool’. (1 think if we'd just been cool,
we wouldn't have made it how we did.) But
lookalike groups; The Shadows and Roy that was a great aspect of us. John would do
Orbison had a lot of followers. Then there ‘A Shot Of Rhythm And Blues’ or ‘You
person Really Got A Hold On Me' — you could call
were groups like us, more into the blues
and slightly obscure material. And because sae hie DRUVVERS that cool. But then we'd have something

TOWER BALLROOM
we had the unusual songs, we became the like ‘If You Gotta Make A Fool Of
act you had to see, to copy. Somebody’ — which was actually more cool
We started to get a lot of respect. Guys * NEW BRIGHTON «+ because it was probably the first R&B waltz

teeta BEATLES’
SUPPORTED BY THE NORTHS GREATEST SOUND ae
would ask where we'd got a song like ‘If that anyone did.
You Gotta Make A Fool Of Somebody’ | could never see the difference between
from — we'd explain it was on a James Ray a beautiful melody and a cool rock'n’
album. The Hollies came to see us once and roll song. I learnt to love all the ballady

“IBicTTHREE |
Fax
ae oA
came back two weeks later looking like us! stuff through my dad and relatives — ‘Till
We were in black turtleneck sweaters and There Was You’, ‘My Funny Valentine’ — |
Oe thought these were good tunes. The fact
John had his harmonica and we were doing
our R&B material. The next week, The Steve Day *
that we weren't ashamed of those leanings
Hollies had turtleneck sweaters and a 4x2 DRIFTERS " ae meant that the band could be a bit more
harmonica in their act. This is what had varied. And there was a need for that,
started to happen. We would come back to D7 JU 1962 fated, local prety because we played cabaret a lot. Songs like
Liverpool and Freddie and the Dreamers ‘Till There Was You’ and ‘Ain't She Sweet’
would be doing ‘If You Gotta Make A Fool Of Somebody’ as their hit would be the late-night cabaret material. They showed that we weren't
number. (Freddie Garrity saw us playing that song in the Oasis Club in just another rock’ n'roll group.
Manchester and took it.) The Lennon/McCartney song-writing collaboration was forming
So we were a big influence on these people. We had too much during that period. We went on from ‘Love Me Do’ to writing deeper,
material anyway. We couldn't record it all when we did get a deal, so much more intense things. So it was just as well someone didn’t come
other groups took songs from our act and made hits out of up and tell us how uncool ‘Till There Was You’ was.
them — like The Swinging Blue Jeans with “The Hippy
Hippy Shake’, which was one of my big numbers. NEIL ASPINALL: The touring pattern was steadily
evolving. They were spreading out farther and farther
NEIL ASPINALL: There wasn't much pop radio. You from Liverpool. They would play, say, Swindon.
had Radio Luxembourg on a Sunday night, that was Wow! That was miles away from anywhere. And
it. Through the merchant seamen you could get a lot Southport and Crewe, then Manchester, ballrooms,
of American records that werent being played in mainly. They wanted publicity, and a recording
DICK JAMES contract; but it took a long time to get one and there
England. And whichever of th
the bands heard a record MUSIC LIMITED

first got to do it. So ifGerry Marsden found a Co TEM, 1687/8 were lots of disappointments.
number before everybody else, then it became his, Brian bad a tape of the recording they'd done at
and whoever else played it, it was as ifthey were EAMES 0A
Decca, which he took round.
copying Gerry.
JOHN: We paid £15 or something to make the
PAUL: I think we sussed early on that we weren't tape, in a Decca studio. Brian Epstein hawked it
going to get anywhere unless we were different; round. He would go down on his own, on the train,
because if you
2
weren't original
can)
you could get to London with this tape and he'd come back with a
stranded. An example: | used to sing ‘| Remember You’ blank face and we'd know we'd bombed out again.
by Frank Ifield. It went amazingly well anywhere | played it; When you hear the tape, it's pretty good. It's not great,
but if the group on before us did ‘'l Remember You’, that was our but it’s good and it's certainly good for then, when you consider that
big number up the spout. We'd ask bands, ‘What numbers do you do, all that was going on was The Shadows — especially in England. But they
then?’ If they ever mentioned ‘| Remember You, it was, ‘Oh dear.’ So we were so dumb, when they listened to these audition tapes they were
had to play numbers no one else had or, if we'd both got the big listening for The Shadows. So they were not listening to it at all — they're
number, trade off with the other band. listening like they do now — you know how these people are — for what's
This grew into writing songs ourselves and daring to introduce already gone down. They can't hear anything new.
them At first we'd only do that at the Cavern. | think the first original It was pretty shaky then, because there's nowhere else to go if you
song we ever did was a really bad one of mine called ‘Like Dreamers Do’ don't get the records.” We didn't think we were going to make it at all.
which was also covered later). It was enough. We rehearsed it and It was only Brian telling us we were going to make it, and George. Brian
played itt and the kids liked it because they had never heard it before. It Epstein and George Harrison.
was something they could only hear when they came Brian used to come back from London and he
to see our show couldn't face us because he'd been down about twenty
Looking back, we were putting it all together very JOHN: WHEN THE BEATLES times. He'd come back to say, ‘Well, I'm afraid they
cleverly, albeit instinctively: we were making ourselves WERE DEPRESSED, THINKING, didn't accept it again.’ And by then we were close to
into a group that was different "THE GROUP IS GOING him, and he'd be really hurt. He'd be terrified to tell us
NOWHERE, AND THIS IS A that we hadn't made it again.”
JOHN: Introducing our own numbers started round SHITTY DEAL, AND WE'RE IN A We did have a few little fights with Brian. We used
Liverpool and Hamburg. ‘Love Me Do’, one of the first SHITTY DRESSING ROOM...’ I'D to say he was doing nothing and we were doing all the
ones we wrote, Paul started when he must have been AY, ‘WHERE ARE WE GOING, work. We were just saying it, really — we knew how
about fifteen It was the first one we dared do of our FELLAS?’ THEY'D GO, "TO THE hard he was working. It was Us against Them.” He got
own. This was a quite traumatic thing because we were TOP, JOHNNY!’ AND I'D SAY, us to EMI, it was his walking round. If he hadn't gone
|
doing such great numbers of other people's, of Ray "WHERE'S THAT, FELLAS?’ AND round London, on foot, with the tapes under his arm,
Charles and Richard and all of them (1 used to do an THEY'D SAY, "TO THE and gone from place to place, and place to place, and
old Olympics number called ‘Well’ at the Cavern, a TOPPERMOST OF THE finally to George Martin, we would never have made
twelve-bar thing POPPERMOST!’ AND I'D SAY, it. We didn’t have the push to do it on our own. Paul
It was quite hard to come in singing ‘Love Me Do’. ‘RIGHT!’ THEN WE'D ALL was more aggressive in that way: ‘Let's think up
We thought our numbers were a bit wet. But we CHEER UP. publicity stunts, or jump in the Mersey’ — something
gradually broke that down and decided to try them.” like that, in those kind of terms, to make it.”

68 THE EARLY YEARS

 GEORGE: In April 1962, Stuart the others know if there was another side. So as Stuart was the first one
Sutcliffe died. He had already left the to go, we did half expect him to show up. Any pans that rattled in the
band. Not long before he died, he night could be him.
showed up in Liverpool (in the Pierre
Cardin jacket with no collar; he had GEORGE: We came back to play the Star-Club, a big place and
one before we did) and he went round fantastic because it had a great sound system. This time we had a
and hung out with us — almost as if hotel. | remember it was quite a long walk from the club, at the top of
he'd had a premonition that he wasn't the Reeperbahn going back towards the city. We were there for a
going to see us again. He came to visit couple of months.
me at my house quite apart from when
I saw him with the others and it was a PAUL: The Star-Club was great. Manfred Weissleder, owner of the
very good feeling | got from him. Star-Club, and Horst Fascher had Mercedes convertibles, which were
I didn't know Stuart was ill, but he pretty swish. Horst had been in jail for killing a guy. He'd been a boxer
was trying to give up smoking. He'd and he killed a sailor in a bar-room brawl. But they were very protective
cut his cigarettes up into little bits and towards us; we were sort of like their pets. We were safe around these
every time he fancied a cigarette he'd people, paradoxically.
smoke a little piece, like a dog-end. All the stories make out that
somebody kicked him in the head and he died of a haemorrhage, and | JOHN: We were in Hamburg with Gene Vincent and [later] Little
do remember him getting beaten up after a gig once in Liverpool (just Richard and there's still many a story going round about the escapades,
because he was in a band), but that was a couple of especially with Gene Vincent, who was a rather wild
years before. guy. We met Gene backstage. ‘Backstage’ — | mean, it
There was something really warm about his return, JOHN: I was ALWAYS was a ‘toilet’ and we were thrilled.”
and in retrospect | believe he was finishing something; SLIGHTLY DISAPPOINTED WITH
because he went back to Hamburg and suffered a brain ALL THE PERFORMERS | SAW, PAUL: Gene had been a marine and he was always
haemorrhage and died soon after, only a day before FROM LITTLE RICHARD TO offering to knock me out; he knew two pressure points.
we were due to fly back there. | had German measles JERRY LEE. THEY NEVER I said, ‘Get out of it. Sod off!’ He'd say, ‘Oh come on,
so | went a day later than the other guys, on a plane SOUND EXACTLY LIKE THEIR youll only be out for a minute.’
with Brian Epstein. That was the first time I'd been in RECORDS. | LIKE ‘WHOLE
LOTTA SHAKIN, THE 1956 GEORGE: | met Gene Vincent in
an aeroplane.
We didn't go to the funeral. That was it: as the TAKE ON THE RECORD, BUT the Star-Club bar one day, in a
I'M NOT INTERESTED IN A break. He said, ‘Quick, come
man said, ‘He not busy being born is busy dying.’ But
VARIATION ON THE THEME. with me.’ We jumped in a taxi
we all felt really sad and I remember feeling worst for
WHEN GENE VINCENT DID and went up the Reeperbahn @&
Astrid. She was still coming to the shows and sitting
‘BE Bop A LULA’ IN to the apartment where he
there. | think it made her feel a bit better, at least, to
HAMBURG, HE DIDN'T DO IT was staying. | began to notice
hang out with us.
THE SAME. IT WAS A THRILL that he was all uptight — he
TO MEET GENE VINCENT AND thought the tour manager was
JOHN: I looked up to Stu. | depended on him to tell
SEE HIM, BUT IT WAS NOT bonking his girlfriend!
me the truth. Stu would tell me if something was good
‘BE Bop A LuLa’. I'MA
and I'd believe him. We were awful to him sometimes. WE RAN INSIDE, UP
RECORD FAN.*°
Especially Paul, always picking on him. | used to TO THE FRONT DOOR
explain afterwards that we didn't dislike him, really.”
AND GENE OPENED
GEORGE: Sometimes in the van, with all the stress we were under, a HIS COAT AND PULLED OUT A
little bitching went on and Paul and he used to punch each other out a GUN. HE HANDED IT TO ME
bit. | remember the two of them wrestling one time — Paul thought he'd
SAYING, 'HOLD THIS,’ AND
win easily because Stuart was such a little bloke, but Stuart suddenly got
this amazing strength that Paul hadn't bargained for. STARTED KNOCKING ON THE
I once had a bit of a fight with Stuart as well, but we were very DOOR AND SHOUTING, ‘HENRY,
friendly other than that — certainly by the end. HENRY, YOU BASTARD!" I
THOUGHT TO MYSELF ‘TIM OUT
PAUL: Not many of our contemporaries had died; we were all too
young. It was older people that died, so Stuart's dying was a real shock. OF HERE,’ GAVE HIM THE GUN
And for me there was a little guilt tinged with it, because I'd not been BACK AND CLEARED OFF QUICK.
his best friend at times. We ended up good friends, but we'd had a few
ding-dongs, partly out of jealousy for John’s friendship. We all rather PAUL: We used to drive up to Lubeck, on the
competed for John’s friendship, and Stuart, being his mate from art Ost See. Astrid was the connection. Her family
school, had a lot of his time and we were jealous of that. Also, | was had a bathing hut or something down there.
keen to see the group be as good as it could be, so | would make the We went out on various day excursions. | went
odd remark: ‘Oh, you didn’t play that right.’ But Stuart's death was certainly once | remember, with Roy Young, a
terrible, because if nothing else he should have pianist, and was very
been a great painter — you can see that from impressed with
his sketchbooks.
the Autobabn; we
didn't really have
The rest of us weren't as close to Stu as
motorways in
John was — they'd been to college together and
Britain at that time.
shared a flat — but we were still close. Everyone
It was very fast and
was very sad, though the blow was softened by
we were driving a
the fact that he'd stayed in Hamburg and we'd
Mercedes so it
got used to not being with him.
all seemed ultra-
John didn't laugh when he heard Stuart
wonderful to me
died, as people have made out; but being so
young, we didn't go on about it. The kind of
questions we'd ask were, ‘I wonder if he'll come
back?’ Among ourselves we'd had a pact that if
one of us were to die, he'd come back and let

THE EARLY YEARS 69

 We said, 'No, we can't!’ It was one of those terrible things you go
through as kids. Can we betray him? No. But our career was on the line.
NEIL ASPINALL: They had been rejected by almost Maybe they were going to cancel our contract.
every record label. Finally, Brian sent the guys a It was a big issue at the time, how we ‘dumped’ Pete. And | do feel
telegram to Hamburg: ‘EMI request recording session. sorry for him, because of what he could have been on to; but as far as
Please rebearse new material.’ Brian told them it was a we were concerned, it was strictly a professional decision. If he wasn't
record contract. It wasnt really, it was just an up to the mark (slightly in our eyes, and definitely in the producer's eyes)
audition with a producer, George Martin. then there was no choice. But it was still very difficult. It is one of the
most difficult things we ever had to do.
GEORGE: The Parlophone audition was in June 1962. It went not too
badly. | think George Martin felt we were raw and rough but that we JOHN: This myth built up over the years that he was great and Paul
had some quality that was interesting. We did ‘Love Me Do’, 'PS | was jealous of him because he was pretty and all that crap. They didn't
Love You’, ‘Ask Me Why’, ‘Besame Mucho’ and ‘Your Feet's Too Big’, get on that much together, but it was partly because Pete was a bit slow.
among others. (‘Your Feet's Too Big’ was Fats Waller. That was Paul's He was a harmless guy, but he was not quick. All of us had quick minds,
dad's influence.) but he never picked that up.
What | recall about George Martin the first The reason he got into the group in the
time we met him was his accent. He didn't first place was because we had to have a
speak in a Cockney or a Liverpool or drummer to get to Hamburg. We were always
Birmingham accent, and anyone who didn't going to dump him when we could find a
speak like that we thought was very posh. He decent drummer, but by the time we were
was friendly, but schoolteacherly: we had to back from Germany we'd trained him to keep 4
respect him, but at the same time he gave us stick going up and down (four-in-the-bar, he
the impression that he wasn't stiff — that you couldn't do much else) and he looked nice and
could joke with him. There is a well-known the girls liked him, so it was all right.* We
story about when we'd finished playing and we were cowards when we sacked him. We made
were walking up the stairs to the control room Brian do it. But if we'd told him:to his face, that
in Studio Two. He was explaining things and would have been much nastier. It would
he said, Is there anything that you're not probably have ended in a fight,°”
happy about?’ We shuffled about silently, then
I said Well... [ don't like your tie!’ There was PAUL: It was a personality thing. We knew
a moment of ‘Ohhhhh’, but then we laughed, that he wasn’t that good a player. He was
and he did too. Being born in Liverpool you slightly different to the rest of us; not quite as
have to be a comedian studenty. Pete was a straight-up kind of guy
and so the girls liked him a bit. He was mean,
PAUI George Martin had been known at EMI moody and magnificent.
for producing the lesser acts — people who
werent serious recording artists, such as The JOHN: There were two top. groups in
Goons. The big acts like Shirley Bassey would Liverpool — The Big Three and Rory Storm and
go to other producers George was thrown the the Hurricanes — and Ringo was in the
‘scrag ends, and we were ‘scrag ends’. He Hurricanes. The two best drummers in
agreed to audition us, and we had a not-very- Liverpool were in those two groups and they
powerful audition in which he was not very were established before we'd even got going.
pleased with Pete Best We knew of Ringo. Ringo was a star in his
George Martin was used to drummers being own right before we even met.” Ringo was a
very ‘in time’, because atl the big-band session professional drummer who sang and_per-
drummers he used had a great sense of time formed, so his talents would have come out
Now, our Liverpool drummers had a sense of one way or the other. | don't know what he
spirit emotion, economy even, but not a would have ended up as — whatever that spark
deadly sense of time. This would bother is in Ringo, we all know it but we can't put
producers making a record. George took us to our finger on it. There's something in him
one side and said, ‘I'm really unhappy with the that's projectable and he would have surfaced
drummer. Would you consider changing him? as an individual.*°

GEORGE: Top: Us in cloth caps at'Hamburg airport, 1962.

Above: In a lay-by on the road between Hamburg and the Ost See. Me, Paul and John with Gerry and the Pacemakers
(left to right: Freddie Marsden, Gerry, Les Chadwick and Les Maguire). Pete must have taken this one,

THE EARLY YEARS

 pau. WE REALLY STARTED TO
THINK WE NEEDED ‘THE
GREATEST DRUMMER IN
LIVERPOOL, AND THE
Pe,
ao
os
Peer
aee
Yr
RAes

GREATEST DRUMMER IN
OUR EYES WAS A GUY,
RINGO STARR, WHO HAD
CHANGED HIS NAME
BEFORE ANY OF US, WHO
HAD A BEARD AND WAS
GROWN UP AND
WAS KNOWN TO
HAVE A ZEPHYR
ZODIAC.
So we made Ringo

join us, and P

the dreadtul
 happened six times. It was OK because | had a lot of stamina in those
days and we all knew what we were doing.
After the Cavern gig we all went to another club for a drink. It was,
‘Thanks a lot, lads’ — we'd had a good time and | was off. But I was asked
again later: ‘Would you play with the boys? Pete can't make it.’ | got
good money playing with them, | loved playing with them, so | said,
‘Sure.’ This went on three or four times — we were pals and we'd have a
drink after the show and then I'd be back with Rory.
Then one day, a Wednesday — we were doing Butlins again, our third
season: three months’ work, sixteen quid a week; fabulous — Brian called
and said, ‘Would you join the band for good?’ | wasn’t aware that it had
been on the cards for a while, because | was busy playing. In fact, the
guys had been talking to Brian, and George had been hustling for me.
The Beatles had a piece of tape for record companies, they had
done some tracks, they were going to EMI and were getting a
recording deal! A piece of plastic was like gold, was more than gold.
You'd sell your soul to get on a little record. So I said, ‘OK. But I've got
four other guys here. We've got a gig for months. | can't pull out now
GEORGE: To me it was apparent: Pete kept being sick and not showing and have it all end for them.’
up for gigs so we would get Ringo to sit in with the band instead, and I said | would join on Saturday. We used to have Saturdays off at
every time Ringo sat in, it seemed like ‘this is it’. Eventually we realised, Butlins; that was when they changed the campers. That gave Rory
‘We should get Ringo in the band full time.’ Thursday, Friday and Saturday to bring someone in to open again on
| was quite responsible for stirring things up. | conspired to get Sunday, which was a lot of time.
Ringo in for good; | talked to Paul and John until they came round to And that was it. John said, ‘Get rid of your beard, Ring, and change
the idea. | remember going to his house. He wasn't in so I sat and had your hairstyle.’ | cut my hair, as the saying goes, and joined the band. |
some tea with his mother and I said, ‘We'd like Ringo to be in our band.’ never felt sorry for Pete Best. | was not involved. Besides, | felt | was a
She said, ‘Well, he's in Butlins holiday camp with Rory at the moment, much better drummer than he was.
but when he rings me I'll get him to phone you,’ and | gave her our The first gig in the Cavern after I'd joined was pretty violent. There
number. was a lot of fighting and shouting; half of them hated me, half of them
We weren't very good at telling Pete he had to go. But when it loved me. George got a black eye, and | haven't looked back.
comes down to it, how do you tell somebody? Although Pete had not
been with us all that long — two years in terms of a lifetime isn't very GEORGE: Some of the fans — a couple of them — were shouting ‘Pete is
long — when youre young it's not a nice thing to be kicked out of a best!’ and ‘Ringo never, Pete Best forever!’, but it was a small group and
band and there's no nice way of doing it. Brian Epstein was the manager we ignored it. However, after about half an hour it was getting a bit
so it was his job, and I don't think he could do it very well either. But tiring so | shouted to the audience. When we stepped out of the band
that's the way it was and the way it is. room into the dark tunnel, some guy nodded me one, giving me a black
eye. The things we have to do for Ringo!
RINGO: At the same time that | got the offer from The Beatles, | got
one from King Size Taylor and the Dominoes, and from Gerry and the JOHN: Nothing happened to Pete Best. At one time he went touring
Pacemakers. (Gerry wanted me to be his bass player! | hadn't played America with The Pete Best Band and | suppose he was hyped and
bass then or to this day, but the idea of being up front was appealing. hustled. And then he married and settled down and was working in a
That you'd never played a_ particular instrument before wasn't bakery. | read something about him. He was writing that he was glad
important back then!) about the way things turned out; he was glad he missed it all.”!
| used to go and watch The Beatles a lot and there are photos
around showing them playing, with me sitting on the side of the stage: RINGO: A light-hearted side note: Neil Aspinall was really friendly
Hello, lads.’ Then one morning, I'm in bed, it's about noon, and my with Pete Best and his family and so for a while he wouldn't set my kit
mother knocks on the bedroom door and says, ‘Brian Epstein is up. This lasted for a few weeks, but he got over it. He was all we had;
outside.’ | didn't know much about him, except how strange it was that he was driving the van, setting up the gear and everything, and he was a
The Beatles had a manager, because none of us had a real manager. He little miffed.
said, ‘Would you play the lunchtime session in the Cavern for us?’ |
said, ‘Give us a minute to get a cup of tea and get me trousers on, and PAUL: Pete Best was good, but a bit limited. You can hear the
I'll come on down.’ He-drove me to the Cavern in his posh car, and I difference on the Anthology tapes. When Ringo joins us we get a bit
played the session more kick, a few more imaginative breaks, and the band settles. So the
All bands played a lot of the same numbers at that time. One gig | new combination was perfect: Ringo with his very solid beat, laconic
did in Crosby, there were three bands on. Each band had two sets, half wit and Buster Keaton-like charm; John with his sharp wit and his
an hour each and as the other two drummers hadn't turned up | sat in rock'n'rolliness, but also his other, quite soft side; George, with his
with all three bands — | never got off the kit. As the curtain closed | great instrumental ability and who could sing some good rock'n'roll.
would change jackets and the next band would come on and I'd still be And then I could do a bit of singing and playing, some rock'n'roll and
there. It would close ind then it would open and — me again! This some softer numbers.

THE EARLY YEARS

 2 eg ~~ CERTIFIED, COPY Of an’ fae RUNDTRAK UEP. AYAARa ee

gmat fo te le 31. 9d.

the eniry,@ be ~-Pursuant to the “#4 Marriage Act, 194°
eat a WSNRRTEG
SEI ERM SBIR SSTONY 1

BRIAN EPSTEIN: Ifirst encouraged-them-to-get out of leather jackets and |

wouldn't allow them to appear in jeans after a short time. After that I got them
JOHN: | GOT MARRIED
to wear sweaters on stage and eventually, very reluctantly, suits. I'm not sure
BEFORE | EVEN KNEW that they didn't wear their first suits for a BBC broadcastfor a live audience.
WHAT RELIGION MY
WIFE WAS, | NEVER PAUL: When we met Brian Epstein we were still into the leather. But
when we had photos taken people started saying, ‘Maybe the leather is
ASKED HER. SHE COULD too hard an image.’ And agents would agree. Even Astrid began to take
HAVE BEEN ANYTHING, pictures of us wearing suits in Germany. Somehow Brian persuaded us
AN ARAB.” to get suits. He quite wisely said, ‘If | get a huge offer, they won't take
you in leather,’ and | didn't think it was a bad idea because it fitted with
GEORGE: | don't remember much my ‘Gateshead group’ philosophy that you should look similar, and
about John's wedding. It took place because we got mobair suits it was a bit like the black acts.
in August 1962. He just went in It was later put around that | had betrayed our leather image but, as |
some office in Liverpool one afternoon, and in the evening we got in recall, | didn't actually have to drag anyone to the tailors. We all went
Brian's car, went to the gig (we actually did a gig that night) and it was, quite happily over the water to Wirral, to Beno Dorn, a little tailor who
‘Well, we got married.’ It wasn’t hushed up, it just wasn't mentioned to made mohair suits. That started to change the image and, though we
the press. There was no wedding — it was a five-minute thing in a would still wear leather occasionally, for the posh do's we'd put on suits.
Registry Office. It was different in those days. No time to lose. It was suits for a cabaret gig. We were still on the edge of breaking in a
big way and cabaret was well paid. So that was
JOHN: Cynthia's grown up with it, with me. something of an end to the Hamburg era.
We got married just before we made the first record. | was a bit
shocked when Cynthia told me [she was pregnant], but | said, ‘Yes, JOHN: Outside of Liverpool, when we went down
welll have to get married.’ | didn’t fight it.” | went the day before to South in our leather outfits the dance-hall promoters
tell Mimi. | said Cyn was having a baby, we were getting married didn't really like us. They thought we looked like a gang
tomorrow, did she want to come? She just let out a groan. There was of thugs. So it got to be Epstein saying, ‘Look, if you
a drill going on all the time outside the Registry Office. | couldn't wear a suit youll get this much money...’ And
hear a word that bloke was saying. Then we went across the road and everybody wanted a good, sharp, black suit. We liked
had a chicken dinner. It was all a laugh. the leather and the jeans, but we wanted a good suit,
| thought it would be goodbye to the group, getting married. None even to wear off stage. ‘Yeah man, all right, I'll wear a
of us ever took girls to the Cavern as we thought we would lose fans suit —I'll wear a bloody balloon if somebody's going to
(which turned out to be a farce in the end). But | did feel embarrassed, pay me; I'm not in love with leather that much!'*
walking about, married. It was like walking about with odd socks on or
your flies open.® GEORGE: People thought we looked undesirable, |
suppose. Even nowadays kids with leather jackets and
RINGO: | didn't’'go to the wedding — John never even told me he'd got long hair are seen as apprentice hooligans, but they are
married. John and Cynthia were keeping it a secret from everyone. If just kids, that's the fashion they like — leathers. And it
something got mentioned it was, ‘Shh, Ring's in the room.’ was like that with us. With black T-shirts, black leather
It was kept from me because | wasn't considered a real member at gear and sweaty, we did look like hooligans.
the beginning. | was in the band, but emotionally | had to earn my way Brian Epstein was from an upper middle-class
in. John didn't tell me anything until we went on tour and got to know background and he wanted us to appeal to the producers
each other in all the doss houses where we camped. of radio, television and record companies. We gladly
switched into suits to get some more money and some
JOHN: We didn’t keep it secret, it's just that when we first came on the more gigs.
scene nobody really asked us. They weren't interested whether we were
married or not. The question they used to ask was, ‘What kind of girls RINGO: HE CHANGED OUR IMAGE ONLY IN
do you like?’ And if you get our early news sheets it says ‘blondes’. | MAKING US A BIT SMARTER. THEY ALL
wasn't going to say, ‘I'm married,’ but I never said, ‘I'm not.’ | always
CHANGED MY IMAGE. | USED TO HAVE MY HAIR
disliked reading about people's families.
RIGHT BACK, LIKE A TEDDY BOY, WITH A TONY
CURTIS CUT AND SIDEBOARDS AND SUDDENLY
IT WAS, ‘SHAVE THEM OFF AND PUT YOUR HAIR
DOWN,’ WHICH I DID.
 11) 30%9eme int 2 Me.Aas
» 3.0 Poems Ce
Ho eT

CMATINI x BALER QO =! COVENTRY

nieces eohawod programme
S is fora new
Bay pagap elec for‘ our bes}
; fhour spot. ,

(spocthity fa
wekéome Home show)

Midday CAVERN
This is a double in the BIRMING
areas First at: the-Baths Bal)
SMETHWICK and then at-the Adelr
Beliroom WEST BROMWICH, There
be a # hour spot at each balixs
Group and equipment to arrives
the first. ballroom no later the
7s0 peme A good perférmance
to impress new territory.

Coventry.
4 vT?

I 55

z hour spot_at each bellroom.

8
yp and equipment to arrive at_
Art
- Ces New Brightors
e/first ballroom no later than
Pith. Pager ean |
20 pem. A good perthrmnnas hers
27am. Cav em
mevhs aya (Recording)
es 4 nse Wondoh§ HALL, 80
% see 1 VErnis
is for Lewi okley and
’ o il Livrerpoom a be a good night/ It's
—_— og hameenhead, the @orm of a stage ee)
et) ae (Nr waihe wton-'] must; have a good amme. You
tl will probably be two 45
eroorough @m@eassy bie 2 minute spots.
riday Syectactul ay ayt pee I wis
? & rexyn 5 a Midday CaVis |
southp Ber dar a * CAVERN A
BR Naw Brighpot. 9
a heste™. Tuesda MAJESTIC BALLKOOMS
CaWern. ' of nayati sie * dpa otis<p One hour spot.
ae ie
Mi 3ey CB parr .f

ee
te oe
a fuvNaMrTaNoS?- ~ Audition for BBC TELEVISION
St. James Hall, Gloucester
at
Terrace
ej TIVH Tvaola
LS

London W. 2 at 12.20 pom.

 —

PAUL: | think John in later years liked to feel that he was

the rebel and I somehow tried to straighten him up — but
that's bullshit. We all changed to the straight image. |
didn't cut his hair for him; I didn't care if his tie was
straight or his button done up. Check the pictures — John's
not scowling in all of them!

NEIL ASPINALL: By 1962 they were pretty big in the

Northwest, in Liverpool and Manchester. Granada had got the
regional TVfranchise in 1956. Know The North was a local
show and, having beard of The Beatles, they came down to the
Cavern and filmed a performance. Ringo had just then come into
the band, as you can hear from the heckling in the crowd.

GEORGE: I remember Granada TV cameras coming to the

Cavern that August. It was really hot and we were asked to
dress up properly. We had shirts, and ties and little black
pullovers. So we looked quite smart. It was our first
television appearance. It was big-time, a-[V-company-
coming-to-film-us excitement — and John was into it.

PAUL: In September we went down to London with

Ringo and played for EMI again. By this time we did have
a contract.
This was our intro to that world. We came in the
tradesman’s entrance and set up our own gear. We were
there at 10.00, ready to work at 10.30 sharp, expected to
have done two songs by 1.30. Then we had an hour's
JOHN: It was a constant fight between Brian and Paul on one side and break for lunch (which we paid for). We would go round the corner
me and George on the other.” Brian and Paul used to always be at me to to the Alma pub, at the back of St John’s Wood. We were young and
cut my hair.® At that time it was longer than in any of pubs were still grown-up places, so we'd have a
the photographs — it was generally trimmed for the ciggy to look older and order half a pint with a
photographs, but there were some private pictures that GEORGE: cheese roll. Inevitably, the chat would be about the
show it was pretty long, greased back, hanging around. ] DON'T THINK JOHN session. Then it was back to the studio from 2.30 to
There was a lot of hair on the Teddy boys; the Tony PARTICULARLY LIKED WEARING A 5.30. Those were the main sessions: two daytime
Curtises that grew larger and larger because they never SUIT — NOR DID | — BUT WE sessions in which you were expected to have
went to the hairdresser. We were pretty greasy.” WANTED MORE WORK, AND WE completed four songs.
So Brian put us in neat suits and shirts and Paul was REALISED THATS WHAT WE HAD If we'd done a particularly good take they might
right behind him. My little rebellion was to have my TO DO. BACK THEN EVERYONE say, ‘Would you like to listen to it in the control
tie loose, with the top button of my shirt undone, but WAS MORE STRAIGHT, THE room?’ We'd think, ‘What, us? Up those stairs, in
Paul’d come up to me and put it straight. | used to try WHOLE BUSINESS WAS heaven?’ We'd never properly heard what we sounded
and get George to rebel with me. I'd say to him: ‘Look, like until then. We'd heard ourselves doing it ‘live’ in
we don't need these fucking little suits. Let's chuck the headphones, but through speakers it was very
exciting: ‘Oh, that sounds just like a reco1 et's do
them out of the window.’
this again and again and again!’ From then we were hooked on the
I saw a film, the first television film we ever did. The Granada
recording drug, and when John and I sat down to write the t batch
people came down to film us, and there we were in suits and it just
of songs it was with this in mind: ‘Remember how excitin was? Let's
wasn't us. Watching that film, | knew that that was where we started
to sell out.” see if we can come up with something better

THE EARLY YEARS 7:J

its w/e 16.11.62.
THE BATTLES

6th. 11.50 a.m. Interview with "Disol. Details of engagements w/o 16.11.62 ..cont.
3.0 p.m. George Martin at EMI

‘the MATRIX BALLROOM, COVENTRY. Friday November 23rd... "This audition will not be held
3 under full television studio
Oth. CAVERN . conditions but costume and
; makeup are obviously deirable.
Oth.
he Mi
ate EhAVERN.
“7 Dressing room accommodation wi
5 a at Adel phiileenaaanel be available and Artistes shou
gen P : arrive no less than 30 minutes
— earlier than the time stated.
oak FLORAL HALL, SOU GSI performance should be designed
s present you to the best advant
habe Bae copie phe but in any case no longer than
: 10 minutes in length."
) LROOM. Reservations will be made on t:
cab pilings Str ane which leaves London airp
2rd. ve
Audition for BBC $230 arriving at Liverpool
: Hall, Gloucester proximately 7.45 from whe
11 have to proceed to TH
3rd.(contd)
*
After audition l¢«
BRIGHTON TOWER for a one h
arriving approxi RISES LTD sometime after 8.30 p.m.
proceed to THE iA RAc——ii LIDO, PRESTATYN
:
one hour spot soqm—_——il
: TELEPHONE ROYAL 7895 \ stend this venue is an
4th. ROYAL LIDO, PRES ply pisesant one and the
a ‘particular type’.
not do anything to ups
Two 45 minute spots.

r enquiry for THE BEATLE S

tise
eadv
trto 7 vou ‘oa
on eed mee.
iv clearance
ossibly we had petter
1 5ta. $$ am willing
br Medate at a fee of
ki I ¢ha t it is agreed
ease, Please Me" reaches
the Record Retailer/
ip the date of this
n= be increased

PAUL: Horror of horrors! George Martin didn’t like Ringo. Ringo at

RINGO: The response to us at EMI was OK, because we'd done the that point was not that steady on time. Now he is rock steady; it's
auditions and George Martin was willing to take a chance. (Though the always been his greatest attribute and that was why we wanted him. But
reaction from people because we were from the North was a bit weird.) to George he was not as pinpoint as a session guy would be. So Ringo
On my first visit in September we just ran through some tracks for got blown off the first record. George did the, ‘Can I see you for a
George Martin We even did ‘Please Please Me’. | remember that, moment, boys?’ — ‘Yeah?’ —'Um... without Ringo.’ He said, ‘I would like
because while we were recording it | was playing the bass drum with a to bring in another drummer for this record.’
maraca in one hand and a tambourine in the other. | think it's because of It was very hard for us to accept that decision. We said, ‘Ringo has
that that George Martin used Andy White, the ‘professional’, when we to be the drummer; we wouldn't want to lose bim as the drummer.’ But
went down a week later to record ‘Love Me Do’. The guy was previously George got his way and Ringo didn't drum on the first single. He only
booked, anyway, because of Pete Best. George didn’t want to take any played tambourine.
more chances and | was caught in the middle. | don't think Ringo ever got over that. He had to go back up to
| was devastated that-George Martin had his doubts about me. | Liverpool and everyone asked, ‘How did it go in the Smoke?’ We'd
came down ready to roll and heard, ‘We've got a professional say, 'B side's good,’ but Ringo couldn't admit to liking the A side, not
drummer.’ He has apologised several times since, has old George, but being on it.
it was devastating — | hated the bugger for years; | still don't let him
off the hook! NEIL ASPINALL: The Beatles were asked in those sessions, on 4th and 11th
So Andy plays on the ‘Love Me Do’ single — but | play later on the September, to record a song by Mitch Murray, ‘How Do You Do It’. That is
album version; Andy wasn't doing anything so great that | couldn't copy the way things were done: the songwriter is with the publisher, the publisher
it when we did the album. And I've played on everything since then. knows the record producer, who gives it to the band to record. But The Beatles
Well, bar ‘Back In The USSR’ and a few other things.) came along and said they'd prefer to do their own songs.

6 THE EARLY YEARS

PAUL: George Martin told us that the music-business network was NEIL ASPINALL: They were doing a gig somewhere in the Wirral, or
made up of songwriters and groups. Normally, you would be offered a Birkenhead, when we learnt that ‘Love Me Do’ bad sold 5,000 copies. !
couple of songs by a publisher, like Dick James, in cahoots with your remember Jobn saying, ‘Well, there you go — what more do they want?’
producer. But we were starting as a group that had its own material.
Mitch Murray was writing songs. He came up with, ‘How do you do JOHN: The best thing was it came into the charts in two days and
it? How do you do what you do to me?’ We listened to the demo and everybody thought it was a fiddle, because our manager's stores sent in
said, ‘It's a hit, George, but we've got a song, “Love Me Do".’ George these returns and everybody down South thought, ‘Ah-ha, he’s buying
said, 'I don't think yours is such a big hit.’ We said, ‘Yes, but it is us, and them himself or he's just fiddling the charts.’ But he wasn't.®
it is what we're about. We're trying to be blues, we're not trying to be
“la de da de da”. We're students and artsy guys — we can't take that song RINGO: Even though ‘Love Me Do’ didn’t make Number One, it was
home to Liverpool, we'll get laughed at. We can take “Love Me Do’: exciting. All we had wanted was a piece of vinyl — my God, a record
people in the groups we respect, people like The Big Three, will go for that you hadn't made in some booth somewhere! And now we wanted
it.’ We didn't want to be laughed at by other bands. But George insisted to be Number One. They were both as important.
that his song was still a hit. So we said, ‘OK, we'll learn it up.’ By the end of 1962, ‘Love Me Do’ had sold 100,000 copies, most of
We went home and did a reasonable arrangement and recorded ‘How them in Liverpool. We've still got a bunch of them in our house. (Joke.)
Do You Do It’, and George Martin said, ‘It's still a Number One.’ We
insisted that we hated it, so George gave it to Gerry and the Pacemakers; PAUL: Ted Taylor first told us how to use make-up. We were playing
and Gerry did it faithful to our demo and had his first big hit. the Embassy Cinema at Peterborough late that year, very low on the bill
to Frank Ifield and below The Ted Taylor Four as well. Ted had a funny
GEORGE: We had played ‘Love Me Do’ on stage and it felt quite good little synth on the end of his piano on which he could play tunes like
and it was one of Paul's and John's. We wanted that; the other song we ‘Sooty’. He would use it for ‘Telstar’ — the audience went wild to hear his
were being offered was really corny. synth sound. It was Ted that said, ‘You looked a little pale out there,
George Martin listened to both songs and | think he decided ‘How lads. You should use make-up.’ We asked him how. He said, ‘There's
Do You Do It’ could still be our second single. But then we speeded up this pancake stuff, Leichner 27. You can get it from the chemist. Take a
‘Please Please Me’ and that was it. little pad and rub it on; it gives you a tan. And put a black line around
your eyes and lips.’ We said, That's a bit dodgy, isn’t it?’ He said,
GEORGE MARTIN: It was common in those days to find material for ‘Believe me, they will never see it, and you'll look good.’
artists by going to Tin Pan Alley and listening to the publishers’ wares. That
was a regular part of my life: I spent a long time lookingfor songs, and whatI GEORGE: The Ted Taylor Four had a record called ‘Son Of Honky
wanted for The Beatles was a hit. Iwas convinced that ‘How Do You Do It' Tonk’. We were in their dressing room and found their stage make-up
was a hit song. Not a great piece of songwriting, not the most marvellous song called ‘pancake’. We thought we'd better put some on because the lights
I had ever heard in my life, but I thought it had that were bright and we supposed that’s what people did on
essential ingredient which would appeal to a lot of people — stage. So we put it on and we looked like Outspan
and we did record it. Jobn took the lead. They didn't like oranges. There were photos taken of us, and John is
doing it, but we made a good record and I was very close to PAUL: also wearing eye shadow and black eye-liner. Big
issuing it as their first single. IT WAS SYMPTOMATIC OF OUR orange faces and black eyes.
In the end I went with ‘Love Me Do’ but would still have GROUP THAT WE TURNED
issued ‘How Do You Do It’ bad they not persuaded me to ‘'How Do You Do IT’ DOWN. PAUL: Right afterwards we were being photographed
listen to another version of ‘Please Please Me’. THE OTHER HUGE STAND IN for a poster for Blackpool. They had been bootlegging
OUR LIFE, A LITTLE LATER ON, posters (which meant we were obviously getting quite
RINGO: At EMI, besides my being distraught that | WAS SAYING TO BRIAN EPSTEIN, popular), and the poster company said we should do an
wasn't even on the drums, | remember us all being "WE'RE NOT GOING TO official one. So they did four squares — one of us in
ready to stand up for the principle of, ‘We have written AMERICA UNTIL WE'VE GOT A each square. And you can see the black line around our
these songs and we want to do them.’ We had to make NUMBER ONE THERE.’ WE eyes. We never lived it down!
a really big stand on that, and the others made it more WAITED, AND | THINK THAT
than I did because | was the new boy. | just said, ‘Go WAS ONE OF THE BEST MOVES NEIL ASPINALL: Brian started to promote shows himself
on, lads, go get ‘em.’ WE EVER MADE. WE WERE VERY so be could put on bis own bands. He'd bire the Tower
I was still trying to find my place, but they were CHEEKY. IT WAS ALL BASED ON Ballroom in New Brighton and get a star like Little Richard,
adamant, thank God, about not wanting this song we'd CLIFF RICHARD, WHO HAD who was touring England anyway. He'd call the agent in
been given. On reflection, this was a huge stance BEEN TO AMERICA AND BEEN London and do a deal for bim to play the Tower Ballroom as
because, as I say, for that bit of plastic you would sell THIRD ON THE BILL TO FRANKIE top of the bill. On the same bill — this was 12th October
your soul. | don’t think Cliff Richard would have refused. AVALON. WE THOUGHT, ‘OH 1962 —there were The Beatles and Gerry and the
Cliff was never a writer. Dickie Pride and Billy Fury, all DEAR, CLIFF IS A BIGGER STAR Pacemakers and The Undertakers — a whole pile of Liverpool
that crowd, were just given songs, and sang them. THAN AVALON! How COULD bands. But The Beatles would always be second on the bill to
HE DO THAT?’ AND ADAM the big visiting star.
GEORGE: We released ‘Love Me Do’ and it did very FAITH — ALL THE EARLY STARS
well. It got to Number Seventeen in the charts. That WE LOOKED UP TO HAD GONE JOHN: Brian used to bring the rock stars who were not
was based mainly on local sales; there were enough WITH TERRIBLE BILLING. SO WE making it any more, like Gene Vincent, Little Richard.
fans of The Beatles around because we were playing all SAID, ‘WE'RE NOT GOING UNTIL No reflection on them, but they were coming over for
over the Wirral, Cheshire, Manchester and Liverpool. WE GET A NUMBER ONE AND that reason and he put us on the bill with them, second
We were quite popular, so the sales were real. WE'RE HEADLINING.’ billing; so we'd use them to draw the crowd.
First hearing ‘Love Me Do’ on the radio sent me It's hard for people to imagine just how thrilled we,
shivery all over. It was the best buzz of all time. We the four of us, were to even see any great rock'n'roller in
knew it was going to be on Radio Luxembourg at the flesh, and we were almost paralysed with adoration
something like 7.30 on Thursday night. I was in my house in Speke and with both of them, and the side note was Little Richard's organist was
we all listened in. That was great, but after having got to Seventeen, | Billy Preston. He looked about ten then.”
don't recall what happened to it. It probably went away and died, but
what it meant was that the next time we went to EMI, they were more GEORGE: Little Richard was also on the bill with us for our fourth trip
friendly: ‘Oh, hello lads. Come in.’ to Hamburg in November. By then things were better for us there
They had new Fender amplifiers for all the bands and we had a hotel
RINGO: When ‘Love Me Do’ came out, Brian would get the playlist room each, just in a little hotel on the Reeperbahn, but our own rooms
and tell us we were on at, say, 6.45 or 6.26, and we'd stop the car to nevertheless. Brian Epstein had hired Little Richard to play on the same
listen (because we were always doing something — travelling, working) bill as us at the Liverpool Empire and at the Tower Ballroom in New
and it was a thrill. Brighton so we'd met him briefly.

THE EARLY YEARS 77

 Hamburg was really happening then and they were coining quite We'd outlived the Hamburg stage and wanted to pack that up.
a bit of money in those clubs, with all the drinks and the admission We hated going back to Hamburg those last two times. We'd had
fees: they'd have four shows so they could get four different that scene.” Brian made us go back to fulfil the contract — if we'd had
audiences in a night. our way, we'd have copped out on the engagement, because we didn't
feel we owed them fuck all — we made all those clubs into inter-
JOHN: We used to stand backstage at Hamburg’s Star-Club and watch national clubs.”
Little Richard play. Or he used to sit and talk. He used to read from the
Bible backstage and just to hear him talk we'd sit round and listen. It was GEORGE: That's one thing I'll say for The Beatles, we always honoured
Brian Epstein that brought him to Hamburg. | still love him and he's one our agreements. For years, every time we had a record that went to
of the greatest.” Number One we still had six months’ work already booked at little
ballrooms for fifty quid a night when we could have been earning
RINGO: We went in November and in December. | don’t know where maybe £5,000. But we always honoured them, because we, or rather
we stayed that final time. It's hazy, to say the least. Brian Epstein, was a gentleman. He didn’t want
The staying wasn't important, the living was cool. to say, ‘Well, screw them, let's do the London
It was fairly crazy; I'd been there with Rory Storm, Palladium instead.’
and I'd been separately to play with Tony Sheridan
(I'd played with him for a month) and I was back RINGO: Brian was really a cool guy. We played
this time with The Beatles, and it really felt good. every gig. We'd play some daft club in Birmingham
It was becoming like home. because we'd been booked. I'm glad now we did
Little Richard played the Star-Club with Billy that and not drop the little clubs for the Palladium
Preston. Billy was sixteen and he was fabulous; still and say ‘fuck you’. We were an upright band, and
is. | watched Little Richard twice a night for six Brian was really upright.
days: it was so great. He did show off a bit in front
of us — he'd want to know we were in the wings; JOHN: There's big exaggerated stories about us in
he'd heard of us by that time. Hamburg, about us pissing on nuns and things like
We were only twenty-two and we still loved that, but there was a lot of things that went on.
the Preludins and we still liked to drink and we What actually happened with that was — we had a
could get away with anything as long as we went balcony in these flats — one Sunday morning we
on and played. The only thing that the Germans were just pissing in the street as all the people
wouldn't tolerate was your not going on stage, were going to church, and there were some nuns
and you could go on (and we did) in several over the road going into the church. It was just a
states of mind. 5 Sunday morning in the club district, with
LITTLE RICHARD
singt im everyone walking about and three or four people
JOHN: We had great happenings on stage. We r-Club
Hamburg-St.
Pauli peeing in the street.”
used to eat on stage, we'd smoke, we swore. Some
shows I went on just in my underpants — this was at the larger club, the GEORGE: | think that Hamburg and the early years between Hamburg
Star-Club, when Gerry and the Pacemakers and the whole of Liverpool trips, becoming established in the Merseyside area, were great. But
was over there. We really got them going then. I'd go on in underpants Hamburg was the more exciting because they had Mercedes Benz taxis
with a toilet seat round me neck, and all sorts of gear on. And out of my and the nightclubs. There was a lot going on. It seems in my memory
fucking mind! And I'd do a drum solo — which I couldn't do, because | like one of those black-and-white jazz movies of the Fifties.
can't play drums — while Gerry Marsden was playing.” I'd have to say with hindsight that Hamburg bordered on the best of
Beatles times. We didn't have any luxury, we didn't have any bathrooms
RINGO: It was par for the course to swear at the audience by then. They or any clothes, we were pretty grubby, we couldn't afford anything; but
knew what we were saying and they swore back, but they loved us. | don't on the other hand we weren't yet famous, so we didn't have to contend
know about all the Germans, but the ones from Hamburg, the ones who with the bullshit that comes with fame. We could be ourselves and do
were really around us like Horst Fascher, Rudi and a few of the other whatever we wanted to do without people writing about it in the
guys, were really rough — I don't know how many of them are still alive. newspapers. We were free to piss on anyone we wanted to, if we
You had to go on, however bad you felt. I'd heard musicians saying, wanted, although we never actually did. John didn't piss on the nuns —
‘Knock me out, | don’t want to go on.’ Because they would knock you we peed over a balcony into a deserted street at about 4.30 in the
down, they would kick you on stage. But every time we left they'd all morning.) We were just like everybody else and we could have a great
cry — that's what blew me away; that the people of Hamburg were so time and just rock on.
sensitive. While we were there they'd put on a show of being tough
guys, but when the time came for us to leave, here were these big tearful PAUL: In Hamburg we used to think, ‘We'll have to save money here, in
Germans saying, ‘I don't want you to go.’ Horst Fascher would cry at the case it all finishes.’ But we never did and it used to worry me that we'd
drop of a hat. All this sadness, when the night before it had been, ‘Mach have no money to show for it and we'd have to get jobs and do what we
shau, you mach fuckin’ shau.’ They'd get right on your brain. didn't want to do and still have no money.”
Hamburg was certainly a great childhood memory. But | think all
PAUL: There was a guy called Harry in a group called The Strangers. things are enhanced by time. It was very exciting, though I think it felt
He'd got a little pissed and was in the wings at the Star-Club, obviously better to me a little later in our career, once we'd started to get a bit of
not as ambitious or as keen as we were. He didn’t want to go on so he success with the records.
kept asking people to knock him out. | remember not understanding
that, thinking, ‘It's all very wellybeingepissed; rbutsnatywanting to go-on JOHN: We always talk about Hamburg-and the Cavern and the dance
stage when youre in a group —,that's—a-serious~problem-you've~got; halls-in-civerpool because that’s when we were really hot musically.”
maybe we should knock you out!’ We were performers then and what we generated was fantastic when we
played straight rock — there was nobody to touch us in Britain.
JOHN: You would only--have two hours’ sleep, and then you'd have to [By the time we were playing theatres] we had to reduce an hour or
wake up and take a pili, and it wouldybesgoing on and on and on, since two of playing to twenty minutes, and repeat the same twenty minutes
you didn't get a day off; you'd just begin to go out of your mind with every night.” Suddenly everything had to be done in twenty minutes
tiredness and you'd think you'd be glad to get out of there. But then and you had to do all your hits, and you'd only do two shows a night
you'd go back to Liverpool, and only témember the(g06d funh-yow had in because the live theatre only held a few thousand people.”
Hamburg, so you wouldn't mind going back. But after the last time we So we always miss the club days. Later on we became technically
didn't want to go back.” We were beginning to feel stale and cramped. efficient recording artists, which was another thing, because we were
We were always getting the pack-ups. We'd get tired of one stage and confident people, and whatever media you put us in we can produce
° Le mig, 2D
be deciding to pack up when another stage would come along, - |

same thing worthwhile camer with The Coasters

| The Dakotas with Pete MacLaine
The Four Jays
. : na :
| Lee Curtis and The All Stars
| The Mersey Beats
THE EARLY YEARS | Rory Storm and The Horricanes
| The Undertakers
nineteen sixty-three
 TAL BREAK ¢ INSTRUMENTAL BREAK e INSTRUMENTAL B

PAUL: I started out with just an acoustic guitar. I'd been brought up not
to borrow (an ethic my dad instilled in me), so when I first moved to an
electric | had to buy a Rosetti Lucky Seven; a terrible guitar but cheap,
and it was electric. | had a little Elpico amp for it (which I've still got),
of a very Fifties design in bakelite. This Elpico wasn't really a guitar
amp. It only had microphone and gramophone inputs; but | got a
reasonable sound from the mike input. | took that and the little electric
to Hamburg and they stood me in good stead for a month or so, until
the sweat got to the guitar. It looked OK, pretty-ish for three days, and
then the paint started to wear and it fell apart. One day someone just
broke it, sort of over my head. It was never going to last, it was just a passing now and again and seeing a violin-shaped bass, which in itself
crappy piece of show. | think it was designed to fall apart, actually. was intriguing. And it appealed to me, being left-handed, that it was
Built-in obsolescence in an early form. symmetrical; so when | turned it upside down it wouldn't look too bad. I~
Stuck out in Hamburg with no instrument, | was forced onto piano got one; a little Hofner. | paid for it outright. It was the equivalent of x
as they had one on stage at the Kaiserkeller. | was used to facing the about thirty quid, which was pretty cheap even back then. «a
audience so this was an excuse to turn my back on the audience and just That was it; that was the start of what became a kind of trademark. It
get into the music, which was good. | started to get into numbers like is a lovely instrument. And because it's so lightweight, | didn’t even feel
‘Don't Let The Sun Catch You Crying’, a Ray Charles B side. That was a as if | had a bass on — that had quite a liberating effect. It actually does
good little period for me, and I think | developed my piano-playing something to you; because it's so light you treat it more like a guitar. |
quite a bit. | ended up being slightly better than the other guys on found | became more melodic on bass than other bass-players because | __
piano from that period by pure default: having no guitar. could do lots of high stuff on the twelfth fret. Being melodic in my
So acoustic guitar is really my instrument, inasmuch as that's what | writing, it was good not always to have to play the root notes. And you A
started on. But | went through to the Rosetti Lucky Seven, then the need a few more muscles on a big bass! So, being melodic anyway, and—
piano. And then, when it became clear that Stuart was leaving the band, the combination of the instrument being very light yet with a very _
I went on to Stu's bass. This got me back in the front line, which | bassy sound, things just came together to make a certain sound, luck,
wasnt too keen on since I'd been having quite a good time at the back. really. And when I was given a Rickenbacker, during the Sgt Pepper
At that time | could just about get by on bass, putting in a very simple years (though it was slightly heavier and slightly more electric), | had
bassline now and again. firmly developed this melodious style, which gave songs like ‘With Av
We used to actually cut strings out of the piano for the bass (which | Little Help From My Friends’ and ‘Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds’
hear is impossible, but we managed to do it). If we needed an A string, fairly interesting basslines.
say, wed just get on the piano and go dink, dink, dink — A! And then it After some years | put my Hofner in a case and consigned it to
was out with the pliers, thinking, ‘They'll never notice the odd string,’ history, but | was watching the film of us on the rooftop in Let It Be,
and then try to fix it onto the bass. It worked occasionally but it's hardly years afterwards, and | noticed how lightly | was playing the bass and it
the thing to do and probably puts a huge strain on the guitar. But back brought it all back: ‘Wow, that was what | used to love about it.’
then it was very different from today where you have a roadie with a
trunk full of strings. One packet was as much as anyone ever had. It just RINGO: The drummer always sets the feel and | think that was the way
wasn't a priority to have strings. If a string went you just worked on the that I played, and then with Paul on bass — he is an amazing bass-player;
other three (or, if it was a guitar, the other five). You would ignore the to this day he is the most melodic bass-player — we would work at
one that had gone and think, ‘One of these days I'll get one.’ putting the bass and bass-drum together. As long as they're together, you
can put anything on top.
GEORGE: These days, you amplify the kit and have proper bass | only have one rule and that is to play with the singer. If the
amplifiers — we had some little Mickey Mouse amplifiers. Now there singer's singing, you don't really have to do anything, just hold it
are fifty-nine gauges cf guitar string; for us it was, ‘Can I have some of together. If you listen to my playing, | try to become an instrument;
your strings, please?’ | don't think we even knew the difference play the mood of the song. For example, ‘Four thousand holes in
between electric and acoustic strings: they were all like telegraph wires, Blackburn, Lancashire,’ — boom ba bom. | try to show that; the disen-
really thick so you couldn't even bend them. | don't expect it sounded chanting mood. The drum fills are part of it.
very good. The other thing is, | couldn't do the same drum sequence twice.
Whatever beat | would put down, | could never repeat identically,
PAUL: Anyway, after a bit | decided that | wanted to get my own because | play with my soul more than my head. My head knows to
guitar. In the centre of Hamburg there was a little music shop. I recall play the rhythms — rock'n'roll, swing, whatever — but it comes out as

XEAK @ INSTRUMENTAL BREAK ¢ INSTRUMENTAL BREAK ¢

80 INSTRUMENTAL BREAK
INSTRUMENTAL BREAK ¢ INSTRUMENTAL BREAK ¢ INSTRU!
whatever the feeling is at that moment. The interesting thing about £3 10s one). They had a good range and each one came cither blond or
_ The Beatles was that we seemed to have telepathy. Without thinking, sunburst. Mine was the straight one.
; we'd all be up or bringing it down — together. It was magic, and that I didn't have an amp to start with. The first thing | ever plugged into
__was one of the forces of The Beatles, the telepathy. (And, of course, was John’s stepfather's radiogram. It only amplified the sound a little,
the love of music, the great songs...) I've never had anything like that but it was great; except for the fact that we kept blowing out the amp or
before or since. the speakers. John knew how to get into Twitchy’s house when he was
When | first was around | was always being put down, like it was: out, so we'd plug in and play and mess about and then blow his amp,
JOHN, PAUL, GEORGE... and Ringo.’ Particularly in Britain it was, and then we'd sneak off and have to wait a few weeks until he got it
‘There's them and there's him.’ And to this day, there are music critics fixed.
who don't really appreciate the drums. But when we went to America it I swapped the Hofner President with one of the Swinging Blue Jeans
was great because there are drummers like Jim Keltner (who's still my for my third guitar, a Hofner Club 40, Next came the Futurama, which |
ee
ee
ee
finest drummer), who would say ‘Wow!’ So, in the end, being got at Frank Hessy’s. A very bad copy of a Fender Stratocaster.
appreciated by other musicians was a lot more important to me than the
_ press’s opinion. PAUL: In passing, I've never felt like | could afford a Fender. Even now
Raanbhiinly favourite drummers in the world are Jim Keltner and there's a strange thing at the back of my mind that makes me think |
ALT atts. Buddy Rich and Ginger Baker and all those great can't afford a Fender. (Amazing how these things form and stay with
m oe very fast, but they just don't get me off at all because you.) A Fender is still a bit of an exotic instrument to me and, even
though | could probably afford the factory, it seems out of reach.

GEORGE: Paul came with me when | bought the Futurama. It was on

J Ringo's a damn good drummer. He was always a good drummer. the wall with all the other guitars and Paul plugged it into the amp but
t technically good, but | think Ringo’s drumming is underrated couldn't get any sound out of it, so he turned the amp right up. The
way as Paul's bass-playing is underrated. Paul was one of the guitar had three rocker switches and | just hit one and there was an
almighty ‘boom’ through the amplifier and all the other guitars fell off
now is directly ripped off from his Beatles period. He was coy the wall. My mother signed the hire-purchase agreement for me. That
is bass-playing. He's an egomaniac about everything else, but his is, one pound down and the rest when they catch you.
playing he was always a bit coy about. He is a great musician who My fifth guitar was the Gretsch | bought in 1962 from a sailor in
1e bass like few other people could play it. If you compare his Liverpool for £75. A black Duo-Jet. (Chet Atkins used Gretsch guitars.
He always had a different Gretsch in photos
on his album covers.) That was my first
mming with Charlie Watts’s drum- American guitar. It was advertised in the
ming, they are equal to them, if not Liverpool Echo. God knows how | managed
better. 1 always objected to the fact that to get seventy-five quid together. It seemed
because Charlie came on a little more like a fortune. | remember having it in my
arty’ than Ringo and knew jazz and did inside pocket, thinking, ‘| hope nobody
_ cartoo s, that he. got credit. | think that mugs me.’
atlie's a damn good drummer, and Next, in 1964, while we were staying at
other guy a good bass-player, but | the Plaza in New York for The Ed Sullivan
= ink Paul and. Ringo stand up any- Show, the Rickenbacker people came and
~ where, with any of the rock musicians. gave me one of their twelve-string guitars.
j s
Not technically great. None of us were After that trip | used it a lot. It was a great
ical musicians. None of us could sound, and in those days the only other type
remuires None of us can write it. But of twelve-string available had a great big fat
ye aspure musicians, as humans inspired to neck (it would have a high action, be a
make noise, they're as good as anybody.” bugger to get in tune and impossible to
» ~~ Vm what I call a primitive musician. Meaning no schooling. | didn't mash the strings down). The Rickenbacker had a slim neck and low
ever take the instrument that far. I just took it enough to enable me to do action. The twelve machine heads were fitted very tidily, and in a way
, vin wanted to do, which was express myself.” which made it simple to recognise which string you were tuning. The
| played a lot of harmonica and mouth organ when | was a child. pegs for the six regular strings were positioned sideways while the pegs
o) Me Do’ is rock'n'roll, pretty funky: the gimmick was the har- for the octave-extra six were placed backwards as on old Spanish guitars.
onica. (There had been ‘Hey! Baby’ and then there was a terrible thing John already had a little six-string Rickenbacker, the famous blond
called IRemember You’; and we did those numbers, so we started using one with the short-scaled neck that he later had painted black; so after |
» it on ‘Love Me Do’ just for arrangements.) And then we stuck it on was given the twelve-string at the Plaza, John and | both had
‘Please Please Me’ and then we stuck it on ‘From Me To You, and then Rickenbackers and they became synonymous with The Beatles.
dropped it; it got embarrassing.”
, And I've always loved guitars. | still have my black Rickenbacker, JOHN: The arm on the old one wasn't bad, but we had the
__ which used to be blond, which is the first good guitar | ever had. It's a bit Rickenbacker people to see us in New York. They gave me a new one
hammered now. | just keep it for kicks, really. | bought it in Germany, on and the neck is great. I'd like to play this make of guitar all the time.
HP. I remember that whatever it cost, it was a hell of a lot of money to George only got his because he didn't want me to be the only one in
me at the time. the group with a Rickenbacker.”
“Hl
GEORGE: When we were first in Hamburg, we'd gone to Steinways GEORGE: I used a Stratocaster around Rubber Soul time, on ‘Drive My
because we didn't have very good equipment. That's where John bought Car’ and those kind of things. | used it quite a lot later when | got into
his Rickenbacker and at the same hire-purchase session | bought a playing slide in the fate Sixties and early Seventies. | painted it before
" Gibson amplifier. I've no idea what happened to that amp. It was we did the ‘All You Need Is Love’ TV satellite show. It was powder blue
beautiful looking, but it didn't have any balls. originally. The paint started flaking off immediately. We were painting
‘ My sequence of guitars was: first; my crummy little £3 10s number. everything at that time; we were painting our houses, our clothes, our
_ Second; a Hofner President. Non-electric, but you could buy a pick-up cars, our shop! Everything. In those days day-glo orange and lime paints
for a few pounds that would screw on to the bottom of the finger board were very rare, but | discovered where to buy them — very thick rubbery
— which I did — which made the guitar semi-electric. (Alternatively, put stuff. | got a few different colours and painted the Strat, not very
the paint was just too thick. | had also found out
- the head of the guitar to some sort of cavity, a wardrobe or a cupboard artistically because
_ ora door, anything that will vibrate, and — because sound resonates that about cellulose paint, which came in a tube with a ball tip, so | filled in
way — it will amplify slightly. | used to play my guitar against the the scratch plate with that and drew on the head of the guitar with
Pattie's sparkly green nail varnish.
wardrobe.) The Hofner guitars were quite nice (especially after the little

MENTAL BREAK @ INSTRUMENTAL BREAK @ INSTRUMENTAL

INSTRUMENTAL BREAK 81
PAUL: IT WAS NEVER AN
OVERNIGHT SUCCESS.
It started in pubs; we went on
to talent contests and then to
working men's clubs. We played
Hamburg clubs, and then we
started to play town halls and night
clubs, and then ballrooms. There
could be as many as 2,000 people in a ballroom, so if you did a gig
there the word really got round. Next up from that was theatres, and
Brian took us through all these steps.
When we began to headline bills on theatres, we felt we had
really arrived. The next ladder to climb was radio. It was a gentle
thing; we had conquered the clubs — we'd conquered the Indra, we'd
conquered the Cavern — and we had gradually became quite known,
so it was, ‘Well, what's left? Radiol’
We wanted to be on Brian Matthew's Saturday Club. This was a
huge radio show, and the thing | loved about listening to it was that |
could wake up after a week of school and have a lie-in. | had a radio
by my bed and | would lie there until about eleven. The most
delicious lie-ins of your life are those teenage lie-ins: wake up feeling
great, turn the radio on and
Saturday Club is still on for an
hour. So we really wanted to
be on that, and we knew that it
had a huge audience.

NEIL ASPINALL: They'd sold a

lot of records for ‘Love Me Do’ to
get to Number Seventeen, which
was great for a Liverpool band —
they'd made the charts! Now that
The Beatles were known
nationally, not just in the
Northwest and Liverpool, they
were being played on the radio
and people everywhere were
hearing them. In 1963 they
started doing BBC radio shows,
playing live. They did about five
numbers on each show, all
through 1963-1965.

JOHN: We did a lot of tracks

for Saturday Club, a lot of stuff
we'd been doing in the Cavern
or Hamburg. ‘Three Cool
Cats’ | think we did. There's
some good stuff and they were
well recorded.”
 oe

<a
GEORGE: After the Hamburg period we
were driving up and down, doing gigs at
the BBC in London a lot. We got a better
van and made more money and then a
better van still.

RINGO: There are lots of driving stories.

This is how a band gets close: in the van,
going up and down the M1, freezing your
balls off, fighting for the seats. A lot of
madness went on in the van, but it got us
together. We had a Bedford and Neil would
drive. There'd be the passenger seat for one
of us, and the other three — whichever
three; the rest of us — would sit behind on
the bench seat, which was pretty miserable.
We would go everywhere in the van
and the amps and everything would fit in it
with us. | remember sliding all over Scotland. It was bloody freezing in We'd started to push the van back up on the road when, out of
the winter. nowhere, came, ‘'Allo, ‘allo, ‘allo, what's all this then?’ It was a cop, and
he booked us for crashing. A couple of months later | went to court;
JOHN: But we always got screams in Scotland. | suppose they haven't Brian came with me for moral support. (He did stand by his lads.) |
got much else to do up there. Touring was a relief — just to get out and think they banned me for three months.
break new ground. We were beginning to feel stale and cramped.”
RINGO: Another great van story was when George and Paul were both
RINGO: We never stopped anywhere. If we were in Elgin on a planning to drive the van; George got into the driving seat and Paul had
Thursday and needed to be in Portsmouth on Friday, we would just the keys, and there was no way one was going to help the other. We
drive. We didn't know how to stop this van! If we had a day off and we couldn't go anywhere. We sat there for two hours. When you're touring,
were going to Liverpool from London, we would just drive. things can be pretty tense sometimes and the littlest thing can suddenly
There was only a small piece of motorway in those days, so we'd be turn into a mountain; that was one of the great ones.
on the A5 for hours. Some nights it was so foggy that we'd be doing one
mile an hour, but we'd still keep going. We were like homing pigeons; GEORGE: AS A BAND, WE WERE TIGHT. THAT
we just had to keep getting home.
WAS ONE THING TO BE SAID ABOUT US; WE
One night I remember, when it was very, very cold, the three of us
on the bench seat were lying on top of each other with a bottle of WERE REALLY TIGHT, AS FRIENDS. WE COULD
whisky. When the one on top got so cold that hypothermia was setting ARGUE A LOT AMONG OURSELVES, BUT WE
in, it would be his turn to get on the bottom. We'd warm each other up
that way; keep swigging the whisky, keep going home. WERE VERY, VERY CLOSE TO EACH OTHER,
AND IN THE COMPANY OF OTHER PEOPLE
PAUL: Quite an image. People think of stardom as glamorous, and
there's us freezing — lying literally on top of each other, as a Beatle
OR OTHER SITUATIONS WE'D ALWAYS STICK
sandwich. TOGETHER.
If we were arguing, it was always about things like space: ‘Who's
GEORGE: There were a lot of good times in the van; all the rough-and- going to sit on the spare seat?’ — because everyone else had to sit on
tumble stuff that happens. And there were some hysterical things that the wheel arches or the floor all the way to Scotland or somewhere.
happened. | had a good crash once. We were coming over the Pennines, We used to get ratty with each other, pushing, protesting, ‘It's my turn
the roads were icy and and | was driving pretty quickly as we came in the front.’
through what turned out to be Goole in Yorkshire. Everything was fine
until suddenly I went into a right-hand turn. It was a bit sharper than it PAUL: There were a lot of laughs in the back of the car, just naming
looked and we went up onto the grass bank, which then sloped down to albums and chatting about birds and other groups’ music and things. |
the left. The whole van tipped as we went down the embankment, at can't remember nmiany deep conversations. There was a lot of giggling
the bottom of which was a wire-mesh fence with concrete posts around though.
a Burton's factory. I do remember one incident: going up the motorway when the
We bounced along — bump, bump, bump — knocking down all these windscreen got knocked out by a pebble. Our great road manager Mal
concrete poles and finally came to a stop with Neil sitting in the front Evans was driving and he just put his hat backwar« 1s on nis hand,
seat next to me, howling, ‘Ow, ow, my arm!’ The accident had ripped punched the windscreen out completely, and drove on. This was winter
the filler cap off and the petrol was pouring out. We got out and had to in Britain and there was freezing fog and Mal was having to look out fo!
- shove T-shirts and things into the hole to try to stop the flow of petrol. the kerb all the way up to Liverpool — 200 miles

ON THE ROAD 83
84 ON THE ROAD
RINGO: Neil and Mal were all we ever
had. Throughout our fame, we just had two
guys looking after us. Mal joined us full-
time in 1963. He was our bodyguard, but
he was great at it because he would never
hurt anyone. He was just big enough to
say, Excuse me, let the boys through.’ He
was pretty strong. He could lift the bass
amp on his own, which was a miracle. He
should have been in the circus.

MAL EVANS: I walked down this little street

called Mathew Street that I'd never noticed
before and came to this place, the Cavern Club.
I'd never been inside a club, but I heard this
music coming out — real rock it sounded, a bit like Elvis. PAUL: MAL EVANS: I'd never seen a drum-kit close up before. I
So I paid my shilling and went in... MAL EVANS GOT SHOT BY THE LA didnt understand any of it. Neil helped me the first couple
POLICE DEPARTMENT IN 1976. IT of days, but thefirst time I was on my own was terrible. It
GEORGE: Mal used to come into the Cavern. He WAS SO CRAZY, SO CRAZY. MAL was a huge stage and my mind went blank. I didn't know
worked as a telephone engineer around the corner WAS A BIG LOVEABLE BEAR OF A where to put anything. I asked a drummer from another
and would come into the club in his lunch hour. ROADIE; HE WOULD GO OVER THE group to belp me. I didn't realise each drummer likes his
He'd sit there among all the other people and request TOP OCCASIONALLY, BUT WE ALL cymbals at a special height. He did them his own way, but
Elvis songs. After a while we caught on that here was KNEW HIM AND NEVER HAD ANY they were useless to Ringo.
this guy who always wanted Elvis songs, so we'd say, PROBLEMS. THE LAPD WEREN'T SO The worst of all was at the Finsbury Empire in
‘Well, now we'd like to do a request for Mal.’ After a FORTUNATE. THEY WERE JUST TOLD London, when I lost Jobn's guitar. It was one he'd hadfor
while he got a job there as a bouncer in the evenings. THAT HE WAS UPSTAIRS WITH A years as well. It just disappeared. ‘Where's my Jumbo?’ he
One time Neil was sick and we needed someone SHOTGUN AND SO THEY RAN UP, said. I didn't know — it’ still a mystery.
to drive us to London, so we asked Mal. He was a KICKED THE DOOR IN AND SHOT It was great meeting all the people I'd seen on TV: I
nice bloke, and by this time we'd been chatting with HIM. HIS GIRLFRIEND HAD TOLD was really star-struck. I quickly realised of course that
him a lot. He had to take a couple of days off work THEM, ‘HE'S A BIT MOODY AND HE'S people were being nice, trying to get to know me, just to use
to do it. Then as we were expanding with all the gigs GOT SOME DOWNERS.’ HAD | BEEN me to get to The Beatles. I soon got to spot them a mile off.
we realised we had to get someone else to drive the THERE | WOULD HAVE BEEN ABLE TO
van and leave Neil to look after us and our suits and SAY, ‘MAL, DON'T BE SILLY.’ IN GEORGE: He loved his job, he was brilliant, and |
all of that. It was a unanimous thought. So Mal left FACT, ANY OF HIS FRIENDS COULD often regret that he got killed. Right to this day |
his job and came to work for us. HAVE TALKED HIM OUT OF IT keep thinking, ‘Mal, where are you?’ If only he was
WITHOUT ANY SWEAT, BECAUSE HE out there now. He was such good fun, but he was
NEIL ASPINALL: My weight went down to about eight WAS NOT A NUTTER. BUT HIS also very helpful: he could do everything. He had a
stone on one tour, and I told Brian I needed somebody to GIRLFRIEND — SHE WAS AN LA GIRL bag that he developed over the years, because it
help. Thats when we got Mal Evans. We all knew Mal — DIDN'T KNOW HIM THAT WELL. would always be: ‘Mal, have you got an Elastoplast?
the bouncer, be was the ‘gentle giant’ — a good friend. SHE SHOULD NOT HAVE RUNG THE Mal, have you got a screwdriver? Mal, have you got
Mal started driving the van and looking after all the COPS, BUT THAT'S THE WAY IT a bottle of this? Have you got that?’ And he always
equipment and the stage-clothes, while I tended to look after GOES... A THUMP ON THE DOOR, had everything. If he didn't have it, he'd get it very
The Beatles and the press and other people in our lives. ‘WHERE IS HE? WHERE'S THE quickly. He was one of those people who loved what
And I had to teach Mal bow to set up Ringo’ drums! ASSAILANT?’ BANG, BANG, BANG. he was doing and didn't have any problem about
(Ringo has said that atfirst I wouldn't set up bis drums. THEY DON’T ASK QUESTIONS, THEY service. Everybody serves somebody in one way or
But I did.) SHOOT FIRST. another, but some people don't like the idea. Mal
had no problem with it. He was very humble, but not
without dignity; it was not belittling for him to do what we wanted, so
he was perfect for us because that was what we needed.

PAUL: It was a saying of Mal’s that: ‘To serve is to rule.’

GEORGE: | remember once Mal put a guitar and some suitcases on a

rack on the back of the Austin Princess held on with some bungee
ropes. We were on the A1 in Yorkshire. The boot was open and | heard
a noise. | remember looking out of the window and seeing the guitar,
still in its case, bouncing down the road and me shouting to the driver
to stop (we had about three or four different chauffeurs over all the
years), but it was too late because there was a truck behind us that ran
straight over it. | think it was a Gibson acoustic.
It was hard, organising all the equipment; although there wasn't
much — just a drum-kit and three amplifiers. But there was still quite a
lot to get in and out. Packing up, Neil would have to get the equipment
carry some out, open the van, put it in the van and then lock the van so
it wouldn't get stolen; and then go back in, get the next bit and come
back out, open the van, put it in, lock it again. That's why we needed an
extra hand after a while; Neil had had to do everything
Our early van became the centre of attention every time it pulled
up. It was brush-painted in red and grey, and from head to foot was
covered in graffiti — girls’ names, and things like ‘Il love you John’. It
looked interesting, but the moment anybody saw it they would feel free
to write all over it. It also presented the problem that if anything was
going to get nicked, it was obvious where it was kept. Neil always had
to worry about that.

ON THE ROAD 85
 NEIL ASPINALL: They did some funny gigs. I remember the worst
show was when they played Crewe. There were only five people
there. There were more of us than there were of the audience, but they
still went on stage twice, and the five people stayed. When we went
back there a month later, there were 700 people. (Probably including
the original five. )

PAUL: Birmingham was a hard gig. Whenever we played

there, they would double book us: two places very close
together, they thought — Wolverhampton and Birmingham,
say, or Wolverhampton and Coventry. It would be quite
good for us inasmuch as we'd get a double-pay night, but it
was very hard. If the latter of the venues had a revolving
stage, we'd have to set up while the other band was playing,
trying to tune up by holding the guitar close to our ears, over the din of the
other band. And when they swung the stage round we'd be praying we
hadn't got all our leads caught up.
On the longer journeys we would stop at service stations such as the
Watford Gap to get a nice greasy meal. Occasionally we might see Gerry
Marsden and the guys or other Liverpool bands there, and we'd have a laugh
and exchange jokes.
ea

RINGO: Elgin was one of the strangest gigs we played. We'd got all the way
to the outskirts of Scotland to find an L-shaped room — and we were playing
at the wrong end! | have this vision of the audience all wearing wellies; farmers and country
people. The bar was on one side and we were in the other, and you could tell which side was
doing the business. In those days they were still laughing at us because we'd be out there in the
leather and stomping. Then we got in my car and slid all the way to the next gig.
On that tour we were staying in one of those theatrical boarding-houses. The rumour went
round that before we came they'd had a hunchback staying, and we all got a bit worried that we'd
be having his bed. George and John went to stay in another place but Paul and | took a chance
that we wouldn't catch the hunchback.
We stayed in guesthouses a lot. (We only started to stay in hotels from mid-1963.) We used
to come down to London and stay at one in Russell Square.
We'd have two rooms; sharing two and two, and it could be any two. At the beginning it
always used to be Paul with me, because | was the new boy and the other two didn't really want
to deal with my sleeping habits, whatever they may have been. Maybe | snored, maybe my feet
stank; maybe theirs did, but they knew each other. They'd been through a lot of life, | still had
to get into it with them.

GEORGE: Doubling up rooms on the tours, after Pete Best left, | used to pair with John because
I felt I'd been instrumental in talking them into getting Ringo into the band. | thought that
rather than me hang out with Ringo, it would be best if he shared with one of them because that
would integrate him better.

RINGO: Often at small hotels, when we got back from a gig there'd be nothing to eat. We
would have to beg for a sandwich that had been made at four in the afternoon. They'd say,
We've had Alma Cogan here, you know, and she didn't put up a fuss. Dinner's over by eight.’ So
we'd say, ‘Hey, man, we've been playing, we just want something to eat. Couldn't you open the
bar or something? — ‘Oh, no, sir, | don't think we could open the bar. We couldn't do that —
youre not in London now.’ The night staff were terrible — poor people.
The next morning Neil would wake us up and get us to the gig on time, do the lights and
the sound, Executive material.

RINGO: FirsT YOU PLAY EVERY FREE GIG IN THE WORLD. THEN YOU START PLAYING CLUBS AND FIGHTING FOR
SOME MONEY. THEN YOU PLAY DANCE HALLS, AND SUDDENLY YOU ARE IN A THEATRE WITH A SEATED AUDIENCE
(THAT DIDN'T LAST LONG). | LOVED THE THEATRES; I STILL DO. | LOVE PLAYING VENUES LIKE RADIO CITY
Music HALL. | LOVE THE CONTACT. (WE LOST THE CONTACT, PLAYING STADIUMS. I DON'T REALLY EVER WANT
TO RLAY STADIUMS AGAIN. IT WAS THRILLING IN 1964, BECAUSE WE WERE THE FIRST TO DO IT. Now, I DON'T
LIKE GOING TO SEE BANDS IF THEY'RE PLAYING IN A STADIUM. IT’S LIKE TELEVISION — YOU MIGHT AS WELL WAIT
UNTIL THE VIDEO COMES OUT.)

ON THE ROAD
 4
rd wil 1963, IDE, BY SID¥ athe Ge ri tu Lower Regew
} cords) “of mn wecea? 30 p.mg
“oped at approximately 10. SO a Court, Hotel, Loadon, presu

~~ Ball
ring basy " 4

1@ College mam : a
+. * ry 2

+) ".

Ning 6e2h. show gi!

ocr ake be ars (Jecording
oreide Bayéime Club, TENBUNY “YELLS
% Fonade, bLANCHESTER.
Ball A LONDORS
) STOKES. & S

Pleasure Grounds
finners Concert WEB
sI3¢@ Kestaurant, TONDORS’
“al Hall, SOUTHPOKT.
sstio FINSBURY one
rfield Ballroom, CROYDON,
io Hall, SHRLMSE
iol fall, magi rcH
 PARK LANE
LONDON W.1.
lelephone: Grosvenor 6 3(
Telegrams: Inland: Grovh
Overseas: Grovh

SAW HER STANDING T

seat we ee

FRem WE To Yau
Cyowd Evevuin ele...

This Boy,
HOLD Your. HAND,
TI. THERE ANAS YOU
Cotweveut) seep Conner Neg le

SHE Lover You

Twist AND SHouT.

NEIL ASPINALL: They started touring with the Arthur Howes Agency. He
put on tours playing all the Gaumont Theatres, Odeons and other cinemas
around the country. The first person that they toured with was Helen Shapiro.
I was now suddenly supposed to be handling complicated lighting systems.
It wasn't computerised as it is Sols Then there were the ge batons at
the side and overhead lights. On the first night, Johnny Clapson, the Shapiro
tour manager, asked who TheBeatles’ road manager was. There was no
answer. In the end he said, ‘Well, is anybody with The Beatles?’ I said, ‘Yeah,
lam,’ and he said, ‘Well, you're their road manager.’ So then Clapson asked,
‘Where's your lighting plot?’ —‘What lighting plot?’ — ‘Look, we're on in half
an hour,’ be said. ‘I'll do the lights
for the first house. You watch what I do and
after that you're on your own.’
That's bow and when I became The Beatles’ official road manager. I never
thought about the title before. II'd just done everything that they didn't do. I did
whatever was needed, and thats how it's always been.
I had to doa different lighting plot every night, because every time we got to
a new theatre (depending, say, on what pantomime they’ d had on at Christmas )
they bad differently coloured or operated lights. If we played a cinema, the
projection guys — who normally showed the movie — would use the projectors as
the spotlights. They would always have the spotlight on Jobu when Paul was
singing, and on Paul when John was singing. They would never get it right,
but they would be up there and I would be down in the house trying to scream
through a little microphone with thousands of kids screaming too. It was
always chaotic. I used to try and sort them out at the beginning of the show
take them something to drink, bribe them into getting it right

GEORGE: The sound situation was bad. In some places all they had was
one microphone. The Empire Theatre in those days had only one
coming up from the floor in the front centre of the stage. (1 remember
seeing The Everly Brothers there, both singing into this one mike
They'd sing ‘Wake up, little Susie, wake up...’ and then both reach
forward with their guitars and hold them up to the big old mike and
strum away. We used to have to do that.) Later, when they upgraded
the sound system, venues started having two microphones and then the
mikes came on moveable stands. We used to specify two mikes after a
while, so that we could do our routine. It's funny, though; we never had
the drums or the amplifiers miked up.

JOHN: There was always trouble with mikes on every tour. No theatre
ever got it how we liked it. Even rehearsing in the aft
telling them how we wanted it, it still wouldn't be 1
be in the wrong position or not loud enough. The
as they would for amateur talent night.
Dp
Perhaps we
them not taking our music seriously. Brian woul
room and we'd shout at him. He'd signal back
could do. It drove us mad
 a alae
=a

eer Wien prs

wR NGO: The single ‘Please Please Me’ went te
Number Clipped 4
(963, when we were touring with Helen Shapiro. We used to open for
her, then hang out until the next show; it was always a bore — then,
suddenly, we had a Number One!

ORGE: That tour was when we first did the Moss Empire circuit, the
biggest gigs that there were in England at the time, other than the
Palladium. We were quite happy with that — Helen Shapiro was
edfablished, she'd been around and had a bunch of hits. But when ‘Please
Pi@ase Me’ got to Number One, all the people coming to the show were
just waiting for The Beatles. It was embarrassing, because she was a very
nige person.
4
JGHN: We'd had a Top Thirty entry with ‘Love Me Do’ and we really
th®ught we were on top of the world. Then came ‘Please Please Me’ —
and wham! We tried to make it as simple as possible. Some of the stuff
weve written in the past has been a bit way-out, but we aimed this one
straight at the hit parade.”
Tt was my attempt at writing a Roy Orbison song. | remember the
day | wrote it. | remember the pink eiderdown over the bed, sitting in
one of the bedrooms in my house on Menlove Avenue, my auntie's
place. | heard Roy Orbison doing ‘Only The Lonely’ on the radio. | was
also always intrigued by the words to a Bing Crosby song that went,
‘Please lend a little ear to my pleas.’ The double use of the word ‘please’.
So it was a combination of Roy Orbison and Bing Crosby.*°
But what made it more exciting was that we almost abandoned it as
the B side of ‘Love Me Do’. We changed our minds only because we
were so tired the night we did ‘Love Me Do’. We'd been going over it a
few times and when we came to the question of the flipside, we
intended using ‘Please Please Me’. Our recording manager, George
Martin, thought our arrangement was fussy, so we tried to make it
simpler. We were getting very tired, though, and we just couldn't seem
to get it right. We are conscientious about our work and we don't like to
rush things.”

GEORGE MARTIN: In thefirst year, I bad thefinal decision on songs (I

didn't later on, but I did then), but they persuaded me to let them have their own
songs on both sides of their first single. I was still thinking that we should
release their recording of 'How Do You Do It’. They said, ‘Couldn't we do one
of our own, “Please Please Me?’ When I beard it originally, it was a Roy
Orbison type of song, a very slow rocker, with a high vocal part, rather
dreary, to be honest.

PAUL: We sang it and George Martin said, ‘Can we change the tempo?’
We said, ‘What's that?’ He said, ‘Make it a bit faster. Let me try it.’ And
he did. We thought, ‘Oh, that’s all right, yes.’ Actually, we were a bit
embarrassed that he had found a better tempo than we had.

JOHN: Eventually, George Martin suggested we do another song.

‘Leave “Please Please Me" until some other time,’ he said, ‘and see if you
can tidy it up a bit.’
In the following weeks we went over it again and again. We
changed the tempo a little, we altered the words slightly and we went »
over the idea of featuring the harmonica, just as we'd done on ‘Love Me
Do. By the time the session came around we were so happy with the
result, we couldn't get it recorded fast enough.® a Mae
 ay
{Ss a
S cn }
TELEGRAM a.= \a
4 i is

rrerix Time handed In. Office of Origia and Service Instructions. Words
,-

179 3.40 REGENT TS 20/20

> *

a. «3 =
<<

5 CAVERN CLUB MATHEW STREET

JOHN: THE FIRST ALBUM WAS RECORDED

IN ONE LONG TWELVE-HOUR SESSION.”
GEORGE: THE SECOND ONE TOOK EVEN LONGER!
GEORGE MARTIN: They came-back with a speeded-up NEIL ASPINALL: From the early recording sessions they
version, and I said, ‘OK, let's give it a whirl,’ and at the end always worked in No. 2 Studio, at Abbey Road. The
of that session I was able to say to them, ‘You've got your JOHN: A YEAR AGO, BEFORE control room was on a higher level. There were stairs coming
first Number One. Great.’ ALL THIS HAPPENED, WE down into the studio, it was a quite big, barn-like room. I
COULD ENTER AND LEAVE ANY know The Beatles were very nervous atfirst, but then Iguess
NEIL ASPINALL: That's where they wanted to be — THEATRE, STAY IN AN HOTEL, anybody would be at their first recording session. It was
Number One; but with it came the beginning of HAVE A NIGHT OUT, AND GO really a learning process — not just
for them but
for George
Beatlemania. They'd bad a lot of madness in Liverpool, but SHOPPING WITHOUT BEING Martin too, and they worked pretty well.
they knew all the kids there. They didn't try to jump on you MOBBED. THINGS WE REALLY
or overturn the van or rip the wing mirrors off. Suddenly ENJOY DOING HAVE NOW JOHN: We were in a recording studio for the first time
this absolute craziness was going on, which was very BECOME PIPE DREAMS. PERHAPS in our lives, and it was done in twelve hours because
exciting, but difficult to deal with. Now I bad to organise ONE DAY IT WILL ALL DIE they wouldn't spend any more money.
getting in and out of theatres, instead of just being able to DOWN, THEN WE CAN GO That record tried to capture us live, and was the
walk in normally. BACK TO LIVING NORMAL, nearest thing to what we might have sounded like to
Now they bad BBC shows and an office, and a fan PEACEFUL LIVES.°? the audiences in Hamburg and Liverpool. Still, you
club in London — Cliff Richard had his own fan club, so don't get that live atmosphere of the crowd stomping
that’s an indication of bow things were going. The first move on the beat with you; but it's the nearest you can get to
was to get band-out photographs made, all posed in the collarless jackets. They knowing what we sounded like before we became the ‘clever’ Beatles.”
signed them in front of the fans, I gave them away. One of the things is we worked without echo. When they came out,
When they performed, it was just a permanent scream. It was mainly girls, we couldn't afford one. By the time we could afford it we didn't like it,
but it was a strange thing about The Beatles that there were a lot ofguys there so we never used it on stage. It was a good thing, not getting echo,
as well. They appealed to everybody. because we would probably have sounded like all the other groups.”

PAUL: We were quite glad for a short period that people were GEORGE MARTIN: I bad been up to the Cavern and I'd seen what they
screaming; because with some of those early gigs, we wished that could do, I knew their repertoire, knew what they were able to perform and |
someone would cover the noise we were making. The equipment was said, ‘Lets record every song you've got; come down to the studios and we'll just
often dreadful and we weren't always too good. | can't remember where whistle through them in a day.’ We started about eleven in the morning, finished
it was but one night we were very out of tune and it was fairly about eleven at night, and recorded a complete album during that time.
disastrous, but we just scldiered on. To begin with, The Beatles didn't really have much say in recording
operations. It was only after the first year that they started getting really
JOHN: The worst part is getting out of the theatre. When you think interested in studio techniques. But they always wanted to get the thing right, so
you can get away safely and you've managed to get into the coach, you it wasn't a one-take operation. They would listen to it, and then do two or three
find that some nut has let the tyres down.” takes until they got it. It was only later on that they were able to afford the
indulgence of more time and lots of re-takes.
GEORGE: Some of these places, the big theatres, by the time we'd had
a record or two out — on the tour with Chris Montez, say — there RINGO: For me it is all a bit of a blur. The sessions and those times
would be girls standing outside, the early birds. We would pull up at until we did the album — and that, too — are a bit of a blur.
the gig and run through them to the stage door. And if you could We didn't rehearse for our first album. In my head, it was done ‘live’.
quickly suss out the ones who looked half decent, you could push them We did the songs through first, so they could get some sort of sound on
in through the door with you, slam it behind, and then they'd come up each one; then we had to just run, run them down.
to the room...
GEORGE: We were permanently on the edge. We ran through all the
RINGO: After Number One, where else is there to go? Number One songs before we recorded anything. We'd play a bit and George Martin
was It. After that, of course, every bloody thing we did was Number would say, ‘Well, what else have you got?’
One and it got strange because in a weird way we were waiting for the ‘Do You Want To Know A Secret’ was ‘my song’ on the album. |
one that wasn't Number One. And when that happened we felt, ‘Thank didn't like my vocal on it. | didn’t know how to sing; nobody told me
God that's over.’ It was a lot of pressure: we had a dozen in a row that how to sing: ‘Listen, do da do, Do you want to know a secret? do da do,
went to Number One, so the one that didn’t was a real relief. Do you promise not to tell...’

TREAT GROUP FROM A HAPPY GUY

TULATIONS ON A WONDERFUG ACHIEVEMENT=

\SE PLEASE ME :
~ mm . «
JOHN: I can't say I wrote ‘Do You Want end of the day, all we wanted to do was
To Know A Secret’ for George. | was in drink pints of milk.
the first apartment I'd ever had _ that Waiting to hear that LP played back
wasn't shared by fourteen other students was one of our most worrying experiences.
— gals and guys at art school. I'd just We're perfectionists: if it had come out
married Cyn, and Brian Epstein gave us any old way, we'd have wanted to do it all
his secret little apartment that he kept in over again. As it happens, we were very
Liverpool for his sexual liaisons; separate happy with the result.
from his home life.
So | had this thing in my head and | GEORGE: The LP cover was photo-
wrote it and gave it to George to sing.*” graphed with us looking over the balcony
at the EMI offices in Manchester Square. It
GEORGE: We might have run through was by Angus McBean — and I've still got
‘Keep Your Hands Off My Baby’ (Little the suit | wore then. (I wore it in 1990 to a
Eva's follow-up to ‘The Loco-Motion’) by party. It was a Fifties party but | cheated
Goffin. and King at _ that session. and wore a Sixties suit. It looked as if it
Sometimes we learnt songs and did them fitted, but | had to have the trousers open
once or twice and then gave them up: at the top.)
like Paul at the Aintree Institute singing We went back in 1969 and did the
‘Thats When Your Heartaches Begin’, same picture for the ‘Red’ and the ‘Blue’
the Elvis record where he talks in the albums, although we had planned it to be
middle. Have you ever heard such a the Let It Be cover at one point.
dumb line? — ‘Love is a thing that we Right up to and even through the
never can share.’ psychedelic period, EMI was like the
‘Anna’ by Arthur Alexander was on Civil Service. They did train all their
the album, too. | remember having engineers properly. They would start on
several records by him, and John sang tape copies, and then would become tape
three or four of his songs. (‘Soldier Of operators, and then assist with demo
Love’ was one; it appears on the BBC sessions, and only after they had been
recordings.) Arthur Alexander used a through all the different departments, they
peculiar drum pattern, which we tried to might be allowed to engineer a demo
copy; but we couldn't quite do it, so in session, before finally becoming an
the end we'd invented something quite engineer. Or, if suddenly there was no
bizarre but equally original. A lot of the engineer available, a trainee might get his
time we tried to copy things but wouldn't big break. They trained them well, but to
be able to, and so we'd end up with our still have to go into work in a suit and tie
own versions. (I'm sure that's how reggae in 1967 was a bit silly.
came about. | think people were playing
calypso music and listening to rock'n'roll PAUL: I remember being pretty nervous
in the Sixties and thought, ‘We'll try on most occasions in the recording studio,
that,’ but they couldn't do it and it came but very excited; a nervous excitement. It
out as reggae. Now we all try to play was fantastic to be in Abbey Road. |
reggae and can't.) remember meeting Sir Donald Wolfit on
the front steps: we were coming in, he
RINGO: We started around about noon was going out, and it struck me as
and finished at midnight, in my book, something from out of the Just William’
with John being really hoarse by ‘Twist books — the great man! He had a coat
And Shout’. We knew the songs, because with a big astrakhan collar — very
that was the act we did all over the theatrical — and great big bushy eyebrows.
country. That was why we could easily He looked down at us from beneath these
go into the studio and record them. The eyebrows, — rather patronisingly but
mike situation wasn’t complicated either: benevolently, and said in a deep voice,
one in front of each amp, two overheads ‘Hello, how are you?’
for the drums, one for the singer and one We weren't even allowed into the
for the bass-drum. You still never hear control room, then. It was Us and Them.
the bass-drum and, now | think about it, They had white shirts and ties in the
I'm not sure if it’s not just a confused control room, they were grown-ups. In
memory of mine that there ever was one. the corridors and back rooms there were
guys in full-length lab coats, maintenance
GEORGE MARTIN: Iknew that ‘Twist men and engineers, and then there was us
And Shout' was a real larynx-tearer and | the tradesmen. We came in through the
said, ‘We're not going to record that until the tradesman’s entrance and were helped by
very end of the day, because ifwe record it the lower people in the organisation to
early on, you're not going to have any voice set up our stuff. That's how it was and
left.’ So that was the last thing we did that night. We did two takes, and after stayed like until we became very famous (and even then those
that John didn't have any voice left at all. It was good enough for the record, conditions still existed except that we were doing late-night recordings
and it needed that linen-ripping sound. from the time of Sgt Pepper).
We gradually became the workmen who took over the factory. In
JOHN: The last song nearly killed me. My voice wasn't the same for a the end, we had the run of the whole building. It would be us, the
long time after; every time | swallowed, it was like sandpaper. | was recording people on our session and a doorman. The:
always bitterly ashamed of it, because | could sing it better than that; nobody else there. It was amazing, just wandering around, having
but now it doesn't bother me. You can hear that I'm just a frantic guy smoke in the echo chamber. | think we knew the place better than the
doing his best.” We sang for twelve hours, almost non-stop. We had chairman of the company, because we lived there. | even got a house just
colds, and we were concerned how it would affect the record. At the round the corner, | loved it so much. | didn’t want ever to leave
THE BEATLES THE HIT PARADE STARS

GEORGE: In March we toured with Tommy Roe and Chris Montez, JOHN: I'VE WRITTEN THINGS WITHOUT PAUL FOR YEARS.
who were supposed to share equal top billing: one of them closing the WE'VE ALWAYS WRITTEN TOGETHER AND SEPARATELY.
God Save ifirs®house and one the second house for the show. Chris Montez had a ANOTHER WRITER, | DON’T NEED — GEORGE MAYBE;
big hit, ‘Let's Dance’, and Tommy Roe had ‘Sheila’. I'D WRITE WITH HIM.
The Beatles were getting more and more popular — unfortunately for
»ifommy:and«Chriss»Barkinginlondon was the opening night of the RINGO: The real thrill, after we'd made ‘Love Me Do’ (even though |
tour and there was a big huddled meeting after the show because Arthur wasn't on it), ‘Please Please Me’ and ‘From Me To You’ — the first three
Howes, the promoter, said The Beatles had better close the first half. | singles — was that we always knew when they were going to be on the
_think .Chris: Montez: was closing: the. end of the performance and radio. Brian would say, ‘Boys, it’s on at twenty past seven.’ We'd be in
Tommy Roe the end of the first half. We said, 'No, no, Tommy and the car and stop wherever we were to listen. The other great deal was
Chris close,’ because they still sounded like big names to us. | remember that every time a record of ours moved up the charts, we would have a
Tommy Roe getting all uptight, saying, ‘I'm contracted, and I'm going to celebratory dinner. You'll notice if you look at The Beatles from when
leave if | don't close the show!’ we started recording, in the first eighteen months our weight went right
I felt sorry for Chris up because we were eating all this food. That's when I discovered
GAUMONT WolvERAAPTON | Montez; he was just a little smoked salmon. | never ate salmon that hadn't come out of a tin until |
THURSDAY, I4th MARCH, 1963,mY Mexican bloke. He did a slow was twenty-two; | still like it out of a tin.
song on a chair, a Spanish
AMERICA'S EXCITING _ tune, and the Teds were all GEORGE: We had four hits in 1963. Records were going gold before
shouting, ‘Boo, fuck off.’ He they had even been released — all kinds of things were happening.
said, ‘Oh, you don't like it, The third single ‘From Me To You’ was really important, because
OK,’ and he stopped and put that put the stamp on it. We'd had the first one, ‘Love Me Do’, which
‘LET'S DANCE’ ‘SOME KINDA FUN’ down his guitar and_ tried did well. Then they let us back in the studio and we did ‘Please Please
something else. It was sad Me’, then we had the album, and then ‘From Me To You’, the success of

OMMY ROE
AMERICA'S FABULOUS really, but Beatlemania was which assured us some fame.
coming on; ‘Please Please Me’
had been a hit and ‘From Me JOHN: The night Paul and | wrote ‘From Me To You’, we were on the
To You’ was on the way. Helen Shapiro tour, on the coach, travelling from York to Shrewsbury.
We weren't taking ourselves seriously — just fooling about on the guitar
GLAMOROUS
NEIL ASPINALL: The next — when we began to get a good melody line, and we really started to
big-name tour was with Roy work at it. Before that journey was over, we'd completed the lyric,
PARLOPHONE Orbison, in May. Rr everything. | think the first line was mine and we took it from there.
What puzzled us was why we'd thought of a name like ‘From Me To
PAUL: At the back of the You’. It had me thinking when | picked up the NME to see how we
bus Roy Orbison would be were doing in the charts. Then | realised — we'd got the inspiration from

ss BEATL
=) he NI E ba
writing something like ‘Pretty reading a copy on the coach. Paul and | had been talking about one of
Woman’, so our competi- the letters in the ‘From You To Us' column.
“LOVE ME DO’
eeeee ee tiveness would come out, We'd already written ‘Thank You Girl’ as the follow-up to ‘Please
" = which was good. He would Please Me’. This new number was to be the B side. We were so pleased
= “= _piay us his song, and we'd say, with it, we knew we just had to make it the A side, ‘Thank You Girl’
‘Oh, it's great, Roy. Have you the B.* It was far bluesier when we wrote it; today you could arrange it
just written that?’ But we'd be thinking, ‘We have to have something as pretty funky.*°
good.’ The next move was obvious — write one ourselves. And we did. It
was From Me To You’. PAUL: We'd had a fair bit of practice writing over the years, though our
legendary ‘first one hundred’ was probably in reality less than half that
JOHN: We were selling records but we were still second on the bill, amount of songs. ‘Please Please Me’ was more John than me; | didn't
and one of our first big tours was second on the bill to Roy Orbison. It have such a hand in it. ‘PS | Love You’ was more me. ‘From Me To You’
was pretty hard to keep up with that man. He really put on a show; was both of us, very much together. (1 remember being very pleased
well, they all did, but Orbison had that fantastic voice.” with the middle eight because there was a strange chord in it, and it
went into a minor: ‘I've got arms that long...’ We thought that was a
GEORGE: Even right up to when he died he was a killer, because of his very big step.) ‘She Loves You’ was custom-built for the record we had
songs, and he had the most incredible voice. He'd had so many hit to make. ‘Love Me Do’ was a bit of a ‘two-song’.
songs and people could sit and listen to him all night. He didn't have to Crediting the songs jointly to Lennon and McCartney was a
do anything, he didn't have to wiggle his legs, in fact he never even decision we made very early on, because we aspired to be Rodgers and
twitched; he was like marble. The only things that moved were his lips Hammerstein. The only thing we knew about songwriting was that it
— even when he hit those high notes he never strained. He was quite a was done by people like them, and Lerner and Loewe. We'd heard these
miracle, unique. names and associated songwriting with them, so the two-name
We soon took over as top of the bill. We had to come on after Roy. combination sounded interesting.
They had a trick in those theatres where they would close some of the I wanted it to be ‘'McCartney/Lennon’, but John had the stronger
curtains on the stage so we could set up behind them while the other personality and I think he fixed things with Brian before | got there.
bloke was still out there doing his tunes. | can't remember where his That was John's way. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with that; |
backing group was, but Roy would be out there every night and at the wasn't quite as skilful. He was one and a half years older than me, and at
end he'd be singing, ‘She's walking back to me, do do do do da do do- that age it meant a little more worldliness.
do...’ And the audience would go wild. We'd be waiting there and he'd | remember going to a meeting and being told: ‘We think you
do another big encore and we'd be thinking, ‘How are we going to should credit the songs to “"Lennon/McCartney”.’ | said, ‘No, it can't be
follow this?’ It was really serious stuff. Lennon first, how about "“McCartney/Lennon’?’ They all said,
“Lennon/McCartney” sounds better; it has a better ring.’ | said, ‘No,
JOHN: Until now we'dnever topped a bill. You can't measure success, “McCartney/Lennon” sounds good, too.’ But | had to say, ‘Oh, all right,
but if you could, then the minute | knew we'd been successful was when sod it!’ — although we agreed that if we ever wanted it could be changed
Roy Orbison asked us if he could record two of our songs.® around to make me equal. In fact, the Please Please Me album went out
with the tracks all credited ‘'McCartney/Lennon’. Lennon/McCartney
RINGO: It was terrible, following Roy. He'd slay them and they'd became a blanket term, but nowadays | occasionally fancy switching it
scream for more. As it got near our turn, we would hide behind the on songs like ‘Yesterday’ to show who did what. So everything became
curtains whispering to each other, ‘Guess who's next, folks. It's your Lennon/McCartney. But by now, we'd achieved our aim, we'd become
favourite rave!’ sut once we got on stage it was always OK. like Rodgers and Hammerstein. We were now a songwriting duo.

SONGWRITING
JOHN: Paul and | saw eye to eye musically a lot in the old days. We wrote together because we enjoyed it a lot sometimes
Geminis and Libras are supposed to get on well together, according to __ the joy of being able to write, to know you could do it
the astrologers’ theories. And | suppose we worked well together the bit about what they would like. The audience was
because we both liked the same music.”! head: ‘They'll dance to this,’ and such. So most of tl
We sometimes wrote together and sometimes didn't.” In the early oriented just to the dances.* And also they'd say, ‘Wel
days, we'd write things separately because Paul was more advanced to make an album?’ and we'd knock off a few songs, li
than | was. He was always a couple of chords ahead and his songs _| always felt that the best songs were the ones that c
usually had more chords in them. His dad played the piano. He was If you ask me to write a song for a movie o1
always playing pop and jazz standards and Paul picked things up from down and sort of make a song. | wouldn't b
him.” Some of Paul's he wrote separately. ‘The One After 909’ on the _ difficult to do, but I can do it. I call it craftsn
whatsit LP [Let It Be] is one that | wrote separately from Paul, when _ years at it to put something together, but |
seventeen or eighteen in Liverpool. to be inspirational, from the spirit
 pAuL: SOMETIMES I'VE GOT A GUITAR IN conscious of any of that. We just did our songs in hotel rooms,
whenever we had a spare moment; John and I, sitting on twin beds with
MY HANDS; SOMETIMES I'M SITTING guitars. He on one bed, me on another.
AT A PIANO. IT DEPENDS, WHATEVER
INSTRUMENT I'M ON I WRITE WITH. EVERY JOHN: Don't ask me what I think of our songs. I'm just not a good
judge. I suppose the trouble is that we're so close to them. But I can't
TIME IT'S DIFFERENT. ‘ALL MY LOVING ' I help having a quiet giggle when straight-faced critics start feeding all
WROTE LIKE A BIT OF POETRY, AND PUT A sorts of hidden meanings into the stuff we write. William Mann wrote
the intellectual article about The Beatles. He uses a whole lot of musical
SONG TO IT LATER.” terminology and he’s a twit.® | still don’t know what it means at the end,
but he made us acceptable to the intellectuals. It worked and we were
JOHN: Usually, one of us writes most of the song and the other helps flattered. |wrote ‘Not A Second Time’ and, really, it was just chords like
finish it off, adding a bit of tune or a bit of lyric.”' If I've written a song any other chords. To me, | was writing a Smokey Robinson or
with a verse and I've had it for a couple of weeks and I don't seem to be something at the time.”
getting any more verses, | say to Paul, and then we either both write, or Intellectuals have the problem of having to understand it. They can't
he'll say, ‘We'll have this, or that.’ feel anything. The only way to get an intellectual is to talk to him and
It's a bit haphazard. There's no rules for writing. We write them then play him the record. You couldn't put a record on and just let him
anywhere; but we usually just sit down, Paul and I, with a guitar and a hear it.”?
piano, or two guitars, or a piano and a guitar and Geoff (that's
George).® It's all the combinations you can think of; every combination GEORGE: ‘This Boy’ was one of our three-part harmony numbers.
of two people writing a song. And we obviously influence each other, There were a lot of harmony songs around. Harmony in Western music
like groups and people do.® is natural. Paul claimed that his father taught us three-part harmony, but
that's not the case from my memory. When you think back to early
GEORGE MARTIN: As producer I didn't have tremendous input in their rock'n'roll there was always stuff like Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers,
lyrics. I would tell them if I didn't think a lyric sounded good or suggest they The Everly Brothers, The Platters. Everybody had harmonies. It was
ought to write another eight bars or so, but they tended to give me the finished natural to sing a harmony sometimes — with the Everlys, it was a
songs. My work was mainly a question of contributing arrangement ideas. permanent thing.

PAUL: John and I wrote ‘She Loves You’ together. There was a Bobby JOHN: That was the thing about The Beatles: they never stuck to one
Rydell song out at the time and, as often happens, you think of one style. They never did just blues, or just rock. We loved all music. We
song when you write another. did ‘In My Life’, ‘Anna’ on the early things and lots of ballady things.
We were in a van up in Newcastle. I'd planned an ‘answering song’ My image was more rocky but if you look down those Beatle tracks, I'm
where a couple of us would sing ‘She loves you...’ and the other one right there with all the sentimental things, the same as Paul. I love that
answers, ‘Yeah, yeah.’ We decided that that was a crummy idea as it music just as much.*°
was, but at least we then had the idea for a song called ‘She Loves You’.
So we sat in the hotel bedroom for a few hours and wrote it. PAUL: I could often be a foil to John's hardness. But it could be the
We took it to George Martin and sang ‘She loves you, yeah, yeah, other way round, too. People tend to have got it one way; but John
yeah, yeah, yeeeeeaah...' with that tight little 6th-cluster we had at the could be very soft, and | could do the hard stuff. (One of the things |
end. (The 6th chord idea was George's — George Harrison's.) George didn't like about the film Backbeat is that they gave ‘Long Tall Sally’ to
Martin said, ‘It's very corny, that end, it's like the old days, “De de dum the John character. | was not amused. | always sang that: me and Little
dum wowww’ — | would never end on a 6th.’ But we said, ‘It's such a Richard. )
great sound it doesn't matter; we've got to have it. It's the greatest It's funny; the myth developed that | was the melodic, soft one and
harmony sound ever.’ John was the hard, acerbic one. There was some surface truth to that;
He would often give us parameters, like, 'You mustn't double a 3rd, but, in actual fact, back then one of his favourite tunes was ‘Girl Of My
or, ‘It's corny to end with a 6th, and a 7th is even cornier.’ We'd say, Dreams’. That was through his mum. Another was ‘Little White Lies’,
‘We like it, man; it's bluesy.’ It was good that we could override a lot of which was certainly not cool either, but was a good, well-crafted song.
his so-called professional decisions with our innocence. If anyone now ‘This Boy’ was one of those.
asks, ‘What is the sign of a great songwriter?’ I say, ‘If the songs sound
good.’ So we never listened to any rules. RINGO: I used to wish that | could write songs, like the others — and
My father said when he heard the song, ‘Son, there's enough I've tried, but I just can't. | can get the words all right, but whenever |
Americanisms around. Couldn't you sing "Yes, yes, yes" just for once?’ | think of a tune the others always say it sounds like such-a-thing, and
said, ‘You don't understand, Dad, it wouldn't work.’ when they point it out, | see what they mean.

JOHN: Ever heard anyone from Liverpool singing ‘Yes’? It's ‘YEAH!’ PAUL: George used to write his own songs, or (as in the case of ‘Do
That was the main catchphrase. We'd written the song and we You Want To Know A Secret’) we'd write one for him. All the guys had
needed more, so we had ‘yeah, yeah, yeah’, and it caught on.” their fans — Ringo had a big following because he's a nice guy, a great
It was Paul's idea: instead of singing ‘I love you’ again, we'd have a drummer, so he needed a song on each album. Likewise with George; a
third party. That kind of little detail is still in his work. He will write a lot of the girls were mad on him, so we always wanted to give him at
story about someone. I'm more inclined to write about myself.*° least one track. Then George started to catch on: ‘Why should you
write my songs?’ And he started writing his own.
PAUL: Brian Matthew, the radio presenter, reviewed ‘She Loves You’ in From when George first started, he would deliver one song per
Melody Maker, and called it ‘banal rubbish’. None of us had heard the album. It was an option to include George in the songwriting team.
word ‘banal’ and we thought, ‘"Banal"? What's that? Soppy? Too John and I had really talked about it. | remember walking up past
rebellious? What does “banal” mean?’ But when the record zoomed to Woolton Church with John one morning and going over the
Number One in the Melody Maker chart the next week, he was on the question: ‘Without wanting to be too mean to George, should three
front page disclaiming his comments: ‘No, no — at first | thought maybe of us write or would it be better to keep it simple?’ We decided we'd
it was a little banal... but it grows on you.’ just keep to two of us.
I'm sure we paid attention to the critics, so that's a golden He wrote ‘Don't Bother Me’. That was the first one and he improved
memory for me. Criticism didn't really stop us and it shouldn't ever from that and became very good, writing a classic like ‘Something’.
stop anyone, because critics are only the people who can't get a
record deal themselves. GEORGE: ‘Don't Bother Me’ I wrote in a hotel in Bournemouth, where
Later, William Mann in the Times wrote of the descending ‘Aeolian we were playing a summer season in 1963, as an exercise to see if |
cadence’ in our song ‘Not A Second Time’ and the ‘pandiatonic clusters’ could write a song. | was sick in bed. I don't think it's a particularly good
that came flying out of us at the end of This Boy’. We hadn't been song; it mightn’t be a song at all. But at least it showed me that all |

96 SONGWRITING
needed to do was keep on writing and
maybe eventually | would write something
good. | still feel now: | wish I could write
something good. It's relativity. It did,
however, provide me with an occupation. FHI
I knew a little bit about writing from the
others, from the privileged point of sitting
in the car when a song was written or
coming into being. | remember once sitting
with Paul in the cinema on the corner of
Rose Lane, not far from where he lived,
near Penny Lane. They showed an ad for
Link Furniture: ‘Are you thinking of
Linking?’ Paul said, ‘Oh, that would make a
good song,’ and he wrote one that went,
‘Thinking of linking my life with you.’
John was always helpful. He said things
like, ‘When you're writing, try to finish the
song immediately, because once you leave
it its going to be harder to complete,’
which is true. Sometimes, anyway. He gave
me a few good pointers and | did actually
do some writing with him later on. | was at
his house one day — this is the mid-Sixties —
and he was struggling with some tunes. He
had loads of bits, maybe three songs, that
were unfinished, and | made suggestions
and helped him to work them together so
that they became one finished song, ‘She
Said, She Said’. The middle part of that
record is a different song: ‘She said, "] know
what it's like to be dead,” and | said, “Oh,
no, no, youre wrong...”’ Then it goes into
the other one, ‘When I was a boy...’ That
was a real weld. So | did things like that. |
would also play-him, on occasion, songs |
hadn't completed. | played him a tune one
day, and he said, ‘Oh, well, that's not bad.’ He didn't do anything at the
time, but | noticed in the next song he wrote that he'd nicked the
chords from it!
Writing on my own became the only way | could do it, because |
started like that. Consequently, over the years, | never really wrote with
anyone else and | became a bit isolated. | suppose | was a bit paranoid
because | didn't have any experience of what it was like, writing with
other people. It's a tricky thing. What's acceptable to one person may
not be acceptable to another. You have to trust each other.

GEORGE: I'VE GOT A TAPE-RECORDER IN THE CAR,

SO I CAN SING ON TO THAT AND WORK ON IT
WHEN I GET HOME.”

JOHN: NORTHERN SONGS IS A LONG-TERM THING

AND IT RESTS ON PAUL AND I WRITING SONGS
UNTIL WERE SIXTY. UNLESS SOMETHING
HAPPENS, THERE'S NOTHING TO STOP PAUL
AND I WRITING HITS WHEN WE'RE OLD. IT'S SO
PROFITABLE AND, ANYWAY, WE'RE GOOD FRIENDS
— THERE'S NO REASON ON EARTH WHY WE
SHOULD GIVE IT UP.”

NEIL ASPINALL: Brian knew Dick James, who was famous for singing
‘Robin Hood’ on the TV series and had started his own music-publishing
company. John and Paul were beginning to write their o n
played him some tapes of theirs
Dick James got the rights to the single ‘Please Please Me
subsequent songs, too. We were all pretty naive back then and
Beatles have all since regretted the deals they got into regarding s

NORTHERN SONGS 97
 PAUL: We were desperate to get a deal. It's like any young novelist who RINGO: In April 1963 Paul, George and | decided to holiday together
just wants to be published. They would just die for Doubleday; they in Tenerife. Klaus Voormann’s parents had a house there. They didn't
wouldn't care what the deal was, so long as they could say to their have electricity, so we really felt we were Bohemians.
friends, ‘Oh, my new book's coming out on Doubleday.’ — ‘What, the That was the first time | had been anywhere where there was
real Doubleday?’ — ‘Yeah!’ So that's all we wanted; to be published: ‘Our black sand. I'd never seen the like of that before. It was a real good
record's coming out on EMI.’ — ‘What, the EMI?’ holiday. Paul has some great photos of us hanging out in Spanish
But Brian did do some lousy deals and he put us into long-term slave hats, looking dramatic. That's what | love about the Spanish — they are
contracts which | am still dealing with. For ‘Yesterday’, which I wrote so dramatic.
totally on my own, without John's or anyone's help, | am on 15%. To
this day | am only on 15% because of the deals Brian made; and that is PAUL: We went out there and stayed there for a bit, but we got worried
really unjust, particularly as it has been such a smash. It is possibly the because nobody knew us in the Canaries and we were a bit put off:
smash of this century. ‘You know us? The Beatles?’ And they were saying, ‘No, no... don't
But you can't be bitter. George Martin didn't get much at all off the know you.’
Beatles deal and I've asked him, ‘In retrospect, aren't you bitter about it, I got terrible sunburn: that British tan that hurts so much later. That
George?’ He says, ‘No, I had a great time. At one point during the gave me quite an uncomfortable time. And | got caught in a riptide. |
boom | had thirteen solid weeks at Number One with you, Cilla, BillyJ. was in the sea and thought, ‘Now I'll swim back in,’ but | realised |
Kramer, Gerry and the Pacemakers — all Brian’s acts — but I didn’t get a wasn't getting anywhere. In fact, | was getting further away.
bonus or anything.’ He got a straight contract fee. | said, ‘You are a
good man not to be bitter,’ which is true; he has kept his karma together GEORGE: | REMEMBER BLACK BEACHES. WE STAYED
that way. So I feel the same, but I think if Brian did have a failing then it IN THE SUN TOO LONG AND GOT INCREDIBLY
was this: he wasn't astute enough. SUNBURNT, TYPICAL BRITISH. RINGO AND | BOTH
HAD SUNSTROKE THE FIRST OR SECOND DAY AND
JOHN: I think Dick James might have carved Brian up a bit. | mean, I REMEMBER SHIVERING ALL NIGHT.
what happened after Brian died? Dick James Music Company — a I drove around a lot. I was into sports cars and Klaus very kindly let
fucking multi-million music-industry company. Northern Songs, not me drive his Austin Healey Sprite. We've got some photographs of Paul
owned by us; and NEMS, not owned by us. That was all Brian and his and me in it — we took it up to the volcano. It was like the surface of the
advisors’ setting up.” moon up there, and there were telescopes and a big observatory.
And Dick James has actually said that he made us! I'd like to hear
Dick James's music, please. Just play me some.” PAUL: Brian Epstein was going on holiday to Spain at the same time
and he invited John along. John was a smart cookie. Brian was gay, and
GEORGE: Brian didn’t get very good deals on anything. For years EMI John saw his opportunity to impress upon Mr Epstein who was the boss
were giving us one old penny between us for every single and two of this group. | think that's why he went on holiday with Brian. And
shillings for every album. And there was the fiasco where Brian's good luck to him, too — he was that kind of guy; he wanted Brian to
father gave away the rights to The Beatles’ merchandising. His father know whom he should listen to. That was the relationship. John was
didn't have any authority to give away the rights, yet he gave them to very much the leader in that way, although it was never actually said.
some guy who gave them to somebody else, who gave them to
somebody else. JOHN: Cyn was having a baby and the holiday was planned, but |
If we'd known in 1962/3 what we know now, or even what we knew wasnt going to break the holiday for a baby: | just thought what a
back in 1967, it would have made a real difference. We would have got bastard I was and went. | watched Brian picking up boys, and | liked
better royalties if only we had known what was happening; and the playing it a bit faggy — it's enjoyable.”
royalty rate we got caused so much trouble and so many lawsuits later. It was my first experience with a homosexual that | was conscious
We could have had a proper royalty rate. was a homosexual. We used to sit in a café in Torremolinos looking at
| wasn't writing songs then, but John and Paul were. When | first all the boys and I'd say, ‘Do you like that one? Do you like this one?’ |
started writing songs, it was presented to me like this: ‘Do you want was rather enjoying the experience, thinking like a writer all the time: ‘I
your song published?’ and as John’s and Paul's songs were being am experiencing this.’ It was almost a love-affair, but not quite. It was
published by Dick James, | said, ‘Yeah, OK, I'll have my songs not consummated. But it was a pretty intense relationship.”
published.’ Nobody actually says, ‘And when you sign this bit of paper But those rumours back in Liverpool! The first national press we got,
to have your song published | am going to steal the copyright of your the back page of the Daily Mirror, was me beating up Bob Wooler at
song from you.’ So | signed this contract, thinking, ‘Great, somebody's Paul's twenty-first. That was the first ‘Lennon hits out’ story. | was so
going to publish my song,’ and then years later I'm saying, ‘What do you bad the next day. We had a BBC appointment; they all went down in
mean, | don't own it?’ | mean, that was terrible theft. Things like that the train, and | wouldn't come. Brian was pleading with me to go, and |
went on all the time. was saying, I'm not!’ —I was so afraid of nearly killing Wooler.
Bob had insinuated that me and Brian had had an affair in Spain.
JOHN: We never talked in terms of finance. We were just a song- And | must have been frightened of the fag in me to get so angry. | was
writing team; we started at sixteen and we decided that we'd call them out of my mind with drink. (You know, when you get down to the
‘Lennon/McCartney’, and we said here's a song we wrote; because even point where you want to drink out of all the empty glasses; that drunk.)
with ones where we'd have it 90% finished, there's always something And Bob was saying, ‘Come on, John, tell me about you and Brian — we
added in the studio. A song is — even now when I write a song — not all know.’ You know when you're twenty-one, you want to be a man — if
complete. | can never give my song to a publisher before I've recorded somebody said it now | wouldn't give a shit, but | was beating the shit
it, however complete the lyrics and the tune and the arrangement are on out of him, hitting him with a big stick, and for the first time | thought,
paper, because it changes in the studio. So we just always did it like ‘| can kill this guy.’ I just saw it, like on a screen: if | hit him once more,
that, but nobody ever thought about the money. There was enough that's going to be it. | really got shocked. That's when | gave up
money for everybody in the world. Who's going to talk about money?” violence, because all my life I'd been like that.”
He sued me afterwards; | paid him £200 to settle it. That's probably
paUL: WE'VE GOT PEOPLE WE TRUST — the last real fight I've ever had.” From then on — apart from occasionally
hitting my dear wife, in the early days when I was a bit crazy (I can't say
OUR MANAGER. OUR RECORDING I'm non-violent, because | will go crazy sometimes) — | stopped that.”
MANAGER, OUR PUBLISHER, OUR
PAUL: So there was the homosexual thing — I'm not sure John did
ACCOUNTANT — THEY'RE ALL anything but we certainly gave him a lot of grief when he got back.
TRUSTWORTHY PEOPLE, I THINK. SO
JOHN: Brian was in love with me. It's irrelevant. | mean, it's interesting
WE LEAVE IT TO THEM AND I DON'T and it will make a nice Hollywood Babylon someday about Brian
HAVE TO WORRY.“ Epstein’s sex life, but it's irrelevant, absolutely irrelevant."

98 ON HOLIDAY
aay
 YMHPEZIA MOAITIKAY AEPOMOPIA)
civ AWIATIGHD 260 WEE: 8251 - 8252-8
TEAOS AEPOROPIKONGTA:
TAEIAION EE,
?MBARKATION CHA
Gr AP,
Dri @).
Ok, ETOX: ~
FISC, YEAR ;1965

Nom “Sra Fea Vee

37 . charges paid are rela lh
recniacnd ate

q AASJoe
Ei
: faeID Sit pp

Bi NO
TION AP,

PAUL: In September, Ringo and | went on holiday again, to Greece, with Jane Asher and Maureen.

RINGO: We went to Rhodes, Corfu and Athens. In Rhodes we wanted

to see the Colossus so | asked the woman at the hotel bar, ‘Excuse me, a~~
where's the Colossus?’ She said, ‘It's gone now, son’ — that’s how es
we hadn't left home — ‘but if you go down to the port...’ which we did
and we saw these two little plinths with two deers on, supposedly
where the Colossus was. And | remember going around the Parthenon
three times — | think to keep Jane happy — and it was really tiring.

A. tetae VILLI t.

0503
LOING PASS
_/ CARTE D'ACCES —
EINSTEIGEKARTE

TICKET
OASSENGER
CHECK
4AGGAGE:
ANN

bie)

against receipt oe this c diaD

We recommend our Tavé nevw Ohne
{t
with our Headwaiter.
 any songs we could have? We've got a contract with Decca.’ We
thought, ‘'Hmmm.' We did have one we'd written for Ringo, ‘| Wanna Be
Your Man’.
Ringo always used to do a song in the show. Back then he had ‘Boys’.
It was a little embarrassing because it went, ‘I'm talking about boys —
yeah, yeah — boys.’ It was a Shirelles hit and they were girls singing it,
but we never thought we should call it ‘Girls’, just because Ringo was a
boy. We just sang it the way they'd sung it and never considered any
implications. So we tried to write something else for Ringo, something
like ‘Boys’, and we came up with ‘Il Wanna Be Your Man’ — a Bo Diddley
kind of thing. I said to Mick, ‘Well, Ringo's got this track on our album,
but it won't be a single and it might suit you guys.’ | knew that the
Stones did 'Not Fade Away’ and Bo Diddley numbers, and that Mick
was into the maracas, from when we'd seen them down at the
Crawdaddy. So we went to the studio with them.
NEIL ASPINALL: The interesting music in the early Sixties forus was
American R&B. They were very American-influenced when they went to the JOHN: The story on ‘I Wanna Be Your Man’ was that they needed a
clubs, to find out what was happening in London, since it wasn'tyet our scene. record. They'd put out ‘Come On’ by Chuck Berry and needed a quick
We were the new boys in town. Around then we met a guy called Andrew follow-up. We met Andrew Oldham, who used to work for Epstein then
Oldham, whom Brian brought in as a press representative. Andrew took us out had gone to the Stones and probably got them off Giorgio Gomelsky.
to Richmond to see a blues band: The Rolling Stones. (He went on to become He came to us and said, ‘Have you got a song for them?’ And we said,
their manager, of course.) ‘Sure,’ because we didn't really want it ourselves.
We went in and | remember teaching it to them.” We played it
JOHN: We made it and then the Stones came out doing things a little roughly and they said, ‘Yeah, OK, that’s our style.’ So Paul and | just
bit more radical than we'd done. They had their hair longer, they would went off in the corner of the room and finished the song while they
be insulting on stage, which we'd given up. were all still there, talking. We came back and that's how Mick and
We first went to see the Stones at the Crawdaddy Club in Richmond Keith got inspired to write: Jesus, look at that. They just went in the
and then at another place in London. They were run by a different guy corner and wrote it and came back!’ Right in front of their eyes we
then, Giorgio Gomelsky. When we started hanging around London, the did it.*°
Stones were up and coming in the clubs, and we knew Giorgio through We used to write in the early days, when we had more time or
Epstein. We went down and saw them and became good friends.” seemed to, for other people. We thought we had some to spare. We
wrote one for Cliff and we did it.”
GEORGE: We'd been at Teddington taping Thank Your Lucky Stars,
miming to From Me To You’, and we went to Richmond afterwards PAUL: The idea of our being rivals with The Rolling Stones was
and met them. newspaper talk. It was natural that we would seem to be rivals, but in fact
They were still on the club scene, stomping about, doing R&B tunes. George got them their recording contract. He was at a party with Dick
The music they were playing was more like we'd been doing before we'd Rowe, the man famous for having turned The Beatles down for Decca.
got out of our leather suits to try and get onto record labels and
television. We'd calmed down by then. GEORGE: There was a big showcase, at the Liverpool Philharmonic
Hall. The Beatles had become famous, and Gerry and a few others had
RINGO: I remember standing in some sweaty room and watching them had success and everybody thought, ‘Bloody hell!’ and was looking up
on the stage, Keith and Brian — wow! | knew then that the Stones were to Liverpool. Nobody had ever played the Philharmonic — they wouldn't
great. They just had presence. (And, of course, we could tell — we'd had let you in, let alone do a rock concert. But suddenly every group in
five weeks in the business; we knew all about it!) Liverpool was there — even ones that weren't groups before. (Groups
We talked to them. | don't know what about and | don't know if we were forming right, left and centre to try to cash in on Liverpool's
ended up backstage. supposedly swinging scene.)
Anyway, | remember meeting some executives from London, one of
PAUL: Mick tells the tale of seeing us there with long suede coats that whom must have been Dick Rowe. He said, ‘You'll tell us who the good
wed picked up in Hamburg, coats that no one could get in England. He groups are, will you2’ And I said, ‘I! don’t know about that, but you want
thought, ‘Right — I want to be in the music business; to get The Rolling Stones.’
| want one of those coats.’
JOHN: WE DON'T THINK JOHN: We hung around with the Stones in two
JOHN: I remember Brian Jones came up and said, ‘Are THERE IS SUCH A THING AS THE separate periods. The first was initially, when they
you playing a harmonica or a harp on “Love Me Do'?’ MERSEY SOUND. THAT'S JUST were still playing in the clubs, and the later period was
because he knew I'd got this bottom note. | said, ‘A SOMETHING JOURNALISTS when we were both riding high and there was a
harmonica with a button,’ which wasn't really funky- COOKED UP, A NAME. IT JUST SO discotheque scene in London. We were like kings of
blues enough; but you couldn't get ‘Hey! Baby’ licks on HAPPENED WE CAME FROM the jungle then, and we were very close to the Stones.
a blues harp and we were also doing ‘Hey! Baby’ by LIVERPOOL AND THEY LOOKED | don't know how close the others were; | spent a lot of
Bruce Channel.” FOR THE NEAREST RIVER AND time with Brian and Mick and | admired them.”
NAMED IT. THE ONLY THING IS
NEIL ASPINALL: The Stones that night were OK — like THAT WE WRITE OUR OWN RINGO: When we came down to London it was a
any band down the Cavern. They could do their stuff and SONGS.” little like Liverpool, because most of the bands had
that was all you needed to do. A lot of people couldn't. come from the North and we'd all jammed together.
I remember Ian Stewart was playing with them on piano We'd all hang out at each other's places. We'd hang
and later Icouldn't understand why he wasnt in any of the publicity out with The Animals and the Stones and some jazz guys that we'd
photographs. He still seemed to be around, on the piano, but in another way he meet in clubs. There were good clubs: the Bag O’Nails and places
wasnt in the band at all. I suppose that's the way it worked best for them. like that.
(One odd thing: when we first started going to clubs in London we
PAUL: John and | were walking down Charing Cross Road one day. We found people would be kissing you on the cheek. That was very weird
used to hang out there because it was where all the guitar shops were; for me, coming from up North. We shake hands up there; that's the
that was our Mecca. If we had nothing to do for an afternoon, we'd go manly thing to do. | soon got into it, but | remember being shocked at
down there window-shopping. | remember seeing Mick and Keith in first. Brian Morris, who used to run the Ad Lib, went to give me a kiss
a taxi and shouting, ‘Hey, Mick — give us a lift!’ We jumped in; they on the cheek and | was mortified: ‘Oh, my goodness!’ But that was just
were on their way to the recording studio and Mick said, ‘Here, you got the London way.)

THE ROLLING STONES 101

 oN. WE WERE THE FIRST WORKING-CLASS SINGERS THAT STAYED WORKING CLASS AND
PRONOUNCED IT AND DIDN'T TRY AND CHANGE OUR ACCENTS, WHICH IN ENGLAND
WERE LOOKED DOWN UPON. THE ONLY CHANGE WAS OUR IMAGE.»

JOHN: There have been offers of a spot on the Palladium show, but we room in our house and my mother's best friend, Annie Maguire, would
don't feel that we are ready. We have seen others go and be torn to always say, ‘See you on the Palladium, son. See your name in lights. So |
pieces. always wanted to play there, to get on that roundabout stage.
There was nothing bigger in the world than making it to the
GEORGE: In October, the big one was Sunday Night at the London Palladium. I'd say, ‘Yeah, sure, Annie, that's where we're going to go.’
Palladium. That show had the biggest stars from America who were in And we played Sunday Night at the London Palladium, and we were on
England, and the biggest stars in England. We felt comfortable on the the roundabout and it was dynamite. Anyone who knew you would say,
show. | think we had enough cockiness going, and we'd had enough ‘Fucking hell, hey, look at this!’ — we would of ourselves.
success. We were always a little nervous before we went up each step of Before the show | was so nervous with craziness and tension that |
the ladder, but there was always that confidence. That was the good spewed up into a bucket; just like those old showbiz stories — | spewed
thing about being four together: we were able to share the experience. up and went on stage. Even today, when the intro is playing | have to
run on stage. Once I'm on, I'm OK. | often think I'd like to be like Frank
RINGO: Going on the Palladium was amazing for me because, years and Sinatra and saunter on and go, ‘Hi.’ But perhaps while he’s sauntering his
years before, the Eddie Clayton group and I would rehearse in the living mind is running.

SUNDAY NIGHT AT THE LONDON PALLADIUM

 GEORGE:
Tose ON THE
PALLADIUM AND ALL
THOSE PLACES WE WORE
THE SUITS AND WE
PLAYED THEIR GAME, BUT
A LOT OF THE TIME WE
WERE THINKING, 'HA,
WE'LL SHOW THESE
PECOPEES

RINGO: We came through showbusiness. Bands don't have to do that

now — they can come through rock'n'roll. We had to go through the
Shirley Bassey school, that was our battle. We could never have done
the Palladium unless we'd have put the suits on. The real change of our
clothes and our attitude was through our musical progression.
In your twenties you're just rolling, you feel that anything is
possible; there's no obstacles. If they are in your way, you're
determined just to knock them down.

GEORGE: At the time, there was a clique of people who were the stars
and they were all basically conformists; the ones who played the game,
the usual onslaught of the uninspired. If you look at the list of people
who appeared on these things, it reads like the Grade or the Delfont
organisation (the big London agencies); it was all their gang.
Early on, we were told by many a London band that it's all khaziland ten miles north of Watford. So
the first thing we did on ‘making it’ was to give two fingers to all those bands who started out with a much
better chance than us because they were from London.
It's typical even now that record companies don't know anything about trends or talent. All they know
is the fear of signing up somebody who's a flop or not signing up somebody who's a hit. We were told all
the time: ‘You'll never do anything, you Northern bastards.’ It was that kind of attitude. So although we didn't
openly say, Fuck you!’ it was basically our thing: ‘We'll show these fuckers.’ And we walked right through
London, the Palladium, and kept on going through Ed Sullivan and on to Hong Kong and the world.
It was the same at school: my teachers expected nothing of me and didn’t have it in them to be able to give
me anything. My headmaster wrote on my school-leaving testimonial, ‘I can't tell you what his work has been
like because he hasn't done any. Has taken part in no school activity whatsoever.’ Thanks a lot, pal, that'll really
get me a job, won't it! So when Paul pulled out of a Ford showroom a couple of years later having bought a brand
new Ford Classic and his old headmaster was standing there, Paul looked at him like, ‘Ha ha, yes, it is me and | do
have my own Ford Classic.’ It was ‘fuck you’. We made it in spite of him, in spite of the teachers, of Dick Rowe,
of EMI (they didn’t sign us up, either). We were hanging in there by the skin of our teeth, with no money or
anything, and just got a bit of luck with George Martin. And we might have believed the crap, too — if it wasn't
for the inner determination that we always had, that I always felt; a kind of assurance within that something was
going to happen.
But that's the thing, as anybody knows who's had the experience of being down and being downtrodden
(which we have, as working-class Liverpool lads), then making it big and seeing everybody brown-nosing you:
everybody loves a winner, but when you lose, you lose alone.

JOHN: The class thing is just as snobby as it ever was. People like us can break through a little — but only a little.
Once, we went into a restaurant and nearly got thrown out for looking like we looked, until they saw who it was:
‘What do you want?’ the head waiter said. ‘We've come to bloody eat, that's what we want,’ we said. Then the
owner spotted us and said, ‘Ah, a table, sir, over here, sir.’ It took me back to when |
was nineteen and | couldn't get anywhere without being stared at or remarked
about. It's only since I've been a Beatle that people have said, ‘Oh, wonderful, come
in, come in,’ and I've forgotten a bit about what they're really thinking. They see the
shining star, but when there's no glow about you, they see only the clothes and the
haircut again.
We weren't as open and as truthful when we didn't have the power to be. We
had to take it easy. We had to shorten our hair to leave Liverpool. We had to wear
Suits to get on TV. We had to compromise. We had to get hooked to get in, and
then get a bit of power and say, ‘This is what we're like.’ We had to falsify a bit, even
if we didn't realise it at the time.”

.
J

SUNDAY NIGHT AT THE LONDON PALLADIUA 103

+
 _

aa ws

H.P.W, $5042

partmental MEMORANDUM —

like to exercise the

asing their royalty to ade

RINGO: We went to Sweden that

October for a week, to do some
shows. The hotel was a lot of fun.
There was a memorable day when Paul
dressed up in disguise; he had a camera
and ran round the restaurants going,
‘How do you do, Sweden?’ He'd say
some crazy mouthful and take photos
of everybody and no one would
recognise him, which we thought was
pretty hip. He was handing out
strange business cards that other
people had given him — it was one of
the grooves of life.

NEIL ASPINALL: The popularity was

escalating madly day by day. I can
remember waiting outside stage doors when
Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent played
in Liverpool and there'd be a lot ofgirls there, screaming and going wild — but never
on the scale of Beatlemania. There were 10,000 people in London Airport when we
came back from Sweden. It was just bigger. It began in 1963 but it hadnt yet
reached its peak.

RINGO: We'd started to fly really just that year. The first time we took a
plane together as a group, with Brian Epstein, from Liverpool to London, the
seat George Harrison was sitting in was a window seat, and the window
opened... He was screaming; very strange.
We were flying from London to Glasgow once and there were only three
seats left on the plane and in my naivety | said, ‘I'll stand.’ — ‘I'm afraid you
can't do that Mr Starr...’
 «
AL OPS

cy ToS
Gta
i) 8 Xs
Res w oe

JOHN: FOR OUR LAST NUMBER I'D LIKE TO ASK

YOUR HELP. THE PEOPLE IN THE CHEAPER SEATS
CLAP YOUR HANDS, AND THE REST OF YOU IF
YOU'D JUST RATTLE YOUR JEWELLERY. WE'D LIKE
TO SING A SONG CALLED ‘TWIST AND SHOUT":

NEIL ASPINALL: To them, the show was just another way of plugging the
records, Other people on the show reacted to The Beatles very well, they
could spot a success when they saw one. Everybody wanted to be The
Beatles’ friend. That's showbusiness. I've always found it very transient. You
meel people when you re doing a gig and you might not meet them again for
another six months or a year.

JOHN: We have met some new people since

we've become famous, but we've never been
able to stand them for more than two days.
Some hang on a bit longer, perhaps a few
weeks, but that's all. Most people don't get
across to us.” We can't go around with any-
body for a long time unless they are a friend,
because we're so closely knit. We talk in code
to each other. We always did when we had
strangers around us...

PAUL: If there was someone disastrous in the

dressing room (because, occasionally, someone
would get in who was a right pain and we
didn't have time for all of that) we would have
little signs. We'd say ‘Mal...’ and yawn, and
wTZ that would be the sign to get rid of them. It

4 was a very ‘in’ scene.

RINGO: A lot of established stars loved us;

they really did. Shirley Bassey was a big star in
PAUL: The fame really started from when we played the Palladium. those days and she was always at the gigs. Alma Cogan was always
Then we were asked to do the Royal Command Performance and we throwing parties and inviting us. | don't remember too many artists of
met the Queen Mother, and she was clapping. the day putting us down — except for Noé! Coward, who put his foot in
it with his ‘no talent’ remark. We got him back later, when Brian came
NEIL ASPINALL: They took off like a rocket. I remember the Royal to us and said, ‘'Noél Coward is downstairs and he wants to say “hi".’ —
Command Performance, they were very, very nervous because they werent used ‘Fuck off!’ We wouldn't see him. | mean, ‘Sod off, Noél.’
to that kind of audience. This wasn't the Cavern, this was a big charity show
and everybody had paid a lot of money to attend. It was a completely different
set of people sitting in judgement.

GEORGE: John did the line about ‘rattle your jewellery’ because the
audience were all supposedly rich. | think he'd spent a bit of time
thinking of what he could say. | don’t think it was spontaneous. John
also overdid the bowing as a joke, because we never used to like the
idea of bowing; such a ‘showbiz’ thing.

JOHN: We had a few jokes in that one because people weren't

screaming so they could hear what we were saying. 64

We managed to refuse all sorts of things that people don't know

about. We did the Royal Variety Show, and we were asked discreetly to
do it every year after that, but we always said, ‘Stuff it.’ So every year
there was a story in the newspapers: ‘WHY NO BEATLES FOR THE QUEEN?’
which was pretty funny, because they didn't
know we'd refused. That show's a bad gig,
anyway. Everybody's very nervous and
uptight and nobody performs well. The
time we did do it, | cracked a joke on stage.
I was fantastically nervous, but | wanted to
say something to rebel a bit, and that was
the best | could do.”

PAUL: The Queen Mother said, ‘Where are

you playing tomorrow night?’ | said, ‘Slough.’
And she said, ‘Oh, that's just near us.

RINGO: Marlene Dietrich was also on. |

met her and | remember staring at her legs —
which were great — as she slouched against a
chair. I'm a leg-man: ‘Look at those pins!’

THE ROYAL COMMAND PERFORMANCI 05

 pepe DEAEILES FFan ven
PURCHASE BY POST THE FIRST 1,000
SITY OPPORTUNITY TO Die!
S FOR A
Grgnd Public Dance
-

BEATLES
starring

THE
‘le Abin’ Bs,

at
bd vee

Fol (ola -Yelliaelosan

TICKETS
IN
ADVANCE
NEIL ASPINALL: On 14th December there was a
performance at the Wimbledon Palais for the
Southern Area Fan Club Convention. All 3,000
fans present got to shake hands with The Beatles —
when they weren't bombarding them with jelly
babies.

JOHN: Somebody once asked what the kids

had sent us and we said, ‘Things like jelly
Peeig babies.’ ‘But,’ | said, ‘George ate them.’ And the
next day | started getting jelly babies with a
note saying, ‘Don't give George any.’ And
George got some saying, ‘Here's some for you,
George; you don't need John’s.’ And then it
went mad, they started throwing them all over
the stage. Finally we got it round that we don't
like them any more.”

RINGO: | remember we were in a cage at that

gig, because it got so crazy. It was like being in
a zoo, on stage! It felt dangerous. The kids
were out of hand. It was the first time I felt that
if they got near us we would be ripped apart.

NEIL ASPINALL: Halfway through,

George said, ‘I'm not doing
this,’ and he packed up, went
to the stage door and began
looking for a cab.
I ran after bim and said, ‘What are you doing?
You cant walk out, we've got to finish.’ And then
Jobn turned up with bis guitar. I said, ‘What are
you doing?’ and he said, ‘Well, ifbes leaving, I'm
leaving.’
But they didfinish the gig and they shook
hands with all the fans — about 10,000 of them,
actually, because they kept going back to the end of
the queue and coming round again.
 weren't even hits in America. Before going to a gig we'd meet
in the record store, after it had shut, and we'd search the
racks like ferrets to see what new ones were there. That's
where we found artists like Arthur Alexander and Ritchie
Barrett (‘Some Other Guy’ was a great song), and records like
James Ray's ‘If You Gotta Make A Fool Of Somebody’. These
were songs which we used to perform in the clubs in the
early days, and which many British bands later started
recording. ‘Devil In Her Heart’ and Barrett Strong's ‘Money’
were records that we'd picked up and played in the shop and
thought were interesting.
I sang ‘Roll Over Beethoven’ for With The Beatles — it was
a song | liked. | had the Chuck Berry record and | used to
sing it in the clubs. | also wrote my first song, ‘Don't Bother
Me’, for the album.

GEORGE MARTIN: In those days, the boys tended to rebearse

for the recording as we did it. Iwould meet up with them, go
through the material, and say, ‘OK, what's the next one we're
doing?’ And we'dgo in and rebearse a song and record it. It was
like a workshop.

JOHN: We always record them exactly as we can play them.

Even if we do put things on top, the basic thing we sing ona
record we do live. We play and sing at the same time on the
record, so if we can't do it there, we don't do it.®
The first set of tricks on the records was double-tracking
GEORGE MARTIN: The first album was really a recital of their repertoire. on the second album. We discovered that, or it was told to us, ‘You can
We werent thinking in terms of an album being an entity in itself back then. do this,’ and that really set the ball rolling. We double-tracked ourselves
We would record singles, and the ones that werent issued as singles would be off the album.
put onto an album — which is how the second album, With The Beatles, was The first [album] we did just as a ‘group’; we went in and played
put together. It was just a collection of their songs, and one or two other people's and they put it on tape and we went. They remixed it, they did
songs as well. everything to it.”

RINGO: The cover songs recorded for With The Beatles were chosen by GEORGE: The album cover for With The Beatles became one of the
whoever liked them. It was interesting that when | joined The Beatles most copied designs of the decade. Robert Freeman took the cover
we didn't really know each other (the other three knew each other, of picture. We showed him the pictures Astrid and Jiirgen had taken in
course), but if you looked at each of our record collections, the four of Hamburg and said, ‘Can't you do it like this?’ We did the photo
us had virtually the same records. We all had The Miracles, we all had session in a room with a piece of black background.
Barret Strong and people like that. | suppose that helped us gel as That cover was the beginning of us being actively involved in The
musicians, and as a group. Beatles’ artwork. The Please Please Me album cover is crap; but at that
time it hadn't mattered. We hadn't even thought it was lousy, probably
PAUL: We were all very interested in American music, much more so because we were so pleased to be on a record, With The Beatles was the
than in British. Ringo arrived in the band knowing more blues music. first one where we thought, ‘Hey, let's get artistic.’
Coming from the Dingle, by the river, he’d known plenty of blokes in
the Merchant Navy (that was a way for kids to get out of Liverpool, to NEIL ASPINALL: Jobn lived upstairs from Robert Freeman when he moved
places like New Orleans and New York) who would pick up a lot of down to London. Robert had just got out of art school, and Jobn got bim doing
blues records. It was Ringo who introduced us to old country-and- the album cover. They all told him the sort of effect that they wanted and he
western; Jimmie Rodgers and those kind of people. Ringo had quite a achieved it very well. From then On, they were involved with all aspects of
good collection of that. But, as far as Elvis and other such music was album artwork.
concerned, our tastes were pretty much in common,
each of us having slightly different leanings as well,
which made life interesting.

GEORGE: The second album was slightly better than

the first, inasmuch as we spent more time on it, and
there were more original songs. We did ‘Money’ for that
album, and other cover versions: ‘Please Mr Postman’,
‘You Really Got A Hold On Me’ and ‘Devil In Her
Heart’ (an obscure American song by The Donays).
Because there were a lot of record companies in
America, lots of records seemed only to be distributed
on a local basis. It was very regional; some were lucky
enough to get distributed nationwide and others
werent. However, many of the small companies were
affiliated with major labels that had distribution in the
UK, so some obscure American records ended up being
sold in the UK but unknown in America. There are
some incredible R&B records from America that | find
most Americans have never heard of.
Brian had had a policy at NEMS of buying at least
one copy of every record that was released. If it sold,
he'd order another one, or five or whatever. Conse-
quently he had records that weren't hits in Britain,
 THE BEATLES

ay different stories abou OW

at I thought I ought to set down on paper
»

olydor recording was submitted by Brian

e R.N. White. q

re submitted th

Their “pop
his deputy
in fact did so,
the test recording
is that electric guitare
terested in the Beatles,
\to our private recording
Store a tape of some of the
manted traneferred to disc,
an
pays
ensaa hehe ought to
am
who Rg to
the te himee]
hem t yntrac

RINGO: In 1963 the attitude of my whole family changed. They GEORGE: My family changed, but in a nice way. They were fe
treated me like a different person. knocked out with the whole idea of what was happening. Anybody ,
One absolutely clear vision | had was round at my auntie's, where I'd would be. Everybody likes success, but when it came on that scale it was:
been a thousand times before. We were having a cup of tea one night __ ridiculous. They loved it.
and somebody knocked the cotfee table and my tea spilt into my saucer. My mother was a nice person, but she was naive; as we all were i
Everyone's reaction was, ‘He can't have that. We have to tidy up.’ That _ Liverpool in those days. She used to write to anybody whod written te
would never have happened before. | thought then, ‘Things are us, answering the fan mail. She'd answer letters from people saying,s
changing.’ It was absolutely an arrow in the brain. ‘Dear Mr Harrison, can you give us one of Paul McCartney's toenails?”
SUDDENLY I WAS ‘ONE OF THOSE’, EVEN WITHIN MY _ Still, to this day, people come up to me brandishing letters that my!
FAMILY, AND IT WAS VERY DIFFICULT TO GET USED mother once wrote to them. Even back when | was a kid, she had pen-
~ ee pals, people who lived in Northumberland or New Zealand or some
TO. I'D GROWN U! ND LIVED WITH THESE PEOPLE where, people she'd never met: just writing and sending photographs to
AND NOW I FOUN YSELF IN WEIRDLAND. each other.

108 FAME & EFFECTS

 RINGO: Home and family were the two RINGO: By the end of 1963, it was impossible
things | didn't want to change, because it to go home. And if you are in our business, you
had all changed ‘out there’ and we were no go to London. The recordings are there, the
longer really sure who our friends were, places to be seen are there, where it's
unless we'd had them before the fame. The happening is there, it's just a natural move
guys and the girls | used to hang about George and | started out sharing an
with | could trust. But once we'd become apartment in Green Street, Park Lane. £45 a
big and famous, we soon learnt that people week it cost — a fortune! John was living with
were with us only because of the vague Cynthia. (That's when they finally told me
notoriety of being ‘a Beatle’. And when this they were married — they'd kept it a secret in
happened in the family, it was quite a case | told somebody. They didn't really trust
blow. | didn’t know what to do about it; | me, you know. Just joking!)
couldn't stand up and say, ‘Treat me like We were fed by Harry and Carol Finegold,
you used to,’ because that would be acting who lived below us. We didn't know how to
‘big time’. look after ourselves: we'd been living with our
The other thing that happens when parents; they had done the cooking, and the
you become famous is that people start to tea was always ready. Now, suddenly, we had
think you know something. They all want our own place in London. We'd go to the
to know what you think about this and Saddle Room, a club where Prince Philip was a
that, and | would blah on — as a 22/23- member. They used to keep a horse and coach
year-old — as if suddenly I knew. | could talk outside so you'd often see two drunken little
about anything, | knew exactly how the Beatles in the back of this coach being taken
country should be run, and why and how home up Park Lane. Clip clop. For two shit-
this should happen; suddenly | was a kickers from Liverpool, this was far-out: ‘Let's
blaher: ‘Yeah, Mr Blah here, what do you take the carriage!’
want to know?’ It was so crazy. | remember We met a lot of people as well. Phil
endless discussions that went on for days Spector was one | was thrilled to meet. The DJ
and days — nights and days, actually, Tony Hall also lived on Green Street and
discussing the world, discussing music. when he had Phil and the Ronettes staying
Suddenly people give you all this credit! with him, George and | went over to meet
But we weren't any different; we'd just had them.
a couple of Number Ones and millions
loved us. GEORGE: We had been living in hotels in
I had no schooling before I joined The London for so long that we decided we needed
Beatles and no schooling after The Beatles. a flat. John got his first, because he was
Life is a great education. married; Ringo and | used to stay in the Hotel
President in Russell Square, then we moved
PAUL: We're constantly being asked all into the flat. It was such a buzz because we'd
sorts of very profound questions. But we're been brought up in little two-up two-down
not very profound people. People say, houses in Liverpool, and now to have a posh
‘What do you think of the H-bomb, of flat in Mayfair, and with a bathroom each, it
religion, of fan worship?’ But we didn't was great.
really start thinking about these things John and Paul went through their intellectual
until people asked us. And even then we phase between 1963 and 1966. Looking back at
didn't get much time to consider them. John, he was always interested in poetry and
What do | think of the H-bomb? Well, films, but when we moved to London he and
here's an answer with the full weight of five Paul got into a bit of one-upmanship over who
O levels and one A level behind it: | don't knew the most about everything. Paul started
agree with it.” going to the Establishment Club and hanging
out with Jane Asher. There was a time when
GEORGE: ‘Let's get our kicks today, for they'd go to see plays and it was all, ‘Did you see
tomorrow we die, man’ — that's rot! Some such and such? Have you read this?’
people are like that; thick people blowing up
the world. I'm interested in what will PAUL: Really, that was why wed left
happen.” Liverpool; London was the big capital city
with everything going for it. If you went to a
NEIL ASPINALL: We all gradually moved to play, it could be at the National Theatre,
London. Until the move they would keep going watching some mind-blowing actors. Seeing
home and still play the leftover dates at the Cavern Colin Blakely in Juno and the Paycock was a big
and whatever, but it very quickly became far more eye-opener. | was going out with an actress —
practical to live in London than in Liverpool. All Jane Asher — at the time, so I did quite a lot of
the families were very proud of what everybody bad theatre-going.
done but I think they may have felt they'd lost them a bit once they moved | began to make little films on my own
away. | think Mal Evans and I were the last ones to get a flat, because we too. We'd film home movies, and because |
couldnt afford it. Eventually they had to get us a flat, because staying in didn't like sound cameras (we didn't really have
hotels, as we did, was even more expensive. many then), I'd take the visuals and put any
soundtrack on them, to experiment. |
JOHN: When I left Liverpool with the group, a lot of Liverpool remember one | did of a gendarme dir
people dropped us and said, ‘Now you've let us down.’ It was the traffic. | then ran that film through the «
same in England. When we left England to go to America we lost a again and just filmed the traffic, so where he'd try to stop the «
lot of fans. They begin to feel as though they own you, and the would all run through him. Over the top | stuck on a craz)
people in Liverpool did, and did until we decided to leave. A lot of player, who sounded out of tune, playing the Marseillais:
people dropped us but, of course, we got a whole pile more; a probably where the idea came from for the start of ‘All
- different audience.”! Love’. It was quite funny.
 | have always been someone who gets into a_ steady GEORGE MARTIN: It was very difficult
relationship. | met Jane Asher when she was sent by the Radio in 1963 to think The Beatles were going to
Times to cover a concert we were in at the Royal Albert Hall — we last for ever and that I would be talking
had a photo taken with her for the magazine and we all fancied about them thirty years on. But it was very
her. We'd thought she was blonde, because we had only ever seen gratifying that they bad made Number
her on black-and-white telly doing Juke Box Jury, but she turned One. It took a whole year before they
out to be a redhead. So it was: ‘Wow, you're a redhead!’ | tried really conquered the world. It was 1964
pulling her, succeeded, and we were boyfriend and girlfriend for before they had a Number One in America
quite a long time. — the whole of 1963 was taken up with
| always feel very wary including Jane in The Beatles’ history. consolidating our work in England. They
She's never gone into print about our relationship, whilst everyone on earth had four singles out during that time:
has sold their story. So I'd feel weird being the one to kiss and tell. ‘Please Please Me’, ‘From Me To You’,
We had a good relationship. Even with touring there were enough ‘She Loves You’, and ‘I Want To Hold
occasions to keep a reasonable relationship going. To tell the truth, the Your Hand’. As we recorded them, I would
women at that time got sidelined. Now it would be seen as very chauvinist send each one to my
friends at Capitol
of us. Then it was like: ‘We are four miners who go down the pit. You Records in America and say, ‘This group
don't need women down the pit, do you? We won't have women is fantastic. You've got to issue them,
down the pit.’ A lot of what we, The Beatles, did was very much in an you've got to sell them in the States.’ And each
enclosed scene. Other people found it difficult — even John's wife, time, the bead of Capitol would turn it down:
Cynthia, found it very difficult — to penetrate the screen that we had ‘Sorry, we know our market better than you do,
around us. As a kind of safety barrier we had a lot of ‘in’ jokes, little and we dont think they're any good.’ Eventually,
signs, references to music; we had a common bond in that and it was of course, they had to accede to public demand.
very difficult for any ‘outsider’ to penetrate. That possibly wasn't good
for relationships back then. NEIL ASPINALL: Well, they bad conquered
I was still living on my own in London when all the others started Britain. The Beatles were everywhere — George even
getting married and moving to the suburbs, on golf-club estates, had his own column in the Daily Express,
which wasn't my idea of fun at all: one, because | wasn't married and assisted by friend-to-be Derek Taylor.
there didn't seem any point. (I could see it for them: they were going
to raise kids out there.) And two, because | was able to stay in DEREK TAYLOR: My first experience Beatle
London | was much more involved in going to the theatre and art came earlier that year, and was extraordinary. I
galleries and whatever was going on in the big metropolis. was still only thirty, but sufficiently unaware of
the ‘young’ world in mid-Spring 1963 to have
JOHN: I'm glad things got as big as they did, because when we got not beard of this rising phenomenon. I was
nearly big, people started saying to us: ‘You're the biggest thing working as a journalist for the Daily Express
since...’ | got fed up that we were the biggest thing ‘since’. | wanted in Manchester and as such went to cover a one-
The Beatles to just be the biggest thing. It's like gold. The more you night stand at the Odeon, starring The Beatles and
get, the more you want.” Roy Orbison. I watched the show and when, two
hours later, it was all over bar the screaming, I
RINGO: We knew we were a great band but no one could predict went to the telephone and dictated my review
then where it was going. We were playing good music and making without a note, just as it came, and they printed it.
good money. With Rory, at Butlins, | was on sixteen quid a week, I believed that in The Beatles the world had found
and as an apprentice engineer | would take home £2 10s a week with the truest folk heroes of the century or, indeed, of
the prospect of £12 or £15 a week after finishing the apprenticeship. any other time. From that day, 30th May 1963,
But, now, here | was with money. Money was great. It meant having I have never wavered in my certainty that they
a bathroom in my own house, having cars. | suppose the biggest painted a new rainbow right across the world,
expense was the apartment George and | used to share. There were with crocks of gold at each end and then some...
many suits and shirts and shoes and shopping sprees. | counted I was pleased when Georges Daily Express
thirty-seven shirts one time and | couldn't believe it. column fell to me, but I started on the wrong foot.
The first year we were still getting fifty quid a week from Brian. It I did a real ghosting job. George’ father was a
was £25 when | joined, and even that had been a fortune. bus driver, so I invented a conversation between
his father and him in typical popular-newspaper
JOHN: We don't feel as though we've got money. You just feel as style. It went like this: ‘So my dad said to me,
though you've got the material things. The money we don't feel “Dont worry about me, son, you stick to your
as though we've got, because we've never seen it. | never see more guitar and I'll carry on driving the big green
than £100 at once. They usually give us about thirty or forty quid jobs.”"
a week each. | usually give it to my wife because | never use I went down to London to deliver Georges
money, because I'm always being taken around. | only handle first column and I was asked by Brian, ‘Ob,
money when I'm off on holiday. would you read it out for the boys? I'd like them
to bear it.’ So I bad to take this column out of
GEORGE: We were still not that wealthy, except that we were my pocket and, as ifGeorge had written it, I
better off relative to how poor we'd been before. But it was by no started reading it: '... you stick to your guitar
means real wealth, from the cash we were being given. I recently and I'll carry on driving the big green jobs.’
found a piece of paper that shows how much we were actually And George said, ‘What are big green jobs?’I
earning in one period in 1963. From the starting figure of £72,000, said, ‘Um, buses — Liverpool buses.’ George
we made about £4,000 each; Brian Epstein took £2,025 a week and said, ‘I didn't know they were called “big green
Neil and Mal got £25 each. So Brian got £2,000 more each week than jobs”.’ Jobn said, ‘I didn't know they were,
Mal and Neil! either.’ I said, ‘Well, I don't know that they are.’
But our lives were changing. The way that we measured success I had just made it up. Which, of course, is what
or wealth now was that we had motorcars and lived in Mayfair and happens on newspapers and that's why all these
had four suits when we travelled. That was not bad, really. things sound so phoney.
Anyway, the long and short of it was, after
JOHN: You can be bigheaded, and say, ‘Yeah, we're going to last ten I'd passed the test by admitting that I'd made up
years, but as soon as youve said that, you think, 'You know, we're ‘big green jobs’, George said, ‘I'll help you write
lucky if we last three months. the column — we can do it together.’

110 FAME & EFFECTS

nineteen sixty-four
 |OHN: If they want things like ‘Sally’ and
Beethoven’, we can do that standing on our
ears. We might change the programme for
the Olympia tomorrow, and put in some of
the early rock numbers we used to do in
Hamburg and at the Cavern — like ‘Sweet
Little Sixteen’ and things. Easy.
We have a lot to live up to, especially
being top of the bill at the Olympia. If we
opened the show and didn't do so well,
then we wouldn't have too much to live
down, particularly as there are other acts
following us. But topping the bill — well,
let's hope it all works out.%

GEORGE: In January 1964 we played several

concerts in Paris. The French audience was
dreadful.
WE HAD VISIONS OF ALL THESE
FRENCH GIRLS, ‘OOH LA LA,’ AND
ALL THAT, BUT THE AUDIENCE, AT Dum
LEAST ON THE OPENING NIGHT,
WAS ALL TUXEDOED ELDERLY GEORGE MARTIN: When they were appearing at the Olympia Theatre
I went over to Paris and arranged to record them in the EMI studio there.
PEOPLE. AND A BUNCH OF They were to record German versions of ‘She Loves You' and ‘I Want To
SLIGHTLY GAY-LOOKING BOYS Hold Your Hand’.
WERE HANGING ROUND THE The German record company’s bead of A&R had told me that The Beatles
STAGE DOOR SHOUTING, 'RINGO, would never sell records in Germany unless they actually sang in German. I
was disinclined to believe this, but that's what he said and I told The Beatles.
RINGO!' AND CHASING OUR CAR. They laughed: ‘That's absolute rubbish.’ So I said, ‘Well, if we want to sell
WE DIDN'T SEE ANY OF THE records in Germany, that's what we've got to do.’ So they agreed to record in
BRIGITTE BARDOTS THAT WE German. I mean, really it was rubbish, but the company sent over one Otto
Demmlar to help coach them in German. He prepared the translation of the
WERE EXPECTING. lyrics, and ‘She Loves You' became ‘Sie Liebt Dich’ — not terribly subtle!
On the appointed day I was waiting with Otto at the studios and they
RINGO: These boys chased us all over Paris. Before, we'd been more didn't turn up. It was the first time in my experience with them that they had let
used to girls. The audience was a roar instead of a scream; it was a bit me down, so I rang the George V Hotel where they were staying, and Neil
like when we played Stowe boys’ school. Aspinall answered. He said, ‘I'm sorry, they're not coming, they asked me to tell
you.’ I said, ‘You mean to tell me they're telling you to tell me? They're not
GEORGE: The sound went off in the hall and all the equipment blew telling me themselves?’ — ‘Thats right.’—‘I'm coming right over,’ I said.
up because it had been fused by the radio people (who were So I went to see them and I had Otto with me. I was really angry and
broadcasting us live without telling us). stormed in to find they were all having tea in the centre of the room. (They were,
It was all very disappointing, although it was made up for by our after all, very charming people.) It was rather like the Mad Hatters Tea Party
having, for the first time in our lives, the most enormous hotel suites, all with Alice in Wonderland in the form of Jane Asher, with long hair, in the
with grand marble bathrooms. | think we were given two adjoining middle pouring tea. '
suites, with rooms that went on for ever. As soon as I
entered they exploded in all directions, they ran behind couches
sill Corbett, our chauffeur then and a very nice fellow, wanted to be and chairs and one put a lampshade over bis head. Then from behind the sofa
with us in Paris, so he told us he could speak French. He |said=‘@hy and chairs came a chorus of: ‘Sorry George, sorry George, sorry George...’ I
yeah, | speak it fluently, Paul.’ So we sent him over on the boat with the had to laugh. I said, ‘You are bastards, aren't you? Are you going to apologise
car, and we flew over and he met us there. to Otto?’ And they said, ‘Sorry. Otto; nis Otto. .
They finally agreed to come downto the studio and work. They did record
RINGO: He said, ‘You boys, you don't want to go over there with two songs in German. They were the only things they have ever done ina
those frogs, they'll con you into all sorts of things;)Wét me go over foreign language. And they didn't need to anyway. They were quite right. T
there and I'll drive you round and interpret.’ And. we»of course, being records would have sold in English, andedid;
so naive, said ‘OK
When we got to Paris he stopped a policeman, and the first words NEIL ASPINALL: Whilst we were at the George V Hotel, a lot of exciting
out of his mouth were, ‘Oi! May | park ici?’ things were happening. As well as George Martin being there for the German
recordings, Derek Taylor was around interviewing. George for the Daily Express
GEORGE: One of us asked him for some honey, because his throat was column be was doing for him. John was working on his second book, A
getting sore and he needed a soothing drink, and Bill went up to a Spaniard in the Works. At the same time they'd justgot Dylan’ first album
waiter and said, ‘Avez-vous... er, buzz-buzz?’ and David Wynne was there, too, he did the sculptures of The Beatles’ beadss
The Beatles played for three weeks at the Olympia, which apart from the
RINGO: We'd been done again. But Bill could get us anything — | Cavern and their stints in Hamburg, was thelongest time they appeared at anyo™
remember once sending him for a selection of green socks. When single venue.
George, bought_his. house in Esher, with a swimming pool, he'd said to
sill, ‘I'd like an eighty-foot diving stage. And Bill had said, ‘Sure, I'll GEORGE: One of the most memorable things of the trip forme was
have it round here in the morning, Mr Harrison. It will be right here.’ that we had a copy of Bob Dylan's Freewheelin’ album, which wen.
So anything we wanted, he was good at getting for us. played constantly. 4

12 PARIS
 Wpus irom te plus en olos haut %
LARRY G RISWOLD
2 5
‘,
Nous cesteromp @ynamigue cl. Parratreoquin ;
.

PIERRE VASSILAU
et la AYeiacleF ieBinlogisee
Anndeimenée pac le Twise

ROGER COMTE
inimitables dans feurs imitations de classe
GILL MILLER
Encore beaucoup d’éguilibrea fate
LES HOGANAS et ARNOLD ARCHER

fois, le Champion International du “' SURE ~

Paris verra pour la premiére

A L‘ENTR’ACIE : BARS # FUMOIRS |

2 tetre stand dous fe halt dés [enir’acce et
dchetea ct faites adedicacer’
vas vederres
jurqu'd In Cip da spectacie. les deraters disques de

avec du rythine elle varie insufle la joie de vivre

VARTAN |
Jolie, frai¢he,

SYLVIE
ial é
/

extraordinaire le caractétise /

VINICIO. OAS.
Une adverse

LES BEATLES
Nous vivrons dans la lidvre. iS révolurionnent J linglererre eC tr France

|
 | think that was the first time | ever
1 Dylan at all | think Paul got the record
nch DJ. We were doing a radio thing
d the guy had the record in the studio.
Oh, | keep hearing about this guy,’
ird it, I'm not sure — and we took it
to the hotel And for the rest of our
veeks in Paris we didn’t stop playing it.
nt potty on Dylan
[he first time you
hear Dylan you think
oure the first to discover him.
But quite a lot
of people had discovered him before us.

DEREK TAYLOR: Igot to Paris in 1964 to do

Georges column. He said, ‘To make this column
interesting, let's go out. We'll Je to a nightclub and
we ll go up the Eiffel Tower. We'll do French things.’
They were new to travelling then. It was all new.
By Paris I was getting to be trusted, and one
tight John said to me, ‘Are you pretending to be
from Liverpool or something?’ We were the last up
and we'd had a few drinks and that's bow the
conversation took this difficult turn. I said, ‘I dont
know about pretending, but anyway, I am from
Liverpool.’ He said, ‘Yeab, born in Manchester.’ I
said, ‘Well, that's a narrow way of ae at it.
At the moment I live in Manchester. A lot of people
are not born where they happen t 0 live later. I was
born in Liverpool, lived in West Kirby; my wife's
from Birkenhead.’
All this was local stuff, and it was surprisingly
quick to gett under that harsh exterior of .John’s to
find a nice chap with whom (once you had page
you weren t from Manchester and therefore use less)
you could have quite a sees Ai ea ona
variety of subjects. None of which I remember,
because we didget very drunk together. I enjjoyed
thatt night a lot,j
just him and me.

GEORGE: Besides the German versions of two

songs, | remember recording ‘Can't Buy Me
Love’. We took the tapes from that back to
England to do some work on them. | once read
something that tries to analyse ‘Can't Buy Me
Love’, talking about the double-track guitar —
mine — and saying that it's not very good
because you can hear the original one. What happened was that we RINGO: We couldn't believe it. We all just started acting like people
recorded first in Paris and re-recorded in England. Obviously they'd from Texas, hollering and shouting, ‘Ya-hoo!' | think that was the night
tried to overdub it, but in those days they only had two tracks, so you we finished up sitting on a bench by the Seine; just the four of us and
can hear the version we put on in London, and in the background you Neil. In those days we'd promise Neil £20,000 if he'd go for a swim.
can hear a quieter one. He'd go for a swim and we'd say, ‘No, sorry.’

GEORGE MARTIN: I thought that we really needed a tagfor the song's GEORGE: We knew we had a better chance of having a hit because we
ending, and a tag for the beginning, a kind ofintro. So I took the first few lines were finally with Capitol Records and they bad to promote it. The
of the chorus and«hanged the ending, and said, ‘Let's just have these lines, and smaller labels that had put out our earlier records didn't really promote
by alteriing the end of the second phrase we can getback into the verse pretty them very much.
quickly.’ And they said, ‘That's not a bad idea, we'll do it that way.’ There had been cover stories on European Beatlemania
in Life and Newsweek and other magazines, so it wasn't
too difficult a job for Capitol to follow through. And
PAUL: PERSONALLY, I THINK YOU CAN PUT ANY the song itself was very catchy, anyway.
INTERPRETATION YOU WANT ON ANYTHING,
BUT WHEN SOMEONE SUGGESTS THAT ‘CAN'T
BUY ME LOVE’ IS ABOUT A PROSTITUTE, | DRAW
THE LINE. THAT'S GOING TOO FAR.
One night we arrived back at the hotel from the Olympia when a
telegram came through to Brian from Capitol Records of America.
He came running in to the room saying, ‘Hey look. You are
Number One in America!’ I Want To Hold Your Hand’ had
gone to Number One AM;
Well | can't describe our response. We all tried to
climb onto Big Mal’'s back to go round the hotel su
Wey-hey!' And that was it, we didn’t come down for
1 wee k

PARIS
 ~+
kin
Pars

JOHN: | like ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand, it's It wasn't until Time and Newsweek came over
a beautiful melody.” | remember when we got and wrote articles and created an interest in us
the chord that made that song. We were in that disc jockeys started playing our records.
Jane Asher's house, downstairs in the cellar, And Capitol said, ‘Well, can we have their
playing on the piano at the same time, and we records?’ They had been offered our records
_ had, ‘Oh, you-u-u... got that something...’
cae
yy years ago, and they didn't want them — but
AND PAUL HITS THIS CHORD when they heard we were big over here they
~ AND | TURN TO HIM AND SAY, said, ‘Can we have them now?’ We said, ‘As
long as you promote them.’ So Capitol
TSoe
‘THAT'S IT! DO THAT AGAIN!’ IN promoted, and with them and all these articles
THOSE DAYS, WE REALLY USED
J

on us, the records just took off.

TO ABSOLUTELY WRITE LIKE
THAT — BOTH PLAYING INTO DEREK TAYLOR: I was now accepted by Jobn.
George and I had got along very well right from the
EACH OTHER'S NOSES.” start. He never did that ‘you're from Manchester’
stuff. He was anxious to please, and still is. Ifbe is
GEORGE: It was such a buzz to find that it committed to something, be does it with enormous
had gone to Number One. We went out to thoroughness. He has rather a ‘straight-abead’ way.
dinner that evening with Brian and George ¢ So my ‘in’ through George was very comfortable. I
Martin. George took us to a place which was a didnt know Ringo at all then, and Paul stood back
vault, with huge barrels of wine around. It was a bit — he was very nice though. We seemed to have
a restaurant and its theme was... well, the a lot in common: Merseyside grammar school boys,
bread rolls were shaped like penises, the soup different ages, but we sort offitted.
was served out of chamber pots and the It was obvious to me in Paris that they were
chocolate ice cream was like a big turd. And going to be red hot. They'd reached Number One in
the waiter came round and tied garters on all 6 the Cashbox chart with ‘I Want To Hold Your
the girls’ legs. I've seen some pictures of us. ’ Hand’, and the mania was spreading abead of them.
There is a photograph around of Brian with the I did George’ final before-America column, a
pot on his head. ‘tomorrow the world’ kind of thing: ‘Tonight we
It was a great feeling because we were conquered Versailles, and by implication, all of
booked to go to America directly after the France fell... How New York will view our visit,
Paris trip, so it was handy to have a Number we can only guess!’
One. We'd already been hired by Ed Sullivan, But the Daily Express didn't send me to
so if it had been a Number Two or Number America. They said, ‘We've got David English
Ten wed have gone anyway; but it was nice to there, he’s the American correspondent.’ Ithought,
have a Number One. ‘He doesn't know them, be doesn't understand them,
We did have three records out in America I'm the only one who understands them, I know
before this one. The others were on two these people.’ However, I was asked to help Brian
different labels. It was only after all the h
publicity and the Beatlemania in Europe that
Capitol Records decided, ‘Oh, we will have
them.’ They put out ‘| Want To Hold Your
Hand as our first single, but in fact it was our jeer
fourth.

PAUL: From Me To You’ was released — a flop

in America. ‘She Loves You’ — a big hit in
England, big Number One in England — a flop in the USA. ‘Please
Please Me’ released over there — flop. Nothing until ‘| Want To Hold
Your Hand’.

_ JOHN: The thing is, in Améeies ,: it just seemed ridiculous — | mean, the
idea of having a hit recor r there. It was just something you could
never do. That 's what | th anyhow. But then | realised that kids
~ everywhere all go for the¢. and seeing we'd done it in England,
_ there's no reason why w Idn't do it in America, too. But the
.

_ American disc jockeys now about British records; they didn't

_play them, nobody promoted them, so you didn’t have hits.
oe

Epstein with his book and we went down to

Torquay for four days and wrote a pot-boiler — A
Cellarful of Noise. And he said on the third day
I've had a lovely, lovely idea Derek, I want 5
join us
| thought this was incredible
idea of joining them for the time
it happens, it happens.’ So aft
on newspapers I dropped out
as Brians personal assistant
The Beatles’ press officer

PARIS 15
 George was the only one of us who'd been before and he'd been into
record shops there and asked, ‘Have you got The Beatles’.records?’ We
had three out, on Vee-Jay and Swan, but nobody had them, or had even
heard of us. He came back and said, ‘They don't know us, it's going to
be hard.’ We were used to being famous by then, so we were worried
about that.
But the deal went down with Capitol. Then Ed Sullivan was getting
off a plane at Heathrow at the same time that we were getting off one
from Sweden, saw all the fans at the airport and booked us on the spot.
He didn’t know us and we didn't know him.
All these forces started working so that when we landed in the US
the record was Number One. We were booked five months ahead and
you can't plan that kind of thing. We got off the plane and it was just
like being at home, millions of kids again.

JOHN: We didn’t think we stood a chance. We didn’t imagine it at all.

Cliff went to America and died. He was fourteenth on the bill with
Frankie Avalon.” When we came over the first time, we were only
coming over to buy LPs. | know our manager had plans for Ed Sullivan
shows but we thought at least we could hear the sounds when we came
over. It was just out of the dark. That's the truth; it was so out of the
dark, we were knocked out.”

GEORGE: I'd been to America before, being the experienced Beatle

that I was. | went to New York and St Louis in 1963, to look around,
and to the countryside in Illinois, where my sister was living at the time.
| went to record stores. | bought Booker T and the MGs’ first album,
Green Onions, and | bought some Bobby Bland, all kind of things.
Before we left for America for that first Beatle visit, Brian Epstein had
said to Capitol, ‘You can have The Beatles on condition that you spend
thirty dollars advertising them.’ And they did. It was actually something
like $50,000, which sounded enormous. That was part of the deal.

PAUL: | think the money was mainly spent in LA getting people like
oe atone be mpagen ton : OTCBB OTR Coe
Janet Leigh to wear Beatle wigs and be photographed in them, which
started it all. Once a film star did that, it could get syndicated all across
America: ‘Look at this funny picture; Janet Leigh in this wacko wig — the
BRIAN EPSTEIN: We knew that America would “moptop” wig.’ And so the whole ‘moptop’ thing started there. And it
did get us noticed.
make us Or break us as world stars. There were millions of kids at the airport, which nobody had
expected. We heard about it in mid-air. There were journalists on the
In fact, she made us" plane, and the pilot had rang ahead and said, ‘Tell
the boys there's a big crowd waiting for them.’ We
thought, ‘Wow! God, we have really made it.
RINGO: Things used to fall right for I remember, for instance, the great moment of
us as a band. We couldn't stop it. getting into the limo and putting on the radio,
The gods were on our side. We were and hearing a running commentary on us: ‘They
fabulous musicians, we had great writ- have just left the airport and are coming towards
ers; it wasn't like a piece of shit was New York City...’ It was like a dream. The
being helped, and things just fell into greatest fantasy ever.
place. We were doing countries: we'd
conquered Sweden, we'd conquered RINGO: IT WAS SO EXCITING. ON
France, we conquered Spain and Italy;
but we were worried about America. THE PLANE, FLYING IN TO THE
AIRPORT, I FELT AS THOUGH THERE
WAS A BIG OCTOPUS WITH
TENTACLES THAT WERE GRABBING
THE PLANE AND DRAGGINGUS DOWN INTO NEW —
YORK. AMERICA WAS THE BEST.
It was a dream, coming from Liverpool. 4
| loved it. The radio was hip and bopping, the TV was on, we were
going to clubs. And they loved Ringo over there. That's why it was $
great for me, because when we got to America it wasn't JOHN, PAUL,
GEORGE and Ringo; half the time it was RINGO, PAUL, GEORGE
and JOHN, or whatever. Suddenly it was equal.

NEIL ASPINALL: It bas since been reported that their American record
company had promised that every person who turned up at the airport would
be given a dollar bill and a T-shirt. What really happened was that the
receptionists at Capitol Records would answer the phone, ‘Capitol Records —
The Beatles are coming.’ There was a lot of mention on the radio, too: ‘The
Beatles are coming!’ It was the people handling the Beatles merchandise at the
time who were offering the free T-shirt. I had no idea about that at the time, and
it was nothing to do with the record company.

AMERICA "
 They've got sO many programmes

and we got on all the news. It was

ridiculous. At first we had no idea, then
when we got the first couple of hits we
thought, ‘Well, this is it, we'll probably
flop now.’ But we just seem to go on and
on and on. Never in a million years did
we think anything like this.
They expect you to be a big-time
star, but | think most people prefer us
being the way we are. They come in
biased. Then we'll just be natural with
them and they seem pleased. That's all we do: if we're tired, we look
tired, if we're happy, we're happy; we don't kid on. If we're feeling a bit
‘off’ that day, we say to them, ‘I'm feeling a bit “off”, I'm sorry, | won't be
quick-witted.’™

NEIL ASPINALL: George had tonsillitis and didn'tgo to rebearsals for The PAUL: A New York DJ, Murray the K, was the man most onto the
Ed Sullivan Show. I stood in for bim so that they could mark where everyone Beatle case; he had seen it coming and grabbed hold of it. Actually he
would stand, and Ihad a guitar strapped round me. It wasn't plugged in was just a cheeky journalist who asked a few cheeky questions at the
(nobody was playing anything )and it was amazing to read in a major front of the press conference, instead of standing back and being aloof.
American magazine a few days later that I ‘played a mean guitar’. His way was: ‘Hey, OK, you guys? What do you think of... 2’
The Beatles recorded a set in the afternoon, which was to be broadcast after We were very impressed and we used to ring his radio show when
they left, and then played a live Ed Sullivan Show that night. he was on the air. We would give him all the exclusives because we
loved him. And he had package shows on the road so he could talk
GEORGE: | had a bad throat and that's why I'm missing from the about people like Smokey Robinson, who he'd met. Smokey Robinson
publicity shots in Central Park. There are pictures of just the three of was like God in our eyes.
them with the New York skyline behind. (The same with the
rehearsal for Ed Sullivan: there are pictures of them rehearsing GEORGE: I've often wondered how Murray could barge into the room
without me.) I could never figure out how, with swarms of people and hang out with us for the entire trip. It's funny, really, | never quite
everywhere, with the mania going on, they actually did get out into understood how he did that.
the park for a photo session.
RINGO: Murray the K was as mad as a hatter, a fabulous guy, a great
RINGO: The main thing I was aware of when we did the first Ed DJ, and he knew his music. We practically killed him off, because he
Sullivan Show was that we rehearsed all afternoon. TV had such bad would come on the tour with us and hang about all the time we were up
sound equipment (it has still today, usually, but then it was really bad) and about. Then we would pass out and go to sleep; and be would then
that we would tape our rehearsals and then go up and mess with the have to start doing his shows. He was living on twenty minutes of sleep
dials in the control booth. We got it all set with the engineer there, and a night. We could see this man just go, disappearing in front of our eyes.
then we went off for a break. In New York there was him, and the DJ Cousin Brucie. Murray
The story has it that while we were out, the cleaner came in to clean became the so-called ‘fifth Beatle’, because he was really big on playing
the room and the console, thought, ‘What are all these chalk marks?’ our record: he helped to make it a hit.
and wiped them all off. So our plans just went out the window. We had
a real hasty time trying to get the sound right. NEIL ASPINALL: We were all pretty naive when we arrived in America. We
didn't know about advertising and all of that. People were pulling all sorts of
GEORGE: We were aware that Ed Sullivan was the big one because strokes. There would be a press conference with big billboards bebind,
we got a telegram from Elvis and the Colonel. And I've heard that advertising something or other, and we'd not notice.
while the show was on there were no reported crimes, or very few. In England at that time there was only one radio station, the BBC. In the
When The Beatles were on Ed Sullivan, even the criminals had a rest States you had radio stations coming out of your ears and they were hit on by
for ten minutes. all the DJs. Murray the K was from WINS in New York City, but there were
loads of them. They would follow the guys into the lift with their microphones
PAUL: Seventy-three million people were reported to have watched the and, as they'd be talking to them, the conversation would be broadcast out of
first show. It is still supposed to be one of the largest viewing audiences their hand-held radios.
ever in the States. The Beatles would ask, ‘What radio station are you from?’ and the DJ
It was very important. We came out of nowhere with funny hair, would tell them, which would promote the station. Then the other stations would
looking like marionettes or something. That was very influential. | think gel uptight, but as The Beatles did it for everybody anyway (because they
that was really one of the big things that broke us — the hairdo more didnt know any different), nobody could really complain. And they'd listen to
than the music, originally. A lot of people's fathers had wanted to turn the radio all the time, and call to request records
us off. They told their kids, ‘Don't be fooled, they're wearing wigs.’
JOHN: We were so overawed by American radio, Epstein had to stop
JOHN: If we do, they must be the only ones with real dandruff! us: we phoned every radio [station] in town, saying, ‘Will you play the
Ronettes doing this?’ We wanted to hear the music. We didn’t ask for
PAUL: A lot of fathers did turn it off, but a lot of mothers and children our own records, we asked for other people's.” In the old days we
made them keep it on. All these kids are now grown-up, and telling us listened to Elvis, of course, Chuck Berry, Carl Perkins, Little Richard
they remember it. It's like, ‘Where were you when Kennedy was shot?’ | and Eddie Cochran, to name but a few; but now we liked Marvin Gaye
get people like Dan Aykroyd saying, ‘Oh man, | remember that Sunday The Miracles, Shirelles, all those people
night; we didn’t know what had hit us — just sitting there watching Ed We do nothing else all day. We have a transistor each, all on at
Sullivan's show.’ Up until then there were jugglers and comedians like various volumes, aiid whichever record we like, we just turn that one up
Jerry Lewis, and then, suddenly, The Beatles! It's great. They've started in Britain now — ‘pirate ships’, they cal tl
off the British coast. They're similar, in a more modified, British
JOHN: They're wild; they're all wild. They just all seem out of their But you get good records all day, which you never got bef
minds. I've never seen anything like it in my life. We just walk through It does seem a lot of advertising when you
it like watching a film. You feel as though it's something that’s suppose you get used to it. People come to Britai
happening to somebody else, especially when you spot George and you got commercial TV) and see the advertising on I\
’ think, ‘Oh, that's George with all those people climbing all over him. awful; you just get used to it.
RINGO: I loved New York at that time. We suddenly become ambassadors and_ they
went into Central Park in a horse-drawn wanted to see us, and | think Brian liked the
carriage. We had this huge suite of rooms in idea that it was sort of big time.
the Plaza Hotel, with a TV on in each room, We were standing around, saying, ‘Hi,
and we had radios with earpieces. This was that's very nice,’ and having a drink, when
all so fascinating to me. It was too far out; someone came up behind me and snipped
the media was just so fast. off a piece of my hair, which got me very
| remember that on one of the TV angry. Why was he carrying a pair of
channels they were showing Hercules scissors? | just swung round and said, ‘What
Unchained, an Italian ‘Hercules’ movie. When the hell do you think you are doing?’ He
we got up in the morning and put the TV on replied, ‘Oh, it's OK, old chap... bullshit,
there would be Hercules doing his stuff in bullshit.’ That was a stupid incident: wanting
ancient times. We'd go out and do to cut a Beatles hair.
something and come back in the afternoon
and I'd switch on and he would still be doing JOHN: People were touching us when we
his stuff. And then we'd go out at night, and walked past, that kind of thing, and
come back, and I'd switch on this one wherever we went we were supposed to be
channel, and it would be the same movie! | not normal. We were supposed to put up
thought | was cracking up. In fact, this one with all sorts of shit from Lord Mayors and
channel had a Movie of the Week, and they their wives, and be touched and pawed like
would just keep showing it again and again. At the end of the credits in A Hard Day's Night, only a million times more. At the American
they'd just start it at the top. Embassy or the British Embassy in Washington, some bloody animal cut
This was too far out, coming from England, where we'd only had a Ringo's hair. | walked out, swearing at all of them, | just left in the
TV in our house for a couple of years. Now here was a channel doing middle of it.””
something crazy like this.
PAUL: There were a lot of Hooray Henrys there, and we had never
GEORGE: The thing that bothered me about American TV was that really met that kind before. We hadn't played arts balls or the
in the morning you'd get up and there'd be a football match on that Cambridge May Ball or anything like that; but we had heard about
obviously didn't take place in the morning; it's not the appropriate these guys who got a little stroppy after a few drinks: ‘I say, play us a
time of day. Rachmaninov Piano Concerto.’ Oh, yeah, we love him...
There are some things that | refuse to watch at certain times of day. There were a few of them at the Embassy. | remember girls wanting
| could never stand seeing | Love Lucy, and all those obviously night- to cut bits off our hair, which was not entirely on — so there were a few
time programmes, being on in the mornings. Or worse little elbows in gobs.
still, a movie at seven or eight in the morning. For me,
movies don't come on until the evening. JOHN: ONCE, IN NEW NEIL ASPINALL: The Washington show was difficult
ZEALAND, IT WAS A BIT ROUGH, because they were in a boxing ring with the audience all
NEIL ASPINALL: After Ed Sullivan, we got on the train to TOO, AND | THOUGHT A BIG round and they bad to play to all four sides.
Washington. They bad their own carriage full of press and CLUMP OF MY HAIR HAD They had to go to a different side of the stagefor every
agents and others. It was very cold. DEFINITELY GONE; AND | DON'T song, so we had to keep moving the mikes. Ringo was sitting
MEAN JUST A BIT. | WAS on a round turntable in the middle of the stage, which we
RINGO: Being cheeky chappies saved our arses on HALFWAY ON THE GROUND AND also bad to turn round — and the bloody thing got stuck!
many occasions, especially then, on the train to | THOUGHT, ‘HELLO, IT MUST All this chaos was going on, but it was actually a good
Washington, because the guys from the press had BE LIKE A RAID WHEN YOU GET show for all that. After that gig, it was back to New York.
come to bury us. These reporters, being New Yorkers, CRUSHED.’ THEY'D PUT ABOUT Ifound out twenty years later that the show bad been
would yell at us, but we just yelled back. When we got THREE POLICEMEN ON PATROL filmed for subsequent telecasting throughout America. Kids
to know some of them they said, ‘We came here to kill FOR ABOUT THREE OR FOUR all over the States had paid to go to theatres and watch it.
you, but you just started shouting back at us — we THOUSAND KIDS AND REFUSED So when they went back and toured America in August, a
couldn't believe it.’ Up until then pop groups had been TO PUT ANY MORE ON: ‘WE'VE lot of the people in the audiences had already seen them live
milk and honey with the press: 'No, | don't smoke,’ that HAD ALL SORTS HERE. WE'VE in concert, via the telecast. The Beach Boys were on as well,
kind of thing. And here we were, smoking and drinking SEEN THEM ALL.’ AND THEY DID and another act, put together and relayed to cinemas.
and shouting at them. That's what endeared us to them. SEE THEM ALL — AS WE CRASHED
TO THE GROUND!“ PAUL: We played Carnegie Hall, because Brian liked
JOHN: We'd learnt the whole game: we knew how to the idea of playing a classical hall, and then we went
handle the press when we arrived. The British press are to Miami and filmed the second Ed Sullivan Show.
the toughest in the world — we could handle anything. We were all Miami was like paradise. We had never been anywhere where there
right. | know on the plane over | was thinking, ‘Oh, we won't make it,’ were palm trees. We were real tourists; we had our Pentax cameras and
but that's that side of me: we knew we would wipe them out if we could took a lot of pictures. I've still got a lot of photos of motorcycle cops
just get a grip.” with their guns. We'd never seen a policeman with a gun, and those
| don't mind people putting us down; because if everybody really Miami cops did look pretty groovy. ‘We had a great time there. We
liked us, it would be a bore. You've got to have people putting you played at one of the hotels. They always had cabarets down in the
down. It doesn't give any edge to it if everybody just falls flat on their basements of the big hotels. And we'd look down on the beach where
face saying, ‘You're great.’ We enjoy some of the criticisms as well, the fans would write ‘Il love John’ in the sand, so big we could read it
they're quite funny; some of the clever criticisms, not the ones that from our room.
don't know anything, but some of the clever ones are quite fun.
The main thing that's kept us going when it's been real hard work is JOHN: But if we waved, somebody always said, ‘Stop that waving,
the humour amongst ourselves, we can laugh at anything — ourselves youre inciting them!’
included. That's the-way we do everything — everything's tongue in
cheek. We're the same about ourselves; we never take it seriously. RINGO: Now, this was just the most brilliant place I'd ever been to.
People were lending us yachts, anything we wanted. There were two
RINGO: We attended a miserable event in the British Embassy in great things in Florida. One: | was taken to my first drive-in in a
Washington. In the early Sixties there was still a huge disparity between Lincoln Continental by two very nice young ladies. Two: a family lent
people from the North of England and ‘people from Embassies’. They us their boat and let me drive. It was a sixty-foot speedboat, which |
were all, ‘Oh, very nice,’ a bit like Brian Epstein, and we were, ‘All right, proceeded to bring into port head-on, not really knowing much about
lads, not so bad.’ But we went, God knows why. Maybe because we'd driving speedboats.

AMERICA
:
-
7

:}
:
x
i
¥
;
£
 GEORGE: There were offshore powerboat races being held and we got GEORGE: We were all a bit taken aback. Also, we were trying to keep a
3 ride on one contender. It had two V12 engines and really went low profile and suddenly he kept putting the spotlight on us, and
ckly when you floored it. Only the back of the boat, where the embarrassing us. | think John felt a bit embarrassed, too, at the time.
ellors were, stayed in the water at high speed. The boat just stood However, if we'd had him on our own terms we could have made
on end whilst we hung on. | enjoyed that. mincemeat out of him.
He'd say, ‘Nice people, these police. They're doing a great job.’ And
IL ASPINALL: Ringo realised too late that you don't have brakes on boats then he'd turn around and snap, ‘I hope your badge melts.’
d we just crashed into the jetty. The manager of either Sonny Liston or Muhammad Ali was also
watching the show and the fight was coming up, and Don Rickles
RINGO: They have those pretty rails on the front, and I bent the would say, ‘Well, if you ask me, Jack, | think the black guy will win.’
bugger all over the place. But they didn't seem to mind, you know, they And then suddenly he'd come back to our table and we'd be nervous,
were just happy! sitting there and he'd say, ‘Look at that great personality!’
¥
_ JOHN: We borrowed a couple of millionaires’ houses there.” RINGO: He asked me, ‘Where are you from?’ | said, ‘Liverpool,’ to
silence, and he said, ‘Oh, hear the applause!’
PAUL: We'd told Brian we wanted a pool, and a guy from a record
_ company had one. Looking back, it was quite a modest little pool for GEORGE: He did a great bit at the end. He said, ‘Well, | see we've got
Miami. Not a huge affair. We would go round there in the afternoon some Arabs in the back of the room and there's always talk about
and not get bothered. It was great — four Liverpool lads, you know: ‘Get fighting amongst Arabs and Jewish people. I'd just like to say that really
your cozzies on.’ Life magazine was taking photos of us swimming. we appreciate each other, and there's no hard feelings, and just to show
| think, though, that we were hanging out with Mafiosi at that time. it, gentlemen, would you please stand up and take a bow.’ They all
There was a critic giving us a hard time in the press; George Martin and obeyed, honoured at such a gesture, and Rickles dived on the floor
Brian Epstein were discussing it when a big heavy guy came up and said, going, ‘Drrrrrrrrrr... ' making the noise of a machine gun.
‘Mr Epstein, you want we should fix this guy?’ —'Er, no, that’s OK.’ That He turned out not to be that cool, though. He blew it all at the very
was the kind of crowd we were in: ‘Yeah, I'm in the Mafia.’ But we didn't end because he started apologising for everything he'd been saying,
know that: we just saw a nice man with a pool and a yacht. | must admit instead of just going off and leaving the buzz in the room.
we were more interested in the yacht than in him.
At this stage, we started to meet people whom we'd only seen in RINGO: I had another disastrous evening in Miami. We went out to see
newspapers and on film, and now we were rubbing shoulders with them. The Coasters, who were heroes with ‘Yakety Yak’. People were dancing
to them in the club, and | just couldn't understand it. These were
GEORGE: Obviously we were having an effect, because all these rock'n'roll gods to me, and people were dancing! | was just so disgusted.
people were clamouring to meet us — like Muhammad Alli, for instance. But The Coasters were great, and it was a thrill to see American artists.
We were taken to meet him on that first trip. It was a big publicity We'd never seen them before like this, in America.
thing. It was all part of being a Beatle, really; just getting lugged around
and thrust into rooms full of press men taking pictures and asking GEORGE: When we were in New York, The Coasters were on there,
questions. Muhammad Ali was quite cute, he had a fight coming up in a and then when we were in Florida, they were there, too. Everywhere
couple of days with Sonny Liston. There is a famous picture of him we went, even when we were in California, The Coasters were
holding two of us under each arm. advertised.
ol There was a tendency in those days to have lots of different bands
~ RINGO: | sparred with Cassius Clay, as he was called then — | taught touring with the same name. Nobody knew who was who — they'd just
him everything he knew. That was a thrill, of course, and | was putting go out and sing songs. | think there were hundreds of Shangri-Las and
ond money on Liston, so | really knew what was happening! bands like that.

PAUL: We met a few people through Phil Spector. We met The PAUL: All the excitement on that trip didn’t confuse us, because the
Ronettes, which was very exciting, and various others, such as Jackie De great thing about our career was that it had stepping stones. If we were
Shannon, a great songwriter, and Diana Ross and the rest of The going to get confused, it would have been when we became successful
Cj Supremes. They were people we admired and as we went on we met in the Cavern. We weren't confused there; it was a nice little local
them all — all the people who were coming up as we were coming up. It success. And when we were doing gigs like Peterborough Empire, that
could have got confusing; but we took that also in our stride. Then we
were on television shows and some important radio networks, and
coped with all that, too; so America was really just a logical progression,
only bigger and better than anything.
‘GEORGE: We met a few people who were famous that we didn't know. Americans all spoke with accents that we liked a lot and identified
1 mean, in America there were people — and there still are — who are with, We felt we had a lot in common, phonetically. We say ‘bath’ and
really famous there, but whom you've never heard of in Britain. If you ‘grass’ with a short ‘a’ (we don't say ‘bah-th’), and so do they. | think
people from Liverpool do have an affinity with Americans, with the Gls
and the war and that. There are a lot of guys in Liverpool walking
around with cowboy hats. It is almost as if Liverpool and New York are
twin towns.

RINGO: With my family, it didn't matter that we were now big in

hadn't in those days, and he was playing in the Deauville Hotel where
America. We were big in Liverpool and that was OK by them. It was
we stayed. He was a vicious type of comedian. He would say, ‘Hello,
just a carry-on from that. They didn’t really care; | mean, once you'd
lady, where are you from?’ and she'd say, ‘Oh, I'm from Israel.’ He'd go
played the Palladium you were set up in my family — that was if for
them.

UL: Of course, he turned on us. We were all on one table with our GEORGE: | didn't think beyond the moment during that US trip. |
policeman buddy, our chaperone (we had this one bodyguard who came wasn't really aware of any change-over in our fame. | don't think |
e verywhere with us; he was a good mate and we often went back to his looked to the future much. | thought, ‘We'll enjoy what's happening and
ise), and he started on him: ‘Hey, cop, get a job! What's this? go out there and do our thing.’
aking after The Beatles? Great job you got, man; looking after The At first it was fun. We enjoyed it in the early days, but then it just
les!’ He went on, ‘It's great. They just lie up there on the ninth floor, became tiresome. When we went out on the first trip to America, it was
between satin sheets and every time they hear the girls screaming they the novelty of ‘conquering’ America. We went back later that year and
"Oooohh".' Very funny, we thought. We were not amused, as | recall. toured, and then the next year we did another tour and by that time it
, cutting. | like him now but at first he was a bit of a shock. was just too much. We couldn't move.

AMERICA 123
z, ee a at aE
Ts hee Sek
A A ok is SE RTL TEA

a
‘
RINGO:

GEORGE
MARTIN HAS
GONE DEAF IN
ONE EAR. NOW
HE CAN ONLY
WORK IN
MONO!

GEORGE MARTIN: The Beatles didn't get totally

immersed in record production until later on, when they
stopped touring. Until then, they didn't have time. They
would dash into the studio and put down their tracks
and then leave all the work to us.
The very first records we made were mono, though |
did have stereo facilities. To make mixing easier I would
keep the voices separate from the backing, so I used a
stereo machine as a twin-track. Not with the idea of
stereo — merely to give myselfa little bit moreflexibility
in remixing into a mono. So the first year’ recordings
were made on just two tracks and were live, like doing
broadcasts. With the great advance offour-track we
were able to overdub and put on secondary voices and
guitar solos afterwards. By the time we did A Hard
Day's Night we would certainly put the basic track
down and do the vocals afterwards. Invariably, I was
putting all the rhythm instruments onto either one or
:
two tracks (generally one track) so you would have
. bass lumped with guitar. It wasn't until later still
that we began putting bass on afterwards as
well, giving Paul the opportunity of using bis
voice more.
 ‘a

i
—+. i
aa |

ON
cece
—— |
 JOHN: WHEN PEOPTESIAR
THATS ALOMBOF RelgBls

ie

te
+a

yee. sn ;
——

26 A HARD DAY’S NIGHT

PAUL: For a while we had been thinking to try only to put words into our mouths that
about making a film. We'd progressed to he might have heard us speak. When he'd
success in America. Now it was a film. We'd finished a scene he would ask us, ‘Are you
loved The Girl Cant Help It and we knew happy with this?’ and we'd say, ‘Yeah, that's
that you could make a rock'n'roll film. We'd good, but could I say it this way?’ | think he
seen those little American productions and, wrote a very good script.
although they were low budget and not very
good, they did have music and we always GEORGE: There was one piece of dialogue
went to see them. where | say, ‘Oh, I'm not wearing that — that's
So we wanted to be in one, but we wanted grotty!’ Alun Owen made that up; | didn't.
it to be a good one. Most were knocked People have used that word for years now. It
together with a loose story about a DJ who was a new expression: grotty — grotesque.
has to go around with a band. They were
always terrible stories. JOHN: We thought the word was really
weird, and George curled up with embarrass-
JOHN: We didn't even want to make a movie ment every time he had to say it.
that was going to be bad, and we insisted on
having a real writer to write it.” GEORGE: | suppose he thought that being
from Liverpool, he knew our kind of humour.
PAUL: We were offered one early on called If there was something we really didn't like,
The Yellow Teddy Bears. We were excited but I don't suppose we would have done it —
it turned out that the fella involved was going though by the time we got to Help! (in 1965)
to write all the songs, and we couldn't have we were cocky enough to change the dia-
that. But we were still interested in a film, so logue as we liked. Alun wrote a scene about
Brian started talking to people and came up us being harassed by the press — which was a
with Dick Lester's name. Brian told us he had real part of our daily duty. They would ask
made The Running, Jumping & Standing Still Film, a short with Spike things like, 'How did you find America?’ and we'd say, ‘Turn left at
Milligan — a classic little comedy. We'd loved it, so we all said, ‘He's in. Greenland.’
That's our man.’ I think that was an important part of The Beatles — people associate
Dick came round to see us and we found that he was also a musician: humour with us. When all the new bands first came out, Gerry and the
he could play a bit of jazz piano, which made him even more Pacemakers and others, nobody could tell who was who; one hit was
interesting. He was American but had been working in England, he'd the same as another, everybody got the same amount of coverage. So
worked with The Goons, that was enough for us. even if you had a hit you needed something else to carry you. The
Beatles actually were very funny, and even when our humour was
JOHN: WE WERE THE SONS OF THE GOON SHOW. WE transposed to New York or somewhere else, it was still great. We were
just being hard-faced, really, but people loved it.
WERE OF AN AGE. WE WERE THE EXTENSION OF
THAT REBELLION, IN A WAY.” EVERYONE IN LIVERPOOL THINKS THEY'RE A
COMEDIAN. JUST DRIVE THROUGH THE MERSEY
PAUL: For the script, Dick Lester got hold of Alun Owen, a likeable TUNNEL AND THE GUY ON THE TOLL BOOTH
Liverpool-Welsh playwright who had written No Tram to Lime Street, a WILL BE A COMEDIAN. WE'VE HAD THAT BORN
very good television play with Billie Whitelaw.
AND BRED INTO US.
JOHN: Lime Street is a famous street in Liverpool where the whores And in our case the humour was made even stronger by the fact that
used to be. We auditioned people to write for us, and they came up there were four of us bouncing off one another. If one dried up,
with this guy and he was famous for writing Liverpool dialogue. We somebody else was already there with another fab quip.
knew his work and we said ‘all right’. Then he had to come round with
us to see what we were like — he was like a professional Liverpool man — RINGO: It was a lot of fun. It was incredible for me, the idea that we
and wrote the characters.” were making a movie. | loved the movies as a kid. | used to go to a hell
of a lot, in the Beresford and Gaumont cinemas in Liverpool. | have
RINGO: Brian also got the producer, Walter Shenson; or Walter great memories from Saturday-morning pictures. I'd be into whatever
Shenson got him — everyone wanted to make the movie. And we started was showing: if it was a pirate movie, | would be a pirate, and if it was a
hanging out with Alun Owen. He came on part of our British tour and Western | would be a cowboy; or I'd come out as D'Artagnan and fence
wrote down the chaos that went on around us and how we lived, and all the way home. It was a great fantasy land for me, the movies, and
gave us a Caricature of ourselves. suddenly we were in one. It was all so romantic, with the lights and
So A Hard Days Night was like a day in the life; or, really, two days coming to work in the limo.
and two nights of our life. We'd go to the recording studio, then go to I think because | loved films | was less embarrassed than the others
the TV studio; all the things that happened to us were put in, and he to be in one; John really got into the movie, too. | felt a lot of the time
threw in parts for other people. that George didn't want to be there. It was something he was doing
because we were doing it.
JOHN: That was a comic-strip version of what was actually going on.
The pressure was far heavier than that.” 1 dug A Hard Day’ Night, GEORGE: | don't know what he's talking about, | loved it! The only
although Alun Owen only came with us for two days before he wrote thing | didn't like was having to get up at five in the morning.
the script. We were a bit infuriated by the glibness of it. It was a very early start. We'd have to arrive and get dressed and
It was a good projection of one facade of us — on tour, in London have our hair and faces done. While all this was going on they would
and in Dublin. It was of us in that situation together, having to perform set up with stand-ins. They wouldn't call us until they were ready to
before people. We were like that. Alun Owen saw the press conference rehearse us for a scene.
so he recreated it in fhe movie — pretty well; but we thought it was There was always so much happening that | never knew how many
pretty phoney then, even.” cameras there were. We didn't take too much notice of every detail —
we were in the middle, surrounded by everything.
PAUL: Alun picked up lots of little things about us. Things like: ‘He is
late but he is very clean, isn't he?’ Little jokes, the sarcasm, the humour, RINGO: Getting up early in the morning wasn't our best talent and
lohn’s wit, Ringo's laconic manner; each of our different ways. The film there's an example of that in one scene: the one for which | got really
manages to capture our characters quite well, because Alun was careful good credit, walking by the river with a camera — the ‘lonely guy’ piece.

1 HARD DAY'S NIGHT

 I had come directly to work from a jump about like lunatics because that's pure film, as the director tells us;
nightclub (very unprofessional) and we could have been anybody.
was a little hungover, to say the least. We enjoyed doing it, but we'd been the kind of people who didn't
Dick Lester had all his people there, like musicals when all of a sudden a song started. We tried to get away
and the kid that I was supposed to be from that — from saying, all of a sudden, 'How about a song?’ — but we
doing the scene with, but I had no could only to an extent. It felt embarrassing to get into a number.
brain. I'd gone. There's a bit in the film where | say the American-musical cliché: ‘Say,
We tried it several ways. They kids, why not do the show right here?’ It was a joke originally that we
tried it with the kid doing his lines threw in. Norman Rossington said it used to happen in all the old pop
and someone off camera shouting films. They'd be in the middle of a desert and somebody would say, ‘I've
mine. Then they had me doing the got a great idea, kids, how about doing the show right here?’ | stuck
lines of the kid and the kid going that bit in but it doesn’t work; it looks as though | meant it. We thought
‘blah blah blah’. Or me saying, ‘And the gag-line would break it down and everybody would get the joke and
another thing, little guy...’ | was so out of it, they said, ‘Well, let's do a number would follow.”
anything.’ | said, ‘Let me just walk around and you film me,’ and that's
what we did. And why | look so cold and dejected is because | felt like NEIL ASPINALL: Norman Rossington played me — little Norm. Iliked
shit. There's no acting going on; | felt that bad. Norm. He was a nice guy. He didn't talk to me about the part, be just went by
the script, which was a bit embarrassing because it was nothing like the reality.
GEORGE: There were some things that we made up as we went along For The Beatles, the film was six weeks’ hard work. They seemed to do
(although | must say they don't look very spontaneous) — for example, everything in quick time. It wasn't just the movie — it was writing the music,
the press conference scene. We made up a lot of answers and Dick recording the album and everything else that went into it as well.
Lester said, ‘Keep that one, use that one.’ He was very good like that. Jobn and Paul wrote songs all the time, but that doesn't mean that they
would have fourteen or sixteen songs all ready to record. They had some and
JOHN: The bit in the bathtub was spontaneous. The idea wasn't; they wrote the rest as they went along. It was a question of being in the studio on
just ran it and | had to do whatever | thought of in the background. Wednesday writing one song, and by Friday having written a couple more.
Quite a lot of it is spontaneous. There were a lot of ad lib remarks, but They were writing all the time, on planes, sitting for days in hotel rooms, by a
in a film you don't get ad lib because you've always got to take it eight pool, wherever. There were always guitars around.
times. You ad lib something quite good and everybody laughs, the
technicians laugh, and the next minute you're told to ‘take it again’, so JOHN: Paul and | enjoyed writing the music for the film. There were
your ‘ad lib’ gets drier and drier until it doesn't sound funny any more. times when we honestly thought we'd never get the time to write all the
We stuck quite a lot to the script, but some of the gags were us, or the material. But we managed to get a couple finished while we were in
director — he threw quite a bit in, too.” Paris. And three more completed in America, while we were soaking up
the sun on Miami Beach. There are four | really go for: ‘Can't Buy Me
RINGO: Most of it was scripted. What we did lose was the ends of Love’, ‘If I Fell’, ‘lI Should Have Known Better’ — a song with harmonica
scenes, because they'd put the four of us in a room and we'd all go off in we feature during the opening train sequence — and ‘Tell Me Why’, a
different directions. We'd make things up because of our being shuffle number that comes at the end of the film.”
comfortable with each other. And the problem with Wilfrid Brambell, a
fabulous actor, was that once the scene had finished he just stopped. It PAUL: That wasn't usually the way we worked, because we didn’t write
looked stupid with the rest of us going, ‘Blah de blah, yeah, and another songs to order. Usually, John and I would sit down and if we thought of
thing...’ while, as a professional, he was having nothing to do with it. something we'd write a song about it. But Walter Shenson asked John
and me if we'd write a song specially for the opening and closing
PAUL: We got on a train at Marylebone Station one day and the train credits. We thought about it and it seemed a bit ridiculous writing a
took off — and suddenly we were in a film! And in the film there were song called ‘A Hard Day's Night’ — it sounded funny at the time, but
little schoolgirls in gym-slips who were actually models, and we were after a bit we got the idea of saying it had been a hard day's night and
quite fascinated with them — George even married one: Pattie Boyd. wed been working all the days, and get back to a girl and everything's
It was a great day out. We filmed the scene where all the fans run fine... And we turned it into one of those songs.
into the train station then the train pulls off, leaving the fans, so then
we could get on with the rest of the filming. The train took us JOHN: I was going home in the car and Dick Lester suggested the title
somewhere and back, and we had all the scenes made. from something Ringo had said. | had used it in In His Own Write, but it
was an off-the-cuff remark by Ringo, one of those malapropisms — a
JOHN: The train bit embarrasses us now. I'm sure it's less noticeable to Ringoism — said not to be funny, just said. So Dick Lester said, ‘We are
people watching in the cinema, but we know that we're dead conscious going to use that title,’ and the next morning | brought in the song.*°
in every move we make, we watch each other. Paul's embarrassed when
I'm watching him speak and he knows I am. You can see the
nervous bits normally in pictures: things like the end — you
make that on one day, and on the next day you do the
beginning. But we did it almost in sequence. The first
[scene] we did was the train, which we were all dead
nervous in. Practically the whole of the train bit we
were going to pieces.
It's as good as anybody who makes a film who
can't act. The director knew we couldn't act, and
we knew. So he had to try almost to catch us off
guard; only you can't do that in a film, you've got
to repeat things over and over. But he did his best.
The minutes that are natural stand out like a sore
thumb.“
We were always trying to get it more realistic,
make the camerawork more realistic. They
wouldn't have it — but they made the movie so
that's how it happened. It was OK. We knew it
was better than other rock movies.” The best bits
are when you don't have to speak and you just run
~ about. All of us liked the bit in the field where we
GEORGE: Ringo would always say gram- PAUL: The film had an American pro-
matically incorrect phrases and we'd all ducer. It worked for American audiences
laugh. | remember when we were driving and was an international success as well,
back to Liverpool from Luton up the M1 but they altered one or two words for the
motorway in Ringo's Zephyr, and the American release. We had plenty of
car's bonnet hadn't been latched properly. arguments about that. They'd tell us that
The wind got under it and blew it up in an American audience wouldn't under-
front of the windscreen. We were all stand some English phrase. We said, ‘Are
shouting, ‘Aaaargh!’ and Ringo calmly you kidding? We watch all your cowboy
said, ‘Don't worry, I'll soon have you back pictures and you go “Yep...” and we know
in your safely-beds.’ exactly what you're saying. The kids will
figure it out,’ and of course they did. They
RINGO: | seem to be better now. | used went to see it over and over again. We'd
to, while | was saying one thing, have get letters saying, ‘I've seen A Hard Day’
another thing come into my brain and Night seventy-five times and I love it!’
move down fast. Once when we were
working all day and then into the night, | JOHN: The first time we saw it was the
came out thinking it was still day and worst, because there were producers and
said, ‘It's been a hard day,’ and looked directors of the film there, and
round and noticing it was dark, ’...'s cameramen and all the other people
night!’ concerned. When you first see yourself
‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ was some- on the big screen you watch yourself,
thing | said, God knows where it came thinking, ‘Oh, look at that ear, oh, look at
from. ‘Slight bread’ was another: ‘Slight my nose, look at my hair sticking out...’
bread, thank you.’ John used to like them and each one of us did that. By the end of
most. He always used to write them the film we didn't know what had
down. happened and we hated it.

GEORGE MARTIN: It was thefirst

film for PAUL: I don't know what the exact deal
which I wrote the score, and I had the benefit of having a director who was a was for the movie, but | recall we didn't get a royalty. We were given a
musician. We recorded the songs for thefilm just as we would ordinary fee. Looking back, it would have been better to have taken a small
recordings, and Dick used a lot of songs we'd already recorded. ‘Can't Buy Me percentage. Our accountants got 3% and we were on a fee. But we
Love’, for example, which was used twice in the picture. didn't really care: ‘We are artists, we don't look back...’ We just figured,
I had scored an instrumental version of ‘This Boy’ as part of the back- ‘Get us some money, Brian. Get us the best deal you can.’
ground music, and I used it for the sequence where Ringo is wandering by the (1 only ever once complained to Brian. We'd heard that The Rolling
river. We called it ‘Ringos Theme’, and it got into the charts in America as an Stones got a slightly better deal at Decca than we did from EMI —
orchestral record — that pleased me somewhat. It was recorded and mixed using sixpence a record or something. | complained to Brian. | remember it
a fou r-track. hurting him, too. It was a learning experience for me: don't do that
again. It got to him a bit too much. And he was probably right
as well: he had done so much for us and there was me bitching
about a penny or two.)

RINGO: They'd started to plan the movie months before we

actually did it, so we'd got a lot bigger by the time it was made,
and by the time it came out we were huge.
When A Hard Day's Night was released, or even before that,
we felt, ‘Yes, we're established. We've conquered all these
countries, we're selling a lot of records and they love us.’ But |
didn't feel like it was going to last forever. | never thought, ‘It's
going to end tomorrow,’ or, ‘It's going to go on forever.’ It was
happening now. | wasn't making plans for the future, we were
on a roll, and we were all in our early twenties and just going
with it.
 GEORGE: | HAD MY PAUL: I used to go round to Aunt Mimi's house and
TWENTY-FIRST John would be at the typewriter, which was fairly
unusual in Liverpool. None of my mates even knew
BIRTHDAY WHEN WE what a typewriter was. Well, they knew what one was,
GOT BACK, JUST AS but they didn’t have one. Nobody had a typewriter.
WE WERE STARTING
TO MAKE A HARD JOHN: Then when the group started going on the
road, | used to take out my typewriter after the show
DAY'S NIGHT. 1 GOT and just tap away as the fancy took me. Sometimes
ABOUT 30,000 CARDS AND PRESENTS -— I'M STILL one of the others would say something, like Ringo
OPENING THEM. I'M STILL WEARING THE WATCH thought of the film title, 'Hard Day's Night’ — I used
THAT I WAS GIVEN BY MR EPSTEIN. that in the book.”
I typed a lot of the book and | can only type very
slowly, so the stories are short because | couldn't be
JOHN: Paul got me a Wimpy and Coke for my bothered going on. And all my life, | never quite got
twenty-first.” the idea of spelling. English and writing, fine, but
actually spelling the words... I'd spell it as you say it —
DEREK TAYLOR: The Daily Express booked me like Latin, really. Or just try and do it the simplest way,
to cover Georges twenty-first birthday. I was to get it over with, because all I'm trying to do is tell a
ae oo
SEES
supposed to stake it out and report on the quests, the story and what the words are spelt like is irrelevant.
food and so on. And if it makes you laugh because the word is spelt like
At a press conference at the EMI studios, George that — great. The thing is the story and the sound of
chatted about the New Experience of Being Twenty- the word.
One. There was a great deal of whispering, about the Then came the illustrations. That's the most
party I supposed — but nothing more for the press. amount of drawings I've done since | left college.” |
‘Sorry, Derek, know you're a friend of the family, used to draw with almost anything; usually black
but...’ But writing George's column didnt entitle me pen, or an ordinary fountain pen with black ink. So
to bang out at private parties. when it came to doing the book | said, ‘Well, I can
draw as well, you know,’ since they'd mainly taken just
GEORGE: John's book, In His Own Write, was the writing; and the drawings were very scrappy
published in March. Some of it came from his because I'm heavy-handed. | draw like | write. | just
schooldays, from the Daily Howl, a comic full of start to draw and if it looks like something vaguely to
his jokes and avant-garde poetry, but a lot of the do with the story, | do it.”
book was new. It turned up in A Hard Day’ An awful lot of the material was written while we
Night. That was the best plug you could have for were on tour, most of it when we were in Margate. |
a book — to put it in a hit movie. suppose it was all manifestations of hidden cruelties.
They are very Alice in Wonderland and Winnie the Pooh. | was very hung-
JOHN: It's about nothing. If you like it, you like it; if you don’t, you up; it was my version of what was happening then. Sheets of writing
don't. That's all there is to it. There's nothing deep in it, it's just meant and drawings got lost. Some | gave away. A friend, an American who
to be funny. | put things down on sheets of paper and stuff them in my shall remain nameless called Michael Braun, took all the remaining
pocket. When I have enough, I have a book. material to the publishers and the man there said, ‘This is brilliant. I'd
There was never any real thought of writing a book. It was like to do this.’ And that was before he even knew who | was.
something that snowballed.* If | hadn't been a Beatle | wouldn't have There's a wonderful feeling about doing something successfully
thought of having the stuff published; | would have been crawling other than singing. | don't suppose the royalties will ever amount to
around broke and just writing it and throwing it away. | might have much, but it doesn’t matter.” | like writing books. | got a big kick out of
been a Beat Poet.” What success really does for you is to give you a the first one. There was a literary lunch to which | was invited and at
feeling of confidence in yourself. It's an indescribable feeling; but once which I couldn't think of anything to say — I was scared stiff, that's why
you've had it, you never want it to stop.™ I didn't. | got as big a kick out of seeing that book up there in the
It's just my style of humour. It started back in my schooldays. Three writing world’s Top Ten as | do when The Beatles get a Number One
people | was very keen on were Lewis Carroll, James] Thurber and the record. And the reason is that it's part of a different world.” Up to now
English illustrator, Ronald Searle. When | was about eleven | was turned we've done everything together and this is all my own work.”
on to these three. (I think | was fifteen when | started "Thurberising’ the
drawings. ) BRIAN EPSTEIN: Jobn was guest of honour at a Foyle’ lunch to mark the
| used to hide my real emotions in gobbledegook, like in In His Own SUCCESS of his splendid book. And made no speech. In answer to the toast, Jobn
Write. When I wrote teenage poems, | wrote in gobbledegook because | stood, held the microphone and said, ‘Thank you all very much, you've got a
was always hiding my real emotions from Mimi.”! And when | was about lucky face.’ John was behaving like a Beatle. He was not prepared to do
fourteen they gave us this book in English literature — Chaucer, or some something which was not only unnatural to him, but also something be might
guy like him — and we all thought it was a gas. Whenever the teacher have done badly. He was not going to fail.
got that book out we would all collapse. After that | started to write
something on the same lines myself. Just private stuff for myself and my fo. N aj ¥ ‘Cason abel Michael to be sad
friends to laugh at. morning, (the little wretch); everyone liked him)
| had d day, for Mic
ule, who was
lunch but he
JOHN: I had a holiday after we first made it big, in Tahiti.* The sun's Tahiti, and at Papeete was waiting the sailing boat that we'd booked.
there if you want to go and get it — 1 don't give a damn about the sun. We went to a couple of shops there, where John and | bought cool-
You go out to these places and waste your time lying on the beach; | looking, dark green oilskin macs.
did it with George for three weeks. We were as brown as berries and we We slept on the boat that night and started sailing first thing the
got home and it had gone the next day, so what's the point? | didn’t feel next morning — but as soon as we were out of the harbour we got into a
any healthier — I was dead beat.” really rough channel of water. We had to keep the engine going, and the
boat had just been painted so it stunk of diesel and paint. We couldn't
GEORGE: IN 1964 WE SEEMED TO FIT A WEEK INTO go below because of the fumes, so we lay holding on to the deck. Soon
EVERY DAY. In May, John and Cynthia and Pattie and | went on Cynthia and | were feeling sick and puked everywhere. The day seemed
holiday. By now we were so famous that we couldn't get on an long, but eventually, as the sun was setting, we anchored at the next
aeroplane without everyone knowing where we were going. island. We were so ill that we just got into our bunks and went to sleep.
The next morning | woke and looked out of the porthole. It was
BRIAN EPSTEIN: The Beatles’ holiday was to be gloriously private. We fantastic. At that time we'd hardly been anywhere out of England, and
hired a company and told them we wanted a fool-proof secret route plotting for never to anywhere that was tropical. It was incredible; a smooth lagoon
four young men and three girlfriends and a wife. The men, we explained, would with the island in the background, with mountains and coconut palms.
travel in pairs, the girls one pair, two singles. We wanted two destinations, at Five or six Tahitians were paddling an outrigger canoe, gliding across
which two sets of couples would link up. the calm sea. It blissed me out.
None of the arrangements were to be made by phone, and code names were
created for the eight. Mr McCartney was Mr Manning; Mr Starr was Mr JOHN: We had to go through Honolulu to get to Tahiti and the outer
Stone. Their companions were to be Miss Ashcroft and Miss Cockcroft. Mr islands. In Tahiti we were OK; we escaped there. Once we were on the
Lennon was Mr Leslie, and bis wife, Mrs Leslie. Mr Harrison was Mr boat, no one got near us — except for one fella from Sydney who we
Hargreaves, and his girlfriend became Miss Bond. Manning and Stone, didn't speak to. He swam with us, saying, ‘Can | come on your boat?’
Ashcroft and Cockcroft were to holiday in the Virgin Islands, the Leslies, We said ‘no’ and he had to swim miles back!*
Hargreaves and Bond would go to Tabiti.
GEORGE: We had a great time swimming, snorkelling and sailing from
GEORGE: We took a private plane to Amsterdam and caught a flight island to island. John spent some of the time writing A Spaniard in the
going to Honolulu via Vancouver. After a long flight we got off the Works, and I remember coming up with a lot of little phrases while he
plane in Vancouver for twenty minutes while they refuelled, and by the sat at the table* making it up and speaking it out. If anybody said
time we reached Honolulu the whole American disc-jockey network anything it would go in the book.
had got us covered.
We had to stay in Honolulu for a couple of days awaiting the JOHN: I'd get to some word, I'd get a sentence and it didn't work
connection to Tahiti, so to get away from Waikiki we drove up to the somehow, so I'd say to George, ‘What's another word for “fly"?’ and he'd
north of the island to a beach where no one knew us. Then we flew to suggest something

TAHITI 135
 | was writing ‘The Singularge Experience | remember lying on the floor, sleeping, as
of Miss Anne Duffield’, the Sherlock Holmes we had so much space to ourselves. In Los
piece; it was the longest one I'd ever done. | Angeles we went on a bus trip that took us
was seeing how far | could go. | would have around Sunset Strip, Beverly Hills and all
gone on and on and made a whole book out the stars’ homes: ‘On your left is Jayne
MM
of it, but | couldn't. —_ Mansfield's house,’ and all that.
| read one or two Conan Doyle books We were only back in London for about
when | was younger, but on the boat that a week before we left for Denmark,
we'd hired there was a set of them.” There Holland, Hong Kong, Australia and New
was nothing else on the boat but books (half Zealand on tour. Soon we were back about
of them were in French and half of them a stone's throw away from where we'd just
in English). Tahiti and all those islands — been in Tahiti.
great, but | still got into reading. | read every
book that was in English whether I liked it or RINGO: Paul and | went to the Virgin
not; through boredom, really. There just Islands. It was great. The funny part was that
happened to be a big volume of Sherlock wed been given John's and George's pass-
Holmes, a sort of madman’s Sherlock Holmes ports, and they'd been given ours. It was still:
where you get all the stories in one; and | ‘Oh, it's just one of them, give them any
realised that every story was the same. passport; they're all the same.’ Somehow we
They're all pretty similar; and that's what | got to Lisbon and were checking into the
was doing, writing all of them into one.” So | hotel; Paul was wearing a disguise and the
wrote one Shamrock Womlbs after three guy at reception said, ‘Who's that?’ looking
weeks of Sherlock Holmes in Tahiti.” at the passport suspiciously, ‘That's not you.’
We had a 30-foot motor boat that we'd
GEORGE: Cynthia and Pattie had long black rented. It came with a captain and his wife,
wigs which they wore as disguises. John and | and a deck-hand. It was nothing palatial,
put their wigs on, and our oilskin macs, and made a but we cruised around having a great time. I was
little 8mm film about natives on an island with a with Maureen, and Paul was with Jane Asher.
missionary John) who comes out of the ocean to Jane couldn't go in the sun and Paul got sunburnt
convert them. one day and was screaming all night. Our
The holiday was fantastic, but after four weeks bedrooms were either side of the passageway
wed had enough. By now we'd drifted further and with only curtains dividing them, so you could
further from Tahiti and didn’t relish the thought of a hear everything.
long boat ride home, so we hopped on a flying boat We'd been already with Paul and Jane to
and went back and spent a day around Tahiti. We Greece; we buddied up for a while. And Maureen
then caught a Pan Am 707 coming from New and | went with John and Cynthia to Trinidad and
Zealand which took us to Los Angeles. The four of Tobago in 1966. | never really went on holiday
us were the only passengers on the plane and | with George.
 RINGO: We had the top five records in the US charts by April 1964,
which was amazing.

PAUL: In June 1964, the world tour began. We went to Scandinavia,

ain Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand. Ringo missed part of
the tour because he was in hospital with tonsillitis. We couldn't cancel,
so the idea was to get a stand-in. We got Jimmy Nicol, a session
drummer from London. He played well — obviously not the same as
Ringo, but he covered well.
It wasn't an easy thing for Jimmy to stand in for Ringo, and have all
that fame thrust upon him. And the minute his tenure was over, he
wasn't famous any more: 'I was the guy who stood in for Ringo!’ But he
did great and Ringo joined us out in Australia when he had recovered.

RINGO; My illness was a real big event. It was miserable. | remember it

really well: my throat was so sore, and | was trying to live on jelly and
ice-cream. | was a smoker in those days, too. That was pretty rough,
being hooked on the weed.
It was very strange, them going off without me. They'd taken Jimmy
Nicol and | thought they didn’t love me any more — all that stuff went
through my head.

GEORGE: Of course, with all respect to Jimmy, we shouldn't have done

it. The point was, it was the Fabs. Can you imagine The Rolling Stones
going on tour: ‘Oh, sorry. Mick can't come.’ — ‘All right, we'll just get
somebody else to replace him for two weeks.’ It was silly, and | couldn't
understand it. | really despised the way we couldn't make a decision for
ourselves then. It was just: ‘Off you go.’ — ‘But Ringo must come with us.’
—'No, sorry, you'll get a new drummer.’ As we grew older, | suppose, we
would have turned round and said we wouldn't go; but in those days it
was the blind leading the blind.

GEORGE MARTIN: They nearly didn't do the Australia tour. George is a

very loyal person, and he said, ‘IfRingo’ not part of the group, it's not The
Beatles. Idont see why we should do it, and I'm not going to.’ It took all of
Brian's and my persuasion to tell George that if be didn't do it be was letting GEORGE: We were boating along the canals, waving and being fab and
everybody down. we saw a bloke standing in the crowd with a groovy-looking cloak on.
Jimmy Nicol was a very good drummer, who came along and learnt We sent Mal to find out where he got it from. Mal jumped off or swam
Ringo’ parts well. Obviously, be had to rebearse with the guys. They came off the boat and about three hours later turned up at our hotel with the
and worked through all the songs at Abbey Road so he got to know them. He cloak, which he'd bought from the guy. When we flew from there to
did the job excellently, and faded into obscurity immediately afterwards. Hong Kong we all had copies made, but they were in chéap ‘material
which melted in the rain storm at Sydney Airport.
The best flight | remember was that one,to Hong Kong. It took
Mego) BRGISHES UNE cakatas UDB ed several hours and | remember them saying, ‘Return to your seats, we are
approaching Hong Kong.’ | thought, ‘We can't be there already.’ We'd
been sitting on the floor, drinking and taking Preludins for about thirty
IZ
Sd
AWS CIN hours and it seemed like a ten-minute flight.
On all those flights we were still on uppers; that's what helped us get
JOHN: It was some kind of scene on the road. Satyricon! There's through, because we'd drink a whisky and Coke with anyone, even if he
_ photographs of me grovelling about, crawling about Amsterdam on my was the Devil — and charm the pants off him!
knees, coming out of whorehouses, and people saying, ‘Good morning,
John.’ The police escorted me to these places, because they never JOHN: In Hong Kong, the paper said, ‘The Beatles fought a losing
wanted a big scandal. When we hit town, we hit it — we were not battle against the screams.’ Compared with other audiences, they were
pissing about.” quite quiet.”
We had them [the women]. They were great. They didn't call them
groupies, then; I've forgotten what we called them, something like ‘slags’.* PAUL: As for the show, Hong Kong was a slightly flat performance ina
smallish place. They behaved themselves, and it looked like a khaki
PAUL: The tour was generally not that different from the others. Hong audience. We played, but | don’t think we enjoyed the show too much —
Kong was different — it was all Army personnel, which was very funny. although at least we could be heard.
We had expected Asian people in Hong Kong, but the Army must have
got the tickets first, or must have known about us (maybe the Hong JOHN: When they told us how well our records were going in
Kong people hadn't heard about The Beatles). Each of us had a couple Australia, we could hardly believe it. Naturally, we're looking forward to
of suits made overnight, and we also had capes made there, which the visit. We had a marvellous time water-skiing in Florida, and
turned out to be disasters, because the dye in them ran so badly. everyone says the Aussie beaches are great.
I like to keep my work and my private life separate, which is why |
NEIL ASPINALL: We'd seen some students in Amsterdam wearing these capes. keep Cynthia out of the picture. | took her to America, because a‘trip
Ifound out where they got them from and bought some. They hired a 24-hour like that comes once in a lifetime, and she deserved it. I'd dearly have
"tailor to make up more, and they were the model for the ones that The Beatles loved to take her to Australia, but the schedule looks too gruelling. My
later used in Help!. auntie came with us because she's got relatives in New Ze aland | have
never met.”
JOHN: The first one we saw was in Amsterdam — when we were going
through the canals, some lad had one on — but we couldn't get any. We PAUL: John’s Aunt Mimi came to Australia with us, so he behaved
‘could only get ones which weren't the right colour — green ones. So we himself for a change, She was a'good woman; a very strong woman: she
had four copies made in Hong Kong. had a mind of her.own.

WORLD TOUR 139

 GEORGE: WE WERE
WATCHING ON TV, AND THEY
WERE SAYING, ‘I WONDER
WHY THEY'RE NOT COMING
OUT TO WAVE.’ THERE'S NO
WAY WE COULD TELL THEM
THAT WE DIDN'T HAVE ANY
DRY TROUSERS! “

GEORGE: | used to hate waving from balconies. ‘Wave,’ they'd say.

% “
‘You've got to go and wave.’ Derek used to wave for me out of hotel
Ast Y
windows.
The women in John's family were quite strong people. Mimi was Paul was good at waving and signing autographs. We'd be waiting in
very forthright and didn’t mince her words. She always had a little the car: ‘Come on, Paul, let's go. Where is he? Oh, bugger, there he is.’
twinkle in her eye over John, because she knew he was a bit roguish, — 'Oh, yes, what's your name? Betty. To Betty, love Paul.’ — ‘Come on
and she let him do things — ‘Boys will be boys.’ She loved him as if he and get in the fucking car. Let's get out of here!’
were her own son. But she would tell him off. And he'd say sheepishly,
‘Sorry, Mimi.’ There was no change in Mimi wherever she was. She was PAUL: Three hundred thousand people welcomed us to Adelaide. It was
her own character and she was not going to be intimidated by anything. like a heroes’ welcome. George waved too. That was the kind of place
She died in 1991. where we would go to the town hall and they would all be there in the
centre of the city. If it had happened suddenly, overnight, it might have
DEREK TAYLOR: Australia was thefirst big tour for me. t was all very gone to our heads; but we had come up bit by bit, so it didn't (not too
exciting, but I think only a madman would have eisai join such a much). We were just very pleased that everyone had turned out.
thing. I had no insight into what it would actually mean. We were still close enough to our Liverpool roots to know how it
The boys in the band were happy enough to have me along. They were fine, would feel, and what it would mean, if we had showed up in the middle
which was a relief. They had a press officer, Tony Barrow, who was very of town to see a group; so we could feel it in their spirit. | think we quite
suitable, but he'd got very busy because of all the other contemporary stars enjoyed it all. It can get a bit wearing, but it certainly wasn't then.
around the place. Brian had Billyy J. Kramer, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Cilla We came in from the airport — it was the same in Liverpool for the
Black and others — and they were all getting Number Ones by then. Busy times. premiere of A Hard Days Night, with the whole city centre full of
people — and the crowds were lining the route and we were giving them
JOHN: We've never had more than one PR fella with us, ever. Brian's the thumbs up. And then we went to the Adelaide town hall with the
only got one for each of his artists, and they don't work together. Derek Lord Mayor there, and gave the thumbs up again. In Liverpool it was
we've known for about a year, but he's one of those people that clicks as OK, because everyone understands the thumbs up — but in Australia it’s
soon as you meet him.” a dirty sign.

NEIL ASPINALL: nee we arrived in Sydney it was pissing down witb RINGO: I hated to leave the other three. | followed them out to
rain. We got off the plane and they put The Beatles on the back of aflat-back Australia and there were people at the airport, but | was on my own and
truck so the crow ate 1 see them. They were carrying umbrellas and wearing just automatically | looked round for the others. | couldn't stand it. | met
PFcapes made in Hong Kong. The driver was doing one mile an bour, and up with them in Melbourne. The flight was horrendous. It still is — they
Jobn kept leaning over and saying, ‘Faster , faster!’ but he wouldn't go any may have shaved a couple of hours off the flight, but it’s still a hell of a
faster. I was saying, ‘Go faster — it's pouring down,’ and he said, ‘These kids long way. | remember the plane felt like a disaster area to me.
have been waiting bere for twenty-four hours to see these guys. It was fabulous in Australia, and of course, it
Nothing was going to. make this big Australian trucker go any faster. By was great to be back in the band — that was a
the time they got to the hotel ne ee was blue because the dye in the capes really nice moment. And they'd bought me
bad run and soaked right through, they all looked like old Celtic warriors presents in Hong Kong.
covered in blue dye.

JOHN: We were having hysterics, laughing. It was so funny, coming to

Australia and getting on a big van, all soaking wet; we thought it was PAUL:
going to be sunny. We only got wet for about fifteen minutes, but the
kids got wet for hours. How could we be disappointed when they came
out to see us and stood in all the rotten wind and rain to wave to us?
They were great, really great. I've never seen rain as hard as that, except
in Tahiti. (It rained there for a couple of days and | thought it was the
end of the world.)
Australia was a high moment, like the first time in America: us
appearing on every channel and ten records in the charts. This was
another one. It's funny, but there were more people came to see us there
than anywhere. | think the whole of Australia was there.”
We must have seen a million million people before they let us go.
[here was good security and everybody was happy and shouting, but
we still saw everybody, everywhere we went — and nobody got hurt.”

AUSTRALIA
 GEORGE: THERE ARE REEFERS ALONG THE WEST COAST, AREN'T THERE?

at
a
: te
ty 4
ty , =
tr : ——
| T 1 <= 3 ‘

45) =A |
al —
—= % eS SF

JOHN: |THOUGHT IT WAS A KIWI BECAUSE IT STARTED POLISHING MY SHOES

 }OHN: Melbourne was as wild as Adelaide, and I think that makes it
qual. They were both about the wildest we'd ever seen. We never
isk for civic receptions; we don't expect them. If people do it, we're
flattered, but if they don't, that's that. There were crowds outside the
hotel there. A lot of them got in — we'd find them in bathrooms.
We were all shoving our dirty rags into a case when | heard a knock
on the window. | thought it must have been one of the others mucking
around so | didn’t take any notice, but the knocking kept on so | went
over to the balcony — and there was this lad who looked just like a
typical Liverpool lad. | knew before he opened his mouth where he was
from, because nobody else would be climbing up eight floors. This lad —
Peter — walked in and said, ‘Hullo dere,’ and | said, ‘Hullo dere,’ and he
told me how he'd climbed up the drainpipe, from balcony to balcony. I
gave him a drink because he deserved one and then | took him around
to see the others, who were quite amazed. They thought | was joking
when | told them.”

NEIL ASPINALL: There were people in the crowds, lining the streets, shouting
out, ‘I'm from Blackpool. Ifyou go up there, say “bello” to our Bill.’ But The
Beatles were getting used to a lot of people. They'd been to Holland before
Australia, with huge crowds on the banks of the canals, and the States as well.

GEORGE: We took photographs of them all — from the balcony, and

on the back of the car in the motorcade. We were stunned, but happy
that there was a nice feeling, and that we were popular there.
Everybody was saying, ‘There are more people here than came to see
the Queen.’ Well, she didn't have any hit records.
When we were flying in to New Zealand, it looked like England —
like Devon, with cows and sheep. But in those days we were looking
for some action, and there was absolutely nothing happening.
We were in the hotel room, sitting around eating fish and chips with
peas, and watching television. And suddenly, at about nine o'clock at
night, the channels all closed down. So we threw our dinners at the TV.
The most notable thing that happened in New Zealand (although it
wasn't very good) was that the drummer from Sounds Incorporated had
a girl in his room who tried to slash her wrists whilst he was out at the
pub. | remember Derek panicking as the story was immediately on the
wire service all over the world: ‘SUICIDE ATTEMPT IN BEATLE HOTEL’.

JOHN: It was one of the quickest and most pleasant receptions we've
ever been to. We went out onto a balcony and waved to the crowd, and
some Maoris danced for us, and away we went. don't know, but it was as if he was healed — and then he fell right on his
The Lord Mayor was very nice and said, ‘! wouldn't have blamed you face. He just fell over. Maybe that's why it stuck in my head.
if you hadn't come, with all the fuss they've been making round here Crippled people were constantly being brought backstage to be
about how much it's costing.’ ™ touched by ‘a Beatle’, and it was very strange. It happened in Britain as
well, not only overseas. There were some really bad cases, God help
RINGO: I remember us standing on the roof of a building in one of the them. There were some poor little children who would be brought in in
cities in Australia, and all the fans were down there, chanting. We were baskets. And also some really sad Thalidomide kids with little broken
having fun with them and one guy, who was on crutches, threw his bodies and no arms, no legs and little feet.
crutches away and went into: ‘I can walk, | can walk!’ What he felt | The problem was, people would bring in these terrible cases and
leave them in our dressing room. They'd go off for tea or whatever, and
they would leave them behind. If it got very heavy we would shout,
‘Mal, cripples!’ and that became a saying — even when there were no
handicapped people present. If there were any people around we didn't
like, we'd shout, ‘Mal, cripples!’ and they'd be escorted out.

PAUL: John used to do the spastic impersonations on stage a lot. He

had a habit of putting a clear plastic bag on his foot with a couple of
rubber bands. Brian wouldn't like it — he had gone through RADA so he
was straight showbiz and he wanted us to behave accordingly, not be
too far out. But John would do his cripples impression just crossing a
zebra crossing, which would make people stop.
Bb We used to think certain words were very funny that out of teenage
nervousness made us laugh: ‘cripple’, ‘harelip’, ‘cleft palate’, ‘club-foot’ —
when a guitar came out, a Club 40, we used to call it a Club-Foot. A
sign on the way down to London used to make us howl: ‘Cripples
crossing’. We used to think it was a place rather than an event.
| remember John and I, shortly after we'd listened to Gene Vincent's
album, walking out in the street near Penny Lane and seeing a woman
with elephantiasis, and it was so sort of terrifying we had to laugh. A lot
of what we did was based in that. And that was the kind of thing that
separated us from other people. It meant we had our own world. A
: ao Vv world of black humour and of nervousness at other people's afflictions.
: Spies gl
Sy
, ret The way we got through our lives was laughing at them.

WORLD TOUR
 to touch you. And it's always the mother or
nurse pushing them on you. They would push
these people at you like you were Christ, as if
there were some aura about you that would
rub off on them.
It got to be like that, and we were very
callous about it. It was just dreadful. When
we would open up, every night, instead
seeing kids there, we would see a row full of
cripples along the front. When we'd be running
through, people would be lying around. It
seemed that we were just surrounded by
cripples and blind people all the time, and
when we would go through corridors they would all be touching us. It
was horrifying.”
In the States, they were bringing hundreds of them backstage, and
it was fantastic. | can't stand looking at them. | have to turn away. |
have to laugh, or I'd just collapse from hate. They'd line them up, and |
got the impression The Beatles were being treated as bloody faith
healers. It was sickening.® It was sort of the ‘in’ joke that we were
supposed to cure them. It was the kind of thing that we would say. |
mean, we felt sorry for them — anybody would — but it was awful.
There's a kind of embarrassment when you're surrounded by blind, deaf
and crippled people — and there is only so much we could say with the
pressure on to perform.”

PAUL: |THINK THAT PARTICULARLY IN THE

OLD DAYS, THE SPIRIT OF THE BEATLES
SEEMED TO SUGGEST SOMETHING VERY
HOPEFUL AND YOUTHFUL. So, often, someone would ask us
to say ‘hello’ to handicapped kids; to give them some kind of hope,
maybe. But it was difficult for us, because part of our humour was a sick
kind of humour. We were almost having to bless the people in
wheelchairs; so there was this dual inclination going on for us.

JOHN: We're not cruel. We've seen enough tragedy in Merseyside. But
when a mother shrieks, ‘Just touch my son and maybe he will walk
again, we want to run, cry, empty our pockets. We're going to remain
normal if it kills us.%
5
GEORGE: John was allergic to cripples. You could see he had a thing Fd
about them, | think it was a fear of something. You can see in all our
home movies, whenever you switch a camera on John, he goes into his
interpretation of a spastic. It's not very nice to be afflicted, so John had
this thing that he'd always joke about it. | think the reality was too
much for him.
We were only trying to play rock'n'roll and they'd be wheeling them
in, not just in wheelchairs but sometimes in oxygen tents. What did
they think that we would be able to do? | don't know. | think it was that
those people whose job it was to push them around wanted to see the
show, and this was a way to get in. It was a case of, ‘How many have we
got tonight, Brian?’ We'd come out of the band room to go to the stage
and we'd be fighting our way through all these poor unfortunate people.
John didn't like it. After a while, we used to call even normal people
‘cripples’, because most people are crippled in a way; in their brains, or
in their legs. It's somewhere. Like John wrote: ‘One thing you can't hide,
is when you're crippled inside.’ When you look at some of the old
footage of John, and read In His Own Write, and with a few other clues
in his lyrics, you can piece it together that he definitely had a phobia
about it. Most people do. It's a question of, There but for the grace of
God go I.’

JOHN: I don't think I'd know a spastic from a Polaroid lens. I'm not
hung up about them. When | use the term ‘spastic’ in general ee
conversation, | don't mean to say it literally. | feel terrible sympathy for
these people — it seems the end of the world when you see deformed
spastics, and we've had quite a lot of them in our travels.”
Wherever we went on tour, there were always a few seats laid agide
for cripples and people in wheelchairs. Because we were famous, we
were supposed to have people, epileptics and whatever, in our dressing
room all the time. We were supposed to be good for them.
You want to be alone and you don't know what to say, and tRey'ne.
usually saying, ‘I've got your record,’ or they can't speak and just wa
 POOL, Caps TERE
i a , o

3 be
Wh detalles of Fil:

LOth Patoey
b. Lynd 0. Airport 4
pe at 16,00. Party must be at -

mve Liverpoc]
s Conference

ve Town Hall
¢ Reseption
for Cinens
n, Comnences
i ings

Braft departs for Lomion when perty is brcare.

NEIL ASPINALL: After Australia and New Zealand it was back to England We ended up at Liverpool Town Hall on the balcony, with throngs
for the world premiére of A Hard Day's Night in Piccadilly. Big crowds of of people — 200,000, in fact — all out there between the Town Hall and
people again. After London was the Northern premiere in Liverpool. the Cavern. Very familiar territory for us.

PAUL: I remember Piccadilly being completely filled. We thought we JOHN: It was marvellous. | don't know how many it was — just enough
would just show up in our limo, but it couldn't get through for all the to make it fantastic. And it was better when we were in the car, because
people. It wasn't frightening — we never seemed to get worried by we were right near them.
crowds. It always appeared to be a friendly crowd; there never seemed We had all been keyed up for days, wondering what sort of
to be a violent face. reception we would get. We never expected so many people would turn
We weren't really apprehensive about going back to Liverpool, for out. We thought there would be only a few people standing on the odd
the other premiére. We'd heard one or two little rumours that people street corner. We heard that we were finished in Liverpool, you see.
felt we'd betrayed them by leaving, and shouldn't have gone to live in And after a bit we began to believe it and we thought, ‘We don't want
London. But there were always those detractors. to go home if they're going to do that; we'll just sneak home to our
houses.’ And they kept on, saying, ‘I've been down the Cavern, and they
JOHN: We couldn't say it, but we didn't really like going back to don't like you any more.’ Of course, they were talking to people who
Liverpool. Being local heroes made us nervous. When we did shows hadn't even known us before anyway. We went back and it was one of
there, they were always full of people we knew. We felt embarrassed in the best ever.
our suits and being very clean. We were worried that friends might What really delighted us more than anything is that everybody,
think we'd sold out — which we had, in a way.” from the top nobs down to the humblest Scouser, has been so nice
and friendly and sung praise after praise, which I'm sure we really
GEORGE: | remember us flying up there. When we first started flying don't deserve.”
to London, we went on Starways Airline. We'd take off from Liverpool
and go up over the Mersey, over Port Sunlight. | remember the first GEORGE: It was funny, because the roads I'd driven down all my life
time | went on that flight: as the plane was hammering down the were lined with people waving. We stood on the balcony of the Town
runway, the back window opened, right where | was sitting. I freaked Hall for the civic reception and John did the salute.
out, thinking | was going to get sucked out. | shouted and a stewardess
came down, got hold of the window and slammed it shut again. | think NEIL ASPINALL: Jobn got away with
by the time we went up for the premiére they'd started using the Dakota his Hitler bit on the balcony. Nobody
turbo-prop planes seemed to pick up on it. John was always
like that, a bit irreverent. Anybody in
PAUL: We landed at the airport and found there were crowds nerve-racking situations tends to do things
everywhere, like a royal do. It was incredible, because people were to relieve the tension.
lining the streets that we'd known as children, that we'd taken the bus
down, or walked down. We'd been to the cinema with girls down these PAUL: Liverpool was the place we
streets. And here we were now with thousands of people — for us. There loved, and the reception was great.
was a lot of, ‘Hello, how are you? All right?’ It was strange because they There was apparently a little bit of sour grapes on the day, but it served
were our own people, but it was brilliant only to give the newspaper a story.

, HARD DAY’S NIGHT PREMIERE

GEORGE: We had no reason to be guarded or defensive with the press We're past being bugged by questions, unless they're very personal —
because we were just having fun and it wasn’t any big deal. So, conse- and then you just Over-react: human reactions. There used to be one:
quently, when The Beatles did a press conference that was part of our ‘What will you do when the bubble bursts?’ We'd have hysterics
charm. We were straightforward, down-to-earth and pretty honest. because someone always asked it. I'm still looking for the bubble.
On our first [American] tour there was an unspoken thing that Mr
JOHN: We were funny at press conferences, because it was all a joke. Epstein was preventing us talking about the Vietnam War. Before we
They'd ask joke questions so you'd give joke answers, but we weren't came back for the second, George and | said to him, ‘We don't go unless
really funny at all. It was just fifth-form humour, the sort you laugh at at we answer what we feel about the war.’ We were being asked about it all
school. The press were putrid. If there were any good questions about the time and it was silly — we had to pretend to be like in the old days
our music we took them seriously. We were nervous, though | don't when artists weren't meant to say anything about anything. We couldn't
think people thought so. carry it through, we couldn't help ourselves; things would come out
Our image was only a teeny part of us. It was created by the press even though there was an unspoken policy not to say anything.? We
and us. It had to be wrong, because you can't put over how you really spoke our minds after that: ‘We don't like it, we don't agree with it, we
are. Newspapers always get things wrong. Even when bits were true, it think it is wrong.’ ®
was always old. New images would catch on as we were leaving them.”
GEORGE: We were always saying we should speak out about Vietnam,
and | think we did at times. | remember talking to the press all the way
round the American tours — we used to have them on the plane with us
I would be rabbiting on about everything. But, generally, in the early
days there was that concept that pop stars shouldn't rattle their audi-
ence: you can't be married; don't let them see your girlfriend and don't

mention the war! Maybe we were naive. Maybe there was a lot of stuff
that people weren't ready for

JOHN: All our songs are anti-war.”

GEORGE: | think about it every day, and it's wrong

with war is wrong. They're all wrapped up in thei
Churchills and their Montys — always talking about
All Our Yesterdays How we killed a few more Huns
makes me sick. They're the sort who are leaning on th¢
and telling us a few years in the army would do us goo

PRESS CONFERENCES
 GEORGE: Everywhere we went, the police were putting on their
display. Everybody got into the mania. You could make a film, just
showing how idiotic everybody else was whenever The Beatles came
to town.
In America, the police would be directing the traffic. They'd drive
ahead of the motorcade; they'd come to a crossroads, put both hands up
and blow their whistles. Then another bike would pass and go to the
next link, but they'd all try to be flash, going in and out and racing up
the road. They loved the feeling of: ‘It's the President coming!’ But they
were all crashing, falling off. It was happening everywhere — even in
Sweden! Wherever we went it was that kind of thing.

JOHN: We always called it ‘the eye of the hurricane’ — it was calmer

right in the middle.”

CEORCE. ON TOUR THAT YEAR IT NEIL ASPINALL: The film A Hard Day's Night and the soundtrack album
were both hits by the time they got back to America for the August tour.
WAS CRA NOT WITHIN THE America was now very aware of The Beatles and things were crazy. There were
lots of people trying to touch the band. Everywhere they went, the local
BAND. IN THE BAND WE WERE dignitaries would want to meet them, and would bring their children with them.
Sometimes they didn't have time for it, and it was much less disciplined than
NORMAL, AND EEib REST OF ee it was in England, because everything was bigger. Ifthey were playing a
WO RLD WAS CRAY stadium, the dressing room would be the players’ locker room. It wasnt like the
. back of the Hammersmith Odeon where they could isolate themselves, you could
get 200 people in a locker room. So, there would be five or six of us, the people
from GAC (the tour agency), the security staff, the local promoter, people
bringing food in and out — and bands wanting to say ‘bello’: The Lovin’
Spoonful, The Grateful Dead and other bands. ’

Lip A EON SIRS

pth: atten

sean |(a3 spo amie,

gE re, fe
ae ern a)
| a
By 2
As6 di
PPM a hae SE2
OI eM age :
nn Fan
Prbiicys Ome 4 Dia
PAUL: WE WERE GETTING A LITTLE JOHN: We just can't get out on our own — but we had seventeen years
of being able to walk to the shops. Occasionally, one of us slips out on
CRAZY WITH IT ALL. his own and we take a chance there, because people think we travel in
fours all the time. When they see us on our own, they often don't
JOHN: It just really built up: the bigger that we got, the more unreality recognise us.
we had to face, the more we were expected to do — until when you People think fame and money bring freedom, but they don't. We're
didn't shake hands with a mayor's wife she starts abusing you and more conscious now of the limitations it places on us rather than the
screaming, ‘How dare they!’ freedom. We still eat the same kind of food as we did before, and have
There is one of Derek's stories where we were asleep after the the same friends. You don't change things like that overnight. We can't
session, in a hotel somewhere in America, and the mayor's wife comes even spend the allowance we get, because
and says, ‘Get them up, | want to meet them!’ Derek said, ‘I'm not going there's nothing to spend it on. What
to wake them up,’ and she started to scream, ‘You get them up or I'll tell can you spend on in a room?
the press! When you're on tour, you
There was always that. They were always threatening what they exist in this kind of
would tell the press, to make bad publicity about us if we didn't see their vacuum all the time. It's
bloody daughter with braces on her teeth. And it was always the police work, sleep, eat and
chief's daughter or the Lord Mayor's daughter, all the most obnoxious work again. We work
kids, because they had the most obnoxious parents. We had these mad hours, really,
people thrust on us and were forced to see them all the time. Those but none of us
were the most humiliating experiences.” would have it any
other way. When
RINGO: | found the tour madness exciting. | loved it. | loved the decoy I look back, I can't
cars and all the intricate ways of getting us to the gigs. It was just so remember a time
much fun. Also, we were meeting a lot of great people, musicians and when | wasn't in
actors; and finding great bars. We could still go out. That was the the business — it
amazing thing, we were not trapped. We went out all the time — well, | seems years to me,
was out quite a lot. now.”
RINGO: We would go to bars or clubs’— or on GEORGE MARTIN: I thought we should record
police-car drives; drive with the cops. (The the Hollywood Bowl concert, and I arranged for
police were very good to us in those days, Capitol to provide their engineers. The technique we
because they would take all the pills or stuff off used was three-track, half-inch tape, and the
the kids and give it to me. | loved the police!) separation wasn't too great. To begin with, we had
There was one time in San Francisco which the voices in the centre with a mixture of drums, bass
was great. We went to a bar and Dale and guitars on separate side-tracks. But pervading
Robertson was there. | mean, Dale Robertson! It the whole lot was the enormous welter of screams
was, ‘Hey, Dale, how you doing?’ — ‘I'm fine.’ from the audience. It was like putting a micropbone
We were having a drink and then they said, at the tail of a 747 jet. It was one continual
‘OK, that's the end, everyone has to leave the screaming sound, and it was very difficult to get a
bar.’ California closes down at 2am; that's the good recording.
end of the night. So they closed the bar and
the barman and everyone went out and then PAUL: People were saying, ‘Doesn't it drive
we went back in and carried on. | loved all you mad, all these girls screaming?’ We didn't
that. mind it, because sometimes it covered a
| loved meeting Burt Lancaster, too. He was multitude of sins: we were out of tune. It didn't
great. The first time in LA, we'd rented a huge matter — we couldn't hear it, nor could they.
house and | turned into a cowboy. | had a
poncho and two toy guns and was invited over GEORGE MARTIN: The Hollywood Bowl tapes
to Burt Lancaster's, and that was how | went. | weren't issued at that time. The Beatles didn't think it
was all, ‘Hold it up there now, Burt, this town was right to do so; and it wasn't until 1977 thatI
ain't big enough for both of us,’ and he said, dug them up, refurbished them and issued a record.
‘What have you got there? Kids’ stuff.’ Later he They were great as a live band, especially when
sent me two real guns, and a real holster: he you consider that one of their problems was that
didn't like me playing with kids’ guns. | just they couldn't hear themselves. In concerts today,
wanted to be a cowboy. everyone bas a fold-back speaker at their feet, so
He had an amazing house. It had a pool that they can bear whats going on. They didn't
outside, but you could swim into the living room if you went under the have that in the days of The Beatles’ live shows, so John, Paul and George
glass. LA was a mind-blower. We used to walk up and down Sunset would be standing at microphones in front ofascreaming crowd of 60,000 and
Strip; we'd get out of the limo and people would come up to us, but it Ringo would be at the back on the drums.
was still quite cool. It wasn't like a crazy feeding frenzy; there would Ringo once said to me bow difficult following was: ‘I couldnt do anything
be a lot of ‘hellos’. Of course, as it got into 1965/66 and substances clever. I couldn't do great drum kicks or rolls orfills, Ijust had to hang onto the
came into play, the attitude was changing and it was cool to be cool, to backbeat all the time to keep everybody together. I used to have to follow their
just go shopping. Everyone would be pleased to see you walk down three bums wiggling to see where we were in the song.’
Sunset. And Sunset was great. We went to the Whisky A Go Go, and all
the clubs. RINGO: There was nothing else | could do through the numbers bar
play the off-beat and try to lip-read where they were up to in the songs,
JOHN: Something like Ringo’'s saying, ‘Burt Lancaster's or read by their movements where the hell we were. If I tried to do
genuine,’ sounds like a showbusiness or actors’ or film stars’ anything on the toms it was lost in the din. But it never disappointed me
cliché, but it isn’t. Because the people we meet and don't because when we toured in the Sixties, it was to sell records, which the
think are genuine we either don't meet or we don't fans could then go off and listen to and we would get our royalty, a
mention on tape or we tell them that they're lousy.” penny a record.

RINGO: We played the Hollywood Bowl. The shell GEORGE: ALL THE TOURS
around the stage was great. It was the Hollywood Bowl —
these were impressive places to me. | fell in love with
MERGE INTO ONE IN MY MIND.
Hollywood then, and I am still in love with Hollywood We had Jackie De Shannon on tour
— well, Beverly Hills, Hollywood, California. | prefer it with us; | remember playing guitar with
to New York. her. We went to Los Angeles, where we
Hollywood has palm trees — there aren't many palm stayed in a big old shady house in Bel Air.
trees in Liverpool. The weather was hot and the Somebody conned us into going to the
lifestyle was really, really cool. Whisky A Go Go. It seemed to take us
twenty minutes to get from the door to
JOHN: Showbiz is a bit potty, and the whole of the table and instantly the whole of
showbiz stuck in one area must be potty. We Hollywood paparazzi descended. It was a
saw a couple of film stars: Edward G. Robison, total set-up by Jayne Mansfield to have
Jack Palance, Hugh O'Brian. We weres€xpecting pictures taken with us. John and | were
to see more. We were a bit chokeds sitting either side of her and she had her
The Hollywood Bowl wastfarvellous. It was hands on our legs, by our groins — at least she did on mine. We'd been
the one we all enjoyedsmost, | think, even sitting there for hours, waiting to get a drink; we had glasses with ice
though it wasn't the*largest crowd — because it in them, and the ice had all melted. A photographer came and tried to
seemed®so important, and everybody get a picture and | threw the glass of water at him. He took a photo of
was saying things. We got on, and it the water coming out of the glass and soaking (accidentally) the
was a big stage, and it was great. We actress Mamie Van Doren, who just happened to be passing. We got
could be heard in a place like the out of there; it was hell. We left town the next day, and | remember
Hollywood Bowl, even though the sitting on the plane, reading the paper and there was the photo of me
crowd was wild: good acousties. There's throwing the water.
a couple of places we've been heard’ quite
well, better than we've been for years.“ But RINGO: Which.any normal fella would do, but because George did it
we don't want them quiet. There's no point in and he was in The Beatles, it got all that publicity. You go to a club and
doing a show if they're just going to sit there there's some little photographers with big cameras, and none of them
listening — they can listen to their record, | say, ‘Can I| take a picture?’ They run-up and put their flash about four
like a riot.” inches from your eyes and flash a dirty big light which blinds you. —

150 USA « CANADA

USA « CANADA
 aya
1964
-
NX
\ Five week tour o
f USA

a
$5,

Wil
, ey

o!a
+. ood Bova
ii
 JOHN: Anywhere we go we're going to get people coming up with stage and was like Adolf Hitler up there, shouting to the crowd: These
their flashes. You take it once, twice, maybe three times and then you camera people are not wanted, they must be removed.’ He was yelling,
say, OK, whatever-your-name-is, have you done yet? We're not going ‘Do you want The Beatles on this stage?’ — ‘Yeah!’ — ‘Well then, do you
to do anything else, we're just sitting here, you've got all the pictures want to get rid of the cameras?’ — ‘Yeah!’ It was like a big Nuremberg
you need,’ which is what happened in that club in Hollywood. We said rally, and | suppose the police and promoters thought that we were
‘go away and he goes. But he comes back again. It's causing the trouble; but, even in those days, we knew
embarrassing for us, because they say, ‘Oh, they're big there were some things you couldn't control.
headed, how dare they ask somebody to go away?’ So RINGO: | REMEMBER ONCE There were riots in every city. Students rioting,
the manager of the club comes up and says, ‘Is he LOOKING INTO A MIRROR AND blacks rioting; in Canada the French were trying to
bothering you?’ And we say, ‘Yeah, will you just move SAYING TO MYSELF: ‘'ERE, IT'S split from the British. Every place we went, there
him? Tell him to drop his camera; come over and join NOT THAT BIG, IS IT2’ YOu seemed to be something going on.
the table; anything, but stop flashing!" COULD SAY NOW I'VE COME TO All the time, constantly, I felt frightened by things.
TERMS WITH MY NOSE. IT'S THE I remember when we were going for that trip to
GEORGE: Before LA we went and played in Las TALKING POINT WHEN PEOPLE America and they were saying, ‘Oh, yeah, we're going
Vegas, where Liberace visited us. | think the first four DISCUSS ME. | HAVE TO LAUGH to start in San Francisco with a ticker-tape parade.’
rows of that concert were filled up by Pat Boone and — IT GOES UP ONE NOSTRIL AND That was once when | actually said, ‘I'm not going.’ |
his daughters. He seemed to have hundreds of OUT THE OTHER.” mean, it was less than a year since they'd assassinated
daughters. Kennedy, and you know how mad it is in America.
There was all kinds of trouble in the States. There And with ticker-tape, somebody has got to sweep it up
was everyone trying to sue us. There were girls trying to get into our later. | don't like littering the streets, so I just said: ‘I'm not doing that, |
rooms so they could sue us for totally made-up things. There was always don't want a ticker-tape parade, it's silly.’
this very peculiar suing consciousness. I'd never heard about suing
people until we went to America. GEORGE MARTIN: There had been death threats. I remember going to one of
We went to Key West from French Canada, where we'd thought their concerts at the Red Rock Stadium in Denver where Brian and I climbed up
Ringo was going to get shot. A Montreal newspaper reported that on a gantry overlooking the stage, and we looked down at the boys below
somebody was going to kill Ringo. Because they didn't like his nose or during the performance; and the amphitheatre is such that you could have a
something? Because he was probably the most British of The Beatles? | sniper on the hill who could pick off any of the fellows at any time — no
don't know. Anyway, we decided, ‘Fuck this, let's get out of town,’ and problem. I was very aware of this, and so was Brian, and so were the boys.
we flew a day early, instead of staying the night in Montreal.
JOHN: We get battered mostly by people trying to guard us — they get
RINGO: Some people decided to make an example of me, as an English in the way half the time. They are always grabbing us and shoving us in
Jew. (The one major fault is I'm not Jewish.) Threats we took in our the wrong thing. We have hysterics when they [the fans] get on stage.
stride. | mean, suddenly there would be a few more cops; but this was One got George, and | could hear all wrong notes coming out. He was
one of the few times | was really worried. We were playing the gig and, trying to carry on playing — with a girl hanging round his neck! But |
as always, | was on a high-riser. | had the cymbals up towards the always feel safe on stage, even when they break through. | just feel as
audience to give me a bit of protection; usually | had them flat on. | also though I'm all right when I'm plugged in.™
had a plain-clothes policeman sitting there with me. But | started to get
hysterical, because | thought, ‘If someone in the audience has a pop at PAUL: I was got once by a cigarette lighter. It clouted me right in the
me, what is this guy going to do? Is he going to catch the bullet?’ | eye and closed my eye for the stay. In Chicago a purple and yellow
found this was getting funnier and funnier all the time, and the guy just stuffed animal, a red rubber ball and a skipping rope were plopped up
sat there. on stage. | had to kick a carton of Winston cigarettes out of the way
when | played.”
GEORGE: We got on the plane to Jacksonville, Florida. But we found
that there was a hurricane hitting Jacksonville, so they diverted us to JOHN: You feel a clonk on the back of the head and you look and it's a
Key West, announcing, ‘Fasten your seat belts. The runway isn't big shoe. Then once one comes they all start thinking, ‘Shoes: that'll attract
enough for this plane. We're going to have to go in with full reverse their attention. If they get a shoe on the head, they're bound to look
thrust.’ This was on an Electra, a plane that we later discovered has a over here.’ | always scout round looking on stage and tell Mal. He
very high accident record. But we landed at Key West all right and had usually picks them all up at the end before the scavengers leap on and
our day off there. all the attendants pinch anything that's
They said the hurricane had passed worth having.”
when we flew into Jacksonville, but it was as
windy as hell and it was dark with very DEREK TAYLOR: From Dallas our next
heavy black clouds all over. It had cleared a official stop was New York. Our secret interim
bit, but there were still turbulent winds, and destination was the Arkansas/Missouri border,
as we were approaching we could see the where Reed Pigman (whose Lockheed Electra
devastation: palm trees fallen over and mess had been our travelling home for the last month )
laying everywhere. had a ranch.
We'd discovered that there was a
group of people following us around GEORGE: We flew from Dallas to an inter-
America, filming us, and we'd told them mediate airport where Pigman met us in a
not to. They were in Florida and by this little plane with the one wing, on top, and
time we were saying, ‘Look, we told these with one or maybe two engines. It was so
people to bugger off and they're here like Buddy Holly, that one; that was prob-
again and right out front.’ They had ably the closest we came to that sort of
actually been given priority with their musicians’ death. | don't mean it nearly
camera, right in front of the stage. The crashed because it didn't, but the guy had a
winds were howling and there was Mal, little map on his knee, with a light, as we
nailing the drum kit to the platform, about were flying along and he was saying, ‘Oh, |
ten or twelve feet off the ground; and we don't know where we are,’ and it's pitch
were really pissed that the film crew was black and there are mountains all aroud and
there, so we said that we weren't going on. he's rubbing the windscreen trying to get
The promoters were getting stroppy with the mist off. Finally he found where
us, instead of kicking the camera people were and we landed in a field with tin cans
out. In the end Derek Taylor went on on fire to guide us in

USA & CAN ADA 153

 a a, a.
ait | 4
bh 18,poet

eee,
ve *»

3
hi
eae
eal

THE BEATLES»
Attention: Paul Mc Cartney oef2%.
a SR

Dear Paul; : yi
I hope tHe enclosed recap of your U.S. tour 4"
serve to remind you of th experiences /you’ |:
have had while in Ame: Bi «4: been a real
pleasure to have part ipatae ar: tra a
arrangements, by keeping,four™
up in the air o much of. the time.
( ed” talkin Oath; you per-
sonally yethat I; lay again take,
and downs. .
 DEREK TAYLOR: After a night awake, dawdling through poker and cigarettes and beer into the ¢
hours, we took our pick of some wild and rugged horses. Watched with amusement by Mrs Pigman, «
chose our nags according to whim, Beatles first, aides next, Brian last because — alone among us —b
know something about riding horses.

GEORGE: With the concerts and the Beatlemania, after a while the novelty wore off and then it
was very boring. It wasn't just the noise on stage, not hearing the music and playing the same old
songs; it was too much everywhere we went. Even when we got away from the screaming fans,
there were all the screaming policemen and the Lord Mayors and their wives and the hotel
managers and their entourages.
THE ONLY PLACE WE EVER GOT ANY PEACE WAS WHEN WE
GOT IN THE SUITE AND LOCKED OURSELVES IN THE BATHROOM.
THE BATHROOM WAS ABOUT THE ONLY PLACE YOU COULD HAVE
ANY PEACE.
DEREK TAYLOR: I was very, very good at helping the press and very anxious to oblige and let people in
ae .
on the story and share it out. But there were too many people, tens of thousands, clamouring to get at the
anne 9 —— band. One weekend in America, 20,000 people phoned the switchboard in the hotel in New York to get
aaeea” ~_: Se ee through, and many of them did. To me. Just too much. Too many. Too often.
Heyes mi. a The Beatles handled that extreme pressure well. I didn't know then how difficult it wasfor them because,
se 97Tt" . . mi ~_ again, I had no time to get an insight into what it was really like.
I did make great demands on them, which they met somewhat, balcony-waving, etc.: ‘Come on, guys,
try and give them one more wave. Let's get you out there.’ There were those moments when someone, George
in particular, would rebel, would do that: ‘Get your arm and bloody wave for me, I'm not going up there,’
that sort of thing, or, ‘I'm not meeting Shirley Temple!’ — ‘Don't shout, she’s listening, she'll hear you.’ — ‘I
dont care. I dont know Shirley Temple; she doesn't mean anything to me!’

JOHN: We make more money out of writing songs than we do out of appearing and running
round waving and that.”

DEREK TAYLOR: George later said, ‘If we'd known of, or were ready to be impressed by, Hedda Hopper
or George Raft or Edward G. Robinson, we wouldn't have had the guts to go out. It was because we really
didn't know a lot of those people, hadn't heard of them, that we weren't scared of them.’ I, of course, had
heard of them and was scared of them, so while The Beatles were pirates, I was still a bit middle class.
In the heyday of Beatlemania, there was a view that ifyou got to know The Beatles, your life would
become sublime. It was a mania of some size. In 1964, because it was thefirst huge year, they did meet all
kinds of people whom they would eventually shut out of their lives.
I still saw things as a journalist and got The Beatles to people in numbers, which is why I was really so
good at the job, because I wanted to give the boys and thegirls of the press what they wanted.

GEORGE MARTIN: I've seen the stresses to which they were subjected, and it was absolute hell
Wherever they went, there were hordes of people trying to get hold of them, trying to get their autographs,
trying to touch them.
They were besieged by reporters, who aren't very nice people, they tend to use their elbows and feet to
kick people, and each other, out of the way. I remember being escorted by police cars, or almost being kicked
out of an aircraft by reporters who wanted to get on. Another time, I was ina lift, stuck between floors
because too many people had crowded in.

It was just some giant three-ring circus

from which there was no let-up.
The only peace they got was when they were alone in their botel room, watching television and hearing
the screams outside. That was about it. A bell of a life, really.

JOHN: Our life isn't like a tour, or like A Hard Day's Night, or any of those things. Only when we
do that is all that created. When we're just living, it's calm. We never saw anything — just different
rooms all over the place.”
If you're on tour, you don't get any time off. Even if we're touring America and it says ‘a day off
you don't play that night, it's no good, because we're in the hotel room and to go out is a big
operation involving the police and everything. And you're still ‘on’ because you're in contact with
something
people who are looking at you and wanting autographs, or wanting a smile, or wanting
So that's still a strain and still work
cards
You get used to it, like a prisoner must do. We play guitars, sing have people round, play
Now and then, you get sic k and tired — like anybody doe:
draw, we do everything.
of h
sick and tired of it than | got sick and tired of school, or | got sick and tired

NEIL ASPINALL: Brian was very much in control, in control of what I'm not su
11
control. If he said they were playing A lilwaukee, then they were playing A lilw
d
manager and if he booked an engagement they'd do it and complain afterwat
night
again,’ or, ‘We don't want to do a double-shuffle' — two gigs on the sam
be said afterwards and not before. If some
do that.’ But the words would always
Beatles, they turned up and did it
 THE BEATLES 19
OF
SS
U.S.A. AND
STATEMENT O8

Tour
pindig" | <>
NEIL mielay onl, the Kansas offer — JOHN: Wherever we went, there was always a
for them to play an additional, unscheduled gig — whole scene going. Derek's and Neil's rooms
kept coming up. It started out at $60,000 and they were always full. of fuck knows what, and
were saying ‘no’ because they had so few days off. policemen and everything.” All those people
Already that year they'd been to Paris, the States, that went into Derek's room originally came
appeared on the Ed Sullivan shows, come home and with the intention of getting to our room, and
made the A Hard Day's Night record and movie. they expect free drinks, free food, free
Then flown straight off on a world tour, and back anything that's going. You get to know them
to England for more concerts, TV and radio shows. and can tell them apart from the others. Some
And a visit to Sweden and straight after that an American tour. of them are good fun because they are such clever imposters and con
They weren't getting any rest. A day off was precious, so ifBrian wanted men. You can admire them; but all of them are just bums, and that's why
to fill one of their days off with an extra gig, they'd have to stop and think. To they're in Derek's room and not ours.** We had our four bedrooms
‘play thirty-five American cities was a big tour in those days. They'd play a gig separate to keep them out.
on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, in different cities all over We had to do something, and what do you do when the pill doesn't
the States —flying in, hotel, press conference, gig, back to the hotel, flying out. wear off, when it's time to go?”
Brian had booked @i3i5-gig tour and they knew what they were doing and
were committed to that. But to shove one more show in the middle was another MAL EVANS: During that American tour each of us lost one and a half stone
story. So, The Beatles kept saying ‘no’, and the money kept going up. They in sweat.
agreed to do it in the end. The offer started at $60,000 and finally went to
$150,000. NEIL ASPINALL: We did have a laugh, and it was good, and oe it got
tense and.tiring it didut become.a bore. We bad.a.good.time overall,and de
GOK ae
ar Ourr 1964 timetable you anybody really got tense they took it out on me.
recently that we used to have a whole
ng like 23rd November offand JOHN: We were bastards. You can't be anything else in such a pres-
p surised situation, and we took it out on Neil, Derek and Mal. They took
;ue probably needed a ay Bel cant actually a lot of shit from us because we were in such a shitty position. It was _
wih Enes about him wanting us to work on a day hard work and somebody had to take it. Those things are left out, about te
what bastards we were. Fucking big bastards, that's what The Beatles —
were. You have to be a bastard to make it, and that's a fact. And The i 2 ”
“allyTheBeatle and I socialised with the public Beatles were the biggest bastards on earth.
dthem to do it more. Ringo and Paul would, quite a We-were the Caesars. Who's going to knock us when there’é a $
sould do none .it. John would, ifhewas up all million pounds to be made, all the hand-outs, the bribery, the police —
and the hype?”

DEREK TAYLOR: Hethe end of the US tour in September, Brian and I had a
falling out. We actually fellout a lot, because I still bad an independent spirit. 1
means. knew about trade-union rights and holidays and speaking your mind and that
d some of the touring. They liked meeting sort of thing. I knew also about blundering into situations which were not
vers they met; tbe had quite a time. tactful, making commitments for one or other of them which, really, only a
manager should do: ‘Sure, John can give away a South Australian opal on
: We met him in New Orleans. He had camera.’ — ‘Well, thats an engagement,’ Brian said. ‘How dare you commit
in the.> shape of a star, which was very John to giving away a South Australian opal on camera?’ — ‘Ididn't realise.’
—'Well, you should have realised. You're usurping your power, and I didn't
hire you for that, I hired you for this, you shouldn'tt be working with the boys,
anyway, you should be with me all the time.’ — ‘Oh, this is crazy, I'm off!’
So, I left in New York. I resigned at the end of the tour, in September, but
Brian made me work three months’ notice, though, until just before Christmas.
He tortured me by sending me to America on tour with Tommy Quickly and a
song called ‘The Wild Side Of Life’.
He made me work out my time, but be also asked me to stay, with, Derek...
you and I, we do get along, when we get along.’ — ‘Well, we do, Brian, but..
oe the eens was; ae to And it was such a relief to leave, | couldnt imagine aedI'd ever wanted to join
ndstands was
w great. them. As long as we could still be friends, that was fine; let's get out of here and
go back to newspapers.
So I went on to the Daily Mirror as a reporter, almost as just an ordinary
ills,the great tennis reporter: happy, too.
did enjoy that excitement,

JOHN:

saith spt the ni GOOD NIGHT

itLe notice to ‘The
_~AND THANKS FOR
, THE BREAD.
De
 RINGO: IN NEW YORK WE MET BOB DYLAN. THAT WAS THE FIRST TIME THAT
I'D REALLY SMOKED MARIJUANA AND I LAUGHED AND | LAUGHED AND I LAUGHED.
IT WAS FABULOUS.
RINGO: Bob was our hero. | heard of him through us, ‘Right, guys, I've got some really good grass.’ How
John, who'd played his records to me. He was just could you not dig a bloke like that? He thought that
great, he was this young dude with great songs. we were used to drugs.
Songs of the time, poetry, and a great attitude. We smoked and laughed all night. He kept
answering our phone, saying, ‘This is Beatle-
PAUL: Bob came round one evening, whilst we mania here.’ It was ridiculous.”
were in New York. He was our idol. | had seen
early programmes on Granada TV, when we GEORGE: We had a mutual friend, Al
were in Liverpool, about the New York Beat Aronowitz, whom we'd met first in 1963, who
Poets’ scene, where he had been singing along worked for the Saturday Evening Post. Al
with Allen Ginsberg. So we were into him as a Aronowitz and Bob were part of a beatnik
poet, and we all had his first album with his crowd. We had always liked Bohemians and
floppy cap. I'm sure that's where the Lennon cap beatniks. | still do — I still like anyone who is not
came from. John was a particularly big admirer. It the run of the mill. One of the things Al did was
shows in songs like 'Hide Your Love Away’. to take Beatles and Bob Dylan records to Russia and
try to be subversive. He was a friend of Bob's and he
JOHN: When I met Dylan I was quite dumbfounded. I'm phoned us up and said that Bob was around and we could
pretty much a fan type myself, in a way; | stopped being a ‘fan’ all get together. He brought him over to the hotel. It was a
when | started doing it myself. | never went collecting people's real party atmosphere. We all got on very well and we just talked and
autographs or any of that jive. But if | dig somebody, | really dig them.”! had a big laugh.
‘You've Got To Hide Your Love Away’ is my Dylan period.” It's one
of those that you sing a bit sadly to yourself, ‘Here I stand, head in PAUL: We had a crazy party the night we met. | went around thinking
hand...’ I'd started thinking about my own emotions. | don't know when I'd found the meaning of life that night. | kept saying to Mal, ‘Get a
exactly it started, like ‘I’m A Loser’ or 'Hide Your Love Away’, those pencil and paper, I've got it.’ Mal, who was a bit out of it too, couldn't
kind of things. Instead of projecting myself into a situation, | would try find a pencil or paper anywhere. Eventually he found some and | wrote
to express what | felt about myself, which I'd done in my books. | think down The Message of the Universe and told him, ‘Now keep that in
it was Dylan who helped me realise that — not by any discussion or your pocket.’ Next morning Mal said, 'Hey, Paul, do you want to see
anything, but by hearing his work. that bit of paper?’ | had written: "There are seven levels.’ Yeah, OK,
| had a sort of professional songwriter's attitude to writing pop maybe it didn’t exactly sum it all up after all, but we had a great time.
songs; we would turn out a certain style of song for a single, and we Drugs have now become such a serious menace that it is very
would do a certain style of thing for this and the other thing. I'd have a difficult to write about the subject; | don’t want to influence anyone in
separate songwriting John Lennon who wrote songs for the meat this day and age — I've got kids of my own. (When we used to talk about
market, and | didn't consider them (the lyrics or anything) to have any it, it was a bit lightweight; you could talk about pot and wine as
depth at all; to express myself | would write A Spaniard in the Works or opposed to scotch and Coke.) But it is part of the truth.
In His Own Write, the personal stories which were expressive of my
personal emotions. Then | started being me about the songs, not writing JOHN: I don't remember much what we talked about. We were
them objectively, but subjectively.” smoking dope, drinking wine and generally being rock'n’rollers and
having a laugh, you know, and surrealism. It was party time.
PAUL: Vocally and poetically Dylan was a huge influence. Lyrically he I remember one little nugget. We were up one of these hotels in
is still one of the best. Some of the long rambling poems he set to music New York (he'd bring his demos every time he made a new record) and
are still some of my favourite pieces of work. he'd be saying, ‘Hey, John, listen to the lyrics, man.’ — ‘Forget the lyrics!’
One thing that he did introduce us to was pot. | mean, we'd heard You know, we're all out of our minds, are we supposed to be listening to
all the jokes: that the Ray Charles band had been at the Hammersmith lyrics? No, we're just listening to the rhythm and how he does it.”
Odeon and the cleaner said, ‘He must be really tight, that Ray Charles —
there are two of his musicians sharing a ciggy in the toilet!’ We thought PAUL: I'm sure that the main influence on both Dylan and John was
it was funny, but it wasn’t us. Then Bob came round to our hotel, and he Dylan Thomas. That's why Bob's not Bob Zimmerman — his real name.
said to us, ‘Here, try a bit of this.’ It is very indiscreet to say this, We all used to like Dylan Thomas. | read him a lot. | think that John
because | don't know whether Bob is telling people he turned The started writing because of him, and the fact that Bob Dylan wrote
Beatles on to marijuana. But it was funny. poetry added to his appeal. John was already doing it ‘in his own right.
He was writing before he'd heard of Bob Dylan.
JOHN: The drugs were around a long time. All the jazz musicians had We were always interested in that kind of thing. We were slightly
been into heavy dope for years and years — it's just that they got in the studenty. We used to make fun of the other bands who weren't. |
media in the Sixties. People were smoking marijuana in Liverpool when received a poetry book once, in Hamburg: Yevtushenko. A girlfriend
we were still kids, though | wasn't too aware of it at that period. All sent it to me. We were sitting in the communal dressing room, where
these black guys were from Jamaica, or their parents were, and there everyone stuck their saxophones and equipment. We were waiting to go
was a lot of marijuana around. The beatnik thing had just happened. on, and a sax player from one of the other groups was knocking to come
Some guy was showing us pot in Liverpool in 1960, with twigs on it. in. We said, ‘Come in,’ and we were all in various poses, ‘Yeah, ah, ah,’
And we smoked it and we didn’t know what it was. We were drunk.” as I was reading: "The yellow flower graces thoughtlessly the green
steps.’ The guy was creeping past, ‘Sorry, don't want to disturb you...’
GEORGE: We first got marijuana from an older drummer with another The point was that we had a book of poetry; it was part of our
group in Liverpool. We didn't actually try it until after we'd been to equipment. It was part and parcel of what we all liked — art. John had
Hamburg. | remember we smoked it in the band room in a gig in been to art college. | had won a little art prize at school. (1 was never
Southport and we aff learnt to do the Twist that night, which was very swotty but | occasionally did quite well in things. In 1953, there
popular at the time. We were all seeing if we could do it. Everybody was a Coronation essay competition. All the kids in Britain were invited
was saying, ‘This stuff isn't doing anything.’ It was like that old joke to write essays about the monarchy or something, to celebrate our
where a party is going on and two hippies are up floating on the ceiling, Queen's glorious accession to the throne. And | won a prize: a book on
and one is saying to the other, This stuff doesn’t work, man.’ modern art.)
I'm sure this kind of thing found its way into our music, and into our
JOHN: Bob Dylan had heard one of our records where we said, ‘I can't lyrics, and influenced whom we were interested in; people like Dylan.
hide,’ and he had understood, 'l get high.’ He came running and said to That's where it all led.

58 BOB DYLAN
NEIL ASPINALL: After the American tour, it was back to Britain, to record the album Beatles For Sale, the single
I Feel Fine’ and to bead off on another British tour of small venues, cinemas and theatres. I think the largest UK gig
The Beatles ever played was Wembley Arena; it was mainly Odeon cinemas and the like.

GEORGE: In October 1964 we started another tour of Britain. We had a lot of shows booked from before,
and so, having played huge stadiums in America, we were now coming back to Britain and playing the
working men’s club in Accrington for tuppence a month. After having some success, we still fulfilled the
obligations that we had before we got really famous. That was one of the things everybody was proud of.

RINGO: It was the same in 1963. That was a great thing with Brian. If we'd been booked to play a small
club anywhere, we still went and played it for the price agreed originally. We were honourable folk, and
so was Brian. It was pretty strange, though, because we'd be playing in some daft dance hall in the middle
of nowhere, and it would be packed. But we played all those gigs.
I felt we were progressing in leaps and bounds, musically. Some of the material on Beatles For Sale and
the 1965 Rubber Soul album was just brilliant; what was happening elsewhere was nothing like it. It was
getting to be really exciting in the studio. We did it all in there: rehearsing, recording and finishing
songs. We never hired a rehearsal room to run down the songs, because a lot of them weren't finished.
The ideas were there for the first verse, or a chorus, but it could be changed by the writers as we were
doing it, or if anyone had a good idea.
The first form in which I'd hear a newly written tune would be on the guitar or piano. It's great to hear
the progression through takes of various songs. They'd change dramatically. First of all, whoever wrote it
would say, ‘It goes like this.’ They would play it on guitar or piano, singing it every time — they would be
learning to sing the song while we were all learning to play it, over and over again.
Most of our early recordings were on three tracks because we kept one track for overdubs. That also
kept us together as a band — we played and played and played. If one of them could sing it, the four of us
could play it till the cows came home. There was none of this, ‘We'll put the bass on later, or the guitars.’
We put most of it on then and there, including the vocals. And songs were written anywhere.

PAUL: Recording Beatles For Sale didn't take long. Basically it was our stage show, with some new songs —
‘Eight Days A Week’, for example. | remember writing that with John, at his place in Weybridge, from
something said by the chauffeur who drove me out there. John had moved out of London, to the suburbs.
I usually drove myself there, but the chauffeur drove me out that day and I said, ‘How've you been?’ —
‘Oh, working hard,’ he said, ‘working eight days a week.’ | had never heard anyone use that expression, so
when I arrived at John's house | said, ‘Hey, this fella just said, “eight days a week”.’ John said, ‘Right —
“Oooh, | need your love, babe..."’ and we wrote it. We were always quite quick to write. We would write
on the spot. I would show up, looking for some sort of inspiration; I'd either get it there, with John, or I'd
hear someone say something.
John and I were always looking for titles. Once you've got a good title, if someone says, ‘What's your
new song?’ and you have a title that interests people, you are halfway there. Of course, the song has to be
good. If you've called it '1 Am On My Way To A Party With You, Babe’, they might say, ‘OK...’ But if
you've called it ‘Eight Days A Week’, they say, ‘Oh yes, that's good!’ With ‘A Hard Day's Night’, you've
almost captured them.
So we would start with a title. | would turn up at John’s house. He'd get up when I arrived. I'd have a
cup of tea and a bowl of cornflakes with him and we'd go up to a little room, get our guitars out and kick
things around. It would come very quickly, and in two or three hours’ time I'd leave.
We would normally play it to Cynthia, or to whoever was around. We couldn't put it down on a
cassette because there weren't cassettes then. We'd have to remember it, which was always a good
discipline, and if it was a rubbish song we'd forget it.

JOHN: EverYBODY THINKS YOU MOVE POP STARS INTO WHAT THEY CALL ‘THE STOCKBROKER AREA’. | DON'T KNOW
WHY OTHER POP STARS MOVE INTO AREAS LIKE THAT; | MOVED IN BECAUSE IT WAS ABOUT THE THIRD HOUSE I'D
LOOKED AT AND I HAD TO GET OUT OF A FLAT QUICK, AND I DIDN'T CARE WHERE. | WANTED TO LIVE IN LONDON,
BUT | WOULDN'T RISK IT UNTIL IT'S QUIETENED DOWN.
[THE HOUSE] IS QUITE BIG. | ONLY REALISE HOW BIG IT IS WHEN | GO HOME TO LIVERPOOL OR VISIT RELATIONS AND
REALISE THE SIZE OF MY HOUSE COMPARED WITH THEIRS. IT'S THREE FLOORS. I'VE GOT ONE ROOM WITH ABOUT
FOURTEEN GUITARS IN IT, TWENTY PIANOS, ORGANS, TAPE RECORDERS, EVERYTHING. THE NEXT ROOM'S FULL Of
BANDITS
RACING CARS. THE NEXT ROOM'S GOT A DESK IN WHERE I WRITE AND DRAW AND THE NEXTS GOT ONE-ARMED
AND FOOTBALL GAMES AND ALL THOSE THINGS THAT YOU PUT TANNERS IN. THE REST OF THE HOUSE IS NORMAL,
BUT IT'S NOT BIG ENOUGH. | NEED A GIANT PLACE.°
 OHN: ‘Eight Days A Week’ was Paul's effort at getting a single for the
ovie. That luckily turned to ‘Help!', which | wrote — bam! bam! like
hat — and got the single. ‘Eight Days A Week’ was never a good song.
e struggled to record it and struggled to make it into a song. It was
s initial effort, but I think we both worked on it."
('m A Loser’ is me in my Dylan period, because the word ‘clown’ is
in it. | objected to the word ‘clown’, because that was always artsy-
fartsy, but Dylan had used it so I thought it was all right, and it rhymed
with whatever | was doing.” Part of me suspects I'm a loser, and part of
me thinks I'm God Almighty.
‘No Reply’ was my song. Dick James, the publisher, said, ‘That's the
first complete song you've written where it resolves itself.’ You know,
with a complete story. It was my version of ‘Silhouettes’: | had that
image of walking down the street and seeing her silhouetted in the
window and not answering the phone. Although | never called a girl on
the phone in my life — phones weren't part of the English child's life.*°

GEORGE: Our records were progressing. We'd started out like anyone
spending their first time in a studio — nervous and naive and looking for then on he started to hold the guitar to create the feedback for every
success. By this time we'd had loads of hits and a few tours and were take that we recorded.
becoming more relaxed with ourselves, and more comfortable in the
studio. And the music was getting better. JOHN: The record had the first feedback anywhere. | defy anybody to
For this album we rehearsed only the new ones. Songs like ‘Honey find a record — unless it's some old blues record in 1922 — that uses
Don't’ and ‘Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby’, we'd played live’ so feedback that way. | mean, everybody played feedback on stage, and the
often that we only had to get a sound on them and do them. But with Jimi Hendrix stuff was going on long before [him]. In fact, the punk
songs like ‘Baby's In Black’, we had to learn and rehearse them. We were stuff now is only what people were doing in the clubs. So | claim for
beginning to do a little overdubbing, too, probably a four-track. And The Beatles — before Hendrix, before The Who, before anybody — the
George Martin would suggest some changes; not too many, but he was first feedback on any record.
always an integral part of it. The B side, ‘She's A Woman’, was Paul's, with some contribution
from me on lines, probably. We put in the words ‘turns me on’. We were
PAUL: We got more and more free to get into ourselves. Our student so excited to say ‘turn me on’ — you know, about marijuana, using it as
selves rather than ‘we must please the girls and make money’, which is an expression.
all that ‘From Me To You’, ‘Thank You Girl’, ‘PS | Love You’ is about. There was a little competition between Paul and me as to who got
‘Baby's In Black’ we did because we liked waltz-time — we'd used to do ‘If the A side, who got the hit singles. If you notice, in the early days the
You Gotta Make A Fool Of Somebody’, a cool three-four blues thing. majority of singles — in the movies and everything — were mine. And
And other bands would notice that and say, ‘Shit man, you're doing then, only when | became self-conscious and inhibited, and maybe the
something in three-four.’ So we'd got known for that. And | think also astrology wasn't right, did Paul start dominating the group a little. But
John and I wanted to do something bluesy, a bit darker, more grown-up, in the early period, obviously, I'm dominating. | did practically every
rather than just straight pop. It was more ‘baby’s in black’ as in mourn- single with my voice except for ‘Love Me Do’. Either my song, or my
ing. Our favourite colour was black, as well. voice or both. The only reason Paul sang on ‘Hard Day's Night’ was
because | couldn't reach the notes — ‘When I'm home, everything seems
RINGO: We all knew ‘Honey Don't; it was one of those songs that to be right. When I'm home...’ — which is what we'd do sometimes: one
every band in Liverpool played. | used to love country music and of us couldn't reach a note but he wanted a different sound, so he'd get
country rock; I'd had my own show with Rory Storm, when | would do the other to do the harmony.
five or six numbers. So singing and performing wasn't new to me; it was It wasn't resentment, but it was competitive. | mean, rivalry between
a case of finding a vehicle for me with The Beatles. That's why we did it two guys is always there: it was a creative rivalry, like there was a rivalry
on Beatles For Sale. It was comfortable. And I was finally getting one between The Beatles and the Stones. | used this ‘sibling rivalry’, from
track on a record: my little featured spot. youth, to create a song. In that respect it was not a vicious, horrible
vendetta, because it’s not on that level.*
JOHN: | wrote ‘I Feel Fine’ around that riff going on in the background.
| tried to get that effect into practically every song on the LP, but the PAUL: The album cover was rather nice: Robert Freeman's photos. It
others wouldn't have it. | told them I'd write a song specially for the riff. was easy. We did a session lasting a couple of hours and had some
So they said, ‘Yes, you go away and do that,’ knowing that we'd almost reasonable pictures to use. We showed up in Hyde Park by the Albert
inished the album. Anyway, going into the studio one morning, | said Memorial. | was quite impressed by George's hair there. He managed to
o Ringo, ‘I've written this song, but it's lousy.’ But we tried it, complete create his little turnip top. The photographer would always be able to
with riff, and it sounded like an A side, so we decided to release it just say to us, Just show up,’ because we all wore the same kind of gear all
ike that the time. Black stuff; white shirts and big black scarves.
George and | play the same bit on guitar together — that's the bit
hat'll set your feet a-tapping, as the reviews say. I suppose it has a bit of RINGO: We'd all go to the same shop. I'd get the shirt in blue, and
a country-and-western feel about it, but then so have a lot of our songs. someone would get it in pink, and someone would get it in button-
The middle-eight is the most tuneful part, to me, because it's a typical down. If you look at all the photos, we are all dressed in the same style
seatles bit because that's how it happened.
For example, with the famous round-necked jackets, we had our
GEORGE: The guitar riff was actually influenced by a record called Thank Your Lucky Stars gig to do — the TV show — and we were
Watch Your Step’ by Bobby Parker. But all riffs in that tempo have a somewhere around Shaftesbury Avenue. We saw the suits in a window
similar sound. John played it, and all | did was play it as well, and it and just went in and got them. We all got one, and suddenly that was a
became the double-tfacked sound uniform. We were going to all these shops and buying little uniforms
for ourselves. That's also why we looked like Beatles; beside the haircut,
JOHN: ‘Watch Your Step’ is one of my favourite records. The Beatles we were all looking the same.
have used the lick in various forms. The Allman Brothers used the lick
straight as it was JOHN: We're really pleased with the record and with the new LP.
There was a lousy period when we didn't seem to have any material for
GEORGE: John got a bit of feedback unintentionally and liked the the LP and didn't have a single. Now we're clear of things and they're
ound and thought that it would be good at the start of the song. From due out, it's a bit of a relief.

SEATLES FOR SALE

NEIL ASPINALL: No band
today would come off a long
US tour at the end of
September, go into the studio
and start a new album, still
writing songs, and then go on
a UK tour, finish the album in
five weeks, still touring, and
have the album out in time for
Christmas. But that’s what The
Beatles did at the end of 1964.
A lot of it was down to
naivety, thinking that this was
the way things were done: ifthe
record company needs another
album, you go and make one.
Nowadays, if a band had as
much success as The Beatles
had by the end of 1964, they'd
start making a few demands.

Jobn once said,

‘We gave the
whole of our youth
to [he Beatles.’
Ifyou look at the work
schedule in late 1963, and
right through 1964, you'll see
it really was incredible. On top
of the tours and the records and
the film, they did a Christmas
show and all the TV shows:
Top of the Pops and Thank
Your Lucky Stars and
Around The Beatles (thirty-
seven of them). And all the
BBC radio shows (twenty-
two). It was non-stop.
Brian was beginning to
plan quite far abead. At
Christmas 1964 be would be
planning the tour of America
for 1965, trying to get a script
togetherforHelp!; and be
would have been planning
whatever other tours they were
doing. Somebody would
suggest, ‘Can we have a
holiday as well, Brian?’ while
all this was going on
nineteen sixty-five
 RINGO: |MARRIED MAUREEN IN FEBRUARY 1965.
We had met in the Cavern. She was in
the audience and | had taken her home (and
her friend). There was always that Liverpool
thing: ‘I'll take you home, love.’ — ‘Sure, can
you take my friend too?’ —'Er, all right.’ Then
one day youd ask, ‘Can we go out alone?’
We started going steady; more or less.
How could you go steady in my job? | kept
leaving and going on tour. In the early days we didn't have much time off, but any time we
did have off | spent with her. We'd have Mondays, because nobody booked gigs for a
Monday, so I'd dash up to Liverpool and we'd go to a pub, to the movies or see a show, and
then go to a restaurant. Just fill up that whole time.
When | came back from the States and went into hospital to have my tonsils out,
Maureen stayed with my mother in my London flat. It was then | said, ‘Do you want to get
married?’ and she said ‘yes’. It was a gradual build-up; but we married and had three kids. |
was with Maureen right through till 1975.

JOHN: I don't think the two of us being married has had any bad results on our popularity.
Remember that when it was announced Ringo and | were both married there hadn't been anybody in such a position as us who had got married.
Before us, it was silver-disc people (as opposed to gold-disc people) who'd married — people who relied mainly on the fact that they wiggled, all
sexy, in their acts. We didn't rely on wiggling and we still don't. We were never dependent on fans being in love with us so much.”

. Webb, 5
vce Hanmer: & Co.
» Albemarle |‘Street,
ndon W.1.5) ae

is

ar Mr. Webb,

RINGO « MAUREEN MARRY

Stewart
p os
 Bik ;
GEORGE: In February we started filming our second film, Help!. It ies they're enjoying making this film
was shot in the Bahamas, Austria and England. It was real fun Seien Ory much; relaxed, inventive and
doing the movie on beiuon: We started off in the Bahamas and, -—efervescent as ever. I left the
fas with most filming, we spent a lot of time hanging about; bit |3 Babamas with no doubts that my
there we could hang about on the beach. clients are being well looked after by
_ We shot some incredible scenes that were never used. We've the gentle and brilliant Mr Lester
a trying to get hold of some of the out-takes. We rented and the efficient and understanding
“sports cars which we used to drive around the island; I think they ‘Shenson, not forgetting the people
were Triumph Spitfires and MGBs. And as the police were all in Nassau, their sea and sun.
e movie, we never had any trouble with speeding.
& One day we found a disused quarry and started driving madly RINGO: The storyline to Help!
around it; skidding, doing doughnuts, going up the sides and written around me and the
spinning out. We made Dick Lester come and set up the camera theme of the ring, and of course,
he could film us. He shot it with a fish-eye lens and it looked ~ Kaili. | had the central part. |
ae a big golden quarry with blue and red cars — like little think it helped that I'd been
— going round the bottom and up the sides. It was never enthusiastic about the first film.
sed in the film, but we could sure use it now.
We've since found that they destroyed all that Heal . oe JOHN: He comes in possession of
“Peoplewere so short-sighted in the old days; it was that ‘they'll _ this ring, and whoever wears it has
oe last’ concept. ey
to be sacrificed by this big mob.
‘ica
We're trying to save him and get —
;RINGO: The problem was that we went to the Bahamas to film the ring off his finger, and there's
all the hot scenes, and it was freezing. We had to ride around other people trying to get it off for
-and run around in shirts and trousers, and it was absolutely - various reasons. It's very compli-
bloody cold. Ba,
cated, but that's basically what it is
= to stop him Sea ire e
NEIL ASPINALL: And they couldn't get tanned, because afterwards
they had to go to Europe to shoot scenes that would appear earlier in ‘PAUL. While ed ie Fea to
the movie. They always had to sit in the shade or wear bats. get involved and learn the script
We found in the Apple archives Brian's notes about the Bahamas for A Hard Day's Night, by the time
trip, dictated at the time. Help! came along we were taking it
as a bit of a joke. I'm not sure
BRIAN EPSTEIN: I travelled out from London with Paul and be anyone ever knew the script, I think
Ringo. Jobn and George had arrived at Heathrow airport a couple ~ we used to learn it on the way to
of minutes before us. As our car approached the back of Queens’ . the set. :
Building, we saw a packed group offans on its roof. When we — aiid
turned the corner and walked onto the tarmac, there it was: an eae _ JOHN: The movie was out of our
unbelievable crowd of wonderful fans, cheering, waving and 3 “ control. With A Hard Day’ Night,
holding banners. A thrilled Paul and Ringo joined up with an we had a lot of input, and it was
equally-amazed John and George, who were already -—— semi-realistic. But with Help!, Dick
acknowledging the crowd. Lester didn't tell us what it was about.
The group posed for the mass of photographers, continuing to I realise, looking back, how advanced
wave to the fans as long as the airline would allow them. It was the it Wes, It was a precursor for the
most wonderfully loyal demonstration the group could receive of Batman ‘Pow! Wow!’ on TV — that
their fans’ affection. kind «of stuff. But he never explained it
Our unit travelling to the Bahamas numbered seventy-eight, to us. Partly, maybe, because we
making for a full load. Amongst these were: Eleanor Bron, actors hadn't spent a lot of time together
Victor Spinetti, Jobn Bluthal and Patrick Cargill; producer and between A Hard Days Night and
director duo Walter Shenson and Dick Lester; and fave Help!, and partly because we were
photographer Robert Freeman. Also present were Beatles’ road smoking marijuana for breakfast during
managers Neil Aspinall and Malcolm Evans, suitably equipped that period. Nobody could commu-
with the usual stack of photos, throat sweets, ciggies and other nicate with us; it was all glazed eyes
touring Beatle gear. and giggling all the time. In our own
The cold air of New York gusted in as we touched down to world. It's like doing nothing most of
refuel. Then, about eleven hours after leaving England — seven the time, but still having to rise at 7am;
0 clock local time — our chartered Boeing touched down in so we became bored.”
Nassau. We disembarked to receive the warm welcome and
weather. The Beatles and I were then whisked off by the RINGO: A hell of a lot of pot was
authorities to a press conference without so much as the option to being smoked while we were making
get a bit nearer to the waiting crowd — thisis usually the true the film. It was great. That helped make
story when you read of artists ‘ignoring their fans’. it a lot of fun.
The group started shooting the morning following their
arrival. Among the first scenes shot were those of the group GEORGE: Brandon De Wilde was an
cling on a public thoroughfare, chatting away. Personally, actor, a James Dean type. (He died in a
a” greatly impressed with what seemed to be improved car crash in 1972.) He liked The Beatles’
aturalness of speech and movement. Ringo proved as good an music and he heard we were going to
of as was apparent in the firstMu Another day, the four film in the Bahamas, so he came over
ajoyed a swim fully clothed (well, shirt, jeans and shoes). from the States with a big bag of reefer.
bn said he'd always wanted to try this and thought it ae We smoked on the plane, all the way to
even better to bathe in a suit, with tie and all. the Bahamas. It was a charter flight, with
Before leaving Nassau on Friday, I took a speedboat aneBb all the film people — the actors and the
tiny island where the boys were working. I arrive just in é crew — and we thought, ‘> ly will
togeta boxed lunch, used on ‘these occasions, and to join notice. We had Mal smoking
oup fo A o doubt about it,J ieee drown out the smell
 GEORGE: Austria was next. It was the first and last time on
skis for me. It was really dangerous. Nowadays when people
_ make movies, everybody's got to be insured and you're not
supposed to do this, that and the other in case you get injured
and hold up the budget of the movie. And yet they took us to
Austria, took us up a mountain, gave us our boots (that nobody
even laced up), gave us our skis, said, Turn over, take one. Action!’
—and gave us a push.

RINGO: It was the first time we'd been to Austria — first time I'd been
on skis. | loved that.
>)
=
ES In one of the scenes, Victor Spinetti and Roy Kinnear are playing
curling; sliding along those big stones. One of the stones has a bomb in it
and we find out that it's going to blow up, and have to run away. Well, Paul
and | ran about seven miles, we ran and ran, just so we could stop and have a
joint before we came back. We could have run all the way to Switzerland.
If you look at pictures of us you can see a lot of red-eyed shots, they were red
from the dope we were smoking. And these were those clean-cut boys!
Dick Lester knew that very little would get done after lunch. In the afternoon we
very seldom got past the first line of the script. We had such hysterics that no one could do
anything. Dick Lester would say, 'No, boys, could we do it again?’ It was just that we had
a lot of fun —a lot of fun in those days.

JOHN: All the best stuff is on the cutting-room floor, with us breaking up and falling
about all over the place, lying on the floor, incapable of saying a word.”

PAUL: We showed up a bit stoned, smiled a lot and hoped we'd get
through it. We giggled a lot.
[ remember one time at Cliveden (Lord Astor's place, where the
Christine Keeler/Profumo scandal went on): we were filming the
Buckingham Palace scene where we were all supposed to have our
hands up. It was after lunch, which was fatal because someone
might have brought out a glass of wine as well. We were all a
bit merry and all had our backs to the camera and the giggles
set in. All we had to do was turn around and look amazed, or
something. But every time we'd turn round to the camera
there were tears streaming down our faces. It's OK to get
the giggles anywhere else but in films, because the techni-
cians get pissed off with you. They think, They're not very
professional.’ Then you start thinking, "This isn’t very pro-
fessional — but we're having a great laugh!’

GEORGE: We were filming that scene for days. There is a pipe

with red smoke coming through and we have the window open and all
the guards fall over. That scene just went on forever. We were in stitches — in
hysterics laughing — and | think we pushed Dick Lester to the limit of his
patience. And he was very, very easygoing; a pleasure to work with.

JOHN: We went wrong with the picture somehow. | enjoyed filming it;
I'm sort of satisfied, but not smug about it. It'll do. There's good
photography in it. There's some good actors — not us, because we
don't act, we just do what we can. Leo McKern is exceptional;
and Victor Spinetti and Roy Kinnear — the thin and the fat fella
— they're good together. The first half of the film is much
better than the end, and it's a bit of a let-down when it gets to
the Bahamas.
I think there is a lot of scope for us in films which hasn't
been exploited. It took us three or four records before we
really got our sound. | suppose it will be the same with
films. We do feel that if we prove ourselves we'll stay with
it. If Elvis Presley could do it, we don't mind following him
to the screen. The main point is to keep our films
different. We'll always have a shock in store for the
audience; this is where we stray from the Presley plan.
But | wouldn't want to concentrate on films. It isn’t our
speed; we like to move. | still prefer playing for a live
audience to anything else.
One final thing, you may as well discount
Hollywood — we've all decided that if we win Oscars
for this film, we're all going to send them back! “
AN: The first time that we were aware of anything Indian was when we There's another one which involves swallowing a bandage that's been
e making Help!. There was an odd thing about an Indian and that soaked in salt and water. You swallow it all the way down, and then you
tern sect that had the ring and the sacrifice; and on the set in one place pull it back out. It's all to do with getting the body perfect. John had the
y had sitars and things — they were the Indian band playing in the idea of combining the two: the nasal-passage one, pulling on each end,
kground, and George was looking at them. with swallowing the bandage — and pulling it out of your arse! John was
We recorded that bit in London, in a restaurant. And then we were very funny, he was brilliant.
he Bahamas filming a section and a little yogi runs over to us. We
nt know what they were in those days, and this little Indian guy PAUL: The songwriting for the album was done mainly at John’s place in
1es legging over and gives us a book each, signed to us, on yoga. We Weybridge. With A Hard Days Night John went home and came back
nt look at it, we just stuck it along with all the other things people with a lot of it, but with Help! we sat down and wrote it together. |
ild give us. remember us all sitting round trying to think, and John getting the idea for
Then, about two years later, George had started getting into hatha the title track. | helped with the structure of it and put in little counter
a. He'd got involved in Indian music from looking at the instruments melodies. When we'd finished, we went downstairs and played it to
the set. All from that crazy movie. Years later he met this yogi who Cynthia and Maureen Cleave, and they thought it was good. We'd got it
e us each that book; I've forgotten what his name was because they all then, that was it.
e that ‘Baram Baram Badoolabam’, and all that jazz. All of the Indian From something he said later, | think ‘Help!’ reflected John's state of
slvement came out of the film Help!.” mind. He was feeling a bit constricted by the Beatle thing.

IRGE: | suppose that was the start of it all for me. It was a chance JOHN: Most people think it's just a fast rock'n'roll song. I didn't realise it
ting — the guy had a little place on Paradise Island, and somebody at the time — | just wrote the song because | was commissioned to write it
t have whispered in his inner ear to give us his book, The Illustrated for the movie — but later | knew, really | was crying out for help. ‘Help!’
k of Yoga. We were on our bikes on the road, waiting to do a shoot, was about me, although it was a bit poetic.”' | think everything comes out
*n up walked a swami in orange robes: Swami Vishnu Devananda, the in the songs.
most hatha yoga exponent. It was on my birthday.
Later, when | got involved with Indian philosophy and got the desire
THE WHOLE BEATLE THING WAS JUST BEYOND
x0 to Rishikesh, | picked up the book again and couldn't believe that COMPREHENSION. I WAS EATING AND DRINKING
- was where he was from — the Shivananda Ashram in Rishikesh. His LIKE A PIG, AND I WAS FAT AS A PIG, DISSATISFIED
n place was in Montreal, but he had a little aeroplane and flew himself WITH MYSELF AND SUBCONSCIOUSLY | WAS
nd around different countries, getting arrested and put in jail; gaining
licity for what he called his ‘Boundary-Breaking Tour’. He opposed the
CRYING FOR HELP. IT WAS MY FAT ELVIS PERIOD.
le idea of having borders between countries, and even issued us all You see the movie: he — | — is very fat, very insecure, and he's
1 Planet Earth passports. Peter Max, the pop artist who became completely lost himself. And | am singing about when | was so
ous by copying the Yellow Submarine-type pictures, painted Vishnu much younger and all the rest, looking back at how easy it was; but
rananda's aeroplane. then things got more difficult.*
| read his book after | became vegetarian. The thing that repelled Happiness is just how you feel when you don't fee! miserable
about eating meat was the idea of killing animals. But the main There's nothing guaranteed to make me happy. There's no one
e is that meat-eating is not healthy and it's not natural. In the thing I can think of that would go ‘click’ and I'd be happy.” Now |!
k he says things like: monkeys don't get headaches; all human may be very positive, but | also go through deep depress |
lents and diseases come from an unnatural diet. | would like to jump out of the window. It becomes easier to de:
Also in his book, he illustrates things like how to cleanse the with as I get older; | don't know whether you learn |
il passage, where he threads a string up his nose and when you grow up, you calm down a little. Anyw
s it out of his throat. and depressed and | was crying out for help. It's r
GEORGE: John never said that when he GEORGE MARTIN: Iproduced all the tracks for the film, but |
wrote it; he said it retrospectively. That was wasnt asked to do the scoring — another guy was offered the job
how he was feeling. He was plump and he Dick Lester and I didn't hit it off too well on A Hard Day's
had his glasses. He just didn't feel right. He Night, and the fact that Igot an Academy Award nomination for
looked like Michael Caine with horn- musical direction probably didn't help either.
rimmed glasses.
He was paranoid about being short- JOHN: I do think the songs in the film are better. One | do
sighted and we'd have to take him into a which I like is ‘You've Got To Hide Your Love Away’ — but
club and lead him to his seat, so that he it's not commercial. "The Night Before’ that Paul does’ is
could go in without his glasses on and look good.”
cool. It was funny when Cynthia was out I used to like guitars; | didn’t want anything else on the
with him: they'd sit outside in the car, album but guitars and jangling piano, or whatever, and it's
arguing as to whose turn it was to put the all happening. ‘Ticket To Ride’ was slightly a new sound at
glasses on to go in and see where we were the time. It was pretty fucking heavy for then, if you go and
sitting. So he did go through that period look in the charts for what other music people were making.
when he was feeling, 'l was younger than You hear it now and it doesn’t sound too bad, but it'd make
today...’ me cringe. If you give me the A track and | remix it, I'll show
you what it is really, but you can hear it there. It's a heavy
JOHN: The lyric is as good now. It makes record and the drums are heavy too. That's why | like it.”
me feel secure to know | was that sensible;
not sensible — aware of myself. That was
with no acid, no nothing (well, pot).
| don't like the recording that much. The real feeling of the song
was lost because it was a single; we did it too fast, to try and be
commercial. I've thought of doing it again sometime and slowing it
down. | remember | got very emotional at the time, singing the lyrics.
Whatever I'm singing, | really mean it. | don't mess about. Even if I'm
singing ‘awop-bop-alooma-awop-bam-boom' | really mean it. And then
there's always that very emotional music going on at the same time.”!
| remember Maureen Cleave — a writer, the one who did the famous
Jesus’ story in the Evening Standard — said to me, ‘Why don't you ever
write songs with more than one syllable in the words?’ | never
considered it before, so after that | put a few three-syllable words in, but
she didn’t think much when | played the song for her, anyway. | was
insecure then, and things like that happened more than once.*”

PAUL: THE THING ABOUT JOHN WAS THAT HE WAS

ALL UPFRONT. YOU NEVER SAW JOHN. ONLY
THROUGH A FEW CHINKS IN HIS ARMOUR DID |
EVER SEE HIM, BECAUSE THE ARMOUR WAS SO
OUGH. JOHN WAS ALWAYS, ON THE SURFACE,
1, TOUGH, TOUGH.
wl think the world has to have a false impression of RINGO: I recorded a song for the Help! album that was never released —
really nice guy— covering up. He didn't dare let ‘If You've Got Trouble. ES Martin ound it in the vaults of EMI
i , alway rock'n'roll. _ ull you actually studios.
 SS eg ee ae --

tilm was like Eight Days A Week’ asa record for us. A People think of us as machines. They pay 6s 8d for a record and we —
arid a lot of people liked that record, But “have to do what they say — like a jack-in-the-box. | don't like that side :
what we really wanted we knew they weren't really us: We _ of it much. Some people have got it all wrong. We produce something,—
| of the film, but close friends know that the picturé and a record, and if they like it, they get it. The onus isn’t on us to produce 4
ren't our best. They were both a bit manufactured.” something great every time. The onus is on the public to decide
he ‘Help!’ single sold much better than the two before it; 1 Feel whether they like it or not. It's annoying when people turn round and —
lo Ride.’ But there were still a lot of fans who didnt say, ‘But we made you, you ungrateful swines.' | know they did, in a way,
They said, ‘Ah, The Beatles are dropping us. This isn't as but there's a limit to what we're bound to live up to, as if it's a utes a
od as A Hard Days Night. So you can't win. Trying to please I don't want to sound as if we don't like being Tked. We ape .
body is impossible — if you did that, you'd end up ‘in the middle it. But we can't spend our lives being dictated to. We make a record,2
with nobc dy liking you You've just got to make the decision about if you like it you buy it. If you don't, you don't buy it. Itup to.th
what you think is your best, and do it. public to decide.

5ats
 JOHN: WE KNOW ALL ABOUT PAUL: Writing a song out with George
‘YESTERDAY'. | HAVE HAD SO Martin was nearly always the same process.
MUCH ACCOLADE FOR For ‘Yesterday’ he had said, ‘Look, why don't
you come round to my house tomorrow?
‘YESTERDAY'. THAT'S PAUL'S
I've got a piano, and I've got the manuscript
. SONG AND PAULS BABY. paper. We'll sit down for an hour or so, and
WELL DONE. BEAUTIFUL. you can let me know what you're looking
AND | NEVER WISHED I'D for.’ We'd sit down and it would be quite
straightforward because I'd have a good idea
WRITTEN IT: of how I wanted to voice it. Or George
would show me possibilities: very wide apart
PAUL: I was living in a little flat at the top or very gungy and very close, and we'd
of a house and I had a piano by my bed. | choose. He would say, ‘This is the way to
woke up one morning with a tune in my do the harmony, technically.’ And I'd often
ad and | thought, ‘Hey, | don't know this try to go against that. I'd think, ‘Well, why
ne— or do 1?’ It was like a jazz melody. My sbould there be a proper way to do it?’
dad used to know a lot of old jazz tunes, | ‘Yesterday’ was typical. | remember sug-
thought maybe I'd just remembered it from gesting the 7th that appears on the cello.
the past. | went to the piano and found the George said, ‘You definitely wouldn't have
chords to it (a G, F#minor7 and a B), made that in there. That would be very un-string-
sure | remembered it and then hawked it quartet.’ | said, ‘Well? Whack it in, George,
round to all my friends, asking what it was: I've got to have it.’
‘Do you know this? It's a good little tune, That was the way the process worked.
but | couldn't have written it because | dreamt it.’ | took it round to He'd show me how to write the song ‘correctly’ and I'd try to sabotage
Alma Cogan, a friend of ours (I think she may have thought | was the correct method and move towards the way | like music; make it
writing it for her), and she said, ‘I don’t know it, but it is rather nice.’ original. | still think that's a good way to work.
It didn't have any words at first so | blocked it out with ‘scrambled Once, when George Martin was figuring out what a particular note
eggs: ‘Scrambled eggs, oh, my baby, how I love your legs — diddle was in ‘A Hard Day's Night’ (not for one of our arrangements, this was
diddle — | believe in scrambled eggs.’ Over the next couple of weeks | later, when he was writing out our songs to record them himself,
we to put in the words. | liked the tune and | thought I'd like to take orchestrally), | remember his saying to John: ‘It's been a hard day's night
‘some time over the words, get something that fitted like ‘scrambled and I've been working... Is that a 7th, or another note, or is it
eggs. And then, one day, | had the idea of ‘Yesterday’. somewhere in-between?’ John would say, ‘It's between those two.’ And
George would have to put down ‘blue note’ or something.
JOHN: This song was around for months and months before we finally It was great fun. I'm still fascinated by that. | don't have any desire to
completed it. Every time we got together to write songs for a recording learn. | feel it's like a voodoo, that it would spoil things if | actually
session, this would. come up. We almost had it finished. Paul wrote learnt how things are done.
nearly all of it, but we just couldn't find the right title. We called it
‘Scrambled Egg’ and it became a joke between us. GEORGE MARTIN: ‘Yesterday’ was a breakthrough, it was recorded by just
We had made up our minds that only a one-word title would suit, Paul and a group of other musicians. No other Beatle was on that recording
we just couldn't find the right one. Then one morning Paul woke up and and no other Beatle heard the song until we played it back. Jobn listened to it,
the song and the title were both there; completed. | was sorry ina way, and there’ a particular bit where the cello moves into a bluesy note which be
wed had so many laughs about it. And it has been issued in America as thought was terrific, so it was applauded.
‘an orchestral piece by George Martin — called ‘Scrambled Egg’! Now we But it wasnt really a Beatles record and I discussed this with Brian Epstein:
are getting letters from fans telling us they've heard a number called ‘You know, this is Paul's song... Shall we call it Paul McCartney?’ He said,
»’Serambled Egg’ that's a dead copy of ‘Yesterday’. ‘No, whatever we do we are not splitting up The Beatles.’ So even though none
of the others appeared on the record, it was still The Beatles — that was the creed
PAUL: | remember thinking that people liked sad tunes; they like to of the day.
wallow a bit when they're alone, to put a record on and go, ‘Ahh.’ So |
put the first verse together, then all the words fitted and that was it. PAUL: I wouldn't have put it out as a solo ‘Paul McCartney’ record.
It was my most successful song. It's amazing that it just came to me We never entertained those ideas. It was sometimes tempting; people
in a dream. That's why | don't profess to know anything; | think music is would flatter us: ‘Oh, you know you should get out front,’ or, ‘You
all very mystical. You hear people saying, ‘I'm a vehicle; it just passes should put a solo record out.’ But we always said ‘no’. In fact, we didn't
through me.’ Well, you're dead lucky if something like that passes release ‘Yesterday’ as a single in England at all, because we were a little
through you. embarrassed about it — we were a rock'n'roll band.
. | brought the song into the studio for the first time and played it on ].am proud of it. | get made fun of because of it a bit. | remember
the guitar, but soon Ringo said, ‘I can't really put any drums on — it George saying, ‘Blimey, he's always talking about “Yesterday”, you'd
wouldn't make sense.’ And John and George said, ‘There's no point in think he was Beethoven or somebody.’ But it is, | reckon, the most
having another guitar.’ So George Martin suggested, ‘Why don't you complete thing I've ever written.
just try it by yourself and see how it works?’ I looked at all the others:
‘Oops. You mean a solo record?’ They said, ‘Yeah, it doesn’t matter, JOHN: I sat in a restaurant in Spain and the violinist insisted on playing
there's nothing we can add to it — do it.’ ‘Yesterday’ right in my ear. Then he asked me to sign the violin. | didn't
know what to say so | said, ‘OK,’ and I signed it, and Yoko signed it
GEORGE MARTIN: Paul went down to No. 2 Studio at EMI, sat on a One day he's going to find out that Paul wrote it.’ But | guess he
high stool with his acoustic guitar and sang ‘Yesterday’. That was the master couldn't have gone from table to table playing ‘|| Am The Walrus
to begin with. Then I said, ‘Well, what we can do with it? The only thing I
can think of is adding strings, but I know what you think about that.’ And
Paul said, ‘I don'twant Mantovani.’ I said, ‘What about a very small number
of string players, a quartet?’ He thought that was interesting, and I went and
worked on it with him and made suggestions for the score. He had ideas too,
and we booked a string quartet and overdubbed the strings — and that was
the record.
 The illustration missing from "Spaniard" (Pages 34/35) was
by John toGeorge; who in trun gave it to the man who
his swimming pool, I spoke to Mr. Herrick today and he
me he mailed it to Jonathan Cape, by registered post, some
ago.
Actually, Mr. Maschler said that he thinks it can be managed
he originals -- 80, unless I hear from you to the contrary, &
t the matter rest.

y thanks for returning the odd drawing. I will send it te

oon as he returns to London,

ll best wishes.

Sincerely,

Wendy Hanson
JOHN: The second book was more Personal Assistant to Brian E
disciplined because it was started from
scratch. They said, ‘You've got so many hint of Ronald Searle.” | think | still have that
months to write a book in.'® I wrote In His as a secret ambition.*® Lewis Carroll | always
Own Write — at least some of it — while | was admit to, because | love Alice in Wonderland
still at school, and it came spontaneously. and Alice Through the Looking-Glass.
But once it became: ‘We want another book I read a lot; things that you should read
from you, Mr Lennon,’ I could only loosen that everybody's reading. Dickens | don't like
up to it with a bottle of Johnnie Walker, and much; I've got to be in a certain mood. I'm too
| thought, ‘If it takes a bottle every night to near school to read Dickens or Shakespeare. | hate
get me to write...’ That's why | didn't write Shakespeare; | don’t care whether you should like
any more.* I'm not very keen on being him or not. | don't know if it's because of school or
disciplined. (It seems odd, being a Beatle; because it doesn't mean anything to me.
we're disciplined but we don't feel as though I was ignorant. I'd heard the name of Lear
we are. | don't mind being disciplined and not realising it.) somewhere, but we didn't do him at school. The only classic or
The longest thing I've written is in this book. It's one about Sherlock highbrow things I'd read or | knew of were at school.” | must have come
Holmes and it seemed like a novel to me, but it turned out to be about across James Joyce at school, but we hadn't done him like | remember
six pages. Most of A Spaniard in the Works is longer than the bits in the doing Shakespeare. The first thing they say is, ‘Oh, he's read James
first book. But my mind won't stay on the same thing. | forget who I've Joyce, but | hadn't. So I thought the thing to do would be to buy
brought in, | get lost and | get fed up and bored. That's why I usually Finnegans Wake and read a chapter. And it was great, and I dug it and
kill the lot off. | killed them off in the first book, but with the second felt as though he was an old friend, but | couldn't make it right through
book | tried not to; I tried to progress.” the book.
I'd done most of it and they needed a bit more, so the publisher sent | bought one book on Edward Lear, and a big book on Chaucer — so
along a funny little dictionary of Italian. He said, ‘See if you get any now | know what they [the reviewers] are talking about.® But | couldn't
ideas from this.’ | looked in, and it was just a howl on its own. So | see any resemblance [in my own work] to any of them. A little bit of
changed a few words (which is what | used to do at school with Keats Finnegans Wake. But Finnegans Wake was so way-out and so different —a
or anything; I'd write it out almost the same and change a few words) few word changes, and anyone who changes words has got to be
but then they put in the reviews: ‘He's pinched the whole book!'” compared; but his stuff is something else.
| hardly ever alter anything because I'm selfish about what | write, or Ringo hasn't read anything I've written. Paul and George have.
big-headed about it. Once I've written it, | like it. And the publisher They were more interested in the first book, obviously. Paul was,
sometimes says, ‘Should we leave this out, or change that?’ and | fight because at the time a lot of people were beginning to say, ‘Is that all
like mad, because once I've done it | like to keep it. But | always write it they do?’ Paul was dead keen, and that keen to write the intro, even —
straight off. | might add things when I| go over it before it's published, and he helped with a couple of stories, but was only mentioned on one
but | seldom take anything out. So it is spontaneous.” because they forgot.
One of the reviews of In His Own Write tried to put me in this satire There's nothing to stop them doing something. | was doing this kind
boom with Peter Cook and those people that came out of Cambridge, of thing before | was a Beatle, or before | had a guitar. When they met
saying, ‘Well, he's just satirising the normal things, like the Church and me | was already doing it. After a week of friendship with them or after
the State,’ which is what I did. Those are the things that keep you a couple of weeks, | probably brought out things and said, ‘Read this.’
satirising, because they're the only things.” I'm not a do-gooder about So this came before the other: the guitars came second. Now the guitars
things: | won't go around marching, I'm not that type.” come first because this is still a hobby.
A Spaniard in the Works gave me another personal boost. OK, it
PAUL: John was irreligious. He had a drawing that he'd done when he didn't do as well as the first,
was younger of Jesus on the cross with a hard-on, which was brilliant. It but then what follow-up
was very hard-hitting teenage stuff, which at the time we all took just as book ever does? In any case,
black comedy. There was always an edge to John’s stuff. | had a lot of the stories in
the book bottled up in my
JOHN: I always set out to write a children's book; | always wanted to system and it did me good to
write Alice in Wonderland. | was determined to be Lewis Carroll with a
1 7 é ° =, .
get rid of them — ‘better out
than in’. The book is more
complicated; there are some
stories and bits in it that even
| don't understand, but once
I've written something what's
the point of letting it hang
around in a drawer when |
know I can get it published?
The plain unvarnished fact is
that | like writing, and I'd go
on writing even if there
wasn't any publisher daft
enough to publish them.”

»_
ie,
t
at

17¢ A SPANIARDIN THE WORKS —-

 GEORGE: The first together andI realised that the club Fadacwanactaséd— al) ihe scouts
had) gone pihey'd put the hightson, and the walters were gous sind
time we took LSD was an Bashing the tables and putting the chairs op top a! them. We sboush:,
‘Oops we'd better get out of here!’
accident. It happened sometime in Wersot out and went to go tovanother disco, the Ad Lib Club. tr was
just a shortdistance.so we walked, but things werens the same ow os
1965, betweemalbums and tours. We were they had been, It's ditficuleto, explain: it was very Alice iy Wonderiang
Swany strange things.el remember Pattic, hali playtully but also half
innocent victims of the crazy, trying to smash’a Shop window ahd hfel@Come on now dont

wicked dentist
be silly...’ Then, we got,round the corner and saw: just all lights and
ettfodked-as if there svasia big film premiere = feon, but it-vwas
pel
bly just sual ‘doorway, to the nightclub ro ve
oy mét and“Had Ginnér with afew times, There'd) Been iybi,wit i?the peoples thick wicket), dike vias 4
Te. fhSiipites events; everybody knew each other,
htJohn, Cynthia, Pattie and | were having dinner at the VERY STRANGE:
We went up into the nightclub and it feltias though the elevator was on
Later that night we were going down toa | ondon
“ape the Pickwick Glub. [tavas a littleaestadrant, with a fire and weswere going into hell\and itwas. and, we were), but at the
age where some (friends of ~otirs_ were playing: Klaus samé tite we were allein Hysterics’ and ‘crazy, Eventually we got cut at
n, Gibson-Kemp (who.became Rory Storm's drummer after the Ad Lib, on thewop floor, and sat there, probably for hours.and hours:
Ringo) and a guy called Paddy. They had a little trio. Then it was daylight and 1 drove everyone home — ! was driving a
r dinner | said to John,-‘Let's go — they're going to be on Mini with John and Cynthia and Pattie in it. seem to remember we
1php said ‘OK’, but the dentist was saying, were doing eightcen miles an hour and | was. really concentrating —
because some of the, time [just felt nornial,and then, before.| knew
biYou Shouldustay bere And'thenshe said, ‘Well, where | iwas, it Was all ‘Grazy again: Anyway, we got home ‘safe and
sound, ahd someWhére down the fine John and Cynthia got home» |
st finish your coffee first.’ went to bed and lay therefor, like, three years.
; :
finished our)coffee and after a while | said again, “Conie That is what became known as |
See®
Gn, it's gettingdate we'd better go. ' The dentist said something T he Dental Experietice.
aa and John turned to me and said,
JOH N's A dentist in London laid acid on George, me and ur wives.

'WENME IFIAD LSD" HE JUST PUT PRIN-OUR

‘Pjust- thought; ‘Well, what's that? So-what?-Lets go!" COFFEE OR SOMETHING:
(if vas] all “therthing with the middle-class* London swingers who'd
® This fella was still asking us to-stay and it ‘all became a bit heard all. about.it and didn't’ know it was any /differént from pot and
seedy— it felt as if he was trying to get.something happening pills. He. gavé us it, and he was‘saying, I advise you not to leave.’ We
his house; that'there was some reason he didn't want us to thought he was ttying to keep us for-amorgy in his house, and we didn't
* & go. In fact, he: had obtained some ‘lysergic acid diethyt- want to’know. We went‘out to the Ad Lib and these discotheques, and
d amide. 25. It was, at the:time; af’unrestricted, médication’=1 there Were incredible things going on.
seem to recall that I'd bdacd vaguely about it, but | didn't We got out andthe guy came. with Us) and he was nervous and we
teally knowswhat it was, and'we didn't Know we were taking it. didn't Know Wwhat=was goifig on, ahd !that we werd! going crackers: It
The bloke had put.it in out coffees: ming; John's, Cynthia's and ipas insane, going aroundd Lod cee wines thought when Wwe Went
Pattie's, He.didn't.take it; He had never,had it himself. I'ni-sure to the club that it Was on fire, andsthen we thought there was apremiere
he thought it‘Was an aphrodisiac. | remember his girlfriend had and it was just. an ordinary light outside. We thought, ‘Shit, what's going
enormous breasts/and | think he thought that there was going to onhere?’ And weewere cackling in. thestreéts, and’then people were
ob a big gang-bang and-that he was (going to get to shag shouting. ‘Let's break _a window’ We were just insane. We
eve . Freally think that was his motive. were out of our heads;
»So the denitat said, (OK sléave-your cathere. I'll drive you:and We finally. got on the lift We’all thought there was'a freon the lift:
yyou can come back laters] said ‘No, no, We'll drive.’ And we
it was just a littleved light; we were all screaming, 1 AAAKAAARGH!:
fe intmy car and he camé as well, in-his car. We got to the
tb, parked and went in. all hotand hyétefical) And we.all-arrived ‘on the floor (because this was
2 sat down, and ordered, our drinks when a discotheque that .was,up a building), and the lift.stops and the door
opens, and we:were all; ‘MAAKANNARGHY) Shd we just see that its the

Glubeand weawalk in and sit down and the, table's elongating.

Pthink we-went to eat before that and at was like the thing | read,
describing the éffects: of opium: in the old’ days, where the tables
| suddenly ‘realised it’ was only a table, with four ous around it; butat
omet hing like avery concentrated version of the best feeling I'd went long; just-tike [had read; and 1 thought, Pack! 4's happening:

et was FAN EASTIC.

t was
not withpanythingsor afybody in particular, but with
Then we went to the Ad [ib and allof thaty.and some singer cence up to
me and said ‘Gan | ff next to you2al ‘said: Only if you don: ti fs
because | just-coufda’t think.
4. Everything. was perfect, in-a perfect light, and | had an
ng desire to. go round the club télling everybody how
ch I loved them —people.l'd never seen before. [éseemed to. go'on alb night. 1 cantt tepiembct the details, i oot 9
; One thing led to another, then, suddenly it
felt asiif a bnib had made a direct hit
on the nightclub and the roof had
been blown off;,"Whais going
on-hete?’ I pulled. my.senses

He DEN THA). PN VERSES,

 And George GEORGE: | can't say how this experience has
affected others. We are all individuals, and it's
chow or other managed become more apparent to me over the years that while
we may all experience a certain thing, we don’t actually
drive us bome in his Mini, know if we have experienced it in the same way as each
other. | made the mistake of assuming that my experience |
with LSD would be the same as anybody else's. Prior to
that, I'd known that if you all drink whisky, you all get
going about ten miles an hour and it seemed like a drunk, you all feel dizzy and you all start slipping around.
So | presumed, mistakenly, that everybody who took LSD
sand. And Pattie was saying, ‘Let's jump out and play football’ — was a most illuminated being. And then | started finding that
there were people who were just as stupid as they'd been
here were these big rugby poles and things. And | was getting all these before, or people who hadn't really got any enlightenment
except a lot of colours and lights and an Alice in
hysterical jokes coming out, like [I did on] speed, because | was
Wonderland type of experience.
always on that, too. George was going, ‘Don't make me laugh. The thing is, after you've had it a couple of times there
doesn't seem to be any point to taking it again. Although the
Oh, God!’ tablecloth might keep moving or the chairs get small, the
basic thing that | first experienced was the thought: ‘You
shouldn't need this, because it's a state of awareness.’ To
irwas TERRIFYING, change consciousness with a chemical obviously isn't a

but it was fantastic.

path to self-realisation. | think in some cases it can have a
positive effect, but it is also dangerous. People later didn't
have the ability to cope with it — the bogeyman within
them would have the ‘hell’, and the ‘hell’ would come out.
I did some drawings at the time (I've got them somewhere) of There were always reports of people jumping under cars
four faces saying, We all agree with you!’ — things like that. | and out of buildings. | can understand that, because you
gave them to Ringo, the originals. | did a lot of drawing that do suddenly experience the soul as free and unbound. You
night. They all went to bed, and then George's house can have that feeling, that consciousness of what it must
seemed to be just like a big submarine | was driving.” be like to leave your body, like experiencing death — but
you have to remember that you're still in your body.
In 1966, I was in India on the day that they all worship
~ RINGO. I was actually there in the club when John and George got Shiva. Amongst the little items being sold in the street |
came across a small cactus covered with little hooks, the size
there shouting, of the top of a big poppy. I said to Ravi Shankar, who | was
with, ‘What's that?’ and he said, ‘Shiva would eat that, in ~
fii LIF lar ON EIRE! mythology.’ | thought, ‘Ah, it’s mescaline, peyote or something
like that,’ and | said, ‘I'll try one of them.’ But Ravi said, ‘No, no,
Acid was the best thing we could take after that! don't eat it — people who've eaten it have gone mad.’ Well, that
fits the bill for a psychedelic, because the down side of it can be
GEORGE: That first time | had acid, a light-bulb went on in my head that you go so far out in your mind that you think you've lost your
and | began to have realisations which were not simply, ‘I think I'll do grip and that you're never going to get back to the normal state of
this,’ or, ‘I think that must be because of that.’ The question and answer consciousness. And, in a way, you don't ever really return to how
disappeared into each other. An illumination goes on inside: in ten you were before.
minutes | lived a thousand years. My brain and my consciousness and The great thing about it for me was that, whereas with oth
my awareness were pushed so far out that the only way | could begin to drugs and alcohol you're under an influence and you fe
describe it is like an astronaut on the moon, or in his spaceship, looking intoxicated, with psychedelics you don't. It has an effect o
back at the Earth. I was looking back to the Earth from my awareness. your system but you're not feeling intoxicated; you're straight,”
Because acid wasn't illegal back then and nobody really knew much with a twist — taken out of focus. Suddenly you can see through
about it, there wasn't the big panic about ‘heaven and hell’ that people walls and you can see your body as if it isn't a solid. Like when
talk about — we didn't conjure up heaven and hell. But everything in the you peel a slice of orange and you take the skin off the slice, you ©
sical world is governed by duality: everything is heaven and hell. see tiny droplets that all just fit together, but are separate pieces.
e isoe and it is hell; that's the nature of it. And so all that acid You can look at your body like that — | can almost see it now, just
by recall — and you can see it's all moving; it's all pulsating with
energy. It's amazing. Or, you know how it is when you can see a
heat haze? It's like that — you can actually see heat. | tried
sunbathing on acid once, at the house in LA, and after about ten
seconds | could hear my skin frying, a sound like bacon sizzling in a
JOHN: WE MUST ALWAYS REMEMBER TO THANK pan. People will say, ‘Well, he was under the influence of a drug,’
THE CIA AND THE ARMY FOR LSD, BY THE WAY. but I believe it is actually the senses getting heightened to such a
EVERYTHING IS THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT IT IS, degree.
ISN'T IT? THEY BROUGHT OUT LSD TO It must be like that for people who have attained a ‘cosmic
CONTROL PEOPLE, AND WHAT THEY DID WAS consciousness’. All the time, they can see through the trees and see
GIVE US FREEDOM. SOMETIMES IT WORKS IN the roots of the trees in the ground and see the sap flowing up
MYSTERIOUS WAYS, ITS WONDERS TO PERFORM. through the ground and through the tree — as Superman can see
BUT IT SURE AS HELL PERFORMS THEM. through walls. Because the essence and the cause of everything in
K AT THE GOVERNMENT REPORT the physical world is that pure intelligence that is manifested
externally as all these different parts. It's the ego identity that
3WS BECAUSE OF IT WERE THE fools us into thinking, ‘| am this body.’ LSD gave me the
] NEVER KNEW ANYBODY experience of: ‘| am not this body. | am pure energy soaring
about everywhere, that happens to be in a body for a tem
porary period of time.’
 This was something that | didn't know about back then. I just got others, right through until his death. As Yoko came into the picture, |
born and did what | was doing, and | came along just as The Beatles lost a lot of personal contact with John; but on the odd occasion | did
were coming along and as acid and everything else was coming along; see him, just by the look in his eyes I felt we were connected.
so you could call it karma. And, although it has a down side, I see my
acid experience more as a blessing because it saved me many years of
indifference. It was the awakening and the realisation that the important
Dear Mr. Epstein,
thing in life is to ask: ‘Who am I?’, ‘Where am | going?’ and ‘Where have
this agency, to write his life story
| come from?’ All the rest is, as John said, ‘just a little rock'n'roll band’. It Under conty2 9
of Jonne =
wasn't that important. All the other bullshit — that was just bullshit. All Yr. Alfred Lennon, father
ne
the governments and all the people running round the planet doing a
of letters he has recei
Mr. Lennon is deeply resentful
whatever they're doing — all just a waste of time. They're all chasing of trying to sponge
from relatives, and others, accusing him
their tails in some big illusion. If you can live by an inner rule and
the now famous son he neglected as a child.
become centred on some kind of cosmic law, you don't need
be fully¢
governments or policemen or anybody laying down rules. If | had half a He is anxious that his own viewpoint should
homeli fe, the time they spent
chance, I'd put acid in the Government's tea. in his story of John's early
together in Blackpool etco..
RINGO: I think LSD changes everybody. It certainly makes you look at us to try ar
However, before going ahead, he has asked
things differently. It makes you look at yourself and your feelings and arrange a meeting with John so that he can give his own expié
emotions. And it brought me closer to nature, in a way — the force of of what happen ed when the family split up.
nature and its beauty. You realise it's not just a tree; it's a living thing.
My outlook certainly changed — and you dress differently, too! Fenmon asked us to emphasise that he is not intere
in his Teh cee but only ‘s "putting himself straight" :
Something, he §
JOHN: I must have had a thousand trips. | just used to eat it all the the eyes of John ~ and the rest of the world.
the brief, highly publicised m
that he was not able to do in
time. | stopped taking it because of bad trips. | just couldn't stand it. | they had some time ago.
dropped it for | don't know how long, and | started taking it again just
before | met Yoko. Such a meeting, he feels, would clear the air of acriz4
| got a message on acid that you should destroy your ego, and | did. and be of advantage to both.
I was reading that stupid book of Leary's [The Psychedelic Experience], all of tk
I'm sure you would agree that no harm could come
that shit. We were going through the whole game that everybody went press
and on our part we would make sure that the general
through, and I destroyed myself. | destroyed my ego and | didn't believe not have access to Mr Lennon.
| could do anything, and | let people do and say what they wanted, and
| was nothing; | was shit. Then Derek tripped me out at his house after Perhaps you would let me know what you and John decide
he got back from LA. He said, ‘You're all right,’ and he pointed out
songs | had written and said, ‘You wrote this, and you said this, and you
are intelligent; don't be frightened.’ And then next week | went down JOHN: I never knew my father. | saw him twice in my life till | was
with Yoko and we tripped again, and she filled me completely to realise twenty-two, when he turned up after I'd had a few hit records. | saw him
that I was me, and that it was all right. That was it, and I started fighting and spoke to him and decided | still didn’t want to know him.”
again and being a loudmouth again, and saying, ‘Well, | can do this, He turned up after | was famous, which | wasn't very pleased—
and, ‘Fuck you, this is what | want. | want it and don't put me down.’” about. He knew where | was all my life — I'd lived in the same house in
[I haven't taken LSD] in years. A little mushroom or peyote is not the same place for most of my childhood, and he knew where. [|
beyond my scope; maybe twice a year or something. But acid is a thought it was a bit suspicious, but | gave him the benefit of the doubt —
chemical. People are taking it, though, even though you don't hear after he'd put a lot of pressure on me in the press. | opened up the
about it any more. People are still visiting the cosmos. It's just that paper — the front page news is: JOHN'S DAD IS WASHING DISHES, WHY
nobody talks about it; you get sent to prison. ISN'T JOHN LOOKING AFTER HIM?’ | said, ‘Because he never looked after
I've never met anybody who's had a flashback in my life and I took me.’ So | looked after him for the same period he'd looked after me;
millions of trips in the Sixties, and I've never met anybody who had any about four years.”
problem. I've had bad trips, but I've had bad trips in real life. I've had a | started supporting him, then | went to therapy and re-remembered
bad trip on a joint. | can get paranoid just sitting in a restaurant; | don't how furious | was in the depths of my soul about being left as a child.
have to take anything. (I understand about people leaving their children because they can't
Acid is only real life in CinemaScope. Whatever experience you had cope or whatever happens, the reasons, when you're feeling your own
is what you would have had anyway. I'm not promoting, all you misery.) So | came out of the therapy and told him to get the hell out,
committees out there, and | don't use it because it's a chemical, but all and he did get the hell out, and I wish I hadn't really because everyone
the garbage about what it did to people is garbage.*° has their problems — including wayward fathers. I'm a bit older now and —
| understand the pressure of having children or divorces and reasons —
GEORGE: | don't think John had a thousand trips; that's a slight why people can't cope with their responsibility.” ;
exaggeration. But there was a period when we took acid a lot — the year He died a few years later of cancer. But at sixty-five he married a 22-
we stopped touring, the year of the Monterey Pop Festival, we stayed year-old secretary that had been working for me or The Beatles, and
home all the time, or went to each others’ houses. had a child, which | thought was hopeful for a man who had lived a life
In a way, like psychiatry, acid could undo a lot — it was so powerful of a drunk and almost a Bowery bum.*°
you could just see. But | think we didn't really realise the extent to which
John was screwed up. For instance, you wouldn't think he could get
bitter, because he was so friendly and loving; but he could also be really
nasty and scathing. As a kid, | didn't think, ‘Oh well, it's because his dad
left home and his mother died,’ which in reality probably did leave an
incredible scar. It wasn’t until he made that album about Janov, primal
screaming, that I realised he was even more screwed up than I thought.
After taking acid-together, John and I had a very. interesting
relationship. That | was younger or | was smaller.was no longer any kind
of embarrassment with John. Paul still says, ‘I suppose we looked down
on George because he was younger.’ That is an illusion people are
under. It's nothing to do with how many years old you are, or how. big
your body is. It's down to what your greater consciousness is and if you
can live in harmony with what's going on in creation. John and | spent a
lot of time together from then on and | felt <loser to him than all the

180 LSD
 en

i .
j; ¥ ia

Ry ea
ton ,
 | SHALL KEEP IT IN THE SMALLEST ROOM IN THE HOUSE MY STUD

2; ;ee!e:0;
2,@:0:@.@'e.

@ele'e
-
+
ert rere Bog
ee ites a
aera
a

J
sf
 on
OH
oi
e
:®
OK)
ot : ~ es
ee £
ee 3
> a a
# RK)
KX
«

RINGO: I went up and the Queen said to me, ‘You started the group, GEORGE: After all we did for Great Britain, selling all that corduroy
did you?’ and | said, ‘No, | was the last to join.’ And then she asked, and making it swing, they gave us that bloody old leather medal with
‘Well, how long have you been together as a band?’ and without the wooden string through it. But my initial reaction was, ‘Oh, how nice,
blink of an eye, Paul and | said, ‘We've been together now for forty how nice.’ And John’s was, ‘How nice, how nice.
years and it don't seem a day too much.’ She had this strange, quizzical I brought it home and put it in the drawer, and later | wore it on the
look on her face, like either she wanted to laugh Sgt Pepper album-cover picture session. So
or she was thinking, ‘Off with their heads!’ did Paul. It then remained pinned onto my
I'm not sure if we had a joint or not. It's such a ‘Pepper jacket for a year or so before | put
strange place to be; anyway, the palace. it back in the box and back in the drawer.

JOHN: I really think the Queen believes in it all. RINGO: When they gave us the MBE, they
She must. | don't believe in John Lennon, Beatle, gave us a certificate, and also a little note to
being any different from anyone else, because | say that you can't wear this one in public
know he's not. I'm just a fella. But I'm sure the but you can buy a dress MBE, if you want
Queen thinks she's different.” Imagine being to go out in your bow-tie. Which | thought
brought up like that for 2,000 years! It must be was real strange. | never did wear it going
pretty freaky. They must have a hard time trying to be human beings. | out, but you would have thought that they would have thrown in the
don't know if any of them ever make it, because | don't know much little one as well.
about them, but you feel sorry for people like that, because it's like us — | wondered whether Brian minded not getting the MBE. But he was
only worse. If they believe they're royal, that's the joke.” always happy for what we got, really. | suppose if he'd hung on, he'd
I always hated all the social things. All the horrible events and have been going for a knighthood.
presentations we had to go to. All false. You could see right through
them all, and all the people there. | despised them. Perhaps it was GEORGE: Brian didn’t even go to the palace or get invited. | think you
partly from class. No, it wasn't. It was because they really were all could invite somebody from your family. So he was probably very
false.” annoyed, secretly. But he didn’t show any signs of it.

RINGO: Our families loved it. Some old soldiers sent their medals PAUL: Having grown up with this whole idea of the Queen as
back, I don’t know why! | think a lot of Australian soldiers sent theirs monarch, from when she flew back from Kenya to take over in 1952, we
back. They just thought that it was too much that we should get the were always pretty keen on her.
MBE: loud-mouthed rock’n'rollers.
'HER MAJESTY'S A PRETTY NICE GIRL,
JOHN: Lots of people who complained about us getting the MBE BUT SHE DOESN'T HAVE A LOT TO SAY’ —
received theirs for heroism in the war. Ours were civil awards. They
got them for killing people. We deserve ours for not killing people. If WELL, THAT'S WHAT I'D SAY.
you get a medal for killing, you should certainly get a medal for singing
and keeping Britain's economics in good nick! And we signed
autographs for everybody waiting to get their MBEs and OBEs.”

PAUL: There was only one fella who said, ‘Il want your autograph for
my daughter. | don’t know what she sees in you.’ Most other people
were pleased about us getting the award. There were one or two old
blokes from the RAF who felt it had slightly devalued their MBEs —
these long-haired twits getting one. But most people seemed to feel
that we were a great export and ambassadors for Britain. At least people
were taking notice of Britain; cars like Minis and Jaguars, and British
clothes were selling. Mary Quant and all the other fashions were
selling, and in some ways we'd become super salesmen for Britain.
 “A EK TAYLOR: Four years later, in November 1969, Jobu sent his MBE Anyway, I sold out, so it was always worrying me, and then the last
ick te attract attention to bis causes. few years I'd been thinking, ‘I must get rid of that, must get rid of that.I
was thinking how to do it, and I thought if I did it privately the press —
kINGO. | was never going to send mine back, I knew that. John did, he would know anyway, and it would come out; so instead of hiding it, just
sac his reasons, but not me, At the time, I was very proud. It meant a lot make an event of the whole situation. So I did it with the MBE. | was
to me — not that it gave me anything, but it gave Harold Wilson the waiting for some event to tie it up with, but I realise that this is the
election. It was a groove meeting the Queen, and it was far out — now event, this is the next peace event going on now.
she meets anybody! Neither of us [Yoko and I] want to make the mistake that Gandhi
and Martin Luther King did, which is get killed one way or the other. —
JOHN: I had been mulling it over for a few years. Even as I received it, | Because people only like dead saints, and | refuse to be a saint or a4
was mulling it over. | gave it to my auntie who proudly had it over the martyr. So I'm just protesting as a British citizen with his wife against
mantelpiece, which is understandable — she was very proud of it. She British involvement in Biafra, and voicing the protest in the loudest way —
won't understand this move I've made probably, but I can't not do it bean.”
because of my auntie's feelings. So | took it a few months back and
didn't tell her what I was going to do with it — no doubt she knows now
—and I'm sorry Mimi, but that's the way it goes.

e
e
e
i
i
}
4 For
John Lennon has returned his MBE award in protest
against Britain's involvement in the Nigerian and
Vietnamese conflicts. In identical letters addressed
to Her Majesty The Queen, the Prime Minister, and
the Secretary of the Central Chancery, John Lennon
writes"I am returning this MBE in protest against
Britain's involvement in the Nigeria - Biafra thing, ¢ P
against our support of Amertca in Vietnam and against
Cold Turkey slipping down the charts."
The letter is signed "with love John Lennon", in his VWoO

handwriting. T@yped underneath is "John Lennon of Baq".

The letters are written on notepaper headed "Bag Productions,
3 Savile
by Lennon
Row,
and
London,
his wife
W.1"
Yoko
Bag
Ono
is the company set up
to handle their films,
youn: THE QUEEN'S -
records and
John Lennon
other merchandise,
and the other three Beatles were awarded the
INTELLIGENT. IT
MBE
of
in
1965.
the Queen's Birthday Honours list in the Summer WON'T SPOIL HER”
CORNFLAKES.”
. rf
Derek Taylor.

BAG PRODUCTIONS 3, SAVILE ROW, LONDON W.1. 7348232

>EACE TO

Her Majesty the Queen

25th November 1969

I an returning this. MBE in protest against

Britdin's involvement in tlhe Nigeria = Biafra
thing, against our support of Maerica in .
ietna
Vietn m
am and again
ag st
st Cold Turke
r y slipping down the
charts,

will lane
“yl Cee
 RINGO:
: At one time, all we wanted to do was make WE'D GET IN THE CAR. I'D LOOK they act differently. And The Beatles had been on the
d and that would have done us. People always OVER AT JOHN AND SAY, front page of the papers every day for a year or so.
ou go about dreaming that you're going to be a ‘Cureist. LOOK AT YOU. YOU'RE Everybody changes, they are so impressed by it.
ell, | think that's daft.” A BLOODY PHENOMENON!’ It was difficult going to the same places we'd been
AND JUST LAUGH — BECAUSE IT before. People were starting to ‘hey man’ us a lot. We
We wanted to be bigger than Elvis. At first we WAS ONLY HIM. went back to Liverpool and we were in the same club
d to be Goffin and King, then we wanted to be where we used to be a year earlier. We just went in for
Cochran, then Buddy Holly, but finally we JOHN: a drink, and now suddenly there was a lot of: ‘Hey
ved at wanting to be bigger than the biggest — Elvis WHEN I FEEL MY HEAD START man, hey man,’ and we couldn't get a minute's peace.
TO SWELL I LOOK AT RINGO —
; making it big in Liverpool, and then being THEN | KNOW WE'RE NOT JOHN: We were always pretty aware of what our
group in the country, then being the best SUPERHUMAN! © effect was on people. (You learn about audience
in England. The goal was always just a few reaction in your early days of playing. You either get
1s ahead rather than right up there. Our goal was to be able to play an audience or the public, or you
be as big as Elvis, but we didn't believe we were going to do it.” don't.) So we were always pretty aware in a way of what we were doing,
although it was pretty hard to keep up when you're going at 2,000 miles
IL: oe We knew something would happen sooner or later; we always an hour. Sometimes you get dizzy. But we usually hung together
this little blind Bethlehem star ahead of us. Fame is what everyone somehow. There'd always be somebody to lean on when there's four of
its, in some form or another; there must be millions of people all you. There'd always be somebody that would be together enough to
-the world annoyed that people haven't discovered them. pull you through the difficult phases.”
1e thing is, we never believed in Beatlemania, never took the whole
g that seriously, | suppose. That way, we managed to stay sane. RINGO: Elvis went downhill because he seemed to have no friends, just
a load of sycophants. Whereas with us, individually we all went mad,
IN: When I see old friends of mine, they keep laughing. The ones but the other three always brought us back. That's what saved us. |
o knew me at school just keep looking at me and saying: ‘Is it remember being totally bananas thinking | am the one and the other
really you?’ three would look at me and say, ‘‘Scuse me, what are you doing?’ |
When people meet you in a restaurant, or anywhere, and youre remember each of us getting into that state.
ng to order something, you find they are so struck by, ‘Is it really
?' that they don't really hear you order. So when I'm talking to them
n saying, ‘I'd like a steak, medium, and two elephants came and a
PAUL: FAME, IN THE END, IS GETTING
iceman bit my head off, and a cup of tea please,’ and they're saying, OFF YOUR PARKING FINE BECAUSE THE
‘es, thank you.’7!
ATTENDANT WANTS YOUR AUTOGRAPH,
INGO: We very seldom get one waiter, because they all seem to AND FAME IS BEING INTERRUPTED
yeue up to give you a different portion of the meal so they can all
ave a look. . WHEN YOU'RE EATING BY A 50-YEAR-
OLD AMERICAN LADY WITH A PONY-TAIL.
GEORGE: That is the main problem with fame — that people forget
how to act normally. They are not in awe of you, but in awe of the THE FOUR OF US AREKNOWN TO ALMOST
ing that they think you've become. It's a concept that they have of EVERYBODY IN THE WORBD, BUT WE
tardom and notoriety. So they act crazy. All you have to do is go on
e radio or television once, and when people see you down the street, DON'T FEEL THAT che \
\
 \. WE TOUR THE PLACES OUR MANAGER WANTS TO SEE — HE TAKES HIS CAMERA”
remember playing a big bullring in Barcelona, the Plaza de Stadium. I never felt people came to bear our show — | felt they came to
here the Lord Mayor had great seats and all the rich people see us. From the count-in on the first number, the volume of screams
but the kids, our real audience, were outside. We used to get drowned everything else out.
set about that: ‘Why are we playing to all these bloody officials? We
suld be playing to the people outside. Let them in...’ But of course PAUL: Now it's quite commonplace for people to play Shea Stadium or
y wouldn't. Giants Stadium and all those big places, but this was the first time. It
seemed like millions of people, but we were ready for it. They obviously
JHN: | couldn't stand it if the audiences were too old. If that's what it felt we were popular enough to fill it.
‘ks like out front, | reckon I'll be off. It doesn’t really seem natural to Once you go on stage and you know you've filled a place that size,
ee older people out there looking at us like that. It's nice to see it's magic; just walls of people. Half the fun was being involved in this
anybody, but I always think old people should be at home doing the gigantic event ourselves. | don't think we were heard much by the
knitting or something.” audience. The normal baseball-stadium PA was intended for: ‘Ladies and
gentlemen, the next player is...’ But that was handy in that if we were a
RINGO: The thing I remember about Madrid, where we played another bit out of tune or didn't play the right note, nobody noticed. It was just
bullring, was that the police were so violent. It was the first time I'd the spirit of the moment. We just did our thing, cheap and cheerful, ran
really seen police beating kids up. to a waiting limo and sped off.
| went to a bullfight there, and it was the saddest thing | ever saw. It
was really sorrowful to see the bull just getting weakened and NEIL ASPINALL: In the States the venues bad their own lights and sound,
weakened. And then, when they finally kill the bugger, they wrap a and Mal was taking care of the equipment. Now it was just me and a briefcase.
chain round its leg and bring in a couple of cart-horses and drag the Circumstances bad changed. In England, because we didn't go on the coach,
corpse away. | always thought it was such a miserable end. That's the we'd drive ourselves around, and in some places I still had to plot the lights. In
only bullfight | ever went to, and I've never been interested in seeing America it was more security and press, and taking care of the general madness.
one again. I'd be talking to the chief of police, working out how The Beatles were going to
get in and out, and taking care of whatever else came down the pike.
NEIL ASPINALL: They toured France, Italy and Spain. All I remember
about Italy is some rally drivers taking us to Milan. The next tour after the GEORGE: We went by helicopter, but they wouldn't allow us to drop
European tour was America, where they played their first gig at Shea Stadium. right into the arena so we had to land on the roof of the World's Fair.
From there we went into the stadium in a Wells Fargo armoured truck.
JOHN: If we're playing to audiences of 55,000 — which is the size of the (I didn't think Wells Fargo were still going; | thought the Indians had
crowd in the opening show in New York — there are bound to be some got them all years ago.) When we got into the helicopter at Wall Street,
wild scenes. Even if the crowd was watching ping-pong, there'd be a instead of going right to the show the fella started zooming round the
scene because of the size of the crowd. It's still amazing to hear the row stadium, saying, ‘Look at that, isn't it great?’ And we were hanging on
they make. by the skin of our teeth, thinking, ‘Let's get out of here!’
It's a drag going away from home, but if you have got to go
anywhere, it might as well be America. It's one of the best places there PAUL: We got changed into our semi-military gear: beige outfits with
is. I'd sooner be off there than go to Indonesia.” high collars. Then, rather nervously, we ran out onto the field. We just
went through the paces and did our act. We sweated up a lot.
GEORGE: Shea Stadium was an enormous place. In those days, people
were still playing the Astoria Cinema at Finsbury Park. This was the first JOHN: We'd get dead nervous before we'd go on stage, and nine times
time that one of those stadiums was used for a rock concert. Vox made out of ten we suddenly get tired about half an hour before we have to
special big 100-watt amplifiers for that tour. We went up from the 30- get changed. All of a sudden, everybody's tired. Changing into suits
watt amp to the 100-watt amp and it obviously wasn't enough, we just and putting the shirts on, you feel, ‘Oh, no,’ but as soon as we get on,
had the house PA. it's all right.°

RINGO: Now we were playing stadiums! There were all those people GEORGE: They weren't really military jackets, it was just that they
and just a tiny PA system — they couldn't get a bigger one. We always were beige-coloured and we had sheriff's badges on them.
used to use the house PA. That was good enough for us, even at Shea We were in and out of the place in no time. As always. | watched
the film of us at Shea Stadium, and suddenly the King Curtis band came
on, and | thought, ‘Wow! That's a good band.’ King Curtis was
travelling in our aeroplane on the tour, but | never even saw him play.—
We never saw anyone play because we were always stuck inside the
basement of one of the stadiums.

_ a 3 sexe
Comiakzy Park
me (0
Metropolitan Stadiug
Minnoapolis Sy No. ite ries state
={.Colisoun
Portland "F400; $5.00; 26.00
-Balbpa~ Stadium
San” Diogo No ticket» pricos statod
Tho Hollywood Bowl
Los Angolos Novticket prices stated)
Cow Palaco = ;
+ a

~ San Franciso » Botwoon 24,50 =~ £6.50

 re Se
(Pills agian TED
rx<

PAUL: IT’S LIKE THIS: YOU MAKE A NOISE AND THEY MAKE A NOISE, AND IT'S THE NOISE TOGETHER
THAT COUNTS. IT’S THE BIBLE, REALLY, WITH CECIL B. DE MILLE AND 60,000 EXTRAS.”

RINGO: If you look at the film footage you can see how we reacted to One interesting point is that Barbara, now my wife, was at that show
the place. It was very big and very strange. I feel that on that show John with her sister Marjorie. Marjorie had a Beatle wig and Barbara was a
cracked up. He went mad; not mentally ill, but he just got crazy. He Rolling Stones fan.
was playing the piano with his elbows and it was really strange.
PAUL: Linda was also there — but as she was a real music fan she was
JOHN: | was putting my foot on it and George couldn't play for quite pissed off with everyone screaming. | think she enjoyed the
laughing. | was doing it for a laugh. The kids didn’t know what | was experience but she genuinely wanted to hear the show. That wasn't the
doing. deal, though. Not then.
Because | did the organ on ‘I'm Down’, | decided to play it on stage
for the first time. I didn't really know what to do, because | felt naked JOHN: We played for four or five years being completely heard and it
without a guitar, so | was doing all Jerry Lee — | was jumping about and | was good-fun. And it's just as good fun to play being not heard and
only played about two bars of it. being more popular. They pay the money; if they want to scream —
It was marvellous. It was the biggest crowd we ever played to, scream. We scream, literally; we're just screaming at them, only with
anywhere in the world. It was the biggest live show anybody's ever guitars. Everybody's screaming — there's no harm in it.”
done, they told us:.And it was fantastic, the most exciting we've done.
They could almost hear us as well, even though they were making a lot NEIL ASPINALL: I remember my ears ringing
for a while after, with the bigh-
of noise, because the amplification was tremendous. pitched sound of the screaming going on for an bour. It was a good experience,
Nothing really reached us because we were so far away, but we though. I didnt realise until later that it was thefirst really big open-air show
could see all the posters. It’s still the same: up there with the mike, you that had happened. It was the most spectacular gig that The Beatles played on
don't try to work out what it all means, you forget who you are. Once that tour.
you plug in and the noise starts, you're just a group playing anywhere
again and you forget that you're Beatles or what your records are; you're JOHN: It [the San Francisco show] was wild. Some little lad got my
just singing.® hat. Somebody like him doesn't really care about the show anyway, or
the kids there — he just grabbed my hat from behind and dived full-
PAUL: John was having a good time at Shea. He was into his comedy, length onto some kids at the front. He could have killed one of them.
which was great. That was one of the great things about John. If there That kind of fool nobody needs.
was ever one of those tense shows, which this undoubtedly was (you I don't think it would have been as bad if the photographers hadn't
cant play in front of that many people for the first time and not be been standing in the front so that the kids had to stand up to see. And
tense), his comedy routines would always come out. He'd start the the photographers got higher so as to photograph the kids standing up
faces, and the shoulders would start going, and it was very encouraging: and that's when it started.
‘OK, that's good — at least we're not taking it seriously.’ He kept us jolly. At the beginning | was nervous, because | get nervous thinking,
‘Well, the show's going to be no good, anyway.’ | could tell that. For us
NEIL ASPINALL: John was very good at doing that, whether it was a it was just a drag — we knew they wouldn't hear anything and the guitars
comment, a remark or an action. The others were aware of it. When he was were knocked out of tune by our own people running in and saving us,
bowing, his hand would be flapping about, but other people tended not to notice. amplifiers were pulled out.”

RINGO: What I remember most about the

concert was that we were so far away from
the audience. They were all across the field,
all wired in. When | tour now, | like the
audience right in my face. | like to have
some reaction, something going on
together between me and them. It was just
very distant at Shea. Sure, we were big-
time, and it was the first time we'd played
to thousands and thousands of people, and
we were the first band to do it; but it was
totally against what we had started out to
achieve, which was to entertain, right there,
‘up close. And screaming had just become
the thing to do. We didn't say, ‘OK, don't
forget, at this concert — everybody scream!’
verybody just screamed.

lL
6h
=
(Date(s) of Engagen
 .). America always had something for me. California ended up Then suddenly we saw the reporter and thought, ‘How do we act
was our base. I've always loved it in California. normal?’ We imagined we were acting extraordinarily, which we
‘he first time in America had been absolutely marvellous. Our weren't. We thought surely somebody could see. We were terrified,
sonal road crew then was Neil, Mal and Brian, with Derek to waiting for him to go, and he wondered why he couldn't come
.ok after the press. Brian was the manager, but he didn't actually over. Neil, who had never had acid either, had taken it and he still
anything. Neil would get us a cup of tea, and Mal would fix had to play road manager. We said, ‘Get rid of Don Short,’ and he
‘he instruments. There were four people with us. Now when | go didn't know what to do; he just sort of sat with it.”
out on tour there are forty-eight people with me. Peter Fonda came in when we were on acid and kept coming
But the shows were just the shows — you went on and you up and sitting next to me, and whispering, ‘| know what it's like
vot off. You'd arrive just before, and do it. It was a great way to to be dead.’ We didn't want to hear about that! We were on an
cour; | wish | could do that now. It's so much now; you carry so acid trip, and the sun was shining, and the girls were dancing
much luggage with you. The Beatles used to just run on, do (some from Playboy, | believe) and the whole thing was really
their stuff and get off and then boogie. It was silly: the actual beautiful and Sixties. And this guy — who | didn't really know,
things we were there to do, the shows, were breaking up our he hadn't made Easy Rider or anything — kept coming over,
day, because we were having a lot of fun outside. wearing shades, saying, ‘| know what it's like to be dead,’ and
we kept leaving him, because he was so boring. It was scary,
NEIL ASPINALL: When we got to California at the end of the when you're flying high: ‘Don't tell me about it. | don’t want to
tour, they rented a house in LA where we stayed for a week. We met know what it's like to be dead!’
Peter Fonda there. He had a trick in the swimming pool that we'd I used it for the song ‘She Said, She Said’. But I changed it
never seen anybody do before. He went in at the deep end, down to to ‘she’ instead of ‘he’.*° That's how | wrote, ‘She said, she said,
the bottom of the pool, and walked across the bottom to the other I know what it's like to be dead.’ It was an acidy song.”
side. ‘Wow! Could you do that again?’ He could.
PAUL: Peter Fonda seemed to us to be a bit wasted; he was a
GEORGE: We stayed in the house that Hendrix later stayed little out of it. | don't know if we'd expected a bit more of
in. It was a horseshoe-shaped house on a hill off Mulholland. Henry's son, but he was certainly of our generation, and he
It had a little gatehouse, which Mal and Neil stayed in, was all right. | don't think there were many people we hated
decorated by Arabian-type things draped on the walls. — we just got on with them. If we didn't get on with them
There was one very important day at that house. John that much, we didn't see them again.
and | had decided that Paul and Ringo had to have acid,
because we couldn't relate to them any more. Not just on GEORGE: | had a concept of what had happened the first
the one level — we couldn't relate to them on any level, time | took LSD, but the concept is nowhere near as big as
because acid had changed us so much. It was such a the reality, when it actually happens. So as it kicked in again,
mammoth experience that it was unexplainable: it was I thought, ‘Jesus, | remember!’ I was trying to play the guitar,
something that had to be experienced, because you could and then | got in the swimming pool and it was a great
spend the rest of your life trying to explain what it made feeling; the water felt good. | was swimming across the pool
you feel and think. It was all too important to John and me. when | heard a noise (because it makes your senses so acute —
So the plan was that when we got to Hollywood, on our day you can almost see out of the back of your head). I felt this
off we were going to get them to take acid. We got some in bad vibe and | turned around and it was Don Short from the
New York; it was on sugar cubes wrapped in tinfoil and we'd Daily Mirror. He'd been hounding us all through the tour,
been carrying these around all through the tour until we got pretending in his phoney-baloney way to be friendly but,
to LA. really, trying to nail us.
Paul wouldn't have LSD, he didn’t want it. So Ringo and Neil had to go and start talking to him. The thing about
Neil took it, while Mal stayed straight in order to take care LSD is that it distorts your perception of things. We were in
of everything. Dave Crosby and Jim McGuinn of The Byrds one spot, John and me and Jim McGuinn, and Don Short
had also come up to the house, and | don't know how, but was probably only about twenty yards away, talking. But it
Peter Fonda was there. He kept saying, ‘l know what it's like was as though we were looking through the wrong end of a
to be dead, because | shot myself.’ He'd accidentally shot telescope. He seemed to be in the very far distance, and we
himself at some time and he was showing us his bullet were saying, ‘Oh fuck, there's that guy over there.’ Neil had
wound. He was very uncool. to take him to play pool, trying to keep him away. And you
have to remember that on acid just a minute can seem like a
RINGO: I'd take anything. John and George didn’t give LSD thousand years. A thousand years can go down in that
to me. A couple of guys came to visit us in LA, and it was minute. It was definitely not the kind of drug which you'd
them that said, ‘Man, you've got to try this.’ They had it in a want to be playing pool with Don Short on.
bottle with an eye-dropper, and they dropped it on sugar Later on that day, we were all tripping out and they
cubes and gave it to us. That was my first trip. It was with brought several starlets in and set up a movie for us to watch
John and George and Neil and Mal. Neil had to deal with in the house. By the evening, there were all these strangers
Don Short while | was swimming in jelly in the pool. It was a sitting around with their make-up on — and acid just cuts
fabulous day. The night wasn't so great, because it felt like it through all that bullshit. The movie was put on, and — of all
was never going to wear off. Twelve hours later and it was: things — it was a drive-in print of Cat Ballou. The drive-in
‘Give us a break now, Lord.’ print has the audience response already dubbed onto it,
because you're all sitting in your cars and dont hear
JOHN: The second time we had it was ‘different. Then we everybody laugh. Instead, they tell you when to laugh and
took it deliberately — we just decided to take it again, in when not to. It was bizarre, watching this on acid. I've always
California. We were in one of those houses like Doris Day's hated Lee Marvin, and listening on acid to that other little
house, and the three of us took it, Ringo, George and I — and dwarf bloke with a bowler hat on, | thought it was the biggest
maybe Neil. Paul felt very out of it, because we are all slightly load of baloney shite I'd ever seen in my life; it was too much to
cruel: 'We'reaall taking it and you're not.’ It Was a long time stand. But you just trip out. | noticed that I'd go ‘out there; [d
before Paul took it. be gone somewhere, and then — bang! — I'd land back in my
We couldn't eat our food, | couldn't manage it, just picking it body. I'd look around and see that John had just done the same
up with our hands. There were all these people serving us in the thing. You go in tandem, you're out there for a while and then =
house and we were kmoeking food on the floor and all of that. boing! whoa! — ‘What happened? Oh, it's still Cat Ballou.’ That - :
There was a reporter, Don Short, when we were in the garden. It another thing: when two people take it at the same time; words ©
was only our second [trip] — we still didn’t know anything about become redundant. One can see what the other is thinking. You —
doing it in a nice place, and to cool it and that — we just took it. look at each other and know. 0
 'AUL: We met Elvis Presley at the end of we listen to records. In front of the TV he
sur stay in LA. We'd tried for years to, but had a massive big bass amplifier, with a bass
we could never get to him. We used to plugged into it, and he was up playing
ink we were a bit of a threat to him and bass all the time with the picture up on the
Colonel Tom Parker, which ultimately we TV. So we just got in there and played
ere. So although we tried many times, with him. We all plugged in whatever was
Colonel Tom would just show up with a around and we played and sang and he had
few souvenirs and that would have to do us a jukebox, like | do, but | think he had all
for a while. We didn't feel brushed off; we his hits on it — but if I'd made as many as
felt we deserved to be brushed off. After all, him, maybe I'd have all mine on.”
he was Elvis, and who were we to dare to
want to meet him? But we finally received an invitation to go round and PAUL: That was the great thing for me, that he was into the bass. So
see him when he was making a film in Hollywood. there | was: ‘Well, let me show you a thing or two, El...’ Suddenly he
was a mate. It was a great conversation piece for me: | could actually
JOHN: We were always in the wrong place at the wrong time to meet talk about the bass, and we sat around and just enjoyed ourselves. He
him, and we would have just gone round or something, but there was a was great — talkative and friendly, and a little bit shy. But that was his
whole lot of palaver about where we were going and how many people image: we expected that; we hoped for that.
should go and everything, with the managers Colonel Tom and Brian
working everything out.” MAL EVANS: It was a thrill, but it was the biggest disappointment of my life
in one way. I really am a big Elvis
fan — at six foot three I'm one of the biggest.
GEORGE: Meeting Elvis was one of the highlights of the tour. It was So I prepare my outfit to go and meet Elvis — send the suit to the cleaners, nice
funny, because by the time we got near his house we'd forgotten where white shirt and tie — really ponce myself up. But when the suit came back from
we were going. We were in a Cadillac limousine, going round and the cleaners, they'd sewn the pockets up. Now, I always carry plectrums —
round along Mulholland, and we'd had a couple of ‘cups of tea’ in the picks, they call them in the States. It's just a babit. I'm not even working for
back of the car. It didn’t really matter where we were going: it's like the them now and I've still got a pick in my pocket at the moment.
comedian Lord Buckley says, ‘We go into a native village and take a So when we get there, Elvis asks, ‘Has anybody got a pick?’ and Paul
couple of peyote buds; we might not find out where we is, but we'll sure turns round and says, ‘Yeab, Mal’s got a pick. Hes always got a pick. He
find out who we is.’ carries them on holiday with bim!' I went to go in my pocket forone — and
Anyway, we were just having fun, we were all in hysterics. (We there they were, all sewn up.
laughed a lot. That's one thing we forgot about for a few years — I ended up in the Licked breaking plastic spoons, making
laughing. When we went through all the lawsuits, it looked as if picks for Elvis!
everything was bleak; but when | think back to before that, | That was a disappointment: I'd have loved to have given Elvis a pick, have
remember we used to laugh all the time.) We pulled up at some big him play it, then got it back and had itframed.
gates and someone said, ‘Oh yeah, we're going to see Elvis,’ and we all Charlie Rich was there. I loved Charlie Rich, and so did Elvis. They bad a
fell out of the car laughing, trying to pretend we weren't silly: just like record-player with the arm up the middle, and Muddy Waters just seemed to be
a Beatles cartoon. ., playing all night. And the colour TV in one corner with the sound off, and
there was Elvis playing bass, Paul and Jobn on guitars — and I was just sat
JOHN: It was very exciting, we were all nervous as hell, and we met there with my mouth open all night.
him in his big house in LA — probably as big as the one we were
staying in, but it still felt like, ‘Big house, big Elvis.’ He had lots of JOHN: At first we couldn't make him out. | asked him if he was
guys around him, all these guys that used to live near him (like we did preparing new ideas for his next film and he drawled, ‘Ah sure am. Ah
from Liverpool; we always had thousands of Liverpool people around play a country boy with a guitar who meets a few gals along the way,
us, so | guess he was the same). And he had pool tables! Maybe a lot and ah sing a few songs,’ We all looked at one another. Finally Presley
of American houses are like that, but it seemed amazing to us; it was and Colonel Parker laughed and explained that the only time they
like a nightclub.” departed from that formula — for Wild in the Country — they lost money.®

NEIL ASPINALL: The Colonel was there and all of Elviss buddies, the so- PAUL: We played a bit of pool with a few of his motorcycle mates, and
called ‘Memphis Mafia’, and Priscilla. Thefirst thing they did was show us at about ten o'clock Priscilla was brought in. To demonstrate the respect
their pool table that swivelled and became a craps table. that country-and-western people have for their wives? Sometimes it's a
We went into this other room with a television set that seemed to be twenty bit on the surface — as maybe their situation was shown to be later. It
foot by twenty foot. Then Brian walked in and the Colonel said, ‘A chair for was like, ‘Here's Priscilla.’
Mr Epstein,’ and about fifteen people came with chairs. She came in and | got this picture of her as a sort of Barbie doll —
Everybody was sitting around talking. Elvis was drinking water and I with a purple gingham dress, and a gingham bow in her very beehive
think a couple of The Beatles played guitar with bim. I was up the other end of hair, with lots of make-up. We all said ‘hello’ and then it was, ‘Right
the room with Mal, talking to a couple of the other guys. lads, hands off — she's going.’ She didn't stay long.
I can't blame him, although | don't think any of us would have
RINGO. I was pretty excited about it all, and we were lucky because it made a pass at her. That was definitely not on — Elvis'’s wife, you
was the four of us and we had each other to be with. The house was know! That was unthinkable — she didn’t need to be put away quite so
very big and dark. We walked in and Elvis was sitting down on a settee quickly, we thought.
in front of the TV. He was playing a bass guitar, which even to this day
I find very strange. He had all his guys around him and we said, ‘Hi GEORGE: | don't remember even seeing Priscilla. | spent most of the
Elvis.’ He was pretty shy and we were a little shy; but between the five party trying to suss out from his gang if anybody had any reefers. But
of us, we kept it rolling. | felt | was more thrilled to meet him than he they were ‘uppers and whisky’ people. They weren't really into reefer
was to meet me. smoking in the South.

PAUL: He showed us in, and he was great. | mean, it was Elvis. He just RINGO: | don't remember seeing Priscilla there at all. | think it wouldn't
looked like Elvis — we were all major fans, so it was hero worship of a have mattered to me if she was there, because it was him | came to see. |
high degree. He said, ‘Hello lads — do you want a drink?’ We sat down don't really remember the boys he had with him either
and we were watching telly and he had the first remote switcher any of
us had ever seen. You just aimed it at the telly and — wow! That's Elvis! NEIL ASPINALL: I thought Priscilla had a long dress on, and a tiara
He was playing ‘Mohair Sam’ all evening — he had it on a jukebox. remember that when Brian told the Colonel that be managed bands other than
The Beatles, the Colonel was quite shocked. He said he didn't understand hou
JOHN: He had his TV going all the time, which is what I do; we always Brian could bandle more than The Beatles, because it took bim all |
“have TV on. We never watch it — it's just there with no sound on, and handle Elvis.

-ee

MEETING ELVIS 191

 JOHN: When | first heard ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ I could hardly make ¢
what was being said. It was just the experience of hearing it and he
my hair stand on end. We'd never heard American voices singi
hewas ‘the ae He just wasn't re that's all.” that. They'd always sung like Sinatra or enunciated very well. Sudder
a normal to us, and we were asking about his making there's this hillbilly hiccuping on tape echo and all this bluesy |bac
not doing any gersonal appearances or TV. I think he ground going on. And we didn't know what the hell Presley was singi
ng movies so much. We couldn't stand not doing personal about, or Little Richard or Chuck Berry. It took a long time to worl )
s, we'd get bored — we get bored quickly. He says he misses what was going on. To us, it just sounded like a noise that was great.”!
t. He's just normal. He was great, just as | expected him.” Up until Elvis joined the army | thought it was beautiful music, an
Elvis was for me and my generation what The Beatles were to th
_ It was ‘one of the great meetings of my life. | think he liked us. | Sixties.” But after he went into the army, | think they cut ‘les bollock
at that time he may have felt a little bit threatened, but he didn't off. They not only shaved his hair off, but I think they shaved betweet
his legs, too. He played some good stuff after the army, but it was ney
7 el metthie that once, and then | think the success of our career quite the same. It was like something happened to him psych«
started to push him out a little; which we were very sad about, because logically.” ¥
we wanted to co-exist with him. He was our greatest idol, but the styles Elvis really died the day he joined the army. That's when they killec
were changing in favour of us. He was a pretty powerful image to British him, and the rest was a living death.”
people. You'd look at photos of him doing American concerts and the
audience would not even be jumping up and down. We used to be PAUL: These were great times, so even if you didn't enjoy all of the
amazed, seeing them sitting in the front row — not even dancing. events that much you could still go home to Liverpool and say, ‘Well,
you know who | met?’ I mean, to meet Elvis, or anybody like that, or to
RINGO: The saddest part is that, years and years later, we found out say you've been ‘to Sunset Strip.
pD — ™ was very impressive. 5
that he tried to have us banished from America, because he was very big
4
iti *
with the FBI. That's very sad to me, that he felt so threatened that-he
thought, like a lot of people, that we were bad for American Youth.
This is Mr Hips, the man, and he felt we were a danger. I think that the
danger was mainly to him and his career.
| saw him again. | remember one time | got really angry with him
because he just wasn't making any music. He'd stopped everything and
was just playing football with his guys. So | said, 'Why don't you go into
a studio and give us some music here? What are you doing?’ | can't
remember what he said — he probably just walked away and started
playing football again.

PAUL: I've seen those famous Nixon transcripts where Elvis ene
starts to try to shop us — The Beatles! He's in the transcript saying—
Richard Nixon, of all people — ‘Well, sir, these Beatles: they're very
un-American oad they take drugs.’
I felt a bit betrayed by that, | must say. The great joke was that we
were taking drugs, and look what happened to him. He was caught on
the toilet full of them! It was sad; but | still love him, particularly in his
early period. He was very influential on me.

eel

[ AND BUNGALOWS
He BEVERLY
HILLS - CALIFORNIA

.. NEES
— 7 PN
nae aaah dix \ X U i EH |
si ese ei SS 4 71
PSI
GREcnt ir fe oeoe agnan eeeM
_ Soke ares be x “ ot ae \ Nf ; ol if ae

r
x be\. AC ret
: <5, r : ;

CAN ee ay. eh
Dae \s 3 ae aie Gch
CAtep ss Futana, “Ahincse igs
(re Sag 3nl Creo atisel. =
poreske oA we arb sO ide \
> hae 8 ae tien Seon A
Pe Bac LL nel rine ke
ae Sie. oO
eae . a
eX the |artery Sy I

Af ’ oe Vee we fers Be ee He =~
Rage a
6pee peuseTURD
es pA. ube vl_
Z

INT + POL LOGGIA

& PATIO
JOHN: It sort of dawned on me that love was about an old bloke in the States who said, ‘Mick
the answer, when | was younger, on the Rubber Jagger, man. Well you know they're good — but it's
Soul album. My first expression of it was a plastic soul.’ So ‘plastic soul’ was the germ of the
song called "The Word’. The word is ‘love’. ‘In Rubber Soul idea.
the good and the bad books that | have read,’ In October 1965, we started to record the album.
whatever, wherever, the word is ‘love’. It seems Things were changing. The direction was moving
like the underlying theme to the universe. away from the poppy stuff like ‘Thank You Girl’, ‘From
Everything that was worthwhile got down to Me To You' and ‘She Loves You’. The early material
this love, love, love thing. And it is the struggle was directly relating to our fans, saying, ‘Please buy
to love, be loved and express that (just some- this record,’ but now we'd come to a point where we
thing about love) that's fantastic. thought, ‘We've done that. Now we can branch out
| think that whatever else love is — and it's into songs that are more surreal, a little more
many, many things — it is constant. It's been entertaining.’ And other people were starting to arrive
the same forever. | don't think it will ever on the scene who were influential. Dylan was
change. Even though I'm not always a loving influencing us quite heavily at that point.
person, | want to be that; | want to be as loving
as possible.

PAUL: THE WORD’ COULD BE A

SALVATION ARMY SONG. THE
WORD IS 'LOVE' BUT IT COULD
BE JESUS’. (IT ISN'T, MIND YOU,
meee) COULD BE.)”
JOHN: We were getting better, technically and musically. We finally
took over the studio. In the early days, we had to take what we were
given; we had to make it in two hours, and one or three takes was
enough and we didn't know how you could get more bass — we were
learning the techniques.” Then we got contemporary. | think Rubber
Soul was about when it started happening.
Everything I, any of us, do is influenced, but it began to take its own
form. Rubber Soul was a matter of having all experienced the recording
studio; having grown musically as well, but [getting] the knowledge of
the place, of the studio.” We were more precise about making the
album, that's all, and we took over the cover and everything.
It was Paul's title. It was like ‘Yer Blues’, | suppose, meaning English
soul, ‘Rubber soul’. Just a pun.”

PAUL: I think the title Rubber Soul came from a comment an old blues
guy had said of Jagger. I've heard some out-takes of us
doing ‘I'm Down’ and at the front of it I'm chatting
on about Mick. I'm saying how I'd just read
 FORGE MARTIN: By the time of Rubber Soul they were ready for new on...’ And Paul starts filling in for him. Then John comes back: ‘Ahhhh. -
susical directions. In the early days they were very influenced by American OK, OK.’ And by the time the engineers have rewound the tape youre
shythm-and-blues. I think that the so-called ‘Beatles sound’ had something to thinking, ‘I'll just go and have another hit...’
lo with Liverpool being a port. Maybe they heard the records before we did. But Rubber Soul was my favourite album, even at that time. | think
They certainly knew much more about Motown and black music than that it was the best one we made; we certainly knew we were making a
anybody else did, and that was a tremendous influence on them. good album. We did spend a bit more time on it and tried new things.
And then, as time went on, other influences became apparent: classical But the most important thing about it was that we were suddenly
influences and modern music. That was from 1965 and beyond. hearing sounds that we weren't able to hear before. Also, we were being
more influenced by other people's music and everything was blossoming
RINGO: There was a lot of experimentation on Rubber Soul, influenced, at that time; including us, because we were still growing.
| think, by the substances. George Martin knew about it and used to get
annoyed, well, not really annoyed, he would just go, ‘Oh God,’ because RINGO: Grass was really influential in a lot of our changes, especially
things would take a little longer. with the writers. And because they were writing different material, we
He was very good. In the early days he'd had an assistant who'd go were playing differently. We were expanding in all areas of our lives,
through rehearsals with us and George would just come in for the opening up to a lot of different attitudes. | feel that we made it on love
take, to press the tape button. That changed and he was there all the songs (all the initial songs were love songs). Now we get to Rubber Soul
time; and then, as we went on, we would just be playing, and playing and begin stretching the writing and the playing a lot more. This was
great, and we'd say, ‘Did you get that, George?’ | believe we taught the departure record. A lot of other influences were coming down and
George Martin how to keep the tape rolling. He lost that old attitude going on the record.
that you only press the button when you are going to do the take. We ‘Nowhere Man’ was good. ‘Girl’ was great — weird breathy sounds on
began to have the tape rolling all the time and we got a lot of good it. "The Word’, another great track — George Martin on harmonium, Mal
takes that way. ‘Organ’ Evans on Hammond. We were really getting into a lot of
different sounds and | think the lyrics were changing, too, with songs
PAUL: George Martin was very understanding, even though we were like ‘Drive My Car’, ‘Norwegian Wood’, ‘You Won't See Me’, ‘Nowhere
going to change style and get more psychedelic or surreal. It never Man’ and, of course, ‘Michelle’.
seemed to throw him, even though sometimes it was not quite his taste
in music. JOHN: Rubber Soul was the pot album, and Revolver was the acid. It was
We did occasionally get pissed off with him. As time went by, like pills influenced us in Hamburg, drink influenced us in so and so; |
things crept in. In an out-take | heard recently — mean, we weren't all stoned making Rubber Soul,
recording ‘Dizzy Miss Lizzy’ — John is saying, because in those days we couldn't work on pot. We
‘What's wrong with that?’ and George Martin says, never recorded under acid.
‘Erm... it wasn't exciting enough, John,’ and John It's like saying, ‘Did Dylan Thomas write Under
mumbles, ‘Bloody hell,’ — that kind of thing was Milk Wood on beer?’ What does that have to do
creeping in a bit — ‘it wasn’t exciting enough, eh? with it? The beer is to prevent the rest of the
Well, you come here and sing it, then!’ | think world from crowding in on you. The drugs are to
that's just pressure of work. When you've been prevent the rest of the world from crowding in on
working hard for a long time, you really start to you. They don't make you write any better. | never
need a break. wrote any better stuff because I was on acid or not
on acid.”
RINGO: Like everyone else, we get a bit edgy, but
it never goes too far. None of us have ever gone to GEORGE: Songwriting for me, at the time of
hit each other or anything like that.® Rubber Soul, was a bit frightening because John and
Paul had been writing since they were three years
JOHN: We have plenty of arguments, but we're all old. It was hard to come in suddenly and write
so attuned to each other, and we know each other songs. They'd had a lot of practice. They'd written
so well through the years, that an argument never reaches a climax. It's most of their bad songs before we'd even got into the recording studio. |
like mind-reading. If an argument's building up between Ringo and I, had to come from nowhere and start writing, and have something with
say, it comes to a point where we know what's going to come next and at least enough quality to put on the record alongside all the wondrous
everybody packs in. So we have arguments, like other people, but there's hits. It was very hard.
no conflict. All the people that have conflict in showbusiness either get
married about nineteen times, or they leave the group and go solo.® PAUL: John and I were writing quite well by 1965. For a while we didn't
really have enough home-made material, but we did start to around the
RINGO: When we did take too many substances, the music was shit, time of Rubber Soul.
absolute shit. At the time we'd think it was great, but when we came to Most of the time we wrote together. We'd go and lock ourselves
record the next day we'd all look at each other and say, ‘We'll have to away and say, ‘OK, what have we got?’ John might have half an idea,
do that again.’ It didn't work for The Beatles to be too deranged when something like for ‘In My Life’: There are places | remember...’ (1 think
making music. There's very little material where we were out to lunch. It he had that first as a lyric — like a poem, ‘Places | Remember’) and we'd
was good to take it the day before — then you'd have that creative work out the extra melody needed, and the main theme, and by the end
memory — but you couldn't function while under the influence. of three or four hours we nearly always had it cracked! | can't remember
coming away from one of those sessions not having finished a song.
GEORGE: It used to make us feel ill as well. John would pick us up in One of the stickiest was ‘Drive My Car’, because we couldn't get
his big Rolls Royce with blacked-out windows when we were living out past one phrase that we had: ‘You can buy me golden rings.’ We
in the stockbroker belt. (Ringo, John and | had all moved out of town to struggled for hours; | think we struggled too long. Then we had a break
Surrey.) He'd pick up Ringo and then me and we'd head into town. and suddenly it came: ‘Wait a minute: “Drive my car!’ Then we got into
Because a Rolls Royce doesn't have the proper springs, it just rolls the fun of that scenario: ‘Oh, you can drive my car.’ What is it? What's
around; and the black windows would be shut, so we'd be getting he doing? Is he offering a job as a chauffeur, or what? And then it
double doses of reefers. By the time we got to Hammersmith, we were became much more ambiguous, which we liked, instead of golden rings,
loaded and feeling ill. We would pull up at the Abbey Road studios and which was a bit poofy. ‘Golden rings’ became ‘beep beep, yeah’. We
fall out of the car both came up with that. Suddenly we were in LA: cars, chauffeurs,
Reefers are hard to avoid in The Beatles’ story. All the time, Mal and open-top Cadillacs, and it was a whole other thing.
Neil would sit in Studio No. 2 behind the sound baffles while we were
working, rolling them up and smoking. You can hear on one of the
tapes from the sessions: a song starts and John goes, ‘Hang on, ‘ang
GEORGE: | played the bassline on ‘Drive My Car’. It was like the line
from ‘Respect’ by Otis Redding. .
q

RUBBER SOUL
rau. SONGWRITING IS A THING WE CAN'T S#OP
IT’S A HABIT, ALM@S1.

ze
S.
;
 irl’ is real. There is no such thing as the girl; she was a dream, meaningful and good.*° | was just sitting, trying to think, and | thought
vords are all right. It wasn't just a song, and it was about that girl of myself sitting there, doing nothing and going nowhere. Once I'd
rned out to be Yoko, in the end — the one that a lot of us were thought of that, it was easy, it all came out. No — I remember now, I'd
ro actually stopped trying to think of something. Nothing would come. |
; about, ‘Was she taught when she was young that pain would lead was cheesed off and went for a lie down, having given up. Then |
pleasure, did she understand it?’ Sort of philosophy quotes | was thought of myself as Nowhere Man — sitting in this Nowhere Land.”
nking about when | wrote it. | was trying to say something or other ‘Nowhere Man’ came, words and music, the whole damn thing. The
t Christianity, which | was opposed to at the time because I was same with ‘In My Life’. I'd struggled for days and hours, trying to write
brought up in the Church. clever lyrics. Then | gave up, and ‘In My Life’ came to me — letting it go
| was pretty heavy on the Church in both books, but it was is the whole game.*”
never picked up, although it was obviously there. | was talking about
Christianity, in that you have to be tortured to attain heaven. That was GEORGE: In Studio No. 2 there is a steep staircase that goes up to the
the Catholic Christian concept: be tortured and then it'll be all right; control room. Underneath is a cupboard where they used to keep all
which seems to be true, but not in their concept of it. | didn’t believe in kinds of different equipment. Most of it has gone now, but there is still
that: that you have to be tortured to attain anything; it just so happens a wind machine where you wind the handle. There were strange tam-
that you are.’ bourines and Moroccan drums and all kinds of little things. The studio
itself was full of instruments: pedal harmoniums, tack (jangly) pianos, a
WE'VE ALWAYS DONE DIRTY LITTLE celeste and a Hammond organ. That's why we used all those different
THINGS ON RECORDS. IN ‘GIRL sounds on our records — because they were there. So when we'd get to an
overdub we'd look around the cupboard and see if there was something
THE BEATLES. WERE SINGING that would fit, like the funny drum sound on ‘Don't Bother Me’.
TIT-TTT-TIT-TIT’ IN THE Paul used a fuzz box on the bass on ‘Think For Yourself. When Phil
Spector was making ‘Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah’, the engineer who'd set up
BACKGROUND AND the track overloaded the microphone on the guitar player and it became
NOBODY NOTICED.” very distorted. Phil Spector said, ‘Leave it like that, it's great.’ Some
years later everyone started to try to copy that sound and so they
invented the fuzz box. We had one and tried the bass through it and it
sounded really good.

GEORGE MARTIN: The Beatles were always looking for new sounds,
always looking to a new horizon and it was a continual but happy strain to
try and provide new things for them. They were always waiting to try new
instruments even when they didn't know much about them.

GEORGE: ‘Norwegian Wood’ was the first use of sitar on one of our
records, though during the filming of Help! there were some Indian
musicians in a restaurant scene and | first messed around with one then.
Towards the end of the year I'd kept hearing the name of Ravi
Shankar. I heard it several times, and about the third time it was a friend
of mine who said, ‘Have you heard this person Ravi Shankar? You may
like the music.’ So | went out and bought a record and that was it: |
thought it was incredible.
When | first consciously heard Indian music, it was as if | already
knew it. When I was a child we had a crystal radio with long and short
wave bands and so it's possible | might have already heard some Indian
classical music. There was something about it that was very familiar, but
at the same time, intellectually, | didn't know what was happening at all.
So I went and bought a sitar from a little shop at the top of
Oxford Street called Indiacraft — it stocked little carvings, and incense.
It was a real crummy-quality one, actually, but | bought it and mucked
about with it a bit. Anyway, we were at the point where we'd recorded
the ‘Norwegian Wood’ backing track (twelve-string and six-string
acoustic, bass and drums) and it needed
PAUL: ‘Nowhere, Man’ was one of something. We would usually start looking
lohn’s, coming from a bignight the through the cupboard to see if we could
night betore and getting to bed about come up with something, a new sound, and
five in the morning. That was a great | picked the sitar up — it was just lying
one. He said, ‘I started one last night.’ It around; | hadn't really figured out what to
turned out later that it was about me: do with it. It was quite spontaneous: | found
‘He's a real nowhere mani.” | maybe the notes that played the lick. It fitted and
helped him with a word here or there, it worked.
but he'd already got most of it.
Nobody ever had any notes written JOHN: ‘Norwegian Wood’ was about an
down; we just used to sing a tune and it affair | was having. | was very careful and
would come out good. Part of the paranoid because | didn't want my wife,
secret collaboration was that we liked Cyn, to know that there really was
each other. We liked singing at each something going on outside the household.
other He'd sing something and I'd I'd always had some kind of affairs going, so
say, Yeah,’ and trade off on that He'd | was trying to be sophisticated in writing
say, ‘Nowhere land,’ and I'd say, ‘For about an affair, but in such a smokescreen
nobody.’ It was a two-way thing way that you couldn't tell. | can't remember
any specific woman it had to do with. |
JOHN: I'd spent five hours that morn- was writing from my experiences; girls’
ing trying to write a song that was flats, things like that.”

RUBBER SOUL
 George had just got the sitar and | said, ‘Could you play this piece?’ you and you love me’, because that’s how Paul and | did it. I'd always
We went through many different versions of the song. It was never tried to make some sense of the words, but | never really cared
right and | was getting very angry about it; it wasn't coming out like | It was the first song that | wrote that was really, consciously, about
said. They said, ‘Just do it how you want,’ and | did the guitar very my life. It-was sparked by a-remark a journalist and writer in England
loudly into the mike and sang it at the same time. And then George had made after In His Own Write came out..He said to me, ‘Why don't you
the sitar and | asked him could he play the piece that I'd written. He put some of the way you write in the book in the songs? Or why don't
was not sure whether he could play it yet because he hadn't done much you put something about your childhood into the songs?’
on the sitar, but he was willing to have a go, as is his wont, and he |.wrote the lyrics first and then-sang it. That was usually the case
learnt the bit and dubbed it on after. with things like ‘In My Life’ and ‘Across The Universe’ and some of the
ones that stand out a bit. | wrote it in Kenwood, upstairs, where | had
RINGO: It was such a mind-blower that we had this strange instrument about ten tape recorders, all linked up.I'd mastered them over the
on a record. We were all open to anything when George introduced the period of a year or two — | could never make a rock'n'roll record, but |
sitar: you could walk in with an elephant, as long as it was going to could make some far-out stuff.”
make a musical note. Anything was viable. Our whole attitude was It started out as a bus journey from my house on 251 Menlove
changing. We'd grown up a little, | think. Avenue to town. | had a complete set of lyrics, naming every sight. It
became ‘In My Life’, a remembrance of friends and lovers of the past.
JOHN: I wrote the middle eight of ‘Michelle’, one of Paul's songs. He Paul helped with the middle eight, musically.*°
and | were staying somewhere and he walked in and hummed the first
few bars, with the words, and he says, ‘Where do | go from here?’ | had PAUL: Funnily enough, this is one of the only songs John and | disagree
been listening to Nina Simone — | think it was ‘I Put A Spell On You’. on. | remember writing the melody on a mellotron that was parked on
There was a line in it that went: ‘I love you, I love you, I love you.’ his half-landing.
That's what made me think of the middle eight: ‘I love you; | love you, |
l-o-ove you.’ JOHN: Most of my good songs are in the first person.” ‘In My Life’, ‘I'm
My contribution to Paul's songs was always to add a little bluesy A Loser’, ‘Help!’ ‘Strawberry Fields’ — they're all personal records. |
edge to them. Otherwise ‘Michelle’ is a straight ballad. He provided a always wrote about me when | could. | didn't really enjoy writing third-
lightness, an optimism, while | would always go for the sadness, the person songs about people who lived in concrete flats and things like
discords, the bluesy notes. There was a period when | thought | didn’t that. | like first-person music. But because of my hang-ups, and many
write melodies; that Paul wrote those and | just wrote straight, shouting other things, | would only now and then write specifically about me.
rock'n'roll. But of course, when | think of some of my own songs — ‘In From the same period, same time, | never liked ‘Run For Your Life’,
My Life’, or some of the early stuff, ‘This Boy’ — | was writing melody because it was a song | just knocked off. It was inspired from — this is a
with the best of them.*° very. vague connection — ‘Baby Let's Play
House’. There was a line on it: ‘I'd rather see
PAUL: We'd just put out ‘Michelle’ and | you dead, little girl, than to be with another
remember one night at the Ad Lib club David man,’ so | wrote it around that. | didn’t think it
Bailey hearing it and saying, ‘Youve got to be was all that important, but it was always a
joking — it is tongue in cheek, isn't it?’ My favourite of George's.”
reaction was: ‘Piss off! That's a real tune,’ and
was quite surprised that he'd think that. Looking GEORGE: | wouldn't say that my songs are
at the Sixties now, | can see why he did, because autobiographical. Taxman’ is, perhaps. Some
everything was very ‘Needles And Pins’, ‘Please of them were later on, after The Beatles. The
Please Me’, and suddenly — ‘Michelle’. It came a early ones were just any words | could think of.
bit out of left field, but those are often my
favourites. | mean, one of Cliff Richard's best GEORGE MARTIN: They bad a great time in
ones was ‘Living Doll’. When he came out with the studio and, in the main, they were enormously
that it was quite a shock, with its acoustics; but happy times. They would fool around a lot and
it was a well-formed little song. have a laugh, particularly when overdubbing
voices. John was funny; they all were. My memory
JOHN: We did a lot of learning together. is of a very joyful time.
George Martin had a very great musical know-
ledge and background, and he could translate PAUL: Later, when we made Sgt Pepper, |
for us and suggest a lot of things. He’d come up with amazing technical remember taking it round to Dylan at the Mayfair Hotel in London; |
things, slowing down the piano and things like that. We'd be saying, went round as if |were going on a pilgrimage. Keith Richards was in the
‘We want it to go un, un and ee, ee,’ and he'd say, ‘Well, look, chaps, | outer room and we had to hang around and then went in to meet Dylan
thought of this, this afternoon, and last night I was talking to... It was a little bit like an audience with the Pope. | remember playing
whoever, and | came up with this.’ And we'd say, ‘Great, great, come on, him some of Sgt Pepper and he said, ‘Oh, | get it — you don't want to be
put it on here.’ He'd also come up with things like, ‘Have you heard an cute any more.’ That was the feeling about Rubber Soul, too. We'd had
oboe?’ and we'd say, ‘Which one’s that?’ and he'd say, ‘This one.'” our cute period and now it was time to expand.
In ‘In My Life’ there's an Elizabethan piano solo — we'd do things like The album cover is another example of our branching out: the
that. We'd say, ‘Play it like Bach,’ or, ‘Could you put twelve bars in stretched photo. That was actually one of those little exciting random
there?’ He helped us to develop a language a little, to talk to musicians. things that happen. The photographer Robert Freeman had taken some
Because I'm very shy and for many, many reasons | didn't much go for pictures round at John’s house in Weybridge. We had our new gear on —
musicians, | didn’t like to have to go and see twenty guys and try and the polo necks — and we were doing straight mug shots; the four of us
tell them what to do. They're all so lousy, anyway.” all posing. Back in London Robert was showing us the slides; he had a
piece of cardboard that was the album-cover size and he was projecting
GEORGE MARTIN: ‘In My Life’ is one of my favourite songs because it is so the photographs exactly onto it so we could see how it would look as an
much Jobn. A super track and such a simple song. There's a bit where John album cover. We had just chosen the photograph when the card that
couldn't decide what to do in the middle and, while they were having their tea- the picture was projected onto fell backwards a little, elongating the
break, I put down a baroque piano solo which John didn't bear until he came photograph. It was stretched and we went, ‘That's it, Rubber So-o-oul
back. What I wanted was too intricate forme to do live, so I did it with a half- hey hey! Can you do it like that?’ And he said, ‘Well, yeah. | can print it
speed piano, then sped it up, and be liked it. that way.’ And that was it.

GEORGE: | liked the way we got our faces to be longer on the album
JOHN: ‘In My Life’ was, I think, my first real, major piece of work. Up
until then it had all been glib and throw-away. | had one mind that cover. We lost the ‘little innocents’ tag, the naivety, and Kubber S
wrote books and another mind that churned out things about ‘I love the first one where we were fully-fledged potheads
 Piss a
‘ A LL MA th te

y to
Address repl
8QUA RE LOND
ON W1 Before the show, Johnny Hamp had asked us if we had any real
2 GOLDEN
favourites of the Lennon/McCartney cover versions out at the time.
vv

de 01)
1

nt 8080 (STD co
J70') ")

, | A mdon. Telephone: Rege Esther Phillips was my big favourite. She'd changed our ‘And | Love
Her’ to ‘And I Love Him’ and did a great version of it. The sort of
people we were listening to then were on Stax and Motown; black
American, mainly. George used to have a great collection of Stax
records on his jukebox. | liked Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, people
like that. The Miracles were a big influence on us, where Little Richard
had been earlier. Now, for us, Motown artists were taking the place of
Richard. We loved the black artists so much; and it was the greatest
accolade to have somebody with one of those real voices, as we saw it,
sing our own songs (we'd certainly been doing theirs). So | turned
Johnny on to Esther Phillips, and he got her over for the show.
A lot of people covered our songs. If you've written something, it's
good to be covered. It doesn't matter if Pinky and Perky do it, it shows
someone liked it enough in the first place. So I'm amused rather than
annoyed — I've never been annoyed with any cover version. Obviously
some of them are more successful than others — like Ray Charles or
Esther Phillips. Roy Redmond did a really brilliant version of ‘Good Day
Sunshine’. And Count Basie Plays The Beatles, too. Those are the ones we
really got serious about and loved, and the others we just put up with
and enjoyed.

JOHN: Sinatra's not for me; it just doesn’t do it, you know? Some of his
things | have liked, some of the arrangements of the bands. But Peggy
Lee | could listen to all day, as much as | can to rock'n'roll. Ella
Fitzgerald is great. | couldn't understand what people liked about her for
years and then | heard something of hers and | said, ‘That's great,’ and
they said, ‘That's Ella Fitzgerald.’ | didn't believe them; | thought it was
PAUL: We did a television programme in November: The Music of some R&B singer.”
Lennon and McCartney. It was planned as a kind of tribute, a showcase of
stars singing songs that John and | had written. The idea had come from NEIL ASPINALL: It was good that they could still get involved in shows like
the director, Johnny Hamp; a mate. (We knew a lot of people at his this, and those funny little sketches at Christmas. For a rock'n'roll band, it was
company, Granada; the first TV show we did was with them. The amazing. That came from art-school days and the rag night. They could still
Granada studios were only half an hour away from us in Liverpool, so join in that sort offun in 1965.
we would just go up the road.)
We weren't really that keen, but Johnny was very persuasive and a
nice bloke, so we were happy to do it for him. He'd told us he had Cilla
Black doing one of the songs — Cilla was an old mate — and that Henry
Mancini was to be another on the show. It was a great honour that
someone as good as Henry would be doing our songs; so, altogether, we
couldn't really turn it down.
It was great to meet Hank Mancini, because like most people we'd
loved ‘Moon River’. The line ‘My huckleberry friend’ had done us in:
after Breakfast at Tiffany's he was a hero.
Fritz Spiegl was on the show. He did a baroque version of one of our
tunes. People were doing a lot of that at the time: dressing in white wigs
and pretending they were a baroque string quartet. Baroque and Roll!
We'd actually met Fritz quite a few years earlier, at a party; which is
something of a story.
John was at art school then, and the only people at that time who
had parties were the art-school people. (Our school didn’t have parties
- you just went home after school.) | remember this party was at John’s
tutor's house. It was very sophisticated for me and George, so we were
trying to hang in there and pretend we knew what was going on. The
Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra had finished a concert and some of
the musicians had come to the party in full evening dress from the
concert. They were all a bit grand for us. There we were, looking as
suave as we could and a guy walked over and it was Fritz Spiegl. He
came over and was putting a record on the record-player: Liszt's
‘Hungarian Rhapsodies’, and | remember George looking over to him
and saying, ‘Hey, Geraldo — got any Elvis?’ Fritz was not amused...
Also in the TV show was Peter Sellers. | didn't know him too well. PAUL: In December we did the last tour of Britain we would ever do.
Ringo got to know him, Ringo hung out with the showbiz people a bit We'd worked nearly every day for a long time doing live sets, so after a
more. He has been to dinner with Marlon Brando, Richard Burton, few years of that we were now much more intrigued with recording.
Elizabeth Taylor — he could hold his own with all of them.) But I met It's as if we were painters who had never really been allowed to paint
Peter later: a very_nice bloke, pretty hung up, and, like a lot of — we'd just had to go selling our paintings up and down the country.
comedians, he wanted to be a musician. He was a drummer, as | recall, Then, suddenly, we had somebody telling us, ‘You can have a studio
but on this show he did a very funny impression of Larry Olivier doing and you can paint and you can take your time.’ So, obviously, being in a
‘A Hard Day's Night’ recording studio became much more attractive to us than going on the
Then there was Ella Fitzgerald. She was at the opposite end of the road again.
spectrum from us. That was another honour — Ella Fitzgerald singing
Can't Buy Me Love’. I'd been a fan of hers for years; she had such a JOHN: | always was a record man. | always liked the studio best, once |
great voice got the hang of it and the control. | like it because it's complete control.”

THE MUSIC OF LENNON AND McCARTNEY

NEIL ASPINALL: As time went by, they began to find that,
technically, they couldn't produce on stage what they could do
in the studio. I think the guys were getting pissed off with just
churning out performances and tracks, however good, as
though they were on some sort of conveyor belt. They didnt
want that any more.

JOHN: ‘Day Tripper’ was [written] under complete

pressure, based on an old folk song | wrote about a
month previous. It was very hard going, that, and it
sounds it.” It wasn't a serious message song. It was a
drug song. In a way, it was a day tripper — I just liked
the word.”
‘We Can Work It Out’: Paul wrote that chorus, |
wrote the middle bit. You've got Paul writing ‘we can
work it out’, real optimistic; and me, impatient: ‘Life is
very short and there's no time for fussing...’ *

RINGO: By the end of 1965 the touring started to hit

everybody. | remember we had a meeting during which
we all talked about how the musicianship was going
downhill, never mind the boredom of doing it; going
away and hitting all those hotels.
Bands go on the road nowadays and do a press
conference one day and shows for the next four days.
But, for The Beatles, it was always the press
and those sorts of people: there was so much attend, the whole showbiz thing. But we had friends there,
pressure. From the minute we opened our eyes too; people like David Crosby and Jim McGuinn, whom
people were trying to get at us. we liked to spend time with. So there were pros and cons
The pressure was on. | don't remember to that lifestyle; but mainly cons.
having any time off, except when we rented 1963-65 was ridiculous. It was: make a movie, tour
the house in LA and spent a week or so there; Europe, tour England twice, make four singles, three EPs
but even then we'd had to put the barriers up — and a couple of albums, tour America, tour the Far East...
that is, Neil and Mal and whoever else they it was unbelievable. We were going all the time. And as
had around them. It was, ‘OK, lock the door, Paul points out, on his one day off he would be judging a
let's just have a break here.’ beauty competition or something.
We'd been everywhere, Australia and Tokyo and
JOHN: | enjoy playing, really, but in America America and Europe, and yet the biggest tour we ever
it was spoiled for me because of the crap there did at the top was only six weeks long, including travel
— meeting people we don't want to meet. | time. It was always hit and run. We nipped about very
suppose I'm a bit intolerant. But is it any quickly and then we were back home. Only then were we
wonder | got fed up when they kept sending in able to have personal lives, and we liked that, and wanted
autograph books and we signed them only to
find they belonged to officials — promoters,
police and the rest of that lot. The real fans,
| y Se ate
PAUL: Looking for birds: | think that’s what |was
\
more of that.
The studio was where it was all going on. And we
were still very close. We'd all ride to London together —
theyd waited for hours, days. They were doing judging all those beauty contests. Think... this was the period when | got a Ferrari — and we'd go to
treated like half-wits because they wanted our | know that's what |was doing! the studio, be at the studio together, go out to dinner, go
autographs — but the cops made sure they got to the clubs and drive home, all
theirs. | bet every policeman’s daughter in together. We'd work all day and then
Britain has got our autographs. Half of them go home and change and then all meet
arent our fans. It's bloody unfair on the kids each other back at the club at about
who really want them.” 10.30. From around 1964 | had given
It would hurt me; | would go _ insane, up whisky and Coke and _ started
swearing, whatever. I'd always do something. | drinking red wine, and out had come
couldn't take it; it was awful, all that business the ‘jazz Woodbines’. But still we were
was awful. One has to completely humiliate going to the clubs.
oneself to be what The Beatles were, and that's
what | resent. | mean, | did it, | didn't know, | RINGO: A lot was changing — our
didn't foresee; it just happens bit by bit, attitudes, our lives — at this time, and
gradually, until this complete craziness is the Rubber Soul sessions were the start
surrounding you and you're doing exactly what of the build-up to the end, ina way. We
you don't want to do with people you can't were doing great stuff and it was really a
stand; the people you hated when you were joy in the studio and the results were
ren.” great; but the time was getting longer
and longer, taking up a lot of space, and
NEIL ASPINALL: Anybody near to the band at as it built up, over five or six years, |
that time could sense their dissatisfaction with was getting fed up with the studios, too
touring life, which is why they'd made a little I'd just got married in 1965 and
holiday of their visit to LA this time. was driving up to Abbey Road every
day. | think that's wher
GEORGE: In LA there'd been a lot of people resentment for the studio
and a lot of things to dodge — stars’ sons in there and it woul
wanting to hang out with us, journalists day, and we'd come
wanting to know what we were on, parties to gone by

THOUGHTS ON 1965 199

nineteen sixty-six
JOHN: The Sixties saw a revolution among youth — not just end up talking very seriously and having a good time till three in the
concentrating in small pockets or classes, but a revolution in a whole morning. Now it's reverted and in many ways it's as though that period
way of thinking. The youth got it first and the next generation second. didn't happen. It's come full circle: the waters have closed over again
The Beatles were part of the revolution, which is really an evolution, and we've got militaristic things in the air instead of people putting
and is continuing.” flowers down the barrels of guns. When will they ever learn?
We were all on this ship in the Sixties. Our generation — a ship
going to discover the New World. And The Beatles were in the crow’s- RINGO: I feel The Beatles were doing what they wanted to do, and a
nest of that ship. We were part of it and contributed what we lot of it was that youthfulness of trying to change ideas. | think it
contributed; | can't designate what we did and didn't do. It depends on allowed people to do things they wouldn't have done if we hadn't been
how each individual was impressed by The Beatles, or how shock waves out there. Because so many people have always said, ‘Oh, it's OK for
went to different people. We were going through the changes, and all you to dress like that or to do that,’ but it's OK for anyone, really.
we were saying was, It's raining up here!’ or, ‘There's land!’ or, ‘There's The Sixties were it for me, but the Forties were best for my dad. For
sun!’ or, ‘We can see a seagull!’ We were just reporting what was him, no one topped Glenn Miller, including The Beatles. If | play
happening to us.” records | don't really play a lot after 1970. | go for blues, some jazz,
people who were around in the Sixties. It's Bob from then, Eric from
GEORGE: The Sixties was a good period, and in Europe at least it had a then — some Elton, not a lot. I don't play a lot of Beaky, Beaky, Nosey,
lot to do with the fact that we were the generation that hadn't been in Ducky, Dicky and Tich, all that stuff. I'd got it all nailed by 1970.
the war. We'd been born during the Second World War, and as we
grew up we became sick of hearing about it. To this day the newspapers NEIL ASPINALL: Easing up on their breakneck schedule in early 1966, when
and television love the war and wars in general — they can't get enough they took a couple of months off, meant we all had more time. For them it meant
of them. They keep putting programmes on about them. There's about time to hang around with friends, get into other things, have personal lives, even
fifty-four wars happening right now, and even if there's a lull in one of time to go on holiday.
the fifty-four wars they'll show us the re-runs of the Second World War
or Pearl Harbor. JOHN: We were all at the prime, and we used to go around London in
We were the generation who didn't suffer from the war and we our cars and meet each other and talk about music with The Animals
didn't want to have to keep being told about Hitler. We were more and Eric [Burdon] and all those. It was a really good time. That was the
bright-eyed and hopeful for the future, breaking out of the leftover best period, fame-wise. We didn’t get mobbed so much. It was like a
Victorian mould of attitudes and poverty and hardship. We were the men's smoking club, a very good scene.”
first generation to experience that, so in that respect it was good. And
then we had Little Richard and Elvis and Fats Domino and all that music PAUL: FOR A TIME IT WAS GREAT: WE WERE
— because up until then it had all been pretty silly music from the Fifties.
| was a bit disappointed the way the Seventies seemed to hit a brick wall INTRODUCED TO A WHOLE SET OF PEOPLE
and turn into headbanging and spitting on each other. WE COULDN'T HAVE EXPECTED TO MEET IN
And then we bumped right into Vietnam around that time when we OTHER TIMES OR CIRCUMSTANCES. IT WAS A
were starting to have had enough experience as The Beatles to have GOOD SET, TOO; A VERY COSMOPOLITAN
grown up a bit and realised that there's more to life than being noddy-
head Beatles. GROUP — GAY WOULD MIX WITH HETERO
WITHOUT EVEN THINKING ABOUT IT,
PAUL: There was a big period of freedom, which | always liken to God CERTAINLY AMERICAN WOULD MIX WITH
opening up the waves for Moses and then closing them again. AIDS has
closed down the sexual freedom we had then, just as VD had shut it off
BRITISH. ALL NATIONALITIES WOULD MIX.
for an earlier generation. | remember my dad saying he was quite
envious of me because there was no longer any need to fear VD. It had JOHN: The main club we all went to was the Ad Lib. The Bag O'Nails
been a major threat when he was a kid. We didn't have to worry about it was another. There were a couple more but they were never as big. We
— you just went down the clinic and got a jab. And all the girls were on used to go there and dance and talk music, get drunk, stoned and high.
the Pill, which removed another traditional worry, so we had an One of the records we always played in the Ad Lib, with all of us sitting
amazing sexual freedom. there, and dancing, looking superstoned, was ‘Daddy Rolling Stone’ by
Derek Martin, which The Who later did a version of, like the English
JOHN: People are just uptight because the kids are having fun. They usually do all these great records: not too good — that’s including us.
didn't have the same freedom because they didn't take it; they just That's all we ever played: American records. There was no such thing as
followed the lives laid down by their parents. And they're jealous of the English records in those days.”
people that didn't do that. It's a simple sexual jealousy.
I don't know what age it was, the Twenties or the Thirties, [when] PAUL: We're very friendly with all the other groups. When we go to
‘most of the pop music was about the sort of illusory romantic love that the Ad Lib and The Rolling Stones are there, or The Animals or The
was basically nonexistent. The songs were always about love and a Moody Blues, it's good to have a chance to sit down and talk about
boy/girl relationship, but they just happened to miss out the most music and our latest record or their new record.”
important thing, which was sex. | think now the kids sing and want to
hear about reality, whether that's love or sex, or whatever it is. JOHN: The thing about clubs like the Ad Lib is that we go there and
I think the music reflects the state that the society is in. It doesn't we meet other people — we meet The Rolling Stones and The Animals
suggest the state. | think the poets and musicians and artists are of the and any visiting American artists — and we're not bothered there. | think
age — not only do they lead the age on, but they also reflect that age. I've signed one autograph at the Ad Lib and we've been going there a
And| think that's what the pop music is doing: it's reflecting. year. No one bothers us, and you can get drunk or you can fall on your
Like The Beatles. We came out of Liverpool and we reflected our face if you like and nobody's going to bother. You know that you're OK
background and we reflected our thoughts in what we sang, and that's and you relax there, even though it's rowdy and heavy.”
all people are doing.”'
PAUL: After recording sessions, at two or three in the morning, we'd be
PAUL: I suppose the fashion thing was a kind of eruption. We were careering through the villages on the way to Weybridge, shouting ‘wey-
erupting anyway, as The Beatles; and it's very difficult to separate The hey’ and driving much too fast. George would perhaps be in his Ferrari
Beatles’ eruption from the fashion or the cultural or the mind eruption. — he was quite a fast driver — and John and | would be following in his
It was all happening at once, as a whirlpool. If we got invited to places, big Rolls Royce or the Princess. John had a mike in the Rolls with a
generally it was because we were The Beatles; it wouldn't be because of loudspeaker outside and he'd be shouting to George in front It is

he clothes, which were secondary. foolish to resist, it is foolish to resist! Pull over!’ It was insane All the
Pot and LSD were the two other major influences. Instead of getting lights would go on in the houses as we went past — it must have freaked
tally out of it and falling over, as we would have done on Scotch, we'd everybody out.

fitbaslAL TES 201

 JOHN: WHEN I FIRST GOT THE
ORIGINAL BLACK ROLLS, I
When John went to make How I Won The War in COULDN'T DRIVE; | HADN'T under the underpass on Hyde Park Corner like bats
Spain, he took the same car, which he virtually lived PASSED MY TEST. I'D NEVER out of hell and he'd be right behind me, trying to keep
in. It had blacked-out windows and you could never BOTHERED BECAUSE | WASN'T up, with his contact lenses in, or whatever. And all the
see who was in it, so it was perfect. John didn't come VERY INTERESTED IN DRIVING, way home, back down the A3; | remember that a few
out of it — he just used to talk to the people outside BUT WHEN THE OTHERS PASSED times. Sometimes I'd slow down, because | was afraid
through the microphone: ‘Get away from the car! | THOUGHT I'D BETTER DO IT OR that he was going to have an enormous ‘sausage’.
Get away!’ I'D GET LEFT. SO | GOT THE Once John was driving his Ferrari with Terry
Once we were going through Regent's Park on FIRST ROLLS AND IT USED TO BI Doran in the passenger seat. Terry was a car dealer
our way to North London to do a session. We were EMBARRASSING, SITTING IN A from Liverpool (a ‘man from the motor trade’), and‘an
in John's Rolls and we'd just come from his house in ROLLS. PEOPLE THINK THEY’VE old friend of Brian Epstein; he was with us all the time
Weybridge. Suddenly we pulled up behind Brian GOT BLACK WINDOWS TO HIDE. around that period. He and John were coming down
lones who was sittir g quietly in the back of his IT'S PARTLY THAT ~ BUT IT'S ALSO the M1, doing about ninety, when a bird flew across
Austin Princess. John was a very funny guy, and he FOR WHEN YO I'RE COMING their path and splattered itself on the windscreen. John
shouted through the nT icrophone: ‘Brian Jones, do not HOME LATE. IF IT'S DAYLIGHT instinctively ducked and threw up his hands — ‘Whoa!
move! You have been under surveillance — you are WHEN YOU'RE ¢ OMING IN, IT'S — and Terry was forced to grab hold of the steering
under arrest!’ Brian lea »t up about eight feet and went STILL DARK INS DE THE CAR — wheel and steer the car out of a crash.
as white as a sheet going Oh my God! Oh my YOU JUST SF UT ALL THE Brian Epstein had a big posh car. Early on it was
God!’ Then he saw it was us — ‘You bunch of WINDOWS AND YOU'RE STILL IN great because Paul and | had learnt how to drive and
bastards!’ It nearly kil ed him that day, John was so TRE < UB.” we always wanted to drive his car. That's one of the
official-sounding reasons we signed up with him — because he had a
good car. Brian was the worst driver. He knocked
GEORGE: | had a couple of Ferraris and later John suddenly decided down the little ‘Keep Left’ bollard going into Liverpool Airport. He also
that he wanted a Ferrari, too. We used to race together but | always had a problem with traffic lights. When they were green he'd stop, and
regarded myself as slightly better because, first of all, John was as blind when they went to red he'd go. He had a Maserati, which in the early
1 bat and, secondly, he was never really very good at driving. But he Sixties was a pretty potent car, and as he went down Piccadilly in it one
i ited to arive his Fe rrari and | wou d always be fearing some huge day the light went to red and he went across the junction. A cop was
Ids 1. We'd come down Piccadilly at about ninety miles an hour and go standing at the side and he shouted, ‘Hey!’ but Brian drove off down to

THE SIXTIES
 the next green light and stopped. The cop came running almost up to always come round to my house in the sitar period. We talked about
im, but as the light changed to red he pulled away again. The cop ran
nim, ‘Paint It Black’ and he picked up my sitar and tried to play it — and the
all the way down Piccadilly, trying to get him, but Brian didn’t even next thing was he did that track.
know the cop was after him. He was totally on his own agenda. We had a lot in common, when | think about it. We shared the same
date of birth, or nearly, so he must have been a Pisces as well. We also
PAUL: We'd be hanging out with the Stones, working on their sessions; shared the same positions in the most prominent bands in the universe:
was a very friendly scene. There must have been a bit of competition him with Mick and Keith, and me with Paul and John. | think he related
because that's only natural, but it was always friendly. We used to say, to me a lot, and I liked him. Some people didn't have time for him, but |
‘Have you got one coming out?’ and if they had we'd say, ‘Well, hold it thought he was one of the most interesting ones.

avoid each other's releases. John and I sang on the Stones’ song ‘We JOHN: He was different over the years as he disintegrated. He ended
‘Love You’ — Mick had been stuck for an idea and he asked us to come up the kind of guy that you dread he'd come on the phone because you
along. So we went down to Olympic Studios and made it up. knew it was trouble. He was in a lot of pain. But in the early days he was
We and the Stones were part of the same crowd. We used to go toa all right because he was young and confident. He was one of those guys
flat in Earl's Court, the late-night hangout. Actually there were a few of that disintegrates in front of you. He was all right. Not brilliant or
these — there was Robert Fraser's place, my place, Mick and Keith's anything, just a nice guy.”
place or maybe Brian's. | remember Mick bringing in ‘Ruby Tuesday’ as a
demo; they'd just done it and it was great. We'd get everything hot off PAUL: Brian was a nervous guy, very shy, quite serious and maybe into
the press. They said, ‘What do you think of this one?’ and we said, drugs a little more than he should have been, because he used to shake a
"Yeah, great, "Ruby Tuesday” — lovely.’ bit. He was lovely, though. We knew he was on heroin. | knew about
When we asked Brian Jones to one of our sessions, to our surprise he heroin but | couldn't have been very clear about it because | remember
brought along a sax. He turned up in a big Afghan coat at Abbey Road. asking Robert Fraser about it. | think it was he who said to me, ‘Heroin's
“He played sax on a crazy record, ‘You Know My Name (Look Up The no problem as long as you can afford it. There are millions of addicts,
Number)’. It's a funny sax solo — it isn't amazingly well played but it man,’ and for a second | almost thought that might just be true. But
happened to be exactly what we wanted: a ropey, shaky sax. Brian was thank goodness something said to me, ‘No, that doesn’t sound right,’ so
very good like that. I didn’t get into it. | was lucky.
| was round at John Dunbar's house when one of their friends came
GEORGE: | always used to see Brian in the clubs and hang out with round and got out the rubber, tied his arm up, got out the needle and
him. In the mid-Sixties he used to come out to my house — particularly did the whole thing. I was so scared, but I just had to look. | couldn't tell
“when he'd got ‘the fear’, when he'd mixed too many weird things him not to do it because it was his life, but it was frightening to witness.
together. I'd hear his voice shouting to me from out in the garden: I was told that the guy died the next week, so | could see what they
‘George, George...’ I'd let him in — he was a good mate. He would were getting into.

See_— TINERARY
:
= -_
YOUR ITINERARY [LW
Sere
Mr & Mrs. Gy Harri son
Mrs. G. Harrison
Creen-fe Oe et ceorce: |GOT MARRIED TO
4
PATTIE ON 21st JANUARY
a Feb. BF ndon/Baenines bados BA 695 1966. PAUL WAS THE BEST
wt BOAC Air Terminal, Buckingham Palace Rd. Sw
MAN. WE GOT MARRIED
10.15 hours
SportNo 3Buiidsng” Oévanics ‘ondon Airport!) IN EPSOM, AND THEN WENT TO
ral 11.00 hours BARBADOS FOR OUR
PBR aSORBBAS scebRAgon Airport 11.45 hours HONEYMOON.
ve Barbados-Seawell Airport 19.15
a hours=x
dutteu? ebiven car will be awaiting your arrival
will transfer you from the airport to the
clare' sat Gibbs, Beach.
L Agents: Mesers. H.B. Niblock & Co., rc
Car willBycSteesiting your arri x 5969
ou from aatéapes,Stort to the LLG2875 RRETIO
8 Beach. 9 1527
Telephone BARBADOS 5747
BARBADOS 33
sday Feb. 2th) 01 OC! Rarpad6ig/London
pirect, ULFCARD
jAvLING
TELEPHONE .

NDO
NEMSTAFF LO
r

ee AGu' the ‘Benclare’ to Seavell Airport Y HA NS ON

driven car. WE ND

‘t Barbados-Seawell Airport
4 ROOM FOR
e1egrams—CONS

‘t Barbados~Seawell Airport 0TELEX

OR
ectony F oUND HOUSE WIT
ABLE THROUGH PAUL
EAT STOP
YTHING NOW I aa
y Feb. 25th Bley: & CONTACTED BY C
FRIENDS sToP WE CAN B
NIBCO
Siueeeeeneemeeneeeee
aed
GE
oM GEORGE A ND PATTIE
e London Airport Central B
arBADoS LOVE FR
FOSTER niBco
e BOAC Air Terminal, Buckingham Palace Rd. SW1

THE SIXTIES
 JOHN: MY ORIGINAL IDEA FOR THE COVER
WAS BETTER —
DECAPITATE PAUL-—
BUT HE WOULDN'T
GO ALONG WITH IT-

GEORGE: The 1966 American album, Yesterday and Today, was the one with the controversial sleeve. | think
Brian Epstein had met a photographer in Australia called Robert Whitaker, who came to London where Brian
introduced him to us. He was avant-garde and took a lot of photographs. He set up a photo session which |
never liked personally at the time.
| thought it was gross, and | also thought it was stupid. Sometimes we all did stupid things, thinking it was
cool or hip when it was naive and dumb, and that was one of them. But again, it was a case of being put in a
situation where one is obliged, as part of a unit, to co-operate.
So we put on those butchers’ uniforms for that picture. In the photograph we're going, ‘Ugh!’ That's what
I'm doing, isn’t it? I'm disgusted, and especially so by the baby dolls with their heads off. What the bloody
hell is that all about?
Quite rightly somebody took a look at it and said, ‘Do you think you really need this as an album cover?’
So the record company said: ‘You don't want to do a cover like that. We want to have a nice one with you all
sitting in a little box.’

NEIL ASPINALL: The ‘butcher’ sleeve was Bob Whitaker’ idea. He was trying to get across some sort of earthy idea. It
was on the American album — Capitol Records issued different versions from the English ones then — and the retailers were
horrified. I'm not sure how many copies they pressed, but the reaction to it was: ‘What is this?’
Capitol pasted a new cover over the original sleeves they had already pressed, and then the next pressings had only
the new image. But people who bought one of the first batch steamed off the new cover to reveal the ‘butcher’ picture. There
are not that many of them out there.

PAUL: In those days you'd turn up at a session and the photographer would normally have an idea. In the
very early days Dezo Hoffmann asked us to put glasses on. | said, ‘I don't wear glasses, Dezo.’ He said, ‘Yeah,
but I'll be able to sell these to eyeglass magazines all over the world.’ We were getting all these little clues of
how it was done. So we were used to photographers giving us bizarre ideas; sometimes we'd ask why we
should do it, and they'd say, ‘It'll be OK,’ and we'd agree.
We'd done a few sessions with Bob before this, and he knew our personalities: he knew we liked black
humour and sick jokes. It was very prevalent at that time. And he said, ‘I've had an idea — stick these white lab
coats on.’ It didn’t seem too offensive to us. It was just dolls and a lot of meat. | don't know really what he was
trying to say, but it seemed a little more original than the things the rest of the people were getting us to do —
eyeglasses!
He had a little history of doing that kind of shoot. | remember we came in once and he had some
polystyrene that he wanted us to break, and he took action photos of us doing it. | suppose when the photos
came out, it looked as if we were wrecking everything, but it was only because we were asked to do it as an
idea for a photo session; and that's what the ‘butcher’ cover was. So we liked it — we thought it was stunning
and shocking, but we didn't see all the connotations.
It was Capitol Records that didn't want it, but you have to remember the climate then. | remember Sir
Edward Lewis, head of Decca, not wanting the Stones’ album cover because it had graffiti on a toilet seat on
it. Mick came round to talk to us about it, and I actually rang up Sir Edward and said that | thought they
should put it out, but he wasn’t having any of it. We weren't against a little shock now and then; it was part of
our make-up

RINGO: | don't know how it came about. I don't know how we ended up sitting in butchers’ coats with meat
all over us. If you look at our eyes, you realise none of us really knew what we were doing. It was just one of
those things that happened as life went on.
[he sleeve was great for us because we were quite a nice bunch of boys and we thought, ‘Let's do
something like this!’ What was crazy about that sleeve was that, because it was banned, they glued paper over
it and everyone started steaming it off. They made it into a really heavy collector's item — which, I'm afraid to
say, | don't have a copy of, because in those days we never thought, ‘We'd better save this.’

JOHN: We took the pictures in London at one of those photo sessions. By then we were really beginning to
hate it —a photo session was a big ordeal, and you had to try and look normal and you didn't feel it. The
photographer was a bit of a surrealist and he brought along all these babies and pieces of meat and doctors’
coats, so we really got into it, and that’s how we felt — ‘Yeah!’
| don't like being locked in to one game all the time, and there we were supposed to be sort of angels. |
wanted to show that we were aware of life, and I really was pushing for that album cover. | would say | was a
lot of the force behind it going out and trying to keep it out.

| THE ‘BUTCHER’ COVER

 | especially pushed for it to be an album cover, just to break the image.
And it got out in America: they printed it and about 60,000 got out, and
then there was some kind of fuss, as usual, and they were all sent back in or
withdrawn, and they stuck that awful-looking picture of us looking just as
deadbeat but supposed to be a happy-go-lucky foursome. We tried to do
something different. We would design a cover or have control of more of
our own covers in England, but America always had more albums so they
always needed another picture, another cover. We used to say, ‘Why can't
we put fourteen [tracks] out in America?’ Because we would sequence the
albums — how we thought they should
sound — and we put a lot of work into
the sequencing too. They wouldn't let
us put fourteen out; they said there
was some rule or something. And so EXKCUTIVERANO GERRG
we almost didn't care what happened CAPITOL REGORDS
to the albums in America until we HOLLYWOOD ANO VINE « HOLLYWOOD. CALIFORNIA S

started coming over more, and

»
noticing [for instance that] on the >
eight tracks they'd have out-takes and
mumbling on the beginning — which is Dear Reviewer:

interesting now, but it used to drive us In the past few days, you may have rec eived an
Beatles" new
crackers. We'd make an album and advance promotional copy of The In
album, "The Beatles Yesterday And Today.
they'd keep two from every album.” accordance with the following
statement from
Alan ¥, LivingstongsPe dent, pal hrpthe se ak
 Veo Bd Asw a PS Fh ea nor
i nul, “SSNa9

a L Ha whale Pop Wold arwrkssw

ripaw Mode aud Peau wee Oe

4special Ween oy tle Guys Konsedua

prey aA
as ad Hen Cort mre— Boss Soun
uy a Spur ang, 422 |

JOHN: One thing's for sure — the next LP is going to be very different.
We wanted to have it so that there was no space between the tracks —
just continuous. But they wouldn't wear it.
Paul and | are very keen on this electronic music. You make it
clinking a couple of glasses together, or with bleeps from the radio,
then you loop the tape to repeat the noises at intervals. Some people
build up whole symphonies from it. It would have been better than the
background music we had for the last film. All those silly bands. Never
again!”

GEORGE MARTIN: Their ideas were beginning to become much more potent
in the studio. They started telling me what they wanted, and pressing me for
more ideas and for more ways of translating those ideas into reality.
With Revolver you can hear that the boys were listening to lots of
American records and saying, ‘Can we get this effect?’ and so on. So they
would want us to do radical things, but this time they'd shove in high EQ on
mixing, and for the brass they'd want to have a really ‘toppy' sound and cut
- all a bass. The engineers would sometimes wonder whether there should be
that much EQ.
We would go through the complete range of EQ on a disc, and if that
wasn't enough we'd put it through another range of EQ again, multiplied,
and we'd get the most weird sound, which The Beatles liked and which
obviously worked.

GEORGE: EQ is equalisation — when you want to add a bit of top, or

roll off a bit of bottom. It's bass, treble and middle, but equalisation is
the posh way of saying it.
| have a very high EQ — something like33,000 hertz. If | think too
hard my brain hertz. I used to play the first four albums one after the other to see the
progression musically, and it was interesting. | got up to about Revolver
PAUL: Originally, George Martin was the Supreme Producer In The and it got too many. It would be too much listening time, but you could
Sky and we wouldn't even dare ask to go into the control room. But, as hear the progression as we learnt about recording and the techniques
things loosened up, we got invited in and George gave us a bit of the got refined.”
control of the tools; he let us have a go.
GEORGE: It was in April 1966 that we started recording Revolver.
GEORGE: George Martin had a strong role in our lives in the studio, ‘Taxman’ was on Revolver. | had discovered | was paying a huge amount
but as we got more confidence he and the others in EMI became more of money to the taxman. You are so happy that you've finally started
relaxed with us. | suppose as time went on they believed more in our earning money — and then you find out about tax.
ability because it was obvious that we'd had success. They eased off on In those days we paid nineteen shillings and sixpence out of every
the schoolteacher approach. pound (there were twenty shillings in the pound), and with supertax and
Also, George Martin had become more our friend as well; surtax and tax-tax it was ridiculous — a heavy penalty to pay for making
socialised with him. We gained more control each time that we got a money. That was the big turn-off for Britain. Anybody who ever made
Number One, and then when we'd go back in the studio we'd claw our any money moved to America or somewhere else.
way up until we took-ever the store. We got twenty-five quid a week in the early Sixties when we were
first with Brian Epstein, when we played the clubs. But twenty-five quid
JOHN: We got knowledge of the studio. [At first, I'd] go in there and a week each was quite good. My dad earned ten pounds a week, so | was
think, ‘It's just like a tape recorder. I'm going to sing and play to you, earning two and a half times more than my father. Then we started
and you're the one that knows about the tape-recorder — just put it on earning much more, but Brian would keep it and pay us wages. He once
and I'll sing.’ But as soon as you tell me, ‘Well, if we do that we can get a tried to get us to sign a deal saying he would guarantee us fifty pounds a
little reverb on it,’ or if | stand over there it'll sound different than if | week forever and he would keep the rest. We thought, ‘No, we'll risk it,
stand here, you start learning all that.” Brian. We'll risk earning a bit more than fifty pounds a week.’

REVOLVER
 JOHN: ‘Taxman’ was an anti-Establishment tax song, where we said, ‘II
yuntants would be Expiantng to us how Fi worked. We you walk the street, they'll tax your feet.’ George wrote it and | he!ped
y naive, as you can see by any of our business deals, and him with it. At the time, we weren't aware of the whole tax scene. {'m
would say, ‘Well, | don't want to pay tax,’ and they'd say, still not really aware of what goes on with taxes. We believe that if you
u've got to, like everyone else — and the more you make, the more earn it, you may as well keep it, unless there's a communal or
yey take.’ And George would reply, ‘Well, that's not very fair.’ Communist or real Christian society. But while we're living in this, |
‘They said, ‘Look, when you're dead you're going to pay taxes.’ — protest against paying the Government what | have to pay them.”
at?’—‘Death duties..So he camestip with that great line: ‘Declare the
‘pennies on your eyes, which was George's righteous indignation at the PAUL: I can remember more about writing Revolver than about
whole idea of having gotyhere, made all thisimoney and half of it was recording it. | was in Switzerland on my first skiing holiday. I'd done a
about to be removed by force. bit of skiing in Help! and quite liked it, so |went back and ended up ina
little bathroom in a Swiss chalet writing ‘For No One’. | remember the
descending bass-line trick that it's based on, and | remember the
character in the song — the girl putting on her make-up.
Occasionally we'd have an idea for some new kind of instrumen-
tation, particularly for solos. On ‘You've Got To Hide Your Love Away’
John had wanted a flute. On ‘For No One’ | was interested in the French
horn, because it was an instrument I'd always loved from when | was a
kid. It's a beautiful sound, so | went to George Martin and said, 'How
can we go about this?’ And he said, ‘Well, let me get the very finest.’
That was one of the great things about George. He knew how to
obtain the best musicians and would suggest getting them. On this
4 occasion he suggested Alan Civil, who, like all these great blokes, looks
quite ordinary at the session — but plays like an angel.
, George asked me, ‘Now, what do you want him to play?’ | said,
Johm@bennon Esq., M.B.L. ‘Something like this,’ and sang the solo to him, and he wrote it down.
Towards the end of the session, when we were getting the piece down
for Alan to play, George explained to me the range of the instrument:
‘Well, it goes from here to this top E,’ and | said, ‘What if we ask him to
play an F?’ George saw the joke and joined in the conspiracy.
Dividends We came to the session and Alan looked up from his bit of paper:
; It was decided earlier on this
‘Eh, George? | think there's a mistake here — you've got a high F written
month, just before the end of the tax year, down.’ Then George and | said, ‘Yeah,’ and smiled back at him, and he
knew what we were up to and played it. These great players will do it.
) , P.McCartne A Even though it's officially off the end of their instrument, they can do it,
jon, R. Starkely ) and they're quite into it occasionally. It's a nice little solo.
Row,

GEORGE MARTIN: On ‘For No One’, the track was laid down on my own
clavichord. I brought it in from my home, because I thought it bad a nice sound,
it was a very strange instrument to record, and Paul played it. But we wanted a
very special sound, and French born was what be chose.
Paul didn't realise how brilliantly Alan Civil was doing. We got the
definitive performance, and Paul said, ‘Well, OK, I think you can do it better
than that, can't you, Alan?’ Alan nearly exploded. Of course, he didn't do it
better than that, and the way we'd already heard it was the way you hear it now.

SCHEME WHERE WE PAID A GUY TO GO AND

LIVESINSTHE BAHAMAS AND HOLD OUR
MOWNEXSEOR US SO IT WOULD BE TAX-FREE.
AND TASBRIE END WE HAD TO BRING ALL THE
MONERSBAGK, PAY THE TAXES ON IT AND PAY
THIS GURYSSO WE MIGHT AS WELL HAVE JUST
LEFT Wi W AIBRE IT WAS. IT WAS A SCHEME
THATSSOMEONE HAD PUT FORWARD WITH
BRIANSAND WE WENT FOR IT.
WSeveetanmes bave mow confirmed our fears and they have
h the Gmepectoror faxes that there is an excess dividend of
Mader Sections of the Pimance Act 1965. This excess dividend
to have beem payable om April 6, 1966 and Sehedule F tax
t. 3. O. im@mespect of this dividend is due to the Collector of

leatles a@memin the 90%8tax bracket. Accordingly, in

Bien EO Peesonally give the 415,000 gift, they

=
bee carn uum” 000. I@@s possible to obtain a cash
 PAUL: I remember lying in bed one night, in tha
pauL: |DON'T KNOW WHETHER moment before you're falling asleep — that little twiligh
moment when a silly idea comes into your head — ar
POETS THINK THEY HAVE TO thinking of ‘Yellow Submarine’: ‘We all live in —
yellow submarine...’
EXPERIENCE THINGS TO I quite like children’s things; | like children’
minds and imagination. So it didn’t seem uncoo
WRITE ABOUT THEM, BUT | to me to have a pretty surreal idea that was also a
children’s idea. | thought also, with Ringo being so
CAN TELL YOU OUR SONGS good with children — a knockabout uncle type — it~
might not be a bad idea for him to have a children’s -
ARE NEARLY ALL IMAGINATION song, rather than a very serious song. He wasn't that —
keen on singing.
—90% IMAGINATION. | DON'T
JOHN: Donovan helped with the lyrics. | helped
THINK BEETHOVEN WAS IN with the lyrics, too. We virtually made the track
come alive in the studio, but based on Paul's
A REALLY WICKED MOOD inspiration. Paul's idea, Paul's title — so 1 count
it as a Paul song.
ALL THE TIME."
GEORGE: ‘Yellow Submarine’ was written by
PAUL: I was never able to write out music, Paul and John, but even in the early days they
although | took lots of lessons when | was a were writing large portions on their own.
kid. First of all | learnt from the old lady who Then one would help the other one finish it
gave me the homework. Then | tried it again off, but that became more apparent later on.
when | was sixteen, with a young neighbour.
But when he took me back to the five-finger exercises, | became RINGO: | don’t actually know where they got the idea for it; | just felt
bored because | was already writing little melodies like ‘When I'm it was a really interesting track for me to do. I'd been doing a lot of
Sixty-Four’. So I'd got into the fun of it, and having to be pulled back covers. At that time | did either covers or something they wrote
to the discipline of it came too late. specifically for me.
Later, when I'd written ‘Eleanor Rigby’, | tried learning with a It usually happened that we'd be well into an album — and we all
proper bloke from the Guildhall School of Music whom | was put on knew that I'd be doing a number somewhere, usually about three-
to by Jane Asher's mum (Margaret Elliot, an oboe teacher). But | quarters of the way through — and either I'd say, ‘Have you got a song?’
didn't get on with him either. | went off him when | showed him or they'd say, ‘We've got this for you,’ or, ‘We haven't got anything — is
‘Eleanor Rigby’ because | thought he'd be interested, and he wasn't. | there anything you want to do?’ So through the years we did the Carl
thought he'd be intrigued by the little time jumps. Perkins numbers and the Buck Owens numbers, and then it ended up
| wrote ‘Eleanor Rigby’ when I was living in London and had a that mainly John and Paul would write songs for me.
piano in the basement. | used to disappear there and have a fiddle At that time it was hard to bring your own songs in when you had
around, and while | was fiddling on a chord some words came out: Lennon and McCartney. It used to be a bit of a joke, really — | would
‘Dazzie-de-da-zu picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has bring in the songs I'd written and they'd all be rolling on the floor
been...’ This idea of someone picking up rice after a wedding took it laughing because I'd rewritten an old standard again. | was great at
in that poignant direction, into a ‘lonely people’ direction. rewriting Jerry Lee Lewis songs. It was me getting my craft together.
| had a bit of trouble with the name, and I'm always keen to get a At first George went through the same problems presenting his
name that sounds right. Looking at my old school photographs | songs that | went through. But that didn’t last long, and then he started
remembered the names, and they all work: James Stringfellow, Grace coming up with great songs. Taxman’ was great — it’s not a bad opening
Pendleton. Whereas when you read novels, it’s all James Turnbury’' act for Revolver, is it?
and it's not real. So I was very keen to get a real-sounding name for
that tune and the whole idea.
We were working with Eleanor Bron on Help! and I liked the name
Eleanor; it was the first time I'd ever been involved with that name. |
saw ‘Rigby’ on a shop in Bristol when I was walking round the city
one evening. | thought, ‘Oh, great name, Rigby.’ It's real, and yet a
little bit exotic. So it became ‘Eleanor Rigby’.
| thought, | swear, that | made up the name Eleanor Rigby like
that. | remember quite distinctly having the name Eleanor, looking
around for a believable surname and then wandering around the
docklands in Bristol and seeing the shop there. But it seems that up in
Woolton Cemetery, where | used to hang out a lot with John, there's
a gravestone to an Eleanor Rigby. Apparently, a few yards to the
right there's someone called McKenzie.
It was either complete coincidence or in my subconscious. |
suppose it was more likely in my subconscious, because | will have
been amongst those graves knocking around with John and
wandering through there. It was the sort of place we used to
sunbathe, and we probably had a crafty fag in the graveyard. So
subconscious it may be — but this is just bigger than me. I don't
know the answer to that one. Coincidence is just a word that says
two things coincided. We rely on it as an explanation, but it
actually just names it — it goes no further than that. But as to
why they happen together, there are probably far deeper
reasons than our little brains can grasp.

JOHN: ‘Eleanor Rigby’ was Paul's baby, and I helped with the
education of the child.*°
 PAUL: THE INDIAN SOUNDS ARE DEFINITELY MAINLY GEORGE. WE STARTED OF
JUST HEARING INDIAN MUSIC AND LISTENING TO THINGS, AND WE LIKED THE DRONE
IDEA BECAUSE WE'D DONE A BIT OF THAT KIND OF THING IN SONGS BEFORE. BUT
GEORGE GOT VERY INTERESTED IN IT, AND WENT TO A COUPLE OF RAVI SHANKAR
CONCERTS, AND THEN HE MET RAVI AND SAID, 'l WAS KNOCKED OUT BY HIM!’ —
JUST AS A PERSON. HE'S AN INCREDIBLE FELLOW. HE'S ONE OF THE GREATEST. Hf
DIDN'T KNOW THAT GEORGE WAS SERIOUS ABOUT IT, AND SO WHEN HE FOUND
OUT GEORGE WAS SERIOUS HE WAS KNOCKED OUT, TOO. SO THE TWO OF THEM
WERE HAVING A GREAT TIME! AND THAT'S HOW WE BROUGHT INDIAN SOUNDS ON.
IT'S NICE TO START BRIDGING THE TWO KINDS OF MUSIC, BECAUSE WE'VE JUST
STARTED OFF IN A VERY SIMPLE WAY, AND THEN THIS ALBUM’S GOT A BIT BETTER. IT'S
A LITTLE BIT MORE LIKE INDIAN Music. AND IT HELPS PEOPLE TO UNDERSTAND IT,
TOO — BECAUSE IT'S VERY HARD TO UNDERSTAND. BUT ONCE YOU GET INTO IT, IT'S
THE GREATEST.

JOHN: It's AMAZING, THIS — SO COOL. DON'T THE INDIANS APPEAR COOL TO
YOU? THIS MUSIC IS THOUSANDS OF YEARS OLD; IT MAKES ME LAUGH, THE BRITISH
GOING OVER THERE AND TELLING THEM WHAT TO DO. QUITE AMAZING.“
GEORGE: I didn’t have too many songs. I'd always had a couple of ones
I was working on or thinking about, and in the later years I did have a GEORGE: To Me IT IS THE ONLY REALLY GREAT MUSIC NOW, AND IT MAKES
_ huge backlog. But in the mid-Sixties | didn't have too many. WESTERN THREE-OR-FOUR-BEAT TYPE STUFF SEEM SOMEHOW DEAD. YOU CAN GET
SO MUCH MORE OUT OF IT IF YOU ARE PREPARED REALLY TO CONCENTRATE AND
‘She Said She Said’ was mine. It's an interesting track. The LISTEN. | HOPE MORE PEOPLE WILL TRY TO DIG IT.
s are great on it. That was written after an acid trip in LA during a
break in The Beatles’ tour where we were having fun with The Byrds
and lots of girls.
_ ‘Doctor Robert’ was another of mine. Mainly about drugs and pills. It
was about myself: | was the one that carried all the pills on tour and
always have done. Well, in the early days. Later on the roadies did it,
and we just kept them in our pockets loose, in case of trouble.*”

PAUL: ‘Doctor Robert’ is like a joke. There's some fellow in New York,
and in the States we'd hear people say, ‘You can get everything you
want off him — any pills you want.’ It was a big racket, but a joke too
about this fellow who cured everyone of everything with all these pills
and tranquillisers, injections for this and that. He just kept New York
high. That's what ‘Doctor Robert’ is all about, just a pill doctor who sees
you all right. It was a joke between ourselves, but they go in in-jokes
and come out out-jokes, because everyone listens and puts their own
thing on it, which is great. | mean, when I was young | never knew what
'gilly gilly otsen feffer catsa nell a bogen’ was all about, but I still
enjoyed singing it.”

JOHN: ‘Good Day Sunshine’ is Paul's. Maybe | threw a line in or

something — | don't know. ‘For No One’ is Paul's. One of my favourites
of his — a nice piece of work. ‘And Your Bird Can Sing’ was another of
my throwaways.
‘Got To Get You Into My Life’ was Paul's again. | think that was one
of his best songs, too, because the lyrics are good — and | didn’t write PAUL: The final track on Revolver, ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’, was
them. When | say that he could write lyrics if he took the effort, here's definitely John's. Round about this time people were starting to
an example. It actually describes his experience taking acid. | think experiment with drugs, including LSD. John had got hold of Timothy
that's what he’s talking about. | couldn't swear to it, but | think it was a Leary's adaptation of The Tibetan Book of the Dead, which is a pretty
result of that.*° interesting book. For the first time we got the idea that, as with ancient
Egyptian practice, when you die you lie in state for a few days, and then
PAUL: It was a song about pot, actually. some of your handmaidens come and prepare you for a huge voyage.
Rather than the British version, in which you just pop your clogs. With
JOHN: ‘Here, There and Everywhere’ was Paul's song completely, | LSD, this theme was all the more interesting.
believe — and one of my favourite songs of The Beatles."
JOHN: Leary was the one going round saying, take it, take it, take it
PAUL: One of my special memories is when we were in Obertauern, And we followed his instructions in his ‘how to take a trip’ book. | did it
Austria, filming for Help!. John and I shared a room and we were taking just like he said in the book, and then | wrote “Tomorrow Never
off our heavy ski boots after a day’s filming, ready to have a shower and Knows’, which was almost the first acid song: ‘Lay down all thought
get ready for the nice bit, the evening meal and the drinks. We were surrender to the void,’ and all that shit which Leary had pinched from
playing a cassette of our new recordings and my song ‘Here, There And The Book of the Dead.
Everywhere’ was on. And | remember John saying, ‘You know, | I read George Martin was saying that John was into The Book of the
probably like that better than any of my songs on the tape.’ Coming Dead. I'd never seen it in my life. I just saw Leary's psychedelic handout
from John, that was high praise indeed. — it was very nice in them days.
We'd had acid on Revolver. Everybody is under this illusion even

GEORGE: 'I Want To Tell You’ is about the avalanche of thoughts that George Martin was saying, ‘Pepper was their acid album.’ But we @ had

are so hard to write down or say or transmit. acid, including Paul, by the time Revolver was finished
I wrote ‘Love You To’ on the sitar, because the sitar sounded so nice The expression ‘tomorrow never knows’ was another o
and my interest was getting deeper all the time. | wanted to write a tune gave it a throwaway title because | was a bit self-conscious about the
that was specifically for the sitar. Also it had a tabla part, and that was lyrics. So I took one of Ringo's malapropisms, which was | hard
the first time we used a tabla player. day's night’, to take the edge off the heavy philosophical ly:
 a

IRGE: I've been wondering lately why it was supposed to be from So we made up our little loops and brought them to the studio.
‘ibetan Book of the Dead. \t was, 'think, based more upon the book They were put through the board, on to a different fader, and mixed.
Timothy Leary called The Psychedelic Experience. The lyrics are the You always get a slightly different mix — a spontaneous thing — and
of Transcendentalism. those ‘seagulls’ are just weird noises.
You can hear (and | am sure most Beatles fans have) “Tomorrow | don't exactly recall what was on my loop; | think it was a
ver Knows’ a lot and not know really what it is about. Basically it is grandfather clock, but at a different speed. You could do it with
saying what meditation is all about. The goal of meditation is to go anything: pick a little piece and then edit it, connect it up to itself and
beyond (that is, transcend) waking, sleeping and dreaming. So the song play it at a different speed.
starts out by saying, ‘Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream, it
is not dying RINGO: I had my own little set-up to record them. As George says, we”
Then it says, ‘Lay down all thoughts, surrender to the void — it is were ‘drinking a lot of tea’ in those days, and on all my tapes you can
shining. That you may see the meaning of within — it is being.’ From hear, ‘Oh, I hope I've switched it on.’ I'd get so deranged from stroma
birth to death all we ever do is think: we have one thought, we have tea. I'd sit there for hours making those noises. ;
another thought, another thought, another thought. Even when you are
asleep you are having dreams, so there is never a time from birth to GEORGE MARTIN: ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ was a great innovation.
death when the mind isn’t always active with thoughts. But you can turn John wanted a very spooky kind of track, a very ethereal sound. When we
off your mind, and go to the part which Maharishi described as: ‘Where constructed the original version of the tape, we started off with just the
was your last thought before you thought it?’ tamboura drone and Ringos very characteristic drumming.
The whole point is that we are the song. The self is coming from a
state of pure awareness, from the state of being. All the rest that RINGO: I was proud of my drumming on ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’,
comes about in the outward manifestation of the physical world but | was quite proud of my drumming all the way through really.
(including all the fluctuations which end up as thoughts and actions)
is just Clutter. The true nature of each soul is pure consciousness. So GEORGE MARTIN: Paul at that time was probably more avant
the song is really about transcending and about the quality garde than the other boys. We always think of Jobn as being
of the transcendent. the avant-garde one, with Yoko and so on, but at that
1 am not too sure if John actually fully time Paul was heavily into Stockhausen and Jobn
understood what he was saying. He knew he was Cage and all the avant-garde artists, while Jobn
onto something when he saw those words and was living a comfortable suburban life in
turned them into a song. But to have Weybridge.
experienced what the lyrics in that song are
actually about? I don't know if he fully PAUL: I don't want to sound like
understood it. Jonathan Miller going on, but I'm
Indian music doesn't modulate; it just trying to cram everything in, all the
stays. You pick what key you're in, and things that I've missed. People are
it stays in that key. | think “Tomorrow saying things and painting things
Never Knows’ was the first one that and writing things and composing
stayed there; the whole song was on things that are great, and | must
one chord. But there is a chord that is know what people are doing. |
superimposed on top that does change: vaguely mind people knowing
if it was in C, it changes down to B flat. anything I don't know.”
That was like an overdub, but the basic
sound all hangs on the one drone. JOHN: Weybridge won't do at all. I'm
just stopping at it, like a bus stop.
PAUL: John showed up with a song after Bankers and stockbrokers live there; they
we'd had a couple of days off. | remember being can add figures, and Weybridge is what they
in Brian Epstein’s house in Chapel Street in live in and they think it's the end, they really
Belgravia- We met up and John had a song that was do. | think of it every day — me in my Hansel and
all on the chord of C, which in our minds was a perfectly Gretel house. I'll take my time; I'll get my real house
good idea. when | know what | want.
| was wondering how George Martin was going to take it, because it You see there's something else I'm going to do, something | must do
was a radical departure; we'd always had at least three chords, and — only | don't know what it is. That's why | go round painting and
maybe a change for the middle eight. Suddenly this was John just taping and drawing and writing and that, because it may be one of
strumming on C rather earnestly — ‘Lay down your mind...’ And the them. All I know is, this isn't it for me.®
words were all very deep and meaningful — certainly not "Thank You
Girl’, a bit of a change from all that. GEORGE MARTIN: It was Paul, actually, who experimented with bis tape
George Martin took it very well. He said, ‘Rather interesting, John. machine at bome, taking the erase-head off and putting on loops, saturating the
lolly interesting!’ So we got in and recorded it as a fairly straightforward tape with weird sounds. He explained to the other boys how he had done this,
rock'n'roll band thing and Ringo and George would do the same and bring me different loops of
We needed a solo, and | was into tape loops at the time. | had two sounds, and I would listen to them at various speeds, backwards and forwards,
Brennell machines and | could create tape loops with them. So I brought and select some.
ina little plastic bag with about twenty tape loops, and we got machines That was a weird track, because once we'd made it we could never reproduce
trom all the other studios, and with pencils and the aid of glasses got all it. All over the EMI studios were tape machines with loops on them, and people
the loops to run. We might have had twelve recording machines where holding the loops at the right distance with a bit of pencil. The machines were
we normally only needed one to make a record. We were running with going all the time, the loops beingfed to different faders on our control panel, on
these loops all fed through the recording desk. which we could bring up the sound at any time, as on an organ. So the mix we
did then was a random thing that could never be done again. Nobody else was
JOHN: He [Paul] made them at home on his tape, in whatever the key doing records like that at that time — not as far as I knew.
was, and we had six fellows with pencils holding them on, on six Jobn never liked his voice. I don't know why, because he bad the greatest of
machines. Very desirable, the whole effect, | thought.” voices. I guess its the same problem you have when you wake up in the ~
morning and look in the mirror and think, ‘What an awful face!’ Its a self-
GEORGE: Everybody went home and made up a spool, a loop: ‘OK, destructive thing. He was always wanting to distort bis vocal, asking me to do
now | want you all to go home and come back in the morning things to it: double-track it, or artificially double-track it, or whatever: ‘Dont
1 your own loop We were touching on the Stockhausen kind of give me that thing again, George, give me another one.’ He was always
t garde a clue’ music wanting something different.
 For ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ he said to me be wanted his voice to sound like the Dalai Lama chanting from a billtop, and I said, ‘It's a bit expensive
going to Tibet. Can we make do with it bere?’ I knew perfectly well that ordinary echo or reverb wouldn't work, because it would just put a very
distant voice on. We needed to have something a bit weird and metallic. When I thought of the Dalai Lama, I thought of alpenborns and thos
people with funny things on their beads, I'd never been to Tibet, but I imagined what the voice would sound like, coming out of one of those
horns. I spoke to Geoff Emerick, the engineer, and he bad a good idea. He said, ‘Let's try putting bis voice through a Leslie speaker and back
again and re-recording it.’ALeslie speaker is a rotating speaker, a Hammond console, and the speed at which it rotates can be varied
according to a knob on the control. By putting bis voice through that and then recording it again, you got a kind of intermittent
vibrato effect, which is what we bear on ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’. I don't think anyone had done that before. It was quite a
revolutionary track for Revolver.
Geoff Emerick used to do things forThe Beatles and be scared that the people above would find out. Engineers then weren't
supposed to play about with microphones and things like that. But he used to do really weird things that were slightly
illegitimate, with our support and approval.

JOHN: Often the backing | think of early on never comes off. With "Tomorrow Never Knows’ I'd
imagined in my head that in the background you would hear thousands of monks chanting. That was
impractical, of course, and we did something different. | should have tried to get near my original idea,
the monks singing. | realise now that was what it wanted.”
We were always asking George Martin, ‘Please give us double tracking without having to track it
— save time.’ And then one of the engineers who was working with us [Ken Townsend] came in the
next day with this machine. We'd got ADT — and that was beautiful.”

GEORGE MARTIN: Artificial Double Tracking is taking an image of the sound and delaying it
slightly, or advancing it slightly, so that it forms double. Ifyou think in photographic terms, it’ like
having two nedatives: when you get one negative exactly on top of the other theres just one picture. So
ifyou have one sound image on top of the other exactly, then it becomes only one image. But move it
slightly, by a few milliseconds, and around eight or nine milliseconds it gives you a boxy telephone-
like quality. Below that, depending on the frequency you are signalling, it will give you a phasing
effect, rather like the broadcasts that used to come from Australia —a kind of ‘in-and-out effect. If
you take the image even further away, to about twenty-seven milliseconds, you get what we call
Artificial Double Tracking — two definite voices.

JOHN: Phasing is great! ‘Double-flanging’, we call it.”

JOHN: |DON'T MIND WRITING

OR READING OR WATCHING
OR SPEAKING, BUT SEX IS THE
ONLY PHYSICAL THING I CAN
BE BOTHERED WITH ANY
«ea,
~
be
MORE.”
 PAUL: People were starting to lose their pure-pop mentality and mingle JOHN: Like anything, people go in trends, and the trend now is”
with artists. We knew a few actors, a few painters; we'd go to galleries think that it [Revolver] was the change. And the trend before was
because we were living in London now. A kind of cross-fertilisation was think Rubber Soul was the change, and then the other trend was|
starting to happen. Pepper. But the whole thing was a gradual change. We were consci
While the others had got married and moved out to suburbia, | had that there was some formula or something — it was moving ahead.
stayed in London and got into the arts scene through friends like Robert was for sure, that we were on the road — not physically; | mean ‘ont
Fraser and Barry Miles and papers like the International Times. We road’ in the studio — and the weather was clear.”
opened the Indica gallery with John Dunbar, Peter Asher and people
like that. | heard about people like John Cage, and that he'd just PAUL: In this period ‘Paperback Writer’ and ‘Rain’ were also recorde
performed a piece of music called 4'33" (which is completely silent) John and | wrote together. | remember showing up at his house with
during which if someone in the audience coughed he would say, ‘See?’ idea for ‘Paperback Writer’. Because | had a long drive to get ther
Or someone would boo and he'd say, ‘See?’ It's not silence — it's music. would often start thinking away and writing on my way out,
| was intrigued by all of that. So those things started to be part of developed the whole idea in the car. | came in, had my boy
my life. | was listening to Stockhausen; one piece was all little plink- cornflakes, and said, ‘'How’s about if we write a letter: “Dear Sir
plonks and interesting ideas. Perhaps our audience wouldn't mind a bit Madam,” next line, next paragraph, etc?’ | wrote it all out and John sai
of change, we thought, and anyway, tough if they do! We only ever 'Yeah, that's good.’ It just flowed.
followed our own noses — most of the time, anyway. "Tomorrow Never
Knows’ was one example of developing an idea. JOHN: ‘Paperback Writer’ is son of ‘Day Tripper’ — meaning -
| always contend that | had quite a big period of this before John rock'n'roll song with a guitar lick on a fuzzy, loud guitar — but it is Pau
really got into it, because he was married to Cynthia at that time. It was song.”°
only later when he went out with Yoko that he got back into London
and visited all the galleries. GEORGE MARTIN: ‘Paperback Writer’ bad a heavier sound than some
earlier work — and very good vocal work, too. I think that was just the wayit
GEORGE: For the Revolver sleeve we moved away from Robert worked out, that the rhythm was the most important part of their make-up by
Freeman, who prepared the original artwork (not used on the album, but this time. |
pictured here), to Klaus Voormann. Klaus was a good artist and a really
good friend of ours. | can't remember how we arrived at Klaus, but he RINGO: The drumming on ‘Rain’ stands out for me because | feel as
did a good job and it became quite a classic album cover. though that was someone else playing — | was possessed!
Revolver was accepted well. | don't see too much difference between
Rubber Soul and Revolver. To me, they could be Volume One and PAUL: I don't think ‘Rain’ was just John’s. We sat down and wrote it
Volume Two. together. It was John's vocal and John’s feel on the song, but what gave
it its character was collaboration. | think it's all too easily said: ‘It's a
PAUL: Klaus had been a great friend since Hamburg days — he'd been John song. It's a Paul song. Paul does ballads — John does rockers. John’s
one of the ‘exi’s’, the existentialists whom we'd got to know then. We the hard one — Paul's the soft one.’ That's a fallacy.
knew he drew and he'd been involved in graphic design; | must admit There were certain songs that were very much mine and others
we didn't really know what he did, but he'd been to college. We knew were definite collaborations with John, where we'd actually sit do
he must be all right and so we said, ‘Why don't you come up with and spend three hours. Then there were ones that were very much
something for the album cover?’ John’s. I think it roughly splits somewhere down the middle.
He did, and we were all very pleased with it. We liked the way there On ‘Rain’, | remember we couldn't get a backing track and
were little things coming out of people's ears, and how he'd collaged decided to play it fast and slow it down, which is why it's so ‘goo go
things on a small scale while the drawings were on a big scale. He also goo’ and ploddy. We had to play it fast and accurately, but | don't
knew us well enough to capture us rather beautifully in the drawings. think that was John’s idea. | don't remember whose it was, but it w
We were flattered. very collaborative.
I suppose the way things did go was that each of us would say
RINGO: Revolver has that quality of Rubber Soul because it's the follow- ‘Mine's “Strawberry Fields”, yours is “Penny Lane".’ That did start t
on. We were really starting to find ourselves in the studio. We were happen, but before then, on things like ‘Rain’, it was that we all wan
finding what we could do, just being the four of us and playing our to do it. It wasn't only John who wanted to make that kind of record.
instruments. The overdubbing got better, even though it was always was probably just that we'd all get an excuse to do it on his track.
pretty tricky because of the lack of tracks. The songs got more
interesting, so with that the effects got more interesting. JOHN: People ask me what music I listen to. | listen to traffic and bi
| think the drugs were kicking in a little more heavily on this album. singing and people breathing. And fire engines. | always used to lis
| don't think we were on anything major yet; just the old usual — the to the water pipes at night when the lights were off, and they playe
grass and the acid. | feel to this day that though we did take certain tunes. |
substances, we never did it to a great extent at the session. We were Half the musical ideas I've had have been accidental. The first =
really hard workers That's another thing about The Beatles — we discovered backwards guitar was when we made ‘Rain’. This was a song
worked like dogs to get it right. wrote about people moaning about the weather all the time. | took the
tracks home to see what gimmicks | could add, because the song wast
NEIL ASPINALL: Quite a bit of marijuana was being smoked. quite right.”
I quess it made recording a bit slower, but it didn't affect the quality of I got home from the studio stoned out of my mind on marijuana,
the work. and, as I usually do, | listened to what I'd recorded that day. Somehow I
At this time I was in the studio with them when they were making records, got it on backwards and I sat there, transfixed, with the earphones on,
and the pattern changed over the years. At the time of Revolver it was getting with a big hash joint. | ran in the next day and said, 'l know what to do
so that sessions would start at about two or three in the afternoon and go on with it, | know... Listen to this!’ So | made them all play it backwards.*
until they finished, whatever the time was. | wanted to do the whole song backwards. We ended up with a bit
At the beginning of the session, ifthere was a new song, whoever had of the voice at the end backwards and half the guitar backwards.”
written it would play the chords to George Martin on either guitar or piano, That one was the gift of God — of Jah, actually, the god of
or theyd all be around-a piano, playing it, learning the chords. If they were marijuana. Jah gave me that one. The first backwards tape on any record
halfway through a song, they'd go straight in and do harmonies, or double- anywhere. Before Hendrix, before The Who, before any fucker. Maybe
tracking, or a guitar solo or whatever. Sometimes, because it was all on four- there was that record about ‘They're coming to take me away, ha ha;
track, they would have to mix down on to one track to give a bit of space to do maybe that came out before ‘Rain’, but it's not the same thing. ‘I’m Only
the rest of it. Sleeping’ has got backwards guitars, too.*°
The critics thought Revolver was a step forward in some ways, breaking
new ground. I think they all listened to critics. They'd pretend not to take notice GEORGE: Usually if we were working on a song we'd take a little rough
— but they did. mix of it home. In those days you never used cassettes; it was always on

12 REVOLVER
 INTERTEL (VIRSERVICES)
TITLE
THE BEATLES -
BAPERBACE
ROD Nt Wl
u/s KITE
renRae
: : a reel-to-reel. John, Paulband I each had little reel-to-reel taps
home. They were quite good machines, with three
halfway through ‘Rain’ when we left the studio at 1
‘Can I have a rough mix of that?
In those days they made a three- or four-inch sp
0. Tha€imeans they would play the rough mix «
when they finished they would cut the tape oft
box so the tail was sticking out — it's called ‘tail:
that at the time (1 don't think | knew it, either
he threaded it on his machine as if it were ‘head
heard the song backwards, and heard enough t

gee much for returning the harmonica that you found in the dr essing
= the New Musical Express Concert. Actually it did not belong to
gon, but to Mal Evans (the Beatles Road Manager).
PAPERBACK WER
 it obviously gave him a buzz because he came in raving
about it the next morning, and so we experimented. We
turned the tape over and put it on backwards, and then played
sme guitar notes to it. | think he and | both plugged in
guitars, just playing little bits, guessing, hoping it fitted in.
(i eorge gE Martin turned the master upside down and played it
back. We were excited to hear what it sounded like, and it
was magic — the backwards guitarist! The way the note
sounded, because of the attack and the decay, was brilliant.
We got very excited and started doing that on overdub. And
then there was a bit of backwards singing as well, which came
out sounding like Indian singing.
As time went by, the technology we were now using on
records didn't allow us to play a lot of songs live on tour. In
those days there was no technology on stage as there is now.
There were two guitars, bass and drums, and that was it. If we
did stuff in the studio with the aid of recording tricks, then we
couldn't reproduce them on tour.
You could do it now. You could do "Tomorrow Never
Knows’ — have all the loops up there on the keyboards and
emulators. You can have as many piano players and
drummers and orchestras and whatever as you want; but back
then, that was it.
We were just a little dance-hall band and we never really
thought of augmenting ourselves. We thought, ‘Well, we
can't. We'll do it to the best of our ability until the point
where we can't really do it, and then we'll miss it out.’ So
around this time we were starting to miss out a lot of record
tracks on live shows.
‘Paperback Writer, for instance, was all double-tracked,
and it sounded pretty crummy on stage. So what we did with
it (in the American tour at least) was get to the point where it
was particularly bad, and then we'd do our ‘Elvis legs’ and
wave to the crowd, and they’d all scream and it would cover
that. As Paul has said, the screaming did cover a lot of
worrying moments.

RINGO: The idea of making promotional films for

‘Paperback Writer’ and ‘Rain’ was that we didn't have to go
out. We felt it was a great idea to send the film out there. |
don't think we even thought of calling them ‘videos’. They
were just going to be on TV.
It was really exciting with ‘Rain’ — with Klaus Voormann,
who did that whole set-up. It was a lot of fun. The ‘Penny
Lane’ one on the horses wasn't quite that exciting for me; it
was a bit real!

GEORGE: The mania made it pretty difficult to get around,

and out of convenience we decided we were not going to go
into the TV studios to promote our records so much because
it was too much of a hassle. We thought we'd go and make
our own little films and put them on TV.
So we started getting a film crew and shooting. There
are a number of those films. | think the first
proper ones we did were ‘Paperback Writer’ and
‘Rain’ in Chiswick House. They were the
forerunner of videos.
The idea was that we'd use them in America as
well as the UK, because we thought, ‘We can't go
everywhere. We're stopping touring and we'll send
these films out to promote the record.’ It was too
much trouble to go and fight our way through all’
the screaming hordes of people to mime the latest
single on Ready, Steady, Go!. Also, in America,
they never saw the footage anyway.
Once we actually went on an Ed Sullivan show
with just a clip. | think Ed Sullivan came on and
said, “The Beatles were here, as you know, and they
were wonderful boys, but they can't be here now
so they've sent us this clip.’ It was great, because
eally we conned the Sullivan show into promoting our new single by
iding in the film clip. These days obviously everybody does that —
s part of the promotion for a single — so | suppose in a way we
ented MTV.

PAPERBACK WRITER‘/’RAIN'
 GEORGE: We went back to Hamburg in We were there for about twelve hours. I've never been back, but I'd
June 1966, for the first time since 1962. We like to some day. We went on to Tokyo. When we came off the plane,
played concerts in Munich and Essen first, we were put in little 1940s-type cars along with policemen dressed in
and then got ona train to Hamburg. It was metal helmets, like Second World War American soldiers’ helmets. We
the train that was used when the royal were driven in convoy into town and taken to the Tokyo Hilton where
party toured Germany, and it was very we were put in our upstairs suite — and that was it. We were only
nice; we each had our own little allowed out of the room when it was time for the concert.
compartment with marble bathtubs, To get our own back on the people who weren't letting us out, we
really luxuriously decorated. used to get them to bring tradesmen up to our suite. They would bring
Hamburg had a good and bad big boxes and trunks full of golden kimonos, jade, incense-holders and
feeling for me. The good side was little carved objects, which we would buy: ‘We'll show them!’ We
that we were coming back to play wanted to go shopping.
after all our fame and fortune, and The promoter was very generous. He gave movie cameras to Mal
when we'd been there before we'd and Neil, and he gave us Nikons (and in those days a Nikon was a
been playing dirty nightclubs to work pretty good toy to have).
our way up. The bad bit was that a lot Everywhere we were going, there was a demonstration about one
of ghosts materialised out of the wood- thing or another. In America the race riots were going on when
work — people you didn't necessarily Beatlemania had come to town. In Japan there were student riots, plus
want to see again, who had been your people were demonstrating because the Budokan (where we were
best friend one drunken Preludin night playing) was supposed to be a special spiritual hall reserved for martial
back in 1960. It's 1966, you've been arts. So in the Budokan only violence and spirituality were approved of,
through a million changes, and suddenly one of those not pop music.
ghosts jumps out on you.
PAUL: We were locked up in the hotel for a long time, with various
PAUL: We had an old booking that had to be merchants coming around and showing us ivory and various gifts.
honoured. It was strange to see all our old friends in People go to Tokyo to go shopping, but we couldn't get out of the
Hamburg. It was as if we'd mutated into something hotel. | once tried and a policeman came running after me. | did actually
different and yet we were still just the boys. But we manage it, but he organised half the Tokyo police force to come with
knew and they knew that we'd got famous in the us. | had wanted to go and see the Emperor's palace, but the policeman
meantime, and that we shouldn't really be playing that sort of gig. wasn't too keen on the idea.
It was good, though. | remember it being a very crazy evening, very
steamy. There was a lot of crying from our German gangster friends, NEIL ASPINALL: Jobn and I sneaked out of the hotel — and Paul and Mal,
nostalgia for the old days. I'm not sure how good a gig it was from a too. I think the security got Paul and Mal, but Jobn and I made it down to the
musical point of view, but it was quite nice to go back one last time. local market, and it was great. It was such a relief to get out. We were looking
around and buying things, but then the police got us and said, ‘Naughty boys
RINGO: To this day Hamburg doesn't seem to have changed. In 1992 | —come back with us.’
played there and it feels just the same. Every year or two I've always
gone back, and the Reeperbahn still has that feel about it; it's still PAUL: In the hotel room we did a communal painting; we all started a
thrilling for me. It was the most exciting place a twenty-year-old could corner of the piece of paper and drew in towards the middle where the
go — the red-light district of Germany — to play the nightclubs, with all paintings met. This was just to pass the time away. I've seen it recently:
the booze and the pills, the hookers and the atmosphere. It was pretty it's a psychedelic whirl of coloured doodles.
incredible, and great to be back in 1966. The way the Japanese had organised going to the gig was very
efficient. They all had walkie-talkies, at a time when you didn’t often
NEIL ASPINALL: I wasn't there in 1962, so it was thefirst time forme. There see those. They came for us at exactly the time on the schedule.
were all the Germans who'd been in the Reeperbabn and in the clubs, people like
Bettina who had worked bebind the bar or in the cloakroom. People like that RINGO: The fun in Tokyo was the timing. The Japanese have a
were there, old friends of theirs whom I didn't know. dedication to time. They would like us to leave the room at 7:14, get to
the elevator by 7:15 and a half, and the elevator took one minute eight
GEORGE: John enjoyed going back. It was still hit-and-run, though; seconds to get us down to the car, and so on. We were expected to be
everything was hit-and-run in those days. The day after the Hamburg prompt. But when they knocked on the door, we would never come out.
concert we had a flight to Tokyo, so we were driven straight out of the We'd totally wreck their timings, and we'd see all these guys going
concert, out of Hamburg to a schloss — a big castle of a hotel — where we absolutely barmy because we hadn't walked down the corridor at 7:14
stayed the night, and then we were flown to Heathrow and put on the and a third!
plane to Japan. Unfortunately there was a hurricane hitting Tokyo and We knew we were doing that to them. It was the way we had fun on
our plane got diverted to Alaska. the road, by having our own little side trips going on. We could only
leave the hotel room when we played a gig.
RINGO: Anchorage, Alaska, was like a cowboy town to us; it was really
like a backwater. My only great memory of Alaska is that at the airport PAUL: They had the seating exactly
they have a huge, magnificent white polar bear in a glass case. arranged in all the cars. Amazing
efficiency, that we'd never seen the like
GEORGE: I remember looking out of the window on the flight in, and of in Britain. When we went to the gig
Alaska was incredible: mountains, lush green pine forests, wonderful lakes they had the fans organised with police
and rivers. As we were coming lower and lower, the lakes and the trees patrols on each corner, so there weren't
were thinning out a bit, but when we landed suddenly there was a huge, any fans haphazardly waving along the
bulldozed mess that Man had made in the middle of the lush beauty. streets. They had been gathered up and
I thought, ‘Oh, here we are again.’ Mankind keeps giving us real herded into a place where they were
tacky things until eventually the planet's covered in them. The nasty allowed to wave; so we'd go along the
little hotels that they throw up — boxes made out of concrete. It was so street and there'd be a little ‘eeeeek!’ and
obvious there in Alaska. Normally they are absorbed into the city, but then we'd go a few more hundred yards
in the middle of a million acres of pristine forest they stick out a bit. and there'd be another ‘eeeeek!’
For me caring about the planet probably began in a previous life. At the Budokan we were shown the
When | was a kid, I used to walk around on my own and | was very old Samurai warriors’ costumes, which
much in touch with nature and the sky and the trees and the plants and we marvelled at dutifully in a touristy
the insects. kind of way: ‘Very good! Very old!’

GERMANY «& JAPAN

 Vie Sea We were more amazed to see the
women leaping up out of the seats for
the promoter, because we'd never seen
= that in the West. The subservience of
the women was amazing. They'd say,
‘Oh God, I'm sorry — was | in your
seat?’ | remember us getting back to
Britain and saying to our wives and
cage girlfriends, ‘] wouldn't want you to do
ASS that, but maybe it's a direction worth
| considering?’ Promptly rejected.
7% | We got into our yellow shirts and
. natty bottle green suits. The thing
about suits was that they always made us feel
part of a team. When we arrived we were in our
civvies, but once we put those on we were The
Beatles! — the four-headed monster. It was good
for me that we all wore the same, in that |
really felt part of a unit.
Peeping from behind the stage to watch the
place fill up, we saw police walk in from either
side and fill the whole of the front row, upstairs
and downstairs. After them, the crowd was
allowed to come in. They were very well
behaved compared to what we'd seen of Western
crowds, but they seemed to enjoy it.
There was a funny local group on stage before
us. This was in the days when the Japanese didn't
really know how to do rock'n'roll, although they've
now got the hang of it pretty well. They sang a
song that went, ‘Hello Beatles! Welcome Beatles!’ —
something pretty naff in rock'n'roll terms, but it was
very nice of them to do it. Our show went down
quite well.

NEIL ASPINALL: The show was a bit weird! There

were the jujitsu people who used the Budokan, so they felt
it was their temple. This was the first time they'd had a rock
band in there, and they didn't like it. There were threats from
them, and so there were a lot of police around. The Japanese
were very disciplined. There were 3,000 police for 10,000
fans. The police were all over the place, keeping them under
control.

GEORGE MARTIN: It was upsetting. I remember when

George was in Germany he got a letter saying, You wont
live beyond the next month.’ And when they went to
Japan they had such heavy guards that they couldn't
move anywhere. The Japanese took those death threats
very seriously.

RINGO: The audience was very subdued. If you

look at the footage from the shows you'll see
a cop on every row. They'd all get excited in
their seats as we were playing, but they couldn't
express it.

NEIL ASPINALL: For thefirst time in a long while

the audience could hear. There was no loud screaming,
which came as a surprise: the band suddenly realised they
were out of tune and they had to get their act together. The
second show was pretty good — they had got it together by
then — but the first one, in the afternoon, was a bit of a shock.

GEORGE: The audience were reserved, but they were up on their

feet — or they tried to be, but there were police all around the
stadium with cameras with telephoto lenses, and anybody who stood
up and looked like they were going to run toward the stage was
photographed. The people were very restricted as to what they could
do and how they f oulc | respond to us. It was a warm reception —
but a bit clinical, as Japan is.
Getting back to the hotel was the same procedure in reverse:
do the show, back to our room and that was it. It was worked out
like a military manoeuvre

16 JAPAN
RINGO: I hated the Philippines. We arrived there with thousands upon
thousands of kids, with hundreds upon hundreds of policemen — and it
was a little dodgy. Everyone had guns and it was really like that
hot/Catholic/gun/Spanish Inquisition attitude.

GEORGE: As soon as we got there it was bad news. There were tough
gorillas — little men — who had short-sleeved shirts and acted very
menacingly.
The normal proceedings in those days were that, because the mania
was everywhere, we didn’t pull up at an
airport and get off the plane like normal
people. The plane would land and it
would go to the far end of the airfield
where we would get off, usually with
Neil and our ‘diplomatic bags’ (we
carried our shaving gear — and whatever
— in little bags), get in a car, bypass
passport control and go to the gig. Mal
Evans with Brian Epstein and the rest
would go and do our passports and all
that scene.
But when we got to Manila, a fellow
was screaming at us, ‘Leave those bags
there! Get in this car!’ We were being
bullied for the first time. It wasn't
respectful. Everywhere else — America,
Sweden, Germany, wherever — even
though there was a mania, there was always a lot of respect because we
were famous showbiz personalities; but in Manila it was a very negative
vibe from the moment we got off the plane, so we were a bit frightened.
We got in the car, and the guy drove off with us four, leaving
Neil behind. Our bags were on the runway and | was thinking,
This is it — we're going to get busted.’

NEIL ASPINALL: The army was there, and also some thugs in short-
sleeved shirts over their trousers, and they all bad guns; you could see the
bulges. These guys got the four Beatles and stuck them in a limo and drove
off, and wouldn't let them take their briefcases with them They left them on
the runway — and those little briefcases had the marijuana in them. So
while the confusion was going on, I put them in the boot of the limo that |
was going in, and said, ‘Take me to wherever you've taken The Beatles

GEORGE: They took us away and drove us down to Manila

harbour, put us on a boat, took us out to a motor yacht that was
anchored out in the harbour and they put us in this room
It was really humid, it was Mosquito City, and we were all
sweating and frightened. For the first time ever in our Beatle
existence, we were cut off from Neil, Mal and Brian Epstein. There
was not one of them around, and not only that, but we had a whole
row of cops with guns lining the deck around this cabin tha
were in on the boat. We were really gloomy, very b
by the whole thing. We wished we hadn't come here. \) ould
have missed it out.

THE PHILIPPINES 217

 dane i
BEATLES TOUR INFORMATION

1966 Summer Touf Germany and Japa

0 I a a a Munich Bicus Krone
WU 45) Easen, Grugahalle
JUNE 26
JUNE 27
JUNE 30
JULY 1-2: 558

¢ C ~< £ St
SS rr

4*

JGUST 13 : Detroit, Olympic Stadium

“AUGUST 4...
rr / iccaiand: Municipal Stadium
a ...fWashington, Washington Stadium
Meet 10... 0... ae .f.. :-Philadelphia, Philadelphia Stadium
Seen) 17.2... ss Aime Ke)cola)ov \Y/0-)
0)(= M-y-) miCT-1ee (180)
mueeet 18 22.2... cos. ...Boston, Suffolk Downs Racetrack
fammot 19...... 2... Pe Memphis, Memphis Coliseum
Mert 20..2....0..2.
0008 a (oravel falar) ihCrosley Field
a 6 A ES Ay a St. Louis, Busch Stadium
MMIST. 23.5..........
088 a New York, ‘Shea Syevel lan
AUGUST 24 eM wwe New York, Shea Stadium
3 AUGUST 25 2 Rae RS Seattle, Seattle Coliseum
¥ AUGUST 28 as ...:+.......Los Angeles, Dodger Stadium
AUGUST 29 Po. . oa ,....+..-.San Francisco, Candléstick Park
AUGUST 30 ........ ee... ae BY-voy-aancolme Molaro (ola

nua oRat do curd Lu Lauda) PresiKey shoul

d dropan Vt.
 We found out later that it was Imelda
Marcos (with her shoes and her bras) waiting
for us. Somebody had invited us and we
(gracefully, we thought) had declined the ofter.
But there was the TV announcer — their
equivalent of Richard Dimbleby — saying, ‘And
the First Lady is waiting with the Blue
Ladies...’ (it was like America — they had Pink
Ladies and Blue Ladies and First Ladies — and
they were all waiting there) ‘... and pretty soon
the famous pop group will be arriving.’ And
we're going, ‘Shoot — nobody's told them!’ and
the promoters are saying, ‘Well, you've got to
go now. It's only a limo to get there.’ And we
said, ‘We can't.’ We stuck to our guns and sat
the rest of the day out in the hotel. We turned
the telly off and got on with our day off.

RINGO: Personally | didn’t know anything

about Madame Marcos having invited us to
dinner. But we'd said ‘no’ and Brian Epstein had
told her ‘no’. John and | were sharing a room,
and we woke up in the morning and phoned
down for eggs and bacon (or whatever we were
eating in those days) and all the newspapers,
because we always liked to read about ourselves.
WE WERE JUST HANGING OUT
IN OUR BEDS, CHATTING AND
DOING WHATEVER WE WERE
i ee DOING, AND TIME WENT BY SO
Ss miey «= WECALLED DOWN AGAIN:
‘EXCUSE ME, CAN WE HAVE THE
vim

NEIL ASPINALL: They drove me to the end of a pier, and I got out of the car BREAKFAST?’ STILL NOTHING
and said, ‘Where are they?’ They pointed: ‘There they are,’ and there was a big HAPPENED, SO WE PUT THE TV ON, AND THERE
boat miles away, in Woe middle of the harbour. There were what seemed to be WAS A HORRIFIC TV SHOW OF MADAME MARCOS
rival militia gangs. One gang had taken them and put them on this boat to meet SCREAMING, "THEY'VE LET ME DOWN!’ THERE
some people who weren't the people putting on the show. It was all very WERE ALL THESE SHOTS WITH THE CAMERAMAN
strange. I never really understood why they got put on a boat. FOCUSING ON EMPTY PLATES AND UP INTO THE
LITTLE KIDS' FACES, ALL CRYING BECAUSE THE
GEORGE: We've no idea why they took us to the boat; | still don't BEATLES HADN'T TURNED UP. WE VERY NICELY
know to this day. An hour or two later, Brian Epstein arrived, really HAD SAID 'NO' TO THE INVITATION.
flustered, with the Philippine promoter, and he was yelling and
shouting. Everyone was shouting and then they took us off the boat, put
us in a car and drove us to a hotel suite. NEIL ASPINALL: I think they'd been invited and Brian had telexed them or
The next morning we were woken up by bangs on the door of the sent a telegram saying ‘no’ — The Beatles didn't do that sort of stuff
for
hotel, and there was a lot of panic going on outside. Somebody came anybody. They wouldnt get involved in politics and they wouldn'tgo to the
into the room and said, ‘Come on! You're supposed to be at the palace.’ palace. But it was ignored as if he badn't said it.
We said, ‘What are you talking about? We're not going to any palace.’ — I remember waking up in the morning and having breakfast, and the
‘You're supposed to be at the palace! Turn on the television.’ television was on with the news that The Beatles were about to turn up at
We did, and there it was, live from the palace. There was a huge line Imelda Marcoss party for a lot of children. It was saying, ‘OK, they'll be bere
of people either side of the long marble corridor, with kids in their best in five minutes.’ They were looking at each other and asking, ‘What are they
clothing, and the TV commentator saying, ‘And they're still not here talking about?’ They didn't turn up.
yet. The Beatles are supposed to be here.’ After it was all over, and they badn' turned up, and people were going
We sat there in amazement. We couldn't believe it, and we just had barmy, we asked Brian what had happened, and he said, ‘I cancelled it. You
to watch ourselves not arriving at the presidential palace. weren tsupposed to go there.’
It turned nasty in the Philippines. I didn't eat for three days. They would
PAUL: I went out on my own in the morning, down to the kind of ‘Wall bring up food that was terrible. Even ifit was cornflakes for breakfast, you'd
Street’ area. | remember taking a lot of photographs because right up pour the milk out and it would come out in lumps. They bad given you sour
against it was the shanty-town area. There were cardboard dwellings milk. I remember once ordering dinner and it came up on one of those big trays
right up against this ‘Wall Street’, which I'd never seen so well with the rolled lid on it, and I rolled back the lid, and —‘Obbbbb!' — just by
juxtaposed. | got the camera out: ‘Wow, this is good stuff!’ And | bought the smell of it Iknew we couldnt eat it.
a couple of paintings from the shanty town as presents to go back Paul and I sneaked out there as well; we must bave been very brave or very
home, and went back to the hotel to have lunch. naive. We got in a carand drove for miles — it was like Manhattan for five
Everyone was up and about then, and we were in our hotel room minutes and then a dreadful shanty town for a long way out — to some sand
when they started saying, ‘You've got to go to the President's Palace dunes. We bought a couple of pictures, sat in the sand dunes and had a smoke,
now! Remember that engagement?’ We said, 'No, no, no.’ The and then drove back io the hotel with everybody freaking out (especially the
' promoters, with those white shirts with lace that everyone in Manila security): ‘Where have you been? How did you get out?’
_ seemed to wear, looked a little heavy to us. A couple of them carried Although people kept saying it was a failure in the Philippines
guns, so it was a bit difficult. did two gigs to a total of about 100,000 people (after the Marcos thing
We were used to each different country doing it their own way. all the fans bad a really good time. They really enjoyed it. T eeere wer
They were starting to bang on the door: ‘They will come! They must thugs about, organising things (nothing to do with the army
me!’ But we were saying, ‘Look, just lock the bloody door.’ We were to be organising the fans rather than us. The cars were going th
used to it: ‘It's our day off.’ and the dressing room was in a mess.

THE PHILIPPINES 219

GEORGE: Again, we had a big problem with the concert. Brian Epstein stay out of their way. It was all really negative. | saw a couple of
had made a contract for a stadium of so many thousand people, but Buddhist monks, and went and hid behind them. R
when we got there it was like the Monterey Pop Festival. There were
about 200,000 people on the site, and we were thinking, ‘Well, the RINGO: There was chanting, with people hating us all the way — and —
promoter is probably making a bit on the side out of this.’ We went now at the airport they started spitting at us, spitting on us, and there's —
back to the hotel really tired and jet-lagged and pretty cheesed off. | the famous story of John and me hiding behind these nuns, because we
don't recall much of what happened after that, until the newspapers thought, ‘It’s a Catholic country — they won't beat up the nuns.’
arrived and we saw the TV news.
JOHN: All along the route to the airport there were people waving at
PAUL: The next morning someone brought in a newspaper, and on the us, but | could see a few old men booing us. When they started on us at _
front it just said in massive letters: ‘BEATLES SNUB PRESIDENT’. Oh dear! the airport, I was petrified. | thought | was going to get hit, so | headed —
‘Well, we didn’t mean to,’ we thought. We'll just say we're sorry. for three nuns and two monks, thinking that might stop them. As far as | _
We were scheduled to leave Manila that morning, and as we were know I was just pushed feat but I could have been kicked and ne
leaving the hotel everyone was a bit nasty at reception, so we had to known it.
scuffle out as if we hadn't paid our bill. ‘You treat like ordinary passenger! Ordinary passenger!’ they were —
saying. We were saying: ‘Ordinary passenger? He doesn't get kicked,
RINGO: Things started to get really weird. ‘Come on! Get out of bed! does he?’ I saw five in sort of outfits who were doing it, all the kicking 7‘
Get packed — we're getting out of here.’ And as we got downstairs and and booing and shouting. | was petrified, and pushed a lot. | was very—
started to get to the car — we really had no help — there was only one delicate, and moved every time they touched me.” j
motorbike compared to the huge motorcade that had brought us in. That was Brian's cock-up. Because he'd had the invitation given to
him, and declined it, and never told us. And the next day they wouldn't —
GEORGE: It was ‘BEATLES SNUB FIRST FAMILY’ — that's how they decided accept that we'd declined it, and were hustling and pushing us around at —
to present it. Nobody ever said, ‘Well, they were never asked.’ It was the airport, and wouldn't help us with our bags. It was terrifying.”
quite likely it was the promoter or the agent who had done a deal;
brown-nosing Mrs Marcos, probably. She was later quoted as saying, PAUL: We were quite frightened. Most of the aggression (luckily for
‘Oh, | never liked them anyway — their music is horrible!’ us) was directed towards our people. | think Alf got thrown down the
THE WHOLE PLACE TURNED ON US. WE HAD PEOPLE stairs violently by one of them. But mostly it wasn't overt — though they
YELLING AND SCREAMING WHEN WE TRIED TO GET TO THE were annoyed.
AIRPORT. NOBODY WOULD GIVE US A RIDE. WE COULDN'T We felt a bit guilty, but we didn’t feel it was our cock-up. Now,
GET ANY CARS, THERE WAS NOTHING AVAILABLE. knowing more about the regime, what | think is that they had ignored
Finally somebody managed to get a car or two and they put our our telling them we weren't coming: ‘Let them just try and not come —
baggage in one and we got in the other. We were driven to the airport. welll make it difficult for them.’
Two things were happening simultaneously: there were all the gov- There was a group of nuns in the corner of the airport, and when all
ernment officials or police, who were trying to punch us and yelling and the fisticuffs broke out, and with the taxi drivers behind the plate-glass
waving fists at us, and then underneath that were the young kids who window, we went over to the nuns. (It was rather a nice little shot —
were still around doing the mania. nuns and Beatles in the corner. We had a lot in common in many ways:
black outfits, and little groups obviously in the same mould.) We stood
NEIL ASPINALL: They were really putting obstacles in our way. When we behind them: ‘You'll have to get through them to get to us. You'll have |
were on the way to the airport, a soldier kept sending us round and round the to get through them, mate.’
roundabout until in the end I told the driver to pull over. They didn't actually protect us; they just stood there looking a bit
bemused. Whenever they moved, we moved the other side of them.
PAUL: We got down to the airport and found they'd turned the
escalators off. So we had to walk up the escalators. ‘What's wrong?’ — NEIL ASPINALL: All the thugs in their Hawaiian shirts were pushing and
‘We don't know — we're not sure.’ ‘Would someone take the luggage, shoving and punching. It was dreadful. I'm sure nobody got badly burt, but
then? There don't appear to be any luggage people around.’ It was a that was because we didn't fight back, so we got pushed and shoved. We knew
case of, ‘Carry your own luggage.’ All right — let's get out of here, then, not to fight back.
if that's what it's going to be. If we bad fought back it could have been very bad. It was very, very scary,
Behind a huge plate-glass window, the sort they have in airports, and nothing like this had ever happened before — and nothing like it bas ever
and on the taxi rank outside there were all the Filipino taxi guys happened since.
banging on the window — and we're all going ‘gibber, gibber'’.
GEORGE: Finally they announced the flight and we boarded the plane
NEIL ASPINALL: Nobody would help us with all this equipment and so we —and that was the greatest feeling, just to be on that plane. It was a
started using the escalators and then they stopped. So we had to lug all the stuff sense of relief. Then the plane sat there.
up the stairs, and once we got it all up the stairs the escalators started to work Eventually, there was an announcement on the speaker saying, ‘Will
again. The Beatles were going to Delhi and the equipment was going back to Mr Epstein and Mr Evans and Mr Barrow...’ (Tony, who was our press
England. So at the check-in desk we kept saying, ‘OK, that's going to Delbi,’ agent at that time) '... get off the plane.’ They all had to get off, and
and they kept putting it on the pile that was going to England. In the end Mal they looked terrified.
at anover the counter and sorted it all out forus because nobody was going Mal went past me down the aisle of the plane breaking out in tears,
to do tt. and he turned to me and said, ‘Tell Lil | love her.’ (Lil was his wife.) He
thought that was it: the plane was going to go and he would be stuck in
GEORGE: We were all carrying amplifiers and suitcases — nobody was Manila. The whole feeling was, ‘Fucking hell, what's going to happen?’
helping us to do anything — but the mania was going on with people
trying to grab us, and other people trying to hit us, and we finally got PAUL: When we got on the plane, we were all kissing the seats. It was
checked in. feeling as if we'd found sanctuary. We had definitely been in a foreign
It seemed like forever at the check-in desk. We eventually got into country where all the rules had changed and they carried guns. So we
the departure lounge, which was a huge room, but then the thugs weren't too gung-ho about it at all.
appeared again — the-same people with the short-sleeved shirts who had Then the announcement came over. Tony Barrow had to go back
been shouting at us as soon as we had got off the plane when we arrived into the lion's den, and they made him pay an amazing airport-leaving
in Manila. As well as Mal and Neil, we had Alf Bicknell with us, helping Manila tax that I think they just dreamed up. Strangely enough, | think
out, and I saw him get punched by one of the thugs. it came to the same amount as the receipts for the trip. | think that was
There were a number of them coming up to us, pushing, and the story.
screaming, ‘Get over there!’ They forced us back, and then another one
would come around the other way, doing it again: ‘Get over there!’ | was GEORGE: We sat there for what seemed like a couple of hours. It was
trying to keep my eye on all the people, keep moving ahead of them to probably only thirty minutes or an hour, but it was humid and hot.

220 THE PHILIPPINES

Finally they reboarded, the front door was closed and the plane was
allowed to leave. They took the money that we had earned at the
concert and that was it; we got out of there and it was such a relief.
I felt such resentment against those people.
21st October, 1971.
PAUL: I remember when we got back home a journalist asked
George, ‘Did you enjoy it?’ And he said, ‘If | had an atomic bomb
I'd go over there and drop it on them.’
It was an unfortunate little trip, but the nice thing about it was
J. Lennon, Esq.,
that in the end (when we found out what Marcos and Imelda had c/o ABKCO Industries Inc.,
been doing to the people, and the rip-off that the whole thing 1700 Broadway,
NEW YORK, N.Y. 10019.
allegedly was) we were glad to have done what we did. Great! We
must have been the only people who'd ever dared to snub Marcos. Dear John,
But we didn't really know what we were doing politically until You probably remember the chaos which
many years later. surrounded your visit to Manila in the Philippines
in 1966 but I am wondering whether you can remember
one specific incident that was supposed to have
RINGO: We had fantasies that we were going to be put in jail, occurred,
because it was a dictatorship there in those days, not a democracy. Apparently your plane was grounded by the
You lose your rights in a dictatorship, no matter who you are. So authorities until certain tax had been paid on the
income of the tour. I understand that in fact a
we weren't going to get off the plane. Our people were allowed representative of the Manila promoter boarded the
back on, and that was my first and last time in Manila. plane and Brian actually handed to him in cash
$17,000 for the payment of the tax. It is this
incident that I am wondering whether you remember
NEIL ASPINALL: I'm sure it made the band think hard about touring. It because since then efforts have been made on your
behalf to recover the money and they have now
might have been one of the last nails in the touring coffin. reached the stage where the lawyers in the
Philippines are trying to produce evidence of
GEORGE MARTIN: When they got out of the country they said, actual payment.

‘Never again. This is it.’ They said to Brian then that they would not tour Can you recall Brian handing over any
again. Brian said, ‘Sorry, lads, we have got something fixed up for Shea cash on the plane ?
Stadium. If we cancel it you are going to lose a million dollars...’ For the sake of convenience, could you please
Oops — and they did do Shea Stadium. write either yes or no on this letter and return it to
me and we-can discuss it in more detail when you return.

Yours sincerely,

JOHN: NO PLANE'S GOING TO GO

THROUGH THE PHILIPPINES WITH ME
ON IT. | WOULDN'T EVEN FLY OVER IT. Me
Sa ee
WE'LL JUST NEVER GO TO ANY Pink Ku b dm ope Moun Mon ev,

Boge, ter Pelee ‘aeun af ol

NUT-HOUSES AGAIN.”

jen serie
becoe feoy
 Dear Paul,

Welcome home. Hope you had a marvelous time.

Cleeve
Sorry to bother you so quickly, but could you please see Maureen
GEORGE: Before the tour was like to invite you to lubbh. She has done all the
on Monday? She would
planned, | had an arrangement made
that on the return journey from the boys, and Monday is her latest deadline.
, I
Philippines to London I would stop Could you leave a message so that, when I phone monday morning
off in India, because | wanted to go have your answer.
and check it out and buy a good
sitar. | had asked Neil if he would JOHN: CHRISTIANITY WILL GO. IT WILL VANISH
come with me, because | didn’t want AND SHRINK. I NEEDN'T ARGUE ABOUT THAT, I'M
to be in India on my own. He
agreed, and we had booked for the RIGHT AND I WILL BE PROVED RIGHT. WE'RE MORE
two of us to get off in Delhi. POPULAR THAN JESUS NOW, IDON'T KNOW
Somewhere between leaving WHICH WILL GO FIRST — ROCK'N'ROLL OR
London and going through Germany CHRISTIANITY. JESUS WAS ALL RIGHT, BUT HIS
and Japan to the Philippines, one by
one the others had all said, ‘I think I'll DISCIPLES WERE THICK AND ORDINARY. IT'S THEM
| come, too.’ But we got to Delhi and, TWISTING IT THAT RUINS IT FOR ME.”
after the experience in the Philippines, the others didn’t want to know.
hey didn't want another foreign country — they wanted to go home. GEORGE: Why can't we bring all this out in the open? Why is there all
| was feeling a little bit like that myself; | could have gone home. this stuff about blasphemy? If Christianity's as good as they say it is, it
But | was in Delhi, and as | had made the decision to get off there | should stand up to a bit of discussion. [MARCH 1966]
ought, ‘Well, it will be OK. At least in India they don't know The
atles. We'll slip in to this nice ancient country, and have a bit of PAUL: John used to know Maureen Cleave of the London Evening
_peace and quiet.’ Standard quite well. We'd gravitate to any journalists who were a little
The others were saying, ‘See you around, then — we're going straight better than the average, because we could talk to them. We felt we
home.’ Then the stewardess came down the plane and said, ‘Sorry, weren't stupid rock'n'roll stars. We were interested in other things, and
youve got to get off. We've sold your seats on to London,’ ana she were seen as spokesmen for youth. So Maureen Cleave's article with
made them all leave the plane. John touched on religion, and he started to say something that we'd
So we got off. It was night-time, and we were standing there waiting all felt quite keenly: that the Anglican Church had been going
for our baggage, and then the biggest disappointment | had was a downhill for years. They themselves had been complaining about lack
realisation of the extent of the fame of The Beatles — because there were of congregations.
so many dark faces in the night behind a wire mesh fence, all shouting, Maureen was interesting and easy to talk to. We all did an in-depth
Beatles! Beatles!’ and following us. interview with her. In his, John happened to be talking about religion
| We got in the car and drove off, and they were all on little scooters, because, although we were not religious, it was something we were
,with the Sikhs in turbans all going, 'Oh, Beatles, Beatles!’ | thought, ‘Oh, interested in.
no! Foxes have holes and birds have nests, but Beales have nowhere to We used to get a number of Catholic priests showing up at our gigs,
_ lay their heads.’ and we'd do a lot of debating backstage, about things like the church's
Delhi was a really funny feeling. I'm sure a lot of people have had wealth relative to world poverty. We'd say, ‘You should have gospel
_ this experience when they go there. In the parts of New Delhi that were singing — that'll pull them in. You should be more lively, instead of
_ built by the British, it isn’t the little streets you might expect: we were singing hackneyed old hymns. Everyone's heard them and they're not
on big wide roads, dual carriageways with roundabouts. getting off on them any more.’
The amazing thing was that there were so many people out there. So we felt quite strongly that the church should get its act together.
All the roundabouts had hundreds and hundreds of people sitting in the We were actually very pro-church; it wasn't any sort of demonic, anti-
dark, a lot of them squatting in groups, including old guys with pipes. religion point of view that John was trying to express. If you read the
| There were crowds of people everywhere. | was thinking, ‘God! What's whole article, what he was trying to say was’ something that we all
happened?’ It was as if the Superbowl was on, or there'd been a big believed in: ‘I don't know what's wrong with the church. At the moment
disaster, with all the people milling around. Then you get to realise The Beatles are bigger than Jesus Christ. They're not building Jesus
that’s how it is — there are a lot of people there. enough; they ought to do more.’ But he made the unfortunate mistake of
D The next day | bought a sitar. | had a guy bring them over — again, talking very freely because Maureen was someone we knew very well, to
;we couldn't really get out easily. | bought a sitar off a man called Rikhi whom we would just talk straight from the shoulder. Was it a mistake? |
am, whose shop is still there in Delhi to this day. don't know. In the short term, yes. Maybe not in the long term.
) We got in cars and had a ride out of Delhi to see what it looked like.
That was quite an eye-opener. We were in enormous old late- 1950s
Cadillacs, and we went to a little village and got out of the cars. We all
had Nikon cameras, and that was when it first sunk into me about the
poverty. There were little kids coming up to us with flies all over them
and asking for money: ‘Baksheesh! Baksheesh!’ Our cameras were worth
more money than the whole village would earn in a lifetime. It was a
very strange feeling seeing this: Cadillacs and poverty.

RINGO: That was our first time in India, and it was quite interesting;
but we had a bad day when the guys from British Airways took us out to
see a camel drawing water — they go round in circles to work the pump
where the water comes out. You could always tell the people who
_worked for BA in Delhi, because they all wore ties even though it was
about 300 degrees in the shade. One guy thought it would be a bit of
_ fun to jump on the poor animal that was walking round— probably that
was all it would ever do in its life, drag this harness and draw the water. ‘ or
‘This is
sise adake belated note to say how very satisfied
It was crazy, so we all got a bit angry with him. eas d I was with, not only mine, but all the articles which you did
aeestes
eee Fankba a
the best that's been done.
But then we went shopping, and going around looking at the shops
is probably the biggest memory of that time in Delhi. We were offered
huge pieces of ivory carvings, and we thought it was all too expensive
— huge chess pieces, which would now be antiques and worth fortunes.
‘I'm glad we didn't buy it; even in those days we were thinking not
0 buy ivory.
 JIN lS

2p et sig) as mw
.
woe
4
a=
™
4

uc MPEROR LDN
ii HANSON 3
£4
a 2 J@
fs e
.
i ;
& i’ & Fg:

ENT To Tit
LRG STATEM
THE FOL LOWI
,SSUED ore t
TELEPHOU e qu
HAVE
ap PR ov al At
UITH dOHys co_ums 31
WORE THAN 3 BOuTHS
ONDON LE NN GM
DE TOAE CONTEXT
Lennon MA €iruth RELY
gut oF
AN D RE PRESENTED &
BEEN QUOTED IOM and
ra RELGS
INTERESTED
1S DEEPLY

cCOMCAB

M4 ” <
cet

ass SLE a
ag A
r em aR Th PL EASE, AROISE
iv
win
TATLOR WEL PED me
Tat eeReK
 When the bad news comes they
messenger and they don't listen to
”
©. Whether it be Christianity, PAY FOR |
, Buddhism, Confucianism,
Maoism, everything. It's always about A PRETTY
(on andnever about what they said.*”

COR: The Maureen Cleave article

itedin the London Evening Standard
ich, but it appeared in America just BECAUSE OF WHA
merican tour in August that year. SAID, BUT TO SAVE OL
ent about The Beatles being bigger
Bf tas turned into a big headline in a teen LIVES BECAUSE THERE
ine called Datebook. Brian was in North
recuperating from Manila, among other WERE A LOT OF VERY
because it had made him ill — and he got HEAVY THREATS — NOT
bat the Americans were going bananas
Comment, which was only one line in
: iF | oe ;
ONLY TO HIM, BUT TO
ge Spread. THE WHOLE BAND.
te)XGE MARTIN: It got picked up in America, SOMETIMES YOU'VE
"anid reported on various radio stations and
magnified, and a storm of protest bit The Beatles GOT TO TAKE YOUR
‘Who do they think they are, comparing
hemselves to the Lord?’ Records were burned in public bonfires and banned by
CAP IN YOUR HAND
fadio stations, and it reached such a pitch that Brian had to prevail upon John AND SAY, ‘EXCUSE ME:
to makeastatement and an apology.
"You had a serious and long talk about religion (in which you are very interested)

GEORGE: The ‘bigger than Jesus’ quote wasn't really said the way it and the quote came out Of the fact that you were astonished and surprised that
e out in America, where they took that one thing and blew it out of
‘context. But the repercussions were big, particularly in the Bible Belt. In Christianity in the last 50 years im this country has gone off in ita appeal. When
‘the South they were having a field day. There's footage of the disc you said the Beatles are more popular than Jesus you were not trying toupset
jockey who started all the uproar saying, ‘Come and bring your Beatle
ash and deposit it here! We will have different sites all around the anyone, butmerely suggesting that your appeal is more immediate.* He felt
fo deposit this trash and we'll be burning it.’ And the Ku Klux
/Were out theré saying, ‘We're going to get them.’
you shouldn't mention the Disciples being "thick" as that would cause more

NEIL ASPINALL: As the Americans had taken exception to the comment, Americans
and to all people throughout the world who may have x
Brian suggested to John that he record a taped statement explaining what he this quote, which wastaken outofcontedt." cial
ad meant and regretting all the fuss. Studio time was booked with George
Martin, but then there was a change of plan. George Martin hassaldhewilldothetape with youhas
and
Brian went over to the States prior to the tour and made apologies, and in a booked Number 3 Studio at Abbey Road for 2.30PM tomorrow (as your BBG thing = eg
) press conference told promoters that ifthey wanted to cancel a show they could

renee
ee fe ow vic ee
do so. Nobody did. is for 4PM).
at Paul's ' x ec e

RIAIN EPSTEIN’'S PRESS STATEMENT: The quote which Jobn Lennon i

is 5 hours BE aie
made more than three months ago to a London columnist has been quoted and you want to reach him, (remembering NY
Hisrepresented entirely out of context. Lennon is deeply interested in religion, and
at the time having serious talks with Maureen Cleave, who is both a friend — "Waldorf TOWERS which is EL, 5-3000. Our ofticethere
) ofThe Beatles and a representative for the London Evening Standard.
©) What be said, and meant, was that be was astonished that in the last fifty
be homie (HYDe Pk 6440) til around 7.45 tonight...
eats the Church in England, and therefore Christ, bad suffered a decline in
tuterest: He did not mean to boast about The Beatles’ fame. He meant to point
out that The Beatles’ effect appeared to be, to him, a more immediate one upon _JOHN: I didn’
"certain of the younger generation. eer sf they take things so se
i they realise tha
O: It was a real mess in America because they took it the wrong Brian and Paul a
Way. We read it and it passed us by. It wasn't blasphemous— itwas a scared stiff. |saw
point of view. If we took it on a worldwide view the church would still saying, Well
3e winning. There weren't more people coming to see us than going were bigg er than Je
-hurch,
a valid point. We were punks and said a few things, but not to —
lise What it caused. It only did so in America because someone took
Aat one line and shot it to the moon. epoyaan Si

JOHN: In England nobody took any notice: they know this guy's a
1
abbing off — who is he? But over here some lunatic gets his Klan mask©
in and starts running round burning crosses.”

GE: Although there was a big palaver, we got to Americ

veld a press conference where John apologised. Under the pre
he cameras and the press, despite the stress of having to deal with
we'd caused, he gave his apology or explanation.
He got through it nd at
we decided, ‘We'll go and do the gig.' oF
RINGO: John did not want to apologise, because he GEORGE: You can't help it, and if you say something like,
dida’t say what they said. But what was happening ‘Britain's becoming a police state,’ you say it exactly the
:round us was getting too violent, and so Brian asked IF EVERYBODY same as two friends in a pub across the bar.
sim and kept asking him to say something, and in the WHO HAD A I don't like supposing that somebody like Jesus was
end John realised that he'd have to go out and do it. alive now and pretending and imagining what he'd do.
GUN JUST But if he was Jesus and he held that he was the real
JOHN: | don’t need to go to church. I respect churches SHOT Jesus that had the same views as before — well, ‘Eleanor
because of the sacredness that's been put on them over Rigby’ wouldn't mean that much to him. [CHICAGO
the years by people who do believe. But | think a lot of
THEMSELVES PRESS CONFERENCE, 11TH AUGUST 1966 |
bad things have happened in the name of the church THERE
PAUL: We don't care about those who don't like us
and in the name of Christ. Therefore | shy away from
church, and as Donovan once said, ‘I go to my own
WOULDN'T BE A because of the statement. We'd rather perform for
church in my own temple once a day.’ And | think PROBLEM. people who do like us. We found out that the guy
people who need a church should go. And the others who started it did it purely as an unashamed publicity
who know the church is in your own head should visit PAUL: THREATS WERE HARD stunt.
that temple because that's where the source is. We're FOR US TO COMPREHEND. WE
all God. Christ said, The Kingdom of Heaven is within WEREN'T INTO PREJUDICE. WE JOHN: It doesn’t matter about people not liking our
you.’ And the Indians say that and the Zen people say WERE ALWAYS VERY KEEN ON records or not liking the way we look or what we say.
that. We're all God. I'm not a god or the God, but we're MIXED-RACE AUDIENCES. | They're entitled to not like us — and we're entitled not
all God and we're all potentially divine — and REMEMBER A WOMAN COMING to have anything to do with them if we don't want to,
potentially evil. We all have everything within us and TO OUR SCHOOL ONCE, GIVING or not to regard them. We've all got our rights...
the Kingdom of Heaven is nigh and within us, and if A LECTURE ON SOUTH AFRICA, Harold.”
you look hard enough you'll see it.” SAYING, ‘IT'S MARVELLOUS —
YOU CAN GET A BOY TO DO RINGO: It shows us where people are at, because they
PAUL: We all discussed it. We knew it wasn't really a THE TEA, AND WE HAVE BOYS love you and love you, but then when something like
big issue for us, but because it had become so big we CLEANING UP, AND BOYS IN that happens millions of kids start burning their Beatles
couldn't deny it. THE CRICKET NETS...’ WE SAID, records. There were bonfires of them — which was OK
I've never seen John so nervous. He realised the full ‘DON'T YOU FEEL A LITTLE for us because later they rebought them! But we knew
import of what had happened. So he had to say, ‘I EMBARRASSED? IT'S LIKE SLAVES, it was getting pretty rough.
didn't mean it like that. | meant I'm actually quite ISN'T IT?’ —'NO, NO, NO. THEY The repercussions were that we played a lot of
supportive...’ — which people were able to accept as an LOVE IT, THE LITTLE BOYS.’ places where people were getting really angry. The Ku
answer, except in the Bible Belt. Klux Klan were out in force, which was pretty fright-
GEORGE: | THINK WE WERE ening. There was always that edge in America — we
JOHN: If I'd have said, "Television is more popular OFFERED GIGS IN SOUTH knew that they did have guns.
than Jesus,’ | might have got away with it. | am sorry | AFRICA BUT WE WOULDN'T GO, I don't think we contemplated cancelling the tour.
opened my mouth. | just happened to be talking to a AND BECAUSE OF THAT THEY We never cancelled anything. Brian would say, ‘Here
friend and | used the word ‘Beatles’ as a remote thing — BANNED OUR RECORDS THERE. you go,’ and we would say, ‘Oh, we're off again.’ I think
‘Beatles’, like other people see us. | said they are having we just moaned: ‘This is enough.’ But it was a routine:
more influence on kids and things than anything else, JOHN: MusIclANs DON'T ‘It's autumn, you make a record and get it out for
including Jesus. I said it in that way, which was the USUALLY HAVE THIS THING Christmas.’ There were all these strange rules, and we'd
wrong way. I'm not anti-God, anti-Christ, or anti- ABOUT WHAT STREET YOU LIVE keep on going. But it was starting to get too much. It
religion. | was not knocking it. | was not saying we are ON. THEY GET THAT SCENE was building up to us saying, ‘This is it.’
greater or better. | think it's a bit silly. If they don't like SORTED OUT AS SOON AS THEY
us, why don't they just not buy the records? MEET OTHER MUSICIANS. IT'S GEORGE: With the stress and all the things we had to
It was part of an in-depth series she was doing, and THE MUSIC THAT COUNTS. BUT go through anyway, it was something we could have
so | wasn't really thinking in terms of PR or translating THERE'S NO COMMON done without. There was a consideration that we might
what I was saying. It was going on for a couple of DENOMINATOR FOR SOCIETY not bother with the tour because we felt we were going
hours, and | said it just to cover the subject. It's so LIKE IN MuSIC.°8 to get threatened.
complicated, and it got out of hand. We thought we could actually pull out of one
When I first heard about the repercussions | PAUL: WITH THAT BEING OUR concert in the South, in Memphis — and in Memphis
thought, ‘It can't be true — it's just one of those things.’ ATTITUDE, SHARED BY ALL THE there was film of a guy from the Ku Klux Klan with his
And then when | realised it was serious, | was worried GROUP, WE NEVER WANTED TO shades on, saying, ‘We have ways of dealing with
stiff because | knew how it would go on, and the things PLAY SOUTH AFRICA OR ANY this...’ But apparently the members of the Klan who
that would get said about it, and all those miserable PLACES WHERE BLACKS WOULD were outside the stadium got chased away by the fans.
pictures of me looking like a cynic, and it would go on BE SEPARATED. PEOPLE SAID TO So although we were feeling quite frightened (1
and on and on and get out of hand, and | couldn't US LATER THAT EVEN IF YOU remember sitting in a little minibus on the way to the
control it. | can't answer for it when it gets that big, LET EVERYBODY IN, ALL THE gig, feeling a bit scared) we did the show. Nothing
because it’s nothing to do with me then. BLACK PEOPLE TENDED TO happened. We got out there and that was it.
I'm sorry | said it for the mess it's made, but I never STICK TOGETHER AND ALL THE
meant it as an anti-religious thing. My views are from WHITE PEOPLE. YOU DON'T PAUL: By the time we got to the Bible Belt, down
what I've read or observed of Christianity, and what it INTEGRATE JUST BECAUSE South, there were people banging on our windows. |
was, and what it has been, and what it could be. I'm not SOMEONE SAYS IT'S NICE — YOU particularly remember a young boy, maybe eleven or
knocking it or saying it's bad. I'm just saying it seems to SIT WITH YOUR MATES. THAT twelve years old, banging on the window of our coach.
be shrinking and losing context. Nothing seems to be WAS ALL RIGHT, BUT WE DIDN'T If he could have got to us, | think he would have killed
replacing it. It's no good going on and saying, ‘Yes, it's WANT ANY SEGREGATION. WE us; he was fired up with the Spirit of the Lord. And we
all fine, we're all Christians and we're all doing this,’ WERE VERY KEEN ON PEOPLE'S were saying, ‘No, we love you. It's OK.’
and we're not doing it! RIGHTS. It made us wonder about touring. It was a case of
| don't profess to be a practising Christian. | think IT WASN'T OUT OF ANY how much of a good thing can you have? How long
Christ was what he was, and if anyone says anything GOODY-GOODY THING; can you sustain things? Every tour had gone great,
great about him, | believe, but I'm not a practising WE JUST THOUGHT, ‘WHY marvellous, but we were becoming a bit fed up anyway
Christian like | was brought up to be. SHOULD YOU SEPARATE BLACK because we'd been at it so long — and it gets gruelling:
| got away with it in England inasmuch as nobody PEOPLE FROM WHITE? THAT'S one Holiday Inn after another. Now other things were
took offence and saw through me, but in America it STUPID, ISN'T IT?’ starting to happen: Manila and threats — and people
went the other way. We forget we're Beatles sometimes. thinking we're anti-Christ!

226 USA « CANADA

 a ee ADA SFhatlonart ‘fo orate
4:00 P.M
Amphitheatre 20,800 for
8:00 P, M.
2 shows
ugust 13 DETROIT Olympic Stadium
4:00 P, M,

concert at midday, then take all the gear

apart and go to the airport, fly to St Louis,
set up and play the gig originally planned
for that day. In those days all we had were
three amps, three guitars, and a set of drums.
Imagine trying to do it now!

MAL EVANS: Open-air concerts in the States

were terrible. When it looked like rain in the
open air, I used to be scared stiff. Rain on the
wires and everybody would have been blown
up, yet ifthey'd stopped the show, the kids
~, 000 for would have stampeded.
2 shows
PAUL: When we played one place it rained
quite heavily, and they put bits of corru-
gated iron over the stage, so it felt like the
worst little gig we'd ever played at even
before we'd started as a band. We were
having to worry about the rain getting in
the amps and this took us right back to the
Cavern days — it was worse than those
early days. And | don't even think the
house was full.
After the gig | remember us getting in a
big, empty steel-lined wagon, like a removal
van. There was no furniture in there —
nothing. We were sliding around trying to
JOHN: We dare not go out on the streets. We just stay in the hotel hold on to something, and at that moment everyone said, ‘Oh, this
room until the car or coach calls to take us to the show. We miss an bloody touring lark — I've had it up to here, man.’
awful lot, but I suppose we will see it one day. I finally agreed. I'd been trying to say, ‘Ah, touring’s good and it
We seem to have gone back every August, as far as | can see. Like keeps us sharp. We need touring, and musicians need to play. Keep
our annual trip. The longest tour we ever do is three weeks, and it's music live.’ | had held on to that attitude when there were doubts, but
usually America where we do the longest tours. Three weeks — if you're finally | agreed with them.
busy, it's all over before you know what's happened, and you're back George and John were the ones most against touring; they got
home. ” ‘, particularly fed up. So we agreed to say nothing, but never to tour
again. We thought we'd get into recording, and say nothing until
NEIL ASPINALL: The American tour was a repetition of what they'd done the some journalist asked, ‘Are you going out on tour?’ — ‘Not yet.’ We
year before, and therefore it was boring, really. It was the same good old wouldn't make The Big Announcement that we'd finished touring
exciting America, but it’ like anything else — ifyou've done it once or twice, the forever, but it would gradually dawn on people: ‘They don't appear to
third time is a bit old hat. be going on tour, do they? How long was that? Ten years? Maybe
When they played Shea Stadium again, for me it blended in with thefirst they've given it up.’
one, though it was said there were slightly fewer people there than the year That was the main point: we'd always tried to keep some fun in it for
before. For some reason I missed the police van that was taking us. I had gone ourselves. In anything you do you have to do that, and we'd been pretty
back for something, and before I could get in the van, they slammed the doors good at it. But now even America was beginning to pall because of the
and off it went. I was left at the hotel, so Igot a cab, but that broke down in conditions of touring and because we'd done it so many times.
Harlem. Another cab took me to the stadium, but there were thousands of people,
and I thought: ‘Ob God, they're really going to let me in! I'm going to just RINGO: In 1966 the road was getting pretty boring and it was also
knock on the door and say, “I'm with The Beatles?”’ Then I saw the four of coming to the end for me. Nobody was listening at the shows. That
them hanging out ofawindow, and they saw me wandering round the car was OK at the beginning, but it got that we were playing really bad,
park. It was like magic, they were shouting, ‘There he is! Let him in!’ and the reason | joined The Beatles was because they were the best
In the Washington gig there bad been a Ku Klux Klan demonstration, but band in Liverpool. I always wanted to play with good players. That was
it turned out to be six guys in white sheets and conical hats walking round with what it was all about. First and foremost, we were musicians: singers,
a placard. It really didn't amount to much, But the assassination threats in writers, performers. Where we ended up on a huge crazy pedestal was
Memphis were more scary. not really in my plan. My plan was to keep playing great music. But it
was obvious to us that the touring had to end soon, because it wasn't
JOHN: One night on a show in the South somewhere [Memphis] working any more.
somebody let off a firecracker while we were on stage. There had been On the last tour of America the most exciting thing was meeting
threats to shoot us, the Klan were burning Beatle records outside and a people who came to the shows, not the shows themselves. We'd played
lot of the crew-cut kids were joining in with them. Somebody let off a the stadiums, we'd played to the big crowds, and still we were only
firecracker and every one of us — | think it's on film — look at each doing our thirty-minute show!
other, because each thought it was the other that had been shot. It
was that bad.” JOHN: The Beatles were famous for doing fifteen-minute shows; we
could speed it up to fifteen minutes over in America. Fifty thousand
GEORGE: Cincinnati was an open-air venue, and they had a bandstand people, and we'd be off. That was our record. We got our kicks from
in the centre of the ballpark, with a canvas top on it. It was really bad seeing how fast we could do the whole show. And if we were really
weather, pouring with rain, and when Mal got there to set up the counting them inf too fast, or were too speedy to deal with it, we'd run
equipment he said, ‘Where's the electricity power feed?’ And the fella off and realise we'd only been on fifteen minutes.
said, ‘What do you mean, electricity? | thought they played guitars.’ He There were times when your voice was so bad (through losing your
didn't even know we played electric guitars. voice) you virtually wouldn't be singing at all, and nobody would notice
It was so wet that we couldn't play. They'd brought in the because there'd be so much noise going on. You could never hear what
]
. electricity, but the stage was soaking and we would have been we were doing. It would just become a sort of happening — like Shea
a
Stadium was a happening. You couldn't hear any music at all That got
b7 electrocuted, so we cancelled — the only gig we ever missed. But we did
y
it the next morning. We had to get up early and get on and play the boring; that's why we stopped it.”!

USA «& CANADA No No SN

 su. BY CANDLESTICK PARK IT WAS LIKE,
DON'T TELL ANYONE, BUT THIS IS PROBABLY OUR LAST GI

SENERAL ARTISTS COR PORATION, not later than 509T= PUY 9 1° 1 Repememenmemner

There wa 3 ay : : :
shall be paid by PURCHASER to PRODUCER not later than
RINGO:
There was big talk at AtCandlestick
5
ty) $25,000.00
——————
rior to
:
erformance
besd
that
ar
this had got to end. that San 30 days
Park
Francisco gig it seemed that this could a
possibly be the last time, but I never felt 100% ier Ae deiner ‘of pape Atcha maine
certain till we got back to London. : ¥% —_____SY 2
an d all receipts derived from the entertainment presentation to the p
siR shall first apply any
lohn wanted to give up more than the Ui full without any deductions whatsoever.
equit tereunder: All payments shall be made in
others. He said that_he'd had enough. oa
= Of ADMISSION __$6250, $5.50, $4.50
|On
YIN
\ |
aidnt wrant
want to tour again especially (PRO
NE NTE
after having been accused of crucifying Jesus erie ——— ZF. eae
when a ide was a flippant remark, and By ' ohANDY. $e
Ge tA,
I f
2 C 3 T b i
the Klan outside and
1 writ}
aVINE id with Bob Mitchell & eTPURE
ae ; ing side. | couldn't take. all signed copies to agent: Tom Donahue,
al ore Geners) Actists Corporation LE
By nN ade
| AU yo t
P2111
jilshire Blvd.
Address: 7O D orman A Z
Calif.
San Francisco, California

USA &« CANADA

Phone:
 RINGO: | don't think anyone didnt want to stop touring, but Paul GEORGE MARTIN: Curiously enough the second Shea Stadium concert had
yould have gone on longer than George and I. I was feeling such a bad about 11,000 seats unsold. So it was a pretty unsettling time. And it was
nusician and | was fed up playing the way I| was playing. That was my against this background that they said, ‘Right, we definitely won't do any
iteria for ending it. | just wasn't working on the road any more more. We are going to have a break and then we are going into the studio to
cause | couldn't play. make a record.’
a don't think any of the decisions were made quickly. We'd all
pressed them and moaned about them, laughed about them and cried PAUL; | don't remember having a negative feeling about the band. | did
them. Then it had got to a head oes it was ‘yes’ or ‘no’ time — about touring. But you always forget the bad bits. It's like a holiday
seemed to do that with the touring, with the recording and with when it rains all the time; you just remember the fine days.
breaking-up. None of those things ended with someone turning George has said, ‘We weren't musicians any more. We were just
d and saying it without talking about it first. We didn't make a moptops and rag dolls,’ and | think that was true. We were getting fed
‘mal announcement that we were going to stop touring, because it up with that aspect, but | think | could have handled it. | expect that
s just something we decided and then we let it go away. when you become famous.
But the quality of the music wasn't good, and it wasn't getting any
EORGE: When we got to Candlestick Park we placed our cameras on better with the touring. We all agreed that maybe going into recording
Be mlifier and put them on the timer. We stopped between tunes, would be the new thing to turn us all on.
ngo got down off the drums, and we stood facing the amplifiers ith
back to the audience and ssak photographs. We knew. ‘This is it — JOHN: We are not goody-goody boys. We are not possessed of limit-
not going to do this again. This is the last concert.’ It was a less patience. One has to have the quality of an angel to cheerfully
inanimous decision. submit to the demands of some fans. We're not trying to pass off as
Tt was too much, with all those riots and hurricanes. Beatlemania kids, and we're human as the next fellow. Whether we look our age or
its toll, and we were no longer on the buzz of fame and success. not, very often we feel a lot older than we really are.
he Dental Experience’ had made us see life in a different light, and We can't go on holding hands forever. We have been Beatles as best
suring was no longer fun. we ever will be — those four jolly lads. But we're not those people any
~ We'd done about 1,400 live shows and | certainly felt that was it. | more. We are old men. We can't go on hopping on Top of the Pops
vever really projected into the future; | was thinking, ‘This is going to forever. We still enjoy it, but sometimes we feel silly. We can't develop
e such a relief — not to have to go through that madness any more.’ the singing because none of us can sing the tune. We've got to find
_ It was nice to be popular, but when you saw the size of it, it was something else to do. Paul says it's like leaving school and finding a job.
ridiculous, and it felt dangerous because everybody was out of hand and It's just like school, actually, because you have the group to lean on, and
out of line. Even the cops were out of line. They were all caught up in then suddenly you find you're on your own.
he mania. It was as if they were all in a big movie and we were the ones | shouldn't worry if | was rejected by the public. It's rejection on the
rapped in the middle of it. It was a very strange feeling. For a year or so part of me that would get me. Suppose | suddenly found out | was a
'd been saying, ‘Let's not do this any more.’ And then it played itself useless bum. What I have done is fine — 1 know | wasn't a useless bum,
t, so that by 1966 everybody was feeling, ‘We've got to stop this.’ | but now I have to do something else. We sort of half hope for The
on't know exactly where in 1966, but obviously after the Philippines Downfall — a nice downfall. Then we would just be a pleasant old
e thought, ‘Hey, we've got to pack this in.’ memory.”°
We were all still pretty friendly; we were just tired. It had been four
ears of legging around in a screaming mania. We'd had a couple of RINGO: For Brian Epstein, our not touring sure left a void, because part
mall vacations, but we'd only had one big holiday during that whole of his gig was to get us out there, and that was a huge management
our years. We needed a rest. | don't think anybody was regretting it, thing for him. That's when he was ‘Big Bri’ — on the road. Once we hit
thinking, ‘This is the end of an era.’ | think we welcomed it. all those towns, it was ‘Mr Epstein: The Beatles’ Manager’.
I think Brian (like the rest of us) was getting tired of doing the same
JOHN: I reckon we could send out four waxwork dummies of ourselves old thing. What fun could it have been for him to rebook us at
nd that would satisfy the crowds. Beatles concerts are nothing to do Candlestick Park or Shea Stadium?
with music any more. They're just bloody tribal rites.” After deciding not to tour | don’t think we cared a damn. We'd been
having more fun in the studio, as you can hear from Revolver and Rubber
Soul. As it was building up, it was getting more experimental. We were
Georce: WHILE EVERYBODY ELSE starting to spend more time there, and the songs were getting better and
WAS GOING MAD, WE WERE more interesting. Instead of being pulled out of the studio to go on the
road, we could now spend time there and relax.
ACTUALLY THE SANEST PEOPLE
JOHN: We've had enough of performing forever. | can't imagine any
IN THE WHOLE THING. reason which would make us do any sort of tour again. We're all really
tired. It does nothing for us any more — which is really unfair to the
NEIL ASPINALL: It was in India that I heard for thefirst time that they fans, we know, but we've got to think of ourselves.”
night not tour in 1967. We were all in a hotel suite with Brian, talking I'm just sorry for the people that can't see us live. Sometimes you
bout going to America. It was George who asked Brian, ‘Is this touring haven't missed anything because you wouldn't have heard us, but
becoming an annual event?’ because be wasn't prepared to do it again. sometimes | think you might have enjoyed it. I'm sorry for them.”
Probably they'd all spoken about it among themselves and decided that it When we were away from it for a while, it was like the school
wasn't agood idea. And they decided then and there that they werent going holidays. You hadn't done any work for a bit and you'd just remember
to do America the next year. the laughs. You'd quite look forward to it again. Until you got back and
So when we got to Candlestick Park we knew that was the last gig. For were fed up. It's like the army. One big sameness which you have to go
me that wasnt The Last Gig Ever, it was just that they werent going to tour through. One big mass. | can’t remember any tours.”
for a while. Inever knew what my role was, so Ifigured their not touring
wouldn't affect me.
THE MUSIC WASN'T BEING
I'm not sure whether or not Brian was at the last show. Maybe be was HEARD. IT WAS JUST A
trying to find his briefcase. It was reported that money and other personal
items had been stolen from bis room. Brian was robbed on occasions. SORT OF A FREAK SHOW:
With no more live shows planned, the idea was that they could make
more records. All The Beatles’ albums, with the possible exception of
THE BEATLES WERE THE SHOW,
Revolver, had been fittedin between coming off the road and getting back AND THE MUSIC HAD
‘on. They would have to make an album in two or three weeks, including the
cover and everything. Then they were back on the road with no real time to NOTHING TO DO WITH IT."
Beeeentrate on it.

USA« CANADA = _229

 MICHAEL . JOHN
CRAWFORD _ LENNON

If you
think
Richart
Lester’
‘HOW
| WON
THE
eh WAR’
ae ie is
" KINNEAR MONTAGUE just
: MacGOWRAN HORDERN-HEDLEY|anothe
: rane menace. WOGLER. sencenrcaroy CHARLES WOOD film-
£00 CED ARO DIRECT assocute
WATE PRODUCER
“annem | RICHARD LESTER - DENIS O'DELL == forget
EASTMAN COLOUR sretersnam
fuimsiia.Production
=

NOW _ PICCADILLY
SHOWING
LONDON PAVILION
CIRCUS PHONE 437-2982
Proge at 10.35, 12.25, 2.55, $.30, 8.10. Late Show Set. in.
Sunday: Progr. ae 2.55, $5.30, 8.10. Last Screening daly Hy3.

kin
_ 4 *
i es a ee

; ‘ibithici. _

. a |J

Ss

- *

~~
 "HOW I WON THE WaR" ,
Ne a ee ce sh ce

JOHN LENNON is |

fe oy

ao) Yours sincerely,

sss F
|+ Mr. Lennon? af'present gb
road ‘alten aee Sa Coase
oO not expect him back in Engl
r quite some time, Ho praciese. Si
{would send me some idea of rmation you require I a
1 help through ot ee
other memb ra of his family. pe ean
- With appreciation of your interest
and with all best wishes. ~
INALL: I went with Jobn to make How | Won the War in RINGO: Towards the end of:
1966. While Jobn was filming I was HLVABAE nearly, 1966, with John being Spats =a
orange in the convention of the film. fitcine How I Won the Wart > 7S
ewent back to Hamburg again, because we did some filming on location went and hung out with pra . §
here. That was really nice because it was just John and me in Hamburg, because he was lonely. We really.
ae or shows or Beatles, and we went round to all their old places and supported each other alot. . <<
did itfor a day or so, then we got the train to Paris. Maureen and I decided to go=~ ~~
Iso filmed in Spain. During the time there, Johwwrate:Strawherry out and stay with Michael
Forever on a beach and played it to me. Crawford, who was with | as
Personal Assistant to Jenn
Sim thesfitmp and x nee -
1; We were in Almeria, and it took me six weeks to write the song. every five or six days we ~~ mete
writing it all the time | was making the film. (And as anybody would move house. All of us were living in the same house and ee
ws about film work, there's a lot of hanging around.) I have an was always something wrong with it — that was the most boring part
al tape of it somewhere — of how it sounded before it became the about it, and it was damn hot.
psychedelic-sounding song it became on record.*° In 1965 Maureen and | had bought a house in Weybridge. John
_ As an artist, | always, in the most real moments, try to express lived out there and George lived in Esher, which was five miles away, so
and to show myself and not somebody else. If | knew myself less we all ended up in the same area, which was dynamite for me. We had
ild express it less, that's all. had Zak by then, and when we were living in London we couldn't put
_ In ‘Strawberry Fields’ I'm saying, 'No, always think it's me,’ and all him outside; and also we were a family now, so it was time to move on.
hat bit, and, ‘Help!’ I was trying to describe myself, how | felt, but | We had a building firm decorating and remodelling it, and we
n't sure how I felt. So I'd be saying, ‘Sometimes, no always, think it's thought, ‘We'll buy the building firm — that way they'll really work!’
but ...' but I'm expressing it haltingly because I'm not sure what I'm And so | went into partnership and we called the company Brickey
ng. But now | was sure: ‘Yeah, that was what I'm feeling — it hurts, Building, and did all the work on my house, thinking it would be less
hat's what it's about.’ So then I could express myself.” expensive. The foreman used to cook us dinner every night because he
The second line goes, ‘No one | think is in my tree.’ Well, what | was the only one who could cook; Maureen couldn't in those days.
as trying to say in that line is, ‘Nobody seems to be as ae as me, That's how we got the building — but buying the house and doing it
ore | must be crazy or a genius.’ It's the same problem as | had up was probably the daftest thing | ever did. | bought it for £37,000,
| was five.*° which was quite a fortune in those days, but it had cost me £90,000 by
trawberry Fields’ was psychoanalysis set to music, really. | think the time we'd finished it, and we sold it for £47,000. And the other part
analysis is just symptomatic, where you just talk about yourself. | about the building firm was that we did some work for George Harrison
‘'t need to do that because I've done a lot of it with reporters. | never —who still hasn't paid the bloody bill! Joke.)
time for psychiatrists and those people, because they're all cracked. I really enjoyed having time off in 1966, getting used to the idea:
_ Instead of penting up emotion or pain, feel it — rather than putting it ‘OK, that's it for touring — let's have fun with my wife and child.’ | now
; for a rainy day. | think everyone's blocked. | haven't met anybody had time to do other things.
isn't a complete blockage of pain, from childhood, from birth on.
; shouldn't we cry? They tell us to stop crying about twelve: ‘Be a JOHN: | was always waiting for a reason to get out of The Beatles
| What the hell's that? Men hurt.” from the day I made How I Won the War in 1966. I just didn’t have the
guts to do it, you see. Because | didn't know where to go. | remember
L ASPINALL: There had been a big storm during one night. why I made the movie. | did it because The Beatles had stopped
hing bad been washed out to sea, and all the roads were really touring and | didn't know what to do. Instead of going home and
ly. Then they bad all become rutted when it dried. We were coming being with the family, | immediately went to Spain with Dick Lester
from location in John’s black Rolls Royce and we bad Dylan on the because I couldn't deal with not being continually onstage. That was
reo, but switched it over to the tannoy so the song played outside. We the first time | thought, '‘My God, what do you do if this isn't going
oing down the road with Dylan blaring out all over the place. (We on? What is there? There's no life without it.’ And that’s when the
d out later that everyone called it the ‘Carriage of Death’ — for them the seed was planted that | had to somehow get out of this, without being
was like a hearse.) As we went over a narrow bridge, a motorbike came thrown out by the others. But | could never step out of the palace
the corner, and the rider saw a big black object looming with music because it was too frightening.
"he out of it. There was a gap between a mountain and the little wall I was really too scared to walk away. | was thinking, ‘Well, this is the
¢pes and the motorbike went straight through it — the guy just end, really. There's no more touring. That means there's going to be a
blank space in the future.’ At some time or other that's when | really
ileJobn had been in Spain, the others bad all been doing their own started considering life without The Beatles — what would it be? And |
Paul was working on the soundtrack of The Family Way. George spent that six weeks thinking about that: ‘What am | going to do? Am |
going to be doing Vegas? But cabaret?’ | mean, where do you go? So
‘ingo came to Spain when Jobn and I were there. So did another guy, that's when | started thinking about it. But | could not think what it
box andl of marijuana. He opened it and said, ‘Brian would be, or how I could do it. I didn’t even consider forming my own
really packed this well for you.’ The contents then erupted and went group or anything, because it didn't enter my mind. Just what would |
ver the floor into a thick pile carpet: ‘Ob, thank you!’ do when it stopped?”

HOW I WON THE WAR 231

 ; tev y - j re

Te Anite f Pein
tSLei

RHINE (LEAGUER) (COLOUR) GERMANY 1945 NIGHT A

ymer in battle order move up silently in the dark. Officers

y small group of searchlights and whisper their unit
er and over again. LIEUTENANT GOODBODY says
e loves the rolling sound of it which he does.

GOODBODY
rd Troop the Fourth Musketeers
rd Troop the Fourth Musketeers
rd Troop the Fourth Musketeers

OTHER OFFICERS
st Troop.
est Troop
ist Troop

dquarter Fighting
Headquarter Fighting
Headquarter Fighting

fourth Troop
sFov rth Troop
BOorth Troop,

ODY
usketeers
usketeers

THE RHINE (ee

 PAUL: John's now trying acting again, and Kashmiri fellow, Mr Butt, would bring us tea
George has got his passion for the sitar and and biscuits and | could hear Ravi in the next
all the Indian stuff. He's lucky. Like room, practising.
somebody's luck who's got religion. I'm just (After I'd had LSD a lingering thought
looking for something | enjoy doing. stayed with me, and the thought was ‘the
‘There's no hurry. | have the time and the yogis of the Himalayas’. | don't know
“money.” why it stuck. | had never thought about
them before, but suddenly this thought
GEORGE: I went to India in September was in the back of my consciousness: it
1966. When | had first come across a was as if somebody was whispering to
record of Ravi Shankar's | had a feeling me, ‘Yogis of the Himalayas.’ That was
that, somewhere, | was going to meet him. part of the reason | went to India. Ravi
It happened that | met him in London in and the sitar were excuses; although they
June, at the house of Ayana Deva Angadi, were a very important part of it, it was a
founder of the Asian Music Circle. An search for a spiritual connection.)
Indian man had called me up and said that Ravi had a really sweet brother called
Ravi was going to be there. The press had Raju, who gave me a lot of books by wise
been trying to put me and him together men, and one of the books, which was by
since | used the sitar on ‘Norwegian Wood’. Swami Vivekananda, said: ‘If there's a God
They started thinking: ‘A photo opportu- you must see him and if there's a soul we
nity —a Beatle with an Indian.’ So they kept must perceive it — otherwise it's better not
trying to put us together, and | said ‘no’, to believe. It’s better to be an outspoken
because | knew I'd meet him under the atheist than a hypocrite.’
proper circumstances, which | did. He also All my early life they'd tried to bring
came round to my house, and | had a me up as a Catholic, but | wasn't really into
couple of lessons from him on how to sit that. The whole ‘Christian’ attitude (and |
and hold the sitar. say ‘Christian’ in inverted commas, because
So in September, after touring and there are a lot of people who represent
while John was making How I Won the themselves as Christians who aren't — who
War, | went to India for about six weeks. don't really, to my mind, have the franchise
First | flew to Bombay and hung out there. on Christ, and are not necessarily represen-
Again, because of the mania, people soon tative of what He was trying to say)
found out I was there. seemed to be telling you to believe what
I stayed in a Victorian hotel, the Taj they're telling you and not to have the
Mahal, and was starting to learn the sitar. direct experience.

Ravi would give me lessons, and he'd also For me, going to India and reading
have one of his students sit with me. My somebody saying, ‘No, you can't believe
hips were killing me from sitting on the anything until you have direct percep
floor, and so Ravi brought a yoga teacher tion of it’ — which was obvious
to start showing me the physical yoga made me think, ‘Wow! Fantasti:
exercises. I've found somebody who ma
It was a fantastic time. | would go out sense. So | wanted to go
and look at temples and go shopping. We deeper into that. That's hor
travelled all over and eventually went up to me — | read books by va
Kashmir and stayed on a houseboat in the and swamis and myst
middle of the Himalayas. It was incredible. around and looked
meet some.
I'd wake up in the morning and a little

GEO IN INDIA
 PAUL: If you are blessed with the ability to write music, you can turn
your hand to various forms. I've always admired people for whom it's a
craft — the great songwriting partners of the past, such as Rodgers and
Hammerstein, or Cole Porter. I've admired the fact that they can write a
musical and they can do a film score.
So film scores were an interesting diversion for me, and with George
Martin being able to write and orchestrate — and being pretty good at it
— | got an offer through the Boulting Brothers for him and me to do
some film music for Tbe Family Way.
I had a look at the film and thought it was great. I still do. It's very
powerful and emotional — soppy, but good for its time. | wanted brass-
band music; because with The Beatles we got into a lot of different
kinds of music, but maybe brass band was a little too Northern and
‘Hovis’. I still loved it. My dad had played trumpet and his dad had been
in a brass band, so | had those leanings. For the film | got something
together that was sort of ‘brassy bandy’, to echo the Northernness of the
story, and | had a great time.
We got an Ivor Novello Award for the score — for the best film song
that year, a piece called ‘Love In The Open Air’, which Johnny Mercer
was nearly going to put lyrics to, but | didn't know who he was. Later |
realised, ‘Oh, that Johnny Mercer! You mean the greatest lyricist on the
planet!’ | should have done that. Never mind — it fell through — but it
was good fun doing the music.

You can see them in India. It's unbelievable: you

can go down the street and there's somebody driving
a bus or a taxi, or riding a bicycle, and there's a
chicken and a cow, and someone in a business suit
with a briefcase — and an old sannyasi with a saffron
robe. All mixed together. It's an incredible place,
with layers and layers and layers of sounds and
colours and noises, and it all bombards your senses.
It was amazing then. I felt as if | was back in time.
It was the first feeling I'd ever had of being
liberated from being a Beatle or a number. It comes
back to The Prisoner with Patrick McGoohan: ‘I am
not a number.’ In our society we tend, in a subtle
way, to number ourselves and each other, and the
government does so , too. ‘What's your Social
Security number?’ is one of the first things they ask
you in America. To suddenly find yourself in a place
where it feels like 5000 BC is wonderful.
| went to the city of Benares, where there was a
religious festival going on, called the Ramlila. It was
out on a site of 300 to 500 acres, and there were
housands of holy men there for a month-long
estival. During this festival the Maharajah feeds
everybody and there are camps of different people,
ncluding the sadhus ~ renunciates. In England, in
Europe or the West, these holy men would be called
vagrants and be arrested, but in a place like India
hey roam around. They don't have a job, they don't
rave a Social Security number, they don't even have
a name other than collectively — they're called
sannyasis, and some of them look like Christ.
They're really spiritual; and there are also a lot of
loonies who look like Allen Ginsberg. That's where
he got his whole trip from — with the frizzy hair, and
smoking little pipes called chillums, and smoking
hashish. The British tried for years to stop Indians
smoking hashish, but they'd been smoking it for too
long for it to be stopped
| saw all kinds of groups of people, a lot of them
chanting, and it was a mixture of unbelievable
things, with the Maharajah coming through the
crowd on the back of an elephant, with the dust
rising. It gave me a great buzz

GEORGE IN INDIA & THE FAMILY WAY

 Er tia

o had been invited to London by some group of artists So he introduced me, and of course there was supposed to be this
ction in Art Symposium. They had some big thing going event happening, so | asked, ‘Well, what's the event?’ She gives me a
a. She had an exhibition put on by Indica Gallery, by John little card. It just says ‘breathe’ on it. And | said, ‘You mean |panting|?’
arianne Faithfull’s ex-husband. | used to go down there She says, ‘That's it. You've got it.’ And I'm thinking, ‘I've got it!’ But I'm
to see things like Takis, who'd made flashing lights and all geared up to do something. | did the breathing, but | wanted more
r a fortune. It would be garbage. But they sent me this than putting my consciousness on my breathing, which is an intellectual
he called me — | don't know which — about this Japanese way of looking at it. | saw the nails and | got the humour — maybe |
v York, who was going to be in a bag, doing this event or didn't get the depth of it, but | got a warm feeling from it. | thought,
hought, ‘Hmm,’ you know, ‘sex.’ So | went down.*” ‘Fuck, | can make that. I can put an apple on a stand. | want more.’
highly unshaved and tatty state. | was up three nights. | Then | saw this ladder on a painting leading up to the ceiling where
in those days, tripping. | was stoned.” there was a spyglass hanging down. It's what made me stay. | went up
n and there was nobody there. It turns out that it was the the ladder and I got the spyglass and there was tiny little writing there.
opening night. The place wasn't really opened, but You really have to stand on the top of the ladder — you feel like a fool,
was all nervous, like: ‘The millionaire’s come to buy you could fall any minute — and you look through and it just says ‘yes’.
Je's flittering around like crazy. Now I'm looking at this Well, all the so-called avant-garde art at the time and everything
a couple of nails ona plastic box. Then I look over and see that was supposedly interesting was all negative, this smash-the-piano-
stand with a note saying ‘apple’. | thought, ‘This is a joke, with-a-hammer, break-the-sculpture, boring, negative crap. It was all
funny.’ | was beginning to see the humour of it. | said, anti, anti, anti. Anti-art, anti-establishment. And just that ‘yes’ made me
the apple?’ — ‘£200.’ — ‘Really? Oh, I see. So how much stay in a gallery full of apples and nails instead of walking out saying,
Si ‘I'm not gonna buy any of this crap.’
> sure what it was about. | knew there was some sort of Then | went up to this thing that said, ‘Hammer a nail in.’ | said,
:s on somewhere. She calls herself a concept artist, but ‘Can | hammer a nail in?’ and she said ‘no’, because the gallery was
t’ off it's a con artist. | saw that side of it, and that was actually opening the next day. So the owner, Dunbar, says, ‘Let him
hammer a nail in.’ It was, ‘He's a millionaire. He might buy it.’ She's
ene around having a aa time and I went down- more interested in it looking nice and pretty and white for the opening.
s just a couple of scruffy people sitting around in jeans. | That's why she never made any money on the stuff — she's always too
hb defensive, thinking, ‘They must be the hip ones.’ It busy protecting it. There was this little conference and she finally said,
hey were just assistants putting all this stuff together for her, ‘OK, you can hammer a nail in for five shillings.’ So smart-arse here
€, Tm the famous, rich pop star and these must be the ones says, ‘Well, I'll give you an imaginary five shillings and hammer an
hat those nails ad apples are about.’ | took it humorously, imaginary nail in.’ And that's when we really met. That's when we locked
d out to be fine, but I was reacting like a lot of people react eyes and she got it and | got it and that was it.
_ which is hey: get angry at her and say she's got no sense It took a long time. We were both very shy. The next time we met
BiActually, she's hysterically funny. was a Claes Oldenburg opening with a lot of soft objects like cheese-
bar brings her over because The Millionaire is here, right? burgers made out of rubber and garbage like that. And we met again and
waiting for the bag. Where's the people in the bag? All the made eye contact. But it was eighteen months or two years before we
thinking about whether I'd have the nerve to get in the bag really got it together.
er. You don't know who's gonna be in the bag! The rest, as they say in all the interviews we do, is history. 80

7. ; ’
eo. an aN m .

Nd Ll
JOHN MEETS YOKO 235
 rinco: THESE LITTLE SLUGS
WERE GONNA TURN INTO
BUTTERFLIES.
Bai

PAUL: I had an accident when I came off a moped in

Wirral, near Liverpool. I had a very good friend who lived
in London called Tara Browne, a Guinness heir — a nice Irish
guy, very sensitive bloke. I'd see him from time to time, and
enjoyed being around him. He came up to visit me in
Liverpool once when | was there seeing my dad and
brother. | had a couple of mopeds on hire, so we hit upon
the bright idea of going to my cousin Bett's house.
We were riding along on the mopeds. | was showing
Tara the scenery. He was behind me, and it was an
incredible full moon; it really was huge. | said something
about the moon and he said ‘yeah’, and I suddenly had a
freeze-frame image of myself at that angle to the ground
when it's too late to pull back up again: | was still looking ©
at the moon and then | looked at the ground, and it seemed
to take a few minutes to think, ‘Ah, too bad — I'm going to smack that
pavement with my face!’ Bang! NEIL ASPINALL: Their appearance was still changing — moustaches and so
There | was, chipped tooth and all. It came through my lip and on — but it was nobody’ decision. It was just everybody influencing everybody
split it. But | got up and we went along to my cousin's house. When | else. Somebody would come in with something new and the others would go,
said, ‘Don't worry, Bett, but I’ve had a bit of an accident,’ she thought | ‘Thats nice. Where did you get that?’ It was like that.
was joking. She creased up laughing at first, but then she went Occasionally Paul used to disguise himself when we were on the road. He
'Holy...!' I'd really given my face a good old smack; it looked like I'd and I would go out into the audience, up the stairs and into the gallery or the
been in the ring with Tyson for a few rounds. So she rang a friend of circle with all the fans, watching the other acts that were on the show. Paul
hers who was a doctor. would have his hair back and a moustache, glasses, and an overcoat on, and
He came round on the spot, took a needle out and, after great nobody would expect him to be there so nobody took any notice.
difficulty threading it, put it in the first half of the wound. He was When be was in the Wirral, Paul bad a moped accident and he grew a
shaking a bit, but got it all the way through, and then he said, ‘Oh, the moustache to hide his split lip and, because be bad a moustache, the next thing
thread's just come out — I'll have to do it again!’ No anaesthetic. | was everybodys got one. That’ bow it happened
for me, anyway. Thats my story:
standing there while he rethreaded it and pulled it through again. I had a moustache, too.
In fact that was why | started to grow a moustache. It was pretty
embarrassing, because around that time you knew your pictures would GEORGE: Moustaches were part of the synchronicity and the collec-
get winged off to teeny-boppery magazines like 16, and it was pretty tive consciousness. What happened to me was that Ravi Shankar wrote
difficult to have a new picture taken with a big fat lip. So | started to to me before | went out to Bombay, and in the letter said, “Try to
grow a moustache — a sort of Sancho Panza thing — mainly to cover disguise yourself — couldn't you grow a moustache?’ | thought, ‘OK, I'll
where my lip had been sewn. grow a moustache. Not that it's going to disguise me, but I’ve never had
It caught on with the guys in the group: if one of us did a moustache before, so I'll grow it.’
something like growing his hair long and we liked the idea, we'd all If you see the photographs of the Sgt Pepper sessions, we've all
tend to do it. And then it became seen as a kind of revolutionary got funny things happening and hair breaking out on the face.
idea, that young men of our age definitely ought to grow a And then everybody had a moustache; | think even Engelbert
moustache! And it all fell in with the Sgt Pepper thing, because he Humperdinck got one. ;
had a droopy moustache.
| was originally trying to grow a long Chinese one, but it was very NEIL ASPINALL: The band at this time started to appeal to a more turned-on
difficult. You have to do a lot of work waxing it, and it takes about sixty audience, because they themselves were turned on. Brian loved it all. He had
years — | never did get one of them. great faith in The Beatles and what they were doing, and loved them as a band,
John had a moustache cup. It had a little hole underneath the lip so as musicians and as artists. Brian was a fan.
you could drink tea from it without getting your moustache in it — They influenced people right from the very early days, when everybody
rather fetching! suddenly seemed to have collarless jackets and Cuban-heeled boots and Beatle
haircuts. That influence always seemed to be there.
RINGO: Growing moustaches was just part of being a hippy: you grow
your hair, you grow a moustache, and in my case you grow a beard. JOHN: That bit about ‘we changed everybody's hairstyles’ — something
That was the Sixties coming to the fore. influenced us, whatever was in the air. Pinpointing who did what first
| always hated shaving anyway, but the moustache was not special doesn't work. We were part of whatever the Sixties was. It was
for me. The moustache was growing and the beard was growing — hair happening itself. We were the ones chosen to represent what was going
was growing. It was just part of the set. We were gradually turning into on ‘on the street’. It could have been somebody else but it wasn't: it was
Sgt Peppers. It was as if we were going through a metamorphosis. us and the Stones and people like that.”

24 START OF SGT PEPPER

 Now we were off the road and in the studio with new songs
‘Strawberry Fields’ is the song that John had, about the old Salvation
Army home for kids he used to live next door to in Liverpool. We
related it to youth, golden summers and fields of strawberry. | knew
what he was talking about.
The nice thing is that a lot of our songs were starting to get a little
bit more surreal. | remember John having a book at home called Bizarre,
about all sorts of weird things. We were opening up artistically and
taking the blinkers off.
We used a mellotron on ‘Strawberry Fields’. | didn’t think it would
get past the Musicians’ Union, so we didn't advertise it; we just had it on
the sessions. It had what would now be called ‘samples’ of flute, which
are actually tapes that play and then rewind. We had eleven seconds on
each tape, which could be played on each key.

GEORGE MARTIN: When

Jobn sang ‘Strawberry Fields’
for the first time, just with an
acoustic guitar accompaniment,
it was magic. It was absolutely
lovely. I love John’s voice
anyway, and it was a great
privilege listening to it.
RINGO: The Beatles were the influence on other bands in 1966/67. It is
interesting that when we got to LA and relaxed more and started PAUL: We did a few versions
hanging out with people like David Crosby, Jim Keltner, Jim McGuinn, of it. John wasn't _ totally
we realised how much people were trying to be like us. Not those happy with the first couple of
particular people, but they were telling us about other bands. We heard takes that we did, so we
that producers were telling everyone to sound like The Beatles. remade the whole track, and
in the end John and George
GEORGE: | came back to England towards the end of October and Martin stitched two different
John got back from Spain. It was all predetermined when we'd meet versions together. We could
again. Then we went in the studio and recorded ‘Strawberry Fields’. | hardly hear the join, but it's
think at that point there was a more profound ambience to the band. one of those edits where the
pace changes slightly: it goes
JOHN: Lots of peaple ask me what will be the new sound. | personally a bit more manic for the
haven't a clue as to how the scene will progress — what, if anything, will
replace it. In any case, | don't like predictions; they are always vague,
aR a second half of the song.
‘Penny Lane’ was a little
and invariably wrong. If | knew, | could make a fortune.” more surreal, too, although in a cleaner way. | remember saying to
George Martin, ‘I want a very clean recording.’ | was into clean sounds —
maybe a Beach Boy influence at that point.
PAUL: WE COULDN'T DO ANY BETTER THAN The ‘fireman with his hourglass’ and all that imagery was us trying to
WE'VE DONE ALREADY, COULD WE?" get into a bit of art. The lyrics were all based on real things. There was a
barber called something like Bioletti (I think he’s actually still there in
GEORGE MARTIN: In November The Beatles returned to the studio for the Penny Lane) who, like all barbers, had pictures of the haircuts you could
first time after they bad decided to stop touring. They were generally fed up choose. But instead of saying, “The barber with pictures of haircuts in
with their lives. They'd bad a lot of aggro in that past year, coupled with Brian his windows,’ it was changed round to: ‘Every head he's had the pleasure
Epstein worrying that they were going down the pan. He thought that it was to have known.’ A barber showing photographs — like an exhibition.
the end of The Beatles, and there were all sorts of signs of that in 1966. There It was twisting it to a slightly more artsy angle, more like a play.
was the Philippines disaster, and the falling attendance in some of their shows, Like the nurse who's selling poppies from a tray (which some Americans
and they were fed up with being prisoners of their fame. thought was ‘selling puppies from a tray’) for Remembrance Day. Then
We started off with ‘Strawberry Fields’, and then we recorded ‘When I'm ‘she feels as if she's in a play’ — which ‘she is anyway’. These were all the
Sixty-Four’ and ‘Penny Lane’. They were all intended for the next album. We trippy little ideas that we were trying to get in.
didnt know it was Sgt Pepper then — they were just going to be tracks on The They're both songs about Liverpool as well. It was always a good
New Album — but it was going to be a record created in the studio, and there thing for us, because we were a group that had been together for a
were going to be songs that couldn't be performed live. long time, that we could do that: ‘Strawberry Fields’ and ‘Penny Lane’
— wow! A lot of our formative years were spent walking around those
NEIL ASPINALL: As with Revolver, or any of the other albums, they just places. Penny Lane was the depot | had to change buses at to get
went into a studio and started recording, and the album title and the artwork for from my house to John’s and to a lot of my friends. It was a big bus
the cover came later. terminal which we all knew very well. I sang in the choir at St
Barnabas Church opposite.
RINGO: Every time we went back into the studios there was a period of Those two songs were the lead singles. They were the first things we
wondering whose song we would start with. Nobody wanted to submit tried in the batch of new recordings.
the first song, because by then it was ‘Lennon or McCartney’ more than
‘Lennon and McCartney’. So they'd say, ‘What have you got?’ — ‘Well, PAUL: IT’S PART FACT, PART NOSTALGIA FOR A GREAT
what have you got?! PLACE — BLUE SUBURBAN SKIES, AS WE REMEMBER IT,
It was up to about 80% separately written songs. | could tell which
were John’s songs. | always preferred to play on them; they always had a AND IT'S STILL THERE. AND WE PUT IN A JOKE OR
bit more rock'n'roll to them. TWO: ‘FOUR OF FISH AND FINGER PIE’. THE WOMEN
WOULD NEVER DARE SAY THAT, EXCEPT TO
PAUL: | don't think we were very worried about our musical ability. THEMSELVES. MOST PEOPLE WOULDN'T HI
The world was a problem, but we weren't. That was the best thing
about The Beatles: | don’t think any of us worried musically. | think we
BUT ‘FINGER PIE’ IS JUST A NICE LITTLE JOKE FOR THI
were itching to get going. LIVERPOOL LADS WHO LIKE A BIT OF SMUT

S( PEPPER 23
SPART OF.
nineteen sixty-seven
NEIL ASPINALL: The double A side ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ and
‘Penny Lane’ was The Beatles’ first release of 1967.

GEORGE: It was pretty bad, wasn't it, that Engelbert Humperdinek

stopped ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ from getting to Number One? But
| don't think it was a worry. At first, we wanted to have good chart
positions, but then | think we started taking it for granted. It might
have been a bit of a shock being Number Two — but then again, there
were always so many different charts that you could be Number Two
in one chart and Number One in another.

JOHN: The charts? | read them all. There's room for e(@Ay
| don't mind Humperbert Engeldinck. They're the catsiitft
Scene.”

PAUL: It's fine if you're kept from being Number One by a record like
‘Release Me’, because you're not trying to do the same kind of thing.
That's a completely different scene
altogether.”

JOHN: When [singles] first come

out, we follow how much the
initial sales were. Not for the
money reason, just to see how it's
doing compared to the last one;
just because we made it. We need
that satisfaction, not the glory of
Number One.°*

GEORGE MARTIN: The only

reason that ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’
and ‘Penny Lane’ didn't go onto the
new album was a feeling that ifwe
issued a single, it shouldn't go onto an
album. That was a crazy idea, and
I'm afraid I was partly responsible. Its
nonsense these days, but in those days
it was an aspect that we'd try to give
the public value
for money.
The idea ofa double A side came
from me and Brian, really. Brian was
desperate to recover popularity, and so
we wanted to make sure that we had a
marvellous seller. He came to me and
said, ‘I must have a really great single. NEIL ASPINALL: The charts didn't worry the band,
What have you got?’ I said, ‘Well, but ifyou're going to be in the entertainment business,
I've got three tracks — and two of them you do want to be successful. They realised that splitting
are the best tracks they've ever made. the sales with the double A side bad made it Number
We could put the two together and Two. But it bad to happen at some time, and for it to
make a smashing single.’ We did, and happen then wasn't a bad idea
it was a smashing single — but it was
also a dreadful mistake. We would RINGO: | don't think it was important to cate-
have sold far more and got higher up gorise the songs into A and B sides any more. We
in the charts if we had issued one of just felt: "This is the record.’ The other attitude was
those with, say, ‘When I'm Sixty- an old trap that people were put into when they
Four’ on the back. made records.
 HN: The people who have bought our records in the some photographer wants to take pictures of me and say
‘past must realise that we couldn't go on making the same that I've changed, let him. I'm there. I'm only answered
type forever. We must change, and | believe those to myself. Nobody else.°”
people know this.
I've had a lot of time to think, and only now am | NEIL ASPINALL: I used to share a flat in Sloane Street
beginning to realise many of the things | should have with Mal. One day in February Paul called, saying that he
known years ago. I'm getting to understand my own was writing a song and asking ifbe and Mal could come
feelings. Don't forget that under this frilly shirt is a over. The song was the start of ‘Sgt Pepper’.
hundred-year-old man who's seen and done so much, but At my place be carried on writing and the song
at the same time knowing so little.” developed. At the end of every Beatles show, Paul used to say,
‘Tts time to go. We're going to go to bed, and this is our last
PAUL: We were now in another phase of our career, and number.’ Then they'd play the last number and leave. Just
we were happy. We'd been through all the touring, and then Mal went to the bathroom, and I said to Paul, ‘Why
that was marvellous; but now we were more into being don't you have Sgt Pepper as the compere of the album? He
artists. We didn't have to be performing every night, so instead we could comes on at the beginning of the show and introduces the band, and at the end
be writing or chatting with our mates or visiting an art exhibition. (For he closes it. A bit later, Paul told John about it in the studio, and John came
instance, John and Yoko would never have met if we hadn't had all that up to me and said, ‘Nobody likes a smart-arse, Neil.’
time spare for him to look around exhibitions and ‘bang a nail in’.)
Having the time off gave us a lot of freedom to come in with crazy ideas. GEORGE MARTIN: The idea came about gradually. Basically it was
I spent a lot of time listening to avant-garde artists and going to Paul's idea: be came in and said he had the song ‘Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts
places like Wigmore Hall, where | saw the composer Luciano Berio (I Club Band’ and that be was identifying it with the band, with The Beatles
remember meeting him afterwards, and he was a very unassuming bloke). themselves. We recorded the song first, and then the thought came to make it
George was into Indian music. We were all opening our minds to into an idea for the album. It was at a time when they wanted to concentrate
_ different areas, and then we'd come together and share it all with each on the studio, and that probably fomented the idea of the alter-ego group: ‘Let
other. It was exciting, because there was a lot of cross-fertilisation. Sgt Pepper do the touring.’

JOHN: ‘Sgt Pepper’ is Paul, after a trip to America. The whole West PAUL: We would be Sgt Pepper's band, and for the whole of the album
Coast long-named group thing was coming in, when people were no wed pretend to be someone else. So, when John walked up to the
longer The Beatles or The Crickets — they were suddenly Fred and His microphone to sing, it wouldn't be the new John Lennon vocal, it would
Incredible Shrinking Grateful Airplanes. | think he got influenced by be whoever he was in this new group, his fantasy character. It liberated
that. He was trying to put some distance between The Beatles and the you — you could do anything when you got to the mike or on your guitar,
public — and so there was this identity of Sgt Pepper. Intellectually, that's because it wasn't you.
the same thing he did by writing ‘she loves you’ instead of ‘I love you’.*°
RINGO: The album was always going to have ‘Sgt Pepper at the
PAUL: It was at the start of the hippy times, and there was a jingly-jangly beginning; and if you listen to the first two tracks, you can hear it was
hippy aura all around in America. | started thinking about what would be going to be a show album. It was Sgt Pepper and his Lonely Hearts Club
a really mad name to call a band. At the time there were lots of groups Band with all these other acts, and it was going to run like a rock opera.
with names like ‘Laughing Joe and His Medicine Band’ or ‘Col Tucker's It had started out with a feeling that it was going to be something totally
Medicinal Brew and Compound’, all that old Western going-round-on- different, but we only got as far as Sgt Pepper and Billy Shears (singing
wagons stuff, with long rambling names. And so, in the same way that in 'With A Little Help From My Friends’), and then we thought: ‘Sod it! It's
1 Am The Walrus’ John would throw together ‘choking smokers’ and just two tracks.’ It still kept the title and the feel that it's all connected,
‘elementary penguin’, | threw those words together: ‘Sgt Pepper's Lonely although in the end we didn't actually connect all the songs up.
Hearts Club Band’.
I took an idea back to the guys in London: ‘As we're trying to get JOHN: Sgt Pepper is called the first concept album, but it doesn’t go
away from ourselves — to get away from touring and into a more surreal anywhere. All my contributions to the album have absolutely nothing to
thing — how about if we become an alter-ego band, something like, say, do with this idea of Sgt Pepper and his band; but it works, because we
"Set Pepper's Lonely Hearts”? I've got a little bit of a song cooking with said it worked, and that's how the album appeared. But it was not put
that title.’ together as it sounds, except for Sgt Pepper introducing Billy Shears,
and the so-called reprise. Every other song could have been on any
JOHN: How can we tour when we're making stuff like we're doing on other album.*°
the new album? We can only do what we're doing. We've toured — that I can't really get into writing Tommy. | read that Pete Townshend said
was then. If we do another tour, we'll probably hire London for one big that he had just a bunch of songs and they sort of melted into Tommy in
happening, and we'd have us and the Stones and The Who, and the studio. It's like Sgt Pepper — a bunch of songs, and you stick two bits
everybody else on it. Unless that happens, forget it. | don’t want to be a of Pepper in it and it's a concept.”
moptop. For those who want moptops, The Monkees are
right up there, man.” GEORGE: | felt we were just in the studio to make the
next record, and Paul was going on about this idea of
some fictitious band. That side of it didn't really interest
PAUL: AT THE MOMENT WE HAVEN'T me, other than the title song and the album cover.
AN ACT TO SUIT THE ORDINARY TYPE
OF TOUR THAT GOES ON. IF WE CAN RINGO: Sgt Pepper was our grandest endeavour. It gave
everybody — including me — a lot of leeway to come up
THINK OF A WAY OF GETTING FOUR with ideas and to try different material. John and Paul
FLYING SAUCERS LANDING ON THE would write songs at home, usually — or wherever they
TOP OF THE ALBERT HALL, IT WOULD were — and bring them in and say, ‘I've got this.’ The actual
BE POSSIBLE. BUT AT THE MOMENT writing process was getting to be separate by now, but
they'd come in with bits and help each other, and we'd all
THERE ISN'T MUCH HAPPENING IN help. The great thing about the band was that whoever
THAT DIRECTION.” had the best idea (it didn’t matter who), that would be the
be one we'd use. No one was standing on their ego, saying
JOHN: We didn't make any images for ourselves. You ‘Well, it's mine,’ and getting possessive. Always, the best
did the image-making — the papers, TV, and all that. I've never cared a was used. That's why the standard of the songs always remained high
| toss about images. There's this big scoop about the new-look Lennon Anything could happen, and that was an exciting process. | got to hang
. being photographed at the airport or somewhere. Who cares? | don't. If out and listen to it unfolding, although | wasn't there even

A
}

SGT PEPPER 241

 GEORGE MARTIN: I'd been involved in a lot of avant-garde type John up to the roof when be was having an LSD trip, not knowing what it
recordings, and I did a lot of experimenting in the early days — long before was. IfI'd known it was LSD, the roof would have been the last place I would
Beatles — with electronic tracks and musique concrete. | introduced The have taken him.
Beatles to some new sounds and ideas, but when Sgt Pepper came along, they He was in the studio and I was in the control room, and he said he wasnt
wanted every trick brought out of the bag. Whatever I could find, they accepted. feeling too good. So I said, ‘Come up here,’ and asked George and Paul to go
on overdubbing the voice. ‘I'll take Jobn out for a breath offresh air,’
Isaid,
RINGO: As we got up to Sgt Pepper, George Martin had really become but of course I couldn't take bim out the front because there were 500 screaming
an integral part of it all. We were putting in strings, brass, pianos, etc., kids who'd have torn him apart. So the only place I could take him to get fresh
and George was the only one who could write it all down. He was also air was the roof. It was a wonderful starry night, and Jobn went to the edge,
brilliant. One of them would mention: ‘Oh, I'd like the violin to go “de which was a parapet about eighteen inches high, and looked up at the stars
de diddle”’ or whatever, and George would catch it and put it down. He and said, ‘Aren't they fantastic?’ Of course, to him I suppose they would ba
became part of the band. been especially fantastic. At the time they just looked like stars to me.
John, Paul and George — the writers — were putting whatever they I suppose I was a big brother to them. I wasfourteen years older than they
wanted on the tracks, and we were spending a long time in the studio. were. I guess I was straight, and they knew I disapproved very strongly of
We were still recording the basic tracks as we always did, but it would drugs (although I'm afraid I used to smoke cigarettes, and that's pretty well as
take weeks to do the overdubs for the strings or whatever, and then the bad). They never smoked pot in front of me; they used to nip down to the
percussion would be overdubbed later and later. Sgt Pepper was great for canteen below and have a little drag and come out giggling a bit. I knew what
me, because it's a fine album — but I did learn to play chess while we were they were doing, but it didnt make any difference.
recording it (Neil taught me).
RINGO: The song ‘With A Little Help From My Friends’ was written
GEORGE: It was becoming difficult for me, because | wasn't really that specifically for me, but they had one line that | wouldn't sing. It was:
into it. Up to that time, we had recorded more like a band; we would ‘What would you do if | sang out of tune? Would you stand up and throw
learn the songs and then play them (although we were starting to do tomatoes at me?’ | said, ‘There's not a chance in hell am | going to sing
overdubs, and had done a lot on Revolver). Sgt Pepper was the one album this line,’ because we still had lots of really deep memories of the kids
where things were done slightly differently. A lot of the time it ended up throwing jelly beans and toys on stage; and | thought that if we ever did
with just Paul playing the piano and Ringo keeping the tempo, and we get out there again, | was not going to be bombarded with tomatoes.
weren't allowed to play as a band so much. It became an assembly
process — just little parts and then overdubbing — and for me it became a JOHN: Paul had the line about ‘little help from my friends’. He had some
bit tiring and a bit boring. | had a few moments in there that | enjoyed, kind of structure for it — and we wrote it pretty well fifty/fifty based on
but generally | didn't really like making the album much. his original idea.”
I'd just got back from India, and my heart was still out there. After
what had happened in 1966, everything else seemed like hard work. It RINGO: ‘Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds’ and all the madness that
was a job, like doing something | didn’t really want to do, and I was went on around it was absolutely bonkers. | was actually with John when —
losing interest in being ‘fab’ at that point. Julian came in with this little kid's painting, a crazy little painting, and
Before then everything I'd known had been in the West, and so the John (as the dad) said, ‘Oh, what's that?’ and Julian said, ‘It's Lucy in the
trips to India had really opened me up. | was into the whole thing; the sky with diamonds.’ And then John got busy.
music, the culture, the smells. There were good and bad smells, lots of
colours, many different things — and that's what I'd become used to. I'd PAUL: I showed up at John’s house and he had a drawing Julian had
been let out of the confines of the group, and it was difficult for me to done at school with the title ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’ above it.©
come back into the sessions. In a way, it felt like going backwards. Then we went up to his music room and wrote the song, swapping
Everybody else thought that Sgt Pepper was a revolutionary record — but psychedelic suggestions as we went. | remember coming up with
for me it was not as enjoyable as Rubber Soul or Revolver, purely because ‘cellophane flowers’ and ‘newspaper taxis’ and John answered with
| had gone through so many trips of my own and | was growing out of things like ‘kaleidoscope eyes’ and ‘looking glass ties’. We never noticed
that kind of thing. the LSD initial until it was pointed out later — by which point people
Throughout that period | was quite close to John (although people didn't believe us.
always saw the Lennon-McCartney aspect). We were the ones that had
had ‘The Dental Experience’ together. JOHN: I saw Mel Tormé introducing a Lennon-McCartney show, saying
how ‘Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds’ was about LSD. It never was, and
NEIL ASPINALL: Spending six months on Sgt Pepper did allow them to nobody believes me. | swear to God, or swear to Mao, or to anybody you
experiment more, and take more time over the record. Sometimes being stuck like, | had no idea it spelt LSD. This is the truth: my son came home with
together in the same place
for too long can have an adverse effect, it can tend to a drawing and showed me this strange-looking woman flying around. |
be a bit disruptive rather than pulling things together. But that didn't happen, said, ‘What is it?’ and he said, ‘It's Lucy in the sky with diamonds,’ and |
everything was OK — although it did get a bit boring for me, really. thought, ‘That's beautiful.’ | immediately wrote a song about it. And the’
song had gone out, the whole album had been published, and somebody
JOHN: I never took it [LSD] in the studio. Once | did, actually. | noticed that the letters spelt out LSD. I had no idea, and of course after
thought I was taking some uppers and | was not in the state of handling that | was checking all the songs to see what the letters spelt out. They
it. | took it and | suddenly got so scared on the mike. | said, ‘What is it? didn't spell out anything, none of the others. It wasn’t about that at all.”
| feel ill.’ | thought | felt ill and I thought I was going cracked. | said | The images were from Alice in Wonderland. It was Alice in the boat.
must go and get some air. They all took me upstairs on the roof, and She is buying an egg and it turns into Humpty-Dumpty. The woman _
George Martin was looking at me funny, and then it dawned on me that serving in the shop turns into a sheep, and the next minute they're
| must have taken some acid. rowing in a rowing boat somewhere — and | was visualising that. There —
| said, ‘Well, | can't go on. You'll have to do it and I'll just stay and was also the image of the female who would someday come save me —
watch.’ | got very nervous just watching them all, and | kept saying, ‘Is ‘a girl with kaleidoscope eyes’ who would come out of the sky. It's not
this all right?’ They had all been very kind and they said, ‘Yes, it's all an acid song.*®
right.’ [ said, ‘Are you sure it's all right?’ They carried on making the
record.” GEORGE: I liked ‘Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds’ a lot. John always
We didn't really shove the LP full of pot and drugs but, | mean, there had a way of having an edge to his songs. | particularly liked the sounds
was an effect. We Were more consciously trying to keep it out. You on it where | managed to superimpose some Indian instruments onto the
wouldn't say, ‘| had some acid, baby, so groovy,’ but there was a feeling Western music. There were specific things that | had written, like
that something had happened between Revolver and Sgt Pepper. ‘Within You Without You’, to try to feature the Indian instruments, but
(Whether it would have happened anyway is pure speculation.)® under normal circumstances that wouldn't work on a Western song like
‘Lucy’, which has chord changes and modulations (whereas tambouras —
GEORGE MARTIN: I was aware of them smoking pot, but I wasn't aware and sitars stay in the same key forever). | liked the way the drone of the
that they did anything serious. In fact, I was so innocent that I actually took tamboura could be fitted in there.

242 SGT PEPPER

 another thing; during vocals in Indian music they Live an
alled a sarangi, which sounds like the human voice, and the — £
‘angi player are more or less in unison in a performance. For
t of trying that idea, but because I'm not a sarangi player |
| the guitar. In the middle eight of the song you can hear the
ing along with John’s voice. | was trying to copy Indian

all sorts of ideas: ‘Let's use bass harmonicas on this,’ or,

> and paper on this. Hey, we used to do that when we were pa
I
ie

n got the idea for ‘Mr Kite’ when we were filming in lesa
inKentWe had a lunch break, and we went in an antique shop ciel
2 > the restaurant. We were looking around when John came out -,
‘Op ' vith a little poster which had more or less the whole lyric of the ny
Being :
For
F The Benefit Of Mr Kite!’ on it. ter
; vd
JH was from this old poster for an old-fashioned circus from the fx et aialee aS
10s that I'd bought at an antique shop. We'd been filming a TV piece Ve Posten et yarns so nccors
) go with ‘Strawberry Fields Forever, There was a break and | went into ASTONISHING LEAPS
heat and bought an old postef advertising a variety show which
om
Mr i ;
creche ea
Sir! ee SSR et amo tu
>( K te 4 gt ae rz te: BON ae i Sdn age
* =. ha
Pals ais en dda pT Seer
ae te ee = é ec~ ca. Sone cy
Mg a Ue we ee Me ee ty ne
Som the Hendersons would also be there, late of Pablo Fanques Fair. Onparkiinied
Leap eters@ Fost Chalee. Hegihesyt. and 4 FairefMorers, asdtroach
would be hoops and horses and someone going through a hogshead DRO L dateat sr
Piihtar: the game tree:
oe |
alfire. Then there was Henry thé Horse. The band would start at ten ein cb amet shart peed eee neta! K wai
to six. All at Bishopsgate. | hardly madé up a word, just connecting the lists
bee er. Word for word, really.
1 wasn't very proud of that. Theré was no real work. | was juste@6ing
the motions because we needed a new song for Sgt Pepper at that
noment.” | had to waite it quick becauge otherwise | wouldi't have been on
the album.” [Latex theremwere all kinds of stories abut Henry the Horse
a heroin. | had never seentheroin in that period.”

JOHN: GEORGE HAS DONE A GREAT INDIAN ONE. WE

CAME ALONG ONE NIGHT AND HE HAD ABOUT 400 |
INDIAN FELLAS PLAYING THERE, AND IT WAS AGREAT
SWINGING EVENING, AS THEY oe
DO trca
2 Mites cat eYO es ms
A” om a.
a4 Rel : pokes A
"Within You Without You came aboutafter| hadspentabitof ~~ 28 Thee Cel yee earl
ia and fallen under the spell of the country and its music»hhad a f
ack a lot of instruments. It was written at Klaus Voormann's house
ead after dinner one night. The song came to me when |was
dal harmonium. a
Basen a lot of time with Ravi Shankar, trying to figure out how
hold the sitar, and how to play it. ‘Within You Without You’ was|
ne based upon a piece of music of Ravi's that he'd peeendee: Qeeye one
Radio. It was a very long piece—maybe thirty or forty minutes 537 ae
as written in different parts, with a progression in each. |wrote a ges"
im Of it, Using sounds similar to those I'd discovered in his piece, fo” mice 2:
ed inthree segments and spliced them together ois
“a
‘ap
.
 JOHN: ‘When I'm Sixty-Four’ was something Paul wrote in the Cavern Then | threw in a little bit | played on the piano: ‘Woke up, fell out
days. We just stuck a few more words on it like ‘grandchildren on your of bed, dragged a comb across my head...’ which was a little party piece
knee’ and ‘Vera, Chuck and Dave’. It was just one of those ones that he'd of mine, although I didn't have any more written. Then we thought, ‘Oh,
had, that we've all got, really; half a song. And this was just one that was we'll have an alarm clock to start it,’ which we did on the session. We got
quite a hit with us. We used to do them when the amps broke down, just Mal Evans to count out: ‘Three, four — twenty-five,’ and then the alarm
sing it on the piano.” went off and we knew that was the cue to go into the next bit of the
song. We just divided it all up.
PAUL: There was a story in the paper about ‘Lovely Rita’, the meter There was also the big orchestral build-up. | just sat down and
maid. She'd just retired as a traffic warden. The phrase ‘meter maid’ was thought, ‘Oh, this is a great opportunity. This is the song, man!’ It was a
so American that it appealed, and to me a ‘maid’ was always a little sexy crazy song, anyway, with ‘I'd love to turn you on’ and lots of psychedelic
thing: ‘Meter maid. Hey, come and check my meter, baby.’ | saw a bit of references. We could go anywhere with this song; it was definitely going
that, and then | saw that she looked like a ‘military man’. The song got to go big places. | started to try to sell an idea to John: ‘We take fifteen
played around with and pulled apart, and | remember wandering around bars, just an arbitrary amount, and then we'll try something new. We'll
Heswall (where my dad lived and my brother now lives), trying to write tell the orchestra to start on whatever the lowest note on their
the words to it. | pulled them all together and we recorded it. instrument is, and to arrive at the highest note on their instrument. But
to do it in their own time.’ We actually put that in the score: ‘From here
JOHN: He makes them up like a novelist. You hear lots of McCartney- you're on your own.’
influenced songs on the radio — these stories about boring people doing [ had to go round to all the session musicians and talk to them:
boring things: being postmen and secretaries and writing home. I'm not ‘You've got fifteen bars. If you want to go together, you can.’ The
interested in writing third-party songs. | like to write about me, because trumpet players, always famous for their fondness of lubricating
I know me.*° substances, didn't care, so they'd be there at the note ahead of everyone.
The strings all watched each other like little sheep: ‘Are you going up?’
— 'Yes.' —'So am I.’ And they'd go up a little more, all very delicate and
cosy, all going up together. But listen to those trumpets — they're just
freaking out. The result was a crazy big swing storm, which we put
together with all the other little ideas. It was very exciting to be doing
that instead of twelve-bar blues. The whole album was made like that.
At that stage, we had just discovered stereo (which was just coming
in), so we panned everything everywhere. | remember we asked why
there were always little breaks between songs on a record. The engineers
J = : Sia told us they were traditionally three seconds long, and they were there
I was writing ‘A Day In The Life’ with the Daily Mail propped in so the DJs could get their records lined up. We thought, ‘You could put
front of me on the piano. | had it open at their News in Brief, or Far and something in there, little funny sounds.’ And then we heard the engineers
Near, whatever they call it.” | noticed two stories. One was about the talking about frequencies, and we asked about them. They said, ‘Well,
Guinness heir who killed himself in a car. That was the main headline you've got low and high frequencies. Only your dog can hear the highest
story. He died in Landon in a car crash.*° ones.’ We said, ‘You're kidding.’ Then they told us that people had
experimented with low frequencies as weapons — you can blow a city
PAUL: John got ‘he blew his mind out in a car’ from a newspaper story. away if the right frequency is strong enough.
We transposed it a bit — ‘blew his mind out’ was a bit dramatic. In fact, So we thought, ‘Well, we've got to have a bit that only the dogs can
he crashed his car. But that's what we were saying about history: Malcolm hear. Why just make records for humans?’ It got a bit insane and
Muggeridge said that all history is a lie, because every fact that gets everyone added a bit more. We put those bits on the end of the record
reported gets distorted. Even in the Battle of Hastings, King Harold didn't just for a laugh, really: ‘Let's have a bit for Martha, Fluffy and Rover.’
die with an arrow in his eye; that's just what the Bayeux tapestry says —
they put it in because it looked better. And now if you research Harold, JOHN: Was that the one ['‘A Day In The Life’) that everyone thought
you find he was off somewhere else — playing Shea Stadium, probably. was something obscene, and never was? If you play it backwards and all
that. We listened to it backwards and it seemed to say something
JOHN: On the next page was a story about 4,000 potholes in the streets obscene but we had no idea; it was just one of those things.”
of Blackburn, Lancashire.*° There was still one word missing in that I'd like to meet the man who banned this song of ours. I'd like to turn
verse when we came to record. | knew the line had to go: ‘Now they him on to what's happening. Why don't they charge the Electricity
know how many holes it takes to — something — the Albert Hall.’ It was Board with spreading drugs because to get electricity you have to ‘switch
a nonsense verse, really, but for some reason | couldn't think of the verb. on’? Hidden meanings. Everything depends on the way you read a thing.
What did the holes do to the Albert Hall? It was Terry [Doran] who If they want to read drugs into our stuff, they will. But it's them that's
‘said ‘fill’ the Albert Hall. And that was it. Perhaps | was looking for that —_reading it, them!”
word all the time, but couldn't put my tongue on it. Other people don't
“necessarily give you a word ora line, they just throw in the word you're RINGO: People think things are hidden on the album. Well, | didn't
looking for anyway.” think anything was hidden. We did put a lot of animal noises on, but a
- Paul and | were definitely working together, especially on ‘A Day In lot of the talking that was on there was only there because the state of
The Life’. The way we wrote a lot of the time: you'd write the good bit, the art was pretty primitive at that time. If we talked on one track, you
the part that was easy, like ‘l read the news today’ or whatever it was. could never get rid of it, and it would be moved onto the next track as
Then when you got stuck or whenever it got hard, instead of carrying on, you jumped across.
you just drop it. Then we would meet each other, and | would sing half We did some talking that was absolutely up-front. We all went out
and he would be inspired to write the next bit, and vice versa. He was a and talked on a mike and turned it backwards. It was not as if it was that
bit shy about it, because | think he thought it was already a good song. secretive; all those people who play records backwards and get
Sometimes we wouldn't let each other interfere with a song either, something rude should play it the right way and it probably says
because you tend to be a bit lax with someone else's stuff; you something really nice.
experiment a bit.” Paul's contribution was the beautiful little lick in the
song: ‘I'd love to turn you on,’ that he'd had floating around in his head GEORGE MARTIN: In terms of asking me for particular interpretations,
and couldn't use. | thought it was a damn good piece of work.*® Jobn was the least articulate. He would deal in moods, he would deal in
colours, almost, and be would never be specific about what instruments
PAUL: John and I sat down, and he had the opening verse and the tune. or what line I bad. I would do that myself. Paul, however, would actually sit
He got the idea of how it would continue from the Daily Mail, where down at the piano with me, and we'd work things out. Jobn was more likely to
there was the mad article about the holes in Blackburn. Then the next say (as in the case of ‘Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite!’): ‘It's a fairground
article would be that Dame So-and-so had played the Albert Hall. So sequence. I want to be in that circus atmosphere; I want to smell the sawdust
they all got mixed together in a little poetic jumble that sounded nice. when I hear that song.’ So it was up to me to provide that

SGT PEPPER

a
—S—
 \SPINALL: Brian was in America with his business partner, Nat at the time, and | took the whole album-cover idea to him. He
Beind a bit nervous — as you sometimes are before flying —he left a note represented the artist Peter Blake, and he was very good friends with
t about the cover
for the new album. the photographer Michael Cooper. Robert said, ‘Let Michael take som
pictures. We'll get Peter to do.a.background, and then we'll collag:
(GEORGE: Brian had a premonition that his plane was going to crash, so all together.’ aa
he sent a letter saying: ‘Brown paperbags for Sgt Pepper.’ | went down to Peter's house and gave him a little drawin
a starting point. The cover was going to be a»picture of a)
UL. This album was.a big production, and we wanted the album somewhere up north: The Beatles beifig given the keys to th
eeve to be really interesting. Everyone agreed When) we were kids, mayor, beside a floral clock like the one:they have in the mu
we'd take a half-hour bus ride to Lewis's department store to buy an And then, inside the cover, we were”going to be pittiea tl
album, and then we'd come back on the bus, take it out of the brown pictures of OftfaVtINte(Bee aiiieialine.
paper bag and read it cover to cover. They were the full-size albums then That was the original plan, but then Peter collaged it inne b
not like CDs): you read them and you studied them. We liked the idea idea. It all came together and we had the photoysession in the evening,
of reaching out to the record-buyer, because of our memories of We had all the plants delivered by a florist; people think they're Pe
spending our ownhard-earned ash and really loving anyone who gave plants — marijuana plants — but they're not, it was all straight. r
a
us value for money. So, for the cover; we wouldn't just have our Beatle
jackets on, or we wouldn't just be suave guys in turtlenecks (looking like NEIL ASPINALL: The sleeve was the result of conversations with Peter Blake.
we did on Rubber Soul). ItWould now besmuch more pantomime, much They bad a list of the people they wanted standing in the background, so Mal
more ‘Mr Bojangles’. and J went to all the different'libraries and got prints of them, which Peter
For our outfits, we went to Berman's, the theatrical costumiets, and Blake blew up and tinted. He used them to make the collage, along with th
ordered up the wildest things, based on old military tunics. That's where plants and everything else you see on the cover. > &
they sent you if you were making a film: ‘Go down to Berman's and get
your, soldier suits.’ They had books there that showed you what was PAUL: The Fool were part of our crowd. They were a group of”arti
available. Did we want Edwardian or Crimean? We just chose oddball who later painted the Baker Street shop and used to make clothes for u
things from everywhere and put them together. We all chose our own They had wanted to do a big psychedelic painting for the gatefold,a
colours and our own materials: “You can't have that, he's having it...' The Beatles loved the idea. But Robert Fraser hated it, He saidy.It's t

We went for bright) psychedelic colours, a bit like the fluorescent good art.’ And | said, ‘Well, | don't care about you, mate. You may nol
S6ckssyou used to get in the Fifties.(they came in very pink; very like it, but it's our bloody cover.’ We stuck out, so The Fool did the
turquoise or véryeyellow). At the back of our minds, | think the plan was painting. Robert kept saying, ‘No, it's just not a aied painting.’ He di
to have garish uniforms which would actually go against the idea of have a great eye for it, and | agree with him now, but it would have beer
uniform: “At the time everyone was into that ‘| Was Lord Kitchener's OK for the time. Instead, Robert told us we had to have one of the big
Valet’ thing#kids in bands wearing soldiers’ outfits and putting flowers in four-head photographs from the Michael Cooper session for the
the barrels of rifles. gatefold, and he was right. There was a lot of crossover with our friends,
with everyone throwing in their twopenny worth.
JOHN, Pepper wasjust an evolvement of the Beatle boots and all that. It When we started dreaming up ideas for the cover, the main problem
was just another psychedelicimage. Beatle haircuts and boots were just was.that people thought it would be too expensive. They'd never paid se
as big as flowered pants in’ their time. | never felt that when Pepper came much to have a cover put together. Normally it was about seventy quid:
out, Haight-Ashbury was a direct result. It always seemed to me that they a good photographer like Angus McBean would come in and take yout
were all happening at once. Kids were already wearing army jackets on snap, and that would be his fee; seventy pounds.
the King’s Road; all we did was make them famous.”
NEIL ASPINALL:
When the cover was finished, Sir Joseph Lockwood had a
PAUL: To help us get into the character of Sgt Pepper's band, we started meeting with Paul. I was there when be brought the album cover in. It had the
to think about who our heroes might be: ‘Well, then, who would this flowers, the drum, the four Beatles — and a big blue sky. They'd wiped out all
band like on the cover? Who would my character admire?’ We wrote a the people behind, because he was frightened that they might all sue or not
list. They could be as diverse as we wanted; Marlon Brando, James Dean, want to be on the cover.
Albert Einstein — or whoever. So we started choosing... Dixie Dean (an
old Everton football hero I'd heard my dad talk about, | didn't really PAUL: I said, ‘Don't worry, Joe — it's going to be great, man.’ He said
know him), Groucho Marx and so on. It got to be anyone we liked. ‘We'll have dozens of lawsuits on our hands — it will be absolutely
terrible. The legal department is going mad with it.’ | told him, ‘Don't
NEIL ASPINALL: I remember being in the studio, and everybody was asking: worry, just write them all a letter. | bet you they won't mind. So write to
‘Who do you want in the band?’ All these crazy suggestions were coming out. them, and then come back to me.’
lobn was talking about Albert Stubbins — and nobody quite knew who he
was. He was a Liverpool centre forward. NEIL ASPINALL: Paul refused and said that no way would they lose all the
people. In the end Brian’ office wrote to everybody, saying: ‘Sign bere ifyou
RINGO: Sgt Pepper was a special album, so when the time came for the agree.’ Everybody did, except Leo Gorcey of the Bowery Boys who wanted
leeve we wanted to dress up, and we wanted to be these people, all the $500. He was on the back row, so they just put a bit of blue sky where be had
Peppers. It was Flower Power coming into its fullest. It was love and been. Brian thought the sleeve was wonderful _ It gave him a bit of a headache
was a fabulous period, for me and the world. having to ask everybodys permission, but be thought the idea was great.

PAUL: We got artistic people involved. | was very good friends with GEORGE: There were those who refused to be on there, saying, ‘I’m not
Robert Fraser, the London art-dealer; a guy with one of the greatest a lonely heart,’ or, ‘I don't want to be on there.’ Letters had to go out to
visual eyes that I've ever met. It was a great thrill, being a friend of his get permission from everybody, and some people did turn us down.
e€

ister Crowley
> West
ny Bruce
*khausen
3, Fields
. Jung
wPoe
d Astaire
rkin
‘gas f
y Gorsy
1tZ Fall
ion/Rodia
» Dylan A> aoa
rey Pugs Re1, oe
Roberd mace!’ 5 se

\y Gatis”
Bic Wel we sX—e geet- Bel
nimy" Handley
rilyn Monroe
liam Burroughs
ru
rel
‘hard Lindner
Oat
tl Marx
SW ettss
a
art Sutcliffe us
ank Petty Girl
x Miller
ank Petty GiFl
SalKosel shu-weleKe)
m Mix
car Wilde
rone Power
rryeBell :
LD. Livingone;
anny Weissrulled) ’
phen Crane ee,
sy Bonn tf
’
orge Bernard Shav
[

mG J ter

1S. “Sl “eape 9 Me

a) ‘ — of _ : ” y J

’ > * & “ *
7
 ~ rh,
asked by Mr, Brian Epstein @bout RS involved
.OfHe
Uh Sia Te France f
f pe
ularly
a
restricem
an
—_—_—

i havtoebe’s ally considered, but the*dama he ah

eople shouldevolve =) é they are < pa
the sort i he United States = a cool n
is b t
“

$ proba ly id copyright i
a eels hy the tae Eve ng Post = relatively
The risk attac ihe case of eopyrigig ot desune
prryingyepptr Fo
 s far as I can gather (tho have not been, able to ge
of them) EMI only require these from
‘wr owan.estate can sue but in England it is
However, two difficulties could arise.
publicity mad) and Stuart Sutcliffe's 1

‘
(27, 33 & 51) Have discussed the Gurus’wil
i
felt, subject to-another- decision) fasts likeli
the photos, let alone sue, was
rai nothing about them.
ys

Stockhausen is somewhere between Davi

Germany, am still trying to track him d@

farlene Deitrich, q cari J 12802N. Wetherly Drive, Los Angeles, 69

wants tos (Ava of-bhoba=) fae

xe. Black, (Shirely Temple éw Drive, Woodside, California

ay
Maes fovsee the cover scord, ssaid this impossible), SHAS
to réceive*autographed “children

' Johnny Weissmullgr, 1700 Eas

 ABRs —— =
yZAEOp5

WA )
Say
a F !
2 Bs
enw
sd
Aa - ;

EARTS Pig PRR ELLY HE/

“

7 mm
FH

PAUL: At that time, EMI was very much a colonial record company. It
SO
te . nf oo ’ Ke

GEORGE MARTIN: Looking back on Pepper, you can see it was quite an
still is — they sell records in India and China — so they were/are very icon. It was the record of that time, and it probably did change the face of
aware of Indian sensibilities. | remember Sir Joe (a good old mate, recording, but we didn't do it consciously. I think there was a gradual
actually) coming round to my house in St John’s Wood, and saying, ‘Il development by the boys, as they tried to make life a bit more interesting on
say, Paul, we really can't do it, old chap. You can't have Gandhi.’ | said, record. They felt: ‘We don't have to go up onstage and do this; we can do it
‘Why not? We're revering him.’ — ‘Oh, no, no. It might be taken the justfor ourselves, and just for the studio.’ So it became a different kind of art
wrong way. He's rather sacred in India, you know.’ So Gandhi had to go. form — like making a film rather than a live performance. That affected their
thinking and their writing, and it affected the way I put it together, too.
NEIL ASPINALL: Gandhi was sitting under the palm tree, so they just put I think Pepper did represent what the young people were on about, and it
another palm frond there in bis place. seemed to coincide with the revolution in young peoples thinking. It was the
epitome of the Swinging Sixties. It linked up with Mary Quant and miniskirts
GEORGE: | still have no idea who chose some of those people. | think and all those things — the freedom of sex, the freedom of soft drugs like
Peter Blake put a lot of the more confusing people in there. It was just a marijuana and so on.
broad spectrum of people. The ones | wanted were people | admired. |
didn't put anybody on there because | didn't like them (unlike some - JOHN: It took nine months. It wasn't nine months in the studio, but we'd
people...) work then stop a bit, work it out, rest, work... | just like to get in and get
out. | get a bit bored. Generally, our other albums took three intensive
PAUL: John wanted a couple of far-out ones like Hitler and Jesus, which weeks of work. Afterwards, we would slow down for one week, and then
was John just wanting to be bold and brassy. He was into risk-taking, and we could judge the whole thing. It was the most expensive [album] and,
| knew what he was doing. | didn't agree with it, but he was just trying of course, the record company was screaming. They screamed at the
to be far out, really. price of the record cover, etc., etc. And now it's probably pinned all over
Robert Fraser and Michael Cooper were mates with The Rolling the walls.”
Stones, as were we, and they said, ‘It would be great to have a reference
to the Stones on there.’ So we slung that in the corner. PAUL: After the record was finished, | thought it was great. | thought it
was a huge advance, and | was very pleased because a month or two
JOHN: If you look closely at the album cover, you'll see two people who earlier the press and the music papers had been saying, ‘What are The
are flying, and two who aren't. (That's just a little ‘in’ joke. Two of them Beatles up to? Drying up, | suppose.’ So it was nice, making an album like
didn’t share it with two others.)” Pepper and thinking, 'Yeah, drying up, | suppose. That's right.’ It was
lovely to have them on that when it came out. | loved it. | had a party to
RINGO: Have a look at the cover and come to your own conclusion! celebrate — that whole weekend was a bit of a party, as far as | recall. |
There's a lot of red-eyed photos around. remember getting telegrams saying: ‘Long live Sgt Pepper.’ People would
come round and say, ‘Great album, man.’
PAUL: We wanted the whole of Pepper to be so that It certainly got noticed. It was released on the Friday, and on the
you could look at the front cover for years, and study all Sunday Jimi Hendrix opened with ‘Sgt Pepper’ when we saw him at the
) those people and read all the words on the back. And there Saville Theatre. That was the single biggest tribute for me. | was a big
were little hand-outs, little badges. We originally wanted to fan of Jimi's, and he'd only had since the Friday to learn it.
, = have an envelope stuck inside the sleeve with gifts in, but it John was very pleased with the album. It fitted with what we were
HONG became too hard to produce. It was hard enough, anyway, doing, and he certainly had some great tracks on it. ‘A Day In The Life’
Mey and the record company were having to bite the bullet: it was is a classic.
costing a little bit more than their usual two pence
cardboard cover. GEORGE: I liked Sgt Pepper when it was finished. | knew it was different
for the public, and | was very happy with the concept of the cover. ‘A
JOHN: Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band is Day In The Life’ had the big orchestra and the big piano chord, and
one of the most important steps in our ‘Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds’ I liked musically. But the rest of it was
career. It had to be just right. We tried, just ordinary songs.
and | think succeeded in achieving
what we set out to do. If we hadn't, JOHN: All the differences in Pepper were in retrospect. It wasn't sitting
§ then it wouldn't be out now.” there thinking, ‘Oh, we've had LSD,’ so tinkle, tinkle...°
 {ar iEARTS In
ol

DY

In those days, reviews weren't very important — because we had it PAUL: The mood of the album was in the spirit of the age, because we
made whatever happened. Nowadays, I'm as sensitive as shit, and every ourselves were fitting into the mood of the time. The idea wasn't to do
review counts. But those days, we were too big to touch. | don't anything to cater for that mood — we happened to be in that mood
remember the reviews at all. We were so blasé, we never even read the anyway. And it wasn't just the general mood of the time that influenced
news clippings. | didn't bother with them or read anything about us. It us; | was searching for references that were more on the fringe of things.
was a bore.” The actual mood of the time was more likely to be The Move, or Status
Quo or whatever — whereas outside all of that there was this avant-garde
RINGO: Sgt Pepper seemed to capture the mood of that year, and it also mode, which | think was coming into Pepper.
allowed a lot of other people to kick off from there and to really go for There was definitely a movement of people. All | am saying is: we
it. When that album came out the public loved it. It was a monster. weren't really trying to cater for that movement — we were just being part
Everybody loved it, and they all admitted it was a really fine piece of of it, as we always had been. I maintain The Beatles weren't the leaders of
work. Which it was. the generation, but the spokesmen. We were only doing what the kids in
While we were making the album, they thought we were actually in the art schools were all doing. It was a wild time, and it feels to me like
there self-indulging, just in the studio as the Fabs. Like in the movies, a time warp — there we were in a
where people get famous and then end up in the studio writing huge magical wizard-land with velvet
operas that never work out. We, however, were actually in there FE m% patchwork clothes and burning
recording this fine body of work, and making, | believe, one of the most £ 4 joss sticks, and here we are
popular albums ever. ‘ now soberly dressed.

PAUL: Other people were starting to get interested in what we were

doing. | always felt that the Stones took our lead and followed. We
would do a certain thing, like Pepper, then a year later they would do
Satanic Majesties. There were others, Donovan for example, who were
making some pretty funky little records at the time, but | don't
think anyone was getting into the art and craziness of instru-
mentation as much as we were.
The biggest influence, as I've said a lot of times, was the
Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds album, and it was basically the
harmonies that | nicked from there. Again it wasn't really
avant-garde, it was just straight music, surf music — but
stretched a bit, lyrically and melodically.

JOHN: When you get down to it, it was nothing

more than an album called Sgt Pepper with the
tracks stuck together. It was a beautiful idea
then, but it doesn’t mean a thing now.
| actively dislike bits of them which didn't
come out right. There are bits of ‘Lucy In The
Sky’ I don't like. Some of the sound in ‘Mr
Kite’ isn't right. | like ‘A Day In The Life’, but
it's still not half as nice as | thought it was
when we were doing it. | suppose we could
have worked harder on it, but | couldn't be arsed
doing any more. ‘Sgt Pepper’ is a nice song,
‘Getting Better’ is a nice song, and George's
‘Within You Without You’ is beautiful. But what
else is on it musically besides the whole concept
of having tracks running into each other?”
 GEORGE: The summer of 1967 was the Summer of Love for us. There necklace to the chief of police at the final press conference. ‘This is from us to
were music festivals, and everywhere we went people were smiling and you and it makes us one,’ I said without cracking up, and he took it without
sitting on lawns drinking tea. A lot of it was bullshit; it was just what the embarrassment. Imagine such times... I wonder ifyou can. It did happen in
press was saying. But there was definitely a vibe: we could feel what was Monterey, a long time ago.
going on with our friends — and people who had similar goals in America Musically, the festival was stunning beyond description. Almost all of the
~ even though we were miles away. You could just pick up the vibes, man. artists were beyond praise, not only for their offer offree services, but for the
power of their performance. Anyone who saw every show — and I didn't
RINGO: Of course the scene was a very small world — England, America, because I was too busy — saw a parade of popular music stars that will never
Holland and France — but we're talking about major cities. | had a guy be equalled. Cloud-cuckoo-land? No! An earthly paradise? You bet! Every
working for me in Weybridge, the artist Paul Dudley, and when he was generation should be so lucky.
around me he had his beads on and his Afghan — but when he went back
up North he put his brown suit on. A lot of Flower Power didn't translate PAUL: John Phillips and some others came to see me in London, asking
in, say, Oldham or Bradford, and not really in Liverpool. But | felt it was if The Beatles would perform at Monterey. | said we couldn't, but
universal, anyway. recommended Jimi Hendrix. They'd never heard of him: ‘Is he any
good?’ Jimi played it, and he was great.
PAUL: The year 1967 seems rather golden. I've got memories of
bombing around London to all the clubs and the shops — of going down GEORGE: I wasn't there and didn't know anything about it. We just took
the King’s Road, Fulham Road and to Chelsea and Mason's Yard (where acid in St George's Hill and wondered what it could have been like.
we had the Indica art gallery and book store). It always seemed to be
sunny and we wore the far-out clothes and the far-out little
sunglasses. The rest of it was just music. Maybe calling it the
Summer of Love is a bit too easy; but it was a golden summer.
There were posters coming in from San Francisco, all
those psychedelic posters were great. George went to San
Francisco that year, and | made a similar trip. It was a
straight ‘hello, hi there’ visit: | woke Grace Slick up one
morning, and I met Jack Casady of Jefferson Airplane,
among others. | simply went there to see what the place
was all about, just before the tour buses moved into
Haight-Ashbury.

DEREK TAYLOR: I'd left The Beatles in December 1964,

and gone to live in Hollywood for three years. Things had
got very ‘successful’, which means I took on too much: The RQax

Suki
nonbereya
aR
Byrds, Beach Boys, Van Dyke Parks, Mamas and Papas,
Chad and Jeremy — the intelligent side of US pop — and so
I'd dropped out because it was all too much. o
Then, to keep active, I became one of the three founders of O°? @°”
the first International Pop Festival at Monterey which was to cee
@ ©

ES
take place in June 1967. Very soon we had a billboard up 80:
outside our nice little gimcrack offices, and the first name on it
was Petula Clark. Since we had already secured the Monterey
25
ST RSTERS
showground for three days — five concerts at 8,000 seats each Je REAP
RR tae Ei

—filling the rest of the bill was a matter of some urgency. And
now we had to ask ourselves, ‘Why are we doing a festival?
Why should anyone make any money out of it?’ The festival
should be for people, for music, love and, yes, flowers. That
was my slogan and we were to put it on bumper stickers,
posters and make it all come true. The festival became a a}
vacle
be
ttle
how
Staw,.
bok,
ack
yo

charitable affair with no one being paid for appearing. >

The preparations were easier to deal with because of the &
LSD experience, now it really was Music, Love and ~~
Flowers, not only on the bumper stickers but also in the air 2
and in the offices and even on the telephone. We succeeded in @
eliminating the word ‘problem’ (as in ‘Problem: how do we @
feed 8,000 people?'), not by pretending that things couldnt *B
go wrong — we would never have = the festival into shape
if we had lost our sense ofreal 10 but by refusing
absolutely to become ‘bung up.
My own time was spent knee-deep in the hardest of
work, and | stayed very straight through all of it. The
worst people to deal with, at first, were the police and the
city fathers and mothers. Having squared and bribed and
charmed them out of the way, we then bad to take on the
Diggers, who believed in free food and drink and music for
all, man, and the Hell's Angels (free beer and dope for us,
man) and finally other acid-heads who, previously
drugged out of harm’ way,iow decided that they would
take over ‘security’ and let everyone into the festival. ‘Hey,
man, w hy not?
The police and fire departments, extremely negative at
ot
first found they had nothing at all to trouble them and it PE
soon became so cool and easy and peaceable that they were
banding each other flowers I presented a glass--prism

254 THE SUMMER

OF LOVI
 PAUL: AFTER I TOOK IT, IT OPENED MY EYES. WE ONLY USE ONE-TENTH OF OUR BR AIN

I spoke to the reporter beforehand, and which are to safeguard something or other. But
wi 29 1967 3 said, ‘You know what's going to happen here:
I'm going to get the blame for telling everyone
safeguarding it has a side effect. And the choice
is where to draw the line. We couldn't describe
I take drugs. But you're the people who are
British Minister
making love to somebody, because the system
going to distribute the news.’ Isaid, ‘I'll tell you. doesn't allow that.”

Of State Horrified But if you've got any worries about the news
having an effect on kids, then don't show it. I'll GEORGE: It was all over the newspapers. The
By Beatle’s Views tell you the truth, but if you disseminate the
whole thing to the public then it won't be my
press had a field day. | thought Paul should
have been quiet about it —[ wish he hadn't said
LONDON (UPI)—A woman responsibility. I'm not sure | want to preach this anything, because it made everything messy.
overnmen t minis ter said Fri- but, seeing as you're asking — yeah, I've taken People were bugging us about it for ages.
ay she was horrified by Beatle LSD.' I'd had it about four times at that stage, Somebody must have heard a rumour and then
Paul McCartney’s views oF and I told him so. | felt it was reasonable, but it gone to ask him about it.
became a big news item. It seemed strange to me, because we'd been
a |Pigas in the hairdressers trying to get him to take LSD for about eigh-
yesterday and this magazine JOHN: Who gave the drugs to The Beatles? | teen months — and then one day he's on the
was passed to me to while away
didn't invent those things. | bought it from
the time while I was under the television talking all about it.
hair dryer,” said Miss Alice someone who got it from somebody. We never
Bacon, minister of state at the invented the stuff. JOHN: He always times his big announce-
Home Office, during a parli- The big story about The Beatles and LSD ments right on the letter, doesn't he?”
amentary debate on drug- came from when the British TV interviewed
Paul and said, ‘Have you ever taken LSD?’ PAUL: The others always thought | had
peiiare was a long article in Paul said ‘yes’, and then the press said, ‘And do announced it on purpose. The truth was that
it called ‘The Love Generation, you feel any responsibility about announcing I got caught on camera by a news team and
and statements from various this?’ Paul said, ‘Yes. Don't put the film out.’ had to decide quickly whether to tell the
people who are pop singers and And, of course, they showed the whole film. truth or not.
just
managers of pop groups. I
say I was horr ifie d by som e of The same type of people five years later are
she
the things I read in it, saying, ‘Paul McCartney and The Beatles are RINGO: We weren't actually telling anybody
id. propagating drugs.’ We didn't do it. How dare about LSD, bar the people who knew us, and
had
oe She added McCartney they say we propagated it, when they twisted Paul decided to come out and tell people. He
said God was in everything and everything we did?” always mentioned things like that. Public
he had realized this from LSD. | don't think we did-anything to kids — reaction was pretty mixed. The problem was
Beatle Manager Brian Epstein anything somebody does, they do to them- that it gave the press an excuse to be on all
had said he was wholeheartedly selves.” | never felt any responsibility, being a our cases. | personally didn’t think it was any
on the side of hallucinatory so-called idol. It's wrong of people to expect it. of their business; but once Paul said it (and
drugs, according to Miss Bacon. What they are doing is putting their this applied to anything anyone ever said in
Miss Bacon said: “Our young
of
people do take what some
responsibilities on us, as Paul said to the The Beatles), the other three had to deal with
quite
these pop stars Say newspapers when he admitted taking LSD. If it — which we did with all love, because we
riously. they were worried about him being loved each other. But | could have done
are we
SerWhat sort of society responsible, they should have been responsible without it, myself.
g to crea te if ever yone enough and not printed it, if they were The press started asking all those questions:
goin ity
pe fro m real
wants to esca genuinely worried about people copying.” ‘Do you think it's right to take drugs, because
into a dre am worl d? There's an illusion that just because somebody the public do what you say?’ In those days, we
buys your record that they're going to do what felt everyone should be doing it. | felt they
PAUL: When acid came around, we heard that you tell them. It doesn't work that way.” should all be smoking grass and taking acid. |
you were never the same after you took it — it was twenty-seven years old, and that's what |
alters your life, and you can never think in the PAUL: | don't know whether people attacked was doing. It was the drug of love — love
a same way again. | think John was rather excited me for it. It was half and half. A lot of people towards our fellow man or woman.
by this prospect, but I was rather frightened by knew it was going on that year. My friends
it. Just what I need,’ | thought. ‘I’m going to would say, ‘Wow! | hear you told the news,’ or JOHN: We don't give instructions on how to
4 have some funny little thing, and then I'll never something. I'm sure the newspapers attacked live your life. The only thing we can do —
be able to get back home again. Oh Jeez!’ me for it, but I made a big disclaimer because we're in the public eye — is to reflect
So | delayed, and | think | was seen to stall beforehand because | didn't want to excite what we do, and they can judge for themselves
a little bit within the group. Talk about peer people into taking LSD. | think even on the what happens to us. If they're using us as a
pressure! | mean, The Beatles had got to be one interview | mention that. guideline, we can only try and do what's right
of the ultimate peer pressures going; they were We had all taken it by then, and it was just for us and therefore, we hope, right for them.”
my mates, my fellow musicians. | remember in that they happened to ask me. If they'd asked
1965 we'd had a few days off in Los Angeles any of our friends, they would have said the
and had hired a house in Hollywood. John, same thing. | lived the most locally, | think: |
George and Ringo took acid there, but | was the shortest trip from ITN. pau: |ADMIT THERE
wouldn't do it that day. It took me quite a while
to get round to it, until | eventually thought, JOHN: | don’t think there's any truth coming ARE DANGERS IN
‘We can't all be in The Beatles, with me being over about what's happening at all. The only
the only one who hasn't taken it.’ true thing in a newspaper is the name of the TAKING IT, BUT | CIN
NVAW
GIN
AINO
dVL
LVHL
NA3C
LaVd
LI
HSIT
dl
AA
G1IN
T1V
ANIH
LVH
LS!
On 19th June 1967, I was interviewed by newspaper. I'm not saying they're intentionally
ITN about drug-taking. That would be the day evil; they just can't control it. They just won't TOOKAT WITH A
after my birthday — how wonderful for me! | allow the truth to come out, “so. there's
remember a couple of men from ITN showed something wrong with the system. DELIBERATE PURPOSE
up, and then the newscaster arrived: ‘Is it true Television is a little better, but it is still V
LIOH
youve had drugs?’ They were at my door — | under the influence of the system that doesn't IN MIND: TO FIND T!
couldn't tell them to go away — so | thought, allow the truth to come out. You've still got a
‘Well, I'm either going to try to bluff this, or I'm system which restricts and inhibits people ANSWER TO \ WoiN

MA
J
going to tell him the truth.’ | made a lightning speaking their minds. We can speak our minds
decision: ‘Sod it. I'll give them the truth.’ now, but there will be limits imposed and rules Hire IS ALL ABC X\

[HJ
 pale
3 qt be

e/
 RINGO: WE WERE BIG ENOUGH TO COMMAND AN AUDIENCE OF THAT SIZE, AND IT WAS
FOR LOVE. IT WAS FOR LOVE AND BLOODY PEACE. IT WAS A FABULOUS TIME. I EVEN GET
EXCITED NOW WHEN | REALISE THAT'S WHAT IT WAS FOR: PEACE AND LOVE, PEOPLE
PUTTING FLOWERS IN GUNS.
RINGO: The Our World broadcast them, so we got some nice little
was great, going out to hundreds of noises coming out. It sounded like
millions of people around the world. an orchestra, but it's just them two
It was the first worldwide satellite playing the violin and that. So then
broadcast ever. It's a standard thing we thought, ‘Ah, well, we'll have
that people do now; but then, when some more orchestra around _ this
we did it, it was a first. That was little freaky orchestra that we've got.’
exciting; we were doing a lot of firsts. But there was no perception of how it
They were exciting times. sounded at the end until they did it
that day, until the rehearsal. It still
PAUL: | stayed up all the night sounded a bit strange then."
before the show, drawing on the shirt
that | wore. | had some chemicals GEORGE MARTIN: Jobn wrote ‘All
called Trichem — you could draw ona You Need Is Love’ especially for the
shirt with them, and then you could television show. Brian suddenly whirled
launder the shirt and the pattern stayed on. | used them a lot; many’s the in and said that we were to represent Britain in a round-the-world hook-up,
shirt or door I've painted with them. It was good fun. That shirt got and we'd got to write a song. It was a challenge. We had less than two weeks
nicked after the show; still — easy come, easy go. to get it together, and then we learnt there were going to be over 300 million
people watching, which was
for those days a phenomenal figure. John came up
GEORGE: | don’t know how many millions of people saw the broadcast, with the idea of the song, which was ideal, lovely.
but it was supposed to be a phenomenal number. It was probably the
very earliest that technology enabled that kind of satellite link: they GEORGE: Because of the mood of the time, it seemed to be a great idea
broadcast from Japan and Mexico and Canada — all over the place. to perform that song while everybody else was showing knitting in
| remember the recording, because we decided to get some people in Canada or Irish clog dances in Venezuela. We thought, ‘Well, we'll sing
who looked like the ‘love generation’. If you look closely at the floor, | “All You Need Is Love”, because it's a subtle bit of PR for God.’ I don't
know that Mick Jagger is there. But there's also an Eric Clapton, | believe, know if the song was written before that, because there were lots of
in full psychedelic regalia and permed hair, sitting right there. It was songs in circulation at the time.
good: the orchestra was there and it was played live. We rehearsed for a
while, and then it was: ‘You're on at twelve o'clock, lads.’ The man GEORGE MARTIN: In arranging it, we shoved ‘La Marseillaise’ on the
upstairs pointed his finger and that was that. We did it — one take. front, and a whole string of stuff on the end. I fell into deep water over that.
I'm afraid that amongst all the little bits and pieces I used in the play-out
NEIL ASPINALL: It was a professional shoot. I remember camera crews (which the boys didn't know about) was a bit of ‘In The Mood’. Everyone
and a lot of colourful people. It was psychedelic and all the rest of it, but the thought ‘In The Mood’ was in the public domain, and it is — but the
BBC filmed it in black and white! If we'd bave known that, we'd have filmed introduction isn't. The introduction is an arrangement, and it was the
it ourselves. introduction I took. That was a published work. EMI came to me and said:
‘You put this in the arrangement, so now you've got to indemnify us against
RINGO: We loved dressing up, and we had suits made for the show. any action that might be taken.’ I said, ‘You must be joking. I gotfifteen
Simon and Marijke from The Fool made mine. It was so bloody heavy, | pounds for doing that arrangement, that’ all.’ They saw the joke. I think they
had all this beading on and it weighed a ton. paid a
fee to Keith Prowse, or whoever the publisher was, and I wrote the
You can see the happy faces. | had Keith Moon next to me. Everyone arrangements out. ‘Greensleeves’ was also there (at balf tempo) to weave in
was joining in — it was a fabulous time, both musically and spiritually. with a bit of Bach and the bit of ‘In The Mood’.
And for that show, the writers of the song were masters at hitting the nail
on the head. PAUL: We went around to EMI for the show. We'd done a lot of pre-
recording, so we sang live to the backing track. We'd worked on it all
PAUL: The Beatles sang ‘All You Need Is Love’. It was John's song, with George Martin's help, and it was a good day. We went in there early
mainly; one of those we had around at the time. It fits very well, so it in the morning to rehearse with the cameras, and there was a big
might have been written especially for the show (and once we had it, it orchestra — for all that stuff with ‘Greensleeves’ playing on the way out
was certainly tailored to suit the programme). But I've got a feeling it was of the song. The band was asked to invite people, so we had people like
just one of John’s songs that was coming anyway. We went down to Mick and Eric, and all our friends and wifelets.
Olympic Studios in Barnes and recorded it, and everyone said, ‘Ah, this
is the one we should use for the show.’ GEORGE MARTIN: I was on camera for the broadcast. It was a bit of a
panic because it was done in the big No. 1 studio at EMI. The control room
BRIAN EPSTEIN: I've never bad a moment’ worry that they wouldn't come was then just at the bottom of the stairs. It wasn't very large, and there was
up with something marvellous. The commitment for the TV programme was Geoff Emerick, the tape operator and myself in there. We had prepared a basic
arranged some months ago. The time got nearer and nearer, and they still track of the recording for the television show, but we were going to do a lot live
hadn't written anything. Then, about three weeks before the programme, they There was a live orchestra, the singing was live, the audience certainly was
sat down to write. The record was completed in ten days. and we knew it was going to be a live television show. There was also a
This is an inspired song, because they wrote it for a worldwide programme camera in the control room.
and they really wanted to give the world a message. It could hardly have been With about thirty seconds to go, there was a phone call. It was the
a better message. It is a wonderful, beautiful, spine-chilling record. producer of the show, saying: ‘I'm afraid I've lost all contact with the studio -
you're going to have to relay the instructions to them, because we're going on
PAUL: It goes back a little in style to our earlier days, | suppose, but it's air any moment now.’ I thought, ‘My God, ifyou're going to make a fool oJ
really next time around on the spiral. I'd sum it up as taking a look back yourself, you might as well do it properly in front of 350 million people.’ At
with a new feeling.” that point I just laughed.

JOHN: We just put a track down. Because | knew the chords | played it NEIL ASPINALL: ‘All You Need Is Love’ went straight to Numl
on whatever it was, harpsichord. George played a violin because we felt think that it expressed the mood of the time, with Flower Pou
like doing it like that and Paul played a double bass. And they can't play whole movement. It really was ‘all you need is love’ tim
 RINGO: In July, we all went onholiday to Greece to buy an island. We
went with Alexis Mardas — ‘Magic Alex’.

GEORGE: Alex wasn't magic at all, but John thought he-had something,
and he became friendly with us. His dad was something to do with the
military in Greece, and Alex knew all the military there, very strange.

JOHN: I'm not worried about the political situation in Greece, as long as
it doesn't affect us. I don't care if the government is all fascist, or
communist. | don't care. They're all as bad as here; worse, most of them.
I've seen England and the USA, and 1 don't care for either of their
governments. They're all the same.-Look what they do here. They
stopped Radio Caroline and tried to put the Stones away while they're
spending billions on nuclear armaments and the place is full of US bases
that no one knows about.”

NEIL ASPINALL: There was talk of getting anisland. [ don't know what it
was all about — it was a bit silly, really. The idea was that you'd have four
houses with tunnels Connecting them to a central dome.

JOHN: We're all going to live there, perhaps forever, just coming home
for visits. Or it might just be six months a year. It'll be fantastic, all on
our own on this island. There's some little houses which we'll do up and
knock together and live communally.”

DEREK. TAYLOR: We were all going to live together now, in a budge estate.
The four Beatles and Brian would ave their network at the centre of the
compound: a dome of glass and iron tracery (not unlike the old Crystal Palace)
above the mutual creative/play areay from which arbours and avenues would —
lead off like spokes from a wheel to the four vast and incredibly beautiful separate
living units. In the outer grounds, the houses of the inner clique: Neil, Mal, Terry
and Derek, complete with partners, families and friends. Norfolk, perhaps, there
was a lot of empty land there. What an idea! No thought of wind or rain or
flood, and as for cold... there would be no more cold when we were through with
the world. We would set up a chain reaction so strong that nothing could stand
in our way. And why the hellnot? ‘They'vesttied everything else,’ said Jobn
realistically. ‘Wars, nationalism, fascism) communism, capitalism, nastiness,
religion — none of it works. So why not this?’

GEORGE: We rented a boat and sailed it up and down the coast from
Athens, looking at islands. Somebody had said we should invest some
money, so we thought: ‘Well, let's buy an island. We'll just go there and
drop out.’
It was a great trip. John and | were on acid all the time, sitting on the
front of the ship playing ukuleles. Greece was on the left; a big island on
the right. The sun was shining and we sang ‘Hare Krishna’ for hours and
hours. Eventually we landed on a little beach with a village, but as soon
as we stepped off the boat it started pouring with rain. There were storms
and lightning, and the only building on the island was a little fisherman's
cottage — so we all piled in: “Scuse us, squire. You don’t mind if we come
and shelter in your cottage, do you?’
The island was covered in big pebbles, but Alex said, ‘It doesn't
matter. We'll have the military come and lift them all off and carry them RINGO: It came to nothing. We didn't buy an island, we came home.
away. But we got back on the boat and sailed away, and never thought We were great at going on holiday with big ideas, but we never carried
about the island again. them out. We were also going to buy a village in England — one with
It was about the only time The Beatles ever made any money on a rows of houses on four sides and a village green in the middle. We were
business venture. To makێ the purchase, we'd changed the money into going to have a side each.
international dollars or some currency. Then, when they changed the
money back, the exchange rate had gone up and so we made about THAT WAS WHAT HAPPENED WHEN WE
twenty shillings or so.
GOT OUT. IT WAS SAFER MAKING
NEIL ASPINALL: I was only there for a day. I said, ‘I'm going home,’ and RECORDS, BECAUSE ONCE THEY LET US
so did Ringo. OUT WE'D JUST GO BARMY.

8 GREECE
JOHN: IT COULDN'T MAKE crowd bad developed, and there were just six

IT WITH A NAME LIKE of us (including two women). We made it

OK. They were a happy bunch of souls,
HAIGH T-ASHBURY.” and there was no harm intended, but when
there's a lot of people you can get burt in the
GEORGE: We went to America in crush.
August, a couple of months after the
Monterey Pop Festival. My sister-in-law DEREK TAYLOR: Photographs tell the
at the time, Jenny Boyd (who was Jennifer story of this great visit by one of the Fab
Juniper in the Donovan song), had been Pied Pipers; it is one of the best-known
living in San Francisco, and she'd decided moments in The Great Novel. The crowds
she was going to come back to live in that gathered, well-meaning though they
England. We all went for a day out to see were, pressed upon the English visitors and
her: Derek and Neil, the not-so-magic made life difficult and a little dangerous.
Alex, and myself and Pattie. George didn't enjoy Haight-Ashbury, yet it
was right and inevitable that one of Them
NEIL ASPINALL: Haight-Ashbury is the should have been there in those times.
meeting of two streets in a part of San
Francisco. We'd beard all the rumours about GEORGE: It certainly showed me what
the hippies and the way people were was really happening in the drug culture.
behaving there, so we just decided to drop in. It wasn’t what I'd thought — spiritual
We were going to see Patties sister, and awakenings and being artistic — it was like
when we got to San Francisco we went to alcoholism, like any addiction. The kids
check it out. We didn't make the trip just to at Haight-Ashbury had left school and
go to Haight-Ashbury — it was one of the dossed out there, and instead of drinking
stops on the way. alcohol they were on all kinds of drugs.
That was the turning-point for me —
GEORGE: We went up to San Francisco that's when | went right off the whole
in a Lear jet. Derek took us to visit a disc drug cult and stopped taking the dreaded
jockey, and we went straight from the lysergic acid. | had some in a little bottle
airport to the radio station in a limo. The DJ gave us some concoction (it was liquid). | put it under a microscope, and it looked like bits of old
and then we went off to Haight-Ashbury. | went there expecting it to be rope. | thought that | couldn't put that into my brain any more.
a brilliant place, with groovy gypsy people making works of art and People were making concoctions that were really wicked — ten times
paintings and carvings in little workshops. But it was full of horrible stronger than LSD. STP was one; it took its name from the fuel additive
spotty drop-out kids on drugs, and it turned me right off the whole used in Indy-car racing. Mama Cass Elliot phoned us up and said, ‘Watch
scene. | could only describe it as being like the Bowery: a lot of bums and out, there's this new one going round called STP.’ | never took it. They
drop-outs; many of them very young kids who'd dropped acid and come concocted weird mixtures and the people in Haight-Ashbury got really
from all over America to this mecca of LSD. fucked-up. It made me realise: "This is not it.’ And that's when I really
We walked down the street, and | was being treated like the Messiah. went for the meditation.
The Beatles were pretty big, and for one of them to be there was a big
event. | became really afraid, because the concoction that the DJ had NEIL ASPINALL: We went back by Lear jet. At the time, I was flying in
given me was having an effect. | could see all the spotty youths, but | was more sense than one, and suddenly I saw all these red lights coming on in the
seeing them from a twisted angle. It was like the manifestation of a scene cockpit. We or oe off like a rocket, and then we started coming down just
from an Hieronymus Bosch painting, getting bigger and bigger, fish with as fast, with all the warning lights flashing and the pilots saying: ‘We're going
heads, faces like vacuum cleaners coming out of shop doorways... They to be all right, Harry.’ It was quite frightening, but they got it together.
were handing me things — like a big Indian pipe with feathers on it, and
books and incense — and trying to give me drugs. | remember saying to GEORGE: | was sitting right behind the pilots; two big brown-brogue-
one guy: ‘No thanks, | don’t want it.’ And then I heard his whining voice shoed Frank Sinatras. As it took off, the plane went into a stall — we
saying, ‘Hey, man — you put me down.’ It was terrible. We walked hadn't got very high before we went into a steep turn and the plane made
quicker and quicker through the park and in the end we jumped in the a lurch and dropped. The whole dashboard lit up saying ‘UNSAFE’ right
limo, said, ‘Let's get out of here,’ and drove back to the airport. across it. | thought, ‘Well, that’s it.’ Alex was chanting, ‘Hare Krishna,
Hare Krishna,’ and | was saying, ‘Om, Christ, Om...’
NEIL ASPINALL: We were walking past bikers and hippies, and there were Somehow it recovered itself, and we flew down to Monterey and
arguments going on. We got to the park and sat on the grass. Someone said, stopped there. We went to the beach and became calm again.
‘Thats George Harrison,’ and a crowd started to build. Somebody came to
George and handed him a guitar and said, ‘Will you play us a tune?’ and be DEREK TAYLOR: Lear jets were the passion of young pop stars then — the
played a little bit. Suddenly there were too many people and we thought: ‘Hey, Porsches of the air. Personally, Ifound them as terrifying as any other very
wed better get out of bere.’ fast, easily-manoeuvrable vebicle, but I went
They started to close in, and we realised we anyway.
had about a mile to go to get back to the limo. We went on to Monterey, and had
We started off at a slow walk, but soon we difficulty getting coffee in a coffee-shop. When
looked round and there were a thousand people the waitress, pretending not to see us in this
bebind us, saying, ‘Give us an autograph,’ and Lytham-St-Annes-on-Pacific, was bailed by
patting us on the back. We walked a bit faster, George (‘We have got the money, you know,’ he
until in the end we were running for our lives. said finally, not quietly, waving a thous SU In TEL j

We realised that maybe the drug vibe had dollars in bills) she recognised bim and daroppea
j ‘

lowered our guard, and we'd put ourselves in a every piece of crockery she was | gar ;
situation that we'd always avoided. We'd Dozens of plates and saucers and spattered

always stayed in hotel rooms and had limos on the floor — she bad collected them, too man)
and police escorts, and the crowds had been kept of them, as she busi ? herself to
back. Now we'd almost deliberately put of denim in the corner. Thing:
ourselves in the middle of a situation where a up everywhere yet itseemed

GEORGE: PEOPLE WERE SO OUT OF THEIR MINDS, TRYING TO SHOVE STP O!

ACID — EVERY STEP I TOOK THERE WAS SOMEBODY TRYING TO GIVE MES
BUT I DIDN'T WANT TO KNOW ABOUT THAT”
HAIGH]! IBUR*
 MAHARISHI MAHESH YOGI:

Love is the sweet

expression of life. It is
the supreme content of
life. Love is the force of
life, powerful and
sublime. The flower of
life blooms in love and
radiates love all
around.
GEORGE: | had seen David Wynne again, and
had been talking to him about yogis. He said he
had made a sketch of one who was quite
remarkable, because he had a lifeline on his
hands that didn’t end. He showed me a
photograph of this fella’s hand and said, ‘He's
going to be in London next week doing a
lecture.’ So | thought: ‘Well, that's good. I'd like
to see him.’
On August 24th, all of us except Ringo
attended the lecture given by Maharishi at the
Hilton Hotel. | got the tickets. | was actually
after a mantra. | had got to the point where |
thought | would like to meditate, I'd read about
it and I knew | needed a mantra — a password to
get through into the other world. And, as we
always seemed to do everything together, John
and Paul came with me.

PAUL: It was George's idea to go. During Sgt

Pepper, George was the most interested in
Indian culture. We were all interested in it —
but for George it was a direction. But it was
nice to hear Ravi Shankar's music, it was
interesting and very beautiful — and it was
deep, technically deep.
| remember Peregrine Worsthorne being
there, and | read his article the next day to see
what he thought. He was a little bit sceptical.
But we were looking for something; we'd been
into drugs, and the next step was to try to find
a meaning for it all.
We'd seen Maharishi up North when we
were kids. He was on the telly every few years
on Granada’s People and Places programme, the local current-affairs show. RINGO: At that time Maureen was in hospital having Jason, and | was
We'd all say, ‘Hey, did you see that crazy guy last night?’ So we knew all visiting. | came home and put on the answerphone, and there was a
about him: he was the giggly little guy going round the globe seven message from John: ‘Oh, man, we've seen this guy, and we're all going to
times to heal the world (and this was his third spin). Wales. You've got to come.’ The next message was from George, saying,
| thought he made a lot of sense; | think we all did. He said that with ‘Wow, man — we've seen him. Maharishi's great! We're all going to Wales
a simple system of meditation — twenty minutes in the morning, twenty on Saturday, and you've got to come.’
minutes in the evening — you could improve your quality of life and find
some sort of meaning in doing so JOHN: Cyn and | were thinking of going to Libya, until this came up.
Libya or Bangor? Well, there was no choice, was there?”
JOHN: We thought, ‘What a nice man,’ and we were looking for that. |
mean, everyone's looking for it, but we were all looking for it that day. GEORGE: Maharishi happened to be having a seminar in Bangor and
We met him and saw a good thing and went along with it. Nice trip, had said, ‘Come tomorrow and I'll show you how to meditate.’ So, the
thank you very much next day we jumped on a train and went.
The youth of today are really looking for some answers — for proper Mick Jagger was also there. He was always lurking around in the
inswers the established church can't give them, their parents can’t give background, trying to find out what was happening. Mick never wanted
them, material things can't give them to miss out on what the Fabs were doing.

MAHARISHI MAHESH YOGI

NEIL ASPINALL: We were all at Euston, they were getting on a train. I was our mantras. It was another point of view. For the first time, we were
going to go up in the car, because I wanted the freedom of having wheels. getting into Eastern philosophies — and that was another breakthrough.
John’s wife Cyn got left bebind in the crush, and as the train left the station she
was just standing there, so I drove ber to Bangor that day. Some friends of JOHN: Bangor was incredible. Maharishi reckons the message will get
mine were staying in a caravan in North Wales, and after I dropped Cyn offI through if we can put it across. People know us, know how we think,
went to see them. I didn't go to any of the lectures. how we were brought up and what we've done. We'll be able to explain
it to them, and they'll understand, and they know we're not trying to
PAUL: At first it was a big outing. We rang our mates: ‘Hey, come and trick them. The thing is, that the more people who do it, perhaps one
see him!’ It was like a good book you'd read: ‘You ought to read it. I'll day one of them will be prime minister or something. He'd be better than
send you a copy!’ Harold Wilson, anyway, wouldn't he? If there's any possibility of getting
I remember Cynthia not making the train, which was terrible and this across, it's worth it. At the very least, it can’t do any harm.
very symbolic. She was the only one of our party not to get there. What he says about life and the universe is the same message that
There's a bit of film of her not making it. That was the end of her and Jesus, Buddha and Krishna and all the big boys were putting over. If you
John, really, weirdly enough. There was a big crowd at the train station, ask Maharishi for a few laws for living by, they'd be the same as
and there was another to meet us in Bangor. We all wandered through in Christianity. Christianity is the answer as well, it's the same thing. All the
our psychedelic gear. It was like a summer camp. religions are all the same, it's just a matter of people opening their minds
The seminar was in a school: you sit around and he tells you how to up. Buddha was a groove, Jesus was all right (but Maharishi doesn't do
meditate, then you go up to your room and try it. And, of course, you miracles for a kick-off). | don't know how divine or how superhuman he
can't do it for the first half hour. You're sitting there and you've got a is. He was born quite ordinary, but he's working at it.
mantra, but you keep thinking: ‘Bloody hell, that train was a bit much, Even if you go into the meditation bit just curious or cynical, once
wasn't it? — oh, sorry — mantra — du du du du du du — bloody hell — | you go into it, you see. The only thing you can do is judge on your own
~wonder what our next record's going to be? — oh, stop, stop, stop...’ You experience. I'm less sceptical than | ever was. Mick came up and got a
spend all your first few days just trying to stop your mind dealing with sniff, and he was on the phone saying: ‘Send Keith, send Brian — send
your social calendar. But it was good, and | eventually got the hang of it. them all down.’ You get a sniff and you're hooked.®

JOHN: You just sit there and let your mind go; it doesn’t matter what MAHARISHI MAHESH YOGI: They came backstage after one of my
youre thinking about, just let it go. And then you introduce the mantra, lectures, and they said to me: ‘Even from an early age we have been seeking a
the vibration, to take over from the thought. You don't will it or use your highly spiritual existence. We tried drugs and that didn't work.’ They are such
will power.” practical and intelligent young boys that it took them only two days to find
that Transcendental Meditation is the answer.
GEORGE: The moment you find yourself thinking about things, then
you replace that thought with the mantra again. JOHN: Another groovy thing: everybody gives one week's wages when
they join. | think it's the fairest thing I've ever heard of. And that's all you
JOHN: There's none of this sitting in the lotus position or standing on ever pay, just the once.®
your head. You just do it as long as you like: ‘Tventy minutes
a day is prescribed for ze verkers. Tventy minutes in ze morning
and tventy minutes after verk.' It makes you happy, intelligent
and [gives you] more energy. | mean, look how it all
started. | believe he just landed in Hawaii in his nightshirt
—all on his own, nobody with him — in 1958.°
One of his analogies is it's like dipping a cloth into
gold. You dip it in and you bring it out. If you leave it in,
it gets soggy, like you're just sitting in a cave all your life.
And if you bring it out, it fades. So the meditation is going
in and going out and going in. So after however many
years when you bring it out, it's the same.
You don't have to go to Wales and do it, or even cut
yourself off from society and reality. And you don't have to
get so hung up about it that you go round in a trance. |
can't understand why people are so stubborn and why
they're not open-minded. If the Maharishi was asking
people to devote their lives to meditation, that would be
different. But what possible harm can it do anyone to try
for half-an-hour a day?”

RINGO: Maureen had had the baby and everything was

really cool, so we all went to Wales to meet Maharishi. He
didn't know who we were then, which was really fabulous.
Only when we got off the train and he saw all the kids
running, | think then he may have felt, ‘Wow, things are
looking up for me.’ They ran right past him and were
looking in our faces, and | think he realised that these boys
could get his message across real fast. And so after we met
him, he brought up the idea of us going on tour again and
opening up a place in every city. But we didn't do that,
because things began to change.
There were lots of people there — Donovan was there.
Everybody was very open: ‘What's happening? Let's do
this, let's look at that.’
I was really impressed with the Maharishi. I was
impressed because he was laughing all the time. That really
struck home the first time | saw him: this man is really
happy and he's having a great time in life. So we listened
to his lectures, we started meditating and we were given

MAHARISHI MAHI
NEIL ASPINALL: Everybody going to the Maharishi was like everybody
ending up with moustaches on Sgt Pepper. A lot of it was follow-the-leader
(whoever the leader was at the time). One got a moustache, and so everybody
got a moustache. If somebody wore flared trousers, then within a couple of
weeks everyboc y was wearing flared trousers. I think the Mabarishi was in the
same mode as that for some of us, butfor George it was serious.

GEORGE: | couldn't really speak for the others and their experiences,
but, inasmuch as we'd collectively come through from Liverpool and JOHN: If we'd met Maharishi before we had taken LSD, we wouldn't _—

gone through everything together, there was a collective consciousness have needed to take it. We'd dropped drugs before this meditation thing.
within The B eatles. | assumed that whatever one of us felt, the others George mentioned he was dropping out of it, and I said, ‘Well, it's not
would not be far out of line with. So | handed over all the books about doing me any harm. I'll carry on.’ But | suddenly thought: ‘I've seen all
yogis to John, Paul and Ringo. And when we came to meet Maharishi, | that scene. There's no point, and [what] if it does do anything to your
got tickets for them all to go but | never really asked them what they chemistry or brains?’ Then someone wrote to me and said that whether —
thought or were experiencing. you like it or not, whether you have no ill effects, something happens
In Bangor we had a press conference saying that we'd given up drugs. there. So I desided that if |ever did meet someone who could tell me the,
It vasnt really because of Maharishi. It came out of my desire to further answer, I'd have nothing left to do it with. 8
‘xperience of meditation. | was doing yoga exercises anyway in order We don't regret having taken LSD. It was a stepping-stone. But now —
learn how to play the sitar. | got a little bit down the line, and then we should be able to experience things at first hand, instead of artificially
harishi came along at the time | wanted to try meditation. with a wrong stepping-stone like drugs.” ¢ a4;

HARISHI MAHESH YOGI

 There was a press conference. It was suggested that as we were their prayers really work, whereas others might have the intention but
vith the Maharishi, it might be a good idea to accommodate the not the ability. A strong bloke can lift a heavy weight dead cas
ved them waiting around outside our windows. | don't Another guy won't have the strength. Both have the same intention,
it we specifically said that we'd given up drugs — but at the but only one has manifested the ability to do it. For prayer to really
we probably had, anyway. work, you have to do it in the transcendent, as the more manifest the
material world is (or the conscious level is), the less effect it has. So the
GE: LSD isn't a real answer. It doesn't give you anything. It power of prayer is subject to one's own spiritual development. That's
to see a lot of possibilities that you may never have noticed why the transcendent level of consciousness is so important, and also
t isn't the answer. You don't just take LSD and that's it why the mantra is so important in reaching that level. The mantra is
OK. To get really high, you have to do it straight. |want like a prescription. If you have the right word on a prescription, you
you can't get high on LSD. You can take it and take it get the right medicine.
as you like, but you get to a point that you can't get any We go through life being pulled by our senses and our ego, seeking
you stop taking it.” new experiences; because without experience we can't get knowledge,
and without knowledge we can't gain liberation. But along the way we
: Youcannot keep on taking drugs forever. You get to the stage become entwined with ignorance and darkness because of our ego and
you are taking fifteen aspirins a day, without having a headache. our association with material energy. So, although we are made of God,
looking for something more natural. This is it. we can't reflect God because of all the pollution that's gathered along the
experience we went through. Now it's over and we don't need way; and it's such an epic battle to get all of that out of your system. A
. We think we're finding other ways of getting there.” bee goes to a flower to collect pollen, and then tries to find one that's got
more. It's the basic nature of the bee to seek more nectar, just as it's the
3: It helps you find fulfilment in life, helps you live life to the soul's nature to always seek a better experience. When you've had all
g people are searching for a bit of peace inside themselves. ° these experiences — met all the famous people, made some money, toured
the world and got all the acclaim — you still think: ‘Is that it?” Some
Don't believe that jazz about there's nothing you can do, and people might be satisfied with that, but | wasn't and I'm still not.
_and just drop out, man’ — because you've got to turn on and drop Being in The Beatles did help speed up the process of God-
© going to drop all over you. realisation, but it also hindered it as there were more impressions and
more entanglements to get out of. Every experience and thought has
=. We don't know how this will come out in the music. Don't been recorded on your file within. Meditation is only a means to an
. hear Transcendental Meditation all the time. We don't want end. You do it to release all the clutter out of your system, so that
o come out like Cliff and Billy Graham.” when it’s gone you become that which you are anyway. That's the
joke: we already are whatever it is we would like to be. All we have to
HI MAHESH YOGI: I can train them as practical philosophers do is undo it.
ent century, something very great and of use to the world. I see the All we wanted to do was be in a rock band but, as Shakespeare said,
of a great future for them. all the world’s a stage and the people are only players. We were just
playing a part. Being The Beatles was like a suit that we wore for that
E: | was only twenty-three when we made Sgt Pepper, and I'd period of time, but that isn’t us really. None of us are. Our true nature is
been through India and LSD and was on the road to looking to re-establish that which is within. All knowing.
entalism. After having such an intense period of growing up
uch success in The Beatles and realising that this wasn’t the
o everything, the question came: ‘What is it all about?’ And
surely because of the force-fed LSD experience, | had the
n of God.
ody | know in the Christian religions seems to have a deep
understanding of the science of God to be able to translate it into
s. Church leaders are purveying a kind of nonsense because
really understand it themselves. So they blind you with
like a government does, as if the power of the Church has
son enough for you not to question anything it says. It's like,
n't know anything about Christ and God
we're the ones who own the franchise.’ —
‘read enough from the Vivekenandas
ganandas to comprehend how to see
using the Yogic system of transcending
h the relative states of consciousness
s, sleeping, dreaming) to get to the most
vel of pure consciousness. It is in that
: the individual experiences pure
ess, pure consciousness, the source of all
z We said it in ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’. JOHN: ON ANY TRIPS — WHETHER
- void is the transcendent, beyond THEY'RE CHEMICAL OR ANYTHING —
sleeping, dreaming. Gueradhing in THINGS THAT YOU DISCOVER ARE SELF-
n is the effect of that pure state of being, AWARENESS, ALL THE THINGS THAT
iscendent or the God. God is the cause. YOU'VE ALREADY KNOWN. NOBODY'S
> effect is all three worlds: the causal, the TELLING YOU ANYTHING NEW. A
| and the physical. SCIENTIST DOESN'T DISCOVER
lieve absolutely in the power of prayer, ANYTHING NEW, HE JUST TELLS YOU by
<e love: people say ‘I love you’, but it's WHAT'S ALREADY THERE. NOBODY CAN
on of ‘how deep is your love?’ TELL YOU NOTHING. EVEN SOMEBOD\
i used to say that if you have a bow LIKE A DYLAN OR A SARTRE OF
row, and you can only pull back the SOMEBODY LIKE THAT. TH!
little, the arrow won't go far. But if you SOMETHING THAT IS LIKI
the bow right back, you can get the REVELATION — BUT IT AL\
range from the arrow. With prayer, SOMETHING THAT YOU }
¢ people are so powerful at doing it that THAT THEY'VE JUST AFF
ee ee

MAHARISHI MA!
 JOHN: | can't find words to pay tribute to him. It is just that he was throw any light on the matter. We said, ‘Look, this is a real old friend of
lovable, and it is those lovable things we think about now.” ours. He's been our manager for ever and ever — and he's died. Should we
leave? Maybe we shouldn't stay here. What should we do, O Great One?’
PAUL: This is a terrible shock. | am terribly upset.° And he said, ‘Well, he's died. He's only passed on. It's all right, really.’
That was in line with his thinking, so we had a talk with the press again
and said that we were very sad — as we all were, because Brian was a great
RINGO: WE LOVED BRIAN. HE WAS A guy — but that there wasn't an awful lot you could do about it.
GENEROUS MAN. WE OWE SO MUCH TO We were all gutted about him dying. | recall John being as shocked
HIM. WE HAVE COME A LONG WAY WITH as all of us. Just gutted. It was sheer shock because he was one of the
people we'd known longest; he was a huge confidant of ours and we
BRIAN ALONG THE SAME ROAD.” knew him very well. When anyone dies like that there is the huge shock
of them being wrenched out of the picture, when you think, ‘I'm not
going to see him any more.’ | loved the guy.

JOHN: We loved him and he was one of us. Maharishi's meditation gives
you confidence enough to withstand something like this, even after the
short amount we've had.”

NEIL ASPINALL: I remember meeting Gerry Marsden. He was on the beach

at Bangor with a rubber dinghy, and it was pure coincidence that we met. I
had heard on the car radio that Brian had died. I told Gerry, and it was a real
shock for him. Then I went to where the guys were with the Mabarishi. I said
to John that Brian had died, and he said, ‘I know — isn't it exciting?’ and I
thought, ‘What?’ But they were all in a state of shock.

GEORGE MARTIN: I was personally very fond of Brian, and Ifound out
about it in quite a bizarre way, really. I have a country cottage (which is
where I live permanently now) and after a heavy day in London I had gone
down there and the local shopkeeper said, ‘Sorry about the news.’ I said,
‘What news?’ and he told me, ‘Your friend has died.’
I hadn't known. It was just the time when my wife was having berfirst
baby, Lucie. When she came out of bospital we went back to our flat in
London, and there was a bouquet of flowers on the doorstep which hadn't been
taken in. It bad been sent by Brian and theflowers were dead. It was the day
that we beard that Brian had died, so it was a pretty emotional time.

GEORGE: He dedicated so much of his life to The Beatles. We liked and

loved him. He was one of us. There is no such thing as death. It is a
comfort to us all to know that he is OK.”

RINGO: In Bangor we heard that Brian had died. That was a real downer
because of the confusion and the disbelief: ‘You're kidding me!’ Your
belief system gets suspended because you so badly don't want to hear it.
You don't know what to do with it. If you look at our faces in the film
shot at the time, it was all a bit like: ‘What is it? What does it mean? Our
friend has gone.’ It was more ‘our friend’ than anything else. Brian was a
friend of ours, and we were all left behind. After we arrived there with
hope and flowers — now this. And then we all left — real slow.

GEORGE: There was a phone call. | don't know who took it; I think it
might have been John. Blood drained from his face: ‘Brian's dead.'
There was very little we knew, other than that he’d been found dead.
It was very strange for it to happen at that precise moment, when we'd
just got involved with meditation. That may not sound like a big deal,
but it actually was. It is a very big change in your life when you start
making the journey inward and for Brian to kick the bucket that
particular day was pretty far out. So we just packed up and went outside
where the press were. There is footage of us saying we were ‘shocked and
stunned’. We got in the car and drove back to London. RINGO: Maharishi told us not to hold on to Brian — to love him and let
him go, because we are all powerful forces and we could stop him going
PAUI It was stunning because we were off on this ‘finding the meaning on in the natural progression up to heaven. He said, ‘You know you have
of life’ journey, and there he was dead. | remember us trying to deal with to grieve for him and love him, and now you send him on his way.’ And
yur grief; going for a policy talk with Maharishi to see whether he could it really helped.

BRIAN EPSTEIN
JOHN: We all feel very sad, but it's controlled grief and controlled a record and the record would come out. What was there left for him to
emotion. As soon as | find myself feeling depressed, | think of something do? Book the studio — one phone call. That was the extent of it at that
nice about him. But you can't hide the hurt — | went to the phone book time.
and saw his name and it hit me a few minutes ago. The memory must be In the beginning he was everywhere we were, and we were every-
kept nice, but of course there's something inside that tells us that Brian's where he was. George and | had an apartment in the same block as him
death is sad. in London; we would just walk in and out on each other. And then he got
It hurts when someone close dies, and Brian was very close. We've all his place in the country and we'd go down for soirées; lovely
been through that feeling of wanting a good cry. But it wouldn't get us technicoloured weekends. But then suddenly | was married with a kid; so
anywhere, would it? I had a family and The Beatles and Brian, and by then he was taking third
We all feel it, but these talks on Transcendental Meditation have place in my book. It's just how it was, there were other priorities — and |
helped us to stand up to it so much better. You don't get upset when a think everyone else was feeling the same.
young kid becomes a teenager, or a teenager becomes an adult, or when We were still as close to Brian as we had been in the early days. We
an adult gets old. Well, Brian is just passing into the next phase. His would spend time in his house and he'd come out to us. We'd go out
spirit is still around, and always will be. It's a physical memory we have together. Of course, we weren't spending as much time with him because
of him, and as men we will build on that memory. It's a loss of genius, we weren't doing as much out there where he would come along.
but other geniuses’ bodies have died as well, and the world still gains
from their spirits. GEORGE: Brian hadn't really done anything since we stopped touring.
He was due to come up to Bangor and join us in these Transcendental He was at a bit of a loss. We were in the studio after that, and he had
Meditations with the Maharishi. It's a drag he didn't make it.” never really hung out in the studio, although in the early days he might
have come occasionally to hear tracks. And, with us being in the studio,
RINGO. I've never thought Brian committed suicide. I've always thought there was very little for him to do with us. But we did meet him socially,
Brian took his downers — that were probably prescribed by a doctor —
then woke up and took some more. His night out is well documented. | PAUL: Gradually, with The Beatles, we'd always wanted to get the tools
feel that happened with Keith Moon, as well; just one too many of the art into our own hands. Even before we got into our own
downers: ‘I can deal with it.’ And to Jimi, Jim Morrison — all those people; company, Apple, we were virtually managing ourselves. So Brian had
I don’t think any of them set out to die. become a bit redundant, and we said to him: ‘Look, we don't want to put
you out of a job, but we do like doing it ourselves.’ So it got a bit difficult.
GEORGE: The last time | talked to Brian, he had gone through a change And, without ever saying anything (he was still our manager), | think he
~— which was inevitable. Whoever takes LSD, they change, and they don't felt a bit sidelined — and I'm sure it contributed to his unhappiness.
go back to how they were before. The effect wears off over a period of
time, but there's a certain change that's not going to go away. | felt with NEIL ASPINALL: In a sense, be didn't have to work so hard; not on The
Brian that he was interested in India and in what | was thinking and Beatles’ behalf, anyway. That was a good thing for him, as it was for
feeling. Maybe he would have liked to meet Maharishi, but unfortunately everybody else; just getting a bit ofa break, really.
it didn't work out like that. Brian was very close to the band, but I always thought he did too much —
I believe it was an accident. In those days everybody was topping not for The Beatles, but running careers for Cilla, Gerry and the Pacemakers,
themselves ,accidentally by taking uppers and/or amphetamine and Billy J. Kramer and Tommy Quickly, and then going in with Robert
alcohol — loads of whisky or brandy and uppers — and then they'd choke Stigwood and Cream and The Bee Gees. I know Brian was trying to shift the
on sandwiches. That was the favourite thing, and that's the kind of thing empbasis in bis business towards Robert Stigwood and Vic Lewis looking after
that Brian did: he threw up and choked on the barf. all the other bands, leaving Brian with just The Beatles.
He was obviously very unhappy, and in a way the film The Rutles
shows the situation just as much as the reality: ‘Unable to raise some GEORGE MARTIN: It was thought he'd been losing control over them to a
friends, he decided to take a teaching post in Australia.’ certain extent. They were getting so big, and so important, and his own affairs
weren't being handled terribly well. At the same time, when he died, they knew
PAUL: I don't think there was anything sinister in his death. There were that they'd lost their leader.
rumours of very sinister circumstances, but | personally think it was a He was the guy who'd shepherded them from the beginning. Ironically, if
drink-and-sleeping-pills overdose. | think what happened — and there's he'd gone on living, I think it would have been even more tragic in a way,
no evidence whatsoever except people | talk to — was that Brian was because be may have lost the boys anyway. But at that time it was a pretty
going down to his house in the country. It was a Friday night, and there awful disaster.
were going to be friends there. Brian was gay and | think there were
going to be young men at the house. Brian went down with one of his RINGO: IT'S HARD TO SAY WHETHER WE WOULD
friends, but no one had showed up — so he thought: ‘Ugh — it's Friday HAVE LEFT BRIAN, BUT I DON'T THINK WE
night! I've got time to get back to London if | rush. Then I can get back
to the clubs.’ It seems feasible to me, knowing Brian. Then he drove back WOULD HAVE DONE. WE WERE SORT OF LEAVING
up to London and went to the clubs, but they were all closing and there EACH OTHER, ANYWAY, BECAUSE THERE WAS LESS
was not a lot of action. FOR HIM TO DO. BUT I STILL THINK THAT IF
So he had a few bewvies, then to console himself had a sleeping pill BRIAN WAS AROUND TODAY, HE WOULD BE
or two before going to bed (Brian always did that, he was quite into the
MANAGING US. AND IF WE'D BEEN WITH BRIAN,
pills). And then | think he woke up in the middle of the night and
thought: ‘My God, I can’t sleep. | haven't had a pill.’ Then he had a few WE WOULDN'T HAVE HAD TO GO THROUGH
more pills, and | think that could have killed him. ALLEN KLEIN TO BE OUR OWN MEN.
| went round a couple of days later and saw Brian's butler. He didn't
seem to feel there was anything suspicious, nor that Brian was in any kind JOHN: We had complete faith in Brian when he was running us. | mean,
of black mood. My feeling was that it was an accident. if you're asking me in retrospect, and | say he made those mistakes, you'd
say, ‘Well, whata silly businessman.’ But to us he was the expert
NEIL ASPINALL: People had to break Brian's bedroom door down after | liked Brian. I had a very close relationship with him for years. In the
he'd died. I don't believe he'd tried to kill himself. He was coming up the next group | was closest to him. He had great qualities and he was good fun
day to Bangor. He was a theatrical man rather than a businessman, and he was a bit like
that with us.
GEORGE MARTIN: I had the same doctor as Brian did, and I knew the With a classy, well-spoken manager, The Beatles had that bit of a
circumstances. I think that Brian used to take uppers and downers, and be used classy touch which was different. He literally cleaned us up. There wer
to drink a lot. He wasn't a terribly bappy man. great fights between him and me, over years and years, about m
wanting to dress up. He and Paul had some kind of collusion to keep
RINGO: Brian's role with us had changed because he wasn't booking us straight.” They did have to cover up a lot for me, but | kept spoiling the
around the world any more. We were working in the studio; we'd make image. I'm not putting Paul down, and I'm not putting & vn: they
 good job in containing my personality from causing too much but whoever it was, I know what he meant and there was a time early this year
suble.®° It never got too bad like that, though. Brian was never over- when I almost gave it up.
aring, and if Brian and Paul and everybody said, ‘Well, look, why don't
‘ust trim our hair a bit and look like this,’ you're going to say ‘all right’ RINGO: Brian was great. You could trust Brian. He was a lot of fun, and
he end, or, ‘Fuck it: I'll just loosen my collar.’ he really knew his records; like the guy in the movie Diner. We used to
People always have images, like: George Martin did everything and have a game with Brian where we'd say to him: ‘OK, “C'mon Everybody”
The Beatles did nothing; or The Beatles did everything and George — what was the B side?’ and he'd tell us. So we'd say, ‘What number did
lartin was invisible; or Brian Epstein did everything. It was never like it reach?’ and he'd know. It was thrilling.
chat. [t was a combination. What I think about The Beatles is that if there He tried to educate us, taking us to different restaurants instead of the
had been even Paul and John and two other people, we'd never have greasy spoon. He persuaded us to wear ties, he persuaded us to dress up
been The Beatles. It had to be that combination of Paul, John, George a bit more, and it's true that he said: ‘Don't drink on stage, and try not to
and Ringo to make The Beatles. There's no such thing as, ‘Well, John and smoke through the set.’ He really was instrumental in bending our
Paul wrote all the songs, therefore they contributed more,’ because if it attitude this much, so that the public would bend theirs that much to
hadn't been us, we would have got songs from somewhere else. And accept us.
Brian contributed as much as us in the early days: we were the talent and
he was the hustler. He sold us. He presented us. There was a lot of heavy PAUL: We were all pretty close to Brian, but John might have been
erind for Brian in the early days, and he was good at handling the tours. slightly closer. | think in the early days John had taken him aside and
(Though once we went to Italy and never got paid, and in Manila he said, ‘Look, if you want to deal with this group, then I'm the man you go
nearly got us killed...) He did all that for us, so we would have never through.’ He could do that, John: he was wise to the possibility —
made it without him, and vice versa.” whereas the rest of us would say, ‘All right, man, sure.’

BRIAN EPSTEIN: One did everything. One worked very bard.

One shouted from the rooftops about the group when there was no enthusiasm for groups.
People thought you were mad, but you went on shouting.
DEREK TAYLOR: There was a famous early story; one of those legends that The theory is that when John went off to Spain on holiday with
may or may not have been true. I think it was at the EMI studios when Brian Brian, that's what it was about — John trying to get his position clear as
said, ‘I think one of you is flat,’ and John said, ‘We'll do the songs, you keep leader of the group. Also, I'm sure Brian was in love with John. We were
on counting the percentages.’ Brian told me that they'd said that, and it could all in love with John, but Brian was gay so that added an edge.
have been said. But it would only happen once; he was quite nervous of them
as well. GEORGE MARTIN: I was very, very good friends with Brian. I knew he
Nobody liked to be rounded upon by the four of them — in however jokey a was gay — but Brian, Judy (my wife) and I were a triangle of good friends.
way. It was not pleasant for those four buggers to be at you. It was ‘whoosh’ We used to go away together sometimes and it was great fun.
—and all the fangs were in you at once. It didn't last, but it was very painful. Wondering about bis contribution to their success, I know I wouldn't have
Crawl away quietly and lick your wounds. met them without him. Whos to say what would have happened ifBrian
hadn't been along? Who's to say whether Ringo would have ever been part of
JOHN: Brian could never make us do what we really, really didn't want the group? There are so many ifs about that one cannot evaluate.
to do. He wasn't strong enough.
Brian came to us in Paris once and said he'd had enough, and he JOHN: Would The Beatles be where they are today if it weren't for
wanted to sell us to Delfont or Grade, I've forgotten which one. And we Epstein? Not the same as we know it, no. But the question doesn't apply,
all told him — | told him personally — that we would stop. We all said it: because we met him and what happened, happened. If he hadn't come
‘Whatever you do, if you do that, we stop now. We don't play any more, along, we would all — the four of us and Brian — have been working
and we disband. We're not going to let anybody else have us, especially towards the same thing, even though it might have been with different
them.’ aims. We all knew what we wanted to get over, and he helped us and we
They don't understand, the Richenbergs and the Grades. They helped him.”
couldn't handle people like us. They're used to the donkeys that they had
after the war, Tommy Handley and all them people, and the poor old PAUL: As for Brian's homosexuality, we were very innocent and | think
Crazy Gang who, like Derek used to say, look like they'd been injected Brian could see that, so he never hit on me at all: there was never any
with silicone to be brought on stage at eighty. question of it. We would go to clubs and pubs that were open late, and
So whenever Brian tried to make us do something, we didn’t care looking back on it, they must have been gay clubs because there were
whether it was legal or not. It's the same now. If anything happened, | friends of Brian's there that | knew later to be gay friends of his. But he
wouldn't give a shit whether it was legal or not. I'd fuck off, and let them wasn't overtly gay; he was rather macho, and his friends were just nice
catch me. Let them come and chase me to fucking Japan or Africa, and guys. | don't think any of us knew about the gay world.
get me to fucking work if | don't want to. Piss on them. No contract It was always obvious Brian was gay and we could talk to him about
would hold us.’ gay things, but he would never come out with, ‘Hello, Paul, you're
looking nice today.’ | was quite obviously un-gay, due to my hunting of
PAUL: It's a misconception that Brian and I put The Beatles in suits — we the female hordes, and | think we all must have given the same
all showed up happily at the tailor's. And the haircut was me and John impression. There has been a suggestion since that John had some
together in Paris. homosexual thing with Brian, but | personally doubt it. All the intimate
moments we shared were always about girls.
BRIAN EPSTEIN: I don't know whether it was William Shakespeare or Somebody mentioned that show business is run by gays, and there is
Ringo Starr who said: ‘When this business stops being fun, I'm giving it up,’ a lot of gay influence; many heads of companies and people in power are

BRIAN EPSTEIN
gay, and it must have helped us a lot having a gay contact. They felt stopped touring, he had nothing to do, really. The money just came in
happier with us because at least they could deal more easily with our from records. BillyJ. and all of them were sinking fast, and all his other
manager. Looking back, | can see connections were formed with gay protegés — his bullfighters and all those people — were vanishing. So
producers. Though, at the time, we didn’t know. really, we grew apart.
Plugging into the gay network wasn't a bad thing, but it was Brian Whenever somebody dies, you think, ‘If only I'd spoken more to him,
who would do the plugging in; we were just pawns in the game. It was he might have been a bit happier.’ | felt guilty because | was closer to him
very good for us, and anyone who says Brian wasn't a good manager is earlier, and then for two years | was having my own internal problems,
wrong: Brian was a great manager. and we didn't see him and I have no idea of the kind of life he was living.
It was always very embarrassing: ‘Shall we have dinner together?’ So
we didn't see him. With the four of us and him, it was heavy. There
would be an atmosphere, and we'd gradually break down, and turn him
on to acid and all that jazz. Or try and straighten him out — which was
what we were trying to do. But we didn't: he died instead.”
I introduced Brian to pills — which gives me a guilt association with
his death — to make him talk; to find out what he was like, | remember
him saying, ‘Don't ever throw it back in my face,’ which | didn't.”

GEORGE: It's shit. You can be a multi-millionaire and have everything

you can think of in life, but it's shit — you're still going to die. You can
go through life, go through millions of lives, and not even catch on to
what the purpose is. You can try to see what the purpose is, and try to
relate it back to Lime Street, Liverpool, just being a Scouse kid. That's
what | thought: ‘Well, this step from one to the other isn't really that
difficult; it's just a change of attitude and a shift in perception.’ | always
felt really close to the people, to the public, and to where | grew up, and
the people who had become Beatles fans around the world.
That is, | suppose, why | wrote some songs that were trying to say:
‘Hey, you can all experience this, it's available for everyone.’ But then you
realise you can take the horse to the water, but you can't make him drink.
You can be standing right in front of the truth and not necessarily see it,
GEORGE: Brian was not on the same kind of journey
that we were on. He was, up to a point, but he had his
own set of karma that he had to work out, and it was
as if we were the vehicle by which he could do what
he wanted.
When you look at the Brian Epstein story — how he
was kicked out of the Army, how he was a misfit at
school, how he left RADA (he'd fancied himself as an
actor), how he was given a job in the family business but
wasn't really happy in it — you can see we were the ideal
vehicle for him. It was a mutual thing that seemed to
happen: we needed somebody to elevate us out of that
cellar, and he needed somebody to get him out of the
hole that he was in. It was a mutually beneficial meeting,
but once we got to London and he became a theatre-
goer and an impresario and a multi-millionaire, there
wasn't really the same kind of relationship.
We didn't hang out together and try to discover what
the folds in our trousers were doing (as in Aldous
Huxley's The Doors of Perception). Brian was off into the
gay world, and we didn’t know too much about that. We
knew that he was ‘a friend of Dorothy's’, but we didn't
really go with him into that world. It was in the days
when everything was in the closet. (And personally I'm
glad it was. | mean, that's all you need, to have a gay
manager poncing around the band room _ while
everybody's in their undies! )
We never knew what he was up to, really; you'd just
hear stories that he'd been robbed or he was beaten up
by somebody. That happened to him when he took acid
once, so | believe. | saw him a day or two afterwards.
He'd been up in his room and he had all the newspapers
and he'd ripped them all into little pieces, which says
something. I'm sure an analyst would agree.
and people only get it when they're ready to get it. Sometimes people
JOHN: Brian had hellish tempers and fits and ‘lock-outs', and he'd vanish took the songs the wrong way, as if | was trying to preach, but | wasn't
for days. He would just flip out. We weren't too aware of it. It was later
on we started finding out about those things. He'd come to a crisis now PAUL: Brian would be really happy to hear how much we loved hin
and then, and the whole business would stop because he'd been on
sleeping pills for days on end, and wouldn't be awake for days. Or beaten JOHN: Brian has died only in body, and his spirit will al
up by some docker on the Old Kent Road. Suddenly the whole business with us. His power and force were everything, and
would stop because Brian would be missing. force will linger on. When we were on the right track
| didn't watch him deteriorate. There was a period of about two years when we were on the wrong track he told us so
before he died when we didn't hardly see anything of him. After we right. But anyway, he isn't really dead.°
JOHN: It is up to us, now, to sort out the way we, and Brian, wanted involved. Brian was getting cheesed off with managing Billy J. Kramer
things to go. He might be dead physically, but that's a negative way of and Cilla Black and all those people, so he'd got Stigwood in. After
thinking. He helped to give us the strength to do what we did, and the Brian's death, Robert thought he was going to take over the show and
same urge is still alive. become our manager. He was actually poised on some deal with
We have no idea of whether we'll get a new manager. We've always Deutsche Grammophon or Philips Records. They were going to give
been in control of what we're doing, and we'll have to do what we have him money.
to, now. We know what we should do and what we shouldn't do. Brian Brian kept trying to tell us something before he died — but he never
was a natural guide, and we'll certainly miss him.” got round to it. He had a big party down at his house and we were
supposed to go there and have a meeting before the party. Unfortunately
GEORGE: After Brian died there was a huge void, because it was when it was in the ‘Summer of Love’ and everybody was just wacko. We were
he came along that we started to become professional and started in our psychedelic motor cars with our permed hair, and we were
advancing towards the record business and the London Palladium. We permanently stoned (Brian wasn't doing so badly himself, either) — so we
didn’t know anything about our personal business and finances; he had never had the meeting.
taken care of everything, and it was chaos after that. Later, we found out that he'd given Stigwood the option to acquire
51% of NEMS, which in effect meant management of The Beatles. So we
JOHN: We collapsed. | knew that we were in trouble then. | didn't really had a meeting with Robert Stigwood and we said: ‘Look, NEMS is built
have any misconceptions about our ability to do anything other than basically on The Beatles, so bugger off. We'll have 51%, and you can
play music, and | was scared. | thought, ‘We've had it now.'” have the 49%.’ He backed off then, and formed his own company. He
did very well, whereas NEMS just caved in. | think Neil, along with a
RINGO: We wondered what we were going to do. We were suddenly couple of lawyers, was trying to find where everything was. There was
like chickens without heads. What are we going to do? What are we also a big fiasco with Northern Songs, who published our music then.
going to do?
Then we heard that Clive Epstein felt he owned us, and so we went PAUL: We told Brian that if he sold us to Stigwood, we would only ever
to see him to talk about his plans. But he said that he was more interested record out-of-tune versions of ‘God Save The Queen’.
in his furniture store and his life in Liverpool. So, as time went on, we got
free from Clive and started the whole Apple organisation. We didn't JOHN: Brian did a few things that show he cooked us. We never got
consider getting anybody else in to take Brian’s place — not immediately, anything out of it, and Brian did. The fact that NEMS was a bigger
because the roles had changed now that we were recording instead of company than The Beatles. We have no company. There's Northern
touring. Songs, NEMS and Dick James. What did we have? A couple of quid in
the bank. That's where Brian fucked up. He's the one who would say:
NEIL ASPINALL: They decided they had to keep on trucking. They'd ‘Sign for another ten years.’ And who got the benefit? Not us. We're the
always discussed whatever they were doing with Brian, but now there was ones who were tied by the balls.”
nobody. There was Brian’ organisation, but they hadn't ever related to that,
they'd only related to Brian. What were they going to do? They didn't have a NEIL ASPINALL: They could have just given up and said: ‘Ob, Brian's
single piece of paper to explain the nature of their contract. dead. That's it. What do we do now? Ob, we don't do anything — right?’ Or
There was a meeting of the six of us — the four guys, Mal and I. They they could go out and do something to keep the organisation together. NEMS
were sitting in somebody else’ office and they realised they didn't have was still there, along with a lot of NEMS people (like Tony Barrow, who was
anything. They didn't know where any of the money was, they didn't have a later on the Magical Mystery Tour bus, organising things and looking after
single contract
for anything with Brian, not with a record company, not with the press). They gave Magical Mystery Tour to NEMS to sell for them, and
a film company — Brian bad them all. They were sitting there with nothing, in they were still their agents.
an office that didn't even belong to them. Robert Stigwood came to visit them when they were filming Magical
It didn't make them vulnerable, but it did make them realise that they bad to Mystery Tour. We were in a hotel having dinner, sitting at the table, and
get it together. Suddenly the lunatics had got bold of the asylum. Robert was intimating that he was now The Beatles’ manager because he'd
There were several different sets of advice coming in at them about what been Brians partner (and therefore be had NEMS): ‘So therefore,’ be said, ‘I'm
they should do, but they decided they needed an office and an organisation of your manager.’ And they just said to him, ‘No, you're not. You can have
their own. And that's really why they expanded Apple. everything else, but you're nothing to do with us.’
In fact, Brian bad set it up already that the company had split and become
GEORGE MARTIN: It was impossible
for any one of the boys to become a NEMS holding company and NEMS Enterprises. The Beatles bad been put
manager of the group, because it was a democracy (and the other three into the holding company, which was nothing to do with Stigwood. I think
wouldn't have stood for it, anyway). As for the rest of the people associated I'm simplifying that a bit, but that's what it was like. Anyway, he didn't have
with them, neither Neil Aspinall nor Mal Evans was really ‘up there’ where anything to do with The Beatles, but he tried. Good try, Robert.
Brian had been. Neil did eventually take over and he became manager of
Apple, but at that time be wasnt of sufficient clout to be on first-name terms JOHN: I'm not going to have some stranger running the scene, that’s all.
with someone like Joe Lockwood. So it was a very difficult time. | also like to be friends with whoever's going to run it. I like to work with
In the management vacuum there were all sorts of vultures flapping their friends.”
wings over the body, but nothing really materialised. I'd never got involved
with them on the managerial front; I didn't want to get involved. I thought that RINGO: Robert Stigwood was another person who, we suddenly
ifIever did, then I would lose the rapport I had with them in the studio (where realised, had a percentage. | don’t know how it worked, but for a very
we were mates). We were all on the same level and we could talk the same reasonable price we got out of it. It was one of those magic moments.
language. Ifever I got into a managerial position of saying: ‘You shouldn't do Stigwood felt he had a huge piece, we felt he didn't, and it got sorted out
that, you should do this,’ then I would lose the studio relationship. really quickly.
We heard that Allen Klein had expressed an interest. We didn't
PAUL: I don't think I was too worried about the prospect of going ahead respond.
without Brian, because we'd been starting to have more of our own Nobody in the band itself said, ‘Look, I'll run the thing for this period
influence in the studio. We were almost managing ourselves, really. It of time.’ We never thought we would run it, we just thought we'd start
was very sad to lose an old mate under those circumstances, but | don't things and then get other people in.
think the major worry was: ‘Oh, what are we going to do now? We
haven't got a manager.’ We'd been moving away from that, anyway. JOHN: Although Apple turned into The Beatles’ baby, Apple was
conceived by the Epsteins and NEMS before we took over; before we
GEORGE: That was when Neil stepped in and tried to figure out what said, ‘It's going to be like this.’ They had it lined up so we would do the
was happening. Clive Epstein was forced into the situation where he had same as Northern Songs — sell ourselves to ourselves.
to take over NEMS — the management company — but he wasn't They were going to set it up, sell 80% to the public, and we were
interested; he didn't really have the desire. going to be minority shareholders with 5% each, and God knows who
There was also another situation where Robert Stigwood had been else running it.”

168 BRIAN EPSTEIN

 ee

| group of entertainers in the entertainment |

; .
a. Beatles". , : “

-m The Entertainers have agreed to admit sh

” f
in the said partnership business upon the
 NEIL ASPINALL: I think the original plan for Apple PAUL: We had a lot of friends who used to make
came, as usual, from accountants. They'd told Brian that PAUL: clothes for us, and, as lots of boutiques were opening at
The Beatles should really diversify and invest in other ONE LOVELY SUNNY DAY WE that time, it seemed natural for us to start a little clothes
things. So he'd set up a company in Baker Street called WERE ALL OUT IN THE GARDEN shop of our own. But a rude awakening comes in any
Apple Publishing, and that's all it was, just a little WHEN ROBERT ARRIVED FOR A venture like that. We started to meet with people from
publishing company. Terry Doran was running it. visit. HE'D BROUGHT A the rag trade and they said: ‘Wow! We love this stuff,
PICTURE BY MAGRITTE WHICH we're really interested. It will be massive next year.’
JOHN: Our accountant came up and said, ‘We've got HE KNEW I'D LIKE, AND SO HE We'd say, ‘No! It's got to be ready next month. Our
this amount of money. Do you want to give it to the JUST PROPPED UP THE PICTURE mates want it now, this summer!’ They said that we
Government, or do something with it?’ So we decided ON THE TABLE AND LEFT. AND should be thinking what was going to be fashionable
to play businessmen for a bit. WHEN WE CAME IN WE SAW THE next year, as they needed that long to gear up the
Originally, we didn't want an Apple. Clive Epstein PICTURE: A BIG GREEN APPLE factories. We told them: ‘Oh, we couldn't tell you about
said, like they did every few years, ‘If you don't do this, WITH ‘AU REVOIR’ WRITTEN next year, mate — it moves too fast for that, you know.’
it will go in taxes.’ So we really didn’t want to go into ACROSS IT IN MAGRITTE'S So we could never get into the trade proper, and we
fucking business, but the thing was: ‘If we have to go in, HANDWRITING. IT WAS A DEAD decided just to open a boutique ourselves.
let's go into something we like.'” COOL CONCEPTUAL THING OF
ROBERT'S TO DO — HE KNEW I'D JOHN: We ended up with a clothes shop. | don't know
GEORGE: I've no idea who thought of Apple first. It LOVE IT AND HE KNEW I'D PAY how. Initially, Clive Epstein came up to us and said,
was a bad idea, whoever thought of it! | think it came HIM LATER. ‘You've got so much money and we're thinking of
out of Brian dying, and then the thing about Stigwood WE SHOWED MAGRITTE'S APPLE investing it into retail shops for you.’ You can just
and Clive Epstein coming along. We were thinking, TO GENE MAHON, THE AD imagine The Beatles with a string of retail fucking shoe
‘Oh, well, we'd better just make our own thing.’ GUY, AND USED IT AS A BASIS shops — that was the way they thought.
Because of the hippy period, everybody thought, FOR OURS. So we said, ‘Imagine us owning fucking retail shops.
‘Well, we can do this, and we can do that, and we can At least if we're going to open a shop, let's open
have a new way of doing things.’ It was true, really, and something that we'd want, that we'd like to buy. We
it was a brave attempt in many ways. It was still very were thinking, ‘Let's be the Woolworth of something,’
much a Britain with a post-war mentality, and in the mid-Sixties there or how great it was to go into Marks & Spencer and get a decent sweater
was an awakening of interest and an awareness of people's abilities and when you were about eighteen. Cheap, but good quality. We wanted
their way of doing things. One example was Mary Quant. Apple to be that.
Everybody was trying to break out of the old moulds and we thought We said, ‘Well, let's sell groovy clothes,’ or something. Paul came
that we'd be able to do that in a business sense. We thought we'd be able up with a nice idea which was: ‘Let's sell everything white.’ You can
to develop and give other people a break and be able to make films never get anything white, like cups and all that. I've been looking for a
ourselves. In fact, do everything ourselves! decent set of white cups for five years.” It didn't end up with that. It
You have to remember that in 1967 everybody was on such a buzz! | ended up with Apple and all this junk and The Fool and all the stupid
don't mean just The Beatles, but the whole planet (at least San Francisco, clothes and all that.”
LA and London). There was a feeling about how everybody was going to
change the world, and we had ideas along the lines of: ‘Wouldn't it be DEREK TAYLOR: I came over for the opening of the Apple boutique in
nice if we could help other people, instead of them getting screwed December 1967. I took more acid and talked to George about Apple.
around in business as we have been all the time?’ We went to the party at the opening of the boutique. We decided that we
It was a problem with the hippy period — particularly with reefer — would all serve mankind as best we could. Jobn said things like: ‘We'll have
that you'd sit around and think of all these great ideas, but nobody a shop, and ifanyone wants the counter — we'll sell them the counter. And
actually did anything. Or if they did do something, then a lot of the time ifthey want the chair, they can have it, you know, and that’s the way its
it was a failure. The idea of it was much better than the reality. It was going to be.’
easy to sit around thinking of groovy ideas, but to put them into reality
was something else. We couldn't, because we weren't businessmen. All GEORGE: The Apple boutique started as an excellent idea. I'd still like
we knew was hanging around studios, making up tunes. to have a shop that sells worthwhile things. What we were trying to do
was to sell all the stuff that we liked. Apart from the loony clothes and
PAUL: The theory had been that we'd put all our affairs into one bundle the hippy flower-power stuff, we were supposed to support all kinds of
in our own company. It would be all the things we'd ever wanted to do. different music (which now they'd call ‘world music’), and we'd sell books
We were full of bright ideas: ‘Yeah, we could do this. We could do about various things we were into, as well as spiritual objects, incense
that.’ There was a lot of that around to give us all the enthusiasm; but and whatever.
there wasn't an awful lot of planning. So it soon started to get into
budgetary problems with people spending too much, and there were hot PAUL: The shop in Baker Street was great, and we thought that to get
and cold running secretaries. Occasionally it would get a bit weird, people's attention we would put a beautiful big mural on the wall. The
because you couldn't just fly on your enthusiasm alone, and | suppose painting was gorgeous; it was done by The Fool.
Brian would have always handled all those things that we didn't plan for.

was
We actually started to try to run Apple ourselves, financially; and that
difficult, because we had to wear two hats. We all shared the
GEORGE: TRYING TO INFLUENCE PEOPLE
responsibility, but | know John got a bit annoyed, saying, ‘Paul's trying AND DOING THINGS LIKE PAINTING THE
to be the leader of the group.’ | don’t think | was particularly trying to APPLE SHOP WAS ALL JUST PART OF THE
‘manage’ us. What | think I was doing was getting us to self-manage from
within the group.
TEDDY BOY IN US, THE TEDDY-BOY
It is possible that | was there more than anyone. When we did Magical THEME OF ‘WE'LL SHOW THEM". WE
Mystery Tour, for instance, | ended up directing it, even though we said THOUGHT, ‘WE'LL PAINT THE BUILDING
that The Beatles had directed it. | was there most of the time, and all the
late-night chats with the cameramen about what we were going to do ONE NIGHT, AND THE NEXT MORNING
tomorrow, and the editing etc., would tend to be with me rather than PEOPLE WILL COME UP THE STREET
with the others.
AND THE WHOLE BLOODY BUILDING'S
JOHN: Now we're our managers, now we have to make all the decis- GOING TO BE PSYCHEDELIC. THAT
ions. We've always had full responsibility for what we did, but we still WAS WHAT IT WAS ALL ABOUT — 1 THINK
had a father figure, and if we didn’t feel like it — well, Brian would do it.
Now we've got to work out all our business, everything. It threw me WE WOULD HAVE BEEN PIRATES IN A
quite a bit.” DIFFERENT LIFE.

APPLE
 e/led ra ;
ide, lthere is a sthge on whi
is eng-t
does| her! act to the singer, who
She
okes) The mén clap loudly as sHe finishes
oscs. .undwit Giaae > Flew bee 3fron.

64 5
Be
9.1 5
404 5
5
9.7 6
ora) 5
2.1
2
 IHN: At the beginning of 1967, we realised that we wouldn't be doing GEORGE: It was basically a charabanc trip, which people used to go on
y more concert tours, because we couldn't reproduce onstage the type from Liverpool to see the Blackpool lights — they'd get loads of crates of
nusic that we'd started to record. So, if stage shows were to be out, beer and all get pissed (in the English sense). It was very flimsy, and we
wanted something to replace them. Television was the obvious had no idea what we were doing. At least, I didn’t. |had no idea what was
answer.‘ happening, and maybe | didn't pay enough attention because my
problem, basically, was that I was in another world.
GEORGE: For years we looked around for a screenplay that was suitable, This is where Paul felt somebody had to try to do something; and so
it in the time that had elapsed since A Hard Day's Night and Help! — he decided he'd push what he felt. As for me, I didn’t really belong; | was
sithough it was probably only two years — it was as if we'd gone through just an appendage. There were a number of people whose help we called
five hundred years mentally. We didn't see any way of making a similar upon. Denis O'Dell was one — | think he'd been an associate producer on
film of four jolly lads nipping around singing catchy little tunes. It had A Hard Day's Night, and later he was brought in to have something to
to be something that had more meaning. ae VE do with Apple. We were in need of having a grown-up person,
| remember we had Patrick McGoohan around, and pe a father figure, in the business side of the film. In one
he'd written a couple of episodes of a series called The respect Magical Mystery Tour was probably quite good,
Prisoner, which we liked very much. We thought, because it got us doing something; it got us out and
‘Well, maybe he could write something for us.’ got us together.
Then there was David Helliwell, who wrote Little
Malcolm and His Struggle Against the Eunuchs — we JOHN: I was still under a false impression. | still
got him up and asked him to write us some- felt every now and then that Brian would come in
thing. | know there was also a Joe Orton project, and say, ‘It's time to record,’ or, ‘Time to do this.’
but I don't have any recollection of anybody And Paul started doing that: ‘Now we're going to
meeting Joe Orton or ever seeing the screenplay make a movie. Now we're going to make a
(although it did come out later). | think that was record.’ And he assumed that if he didn’t call us,
probably a Brian Epstein kind of trip. nobody would ever make a record. Paul would say,
well, now he felt like it — and suddenly I'd have to
PAUL: I'm not sure whose idea Magical Mystery Tour whip out twenty songs. He'd come in with about
was. It could have been mine, but I'm not sure whether | twenty good songs and say, ‘We're recording.’ And |
want to take the blame for it! We were all in on it — but suddenly had to write a fucking stack of songs.”
a lot of the material at that time could have been my
idea, because | was coming up with a lot of NEIL ASPINALL: Paul and Jobn sat down in Pauls
concepts, like Sgt Pepper. (I'm not saying that was place in St John's Wood. They drew a circle, and then
my album — obviously we all worked on it — but | marked it off like the spokes on a wheel. It was a case
was coming up with a lot of ideas.) of: ‘We can have a song here, and a dream sequence
Privately, I'd got a camera and | would go out there,’ and so on. They mapped it out.
in the park and make films. We'd show our little
home movies to each other, and we'd put crazy JOHN: We knew most of the scenes we wanted
soundtracks on them. | used to do a bit of editing to include; but we bent our ideas to fit the people
at home — I had a little machine and | was getting concerned, once we got to know our cast. If
very into it. So for the next Beatles project, | somebody wanted to do something we hadn't
thought: ‘Let's go and make a film — what a great thing planned, they went ahead. If it worked, we kept it in.
to do.’ It was all done on whims. There was a lovely little five-year-old girl, Nicola, on
There wasn't a script for Magical Mystery Tour; you the bus. Because she was there, and because we realised she
don't need scripts for that kind of film. It was just a mad was right for it, we put in a bit where |just chat to her
idea. We said to everyone: ‘Be on the coach on and give her a balloon.”
Monday morning.’ I told them all, ‘We're going to
make it up as we go along, but don't worry — it'll PAUL: I wandered off to France and did the ‘Fool
be all right.’.1 did have to keep chatting to On The Hill’ part one morning with a couple of
people, because the security of a script is mates. It wasn’t quite ‘union’ — you were sup-
obviously very helpful. But we knew we weren't posed to take millions of cameramen, but we
doing a regular film — we were doing a crazy didn't want to do that. We knew we were
roly-poly Sixties film, with ‘lam the eggman’ and bucking the system and making a far-out, silly
sO on. little film — and only occasionally did it get
embarrassing.
JOHN: WE HAVEN'T GOT A SCRIPT Most of the time we were able to say to people:
‘Look, this is very free-wheeling, so just go down to
YET, BUT WE'VE GOT A BLOKE
the beach...’ We had Ivor Cutler, who played Buster
GOING ROUND THE LAVATORIES OF Bloodvessel. His romantic interest was Jessie (the fat lady)
BRITAIN, CRIBBING ALL THE NOTES OFF and we got him on the sand, where he drew a big heart around
THE WALLS.” her. We'd say, ‘That's nice,’ and it would-be part of the sequence.
It did get a little hairy once or twice. I felt a bit sorry for people like
RINGO: Magical Mystery Tour was Paul's idea. It was a good way to Nat Jackley, whom we'd admired. He was an old music-hall comedian
work. Paul had a great piece of paper — just a blank piece of white paper who used to do eccentric dancing and funny walks. He was great at all
with a circle on it. The plan was: ‘We start here — and we've got to do of that, and John and | really loved him. John wanted to do a sequence
something here...’ We filled it in as we went along. with him, but he got a bit annoyed because there wasn't enough script.
We rented a bus and off we went. There was some planning: John Some of the older guys who were used to working with scripts — which,
would always want a midget or two around, and we had to get an aircraft after all, is only sensible — were a little bit disappointed with the film.
hangar to put the set in. We'd do the music, of course. They were the
finest videos, and it was 4 lot of fun. To get the actors we looked through RINGO: It was good. We would get off the bus: ‘Let's stop here,’ and go
the actors’ directory, Spotlight: 'Oh, we need someone like this, and and do this and that. Go on the beach, draw a heart, dance. Then we'd
someone like that.’ We needed a large lady to play my auntie. So we put the music to it. It took two weeks to film and a long time to edit. We
found a large lady. were a little unlucky with our first director. We had ‘walking cameramen’
— they'd walk and film the shots. When we looked at the first three or
JOHN: It's about a group of common or garden people on a coach tour four days of rushes, we found he'd forgotten to turn the camera off — so
around everywhere, really, and things happen to them.” we just had hours of pavement. Thank you, eh?

172 MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR

JOHN: We didn't get directors, we got cameramen who walked in. thought, ‘Oh, shit. I've picked the wrong guy.’ But that wouldn't have
And what we say to them is, ‘Are you a director?’ And they say ‘yes’ and been the same, would it? ‘I am the Carpenter...’*°
we say, ‘Are you any good?’ and he says ‘yes’. And we say, ‘Well, you're We saw the movie in LA, and the Walrus was a big capitalist that ate
on.’ And that's the big business scene.” all the fucking oysters. | always had the image of the Walrus in the
garden and | loved it, and so | didn't ever check what the Walrus was.
RINGO: | used three different drum kits. | had a kit made for a giant — He's a fucking bastard — that's what he turns out to be. But the way it's
and this is what happens when you don't really think it written, everybody presumes that means something. | mean,
out: there was a giant bass drum and tom-toms and a even | did. We all just presumed that because | said ‘I am
giant snare. The snare was so big | couldn't get the Walrus’ that it must mean ‘I am God’ or
my leg to the bass drum and we could never something. It's just poetry, but it became symbolic
use it as a kit. But it was fine for miming. of me.”
Then | had the mini-kit; that was just my ne ‘Walrus’ is just saying a dream — the words
bit of fun. And there was a normal kit. SS don't mean a lot. People draw so many
conclusions and it's ridiculous.” I've had

tage:
GEORGE: | remember the big hangar tongue in cheek all along — all of them had
down in Kent when we were driving tongue in cheek. Just because other
around the airfield in the Mini people see depths of whatever in it...
Cooper, and filming ‘Your Mother What does it really mean, ‘I am the
%
Should Know’, which was quite eggman’? It could have been the pudding
interesting. | enjoyed that scene. basin, for all I care. It's not that serious.®°
I'd seen some other people who liked
NEIL ASPINALL: All sorts of things Dylan and Jesus going on about Hare
happened. We were in the big coach with Krishna. It was Ginsberg in particular |
all the decoration on the side and we came was referring to. The words ‘element'ry
to a little narrow bridge. The bus was too penguin’ meant that it's naive to just go
wide to go across the bridge so we got stuck, around chanting Hare Krishna or just putting
and we couldnt easily go forwards or your faith in one idol.
backwards. The driver bad to back off, but by In those days I was writing obscurely, a la
then there was a trail of cars a hundred yards long Dylan, never saying what you mean but giving the
in both directions and everybody was getting really impression of something, where more or less can be
cheesed off. read into it. It's agood game. | thought, ‘They get
When Jobn and Paul were editing the damned away with this artsy-fartsy crap.’ There has
thing, they found out that nobody had filmed been more said about Dylan's wonderful
any linking shots. There wasn't one shot of lyrics than was ever in the lyrics at all.
the bus from the outside. So I said that I'd Mine, too. But it was the intellectuals who
do it. Igot Nick Knowland as cameraman, read all this into Dylan or The Beatles.
and Mal and I
got the bus out again, put Dylan got away with murder. | thought,
all the posters on the side, and drove off ‘l can write this crap, too.’
into the sunset. You just stick a few images
We stopped by a little gypsy camp. I together, thread them together, and
got a couple of children to wave at the you call it poetry. But I was just using
bus going past, and because there was the mind that wrote In His Own Write
nobody on board I told the bus driver to to write that song.
drive fast. We did those shots with the bus There was even some live BBC radio.
driving up and over the camera, then of it They were reciting Shakespeare or
going away. So, now we bad a few links. something and | just fed whatever lines
That sort of thing was going on all the time, were on the radio right into the song.*® Do
and Ikeep thinking, ‘When did they do the you know what they're saying at the end
music?’ there? ‘Everybody's got one, everybody's got
one.’ We did about half a dozen mixes and | just
\-
JOHN: Magical Mystery Tour is one of my favourite used whatever was coming through at that time. |
albums, because it was so weird. ‘| Am The Walrus’ is never knew it was King Lear until, years later, somebody
also one of my favourite tracks — because | did it, of course, but told me — because | could hardly make out what he was saying
also because it's one of those that has enough little bitties going to keep It was interesting to mix the whole thing with a live radio coming
you interested even a hundred years later.” through it. So that's the secret of that one. 4
It's from ‘The Walrus and the Carpenter’; Alice in Wonderland. To
me, it was a beautiful poem. It never dawned on me that Lewis Carroll PAUL: It was shown on BBC1 on Boxing Day, which is traditionally
was commenting on the capitalist system. | never went into that bit music hall and Bruce Forsyth and Jimmy Tarbuck time. Now we had this
about what he really meant, like people are doing with The Beatles’ very stoned show on, just when everyone's getting over Christn
work. Later | went back and looked at it and realised that the Walrus think a few people were surprised. The critics certainly | ield day
was the bad guy in the story, and the Carpenter was the good guy. | and said, ‘Oh, disaster, disaster!’

MAGICAL MYS!1
 They really didn’t like the film,
but that's understandable because
from an artistic point of view it
wasn't a brilliantly scripted affair
that was executed well. It was like
a little home movie; an elaborate
home movie. We just had fun. We
were supposed to; we were on the
bus with the crates of beer and the accordionist.
GEORGE MARTIN: Magical Mystery Tour was I think the film had its moments. The bits that were good are still
not really a success — in fact, that’s putting it mildly. good, and the bits that weren't so good are still not so good. It hasn't
When it came out originally on British television, it was matured with age, but there were always a couple of good songs, and
a colour film shown in black and white, because they there were a few funny scenes. To me, the scene that stands out is the
didn't bave colour on BBC1 in those days. It looked one of John shovelling the spaghetti onto the fat woman's plate. That
awful and it was a disaster. Everyone said it was was the best bit of the movie for me. It was John’s idea.
pretentious and overblown, but it was a kind of avant-
garde video, ifyou like. JOHN: Paul said, ‘Well, here's the segment, you write a piece for that.’
The Beatles were the first guys to make videos — And I thought, ‘Fucking Ada, I've never made a film. What does he mean,
they're accepted now as part of our business, and write a script?’ So I ran off and wrote the dream sequence for the fat
Magical Mystery Tour was a rather fanciful example. woman and all the things with spaghetti and all that.”
It was a little bit pretentious — but it was also quite
good fun. Maybe it was a little bit boring, and maybe PAUL: People like Steven Spielberg have said since, ‘When I was in film
some of the songs weren't great, but it was an attempt. school, that was a film we really took notice of.’ It was an art film rather
than a proper film. | think we all thought it was OK. It wasn't the greatest
RINGO: Being British, we thought we'd give it to the thing we'd ever done, but I defend it anyway, on the lines that nowhere
BBC (which in those days was the biggest channel), else do you see a performance of ‘| Am The Walrus’. That's the only
who showed it in black and white. We were stupid performance ever.
and they were stupid. It was hated. They all had their chance to say, I think things like that are enough to make it an interesting film. And
‘They've gone too far. Who do they think they are? What does it mean?’ John's dream with the spaghetti, too. That was an actual dream where he
It was like the rock-opera situation: ‘They're not Beethoven.’ They were came in and said, ‘Hey, | had this wild dream last night. I'd like to do it.
still looking for things that made sense, and this was pretty abstract. I'm a waiter...’ So we just put all these ideas in and it was very haphazard.
It was a crowd of people having a lot of fun with whatever came into It's how you learn, by your mistakes.
mind. It was really slated but, of course, when people started seeing it in Not that it was a mistake overall, but there were millions of little
colour they realised that it was a lot of fun. In a weird way, | certainly mistakes going along. We never had clapperboards, for instance, so
feel it stood the test of time, but | can see that somebody watching it in when we came to edit — with music — it was very difficult. We put two
black and white would lose so much of it — it would make no sense weeks by to edit it — and it took eleven. So it went slightly over budget
(especially the aerial ballet shot). We sent a guy out filming all over on the editing. | would be down in Soho with the editor all day — it was
Iceland, and then it was shown in black and white — 1 mean, what is this? my job — and the guys would drop by, so | suppose I'm quite a bit to
Painted silly clowns and magicians. What does it mean? blame for that.
You have to remember that anything we did in the early days was a At the same time I'm quite proud of it. It was daring, even though
love song — ‘Love Me Do’, ‘| Want To Hold Your Hand’, ‘Please Please back then it was certainly shown at the wrong time to the wrong
Me’, blah de blah, and now suddenly ‘| Am The Walrus’ and ‘you let audience.
your knickers down’. ‘Oh, my God, what are they doing? They've gone
too far.’ There were always a lot of people who said, ‘They've gone too JOHN: | don't think we have any responsibility to the fans. You give
far this time.’ them the choice of liking what you're doing, or not liking it. If they don't
like it, they let you know — fast. If you allow everything to be dictated
PAUL: WAS IT REALLY AS BAD AS THAT? IT WASN'T by fans, you're just running your life for other people. All we do is try to
THE WORST PROGRAMME OVER CHRISTMAS. I give fans an even deal.”
MEAN, YOU COULDN'T CALL THE QUEEN'S
SPEECH A GAS, EITHER, COULD YOU?” RINGO: It was a good shoot. It was a lot.of fun, and again we were
making videos — making little movies — and it was to save us going on
JOHN: They thought we were stepping out of our roles. They'd like just the road; going round the TV shows and saying ‘hello’ yet again to
to keep us in the cardboard suits that were designed for us. Whatever Cathy McGowan.
image they have for themselves, they're disappointed if we don't fulfil it. John’s poetry in those songs was so great. In one line he could say
And we never do, so there's always a lot of disappointment.® what it takes most people a whole song or a novel to say with the same
sharp bite. The songs were getting better, both melodically and
NEIL ASPINALL: There was a whole flying sequence, a beautiful little tune musically.
where the clouds all change colour, but in black and white there are obviously
no colour changes. So I could understand why an audience would say, JOHN: Every bloody record | put out was banned by the BBC for some
What’ this?’ and be a bit disappointed reason or another. Even ‘Walrus’ was banned on the BBC at one time,
because it said ‘knickers’.*° We chose the word because it is a lovely
GEORGE: The press hated it. With all the success that we had, every expressive word. It rolls off the tongue.
time something came out (a new record or whatever), they'd all try to Somebody heard Joyce Grenfell talking yesterday about ‘pull your
slam it; because once they've built you up that high, all they can do is knickers down’. So, listen, Sir Henry Fielding, or whoever it is running
knock you back down again. That's what happens; that’s life. the BBC.”

seve A Bn Qe aPacrssnesenescenecssnreefosonsorseesoerersens LACT) ELD. LEVY. .serics NIRS YLIEL Vyoreceereasenspsecssinerss erates eee

iu Mee Viel F. cial eoneruces eens Two..wheel...di s6s.stoLen...by..£A20 Sicsscssssccocsennessteecie|l enna een

\GICAL MYSTERY TOUR

wneiot uw QoL Plisessneee nnssncorncernaoeeanscvntovennersets
NEDSH] LRA RNRIS2c OTLGL Toescetac onsets thoes sng ass aesstaeie
eed eet
 ~ Fahey are the egemenI arith wr
“GOO GOO JOOB GOO GOOGO000000000
v.
 eth &5 OR os a4 eee
~~ "rrr rer. pai so a

4 4

tout compr
all include
bre de personnes
IMP, MEVERRE

eee
Fe dé)
iy Poke ‘eer (Breakfast) Extra

Fa Oran {Dirne:}
2 Pathe ahje ABrcohF).8
B= Bei MRR <purcier
et au A ivioor Winner), ee
a shee be

e Goftre (Satan . il
DIVERS
- Téléphone i
Mistellanogus
ba Telex te "

T -"Vtibre quit. (Fiseot sinh

Sons D - DéliBurs concierge

DEBOURS ¥ - Vitel a7Ay

ie Coiffiaue
K = Texe Ber5 séjour Pls y ;
T } {
Tae Tae ; } fe! i» NOS PRix SENIEAD
OM bas ROU
COMPRIS His LA5 2 ieee
”
VICE 15% HEARED
‘ J Fe rr %, ae
ANI FiUUS
: ' ;
TN
SEJIOUR By a) 55 por | ie
PAR JOUR ENS d ;

OUR PRICES
apie 15] 4
 -cted the promo film we made for ‘Hello, Goodbye’. Directing a film is something that everyone always wants to get into. It was
d always been interested in, until I actually tried it. Then I realised it was too much like hard work. Someone summed. it up when they
’s always someone arriving saying: “Do-you want the gold pistols or the silver pistols?’ Then you think: /Um, um...’ There was so much
Jing on —so many decisions to be made — that T ended up hating‘it:
lidn’t really direct the film — all we needed was a couple of cameras, some good cameramen, a bit of sound and some dancing girls. | thought,
‘ust hire a theatre and show up there one afternoon,’ And that's what we did: we took our Sgt Pepper suits along and filmed at the Saville Theatre
ory .
the West : nd

RINGO: At the end of the year I was off to Rome to RINGO: Richard and Elizabeth turned out to be really good
film a movie: Candy — what a great movie. It was the CANDY IS A YOUNG friends. One fabulous thing he did was to read ‘| Am
mind-blowing thrill of my life. | was filming with GIRL WHO GOES The Walrus’ off the album sleeve in that voice of his.
Marlon Brando, Richard Burton, Walter Matthau and ROUND MAKING It was just amazing. We'd go and stay with them on
all those guys. Wow! LOVE TO. LOTS OF their boat, and that drove Richard crazy. Because |
It was great. Marlon was such a lot of fun, he loved MEN, AND I'M THE used to play games with his head. | would say, ‘God,
to play. We were all having lunch the day he was due FIRST.’ the English language, what a load of crap!’ and he
to arrive; Elizabeth Taylor was there (because of would explode. And I'd say, ‘Shakespeare — give us a
Richard Burton), and she was dynamite. But with Marlon coming | was _ break.’ It was just a little game | would play with him, and he'd always
really excited — not just a little — because this was Marlon Bloody Brando, fall for it and get angry and send me off his boat: ‘Get off my boat, you
and I'm a big fan! He came, and he was so charming and so loving. What __ little whippersnapper.’
he did was to ‘do Marlon’ for me. He picked a spoon and really looked I loved acting, | really loved it. And | loved meeting all those great
at it, doing his Brando. | just thought, ‘It's Marlon Brando, it's Brando!’ It — actors and sitting around and hanging out. They all gave me tips, that
was great. | love you, Marlon. was my acting school: ‘Oh, you know, maybe if you did it this way...’

Q v

makes the aallaled

me *lolelei(-ma
-

sy,
~eF
ee
lt
iPe

WAY
2.wae
of_

1. General: You hereby %ac reeuto he avdilable,

and furnish to us, upon all of hems’. conditions contained
herein, Mr. Richard Starkey (pkagm > Sta#, (hereinafter referred
to as "Artist") to render his serwae fewer actor-to portray
the role of "Emanuel" 7 2.

Bw
RINGO: I'D READ THE BOOK OF THE FILM, AND I THOUGHT, ‘YOU'RE JOKING. HOW CAN THEY MAKE
THAT INTO A FILM?’ RANDY ISN'T THE WORD FOR IT. NO WONDER IT’S BEEN BANNED!*

HELLO, GOODBYE' « CANDY}

nineteen sixty-eight
 GEORGE: In January 1968 I was in Bombay,
working on the soundtrack for the film Wonderwall
— a Sixties hippy movie directed by Joe Massot. He
asked me if | would do the music, but | told him |
didn't write music for films. Then he ‘said that
whatever I gave him, he. would use, That sounded~
pretty simple, and | fonghe ‘T'll give them an Indian
music anthology, and who knows, maybe a ey, ..
hippies will get turned on to Indian music.’ oy a
I worked with Indian musicians —"at the.
EMI/HMV studios in Bombay. Mr Bhaskar Menon
(later *to become the head of EMI worldwide)
brought a two-track stereo machine all the way from
Calcutta on the train for me, because all they had in
Bombay was a mono machine. It was the same kind
_ of huge machine -we used in Abbey Road; ‘they're
ier ‘called STEEDs. I've got ni mtn cheh now —_
se ru the one that we recorded ‘Paperback Writer’ on. I
came back and added a lot more in| Abbey mead. pe
and put the music on the film. ees one? %: es
Wonderwall-.came out some time” fer es
probably died a death. Ringo came with me to the
premiére in Cannes. (I know this because they've.
put out the CD _and I've read Derek's liner notes.|
didn't remember it until | saw the photos of us with.
= a rather nice young lady called Jane Birkin who was ee
TO SHAMBHUDAS .. in the movie.)

(3EVILLA MANORAMA SWAMI V |

” BANDRA
Bie BOMBAY 50.0 :
TEXT: 4 coe OG
ARRIVING 6th JANUARY 05,10 hrs. ATR INDIA 112 with TWO somes
_-FRIENDS, LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING youAGAIN, x“-FSsd
Hoy
REGARDS GEORGE,
j ' o : Qe mae. aoe

~ "INTERNAL MEMO
Wo Deak ty ae Aspinall ;ee ‘ :
Waa cy “ ‘ . sth-Janu iry,
tone 1968
ele‘a
Subject : Indian Trip
the;VIPItinerary. The Man ‘eT248) n
You have all the details ofthe trip on“lig stiee dtm Calcutta, “Tel. Caleuttars
of EMI in India is Mr. Bhaskar Menon. haveoutshiwho Bias
h’+ 12th
The studios have been booked from the 9Ta e inclu
not yet sive ablethey.
been and to find
ipment in for George's use. not vhs the
ee

ms St voris in Bombay. I may know by this evening if you do

ing.
‘Mr, Menon In Caleutta on ite’ morn
information I suggest you telephone
ws.
of George's whoge: made all the ee
The name and address of the Indian friend Z
dhas been informed of what time your flight we

SWAMI VIVEKANANDA ROAD. “<

:
Dee ofa eae seamen an RTT
BANDRA BOMBAY 50." . aan Meg Ta ae
ea i
Can't think of anything else! hk ee eee Z. ee
efrom Tuesday 9th through till | . ¥ lh |
With musicians, 2 or 3 shanhai . = hey
Please gontirm ithis is possible . a mit : . nbs =
@through London Hla. Grateful if Tae Re x a.
7
mem
“a for my
myself and one other for Beis ss
y
aes
*
;
eu.
~\ ie i”
‘ :

ec peice’ a ee ri Tete
an Ena ediiia ata Seer ae a eh Ry
“Regards George Haficon, ¢ ae roe eo aS de 4
 GEORGE: I BELIEVE I HAVE ALREADY
EXTENDED MY LIFE BY TWENTY
YEARS. I BELIEVE THERE ARE BODS UP
HERE IN THE HIMALAYAS WHO HAVE
LIVED FOR CENTURIES. THERE IS ONE
SOMEWHERE AROUND WHO WAS
BORN BEFORE CHRIST AND IS STILL
LIVING NOW.®

’,

JOHN: We're all going to India for a couple

of months to study Transcendental Meditation
properly. We want to learn properly so we can
propagate it and sell the whole idea to
everyone. This is how we plan to use our
power now — they've always called us leaders of
youth, and we believe that this is a good way
to give a lead.
The whole world will know what we mean,
and all the people who are worried about
youth and drugs and that scene — all these people with the short back
and sides — they can all come along and dig it too.
It's no gospel, Bible-thumping, singalong thing, and it needn't be
religion if people don't want to connect it with religion. It’s all in the
mind. It strengthens understanding and makes people more relaxed. It's
not just a fad or a gimmick, but the way to calm down tensions.”

PAUL: | think by 1968 we were all a bit exhausted, spiritually. We'd

been The Beatles, which was marvellous. We'd tried for it not to go to
our heads and we were doing quite well — we weren't getting too spaced
out or big-headed — but | think generally there was a feeling of: ‘Yeah,
well, it's great to be famous, it's great to be rich — but what's it all for?’
So we were enquiring into all sorts of various things, and because
George was into Indian music, the natural thing was to ask: ‘Well, what
is this meditation lark? Do they levitate? Can they really fly? Can the play. | would like to know how far | can progress with it. George is a
snake-charmer really climb up the rope?’ It was really just pure enquiry, few inches ahead of us.
and after we met Maharishi and thought about it all, we went out to
Rishikesh. RINGO: It was great; a lot of fun and a lot of meditation. It was pretty
exciting. We were in a very spiritual place, meditating and attending
GEORGE: Each year, Maharishi had a course for Westerners who seminars with Maharishi.
wanted to become Transcendental Meditation instructors. Although |
wasnt going to become an instructor, | wanted to go and have a heavy JOHN: We were really getting away from everything. It was a sort of
dose of meditation. recluse holiday camp right at the foot of the Himalayas. It was like
John came, and Paul came after him, and then Richard followed with being up a mountain, but it was in the foothills hanging over the
fifteen Sherpas carrying Heinz baked beans. There was also the world's Ganges, with baboons stealing your breakfast and everybody flowing
press; | pretended to be asleep all the way to Delhi so | didn’t have to round in robes and sitting in their rooms for hours meditating. It was
talk to them. quite a trip.
It was a long drive from the airport to Rishikesh, and at that time I was in a room for five days meditating. | wrote hundreds of songs. |
they only had 1950s cars — Morris Cowleys or Morris Oxfords — so the couldn't sleep and I was hallucinating like crazy, having dreams where
journey took four or five hours. you could smell. I'd do a few hours and then you'd trip off; three- or
Rishikesh is an incredible place, situated where the Ganges flows out four-hour stretches. It was just a way of getting there, and you could go
of the Himalayas into the plains between the mountains and Delhi. on amazing trips.”
There is quite a hefty flow of water coming out of the Himalayas, and
we had to cross the river by a big swing suspension bridge. RINGO: We had breakfast outside and monkeys used to come and steal
Maharishi's place was perched up on a hill overlooking the town and the bread. After breakfast, we'd usually have a morning of meditation in
the river. It was comprised of Maharishi's little bungalow and lots of groups, on the roof. Then after lunch we'd do the same
little huts that he'd had built quickly for the Westerners coming out We did a lot of shopping. We all had Indian clothes made because
there, in a compound of about eight or ten acres. There was a kitchen they could do it right there: huge silly pants with very tight legs and a
with some outdoor seating and tables where we would all have our big body that you'd tie up tight, Nehru collars. We got right into it
breakfast together. Nearby there was a large covered area with a You'd have to fight off the scorpions and tarantulas to try to get ina
platform where he'd give the lectures. bath, so there used to be amazing noise in the bathroom. To have a
If you go to India you can't wear Western clothes. That's one of the bath you'd start shouting — ‘Oh yes, well, | think I'll be having a bath
best bits about India — having these cool clothes: big baggy shirts and now’ — and banging your feet. You'd keep shouting i
pajama trousers. They also have tight trousers that look like drainpipes. what a time I’m having, yes it's wonderful!’ Then you'd
bath, get dry and get out of the room before all! the
JOHN: The way George is going he will be flying on a magic carpet by in. At the time | was married to Maureen, who had a
the time he's forty. | am here to find out what kind of role | am now to and flying things. It was pretty far out.
RISHIKESH
ll RINGO: We had a big party for George's birthday. It was
crowded with people and we all got dressed up and had red
and yellow paint on our foreheads.

GEORGE: | had my twenty-fifth birthday in Rishikesh (a lot

of people had birthdays while we were there), and they had
lots of flowers and garlands and things like that. Maharishi
made me play my sitar.

PAUL: An average day there was very much like a summer

camp. You would get up in the morning and go down to a
communal breakfast. Food was vegetarian (which is good for
me now), and | think we probably had cornflakes for breakfast.
After breakfast you would go back to your chalet, meditate for
a little while, have a bit of lunch and then there might be a talk or a
little musical event. Basically it was just eating, sleeping, and meditating
—with the occasional little lecture from Maharishi thrown in.
There were probably about a hundred of us. There would be a lot of
flowers on the stage and then Maharishi would come in. It was almost
magical. He would say: ‘This is only a system of meditation. I'm not
asking you to believe in any great God or any great myth. It's merely a system to help you to be calmer in
your own life.’
I still think it's good for that exact reason. | don’t buy any of those other stories about flying and
levitation, although it interests me now because you can actually take courses where you learn these
‘siddhis’, as they call them, and you fly — you bounce off the ground a bit. I well remember a little chat
we had with Maharishi when we asked him if levitation was possible. He said, ‘Well, [ can't do it, but |
know a fellow in the next village who can.’ And we said, ‘Can we get him here? We'd love to see it.’
That would have been something to write home about, but we never did get to meet him.
There were question and answer sessions in the evenings. In one of these sessions a guy from
America stood up and said: ‘Maharishi, I've been having some trouble, but I've been listening to your
advice. | was meditating the other day and a big snake was coming towards me. I'm from New York and
I'm really scared of snakes, but | remembered what you told me and I looked at it — in my mind — | looked
it straight in the eye and it turned into a bit of wiggly string.’ I felt that was really symbolic: face your
dangers and then you will see that they're not what you thought they were.
I learnt how to meditate. | don’t meditate as much now, but | say
to my kids that it's not a bad thing to learn, because if you're stuck
somewhere or if you're a bit disturbed, it is a great thing to do.
Maharishi was very up with modern technology because he thought it
would help him get round the world and get his message over quicker. Once
he had to get into New Delhi, and a helicopter came to the camp and landed on
the beach down by the river. We all traipsed down in our kaftans and then it was:
‘One of you can go up for a quick ride with Maharishi. Who's it going to be?’ And, of
course, it was John. | asked him later, ‘Why were you so keen to get up with Maharishi?’ —
‘To tell you the truth,’ he said, ‘I thought he might slip me the Answer.’ That was very John!

JOHN: Regardless of what I was supposed to be doing, | did write some of my best songs while I was there. It was a
nice scene. Nice and secure and everyone was always smiling. The experience was worth it if only for the songs
that came out, but it could have been the desert or Ben Nevis.
The funny thing about the camp was that although it was very beautiful and | was meditating about
eight hours a day, | was writing the most miserable songs on earth. In ‘Yer Blues’, when | wrote, ‘I'm
so lonely | want to die,’ I'm not kidding. That's how | felt.”7 Up there trying to reach God and
feeling suicidal.*°
When you're born, you're in the pram and you smile when you feel like smiling. But the
first game that you learn is to smile before you get touched. Most mothers actually torture
the kid in the pram — make it smile when it doesn't want to: smile and you get fed. That
isn't joy. You cannot be joyful unless you feel joyful, otherwise it's phoney. Mummy
makes you smile or say ‘Hare Krishna’ before you feel good; then you've gone through
a process, a falsification of your feelings. If you feel good you feel good, if you feel 2
bad you feel bad. There's no way out. You can take drugs or get drunk, do ara
whatever, but you're just suppressing the feelings. | haven't met anybody full of
joy; neither the Maharishi nor any Swami or Hare Krishna singer. There is no
constant. There's this dream of constant joy — it's bullshit as far as I'm concerned.
There's no status, there's no absolute.
Pain is something like food in a way, or life; pain and joy. They go into
your body and unless you feel it or express it, it remains there like
constipation. You can't get away from the pain. There's no escape from it, it's
there, in your body somewhere. It'll come out in your nerves or how many
cigarettes you smoke or what you do, it'll make you go bald, or whatever. It
expresses itself in some form. There's no getting rid of it.
| think we all go through heaven and hell every day; just accept that. To
feel is to live. Life is made up of feeling all sorts of things. Every day's the
same: there's some heaven and some hell. There's no complete joyful day.
There's better days, worse days, and I think every day contains both. It's like
the Yin and Yang or whatever you want to call it. It's both.”
 \UL: Mike Love was in Rishikesh. Donovan was there. I can remember her once being trapped in a room because there was a fly over
mber people like that. Mia Farrow was there, and her sister, the door. So obviously conditions in Rishikesh were not ideal for them.
rudence. John wrote the song ‘Dear Prudence’ for her because she had
snic attack and couldn't come out of her chalet. RINGO: It's all a bit hard to remember now. | was only there for two
weeks, then | left. | wasn't getting what I thought | would out of it.
RINGO: Prudence meditated and hibernated. We saw her twice in the The food was impossible for me because I'm allergic to so many
two weeks | was there. Everyone would be banging on the door: ‘Are different things. | took two suitcases with me, one of clothes and the
vou
; ;
still alive:
“~
other full of Heinz beans (there's a plug for you). Then one morning the
guys who were dealing with the food said, ‘Would you like some eggs?’
JOHN: No one was to know that sooner or later she was to go And | said, ‘Oh yeah, sure,’ and the next morning they said it again. |
completely berserk under the care of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. All the thought, ‘Oh yeah, great — things are looking up.’
people around her were very worried about the girl because she was Then | saw them burying the shells. That was the first of several
going insane. So we sang to her.” incidents that made me think that it was not what | thought it would be.
They selected me and George to try and bring her out because she You weren't supposed to have eggs inside this religious and spiritual
would trust us. She went completely mental. If she'd been in the West ashram. | thought: ‘What do you mean, you're burying the shells? Can't
they would have put her away. We got her out of the house. She'd been God see that too?’
locked in for three weeks and wouldn't come out, trying to reach God We came home because we missed the children. | wouldn't want
quicker than anybody else. That was the competition in Maharishi’s anyone to think we didn’t like it there. | said it was like Butlins holiday
camp: who was going to get cosmic first. (What | didn't know was | was camp, we had learnt by then that you could say anything and they'd
already cosmic.) *° print it. It was a good experience — it just didn’t last as long for me as it
did for them.
PAUL: I wrote a couple of little things while I was there. | had a song
called ‘I Will’, but | didn’t have any words for it. And I wrote a bit of ‘Ob- PAUL: Being fairly practical, | had set a period for staying in Rishikesh.
La-Di, Ob-La-Da’. We went to a cinema show in a village where a guy put To start with | thought, ‘Whoa, this could be it, man. | could never
up a mobile screen and all the villagers came along and come back if this works.’ Then I thought, ‘Wait a
loved it. | remember walking down a little jungle path minute, I'll go for a month. Even if it's incredible I'll
with my guitar to get to the village from the camp. | was still come back after a month.’ If it had turned out to
playing: ‘Desmond has a barrow in the market place...’

JOHN: ‘The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill’ was

written about a guy who took a short break to go
shoot a few poor tigers, and then came back to = ==="
commune with God. There used to be a character =-
called Jungle Jim, and | combined him with Buffalo
Bill. It's a sort of teenage social-comment song and a
bit of a joke.*

PAUL: RINGO CAME HOME EARLY,

HE COULDN'T STAND THE FOOD
AND HIS WIFE COULDN'T STAND
THE FLIES. It was understandable; he was a very
British lad. There were curries and spicy food — and he
has a stomach that gets upset easily (probably due to
the peritonitis when he was a kid). Maureen didn't like
the flies — if there was one fly in the room, she would
know exactly where it was at any given time. |

RISHIKESH
 be something we really had to go back for, | would have gone back. But JOHN: There was a_ big
at the end of my month I was quite happy to leave. Nobody got any hullabaloo about him trying
blinding enlightenment. | thought: ‘This will do me. If | want to get into to get off with Mia Farrow
it heavily, | can do it anywhere.’ That's one of the nice things about and a few other women,
meditation — you don't have to go to church to do it. things like that. We'd
By saying | was only going to be there a month, | had to risk that stayed up all night dis-
the others would say that | wasn't into it. And George did; he was quite cussing was it true or not
strict. | remember talking about the next album and he would say: true. And when George
‘We're not here to talk music — we're here to meditate.’ Oh yeah, all started thinking it might be
right Georgie Boy. Calm down, man. Sense of humour needed here, you true, | thought it must be
know. In fact, | loved it there. true because if George is
doubting him there must be
GEORGE: Ringo only went for a couple of weeks — maybe just to put his something in it. So we went
toe in the water and see what it was like. Paul just came and went. | don't to see Maharishi. The whole
think he got much out of the trip because there's a bit of footage from Let gang of us the next day
It Be where he's grinning, and saying to John, ‘Oh, and it was like being charged down to his hut; his
at school, you know: “Oh tell me, oh master’.’ Retrospectively, twenty very rich-looking bungalow
years later, he may think back and the penny might have dropped as to in the mountains. As usual,
what it was about, but | don’t think it did at the time. when the dirty work came, |
The idea of the course was that it lasted however many weeks in actually had to be leader.
Rishikesh, and then at the end of that period they shifted the camp up Whatever the scene was, when it came to the nitty-gritty, | had to do
to Kashmir. This was something they did every year. the speaking.
But I'd planned to go just for the Rishikesh trip and JOHN:
I said, ‘We're leaving.’ — ‘Why?’ — ‘Well, if you're so
then go down to the South of India to do some filming CuT TO MAHARISHI'S HEALTH
cosmic, youll know why.’ Because all his right-hand
with Ravi Shankar. He was making a movie called FARM ON THE TIP OF THE
men were always intimating that he did miracles. And
Raga. HIMALAYAS. EYE-ING, EYE-ING,
I was saying, ‘You know why.’ He said, ‘I don’t know
I kept telling Maharishi, ‘No, I'm not going to EYE-ING. HE PICKED THE RIGHT
why, you must tell me.’ And I just kept saying, ‘You
Kashmir — | went there last year.’ And he was saying, MANTRA FOR ME. OK, HE'S A
ought to know.’ And he gave me a look like ‘T'll kill
‘No, no, you coming to Kashmir.’ | told him | was LOT BALDER NOW THAN WHEN |
you, you bastard’. He gave me such a look. And I knew
going south, and that's when John and | left. It was KNEW HIM. How COME GoD
then when he looked at me, because I'd called his
only really John and | who were there from the PICKS ON THESE HOLI-MEN?
bluff. | was a bit rough to him. | always expect too
beginning up until the end of the segment at Rishikesh, ULCERS, ETC. ‘HE'S TAKING ON
much — I'm always expecting my mother and | don't
and | think John wanted to get back because — you can SOMEONE ELSE'S KARMA.’ | BET
get her, that's what it is.”
see it historically now — he had just started his THATS WHAT ALL THE LITTLE
relationship with Yoko before we went out to India. SHEEP ARE BLEATING. HE'S GOT
GEORGE: Someone started the nasty rumour about
A NICE SMILE, THOUGH. THIS IS
Maharishi, a rumour that swept the media for years.
JOHN: Yoko and me, we met around then. | was going TURNING INTO THE
There were many stories about how Maharishi was not
to take her. | lost my nerve because | was going to take AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A YOGURT,
on the level or whatever, but that was just jealousy
my ex-wife and Yoko, and | didn't know how to work BUT ISN'T EVERYTHING? I ASK
about Maharishi. We'd need analysts to get into it. |
it. So | didn't quite do it.” don't know what goes through these people's minds,
MYSELF. HE MADE US LIVE IN
but this whole piece of bullshit was invented. It's
SEPARATE HUTS FROM OUR
Gat
Cots PAUL: I was quite happy. | was wondering how the WIVES... CAN'T SAY IT WAS TOO
probably even in the history books that Maharishi
others were going to get out of it, though, and then MUCH OF A STRAIN.”
‘tried to attack Mia Farrow’ — but it's bullshit, total
they arrived back with a story that Maharishi had bullshit. Just go and ask Mia Farrow.
made a pass at an attractive blonde American girl with There were a lot of flakes there; the whole place
short hair (not Mia Farrow). was full of flaky people. Some of them were us.

ae
ey
FRR
 The story stirred up a situation. John had wanted John wrote ‘Sexy Sadie’ to get it off his
to leave anyway, so that forced him into the ee at chest. That was a veiled comment on it all,
position of thinking: ‘OK, now we've got a good ad vid but personally | don’t think Maharishi ever
reason to get out of here.’ We went to Maharishi, * Ce f did make a pass. He didn’t seem like the
and | said, ‘Look, | told you I was going. I'm going to kind of guy who would. I've since wondered,
the South of India.’ He couldn't really accept that ‘How would a maharishi go about making a
we were leaving, and he said, ‘What's wrong?’ That's pass?’ It's not so easy. | don't think any of
when John said something like: ‘Well, you're that happened. Rishikesh was a _ good
supposed to be the mystic, you should know.’ experience. | enjoyed it.
We took some cars that had been driven up
there. Loads of film crews kept coming because it NEIL ASPINALL: Ivisited them out in
was the world-famous ‘Beatles in the Himalayas’ Rishikesh, but only to stop them making a movie,
sketch, and it was one of these film crews’ cars we really. There was a suggestion they would make
took to get back to Delhi. a movie with the Mabarishi. I'm not quite sure
We drove for hours. John had a song he had what it was supposed to consist of, but they did
started to write which he was singing: ‘Maharishi, have a three-picture deal with United Artists and
what have you done?’ and | said, ‘You can't say that, it's ridiculous.’ | they'd only made Help! and A Hard Day's Night.
came up with the title of ‘Sexy Sadie’ and John changed ‘Maharishi’ to I went in with Denis O'Dell. I stayed for a week, then I came home with
‘Sexy Sadie’. John flew back to Yoko in England and | went to Madras Paul and Jane Asher, leaving John and George and their wives in Rishikesh.
and the South of India and spent another few weeks there. They came back later.
The story was put around about our leaving and, of course, the
newspapers jumped on that. As it says in The Rutles, The press got hold PAUL: We thought there was more to him than there was, but he's
of the wrong end of the stick and started beating about the bush with human, and for a while we thought he wasn't.®
it.’ Now, historically, there's the story that something went on that
shouldn't have done — but nothing did. JOHN: We made a mistake there. We believe in meditation, but not
the Maharishi and his scene. But that's a personal mistake we made in
JOHN: | copped out and wouldn't write: ‘Maharishi, what have you public. | think we had a false impression of Maharishi, like people do of
done, you've made a fool of everyone.’” us. What we do happens in public, so it's a different scene, slightly.
That was written just as we were leaving, waiting for our bags to be We thought he was something other than he was. But we were
packed in the taxi that never seemed to come. We thought: ‘They're looking for it and we probably superimposed it on him. We were
deliberately keeping the taxi back so as we can't escape from this waiting for a guru, and along he came. But he was creating the same
madman’s camp.’ And we had the mad Greek with us who was paranoid kind of situation for which he's giving recipes out to cure.
as hell. He kept saying, ‘It's black magic, black magic. They're gonna It was India, the meditation is good and it does what they say. It's
keep you here forever.’ | must have got away because I'm here.” like exercise or cleaning your teeth — it works. But we finished with that
bit of it then. | think we're seeing him a bit more in perspective because
GEORGE MARTIN: I don't go in for those kinds of things too much myself. we're as naive as the next person. | wouldn't say, ‘Don't meditate.’
Whether its Maharishi, or dianetics, or whatever — I think it's a load of We're still a hundred per cent in favour of meditation, but we're not
codswallop. But whatever you believe in is probably a good idea for you. And going to go potty and build a golden temple in the Himalayas. We will
they did seem to believe in the Mabarishi, and it seemed to work all right for help where and when we can — we can't do everything overnight. But
them. Today, George still defends the Maharishi, even though the others were we're not going to empty the gold out of our pockets; there are other
later disillusioned with bis behaviour. ways of helping.”

PAUL: When people say, ‘Wasn't he stashing it away in a Swiss bank?’ | RINGO: WHEN I'M DRIVING I SOMETIMES
always say that I only ever saw him in one piece of cheesecloth. | never
saw him in a decent suit in his life. You would have thought if he was
CLOSE MY EYES AND MEDITATE — MY
doing it for the money you would catch him bombing off to a New CHAUFFEUR DRIVES ME!
Delhi nightclub in a Rolls. But he always appeared to be in his hut
meditating, in a piece of cheesecloth, and | thought: ‘You can't knock JOHN: I don't regret anything [about] meditation, | still believe in and
him for that.’ occasionally use it. | don't regret any of that. | don't regret taking drugs,
| remember us all sitting around and him asking us what would be a because they helped me. | don’t advocate them for everybody because |
good make of car to buy. We said, ‘Well, a Merc, Maharishi. Mercedes don't think | should. But for me it was good, India was good for me, and |
very good car.’ — ‘Practical? Long running? Good works?’ — ‘Yes.’ — met Yoko just before | went to India and had a lot of time to think things
Well, we should get a Mercedes, then.’ It was only one, it wasn't out there. Three months just meditating and thinking, and | came home
millions, and we were fi on the discussions. He didn't say, ‘What's the and fell in love with Yoko and that was the end of it. And it's beautiful.”
flashiest car that will pull all the birds?’ He asked, ‘What is practical?’
He was very like that.
I DON'T KNOW WHAT LEVEL HE'S ON,
In my mind I was saying: ‘What's the problem? He's not a god, he's BUT WE HAD A NICE HOLIDAY IN INDIA
not a priest. There are no rules in his religion that say he's not supposed
to make a pass. He's only human, after all, and he's only given us a
AND CAME BACK RESTED TO PLAY
neditation system.’ BUSINESSMAN.*

RISHIKESH
 rp

if
1 |
\
TRC UBLE.
{
|
‘

DEREK TAYLOR: At the end of have to go down on their knees

1967 I gota call from all of The in somebody's office | (probably
Beatles; a conference call from Hille yours). —tie 4
House. That wa8 where they bad the The aim of this eonipany isn't
big Apple launch meeting and they really a stack of gold teeth in the
said, ‘Come and join us, and you bank. We've done that bit. It's
can run Apple Records.’ It sounded more of a trick to see if we can
like a wonderful treat. We bad all actually get artistic freedom with-
changed. We'd been at a big in a business structure, and to see
housewarming party at Brian if we can create nice things and
Epstein house in Sussex in May, sell them without charging three
Sgt Pepper time. I bad been given times our cost."
LSD by George, and Jobn bad given
me a dose separately and earlier, so I Ls a
NEIL ASPINALL: | was in New
had a big double dose and we did see ee \ York with them and it was a bit
wonderful things. We became hippies, weird. We sailed round and round
really. And The Beatles had changed a lot from being rather charming but the Statue of Liberty on a Chinese junk, trying to figure out what we were
world-weary pop stars into being extremely nice, gentle, huggable souls. They going to do with Apple.
really were very sweet in 1967, and we believed we were going to make Then they appeared on The Tonight Show, but Johnny Carson was on
everything very beautiful and that it was going to be, now, a wonderful world. holiday so it was hosted by Joe Garagiola. I think one of the things Jobn said
So the idea ofgoing back to England from California after having had three around that time was: ‘We'll just spin it like a top and see whereitgoes,’ and
good years there was, I thought, like going to the Holy Land. that’s pretty much what actually happened at Apple.
When all the stuff on the phone was over and done with — about what I
was actually going to do, it was said: ‘Well, you don't have to do anything, JOHN: It was terrible. There was a baseball player hosting the show,
man. We don't believe in labels or structures or anything. Just come and be’ — and they didn't tell us. He was asking, ‘And which one's Ringo?’ and
that sort of thing — ‘and we'll pay your fare.’ So I came over in April 1968. all that shit. You'd expect to go on the Johnny Carson show... and
Work structures were still slightly important, but not very. ‘The Lord will then you'd get there, and there's this sort of football player, who
provide’ was the idea. doesn't know anything about you, and Tallulah Bankhead saying
how beautiful we were. It was the most embarrassing thing I've ever
NEIL ASPINALL: Ididn't stay in Rishikesh because I was supposed to be been on.”
running the Apple companies. We'd just taken some temporary offices in
Wigmore Street, but we still didn't have a single piece of paper, not one contract. RINGO: We had a publishing company and a record company. The
We didn't have anything about anything, and I was just trying to get all the idea was that artists would come and see us and tell us their ideas and
information we needed — copies of the contracts and files — to find out what had their schemes, and if any one of us felt it was OK, we'd give them the
happened in the past, so we could work out where we were going in the future. money and they could go and do it. We should have had a big sign
saying: ‘You don't have to beg.’ | think we always felt that we'd had to
PAUL: In May, John and I went to New York to announce that Apple beg a little in the early Sixties, and so we didn't want people begging
was starting: ‘Send us your huddled talent.’ We wanted a grand launch, from us.
but | had a strange feeling and | was very nervous. | had a real personal
paranoia. | don't know if it was what | was smoking at the time, but it GEORGE: | had very little to do with Apple. | was still in India when it
was very strange for me. started. | think it was basically John and Paul's madness — their egos
| remember sitting up there and being interviewed. John was running away with themselves or with each other. There were a lot of
wearing a bus driver's or a prefect's badge, and he was doing well. Linda ideas, but when it came down to it, the only thing we could do
was there taking photos, and afterwards | said, ‘Couldn't you tell | was successfully was write songs, make records and be Beatles.
nervous?’ but she said it was fine. For some reason | just felt very uneasy By the time I came back they'd opened the offices in Wigmore
about the whole thing; maybe it was because we were out of our depth. Street. | went into the office and there were rooms full of lunatics:
We were talking to media like Fortune magazine, and they were people throwing I Ching and all kinds of hangers-on trying to get a gig.
interviewing us as a serious economic force — which we weren't. We And, because it was the hippy period, everybody was super-friendly.
hadn't done the business planning; we were just goofing off and having Basically it was chaos.
a lot of fun.
JOHN: I tried to see everyone. | saw everyone day in, day out; and
JOHN: We were just tripping off, having a joint and saying, ‘Well, we there wasn't anybody with anything to offer to society or me. There was
could have films, and we could help young artists so they wouldn't have just ‘I want, | want’ and ‘why not?’ — terrible scenes going on in the
the trouble we had with all the tramping around being undiscovered.'” office, with hippies and all different people getting very wild with me.'
George said, ‘I'm sick of being told to stay out of the park,’ so we're
trying to make a park for people to come in and do what they want. NEIL ASPINALL: In July, Apple moved to No. 3 Savile Row. It was a
That's what it's all about. You can't usually get through the door because big building. The record division was on the ground floor and the studio
of the colour of your shoes.” was in the basement. On the first floor there was a room for me and each of
The Beatles. The next floor up from me was the press office, and after that |
PAUL: We're in the happy position of not really needing any more can't remember.
! a |
money, so for the first time the bosses aren't in it for the profit. We've It might have been exciting for everybody else, and for peop! (nat Came in
ughtiall our dreams, so now we want to share that possibility from the outside, but for me it was bard work setting it up and there was always
a lot of chaos.
Before we went to New Yorksfor the official launch, we'd put anad in t)
N: It's a a concerning records, films.and electroni¢s and, as a papersaying: ‘Send us your tapes and.they will not be thro tht.into the
ring or whatever. We want to set up “a system wastepaper basket. We will answer.’ We gotinundated 1 with |
ho just want-to make a film about anything don't and scripts. We were overwhelmed.by it all, inactual |
 & \ . . ‘ Y & | f
1 A 1S 1CO) & R Cc De

AVION
PAR
ears
as
KEROGRAMME
2

a :
9/ioee ee wv CROPLE mune PUBLIEING
jy DIV DHAYe ‘home s panes j
of WHOLESALE
One dayhe sang his songs to a tape rei t (borrowed from
the manziext door) In his neatest handweting he wrote an
(giving his name and addregs}and, remembering

the same thingyour self-do iitnow!

ns a Bentley! ‘° “+a Sens, & 000 yan recs
EA Oc CY bet sate

3 SAVILE ROW.
Dons
LONDON, W.1

hdl
a
PFCLE FCM
. IFS 7
Kee ilar XY
cake

— » flex we THAT “le Sueyke Buy

ae inr=VAN Fer Te G6 seo

—AfPee ns
ae
ee

A >» rr he
essence, var.
 PAUL: We never really got DEREK TAYLOR: They took on a lot with Apple. They took on business
much from the sent-in tapes, and pleasure and funding the arts, and did try to live up to some of their
but at least people knew we promises in person. There was a high quotient of sincerity in there, as well as a
were interested. So we got, bit of madness.
for instance, James Taylor, But, after their promise to save mankind and to give people a start in show
who was brought in by business, The Beatles tended to withdraw more or less from the front line. It was
Peter Asher. then a case of: ‘Where are they? They've gone!’ and there was only me. I had
Mary Hopkin was the to make my place, my office, available to these supplicants, whatever, who came
main artist whom | produced to the front office. And it just evolved that you'd come upstairs, I'd give you a
at Apple, although | didn’t really bring her in. She was on a big British drink — because I usually had a drink on the go — and a couple ofjokes. ‘There
television talent show, Opportunity Knocks. Twiggy, the model, was a are the seats over there, make yourselves at home.’
friend of ours and she rang me up and said: ‘There's a great girl who's L introduced people to otber people, and inside six months we bad quite a
just won Opportunity Knocks — you've got to watch her next week. She's salon: a self-propagating, self-perpetuating salon of fun and games in the press
fabulous, with a beautiful voice.’ So | watched her, and I thought she office. The Beatles were making the ‘White’ album.
really had got a lovely Welsh voice; it was very well pitched. And she We'd get all the pests in our office. They'd call the reception, they'd ring
looked nice with a folky guitar. Neil, but in the long run ifpeople were actually in the building or there was
| had heard the song "Those Were The Days’ at a nightclub once, something complex or somebody really barmy, I would get them (or the folk
sung by an American couple who had a kind of Nina and Frederick act. who worked with me would have to deal with them).
The song had really stuck in my mind, and I'd always thought it could We had a very big staff in there — I had about four secretaries and an
be a hit. It was a Russian folk tune that they'd done up, and they'd just American assistant called Richard DiLello, and another press officer called
played it as their finale and gone home. | said to someone in the office, Mavis Smith. It was a packed room — not a big room, but there were about
‘Get hold of that song if you can.’ They found the people and found the eleven people in there. Ifanybody had been fired from another department, I'd
song. We recorded it with Mary and it was a very big hit. bring them in, it was a kind of ark. Maybe forty people were in the whole
| was also asked to write a theme tune for a London Weekend building working there. Maybe fewer, but middle double-figures.
Television series that Stanley Holloway was going to be in, called We could assimilate people. Frankie Hart (who was later the girlfriend of
Thingumybob. I've always loved brass bands, so | wrote and produced a Bob Weir of The Grateful Dead) came in, and subsequently became a secretary
song for the Black Dyke Mills Band. We went up North to Saltaire, near in my office and then became George Harrison's assistant. And then there would
Bradford, where we recorded the B side (a version of ‘Yellow be the press, and James Taylor, and Mary Hopkin would be in with ber father
Submarine’) in a big echoey hall. For the A side, | wanted a really and her sister and journalists covering ber. Really, it was like an Altman film —
different sound so we went out and played it on the street. It was lovely, where all over the place things are happening.
with very dead, trumpety-sounding cornets.
Later on, | also worked with Badfinger. I'd written the song ‘Come
And Get It’, and I'd made a fairly decent demo. Because | lived locally, |
could get in half an hour before a Beatles session at Abbey Road —
knowing it would be empty and all the stuff would be set up — and I'd
use Ringo's equipment to put a drum track down, put some piano down,
quickly put some bass down, do the vocal, and double-track it. | said to
Badfinger: 'OK, it's got to be exactly like this demo,’ because it had a a

great feeling on it. They actually wanted to put their own variations on,
but I said, ‘No, this really is the right way.’ They listened to me (I was [|. rl
producing, after all), and they were good. The song was a hit in 1970.
Pete Ham in the group was a very good writer. He wrote the a\
|
ee = is
PY
Nilsson song ‘Without You’, which is a seriously good song. But the SHEE.

eS wer
poor fellow topped himself. He was a lovely bloke, | can still see him
now. It was a terrible loss.
John wanted to do more of the avant-garde work with Apple —
things like Zapple, a funky label that he could do crazy stuff on. So
AWE SPECIAL beeer sine Dest (ROT TYPE)
that eventually became his area.
a
ee,
ee
Ee

JOHN: In the old days at Apple we used to try and listen to everything,
but then you find yourself spending your whole time listening to other PAUL: We were trying to get things under our own control. A lot of
people's stuff, and never doing any of your own.”! people do that now; they have their own companies and take lawyers to
meetings and get good deals. It was the start of all of that but it was
ee
ee RINGO: The records Apple made were exciting. It started with Mary pretty haphazard and, because we hadn't ever really carefully budgeted
{ Hopkin, and then George brought Jackie Lomax and later Billy Preston. in the background, most things fell through.
y | put John Tavener on the label. His brother was working for me as a | once tried to sort it out. | remember checking out Derek's floor,
builder with a firm in Hampstead. He came to me and said, ‘Would you and thinking: ‘Derek's our publicist, but he doesn't really need four
like to hear my brother's tape?’ I loved it. We were very open to all secretaries. He can lose one of them. We've got to make some sense out
different kinds of music, so we thought we'd put it on Apple. That was of this.’ But, of course, it's never a popular guy who goes round trying to
my contribution. make that kind of sense. | was trying to save us money, so | felt justified
Paul produced Badfinger. | later made the movie The Magic Christian and said: ‘One secretary's got to go, Derek.’ Derek told all the other
with Peter Sellers, and Badfinger did the title track. How they got there guys and they came down to my office and said, ‘If you sack her, we'll
| don't know; it wasn't through me. reinstate her.’ So | said, ‘OK, all right. We won't have any cutbacks
then.’ | was putin my place there, you know.
PAUL: Anyone in The Beatles who wanted to show up and produce as | know now, from having my own company, that all that stuff isn't
much as he wanted was welcome to do so. Everyone was involved, but easy. It's the horrible bit. We were trying to make sense of it, and in the
people didn't all do the same amount. | lived in London so | was there end we coukin't
more. | probably did a little bit more production than Ringo, for
instance. I'm not sure what Ringo actually did, but it was no sweat. He RINGO: | wasn't as involved as the others, but it was fun. A lot of what
didn't have to do anything, it wasn't compulsory. But if you came up Apple did related to the four of us, but I wasn't hanging out there every
with an idea, you could carry it out. day. At that time, | didn't really want to be in an office
Apple was quite a nice little record company, if that had been what the country. The problem was that we were giving out
we wanted to do. But, once the business hassles came in, we thought, and the cameras and equipment, and half of the peop
‘Who needs a record company? I'd rather just have my freedom.’ again — they just went off with it.
 GEORGE: What it turned out to be was that we just gave away huge DEREK TAYLOR: There's no doubt that by the end of 1968 (although I
quantities of money. It was a lesson to anybody not to have a thought I was living for others, always martyring myself forthe boys and all
partnership, because when you're in a partnership with other people you that), Iwas in my own egocentric way having an enormous amount offun —
can't do anything about it (or it's very difficult to), and at that point we ringmastering this circus for my own personal satisfaction, ifyou like. Iwas in
were naive. Basically, | think John and Paul got carried away with the a job that really suited me because it was chaotic. It was unmanageable, and
idea and blew millions, and Ringo and I just had to go along with it. yet it had a real press focus and the work was getting done. But, had I been one
Some things made money, but very little compared to what was of the boys, coming in as they did now and again looking in on it, I'd have
spent. That's been a problem all our lives: everything to do with The been shocked.
Beatles was always locked up in that partnership situation, and | don't Sometimes (you had intercoms in those days in offices and anyone could
recommend it. Other people have weird ideas and suddenly you find flick through) people could hear what sounded like bedlam, because there was
that you have to go along with it, or at least the part of it that rubs off always a record-player playing, and a light show on the ceiling from a
on you. You get caught up in everybody else's trip and it's a pain in the machine which we bought from the Hare Krishnas. But ifanyone ever came in
arse. It works both ways, of course, and | suppose there's an upside and a and said, ‘God, this is a confusing place,’ I would hit the roof. ‘What do you
downside to it. But it took me a while to get into Apple, and we were mean, confusing? We know exactly what’ going on in bere!’ And, in a way,
probably bankrupt by then. we did.
Things were getting worse in 1968. We were heading for the big Lots of people came in from the press and wrote long feature articles, and not
one. It was chaos. Brian Epstein used to manage us, and he had died. all critical by any means. Careers were launched there — not only recording
Even if he didn't really keep it together (because later we found out all careers, but journalistic careers.
the deals were bad and we were in a mess), at least he was the person
we'd grown up with who was taking care of the shop. Suddenly Apple JOHN: AND THEN I BROUGHT IN MAGIC
was a free-for-all, with every weirdo in the country heading into Savile
Row and being given office space by John and Yoko. The Hare
ALEX, AND IT JUST WENT FROM BAD TO
Krishnas, the Hell's Angels, the Diggers — everybody was in there. We WORSE.”
had Paul and John going around Manhattan on a boat saying what they
were going to do, and it was getting crazier and crazier with no PAUL: ‘Magic’ Alex was a Greek bloke who was a friend of John’s
management. originally. | remember John coming to my house one day and saying:
‘This is my new guru — Magic Alex.’ And I said ‘Oh, OK.’
JOHN: It could never make sense to me to have money and yet think It's a funny way to introduce anyone, it's very final. | thought,
the way | thought. | had to give it away or lose it. | gave a lot of money ‘Oh yeah? What does he do, then?’ He had a lot of knowledge about
away, which is one way of losing it; and the other way is disregarding it electronics. Other people disputed his ideas and said that they couldn't
and not paying attention to it; not taking responsibility for what I really be done, but Alex said they could. We sat around expounding a lot
was, which is a guy with a lot of money. of theories at the time — particularly late at night — and he had some
great ones.
DEREK TAYLOR: It was frightfully busy. I mean, apart from the madness He thought of using wallpaper which would act as loudspeakers: you
and the fact that we were smoking reefers and whatnot, it was a very, very would paper your room with speakers. There is a lot of technology
active office because The Beatles were still red hot. They were all over the coming in now, but | don't think it existed then. It was just talked about
papers, and the press had started to turn against them very, very much by the in scientific journals that we didn't read, but Alex did. He was a nice
middle of 1968: ‘Whats Happened To Our Boys?’ Where have they gone? bloke and we got on.
Why are they looking like this? They're freaking out — theres a broken Alex became our man for Apple Electronics, because we thought if
marriage bere, and theres all this Mabarishi stuff and Indians. These aren't our he could make loudspeakers out of wallpaper it would be great. But he
boys any more. What's happened to them? What's happened to you, Derek? I never came up with it. He had a little laboratory and he did one or two
mean, you're wearing dresses and things! fun things, but it didn't end up as he'd said it would. He's around still.
I wasn't wearing dresses, but I was wearing hippy things — not kaftans (I He uses his proper name now.
hated that word) but smocks, yes, with braid and jewels and bells on me. Bear
in mind I was a man with five children by now, and people in the press world RINGO: Magic Alex invented electrical paint. You paint your living
knew me from before. I met a fellow from the Daily Mirror at the Yellow room, plug it in, and the walls light up! We saw small pieces of metal as
Submarine party — the crime reporter Eddie Laxton. I'd got a particularly samples, but then we realised you'd have to put steel sheets on your
exotic suit on from Apple Boutique — a frock-coat, black-and-white shoes, a big living-room wall and paint them. Also, he had the ‘talking telephone’
ruffled shirt and scarves and, no doubt, badges..I didnt-want Eddie to thinkI (remember this is 1968) — a speaker-phone, which compensated so the
was being stand-offish because I was in this exotic company (of The Beatles) so volume always stayed at the same level as you walked round the room.
I went over and said: ‘Hello Eddie, you know me.’He said, ‘No, I dont. I don't He had an idea to stop people taping our records off the radio —
know this new guy at all.’ Ifelt terrible, suddenly like Adam, you're naked, you you'd have to have a decoder to get the signal. And then we thought
havent got any clothes on. ‘Wow! He’ right,’ Ithought, and I did feel weird — we could sell the time and put commercials on instead. We brought
I'm not sure I've ever felt quite as free as I bad until I met Eddie Laxton from the EMI and Capitol in from America to look at it, but they weren't
real world, so-called. But it was the spirit of the age. A lot of us who'd gotfree interested at all.
of grey suits (which I'm now bappy to wear again) welcomed this freedom. God knows what else he invented. He had this one idea that we all
should have our heads drilled. It's called trepanning. Magic Alex said
NEIL ASPINALL: I was running Apple, but I have no idea what my position that if we had it done our inner third eye would be able to see, and we'd
was — probably the lotus position. Running Apple at that time was bard work, get cosmic instantly.
in the sense that there were so many different ideas coming in, and people had
different criteria for bow Apple should be run and what it should represent, and GEORGE: Magic Alex impressed John, and because John was
who should be on the label and what colour the room should be decorated... impressed with him, Alex came into our lives. He was a charming
On that level it was pretty difficult. Talking about colours is maybe a bit fellow — for a while.
superficial, but its a symptom. There were big rooms at Savile Row, and One invention he had was amazing, though. It was a small square of
somebody would say: ‘Why don't you put a partition across the room so you metal, like stainless steel, with two wires coming out of it to a flashlight
can be here and the secretary can be in the other room.’ So you would get a battery. If you held the metal and connected the wires one way, it
partition built, and then the next day somebody else (a different Beatle) would would very quickly become so hot you had to drop it. Then, if you
come in and say: 'Whatsthis partition doing here?’ and kick it down. reversed the wires, it got as cold as ice.
Someone would ask: ‘Do we need a press office?’ — ‘Yes, we do.’ — ‘Well, Another invention consisted of a thin piece of metal with something
maybe we dont...’ — ‘Should we sign this artist or shouldn't we?’ Somebody on it like a thick enamel paint, and it too had wires coming out of it.
would be signed because one person liked them, and then somebody else would When it was connected, it lit up in a bright luminous greeny-yellow
be signed because somebody else liked them. It was anarchy, really. Some of colour. Alex said, ‘Imagine if that was the back end of the car and you'd
my coe are happy; some are not. I can't say that I really enjoyed Savile just stepped on the brake.’ So that's what | wanted him to do. The
Row that much Ferrari was going to be rubbed down to the bare metal and Alex was

290 APPLE
 APPLE CORPS LTD
95 Wigmore Street
telephone 01-486 1931
INTERNAL Memo LOMdon V1

MEMORANDUM 19th January, 1968

DATE 23rd April, 1968 INTEF

PAUL: APPLE WILL PRODUCE Re: Future Plans of Apple Electronics Ltd.
ELECTRONICS, NOT : eo
GIMMICKS BUT GREAT 1. Finish work at 34 Boston Place ms Dennis, "Bell

INVENTIONS. WE HAVE A 2. Contract re Taj Mahal Hotel, India ae

FRIEND CALLED ALEXIS
MARDAS WHO IS A GENIUS AT Dis ee electrical work for shop

INVENTING THINGS.” 4, Make studio for Beatles

5. Studio for Rolling BOARD HEETING

FRIDAY, 26th APRIL at11a.m. gt95WIGWORE5
6. Finish studies for
Mobile studio for:

7. German studio

Electrical gadgets

Alexis Mardas Esq as

So studio

Apple Electron cs,

54 Boston Place, of buying a = Te Fils SoovEnseE:
Ties Investigate possibilities
is Electronics.
kee Studiest for George's house.
2Other
Other Apple Activities.
rs : b 7. “Offices - present and future.
Dear Alexj
_ e.c. Neil As SPxaatter business,
Alex Mardas —
According
to the i
machines were ordered pecans we have 200 light
= Bette for you to let I wonder if it. would
ne kno w what has happened

going to apply the magic coating. We asked, ‘Can you do other Registered offices -

colours too?’ — ‘Sure, whatever you want.’ 2% Albemarle Stre

We decided he was going to connect a colour scheme for "3.W. Lennon London, W.1
the whole body of the car. The back of the car would be red — J.P. McCartney
N.S. Aspinall
but only when you stepped on the brake! The rest of the time the May 10th 1968
whole car would be connected to the revs on the gearbox — so the car c J. Epsted
would start off quite dull, and as you shifted through the gears it would
y

become brighter. You could go down the A3 and pass somebody and it
would look like a flying saucer. (And that’s another thing: | was going to Dear Alex,
give him the V12 engine out of my Ferrari Berlinetta and John was
going to give him his, and Alex reckoned that with those two engines
doubt 4
he could make a flying saucer.) As you are no
But he didn't do anything (except he made a toilet with a radio in it, some time and
studio for
or something). When we finally got him to make a recording studio, we recording
whether your company
walked in and it was chaos. It was the biggest disaster of all time. He pre mises s I should like to know
was walking round with a white coat on like some sort of chemist, but at our premises , 2its you c
havi ng Looked
didn't have a clue what he was doing. It was a sixteen-track system, and f oO r us and af ter

he had sixteen little speakers all around the walls. You only need two cost.
how much it would
speakers for stereo sound. It was awful. The whole thing was a disaster
and had to be ripped out. Yours sincerely,

RINGO: Originally, the studio was going to be seventy-two track,

which was pretty far out in 1968. We bought some huge computers JOHN: THERE'S NO
from British Aerospace in Weybridge, and put them in my barn in St SUCH THING AS A N.S. Aspi sl
George's Hill. Birds lived in them, mice lived in them — but they never GENIUS, BUT IF THERE
left that barn. It was a far-out idea, but once again Alex never came ARE ANY, HE'S ONE. THE
through. We'd just graduated to eight track — God knows what we THINGS HE PRODUCES ARE FANTASTIC.
thought we were going to do with seventy-two. I WISH |COULD TELL YOU ABOUT THEM,
BUT WE'VE LEARNT IN THIS HAPPY BUSINESS-
JOHN: | think some of his stuff has actually come true. They just WORLD THAT SPIES IN BROWN RAINCOATS
haven't manufactured it. Maybe one of the whole midst is a saleable AND SUNGLASSES GO AROUND, AND SO YOU
object. He was just another guy. That comes and goes around people CAN'T SAY ANYTHING ABOUT A PRODUCT
like us. He's all right, but he’s cracked. He means well.” UNTIL IT’S OUT.”

shee
Oi
>ios

APPLE 291
 Old,
‘Be
oy”
ye

ference between them.

:
m

'
da
ae
2-5

at = &

c r
;a4 54

}
‘

Se
i

; ee,
aL
Vu,
e
~ a Vr,
E
BAR». ",

aeee Te ah — i Seay oven Ae

 1 ‘ a : ie | NY ; ;
:

hee ! f ce the film treatment is

hl)
tr a) y 4 ie ; hat ; » to relate to said story treat-

{ iz
f

* “

>
~Y
ae

( prises Limited ('Nems*

2) Mrevgonn
pe Hirrison
Winston Lennon
Mr. games Poul MoCartnoy

ng through
Meate Divioten
Bt, New York
ete)

oR OM LA

» ‘YELLOW, SHMARENE
& ty
gk by you ond ie shals Goustitute our agreement
made ih consol tei ti F\raupeo Obligations, facilitites and
exrvices which ar forth ag £ollowet=
Ra :
\ OcraMMRISEMA. now paid by ect oF
3 iy @ make available to Suba and Kin
Holusive basis tapes of the

WHEN I'M 64
LOVELY “REA

NOWHERE MAM,
ITS, GBTTING*BETTE
MAGICAL MYSTERY 1

» PEPPER'S REPRISE!
LLOW SUBMARENB
LEAIOR RIGBY YOUR MOTHER SHOULD KNOW
LIUTLA BSLP PROM MY PREENDS X AM THE WALRUS
PENUY LANE FOOL ON THE HILL
TRAWBGRRY FIBLDS FLYING
LUCY IN THE SKY WITH DEALS BLUE JAY WAY
Yours —nesyer— DICK EMERY SINGING
LUCY IN THE SKY WITH
a DIAMONDS
CROWD NOISES FROM THE
SONG SGT. PEPPER'S LONSLY HEARTS CLUB BAND SOUND EFFFCTS FROM

DOG BARKING & SOUNDS USED IN THE INTRODUCTIONS

YBLIOW SUBMARINE
dF
AND FUD OF THE SONG os
GOOD MORNING FROM THE SGT, PEPPER ALBUM
 4
¢

|
}
i

rinco. WE WERE JUST HANGING OUT. JUST ANOTHER

DAY IN THE PARK FOR THE BEATLE BOYS.
 [he painting on the side of the Baker ; GEORGE: If they'd protected it and the
0p looked amazing, but everything went , ‘ >) > ~—si—paainted wall was there now, they would
couple of nearby shopkeepers . » be saying, ‘Wow, look at this. We've
they didn't like the tone of the got to stop it chipping off.’ But that's
ee “just typical of the narrow minds we
ng, although others liked it because it
eht a lot of attention and Baker Street were trying to fight against. That's
idenly became somewhere worth talking what the whole Sixties Flower-
bout. Before that, other than Sherlock Power thing was about: ‘Go away,
lolmes, Baker Street was nothing — you bunch of boring people.’ The
nobody went there except to catch a bus. whole government, the police, the
Now, suddenly, it was really happening. But public — everybody was so boring,
because of the complaints, the landlord or and then suddenly people realised
whoever owned the lease made us paint it they could have fun.
out and get rid of it. . Once we were told we had to
fy get rid of the painting, the whole
PAUL: The council got their knickers in a twist thing started to lose its appeal. The
and said that we had to get rid of the mural. We whole tone of the events around the
said, ‘Oh, you're kidding, it's beautiful — everyone Apple shop was going sour, and — as it was
loves it.’ Some residents probably objected. Then we not working out — we decided to sell it. We
were going to paint the shop white and project the ended up giving the contents away. We put an
painting from the opposite side of the road. We were full of ad in the paper and we filmed people coming in and
good ideas. Some of them we never got round to, but it wasa grabbing everything.
great time for ideas. :
JOHN: It was a big event and all the kids came and just took everything
that was in the shop. That was the best thing about the whole shop,
when we gave it all away. But the night before, we all went in and took
what we wanted. It wasn’t much, T-shirts... It was great, it was like
robbing. We took everything we wanted home.
And the next day we were watching, and there were thousands of
kids all going in and getting their freebies. It was great. Of course,
Derek and the others hated it but it so happened that I was running the
office at that time, so we were in control. Paul had called me up one
day and said, ‘I’m going away. You take over.’ It was as stupid as that.”
We came up with the idea to give it all away and stop fucking about
with a psychedelic clothes shop.”

PAUL:WE CAME INTO SHOPS BY THE TRADESMAN'S

ENTRANCE, BUT WE'RE LEAVING BY THE FRONT
DOOR. APPLE IS MAINLY CONCERNED WITH FUN,
NOT FROCKS.”

RINGO: We went in the night before and took everything we wanted.

We had loads of shirts and jackets — we cleaned a lot of the stuff out. It
wasn't a sale, we just gave it all away, and that was the best idea. In the
end, of course, people were coming with wheelbarrows. It was silly,
but we bad wanted to open a shop and dress everyone like us.

NEIL ASPINALL: I think they got to the point where they didn't want it
any more. It wasn't that it was losing money, it was just that the guys
decided, for whatever reasons, that they didn't want to be in the retail
ae RT s business. They werent retailers and it was taking up a lot of time.

PAUL: The nice thing was that we weren't too fussed when it
didn't work out. We suddenly realised we'd better cut our losses. It
was great: giving the clothes to the people who showed up on the
ee
day. Michael J. Pollard, the actor, got a jacket (which Linda took a
photograph of — it's in her book). The idea was that you could
have one item each: ‘You mustn't take two — stay in the spirit of
the thing.’
Well, they cleaned out the shop. Personally, | think it was a
good way to do it because it showed we weren't seriously trying to
be in the rag trade: ‘Look, it didn't work out so you can have the
schmutter!’

DEREK TAYLOR: The giving away of

the clothing brought out that
worst in people that I dread to see. Cabbies were grabbing kaftans and
capes and silk ruffled shirts off rails: ‘I want this' and ‘I want that’. I
thought it was one of the ugliest things I had ever heard of, this giving
away of the clothes. It was awful and vulgar.
I didn't want them to close the shop at all, really, and I wrote an
impassioned open letter: ‘Dear boys, please dont...’ I dreaded to see the
thing falling apart.
pauL: WE FELT IT WAS TIME TO STEP BACK BECAUSE THAT WAS WHAT WE WANTED TO DO.
YOU CAN STILL MAKE GOOD MUSIC WITHOUT GOING FORWARD. SOME PEOPLE WANT
US TO GO ON UNTIL WE VANISH UP OUR OWN B SIDES.”
GEORGE: The Apple shop was now empty, and it was suggested that | eventually changed ‘Jools’ to ‘Jude’. One of the characters in
we advertise the new single in the window. So somebody went with Oklahoma is called Jud, and | like the name. | played the song to John
whitewash and wrote ‘Hey Jude’ and ‘Revolution’ in big letters. The next when I'd finished it — although | thought there might be a little more to
day the shop window was smashed, apparently because somebody do because there was one passage which went ‘the movement you need
thought it was like ‘Juden' in the Nazi campaign before the war. is on your shoulder’. As I was playing it | looked at John and said, ‘I'll fix
that bit.’ — ‘What?’ — ‘I've used the word “shoulder” once already, and
PAUL: I went into the Apple shop just before 'Hey Jude’ was being anyway, it's a stupid expression, it sounds like a parrot. I'll change it.’
released. The windows were whited-out, and | thought: ‘Great John said, ‘You won't, you know. That's the best line in the song. | know
opportunity. Baker Street, millions of buses going around...’ So, before what it means — it's great.’ That was the good thing about John: whereas
anyone knew what it meant, | scraped ‘Hey Jude’ out of the whitewash. I'd definitely have knocked that line out, he would say it was great.
A guy who had a delicatessen in Marylebone rang me up, and he Then | could see it through his eyes. So when I play that song, that's the
was furious: ‘I'm going to send one of my sons round to beat you up.’ | line when | think of John; and | sometimes get a little emotional during
said, ‘Hang on, hang on — what's this about?’ and he said: ‘You've that moment.
written “Jude” in the shop window.’ | had no idea it meant ‘Jew’, but if
you look at footage of Nazi Germany, ‘Juden Raus' was written in JOHN: ‘Hey Jude’ is one of his masterpieces. He said it was written
whitewashed windows with a Star of David. | swear it never occurred about Julian, my child. He knew | was splitting with Cyn and leaving
to me. Julian. He was driving over to say ‘hi’ to Julian. He'd been like an
I said: ‘I'm really sorry,’ and on and on... ‘some of my best friends are uncle to him. Paul was always good with kids. And so he came up with
Jewish, really. It's just a song we've got coming out. If you listen to the ‘Hey Jude’.
song youll see it's nothing to do with any of that — it's a complete But | always heard it as a song to me. If you think about it, Yoko's
coincidence.’ He was just about pacified in the end. just come into the picture. He's saying: ‘Hey, Jude — hey, John.’ | know
I'm sounding like one of those fans who reads things into it, but you can
GEORGE: ‘Hey Jude’ was actually about Julian Lennon. It was written hear it as a song to me. The words ‘go out and get her’ — subconsciously
by Paul at the time John was splitting up with Cynthia. Julian was just a he was saying, ‘Go ahead, leave me.’ But on a conscious level, he didn't
little boy — probably five years old — and Paul had gone out to John's want me to go ahead. The angel inside him was saying, ‘Bless you.’ The
house and been affected by seeing Julian, the innocent bystander in a devil in him didn’t like it at all, because he didn’t want to lose his
divorce situation. partner.*°

PAUL: When John and Cynthia got married it didn’t really work. There GEORGE MARTIN: We recorded ‘Hey Jude’ in Trident Studios. It was a
was a beautiful kid, and they were quite happy for a while, but my long song. In fact, after I timed it I actually said, ‘You cant make a single that
estimation of it was that Cynthia wanted to tie John down to the pipe- long.’ Iwas shouted down by the boys — not for the first time in my life — and
and-slippers nice life. Of course, John was never ready for that. Jobn asked: ‘Why not?’ I couldn't think of a good answer, really — except the
John was a great jumper-off of cliffs. | often remember him saying, pathetic one that disc jockeys wouldn't play it. He said, ‘They will ifits us.’
‘Look, you've come to a cliff. Why don't you jump off it?’ | would say, And, of course, be was absolutely right.
‘You would probably get dead, John.’ He was
always coming up with hare-brained schemes, PAUL: It was longer than any single had been,
and so | developed a defence against them: 'T'll but we had a good bunch of engineers. We asked
tell you what, you do it first and give us a shout. how long a 45 could be. They said that four
If its OK, I'm jumping. If I hear nothing, I'm minutes was about all you could squeeze into the
staying here.’ grooves before it seriously started to lose volume
He came up to me once at a dinner and said, and everyone had to turn the sound up. But they
‘Have you ever thought about trepanning? It's an did some very clever stuff, squeezing the bit that
ancient Roman thing — you have a hole drilled in didn't have to be loud, then allowing the rest
your skull.’ And we talked about it a lot, as you more room. Somehow, they got seven minutes
did in the Sixties. | said, ‘No, not really.’ He said, on there — which was quite an engineering feat.
‘| think we should all have it done.’ | was still | remember taking an acetate down to the
saying, ‘| don't know about that. You have it Vesuvio, a three-in-the-morning-dossing-round-
done, and if it's fine we'll all have it done as well.’ on-beanbags type club in Tottenham Court Road.
That was the only way to get rid of John's As it was a suitable time in the evening, | got the
madcap schemes, otherwise he would have had DJ to put it on. | remember Mick Jagger coming
us all with holes in our heads the next morning. up to me and saying: ‘It's like two songs, man. It's
So, John and Cynthia were splitting up and | got the song and then the whole “na na na’ at
felt particularly sorry for Julian. | had known the end. Yeah.’
them for so long. We had hung out since John’s I was always a bit in limbo with a new single;
art school days when | had a girlfriend called Dot your heart's in your mouth when you first hear it
and John had Cynthia, and we used to foursome played on the radio, for instance. | knew it was a
it a lot and go to parties together. Since then, I'd lot to expect people to swallow the whole thing
seen them get married and seen them have Julian. Maybe they would want to fade it... but they
| thought, as a friend of the family, | would didn't. | remember Stuart Henry on the Beeb
motor out to Weybridge and tell them that saying: "There you are my friends — either you
everything was all right: to try and cheer them like it or you don't.’ Then he went on to the next
up, basically, and see how they were. | had about record. | thought: "Thank you! Couldn't you
an hour's drive. | would always turn the radio off have thought of anything else, Stu?
and try and make up songs, just in case... |
started singing: ‘Hey Jools — don't make it bad, RINGO: ‘Hey Jude’ has become a cl
take a sad song, and make it better...’ It was good recording it. We put i
optimistic, a hopeful message for Julian: ‘Come of times — trying to get it ri
on, man, your parents got divorced. | know everything else, it just clicke
youre not happy, but you'll be OK.’ should be.
 \SPINALL: David Frost came down to Twickenham Film
ey were filming a performance of ‘Hey Jude’ and
ntroduced it, like it was done for his show or
It was filmed with an invited audience, and they all got
tage and sang the chorus repeat for ‘Hey Jude’.

GE: We made a film in front of an audience. They §

1d brought people in for ‘Hey Jude’. It wasn't done just for fa v4
id Frost, but it was shown on his show and he was is
lly there when we filmed it. >:
a
GEORGE MARTIN: The other side of ‘Hey Jude’ was
Revolution’. We got into distortion on that, which we had a lot of
complaints from the technical people about. But that was the idea:
t was Jobn’s song and the idea was to push it right to the limit.
Well, we went to the limit and beyond.

GEORGE: The thing about ‘Revolution’ (and you could get

into a debate about this), is that it's not so much the song
but the attitude in which it was done. | think ‘Revolution’ is pretty good and it grooves
along, but I don't particularly like the noise that it makes; and | say ‘noise’ because | didn't
like the distorted sound of John’s guitar.
| think that ‘Revolution’ — as with all the different styles of song — has its own merit. It's a
good tune, but | don't think it is one of John’s best songs. The only thing that may make it
important is what it's actually saying, but at the same time there- was a lot of other
politically-aware music going around the world.

PAUL: I liked the sound on ‘Revolution’.

JOHN: When George and Paul and all of them were on holiday, | made ‘Revolution’
which is on the LP. | wanted to put it out as a single, but they said it wasn’t good enough.
We put out ‘Hey Jude’, which was worthy — but we
could have had both.”
We recorded the song twice. The Beatles were
getting real tense with each other. The first take, George
and Paul were resentful and said it wasn't fast enough.
Now, if you go into the details of what a hit record is
and isn't, maybe. But The Beatles could have afforded to
put out the slow, understandable version of ‘Revolution’
as a single, whether it was a gold record or a wooden
record. But, because they were so upset over the Yoko
thing and the fact that | was again becoming as creative
and dominating as | was in the early days (after lying
fallow for a couple of years), it upset the applecart. | was
awake again and they weren't used to it.*°
| wanted to put out what I| felt about revolution. |
thought it was about time we spoke about it, the same as
| thought it was about time we stopped not answering
about the Vietnamese war.
| had been thinking about it up in the hills in India. |
still had this ‘God will save us’ feeling about it: ‘It's going
to be all right.’ That's why | did it: | wanted to talk, |
wanted to say my piece about revolutions. | wanted to
tell you, or whoever listens, to communicate, to say,
‘What do you say? This is what I say.’
There were two versions of that song, but the
underground left only picked up on the one that
said ‘count me out’. The original version which ends
up on the LP said ‘count me in’ too; | put in both
because | wasn't sure

| didn't want to get killed. | didn't really know

1uch about the Maoists, but | just knew that they
eemed to be so few and yet they painted them-
es green and stood in front of the police waiting
picked off. | just thought it was unsubtle. |
the original Communist revolutionaries
nated themselves a bit better and didn't go
a shouting about it

Y JUDE'/7REVOLUTION
 THE WORLD, WE'VE Gi
WHAT'S WRONE

YOU W,
RUTHLESSLY? LINTH. ¥¢

HEADS

: s up to somebody
“to organise. Stude

he Grosvenor Square
iolence, the result of

ler Ways can

€ wind now a

Titain, has som

: “PRETTY POLLY FOR PEACE’
ind arses on it. Promote p
t them use sex for a char

ILL HAPI
IGHT HAPPI
 jonn. SHE FORCED ME TO BECOME AVANT-GARDE
AND TAKE MY CLOTHES OFF, WHEN ALL |
WANTED WAS TO BECOME TOM JONES.
9

WO VIRGINS
 JOHN:
PAUL: There was this girl called Yoko, Yoko Ono. WONSAPONATIME THERE WERE kills people like Presley and others of that ilk. The
She showed up at my house one day. It was John TWO BALLOONS CALLED JOCK king is always killed by his courtiers, not by his
Cage's birthday, and she said she wanted to get hold AND YONO. THEY WERE enemies. The king is over-fed, over-drugged, over-
of some manuscripts of various composers to give to STRICTLY IN LOVE-BOUND TO indulged; anything to keep the king tied to his throne.
him. She wanted one from me and John, so | said, HAPPEN IN A MILLION YEARS. Most people in that position never wake up. They
‘Well, it's OK by me, but you'll have to go and see THEY WERE TOGETHER, MAN. either die mentally or physically, or both. And what
John.’ And she did... UNFORTUNATIMETABLE THEY Yoko did for me was to liberate me from that situation.
BOTH SEEMED TO HAVE And that's how The Beatles ended. Not because
DEREK TAYLOR: I went into Wigmore Street — and Yoko PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE — WHICH Yoko split The Beatles, but because she showed me
was in the office with John. I think they had been up all KEPT CALLING THEM ONE WAY what it was to be Elvis Beatle and to be surrounded by
night. I didnt know of her and I hadnt seen her before, but ORANOTHER (YOU KNOW sycophants and slaves who were only interested in
she looked nice and John said: ‘This is Yoko.’ And: ‘This is HOWITIS). BUT THEY BATTLED keeping the situation as it was. She said to me, ‘You've
Derek, one of our friends.’ ON AGAINST OVERWHELMING got no clothes on.’ Nobody had dared tell me that
I went over and, for some reason or other, kissed ber on ODDITIES, INCLUDO SOME OF before.
top of the head, saying: ‘Welcome to Apple,’ and, ‘How are THEIR BEAST FRIENDS. BEING IN With us, it's a teacher-pupil relationship. That's
you?’ and so on. Jobn said, ‘I'll be with ber now...’ — one LOVE THEY CLOONG EVEN THE what people don't understand. She's the teacher and
of those John things. Then he wandered off — he was always MORE TOGETHER, MAN — BUT I'm the pupil. I'm the famous one, I'm supposed to
doing wanderings off—he put bis hands on his hips, SOME OF THE POISONESS- know everything — but she taught me everything |
wandered off, and then came back: ‘What do you think?’I MONSTER OF OUTRATED fucking know.
said I was sure it would be fine. BUSLODEDSHITHROWERS DID When | met Yoko is when you meet your first
STICK SLIGHTLY AND THEY woman and you leave the guys at the bar, and you
JOHN: | was too scared to break away from The OCCASIONALLY HAD TO RESORT don't go play football any more, and you don't go
Beatles, which I'd been looking to do since we stopped TO THE DRYCLEANERS. LUCKILY play snooker and billiards. Once | found the woman,
touring. | was vaguely looking for somewhere to go, THIS DID NOT KILL THEM AND the boys became of no interest whatsoever, other
but didn't have the nerve to really step out into the THEY WEREN'T BANNED FROM than they were like old friends. You know the song:
boat by myself, so | hung around. And when | met THE OLYMPIC GAMES. THEY "Those wedding bells are breaking up that old gang of
Yoko and fell in love: ‘My God! This is different than LIVED HOPEFULLY EVER AFTER, mine.’ It didn't hit me until whatever age | was when |
anything before. This is more than a hit record. It's AND WHO COULD met Yoko, twenty-six. That was it. That old gang of
more than gold. It's more than everything. ..'*° BLAME THEM.” mine was over the moment | met her. | didn't
Whatever | went through was worth it to meet consciously know it at the time, but that’s what was
Yoko. So, if | had to do all the things I did in my life — going on. As soon as | met her, that was the end of
which is have a troubled childhood, a troubled teenage and an amazing the boys. But it so happened the boys were well known and weren't
whirlwind life with The Beatles, and then finally coming to land just the local guys at the bar.
meeting Yoko — it was worth it. Yoko really woke me up to myself. She didn't fall in love with the
I've never known love like this before, and it hit me so hard that | Beatle, she didn't fall in love with my fame. She fell in love with me for
had to halt my marriage to Cyn. And don't think that was a reckless myself, and through that brought out the best in me. She was the
decision, because | felt very deeply about it and all the implications that ultimate trip.*°
would be involved. Some may say my decision was selfish. Well, | don’t
think it is. Are your children going to thank you when they are Freedom is in the mind. It seems that as soon as a couple gets together,
eighteen? Isn't it better to avoid rearing children in the atmosphere of a the man's supposed to go somewhere and work and the woman's
strained relationship? supposed to be somewhere else, and | don't think that's very good for a
My marriage to Cyn was not unhappy. But it was just a normal relationship. It just so happens that's the way we all live. Maybe in the
marital state where nothing happened and which we continued to past they worked together or within sight of each other. She'd be
sustain. You sustain it until you meet someone who suddenly sets you digging the potatoes and he'd be cutting the hay or something, or
alight. With Yoko I really knew love for the first time. Our attraction they'd split for hunting, something like that. But | don't see why we
was a mental one, but it happened physically too. Both are essential in should be apart, especially as we can work together and we have the
the union.® same interests. It's not like I'm a mountain climber and she's an
Being with Yoko makes me free. Being with Yoko makes me whole. archaeologist. Our interests are the same, so that helps.
I'm a half without her. Male is half without a female.*° Before Yoko and | Nothing is more important than what goes on between two people,
met, we were half a person. There's an old myth about people being because it's two people that produce children, two people that fall in
half, and the other half being in the sky or in heaven or on the other love. You don't generally fall in love with two people at once. I've never
side of the universe or a mirror image. But we are two halves, and experienced it. Promiscuity is something else — it's for kids, really. | feel
together we're a whole.” as though | went through it, and what's the point? It often isn’t that
satisfactory as an end product to living. It's like eating, you can't survive
Yoko taught me about women. | was used to being served, like Elvis and on it alone. You need something else.”
a lot of the stars were. Always just being served by women, whether it
was my Aunt Mimi, God bless you, or whoever — served by females, After Yoko and | met, | didn’t realise | was in love with her. I was still
wives, girlfriends. You just flop in drunk and expect some girlfriend at thinking it was an artistic collaboration, as it were — producer and artist.
college to make the breakfast the next morning. You know she'd been We'd known each other for a couple of years. My ex-wife was away in
drunk as a dog too, with you at the party, but the female is supposed Italy, and Yoko came to visit me and we took some acid. | was always
suddenly to get on the other side of the counter. It was quite an shy with her, and she was shy, so instead of making love we went
experience, and I appreciated what women have done for me all my life. upstairs and made tapes. | had this room where | would write and make
I'd never even thought about it. strange loops and things, like that for The Beatles’ stuff. So we made a
Yoko didn't buy that. She didn't give a shit about Beatles: ‘What the tape all night. She was doing her funny voices as | was pushing all
fuck are The Beatles? I'm Yoko Ono! Treat me as me.’ From the day | different buttons on my tape recorder and getting sound effects. And
met her, she demanded equal time, equal space, equal rights. | didn't then as the sun rose we made love, and that was Two Virgins. That was
know what she was talking about. I said, ‘What do you want, a contract? the first time.
You can have whatever you want — but don't expect anything from me, Two Virgins happened by accident. | realised somebody else was as
or for me to change in any way.’ ‘Well,’ she said, ‘the answer to that is barmy as me — a wife with freaky sounds — and could equally enjoy non-
that I can't be here. Because there is no space where you are. Everything dance music or non-pop music that was... they call it avant-garde
revolves around you, and | can't breathe in that atmosphere.’ I'm That's the only word you can use for it, but | think a label like avant
thankful to her for the education. garde defeats itself. You learnt to have avant-garde exhibitions. The
I was used to a situation where the newspaper was there for me to very fact that avant-garde can have an exhibition defeats ¢! le purpose of
read, and after I'd read it, somebody else could have it. It didn’t occur to avant-garde, because it's already formalised and ritualised ant think

me that somebody else might want to look at it first. | think that's what anything of it other than variations on a theme of sound

JOHN & YOKO 301

 DEREK TAYLOR: Another morning in Apple DEREK TAYLOR: Isaid: ‘Right. OK. Fine. Let's get on
‘there was never a dull moment, and this was such a with things. Lets do something about this.’ It was very
moment — not dull) and Jeremy Banks who worked interesting and exciting, and I thought that here was a
with me said: ‘There's something in your drawer —a monumental problem with which we could deal. Life there
mind-bending thing.’ So I opened it up and there was such an ‘action-reaction’ situation that this was just one
was a picture of Jobn and Yoko with no clothes on. more thrilling thing.
And, of course, the Sunday papers were at us, and at this
NEIL ASPINALL: Jobn had just given Jeremy a photograph. This filthy thing! ‘Look at These Filthy People!’
roll offilm and said, ‘Get that developed, please.’ and there was a big circle over the naughty part and an
And when be got it back and saw the nude pictures arrow: ‘This is where the naughty part would be ifpeople
he said: “This is mind-blowing.’ Everything was like us were not so decent. We wouldn't dream of showing it
always ‘mind-blowing’ to Jeremy, but —just that to you — but aren't they awful!’
one time — be was actually right. He couldn't So Ifound something —I got a Bible. There's always
believe it. something to band, isn't there? And there was a bit in the
book of Genesis which said: ‘The man and his wife were
JOHN: We were both a bit embarrassed when we peeled off for the naked and not ashamed,’ or something like that, which I thought was suitable.
picture, so | took it myself with a delayed-action shutter. The picture Jobn and Yoko were not married — but bey! This was life and... ‘Here's this
was to prove that we are not a couple of demented freaks, that we are thing in the Bible — now what are you press going to do about it?’
not deformed in any way and that our minds are healthy. If we can
make society accept these kind of things without offence, without JOHN: It was insane! People got so upset about it — the fact that two
sniggering, then we shall be achieving our purpose.” people were naked.* | didn't think there'd be such a fuss. I guess the
What we did purposely is not have a pretty photograph; not have it world thinks we're an ugly couple.”
lighted so as we looked sexy or good. There were a couple of other
takes from that session where we looked rather nice, hid the little bits NEIL ASPINALL: At the time, I don't think the public liked Yoko very much —
that aren't that beautiful; we looked good. We used the straightest, most I don't know why, but they didn't seem to. It might have been because of the
unflattering picture just to show that we were human.” press, but I also think because of the avant-garde stuff. The public just didnt
understand it, and I tend to find that ifyou dont understand something you're
PAUL: It wasn't a glamorous picture; it wasn't a nudie model with likely to be prejudiced against it.
elastoplast and clear sellotape holding them up and stuff. It was the real
thing: them baring it all to the world. But that was the whole idea with PAUL: The Two Virgins record itself | didn't find that interesting; the
Two Virgins. music wasn't shocking to me because I'd made a lot like that myself. |
| know it was shocking, but I'm not sure whether us lot were too think John may have got some ideas from when | had a couple of
shocked by it — we just knew he'd have a bit of flak. Obviously, the Brennell tape recorders. | used to bounce sounds between them and
minute the newspapers saw a shot like that, they were going to be on multi-track to make crazy tapes for friends late at night. It was just
the phone. | knew John was inviting a lot of that. In the end, he'd ambient music.
invited a lot more than they wanted and they started to get busted and | had a nice line in tape loops and crazy little classical things. | made
things. Quite an oppressive campaign started against them and it a record for the guys called ‘Unforgettable’ after the Nat King Cole
probably began with that cover. It's weird, isn't it? Our mothers and song; like a little radio show. I'd go down to the publishers and get a big
fathers all had to get naked to conceive us, and yet we're still very 78 acetate made of it and send it round to the guys: ‘Here's a little bit of
prudish about nudity, even in this day and age. But John and Yoko were music if you're feeling crazy.’
looking at nudity as artists. John asked me how | did it, so | showed him how to plug the
machines up. John got two at his house in Weybridge, with exactly
JOHN: We felt like two virgins because we were in love, just met, and the same set-up, and | showed him how to use it all. If you take the
we were trying to make something. And we thought to show superimposer out, you can multi-track it all and keep going endlessly —
everything. People are always looking at people like me, trying to see just bouncing it back and forth. You can make crazy records using
some secret: ‘What do they do? Do they go to the bathroom? Do they relatively few tracks (as long as you don't need good-quality sound,
eat?’ So we just said, ‘Here.’” because it loses quality each time).

GEORGE: What | thought of the sleeve then was the same as | think GEORGE: | don’t think | actually heard all of Two Virgins, just bits of
now: it's just two not-very-nice-looking bodies, two flabby bodies it. | wasn’t particularly into that kind of thing. That was his and her
naked. It's harmless, really — different strokes for different folks. affair; their trip. They got involved with each other and were
obviously into each other to such a degree that they thought
RINGO: The cover was the mind-blower — | remember to this day the everything they said or did was of world importance, and so they
moment when they came in and showed me. | don't really remember made it into records and films. (I was getting fed up with The Beatles
the music, I'd have to play it now. But he showed me the cover and | by that time, let alone anything else around it. | was getting into all
pointed to the Times: ‘Oh, you've even got the Times in it...’ as if he the other stuff, the Indian music.)
didn't have his dick hanging out. It was an Apple album, but Apple was distributed by EMI and they
| said, ‘Ah, come on, John. You're doing all this stuff and it may be refused to handle it, so it was put out by Tetragrammaton in the USA.
cool for you, but you know we all have to answer. It doesn't matter;
whichever one of us does something, we all have to answer for it.’ He JOHN: Two Virgins was a big fight. It was held up for nine months.
said, ‘Oh, Ringo, you only have to answer the phone.’ | said, ‘OK, fine,’ Joseph Lockwood was a nice, nice guy; but he sat down on a big table at
because it was true. The press would be calling up, and just at that point the top of EMI with John and Yoko and told me he will do everything
I didn't want to be bothered — but in the end that's all | had to do: he can to help us, because we explained what it meant and why we were
answer the phone. It was fine. Two or three people phoned and | said: doing it. And he got me to sign him one — he's got a signed edition of
‘See, he’s got the Times on the cover.’ the very first one. Then, when we tried to put it out, he sent a personal
note to everybody saying: ‘Don't print it. Don't put it out.’ So we
JOHN: George and Paul were a little shocked, that was weird. That couldn't get the cover printed anywhere.*
really shocked me, the fact that they were prudish. You can't imagine — Actually, the first record that would have been out on Apple would
it was so uptight in those days. It's not that long ago, and people are have been Two Virgins if they hadn't held it up. They stalled and they
uptight about nude bodies.” We didn't create nudity, we just put it out. said this, that and the other. Being naive in lots of ways, | had no idea |
Somebody else had been nude before.” was going to get slagging from the immediate family. | thought maybe
somebody out there will say something, but | was making a statement. It
PAUL: | was slightly shocked but, seeing as | wrote a liner note for the was as good as a song, it was better, you couldn't say it better — pictures
sleeve, | obviously wasn't too uptight. speak louder than words. There it was: beautiful statement.”

TWO VIRGINS
 knowledge ai
ruee to the best of my
s tr
‘prosecution if I have wilt;

D.S. Piloher then left me end r“i

Musician,
from the front door. Lennon moved away from thewindo
(3gBangenose >vette
Dangerous Drugs, Act 1965.
shouting, "All right, I'll open it." I Spee the window ,
and entered the bedroom, Lennon said, “on. well, Peutre
in now." | “s coe
I certify HE MMovelcxtract tobe a true copy. ~ oe % |
| Glerk ofthesaidMagistrates?
Cour
{ oe, x. its

thayu/we= - I said to Lennon, "We are police officers os we:

5. JOHN'S DRUG BUST wer allo, SX nave a warrant to search the premises for dangerous ¥.
; AREMINDER THAT A COP anibed RS 2 ocatmene winaeiena Leb nelidnss Lenkdeimeneai an the
ING IN WAIT IF ANYONE wow Nall window preventing me from opening it and said, "I don't
A PARLY 7 AND
THOSE DAYS, YOU COULD
I'M AFRAID, emit an~opole care who you are,
”
you're not bloody well
z
coming in here.

(signed) ‘
WE BUSTED ANY PARTY...
IN:
I was got for possession. It wasn't on my body, but it was in the house. Possession means
u could be a pusher. You can just see John Lennon pushing drugs for a living!
In the late Sixties there was a head-hunting cop (who was not very high up in the drug
_ department in London — which was pretty new anyway, they had two dogs for the whole
department). And he went round and bust every pop star he could get his hands on, and he fee
got famous. Some of the pop stars had dope in their house and some of them didn't.” ! STATSMENT OF WITNES:

see GEORGE: John and Yoko were busted for cannabis in October, while they were staying ; Statomont of «4...
‘semi | at the flat they rented from Ringo. Jimi Hendrix rented it as well; it has a history, that | AgoofWitness (ifover 21enter“ over 21 "Jum ONGER akessn
ols flat, They were busted by a policeman named Set Pilcher who, as Derek would say, saw |Osaupationof Witnous...... Senion..dcientific..Offica
ai) himself as Oliver Cromwell, He thought he was doing society a favour. enolitan..Police.
vets morenads.
] The Drug Squad must have had a listwofpeople.. It's easy to see it clearly now, bell
PTI
Place, Holborn,
et eee
W.C.
> A because they went down the list. They busted Donovan first because he was easier, It i
) wasn't difficult to attract their attention, and after they Busted Done¥an they worked }
) their way up to The Rolling Stones atid Sbuisted them, and then — thought they'd |
get The Beatles.

JOHN: We were lying in bed, feeling very clean and Fee aaa heard three |
weeks before that they were coming to get us — and wed have been silly to have had
drugs in the house. All of a sudden a woman comes to the front door, and rings the bell ie
and says, I've got a message for you.’ We said, ‘Who is it? You're not the postman.’ And
2, she said, ‘No, it's very personal,’ and suddenly this woman starts pushing the door. She iE.
<0] thinks it's the press or some fans, and we ran back in and hid. Neither of us was dressed, phy og
ae had vests on and our lower parts were showing.
Rona the door and | was saying, ‘What is it? What is it?’ | thought it was the Mafia or —
x, Then there was a big lore at the bedroom window, and a big super-pik se Ww

ow, I'm aang to fall off.’

het wee some [police] at the front and some at the back. Yoko held the window |
sed — half-leaning out of the bathroom so they could see we weren't hiding anythin
< Phareing the door. ;had a big dialogue with the policeman, saying, ‘It's bad pe
ig =2 Pua= =} a i} re> | 2. > o = wvwn yy£-3)< 3 a Ssyn ° oga | = o é. = a.ox E
— oe lms © + <i oe.
EeF was saying, ‘I wilt to see the warrant.’ Another
fu
guy comes on Gherodk aadSe
kes

sr, and | pretended to read it — just to try and think what to do. Then | sai
Reet ‘ but [Yoko] called our office instead. And | was saying, ‘No, not theo
there was a heave on the door, so | ran and opened it, and said. ‘OK, O|
ig| was clean. And he says, ‘Ah-ha, got you for obstruction!’ And |said,‘Ohi:y
at that I had no drugs.
ey all came in, lots of them and a woman. I said, Well, what happens now
1 interview in two hours, can | tell them that | can't come? And
rik a phone call.. BCan Luse your phone?’ Then our lawyer came. a
 They [the police] brought some dogs. They couldn't find the dogs Stones in 1967). Most of us knew it wasn't that harmful. We weren't
+t first — and they kept ringing up, saying, ‘Hello, Charlie, where are the going round trying to make millions of converts, but we didn't believe
dogs? We've been here half an hour.’ And the dogs came. all the rubbish spoken about it.
'd had all my stuff moved into the flat from my house, and I'd There are still people around who blame all our ills now on the
never looked at it. It had just been there for years. I'd ordered cameras Sixties, and | don't think that's right. They think we all went mad, and
snd clothes — but my driver brought binoculars (which | didn't need in God and Country got forgotten. | don't think it was like that at all. |
my little flat). And inside the binoculars was some hash from last think you can go back to the last war to look for the beginning of those
year. Somewhere else in an envelope was another piece of hash. So rumblings, when the soldiers got home and ditched Churchill. That was
that was it. when I think the irreverence started to set in; | don't think it was
anything to do with us.
NEIL ASPINALL: I heard about it right away. Jobn called me and said,
‘Neil, think about all your worst paranoias — because they're bere.’ And I said, GEORGE: They got John and Yoko, and later they busted me, too —
‘OK, I'll get somebody over there.’ I asked Peter Brown to go. Peter had been and they chose Paul's wedding day to bust me on. Pilcher later
Brian Epstein’ personal assistant, but be was now working for Apple. He was emigrated to Australia, but then they extradited him and brought him
looking after all their personal business, and I thought Jobn being busted was back. He was charged with perjury and went to prison, but we still had
quite personal. Peter organised legal advice and got the lawyers there, it was trouble with our visas for years.
taken care of.
JOHN: It happened after I left, and he was caught in Australia, trying to
JOHN: To cut a long story short, I'd just had everything moved from escape (the English always run to Australia, thinking they're going to
my other apartment — it was all over the place. So I thought, ‘Well, vanish there).”
maybe this is a bit of hash that was left over, and I'd forgotten all about
it.’ And I just copped a plea. He said, 'l won't get you for obstruction if GEORGE: It was certainly an Establishment plot against us. We were
you cop a plea.’ And | thought, ‘Oh, it's a hundred dollars or whatever, outspoken, and the Cromwell figures in the Establishment were trying
it's no skin off my nose,’ little thinking it would reverberate. And he to get their own back on us. This was the period when everything was
said, ‘I'll let your missus go.’ . going up and up and up and getting rosier, and suddenly it reached that
point where it started to go down. Everything goes in a cycle, and once
DEREK TAYLOR: I thought people were out to get us. Being busted was a very it starts going down and you get knocked to the ground, they start
serious thing then, and everyone was very frightened of it. It was even paranoia, kicking you. What you have to realise with the press is that their whole
ifyou like. It was the event we were all waiting for, all our lives, and for one of thing is to build people up (and usually that's by putting somebody else
The Beatles to be busted was very, very serious because they were more or less down). They get people to be famous enough so they can make money
used to being untouchable. They'd been going through Immigration without out of them, and then they put them down. The Royal Family is the
passports and living the life of Rileyfordonkey's years (two clichés there), and greatest case of that, but they did it with The Beatles too. It was only
now things were going wrong. John’s marriage was over, and now we've got because The Beatles’ popularity was so spread around the world and so
drugs and we've got nudity. And it had been, Ifelt, manageable until 1968. many generations of people liked us that they couldn't put the nail in
Neil told me about the call from John saying: ‘Imagine your worst our coffin.
paranoia, because it’s bere.’ And then be told me what had happened, and that Brian Epstein had died, so they tried to say: ‘OK, well, everything
the press knew. they've done since he died is crap,’ meaning, for instance, Magical
The phone calls started to come in very quickly from Fleet Street — the Mystery Tour. Then it was: ‘Now they have gone mad — they've gone to
Evening Standard and the Mail, the Mirror, all of them. I think Don Short India with some mystic.’ It was the typical silly gossipy stuff that
rang and said, ‘Oh, it's bappened, has it? And I have another couple of dodgy newspapers get into and that people love to attach themselves to. Then
ones: I think John’s father is getting married, and we hear Yoko's pregnant.’ So we started getting busted! John and Yoko were a great focal point for
it was a case that nothing happened on its own. Everything was happening all the negative ‘let's beat them while they're down’ attitude.
the time, really; like the Royal Family's annus horribilis.
We believed in cannabis as a way of life. I was only concerned about the JOHN: I was frightened. I'm paranoiac, anyway — we both are,
effects ifanything unjust happened. I was very bot for injustice, having been especially about people coming to the door. [But] it was better when it
brought up on Ealing comedies and all that, where the little man always won, happened. It's been building up for years — thinking something would
and ifyou bad a passion for something and you thought it was a good thing, happen. Now, the fear has gone a bit. Now you know what it's like, it’s
then, in the end, stiff-necked people in suits and things would come round to a bit different. And it's not too bad; a £150 fine.
your way of thinking. I think they should make some differentiation between hard and soft
Alas, it was not like that, and people kept clobbering us. I wasn't really drugs. | think maybe they should have pot bars, if they're going to have
worried about the bust, and we saw Jobn as a martyr. Other people who'd been alcohol. But | don't know — I'd sooner ban sugar.
busted (like Donovan, and Mick, and Brian Jones) rang up with | knew what Britain's Establishment were. I'd been around it a long
commiserations, and it was very much a gathering of the clans. Paul came into time. It's just the same as anywhere else, only with a stiff upper lip.
Apple that afternoon, John was there, and Ringo was phoned in Sardinia. Paul They don't show any happiness or sadness.*
brought Ivan Vaughan with bim (be who introduced John to Paul and Paul to It's strange when you hear people are snorting in the White
John), and so it was very much everyone hanging in there with Jobn. House, after the misery they put a lot of people through, and the
So that was how I saw it, and by the end of 1968 | thought things were night they bust us in England. | have a record for life because
looking up. But I always felt things were looking up —I still do. the cop who bust me and Yoko was scalp-hunting and making a
name for himself.
PAUL: Being busted was something that we were all at risk of at that I've never denied having been involved with drugs. There
time — us and half of London; half of the world, in fact. That's what was a question raised in the Houses of Parliament: ‘Why
people were doing then instead of going out and getting crazy with do they need forty cops to arrest John and Yoko?’ | mean,
drink — people were sitting at home until very late with wine and that thing was set up. The Daily Mail and the Daily
cannabis. We didn't really feel it was very wrong. | still believe alcohol Express were there before the cops came — he'd called the
is worse for you and has led to many more deaths — I've never heard of a press. In fact, Don Short had told us ‘they're coming to
cannabis-related death (although people won't like to hear that). So get you’ three weeks before.’ | guess they didn't like the
what happened to John and Yoko was shocking, and we felt sad for way the image was looking. The Beatles
them. And it was a nuisance. thing was over. No reason to protect
A lot of people were being busted around that time. In fact, it was us for being soft
put down to an actual officer — called something like ‘Sgt Pilchard’, | and cuddly
believe. He had it in for these drug-crazed hippies: ‘I'll show them.’ So any more —
he'd bust them on every occasion. OK, it was illegal — he had the right so bust us!
to do it, so you can't blame him. It was the idea of ‘breaking the That's what
butterfly on the wheel’ (that's what Rees-Mogg had said about the happened.”!

304 JOHN & YOKO BUSTED

 RINGO: SGT PEPPER DID ITS THING — IT WAS THE ALBUM OF THE DECADE, OF THE CENTURY MAYBE. IT LV

WAS VERY INNOVATIVE WITH GREAT SONGS, IT WAS A REAL PLEASURE AND I'M GLAD I WAS ON IT. BUT
THE ‘WHITE’ ALBUM ENDED UP A BETTER ALBUM FOR ME.

GEORGE: When we started, | don't think we thought about whether When we came back, it became apparent that there were more
the ‘White’ album would do as well as Sgt Pepper — 1 don't think we ever songs than would make up a single album, and so the ‘White’ album
really concerned ourselves with the previous record and how many it became a double album. What else do you do when you've got so many
had sold. In the early Sixties, whoever had a hit single would try to songs and you want to get rid of them so that you can write more?
make the next record sound as close to it as possible — but we always There was a lot of ego in the band, and there were a lot of songs that
tried to make things different. Things were always different, anyway — maybe should have been elbowed or made into B sides. Having said
in just a matter of months we'd changed in so many ways there was no that, there would just have been more bootlegs today because all of
chance of a new record ever being like the previous one. those that weren't put on the album would be out there.
After Sgt Pepper, the new album felt more like a band recording
together. There were a lot of tracks where we just played live, and then JOHN: That [the ‘White’ album] was just saying: This is my song, we'll
there were a lot of tracks that we'd recorded and that would need do it this way. That's your song, you do it that way.’ It's pretty hard trying
finishing together. There was also a lot more individual stuff and, for to fit three guys’ music onto one album — that's why we did a double.”
the first time, people were accepting that it was individual. | remember After getting into electronics and heavy arrangements, | finally
having three studios operating at the same time: Paul was doing some shook all that off and my songs on the double album were fairly simple
overdubs in one, John was in another and | was recording some horns or and basic. It was a complete reversal from Sgt Pepper, and | preferred a
something in a third. Maybe it was because EMI had set a release date lot of the music.”!
and time was running out.
GEORGE MARTIN: During Magical Mystery Tour I became conscious
JOHN: All the stuff on the ‘White’ album was written in India when we that the freedom that we'd achieved in Pepper was getting a little bit over the
were supposedly giving our money to Maharishi, which we never did. top, and they werent really exerting enough mental discipline in a lot of the
We got our mantra, we sat in the mountains eating lousy vegetarian recordings. They would have a basic idea and then they would have a jam
food and writing all those songs.*° session to end it, which sometimes didn't sound too good. I complained a little
We wrote about thirty new songs between us. Paul must have about their writing during the later ‘White’ album, but it was fairly small
done about a dozen. George says he's got six, and | wrote fifteen. criticism.
And look what meditation did for Ringo — after all this time he wrote I thought we should probably have made a very, very good single album
his first song. rather than a double. But they insisted. I think it could have been made
fantastically good ifit had been compressed a bit and condensed. A lot of people
GEORGE MARTIN: They came in with a whole welter of songs — I think I know think it’s still the best album they made. I later learnt that by recording
there were over thirty, actually — and I was a bit overwhelmed by them, and yet all those songs they were getting rid of their contract with EMI more quickly
underwhelmed at the same time because some of them weren't great.
For thefirst time I had to split myself three ways because at any one time RINGO: There was a lot of information on the double album, but |
we were recording in different studios. It became very fragmented, and that was agree that we should have put it out as two separate albums: the ‘White
where my assistant Chris Thomas did a lot of work (which made him into a and the ‘Whiter’ albums.
very good producer).
PAUL: People seem to think that everything we say and ng
GEORGE: The experience of India and everything since Sgt Pepper was political statement, but it isn’t. In the end it is always on! ong. (
all embodied in the new album. Most of the songs that were written in or two of the tracks will make some people wonder w
Rishikesh were the result of what Maharishi had said. but what we are doing is just singing songs

THE ‘W! BUM 305

 ORGE: | wrote ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ at my mother's JOHN: ‘Happiness Is A Warm Gun’ was another one which was banned
e in Warrington (the spiritual home of George Formby). | was on the radio — they said it was about shooting up drugs. But they were
inking about the Chinese I Ching, The Book of Changes’. In the West advertising guns and | thought it was so crazy that | made a song out of
hink of coincidence as being something that just happens — it just it. It wasn't about ‘H' at all. George Martin showed me the cover of a
appens that | am sitting here and the wind is blowing my hair, and so magazine that said: ‘Happiness is a warm gun.’ | thought it was a
But the Eastern concept is that whatever happens is all meant to be, fantastic, insane thing to say. A warm gun means you've just shot
d that there's no such thing as coincidence — every little item that's something.”!
;oing down has a purpose. I love it. | think it's a beautiful song. | like all the different things
While My Guitar Gently Weeps' was a simple study based on that that are happening in it. | had put together three sections of different
theory. | decided to write a song based on the first thing | saw upon songs, it seemed to run through all the different kinds of rock music.”
One \ing any book — as it would be relative to that moment, at that time.
| picked up a book at random, opened it, saw ‘gently weeps’, then laid
the book down again and started the song.
We tried to record it, but Paul and John were so used to just
cranking out their tunes that it was very difficult at times to get serious
and record one of mine. It wasn't happening. They weren't taking it
seriously and | don't think they were even all playing on it, and so |
went home that night thinking, ‘Well, that's a shame,’ because I knew
the song was pretty good.
The next day | was driving into London with Eric Clapton, and |
said, ‘What are you doing today? Why don't you come to the studio
and play on this song for me?’ He said, ‘Oh, no — | can't do that.
Nobody's ever played on a Beatles’ record and the others wouldn't like
it.’ | said ‘Look, it's my song and I'd like you to play on it.’
So he came in. | said, ‘Eric's going to play on this one,’ and it was
good because that then made everyone act better. Paul got on the piano
and played a nice intro and they all took it more seriously. (It was a
similar situation when Billy Preston came later to play on Let It Be and
7 everybody was arguing. Just bringing a stranger in
44
wos ; amongst us made everybody cool out.)
‘ ' Be

bye
ee

ate JOHN: We've just done two tracks. The

pieteeinnetl
PTEUESUEIEN!
PETA TLETATE
second one is Ringo's first song. He composed
}
| it himself in a fit of lethargy.
itty
itt |
VU RINGO: I wrote ‘Don't Pass Me By’ when | was
TRDRAGEEED Anna:
QL g dy sitting round at home. | only play three chords
Patihy <i Reet
on the guitar and three on the piano. | was
fiddling with the piano — I just bang away —
and then if a melody comes and some words, |

INA a Guiko€ fi just have to keep going. That's how it

happened: I was just sitting at home alone and
‘Don't Pass Me By’ arrived. We played it with a
country.,attitude, It, was great to get my first
sone’ down ‘oré "that | had written. It was a
very “exciting time for me and everyone was
really helpfuland recording that crazy violinist
was a thrilling moment.
I also sang) John’s song ‘Good Night’. I've
just. heard. it-for. the: first.timezin, years and it's
not bad at all, although I think | sound very
nervous. It was something for me to do.

JOHN: ['Glass’Onion’] That's me, just doing

a ‘throwaway song a laceWaltus, a la
everything l've-evér written. Icthrew the line
in — ‘the Walrus was Paul’ — just’to confuse
everybody. axbit more. \It could have been:
‘The fox terrier is Paul.’ ] mean,’s just a bit
of.poetry.° | was having a laugh because
there'd been, so much gobbledegook, about Pepper — play, it-backwards
PAUL: We'd had guest instrumentalists before — Brian Jones had playéd and you stand on your head and all that.
some crazy stuff on sax (for ‘You Know My Name (Look Up The At that ‘time 1 was still in my love cloud with’ Yoko. | thought,
Number)’), and we'd used a flute and other instruments — but we'd never ‘Well, I'll just say something nice to! Paul), that it's all right and you did
actually had someone other than George (or occasionally John or me) a good job over these few years, holding us together.’ He was trying to
playing the guitar organise the group and all that) so-warited té-say somethingto him. |
Eric showed up and he was very nice, very accommodating ‘and thought, ‘Well, he can have.it, I've got Yoko. And thank you, you can
humble and a good player. He got wound up and we all did it. It Was have-the credit.’””
good fun actually. His style fitted very well with the song and | think The‘line was (put in’partly because | was feeling guilty because |
George was keen to have him play it — which was nice of George was with ‘Yoko-and\}~was*téaving»Paul. It's a very perverse way of
because he could have played it himself and then it would have been saying to, Paul: ‘Here, have this,.crumb,, this illusion, this stroke —
him on the big hit because I'm leaving.’*°

1E ‘WHITE’ ALBUM
 JOHN: I spent more time on ‘Revolution 9’ than | did on half the other It's like an action painting. The ‘number nine, number nine, number
songs | ever wrote. nine’ was an engineer's voice. They have test tapes to see that the tapes
The slow version of ‘Revolution’ on the album went on and on and are all right, and the voice was saying: “This is number nine
on, and | took the fade-out part and just layered all this stuff over it. It megacycles...’ I just liked the way he said ‘number nine’ so | made a
has the basic rhythm of the original ‘Revolution’ going on with some loop and brought it in whenever | felt like it.” It was just so funny, the
twenty loops we put on, things from the archives of EMI. I was getting voice saying ‘number nine’, it was like a joke, bringing number nine in it
classical tapes, going upstairs and chopping it and making it backwards all the time, that’s all it was. There are many symbolic things about it
and things like that to get the sound effects. but it just happened.”
There were about ten machines with people holding pencils on the In June 1952, | drew four guys playing football and number nine is
loops — some only inches long and some a yard long. | fed them all in the number on the guy's back, and that was pure coincidence. | was
and mixed them live. | did a few mixes until | got one | liked. Yoko was born on 9th October. | lived at 9 Newcastle Road. Nine seems to be my
there for the whole thing and she made number so I've stuck with it, and it’s the highest number in the universe;
decisions about which loops to use. It was after that you go back to one.” It's just a number that follows me around
somewhat under her influence, | suppose.*° (but numerologically, apparently I'm a number six or a three or
‘Revolution 9’ was an unconscious pic- something; but it's all part of nine).*°
ture of what | actually think will happen
when it happens; just like a drawing of PAUL: ‘Revolution 9' was quite similar to some stuff I'd been doing
revolution. It was just abstract, musique myself for fun. | didn’t think that mine was suitable for release, but John
concrete, loops, people screaming... I always encouraged me.
thought I was painting in sound a picture
of revolution — but | made a mistake. The
mistake was that it was anti-revolution.”

JOHN: |DON'T KNOW

WHAT INFLUENCE
Do do do do do do do do
_ She’s well acquainted with the touch of the velvet hand ‘REVOLUTION NO. 9'
Like a lizard on a window pane. HAD ON THE TEENY-
The man in the crowd with the multicoloured mirrors
On his hobnail boots BOPPER FANS, BUT
Lying with his eyes while his hands are busy
Working overtime MOST OF THEM
A soap impression of his wife which he ate DUN A DIG:
And donated to the National Trust.
_ I need a fix ’cause I’m going do SO WHAT AM I
_ Down to the bits that I left uptown
I need a fix ’cause I’m going down SUPPOSED TO DO? «
_ Mother Superior jump the gun
Mother Superior jump the gun
_ Mother Superior jump the gun
_ Mother Superior jump the gun.
_ Happiness is a warm gun
‘Happiness is a warm gun
‘| When I hold you in my arms
And I feel my finger on your trigger
I know no one can do me no harm
Because happiness is a warm gun
—Yes it is.

3 Favile Row
London, W. 1

Dear George:

Iam sending und ‘ve

of the new U.S. Beatl es album that
numbered from 'A0000001 throug !
personal souvenirs for you and
I have personally stolen numbei
because lama friend too. Be
music!

Sit

THE ‘W! i’ ALBUM

ys
 PAUL: A nice thing about the album was the cover. | had a lot of At first it was a novelty, but after a while it become apparent that
‘riends in the art business, and with Sgt Pepper | had been involved with she was always going to be there and it was very uncomfortable,
2obert Fraser. | knew a lot of artists through him, and one of his people because this was us at work and we were used to doing it in a certain
at the time was Richard Hamilton. way. Maybe it was just a habit that we'd got into, but there were just the
('d been to a couple of exhibitions and | liked Richard's work, so | four of us and George Martin. Occasionally people would come in and
rung him up and said: ‘We've got a new album coming out. Would you visit; Brian Epstein or the odd girlfriend or wife or whatever would
be interested in doing the cover?’ He said he would, so | asked come and go, but we never actually had somebody who was a stranger
everyone. They said ‘yes’ and then they let me get on with it, really. | to all of us except John.
used to go out to his house in Highgate and chat about it, and one day It was very odd, her sitting there all the time. It wasn’t just that it
he said: ‘OK. Get lots of snapshots: go back to all your baby photos, get was Yoko or that we were opposed to the idea of having a stranger
photos of yourselves — any kind — and I'll make a collage.’ sitting there; there was a definite vibe, and that's what bothered me. It
lt was very exciting for me because I'm into art, and | could be his was a weird vibe.
assistant for the week — liaising between the guys; getting the
photographs and having them copied. Then | just sat round for the JOHN: Everybody seemed to be paranoid except for us two, who were
week watching him put the collage together. It's lovely just watching in the glow of love. Everything is clear and open when your'e in love.
someone paint. The great thing at the end of it was that when he'd filled Everybody was tense around us: ‘What is she doing here at the session?’
the whole collage with photos, his final move was to take pieces of All this madness is going on around us because we just happened to
white paper and place them strategically to give space through the want to be together all the time.*
whole thing, so that it wasn't just crammed with pictures. He explained
that this was so the whole picture could breathe. You could see through PAUL: Yoko was in the studio a lot. John and she had a very intense
the density, which was a great idea and gave me my education about romance when they got together. She's a very strong woman, a very
negative space (which apparently is what it was called). | think | would independent woman, and | think John always liked strong women. If
have just left it as it was, because it looked great anyway; but if you look you think about it, his Aunt Mimi was rather a strong woman and so
at that poster now, the white areas are very clever. was his mother, but Cynthia wasn't; and maybe that was why they
Then in the end he said: ‘What are we going to do for the cover now divorced. Cynthia is a nice woman, but she was not able to dominate;
that we've got the poster? What's the album called?’ And he asked, whereas Yoko, I think, was.
‘Have you ever had an album called The Beatles?’ | said ‘no’ and checked She was a conceptual artist and John was very fascinated by her. She
back because I wasn't sure. It had always been: Beatles For Sale, Meet The was into a lot of other topics. She would say things like: ‘I do not know
Beatles, With The Beatles. There had always been something similar, but Beatles,’ so it was like: ‘Wow! Here is the one person who doesn't know
never just The Beatles. So Richard said that was what we should call it, about The Beatles.’ That was very attractive to John.
and everyone agreed.
Richard was very minimalist, and he wanted to have a completely JOHN: THE ONLY NAME YOKO KNEW
white cover and emboss the word ‘Beatles’ on it. At that time he had a
friend who always smudged things, like a bit of chocolate or whatever,
BEFORE WAS RINGO, BECAUSE IT MEANS
so Richard wanted to put an ‘apple smudge’ on a bit of paper. That ‘APPLE’ IN JAPANESE.”
proved hard to do, so we said: ‘Look, let's just leave it at the white cover.’
Then he had the idea to number each album, which | thought was PAUL: She would say, ‘Oh, I love guys in leather jackets,’ so he'd get
brilliant for collectors. You'd have 000001, 000002, 000003, and so on. back into his leather and start acting like a teenage hoodlum again. It
If you got, for example, 000200 then that would be an early copy — it was a good excuse to get into all that stuff that he hadn't done for a
was a great idea for sales. EMI weren't easy to persuade and they said long time, and | think she opened a lot of artistic avenues for him. The
they couldn't do it. I said: ‘Look, if a milometer can turn over, you must trouble, for us, was that it encroached on the framework that we'd had
be able to do that with every record that goes out.’ And they found a going for us.
way. | think they stopped at some point, so not all ‘White’ albums have
the numbers on them. But it was a good idea and we got the first four. NEIL ASPINALL: This was the first album that I wasn't in the studio for. I
John, I think, got the first one. He shouted loudest! was at Savile Row, taking care of the business and all the rest of it. Iremember
going over there once and Jobn said to me, ‘What are you doing here? You
RINGO: I got number one — because I'm lovely! John was actually the should be in the office.’ Which felt a bit bad, you know. I didn't like being in the
kindest and most loving overall, when he could be. And he wasn't quite office; it wasn't my gig.
as cynical as everyone expects. | got number one here and number four Yoko went everywhere with Jobn, it wasn't just that she was in the studio
in America. all the time — it was that the two of them went everywhere together, so ifbe was
in the studio, then she was.

eee : RINGO: Yokobeing inthe studio a lot-was’a new thinge1t was all WE
e Beatles LP numbering one to twenty should be shared wWe'te very Northern: the wives stayed at home and we went to work —
betweenethe«efour Beatles
we dug’ coal and they cooked dinner. It was one of those flat-cap
attitudes which we*were losing by then. | think if Maureen came to the
GEORGE MARTIN: I can recall Yoko spending a lot of time with Jobn in the studio five or six times that would be about it, and in all the years Pattie
studio whilst we were recording the ‘White’ album —so much, in fact, that when came several times at the most. | don’t remember Cynthia coming much
at one time she was actually ill, Jobn would not let her be ill at home so she had when she was married to John. It was just something that didn’t happen.
a bed in the studio. While we recorded, there was Yoko lying in bed. And suddenly we had Yoko in bed in the studio.
There was a huge bond between John and Yoko. There's no doubt about it: It created tension because most of the time the four of us were very
they were completely together mentally and I think that as that bond grew, so close, and very possessive of each other in a way; we didn't like
Jobn lessened his bond with Paul and the others — which obviously caused strangers coming in too much. And that’s what Yoko was (not to John,
problems. It was no longer the happy-go-lucky foursome — fivesome, with me — but to the three of us). That was where we were together, and that's why
that it used to be. we worked so well. We were all trying to be cool and not mention it,
but inside we were all feeling it and talking in corners.
GEORGE: Yoko just moved in. Well, John moved in with Yoko — or I used to ask John: ‘What's this about, what's happening here? Yoko's
she moved in with him — afd from that point on they were never to be at all the sessions!’ He told me straight, ‘Well, when you go home to
seen without each other (for the next few years at least). So she was Maureen and tell her how your day was, it takes you two lines: “Oh, we
suddenly in the band; she didn't start singing or playing, but she was had a good day in the studio..." Well, we know exactly what's going on.’
there. Just as Neil and Mal were there, or George Martin was there, And that's how they started to live — every moment together. (That was
Yoko was there. She had a bed wheeled into the studio, so while we something Barbara and | took up when we got married; we were
were all trying to make a record she would be in the bed, or under the absolutely moment by moment together for the first eight years of our
piano On a mattress. marriage.) | was fine after that, and relaxed a lot around Yoko.

308 THE ‘WHITE’ ALBUM

THE 'WI
 id to have Yoko there. | can't blame him,
ensely in love in the first throes of the first
irly off-putting having her sitting on
s. You wanted to say, ‘Excuse me, love — can |
up?’ We were always wondering how to say:
off my amp?’ without interfering with their

difficult time. I felt that when John finally left

oup he did it to clear the decks for his relationship.
hing prior to that meant the decks weren't clear — he had
ll his Beatle baggage; all his having to relate to us. He just
vanted to go off into the corner and look into Yoko's eyes for
savit g to each other, ‘It's going to be all right.’ It was
| yretty freaky when we were trying to make a track.
Looking at it now you can be amused by it, and it was quite
a laugh, really. But at the time, this was us and it was our
careers. We were The Beatles, after all, and here was this girl...
It was like we were her courtiers, and it was very embarrassing.
The ‘White’ album was a very tense one to make.

JOHN: Paul was always gently coming up to Yoko and saying,

Why don't you keep in the background a bit more?’ | didn't
know what was going on. It was going on behind my back.”

GEORGE: Maybe now if you talk to Yoko she may say she
likes The Beatles or that she liked The Beatles. But she didn't
really like us because she saw The Beatles as something that was
between her and John. The vibe | picked up was that she was a
wedge that was trying to drive itself deeper and deeper between
him and us, and it actually happened.
It may be unfair to blame Yoko totally for any break-up
because we'd all had enough by then, anyway. We were all
going our own ways and she might have become the catalyst for
speeding up that situation, whatever it was. | don't really regret
any of that, but at that time | was definitely uncomfortable about
her being there.

JOHN: If it is Yoko and Linda's fault for breaking up The

Beatles, can they have the credit for all the great music that each
of us have made individually? Linda and Yoko never had an
argument ever. How can two women split up four strong men?
It's impossible
Looking back, | understand there'd been four guys very
close together, and the women that were with them, wives or
girlfriends, had been the old-fashioned type of female that we
all know and love. The one that was in the kitchen the whole time with
the baby — she never came to the sessions even. You never saw the
wives, only for openings and when they did their hair. And suddenly we
were together all the time; in a corner mumbling and giggling. And
there were Paul, George and Ringo saying, ‘What the hell are they
doing? What's happened to him?’ And my attention completely went off
hem. Now it wasn't deliberate, it was just | was so involved and
ntrigued with what we were doing... And then we'd look round and see
that we weren't being approved. But | understand how they felt, because
f it had been Paul or George or Ringo that had fallen in love with
somebody and got totally involved...*
| always preferred it to all the other albums, including Pepper, because |
hought the music was better. The Pepper myth is bigger, but the music on
the ‘White’ album is far superior.
| wrote a lot of good shit on that. I like all the stuff 1 did, and the other
stuff as well. | like the whole album. I haven't heard it in a long time, but |
know the res alotofl go0d songs on It a

PAUL: I think it was ery good album. It stood up, but it wasn't a
pleasant one to make. Then again, sometimes those things work for your
art. The fact that it's got so much on it is one of the things that's cool
about it. The songs are very varied. | think it's a fine album.
| don't remember the fe; n. Now | release records and | watch to
see who likes it and hov t dot But with The Beatles, I can't ever
remember scouring the charts to see what number it had come in at. |
assume we hoped that peop ould like it. We just put it out and got on
with life. A lot of our friends liked it and that was mainly what we were
concerned with. If your mates liked it, the boutiques played it and it was
layed wherever you went was a sign of success for us.

HE ‘WHITE’ ALBUM
 I was in Scotland and | read in Melody Maker that Pete Townshend something that's a deviation from that cosy little safe routine that
had said: ‘We've just made the raunchiest, loudest, most ridiculous people have for their lives.
rock'n'roll record you've ever heard.’ | never actually found out what Everybody was getting on the big Beatle bandwagon. The police
track it was that The Who had made, but that got me going; just and the promoters and the Lord Mayors — and murderers, too. The
hearing him talk about it. So | said to the guys, ‘I think we should do a Beatles were topical and they were the main thing that was written
song like that; something really wild.’ And | wrote ‘Helter Skelter’. about in the world, so everybody attached themselves to us, whether it
You can hear the voices cracking, and we played it so long and so was our fault or not. It was upsetting to be associated with something so
often that by the end of it you can hear Ringo saying, ‘I've got blisters sleazy as Charles Manson.
on my fingers.’ We just tried to get it louder: ‘Can't we make the drums Another thing | found offensive was that Manson suddenly
sound louder?’ That was really all |wanted to do — to make a very loud, portrayed the long hair, beard and moustache kind of image, as well as
raunchy rock'n'roll record with The Beatles. And I think it's a pretty good that of a murderer. Up until then, the long hair and the beard were
one. (That's why | get annoyed when people say: 'You just do the ballads, more to do with not having your hair cut and not having a shave — a
youre the soppy one.’ | say: ‘Have you checked? Have you listened?’ case of just being a scruff or something.
Not that I like justifying myself, but there is the other side of me.)

RINGO: ‘Helter Skelter’ was a track we did in total madness and

hysterics in the studio. Sometimes you just had to shake out the jams,
and with that song — Paul's bass line and my drums — Paul started
screaming and shouting and made it up on the spot.

PAUL: Then it got over to America — the land of interpretive people.

And as a D) later would ‘interpret’ the fact that | had no shoes on the
Abbey Road cover, Charles Manson interpreted that ‘Helter Skelter’ was
something to do with the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. | still don't
know what all that stuff is; it's from the Bible, ‘Revelations’ — | haven't
read it so | wouldn't know. But he interpreted the whole thing — that we
were the four horsemen, ‘Helter Skelter’ the song — and arrived at
having to go out and kill everyone.
It was terrible. You can't associate yourself with a thing like that.
Some guy in the States had done it — but I've no idea why. It was
frightening, because you don't write songs for those reasons. Maybe
some heavy metal groups do nowadays, but we certainly never did.
Bob Dylan thought that the line in ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’
was || get high, | get high, | get high.’ So there had been some funny
little misinterpretations, but they were all harmless and just a bit of a
laugh. Jake Riviera, Elvis Costello's manager, thought that ‘living is easy
with eyes closed’ was ‘living is easy with nice clothes’. But after all RINGO: While we were recording the ‘White’ album we ended up
those little interpretations there was finally this horrific interpretation being more of a band again, and that's what | always love. | love being
of it all. It all went wrong at that point, but it was nothing to do with in a band. Of course, | must have had moments of turmoil, because | left
us. What can you do? the group for a while that summer.
I left because | felt two things: I felt | wasn't playing great, and I also
JOHN: All that Manson stuff was built around George's song about pigs felt that the other three were really happy and | was an outsider. | went
and Paul's song about an English fairground. It has nothing to do with to see John, who had been living in my apartment in Montagu Square
anything, and least of all to do with me. with Yoko since he moved out of Kenwood. | said, ‘I'm leaving the
He's barmy, he’s like any other Beatle fan who reads mysticism group because I'm not playing well and | feel unloved and out of it, and
into it. | mean, we used to have a laugh putting this, that or the other you three are really close.’ And John said, ‘I thought it was you three!’
in, in a light-hearted way. Some intellectual would read us, some So then I went over to Paul's and knocked on his door. | said the
symbolic youth generation wants it, but we also took seriously some same thing: ‘I'm leaving the band. | feel you three guys are really close
parts of the role. But, | don’t know, what's ‘Helter Skelter’ got to do and I'm out of it.’ And Paul said, ‘I thought it was you three!’
with knifing somebody?” I didn't even bother going to George then. I said, ‘I’m going on
holiday.’ | took the kids and we went to Sardinia.
RINGO: It was upsetting. | mean, | knew Roman Polanski and Sharon
Tate, and — God! — it was a rough time. It stopped everyone in their GEORGE: I can't remember exactly why Ringo left. Suddenly one day
tracks because suddenly all this violence came out in the midst of all this somebody said, ‘Oh, Ringo's gone on holiday.’ Then we found out that
love and peace and psychedelia. It was pretty miserable, actually, and he thought that the three of us all got on so well and he didn't. It was
everyone got really insecure — not just us, not just the rockers, but just one of those things. Everybody felt the same, we were all getting
everyone in LA felt: ‘Oh, God, it can happen to anybody.’ Thank God cheesed off. | felt: ‘What's the point in me being around here? They all
they caught the bugger. seem so cool and groovy and | just don't fit.’ And I actually left on the
next album.
GEORGE: We had incredible things happening in our lives. We had
wonderful clothes, psychedelic motor cars, houses; everything. All our PAUL: I think Ringo was always paranoid that he wasn't a great
songs were about ‘All You Need Is Love’, and ‘Revolution’, and so on. It drummer because he never used to solo. He hated those guys who went
was a ‘turn on, tune in, drop out’ mentality, and even nowadays a lot of on and on, incessantly banging while the band goes off and has a cup of
people feel threatened. There is no flower-power revolution going on tea or something. Until Abbey Road, there was never a drum solo in The
now, but people still feel threatened when they don't understand Beatles’ act, and consequently other drummers would say that although
something, or if they feel that their lifestyle — the little rut that they've they liked his style, Ringo wasn't technically a very good drummer. It
got in — is threatened by what you're saying. They will dismiss you or was a bit condescending and | think we let it go too far
they'll think you're a crank, or even that you're crazy. | think his feel and soul and the way he was rock solic th his
They've just about said everything by now, they've said how tempo was a great attribute. | always say if you can leav:
wonderful we are and how horrible we are, and they've been through turn your back on him, then you're very lucky. You could
up/down/up/down so many times that it doesn't make any difference. In how it went and leave him — there was always this great
some way we went beyond it all. We transcended the tabloids; they still steady tempo coming from behind you. Rock'n'roll i
have their field day now and again — still write their silly little things — really, and sound. So at that time we had to reassur
but it doesn't really have any effect on us. Yet they don't like to hear think he was great.

THE ‘WHI BUM

 (JOU HAVE BEEN ASSISTED By
A MEPBER
OF THE

That's what it's like in life. You go through life and you George went to California
never stop and say: ‘Hey, you know what? | think you're COURTESY CARD to do some filming with
ereat.’ You don't always tell your favourite drummer that he's Ravi Shankar in June, and
your favourite. Ringo felt insecure and he left, so we told Maureen and | went along
him, ‘Look, man, you are the best drummer in the world for with him. We were
us.’ (1 still think that.) He said ‘thank you’, and I think he was always going places with
pleased to hear it. We ordered millions of flowers and there each other. If someone was
was a big celebration to welcome him back to the studio. going somewhere we'd go
with them — we usually went in
JOHN: | love his drumming. Ringo is still one of the best drummers twos. Paul and I went to the
in rock.” Virgin Islands, John and | went to
Trinidad. Every time we went on holiday it would
GEORGE MARTIN: I think they were allfeeling a little paranoid. When be with one of the others. That's how close we were.
you have a rift between people — ifyou go to a party and the husband and wife We got to Pebble Beach, where we were staying, and it was
have been having a row — there’ a tension, an atmosphere. And you wonder beautiful. We went to Esalen and saw what that was about: free love and
whether you are making things worse by being there. I think that was the kind fabulous ideas. Alan Watts and people like that were hanging out there.
of situation we found with Ringo. He was probably feeling a little bit odd Then George went up to San Francisco. He even invited the Hell's
because of the mental strangeness with John and Yoko and Paul, and none of Angels to come and stay with us — that's how much love was around.
them having quite the buddiness they used to have. He might have said to
himself, ‘Am I the cause?’ GEORGE: Derek got a phone call one morning from Customs and
Excise, saying: ‘Is this right: we've got seventeen Harley Davidsons that
RINGO: I wrote ‘Octopus's Garden’ in Sardinia. Peter Sellers had lent us youre going to pay the freight duty on?’ I'd warned Apple about this
his yacht and we went out for the day. We told the captain we wanted because in New York I'd heard a guy saying: ‘We may be coming over
fish and chips for lunch (because that's all we ever ate, being from to England sometime, and we'll look you up.’ | thought, ‘That's all we
Liverpool). And so when lunchtime came around we had the french need, isn't it?’
fries, but then there was this other stuff on the plate. He said: ‘Here's So this day arrived. The Hell's Angels came from San Francisco
your fish and chips.’ — ‘Well, what's this?’ — ‘It's squid.’ — ‘We don't eat complete with their Harley Davidsons, checked in at Heathrow Airport
squid, where's the cod?’ Anyway, we ate it for the first time and it was and drove straight over to No. 3 Savile Row. | quickly put a memo out
OK, a bit rubbery. It tasted like chicken. to everybody, saying: ‘Watch out, don't let them take over. You have to
I stayed out on deck with him and we talked about octopuses. He keep doing what you're doing, but just be nice to them. And don't upset
told me that they hang out in their caves and they go around the seabed them because they could kill you.’ It was a joke, but they were mean.
finding shiny stones and tin cans and bottles to put in front of their cave
like a garden. | thought this was fabulous, because at the time | just NEIL ASPINALL: George had said: ‘Oh, ifyou ever come to England, look us
wanted to be under the sea too. A couple of tokes later with the guitar — up,’ or something. A couple of months later the motorbikes were outside Savile
and we had ‘Octopus’s Garden’! Row with these guys saying, ‘Well, George said it was OK.' They ended up
| had a rest and the holiday was great. | knew we were all in a living at Apple and terrifying everybody.
messed-up stage. It wasn't just me; the whole thing was going down. | We had the Hell's Angels’ Christmas Party. I can remember that everybody
had definitely left, | couldn't take it any more. There was no magic and was getting hungry, and then a buge turkey came in on a big tray with four
the relationships were terrible. I'd come to a bad spot in life. It could people carrying it. It was about ten yards from the door to the table where they
have been paranoia, but | just didn't feel good — I felt like an outsider. were going to put the turkey down, but it never made it.
But then I realised that we were all feeling like outsiders, and it just The Hell's Angels just went ‘woof’, and everything disappeared: arms, legs,
needed me to go around knocking to bring it to a head. breast, everything. By the time it got to the table there was nothing there. They
I got a telegram saying, ‘You're the best rock'n'roll drummer in the just ripped the turkey to pieces, trampling young children underfoot to get to it.
world. Come on home, we love you.’ And so | came back. We all I've never seen anything like it.
needed that little shake-up. When I got back to the studio I found
George had had it decked out with flowers — there were flowers RINGO: They proceeded to ruin the kids’ party — and then we couldn't
everywhere. | felt good about myself again, we'd got through that little get rid of them. They wouldn't leave and we had bailiffs and everything
crisis and it was great. And then the ‘White’ album really took off — we to try to get them out. It was miserable and everyone was terrified,
all left the studio and went to a little room so there was no separation including the grown-ups. It was like the edgy Christmas party.
and lots of group activity going down.
GEORGE: John and Yoko were dressed up as Father Christmas. | didn't
go because | knew there was going to be trouble. | just heard that it was
terrible and how everybody got beaten up.

NEIL ASPINALL: They did get asked to leave Apple. I asked them, but they
got into that hippy language: ‘Well, you didn't invite us, so you cant ask us to
leave...’ In other words, as George had invited them, so George was going to
have to ask them to go. I think George did it very well — I can't remember
exactly what he said, but it was like: ‘Yes/no — Yin/Yang — in/out — stay/go.
You know — BUGGER OFF!’ And they said, ‘Well, ifyou put it that way,
George, of course,’
and left.

DEREK TAYLOR: George, in essence, had encouraged the Hells Angels to

come to Apple ifthey were ever in town. But many others came as well. A
homeless family from California moved into Apple and did actually live in one
of the offices — a mother and father and several children, with the San Francisco
Hell's Angels weaving in and out.
Ken Kesey was in, borrowing a typewriter and tape recorder and doing
poetry readings in my office in the morning. I would arrive and find the Hell’s
Angels sitting around on the floor doing those physical things they did —a lot
of scratching and farting and generally being awful, and saying, ‘Hey Ken,
read some more, man.’ They would assemble for the great man to speak to them
in my working office: Billy Tumbleweed and Frisco Pete (who will be known to
our American readers) and other men.

THE ‘WHITE’ ALBUM & THE HELL'S ANGELS’ CHRISTMAS PARTY

1969-70J

d ¥)

nineteen sixty-nine to nineteen seventy

 £¥ 1.00 - eeco PM.

d befircientss 2 Nagras| |
4% I)2 Neck M crophones
7 Lad Rifle picropho
=| Rea ements: 2 Complete 16 min) B.L. eutfits
Music and Equipment: As arranged with
PAUL: We started Let It Be in January 1969 at Twickenham Studios, But there was a lot of dissension and lack of steering. Really, they were
under the working title Get Back. Michael Lindsay-Hogg was rudderless at this time. They didn't like each other too much and were fighting
the director. The idea was that you'd see The Beatles rehearsing, amongst themselves.
jamming, getting their act together and then finally performing
somewhere in a big end-of-show concert. We would show how the JOHN: I wasn't consciously making any decisions. It was all sort of
whole process worked. | remember | had an idea for the final scene subconscious and | just made the records with The Beatles like one goes
which would be a massive tracking shot, forever and ever, and then we'd to one’s job at nine in the morning. Paul or whoever would say, ‘It's time
be in the concert. to make a record.’ I'd just go in and make a
The original idea was to go on an ocean record, and not think too much about it.
liner and get away from the world; you would Always I've enjoyed the session if it was a good
see us rehearsing and then you'd finally see the session. If we got our rocks off playing, it was
pay-off. But we ended up in Twickenham. | fine. If it was a drag, it was a drag. But it had
think it was a safer situation for the director become a job.*°
and everybody. Nobody was that keen on
going on an ocean liner anyway. It was getting PAUL: I remember once, at a meeting to
a bit fraught between us at that point, because discuss Let It Be, John saying, ‘Oh, I get it. He
we'd been together a long time and cracks were wants a job.’ And | had said, ‘I suppose that's
beginning to appear. right, yeah. I think we should work. It would
be good.’ They had all been quite happy to
GEORGE: | think the original idea was Paul's — have the summer off, and I had felt we ought
to rehearse some new songs, pick a location to do something.
and record the album of the songs in a concert. As time went by, I'd talked them into Let It
We would learn the tunes and record them Be. Then we had terrible arguments — so we'd
without loads of overdubs: do a live album. get the break-up of The Beatles on film instead
of what we really wanted. It was probably a
PAUL: I don't think we were consciously going better story — a sad story, but there you are.
for live feeling in those sessions. I'd say that's
probably true, but I don't remember being NEIL ASPINALL: I’m not sure whether
conscious of trying to make it live. They were everybody was behind the idea of going to
quite good sessions once we got into Apple Twickenham. They'd decided to film whatever they
Studios later on, and | remember sitting round were doing. It was the producer Denis O'Dell’s
quite enjoying the music. It was interesting idea that, ifyou were going to film it, you needed
music to play. space for cameras. They had used Twickenbam
Film Studios before forHelp! and A Hard Day's
GEORGE MARTIN: They were going through a Night, so they ended up out there
revolutionary period at that time, and were trying to think of JOHN: Twickenham was very cold in January, and a strange
something new — and they wanted a new engineer. They WHAT CAN WE DO IF WE CAN'T place to be making an album. It was like half recording and
have Geoff Emerick, so Glyn Jobns came in. I guess THINK OF ANY SORT OF balf filming. It didn't really feel right. Nobody was that
basically they wanted a new producer, but they never GIMMICK? WELL, THE WORST comfortable out there. It was a big sound stage in a film
actually said that to me. So I was still there. THAT WE HAVE IS A studio — and they were working on portable equipment
At the same time, they did actually come up with a very DOCUMENTARY OF US MAKING because it wasn't equipped as a recording studio. Trying to
good idea, which I thought was well worth working on. AN LP, IF WE DON'T GET INTO A work creatively, with every single moment of what they were
They wanted to write a complete album and rebearse it and SHOW. ALL THE THINGS WE DO, doing being filmed, was not ideal
for making a record
then perform it in front ofalarge audience. A live album of THE WHOLE POINT OF IT IS
new material. Most people who did a live album would be COMMUNICATION. AND PAUL: IN FACT WHAT HAPPENED WAS,
rebashing old stuff, but they thought: ‘Lets have a PUTTING IT ON TV IS
WHEN WE GOT IN THERE, IT SHOWED
completely new album that nobody has ever beard, and put COMMUNICATION, AND WE'VE
it in front of an audience.’ GOT A CHANCE TO SMILE AT HOW THE BREAK-UP OF A GROUP
It was a great idea, except that you couldn't have an PEOPLE, LIKE ‘ALL YOU NEED Is WORKS. WE DIDN'T REALISE THAT WE
open-air concert in England in February and there was no Love’. SO THAT'S MY INCENTIVE WERE ACTUALLY BREAKING UP AS IT
venue available that would take The Beatles and their FOR DOING IT.
crowds. So we then started thinking about staging it abroad,
WAS HAPPENING.
we thought about doing it in California, but that would
have been too expensive. We thought ofgoing to Marrakech and importing JOHN: It was hell making the film Let It Be. When it cam
people — but that fell through. In the end, because there was so much vacillation, people complained about Yoko looking miserable in i
there was nowhere left at all. So they started rebearsing down in Twickenbam biggest Beatle fan couldn't have sat through those six v
Film Studios, and I went along with them. was the most miserable session on earth.”

CT
ET
IT] BE
IT
 | had spent che last few months of 1968 producing an album Agate as if a nockir
_cmay and hanging out with Bob Dylan and The Band in _ that: it was like, Since
~y.\ou a great time. For me, to come back into the winter in The Beatles too.’ So
et The Beatles in Twickenham was very unhealthy and But it burned me, and |
can remember feeling quite optimistic about it. | started to have to think twic
4s the New Year and we have a new approach to _ this going to be seen. eros.
‘snk the first couple of days were OK, but it was soon th
cos that {twas just the same as it had been when we were last :
it |
sed t was going to be painful again. There was a lot of
d on nes being played. CEORCE: pe cialieTd Nae‘thatfor the ree Evie oe albums
6 every body knows, we never had much privacy — and now ahey: probably since we stopped touring -a- the freedom to be able to
4 a. vehearsing. One day there was a row going on between —_as a musician was being curtailed, mainly by Paul. There used to be a
n ©. irs actually in the film: you can see where he's saying, situation where we'd go in (as we did when we were kids), pick
2, cart olay this,’ and I'm saying, ‘I'll play whatever you want me to our guitars, all learn the tune and anos ae start ea ab
ola, oy | won't play at all if you don't want me to play. Whatever itis arrangements.
that will please you, I'll do it.. But there came a time, moceihly ound the timeBok Sgt Pepper (whi
y ae were filming us havin a row. It never came to blows, but | was maybe why | didn't enjoy that so much), where Paul had fixed.
Shought, ‘What's the point of this? I'm quite capable of being relatively idea in his brain as to how to record one of his songs. He wasn't ope
happy on my own and I'm not able to be happy in this situation. I'm anybody else's suggestions. John was always much more open wher
getting out of here.’ came to how to record one of his songs.
Everybody had gone through that. Ringo had left at one “DOA [ With Paul, it was taken to the most ridicule situations, where. I'd7
know John wanted out. It was a very, very difficult, stressful time, and open my guitar case and go to get my guitar out and he'd say, ‘No, no, —
being filmed having a row as well was terrible. | got up and | thought, — we're not doing that yet. We're gonna do a piano track with Ringo, ands
‘I'm not doing this any more. I'm out of here.’ So | got my guitar and then we'll do that later.’ It got so there was very little to do, other than a
went home and that afternoon wrote ‘Wah Wah’. “sit round and hear him going, ‘Fixing a hole...' with Ringo keeping thes
time. Then he'd overdub the bass and whatever coe
RINGO: George left because Paul and he were having a heated It became stifling, so that although this new album was supposed to. ¥
discussion. They weren't getting on that day and George decided to _break away from that type of recording (we were going back to playing __
leave, but he didn’t tell John or me or Paul. There'd been some tension _ live) it was still very much that kind of situation where he already hadin
going down in the morning, and arguments would go on anyway, so his mind what he wanted. Paul wanted nobody to play on his songs
none of us realised until we went to lunch that George had gone home. __ until he decided how it should go. For me it was like: ‘What am |! doing
When we came back he still wasn't there, so we started jamming here? This is painfull’ . =
violently. Paul was playing his bass into the amp and John was off, and I Then superimposed on top of that was Yoko, and there were = y
was playing some weird drumming that | hadn't done before. | don't negative vibes at that time. John and Yoko were out ona limb. | don't
play like that as a rule. Our reaction was really, really interesting at the _ think he wanted much to be hanging out with us, and | think Yoko was
time. And Yoko jumped in, of course; she was there. pushing him out of the band, inasmuch as she didn't want him hanging
out with us. :
PAUL: If I made a suggestion and it was something that, say, George IT'S IMPORTANT TO STATE THAT A LOT
didn't want to do, it could develop quite quickly into a mini-argument. OF WATER HAS GONE UNDER THE BRIDGE
In fact George walked out of the group. I'm not sure of the exact reason, AND THAT, AS WE TALK NOW, EVERYBODY'S
but I think that they thought I was being too domineering. GOOD FRIENDS AND WE HAVE A BETTER
It's easy for someone like me, who likes to get stuff done, to come LUNDERSTANDING OF THE PAST. BUT
on too strong. | get excited and | get too keen about something, and TALKING ABOUT WHAT WAS HAPPENING
talk too fast — ‘Oh, we could do that and we'd be there on Monday AT THAT TIME, YOU CAN SEE IT P
morning — Twickenham — we'll do it — it's great...’ And then it got abit WAS STRANGE. | Oa
difficult. | would say, ‘It would be great if we could film The Beatles ;a :
working. It would be fabulous.’ And they'd be like, ‘Well, are you sure RINGO: George was writing more. He wanted things to gohie way,
you want to do it that way?’ It was getting a very lukewarm reception— | When we first started, they basically went John and Paul's way, because —a
and I didn’t quite realise how | was. they were the writers. But George was finding his independence and he
Looking back at the film now, | can see it could be easily construed wouldn't be dominated as much by Paul — because in the end Paul
as someone coming on a bit too heavy; particularly as | was just a wanted to point out the solo to George, who would say, ‘Look, [ma
member of the band and not a producer or director. For my part it was guitarist. I'll play the solo.’ And he always did; he always played fine “a
just enthusiasm, and I'd sit and talk with the director. But | think it led solos. It got a bit like, ‘I wrote the song and I want it this way,’ whereas me
to a couple of barneys, and in one of them George said, ‘Right. I'm not _ before it was,. :wrote the Sng = give me what you can.’ .
having this!’ | think | was probably suggesting what he might play, 3 Se
which is always a tricky onein a band. PAUL: After Cece wees we. had. ai shedtinie out. at jaune are and see:
On ‘Hey Jude, when we first sat down and I sang ‘Hey Jude...’, think John’s first comment was, ‘Let's get Eric in.’ I said, ‘No!’ ‘(think |
George went ‘nanu nanu' on his guitar. | continued, ‘Don't make it John was half joking. We thought, ‘No, wait a minute.George has ft
bad...’ and he replied ‘nanu nanu’, He was answering every line — and I and we can't have this— itisn’ta Meni
said, ‘Whoa! Wait a minute now. I don't think we want that. Maybe
youd come in with answ<ring lines later. For now | think I should start raedZ QO oea) = = a a o
it simply first.’ He was yoing, ‘Oh yeah, OK, fine, fine.’ But it was loved him, and it gots
gettinga bit like that. He wasn't into what I was saying. atta ene Rane aa
In a group it's democratic and he didn't have to listen to me, so |
think he got pissed off with me coming on1 with ideas all the time. |
think to his mind it was proba’). me trying t minate:uaewasn't what
I was trying to do = but tha: «.. iow it seemed, _
This; for me, was evefitiic y what was goit
up. I'started to feel it wasn't a 200d idea to ha 3
past I'd always done that in (1a! innocence, even €
riding roughshod. — ee
| did want to insist. that there shou
phrase: in! le’and that was impor :
 ARS was another oneslike"Manion ee Bar Ina oie Paul GEORGE MARTIN: Paul was trying to keep things t
wanted to — it was time for another Beatle movie or something — he people around because he's quite good at that, but Jobir and '
wa nted us to go on the road, or do something. And as usual George and aig s
were going, ‘Oh, we don't want to do it,’and all that. And he sort of Jobn was being more difficult because be was always with .
ong up. There was all discussions bbe ut where to go and all that. | would turn up very late or not at all — and it got into very awkward
a
would. just tag along, and | had Yoko by then, and | didn't even give a circumstances. John was going through a very problematic period when
a shit about nothing. And | was stoned all the time, too, on H, etc. | just -
a

-
were making the record. He actually said to me: ‘I don't want any of youn
4
. didn't give a shit — nobody did. Like in the movie, When I got to do production shit, We want this to be an honest album.’ [ said, ‘What do you
= ‘Across The Universe’, Paul yawned and plays bone and | immediately mean by an honest album?’ He said, ‘] don't want any editing. | dont want
say, ‘Oh, does anybody want to do a fast one?’ That's how | am. So year any over-dubbing. It's got to be like it is. We just record the song and thats it.’
after year that begins to wear you down.” I answered, ‘OK, if that's the way you want to do it, thats what we'll do.’
We would start a track and it wasnt quite right, and we would do it
| PAUL: These things had been going down in Let It Be: George leaving again... and again... and then I'd get to Take Nineteen: ‘Well Jobn, the bass
because he felt he was being told what to do (I think that's why he left). wasnt as good as it was on Take Seventeen, but the voice was pretty good, so
Ringo had earlier left because he didn’t think we liked him as a let's go on again.’ Take Forty-Three: ‘Well, yes...’ So you go on forever,
drummer. That wasn't as difficult to solve as maybe George's thing was, because it was never perfect — and it got very tedious.
but at the same time John was looking to get out of the situation, and |
think we were all really feeling that some cracks were appearing in the GEORGE: | was called to a meeting out in Elstead in Surrey, at Ringo’s
whole edifice. house that he bought from Peter Sellers. It was decided that it would be
better if we got back together and finished the record. Twickenham
JOHN: By the time The Beatles were at their peak we were cutting Studios were very cold and not a very nice atmosphere, so we decided
each other down to size. We were limiting our capacity to write and to abandon that and go to Savile Row into the recording studio.
perform by having to fit it into some kind of format, and that's why it
caused trouble.”'
It's not that we didn't like each other. I've compared it to
a marriage
a million times, and | hope it's understandable for people that aren't
married or in any relationship. It was a long relationship. It started
many, many years before the American public or the English public
knew us. Paul and | were together since he was fifteen and | was
sixteen. It's a long, long time that the four of us have been
together. And what happened was, through boredom and too
much of everything — Epstein was dead, and people were
bothering us with business — the whole pressure of it
finally got to us. So, like people do when they're
together, they start picking on each other. It was like,
‘It's because of you — you got the tambourine wrong —
that my whole life is a misery.’ It became petty, but the
manifestations were on each other because we were
the only ones we had.
Maybe it was the camera of Let It Be — the idea
that we were going to try and create something
phoney. The camera went on and it almost
happened in Magical Mystery Tour, but we'd
managed to just pick a little magic out.
BY THE TIME WE GOT TO LET
IT BE WE COULDN'T PLAY THE
GAME ANY MORE. WE COULD
SEE THROUGH EACH OTHER,
AND THEREFORE WE FELT
UNCOMFORTABLE, BECAUSE
UP TILL THEN WE REALLY
BELIEVED INTENSELY IN WHAT
WE WERE DOING
AND THE
PRODUCT WE
_ PUT OUT, AND
EVERYTHING HAD
TO BE JUST RIGHT.
AND WE BELIEVED.
SUDDENLY WE
DIDN'T BELIEVE.
IT'D COME
TO A POINT
WHERE IT
WAS NO
LONGER
CREATING
MAGIC.”
 RINGO: |THINK EVERYONE WAS GETTING A
LITTLE TIRED OF US BY THEN, BECAUSE WE
WERE TAKING A LONG TIME AND THERE
WERE MANY HEATED DISCUSSIONS GOING
ON. ABOUT LIFE. ABOUT EVERYTHING.
»utrol
ee: }
console bad
1 1
eae Facilities were OK at Apple because George Martin did
ever yu : re, SO they vhat he'd done out at the Twickenham Studios: a bit of a ‘lash-up’,
fi.
theporrtable so it was good. The studio wasn't finished, but it was perfectly good
sitesitin thereP BR ile ahedie itself, the actual ro technically.
iv play in, was much nicer, much cosier and ti eywerenf
«uch more at home. > DEREK TAYLOR: There was a central heating boilerin the o and it was
Ae not soundproofed. So somebody pointed this out: ‘There's thecentral heating
RINGO: The days were long, and it coul get making a din,’ and The Beatles said: ‘We'll turn it off when we're in bere. We'll
boring, and Twickenham just wasn't reall just have quiet fires.’ The rest of the building could go to hell — they were just
conducive to any great atmosphere. It was ju ordinary people, little people. So it wasn't only in the press office that people were
big barn. Then we moved to the new studios e.1e a making wrong decisions.
basement of Apple to carry on. Anyway, there was a studio ofasort — but in the end, when they made Let It
The facilities at Apple were great. It oe ze Be down there, a portable recording system had to be brought in, so really it was
comfortable, and it was ours, like home. "ie like cooking with a primus stove on top of a big expensive gas cooker because the
great to go to, and when we weren't worki c gas wasn't connected.
could sit round the fire, which we'd had|put in But all those albums followed! In that period, in the crazy Apple time, there was
because we wanted it realy cosy. the ‘White’ album and the finishing of Yellow Submarine, Let It Be and Abbey
It was only at the playback we realised Road — all made in the mad days.
we couldn't have the fire, because when
listened we heard ‘crack, crack, crack.’ We GEORGE: When I went with Eric Clapton to see Ray Charles play at the
say, ‘What the fuck is that?’ and then we al Festival Hall, before Ray came on there was a guy on stage playing the
worked out that it was the firewood crackling organ, dancing about and singing ‘Double-O Soul’. | thought, ‘That guy looks
in the fire! We'd spent so long in studios th _ familiar,’ but he seemed bigger than | remembered. After a while Ray came
we wanted to be cosy, but it didn’t work, on and the band played for a few songs and then he reintroduced... Billy
course. We had to put the fire out when we Preston! Ray said, ‘Since I heard Billy play | don't play the organ any more —
were recording. | leave it to him.’ | thought, ‘It's Billy!’ Since we had last seen him in Hamburg
Glyn Johns was working with us on the in 1962, when he was just a little lad, he had grown to be six foot tall.
album and it didn't seem to work out, sowe So! put a message out to find out if Billy was in town, and told him to
went back to George Martin. come into Savile Row, which he did. He came in while we were down in
ie,
the basement, running through ‘Get Back’, and | went up to reception and
GEORGE: | don't know why George Martin — said, ‘Come in and play on this because they're all acting strange.’ He was
had not been involved at that time. all excited. | knew the others loved Billy anyway, and it was like a breath
Somebody had the idea of having
Glyn ~ oA of fresh air.
Johns, maybe just for a change. It was definitely It's interesting to see how nicely people behave when you bring a guest
nothing personal. in, because they don't really want everybody to know that they're so bitchy.
Savile Row was a nice building befeee “the | This happened back in the ‘White’ album when | brought Eric Clapton to
builders got in there and turned it into Tesco's. I play on ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’. Suddenly everybody's on their
remember going round there when we were thinking © best behaviour.
of buying it, and the basement was fantastic. There te _ Billy came down and | said, ‘Remember Billy? Here he is — he can play the
was a huge fireplace and oak beams, and somebody~ piano.’ He got on the electric piano, and straight away there was 100%
said it was where Jack Hylton used to have his— Bs “improvement in the vibe in the room. Having this fifth person was just
nightclub. We thought, ‘This is great! We :be down enough to cut the ice that we'd created among ourselves. Billy didn't know all
here writing and making records.’ ; the politics and the games that had been going on, so in his innocence he got
By the time it had been made into a Reuidicn it stuck in and gave an extra little kick to the band. Everybody was happier to
was covered all over, and made into a crappy place have somebody else playing and it made what we were doing more enjoyable.
with polystyrene ceilings. The original culprit was — We all played better and that was a great session. It was more or less just as it
Alex, who ‘built’ the sixteen-track studio with the s on the record.
sixteen speakers, which they had to rip out and
redo. You only need two speakers for stereo RINGO: | don't think Billy Preston made us behave a bit better. | think we
sound. It was awful. * »> were working on a good track and that always excited us. His work was also a
But even with the alterations, it was a better part of it, so suddenly — as always when you're working on something good —
place to be. the bullshit went out of the window and we got back down to doing what we
ae did really well.
GEORGE MARTIN: © gic Alex said that EMIwx ‘Get Back’ was a good track. | felt, ‘This is a kick-ass track.’ ‘Don't Let Me
no good, and be could build a m uch better studio. Well, Down also. They were two fine tracks. Quite simple and raw — back to basics.
he didn't, and when we recorded in Savile Row Thad ae I'd done a hook to the track in ‘Get Back’ which sounded good and it's been
equip it with EMI gear. y & copied since — by myself, in fact, in ‘Back Off Boogaloo’. That's perfectly
ty barse at that tine *
The Apple offices were pret _ allowed by me!
clinical and groovy with white p va nice place ; 4
— but the studios were hopeless, |use they werej ti PAUL: Billy was brilliant — a little young whizz-kid. We'd always got on very
empty rooms. In fact Magic a
for all bis techuiealn ~ well with him. He showed up in London and we all said, ‘Oh Bill! Great — let's
expertise, bad forgotten to put : oles in the wall have him play on a few things.’ So he started sitting in on the sessions, because
between the studio and the conti »m, so we had to run he was an old mate really. "
the cable out through the door, e had a nasty twi It might have helped us all behave better with one another on the sessions.
in one corner that came from th ondtioning which — _ | think it also created problems, because as The Beatles we'd always just been
we bad to switch off whenever : ed he Atethy _ four people in the band. We were very much a unit — the Four-Headed
from that, it was ideal! Monster, I've heard us referred to.

ig Lev IT BE 4
 So when Billy came in, | think
that though we did have to behave
ourselves a bit — because it was like
having a guest in the house, some-
one you put your best manners on
for — there was a slight worry in the
background also that maybe he was
joining the group. That kind of
thing was happening. So we
couldn't tell whether it was a crack
in the whole thing, or whether it
was going to be good. It was a little
bit puzzling.
But he played great and we all
had a great time, so it worked out
fine in the end.

GEORGE MARTIN: Billy Preston

was a great help and a very good
keyboard guy, and bis work on ‘Get Back’ alone justified bim being there. He was an
amiable fellow too, very nice and emollient. He helped to lubricate the friction that
had been there. The Beatles
JOHN: ‘Across The Universe’ was first recorded at the end of the ‘White’
album. | couldn't get it on because we'd done so much material. It wasn't a
as nature intended
very good recording. By the end of the double album we were really sick of “Get Batk” is the Beattles new single. It’s
recording. It was a shame because | liked the song.”! the first Beatles récof which,iis as fe as
I was lying next to my first wife in bed and | was thinking. It started off as be, in this electroniclage. 4
There’s no ieraecolnom elie, “larelercliiie
a negative song and she must have been going on and on about something. “Get Back” Is 4 pure spring-time rock
She'd gone to sleep and | kept hearing, ‘Words are flowing out like endless number. ™ ‘
streams...’ | was a bit irritated and | went downstairs and it turned into a sort On th®other side fhere’s an equally live |
of cosmic song rather than, ‘Why are you always mouthing off at me?’ number called “Don'tJet me down”
sohbet [11S 10 - aboutGet Back...
But nobody was interested in doing it originally; everyone was ing in the studio and we made |
sickened. The tune was good, but subliminally people don't want to work in air...we started to write
with it sometimes. | was so disappointed that it never went out as The Ne ind then... "
Beatles. | gave it to The Wildlife Fund of Great Britain and it went out.*° ene BiiShed it we recorded it at Apple
Peele’ lite uiclels itTht) a song to roller-
And then | tried to do it again when we were making Let It Be, but coast iY
anybody who saw the film saw what reaction | got with it when I tried tEBs. Hn Bdds, It's Johnplaying the fab
to do it. Finally Phil Spector took the tape, and did a damn good job § dive guitar solo.
And now John on Don't let me down.
with it and made a fairly reasonable sound out of it, and then we
Ft let me down about “Don’t
released it again.”!
The words are purely inspirational and were given to me — except for In “Get Back” and “Don’t Tetane down",
maybe one or two where | had to resolve a line or something like that. | you'll find the Beatles, as naj
Get Back / Don't let me down f
don't own it; it came through like that.*

GEORGE: ‘I Me Mine’ is the ego problem. There are two ‘I's: the little ‘i
when people say, ‘I am this’; and the big ‘I’ — i.e. Om, the complete, whole,
universal consciousness that is void of duality and ego. There is nothing
that isn't part of the complete whole. When the little ‘i’ merges into the big
‘I’ then you are really smiling!
After having LSD, | looked around and everything | could see was
relative to my ego — like, ‘That's my piece of paper,’ and, ‘That's my flannel,’
or, ‘Give it to me,’ or, ‘l am.’ It drove me crackers; | hated everything about
my ego — it was a flash of everything false and impermanent which |
disliked. But later | learnt from it: to realise that there is somebody else in
here apart from old blabbermouth (that’s what | felt like — | hadn't seen or
heard or done anything in my life, and yet | hadn't stopped talking). ‘Who
am 1?’ became the order of the day.
Anyway that's what came out of it: '| Me Mine’. The truth within us has
to be realised: when you realise that everything else that you see and do
and touch and smell isn't real, then you may know what reality is, and can
answer the question ‘Who am I?’
Allen Klein thought it was an Italian song — ‘Cara Mia Mine’.

DEREK TAYLOR: During the Let It Be sessions I went to the studio at Apple a
couple of times for a few minutes and saw how happy that was. Billy Preston had
then arrived in the session, and there was a very good atmosphere down there. It TD aan ae
was quite fun — but it hadn't been fun at Twickenham, and reports bad been coming 2.42%” in Pe é

back that there'd been endless talking about what they were going to do. Being of a “aoe
suitably paranoid cast of mind by then, I assumed they'd been saying, ‘What are
we going to do about Derek and that bloody office?’ So I was pretty anxious to be
in denial about Let It Be — but glad when they came back to Apple, and were
inside the building again. There was a two- or three-week period at the end of
January when it was nice.
 a Beko Te sun
PONwk Bt
w foe ee aaa
GEORGE: On the Let It Be project we were originally going to rehearse made his way round the back: 'You have to stop!’ We said, ‘Make him
all the new songs and then make an album in a live show. That never pull us off. This is a demo, man!’
really happened because the album became us in the studio. As we I think they pulled the plug, and that was the end of the film.
rehearsed the songs, they were recorded, and the film of us recording
them was really a film of us rebearsing. RINGO: I always feel let down about the police. Someone in the
neighbourhood called the police, and when they came up | was playing
NEIL ASPINALL: They were still talking about playing a concert on a boat, away and | thought, ‘Oh great! | hope they drag me off.’ | wanted the
or in an amphitheatre in Greece, or maybe at the Roundhouse in London. There cops to drag me off — ‘Get off those drums!’ — because we were being
were lots of different ideas about where they might do a concert, and nothing filmed and it would have looked really great, kicking the cymbals and
was ever agreed. everything. Well, they didn't, of course; they just came bumbling in:
‘You've got to turn that sound down.’ It could have been fabulous.
PAUL: We'd been looking for an end to the film, and it was a case of,
‘How are we going to finish this in two weeks’ time?’ So it was GEORGE: We recorded four or five tunes and we might have played a
suggested that we go up on the roof and do a concert there; then we lot more if they hadn't switched us off — but that was enough. The
could all go home. I'm not sure who suggested it. | could say it seems Rutles did a good version of that as well.
like one of my half-baked ideas, but I'm not sure.
DEREK TAYLOR: On January 30th, at the time of the concert on the roof, I
RINGO: There was a plan to play live somewhere. We were wondering remember I heard music upstairs. I'd been so very busy with the usual business,
where we could go — ‘Oh, the Palladium or the Sahara.’ But we would arriving at work to find things happening. I knew there was going to be
have had to take all the stuff, so we decided, ‘Let's get up on the roof.’ something on the roof, but it was not my business. I bad other things going on
We had Mal and Neil set the equipment up on the roof, and we did and I saw people outside in the street and heard the concert starting, and I
those tracks. | remember it was cold and windy and damp, but all the thought it was wonderful to bear this music.
people looking out from offices were really enjoying it. I didn't go on the roof because I was busy with the press. Fielding the calls.
The phones started to ring off the book because everyone in London, in no time,
GEORGE: We went on the roof in order to resolve the live concert knew The Beatles were performing on the roof, and it was fabulous. It was the
idea, because it was much simpler than going anywhere else; also first good, big, positive story without any snags
for months and months.
nobody had ever done that, so it would be interesting to see what Admittedly they were being a ‘nuisance’ to some people, as the film shows,
happened when we started playing up there. It was a nice little social but by and large the calls were just from the press who were thrilled the boys
study. were out playing music again. It was good — and it still is.
We set up a camera in the Apple reception area, behind a window so
nobody could see it, and we filmed people coming in. The police and NEIL ASPINALL: I don't know who our neighbours were. I don't think we got
everybody came in saying, ‘You can't do that! You've got to stop. on badly with them but I dont really think they liked the fans being around all
the tine. And some of them didn't like the concert on the roof. I wasnt there,
PAUL: It was good fun, actually. We had to set the mikes up and get a though. I was in hospital having my tonsils out — so I missed the show!
show together. | remember seeing Vicki Wickham of Ready, Steady,
Go! (there's a name to conjure with) on the opposite roof, for some GEORGE MARTIN: I was downstairs when they played on the roof,
reason, with the street between us. She and a couple of friends sat worrying like mad ifIwas going to end up in Savile Row police station for
there, and then the secretaries from the lawyers’ offices next door came disturbing the peace.
out on their roof.
We decided to go through all the stuff we'd been rehearsing and DEREK TAYLOR: When they did the concert on the roof it opened up
record it. If we got a good take on it then that would be the recording; possibilities. That was the situation. Nobody had ever thought they would
if not, we'd use one of the earlier takes that we'd done downstairs in the perform live, except that we kept saying things like, ‘They may be doing
basement. It was really good fun because it was outdoors, which was another concert.’ There was talk all through the back end of 1968 about doing
unusual for us. We hadn't played outdoors for a long time. ad hoc concerts, so after they'd done the concert on the roof everything was up
It was a very strange location because there was no audience in the air again. ‘They may perform again,’ we said — because it did go well.
except for Vicki Wickham and a few others. So we were playing
virtually to nothing — to the sky, which was quite nice. They filmed JOHN: We've finished it and the most finished number on it was ‘Get
downstairs in the street — and there were a lot of city gents looking Back’. We were doing this rehearsal for a show which we never finished,
up: ‘What's that noise?’ so we got fed up and put the rehearsal out. There's chatting and messing
In the end it started to filter up from Mal (who would come creeping about and all sorts on it. And then we got halfway through another
in, trying to keep out of camera range) that the police were album so we stopped that, and we got tired and took a break. It'll be a
complaining. We said, ‘We're not stopping.’ He said, The police are single LP, but this one's got a book with it — a whole book of making
going to arrest you.’ — ‘Good end to the film. Let them do it. Great! the LP — and we also made a film of it at the same time, so we've got to
That's an end: “BEATLES BUSTED ON ROOFTOP GIG".’ get that together. We made a sort of documentary of us making the
We kept going to the bitter end and, as I say, it was quite enjoyable. album. We've got sixty-eight hours of film there, so we've got to do a
I had my little Hofner bass — very light, very enjoyable to play. In the bit of work with it. All the traumas and the paranoia, all the different
end the policeman, Number 503 of the Greater Westminster Council, things that happen to you when you try ind make a record.”
 a

4id
ne 4

1 D) ed frmm the Sou with the fo

ge S a for e LP. -

The piece between, song anton’ t let me down $i@mad D

cut out. and "Dig a Po purd be the original mNggjmone
by Glyite He hupes til be Oh wWiiin you and i go I
will contact Glyn todapg

PAUL: THE BASIC THING IN MY MIND WAS GEORGE MARTIN: In the end, of course, a documentary was made — with
THAT FOR ALL OUR SUCCESS THE BEATLES warts and all — of the Let It Be album. Glyn Jobns and I put the music
together, and it was an honest album, which they wanted. But it lay fallow
for
WERE ALWAYS A GREAT LITTLE BAND. a long time because nobody seemed to like the documentary that bad been done,
NOTHING MORE, NOTHING LESS. with all the mistakes. They were used to the polished production job —and |
When we sat down to play, we played good — from the very think it was because of this that it wasn't released.
beginning. From when we first got Ringo into the band, and before. But
when we got Ringo into the band it really gelled. We'd never had too JOHN: The tape ended up like the bootleg version. We let Glyn Johns
many of those times where it was not working — though like any other remix it — we didn’t want to know. We just left it to him and said, ‘Here,
band we did have them. do it.’ It's the first time since the first album that we didn't have
tnat was tl » main thing — live we were a great band. Forget about anything to do with it. None of us could be bothered going in.
all MIBEs and recording careers and all this sort of stuff; it was Everybody was probably thinking, ‘Well, I'm not going to work on it.’
really dov . beit good band. I'd hoped that by playing like this in There was twenty-nine hours of tape. It was like a movie, just so much
live performance iid get us all to realise that maybe we didn’t need tape. Twenty takes of everything — because we were rehearsing and
all the highfalutir We could just keep playing and everything taking everything. Nobody could face looking at it.
would sort itself ou | thought it would be good to go out — the shitty version — because
it would break The Beatles. It would break the myth: ‘That's us, with no
JOHN: The thing | is just sitting down with a group and trousers on and no glossy paint over the cover and no sort of hope. This
playing. With The B yt less group-like. We stopped touring is what we are like with our trousers off, so would you please end the
and wed only get toge ecordings, so therefore the recording game now.’ But that didn't happen. We ended up doing Abbey Road
session was the thing w rehearsed in as well. So all the playing quickly, and putting out something slick to preserve the myth.”
was in the recording sess netimes it would be a drag — it's like an
athlete: you really have to laying all the time to keep your hand NEIL ASPINALL: They waited for thefilm to be edited and graded and for a
in. And we'd be off for m nd we'd suddenly come into the studio deal to be done with United Artists. The album Let It Be was the soundtrack to
and be expected to be sp 1wain It would take us a few days the movie —so it was really waiting for the movie. Thats why it came out after
getting loosened up and pl gether and so therefore The Beatles Abbey Road.
musically weren't as toge the last few years. Although we'd
mnt a lot of technique we could produce good records, GEORGE MARTIN: Abbey Road was a kind of afterthought — an encore, if
isically we weren't as toge some of the earlier years and that's you like. Let It Be was only released when it was because Jobn had asked Phil
iat we all missed Spector to work on it.
GEORGE: | think that Phil Spector
approached Allen Klein and was trying to
get some work, or somehow he was hang-
ing out with Klein — probably because he
knew Klein was in with The Beatles. |
think Klein suggested to us that we should
get Phil Spector to come and listen to the
tapes of Let It Be.
Phil Spector made the kind of records
that | like: the wall-to-wall sound. | was a
big fan of his, and we had spent some time
with him in the early Sixties, when he was
in London. So | was all for the idea of
getting Phil involved. Also, he'd been
through a bad patch and he'd given up GEORGE: Paul has been
making music, and | think he was trying to quoted as saying that he didn't
get back into it. | saw it as a way of helping want Phil Spector involved, or
him back on his feet. didn't like him overdubbing
orchestras on “The Long And
RINGO: He's as mad as a hatter. The first time Winding Road’ and other tracks. But |
I met Phil, we were all on a plane going to personally thought it was a really good idea.
New York and that's when we realized
how crazy he was because he ‘walked PAUL: To me, it was really because Let It Be
to America’. He was so nervous of was the bare record that Glyn Johns had mixed
flying he couldn't sit down, so we — with no overdubs on it, no orchestras, no
watched him walk up and down the w oh.
AS.
meat
wld pmne
9en5
5
modu) nothing. It was very, very simple. It was just a
length of the plane all the way. band, very live sounding — in a room or on a
Another time | spent with Phil was roof — and I really liked that. Maybe it was a
much later on when John and Yoko bit tough to take. Maybe it wasn't that
had an exhibition in Syracuse, New commercial, but anyway these were the kind of
York State. A crowd of us were flying things that were starting to go wrong.
up there and we all started off in the
bar. They called our flight, and as we GEORGE MARTIN: Ididnt like Phil
walked to the plane Phil decided that this Spector’ Let It Be at all. I'd always been a
particular plane wasn't safe, so we all walked great admirer of bim. Ialways thought his
back to the bar. That was a good enough reason A recordings were fantastic — and he actually
for us, and we got the next one. Phil was crazy Pa created some great sounds. But what he did with
with planes. 3> Let It Be was to do all the things (and not so
We like to say he's eccentric. He was pretty gt —_well) that we hadnt been allowed to do; and I
strange anyway, but he was a good guy — and ry kind of resented him for it, because to me it was
when it came to music, he knew what he was = tawdry. It was bringing The Beatles’ records
doing. down a peg — thats what I thought. Making
them sound like other peoples records.
JOHN: He really can play a control board. He
just plays it. He can make any sound you like PAUL: | heard the Spector version again
within seconds. His knowledge is incredible. | recently, and it sounded terrible. | prefer
learnt a lot from him. Phil leaves you to present the original sound that's shown on
him with a picture you think you want, and Anthology 3.
then he'll take the best shot of it with his
camera sort of thing. You present him with the z Ny RINGO: I like what Phil did, actually. He
stage set and he'll make sure you get a good id put the music somewhere else and he was
picture out of it, a good sound. You get what yt king of the ‘wall of sound’. There's no point
youre making. The usual trouble is the person's y bringing him in if you're not going to like
interpreting all the time on the other side. Phil = the way he does it — because that's what he
could have been on either side of the board. does. His credentials are solid.
He's like one of the band, not like an A&R
man. He likes the same old kind of rock crap JOHN: He'd always wanted to work with
that I like. When we did ‘Instant Karma!’ The Beatles, and he was given the shittiest
together he said, ‘What do you want?’ | load of badly recorded shit with a lousy
said, ‘1950s — now.’ And he did it.” feeling to it ever, and he made something
out of it. He did a great job.”
DEREK TAYLOR: I met Phil Spector when be
arrived around the time of Let It Be. I thought RINGO: In May 1970 Let It Be came out as the
he was crackers — and I liked him. Phil was my Le last album, though Abbey Road was, of cours
kind of madman. I wouldn't want to go on tot the last to be recorded. It goes to show how
holiday with him because he was too ‘out there’ = & quirky the world is — that the next to last album
even forme. Iwas basically the boy from West £ & ) comes out as the last album, and the last album
32 came out before it. But we split up er Abbe)
Kirby, who bada decent sober wife who bad
kept me from being Phil Spector or Allen Klein Road and weren't really thinking t split
felt at least
or any of those out-there men — but I up on the one before, It's all very s
I could handle him.
that My. cut of the movie w ive
different. And I'm sure John's
would have been different - 1ul’s
JOHN: The least you could call him is
eccentric, and that's coming from some- : thought there was a lot mo! sti
body who's barmy.” than Michael Lindsay-Hogeg
 JOHN: We haven't got half the money people think DEREK TAYLOR: Igot a call one morning that Allen
ve have. We have enough to live on, but-we can't let GEORGE: Klein thought I was in bis way — that was why be was
Apple go on like it is. We started off with loads of APPLE HAS, TO A unable to reach The Beatles. He wanted to come and save
ideas of what we wanted to do — an umbrella for CERTAIN EXTENT, BEEN A them, and he believed that I was blocking his way for some
different activities. But like one or two Beatles things, HAVEN FOR DROP-OUTS, reason. I thought, ‘I'm not blocking bis way —I never even
it didn’t work because we aren't practical and we BUT SOME OF OUR think about bim.' So a contact, Tony Calder, said: ‘Well, if
weren't quick enough to realise that we need a BEST FRIENDS ARE
he puts a call through would you see that it gets through to
businessman's brain to run the whole thing. Peter Brown?’ and I said, ‘Certainly, yes.’
DROP-OUTS.”
You can't offer facilities to poets and charities and So when he called and, sure enough, somebow bis call
film-makers unless you have money definitely coming was blocked, I removed the blockage, because my game was
in. It's been pie-in-the-sky from the start. We did it all always removing blockages. I didn't believe in that ‘whos in
wrong — Paul and me running to New York saying, ‘We'll do this and and who's out’ thing. Unless people were actually known to be bad for Apple, I
encourage this and that.’ It's got to be a business first; we realise that always made people available. I said: ‘Look, hes got a bad reputation but have
now. It needs a new broom and a lot of people there will have to go. It a look at him. You don't have to commit yourself.’ So I told Peter Brown, ‘Allen
needs streamlining. Klein is trying to reach you — take his call.’ So he did, and then the boys (so-
called) met bim.
IT DOESN'T NEED TO MAKE VAST
PROFITS, BUT IF IT CARRIES ON LIKE THIS NEIL ASPINALL: Allen Klein was an American accountant/businessman/
ALL OF US WILL BE BROKE IN THE NEXT SIX manager who was really the manager of The Rolling Stones. Iknow that Jobn
and Yoko met with him and decided that be would be a good manager
for them.
MONTHS.®
JOHN: Klein and Apple were bound to meet sooner or later. We were
RINGO: Apple wasn't being run; it was being run into the ground, impressed by the way he handled the business deals for The Rolling
really. We were all doing this, that and the other. | was in charge of Stones. Besides, he has some of the cleanest polo-necked sweaters I've
Apple Films — after | did Candy in 1967 | thought I'd run it. So we were ever seen. He's the only businessman I've met who isn’t grey right
all running pieces of Apple, and we finally wanted some really heavy through his eyes to his soul.”
dude to put it all together. That was going to be Allen Klein's job.
RINGO: There was a whole lot of action going on at the time. Besides
JOHN: | got a note from an accountant saying, ‘You're broke and if you Allen Klein, there was John Eastman (Paul's brother-in-law) who was
go on it's going to all go, whatever you've got left.’ He laid it out to all also looking to be the manager.
of us but | think | was the only one that read it. And then I announced it Anyway, we met with Allen Klein and we were convinced by him.
in the press and I said, ‘We're going to be broke if they don't stop this Well, | was convinced by him, and John too. My impression of him
game, this Apple business.’ when I first met him was: brash — ‘I'll get it done, lads.’ Lots of
But everyone wants to say, ‘No, no, it’s all wonderful.’ Like the Royal enthusiasm. A good guy, with a pleasant attitude about himself in a
Family: they're always pretending they never cry and they never go to really gross New York way. So the decision was him or him — and |
the toilet, nothing ever happens to them. But they're just like anybody picked him. That was two of us — and George did the same.
else — they cry and they go to the toilet.
I'm sure the others wanted it tightening up, but | don't think they PAUL: Eventually, after the show on the roof, it came down to a
were really aware of it. | mean, they could all tell. Sometimes George meeting. | was about to suggest to everyone that we might go back to
would go in and go crazy because of how many people were just lying doing even smaller gigs to really find our spirit again and get back to
around drunk there and living on the company. But you couldn't stop it. what we were. Then maybe from there we would have more big plans, if
Somehow it needed a firm hand to stop it.”! that's what we wanted.
But John and Yoko had had a meeting the night before with Allen
NEIL ASPINALL: The Beatles weren't businessmen, and trying to run shops Klein, and John reckoned Allen was going to be his manager. He sent
and record companies and artists and publishing and buildings, as well as the word round the business: ‘As from now — Allen Klein is
doing their own things, did become very chaotic. A lot of money was being representing me.’ When we asked him why, he said, ‘Well, he's the
spent without people really knowing what it was being spent on. only one Yoko liked.’
So it was a question of, ‘Who is going to do it?’ I was running it on the
basis of, ‘Tl do it until you find somebody who you want to do it.’ I didn't GEORGE; John came in and said, ‘Well, I'm going to get Klein to
want to do it myself. manage me, and that's what's happening.’ He asked us if we would like
to meet him and give him a chance to talk to us — so Ringo and | went
DEREK TAYLOR: The Beatles had been looking for a ‘leader’ with some to talk to him.
status in either the music business or the City. They were looking for someone After that, there was no alternative, really. There was nobody
who could get a grip of it. They were looking for ‘the man’ all the time. managing Apple. It was wasting away all this money, and nobody had
One night John and I bad some LSD down at my house — Neil was also any ability to be a business manager in our party. We needed somebody
there, and he'd had some too, I’m sure — and we came up with a wonderful ruse: at that time.
we would go to the local bank manager in Weybridge and to the local solicitor Paul had met Linda and he wanted her brother, John Eastman, or her
and say, ‘Listen, Apple is in a mess but we need a simple solution: a simple bank father, Lee Eastman, to become involved. We met Lee Eastman as well
manager who is reliable and a simple solicitor who can see their way through as Allen Klein, and | seem to remember saying, ‘Let's get them both
all this mess.’ This was the LSD solution. together — Lee Eastman and Allen Klein — but | don't actually have any
It all died a death the next day. I still believe it would have been better than memory of them both in the same room. | remember meeting Lee and
what actually happened, when we got into the hands of real ‘money men’ — but John Eastman in Claridge's.
in the absence of the solicitor, the bank manager and all those other saviours. ..
RINGO: I liked Allen. He was a lot of fun, and he knew the record
JOHN: It's easy after the fact — people are always saying about Apple business. He knew records; he knew acts; he knew music. A lot of
and The Beatles’ business: ‘Why didn't you? Why didn't you?’ You sit people we spoke to were trying to get in with the music crowd but
there with millions and millions of dollars floating around and try and didn't know anything about the music business.
work it out.”
GEORGE: | thought, ‘Well, if that's the choice, | think I'll go with
GEORGE: To sort out Apple there were a number of people who were Klein, because John's with him and he seemed to talk pretty straight.’
interviewed at the time. | remember the story about Dr Beeching, who (However, years later, we formed a different opinion.) Because we were
shut down the railways of Britain — so they tried to get him to come and all from Liverpool we favoured people who were street people. Lee
see if he could shut down The Beatles as well. But he didn't want the job Eastman was more like a class-conscious type of person. As John was
so Klein got it instead. going with Klein, it was much easier if we went with him too.
 ry 29th ‘ns 1969.

. : my Laat { ws
2 ~ pgp ea tenner ae — —
, : . “ad ‘ Bp - PAR ARMOR KE RE ree) onan re ra st nea
st
om, =“. gee na I ER ORT NEAR EN IO pl TI Tn PE eM SO a at ar vpinenaaiat
a aa ae calatldi
: RPORe to, PN ek Tans
OS aq ;
iil
o Dear. Sir’ Joe, ee eck James Music-itd.~ = eat
ie I've asked. ‘ek ‘Klein, to “Look
Kk after my things,
+t. .James: House,,.. Rae
aera L- New Oxford street, i?
- = SP RAVE” him
Please: him any And opngt ion.he.wants, and full ef London W.C a ee PAR LES SS Sees mY
aan Y erectus” RT pamalihs _ ”
200} erations <a ; an : y 1969 BN:
jens wen Spat 0 tree, “en
eee Ns

ee wy ohee
ea ean LL OE Og
ae I TES AC aa ; re , a

E <lein is aR acting on our

give him ali €nformation and
ess affairs. be

ER WILL SERVE AS OFFICIAL NOTICE TO YOU T a 7, r. 2

~ e

George Hekteiebn LIE: whines aa lk E

“700 BROADWAY, NEW ety oe: a
Richard Statiey s.dipcere-0 © Uinmearaie’ 8!ecae amen ol
i
WA 11) ¢
: flBice, =
eee t ae yy . ‘ ;,

NO.Gistone ROWED \ VERY {PRULY YOURS,

“fi IN THIS BUILDING FROM
“1, GROUNDIFLGOR WRWARDS
te 0} ) YITHOUT THE ‘CONSENT OF.
wtf are GENERAL F REMAN, : 1 behale |i
yi
Boy /\
YES EW BARNA aae tas
BEATLESaa
‘THE
P s sO: Lk }
2
rk PLES): he i
= se
¥\

%
u 3,

eek

HENS
PTT
Ve
SS
ue

ery
ay
 1Ge SEA BOARD
? 501 46
,
ica
stman an
ILL were
INFO.
so intoxicated
, |
with him) they said, ‘No, he's got to have 20%, and
;
rv. [bere was a he's got to report to his board. You've got to sign now or never.’ So |
said, ‘Right, that's it. I'm not signing now.’ :
There was a big argument and they all went, leaving me at the
studio. Steve Miller happened to be around: ‘Hi, how you doing? Is the
studio free?’ | said: ‘Well, it looks like it is now, mate.’ He said: ‘Mind if]
insaying, ‘Wow, lads!
him comin use it?’ So | ended up drumming on a track of his that night. It was
pit % called ‘My Dark Hour’ — a good track actually. He and | made it alone. I
haeea therest ee § about who we wanted to had to do something, thrash something, to get it out of my system. .
arguments with Paul. The three of us felt, So those kinds of things started to happen, and that was the
S Naha— why don't you?’ I feel that he was tied introduction of Klein — the three-to-one thing. He did get 20%.
affair: ifhe hadn't been in the Eastman family —
d been John ‘Northman’—it could have been more DEREK TAYLOR: Klein was supposed to be intimidating, but be didn't
ut it pi really emotional, because it was a family intimidate me because Ifelt be was like a lot of those heavy people: Ifelt he was
vulnerable. Ifelt Frank Sinatra was very vulnerable when I met bim too —I
could see there was a side ofFrank that really wanted to be liked. Ifelt there
L: Over a period ofa tap months they all worked things out was a part of Klein that I could reach. Hard men are like that sometimes.
of one-page agreement sales (before the formal contract But ifyou were easily frightened — ifyou scared easily — he was a
ppeared). The three ofthem signed — Jobn, George and Ringo — but frigbtener. He bad little eyes that were all over the place. Allen was from New
idu't. I think the day that they signed it Paul just wanted more time. He aa from another culture from us. We at Apple, who had been with The
ee what the rush was. Beatles for a number ofyears, thought we could pretty well do anything. ‘Hey,
so he’s got a hard reputation — we need his efficiency, and ifthere's anything
PAUL: | think Allen Hada very good way of persuading people. awkward about bim then we can contain that.’
Basically, he used to say, ‘What do you want?’ and you'd say, ‘Well, a He said to me: ‘They say you're very wasteful, that you cost a lot of money
lot of money...’ — ‘You got it!’ Or, in Yoko's case, it was (I think) an because of all the drinking and the socialising — but you're not that expensive.’I
exhibition; she wanted an art exhibition and she was having some said, ‘I do know that. We dont go on big foreign trips or anything. It's mainly
difficulty maybe getting it on. | think Allen Klein said, ‘OK, you got it. whisk eee and Kronenbourg lager.’
Exhibition? No problem!’ So we all ended up paying for her Syracuse TheBeatles (some of them) employed him pretty quickly. Jobn said— after
exhibition — a quarter each — and she wasn't even in the group. These he and Yoko spent a night with him at the Dorchester — ‘I'm going to give him
were the kind of things Allen Klein was getting together, so he was everything.’ They checked Donovan and Jagger and Mickie Most and others,
very persuasive. He'd do anything anyone wanted — if he needed to who said: ‘Well, maybe you wouldn't want to go on holiday with Allen, but
influence that person. he'll take care ofyou.’
| put forward Lee Eastman as a possible lawyer but they said, ‘No, So Jobn and George and (I think) Ringo were eis fairly quickly. Paul
_ he'd be too biased for you and against us.’ | could see that, so I asked was not happy for a very long time — never was — but he did sign something in
him, ‘If The Beatles wanted you to do this, would you do it?’ And he the end, around the octagonal table. I think there was a photograph taken — one
said: 'Yeah, | might, you know.’ So I then asked them before | asked Lee of those Terry Venables/Alan Sugar pictures.
"7 Eastman seriously, and they said, 'No way — he'd be too biased.’ They I was in a very big bad lawsuit with Richard Branson at the time.
were right — it was just as well he didn’t do it, because it really would Richard was then a very young man from Student magazine who was suing
have got crazy with him in there. me for non-delivery of something John and Yoko bad failed to deliver to me .
So John was going with Klein, and George and Ringo said, ‘OK, because they were having difficulties of some sort. In other words, I needed |
ohn. Irealised | was expected to go along with it, but something they bad and I had to give it to Branson and couldn't — and it was
good idea — simple as that, really. Actually | asked a £10,000 lawsuit.
came round, ‘What do you think?’ He said, ‘Oh, Jobn said, ‘Ob, that lawsuit you've got with that fellow from Student —
e that kind of thing.’ He didn't really warn us off Allen's going to take care of everything. Everything's going to be OK. There is
d that then was the three-to-one situation. too much fear in this office — Klein will get rid of it all.’ So, another Messiah
anyone didn't agree with a plan, it was always was with us — and there was some relief, and some new fears.
vetoed. It was very democratic that way, so the three-to-one situation
_ was very awkward and as a result ‘things’ would happen. NEIL ASPINALL: Allen Klein brought in bis own people and fired a lot of
| remember being at Olympic Studios one evening when | think we people who were working at Apple. It didnt all take place in one day, but over
sed to be doing something on Abbey Road. We all showed a period of nine months. For example, be would rather have Les Perrin (who
o record, and Allen Klein showed up too. The other three was a PR man with his own outside company who worked for lots of different
t to sign a contract — he's got to take it to his board.’ | people — he did PR ieThe Rolling Stones and other people in the music
night He doesn! t workona Seige and anyway Allen business) than Apple have its own press department. Ron Kass (Apple
has to report to. Records) went; Denis O'Dell (Apple Films) went after Let It Be; Peter Asher
do our session went, i, Bramwell went, Jack Oliver went. It wasn't just slimming down —
it was end ofstor
Ts 1id,, Fell him he Everything banded at Apple after be arrived. It was a completely different
You're Pies} Soret, ‘No, I'm Saga situation. First and foremost, Paul wasn't there.-He totally disagreed with what
iber the exact words: NWe'reea big was going on. But still, they went into the studios and recorded Abbey Road
ut for some strange reason (I thinktKey while Klein was around.
oe.

}.

MEMO
’
e lost marijuana and m xed it with neppalese ©
| tee rolled a joint and smoked it and went if
. and put up 50 yards of fencing and aquired a
which took over the enti
ee and rolled anot
igs After
me that you had called to
AfteraN giving the matter some
| ~ at was happening.,
1t “call you.
I know yo will understand. 4
4
il ‘our £ - nd. a
 L LLTO69 SW INTL CNT PCG TDL LA CANADA CALIF 38/3

|W
LT THE BEATTLES CARE APPLE
NFIDENTIAL
ale)
wt

.
LONDON (ENGLAND)
HAVE INVENTED HYPERSOCAE DRIVE SUPER WAVE VARI ATER TOPOLO(
tL BIOLOGICAL NUMBER THEORY MINIATURE POLARIZING LAZERS +NE\
ar Allen, METHOD+ DISNEY HISTORICAL SOCITY JUDEAN CLUB INTERNATIONAL
MICHAEL A WEINBERG PHONE 213-790-0636
The financial position of Apple Electronics Ltd. As.
using me ae wey concern .at present. ““ APCORE TD/CX
THE BEATTVES
C/O APPLE CORPS LTD.,
GEORGE: WHEN ALL KLEIN Costa, 3, SAVILLE
RA
ROW W.1.
,
Dear
Semb tO APPLE | AS LIKE
734-82 3 > [Oam—-6.3Cpm Mons-Fris.
THAT SCENE IN T UTLES As a result of;recent,discussions:Ishave
WHEN RON DECLINE COMES had with the Beatles sityhas been decided that the
INTO RUTLE CORPS:AND trading activities of Apple Electronics Ltd.
should discontinue.
EVERYBODY JUMPS OUT OF THE
WINDOW. HE FIRED PEOPLE — This means that the Company will no longer
OR SOME PEOPLE RAN AWAY IN require your services and we would like you to
Preitsei| — AND THEN HE accept this letter as formal notice of service
and cheque representing one months. feG@exis Mardas
INSTALLED A BUNCH OF HIS
Neil Aspinall
OWN MEN, WHO THEN Al Crotti
PROCEEDED TO CONTROL
EVERYTHING IN THE MANNER This is to confirm your instructions that all
HE WANTED. Apple Electronics Ltd. are to have their a rey a bi
terminated with effect from Friday 29th August, 1969, and
that we are to pay each person the equivalent of one month's
salary in lieu of notice as at that date.
DEREK TAYLOR: Allen changed a lot at Apple. He was a very big presence RINGO: Allen was great for me for the first couple of years, because all
when be was in town. He had an office right opposite mine, and it shows how I wanted was to be looked after. | would get off the plane or the QE? in
crackers I was that I carried on as I was carrying on. I wouldn't do it now, I'd New York and there'd be a guy there: a pretty stocky guy who would
be far too nervous. But I was fuelled by the certainty that ifI was still employed get me through, get me in a limo, give me a pack of money, get me a
there then I had this other function: I was still representing, ifyou like, ‘the old suite in a hotel — and that was it. That was cool for me; | was easily
days’. I think there are still people out there who linger on after the mood’ gone: pleased. Just get me to the place on time!
the keepers of the mood. What Allen proceeded to do when he arrived at Apple was get rid of
Klein sacked a lot of people one terrible Friday when he said, ‘I'm taking anybody we knew, and put his own people in. | was losing control by
you out to lunch today.’ I'd never had lunch with him. He said: ‘Some guys then. I was getting out of Apple and out of my mind, so it started to go
and girls are getting... um... we're letting them go.’ I think be had Peter Brown and | wasn't in charge at all.
sack a long list of people who were surplus to Klein’ requirements, and he said,
‘Hey, you guys are lucky — usually I come in and fire everybody.’ So those of PAUL: Allen Klein didn't manage to sort out Apple. The thing with
us who remained must have convinced ourselves that we were doing itfor the Apple was that we were great creators, but nobody had half an idea
boys. But maybe we were just there because we hadnt been fired. We stayed. about a budget, so we were spending more than we were earning. The
In the office I had a light show machine with a projector on it and gels that idea was that he would be able to sort that out and give us an idea of
went swirling round and round. It cost £150, I think. Allen Klein had been where we were.
with The Rolling Stones and Donovan through the psychedelic time, and a It got crazy because one of his first things he did was to go through
light show was just part of something be understood but didn't understand: all the filing cabinets that we'd never been through. We didn't even
‘These guys do these kinds of things. I don't know what the hell they do itfor know they existed. (In fact, they lost half the files in one of the moves
but they do it. Theres nothing to it, theres no money in it, but ifbe wants to do from Wigmore Street to Savile Row.) ‘We're the creators, we're the
that and that’ all he does — hey...’ So I was allowed to carry on more or less artists, we're the producers’ — we didn’t have files. He found a ten-year
‘as normal’ for eighteen more months after Klein arrived. contract of The Beatles that we didn't even know we'd signed. But for
Peter Asher, who was notfired, left anyway. He left also out of loyalty to some deal somewhere we'd had to sign: ‘Yes, we hereby link with each
Ron Kass (now, alas, dead), who was head of Apple Records and quite a big other for ten years.’ (We'd always gone on trust before — we never
cheese around the building. Klein was after Ron Kass. He wanted him out actually signed something. We didn’t think about it.) Klein found this in
because he was another American and another accountant with a high profile, a drawer somewhere, so this is what they started to hold me to. | was
and be was conspicuous. Peter Asher, who was a very important person at definitely being held to the very letter of the law.
Apple, as head ofA&R, said, ‘I'm going with Ron,’ and together they set up
with MGM records and took James Taylor with them. JOHN: We earned millions and millions, but I must tell you that The
The atmosphere was not right after that — ifit ever bad been, really. It was Beatles got very little of it. We've all got houses but we've managed to
a mad idea to believe you could save the world, but a lot of people were doing it pay for them financially after all these years. And that only really
at that time. They say that at the time of Christ there were a lot ofMessiabs — happened since Klein came in — the so-called wolf. There's millions
not just Jesus — going round making speeches, and in the late Sixties there were earned, but we’never got it. There's lots of big companies in London
many saviours, some malign and some benign. The Beatles were among the with various names, and you just have to check them o and their

latter, but it got crazy, as it always does. connection with The Beatles and you see where the mone’ gone

in America too.
JOHN: Allen was a human being, the same as Brian was a human being. Brian Epstein was a beautiful guy: he was an intuiti neatric
|
It was the same thing with Brian in the early days: it was assessment. and he knew we had something and he presented us But |
And | make a lot of mistakes character-wise — but now and then | make lousy business advice. He was taken advantage of — w were
a good one.” included — and none of us got it.

APPLE
 That's life. It's no big news that some artist or some kids in showbiz the next morning it would be, ‘Hi Pete!’ then, ‘Oh God!’ — we'd have to
obbed. It's the same old story. The attitude is: ‘if they have money knock the wall down again to say ‘hello’. Sometimes we'd be asked to
hey won't work’. That's not true. If you give an artist money he's secure leave the set, because Peter Sellers was being Peter Sellers.
ind he can work. My big worry always was, ‘Am | going to be Mickey It was great to meet Terry Southern. He was in the next dressing
Rooney? | know we've earned it, but where's it gone? I've got to pay the room to me, so we became really good pals, and we'd write each other
tax some day 1 [t's no good me saying, “I notes. The producers would come up to Terry and say,
xever got it.” The books say it came to The ‘Terry, youll never guess!’ And he'd say, ‘Well, what is it?’
Beatles, or something like that, and we're — 'We've got Yul Brynner.’ So Terry would have to start
going to have to pay tax the rest of our lives.’ typing in something for Yul Brynner. Then we'd be sitting
That was my big worry. | just warn all the there again, and they'd say, ‘We've got Raquel Welch.
kids coming in the business: don't sign They would just call actors and actresses up, or if they
anything unless the lawyer's your brother. were in town bring them to the movie, and poor Terry
Keep it in the family.”! would have to write them in. It was a very strange movie
to make, but it was a lot of fun. Terry would post the
PAUL: What happened originally was that words under my door and then I'd be called in an hour
back in Liverpool John and | didn't know and go down and do them.
about song publishing. We literally thought It was a lot of fun with Peter; we had such great laughs
that songs were in the air and everyone — he was a really humorous person. | had some scenes
owned them. That's how we met our first with him which we couldn't do because we were in
publisher, Dick James. He said, ‘Come in. Sit hysterics. One of us would open his mouth and we'd be
down. Is that what you think? Sit over here.’ gone. We had quite a few days of that.
And that was the deal he did. To this day I'm virtually on that deal. So Peter taught me a great lesson. There's a scene in the movie where |
that meant we were pretty much sewn up from the word go. have all these lines but on the other side of the screen he just picked his
In March 1969, when | was on my honeymoon and John was doing nose. If you watch the film in the cinema, you see everybody shift from
his bed-in, Dick James sold the songs — while we were out of town. me right over to him. A thousand people think, ‘Oh, he's picking his
When we got back to town, we said, ‘Dick! You can't do that!’ He nose.’ It was much more important than the speech | was saying — and
said, ‘You want a bet?’ And he was quite right. It's just the way these so I never let anybody do that to me again in a movie. It was a good
things go. So it was sold, and it became merchandise then. It was then lesson. He would always say: ‘It's your eyes, Ring. It's your eyes. They'll
bought by Lew Grade, who used to control ATV. So that was how be two hundred feet big up there, you know.’ He was a really cool guy,
John and | lost the ownership of so many of our songs. And George, and we had a lot of fun.
too — he lost some. John being involved with Yoko and me making a film shows as an
absolute fact that we were going different places. I've mentioned it
RINGO: In February | started filming The Magic Christian with Peter before: the energy for The Beatles was waning. We used to put in a
Sellers. I'd read the book (which was written by Terry Southern) and we thousand per cent, but now it was dwindling. Now it was like, ‘Oh dear
got the film together by my knocking on Peter's door. | said to him, — do we have to turn up? Do we have to do those things again? | want
‘Let's make this movie.’ So, as he was Peter Sellers, three phone calls to do this and John wants to do that and George wants to do something
later they put the money in and we were off. else...’ We had families. The energy was dissipating because we had
The amazing thing with Peter was that, though we would work all other things to do.
day and go out and have dinner that night — and we would usually leave
him laughing hysterically, because he was hilarious — the next morning GEORGE: John wanted to go off and do his avant-garde or whatever it
wed say, ‘Hi Pete!’ and we'd have to start again. There was no was, and | just wanted to be able to record some songs. Paul on the
continuation. You had to make the friendship start again from nine other hand wanted (I think) to keep playing live. As long as we were
o'clock every morning. We'd all be laughing at six o'clock at night, but happy, | think Ringo would have been happy to have kept going. That's
not to limit him, but | think the
main thing for him was he felt that
we were all getting on so well that
he didn't fit.
WE DID NOT @&
OF CONSORTI NEIL ASPINALL: The acrimony bad
DETAILS NO] started to come in as well in terms of
Allen Klein and what was happening
with the money. Paul really didn't want
Allen representing him —so it was a
slow process.

JOHN: All of us are artists and we're

nothing else, so we can't manage
ourselves or look after ourselves in
that way. It's a lot for four bigheads
like The Beatles to stay together for
such a long time, and in the early
days there was the thing of making
it big or breaking into America and
we had a goal together. But when
we reached about twenty-eight or
twenty-nine it began to be: ‘What's
the goal? We've made it.’ We were
getting more talented. George began
to write lots of songs, and you
couldn't make an album — you were
lucky to get a track on an album.
Then we all started getting more
interested in our own music and
going different ways.”!

IRISTIAN
 ee eoOMMe tl S fA -%
Save LPOGUCtLONM Ass
NDOCKSULASSE ,
wr,
pwatbzerland
(
51 a Wale wa. TTD Tt CuIVT fee
PHY
wR MAGLS
ET —Gtiiti
eA Aoll as

I, RECHARD SPARKGY HERD DY sR eG ie aC Mel Rus CD

: Ae pay to Apple Films Limited at J Davita show, iti ci

BS Bibi or to their’order’ ali eee. S-ynIeL Lag

S655 cand 6 of the Contract between us dated 24ue a ;

1969 relating to my services in: Connecti#™ with thesen SS

Ri fetes ER ay €
te. .

; Wiseteahat ut
to ee
a Bilm.

PAUL: We played to about 56,000 people at Shea Stadium. And after that you think to yourself, ‘What more
can you do?’ The only thing you can do more is play to 57,000 people. So you start to realise that you've either
got to keep trying to play to more and more people and be involved with bigger and bigger events or else just
cool it down a bit. So that's what we're doing now, cooling it down and living a bit more normal lives.”

RINGO: John had probably really gone from the group by then — even in the mid-Sixties. Paul was the
workaholic, or the Beatleaholic. Because John and I lived quite close to each other in Weybridge we'd be at his
house or ours, and we'd be having a really lovely day, really smooth — and then the phone would ring and it
would always be Paul saying, ‘I think we should get back in the studio, lads. We gotta do this.’ —'Oh no, | don't
want to. | want to be on holiday.’ But Paul would kick us around and we'd go back in.
By the end of the Sixties, it was like, 'Oh well, what are we going in for? Who wants to?’ The enthusiasm
was just waning. Paul was still the person who was trying to whip everything together, as he is today. That's
how he is.
The aah Bod GU af le slt
do tha Covey deargn EXACTLY Lib, the
(Yi. poaters xceph bay Hee Hepa coms RINGO:
poi ai IT WAS LIKE THE
if a oo a ey, WIND-DOWN TO A
Ss ete adertaing wile be ter th... DIVORCE. A DIVORCE
USUALLY DOESN'T
; MAGIC CHRITOAN
i JUST HAPPE!
SUDDENLY; THERE A
Rama MONTHS AND °*
OF MISERY UNT
FIN SS
Ort LET ND |

THE MAGI ISTIAN

 So she was sitting in an alcove near
the band, which was Georgie Fame and the
Blue Flames — with Speedy Acquaye on
bongos. They were always a big favourite of
mine. | saw her and thought, ‘Hello...’ When
she was about to leave the club, | stood up and
said, ‘Hello, we haven't met’ — which was a
straight pull.
Then I said, ‘We're going on to this next
club called the Speakeasy. Do you want to
come? And if she'd said ‘no’ | wouldn't have
ended up marrying her. She said, ‘Yeah, all
right.’ So we went on to the Speakeasy, and it
was the first time any of us had ever heard ‘A
Whiter Shade Of Pale’. We all thought it was
Stevie Winwood. It turned out to be the group
with a very strange name — Procol Harum.
That was the first time we ever met — and
then we met on and off, because | would see
her if | went to New York or if she was in
London. There's a point, | think, in most
people's lives when they start to think: ‘If I'm
thinking of getting married, if I'm thinking of
getting serious — now is the time’. | was starting
to have those sorts of thoughts, and | suppose |
was thinking back over all the girls I'd known,
and wondering who was the favourite to get
serious with, and she was one who always came
into my mind.
So | rang her up and asked her if she
wanted to come over, and she came to London
and we stayed together for a while and became
an item. She'd been married before, so she
wasn't keen to get married again. She was
unsure but | persuaded her. | said, ‘It'll be all
right this time.’ She was a bit ‘once bitten twice
shy’ — but we eventually got married in
Marylebone Registry Office.
I really don't remember whether or not |
invited any of the band to the wedding. Why
not? I'm a total bastard, | suppose — | don't
know, really. Maybe it was because the group
was breaking up. We were all pissed off with
each other. We certainly weren't a gang any
more. That was the thing. Once a group's
broken up like that, that’s it.

NEIL ASPINALL: I didn't go to Paul and Lindas

wedding, but they had lunch or tea afterwards at
the Ritz, and I think it was just Paul, Linda, Mal,
Suzy (my wife) and me. I don't remember anybody
else being there.

RINGO: | think we expected Paul and Jane Asher to get married. They
were lovers, they were together, and it seemed a natural thing to do. |
lo now in the end what actually broke them up. We'll have to ask
it, or ask her — that's probably more interesting!

PAUL: On Marcl 1969 | got married to Linda.

I had first met | ong time before that. We actually met in a late-
night club | used t a lot in London, the Bag O'Nails. It was
behind Liberty's. | u: go to a lot of those places, because we'd
finish gigs and recor« ions about 11pm, and we'd be ready to
have our evening off at nidnight when everything was closed, so
we either had to go to c: laces (originally | went to places like the
Blue Angel and the Talk « fown) or clubs and discos.
| liked the Bag O'Na ise, though it was not the most popular
club, we could meet a lot-e es down there — music people like Pete
Town id, Zoot Mone zie Fame. So we could chat into the
wee sn hours and have lrinks
One night Linda show he was in town photographing groups
for a book called Rock and ( Four Letter Words. She'd been sent from
America, and she'd just d ssion with The Animals. They'd come
ver to the club: ‘Let's go o ave a bevvie and a smoke.’

« LINDA MARRY
 ceorce: I'M A TIDY MAN. I KEEP MY SOCKS IN THE SOCK DRAWER
AND STASH IN THE STASH BOX.’
ya Se .« ™

ye .

GEORGE: They chose Paul's wedding day to come and do a oh

raid on me, and to this day I'm still having difficulty with my oa
visa to America because of this fella. a
He came out to my house with about eight other police-
men, a policewoman and a police dog, who happened to be
called Yogi — because, | suppose, of the Beatle connection with Thats bow calm and how cross he was, | as he said, he kept his
Maharishi. They thought they'd have a bit of fun. dope in the box where dope went, and his jo ks went in the joss stick box
They took us off, fingerprinted us and we were busted. It was written He was a man who ran an orderly late-S ousebold, with beautiful things
in the papers like a fashion show: ‘George was wearing a yellow suit and — and some nice stuff to smoke.
his wife Pattie had on...’ In my opinion be didn't have to b | because be was doing nobody any
harm. I still believe what they did w itrusion into personal life
DEREK TAYLOR: I was with George in the office when that call came I don't remember Pauls weddi b, as I wasnt at it. Paul and Linda
through. It was the end ofa long day at Apple. Pattie rang and said, ‘They're dealt with it by being available asant, and pictures were taken. It
here — the law is here,’ and we knew what to do by then. We phoned Release’s semi-public day, but it was a day where obviously the heat generated |
lawyer, Martin Polden. We bad a routine: he came round to Apple, and we all events spreads far beyond the
went down by limousine to Esher, where the police were well ensconced by then But it didn't give me a zy. It wasn't in my life, and als.
—and Istood bail for George and Pattie. They went off to the police station. planned, it was known about. Often what we bad to deal with
We were all extremely indignant because it was the day of Paul's wedding, a spontaneous and imposed on us, like nude album covers, Hell usts
poor way to celebrate it. The police can be so nice. and things like that, and they could be difficult
George was calm about it. George is always calm — he sometimes gets a ~d
grump, but he's always calm — and be was extremely calm that night, and very, NEIL ASPINALL: I was also in the office that evening
very indignant. He went into the house and looked around at all these men and George was saying to me, ‘What should we do?’ and |
one woman, and said something like, ‘Birds have nests and animals bave holes the place, man. Where is it?’ He replied, ‘I've got a bi
but man hath nowhere to lay his head.’— ‘Ob, really, sir? Sorry to tell you we — mantelpiece.’ So he rang Pattie back and told her to t
have to...’ and then into the police routine. which time the police already had a big chunk in thei

EORGE & PA
 of Winston and in lieu thereof do assume as from the

additional christian name of Ono JOHN: We both think alike, and we've both been alone. We both had
these dreams, the same kind of dreams. | had this dream of this woman
next marriage was on March 20th: John married coming. | knew it wouldn't be someone buying the Beatle records. The
way it was with Cyn was she got pregnant, we got married. We never
had much to say to each other. But the vibrations didn’t upset me
d to get married on a cross-channel ferry. That was because she was quiet and | was away all the time. I'd get fed up every
vyhen we went to Southampton and then we couldn't now and then, and start thinking this ‘Where Is She?’ bit. I'd hope that
e wasn't English and she couldn't get the day visa to The One would come. Everybody's got that ‘thinking of The One’. The
hey said, ‘Anyway, you can't get married. The Captain's one what? Well, | suppose | was hoping for a woman who would give
wec lo it any more. me what | got from a man intellectually. | wanted someone | could be
n Paris and we were calling Peter Brown, and said, 'We myself with.”
t to { iarried. Where can we go?’ And he called back and said,
Gibralta only place.’ So — ‘OK, let's go!’ And we went there and it PAUL: Yoko really became the central fact in John’s life. | remember
beautiful. It's the Pillar of Hercules, and also symbolically. they thinking of it being like army buddies. One of the songs we used to love
led. it nd of the World at one period. There's some name besides in the past was ‘Wedding Bells’ — ‘Those wedding bells are breaking up
Pillar o rcules — but they thought the world outside was a mystery that old gang of mine...’ — and the idea that you'd been army buddies,
rom th so it was like the Gateway to the World. So we liked it in but one day you have to kiss the army goodbye, go and get married and
the sy lie sense, and the Rock foundation of our relationship.* act like normal people.
It was a bit like that for The Beatles; we always knew that day had to
NEIL ASPINALL: Its in the song ‘The Ballad Of John And Yoko’ that come. When John hooked up with Yoko so intensely, it was obvious
Peter Brown called to say, ‘You can get married in Gibraltar.’ They just that there could be no looking back. In the intensity of his love affair,
chartered a plane, took off for Gibraltar and got married there. I think Jobn that was the way he had to treat it. It was exciting him so much that he
had been drifting away from The Beatles for a while — since he got together didn't really have much time for us. We were the past and she was the
with Yoko, really. future. We were in the middle of that and we had to try to understand it.

DEREK TAYLOR: Yoko had taken the place of everybody in Jobn's life. Since
they bad met she was his life, and he was hers, and they were very co-dependent
people. They had no life outside each other.

JOHN: BUT NOW MY LIFE HAS CHANGED IN

OH SO MANY WAYS... AWOP-BOP-ALOO-BOP-
ABIM-BAM-BOOM.”
 I had been anxious when it was obvious I was going to have to deal with a sincerely believed in, which was peace — and we were part of the peace
broken marriage and press and all that kind of innuendo. I did have a word movement.”
with Jobn, though not in a pompous way: ‘I'm prepared for whats coming. I I think the only way to do it is Gandhi's way. And that's non-violent,
just want you to know that what is coming is a lot of unpleasant stuff, about passive, positive, or whatever he called it in those days.”
somebody breaking up a marriage, bome-wrecking, that kind of stuff. This is
what people and the press are saying, and you know how pompous and GEORGE: | liked the idea of their promoting peace — | was all for that.
prurient they are,’ and so on. Right from the time we went to the dentist's dinner party | knew what
But once it had been established that they were a couple I was in on the John felt about things, and it was no surprise to me that he would want
thing. I was very fond of Cynthia, but this was it. So I was for it in the end, some peace, and the manner in which he did it wasn't really a surprise
because he was besotted with Yoko and she was with him. They were quite either. It was also fun for him because he could do it with Yoko, do it
an item. after his wedding, do it as his honeymoon/bed-in.

JOHN: The alienation started when I met Yoko, and people do not RINGO: | THOUGHT THE BED-IN FOR PEACE
seem to like people getting a divorce. It's all right to do it quietly, but
we can't do it quietly. So we fell in love and we married. A lot of people
WAS GREAT. THEY WERE NOW THE AVANT-
think that's a bit odd, but it happens all the time. And Yoko just GARDE, DOING THAT FOR PEACE. THERE
happened to be Japanese, which didn’t help much. So everybody had WAS A GREAT SCENE ON THE DAVID FROST
this impression that John’s gone crazy — but all | did was fall in love, like SHOW WHEN THEY GOT IN THE BAG ON
a lot of people do who are already married, who had married somebody
very young. Wee JUST TALK TO US, NOT TO OUR
When Yoko and | got married, we got terrible racialist letters — you IMAGE.’
know, warning me that she would slit my throat. Those mainly came
from army people living in Aldershot. Officers.”! JOHN: We were asked to make a film for Austrian TV, which we did,
called Rape — which wasn't a rape but it was called Rape. It was rape by
RINGO: I think John and Yoko were trying to keep camera, in fact. So when we went to Austria to show it,
the wedding fairly quiet. That's why he went to we did a press conference in a bag. And it was great,
Gibraltar. JOHN: IN Paris, THE because all the press came in and they never saw us —
VIETNAM PEACE TALKS HAVE we were both in a bag, and they interviewed the bag.
GEORGE: I didn't know about John marrying Yoko in GOT ABOUT AS FAR AS SORTING They were saying, ‘Is it really you?’ and, ‘What are you
Gibraltar — | bought the record! | don't think he OUT THE SHAPE OF THE TABLE wearing? and ‘Will you sing a song?’ They were
wanted anybody to know. He wanted it to be quiet THEY ARE GOING TO SIT ROUND, saying, ‘Why us? What is this?’ and I said, ‘It’s total
and private. THOSE TALKS HAVE BEEN GOING communication.’ And they said, ‘Why do you pick on
ON FOR MONTHS. IN ONE WEEK us? We've never seen a Beatle!’
JOHN: Yoko and | decided that we knew whatever we IN BED, WE ACHIEVED A LOT If everyone went in a bag for a job there'd be no
did was going to be in the papers. We decided to MORE. WHAT? A LITTLE OLD prejudice: you'd have to judge people on their quality
utilise the space we would occupy anyway, by getting LADY FROM WIGAN OR HULL within. We call it total communication. It was a great
married, with a commercial for peace.” WROTE TO THE DAILY MIRROR press conference, and they all had a very serious
Now the bed-in was just to catch the attention of ASKING IF THEY COULD PUT conversation with a bag. The next day the headlines in
the press. The first bed-in was held in Amsterdam on YOKO AND MYSELF ON THE Austria were — they'd show a bag with all the press
our honeymoon. We sent out a card: ‘Come to John FRONT PAGE MORE OFTEN. SHE men just talking to it.”!
and Yoko's honeymoon: a bed-in, Amsterdam Hotel.’ SAID SHE HADN'T LAUGHED SO And [during] many of the openings in London
You should have seen the faces on the reporters and MUCH FOR AGES. THAT'S GREAT, where the white bag appeared in a big white Rolls
the cameramen fighting their way through the door! THAT'S WHAT WE WANTED. | Royce, actually John and Yoko were at home watching
Because whatever it is, is in people's minds — their MEAN, IT’S A FUNNY WORLD themselves being filmed, being shown on the nightly
minds were full of what they thought was going to WHEN TWO PEOPLE GOING TO news. So put that in your bag and think about it.
happen. They fought their way in, and their faces BED ON THEIR HONEYMOON Usually there was a serious intent behind it,
dropped. There were we like two angels in bed, with CAN MAKE THE FRONT PAGES IN because our feeling was there's nothing but ‘MAN
flowers all around us, and peace and love on our heads. ALL THE PAPERS FOR A WEEK. | EATS BABY’ on the news, or the Daily Express saying
We were fully clothed; the bed was just an accessory. WOULDN'T MIND DYING AS THE ‘MORE BOMBS PLEASE’, and our thing was: get some
We were wearing pyjamas, but they don't look much WORLD'S CLOWN. I'M NOT laughs on it.”
different from day clothes — nothing showing.” LOOKING FOR EPITAPHS.°”
The press seemed to think we were going to make RINGO: ‘The Ballad Of John And Yoko’ only had Paul
love in public because we made an album with us (of the other Beatles) on it but that was OK. ‘Why
naked — so they seem to think anything goes. And, as | said, it might be Don't We Do It In The Road’ was just Pau! and me, and it went out as a
a very good idea for peace, but I think I'd probably be the producer of Beatle track too. We had no problems with that. There's good drums on
that event rather than be actually in the event.” 'The Ballad Of John And Yoko’, too.
We talked to the press. We met people from the Communist
countries, people from the West — every country in the world. We gave JOHN: The follow-up to ‘Get Bac! ; ‘Ballad of John and Yoko’. It's
the press eight hours of every day, every waking hour, to ask every something | wrote, and it's like an « sid-time ballad. It's just the story o!
question they wanted to about our position. People said, ‘Well, what us getting married, going to Paris going to Amsterdam, all that. It’s
does this do for peace?’ We thought, 'The other side has war on every ‘Johnny B. Paperback Writer’!
day, not only on the news but on the old John Wayne movies and every | don't regard it as a separate record scene... it's The Beatles’ nex
damn movie you see: war, war, war, war, kill, kill, kill, kill.’ We said, single, simple as that. The story came out that only Paul and I we:
‘Let's get some peace, peace, peace, peace on the headlines, just for a the record, but | wouldn't have bothered publicising that t doesnt

it highly amusing that a lot of the world’s mean anything; it just so happened that there were only us two ther
change!’ So we thought
headlines on March 25th 1969 were ‘HONEYMOON COUPLE IN BED’, George was abroad, and Ringo was on the film and he co ildn't come
that night. Because of that, it was a choice of either re-mixing or doing a
Whoopee! Isn't that great news?”
We thought instead of just being ‘John and Yoko Get Married’, like new one — and you always go for doing a new one instead of fiddlin;
‘Richard and Liz Get Married’, [it should be] JOHN AND YOKO GET about with an old one. So we did, and it turned out wel!
MARRIED AND HAVE A BED-IN FOR PEACE’. So we would sell our product,
which we call ‘peace’. And to sell a product you need a gimmick, and GEORGE: | didn’t mind not being invited to the wedding, and |
mind not being on the record, because it was nm f my busi
the gimmick we thought was ‘bed’. And we thought ‘bed’ because bed
'The Ballad Of John And Yoko’. If it had been the ‘lhe Ballad ‘
was the easiest way of doing it, because we're lazy. It took us a long
train of thought of how to get the maximum publicity for what we George And Yoko’, then | would have been on it

JOHN & YO \RRY 333

 E MARTIN: Jobn and Yoko being allowed in hadfailed. They'd done
r as they went along. Once they the whole bed-in during an appeal
sensible period, so to period. As soon as the ten days were up,
orking with them. they were told to clear off. In fact they
cassette of were put on thefirst plane out to
e bad made, and say: Frankfurt — which is not where we were
mething out of this?’ I going; we were going to London. So
ds for bim because that, again, is something people forget!
»0d technically. Doing a bed-in and being deported when
! re ing with Jobn and it was over.
Yoko on ‘Ti id Of Jobn And
Yoko’. It u the two of them with PAUL: If you watch some of the
Paul. Whe uw think about it, ina great footage in Imagine you see the
my kind o! way it was the beginning cartoonist Al Capp. He comes into
) bel, and their own way the bed-in and he's really bitter. He's
of recordivy. ft was hardly a Beatle a wicked old git, but John’s brilliant
track it was a Beatle track. It was with him. John really wants to deck
a kind of thin end of the wedge, as far him but you can see he controls
as they ¢ ere concerned. Jobn bad himself. | think John behaved very
already mentally left the group well there, because the guy is
anyway, and I think that was just the actually slagging off Yoko — and
beginning of it all. that's one thing you don't do. You
don't slag off someone's missus —
JOHN: ‘The Ballad Of John And that's tribal time, isn't it? | think
Yoko’, by the way, was banned over John was very good. It was: ‘Let's not
here [in the USA]. So what they sink to his level.’
did was, because they don't like the
word ‘Christ’ -— unless you're DEREK TAYLOR: By now it was
wearing a white robe, you can't say quite clear there was a ‘get The Beatles’
‘Christ’ here — they turned it round type of thing going on. They were
so it would go: ‘Rrrrp, you know it getting a terrifically mixed press. There
ain't easy...’ was a lot of abuse and a lot of praise.
The American media tended to be
DEREK TAYLOR: There was also the more generous. There was a lot of
bed-in in Montreal at the end ofMay. I ‘alternative press’ in those days. The
went out on that as well — John and Yoko, thefilm crew, Yoko’ daughter Village Voice, LA Free Press and Rolling Stone were new then. But the
Kyoko, Derek, twenty-six pieces of luggage, and various white suits. day-to-day press in England — Fleet Street and so on — by and large thought
Joan and I went out on the QE2. It was arranged that we would travel Jobn and Yoko were crackers. I knew they weren't and this was a good peace
with John and Yoko and Neil and Suzy — but, as the song says, ‘Standing on movement they ran. And ‘Give Peace A Chance’ was a great song.
the dock at Southampton...’ John and Yoko weren't allowed on the QE2
because of visa trouble over the dope bust. (They flew to Montreal instead, via JOHN: I like ‘Give Peace A Chance’ for what it was. | couldn't say that
the Babamas and Toronto.) Neil didn't go either, but Ringo and Peter Sellers was the best song as a song I'd ever written, but I'm always proud of it. |
and wives and others were elsewhere on this enormous liner on its second think one of the highest moments was hearing all those people in
voyage. It was that kind of weirdness going on again. I telexed a long, long Washington, when the whole anti-war group were singing it. That was
report on this adventure forThe Beatles Monthly, by order of Jobn. an emotional moment for me.”
The first destination for the bed-in had been Freeport in the Babamas, where | sort of cheated. The word ‘masturbation’ was in it, but | wrote in
Allen Klein's nephew bad spent bis honeymoon in a borrible hotel with twin the lyric sheet — because I'd had enough of the bannings — | mean, I'd
beds cemented to the floor with a big block of concrete between them painted been banned so many times all over that | copped out and wrote
white. Jobn looked around and said, ‘We cant do a bloody ‘mastication’. It was more important to get it out than
bed-in here. Lets go to Canada. That's the nearest place to be bothered by a word, ‘masturbation’.*
America apart from the Babamas.' PAUL:
They had the bed-in for eight days. Hundreds of people GEORGE MARTIN WAS ONCE DEREK TAYLOR: By then we were embattled, and in
came to the bedside. The questions were dealt with by John TALKING TO US IN THE the end John and Yoko did so much press and got involved
and Yoko in thefull spirit of Apple, because they made RECORDING STUDIO, AND HE with so many causes, from Black Power to trying to clear
themselves completely available to anybody on earth who CAME DOWN AND SAID, James Hanratty’s name, that the press just got John and
wanted to come into the bedroom — provided they were not ‘SOMEBODY WANTS TO SEE Yoko fatigue.
obviously carrying a blood-stained axe. People could come YOu.’ WE SAID, ‘WHO IS IT,
in and ask them questions. Maybe they came in thousands, THEN?’ AND HE SAID, ‘OH, IT'S JOHN: In Britain, the press treat us like children:
it felt like it SOME CRANK TALKING ABOUT ‘We're not having that middle-aged Beatle lecturing us
I was sort ofcontro! ng a big People Theatre. There is PEACE.’ HE WAS RIGHT: THERE on peace, and philosophy isn't his forte.’ As_ if
some footage of that tim hich you see quite a packed WAS A CRANK TALKING ABOUT politicians and journalists have some kind of super gift
room. Over a period of te: s you could process a great PEACE. from God that gave them their wisdom.”
many people through a bote and they were doing IF YOU TALK ABOUT PEACE In Britain I'm the guy who got lucky and won the
broadcasts to the world on phones and hook-ups. It YOU'RE A CRANK, AND YOU'RE pools, and Yoko's the Hawaiian who married the guy
was before satellites. PIGEONHOLED AND ASSOCIATED who got lucky and won the pools. In America we're
My job was to be around . ind night while they were WITH VIETNAM AND SITTING artists...”
in bed. They were able to rest n visits. They were able DOWN IN TRAFALGAR SQUARE,
to lie down and get new pyjaw A lot of us have had AND EVERYBODY THINKS THEY DEREK TAYLOR: Ididn't think John was drifting away
dreams about running our whole life from bed, and for ten KNOW WHAT YOU ARE THEN. from the group, because they were still musically completely
days that was what they did : AS THEY WERE, WHEN THEY involved. It seemed to me that all that was happening could
They were having also to I think every few WENT INTO THE BED-IN AND somebow co-exist — although it was not an easy year.
lays — to the consul in Montt ause they were only SAID: ‘LOOK, THIS IS FOR PEACE.’ I dont think it was a very happy year; I'm extremely
there on sufferance, and were it leported from Canada IT WAS A GREAT WAY TO glad it is over. It got worse when Allen Klein arrived, and
the end of the bed-in because | 1ppeal against not ATTRACT ATTENTION TO PEACE. the atmosphere then wasn't as happy in the office.

THE BALLAI F JOHN AND YOKO

 JOHN: REALLY, THERE'S NO DIFFERENCE
BETWEEN WHAT WE'RE DOING NOW
AND WHAT WE'VE ALWAYS DONE.
THE IDEA OF PEACE HAS ALWAYS
BEEN WITH US. YOU COULD SMELL
IT IN THE EARLY BEATLE SONGS. IT’S
LIKE THE BEATLES SINGING ‘ALL YOU
NEED IS LOVE' —- I'M JUST SINGING
‘ALL YOU NEED IS PEACE’ NOW.”

; 70

RJH 2B
“: cx c
eXre
a.
C839 LU3
LU345 11
reece
Oo.
oeok, 36: a AS L OLC410 AD INTL OAKLAND CALIF 36 20° 153P PDT
.
th e
TS 2 ¥ fj Ras: ; ne orcv
TAYLOR
> “2 v
%
LT THE BEATLES Care DEREK
cf
:
t Lt
iy:
Df ay

Mee he 3 SAVILLEROW LONDONWEST1( ENGLAND)

“I o
HEL Pp
BLUE ME Fe
MEANIES YW
UN
IN
UPON US THEY HAVE CAPTURED Ol T TER
PULLED
na UP UP OUR F
OUR FLOY ANDD TORN DOWN an
OUR KITES rs LOVE oe gee” aes
BESIEGED se niet py cage

Teliday in Bahamas.
aii oar

ot ‘The Magic Christian”:” then “two weeks

Jude’’ which achieved highest c
Vlay 22 Ivor Novello award for “Hey
August 1968.
British sales in 1968 although not released until
to Baham as for a Peace *‘lie in”.
Viay 24 John arf€ Yoko fly
flew to Montreal fas Péace
Change of plans for es and Peles who.
campaign instead.
May 30) SINGLE: THE BALLAD OF JOHN AND YOKO.
George on holiday in Sardinia. 3
u ;
Paul on holiday in South of Frapee™
Peace “‘lie in’ *&
John and Yoko return, fporfCanada after
 » aes eS Bhi BY AER

ee
SA
i

EY ROAD
GEORGE: The album Get Back (or Let It Be, as it became) was not JOHN: We always have tons of bits and pieces lying around. I've got
released until May 1970 and became probably the most bootlegged stuff that | wrote around Pepper, because you lose interest in it a bit after
record of all time. It was laying dormant and so we decided, ‘Let's make you've had it for years. It was a good way of getting rid of bits of songs
a good album again.’ We thought it was a good In fact, George and Ringo wrote bits of it as we
idea to get George Martin involved. We went did it, literally — in-between bits and breaks
back to Abbey Road and made the album. too. Paul would say, ‘We've got twelve bars
here — fill it in.’ And we'd fill it in on the spot.”
RINGO: It felt comfortable being back at
Abbey Road with George Martin. We felt at PAUL: John had a bit called ‘Polythene Pam
home. We knew George and George knew us. which was based on a girl he'd met a long time
We knew the place: ‘Here we are again, lads.’ ago through the poet Royston Ellis, a friend of
ours from Liverpool. We'd re-met him down
PAUL: While we were in the studio, our South when we got out on tour, somewhere
engineer Geoff Emerick always used to smoke like Shrewsbury — he just showed up at the gig.
cigarettes called Everest, so the album was John had gone out to dinner with him and
going to be called Everest. We never really back to his flat afterwards, and there was a girl
liked that, but we couldn't think of anything there who apparently had polythene around
else to call it. Then one day | said, ‘I've got it!’ her. He came back with all these tales about a
— | don't know how | thought of it — ‘Abbey girl who dressed in polythene: ‘Shit! There was
Road! It's the studio we're in, which is fabulous, this chick and it was great...’ and we thought,
and it sounds a bit like a monastery.’ ‘Oh, wow!’ Eventually he wrote the song.

RINGO: We went through weeks of all saying, JOHN: ‘Polythene Pam’ was me remembering
‘Why don't we call it Billy's Left Boot?’ and things a little event with a woman in Jersey, and a
like that. And then Paul just said, ‘Why don't man who was England's answer to Allen
we call it Abbey Road?” Ginsberg. She didn't wear jackboots and kilts, |
elaborated. Perverted sex in a polythene bag. |
GEORGE MARTIN: Let It Be was such an was just looking for something to write about.”
unbappy record (even though there are some great
songs on it) that I really believed that was the end of PAUL: I had a couple of bits and pieces that
The Beatles, and I assumed thatIwould never work weren't finished. They were songs that needed
with them again. I thought, ‘What a shame to end maybe a middle, or a second verse or an end.
like this.’ So I was quite surprised when Paul rang I was playing the piano in Liverpool in my
me up and said, ‘We're going to make another record — would you like to dad's house, and my step-sister Ruth's piano book was up on the
produce it?’ stand. | was flicking through it and | came to ‘Golden Slumbers'’. |
My immediate answer was: ‘Only ifyou let me produce it the way we used can't read music and | couldn't remember the old tune, so I just
to.’He said, ‘We will, we want to.’—‘Jobn included?’ — ‘Yes, honestly.’ So I started playing my own tune to it. I liked the words so I kept them,
said, ‘Well, ifyou really want to, let's do it. Let's get together again.’ It was a and it fitted with another bit of song | had. | also had ‘You Never
very happy record. I guess it was happy because everybody thought it was Give Me Your Money’...
going to be the last.
GEORGE: ‘Funny paper’ — that's what we get. We get bits of paper
JOHN: Music is music. All these characters complain about us and saying how much is earned and what this and that is, but we never
Dylan not being progressive, but we're the ones that turned them on to actually get it in pounds, shillings and pence. We've all got a big house
the other stuff — so let them take our word for it. This is music, baby. and a car and an office, but to actually get the money we've earned
When we feel like changing, fine. It's the same with this next album seems impossible.”
were into. This will probably please the critics a bit more, because we
got a bit tired of just strumming along forever. We got into production PAUL: We used to ask, ‘Am I a millionaire yet?’ and they used to say
again. cryptic things like, ‘On paper you are.’ And we'd say, ‘Well, what does
We don't really write together any more. We haven't written that mean? Am | or aren't 1? Are there more thai nillion of those
together for two years — not really, just occasional bits. | do what | like, green things in my bank yet?’ and they'd say, 'W ; not actually in a
Paul does what he likes and George does what he likes — and Ringo. We bank. We think you are...’ It was actually very cult to get anything
just divide the album time between ourselves. As far as we're concerned, out of these people and the accountants nev: e you feel successful.
this album is more Beatley than the double album.”
JOHN: My contribution is ‘Polythene P sun King’ and ‘Mean Mr
NEIL ASPINALL: Idont think I ever went to a session when they were Mustard’. We juggled them about until made vague sense. In ‘Mean
recording Abbey Road. It didn't take them a long time — a couple of months. Mr Mustard’, I said ‘his sister Pam’ — o1 ginally it was ‘his sister Shirley’
Jobn was involved in a car-crash then as well, so be was away for a while. in the lyric. | changed it to ‘Pam’ to mz it sound like it had something
to do with it. They are only finished | of crap that I wrote in India
RINGO: After the Let It Be nightmare, Abbey Road turned out fine. The [On ‘Sun King'] when we came sing it, to make them different we
second side is brilliant. Out of the ashes of all that madness, that last started joking, saying ‘cuando p nucho’. We just mad ip. Paul
section is for me one of the finest pieces we put together. knew a few Spanish words from school, so we just strun Spanish
John and Paul had various bits, and so we recorded them and put words that sounded vaguely Ii! mething. And of cour got ‘chicka
them together. It actually points out that this is where it's at, that last ferdi’ — that's a Liverpool expression; it doesn’t mean ng, just like
portion. None of the songs were finished. A lot of work went into it, ‘ha ha ha’. One we missed ould have had ‘para but we forgot
but they weren't writing together. John and Paul all about it. We used to call ourselves Los Para Noias
weren't even writing much on their own, really. :
GEORGE: PAUL: In 'The End’ there wer ‘e guitar sol
PAUL: | think it was my idea to put all the spare bits A JOKE NAME FOR US WAS THE where John, George and I took : ‘ach, which \
together, but I'm a bit wary of claiming these things. FLYING TRELINIS. THE MASKED something we'd never done b And we fir
I'm happy for it to be everyone's idea. Anyway, in the ALBERTS WAS ONE OF JOHN'S persuaded Ringo to play a drum which he'd
end, we hit upon the idea of medleying them all and FAVOURITE NAMES; A GOON wanted to do. And it climaxed And ir
giving the second side a sort of operatic structure — SORTOF NAME. YOU COULD the love you take is equal to th you mak
which was great because it used ten or twelve IMAGINE HUNDREDS OF
unfinished songs in a good way. ALBERTS. JOHN: A VERY COSMIC, PHILOSOPI
 RINGO: I THINK
IT SHOWS ON THE
RECORD WHEN WE
WERE EXCITED: THE
TRACK'S EXCITING
AND IT ALL COMES
TOGETHER. IT
DOESN'T MATTER
WHAT WE GO
THROUGH AS
INDIVIDUALS ON
THE BULLSHIT
ARS
SEPSIS
LEVEL, WHEN IT
GETS TO THE
Sess

MUSIC YOU CAN

SEE THAT IT'S
REALLY COOL, AND
WE HAD ALL PUT IN
ONE THOUSAND
PER CENT.

RINGO: Solos have never interested me. That drum solo is still the only
one I've done. There's the guitar section where the three of them take in
the solos, and then they thought, ‘We'll have a drum solo as well.’ | was
opposed to it: ‘| don't want to do no bloody solo!’ George Martin
convinced me. As | was playing it, he counted it because we needed a
time. It was the most ridiculous thing. | was going, ‘Dum, dum — one,
two, three, four...’ and | had to come off at that strange place because it
was thirteen bars long. Anyway, | did it, and it's out of the way. I'm
p eased now that we've got one down.
(A sideline on Abbey Road, just a personal thing of mine: the drum
sound on the record was the result of having new calf-heads. There's a
lot of tom-tom work on that record. | got the new heads on the drum
and | naturally used them a lot — they were so great. The magic of real
records is that they showed tom-toms were so good. | don't believe that
magic is there now, because there's so much more manipulation.)

GEORGE: During the album things got a bit more positive and,
although it had some overdubs, we got to play the whole medley. We
put them in order, played the backing track and recorded it all in one
take, going from one arrangement to the next. We did actually perform
more like musicians again.
Likewise with the vocal tracks: we had to rehearse a lot of
harmonies and learn all the back-up parts. Some songs are good with
just one voice and then harmonies coming in at different places and
sometimes three-part work. It's just embellishment, really, and |
suppose we made up parts where we thought it fitted because we were
all tryi 1g to be singers then.

GEORGE MAR ried with Paul to get back into the old Pepper way
of creating somethi worthwhile, and we put together the long side. John and Sutherland Constabulary,
Ghief Constable of Ross
objected very much Ȣ did on the second side of Abbey Road, which the following property which was
Mmipson,
ih Dornoch,
was almost entirely | ! working together, with contribution
from the the acgident on the
in Maxi motor car following
others. John always w. boy. He was a rock'n'roller, and wanted a
Road on 1st July, 1900p
nu \f individual ti ompromised. But even on the second side,
“
lol 1 He would his little bit in, and bave an idea for b One Mug
Barclaycard ira
sewit { of music int y. Everybody worked frightfully well, and One pair Ladi
that very fond Tube Toothpa
Child's Bank
Bonnet
JOH? lon't have ns. An album to me is a bunch of
30 Grampphone
recor ou can't | ike singles myself. | think Paul has 3 Philips Casepyes’ 3%
case a
conce] albums s it, like he conceived the medley One empty
One Microphasé.(Phyy
thing. I'n \terested ptions of albums. All I'm interested Plastic wallet cor
n is the 1. | like it hateve ppens. I'm not interested White dregs? Weal
n makin lbum into For me, I'd just put fourteen rock Scarf _" re
Fishing/ne me
ongs on
Toy trailer fs Pal
Avertis enemys

SEY ROAI
 ‘Come Together’ changed at a session. We said. ‘Let's slow it down
Let's do this to it, let's do that to it’ and it ends up however it comes
out. I just said, ‘Look, I've got no arrangement for you, but you know
how I want it.’ | think that's partly because we've played together a long
time. So I said, ‘Give me something funky,’ and set up a beat, maybe
and they all just join in.”

PAUL: Some of my songs are based on personal experience, but my

style is to veil it. A lot of them are made up, like ‘Maxwell's Silver
Hammer’ which is the kind of song | like to write. It's just a silly story
about all these people I'd never met. It's just like writing a play: you
don't have to know the people, you just make them up.
| remember George once saying to me, ‘I couldn't write songs like
that.’ He writes more from personal experience. John’s style was to show
the naked truth. If I was a painter, I'd probably mask things a little bit
more than some people.
The song epitomizes the downfalls of life. Just when everything is
going smoothly — Bang! Bang! — down comes Maxwell's silver hammer
and ruins everything.

Lo, you have come as boon to me, showering you

Behold |rain thirsting lover- bird:

Romantic welcome waits for you, at every footlall as you go!

ee Re oe
tre) 1]

GEORGE: ‘HERE COMES THE SUN’ WAS WRITTEN AT THE

TIME WHEN APPLE WAS GETTING LIKE SCHOOL, WHERE WE
HAD TO GO AND BE BUSINESSMEN: 'SIGN THIS' AND ‘SIGN
THAT’. ANYWAY, IT SEEMS AS IF WINTER IN ENGLAND GOES
ON FOREVER; BY THE TIME SPRING COMES YOU REALLY
DESERVE IT. SO ONE DAY | DECIDED I WAS GOING TO SAG
OFF APPLE AND | WENT OVER TO ERIC CLAPTON'S HOUSE.
THE RELIEF OF NOT HAVING TO GO AND SEE ALL THOSE
DOPEY ACCOUNTANTS WAS WONDERFUL, AND I WALKED
AROUND THE GARDEN WITH ONE OF ERIC’S ACOUSTIC
GUITARS AND WROTE 'HERE COMES THE SUN’.

JOHN: ‘Come Together’ is me, writing obscurely around an old Chuck

Berry thing. | left the line in: ‘Here comes old flat-top.’ It is nothing like
the Chuck Berry song, but they took me to court because | admitted the -

influence once years ago. | could have changed it to: 'Here comes old
iron-face, but the song remains independent of Chuck Berry or JOHN: It's a typical McCartney single, o1 whatever. He did quite a lot
anybody else on earth." of work on it. | wasn't on ‘Maxwell as ill after the accident while
they did most of that track and | b e he really ground George and
PAUL: John came in with an up-tempo song that sounded exactly like Ringo into the ground recording spent more money on that song
Chuck Berry's ‘You Can't Catch Me’, even down to the ‘flat-top’ lyric. | than any of them on the whole a 1, | think.”
said, ‘Let's slow it down with a swampy bass-and-drums vibe.’ | came up
with a bass line and it all flowed from there. Great record. PAUL: They got annoyed be Maxwell's Silver Hammer’ took thre
days to record. Big deal
JOHN: The thing was created in the studio. It's gobbledegook. ‘Come When we were recordi Jh! Darling’ I came in studios early
together was an expression that Tim Leary had come up with for his every day for a week to It by myself because l my VOICce Wa

attempt at being president or whatever, and he asked me to write him a too clear. | wanted it to sound as though I'd be rforming it on
campaign song. | tried and | tried, but | couldn't come up with one. But | stage all week.
came up with ‘Come Together’, which would have been no good to him
— you couldn't have a campaign song like that. JOHN: | always thought I could have done it b t was more
Leary attacked me years later, saying | ripped him off. | didn't. It's style than his. He wrote it, so what the hell, | ying to si
just that it turned into ‘Come Together’. What am | going to do, give it Whoever : ings it is whoever's song it is. And sing toget
to him? It was a funky record — it's one of my favourite Beatle tracks (01 usually both wrote it. ‘Octopus's Garden’ is Rin ind we
one of my favourite Lennon tracks, let's say that). It's funky, it's bluesy it. That means we all helped with the arrang
and I'm singing it pretty well. | like the sound of the record."° simple as that.”
 GEORGE MARTIN: ‘Something’ was George’ first single, released in PAUL: We were holding it together. The music was OK and we were
October. It was a great song, and frankly I was surprised that George had it in friends enough that, even though this undercurrent was going on, we
him. Super song. still had a strong respect for each other even at the very worst points. It
was getting fairly dodgy — but those weren't the worst times, funnily
JOHN: I think that's about the best track on the album, actually.” enough. We put together quite a nice album, and the only arguments
were about things like me spending too long on a track: | spent three
GEORGE: | had written ‘Something’ on the piano during the recording days on ‘Maxwell's Silver Hammer’. | remember George saying, ‘You've
of the ‘White’ album. There was a period during that album when we taken three days, it's only a song.’ — ‘Yeah, but | want to get it right. I've
were all in different studios doing different things trying to get it got some thoughts on this one.’ It was early-days Moog work and it did
finished, and | used to take some time out. So | went into an empty take a bit of time. (Although nowadays three days is just for switching
studio and wrote ‘Something’. the machine on!)
It has probably got a range of five notes, which fits most singers’
needs best. When I wrote it, in my mind | heard Ray Charles singing it, JOHN: We used the Moog synthesizer on the end [of ‘| Want You’].
and he did do it some years later. At the time | wasn’t particularly That machine can do all sounds and all ranges of sounds — so if you're a
thrilled that Frank Sinatra did ‘Something’. I'm more thrilled now than I dog, you could hear a lot more. It's like a robot. George can work it a
was then. | wasn't really into Frank — he was the generation before me. I bit, but it would take you all your life to learn the variations on it.
was more interested when Smokey Robinson did it and when James George has got one. He used it on the Billy Preston LP, and it also plays
Brown did it. But I'm very pleased now, whoever's done it. I realise that the solo in ‘Because’, and | think in ‘Maxwell’ it comes in too. It's here
the sign of a good song is when it has lots of cover versions. and there on the album.”
(1 met Michael Jackson somewhere at the BBC. The fellow
interviewing us made a comment about ‘Something’, and Michael said: GEORGE. | first heard about the Moog synthesizer in America. | had to
‘Oh, you wrote that? | thought it was a Lennon/McCartney.’) have mine made specially, because Mr Moog had only just invented it.
It was enormous, with hundreds of jackplugs and two keyboards.
PAUL: George's ‘Something’ was out of left field. It was about Pattie, But it was one thing having one, and another trying to make it
and it appealed to me because it has a very beautiful melody and is a work. There wasn't an instruction manual, and even if there had been it
really structured song. | thought it was great. | think George thought would probably have been a couple of thousand pages long. | don't
my bass-playing was a little bit busy. Again, from my side, | was trying think even Mr Moog knew how to get music out of it; it was more of a
to contribute the best | could, but maybe it was his turn to tell me I was technical thing. When you listen to the sounds on songs like ‘Here
too busy. But that was fun, that went off well. Comes The Sun’, it does do some good things, but they're all very kind
| thought it was George's greatest track — with ‘Here Comes The of infant sounds.
Sun’ and ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps'. They were possibly his best
three. Until then he had only done one or two songs per album. | don't PAUL: Again the feeling that | mustn't be dominating was plaguing me.
think he thought of himself very much as a songwriter, and John and | I was trying to get a record made of my song the way | wanted it, but |
obviously would dominate — again, not really meaning to, but we were didn't want to offend anyone, and it was getting very difficult. |
‘Lennon and McCartney’. So when an album comes up, Lennon and remember backing off like mad and saying, ‘OK.’
McCartney go and write some stuff — and maybe it wasn't easy for him At some point | said, ‘Look, would you guys tell me what to do?’
to get into that wedge. But he finally came up with ‘Something’ and a Then they all went very quiet; we had a day of that, and | remember
couple of other songs that were great, and | think everyone was very Ringo coming up and saying, 'No, go on. You tell us. Come on —
pleased for him. There was no jealousy. In fact, | think Frank Sinatra produce us!’ | was being asked to dominate — and yet | was starting to
used to introduce ‘Something’ as his favourite Lennon/McCartney song. feel this was something | really mustn't do. It made working
Thanks Frank. conditions pretty difficult and in the end it was getting to be less fun
than it was worth.
JOHN: Paul and | really carved up the empire between us, because we
were the singers. George didn't even used to sing when we brought him GEORGE MARTIN: John got disenchanted with record production. He didn't
into the group. He was a guitarist. And for the first few years he didn't really approve of what I'd done or was doing. He didnt like ‘messing about’, as
sing on stage. We maybe let him do one number, like we would with he called it, and he didnt like the pretentiousness, ifyou like. Icould see his
Ringo: ‘And here he is...’ Paul and | did all the singing, all the writing. point. He wanted good, old-fashioned, plain solid rock: ‘The hell with it — let’
George never wrote a song till much later. blast the living daylights out!’ Or, ifit was a soft ballad: ‘Let’ do itjust the
We couldn't exclude George. There was an embarrassing period way it comes.’ He wanted authenticity.
where his songs weren't that good and nobody wanted to say anything,
but we all worked on them — like we did on Ringo’s. | mean, we put JOHN: I personally can't be bothered with strings and things. I'd like to
more work into those songs than we did on some of our stuff. So he just do it with the group, or with electronics. | can't be bothered going
wasn't in the same league for a long time — that's not putting him down; through that hassle with musicians — but Paul digs that; that's his scene.
he just hadn't had the practice as a writer that we'd had.” It was up to him where he went with the violins and what he did with
them, and | think he wanted a straight kind of backing [on ‘Golden
RINGO: It was beautiful. George was blossoming as a songwriter. With Slumbers'] — nothing freaky.” That's what he was getting into on the
‘Something’ and ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ — are you kidding back of Abbey Road. I never went in for that pop-opera stuff. I like
me? Two of the finest love songs ever written, and they're really on a three-minute records, like adverts.”!
par with what John and Paul or anyone else of that time wrote. They're
beautiful songs. It's interesting that George was coming to the fore and
we were just breakin; pau: WE NEVER GOT PAST EIGHT-
GEORGE MARTIN: | think tl¢ trouble with George was that be was never
TRACK. ALL OF THE BEATLES' WORK
treated on the same level as | | the same quality of songwriting, by anyone WAS ON TWO-TRACK, FOUR-TRACK
—by Jobn, by Paul or by me. I’m as guilty in that respect. I was the guy who
used to say: ‘If bes got a song, we'lllet him have it on the album’ — very OR EIGHT-TRACK. SGT PEPPER WAS
condes«
kept pr
gly. I know be have felt really bad about that. Gradually he
g, and his songs did get better — until eventually they got
FOUR-TRACK. BY ABBEY ROAD WE
extreme! ‘Something’ »nderful song — but we didn't give bim credit HAD GOT TO EIGHT-TRACK, AND WE_.
for it, and ver really th Hes going to be a great songwriter.’
The ot! blem was the Int have a collaborator. Jobn always had THOUGHT IT WAS TOO MANY!
Paul to bounce ideas off. Even Int actually write the song with Paul, he
was a kind of competitive mate. ( eorge was a lover and I'm afraid that was
WE THOUGHT IT WAS TOO
iade the worse by the three of us I'm sorry about that now. BIG A LUXURY.

ABBEY ROAD
PAUL: The crossing was right outside, and we said, ‘Let's just go out, get
a photographer and walk out on the crossing. It'll be done in half an
hour.’ It was getting quite late and you always have to get the cover in
ahead of the sound. So we got hold of the photographer Iain Macmillan,
gave him half an hour and walked across the crossing.
It was a very hot day in August, and | had arrived wearing a suit and
sandals. It was so hot that I kicked the sandals off and walked across
barefoot for a few takes, and it happened that in the shot he used | had
no shoes on, Sandie Shaw style. There's many a person who has gone
barefoot, so it didn’t seem any big deal for me at all.
But then | was rung one day by one of the blokes at the office, who
said, ‘Hey, there's a rumour started by a DJ in America that you're dead.’
I said, ‘You're kidding — just tell them I'm not.’ He said, ‘No, that won't
do. You've got no shoes on on the cover: this is apparently a Mafia sign
of death. And there's a car registration plate behind you which says
“28 IF". Well, that means you'd be twenty-eight — if you'd have lived!’
And | replied, ‘Wait a minute — he's stretching it a bit here, isn't he?’ He
said, “There's more. Ringo's wearing black: that means he's the
undertaker...’ and it went on like this. There were all these clues.

fh,

4
Pa
ue|
|

mer a
n- Spm Mons =F

ROW LONDONW1 (ENGLAND)

AMntied Gata noe)
MPOLS 1N ALBUM COVERS, SO
NT PEPPER HAND OF DEATH:
PANA “DAILY STUDEND
 JOHN: Paul McCartney couldn't die without the
world knowing it. The same as he couldn't get
married without the world knowing it. It's
oT impossible — he can't go on holiday without the
N world knowing it. It's just insanity — but it's a great
plug for Abbey Road.”

DEREK TAYLOR: Idealt with that just as a matter of

routine — it was the typical old nonsense that we bad to
deal with. There were thousands of calls along those lines.
(The rumour is still roaming around. There are books on
it, and theres a man making a living lecturing on it.) In
JOHN: Paul walked barefoot across the road because Paul's idea of the end I conceded that it may be true. Thats usually the way I deal with those
being different is to look almost straight, but just have his ear painted rumours: ‘Maybe he is dead —I don't know, do I?’
blue — something a little subtle. So Paul decided to be barefoot that day (Thats what happened at the Monterey Pop Festival. The rumour got
walking across the road. When you first glance at the album it looks like round that all The Beatles were there. Ijust said, ‘OK. I think three of them are,
the four Beatles walking across fully dressed. That's his little gimmick. | but they're in disguise — and we don't know which three.’ The logic was: ifthere
didn't even notice until | got the album. | didn’t notice on the day that are three of them bere, and you only think so, and they're in disguise — how do
he was barefoot. We were just wishing the photographer would hurry you know? ‘Ah, thats another story. Now, ifyou'd asked that earlier...’ Red
up. Too many people were hanging around. ‘It's going to spoil the shot. smoke fills the air and the mind clouds over. So its now: ‘Are they here?’ — ‘No,
Let's get out of here. We're meant to be recording, not posing for Beatle they're not really.’ It was a joke. Once you throw in the towel, its OK.)
pictures’ — that's what we were thinking. And,I was muttering, ‘Come So you say hes dead. Now the doubter says, ‘Well, that’s very like him —
on, hurry up now, keep in step.’ the same mouth, the same eyes!’ Then he’ alive all of a sudden. People are
perverse. So we can move on to the next subject.
RINGO: A DJ put all those signs together: Paul with no shoes (that's
the easy one) and the Volkswagen Beetle. Then there was Magical PAUL: In the end I said, ‘Well, we'd better play it for all it's worth. It's
Mystery Tour, where we three had red roses and he had a black one. It publicity, isn't it? This guy is going mad about our new album and
was. jus t madness, but if you looked at it all you could come to that doesn't care what he's saying, so tell them, as Mark Twain said:
conclusion. There was no way we could prove he was alive. We said, “Rumours of my death are greatly exaggerated.” There's nothing more |
Well, how can we prove this rumour isn’t true? Let's take a photo!’ But, can do.’
of course, they would say, ‘That's just his stand-in in the photo.’ But that was Abbey Road. We had the cover, we had the title, we
It was silly, really, and it didn’t worry us. It was part of rock'n'roll. It had all the music, and it came out before Let It Be (which was being
kept the madness going: we had an album out, and it was in every screwed for disc by our friend). Let It Be was actually the last release, but
newspaper and on the TV. It was big doings. Abbey Road was the last recording.
I think it worked out OK as an album. | think John thought in the
PAUL: IT WAS TT WEIRD MEETING PEOPLE end it was a bit slick— but | don't think it.was bad for that. That's just
structure. I don't think it really looks slick now.
SHORTLY Aj — THAT, BECAUSE THEY'D
BE LOOKING HE BACK OF MY EARS, JOHNAN tell you honestly: | don't remember it, because Abbey Road,
for me — as always with all the albums — I like some of the tracks and |
LOOKING A BI ‘(ROUGH ME. AND IT WAS don't like other tracks. That's always been the same: I've never been a
WEIRD DOING | REALLY AM HIM' STUFF. knocked-out Beatle fan by any of our albums. | like some of the work we
do, and some of it I don't. Abbey Road was a competent album. | don't
think it was anything more than that or anything less.”

GEORGE MARTIN: Nobody knew for sure that it was going to be the last
album — but everybody felt it was. The Beatles had gone through so much and
for such a long time. They'd been incarcerated with each other for nearly a
NAL | PICi M STATES THAT decade, and I was surprised that they had lasted as long as they did. I wasn't at
TNEY me DAILY AND IN
Tr APPRE SONF \TION THAT SUCH all surprised that they'd split up because they all wanted to lead their own lives
—and | did, too. It was a release for me as well.
ES PT. ELECTROL
AVY L 7 | U

Cote fA
o LS

AA
7 BRAONG Fecp
GEORGE: | didn't know at the time that it was the last Beatle recor pick out al ‘Beatle days’ and ‘Beatle momen
that we would make, but it felt as if we were reaching the end of the lin: long gaps between. If we had a day off fro
I can't honestly say what | felt after that record was finished doing som ng else — or if we had a year
remember liking the record and enjoying it, but | don’t recall thinkin twenty-five urs off. There were plenty of ’

that was it because there was so much going on all the time. When yor gaps. | was « rtainly not missing being in the |
2. On 22nd August, The Beatles all turned up at Tittenburst Park, John’s new house in Ascot (which Ringo later
bought from bim), for what turned out to be their last set ofphotos taken together.
 RINGO: IT WAS JUST A PHOTO SESSION. I WASN'T THERE THINKING, ‘OK,
THIS IS THE LAST PHOTO SESSION.

pauL: LINDA SHOT SOME 16mm FOOTAGE ON MY CAMERA.

TH: ! TURNI YOUR TOBE THE.L hk
 (Peastic ON? FANO |

But when we all met in the office, we knew it was good. It wasn't
sulky and we weren't really fighting. It was like a thought came into the
room, and everyone said what they said. John didn't think we should
a5
oS
leave, just that we should break it up. It was not: ‘I'm leaving, you're
SMALL 1b OVAL SREAKERS. leaving.’ It was: ‘Well, that's it! I've had enough. I want to do this...’
If that had happened in 1965, or 1967 even, it would have been a
mighty shock. Now it was just ‘let's get the divorce over with’, really.
Indias Prange NA METIN CORR?
And John was always the most forward when it came to nailing
ate GAMO is PLASTIC, anything.
a BIG SPEAKS ARE THE Bans
mieNg petestseesie Auaez iFlees
EACH MEMBER A vince! JOHN: I knew before we went to Toronto. | told Allen | was leaving, |
newi Sling wor ve ws ten
€ Rec okwenp
ce” most
ea PLAYl
sree + told Eric Clapton and Klaus that I was leaving and that I'd like to
vrene (5 Sheep 6 YRS 6)
Y2E INITIATIVE Hin probably use them as a group. | hadn't decided how to do it — to have a
T MST BE THE LOUDEST K/GANS OW E ES eeMeNT: permanent new group or what? (Later on | thought, Fuck, I'm not going
‘AleWIRES OT. Myer (SE lS ieLe. oo, to get stuck with another set of people, whoever they are.') So |
announced it to myself and to the people around me on the way to
JOHN: The Plastic Ono Band's going to be pretty flexible — because it's Toronto. Allen came with me, and | told Allen it was over. When | got
plastic. The Beatles playing live is a different matter — we've got that back there were a few meetings and Allen had said, ‘Well, cool it, cool
great thing to live up to, it's a harder gig — but just for me and Yoko to it,, because there was a lot to do business-wise, and it would not have
go out we can get away with anything. been suitable at the time.
We got this phone call on a Friday night that there was a Then we were discussing something in the office with Paul, and Paul
rock'n'roll revival show in Toronto with a 100,000 audience, or said something or other, to do something, and | kept saying ‘no, no, no’
whatever it was, and that Chuck was going to be there and Jerry Lee to everything he said. So it came to a point | had to say something, of
and all the great rockers that were still living, and Bo course. Paul said, ‘What do you mean?’ | said, ‘I mean
Diddley, and supposedly The Doors were top of the the group is over. I'm leaving!'”°
bill. They were inviting us as king and queen to JOHN:
preside over it, not play — but | didn’t hear that bit. | THE ONLY TIME WE TOOK PAUL: I'd said: ‘I think we should go back to little gigs
‘ said, ‘Just give me time to get a band together,’ and DRUGS WAS WHEN WE WERE —I| really think we're a great little band. We should
we went the next morning. WITHOUT HOPE, AND THE ONLY find our basic roots, and then who knows what will
It was very, very quick. We didn't have a band then WAY WE GOT OUT OF IT WAS happen? We may want to fold after that, or we may
—we didn't even have a group that had played with us WITH HOPE, AND IF WE CAN really think we've still got it.’ John looked at me in the
for more than half a minute. | called Eric and | got SUSTAIN THE HOPE FHEN WE eye and said: ‘Well, | think you're daft. | wasn't going
Klaus, and we got Alan White and they said, ‘OK.’ DON'T NEED LIQUOR, DRUGS OR to tell you till we signed the Capitol deal’ — Klein was
There was no big palaver — it wasn't like this set-format ANYTHING, BUT IF WE LOSE trying to get us to sign a new deal with the record
show that I'd been doing with The Beatles where you HOPE WHAT CAN YOU DO? company — ‘but I'm leaving the group!’ We paled
go on and do the same numbers — ‘| Want To Hold visibly and our jaws slackened a bit.
Your Head’ —'and the show lasts twenty minutes and | must admit we'd known it was coming at some
nobody's listening, they're just screaming and the amps are as big as a point because of his intense involvement with Yoko. John needed to
peanut and it's more a spectacular rather than rock'n'roll.” give space to his and Yoko's thing. Someone like John would want to
end The Beatles period and start the Yoko period; and he wouldn't like
GEORGE: When the Plastic Ono Band went to Toronto in September either to interfere with the other. But what wasn't too clever was this
John actually asked me to be in the band, but | didn’t do it. | didn't idea of: ‘I wasn't going to tell you till after we signed the new contract.
really want to be in an avant-garde band, and | knew that was what it Good old John — he had to blurt it out. And that was it. There's not a lot
was going to be. you can say to, ‘I'm leaving the group,’ from a key member.
He said he'd get Klaus Voormann, and Alan White as the drummer. I didn't really know what to say. We had to react to him doing it; he
During the last few years of The Beatles we were all producing other had control of the situation. | remember him saying, ‘It's weird this,
records anyway, so we had a nucleus of friends in the studios: drummers telling you I'm leaving the group, but in a way it's very exciting.’ It was
and bass players and other musicians. So it was relatively simple to like when he told Cynthia he was getting a divorce. He was quite
knock together a band. He asked me if I'd play guitar, and then he got buoyed up by it, so we couldn't really do anything: ‘You mean leaving?
Eric Clapton to go — they just rehearsed on the plane over there. So that's the group, then...’ It was later, as the fact set in, that it got
really upsetting.
DEREK TAYLOR: John played Live Peace in Toronto and I didn't believe
that it would mean the end of anything. In fact, it didn't, did it? I was very BAG, PRODL INS SAY IW LONDON W
committed to John and Yoko things, and I thought the Peace Campaign was
very well done.

JOHN: The buzz was incredible. | never felt so good in my life.

Everybody was with us and leaping up and down doing the peace sign,
a. ee Alto
because they knew most of the numbers anyway, and we did a number
called ‘Cold Turkey’ we'd never done before and they dug it like mad.
I offered ‘Cold Turkey’ to The Beatles, but they weren't ready to
record a single, so | did it as Plastic Ono. (1 don't care what it goes out
as, as long as it goes out.) It was self-explanatory: the result of the ~ People waar Soh Alor
experiencing cold turkey — withdrawal from heroin. It was an anti-drug
song, if anything. But, of course, it was banned again all over American dvd hey as gee = frieat refer Khem

por OFLice - Wane ~ ally -

radio, so it never got off the ground. They were thinking | was
promoting it [heroin].*”

RINGO: After the Plastic Ono Band's debut in Toronto, we had a BH. “Sohm Pool’ eae ‘Ts \ IU (rel |

meeting in Savile Row where John finally brought it to its head. He

| said: ‘Well, that's it, lads. Let's end it.’ And we all said ‘yes’. And though |
CoBSS = Sade Oliver —
said ‘yes’ because it was ending (and you can't keep it together anyway,
{
7
if this is what the attitude is) | don't know if | would have said, ‘End it. |
ote wise Mere is ne | al
probably would have lingered another couple of years.
VW RO) ? road. -6.(¢
fu
faa
 /EORGI | don't remember about John saying he wanted to break up
rhe Beatles. | don't remember where | heard it. Everybody had tried to
leave. so it was nothing new. Everybody was leaving for years.
The Beatles had started out being something that gave us a vehicle
to be able to do so much when we were younger, but it had now got to
as stifling us. There was too much restriction. It had
to self destruct 1d I wasn't feeling bad about anybody wanting to
leave, because snted out myself. | could see a much better time ahead
being by myself, away from the band. It had ceased to be fun and it was
time to get fit. It was like a straitjacket.

NEIL ASPI L: It was a sad thing that there was now talk of breaking up.
We'd
'

all be
?
iether fora number of years going through the most incredible
series of sit is and successes and everything else, and for that to be over
meant the
1
sa certain amount of sadness and apprebension. It was a bit
scary for everybody.
The was a slow process. For a start, Paul's not signing with Allen
Klein did tmean The Beatles bad split up because they then made Abbey
Road John was working more and more with Yoko rather than with The
Beatles, but be still made Abbey Road with the others. So there wasnt one
moment in time, it was gradual, and then they just weren't together any more
after Abbey Road —I couldn't see them actually going into a studio and
working together again.

RINGO: There was the story | told about leaving during the ‘White’
album because I'd thought they were really close and they'd thought the
other three were. It was just craziness. With George leaving, we didn't
know what was going to happen. But | don't think it actually ended till it
did, till the meeting in the office in Savile Row when we said, ‘That's it.’
We'd kept it together for the sake of Abbey Road. But, you know, it
had gone already then. And then it was really a case of although it had
ended, your brain couldn't assimilate it. Your body was still living this
life, and then you went on doing your own thing.

JOHN: I started the band. | disbanded it. It's as simple as that.

My life with The Beatles had become a trap. A tape loop. | had
made previous short excursions on my own, writing books, helping
convert them into a play. I'd even made a movie without the others, but
| had made the movie more in reaction to the fact that The Beatles had
decided to stop touring than with real independence in mind — although
even then my eye was on freedom.
When | finally had the guts to tell the other three that I, quote,
wanted a divorce, unquote, they knew it was for real — unlike Ringo and
George's previous threats to leave. | must say I felt guilty for springing it
on them at such short notice. After all, | had Yoko, they only had each
other. | was guilty enough to give McCartney credit as a co-writer on
my first independent single ['Give Peace A Chance’] instead of giving it
to Yoko, who had actually co-authored it.”

RINGO: We didn't go public about the break-up immediately. Allen

Klein had this thing: ‘Split up, boys, if you want to — but don't tell
anybody.’
People didn’t want us to break up, but | don’t think that was too
much of a pressure. We felt: ‘We've done this so long, so we keep doing
it.’ That was why we kept on and on a lot of days, even with all the
craziness — it really worked. But instead of working every day, it worked,
say, two days a month. There were still good days because we were still
really close friends, and then it would split off again into some madness.

JOHN: Paul and Allen said they were glad that I wasn't going to
announce it; like | was going to make an event out of it.

RINGO: It was a relief once we finally said we would split up. (1 think
that was as much a relief as ‘Strawberry Fields’//Penny Lane’ not making
Number One; that was a huge relief.) | just wandered off home, | believe,
and | don't know what happened after that. | sat in the garden for a
while wondering what the hell to do with my life. After you've said it's
over and go home, you think: ‘Oh, God — that's it, then. Now what do
you do?’ It was quite a dramatic period for me — or traumatic, actually.

THE SPEDE
GEORGE: My feeling when we went our separate ways was to enjoy band, and | tried to sign them to Apple Records; but when Peter Asher
the space that it gave me, the space to be able to think at my own speed went over to sign them he fell asleep at the audition, so they decided to
and to have some musicians in the studio who would accompany me on go with Atlantic Records.
my songs. It sounds strange, because most people would like to be in | went to see them at the Albert Hall and thought they were such a
The Beatles, or at that time it looked like such a great thing to be in. fun band it would be nice to play with them. Most times | go to
And it was. But it was also a great thing to get out of — just as when you concerts and think, ‘I'm glad I'm not in the band,’ but in this case |
grow up and leave home and spread your wings. thought it was fantastic.
There was a feeling that it was a big step to decide to leave the group, After the Albert Hall they played at the Speakeasy, and | suppose we
but at the same time there was so much pressure that the downside was had a few drinks and before | knew what was happening their bus
much bigger than the upside. The upside was that The Beatles were so arrived at my house the next morning and | was with them. | got a
famous and it was a cosy rut to be in. But it was so negative at that point guitar, got on the bus and we did a tour of Europe.
that | would have given anything to get out. It was really good because I don't think many people knew I was
We always thought the idea would be to have a bit of space to do there. The people were coming to see Delaney and Bonnie, or they
some solo recordings and then just see what happened. But, also, my life knew Eric Clapton was in the band. I was just along for the ride, really; |
had taken on a whole other dimension. Being in a little pop band, which was at the back and didn't have to be anything, and it was really nice.
was The Beatles, was very limiting. | wanted to go to the Himalayas and Even being at the back of The Beatles, it was still like being right at the
do that, and hang out and play with other people. | had lots of outside front; we could never hide behind a couple of horn players.
friends — as did the other Beatles.
PAUL: For about three or four months, George, Ringo and I rang each
PAUL: I felt, ‘Well, this will be the start of a new phase now. The other to ask: ‘Well, is this it then?’ It wasn't that the record company
Beatles won't be recording together again, so do | leave the music had dumped us. It was still a case of: we might get back together again.
business and not work again? I'm too passionate about it.’ Even now | Nobody quite knew if it was just one of John’s little flings, and that
couldn't do that easily. It's just a bug I've got. | knew I had to carry on in maybe he was going to feel the pinch in a week's time and say, ‘I was
some form or other. only kidding.’ | think John did kind of leave the door open. He'd said:
I spent a lot of time up in Scotland where | have a farm. | normally ‘I'm pretty much leaving the group, but...’
go for holidays, but | began what was to be a whole year up there, just So we held on to that thread for a few months, and then eventually
trying to figure out what | was going to do, and that was probably when we realised, ‘Oh well, we're not in the band any more. That's it. It's
it was most upsetting. | really got the feeling of being redundant. People definitely over.’
say, ‘But you still had your money, it wasn't exactly redundancy. It's not I started thinking, ‘Well, if that's the case, | had better get myself
like being a miner who's laid off.’ But to me it was. Because it wasn't together. | can't just let John control the situation and dump us as if
about money, it was about self-worth. | just suddenly felt | wasn’t worth we're the jilted girlfriends.’ | was recording the album McCartney, and
anything if | wasn't in The Beatles. round about then | said, ‘Isn't it about time we told people?’ Everybody
It was a pretty good job to have lost — The Beatles. My whole life said, ‘No, no — don't tell anyone we're breaking up,’ but | felt we should.
since I'd been seventeen had been wrapped up in it; so it was quite a [| don't know why they didn’t want to say anything. | think Klein had a
shock. I took to my bed, didn’t bother shaving much, did a lot of lot to do with it.
drinking: ‘What's it matter?’ you know. You hear about guys who've
been made redundant doing that. Just staying in a lot, not wanting to go GEORGE: The Beatles had become an institution that nobody on the
out, not wanting to socialise. So | lost the plot there for a little while — outside really wanted to split. Except the press, because the press want
for about a year, actually — but luckily Linda's very sensible and she said, anything that will be a headline. They don't care whether it's good or
‘Look, you're OK. It's just the shock of The Beatles and all of that.’ | was bad, as long as it's worthy of a headline, so the press tend to try to
thinking: ‘Well, can | ever write and sing again? What does anyone nudge things along — particularly in negative directions if they think
want with an out of work bass-player?’ It hit me pretty hard. they're on to something. The public all over the world may have wanted
After a while | thought: ‘Jesus! | had better really try to get it more Beatle records, but the British press could sense it was all over.
together here,’ and that took the form of making a record, the simplest | think Paul was already making a solo album in his house. John was
way. | had a recording machine, without a desk or anything, and made a going off to do his Plastic Ono thing, and it was very obvious it was
real home-grown record; working on my own, thinking of getting a new finished, but nobody said, ‘Well, that's it — we'll never get together
band — although, obviously, The Beatles was a tough act to follow. again.’ If the newspapers asked us, we were still saying, ‘Who knows?
Sure, we're still together.’
RINGO: In November I started recording tracks for my Sentimental Journey
PAUL: Things had got bad by that point anc | was still trying to
solo album. That was me wondering what to do when it was all over. |
got an idea to record an album of songs that | had been brought up with. phone, trying still to communicate and keep the doors open. But the
There was a pub on the album cover. My family used to go to that difficulties lasted, really, for the twenty years that it took to sort The
pub and all my mum's friends and the family would come back to our Beatles out.
place, and at the parties everybody sang those songs. They were my I'd fallen out with the other three at once over the Klein thing. |
first musical influences, so for want of a better idea | thought I'd do that. didn't want him representing me in any way. They had persuaded me
None of the others worked on it, but I still had George Martin so | that we had to give Klein 20%. The only way they could was that they
didn't feel completely alone. said, ‘OK, he'll have 20% on any increases he gets us. If Capitol are
giving us that much on royalties and he gets this much, then he'll have
NEIL ASPINALL: Ringo and George Martin put Sentimental Journey 20% of the difference.’
together. We got a list of songs that Ringo wanted to sing, in a key that he So it was three against one. Never mind three against one — it was
could sing them in, and a list of arrangers that he really liked. I rang the me against the world! It was me against three hundred million as far as |
he way I saw it, | had to save The Beatles’ fortune. All
arrangers and asked: ‘Which of these songs would you like to produce? Just go was concerned
was in that company — and I wasn't about to see it go.
into a studio with whatever musicians you want — and please send us the tapes.’ we'd ever ear!
On to which Ringo overdubbed his voice.
It could have got a bit difficult when there was only one tune left and you JOHN: |always remember the film with those British people who wrote
operas, Gilbert and Sullivan. | remember watching the film
were ringing a producer. He could ask: ‘Why don't I have a choice when those silly
everybody else did?’ But we had fifteen or sixteen songs and we only used with Robert.Morley in and thinking, ‘We'll never get to that.’ And w
twelve, so they always had a choice somewhere along the line. did, which really upset me. I really never thought we'd be so stupid, like
That's how that album came together. It was quite an enjoyable thing to be splitting and arguing. But we were naive enough to let people c
between us and that's what happened. But it was happening an}
involved with. It was a bit laid back, but it was the way to do it.
I don't mean Yoko, I mean businessmen. It's like when people de«
get a divorce: quite often you decide amicably, but then when y
GEORGE: In December I was working with the Delaney and Bonnie
band with Billy Preston. I'd heard about Delaney and Bonnie, and I'd your lawyers and they say, ‘Don't talk to the other party unless t
lawyer present,’ that's when the drift really starts happening
seen them playing in the Valley in Los Angeles. They were a great

LUT 349
 EMI came to me and said, ‘You made this record
originally but we can't have your name on it.’ I asked them
why not and they said: ‘Well, you didn't produce the final
thing.’ I said, ‘I produced the original and what you should
do is have a credit saying: “Produced by George Martin,
over-produced by Phil Spector”.’ They didnt think that was
a good idea.

JOHN: If anybody listens to the bootleg version, which

was the version which was pre-Spector, and listens to
the version Spector did, they would shut up — if you
really want to know the difference. The tapes were so
lousy and so bad none of us would go near them to
touch them. They'd been lying around for six months.
None of us could face remixing them; it was terrifying.
But Spector did a fantastic job.”

PAUL: Allen Klein decided — possibly having consulted

the others, but certainly not me — that Let It Be would be
re-produced for disc by Phil Spector.
So now we were getting a ‘re-producer’ instead of
just a producer, and he added on all sorts of stuff —
singing ladies on "The Long And Winding Road’ —
backing that | perhaps wouldn't have put on. | mean, |
don't think it made it the worst record ever, but the fact
that now people were putting stuff on our records that
certainly one of us didn’t know about was wrong. I'm
not sure whether the others knew about it. It was just,
‘Oh, get it finished up. Go on — do whatever you want.’
We were all getting fed up.

DEREK TAYLOR: I know that Paul was very cross about

‘The Long And Winding Road' being interfered with. I took
the view that nobody should have ever interfered with their
It's really lawyers that make divorces nasty. If there was a nice music. That was to me —I don't want to say shocking — but wrong, certainly.
ceremony like getting married for divorce it would be much better. And ifyou were a McCartney seeing your work being altered... I can imagine
Even divorce of business partners. But it always gets nasty because the outrage!
youre never allowed to speak your own mind. You have to talk in
double Dutch, you have to spend all your time with a lawyer, you get PAUL: I had now made the McCartney record, my first album after The
frustrated and you end up saying and doing things you wouldn't do Beatles, and we had a release schedule on it; but then the others started
under normal circumstances.”! buggering that around, saying, ‘You can't release the McCartney album
when you want to. We're releasing Let [t Be — and Ringo’s solo record.’
RINGO: In the end we did get rid of Allen Klein. It cost us a small | rang Neil who was running Apple and | said, ‘Wait a minute —
fortune — but it's one of those things that we found all through life: two we've decided my release date!’ | had an understanding: I'd marked my
people sign a contract and I know exactly what it means and you know release date on the calendar. I'd stuck to it religiously, but they'd moved
exactly what it means, but when we come to split up magically it means it anyway.
something else entirely to one of you.

GEORGE: John phoned me one morning in January and said, ‘I've

written this tune and I'm going to record it tonight and have it pressed
up and out tomorrow — that's the whole point: “Instant Karma!", you
know.’ So I was in. I said, ‘OK, I'll see you in town.’ | was in town with
Phil Spector and I said to Phil, ‘Why don't you come to the session?’
There were just four people: John played piano, | played acoustic
guitar, there was Klaus Voormann on bass and Alan White on drums.
We recorded the song and brought it out that week, mixed — instantly —
by Phil Spector.

JOHN: We have so many songs, and we've got to get them out some
way or other. It's nicer to do them yourself, actually. | prefer doing my
own songs than giving them to somebody else — half of them, it's the
only way we make it happen.”

NEIL ASPINALL: Phil S; was involved with Allen Klein on some

busi vel or another, an ; brought in to remix Let It Be. I have no idea
wh it was for bim to get involved. It might have been Klein’, with John
and ( going along witb i

GEO! ARTIN: That made me very angry — and it made Paul even
angrier neither he no iew about it til! it had been done. It happened
behind ov because it u ne when Allen Klein was running Jobn.
He'd orga bil Spector a hink George «vd Ringo had gone along
ith it. ] ctually made rangement EMI and said, ‘This is
ing to b r record,’

THE SPLIT
 From my point of view I was getting done in. All the decisions were RINGO: There was always the possibility that we could have carried
now three against one. And that's not the easiest position if you're the on. We weren't sitting in the studio making Abbey Road saying, ‘OK
one: anything | wanted to do they could just say, ‘No.’ And it was just to this is it: last record, last track, last take.’
be awkward, | thought. But Paul put his solo record out and made the statement that said
Ringo came to see me. He was sent, | believe — being mild man- that The Beatles were finished. (If you look back through the Beatle
nered, the nice guy — by the others, because of the dispute. So Ringo history Paul has always made the statements: They're On Drugs,
arrived at the house, and I must say | gave him a bit of verbal. | said: They're Breaking Up; They're Finished.) | think because it was said by
‘You guys are just messing me around.’ He said: ‘No, well, on behalf of one of The Beatles people understood it was over.
the board and on behalf of The Beatles and so and so, we think you
should do this,’ etc. And | was just fed up with that. It was the only Waar, $/
time I ever told anyone to GET OUT! It was fairly hostile. But things
Deu va,
We Hhormhh a lor olenuk- goats ancl rhe
had got like that by this time. It hadn't actually come to blows, but it
was near enough.
Unfortunately it was Ringo. | mean, he was probably the least to TCeuleler L.es — avd decided its stupid for
blame of any of them, but he was the fall guy who got sent round to
ask me to change the date — and he probably thought: ‘Well, Paul will Kevle to but out bwo big AlG ums within 7 days
do it,’ but he met a different character, because now | was definitely
boycotting Apple. of each other (alro rhe tes Renae cueh Hes Soar).
—Se we seuf a letter bo 4.1, belle thea to held
RINGO: It was just two guys pouting and being silly. r release date bul Suve qs Che res Oo big Ripple mc
av
We had our solo albums to bring out, and I said, ‘Mine's ready and
I want to bring it out.’ Paul's wasn’t quite ready — but he had a calendar
Capital Convention ix Hewat Hen
with the date (I've forgotten the day now) marked in yellow saying, — \we ro vat Yyou'el COv® Pdunk crileu
‘That's my day — I'm bringing my record out then.’ | don’t know what ican: les COMING
“ov reuliquad ra the eat bey
happened — he probably did.
cy eee kkpes baa
PAUL: I got so fed up with all this I said, ‘OK, I want to get off the it Cu pnedl ow (cle raAR _
_ wel ye er Tak
label.’ Apple Records was a lovely dream, but | thought, ‘Now this
ie inl
ye ve
~ its nothany ponent) |
< ( “ze <
is really trashy and | want to get off.’ | remember George on the
>
phone saying to me, ‘Youll stay on this fucking label! Hare tS. ' x a
= @
Krishna!’ and he hung up — and | went, ‘Oh, dear me. This is really vd en

getting hairy.’
I didn't show Apple anything of McCartney or the cover or
anything until I'd finished it all. I did it all myself, and just gave it to
them for release. It was a very difficult position for me.

NEIL ASPINALL: Paul’ album came out before Let It Be, and the
statement, of course, came with it. Icant really speak
for how it was
received by the people in Apple —I can't remember who was still in Apple
at the time. As to why the dream of Apple hadn't worked — maybe it hadn't
worked because it was a dream.

PAUL: I didn’t leave the Beatles. The Beatles have left The Beatles,
but no one wants to be the one to say the party's over.”

DEREK TAYLOR: For the release of Pauls solo album we did a

questionnaire in the press office, a general issue thing: ‘Will you ever
appear with The Beatles? Do you believe in this? What are your plans?’
etc. I thought he very generously answered — in an uptight way, but
nevertheless answered — the questions, more or less ruling out reunion or
working with The Beatles: ‘And I'm now working with Linda and this is
the way I want it to be...’ That was a very unhappy time.
That was the pits.

PAUL: I didn't want to do any interviews at the time because |

knew the first thing they'd ask about was The Beatles and all that
stuff and | didn't really want that. | didn't want to face the press,
and I said so.
Derek at the office said, ‘We should do something.’ | said, ‘I'll tell
you what — you do a questionnaire of anything you think the press
would want to know and I'll try and answer honestly, and we'll stick
that in with the press copies of the record.’ He did and one of the
questions was: ‘Have The Beatles virtually broken up?’ | answered,
‘Yeah — we won't play together again.’ (This was four or five months
after we'd actually decided that, so I felt it wasn’t exactly a scoop.)
| felt the group finished the minute John said, ‘I'm leaving.’ We'd
all (except John) had goes at trying to keep the group together and
ca e, ui “e 3 : :

3 a He cat A ee
failed. So it wasn't any longer a case of trying to keep it together; it
was now whether we tell the world or not, and I thought, ‘Well, if er
~

ee 3
- J

ea
.
, ? 7

Fi a et he
ee
Rs ag

A
-

aa
a

Eee
- t r

2s
w

Sie, TE
ws

$e
f

we are going to go our own separate ways it'l| only work against us (
°°
'
A oe
> Oe
a
ee ae
© Gh gis “er
Ee
een
if they all still think we're in The Beatles.’ So | said, ‘There's been a ” ‘a
lee .
a wf
eee~
i =
go $3
.
ane whe
clean break. Let's just admit it. Let's just tell the world now. Isn't it te wee
4 m
jew ~s » ato
t
a
a mi
Nhe B-
"
time?’ John was a bit annoyed with me because | think he wanted to oF
s
ht lon
‘s
"
:
;
be the one to tell anyone — or not tell them. 2 ~ Rs A ay
 JOHN: They all have this wonderful dream of how it was, and it'll never
be like that because it never was like everybody thinks it was. It was
wonderful and it's over. And so dear friends you'll just have to carry on.
The Dream Is Over.

GEORGE: I realise The Beatles did fill a space in the Sixties and all the
people The Beatles meant something to have grown up. It’s like with
anything: you grow up with it and you get attached. That's one of the
problems in our lives, becoming attached to things. And it's appreciated
that people still like them, but the problem comes when they want to
live in the past and want to hold on to something and are afraid to change.

JOHN: Everything's fun off and on, so | suppose it could have gone on
being fun off and on or it could have got worse. It's just that you grow
up. We don't want to be the Crazy Gang or The Marx Brothers being
dragged on stage playing ‘She Loves You’ when we've got asthma and
tuberculosis and when we're fifty.”

GEORGE: | think our splitting up was for the same reason, really, as for
any individual. It was that we all needed more space and The Beatles
had become a small place. Although it was an international hit
recording band, it was still a very small place. When we talk about The
Beatles, when it touches on our individual lives we can't really get into
that much depth, because the perimeters of The Beatles were defined
and our lives spilt over into other areas. We all had to get out. It was a
pigeon-hole for us. We were bigger than The Beatles. | think we were,
the four of us individually, bigger than it was.
It was too much stress, as well. We had taken on such a lot of stress
from 1963, although at first we didn't realise it. It was just something
which crept up on us. The pressure from our touring and the time
schedule. When you look back at how many records we made and how
many tours we did, you can't imagine that these days.
PAUL: The world reaction was like "THE BEATLES HAVE BROKEN UP —
IT'S OFFICIAL’ — we'd known it for months. So that was that, really. | JOHN: We're all individuals. And in The Beatles we grew out of it. The
think it was the press who misunderstood. The record had come with bag was too small. | can't impose far-out films or far-out music on
this weird explanation on a questionnaire of what | was doing. It was George and Paul if they don't want to do it. Vice versa, Paul can't impose
actually only for them. | think a few people thought it was some on me whatever he likes, especially when there's no common goal any
weird move of me to get publicity, but it was really to avoid having more. We have to live our own lives separately. We've grown up now,
to do the press. we've left school. We never left school — we went straight into showbiz.”!
One has oneself in the beginning, and it's a constant process of
GEORGE: Paul has a way of using stuff. | mean, even now, if he is society and parents and family trying to make you lose yourself: ‘Don't
going to do a tour he'll conveniently tell the press that we're all getting cry. Don't show any emotion,’ that kind of jazz. And that goes on all
back together again or something. It's just his way, really. It's something your life. | remember at sixteen I still had myself — from sixteen to
that over the years may have kind of annoyed us, but | think after all twenty-nine is when it got lost. The struggle to mature, to be a man, to
these years we're used to it. But in that period everybody was getting take responsibility... although we were in a cocoon of super-life we still
pissed off at each other for everything. had to go through the basic maturing that any teenager goes through
With his album, I think what he was trying to do was just grab a bit (whether it's alone in a room or alone in a big office). Probably thirty is
of the momentum of the time, and while everybody else was just the age you should be just about waking up and realising that you're in
accepting the fact that we'd split he was the one to use that for his own control of yourself.
benefit: ‘Oh, my album's coming out. And, incidentally, The Beatles
have split up, you know.’ GEORGE MARTIN: The split arose from many contributory things, mainly
He had that press release, but everybody else had already left the that each of the boys wanted to live his own life and had never been able to.
band. That was what pissed John off at the time. It was, ‘Hey, I've They'd always been having to consider the group; so they were always a
already left and it's as if he's invented it!’ prisoner of that — and I think they eventually got fed up with it.
They wanted to live life like other people, where your wife is more important
PAUL: The others all saw me as the one who issued the statements, as if than your working partner. As Yoko came along, as eventually Linda came
it was to my advantage (but I got caught with the LSD thing, and all | along, they were more important to John and Paul than John and Paul were to
did on the break-up was, unlike them, to tell the truth). Years later, each other, and the same went
for the other boys too.
when the Anthology was coming together, | was asked in a press
conference if we were getting back together. It was going to be true, so RINGO: Yoko's taken a lot of shit, her and Linda; but The Beatles’
I said ‘yeah’, nothing more. break-up wasn't their fault. It was just that suddenly we were all thirty
and married and changed. We couldn't carry on that life any more.
DEREK TAYLOR: Reaction to Paul’ statement was worldwide. Hot news.
I'm vague as to whether there was an actual announcement: ‘The Beatles JOHN: I was married from before The Beatles left Liverpool; that never
have >roken up’ at that time. | did put out a statement, one of those very made any difference. Cyn didn't have a career like Yoko does, but Pattie
circular statements that actually says nothing: ‘Jobn, Paul, George and Kido had a career — that never upset it. Maureen is a fantastic artist in her
are stili ‘ohn, Paul, George and Ringo, the world keeps spinning and when tat own right as well, apart from bringing up that tribe of Ringo’s. She also
stops t/ Il be the time to. worry. See you again.’ Something like that. Bui is an artist, and it is nothing to do with wives.
there wa Idwide reaction, and genuine dismay. The Beatles were disintegrating slowly after Brian Epstein died, it
I abs. y did believe — 2s millions of others did — that the friendship The was slow death and it was happening. It's evident in Let It Be, although
Beatles had joreach other was « |:fesaver
for al! of us. I believed that ifthese Linda and Yoko were evident then, but they weren't when we started
people were happy with each « ind could ge: together and could be seen it. It was evident in India when George and I stayed there and Paul and
about the place, no matter whe was going ©, life was worth living. But we Ringo left. It was evident on the ‘White’ album. It’s just natural. It's not
expected too much of them. a great disaster. People keep talking about it as if it's the end of the

THE SRE
earth. It's only a rock group that split up. It's nothing important. You For The Be es, our lives were a very heightened version of that: of
have all the old records there if you want to reminisce. You have all how to learn yut love and hate, and up and down, and good and bad
this great music.”! and loss an sain. It was a hyper-version of what everybody else was
going through. So, basically, it's all good. Whatever hap ned is good
RINGO: You don't turn the key and hear, ‘OK, you're not a Beatle any as long as we've learnt something. It's only bad if we didn't learn: ‘Who
more.’ Because out there, to this day, that's all | am. You know what I'm am I? Where am I going? Where have | come from?’
saying? It's not like you could just slam the door and it's all over: you're
back to being Richard Starkey, 10 Admiral Grove, Liverpool 8. It just PAUL: No matter how much we split, we're still very linked. We're th
carried on; we each carried on being one. only four people who've seen the whole Beatlemania bit from the insi
out, so we're tied forever, whatever happens.
GEORGE: The Beatles were all of those things that happe
matter of learning that up and down are the same thing. Everything JOHN: Th Beatles is over, but John, Paul, George and Ringo
keeps changing, and there's always a balance, and whatever happens is knows wh relationship they'll have in the future
what you cause yourself. The moral of the story is that if you accept the love those uys! Because they'll al\ ays be those peo
high points you're going to have to go through the lows. part of my
PAUL: The Beatles felt like it was forever, but actually it was only ten In some way we helped calm the places we went to, or we focused
years. It felt like twenty, the amount we packed into those ten years — the energy on a positive energy, but for ourselves we were in the eye of
all the music, al! the different looks, even: the beards, the moustaches, the hurricane, weren't we? Everybody saw the effect of The Beatles, but
the clean shavens, the little Cardin jackets, all that. !t seemed like a nobody really ever worried about us as individuals, or thought, ‘I
long, long time. 8ut | loved it. wonder how the boys are coping with it all?’ (People always called us
the boys or The Beatles, more often than not failing to realise that The
JOHN: We together much longer than the public knew us. It Beatles was four people. Four individuals. )
wasn't just fi 64. | was twenty-four in ‘64 and I'd been playing with I got experience from it all, all the knowledge you gain by being
Paul since |! ‘ifteen, and George about a year later. So it's a long famous and by dealing with all the situations, all the people, and the
time we sp: gether, in the most extraordinary circumstances, from battering we received from the fans and the press and all that. It was an
lousy roorr reat rooms.” immeasurable amount of experience.
It take + to live with four people over and over for years and It was quite an astounding experience to have, but at the same time
years, wh what we did. We'd called each other every name under if we weren't in The Beatles we would have been in something else, not
the sun. * got to blows. We'd been through the whole damn show. necessarily another rock'n'roll band. Karma is: what you sow, you reap.
We kne iere we were at, we still do — we've been through the mill Like John said in ‘All You Need Is Love’: ‘There's nowhere you can be
togethe: more than ten years. We've been through our therapy that isn't where you're meant to be,’ because you yourself have carved
togethe: » any times.” out your own destiny by your previous actions. I always had a feeling
that something was going to happen, right from when | was at school —
GEOF _. There was a close bond between us through all those years. which is why I didn't get involved too much with schoolwork. It didn't
T) © Seatles can't ever really split up, because as we said at the time really signal the end of my life that | didn't get any GCEs.
we ¢ — split up, it doesn't really make any difference. The music is there,
the ims are all there. Whatever we did is still there and always will be. PAUL: The best times? For me it has to be split into segments: so the
What is there is there — it wasn't that important. It's like Henry VIII or early days would be the pure joy of meeting showbiz stars — that star-
Hitler or any of these historical figures they're always going to be struck element, the wonder of showbiz. In fact, I can still remember the
showing documentaries about: their name will be written about forever others taking the mickey once, because | was really quite taken by
and no doubt The Beatles’ will be too. But my life didn't begin with The meeting the Duke of Edinburgh. They'd all gone: ‘What?!’ — ‘Well, he
Beatles and it didn't end with The Beatles. It was just like going to is the Duke of Edinburgh after all.’ |was convinced about all that at the
school. I went to Dovedale, then I went to Liverpool Institute and then | time. So that would be the first phase. Then it was getting our first hit.
went to The Beatles University for a bit and then I got out of university We made Number Seventeen in the NME chart and | remember
and now I'm having the rest of my life off. wanting to wind the window down — I was going past a little place
The bottom line is, as John said, it was only a little rock'n'roll band. called the Grafton in Liverpool — and I wanted to shout, ‘We're
It did a lot and it meant a lot to a lot of people but, you know, it didn't Number Seventeen — wey-hey!’ The thrill of our first chart position,
really matter that much. and then our first Number One, all of that was pretty incredible. Then
as we got together as a group... There were millions of great times.
RINGO: | think that's too simple. For me it was a really great rock'n'roll Too many to actually go over, so I'm picking out bits. Like in the back
band and we made a lot of good music which is still here today. But | of the Austin Princess in the early days of cannabis indulgence — we
know what John and George mean — we were just a little band from used to have some very hysterical moments. About what | know not,
Liverpool. What always amazed me was that people like De Gaulle and but it was very, very funny.
Khrushchev and all these world leaders were shouting at us. | could Another wonderful thing was the joy of writing with John. John was
never understand that. a great talent. He was great to be around, very quick-witted and a very
I feel now, on reflection, that we could have used our power a lot lovely soul. He could be a right bastard as well, unfortunately. But all in
more for good. Not for politics, but just to be more helpful. We could all, deep down, and having said that, he was a great person to know. He
have been some bigger force. It's an observation, not a regret — regrets was a very charismatic guy. I was a bit of a John fan. | think we all were.
are useless. We could have been stronger for a lot more causes if we'd And I think we had a mutual admiration going on there. When we
pulled it together. started to bitch at each other | had quite a heavy period of self doubt.
I'd be thinking, 'Uh oh, John was the great one, | was just stringing
JOHN: | don't regret anything I've done, really, except for maybe along.’ But then I'd have to think to myself: ‘Wait a minute, he wasn't a
hurting other people. | wouldn't have missed any of it.” mug. He wouldn't work with me all that time if it didn’t mean
something to him.’ One of the nicest little moments | remember from
FORGE: | suppose in the mid-Sixties when the hippy stuff was those years was when John had said he liked ‘Here, There And
starting we had a lot influence, but | don't think we actually had much Everywhere’ better than any of his songs at the time — there were those
power. (For instance, we didn't have enough power to stop some crazed silly little things.
Oliver Cromwell coming round to bust us all.)
Looking back, we'd probably change everything that we did, right RINGO: I was a big fan of John’s. I always felt he had the biggest heart,
from day one. But it'll do the way it was; you can’t change things. and he wasn't the cynic that people thought. He had the biggest heart
We would have changed things. We would have had more control if and he was the fastest. He was in and out. While we were still getting in
we'd known what we know now. But we did pretty good considering we he was out and on to the next round.
were just four Liverpool lads. We did not do badly coping. | think that
was the main thing we did — cope. A lot of other people who had less JOHN: All my friends were The Beatles, anyway. There was The
stress didn't cope as well. People would have one hit and be in strait- Beatles and about three other fellas that I was really close with.
jackets and mental institutions. We just went on and on.
We were put under the heaviest pressure. | don't think anybody had PAUL: It helped that we were like a gang together. Mick Jagger called
had as much pressure as The Beatles; maybe in some way Elvis, but it us the Four-Headed Monster because we went everywhere together,
was quite as intense as with us. Part of the pressure of the tires was dressed similarly. We'd all have black polo-neck sweaters and dark suits
the ia that was going on, plus the drugs and the police, and th: ) the and the same haircut, so we did look a bit like a four-headed monster.
polit everywhere we went there was political upheaval and riots.
RINGO: There were lots of high points: one time when we played a gig
JOHN. hen I look back on it, it's vaguely astounding, the fact tat I in Glasgow — there was this communication going on, with the band and
was in ‘e always called it ‘the eye of the hurricane’. It was caly er with the audience. That would have been 1963 or ‘64. There were some
right int middle than on «he peripheries dates we did, some gigs when it was magical, and there were some gigs
in the studio — some playing and some non-playing.
GEORGE: |i was a very on:-sided love . ‘air. The people gave their All the albums have great moments. There was so much good music.
money and they gave their screams, but)» Beatles gave their nervous I was always (and still am to this day) really interested and excited about
systems, which is a much more difficult thi: 3 to give. being in a band, and what a band does.

THE BEATLE
 GEORGE: In the big picture it
matter if we never made a record or we | ng
a song. That isn't important. At death
going to be needing some spiritual guida
some kind of inner knowledge that
beyond the boundaries of the physical world
that basis | would say that it doesn't matt
whether you're the king of a country or you're the
Sultan of Brunei or you're a fabulous Beatle. it's
what's inside that counts. Some of the best songs
that | know are the ones | haven't written yet and
it doesn't even matter if | don't ever write them,
because it's only smal! potatoes compared with the
big picture.

The ‘White’ album had some great music. | liked the musician
situation, not everything else around it. Sgt Pepper is my least favourite,
though it has some amazing stuff on it — it was great for (mainly) John
and Paul to create all those sounds and get the violins in and
instruments like that, because they were their songs; and when it came
out it was the album. | don't know why | like it least — something to do
with where my head was, or what was happening.
But, for me, Revolver — God! Some great stuff. Also, Abbey Road
the second side. And ‘Yer Blues’ on the ‘White’ album, you can't top it.
It was the four of us. That is what I'm saying: it was really because the
four of us were in a box, a room about eight by eight, with no
separation. It was this group that was together, it was like grunge rock of
the Sixties, really — grunge blues.

JOHN: In spite of all things, The Beatles really could play music
together, if they're not uptight. And if | get a thing going, Ringo
knows where to go, just like that, and he does well. We've played
together so long that it fits. The thing that | sometimes miss is being
able just to blink or make a certain noise and to know they'll all know
where we are going on an ad lib thing.”

RINGO: | felt with us four it was magical and it was telepathy. When
we were working in the studio sometimes it was just... it
indescribable, really. Although there were four of us, there was one o!
us; all of our hearts were beating at the same time. But the moment y
think, ‘Oh, aren't | playing well!’ then you turn into shit.
(OHN: Anyway, | saw the life of Gauguin on TV, and it struck me that In the way that the astronauts who went to the moon shared that
he'd died in such a pitiful way (VD, for which the ‘cure’ was mercury), unique experience together, it's absolutely true of The Beatles. We three
with a foot broken and twisted from a drunken brawl after returning are now the only people who can sit and understand each other and
home for his first ‘successful’ opening in Paris. understand it.
He had gone to Tahiti to escape his own strait-jacket: working at a | actually met a man who went to the moon and | asked him, ‘When
bank. A wife and children, one whom he was particularly fond of, a did the Earth stop being like we know it and get round like a planet?’
daughter to whom he had been dedicating a personal journal he kept And he said, ‘Oh, | was too busy to notice.’ | couldn't believe it! That
whilst living in te South Pacific, explaining why he had left his family. was the big question — he was maybe the twelfth guy to be up there
When he returned to Tahiti, he received a letter from home telling him who could have noticed the point at which it became round, and
his daughter iad died! What a price to pay to ‘go down in history’. He didn't. | was shocked. But the Beatles were busy too, up there: though
finally finished his large ‘masterwork’, and died, the point being that, we were changing things, we were doing it and not looking around us.
OK, he was @ good painter, but the world could manage quite well We were it, so we weren't looking for it. We were wearing collarless
without one scrap of his ‘genius’. | believe the ‘masterwork’ was suits and suddenly the whole world was wearing them — we bought
destroyed by fire after his death. The other point being, had he had them in Cecil Gee's, it's not like we invented them. And we wore
access to so-called mysticism... fasting... meditation... and other colourful clothes, and because we did it allowed a lot of other people to
disciplines (as in disciple), he could have reached the ‘same space’. do the same.
Hard work, | grant you, but easier than killing yourself and those
around you.” PAUL: I think we gave some sort of freedom to the world. | meet a lot
of people now who say The Beatles freed them up. If you think about
GEORGE: That was the great thing about John and what | got from it, the world was slightly more of an upper-class place till The
him, from all those years. (And don't forget we all had different Beatles came along. Regional actors had to have also a very good
relationships with John. You can't just expect that all four of us felt or Shakespearean voice; and then it started to be enough just to have your
understood the same thing, or got the same relationship from one own accent, your own truth. | think we set free a lot of people who were
another. It's the story of diversity or multiplicity that many different blinkered, who were perhaps starting to live life along their parents’
relationships went on. John and I on a one-to-one basis had a very authoritarian lines.
different relationship than | think he had with Ringo or he had with Whenever I'd get asked by a journalist, ‘Have you studied anything?’
Paul.) He saw that we are not just in the material world; he saw beyond — I studied a bit of literature, nothing much — I'd say, ‘Oh yeah,
death, that this life is just a little play that is going on. And he under- Shakespeare,’ and I'd always quote: ‘To thine own self be true.’ | think
stood that. You wouldn't claim something like Gauguin neglected his that was very apt with The Beatles. We always were very true to
family for art, or dying for your painting is stupid — why bother? — ourselves — and | think that the brutal honesty The Beatles had was
unless you have a feeling that there is something bigger in life. A important. So sticking to our own guns and really saying what we
painting of a sunset cannot compare to the real sunset. Art (like music) thought in some way gave some other people in the world the idea that
is an insignificant attempt at reproducing what God does every they too could be truthful and get away with it, and in fact it was a
moment. good thing.
Having gone through that LSD period with John, right from the
first day we ever took it, | understood him and I believe our thoughts JOHN: The youth have hope because it's their future that they're
were much more in line with each other. hopeful about and if they're depressed about their own future, well, then
we are in a bad state. And we keep hope alive by keeping it alive
RINGO: I didn’t find the answer. | think that would be really arrogant: amongst ourselves and I have great hope for the future.
‘Yes, I've got the answer!’ | found my answer somewhere along the line. | I think The Beatles were a kind of religion and that Paul epitomised
thank God that | went through the Sixties, the Seventies and the The Beatles and the kind of things that were a hero image more than
Eighties to get where | am today, to feel comfortable with my the rest of us, in a way. He was more popular with the kids, girls and
spirituality. things like that.
No growth without pain is always the question and the answer. I think the Sixties was a great decade. | think the great gatherings of
There is a lot of banging your head against the wall when you could youth in America and in the Isle of Wight might have just been a pop
be actually walking through the door. But that's what we all are — concert to some people, but they were a lot more than that. They were
little human beings. God saved my life, I've always felt blessed. But the youth getting together and forming a new church, as it were, and
there have been times I've got crazier and crazier and forgot about saying, ‘We believe in God, we believe in hope and truth and here we
that blessing. are, 20,000 or 200,000 of us, all together in peace.”

NEIL ASPINALL: My happiest memories of being with the band were some GEORGE: The Beatles somehow reached more people, more
of the laughs that we bad backstage and in dressing rooms — when nobody else nationalities, more parts that other bands couldn't reach. (If you listen
was around and we were swapping jokes together. No big deal, really. It was to the music that's going on now, all the good stuff is stolen from The
those little personal things that are my favourite moments and still are today. Beatles. Most of the good licks and riffs or ideas and titles. The Beatles
We did all enjoy one another's company and we always had a laugh. That have been plundered for thirty years.)
was one of the big things right the way through everything, even today — we | think we gave hope to the Beatle fans. We gave them a positive
enjoy a laugh. feeling that there was a sunny day ahead and that there was a good
time to be had and that you are your own person and that the
RINGO: They became the closest friends I'd ever had. I was an only government doesn't own you. There were those kind of messages in a
child and suddenly I felt as though I'd got three brothers. We really lot of our songs.
looked out for each other and we had many laughs together. In the old
days we'd have the hugest hotel suites, the whole floor of a hotel, and PAUL: I do these songs still: ‘Let It Be’ and the like. And to actually see
the four of us would end up in the bathroom, just to be with each other. young kids crying over the spirit in the song, I'm very proud of that. It
Becat there were always pressures. Someone always wanted could have gone another way. | say to people, ‘Hey, if The Beatles were
sometiiing: an interview, a hello, an autograph, to be seen with us, to really bad, we could have played Hitler's game. We could have got kids
speak ry dog, whatever. to do anything, such was our power.’
SO THE FOUR OF US WERE REALLY CLOSE.
I LOVED IT. 1LOVED THOSE GUYS. RINGO: | do get emotional when | think back about those times. My
Wet care of each other and we were the only ones who had that make-up is emotional. I'm an emotional human being. I'm very sensitive
experience being Beatles. No one else knows what that's like. Even and it took me till | was forty-eight to realise that was the problem!
today, when the three of us get together, Pau! and George are the only We were honest with each other and we were honest about the
two who look at me like | am — not with the view: he's that and a Beatle. music. The music was positive. It was positive in love. They did write —
Everyone else does that; even our friends do that, there's always that we all wrote — about other things, but the basic Beatles message was
underlying current. Love.

THE BEATLES
 SELECTED CAPTIONS
99: On holiday in Tenerife, pictures courtesy of picture) George and (top right) Paul. 222: (top left) Letter from George Harrison to
2: The Beatles in A Hard Day's Night.
Ringo (middle left), Klaus Voormann (the two in 153: Derek addressing the crowd. Derek Taylor; colour photographs supplied by
5: The Beatles in April 1969.
colour) and George (all others). Also pictured 157: With Fats Domino. George.
are Astrid Kirchherr (top left and bottom right) 159: Shown bottom middle are Brian and 223: (bottom right) Letter from Brian to
Maureen Cleave.
1960-1962 and Klaus (bottom left). George Martin in a sequence of photos from the
100: All colour photographs supplied by Ringo; recording of Beatles For Sale. 228: The Beatles at Candlestick Park, San
documents from Paul. 161: (bottom) With George Martin. Francisco, 29th August 1966, the last concert of
‘}: (upper) Marlon Brando in The Wild One,
lower) Billy Fury and, right, John Lennon; 101: With Johnny Gustafson, bass-player with their last tour.

document) lerter by Paul McCartney. The Big Three, and Mick Jagger. 230-232: John on the set of How I Won The War
42-44: Auditioning for Larry Parnes, May 1960. 103; (drawing) From Paul's schoolbook; playing 1965 in Almeria, Spain.

45: The Beatles’ tour bus en route to Hamburg the London Palladium on 13th October 1963 164-174: With the cast and crew on the set of 233 and 234 (top): George's photographs from
46: (bottom) Taken by John at Arnhem (upper left) and 12th January 1964 (bottom right). Help! 165 (top) with Eleanor Bron, who plays India, 1966, featuring him learning sitar with
Cemetery: (!-) Allan Williams, Beryl Williams 105: (top left) The Beatles meet Princess Ahme in the film, 170 (top row, first picture) Ravi Shankar, and at the beach with Kamala
Lord Woodbine, Stuart Sutcliffe, Paul, George, Margaret; (bottom left) Marlene Dietrich. Eleanor Bron; (second picture) John with Dick Chakravarty and Ravi's student Shambhu Das.
Pete Best 105-106: Documents from Paul's private collection. Lester and Mal Evans; (third picture) Eleanor 235: (background) ‘Ceiling Painting’ from
46-47. Photograph from George's collection. 107 (bottom right) With George Martin (left) Bron with Dick Lester; (second row, first picture) Unfinished Paintings and Objects by Yoko Ono, as
48: (top two and middle right) Supplied by and Brian Epstein (behind). Paul and Neil; (fourth row, second picture) Paul exhibited at Indica Gallery, London, November
George; George's written note is from the 109: At a party at the Park Lane, London, home and Mal, (fifth row, first picture) John and 1966; (bottom right) illustration by John.
reverse of the print pictured top left, the Film of John Bloom, then a successful washing- George in disguise, (third picture) Neil and Mal;
Foto Pressedienst logo is from the reverse of the machine tycoon, 9th November 1963. (sixth row, first picture) Leo McKern, who plays
original framed polaroid print. Clang in the film; 174; John's song lyric for 1967
49: Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, from Ringo's ‘Help!’
private collection (Ringo first left). 1964 175: Paul's song lyric for ‘Yesterday’. 239-240: Filming the promotional footage for
51: The Reeperbahn (top) and Grosse Freiheit 176: (bottom left) Drawing by John; (bottom ‘Strawberry Fields Forever and ‘Penny Lane’ in
(upper middle); George's handwritten set list 112: (top right) John holds up a fan letter right) George beside his swimming pool mosaic, Knole Park, Sevenoaks, January-February 1967.
(middle left); (bottom) Beatles on ship in addressed to ‘The Beatles, France’ which has featuring John’s illustration. 243-247: Recording Sgt Pepper at Abbey Road
Hamburg harbour, from George's private reached him at the George V Hotel, Paris; 181: (top) George's MBE medal. Studios; also pictured are (244 third row, first
collection, with George's note (lower middle) (middle) Brigitte Bardot. 183: (bottom) Paul and George wore their MBE picture) George Martin with Paul; (245 top
from the reverse of the print. 114: (bottom) Bob Dylan. medals for the Sgt Pepper album cover photo right) Mal, Paul and Neil; (245 fifth row, first
52: (bottom left) Astrid Kirchherr. 115: (top) Paul's song lyric for 'l Want To Hold session. picture) George and Paul laughing with George
57: (background) Illustration by Paul and Your Hand’, (bottom left) in front of the Eiffel 186-189: Performing at Shea Stadium, New Martin; (245 bottom row, first picture) Neil.
Michael McCartney. Tower; (right) with Brian Epstein. York. 248-253: The photography session for the Sgt
58-59: On the roof of the Top Ten Club, from 118-119: The Ed Sullivan Show, February 1964; 119 192: (letter) Memo from Brian Epstein to his Pepper cover.
George's collection. John is standing on the (left) With Ed Sullivan, (right) Brian, Neil and personal assistant Wendy Hanson regarding The 249: (upper middle right) Neil and Paul with
chimney on page 58. John Beatles meeting Elvis Presley. Michael Cooper, the cover photographer;
59: (top) Paul's letter to Bob Wooler. 122: Miami Beach, February 1964. 194: Paul and George with (centre) George Cooper's son Adam is also pictured with Paul
62: (bottom right) The cover of John's Daily How! 124-125: At Abbey Road Studios recording A Martin. and George in the main image; (bottom) the
book, which he put together while at school. Hard Day's Night. 197: (background) John’s lyric for ‘In My Life’. drumskin, today in Paul's private collection, was
64: John on the trip to Paris with Paul. 126; George at Marylebone Station, London, 199: (bottom) Neil and Paul with a fan. an alternative design to that pictured on the
68: Poster from Paul's collection. during the filming of A Hard Day's Night, April album cover.
70: All photographs except bottom are from 1964 252: (bottom left) One of the cardboard cut-outs
George's private collection. 127: Further shots of cast and crew including, in 1966 included with the Sgt Pepper album.
71. The main image is from Ringo’s collection. the third row, director Dick Lester (pictured on 253: (bottom right) At the press party to launch
72: Rehearsing at the Cavern. the left in the first image), and George with 206: (top left) Letter from George Harrison to the album, which was held at Brian's London
73: (top left) John and Cynthia, newly married; future wife Pattie Boyd and other actresses from Derek Taylor. residence, 19th May 1967.
in the background is their marriage certificate; the film (second image). 207: Includes George's song lyric for ‘Taxman’, 254: Message of peace and goodwill from The
p! h of Ringo with beard is from his 129: (bottom right) Dick Lester with the band. and cheques from Paul and George to the Inland Beatles to the Monterey Pop Festival.
cuior 131: (bottom left) Watching the rushes of A Revenue. 256-257: The Our World live broadcast of ‘All
78: Documents from Paul's private Hard Day's Night, (main picture) delivery of the 208: Gravestones of Eleanor Rigby and John You Need Is Love’.
collection. The photographs on page 75 show prints to the Beacon Theatre, New York City. McKenzie in the cemetery of St Peter's Parish 258: Alexis Mardas, Pattie and George at
the session at EMI Abbey Road Studios, 4th 134: (bottom) John, guest of honour at the Church, Woolton, Liverpool. London Heathrow Airport about to depart for
September 1962. George still has a black eye bookshop Foyle’s literary lunch held at The 209: (middle left) George Martin with Paul, Greece, 20th July 1967.
from the Cavern Dorchester, 23rd April 1964. George and John; George with tamboura, the 259: (top) George and Pattie in Golden Gate
135-137: John, Cynthia, George and Pattie in Indian drone instrument. Park, San Francisco; (bottom) George on guitar
Tahiti holiday photographs. Except for the one 210: Robert Freeman's original design for the with Alexis Mardas, Pattie and (centre of picture,
1963 of Cynthia and Pattie in the middle of page 137, Revolver sleeve. facing George) Derek Taylor, and too many
these are from George's collection 213-214; Making the promotional films for other friends besides.
82: Sessions at the BBC 140: Arriving in the rain in Sydney, Australia; ‘Paperback Writer/Rain’ at Chiswick House and 264-267: Photographs of Brian Epstein, including
85: (top two pictures) Neil Aspinall is at the Jimmy Nicol is on the right in both Abbey Road Studios, London, in the colour (lower right on 264) the television presenter
wheel of both the van and the car photographs. picture on 213 Paul is examining slides of the Richard Dimbleby announcing Brian's death.
86: (main picture) Mal Evans; (bottom left) Mal 141 (all), 142-143 (main picture) and 143 ‘Butcher’ cover photographs. 269: (photographs) Various designs proposed for
is the vearing glasses (bottom right): Tour photographs by George. 215: (top) Europe's smallest press photographer Apple's logo.
87: Eati ith The Beatles (bottom centre) is 144; (top) The Beatles John and Cynthia arm in is lifted up to photograph The Beatles; (bottom) 271-277: Making Magical Mystery Tour: the
Neil A who is also pictured bottom right; arm) at the premiere of A Hard Day's Night a Beatles fan in Tokyo, 1966, recruiting sergeant with Paul on 273 is played by
the doci are from Paul's collection London Pavilion, Piccadilly Circus, 6th July 1964. 216-219: Photographs from the 1966 tour of Victor Spinetti; on 276 John is shovelling
89: (uppe re) Paul's handwritten song list 145: (top) John receiving the Variety Club of Japan and the Philippines; on 217 the two colour spaghetti for Aunt Jessie (Jessie Robins) in his
90-91 and t): At Abbey Road Studios with Great Britain's silver heart-shaped ‘Show Susiness images feature Paul with Brian, below them are dream sequence; and on 277 George is at the
George Ma * Personalities of 1963’ Award, presented « pictured Mal and Neil; bottom left is Brian; striptease show.
94: Paul supp! e poster, George the London's Dorchester Hotel by the leader > the featured on 218 are (inset middle right) Imelda 278: (top photographs) The promotional film for
Orbison docun Labour * arty, Harold Wilson (pictured le! Marcos, aad (background) John's handwritten ‘Hello, Goodbye’; (background) Paul's song lyric
97; (top) George and John in the studio wit! 19th M=..) 1964 — the occasion when Jo! verdict on the tour. for the song; (bottom) Ringo filming Candy,
Dick James; (middle) Dick James, George Martin made |} rple Hearts’ joke. 221: (lette:) John's annotated reply to a 1971
and Brian Epstein; (bottom left) Neil and George 150: (I ght) Jayne Mansfield. letter from. Peter Brown of Apple, on the tax
in Bournemouth, August 1963. 152:D Faylor is pictured with (main controversy in the Philippines,

CREDITS
 1968 Yellow Submarine. 1969-70 332: Illustrations are by John; the ck s
294-295: On 28th July 1968, The Beatles the official declaration by John of his change of
281-286: The Beatles in Rishikesh in early 1968. undertook a full day of photo sessions at 314-317: Recording and filming Let It Be at name from John Winston Lennon to John Ono
The pictures on 282 and the two on the left on locations around London, including (four Twickenham Film Studios, January 1969. Lennon, signed 22nd April 1969
283 are George's; on the right on 283 John is in portrait shots on 294) Wapping, (294 bottom 318-321: The Let It Be sessions at Apple Studios, 334: The Beatles with Yoko Ono
the helicopter with the Maharishi; Mike Love is right) Thomson House Studio, and (all others) late January; Billy Preston is pictured on 319 (top 335: John and Yoko's bed-in, Montreal, May
pictured with George (bottom right on 283) and St Pancras Gardens; (294 top left) yearbook with left); the lyrics on 320 are John’s ‘I've Got A 1969; annotations on yearbook by John
again at bottom left on 284, this time with John John's annotated verdict on the day, from Paul's Feeling’ and Paul's Two Of Us’ 336-339: Recording Abbey Road at Abbey Road
(left) and Donovan; the handwriting and private collection. 322: The concert on the roof at Apple on 30th Studios; on 336 is Paul's lyric for ‘She Came In
drawing on 284 is Paul's list of songs written in 297: John and Julian. January. Through The Bathroom Window’, the document
Rishikesh, plus a drawing of Mal Evans, taken 298: Filming ‘Hey Jude’ at Twickenham Film 323: (top) Original sleeve designs proposed for on 338 is the police list of John’s possessions held
from Paul's notebook, which is itself featured on Studios; David Frost is pictured at bottom right. the Let It Be album (originally titled Get Back), for him following his car accident on Ist July 1969,
285 (lower middle), top right on 285 is Mia 299: During the filming of the ‘Revolution’ promo. the cover image taken at EMI House in exactly on 339 is George's lyric for ‘Here Comes The Sun’.
Farrow. 300: John and Yoko in the cover image from the same location as that of their first UK album 341-343: Photo session outside Abbey Road
287: John and Paul at the press conference in Two Virgins. Please Please Me (see page 93), the unsigned Studios for the Abbey Road album cover; illustra-
New York to launch Apple, May 1968. 303: (middle left) Drawing by Paul; annotations memo (bottom right) is addressed to Paul. tions on 341 are Paul's sketches for the session.
288: (top left) Apple advertisement for musicians to documents are by John. 325: The front door of Apple, 3 Savile Row. 347: (top left) Illustration by John.
to send their tapes to the new label; Paul's 304: Illustration by John. 328: (top) Peter Sellers in The Magic Christian 350: (top left) John with The Plastic Ono Band per-
original sketch for it is at bottom right. 305-311: The making of the ‘White’ album; 329: (top) Ringo and Peter Sellers in The Magic forming ‘Instant Karma’ at BBC TV Centre, 11th
289: (top left) Paul with Mary Hopkin; (right) documents featured include George's lyric for Christian, (illustrations) Paul's sketched ideas for February 1970, for the programme Top Of The Pops.
Drawing by John picturing Derek's office at Apple. ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps' (in the the soundtrack album design. 351: Paul and Heather, photographed by Linda.
291: Alexis Mardas and documents relating to background on 306), and annotations by John to 330: (main picture) Linda and Paul on their 353: The final photo session, at Tittenhurst Park.
Apple Electronics. printed lyrics for ‘Happiness Is AWarm Gun’ (on the wedding day with Heather; (bottom right) Mal, 355: The Beatles in 1963.
292-293: (illustrations) Animation from the film left on 307). Linda and Paul in the back of the car, 357: The Beatles at the beginning of 1966.

ACKNOWL DGEMENTS
Genesis Publications would like to thank the following whose kind assistance was invaluable in compiling this book: Jools Holland, David Hughes at EMI, Shelagh Jones and all at MPL, Astrid Kirchherr, Allan Kozinn,
Neil Aspinall, Jeremy, Aaron, Brian and Cathy at Apple, all at Apple Productions, Michael Shulman and Arthur Kretchmer, Ulf Kriiger, Diana LeCore, Mark Lewisohn, Virginia Lohle, lan MacCarthy,
Eric Young at Archive Photos, Geoff Baker, Johnny ‘Guitar’ Byrne, Maureen Cleave, David Costa and Michael McCartney, Stephen Maycock, Karla Merrifield, Elliot Mintz, Robbie Montgomery, Pete
all at Wherefore Art?, Andy Davis, Joe Dolce, Susanne Eder, Ruth Edge at EMI Archives, Kai- Uwe Nash, Zoe Norfolk at Linda's Photo Library, Staffan Olander, Alan Ould, Michael Phillips, Pete
Franz, Giuseppe and Nicola Gilardi, Tetsuo Hamada, Hugh Hefner, Paul Higgens, Trevor Hobley, Shotton, Greg Swan, Derek Taylor, Sue Weiner, Jann Wenner, Kay Williams, Joan Woodgate
.

PHOTOGRAPHIC CREDITS
The following copyright holders kindly provided photographs and/or other illustrative material
forthe book: London Features International, lain Macmillan, Gered Mankowitz, Jim Marshall, Mirror Syndication
International, Popperfoto, Redferns, Reuters Television, Rex Features Ltd, Geoff Rhind, Charles
Paul McCartney, Linda McCartney, Michael McCartney, George Harrison, The Harrison Family, Roberts, Cheniston Roland, Max Scheler, Walter Shenson Films, Sotheby's, Subafilms Ltd, Derek
Ringo Starr, The Starkey Family, Yoko Ono Lennon, Lennon Archive, Apple Corps Ltd. Taylor, Tom Wilkes.

Gene Anthony, Archive Photos, Glenn A. Baker Archives, Barnaby's, The Bluecoat Press, Jane Bown, Works owned by Apple Corps Ltd that are used in this book include photographs taken by the following
Leslie Bryce/Beat Publications Ltd, Johnny ‘Guitar’ Byrne, Camera Press, Capitol Records Inc., CBS News, Michael Cooper, Robert Freeman, Monte Fresco, Stephen Goldblatt, Dezo Hoffmann, Peter Kaye,
Christie's, Maureen Cleave, Commonwealth Films, Andy Davis, EMI Records, Express Newspapers, Curt John Kelly, Angus McBean, Bruce McBroom, Richard Matthews, Ethan Russell, Terence Spencer,
Gunther, Steve Hale, Hulton Getty, KK Hamburg, Leslie Kearney, Astrid Kirchherr, Richard Lester, Robert Whitaker.

TEXTS OURGES
Paul Drew Enterprises; PolyGram Television THE MIKE DOUGLAS SHOW excerpts Extracts from the following programmes
The John Lennon narrative has been
International; The Sunday Times, Westwood One courtesy of EYEMARK Entertainment. reproduced by kind permission of the BBC
compiled from a great many individual sources.
Excerpts from The Tonight Show and The 24 Hours, The Andy Peebles Show; Beatles
The following have all granted their material to Inc; WNEW-FM,; WPLJ-FM
Tomorrow Show © courtesy of National Abroad; The Charlie Gillett Show; Lennon &
be reproduced in The Beatles Anthology— Extracts from Skywriting By Word Of Mouth,
Broadcasting Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved McCartney Songbook; The Mersey Sound; The
Apple Corps Ltd; Archbuild Ltd; Beat written by John Lennon, appear courtesy of
New York Tintes excerpts copyright © 1966 by Michael Parkinson Show; The Old Grey Whistle
Publications Ltd; Jerry G. Bishop; CAPITAL Jonathan Cape and Yoko Ono Lennon.
The New York Times Company. Reprinted by Test; BBC Overseas; Pop Profile; The Kenn
RADIO, LONDON, The Daily Mail, The Daily Extracts from Stuart Sutcliffe's letters appear
permission. Everett Show, Where It's At; Release; Satur
Mirror, Daphne Productions; Hunter Davies; by kind permission of Pauline Sutcliffe.
Quotes taken from ‘John Lennon In His Own Club; Scene and Heard; Tonight; Trans« ion
EVENING STANDARD / SOLO, IPC Extracts from JOHN LENNON—FOR TIt
Words’ by Miles used by permission of Omnibus Service; World of Books
Magazines; KSAN Radio; INA—INSTITUT RECORD by Peter McCabe. Copyright © 1984
Press. Excerpts from LENNON REMEMB!
NATIONAL DE L'AUDIOVISUEL, ITN; Larry by Peter McCabe and Robert Schonfeld. Use
A Cellarful »ise, written by Brian Epstein reproduced by kind permission of Jan
Kane; The Liverpool Echo, Miller Freeman by permission of Bantam Books, a division of
published by nir Press and Rolling Stone
Entertainment; Elliot Mintz; Annie Nightingale; Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, In:

JEX 359
 SONG CREDITS
I WANT TO HOLD YOUR HAND TAXMAN WHEN I'M 64 SHE CAME IN THROUGH THE
Written by Lennon/McCartney Written by George Harrison Written by Lennon/McCartney BATHROOM WINDOW
Copyright © 1963 Sony/ATV Music Publishing Copyright © 1966 Sony/ATV Songs LLC. Copyright © 1967 Sony/ATV Songs LLC. Written by Lennon/McCartney

All Rights Reserved Used by Permission (Renewed) All rights administered by (Renewed) All rights administered by Copyright © 1969 Sony/ATV Songs LLC.
Sony/ATV Music Publishing, Sony/ATV Music Publishing, (Renewed) All rights administered by
HELP! 8 Music Square West, 8 Music Square West, Sony/ATV Music Publishing, 8 Music Square
Written by Lennon/McCartney Nashville, TN 37203 Nashville, TN 37203 West, Nashville, TN 37203
Copyright © 1965 Sony/ATV Songs LLC. All Rights Reserved All Rights Reserved All Rights Reserved
(Renewed) All rights administered by Used by Permission Used by Permission Used by Permission
Sony/ATV Music Publishing, 8 Music Square
West, Nashville, TN 37203 HELLO, GOODBYE HAPPINESS IS A WARM GUN TWO OF US
All Rights Reserved Used by Permission Written by Lennon/McCartney Written by Lennon/McCartney Written by Lennon/McCartney
Copyright © 1967 Sony/ATV Songs LLC. Copyright © 1968 Sony/ATV Songs LLC. Copyright © 1969 Sony/ATV Songs LLC.
IN MY LIFE (Renewed) All rights administered by (Renewed) All rights administered by (Renewed) All rights administered by
Written by Lennon/McCartney Sony/ATV Music Publishing, 8 Music Square Sony/ATV Music Publishing, 8 Music Square Sony/ATV Music Publishing,
Copyright © 1965 Sony/ATV Songs LLC. West, Nashville, TN 37203 West, Nashville, TN 37203 8 Music Square West,
(Renewed) All rights administered by All Rights Reserved All Rights Reserved Nashville, TN 37203
Sony/ATV Music Publishing, 8 Music Square Used by Permission Used by Permission All Rights Reserved
West, Nashville, TN 37203 Used by Permission
All Rights Reserved Used by Permission LUCY IN THE SKY WITH DIAMONDS HEY, JUDE
Written by Lennon/McCartney Written by Lennon/McCartney I'VE GOT A FEELING
YESTERDAY Copyright © 1967 Sony/ATV Songs LLC. Copyright © 1968 Sony/ATV Songs LLC. Written by Lennon/McCartney
Written by Lennon/McCartney (Renewed) All rights administered by (Renewed) All rights administered by Copyright © 1970 Sony/ATV Songs LLC.
Copyright © 1965 Sony/ATV Songs LLC. Sony/ATV Music Publishing, Sony/ATV Music Publishing, (Renewed) All rights administered by
(Renewed) All rights administered by 8 Music Square West, 8 Music Square West, Sony/ATV Music Publishing, 8 Music Square
Sony/ATV Music Publishing, 8 Music Square Nashville, TN 37203 Nashville, TN 37203 West, Nashville, TN 37203
West, Nashville, TN 37203 All Rights Reserved All Rights Reserved All Rights Reserved
All Rights Reserved Used by Permission Used by Permission Used by Permission Used by Permission

INDEX TO ALBU S & SON TIES

Abbey Road, 311, 318, 322, 323, 326, 337-43, ‘Come And Get It’, 289 Get Back, 337 ‘| Lost My Little Girl’, 20
348, 351, 355 ‘Come Go With Me’, 20 ‘Getting Better’, 253 ‘| Me Mine’, 319
‘Across The Universe’, 197, 317, 319 ‘Come On’, 101 ‘Ghost Riders In The Sky’, 36 ‘| Put A Spell On You’, 197
‘Act Naturally’, 173 ‘Come Together’, 339 ‘Girl’, 194, 196 ‘| Remember You’, 68, 81
‘Ain't She Sweet’, 59, 67, 68 ‘Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill, The’, 284 ‘Girl Can't Help It, The’, 22 ‘| Saw Her Standing There’, 20, 23
‘Ain't That A Shame’, 11 Count Basie Plays The Beatles, 198 ‘Girl Of My Dreams’, 96 ‘| Should Have Known Better’, 129
‘All You Need Is Love’, 81, 109, 257, 292, 311, ‘Cry For A Shadow’, 59 ‘Give Peace A Chance’, 334, 348 ‘| Wanna Be Your Man’, 101
315, 335, 354 ‘Glass Onion’, 306 ‘| Want To Hold Your Hand’, 110, 112, 114,
‘And | Love Her’, 198 ‘Daddy Rolling Stone’, 201 ‘Golden Slumbers’, 337, 340 115, 274, 311
‘And Your Bird Can Sing’, 209 ‘Dance In The Street’, 47 ‘Good Day Sunshine’, 198, 209 ‘| Want To Tell You’, 209
‘Anna’, 93, 96 ‘Day In The Life, A’, 247, 252, 253 ‘Good Night’, 306 ‘| Want You (She's So Heavy)’, 340
Anthol Jy tapes, 72, 352 ‘Day Tripper’, 199, 212 ‘Got To Get You Into My Life’, 209 ‘| Will’, 284
Ant ‘Dear Prudence’, 284 Green Onions, 116 ‘If | Fell’, 129
‘Devil In Her Heart’, 107 ‘Greensleeves’, 257 ‘If You Gotta Make A Fool Of Somebody’, 68,
‘Dinah’, 27 ‘Guitar Boogie’, 21 107, 160
Baby Let's Play House’, 197 ‘Dizzy Miss Lizzy’, 173, 194 ‘Gypsy Fire Dance, The’, 44 ‘If You've Got Trouble’, 173
Baby's In Black’, 160 ‘Do You Want To Know A Secret’, 92, 93, 96 ‘I'm A Loser’, 158, 160, 197
‘Back In The U.S.S.R.', 76 ‘Doctor Robert’, 209 ‘Hallelujah, | Love Her So’, 28 ‘I'm A Pink Toothbrush, You're A Blue
‘Back Off Boogaloo’, 318 ‘Don't Be Cruel’, 21 ‘Happiness ls A Warm Gun’, 306 Toothbrush’, 27
‘Badfinger’, 289 ‘Don't Blame Me’, 22 ‘Hard Day's Night, A’, 124, 129, 159, 160, ‘I'm Down’, 187, 193
‘Ballad Of John And Yoko, The’, 332, 333, 334 ‘Don't Bother Me’, 96, 107, 196 175, 198 ‘I'm In Love Again’, 27
‘Be Bop A Lula’, 12, 22, 41, 58, 69 ‘Don't Let Me Down’, 318 Hard Day's Night, A, 128, 129, 146, 157 ‘I'm Only Sleeping’, 212
Beatles, The, see ‘White! album ‘Don't Let The Sun Catch You Crying’, 80 171, 173, 174, 272, 315 ‘In My Life’, 96, 194, 196, 197
Beatles At The Hollywood Bowl, The, 150 ‘Don't Pass Me By’, 306 ‘Heartbreak Hotel’, 11, 21, 27, 192 ‘In Spite Of All The Danger’, 14, 23
Beatles For Sale, 159, 160, 308 ‘Double-O Soul’, 318 ‘Hello, Goodbye’, 278 ‘In The Mood’, 257
Beatles Story, The, 194 ‘Drive My Car’, 81, 194 ‘Help!’, 160, 174, 197, 207, 231 ‘Instant Karma’, 323, 350
‘Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite’, 243, 247, 253 Help!, 171, 173, 272, 315
‘Besame Mucho’, 70 ‘Earth Angel’, 28 ‘Helter Skelter’, 311 ‘Jennifer Juniper’, 259
‘Blue le Shoes’, 11, 44 ‘Eight Days A Week’, 159, 160, 174 ‘Here Comes The Sun’, 339, 340 ‘Johnny B. Goode’, 11, 22
Blue ¥ 13', 27 ‘Eleanor Rigby’, 208, 226 ‘Here, There And Everywhere’, 209
Blue Y« 14', 27 ‘End, The’, 337 ‘Hey! Baby’, 81, 101 ‘Keep Your Hands Off My Baby’, 93
Blue-J« 49 ‘Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby’, 14 ‘Hey Bulldog’, 293
‘Boys, 1 ‘Hey Jude’, 297, 298, 316 ‘Let It Be’, 19
Breakfast a y's, 198 ” ‘Fever’, 22, 59 ‘Hippy Hippy Shake, The’, 68 Let It Be, 95, 285, 306, 318, 319, 321, 322, 323,
Fire, Fire, Fire, Fire’, 26-7 ‘Honey Don't’, 160 326, 337, 342, 350, 351, 352, 356
Can't Buy N 114, 129, 130, 198 ‘Fool On The Hill’, 272 ‘Honky | onk Blues’, 12 ‘Let's Dance’, 94
Carol’, 11 ‘For No One’, 207, 209 ‘How Do You Do It’, 76, 77, 90 ‘Let's Have A Party’, 13
Carolina Moc ) Freewh: 112 ‘Hully Gully’, 53, 58 ‘Like Dreamers Do’, 18, 68
Climb Upon My Knee’, 36 From Me To You’, 81, 94, 101, 110, 115, 160, 193 ‘Little Drummer Boy’, 36
C'mon Everybody’, 28, 266 ‘| Anr The Walrus’, 175, 241, 273, 274, 278 ‘Little White Lies’, 22, 96
old Turkey’, 347 ‘Get Back’, 315, 318, 319, 321, 333 ‘| Feel Fine’, 159, 160, 174 ‘Living Doll’, 197

INDEX
‘Loco-Motion, The’, 93 ‘Paint It Black’, 203 ‘Sheila’, 94 ‘Wabash Cannonball’, 28
‘Long And Winding Road, The’, 323, 350 ‘Paperback Writer’, 212, 214, 280 ‘Shenanaggy Da’, 26 ‘Wah Wah’, 316
‘Long Tall Sally’, 11, 20, 96, 112 ‘Peggy Sue’, 22 ‘She's A Woman’, 160 ‘Waiting For A Train’, 27
‘Love In The Open Air’, 234 ‘Penny Lane’, 212, 214, 237, 239, 348 ‘Shot Of Rhythm And Blues, A’, 68 ‘Wake Up, Little Susie, Wake Up’, 89
‘Love Is A Many-Splendoured Thing’, 36 Pet Sounds, 253 ‘Silhouettes’, 160 ‘Walking In The Park With Eloise’, 19
‘Love Me Do’, 23, 68, 70, 76, 77, 81, 82, 90, 94, ‘Please Mr Postman’, 107 ‘Singing Brakeman’, 27 ‘Watch Your Step’, 160
101, 160, 274 ‘Please Please Me’, 76, 77, 81, 90, 94, 97, 110, ‘Slippin’ And Slidin", 11 ‘We Can Work It Out’, 199
‘Love You To’, 209 197, 274 ‘Soldier Of Love’, 93 "We Love You’, 203
‘Lovely Rita’, 247 Please Please Me, 94, 107, 115 ‘Some Other Guy’, 107 ‘Wear My Ring Around Your Neck’, 44
‘Lucille’, 49 ‘Polythene Pam’, 337 ‘Something’, 96, 340 ‘Wedding Bells’, 332
‘Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds’, 80, 242, 243, ‘Pretty Woman’, 94 ‘Son Of Honky Tonk’, 77 ‘Well’, 68
252, 253 ‘PS I Love You’, 70, 160 ‘Sooty’, 77 ‘What'd I Say’, 28, 31, 49
‘Lullaby Of The Leaves’, 18 ‘South Of The Border’, 35 When I'm Sixty-Four’, 22, 208, 237, 239, 247
‘Railroad Runs Through The Middle Of The ‘Stairway To Paradise’, 18 ‘When The Saints Go Marching In’, 12, 20
McCartney, 349, 350, 351 House, The’, 27 ‘Stardust’, 36 ‘When You Wish Upon A Star’, 292
Magical Mystery Tour, 268, 270, 273, 304, 305 Rain’,
212, 213, 214 ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’, 197, 212, 231, 237, ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps', 306, 318, 340
317, 342 ‘Rainbow’, 67 239, 243, 348 ‘Whispering’, 27
‘Mama’, 36 ‘Ramrod’, 44 ‘Stumbling’, 18 ‘Whispering Bells’, 27
‘Maxwell's Silver Hammer’, 339, 340 ‘Raunchy’, 12, 21 ‘Summertime Blues’, 28 'White’ album (The Beatles), 289, 305-11, 312,
‘Mean Mr. Mustard’, 337 ‘Rave On’, 23 ‘Sun King’, 337 318, 319, 340, 348, 353, 355
‘Mean Woman Blues’, 23 ‘Ready Teddy’, 11 ‘Sweet Little Sixteen’, 112 "Whiter Shade Of Pale, A’, 330
Meet The Beatles, 308 ‘Red Red Robin’, 19 ‘Sweet Sue’, 27 ‘Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On’, 20, 39, 69
‘Memphis Tennessee’, 22 ‘Respect’, 194 ‘Why Don't We Do It In The Road’, 333
‘Michelle’, 20, 194, 197 ‘Revolution’, 297, 298, 299, 307, 311 ‘Taste Of Honey, A’, 22, 49, 67 ‘Wild Side Of Life, The’, 157
‘Midnight Special’, 28 ‘Revolution 9', 307 ‘Taxman’, 197, 206, 207, 208 ‘With A Little Help From My Friends’, 80, 241, 242
‘Milk Cow Blues’, 22 Revolver, 194, 206-9, 210, 211, 212, 229, 237 ‘Teddy Bear’, 44 With The Beatles, 107, 308
‘Mohair Sam’, 191 242, 355 ‘Tell My Why’, 129 ‘Within You Without You’, 242, 243, 253
‘Money’, 107 ‘Ringo'’s Theme’, 130 ‘Telstar’, 77 ‘Without You’, 289
‘Moon River’, 198 ‘Rip It Up’, 11 ‘Thank You Girl’, 94, 160, 193, 210 ‘Word, The’, 193, 194
‘Moonglow’, 44, 49 ‘Rock Around The Clock’, 21, 28 ‘That Old Black Magic’, 36 ‘Working Class Hero’, 64
‘Move It’, 10 ‘Rock Island Line’, 28 ‘That'll Be The Day’, 14, 22, 23, 59 ‘World Is Waiting For the Sunshine, The’, 41
‘My Bonnie’, 59, 65 ‘Roll Over Beethoven’, 107, 112 ‘That's When Your Heartaches Begin’, 93
‘My Dark Hour’, 326 Rubber Soul, 159, 193-4, 196-7, 199, 212, 229 Their Satanic Majesties Request, 253 'Yakety Yak’, 123
‘My Funny Valentine’, 22, 68 242, 248 ‘They're Building Flats Where The Arches Used ‘Yellow Submarine’, 27, 208, 289
‘Ruby Tuesday’, 203 To Be’, 36 Yellow Submarine, 171, 318
‘Needles and Pins’, 197 ‘Run For Your Life’, 197 ‘Think For Yourself’, 196 "Yer Blues’, 193, 283, 355
‘Night Before, The’, 173 ‘Runaway Train Went Over The Hill, The’, 27 ‘Think It Over’, 23, 31 'Yesterday’, 94, 98, 173, 175, 316
‘No Reply’, 160 ‘Thirty Days’, 41 Yesterday And Today, 204-5
‘Nobody's Child’, 36 ‘Scrambled Egg’, 175 ‘This Boy’, 96, 130, 197 ‘You Can't Catch Me’, 339
‘Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)’, 194, ‘Searchin", 22 Those Were The Days’, 289 ‘You Know My Name (Loox Up My Number)’,
196, 233 Sentimental Journey, 349 ‘Three Cool Cats’, 82 203, 306
‘Not A Second Time’, 96 ‘September In The Rain’, 67 'Three-Thirty Blues’, 48 ‘You Never Give Me Your Money’, 337
‘Not Fade Away’, 101 ‘Sexy Sadie’, 286 ‘Ticket To Ride’, 173, 174 ‘You Really Got A Hold On Me’, 68, 107

‘Nowhere Man’, 194, 196 Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, 18, 183, 197, ‘Till There Was You’, 22, 67, 68 'You Won't See Me’, 194
209, 212, 236, 237, 241-53, 260, 261, 263 'To Know Her Is To Love Her’, 67 'You'll Never Know’, 36

'‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’, 284 272, 278, 287, 292, 305, 306, 308, 310, ‘Tommy’, 241 ‘Your Feet's Too Big’, 70

‘Octopus's Garden’, 312, 339 316, 337, 340, 355 ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’, 130, 209, 210, 211, ‘Your Mother Should Know’, 273

‘Oh! Darling’, 339 ‘Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band’, 241, 212, 214, 263 ‘You've Got To Hide Your Love Away’, 158, 173

‘Oh Mein Papa’, 36 252, 305 ‘Topsy Part Two’, 36 207

'Sh-Boom’, 28 ‘Tutti Frutti’, 11, 20, 59 ‘You've Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’, 157
‘One After 909, The’, 95
‘One Meatball’, 27 ‘Shakin’ All Over’, 59 ‘Twenty Flight Rock’, 12, 20, 21, 22, 28
‘She Loves You’, 94, 96, 110, 112, 115, 193, 241, ‘Twist And Shout’, 93, 105 'Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah’, 196
‘One Night With You’, 11
‘Only A Northern Song’, 292 352 Two Virgins, 301, 302
‘Only The Lonely’, 90 'She Said, She Said’, 97, 190, 209
‘Over The Rainbow’, 67 ‘Sheik of Araby, The’, 67 ‘Unforgettable’, 302

NDEX 361
 INDEX
on The Beatles’ decision to stop touring, 229 Beatles rivalry with the Rolling Stones, 160
Abbey cinema, Livers 1s
as The Beatles’ driver, 57, 83 Abbey Road as the last album, 342, 343 Royal Command Performance, 105
Abbey Road (No. 2 © ), London, 92, 93,
on The Beatles’ split, 348 accent, 123 royalties, 98
139, 194, 196 203, 280, 289, 292, 337
on The Beatles’ work schedule, 157 album artwork, 93, 105, 160, 197, 204-5, 210, the screaming, 187
Az<-ngton, 159
tesuaye, Speedy, 130 becomes manager of Apple, 268 212, 237, 248, 252, 308, 311, 323, 340 sculpted, 112
i Club, Lorton. 101, 177, 197, 201 and the concert on the roof, 321 as ambassadors for Britain, 120 the second album, 105
and drugs, 194, 212 anti-war songs, 145 sense of humour, 120, 128, 142, 143, 204
aide, 140, i#
2<yniral Grove, versool (No. 10), 33, 34, 35, 353 education, 57 attempt to buy a Greek island, 258 song ownership, 97

Aigburth, Live:psc!, 35 and Epstein’s death, 264 attempt to change Britain's image, 64 the split, 347-53

Aintrée, Liverpoai. 19 friendship with Pete Best, 72 the basic message of Love, 356 and stadiums, 186-7

Aintree Instivzte, 93 on George's drug bust, 331 ‘Beatle’ haircut, 58, 64, 73, 103, 116, 119, 120, start to introduce own songs, 68

Alaska, 215 and the Greek island trip, 258 160, 248, 266, 354 and taxation, 207, 270
Albert Greve, Liverpool, 25 in Haight-Ashbury, 259 bowing, 67, 105 telepathy, 81, 355
Albert Men-orial, Kensington Gardens, London, in India, 223, 229, 286 burning/banning of records, 225, 227 threats, 153, 216, 225, 226, 227

169 and lighting systems, 89, 186 cars, 201-3 on tour, 82-9, 147, 155, 157

Alder <y Hospital, Liverpool, 27 and Magical Mystery Tour, 273 clothes, 39, 44, 47, 58, 68, 73, 75, 85, 92, unusual instrumental sounds, 196
Aldershot, 62 the move to London, 109 103, 160, 186, 197, 248, 266, 354 a variety of styles, 96
Alexander, Arthur, 93, 107 and the nude photographs, 302 clubbing, 201 videos, 214, 272-4
Ali, Muhammad, 123 in Paris, 114 concert on Apple's roof, 321 work schedule, 157, 161
All-India Radio, 243 and Paul's wedding, 330 contracts, 98 as working-class, 102
Allerton, Merseyside, 20, 21, 29 in the Philippines, 217, 220 and the critics, 96, 120, 123 world tour (1964), 139-42
Allman Brothers, 160 played by Norman Rossington, 129 decision to stop touring, 228-9, 237 writing of own material, 22, 76-7
Almeria, 231 and Presley, 191 deported from Hamburg, 55, 56 Beatles Monthly, The, 334
Altman, Robert, 289 on Revolver, 212 disaffection with touring, 199 beatniks, 158
America, 254 and setting up Ringo’s drums, 85 and drugs, 49-50, 78, 139, 158, 167, 169, Beatty, Don, 11
advertising in, 116, 119 and Sgt Pepper, 241, 248 177-80, 190, 192, 194, 201, 209, 212, 242, Beckett, Samuel, 18
Beatles’ Number One in (1964), 110, 114, on show business, 105 261, 262, 287, 303-4, 331 Bee Gees, 265
115, 116 in Tokyo, 215 Epstein becomes their manager, 65, 67 Beeching, Dr, 324
Bible Belt, 225, 226 van incident, 83 and Epstein’s death, 264-8 Behan, Dominic, 10
first tour, 116-23, 145 wages, 110 failed Decca audition, 67 Benares, India, 234
George's first visit (1963), 116 Aspinall, Suzy, 330, 334 on fame, 185 Beresford cinema, Liverpool, 128
and Liverpool, 123 Astaire, Fred, 21 fans, 108, 109, 153, 155, 163, 167, 215, 229, 321 Berman's theatrical costumiers, 248
movies, 10 Astor, Lord, 169 first album, 92-3, 105 Berry, Chuck, 11, 21, 22, 41, 49, 59, 101, 107,
radio stations, 119 Astoria Cinema, Finsbury Park, London, 186 first audition tape, 68 119, 157, 192,339, 347
record companies, 105 Athens, 100, 258 first backwards tape, 212-14 Best, Mona, 45
Ringo considers emigrating (1958), 37 Atkins, Chet, 19, 28, 29, 81 first cheered, 56 Best, Pete, 31, 41, 45, 53, 54, 55, 57, 70, 71, 72,
second tour, 145, 146-7 Australia, 139, 140, 142, 199 first feedback on record, 160 76, 86
television, 119-20, 140 Austria, 167, 169 first Number One (February 1963), 90, 92 Beverly Hills, 150
trouble in, 147, 153 Austrian TV, 333 first professional gig, 44 Biafran War, 184
US/Canadian tours, 153-7, 225-9 Autry, Gene, 35 first recordings, 75-6, 77 Bicknell, Alf, 220
White House, 304 Avalon, Frankie, 116 first televised, 75 Big Three, 41, 70, 77
Amsterdam, 139, 333 Aykroyd, Dan, 119 first tour of America, 116-23, 145 Bilk, Acker, 57
Anchorage, Alaska, 215 first visit to London, 67 Bioletti (barber in Liverpool), 237
Anello & Davide shop; Charing Cross Road, Bach, Johann Sebastian, 197, 257 foreign language recording, 112 Birkin, Jane, 280
London, 67 Backbeat (film), 96 guitar strings, 67 Birmingham, 78, 86
Angad 1 Deva, 233 Badfinger, 289 honour their gig obligations, 159 Bizarre, 237
. 223, 225 Bag O'Nails club, London, 101, 201, 330 improvision within songs, 59 Black, Cilla, 63, 98, 140, 198, 265, 268
Animals, 101, 201 Bag Productions, 184 influence on other bands, 68, 237 Black Dyke Mills Band, 289
Apple, 167, 265, 268, 270, 287-91, 302, 304, Bahamas, 167, 169, 171, 207, 334 influence on people, 236 Black Power, 334
312, 319, 321, 324-8, 331, 334, 351 Bailey, David, 197 and the jelly babies, 106 Blackboard Jungle, The (film), 21, 22
Apple Electronics, 290 Baker, Ginger, 81 Johnny Gentle tour, 41, 44, 47 Blackburn, Lancashire, 247
Apple Films, 324, 326 Ball, Kenny, 57 last gig, 228-9 Blackler's shop, Liverpool, 31
Apple Publishing, 270 Ballard, Arthur, 13 last photo session together, 344, 345 Blackpool, 77, 272
Apple Records, 287, 326, 327, 349, 351 Bambi Kino, Hamburg, 45, 46, 48, 53, 55 last tour of Britain, 198 Blake, Peter, 248, 252
Apple shop, Baker Street, London, 270, 290, Band, The, 316 as a live band, 150 Blakely, Colin, 109
296, 297 Bangor, Wales, 260-1, 262, 264, 265 and make-up, 77 Bland, Bobby, 116
Apple Studios, 315, 318 Bankhead, Tallulah, 287 MBE awards, 181-4, 322 Blue Angel club, Liverpool, 41, 44, 57, 330
Arnhem, 45, 46 Banks, Jeremy, 302 moustaches, 236 Blue Angels, 68
Arnold Grove, Liverpool (No. 12), 25 Barbados, 203 the name, 41, 62, 65 Blue Hawaii (film), 21
Aronowitz, Al, 158 Barcelona, 186 Neil Aspinall becomes the road manager, 57 bluegrass, 30
Aroundthe 2eatles (television programme), 161 Bardot, Brigitte, 10, 30 Number One in America (1964), 110, 114, blues, 10, 11, 14, 20, 22, 28, 30, 37, 48, 67, 101,
Artificia ble Tracking (ADT), 211 Barking, London, 94 115, $16 105, 160, 197, 201
Asher, Ja 9, 100, 109, 110, 112, 115, 137 Barrett, Ritchie, 107 Our W»:'d broadcast, 257 Bluthal, John, 167
208, i-° 286, 330 Barrow, Tony, 140, 220, 268 and ‘outsiders’, 110 Bogart, Humphrey, 14
Asher, Pete 326, 327 Bassey, Shirley, 70, 103, 105 Parlophone audition, 70 Bohemians, 158
Asian Music « 233 Bayeux tapestry, 247 Pete Bes: :eaves, 70 Bombay, 233, 236, 280
Aspinall, Neii 199, 212, 215, 220 241, 258, BBC, 64, 82. 32, 83, 92, 98, 119, 257, 274, 2° and Pres'»y, 190-1 Book of the Month Club, 14
259, 261, 3 02, 330, 334 340 press cc erences, 145 Booker T and the MGs, 116
on Abbey Roac., #2 radio : 5, 161, 273 publicit. 67 Boone, Pat, 153
on American racic stations, 119 Beach Bo 20, 237, 253, 254 recordi, 124, 159, 160, 193, 198-9, 206, Bosch, Hieronymus, 7, 259
and Apple, 167, 268, 287, 290, 296, 324, +25 ‘Beachco 62 210-1 Boulting Brothers, 234
350, 351 Beat Brot a Rickenb. ser guitars, 81 Bournemouth, 97
and assassination threats in America, 227 Beatlema Se (04, 114, 146, 155, 18> Ringo a: tions, 38 Bowery Boys, 248
the Bangor trip, 261 214 20, 229, 233, 353 rivalry b» ween Paul and J-xn, 160 Boyd, Jennifer, 259

INDEX
Brambell, Wilfrid, 129 Chadwick, Les, 70 Del-Vikings, 20, 27 in the Bahamas for Help!, 167
Bramwell, Tony, 326 Channel, Bruce, 101 Delanie and Bonnie, 349 and Beatles contracts, 98
Brando, Marlon, 21, 41, 41, 52, 198, 248, 278 Charing Cross Road, London, 67, 101 Delfont, Lord, 103, 266 and The Beatles’ MBEs, 181, 183
Branson, Richard, 326 Charles, Ray, 28, 31, 68, 80, 157, 158, 198, 318, 340 Delhi, 220, 223 and The Beatles’ suits, 39, 73, 75
Braun, Michael, 134 Chaucer, Geoffrey, 134, 176 Demmlar, Otto, 112 becomes The Beatles’ manager, 65, 67
Brian, Ty, 36 Chelsea, London, 254 Denmark, 137 and the ‘bigger than Jesus’ remark, 225
Brickey Building, 231 Chepstow, 29 Derry and the Seniors, 45, 48 A Cellarful of Noise, 115
Briscoe, Brian, 34, 35 Chicago, 153, 226 Destruction in Art Symposium, 235 and Colonel Parker, 191
Bristol, 208 China, 252 Deutsche Grammophon, 268 in control, 155
British Aerospace, 291 Chiswick House, London, 214 Devananda, Swami Vishnu, 171 deal with Capitol over American advertising, 116
British Embassy, Washington, 120 Chug-ou, Hamburg, 53 Dickens, Charles, 176 death of, 264-8, 270, 304, 352
Broad Green Hospital, Liverpool, 29 Churchill, Winston Spencer, 45, 304 Diddley, Bo, 101, 347 and the decision to stop touring, 229
Broadway, Liverpool, 21 Cincinnati, 227 Dietrich, Marlene, 105 desperate to recover Beatles’ popularity, 239
Brodax, Al, 292, 293 Civil, Alan, 207 Diggers, 254, 290 as a driver, 202-3
Bron, Eleanor, 167, 208 Clapson, Johnny, 89 DiLello, Richard, 289 efforts on behalf of the band, 68
Broonzy, Big Bill, 27, 30 Clapton, Eric, 27, 257, 306, 316, 318, 339, 347, 349 Dingle, The, Liverpool, 33, 34, 105 first encounters The Beatles, 65
Brown, James, 340 Clark, Petula, 254 Dingle gang, 37 and A Hard Day's Night, 130
Brown, Joe, 28, 67 Clark, Sister, 35 Dingle Vale Secondary Modern School, home in Belgravia, 210
Brown, Peter, 304, 327, 332 Clayton, Eddie, 102 Liverpool, 35 homosexuality, 98, 266-7
Browne, Tara, 236 Cleave, Maureen, 171, 173, 223, 225 Discoveries (talent show), 23 as honourable, 159
Brynner, Yul, 328 Cline, Patsy, 35 Disney, 292 invites Ringo to join The Beatles, 72
Buckingham Palace, London, 181, 183 Cliveden, 169 Dodd, Ken, 31 Paul complains to, 131
Buckley, Lord, 190 CND, 299 Domino, Fats, 14, 27, 49, 157, 201 and the Philippines, 217, 219, 220, 225
Buddha, 261 Coasters, 22, 27, 123 Donays, 105 plans far ahead, 161
Budokan, Tokyo, 215, 216 Coca-Cola, 299 Donegan, Lonnie, 11, 28, 37 plays Beatles tapes to Dick James, 97
Burden, Eric, 201 Cochran, Eddie, 11, 12, 22, 28, 41, 104, 119, 185 Donovan, 208, 226, 253, 259, 261, 284, 303, RADA training, 142, 267
Burton, Richard, 198, 278 Cogan, Alma, 86, 105, 175 304, 326, 327 salary, 110
Burtonwood American army base, Liverpool, 35 Cole, Cozy, 36 Doors, 347 starts to promote shows, 77
Butlins, 7, 18, 23, 29, 36, 38, 39, 41, 48, 72, 110, 284 Cole, Nat King, 302 Doran, Terry, 202, 247, 258, 263, 270 ‘taken advantage of’, 327
Byrds, 190, 209, 254 Como, Perry, 11 Dorchester Hotel, London, 326 Taylor falls out with, 157
Byrne, Johnny ‘Guitar’, 36, 38, 39 Connor family, 34 Dorn, Beno, 73 theatrical training, 67
Cook, Peter, 176 Dovedale Road Infant/Junior Schools, 8, 9, 26, and the unscheduled gig in Kansas, 157
Cage, John, 210, 212, 301 Cooper, Michael, 248, 252 27, 354 and the Vietnam War, 145
Calder, Tony, 324 Corbett, Bill, 112 Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan, 137 worries about The Beatles’ future, 237
Caldwell, Alan see Storm, Rory Corfu, 100 Dublin, 128 and ‘Yesterday’, 175
Caldwell, Ernie, 29 Coronation Street (television programme), 292 Dudley, Paul, 254 Epstein, Clive, 268, 270
Caldwell, Iris, 29, 63 Costello, Elvis, 311 Dunbar, John, 203, 212, 235 Epstein, Harry, 18, 65, 98
Caldwell, Vi, 29, 63 country rock, 160 Dungeon Lane, Liverpool, 17 EQ (equalisation), 206
California, 123, 150, 190 country-and-western music, 10, 11, 12, 105, 160 Dykins, Robert (‘Twitchy’), 10, 13, 30, 81 Esalen, 312

Calvert, Eddie, 20, 36 Cousin Brucie, 119 Dylan, Bob, 11, 112, 114, 158, 160, 193, 197, Esher, Surrey, 112, 231, 331
Calypso Ballroom, Butlins, 36, 38 Coventry, 86 231,273, 311, 316, 337 Essen, 215

calypso music, 93 Coward, Noél, 105 Establishment Club, London, 109

Canada, 153, 257, 334 Cramer, Floyd, 19 Ealing comedies, 304 Evans, Mal, 105, 114, 142, 153, 157, 167, 190,

Candlestick Park, San Francisco, 228, 229 Crawdaddy Club, Richmond, Surrey, 101 Eastman, John, 324, 326 191, 199, 227, 241, 247, 248, 258, 273

Candy (film), 278, 324 Crawford, Michael, 231 Eastman, Lee, 324, 326 and Apple, 268

Cannes, 280 Crazy Gang, 266, 352 Easy Rider (film), 190 as The Beatles’ road manager, 83, 85

Capitol Records, 110, 114, 115, 116, 150, 204, Cream, 265 Eckhorn, Peter, 58 in the Cavern Club, 85

290, 347, 349 Crew Cuts, 21, 28 Ed Sullivan Show (television programme), 81, and the cloaks in Amsterdam, 139
Crewe, 68, 86 103, 119, 120, 157, 214 and drugs, 158, 194
Capp, Andy, 334
Crickets, 41 Eddie Clayton Skiffle Group, 28, 37, 38 as a ‘gentle giant’, 85
Cargill, Patrick, 167
Crompton, Richmal: Just William books, 8 Edelmann, Heinz, 292 the move to London, 109
Carmichael, Hoagy, 27
Crosby, Bing, 26, 90 Edgington, Nurse, 35 and Paul's wedding, 330
Carnegie Hall, New York City, 120
Crosby, Dave, 190, 199, 237 Edinburgh, 8, 64 in the Philippines, 217, 220
Carroll, Lewis, 8, 134
Crosby, Merseyside, 72 Edinburgh Festival, 8 and the rooftop concert, 321
Alice Through the Looking-Glass, 176
Edinburgh Military Tattoo, 8 and Sgt Pepper, 248
Alice in Wonderland, 8, 9, 134, 176, 242, 273 Curtis, King, 186
Einstein, Albert, 248 takes care of the equipment, 186
Carson, Johnny, 287 Cutler, Ivor, 272
Ekberg, Anita, 10 in Tokyo, 215
Casady, Jack, 254
Daily Express, 62, 110, 112, 115, 134, 333 electronic music, 206 wages, 110
Casbah Club, West Derby, Liverpool, 31, 45, 57
Elgin, 86 windscreen incident, 83
Casey, Howie, 48 Daily Mail, 247, 304
Daily Mirror, 98, 157, 190, 290, 299, 304 Elizabeth II, Queen, 158, 181, 183, 184, 274 Evening Standard, 173, 223, 225, 304
Cashbox chart, 115
Elizabeth, Queen, the Queen Mother, 105 Everly Brothers, 49, 89, 96
Cass, Brian, 41 Dali, Salvador, 7
Elliot, Mama Cass, 259 Everton, Merseyside, 17
Cass and the Cassanovas, 41, 44 Dallas, 153
Danher, Elizabeth (later Robbins; Paul's cousin), Elliot, Margaret, 208 Everton Football Club, 20
Cat Ballou (film), 190
Ellis, Royston, 50, 337 Evy, Auntie (Ringo’s aunt), 36
Catholicism, 18, 25, 26, 36, 233 22, 41, 236
Elstead, Surrey, 317 Ewell, Tom, 22
Cavern Club, Mathew Street, Liverpool, 14, 22, Danny and the Juniors, 28
Elvis Live in ‘56 (video), 22 Existentialists, 50, 64, 212
36, 56, 75, 78, 82, 101, 109, 112, 123, 144, Darktown Skiffle Group, 38
Embassy Cinema, Peterborough, 77 Exmouth, 29
158, 227 Datebook magazine, 225
The Beatles’ first television appearance, 75 David Frost Show (television programme), 333 Emerick, Geoff, 211, 257, 315, 337

The Beatles play at, 65, 67, 68, 72, 72, 73, 92 Davis, Rod, 12 EMI, 68, 70, 72, 75-6, 75, 77, 93, 98, 103, 112, Faithfull, Marianne, 235

and Brian Epstein, 65 Day, Doris, 10, 190 131, 134, 173, 175, 206, 210, 252, 257, Fame, Georgie, and the Blue Flames, 330

266, 290, 302,305, 307, 308, 318, 350 Family Way, The, 231, 234
comedy, 57 De Gaulle, Charles, 354
EMI/HMYV studios, Bombay, 280 Fanque, Pablo, 243
drugs, 158 De Mille, Cecil B., 187
Empire Theatre, Leicester Square, London, 89 Far East, 199
fighting in, 72 De Shannon, Jackie, 123, 150
English, Davidy 115 Farrow, Mia, 284, 285
George Martin visits, 92 de Staél, Nicolas, 23
Epsom, Surrey, 203 Fascher, Horst, 69, 78
as a jazz place, 30, 37 ‘de Staél, Stuart’, 44
Epstein, Brian, 18, 39, 57, 83, 89, 97, 120, 190, Fazakerley, Liverpool, 17, 22
Mal Evans visits, 85 De Wilde, Brandon, 167
204, 206, 236, 272 FBI, 192
and Paul's cooking, 20 Dean, Dixie, 248
and Andrew Oldham, 101 Fenton, Shane see Stardust, Alvin
the Quarry Men play, 30 Dean, James, 10, 50, 167, 248
apartment in Liverpool, 93 Fielding, Sir Henry, 274
Ringo meets Maureen, 163 Deauville Hotel, Florida, 122
arrangements for a Beatles holiday, 135 Finegold, Carol, 109
Rory and the Hurricanes thrown off, 38 Decca Records, 67, 68, 101, 131, 204
background, Finegold, Harry, 109
Central Park, New York, 119, 120 Deep River Boys, 28
bad deals, 29: Finsbury Empire, Londor
Chad and Jeremy, 254 Del Monico Hotel, New Yor« 157

“DEX 363
 working-class upbringing, 7 Italy, 116, 186
Fitzgerald, Ella, 198 Halewood, Liverpool, 27
and yoga, 171, 233, 262 Jacaranda club, Liverpool, 14, 38, 41, 45
Fitzgerald, F. Scott, 14 Haley, Bill, 11, 21, 28, 36
Harrison, Harold (George's father), 26, 206 Jack, Uncle (Paul's uncle), 18, 19
Florida, 120, 123, 139 Hall, Tony, 109
as a bus driver, 25, 110 Jackley, Nat, 272
Flower Power, 248, 254, 257, 270, 296 Ham, Peter, 289
and George's career, 31 Jackson, Michael, 340
folk music, 10, 11 Hambledon Hall, Liverpool, 58
Hamburg, 14, 44, 67, 80, 82, 101, 112, 158, 194, as a seaman, 25, 27 Jacksonville, Florida, 153
Fonda, Henry, 190
Harrison, Harry (George's brother), 27, 30, 31, 44 Jagger, Mick, 101, 139, 193, 203, 204, 257, 261,
Fonda, Peter, 190 212, 318
as The Beatles’ apprenticeship, 49 Harrison, Louise (née French; George's mother), 26, 297, 304, 326, 354
Fool, Th, 248, 257
Beatles deported, 55, 56 81 Jamaica, 158
Ford, Tennessee Ernie, ? 1
as a Catholic, 25, 26 James, Dick, 77, 97, 97,98, 160, 268, 328
Forest Hillis, New York, 157 Beatles’ first visit, 45-55
Beatles play at the Top Ten Club, 58, 59 and the fan mail, 108 James, Harry, 20
Formby, George, 306
Beatles’ subsequent visits, 58-62, 65, 69, 77-8 love of music, 30 James, lan, 20, 21
Forsyt, Bruce, 273
Beatles’ violence on stage, 50 Harrison, Pattie (née Boyd; George's wife), 81, Japan, 215-16, 257
Zorthlin Road, Allerton, 23, 29, 47
conditions in, 46, 49 129, 135, 137, 177, 179, 203, 308, 331, jazz, 11, 18, 35, 57, 95, 175, 201
Fortune magazine, 287
as an exciting time for The Beatles, 78 340, 352 trad, 14, 37, 38
Four Aces, 36
Fox and Hounds pub, Reading, 41 filming on location, 231 Harrison, Pete (George's brother), 27, 31 Jefferson Airplane, 254
Foyle's Literary Luncheons, 134 first use of ‘Beatle’ hairstyle, 58 Harry (Ringo’s stepfather), 35, 37, 39 Jesus Christ, 223, 225, 226, 228, 252, 261, 273,

France, 39, 112, 114-15, 116, 186, 254, 272 the Indra nightclub, 46, 47, 47, 48 Harry, Bill, 62 327, 356

Fraser, Robert, 203, 212, 248, 252, 308 John buys his Rickenbacker, 81 Harry, Uncle (Paul's uncle), 19, 20 Jim, Uncle (Ringo’s uncle), 36

Fraserburg2, 44 Kaiserkeller, 48 Hart, Frankie, 289 Jimmy Mac Jazz Band, 18, 18

Freddie and the Dreamers, 68 Reeperbahn, 45, 46, 52, 53, 54, 69,77, 215 Haynes, Johnny, 21 Jinny, Auntie (Paul's aunt), 19, 30

Freed, Alan, 22, 36 Ringo plays as a member of Rory and the heavy metal, 311 Joe, Uncle (Paul's uncle), 19
Freeman, Robert, 105, 160, 167, 197, 210, 212 Hurricanes, 39 Helliwell, David: Malcolm and His Struggle Against Johnny and the Moondogs, 31
Freemasons Club, Liverpool, 28 St Pauli district, 45, 49, 54 the Eunuchs, 272 Johns, Glyn, 315, 318, 322
Freeport, Bahamas, 334 violence in, 53 Hell's Angels, 254, 290, 312, 331 Jones, Brian, 101, 202, 203, 304, 306
Frisco Pete, 312 visited in 1966, 215 Help! (film), 128, 139, 161, 167-74, 196, 207, Jones, Tom, 300
Frost, David, 298 war veterans, 52-3 208, 209, 286 Joyce, James: Finnegan's Wake, 176
Fulham Football Club, 21 Hamburg Art College, 62 Hendrix, Jimi, 160, 190, 212, 252, 254, 303 Juke Box Jury (television programme), 110
Fulham Road, London, 254 Hamilton, Richard, 308 Henry, Stuart, 297
Fury, Billy, 28, 41, 44, 77 Hammersmith Odeon, London, 146, 158 Hercules Unchained (film), 120 Kaempfert, Bert, 59
Hamp, Johnny, 198 heroin, 203 Kaiserkeller, Hamburg, 48, 52, 55, 80
GAC tour agency, 146 Hampstead, London, 35, 243, 289 Hessy, Frank, 38, 81 Kansas City, 157
Gambier Terrace, Liverpool, 14, 31, 41 Handley, Tommy, 266 Highgate, London, 308 Kashmir, 233, 285
Gandhi, Mahatma M. K., 184, 252, 333 Hanratty, James, 334 Hills House, 287 Kass, Ron, 326, 327
Garagiola, Joe, 287 Hanton, Colin, 12, 22, 23 Hilton Hotel, London, 260 Keaton, Buster, 72
Garland, Judy, 67 Harald's, Grosse Freiheit, Hamburg, 53 Hitler, Adolf, 144, 153, 201, 252, 356, 367 Keeler, Christine, 169
Garrity, Freddie, 68 Hard Day's Night, A (film), 120-31, 134, 140, Hoffenberg, Mason, 278 Kelly, Arthur, 28
Garry, Len, 12 144, 146, 155, 157, 167, 286 Hoffman, Abbie, 299 Keltner, Jim, 81, 237
Garston, Merseyside, 20, 37 Hare Krishnas, 290 Hoffmann, Dezo, 204 Kemp, Gibson, 177
Gauguin, Paul, 355 harmony songs, 96 Holland, 137, 139, 142, 254 Kennedy, John F., 153, 367
Gaumont cinema, Liverpool, 37, 128 Harold, King, 247 Hollies, 68 Kensington, Liverpool, 21, 23
Gaye, Marvin, 119, 157, 198 Harris, Jet, 57 Holloway, Stanley, 289 Kenwood, 197, 311
Gee, Cecil, 67, 355 ‘Harrison, Carl’, 44 Holly, Buddy, 11, 14, 22, 27, 28, 41, 49, 153, 185 Kesey, Ken, 312
Gentle, Johnny, 41, 44, 47 Harrison, George Hollywood, 150, 153, 190 Key West, 153
George V Hotel, Paris, 112 appearance, 21, 30, 160, 236 Hollywood Bowl, 150 Khrushchev, Nikita, 354
German Seaman's Mission, Hamburg, 48 apprentice electrician, 31 Hong Kong, 103, 139, 140 Kidd, Johnny, and the Pirates, 59
Germany, 215, 245 birth (February 1943), 25 Honolulu, 135 King, Carole, 93, 185
Gerry and the Pacemakers, 70, 72, 77, 78, 98, buys a house in Esher, 112 Hopkin, Mary, 289 King, Martin Luther, 184
128, 140, 265 childhood, 25-7 Hopkins, Lightnin’, 37 King’s Road, London, 254
GI Blues (film), 21 Daily Express column, 110, 112, 114, 115, 134 Hopper, Hedda, 155 Kinnear, Roy, 169
Giants Stadium, New York City, 186 and drugs, 50, 304, 331 Hotel President, Russell Square, London, 109 Kirchherr, Astrid, 46, 50, 52, 52, 55, 58, 62, 69,
Gibraltar, 332, 333 education, 26, 27, 30, 31, 354 Houghton, Len, 27 73, 105
Gilbert and Sullivan, 349 and the environment, 215 Houston, Texas, 37 Klein, Allen, 265, 268, 319, 323, 324, 326, 327,
Ginsb Allen, 50, 158, 234, 273, 337 his fans, 96 How I Won the War (film), 231, 233 328, 334, 347, 348, 349, 350
Girl » It, The (film), 22, 128 first visit to America (1963), 116 Howes, Arthur (agency), 89, 94 Know The North (television show), 75
stone, William Ewart, 8 God-realisation, 263 Hoylake, Merseyside, 14 Knowland, Nick, 273
Glasgow, 354 groomed in pop music, 10 Hudson, Rock, 10 Koschmider, Bruno, 45, 46, 47, 48, 55
Goffin, Gerry, 93, 185 guitars, 27, 28, 28, 30, 81 Hughes, Raymond, 27 Kramer, Billy].,98, 140, 265, 267, 268
Gomelsky, Giorgio, 101 hitchhikes with Paul, 29 Humperdinck, Engelbert, 236 Krishna, 261
Goodison Park, Everton, 20 illness, 27 Hutchinson, Johnny, 38, 44 Krupa, Gene, 36
Goole, Yorkshire, 83 in India, 179, 223, 231, 233-4, 242, 263, 287, 305 Huxley, Aldous: The Doors of Perception, 267 Ku Klux Klan, 225, 226, 227, 228
Goon Show, The (radio programme), 128 and Indian music, 171, 196, 209, 210, 241, Huyton, Liverpool, 181
Gorcey, Leo, 248 242-3, 280 Hylton, Jack, 318 LA Free Press, 334
Grade, Lew, 103, 181, 266, 328 and Indian philosophy, 171 Laine, Frankie, 11, 36
Graham, Billy, 263 instrumental ability, 72 I Ching, 287, 306 Lamb Hotel, Wavertree, 25
Grahame, Kenneth: The Wind in the Willows, 8 joins The Quarry Men, 12, 21, 29 I Love Lucy (television programme), 120 Lancaster, Burt, 150
Granada TV, 21, 75, 158, 198, 260 in Les Stewart's band, 30-1 Iceland, 274 Las Vegas, 153
Grappelli, Stéphane, 27 makes a guitar, 28 Ifield, Frank, 68, 77 Lawrence, D. H., 9
Grateful Dead, 146, 289 marries Pattie, 203 Illinois, 116 Laxton, Eddie, 290
Greco te, 10 on meditation, 210, 262, 281 Illustrated Sook of Yoga, The, 17' Leadbelly, 14, 28, 30
Greece 258 meets Michael Jackson, 340 India, 179, 223, 229, 231, 233-4, 242, 252, 263, Lear, Edward, 176
Green, ! 23 meets Paul, 27 281-6, 287, 298, 305, 352-3 Leary, Timothy, 209, 339
Green Stre ark Lane, London, 109 in The Rebels, 28 Indiacraft, Oxford Street, London, 196 The Psychedelic Experience, 180, 210
Grenfell 174 receives a death threat, 216 Indian music see under Harrison, George Lee, Peggy, 22, 198
Griffiths, Er 30 am relation: hip with John, 180 Indianapolis, 157 Leigh, Janet, 116
Grosvenor Balir: 1, Wallasey, 44 Rubber Sou! as his favourite album, 194 Indica Ga) «ry, Mason's Yard, |.ondon, 212, 235, Len (friend of Ringo’'s stepfather), 35
Grosvenor Squa arches, 299 sitar-p'2ving, 196, 197, 209, 233, 243, 262, 283 254 Lennon, Cynthia (John’s first wife), 31, 109, 110,
Guildhall Schoo! Music, London, 208 song ing, 96-7, 98, 340 Indra nigh*-iub, Hamburg, 46, 47, 47, 48, 82 135; 137,°439)-159), 181,473, 077
Guthrie, Woody tempe~si!v leaves The Beatles, 316, 3! Internation: Times, 212 308, 319, 352
tweni st birthday, 134 Inverness, « § appearance, 10
H. Hunt & Sons, 35, 36 vegeta m, 171 Iron Door ©‘1b, Liverpool, 57 divorce from John, 297, 301, 333, 347
laight-Ashbury, San Francisco, 7 254, 259 water-throwing incident, 150 Isle of Mas 36, 39 in Hamburg, 58

INDEX
 John meets, 14 sensitivity, 10 Beatles’ first visit, 67 McPhatter, Clyde, 22
and John’s affairs, 196 tough facade, 9, 10, 173 Paul on, 109, 110 Madras, 286
and Maharishi's Bangor visit, 260, 261 writings, 176 premiére of A Hard Day's Night, 144 Madrid, 186
marries John, 73, 93 ‘Beatcomber’, 62 Ringo visits, 39 Madryn Street, Liverpool (No. 9), 33, 34
pregnancy, 98 the Daily How! comic, 62, 134 Summer of Love in (1967), 254 Mafia, 123
Lennon, Fred (John’s father) In His Own Write, 62, 129, 134, 143, 197, 273 London Palladium, 10, 28, 78, 90, 102, 103, 103, Mafia Club, Liverpool, 28
comes back into John’s life, 180 ‘The Singularge Experience of Miss Anne 105, 123, 268 Magic Christian, The (film), 289, 328
death, 180 Duffield’, 137 London Weekend Television, 289 Magical Mystery Tour (television film), 272-4,
leaves home when John aged four, 7, 20 A Spaniard In The Works, 29, 112, 135, 158, ‘Long John’, 41, 44 304
naval career, 7 176 Los Angeles, 116, 137, 150, 179, 191, 199, 237, 270 Magritte, René, 270
Lennon, Jacqui (John's half-sister), 8, 20 Lennon, Julia John’s half-sister), 8, 20 Love, Mike, 284 Maguire, Annie, 34, 102
Lennon, John Lennon, Julia John's mother), 8, 96, 285, 308 Lovin’ Spoonful, 146 Maguire, Marie, 34
admires Dylan, 158 appearance, 20 Lowe, Duff, 23 Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, 21, 210, 260-5, 281,
appearance, 14, 20, 75, 171, 173 as a Bill Haley fan, 11 LSD, 177, 179, 180, 190, 201, 209, 212, 233, 283, 285, 286, 290, 331
art school, 9, 13, 14, 21, 41, 44, 50, 62, 69, buys John his first guitar, 11 242, 254, 259, 262, 263, 265, 267, 287, Mahon, Gene, 270
158, 198 death, 13, 20 319, 324, 355 Mamas and the Papas, 254
and Bag Productions, 184 John lives apart from as a child, 7 Lubeck, 69 Manchester, 31, 68, 77, 114
the bag statement, 333 as a musician, 7, 11, 20 Lyceum Ballroom, London, 38 Mancini, Henry, 198
bed-in for peace, 328, 333, 334 relationship with John, 20 Lymon, Frankie, and the Teenagers, 96 Manfred Mann, 50
birth (9th October 1940), 7 second partner, 10, 20 Manila, Philippines, 217, 219, 220, 221, 226
bond with Paul, 19 separates from John's father, 7 McBean, Angus, 93, 248 Manley, Colin, 29
his books, 134 teaches John music, 11, 29 McCartney, Jim (Paul's father), 23, 45, 56, 80, 96 Mann, William, 96
Brian Epstein in love with, 98 visits John, 10 ambition, 19 Mansfield, Jayne, 22, 150
buys his Rickenbacker, 81 Lennon, Julian John’s son), 242, 297 as a cotton salesman, 17 Manson, Charles, 311
changes his name, 332 Lennon/McCartney song-writing team, 68, 94-6, death of his wife, 19 Mantovani, 175
childhood, 7-10, 19 97, 98, 101, 129, 158, 159, 194, 197, 198, as a musician, 18, 19, 95, 175, 234, 292 Marcos, Ferdinand, 221
and Christianity, 196, 223, 261 207, 208, 212, 237, 242, 247, 340 as Paul's musical education, 18 Marcos, Imelda, 219, 220, 221
and the class system, 103 covers, 198 self-educated, 19 Mardas, Alexis, 258, 259, 290-1, 318
death of his mother, 13 Leonardo da Vinci, 9 tries to get John out of the Quarry Men, 14 marijuana, 158, 160, 167, 212, 231, 252
decides to leave The Beatles, 347 Lerner and Loewe, 94 warns Paul about drugs, 50 Marsden, Freddie, 70
deported from Canada, 334 Lester, Dick, 128, 129, 130, 167, 169, 173, 231 McCartney, Linda (Paul's wife), 187, 287, 296, 352 Marsden, Gerry, 68, 70, 78, 86, 101, 264
disenchanted with record production, 340 Let It Be (film), 80, 315-23 Paul marries, 330 Martin, George, 68, 97, 103, 209, 212, 306
dislikes his own voice, 210 Levis, Carroll, 23 Rock and Other Four Letter Words, 330 and Abbey Road, 337, 338
divorce from Cynthia, 297, 301, 333, 347 Lewis, Sir Edward, 204 McCartney, Mary (Paul's mother) Academy Award nomination, 173
his dreams, 7-8 Lewis, Jerry, 119 ambition, 19 and ‘All You Need Is Love’, 257
drugs bust, 303-4 Lewis, Jerry Lee, 11, 23, 69, 187, 347 death, 19 allows The Beatles more control in the studio,
early love of music, 8 Lewis, Vic, 21, 265 as a midwife, 17 206

early singing, 10 Lewis's department store, Liverpool, 248 McCartney, Michael (Paul's brother), 17, 18 on the Apple offices, 318
education, 8-9, 12, 13, 14 Liberace, 153 McCartney, Paul Beatles audition, 70
as an Elvis fan; 11 Life magazine, 114, 123 appearance, 13, 21, 236 and The Beatles’ first album, 92, 93, 105
on fame and money, 147 Lime Street, Liverpool, 30, 128, 267 and the arts scene, 212 and Beatles lyrics, 96
first appearance in a group, 12 Lindsay-Hogg, Michael, 315 avant-garde phase, 210, 212 and The Beatles’ second album, 105
first guitar, 11 Liston, Sonny, 123 his bass playing, 80-1, 191, 340 on the ‘Beatles sound’, 194
first independent single, 348 Liszt, Franz, 198 birth (18th June 1942), 17 and The Beatles’ split, 352
first songs, 12, 22, 23 Little Eva, 93 bond with John, 19 and the ‘bigger than Jesus’ remark, 225
first visit to Paris, 64 Little Richard, 11, 14, 22, 27, 35, 49, 59, 69, 77, childhood, 17-19 and Capitol Records, 110

gives up taking LSD, 259 78, 96, 119, 192, 198, 201 Coronation essay prize, 158 his clavichord, 207

gives up violence, 98 Live Peace in Toronto, 347 death of his mother, 19 and his contract fee, 98

guest of honour at a Foyle’s lunch, 134 Liverpool, 12, 163, 185, 194, 292 develops his piano-playing, 80 and the death threats, 153
as a harmonica player, 8, 23, 68, 101 the accent, 17 and drugs, 50 and drugs, 242
and Americans, 123 education, 14, 18, 44, 45 and Epstein’s death, 264
the Lennon cap, 158
bomb-sites, 17, 25, 33, 34 as an Elvis fan, 21-2 on EQ, 206
lower-middle-class upbringing, 7, 14, 64
as cosmopolitan, 10 and The Family Way, 231, 234 and The Family Way, 234
makes How IWon the War, 231, 233
the docks, 17, 36 fights with Stuart, 53, 69 on George's song-writing, 340
marries Cynthia, 73, 93
drugs in, 158 - film-making, 109 and A Hard Day's Night, 130
marries Yoko, 332, 333
gangs, 36, 37 first guitar, 20 and Help!, 173
meets Cynthia, 14
the Irish in, 8, 10 first songs, 20, 22, 23, 68 the Hollywood Bowl tapes, 150
meets Paul, 12
music in, 10 first visit to Paris, 64 Ivor Novello Award, 234
meets Yoko, 235
groomed in pop music, 10 on Jimmy Nicol's substituting for Ringo, 139
‘more popular than Jesus’ remark, 223, 225, Orangeman’s Day, 36
hitchhiking, 29, 41, 64 on John's becoming difficult, 317
228, 356 Panto Day, 31
premiére of A Hard Day's Night, 140, 144 Hofner trademark, 80 on John’s voice, 210, 237
moves to Weybridge, 159
Ivor Novello Award, 234 and musical interpretations, 247
musical ideas, 212 ‘swinging scene’, 101
joins The Quarry Men, 12, 20 musical knowledge, 197, 242
and musical interpretations, 247 as a tough city, 8,9
marries Linda, 304, 330, 331 obtains the best musicians, 207
nude photographs, 300, 302 trams, 8, 17, 25
meets George, 27 and ‘Please Please Me’, 90, 92
poetry, 8,9, 10, 109, 134, 274 the wit, 8, 20, 128
melodious style, 80 and recording, 124
prepared for death, 14 Liverpool College of Art, 13, 14, 30
moped accident, 236 on reporters, 155
relationship with George, 180 Liverpool Corporation, 31
music lessons, 18-19, 208 and Ringo, 76
relationship with Yoko, 301, 306, 308, 310, Liverpool Echo, 81
Presley's influence, 192 Ringo and Paul on, 194
332-3 Liverpool Empire, 21, 28, 77
and recording, 124 and the ‘Sgt Pepper’ idea, 241
rivalry with Paul, 160 Liverpool Institute, 18, 27, 29, 30, 354
religious philosophy, 18 on ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’, 210-11
short-sightedness, 22, 173, 202 Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, 101
rivalry with John, 160 and ‘Yesterday’, 175
taught music, 11, 29 Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, 198
sketches, 20, 103 Martin, Judy, 266
as a Teddy Boy, 9, 12, 13, 20, 30, 338 Liverpool Stadium, 41
trumpet playing, 20, 28, 29, 292 Marvin, Lee, 41, 190
and Two Virgins, 301-2 Liverpool Town Hall, 144
working-class upbringing, 7 Marx, Groucho, 248
Yoko's influence, 307, 324 Liverpool Transport Club, Finch Lane,
the writing of ‘Yesterday’, 175 Marx Brothers, 126, 352
personality Liverpool, 31
McGoohan, Patrick, 234, 272 Marylebone Registry Office, London
chip on his shoulder, 13, 14 Liverpool University, 31
McGovern, Geraldine, 35 Marylebone Station, London, 129
irreligiousness, 176 Liverpudlians, John on, 8
McGowan, Cathy, 274 Mason's Yard, London, 254
irreverence, 144 Locke, Josef, 26
McGuinn,
Jim, 190, 199, 237 Massey and Coggins, 56
love of art, 8, 9, 12, 62, 134 Lockwood, Sir Joseph, 248, 252, 268, 302
McKern, Leo, 169 Massot, Joe, 280
repression, 7 Lomax, Jackie, 289, 316
Macmillan, lain, 341 Matthau, Walter, 278
sense of humour, 9, 13, 72, 128, 134, 187 London, 128, 270

YEX 365
——— ,
 Pickwick Club, London, 177 Richards, Keith, 101, 197, 203
Matthew, Brian, 82, 96 Nina and Frederick, 289
Pigman, Mrs, 155 Richards, Mr (a tailor), 47
Max, Peter, 171 Nixon, Richard, 192
No Tram to Lime Street (television play), 128 Pigman, Reed, 153 Richenbergs, 266
Mayfair Fotel, London, 197
North End Music Stores (NEMS), 18, 20, 65, 98, Pilcher, Sgt, 303, 304, 331 Richmond, Surrey, 101
Mecca Ba'lrooms, 31
105, 268 ‘pirates ships’, 119 Rickles, Don, 123
Meehan. Tony, 57
Northern Sengs Ltd, 97, 98, 268, 292 Plastic Ono Band, 347 Righteous Brothers, 157
Melbourne, 140, 142
Platters, 96 Rimmer, Freddie, 18
Melody ‘iaker, 96, 311
Oasis Club, Manchester, 68 Playboy magazine, 190 Rishikesh, India, 171, 281-6, 287, 305
Memp! «, 226, 227
Obertauern, Austria, 209 Plaza Hotel, New York City, 120 Ritz Hotel, London, 330
Menle-« Avenue, Wsc:ton (no. 251), 7, 9, 10,
O'Brian, Hugh, 150 Podjoy (headmaster of Quarry Bank), 13 Riviera, Jake, 311
23, 90, 197
O'Casey, Sean; Juno and the Paycock, 109 Polanski, Roman, 311 Robbins, Betty see Danher, Elizabeth
Meo.c:, Bhaskar, 230
Merser, Johnny, 234 O'Dell, Denis, 272, 286, 315, 326 Polden, Martin, 331 Robertson, Dale, 150
Cdeon, Liverpool, 21 Pollard, Michael J., 296 Robinson, Edward G., 150, 155
\cvccy Beat newswarer, 62
Mecsey River, 23, 25, 68, 144 Odeon, Manchester, 110 Poole, Brian, and the Tremeloes, 67 Robinson, Smokey, 96, 119, 198, 340

| sersey Sound 10° Oglet, 26 Port Sunlight, 144 Rock Around the Clock (film), 36
Oh Boy! (television programme), 22, 67 Porter, Cole. 234 rock'n'roll, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 22, 36, 38, 39, 57,
Mersey Tunr<:, 29, 128
Oklaboma (musical), 297 Povey family, 34 67,72, 103, 197, 311
mescaline, 17?
Mexico, 25” Oldenburg, Claes, 235 Preludin, 50 Rodgers, Jimmie, 27, 105
Miami, 120, 123 Oldham, Andrew, 101 Presley, Elvis, 11, 12, 14, 21-2, 23, 27, 44, 58, Rodgers and Hammerstein, 94, 234

Milan, 185 Oliver, Jack, 326 85, 93, 105, 119, 169, 171, 185, 191-2, 201, Roe, Tommy, 94

Milander, Colin, 62 Olivier, Laurence, 198 301, 354 Rolling Stone, 334
Miles. Basry, 212 Ollie, Jack, 19 Presley, Priscilla, 191 Rolling Stones, 81, 101, 131, 139, 160, 187, 201,

Miles, Eddie, 37 Olympia Theatre, Paris, 112, 114 Preston, Billy, 77, 78, 289, 306, 318, 319, 340, 203, 204, 236, 241, 252, 258, 303, 304,

Miller, Glenn, 27, 201 Olympic Studios, Barnes, 203, 257, 326 349 324, 326, 327

Miller, Jonathan, 210 Ono, Kyoko, 334 Pride, Dickie, 77 Romford, Essex, 37, 39
Miller, Steve, 326 Ono, Yoko, 175, 180, 196, 212, 241, 285, 286, Prince's Park, Liverpool, 35 Ron, Uncle (Paul's uncle), 19, 20
Milligan, Spike, 128 290, 348, 352 Princes Road, Liverpool, 25 Ronettes, 109, 119, 123
Milly, Auntie (Paul's aunt), 19 and Bag Productions, 184 Prisoner, The (television series), 234, 272 Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, 38, 39, 41, 48,
Milne, A. A.: Winnie the Pooh, 134 the bag statement, 333 Procol Harum, 330 49,70

Miracles, 105, 119, 198 and The Beatles’ break-up, 310 Profumo, John, 169 Rose Lane, Liverpool, 97
Mohammed, Geoff, 14, 22 bed-in, 333, 334 Protestantism, 18, 36 Rose Marie (film), 27
Monday Club, 299 ‘Ceiling Painting’ from Unfinished Paintings and Prowse, Keith, 257 Rosebery Street, Liverpool, 12
Money, Zoot, 330 Objects, 235 psychedelia, 242, 248, 254, 257, 261, 268, 270, 311 Ross, Diana, 123
Monkees, 241 as a conceptual artist, 308 punk, 160 Rossington, Norman, 129
Monroe, Marilyn, 10 deported from Canada, 334 Pye, 67 Rowe, Dick, 67, 101, 103
Montagu Square, London, 311 drugs bust, 303-4 Roxy club, Hamburg, 54
Monte Carlo, 35 John meets, 235 Quant, Mary, 183, 252, 270 Royal Albert Hall, London, 110, 241, 247, 349
Aonterey International Pop Festival, 180, 254, marries John, 332 Quarry Bank grammar school, 8-9, 12, 13, 14, Royal Family, 304, 324
259, 342 nude photographs, 300, 302 20,62 Royal Festival Hall, London, 318
Montez, Chris, 92, 94 relationship with John, 301, 306, 308, 310, 332-3 Quarry Men, 12, 13, 15, 29 Royal Variety Performance, 105, 181
Montreal, 153, 171, 334 Opportunity Knocks (television programme), 289 choice of music, 13 Rubin, Jerry, 299
Moody Blues, 201 Orbison, Roy, 68, 90, 94, 110 failure in talent show, 23 Runcorn, 26
Moog synthesizer, 340 Orton, Joe, 272 first appearance, 12 Running, Jumping & Standing Still Film, The
Moon, Keith, 257 Our World broadcast, 257 first recording, 14, 21, 23 (film), 128
Moore, Scotty, 11 Owen, Alun, 128 George joins, 12, 21, 29 Running Scareds, 68
Moore, Tommy, 44 Owens, Buck, 173, 208 John as the leader, 41 Russell Square, London, 86
Morley, Robert, 349 Liverpool Transport Club gig, 31 Russia, 158
Morris, Brian, 101 Paignton, 29 the original line-up, 12 Rutles, The, 321
Morrow, Vic, 21 Palance, Jack, 150 Paul joins, 12, 20 Rutles, The (film), 265, 286, 327
Moss Empire circuit, 90 Paolozzi, Eduardo, 62 Paul's first gig, 21 Rydell, Bobby, 96
Most, Mickie, 326 Papeete, 135 Sutcliffe joins, 23
Motown, 157, 194, 198 Paradise Island, 171 Quickly, Tommy, 157, 265 Saddle Room club, London, 109
Move. 2:73 Paris, 157 St Anthony of Padua church, Liverpool, 26
M John and Paul's first visit, 64 Radio Caroline, 258 St Barnabas Church, Liverpool, 237
Malcolm, 247 visit of January 1964, 112, 114-15 Radio City Music Hall, 86 St George's Hill, 254, 291
Munich, 215 Park Road, Liverpool, 35, 36, 37 Radio Luxembourg, 11, 36, 68, 77 St John's market, Liverpool, 17
Murray the K, 119 Parker, Bobby, 160 Radio Times, 110 St John's Wood, London, 252, 272
Murray, Mitch, 76, 77 Parker, Colonel Tom, 119, 190 Raft, George, 155 St Louis, 116, 227
Music of Lennon and McCartney, The (television Parkin, Johnny, 33 Raga (film), 285 St Peter's Parish Church cemetery, Woolton,
programme), 198 Parks, Van Dyke, 254 Ram, Rikhi, 223 Liverpool, 208, 208
Music Man, The (musical), 22 Parlophone, 70 ‘Ramon, Paul’, 44 St Silas's School, Liverpool, 34
music-business network, 77 Parnes, Larry, 28, 41, 44, 44, 45 Rape (television programme), 333 St Tudno (pleasure steamer), 36
Musicians’ Union, 237 Patterson, Davy, 34 Ray, James, 68, 105 Saltaire, near Bradford, 289
musique concréte, 242, 307 Pebble Beach, 312 Ray, Johnnie, 11, 36 San Francisco, 150, 187, 228, 259, 270, 312
Mutti (of the Top Ten Club), 58 Peet, Mr (of Blackler's), 31 Ready, Steady, Go! (television programme), 214, Sardinia; 304, 311, 312
Pendleton, Grace, 208 321 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 64
Nassau, 167 Penguins, 28 Rebels, 28 Saturday Club (radio show), 82
National Theatre, London, 109 Penny Lane, Liverpool, 7, 8, 57, 237 Red Rock Stadium, Denver, !53 Saturday Evening Post, 158
Nerk as, 41 People and Places (television programme), 260 Redding, Otis, 194 Savile Row, London (No. 3), 287, 290, 308, 312 '
New ! on, 39 Percival, Lance, 292 Redmond, Roy, 198 317, 318, 327, 347
New | 223, 283, 286 Perkins, Carl, 11, 12, 28, 44, 119, 157, 208 Rees-Mogg, William, 304 Savile Theatre, London, 252, 278
New M express (NME), 11, 94, 354 Perrin, Les, 326 reggae, © Scandinavia, 139
New C 157 Pete Best Band, 72 Reinhart, Django, 27 Scotland, Paul's farm in, 349
New Yor: 115, 116, 119, 120, 150, 155, Peterborough Empire, 123 Release, 931 Scott, Sir Peter, 21
157, 386, 190, 287 a Petty, Tom, 22 Remo Four, 29 Seacombe, 44
Beat Poet peyote, ‘79, 180, 190 Rhodes, 90 Seaforth, 39
New Zealanc 139, 142 Philip, ~ tH Prince, Duke of Edinburgh, ‘19, 354 Rhone, © »t, 58 Searle, Ronald, 134, 176
Newcastle Road, Liverpool (No. 9), 7, 3¢ Philippir<s, 217-21,
223, 237 rhythm.»; d-blues, 11, 68, 10!, 105, 194 Sefton General Hospital, Liverpool, 13
News of the World, 50 Philips rds, 268 Rich, Buo- 7, 81 Sefton Park, Liverpool, 19, 35, 36
Newsweek magazine, 114, 115 Phillip: er, 198 Rich, Cis ie, 191 Segal, Erich, 292
Nicol, Jimmy, 139 Phillips im, 254 Richard, —iff, 10, 22, 28, 56. 67, 77, 92, 101, Love Story, 292
Nilsson, 289 Phillips t »n, Liverpool, 23 116, .97, 263 Seine River, 114

66 INDEX
Sellers, Peter, 198, 289, 312, 317, 328, 334 and drugs, 50 Tarbuck, Jimmy, 273 Village Voice, The, 334
Sevenoaks, Kent, 243 in the Eddie Clayton Skiffle Group, 28, 37, 38 Tate, Sharon, 311 Vincent, Gene, 11, 41, 47 49, 58, 59, 67, 69, 77,
Shadows, 57, 67, 68 education, 34, 35, 36 Tavener, John, 289 104, 142
Shakespeare, William, 46, 176, 263, 278, 355 enjoys the tour madness, 147 Taylor, Derek, 142, 147, <3, 155, 180, 258) Vipers, 37
King Lear, 273 his fans, 96 280, 351 Virgin Islands, 135, 137, 312
Shangri-Las, 123 first drum kit, 37 and Apple, 270, 287, 222 290, 296, 302, 3 12, Vivekenanda, Swami, 233, 263
Shankar, Rajendra (‘Raju’), 233 first drums, 36 318, 319, 324, 326 Vollmer, Jiirgen, 50, 52, 64, 105
Shankar, Ravi, 179, 196, 209, 233, 236, 243, 260, first feels an equal member of the group, 116 on the Beatles’ break-up, 252 Voormann, Klaus, 50, 58, 98, 177, 2 12; 24:
285, 312 first jobs, 36 as The Beatles’ press officer, 115 243, 347, 350
Shapiro, Helen, 89, 90, 94 forbidden to drum on The Beatles’ first single ' and The Beatles’ socialising with the public, 157
Shaw, Sandie, 341 76, 7% as Epstein's personal assistant. 115 Wallasey, 44
Shea Stadium, New York City, 186, 187, 221, gang life, 36-7 falls out with Epstein, 157 Walters, Lou, 36, 58, 59
227, 229, 247, 329 hair-cutting incident, 120 his first big tour, 140 \ Walton Hospital, Liverpool, 17
Shears, Billy, 241 illness, 34, 35, 36, 139, 284 © and George's Daily Express column, 110, 112, Warrington, Lancashire, 306
Shenson, Walter, 128, 129, 167 joins The Beatles, 71, 72 \ 114,115, 134 Washington, 227
Sheridan, Tony, 38, 49, 55, 58, 59, 62, 65, 78 in love with Hollywood, 150 | and George's drugs bust, 331 Waters, Muddy, 191
Shirelles, 101, 119 marries Maureen (1965), 163, 199 and John's drugs bust, 304 Watts, Alan, 312
Shivananda Ashram, Rishikesh, 171 his name, 33, 39, 71, 353 | leaves The Beatles, 157, 254 Watts, Charlie, 81
Short, Don, 190, 304 plays at Butlins, Pwllheli, 29, 36, i 39 at Monterey, 259 Wayne, John, 333
Shotton, Pete, 12, 20 problems due to the audience noise, 150 and the nude photographs, 302 Weir, Bob, 289
Silver Beetles, 41, 44 Ringoisms, 129-30, 209 \ and an unauthorised film crew, 153 Weiss, Nat, 248
Simon and Garfunkel, 316 in Rory Storm and the Hurdeanes\oe) 39, 41, Taylor, Elizabeth, 198, 278 Weissleder, Manfred, 69
Simone, Nina, 197 48, 160 \ Taylor, James, 289, 327 Welch, Raquel, 328
Sinatra, Frank, 11, 22, 35, 102, 192, 198, 326, 340 his rule to play with the singer, 81 Taylor, Joan, 334 Wembley Arena, London, 159
Six-Five Special (television programme), 67 in the Sea Scouts, 35 Taylor, King Size, and the Dominoes, 72 Western Avenue, Liverpool, 27
16 magazine, 236 setting up his drums, 85 Taylor, Ted, 77 Weybridge, Surrey, 159, 171, 197, 201, 202,
Sixties, the, 201-3, 252, 270, 352, 356 Teddy boy image, 36, 37, 73 Teddington, Middlesex, 101 210, 231, 254, 291, 297, 324, 329
skiffle, 11, 14, 20, 28, 37, 38, 57 temporarily leaves The Beatles, 311, 312, 317 Teddy boys, 9, 12, 13, 20, 30, 36, 37, 38, 44, 73, Whalley, Nigel, 30
Slick, Grace, 254 working-class upbringing, 7 75, 94, 270 Whisky A Go Go club, Los Angeles, 150
Slough, 105 personality Tenerife, 98 Whistler,J.A. M., 14
Smith, Cissie, 30 charm, 72 Tetragrammaton, 302 Whitaker, Robert, 204
Smith, George (John's uncle), 10, 14, 12, 20 good with children, 208 Thank Your Lucky Stars (television programme), White, Alan, 347, 350
Smith, Mavis, 289 insecurity, 311-12 101, 160, 161 White, Andy, 76
Smith, Mike, 67 laconic manner, 128 Thingumybob (television series), 289 White, Josh, 27
Smith, Mimi John’s aunt), 10, 12, 14, 20, 134, 301 love of film, 128 Thomas, Chris, 305 Whitelaw, Billie, 128
ambitions for John, 10 wit, 72 Thomas, Dylan, 18, 46, 158 Whiteman, Paul, 18
in Australia, 139 Starways Airline, 144 Under Milk Wood, 194 Whitfield, David, 36
her best quote, 11 Status Quo, 253 Three Stooges, 64 Whitman, Slim, 27
destroys John's poetry, 10 Stax, 198 Thurber, James, 134 Whitney, Oxo, 29
on George's voice, 13 STEEDs, 280 Tibetan Book of the Dead, The, 209, 210 Who, 50, 160, 212, 241, 311
John lives with as a child, 7, 12 Steele, Tommy, 27-8, 45 Time magazine, 115 Wickham, Vicki, 321
and John's marriage to Cynthia, 73 Steinbeck, John, 46 Times, The, 96, 302 Widnes, 26
and John's MBE, 184 Stewart, lan, 101 Tittenhurst Park, Ascot, 344 Wigmore Hall, London, 241
punishes John for stealing, 9 Stewart, Les, 30-1 Tokyo, 199, 215-16 Wigmore Street, London, 287, 301, 327
shocked at George's appearance, 30 Stigwood, Robert, 265, 268, 270 Tokyo Hilton, 215 Wild in the Country (film), 191
as strong-minded, 139-40, 308 Stockhausen, Karl-Heinz, 210, 212 Tommy, 241 Wild One, The (film), 21, 41, 44
Snow, Hank, 36 Storm, Rory, 29, 36, 38, 39, 57, 59, 63, 72, 78, Tonight Show, The (television programme), 287 Wilde, Marty, 22, 28, 41
Sounds Incorporated, 142 110, 160, 177 Top of the Pops (television programme), 161, 229 Wilde, Oscar, 8, 14
South Liverpool Weekly News, 29 Stowe School, Buckingham, 112 Top Ten Club, Hamburg, 49, 55, 58, 58, 59, 59 Wildlife Fund of Great Britain, 319
Southern, Terry, 278, 328 STP, 259 Tormé, Mel, 242 Wilkie, Derry, 48
Southport, 68, 158 Strangers, 78 Toronto, 347 Williams, Allan, 41, 45, 48, 49, 56
Spain, 116, 175, 186, 202, 231, 266 Strawberry Field, Woolton, 8, 237 Torremolinos, 98 Williams, Beryl, 45
Speakeasy club, London, 330, 349 Stringfellow, James, 208 Tower Ballroom, New Brighton, 65, 77 Williams, Hank, 11, 27, 36
Spector, Phil, 67, 109, 123, 196, 319, 322, 323, 350 Strong, Barrett, 105 Townsend, Ken, 211 Williams, Tennessee, 18
Speke, Merseyside, 17, 21, 26, 29, 34, 77 Stubbins, Albert, 248 Townshend, Pete, 241, 311, 330 Wilson, Harold, 181, 184, 261
Speke Centre, 29 Student Magazine, 326 Toxteth, Liverpool, 33, 34 Wilton, Robb, 21
Speke Hall, 26 Stuttgart, 45 trad jazz, 14, 37, 38 Wimbledon Palais, 106
Spiegl, Fritz, 198 Sugar, Alan, 326 Trafford, Roy, 36, 37, 38 WINS radio station, New York City, 119
Spielberg, Steven, 274 Sullivan, Ed, 116, 214 Transcendental Meditation, 261, 263, 265, 281 Winwood, Stevie, 330
Spinetti, Victor, 167, 169. Sunday Night at the London Palladium (television Trident Studios, 297 Wirral, the, near Liverpool, 25, 73, 77, 236
Spotlight (actors' directory), 272 show), 102 Trinidad and Tobago, 137, 312 Wolfit, Sir Donald, 93
Star-Club, Hamburg, 69, 78 Supremes, 123 Tumbleweed, Billy, 312 Wolverhampton, 86
Stardust, Alvin, 29 Sutcliffe, Stuart, 14, 38, 44, 45, 80 Twain, Mark, 342 Wonder, Stevie, 23, 157
Starkey, Annie (Ringo's grandmother), 34 accused of arson, 55 Twickenham Film Studios, Middlesex, 181, 298, Wonderwall (film), 280
Starkey, Barbara (Ringo’s wife), 35, 187, 308 appearance, 31, 50 315-19 Woodbine, Lord, 44
Starkey, Elsie (Ringo's mother), 33-6, 39, 72 at art school, 31, 41, 69 2I's club, London, 45 Woodentops (a fan group), 22
Starkey, Jason (Ringo's son), 260 death, 69 Wooler, Bob, 56, 65, 98
Starkey, Johnny (Ringo’s grandfather), 34, 35, engaged to Astrid, 62 Undertakers, 77 Woolton, Liverpool, 7, 8, 12, 20, 96, 208, 208
36, 38 fights with Paul, 53, 69 United Artists, 286, 293, 322 Worsthorne, Peregrine, 260
Starkey, Richard (Ringo's father), 33, 34, 201 joins the Quarry Men, 23 United States see America Wycherley, Ronnie see Fury, Billy
Starkey, Maureen (Ringo’s first wife), 35, 100, leaves the band, 62 Upper Parliament Street, Liverpool, 44 Wynne, David, 112, 260
137, 163, 231, 260, 261, 281, 308, 312 personality, 31 Upton Green, Speke (No. 25), 26, 29 Wyvern Social Club, Liverpool, 44
Starkey, Zak (Ringo’s son), 231 Sweden, 104, 116, 146, 157
Starr, Kay, 7 Swindon, Wiltshire, 68 Valley, Los Angeles, 349 Yates, Eddie, 292
Starr, Ringo Swinging Blue Jeans, 68, 81 Van Doren, Mamie, 150 Yellow Submarine, 292, 293
as an actor, 167, 278 Sydney, 140 Van Dyke, Dick, 292 Yellow Teddy Bears, The (film), 128
against drum solos, 338 Syracuse, New York State, 323 Vaughan, Ivan, !2, 20, 30, 304 Yevtushenko, Yevegeny, 158
appearance, 38, 48, 71, 72, 73, 153, 236 Vaughan, Sarah, 35 Yogananda, Swami Paramahansa, 262

apprentice engineer, 36, 38 Tahiti, 135, 137, 140, 355 Vee-Jay and Swan, 116 Young, Roy, 58, 69
with The Beatles in Hamburg, 48-9 Taj Mahal hotel, Bombay, 23° Venables, Terry, 326
birth (7th July 1940), 7, 33 Takis, 235 Vesuvio club, Tottenham Court Road, London, 297 Zapple label, 289

childhood, 33-6 Talk of the Town, London, 33° Vietnam War, 14%, 184, 201, 298, 334

EX 367
BY HOOK OR BY CRooK

PLL BEY Easay it

John
Lennon
 generation second. The Beatles were partSrthe tevohition,
which is really an evolution, and is continuing. We were all
on this ship—a ship going to discover the New World. And
The Beatles were in the crow’s nest.’

PAUL: ‘To thine own self be true.” I think that was very apt
with The Beatles. We always were very true to ourselves—
and I| think that the brutal honesty The Beatles had was
important. So sticking to our own guns and really saying
what we thought in some way gave some other people in the
world the idea that they too could be truthful and get away
with it, and in fact it was a good thing.’

GEORGE: ‘The moral of the story is that if you accept the

high points you're going to have to go through the lows. For
The Beatles, our lives were a very heightened version of that:
of how to learn about love and hate, and up and down, and
good and bad, and loss and gain. It was a hyper-version of
what everybody else was going through. So, basically, it’s all
good. Whatever happened is good as long as we've learnt
something. It's only bad if we didn't learn: “Who am 1?
Where am | going? Where have | come from?
we

PIN @O! ‘They became the closest friends I'd ever had. | was
an only child and suddenly I felt as though I'd got three
brothers. We really looked out for each other and we had
many laughs together. In the old days we'd have the hugest
hotel suites, the whole floor of a hotel, and the four of us
would end up in the bathroom, just to be with each other.’

Artwork by Klaus Voormann

Illustration by Klaus Voormann and Alfons
THE BEATLES’ STORY
TOLD FOR THE FIRST TIME
IN THEIR OWN
WORDS AND PICTURES

ISBN 0-8118-3636-3