Memories of Nicholas Schaffner and The Beatles Forever Comment by Michael Gerber on Jan 8, 11:38 I have an old paperback copy of “The Longest Cocktail Party” and I’m afraid to read it because the binding WILL crack. Maybe I’ll search for a PDF on archive.org. One really great thing about Schaffner’s book was how illustrated it is–as you say, it revealed an entire world around the music you heard, and the few photos you’d already seen. This allowed one’s knowledge to accrete slowly, and with effort; the glut of information available to modern fans seems to give some a different relationship to the actual historical phenomenon. Things like “Paul Is Dead” require being steeped in too much Beatle stuff for too long — the brain gets bored with the old story, so it makes up a new, more interesting one out of the millions of shards of data.
Memories of Nicholas Schaffner and The Beatles Forever Comment by on Jan 8, 08:52 Thanks for resurfacing this book, Michael. Schaffer’s The Beatles Forever was a revelation to me as yet another second generation 1970s fan. Not only did it reveal an entire world around The Beatles that wasn’t otherwise accessible, but it exposed 12 year-old me to a careful and contemporary writing style that was foundational to my future communication skills (such as they are). I read it so many times that I ended up taping the binding and holding it together with a book cover made from a brown paper grocery bag. As an aside, I found a used copy of DiLello’s “The Longest Cocktail Party” shortly after I read The Beatles Forever and it completely broke my impressionable mind. Despite the lack of actual Beatle content (or perhaps because of it), it’s still my favorite fab-related book. I can’t believe no one has made it into a film.- Memories of Nicholas Schaffner and The Beatles Forever Comment by on Jan 6, 15:18 Yes, you should definitely read the Peter Shotten book written with help by Nicholas Shaffner. It is great. He was a gifted writer who died way too young.
- Memories of Nicholas Schaffner and The Beatles Forever Comment by on Jan 6, 10:35 Re: Shotton book. It’s the only place you’ll get stories like this: “We must have been about eleven the day John accosted me with the dramatic announcement: ‘I’ve had a wank, Pete, I actually came! It’s f-ing great, the most amazing feeling ever!’ We repaired at once to our abandoned Vale Road garage, where John did it all over again for my benefit — but try as I might,I wasn’t to achieve a climax myself until several months later.” Re: AIDS Thank you for the very thoughtful reply. Very well said. The empathetic ones passed away and the greedy ones lived. I was a young gay man just entering adulthood in 1990, frightened beyond belief. There aren’t words harsh enough to describe my feelings for the Reagan administration.
Memories of Nicholas Schaffner and The Beatles Forever Comment by on Jan 5, 16:27 I’m of the same generation as you. Beatles Forever was the third book I picked up about the fabs somewhere around 1979-1980 after The Beatles Illustrated Record and the Podrazik and Castleman discography. Along with the LP’s and singles, these books were the launching pad for my lifelong fascination with the Beatles. I did meet Nicholas Schaffer along with Pete Shotton at the 1983 Beatlefest in New Jersey upon the release of their Lennon book, In My Life. I still have that original version I purchased that day to which they personally signed to my then 13 year old self. I believe I did shake his hand. By the way, I’m glad you’re back!
- Memories of Nicholas Schaffner and The Beatles Forever Comment by on Jan 4, 12:52 Also, for me, two other touchstone books of the time were: “The Beatles A to Z” (by Goldie Friede, Robin Titone and Sue Weiner) that was an encyclopediac breakdown of the career and singles. Besides being a good reference for b-sides, it was just a lot of fun to pore through. A kalideoscopic way to look over the 60s and 70s. and “The Beatles: An Illustrated Record” by Roy Carr and Tony Tyler (1981 edition) which is full of vicious hot-takes on the solo years that friends and I used to laugh at and disagree with.
- Memories of Nicholas Schaffner and The Beatles Forever Comment by on Jan 4, 12:52 Thank you for this post and for the link to Podrazik. I was happy he mentioned the Shotton book. That one had some unique stories but it’s been forgotten, hasn’t it? I became a hardcore fan in 1981 at age 14. I still have my copies of: SHOUT, the RS/Warhol, the Hunter Davies bio, and The Beatles Forever. I was shocked and upset when I opened the paper on Labor Day weekend 1991 and saw Schaffner’s obit. I pulled out “Beatles Forever,” opened my copy to the last page and wrote “we are losing our best and brightest to this f-ing disease.”
- Kiss as the Anti- Beatles Comment by on Jan 3, 04:09 Their music’s decent hard rock, & their concerts are an event to be experienced. Their music was part of the soundtrack of my youth, but now I can’t give them the time of day. Most of it is due to Gene Simmons’, and to a lesser extent, Paul Stanley’s egoic crassness, & their tasteless merchandise machine. Ace & Peter are low life, anti-Semitic losers. And there’s another recent event that I won’t mention that sunk the ship for good. Once a raw & unique presence, they’re more of a cult than a band or a brand.
- Just how blind was John Lennon without his glasses? Comment by on Jan 1, 08:41 The picture of John Lenon peering closely at a 45 record on a turntable is not because he is shortsighted, I suggest but because he is making sure the needle goes on to the opening groove of the record. If you were manually putting on a record mots people wold adopt that post to see better the union of tiny needle and minute groove.
- Old Draft: Beatles Folk Memory 1970-1995 Comment by on Dec 26, 13:04 I am a lurker who stumbled on the blog again. Glad you are back. I was 5 months old in February 1964, so I didn’t really plug into the Beatles until the Red and Blue albums and the Beatles Forever book. I am the same age as Julian Lennon, so I was really affected by the assassination when I was a senior in high school. I tried to talk the school librarian into giving me the commemorative issue of Time magazine (!) and I bought the paperback version of the John and Yoko Playboy interviews. John was ” sixteen in the head’ himself IMHO, so he really resonated with me then. I would pore over that book and it seemed replete with wisdom and truth to me! I think you are right; people my age were nothing like the “first wave” baby boomers and our Beatles experience was quite different too. I still have a library of Beatles books, but the concerns of adult life took hold by the 90s. But, I do think they are a band for the ages. The music itself and the stories and personalities behind it have an enduring and peculiar fascination for every succeeding generation , it seems. There are internet discussions about them all over the internet from every demographic. I am sure all the other bands would like to know the secret…
Old Draft: Beatles Folk Memory 1970-1995 Comment by on Dec 23, 16:22 Hi @Michael G! It’s amazing having you back, and coincidentally just when I started doing a deep dive on you incredible blog (not for anything but this is the best place to read Beatles opinions without the so very common avoidant topics in the majority of virtual spaces – romantic relationships, drugs and other ailments, the elephant that is yoko etc etc etc). I was just reading your India post and I noticed in the Get Back Halftime you mentioned how John seemed better than you thought, so I was wondering if that affected at all you “kundalini” theory… it’s a good theory, one that could explain John’s massive change in such a short time. His treatment of Cynthia during and after the divorce is something I’ll never really understand. How do you stand on it after these years?
Old Draft: Beatles Folk Memory 1970-1995 Comment by on Dec 22, 19:09 “Wouldn’t it be nice…” to add some of that old music, original footage, sounds, tapes, snippets, notes, has remained on my mind through decades of life and fluctuating fandom. Inciting ideas, trains of thought, and perspectives on Hey Dullblog, have been inspiring. —- . From a historian’s perspective your notes on ‘Beatles folk-memory’, Michael, are another way to describe historiographic phases. Interestingly you perceive new historiographic phases emerge new material or formats are released. Erin Torkelson-Weber had a similar approach in the only historiography of TheBeatles published so far. Really influential. We’re in need of another one, not just a serious rewrite. Your approach is tempting. —- . My first Beatles obsession phase was 1968-1980… I remember participating with a one-thousand or more Beatles and John Lennon fans in a commemoration parade for Lennon in December 1980 in Amsterdam, was dull and fake. Lennon was never sacred genius to me, his peace-nick phase surely effectively got in met head. But not life-changing. Lennon’s referencing to the early Beatles live music as the only real thing, has probably inspired if not guided me until today… concert tapes from 1964 and before are ‘grant, keep it’ and ‘tantalising’ … hair-raising experiencing, it really would be nice “to add some of the new old music to my day”.
- Happy 50th Birthday to McCartney’s “Ram” Comment by on Apr 21, 02:47 I just discovered that on the original Ram album cover, the colourful zig zag border was designed by McCartney himself. Embedded among the zig zags is the acronym L.I.L.Y. Yes, a secret message. It turns out that L.I.L.Y. stands for Linda I Love You. Pretty gosh-darn romantic. To Ram fans out there, is (was) this common knowledge? In 1971, did fans notice the L.I.L.Y. and were they trying to figure it out? https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/paul-mccartney-album-covers-explained/?amp
- Happy birthday, Paul! (with a few notes on style) Comment by on Apr 21, 02:07 RE: https://liverpoolbeatlescene.com/70birthday.html Fun site. Thanks for the link. There’s even one picture in which he’s wearing nothing but a baby. I guess that’s the “at home” look LOL. “he had the most wonderful legs and always had the tightest trousers” I can really see what you mean after going to the above site and scrolling down the 2nd column from the left to the pic of him in his swim trunks (looks to be about 1969/70). My word! I didn’t know a guy could have such graceful legs… but now I know it’s possible.
- Something Happened Comment by on Apr 19, 21:22 I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s; I’m turning 65 soon and because of that, and having lost my mother last year, I have been very nostalgic. I really can’t tell you what it meant, growing up during that time, only what it meant to me. There’s a lot I don’t remember, but I do recall growing up with black and white images of war – all the time – on the TV. Later, I learned that it was in Vietnam, and it was not popular, but in my suburban world no one went to war that I knew of, and no one protested. But what I absorbed as a kid was that there were remarkable things going on all the time. I knew about women’s lib, bra burnings, we knew that Anita Bryant was wrong about homosexuals, and that people of all colors were equal, though I only saw white people (except when going into the city to see my grandparents). There was just this sense in the air that exciting things were happening while we lived our ordinary lives. I wanted to be a hippy. By the time I was old enough to know what a hippy was, it was too late, but in high school we wore bright colors, stripes, crocheted tops, bell bottoms, said things like “far out” …later, we learned about marijuana, though I didn’t try it until I was 18. Underlying everything was the music, the soundtrack! I was talking to my sister recently, and wondering how did we get our awareness about everything, because our parents didn’t talk about current events much. She said ‘I think it was the music’. Yeah yeah yeah! While I was only 4 when The Beatles were on Ed Sullivan and don’t know if I saw them, their music was everywhere, for years. I remember my neighbor blasting “Don’t Let Me Down” over and over – I’m sure it drove the adults crazy but I liked it. We had TV but what was most prevalent in our lives was the radio; it was always on, at home, on transistors, in cars, and we just soaked up all those sounds – The Beatles, Dylan, all the protest music. Then there were the Monkees and later the Partridge Family and yes, the Brady Bunch. Well, I was the middle girl of three, like Jan. For some unknown reason I don’t remember having a lot of records, but when I was in high school I asked for The Beatles red and blue albums for Christmas. Then came Pink Floyd…. So I wish I knew how to sum up, or how to put into words what it was like growing up during that time. But it influenced me in so may ways and still does. I took LSD numerous times after I graduated high school, as well as many other drugs and alcohol. I felt I had just missed out on the excitement, but the substances were easy to get. I’ve now been clean and sober 33 years, around the same amount of time as Ringo. In later times in my life, I became an activist, helped with community organizing, marched in many marches, worked at non profits (including with kids who were in gangs) became a social worker, and am now a therapist. I wanted to change the world in a big way but now content myself with helping individuals. And here I am revisiting some of my past, and especially all that great music.
- My Yoko Problem… and yours? Comment by on Apr 19, 00:31 According to the internet, the quote is: It was said that I never loved Cyn. That’s far from the truth. We were young, bigheaded and got into a physical relationship too soon. Perhaps if we took things slow we would have made it. I know we would have made it. This is apparently from 1974 (so during the split from Yoko), though I can’t find the source. Does anyone know?
- My Yoko Problem… and yours? Comment by on Apr 18, 23:52 For those curious, here’s the quote: Paul: He’d found Yoko. And John loved strong women. His mother had been a strong woman, his auntie who brought him up was a strong woman. And, bless her, but his first wife – wasn’t. She’d once said to me, you know, all I want is, sort of, a guy with a pipe and slippers… Howard: Right, stay home… Paul: do that, and I thought, wooh, that’s not John. He goes on to talk more about Yoko, so in context, to me it comes across as saying Cynthia didn’t have a strong personality compared to Yoko, not a slam on her inner strength. Of course, YMMV.
- My Yoko Problem… and yours? Comment by on Apr 18, 12:56 @Jesse, That was indeed Paul’s exact answer. Reddit AMA, December 2020. The question was: QUESTION: I Love McCartney III. I bought two of the colored vinyl (pink and the exclusive yellow from your website). Can you please finally clear up for all of us when the last time was you actually saw John Lennon in person? Some argue it was the infamous night where you two almost went down to Saturday Night Live in 1976. But, your son James has said John held him as a baby so that 1976 date can’t be right. There’s also the rumor that you and John and Linda and Yoko went to see the movie called Pretty Baby in 1978. Would you mind clearing this up for both history and for the fans? Paul’s answer, frustratingly vague: I think it was on a visit to New York and unfortunately I don’t remember the year, so I’d have to say ‘Some Time in New York’.
- My Yoko Problem… and yours? Comment by on Apr 18, 03:58 I got curious about this and looked it up. James McCartney’s words were, I know John held me as a baby. Then I have memories of the Dakota building, very white, lots of sunlight pouring in. People have (plausibly) suggested that his memories of the Dakota relate to visits made after John’s death. The original source was apparently an article in The Sunday Times in 2012. It seems likely that it’s this one (“Macca Mark II”, 1 April 2012), but since it’s paywalled, I can’t confirm that. I didn’t have any luck finding an archived copy either.
- Go Fug Yourself: John and Yoko at Cannes with matching couple shirts Comment by on Apr 18, 01:33 Heads up, the last paragraph has a spam link (and appears to be inserted text): They had this beautiful photo shoot with matching gear couple shirts that everyone enjoyed. Many people was influenced on their style and fashion. I’m not sure if the Wikipedia link to ‘balloon’ is meant to be there, either.
- Smile vs. Sgt. Pepper Comment by on Apr 17, 06:38 Very late to the discussion, but Smile to me always sounded like it was made by people who did not love each other while Sgt. Pepper sounded like it was made by people who did love each other. Cold versus warm.
- The Beatles’ 13th Album? Comment by on Apr 14, 06:04 @Lara nad @Michael To be fair, this whole thing started with Michael defending George from accusations that his ATMP album was in fact only good in those places where it was worked on by Paul and George Martin. So Michael tried to show that all Beatles had different strengths, and this is where this split: “John and George had cultural value” / “Paul has musical value” started. But the thing is: EACH of them had ALL those values, musical and beyond-musical. All of them wrote some great music and all of them wrote some crap music as well. We all have our favourite Beatles, but the thing is, as @Lara said, that if, for example, someone loves John for being a feminist, they still in the first place love John for his music and for what he did as a Beatle. On the other hand we all choose our favourite Beatles based on our own temperament and character and so we will see their “cultural values” beyond the music in different aspects. I am not offended by anyone stating that George had a hand in making “Eastern religions” popular (although “Eastern religions” are all very different, and martial arts or attentiveness practice have nothing to do with George’s beliefs), I am sure that his influence was important for some people; but on the other hand it was not important for others. Equally, Paul’vegetarianism didn’t impress some people, but may have had some influence on others. George is not just a “spiritual inspiration”, he is also a musician; Paul is not just a musician, he is a whole complex person who is liked/loved for different aspects of his life, just as in case of John and George. What I am really trying to say is that all those “cultural influences” that can be ascribed to John and George, are also present in Paul’s case, and what kind of made me (kind of) oppose Michael is that I felt that he was telling me (Paul’s fan, obviously) how *I* feel about Paul. And I know that if John’ fans and George’s fans love John and George for reasons beyond their music, exactly the same can be said about *my* love for Paul. And thank you @Lara, @Michael, @Tasmin, @Nancy for your knowledge and this discussion, I find it great and also helpful in claryfying my own views…
- The Beatles’ 13th Album? Comment by on Apr 12, 19:37 Excellent comment Lara. And yes, singing “Hey Jude” along with fellow concert goers IS a spiritual experience. I think many of us have a spiritual connection with the Beatles. Beyond the music, that’s the glue that bonds us to them.
Ethical Reflections on John/Paul Comment by on Apr 12, 10:56 Maddingway, I’m officially done with this subject. I don’t know how many times I can say that I have no problem with fanfiction about real people that announces itself as fiction, that I think it’s worth differentiating between what we can know happened (with all of the many caveats that entails) and what we’re speculating about, and that talking about how “alternative facts” of various types are significant in our culture amounts to saying that all “alternative facts” and their purveyors have the same level of seriousness. They obviously do not and I have never said they did. I was also asking in good faith when I inquired if there was any legal evidence of McCartney having an illegitimate child or children. The one legal case I was aware of (Bettina Huebers) was dismissed as far as I know. It’s not a subject I’ve investigated in depth, and it would not surprise me at all if he does have one or more illegitimate children. I simply wondered if any had been legally established as such. All I can say at the end here is that I’m not the enemy you seem to think I am. I’m not coming for you or your community, and if you find good things there I’m genuinely glad about that.- The Beatles As They Were Heard: KHJ 93 Los Angeles Comment by on Apr 11, 20:31 Idon’t know about Radio Veronica, but Radio Caroline is online
- Ethical Reflections on John/Paul Comment by on Apr 11, 00:05 I am disappointed in this reply. Here we go. >To the point about “alternative facts,” I continue to think it’s important to draw distinctions about what is provable reality and what is not. That the Beatles themselves engaged in mystification or lies doesn’t change my conviction on that score. “Provable reality” is a lot more tenuous than you might think especially considering you and Michael have both admitted that the Beatles worked very hard to make sure that their reality of being sex addicted pill heads was not provable. Just as an example, we only know that John was a heroin addict and emotionally dependent on LSD because he admitted that he was a heroin addict and that he was emotionally dependent on LSD. However his drug bust only found about 200 grams of hashish, a cigarette rolling machine with traces of marijuana, and half a gram of morphine. None of those things are heroin or LSD, therefore *they are not provable reality.* This is because the Beatles PR machine moved heaven and earth to keep these things under wraps. How do we know that George and John’s dentist spiked their drinks with LSD? Because someone told us about it, not because there was a pharmacological analysis of the coffee they drank. Without such a report the “reality” of their coffee being spiked simply isn’t provable, we only have their recollections to go on. And yet this is taken as “fact” despite there being no material evidence! We only know about the heroin and LSD and marijuana because the Beatles themselves admitted to it. Otherwise there’s very little *provable reality* to back up that their drug usage truly happened. Yet everywhere you find a Beatles history nerd you will find chatter about the usage of these drugs. Mark Lewisohn, God bless his pointed head, has been breaking his back trying to figure out what is true and what is not true and apparently he is the only person on Earth that is interested in doing so. Everyone else seems content to live off of Paul’s repetitive storytelling and accusing their rhetorical opponents of not behaving rationally. And what is this all the result of? The “alternative facts” established by the Beatles themselves that were heavily promoted as part of their PR image as a band. Once again, I must reiterate: you are borrowing trouble and being patronizing. It’s silly. >What I am saying is much more basic and observable: J/P fanfiction focuses on two men and not on the women those men were engaged in long-term relationships with. This is what shipping culture is about, Nancy. Check out X-Files fandom sometime, the Mulder/Scully fandom is still going strong there. Are you wringing your hands because Mulder/Scully fanfiction inherently excludes characters like Alex Krycek or Walter Skinner? Here’s one more closely related to Beatledom and RPF as a genre: there is a very intense Current Year subculture of John/Yoko fandom that promotes a lot of Lennono garbage including tinhatting and writing fanfiction and creating silly little “proof posts” trying to verify that Yoko actually did love John and that she wasn’t using him as a walking wallet. Are you going to write a Very Special Episode about how John/Yoko fanfiction is inherently misogynistic because it writes out poor Cynthia? (which Lennono shipping does with great glee. Even in death poor Cynthia can’t catch a break.) Or, God, poor Alma Cogan, the woman who is alleged to be the actual love of John’s life and whose death sent him into a depression spiral in 1967? No one ever stands up for Alma Cogan even though she was a vital piece of John’s life. Where is the worry about all the other women who were important to John being excluded from his life? That’s what the Lennon Estate has been doing for decades at this point, and yet there has been very little complaint about this besides some grumbling about how Julian has never been treated right. Where are the posts about Yoko contributing to the imminent collapse of the United States? Yoko has done very tangible harm and perpetuated many lies and yet somehow she doesn’t get linked to the profound political problems in the United States. McLennon tinhatters are not using johnlennon dot com to sell dopey avante garde art projects and make money off McLennon. Yoko Ono does use johnlennon dot com to sell her dopey avante garde art projects and makes money off Lennono. I find it interesting that this does not stir up as strong a reaction as tinhatters saying “John and Paul were gay and in love with one another and here’s a free story I wrote about it.” >I also believe those motivations are worth examining. That would be a neat post to read and respond to. I look forward to you writing that so long as you do research on your topic beforehand and avoid trying to link the behavior of me and my community to political upheaval. >Finally, I think there are lies of varying seriousness. I agree that the Beatles told plenty of lies, for a lot of different reasons. Much depends on motivation and on whether the lie hurts anyone else. This is the point where I’ve moderated my stance the most. All lies do damage. They’re not always equal in damage, that is true, but they always cause some measure of hurt and pain. >I’m genuinely interested to know if any paternity claims have been legally established. Either a) you’re playing games with me re: human biology or b) you genuinely don’t know about the paternity claims brought against Paul and the money spent on them. More about a credible paternity claim brought against Paul during his Beatle years: > But that was hardly the end to the complications of Paul’s love life. In the spring of 1964, during the shooting of A Hard Day’s Night, an even more delicate situation of the same nature arose. A young girl in Liverpool had given birth to a baby boy she claimed was Paul McCartney’s son. Paul denied being the father, and the young girl was referred to an acquaintance of David Jacobs in Liver-pool, a man named D. H. Green. She and her mother visited Green’s office in late March. Green told Jacobs that he found them quite decent and reasonable. He felt that the girl had no intention of trying to hurt Paul and that her only concern seemed to be getting enough money to buy a pram for the infant. > Jacobs was in the midst of negotiating a small settlement for this purpose when the girl’s mother confessed her plight to a friend. He knew how much the child was worth and intended to see the mother was properly looked after. He eventually made contact by telephone with David Jacobs in London. Jacobs’ greatest concern was that even if they gave the girl a large settlement it would in no way ensure that the newspapers would not get hold of the story, or that more wouldn’t be demanded later. Jacobs advice to Brian and Paul was that the less money they paid, the less culpable they would appear if the story did come out. Brian agreed that the best they could do was pay the girl a small sum and hope that the matter would be kept quiet. > Jacobs drew up the agreement. For the mother, with the stipulation that Paul should continue to deny being the father of the child, and that this payment did not in any way represent an admis-sion, there was a four-figure sum. The deed stated that in the eventuality of a prosecution and trial that proved to the satisfaction of the court that the child was indeed Paul McCartney’s, the maximum payment the court could order for the maintenance and education of the child was £2.10s a week until he was twenty-one. > In consideration for the money paid to her, she was never to make any claim against Paul in the future or allege that he was the father or disclose the terms of the agreement; otherwise she would be liable to return the payment. > By this time, however, the newspapers had heard hundreds of all sorts of crank rumours and accusations about all four of the Beatles. > Cynthia Lennon later summed it up: *It appeared from the evidence on the solicitor’s desk at this time that Paul had been a bit of a town bull in Liverpool. Claims for paternity suits rolled in. He found himself in great demand in more ways than one. Whether the claims were true is anybody’s guess.’ Brown, Peter. The Love You Make: An Insider’s Story of The Beatles. London: Macmillan, 1983. More: > The only sour note to the day came from the uncle of Anita Cochrane, who plastered Liverpool with 30,000 leaflets recounting his niece’s affair with Paul and its outcome. Anita, an 18-year-old Beatles fan, discovered that she was pregnant after partying with Paul at Stuart Sutcliffe’s flat in Gambier Terrace. Unable to contact him by registered letters and telegrams, she eventually retained a lawyer who threatened legal action… Brian Epstein is said to have intervened personally and offered £5000 in exchange for renouncing all claims on Paul (published figures vary depending on the source). The agreement said that Anita must never bring Paul to court or say or imply that he was the father of her child, Philip Paul Cochrane… Miles, B. The Beatles diary volume 1: The Beatles years. Omnibus Press, 2009. However I always found this long quote about the Australian tour to be much more illuminating rather than a single case out of Liverpool that was hushed up with brown paper bag money: > The night was not entirely without its compensations though. > That evening, and indeed every evening of the tour, the Beatles partook of one pleasure they had discovered in Hamburg as unknown teenagers and developed to an obsessive sport over the next three years. > Lennon, in particular, must have been consumed with perverse delight by the grand confidence trick which he and his colleagues were perpetrating upon the whole western world. By day they won the hearts of mum, dad and the garden gnome with their cheeky, innocent charm and by night, according to more than a few observers, they hurled themselves in bacchanalian orgies beyond the comprehension of the humble folk who paid them homage. The “satyricon” scenes which John referred to in an Australian context in his milestone 1971 interview with Rolling Stone’s Jann Wenner certainly did occur, though such was the wall of absolute secrecy that only those tour party members accepted into an exclusive inner sanctum ever witnessed them. > Tour manager Ravenscroft carefully concedes, “They had girls in their room, yes. That was in the hands of Mal Evans, who was very good at picking the right girls. It was all very discreet and well organ-ised. When they were getting involved in that sort of thing I kept right out of the way.” > “That sort of thing” is more frankly explained by journalist Jim Oram: “John and Paul, particularly, rooted themselves silly. A seemingly endless and inexhaustible stream of Australian girls passed through their beds; the very young, the very experienced, the beautiful and the plain. In fact, I can vividly remember one spoilt virgin in Adelaide who proudly took her bloodstained sheet home with her in the morning.” > “Yes it all went on, and more,” admits Bob Rogers, “there were just so many women. The boys never, to my knowledge, repeated the dose. They’d rather have a less attractive woman than the same one twice. They had become supremely indifferent to it all, as women and girls continually prostrated themselves in their presence. You see I’d always thought that the one great thing about womanizing was the challenge and I couldn’t believe it could be so casual. Rather than getting into hallucinogenic drugs, I was convinced that they would all end up homosexuals, out of sheer boredom with conventional sex. There was no pill in 1964 and with the amount of Beatle screwing that went on I just can’t believe that there wasn’t an explosion of little Beatles all over Australia in 1965. Maybe there was.” > Jim Oram has a theory in that regard: “John once told me, ‘We’ve got the best cover in the world. If a girl comes home after being out all night and breaks down under the old man’s questioning and admits that she had spent the night with one of the Beatles, he tells her not to lie and goes up the road to kick the bum of the boy next door.’ It must have worked because there were no instances of angry parents on the tour, which was almost unbelievable.” Baker, Glenn A. The Beatles down under: The 1964 Australia & New Zealand Tour. Pierian Press, 1985. From all of this, there are two possibilities: 1) Paul has been pretending that he doesn’t have illegitimate children. All four of them did this. He has had sex with thousands of women through out his career as a Beatle. It is simply unthinkable that there weren’t any broken condoms, missed birth control pills, or other prophylactic failures. We have at least one case of a woman who had Paul’s baby and was quietly paid off out of fear that it was true. And before you try to assert “provable reality,” please keep in mind that civilians had absolutely *no idea* about the Beatles’ LSD usage before Paul blabbed on national television. The Beatles PR machine is unstoppable lmao. We don’t know about them because the people involved do not want it to be known. This is the power of the “brown paper bag money” that Mr. Gerber has discussed in other posts. 2) Paul McCartney has achieved what millions of men and women have desired for years: he has figured out how to have sex without accidentally knocking someone up. He can stop himself from impregnating women at will thus enabling him to have sex with hundreds if not thousands of women without ever producing an illegitimate child. He has transcended time, space, and the laws of physics and biology. Linda Eastman is the only woman he has ever had children because of his perfect control over his own sperm. I have to be honest. Now that I’ve typed this all out… Option 2 really does seem like the most likely conclusion. I would delete all those quotes up there now that I’ve realized that Paul McCartney’s perfection extends to controlling his sperm count and not just his musical ability but I went through a lot of work grabbing them from my books so uh yeah they’re staying lol. My conclusion to this reply: I live in Ground Zero for political instability in the United States so I will say this: McLennon tinhatting is not even in the same league as the political instability that you cited at the end of your post. I find your linking my friends and community to this movement of “alternative facts” to be a repugnant one. McLennon tinhatting can be cringy, eyebrow raising, or just plain weird, but it is absolutely not in the same realm as “alternative facts” and it does not hold a candle to the political problems you mentioned. It is remarkably insulting for these two things to be compared. McLennon tinhatters never incited a riot at the capitol building in Washington DC. The “alternative facts” crowd did. After reflecting on this for the past week I think this is the part of your post that annoyed me the most. If you want to take a stand for “ethical standards” then you should really start there.
- Interview with Jay Goeppner of the the Beatle Brothers Comment by on Apr 10, 10:45 dear jay geoppner for easter igot some more bubles your friend andy
- Review: RAM (Paul McCartney Archive Collection) Comment by on Apr 10, 00:48 It’s pretty cool how Ram has been rehabilitated over time – definitely the trendy choice these days for best solo Paul (and maybe even best solo Beatles record?) I’d never realised that David Spinozza played on Ram! A couple of years later he worked with John on Mind Games and Yoko on Feeling the Space. (And apparently had an affair with Yoko hahaha).
- The Beatles’ 13th Album? Comment by on Apr 7, 19:44 @Peter, I think fans fall into the trap of each Beatle eyeing the others as in “would this song I wrote be suitable on a Beatles album”. They weren’t writing for each other any more. Who cares if they didn’t like each others work? Other people did and we don’t know if some solo songs as Beatles songs would have been better or not. George, John and Ringo wouldn’t have wasted any time on Ram either, as they scorned it at the time. All three certainly got that wrong considering how well Ram has been reappraised. George was worried about putting The Inner Light as a B-side to Lady Madonna because of his voice. Paul: “you MUST sing it, George, you can do it, it’s such a beautiful melody”. I think this selective negativity around Paul and George should stop.
- The Beatles’ 13th Album? Comment by on Apr 7, 18:51 I’m struggling as well over such descriptions of treasured and meant. I think this is really doing Paul down. It buys into the stereotypes of each member that Beatle culture itself thrives upon to survive. Whatever cultural weight John and George supposedly possessed won’t affect Paul’s legacy or standing. The many tributes I read from other artists on the eve of Paul’s 80th if anything point to McCartney belonging to his very own subculture simply by being Paul McCartney. Whether from his peers or from young musicians, one word above all others describe him: inspirational. A musician who has written songs from the age of 14 until 80. He is a one-off. Take that Cole. When joining in singing the coda of Hey Jude at McCartney’s concerts, I’ve heard several people describe it as a spiritual experience they never found in any church or prayer room. A sense of oneness, however fleeting, but difficult to describe in words or intellectualize. That’s Paul; that’s HIS connection to people. Outsiders looking in might find that something to ridicule or mock but that’s their problem. If some people mention George on their spiritual journeys and how he’s important to them nobody’s going to begrudge them for that. Or to begrudge George himself. But their spiritual journeys are theirs alone. There are as many spiritual journeys in life as there are people. Why, specifically is the sitar culturally more important than any other instrument, or the practice of Hinduism more meaningful than any other faith or belief? How many Islamic, Buddhist, Catholic or Jewish fans took up Hinduism or Eastern interests simply because George did? Or agnostics and atheists? It doesn’t mean the rest of us, including Paul, are all somehow spiritually, emotionally, and intellectually bereft because we didnt. Cat Stevens converted to Islam. If he had been a Beatle, perhaps that may have had an impact as well. I can’t really answer that. But unlike George, Yusuf Islam dedicated himself entirely to Islam and his albums are as relevant and meaningful today as they were 1967 to 1978, and I’d argue to a much greater extent than any of George’s solo work. Cultural weight alone is not enough to hold anyone up if there is no substantial creative body of work for anyone outside Beatles fans. It’s understandable that ATMP has resonance for many today – today it is accessible to the Indian subcontinent that was not possible in the 70s and the potential to draw fans from a population of one billion. How can any other artist possibly compete with that? But as Bai Lang said (and correct me if I perceived wrongly) why would anything need a Beatle to validate it. Today people are increasingly sensitive to any rich white guy speaking on behalf of women or of anyone’s culture or religion. Attitudes and tastes change and what is considered important to one generation is not necessarily so for the next. That’s why I think it’s important not to lose sight of what it REALLY was that made the world sit up about the Beatles. Regardless of who you were or where you were from, it was the music, their irreverance, their raw energy, their musical and intellectual curiosity and willingness to explore, and above all the joy they gave to people. This was what they MEANT to people. Which led, ironically, to music becoming almost a religion unto itself that has gone beyond traditional concepts of anything before. Whatever isms they collected on the way to some extent ultimately reflected their sense of self-importance in the belief they could influence others. People speak of Paul’s normality or stability today as if he is unique. All rock stars mellow with age. Dylan has, as have some of the wildest rockers (if still alive) and if John and George had lived then they would have too. It’s simply impossible to compare a 70 to 80 year-old to 40 to 50 year-olds frozen in time. That is their ‘mystique’ – by not living long enough to say or do dumb things or become sometimes embarrassing with old age.
- The Beatles’ 13th Album? Comment by on Apr 6, 10:36 Nancy and Bai Ling, I agree 100% with your comments. Good point about Paul and Linda’s influence with vegetarianism awareness, which Is being carried on today by Mary and Stella. I just don’t agree with the premise that Paul is culturally not as important as John and George. .
- The Beatles’ 13th Album? Comment by on Apr 6, 09:58 Bai Lang, same on finding “meaning” in McCartney. He and his music are far from perfect, but he’s the Beatle I connect with most. In addition to the elements you mention (being an involved husband and father, who took his whole family on tour when that wasn’t cool, for example) I love his penchant for storytelling in his songs. I also agree that his vegetarianism has influenced a good number of people.
- The Beatles’ 13th Album? Comment by on Apr 6, 05:43 @Michael and @Lara I’ve been following your discussion with interest, awe and respect, knowing that it is so much above my head, but some things Lara said in her posts gave me courage to say something as well. It is interesting that while Michael in his long said that John and George MEANT something to millions of people, Paul is only to be “treasured, for sure, but only as….”, which, lets be honest, ultimatley means that he is a much less interesting and meaningful figure. Well, it got me the first time I read it, because actually Paul MEANS something to me, and I am not sure why his (capitalized) MEANING something to me should be of a lesser kind that in the case of John and George. He (capitalized) MEANS more to me than just “as a showbiz figure”, he actually MEANS something. And while I don’t know all those hyperbolic millions who find John and George so meaningful in their lives, I’d say that there are literal and checkable thousands on the Internet who seem to be reacting to the news about Paul as if he MEANT something to them as well. As for the Eastern religions, being a little bit from the Mysterious East myself, I would humbly venture to say, that maybe those religions gained their following in the West based on their own merits, and they were just fine even without George. George wasn’t the first follower and I would say that there were people more instrumental in bringing the ex oriente lux to the West. In this respect I don’t understand why it is OK to say that George was a part of the great cultural change in the area of religion, but Paul meant nothing in the change that took place in the area of morally motivated vegetarianism. In the end it seems that what you say is based on the people you actually know, and I would counter that with “well, I know quite a number of Buddhists, age from 20 to 40 and absolutely none of them ever mentioned George (I know George wasn’t a Buddhist, but you brough Buddhism yourself), and the 20 year olds don’t even know who he is”. Whereas my vegan friends all nod their heads approvingly when I mention Paul. If some find John and Yoko’s marriage “feminist”, that’s fine, but I would argue that Paul and Linda’s marriage was just as feiminist, and Paul certainly was a much more hands on father to his 3 girls, than John ever was to his boys, and all 3 Paul’s girls turned out OK (even as feminists themselves). Also, I am very grateful to @Lara for mentioning one more thing – California is not the whole world. I come from a background as different from California as can be, being both from behind the iron curtain and the bamboo curtain, and so maybe my perceptions would and could be different. Even though I look up to the Brits and Americans as the sources of the real knowledge of the Beatles, if we are talking about their influence “in the world” then maybe we should look a little bit towards the world beyond the UK and USA.
- Fred Arnold’s Beatle Memorabilia Collection Comment by on Apr 5, 16:43 Fred was my friend in the 80’s when He owned the Prism Record Store on King Street in Historical Battery Charleston, SC and the Riverside Drive store – I did Punk art for Fred for his Punk-a-Rama show on Saturday Night on the USS Yorktown Aircraft Carrier Public Radio WSCI 89.3 around 1987 the radio show was replaced by first Space Ambient Music yet he was contracted to do the show on Charleston’s new Rock Station. He was the Rodney on the ROQ ”Rocks” of LA for the Southeast America and he met a lot of the great bands including Ian from the Cult he interviewed when he was in America as Southern Death Cult. Ian stayed with Fred. Michael Griffin aka Skinhead ”Reggae Punk type”
- Discovered! Another bad Beatles lyric Comment by on Apr 5, 13:45 I have no problem with the “whim” lyric. The song seems to be from the point of view of a guy who is frantic because the girl he likes is only thinking of some other dude, who seems to be ghosting her. The girl is most likely deeply in love with the other dude, but the frantic guy is insisting “it’s only a whim!” because he can’t accept the truth. A little two-minute soap opera, that song is.
- “Lennonology: Strange Days Indeed” a Lennon/Ono data feast Comment by on Apr 5, 05:59 Many years ago I saw a photo of Harpo Marx wearing a bunch of eyeglasses on his face. He looked just like Lennon’s “Walls and Bridges” album cover. Recently I saw another photo of Harpo (from the set of Horsefeathers 1932) and he seems to be anticipating John’s “Two Virgins” album: https://www.julienslive.com/lot-details/index/catalog/467/lot/203638 Warning: NSFW (Not Safe For Work)
Recent CommentsMichael Gerber2020-09-14T13:07:50-07:00