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Author’s Notes

Two years ago now, I completed work on my first Omnibus publication, The Beatles After The Break-Up 1970-2000 and never in my wildest dreams could I wish for the acknowledgements that the book would receive. It was voted 1999’s ‘Rock Book Of The Year’ in Record Collector magazine and considered as one of the ten most essential Beatles books ever published in Q. To quote The Rutles, “I was shocked and stunned.” Naturally, I am extremely proud of that book as well as The Beatles: Off The Record, the follow up, which featured original, largely unpublished quotes to tell The Beatles’ story. That book concluded in April 1970 and left you all wondering what happened next.

Well, the answer is sitting in your hands now. May I present The Beatles: Off The Record Volume Two - The Dream Is Over, another weighty tome which, just like in the first volume, uses original interviews and newspaper cuttings to tell the story of The Fab Four’s lives. But this time, the book focuses on the period when they were no longer being Beatles. Covering the same time span as After The Break-Up, this book varies from the original in the way that it deals more comprehensively with their solo albums, songs, inspirations, concerts, feelings, pains, betrayals by past colleagues, the re-packaging and ripping off of The Beatles’ music and the incessant, largely irritating, ‘Beatles To Reform’ rumours. It focuses more the story than simply lists what occurred. To compliment these quotes and stories, I have added (chronologically) recollections by various dedicated Beatles followers who, for instance, attempt to explain what it is like to endure modern day Beatlemania.

Unlike After The Break-Up, this book doesn’t list the dates when Wings played in America unless there is a story to accompany a certain concert. I have made a point in this book of collating interviews with John, Paul, George, Ringo and assorted colleagues that, for one reason or another, have not seen the light of day (if at all) since their first airing or printing. I’ve tried to offer an almost totally fresh reflection of The Beatles’ lives from April 1970, covering 31 years right up to an eye witness account of Paul’s brief Adopt-A-Landmine concert appearance in June 2001, including along the way, for the first time ever, the true behind-the-scenes stories about Paul’s historic return to the Cavern Club in Liverpool in December 1999.

This is not a replica of After The Break-Up, but a loving companion. The Beatles story will never end so expect an updated version of this book sometime in 2030…

Acknowledgements

For their help on this book very special thanks, in no particular order, go to my quite remarkable reliable regulars, Pete Nash, Pete & Fenella Walkling, Stephen Rouse, Mike Dalton, Bob Boyer (USA), Dirk Van Damme (Belgium), Richard Porter, Laurence Moore, Gary Crowley, Terry Rawlings and Jean Herbaut. A very special ‘thank you’ goes to Billy Heckle, Dave Jones, Ray Johnston and Colin Jones of Cavern City Tours, Mathew Street, Liverpool, the proud organisers of Paul’s historic Cavern concert in December 1999. In addition, I must also thank Beatles related celebrities such as Denny Laine, Neil Innes, Steve Holly and Laurence Juber with whom I was able to spend some time with at various Beatles conventions through the years. Pieces of these interviews appear in this book. Also, special thanks must go to the following: Andy Davis & Daryl Easlea (Record Collector magazine), Mike Websell & Neil Somerville (BBC), Paul Wayne (Tracks), Steve Vallis, Andy Neill, Bill King (USA), Matt Hurwitz (USA), Rene Van Haarlem (Holland), Tony Rouse, Steve Holmes (Beatles For Sale), Greg Schmidt (USA), Spencer Peet, James Fielding, Lesley Benson, Dave Carter, Dave Withers, Mark Saunders, Brian Durrant, Robert Batchelor, Alan Smith, Anne-Marie Trace, Allison Devine, Diane Machin, Michael Randolph, Dr. Bob Heronimus (USA), Jim Keays, Danny Wall, Betina Drake, The Rutles fan pages and Steve Marinucci of the marvellous Abbey Road Beatles website. Please check it out at http://www.best.com/~abbeyrd/fabnews.htm

A note of thanks must go to the following Beatles-related books and magazines…

The Beatles Book Monthly, John’s Playboy interviews, George’s I Me Mine, Lennon Remembers, Beatlefan (USA), Harrison Alliance (USA), Every Little Thing (USA) and Beatles Unlimited (Holland)

Parkinson (BBC), Today Show (NBC), Rockline (USA), Aspel & Co. (LWT/ITV), Robert Klein Radio Show (USA), The Old Grey Whistle Test (BBC), Paul McCartney Now (CBS), Up Close (USA), Insight On Wings (Radio One)

BBC Worldwide, Much Music (Canada), BVL Enterprises, MPL, Radio Luxembourg, LBC, BBC Radio One, Radio Monte Carlo, VH-1,

WPLJ (New York), WNEW-FM (New York), KCSN, KLOS-FM (Los Angeles), VARA (Holland), Capital Radio, Radio Clyde, RKO Radio (USA), BBC World Service, GLR, 92.3WXRK-FM (CBS USA), CNN (USA), KHJ Radio (USA)

The following libraries and their respective staffs who so excellently assisted me with my research…

The BBC Written Archives Centre, Slough public library, Westminster Reference library and the Colindale Newspaper library, plus the hundreds of other sources for information, but sadly, too many to list…

Melody Maker, Disc & Music Echo, Daily Mirror, Rolling Stone, Life, Musician, New Musical Express, Evening News, Daily Sketch, Sunday Times, The People, The Sun, Daily Mail, New York Herald Tribune, The Guardian, New York times, The Tenessean, Redbook, Modern Hi-Fi & Music, Record Mirror, Hit Parader, Rock Around The World, United Press International, Woman, News Of The World, Newsweek, Playboy, Liverpool Echo, New Standard, Modern Drummer, Daily Record, LA Times, Detroit News, The Register, The Globe, Titbits, Daily Star, Kansas City Star, Tucson Weekly, Time Out, Woman’s Own, USA Today, The Hartford Courant, Michigan Daily, The Times, The Times Of India

A personal note of gratitude must also go to the following people who have contributed to this book, by either interviewing or reporting on the individual Beatles from April 1970. In order of appearance, they are: Derek Taylor, Howard Smith, Christine Stevens, Michelle Bernel, Tess Basta, David Spinoza, Carolyne Mitchell, Roy Shipston, Mike Ledgerwood, Richard Green, Jann Wenner, Mike Hennessey, John Reader, Frankie McGowan, Stella Shamoon, Les Perrin, Kenny Everett, Richard Perryman, Peter Bennett, David Hughes, Celia Heddon, David Walley, Kip Cohen, Lisa Mehlman, Robert Bury, Al Aronowitz, Patrick Doncaster, Freda Kelly, Michael Cable, Peter McCabe & Robert Schonfield, Gavin Petrie, Martin Marriott, Geoff Liptrot, James Johnson, Paul Dacre, John Blake, Elga Eliaser, Robert Ellis, Robin Denselow, Joe Hall, Robert Brinton, Sandra Shevey, David Blundy, Roy Carr, Tony Tyler, Murray Davies, Charles Shaar Murray, Linda Solomon, Beverley Legge, Julie Webb, Adam Wall, Graham Saunders, Ian MacDonald, Neil Splinter, Dave Cash, Tony Prince, Frank Goldsworthy, Chris Van Ness, Lisa Robinson, Jerry Bailey, Eve Zilbart, Denis Elsas, Jim Ladd, Ben Fong-Torres, Lenny Kaye, Lynn Thirkettle, Colin Irwin, Scott Muni, Nicky Horne, Rosemary Horide, Piers Akerman, Jack Anderson, Robert V. Weinstein, Ray Fox-Cummings, Wendy Hughes, Derek Jewel, Dave Gelly, Alan Freeman, Mark Dowdney, Laura Gross, Ray Coleman, James Johnston, Mr. Cut, John Rockwell, Jeanette Smith, Maureen Orth, Alastair Buchan, Robert Palmer, Dan Bennett, John Collins, Angie Errigo, Chris Hutchins, Steve Wright, Joe Pumphrey, Nelson Segal, Voyle Gilmore, George Martin, Aunt Mimi Smith, Judith Simons, Stuart White, Stuart Robertson, Lachie MacKinnon, Keith Dalton, James Erlichman, Bill Goldsmith, Cliff Wayne, Paul Gambaccinni, Fred Weiner, Philip Finn, John King, Michael Nally, Patrick Walker, Glenn Gale, Simon Kinnersley, Barbara Graustark, Ian Pye, Andy Peebles, Paul Williams, Laurie Kaye, David Sholin, Paul Goresh, Michael Leapman, John Hilpern, David & Victoria Sheff, John Chartres, Anne Nightingale, Stephen Pile, Tracy Harris, Tony Luscombe, Kathy Turner, Garth Pearce, Alan Dunn, Jonathan Kirby, Andrew Golden, Alwyn Thomas, Len Adams, Hunter Davies, Christina Appleyard, Bob Coburn, Peter Kent, Ted Hynds, Ellie Buchanan, Clement Burton, David Wigg, Steve Turner, Kevin Connal, David Sinclair, Simon Bates, Linda Duff, Max Bell, Geoff Baker, Philip Norman, Mark Wheinberg, Tony Parsons, Allan Kozinn, Samuel Roberts, Louise Gannon, Rebecca Fowler, Pete Clark, Chrissie Hynde, Howard Stern, Viva, Dominic Mohan, Roger McGough, Greg Nowak and Dave Herman

Inspirational thanks must (as usual) go to Arsene Wenger who, despite the betrayal of a couple of his (so called) star players, is still the finest football manager in the world and has continued to make Arsenal FC the greatest club in the land…

Lastly, and by no means least, a very special thanks go to Kathleen, Sheila, Pauline, Michael and everyone else close to me (they know who I mean) who assisted me in my latest Beatles book madness. And to Bob Wise, Nikki Lloyd (picture researcher extrordinaire) and Chris Charlesworth of Omnibus Press, who commissioned this book, and Peter Dogget who helped Chris edit it. Of course, a very special thanks goes to Chris who, three years down the line, has continued to be a gem to work with and a tower of strength as we pieced this book together. Anyway, I hope you all enjoy it as much as I enjoyed researching and compiling it, a story that just will never end…

The Beatles After The Beatles

Ringo “If I had any regrets, I think it would be that I was never in the audience at a Beatles concert. I would have liked to have seen it from another angle. It must have been amazing! It was amazing on stage but to sit in the audience, it must have been fantastic… There were too many super parts about being in The Beatles. Being big in England was great. Then we were big in Europe and suddenly we got to America and we did The Ed Sullivan Show. We did the Palladium show and I was sick with fear. Then we did Shea Stadium. If you look at our career, which one are you going to pick? Sailing Loch Ness in a rowing boat with John? That was a big time!” (1976)

Paul “When The Beatles split, it was a terrible blow. It was like finding out that you’re unemployed. It was depressing and I really felt useless. I knew how the unemployed felt. That’s the reason I said one day, ‘Let’s go. We’ll be a group. We’ll do something.’ So I asked some musicians, bought a bus and we were on the road again giving concerts. That’s the way I am. I’m a musician. If I don’t play or sing, then I’m unhappy. And then, everybody wanted to talk about The Beatles. It was awful! I didn’t even want to talk about that time. I wanted to be treated like Paul, a musician with his band, Wings. But to the rest of the world, I was still a Beatle. It’s like the fellow who finished in the army. I was a civilian again and I didn’t want to be called Sergeant… The Beatles split up because of The Beatles. We had reached the limit of what was possible for us. We wanted to become famous and we were the most famous band in the world. We needed five years to gain that success and we spent five years at the top. The cake was left in the oven too long and it was going to burn… Our egos collided. We had spent night after night roaring with laughter, only the four of us in cars or vans on the roads of the world. We were four guys completely united and happy together, but suddenly we couldn’t communicate anymore. The break-up was like the atom bomb. We all got grey hair… It was our wives who helped us bring it out and you can’t condemn men for falling in love, can you? It happened to John first. We can’t begrudge John for falling in love with Yoko. If I could live my life over again, I don’t think I’d change one thing except the break-up. I’d want to be able to come back and say, ‘Listen, guys, we’re going to split, but we’re going to do it peacefully because whether you like it or not, this business is going to keep going until the end of our days.’ “ (1984)

George “We consciously stopped being The Beatles because it was just too much. Everyone was growing too much and The Beatles were too small to hold four people. I think there was not much of a reason for it to end like it did. It’s sad because it made it look as though nothing good has come from it. Everybody was angry with everybody else but there was so much good. We had many good times but we had bad times, too. If you counted them up, we had more good times than bad. But unfortunately, we all had so many different opinions about the business and it was the business that broke us up. John, Ringo and myself are still very close and Paul I’d like to be friends with…” (1971)

John “Talking about The Beatles getting back together is an illusion… The Beatles only exist on film and on record and in people’s minds. You cannot get back together what no longer exists. We are not those four people anymore… Why should The Beatles give more? Didn’t they give everything on God’s earth for ten years? Didn’t they give themselves? Didn’t they give all?” (Playboy, September 1980)

1970

Thursday, April 9

John “I received a phone call from Paul on Thursday afternoon. He said, ‘I’m going to leave The Beatles as well.’ I was happy to hear from Paul. It was nice to find that he was still alive! Anyway, Paul hasn’t left… I sacked him.”

Paul “When people say I let it out, it was actually months after we had broken up. No one was saying anything and I was putting out this crazy press release with the McCartney album because Peter Brown said to me, ‘We need some press on this. You’d better do something,’ and I didn’t want to be interviewed. I didn’t feel secure enough to do that. So I said, ‘Okay, we’ll do a question and answer thing.’ So I said to Peter, ‘Write me out a questionnaire of what you think they’d ask me.’ He wrote it all out and I just filled it all in, like a questionnaire, and it all came out weird.”

Friday, April 10

Paul’s announcement that he has left The Beatles appears on the front-page of the Daily Mirror…

Paul “The press got it and it looked like I was doing a real number. John then thought, ‘Aha, he’s done the announcement of The Beatles’ split.’ But it was months after. Someone’s got to do it. In actual fact, we signed contracts that were saying that The Beatles were still going and that was one of the terrible things when The Beatles broke up. But I became known as the one who broke The Beatles up.”

Derek Taylor, The Beatles’ press officer “This is the truth about Paul McCartney. He cannot make that Beatle scene any more because what we know as The Beatles and love as The Beatles and prized and valued and changed our lives by, is not what it was. It is a hang-up, it’s a drag and it is a prison for four souls screaming for freedom. It was once a garden with tangerine trees and marmalade skies and girls with kaleidoscope eyes and cellophane flowers of yellow and green. Nothing can take that away. As long as all of us are alive we should all be on our knees with our stereo phones on our ears thanking God it happened… It was the only dream I ever had that came true. I love them for it. The Beatles. They have done enough for you and you have done enough for them. For every dollar you spend on them, they give you a dollar’s worth of themselves. I am sick at heart, press, public, Beatles, we seek too much of each other.”

Disc & Music Echo reports “Apple was fraught with the usual scenes, which come when The Beatles hit the headlines. The road outside No. 3 Saville Row, W1, was jam-packed with pressmen, excited fans and onlookers. But inside, everyone went about their business in the normal way. Only the press office, with Derek Taylor and Mavis Smith at the helm, seemed in any way to have anticipated the avalanche of calls and callers. One floor down, Allen Klein, The Beatles’ business boss, was undisturbed. The first thing he said when confronted by reporters was that he hadn’t even seen Paul’s statement, and as far as he was concerned, the whole situation was the same as it had been for the last six months.”

Paul “Klein was not the exclusive reason why The Beatles broke up. We were starting to do our own things before he arrived, but it certainly helped. There were various reasons why we split. I don’t think even the four of us know all the reasons, but Klein was one of the major ones…”

Linda McCartney “I knew I hadn’t broken up The Beatles. I’d pleaded with them to stay together. It really broke my heart to see Paul so upset that he didn’t have a band anymore, that he felt completely washed up and redundant.”

Derek Taylor “Paul McCartney has not left The Beatles, nor has Richard Starkey, George Harrison or John Lennon. The Beatles left them at an unrecorded moment in time. Neither has it anything to do with Linda McCartney or Yoko Ono.”

Yoko Ono “I hated being blamed for the break-up of The Beatles. I wasn’t responsible. It was John’s decision after Ringo and then George told him they wanted to leave. He persuaded them to change their minds and then he changed his mind. He wanted to say, ‘I started the group and I broke it up.’ In the end, though, it was Paul who announced the break. John was angry about that because Paul had a new album out at the time and John thought he did it to attract publicity.”

George “When we broke up, I thought, ‘Thank God that’s over!’ The idea of The Beatles was like having a job and you are either fired or the factory burns down. For me, I was glad that we burned it down. It was too stifling. It’s not gloomy, it’s just that it wasn’t as much fun for us in the end as it was for all of you.”

Paul “The inevitable thing after The Beatles, really, was that you were actually facing up to growing up. The thing of finally being on your own. The biggest trouble for me was the break-up of The Beatles. The Beatles’ break-up was shocking. It totally screwed my head. It was not easy being in a top job one day and the next day you haven’t got a job. I asked myself, ‘Am I any use to anyone? I was very useful yesterday playing bass and singing, but now we’ve broken up.’ That was very hard.”

Ringo “I went back to my luxury home in Weybridge and just sat in the garden for months, wondering what on earth I was going to do with myself. Playing with The Beatles had been my whole life for ten years and now it was over and I didn’t feel qualified to do anything else. The initial break-up was so emotional, mainly for me, but not so much for the others. We had been together for so long and then suddenly I had nothing to do. I sat in my garden thinking, ‘My God, where do I go from here?’ I felt so absolutely lost. I was not interested in being in a new band right away. I was bigger than any band I could have joined. I went into hiding to escape the pressures. You just sit around the house like everyone else does. You go into London or you go shopping or see a film or you watch telly. I was sick really, and then, one day, I jumped up and I thought, ‘Hell, I’m going to get myself together. I can’t sit here for the rest of my life,’ so I went off and did an album, which was a limp way to get in again, but it was a start.”

The break-up of The Beatles produces an opinion from Mick Jagger, of The Rolling Stones “Obviously The Beatles could have got somebody else,” he insists. “It’s not impossible. It’s never going to be the same band without Paul McCartney, but it would be another band, probably as good or a bit different. John’s got a good voice and George has quite a good voice and they could have easily got another bass player who doubled on organ or something. The only thing to me was that they can’t have wanted to play together that much because they would have got another bass player.”

Paul “After all we’d been through, I thought that they knew me. I think we were all pretty weird at the time. I’d ring John and he’d say, ‘Don’t bother me.’ I rang George and he came out with some effing and blinding, not at all Hare Krishna. We weren’t normal to each other at the time.”

Paul’s Daily Mirror announcement that he has left the group reaches John and Yoko who are at 20 Devonshire Place, London, where they are undergoing primal scream therapy with Arthur Janov at his clinic…

John “Janov’s book came to me in the mail and the name Primal Scream intrigued me. I mean, Yoko’s been screaming a long time. Just the words, the title, made my heart flutter. Then I read the testimonials, ‘I am Charlie so-and-so, I went in and this is what happened to me.’ I thought, ‘That’s me. That’s me.’ We were living in Ascot and there was a lot of shit coming down on us. And these people say they get to this thing and they scream and they feel better, so, I thought, let’s try it. They do this thing where they mess around with you until you reach a point where you hit this scream thing. You go with it, they encourage you to go with it, and you kind of make a psychical, mental, cosmic breakthrough with the scream itself.”

Amidst all the commotion, Paul, Linda and the family leave their St John’s Wood home and head off to their farm in Scotland to escape the prying eyes of the media. He will stay there, almost undisturbed, for months…

Paul “I went off to Scotland for a while, because I just couldn’t handle being in London, with the music business and people saying, ‘When are you going to get together with the lads, Paul?’ That was the big question. It’s like asking a divorced couple when are you going to get back together. You just can’t stand the thought of going back to your divorcee… I was a city boy, but lived far enough out of town to see a bit of the country. The farm is 600 acres and just right for the family and me. I can breathe the air. It never ceases to amaze me that I put seeds in the ground, the sun shines at the right time, the rain comes on at the right time, then something grows and you can eat it. That’s something to give thanks for… We don’t eat meat because we’ve got lambs on the farm and we just ate a piece of lamb one day and suddenly realised we were eating a bit of one of those things that were playing outside the window, gambolling peacefully. But we’re not strict, I don’t want to put a big sign on me, ‘Thou Shalt Be Vegetarian’. I like to allow myself. I like to give myself a lucky break… I just love to find that, even in this day of concrete, there are still horses alive and places where grass grows in unlimited quantities and sky has clear in it. Scotland has that. It’s just there without anyone touching it…

“We were in Scotland and we decided to take a trip to the Shetland Islands, so we piled in the Land Rover with the two kids, our English sheepdog, Martha, and a whole pile of stuff in the back with Mary’s potty on the top. On the second day, we get up to a little port called Scrabster at the top of Scotland. But when we tried to get on the big car ferry, we got in the queue but we were two cars too late, we missed it. We thought, ‘Don’t despair. We really didn’t want to go on that big liner, a mass-produced thing. Let’s beat the liner,’ but we gave that up and instead we decided to try and get a ride in one of those little fishing boats. So I went to a bunch of boats but they weren’t going to the Orkney Islands, so I went on another one, this trapdoor thing, and they were sleeping down below. The smell of sleep is coming up through the door. At first, the skipper said, ‘No,’ and then I said there was thirty quid in it for him and then they say they’ll take us. It was a fantastic little boat called the Enterprise and the captain was named George. We brought all our stuff aboard and it was low tide, so we had to lower Martha in a big fishing net and a little crowd gathers and we wave our farewells. As we steam out, the skipper gives us some beer and Linda, trying to be one of the boys, takes a swig and passes it to me. Well, you shouldn’t drink before a rough crossing to the Orkneys. The little one, Mary, throws up all over Linda, as usual and that was it. I was already feeling sick and I gallantly walked to the front of the boat, hanging onto the mast. The skipper comes up and we’re having some light talk but I don’t want it. He gets the idea and points to the fishing baskets and says, ‘Do it in there.’ So we were all sick, but we ended up in the Orkney Islands and we took a plane to Shetland, it was great…

“When The Beatles broke up, there we were, left with the wreckage. It was very difficult to suddenly not be in The Beatles, after your whole life, except for your childhood, had been involved with being in this very successful group. I always say I can really identify with unemployed people, because once it was clear that we weren’t doing The Beatles anymore, I had real withdrawals and had serious problems. I started drinking and not shaving. I just didn’t care. I just thought, ‘That’s the end of me as a singer, songwriter, composer,’ because I hadn’t got anyone to do it with, unless I work out another way to do it. Gradually Linda got me out of that. She’d say, ‘Come on, this can’t go on, you know. You’re good. You’re either going to stop doing music or you’d better get on with it.’ “

Saturday, April 11

In light of the fact that 18 to 20-year-olds can now vote, the music paper Disc & Music Echo publishes the results of its pop opinion poll where they asked its readers: “If you could choose a pop personality as your local MP, who would you like it to be?” John tops the poll with 22% of the votes. T. L. Graham, of Glasgow, Scotland, writes “John is the only pop star interested in politics and the only one with guts to say what he thinks.”

Friday, April 17

Paul “After John said he was leaving, I hung on for months, wondering whether The Beatles would ever come back together again and hoping that John might come around and say, ‘All right, lads, I’m ready to go back to work.’ None of us knew what to do, but we decided to wait until about March or April until our film, Let It Be, came out. But I was bored. I like to work. I’m an active person. Sit me down with a guitar and let me go. So, naturally enough, in the meantime, I began to look for something to do. I decided I was not going to sit there, sucking my thumbs, waiting for everyone to come back, so the album McCartney turned out to be the answer in my case. I had just got a new recording machine in my house and I found that I liked working on my own. At first it wasn’t going to be anything serious but it turned out to be a great time. When we had to go to the (Morgan) studios, Linda would make the booking and we’d take some sandwiches and a bottle of grape juice and put the baby on the floor and it was all like a holiday. So, as a natural turn of events, from looking for something to do, I found that I was enjoying working alone as much as I had enjoyed the early days. So, anyway, McCartney came out and Linda and I did it totally, the record, the cover, the ads, everything presented to the record company. Then there started to appear these little advertisements. On the bottom was ‘On Apple Records’, which was okay. But somebody had also come along and slapped on ‘An ABKCO managed company’. Now that is Klein’s company and has nothing to do with my record. It’s like Klein taking part of the credit for my record. All those little things kept happening, such trivia compared to what happened. Maybe that sounds petty, but I can go into other examples of this kind of thing. All these things that are continuously happening makes me feel like I’m a junior with the record company, like Klein is the boss and I’m nothing. Well, I’m a senior… The income from the McCartney album is still being held by Apple and Linda and I are the only ones on the record.”

Derek Taylor, The Beatles’ press officer on McCartney “I didn’t enjoy it as much as Sgt. Pepper, but that’s my hang-up, and neither as much as Revolver. But McCartney is a very, very personal art form and it makes me sick this morning, lovely morning though it is, to have to cry out in pain on behalf of this brilliant man who is trying to discover who he is in music.”

Paul “When the Studer 4-track was installed at home, this was the first song I recorded, to test the machine. On the first track was vocal and guitar, second, another acoustic guitar, then overdubbed hand slaps on a book and then finally, bass. I wrote this in Scotland, and the song is a trailer to the full song, which will be recorded in the future.”

Paul “This was written in Scotland in 1969 and recorded at the mike, as the mixer and VU meters hadn’t arrived.”

Paul “Recorded at home and made up as I went along, acoustic guitar first, then drums. Maybe drums were first… Electric guitar and bass were added and the track is all instrumental. Mixed at EMI.”

Paul “This came from the first two lines, which I’ve had for a few years. They were added to in 1969 in Greece (Benitses) on holiday. This was recorded at EMI with vocal, acoustic guitar, drums, bass, lead guitar, harmony to the lead guitar, double tracked vocal in parts and electric guitar (not used).”

Paul “A song written in about 1958 or 9 or maybe earlier, when it was one of those songs that you play now and then. The middle was added in Morgan Studios, where the track was recorded recently.”

Paul “Wine glasses played at random and overdubbed on top of each other. The end is a section of a song called ‘Suicide’, which is not yet completed.”

Paul “Originally written in India (in 1968) at Maharishi’s camp and completed bit by bit in London. Recorded vocal, two acoustic guitars and bass at home and later added to at Morgan.”

Paul “The chorus, ‘Man we was lonely’, was written in bed at home shortly before we finished recording the album. The middle, ‘I used to ride’, was done one lunchtime in a great hurry, as we were due to record the song that afternoon. Linda sings harmony on this song, which is our first duet together… The steel guitar sound is my Telecaster played with a drum peg.”

Paul “The first three tracks were recorded at home as an instrumental that might someday become a song. This, like ‘Man We Was Lonely’, was given lyrics one day after lunch, just before we left for Morgan Studios, where it was finished that afternoon.”

Paul “An instrumental recorded completely at home. Made up as I went along, first a sequence of chords, then a melody on top. Piano, drums, acoustic guitar, electric guitar. Originally, it was two pieces but they ran into each other by accident and became one.”

Paul “Another song started in India and completed in Scotland and London, gradually. This one was recorded for the Get Back (Let It Be) film but later not used. Re-recorded partly at home and finished at Morgan. Linda and I sing the backing harmonies on the chorus and occasional ‘oohs’.”

Paul “This was Take 1 for the vocal version, which was Take 2 and a shorter version. Guitars and piano and bass were put on at home and the rest added at Morgan Studios. The strings are Mellotron and they were done at the same time as the electric guitar, bass guitar and sizzle cymbal.”

Paul “Written in London at the piano, shortly after I had first gotten together with Linda. It was one of those songs that just came out. It was very special. I added the second verse slightly later… Recorded at EMI. Linda and I are the vocal backing group. Mixed at EMI. I enjoyed doing it, I enjoyed singing it.”

Paul “There was a film on TV about the Kreen Akrore Indians living in the Brazilian jungle and how the white man is trying to change their way of life to his, so the next day, after lunch, I did some strumming. The idea behind it was to get the feeling of their hunt. So later, piano, guitar and organ were added to the first section. The second had a few tracks of voices (Linda and I) and the end had overdubbed breathing, going into organ and two lead guitars in harmony. Done at Morgan, the engineer is Robin Black. The end of the first section has Linda and I doing animal noises (speeded up) and an arrow sound (done live with bow and arrow – the bow broke) then animals stampeding across the piano case… We built a fire in the studio but didn’t use it, but used the sound of the twigs breaking.”

George on the McCartney album “ ‘That Would Be Something’ and ‘Maybe I’m Amazed’ I think are great and everything else I think is fair, you know, quite good, but um, a little disappointing. Maybe I shouldn’t be disappointed maybe. It’s best not to expect anything then everything is a bonus, you know. I just think those two tracks in particular are really very good. And the others, I mean, just don’t do much for me… The arrangements of some of those songs, like ‘Teddy Boy’ and ‘Junk’, with a little more arrangement they could have sounded better. I suppose it was the only thing he felt he could do at the time, you know, and he started off just testing his machine. Eddie Cochran did something like that, didn’t he? On ‘Summertime Blues’ and ‘C’mon Everybody’ he played bass, guitar and drums.”

Saturday, April 18

The music journalist Penny Valentine reviews Paul’s album McCartney in Disc & Music Echo. She writes, “I don’t know what he was thinking when he planned this album. Perhaps he is laughing at us all. That’s fine, but it’s a pretty cruel way of doing it… almost a betrayal of all the things we’ve come to expect.”

Saturday, April 25

Disc & Music Echo publishes a Public Post Office Telegram from Paul and Linda, replying to Penny Valentine’s review of the McCartney album. It reads, “Dear Penny hold your hand out you silly girl I am not being cruel or laughing at you I am merely enjoying myself you are wrong about the McCartney albumn (sic) it is an attempt at something slightly different it is simple it is good and even at this moment it is growing on you love – Paul and Linda McCartney.”

Tuesday, April 28

In New York, during a visit to see the new Apple office at 1700 Broadway, George finds himself in a lengthy conversation with the WPLJ DJ, Howard Smith…

“We just cut a track in London of Ringo’s song called ‘It Don’t Come Easy’, and so maybe he’ll put that out as a single… Paul and John and myself have just got so many songs. If we do our own albums, that way we don’t have to compromise… Paul wants to do his songs his way, he doesn’t want to do his songs my way, and I don’t wanna do my songs their way, really. And I’m sure that after we’ve all completed an album or even two albums each, then that novelty will have worn off.”

George “Uh, well, I don’t know. I couldn’t tell, you know, if they do or not. I’ll certainly try my best to do something with them again, you know. I mean, it’s only a matter of accepting that the situation is a compromise. And it’s a sacrifice, you know, because we all have to sacrifice a little in order to gain something really big, and there is a big gain by recording together, I think, musically and financially and spiritually and for the rest of the world, you know. I think that Beatle music is such a big sort of scene that I think it’s the least we could do is to sacrifice three months of the year at least, you know, just to do an album or two. I think it’s very selfish if The Beatles don’t record together.”

George “It’s not really, you know. It’s no more gloomy than it’s been for the last ten years. It really isn’t any worse. It’s just that now over the last year, what with John and lately with Paul, everything that they’ve thought or said has come out, you know, to the public. It’s been printed, it’s been there for everybody to read, or to comment about, or to join in on…”

George “No, I wouldn’t say that. We’re just like anybody else. Familiarity breeds contempt, they do say, and we’ve had slight problems. But it’s only been recently, you know, because we didn’t work together for such a long time in the John and Yoko situation, and then Paul and Linda. But really, it’s not as bad as it seems, you know… We’re all having a good time individually.”

Smith “There seems like there’s so much animosity between Paul and John. It seems like Paul is saying it’s all over.”

George “It’s more of a personal thing, you know. That’s down to the management situation with Apple, because Paul, really, it was his idea to do Apple and once it started going, Paul was very active in there and then it got really chaotic and we had to do something about it. And when we started doing something about it, obviously Paul didn’t have as much say in the matter and then he decided he wanted Lee Eastman, his in-law, to run it and we didn’t. That’s the only reason, you know. But that’s only a personal problem and he’ll have to get over it because the reality is that he’s out-voted and we’re a partnership. We’ve got these companies, which we all own 25 per cent of each, and if there’s a decision to be made then, like in any other business or group, you have a vote, you know. And he was outvoted 3 to 1 and he doesn’t like it, it’s a real pity. We’re trying to do what’s best for The Beatles as a group or best for Apple as a company. We’re not trying to do what’s best for Paul and his in-laws, you know… It is because it is on such a personal level that it is a big problem, you know. When I go home at night I’m not living there with Allen Klein, whereas, in a way, Paul’s living with the Eastmans, you see… It’s not really between Paul and us, you know, it’s between Paul’s advisors who are the Eastmans and our business advisors, which is Allen Klein. But it’s all right.”

Smith “I somewhat detected some kind of animosity between Yoko and Linda. Is that part of what it’s all about?”

George “Ah, I don’t know. I don’t think about it, you know. I refuse to be part of any hassles like that, you know. Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna, Krishna, Hare, Hare. And it’ll be okay, you know. Just give ‘em time because they really do love each other. I mean, we all do. We’ve been so close and through so much together… The main thing is, like in anybody’s life, they have slight problems and it’s just that our problems are always blown up and shown to everybody. But it’s not really a problem; it’s only a problem if you think about it … I get on well with Ringo and John and I try my best to get on well with Paul. Whatever happens, it’s gonna be okay. In fact, it’s never looked better from my point of view. It’s really in good shape; the companies are in great shape. Apple Films, Apple Records, my song company is in good shape because I’ve been productive over the last year or so. It’s really good that we got back a lot of money that a lot of people had that was ours, a lot of per cents that different people had.”

Smith “Did Klein do all that for you? Were you really that broke or were all of you just crying poor?”

George “We weren’t broke. We had earned a lot of money but we didn’t actually have the money that we had earned, you know. It was floating around because of the structure of things. Since 1962, the way everything was structured was just freaky. None of us knew anything about it. We just spent money when we wanted to spend money, but we didn’t know where we were spending it from, or if we paid taxes on it, you know. We were really in bad shape as far as that was concerned, because none of us really could be bothered. We just felt as though we were rich, because really we were rich by what we sold and what we did. But really it wasn’t the case because it was so untogether, the business side of it. But now it’s very together and we know exactly where everything is and there’s daily reports on where it is and what it is and how much it is, and it’s really good.”

“He’d written all these songs for years and stuff, and Paul and I went to school together. I got the feeling that everybody changes and sometimes people don’t want other people to change, or even if you do change, they won’t accept that you’ve changed, and they keep in their mind some other image of you. Gandhi said, ‘Create and preserve the image of your choice.’ And so different people have different images of their friends or people they see.”

George “Well, I got the impression it was like, he still acted as if he was the groovy Lennon/McCartney. There was a point in my life where I realised anybody can be Lennon/McCartney, you know, ‘cos being part of Lennon/McCartney really I could see, you know, I could appreciate them, how good they actually are. And at the same time, I could see the infatuation that the public had, or the praise that was put on them. And I could see everybody’s a Lennon/McCartney if that’s what you wanna be. But the point is nobody’s special, there’s not many special people around… If Lennon/McCartney are special then Harrison and Starkey are special, too. What I’m saying is that I can be Lennon/McCartney too, but I’d rather be Harrison, you know.”

Thursday, April 30

John and Yoko meanwhile continue with primal scream therapy by visiting Arthur Janov’s clinic in Los Angeles, California …

John “We were there six months. We had a nice house in LA. We’d go down to the session, have a good cry, and come back and swim in the pool. You’d always feel like that after acid or a good joint, you know, sort of in the pool tingling and everything was fine. But then your defences would all come up again, like the acid would wear off, the joint would wear off, and you’d go back for another fix. Now I can cry, that’s what I learnt from Primal Therapy.”

Friday, May 8

John “There was twenty-nine hours of tape, just so much tape, twenty takes of everything because we were rehearsing and taping everything. Nobody could face looking at it, so we let Glyn Johns remix it, because we didn’t want to know. We just left it to him and said, ‘Here, do it.’ It’s the first time since the first album that we didn’t have anything to do with it. None of us could be bothered going in, Paul, nobody could be bothered about it and the tapes were left there. We got an acetate each and we called each other and said, ‘What do you think? Oh, just let it out.’ “

Paul “We walked away from that LP. We didn’t really want to know. The best version of the album was before anyone got hold of it. Glyn Johns’s early mixes were great but they were very bare, very Spartan. It would be one of the hippest records going if they brought it out. That was one of the best Beatles albums because it was a bit avant garde. I loved it. It was purely as we recorded it, down there in Apple or up on the roof. It had a good sound on it, from Glyn Johns, just a couple of mikes over the drums, it was very basic and I loved it.”

Ringo “It was a strange time for us then, because we weren’t doing anything and that album needed fixing, but he (Phil Spector) couldn’t fix it unless we said so. So we said, ‘Yes.’ “

John “He worked like a pig on it. I mean, he always wanted to work with The Beatles, and he was given the shittiest load of badly recorded shit with a lousy feeling to it ever, and he made something out of it. He did a great job.”

Ringo “Even at the beginning, Paul said, ‘Yes,’ and then he heard it. I spoke to him on the phone and said, ‘Do you like it?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, it’s okay.’ He didn’t put it down, and then, suddenly, he didn’t want it to go out. It was two weeks after that that he wanted to cancel it.”

John “When I heard it, I didn’t puke. I was so relieved after hearing six months of this like black cloud hanging over, that this was going to go out. I thought it would be good to go out, the shitty version, because it would break The Beatles, you know, it would break the myth. ‘That’s us, with no trousers on.’ We were going to let it out in a really shitty condition, and I didn’t care. I thought it was good to let it out and show people what had happened to us, ‘This is where we’re at now. We can’t get it together. We don’t play together anymore, you know, leave us alone.’ “

Paul “When the Let It Be album came out, there was a little bit of hype on the back of the sleeve for the first time ever on a Beatles album. It said it was a new phase Beatles album and there was nothing further from the truth. That was the last Beatles album and everybody knew it. There was no new phase about it all. Klein had it re-produced because he said it didn’t sound commercial enough.”

George “ ‘For You Blue’ is a simple twelve-bar song following all the normal twelve-bar principles, except that it’s happy-go-lucky.”

George, in his book I Me Mine “ ‘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! I suppose having LSD was like somebody catapulting me out into space. The LSD experience was the biggest experience that I’d had up until that time… suddenly I looked around and everything I 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 ‘I am’. It drove me crackers, I hated everything about my ego, it was a flash of everything false and impermanent, which I disliked. But later, I learned from it, to realise that there is somebody else in here apart from old blabbermouth. Who am ‘I’ became the order of the day. Anyway, that’s what came out of it, ‘I Me Mine’. The truth within 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 answer the question ‘Who am I?’ “

Linda McCartney “As a kid, I loved getting lost. I would say to my father, ‘Let’s get lost.’ But you could never seem to be able to get really lost. All signs would eventually lead back to New York or wherever we were staying. When I moved to England to be with Paul, we would put Martha, Paul’s sheepdog, in the back of the car and drive out of London. And as soon as we were on the open road, I’d say, ‘Let’s get lost,’ and we’d keep driving without looking at any signs. Hence the line in the song, ‘Two of us going nowhere’. Paul wrote that on one of those days out.”