Toppermost of the Poppermost - UK Number Ones : part 2 - The 1960s

[Satchmo Distel]

Is this the first No. 1 with a different act on the B-side? Beverlys* All-Stars were Jackie Jackson, Winston Wright, Hux Brown, Rad Bryan, Paul Douglas and Winston Grennan, but none of them are credited on the A-side: 'The Aces' were backing vocalists.

*Not to be confused with Beverley Bevan, who was on #265

[daf]

Yes, I believe this is the case.

There were two versions of the track on youtube - not sure which was the one used as the B side, but I went with the faster 'tempo' version, as I liked it more. Here's the other version, which sounds far too slow to me!

Also, if anyone's free on Wednesday 9th April 1969, Desmond's throwing a party -

[daf]

Phase One in which Doris gets her Oats, it's . . .

270.  The Beatles with Billy Preston - Get Back



From : 20 April – 31 May 1969
Weeks : 6
Flip side : Don't Let Me Down

Bonus 1 : Get Back - Album Version
Bonus 2 : Don't Let Me Down Rooftop
Bonus 3 : Peter Jackson's Sneak Peek
Bonus 4 : Get Back (800% Slower)
Bonus 5 : Two Of Us (800% Slower)
Bonus 6 : One After 909 (909% Slower)
Bonus 7 : George Harrison quits The Beatles

The Story So Far : Twickenham Film Studios

The darkest period of The Beatles' recording career was the Get Back enterprise – the group's attempt to return to their roots, which saw them initially rehearse and record songs for a television special and live performance. Motivation was low within the group. Paul McCartney aside, there was little enthusiasm for a mooted live appearance. The group were still exhausted after the lengthy sessions for the White Album, and the presence of film cameras during the rehearsals created a further strain.

John : "In a nutshell, Paul wanted to make – it was time for another Beatle movie or something, and Paul wanted us to go on the road or do something. As usual, George and I were going, 'Oh, we don't want to do it, fuck,' and all that. He set it up and there was all discussions about where to go and all that. I would just tag along and I had Yoko by then. I didn't even give a shit about anything. I was stoned all the time, too, on H etc. And I just didn't give a shit. And nobody did, you know..."

Although not all the January 1969 sessions were tense, The Beatles were often at odds with one another. George Harrison found McCartney bossy and domineering, John Lennon was addicted to heroin and unwilling to be parted from Yoko Ono, and Ringo Starr was largely subdued throughout the month.

John : "Paul had this idea that we were going to rehearse or... see it all was more like Simon and Garfunkel, like looking for perfection all the time. And so he has these ideas that we'll rehearse and then make the album. And of course we're lazy fuckers and we've been playing for twenty years, for fuck's sake, we're grown men, we're not going to sit around rehearsing. I'm not, anyway. And we couldn't get into it. And we put down a few tracks and nobody was in it at all. It was a dreadful, dreadful feeling in Twickenham Studio, and being filmed all the time. I just wanted them to go away, and we'd be there, eight in the morning. You couldn't make music at eight in the morning or ten or whatever it was, in a strange place with people filming you and coloured lights."



Because the audio needed to be good enough for potential use in a film or television programme, it was recorded on Nagra reel-to-reel ¼" mono tape machines. Two of these were used, one for camera A and one for camera B. They could capture only 16 minutes on a tape, and so the two machines were started at different intervals. As a result, the Get Back sessions were extensively bootlegged, providing a fascinating insight into The Beatles' working practices. A vast number of songs were performed by The Beatles during January 1969, much of which never saw light of day, though works from Abbey Road and their solo albums did emerge, in addition to the Let It Be songs.

They also jammed a great deal; sometimes at length and without much artistic merit. The better attempts were included in the Let It Be film. The Beatles, whether out of boredom or desperation, played tunes ranging from nursery rhymes ('Baa Baa Black Sheep') and rock 'n' roll classics ('All Shook Up') to pre-'Love Me Do' original compositions and improvised songs.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The Get Back sessions followed a Monday to Friday schedule, and each day started between 11am and 1pm. This first day, Thursday 2 January 1969, however, officially began at around 9.30am, with director Michael Lindsay-Hogg filming as Mal Evans and Kevin Harrington set up The Beatles' equipment onto stage one before the group began playing. The shots would eventually be used for the opening sequence of the Let It Be film. On this first day the group arrived at Twickenham at 11am, apart from Paul McCartney who was delayed on public transport, and arrived at 12.30pm.

   

Lennon and Harrison were the first to arrive, the former with his then-girlfriend Yoko Ono. As they tuned their guitars, the musicians played snippets of 'Don't Let Me Down' and 'All Things Must Pass'. Both attempted to play along with each others' songs, and were joined by a recently-arrived Ringo Starr on drums during a version of 'Don't Let Me Down'. Lennon then played a solo version of 'Dig A Pony', before improvising a song known as 'Everybody Got Song'. Harrison put forward another, 'Let It Down', which was eventually recorded for his debut solo triple album.

Lennon improvised a guitar instrumental and sang two verses of Chuck Berry's 'Brown-Eyed Handsome Man', joined by Harrison in places. They then turned to 'I've Got A Feeling', which at this stage lacked McCartney's contributions. Lennon's part was based on a 1968 home recording known as 'Everybody Had A Hard Year'. He also played through an unfinished song titled 'A Case Of The Blues', which was mostly instrumental. Lennon's 'Child Of Nature' was introduced on this day as 'On The Road To Marrakesh'. He sang two verses, with Harrison joining in several places. Its presence here served to highlight the dry spell Lennon was undergoing as a songwriter; the song had been written in India more than six months previously.

Snippets of Revolution and Bob Dylan's 'I Shall Be Released' followed, and a new unfinished Lennon song, 'Sun King'. During the performance,  Paul McCartney arrived at Twickenham and began playing along. With all four Beatles finally in the same room, they discussed the purposes of the Get Back project. Lennon expressed dissatisfaction with the large size of the sound stage, and with having cameras present during these early rehearsals, but McCartney defended the set-up. Their words appear to indicate that that the intention at this time was to film a television special inside Twickenham with an invited audience.

     

In the afternoon Harrison led Starr through a cover version of Jackie Lomax's 'Speak To Me', before work continued on 'I've Got A Feeling' – at this stage The Beatles' most complete song. Numerous run-throughs took place as the group continued shaping it, breaking off for discussions in between. The Beatles then turned their attentions back to 'Don't Let Me Down', and discussed possible instrumentation. At this stage they were considering bringing in a keyboard player, with Nicky Hopkins' name mentioned.

During a break for sandwiches Harrison played the Buddy Holly song 'Well... Alright', followed by another version of 'All Things Must Pass'. Instead of working on Harrison's song, The Beatles moved on to McCartney's 'Two Of Us'. A lengthy rehearsal took place, with McCartney teaching the rest of the group the chord and time signature changes. Evidently The Beatles weren't familiar with it yet, although they would play it a great many more times during the month. In a break from 'Two Of Us', The Beatles improvised a song known as 'It's Good To See The Folks Back Home', led by McCartney. They returned to 'Two Of Us' before the day's work came to a close.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

On Friday 3 January, the second day of rehearsals, John Lennon was late arriving at Twickenham Film Studios, and the first part of the day featured just Paul McCartney on piano. He worked through a number of works-in-progress, including several songs which ended up on Let It Be and Abbey Road. Ringo Starr played brief versions of songs he had written titled 'Taking A Trip To Carolina' and 'Picasso'. George Harrison, meanwhile, played a number of half-written songs including the Dylanesque 'Ramblin' Woman'.

After Lennon's arrival, much of the day was spent playing rock 'n' roll classics, including several from The Beatles' Cavern Club and Hamburg years. 'I've Got A Feeling' and 'Two Of Us' were worked on during this day, and the group resurrected 'One After 909' for the first time since 1963. They also played several other early Lennon-McCartney compositions, including 'Won't You Please Say Goodbye', 'Thinking Of Linking', 'I'll Wait Till Tomorrow' and 'Because I Know You Love Me So'.



George Harrison led the group through Marvin Gaye's 'Hitch Hike' and Larry Williams' 'Short Fat Fannie', and Lennon and McCartney sang a version of 'Midnight Special'. Lennon also played two original songs, 'Sun King' and 'Gimme Some Truth', and 37 versions of 'All Things Must Pass' on this day, although they struggled to find a satisfactory arrangement.

The day ended with a number of attempts at 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer'. A sequence of McCartney calling out the chords while teaching the song to the others was included in the Let It Be film. The Beatles spent considerable time working on the song during these sessions, although it was later remade for Abbey Road.

Other songs recorded on this day included :
Adagio For Strings' (Samuel Barber)  /  'Tea For Two Cha-Cha' (Tommy Dorsey)  /  'Chopsticks' (Euphemia Allen)  /  'Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On' (Jerry Lee Lewis)  /  'Please Mrs Henry' + 'Blowin' In The Wind' +  'All Along The Watchtower' (Bob Dylan)  / 'Crackin' Up / 'All Shook Up' / 'Your True Love' ' (Bo Diddley / Elvis Presley / Carl Perkins)  /  'Blue Suede Shoes' (Carl Perkins)  /  'Three Cool Cats' (The Coasters)  /  'Lucille' (Little Richard)  /  'Third Man Theme' (Anton Karas)  /  'Going Up The Country' (Canned Heat)   /  'The Hippy Hippy Shake' (Chan Romero)  /  'What Do You Want To Make Those Eyes At Me For?' (Emile Ford And The Checkmates)  /  'Sabre Dance' (Love Sculpture)  /   'Is It Discovered' (Harrison)  /  'Your Name Is Ted' (Beatles jam)  /  'Get On The Phone'  +  'Negro In Reserve'  (Lennon-McCartney)  /  Torchy, The Battery Boy' + 'My Words Are In My Heart' + 'Over And Over Again' (McCartney)

   

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Following a weekend break, The Beatles' sessions and rehearsals for the Get Back project resumed on Monday 6 January 1969 . During rehearsals for 'Two Of Us', a terse exchange took place between McCartney and George Harrison which was included in the Let It Be film, and which seemed to encapsulate the strained relations within the group at the time.

George Harrison : "I'll play whatever you want me to play, or I won't play at all if you don't want me to play. Whatever it is that'll please you, I'll do it."

The Beatles evidently lacked enthusiasm for a new Harrison song, 'Hear Me Lord', which its composer first performed acoustically, then on an electric guitar with a wah-wah pedal. He also attempted to enthuse the group in his 'All Things Must Pass', but to little effect. 'Carry That Weight', later to feature on Abbey Road, made its debut on this day, and featured a bridge which was omitted in the final version.

Also making first appearances were 'Octopus's Garden' and 'For You Blue', both of which were brief, incomplete performances. John Lennon revived 'Across The Universe' – a song the group had recorded early in 1968. Nearly a year on, Lennon struggled to remember the words, and the performance lacked the elegantly light touch of the earlier recording.

Notable among the improvisations and jams were 'The Palace Of The King Of The Birds', a McCartney instrumental recorded years later for the unreleased Rupert The Bear album. It featured blues-style guitar and a flowing organ part. He also sang a blues improvisation, 'You Wear Your Women Out', and did a bit of Primal Therapy-style screaming on 'My Imagination'.

George Harrison sang a song known as 'Maureen', accompanied just with wah-wah guitar. He is heard to claim that Bob Dylan wrote the song, but it is otherwise unknown and may in fact have been an original composition. The day ended with some lengthy rehearsals of McCartney's new song 'She Came In Through The Bathroom Window'.

   

Other songs recorded on this day included :
'High School Confidential' + 'Fools Like Me' (Jerry Lee Lewis)  /  'I Want You'  (Bob Dylan)  /  'That's All Right (Mama)' (Elvis Presley)   /  'Send Me Some Loving' (Little Richard)   /  'I'm Gonna Pay For His Ride'  +  'They Call Me Fuzz Face' (McCartney)  /  'Annie' (Lennon)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Tuesday 7 January 1969, saw the first appearance of 'Get Back', which would soon become the focus of much of The Beatles' attentions. At this stage, however, it was lacking most of its final lyrics in the verses.

Other notable performances included a spirited rendition of Chuck Berry's 'Rock And Roll Music', first recorded by The Beatles in 1964, and an almost-complete version of Carl Perkins' 'Gone, Gone, Gone'. Little Richard's 'Lucille' and Ray Charles' 'What'd I Say' were also tackled with conviction, but were both abandoned before being seen through to completion.

Much of the day was spent on 'I've Got A Feeling' and 'Don't Let Me Down', which had been earmarked early on during the Twickenham sessions as contenders for the mooted live performance. At this stage the songs weren't developing significantly, but were instead being rehearsed multiple times until The Beatles were happy they were familiar with the structure. More successful was a revisit of the Lennon-McCartney composition 'One After 909'. This latter song had been recorded at EMI way back on 5 March 1963, and had been performed again on the 3 and 6 January 1969 sessions, with The Beatles evidently thinking it a possible live contender. Here it was close to its final Let It Be incarnation, although without Billy Preston's electric piano.

Other songs recorded on this day included :
'Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again' + 'I Shall Be Released' (Bob Dylan)  /  'A Shot Of Rhythm And Blues' (Arthur Alexander)  /  'Thirty Days' (Chuck Berry)   /  'FBI' (The Shadows)  /  'A Case Of The Blues' (Lennon)  /  'Woman Where You Been So Long' (Beatles jam)  /  'Lowdown Blues Machine' + 'Cuddle Up'  +  'Mr Epstein Said It Was White Gold'  +  'Oh Julie, Julia' (McCartney)

   

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Wednesday 8 January 1969 was the fifth day of rehearsals, and the group continued work on the stronger songs performed thus far, and tested out arrangements on a number of others. The Beatles were in reasonably high spirits at this point, playing through the songs with enthusiasm which was sadly lacking elsewhere for much of January 1969. Of the cover versions and improvisations, there was little from this day that was noteworthy, most of them being brief renditions in between proper rehearsals. Two early Lennon-McCartney compositions – 'Too Bad About Sorrows', and 'Just Fun' – were performed, but each lasted just seconds.

After 'Too Bad About Sorrows', Lennon made the remark: "Queen says no to pot-smoking FBI members". This was included on the Let It Be album, and was the only piece of audio recorded at Twickenham to be used on the record; everything else was recorded either at Apple Studios, 3 Savile Row or EMI studios, Abbey Road. The momentum noticeably flagged when the group performed George Harrison's 'All Things Must Pass', which the other Beatles had remained unenthusiastic towards.

Another Harrisong, 'I Me Mine', received more attention, with the group playing a total of 41 versions, although more often than not these were incomplete. In the film, Harrison first plays the song to Ringo Starr, followed by a version performed by Harrison, Starr and Paul McCartney, during which John Lennon dances with Yoko Ono. This was the only day in January 1969 that The Beatles played it; although it was discussed in subsequent days, there was little inclination to return to it after this.

George Harrison had written 'I Me Mine' the night before, and it began as a plain acoustic song about revelations regarding the ego discovered through LSD use.

George : "Having LSD was like someone 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 us has to be realised. When you realise that, everything else that you see and do and touch and smell isn't real, then you may know what reality is, and can answer the question 'Who am I?'"

Although 'I Me Mine' was considered by The Beatles to be little more than a filler track for the album, Harrison evidently retained a liking for it. His autobiography, published in 1980, was named after the song, and he stood by its philosophical sentiments.

George : "'I Me Mine' is the ego problem. There are two 'I's: the little 'i' when people say 'I am this'; and the big 'I' – ie 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!"

     

Other songs recorded on this day included :
'You Got Me Going' +  "Well, If You're Ready'  +  'Tell All The Folks Back Home' (McCartney)  /  'I'm Going To Knock Him Down Dead' (Lennon)  /  'Life Is What You Make It' (Beatles jam)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Thursday 9 January 1969 began with Paul McCartney working alone on a number of songs. Making their debuts on this day were 'Her Majesty' and 'Another Day'.

At this stage of the Twickenham rehearsals, 'Get Back' was a driving rock song with half-written lyrics about Theresa and Joe. At one point McCartney improvised some words which later led to accusations of racism after the tapes were bootlegged. It is clear, however, that he was parodying right-wing attitudes held by many in Britain in the late 1960s, including the Conservative Party politician Enoch Powell.

Another song, "Commonwealth", was a 1950s-style rock 'n' roll performance with McCartney singing in an Elvis style. This, too, touched upon the themes of immigration and racism expressed earlier in the day, with lyrics including : "You'd better get back to your Commonwealth homes".

Another rocker, "Suzy's Parlour", was included in the Let It Be film, although it was mistitled as 'Suzy Parker' when copyrighted. As was customary, numerous 1950s and '60s oldies were performed, most of which were throwaway efforts. 'Honey Hush' was perhaps the most cohesive, but 'Good Rockin' Tonight' and 'Tennessee' suffered from misremembered vocals and hillbilly-style vocals respectively.

Other songs recorded on this day included :
'Penina'  +  'Enoch Powell' (McCartney)  /  'Get Off' (Lennon-McCartney)   /  'Quit Your Messing Around' (Lennon)

   

The 1968 Christmas Fan Club Single :

The Beatles' Sixth Christmas Record was recorded in November 1968 at the London homes of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and in the back of Ringo's diesel-powered removal van, somewhere in Surrey. The voice of George Harrison is heard via the telephone. It was noteworthy for being the first Beatles Christmas fan club disc the group recorded separately.



The dialogue and songs for the flexi-disc were organised and edited together by DJ and friend of the Beatles, Kenny Everett. Unlike previous fan club recordings, the flexi disk was double-sided. And while all of the 1963 through 1967 flexi's had paper record labels, the 1968 disks had the information printed right on the black flexi disk with white ink.

 

The 1968 offering is a collage of odd noises, musical snippets and individual messages. McCartney's song "Happy Christmas, Happy New Year" is featured, along with Lennon's poems "Jock and Yono" and "Once Upon a Pool Table".

   

Also notable is a rendition of "Nowhere Man" by the ukulele-playing beaky stringbean Tiny Tim, which Harrison recorded in New York. Also included is a sped-up snippet of the Beatles' own "Helter Skelter" and a brief snippet of Perrey & Kingsley's "Baroque Hoedown", which was used three years later in Disneyland's Main Street Electrical Parade.

The Single :

"Get Back" is unusual in the Beatles' canon in that almost every moment of the song's evolution has been extensively documented, from its beginning as an offhand riff to its final mixing in several versions. The song's melody grew out of some unstructured jamming on 7 January 1969 during rehearsal sessions on the sound stage at Twickenham Studios. Over the next few minutes, McCartney introduced some of the lyrics, reworking "Get back to the place you should be" from fellow Beatle George Harrison's "Sour Milk Sea" into "Get back to where you once belonged".



McCartney improvised various temporary lyrics leading to what has become known in Beatles' folklore as the "No Pakistanis" version. This version parodied the anti-immigrant views of tedious uptight blowhard Enoch Powell, a member of parliament whose racist speeches had recently gained much media attention. The lyrics addressed attitudes toward immigrants in the United States and the United Kingdom: "... don't need no Puerto Ricans living in the USA"; and "don't dig no Pakistanis taking all the people's jobs", though these lyrics were meant to be a parody and a criticism of those prejudiced against immigrants.

Paul : "When we were doing Let It Be, there were a couple of verses to 'Get Back' which were actually not racist at all – they were anti-racist. There were a lot of stories in the newspapers then about Pakistanis crowding out flats – you know, living 16 to a room or whatever. So in one of the verses of 'Get Back', which we were making up on the set of Let It Be, one of the outtakes has something about 'too many Pakistanis living in a council flat' – that's the line. Which to me was actually talking out against overcrowding for Pakistanis... If there was any group that was not racist, it was the Beatles. I mean, all our favourite people were always black. We were kind of the first people to open international eyes, in a way, to Motown."

A paranoid Lennon, however, later claimed that McCartney's words were directed towards Yoko Ono.

John : "I think there's some underlying thing about Yoko in there. You know, 'Get back to where you once belonged.' Every time he sang the line in the studio, he'd look at Yoko. Maybe he'll say I'm paranoid. You know, he can say, 'I'm a normal family man, those two are freaks.' That'll leave him a chance to say that one."

   

The Beatles eventually realised that their intentions could be misconstrued, and the story of Jo Jo and Loretta Martin evolved.

Paul : "Many people have since claimed to be the Jo Jo and they're not, let me put that straight! I had no particular person in mind, again it was a fictional character, half man, half woman, all very ambiguous. I often left things ambiguous, I like doing that in my songs."

Whatever the true meaning, 'Get Back' served as a neat summary of The Beatles' back-to-basics musical intentions, and the song became the title track of what they intended to be their next album. Although two different versions of the LP were compiled by producer/engineer Glyn Johns, the January 1969 recordings were eventually remixed by troubled nutcase Phil Spector and released as the Let It Be album.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The 28 January 1969 version was first mixed for single release on 26 March. However, following radio play from BBC presenters John Peel and Alan 'Fluff' Freeman, McCartney decided the mix wasn't right. New mono and stereo versions were made on 7 Apri 1969, and the single had its release just four days later. Due to its late completion, many stores didn't receive copies for several days after this.

[tape operator] Jerry Boys : "They'd already done a mono mix of Get Back and had acetates cut and didn't like it. We tried it again but it wasn't really happening any better and when we went to compare the two we hit a problem because Paul didn't have a tape of that first mix with him, just an acetate. He and Glyn were very concerned with what the new mix was going to sound like on a cheap record player. Purely by chance, I happened to have a cheap record player in the back of my car, which I'd brought along to Olympic to have someone repair. We had an acetate cut from the new mix and then, using my record player, we were able to decide which of the two mixes was better. So the very first playing of the Get Back single, which sold millions, was on my little player!"

"Get Back" was released as a UK single on 11 April 1969 and on 5 May in the US. The single began its 17-week stay in the charts on 26 April at No. 1, a position it held for six weeks. It was the first Beatles single to enter the official UK singles chart at the top. In the US, "Get Back" began its first of 12 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart the week ending 10 May. Two weeks after the song's chart debut it hit No. 1, where it stayed for five weeks. "Get Back" became the band's 17th No. 1 song in Billboard, matching Elvis Presley's previous record of 17 number ones.

 

In both the UK and US, the single was released by Apple, although EMI retained the rights to the song as part of their contract. It was the only Beatles' single to include an accompanying artist's name, crediting "Get Back/Don't Let Me Down" to "The Beatles with Billy Preston". Neither Apple nor Capitol Records created a picture sleeve for the single—it was simply packaged in a sleeve stating "The Beatles on Apple".

Apple launched a print ad campaign for the song concurrent with its release showing a photo of the band with the slogan The Beatles as Nature Intended :
'Get Back' is The Beatles' new single. It's the first Beatles record which is as live as live can be, in this electronic age. There's no electronic whatchamacallit. 'Get Back' is pure spring-time rock number. On the other side there's an equally live number called 'Don't Let Me Down'. Paul's got this to say about 'Get Back': 'We were sitting in the studio and we made it up out of thin air... we started to write words there and then... when we finished it, we recorded it at Apple Studios and made it into a song to roller-coast by.  P.S. John adds, it's John playing the fab live guitar solo. And now John on 'Don't Let Me Down': John says don't let me down about 'Don't Let Me Down'. In 'Get Back' and 'Don't Let Me Down', you'll find The Beatles, as nature intended.

   

In the UK and Europe "Get Back / Don't Let Me Down" was the Beatles' last single to be released in mono, but in the US the single was released in stereo. It was the Beatles' first single to be released in true stereo instead of mono as part of the "stereo only" movement gaining force in 1969. In both versions the lead guitar played by Lennon is in the left channel, and the rhythm guitar played by Harrison is in the right channel.

Other Versions include :   Al Green (1969)  /  The California Poppy Pickers (1969)  /   Moog Machine (1969)  /  Amen Corner (1969)  /  "Chi è" by The Juniors (1969)  /  Doris Troy (1970)  /  Ike & Tina Turner (1970)  /  "Rentre Jojo à la maison" by Gerard Saint Paul (1970)  /  Dizzy Gillespie (1970)  /  Ace Cannon (1970)  /  The Shadows (1970)  /  Billy Preston (1974)  /  Paddy Kingsland (1974)  /  Cliff Richard (1975)  /  Rod Stewart (1976)  /  Sarah Vaughan (1981)  /  Laibach (1988)  /  Status Quo (1996)  /  John Pizzarelli (1998)  /  The Punkles (2003)  /  Danny McEvoy (2010)  /  8BitRenditions (2010)  /  Brooke Knoll (2011)  /  "Ha-Bakk" by ApologetiX (2012)  /  Dmitry Ulyanov (2014)  /  Lenny Kravitz (2014)  / LarryInc64 (2016)  /  Kelly Valleau (2019)  /  a robot (2019)

On This Day  :

20 April : Bombs planted by Ulster Volunteer Force and the Ulster Protestant Volunteers [splitters!] explode at Silent Valley reservoir in County Down and at an electricity pylon at Kilmore, County Armagh
20 April : Chris Jarvis, English children's TV presenter, born Martin Christopher Jarvis in Romford, London
20 April : William "Benny" Benjamin, American session drummer (Motown's Funk Brothers), dies of a stroke at 43
22 April : John Lennon changed his name from "John Winston Lennon" to "John Ono Lennon". Lennon told reporters, "Yoko changed her name for me; I've changed mine for her. It gives us nine O's between us, which is good luck"
22 April : First human eye transplant performed
22 April : Dion Dublin, footballer, born in Leicester, England
22 April : Craig Logan, bass player (Bros), born in Scotland
23 April : Krzysztof Komeda, Polish film composer and jazz pianist, dies of head injuries as the result of a fall at 37
25 April : Renée Zellweger, film actress, born Renée Kathleen Zellweger in Katy, Texas
25 April : 5,400th & final episode of BBC Radio serial "The Dales" (formerly "Mrs Dale's Diary") broadcast
26 April : "Celebration" closes at Ambassador Theater NYC after 110 performances
26 April : "George M!" closes at Palace Theater NYC after 435 performances
27 April : Mica Paris, singer, born Michelle Antoinette Wallen in Islington, North London
27 April : Darcey Bussell, ballerina, born Marnie Mercedes Darcey Pemberton Crittle (!), in London
28 April : Charles de Gaulle resigns as president of France
28 April : Northern Ireland Prime Minister Terence O'Neill resigns and is replaced later by James Chichester-Clark.
29 April : "Trumpets of the Lord" opens at Brooks Atkinson NYC
1 May : Wes Anderson, American film director, born Wesley Wales Anderson in Paris, France
3 May : "Trumpets of the Lord" closes after 7 performances
4 May : Osbert Sitwell, English writer, dies at 76
4 May : Dustin Hoffman marries actress Anne Byrne
9 May : Actress Lana Turner marries for the 8th time to Ronald Dante
9 May : Saint Christopher, patron saint of travelers, was dropped from the Roman Catholic Church's liturgical calendar following research within the Vatican that concluded that he had never actually existed.
10 May : Dennis Bergkamp, footballer, born Dennis Nicolaas Maria Bergkamp in Amsterdam
10 May : Battle of Hamburger Hill, the most costly U.S. offensive of the Vietnam War begins
11 May : Monty Python forms, made up of Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin
13 May : Buckethead, guitarist, born Brian Patrick Carroll in Pomona, California
14 May : Abortion & contraception legalized in Canada
14 May : Cate Blanchett, film actress, born Catherine Elise Blanchett in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
16 May : Venera 5 lands on Venus
17 May : Russian probe Venera 6 landed on Venus
18 May : Martika, singer, born Marta Marrero in Whittier, California
18 May : Apollo 10 launches from Kennedy Space Center and later transmits the 1st colour pictures of Earth from space
18 May : "Canterbury Tales" closes at Eugene O'Neill Theater NYC after 122 performances
19 May : Coleman Hawkins, American jazz saxophonist, dies at 64
21 May : Robert F. Kennedy's murderer Sirhan Sirhan sentenced to death
24 May : Jacob Rees-Mogg, snooty politician, born Walter De-Softy in Beanotown, England
25 May : Anne Heche, actress, born Anne Celeste Heche in Aurora, Ohio, US
26 May : Apollo 10 astronauts returned to Earth
26 May : John Lennon and Yoko Ono begin their 2nd bed-in for peace at Queen Elizabeth Hotel, Montreal
31 May : "Dear World" closes at Mark Hellinger Theater NYC after 132 performances

Extra! Extra!  Read all about it! :

         

[gilbertharding]

My brother had a job ages ago as musical director for The Bootleg Beatles. In the course of sorting out arrangements for their string and brass sections, he had to listen over and over again to loads of Beatles music, and as many 'isolated instrument' bootlegs/whatever as he could get hold of at the time. And he told me he absolutely cursed the day someone gave the Beatles the Fender Bass IV in this picture.

[daf]

And now we'd like to do "Hark the Georgie's Gone" . . .

The Beatles Get Back - Part 2



George Quits :

On Friday 10 January 1969, the day began with Paul McCartney working alone at a piano, playing through a number of songs that the group had been working on during the previous week. These included solo versions of 'I've Got A Feeling' and 'Get Back', which were usually performed with guitars. McCartney still hadn't finalised the lyrics, but Tucson, Arizona was emerging as a setting. For one run-through John Lennon took the lead vocals. Following several attempts at working Get Back into shape, The Beatles moved onto 'Two Of Us', and then broke for lunch . . .

Michael Lindsay-Hogg : "At Twickenham, The Beatles, Yoko, and I, often joined by our cameraman Tony Richmond, would have a proper lunch in the small dining room up a flight of stairs, adjoining a bar where some crew members and studio office workers would be sinking their couple of pints of beer before going off to their own lunch. George was usually with us, joining in the conversation, affable and friendly and interested in the give-and-take, but on the day of the Tunisian discussion, he wasn't with us as the meal started. At the morning rehearsal, I could tell by his silence and withdrawal that something was simmering inside him, and so in my role as documentarian, I'd asked our soundman to bug the flower pot on the lunch table. We'd finished the first course when George arrived to stand at the end of the table. We looked at him as he stood silent for a moment. "See you 'round the clubs," he said. That was his good-bye. He left."

George : "They were filming us having a row. It never came to blows, but I thought, 'What's the point of this? I'm quite capable of being relatively happy on my own and I'm not able to be happy in this situation. I'm getting out of here.' Everybody had gone through that. Ringo had left at one point. I know John wanted out. It was a very, very difficult, stressful time, and being filmed having a row as well was terrible. I got up and I thought, 'I'm not doing this any more. I'm out of here.' So I got my guitar and went home and that afternoon wrote 'Wah-Wah'."

 

George : "It became stifling, so that although this new album was supposed to break away from that type of recording (we were going back to playing live) it was still very much that kind of situation where he already had in his mind what he wanted. Paul wanted nobody to play on his songs until he decided how it should go. For me it was like: 'What am I doing here? This is painful!' Then superimposed on top of that was Yoko, and there were negative vibes at that time. John and Yoko were out on a limb. I don't think he wanted much to be hanging out with us, and I think Yoko was pushing him out of the band, inasmuch as she didn't want him hanging out with us."

After some half-hearted runs through cover versions The Beatles largely stopped work to discuss the future of the Get Back project with the crew, although McCartney returned to his piano. As he did, Yoko Ono began wailing to his accompaniment, seemingly oblivious to the tensions in the room. The Nagra reel-to-reel tapes that were recording audio for the cameras captured Lennon in conversation with director Michael Lindsay-Hogg. Lennon at one point suggested replacing Harrison with Eric Clapton if he didn't return within a few days.

Michael Lindsay-Hogg : "John, a person who reacted aggressively to provocation, immediately said, "Let's get in Eric. He's just as good and not such a headache."  Paul and Ringo would not be drawn in, and after lunch we went back to the studio where Paul, John, and Ringo improvised a ferocious riff, half an hour of anger and frustration expressed with guitars and drums. Yoko sat on the edge of the rostrum on the blue cushion which had been George's and howled into his mike."

   

Ringo : "George left because Paul and he were having a heated discussion. They weren't getting on that day and George decided to leave, but he didn't tell John or me or Paul. There'd been some tension going down in the morning, and arguments would go on anyway, so none of us realised until we went to lunch that George had gone home. When we came back he still wasn't there, so we started jamming violently. Paul was playing his bass into the amp and John was off, and I was playing some weird drumming that I hadn't done before. I don't play like that as a rule. Our reaction was really, really interesting at the time. And Yoko jumped in, of course; she was there."

Whether in denial or disbelief, the remaining three Beatles carried on rehearsing without Harrison. Lennon led the others through The Who's A Quick One, While He's Away – the title a clear reference to Harrison. At one point he was heard to sarcastically call out "OK George, take it!"

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The Beatles met at Ringo Starr's house over the weekend in an attempt to resolve the issues that had led to George Harrison walking out of the Get Back sessions. The meeting was not a success, but in the absence of any other ideas, the three remaining Beatles regrouped at Twickenham Film Studios on Monday 13 January 1969 to continue work on the project. Unsurprisingly, Harrison didn't show up, and John Lennon too was absent for much of the day.

The bulk of the recordings made, therefore, featured conversations rather than music, and reveal much about the prevailing thoughts within the group at the time. A lunchtime conversation, in particular, has proved particularly valuable in understanding how McCartney, Starr and Lennon were feeling :

Lennon is heard wondering aloud whether he wants Harrison to be a part of the group any more, and agrees with McCartney that he had drifted away from the others in recent months. McCartney, ever the diplomat, admits that there had been a pecking order since they were school-age, and that he and Lennon had always been The Beatles' leaders. Lennon admits that their music has become formulaic, and contrasts it with the excitement of making Revolver in 1966. Presciently, he remarks that the only challenge left for them is to go solo, although he is uncertain about stepping away from The Beatles. McCartney offers encouraging phrases towards Lennon and Starr, and says they should stop worrying about minor details in the songs and concentrate instead on performing to the best of their abilities. He also wonders what would be the best way to steer Harrison towards a particular way of playing.

The day also allowed Lennon and Paul McCartney to refine some of their songs, particularly 'Get Back'. McCartney settled on Tucson, Arizona for Jo Jo's hometown, and Harrison's absence allowed Lennon greater freedom to work up some lead guitar parts.

     

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Tuesday 14 January 1969 was the second full day without George Harrison, who had walked out of Twickenham Film Studios on 10 January 1969. It was clear by this stage that The Beatles were unable to function in any meaningful way as a trio, and motivation and inspiration hit a low mark on this day. As with other Twickenham rehearsals, it began with Paul McCartney working alone at a piano, although there is little of the energetic enthusiasm which he brought to the earlier days.

Once John Lennon and Ringo Starr had arrived, they performed a mix of improvised songs, golden oldies and original compositions, as had become customary in these sessions. One of the songs was 'Woman', the McCartney song given in 1966 to Peter & Gordon, which had the only known Beatles performance on this day. Another was 'The Back Seat Of My Car', later to be one of the highlights of McCartney's 1971 album Ram.

A piano boogie duet featuring McCartney and Starr was included in the Let It Be film, and was copyrighted 'Jazz Piano Song' by Apple. Of the other tracks, 'Madman' and 'Watching Rainbows' were Lennon compositions which was taken no further, although Madman was performed again at Apple Studios on 21 January. This was followed by a discussion about the future. Let It Be director Michael Lindsay-Hogg asked if they should relocate the filming to EMI Studios and abandon the idea of a live show, but Lennon explained that any decisions should be made with Harrison, who was in Liverpool.

On this day Lennon and Ono were also interviewed by a reporter from Canada's CBC-TV. It took place around midday and lasted for 30 minutes. Lennon was clearly high on heroin during the interview, growing paler and more restless as it progressed. Eventually he said "Excuse me, I feel a bit sick" and the camera was turned off. The second half of the conversation was noticeably livelier, and Lennon discussed live performances, inspiration, and the couple's future plans.

Other songs recorded on this day included :
'The Day I Went Back To School'  +  'Talking Blues'  +  'Oh Baby I Love You'  +  'Song Of Love'  +  'As Clear As A Bell'  (McCartney)  /   'You Are Definitely Inclined Towards It'  +  'Don't Start Running' (Lennon)

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The Beatles held a meeting on the following day, 15 January 1969. Harrison was in a commanding position, following a series of dismal sessions at Twickenham Film Studios, and was able to set down his terms for returning to the group. During the five-hour meeting he made it clear that he would leave the group unless the idea of a live show before an audience was dropped.

 

Harrison also demanded that sessions be moved from Twickenham to the new studio in the basement of Apple's headquarters in Savile Row, London. He did, however, agree to be filmed making an album, and his new rules didn't rule out a live performance for the cameras.

George : "It was decided that it would be better if we got back together and finished the record. Twickenham, Studios were very cold and not a very nice atmosphere, so we decided to abandon that and go to Savile Row into the recording studio."

The 'Yellow Submarine' LP :

On Friday 17 January 1969, the soundtrack LP for The Beatles' animated film Yellow Submarine was released in the UK, with six songs by the group and seven orchestral pieces by George Martin. The project was regarded as a contractual obligation by the Beatles, who were asked to supply four new songs for the film. Some were written and recorded specifically for the soundtrack, while others were unreleased tracks from other projects.

[film producer] Al Brodax : "There was a commitment for The Beatles to do four songs for the film. Apparently, they would say, this is a lousy song, let's give it to Brodax."

     

Of the six Beatles songs on side one, two of them were previously released. "Yellow Submarine" had been issued in August 1966 as a single, topping the UK chart for four weeks, and had also been released on the album Revolver. "All You Need Is Love" had also been issued as a single, in July 1967. The first stereo mix was made of this song on 29 October 1968 for release on this album.

Of the unreleased tracks, the first to be recorded was George Harrison's "Only a Northern Song", taped in February 1967 but rejected for inclusion on Sgt. Pepper. The group performed overdubs on this basic track in April, immediately after completing the stereo mixes for that album.

"All Together Now" was recorded in a single session on 12 May 1967, specifically for the film project. The title came from a phrase Paul McCartney had heard as a child, to encourage everyone to sing music hall songs. He later described the song as "a throwaway".

The band recorded Harrison's "It's All Too Much" in late May 1967 at De Lane Lea Studios in central London. Inspired by its author's experimentation with the drug  LSD, it originally ran to over eight bum-numbing minutes in length. As with the later recorded "All You Need Is Love", the track includes musical and lyrical quotations from other works – in this case, a trumpet passage from Jeremiah Clarke's "Prince of Denmark's March" and a lyric from the Merseys' 1966 hit "Sorrow".

John Lennon's "Hey Bulldog" was recorded on 11 February 1968 and evolved from an initial intent to shoot a promotional film for the single "Lady Madonna". Like "All Together Now", it was specifically recorded with the film soundtrack in mind. Lennon later described the song as "a good-sounding record that means nothing".

   

Side two consisted of re-recordings of the symphonic film score composed by the Beatles' producer, George Martin, specifically for the album. The recording took place with a 41-piece orchestra over two three-hour sessions on 22 and 23 October 1968 in Abbey Road, and was edited down to the length on the LP on 22 November 1968.

In some of his arrangements, Martin referenced his past work with the Beatles; for example, "Sea of Time" includes a quotation from the Indian-styled "Within You Without You", and "Yellow Submarine in Pepperland" reprises the film's title track.  In "Sea of Monsters", Martin included the beginning of Bach's Air on the G String, while in other selections he parodies works by Stravinsky.

The film received its worldwide premiere in London in July 1968. After viewing the finished film, the Beatles were much more enthusiastic and did more to associate themselves with it after its release. Having been delayed so that it would not clash with the release of 'The Beatles' double album, and to allow for the re-recording of Martin's contributions, 'Yellow Submarine' was issued by Apple Records on 13 January 1969 in the US and on 17 January 1969 in the UK. The album was issued in stereo only in the US, while the UK album was available in both stereo and mono, although the mono version is simply a 'fold-down' of the stereo, rather than a specific mix. In the US, 8-track tape and cassette tape versions included "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", which was also heard in the film, as an additional song.

 

In contrast to the animated film, the Yellow Submarine album was not generally considered to be a significant release. It was one of the few Beatles releases that failed to top the charts in either the United Kingdom or the United States, peaking instead at number 3 and number 2, respectively. The artwork on the sleeve contains a drawing of the Beatles as it appeared on trailer posters, created by Heinz Edelman. The same basic design was used for the UK and US covers, though the UK jacket contains the words "Nothing is Real" just below the album's title, while the US version did not.

 

The back cover of the UK edition featured a review of the White Album written by The Observer newspaper journalist Tony Palmer, along with introductory notes by Derek Taylor. The US version, meanwhile, contained a fictional account of Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band credited to Dan Davis.

 

Following the delayed release of the soundtrack album, The Beatles were criticised for issuing a new LP with just four new songs, thereby failing to provide their customary "value-for-money". As a result, the band decided to reissue Yellow Submarine as a five-track mono EP, without the film score but including the then-unreleased "Across the Universe" as a bonus track. This EP was mastered in March 1969 but was never issued.

   

Beat Instrumental bemoaned the paucity of new material by the band, but added: "be not of bad cheer. The George Martin score to the film is really very nice, and two tracks by George Harrison redeem the first side. Both [songs] are superb pieces, considerably more enthralling than the most draggy All Together Now, a rather wet track."

In a review for International Times, Barry Miles considered Martin's score "superbly produced" and, of the songs, wrote only of "It's All Too Much", which, having swallowed a frigging thesaurus, he described as, variously, "Endless, mantric, a round, interwoven, trellised, tessellated, filigreed, gidouiled, spiralling" and "Happy singalong music".

Record Mirror's reviewer said that, "given the longstanding demand for a soundtrack album, the release of Yellow Submarine would evoke the ecstasy of fans the world over". The reviewer added that the four new Beatles songs matched the quality of the two "excellent" hit singles, and Martin's side represented a "tremendous achievement" that also justified any complaints about the price

Savile Row :

On Monday 20 January 1969, The Beatles assembled at their new studio in the basement of their Apple headquarters on Savile Row, London. There was no film crew present; it was ostensibly to test out the recording equipment which had been installed by Alexis 'Magic Alex' Mardas. The day, however, was not a success . . .

[recording engineer] Dave Harries : "The mixing console was made of bit of wood and an old oscilloscope. It looked like the control panel of a B-52 bomber. They actually tried a session on this desk, they did a take, but when they played back the tape it was all hum and hiss. Terrible. The Beatles walked out, that was the end of it."

Mardas later defended his position, saying the equipment was still in a prototype stage and unfit for recording purposes.

 

[tape operator] Alan Parsons : "The metal was an eighth of an inch out around the knobs and switches. It had obviously been done with a hammer and chisel instead of being properly designed and machined. It did pass signals but Glyn Johns said 'I can't do anything with this. I can't make a record with this board'."

Unable to make use of it, The Beatles were forced instead to have equipment brought from EMI Studios at Abbey Road. EMI lent Apple two four-track consoles, to be used alongside their own 3M eight-track tape machines, which were brought over on 21 January 1969.

Geoff Emerick : "The mixing console was sold as scrap to a secondhand electronics shop in the Edgware Road for £5. It wasn't worth any more."

Technical problems aside, this was The Beatles' first day performing as a quartet since George Harrison had walked out 10 days before. They performed a number of songs, although the tapes are yet to surface publicly. The only known clue is from 21 January, when Harrison plays a guitar riff to Lennon and says: "Remember that thing we did?" to which Lennon replies by asking, "Yesterday?"

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On Tuesday 21 January, The Beatles resumed work the Get Back sessions with the film crew present. This was the first formal day of work following George Harrison's temporary departure from the group. In terms of repertoire, The Beatles had barely moved on following their week off. They still spent much time working on 'Dig A Pony', 'I've Got A Feeling' and 'Don't Let Me Down', but their playing was often sloppy and aimless. One of the takes of Dig A Pony was introduced by Lennon as "I Dig A Pygmy by Charles Hawtrey and the Deaf Aids. Phase one, in which Doris gets her oats." This was later used as the opening for the Let It Be, immediately before 'Two Of Us'.

Other songs recorded on this day included :
Too Bad About Sorrows (Lennon-McCartney)  /   Madman  +  My Rock And Roll Finger Is Bleeding  +  Do The Bunny Hop  +  Blossom Dearie They Call Me  +  Oh How I Love The 12-Bar Blues  + (Lennon)  /  William Smith Boogie + You Gotta Give Back + Is That A Chicken Joke? (Beatles jam)  / San Ferry Ann + Well, Well, Well (McCartney)

     

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Wednesday 22 January 1969 was the 11th day of the Get Back/Let It Be sessions, and the first to feature Billy Preston, who had been invited to Apple by George Harrison. Preston had first met The Beatles in Hamburg in the early 1960s, and was in London playing with Ray Charles.

George : "He came in while we were down in the basement, running through 'Get Back', and I went up to reception and said, 'Come in and play on this because they're all acting strange'. He was all excited. I knew the others loved Billy anyway, and it was like a breath of fresh air. It's interesting to see how nicely people behave when you bring a guest in, because they don't really want everybody to know that they're so bitchy... He got on the electric piano, and straight away there was 100% improvement in the vibe in the room. Having this fifth person was just enough to cut the ice that we'd created among ourselves."

Billy Preston was born in Houston and moved to Los Angeles as a child. Noted as a child prodigy, Preston was entirely self-taught and never had a music lesson. By the age of ten, he was playing organ onstage backing several gospel singers such as Mahalia Jackson. At 11, Preston appeared on an episode of Nat King Cole's NBC TV show singing the Fats Domino hit "Blueberry Hill" with Cole. In 1962, Preston joined Little Richard's band as an organist, and it was while performing in Hamburg that he met the Beatles.

 

His presence on piano and keyboards helped flesh out the sound considerably, which was helpful given the 'no overdubs' rule of the sessions. The mood within the sessions was greatly improved, with greater focus on the songs they intended to perform in the live special, and fewer displacement activities such as cover versions and improvisations.

Three songs in particular received the bulk of The Beatles' attentions on this day: 'Don't Let Me Down', 'Dig A Pony' and 'I've Got A Feeling'.  This version of I've Got A Feeling, plus different ones of 'Dig A Pony' and 'Don't Let Me Down', were selected for Glyn Johns' first Get Back album, which was rejected for release by The Beatles. Also included were 'Rocker', a Beatles jam in the style of Chuck Berry, and a cover version of The Drifters' Save The Last Dance For Me.

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Thursday 23 January 1969 yielded nothing that was officially released, but did see The Beatles spend a great deal of time working on the song 'Get Back'. The presence of Billy Preston greatly helped to shape the song, although at this stage John Lennon was yet to develop his guitar solo and the galloping rhythm of the final version was not yet in place. The coda was, however, and Paul McCartney decided that Get Back would be complete with just two verses.

George : "Billy didn't know all the politics and the games that had been going on, so in his innocence he got stuck in and gave an extra little kick to the band. Everybody was happier to have somebody else playing and it made what we were doing more enjoyable. We all played better, and it was a great session."

Although work on Get Back dominated the day, The Beatles also spent some time on 'Oh! Darling', which was eventually held over for Abbey Road. Ringo Starr also played a piano version of 'Octopus's Garden', which was later developed further than the three-chord arrangement he had at this time.

Performances of 'Please Please Me' and 'Help!' both lasted less than a minute. Please Please Me was given a new, mostly atonal, melody, and Help! was performed with a slow swing rhythm. No more successful was a version of Eddie Cochran's 'Twenty Flight Rock', one of the songs with which McCartney impressed Lennon by performing on the day they first met : 6 July 1957. Unfortunately, 12 years later McCartney was unable to remember all the lyrics, although The Beatles nonetheless managed a fairly spirited performance.

Other songs recorded on this day included :
'Hey Hey Georgie' (Harrison)  /  'If You Need Me' (McCartney)  /  'It Blew Again' (Lennon)

 

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On Friday 24 January 1969, at their Apple Studios at 3 Savile Row, The Beatles recorded a 38-second ad-lib recorded between takes of 'Two Of Us'. A traditional Liverpool folk song about a prostitute who robbed a sailor, "Maggie Mae" is believed to date from the early 19th century.

Other McCartney songs attempted on this day were 'Every Night' and 'Hot As Sun'. He also played three versions of 'There You Are, Eddie', which was never released by him nor The Beatles; the song was written in December the previous year for Beatles biographer Hunter Davies, while McCartney was staying at his home in Portugal.

Hunter Davies : "I remember one tune he played for me in Portugal, which he had written on the lavatory (he rarely went there without his guitar), which was called There You Go Eddie. Just a short verse, and I don't think he ever completed it. He had discovered that my first Christian name is Edward, something I've always kept quiet."

Of the cover versions performed on this day, six were by Chuck Berry. Lennon sang lead vocals on Arthur Alexander's 'Soldier Of Love', which The Beatles had recorded for BBC radio in 1963, and the McCartney-led version of 'Singing The Blues' would have been a contender for the Get Back album but for technical problems with the recording and some erratic slide guitar by Lennon.

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"Dig It" was improvised during two studio jams begun on Friday 24 January 1969. John Lennon led the jams, based upon a sequence of I-IV-V chords, onto which he free-associated a set of mostly nonsensical lyrics. The Beatles recorded 'Dig It' on four occasions. An extract from the second was used on Let It Be, followed by the spoken words "That was 'Can You Dig It' by Georgie Wood, and now we'd like to do 'Hark The Angels Come'," which were taken from the first version.

Although just 49 seconds of 'Dig It' found their way onto Let It Be, the song was originally much longer. The first version, lasting nearly seven minutes, was recorded on 24 January 1969 at Apple Studios. The Beatles returned to 'Dig It' on 26 January, taping a second version lasting 12'25". A segment from this take, from 8'52" to 9'41", was used on the Let It Be album, with a slightly longer version appearing in the film.

Again, John Lennon dominated the song, singing lyrics from 'Twist And Shout' and Bob Dylan's 'Like A Rolling Stone' along with his own improvisations. During the middle of the jam Paul McCartney repeatedly sang a refrain based around the words "Dig it up". The second version of 'Dig It' featured Billy Preston on organ and George Martin on percussion, and Lennon playing a Fender VI six-string bass guitar. Linda McCartney's six-year-old daughter Heather also made an impromptu vocal contribution early on in the song.

   

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"Teddy Boy" was recorded on two occasions by The Beatles in January 1969. They recorded six versions on Friday 24 January 1969, although a brief snippet of the song had been played two weeks before at Twickenham Film Studios.

McCartney began writing the song in 1968 in Rishikesh, India, although it was completed upon his return to Britain. A light-hearted – and musically lightweight – tale of a boy whose mother tells him about his soldier father, 'Teddy Boy' was clearly disliked by John Lennon, who sabotaged McCartney's early attempts to teach it to the group.

McCartney revived the song on 28 January, taking The Beatles through a further two attempts. The longer of the two was used for the first part of the Anthology 3 edit.

Paul : "We've now put together a version, an edit of one of the takes of us trying it, which sounds interesting. You can hear on it that the band wasn't very interested in it. I don't know why. Maybe I hadn't finished it enough or something. Maybe it was just tension coming in. The bit I'd like to keep actually was John sort of making fun of it. He starts towards the end of it, going, 'Grab your partners, do-si-do,' so we've kept that on. And while it was, in some way, indicative of friction, it was good-humoured friction."

On 31 January, director Michael Lindsay-Hogg ran through a potential list of songs to include. He suggested filming the group playing 'Teddy Boy', but was promptly disabused of the notion by a regretful McCartney : "'Teddy Boy' is actually... that's as far as it's gonna get. I thought maybe we can come back after a week or something...". But there was no return to the Get Back project. The Beatles moved on to new recordings, and never again attempted 'Teddy Boy'.

One of the versions from 24 January, lasting nearly six minutes, was mixed by Glyn Johns for the aborted Get Back album.

Glyn Johns : "I loved it, and I was hoping they'd finish it and do it, because I thought it was really good. But my version does go on a bit, and they're just going round and round, trying to get the chord sequence right, I suppose, and the best bit is where John Lennon gets bored – he obviously doesn't want to play it any more, and starts doing his interjections."

Phil Spector also mixed the song. He evidently thought it suitable for the Let It Be album, although it was never used. On 25 March 1970 Spector made two stereo mixes: the first was faithful to the 25 January 1969 recording; the other was an edited version lasting 3'10".

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"For You Blue", a straightforward blues song, was written by George Harrison for his wife Pattie.

George : "It's a simple 12-bar song following all the normal 12-bar principles, except that it's happy-go-lucky!"

'For You Blue' was recorded in six takes on Saturday 25 January 1969 , with the working title 'George's Blues (Because You're Sweet And Lonely)'. The last of these was selected for inclusion on the unreleased Get Back album and on Let It Be. John Lennon played a lap steel guitar on the song; unusually, he used a shotgun shell as a slide. There is no bass guitar on 'For You Blue', as Paul McCartney was playing piano. He treated the piano's strings to change the sound of the instrument by putting a piece of paper in the piano strings, causing them to vibrate against the paper when struck.

     

A new mix of Take Six was made in 2003 for Let It Be... Naked. An alternative take from the 25 January 1969 session was included on Anthology 3.

On 30 March 1970, Phil Spector made a 16-second loop using the song's instrumental break, onto which he overlaid snippets of speech from the Let It Be film soundtrack. This remained unreleased, and Spector used just one piece of dialogue from the Twickenham film sessions. Heard immediately prior to 'For You Blue' on Let It Be, it was Lennon's "Queen says no to pot-smoking FBI members"

'Two Of Us' had been rehearsed extensively on the previous day, and this session's versions were more relaxed, almost playful at times. John Lennon and Paul McCartney both added exaggerated German , French, Scottish and Jamaican accents to some of the takes, as well as daft sound effects and a Bob Dylan impression from Lennon.

As well as 'For You Blue', two songs by George Harrison were played. 'Isn't It A Pity' made its debut on this day, and was performed again the following day, but was eventually held over for his All Things Must Pass album. 'Window, Window', meanwhile, had previously been performed on two earlier sessions, but here was led mostly by McCartney. The song was never released in Harrison's lifetime. Of the other songs, perhaps the most notable was 'I Lost My Little Girl', the first song McCartney ever wrote. This version, however, had Lennon on lead vocals, and lasted almost 10 minutes with a two-chord rock arrangement.

Also on this day, McCartney and members of the film crew did a recce on the Apple rooftop ahead of the concert which took place five days later. McCartney was joined by director Michael Lindsay-Hogg, The Beatles' assistant Mal Evans, and production runner Kevin Harrington.

Other songs recorded on this day included :
'Sorry I Left You Bleeding'  +  'Well It's Eight O'Clock' (Lennon)  /  'Crazy Feet' (McCartney)  /  'Fast Train To San Francisco' (Beatles jam)

     

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Sunday 26 January 1969, the 15th day of the Get Back sessions, saw The Beatles focus mainly on two songs: 'Let It Be' and 'The Long And Winding Road'. This Sunday session marked the first time in almost a year that The Beatles had worked on both days of a weekend. They were joined in the studio by Linda McCartney and her daughter Heather.

Billy Preston was back in the studio, following an absence on the previous day. 'Let It Be', in particular, benefited from Preston's organ playing, and by the end of the day they almost had a version suitable for release.

Also recorded this day was the medley of 'Rip It Up, Shake, Rattle And Roll and Blue Suede Shoes' - which was selected by Glyn Johns for inclusion on the original 'Get Back' album. Of the other songs, 'Suicide' was written by McCartney as a teenager, and 'I Told You Before' - an improvised jam led by Harrison and Preston, which The Beatles returned to on the following day.

There were also cover versions of 'You Really Got A Hold On Me' and 'Kansas City', the latter based on Wilbert Harrison's 1959 arrangement rather than Little Richard's. Versions of Jerry Lee Lewis' 'Great Balls Of Fire' and 'High School Confidential' were marred by McCartney being unable to remember the lyrics.

The session closed with more than an hour spent on "The Long and Winding Road", with Paul McCartney on piano and John Lennon playing bass guitar. Although the playing was often amateurish in the beginning, towards the end the arrangement came together, and by the end of the day they had a satisfactory take. This was included on Anthology 3, and was later adorned with orchestral and choral overdubs by troubled nutcase Phil Spector for the Let It Be album.

   

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Originally released by Buddy Holly in 1957, "Mailman, Bring Me No More Blues" had been a part of The Beatles' live repertoire until 1962. However, they didn't recorded it until Wednesday 29 January 1969. The group's arrangement was slower than Holly's, emphasising the sad, blues lyrics in place of the more uptempo pop original. 

The following day would see the culmination of the Get Back project : with The Beatles performing live in public for the final time . . .

[The Culture Bunker]

'Get Back' is an OK Beatles song, which obviously makes it better than what most else would come up with, but I'm not in any hurry to hear it again. George is right that Billy Preston makes a positive difference to the song.

Just glad the band managed to get themselves together enough to record 'Abbey Road', which was a fitting "see-ya", just a shame it didn't produce any chart toppers so that their #1 account ended on a better note than the one it does on.

[DrGreggles]

Good to see the Yellow Submarine album get a mention.
Of the 4 original songs on it, I bloody love 3 of them.

Back when, as all 90s kids were, I was in a band and we decided to do a Beatles cover, Hey Bulldog was the one we went for.
As Lennon says, it's a nothing song, but it sounds fantastic. Unlike our version...

[daf]

Good to see the Yellow Submarine album get a mention.
Of the 4 original songs on it, I bloody love 3 of them.

Check out the story on the back cover of the US version - we should have got that, not some ridiculous puff-piece about another frigging album!

[daf]

It was 52 years ago today . . .

The Beatles Get Back - Part 3

 

The Rooftop :

On Thursday 30 January 1969, The Beatles, with Billy Preston, gave their final live performance atop the Apple building at 3 Savile Row, London, in what became the climax of their Let It Be film.

George : "We went on the roof in order to resolve the live concert idea, because it was much simpler than going anywhere else; also nobody had ever done that, so it would be interesting to see what happened when we started playing up there. It was a nice little social study. We set up a camera in the Apple reception area, behind a window so nobody could see it, and we filmed people coming in. The police and everybody came in saying, 'You can't do that! You've got to stop.'"

30 January 1969 in London was a cold day, and a bitter wind was blowing on the rooftop by midday. To cope with the weather, John Lennon borrowed Yoko Ono's fur coat, and Ringo Starr wore his wife Maureen Starkey's red mac.

Ringo : "There was a plan to play live somewhere. We were wondering where we could go – 'Oh, the Palladium or the Sahara.' But we would have had to take all the stuff, so we decided, 'Let's get up on the roof.' We had Mal and Neil set the equipment up on the roof, and we did those tracks. I remember it was cold and windy and damp, but all the people looking out from offices were really enjoying it."

The 42-minute show was recorded onto two eight-track machines in the basement of Apple, by George Martin, engineer Glyn Johns and tape operator Alan Parsons. The tracks were filled with the following: Paul McCartney's vocals | John Lennon's and George Harrison's vocals | Billy Preston's organ | McCartney's bass guitar | a sync track for the film crew | Starr's drums | Lennon's guitar | Harrison's guitar.

Alan Parsons : "That was one of the greatest and most exciting days of my life. To see The Beatles playing together and getting an instant feedback from the people around them, five cameras on the roof, cameras across the road, in the road, it was just unbelievable."

 

The Beatles' rooftop show began at around midday. The timing coincided with the lunch hour of many nearby workplaces, which led to crowds quickly forming. Although few people could see them, crowds gathered in the streets below to hear The Beatles play.

[engineer] Dave Harries : "There were people hanging off balconies and out of every office window all around. The police were knocking on the door – George Martin went white! We really wanted to stop the traffic, we wanted to blast out the entire West End..."

Traffic in Savile Row and neighbouring streets came to a halt, until police from the nearby West End Central police station, further up Savile Row, entered Apple and ordered the group to stop playing.

Paul : "It was good fun, actually. We had to set the mikes up and get a show together. I remember seeing Vicki Wickham of Ready, Steady, Go! on the opposite roof, for some reason, with the street between us. She and a couple of friends sat there, and then the secretaries from the lawyers' offices next door came out on their roof. We decided to go through all the stuff we'd been rehearsing and record it. If we got a good take on it then that would be the recording; if not, we'd use one of the earlier takes that we'd done downstairs in the basement. It was really good fun because it was outdoors, which was unusual for us. We hadn't played outdoors for a long time."

   

The Beatles began with a rehearsal of 'Get Back' while the film cameras were being set up. At the end it was applauded by the spectators on the roof. In response, Paul McCartney mumbled something about cricketer Ted Dexter, and John Lennon announced: "We've had a request from Martin Luther."

Paul : "It was a very strange location because there was no audience except for Vicki Wickham and a few others. So we were playing virtually to nothing – to the sky, which was quite nice. They filmed downstairs in the street – and there were a lot of city gents looking up: 'What's that noise?'"

Another version of Get Back followed. An edit of these two versions was included in the Let It Be film. Afterwards Lennon said: "We've had a request for Daisy, Morris and Tommy."

Although it was performed during the Twickenham Film Studios rehearsals in early January 1969, the first studio version of "Get Back" was recorded on 21 January 1969 at Apple Studios, in the basement of 3 Savile Row, London. Billy Preston joined the Beatles on keyboards from 22 January 1969, having been recruited by George Harrison partly with a view to augment the group's sound and to help dissipate tensions. The group, with Preston playing Fender Rhodes electric piano, recorded about ten takes on 23 January. They made a concerted effort to perfect "Get Back" on 27 January, recording about 14 takes. By this time the song had the addition of a false ending and reprise coda. After numerous takes, the band jammed some old numbers and then returned to "Get Back" one last time in an attempt to record the master take. This performance (Take 11) was considered to be the best yet: it was musically tight and punchy without mistakes, though the song finishes without the restart. On the session tape, George Harrison comments "we missed that end"; this is the version heard on the Let It Be... Naked album.

On 28 January, the group attempted to recapture the previous day's performance and recorded several new takes each including the coda. Whilst these takes were good, they did not quite achieve the quality of the best take from the previous day.

The line-up for the released versions of 'Get Back' was Paul McCartney, lead vocal and bass  / John Lennon, lead guitar and backing vocal  / George Harrison, rhythm guitar / Ringo Starr, drums  /  and Billy Preston, electric piano. Harrison, the usual lead guitarist, had temporarily quit the group on 10 January, so Lennon worked out the lead guitar.

John : "Yes, I played the solo on 'Get Back'. When Paul was feeling kindly, he would give me a solo! Maybe if he was feeling guilty that he had most of the a-side or something, he would give me a solo. And I played the solo on that."

The Beatles had EMI produce a mono remix of the track on 4 April 1969, completed by Jeff Jarrett. The Beatles were unhappy with the mix, and on 7 April 1969 McCartney and Glyn Johns worked at Olympic Studios to produce new remixes for the single release. They made an edited version using the best take of the main part of the song (Take 11) from 27 January and the 'best coda' ending from 28 January. The edit is so precise that it appears to be a continuous take, achieving the ending the Beatles had desired all along.



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Bowler-hatted vicar : "Nice to have something for free in this country at the moment, isn't it?"
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The third song was 'Don't Let Me Down' - a lyrically simple and direct song by Lennon inspired by his infatuation with Yoko Ono.

John : "When it gets down to it, when you're drowning, you don't say, "I would be incredibly pleased if someone would have the foresight to notice me drowning and come and help me," you just scream."

Although Lennon was revealing his feelings and fears in song as far back as 1964's 'If I Fell' and 'I'm A Loser', 'Don't Let Me Down' was one of the first examples of the raw soul-baring that would reach a peak on 'Cold Turkey' and on his 1970 'Plastic Ono Band' solo album.

Paul : "It was a very tense period: John was with Yoko and had escalated to heroin and all the accompanying paranoias and he was putting himself out on a limb. I think that as much as it excited and amused him, and the same time it secretly terrified him. So 'Don't Let Me Down' was a genuine plea... It was saying to Yoko, 'I'm really stepping out of line on this one. I'm really letting my vulnerability be seen, so you must not let me down.' I think it was a genuine cry for help. It was a good song."

   

The Beatles' first studio recording of 'Don't Let Me Down' was taped on 21 January 1969 at Apple, although rehearsals of the song had been filmed earlier in the month at Twickenham Film Studios. A version from the following day was selected for inclusion on Glyn Johns unreleased 'Get Back' album, along with a snippet of speech in which Lennon asked Starr to hit the cymbals hard after the intro, to "give me the courage to come screaming in."

On 28 January 1969 The Beatles and Preston recorded the version which ended up on the flip-side the 'Get Back' single. They taped it twice again two days later on the roof of Apple, the first of which was included in the Let It Be film.

Paul : "We recorded it in the basement of Apple for Let It Be and later did it up on the roof for the film. We went through it quite a lot for this one. I sang harmony on it, which makes me wonder if I helped with a couple of words, but I don't think so. It was John's song."

An edit of the two rooftop performances was included on 2003's 'Let It Be... Naked', in place of 'Dig It' and 'Maggie Mae'.

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Young girl : "Yeah, I think it's great... livens up the office hours, anyway"
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The next song, "I've Got a Feeling", was made up of two half-finished songs joined together. Paul McCartney wrote the section that gave the song its title; John Lennon's contribution was originally called 'Everybody Had A Hard Year', and had previously been demoed during the White Album sessions. As such, it was the pair's first full and equal collaboration since 1967's 'Baby You're A Rich Man'. Lennon and McCartney worked on the song together at the latter's house in Cavendish Avenue, London.

Each part of the song shows the differences in the two men's lives at that point. McCartney's was a love song written about his future wife Linda Eastman, who he would marry on 12 March 1969. Lennon, conversely, had recently divorced his first wife Cynthia and was estranged from their son Julian. Additionally, he was addicted to heroin, his then-girlfriend Yoko Ono had recently suffered a miscarriage, the pair had been arrested for cannabis possession, and his enthusiasm for being a Beatle was at an all-time low.

The Beatles first recorded 'I've Got A Feeling' on 22 January 1969, at the Apple studios in Savile Row, during their first session after abandoning Twickenham Film Studios. More takes were recorded over the next two days. One version, from 23 January 1969 was included on Anthology 3. Another, from the 24th, was included on Glyn John's unreleased Get Back LP.

The Beatles continued work on the song on 27 and 28 January, but it wasn't until the Apple rooftop performance that they recorded the final version. They taped two versions of 'I've Got A Feeling', the first of which appeared on the Let It Be album and in the film. The 2003 album 'Let It Be... Naked' included a composite edit of the two rooftop performances, prepared especially for the release.

   

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Old woman : "I just can't see that it makes sense!"
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Although best known as a Let It Be album track, "The One After 909" was one of The Beatles' earliest songs.

Paul : "It has great memories for me of John and I trying to write a bluesy freight-train song. There were a lot of those songs at the time, like 'Midnight Special', 'Freight Train', 'Rock Island Line', so this was the 'One After 909'; she didn't get the 909, she got the one after it! It was a tribute to British Rail, actually. No, at the time we weren't thinking British, it was much more the Super Chief from Omaha."

Although McCartney claimed that the song was a collaboration based on an idea by John Lennon, his former songwriting partner remembered it as a solo effort.

John : "The 'One After 909', on the whatsit LP, I wrote when I was 17 or 18. We always wrote separately, but we wrote together because we enjoyed it a lot sometimes, and also because they would say, well, you're going to make an album together and knock off a few songs, just like a job."

Lennon mentioned in a number of interviews the significance of the number nine. His songs included 'Revolution 9' and '#9 Dream', and a number of key dates in his life took place on the ninth of the month.

John : "That was something I wrote when I was about seventeen. I lived at 9 Newcastle Road. I was born on the ninth of October, the ninth month. It's just a number that follows me around, but, numerologically, apparently I'm a number six or a three or something, but it's all part of nine."

On 5 March 1963 The Beatles were at Abbey Road to record their third EMI single, 'From Me To You'. After completing the song and its b-side, 'Thank You Girl', they wanted to record two more Lennon-McCartney originals. They were 'One After 909' and 'What Goes On', but there was only enough time for one. They recorded four takes of 'One After 909', along with an edit piece which began at the guitar solo and lasted until the song's end. Throughout the session they were unsure of the song's arrangement, with all but one of their attempts breaking down. The guitar break itself was fluffed by George Harrison, prompting John Lennon to ask, "What kind of solo was that?"

 

'The One After 909' was rehearsed on 29 January 1969, in preparation for the rooftop performance the following day. The Beatles clearly enjoyed playing the song, and the live version from 30 January was selected by troubled nutcase Phil Spector for inclusion on the Let it Be album. This time Harrison's solo was first-rate, and as the performance drew to a close, Lennon sang an impromptu line from 'Danny Boy'.

Paul : "It was a number we didn't used to do much but it was one that we always liked doing, and we rediscovered it. There were a couple of tunes that we wondered why we never put out; either George Martin didn't like them enough to or he favoured others. It's not a great song but it's a great favourite of mine."

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Taxi driver : "Is it their new record? Oh, great, I'm all in favour of it!"
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The sixth song The Beatles played was "Dig a Pony". A short rehearsal was played first, with Lennon asking for the lyrics. They then performed the song properly, with a production runner on the film, Kevin Harrington, kneeling in front of Lennon holding a clipboard bearing the lyrics. George Harrison, too, briefly knelt next to Harrington.

'Dig a Pony', Lennon's only significant new contribution to the Let It Be album, contained mostly nonsense lyrics, which Lennon dismissed in 1980 as "another piece of garbage". However, some tantalising references can be found, including to The Beatles' one-time name Johnny and the Moondogs, and Mick Jagger ["I roll a stoney"]. However, like so many of Lennon's songs of the period, the dominant influence is Yoko Ono. 'Dig A Pony' was originally titled 'All I Want Is You', words which appear in the chorus and which constitute the song's only direct, meaningful sentiment.

John : "I was just having fun with words. It was literally a nonsense song. You just take words and you stick them together, and you see if they have any meaning. Some of them do and some of them don't."



John Lennon played versions of 'Dig A Pony' several times at Twickenham Film Studios in January 1969, during a series of rehearsals which were filmed for the Let It Be movie. He ran through the song on 2, 7, and 13 January 1969. By the time sessions started at The Beatles' own Apple Studios later in the month, they were familiar with the song and enjoyed playing it. They began work on the song properly on 21 January 1969, performing it numerous times to work out their individual parts and the song's arrangement. One of the following day's many attempts was later released on Anthology 3.

The Let It Be album and film contained a version of the song recorded during the group's rooftop performance. The recording began with a false start; in the film Starr can be seen putting his cigarette down and crying out 'Hold it!'. This, and the full version that followed, were both included in the album and film, although on the LP the "All I want is..." refrain which opened and closed the song were cut by Spector. George Harrison joined Lennon and McCartney on vocals for the excised lines, and also contributed minor backing vocals to Don't Let Me Down and I've Got A Feeling.

The performance ended with Lennon saying : "Thank you brothers. Hands getting too cold to play the chords"

As Alan Parsons changed the recording tapes in Apple's basement studio, The Beatles and Billy Preston performed an off-the-cuff version of 'God Save The Queen'. Brief, incomplete versions of  'I Want You (She's So Heavy)', and 'A Pretty Girl Is Like A Melody' were also fooled around with in between takes.

 

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Pompous businessman : "This type of music is all right in its place, it's quite enjoyable. But I think it's a bit of an imposition to absolutely disrupt all the business in this area...".
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The final full song was Get Back, although The Beatles nearly stopped performing when the police arrived on the roof. The officers demanded that Mal Evans turn off the group's Fender Twin amplifiers. He complied, but Harrison immediately turned his back on. Evans realised his mistake and turned Lennon's back on too. The amplifiers took several seconds to start again, but The Beatles managed to continue long enough to see the song through to the end.

Paul : "In the end it started to filter up from Mal that the police were complaining. We said, 'We're not stopping.' He said, The police are going to arrest you.' 'Good end to the film. Let them do it. Great! That's an end: "Beatles Busted on Rooftop Gig".' We kept going to the bitter end and, as I say, it was quite enjoyable. I had my little Hofner bass – very light, very enjoyable to play. In the end the policeman, Number 503 of the Greater Westminster Council, made his way round the back: 'You have to stop!' We said, 'Make him pull us off. This is a demo, man!' I think they pulled the plug, and that was the end of the film."

This third rooftop performance of "Get Back" was the last song of the Beatles' final live performance. As a climax it could scarcely be bettered, with McCartney ad-libbing, "You've been playing on the roofs again, and that's no good, and you know your Mummy doesn't like that ... she gets angry ... she's gonna have you arrested! Get back!" The police presence ensured that The Beatles would play no more on the roof. The concert over, McCartney thanked Starr's wife Maureen for her enthusiastic cheering with a simple "Thanks Mo!", and Lennon quipped "I'd like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves, and I hope we've passed the audition".

When assembling the Let it Be album in 1970, Spector crossfaded this end chatter on to the take used for the single of "Get Back". The single's reverb effect and coda were also omitted, creating the impression that the single and album versions were different takes.

 

Ringo : "I always feel let down about the police. Someone in the neighbourhood called the police, and when they came up I was playing away and I thought, 'Oh great! I hope they drag me off.' I wanted the cops to drag me off – 'Get off those drums!' – because we were being filmed and it would have looked really great, kicking the cymbals and everything. Well, they didn't, of course; they just came bumbling in: 'You've got to turn that sound down.' It could have been fabulous."

The Basement :

Friday 31 January 1969, was the 20th and final day of the Get Back sessions, and saw The Beatles perform the songs which had been judged unsuitable for the previous day's rooftop concert. The main purpose was to allow the film crew to capture satisfactory versions of the songs. Primary among them were 'Let It Be', 'The Long And Winding Road' and 'Two Of Us'.



"Two of Us" was written by Paul McCartney about his fondness for getting deliberately lost in the country with his future wife Linda. McCartney and John Lennon shared the same microphone to sing the song, as captured in the Let It Be film. Indeed, the middle sections contain likely references to their relationship, with both acutely aware that their time as members of The Beatles was drawing to a close. The song is also thought to contain a reference to The Beatles' business troubles with Apple, in the line "You and me chasing paper, getting nowhere". The song displays the relief felt by McCartney at being able to leave these troubles behind and enjoy uncomplicated moments with Linda.

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! Then, when I moved to England to be with Paul, we would put Martha in the back of the car and drive out of London. 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 'Two Of Us' on one of those days out. It's about us. We just pulled off in a wood somewhere and parked the car. I went off walking while Paul sat in the car and started writing. He also mentions the postcards because we used to send a lot of postcards to each other."

McCartney offered the song to Mortimer, a New York trio, to be issued by Apple as their début single in June 1969. However, it remained unreleased and Mortimer never became Apple recording artists.

     

The Beatles recorded Two Of Us properly over three sessions, although it was played less seriously on a number of other dates. The first of the sessions took place on Friday 24 January 1969, under the working title 'On Our Way Home'. The group recorded several takes of the song, although these were unnumbered and somewhat ad-hoc. The recording was the subject of a famous exchange between McCartney and George Harrison, captured by cameras during the Let It Be filming:

    Paul : It's complicated now. We can get it simpler, and then complicate it where it needs complications.
    George : It's not complicated.
    Paul : This one is like, shall we play guitars through 'Hey Jude'... well, I don't think we should.
    George :OK, well I don't mind. I'll play, you know, whatever you want me to play, or I wont play at all if you don't want to me to play. Whatever it is that will please you, I'll do it.

The Beatles returned to 'Two Of Us' for almost all the remaining January 1969 sessions, but it wasn't until 31 January 1969 that they taped the version which ended up on Let It Be. It was remixed by Phil Spector for the album on 25 March 1970. John Lennon's introduction – "'I Dig A Pygmy' by Charles Hawtrey and the Deaf Aids. Phase one, in which Doris gets her oats" – spoken during the Tuesday 21 January 1969 session at Apple Studios – was added later, from a tape of studio chatter assembled on 27 March 1970.

Various other songs were also performed during the day, including Hey Good Lookin' (Hank Williams)   /  Right String, Wrong Yo-Yo (Carl Perkins)  /  'Step Inside Love'  /  Tales Of Frankie Rabbit (Lennon-McCartney)

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'The Long And Winding Road' started out as a simple McCartney ballad, written in Scotland in 1968 at a time in which the cracks in The Beatles' relationships were become ever deeper. A demo was recorded during the White Album sessions, but taken no further.

Paul : "I was a bit flipped out and tripped out at that time. It's a sad song because it's all about the unattainable; the door you never quite reach. This is the road that you never get to the end of."

John : "Paul again. He had a little spurt just before we split. I think the shock of Yoko Ono and what was happening gave him a creative spurt including 'Let It Be' and 'Long And Winding Road', 'cause that was the last gasp from him."

The song was written with Ray Charles in mind, although McCartney acknowledged that the similarities were well hidden.

Paul : "It doesn't sound like him at all, because it's me singing and I don't sound anything like Ray, but sometimes you get a person in your mind, just for an attitude, just for a place to be, so that your mind is somewhere rather than nowhere, and you place it by thinking, Oh, I love that Ray Charles, and think, Well, what might he do then? So that was in my mind, and would have probably had some bearing on the chord structure of it, which is slightly jazzy. I think I could attribute that to having Ray in my mind when I wrote that one."

   

Seven takes were recorded on this day, but it was a recording from 26 January 1969 that was ultimately chosen by troubled nutcase Phil Spector to work on in March and April 1970 for inclusion on the Let it Be album.

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The Beatles released two versions of 'Let It Be' during their career, although both were based on the same recording. The group first attempted the song at Twickenham Film Studios on 3 January 1969, the second day of filming, with a solo rendition by Paul McCartney.

Let It Be was written during the sessions for the White Album, at a time when Paul McCartney felt isolated as the only member of The Beatles still keen to keep the group together. His enthusiasm and belief had kept them going after the death of Brian Epstein, but increasingly he found the others at odds with his attempts to motivate them. Although his public persona remained upbeat and thumbsaloft, privately McCartney was feeling insecure and wounded by the gradual disintegration of The Beatles. During this period, his mother Mary – who had passed away in 1956 when McCartney was 14 – appeared to him in a dream.

Paul : "One night during this tense time I had a dream I saw my mum, who'd been dead 10 years or so. And it was so great to see her because that's a wonderful thing about dreams: you actually are reunited with that person for a second; there they are and you appear to both be physically together again. It was so wonderful for me and she was very reassuring. In the dream she said, 'It'll be all right.' I'm not sure if she used the words 'Let it be' but that was the gist of her advice, it was, 'Don't worry too much, it will turn out OK.' It was such a sweet dream I woke up thinking, Oh, it was really great to visit with her again. I felt very blessed to have that dream. So that got me writing the song 'Let It Be'. I literally started off 'Mother Mary', which was her name, 'When I find myself in times of trouble', which I certainly found myself in. The song was based on that dream."

It was perhaps inevitable – even fortuitous for the group – that 'Let It Be' took on religious overtones, with many listeners interpreting it as referring to the Virgin Mary.

Paul : "Mother Mary makes it a quasi-religious thing, so you can take it that way. I don't mind. I'm quite happy if people want to use it to shore up their faith. I have no problem with that. I think it's a great thing to have faith of any sort, particularly in the world we live in."



Following the Apple rooftop performance, on 31 January they returned to 'Let It Be'  with The Beatles recording a total of 22 takes, beginning with a skiffle-style one with John Lennon on lead vocals, singing the words to a different melody. Patience began to wear thin during this part of the session, with Lennon audibly bored and interjecting mischievous lines such as "And in my hour of darkness she is standing left in front of me, squeaking turds of whisky over me". Lennon's cheeky query – "Are we supposed to giggle in the solo?" – was asked prior to take 23. It was used on Anthology 3, as were his comments "I think that was rather grand. I'd take one home with me" and "OK, let's track it... You bounder, you cheat!" – the latter spoken after take 25.

John Lennon felt little affection for the song, and was partly responsible for sandwiching it between the throwaway 'Dig It' and 'Maggie Mae' on the Let It Be album, which effectively sent up any perceived portentousness.

John : "That's Paul. What can you say? Nothing to do with The Beatles. It could've been Wings. I don't know what he's thinking when he writes 'Let It Be'. I think it was inspired by 'Bridge Over Troubled Waters'. That's my feeling, although I have nothing to go on. I know he wanted to write a 'Bridge Over Troubled Waters'."

[Satchmo Distel]

Lennon's timeline is off about Let It Be/Bridge Over Troubled Water because the latter wasn't recorded until November 1969, nearly a year after Paul wrote Let It Be. It's probably true that both songs were influenced by gospel.

One irony is that Let It Be is Macca's most-streamed song but it didn't make No. 1 in the UK.

[daf]

Oh, Lennon's incredibly unreliable - he also thought that October was the ninth month - the daft plum!

[The Culture Bunker]

Oh, Lennon's incredibly unreliable - he also thought that October was the ninth month - the daft plum!

Ah, but he was born during the war, when we had rationing and could only afford 11 months, so had to do without February.

[kalowski]

Oh, Lennon's incredibly unreliable - he also thought that October was the ninth month - the daft plum!

I noticed that. He can't even use the excuse of the pre-Julian calendar because October was the eight month then.

[daf]

I'd like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves, and I hope we've passed the audition.

The Beatles Get Back - Part 4



February - March 1969 :

On Saturday 1 February 1969, at Apple's headquarters at 3 Savile Row, London, a meeting was held in which horrible bastard Allen Klein outlined his assessment of The Beatles' finances. Also present was John Eastman, soon to be Paul McCartney's father-in-law, whom had advised The Beatles to buy Brian Epstein's former company NEMS for £1 million.

   

On Monday 3 February 1969, Allen Klein and John Eastman held a meeting at the Apple HQ, 3 Savile Row, London, in which Klein was formally appointed The Beatles' business manager. Klein's immediate task was to closely examine the group's finances, and to find a way to stop Brian Epstein's former company NEMS, now run by his brother Clive, from taking a quarter of their earnings.

The decision to appoint Klein was seen as a fait accompli by Paul McCartney, who had wanted his future father-in-law John Eastman to represent the group. He was, however, outvoted 3-1 by the other Beatles.

Paul : "John was going with Klein, and George and Ringo said, 'OK, we're going with John.' I realised I was expected to go along with it, but I didn't think it was a good idea – simple as that, really. Actually I asked Mick Jagger when he came round, 'What do you think?' He said, 'Oh, he's all right if you like that kind of thing.' He didn't really warn us off him, so there it was – and that then was the three-to-one situation. In The Beatles, if anyone didn't agree with a plan, it was always vetoed. It was very democratic that way, so the three-to-one situation was very awkward and as a result 'things' would happen."

   

It took some months for the agreement to be formalised. On 8 May 1969 John Lennon signed a contract appointing Klein "as our exclusive business manager".

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On Thursday 13 February 1969, a party to celebrate the launch of Mary Hopkin's debut album Postcard took place at the restaurant at the top of the Post Office Tower in central London. Guests included Paul McCartney, his new girlfriend Linda Eastman, Donovan, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton and a number of other music stars, as well as members of Hopkin's family.

Tony Bramwell : "Billy Butlin, owner of the Butlin's holiday camps our little gang had gone to with our families as kids and where Ringo played with Rory Storm, ran the restaurant at the top of the Post Office Tower. It revolved, and as you ate you could watch London unfold in a magnificent panorama. The first time Paul had gone, shortly after the restaurant first opened, he was still living at the Ashers' house in Wimpole Street. Dr Asher decided he wanted the full guided tour and arranged for the entire family to go, including Paul.

Sometime later I was sitting in the restaurant, having dinner with a girlfriend, when Bobby Butlin, Sir Billy's son, came over to my table and told me all about Paul's earlier visit. He said, 'If there's anything I can ever do for you, or Paul, or Apple, let me know.' When we launched Postcard the question of a location for the launch party arose. Paul said, 'Hey Tone? Do you think by any chance they would let us have the Post Office Tower restaurant?' I acted nonchalant and said, 'Oh, I dunno. Hang on and I'll have a word with them.' I picked up the phone, quickly made the arrangements. Paul looked at his watch and said, 'Great. Tell you what. Why don't we do some location scouting?' So we all went off to lunch at the Tower. We had a smashing time, and suitably oiled, Paul and I decided to have a race down the stairs to the door. It was a very stupid idea, especially after a big lunch. There are some photos somewhere of us lying at the bottom gasping for breath and probably trying to light a cigarette."

   

Hopkin's parents and sisters had travelled to London from Wales, as had her elderly grandmother.

Tony Bramwell : "The launch party for Postcard was marvellous, with a really good turnout of rock stars. Jimi Hendrix came and Brian Jones and Donovan, as well as Mary's future husband, Tony Visconti. I was going out with Mary at the time but he fancied her too, and eventually they got married."

Mary Hopkin : "My family came down from Wales and in the throng of people we lost my 80-year-old grandmother, Blodwyn. When the crowd parted we saw her in the corner talking to Jimi Hendrix. Afterwards she said she had been talking to 'a nice little boy' who had been asking about milking the cows and feeding the chickens. I think he was fascinated by this funny little Welsh lady."

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On Saturday 1 March 1969, Paul McCartney produced a session for Mary Hopkin at Morgan Studios in London. Two songs were worked on: 'Goodbye', the follow-up single to Hopkin's debut 'Those Were The Days', and the b-side 'Sparrow'.

Although credited to Lennon-McCartney, 'Goodbye' was written by McCartney. He had recorded a solo demo at his home, 7 Cavendish Road, London, in February 1969.

Paul : "I didn't have in mind any more Russian folk songs so I just wrote one for her. I thought it fit the bill. It wasn't as successful as the first one but it did all right. My main memory of it is from years later, going on a boat trip from the north of Scotland to the Orkney Islands. The skipper of the boat was called George, and he told me it was his favourite song. And if you think of it from a sailor's point of view, it's very much a leaving-the-port song. He had the strangest Scottish accent, almost sort of Norwegian, as the Orkneyans do. He was quite proud of the fact that that was his favourite song."

   

On Goodbye Hopkin sang and performed acoustic guitar, while McCartney played bass guitar, an acoustic guitar introduction and solo, thigh-slapping percussion, ukulele and drums. Backing vocals, horns and strings, arranged by Richard Hewson, were also added.

Mary Hopkin : "He did demo Goodbye for me, which he wrote and then produced. And when we recorded it we played the guitar part together, plus Paul added a thigh slap all through the song and played ukulele."

The b-side, 'Sparrow', was written by Benny Gallagher and Graham Lyle, a songwriting duo signed to Apple Publishing who found fame as Gallagher And Lyle in the 1970s. Hopkin sang and played guitar, McCartney added maracas, a session musician played upright bass, and Hewson arranged a choir part.

Mary Hopkin : "Although I'm flattered that Paul wrote Goodbye especially for me, it was, I believe, a step in the wrong direction for me. I'm so grateful that he chose Those Were The Days as my first single. I think Those Were The Days, being originally a Ukrainian folk song, has a timeless quality, but Goodbye is set firmly in the sixties pop era."

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With tentative plans for The Beatles' return to live performance put on indefinite hold, fans of the group lived in hope that they'd one day see their idols perform once again. On Sunday 2 March 1969, John Lennon gave the first concert performance any of The Beatles had given away from the group, with an appearance at Cambridge University.

Five hundred people watched the show, which took place at Lady Mitchell Hall. Named 'Unnatural Music', it was promoted by poet and percussionist Anthony Barnett. Barnett had invited Yoko Ono to attend, and must have been delighted when she brought Lennon as her backing musician. However, unlike the carefully crafted pop of The Beatles, what audiences heard was a half-hour freeform duet featuring vocals and guitar.

Lennon remained towards the back of the stage, coaxing feedback and atonal noises from his Epiphone Casino guitar while Ono howled and shrieked into a microphone. Two other musicians also joined in halfway through the piece: John Stevens on percussion and piano, and saxophonist John Tchicai.

The piece was recorded in stereo and was released later in the year as 'Cambridge 1969' - filling up the whole of side 1 on Unfinished Music No 2: Life With The Lions. Mal Evans was credited with playing the "watch" on the recording, although he made no audible contribution.

     

Unfinished Music No. 2: Life with the Lions was the second of three experimental albums of avant-garde music released by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. It was a successor to 1968's highly controversial Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins, and was followed by 'The Wedding Album'. The "Unfinished Music" series was an attempt by Lennon and Ono to make a record of their life together. With Ono's Grapefruit in mind, Lennon and Ono imagined that the sound wasn't printed into the vinyl's grooves, but was meant to be thought of by the listener's mind.

Lennon described "Unfinished Music" as "saying whatever you want it to say. It is just us expressing ourselves like a child does, you know, however he feels like then. What we're saying is make your own music. This is Unfinished Music."

Side two of the album was recorded on a cassette tape in their suite at Queen Charlotte's Hospital in London.

"No Bed for Beatle John" consists of Lennon and Ono singing the text of press clippings about themselves, including reports of the hospital not giving Lennon a bed to stay in during Ono's miscarriage, and EMI refusing to carry Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins because of its controversial sleeve, in a cappella chant style.

"Baby's Heartbeat" is a recording, made with a Nagra microphone, of their unborn baby's heart palpitations.

"Two Minutes Silence" follows in honour of John Ono Lennon II who passed away when Yoko Ono suffered a miscarriage on 21 November 1968.

The album closes with "Radio Play", which includes sounds of a radio with brief moments of Lennon and Ono having a conversation and Lennon making a phone call in the background. An edited version of this recording was released on a mono 8" square flexi record that was given away with copies of the American magazine Aspen.

     

Unfinished Music No.2: Life with the Lions was released on 9 May 1969 in the UK and 26 May 1969 in the US, on the Apple subsidiary label Zapple. While EMI didn't act as distributor for Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins, they did for Unfinished Music No.2: Life with the Lions. The album still failed to chart in the UK, but it managed a number 174 peak in the US. The album sold about 60,000 copies in the US, while about 5,000 were sold in the UK.

The title is both a parody on the name of the BBC radio comedy Life with the Lyons, and a reference to the press, who would follow Lennon and Ono everywhere. The album's original inner sleeve was printed with the song titles and the names of the musicians for each track.

The album's front cover photo was taken by Susan Wood while Ono was bedridden in Room 1, Second West Ward, at Queen Charlotte's Hospital. The back cover was a news photo of Lennon and Ono leaving Marylebone Police Station on 19 October 1968, after their arrest for hashish possession the previous day, at 34 Montagu Square, Lennon's residence.

 

Ed Ward wrote in Rolling Stone magazine that the album was "utter bullshit" and "in poor taste".
In a review for Cambridge Evening News, Douglas Oliver said the Cambridge concert was "strange and chilling. Not in a bad sense, but because there was so much unusual texture. At no time did the music become comforting. It was an extraordinary experience." Record Mirror's reviewer described Life with the Lions as "a fine example of how two young people CAN amuse themselves without television".

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On Tuesday 4 March 1969, at The Beatles' Apple headquarters in London's Savile Row, George Harrison gave an interview to David Wigg from the BBC radio show Scene And Heard.

Harrison began by addressing stories that he had left The Beatles during the Get Back sessions. He played down the rumours, and denied that the walkout was due to an argument with John Lennon. Wigg asked whether the group had plans to play live or make more films together. Harrison said that once the financial complications at Apple had been ironed out they may consider a film, said they would definitely record again in the Apple basement studio, but avoided discussing the prospect of touring.

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Jackie Lomax's debut single for Apple, 'Sour Milk Sea', was an unexpected chart failure. Ahead of the release of his album, a hastily-arranged session took place on On Tuesday 11 March 1969 for a follow-up single.

The session was produced by Paul McCartney and George Harrison. McCartney had decided that a cover version of The Coasters' 'Thumbin' A Ride' was to be the single's a-side, with an original Lomax composition, 'Going Back To Liverpool', on the b-side. McCartney played drums on 'Thumbin' A Ride', which was recorded in Apple's basement studio in their Savile Row headquarters. McCartney and Harrison also performed guitar parts, with Harrison on lead. 'Going Back To Liverpool'  may have been recorded on this same date; the drumming sounds like McCartney, and he certainly performed backing vocals and guitar.

The two songs were reported as making up Lomax's next single in an issue of the New Musical Express dated 22 March 1969. However, a new song – titled 'New Day' – was eventually released as the a-side, with 'Thumbin' A Ride' the b-side.

 

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On Wednesday 12 March 1969, Paul McCartney married Linda Eastman at Marylebone Register Office.

Although the event was supposed to be a secret, many onlookers and reporters heard about it and turned up for a glimpse of the couple. The registry office had been booked the previous day, and McCartney had bought a £12 ring "just before the shop shut".

Paul : "We were crazy. We had a big argument the night before we got married and it was nearly called off. We were very up and down, quite funky compared to the eventual image of 'Twenty-five years of married bliss! Aren't they lucky for people in showbiz?' But we are. You get this picture of us swanning along in a little rowboat managing to avoid the white water, but we were right in the middle of that white water, man, so it's even more miraculous that we made it. But we did."

To avoid the crowds the couple entered the register office via a side door. None of the other Beatles attended the ceremony, but McCartney's brother Michael and The Beatles' assistant Mal Evans acted as witnesses.

 

Paul : "I really don't remember whether or not I invited any of the band to the wedding. Why not? I'm a total bastard, I suppose – I don't know, really. Maybe it was because the group was breaking up. We were all pissed off with each other. We certainly weren't a gang any more. That was the thing. Once a group's broken up like that, that's it."

Mike McCartney's train broke down during his journey from Birmingham to London, and he arrived an hour late. Although he presumed the wedding would have finished, he took the waiting limousine to the registry office, where he found huge crowds of weeping fans. Inside Paul and Linda were waiting for him to arrive. After the ceremony the wedding party went to St John's Wood Church where the marriage was blessed by Reverend Noel Perry-Gore.

   

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Also on Wednesday 12 March 1969, the notorious bent copper Sgt Norman Pilcher of the Drugs Squad chose the day of Paul McCartney's wedding to Linda Eastman to launch a raid on the home of George and Pattie Harrison. The Harrisons' home at the time was Kinfauns, their bungalow in Esher, Surrey.

George : "They chose Paul's wedding day to come and do a raid on me, and to this day I'm still having difficulty with my visa to America because of this fella. He came out to my house with about eight other policemen, a policewoman and a police dog, who happened to be called Yogi – because, I suppose, of the Beatle connection with Maharishi. They thought they'd have a bit of fun. They took us off, fingerprinted us and we were busted. It was written in the papers like a fashion show: 'George was wearing a yellow suit and his wife Pattie had on...'"

Pilcher's squad took a large piece of hashish with them, to make sure they were able to make a charge. They claimed to have found the piece in one of Harrison's shoes during the raid.

George : "I'm a tidy man. I keep my socks in the sock drawer and stash in the stash box. It's not mine."

Pilcher had previously busted Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton and John Lennon, and had particularly focused on The Rolling Stones' Brian Jones. He became infamous for vigorously targeting pop musicians, and it was widely believed that he framed a number of celebrities or zealously carried out raids in order to become famous in the tabloid press. During Lennon's drugs bust the previous year, the police arrived mob-handed. Prior to them arriving a reporter was tipped-off, and Lennon ensured his flat was free of drugs. The resulting controversy earned Pilcher a rebuke from the home secretary, James Callaghan.

Keen to avoid a repeat, Pilcher wanted a time when Harrison's home was likely to be empty; it was no accident that he chose the date of McCartney's wedding. George was at Apple during the day. Pattie Harrison was at Kinfauns, however, and she called the offices when the police arrived.

Pattie Boyd : "Suddenly I heard a lot of cars on the gravel in the drive – far too many for it to be just George. My first thought was that maybe Paul and Linda wanted to party after the wedding. Then the bell rang. I opened the door to find a policewoman and a dog standing outside. At that moment the back-doorbell rang and I thought, Oh, my God, this is so scary! I'm surrounded by police. The man in charge introduced himself as Detective Sergeant Pilcher, from Scotland Yard, and handed me a piece of paper. I knew why he was there: he thought we had drugs, and he said he was going to search the house. In they came, about eight policemen through the front, another five or six through the back and there were more in the greenhouse. The policewoman said she would follow me while the others searched and didn't let me out of her sight. I said, 'Why are you doing this? We don't have any drugs. I'm going to phone my husband.' I rang George at Apple. 'George, it's your worst nightmare. Come home.'"

Derek Taylor : "I was with George in the office when that call came through. It was the end of a long day at Apple. Pattie rang and said, 'They're here – the law is here,' and we knew what to do by then. We phoned Release's lawyer, Martin Polden. We had a routine: he came round to Apple, and we all went down by limousine to Esher, where the police were well ensconced by then – and I stood bail for George and Pattie."

 

Harrison sent Pete Shotton, one of John Lennon's former schoolfriends, around to keep Pattie company. The pair drank vodka and tonic to calm their nerves, but shortly afterwards Pilcher confronted them with a block of hashish his sniffer dog Yogi was said to have found. As they waited for Harrison to return from Apple, one of the policemen requested a cup of tea. Pattie refused to make them, so the task fell to the policewoman accompanying the squad.

Pattie Boyd : "So the policewoman made tea for them and then they were standing around with it, not knowing what to do. One asked if they could watch television. So some did that, and one of the others said, 'Have The Beatles been doing any new music?' 'Yes,' I said, 'but you're not going to hear it.'... Eventually George arrived and found us in the middle of the policemen's tea party. He was still calm but he wasn't happy. The police were obviously excited to meet him. They stood to attention and were almost elbowing each other out of the way to get closer to him while Sergeant Pilcher went into his 'I am arresting you...' bit."

Derek Taylor : "They went off to the police station. We were all extremely indignant because it was the day of Paul's wedding, a poor way to celebrate it. The police can be so nice. George was calm about it. George is always calm – he sometimes gets a grump, but he's always calm – and he was extremely calm that night, and very, very indignant. He went into the house and looked around at all these men and one woman, and said something like. 'Birds have nests and animals have holes, but man hath nowhere to lay his head.' – 'Oh, really, sir? Sorry to tell you we have to...' and then into the police routine. That's how calm and how cross he was, because, as he said, he kept his dope in the box where dope went, and his joss sticks went in the joss stick box. He was a man who ran an orderly late-Sixties household, with beautiful things and some nice stuff to smoke. In my opinion he didn't have to be busted because he was doing nobody any harm. I still believe what they did was an intrusion into personal life."

Pattie Boyd : "After Sergeant Pilcher had cautioned us we were taken to Esher police station to be processed and fingerprinted. The local police were flabbergasted: they knew us and were appalled to see us being marched in by all those London policemen. I don't think they'd used the fingerprinting machine before – it took them about twenty minutes to find it and even longer to work it. We were formally charged but released on bail. We got home feeling gloomy, so George said, 'Come on, let's go to the party.'"

   

The following day the Harrisons' passports were seized by representatives from the US Embassy, and were stamped with a code to say they had a criminal record for drugs. Following a preliminary hearing on 18 March 1969, the trial took place on 31 March at at Esher and Walton Magistrates' Court. The Harrisons were found guilty of possession of cannabis and were each fined £250, plus 10 guineas each in costs. Upon leaving court George Harrison remarked, "I hope the police will leave us alone now."

Glyn Johns :

Days after the sessions at Apple had ended, Glyn Johns put together a rough mix acetate of several songs for the band to listen to. A tape copy of this acetate made its way to America, where it was played on radio stations in Buffalo and Boston over September 1969.

     

In March 1969, Lennon and McCartney had called Johns to Abbey Road and offered him free rein to compile an album from the Get Back recordings.

John : "We let Glyn Johns remix it, 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. Everybody was probably thinking, 'Well, I'm not going to work on it.' Nobody could face looking at it."

Johns booked time at Olympic Studios between 10 March and 28 May 1969 to mix the album and complete the final banded master tape. Only one track, "One After 909", was taken from the rooftop concert, with "I've Got a Feeling" and "Dig a Pony" (then called "All I Want Is You") being studio recordings instead. Johns also favoured earlier, rougher versions of "Two of Us" and "The Long and Winding Road" over the more polished performances from the final, 31 January session - which were eventually chosen for the Let It Be album. The album also included a jam called "Rocker", a brief rendition of the Drifters' "Save the Last Dance for Me", Lennon's "Don't Let Me Down" and a five-minute edit of "Dig It".

The cover of the proposed album featured a photograph of the Beatles by Angus McBean taken in the interior stairwell at EMI's Manchester Square headquarters. The photo was intended as an update of the group's Please Please Me cover image from 1963 and was particularly favoured by Lennon. The text design and placement similarly mirrored that of the 1963 LP sleeve.

 

Having rejected his first version, The Beatles again approached Johns to compile an album, but this time with the instruction that the songs must match those included in the as yet unreleased Get Back film. Between 15 December 1969 and 8 January 1970, new mixes were prepared.

Glyn Johns' new mix omitted "Teddy Boy" as the song did not appear in the film. It added "Across the Universe" (a remix of the 1968 studio version, as the January 1969 rehearsals had not been properly recorded) and "I Me Mine", on which only Harrison, McCartney and Ringo Starr performed. "I Me Mine" was newly recorded on 3 January 1970, as it appeared in the film and no multi-track recording had yet been made.

 

The Beatles once again rejected the album.

John : "I thought it would be great to go out - the shitty version - because it would break The Beatles. It would break the myth: 'That's us, with no trousers on and no glossy paint over the cover and no sort of hope. This is what we are like with our trousers off, so would you please end the game now."

'Beatlemania' Novelty Records 6 : 1969

The backlash over Lennon's "Bigger than Jesus" comment in 1966 pretty much killed the market for Beatle tribute novelty singles stone dead, but by 1969, some wild rumours about the death of McCartney, and Lennon's recent excursions into the avant-garde had re-ignited the niche oeuvre . . .

Tom Paxton - Crazy John (1969)
Rainbo - John, You Went Too Far This Time (1969)

   

Sissy Spacek initially aspired to a career in singing. In 1968, using the name Rainbo, she recorded a single titled "John You Went Too Far This Time", written by Ron Dulka and John Marshall. The lyrics of which chided John Lennon for his and Yoko Ono's nude album cover for Two Virgins.



Released in January 1969, the single failed to chart, and she was dropped from her record label. Spacek subsequently switched her focus to acting, enrolling at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute.

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Terry Knight - Saint Paul - Released in May 1969.

In 1963, Knight's music career began as a DJ at WJBK in Detroit. The following year, he moved across the river to CKLW in Windsor, Ontario. He was awarded the honorary title of "The Sixth Stone" for his early support of the Rolling Stones. By the end of 1964, however, Knight had left the radio business, intending to pursue his own career in music.

   

Knight traveled to London in 1968, hoping to become a recording artist or producer for the Beatles' newly formed Apple Records. Knight met Paul McCartney and was present at some of the recording sessions including the session when Ringo Starr temporarily quit the group. He soon left London after he was unable to negotiate a contract with acceptable terms.

In early 1969 Knight secured a producer's contract with Capitol Records which also allowed him to release his own songs as a solo artist. He wrote and recorded a single, "Saint Paul", which may have contributed to the "Paul is dead" hoax that erupted late in the year. The cryptic lyrics of the song are generally thought to allude to Knight's failed relationship with McCartney and his apparent belief that the Beatles would soon break up. The lyrics do not refer to death but were interpreted by some fans as containing clues. The ending repeats the phrase "Hey Paul" in an arrangement that sounds similar to the Beatles' song "Hey Jude".

   

Released in May 1969, initial copies of the single listed Knight's company Storybook Music as the publisher of "Saint Paul". After Capitol received a cease and desist letter from the Beatles' music publisher, Maclen Music, the record was pulled from distribution. "Saint Paul" was reissued with a publishing credit by Maclen, and edited by a minute - removing the sung excerpts from "Hello, Goodbye", "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and "She Loves You".

The second pressing of the record also contained a note on the label that stated that "Hey Jude" was "used by permission". The reassignment of the publishing rights made Knights' song the only non Lennon–McCartney tune owned by Maclen. "Saint Paul" reached the top 40 in some cities in the upper Midwest region but failed to make the Billboard Hot 100 national chart.

 

The Common People - They Didn't Even Go To The Funeral . Featured on the album 'Of The People / By The People / For The People From The Common People'. Despite being lumped in with the 'Paul is Dead' songs, it seems that the funeral referred to was Brian Epstein's rather than McCartney's.

Bill: "It was mostly Tim's idea. He wanted the song to be about the Beatles, who didn't go to Brian Epstein's funeral. We did have a lot of fun doing it though! It relieved a lot of the pressure that was being put on us during the recording session. Time was a factor!"

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Billy Shears and The All Americans - Brother Paul   - Released in November 1969
Paul Bearers by Zacherias & The Tree People - We're All Paul Bearers (1969)

 

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The Mystery Tour - The Ballad Of Paul was released in November 1969, and peaked at #104 in the US charts. "The Mystery Tour" was a pseudonym for Bob Brady and the Con Chords, a popular Maryland band in the sixties. Some of the hidden "clues" mentioned in the song include :

- a 'left hand guitar' on a freshly dug grave on the cover of Sgt pepper
- At the end of "Strawberry Fields," John says "I burried Paul."
- Paul barefoot, and holding the cigarette in his right hand on the cover of Abbey Road

 

Werbley Finster - So Long Paul - Released in November 1969. Werbley Finster was a pseudonum for José Feliciano - the Puerto Rican musician, singer and composer, best known for many international hits, including his rendition of The Doors' "Light My Fire". A month before the release of this record, he had scored a top 25 hit in the UK with a cover of the Bee Gees 'And The Sun Will Shine'.

Extra! Extra!  Read all about it! :

       

[gilbertharding]

The cover of the proposed album featured a photograph of the Beatles by Angus McBean taken in the interior stairwell at EMI's Manchester Square headquarters. The photo was intended as an update of the group's Please Please Me cover image from 1963 and was particularly favoured by Lennon. The text design and placement similarly mirrored that of the 1963 LP sleeve.

Oh - I've been to Manchester Square - that's where the completely brilliant Wallace Collection is. I wish I'd known EMI HQ was next door...



Oh. They fucked it.



Although it's only a refurb, not a completely new building - perhaps the stairwell is still intact.

[daf]

As no band has had a crack at recreating the shot since the mid-90's, I suspect it must have gone. *

 

edit : Seems they demolished the building, but rescued the actual rail they're leaning on in the photo - it's currently located in the reception of EMI's Wrights Lane building (see third comment below)

kenwoodlennon : "Anyway, the whole first Beatles' album cover block has been demolished - but, EMI, as far as I know, took the "stairwell" to Hammersmith and installed it in their new HQ. Insane, but good if true, though it may well be bullshit."

chainedandperfumed  : "According to Christopher Sandford's McCartney bio, in 1994, "the building's internal floor railings...were haggled over like fragments of the true Cross. (The banisters and an entire EMI staircase would, in the end, become McCartney's property.)" So McCartney got some element of the building---maybe EMI kept the Please Please Me stairs."

Anonymous : "Ex EMI employee here! We didn't take the stairs, only the section of the rail (the whole piece though - top wood and glass panel) that they're leaning on. This was installed in the 1st floor cafe of Brook Green, Hammersmith office when we moved from Manchester Square, and again relocated in 2009 when we moved to Wrights Lane (off Kensington High Street). It's still there, in the reception area, mounted next to the front door. :)"

http://kenwoodlennon.blogspot.com/2009/06/emi-house-manchester-square-london.html

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* Interestingly, I notice both The Sex Pistols and Blur mistakenly use the fifth floor down, whereas The Beatles, in both 1963 and 1969, are one lower on the Sixth!

[gilbertharding]

Good stuff, dafposter!

I thought the current 20 Manchester Square looked like a completely new building, but the website where I found the photo reckoned 'refurb' so I went with that.

The Supremes have got it *completely* wrong here:



There's pictures all over google of artists as diverse as Dave Bowie, the Beach Boys, Deep Purple and Pink Floyd all posing around Manchester Square - it's surprising how few of them seem to have tried to imitate the Beatles. Although I suppose it's only since the Fabs decided to take the 1969 version and use it on the Red and Blue albums it became quite as mythical as it is now. It's a very Post-Modern move.

[daf]

And I sound like Buddy Holly, 'coz I'm reigning in the charts . . .

271.  Tommy Roe - Dizzy



From : 1–7 June 1969
Weeks : 1
Flip side : The You I Need
Bonus 1 : Hot Mono Mix
Bonus 2 : Promo film
Bonus 3 : Tommy Roe on LSD

The Story So Far : 

Thomas David Roe was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, where he attended Brown High School. After graduating, he landed a job at General Electric soldering wires.

Tommy Roe : "I grew up in Cabbagetown, which is a section of Atlanta. It was a real working class neighborhood, just on the edge of Atlanta. When I was around 14, I started writing poems, and I wrote a poem for a girl named Frida that I had a crush on. And around the same time, my dad taught me three chords on the guitar. So I thought...if I could put some music to these poems, I could become a songwriter. And then in high school, I formed a band called Tommy Roe & The Satins."

In March 1960, Tommy Roe And The Satins released their first single - "Caveman" (b/w "I Got A Girl"), followed by "Shelia" (b/w "Pretty Girl") in October 1960.

Tommy Roe : "I recorded "Sheila" when I was in high school with my band in high school called The Satins.  We put a band together and we played at dances and sock hops and after the basketball games in the gym and so I recorded the song locally with the band in Atlanta and it got a lot of airplay in Atlanta.  Paul Drew was a deejay there on the 50,000 watt WGST station and he played it on WGST so it got a lot of recognition and Felton Jarvis was in the marines at the time and he heard the record while he was in the marines and when he got out he wanted to become a producer."

A couple of years later he revisited the song with Felton Jarvis producing . . .

Tommy Roe : "Felton talked me into re-recording "Sheila" and he said "We're gonna do it different."  He said, "You know there's a vacuum left of Buddy Holly ... there are still a lot of Buddy Holly fans out there so we need to do something to draw attention to you so I'm gonna put 'Buddy Holly drums' on 'Sheila'" ... and I wasn't really crazy about that whole idea because I was a big fan of Buddy Holly's and I felt like we were sponging off of him and his whole sound.  So anyway, that was Felton's whole idea ... and we went to Nashville and recorded two songs ... we recorded "Save Your Kisses" and "Sheila" and "Save Your Kisses" ended up as the A-Side of the record because "Sheila" ... I HATED "Sheila" when we left the studio and I felt like we had really screwed my song up here." 

The re-recorded "Sheila" (b/w "Save Your Kisses") became as number 1 hit in the U.S. and Australia, and also reached #3 in the UK in September 1962. ABC-Paramount Records asked him to go on tour to promote the hit, but he was reluctant to give up his secure job at General Electric until ABC-Paramount advanced him $5,000 [worra breadhead!].

     

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

His next single "Susie Darlin'" (b/w "Piddle De Pat") reached #37 in the UK in December 1962, but the follow up, "Gonna Take A Chance" (b/w "Don't Cry Donna"), stiffed. Despite this, only a few months later he found himself whisked over to the UK to co-headline a package tour alongside Chris Montez.

Tommy Roe : "Shelia" and "Let's Dance" were both hits at about the same time ... they were very close together and so when "Sheila" was #1 and I think "Let's Dance" was #2 here in The States, they booked Chris and I on a Sam Cooke tour and that's when I met Chris, when we were on the Sam Cooke tour, and we hit it off ... we just clicked and we both enjoyed being with each other.  So they put the tour together, booked it, and we both had #1 records in England ... "Sheila" was a big hit, "Let's Dance" was a big hit."

 

Support on the tour was provided by Liverpool beat group The Beatles . . .

Tommy Roe : "On our first day on the bus John came to me with his now famous Gibson acoustic guitar and said to me, "You know we have been doing your song "Sheila" in our show." John then started playing "Sheila" on the guitar and asked me if the chord progression he was playing was correct. Well, the chords he was playing were correct but in the wrong order. He handed me his guitar and I started playing "Sheila" with the proper chord progression. John said I knew it, I just knew we were playing it wrong.  After this initial interchange with John, he was very generous and allowed me to use his Gibson guitar during the tour and I actually wrote my next big hit, "Everybody" on John's guitar.

"The Beatles were like a featured act on that tour ... and nobody knew who the hell The Beatles were at that time ... but we knew after the first couple of shows we did ... I think Chris was closing the first half and The Beatles were opening the second half or something like that ... and it was just pandemonium once they got on stage. We changed the show around after about the third day and The Beatles ended up closing the tour.  And it's the only way we could have finished the tour because they would have just fallen apart, ya know.  And it happened the same way right after that with Roy Orbison.  He was closing the show and then agreed that he would close the first half of it and let The Beatles close the night ... because you just couldn't follow them." 

 

Tommy Roe : "They released their album right in the middle of the tour and "Please Please Me" and "Love Me Do" went right to the top of the charts, so during our tour they were getting a HUGE fan following ... they were really developing their fan following and that was really the whole kick off to their whole thing of Beatlemania. I ended up doing so much work in England thanks to the exposure of that tour.  We got so much press all over Europe ... went to Germany and all these different places and it worked. You know when you're young, you're 22 years old, the ego's huge and you don't want to see yourself upstaged by another act but, you know, we were upstaged by one of the best!" 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

He released his debut album 'Sheila' in 1963 . . .

   

And in March 1963, scored a Top 4 hit with the The Folk Singer (b/w "Count On Me").

   

Both tracks were also featured on a 4-track EP along with "Town Crier" and "Rainbow".

   

The follow-up "Kiss And Run" (b/w "What Makes The Blues (Want To Pick On Me)") flopped in the UK in June 1963, but he bounced back with the Top 9 hit "Everybody" (b/w "There's A Great Day A-Coming" in October 1963. The single was included on his second album "Everybody Likes Tommy Roe" [bighead!] - released in 1964.

     

Tommy Roe : "In the beginning, my follow-up hit to "Sheila" was "Everybody," which was also a big hit. Then in 1964, I joined the Army Reserve, and for a whole year I was kind of out of the loop. And while I was in the Army, Beatlemania and the British Invasion started big-time. I noticed a lot of American artists were being pushed off the Billboard charts, and were being replaced by these British acts."   

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

In 1964, he moved to England, where he lived for several years, though he failed to dent the charts with his next few singles, including : "Be A Good Little Girl" (b/w "Carol") in March 1964  /  two singles as 'Tommy Roe And The Roemans' - "Little Miss Heartbreak" (b/w "You Might As Well Forget Him") in November 1964, and "Diane From Manchester Square" (b/w "Party Girl") in January 1965  - The A-side was written by Buzz Cason about a girl who worked at EMI House, when it was based in London's Manchester Square /  plus "Doesn't Anybody Know My Name" (b/w "I'm A Rambler I'm A Gambler") in September 1965.

     

Tommy Roe : "So while I was in the service, I was thinking...when I get out, I've got to go back into the studio. What am I gonna do that will be different, that can compete with all these British acts? So I came up with the idea—I called it "soft rock." And I wrote "Sweet Pea" while I was in the service. Then when I got out of the Army, we went into the studio and recorded it, and "Sweet Pea" turned out to be a huge record for me." 

Though a flop in the UK when released in July 1966, "Sweet Pea" (b/w "Much More Love") peaked at 8 in the US Billboard charts. His next three singles all failed to chart in the UK : "Hooray For Hazel" (b/w "Need Your Love") which reached 6 in the US in November 1966; "It's Now Winters Day" (b/w "Kick Me Charlie") which peaked at 23 in the US in February 1967; and "Melancholy Mood" (b/w "Paisley Dreams") in October 1967.

Tommy Roe : "Then the DJs started calling it "bubblegum music," because it was so different from what was happening on the charts. And it was soft—it appealed to young kids and teenagers. At first, I resented the name "bubblegum"...I thought it was a negative thing. But I followed it up with "Hooray For Hazel" that was also a big record (laughs). It was another bubblegum record. And so I just embraced it and ran with it. These days, I embrace the name "bubblegum"—I'm proud of it. One of the big thrills I get, is when I sing "Sweet Pea" to a live audience. I can see all the faces in the audience light up with a big smile (laughs). They seem to really get a kick out of it."

   

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After a change of record company (from HMV to Stateside), his next single, "Dizzy", propelled him back to the top of the UK Chart in April 1969.

Tommy Roe : "I came up with "Dizzy" out of the clear. I loved the title "Dizzy," and I thought you could really write something around that title. That's the way I've always written it. I'd come up with a title first, and then try to write a simple story around it with the melody. Actually, "Dizzy" is a very complicated pop song, musically. It changes key 11 times in the song, with a lot of modulations."

     

His next single, "Heather Honey" ("Money Is My Pay") became his final UK chart hit - reaching #24 in July 1969.

     

The follow up, "Jam Up Jelly Tight" (backed with the topical "Moontalk") was released in November 1969, and reached #8 in the US in January 1970.

Tommy Roe : "With "Jam Up and Jelly Tight," I got the idea from an expression my father used to say when I was growing up. It was a popular phrase, like "Groovy" or "Outasite." He'd see a pretty girl walking down the street, and he'd say, "Son, that gal's Jam Up and Jelly Tight". You know, Southerners are famous for their anecdotes and expressions, and "Jam Up and Jelly Tight" was one of those Southern expressions. It comes from the old days, when they would can jams and jellies in the South. When they finished, they would say, "Everything's jam up and jelly tight." They'd put it in the pantry, and that's where that saying is from."

   

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His 1970's singles included : "Stir It Up And Serve It" (b/w "Firefly") in February  /  "Pearl" (b/w "A Dollars Worth Of Pennies") in July  /  and "We Can Make Music" (b/w "Gotta Keep Rolling Along") in October 1970.

Now signed to Probe in the UK, his 1971 singles included : "Little Miss Goody Two Shoes" (b/w "Traffic Jam")  in February  /  "The Greatest Love" (b/w "King Of Fools") in June  / and "Stagger Lee" (b/w "Back Streets And Alleys") in October 1971.

   

Although his style of music declined in popularity with the 1970s mass market, Roe maintained a following and continued to perform at a variety of concert venues, sometimes with 1960s nostalgia rock and rollers such as Freddy Cannon and Bobby Vee. One final UK single, "Glitter And Gleam" (b/w "Bad News (Don't Follow Me)" was released in July 1975.

Tommy Roe : "I had a lot of conflict in the '70's ... personal problems ... plus the music changed drastically with the disco and all that ... and so I stopped touring during the '70's from like '72 on up to the latter part of the decade.  Then, in '78, '79 I started getting calls about doing nostalgia shows, oldies shows, so I started doing those thru the '80's and I did a lot of those with Bobby Vee ... we worked together a lot ... and all the guys from that era.  And then even thru the '90's I worked quite a bit and then in the early 2000's I just got tired of all the traveling." 

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On 7 February, 2018, Roe officially announced his retirement on his Facebook page with this statement: "Today I am announcing my retirement. I have so many great memories of the music and of my fans who have supported me through the years. Fifty five years to be exact. What a gift it has been for me to share this time with you. I hope my music will continue to bring a smile to your hearts and joy to your life. ...I will stay in touch through our Facebook page. But for now I am stepping out of the spotlight from scheduled concerts and interviews. Thank you again for your loyal support. I love you all, and may God Bless you. Tommy"

Tommy Roe : "It's been an incredible learning experience for me. I've traveled all over the world—I've toured with big acts, small acts, big venues, small venues. I'm very proud of the success I've achieved, and the legacy that I'll leave for my children and grandchildren. In that respect, I'm very happy about the way everything has turned out." 

The Single :

"Dizzy" was co-written by Tommy Roe and Freddy Weller. It became an international hit single for Tommy Roe in 1969.



Tommy Roe : "I wrote "Dizzy" with my longtime friend, Freddy Weller. Back in the mid-'60s, I was a regular on Dick Clark's TV show, Where The Action Is, which was filmed in Los Angeles. Also on the show was the band, Paul Revere & the Raiders. Paul needed a new guitarist, so he asked me if I knew someone who would be good. I suggested my friend, Freddy Weller, who was also from Atlanta. Freddy and I had started in the music business together. Then Paul called Freddy, who came out to Los Angeles and got the gig. At the time, we were doing a lot of Dick Clark tours, and Paul Revere & the Raiders were also on the tour. These were bus tours—we'd travel all over the U.S. doing concerts. So now with Freddy being part of the Raiders, me and Freddy would travel and write songs together. And "Dizzy" was the first song that we wrote together."

Instrumental backing was provided by the Los Angeles session musicians known as The Wrecking Crew.

Tommy Roe : "Then I went into the studio and recorded it, and it turned out to be a huge record, my biggest single. And then Freddy and I wrote "Jam Up and Jelly Tight," which was the follow-up single to "Dizzy." Also, Freddy became a country artist, and we wrote quite a few country songs that Freddy recorded and did well. So we really clicked as a team writing together, and I still consider him my writing partner to this day."

       

"Dizzy" was a major hit on both sides of the Atlantic, reaching number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 for four weeks in March 1969, for one week on the UK Singles Chart in June 1969, and was number one in Canada in March 1969.

Other Versions include :  Nancy Sit (1968)  /  Bobby Sims (1969)  /  Hugo Montenegro (1969)  /  The Ventures (1969)  /  Herb Larson (1969)  /  Ace Cannon (1969)  /  "Dici" by Quelli (1969)  /  Kurt Russell (1970)  /  Wreckless Eric (1978)  /  Freddy Weller (1978)  /  Boney M. (1984)  /  Mike Read & The Rockolas (1985)  /  "Tyhjää" by Tumppi Varonen (1989)  /  Vic Reeves & The Wonder Stuff (1991)  /  Sugar Beats (1995)  /  Scooter Lee (1998)  /  Bob the Builder (2001)  /  Cliff Hillis (2001)  /  På Slaget 12 (2003)  /  The Rubinoos (2007)  /  Tina Charles (2008)  /  Danny McEvoy (2011)  /  a robot (2017)

On This Day  :

1 June : Tobacco advertising is banned on Canadian radio & TV
2 June : Leo Gorcey, actor (Bowery Boys) & Sgt Pepper cardboard cutout, dies at 53
3 June : Last episode of Star Trek airs on NBC
7 June : Supergroup Blind Faith's debut performance in Hyde Park, London

Extra! Extra!  Read all about it! :

                 

[famethrowa]

Well naturally I'm thinking of Vic and his backline of washing machines, that song was huge at the time. The key-changing up and down of the song is interesting, you can see how it would be a competent but average 3-chord plodder if it stayed in the one key.

[daf]

Eating chocolate cake in a bag it's . . .

272.  The Beatles - The Ballad Of John & Yoko



From : 8 – 28 June 1969
Weeks : 3
Flip side : Old Brown Shoe
Bonus : promo film

The Story So Far : 

On Sunday 16 March 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono flew to Paris, near France. The couple had decided to marry on Friday 14 March 1969, two days after the wedding of Paul McCartney to Linda Eastman. On McCartney's wedding day Lennon and Ono were travelling to Poole, near Dorset, where he introduced her to his Aunt Mimi. During the journey he asked his chauffeur Les Anthony to go to Southampton to enquire about the possibility of the wedding being held at sea, on the cross-channel ferry to France.

John : "We wanted to get married on a cross-channel ferry. That was the romantic part: when we went to Southampton and then we couldn't get on because she wasn't English and she couldn't get the day visa to go across. And they said, 'Anyway, you can't get married. The Captain's not allowed to do it any more.'"

Lennon and Ono chose instead to charter a private aeroplane to the French capital, and upon arriving checked into the Plaza Athénée. There, Apple employee Peter Brown told them they would be unable to marry as they had not lived in France for enough time. Instead, they were advised that they could hold their wedding in Gibraltar, near Spain, as it was a British protectorate.

John : "We chose Gibraltar because it is quiet, British and friendly. We tried everywhere else first. I set out to get married on the car ferry and we would have arrived in France married, but they wouldn't do it. We were no more successful with cruise ships. We tried embassies, but three weeks' residence in Germany or two weeks' in France were required."

On Thursday 20 March 1969, they went directly to the British Consulate Office, where they were married during a 10-minute ceremony performed by registrar Cecil Wheeler. As Gibraltar was a British colony, and Lennon was a British citizen, and they were able to go ahead at short notice.

John : "So we were in Paris and we were calling Peter Brown, and said, 'We want to get married. Where can we go?' And he called back and said, 'Gibraltar's the only place.' So – 'OK, let's go!' And we went there and it was beautiful. It's the Pillar of Hercules, and also symbolically they called it the End of the World at one period. There's some name besides Pillar of Hercules – but they thought the world outside was a mystery from there, so it was like the Gateway to the World. So we liked it in the symbolic sense, and the Rock foundation of our relationship. It was very romantic. Gibraltar was like a little sunny dream. I couldn't find a white suit – I had off-white corduroy trousers and a white jacket. Yoko had all white on."

     

Within the hour Lennon and Ono had reboarded their aeroplane and were en route back to the Parisian hotel, the Plaza Athénée, where they had stayed on 16 March.

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On Monday 24 March 1969, while on their honeymoon in Paris, John Lennon and Yoko Ono had lunch with the artist Salvador Dalí.

 

Also on this day, while filming The Magic Christian in New York, Ringo Starr told US reporters that The Beatles were unlikely to perform in public again, giving an early indication that the band's days were numbered.

Ringo : "People really have tried to typecast us. They think we are still little moptops, and we are not. I don't want to play in public again. I don't miss being a Beatle anymore. You can't get those days back. It's no good living in the past."

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On Tuesday 25 March 1969, having been driven from Paris to Amsterdam early in the morning, John Lennon and Yoko Ono checked into the Hilton Hotel, where they staged the first of two bed-ins for peace. The couple knew their wedding would receive extensive press coverage, and so decided to use the publicity to promote world peace. They stayed in the hotel's presidential suite, room 902, until 31 March 1969.

John : "The first bed-in was held in Amsterdam on our honeymoon. We sent out a card: 'Come to John and Yoko's honeymoon: a bed-in, Amsterdam Hotel.' You should have seen the faces on the reporters and the cameramen fighting their way through the door! Because whatever it is, is in people's minds – their minds were full of what they thought was going to happen. They fought their way in, and their faces dropped. There were we like two angels in bed, with flowers all around us, and peace and love on our heads. We were fully clothed; the bed was just an accessory. We were wearing pyjamas, but they don't look much different from day clothes – nothing showing."

The world's press were invited into the room between 9am and 9pm each day. Reporters were unsure of what to expect, and following the controversy surrounding the Two Virgins album cover some expected the couple to have sex before them.

John : "The press seemed to think we were going to make love in public because we made an album with us naked – so they seem to think anything goes. And, as I said, it might be a very good idea for peace, but I think I'd probably be the producer of that event rather than be actually in the event."

Instead the reporters found Lennon and Ono sitting in their bed, talking about peace and surrounded by signs stating 'Hair Peace' and 'Bed Peace'. The couple's interviews were reported in newspapers, radio, television, and newsreels worldwide. They received frequent hostility, bemusement and mirth from the rest of the world, but their peace message was nonetheless widely distributed.

The week-long event was filmed, and a colour 40-minute film, 'Honeymoon', was edited from the footage. The film was directed by Peter Goessens, and began with a montage of scenes shot around Amsterdam city intercut with footage of Lennon and Ono singing, followed by lengthy sequences of the couple asleep, waking up and reading the newspapers. It also included interview extracts, including one with the skeptical Daily Mirror journalist Donald Zec.

John : "We talked to the press. We met people from the Communist countries, people from the West – every country in the world. We gave the press eight hours of every day, every waking hour, to ask every question they wanted to about our position. People said, 'Well, what does this do for peace?' We thought, The other side has war on every day, not only on the news but on the old John Wayne movies and every damn movie you see: war, war, war, war, kill, kill, kill, kill.' We said, 'Let's get some peace, peace, peace, peace on the headlines, just for a change!' So we thought it highly amusing that a lot of the world's headlines on March 25th 1969 were 'honeymoon couple in bed'. Whoopee! Isn't that great news?

   

John : "We thought instead of just being 'John and Yoko Get Married', like 'Richard and Liz Get Married', [it should be] 'John and Yoko get married and have a bed-in for peace'. So we would sell our product, which we call 'peace'. And to sell a product you need a gimmick, and the gimmick we thought was 'bed'. And we thought 'bed' because bed was the easiest way of doing it, because we're lazy. It took us a long train of thought of how to get the maximum publicity for what we sincerely believed in, which was peace – and we were part of the peace movement."

After the bed-in came to an end, on Monday 31 March 1969, they flew to Vienna for a short trip. Lennon and Ono held a press conference from Vienna's Hotel Sacher. It received worldwide press coverage, as the couple spoke from within a large white bag, leaving reporters unable to see them. The reason for their Viennese trip was the world premiere of 'Rape', a 77-minute black-and-white documentary in which an unsuspecting young woman, Eva Majlata, was pursued through the streets of London by a cameraman, Nic Knowland.

John : "The best thing we did in a bag together was a press conference in Vienna. When they were showing Yoko's [film] Rape on Austrian TV – they commissioned us to make the film and then we went over to Vienna to see it. It was like a hotel press conference. We kept them out of the room. We came down the elevator in the bag and we went in and we got comfortable and they were all ushered in. It was a very strange scene because they'd never seen us before, or heard – Vienna is a pretty square place. A few people were saying, 'C'mon, get out of the bags.' And we wouldn't let 'em see us. They all stood back saying, 'Is it really John and Yoko?' and 'What are you wearing and why are you doing this?' We said, 'This is total communication with no prejudice.' It was just great. They asked us to sing and we sang a few numbers. Yoko was singing a Japanese folk song, very nicely, just very straight we did it. And they never did see us."

Lennon and Ono spent the night at the Hotel Sacher, where, looking just like two gurus in drag, they enjoyed the famous rich chocolate cake Sacher Torte. As with much of the couple's honeymoon, the events in Vienna were chronicled in 'The Ballad Of John And Yoko', which was recorded at EMI Studios in London the following month.

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On Tuesday 1 April 1969, the day they returned from their lightning trip to Vienna, John Lennon and Yoko Ono made an appearance on the Thames Television news show Today, hosted by Eamonn Andrews. The show was broadcast live from 6.04-6.30pm from Studio Four in Television House, Kingsway, London.

During the light-hearted interview Lennon and Ono discussed their recent wedding, honeymoon and bed-in. Lennon told Andrews they were "willing to be the world's clowns" for peace, and conducted the interview from inside a white bag to prove it. Andrews was invited to join the couple in a bag. A makeshift bed, with an 'Eamonn Peace" sign above it, was also assembled in the studio, and the three were photographed lying on it.

   

On Thursday 3 April 1969, two days after being interviewed by Eamonn Andrews for the Today programme, John Lennon and Yoko Ono made another television appeareance. The host was the same, but this time the programme was The Eamonn Andrews Show. It was filmed at the Café Royal restaurant on Regent Street, London for Thames Television, and broadcast live from 11-11.45pm. Lennon and Ono were joined by singer and entertainer Rolf Harris, US comedian Jack Benny, violinist Yehudi Menuhin and singer Gaynor Jones.

Derek Taylor : "There were people on the show and at the show who wondered what the hell John and Yoko thought they were doing in bed and who the hell they thought they were to do it and why the hell should any normal person put up with it and when would it stop and where it would lead us and how would it bring peace to the world. Jack Benny was on the show with John and Yoko and there was one very fine dramatic moment when he stood up and said, 'I wouldn't get involved in this row for a million dollars', all of this with that famous clasping of his hands which, in their splendid theatricality, almost, but only almost and not really, obscured Benny's real commitment which ran right down the line faithfully from Bob Hope, hopeless in his emigrant-patriot paranoia, solid with the forces of Light Freedom and Truth against the Red Hordes, wheeling in from the East in Chariots of flaming shit. Still, Jack Benny is Jack Benny. John said he didn't worry about Communism, later told a friend he would have said, better red than dead, but he had to think of the Beatles image! Communists, yet?"

The interview was somewhat combative, with Lennon feeling defensive against audience hostility towards the peace campaigns he and Ono had been conducting.

Lennon : "Well, everything we do is aimed at peace, you know. And we spent days trying to communicate through the communication media, press and TV , and to try and tell people, who are interested in protesting, to try and do something about it, instead of sitting at home talking about it. Everyone can give up one week of their holiday, which is what we did. It was an event, or it was a happening. It was just like a stage show."

Derek Taylor : "Yehudi Menuhin who is also there, pointed out that there were certain circumstances in which it was necessary to kill. John wondered what these circumstances might be. He wondered to himself if Yehudi Menuhin would be prepared to be killed right then and there if, as a result, world peace could be reached. He asked Yehudi if Jesus had said anything about certain circumstances when it was necessary to kill. Yehudi says that is not the point. John says 'What did Jesus say? Did he say anything about killing?' Yehudi coughs and says, 'No, Jesus didn't but he didn't say anything about staying in bed at the Hilton in Amsterdam.' It is then John's cue to say that nowhere in the New Testament (nor, for that matter, in the Old) is there anything about violins, but he doesn't say this because already the audience are applauding Yehudi Menuhin, the violinist, for his wit. It was a dumb daft nothing-solved evening on the Eamonn Andrews Show and it was not helped by the presence of a Rolf Harris who didn't want no boats rocked either."

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On Wednesday 9 April 1969, The Beatles took part in their penultimate photo session together. It took place in two locations, with three photographers taking pictures of the group. The first location was at the Madingley Club on Willoughby Road in East Twickenham in London, followed by more shots taken at number 4 Ducks Walk where they boarded a boat on the River Thames. The Beatles and the photographers took three vehicles to the location – John Lennon's Rolls-Royce, a white Mercedes and a Humber Snipe. The first photographs were taken with The Beatles leaning against the Rolls-Royce, with the Thames behind them.

   

A crowd soon gathered, and The Beatles obligingly signed autographs. Afterwards the group moved to the second location, where they were photographed climing into a rowing boat, the Fritz Otto Maria Anna. They rowed to a small island in the middle of the river, from which they waved to the camera on the river bank.

 

The Return of The Nerk Twins :

On Monday 14 April 1969, just three days after the release of the 'Get Back' single, John Lennon and Paul McCartney were back in the studio once again, for the recording of The Beatles' next single 'The Ballad Of John And Yoko'. George Harrison was looking for a new house to buy, and Ringo Starr was working on the set of the film The Magic Christian, so Lennon and McCartney were the only members of the group to perform on the song.

Ringo : "'The Ballad Of John And Yoko' only had Paul – of the other Beatles – on it but that was OK. 'Why Don't We Do It In The Road?' was just Paul and me, and it went out as a Beatle track too. We had no problems with that. There's good drums on 'The Ballad Of John And Yoko', too."

Although the recent Get Back/Let It Be sessions had been mostly unhappy, with The Beatles steadily unravelling as a unit, 'The Ballad Of John And Yoko' saw Lennon and McCartney collaborating as equals, showing a renewed enthusiasm for recording.

Paul : "John was in an impatient mood so I was happy to help. It's quite a good song; it has always surprised me how with just the two of us on it, it ended up sounding like The Beatles."

Under the working title "The Ballad Of John And Yoko (They're Gonna Crucify Me)", it was recorded in Abbey Road's Studio Three between 2.30pm and 9pm. Five of the 11 takes broke down because McCartney added an extra snare drum hit prior to the line "Made a lightning trip to Vienna", and the second take ended after Lennon broke a guitar string. The 11th take was recorded in a higher key – G instead of E. Lennon and McCartney then decided that take 10 was the best, and it became the basis of the final version.

The eight-track tape had Lennon's acoustic guitar on track two, McCartney's drums on three, and Lennon's vocals on four, all of which were recorded simultaneously. McCartney then overdubbed bass guitar onto track one, after which Lennon added two electric guitar parts onto tracks five and six. The second of these also featured McCartney's piano, recorded simultaneously. McCartney sang backing vocals onto track seven, and the pair added percussion onto track eight. This featured Lennon hitting the back of his guitar, and McCartney shaking a pair of maracas. It was then mixed for stereo, and was finished and ready for release by 11pm.

Following his reduced role in the Get Back/Let It Be sessions, 'The Ballad Of John And Yoko' was once again produced by George Martin, and engineered by Geoff Emerick, who had stopped working with The Beatles during the White Album sessions.

Geoff Emerick : "The Ballad Of John And Yoko was a very fast session. It was a really good record too, helped by Paul's great drumming and the speed in which they did it all."

   

According to George Martin, Yoko Ono was present in the studio, although she appears to have played no part in the recording.

George Martin : "I enjoyed working with John and Yoko on 'The Ballad Of John And Yoko'. It was just the two of them with Paul. When you think about it, in a funny kind of way it was the beginning of their own label, and their own way of recording. It was hardly a Beatle track. It was a kind of thin end of the wedge, as far as they were concerned. John had already mentally left the group anyway, and I think that was just the beginning of it all."

The success of the session may have contributed to the positivity that surrounded the recording of Abbey Road, which began shortly afterwards. It appears to have particularly helped ease relations between Lennon and McCartney, who at the time were locked in a legal battle over the management of the group.

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"Old Brown Shoe" was written by George Harrison in late 1968 on a piano rather than guitar, his main instrument. Before returning to England for Christmas, Harrison spent time with Bob Dylan and the Band in upstate New York. The visit allowed Harrison to experience a musical camaraderie that had been absent in the Beatles over much of 1968, and inspired him as he emerged as a prolific songwriter.

George : "I started the chord sequences on the piano, which I don't really play, and then began writing ideas for the words from various opposites: I want a love that's right / But right is only half of what's wrong. Again, it's the duality of things – yes-no, up-down, left-right, right-wrong, etc."

The Beatles rehearsed "Old Brown Shoe" several times over three days, beginning on 27 January 1969, during the Get Back project at Apple Studio in London. Harrison still played piano on the song and the lyrics were complete. The run-throughs on 28 January included contributions from guest keyboardist Billy Preston, who supplied fills on Hammond organ. The tapes from that day show John Lennon struggling with the guitar part. At this point, Starr had devised a drum pattern on the off-beat. The band gave considerable time to the song but chose not to record it for the album.

Harrison made a solo demo of the song at EMI Studios, featuring piano and vocal, and two overdubbed electric guitar parts.  The session took place on 25 February 1969, his 26th birthday, and also included solo recordings of "Something" and "All Things Must Pass".

   

The Beatles revisited "Old Brown Shoe" when they were in need of a B-side for their next single. The song's recording took place on 16 and 18 April 1969, during the early sessions for the band's Abbey Road album. The 16 April session was the first at EMI Studios for the full group since October the previous year, when they completed recording for their self-titled double album. The line-up on the basic track was Harrison on lead guitar, Lennon on rhythm guitar, McCartney on tack piano, and Starr on drums. Four takes were needed to achieve a satisfactory performance.

The unusual bass sound over the song's bridges was achieved by tracking the bass with the lead guitar, replicating the bass line that Harrison had played on his demo. In a 1987 interview for Creem magazine, Harrison recalled that he was the bass guitarist on the track, rather than McCartney. When the interviewer suggested that the bass part "sounds like McCartney was going nuts again", Harrison replied: "That was me going nuts. I'm doing [on the bass] exactly what I do on the guitar."

Harrison recorded his lead vocal in a corner of the studio, to capture a natural reverberation from the room. The backing vocals were sung by Lennon and McCartney. Also present during the vocal overdubs were the Aerovons, an American band who had based their sound and image on the Beatles, and had come to London to record at EMI. Tom Hartman, the Aerovons' singer and guitarist, recalled that the Beatles attempted the line "Who knows, baby, you may comfort me" countless times, trying to perfect their performance.
   
Harrison completed the recording alone on 18 April 1969. He first overdubbed a guitar solo, played on a Telecaster, with the sound fed through a Leslie speaker and given automatic double tracking treatment. Harrison then added a Hammond organ part, replacing Lennon's rhythm guitar contribution from the previous session. Although Chris Thomas supervised the 18 April overdubbing session, George Martin was credited as the song's sole producer.

In a 1980 interview, Lennon said that he was responsible for the choice of "Old Brown Shoe" as the B-side of "The Ballad of John and Yoko". It marked the second time that a Harrison composition had been included on a Beatles single in the UK or the US, following "The Inner Light" in March 1968, although his song "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" had also been the B-side of "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da", a single from the White Album issued in most countries other than the UK and the US.

In the US, Apple Records issued the record in a picture sleeve featuring shots of the four Beatles and Ono in the garden of McCartney's London home. On the reverse side of the sleeve, the photo included a dark brown shoe placed in a bush in front of the five figures.

 

The Single :

"The Ballad of John and Yoko" was written by John Lennon and credited to the Lennon–McCartney partnership, and chronicles the events surrounding the wedding of Lennon and Yoko Ono.



Lennon wrote the song while he and Ono were on their honeymoon in Paris near France. It describes the events of the couple's wedding, in March 1969, and highly publicised honeymoon activities, including their "Bed-In" at the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel and their demonstration of "bagism". In an interview with Alan Smith of the NME published in May 1969, Lennon described it as "Johnny B. Paperback Writer".

Lennon took the song to Paul McCartney at the latter's home in St John's Wood, London, on 14 April 1969, eager to record it that evening. Recalling the controversy engendered by Lennon's "more popular than Jesus" remarks in 1966, McCartney was alarmed at the references to Christ in the new song but agreed to assist Lennon.

Yoko Ono : "Paul knew that people were being nasty to John, and he just wanted to make it well for him. Paul has a very brotherly side to him."

Lennon and McCartney recorded the song without their bandmates George Harrison, who was abroad, and Ringo Starr, who was filming The Magic Christian. McCartney recalled that Lennon was so convinced the song had to be recorded immediately, he was "on heat, so to speak". Reflecting the unusual situation, the session tapes include the following exchange:

    Lennon (on guitar): "Go a bit faster, Ringo."
    McCartney (on drums): "OK, George!"

In choosing to collaborate on the song, Lennon and McCartney set aside the antagonism that existed between them during a period when McCartney was outvoted in the Beatles' choice of a new manager for their failing business enterprise, Apple Corps. The recording also marked the return of Geoff Emerick as recording engineer at a Beatles session, after he had quit working with the group in July 1968 during the tense White Album sessions.

George : "I didn't mind not being on the record, because it was none of my business ... If it had been 'The Ballad of John, George and Yoko', then I would have been on it."

In the UK and Europe, "The Ballad of John and Yoko" was the first Beatles single to be issued in stereo. It was therefore their first release not given a mono mix. Lennon advised Tony Bramwell, Apple Records' promotions manager, to limit pre-release previews of the record and not to give it any advance publicity, especially with regard to "the Christ! bit". In his NME interview at this time, Lennon said that although the story had already emerged that Harrison and Starr did not play on the song, he would not have chosen to publicise this, adding, "It doesn't mean anything, it just so happened that there were only us two there."

   

Although Lennon was impatient to issue the single, its release was delayed to allow for the Beatles' April 1969 single, "Get Back".
Backed with Harrison's "Old Brown Shoe", the single was issued in the United Kingdom on 30 May 1969. Lennon and Ono were performing a second bed-in at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal at the time. The United States release followed on 4 June 1969.

The single was accompanied by two promotional clips assembled from footage of some of Lennon and Ono's public activities – all of which the couple routinely filmed – between July 1968 and April 1969. The first clip was broadcast three times on Top of the Pops and contains footage from four events. When shown on the Australian TV show Rage long afterwards, in black and white, this version had the word "Christ" bleeped out in the choruses with an on-screen starburst effect. In the second film, broadcast on the US show The Music Scene, a traffic sign containing an exclamation mark appears each time the word is heard.

In his review of the single in the NME, John Wells said he found "The Ballad of John and Yoko" profoundly moving as an account of people's attitude towards Lennon and Ono, and only the "raw, earthy rock" backing stopped him succumbing to tears. He described it as a "stormer" but predicted that the record's sales would be affected by "Get Back"'s ongoing chart success.

     

The single became the Beatles' 17th and final UK number 1. In the US, it peaked at number 8 on the Billboard Hot 100. Several US radio stations declined to broadcast the song because of the use of the words "Christ" and "crucify" in the chorus. The word "Christ" was bleeped out for radio airplay in Australia.

Other Versions include : The California Poppy Pickers (1969)  /  "A Balada de John e Yoko" by The Fevers (1969)  /  The Percy Faith Strings (1970)  /  "Balada de John e Yoko" by Titãs (1984)  /  "Guldkanten" by Smaklösa (1985)  /  Teenage Fanclub (1990)  /  Hootie & The Blowfish (1995)  /  "Ballad of Jesus & Yahweh" by ApologetiX (2001)  /  The Persuasions (2002)  /  Danny McEvoy (2010)  /  Widespread Panic (2012)  /  Amy Slattery (2018)  /  Colt Clark and the Quarantine Kids (2021)  /  a robot (2021)

On This Day  :

8 June : General Franco closes Spain's frontier with Gibraltar
8 June : Nixon says 25,000 US troops would leave Vietnam by end of August
9 June : Brian Jones leaves the Rolling Stones after developing a serious drug problem
13 June : Mick Taylor leaves John Mayall Band and joins The Rolling Stones
14 June : John Lennon and Yoko Ono appear on David Frost's British TV Show
14 June : Steffi Graf, German tennis player, born Stefanie Maria Graf in Mannheim, Germany
15 June : Ice Cube, American rapper and actor, born O'Shea Jackson in Los Angeles, California
17 June : "Oh! Calcutta!" opens in NYC almost entirely in the nude [wahey!!]
20 June : 200,000 attend Newport '69', then largest-ever pop concert in Northridge, California.
20 June : Georges Pompidou sworn in as President of France
21 June : Dmitri Shostakovich's 14th Symphony premieres in Moscow
22 June : Judy Garland, American singer and actress, dies at 47 of an overdose
23 June : Joe Frazier knocks out Jerry Quarry in 8 rounds to win heavyweight boxing title
26 June : Colin Greenwood, bass guitarist (Radiohead), born Colin Charles Greenwood in Oxford, England
27 June : 50,000 attend Denver Pop Festival

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Previously :
147b. Please Please Me
151.   From Me To You
157.   She Loves You
160.   I Want To Hold Your Hand / This Boy / Rattle Your Jewelry
166.   Can't Buy Me Love
174.   A Hard Day's Night
183.   I Feel Fine / part 2
193.   Ticket To Ride
200.   Help!
207.   Day Tripper  /  We Can Work It Out  /  Rubber Soul
217.   Paperback Writer  /  Rain & Revolver Part 1
222.   Yellow Submarine  /  Revolver - Part 2  /  Eleanor Rigby
230b. Strawberry Fields Forever   /  Penny Lane  /  Sgt Pepper part 1
235.   All You Need Is Love  /  Sgt Pepper part 2  /  Sgt Pepper part 3
241.   Hello, Goodbye  /  I Am The Walrus
241b. Magical Mystery Tour (Double EP)
247.   Lady Madonna  /  Mad Days Out  /  White Album part 1
258.   Hey Jude + White album 2  /  Revolution + White album 3  /  White album 4
270.   Get Back + Twickenham  /  Part 2 : George Quits /  Part 3 : Rooftop Concert  /  Part 4 : Get Back LP
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[daf]

The Ballad of John and Yoko - Part 2



The Long One :

The Beatles first played "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" between 28 and 31 January 1969, in the basement studio at their Apple HQ at 3 Savile Row, London. These were the final four days of the Get Back/Let It Be sessions. Billy Preston was accompanying the band at this time. During one performance on 29 January, Preston sang in one of the verses – in an echo of Dr Martin Luther King Jr's "I have a dream" speech – "Black or white, we all deserve equal rights. I had a good dream, a very good dream..."

   

The Abbey Road recording of 'I Want You (She's So Heavy)' was begun at Trident Studios in London's Wardour Street on 22 February 1969. The Beatles taped 35 takes of the basic rhythm track, many of them incomplete. On 24 February 1969 a session at Trident saw overdubs of two piano parts, tambourine, additional guitars, and backwards cymbal. These were all unused on the final recording. Coming in at just under eight minutes, the song contains some of John Lennon's simplest lyrics since the days of 'Love Me Do'. A direct outpouring of his all-consuming love for Yoko Ono, the song contains just 14 different words.

John : "A reviewer wrote of 'She's So Heavy': 'He seems to have lost his talent for lyrics, it's so simple and boring.' 'She's So Heavy' was about Yoko. When it gets down to it, like she said, when you're drowning you don't say 'I would be incredibly pleased if someone would have the foresight to notice me drowning and come and help me,' you just scream. And in 'She's So Heavy' I just sang 'I want you, I want you so bad, she's so heavy, I want you,' like that."

The obsessiveness of the lyrics is reflected in the repetitiveness of the music. The song contains the same phrases played over a number of rhythmic, tempo and time signature variations. Most remarkable, however, is the grinding three-minute finale, featuring Lennon's and George Harrison's massed overdubbed guitars multitracked many times over the same relentless chord pattern.

[engineer] Jeff Jarratt : "John and George went into the far left-hand corner of [studio] number two to overdub those guitars. They wanted a massive sound so they kept tracking and tracking, over and over."

George : "It's very heavy. John plays lead guitar and sings the same as he plays. It's really basically a bit like a blues. The riff that he sings and plays is really a very basic blues-type thing. But again, it's very original sort of John-type song."

 

On 20 April 1969 a Hammond organ part was added by Billy Preston, as were congas played by Starr. Lennon added a Moog synthesiser part, plus the white noise heard during the finale, and Starr added more drums. On 11 August, Lennon, McCartney and Harrison recorded their repeated "She's so heavy" harmony vocals, recorded twice to give the effect of six voices. The final version – including the distinctive cut-off ending – was made on 20 August 1969 , when mixes from 18 April and 8 August were edited together.

[engineer] Alan Parsons : "We were putting the final touches to that side of the LP and we were listening to the mix. John said 'There! Cut the tape there'. Geoff [Emerick] cut the tape and that was it. End of side one!"

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"Oh! Darling" was a retro-style rocker written by Paul McCartney. Having been some years since he deployed the larynx-shredding rock 'n' roll stylings of 'I'm Down' and 'Long Tall Sally', McCartney broke his voice back in carefully. The Beatles first rehearsed 'Oh! Darling' on 27 January 1969, during a session at the Apple Studio in London's Savile Row. With Billy Preston on keyboards, the somewhat ragged recording turns into an improvised jam, ending with John Lennon's announcement that "I've just heard that Yoko's divorce has just gone through. Free at last!"

On Sunday 20 April 1969 The Beatles began recording the song properly at EMI Studios under the working title 'Oh Darling (I'll Never Do You No Harm)'. They recorded 26 takes of the rhythm track, the last of which was chosen as the basis for the album version. The eight-track tape had George Harrison's bass guitar on track one; Ringo Starr's drums on two; Billy Preston's organ on three; Paul McCartney's piano on four; John Lennon's guitar on five; and McCartney's guide vocals on six.

On 26 April 1969 McCartney made his first attempt at a lead vocal, though this was unused, as were two takes of backing vocals. Living in Cavendish Avenue, just two streets away from Abbey Road, McCartney got in the habit of arriving before the other Beatles to record his vocals for the song.

 

Alan Parsons : "Paul came in several days running to do the lead vocal on 'Oh! Darling'. He'd come in, sing it and say, 'No, that's not it, I'll try it again tomorrow.' He only tried it once per day, I suppose he wanted to capture a certain rawness which could only be done once before the voice changed. I remember him saying, 'Five years ago I could have done this in a flash,' referring, I suppose, to the days of 'Long Tall Sally' and 'Kansas City'."

McCartney thought his voice was too clear to do the song justice, and claimed he "wanted it to sound as though I'd been performing it on stage all week".

Paul : "I mainly remember wanting to get the vocal right, wanting to get it good, and I ended up trying each morning as I came into the recording session. I tried it with a hand mike, and I tried it with a standing mike, I tried it every which way, and finally got the vocal I was reasonably happy with. It's a bit of a belter, and if it comes off a little bit lukewarm, then you've missed the whole point. It was unusual for me, I would normally try all the goes at a vocal in one day."

John Lennon rated the song highly, though he was characteristically guarded in his praise.

John : "'Oh! Darling' was a great one of Paul's that he didn't sing too well. I always thought that I could've done it better – it was more my style than his. He wrote it, so what the hell, he's going to sing it. If he'd had any sense, he should have let me sing it."

McCartney returned to the song on 17 July, beginning a series of single-take attempts in the early afternoon. The final lead vocals were recorded on Wednesday 23 July 1969. The three-part doo-wop vocal harmonies were taped by McCartney, Lennon and Harrison on 11 August 1969, which was Lennon's final Beatles recording session, after which 'Oh! Darling' was complete.

 

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"Octopus's Garden", Ringo Starr's second composition for The Beatles, was written in Sardinia. On 22 August 1968 he temporarily walked out of sessions for the White Album after becoming disenchanted with the increasing tensions within the group. He took his family abroad for a boating holiday, returning to Abbey Road on 5 September 1968.

Ringo : "I wrote 'Octopus's Garden' in Sardinia. Peter Sellers had lent us his yacht and we went out for the day... I stayed out on deck with [the captain] and we talked about octopuses. He told me that they hang out in their caves and they go around the seabed finding shiny stones and tin cans and bottles to put in front of their cave like a garden. I thought this was fabulous, because at the time I just wanted to be under the sea too. A couple of tokes later with the guitar – and we had 'Octopus's Garden'!"

The song was first worked on by Starr and George Harrison during the Get Back/Let It Be sessions in January 1969; perhaps Harrison felt a sense of solidarity after feeling that his own compositions were being dismissed as second-rate by John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

George : "'Octopus's Garden' is Ringo's song. It's only the second song Ringo wrote, and it's lovely. Ringo gets bored playing the drums, and at home he plays a bit of piano, but he only knows about three chords. He knows about the same on guitar. I think it's a really great song, because on the surface, it just like a daft kids' song, but the lyrics are great. For me, you know, I find very deep meaning in the lyrics, which Ringo probably doesn't see, but all the thing like 'resting our head on the sea bed' and 'We'll be warm beneath the storm' which is really great, you know. Because it's like this level is a storm, and if you get sort of deep in your consciousness, it's very peaceful. So Ringo's writing his cosmic songs without noticing."

In early 1969, while filming The Magic Christian, Starr was interviewed by the New Musical Express. In the article, which was published in March, the reporter noted that "current Beatle work involves the completion of their next LP and among several tracks so far recorded is one by Ringo titled 'In An Octopus's Garden (Or I Would Like To Live Up A Tree)'". The Beatles had not, at this stage, begun recording the song, although it was known to the group from the January 1969 sessions.

   

On Saturday 26 April 1969 The Beatles began recording the song properly. Take Two of the song, including Starr's guide vocal, was included on Anthology 3. The arrangement was in place early on, including the opening guitar runs played by Harrison, suggesting that it was well-rehearsed prior to recording. The eight-track tape had Paul McCartney's bass guitar on track one; Starr's drums on two; Harrison's lead guitar on three; John Lennon's finger-picked rhythm guitar on four; and Starr's guide vocals on eight. Take Nine from this first session was released in 2019 on some formats of the 50th anniversary reissue of Abbey Road.

On Tuesday 29 April 1969, Starr overdubbed his lead vocals, though these were later re-recorded, and McCartney added a piano part during the bridges. The song was then left until 17 July, when McCartney added a bass part, he and Harrison contributed backing vocals, and various sound effects were added – including the sound of Starr blowing bubbles into a glass of water. The song was completed the following day, Friday 18 July 1969, when Starr finally recorded his lead vocals. On that date, from 8-10.30pm, 'Octopus's Garden' was mixed in stereo in the control room of Studio Two. Seven mono mixes were also made, for unknown purposes, as Abbey Road was never considered for mono release. 'Octopus's Garden' was the only song on the album to be mixed in mono.

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The Beatles began recording "You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)" on 17 May 1967. The multi-part song consists of five separate parts. The first was the most conventional, consisting of the song's title chanted by Lennon and McCartney, with a prominent piano backing. Part two, which was later edited out at Lennon's behest, repeated the mantra to a ska backing. This was restored in 1996 in a new stereo mix prepared for Anthology 2.

The third part was the nightclub section, introduced by Lennon with the words, "Good evening and welcome to Slaggers. Featuring Dennis O'Bell". O'Bell was a fictional lounge singer character played by McCartney. The name was similar to film producer Dennis O'Dell, who had worked on A Hard Day's Night and with Lennon on How I Won The War. O'Dell later produced Magical Mystery Tour and became the head of Apple Films. Following the song's release in 1970, he received a spate of phone calls from Beatles fans who took the song's invitation literally.

Dennis O'Dell : "There were so many of them my wife started going out of her mind. Neither of us knew why this was suddenly happening. Then I happened to be in one Sunday and picked up the phone myself. It was someone on LSD calling from a candle-making factory in Philadelphia and they just kept saying, 'We know your name and now we've got your number'. It was only through talking to the person that I established what it was all about. Then Ringo, who I'd worked with on the film The Magic Christian, played me the track and I realised why I'd been getting all these mysterious phone calls."

 

The song's fourth part – actually recorded as part five, as the sections were later edited in a different order – was a Monty Pythonesque swing version, containing cuckoo sounds, harmonica, bongos, piano, other effects from the Abbey Road collection, and some supremely silly voices. The final section was another piano-led jazz version, with a vibraphone part and a series of incomprehensible vocal mutterings. It also featured a saxophone solo performed by The Rolling Stones' Brian Jones, whom McCartney invited to the session.

Paul : "He arrived at Abbey Road in his big Afghan coat. He was always nervous, a little insecure, and he was really nervous that night because he's walking in on a Beatles session. He was nervous to the point of shaking, lighting ciggy after ciggy. I used to like Brian a lot. I thought it would be a fun idea to have him, and I naturally thought he'd bring a guitar along to a Beatles session and maybe chung along and do some nice rhythm guitar or a little bit of electric twelve-string or something, but to our surprise he brought his saxophone. He opened up his sax case and started putting a reed in and warming up, playing a little bit. He was a really ropey sax player, so I thought, Ah-hah. We've got just the tune."

They returned to take nine of the song on 7 June 1967, adding a number of overdubs. They then recorded five takes lasting a total of 20 minutes. The instrumentation was flute, electric guitar, drums, organ and tambourine, and the music was little more than an unstructured jam. Part two was recorded on the following evening, and was completed in 12 takes. Four attempts at part three followed; six of part four; and finally a single take of part five. This was the session which Brian Jones attended. The song was edited on 9 June 1967, and rough mono mixes were made.

The song was then left dormant until Wednesday 30 April 1969, when John Lennon and Paul McCartney oversaw the addition of all the vocals and more sound effects.

[engineer] Nick Webb : "John and Paul weren't always getting on that well at this time, but for that song they went onto the studio floor and sang together around one microphone. Even at that time I was thinking, 'What are they doing with this old four-track tape, recording these funny bits onto this quaint song?' But it was a fun track to do."

Among the sound effects were handclaps, bizarre voices, and The Beatles' assistant Mal Evans running a spade through gravel.

Paul : "We had these endless, crazy fun sessions. And eventually we pulled it all together... and we just did a skit, Mal and his gravel. I can still see Mal digging the gravel. And it was just so hilarious to put that record together. It's not a great melody or anything, it's just unique."

On 26 November 1969 John Lennon edited the song from 6'08" to 4'19", with the intention of releasing it as a Plastic Ono Band single, with 'What's The New Mary Jane' on the b-side. The idea was vetoed by the other Beatles, and 'You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)' eventually saw light of day in March 1970 as the b-side to 'Let It Be'.

   

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"Something" was written by George Harrison during the 1968 sessions for The Beatles (White Album), though it wasn't finished until the following year.

George : "I had written 'Something' on the piano during the recording of the White Album. There was a period during that album when we were all in different studios doing different things trying to get it finished, and I used to take some time out. So I went into an empty studio and wrote 'Something'."

A demo version of 'Something', recorded by Harrison on 25 February 1969, his 26th birthday. Harrison's former wife Pattie Boyd claimed the song was written about her. Harrison downplayed the sentiment, saying it was, in fact, written with Ray Charles in mind.

George : "It has probably got a range of five notes, which fits most singers' needs best. When I wrote it, in my mind I heard Ray Charles singing it, and he did do it some years later. At the time I wasn't particularly thrilled that Frank Sinatra did 'Something'. I'm more thrilled now than I was then. I wasn't really into Frank – he was the generation before me. I was more interested when Smokey Robinson did it and when James Brown did it. But I'm very pleased now, whoever's done it. I realise that the sign of a good song is when it has lots of cover versions. I met Michael Jackson somewhere at the BBC. The fellow interviewing us made a comment about 'Something', and Michael said: 'Oh, you wrote that? I thought it was a Lennon/McCartney'."

The Beatles began recording 'Something' again on Wednesday 16 April 1969, at EMI's Studio Two. Ringo Starr was unavailable due to recording commitments for The Magic Christian. The Beatles taped 13 instrumental takes in this initial session, with Harrison on rhythm guitar, Paul McCartney on drums, Lennon on bass guitar, and George Martin on piano.

The song took its first line from the James Taylor song 'Something In The Way She Moves'.

George : "I could never think of words for it. And also because there was a James Taylor song called 'Something In The Way She Moves' which is the first line of that. And so then I thought of trying to change the words, but they were the words that came when I first wrote it, so in the end I just left it as that, and just called it 'Something'."

 

Geoff Emerick : "George had a smugness on his face when he came in with this one, and rightly so – he knew it was absolutely brilliant. And for the first time, John and Paul knew that George had risen to their level."

Although originally offered to Jackie Lomax, the guitar-and-vocals demo was given to Joe Cocker. Cocker's version was recorded before The Beatles', but not released until November 1969. John Lennon and Paul McCartney both rated the song highly.

John : "I think that's about the best track on the album, actually."

Geoff Emerick : "Paul started playing a bass line that was a little elaborate, and George told him, 'No, I want it simple.' Paul complied. There wasn't any disagreement about it, but I did think that such a thing would never happened in years past. George telling Paul how to play the bass? Unthinkable! But this was George's baby, and everybody knew it was an instant classic."

Paul : "I thought it was George's greatest track – with 'Here Comes The Sun' and 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps'. They were possibly his best three. Until then he had only done one or two songs per album. I don't think he thought of himself very much as a songwriter, and John and I obviously would dominate – again, not really meaning to, but we were 'Lennon and McCartney'. So when an album comes up, Lennon and McCartney go and write some stuff – and maybe it wasn't easy for him to get into that wedge. But he finally came up with 'Something' and a couple of other songs that were great, and I think everyone was very pleased for him. There was no jealousy. In fact, I think Frank Sinatra used to introduce 'Something' as his favourite Lennon/McCartney song. Thanks Frank."

 

A re-make of 'Something' was begun on Friday 2 May 1969, with Starr back on drums. From take nine onwards, a second output from Harrison's guitar amplifier was fed through a Leslie speaker. On takes 27-36, at the song's close, Lennon led the band into a jam. This four-chord sequence in 6/8 time was later re-recorded faster by Lennon as the basis for the song 'Remember', which appeared on his 1970 album Plastic Ono Band. The tape machines were switched off after a few seconds of these jams, apart from on the final attempt, Take 36. The additional playing extended the song's running time by nearly five minutes, to a running time of 7:48.

On Monday 5 May 1969, at Olympic Sound Studios, McCartney overdubbed another bass part, and Harrison taped his guitar solo. An organ part by Billy Preston was also added at an unknown date. 'Something' was then left until Friday 11 July 1969, when Harrison recorded his lead vocal, and the song was edited down to 5'32'. Handclaps and McCartney's backing vocals were added on 16 July. Recording was finally finished almost a month later, on 15 August, when the strings were overdubbed. 'Something' was completed on Tuesday 19 August 1969, when the extended instrumental jam was finally edited from the end.

Initially released on the Abbey Road album, the song was subsequently issued in the US and UK as a double A-side single, along with 'Come Together', on 31 October 1969. In the UK it was the only time that a single was taken from an already-released Beatles album; previously they had either released songs ahead of their albums, or on the same day.

George Martin : "'Something' was George's first single, released in October. It was a great song, and frankly I was surprised that George had it in him."

The promotional film for "Something" was shot in late October 1969, not long after Lennon privately announced that he was leaving the band. By this time, the band members had grown apart. As a result, the film consisted of separate clips, edited together, featuring the Beatles walking around the grounds of their homes with their respective wives.

     

Time magazine declared "Something" to be the best track on Abbey Road, while John Mendelsohn wrote in Rolling Stone: "George's vocal, containing less adenoids and more grainy Paul tunefulness than ever before, is one of many highlights on his 'Something,' some of the others being more excellent drum work, a dead catchy guitar line, perfectly subdued strings, and an unusually nice melody. Both his and Joe Cocker's version will suffice nicely until Ray Charles gets around to it."

Writing in Saturday Review magazine, Ellen Sander described "Something" as "certainly one of the most beautiful songs George Harrison has ever written" and added: "He feels his way through the song, instinctively cutting through its body and into the core, emoting so clearly and so gracefully that at the moment he peals 'I don't know, I don't know,' it is shown that even what is not known can be understood."

In his review of the single, Derek Johnson of the NME lauded the track as "a real quality hunk of pop" with a "strident lead guitar which exudes a mean and moody quality". Johnson stated his regret that Harrison "isn't featured more regularly as a singer", and concluded of "Something": "It's a song that grows on you, and mark my words, it will – in a big way!"

As guest singles reviewer for Melody Maker, Keef Hartley said it was "probably the best track" on Abbey Road, adding: "What I was waiting for was that guitar solo because George Harrison is just about the only guitar player I know of who can plan a solo so it doesn't sound as though it is planned."

'Something' peaked at number four in the UK. In America it fared better, topping the Billboard chart for a week. It also marked the first time a George Harrison song was the A-side of a Beatles single.

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On Sunday 4 May 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono bought their first home together, Tittenhurst Park in Ascot, Berkshire. The mansion was located on a 72-acre estate on London Road in Sunningdale, Ascot. Lennon and Ono bought it for £145,000 from Peter Cadbury, an entrepreneur and the son of Sir Egbert Cadbury, inventor of the Cadbury Creme Egg.

Lennon and Ono didn't move into Tittenhurst Park until 11 August 1969. They spent twice the purchase price on renovations, including the creation of a lake, without planning permission, which they could see from their bedroom window. The couple moved to the United States in August 1971. On 18 September 1973 they sold Tittenhurst Park to Ringo Starr, who renamed the recording facilities Startling Studios.



Later that evening, a party to celebrate the completion of principal photography for The Magic Christian was held. Ringo Starr appeared in the film, co-starring alongside Peter Sellers. The party took place at the London nightclub Les Ambassadeurs. Other guests included John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and actors Richard Harris, Sean Connery, Stanley Baker, George Peppard, Roger Moore and Christopher Lee.

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"You Never Give Me Your Money" was a lament about The Beatles' business wranglings of early 1969. The song is made up of a number of disparate parts. In McCartney's 1969 notebook three separate titles were listed: 'You Never Give Me Your Money'  |  'Out Of College'  |  and 'One Sweet Dream'. The first part was written in New York City in late March or early April 1969. It begins with a thinly-veiled protest at the influence of ruthless bastard Allen Klein, whom McCartney profoundly distrusted.

Paul : "This was me directly lambasting Allen Klein's attitude to us: no money, just funny paper, all promises and it never works out. It's basically a song about no faith in the person, that found its way into the medley on Abbey Road. John saw the humour in it."

George : "'Funny paper' – that's what we get. We get bits of paper saying how much is earned and what this is and that is, but we never actually get it in pounds, shilling and pence. We've all got a big house and a car and an office, but to actually get the money we've earned seems impossible."

The second part – "Out of college, money spent..." – is a fondly nostalgic look back to The Beatles' earliest days, with a boogie-woogie backing led by McCartney on piano. Wistfully recalling the days when the group yearned to be "toppermost of the poppermost", having left college with no money and few job prospects, it describes "that magic feeling: nowhere to go." In his notebook containing the original lyrics, McCartney wrote "knowwhere to go" with the k crossed out, indicating that he was considering the phrase "know where to go" instead.

A lengthy guitar solo acts as a bridge to the penultimate part of the song ("One sweet dream, pick up the bags and get in the limousine"). This section was written while McCartney was in New York with his wife Linda, and referred to their fondness for getting purposefully lost in the countryside.

John : "That's Paul. Well, that's not a song, you know. Abbey Road was really unfinished songs all stuck together. Everybody praises the album so much, but none of the songs had anything to do with each other, no thread at all, only the fact that we stuck them together."

 

The Beatles began recording 'You Never Give Me Your Money' on Tuesday 6 May 1969. They laid down 36 takes of the song, which at this point ended abruptly immediately before the "One two three four five six seven" refrain. McCartney alone returned to it on 1 July, overdubbing his lead vocals onto take 30. It was left again until 11 July, when he added a bass guitar part, which was recorded onto track seven of the tape. Four days later, on 15 July, he added more vocals to track five, joined by Starr on tambourine. McCartney also overdubbed tubular bells onto track eight, and manually double-tracked his second-verse lead vocals on track one.

On Wednesday 30 July 1969 six reduction mixes of the song were made. These were numbered 37-42, and take 40 was considered the best. Additional vocals and tambourine were added to it, although the mix and overdubs were later discarded. On that date The Beatles also prepared a rough mix of The Long One. They tried various ways to merge 'You Never Give Me Your Money' into 'Sun King', and at this point settled upon a long organ note.

McCartney completed the song the next day with the addition of bass guitar and honky-tonk piano. These were added onto take 30 of the original eight-track tape. The crossfade into 'Sun King', meanwhile, was finally settled on 5 August, when he assembled a collection of tape loops containing the sounds of bells, birds, bubbles and insects.

Zapple :

On Friday 9 May 1969, The Beatles' experimental label Zapple Records was launched with the UK release of two albums: George Harrison's Electronic Sound and John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Unfinished Music No 2: Life With The Lions. Zapple was created to release experimental solo albums by The Beatles, along with spoken word and avant-garde recordings from other artists. The Apple subsidiary was run by Barry Miles, a friend of Paul McCartney.

Electronic Sound was Harrison's second solo release, following November 1968's Wonderwall Music. Issued as Zapple 02, it contained two tracks, with one on each side: 'Under The Mersey Wall' and 'No Time Or Space'.

       

Acetate copies of a third Zapple album – a spoken word release by the writer Richard Brautigan which was to have been Zapple 3 – were pressed.

George : "See, we conceived of an offshoot of Apple Records that would be arty music that wouldn't normally gain an outlet, a series where people could talk or read their work, as with the Brautigan thing. The intention was to get Lenny Bruce and all these kinds of people. But as with so many other things at Apple, it seized up before it really got going. Both of the albums that did come out are a load of rubbish, yet they're interesting from a collector's point of view. The theory was, we wanted to let serendipity take hold."

There were also plans to release spoken word albums by Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Michael McClure, as well as a recording of a UK appearance by comedian Lenny Bruce, but these never came to fruition. Zapple lasted until June 1969, when the label was closed by notorious breadhead Allen Klein.

Barry Miles : "The Zapple label was folded by Klein before the record could be released. The first two Zapple records did come out. We just didn't have [Brautigan's record] ready in time before Klein closed it down. None of the Beatles ever heard it."

   

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Friday 9 May 1969 was the second stereo mixing session for the insertion of speech and song snippets into Glyn Johns' unreleased Get Back album. The session was attended by all four Beatles. It took place at Olympic Sound Studios in Barnes, London, and lasted from 3-11pm.

Towards the end of the day a playback of the completed songs was held in the studio. However, the session dissolved into animosity when an argument broke out over the appointment of Allen Klein as Apple's financial manager. Klein was present at the studio on this occasion. John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr wanted Paul McCartney to sign a contract to officially appoint Klein. The three had signed the previous day, but McCartney wanted to hold out. Klein claimed that he needed to report the following day, a Saturday, to his company ABKCO's board of directors in New York, and needed all four signatures on the contract.

Paul : "I remember being at Olympic Studios one evening when I think we were supposed to be doing something on Abbey Road. We all showed up, ready to record, and Allen Klein showed up too. The other three said, You've got to sign a contract – he's got to take it to his board.' I said, 'It's Friday night. He doesn't work on a Saturday, and anyway Allen Klein is a law unto himself. He hasn't got a board he has to report to. Don't worry – we could easily do this on Monday. Let's do our session instead. You're not going to push me into this.' They said, 'Oh, are you stalling? He wants 20%.' I said, 'Tell him he can have 15%.' They said: 'You're stalling.' I replied, 'No, I'm working for us; we're a big act.' I remember the exact words: 'We're a big act – The Beatles. He'll take 15%.' But for some strange reason (I think they were so intoxicated with him) they said, 'No, he's got to have 20%, and he's got to report to his board. You've got to sign now or never.' So I said, 'Right, that's it. I'm not signing now.'"

The Beatles' session fell apart when Lennon, Harrison, Starr and Klein walked out, with McCartney remaining behind at Olympic. By chance he encountered Steve Miller, who had arrived for a recording session, and the pair worked together on a song aptly titled My Dark Hour. Glyn Johns had been producing an album for The Steve Miller Band. On this occasion Miller turned up at the studio alone, and McCartney found him a sympathetic listener.

Paul : "Steve Miller happened to be there recording, late at night, and he just breezed in. 'Hey, what's happening, man? Can I use the studio?' 'Yeah!' I said. 'Can I drum for you? I just had a fucking unholy argument with the guys there.' I explained it to him, took ten minutes to get it off my chest. "

 

Paul : "So I did a track, he and I stayed that night and did a track of his called My Dark Hour. I thrashed everything out on the drums. There's a surfeit of aggressive drum fills, that's all I can say about that. We stayed up until late. I played bass, guitar and drums and sang backing vocals. It's actually a pretty good track. I had to do something, thrash something, to get it out of my system."

McCartney recorded drums, bass guitar, backing vocals and guitar to the track. Miller sang and performed all the other instruments. My Dark Hour appeared on Miller's 1969 album Brave New World, and was released as a single in the US on 16 June, though it failed to chart. McCartney didn't receive a composer credit, but his performance was attributed to Paul Ramon, the pseudonym he had used in 1960 while on a tour of Scotland with The Silver Beetles.

Paul : "It was a very strange time in my life and I swear I got my first grey hairs that month. I saw them appearing. I looked in the mirror, I thought, I can see you. You're all coming now. Welcome."

[daf]

The Ballad of John and Yoko - Part 3

   

Give Peace A Chance :

Following their seven-day bed-in for peace at the Amsterdam Hilton in March 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono held a second, similar event in Montreal. Initially they had planned to hold it in New York, but Lennon wasn't allowed into the country due to his conviction for cannabis possession the previous year. They flew instead to the Bahamas, but found it was further from the United States than they had realised, and so the world press were less likely to cover the event.

Derek Taylor : "The first destination for the bed-in had been Freeport in the Bahamas, where Allen Klein's nephew had spent his honeymoon in a horrible hotel with twin beds cemented to the floor with a big block of concrete between them painted white. John looked around and said, 'We can't do a bloody bed-in here. Let's go to Canada. That's the nearest place to America apart from the Bahamas.'"

Lennon and Ono flew instead to Toronto, where they spent the night in a motel. In the morning of Monday 26 May 1969, they checked in to the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal. They took corner suite rooms 1738, 1740 and 1742 and began their second bed-in for peace.

Derek Taylor : "They had the bed-in for eight days. Hundreds of people came to the bedside. The questions were dealt with by John and Yoko in the full spirit of Apple, because they made themselves completely available to anybody on earth who wanted to come into the bedroom – provided they were not obviously carrying a blood-stained axe. People could come in and ask them questions. Maybe they came in thousands, it felt like it. I was sort of controlling a big People Theatre. There is some footage of that time in which you see quite a packed room. Over a period of ten days you could process a great many people through a hotel suite, and they were doing broadcasts to the world on speaker-phones and hook-ups. It was before satellites."

During their stay at the Queen Elizabeth they gave a series of interviews. The couple, along with Ono's five-year-old daughter Kyoko, were joined by various guests including American cartoonist Al Capp.

Paul : "If you watch some of the great footage in Imagine you see the cartoonist Al Capp. He comes into the bed-in and he's really bitter. He's a wicked old git, but John's brilliant with him. John really wants to deck him but you can see he controls himself. I think John behaved very well there, because the guy is actually slagging off Yoko – and that's one thing you don't do. You don't slag off someone's missus – that's tribal time, isn't it? I think John was very good. It was: 'Let's not sink to his level.'"

The exchange later appeared in the documentary film Imagine. Capp introduced himself with the words "I'm a dreadful Neanderthal fascist. How do you do?", and later sarcastically congratulated Lennon and Ono on their Two Virgins album cover : "I think that everybody owes it to the world to prove they have pubic hair. You've done it, and I tell you that I applaud you for it."

   

The bed-in caused instant worldwide media coverage, and Lennon and Ono spoke to up to 150 journalists each day. In the United States around 350 radio stations reported the event, carrying the couple's message of peace and protests against the Vietnam war.

Derek Taylor : "My job was to be around day and night while they were in bed. They were able to rest between visits. They were able to lie down and get new pyjamas etc. A lot of us have had dreams about running our whole life from bed, and for ten days that was what they did. They were having also to report – I think every few days – to the consul in Montreal, because they were only there on sufferance, and were in fact deported from Canada at the end of the bed-in because their appeal against not being allowed in had failed. They'd done the whole bed-in during an appeal period. As soon as the ten days were up, they were told to clear off. In fact they were put on the first plane out to Frankfurt – which is not where we were going, we were going to London. So that, again, is something people forget! Doing a bed-in and being deported when it was over."

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On Sunday 1 June 1969, the penultimate day of their second bed-in for peace, John Lennon and Yoko Ono recorded the anthemic 'Give Peace A Chance' in room 1742 of the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, Montreal.

The recording session, which had been arranged at the last minute, was attended by dozens of journalists and celebrities, including Abbie Hoffman, Allen Ginsberg, Timothy Leary, Petula Clark, Dick Gregory, Rabbi Abraham Feinberg, Murray the K and members of the Radha Krishna Temple. Many of them were mentioned in the lyrics, either directly or allusively.

The song was recorded by Montreal studio owner André Perry. EMI requested that Perry come to the hotel for the recording. He hired a four-track Ampex machine from RCA Victor, and arrived at around 5pm. Lennon played acoustic guitar and was joined by Tommy Smothers of the Smothers Brothers, also on acoustic guitar. A wardrobe door provided percussive sounds. Four microphones were used: one for Lennon and his guitar, another for Tommy Smothers, and two for the rest of the room.

   

André Perry : "As a matter of fact I don't think we even had a playback [of Give Peace A Chance]. There was so many people in the room and it was so noisy and the way I had to record this was with earphones because, you know, I didn't have a control room. There wasn't a room I could set up. You have to take things into perspective, in those days, you're talking a long time ago now. It wasn't like today where you have all these recording tracks and all that. So basically it was quite primitive really. And so it was recorded with earphones even though I had a small pair of speakers for reference but I could not use them because I was in the room with them. I was about twelve feet from the bed. What I like about John was he must have had somewhat of a perception that I was serious and knew what I was doing because he was in full confidence, he didn't know me but he sized me up and he gave me full confidence. I had all this liberty in the world on this thing. It was just totally amazing. 'cause I remember now, we didn't get a playback. Maybe I might have played it back for him when were in the room by ourselves, I don't remember, probably did. But nevertheless, it's not like he said, 'Well, let's listen to it and let's do it again if it's not right.' He just did it, he looked at me and said 'It's OK?' And that was the end of it. He just sent everybody away."

   

Give Peace A Chance was briefly rehearsed, then the recording was quickly done. It took place at around 10pm, and afterwards Perry remained behind to record the song's eventual B-side, Yoko Ono's Remember Love. They finished recording at around 3am on 2 June.

André Perry : "Because of the condition of the room being bad, it's as if you put big speakers in such a small enclosure. Too much noise and in a small environment, and what was going on was the tape picking this up. So it wouldn't have been usable. Originally there were no intentions to have any over-dubs done. But when I left John, he looked at me and I said, 'Well, I'll go back to the studio and listen to this and see what it's like.' And then I decided upon myself that the background was a bit too noisy and needed a little 'sweeping.' By this I mean, we kept all the original stuff, we just kind of like, improved it a bit by adding if you like, some voices. So we called a bunch of people in the studio that night, I did, actually that was my decision. And that's probably why John gave me such a credit on the single because I think he thought I took the incentive of doing that. And since it was multi-track I dubbed the original 4-track to an 8-track machine and then used the other 4-track to overdub some voices."

   

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On Friday 4 July 1969 John Lennon's first non-Beatles single, "Give Peace A Chance" was released in the UK. It was co-credited to Paul McCartney, although he played no part in its creation, partly by way of thanks for his help in recording 'The Ballad Of John And Yoko' in April 1969. In later years, however, Lennon alone received a compositional credit.

John : "I didn't write it with Paul; but again, out of guilt, we always had that thing that our names would go on songs even if we didn't write them. It was never a legal deal between Paul and me, just an agreement when we were fifteen or sixteen to put both our names on our songs. I'd put his name on Give Peace A Chance though he had nothing to do with it. It was a silly thing to do, actually. It should have been Lennon-Ono."

   

André Perry : "For me that wasn't the greatest recording I've ever done because of the conditions. I wasn't enchanted with the circus aspect of it. And the circus aspect of it came from the management. It didn't come from John. The management was overwhelmed with what was going on. They were trying to control everything and that part of it was not my 'cup of tea.' When John gave me the credit that he did, we got the call from Toronto saying 'You just won't believe it, we got instructions for international release on the label to say 'Recorded by André Perry, the address, telephone number, the date, where it was recorded.' I said, 'That's incredible!' And I saw some copies of that, from a convention, from South America, different releases and the label reads identical though the rest of the thing is written in Spanish! I was really, really touched by that. I mean I just did what I normally did for anybody — I would have done the same thing. I was touched that he felt that I guess, that I, what's the word, took on some of the decisions that I did, I don't know exactly where that came from. But he was very generous to me and I was touched by that."

   

Baby You Can Crash My Car :

On Monday 23 June 1969, Prior to embarking on a motoring holiday in Scotland, John Lennon and Yoko Ono paid a quick visit to Wales. They drove to Tywyn, a seaside resort on the Cardigan Bay, on the west coast of Wales.

 

Following their brief trip to Wales, on 29 June 1969 John Lennon and Yoko Ono drove to Scotland for a short holiday. The couple left their white Rolls-Royce at home, and instead took a customised Mini Cooper. They were accompanied by Lennon's six-year-old son Julian and Ono's five-year-old daughter Kyoko Cox. Julian happened to be visiting Lennon and was brought along without his mother Cynthia being informed.

They stayed in the small village of Durness, in Sutherland in the Highlands. Lennon had previously enjoyed childhood holidays in the area between the ages of nine and 14, staying at the remote family croft at 56 Sangomore at Sango Bay which he had helped his Uncle Bert to renovate.

   

[Lennon's cousin] Stanley Parkes : "John never forgot those times at Durness. They were among his happiest memories. He loved the wilderness. John was nine when he started coming up with my family to the croft in Durness. The croft belonged to my stepfather, Robert Sutherland, and John just loved the wildness and the openness of the place. We went fishing and hunting and John loved going up into the hills to draw or write poetry. John really loved hill walking, shooting and fishing. He used to catch salmon. He would have been quite a laird. In the last letter to me before he was killed he quoted a famous Scottish saying that says 'It's a braw, bricht moonlicht nicht since I last had a word'."

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On Tuesday 1 July 1969, while holidaying in Scotland, Lennon crashed his white British Leyland Austin Maxi car near Durness in the Highlands. Lennon was a notoriously bad driver who had rarely been behind the wheel since passing his test in 1965. He was poor at navigating roads and often failed to notice other traffic.

The roads were narrow, the weather was poor, and Lennon panicked after spotting a foreign tourist driving towards him. Lennon lost control of his Austin Maxi, driving it into a roadside ditch. He, Ono and Kyoko sustained cuts to the face and Ono's back was injured. They were taken to Golspie's Lawson Memorial Hospital where Lennon was given 17 facial stitches, Ono 14 in her forehead, and Kyoko four. Julian was treated for shock but was otherwise unhurt. He was taken to stay with Lennon's Aunt Mater in Durness, around 50 miles away, before his mother Cynthia took him back to London the following day. When she arrived at the hospital to demand an explanation from Lennon he refused to see her.

Lennon remained in hospital in Golspie for five days. He later told reporters, "If you're going to have a car crash, try to arrange for it to happen in the Highlands. The hospital there was just great." The crashed Austin Maxi was later transported to the couple's Tittenhurst Park estate where it was sited in the gardens.

   

Although Lennon was never intending to attend, this was the first official day of recording for what became the Abbey Road album. The crash further delayed his return to London, and after being discharged from hospital he spent three days at home before finally rejoining The Beatles on 9 July.

Here Come Old Max Wall :

The Beatles had enjoyed separate holidays during much of June 1969, meaning work temporarily ended on the Abbey Road album. It resumed on Tuesday 1 July 1969, however, with further overdubs onto 'You Never Give Me Your Money'.

The early sessions for Abbey Road had been somewhat haphazard, taking place in a variety of studios with different producers and engineers. This session, which took place from 3-7.30pm, marked the beginning of more focused work, with George Martin back in the producer's role.

George Martin : "Let It Be was a miserable experience and I never thought that we would get back together again. So I was very surprised when Paul rang me up and said 'We want to make another record. Will you produce it for us, really produce it?' I said 'Yes, if I am really allowed to produce it. If I have to go back and accept a lot of instructions which I don't like I won't do it.' It was really good, even though the boys tended to do their own items, sometimes in different studios at the same time and I had to be dashing from one place to another."

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The 23-second throwaway song, "Her Majesty", the shortest song in The Beatles' repertoire, was written by Paul McCartney in Scotland, and was originally intended to be part of the long medley that dominated the second half of Abbey Road.

Paul : "It was quite funny because it's basically monarchist, with a mildly disrespectful tone, but it's very tongue in cheek. It's almost like a love song to the Queen."

On 20 November 1968, McCartney gave an interview to Radio Luxembourg's Tony Macarthur, and played the song while Macarthur was testing audio levels. The following year, during an interview with John Lennon about Abbey Road, Macarthur mentioned that McCartney had played 'Her Majesty' to him the previous year.

Tony Macarthur : "When the double LP was released at the time I did a similar programme with Paul. He played this to me at that time. In fact it was on that tape, when we were getting levels and things."

On Wednesday 2 July 1969, the song was recorded in three takes with Paul McCartney singing live to his acoustic guitar accompaniment.

On 30 July, when it was decided which songs would end up in the Long Medley, McCartney decided that it didn't fit. The crashing guitar chord that opens 'Her Majesty' is actually the final chord from a rough mix of 'Mean Mr Mustard'. The song cuts off without the final note, meanwhile, because it was intended to segue into 'Polythene Pam'.

[engineer] John Kurlander : "We did all the remixes and crossfades to overlap the songs, Paul was there, and we heard it together for the first time. He said, 'I don't like 'Her Majesty', throw it away,' so I cut it out – but I accidentally left in the last note. He said, 'It's only a rough mix, it doesn't matter...' I said to Paul, 'What shall I do with it?' 'Throw it away,' he replied. I'd been told never to throw anything away, so after he left I picked it up off the floor, put about 20 seconds of red leader tape before it and stuck it onto the end of the edit tape."

The following day a lacquer version of the album was cut at Apple, and the song was again kept in. McCartney approved of the random accident, and so it remained on the final version. Unlisted on original pressings of Abbey Road, the song crashed in unannounced, following 14 seconds of silence, at the end of side 2.

Paul : "That was very much how things happened. Really, you know, the whole of our career was like that so it's a fitting end."

 

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"Golden Slumbers", the beginning of the closing sequence in Abbey Road's long medley, was recorded as one with 'Carry That Weight', and based on a poem written nearly 400 years previously.

John : "That's Paul, apparently from a poem he found in a book, some eighteenth-century book where he just changed the words here and there."

The song's lyrics were taken from a ballad by the Elizabethan poet and dramatist Thomas Dekker (1570-1632). Paul McCartney saw the sheet music on the piano at his father's home in Heswall on the Wirral.

Paul : "I was playing the piano in Liverpool in my dad's house, and my stepsister Ruth's piano book was up on the stand. I was flicking through it and I came to 'Golden Slumbers'. I can't read music and I couldn't remember the old tune, so I just started playing my own tune to it. I liked the words so I kept them, and it fitted with another bit of song I had."

This suggests that he had written 'Carry That Weight' already, and is therefore likely that he composed the music for 'Golden Slumbers' to reflect it. Dekker's original text was amended slightly by McCartney. The original verse, first published in 1603, went as follows:

   Golden slumbers kiss your eyes, Smiles awake you when you rise;
    Sleep, pretty wantons, do not cry, And I will sing a lullaby, Rock them, rock them, lullaby.
    Care is heavy, therefore sleep you, You are care, and care must keep you;
    Sleep, pretty wantons, do not cry, And I will sing a lullaby, Rock them, rock them, lullaby.

   

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On Wednesday 2 July 1969 Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr began recording 'Golden Slumbers' / 'Carry That Weight' while John Lennon was in hospital after a car accident in Scotland. The three Beatles recorded 15 takes of the songs, most of which were incomplete. Harrison played bass and Starr was on drums, while McCartney played piano and sang a guide vocal.

"Carry That Weight" also features the melody from 'You Never Give Me Your Money', firstly performed on brass instruments and then sung with different lyrics by McCartney alone. McCartney's weaving of elements from other songs in the Abbey Road medley gave a sense of continuity and completeness which would otherwise have been absent. The song referred to the troubles The Beatles were having, both within the group and in their business dealings at Apple.

Paul : "I'm generally quite upbeat but at certain times things get to me so much that I just can't be upbeat any more and that was one of the times. We were taking so much acid and doing so much drugs and all this Klein shit was going on and getting crazier and crazier and crazier. Carry that weight a long time: like for ever! That's what I meant."

On Friday 4 July, a short session took place in Abbey Road's Studio Two from 2.45-5.30pm session, although some of the early part was spent listening to Ann Jones beating Billie-Jean King in the 71-minute Wimbledon Ladies' tennis final. The studio engineers had been listening to the match before The Beatles arrived, and the radio feed was eventually played through the studio speakers so all could hear it.

   

When the tennis was over, George Harrison added electric guitar arpeggios and Ringo Starr recorded extra drums, and McCartney recorded his lead vocals.

Paul : "I remember trying to get a very strong vocal on it, because it was such a gentle theme, so I worked on the strength of the vocal on it, and ended up quite pleased with it."

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"Here Comes The Sun", George Harrison's second song on Abbey Road, was written on an acoustic guitar in the garden of Eric Clapton's house in Ewhurst, Surrey. The song expressed Harrison's relief at being away from the tensions within The Beatles, the troubles with Apple and the various business and legal issues which at the time were overshadowing the group's creativity.

George : "'Here Comes The Sun' was written at the time when Apple was getting like school, where we had to go and be businessmen: 'Sign this' and 'Sign that'. Anyway, it seems as if winter in England goes on forever; by the time spring comes you really deserve it. So one day I decided I was going to sag off Apple and I went over to Eric Clapton's house. The relief of not having to go and see all those dopey accountants was wonderful, and I walked around the garden with one of Eric's acoustic guitars and wrote 'Here Comes The Sun'."

The rhythm track was recorded in 13 takes on Monday 7 July 1969, Ringo Starr's 29th birthday. The session took place without John Lennon, who was recuperating from a car accident in Scotland. The multitrack tape had Paul McCartney's Rickenbacker bass guitar on track one; Starr's drums on two; Harrison's Gibson J-200 acoustic guitar on three; and his guide vocals on eight. The final take – announced as "take 12 and a half" – was selected as the best.

The next day, onto track five, Starr overdubbed drum fills and Harrison added more electric guitar, this time played through a Leslie speaker. Harrison then recorded lead vocals on track six, and he and McCartney added two sets of backing vocals to tracks seven and eight, wiping the previous day's guide vocals in the process.

On 16 July handclaps and a harmonium were overdubbed, in a session produced by Glyn Johns. The handclaps were added to track eight, and Harrison's harmonium performance – later erased – was recorded onto track five. 'Here Comes The Sun' was then left until 6 August, when Harrison taped more guitar parts alone in Abbey Road's studio three. More guitar was recorded on 11 August.

 

The orchestra – the names of the players undocumented – was recorded on 15 August. Two clarinets, two alto flutes, two flutes, and two piccolos were recorded onto track four, and four violas, four cellos, and string bass were added to track five.

'Here Comes The Sun' was completed four days later, on 19 August 1969, when Harrison taped his Moog part on track four. This partly erased the woodwind parts from the previous session. Harrison's understated use of a Moog synthesiser was a key feature of 'Here Comes The Sun'. Robert Moog's then-recent invention was a rarity in the UK at the time, and The Beatles were keen to experiment with its sounds.

George : "I first heard about the Moog synthesiser in America. I had to have mine made specially, because Mr Moog had only just invented it. It was enormous, with hundreds of jackplugs and two keyboards. But it was one thing having one, and another trying to make it work. There wasn't an instruction manual, and even if there had been it would probably have been a couple of thousand pages long. I don't think even Mr Moog knew how to get music out of it; it was more of a technical thing. When you listen to the sounds on songs like 'Here Comes The Sun', it does do some good things, but they're all very kind of infant sounds."

Some time after midnight in the morning of 20 August the song was mixed in stereo. This was done in just one attempt, with the tape running slightly faster – at 51 cycles per second rather than the usual 50 – reducing slightly the length of the song. This raised the key by approximately a quarter-tone.

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On Wednesday 9 July 1969 The Beatles began the recording of "Maxwell's Silver Hammer". It had previously been performed in January 1969 during the Get Back/Let It Be sessions. 

Paul : "'Maxwell's Silver Hammer' was my analogy for when something goes wrong out of the blue, as it so often does, as I was beginning to find out at that time in my life. I wanted something symbolic of that, so to me it was some fictitious character called Maxwell with a silver hammer. I don't know why it was silver, it just sounded better than Maxwell's hammer. It was needed for scanning. We still use that expression even now when something unexpected happens."

McCartney probably wrote the song in early 1968. In a notebook titled Spring Songs Rishikesh 1968 he kept lyrics and notes for many of the songs on the White Album, plus other songs used elsewhere. In the book he wrote words for the first verse, as far as "Let me take you out to the pictures Jo-o-o-oan".

The roots of the song are older still. On 10 January 1966, while driving to Liverpool in his Aston Martin, McCartney heard a version of playwright Alfred Jarry's Ubu Cocu on BBC radio. The play was described by the Radio Times as "A pataphysical extravagana", and made a deep impression on McCartney.

Paul : "It was the best radio play I had ever heard in my life, and the best production, and Ubu was so brilliantly played. It was just a sensation. That was one of the big things of the period for me."

In July 1966, Jarry's Ubu Roi was staged at the Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square, London, with Max Wall playing the protagonist. McCartney and Jane Asher watched one of the performances, which had set and costumes designed by David Hockney. There remains a possibility, even subconsciously, that Max Wall was an antecedent to Maxwell.

McCartney read many of Jarry's works, and was taken with the idea of pataphysics – a surrealist art and literary 'science' created by Jarry. In London, McCartney's friend Barry Miles had been made a member of the College of Pataphysics and awarded the Ordre de la Grande Gidouille for pataphysical activity, and the band Soft Machine held the college's Chair of Applied Alcoholism for the English Isles.

Paul : "Miles and I often used to talk about the pataphysical society and the Chair of Applied Alcoholism. So I put that in one of the Beatles songs, 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer': "Joan was quizzical, studied pataphysical science in the home..." Nobody knows what it means; I only explained it to Linda just the other day. That's the lovely thing about it. I am the only person who ever put the name of pataphysics into the record charts, c'mon! It was great. I love those surreal little touches."

   

McCartney was convinced it was a potential single, but the rest of the group were less enthusiastic.

George : "Sometimes Paul would make us do these really fruity songs. I mean, my god, 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer' was so fruity. After a while we did a good job on it, but when Paul got an idea or an arrangement in his head..."

Ringo : "The worst session ever was 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer'. It was the worst track we ever had to record. It went on for fucking weeks. I thought it was mad."

On 1 July 1969 John Lennon and Yoko Ono had been involved in a car crash in Scotland, and 9 July 1969 was his first session following a recuperation period. Yoko Ono suffered worse injuries in the crash than Lennon, and was pregnant at the time. Keen to keep a close eye on her wellbeing, he arranged for Harrods to deliver a double bed to the studio, and had a microphone suspended above it for her to add her thoughts during the sessions that followed.

[studio technician] Martin Benge : "We were setting up the microphones for the session and this huge double-bed arrived. An ambulance brought Yoko in and she was lowered down onto the bed, we set up a microphone over her in case she wanted to participate and then we all carried on as before! We were saying, 'Now we've seen it all, folks!'"

John : "That's Paul's. I hate it. 'Cuz all I remember is the track – he made us do it a hundred million times. He did everything to make it into a single and it never was and it never could've been, but he put guitar licks on it and he had somebody hitting iron pieces and we spent more money on that song than any of them in the whole album. I think."

Lennon's assessment, however, is somewhat misleading as the song took just three sessions to record and Lennon did not participate in the recording. Additionally, it lacked the expensive orchestral overdubs that adorned several of the other Abbey Road songs.

Paul : "They got annoyed because 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer' took three days to record. Big deal."

 

McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr recorded 16 takes of the basic track, which were numbered 1-21 – there were no takes 6-10. Take five, recorded on this day, was featured on the Anthology 3 album, revealing how the song sounded at this early stage. McCartney sings and plays piano, with Harrison on bass guitar and Starr on drums. Take 12, meanwhile, was included on the 50th anniversary reissue of Abbey Road. The Beatles selected the final attempt, take 21, as the best, and spent over two hours overdubbing guitars during the first session.

On 10 July McCartney added more piano, George Martin played Hammond organ, Starr banged an anvil, and Harrison recorded a guitar part, fed through a rotating Leslie speaker. McCartney also taped more lead vocals, and was joined by Harrison and Starr for backing vocals.

Geoff Emerick : "There was a proper blacksmith's anvil brought to the studio for Ringo to hit. They had it rented from a theatrical agency."

More guitar and vocals were added on 11 July. The final words, "Silver hammer, man" featured McCartney, Harrison and Starr on vocals. They sang the higher notes onto track six, the lower notes on seven, and a mixture of the two on eight. The song was finally completed on 6 August, when McCartney recorded his Moog synthesiser solo.

Paul : "We put together quite a nice album, and the only arguments were about things like me spending three days on 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer'. I remember George saying, 'You've taken three days, it's only a song.' – 'Yeah, but I want to get it right. I've got some thoughts on this one.' It was early-days Moog work and it did take a bit of time."
   
Alan Parsons : "Paul did Maxwell using the ribbon, playing it like a violin and having to find every note, which is a credit to his musical ability."

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"Come Together", the lead song on The Beatles' Abbey Road album, was conceived by John Lennon as a political rallying cry for pro-drugs activist Timothy Leary's campaign to stand against Ronald Reagan as governor of California.

Leary and his wife Rosemary had traveled to Montreal for John and Yoko's bed-in for peace, which took place on 1 June 1969. The Learys participated in the recording of Lennon's 'Give Peace A Chance', and were both namechecked in the lyrics, alongside Tommy Cooper, Derek Taylor, and Norman Mailer. The following day Lennon offered to help Leary's campaign. His slogan was 'Come together, join the party'. Lennon sent Leary a demo tape of song ideas. However, the campaign ended when Leary was imprisoned for cannabis possession, allowing Lennon to record the song with The Beatles.

John : "The thing was created in the studio. It's gobbledygook; 'Come Together' was an expression that Leary had come up with for his attempt at being president or whatever he wanted to be, and he asked me to write a campaign song. I tried and tried, but I couldn't come up with one. But I came up with this, 'Come Together', which would've been no good to him – you couldn't have a campaign song like that, right?"

Leary was bemused when he came to hear The Beatles' recording of the song.

Timothy Leary : "Although the new version was certainly a musical and lyrical improvement on my campaign song, I was a bit miffed that Lennon had passed me over this way... When I sent a mild protest to John, he replied with typical Lennon charm and wit that he was a tailor and I was a customer who had ordered a suit and never returned. So he sold it to someone else."

 

'Come Together' was Lennon's last politicised stance in The Beatles, although much of it was shrouded in imagery: the song lampooned the hippy figureheads who would seek followers among the dropouts of society. The Beatles began recording the song on 21 July 1969, recording eight takes in Abbey Road's studio three. Take One, with slightly different lyrics and a raw vocal from John Lennon, can be heard on the Anthology 3 album.

John : "It was a funky record – it's one of my favorite Beatle tracks, or, one of my favourite Lennon tracks, let's say that. It's funky, it's bluesy, and I'm singing it pretty well. I like the sound of the record. You can dance to it. I'd buy it!"

Lennon sang without his guitar, and clapped while singing the line "Shoot me". The words allegedly referred not to a desire for martyrdom, but to a fix of heroin. They were adapted from the unreleased 'Watching Rainbows', a song The Beatles rehearsed on 14 January 1969 during the Get Back/Let It Be sessions.

Geoff Emerick : "On the finished record you can really only hear the word 'shoot'. The bass guitar note falls where the 'me' is."

Musically, 'Come Together' took its cue from Chuck Berry's 1956 song 'You Can't Catch Me'; both songs contain the lines "Here come old flat-top". Lennon was later sued by Berry's publisher Morris Levy. They settled out of court, and Lennon agreed to record more songs owned by Levy. The result was his 1975 album Rock 'N' Roll, which contained Berry's 'Sweet Little Sixteen' and 'You Can't Catch Me'.

John : "'Come Together' is me – writing obscurely around an old Chuck Berry thing. I left the line in 'Here comes old flat-top.' It is nothing like the Chuck Berry song, but they took me to court because I admitted the influence once years ago. I could have changed it to 'Here comes old iron face,' but the song remains independent of Chuck Berry or anybody else on earth."

 

Although 'Come Together' was conceived as a Chuck Berry-style rocker, The Beatles slowed it down at Paul McCartney's suggestion.

Paul : "He originally brought it over as a very perky little song, and I pointed out to him that it was very similar to Chuck Berry's 'You Can't Catch Me'. John acknowledged it was rather close to it so I said, 'Well, anything you can do to get away from that.' I suggested that we tried it swampy – 'swampy' was the word I used – so we did, we took it right down. I laid that bass line down which very much makes the mood. It's actually a bass line that people now use very often in rap records. If it's not a sample, they use that riff. But that was my contribution to that."

John : "'Come Together' changed at a session. We said, 'Let's slow it down. Let's do this to it, let's do that to it,' and it ends up however it comes out. I just said, 'Look, I've got no arrangement for you, but you know how I want it.' I think that's partly because we've played together a long time. So I said, 'Give me something funky,' and set up a beat, maybe, and they all just join in."

Lennon's lyrics changed during the session. On take one he mentioned the singer Eartha Kitt, and on takes two, six, and eight he namechecked Let It Be director Michael Lindsay-Hogg. Several times he also sang "Got to get injections 'cause he's so hard to see" in the final verse. Take Five can be heard on some formats of the 50th anniversary reissue of Abbey Road, and take six was chosen as the best of the attempts, and was renamed take nine when the tape was transferred from four-track to eight-track.

Over the next two days the group added a range of overdubs. On 22 July Lennon re-recorded his lead vocals and handclaps, which were both treated with tape delay effects. Electric piano and guitar were added to track five; and more guitar and a maraca were overdubbed onto track six. On 25 July harmony vocals were added to track eight, with Lennon also double-tracking some of his lead vocals. McCartney later expressed regret that he hadn't sung the harmonies with Lennon on 'Come Together'.

Geoff Emerick : "Initially, Paul played the electric piano part, but John kind of looked over his shoulder and studied what he was playing. When it came time to record it, John played the electric piano instead of Paul. Paul might have been miffed, but I think he was more upset about not singing on the choruses – John did his own backing vocals."

Paul (1970) : "Even on Abbey Road we don't do harmonies like we used to. I think it's sad. On 'Come Together' I would have liked to sing harmony with John and I think he would have liked me to but I was too embarrassed to ask him and I don't work to the best of my abilities in that situation."

   

Released as a single on 6 October 1969, 'Come Together' reached number one in the US. It entered the top 40 on 18 October, and remained in the charts for 16 weeks. As a double a-side with George Harrison's 'Something', 'Come Together' only reached number four in the UK. Its poor chart performance may have been affected by a ban from the BBC, who decreed that the line "He shoot Coca-Cola" was unacceptable product placement, and the fact that this was the first single released by The Beatles which contained songs already available on an album - the move was one of Allen Klein's attempts to put The Beatles' struggling finances back on an even keel.

[The Culture Bunker]

Despite 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer', Abbey Road is my favourite Beatles' album. Never really been very keen on 'The Ballad of John and Yoko', though.

[DrGreggles]

I've always liked TBOJAY (as the kids probably called it), as it's one of the few instances of an enthusiastic Lennon at the arse end of The Beatles.
Shame it wasn't the full band on it though.

[daf]

The Ballad of John and Yoko - Part 4



The Beginning of The End :

Originally known simply as 'Ending', The Beatles began recording "The End" on Wednesday 23 July 1969. As the final song on The Beatles' last-recorded album, it was an apt farewell from the band to their legion of fans.

It was unlikely that any other Beatle than Paul McCartney would have ended up writing The Beatles' epitaph. John Lennon generally disliked the Abbey Road medley – although he contributed a handful of songs – and at one point wanted his and McCartney's songs to be on separate sides of the album. George Harrison, meanwhile, had grown tired of McCartney's dominance within of the group, and was beginning to devote his energies to other projects. Apart from the generally amenable Ringo Starr, McCartney was the only one fully dedicated to The Beatles until the end, and he recognised that they deserved a proper send-off.

John : "That's Paul again, the unfinished song, right? We're on Abbey Road. Just a piece at the end. He had a line in it [sings] 'And in the end, the love you get is equal to the love you give,' which is a very cosmic, philosophical line. Which again proves that if he wants to, he can think."

'The End' features, uniquely on a Beatles track, a drum solo by Starr. It took some persuading before the group's stalwart thunder-stick agreed to the solo.

Paul : "Ringo would never do drum solos. He hated drummers who did lengthy drum solos. We all did. And when he joined The Beatles we said, "Ah, what about drum solos then?", thinking he might say, "Yeah, I'll have a five-hour one in the middle of your set," and he said, "I hate 'em!" We said, "Great! We love you!" And so he would never do them. But because of this medley I said, "Well, a token solo?" and he really dug his heels in and didn't want to do it. But after a little bit of gentle persuasion I said, "Yeah, just do that, it wouldn't be Buddy Rich gone mad," because I think that's what he didn't want to do."

 

During recording, the drum solo was originally accompanied by guitar and tambourine, although these were excluded in the final version. They can, however, be heard in a new mix of 'The End', released in 1996 on Anthology 3.

Geoff Emerick : "The thing that always amused me was how much persuasion it took to get Ringo to play that solo. Usually, you have to try to talk drummers out of doing solos! [laughs] He didn't want to do it, but everybody said, 'No, no, it'll be fantastic!' So he gave in – and turned in a bloody marvelous performance! It took a while to get right, and I think Paul helped with some ideas, but it's fantastic. I always want to hear more – that's how good it is. It's so musical, it's not just a drummer going off."

'The End' also features the sound of McCartney, Harrison and Lennon sparring on lead guitars, taking it in turns to perform two-bar sequences over the "Love you, love you" backing vocals.

Geoff Emerick : "The idea for guitar solos was very spontaneous and everybody said, 'Yes! Definitely' – well, except for George, who was a little apprehensive at first. But he saw how excited John and Paul were so he went along with it. Truthfully, I think they rather liked the idea of playing together, not really trying to outdo one another per se, but engaging in some real musical bonding. Yoko was about to go into the studio with John – this was commonplace by now – and he actually told her, 'No, not now. Let me just do this. It'll just take a minute.' That surprised me a bit. Maybe he felt like he was returning to his roots with the boys – who knows? "



Geoff Emerick : "The order was Paul first, then George, then John, and they went back and forth. They ran down their ideas a few times and before you knew it, they were ready to go. Their amps were lined up together and we recorded their parts on one track. You could really see the joy in their faces as they played; it was like they were teenagers again. One take was all we needed. The musical telepathy between them was mind-boggling."

The song closed with some of The Beatles' most celebrated and memorable words : "And in the end the love you take / Is equal to the love you make". The final words of the song were written by McCartney with Shakespeare in mind.

Paul : "I wanted it to end with a little meaningful couplet, so I followed the Bard and wrote a couplet."

   

The Beatles returned to 'Ending' on 5 August. McCartney recorded the opening vocals of the song, which he double-tracked. The "Love you, love you" vocals were added by McCartney on 7 August. He recorded the parts multiple times, included once with the tape machine running slower than normal, which increased the pitch when played back normally. The following day, more drums and bass guitar were recorded.

The orchestra was recorded on 15 August, at great expense, though the musicians also contributed parts for 'Golden Slumbers' / 'Carry That Weight', 'Something' and 'Here Comes The Sun' on the same day.

[engineer] Alan Brown : "The orchestral overdub for 'The End' was the most elaborate I have ever heard: a 30-piece playing for not too many seconds – and mixed about 40 dBs down. It cost a lot of money: all the musicians have to be paid, fed and watered; I screw every pound note out of it whenever I play the record!"

Recording was completed on 18 August, with the addition of the piano notes, played by McCartney, which herald the celebrated final words.

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"Come And Get It" was recorded as a demo by Paul McCartney on 24 July 1969 working with engineer Phil McDonald. John Lennon was in the control room observing, though declined to contribute. McCartney recorded a single take, singing live and playing piano. The piano was recorded to track one and his vocals on track two of the eight-track tape. He then double tracked his vocals and played maracas on track three. Drums were added next, to track four, and finally came a bass guitar part on track five. It took less than an hour to complete.

Paul : "I'd written the song 'Come And Get It' and I'd made a fairly decent demo. Because I lived locally, I could get in half an hour before a Beatles session at Abbey Road – knowing it would be empty and all the stuff would be set up – and I'd use Ringo's equipment to put a drum track down, put some piano down, quickly put some bass down, do the vocal, and double-track it."

The song was a thinly-veiled commentary on the state of Apple, which was losing large amounts of money by 1969, and was given to the Apple group The Iveys, who were renamed Badfinger prior to the single's release.

Paul : "I said to Badfinger, 'OK, it's got to be exactly like this demo,' because it had a great feeling on it. They actually wanted to put their own variations on, but I said, 'No, this really is the right way.' They listened to me – I was producing, after all – and they were good. The song was a hit in 1970."

Badfinger's version, was mostly identical to McCartney's demo. Recorded nine days later, it became a top five single and was the main theme for the Peter Sellers/Ringo Starr film The Magic Christian.

 

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The second song in Abbey Road's long medley, 'Sun King' was written by John Lennon, and was recorded back-to-back with another of his compositions, 'Mean Mr Mustard' on Thursday 24 July 1969.

'Sun King', which allegedly came to Lennon in a dream, opens with the sound of bells, bubbles and chimes – part of the crossfade joining the song to the end of 'You Never Give Me Your Money'. A guitar passage then begins, influenced by Fleetwood Mac's recent instrumental hit.

George : "At the time, 'Albatross' was out, with all the reverb on guitar. So we said, 'Let's be Fleetwood Mac doing 'Albatross', just to get going.' It never really sounded like Fleetwood Mac... but that was the point of origin."

Although Lennon most likely got the title from Nancy Mitford's 1966 biography of the French King Louis XIV, the song descends into cod-Spanish, Italian and Portuguese nonsense, with the odd English phrase thrown in.

   

John : "That's a piece of garbage I had around. When we came to sing it, to make them different we started joking, saying 'cuando para mucho'. We just made it up. Paul knew a few Spanish words from school, so we just strung any Spanish words that sounded vaguely like something. And of course we got 'chicka ferdi' – that's a Liverpool expression; it doesn't mean anything, just like 'ha ha ha'. One we missed: we could have had 'para noia', but we forgot all about it. We used to call ourselves Los Para Noias."

Paul : "There was a thing in Liverpool that us kids used to do, which was instead of saying 'f-off', we would say 'chicka ferdy!'. It actually exists in the lyrics of The Beatles song 'Sun King'. In that song we just kind of made up things, and we were all in on the joke. We were thinking that nobody would know what it meant, and most people would think, 'Oh, it must be Spanish,' or something. But, we got a little seditious word in there!"

They taped 35 takes of the basic track, although take seven was a version of 'Ain't She Sweet'. Take 20 of 'Sun King' / 'Mean Mr Mustard', meanwhile, can be heard on some formats of the 50th anniversary reissue of Abbey Road.

The next day the group overdubbed vocals, piano and organ, the latter played by George Martin. They finished the two songs on 29 July, with the addition of more vocals, piano, organ and percussion.

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Recorded as one with 'Sun King', 'Mean Mr Mustard' was composed in India by John Lennon in spring 1968. The song was considered for inclusion on the White Album. A demo version was recorded in May 1968 at George Harrison's home, Kinfauns.

John : "In 'Mean Mr Mustard' I said 'his sister Pam' – originally it was 'his sister Shirley' in the lyric. I changed it to Pam to make it sound like it had something to do with it ['Polythene Pam']. They are only finished bits of crap that I wrote in India."

'Mean Mr Mustard' was based on a miserly man, John Alexander Mustard, about whom Lennon had read in the Daily Mirror on 7 June 1967. Mustard, a 65-year-old Scotsman, had been taken to a divorce court by his wife due to his meanness.

   

John : "That's me, writing a piece of garbage. I'd read somewhere in the newspaper about this mean guy who hid five-pound notes, not up his nose but somewhere else. No, it had nothing to do with cocaine."

Tony Bramwell : "There was an old 'bag lady' who used to hang around the Knightsbridge end of Hyde Park, London, close to the army barracks. She had all her possessions in plastic bags and slept in the park. I'm sure that she had something to do with the song."

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Although written by John Lennon in 1968, "Polythene Pam" wasn't recorded until Friday 25 July 1969, along with Paul McCartney's 'She Came In Through The Bathroom Window' as part of the 'Long Medley'. It was the only time two separate songs by the two writers were recorded as one.

The song recounts, with some poetic licence, the tale of a Liverpool 'scrubber' with a fetish. Sung in a thick Scouse accent for earthy authenticity, it harks back to The Beatles' early days performing in Merseyside's seedier venues. The character of Polythene Pam is believed to have been drawn from two women from different times in The Beatles' existence. The first was Pat Dawson (née Hodgett), a Liverpudlian fan from the group's early days, who was known as Polythene Pat due to her love of the substance.

Pat Dawson : "I started going to see The Beatles in 1961 when I was 14 and I got quite friendly with them. If they were playing out of town they'd give me a lift back home in their van. It was about the same time that I started getting called Polythene Pat. It's embarrassing really. I just used to eat polythene all the time. I'd tie it in knots and then eat it. Sometimes I even used to burn it and then eat it when it got cold. Then I had a friend who got a job in a polythene bag factory, which was wonderful because it meant I had a constant supply."

The second woman was the girlfriend of English beat poet Royston Ellis, for whom The Beatles had performed as a backing band in Liverpool in June 1960. The group remained friends with Ellis for some years, and in 1963 John Lennon had a memorable encounter with Ellis and his girlfriend Stephanie.

John : "That was me, remembering a little event with a woman in Jersey, and a man who was England's answer to Allen Ginsberg, who gave us our first exposure – this is so long – you can't deal with all this. You see, everything triggers amazing memories. I met him when we were on tour and he took me back to his apartment and I had a girl and he had one he wanted me to meet. He said she dressed up in polythene, which she did. She didn't wear jackboots and kilts, I just sort of elaborated. Perverted sex in a polythene bag. Just looking for something to write about."

The incident actually occurred after The Beatles' concerts on Thursday 8 August 1963. Ellis and Stephanie invited Lennon back to their rented flat where the three wore polythene and shared a bed out of curiosity about kinky sex.

Royston Ellis : "We'd read all these things about leather and we didn't have any leather but I had my oilskins and we had some polythene bags from somewhere. We all dressed up in them and wore them in bed. John stayed the night with us in the same bed. I don't think anything very exciting happened and we all wondered what the fun was in being 'kinky'. It was probably more my idea than John's."

 

The Beatles recorded a demo of 'Polythene Pam' in May 1968, at Kinfauns, George Harrison's bungalow in Esher, Surrey. It was also played by The Beatles on 24 January 1969, towards the end of the Get Back/Let It Be sessions.

On Friday 25 July 1969, they taped 39 takes of the basic track; John Lennon and Paul McCartney also sang guide vocals where needed. The thunderous drumming on the intro to Take 27 of Polythene Pam led Lennon to joke that it sounded like Dave Clark!

On Abbey Road's 'Mean Mr Mustard', the line "His sister Shirley works in a shop" was changed to "His sister Pam..." to create an impression of narrative continuity. While recorded separately, the two songs appear back-to-back on the album, having been recorded in the same key and edited together without a gap.

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"She Came In Through The Bathroom Window" was song about the 'Apple scruffs' that held vigil outside the group's headquarters, EMI Studios on Abbey Road, and the members' homes. The song is believed to have been based on an incident involving some fans who took a ladder from McCartney's garden, climbed into his house in Cavendish Avenue, London, and stole a precious picture, possibly of his father.

Diane Ashley : "We found a ladder in his garden and stuck it up at the bathroom window which he'd left slightly open. I was the one who climbed up and got in."

Some of the Scruffs are said to have known where McCartney kept a key to his house, and took turns to look around inside. The more daring of the set took mementos from the scene until McCartney became wise to the losses.

Margo Bird : "There were really two groups of Apple Scruffs – those who would break in and those who would just wait outside with cameras and autograph books. I used to take Paul's dog for a walk and got to know him quite well. I knew there was one picture he particularly wanted back – a colour-tinted picture of him in a Thirties frame. I knew who had taken this and got it back for him."

 

Another version of the tale was revealed by the Moody Blues. Their former keyboard player Mike Pinder claimed that a groupie climbed through an open bathroom window and spent the night with band member Ray Thomas. Pinder and Thomas are said to have told McCartney about the incident the next day, who began strumming on a guitar and improvised the opening line.

John Lennon said that the song was written while he and McCartney were in New York in May 1968 to announce the formation of Apple Corps.

John : "That's Paul's song. He wrote that when we were in New York announcing Apple, and we first met Linda. Maybe she's the one that came in the window. I don't know; somebody came in the window."

In October that year, when the White Album had been completed, McCartney flew to the city once again to see Linda Eastman. And the end of his two-week stay, McCartney was in a taxi heading to JFK airport. At the time he needed a final verse for 'She Came In Through The Bathroom Window', and noticed the driver's police identification panel on the dashboard. The ID had a photograph of the driver, along with the name Eugene Quits, above the words 'New York Police Dept.'

Paul : "So I got 'So I quit the police department', which are part of the lyrics to that. This was the great thing about the randomness of it all. If I hadn't been in this guy's cab, or if it had been someone else driving, the song would have been different. Also I had a guitar there so I could solidify it into something straight away."

The end of 'She Came In Through The Bathroom Window' brings a pause in the Abbey Road medley. The song concludes a song cycle that begins with 'Sun King', and continues with 'Mean Mr Mustard' and 'Polythene Pam'. A slower version was recorded on 21 January 1969 during the Get Back sessions at Apple Studios.

'Polythene Pam' and 'She Came In Through The Bathroom Window' were recorded as one on 25 July 1969. They taped 39 takes of the songs' basic track, with John Lennon and Paul McCartney singing guide vocals where needed. Take 27 was released on the 50th anniversary reissue of Abbey Road.

On Monday 28 July, they added a range of overdubs to the two songs, including more lead vocals, acoustic and electric guitars, tambourine and other percussion, electric and acoustic piano. Recording was concluded on 30 July with the addition of backing vocals, percussion, and guitar overdubs.

 

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"Because" was the final song to be recorded for the Abbey Road album, and featured The Beatles' distinctive three-part vocal harmonies.

Yoko Ono was a classically trained pianist whose interests had moved towards the avant garde. One day in 1969, however, she played Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor, Op. 27, No. 2 – the Moonlight Sonata. Lying on their sofa listening, John Lennon asked her to play the chords backwards, and wrote 'Because' around the result. While not an exact reversal of Beethoven's piece, it contains a number of musical similarities.

John : "Yoko was playing Moonlight Sonata on the piano. She was classically trained. I said, 'Can you play those chords backward?' and wrote 'Because' around them. The lyrics speak for themselves; they're clear. No bullshit. No imagery, no obscure references."

The vocal harmonies are one of the most distinctive aspects of song. Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison sang together, and overdubbed their voices twice more, giving the effect of nine voices.

George (1969) : "John wrote this tune. The backing is a bit like Beethoven. And three-part harmony right throughout. Paul usually writes the sweeter tunes, and John writes the, sort of, more the rave-up things, or the freakier things. But John's getting to where he doesn't want to. He just wants to write twelve-bars. But you can't deny it, I think this is possibly my favourite one on the album. The lyrics are so simple. The harmony was pretty difficult to sing. We had to really learn it. But I think that's one of the tunes that will impress most people. It's really good."

Paul : "I wouldn't mind betting Yoko was in on the writing of that, it's rather her kind of writing: wind, sky and earth are recurring, it's straight out of Grapefruit and John was heavily influenced by her at the time."


     

On Friday 1 August 1969, Lennon, McCartney and George Martin taped 23 takes of the basic track. Only Take 1, 16, and 23 were complete, and take 16 was selected as the best. The recordings had McCartney's bass guitar on track one, Lennon's guitar on two, and George Martin on electric harpsichord on three.

George Martin : "On 'Because', for example, very much a John song, it needed the combined singing of the three men. So obviously it became a joint effort. That particular track started off with John having the idea, the sort of riff on the guitar, which he played to me, and the basic song which he sang to me. And what we did then, we created a backing with him still playing the guitar, that riff, and I duplicated exactly every note that he played on the guitar, on an electric harpsichord, and Paul played bass."

Ringo Starr kept time with handclaps on track four, for guide purposes only.

George Martin : "And there was nothing for Ringo to do, because we'd not got drums in. But in fact there was something for him to do. Because it was so slow, and meticulously, the question of ensemble between the guitar and the harpsichord, each note had to be exactly together. And I'm not the world's greatest player in time, and I would make more mistakes than John did. So we had Ringo beating a hi-hat all the time, to us in headphones, so we had a regular beat. We didn't have drum machines in those days. So Ringo was our drum machine, and that was the way we did the track. And then, having got the track, the three boys sang together in harmony, the whole song. And then we overlaid another three voices, and another three voices, so we had nine-part harmony all the way through. And that was 'Because'."

With the backing track in place, Lennon, McCartney and Harrison recorded the first of their harmony vocal tracks. Two more were added on Monday 4 August. A final overdub was recorded on Tuesday 5 August 1969, when George Harrison taped a Moog part – the first time the synthesiser was used on the Abbey Road recordings. Harrison recorded it twice, filling up the last two available tracks on the tape.

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During a trial mixing session for the album's medley on 30 July 1969, the transition from 'You Never Give Me Your Money' into 'Sun King' had been a single held organ note. On Tuesday 5 August 1969, Paul McCartney brought a selection of tape loops into the studio. He had made the mono loops at his London home using Brenell tape machines, and in the control room of Studio Three they were transferred onto four-track tape. The effects included birds twittering, crickets chirping and bells ringing. The transitional crossfade was first attempted on 14 August but was redone on 21 August.

Meanwhile, George Harrison had arranged for his Moog synthesizer to be transported to EMI Studios, where it was set up in Room 43. A signal from the instrument could be routed into whichever studio The Beatles were working in. A new instrument in 1969, The Beatles and the studio staff took great interest in the sounds it could produce. The first song to receive a Moog overdub was 'Because'. Harrison played the part twice to complete the song. Mike Vickers of Manfred Mann was another Moog early adopter. He assisted with programming Harrison's Moog during the Abbey Road sessions.

Alan Parsons : "It was a lot of work to get anything out of it and you could only sound one note at a time, which was a disadvantage. Everybody was fascinated by it. We were all crowding around to have a look."

On Wednesday 6 August 1969, a separate overdub session was taking place for 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer'. From 2.30-11pm Paul McCartney recorded the solo for the song on Harrison's Moog synthesizer.

 

Alan Parsons : "Paul used the Moog for the solo in Maxwell's Silver Hammer but the notes were not from the keyboard. He did that with a continuous ribbon-slide thing, just moving his finger up and down on an endless ribbon. It's very difficult to find the right notes, rather like a violin, but Paul picked it up straight away. He can pick up anything musical in a couple of days."

Zebra Crossing :

On Friday 8 August 1969, all four Beatles gathered at EMI Studios for one of the most famous photo shoots of their career. Photographer Iain Macmillan took the iconic image that adorned their last-recorded album, Abbey Road with a Hasselblad camera with a 50mm wide-angle lens, aperture f22, at 1/500 seconds. As the group waited outside the studio for the shoot to begin, Linda McCartney took a number of extra photographs.

     

8 August was a hot day in north London, and for four of the six photographs McCartney walked barefoot; for the other two he wore sandals. A policeman held up the traffic as Macmillan, from a stepladder positioned in the middle of the road, took six shots as the group walked across the zebra crossing just outside the studio. The Beatles crossed the road a number of times while Macmillan photographed them.

 

Macmillan also took a photograph of a nearby tiled street sign for the back cover. The sign has since been replaced, but was situated at the corner of Abbey Road and Alexandra Road. The junction no longer exists; the road was later replaced by the Abbey Road housing estate, between Boundary Road and Belsize Road.

   

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On Monday 11 August 1969 John Lennon and Yoko Ono moved into their mansion, Tittenhurst Park in Ascot, Berkshire. It was located on a 72-acre estate on London Road in Sunningdale, Ascot. Lennon and Ono had bought it on 4 May 1969 for £145,000 from Peter Cadbury, an entrepreneur and the son of Sir Egbert Cadbury inventor of the Cadbury Creme Egg.

Lennon and Ono spent twice the purchase price on renovations, including the creation of a lake, without planning permission, which they could see from their bedroom window. The couple moved to the United States in August 1971. On 18 September 1973 they sold Tittenhurst Park to Ringo Starr, who renamed the recording facilities Startling Studios.

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On Thursday 14 August 1969, BBC Radio 1 disc jockey Kenny Everett was present during the mixing sessions for the Abbey Road album. During a break in the session, Everett interviewed John Lennon in Studio Two at EMI Studios, Abbey Road. The Beatles – and Lennon in particular – had appeared several times on Everett's Radio 1 shows. On this occasion it was for the Saturday morning show Everett Is Here, and focused mainly on The Beatles' recording methods.

Lennon told Everett that the album The Beatles were working on would be titled after the street on which the studio stood. He also said that the next LP, Get Back, was complete for release, but the group "got fed up and just left it." He asked to have Gene Vincent's 'Be-Bop-A-Lula' played on Everett's show, specifying that he wanted "the real old one with the tape echo." Everett told Lennon that the early rock 'n' roll songs were recorded with a single microphone, and noted that The Beatles seemed to use "millions of tracks", but Lennon replied that most of the group's backing tracks were done live.

The interview with Lennon was broadcast in two parts on Saturdays 20 and 27 September from 10am until midday.

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Mary Hopkin's first two Apple singles, 'Those Were The Days' and 'Goodbye', had been hits, but the label was unsure what to release as her third. Paul McCartney had been due to produce her second album after the completion of The Beatles' Get Back album, but plans ran aground when the group began recording Abbey Road.

McCartney eventually selected the Doris Day classic 'Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)', a choice which Hopkin didn't care for. However, she agreed to record it, with the folkier The Fields Of St Etienne on the B-side. Both songs were recorded at EMI Studios on Sunday 17 August 1969.

Mary Hopkin : "At the time, it was just one of Paul's fun ideas. It was one sunny afternoon, we were sitting in Paul's garden, and he said, 'Do you like this song?' I said, 'Well, I used to sing it when I was three!' And he said, 'My dad likes it, let's go and do it.' And so Ringo came along; it was all done in an afternoon. I was sort of swept along with Paul's enthusiasm, really."

Que Sera, Sera had a basic track featuring McCartney on acoustic guitar and Ringo Starr on drums. McCartney overdubbed bass guitar and lead guitar, the latter fed through a Leslie speaker, and Starr added more drums. Hopkin performed vocals and acoustic guitar.

Mary Hopkin : "By the time I was halfway through the backing vocals, I said, 'This is awful.' I really thought it was dreadful and I didn't want it released. As far as I remember, it's just Paul and Ringo. I don't think he added anything else. It was all finished in that one afternoon."

 

The Fields Of St Etienne featured Hopkin's double-tracked lead vocals, acoustic guitars played by Hopkin and McCartney, bass guitar and drums by McCartney and Starr respectively, and woodwind and backing vocals by unknown performers.

Mary Hopkin : "That's one of my all–time favorites. Beautiful song. Apparently, the first time it was released on an album, it was a different arrangement. It might've been the chap who did Those Were The Days, Richard something. Paul produced the other version, which was a bit over the top."

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On Friday 22 August 1969, The Beatles united for a final photographic session in the house and grounds of Tittenhurst Park, John Lennon and Yoko Ono's home in Sunninghill near Ascot, Berkshire. It was the last occasion in which all four members were together for band duties; thereafter their only meetings were business-related.

Ringo : "It was just a photo session. I wasn't there thinking, 'OK, this is the last photo session.'"

The photo shoot took place two days after their final recording session together. The photographers were Ethan Russell and Monte Fresco, with additional pictures taken by The Beatles' assistant Mal Evans. Some low-quality film footage was also shot, some of which is thought to have been shown on the BBC Two arts programme Late Night Line-Up on 19 September 1969, during an Abbey Road special.

Paul : "Linda shot some 16mm footage on my camera. That turned out to be the last film taken."

Yoko Ono and a heavily pregnant Linda McCartney appeared in some of the photographs. Also at the shoot were Apple Corps' press officer Derek Taylor and Paul McCartney's sheepdog Martha. A number of photographs were taking in various locations in the house and around the estate. Lennon and George Harrison wore wide-brimmed hats in some of the pictures.

 

The session began in front of the main house, with The Beatles standing by the pillars underneath the terrace canopy. From the main house The Beatles walked down the main garden path past the statue of Diana, goddess of the hunt. The Beatles walked to an overgrown cricket pitch with high grass, where they stood in a row while being filmed and photographed from a variety of angles.



A number of images from the Tittenhurst Park session were issued by Apple Corps for publicity purposes. Three of Ethan Russell's shots were used on the cover of the Capitol Records compilation 'Hey Jude', which was released in the US on 26 February 1970.

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On Thursday 28 August 1969, Paul and Linda McCartney's first daughter Mary Anna McCartney was born. Mary was named after Paul's mother, who had died in 1956. Linda had been four months pregnant when she and Paul married.

Paul : "As our relationship solidified and we really started to feel very confident with each other, it was a question of 'Well, shall I get off the pill then?' and we talked about that, and I said, 'Yeah!' I don't know why. It wasn't like planning a family, it was more 'If you like. We could see what happened. If anything happened. That would be all right.' Then Mary was on the way, it was definitely not planned. And we decided, round about that point, to get married."

Also on this day, Apple Records threw a party for Radha Krsna Temple, the day before the release of their debut single Hare Krishna Mantra. The single had been produced by George Harrison, and he played harmonium and bass guitar on the recording. It was released as Apple 15, with Prayer To The Spiritual Masters as its B-side.

     

Harrison and various members of the Hare Krishna movement attended the party, as did several bus-loads of journalists and photographers. Vegetarian Indian food was served inside a marquee in the gardens, but there was no alcohol.

Joshua M Green [Yogeshvara Prabhu] : "In August 1969, Apple released Hare Krishna Mantra, without knowing how the public would react to a Sanskrit prayer which was backed by a rock rhythm. Nearly one hundred reporters and photographers gathered at a press conference convened by the Apple Corporation on the manicured lawn of an elegant country house in Sydenham."

The party was held at The Wood, a large country house at 16 Sydenham Hill in south London. Apple rented the property from owner AJC Lyddon, and also held the company's first birthday party there.

George : "I'm completely at ease now. I know everything's all right and getting better. I just get happier and happier. You have control of your mind, rather than your mind having control of you. The higher your consciousness goes, the more you are able to see, and you are able to stop things like temper. It's helped me; it can only get better for me. I'm interested in this because the Krishna scene is the same as several others, a lot of branches on the same tree, and I'm involved in a lot of them. The thing they have in common is to get back to God, and to get consciousness. With the Krishna consciousness people, there are probably more people I can identify with, because there are younger people, and they've been through different scenes like we all have. They've been drunkards at one time or another. I never stop chanting the Krishna mantra. I chant for about three-quarters of an hour in the mornings. To go to an ordinary church is okay, it's a nice feeling, but they don't show you the way to Christ consciousness."

 

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On Sunday 31 August 1969, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr watched Bob Dylan and The Band perform at the Isle of Wight Festival. The three were accompanied by their respective wives, Yoko Ono, Pattie Harrison and Maureen Starkey. Paul McCartney was not present, as his wife Linda had given birth to their daughter Mary on 28 August.

Harrison and Mal Evans had met Dylan in Portsmouth on 26 August, to greet the American on his arrival to the UK. Dylan took the ferry to the Isle of Wight later that day, and began rehearsals at Forelands Farm in Bembridge. The Harrisons arrived on the island two days later, and the Lennons and Starkeys travelled there on 30 August. Dylan's appearance was particularly notable as it was his first major public performance in three years.

Around 150,000 people saw Dylan's performance. As well as three of The Beatles, the audience included Keith Richards, Bill Wyman, Syd Barrett, Eric Clapton, Elton John, Spud from The Brumbeats and Jane Fonda. Dylan took to the stage at around 11pm and played for just under an hour.

John : "We went to the Dylan show, and if there had been a jam, we would have got up. It was killed before it happened. It was so late by the time he got on. We would have jammed if it had been earlier. The crowd was dying on their feet by the time he got on."

   

Following the concert, the three Beatles returned to Dylan's rented farmhouse where they gave him a pre-release copy of Abbey Road. They also invited him to return to the mainland the following day in Apple's rented helicopter.

Tom Paxton : "I went with him and The Beatles to the farmhouse where he was clearly in a merry mood because he had felt it had gone so well... The Beatles had brought a test pressing of Abbey Road and we listened to it and had quite a party."

Following his appearance at the Isle of Wight Festival the previous night, Bob Dylan visited John Lennon and Yoko Ono at Tittenhurst Park, their mansion in Ascot, Berkshire. George Harrison was also present at Tittenhurst Park. This was the final time that Dylan met Lennon, and it was not a success.

John : "He came over to our house with George after the Isle of Wight and when I had written 'Cold Turkey'. I was trying to get him to record. We had just put him on piano for Cold Turkey to make a rough tape but his wife was pregnant or something and they left."

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The Beatles had recently finished recording Abbey Road in early September 1969, but they still had much business to deal with. On Tuesday 9 September 1969, John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison met at the Apple Corps headquarters at 3 Savile Row, London, to discuss their future.

Lennon's assistant Anthony Fawcett brought a portable tape recorder to document the meeting, which also allowed the absent Ringo Starr to hear the discussions. At the time Starr was in hospital, undergoing tests for an intestinal complaint.

Lennon : "Ringo – you can't be here, but this is so you can hear what we're discussing."

   

The Beatles began the meeting by discussing plans for a new album, and maybe release a Christmas single. Lennon suggested that they should each bring in compositions for consideration, and proposed a formula for the next Beatles album: four apiece by Lennon, McCartney and Harrison, and an optional two from Starr "if he wants them".

Lennon : "We always carved the singles up between us. We have the singles market, [George and Ringo] don't get anything! I mean, we've never offered George b-sides; we could have given him a lot of b-sides, but because we were two people you had the a-side and I had the b-side."

McCartney's response to this was to say that he had thought Harrison's pre-1969 songs had been substandard.

McCartney : "Well the thing is, I think that until now, until this year, our songs have been better than George's. Now this year his songs are at least as good as ours."

Harrison : "Now that's a myth, 'cause most of the songs this year I wrote about last year or the year before, anyway. Maybe now I just don't care whether you are going to like them or not, I just do 'em... If I didn't get a break I wouldn't push it. I'd just forget about it. Now for the last two years, at any rate, I've pushed it a bit more."

Lennon : "I know what he's saying, 'cause people have said to me you're coming through a lot stronger now than you had."

Harrison : "I don't particularly seek acclaim, that's not the thing. It's just to get out whatever is there to make way for whatever else is there. You know, 'cause it's only to get 'em out, and also I might as well make a bit of money, seeing as I'm spending as much as the rest of you, and I don't earn as much as the rest of you! Most of my tunes, I never had the Beatles backing me."

Lennon : "Oh! C'mon, George! We put a lot of work in your songs, even down to 'Don't Bother Me'; we spent a lot of time doing all that and we grooved. I can remember the riff you were playing, and in the last two years there was a period where you went Indian and we weren't needed!"

Harrison : "That was only one tune. On the last album I don't think you appeared on any of my songs–I don't mind."

"Well, you had Eric, or somebody like that," John replied, in a hurt tone of voice.

There was a long pause as each Beatle seemed lost in contemplation, wondering. Not wanting to admit that they were becoming individual musicians, Paul grasped at the remnants of truth and spoke slowly, almost whispering. "When we get in a studio, even on the worst day, I'm still playing bass, Ringo's still drumming, and we're still there, you know."

Lennon also told McCartney that none of the other Beatles had "dug" 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer', additionally indicating that not even McCartney had liked it.

Lennon : "It seemed mad for us to put a song on an album that nobody really dug, including the guy who wrote it, just because it was going to be popular, 'cause the LP doesn't have to be that. Wouldn't it be better, because we didn't really dig them, yer know, for you to do the songs you dug, and 'Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da' and 'Maxwell' to be given to people who like music like that, yer know, like Mary or whoever it is needs a song. Why don't you give them to them? The only time we need anything vaguely near that quality is for a single. For an album we could just do only stuff that we really dug."

Lennon also referred to the "Lennon and McCartney myth", suggesting a belief that their future songs should be individually credited rather than the traditional Lennon-McCartney partnership of old. This was, of course, largely moot, since The Beatles never came together to record another album – and, indeed, never again recorded as a quartet.



On Monday 29 September 1969, three weeks after this meeting, Lennon told the others that he was leaving the band.

[Pranet]

Aw. I'm sad now.

[daf]

The Ballad of John and Yoko - Part 5



Walking Away :

On Wednesday 10 September 1969, The New Cinema Club at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London hosted the premières of two films by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. The films were Self-Portrait and Mr & Mrs Lennon's Honeymoon. Three earlier films, Rape, Smile and Two Virgins, were also shown.

'Self-Portrait' was a 15-minute slow-motion study of Lennon's penis becoming erect. Unsurprisingly it attracted the bulk of the limited press attention that the evening received.

Philip French [The Observer] : "One film had the camera simply staring at Lennon's penis. Lasting some 40 minutes (it seemed like an eternity), it focused upon the unaided tumescence and detumescence of his member, reaching some sort of climax with a pearl-like drop of semen. The film, then jocularly known as "John Lennon's John Thomas" is actually called Self Portrait. The item listed in Yoko's filmography as Erection is in fact about John watching a hotel being built. John and Yoko were in the cinema, and during the performance there was a door open to the left of the screen with a sharp red light directed towards the auditorium. No one enquired about this, but it was later revealed Yoko had installed equipment to film the critics' reaction to John's comings and goings. The audience was to be one half of a split-screen feature: John showing his all, the critics responding to it frame by frame. Fortunately or unfortunately Yoko's apparatus recorded nothing. Sighs of relief all around. Otherwise that Film Critics' Circle might now be part of a permanent installation projected on the wall of Liverpool's John Lennon International Airport."

'Mr & Mrs Lennon's Honeymoon' was a documentary about the couple's honeymoon bed-in for peace in Amsterdam. Directed by Peter Goessens, it was filmed in colour and lasted 40 minutes. It begins with scenes from the city intercut with Lennon and Ono singing "Hair peace, bed peace", followed by scenes of the couple sleeping and reading newspapers. The second half contains interviews and footage of Lennon talking into the camera.

The event was billed with the words: "John and Yoko's evening of film events will end towards midnight. It will happen once. It will be what they want it to be." Two people sat in a white bag beneath the screen at the ICA throughout the evening, leading many to believe the couple was actually present.

   

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On Friday 12 September 1969, live music promotor John Brower telephoned the Apple office and spoke to John Lennon, inviting him and Yoko Ono to the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival festival taking place the following day. Brower offered eight first class tickets for the couple and their friends. At the time sales for the festival were slow, and he needed some high profile guests to boost its appeal. To his surprise, Lennon agreed on the condition that he could perform at the event. An astonished Brower accepted without hesitation.

John : "We got this phone call on a Friday night that there was a rock'n'roll revival show in Toronto with a 100,000 audience, or whatever it was, and that Chuck was going to be there and Jerry Lee and all the great rockers that were still living, and Bo Diddley, and supposedly The Doors were top of the bill. They were inviting us as king and queen to preside over it, not play – but I didn't hear that bit. I said, 'Just give me time to get a band together,' and we went the next morning."

The Beatles had little enthusiasm for performing live at that point, so Lennon was forced to hastily assemble a live band. His invitation to George Harrison was turned down, but Eric Clapton accepted, as did bassist Klaus Voormann and drummer Alan White.

George : "When the Plastic Ono Band went to Toronto in September John actually asked me to be in the band, but I didn't do it. I didn't really want to be in an avant-garde band, and I knew that was what it was going to be. He said he'd get Klaus Voormann, and Alan White as the drummer. During the last few years of The Beatles we were all producing other records anyway, so we had a nucleus of friends in the studios: drummers and bass players and other musicians. So it was relatively simple to knock together a band. He asked me if I'd play guitar, and then he got Eric Clapton to go – they just rehearsed on the plane over there."

On Saturday 13 September 1969, John Lennon woke up regretting having agreed to perform at the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival festival that evening. Eric Clapton, however, was eager to play, and convinced Lennon that it was too late to back out. Lennon was just in time to catch the flight to Canada with Lennon, Ono and Clapton in first class while the rest flew in economy. During the flight the Plastic Ono Band eventually convened and assembled a set, although the musicians had trouble hearing their guitars above the noise of the engines.

John : "It was very, very quick. We didn't have a band then – we didn't even have a group that had played with us for more than half a minute. I called Eric and I got Klaus, and we got Alan White and they said, 'OK.' There was no big palaver – it wasn't like this set-format show that I'd been doing with The Beatles where you go on and do the same numbers – I Want To Hold Your Head – and the show lasts twenty minutes and nobody's listening, they're just screaming and the amps are as big as a peanut and it's more a spectacular rather than rock'n'roll. Now we didn't know what to play, because we'd never played together before, the band. And on the aeroplane we're running through these oldies, so the rehearsal for the record, which turned into not a bad record, was on the plane, with electric guitars – not even acoustic, you couldn't hear."

Brower arranged their visas and immigration papers, and Mal Evans was instructed to sort out the musical equipment for the new group's debut performance. The event was not just the live debut for the Plastic Ono Band; it also marked the point at which Lennon decided to leave The Beatles.

John : "We were in Apple and I knew before I went to Toronto, I told Allen [Klein] I was leaving. I told Eric Clapton and Klaus that I was leaving and I'd like to probably use them as a group. I hadn't decided how to do it, to have a permanent new group or what. And then later on I thought, 'Fuck it, I'm not going to get stuck with another set of people, whoever they are.' So I announced it to myself and to the people around me on the way to Toronto the few days before. On the plane Allen came with me, and I told him, 'It's over.'"

   

The Toronto Rock and Roll Revival was a one-day festival lasting 12 hours, at the Varsity Stadium of Toronto University. The 20,000 ticket holders were unaware that Lennon, Yoko Ono and the Plastic Ono Band were to perform until the festival was underway. The festival was headlined by The Doors, and also featured Bo Diddley, Chicago Transit Authority, Tony Joe White, Alice Cooper, Jerry-Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, Cat Mother & the All Night Newsboys, Gene Vincent, Junior Walker & The All-Stars, Little Richard, Doug Kershaw, Screaming Lord Sutch, Nucleus, Milkwood, Tony Joe White, and Whiskey Howl.

At approximately 10pm the Plastic Ono Band's black limousine arrived in the backstage area, while Cat Mother was onstage. The group was accompanied by festival promotor John Brower, and the car was escorted by 80 motorcycles from the Toronto Vagabonds. As they arrived photographers scrambled to get a glimpse of the car. Police escorted the Lennons towards the musicians' dressing room, where they remained until midnight.

Eric Clapton : "John just stood in the dressing room, which was admittedly rather tatty, beforehand saying, 'What am I doing here? I could have gone to Brighton!' After all, it was a long way to go for just one concert."

The group was announced by compère Kim Fowley at around midnight.

Mal Evans : "He did a really great thing. He had all the lights in the stadium turned right down and then asked everyone to strike a match. It was a really unbelievable sight when thousands of little flickering lights suddenly shone all over the huge arena."

Lennon later admitted he was addicted to heroin at the time of the performance.

John : "We were full of junk too. I just threw up for hours till I went on. I nearly threw up in 'Cold Turkey' – I had a review in Rolling Stone about the film of it – which I haven't seen yet, and they're saying, 'I was this and that.' And I was throwing up nearly in the number. I could hardly sing any of them, I was full of shit."

He led the group through six songs: 'Blue Suede Shoes', 'Money (That's What I Want)', 'Dizzy Miss Lizzy', 'Yer Blues', 'Cold Turkey', and 'Give Peace A Chance'.

 

John : "The buzz was incredible. I never felt so good in my life. Everybody was with us and leaping up and down doing the peace sign, because they knew most of the numbers anyway, and we did a number called 'Cold Turkey' we'd never done before and they dug it like mad."

Lennon confessed from the stage that he couldn't remember the lyrics to the verses of 'Give Peace A Chance', and instead improvised words:

John : "The ridiculous thing was that I didn't know any of the lyrics. When we did 'Money' and 'Dizzy' I just made up the words as I went along. The band was bashing it out like hell behind me. Yoko came up on stage with us, but she wasn't going to do her bit until we'd done our five songs. Then after 'Money' there was a stop, and I turned to Eric and said 'What's next?' He just shrugged, so I screamed 'C'mon!' and started into something else. We did 'Yer Blues' because I've done that with Eric before. It blew our minds. Meanwhile Yoko had whipped offstage to get some lyrics out of her white bag. Then we went into 'Give Peace A Chance' which was just unbelievable. I was making up the words as we went along. I didn't have a clue."

If the first half of the concert was led by John Lennon, the second was Yoko Ono's. The crowd's reaction to Don't Worry Kyoko (Mummy's Only Looking For Her Hand In The Snow) and John, John (Let's Hope For Peace) was divided, with some people booing her performance.

John : "Yoko did a number, which was half rock and half madness, and it really freaked them out. We finished with Yoko's number, because you can't go anywhere after you've reached that sort of pitch. You can't go 'Ji-jing' like The Beatles and bow at the end of screaming and 50 watts of feedback. So, after Yoko had been on for about a quarter of an hour, we all left our amps on going like the clappers and had a smoke on the stage. Then, when they stopped, the whole crowd was chanting 'Give Peace A Chance'. It looks like this is going to be the Plastic Ono Band in the future."

Mal Evans : "At the end of 'John, John' all the boys placed their guitars against the speakers of their amps and walked to the back of the stage. Because they had already started the feed-back process, the sound continued while John, Klaus, Alan and Eric grouped together and lit ciggies. Then I went on and led them off-stage. Finally I walked on again and switched off their amps one by one. When it was over we all piled into four big cars and drove for two hours to a huge estate owned by a Mr Eaton, who is one of the richest men in Canada. His son had actually picked us up after the show so that we could stay overnight at his house."

The Plastic Ono Band's set was released on vinyl on Friday 12 December 1969 as Live Peace In Toronto 1969. The rock 'n' roll songs featured on side one, with Ono's songs taking up the second half. The album failed to chart in the UK, although it reached number 10 in the US and was certified gold.

 

John : "We tried to put it out on Capitol, and Capitol didn't want to put it out. They said, 'This is garbage, we're not going to put it out with her screaming on one side and you doing this sort of live stuff.' And they just refused to put it out. But we finally persuaded them that, you know, people might buy this. Of course, it went gold the next day. And then, the funny thing was – this is a side story – Klein had got a deal on that record that it was a John and Yoko Plastic Ono record, not a Beatles record, so we could get a higher royalty, because The Beatles' royalties were so low – they'd been locked in '63 – and Capitol said, 'Sure you can have it,' you know. Nobody's going to buy that crap. They just threw it away and gave it us. And it came out, and it was fairly successful and it went gold. I don't know what chart position, but I've got a gold record somewhere that says... And four years later, we go to collect the royalties, and you know what they say? 'This is a Beatle record.' So Capitol have it in my file under Beatle records. Isn't it incredible?"

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Although the previous week John Lennon had decided to leave The Beatles, Allen Klein persuaded him to keep quiet in public. Nonetheless, on Saturday 20 September 1969 Lennon chose to tell the rest of the group. Klein was in the process of renegotiating a new contract for the group with EMI/Capitol, and persuaded Lennon that it was in everyone's interests to deny that the dream was over, at least for a while longer. The new contract was signed by The Beatles on this day, just before Lennon revealed his plans to leave.

Since May 1969, Klein had been arguing for an improved royalty rate. The Beatles' existing deal with EMI and Capitol gave them 17.5% of the US wholesale price – a considerable amount already. Klein was able to increase to 25%. He was able to argue that, should the label object, The Beatles would cease to record for them. In return for the higher rate, The Beatles would deliver two new albums each year, whether as a group or individually, until 1976. Under the terms of the deal, new albums would earn 58 cents until 1972, and 72 cents thereafter.

The contract was signed on this day; despite his reservations over Klein, Paul McCartney added his signature along with Lennon and Ringo Starr. George Harrison was visiting his mother in Cheshire at the time, but signed the contract a few days later. The meeting took place at Apple's headquarters in London's Savile Row. John Lennon used the opportunity to tell McCartney and Starr that he was leaving the group.

     

John : "When I got back [from Toronto] there were a few meetings and Allen said, 'Cool it,' 'cause there was a lot to do [with The Beatles] business-wise, and it wouldn't have been suitable at the time. Then we were discussing something in the office with Paul and Paul was saying to do something, and I kept saying, 'No, no, no' to everything he said. So it came to a point that I had to say something. So I said, 'The group's over, I'm leaving.' Allen was there, and he was saying, 'Don't tell.' He didn't want me to tell Paul even. But I couldn't help it, I couldn't stop it, it came out. And Paul and Allen said they were glad that I wasn't going to announce it, like I was going to make an event out of it. I don't know whether Paul said, 'Don't tell anybody,' but he was damn pleased that I wasn't. He said, 'Oh well, that means nothing really happened if you're not going to say anything.' So that's what happened."

Paul : "I'd said: 'I think we should go back to little gigs – I really think we're a great little band. We should find our basic roots, and then who knows what will happen? We may want to fold after that, or we may really think we've still got it.' John looked at me in the eye and said: 'Well, I think you're daft. I wasn't going to tell you till we signed the Capitol deal' – Klein was trying to get us to sign a new deal with the record company – 'but I'm leaving the group!' We paled visibly and our jaws slackened a bit. I must admit we'd known it was coming at some point because of his intense involvement with Yoko. John needed to give space to his and Yoko's thing. Someone like John would want to end The Beatles period and start the Yoko period; and he wouldn't like either to interfere with the other. But what wasn't too clever was this idea of: 'I wasn't going to tell you till after we signed the new contract.' Good old John – he had to blurt it out. And that was it. There's not a lot you can say to, 'I'm leaving the group,' from a key member."

During the meeting Lennon and Yoko Ono also made Klein business manager of their company Bag Productions.

Ringo : "After the Plastic Ono Band's debut in Toronto, we had a meeting in Savile Row where John finally brought it to its head. He said: 'Well, that's it, lads. Let's end it.' And we all said 'yes'. And though I said 'yes' because it was ending (and you can't keep it together anyway, if this is what the attitude is) I don't know if I would have said, 'End it.' I probably would have lingered another couple of years. But when we all met in the office, we knew it was good. It wasn't sulky and we weren't really fighting. It was like a thought came into the room, and everyone said what they said. John didn't think we should leave, just that we should break it up. It was not: 'I'm leaving, you're leaving.' It was: 'Well, that's it! I've had enough. I want to do this...' If that had happened in 1965, or 1967 even, it would have been a mighty shock. Now it was just 'let's get the divorce over with', really. And John was always the most forward when it came to nailing anything."

Paul : "I didn't really know what to say. We had to react to him doing it; he had control of the situation. I remember him saying, 'It's weird this, telling you I'm leaving the group, but in a way it's very exciting.' It was like when he told Cynthia he was getting a divorce. He was quite buoyed up by it, so we couldn't really do anything: 'You mean leaving'? So that's the group, then...' It was later, as the fact set in, that it got really upsetting."

   

The Album : Abbey Road

On Friday 26 September 1969, The Beatles' 11th official studio album, Abbey Road, was released in the UK. Their last-recorded album, it was issued only in stereo.

Abbey Road was recorded on eight-track reel-to-reel tape machines rather than the four-track machines that were used for earlier Beatles albums. The album makes prominent use of guitar played through a Leslie speaker, and of the Moog synthesizer. Starr made more prominent use of the tom-toms on Abbey Road, later saying the album was "tom-tom madness ... I went nuts on the toms." Abbey Road was also the first and only Beatles album to be entirely recorded through a solid-state transistor mixing desk, the TG12345 Mk I, as opposed to earlier thermionic valve-based desks.

After the tense and unpleasant recording sessions for the proposed 'Get Back' album, Paul McCartney suggested to music producer George Martin that the group get together and make an album "the way we used to do it", free of the conflict that had begun during sessions for The Beatles 'White Album'. Martin agreed, but on the strict condition that all the group – particularly John Lennon – allow him to produce the record in the same manner as earlier albums and that discipline would be adhered to. No one was entirely sure that the work was going to be the group's last, though George Harrison said "it felt as if we were reaching the end of the line".

McCartney, Starr and Martin have reported positive recollections of the sessions, while Harrison said, "we did actually perform like musicians again". Lennon and McCartney had enjoyed working together on the non-album single "The Ballad of John and Yoko" in April, sharing friendly banter between takes, and some of this camaraderie carried over to the Abbey Road sessions. Nevertheless, there was a significant amount of tension in the group. Halfway through recording in June, Lennon and Ono were involved in a car accident. A doctor told Ono to rest in bed, so Lennon had one installed in the studio so she could observe the recording process from there.

 

During the sessions, Lennon expressed a desire to have all of his songs on one side of the album, and McCartney's on the other. The album's two halves represented a compromise: Lennon wanted a traditional release with distinct and unrelated songs while McCartney and Martin wanted to continue their thematic approach from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by incorporating a medley. Lennon ultimately said that he disliked Abbey Road as a whole and felt that it lacked authenticity, calling McCartney's contributions "[music] for the grannies to dig" and not "real songs", and describing the medley as "junk ... just bits of songs thrown together".

"Something" was Lennon's favourite song on the album, and McCartney considered it the best song Harrison had written. Though the song was written by Harrison, Frank Sinatra once commented that it was his favourite Lennon–McCartney composition and "the greatest love song ever written". The song was issued as a double A-side single with "Come Together" in October 1969 and topped the US charts for one week, becoming the Beatles' first number-one single that was not a Lennon–McCartney composition.

Originally the sides were in the reverse order with "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" intended to close the album with a violent slash. Side two [originally to have been side one] contains a 16-minute medley of eight short songs, recorded over July and August and blended into a suite by McCartney and George Martin. While the idea for the medley was McCartney's, Martin claims credit for some structure, adding he "wanted to get John and Paul to think more seriously about their music".

"Her Majesty" was originally included in a rough mix of the side two (eight-song) medley (known during the recording sessions as "The Long One") appearing between "Mean Mr. Mustard" and "Polythene Pam". McCartney disliked the way the medley sounded, so he asked for it to be cut. The second engineer, John Kurlander, had been instructed by George Martin not to throw out anything, so after McCartney left, he attached the track to the end of the master tape after 20 seconds of silence. The tape box bore an instruction to leave "Her Majesty" off the final product, but the next day when mastering engineer Malcolm Davies received the tape, he (also trained not to throw anything away) cut a playback lacquer of the whole sequence, including "Her Majesty". The Beatles liked this effect and included it on the album.

"Her Majesty" opens with the final, crashing chord of "Mean Mr. Mustard", while the final note remained buried in the mix of "Polythene Pam", as a result of being snipped off the reel during a rough mix of the medley on 30 July. Original US and UK pressings of Abbey Road do not list "Her Majesty" on the album's cover nor on the record label, making it a hidden track.

 

Abbey Road made its UK chart debut on Saturday 4 October 1969 at number one, following advance sales of 190,000. It topped the chart for 11 weeks, before dropping to number two when The Rolling Stones' Let It Bleed was released, but returned to the top spot a week later, on 27 December, and stayed there for a further six weeks. In total the album spent 92 weeks in the UK top 75.

Worldwide, it sold four million copies in its first six weeks on sale, and a further million by the end of 1969 – making it the best-selling long-player of the year. Abbey Road was the fourth best-selling album of the entire 1960s, and the eighth best-selling of 1970. By October 1972 Abbey Road had sold 7.6 million copies worldwide. In 1980 it became The Beatles' first album to sell more than 10 million copies worldwide.

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The image of the Beatles on the Abbey Road crossing has become one of the most famous and imitated in recording history. Apple Records creative director John Kosh designed the album cover.

John Kosh : "I was working on other projects at the time, like Mary Hopkin, Billy Preston and the 'War is Over' project for John Lennon, so all this stuff was going on. And I had actually prepared a package with a book for the album 'Get Back' before it was retitled 'Let it Be.' So because that was slotted in for a certain time and then postponed, 'Abbey Road' was all of the sudden 'Oh, it's Monday. You need a cover Wednesday.' I'm actually kind of making that up. But it was that sort of urgency."

The front cover was a photograph of the group on a zebra crossing based on ideas that McCartney sketched and taken on 8 August 1969 outside EMI Studios on Abbey Road. At 11:35 that morning, photographer Iain Macmillan was given only ten minutes to take the photo while he stood on a step-ladder and a policeman held up traffic behind the camera.

Iain Macmillan : "The whole idea, I must say, was Paul McCartney's. A few days before the shoot, he drew a sketch of how he imagined the cover, which we executed almost exactly that day. I took a couple of shots of the Beatles crossing Abbey Road one way. We let some of the traffic go by and then they walked across the road the other way and I took a few more shots. The one eventually chosen for the cover was number five of six. It was the only one that had their legs in a perfect 'V' formation, which is what I wanted stylistically."

     

Macmillan took six photographs, which McCartney examined with a magnifying glass before deciding which would be used on the album sleeve.  It was the only one when all four Beatles were walking in time. It also satisfied The Beatles' desire for the world to see them walking away from the studios they had spent so much of the last seven years inside.



In the image selected by McCartney, the group walk across the street in single file from left to right, with Lennon leading, followed by Starr, McCartney, and Harrison. McCartney is barefoot and out of step with the others. Except for Harrison, the group are wearing suits designed by Tommy Nutter. A white Volkswagen Beetle is to the left of the picture, parked next to the zebra crossing, which belonged to one of the people living in the block of flats across from the recording studio. After the album was released, the number plate (LMW 281F) was repeatedly stolen from the car. In 2004, news sources published a claim made by retired American salesman Paul Cole that he was the man standing on the pavement to the right of the picture.



It is the only original UK Beatles album sleeve to show neither the artist name nor the album title on its front cover, which was Kosh's idea, despite EMI claiming the record would not sell without this information.

John Kosh : "The chairman of EMI was definitely miffed, I got the phone call at three in the morning and the stream of invective that sort of frightened the pants off a 23 year old. But luckily, I went to Apple the very next morning, humbly thinking 'What am I gonna do?' And George was there, which is kind of weird, because why was a Beatle there in the morning? I do not know. Unless he'd been there all night. I told him the story. And he said, 'Ahh, screw it. We're the Beatles.' When there's like half a million album covers coming off the press, what am I gonna do? Say 'Sorry, you've gotta stop and put the new title on?' There's no way as a humble little designer that I could possibly have stopped the presses. Maybe the Beatles could have done it, but they didn't care. Because they were the Beatles.""

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Shortly after the album's release, the cover became part of the crackpot "Paul is Dead" theory that was spreading across college campuses in the US. According to followers of the rumour, the cover depicted the Beatles walking out of a cemetery in a funeral procession. The procession was led by Lennon dressed in white as a religious figure; Starr was dressed in black as the undertaker; McCartney, out of step with the others, was a barefoot corpse; and Harrison dressed in denim was the gravedigger. The left-handed McCartney is holding a cigarette in his right hand, indicating that he is an imposter, and the number plate on the Volkswagen parked on the street is 28IF, meaning that McCartney would have been 28 if he had lived – despite the fact that he was only 27 at the time of the photo and subsequent release of the record.

   

Abbey Road initially received mixed reviews from music critics, who criticised the production's artificial sounds and viewed its music as inauthentic. William Mann of The Times said that the album will "be called gimmicky by people who want a record to sound exactly like a live performance", although he considered it to be "teem[ing] with musical invention" and added: "Nice as Come Together and Harrison's Something are – they are minor pleasures in the context of the whole disc ... Side Two is marvellous ..."

Ed Ward of Rolling Stone called the album "complicated instead of complex" and felt that the Moog synthesizer "disembodies and artificializes" the band's sound, adding that they "create a sound that could not possibly exist outside the studio".

While he found the medley on side two to be their "most impressive music" since Rubber Soul, Nik Cohn of The New York Times said that, "individually", the album's songs are "nothing special".

Albert Goldman of Life magazine wrote that Abbey Road "is not one of the Beatles' great albums" and, despite some "lovely" phrases and "stirring" segues, side two's suite "seems symbolic of the Beatles' latest phase, which might be described as the round-the-clock production of disposable music effects".

Conversely, Chris Welch wrote in Melody Maker: "the truth is, their latest LP is just a natural born gas, entirely free of pretension, deep meanings or symbolism ... While production is simple compared to past intricacies, it is still extremely sophisticated and inventive." Though he blotted his copybook by claiming that McCartney was the 'funky' drummer on several of the tracks - which was untrue.

Derek Jewell of The Sunday Times found the album "refreshingly terse and unpretentious", and although he lamented the band's "cod-1920s jokes (Maxwell's Silver Hammer) and ... Ringo's obligatory nursery arias (Octopus's Garden)", he considered that Abbey Road "touches higher peaks than did their last album".

John Mendelsohn, writing for Rolling Stone, called it "breathtakingly recorded" and praised side two especially, equating it to "the whole of Sgt. Pepper" and stating, "That the Beatles can unify seemingly countless musical fragments and lyrical doodlings into a uniformly wonderful suite ... seems potent testimony that no, they've far from lost it, and no, they haven't stopped trying."

   

War is Over :

On Monday 20 October 1969, the third album of experimental recordings by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, 'Wedding Album', was released by Apple in the US. The couple's first collaboration, Two Virgins, marked the beginning of their relationship and artistic partnership. The follow-up, Life With The Lions, mostly documented their 1968 stay in London's Queen Charlotte Hospital, where Ono suffered a miscarriage. Wedding Album commemorated their wedding in Gibraltar on 20 March 1969. The release was credited simply to "John & Yoko"; their surnames did not appear anywhere on the sleeve or record labels.

John : "It was like our sharing our wedding with whoever wanted to share it with us. We didn't expect a hit record out of it. It was more of a... that's why we called it Wedding Album. You know, people make a wedding album, show it to the relatives when they come round. Well, our relatives are the... what you call fans, or people that follow us outside. So that was our way of letting them join in on the wedding."

     

The two sides of the vinyl disc each contained a single track. 'John And Yoko' was a 22-minute recording of Lennon and Ono crying, whispering, speaking and screaming each others' names, at varying volumes and tempos, over the sound of their heartbeats. The track was an uncredited extended re-working of the 1951 Stan Freeberg novelty record "John and Marsha".

The album's second side was titled 'Amsterdam', and featured recordings made during their first bed-in for peace. Much of 'Amsterdam' consisted of interviews given by Lennon and Ono, explaining their campaigns for peace, and discussions with each other. The speech was also interspersed with songs, the sounds of seagulls, industrial noises, traffic, children playing and sitars.

Apple released Wedding Album as a lavish box set, which contained a reproduction of the marriage certificate, a 16-page booklet of press cuttings labelled 'The Press', a picture of a slice of wedding cake, a poster of black-and-white photos taken on their wedding day, a 'Hair Peace/Bed Peace' postcard, a PVC bag labelled 'Bagism', and a strip of four passport photographs of the happy couple.

     

The vinyl disc was housed in a plain white inner sleeve, inside a laminated gatefold picture sleeve. The elaborate packaging led to a delay in the album being issued. It eventually appeared in the United Kingdom on 14 November 1969. The album did not chart in the UK, but peaked at number 178 in the United States. Because of it poor sales and the various elements to the release, mint condition copies are highly sought after by collectors.

   

The UK weekly music newspaper Melody Maker ran a notorious review written by Richard Williams, who had been given a promotional copy containing two discs, each of which contained a test signal on one side. Williams duly reviewed what he thought was a double album, noting that "constant listening reveals a curious point: the pitch of the tones alters frequency, but only by microtones or, at most, a semitone. This oscillation produces an almost subliminal, uneven 'beat' which maintains interest. On a more basic level, you could have a ball by improvising your very own raga, plainsong, or even Gaelic mouth music against the drone."

Lennon and Ono were greatly amused by Williams' review, and sent a telegram of thanks :

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DEAR RICHARD THANK YOU FOR YOUR FANTASTIC REVIEW ON OUR WEDDING ALBUM INCLUDING C-AND-D SIDES STOP WE ARE CONSIDERING IT FOR OUR NEXT RELEASE STOP MAYBE YOU ARE RIGHT IN SAYING THAT THEY ARE THE BEST SIDES STOP WE BOTH FEEL THAT THIS IS THE FIRST TIME A CRITIC TOPPED THE ARTIST STOP WE ARE NOT JOKING STOP LOVE AND PEACE STOP JOHN AND YOKO LENNON
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"Cold Turkey" was recorded on 30 September 1969, and released as a single in the UK on 24 October 1969 on Apple Records. It was the second solo single issued by Lennon, and peaked at #14 on the UK Singles Chart.

Some have claimed that Lennon admitted that the song was not inspired by his recent Heroin withdrawal, but written following a severe case of food poisoning after eating some dodgy Christmas leftovers. Since Lennon was by now in the habit of recording singles within days of writing them, a gap of over nine months between cold Christmas Turkey and the recording of the song seems unlikely, and this was most likely a gag by Lennon.

Lennon presented the song to Paul McCartney as a potential single by The Beatles, but it was refused and eventually released as a Plastic Ono Band single with sole writing credits to him. The original single cover art features Lennon's head with glasses on an X-ray image.

     

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On Tuesday 25 November 1969 , John Lennon returned his MBE to the Queen, as an act of protest against the Vietnam War. Lennon's chauffeur Les Anthony returned the insignia of the award to Buckingham Palace in the morning, also delivering handwritten letters to The Queen, prime minister Harold Wilson, and the secretary of the Central Chancery, explaining his actions. The letters were written on notepaper headed Bag Productions, the company Lennon had recently set up with Yoko Ono.
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    Your Majesty,

I am returning my MBE as a protest against Britain's involvement in the Nigeria-Biafra thing, against our support of America in Vietnam and against 'Cold Turkey' slipping down the charts.

    With love. John Lennon of Bag
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The action was predictably seized on by the media. Lennon gave an interview to David Bellan of BBC Radio Four in which he explained that he had been "mulling it over" for the past two years, and that the My Lai massacre carried out by the US Army in March 1968 had contributed to his decision. He also said he had not consulted the other Beatles before returning his MBE, and that he had only accepted it after being persuaded by Brian Epstein.

The Beatles had each been awarded the Member of the Order of the British Empire in the Queen's 1965 birthday honours. The news was announced on 11 June that year, and the group received the awards at the palace on Tuesday 26 October 1965.

   

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John Lennon gave dozens of interviews towards the end of 1969, to plug Plastic Ono Band's various activities and to further his peace campaign with Yoko Ono. On Friday 12 December 1969 he spoke to Harry Flower from South African radio.

The interview took place in Lennon's office at Apple Corps. They discussed the state's prior ban on Beatles recordings, by now lifted. Flower explained that one station was planning a 90 minute special on the Abbey Road album. Lennon responded positively, adding that they should also do one on the newly-released Live Peace In Toronto 1969. Lennon also discussed The Beatles' Get Back album and film, as they were both then known, to be released in the new year.

John : "Music wise, The Beatles have a new album out in January, called Get Back, and the Plastic Ono Band will probably make a single around January. We haven't recorded it yet and John and Yoko's peace movement has got a few things lined up. No doubt, you've heard one or two things about it over here. We have a poster event that is happening in many cities at once, like New York, Toronto, Paris, Rome, Berlin, London, Athens, Amsterdam, a poster event for Christmas which, we hope, will happen simultaneously on Monday the 15th, and go on all over Christmas. We're going to Toronto next week to set up a peace concert in July, a big gathering in Canada. So that's our latest plans."

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On Monday 15 December 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono began the next stage of their peace campaign. To coincide with the launch, huge posters and billboards were erected in 12 countries proclaiming :

               WAR IS OVER!
             IF YOU WANT IT
Happy Christmas from John & Yoko

The campaign was launched in 12 major cities: New York, London, Paris, Berlin, [oh, so close! - Pop Muzik Ed.] Los Angeles, Toronto, Rome, Athens, Amsterdam, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Helsinki. The posters were white with stark black lettering. In some of the countries the message was translated into the native language. In Toronto, 30 roadside billboards were set up, as well as thousands of posters and handbills. Only in London were the posters defaced.

 

Also on 15 December, the Plastic Ono Band took part in a benefit concert for the charity Unicef at the Lyceum Ballroom in central London. In November 1969 Unicef had announced that the group would perform at the event. This, however, was news to John Lennon and Yoko Ono, although they agreed to take part after recognising it would be a useful opportunity to highlight their peace and political campaigning. The event was titled Peace and Love for Christmas. Also appearing were several other acts: The Young Rascals, Desmond Dekker and the Aces, Blue Mink and Black Velvet, and Emperor Rosko was the disc jockey between the performances.

   

On the night, Eric Clapton arrived with almost all of Delaney & Bonnie's touring band, which at the time included George Harrison. This, therefore, was the first time Lennon and Harrison had performed at a scheduled concert since The Beatles' last show on 29 August 1966. It was also the Plastic Ono Band's only European concert.

Alan White : "I went down there in my Mini and went on stage at the Lyceum. Just prior to the Plastic Ono Band going on, Eric Clapton turns up with the whole Delaney & Bonnie band, so we had to hustle another couple of drum kits. Then, Keith Moon joins me on stage, playing my 16-inch tom-toms. It was a thing where somebody would hit one chord and it was a jam."

John : "I thought it was fantastic. I was really into it. We were doing the show and George and Bonnie and Delaney, Billy Preston and all that crowd turned up. They'd just come back from Sweden and George had been playing invisible man in Bonnie and Delaney's band, which Eric Clapton had been doing, to get the pressure off being the famous Eric and the famous George. They became the guitarists in this and they all turned up, and it was again like the concert in Toronto. I said, 'Will you come on?' They said, 'Well, what are you going to play?' I said, 'Listen, we're going to do probably a blues... or Cold Turkey, which is three chords, and Eric knew that.' And Don't Worry Kyoko, which was Yoko's, which has three chords and a riff. I said, 'Once we get on to Yoko's riff, just keep hitting it.'"

 

The Plastic Ono Band performed just two songs: current single 'Cold Turkey' and its B-side Don't Worry Kyoko (Mummy's Only Looking For Her Hand In The Snow). The first song lasted for nearly seven minutes, and was introduced by Lennon with the words: "We'd like to do a number. This song's about pain." After the song Ono, in a white back at Lennon's feet, shouted "John! I love you! Britain! You killed Hanratty, you murderer!"

The Plastic Ono Band's performance was recorded on four-track tape by Geoff Emerick, with Peter Bown and John Kurlander engineering. It was mixed two days later, but remained unreleased until included on a bonus disc with the 1972 album Some Time In New York City. 'Don't Worry Kyoko' lasted for around 40 minutes, though it was trimmed to 15 minutes for the album release. Emerick was forced to change tape reels midway through, and at least three edits are evident in the released version. It featured the guitarists and horns locked in various grooves and riffs as Ono wailed over the top. Lennon later described the performance of Don't Worry Kyoko as "the most fantastic music I've ever heard ... 20 years ahead of its time".

John : "A lot of the audience walked out, but the ones that stayed, they were in a trance. They just all came to the front, because it was one of the first real heavy rock shows... It's only to be expected that some people were disappointed in that we only did two long numbers, but we play 1984 music! I don't know what they want. I'm trying to get it across that the Plastic Ono Band plays the unexpected. It could be anything. It could be 'Blue Suede Shoes' or it could be Beethoven's 9th. People should expect something from The Beatles or The Stones, but with the Plastic Ono Band anything goes. I don't do variety anymore. I stopped that when I was with The Beatles."

The performance came to an eventual end after drummer Alan White took the decision to play increasingly faster, until the band could go on no more.

Alan White : "While I thought Cold Turkey was good, the other number went on far too long and it began to sag. Jimmy Gordon, the other drummer from Delaney & Bonnie, and me began to speed up to bring it to an end. But we just got faster and faster and nobody wanted to stop. It was so fast that our muscles were aching. I was just about thinking, 'For Christ's sake, stop it,' when it just sort of finished."

[famethrowa]

'What am I doing here? I could have gone to Brighton!'

love that

[gilbertharding]

John Lennon was a fucking prick, wasn't he? I mean, fucking hell... maybe he'd earned it, and maybe that's just what smack does to you, but still.

[daf]

The Ballad of John and Yoko - Part 6



The 1969 Christmas Fan Club Single :

Issued on Friday 19 December 1969 as a two sided 7-inch Flexi disc, like the 1968 release, The Beatles Seventh Christmas Record was recorded separately, as the band had effectively split by this point. It featured an extensive visit with Lennon and his wife Yoko at their Tittenhurst Park estate, where they play "what will Santa bring me?" games. Harrison and Ringo Starr appear only briefly, the latter to publicise his recent film, The Magic Christian. McCartney sings his original ad-lib, "This is to Wish You a Merry, Merry Christmas".

   

For the only time, the North American and UK sleeves were identical. The North American version of the flexi-disc had an elaborate collage of the Beatles' faces on it (drawn by Ringo), while the back cover contained stick-figure scribbles made by his son, Zak Starkey.

   

In December 1970, in the wake of the band's break-up, the UK fan-club sent out a compilation LP of all seven of the Beatles' Christmas recordings, entitled From Then to You. The master tapes having been mislaid, the LP was mastered from copies of the original flexi discs.

   

In the US, the seven messages were issued as The Beatles' Christmas Album sent out by the fan-club around springtime 1971. It was the first time the 1964 and 1965 messages had been made available in the US. With no new recording, the LP served to remind that the Beatles were no more, but had the advantage of durability over the original flexi discs.

 

Early 1970 :

In October 1969, Michael Lindsay-Hogg completed an edit of the documentary film 'Let It Be', which included footage of Harrison playing "I Me Mine" for Starr. Harrison, Starr and McCartney were then shown performing the song while Lennon danced with Ono. Since the scenes were relatively prominent, the Beatles had to record the song for inclusion on the accompanying soundtrack album.

On 3 January 1970, Harrison, McCartney and Starr met at EMI Studios to work on the track with producer George Martin. Lennon did not attend the session; having privately left the band in September 1969, he and Ono were on holiday in Denmark at the time.

 

The group recorded 16 takes of the song, most lasting not longer than 1'30". Harrison played acoustic guitar and sang a guide vocal, with McCartney on bass and Starr on drums. Between takes six and seven the group began an instrumental jam, and prior to take 12 they performed a version of the Buddy Holly song 'Peggy Sue Got Married'.

Prior to Take 15, Harrison, in the style of a press statement, made a reference to Lennon's absence : "You all will have read that Dave Dee is no longer with us. But Mickey and Tich and I would just like to carry on the good work that's always gone down in number two."

Aside from vocals, the overdubs on take 16 were two distorted electric lead guitars and a lead acoustic part, all played by Harrison, and McCartney's Hammond organ and electric piano. The recorded track lasted 1 minute 34 seconds. When engineer Glyn Johns compiled the proposed Get Back album, he retained the studio chatter that preceded take 16, as Harrison says, "All right. Are you ready, Ringo?" and Starr replies, "Ready, George!". As with Johns' May 1969 version of Get Back, the Beatles rejected his January 1970 submission of the album.

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On Tuesday 27 January 1970, the third single by Plastic Ono Band, 'Instant Karma!', was written, recorded and mixed on this day. John Lennon wrote the song in the morning on an upright piano at Tittenhurst Park, his mansion in Ascot, Berkshire.

John : "It just came to me. Everybody was going on about karma, especially in the Sixties. But it occurred to me that karma is instant as well as it influences your past life or your future life. There really is a reaction to what you do now. That's what people ought to be concerned about. Also, I'm fascinated by commercials and promotion as an art form. I enjoy them. So the idea of instant karma was like the idea of instant coffee: presenting something in a new form. I just liked it."

Keen to record the song as soon as possible, Abbey Road's Studio Two was hastily booked. The session began at 7pm. Eric Clapton, who had played on the previous Plastic Ono Band single 'Cold Turkey', was unable to attend the session at such short notice, so Lennon invited his Beatle bandmate George Harrison instead. Harrison suggested to Lennon that Phil Spector produce the session.

George : "John phoned me up one morning in January and said, 'I've written this tune and I'm going to record it tonight and have it pressed up and out tomorrow – that's the whole point: Instant Karma, you know.' So I was in. I said, 'OK, I'll see you in town.' I was in town with Phil Spector and I said to Phil, 'Why don't you come to the session?' There were just four people: John played piano, I played acoustic guitar, there was Klaus Voormann on bass, and Alan White on drums. We recorded the song and brought it out that week, mixed – instantly – by Phil Spector."

The legendary Wall Of Sound producer proved a perfect match for Lennon and Harrison, who later enlisted him to work on the Let It Be recordings.

John : "It was great, 'cause I wrote it in the morning on the piano, like I said many times, and I went to the office and I sang it. I thought, 'Hell, let's do it,' and we booked the studio. And Phil came in, he said, 'How do you want it?' I said, 'You know, 1950 but now.' And he said 'Right,' and boom, I did it in just about three goes. He played it back, and there it was. I said, 'A bit more bass,' that's all. And off we went. See, Phil doesn't fuss about with fuckin' stereo or all the bullshit. Just 'Did it sound alright? Let's have it.' It doesn't matter whether something's prominent or not prominent. If it sounds good to you as a layman or as a human, take it. Don't bother whether this is like that or the quality of this. That suits me fine."

   

Instant Karma was recorded in 10 takes between 7pm and midnight. The basic track featured Lennon playing Harrison's Gibson J-200 acoustic guitar, Harrison on electric guitar, Klaus Voormann playing bass, Alan White on drums, and Billy Preston playing electric piano. From midnight until 3am a number of overdubs were added. Spector decided to omit the guitars, and instead added heavy reverberation to the drums, and various extra keyboard parts. These included Lennon and Voormann on electric piano, Harrison and White on a grand piano, and an additional Hammond organ part. Mal Evans also added chimes during the chorus.

Considerable echo was also added to Lennon's lead vocals. It was then decided that a choir was needed for the chorus. Evans and Preston rounded up volunteers from Hatchetts nightclub in London, and three tracks of backing vocals and handclaps were recorded. The singers were conducted by Harrison; Allen Klein was reportedly one of the performers. From 3-4am the song was mixed four times in stereo. Geoff Emerick had been the balance engineer until Spector decided his presence was making him edgy and he was asked to leave. Emerick later claimed that the final version, the fourth attempt, was a rough mix which Spector had marked 'Do not use', but Lennon's haste to release the song meant it was issued on the UK single regardless.

On 11 February 1970, Lennon and Ono filmed an appearance on BBC Television's Top of the Pops to promote "Instant Karma!", accompanied by White, Voormann, Mal Evans and BP Fallon (on tambourine). This was the first appearance on the program by any member of the Beatles since 1966, as well as the public unveiling of the Lennons' new cropped look. Two versions – known as "knitting" and "cue card" – were taped for the show, and aired on 12 and 19 February 1970, respectively.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

On Wednesday 18 February 1970, an hour after finishing a mixing session for his Sentimental Journey album, Ringo Starr returned to EMI Studios to work on his first solo UK single. 'It Don't Come Easy', credited to Starr, was actually mostly written by George Harrison. At this stage the song was known as 'You Gotta Pay Your Dues'.

   

The session was produced by George Martin, with Harrison on the studio floor directing the musicians. It took the musicians 20 takes to perfect the backing track, the last of which became the basis for further overdubs. Recording took place from 7pm to 12.30am. Harrison played acoustic guitar, Klaus Voormann was on bass guitar, Starr played drums, and Stephen Stills was on piano.

Steven Stills : "Ringo came in with this little song, that is, he sat down and played eight bars, and said, 'That's it.' So, we all made suggestions... and it came along very nicely. George told me that the session was for Ringo's 'surprise single' and I guess that could be right."

Starr re-recorded his vocals the following evening, before it was decided that a remake was in order. However, this too was discarded, and a third attempt was made on 8 March 1970.

In the NME, Alan Smith described the song as "undoubtedly one of the best, thumpin'est things the Starr man has ever done" and added: "That's a very strong hook he's got there, and George Harrison has given the record a fat, pumping backing full of guts and stuff." Smith criticised Starr's vocal on the track, however, before concluding: "But on the credit side we have an inventive mind and a dry wit coming more and more into play with better songs. One day he may even write a masterpiece."

Released in April 1971, the single's B-side "Early 1970" was a charming olive branch to his estranged former bandmates.

Ringo : "I keep looking around and thinking where are they? What are they doing? When will they come back and talk to me?"

 

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On Thursday 26 February 1970, the compilation album 'Hey Jude' was issued in the United States. The idea for the compilation came from pugnacious manager Allen Klein and Apple Corps. It came in the wake of Klein's renegotiated royalty rate with Capitol Records. 'Hey Jude' was intended to act as a 'sales buffer' during the delayed release of Let It Be. Klein persuaded The Beatles that it would bring in significant extra income without any additional effort from them.

The songs were selected by Allan Stickler of Apple and Klein's company ABKCO, and were intended to span The Beatles' career, although the tracklisting focused on more recent recordings. It brought together non-album singles and B-sides, along with the hoary old chestnuts 'Can't Buy Me Love' and 'I Should Have Known Better', which were included due to the ludicrous technicality that they not previously appeared on a Capitol album in the US [both had been available for years on the 'Hard Day's Night' soundtrack LP released by United Artists].

The album was originally to have been titled 'The Beatles Again', but shortly before its release was changed to 'Hey Jude'. Due to the late change, however, some labels on early pressings featured the original title. The only instance of the title anywhere on the cover was the album's spine.

 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

In the earlier part of The Beatles' career the BBC had broadcast a number of Beatles specials on radio and television, but as the group retreated from the public eye they became less frequent. On Wednesday 11 March 1970 , however, George Harrison contributed to a bank holiday special which was later aired on BBC Radio 1. Harrison had actually agreed to take part in the radio series Scene And Heard. However, the interview was so successful and lengthy that enough material was available for a Beatles special.

The Beatles Today contained 20 minutes of the interview with Harrison, as well as various Beatles and Apple music recordings, including a 3'13" version of 'Dig It'. Harrison spoke first of his songwriting, with a discussion of the composition of his first song 'Don't Bother Me'. This led to a discussion of the troubles he had getting his work considered against those by Lennon and McCartney. He also spoke of performing and working with Jackie Lomax, Billy Preston and Doris Troy, and how he would like to have Peter Frampton as a member of an Apple house band. He said how he mainly listened to Bob Dylan, The Band and various Indian musicians, and discussed the Radha Krshna Temple's single Govinda. [Oi, Kula Shaker - rumbled!]

Talk then turned to the forthcoming Let It Be film, which Harrison admitted he "can't stand seeing", although he said it was informative for those curious about how The Beatles worked. He also spoke positively about the album's raw sound, describing it as "the complete opposite to the sort of clinical approach that we've normally had". Interestingly, Harrison indicated that The Beatles would soon regroup and record together. He discussed McCartney's and Ringo Starr's debut albums, and said he planned to record his own later in the year, adding that The Beatles were likely to record again soon after.

George : "I certainly don't want to see the end of The Beatles. And I know I'll do anything, you know. Whatever Paul, John, Ringo would like to do, I'll do it. As long as we can all be free to be individuals at the same time. I think that's just part of our life, you know, is to be Beatles. And I'll play that game, you know, as long as the people want us to."

Phil Spector :

Troubled nutcase Phil Spector began work on Let It Be on 23 March 1970. On this day he extended "I Me Mine" from 1'34" to 2'25". He did this by repeating the line "All through the day I me mine" from the first verse, and following it with a further repeat of the chorus and final verse. With the addition of an orchestra, the repetition was barely noticeable.

The orchestral musicians were recorded on 1 April 1970, and was arranged by Richard Hewson. Ringo Starr played drums on the final session, with 27 string and six brass musicians providing the wall of sound which took Harrison's song from a simple blues waltz into something altogether more elaborate.

To the consternation of the EMI engineers, Spector also insisted on hearing the tracks with full tape, plate and chamber echo in place – effects that were usually introduced during final mixing and proved difficult to add. As the last of the three songs to be amended by Spector on 1 April, these additions to "I Me Mine" were the final overdubs on a Beatles track before the group's break-up.

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Although 'Across the Universe' was extensively rehearsed on the Twickenham Studios soundstage, the only recordings were mono transcriptions for use in the film soundtrack. No multitrack recordings were made after the group's move to Apple Studios. Thus in early January 1970 Glyn Johns remixed the February 1968 recording. The new mix omitted the teenage girls' vocals and the bird sound effects of the World Wildlife Fund version.

John : "I tried to do it again when we were making Let It Be, but anybody who saw the film saw what reaction I got with it when I tried to do it. I gave it to the Wildlife Fund of Great Britain, and then when Phil Spector was brought in to produce Let It Be, he dug it out of the Beatles files and overdubbed it. The guitars are out of tune and I'm singing out of tune 'cause I'm psychologically destroyed and nobody's supporting me or helping me with it and the song was never done properly."

   

Brought in by Lennon and Harrison, Phil Spector remixed the February 1968 recording yet again and added orchestral and choral overdubs. The first eight remixes were done on 23 March 1970, but were only used as guides for the extra musicians. These were recorded on 1 April 1970, the final Beatles session to feature a member of the group: Ringo Starr, who played drums on 'Across The Universe', 'The Long And Winding Road', and 'I Me Mine'. The 50 piece orchestra, which included 14 singers, were booked to perform two parts, but Spector had other ideas . . .

[engineer] Peter Bown : "Out of the blue he distributed these extra parts, without intimating that there would be any extra payment. I warned Phil that he'd never get away with it, and of course the orchestra got up and walked out. I worked with these musicians often and knew them well, so I went into the control room, put a wedge under the door and tried to keep out of it. I got home very very late, well after midnight, and took the phone off the hook because I knew Spector would try and call. The moment I put it back Spector was on the line, asking me to return to the studio and continue, which I did. The musicians got their extra payment. This session was on the first of April 1970 – but it was one April Fool's joke which did not come off."

Spector's treatment of 'Across The Universe' was later cited by Lennon as one of the highlights of the album.

John : "The Beatles didn't make a good record of it. I think subconsciously sometimes we – I say 'we,' though I think Paul did it more than the rest of us; Paul would... sort of subconsciously try and destroy a great song. He subconsciously tried to destroy songs, meaning that we'd play experimental games with my great pieces, like 'Strawberry Fields' – which I always felt was badly recorded. That song got away with it and it worked. But usually we'd spend hours doing little detailed cleaning-ups of Paul's songs; when it came to mine, especially if it was a great song like 'Strawberry Fields' or 'Across The Universe', somehow this atmosphere of looseness and casualness and experimentation would creep in. Subconscious sabotage. He'll deny it, 'cause he's got a bland face and he'll say the sabotage doesn't exist. But this is the kind of thing I'm talking about, where I was always seeing what was going on... I began to think, Well maybe I'm paranoid. But it's not paranoid; it's absolute truth."

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On Sunday 4 January 1970, having completed 'I Me Mine' the previous day, The Beatles turned their attentions to 'Let It Be'. They taped a series of overdubs onto take 27, the basic track which had been laid down on 31 January 1969. First to be recorded on this day was a bass guitar part, with McCartney replacing Lennon's original effort on track four. Two trumpets, two trombones and a tenor saxophone were recorded onto track five by session musicians, as was McCartney's descending piano motifs in between chorus and verses.

It was during this same session that Harrison recorded the second overdubbed guitar solo. The intention at one point was to have the two overdub solos playing together. This idea was dropped for the final mix of the single, and only the 30 April 1969 solo was used, although the 4 January 1970 overdub can be heard faintly during the final verse. The song also features the only known contribution by Linda McCartney to a Beatles song - singing backing vocals along with McCartney and Harrison. Two stereo mixes of the song were then made. Glyn Johns was present at the session, and took away the new Let It Be mixes, along with the multitrack tape of I Me Mine from the previous day to compile his latest version of the Get Back album.

'Let It Be' was released as a single on Friday 6 March 1970 in the UK, backed by "You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)", with a production credit for George Martin. Billed as "an intimate bioscopic experience with THE BEATLES", the single reached number two in the charts. It fared better elsewhere, charting at number one in the US, Australia, Italy, Norway and Switzerland.

 

On 26 March 1970, Phil Spector remixed the song for the Let It Be album. This version features Harrison's second guitar solo overdub, fewer backing vocals, a delay effect on Starr's hi-hat, and more prominent orchestration. The final chorus has three "let it be ..." lines, as the "there will be an answer" line is repeated twice (instead of once as on the single) before the "whisper words of wisdom" line to close the song.

A new mix was made for 2003's Let It Be... Naked. Spector's echo was removed, as were the maracas and tom tom overdubs from 4 January. Billy Preston's Lowrey organ is also more prominent in the first verse, and added guitar flourishes come to the fore. The guitar solo was from a different take from 31 January 1969.

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McCartney was dissatisfied with Spector's treatment of some songs, particularly "The Long and Winding Road", which McCartney had conceived of the song as a simple piano ballad. Spector overdubbed strings and a choir, arranged and conducted by Richard Hewson, and Ringo Starr also played drums at the 1 April 1969 session. The overdubs were intended to mask the original version's shortcomings. This wasn't without its hazards, however.

[technical engineer] Brian Gibson : "On 'The Long And Winding Road' he wanted to overdub orchestra and choir but there weren't the available tracks on the tape, so he wiped one of Paul McCartney's two vocal tracks in order to put the orchestra on."

On Thursday 2 April 1970 was the final day's work on The Beatles' last album Let It Be. Phil Spector worked in room four of EMI Studios, with balance engineer Peter Bown and tape operator Roger Ferris. Spector edited then slowed "Across the Universe" down from D-natural to D-flat, and combined two stereo mixes of The Long And Winding Road [the edit can be heard at 1'26"]. When McCartney was sent a pre-release acetate of the song he was furious, and demanded that changes be made. His thoughts were captured in an interview given to the London Evening Standard newspaper in April 1970.

Paul McCartney : "The album was finished a year ago, but a few months ago American record producer Phil Spector was called in by John Lennon to tidy up some of the tracks. But a few weeks ago, I was send a re-mixed version of my song 'The Long And Winding Road', with harps, horns, an orchestra and women's choir added. No one had asked me what I thought. I couldn't believe it. I would never have female voices on a Beatles record. The record came with a note from Allen Klein saying he thought the changes were necessary. I don't blame Phil Spector for doing it but it just goes to show that it's no good me sitting here thinking I'm in control because obviously I'm not. Anyway I've sent Klein a letter asking for some of the things to be altered, but I haven't received an answer yet."

'The Long And Winding Road' was released as a US single on 11 May 1970, with 'For You Blue' as the b-side. 1.2 million copies were sold in the first two days, and it was The Beatles' 20th and final number one single in America.

   

Although he later expressed bitter resentment at Spector's work, Paul McCartney is said to have initially been happy with the treatment of the recordings.

Ringo : "I spoke to Paul on the phone and said, 'Did you like it?', and he said, 'Yeah, it's OK.' He didn't put it down. And then suddenly he didn't want it to go out. Two weeks after that, he wanted to cancel it."

Paul : "Allen Klein decided – possibly having consulted the others, but certainly not me – that Let It Be would be re-produced for disc by Phil Spector. So now we were getting a 're-producer' instead of just a producer, and he added on all sorts of stuff – singing ladies on The Long And Winding Road – backing that I perhaps wouldn't have put on. I mean, I don't think it made it the worst record ever, but the fact that now people were putting stuff on our records that certainly one of us didn't know about was wrong. I'm not sure whether the others knew about it. It was just, 'Oh, get it finished up. Go on – do whatever you want.' We were all getting fed up."

Despite Paul McCartney's protestations, the Let It Be album was released a month later with Spector's augmentations still in place. George Martin supported McCartney's objections, claiming that the work had been done without his knowledge or involvement, and saying they were "so uncharacteristic" of The Beatles' reputation.

George Martin : "That made me angry – and it made Paul even angrier, because neither he nor I knew about it till it had been done. It happened behind our backs because it was done when Allen Klein was running John. He'd organised Phil Spector and I think George and Ringo had gone along with it. They'd actually made an arrangement with EMI and said, 'This is going to be our record.' EMI came to me and said, 'You made this record originally but we can't have your name on it.' I asked them why not and they said: 'Well, you didn't produce the final thing.' I said, 'I produced the original and what you should do is have a credit saying: "Produced by George Martin, over-produced by Phil Spector".' They didn't think that was a good idea."

The dissolution hearing for the break-up of The Beatles' partnership took place in February 1971 at the High Court of London. One of the reasons given by McCartney for wishing to leave The Beatles was that Allen Klein's company ABKCO had arranged for 'The Long And Winding Road' to be altered without McCartney being consulted. Spector, for his part, was unrepentant, adopting a typically combative approach.

Phil Spector : "Paul had no problem picking up the Academy Award for the Let It Be movie soundtrack, nor did he have any problem in using my arrangement of the string and horn and choir parts when he performed it during 25 years of touring on his own. If Paul wants to get into a pissing contest about it, he's got me mixed up with someone who gives a shit."

 

Paul Quits :

Although stories about The Beatles' split had been reported almost since they became famous, by early 1970 they had become hard to ignore. All the members were working on solo projects, and although they remained in the public eye, they were rarely seen as a group. In interviews all four members spoke about reconvening for recordings, although it was generally acknowledged that they were taking a temporary break from each other. Ringo Starr had given an interview to BBC Radio 2 in which he had insisted the group was likely to work together again once their solo projects were complete.

A problem remained over release schedules. Apple was planning to release Let It Be on 24 April 1970, and push back Paul McCartney's debut album McCartney from 10 April to 4 June 1970. 'Let It Be' had been brought forward by Allen Klein to coincide with the premiere of the film, and they knew that having two Beatles-related albums in quick succession would hurt sales.

   

Since 'Let It Be' was a group project with various multimedia elements, and McCartney was a relatively straightforward album release, the Beatles album took precedent. John Lennon wrote to EMI, saying: "We have arrived at the conclusion that it would not be in the best interests of this company for the record to be released on that date." Lennon and George Harrison then wrote to McCartney informing him of their decision :

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    Dear Paul,
We thought a lot about yours and the Beatles LPs – and decided it's stupid for Apple to put out two big albums within 7 days of each other (also there's Ringo's and Hey Jude) – so we sent a letter to EMI telling them to hold your release date til June 4th (there's a big Apple-Capitol convention in Hawaii then). We thought you'd come round when you realized that the Beatles album was coming out on April 24th. We're sorry it turned out like this – it's nothing personal.
    Love John & George. Hare Krishna. A Mantra a Day Keeps MAYA! Away.
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On Tuesday 31 March 1970, the letter was sealed in an envelope marked "From Us, To You", and left at Apple's reception for a messenger to deliver to McCartney's home at 7 Cavendish Avenue. However, Ringo Starr agreed to take it round in person. "I didn't think it fair some office lad should take something like that round," he reasoned.

By this time McCartney had long tired of arguing over Apple's future, and the various parties were more likely to communicate by letter or through their managers rather than face-to-face interviews. McCartney had recorded his album in secret, under the pseudonym Billy Martin, choosing to keep the news from the press and his former bandmates for as long as possible.

McCartney might once have agreed with the logic behind the decision to postpone his album, but after months of acrimony he was in no mood for conciliatory agreements. The contents of the letter left him furious, and Starr received the full brunt of his anger.

   

Paul : "Ringo came to see me. He was sent, I believe – being mild mannered, the nice guy – by the others, because of the dispute. So Ringo arrived at the house, and I must say I gave him a bit of verbal. I said: 'You guys are just messing me around.' He said: 'No, well, on behalf of the board and on behalf of The Beatles and so and so, we think you should do this,' etc. And I was just fed up with that. It was the only time I ever told anyone to GET OUT! It was fairly hostile. But things had got like that by this time. It hadn't actually come to blows, but it was near enough. Unfortunately it was Ringo. I mean, he was probably the least to blame of any of them, but he was the fall guy who got sent round to ask me to change the date – and he probably thought: 'Well, Paul will do it,' but he met a different character, because now I was definitely boycotting Apple."

Ringo : "I went to see Paul. To my dismay, he went completely out of control, shouting at me, prodding his fingers towards my face, saying: 'I'll finish you now' and 'You'll pay.' He told me to put my coat on and get out. I did so."

Paul : "I told him to get out. I had to do something like that in order to assert myself because I was just sinking. Linda was very helpful, she was saying, 'Look, you don't have to take this crap, you're a grown man, you have every bit as much right...' I was getting pummelled about the head, in my mind anyway."

Starr was immensely upset by the exchange, and reported back to Apple. Lennon and Harrison agreed to let McCartney's album come out as planned, and delayed the release of Let It Be. While McCartney had scored a superficial victory, his relations with the drummer took a number of years to fully recover.



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On Thursday 9 April 1970, advance copies of Paul McCartney's debut solo record McCartney were sent to a number of media outlets, along with a questionnaire in which the musician gave a number of details about the record, The Beatles, and his opinions on Apple. As copies arrived in newsrooms, rumours began to build that McCartney was leaving the group. Apple Corps issued a statement denying a split on this day. It was given by Mavis Smith, assistant to Derek Taylor in the Apple press office.

Mavis Smith : "This is just not true. Although it is true that there are no plans at the moment for more Beatles recordings, this is quite normal. Next month, their new LP will be issued. It has already been recorded so, consequently, as there is already material available, there are no plans for more recordings. I hope that The Beatles will get together for another recording session after the summer."

Smith added that McCartney had not been seen at Apple's Savile Row headquarters since before Christmas 1969. "He communicates by telephone and, as he has got recording studios at his home, it is not necessary for him to come in. Paul will issue a statement today with the release of his new album, but any critical statements do not mean a real break-up of the group!"

Aware that the news of an impending split would be a major news story the following day, McCartney telephoned John Lennon at Dr Arthur Janov's private London hospital at 20 Devonshire Place.

John : "Paul said to me, 'I'm now doing what you and Yoko were doing last year. I understand what you were doing', all that shit. So I said to him, 'Good luck to yer.'"

   

With his debut solo album McCartney due for release on 17 April 1970, Paul McCartney chose not to do any promotional interviews. Instead, he asked Apple's Peter Brown to write a list of questions to which he supplied the answers. They included his ruminations on the Beatles and the end of his partnership with John Lennon. McCartney's 'self-interview' caused an immediate storm after its contents were revealed by Daily Mirror journalist Don Short, and its contents were widely reported around the world. Although speculation had been rife for the previous six months, confirmation that the group was no more still came as a shock to many.

Paul : "The world reaction was like 'The Beatles Have Broken Up – It's Official' – we'd known it for months. So that was that, really. I think it was the press who misunderstood. The record had come with this weird explanation on a questionnaire of what I was doing. It was actually only for them. I think a few people thought it was some weird move of me to get publicity, but it was really to avoid having to do the press."

Although McCartney did not directly say that The Beatles had split up, his disparaging comments about the group, their management by Allen Klein and his assertion that Lennon-McCartney would not become an active songwriting team effectively cut the ties.

 

In answer to speculation resulting from Paul McCartney's questionnaire in which he effectively announced that The Beatles were no more, Apple issued a final press statement about the group. The statement was written by Apple's press officer Derek Taylor, and was typed by his assistant Mavis Smith.

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    April 10 1970

    Spring is here and Leeds play Chelsea tomorrow and Ringo and John and George and Paul are alive and well and full of hope.
    The world is still spinning and so are we and so are you.
    When the spinning stops – that'll be the time to worry. Not before.
    Until then, The Beatles are alive and well and the Beat goes on, the Beat goes on.
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Derek Taylor : "Reaction to Paul's statement was worldwide. Hot news. I'm a bit vague as to whether there was an actual announcement: 'The Beatles have broken up' at that time. I did put out a statement, one of those very circular statements that actually says nothing: 'John, Paul, George and Ringo are still John, Paul, George and Ringo, the world keeps spinning and when that stops that will be the time to worry. See you again.' Something like that. But there was worldwide reaction, and genuine dismay. I absolutely did believe – as millions of others did – that the friendship The Beatles had for each other was a lifesaver for all of us. I believed that if these people were happy with each other and could get together and could be seen about the place, no matter what else was going on, life was worth living. But we expected too much of them."

       

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On Friday 17 April 1970, Paul McCartney's debut solo album, simply titled McCartney, was released in the United Kingdom. The album was a mix of home and studio recordings, new songs, Beatles rejects and ad-libbed offcuts. It was swiftly assembled and divided fans and critics alike. McCartney was held off the UK top spot by Simon and Garfunkel's 'Bridge Over Troubled Water'. It fared better in America, spending three weeks at number one, and was eventually certified double platinum.

There were no singles taken from McCartney in 1970, although a short film was made for Maybe I'm Amazed using Linda McCartney's photographs.

   

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On Wednesday 20 May 1970, The Beatles' final film Let It Be had its British première, with simultaneous screenings in the north and south of England. The southern event was held at the London Pavilion, with guests including Richard Lester, Mary Hopkin, Spike Milligan, Lulu, Simon Dee and EMI boss Sir Joseph Lockwood. Several members of The Rolling Stones and Fleetwood Mac also attended, as did around 50 Hare Krishna followers. Although The Beatles didn't attend, two notable figures from their past were present. Cynthia Lennon and Jane Asher were among the invited guests, two years after they split from John Lennon and Paul McCartney respectively.

'Let It Be' ran at the 1004-seat London Pavilion until 23 June. In its first week on release it was screened 41 times with box office receipts of £6,229. The northern première took place, aptly, in Liverpool, at a relatively quiet private screening at the Gaumont Cinema. Both this and the London showing began at 8.45pm. 'Let It Be' went on general release the following day.

 

Let It Be :

Let It Be was the twelfth and final studio album by The Beatles. It was released on 8 May 1970, almost a month after the group's break-up, in tandem with the film of the same name. The album divided critics and fans upon its release, although attitudes towards it have mellowed somewhat in the years since. People were generally disappointed that The Beatles' legacy should end in such a way, and yearned for the magic that had been a hallmark of their 1960s releases.

 

Another reason for disappointment was the box set and book which accompanied the vinyl disc. This added 33% to the retail price, raising it to £2 19s 11d, and was considered an unnecessary step by many – including Paul McCartney. The book was titled The Beatles Get Back, and included photographic stills and dialogue from the Let It Be sessions. It contained 164 pages, but the binding was of poor quality and copies with pages still intact are today sought after by collectors. Within six months production of the box and book had been ceased.

 

The extra price affected advance orders of the album, although inevitably it topped the UK and US charts. Let It Be spent three weeks at number one in the UK from 23 May 1970, and spent a total of 59 weeks in the charts.

     

Despite its commercial success, reviews not good . . .

NME critic Alan Smith wrote: "If the new Beatles' soundtrack is to be their last then it will stand as a cheapskate epitaph, a cardboard tombstone, a sad and tatty end to a musical fusion which wiped clean and drew again the face of pop." Smith added that the album showed "contempt for the intelligence of today's record-buyer" and that the Beatles had "sold out all the principles for which they ever stood".

Rolling Stone was also critical of the album, citing Spector's production embellishments as a weakness: "Musically, boys, you passed the audition. In terms of having the judgment to avoid either over-producing yourselves or casting the fate of your get-back statement to the most notorious of all over-producers, you didn't."

High Fidelity magazine found the album "not nearly as bad as the movie" and "positively wonderful" relative to the recent solo releases by McCartney and Starr. Gabree admired "Let It Be", "Get Back" and "Two of Us", but derided "The Long and Winding Road" and "Across the Universe", the last of which he described as "bloated and self-satisfied – the kind of song we've come to expect from these rich, privileged prototeenagers".

 

While questioning whether the Beatles' split would remain permanent, The Times described Let It Be as "Not a breakthrough record, unless for the predominance of informal, unedited live takes; but definitely a record to give lasting pleasure. They aren't having to scrape the barrel yet."

In his review for The Sunday Times, Derek Jewell deemed the album to be "a last will and testament, from the blackly funereal packaging to the music itself, which sums up so much of what The Beatles as artists have been – unmatchably brilliant at their best, careless and self-indulgent at their least."

But we'll give the final word to John . . .

John Lennon : "[Phil Spector] was given the shittiest load of badly recorded shit, with a lousy feeling toward it, ever. And he made something out of it. He did a great job."

'Beatlemania' Novelty Records : 7 - 1971 - 1983

Following the split, a few more tribute records emerged sporadically throughout the 70's and early 80's, including . . .

Quarteto 1111 - Ode To The Beatles - released in 1971 in Portugal
Léonie - John Lennon - a 1972 B-side from France
Moran - The Beatles Thing (1973)

 

Steve Hartley - The Beatles Forever (1976)
Lipstick - Come Back Beatles (1976)
Forbes - Beatles - The Swedish entry for the 1977 Eurovision Song Contest - came last with 2 points (both from Germany)
David Peel & The Apple - Bring Back The Beatles (1977) - Peel appeared with John Lennon at the John Sinclair Freedom Rally in Ann Arbor, Michigan on December 10, 1971. On January 23, 1972, Peel and his band performed live on the David Frost Show with Lennon, Yoko Ono and Jerry Rubin.

 

By The People ‎– Come Back Beatles (1978)
Karel Gott - Beatles (1980)
Tiziana Ciao - Addio Beatles (1981)
ELO - Beatles Forever (1983) - originally part of Secret Messages when it was planned as a double album - this has never been officially released, though acetates of the original 1983 double LP configuration that include the song do exist.

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Previously :
147b. Please Please Me
151.   From Me To You
157.   She Loves You
160.   I Want To Hold Your Hand / This Boy / Rattle Your Jewelry
166.   Can't Buy Me Love
174.   A Hard Day's Night
183.   I Feel Fine / part 2
193.   Ticket To Ride
200.   Help!
207.   Day Tripper  /  We Can Work It Out  /  Rubber Soul
217.   Paperback Writer  /  Rain & Revolver Part 1
222.   Yellow Submarine  /  Revolver - Part 2  /  Eleanor Rigby
230b. Strawberry Fields Forever   /  Penny Lane  /  Sgt Pepper part 1
235.   All You Need Is Love  /  Sgt Pepper part 2  /  Sgt Pepper part 3
241.   Hello, Goodbye  /  I Am The Walrus
241b. Magical Mystery Tour (Double EP)
247.   Lady Madonna  /  Mad Days Out  /  White Album part 1
258.   Hey Jude + White album 2  /  Revolution + White album 3  /  White album 4
270.   Get Back + Twickenham  /  Part 2 : George Quits /  Part 3 : Rooftop Concert  /  Part 4 : Get Back LP
272.   The Ballad Of John & Yoko  /  Part 2 : Zapple  /  Part 3 : Bed In  /  Part 4 : Abbey Road  /  Part 5 :  John Quits  /  Part 6 : Paul Quits
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