My Three Days with The Beatles

It is surprising to me that this article, written by Phyllis Battelle and published in Datebook in the Summer of 1965, didn't cause the same uproar as the article by Maureen Cleave. The guys say some interesting things about not believing in God and thoughts on religion.   I think it goes to show that John's statement in 1966 wasn't anything new.    However, I do have to question just how much of the quotes are true because I don't think Ringo would say that he had "sisters."   Interesting article nonetheless.

My Three Days With The Beatles

By Phyllis Battelle

Datebook Summer 1965

 King Features columnist Phyllis Battelle visited the Beatles when they were in Nassau. She recently spent three days interviewing them and then wrote her impressions in a series of articles that appeared in a number of Hearst Newspapers. Immediately, teenagers throughout America and the world reacted violently. They objected to Ms. Battelle's interpretations. Many doubted her facts. Almost all resented her candid style, but she insisted that everything she wrote was factual and still does. The articles would shock so many people and have already become a constant topic, a speculation among Beatlemaniacs. That's why the editors of All About the Beatles and Datebook arranged to purchase the exclusive magazine rights to the series here, presented for the first time in its entirety. Now, you can read it all for yourself.

Ringo Starr was lying on a hill of pine needles, his famed morose face buried between his arms, exhausted. John Lennon and Paul McCartney were sprawled on their backs nearby, restless, unsmiling, waiting for action. Fifty yards away, slumped drowsily alone, was George Harrison, eyes hidden behind enormous dark glasses, long locks, lifting back under a straw Sombrero.  George looked like a small, vulnerable boy, yet like the other Beatles, he has been described as terrifying if he doesn't like you.

 "People are terrified of the Beatles,"  a unit manager on their new film had warned, "because they can cut you down so quickly."

So this was the scene as I stepped off a tiny bus on Paradise Island in the Bahamas, where the Beatles were shooting their second movie --- four young, successful men slouched in privacy, doggedly described, desiring to preserve that privacy which I was now assigned to disturb.  For three days, I was supposed the psyches of these aptly-labeled phenomena to discover how fame and millions have dealt with them.

Walter Shenson, the producer of their movies, extended his hand. His eyes were as warm as the subtropical breeze. "I'll introduce you," he said reassuringly, "they know you're coming."

 John and Paul looked up as Shenson did the honors. Their faces were totally impassive. They stretched out hands to be shaken. Ringo two raised his head and hand momentarily. His sad eyes seeming to plead for mercy and then droop back into feigned slumber. I was aware that one can be marked on the "drop dead" list with one wrong question. I tried to ease my way in 

Q. "Mr. Lennon, in America, sociologists are always trying to put you men in a groove analyzing why you're so attractive to younger generations..."

 "Sociologists!" moaned, John, "They're always trying to read things into everything and nothing. You can sociologize a loaf if you want to. I don't believe in it."

 Paul heard the question, gazed out to see with a seemingly total lack of interest.

Q:  "We read that you don't consider yourselves real musicians."

"We're not,"  remarked John, "we can't read music".

"There are loads of better musicians.  Better bass players, better guitarist", shrugged Paul. It's nonsense, of course, John, to say we have no knowledge of music because we can write songs. And there are some few people, very few, who can't write songs, but it's also nonsense what they say that we are the 'soul of Liverpool folklore.' We started by copying other groups, but we weren't good enough. We couldn't get the hang of it, so we got a style of our own. Now, we just write what we like, but the only way we can judge it is by what it sounds like to us because we're not real musicians."

 "We can't judge Beethoven either—and I'm not trying to compare us with Beethoven, angry readers—because we're not musicians."

John Lennon picked up a cigarette. "You have a light?"  he asked. Supplied, he answered a question about Ringo, a trace of a pleasant smile -- or was a sarcasm-- passed over his face. "Ringo left his bride at home, so he's moping about a bit, as you can see. No, that's not what's got him. He's probably forgotten he's married"

 Ringo moved almost imperceptibly but said nothing.

Q: Have you men ever thought what you'll do if, well, your popularity wanes?"

John: "No, we can write hit songs when we're 40.  We won't break up, and if we do, we'll still be together in business one way or another."

Asked about Northern Songs Ltd, the firm which owns rights to all Lennon and Paul McCartney songs, whose shares recently were listed on the London Stock Exchange, both Paul and John showed marked boredom, even though it has given them both millionaire status.

"We're not money-minded the least," said John.

 Q: Why did Northern songs go public?

" I dunno. Paul, why did Northern Songs go public?"

 "I don't know," Paul grimaced. "It's all a trick. Some accountant or other decided it. It's nice making money, but really it doesn't interest me."

 The Beatles confess, however, that money is one facet of society they do not rebel against. I don't want to be a has-been without money someday," says John.  I want to be a has-been WITH money."

 Ringo suddenly raised his head and stared at Lennon. "May I talk to you for a moment?" I asked Ringo

 He nodded and pulled himself up. We moved away from the Lennon-McCartney duet to a quiet spot in the shade of a great tree. Now, he could speak for himself about his marriage. He seemed almost eager, in his sadly solemn way, to do so.

"Well, I left her because we have to do these things, and she understands that. Besides, we've got plenty of time. It's supposed to last for life, y'know.

 Ringo added voluntarily the news that he telephoned his wife frequently. "How much does it cost?" I asked. "I don't know, and I don't care. Nothing matters, but just to hear her sweet voice."

To find out if he's serious, the question, "The Beatles are known to be anti-adult, anti-religion, anti-convention, anti many things. Is there anything you have reverance for? Marriage for example?"

" Marriage-- that's it. That's the one thing," said Ringo, looking wholly disconsolate, like a man who'd like to own some ideals but hasn't been allowed to adopt any. "The other things? Forget 'em."

 "You see, adults set up lots of things kids should have respect for. We're just trying to find things for ourselves, and we haven't found many things to respect yet.  Religion just doesn't do anything for me, really."  Ringo pointed with a cigarette down toward the azure Atlantic where crewmen on the movie were frantically working to set up the next film shot. Rising 20 feet high out of the water was an enormous Buddha, like ten armed idol, which plays an impressive role in the zany suspense film.

 "See that idol?  If you'd been brought up to believe in that, you'd believe in it, wouldn't you?" said Ringo. "Instead of God. People say they have visions, and that's how they get to believe. Well, if I had a vision, maybe I believe too. But until I do..."

 Ringo admitted that he and the rest of the Beatles don't care what the world thinks. "We never think of any influence we have. We're not setting examples for anybody. We smoke, and we drink as well. If others want to smoke and drink, that's up to them. If they do what we do instead of what they want to do, then they're either soft or stupid. That's not up to us."

 A few minutes later, the fourth Beatle, George Harrison, was also expanding on the official line. "99% of the people who go to church on Sunday they think that if they don't go, God will get them," he said calmly. "It wouldn't be honest for us because we're honest not to say how we really feel, and how we really feel is that we don't mind about religion or a lot of other things other people are scared not to believe in, just as long as they don't try to shove it off on us..."

The Beatles cottage, isolated beside the land in Nassau's Balmoral  Club, was almost dark as I walked in. One small lamp struggled to illuminate a large living room. Perhaps it was best that way. The floor was strewn with guitars, half-empty wine, and Highball glasses, at least a dozen of them gave the place the air of a nightclub after closing. Cigarette stubs were heaped into little clumps in the glass table tops with no ashtrays beneath them.

 A male friend of the Beatles asked what I'd like, wine or whiskey. A female friend, slumped languorously on a couch said coolly, so you could scarcely hear her above the sounds of the surf. "Hello, I'm Cin, short for Cindy." She said she, too, was a friend and that The Beatles were dressing. (Datebook Editor's Note, we strongly suspect this was Cynthia Lennon putting on the author.)

 In all my interviews, John Lennon had seemed elusive. The alleged leader, the husband and father, the millionaire, the artist, the writer of the group. He had been a brooding enigma alongside his "brothers", the sentimental Ringo, the philosophic George, the bright, somewhat cocky. Paul.

 Suddenly, John walked in from the bedroom wing his face as dark as the room. He slumped onto the sofa beside Cindy. Presumably knowing I was here specifically to see him, he looked up, waiting uneasily. A question came out, "Are you moody?"

 John," Not particularly."

"You appear to be moody."

"I'm getting ready to go out to a party."

"Does the prospect of a party always make you unhappy?"

 John only stared at me impassively." I'm always prayin' it's gonna turn out good." he said.

"Do you ever look forward to an evening out?"

 "Yeah."

 I was getting tired of this cold game of nerves and decided to let him make the next conversational move. A few moments later, Lennon said, "But the things that I look forward to turn out lousy, usually."

It's been written that the Beatles often giggle when they're together. Did John consider that an offensive verb, considering that the Beatles are mature men?

"Giggle?"  He pondered it. "No. It's hysterics we call it. It sounds like giggling to people, but it's leading up to hysterics. I laugh when I'm not serious; right now, I'm serious."

 The official Beatles biography, released in June 1964 claims that Lennon is a man of constantly changing ideals. True?

 "That's a lot of rubbish somebody wrote about me," said John dourly, without anger. "I suppose I have some ideals, but I never thought about them."

 A well-known American magazine wrote that while he was at the Liverpool College of Art, Lennon broke up all his furniture to provide a fire to heat his flat, and when a photographer came to take his picture as a representation of the Beat Generation, Lennon threw him out. 

 "English sort of scandal magazine rubbish," muttered John. Again, he was neither annoyed nor amused. "They get their stories third hand. A friend of a friend did that, and later I lived in his flat, and so the story fell on me. Most of the distortions are done in lousy magazines, so it doesn't sort of matter, but the better magazines usually check facts."

 At this moment, to my relief, Paul strolled in. He was immaculately combed and groomed with a white shirt, black suit, black tie, and even cufflinks. He wore beach sandals on his bare feet.

  John looked Paul up and down blandly and said, "You got to wear socks." 

 Paul sat down, his handsome cherubic face, genuinely disturbed.  It was as though John were his elder brother and bothersome. " Do I need socks?"  he said, "What's wrong with no socks?" He went out to put on socks.

 "John," I asked, "Why do you all dislike going to official parties? Is it that the hosts ask you over to entertain or to liven  their party or to act outrageous for their own amusement?"

 "No."  John replied, "It's them that's outrageous. We're the focus of all the shouting, and they want us around just for that."

 Paul came back "What's the characteristics you dislike most in people?" I asked him. "The characteristic that marks them as phonies in your book?"  McCartney frowned, thinking it out. John answered,  "The worst thing is, the ones that sit down is if they'd known you for years," he said. 

 Paul, "Yeah, who try to be hip, but remember, phonies to us are not necessarily phonies to other people."

 Did they find reserved, humble people likable?

" They are actually," agreed. Paul.

 George Harrison strolled in from outside and was told by Lennon, "You gotta get dressed. Going out, you know?"

 George nodded, then picked up a guitar from the floor, plopped on a chair, strumming it romantically. George, the lead guitarist and baby of the Beatles is a fan of the concert great Andreas Segovia. "This is a good guitar. Whose is it?"  he said. John grunted a name. George continued to strum a soulful ballad, looking happily transported by the sound. 

 "You've got to dress,"  repeated John.

" I know."

 George left, and Ringo walked in. He said hello to me politely and took a chair in a corner, where he slumped down with his usual half-pout. Somehow, I had this absurd idea that Ringo, the elder of John Lennon by two months, was in the room to protect me from the onslaughts of possible less sympatico Beatles. Only that afternoon, Ringo had said, "You're straight. We like you."  No one has said, I hope she gets lost.

 But a few moments later, as the Beatles left for their party, I wondered if Ringo really knew what John Lennon was thinking. When I got back to my hotel, I was still wondering about the remarkable Lennon, so brilliant and so remote. I remember a line he once wrote: " Women," he quipped, "should be obscene and not heard."

"The Beatles are no ruder or more callous than they were when they started. It's just that  they're all men now and not boys. They're very conscious of middle-aged people and don't care for them very much. They have a deep sense of personal privacy, and they don't give a damn what the world thinks. In fact, they think it would be quite wrong to hide from children that they drink scotch. "

 The sum up came from Derek Taylor, until last autumn, the Beatles press secretary and assistant to Brian Epstein, the stars' discoverer and manager, Taylor had a falling out with the ambitious Epstein, but when Epstein left the Nassau film set to fly to New York on business, Taylor promptly returned to see the Beatles.

 "You can't help liking them if they happen to like you," said Taylor, "They're so honest. People seem to be petrified of them now, especially press people. But I don't think the Beatles care. After all, they now have worldwide immunity, don't they, from criticism." It was a ponderable point. Worldwide immunity from criticism Taylor, no doubt, meant that, with their millions of fans and dollars, the Beatles no longer are susceptible to hurt public or private by bad notices to the press.

 Paul McCartney was lying on the grass nearby under an Australian pound pine tree. Would he discuss it?

" Criticism in the press? "Paul scowled. "Does it bother me? Oh, yes, I loathe it. They say it keeps you alive and alert to things, receiving criticism. But I don't believe it." In a moment, the handsome Beatle looked over quizzically. "You don't like constructive criticism, really? Do you? Does anyone? No one can really feel good at any kind of criticism."

 Paul has been called by a Beatles friend, the hardest one to get to know. British actress Jill Hayworth, after an audience with Paul, said, "I just couldn't find anything to talk about. It was just impossible to get started talking."

 But at this moment, under the pine tree, the jeans-dressed composer was trying to let his wind-blown hair down figuratively.  "I don't suppose we should care, really, with all the money we're making. What does money mean to me? It just means the opposite of not having money." He frowned, "You see, due to  our upbringing, where we were  all panicking in case we all flopped and didn't get any security. Well, it's just security we've got to wanting. And unless things really fold in, we'll have it. That's nice, isn't it?"

" Money can't buy you happiness and it can't buy you health. But it's a little bit daft to say that, because everyone knows that, don't they? So I call it security, not money. That's what we want."

 Despite their supposed worldwide immunity from criticism, The Beatles are being ripped into , regularly by publications around the globe. It has caused them to pull up their guard when a reporter comes around.

Ringo Starr, who was standing alone on another part of the movie set --a tropical island in the Bahamas, had something to say about it. "People seem to think we're super people. We're not. But I don't mind the reporters. I don't go out looking for them, of course, but I don't mind them. Sometimes they ask stupid questions like, what pajamas do you wear? That doesn't bother me. I said red. What's wrong with red pajamas? The only thing that really pry are the infernal magazines. And who cares? We don't like some or don't trust them. We don't talk, or we ignore them, or we tell them a lot of rubbish."

 Ringo didn't need to add is what gets published. 

 Derek Taylor's statement that the Beatles are very conscious of middle-aged people and don't care for them very much. Was that true? 

"Well, I tell you about older people," said, Ringo, "older people demand an autograph, where teenagers ask for it. Older people wave an old cigarette wrapper at you, and they get all huffy if you don't sign it, 'I've spent millions on you', they say, and they can't have bought more than six records and a movie ticket. The kids, on the other hand, are naturally appreciated. In fact, we're gonna feel sorry for the birds. There are so many of them running after us, and they sort of go over each other and get hurt."He smiled sadly. So we have the advantage, you see, and they are very game."

 John Lennon made it impeccably clear how he felt about the older set. In describing Nassau, he observed, " rubbish I wouldn't own a tree here. Nassau is an island full of crocs." Crocs is a Beatlesque synonym for elder citizens. 

George Harrison summed up his attitude about the Middle Age generation, "they should interfere less. It's best." He said.  "Seriously, people to come of age and then decide what they want to believe in, rather than having it forced on them by the older people."

It is their very irreverence for the older generation and the established institutions that have helped make the Beatles so phenomenally successful. It appears that they will laugh at anything, including themselves, and the world will laugh with them. 

But do they really laugh at everything? There's one exception that stood out in my talks with them, the British Royal Family. The Beatles shrug off H. R. H. Elizabeth II, perhaps, but they don't smirk at this great tradition of their country. "It doesn't really bother me or interest me", said Ringo, "but I like the idea of queens and kings when they come along. It makes us English a little different from the rest of the world. Gives us some individuality. The Queen was pregnant when A Hard Day's Night opened in London, and we were all sorry."

 Ringo said it didn't bother him if England had a president, but he likes a queen better.

 When a newspaper man approached John Lennon asking him to autograph a British one pound note, Lennon glared at him. "It's against the law, you know, defacing the Queen's money," he said firmly, then he signed and shoved it in the journalist direction, turning his back on the man, as he did so.

 Aside from the Queen, the Beatles appear here to hold respect for only five other commodities, marriage, money, their immediate families, their manager Brian Epstein, and their own intra-Beatle relationships. 

And who can be absolutely sure the latter relationship is revered by one and all.

 After being cramped together in the showcase of sudden success, after being closeted together in hundreds of hotel suites, after stepping on each other's corns and jokes for a trio of years. Can the Beatles still be one happy, enduring, insolent family? 

"They would have to be angels," observed a member of the film crew, " to get along privately as well as they get on publicly." The Beatles are decidedly not angels. Legend and press agentry have it that The Beatles are just one big, sardonic, incorrigible family full of laughs, disrespectful jointly, of the hypocrisies of the extra Beatles world, but closer than brothers among themselves, yeah, yeah, yeah.

" Well, they get along remarkably well under the circumstances", observed the wife of an important member of their movie crew. "But Paul and John have a way of turning out the others when they're on. George and Ringo sometimes sort of wander away."

 I observed this too. John and Paul, the songwriters are often a duet with George and Ringo, acting as loners "John," their manager, Brian Epstein has said "is the most intense and has a temper that reddens his face at the slightest rub"

 "Lennon," , confides a publicity man, "uses others to bring him out of his moodiness, the one who does it best is Paul."

 George Harrison, who recently began writing songs on his own, said of the Lennon McCartney team. "Well, the songs that Paul and John write, they're all right, but they're not. the greatest."

 George has two brothers back in Liverpool, asked if he felt as at ease with them as he did with his "brothers", The Beatles, he replied, "I think so. It's a different sort of ease"

. Ringo star, when asked if the Beatles ever argued among themselves, adeptly stepped around the issue. "To me," he said, with a pleasantly mournful expression for which he is famous, "arguing is pointless. I couldn't be bothered with arguing. You've only shouted at one another down. Nobody wins."

 The implication, clearly, was that the Beatles, rather than being either claustrophobic or wholly convival  in their sardine can relationship, are adjusted to and tolerant of one another.

 Neither the Beatles jointly, nor the Beatles singly, can be judged by their reputations. Ringo Starr is a primary example. 

Although the dash-hound-eyed, impressive-nosed Ringo is, more or less, the favorite Beatle among American girls, he is widely held to be a taciturn, almost sullen young man.

 Starr appeared to me to be the warmest, most sympathetic, and decidedly the most sentimental, (if the least grammatical), of the four stars. He was the only Beatle who ever stood up to offer a lady a chair when all of them were seated.

 "Well, yeah, I am sentimental." Ringo admitted," I guess I caught it like you catch a cold back in Liverpool. When I was little, when my sisters and mother would go on holiday, we'd all cry --just going on a holiday, mind you.  I think I've inherited that. I'm not ashamed of it. It's just I don't have much chance to show it these days."

Only recently, married toa young, pretty beauty operator, he met a week before he became the last member to join the highly successful Beatles group. Ringo is conscience of his newfound wealth, if not more so than the others.

" I don't want my wife to work," he said glumly, "she's always worked. It's time, she rested."

 But what if she gets bored?

" Well, if she gets bored, I'll buy her a salon. But she's quite happy not working. And now, with the baby coming..."

 As all Beatle fans are aware. Ringo earned his nickname because at all times, he wears at least four rings on his fingers. On the third finger of his left hand is a broad gold wedding ring, which he touches frequently. "My granddaddy used to wear it, and I inherited it when he died four years ago. I always said I'd switch it over to this finger when I got married, I did."

 Does Ringo ever look ahead to the day when, possibly the Beatles should lose their immense popularity? Is he prepared for another career? He said, "I've never thought ahead before, and I'm not starting now. I just keep rolling along. Besides, all I know is drums. When I was in school, I used to walk down the street and look at a second-hand store window at this one drum. It cost six pounds, too expensive. I kept watching it and watching it, but I was 18 and a half before I saved money to buy it. In the meantime, I used to make my own sticks and beat on tin cans. I put pieces of metal on the cans to make them vibrate like a snare drum."

 Ringo holds to The Beatles line on religion. "When I was little, I went to Sunday school because it was a place I could play with blocks and paint. But now I'm sort of agnostic. I'm not an atheist. However, I'm agnostic because honestly, don't know if there's anything up there or down there, as they say."

 In three days with The Beatles, I never saw Ringo mingling merrily with the group. Yet he said, "I hate being alone.  You keep looking around and waiting. It's like missing something. Maybe. I guess it's my wife I miss. Yeah, she's fun. She's got a lot of her own humor, which keeps me going. She's intelligent.  but not super intelligent. I couldn't stand that."

Film Critics and the Beatles movie producer Walter Shensopn have singled out Ringo as a potentially fine actor. When the word was passed on to him that Shinsen had said that if the Beatles ever broke up, Ringo could stand on his own as a fine actor, Ringo looked more depressed than flattered. "No," he said firmly, "I have no confidence as an actor, not yet. What  I am is a pop artist, like the rest of them."

 Then he proceeded to delineate the difference between a pop artist and a real one. "It's like the real artists are mainly colored artists. I never did like the Perry Comos or the Sinatras. I don't buy that kind of art. If whites sang like coloreds did, I'd buy their records."

This brings us back to the subject of money, an all-important asset in the Beatle's outlook on life. These four young men, who work nights, days and weekends for their millions, seem to value financial security more than any other single tangible in life. But they do not hoard their monies, and they haven't the time or the privacy to squander them. John Paul and George have each bought houses in Liverpool for their families. Ringo had his family looking for a new home for which he will foot the bill.

The rest of their earnings are being invested.  The Beatles, who claim complete disinterest in the actual mathematics of success, are satisfied that their business managers are investing their fortunes wisely. As for their future, the Beatles are generally confident. Their manager, Brian Epstein is shrewd. The artistic success of their first film, A Hard Day's Night, dignified their image and awarded them entertainment stature, even to the adult generation. 

The one aspect of their career which concerns those who genuinely like them is this The Beatles trademarks are fun, audacity and irreverence. can  such values. (Or as the Puritans would say, lack of values) continue to capture the public's imagination? Or will their flaunting of convention be pall to offend?

Ringo summed up, unofficially, theBeatles attitude toward the public attitude. 

"There is a woman in the United States who predicted President Kennedy's death. So they say, before he died, well, when we were traveling, we heard she predicted that the plane we were traveling in would crash. Now, a lot of people, I suppose, would like to think we were scared into saying a prayer," Ringo  shrug philosophically. "What we did, actually, we drank". 

Curious thing happened to the Beatles on their way to their first millions. George Harrison, sometimes known erroneously as the quiet Beatle explained it.  "After our first movie came out, the grown ups began to like us. Well, actually, they might not like us so much, but it became the hip thing for adults to say 'the Beatles are good' or 'the Beatles are funny'. So in England, the real hip kids, or the kids who think they are, went off on us. The hip thing for those kids was to be a Stone fan, because their parents can't stand the Rolling Stones."

 George grinned, he has enormous grin of all the Beatles and possibly the quickest humor."I think it's very flattering that the adults think we're funny. Now we've made a good movie. I don't mind anything, as long as everybody buys those tickets and those records, even if people hate us and go see our films just to curse us, that's all right too, just so the money comes in.

Harrison,  an apprentice electrician bore before he became lead guitarist with The Beatles, ("I had to stop trying to be an electrician because I kept blowing everything up.")  Admits, money is important to him. "There's an impression given around America that we all came from slums. Now, none of us were rich, but our parents had jobs. We didn't starve. But the thing is, you come from a place like Liverpool, and you have it drummed into you all the while, you've got to get security. Now, we want to keep our money. It's harder, I think, to work up to big money and then lose it than to be born loaded and lose it all. At least a man born with money, if he loses it, is trying something new. "

 It is speculated that each member of the Beatles, if he stopped working today, could afford to eat for the rest of his life. "That's probably true," said George, "it just depends on what you want to eat and how often. Yeah, I like luxury, and I have yet to find somebody who doesn't. Only trouble is I used to save my money to buy this and buy that. Now I'm used to money. I find it hard to find something to buy."

 Like the rest of the Beatles, George didn't care for the location of their second movie, The bodacious island of Nassau, Bahamas. "It's too bright in the subtropics", he said, forced to take off his dark glasses. George observed, "oh, I wish I could get my eyes down to F/ 22." 

The  Bahamas greeted the Beatles with a disdain equal to The Beatles for Nassau.  Local press men accused them of being rude and of using four letter words.  In three days of talking to them, I found that the only offense of four letter words spoke to me was "crap" from Ringo Starr and from John Lennon, a man whose moodiness at times is reminiscent of Olivier playing Heathcliff.

 Of all four phenomena, George Harrison was the most mild spoken. "They say I'm shy sometimes in the papers, but it's not true in the least," he said, "it just depends on when I don't want to talk to somebody."  The person he likes to talk to is one girl back in London, George revealed," but I'm not ready to get married yet. You know, I'll just get married when I feel like it."

 When it was mentioned that now that both Ringo Starr and John Lennon are married, The Beatles popularity might drop off dramatically, should George and Paul decided to wed. Harrison simply nodded. "Maybe,"  he said "It would hurt the image, but I'm more worried about personal happiness than about World Happiness."

 He's not worried about Vietnam either or other world crisis. "They're not worth brooding about. Are they? It's not worth brooding about anything, really, is it?"  But then George Harrison is not the brooding Beatle that dubious title from my experience with them would have to go to John Lennon, who, during my three days in the presence  radiated all the warmth of a January night in Liverpool.

 George said John was known to the press as the leader, and no one disputes it. It seems that John was the Beatle who sparked most of the funny remarks during the Beatles first press conference in New York, and became known as the clever one of the pack. He also written some brilliant sardonic literature, which he illustrates with Thurber-like sketches. These accomplishments, plus his co-composing with McCartney of The Beatles songs has caused him to be considered the brainiest Beatle, even though McCartney has more schooling and Harrison has a quicker wit. 

"We let the press say what it likes,"  smiles, George, but he indicated there was no real leader among the Quartet. "It's like that old thing. You get to look like your dog. We're so much together in a like we're getting to look like each other. You notice it?" 

 As for who sparks the humor, which can turn into madness, when all four are in good spirits and together,  particularly over a scotch and Coke.

 George claimed that no one takes charge. "We're not as fast as the world seems to think either. The reason it seems to be so fast is that there are four of us. As for that New York Press Conference that got us so famous, the reporters were asking such ridiculous questions.  We decided to give them ridiculous answers. When the questions are serious, The Beatles prove they are serious, too.

 I wrote the story you just read, and then went on vacation, I returned to the office tan and terrified at the stacks of mail extending upwards from the desk to transom -- most of it from teenagers commenting on my three days with the four "B's"  Beatle fans wanted more. Two of them wanted my head and a noose.

 I'd like to use a space to answer some of the questions raised

. Q: this is very important to me, that is, do the Beatles care anything about their teenage fans, or do they just want our money?

 A:  They care. I believe they like you fans very much. They also want your money. Coming from hard-working, modest-income families, they are highly conscious of the need for financial security. It is adults they disapprove of, even though they themselves are more sophisticated in their thinking than most adults. They considered adults dishonest, and the Beatles are honest, sometimes to the point of by accepting social standards rudeness.

 Q:  There is some confusion about Paul. Some people say he's the hardest to get to know, and their manager, Brian Epstein, says he's the easiest for an outsider to meet.  Did you find him hard to know? He's my favorite.

 A:  I found Paul to be glib and amusingly cynical, as contrasted to his cohort, John Lennon, who was amusingly sometimes bemusingly dour. I felt Paul would be easier to talk to, if he could be led away from John, a feat that I was unable, with politeness, to accomplish.

 Q, I'm about in tears of sadness. Is it true that the Beatles do not believe in God?

 A:  I see no reason why they'd lie in claiming that they are agnostics, but I have a distinct impression that they are searching individually for their own ideas and ideals. It's an ailment of the age of science and insecurity. Don't brood with time, troubles, and maturity. Everyone changes. 

Q: I have the impression you liked Ringo the best of the Beatles and John the least, is that true? If so, why a that's true? 

A: Yes, that's true. Probably because Ringo was sweet, sympathetic, and quiet, and you could get close to him; John, on the other hand, was brooding and complex, distant. The thought has occurred to me that perhaps he considers himself too bright to share his psyche with the likes of a reporter --- and perhaps he is right. What confession made,  I hope the Lennon lovers will put away their poison pins and all this well meaning (honestly) reporter to go back without fear to the guillotine to the business of earning a fast 1,000,000th of John's take home pay.