Having a meal at the George V

 

June in Paris

 

The oldest fan of Les Beatles

 

Maybe he could be the 5th Beatle?

Honeymooning down by the Seine

The coat of human hair

Today, March 20 marks exactly 50 years since John Lennon and Yoko Ono exchanged wedding vows.   We all know the story of their wedding (and if you don't take a listen to the Ballad of John and Yoko because he explains everything in detail there).     I am sure many Beatles sites are posting photos of John and Yoko's wedding.

However -- I can almost guarantee that Meet The Beatles...for Real is the only site to discuss the coat that John Lennon wore on his wedding day.     Now he did not wear it at the ceremony, but he did have it with him.    He wore it when he got off the plane in Paris after the wedding.   This little nugget of information did not make it into the song, but maybe it should have "Finally made our way back to Paris/ I was wearing a coat made of human hair...." 

Yes.  John Lennon was wearing a coat made out of human hair and he paid 1,000 pounds for this coat. 

Here is what John had to say about the coat with an interview with someone with the last name of "Smith." 


Smith:  What I'm leading up to is somebody told me a funny story about your coat, your fur coat.

John:  Oh, the human-hair coat?

Yoko:  Oh, That one.

John:  Yes, I've got a coat.

Yoko:  We didn't kill anybody to get that (laughs).

John:  I've got a coat made out of human hair, which I never wear because it's too heavy and too big.  But I saw it in the paper and thought, "a human hair coat, man, I gotta get it!" (laughs).  So I got it and it's hanging up.

Smith:  They told me -- and I don't know if this is true; as I said it's a fourth received story  -- and it was that you wanted a human-hair coat because you didn't want to have an animal fur coat because you were against the killing of animals.  And they backed it in animal skin.

John:  Yes, they did that.  They put it on suede (laughs), so I sent it back and they put it on something else.

Yoko:  Jersey.

John:  Yeah because I wanted a fur coat, but I didn't want an animal fur coat.

Smith:  Isn't that eeire?  Wearing a human-hair coat?

John:  Well, I don't know.  It was a bit strange (laughs) They were all sort of Asian hair.  It looked like a had tons of Yoko's heads on me, just all this sort of black Asian hair. (laughs)  It was funny seeing.

 

 

Liverpudlians in front of an American flag in Paris

Sylvie and The Beatles

Meeting the owner

January 16, 1964 in Paris, France

What the Beatles saw...

Backstage photo ops

At the Olympia Theatre

Who is that?

They are all looking the same direction.   Someone or something has got their attention while walking in Paris!

Skating by

All my Loving: Coming of Age with Paul McCartney-- a Book Review

All my Loving:  Coming of Age with Paul McCartney by Beth Kaplan is the true story of Kaplan's teenage life growing up in the 1960s and falling in love with the Beatles, especially Paul McCartney.  

As a 13 year old in Canada, Beth had pretty big problems to deal with.   Problems that a lot of teenagers have to go through, but still big problems.  Her parents for one thing fought a lot and had a lot of marital problems.  Her Dad was not kind to her, and her brother was obviously his favorite.   Plus, she wasn't developing as quickly as her classmates and was concerned about puberty and all that comes along with it.  And then Beth heard the Beatles....and things changed for her. She became a full-blown Beatlemaniac and fell head over heels in love with Paul McCartney. Beth knew that she and Paul were meant to be together and would write elaborate stories about their love to help her escape from the world around her. 

In the midst of all of this, Beth and her family had to move to Paris, France, due to her father's job. Beth did not want to go. She did not speak the language, and she did not want to move away from her Beatle-crazed friends.  In order to survive in a foreign country, Beth relied more and more on the Beatles music and mostly in her made-up world of Paul McCartney.

In the summer of 1965, the Beatles performed in Paris, and Beth got tickets to BOTH shows!  For the first one, she was down in the front, surrounded by boys.  She turned her recently purchased program to the photo of Paul and waved it around.  Paul saw her and waved!  What a thrill for her!   

I enjoyed reading All My Loving.  It was easy to read because Kaplan is such a good writer, and the story flowed very well.  Everyone (well, females especially) can relate to many of the things that Beth experiences during her early teen years, but having it happen in the middle of the Beatles made it an interesting read. 

First generation fans would be most likely to enjoy this book, as they were the ones that were growing up right alongside Beth.  However, I think teenagers today who are Beatles fans would also enjoy this book and it would be interesting for them to see that the problems they face aren't that much different than the problems faced by a teenager in 1964.

This book is available in book and e-book form and is available from Amazon.com

The link below is the affiliate link to Amazon, where you can purchase this book.  I get a small percentage of anything purchased through this link.  Money made from the Amazon Afflication is used to pay the annual fee to keep this site online.  Thank you for your support.  Sara

https://amzn.to/3P92fAy

Share a Coke and a smile

Postcards from the boys

Time for a wave and a smile

Paris in March

Paris at night