What The Beatles Prove About Teen-Agers

 This is a newspaper article from U.S. News and World Report from February 24, 1964.  It is an interview with a leading educator and sociologist, David Riesman. 

Q:  Professor Riesman, is the furor over the singers who call themselves the Beatles a sign that American youngsters are going crazy?

A: No crazier than hitherto. In the first place, any large city will turn out a minority capable of nearly anything. One mustn't exaggerate and attribute to the vast majority the reactions of the minority. 

Q: Would you say that the fad for the Beatles is a mania, then?

A: It's a form of protest against the adult world. Those youngesters are hoping ot believe in something or respond to something new that they have found for themselves. 

Q: Will it last very long?

A: No. No craze does. The way to describe a craze or fad is to point out that it starts out as a minority movement. It is self fulfilling, self nourishing for the minority that suports it, and every members of the minority is supposed to respond in the same way. As soon as the majority takes it up, it can no longer be a fad. Some new fad has to come along for a new minority. 

Q: Does the fact that the Beatles are British have anything to do with the craze over them?

A: The relevance, I guess, of these young men being British is that it is perhaps more difficult to cultivate fads within America because they're so quickly promoted by TV, records, and other mass media. So, we have to use other English-speaking lands in order to have a place for the fads to grow. 

Q: How would you compare the current Beatle craze with the Elvis Presley craze of a few years back?

A: Compared to the Elvis Presley craze, it is a very minor one. Presley created a definitely "antiparent" outlook. His music-and he, himself appeared somewhat insolent, slightly hoodlum. 

Presley was a much more gifted musician than adults gave him credit for, but he antagonized the older generation. And that gave the younger generation something to hang on to, which the usually permissive parents openly disliked. 

In this respect, my impression is that the Beatles have none of this somewhat sinister quality that Presley represented for adults. They don't have the quasi-sexual, quasi-aggressive note that was present in Presey. 

Q: What about the shaggy-dog hairstyle of the Beatles?

A: Well, they are British, and the British are accepted as being eccentric, anyway.

So the hair styles don't have the same meaning as they would have if the Beatles were unkempt in the American "beat" style. Actually, these young men, although unkempt in one way, are very "kempt" in another. 

Q: Does that account for their popularity with teen-age girls?

A: I don't know. Presley also had this tremendous impact on girls.  But he had a male audience, too, with his swagger his aggressiveness and his defiance. But it's very safe for a young girl to admire these Englishmen. Then, too, there are four of them, and there's safety in numbers. 

Q: So you would just let the craze run its course--

A: What else? I don't see it as at all dangerous. I think, actually that adult concer, worry monitoring, and so on, is probably the best fuel to add to the fire. 

If I were the Beatles press agent,I'd work to have ministers and professor and press all saying "Oh dear! Oh dear!" 

Paul McCartney: Chat with a Modern Legend

 

This is an article about Paul published on October 2, 1966, in the San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle (reprinted form the London Sunday Times)

Paul McCartney was in his new mansion in St. John's Wood. He lives alone. A Mr. and Mrs. Kelly look after him.  Nothing so formal as a housekeeper and butler.  Their job, he says, is just to fit in. 

The house had a huge wall and an electrically operated black door to keep out non-Beatle life. Inside, there is some carefully chosen elderly furniture.  Nothing flashy, affected, or even expensive looking.  The dining room table was covered with a white lace tablecloth. Very working class posh. 

McCartney, along with John Lennon, is the author of a song called "Eleanor Rigby." No pop song of the moment has better words or music. 

"I was sitting at the piano when I thought of it.  Just like Jimmy Durante. The first few bars just came to me. And I got this name in my head - Daisy Hawkins picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been.  I don't know why. "

"I can hear a whole song in one chord. In fact, I think you can hear a whole song in one note if you listen hard enough. But nobody ever listens hard enough. 

"OK, so that's the Joan of Arc bit. I couldn't think of much more, so I put it away for a day. Then the name Father McCartney came to me - and all the lonely people. But I thought people would think it was supposed to be my dad sitting knitting his socks. Dad's a happy lad. So I went through the telephone book, and I got the name McKenzie. 

"I was in Bristol when I decided Daisy Hawkins wasn't a good name. I walked round looking at the shops and I saw the name Rigby. You got that? Quick pan to Bristol. I can just see this all as a Hollywood musical...

"Then I took it down to John's house in Weybridge. We sat around laughing, got stoned, and finished it off. I thought of the backing, but it was George Martin who finished it off. I just go bash. bash on the piano. He knows what I mean. 

"All our songs come out of our imagination. There never was an Eleanor Rigby.

"One of us might htink of a song completely, and the other jsut add a bit. Or we might write alternate lines. We never argue. It just doesn't matter that much. I care about being a songwriter. But I don't care passionately about each song."

"'Eleanor' is a big development as a composition. But that doesn't mean 'Yellow Submarine' is bad. It was written as a commercial song, a kid's song. People have said, 'Yellow Submarine? What's the significance? What's behind it?' Nothing. Kids get it straight away. Kids have got it. It's only later they get messed up.

"I tried once to write a song under another name, just to see if it was the Lennon-McCartney bit that sold our songs. I called myself Bernard Webb - I was a student in Paris and very unavailable for interviews. The song was 'Woman,' for Peter and Gordan. They made it a big hit. Then it came out it was me. I realized that when I saw a banner at a concert saying 'Long Live Bernard Webb.'

"I really can't play the piano or read or write music. I tried three times in my life to learn but never kept it up for more than three weeks. The last block I went to was great I'm sure he could teach me a lot. I might go back to him. It's just the notation - the way you write down notes, it doens't look like music to me."

"John's not trying acting again, and George (Harrison) has got his passion for the sitar and all the Indian stuff. He's lucky. Like somebody's luck who got religion. I'm just looking for something I enjoy doing. There's no hurry. I have the time and the money.

"People think we're not conceited, but we are. If you ask me if I wrote good or bad songs I'd be think to say bad, wouldn't I? It's true we're lucky, but we got where we are because of what we did.

"The girls waiting outside. I don't despise them. I don't think fans are humilating themselves I queued up at the Liverpool Empire for Wee Willie Harris' autograph. I wanted to do it. I don't think I was being stupid.

"I can go out and around more than people think without being recognized. People never really believe it's you. They don't really expect to see you in the street, so you can get away with it.

"I think we can go on as the Beatles for as long as we want to, writing songs, making records. We're still developing. I've no ambitions, just to enjoy myself. We've had all the ego bit, all about wanting to be remembered. We couldn't do any better than we've done already, could we?"

In Quest of a Teenage Phenomenon

Photo  by Scott C. Dine (St. Louis Post Dispatch photographer)
The apex of a Beatle fan's career -- Miss Gale Wachsnicht touches Ringo's sleeve. George follows John in a rear door escape from their Chicago motel.  "I grabbed George," Gale said breathlessly, "just a couple of seconds before the policeman grabbed me."

 

In Quest of a Teenage Phenomenon – the Beatles

By Sally Bixby Defty

St. Louis Post Dispatch

August 27, 1965

 

“I touched them!  I touched all four Beatles with this hand!” Miss Barbara Ziegenbein gasped as her idols sped away from their Chicago motel to a doubleheader at White Sox Park.  To touch even one Beatle requires the resilience, imagination, and raw courage of James Bond, Barb, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Ziegenbein 111 Five Meadow Ballwin, had spent three months planning the feat. She and Miss Gale Wachsnicht, whose parents are Mr. and Mrs. Henry Washsnicht 10334 Oak Avenue, Overland had obtained tickets in May.

Craftily, they wrote to the five swankiest Chicago hotels saying they would be in Chicago the weekend of The Beatles’ arrival and did NOT want to be involved in mob scenes.  “Please assure us that the Beatles are not staying at your hotel,” the letter concluded.  The one hotel that did not reply was obviously their target, the girls reasoned.

“It’s not sex,” the girls explained.  “The Beatles are just cuddly.  We’d like to do their laundry for them – things like that.”  When asked who was her favorite, Barb answered, “First I  liked Paul best, then John’s book came out and I loved him.  After I saw “A Hard Day’s Night” I liked Ringo the most. Now that I I’ve read the book by their manager, Brian Epstein, I kind of go for HIM.” 

Having received a tip that these mid-century phenomena, would be staying at the Sahara Inn near O’Hare airport, I decided to accompany the girls in their quest last week.  I arrived at the motel to find them casing the layout of the sprawling Sahara.  Eager-eyed teenagers filled the corridors.

A porter confided that the Sahara was already planning to sell the Beatles’ sheets at $1 a square inch.  (The girls ended up such friends of the head maid that they were given free swatches of both Thursday and Friday night sheets).

Many informants believed that the Beatles were to stay on the sixth floor of the motel tower. The junior detectives telephoned all rooms on the sixth floor, but received no response we decided to investigate via the fire escape under cover of darkness.

As we crept to the fifth floor, Barb spotted a ladder leading to a parapet on six. We climbed up gingerly only to find the sixth floor was under construction. In the inky blackness we debated whether to tie a rope to a stud and slide down the outside of the building to rap on a Beatle window when they arrived.  Gale sighed, “Oh, if they only knew what we go through for them!”

All kinds of girls came and went during the long vigil in the parking lot. There were cleanout girls in madras shirts and denim skirts, Courreges girls in white boots and short dresses belted at the hip, and a trio with long, straight hair, tight white Levis, black leather caps and jackets and pale impassive faces so tough they scared me.

It was after 4a.m. when, without fanfare, black limousine glided to a stop before the motel and was immediately buried under ecstatic girls, including Barb and Gale.  After police scraped fans off the car, out came the real live Beatles:  first Paul (the cute one), smiling and gently raising his finger to his lips to quite the crowd; then George (the man of mystery), Ringo (the Chaplinesque Beatles) and John (the thinking girl’s Beatle)  (John has just published his second book ‘A Spainard in the Works’ which has been called the teenagers introduction to James Joyce.)

Girls stuffed themselves into the Cadillac to breathe Beatle air.  A tiny blonde ran up to me glowing and said, “Look! A chewing gum wrapper from the floor!” I started to examine it and she cried, “Don’t unfold it!  THEY squashed it up that way!”

I awake the next morning to find a sea of teenagers on the parking lot waving, shouting or just staring at the fifth floor.  By early afternoon they had become a formable force which broke police line as if it were a daisy chain.

So Barb and Gale sneaked around to the back door and when the Beatles emerged the girls had their idols almost all to themselves. They returned dazed and weak in the knees.

“I got to touch Ringo!” Gale said, “and then I grabbed George!” Though a policeman had pushed her to the ground to disentangle her from George, her current favorite, it was an experience of a lifetime.

At the concert at White Sox Park the screaming rose to an excruciating pitch   as the Beatles trotted from the dugout to a stage set up on second base.

Leonard Berstein, who considers the Beatles’ music an art form, listens to them in person with his fingers in his ears.  I discovered that the conductor of the New York Philharmonic knows what he is doing.  A gentle pressure on the ears muffles the piercing yells so that one can faintly hear the twang of guitars and the beat of Ringo’s drums.

Though a few girls wore “Please don’t scream – sing!” buttons, most of the audience of 30,000 shrieked as though in agony.  Weeping, shaking their heads with faces contorted, fists clenched, they screamed in staccato barks of pain.  Barb explained it, “These girls have been waiting so long – they just love the Beatles, they’ll never love anyone else, and at the same time they know they’ll never get close to them and it’s all in vain.”

Paul, smart and well-groomed in striped shirt with a stiff white collar, tie, and well-cut navy suit, appeared poised and cheerful at the press conference. Ringo, dressed in a wide stripped T-shirt and jacket, looked indescribably woebegone. His eyes and his eyebrows slope down toward his earlobes, the mouth droops, and that nose….

When asked why he always looks so sad, Ringo answered, “Thot’s joost the way the face works.  Ah’m really quite hoppy inside, it just doesn’t show.”

George, a distinctly lupine young man with a mouthful of crooked teeth, said that in Houston teenagers had broken police lines and swarmed over and under the airplane.

“When I saw them lyin’ on the wings smokin’ I thought we were dead for sure.” He said in a soft Liverpudlian burr.

Philip G.D. Adams, the British Consul-General made his way to the front of the room. “I do beg your pardon,” he intoned in a Rule Brittania voice, “but do you chaps consider that you do a good job for your country?” John leaped to his feet with a fixed toothy grin and a snappy salute.

As the Beatles nodded their assent to the question amid general laughter John shot a level glance at the British official and quietly asked, “Do you?”  

Cynthia gets busted

 October 21, 1963

Can you imagine how quickly this type of news would spread today?

From sorting fan mail to seeing Abbey Road being made: my life as a teenage Beatles employee

 https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/aug/24/from-sorting-fan-mail-to-seeing-abbey-road-being-made-my-life-as-a-teenage-beatles-employee?fbclid=IwAR1poeeJzUNdEe3gge4YOLIC-67vAPZkGv9fjRXH5E7ck0OiFJPQIr69hjQ

Merele sitting at John's desk in his Apple Office on Savile Row in 1969.

I briefly spoke to the author of this artile, Merele Frimark when I was writing my current book "Dear Beatle People:  The Story of the Beatles North American Fan Club."  I thought her story was extremely interesting and I am happy to see that she has written some of her story for The Guardian and also publish some of the photos she took for the Official Beatles Fan Club in the United States.   Only 2 of her photos (2 of John Lennon) were sold through the club.   Other photos she has taken have been leaked over the years (incorrectly said to have been taken from Yoko Ono's stolen camera).  So few photos are available of The Beatles recording Abbey Road, so these are amazing.   

Merele had a very interesting story in the Official Beatles Fan Club in the United States.   If this story interests you, then you might be interested in buying a copy of my book.   I currently have hardcopies and paperbacks available directly from me.   Let me know if you are interested in buying one.   beatlesbusch66@gmail.com

Photos are taken and belong to Merle Frimark

From sorting fan mail to seeing Abbey Road being made:  my life as a teenage Beatles employee

Written by Merele Frimark

The Guardian

August 24, 2023

On the afternoon of 23 July 1969, I was a nervous 18-year-old American on my way to EMI Recording Studios on Abbey Road in St John’s Wood. Inside, the Beatles were putting the finishing touches on the song Come Together which would end up on Abbey Road . An endless stream of pilgrims would soon arrive at the pedestrian crossing on the cover, and the studios would be renamed to match.

As I entered, I heard voices and wailing guitars. Their assistant Mal Evans greeted me and put me at ease. John, Paul, George and Ringo were scattered around the studio. The place was bustling, with crew setting up, moving equipment and microphones, placing towels over the drum heads. Then came the introduction. The boys – as everyone seemed to refer to them – were reminded that I was from the New York office. They all smiled; I felt warmly welcomed. Then they got down to business. Not wanting to be intrusive, I took some candid photos; I was by no means a professional photographer, and this is the first time they’ve been published.

How did I get here? Two years earlier, I was a young fearless teen growing up in Queens, New York, who wanted to be Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane.  I had been to both Beatles concerts at Shea Stadium in 1965 and 1966, and was totally enamoured the minute their songs began playing on the radio and their now historic February 1964 appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. Mine and so many other lives changed forever in that moment.

In high school, I heard the Beatles had an office in Manhattan. I took the subway to the office building in the heart of Times Square and took the elevator to the 18th floor. The sign on the door read Beatles (USA) Limited and Nemperor Artists, Ltd. I knocked and went inside. “Hi, are you here to be interviewed?” asked the woman at reception and I immediately said yes, having no idea what I would be interviewed for.

They were looking for teens to help sort the sacks of fan mail and hired me immediately. Each day after school I would hop on the subway and go to the office, and after graduating high school in 1968, they offered me a full-time job. I will never forget the excitement the day the demo of Back in the USSR arrived in the office before it was released – we were all so thrilled and played it immediately, over and over, blasting it out.

In July 1969, I paid to take a two-week vacation to London. I spent time in the Savile Row HQ of Apple Corps, with fans waiting outside for a glimpse of any Beatle that might pop in. I watched the moon landing on a small black and white TV at the office alongside Donovan.

Then Derek Taylor, the Beatles’ press officer and a great mentor to me, arranged for me to go to EMI Studios, and in I wandered. Bearded George, dressed in blue jeans and matching shirt sat atop the organ; John in all white, with beard and beads, sat in front of the drum kit area; Paul was dressed casually in a white T-shirt and barefoot, constantly moving around the studio, with Ringo in bright red trousers at his drums. George Martin was there too, checking just about everything.

As they began to rehearse sections of Come Together, Paul seemed to be taking the lead. At certain points he would stop, suggesting “it’s four beats, Ringo,” and walk over for a pow-wow: “All good.” Paul and George harmonised together as George worked on his wailing guitar solos. John ran his fingers along the neck of his guitar as he tuned up.

Paul was the most animated that day; John was rather quiet as he had recently returned to the studio following a car accident in Scotland. I brought some white flowers for him and he placed one on the amp next to him. George remained rather pensive, while Ringo had great patience and calm.

I continued to tiptoe around. Trying to take it all in, listen to what they were playing while being invisible. I made eye contact with John and Paul a few times. I remained cool and smiled. Time stood still.

It was time to leave. I waved goodbye and ventured out and down those famed steps.

At that time, I had no idea what was to come: Within a year the band would split up.

In 1970, with the breakup imminent, I left the New York office (though I remain in touch with my former office mates to this day). Fate continued to shine on me, as my maternal grandfather predicted. A Russian immigrant and musician in the early 1900s, he would tell fortunes and read tea leaves, and my mother asked him if her very active little girl would be a musician. He replied: “No, she’ll be involved in show business, but behind the scenes.” Not wanting to influence me, my mother hadn’t told me this. I then took a job at one of the city’s top theatrical PR firms, working on the original Broadway production of the musical Hair and more – the start of a successful career in entertainment marketing and PR.

Later, in August 1980 while biking in Central Park, I happened upon John sitting on a bench with his baby son, Sean. I approached, said hello and chatted for a bit. He was so very happy. Four months later he was gone. What a privilege and honour to have come together with him and his bandmates for that brief, momentous time in history.

Beatles Frolic at Party

Beatles Frolic at Party Attended by Press Writer

By Bill Barrett

Cleveland Press

August 1964

 

Key West Florida – So there I was at a poolside party with The Beatles early today.   It all started at about 1 a.m. here at the pool of the sleek Key Wester Motel, where I found myself the only American newspaperman touring with the famous four preliminary to their Cleveland visit next week.

The reason this poolside party started at 1 a.m. was that by then most all of the folks who worship at the Beatle shrine had gone home – with police encouragement.   So the Beatles emerged from whatever plush woodwork they had been hiding behind to have a swim.

George Harrison was first in the water.  He is the most avid swimmer of the quartet.  He jumped off the high board, executing a neat belly-whopper with a great splash.   His hair floated out behind him, for all the world like Dorothy Lamour.

Ringo Starr entered the pool next – cautiously, carefully, at the shallow end.  Music was coming from the public address system.  Ringo did the twist in the water.  But he swam not a stroke and for a good reason.  He can’t.

Paul McCartney was in and out of the pool, humming and singing in his famous falsetto that induces teenage squeals.

As for John Lennon, he swam not at all.  He came to the pool late, and sat alone at a table far from the rest of the party, his eyes hidden by dark glasses.  Then he wandered over to us.  He acknowledged his introduction to me with a firm handshake and the offer of an (American) cigarette.  I told him I was from Cleveland.

“Oh, Cleveland,” he said.  “We’ll be there Tuesday.”

George meanwhile was talking with Jim Stagg, KYW radio disk jockey who has been on tour with the Beatles for several weeks.

Something in George’s voice caught John’s alert year.  “You sound as if you’ve got a cold, chum,” he said.  “Nope, nothing to worry about,” Beatle George declared.  “My nose is all bunged up from the swimming that’s all.”

Paul wandered by dressed after his swim in slacks and a blinding red sports shirt.  He had a real Beatle-size problem.  “I’ve forgotten my comb,” he announced.  No one had one, Paul used his fingers for a comb on his floppy mane.  It took some time.   

Suddenly it started to rain.  We huddled under a patio umbrella.  Then we made a break for the bar, to carry on the party in there.  Unexpectedly, the bar patrons found themselves with an impromptu Beatle concert on their hands!   A rhythm combo was entertaining.  Three of them cheerfully gave up their instruments.  George and Paul grasped guitars.  Ringo slid in behind the drums.  Clarence (Frogman) Henry, a member of the Beatle entourage, did the singing.

The walls throbbed; the lemonade flowed.  The concert – mostly gutsy blues – went on until police suggested it was time for all good little Beatles to be in bed.  It was 4 a.m.  

Last night about 750 youngsters assembled outside the Key Wester Motel after the Beatles had arrived here.  Police watched impassively and an alert ice cream vendor, his truck parked on the premises, made a small fortune, and still, the chant rolled on into the night.  “We want the Beatles; we want the Beatles.”

Ringo appeared briefly, waved to the ecstatic crowd, then went back into the Beatle suite.  That was it for the night.

Promptly at 9p.m. Larry Rodriguez of the Key West police force got on his bullhorn and told the youngster to go home.  They did.  “We have a 9p.m. curfew here for children under 16,” he said.  “We don’t usually enforce it this strictly.  But we figure it’s time the kids went home and got a good night’s sleep for school tomorrow. “

Cleveland Police Chief Richard Wagner will be interested in knowing that the Key West officer handled the situation – eight officers of the police force of this city of 35,000 plus three sheriff’s deputies from Monroe County.

“The youngsters have been pretty good about it,” he grinned.  “But my advice to the Cleveland policemen would be to stay alert.  You never know what these kids will do next. “

Early last evening for instance, while the fans waited for their British heroes to return from a brief sail on the ocean, a scratching, swinging, hair-pulling fight broke out among some girls.   It was Diane’s fault, one young indignant witness assured me.  “She said something nasty about Ringo, and Paula and Barbara would stand for THAT!”

The Beatles and their entourage flew into Key West from Canadian engagements, here to await the passage of Hurricane Dora and do get a breather from the hectic pace of their tour which is nearing an end.

 

 

George back at home

 

November 29, 1976

He was just a normal, regular person

 

This was an article published in the Daily Mail newspaper shortly after John's murder.  I typed it up exactly as it was originally published.   There is a word that is not acceptable to use today but was used in 1980 regularly when talking about people with cognitive disorders.  

 “He was Just a Normal, Regular Person”

By Don Singleton

Daily News 

December 12, 1980

 

Nearly 10 years ago, on a cold, rainy night in late autumn.  I sat with five or six other people in a basement apartment in Greenwich Village, relaxing after an evening that included a Broadway play, dinner and drinks afterward.

It was late, probably 1 or 2am, and the party was just about over.  I was sitting by myself, lounging in an armchair, recalling bits and pieces of the evening.  In one corner of the room two women chatted quietly, and on a sofa, a young man sat plinking idly on a guitar.  I found myself listening to the guitar.  Plink, plink, plink – a must undistinguished melody.  He could have been any of a million hack-around musicians of the early 1970s.

I found myself grinning, “Son of a gun,” I thought.  “Here I am sitting in John Lennon’s bedroom, and he’s over there playing a guitar, and there’s really nothing that special about him at all.  He’s just a normal, regular person.”

He saw the smile on my face.  “What’s oop?” he asked. 

“Nothing,” I said.  “I was just thinking about something funny.”  

Obviously, John Lennon was a normal person.  But normal glimpses of him were rare – during that entire night on the town, for example, there was never a moment when people weren’t aware of John and Yoko, pointing at them, taking their pictures, asking for autographs.  Poor John had to think about every move he made.

Like it or not, John Lennon was forever on stage, and as a consequence, the John Lennon the world saw was an on-stage John Lennon.  N fact, the world became so used to the on-stage John Lennon that it just about refused to recognize that he was really just an ordinary person with some very ordinary things to say.

Poor John – No matter how many times he said some things, no one ever seemed to believe him, or even listen to him.  Take, for example, the new interview in Playboy magazine, which contains the very same questions and answers that have been published 100 times in the past decade.

A large chunk of the interview, for example, deals with the notion that Yoko was the person who broke up the Beatles, and that she was Svengali who controlled John’s mind.

“Why can’t you be alone without Yoko?” asked an interviewer for Rolling Stone in 1971.  “I can be, but I don’t wish to be,”  John Lennon answered.  “There is no reason on earth why I should be without her.  There is nothing more important than our relationship, nothing.”

“And we dig being together all the time.  And both of us could survive apart, but what for?  I’m not going to sacrifice love, real love, for any friend, or any business because in the end you’re alone at night.  I’ve been through it all and nothing works better than to have somebody you love to hold you.”

 

John and Yoko had their troubles, of course, but their relationship was strong enough to keep them together, and for the last 10 years at least, if you want to know about the private life of John Lennon, you’re just going to have to accept the fact that John Lennon was – and is—the other half of Yoko Ono.

A lot of people just couldn’t accept that, but it was true. Not because Yoko wanted it that way, but because John wanted it that way.

As everyone knows, John Lennon took the past five years off to be a “househusband,” raising his and Yoko’s son, Sean, while Yoko handled the family’s business affairs – and handled them very successfully, by all accounts.

But just because John cut his connections to the press for all that time, that doesn’t mean he stopped being an ordinary person – an ordinary person who just happened to be a very generous, decent guy.

Just by accident, I happened to get a call the other day from a lady who told a story that shed some light on the kind of guy John Lennon was.

The lady’s name is Ruth McCarthy, and she lives in East Haven, Conn.  She has a retarded child who lives at the Southbury Training School in Southbury, Conn.

“After five years ago,” she said, “a group of mothers at the school held a celebrity auction to try to raise money for activities for the children.  So we sent letters to a lot of famous people, asking them if they’d be willing to contribute things to auction off.

“Some people did answer the letters,” she said.  “Walter Cronkite sent a letter or something and Barbara Walters and Paul Newman and lot of songwriters.  Most of them sent letters and some sent little things like tie clasps.

“But John Lennon – do you know what he sent?  He sent a little statue, one of the Grammy awards that had won.  The little statue itself.  Most of the things at the auction brought $5 or $6, but that one brought $600 or $700 – it probably would have been more, but there was only some families of retarded kids and some staff people.

“You know this has been on my mind all these years, and I never told anybody,” she said.  “But when I heard this morning that he had been killed, I just thought the world should know what a big heart John Lennon had, that without any fanfare at all, he would five away such a treasured possession for a bunch of retarded kids.”

Paul's first time in Cyberspace

 

Back in 1997, while Paul was promoting the Flaming Pie album, he participated in his first-ever interview that took place online.   Well -- sort of.   It was part online and part on TV through VH-1.  A lot of people (including yours truly) tried to log onto the site for the chat but got kicked out due to the crappy dial-up we all had back then.     I was actually trying to get onto the chat through my college Internet at the computer lab.  Oh, the olden days!  

I found a newspaper article about the chat.  Here is what it is said:

Sir Paul Fields queries from cyberspace peanut gallery

By Clare Longreigg (The Guardian)

His favorite guitarist of all time is Jimi Hendrix, he listens to his children's records, and John Lennon lives in his headphones. 

Sir Paul McCartney took to the Internet for the first time last weekend to provide these and many more insights into his life and times in answer to some of an astonishing three million questions fired at him from the world's home computers. 

The 90-minute question and answer session was set up by cable music channel VH1, which broadcast the mass interview live last Saturday night. 

The response far exceeded the organizers' expectations.  A spokesman for the former Beatle said, "We did not imagine there would be so many questions; we thought there would be only around 300,000.

"No one has been questioned on this scale before.  Sir Paul will be the most questioned man in history."

Although he answered as many as he could of the 3 million questions from fans all over the world, one of the crew calculated that if he had answered them all it would have taken him six years. 

While the McCartney camp congratulated themselves on the number of calls, the quality of questioning fell somewhat short of expectations.  One woman asked him what sort of underwear he preferred.  He declined to answer, saying only, "You would not believe the answer, so I will stay enigmatic about that."

Asked what he thought of Oasis, he said he liked them, adding, "If they are going to be derivative, they might as well be something I am connected with."

Many questioners wanted to know about his knighthood (he keeps his gong on the bedroom wall, it has made a lady of Linda at last).  But he considers his greatest achievement to be his children.  "It's not easy to bring up kids when you are in show business.  Me and Linda consider we have good kids."

Another questioner wanted to know whether the Beatles Anthology albums would have inspired them to regroup had John Lennon still been alive. "It's highly likely before the anthologies," he replied.  "We have had lots of offers, but without John, there is no Beatles.  Recording Free As a Bird was as if John was there.  He was in my headphones."

The broadcast went out live to the UK, the United States, and Germany from Bishopsgate Hall in the City of London, and later Sir Paul typed some of his replies in himself.  He declared himself a fan of the Internet. 

I'm the Beatle with the Baby

 

This is the John Lennon part of the newspaper series from 1964 called "The Beatles --  by the Beatles themselves."   Remember that this is written as if John himself wrote it.   I found it glued into a scrapbook I purchased. 

Ask yourself who is the most cultured, mature, artistic, married, short-sighted member of the Beatles ... and the answer's a Lennon.

A lot of people thought that when the news got out that I was married and had a six-month-old son, it would be professional suicide. 

But they were so wrong.  The fans were simply wonderful.  I know that you're always supposed to say: "My  fans are just wonderful."  But I really mean it. 

When they heard I was married, they wrote me hundreds of letters saying, "I like you even though you are married." And they sent dozens of presents for my son John.

Now I know I can afford to buy him all the presents he wants, but getting them from the fans was great.  It really made me feel good.

We all realize that there is a danger that because of this fantastic fan worship we might get to think we're supermen or something.  But when I feel my head starting to swell I just look at Ringo and I know perfectly well we're not supermen. 

But I'd be a liar if I didn't tell you that we love all the publicity we're getting.  Go on, admit it....you wouldn't mind getting your name in the papers either, would you?

What I can't stand is people who write in to the papers saying that one week's wages for The Beatles would build a church in Africa.  And they moan about all the uproar and inconvenience we cause in various towns. 

But I hope we give more enjoyment to more people than any church in Africa.  As for the inconvenience -- well we don't' want to create it.  We don't have people going round shipping up support and hysteria for us. 

Still, I suppose that having had all the favorable publicity, it's now getting round knocking time.  We don't mind people putting us down -- we enjoy reading the carping comments as much as the friendly ones.  But there are always a few who feel they have to do their bit for society as an evil influence.  Then there were the veteran musicians who say to each other, "Never mind, Bert, we'll still be playing long after this lot are finished."

Well, we don't profess to be brilliant, musicians.  But the kids don't want brilliant musicians.  I'd be the first to admit that our success is out of all proportion to our musical talent. 

But we don't pay the kids to queue up for days to get tickets for our shows.  So I suppose we must have something.   One thing I know, we've got is mutual understanding.  We were all friends before we started playing together.  And we're individuals too; that's why we don't' have a leader. 

The only thing I was interested in as a kid was art.  My math teacher once wrote on my report:  "He is on the road to failure if he carries on like this."  

Well, I carried on like that, and believe me, failure is great.  I met my wife at art school.  We met over a pot of paint, I hope my son will turn out to be artistic, too.

I'd really like to spend more time with my wife and son.  I try to get home regularly, but it's difficult.  I had an idea at first of being a wandering minstrel, taking my wife with me.  But it doesn't work. 

So now she stays with her mum in Hoylake.  I'm not hiding her from the public.  But I have tried to keep her away from the press.  I don't see why they should treat her like a freak just because she married a Beatle.

What does she think about my being away so much?  Well, she knew what it would be like when she married me.  And she's very understanding about it.   I phone her nearly every day although the telephone is a horrible means of communication.  Voices mean so little without the expression and gestures that go with them. 

The thing that bugs me most is life is being shortsighted.  I've been that way since I was ten.  The other boys call me four-eyes whenever we have a mild shout-up in the dressing room.  But I hate having those horn-rimmed things hanging on my face.  The other boys have fun telling me the wrong door to go through when I'm not wearing them so that I finish up in a cupboard.  But I  haven't yet spoken to a poster. 

By the way, all this talk about being fed up and frustrated because we are prisoners in hotels and theater dressing rooms is a lot of nonsense.  One of the great things about being one of the Beatles is that we have so much fun offstage. 

We're always clowning about.  In Sweden, George took a film of me with his cine camera while I joined various groups of passers-by and started grinning and muttering to them.   When they spotted the camera they tried to get away because they thought they were interfering with the film.  But I just followed them and they couldn't understand it.  It was hilarious. 

What I'd really like to do is to write a musical with a lot of our humor in it.  I get more fun out of writing words and music than from being on the stage really.   The only trouble is that I'm dead lazy.  Not that I count that as a falling.  It's a blessing really. 

People are always asking me what accounts for our success.  I haven't the faintest idea.  If anybody really knew just what made us tick I suppose they'd be forming dozens of identical groups.   I mean you could tell four guys to play like this, dress like that, talk like this, play like that -- and it just wouldn't' work. 

The next thing we'll get is stories that we're either cracking up or splitting up because we love what we do and we'd go n doing it even if we couldn't afford silver-plated yachts. 

As for splitting up -- well we all know that one Beatle is no good without the other three.  I tried singing on my own once, and I never felt so soft in all my life. 

The Beatles: Ringo's Starr's Own Story

 

I am going to share the four-part series knows as "The Beatles by the Beatles Themselves..." by Universal Press Association.   These articles were published in various newspapers in 1964 or could be ordered and send to your home for fifty cents.   Imagine that you are a young fan in 1964 and you get these articles.  You believe that the Beatles actually wrote these articles and you are excited to read the information.    I have the four articles in a very cute scrapbook that was put together by a fan in 1964.   I am sure she was thrilled to paste these into her book.  

The Beatles:  Ringo Starr's Own Story 

Meet the Mad Mad Beatles, in particular the one with the Big Nose who calls himself Ringo Starr, but whose given name is Richard Starkey.  He's looking for a steady girl.  What will she be like?  Here is what he wants, told in his own words:

I'm the small one with the big nose.  They're always pulling my leg about my nose.  And because I'm only 2 ft 9 in (actually 5 ft 8 in) they introduce me on the stage as the Midget. 

I fold up when they say that -- well, I did for the first 300 times. 

I'm also the oldest one - 23, Middle-aged, really.  But if anybody asks I always say John's the oldest because he looks so much older.   I mean he could be our father really -- if he was a bit better looking. 

It doesn't seem that only a short while ago we did the Royal Variety Performance.  It was great meeting all those people, like Marlene Dietrich. 

People said to me, "Didn't you feel embarrassed among all those experienced performers when you've only been in the business a year?"

Well I suppose we were a bit embarrassed.  But it's not up to us.  What can we do?  We were a bit nervous well, we just went on and did what we always do and they seemed to like it. 

I know we're always making cracks about being simple, unspoiled lads.  But honest, all this rush of publicity hasn't made us any different. 

We still get a great kick out of seeing our names in the papers.  It's not so long ago that we had to struggle to get a line in the paper. 

It's great while it lasts -- and we all know it could all end in a year, or even in a couple of months.

It's fabulous to have so many fans, even though it means that we're prisoners in every theater we play.  I see that some people have been saying that we're a burden on the police and all that. 

But the police don't seem to mind.  When we played at one town, a police sergeant told us that every copper in the station had volunteered for the job of getting us in and out of the theater. 

People say it's a waste of public money --  but if the police weren't there it would cost a fortune in hospital bills.  The fans are really wonderful but sometimes they get carried away.  When they start showering things on the stage it's a problem for the boys in front. 

We've only got to say we like miniature cars or hard candies and we get them showered at us on the stage.  That's why I've given up liking eggs. 

And if they must throw the candies I wish they'd take them out of the tins first.  It was the same with jelly babies.  One of us said we liked them and now we've got enough to last us until 1967. 

This tour we're doing at the moment is great.  In every other group I've been in there have always been arguments.  But this is a very happy group.  We always end up together even when we're not playing. 

The only thing I miss is having a steady girl.

I was engaged to a Liverpool girl three years ago.  It lasted a year, then we broke it off. 

I've got a few girl friends in London and Liverpool but at the moment I don't' get a chance to see them. And though I love the fans, there's not much enjoyment in going out with them because I always feel they're with me because I'm a Beatle and not because I'm Richard Starkey (my real name). 

But I'll tell you the sort of girl I like.   I like them to be shorter than me, for a start. 

The color of their hair is unimportant, but I can't stand girls that wear jeans when they are not built for them.  Very few girls are. 

They should have some intelligence. They don't have to be intellectual -- I wouldn't understand what they were talking about.  But I don't like them to be thick.  I like them to do a lot of talking because I'm no good at it. 

I've got no plans to get married at the moment., but I'd like eventually to settle down with a wife and have a couple of kids.  The best age for marriage?  There's no best age.  But I don't think you should wait until you are 29. 

My future wife will be someone who can cook good plain meals.  I'm very fussy about food.  Can't stand onions. 

I suppose what I like most of all in the world at the moment is playing drums.  I started playing about five years ago and I think I'm better than I was.  But I don't' do anything technical.  Just off-beat stuff. I can't stand rock group summers who play modern jazz. 

I can't read drum music.  It would help if I could. I suppose - but I like working things out for myself. I keep the arrangements in my head.  This way, of course, I sometimes make mistakes  -- you know, your attention tends to wander when you are playing the same numbers over and over again. 

My favorite drummer in Britain is Phil Seaman -- but there are lots of American drummers who are great.  The drummers who play with groups like the Shirelles, for instance.  They knock me out.  They do such fab bits. 

One thing I miss in the music business is getting home for Christmas.  I haven't spent Christmas at home for the last three years.  I love Christmas.  It's a fab time. 

My mother -- she used to be a barmaid- and my father (he's a painter and decorator) have got used to not seeing much of me.  But being an only child I'd like to make it this year if I can. 

It's a long time since I spent a quiet evening at home.  and I love that.  The only chance we get to relax now is going to night clubs.  But I love being at home and playing records, watching TV or reading science fiction. 

My biggest kicks musically come from original blues and singers like Chuck Jackson, Brook Benton, Dinah Washington and Sam Cooke.

Cinema?  I like Glenn Ford, Paul Newman and the Method school.  But there won't be much Method about our film -- mostly madness. 

I shouldn't' say this -- being the newest member of the group (I joined in August 1962) - - but the other three are all potty.  They only asked me to join because they had to have one good looking one. 

But joining the Beatles was the best thing I ever did.  Don't' ask me how much money I'm earning.  I haven't a clue.  It all goes into the company.  We just get pocket money -- quite a lot of pocket money.

It's a bit different from being on the dole - as I sometimes was a few years back. 

And if it all ended tomorrow? Well, I think I'd do what I've always wanted to do.  Open a ladies' hairdressing salon. 

Thousands of Girls Swoon

 

Thousands of Girls Swoon as Beatles Rock Miami Beach 

UPI

Britain's bushy Beatles, red-faced from days in the sun and nights in the local twist emporiums, ripped through five songs on the Ed Sullivan Show last night with thousands of girls swooning at their booted feet. 

The mop-topped minstrels from Liverpool rested after two earlier rehearsals packed with screaming "Beatlemaniacs", brought a dozen rows of teenagers to their feet with "All My Love." [sic]

The audience for the live show at the posh, 5000 seat Deauville Hotel Napoleon room was packed.  Half were teenagers, there to see the Beatles and half were adults, waiting for Mitzi Gaynor.  

Mitzi was sweet, honey-voiced and charming. 

The Beatles were hot. 

After their five songs, the teen idols were prespring, freely -- except for Ringo Starr who played it cool, patted his drums, grinned broadly and shook his shaggy head. 

At 10:30am and again at 2:30pm the teen idols slipped from their elegant Deauville Hotel Suit down to the 5000 seat Napoleon Room to practice for their appearance on Sullivan's Show. 

The 5000 seats were filled, mostly with teenaged girls for the rehearsals.   As the Beatles left one rehearsal a group of screaming girls surged against police lines.  About 50 guards from a private agency and some 25 police from Miami Beach held the girls back. 

Mitzi Gaynor also practiced her numbers and got a big hand from several hundred grownups who somehow found the temerity to fight the teenagers for seats.  Most of the grownups got up and left when she finished her numbers. 

When the four singers hopped onto the stage from a private passageway and stepped into the lights, it was bedlam.  Girls shrieked, moaned, cried, gasped, clapped, stood on seats, fell into them, squirmed and jumped as the Beatles went through their numbers including the two-million seller, "I Want To Hold Your Hand."

The teen's shrieking was so loud nobody could hear The Beatles but nobody seemed to care that much.  It was the feeling, man!

The quartet -- George Harrison, 20; John Lennon - 23; Paul McCartney 21; and Ringo Starr 23 -- refused to talk tot he press all day. 

Teenagers started arriving at the Deauville hours before the rehearsals.   At one point they were lined four and five abreast for three long city blocks, chatting excitedly about the Beatles.  When the group of girls surged against police lines, a plucky young brunette grabbed Ringo's arm.  She yelled something that nobody could understand and was on the verge of hysteria when a guard pulled her back. 

All in all it was a typical Beatle outing.  

The Beatles: Four Smiling, Tired Guys Talk About Music

Interesting to note:  The teenager reporter for The Detroit Free press that met the Beatles backstage in Detroit in 1966 and wrote this article is Loraine Alterman.    Yes -- the same Loraine Alterman that married Peter Boyle and had John Lennon as the best man at their wedding.   

The Beatles:  Four Smiling, Tired Guys Talk About Music

Written by Loraine Alterman

Detroit Free Press

August 19, 1966

They're real. The Beatles, that is. I had never seen them in the flesh before, so I expected some kind of supermen to step out of the plane at Metropolitan Airport last Saturday morning.

After all, aren't they the group who changed the whole face of pop music over the past four years? They showed people that pop music can have meaning and its creators can be intelligent, talented artists.

Then there they were, coming down the plane's ramp, four smiling, slightly tired looking guys.

John topped his casual outfit with yellow steel-rimmed sunglasses. Paul wore black slacks and a wild strawberry colored jacket. George, all in black. And Ringo, in blue jeans and a yellow print shirt. (Paul later saw me write down paisley. "It's not paisley," he said. "What would you call it? Flowered? How about art nouveau?")

An hour later I saw them again at Olympia when their press secretary, Tony Barrow, gave the OK to only three reporters to come in for an interview. Paul McCartney, 23, George Harrison, 23, Ringo Starr, 25, and John Lennon, 25, were stashed away in a private office near the stage area at Olympia Stadium.

Right away they were friendly. I was introduced and shook hands with John, Paul and George – each one saying "Hello or Hi, Lorraine."

I didn't see Ringo leaning against a table in the corner until George said, "There's Ringo." Ringo jumped up on the table top so that the shortest Beatle was suddenly the tallest Beatle and we said hello.

Because time ran out, I didn't get a chance to talk to Ringo again, but I did talk to the other three individually for about 15 minutes each.

George, John, and Paul completely charmed me with their intelligence. Though they've all been through hundreds of interviews by now, I didn't have the feeling that they were saying to themselves, "Oh well, here's another one. Let's get it over with fast."

George was first, with his black shirt and black pants reflecting the serious look on his face. But get George talking about Indian music as he's perched on a table top with his legs tucked in front of him, and his eyes light up. He looked straight into my eyes and he spoke with great intensity.

George is interested in the work of Ravi Shankar, the Indian sitar player. George used the sitar on cuts for the Beatles' Rubber Soul and new Revolver albums. How did an Englishman get so hung up on Indian music?

"A whole lot of things got me interested," he said. "The more I heard it, the more I liked it. It's very involved music. So involved. That's why the average listener doesn't understand. They listen to Western music all their lives. Eastern music is a different concept.

"The main hang-up for me is Indian classical music. Really groovy, to pardon the expression, as opposed to the hip things in Western music which are opposed to Western classical music... Indian music is hip, yet 8,000 years old.

"I find it hard to get much of a kick out of Western music. Even out of Western music I used to be interested in a year ago. Most music is still only surface, not very subtle compared to Indian music... Music in general, us included, is still on the surface."

That last remark is indicative of the Beatles attitude – they are not big-headed stars, they can tear themselves down on occasion. They really come on as artists aware of their talent, but not wrapped up in themselves.

"You might include this in your article," George went on. "For anyone who likes music a lot and has a good understanding of it, let me suggest they listen to Indian classical music... I'd like to see more people interested in it, honestly interested. Not just to cash in on the sitar boom.

"On 'Norwegian Wood' on the Rubber Soul album I used the sitar like a guitar. On the new album I developed it a little bit. But I'm far from the goal I want to achieve. It will take me 40 years to get there. I'd like to be able to play Indian music as Indian music instead of using Indian music in pop... It takes years of studying, but I'm willing to do that."

George's passion for Indian music is so catching he made me want to hear Shankar play right then and there.

George put his opinion of the Beatles' effect on pop music this way: "We were right for the time when we came out. The pop scene five years ago was definitely looked upon by 'musicians,' put that in brackets, as a dirty word. Pop was just something crumby. Now I think a lot of things in the pop field have more to them.

"We're very influenced by others in pop music and others are influenced by us... That's good. That's the way life is. You've got to be influenced and you try to be influenced by the best."

John Proves A Cool One

Tony Barrow interrupted and brought over John, and George moved away.

John peered through his yellow glasses and I was a little nervous because I had read that if he was bored by the questions, he would cut you down with his wit.

I shouldn't have worried. Not only did he listen to the questions, but he put thought into his answers. While he wasn't as intense as George, he was just as sincere.

He gives the appearance of being a perceptive, intelligent man. On stage he's cool, slightly rocking his head with the beat, concentrating on his guitar. He hardly seems the type girls scream for, but they do.

He's just as cool off stage.

Do the Beatles still thrill to the screams?

"It's just there," John answered. "If it's not there it's noticeable by its absence. You expect to hear it. You expect it to howl like your amps howl. It would be unnerving without it."

John talked about his song writing.

"l usually just make something up," he said. "When you get down to it, it's all based on actual experiences but I never consciously think of any. It varies immensely. Some of it is just whatever comes into my head."

Like George, John is open to influence in music. "Everything I hear influences me if I like it – any music, pop, or classical, or anything else." Beatle music itself, according to John, "has progressed and gotten more like Beatle music. Before it was more of anyone else's music."

I wondered why the Beatles reversed the tape on the last part of their single record 'Rain' so that it came out backwards at the end. "After we recorded it, it wasn't long enough," John explained. "I took it home. It was 4 in the morning – and I played it backwards. I was knocked out."

As you may have read, the recording session for Revolver took a good two weeks of hard work, day and night. John said that it took him and Paul longer to get started once the recording date was set. "Paul and I didn't snap to it like normally... We worked hard because we wanted everything so perfect. On the Rubber Soul album we found out a lot technically. Things have come into focus. From there we could evolve into Revolver."

I asked John if he had been surprised by the adverse reaction to his now famous statement about Christianity. "I was shocked out of me mind. I couldn't believe it," he said. "I'm more religious and more interested in religion now than I ever was."

Paul Has Devilish Grin

It was time to move on to the handsomest Beatle of all, Paul. With a devilish grin he asked me to sit beside him on the table and rub knees. I told him that I could make some extra money by selling my knees to hundreds of girls clustered around Olympia's entrances. He laughed and swore he could sell his for more money than I could get.

Turning to a more serious side, Paul said that his inspiration for songs comes "mainly from imagination." Take 'Eleanor Rigby'. "It just came. When I started doing the melody I developed the lyric. It all came from the first line. I wonder if there are girls called Eleanor Rigby? Originally I called her Miss Daisy Hawkins. Father MacKenzie was Father McCartney originally. But people would have thought it was my father...

"'Yellow Submarine' is very simple but very different. It's a fun song, a children's song. Originally we intended it to be 'Sparky' a children's record. But now it's the idea of a yellow submarine where all the kids went to have fun. I was just going to sleep one night and thinking if we had a children's song, it would be nice to be on a yellow submarine where all your friends are with a band."

In writing a song Paul and John usually work it out on the guitar. "We use a tape recorder if the song is difficult," said Paul, "but normally we can remember them."

Paul can't read or write music although he is taking lessons. "I may learn eventually, but I'm lazy. The only thing that makes me learn is that it's silly I can't read music It's not that difficult. But it's easy to compose without being able to write it down."

What does Paul think the Beatles have done to pop music?" "Given it a bit of common sense... A lot of it was just a bit insincere I think. Five years ago you'd find men of 40 recording things without meaning it just to make a hit. Most recording artists today really like what they're doing and I think you can feel it on the records."

It is evident that John, Paul, George and Ringo are too bright not to know that you can't stay on top forever as teenage idols. With their talent and their intelligence they'll be around making records, writing songs and books and acting in movies long after the screams have faded away.