Will the Real Richard Starkey Please Stand Up? (1968)

 Will the Real Richard Starkey Please Stand Up?

By Alan Walsh

Melody Maker

March 16, 1968

    "Just because the others are in India, I get all the interviews,"  grinned Ringo Starr as we settled into armchairs at NEMS new Mayfair headquarters. Ringo is back in Britain. Chirpy, cheerful, he sipped his sixth cup of coffee of the afternoon and answered questions readily and patiently. 

    Ringo has been regarded as the Beatle in the shadows, but he has his own views on things. He agreed that their new single was based loosely on Humphrey Lyttleton's 1956 hit "Bad Penny Blues," talked of India and the Maharishi, and denied he was losing interest in meditation, and spoke of his schizoid life as both Beatle Ringo Starr and plain private Richard Starkey, two people to him, but overlapping into his private and public lives. There was sadness in his final remarks on his dual existence. "I try and keep them separate, but you can't," he said.

 Q: 'Lady Madonna' has been called almost a return to rock and roll. Is this true? 

Ringo: Yes. That's what it is-- almost a return to rock and roll.

 Q: Can you explain what you were trying to do in this record?

 Ringo:  The thing is, we've been trying to make a rock n roll record for five years now. Because rock n roll has suddenly hit the headlines-the great revival. Because this one is a rocker (a slight one). Anyway, people are saying it's a rock n roll record. 

Q:  When did you start thinking about the record? 

Ringo:  Paul thought of it originally. He did it like Fats Waller first.  I heard it in the studio. Paul plays piano on it. What he's doing on piano is sort of 'Bad Penny Blues.'  We said to George Martin, 'How did they do it on 'Bad Penny Blues?'  And he said they used brushes. So I used brushes, and we did a track with just brushes and the piano, and then we decided we needed an offbeat. So we put an offbeat on it, and then Paul decided to sing it in his sort of Elvis voice.

 Q:  Many people thought it was you singing.

 Ringo: Yes, a lot of people did. It didn't sound like me to me.

 Q: Is this as near as you've got to a rock number in five years? 

Ringo: Ever since rock n roll, rock n roll records have been made, but people forgot to say rock n roll. All through the years, there have been people who have come out with rock n roll records, but now suddenly everyone wants rock ' n ' roll to come back. So they're saying, 'this is a rock record', and 'that's a rock record.'

     They picked out records that have an offbeat or a saxy thing or a Duane Eddie thing. They're calling ours rock n roll, and the Moves 'Fire Brigade', and Elvis's record. I don't think anyone will ever go back to rock n roll as it was years ago. The reissues will be the only ones, because there's so much more musical influence now from all the years that have gone by.

     Rock originally was influenced by country and western and blues, mainly, but now we've had 10 or 15 different types. So all the new rock-and-roll records will have a bit of that in them as well. They'll be technically a bit more advanced and have a lot more musicians in them.  I don't think it's really your old rock n roll. It's just a title. 

Q: This single is very different from the sort of Beatles music on Sgt. Pepper, for example.

 Ringo:  We always try to be different. If people hadn't been saying the great rock n roll revival, we most probably still would have done this record, and it would have been just the new Beatles single. It wouldn't have been rock n roll. Beatles. 

Q: How do you feel about the early days of rock and roll? 

Ringo: They were the greatest days for me. I was just at the right age, but I don't even think the re-releases of the old rock n roll records will sell. It's nostalgia for us -- you and me. The people who went through that -- the 25s and over.

 Q: Would you ever get so nostalgic that you'd want to play again?

 Ringo: No, I don't think I ever would. I don't want to play again on stage, not at the moment anyway.

 Q: Is this record a step in any specific direction for the Beatles?

Ringo: It's not a backward step, as some people have said, because it doesn't freak out. People think you're going backward. It's just another step, and that's what they all are, just because we do certain things on some records. It's called progression. This one is just us doing a record. It's just a record. It's not a step back or a step forward or sideways. It's just another step. It's just another type of song from the Beatles. 

Q: You stayed only 10 days in India. When you got back, were you confused about why you came back?

 Ringo:  I wasn't confused. The newspapers were confused. I came back because I felt like coming back. That's the whole simple thing to it. I just thought, 'Well, I'll go home.' We got there, and it was great, and the sun was shining, nice place.

 Q:  Was there an element of disappointment or disenchantment in your decision to come back?

 Ringo:  No, it was just that we felt like coming back; we still meditate. The whole point of going there was because we were away from everything. And Maharishi would like you to graduate to as many hours as you can do. And while you're there, you can, but it's impossible at home to do 10 or 12 hours, really, because you have a lot to do. But you can do it there because everything's provided, and you've got your room, you don't have any worries about all the work you have to do. We weren't disenchanted. It was just a feeling. I think everyone must get it sometimes, wherever you go. 

Q:  Was it homesickness?

 Ringo: Yes, it can be described as a lot of things. I think Maureen was missing the kids. That was only one thing. I mean, we didn't say suddenly, 'oh, we've got to go see the kids.' It was 100 reasons which formed into one thing -- feel like coming home. So we came home. 

Q: It was reported that the Maharishi was disappointed when you left 

Ringo:  We went to see him, and he wanted us to stay because he was helping us. If you're going to learn something, you might as well learn it from the boss man, and he's the gov'ner.

 Q:  Were John, Paul, and George disappointed?

 Ringo:  No. We just said, 'We're going home.'  And they said, 'All right, see you when we get back.' Not one of us holds the other

 Q: What have you been doing since you got back?

 Ringo: This is the first day of work. Apart from that, I've been at home doing whatever you do at home. I've just taken up enlarging and developing films. I've been doing them for the past two days. That's all, really 

Q: You said in Melody Maker in December that the Maharishi looked like answering a lot of questions for you. Is this still true?

 Ringo:  He still does. Somebody said that I looked at him and said, 'there I am', but he's a long way ahead from where I am. He's so great. There's something about him. I can't tell you what it is really, you just know there's a great man. 

Q: Do you think he'll ultimately lead you to what you're striving for?

 Ringo:  He's put me on the road. Now it's up to me whether I follow or get off.

 Q: Do you intend to carry on? 

Ringo: At the moment, yes, I've never said that 'in five years, I'll still be doing what I'm doing now,' because I don't know. 

Q: Has it helped you up to now?

 Ringo: It's calmed me and made me more relaxed, although I still have the same emotions as anyone else, but I feel more relaxed.

 Q: What's the practical application of meditation when you're at home?

Ringo:  Half an hour meditation in the morning and half an hour at night. The rest of the time, you just do what you normally do. It's meditation because we're 'householders'. That's the word for people who have to get up and do jobs and who can't be monks and sit in the cave and not do anything. So we do the householders meditation --half an hour in the morning and half an hour at night. This eases your mind in the morning before you're out, doing your job, then when you're finished, everyone's minds a bit tight, and meditation relaxes it and relaxes you. You're a better person. All the worries, troubles, and tribulations of the day, if there are any, they build up, and that's when you get all the aggression, because everyone is so tied up that they're not thinking straight, and they're out shooting and fighting before they know what happens. So that way you relax yourself and relax your brain, and no problem seems to be as big as you make it out to be.

Q: The devotion of the Beatles to the Maharishi has given him a lot of publicity. Has it been good or bad publicity? 

Ringo: The publicity we've tried to give has been good publicity, but all the people who think it's something else have just been saying a lot of rubbish, really, this has been bad publicity. But you are going to get this. You get good and bad with everything, and it's just a pity that all the people who have never tried it are giving it a lot of bad publicity, like the press and a few pop stars. 

Q: Has it helped you musically?

 Ringo: I don't think it helped me musically. No, our songs will be influenced by it because of John and Paul. It's another influence, so it will influence our songs. But I don't think it'll be a cause. I won't become a cosmic drummer.

 Q: Have you acquired any ambition to go deeper into music yourself?

 Ringo: No. I have the phases where I want to play guitar, or I want to play piano, or anything I can play a tune on, because I get sick of bang, bang all the time. Though some drummers can make them talk and play tunes on drums, but I haven't done any of that, really.

 Q:  What about writing songs? 

Ringo:  No, I have the odd go, but it's a joke. It's tunes I find the hardest thing to do. I don't think words are very hard. Usually, I write a song, then I sing it to someone, and they say, "Oh, hey, 'Blue Moon'." And the first ones I used to write used to be pinches from Jerry Lee Lewis, all his B-sides. 

Q:  Has the fact that you're away from touring and just work in the studio these days given you any appreciation for other types of music? 

Ringo: Not really. I still appreciate the same music that I used to, which is country, rock n roll, pop, and the odd classics.

 Q: What about jazz? 

Ringo: I've been through it all, you know. I've been through trad jazz and that got boring, and modern jazz, which I still like. I like small combos, Chico Hamilton, Yuset Latleef, people like that, small groups more than big bands, but there's no great urge in any of them. I just play an odd LP and I have to be in that mood to play that sort of record. 

Q: What do you listen to most at home?

 Ringo:  I don't think I listen to anything more than anything else. I stick LPs on from Tamla to country. I put them all on.

 Q: Away from work in the studio and elsewhere, what takes up most of your time?

 Ringo:  Photography, playing with my kids, answering the telephone, just being a normal person who lives in a house.

 Q: Do you ever miss touring in the days of chasing round the country? 

Ringo: No, when we toured, it was such a frenzy and so exciting that I'd had enough at the end of it. Five years of it at the pace we did, it was enough for me. I don't feel at this moment that I want to do a tour.

 Q: Has age had its effect too? 

Ringo: Yes, that is. Well, it's like when I first moved down to London, I used to go out to the clubs every night, and I had great times. But if I go now, I expect it to be like it used to be, but it never is. You blame the club and the people, but it's you yourself as well, because you've gotten older and changed yourself. 

Q: Do you ever become nostalgic for the early days of the Beatles and Beatlemania? 

Ringo: Not yet. Maybe I will in a few more years. We haven't been away from it that long, really. Maybe in 10 years, like I'm still nostalgic for rock n roll now.

 Q: Are you ever nostalgic for the North of England and Liverpool? 

Ringo:  No, because now I have my own family and my own life. I still go up there and see them, and I still enjoy going to Liverpool. If this all finished, and I was back to not being Ringo, back to more normal, I suppose I might move up there again, but I don't know, really, 

Q: Back to more normal. That's an intriguing phrase. What do you mean? 

Ringo:  Well, it is, but it's one of the phrases you use. I consider myself as Richard Starkey and Ringo Starr. There are really, like two different people, but they're not. It's just, I think Richie Starkey has got his life to lead, and he doesn't want it in all the papers or the whole world shouting about it. Then there's Ringo, where I'm quite willing to put up with it. This is a Ringo interview. It's no interest if you write Richard Starkey, if I wasn't me. I still make two different scenes altogether. I try and keep them separate, but you can't. 

Selfie with John

 

New Beatles in Japan photos

 

As unbelievable as it seems  every year, "lost" Beatles photographs are found.  Recently, 102 photos of the Beatles in Japan in 1966 have been discovered.   Here is one that the news media has published the story of the photos and it is a great one.  We see John with Alf Bicknell in the background at the Hilton in Tokyo and he is with a figure that seems to be the same one that is on the Sgt. Pepper album cover.  

Look at George's shirt

 

 I love seeing Beatles wearing famous clothing later in their life.  And here we see George wearing this "tie shirt" in 1973.  This shirt  was well known from the "Mad Day Out" photo shoot in 1968 among other photos during that year.  

Looking Back Ticket to No-where Land (1981)

 

Looking Back Ticket to No-Where Land

By Roger Ebert

The Commercial Appeal (Memphis)

April 7, 1981

    "Before the tragedy, there might have been days or weeks when we didn't even mention the name of John Lennon," Barbara Bach said. She had her feet tucked beneath her on the overstuffed sofa and was curled up against Ringo Starr. He lit two cigarettes and handed one to her. She inhaled. "Now we think of him almost every day. Richie will look up and say something to John."

     This was at a point near the end of the interview. Ringo Starr and Barbara Bach had come to Chicago to be interviewed about their new movie, Caveman, and his new record, You Can't Fight Lightning. And of course, there were going to be other questions, the inevitable, obligatory question that the interviewer hates to ask, but must ask. The questions about how Ringo feels after the murder of John Lennon, and about whether the three surviving Beatles will ever hold a reunion. 

    I realized, as I asked him that, I already know how Ringo must feel, and that in simple truth, I would not want the surviving Beatles to appear together again in concert. What would be the point? 

    "We know the questions are going to come up somewhere," Ringo said, "It's all a question of when."

    "Can you talk about Lennon now?"

     "I can talk about him. I miss the man. For 10 years, he walked the streets of New York. He could wander around New York. He was a nice man. Last November 15, Barbara and I went to see John and Yoko. We had a great time. He was up, and we were up. It was really exciting. We planned to work on an album together. Then he was shot. 

    "There was no question, and there was no answer. It was just something that happened when we heard about it. We were in the Bahamas, and we got on a plane and flew up to be with Yoko. The memory was so fresh of being with them, and they were pleased with their new album."

     He was silent. Somehow, I thought it should not have come to this. The thing that began with the Beatles when John Kennedy was still president, should not have come down to Ringo Starr, 40 years old, sitting in a hotel suite in Chicago talking about a death. I wanted to say to Ringo that The Beatles had been important, that the joy and anarchy they let free in A Hard Day's Night and in their music had affected so many people, and that it didn't matter if they never had a reunion because the spirit of the Beatles....

     But oh, hell, talking about the spirit of the Beatles curdled my flesh. I sounded like a fan magazine writer and was nowhere close to saying what I wanted to say. So I told Ringo that just a few days earlier, I'd attended a screening of Rock Show, the new concert documentary starring Paul McCartney and Wings, that there had been half a dozen kids there celebrating a 13th birthday party, and that it had struck me that McCartney was 25 years older than those kids. That to them, he was not a Beatle, but an adult.

     Popular music is so strange. It freezes forever, certain memories of our youth, and yet never says the same things to those who are younger than we are. "When I was a kid," Ringo said. "It was Johnny Ray, he was an adult, and Frank Sinatra, he was an adult too. Our dad used to tell us to listen to Glenn Miller. And dad was right, too. Glenn Miller was good. For me Elvis was the first one who came on as a teenager. He was our age. 'No, I'm not a professional,' he used to say, 'You have to read music and all that to be a real singer like Tony Bennett.' Elvis was the first who was one of us. It doesn't matter that the Beatles won't perform again. We had turned into derelict musicians before we quit giving concerts, performing the same numbers every night. It got boring and we got stale. Now we work on each other's albums, and that's all you hear about. George and Paul and I getting together for a benefit in John's memory. It's over. We did it for a long time. "

    He still looked exactly like Ringo Starr. He was smaller than I had imagined he would be, not tall with the profile carved in granite.  He wore black slacks and a shirt divided into four big black and white squares. Next to him, Barbara Bach looked not at all like the sex symbol from Playboy and the Bond movies, but like a comforting friend. She wore hardly any makeup. She was cheerful. She thought of things to say during those moments where it seemed as if Ringo Starr could not answer one more question. 

    It was not at all that Ringo (Miss Bach always uses 'Richie', since his real name is Richard Starkey) was not civil, was not cordial. It was more than that.  In a press conference during the Beatles' first United States tour, someone had asked Ringo, 'What do you call your haircut?' And he replied, 'Alfred.' Having reached that ultimate insight to reply to an interviewer's question, what was there left that he could add now?

     But he would talk gladly about Barbara Bach.  "We've been together for a year as of February," he said. "During that time, I doubt if there had been 10 or 15 days when we have not been together. Those days were horrendous. I hated them. Today, when people ask me what I'm doing, I say 'I'm building a home for Barbara and her two children.' They are very dear to me. 

    "When we were filming Caveman, we became very good friends. Then, towards the end of the film, we realized that we each had separate lives. Since those lives did not seem to either one of us to be worth not being able to be together, we decided to live together. We've been together so much. It's been like what some couples take 15 years to achieve."

     They seem truly, touchingly in love. 

    "It's difficult sometimes," Barbara said. "I can walk down the street, and most people will not recognize me. Ringo cannot go anywhere. He is instantly recognized. We can't go shopping. We can't move without people being there."

     "I try to be nice to people," Ringo says, "but I never stop in airports. If you stop in a public place to give someone an autograph, you're dead. There's a crowd, and everybody must have one, and if you don't give them one, even if it means missing your flight, then you're an ass."

     What sort of accommodations have you arrived at with the fact that you are always going to be Ringo Starr, and people are always going to know that?  "I have a private life, a private existence, a place with padded walls." He grinned. "I was always able to shut it off. After a lot of musicians perform, they're all wired. They need hours to come down. They go to their hotel and destroy their suite. That's okay. They'll pay for it. So who cares?

     "I was able to leave the stage and say, 'All right, that's over now. It's me again.' I've had self-destructive periods when I was crazy when I was 18 or 19. That was the first rough one, the teenage crazies, and no-where land. There were other crazy times. Now I'm just trying to get through it, and I'm definitely getting happier every day. I hope I learned something every day of my life. My philosophy is, if you can be kind, be kind."

     What about this movie, Caveman?  "We shot it in Mexico. It's set in the year 2,000,008 BC. I play a caveman named Atuk, and Barbara plays a cavewoman named Lana. We shot it two hours outside Durango at Los Organos, which means 'God's organs', steep cliffs, and all."

     "It doesn't mean it. It doesn't at all mean 'God's organs'." Barbara said.

     But about caveman? I said

    "Yes. About caveman? Darling?"

     "Yes, darling," said, Barbara, "Well, it was hard to take yourself seriously walking around in a skunk bikini."

     "They made mine out of little puppies," Ringo said. "We learned how to walk like cavemen. I still do. So this is Chicago?"

     The Beatles. I said, perform concerts here in....

     "Whenever it was, they all blurred together," Ringo said. "We never knew what city we were in. I remember Chicago had a lot of tracks in those days,."

    Horse tracks?

     "No silly, railroad tracks. Weren't you the railroad track Center of America?" Ringo smiled. There was a short silence. "Those kids thought Paul was an old one ? Ah well, that's all right, there's some fine music around for them, nothing great. But for my children and Barbara's children, it's energy that's the best thing. Anyway, the energy they get from music. It's not easy for the kids out there these days. You know, who cares what music they listen to? Who cares if they've ever heard of The Beatles? They're having their little go. It's their turn to shout."

Another Lennon (1981)

 

Another Lennon (1981)

By John Howard

Sunday Mirror

April 5, 1981

    John Lennon is alive and well and living in North Wales, or at least as far as his son is concerned. It is now four months since ex-Beatle John Lennon was shot dead outside his New York apartment. But his son, Julian, 18, told me, "I believe that, apart from a life hereafter, people live on for as long as there are happy memories of them. I know that Dad's presence will be around for a long time. He was always joking, always sounded happy, which made me think more of him as a friend than a dad."

     I spoke to Julian after a photo session with his knock-around rock group, jokingly named the Lennon Drops, at his home in Ruthin, North Wales. Julian lives there with his mother, Cynthia, John Lennon's former wife.

     "My earliest memory of my father was when I was about three, and he sang 'Happy Birthday' to me," said Julian. "We were living in Weybridge, Surrey, and dad threw a birthday party for me and brought in a long cake shaped like a train and festooned with candles. He and mum both sang to me, and it was a great event."

     Just before John died, he spoke fondly of his son, saying that he was at the stage of discovering girls. I can second that. Julian's girlfriend, Sally Hudson, has a maturity beyond her 18 years. And Tanya Waters, the percussionist and straight lady of the zany Lennon Drops, is quite an eyeful, too.

     Another member, David Jones, is nicknamed "the Professor" because of his comic inventiveness. Derry Evans, vocalist and guitarist, was a child actor in the BBC TV police series "Z Cars", which was set in Liverpool, the cradle of the Beatles. Mike Johnson, occasional guitarist, doubles as road manager and bodyguard. 

    Julian can also play the guitar. "Dad started teaching me when I was a tiny tot," he said. "My voice is okay," he said, humbly.  "Last year, I made a tape of one of Dad's songs from his rock and roll album. I didn't think it sounded like me. Then I played it to mum and a few friends, and they said, 'You're right. It doesn't sound like you. It sounds like your father.' It excited me to think I could sound a bit like him."

 However, in his anxiety not to be seen as a carbon copy of his father, Julian took to the drums. John Lennon's second wife, Yoko Ono, arranged professional tuition for Julian in New York when he visited her after his father's death in December. But he will learn most from a famous drummer who has promised to pass on some tricks of his trade, ex-Beatle Ringo Starr. Ringo is closer to Julian than any of his other Beatle uncles. Starr's former wife, Maureen Starkey, is still, after all these years, Julian's mother's best friend. 

    Julian had planned a summer move to New York, where Yoko Ono is ready to help him break into the rock world in a big way. Then, as his mother Cynthia put it, "He decided to have a rest in the calm after the storm that followed his father's murder. He is taking things easy and not rushing ahead. He has to settle down. He wants to work out more precisely what he should do with his life, and I have to see how I can help him with that."

Paul on the mic

 

George Harrison Interview (1967)

 George Harrison Interview

By Alan Walsh

Melody Maker

September 2 & September 9, 1967

    "You may think this interview is of no importance to me," said George Harrison across the table at NEMs Enterprises' Mayfair offices. You'd be wrong. It's very important. We have realized that it's up to everyone-- including the Beatles-- to spread love and understanding, to communicate this in any way we can."  George, radiant in a flowered shirt and trousers, long, flowing hair and bushy mustache lit up a dismal, wet London day by his clothes, his friendliness and the warmth of his replies. George spoke quietly but frankly about many subjects, from God to LSD, and the 90-minute conversation examined the whole existence of the most introspective Beatle.

Q: You've just returned from Haight Ashbury. What were your impressions of life there? 

George: Well, we were only in Haight Ashbury for about 30 minutes, but I did see quite a bit. We parked our limousine a block away, just to appear the same, and walked along the street for about 100 yards, half like a tourist, half like a hippie. We were trying to have a look in a few shops.

 Q: Who was with you? 

George: Pattie, her sister Jenny, a friend of Jenny's, Derek Taylor, Neil Aspinall-- our road manager, and Magic Alex, who's a friend. We walked along, and it was nice. At first, they were just saying 'Hello', and 'Can I shake your hand?' Things like that. Then more and more people arrived, and it got bigger and bigger. We walked into the park, and it just became a bit of a joke. All these people were just following us along.

 Q: One of them tried to give you. STP, I believe?

 George: They're trying to give me everything. This is a thing that I want to try and get over to people. Although we've been identified a lot with hippies, especially since all this thing about pot and LSD came out, we don't want to tell anyone else to have it, because it's something that's up to the person himself. Although it was like a key that opened the door and showed a lot of things on the other side, it's still up to people themselves what they want to do with it. 

    LSD isn't a real answer. It doesn't give you anything. It enables you to see a lot of possibilities that you may never have noticed before. But it isn't the answer. You don't just take LSD, and that's it, forever you're okay. 

    A hippie is supposed to be someone who becomes aware. You're hip if you know what's going on, but if you're really hip, you don't get involved with LSD and things like that. You see the potential that it has and the good that could come from it, but you also see that you don't really need it.

     I needed it the first time I ever had it; actually, I didn't know I'd had it. I never even heard of it. Then this is something that just hasn't been told. Everybody now knows that we've had it, but the circumstances were that somebody just shoved it in our coffee before we'd ever heard of the stuff. So we happen to have it quite unaware of the fact. 

    I don't mind telling people I've had it. I'm not embarrassed. It makes no difference, because I know that I didn't actually go out and try to get some.

 Q:  You never deliberately set out to take LSD?

 George: No, not really for me. It was a good thing, but it showed me that LSD isn't really the answer to everything. It can help you go from A to B, but when you get to B, you see C, and you see that to really get high, you have to do it straight. There are special ways of getting high without drugs -with yoga, meditation, and all those things.

    So this was the disappointing thing about LSD. In this physical world we live in, there's always duality, good and bad, black and white, yes and no. Whatever there is, there's always the opposite. There's always something equal and opposite to everything. And this is why you can't say LSD is good or it's bad, because it's good and it's bad, it's both of them, and it's neither of them, altogether, people don't consider that.

 Haight Ashbury was a bit of a shock, because although there were so many great people, really nice people, who only wanted to be friends and didn't want to impose anything or be anything, there was still the black bit, the opposite. There was the bit where people were so out of their minds trying to shove STP on me and acid. Every step I took, there was somebody trying to give me something, but I didn't want to know about that. I want to get high. And you can't get high on LSD. You can take it and take it as many times as you like, but you get to a point that you can't get any further unless you stop taking it.

     Haight, Ashbury reminded me a bit of the Bowery. There were these people just sitting around the pavement begging, saying, 'Give us some money for a blanket.' These are hypocrites. They're making fun of tourists and all that. And at the same time, they're holding their hands out, begging off them. That's what I don't like.

     I don't mind anybody dropping out of anything, but it's the imposition on somebody else. I don't like the moment you start dropping out and then begging off somebody else to help you, then it's no good. I've just realized through a lot of things that it doesn't matter what you are, as long as you work. It doesn't matter if you chop wood, as long as you chop and keep chopping, then you get what's coming to you. 

    You don't have to drop out. In fact, if you drop out, you put yourself further away from the goal of life than if you were to keep working. 

Q:  Have you any defined idea of what your goal in life is?

 George:  We've all got the same goal, whether we realize it or not, we're all striving for something which is called God, for a reunion complete. Everybody has realized at some time or another that no matter how happy they are, there's still always the unhappiness that comes with it. Everyone is a potential Jesus Christ. Really, we are all trying to get to where Jesus Christ got, and we're going to be on this world until we get there. We're all different people, and we are all doing different things in life. But that doesn't matter, because the whole point of life is to harmonize with everything, every aspect in creation. That means down to not killing the flies, eating the meat, killing people or chopping the trees down. 

Q: Can we ever get it down to this level? 

George: You can only do it if you believe in it. Everybody's a potential divine. It's just a matter of self-realization before it will all happen. The hippies are a good idea. Love, flowers, and that is great. But when you see the other half of it, it's like anything. I love all these people too, those who are honest and trying to find a bit of truth and straighten out the untruths. I'm with them 100%, but when I see the bad side of it, I'm not so happy. 

Q:  to get anywhere near what you are talking about. Do you believe you have to be a hippie or a flower person? 

George: Anybody can do it. I doubt if anyone who is a hippie or flower person feels that he is; it's only you, the press, who call us that they've always got to have some tag, if you like. I'm a hippie or a flower person. I know I'm not. I'm George Harrison, a person just like everybody else, but different to everybody else at the same time. You get to a point where you realize that it doesn't matter what people think you are. It's what you think you are yourself that matters, or what you know you are; anyone can make it. You don't have to put a flowery shirt on. 

Q: Could a bank clerk make it?

 George:  Anyone can, but they've got to have the desire. The Beatles got all the material wealth that we needed, and that was enough to show us that this thing wasn't material. We are all in the physical world. Yet we are striving for isn't physical. We all get so hung up with material, things like cars and televisions and houses, yet what they can give you is only there for a little bit, and then it's gone. 

Q:  So, did you ever reach the point where you considered getting rid of the material wealth?

 George: Yes, but now that I've got the material thing in perspective, it's okay. The whole reason I've got material things is because they were given to me as a gift. So it's not really bad that I've got it because I didn't ask for it. It was just mine. All I did was be me. All we ever had to do was just be ourselves. And it all happened. It was there, given to us all this, but then it was given to us to enable us to see that that wasn't it. There was more to it.

Q: Where do these beliefs fit in with the musical side of the Beatles? 

George: I'm a musician. I don't know why. This is a thing that I've looked back on since my birth. Many people think life is predestined. I think it is vaguely, but it's still up to you which way your life's going to go. All I've ever done is keep being me, and it's all just worked out. It just did it all ----magic. I just did it. We never planned anything. It's so obvious, because I'm a musician now, that's what I was destined to be. It's my gig. 

Q: George, can you tell me where the Beatles are musically today? What are you trying to do? 

George:  Nothing. We're not trying to do anything. This is the big joke. It's all Cosmic Joke 43. Everyone gets our records and says, 'wonder how they thought of that,' or 'wonder what they're planning next,' or whatever they say. But we don't plan anything. We don't do anything. All we do is just keep on being ourselves. It just comes out. It's the Beatles. All any of us are trying to do now is get as much peace and love as possible. Love will never be played out, because you can't play out the truth.

     Whatever I say can be taken a million different ways, depending on how screwed up the reader is, but the Beatles is just a hobby, really. It's just doing it on its own. We don't even have to think about it. The songs write themselves. It's just all works out. Everything that we're taking into our minds and trying to learn or find out, and I feel personally, it's such a lot. There's so much to get in, and yet the output coming out the back end is still so much smaller than what you're putting in; everything is relative to everything else. We know that now. So we got to a point where when people say there's nothing else you can do, we know that's only from where they are. They look up and think we can't do anymore. But when you're up there, you see you haven't started.

     Take Ravi Shankar, who's so brilliant. With pop music; the more you listen to it, the more you get to know it, the more you see through it, and the less satisfaction it gives you. Where in Indian music,  and Ravi Shankar as a person, it's exactly the opposite, because the more you're able to understand the music, the more you see there is to appreciate, the more you get back out of it. You can have just one record of Indian music and play it for the rest of your life. You'd probably never see all the subtleties in it. It's the same with Ravi Shankar. He feels as though he hasn't started, and yet he's doing so much, teaching so many people, writing film music, everything.

 Q:  Have you any idea what the Beatles will do next time you go into the recording studio?

 George: No idea. We won't know until we do it. We're naturally influenced by everything that's going on around us. If you weren't influenced, you wouldn't be able to do anything. That's all anything is-- an influence from one person to another. We'll write songs and go into the studio and record them, and we'll try and make them good. We'll make a better LP than Sgt. Pepper. But I don't know what it's going to be.

 Q: If you had a child, do you know what you would try to do as a father?

 George:  I haven't, and I can't really know what I'd do, but I do know I wouldn't let it go to school. I'm not letting fascist teachers put things into the child's head. I'd get an Indian guru to teach him, and me too. 

Q:   I believe the Beatles are thinking about making a film in which you create the visuals as well as the sound and music. 

George: Yes, we've got to the point now where we found out that if you rely on other people, things never work out. This may sound conceited, but it's not. It's just what happens. The things that we've decided ourselves and that we've gone ahead and done ourselves have always worked out right, or at least satisfactorily, whereas the moment you get involved with other people, it goes wrong. It's like a record company. You hand them the whole LP and the sleeve and everything there on a plate, all they've got to do is print it. Then all the crap starts. 'You can't have that', and 'You don't do this'. And we get so involved with trivial little things that it's all started deteriorating around us. 

    It's the same with the film. The more involved we get with film people, the less of a Beatles film tt's going to be. Take that Our World television show, we were trying to make it into a recording session and have a good time, and the BBC were trying to make it into a television show. It's a constant struggle to get ourselves across through all these other people, all hassling. 

    In the end, it'll be best if we write the music, write the visual and the script for the film, edit it, do everything ourselves, but then it's such a hell of a job that you have to get involved, and that means you can't do other things. But we'll have to get other people to do things, because we can't give that much time to just a film, because it's only a film, and there are more important things in life.

 Q: Do you think the film will come off in the near future? 

George: Yes, I think it'll probably all happen next year, sometime. 

In the Inner Circle

 

Ringo sees Paul

 Ringo, Barb and Oliva attend Paul's concert at the Fonda Theater in Los Angeles.  (Yes -- I see Steve Tyler there as well and probably more famous people -- but really -- this is a Beatles site -- Ringo, Barb & Oliva are the true stars of this photo)