September 30, 2026
Boston declared September 30 to be "Ringo Starr Day." Whoo hoo! I think this needs to be an internatinal holiday, don't you think?
An online Beatles fan club for and about Beatle fans
Monday, October 5, 2026
Teen Life's Bess Coleman Asks the Beatles Intimate Questions (1966)
TL's Bess Coleman Asks the Beatles Intimate Questions
By Bess Coleman
Teen Life
January 1967
If you could spend three weeks living alongside the Beatles and had a chance to ask them any question you wanted to, what would you ask them? I bet you could think of 100 things. Lucky old me did travel with them on their last tour, and during my conversations with John, George, Paul, and Ringo, I tried to ask them the kind of questions you've been wanting to know the answers to.
Here it goes.
Ringo first.
Bess: Ringo, what kind of hobbies do you have?
Ringo: Well, at home is the only place I have time to have hobbies. I still like collecting records and watching films on television. I've sort of gotten back onto the camera kick again. I take photos of Maureen and Zak at home, and also when we're away on tours. I also like playing around with my tape recorders. I record anything: records, talking, shouting to myself, things like that.
Bess: There's a rumor going round that you'd like to become a DJ and have your own show.
Ringo: Ah ha! Well, you know what rumors are. It's a funny thing. I did try to do a DJ show at home one day, and it's very hard, folks. I don't know how they do it. I had trouble putting the records on at the right time, and I couldn't get any good intros or groovy sayings. I also tried to talk with a mid-Atlantic accent because most DJs have a mid-Atlantic voice, I find, but that didn't work either. I just ended up sounding like I came from South Yorkshire! Then I'd get so interested in the record I was playing that I'd forget to take it off and introduce another record, and I just got all twisted up in the end. So there's no truth in the rumor. I just did it for fun on my own, and besides that, no station would have me. I'd ruin them in five minutes!
Bess: What do you want for Zak?
Ringo: It's too early and difficult to start thinking about his future. I haven't worked it out yet. I just hope he's going to be okay. I just want him to have a straightforward education, and if he does well, he does well. I don't want to push him into anything. He's got to push himself if he wants to. If he wants to go into showbiz, that's up to him. But I'm not going to say, "Come on, get on those drums."
Bess: Do you think you've improved as a drummer since the Beatles really became famous?
Ringo: No, not really, but that's because I never practice. I just can't practice. But I progressed on records. I've had to because our music has progressed. I don't think I progressed stage-wise because when we're doing a concert, the only thing that I really think about is hitting the drums as hard as I can, so that the others can hear me above the noise of the amps. In live shows, I'm strictly an offbeat man. I don't play anything fancy, no breaks or anything like that. I just keep the offbeat going because that's the way they want it mainly. They need me to keep them going,
Bess: What question do you get asked the most?
Ringo: Questions like "How much money do you have?" and things like that, which is a drag because I don't know anyway.
Bess: Would you like a large family?
Ringo: Well, I'm not planning anything. If it happens, it happens. I think if we did have another baby, I'd like a boy again. They're less trouble and more fun for me.
George has become quite a deep thinker in his old age.
Bess: George, all four of you seem to have changed in the two years since I last saw you, but you in particular- why?
George: Well, we used to be asked a lot of stupid questions, and we just gave idiotic answers back, because it would have been silly to try and answer them seriously. Now I'm too busy for idiotic questions, but if people want to talk to me about the truth or something sensible, then I'll talk to them.
Bess: What do you like to talk about?
George: Finding out what it's all about. I don't mean what the Beatles are about, and it's amazing because the more you find out about it, the more there is to be found out. The more you know, the better your capacity is to take whatever more there is. To me, life is just a game from the day you're born till the day you die, and people just have to work it out. It's a shame that most of them can't see past their own egos.
Bess: You've told me that you spend a lot of time studying philosophy and Eastern religion. Have you ever thought about changing your religion?
George: Well, what is religion? To me, it's loving people and trying to lead a good life. All religions teach this, but there are different names attached to them: Buddhism, Christianity, Mohammedanism. When you boil it down, they all teach the same basics. At least I think so.
Bess: How has being married to Pattie changed you?
George: It's given me the opportunity to settle down a bit as a person, which is what I wanted until I was married. Well, it's funny, people are always looking at bachelors as ones who are leaping about having a laugh and a shout, but Pattie and I always had a laugh and a shout together before we were married. Marriage just quieted me down. I don't know why it just happened. It was kind of a natural thing. I don't go to clubs and discotheques anymore. I just can't be bothered with all that stuff now.
Bess: Of all the things you've done so far, what has given you the most satisfaction, personally and professionally?
George: That's a very hard question to answer. I get satisfaction out of certain things at certain times, and being satisfied at various times are things we are doing or have done. There really isn't one that is better than the other. I felt very satisfied after we recorded some of the tracks for our Revolver album. At the time, that was, but now I'm not satisfied. But then I never am. Now I think that, in my estimation, not one of the tracks is as good as it could have been. If you stop listening to all the good things and start listening to the bad things, you want to rectify them, and that's what we'll try to do on the next album. But it will never be perfect for us because I don't think anyone can ever achieve perfection because there's always something else.
Bess: Now that you've learned to play the sitar, are you going to try and learn any more instruments?
George: Although I sort of play the sitar, I certainly haven't mastered it. Neither has Ravi Shankar, and he's been playing it for 35 years!
Bess: How often do the Beatles rehearse together?
George: To be honest, we don't rehearse a lot. We just rehearse before we go away on tour; it depends. We rehearse more naturally if we're going away because we usually forget all the old songs. In fact, after we've recorded a song, we forget about it until we have to do it on stage. Then we have to learn it again, like we learned it when we recorded it.
Bess: What are your feelings when you go home to Liverpool?
George: The last time I was in Liverpool, I drove around the place I've lived for 10 years, and I just couldn't believe it. I went through a lot of emotions and feelings. As soon as I got there, I wanted to get back out again. Everything I could remember about it wasn't very nice. Just seeing the same people doing the same thing, and not knowing anything else-that's the sad thing about coming from one environment to another and being able to see things clearer; seeing the environment from which you came is very unsatisfactory. I don't mean because they have similar houses or no cost. I do not mean because they have smaller houses or no cars. I mean not knowing what is outside that district or that town. It's sad because people should really know a bit more. They day they die off before even seeing beyond their noses.
Bess: When you and Pattie have friends around to your house, how do you like to spend an evening?
George: A part from talking and listening to records, we like to play games. We used to play a lot of Monopoly, but we've gone off that a bit now. Chess is getting popular again. It's definitely in. Oh yes, we play Buccaneer and another one called Risk. That's rather like life because it's all down to trying to take over the world, which a lot of people are trying to do at this very moment.
Bess: Tell me about your house.
George: Patty, and I have changed it around a lot since last year. In fact, it's almost totally different now. Some nights I sit about and look at it and say, "This would look better like that, and off I go changing everything around. I do like, I do that all the time. Just before I came away, I took a lot of things out of the house that I got fed up with.
When talking to Paul, I started off by asking him the question you all want to know the answer to.
Bess: Are you going to marry Jane Asher?
Paul: Oh well, here we go again. What can I say? Yes, I probably will marry Jane. People have been trying to marry me off for years, and when I do it, I'll let you know.
Bess: Do you think "Eleanor Rigby" will be another "Yesterday"
, Paul: No, I don't think so. The only thing that's like "Yesterday" is the fact that there's a lot of violins on it and other stringed instruments, and that's where any similarity ends. It's a completely different type of tune. I personally think it's better than "Yesterday," but I sang "Yesterday" much better."
Bess : We ran a story in Teen Life about you buying a farm in Scotland. Why there?
Paul: I wanted a remote spot because if you're going to get a place only a few minutes out of London, there's not really much difference. But going to Scotland, well, that's a completely different scene. I hear it gets snowed up in the winter, and I can't wait for that.
Bess: Tell me about the farm. What is it like?
Paul: It's a sheep farm, but at the moment I've got a few cattle as well. I'd like to get a farm manager and then build a house of my own on the property." Then he can get on with what he's doing and run the farm because I know I couldn't. It's a bit too much work. The farmhouse itself isn't very big. I've got about three bedrooms. It's old and it's very nice. I can't tell you much more about it because I've only been there once, and the visit only lasted one hour. That's when I went to buy it, I won't go up there until 1967. Though I've just gotten a house in London, which is now my home, so I'm leaving the farm until I get my house sorted out. That's good though. It gives me something to sort out in the future.
Bess: Have you ever thought of writing songs with anyone else besides John Lennon?
Paul: Not really. I think I'd probably be able to write with people like John Sebastian of the Lovin' Spoonful or Mick and Keith of the Rolling Stones. I don't think it would be any harder, but I've never tried. No, I don't think that will ever happen. It's much easier to write with someone I know as well as John.
Bess: Is money important to you?
Paul: It's not as important to me now as it was when I didn't have it. When you got it, there are other things which are more important.
Bess: Do you like your own movies? Have you any personal criticisms about Help! and Hard Day's Night?
Paul: Plenty. I liked A Hard Day's Night better than Help! I think it was a better film. In Help!, we did something I don't think we should have tried to do. We tried to get an epic on location, a sort of "blue skies" film. I don't think we should really have tried that. It did okay, and it wasn't that bad. But I think it was in the wrong direction. It probably was a step back instead of a step forward.
John and I talked about a variety of subjects.
Bess: What is your definition of the word happiness?
John: I don't think anyone can really define that word. Perhaps it's a cuddly cat, a brown bear, and a plate of cornflakes. Happiness is just how you feel when you don't feel miserable. Sometimes it can be being on a deserted beach or walking alone in a forest. I can be happy anywhere, and there's no one particular thing that makes me happy. I don't think you know what happiness is until you're unhappy.
Bess: I know you like to read a lot. Who are your favorite authors?
John: I haven't any really. I just read everything and anything I can get my hands on. There are very few authors' names I can remember. I keep all the books I like or have influence on me, so I don't have to remember names or titles to tell everybody what I read. I've got them in the house. I can't remember what they are, but I know where they are and what they said.
Bess: What qualities do you look for in a real friend?
John: I don't look for anything. Friends are friends. You find friends. The rest are just nice people or just people. Sometimes you'll get a con man who professes to be a friend, but that kind of relationship doesn't last. If someone comes in and does a quick con, so what? That's his life. I've never felt I've been conned really badly. A few people have conned me into thinking that they're different from what they really are, but in turn, I've conned a few people into believing that I'm different from what I really am, so it can work both ways.
Bess: When it was announced you were going to appear in a film without the other three, rumors immediately started that this was the beginning of the end of the group, and that you would be the first to leave.
John: Well, I suppose it was only to be expected that people would start saying that, but it's not true. What happened was that Dick Lester rang me up and asked me if I wanted to be in this film of his. It was called How I Won the War, which is about the Second World War. He said that there was a part in it, which was very nice and would suit me. Somebody called Private Gripweed, so I said, "All right", and that was it. I never seriously think about becoming an actor. I wouldn't stand a chance.
Bess: Do you ever regret being a Beatle, John?
John/: Sometimes. Obviously, there are times when we're on tour that we'd love to escape from our hotel and get out, but we hardly ever can, and we've accepted that, but there are a lot of places we want to see, but God willing, we can see them when we're older.
Bess: When you were on tour, George cut your hair for you. Does he usually cut it? And do you ever cut the other boys' hair?
John: Well, I usually let whoever's around cut it for me. This time it was George, but when I'm at home, Cyn cuts it for me. As for me cutting their hair, well, I cut George's years back when we were in Germany, but I couldn't get it right, and it ended up with him looking as though he'd got ringworm. I haven't bothered since.
Bess: What does Sen usually do when you're away?
John: She usually goes away, as she doesn't like just staying around in the house. But this time, she stayed at home in case I called
Sunday, October 4, 2026
.jpg)
Paul McCartney: The Heart and Soul of Him (1966 - Maureen Cleave)
By Maureen Cleave
Teen Life
January 1967
From the beginning, Paul McCartney was the most popular Beatle in Britain. This had a great deal to do with his looks, the sweetness and candor of his baby face, his joyous skipping movements on the stage, his beautiful eyes, his happy smile, charm really. Paul has the most devastating, the most incredible charm. It works on old ladies and small children, on housewives and young girls. Even grown men don't mind Paul. At least his hair is nowadays an acceptable length, and of course he writes such beautiful songs. He is, in fact, much more complicated person than his open face might suggest.
He is quite demanding. He is also a terrible tease. He never lets you get away with an ill-considered remark or a stupid mistake. He is perhaps, in the ordinary meaning of the word, the cleverest Beatle. His wit is the quickest, his grasp the widest. He is also extremely influential in the group. John Lennon is commonly held to be the loudest voice, but I should not be surprised to learn that it was Paul who had the last word.
He enjoys poking fun at the others with their passion for the grand life, the Rolls Royces, the chauffeurs, the swimming pools, and the gangsters' widened windows. "I'm thinking," Paul said, "of having a bicycle with black windows."
And there was the case of John and the chocolate. "Take John," Paul said, vastly amused. "John discovered the other day that he liked a certain kind of chocolate. Well, he bought a consignment. I mean, it was on every table in the house, and in a week he was pretty sick of it."
Paul would never make an ass of himself over a bar of chocolate. He is the least naive, the most self-conscious. "If you can have everything," he said, "then there's no point in having everything, is there? I got a camera once, and it knocked me out for a couple of weeks. Then I realized that the craze has put me off the camera for life. Now I do things bit by bit instead of in clumps."
He is a tall young man, taller than you might think. He is agile, alert, neatly dressed, and well organized. His hair is never too long. His clothes never outrageous. He moves very fast. He gets in and out of a room, a building, a car, with the minimum of fuss. He is a master of disguises, alone of all the Beatles. Even when the heat of Beatlemania was on, Paul went to the cinema in various beards, got himself in and out of the country with his hair brushed back off his forehead, and with nobody knowing. It is possible the rude public interference in his affection for Miss Jane Asher that he has made that has made him so deft at avoiding publicity. One imagines his having a bit of a laugh when Ringo married Maureen in secrecy, because the "eyes of the world" were firmly glued to Jane and Paul. He is adept at bluffing his way out of a situation.
Skiing in Switzerland recently, a photographer came up to him and said, "You are Paul McCartney." "Who me?" said Paul, with that innocent expression on his face. And the man went away. He loved pseudonyms and being incognito. He thoroughly enjoyed writing a song under the name of Bernard Webb. "I was getting sick of hearing about Lennon-McCartney songs," he said.
He is half Beatle and half not. He relies on the others to the extent of considering living in Weybridge, an hour's drive from London with the rest of them. "I thought maybe we should all be grown-ups together." He said, and then I thought, "I don't want to live in Weybridge, so I didn't."
He's bought a house in London, a pretty townhouse built in 1830, of which he will draw you a picture at the drop of a hat. One of the charms for Paul is that it has a story: lamps are inside the front gate." I love the look of London," he said. He goes to the pictures, does the London Times crossword, drives himself about in his Mini or his Aston Martin D B6, goes shopping, keeps appointments, moves busily about. He decided to learn to read music, and he has a weekly lesson from a composer.
"The other day, I felt like an old person sitting there and saying, 'I never learned to read music,' so I decided to learn. One of the first bits of music he wrote down was something for his girlfriend Jane to play on her classical guitar.
Paul's father was a cotton salesman, and his mother was a midwife. When he was 14, she died. He can remember when he was five, standing in the backyard of his parents' house in Liverpool, and asking himself what he would be when he grew up. "No answer came back to me," he said, disappointed. He likes quick results. "I could not imagine myself as one of those old people of 20 with children."
The problem cropped up again when he was 17. "I had just the right exams to get into teachers' training college, but I had a horror of doing something ordinary." So when the forms came for entry, he just didn't fill them in. "With things I don't want to do," Paul said simply. "Well, I just don't do them," and so he ended up a Beatle. "We knew he said that something would happen sooner or later. We always had this little Bethlehem star ahead of us."
"Fame is what everyone wants in some form or another. There must be millions of people all over the world annoyed that people haven't discovered them. 'What's up?' They ask themselves. Fame, in the end, is getting off your parking ticket because the fellow wants your autograph, and fame is being interrupted while you're eating by a 50-year-old woman with a ponytail. None of us feels as famous as people think we are.
"The other night I was with some people sitting around having a laugh, and we decided to go out and eat. They were wondering if we had enough money, and I said, 'It's okay, I've got some money,' and they just collapsed with laughter. But I meant it. I meant I had some money on me. It's only at times like that, that I think I have a lot of money. I love having it, but it has its disadvantages. It becomes a fact about you that you have money. You are treated as though you have money. I don't think I want any more."
"When I was younger, I was always reading about tramps, out and out scruffs living on a few shillings. I suppose I still have some of that romantic spirit."
But the romantic spirit is not, from Paul's own point of view, at work in his songs. Those moved to tears by his beautiful song "Yesterday" would do well to remember that Paul himself always called it "Scrambled Eggs." He has another equally beautiful one up his sleeve called "Suicide."
"Eleanor Rigby", possibly one of his finest ever songs, does not appear to have been inspired by any great consciousness of the problems of old age or loneliness. Is curious to find that he hates writing words. "I don't know," he says, "when poets feel they have to experience something to write about it, but we don't feel that. Ours are all imagination. If they weren't, John would be writing songs called "Cynthia," and I would be writing songs called "Jane," and it would be very boring for everyone except Cyn and Jane."
He is capable of quite fierce anger when he thinks people are being stupid or intolerant; he hates people who think of culture with a capital C, people who are forever complaining about the decadence of the younger generation, about the length of its hair. "You can't kid me," he said, "that the last generation were any more moral than we are. If you wheedle it out of people, they were just as bad as this generation. Only they hid it better."
He likes London because it is the center of things. "The point of a city," he said, is that everything is there. The point of the country is that everything is not there." Intellectually, he is the most mature, difficult playwright.
For instance, Alfred Jarry, difficult composers. For instance, Stockhausen and Lucidio Berio appeal to him enormously. He has an interest in an art gallery, an interest in a bookshop. "I'm trying to cram everything in," he says, "All the things that I've missed. People are saying things and writing things and painting things that are great. I must know what people are doing.
" You see," said Paul anxiously, "I vaguely mind anybody knowing anything I don't."
Thursday, October 1, 2026
.jpg)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)