An online Beatles fan club for and about Beatle fans
Tuesday, November 3, 2026
The Beatles Story (Part 3 by Tony Barrow 1981)
By Tony Barrow
Liverpool Echo
October 30, 1981
Paul McCartney will be a pop star forever. In sharp contrast to George, he feeds on the approval of his public. His body and his mind are custom tailored for the job of being in the limelight. Paul has not stayed quite so baby-faced as Cliff Richard, but not has he led the same sheltered existence.
If George and then John had not made such an issue about ending the regimen of touring, Paul would have lapped the globe a few more times after 1966 as the Beatles' left-handed guitarist.
Paul is made with the distinctive molecules of a showman, from his bone marrow to his fingertips. He remains incurably addicted to the adulation of an audience. Like all good policemen and actors, he is never off duty. He conducts himself with flamboyant self-importance because he knows he is a very big star, and he wallows in the constant glory of it all. When he appears to be operating with a low profile, it's because Paul feels scripted to do so.
These traits made him an ideal Beatle. He coped with the trauma of Beatlemania, showing scarcely a sign of brain damage. I think he and I worked well together. We placed the same importance upon the value of publicity. I tended to home in on Paul for PR purposes, without realizing I was doing it.
In the days when the Beatles would pose for endless pictures, it was Paul who fetched a dull session to life by adding bits of action. That was almost too good to be true, really, because Paul was also the world's most successful writer-performer of pop songs in history. What more could any publicist ask for?
The changes in Paul were the result of gained experience. In 1962, he was willing to work very hard at being the most charming Beatle. By Magical Mystery Tour, he had mastered his art and acquired power too. He handled media interviews astutely. An interview he gave to America's Life magazine about his drug-taking experience led to worldwide headlines.
Paul was called upon to clarify his position. "I was asked the question, and the decision was whether to tell a lie or tell the truth. The man from the newspaper is the man with the mass medium. I'll keep it a personal thing if he does too. It's his responsibility for spreading whatever I say. I don't think my fans are going to take drugs just because I did."
Long after the breakup of the Beatles, Paul came back to me when his Ram album was ready for release in May 1971. He wanted me to give the new record a push with the press. Ram contained the least significant songs of Paul's solo period. Our brief reunion was unsuccessful not because of the album's mediocre material, but because Paul favored a strange remote control PR campaign: me playing his LP tracks to journalists at my Mayfair offices in central London, him staying incommunicado about the whole thing at his Scottish farm, 538 miles away!
"Can you make it all up like we used to?" He asked when I wanted some in-person McCartney words to support the project.
John Lennon was the firm foundation upon which the Beatles were built. He held his men together through the tough, crude, crazy, illegal, and exhausting sessions in the Hamburg clubs. He led them on into their era of great commercialism and social success without too much compromise toward the gold, lame, littered land of pop music.
John was the main reason Brian Epstein involved himself with the Beatles. But the closeness of their relationship did not stop John from verbally thrashing the group's new young manager whenever he disagreed with Epstein's policy. He did not have McCartney's fine flair for creating little ditties, which grew up to be infectious bestsellers. But he was the period's most adventurous composer-lyricist, a full decade ahead of himself.
He did not have Ringo's facility for steering himself clear of aggro by crossing over to the other side of the street, but he delivered a solidly valid argument when he stayed to fight. He said what he thought, and he meant what he said. Then he moved on swiftly to avoid boring himself.
In the summer of 1962, the news of his wedding was kept from the Beatles' public (because that is the way it was in 1962) for almost a year, until baby Julian was a few months old. During the time we were ignoring his marriage in front of outsiders, John picked up my press office copy of the Beatles' first album and wrote on the back of the sleeve. Besides the credit line, John Lennon - guitar. He added, "Married." It was not until a puzzled visitor queried the matter that we noticed what he had done.
In the years which followed, John Lennon proved to be a PR man's nightmare for more serious reasons. He did not care who he insulted, provided he felt they deserved it. His brand of black humor varied between sickness and cruelty. He was a premature punk rocker clad awkwardly in a carefully buttoned Cardin jacket.
Although their names were linked neatly under the composers' credit, Lennon and McCartney, John and Paul stayed poles apart as songwriters. When interviewed, each gave the impression that the writing partnership was a closely knit affair. In fact, with few exceptions, their songs were solo creations. It was not too difficult to distinguish a romantic McCartney lilter from a roaring linen belter.
A few titles were genuine 50-50 collaborations. Otherwise, they merely offered one another advice and made fragmentary contributions to each other's stuff. Once the Beatles ceased to function as a unit, even in the recording studio, my public relations job on the group's behalf came to an end.
It is more than 10 years since I saw John. On reflection, over a decade later, I conclude that I knew only half of John Lennon. There was little in the half I knew in the 60s to suggest that he would become a preacher of peace and a lecturer of love in the 70s.
During the lifespan of the Beatles, he was a man whom it was easy to respect, and I did for his pioneering musical ingenuity, his brute-force determination. But love, really love Lennon and be loved in return? I doubt that happened before Yoko Ono.
Monday, November 2, 2026
Celebrating George's Photography
October 11, 2026
I love the photo of Ringo looking at the George photo of him riding the horse and Oliva is laughing. I wonder what memory that photo brought back to Ringo.
The Beatles Story (Part 2 by Tony Barrow 1981)
The Beatles Story (Part 2)
By Tony Barrow
Liverpool Echo
October 29, 1981
Ringo Starr was the least affected by the unique pressures of Beatlemania. He was the least complicated character. His role as a Beatle was often as an observer rather than an orator. He stayed out of many group discussions, aware that he was only the co-opted Beatle, a late arrival who joined the founding trio.
Childhood ill health had stunted Ringo's education. He felt academically inferior. He put up an old classroom defense of silence. For a time, there was the extra embarrassment of knowing that his predecessor with the Beatles had enjoyed considerable popularity. More than a few fans resented the sacking of Pete Best.
Ringo came out with some remarkable punchline comments to punctuate the group's conversations; one of these, "A Hard Day's Night," became not only a song but a film title. Another, "Tomorrow Never Knows," was also made into a song. My own favorite was "We're Not Mods or Rockers, We're Just Mockers."
`On one occasion, a lot of celebrated names went on public record as pro-pot petitioners by taking an unprecedented full-page advertisement in The Times. Before it appeared in print, the rest of the press caught wind of the project, and reporters rang me to query the Beatles' participation. "Our information is that John, Paul, and George are signing, but Ringo's name is missing. Is there a split in the group over the pot-smoking question?"
I put the point to a surprised Ringo, who stared back blankly. "What advert?" He exclaimed. "Nobody told me anything about it." Typically, Ringo was the last to learn about things.
He would have loved to emerge as a country and western singer later on, but he lacked the necessary vocal talent to survive as a solo performer. In any case, typecast as a Beatles drummer, he would have found it hard to claim credibility as a Nashville singer.
He remained placidly even-tempered. By nature, he was undemanding, kind, and friendly; fans felt sorry for him and rallied with songs like "Ringo for President." It was not necessary. Ringo was not a sad person. His face was molded into a deceptively unhappy expression until he made the muscles move into a deliberate smile.
The most obvious change in Ringo stemmed from his discovery that there would not be a lot for him to do without the Beatles. He used to be content with his drumming job, clear of the main stage spotlight. He would sit alone in an artificial twilight, raised up high on his rostrum, above and beyond the group's three stand-up frontmen.
I rate Ringo second only to Paul in wanting to remain a public entertainer. He is the only Beatle who might fancy turning back the clock to the high noon of the four mop tops and doing it all again.
Today, I imagine Ringo is reasonably rich, but professionally frustrated.
George Harrison was the first of the Fab Four to condemn the group's on-tour stage work, when he reckoned it had become pointless. In contrast to Ringo, he openly feared the panic and perils of traveling the earth as a pop star superstar. George hated all the hysteria which went with Beatlemania; he grudged each gross invasion of his privacy. He rebelled against the claustrophobic security restrictions and the squalid dressing room conditions. Most of all, George despised the artlessness of concert performances where bum notes no longer mattered because even well-tuned sounds went unheard.
It was quite different in the recording studio. Here, the music-making mattered once more. Here, George could flourish creatively. He would polish his guitar frames painstakingly and pluck their strings into tune a dozen times a day. He made a serious vocation of expanding his music knowledge.
The George Harrison I got to know well in 1963 was easy to befriend. He was chummy, chatty, good-humored, homely. He had a flair for not only remembering names but for sounding genuinely interested in the lives of those around him.
For a time George let the focus of Beatlemania bash about his head, tolerating the blast and turning the other cheek. Then, without warning, the tension became too much. The least thick-skinned of the four blew his top. He started, trivially enough, with a nasty little incident in Paris: George chucked a glass of ice-cold breakfast juice over a PR aide. It was an act of mild despair rather than premeditated malice. But from that point on, I watched the youngest Beatle adopt a decreasingly happy-go-care-free approach to the business of being a pop celebrity.
"The Beatles is not the living end, is it?" He decided, putting his career and the rest of his life in new perspective. He compensated, to his own satisfaction, by cultivating a deep, delving interest in the cultures of the East. As a spokesman for the Beatles, he became less useful to me, unless I put him with a journalist who wanted to talk studiously about musical technique. I risked a less than sparkling interview.
At other times, he kept his dry sense of humor. During the 1965 tour of America, our chartered aircraft developed engine troubles while coming in low between the rocky walls of a nightmarishly narrow canyon near Portland, Oregon. It had to be taken out of service. A comparatively antique substitute machine was to be our alternate late-night transport to the West Coast after the show.
We inspected the dimly lit interior, noting the worn fabrics and paint-stripped fittings. George, who never enjoyed flying for the thrill for fun's sake, looked down a dusty coil of thick brown rope from a rack. "What is this for?" he asked a stewardess. "It's an escape ladder." "How long is it?" Pursued the Beatle. "About 12 feet, I guess." "I take it we shall fly to California at a steady 13 feet all the way," then concluded George in a hopeless sort of mutter.
All too often, I think George refused to see the funny side of Beetlemania. He took everything much too seriously, which is a mistake if you are in the business of entertainment.
Casual Ringo
When do you think this photo was taken? 1990s perhaps? I wonder where Ringo's home video records are today.
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