Beatles (9 page)

They were all seeking something, especially John and George, without knowing what it was, feeling a certain vacuum in their lives, an emptiness after all those hectic Beatle years. Every superstar since has felt much the same, and probably every pools winner or bingo millionaire or lottery winner, at least those with the slightest element of sensibility.

I too used to be asked which Beatle I liked most. And I used to reply by saying my favourite Beatle was the one I was last with. That was how Neil and Mal always used to reply, which was why I wanted to carry on observing them for ever, rather than getting on with the more mundane task of putting it all down on paper.

By the beginning of 1968, I was still interviewing away and had amassed about 150,000 words of notes. That book about British universities had almost gone from my mind. I thought about changing the title yet again, to the
Class of ’68
, then decided now to scrap the whole thing. There had been student revolutions and demonstrations, and the whole nature of university life had changed.

I was concentrating completely on the Beatles, though I was putting off actually starting to write the book.
Sergeant Pepper
had come out, to enormous acclaim, and that really changed the image of the Beatles in the eyes of those people who still tended to regard them as a passing fancy. Things were still changing and I didn’t want to miss any new stages, yet I knew I must soon call a halt and knock it all into shape. Every Beatle record, from 1963 to 1969, contained something new and different. Would I miss a dramatic new musical development by stopping now?

The most enjoyable part of doing the whole book was being present at Abbey Road. John’s doziness at home left him when he came into the studio. Working with Paul seemed to make him
more alive. If he couldn’t finish a song, then Paul would help him out. They remained themselves, producing their own sort of music, but each other’s presence seemed to bring out the best in each of them. And if they did get completely stuck, ending up with two bits of tunes that did not appear to gel, as in ‘A Day in the Life’, then George Martin was there to solve the problem of melding them together.

They usually assembled at Paul’s house in Cavendish Avenue, St John’s Wood, in the afternoon, going up to the top floor where John and Paul would try out any new little ideas they had had on their own. It was all fairly informal, with close friends and relations coming in, hanging about, and they would all break for fried eggs and toast and tea. By the time they got into the studio in the evening, just round the corner in Abbey Road, and George and Ringo had then turned up, it would become more serious. Outsiders would not be allowed in the studio when they were working.

John and Paul would write out on the backs of envelopes or scraps of paper the latest words or versions of the songs they were working on, then give them to Ringo on the drums, so he would know what was happening. Bits would be altered as they went along, and new parts added.

At the end of the sessions, in the small hours of the mornings, I would often pick up scraps lying around, asking first if I could have them, as they obviously didn’t want them any more. They always said yes. A great deal of stuff was simply chucked out, or left for the cleaners to get rid of. They themselves never kept any memorabilia or cuttings or scraps about themselves. For years, life had moved on so quickly that they had no interest in collecting or keeping that sort of clutter.

I know that Paul and George later regretted this and made an attempt to collect their own past, once they started getting into their middle age. I gave George back the original of ‘Blue Jay Way’, written on the back of someone else’s letter when he was in California. He thought it had been lost for ever. And I
gave Paul his master plan for
Magical Mystery Tour
, which he had written out for me in 1968 for the purpose of this book, to explain what his idea had been, but which I never had space for in the end. My own collection, bits they had given me as presents, was severely depleted some years ago when our house was burgled and I lost my Beatle records, copies they had personally signed to me. I’m sure their value was not realized. I often wonder where they are now, which is why I watch the Sotheby’s sales so carefully. I only wish now I had collected more of their songs from the floor of Abbey Road.

I wish I had kept better notes, especially during
Sergeant Pepper
. When I was interviewing them alone, in their homes, I would sit with a notebook and write down everything, there and then. But in the studios, or when they were all together, or when we were having meals, I tried to be more of a fly on the wall, quietly observing, hoping I would be accepted as someone who just happened always to be around, rather than a writer, prying on them. Afterwards, I would rush straight home (which was, luckily, only ten minutes from Abbey Road) and quickly type out in note form everything that had happened that evening. I still have piles of these notes and, looking at them now, all badly typed and misspelled, there are bits I can’t understand.

I also wish now that I’d used a tape recorder. I never have done, which is silly. I did use one once, back in the early Sixties, a massive Grundig, about the size of a house, when I interviewed W H Auden. The interview was useless, and never appeared, and I always blamed the tape recorder and decided to stick to notebooks from then on. It seemed to me that taping an interview doubles the work, as you have to listen to it all again to transcribe it, and, as we know, a lot of what we all say is hardly worth listening to once, never mind twice. With a notebook, I am editing as I go, only writing down what I think I am going to use, so I save time, but I also jot notes on surroundings, how people look, their mannerisms, speech traits, which of course you don’t catch with a tape recorder. That’s my theory, which I’ve stuck
to. Alas. Oh if only I’d used a tape recording during those 18 months with the Beatles, and their parents and friends, what a treasure trove that would be today.

Memories do play tricks. I was lunching with Neil Aspinall one day and reminiscing about the night of the
Sergeant Pepper
photo session. I remembered the costumes arriving at Paul’s house, as I still had a clear picture of the Beatles trying them on. Neil said no, the costumes were delivered direct to the photographer’s in Flood Street. I rushed to my notes, but they didn’t include this minor piece of information.

The discussions about the
Sergeant Pepper
cover had gone on for weeks. George wanted lots of the figures to be gurus. Paul wanted arty people like Stockhausen. John wanted rebels and baddies, such as Hitler, but, as my notes show, he was talked out of Hitler at the last moment. Hitler’s cardboard cut-out figure stood to attention during the whole of the photographic session.

I had suggested to them that their list of heroes should include some footballers. Most boys, especially those coming from Liverpool, are aware of footballing stars. I had always been slightly disappointed that none of the Beatles was interested in sport at all, least of all football. In the end, John stuck in Albert Stubbins, a folk name from his childhood in Liverpool, but I think simply because he thought the name was funny, rather than for his footballing prowess.

I do remember that we left Paul’s house in a rush, and he told me to collect up any ornaments lying around his house, just to fill up the tableau. That ornament in the foreground of the
Sergeant Pepper
cover picture, a sort of statuette of what looks like a bullet on a little plinth, was placed there by me, to fill up the gap. I’ve told my children this, several times, but they are not at all interested.

Who thought of
Sergeant Pepper
? I had always assumed the basic idea came from Paul, as he was the first of them I heard talking about it, though I didn’t go into this in the book. I
should have paid more attention, as it was a milestone for them, the pinnacle of their recording career. It was also a minor historic moment in popular music, as it has become known as the first ‘concept album’. Artistically, it was an enormous achievement, thanks partly to the creative work of Peter Blake. Whole studies have been produced since on what was in that famous cover and what it all meant.

Mal used to say that the phrase ‘Sergeant Pepper’ came from him, his overheard mistake for ‘Salt and Pepper’. Neil told me he was the first to suggest to Paul that the whole album should be in the form of Sergeant Pepper’s actual show, and that Paul jumped at the idea. Who can tell now? It’s like the origin of the name Beatles. George thought it came from Marlon Brando’s film,
The Wild One
. There is a group of motorcyclists in the film, all in black leather, called the Beetles, though they are only referred to as such in passing. Stu Sutclife saw this film, heard the remark, and came back and suggested it to John as the new name for their group, John said yeh, but we’ll spell it Beatles, as we’re a beat group. Well, that’s one theory. No doubt, in the years to come, there will be new suggestions.

In my book, I was trying to keep off the theories. I still like to think it was all true, though there were things I could not tell at the time. It was simply the truth about what had happened to them up to that time, based on their own memories, and the memories of those closest to them, as well as my own investigations and observations.

By early 1968, I eventually decided it was time to stop talking, quit researching, and settle down and get all the material into some sort of shape. I had so much that I did not really know where to begin, or what was important and what would turn out to be utterly trivial.

The first version came to two volumes, then I hacked it down by about 50 per cent to get it to a reasonable size, leaving out lots of interesting material, photographs and documents. My
next job, as I had lumbered myself with the title of ‘authorized’ biographer, was to get agreement from all the main characters in the story. That was when my problems really began.

First, I had to let the Beatles read what I had written. I had carefully worded the contract with them so that they could change any ‘factual’ mistakes. This always causes great trouble for any writer working with the cooperation of living people. You can never tell which bits might upset people. Usually, it is something minor, a remark in passing which hurts for some reason, not the bits you most expect to have problems with. At first, they don’t usually tell you what has caused offence, going on generally about the ‘tone’ not being right, or it being not as ‘deep’ as they had expected. Then when you get out of them precisely what they don’t like, it is usually fairly easy to put right.

I had naturally not given full details of what precisely had happened in the dressing rooms on tours, about the girls queuing up, begging for their favours. I think any reader over the age of 15, even in 1968, must have been well aware of what really happened, but no one spelled it out in those days. Groupies are a cliché today, and we know all about their excesses. The Beatles were no different from any other group. They just had more to pick from. It was the job of the road managers to say you, you and you, and you five minutes later. In 1968, three of the four Beatles were happily married, as far as the outside world was aware, and the other had a regular girlfriend. The wives, naturally, did not want such things mentioned, nor did the Beatles.

However, I had included quite a few references to drugs, including them taking LSD, which was rather daring for 1968, though I always referred to it in the past, sometimes saying that of course they did not take pot
now
, though I’m sure I made the truth fairly obvious.

It took me quite some time to get any reaction, as they all found reading books rather hard. Then to my delight each in turn said they had no complaints, no objections, and they agreed to everything going in. I think Paul had some minor factual
mistakes, people’s names I had spelled wrongly, though I now can’t remember what they were.

George was the only one who rang me with any serious comments. He wanted
more
about the Indian stuff and thought I had not taken him seriously enough, or his philosophies, and wanted some bits explained better. I did what he asked, although trying not to add to the length of the book.

I was very relieved by their reactions, and my agent started getting copies made for America, then suddenly I got a letter from John. He asked me to take out a derogatory remark about the man his mother Julia later married, a Welshman, by whom she had two daughters, Jackie and Julia, John’s stepsisters. He was worried about ‘the nasty-minded world’ they might be faced with in the future.

He also asked me to make sure Mimi read the book. She was worried SICK about it, so he said. That was what really bothered me. I had easily coped with John’s own change, which was minor but I didn’t want to have to faff around with any of the parents.

I sent it to Mimi and she had hysterics. The chapter about his childhood came back with almost every paragraph heavily crossed out or amended. In the margins she had written beside John’s own quotes such things as ‘Rubbish’, ‘Never!’

She denied so many of John’s own memories of his childhood, especially if they contradicted her memories of the same people or events. She was against his use of bad language, as she maintained John had never sworn when he was little, and didn’t want stories about him stealing.

Some of her comments, in the margins, were quite witty. I had quoted John as saying that he had to practise his guitar behind Mimi’s back at home and that she made him stand in the glass porch to play. Above this line Mimi had written ‘This wicked woman’. Another time, she added a story about Julia and the new husband, and how they really regarded John, writing it out in the margin, then asking me not to print it, as John had never been told.

She also added some useful comments about the day that
John first met Paul, at the Woolton Parish Fête, when John had dressed up as a real Teddy Boy for the first time.

‘It was the first time I saw him with others playing,’ so Mimi wrote. ‘It was a bombshell and a shock. Had no idea he would be there. It was forced home to me that day that I had been fighting a losing battle. Even then I would not give in. What a waste of my life and, more important, my health.’