BRITISHNESS
BRITISHNESS
Copyright Š 2016 by Rachel Tesch All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Printed in the United States of America First Printing, 2016 ISBN 0-9000000-0-0 MCAD Publishing 2501 Stevens Ave Minneapolis, MN 55404 www.rachelteschdesign.com
BRITISHNESS BY RACHEL TESCH Minneapolis, Minnesota
Dedicated to my Mom and Dad, the biggest Beatles fan I know.
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Preface
PREFACE
When I was a kid, there were only two musicians or musical groups my dad would play in the car. One of them was Johnny Cash. The other was of course The Beatles. I always cherished the chance to listen to music with my dad, and my love for The Beatles has carried on since my childhood. I can think of no better subject matter for a book than the fun-loving, photogenic, insanely talented band. I designed a publication that contains a variety of texts as well as images that pertains to The Beatles. Using typographic page-layout and message hierarchy to develop formal and technical values regarding text type, I designed this book to understand typographic systems. Developing formal and technical skills in utilizing a grid system, becoming more competent about material, and format options that enlighten the design of a multi-page document, have helped me to better understand publication design.
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Beatles Press Conference at JFK Airport on Feb. 7, 1964
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REPORTER: HOW DID YOU FIND AMERICA? JOHN: TURNED LEFT AT GREENLAND. REPORTER: DO YOU SEE YOUR FATHER OFTEN? PAUL: NO ACTUALLY, WE’RE JUST FRIENDS. REPORTER: HOW HAS SUCCESS CHANGED YOUR LIFE? GEORGE: YES. REPORTER: RINGO, DO YOU HAVE ANY POLITICAL AFFILIATIONS? RINGO: NO, I DON’T EVEN SMOKE. (LIGHTS CIGARETTE) Personal favorite Beatle interview answers
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INTERVIEWS THE BEST OF HISTORICAL BEATLE CONVERSATIONS
INCLUDES THESE FIVE ICONIC INTERVIEWS: THE BEATLES 1ST INTERVIEW THE BEATLES ON CBS 13 YEARS LATER WITH GEORGE THE BEATLES IN MINNEAPOLIS JOHNS LAST INTERVIEW
Jay Spangler Creator of www.beatlesinterviews.org
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FIRST RADIO INTERVIEW
Radio Clatterbridge 10/28/1962
ABOUT THIS INTERVIEW According to renown Beatles author Mark Lewisohn, this is the Beatles’ first-ever radio interview. Lewisohn accurately describes it as rare and fascinating, not just for historical importance, but also because it’s wonderfully intriguing. At the time of this 1962 interview, the Beatles are still making regular visits to Hamburg Germany, and Ringo Starr is so new to the group that he’s still keeping track of how long he’s been a Beatle by the number of weeks! This interview takes place following the release of their first single ‘Love Me Do,’ and before the final version of ‘Please Please Me’ had been arrived at. At the time of this interview they have not yet had a #1 hit. It is a rare glimpse of the early Beatles, recorded on October 28th 1962 at Hulme Hall in Port Sunlight, on the Wirral in England. The interview was recorded for Radio Clatterbridge, a closed-circuit radio station serving Cleaver and Clatterbridge Hospitals, on the Wirral. Monty Lister was responsible for two of the shows on this station: Music With Monty, and Sunday Spin. The days of the Beatles’ more widely broadcast radio interviews were still in the future at this time. This new group of youngsters is interviewed by Monty Lister, with additional questions from Malcolm Threadgill and Peter Smethurst.
MONTY: It’s a very great pleasure for us this evening to say hello to an up-and-coming Merseyside group, The Beatles. I know their names, and I’m going to try and put faces to them. Now, you’re John Lennon, aren’t you?” JOHN: “Yes, that’s right.”
MONTY: “Then there’s George Harrison.” GEORGE: “How d’you do.” MONTY: “How d’you do. What’s your job?” GEORGE: “Uhh, lead guitar and sort of singing.”
MONTY: “What do you do in the group, John?” JOHN: “I play harmonica, rhythm guitar, and vocal. That’s what they call it.” MONTY: “Then, there’s Paul McCartney. That’s you?”
MONTY: “By playing lead guitar does that mean that you’re sort of leader of the group or are you...?” GEORGE: “No, no. Just... Well you see, the other guitar is the rhythm. Ching, ching, ching, you see.”
PAUL: “Yeah, that’s me. Yeah.” MONTY: “And what do you do?” PAUL: “Play bass guitar and uhh, sing? ...I think! That’s what they say.”
PAUL: “He’s solo guitar, you see. John is in fact the leader of the group.” MONTY: “And over in the background, here, and also in the background of the group making alot of noise is Ringo Starr.”
MONTY: “That’s quite apart from being vocal?” RINGO: “Hello.” PAUL: “Well... yes, yes.”
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MONTY: “You’re new to the group, aren’t you Ringo?” RINGO: “Yes, umm, nine weeks now.” MONTY: “Were you in on the act when the recording was made of ‘Love Me Do’?”
And he found the engagements so we sort of went there, and then went under our own...” JOHN: “Steam.” PAUL: “Steam... (laughs) JOHN: “...as they say.”
RINGO: “Yes, I’m on the record. I’m on the disc.” (the group giggles) RINGO: (comic voice) “It’s down on record, you know?” MONTY: “Now, umm...” RINGO: “I’m the drummer!” (laughter) MONTY: “What’s that offensive weapon you’ve got there? Those are your drumsticks?” RINGO: “Well, it’s umm... just a pair of sticks I found. I just bought ‘em, you know, ‘cuz we’re going away.” MONTY: “When you say you’re going away, that leads us on to another question now. Where are you going?” RINGO: “Germany. Hamburg. For two weeks.” MONTY: “You have standing and great engagements over there, haven’t you?”
PAUL: “As they say, afterwards, you know. And we’ve just been going backwards and forwards and backwards and forwards.” MONTY: (surprised) “You’re not busy at all?” PAUL: (jokingly) “Well yes, actually. Yes. It’s me left leg. You know. The war.” (laughter) MONTY: “George, were you brought up in Liverpool?” GEORGE: “Yes. So far, yes.” MONTY: “Whereabouts?” GEORGE: “Well, born in Wavertree, and bred in Wavertree and Speke -- where the airplanes are, you know.” MONTY: “Are you all ‘Liverpool types,’ then?” RINGO: “Yes.” JOHN: “Uhh... types, yes.” PAUL: “Oh yeah.”
RINGO: “Well, the boys have been there quite alot, you know. And I’ve been there with other groups, but this is the first time I’ve been there with the Beatles.” MONTY: “Paul, tell us. How do you get in on the act in Germany?” PAUL: “Well, it was all through an old agent.” (laughter) PAUL: (chuckles) “We first went there for a fella who used to manage us, and Mr. Allan Williams of the Jacaranda Club in Liverpool.
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RINGO: “Liverpool-typed Paul, there.” MONTY: “Now, I’m told that you were actually in the same form as young Ron Wycherley...” RINGO: “Ronald. Yes.” MONTY: “...now Billy Fury.” RINGO: “In Saint Sylus.” MONTY: “In which?” RINGO: “Saint Sylus.”
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The Beatles at their Radio Clatterbridge interview with Monty Lister on 10/28/1962
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JOHN: “Really?” RINGO: “It wasn’t Dingle Vale like you said in the Musical Express.” PAUL: “No, that was wrong. Saint Sylus school.” MONTY: “Now I’d like to introduce a young disc jockey. His name is Malcolm Threadgill, he’s 16-years old, and I’m sure he’d like to ask some questions from the teenage view.” MALCOLM: “I understand you’ve made other recordings before on a German label.”
mental, as we say. But mainly it’s John and I. We’ve written over about a hundred songs but we don’t use half of them, you know. We just happened to sort of rearrange ‘Love Me Do’ and played it to the recording people, and ‘P.S. I Love You,’ and uhh, they seemed to quite like it. So that’s what we recorded.” MALCOLM: “Is there anymore of your own compositions you intend to record?” JOHN: “Well, we did record another song of our own when we were down there, but it wasn’t finished enough. So, you know, we’ll take it back next time and see how they like it then.”
PAUL: “Yeah.” (long pause) MALCOLM: “What ones were they?” PAUL: “Well, we didn’t make... First of all we made a recording with a fella called Tony Sheridan. We were working in a club called ‘The Top Ten Club’ in Hamburg. And we made a recording with him called, ‘My Bonnie,’ which got to number five in the German Hit Parade.” JOHN: “Ach tung!” PAUL: (giggles) “But it didn’t do a thing over here, you know. It wasn’t a very good record, but the Germans must’ve liked it a bit. And we did an instrumental which was released in France on an EP of Tony Sheridan’s, which George and John wrote themselves. That wasn’t released here. It got one copy. That’s all, you know. It didn’t do anything.” MALCOLM: “You composed ‘P.S. I Love You’ and ‘Love Me Do’ yourself, didn’t you? Who does the composing between you?”
JOHN: (jokingly) “Well... that’s all from MY end!” (laughter) MONTY: “I would like to just ask you-- and we’re recording this at Hume Hall, Port Sunlight-- Did any of you come over to this side before you became famous, as it were? Do you know this district?” PAUL: “Well, we played here, uhh... I don’t know what you mean by famous, you know.” (laughter) PAUL: “If being famous is being in the Hit Parade, we’ve been over here-- we were here about two months ago. Been here twice, haven’t we?” JOHN: “I’ve got relations here. Rock Ferry.” MONTY: “Have you?”
PAUL: “Well, it’s John and I. We write the songs between us. It’s, you know... We’ve sort of signed contracts and things to say, that now if we...” JOHN: “It’s equal shares.” PAUL: “Yeah, equal shares and royalties and things, so that really we just both write most of the stuff. George did write this instru-
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JOHN: “Yes. Oh, all sides of the water, you know.” PAUL: “Yeah, I’ve got a relation in Claughton Village-- Upton Road.” RINGO: (jokingly) “I’ve got a friend in Birkenhead!”
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MONTY: “I wish I had.” GEORGE: “I know a man in Chester!” (laughter) MONTY: “Now, that’s a very dangerous thing to say. There’s a mental home there, mate. Peter Smethurst is here as well, and he looks like he is bursting with a question.”
1 The Beatles speaking voices and their wit. John, Paul and George can be heard in the distance on the 1960 rehearsal tapes and they all can be heard speaking briefly on The Cavern recordings but this is the earliest to feature conversation.
PETER: “There is just one question I’d like to ask. I’m sure it’s the question everyone’s asking. I’d like your impressions on your first appearance on television.” PAUL: “Well, strangely enough, we thought we were gonna be dead nervous. And everyone said, ‘You suddenly, when you see the cameras, you realize that there are two million people watching,’ because there were two million watching that ‘People And Places’ that we did... we heard afterwards. But, strangely enough, it didn’t come to us. We didn’t think at all about that. And it was much easier doing the television than it was doing the (live musical performance) radio. It’s still nerve-wracking, but it was a bit easier than doing radio because there was a full audience for the radio broadcast.” MONTY: “Do you find it nerve-wracking doing this now?” PAUL: (jokingly) “Yeah, yeah.” MONTY: “Over at Cleaver Hospital, a certain record on Parlophone-- the top side has been requested. So perhaps the Beatles themselves would like to tell them what it’s going to be.” PAUL: “Yeah. Well, I think it’s gonna be ‘Love Me Do.’” JOHN: “Parlophone R4949.” PAUL: “’Love Me Do.’” MONTY: “And I’m sure, for them, the answer is P.S. I love you!” PAUL: “Yeah.” 1
Transcribed by www. beatlesinterviews.org from orginal magazine issue
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Beatles talking with Ed Sulliven before the show on Feb. 2, 1964
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CBS TV INTERVIEW
Washington Coliseum 2/11/1964
ABOUT THIS INTERVIEW On February 11th, just two days after their historic first Ed Sullivan appearance, the Beatles would hitch a ride by train to Washington D.C. for a show at Washington Coliseum, their first American concert. The Beatles clowned it up with the press on the train ride from New York to Washington, which later inspired the train scenes in their first feature film ‘A Hard Day’s Night.’ The Beatles performance in Washington D.C. was filmed and later shown in American theatres in March 1964 as a closed-circuit video feed. The film has recently been available on DVD. This television interview was filmed on-stage with the Beatles just after their press conference and just before doors were opened to the pubic for their Washington Coliseum performance. The mention of “The Johnson Girls” refers to the daughters of then-President Lyndon B. Johnson.
ED: “Here I am surrounded by Beatles and I don’t feel a thing. Fellas, how does it feel to be in the United States?”
ED: “They may come.... Are they coming to your show tonight?” RINGO: “We don’t know.”
RINGO: “It’s great! Wonderful!” GEORGE: “I don’t know.” PAUL AND GEORGE: “Very nice!” ED: “What have you seen that you like best about our country?”
PAUL: “We’re not sure. But if they do, you know, we’d love it.” RINGO: “We’d like to meet them.”
JOHN: “You!!” (laughter) ED: “Thank you very much. I’ll take that under advisement. Now, do you have any plans or any arrangements to meet the Johnson girls?”
ED: “You and the snow came to Washington at the same time today. Which do you think will have the greater impact?” JOHN: “The snow will probably last longer.” RINGO: “Yeah. We’re going tomorrow.”
JOHN: “No. We heard they didn’t like concerts.” GEORGE: “I didn’t know they were on the show!”
ED: “Have you ever heard of Walter Cronkite?” PAUL: “Nope.” GEORGE: “Yeah. News.”
(laughter) JOHN: “Good old Walter! NBC News, isn’t
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The Beatles rehearse before they made music history on The Ed Sullivan Show, February 1964.
he? Yeah, we know him. See? You don’t catch me!”
PAUL AND JOHN: “Yeah.” JOHN: “It knocked us out!”
ED: (correcting) “CBS News.” RINGO: “CBS News.” (laughter) PAUL: (jokingly) “CUT!” GEORGE: “I know, but I didn’t want to say it. ‘Cuz I thought it was CBS.”
Q: “In spite of the snow, you still got a good crowd?” JOHN: “Great crowd, yeah. I don’t know-Half of them thought we were coming by air, and we came by train.” Q: “Tell me this. Why do you think you’re so popular all of a sudden?”
JOHN: “Yeah?”
JOHN: “I don’t know. It must be the weather.”
GEORGE: (to John) “We’re doing ABC...”
PAUL: (giggles) “We’ve no idea at all why. Really.”
JOHN: “Yeah?” Q: “Do you think it’s your singing?” GEORGE: “The other fella is on CBS, and the other one is NBC.”
JOHN: (Operatic singing voice) “Eeeeeee Dhhooooo!”
ED: “This is NBC, believe it or not.” JOHN: “And you’re Walter!!” ED: “No, I’m Ed.” JOHN: (jokingly) “What’s going on around here!!” ED: “I don’t know! So, we’re all together here.”
PAUL: “I doubt it. It could be alot of things, and we don’t know which it could be.” Q: “Where did you get the idea for the haircuts?” PAUL: “We didn’t. It just the way we...” RINGO: “Where did you get the idea for yours??”
GEORGE: “This is NBC.” (A different reporter begins asking questions) Q: “What do you think of your reception in America, so far?” JOHN: “It’s been great.” Q: “What struck you the most, so far?” PAUL: “YOU!! (laughing) We won’t do that one again.” RINGO: “When we first came in, you know--The airport. We never expected nothing like that. It was great.” Q: “You mean the crowds?”
PAUL: (laughs) “No, it’s just something that we liked. We enjoyed wearing our hair this way, so it’s developed this way.” Q: “You save on haircutting, at least?” PAUL: “Yeah, uhhh-- We’re saving.” JOHN: “I think it costs more to keep it short than to keep it long, don’t you?” Q: “I don’t know. I imagine.” PAUL: “Yeah. We’re saving our money.” Q: “Well, where do you go from here?” RINGO: “Back to, ummm...”
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PAUL AND JOHN: “New York.” RINGO: “...New York tommorrow.” GEORGE: “Then Miami at the weekend, just for the next Sullivan show, and then we go home.” RINGO: “On Monday.” Q: “Are you still number one in Europe?” JOHN: “Well, Europe is alot of countries.” Q: “Where are you number one then?”
GEORGE: “We think it’s funny-- peculiar-that they should be hits after such a long time.” Q: “Do you feel they’re musical?” JOHN: “Obviously they’re musical because it’s music, isn’t it! Instruments play music. It’s a record.” PAUL: “It’s musical, you know.” JOHN: “It is musical.” PAUL: “It’s music, isn’t it! (sings) ‘Bumm Bumm Bumm.’”
GEORGE: “We’re now number one in America and England.”
JOHN: “That’s music, too.”
JOHN: “Hong Kong and Sweden...”
PAUL: “He’s good-- He knows music!”
GEORGE: “Australia, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, France...” Q: “And you haven’t any idea why?” RINGO: “We lay down and do it.” JOHN: “We’re coming out in Hong Kong and suddenly you’re number one there years after so many records. Even here, you know, we’ve got records we’ve forgotten.”
Q: “Alright, but what do you call it?” PAUL: “We try not to define our music because we get so many wrong classifications off it. It’s no use. We just call it-- MUSIC??? (laughs) ...even if you don’t.” Q: “With a question mark.” PAUL: “Pardon?” Q: “With a question mark?”
PAUL: “Funny records, yeah.” PAUL: “No.” Q: “You call your records ‘funny records’?” JOHN: “We leave that to the critics.” GEORGE: “Yeah!” PAUL: “With an exclamation mark!” JOHN: “They’re funny once we’ve forgotten them.”
Q: “OK. Have a good time in America.”
GEORGE: “You know-- It’s unusual because they’ve been out in England for over a year. Like “Please, Please Me” is a hit over here now, but it’s over a year old, you see. And it’s funny.”
PAUL: “Thank you very much.”
Q: “But, what I’m saying is-- Do you think of your records as funny records?”
RINGO: “Look after yourself.”
JOHN AND GEORGE: “Thank you.” JOHN: “Keep buying ‘em.”
(End of Interview) BEATLES: “NO!”
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Transcribed by www. beatlesinterviews.org from orginal TV recording
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13 YEARS LATER
George Harrison Crawdaddy Magazine February 1977
ABOUT THIS INTERVIEW While promoting his recently released album entitled ‘33 1/3’, George Harrison gave an especially nostalgic and enlightening interview to Crawdaddy magazine. Topics of discussion include Beatle albums, the Hamburg days, the Ed Sullivan appearance, the Maharishi, Beatle reunion offers, songwriting with Bob Dylan, and even Eric Clapton’s involvement with Patti Harrison. This interview goes into the Beatles 1964 appearence with Ed Sulliven on CBS. 13 years after that iconic interview, George Harrison talks about it.
Q: “Were you nervous before the Beatles 1964 debut on the Ed Sullivan Show?” GEORGE: “The Sullivan Show was funny because I didn’t attend the rehearsal. I was sick somehow on the flight over on the first trip to the States. The band did play alot of rehersal for the sound people, they kept going into the control room and checking out the sound. And finally when they got a balance between the instruments and the vocals, they marked on the boards by the control, and then everybody broke for lunch. Then we came back to tape the show and the cleaners had been ‘round and polished all the marks off the board. It was sort of a bit tacky in those days with the sound. People would put amplifiers off to the side of the stage so it didn’t spoil the shot, you know.” Q: “I just always wondered if you felt the pressure.” GEORGE: “Oh yeah, we did. But we knew we’d had sufficient success in Europe and Britain to have a bit of confidence. And we really needed a helluva lot of confidence for
the States because it was such an important place. I mean, nobody’d ever made it, you know, British acts-- apart from the odd singer like Lonnie Donnegan.” “But Ed Sullivan was, you know-- Everybody had told us how he was really big. But again, we were pretty naive to certain things so that helped at the time. I remember them asking us did we know who Walter Cronkite was. And I said, ‘I dunno, isn’t he somebody on the television?’ You know, things like that were good because they all had fun-- the people asking questions and the press-- us being naive and not seeming to care about that sort of thing.” Q: “Was there ever a tendency to still act naive after you wised up?” GEORGE: “I dunno. But by that time we’d got into that whole sort of routine that we used to have, you know, at press conferences. Alot of it was just nervous energy, just for jokes and stuff which everybody seemed to like. That was one of the big helps for the Beatles at the time-- If anybody dried up in the press
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conferences there was always somebody else there with a smart answer. There was always a good balance, so nobody could ever really quite nail us.” “The Sullivan show was just the climax to the Beatles’ whole America thing. In retrospect it probably wouldn’t have mattered what we’d done on the Sullivan show, it was like already established by the previous press that had gone before. But that was a long time ago. We’ll get over the question, ‘Are the Beatles getting together again?’” Q: “I won’t even ask you.” GEORGE: “...because the answer is just like going back to school again, really. The four of us are so tied up with our own lives, and it’s been eight years since we split. And time goes so fast. It’s not beyond the bounds of possibility, but we’d have to want to do it for the music’s sake first. We wouldn’t stick together because somebody had put an ad in the paper putting us on the spot.” Q: “Somebody in New York is saying the Beatles are getting back together to wrestle a Great White Shark in Australia.” GEORGE: “That was the other guy-- He was gonna try and do the Beatles show, and then try and do the other one with somebody fighting a shark. I thought, ‘If HE fights the shark, the winner can be the promoter!” Q: “It seemed that all four of you were locked into something larger than its parts.” GEORGE: “It was. But none of us really thought about leaving until ‘67 or ‘68, which was after we stopped touring. I know the first time for me which was the most depressing was during ‘The White Album.’ It was a problem making a double album because it takes such a long time.” Q: “Why did you make a double?” GEORGE: “I think it was because there were so many songs, but it was a period that had started a bit negative. It was a bit difficult and we got through it and it was fine. We finally
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got through the album and everybody was pleased because the track were good. Then I worked on an album with Jackie Lomax on an Apple record and I spent a long time in the States, and I had such a good time working with all these different musicians and different people. Then I hung out at Woodstock for Thanksgiving and, you know, I felt really good at that time. I got back to England for Christmas and then on January 1st we were to start on the thing which turned into ‘Let It Be.’ And straight away, again, it was just weird vibes. You know, I found I was starting to be able to enjoy being a musician, but the moment I got back with the Beatles it was just too difficult. There were just too many limitations based upon our being together for so long. Everybody was sort of pigeon-holed. It was frustrating.” “The problem was that John and Paul had written songs for so long it was difficult-First of all because they had such alot of tunes and they automatically thought that theirs should be priority. So for me, I’d always have to wait through ten of their songs before they’d even listen to one of mine. That was why ‘All Things Must Pass’ had so many songs, because it was like I’d been constipated. I had a little encouragement from time to time, but it was very little. It was like they were doing me a favor. I didn’t have much confidence in writing songs because of that. Because they never said, ‘Yeah that’s a good song.’ When we got into things like “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,’ we recorded it one night and there was such a lack of enthusiasm. So I went home really disappointed because I knew the song was good.” “The next day I brought Eric Clapton with me. He was really nervous. I was saying, ‘Just come and play on the session, then I can sing and play acoustic guitar.’ Because what happened when Eric was there on that day, and later on when Billy Preston... I pulled in Billy Preston on Let It Be... it helped, because the others would have to control themselves a bit more. John and Paul mainly because they had to, you know, act more handsomely. Eric was nervous saying, ‘No, what will they say?’ And I was saying, ‘Fuck ‘em, that’s my song.’ You know, he was the first non-Beatle person
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Q: “It must have been terrifying...” GEORGE: “And it was a good date. Paul would always help along when you’d done his ten songs-- then when he got ‘round to doing one of my songs, he would help. It was silly. It was very selfish, actually. Sometimes Paul would make us do these really fruity songs. I mean, my god, ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ was so fruity. After a while we did a good job on it, but when Paul got an idea or an arrangement in his head... But Paul’s really writing for a 14-year-old audience now anyhow. I missed his last tour, unfortunately.” Q: “’While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ was such a personal song, I’d always wondered why Eric was there.” GEORGE: “Well, I’d been through this sitar thing. I’d played sitar for three years. And I’d just listened to classical Indian music and practiced sitar-- except for when we played dates, studio dates-- and then I’d get the guitar out and just play, you know, learn a part for the record. But I’d really lost alot of interest in the guitar. I remember I came from California and I shot this piece of film for the film on Ravi Shankar’s life called ‘Raga’ and I was carrying a sitar. And we stopped in New York and checked in a hotel, and Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton were both at the same hotel. And that was the last time I really played the sitar like that. We used to hang out such alot at that period, and Eric gave me a fantastic Les Paul guitar, which is the one he plays on that date. So it worked out well. I liked the idea of other musicians contributing.” “I helped Eric write ‘Badge’ you know. Each of them had to come up with a song for that ‘Goodbye Cream’ album and Eric didn’t have his written. We were working across from each other and I was writing the lyrics down and we came to the middle part so I wrote ‘Bridge.’ Eric read it upside dwn and cracked up laughing-- ‘What’s BADGE?’ he said. After that Ringo walked in drunk and gave us that line about the swans living in the park.” Q: “I always thought your contributions guided the band’s direction. Beatles ‘65-- the country influence. Or the Indian influence.”
GEORGE: “Well, Ringo as well, you know. We all gave as much as we could. The thing was, Paul and John wrote all the songs in the beginning. And they did write great songs, which made it more difficult to break in or get some action on the songwriting thing. But you know, we all did contribute such alot to the Beatles. There was a period of time when people thought, ‘Ringo doesn’t play the drums.’ I don’t know what they thought of me, but they tended to think it was John and Paul for a period of time.” “I helped out such alot in all the arrangements. There were alot of tracks though where I played bass. Paul played lead guitar on ‘Taxman,’ and he played guitar-- a good part-- on ‘Drive My Car.” Q: “You played bass?” GEORGE: “No, I didn’t play-- We laid the track because what Paul would do, if he’s written a song, he’d learn all the parts for Paul and then come in the studio and say, ‘Do this.’ He’d never give you the opportunity to come out with something. But on ‘Drive My Car’ I just played the line, which is really like a lick off ‘Respect,’ you know, the Otis Redding version-- and I played that line on guitar and Paul laid that with me on bass. We laid the track down like that. We played the lead part later on top of it. There were alot of things... like on a couple of dates Paul wasn’t on it at all, or John wasn’t on it at all, or I wasn’t on it at all. Probably only about five tunes altogether where one of us might not have been on.” Q: “Which of the Beatles albums do you still listen to?” GEORGE: “I liked when we got into ‘Rubber Soul,’ ‘Revolver.’ Each album had something good about it and progressed. There were albums which weren’t any good as far as I was concerned, like ‘Yellow Submarine.’” “We put all the songs together into an album form-- I’m talking about English albums now, because in the states we found later that for every two albums we had, they (Capitol) would make three... because we put fourteen tracks on an album, and we’d also have sin-
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George Harrison and Paul Simon Paul Simon sang the sound of silence today at one of the Conn. children’s funeral today. 12/20/12
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gles that weren’t included on albums in those days. They’d put the singles on, take off a bunch of tracks, change all the running order, and then they’d make new packages like ‘Yesterday And Today,’ just awful packages.” Q: “That entire era was so productive. Did it seem that way to you?” GEORGE: “Yeah, it was good, it was enjoyable. We’d get into doing harmonies and this and that. Beacause in the early days we were only working on four-track tapes. So what we’d do would be work out most of the basic track on one track, get all the balance and everything set, all the instruments,. Then we’d do all the vocals, or overdub. If there was guitar, lines would come in on the second verse and piano in the middle eight with shakers and tambourines. We’d line up and get all the sounds right and do it in a take, and then do all the vocal harmonies over.” “Those old records weren’t really stereo. They were mono records and they were rechanneled. Some of the stereo is terrible because you’ve got backing on one side. In fact, when we did the first two albums-- at least the first album which was ‘Please Please Me,’ we did it straight onto a two-track machine. So there wasn’t any stereo as such, it was just the voices on one track and the backing on the other. Sgt Pepper was only a four-track.”
Q: “He couldn’t relate to it?” GEORGE: “Well, he could relate to it as a percussion instrument, as drums. But how Rakha actually played it, he couldn’t figure that out at all. But they liked it. They knew there was something great about it. But they weren’t into it as I was. Then they all went to India and had those experiences in India, too... which, for anybody who goes to India, I think straight away you can relate much more to Indian music because it makes so much more sense having been there.” Q: “Was it intimidating to start out at age 17 or 18, and be younger than the others?” GEORGE: “No. There are around nine months between me and Paul... Nine months between Paul and John. In the early days when I was still at school, I was really small. I sort of grew in height when we were away in Hamburg. A few years before that we did a few parties at night-- just silly things-- John, Paul, and I. And there were a couple of other people who kept coming and going. John was in school, the College of Art, which was adjoining our school. Paul and I would sneak out of our school and go into his place, which was a bit more free, you know. Ours was still in school uniforms, and we could smoke in his place and do all that. I think he did feel a bit embarrassed about that because I was so tiny. I only looked about ten years old.”
Q: “It’s hard to believe.” GEORGE: “Yup. Well, we had an orchestra on a separate four-track machine in ‘Day In The Life.’ We tried to sync them up. I remember-they kept going out of sync in playback, so we had to remix it.” Q: “Was the rest of the band difficult when you started getting into Indian music?” GEORGE: “Not really. They weren’t really as interested. When I’d first met Ravi (Shankar) he played a private concert just at my house, and he came with Alla Rakha, and John and Ringo came to that. I know Ringo didn’t want to know about tabla because it just seemed so far our to him.”
“But in Hamburg, we were living right in the middle of St Paulie, which is right in the middle of the Reeperbahn district in Hamburg. All the club owners were like gangsters, and all the waiters had tear-gas guns, truncheons, knuckle-dusters. They were a heavy crew. Everybody around that district were homosexuals, pimps, hookers. You know, being in the middle of that when I was 17. (laughs) It was good fun. But when we moved into our second club we were becoming so popular with the crowd of regulars that we never got in any problems with all these gangster sort of people. They never tried to beat us up because they knew the Beatles. And you know, they’d say ‘Pedels’ (pronounced, Peedles), that’s German for prick.”
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Q: The whole image of the Beatles got cleaned up and smoothed over, which is always attributed to Brian Epstein.” GEORGE: “In the Hamburg days we had to play so long and really rock it up and leap about and foam at the mouth and do whatever. We missed the whole period in England-- Cliff Richards and the Shadows became the big thing. They all had matching ties and handkerchiefs and gray suits, but we were still doing Gene Vincent, Bo Didley, you know, Ray Charles things. So when we got back to England that was the big thing. They didn’t know us in Liverpool, and there was a big gig at the townhall or something, at a dance. There was an advertisement in the newspaper saying, ‘Direct from Hamburg,’ and so many people really dug the band, and they were coming up to us and saying, ‘Oh, you speak good English!’” “But a year or so after that, When Brian Epstein came on the scene, he said, ‘You should smarten up because nobody wants to know you,’ --TV producers or record producers or whatever. We just looked too scruffy. In Germany they had alot of leather stuff, like black leather trousers and jackets and boots.” 2 (End of Interview)
GEORGE HARRISON The Best Of George Harrison (1976 Brazilian 13-track compilation LP including original picture) Quote from page 34
2 In addition to what is quoted here, this George Harrison quote was said after the interview. “I used to get that experience alot when we were doing ‘Abbey Road’ recording. I’d go into this big empty studio and get into a soundbox inside of it and do my meditation inside of there, and I had a couple of indications of that same experience, which I realized was what I had when I was a kid.”
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GEORGE: “IN THE HAMBURG DAYS WE HAD TO PLAY SO LONG AND REALLY ROCK IT UP AND LEAP ABOUT AND FOAM AT THE MOUTH AND DO WHATEVER.”
Transcribed by www. beatlesinterviews.org from orginal recording
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The Beatles at Shea Stadium, August 23rd, 1966
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NORTH AMERICA TOUR
Metropolitan Stadium Minneapolis Minnesota 8/21/1965
ABOUT THIS INTERVIEW On August 21st, the Beatles traveled to Minneapolis Minnesota for a show at Metropolitan Stadium as the sixth stop along their 1965 North American Tour. At the end of this press conference, George Harrison is surprised as he is presented a Rickenbacker 360 electric 12-string guitar by B-Sharp Music, a local area guitar shop at the time. It was the second of this particular model of guitar that George was able to add to his collection. Harrison would play his new Rickenbacker on stage that evening. As George received the guitar, John Lennon smiled and joked: “That’s fab, that! Where’s mine?” Their concert that evening at the Met was yet more proof of their undying popularity. Any holdout diehard midwestern skeptics wanting to believe Beatlemania was on the wane would be quieted. The excitement in the crowd grew during the opening acts, including King Curtis, Cannibal and the Headhunters, Brenda Holloway, and Sounds Incorporated. Then the moment had come when the Beatles would take the stage. Over 28,000 screaming fans finally had their chance to be with the Beatles. “I’ve never seen a mob like this in my life,” Deputy Sheriff Douglas Sherry was quoted as saying in the Minneapolis Tribune. “I thought Frank Sinatra was bad, but the mob for this thing has him beat all to pieces.”
Q: “Who among you is the best actor?”
RINGO: “Yeah, that’s why we pay a lot of taxes.”
GEORGE: “I think Ringo is! Ringo!” (laughter) JOHN: (gestures to Ringo, singing cheesy showbiz theme music) “Da-da-da-dah, Dada-da-da DAH!”
Q: “Ringo, do you have any time off in this tour, and if you do, what do you plan to do during the time off?
RINGO: (to John) “I think YOU are.” JOHN: “Oh no, I think YOU are.”
RINGO “We have about five days off in L.A. starting monday, and we’re just gonna sit ‘round, you know.”
RINGO: “YOU are!” Q: “How is your stock going? Up or down?” JOHN: (hugging Ringo) “No, it’s YOU!” RINGO “It’s going up, I beleive.” (laughter) Q: (asks a question away from the microphone regarding finances and taxes)
JOHN: (jokingly to Ringo)”Yours is? You never told me you’ve got stock.” RINGO: “I’ve got your stock.”
RINGO “We don’t see it, really.” JOHN: “Oh, Northern Songs.” PAUL & RINGO: “We pay a lot of taxes.” Q: “You’re in a high income bracket.”
Q: “Would you ever start your own label, and if so, where is it going to be?”
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JOHN: “We’d never start our own label. It’s too much trouble, you know.”
(chuckles from reporters) PAUL: “Great!”
Q: “Are you going to invest heavily in some other company as the Beatles?” JOHN: “I don’t know. That’ll be all up to (Beatles manager) Mister Epstein, you know.”
JOHN: “People have only had short hair since the world war. So they’ve been sleeping for all those thousands of years with long hair.”
Q: “How long before your contract does terminate with Capitol (records)?”
PAUL: “It’s not a problem, I tell ya. It’s just as much a problem as having short hair, which to you seems like normal.”
JOHN: “I don’t know. I don’t even remember signing it!”
JOHN: “It’s more of a problem having short hair, having to keep it short.”
(laughter) GEORGE: “It’ll last another year.” JOHN: “Oh.” Q: “Once you’ve written a song, how do you decide which of you will sing it?” JOHN: (jokingly) “I think whoever knows most of the words by the time we get to recording it.” (laugher) Q: “I’d like to ask you all a personal question about your hair. How can you sleep at night with it that long?” JOHN: “Well, when you’re asleep you don’t notice.”
Q: “It seems whenever you come to perform in this country, it’s always in the form of a grand tour...” JOHN: “It’s not worth coming over for one or two performances. We may as well go to as many places as we can when we come, you know.” Q: “You expect it to be annually.” RINGO & JOHN: “Yeah, I think so.” RINGO: “We don’t really know, as our manager does everything.” Q: (to Paul) “Do you have plans for getting married?” PAUL: “No, not particularly.” BOY: “Ringo?”
(laughter) RINGO: “Yes?” PAUL: “True, true. Ha! That told him.” GEORGE: “How do you sleep with your arms and your legs still attached? It’s the same.” RINGO: “You get used to it.” GEORGE: “Maybe that’s why we’ve been up every night.” PAUL: “Yeah, maybe THAT’S why we have parties. That’s it. We can’t sleep with this long hair.”
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BOY: “I got my start playing drums from you. Ever since I listened to you, I started playing them.” RINGO: (jokingly) “Ahh, you’ll never get anywhere if you listen to me!” (laughter) RINGO: “Yeah, go on.” BOY: “I was wondering how long you’ve been playing your drums?”
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Top: Paul on stage at Metropolitan Stadium Bottom: The Beatles bow from behind stage`
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GEORGE: (jokingly) “Thirty years, isn’t it?” (chuckles) RINGO: “No, it’s about seven years now.” PAUL: “How old are you?” BOY: “I’m fourteen.” PAUL: “You’re the same age as us. Great!” JOHN: (jokingly, to the others) “By the time he learns it, they’ll have a machine do it.” (End of interview) Beatles leaving Minneapolis on August 21, 1965 following the concert Quote from page 42
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PAUL: “HOW OLD ARE YOU?’ BOY: “I’M FOURTEEN.” PAUL: “YOU’RE THE SAME AGE AS US. GREAT!’ JOHN: (JOKINGLY) “BY THE TIME HE LEARNS IT, THEY’LL HAVE A MACHINE DO IT.” 42 43
The Beatles, 1964 “Real Cool in the Pool”
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JOHN’S LAST INTERVIEW
(Interviewed three days before John’s death, this issue was released posthumously.) “Welcome to the inner sanctum!” says John Lennon, greeting me with high-spirited, mock ceremoniousness in Yoko Ono’s beautiful cloud-ceilinged office in their Dakota apartment. It’s Friday evening, December 5, and Yoko has been telling me how their collaborative new album, ‘Double Fantasy,’ came about: Last spring, John and their son, Sean, were vacationing in Bermuda while Yoko stayed home”sorting out business,” as she puts it. She and John spoke on the phone every day and sang each other the songs they had composed in between calls. “I was at a dance club one night in Bermuda,” John interrupts as he sits down on a couch and Yoko gets up to bring coffee. “Upstairs, they were playing disco, and downstairs, I suddenly heard ‘Rock Lobster’ by the B-52’s for the first time. Do you know it? It sounds just like Yoko’s music, so I said to meself, ‘It’s time to get out the old axe and wake the wife up!’ We wrote about twenty-five songs during those three weeks, and we’ve recorded enough for another album.”
Rolling Stone Magazine 12/05/1980
“I’ve been playing side two of Double Fantasy over and over,” I say, getting ready to ply him with a question. John looks at me with a time and interview-stopping smile. “How are you?” he asks. “It’s been like a reunion for us these last few weeks. We’ve seen Ethan Russell, who’s doing a videotape of a couple of the new songs, and Annie Leibovitz was here. She took my first Rolling Stone cover photo. It’s been fun seeing everyone we used to know and doing it all again -- we’ve all survived. When did we first meet?” “I met you and Yoko on September 17, 1968,” I say, remembering the first of our several meetings. I was just a lucky guy, at the right place at the right time. John had decided to become more “public” and to demystify his Beatles persona. He and Yoko, whom he’d met in November 1966, were preparing for the Amsterdam and Montreal bed-ins for peace and were soon to release ‘Two Virgins,’ the first of their experimental record collaborations. The album cover -- the infamous frontal nude portrait of them -- was to grace the pages of Rolling Stone’s first anniversary issue. John
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John Lennon, Dakota NYC
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had just discovered the then-impoverished, San Francisco-based magazine, and he’d agreed to give Rolling Stone the first of his “coming-out” interviews. As European editor, I was asked to visit John and Yoko and to take along a photographer (Ethan Russell, who later took the photos for the ‘Let It Be’ book that accompanied the album). So, nervous and excited, we went and met with John and Yoko at their temporary basement flat in London. First impressions are usually the most accurate, and John was graceful, gracious, charming, exuberant, direct, witty and playful; I remember noticing how he wrote little reminders to himself in the wonderfully absorbed way that a child paints the sun. He was due at a recording session in a half-hour to work on the White Album, so we agreed to meet the next day to do the interview, after which John and Yoko invited Ethan and me to attend the session for ‘Back in the USSR.’ at Abbey Road Studios. Only a performance of Shakespeare at the Globe Theatre might have made me feel as ecstatic and fortunate as I did and then at that moment. Every new encounter with John brought a new perspective. Once, I ran into John and Yoko in 1971. A friend and I had gone to see Carnal Knowledge, and afterward we bumped into the Lennons in the lobby. Accompanied by Jerry Rubin and a friend of his, they invited us to drive down with them to Ratner’s delicatessen in the East Village for blintzes, whereupon a beatific, long-haired young man approached our table and wordlessly handed John a card inscribed with a pithy saying of the inscrutable Meher Baba. Rubin drew a swastika on the back of the card, got up and gave it back to the man. When he returned, John admonished him gently, saying that that wasn’t the way to change someone’s consciousness. Acerbic and skeptical as he could often be, John Lennon never lost his sense of compassion. Almost ten years later, I am again talking to John, and he is as gracious and witty as the first time I met him. “I guess I should describe to the readers what you’re wearing, John,” I say. “Let me help you out,” he offers, then intones wryly: “You can see the glasses he’s wearing. They’re normal plastic blue-frame
glasses. Nothing like the famous wire-rimmed Lennon glasses that he stopped using in 1973. He’s wearing needle-cord pants, the same black cowboy boots he’d had made in Nudie’s in 1973, a Calvin Klein sweater and a torn Mick Jagger T-shirt that he got when the Stones toured in 1970 or so. And around his neck is a small, three-part diamond heart necklace that he bought as a make-up present after an argument with Yoko many years ago and that she later gave back to him in a kind of ritual. Will that do? “I know you’ve got a Monday deadline,” he adds, “but Yoko and I have to go to the Record Plant now to remix a few of Yoko’s songs for a possible disco record. So why don’t you come along and we’ll talk in the studio.” “You’re not putting any of your songs on this record?” I ask as we get into the waiting car. “No, because I don’t make that stuff.” He laughs and we drive off. “I’ve heard that in England some people are appreciating Yoko’s songs on the new album and are asking why I was doing that ‘straight old Beatles stuff,’ and I didn’t know about punk and what’s going on -‘You were great then; Walrus was hip, but this isn’t hip, John!’ I’m really pleased for Yoko. She deserves the praise. It’s been a long haul. I’d love her to have the A-side of a hit record and me the B-side. I’d settle for it any day.” “It’s interesting,” I say, “that no rock & roll star I can think of has made a record with his wife or whomever and has given her fifty-percent of the disc.” “It’s the first time we’ve done it this way,” John says. “It’s a dialogue, and we have resurrected ourselves, in a way, as John and Yoko -- not as John ex-Beatle and Yoko and the Plastic Ono Band. It’s just the two of us, and our position was that, if the record didn’t sell, it meant people didn’t want to know about John and Yoko -- either they didn’t want John anymore or they didn’t want John with Yoko or maybe they just wanted Yoko, whatever. But if they didn’t want the two of us, we weren’t interested. Throughout my career, I’ve selected to work with -- for more than a one-night stand, say, with David Bowie or Elton John -- only two people: Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono. I brought Paul into
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the original group, the Quarrymen; he brought George in and George brought Ringo in. And the second person who interested me as an artist and somebody I could work with was Yoko Ono. That ain’t bad picking.” When we arrive at the studio, the engineers being playing tapes of Yoko’s ‘Kiss Kiss Kiss,’ ‘Every Man Has a Woman Who Loves Him’ (both from Double Fantasy) and a powerful new disco song (not on the album) called ‘Walking on Thin Ice,’ which features a growling guitar lick by Lennon, based on Sanford Clark’s 1956 song, ‘The Fool.’ “Which way could I come back into this game?” John asks as we settle down. “I came back from the place I know best -- as unpretentiously as possible -- not to prove anything but just to enjoy it.” “I’ve heard that you’ve had a guitar on the wall behind your bed for the past five or six years, and that you’ve only taken it down and played it for ‘Double Fantasy.’ Is that true?” “I bought this beautiful electric guitar, round about the period I got back with Yoko and had the baby,” John explains. “It’s not a normal guitar; it doesn’t have a body; it’s just an arm and this tubelike, toboggan-looking thing, and you can lengthen the top for the balance of it if you’re sitting or standing up. I played it a little, then just hung it up behind the bed, but I’d look at it every now and then, because it had never done a professional thing, it had never really been played. I didn’t want to hide it the way one would hide an instrument because it was too painful to look at -- like, Artie Shaw went through a big thing and never played again. But I used to look at it and think, ‘Will I ever pull it down?’ “Next to it on the wall I’d placed the number 9 and a dagger Yoko had given me -- a dagger made out of a bread knife from the American Civil War to cut away the bad vibes, to cut away the past symbolically. It was just like a picture that hangs there but you never really see, and then recently I realized, ‘Oh, goody! I can finally find out what this guitar is all about,’ and I took it down and used it in making ‘Double Fantasy.’
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“All through the taping of ‘Starting Over,’ I was calling what I was doing ‘Elvis Orbison’: ‘I want you I need only the lonely.’ I’m a born-again rocker, I feel that refreshed, and I’m going right back to my roots. It’s like Dylan doing Nashville Skyline, except I don’t have any Nashville, you know, being from Liverpool. So I go back to the records I know -- Elvis and Roy Orbison and Gene Vincent and Jerry Lee Lewis. I occasionally get ripped off into Walruses or ‘Revolution 9,’ but my far-out side has been completely encompassed by Yoko. “The first show we did together was at Cambridge University in 1968 or ‘69, when she had been booked to do a concert with some jazz musicians. That was the first time I had appeared un-Beatled. I just hung around and played feedback, and people got very upset because they recognized me: ‘What’s he doing here?’ It’s always: ‘Stay in your bag.’ So, when she tried to rock, they said, ‘What’s she doing here?’ And when I went with her and tried to be the instrument and not project -- to just be her band, like a sort of like Turner to her Tina, only her Tina was a different, avant-garde Tina -- well, even some of the jazz guys got upset. “Everybody has pictures they want you to live up to. But that’s the same as living up to your parents’ expectations, or to society’s expectations, or to so-called critics who are just guys with a typewriter in a little room, smoking and drinking beer and having their dreams and nightmares, too, but somehow pretending that they’re living in a different, separate world. That’s all right. But there are people who break out of their bags.” “I remember years ago,” I say, “when you and Yoko appeared in bags at that one Vienna press conference.” “Right. We sang a Japanese folk song in the bags. ‘Das ist really you, John? John Lennon in zee bag?’ Yeah, it’s me. ‘Don’t you realize this is the Hapsburg palace?’ I thought it was a hotel. ‘Vell, it is now a hotel.’ They had great chocolate cake in that Viennese hotel, I remember that. Anyway, who wants to be locked in a bag? You have to break out of your bag to keep alive.”
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JOHN: “THERE COULD BE HUNDREDS OF PATHS WHERE ONE COULD GO THIS WAY OR THAT WAY, THERE’S A CHOICE AND IT’S VERY STRANGE SOMETIMES.”
Quote from page 60
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Andy Warhol’s “John Lennon”
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“In ‘Beautiful Boys,’” I add, “Yoko sings: ‘Please never be afraid to cry... / Don’t ever be afraid to fly... / Don’t be afraid to be afraid.’ “
between the two, mainly opting for the macho side, because if you showed the other side, you were dead.”
“Yes, it’s beautiful. I’m often afraid, and I’m not afraid to be afraid, though it’s always scary. But it’s more painful to try not to be yourself. People spend a lot of time trying to be somebody else, and I think it leads to terrible diseases. Maybe you get cancer or something. A lot of tough guys die of cancer, have you noticed? Wayne, McQueen. I think it has something to do -- I don’t know, I’m not an expert -- with constantly living or getting trapped in an image or an illusion of themselves, suppressing some part of themselves, whether it’s the feminine side or the fearful side.
“On Double Fantasy,” I say, “your song ‘Woman’ sounds a bit like a troubadour poem written to a medieval lady.”
“I’m well aware of that, because I come from the macho school of pretense. I was never really a street kid or a tough guy. I used to dress like a Teddy boy and identify with Marlon Brando and Elvis Presley, but I was never really in any street fights or down-home gangs. I was just a suburban kid, imitating the rockers. But it was a big part of one’s life to look tough. I spent the whole of my childhood with shoulders up around the top of me head and me glasses off because glasses were sissy, and walking in complete fear, but with the toughest-looking little face you’ve ever seen. I’d get into trouble just because of the way I looked; I wanted to be this tough James Dean all the time. It took a lot of wrestling to stop doing that. I still fall into it when I get insecure. I still drop into that I’m-a-street-kid stance, but I have to keep remembering that I never really was one.” “Carl Jung once suggested that people are made up of a thinking side, a feeling side, an intuitive side and a sensual side,” I mention. “Most people never really develop their weaker sides and concentrate on the stronger ones, but you seem to have done the former.” “I think that’s what feminism is all about,” John replies. “That’s what Yoko has taught me. I couldn’t have done it alone; it had to be a female to teach me. That’s it. Yoko has been telling me all the time, ‘It’s all right, it’s all right.’ I look at early pictures of meself, and I was torn between being Marlon Brando and being the sensitive poet -- the Oscar Wilde part of me with the velvet, feminine side. I was always torn
“’Woman’ came about because, one sunny afternoon in Bermuda, it suddenly hit me. I saw what women do for us. Not just what my Yoko does for me, although I was thinking in those personal terms. Any truth is universal. If we’d made our album in the third person and called it Freda and Ada or Tommy and had dressed up in clown suits with lipstick and created characters other than us, maybe a Ziggy Stardust, would it be more acceptable? It’s not our style of art; our life is our art.... Anyway, in Bermuda, what suddenly dawned on me was everything I was taking for granted. Women really are the other half of the sky, as I whisper at the beginning of the song. And it just sort of hit me like a flood, and it came out like that. The song reminds me of a Beatles track, but I wasn’t trying to make it sound like that. I did it as I did ‘Girl’ many years ago. So this is the grown-up version of ‘Girl.’ “People are always judging you, or criticizing what you’re trying to say on one little album, on one little song, but to me it’s a lifetime’s work. From the boyhood paintings and poetry to when I die -- it’s all part of one big production. And I don’t have to announce that this album is part of a larger work; if it isn’t obvious, then forget it. But I did put a little clue on the beginning of the record -- the bells... the bells on ‘Starting Over.’ The head of the album, if anybody is interested, is a wishing bell of Yoko’s. And it’s like the beginning of ‘Mother’ on the Plastic Ono album, which had a very slow death bell. So it’s taken a long time to get from a slow church death bell to this sweet little wishing bell. And that’s the connection. To me, my work is one piece.” “All the way through your work, John, there’s this incredibly strong notion about inspiring people to be themselves and to come together and try to change things. I’m thinking here, obviously, of songs like ‘Give Peace a Chance,’ ‘Power to the People’ and ‘Happy Xmas.”
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John Lennon & Sean, NYC, 1980
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Interviews
“It’s still there,” John replies. “If you look on the vinyl around the new album’s (the twelveinch single ‘Just Like Starting Over’) logo -which all the kids have done already all over the world from Brazil to Australia to Poland, anywhere that gets the record -- inside is written: ONE WORLD, ONE PEOPLE. So we continue. “I get truly affected by letters from Brazil or Poland or Austria -- places I’m not conscious of all the time -- just to know somebody is there, listening. One kid living up in Yorkshire wrote this heartfelt letter about being both Oriental and English and identifying with John and Yoko. The odd kid in the class. There are a lot of those kids who identify with us. They don’t need the history of rock & roll. They identify with us as a couple, a biracial couple, who stand for love, peace, feminism and the positive things of the world. “You know, give peace a chance, not shoot people for peace. All we need is love. I believe it. It’s damn hard, but I absolutely believe it. We’re not the first to say, ‘Imagine no countries’ or ‘Give peace a chance,’ but we’re carrying that torch, like the Olympic torch, passing it from hand to hand, to each other, to each country, to each generation. That’s our job. We have to conceive an idea before we can do it. “I’ve never claimed divinity. I’ve never claimed purity of soul. I’ve never claimed to have the answer to life. I only put out songs and answer questions as honestly as I can, but only as honestly as I can -- no more, no less. I cannot live up to other people’s expectations of me because they’re illusionary. And the people who want more than I am, or than Bob Dylan is, or than Mick Jagger is... “Take Mick, for instance. Mick’s put out consistently good work for twenty years, and will they give him a break? Will they ever say, ‘Look at him, he’s Number One, he’s thirty-six and he’s put out a beautiful song, “Emotional Rescue,” it’s up there.’ I enjoyed it, lots of people enjoyed it. So it goes up and down, up and down. God help Bruce Springsteen when they decide he’s no longer God. I haven’t seen him -- I’m not a great in-person watcher -- but I’ve heard such good things about him. Right now, his fans are happy. He’s told them about being
drunk and chasing girls and cars and everything, and that’s about the level they enjoy. But when he gets down to facing his own success and growing older and having to produce it again and again, they’ll turn on him, and I hope he survives it. All he has to do is look at me and Mick.... I cannot be a punk in Hamburg and Liverpool anymore. I’m older now. I see the world through different eyes. I still believe in love, peace and understanding, as Elvis Costello said, and what’s so funny about love, peace and understanding?” “There’s another aspect of your work, which has to do with the way you continuously question what’s real and what’s illusory, such as in ‘Look at Me,’ your beautiful new ‘Watching the Wheels’ -- what are those wheels, by the way? -- and, of course, ‘Strawberry Fields Forever,’ in which you sing: ‘Nothing is real.’” “Watching the wheels?” John asks. “The whole universe is a wheel, right? Wheels go round and round. They’re my own wheels, mainly. But, you know, watching meself is like watching everybody else. And I watch meself through my child, too. Then, in a way, nothing is real, if you break the word down. As the Hindus or Buddhists say, it’s an illusion, meaning all matter is floating atoms, right? It’s Rashomon. We all see it, but the agreed-upon illusion is what we live in. And the hardest thing is facing yourself. It’s easier to shout ‘Revolution’ and ‘Power to the people’ than it is to look at yourself and try to find out what’s real inside you and what isn’t, when you’re pulling the wool over your own eyes. That’s the hardest one. “I used to think that the world was doing it to me and that the world owed me something, and that either the conservatives or the socialists or the fascists or the communists or the Christians or the Jews were doing something to me; and when you’re a teenybopper, that’s what you think. I’m forty now. I don’t think that anymore, ‘cause I found out it doesn’t fucking work! The thing goes on anyway, and all you’re doing is jacking off, screaming about what your mommy or daddy or society did, but one has to go through that. For the people who even bother to go through that -- most assholes just accept what is and get on with it, right? -- but for the few of us who did question what was
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going on.... I have found out personally -- not for the whole world! -- that I am responsible for it, as well as them. I am part of them. There’s no separation; we’re all one, so in that respect, I look at it all and think, ‘Ah, well, I have to deal with me again in that way. What is real? What is the illusion I’m living or not living?’ And I have to deal with it every day. The layers of the onion. But that is what it’s all about. “The last album I did before Double Fantasy was Rock ‘n’ Roll, with a cover picture of me in Hamburg in a leather jacket. At the end of making that record, I was finishing up a track that Phil Spector had made me sing called ‘Just Because,’ which I really didn’t know -all the rest I’d done as a teenager, so I knew them backward -- and I couldn’t get the hang of it. At the end of that record -- I was mixing it just next door to this very studio -- I started spieling and saying, ‘And so we say farewell from the Record Plant,’ and a little thing in the back of my mind said, ‘Are you really saying farewell?’ I hadn’t thought of it then. I was still separated from Yoko and still hadn’t had the baby, but somewhere in the back was a voice that was saying, ‘And are you saying farewell to the whole game?’ “It just flashed by like that -- like a premonition. I didn’t think of it until a few years later, Jack Douglas, coproducer of Double Fantasy, has arrived and is overseeing the mix of Yoko’s songs. It’s 2:30 in the morning, but John and I continue to talk until four as Yoko naps on a studio couch. John speaks of his plans for touring with Yoko and the band that plays on Double Fantasy; of his enthusiasm for making more albums; of his happiness about living in New York City, where, unlike England or Japan, he can raise his son without racial prejudice; of his memory of the first rock & roll song he ever wrote (a takeoff on the Dell Vikings ‘Come Go with Me,’ in which he changed the lines to: “Come come come come / Come and go with me / To the peni-tentiary”), of the things he has learned on his many trips around the world during the past five years. As he walks me to the elevator, I tell him how exhilarating it is to see Yoko and him looking and sounding so well. “I love her, and we’re together,” he says. “Goodbye, till next time.” After all is really said and done / The two of us are really one,” John Lennon sings inwhen I realized that I had
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actually stopped recording. I came across the cover photo -- the original picture of me in my leather jacket, leaning against the wall in Hamburg in 1962 -- and I thought, ‘Is this it? Do I start where I came in, with ‘Be-Bop-A-Lula’?’ The day I met Paul I was singing that song for the first time onstage. There’s a photo in all the Beatles books -- a picture of me with a checked shirt on, holding a little acoustic guitar -- and I am singing ‘Be-Bop-A-Lula,’ just as I did on that album, and there’s a picture in Hamburg and I’m saying goodbye from the Record Plant. “Sometimes you wonder, I mean really wonder. I know we make our own reality and we always have a choice, but how much is preordained? Is there always a fork in the road and are there two preordained paths that are equally preordained? There could be hundreds of paths where one could go this way or that way -- there’s a choice and it’s very strange sometimes... And that’s a good ending for our interview.” ‘Dear Yoko,’ a song inspired by Buddy Holly, who himself knew something about true love’s ways.” People asking questions lost in confusion / Well I tell them there’s no problem, only solutions,” sings John in ‘Watching the Wheels,’ a song about getting off the merry-go-round, about letting it go. In the tarot, the Fool is distinguished from other cards because it is not numbered, suggesting that the Fool is outside movement and change. It has been written, the Fool and the clown play the part of scapegoats in the ritual sacrifice of humans. John and Yoko have never given up being Holy Fools. In a recent Playboy interview, Yoko, responding to a reference to other notables who had been interviewed in that magazine, said: “People like Carter represent only their country. John and I represent the world.” I am sure many readers must have snickered. But three nights after our conversation, the death of John Lennon revealed Yoko’s statement to be astonishingly true. “Come together over me,” John had sung, and people everywhere in the world came together. (End of Interview)
Interviews
YOKO: “‘COME TOGETHER OVER ME,’ JOHN SUNG, AND PEOPLE EVERYWHERE IN THE WORLD CAME TOGETHER.” Transcribed by www. beatlesinterviews.org from orginal magazine issue
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The Beatles last photoshoot together
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Essay
Published
BRITISHNESS March 23, 2015
Evaluate depictions of Britishness in the songs of the Beatles and 1990’s Brit pop groups and discuss the relation between politics and music. A feature that is evident in the music of the Beatles from 1966 on wards is the way in which they use representations of everyday British cultural life. Such representations are not contained to the latter of the Beatles work but do take on a much more important role in the way the music is formed and words are written.
NATIONAL IDENTITY IN MUSIC AND WHAT IT MEANS TO BE BRITISH. What does it mean to be British? Freedom? Democracy? Trial by jury? Freedom of speech? Acceptance? Tolerance? White? It would seem that politicians were unaware of what it meant until it started to fall away from us and deteriorate. The national flag, the ‘Union Jack’ or ‘Union Flag’, is not a proud flag that we as one nation unite under as the Americans do with the ‘Star-Spangled Banner’. A regulation was previously in place across government that meant the Union Jack could only be flown 18 fixed days a year on government buildings (The governance of Britain green paper 2007). A regulation now waved. The government for specific forms of the military reserves the flag. It is used by the Royal Navy and as a way to display the rank of admiral of the fleet, which is the reason why it is still illegal for a civilian ship to fly it. In war time Britain we were defined by our one nation joining together to fight for a common purpose. The common man was out fighting against an evil dictatorship. We had one of the most advanced Naval forces in the world bringing technology in Britain to the forefront and an outstanding air force, which repelled an overwhelming German attack at the Battle of Britain. But in the 64 years since the end of world war two Britain has seen many changes in its cultural make up. America has had a very powerful influence over the music we lis-
ten to, the way we dress and eat and we seek to replicate their dominant cultural traditions (Mundy 1999). We have seen an influx in the number of immigrants coming to Britain to live and work. Injecting a little of their culture into our own. Furthermore, the industries such as the ship building in Glasgow and Liverpool, the shoe factories in Northampton and the steal works in Scunthorpe and Sheffield have all but disappeared. The traditions that shaped the country and gave it international acclaim and recognition have been lost to overseas countries that have the technology to produce it cheaper. I will revise the sociological aspects of our changing culture later and analyse whether British society has changed over the years and if this has made Brit Pop differ from music of the 1960’s. For now I will touch upon music and national identity and the reasons for national patriotism. Music has long been a fundamental tool in the study and assembly of national identities. Its intricate framework has been studied in great depth. Possibly one of the most obvious ways in which music is amalgamated with national identity is the national anthem. It provides an opportunity for people to obtain a state of deep heart felt emotion towards their country and is used in Britain before various sporting events, before the Queen’s Christmas Message and in the event of a royal announcement or death. Perhaps the oldest form of national pride is found in ‘folk music’, commonly described as an accurate look at a way of life
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as it was or a life about to fade away. Richard Middleton explains the real meaning of folk music well. ‘The Romantics, who originated the concept, often thought of ‘the people’ in the sense of a national essence. Or ‘ and this later became more common ‘ they thought of a particular part of the people, a lower layer, or even class.’ Middleton’s thoughts therefore could be applied to Brit Pop. With the eighties at an end, Margaret Thatcher’s government leaving record unemployment rates of 3 million unemployed, factories closed and there were cuts in spending. Things looked bleak and it was hard for young people to get a job. In the nineties Brit Pop, backed by this 60’s inspired form of pop/rock with the qualities of folk music, exploded onto the scene. Artists such as Damon Albarn from Blur were writing songs that echoed issues regarding the lower classes and once again music was recognizable as being British. It is vital to understand what this British sound consists of and more importantly where it came from and who pioneered it. I will now go on to discuss the Beatles development as British artists and their everlasting and footprint on music. DEVELOPING A BRITISH SOUND The Beatles were the first of a selection of bands from the 1960’s to start a movement called the ‘British Invasion’. The name ‘British Invasion’ was invented by the press to describe
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NOTHING AFFECTED ME UNTIL I HEARD ELVIS. IF THERE HADN’T BEEN ELVIS, THERE WOULD BE NO BEATLES.
British bands that travelled to America and made a name for themselves. This all began in 1964 with the appearance of the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show but was continually used to describe many British bands who made a huge impact on the American music market. Namely the Rolling Stones, The Who, The Small Faces, The Yardbirds and The Kinks with the Beatles making the largest impact. The Beatles cannot be so neatly categorised as the archetypal British band, as their style is
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so eclectic and borrows from many different cultures. Early on in their career, the band had been mainly focused on writing songs about love and the loss of a love with not much indication of Britishness in the lyrics but there were a few facts that made their style stand out from their American competitors. One such fact is the accent the group sang with. In the early 1960’s, radio was populated with simple two-minute pop songs from American artists like Elvis Presley and British artists who sounded American like Cliff Richard and the Shadows. However, Lennon and McCartney were singing songs like ‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand’ with a British accent. The Beatles were different, fusing exciting melodies with classical harmonies and a guitar sound that was full bodied and dominant. This brand new sound was one that defined the British sound of the sixties. When one says ‘sound of the sixties’ it really means the period from 1963-1970, the Beatles era. Between 1955 and 1963 would be described as the sound of the fifties (Zarecki 2007) 1. The Beatles changed music to a point that a child growing up in the 60’s would call the records of the 50’s ‘oldies’, a word still used today to describe the same records (Wald 2009). The musical education the Beatles received can be traced back as far as the mid 1930’s when Robert Johnson, kindly named the ‘Grandfather of Rock n’ Roll’, was recording the blues/rock tracks which would be an inspiration for artists like the Memphis born B.B. King who in turn was greatly admired by another king, Elvis Presley. Elvis forged the rock n’ roll sound of the fifties that the Beatles loved. They covered many songs by Chuck Berry and Little Richard during their time in Hamburg in the early 1960’s. John Lennon is famously quoted as saying, ‘Nothing really affected me until I heard Elvis. If there hadn’t been Elvis, there would not have been The Beatles’ But there was more to the Beatles sound. Although most of their influences came from America, they were not a band trying to replicate the American sound. Harmonies that the band integrated into songs were reminiscent of early Motown records and the Everly Brothers provided a strong influence when it came to producing close harmonies, where the notes of a chord are sang within a narrow range.
Essay
Influences of the Beatles were not confined to what had come before them. Throughout their career they continued to remain open to new influences. Paul McCartney sites one of his favourite albums as the 1966 album ‘Pet Sounds’ by the Beach Boys and talks about it’s importance over the idea for creating the Beatles 1967 album ‘Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band’. ‘It was Pet Sounds that blew me out of the water. I love the album so much’that, I think, was probably the big influence that set me thinking when we recorded Pepper’ The Beatles were at the vanguard from 1966 onwards when music began to progress from the pop/rock love songs into something altogether more experimental and risky. Looking at the memoirs of Kate Paul (2000) makes it clear the significance art school training had on new artists, fashion and music. It was becoming more common for teenagers to attend Art School and this training is said to have shifted the thinking behind the writing of many bands and change British music forever. As musical ideas were changing so was the way people were thinking about art. Music and art were becoming more abstract and new and radical thinking was being poured into both. In 1961, a group of artists graduated from the Royal College of Art including David Hockey and Patrick Caulfield. 2 This pair along with other young artists put the Pop Art style on the map. The style quickly became very popular and the artists involved in it’s production became fashionable celebrities receiving much notification in the press. By 1968 for the very first time in the Twentieth Century, London had risen to become the world focus in art and Britain the focus for new and innovative art and music. Pop Art was not solely the reason for the popularity of the art scene in London. It was very diverse, and more artists were turning their hand to abstraction, which involved more gestural marks, block colours and interesting shapes. Sculpture also went through a great transformation in the sixties with sculptors such as Anthony Caro 3, whose interest in shape and colour came straight from America. Gone were the days of bronzed statues on plinths, now it was all about sheet metal and plastic arranged on the floor in amazing shapes. This environment of such an eclectic mix of artists and so much competition would
1 When one says ‘sound of the sixties’ it really means the period from
2 The Royal College of Art or RCA is a public research university in London, in the United Kingdom.
3 Anthony Caro was an english abstract sculptor whose work is characterised by assemblages of metal using ‘found’ industrial objects.
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have forced students to think in an original way. Just as artists were using new materials to create their work, musicians like the Beatles were using new instruments such as the Indian Sitar and using new techniques like playing tape recordings in reverse to create never before heard sounds. George Martin often said that John Lennon would enter the studio every morning with the intent of sounding different to yesterday. John Lennon attended Liverpool Art College with friend and short term ‘fifth’ Beatle Stuart Sutcliffe. 4 John was always a disruptive pupil and continued to be through art school. Although John failed an annual exam and eventually dropped out of art school before his final year the impact it made would stay with him, encouraging him to push the boundaries and keep his music inspirational and contemporary. John always had a devoted interest in the art world, even deep into the Beatles experimental career. Their use of orchestral scores accompanied only by voice, three part harmonies and psychedelic arrangements would stand to become a major influence to Brit Pop bands. This entwined with the shifting context of the Beatles lyrics would shape the music of the late 60’s and prove to be the very essence of what Brit Pop came to embody. The most noticeable example of this experimental and contemporary writing is found in the album ‘Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band’. Released in June 1967 ‘Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band’ 5 was a groundbreaking album that combined revolutionary engineering and musical techniques. It is believed to be the first ‘concept’ album and also the first album to print the lyrics to the songs on the sleeve. All the songs on the album except possibly George Harrisons experimental ‘Within you without you’ either lyrically or musically express a sense of British culture. Sgt Peppers is steeped in images of brass bands playing in bandstands, Punch and Judy, cream teas, donkey rides and naughty postcards. In ‘When I’m Sixty four’, Paul McCartney gives us a description of what life can be like growing old in Britain. He talks of going for a drive on a Sunday, doing some gardening and renting a cottage in the Isle of Wight, ‘If it’s not too dear’. ‘Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite’ arouses clear images of the great British past time of the circus and also creates a joyous atmosphere with the merry go round
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sound playing along with the main organ melody. This effect was created when producer George Martin told engineer Geoff Emerick to splice up old Victorian tapes of organ music and throw them into the air. He was then ordered to piece the tapes back together in a completely random order to create an energetic looping sound (Martin 2008). The images Lennon and McCartney present in a lot of their songs make it hard for the listener to fully understand the content. Their writing would often stumble into the surreal, and perplexing words would be used to compliment the music. Some of their music however, seems to be more clear in the way it comments and
LENNON AND MCCARTNEY MAKE SOME SONGS HARD FOR THE LISTENER TO FULLY UNDERSTAND THE CONTENT.
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often ridicules observations of ordinary British cultural life. In the final track on the Sgt Pepper album, ‘A Day in the Life’, this trait seems to be evident. The lyrics were inspired by two newspaper articles and contain many haunting but also some quite comical images. Within the song Lennon mentions three distinct British places, The House of Commons, Blackburn in Lancashire and the Royal Albert Hall. In the first verse John talks loosely about the death of Tara Browne the Guinness heir who died in a car crash. Lennon said, ‘I didn’t copy the accident. Tara didn’t blow his mind out, but it was in my mind when I was writing that verse’. The Line ‘They’d seen his face before/Nobody was really sure if he was from the House of Lords’ refers to the British public turning what should be a solemn moment into some cheap excitement. Some people in the crowd may know the individual involved in the car crash as a face on television or in a newspaper but he is no more than that. The second verse came from a newspaper article concerning the state of the roads in Blackburn 6 which Lennon jokes could fill the Albert Hall. This type of ironic and sarcastic view of Britain was commonly found in John Lennon’s writing. Andy Bennett writes, ‘Tracks like ‘A Day in the Life’, are clearly meant to be seen, in part at least, as satirical commentaries on aspects of British society.
Essay
Lennon’s descriptions of the slavish counting of the holes in the streets of Blackburn, and’to the double life led by politicians’would appear not merely to poke fun at British society but also to criticize it.’ On the other hand, the song ‘Penny Lane’ doesn’t appear to criticize British culture but instead runs like a commentary of what can be seen. ‘Penny Lane’ was written by Paul McCartney and released alongside ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ as a double-A side single in 1967. It was common practice to release singles that were not on the album at the time. George Martin always believed it wasn’t fair to the public that singles should come from the album. The title ‘Penny Lane’ 7 came from a street in the bands hometown of Liverpool. Lennon and McCartney would often meet at Penny Lane Junction to catch a bus into the centre of town and had met up with friends around the area as teenagers. Penny lane is a study of the humdrum lives of people, evoking feelings of blissful memories and describing the ordinary sights and sounds of a suburban British neighbourhood. ‘Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes/There beneath the blue suburban skies’. During this line a brass section plays a small musical fill coupled together with McCartney’s quaint English tone to create an altogether exultant sound. This song, different from ‘A Day in the Life’, has a strong feeling today of harking back to a happier and simpler Britain now lost and forgotten. The man who has popped into the barbers for a shave, the fireman who carries a picture of the queen in his pocket and the standard procedure of carrying an hourglass now seem long-gone. It’s a song that takes the listener on a ride and brings up various emotions ranging from nostalgia to a pride of Britain during the piccolo trumpet solo and to laughter at the sexual slang of the time ‘A four of fish and finger pie’. The qualities found in both these Beatles songs can also be found in songs from other British bands from the 1960’s. The Small Faces song ‘Rene’ tells the unpleasant tale of a woman parading the quayside every night to welcome sailors from Kuala Lumpur who have docked with plenty of ‘readies’ (ready money) to spend at the pub having a good time. While ‘Lazy Sunday’ rebels against the neighbours that complain when Steve Marriott and his friends play their music loud. The Small faces songs ‘Rene’ and ‘Lazy
4 Stuart Sutcliffe was a painter and musician best known as the original bass guitarist for the Beatles.
7 ‘Penny Lane’ won a Grammy Hall of Fame award because of it’s lasting qualitative or historical significance.
5 Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is the eighth studio album by the English rock band the Beatles. It won a Grammy Award for Album of the Year.
6 It is sometimes referred to as the Devil’s Highway or the Devil’s Road because of Biblical associations of its number 666, and its high accident rate on the moors between Egerton and Darwen.
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Sunday’ are both sung in ridiculously thick Cockney accents and seem almost to make fun of their London ancestry. The same examination can be made in the music of The Kinks who gave us their keenly observed satires ‘A Well Respected Man’ and ‘Dedicated Follower of Fashion’ (which lampooned the characters of Carnaby Street in swinging London). THE CONTRAST OF BRITPOP In the early 1990’s Britpop emerged fusing new British ideals with the pop music of the 1960’s. The two main aims of Britpop were to drown out the electronic sound of the eighties and to react against the grunge sound of Nirvana and Pearl Jam. Britpop 8 made British alternative rock mainstream and formed the foundations for a larger British cultural movement called ‘Cool Britannia’. This phrase, a pun on the patriotic song ‘Rule, Britannia’, was first used as a song title by the ‘Bonzo dog Doo Dah Band’ in 1967. It emerged in the 1990’s as the name of one of the company Ben and Jerry’s ice cream flavours. The name came about through a competition the company were running. An American lawyer living in London named Sarah Moynihan-Williams won with her suggestion and recipe for ‘Cool Britannia’, which was in relation to the New Labour era. The media quickly picked up on this term, and seeing a young Prime minister in power and the fashionable nature of London at the time gave the idea new scope. Looking now at the representations of Britishness in the music of Britpop bands from the 1990’s presents a different argument. The Beatles and other bands from the same era such as The Kinks and The Small Faces heavily influenced Brit Pop. Musical pioneers of the nineties such as Blur, Pulp and Oasis completely dropped the synthesizers and the electric drums of the eighties and began creating music with full guitars and raw drumming. The orchestral and brass band instruments were introduced once again to achieve the complete British sound of the 1960’s. An example of this resurrection can be established through the Blur song ‘Sunday Sunday’. The song featured on the apt 1993 album ‘ Modern Life is Rubbish’, features a trumpet solo that could easily have been found on any later Beatles track. The lyrics in the first verse read much
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like a social commentary with lines such as ‘You read the colour supplement, the T.V. guide’ and ‘Together the family round the table’. Both bring to mind visions of a quiet ordinary Sunday at home with the family. The second verse however mentions a walk in the park where the writer meets a soldier who fought in both world wars and says, ‘The England he knew is no more’. Quite unlike the interpretation of a British Sunday morning the second verse takes a nostalgic look back with a conceivable chance of the soldier appearing as a metaphor for a Britain that used to be. Britpop resonated with a sound of the past. Singers and back up singers were producing exciting harmonies like the ones found on the Oasis record ‘Cast no shadow’. Artists were being commended for their song writing abilities and musical talent unlike the dry and dreary song-writing period of the eighties, which featured Duran Duran, Gary Newman and Depeche mode. The ‘mod’ subculture of the 60’s also became popular again. People began growing their hair with the Beatles various styles in mind. Jarvis Cocker from the band ‘Pulp’ used to wear suits which echoed the mod style. 9 The Who’s manager Pete Meaden once famously described modism by saying, “Modism, mod living, is an aphorism for clean living under difficult circumstances” Not everyone believed that Britpop reminisced of a past idea of Britishness. Some suggested that bands crafted an entirely new image altogether, focusing on ‘an attitude based not on a nostalgic Carry On Mr Kipling Britain, but a Britain that you will recognise as the one you live in’ (Jones 1994). Undoubtedly the song ‘Girls and Boys’ which is performed in front of a club 18-30’s holiday backdrop with its subject matter of casual sex is one which is more contemporary rather than the wistful longing for old England found in Sunday Sunday. Also, Oasis’s accounts of throwing up on a Sunday and their wild views that cigarettes, alcohol and drugs are a remedy for a dull, ordinary life may have appealed to the young generation of the 1990’s but it was miles apart from the Beatles idealized and glamorized version of Britain. It appears that this type of topical writing is in the minority and more songs relate to similar representations conjured up by the Beatles in the 1960’s. There is another area that is imperative to study when analysing
Essay
depictions of Britain and that is the view created through the music video. THE BEATLES AND THE BIRTH OF THE MUSIC VIDEO One main important difference in the way in which music is presented in the 1990’s is the availability of the music video, which further enhances depictions of Britishness. The Birth of the music video may to some be credited to the band ‘Queen’. 10 In November 1975 due to tour commitments they could not appear on Top of The Pops and so produced a video to promote their new single ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. But as much as a decade before, the Beatles were generating videos to be broadcast on television shows all over the world. In 1996, with the release of the Beatles Anthology film box set, George Harrison received an interview and in relation to the promotional video made for the song ‘Rain’ he made the statement: ‘So I suppose, in a way, we invented MTV’
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GEORGE HARRISON: I SUPPOSE, IN A WAY, WE INVENTED MTV.
Now that the music video is fast becoming an art form in itself it is interesting to analyze how Lennon and McCartney’s influence on the British social commentary style of writing transposed into video format. I will begin by analysing the reflection of Britain the Beatles achieved through their use of video and the reasons for them depicting society in this way, then I will compare this to the music video’s in the 1990’s. The first Beatles film was released in 1964 entitled ‘A Hard Day’s Night’. 11 With prospects of an accompanying soundtrack album, the film was released as a way to make more money from the bands growing success. As Bob Neaverson said: ‘The project was initially envisaged by the American-owned company as little more than another low budget exploitation picture which would capitalize on the group’s fleeting success with the teenage market’ No matter which way it is looked at, the decision to release a Beatles film came about because of a money making business deal. Although it turned out much more was achieved
10 Queen are a British rock band that formed in London in 1970.
8 Britpop is a subgenre of pop rock and alternative rock, that originated in the UK. It describes the musical and cultural movement in the mid 1990s which emphasized “Britishness” in its music and attitude.
9 Mod is a subculture that began in 1960s Britain and spread, in varying degrees, to other countries and continues today on a smaller scale.
11 One of the greatest rock-and-roll comedy adventures ever The film takes on the just-left-of-reality style of mock-documentary, following “a day in the life” of John, Paul, George, and Ringo as fame takes them by storm.
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than simply money. Director Richard Lester broke rules that had been associated with the pop music format since the 1950’s. To begin, one of the opening scenes is filmed in an unconventional train carriage, a setting with no musical connection. His use of free hand documentary filming not only added excitement and energy but also made the viewer feel as if he or she were in the film closely interacting with the band. This made the Beatles able to be shown as the ‘guys next-door’, seemingly unaffected by fame, instead of fictional characters. Whereas realism had already been established in British films through the working class genre known as ‘kitchen sink’ drama with films like ‘The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner’ (1962) and ‘A Taste of Honey’ (1961), A Hard Days Night was the first music video to incorporate this into it’s style and content. This working class image was an important factor that shone through the films of the Beatles. In a time when all well-known artists were predominantly imported, any British act doing significantly well was a joy. The bands natural working class attitudes coupled together with their down to earth, oblivious out look on fame only endeared them to the British public who Neaverson says, ‘upheld them as symbols of the new social mobility and ‘classlessness’ of sixties Britain’. In this sense, this approach broke down barriers and was vital to the modernization of British national identity in the 1960’s. Having looked at how the Beatles became symbols for a cultural shift I will now investigate how music videos in the 1990’s adapted the skills that Richard Lester put into practice and decide if the substance of the video is similar to that of Lennon and McCartney’s writing. One such video that involves strong British connotations is ‘Park Life’ by Blur. 12 It is a song that lyrically documents parts of British life with examples including being wakened by the dustmen, cups of tea and feeding the pigeons. Although these are very banal actions the visuals found in the video take on a different, more contemporary feel. In the video actor Phil Daniels plays a creepy door-to-door double-glazing salesman driving around in his Ford Granada Coupe Mk1. It seems at times that the video is not related to the song until the rapid images of British life ‘ the row of terraced houses, the red post boxes, the arrival
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of the ice cream van and the playful nature of the band meeting up with friends in 90’s style attire spinning each other in a trolley crop up. In many ways the video resonates with a feeling not to dissimilar from Penny Lane, which I mentioned earlier. This parallel is continued through the use of characters in the video - the man with the four King Charles dogs, the fat man in the shirt and braces, the jogger and the couple sprawled across their sports car with their names printed above the driver’s and passenger’s window. These are visually very interesting characters and like McCartney’s fireman; banker and nurse could easily be fantastic characters in a book of British cultural life. The Park Life music video is obviously based around actual everyday encounters experienced by Damon Albarn that have been tweaked to appear more surreal much the same format as the lyrics take on in the song. USING POP MUSIC TO PROMOTE POLITICAL INTERESTS Popular music has long been associated with showing dissatisfaction or opposition with the government and the government has always shown an interest in securing for itself a stake in the management of powerful bands. Conversely, today in China, leader Hu Jintao has spoken out frequently about building a ‘harmonious society’. He has great power and influence over the media, mainly monitoring everything that is broadcast on the radio. The government’s ideas to create harmony are through censorship of the media. All music heard on Chinese radio consists of love songs or upbeat ballads. These gentle songs are not damaging to China’s image of a stable and harmonious country. Pop and Pop/Rock songs where politics, rebellion and casual sex are the themes are disregarded for fear of a revolution. The state cannot completely censor music they find harmful, although they do have complete ownership of all broadcasting media giving them a loophole through which they can have the majority rule. Chinese people believe the popular music they hear on the radio all sounds the same and if you’ve heard one song you know them all. Even musicians asked to submit songs for the Olympic games in Beijing were too worried to write anything with fear of
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going against the state policies. In this example the state is controlling the music. They are keeping a lid on the pot of society to prevent the revolution inside over spilling. In addition something that is so carefully prohibited may incite curiosity within youths of any culture and a notion to rebel will ensue. An example of this use of music to revolt was apparent in Germany during world war two. If music can be said to be associated with nationalism and national identity then it can also be criticized for supposed destabilization of the nations culture. During world war two, young German music fans sought after the British and American way of life and defined themselves through the music of Swing. Although they were not an organised political opposition group, they refused the culture of National Socialism. The group made such an impact in 1941 that the Gestapo violently repressed them and police ordered anyone under the age of 21 to stay out of dance bars (Whiteley, Bennett and Hawkins 2005). Whether a connection is made as a shared goal for public popularity or a way to manipulate or even to revolt, music and politics have a bond. Throughout the 1960’s and again in the 1990’s political groups created a connection with pop stars of the time. In 1965, current Prime Minister Harold Wilson showed he was ‘in touch’ with the younger generation by awarding the Beatles with the honour of an MBE. 13 It proved a popular move with young people. This move did however spark some controversy. Protestors and picketers who had received the award for military service showed their displeasure towards Harold Wilson but there were too few of them to make any real impact. Attackers thought it a clever and crafty plan to solicit votes for the next year’s general election but defenders argued the fan base of the Beatles were generally under the age of 21, too young to vote at the time. In any case, bestowing an MBE on the Beatles showed that Harold Wilson was a modern leader willing to embrace new ideas and be part of a contemporary Britain that culturally, the Beatles were helping to shape. A year later George Harrison would write the song ‘Taxman’ 14 as a retort to the 95% super taxes introduced by Harold Wilson and even included a harmony within the song incorporating his name. John Blacking argues that, ‘Cultural politics, the use
13 The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is the “order of chivalry of British constitutional monarchy”, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations and public service.
12 ‘Park Life’ won many awards including Brit Award for British Video, Brit Award for British Single, NME Award for Best Music Video.
14 Released as the opening track on the Beatles’ 1966 album Revolver. Its lyrics attack the high levels of progressive tax taken by the British Labour government.
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of culture and the arts to promote political interests, invariably exploits and contains the power of music ‘to restrict political argument. It diverts attention from the real political issues or simply asserts the hegemony of its promoters’ (Blacking) On the other hand, not all people would agree with John Blacking’s statement. Some believe that in the right hands music can open up avenues and make people pay attention to various issues. Khaver Siddiqi would argue that, ‘In an era where politics uses as many avenues it can to reach the people, it is ultimately the words of song and rhyme that will attract the attention more, than speeches ever will.’ (Siddiqi 2009) This thought can be put into practice if we look at the issues of race in the 1960’s. In 1968 James Brown wrote a song called ‘Say it Loud (I’m Black and I’m Proud)’ 15 that become a very successful ‘black power’ anthem. It was a racially chaotic period during the 1960’s and this song filled black Americans with pride. This elevated Brown to the status of icon and also made him the face for a movement that shaped the 1960’s. In 1997, after a period of predominantly conservative power in Britain, a new Prime Minister was elected, Tony Blair, who would bring about New Labour and a government seemingly interested in music. We saw the departure of an old fashioned, grey haired conservative party, obviously uninterested with music and the arrival of a Prime Minister who was in the rock band ‘Ugly Rumours’. 16 This idea first emerged in an article in a Surrey newspaper, published in December of 2004, claiming the Prime Minister had ran a rock promotions
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party at 10 Downing Street. 17 If stars such as Noel Gallagher would turn up to enjoy the company of the Prime Minister then more people would sit up and listen to him. Just being seen with such celebrities boosted his status and shrowded him in mystery. These allegiances were cleverly made to boost Blair’s appeal and make him more popular with a wider voting public. A working class party was in power and working class bands were very popular. A monthly music magazine being published in the late nineties called ‘Select’ had an eight-page poster pullout section every month. After the celebrity party at Downing Street, editor, John Harris, insisted there be a double page in the section of Tony Blair’s smiling face surrounded by a gold frame. That issue sold over 65,000 copies and in response to the portrait of the then new Prime Minister there was not one letter of complaint. He had become a Brit pop celebrity. Things had changed from the 1980’s where bands were generally counter-cultural and completely against the Margaret Thatcher way and now were happy to be completely in the centre of the mainstream. Damien Albarn once said, ‘Who wants to be an indie noise-freak, alienating everybody? We want to make music our Grandmothers like.’
THE BEATLES WERE GENERATING VIDEOS TO BE BROADCAST ON TELEVISION SHOWS ALL OVER THE WORLD.
company. He would put on shows for teenagers in a Richmond church hall. He has often been photographed with a guitar in hand and clearly likes this image of the free spirited Bob Dylan figure. Not too dissimilar from Harold Wilson’s approach of appealing to a younger voting audience, he invited Noel Gallagher and Mick Hucknall to a celebratory drinks
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17 10 Downing Street, colloquially known in the United Kingdom as “Number 10”, is the headquarters of Her Majesty’s Government and the official residence and office of the First Lord of the Treasury.
15 The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame included “Say It Loud – I’m Black and I’m Proud” as one of their 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.
16 Ugly Rumours was the name of a rock band founded in part by former UK prime minister Tony Blair, while studying law at St John’s College, Oxford during the early 1970’s.
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Backword
PHOTOGRAPHY AND REPRODUCTION CREDITS
Joseph Gabriele 10-11
Jay Spangler Beatle Interview Transcriptions
Don Valentine 17 Stock Photos, Getty Image Files 20-21 Frank Micelotta 24 Jody Orsborn 32 John Loengar/Time and Life 60-61 Bob Gruen 36-37 Angus McBean 67, 70, 73 Bob Bonis 34, 44-45 Harry Benson 54, 57 Jim Marshall 62, 65, 72 Richard Avedon 63, 64, 69 David Bailey 48, 71, 74-76 Andy Warhol 52 Iain Macmillan 74-75, 76-77
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Credits
Britishness By Rachel Tesch First Edition Š 2016 The Minneapolis College of Art and Design This book was published with the intention of learning typographic concepts, techniques, and strategy. As well as understanding pubication design as a whole. Printed in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Service Bureau
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Rachel Tesch : MCAD
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THE FULL BEATLE EXPERIENCE INTERVIEWS - ESSAYS - PHOTOGRAPHS
When I was a kid, there were only two musicians or musical groups my dad would play in the car. One of them was Johnny Cash. The other was of course The Beatles. I always cherished the chance to listen to music with my dad, and my love for The Beatles has carried on since my childhood. I can think of no better subject matter for a book than the fun-loving, photogenic, insanely talented band. I designed this publication that contains a variety of texts as well as images that pertains to The Beatles and their influence on music around the world.