i mainly use twitter but their beatles fandom is nothing compared to this so here i am
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Latest Posts by calabrie - Page 3
i accept constructive criticism as long as it makes it funnier
Q: "What is for you the height of misery?" John Lennon: "Hot feet."
Q: "Where would you like to live?" John Lennon: "Here."
Q: "What is for you the ideal of earthly happiness?John Lennon: "Now + then."
Q: "Which mistakes have you the most indulgence for?" John Lennon: "Mine."
Q: "Who are the heroes of novels you prefer?" John Lennon: "Me."
Q" Who is your favourite historical personality?" John Lennon: "Me."
Q: "Who are your favourite heroines in real life?" John Lennon: Me.
Q: "Who are your favourite heroines in fiction?" John Lennon: "Me."
Q: "Who is your favourite painter?" John Lennon: "Me."
Q: "Who is your favourite musician?" John Lennon: "Me."
Q: "What quality do you prefer in a woman?" John Lennon: "Tits."
Q: "What quality do you prefer in a man?" John Lennon: "No tits."
Q: "What is your favourite virtue?" John Lennon: "None."
Q: "What is your favourite occupation?" John Lennon: "Floating."
Q: "Who would you have liked to be?" John Lennon: Pope anything.
Q: "What is the chief feature of your character?" John Lennon: "An unearthly."
Q: "What do you appreciate most in your friends?" John Lennon: "Admiration."
Q: "What is your main default?" John Lennon: "Hate."
Q: "What is your dream of happiness?" John Lennon: "Black knickers."
Q: "What would be your greatest misfortune?" John Lennon: "Lose my virginity."
Q: "What would you like to be?" John Lennon: "Happy."
Q: "What is your favourite colour?" John Lennon: "Rainbow."
Q: "What is your favourite flower?" John Lennon" "Forgotten."
Q: "What is your favourite bird?" John Lennon: "Heckle."
Q: "Who are your favourite poets?" John Lennon: "Me."
Q: "What are your favourite names?" John Lennon: "God, Jesus."
Q: "What do you abhor most?" John Lennon: "God, Jesus."
Q: "Which historical character do you despise most?" John Lennon: "All of them."
Q: "What military event do you admire most?" John Lennon: "None at all I'm afraid."
Q: "What reform do you admire most?" John Lennon: "They have not passed it."
Q: "What natural gift would you would like to have?" John Lennon: "Flying."
Q: "How would you like to die?" John Lennon: "Insane but quiet."
Q: "What is the present state of your mind?" John Lennon: "Light to variable."
Q: "What is your motto?" John Lennon: "Me."
— John Lennon for Marcel Proust from Rave Magazine, October, 1965.
JOHN and PAUL + eye contact
💚🎶
“Of course, the artists most people would like to see [John] get involved with are the other ex-Beatles—preferably all at once and on a permanent basis! John has been asked so many times about the possibilities and probabilities of this happening that a smile of resignation comes on to his face at the mention of the others. ‘It’s strange the way people talk about them, as if we were enemies. You know, they were good blokes—I liked them, and I still do. You have to get on with the people in your group if you choose to stay with them for all that time! ‘When they come to the States I usually see them. Ringo and George are here a lot of the time and Paul sometimes comes via New York on his way to L.A. I’ve worked with Ringo and George both together and separately, and played with Paul—there were a lot of other people there too but everybody seemed to be watching us! ‘I was going down to New Orleans to help out on Paul’s last album Venus and Mars, but I was too busy being happy at the time. If you’re reading this, Paul, I’m sorry I couldn’t make it…’ […] And then, of course, there’s Yoko. ‘We are back together now. and happier than over before. It’s the old, old story—when you get someone back that you’ve lost it’s better than ever.’ It was the reconciliation which so involved John that he couldn’t tear himself away to work with McCartney in New Orleans.”
— John Lennon, interview w/ Penny Grant for Game: Enjoying the big apple. (1975)
George Harrison and Bob Dylan, Concert for Bangladesh, 1 August 1971; photo by Bill Ray (?).
Q: “One of the coups of [the Concert for] Bangladesh was Dylan’s appearance, because he had done so little since his motorcycle accident in 1966. Was he initially reluctant to do Bangladesh?”
George Harrison: “He was. He never committed himself, right up until the moment he came onstage. On the night before Bangladesh, we sat in Madison Square Garden as the people were setting up the bandstand. He looked around the place and said to me, ‘Hey, man, you know, this isn’t my scene.’ I’d had so many months… it seemed like a long time of trying to get it all together, and my head was reeling with all the problems and never. I’d gotten so fed up with him not being committed, I said, ‘Look, it’s not my scene, either. At least you’ve played on your own in front of a crowd before. I’ve never done that.’ So he turned up the next morning, which looked positive. I had a list, a sort of running order, that I had glued on my guitar. When I got to the point where Bob was going to come on, I had Bob with a question mark. I looked over my shoulder to see if he was around, because if he wasn’t, I would have to go on to do the next bit. And I looked around, and he was so nervous — he had his guitar and his shades — he was sort of coming on, coming [pumps his arms and shoulders]. So I just said, ‘My old friend, Bob Dylan!’ It was only at that moment that I knew for sure he was going to do it. After the second show, he picked me up and hugged me and said, ‘God! If only we’d done three shows.’” - Rolling Stone, 5 November 1987 (x)
Once upon a time…
JOHN: [Paul] even recorded that all by himself in the other room, that’s how it was getting in those days. We came in and he’d – he’d made the whole record. Him drumming, him playing the piano, him singing. Just because – it was getting to be where he wanted to do it like that, but he couldn’t – couldn’t – maybe he couldn’t make the break from The Beatles, I don’t know what it was…. But we’re all, I’m sure – I can’t speak for George, but I was always hurt when he’d knock something off without… involving us, you know? But that’s just the way it was then.
(August, 1980: interview for Playboy with David Sheff)
‘More than anything,’ he says, ‘I would love the Beatles to be on top of their form and for them to be as productive as they were. But things have changed. … I would have liked to have sung harmony with John, and I think he would have liked me to. But I was too embarrassed to ask him. And I don’t work to the best of my abilities in that situation.’
(Paul McCartney, interview, Evening Standard, April 21-22, 1970)
PAUL: On 'Hey Jude', when we first sat down and I sang 'Hey Jude…', George went 'nanu nanu' on his guitar. I continued, 'Don't make it bad…' and he replied 'nanu nanu'. He was answering every line - and I said, 'Whoa! Wait a minute now. I don't think we want that. Maybe you'd come in with answering lines later. For now I think I should start it simply first.' He was going, 'Oh yeah, OK, fine, fine.' But it was getting a bit like that. He wasn't into what I was saying. In a group it's democratic and he didn't have to listen to me, so I think he got pissed off with me coming on with ideas all the time. I think to his mind it was probably me trying to dominate. It wasn't what I was trying to do - but that was how it seemed. This, for me, was eventually what was going to break The Beatles up. I started to feel it wasn't a good idea to have ideas, whereas in the past I'd always done that in total innocence, even though I was maybe riding roughshod.
I did want to insist that there shouldn't be an answering guitar phrase in 'Hey Jude' - and that was important to me - but of course if you tell a guitarist that, and he's not as keen on the idea as you are, it looks as if you're knocking him out of the picture. I think George felt that: it was like, 'Since when are you going to tell me what to play? I' in The Beatles too.' So I can see his point of view. But it burned me, and I then couldn't come up with ideas freely, so I started to have to think twice about anything I'd say - 'Wait a minute, is this going to be seen to be pushy?' - whereas in the past it had just been a case of, 'Well, the hell, this would be a good idea. Let's do this song called "Yesterday". It'll be all right.'
( The Beatles Anthology, 2000)
‘There’s no one who’s to blame. We were fools to get ourselves into this situation in the first place. But it’s not a comfortable situation for me to work in as an artist.’
(Paul McCartney, interview, Evening Standard, April 21-22, 1970)
‘It simply became very difficult for me to write with Yoko sitting there. If I had to think of a line I started getting very nervous. I might want to say something like “I love you, girl”, but with Yoko watching I always felt that I had to come out with something clever and avant-garde. She would probably have loved the simple stuff, but I was scared.’ ‘I’m not blaming her, I’m blaming me. You can’t blame John for falling in love with Yoko any more than you can blame me for falling in love with Linda. We tried writing together a few more times, but I think we both decided it would be easier to work separately.’
(Paul McCartney, interview, Evening Standard, April 21-22, 1970)
JOHN: "I was always waiting for a reason to get out of the Beatles from the day I filmed 'How I Won The War' (in 1966). I just didn't have the guts to do it. The seed was planted when the Beatles stopped touring and I couldn't deal with not being onstage. But I was too frightened to step out of the palace."
(John Lennon, Newsweek, September 29, 1980)
PAUL: As far as I was concerned, yeah, I would have liked the Beatles never to have broken up. I wanted to get us back on the road doing small places, then move up to our previous form and then go and play. Just make music, and whatever else there was would be secondary. But it was John who didn’t want to. He had told Allen Klein the new manager he and Yoko had picked late one night that he didn’t want to continue.
(Paul and Linda McCartney, interview for Playboy, December 1984)
PAUL: I must admit we'd known it was coming at some point because of his intense involvement with Yoko. John needed to give space to his and Yoke's thing. Someone like John would want to end The Beatles period and start the Yoko period; and he wouldn't like either to interfere with the other.
(The Beatles Anthology, 2000)
PAUL: I think, largely looking back on it, I think it was mainly John [who] needed a new direction – that he then went into, headlong, helter skelter, you know, he went right in there, doing all sorts of stuff he’d never done before, with Yoko. And you can’t blame him. Because he was that kind of guy, [the kind who] really wanted to live life and do stuff, you know. There was just no holding back with John. And it was what we’d all admired him for. So you couldn’t really say, “Oh, we don’t want you to do that, John. You should just stay with us.” We felt so wimpy, you know. So it had to happen like that.
(Paul McCartney, November, 1983, interview with DJ Roger Scott)
The Beatles split up? It just depends how much we all want to record together. I don’t know if I want to record together again. I go off and on it. I really do. The problem is that in the old days, when we needed an album, Paul and I got together and produced enough songs for it. Nowadays there’s three if us writing prolifically and trying to fit it all onto one album. Or we have to think of a double album every time, which takes six months. That’s the hang-up we have… I don’t want to spend six months making an album I have two tracks on. And neither do Paul or George probably. That’s the problem. If we can overcome that, maybe it’ll sort itself out. None of us want to be background musicians most of the time. It’s a waste. We didn’t spend ten years ‘making it’ to have the freedom in the recording studios, to be able to have two tracks on an album. This is why I’ve started with the Plastic Ono and working with Yoko… to have more outlet. There isn’t enough outlet for me in the Beatles. The Ono Band is my escape valve. And how important that gets, as compared to the Beatles for me, I’ll have to wait and see.
(John Lennon, New Musical Express December 13, 1969)
PLAYBOY: In most of his interviews, John said he never missed the Beatles. Did you believe him? PAUL: I don’t know. My theory is that he didn’t. Someone like John would want to end the Beatle period and start the Yoko period. And he wouldn’t like either to interfere with the other. As he was with Yoko, anything about the Beatles tended inevitably to be an intrusion. So I think he was interested enough in his new life to genuinely not miss us.
(Paul and Linda McCartney, interview for Playboy, December 1984)
Yoko: Paul began complaining that I was sitting too close to them when they were recording, and that I should be in the background. John: Paul was always gently coming up to Yoko and saying: "Why don't you keep in the background a bit more?" I didn't know what was going on. It was going on behind my back. Yoko: And I wasn't uttering a word. It wasn't a matter of my being aggressive. It was just the fact that I was sitting near to John. And we stood up to it. We just said, "No. It's simply that we just have to come together." They were trying to discourage me from attending meetings, et cetera. And I was always there. And Linda actually said that she admired that we were doing that. John: Paul even said that to me.
(John Lennon interviewed by Peter McCabe and Robert Schonfeld at the St. Regis Hotel, September 5, 1971)
Paul: They’re onto that thing. They just want to be near to each other. So I just think it’s just silly of me, or of anyone, to try and say to him, “No, you can’t,” you know. It’s like, ‘cause – okay, they’re – they’re going overboard about it, but John always does! And Yoko probably always does. So that’s their scene. You can’t go saying – you know, “Don’t go overboard about this thing. Be sensible about it. Don’t bring it to meetings.” It’s his decision, that. It’s – it’s none of our business, to start interfering in that. Even when it comes into our business, you still can’t really say much, unless – except, “Look, I don’t like it, John.” And then he can say, well, “Screw you,” or, “I like it,” or, “Well, I won’t do it so much,” or blablabla. Like, that’s the only way, you know. To tell John about that. Michael Lindsay-Hogg: Have you done that already? Paul: Well, I told him I didn’t like writing songs… with him and Yoko. Michael Lindsay-Hogg: Were you writing much more before she came around—? Paul: Oh yeah, sure. Michael Lindsay-Hogg: Or had you – cooled it a bit, then? Before her. Ringo: Before Yoko got there. Paul: Yeah, cooled it, cooled it. Sure. We’d cooled it because… not playing together. Ever since we didn’t play together… Michael Lindsay-Hogg: Onstage, you mean? Paul: Yes. With the band. Because we lived together, and we played together. We were in the same hotel, up at the same time every morning, doing this all day. And this – I mean, this, you know, it doesn’t matter what you do, [but] just as long as you’re this close all day, something grows, you know. In some ways. And when you’re not this close, only, just physically… something goes. Michael Lindsay-Hogg: Right. Paul: So then you can come together to record, and stuff, but you still sort of lose the… Actually, musically, you know, we really – we can play better than we’ve ever been able to play, you know. Like, I really think that. I think, like – we’re – we’re alright on that. It’s just that – being together thing, you know.
(Paul McCartney, Get Back sessions, 13 January, 1969)
What actually happened was, the group was getting very tense, it was looking like we were breaking up. One day, I came in and we had a meeting, and it was all Apple and business and Allen Klein, and it was getting very hairy, and no one was realy enjoying themselves. It was – we’d forgotten the music bit. It was just business. I came in one day and I said, “I think we should get back on the road, a bit like what you and I were talking about before, small band, go and do the clubs, sod it. Let’s get back to square one, let’s remember what we’re all about. Let’s get back.” And John’s actual words were, “I think you’re daft. And I wasn’t gonna tell you, but – we’re breaking the group up. I’m breaking the group up. It feels good. It feels like a divorce.” And he just sort of sat there, and all our jaws dropped.
(Paul McCartney, November, 1983, interview with DJ Roger Scott)
Wenner: You said you quit the Beatles first. John: Yes. Wenner: How? John: I said to Paul “I’m leaving.” John: I knew on the flight over to Toronto or before we went to Toronto: I told Allen I was leaving, I told Eric Clapton and Klaus that I was leaving then, but that I would probably like to use them as a group. I hadn’t decided how to do it – to have a permanent new group or what – then later on, I thought fuck, I’m not going to get stuck with another set of people, whoever they are. I announced it to myself and the people around me on the way to Toronto a few days before. And on the plane – Klein came with me – I told Allen, “It’s over.” When I got back, there were a few meetings, and Allen said well, cool it, cool it, there was a lot to do, businesswise you know, and it would not have been suitable at the time. Then we were discussing something in the office with Paul, and Paul said something or other about the Beatles doing something, and I kept saying “No, no, no” to everything he said. So it came to a point where I had to say something, of course, and Paul said, “What do you mean?” I said, “I mean the group is over, I’m leaving.” … So that’s what happened. So, like anybody when you say divorce, their face goes all sorts of colors. It’s like he knew really that this was the final thing…
(John Lennon, December 1970, interview with Jann Wenner for Rolling Stone)
PAUL: But what wasn't too clever was this idea of: 'I wasn't going to tell you till after we signed the new contract.' Good old John – he had to blurt it out. And that was it. There's not a lot you can say to, 'I'm leaving the group,' from a key member. I didn't really know what to say. We had to react to him doing it; he had control of the situation.
(The Beatles Anthology, 2000)
Allen was there, and he will remember exactly and Yoko will, but this is exactly how I see it. Allen was saying don’t tell. He didn’t want me to tell Paul even. So I said, “It’s out,” I couldn’t stop it, it came out. Paul and Allen both said that they were glad that I wasn’t going to announce it, that I wasn’t going to make an event out of it. I don’t know whether Paul said “Don’t tell anybody,” but he was darned pleased that I wasn’t going to. He said, “Oh, that means nothing really happened if you’re not going to say anything.”
(John Lennon, December 1970, interview with Jann Wenner for Rolling Stone)
And – that was it, really. And nobody quite knew what to say, and we sort of then, after that statement, we then thought, “Well… give it a couple of months. We may decide. I mean, it’s a little bit of a big act, to just break up like that. Let’s give it a couple of months. We might all just come back together.” And we talked for a couple of months, but it just was never going to be on.
(Paul McCartney, November, 1983, interview with DJ Roger Scott)
John: George was on the session for Instant Karma, Ringo’s away and Paul’s – I dunno what he’s doing at the moment, I haven’t a clue. Interviewer: When did you last see him? John: Uh, before Toronto. I’ll see him this week actually, yeah. If you’re listening, I’m coming round.
(John Lennon interview 6th February, 1970)
Interviewer: What about the Beatles all together as a group? John: …You can’t pin me down because I haven’t got- there’s no- it’s completely open, whether we do it or not. Life is like that, whether I make another Plastic Ono album or Lennon album or anything is open you know, I don’t like to prejudge it. And I have no idea if the Beatles are working together again or not, I never did have, it was always open. If someone didn’t feel like it, that’s it. And maybe if one of us starts it off, the others will all come round and make an album you know.
(John Lennon interview 6th February, 1970)
Interviewer: Why do you think he [Paul] has lost interest in Apple? John: That’s what I want to ask him! We had a heavy scene last year as far as business was concerned and Paul got a bit fed-up with all the effort of business. I think that’s all it is. I hope so.
(John Lennon interviewed by Roy Shipston for Disc and Music Echo, February 28, 1970)
‘Anyway, I hung on for all these months wondering whether the Beatles would ever come back together again…and let’s face it I’ve been as vague as anyone, hoping that John might come around and say, “All right lads, I’m ready to go back to work…”
(Paul McCartney, interview, Evening Standard, April 21-22, 1970)
PAUL: For about three or four months, George, Ringo and I rang each other to ask: 'Well, is this it then?' It wasn't that the record company had dumped us. It was still a case of: we might get back together again. Nobody quite knew if it was just one of John's little flings, and that maybe he was going to feel the pinch in a week's time and say, 'I was only kidding.' I think John did kind of leave the door open. He'd said: 'I'm pretty much leaving the group, but…' So we held on to that thread for a few months, and then eventually we realised, 'Oh well, we're not in the band any more. That's it. It's definitely over.'
(The Beatles Anthology, 2000)
PAUL: I started thinking, 'Well, if that's the case, I had better get myself together. I can't just let John control the situation and dump us as if we're the jilted girlfriends.'
(The Beatles Anthology, 2000)
‘John’s in love with Yoko, and he’s no longer in love with the other three of us. And let’s face it, we were in love with the Beatles as much as anyone. We’re still like brothers and we have enormous emotional ties because we were the only four that it all happened to…who went right through those ten years. I think the other three are the most honest, sincere men I have ever met. I love them. I really do.’ ‘I don’t mind being bound to them as a friend. I like that idea. I don’t mind being bound to them musically, because I like the others as musical partners. I like being in their band. But for my own sanity, we must change the business arrangements we have…’
(Paul McCartney, interview, Evening Standard, April 21-22, 1970)
‘Last year John said he wanted a divorce. All right, so do I. I want to give him that divorce. I hate this trial separation because it’s just not working. Personally, I don’t think John could do the Beatles thing now. I don’t think it would be good for him.’
(Paul McCartney, interview, Evening Standard, April 21-22, 1970)
‘I told John on the phone the other day that at the beginning of last year I was annoyed with him. I was jealous because of Yoko, and afraid about the break-up of a great musical partnership. It’s taken me a year to realise that they were in love. Just like Linda and me.’
(Paul McCartney, interview, Evening Standard, April 21-22, 1970)
John: Well, Paul rang me up. He didn't actually tell me he'd split, he said he was putting out an album [McCartney]. He said, "I'm now doing what you and Yoko were doing last year. I understand what you were doing." All that shit. So I said, "Good luck to yer."
(John Lennon interviewed by Peter McCabe and Robert Schonfeld at the St. Regis Hotel, September 5, 1971)
I think he claims that he didn’t mean that to happen but that’s bullshit. He called me in the afternoon of that day and said, “I’m doing what you and Yoko were doing last year.” I said good, you know, because that time last year they were all looking at Yoko and me as if we were strange trying to make our life together instead of being fab, fat myths. So he rang me up that day and said I’m doing what you and Yoko are doing, I’m putting out an album, and I’m leaving the group too, he said. I said good. I was feeling a little strange, because he was saying it this time, although it was a year later, and I said “good,” because he was the one that wanted the Beatles most, and then the midnight papers came out.
(John Lennon, December 1970, interview with Jann Wenner for Rolling Stone)
Q: "Why did you decide to make a solo album?" PAUL: "Because I got a Studer four-track recording machine at home - practiced on it (playing all instruments) - liked the results, and decided to make it into an album." Q: "Were you influenced by John's adventures with the Plastic Ono Band, and Ringo's solo LP?" PAUL: "Sort of, but not really." Q: "Are all songs by Paul McCartney alone?" PAUL: "Yes sir." Q: "Will they be so credited: McCartney?" PAUL: "It's a bit daft for them to be Lennon/McCartney credited, so 'McCartney' it is." Q: "Did you enjoy working as a solo?" PAUL: "Very much. I only had me to ask for a decision, and I agreed with me. Remember Linda's on it too, so it's really a double act." … Q: "What has recording alone taught you?" PAUL: "That to make your own decisions about what you do is easy, and playing with yourself is very difficult, but satisfying." … Q: "Is this album a rest away from the Beatles or the start of a solo career?" PAUL: "Time will tell. Being a solo album means it's 'the start of a solo career…' and not being done with the Beatles means it's just a rest. So it's both." Q: "Is your break with the Beatles temporary or permanent, due to personal differences or musical ones?" PAUL: "Personal differences, business differences, musical differences, but most of all because I have a better time with my family. Temporary or permanent? I don't really know." Q: "Do you foresee a time when Lennon-McCartney becomes an active songwriting partnership again?" PAUL: "No." Q: "What do you feel about John's peace effort? The Plastic Ono Band? Giving back the MBE? Yoko's influence? Yoko?" PAUL: "I love John, and respect what he does - it doesn't really give me any pleasure." … Q: "What are your plans now? A holiday? A musical? A movie? Retirement?" PAUL: "My only plan is to grow up!"
(Paul McCartney, April 9th 1970, press release 'McCartney')
SCOTT: Did you not realize that this was going to happen to you after you’d been the one to actually do it, and say, “Right, that’s it”? PAUL: No – it’s – wrong. Wrong. Sorry. It wasn’t me, it was John. SCOTT: Well, he said it first, but he said it quietly, he didn’t let everybody know. PAUL: No no no no, but the point – what I’m talking about is, see, this is – see, I love this legend stuff, god, you know, you have to actually live with this stuff…
(Paul McCartney, November, 1983, interview with DJ Roger Scott)
Int: I asked Lee Eastman for his view of the split, and what it was that prompted Paul to file suit to dissolve the Beatles' partnership, and he said it was because John asked for a divorce. John Lennon: Because I asked for a divorce? That's a childish reason for going into court, isn't it?
(John Lennon interviewed by Peter McCabe and Robert Schonfeld at the St. Regis Hotel, September 5, 1971)
"And I've changed. The funny thing about it is that I think alot of my change has been helped by John Lennon. I sort of picked up on his lead. John had said, 'Look, I don't want to be that anymore. I'm going to be this.' And I thought, 'That's great.' I liked the fact he'd done it, and so I'll do it with my thing. He's given the okay. In England, if a partnership isn't rolling along and working -- like a marriage that isn't working-- then you have reasonable grounds to break it off. It's great! Good old British justice!
(Paul McCartney, Life Magazine, April 16, 1971)
‘… So, as a natural turn of events from looking for something to do, I found that I was enjoying working alone as much as I’d enjoyed the early days of the Beatles. I haven’t really enjoyed the Beatles in the last two years.’
(Paul McCartney, interview, Evening Standard, April 21-22, 1970)
'Eventually,' McCartney recalled, 'I went and said, "I want to leave. You can all get on with Klein and everything, just let me out." Having not spoken to Lennon for several weeks, he sent him a letter that summer, pleading that the former partners 'let each other out of the trap'. As McCartney testified, Lennon 'replied with a photograph of himself and Yoko, with a balloon coming out of his mouth in which was written, "How and Why?" I replied by letter saying, "How by signing a paper which says we hereby dissolve our partnership. Why because there is no partnership." John replied on a card which said, "Get well soon. Get the other signatures and I will think about it.” Communication was at an end.’
(Peter Doggett, You Never Give Me Your Money, 2009 - P.88)
John phoned me once to try and get the Beatles back together again, after we’d broken up. And I wasn’t for it, because I thought that we’d come too far and I was too deeply hurt by it all. I thought, “Nah, what’ll happen is that we’ll get together for another three days and all hell will break loose again. Maybe we just should leave it alone.”
(Paul McCartney, November 1995 Club Sandwich interview)
Int.: … What else was Klein doing to try and lure Paul back? John Lennon: [laughs] One of his reasons for trying to get Paul back was that Paul would have forfeited his right to split by joining us again. We tried to con him into recording with us too. Allen came up with this plan. He said, "Just ring Paul and say, 'We're recording next Friday, are you coming?' " So it nearly happened. It got around that the Beatles were getting together again, because EMI heard that the Beatles had booked recording time again. But Paul would never, never do it, for anything, and now I would never do it.
(John Lennon interviewed by Peter McCabe and Robert Schonfeld at the St. Regis Hotel, September 5, 1971)
There’s no hard feelings or anything, but you just don’t hang around with your ex-wife. We’ve completely finished. ’Cos, you know, I’m just not that keen on John after all he’s done. I mean, you can be friendly with someone, and they can shit on you, and you’re just a fool if you keep friends with them. I’m not just going to lie down and let him shit on me again. I think he’s a bit daft, to tell you the truth. I talked to him about the Klein thing, and he’s so misinformed it’s ridiculous.
(Paul McCartney interviewed by student journalist Ian McNulty for the Hull University Torch, May 1972 [From The McCartney Legacy, Volume 1: 1969 – 1973 by Allan Kozinn and Adrian Sinclair, 2022)
JOHN: We’re not – we’re not fighting too much. It’s silly. You know I always remember watching the film with, uh – who was it? Not Rogers and Hammerstein. Those British people that wrote those silly operas years ago, who are they? WIGG: Gilbert and Sullivan? JOHN: Yeah, Gilbert and Sullivan. I always remember watching the film with Robert Morley and thinking, “We’ll never get to that.” [pause] And we did, which really upset me. But I never really thought we’d be so stupid. But we did. WIGG: What, like splitting like they did? JOHN: Like splitting and arguing, you know, and then they come back, and one’s in a wheelchair twenty years later— YOKO: [laughs] Yes, yes. JOHN: —and all that. [laughs; bleak] I never thought we’d come to that, because I didn’t think we were that stupid. But we were naive enough to let people come between us. And I think that’s what happened. [pause] But it was happening anyway. I don’t mean Yoko, I mean businessmen, you know. All of them. WIGG: What, do you think they were – do you think businessmen were responsible for the breakup? JOHN: Well, no, it’s like anything. When people decide to get divorced, you know, you just – quite often you decide amicably. But then when you get your lawyers and they say, “Don’t talk to the other party unless there’s another lawyer present,” then that’s when the drift really starts happening, and then when you can’t speak to each other without a lawyer, then there’s no communication. And it’s really lawyers that make… divorces nasty. You know, if there was a nice ceremony like getting married, for divorce, then it would be much better. Even divorce of business partners. Because it wouldn’t be so nasty. But it always gets nasty because you’re never allowed to speak your own mind, you have to talk in double-dutch, you have to spend all your time with a lawyer, and you get frustrated, and you end up saying and doing things that you wouldn’t really do under normal circumstances.
(John Lennon, Yoko Ono, October, 1971, St Regis Hotel, New York, interview with David Wigg)
Q: "If you got, I don't know what the right phrase is… 'back together' now, what would be the nature of it?" JOHN: "Well, it's like saying, if you were back in your mother's womb… I don't fucking know. What can I answer? It will never happen, so there's no use contemplating it. Even is I became friends with Paul again, I'd never write with him again. There's no point. I write with Yoko because she's in the same room with me." YOKO: "And we're living together." JOHN: "So it's natural. I was living with Paul then, so I wrote with him. It's whoever you're living with. He writes with Linda. He's living with her. It's just natural."
(John Lennon, Yoko Ono, St. Regis Hotel, New York, September 5th, 1971, interview with Peter McCabe and Robert Schonfeld)
'Dear Mailbag, In order to put out of its misery the limping dog of a news story which has been dragging itself across your pages for the past year, my answer to the question, “Will The Beatles get together again?” … is no.’
(Paul McCartney, Melody Maker, August 29, 1970)
‘Just tell the people I’ve found someone I like enough to want to spend all my time with. That’s me…the home, the kids and the fireplace.’
(Paul McCartney, interview, Evening Standard, April 21-22, 1970)
hello!! hows the comic going? :) the color palette on the first few pages looks IMMACULATE im gonna eat ur art on a sliver platter
Hi!!! Thank you so much!
I’m actually quite close to finishing it, but as always I got second thoughts about literally every page on it so far. So I’m just taking some time off it :D My whole style changes throughout pages and that’s something I don’t like- but what’s done is done I guess. It’s just a silly smutty comic really that’s what I’m trying to remind myself daily :D here are some panels tho! Since my last semester is starting, I don’t know if i’ll have any time to continue this :((( but I’ll link my AO3 here soon!!
nerk twins
Int: It’s possible - you know this as well as anybody does. It’s possible that all of you will be best known not for your individual work but because you were Beatles. Does that trouble you at all?
George: No, not at all because who are we anyway, you know? I mean, even if they knew me as me - George Harrison - they don’t really know me. It doesn’t matter what they remember you for. It’s really what you attain for your own personal self that counts.
“Y’know, it’s something that other people see us as The Beatles, and I try to see us as The Beatles, but I can’t.” - Scene and Heard (1967)
“To be able to deal with these people thinking you were some wonderful thing - it was difficult to come to terms with. I was feeling, you know, like nothing. Even now I look back and see, relative to a lot of other groups, The Beatles did have something. But it’s a bit too much to accept that we’re supposedly the designers of this incredible change. In many ways we were just swept along with everybody else.” - Rolling Stone (1987)
“I don’t mean to sound mysterious or try to baffle anyone, but when people come up to me expecting me to be just like what they thought a Beatle would be, they’re disappointed. I never was a Beatle, except musically. I don’t think any of us was. What is a Beatle anyway? I’m not a Beatle or an ex-Beatle or even the George Harrison. I’m just a man. Very ordinary.” - Men Only (1978)
“Like Chance, the main character in Being There (one of George’s favorite books), he wanted to just ‘be there’ in his garden, in his solitude, with his hands in the dirt. He didn’t want to ‘be’ anything but a man who loved music, the earth, women, and God.” - Chris O’Dell
Okay, starting to side with McLennon-ers slightly because what is this
OH JOHNNYYY 🥰🥰
Beatles in Colour → George Harrison in ORANGE & YELLOW For @radgeorgie
Oh my god it's John
Yoko for her birthday? Mayhaps John and Yoko with John giving purse dog ?
genius
sgt peppers fem paul
“We walked toward the sun and slipped through a copse of weeping willow. There in the middle of a field of wildflowers were two huge boulders weighing several tons and standing one atop the other like a pair of giant granite acrobats. “Are those the work of a sculptor?” I asked. “No,” [George] said, “they came from opposite ends of the property, but we moved them here and stacked them in this field. Everyone wants to know about them. In fact, when Ringo came round for a visit last summer, he asked about them, as well. I told him that Paul’s record company had sent them as a promo for his new album, Standing Stone. Ringo was really miffed that he hadn’t gotten his standing stones, but I said they’d probably only posted them to A-list people.” Liverpool accents always sound to me like a joke is coming, but Harrison’s wit was deadpan and dead-on.”
— Paul Simon, c/o Rolling Stone: Harrison: By the Editors of Rolling Stone. (2002)
trying to find a certain quote and instead I have to find paul calling john the "most loveable crazy dude (he's) ever met" I want to be dead
Pattie Remembers George
Q: “Was it heartbreaking to fall out of love with George Harrison? I mean, to fall in love with him is an amazing story.” Pattie Boyd: “Oh, it was heartbreaking, of course it was. You know, it was like… I was losing someone who was my best friend and who I adored, and we learnt an awful lot of very important things, issues, during our time together. We learnt them together. So this is something one will never forget.” Q: “What did he teach you, and what did you teach him?” PB: “No, we both learnt together. We learnt, you know, about art, about film making, about meditation, about all sorts of things.” - BBC Radio, September 2019 “I think probably the memory that will always remain with me is when he came to see me not long before he passed away. And he came over to my cottage and wanted to see the garden and wanted to see my darkroom because I’d been doing some printing, and, um, he wanted to see the flowers. And he said — he saw some flowers, tiny little flowers that were growing in a crack in the pavement, and the wind was blowing them. He referred to them as ‘shivering flowers,’ and I thought, ‘Oh God, that’s so sweet.’ He just had a wonderful view, and he used such a different language to describe what he was feeling or thinking. And, you know, he brought me a little gift, a little something for my studio, a little Krishna. And, you know, he was just always generous and kind and sweet and always had a good sense of humor.”
Pattie Boyd (on how she best remembers George), Every Little Thing With Ken Michaels, February 2019
George and Pattie.
"Well, believe it or don't, I don't really care what you believe. What I do care about is that the one outlet that I had has been taken from me, and that is no fun. I'm not really mad at her [Yoko], you know. I want to yell at her because I'm still popular, and I can't do anything about it. Sound funny? Look!" He held up an envelope. "This is from Francis Coppola. He wants me to do a score for a film he's working on. He says, 'I'm living in a volcano and it's wonderful. Wish you were here. Want to work on a movie?' Here's another one. Frank Perry wants a little Lennon touch on his Time and Time Again. It's a time-travel movie. Just my thing, right? But I don't have any music in me. Here's a guy who wants an interview, but I don't have anything to say. I got three offers here to perform, one to produce, and a million letters that just want to know how I'm doin'. That's popularity. And I don't have anything to give them, so I have to write back nice polite letters saying ‘Thanks but no thanks' because on the off chance I ever do get out of this slump or block or whatever it is, if I ever do get the muse back, then I'm gonna need all these people. "So, you know what I say? I tell them that bit you and Yoko thought up for the Immigration press last year. I tell them that I'm fully employed minding the baby and playing househusband. Now that lie is getting a little stale. People have to wonder, don't they? I'm a bit surprised no one has caught on yet. 'He's got a maid, and a nanny, and a cook, and gofers, I wonder what it is that keeps him so busy?' But the public will believe what the public wants to believe. So I'm a househusband. And it galls the hell out of me to turn down offers that I'm dying to accept and am incapable of fulfilling."
John Lennon talking about losing his muse, as told by John Green in Dakota Days (1983)
On a cold day in February of 1964, the Beatles made what may have been their only visit together to the National Mall. Fresh off their historic appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, the Fab Four couldn't fly down from New York City due to eight inches of snow that fell on the nation’s capital and they were forced to take a train to Washington, D.C. Met by enthusiastic fans at Union Station, John, Paul, George, and Ringo made a brief stop on the Mall for a quick photo-op before going to their hotel. Photographer Dennis Brack captured this picture of them near 4th Street. The British rockers played a show that night at the Washington Coliseum - their first ever U.S. concert.
thank you so much, I'll be sure to check them all out!!!! As for brazilian music, gosh, where to even start...
A very basic pick, but Chico Buarque is my absolute favorite, he's one of the greats of MPB for a reason. I love practically his entire discography, but his lyric writing is at its best on protest songs like Cálice, Cotidiano, and Roda-Viva. Here's Construção (1971) which gives me chills as much now as the first time I heard it.
Leci Brandão- Used her music to advocate for black/queer rights; some favorites are Antes Que Eu Volte a Ser Nada and Isso É Fundo de Quintal. Here's Deixa Pra Lá (1974)
Novos Baianos- A hugely influential band that mixed rock with samba, their sound is just so fun. Here's Mistério Do Planeta (1972)
Gal Costa- A beloved tropicália artist, her music is everything from beautiful to vibrant. Here's Baby (1969)
similarly with you I have no clue how well known their music is in other parts of latam LOL but I hope you enjoy :)
This is also why you won't see me posting about latin american bands like I do these four I'm too much of a mid century geek to get into anything later and if I think about my favourite latam bands or artists from the 60s/70s I start crying I need a certain degree of emotional separation
where my ringo enjoyers at ?!
really big fan of those interview clips where john starts being really weird and obsessive about paul and yoko just cuts him off and it's really clear that she has to hear about this all the time at home
Paul on meeting John
"Ah yes, I remember it well. My memory of meeting John for the first time is very clear [...] I can still see John now: checked shirt, slightly curly hair, singing ‘Come Go With Me’ by the Del Vikings. I remember thinking, ‘He looks good – I wouldn’t mind being in a group with him’. A bit later we met up. [...] Then, as you all know, he asked me to join the group, and so we began our trip together. We wrote our first songs together, we grew up together and we lived our lives together. And when we’d do it together, something special would happen. There’d be that little magic spark. I still remember his beery old breath when I met him here that day. But I soon came to love that old beery breath. And I loved John."
Source: https://www.the-paulmccartney-project.com/1997/07/40-years-ago-paul-mccartney-met-john-lennon/