From "Beatles in their own words" – Compiled by Miles – 1978 – Omnibus press

I read this book shortly after it was released – and came upon it again recently (2002). Here are some excerpts:

 

 

 

About Maharishi:

 

"Why?" he asked, and all that shit and I said, "Well, if you're so cosmic, you'll know why." He was always intimating, and there were all these right-hand men always intimating, that he did miracles. And I said, "You know why," and he said, "I don't know why, you must tell me," and I just kept saying "You ought to know" and he gave me a look like, "I'll kill you, you bastard," and he gave me such a look. I knew then. I had called his bluff and I was bit rough to him. Yoko: You expected too much from him.

 

The Name:

 

George: It was while we were in Germany. I went in swimming and when I came out I didn't have a comb. So my hair just dried. The others liked it the way it looked and there we were. John: We've told so many lies about it we've forgotten.

 

Paul: I now realize that taking drugs was like taking an aspirin without having a headache.

 

Conquering America was the best thing. You see we wanted to be bigger than Elvis - that was the main thing. At first we wanted to be Goffin and King, then we wanted to be Eddie Cochran. then we wanted to be Buddy Holly, and finally we arrived at wanting to be bigger than the biggest -and that was Elvis. -' ~We reckoned we could make it because there were four of us. None of us would've made it atone, because Paul wasn't quite strong enough, I didn't have enough girl-appeal, George was too quiet, and Ringo was the drummer. But we thought that everyone would be able to dig at least one of us, and that's how it turned out.

 

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For instance, we did the Royal Variety Show once, and we were asked discreetly to do it every year after that- but we always said "Stuff it". So every year there was always a story in the newspapers saying: "Why No Beatles For The Queen", which was pretty funny, because they didn't know we'd refused it.

 

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always the police chiefs daughter or the Lord Mayor's daughter, all the most obnoxious kids -because they had the most obnoxious parents -that we were forced to see all the time. We had these people thrust on us.

 

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John: I'm not anti-God, anti-Christ or anti- religion. I was not saying we are greater or better. I believe in Gad, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It' s just that the translations have gone wrong. I wasn't saying the Beatles are better than God or Jesus. I used Beatles because it's easy for me to talk about Beatles. I could have said TV or the cinema or anything popular and I would have gotten away with it.

 

 …music and that changed everything ...When I started, Rock and Roll itself was the basic revolution to people of my age and situation. We needed something loud and clear to break through all the unfeeling and repression that had been coming down on us kids. We were a bit conscious to begin with of being imitation Americans. But we delved into music and found that it was half white Country-and- Western and half black rhythm and blues. Most of the songs came from Europe and America and now they were coming back to us. Many of Dylan's best songs came from Scotland, Ireland, and England It was a sort of cultural ex change. Though I must say the more interesting songs to me were the black ones because they were more simple. They sort of said shake your ass or your prick which was an innovation really. And then there were the field songs, mainly expressing the pain they were in. They couldn't express themselves intellectually so they had to say in a very few words what was happening to them. And then there was the City blues and a lot of that was about sex and fighting. A lot of this was self-expression but only in the last few years have they expressed themselves completely with Black Power, like Edwin Starr making War records. Before that many black singers were still laboring under that problem of God, it was often, "God will save us". But right through the blacks were singing about their pain and also about sex, which is why I like it. John Lennon: Theory is for the critic or the audience. The experience itself is for the artist and for the audience that isn't theorizing about it That's what valid For me criticism doesn't exist It affects me if you say "What a terrible song you wrote" and "What a great song you wrote", it's going to affect me like if you say, "I don't like your suit". It's not that important and the

 

‘Eleanor Rigby’

 

Jane [Asher] was in a play in Bristol then, and I was walking round the streets waiting for her to finish. I didn't really like 'Daisy Hawkins' - I wanted a name that was more real. The thought just came: "Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice and lives in a dream" -so there she was. The next , thing was Father Mackenzie. It was going to be Father McCartney, but then I thought that was a bit of a hang-up for my Dad, being in this lonely song. So we looked through the phone book. That' s the beauty of working at random - it does come up perfectly, much better than if you try to think it with your intellect Anyway there was Father Mackenzie, and he was just as I had imagined him, lonely, darning his socks. We weren't sure if the song was going to go on. In the next verse we thought of a bin man, an old feller going through dustbins; but it got too involved - embarrassing. John and I wondered whether to have Eleanor Rigby and him have a thing going, but we couldn't really see how. When I played it to John we decided to finish it.

 

That was the point anyway. She didn't make it, she never made it with anyone, she didn't even look as if she was going to.

 

Please please me: It was originally conceived as a Roy Orbison-type thing, you know. George Martin said, 'Well, we'll put the tempo up'.

 

Penny Lane : Paul: “finger pie” is just a nice little joke for the Liverpool lads who like a bit of smut.

Promoter Sid Bernstein said, "Over 55,000 people saw the Beatles at Shea Stadium. We took $304,000, the greatest gross ever in the history of show business"

vietnam war was brought to an end with a million people sang give peace a chance in washington DC. 

Strawberry Fields: (paul ) is the name of a Salvation Army School.
 

From me to you: We nearly didn’t record it because we thought it was too bluesy at first, but when we finished it and Geroge Martin had scored it with harmonica it was all right.

 I resent performing for fucking idiots who don’t know anything. They can’t feel. I’m the one that’s feeling, because I’m the one that is expressing. They live vicariously through me and other artists. John Lennon

I’M HJTDWU: (John wrote it for George to sing “I encouraged him like mad.”)

 

John liked I’ll Cry Instead and I Call Your Name. And loved Happiness IAWG.

 

You can’t do that: This was my attempt at being Wilson Pickett at the time, but it was on the flip side because ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’ was so good.

 

I’ll be back: John: an early favorite that I wrote.

 

 'I Don't Want To Spoil The Party’ John Lennon: That was a very personal one of mine. In the early days I wrote less material than Paul because he was more competent on guitar than I. Be taught me quite a lot of guitar really.

 

'Help’: John Lennon: I meant it -it's real. The lyric is as good now as it was then. It is no different, and it makes me feel secure to know that I was that aware of myself then. It was just me singing "Help!" and I meant it. I don't like the recording that much; we did it too fast trying to be commercial. I like ' I Want To Hold Your Band'. We wrote that together, it's a beautiful melody. I might do 'I Want To Hold Your Band' and 'Help' again, because I like them and I can sing them. ' Strawberry Fields' because it's real, real for then, and I think it's like talking, 'You know, I sometimes think no. ..' It's like he talks to himself, sort of singing, which I thought was nice.

 

I like ' Across The Universe', too. It's one of the best lyrics I've written. In fact, it could be the best It's good poetry, or whatever you call it, without chewin' it. See, the ones I like are the ones that stand as words, without melody. They don't have to have any melody, like a poem you can read them.

 

'You've Got To Ride Your Love A way.' John Lennon: This was written in my Dylan days for the film Help. When I was a teenager I used to write poetry, but was always trying to hide my real feelings. I was in Ken wood and I would just be songwriting and so every day I would attempt to write a song and it's one of those that you sort of sing a bit sadly to yourself, " Here I stand, head in hand .." I started thinking about my own emotions…

 

'Nowhere Man’ John Lennon: I was just sitting, trying to think of a song, and I thought of myself sitting there, doing nothing and getting nowhere. Once l' d thought of that, it was easy. It all came out No, I remember now, l' d actually stopped trying to think of something. Nothing would come. I was cheesed off and went for a lie down, having given up. Then I thought of myself as "Nowhere Man" -sitting in his nowhere land.

'What Goes On’ Ringo Starr: I used to wish that I could write songs like the others -and I've tried, but I just can't I can get the words all right, but whenever I think of a tune and sing it to the others they always say "Yeah, it sounds like such-a-thing, " and when they point it out I see what they mean. But I did get a part credit as a composer on one -it was called 'What Goes On'.

'In My Life’ John Lennon: I wrote that in Ken wood. I used (to write upstairs where I had about ten Brunell tape recorders all linked up, I still have them, I'd mastered them over the period of a year or two -I could never make a rock and roil record but I could make some far out stuff on it I wrote it upstairs, that was one where I wrote the Lyrics first and then sang it. That was usually the case with things like 'In My Life' and 'Universe' and some of the ones that stand out a bit

'Girl’ John Lennon: This was about dream girl. When Paul and I wrote lyrics in the old days we used to laugh about it like the Tin Pan Ailey people would. And it was only later on that we tried to match the lyrics to the tune. I like this one. It was one of my best.

John Lennon: Beatlemusic is when we all get together. You know, if I want to sound like 'Come Together' and 'I Want You' all the time, which I always did and always do, or whatever it is I want to be - and Paul wants it to be whatever he wants it to be and George, etc. etc.. So when the combination works you come out with what we call Beatlemusic. Of course we don't write songs together any more. We haven't written together for two years. Not really, anyway. ..you know occasional bits, a line or two. It doesn't make any odds. When the Beatles perform that makes it into Beatlemusic .

I mean it's a long time since we've sat down and written for many reasons. We used to write mainly on tours. We got bored, so we wrote. Today the Beatles just go into a studio. And IT happens!

You see I think one note is as complex as anything, but I can't go on for the rest of my life explaining that to musical critics who want complex musical harmonies, tonal cadences and all that crap. I’m a primitive so I don't need it you know. I’m not interested in that and. ..it was quite flattering at the time to hear all that crap about the Beatles, but I don't believe it. And Paul himself said that in the end we'll end up with a one note pop song. And I believe it you know! I can groove to the sound of electricity in the house or the water pipes…

 

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Ono: Well, no. We didn't think we were going to die. We thought ... Well, John said over and over again that one day we'll be in our rocking chairs together, watching the ocean or something, and waiting for Sean's postcard to come, that kind of thing. We were thinking of our old age.

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 “I don’t believe in magic,” that series of statements. Well, like a

lot of the words, it just came out of me mouth. “God” was put together

from three songs almost. I had the idea that “God is the concept by

which we measure pain,” so that when you have a word like that, you just

sit down and sing the first tune that comes into your head and the tune

is simple, because I like that kind of music and then I just rolled into

it. It was just going on in my head and I got by the first three or

four, the rest just came out. Whatever came out.

 

 

 

All these songs just came out of me. I didn’t

sit down to think, “I’m going to write about Mother” or I didn’t sit

down to think “I’m going to write about this, that or the other.” They

all came out, like all the best work that anybody ever does. Whether it

is an article or what, it’s just the best ones that come out, and all

these came out, because I had time.

 

When I say I’m primitive I mean that I consider Myself a primitive musician just because I never studied music. Therefore I'11 always consider myself a primitive. In the early days they were always asking us "Would you and Paul consider learning music?" and we always said, "No, No, it would wreck our style" or whatever we said would ruin it. That's what we said. Sometimes it's annoying not to be able to write down something, but to write down a bit of music I have to go through a whole complicated thing to remember it. I've lost lots of good music through not being able to write it down. But if we could write it there would be some counter loss. I tape-record it so there's no need for it. I think writing music would be all right if it was up-dated, they use a very old fashioned style of note formation. Most of my songs, on the sheet music, have always been incorrect. If ever I get anybody to play me the notes on the sheet music it's all wrong. There seem to be minor notes against major, I’m always singing minor notes against major because I think it's bluesy but it turns out that it isn't. It's a mistake they keep telling me, so they never write it like that, they always write a major note. All those bands who read from the sheet music, they're just playing the wrong tunes altogether. So there's certain notes you can't write down. If they are going to have written music then somebody should invent a new musical notation which covers all the notes. But there always seems to be something wrong.

McCartney in his US tour generated $53 Million in 3 months!

“It’s really rare when you get a good group of musicians.” James Paul McCartney.

Between 1962 and 1967 every Beatles single release went to number 1 (27 number 1 songs).

Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it. - John Lennon -

Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans! John Lennon

[I recall reading this somewhere: John Lennon saying if Chuck Berry was white he'd been bigger than Elvis]