Ringo!
Wait till we get on there and it dies a death.
Thank you.
You all right, George?
Something's going on with these big boots.
I'm going on in Dougie's pants,
so when I bend down, I hope they don't just split open.
You need a light?
Paul's all right, he's got his jacket on.
Anyone have a towel? Excuse me.
- Don't be nervous, John. - I'm not, Macca.
Cases are still within the door.
I get something in me head, and all the walls of Rome couldn't stop me.
All right, pickled onion.
I remember so vividly showing up at a show,
and you'd be in your ordinary clothes,
and then you'd take out of your little suitcase
your suit, and your shirt,
and put 'em on,
and then finally your Beatle boots.
And you'd stand up.
And you just looked at each other like, "Yeah, there we are."
One, two.
# She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah
# She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
# You think you've lost your love
# Well, I saw her yesterday
# It's you she's thinking of
# And she told me what to say
# She says she loves you
# And you know that can't be bad
# She loves you
# And you know you should be glad
# She said you hurt her so
# She almost lost her mind
# Now she says she knows
# You're not the hurting kind
# Because she loves you
# And you know that can't be bad
# She loves you
# And you know you should be glad
# Ooh...
# She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah
# She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah... #
'Yeah, yeah, yeah, those are The Beatles, those are,
'and this is Beatleland, formerly known as Britain,
'where an epidemic called Beatlemania has seized the teenage population.'
'Such confusion here at London airport.
'Hundreds and hundreds of young Beatle fans.'
The younger generation is going to hell!
Just gorgeous.
- They're what? - They're gorgeous.
It's their haircuts, and the clothes, they're settin' a new fashion.
The way they sing, their clothes, their hair. They sound different.
But they're confident, they're natural.
They sort of represent the teenage people.
# Be glad
# Yeah, yeah, yeah
# Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah #
By the end, it became quite complicated.
But at the beginning, things were really simple.
Thank you very much everybody!
- Thank you, yeah. - Thank you very much.
A lot of people thought we were an overnight sensation.
We weren't.
People didn't realise we'd had all this development.
They just saw these four things that looked alike with this haircut,
and they knew how to play,
and they were a bit of a laugh,
you know, 'cause that's what we'd been doing all those years previously.
I had a group.
I was the singer and the leader.
I met Paul and said, "Do you want to join me band", you know?
And then George joined.
We were great live performers then.
I don't think anybody in the world ever saw us outside of Liverpool
and a few places where we travelled to,
because that's when we had to perform live to a small audience in a dance hall,
we had to hold them.
We were just playing, all the time.
Then we went out to Hamburg,
and that was a real slog.
We were playing, sometimes eight hours a day.
I was right in the middle of the naughtiest city in the world,
at 17 years old.
It was kind of exciting.
I was with Rory Storm.
We were like the top band in Liverpool,
and for some reason, this guy in Hamburg decided to come to Liverpool
and take all the bands to Germany to play.
We went to see these punks, and that was it.
I still remember that moment, the first time Ringo played with us.
Bang, he kicks in and it's like...
And it was an oh, my God moment,
we're like... I remember looking, and we're all looking at each other, like,
"Yeah, this is it."
I'm getting very emotional.
Once we got Ringo, we started to do better
and sort of do it professionally.
You know, for me, I'm an only child,
I felt like I suddenly had three brothers.
We just wanted to play.
Playing was the most important thing.
Hamburg was a bit messy, you know,
I mean, to sleep all huddled together in one room.
You know, no bathroom or anything,
but then we'd had practice, because we didn't have a bathroom at home.
We used to have this saying that I used to chant and they would answer,
when they were depressed, you know,
and thinking the group was going nowhere,
and this is a shitty deal, and we're in a shitty dressing room.
I say, "Where are we going, fellows?" And they'd go:
To the top, Johnny.
And I'd say, where's that, fellows? And they'd say:
To the toppermost of the poppermost, Johnny.
And I'd say, "Right!" And we'd all sort of cheer up.
We were always kinda, you know, a little nervous
before each step we went up the ladder.
But we didn't realise what was to come.
# Last night I said these words to my girl... #
'The Beatles.
'In one meteoric year, they've led the way
'from the centres of Liverpool to the national limelight.'
Do you have any fears
that your public eventually will move on to a new favourite?
It's stupid to worry about things like that.
It's not worth missing your sleep for, is it?
- No. - No.
- What do you think? - It could, it could happen tomorrow
and we could have quite a run.
I was living in Sweden, and The Beatles came to Sweden.
I remember I went day after day
and stood outside the hotel at the end of school.
And I just remember seeing their figures on the balcony.
Once a day, The Beatles would come out and wave.
Hello, my name's Paul McCartney and I play bass guitar.
Hello, people there,
I'm George Harrison and I play solo guitar, yeah.
This is Ringo Starr and I play drums.
And this is John Lennon, and I play better guitar.
They were like a gang, do you know what I mean?
They each had their little characteristic.
I mean, John was surprisingly fearless.
Paul was surprisingly cute.
Ringo was cheeky and irresistible.
And George was the one that my sister was in love with.
Now, you're tremendously lively and full of zing on the stage,
how difficult is it for you to keep up this zest?
Well, we do the zest we can.
I've spent my whole career, in a way,
trying to recapture in things that I write,
the hilarity of four friends,
one drink down, age 19,
laughing at their jokes and all the new stuff that they find really funny.
The Beatles were kind of the dream of how you might be with your friends
as you went through life.
All screaming, screaming, that's the man of the year,
and you say, "Why do they scream?"
- I don't know. - No.
I couldn't tell you.
If somebody scores a goal,
there's a louder cheer from all the people,
so if we shake our heads, it's the equivalent of scoring a goal,
and that's when the screams are loudest. Do you see what I mean?
Yes, yes I do understand. You do that and they scream.
# Ah...
- # Well, shake it up, baby, now - # Shake it up, baby
- # Twist and shout - # Twist and shout
# Come on, come on, come on, come on, baby, now
# Come on, baby
# Come on and work it on out
# Work it on out
- # Well, you twisty little girl - # Twisty little girl
- # You know you twist so fine - # Twist so fine
- # Come on and twist a little closer now - # Twist a little closer
- # And let me know that you're mine - # Let me know you're mine
# Well, shake it, shake it, shake it, baby, now
# Shake it up, baby
# Well, shake it, shake it, shake it, baby, now
# Shake it up, baby
# Well, shake it, shake it, shake it, baby, now
# Shake it up, baby... ooh!
# Ah...
# Yeah #
'This is the BBC Home Service.
'Here is the news read by Frank Phillips.
'Thousands of teenagers who had been waiting for more than 12 hours in Liverpool
'to book for a Beatle show were disappointed.
'At one time, the queue stretched for over a mile
'and the police had to seal off side streets to traffic.
'Ambulance men dealt with more than a hundred casualties,
'most of them suffering from exposure to the rain.
'When the tickets ran out, many young girls burst into tears.
'More rain is forecast for most of Scotland...'
'Hello, London, this is Leonard Parkin
'calling Radio News Reel from Washington.
'President Kennedy and Governor John Connally
'were shot today from an ambush
'as President Kennedy's motorcade Ieft the centre of Dallas
'where the President was on a speaking tour.'
It was disturbing for us.
It was a mixture of all these sort of strange things.
Where the world was at.
It was scary.
But in all truthfulness, we were more in our own heads.
You know, being in a band.
You know, we were lads.
It was like, this is our journey, and things are being put in place.
Outside of our consciousness.
Even the first trip to America.
There was no plan. You could not plan it.
I'd been very fussy about America.
I'd said, "We can't go to America, and come back having failed.
"If we ever get a number one there, then we can really go in,
"and you know, we'll be kings!"
'So Marsha Albert
'has the honour of introducing something brand new,
'an exclusive here at WWDC.
'Marsha, the microphone here on the Carroll James Show is yours.'
'Ladies and gentlemen, for the first time on the air in the United States,
'here are The Beatles singing, I Want to Hold Your Hand. '
# Oh, yeah, I
# Tell you something
# I think you'll understand
# When I... #
I remember, we were in Paris, playing at the Olympia.
# I want to hold your hand... #
A telegram came through and said, "Congratulations, boys,
"number one in America, Hold YourHand." It was like, Ah!
We just jumped on each other's backs, ran around
and just partied round and round this little room for hours,
just screaming.
It was like visas, passports, America, here we come!
'The Beatles are on their way to America.
'Come back, Ringo, come back all, George and John, and come back, Paul.'
# It's such a feeling that, my love... #
When we came, I know this for myself,
and I know because we talked to each other,
we were in America before the plane landed.
I could feel New York.
It was an incredible sensation,
it was like "Come on down, boys."
'There they are! It's just wild here.
'The four Beatles have left the airplane!
'They're standing on the airway.
'There's that fabulous hairdo.
'And one of them is waving his fingers.
'Oh, look at him wiggle! Look at him wiggle!
'Look at him wiggle!'
We all knew America, all of us, you know?
I mean, through all those movies.
Whether it was Disneyland or Doris Day and Rock Hudson, or whatever,
you know, James Dean, Marilyn. Everything was American.
'Apparently they're gonna make a concerted effort
'to get through into the building,
'where, in just a few moments, a scheduled press conference will begin.'
America's always seen as the mother lode
for British performers, maybe for any performer in the world.
What about the reports
that you guys are nothing but a bunch of British Elvis Presleys?
It's not true, it's not true.
What that is, is what any comedian would want to do.
The trick of dealing with heckles
is to say the first thing that comes into your brain,
and they'd already got to that place.
And they could all do it.
I got a question here. You hope to get a haircut at all?
- No. - Nope, no thanks.
I had one yesterday.
And that's no lie, it's true.
The Beatles were cheeky.
It's kind of what every kid wants to be, a lot of adults want to be,
being able to talk back to people who are telling you what to do.
They were cheeky, and I think people in the world liked that.
It's not aggressive, it's not nasty.
It's just brazen.
Why does your music excite them so much?
We don't know really.
If we knew, we'd form another group and be managers.
And now, here he is, Ed Sullivan!
Thank you very much.
Now, yesterday and today our theatre's been jammed with newspapermen
and hundreds of photographers from all over the nation,
and these veterans agree with me that the city
never has witnessed the excitement stirred by these youngsters from Liverpool
who call themselves The Beatles.
Now tonight, you're gonna twice be entertained by them.
Right now, and again in the second half of our show.
Ladies and gentlemen, The Beatles!
One, two, three, four!
# Close your eyes and I'll kiss you
# Tomorrow I'll miss you
# Remember I'll always be true
# And then while I'm away
# I'll write home every day
# And I'll send all my loving to you... #
We watched Ed Sullivan every Sunday night,
my brother, my mum and I.
It wasn't even a question, it was just, that's what we'd do.
And man, I had never seen anybody that looked like them.
# Close your eyes and I'll kiss you
# Tomorrow I'll miss you
# Remember I'll always be true... #
It was like a revelation.
And when you're a little kid, you don't know it's a revelation, but it was like...
the whole world lit up.
Suddenly I felt like I could be friends with them.
And I'm black, you know?
# All my loving
# Ooh, all my loving
# I will send to you #
People would say to me,
"You think you want to be white? You like those guys?"
It was like, I never thought of them really as white guys.
They were The Beatles.
They were colourless, you know?
And they were fucking amazing.
The Beatles gave me this idea
that everybody was welcome.
If you weren't the hippest kid in the neighbourhood,
it didn't matter, because you could be a Beatle fan,
and I liked that.
And that sort of carried me into these older days
where it's like, I am my own person.
I can look the way I want, I can be the way I want,
and it's OK.
And I got that specifically from them.
'Fresh after their appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show,
'where over half the country was watching,
'the four English musical stars with their pudding-bowl haircuts
'were mobbed by about 4,000 shrieking teenagers
'when they got to the Plaza Hotel.'
We had the whole floor in the Plaza.
- It's been press, no press. - No press, you fool.
And the four of us ended up in the bathroom,
just to get a break from the incredible pressure.
No, let me on it. Let me on it.
No! Me!
No! Me! Me!
- Television! Me! - It's me!
- You! - It's me.
- No, you. - No, it's me.
- After you, sir. - Cut.
But we loved it.
To pick up a small transistor radio - it was the first time in New York -
and hear you coming out the radio...
Ah! It was mind blowing.
'This is John Lennon of The Beatles on 1010 WIMS.'
'Now we just want to tell everybody this was The Beatles station!
'They're takin' over, they're telling us what to play.'
Hello?
'Yes, I'm just calling for the manager of The Beatles.
'May we have his name, please?'
Their manager's name is Mr Brian Epstein.
Looking back now, it was Brian Epstein.
He was the guy who got us famous, really.
Brian was class.
That was what Brian was.
He was like Liverpool class.
Well, Brian was 27.
He was a grown-up. He had a car.
The Beatles' parents were Liverpudlian,
working-class people that had been through a war.
Our playgrounds were bomb sites.
His parents ran a record shop.
Well, it seems a funny sort of world for a young man like you to be in.
How did you get into it? How did you start?
I heard about them
through a lad who was asking for a record by them
in one of my stores,
or my family's stores, in October, 1961.
Growin' up, my mum always wanted me to talk proper.
You know, all of us, really.
You know, I could talk like I'm from Liverpool.
Fuck you, I'm tellin' you, don't give me any hard time.
Whereas Brian was very well-mannered, very well-spoken,
so we felt we could trust him.
I went down to see them in Liverpool at The Cavern Club.
The Beatles sing Some Other Guy.
They were fresh and they were honest.
And they had what I thought was a sort of presence.
And this is a terrible, vague term, "star quality."
Whatever that is, they had it.
# Some other guy now
# Has taken my love away from me, oh now
# Some other guy now
# Has taken away my sweet desire... #
He was looking at our stage presence.
In the early days, it was clear that he had a vision of us
that was beyond the vision we had of ourselves.
At that stage, they were playing around the clubs in Liverpool,
rather scruffily dressed.
Black leather jackets and jeans,
and a rather untidy stage presentation.
But having great fun.
But I don't think that they would have bothered to do anything about it,
because young, inexperienced people are not really very good
at presenting themselves properly in the right sort of quarters.
He took us to a tailor, Beno Dorn,
and we went to this guy, and he made us up suits, you know.
I'm not sure exactly what time we'll be back from Washington.
We're going to Washington tomorrow and then coming back on Wednesday.
Good night.
Brian kept us together as a team.
What place do you think this story of The Beatles is gonna have
in the history of Western culture?
You must be kidding with that question.
Culture? It's not culture.
- What is it? - It's a good laugh.
This is Harold James.
And now, from the Washington D.C. Coliseum,
the world's most exciting group,
Capitol Recording stars, The Beatles.
You know, the suits.
It's the simplest of ideas.
It suddenly made us one person.
A four-headed monster.
Hello.
Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you very much, everybody,
and good evening, how do you do?
We would like to sing a song
which we recorded on an LP that we made.
That's English for "album". An album that we made.
And we'd like you, if you would,
to sort of join in and clap your hands, you know,
and stamp your feet.
The song's called I Saw Her Standing There.
One, two, three, four.
# Well, she was just seventeen
# You know what I mean
# And the way looked was way beyond compare
# How could I dance with another
# Whoo... Since I saw her standing there
# Well, she looked at me
# And I, I could see
# That before too long
# I'd fall in love with her
# She wouldn't dance with another
# Whoo... When I saw her standing there
# Well, my heart went boom
# When I crossed that room
# And I held her hand in mine
# Whoa, we danced through the night
# And we held each other tight
# And before too long I fell in love with her
# Now, I'll never dance with another
# Whoo... Since I saw her standing there
# Whoa
# We danced through the night
# And we held each other tight
# And before too long I fell in love with her
# Now, I'll never dance with another
# Whoo... Since I saw her standing there
# Well, since I saw her standing there
# Well, since I saw her standing there #
Which one are you?
- Eric. - Eric?
It's not for me, it's for Paul.
I'm doing this...
- Eric, here is the American public. - I'm John.
- You're John? - It was only a joke.
Yes, well, John, here is the American public.
40 million American viewers...
- It only looks like one man to me. - ...staring you right in the face.
Oh, it's the cameraman.
What is your impression of the American public?
- You've been here for a while now. - They're the wildest.
- Why? - I don't know.
Tonight was, you know, marvellous, ridiculous.
All those 8,000 people all shouting at once,
and we were trying to shout louder than them with microphones,
and we still couldn't beat them.
Was America something like what you thought it would be like?
No, nothing like it. We thought it'd be much quieter.
We thought it, you know, we'd have to grow on everybody.
But everybody seems to know us all, you know,
as if we've been here for years. It's great.
I love The Beatles for them and I'll always love 'em,
even when I'm 105 and an old grandmother, I'll love 'em.
And Paul McCartney, if you are listening,
Adrienne from Brooklyn loves you with all her heart.
It was a romantic thing for us,
being in America, playing to our American fans.
- Ringo has a sexy nose. - A sexy nose?
George has got sexy eyelashes.
- Who has? - George. He's got sexy eyelashes.
- Which one is George? - Sexy eyelashes.
- That one. - That one, he's beautiful.
He's got sexy eyelashes.
The very earliest records were all pleas to the fans.
And it was all personal article.
In the early days, we didn't count lyrics at all,
you know, as long as it had some vague theme.
She loves you, and he loves him, and they love each other.
- # So, hold - # Hold
- # Me tight - # Me tight
- # Tonight - # Tonight
# It's you
# You, you, you... #
It's all direct. It was kind of conscious.
We were actually appealing to girls.
We were young boys who were appealing to girls, you know,
to get our fan base.
# You... #
In those days...
- Go on. - You yourselves,
you know, you write very good songs.
- Don't you? - Oh, thank you. Thank you.
- How do you write songs? - Well, you know...
We... it just depends.
Sometimes we write them on old pianos and anything that's lying round, you know.
Normally we sit down and try and bash one out, sort of thing.
But then again, there's no formula,
because he can come up with one one day, completely finished,
we still say we both wrote it then.
# I got every reason on earth to be mad
# Cos I just lost the only girl I had... #
There's been a single every three months,
and we'd have to be writing literally in the hotel or in a van.
We wrote on the road. Mainly me and John.
George developed as a writer later and became an unbelievable writer.
But at the beginning, it was mainly me and John.
So we would be in a hotel room with two twin beds,
and he'd have his acoustic guitar, I'd have mine, sit opposite each other,
and because I was left-handed, he was right-handed,
it was like looking in a mirror.
And we'd just start something and ricochet off each other.
He'd do a line, I'd do a line. And we'd just write it down.
And when we were finished, we didn't have a manuscript,
but we had a sheet of paper with the words,
and we remembered the chords.
That's number one in Cashbox and Billboard.
Yeah. You know, in New York, three records,
Please Please Me, She Loves You, and I Want to Hold YourHand
are all number one.
All joined, yeah.
Thanks. Well, we'll see you in two weeks, I suppose.
Yeah, in a minute.
My relationship with John was very close, musically,
you know, we looked after each other, really.
He was like someone you kinda looked up to a little bit, you know.
When I first met him, I talked to people in my life,
and they said, "What do you like to do? What are your hobbies and stuff?"
And I sort of said, "I like songwriting. I've written a couple of songs."
And they'd all go, "Oh, yeah? Great.
"What did you think about the football?"
And I'd go, "Oh, OK, nobody interested."
When I said that to John, he said, "Oh, so have I."
I go, "Whoa, wait a minute. Big connection here."
I'd never met anyone who'd written songs.
So that's how we started.
I think it's something like just short of 300 songs John and I wrote together.
# I think it's only fair
# Pride can hurt you too
# Apologise to her
# Because she loves you
# And you know that can't be bad
# Yes, she loves you
# And you know you should be glad
# Ooh...
# She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah
# And with a love like that you know you should be glad #
My mother's father was from Liverpool.
There was that pride thing that they were from Liverpool, you know.
I'm nine years old.
When your favourite group is The Beatles,
you know, it is like supporting the winning football team,
because it's like they just keep winning the cup.
You'd wait all week to hear the hit parade show
so that you would hear, for sure, The Beatles' songs,
because they would get to number one.
Top British vocal group, top four records of the year,
the world's leading vocal group, The Beatles.
# Can't buy me love
# Love
# Can't buy me love
# I'll buy you a diamond ring, my friend, if it makes you feel all right
# I'll get you anything, my friend, if it makes you feel all right
# Cos I don't care too much for money
# Money can't buy me love... #
For some reason, whatever we were putting out,
they were loving, you know?
And they loved us wherever we went. I mean, it was a surprise to us, too.
John, Paul, George, or Ringo?
The Beatles!
It was a different kind of fame,
because we didn't have social media, we didn't have satellite television,
and yet the word would spread that this group were coming.
Once it was big in one country, it got bigger in the next.
Australia,
there was more people came to see us there than anywhere.
I mean, it looked like, I think the whole of Australia was there.
'Along the nine-mile route from Adelaide Airport to the city,
'almost a quarter of a million people lined the streets.'
My picture of it now is...
There was a ship, going to discover the new world, you know?
And The Beatles were in the crow's nest,
and we just said, "Land ho!"
# It's the second time I've caught you talking to him
# Do I have to tell you one more time, I think it's a sin
- # I'm gonna let you down - # Let you down
- # Leave you flat - # Gonna let you down and leave you flat
# Because I've told you before
# Oh, you can't do that #
And so we were all on this ship in the '60s,
not just Beatles but our movement, our generation,
and we went somewhere.
And of course the next most extraordinary thing
is the fantasy version of The Beatles from '64.
You know, A Hard Day's Night.
# It's been a hard day's night
# And I've been working like a dog
# It's been a hard day's night
# I should be sleeping like a log... #
You fancy yourselves as actors then, do you?
No, definitely not.
But we enjoyed making the film,
and especially with the director.
The director was great, you see, and it made it much easier for us.
United Artists said,
"You ought to be able to make a good, quick, low-budget film with them,
"as long as it's in the cinemas by July,
"because we think they'll be probably a spent force by the end of the summer."
Give us a kiss.
- I shall call the guard. - Ah, but what?
They don't take kindly to insults, you know.
The only thing that was apparent, through the seven weeks of the shoot,
is that sense of protection.
Being protective when they had to be,
supporting one another in a family way.
# It's been a hard day's night... #
One of the things about A Hard Day's Night
and everything you heard about The Beatles
is the lack of self-pity,
that we had a feeling they were adoring what was happening to them,
and therefore that made it like a completely virtuous circle.
Fans, Beatles, fun, excitement, music.
And of course, everybody in the world could buy tickets to see them.
What you're seeing is
the emergence of this international teen culture.
If you're 14 in 1964,
who are you looking to for cues?
Not your parents.
Beatles hysteria is kind of a muscle flexing of that generation, the Baby Boom.
It's no accident you see all this kind of youth culture coming out of that time,
because quite literally the society is dominated by teenagers.
# You know I feel all right #
# Gonna write a little letter, mail it to my local DJ
# It's a rockin' rhythm record I want my jockey to play
# Roll over Beethoven, gotta hear it again today
# You know my temperature's rising, the jukebox blows a fuse
# My heart beating rhythm and my soul is a-singing the blues
# Roll over Beethoven, dig these rhythm and blues... #
# Roll over Beethoven
# Yeah, roll over Beethoven... #
The first time we went to America, it was just 10 days,
so when we came back, we knew they were waiting for us.
Tell me, several people on these radio programmes want to know,
what do you plan to do when the bubble bursts?
Not sure, Fred.
But we really want to know.
We're gonna have a laugh.
The biggest question in 1964 was,
"When is the bubble gonna burst?"
'WFUN South Miami.'
I was 21 years old,
news director of a station in Miami, WFUN, Fun in the Sun Radio.
'WFUN.'
We got word that The Beatles were gonna come to America,
and I wrote a letter asking for an interview with them,
and I sent it to Brian Epstein, their manager.
I got this letter back inviting me on the tour.
And I said, "I'm not going.
"We've got the war in Vietnam escalating, the president just died,
"Muhammad Ali is training three blocks from our studio,
"the Ford Mustang has been released,
"it's one of the biggest news years in the history of the world.
"Why would I, a news guy, want to travel with a band
"that will be here in October and gone in November?"
Seconds out, round one.
My bosses said, "You gotta go."
My father pulled me aside before I went on tour,
and he said, "Watch your back.
"These men are a menace to society."
# It's been a hard day's night
# And I've been working like a dog... #
'This is Larry Kane, on tour with The Beatles.
'Let me give you a little description of the dangers of being with The Beatles.
'When we drove up to the stage door,
'The Beatles were almost crushed completely
'by youngsters who amassed themselves against the wall,
'broke about 50 windows,
'throwed rocks, jelly beans, undershirts, sandals.
'The situation was one of sheer havoc,
'even though the police did their best to stop it.'
The first couple days, there was a bewilderment.
There was a wondrousness.
"Is this really happening to us?"
'One girl stuck her hand through the window and grabbed at my face.
'I'm OK, don't worry, people, I'm all right.'
Four cities later, in Vancouver, British Columbia,
7,000 kids rushed the stage.
Thank you, folks. Before we do the next song...
Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen.
The Beatles have come a long way to do this show,
and we'll have to cut it short unless you move back,
cos they're very worried about the situation in the front.
Back.
240 kids wound up in the hospital.
None of the police in any of these cities were prepared for this.
Nobody was prepared for this.
Wouldn't you say, Derek,
that police departments don't realise how bad it is?
I think that's true.
They've all seen crowds before. I mean, they all say,
"We know our own people. We know the police potential,
"and we're going to be able to handle it."
But what they've never seen is a Beatle crowd.
This is the biggest thing that's ever happened.
There's no question about it. It's like nothing before.
It's not like Presley, it's not like Sinatra, it's not like the late President Kennedy.
It's The Beatles, and they are without precedent.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, everybody. Ta.
It's wonderful, thank you.
Um, singing a song
from the first album that we ever made.
A song which was originally recorded by a group called The Shirelles.
- Just a minute, checking. - Yeah.
Yeah.
Singing a song called Boys. Ringo!
# I been told when a boy kiss a girl
# Take a trip around the world, hey, hey
# Bop shuop, bop-bop shuop
- # Hey, now - # Bop shuop, bop-bop shuop
- # Hey, hey - # Bop shuop
# Whoa, she say you do
# Bop shuop, yeah... #
I was way in the back, way at the top,
surrounded by lots of girls
really crying real tears and so beside themselves.
I felt as much as a girl can feel.
I was in love with John.
I remember spending all day putting my hair in beer cans
to make sure it was straight, cos I had curly hair.
Picking out the dress.
Because of course they would see me, along with 15,000 girls.
It was this sense of world music
that we were all loving them, all over the world.
# My girl says when I kiss her lips... #
This is Larry Kane on-board the Beatle Bird, as I call it.
I have with me George Harrison. How ya doin', George?
I'm very well, Larry. And how are you?
- Fine, are you glad to be back in America? - Yeah, it's great.
This is Larry Kane with The Beatles, flying across America.
With me I have Ringo Starr.
Right over Kansas, 23,000 feet in the air, on our way to Cincinnati.
They had a wild one yesterday.
On this exciting 25-city, coast-to-coast tour.
Atlantic City, Philadelphia.
Well, let's talk a little bit about the crowds at Indianapolis.
Back and forth, again. The stage set for Milwaukee tonight.
You can hear the buzz and excitement here in the Chicago Amphitheater.
Now Detroit, Michigan.
The Beatles really shook up the crowds in Toronto.
In Montreal, Canada.
Hi, this is Larry Kane, travelling with The Beatles.
Let me explain to you the type of feeling that you get after 15 performances,
watching The Beatles in action and watching the crowds.
It's a chilling feeling inside,
because you know you are experiencing a phenomenon
that is the only one of its kind in the century thus far
and that probably will go down in history
as the greatest show business example of music and admiration
in many, many hundreds of years.
# Ah... boys
# Yeah, yeah, boys
- # Don't you know I mean boys - # Yeah, yeah, boys
- # Talking about boys now - # Yeah, yeah, boys
- # Aah, ah! - # Yeah, yeah, boys
- # Talking about boys now - # Yeah, yeah, boys
# What a bundle of joy #
Thank you!
Remember, too, that in 1964 there were riots throughout the South
because of the Civil Rights Movement.
And you started to feel a social change happening.
'This is Larry Kane, and the big question mark still is Jacksonville,
'not knowing whether they will be able to perform.'
I'd received a report from my station
that the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville was gonna be segregated,
so I mentioned it to them in the interview.
'What about this comment that I heard about, uh... concerning racial integration
'at the various performances?'
'We don't like it if there's any segregation or anything,
'because it just seems mad to me.'
And I could see Brian in the corner of the room going like, "Oh, my God."
'Well, you're gonna play Jacksonville, Florida.
'Do you anticipate any kind of difference of that opinion?'
'I don't know, really. You know, it'd be a bit silly to segregate people,
'cos, you know, I mean, obviously it's stupid, you know.
'You can't treat other human beings like animals.'
- 'That's the way we all feel.' - PAUL: 'That's the way we all feel,
'and a lot of people in England feel that way, you know.
'cos there's never any segregation in concerts in England,
'and in fact if there was, we wouldn't play 'em, you know.'
During that same summer,
we had the three civil rights workers in the South who were missing,
and then found dead.
I was 15, living in segregation.
It was an apartheid that's probably difficult for a lot of people to even picture.
The only white person I would even have contact with
was a salesman who would come into the community.
I was ripe for something different, I think,
by the time I heard that The Beatles were coming to town.
All of them, by the way, were very emphatic about Jacksonville.
They said if there was going to be segregation of any kind, we're not going.
We played to people, that's what we did.
We didn't play to, like, those people, or that people, you know what I mean?
We just played to people.
It was amazing that the four of them, young men, seeing the world,
started to act up and blow back on this very, very hot and sensitive issue,
knowing that it would really irritate a lot of Americans.
We had to all decide that we agreed on a thing before we'd do it.
That is, like, one of the classic things about The Beatles.
Four votes had to be carried for any idea to go through.
Instead of going for an individual thing,
we went for the strongest format and for equals.
That was one thing to be said about us.
We were very, very close to each other.
We'd always stick together.
We all had to agree, so it was a strong decision.
You know, the proof's in the pudding. It worked really well.
It was my first concert, and I went by myself.
The only catch in my breath that I got was when I went to my seat
and there were all those other people around me.
And I still can feel that, to this day,
that there were all these white people around,
but everyone standing up with everybody,
and then just yelling as loud as I could and singing along.
# Me, I'm just the lucky kind
# Love to hear you say
# That love is luck, and though we may... #
That was the first experience I had
where it was possible to be around people who were different,
and at least for a while those differences could disappear.
# If I fell in love with you
# Would you promise to be true
# And help me understand... #
The people who ran the Gator Bowl integrated for the first time ever,
which, from my historical perspective and study,
ended all that in most of the big stadiums in the South.
'And the next eight days are probably the most gruelling of the tour.
'Looks like The Beatles are holding up strong.'
Every night on the airplane, they would walk up to the front of the plane
where the opening acts were
and kneel down and talk to them.
Every single night, they would ask them if they were OK.
Because they were being ignored by the crowd.
'This is Larry Kane, travelling with The Beatles.
'And they're looking forward to going back to England,
'because they'll be there for two weeks, where they'll record records of new music,
'and then believe it or not, another month-long tour,
'this time of their own country,
'sometimes just by bus, and that's pretty hard.'
My mother died in the summer of 1964,
and somehow or other it got to them that she had passed away,
and Paul and John both consoled me.
John and I, we'd both lost our mothers.
Mine had died of cancer
and his had died in a terrible road accident.
So that kind of pulled us together a lot.
You know, being teenagers, we just needed to do something
that would get us away from this tragedy,
and so songwriting was it, really.
# Cos I couldn't stand the pain... #
They were very, very sensitive to other people's feelings.
All four of them.
They were intelligent people who cared about other people,
who had a sense of themselves.
They also liked making fun of me.
'John, last night, you were very kind and Derek was very kind
'to invite us up to see the movie, which I have seen twice.'
'I never invited him at all.
'I just saw him sitting there, listening to us.'
- 'Well, anyway, uh...' - JOHN: 'Only kidding, Larry.'
'This has been Larry Kane, travelling with The Beatles.'
It's extraordinary, when you think about it,
that they were touring in this kind of circus of life.
The sort of madness of all that jamboree, of excitement,
and hysteria.
And yet, they were able to express the way they were feeling,
the weirdness of it,
because inside those Beatle suits were composers. They were writers.
- Now I told you. - It was you, too George.
I said we'd miss out on the middle eight.
Ah, you're coming in the wrong... Halfway through the solo.
- What was it, 12 bar? - Yeah...
The studio was like our little haven.
Once we got back there, we knew we could experiment.
We could hear ourselves.
And we would write songs that would be a progression
and that would be fun to record.
Brian Epstein and I
worked together very closely planning their future.
We agreed that we should put out a single every three months
and an album every six months.
# Baby's good to me, you know
# She's happy as can be, you know, she said so
# I'm in love with her and I feel fine... #
I was under pressure because I'd got such little time with them.
I would say to Brian, you know, "I need more time in the studio."
And he would dole out time like giving scraps to a mouse.
One of the great things about our recording was the schedule.
You'd go in a 10 o'clock in the morning,
tune up, have a ciggy, have a cup of tea or something,
and then John and I mainly would present the song that we'd written to everyone.
It goes...
Just go through it anyway, if it makes...
Make mistakes... just to practice it.
Try to remember, John,
and if I don't, well, it's just too bad, isn't it? OK?
Is it just me and you?
One, two, three, four.
# Ooh... #
- Oh, no, that's too much. - You daft git!
- Take two! - One, two, three, four.
# Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh
# Ooh, ooh
# Ooh, I need your love, babe
# Guess you know it's true
Ringo would tap along,
George would just suss the chords, and then George Martin would go,
"Oh, yeah, that's half nice, it was marvellous,"
and then it would take about 20 minutes to do that.
# Love me... #
What are you doing?
George, what did it sound like with the bass doing a funny thing?
Did it sound good or did it sound just utterly crap?
Thank you, I think it's a good idea.
No, no...
- Take three. - One, two, three, four.
# Ooh... #
At the very beginning,
George Martin was the only man who could press the button to record.
We'd just play it and do it. "Ah, did you get that, George?"
I'm getting that, yes.
- Wonderful. - That's lovely.
Keep that one. Mark it "fab".
You wanna have a listen before we go onto the next one?
George had recorded the Goons.
That was like a cult thing that we all loved and we all knew it.
At that time, I was a comedy producer,
recording Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers
and a lot of English comedy actors.
So he picked up our humour,
he picked up our camaraderie, you know.
We thought, "Well, he's mad. We love him."
Ready yet in there?
Oh, we'll just have to have a go of it.
- Oh, you're right... - I know.
On the early records, George Martin was a god.
To begin with, I was very much in charge,
because I was a kind of schoolmaster teaching them everything.
And they had to do what I told them.
You had one and a half hours from 10:30 to finish that song.
Boom. So that focused you.
That was a great discipline.
- We'll do it again. - So, we'll try and get it good, too.
I'm just gonna start recording you.
Red light's on.
Every minute of the day,
someone wanted something, you know?
Drive to EMI to do a record,
down here to Soho to do a photo shoot.
Drive back to do some TV show.
# I'm a loser
# And I'm not what I appear to be
# Of all... #
I was singing the wrong words there.
Drive to Birmingham to do a gig.
End up in a nightclub.
We were just doing four or five things a day, you know,
but we had each other. And we brought that to the music.
# Ooh, I need your love, babe
# Guess you know it's true
# Hope you need my love, babe
# Just like I need you... #
The thing about the scale is
that writing lots of songs is not particularly difficult.
Volume is not the thing.
The extraordinary thing about The Beatles is the amount of great songs.
Schubert wrote about 800 songs,
of which probably 100 are absolutely beautiful melodies.
The other 700, pretty good.
The only comparison with that kind of level of melody, maybe Mozart?
Very, very high volume and very good melodies.
You have to wait a long time, then,
till you get someone who's up in the hundreds,
and that's when you get The Beatles.
Which is why I think you can compare them in some ways,
because the sheer volume of the invention.
# I ain't got nothing but love, girl
# Eight days a week
# Eight days a week... #
Hello again from Hullabaloo, London.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr Richard Lester.
Richard, what do you think we could tell them about the new Beatles flick?
Well, first of all, it's going to be different from the last one.
It'll be in colour.
It'll be a film that has a lot of plot, a lot of entertainment about it,
and Ringo's in trouble again.
We need protection, we've got a record to do tomorrow.
I need protection.
And you shall have it. Get me protection.
# You don't realise how much I need you
# Love you all the time and never leave you
# Please come on back to me
# I'm lonely as can be
# I need you... #
We'd enjoyed very much doing A Hard Day's Night.
We had kinda taken it seriously,
but with the film Help! we were kinda pretty disinterested.
You know, we were now doing it again,
and so it couldn't be quite as exciting as the first time. Nothing is.
The main thing I remember is, we all had meetings about tax structure
and they would sorta say,
oh you've gotta put your money in the Bahamas or somewhere.
So when we were asked about the film,
we would say, "Can we go to The Bahamas?"
We were told, you're gonna film in the Bahamas. Write a scene.
# I get high when I see you go by
# My oh my... #
In 1965, they invited me to Nassau to watch them film the movie Help!
I walked into the house and I saw something very unusual.
They were all high on marijuana.
And I'd never seen this before.
- Hey Paul, how you doin'? - Hello, Larry.
- Good to see you again. - Lovely to see you, yes.
Hey, John. How are you doin'?
What is this everything... anything can happen business?
- Thanks a lot. - Anything. Larry?
We'll be talking to you.
In all truthfulness, we spent a lot of that film slightly stoned.
Things were spiralling like crazy during Help!
There were people coming in with contracts for bubblegum royalties
and being condescending,
and then the press were getting aggressive.
They owned all of us.
There's no switching off.
The elevator man wants a little piece of you on the way back to your room.
The maid wants a little piece of you back at the hotel.
And I don't mean sexually, I mean a piece of your time and your energy,
and it's like a politician, you're on 24 hours a day.
I think that John got fed up first.
He became agitated or frustrated about what was being written,
particularly from 1965 onward.
Richard Lester had said we need a song,
and John started it,
so by the time I came to see him, he had a lot of it,
and he said to me, you know, this is kind of autobiographical.
You know, "When I was younger, so much younger than today..."
I knew what he meant,
you know, and I knew now he was more insecure
cos we were all a bit more insecure than we'd been when we were 17.
One, two, three, four!
# Help!
- # I need somebody - # Help!
- # Not just anybody - # Help!
# You know I need someone
# Help!
# When I was younger, so much younger than today
# I never needed anybody's help in any way
# But now these days are gone, I'm not so self-assured
# Now I find I've changed my mind
# And opened up the doors
# Help me if you can, I'm feeling down
# And I do appreciate you being round
# Help me get my feet back on the ground
# Won't you please, please help me
# And now my life has changed in oh so many ways
# My independence seems to vanish in the haze
# But now these days are gone I'm not so self-assured
# I know that I just need you like I've never done before
# Help me if you can, I'm feeling down... #
I always liked Help, because I meant it, it's real.
The lyric is as good now as it was then, there's no difference to it.
It was just me singing "Help," and I meant it.
# Won't you please, please help me
# Help me, help me, ooh #
We were not getting a lot of money from records.
We had the worst deal in the world,
but we had a deal and we were on vinyl, and that's all that mattered.
You've gotta remember, we made our money playing live.
# Well, they took some honey
# From a tree
# Dressed it up and they called it me
# Everybody's trying to be my baby
# Everybody's trying to be my baby, now... #
It just got bigger and bigger and bigger.
# Well half past nine, half past four
# Fifty women knocking on my door
# Everybody's trying to be my baby
# Everybody's trying to be my baby, now, yeah... #
And then it got crazy.
They went back to America and started playing stadiums,
places like Portland, San Francisco,
the Metropolitan Stadium in Minneapolis,
the Chicago White Sox's Kaminski Park.
# Went out last night, I didn't stay late
# 'Fore I got home I had nineteen dates... #
There were lots of other groups touring at this point,
but nothing like this.
The money they were making night after night
compared to other acts was unprecedented.
The fact is, they had to play stadiums.
Promoters and local police had to be begging Brian Epstein,
telling him, you know, you can't go and play a 5,000-seat theatre
and have 50,000 teenagers going crazy outside.
It will be impossible to control.
This was massive.
The first big stadium tour in history,
and the biggest show of them all was New York.
There was the announcement of this concert
and I was like, "Can we go?"
And my mum was like, "We don't have the money for this."
And then, something... I don't know how she did it.
I don't know...
I don't know how she did it, but she got two tickets.
And she didn't tell me.
So, this is what happened.
She said, "We need to go," and I said, "Where are we going?
She said, "I'll let you know when we get there."
OK, so we're on the train and I'm not paying any attention.
And we get up and I ask, "Where are we?"
And she says, "We're at Shea Stadium."
And I said, "Why?"
And she held up two tickets, and all I remember is my head going poof.
It's just amazing, it's unbelievable.
- The biggest thing ever. - 56,500 someone said. It's fantastic.
It just knocks you out, you know?
Shea Stadium is an enormous place.
I mean, that was the first time it was used for a rock concert.
Vox made us special big amplifiers for that tour
and they were like a hundred watts...
And it just obviously, you know, wasn't enough.
Now ladies and gentlemen,
here are The Beatles.
Here they come.
- Hello. - Oh, oh!
- Hello! - Hey!
- Hello! - Hey, hey, hey!
Hello!
- Hello, Paul. - Hello, John.
We'd like to do a song from... What LP is it on?
Off our LP album, Beatles VI, I think.
Can you hear me?
Hello?
And it's called, Dizzy Miss Lizzy.
# You make me dizzy, Miss Lizzy
# The way you rock and roll
# You make me dizzy, Miss Lizzy
# When we do the stroll
# Come on, come on, come on, come on, Lizzy
# Love me before I grow too old
# Run and tell your mama
# I want you to be my bride... #
One of the most remarkable things about The Beatles playing live is
how in tune they are,
because they can't possibly hear themselves.
I don't think they had monitors.
Amps aren't very big.
Even if they were cranked to the max they're not that loud.
I mean, Shea Stadium being the most extraordinary...
because I don't even think there's a P.A. at Shea Stadium.
They're going through the Tannoy,
which must have sounded like a thousand transistor radios to each ear.
# Miss Lizzy
# Girl, you look so fine
# Just a-rocking and a-rolling
# Girl I said I wish you were mine... #
We did the house P.A., you know,
and on first base is Willy Wonka, or whatever they said.
That's the equipment we had.
# When you rock and roll... #
I could not hear anything.
I'd be watchin' John's arse, Paul's arse,
his foot's tappin', his head's noddin',
to see where we were in the song.
# Come on, come on, Lizzy
# I wanna be your lover man #
Playing to 56,000 people at Shea Stadium,
after that, you just sort of think to yourself, what more can you do?
I remember George bringing up the subject with Brian,
"Hey, is this touring gonna be an annual event?"
And I think he was the first one that brought up the idea of,
"Hey, I've had enough of this."
That was the good thing about being four together.
You're not like Elvis, you know?
I always felt sorry for Elvis cos he was on his own.
He had his guys with him, but there's only one Elvis.
Nobody else knew what he felt like.
But, for us, we all shared the experience.
They came back to England late summer '65.
The last time The Beatles played in Britain was that winter,
you know, seven or eight dates.
My grandparents bought me tickets to see them,
and my parents refused to let me go.
# Got a good reason
# For taking the easy way out... #
The Beatles captured my imagination like no other group at that point.
It was the way that I began to interpret the world.
Each new record was built on the record before.
You had this wonderful storyline advancing through with The Beatles.
By the end of the year we were being told there would be more records forthcoming.
And they went back in the studio.
See if we're all in tune when we play, George.
Girl, take one.
# Is there anybody going to listen to my story
# All about the girl who came to stay... #
The first reaction to the new, innovative sound of Rubber Soul was,
I don't like this. I think they've lost their minds.
# Girl, girl... #
What are they thinking, you know, what's this?
# She's the kind of girl who puts you down when friends are there
# You feel a fool... #
I kinda went from being a kid to being a teenager, so...
some of those things felt like the right thing,
but it was still surprising, this group I like kinda change so much.
# Girl... #
There's a big jump from I Want To Hold YourHand to
"Was she told when she was young that pain would lead to pleasure."
# Was she told when she was young that pain would lead to pleasure
# Did she understand it when they said... #
I didn't understand it at all when I heard it. I didn't think it was any good.
And then six weeks later, you couldn't live without the record.
And that's good. That's when you trust the people who make music
to take you somewhere that you hadn't been before.
'Formal occasion at Buckingham Palace on a foggy October morning.
'The ceremony is bestowing awards of honour,
'a ceremony hallowed by tradition going back over the centuries.
'Members of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.'
'Do you think The Beatles should have been awarded the M.B.E.?'
'Well, I... I think The Beatles have probably done as much for popular music
'as people like Rodgers and Hammerstein and Gershwin did,
'the only difference being that The Beatles have done it
'in a matter of two or three years,
'whereas it took most other people a lifetime.'
'What's the M.B.E. going to do to your teenage rebel image?'
- Who's got a teenage rebel image? - Well, you have.
- Have we? - No.
Have any of you any ambitions left at all?
- John? - I'd like to be a duke.
# Have you heard the word is love... #
They had achieved the summit, and they were, if you like, emperors,
but at the same time they were prisoners of their fame,
and I think they were beginning to chafe at people's expectations.
The first three months had been lopped off
to do whatever The Beatles' third film was going to be, and then it didn't happen.
And so for the first time since they'd become successful and famous,
they had three months off.
It had been four years for us of legging around in this mania,
and we were tired. We needed a rest.
# I once had a girl
# Or should I say
# She once had me... #
The thing is that we were all interested in other things
before The Beatles.
And we didn't really have time, but we were always lookin' around.
I got involved with a gallery owner
and when we'd go to Paris and buy paintings.
We'd go to the dealer. So it was very exciting.
And of course, George had developed an interest in Indian music.
I just wanna carry on progressing with music,
you know, writing more and just learning more about it.
I've written so many songs that I've just thrown away as I've been writing them
because I've wanted, when I finally recorded one of mine,
I wanted it to be, you know, worth puttin' on the LP alongside Paul and John's.
I feel now I've got more idea about how to write songs.
We bought this house in the country on this estate,
Maureen and Zak, my son, and John was up the road.
We started to grow up,
and we started to have families,
and we started to put less energy into The Beatle bag.
We all kind of were very aware
that we didn't live in each other's pockets anymore.
We all had separate existences.
There's an interview that John Lennon gives to Maureen Cleave
which is published in March '66 where he talks about his reading,
he sorta says, "I'm not sure what I'm going to do next, this isn't everything,"
which is not what a pop star is supposed to say.
That same month, March, they were doing a photo shoot.
By then we were really sort of beginning to hate it.
This photo session was a big ordeal
and you had to try to look normal, you know, and you didn't feel it.
Bob Whitaker was one of the photographers who took our pictures
and he came up with, we'd all put on white lab coats
and we'd pretend to be mad professors.
The photographer's a bit of a surrealist, you know?
We really got into it, and that's how we felt, like, "Yeah."
# To say about the things that you do... #
To us, you know, this wasn't a big deal, really,
because these kind of shocking things were part of the art scene.
# About the good things that we can have if we close our eyes... #
I expressly pushed for it to be an album cover, you know?
It'd gone out in America,
and there was some kind of fuss.
It was like, "What? My beloved Beatles?
"No! This must stop!"
Sorry.
Well, are you gonna keep that one, please?
- Why don't you leave that one on? - Yeah, just leave it out again.
OK.
I'll just have to vamp it up a bit.
Now he tells me.
We're having more fun in the studio.
It's getting more experimental.
The songs were gettin' better, more interesting.
# When I wake up early in the morning
# Lift my...
# And I'm still... #
There weren't, like, big plans.
You know, sometimes it just unfolded.
Complete fluke.
OK, ready?
John was not mechanically minded,
and he took a tape on,
and the tape had run off to the other reel,
and he put it on like it was the start,
but it was the end of the song and that's when the guitar came.
And he brings it in, "Ah, you've gotta hear this."
And we said, great, we've gotta do that, so...
Call in the boffins.
# Lay down all thoughts, surrender to the void
# It is shining #
And I always remember being in Brian Epstein's house
and John playing it to Brian and to George Martin,
and saying, "What do you think of this?" you know.
But you could see this puzzlement going across their faces,
but instead of saying,
"Ah, come on, guys, I think you really oughta put another chord in,"
he knew to leave us alone by then.
# It is shining... #
You can slow down or speed up the tape.
You can put it in backwards time. You can put in electronic sounds.
And this is the kind of thing you can do on a recording,
but you obviously couldn't possibly play it live
because it is, in fact, making up music as you go along.
Tomorrow Never Knows breaks so many barriers,
musically speaking, and does so many things that no one had done before.
It's got a drone all the way through, which is something that happens in Indian music,
and used to exist in Western music in the 12th century.
So, it sort of triggered a whole movement
that popular music would start to bring in these influences from the avant-garde
and put them into mainstream songs,
into an album that millions of people would hear.
# That love is all and love is everyone
# It is knowing... #
You know, when we first started, we were the nice, clean mop tops,
and every mother's son and everyone loved us.
And then suddenly, you know, there's a few things that they don't understand.
It's just, we're men now, you know?
We're a bit older than those lads that started out.
You can't live all your life by what they want.
You know, we can't go on forever as four clean little mop tops
playing, She Loves You.
# Of the beginning
# Of the beginning... #
Then we were back on the road.
We got on a train and went up to Hamburg.
By then I don't think we wanted to be anywhere.
It was like automatic pilot, you know?
There was so much more pressure from the press trying to get at you,
you know, for whatever reason.
- We're not horrid snobby. - Yes, you are.
- No, we seem like... - That's your version.
Maybe it's only in your mind that we are.
Because we're not flattering you.
You know, you expect sort of nice answers to all the questions,
but if the questions aren't nice questions, they don't have to have nice answers.
And if we don't give nice answers, it doesn't mean we're snobby.
It just means we're natural.
Everything was hit-and-run in those days,
and I think the next day after the Hamburg concert,
we had a flight to Tokyo.
It's amazing security.
I've never seen so many people guarding us.
So we don't want you to be hurt or anything,
so we're trying our best.
Everywhere we were going, it was a demonstration
of one thing or another.
In Japan, the people were demonstrating
because the Budokan was supposed to be a special, spiritual hall
and only reserved for martial arts,
not pop music.
Ladies and gentlemen,
we welcome... The Beatles.
It was very strange.
The audience were very reserved,
respectful,
very quiet to what we had become accustomed to.
Very quiet.
One, two, three, four!
# He's a real nowhere man
# Sitting in his nowhere land
# Making all his nowhere plans for nobody #
We were playing crap.
We were just sort of surviving.
# Knows not where he's going to
# Isn't he a bit like you and me... #
We had a day off in the Philippines, in Manila,
and then somebody said, you're supposed to be visiting the palace.
Madam Marcos had invited us to dinner,
and Brian had told her no.
Then the next morning someone brought the newspapers,
"Beatles Snub President."
By '66, it felt dangerous, you know?
Because everybody was out of hand,
and even the cops were out of line.
You know, they were all just caught up in the mania.
It's a build-up of tension,
and also, dissatisfaction and frustration.
And now they went straight into a complete nightmare.
Now, this religious controversy,
I know you don't want to say too much about it,
but does it worry you that it's going to boil up when you get to the States?
Well, it worries me, yes, but I...
I hope everything will be all right in the end, as they say.
Do you think this is going to be a controversial tour,
like the Philippines was?
Oh, no, no.
No, it's gonna be fine.
- What makes you say that, Paul? - Oh, it will be fine.
You watch, yeah, great.
# Good day sunshine... #
It was all because of that interview John had given while on vacation.
It was reprinted in America months later.
"Lennon says The Beatles are bigger than Christ."
At that time, churches were losing their congregations,
people were going to church less and less and less.
John was saying, "We're so famous! You wouldn't believe the fame.
"I mean, like, we're bigger than Jesus."
It was a harmless remark in the middle of an article,
and it never made the front page in England.
That unleashed a firestorm in the United States.
It was almost like the plot of Help! had become real,
and they actually had a lot of people who suddenly wanted to dismember them.
This is the Layton and Charles show on WAQY radio,
broadcasting at 1220 on your dial, until about nine o'clock this morning,
and we'd like to urge you to take your Beatle records and your Beatlemania
to any one of our 14 pickup points anywhere in Birmingham, Alabama.
And don't forget, the destruction...
the destruction of those Beatle records will take place just a few days,
and we'll keep you informed on all of that.
They were just stunned.
You have to really put it in perspective,
I mean the whole scandal was very serious,
partly because of the violence that was in America at the time.
You just had the Texas Sniper, Charles Whitman,
who just shot dead 20 people.
This was the same country only three years before
where the President had been assassinated.
It had got dangerous, and we were threatened.
We knew we weren't being blasphemous,
we weren't anti-Jesus.
In fact, we all had pretty religious upbringings, really,
but you do see John as sort of a broken man,
cos he realised, he had to apologise.
It was gonna be the only thing that would stop this.
I was pointing out that fact, in reference to England,
that we meant more to kids than Jesus did,
or religion, at that time.
I wasn't knocking it or putting it down, I was just saying it, as a fact.
And it sort of... it is true, especially more for England than here.
But I'm not saying that we're better or greater,
or comparing us with Jesus Christ as a person,
or God as a thing, or whatever it is.
You know, I just said what I said, and it was wrong,
or was taken wrong, and now it's all this.
He's longing to break out of it, and do a joke,
but he knows he can't.
If I had said television is more popular than Jesus,
I might have got away with it.
You know, but as I just happened to be talking to a friend,
I used the word Beatles,
as a remote thing, not as what I think,
because Beatles, as those other Beatles, like other people see us.
I just said they are...
are having more influence on kids and things
than anything else, including Jesus,
but I said it in that way,
which is the wrong way, yep, yep.
He was scared.
We were all pretty scared.
Most of the people in the room understood it.
It's like one of those lines.
But it... it didn't hold us back at all.
Concert tomorrow night is far below a sell-out, how do you feel about...
Very rich.
# My love don't give me presents
# I know that she's no peasant... #
There were three road managers, roadies,
on the tour, period, in '66, that was it.
I was friends with the opening act. They said, "You want to do it?"
and I didn't even know how to set up a drum kit at the time.
I had no idea.
I was a musician in Boston, I was a folk singer.
I had no qualifications at all.
We only ever had a couple of roadies.
Didn't matter where we were,
biggest band in the land, that's all we had.
In Cleveland, the sound was so bad that everybody rushed the stage.
'Cleveland Stadium has been absolutely riots,
'the whole place went wild here,
'broke the barriers, came through the police cordon.
'We managed to get The Beatles off the stage.
'They were even all over the stage.'
I really thought I was gonna get hurt.
We get to Memphis, and there's been a bomb scare,
and we had to delay the show
while they put bomb-sniffing dogs throughout the whole theatre.
That kind of stuff was happening all the time. It was terrifying.
Some people would set off firecrackers in the hall,
and you'd think someone of the others got shot or something.
Then we flew off to St. Louis, and it was pouring rain.
# She was a day tripper
# One way ticket, yeah... #
My job was to sit backstage with my hand on the plug,
and the instructions were
if one of them fell down, like knocked out by the shock,
then you should pull the plug, and that would stop the show.
It was a joke.
This was three weeks that they just took a deep breath and said,
"OK, well, let's just do this, and we'll make a lot of money."
A lot of the time we were going through the motions,
and we all started to get pretty fed up.
George particularly was quite sort of vocal about that.
I was saying, "I don't want to do this anymore. I don't like this."
I certainly felt that that was it,
you know, that we weren't gonna tour again like that.
There was no enjoyment in it, you know.
The music wasn't being heard.
It wasn't doing anything, it was just a sort of freak show.
The Beatles were the show, and the music had nothing to do with it.
As we were musicians,
we felt, if we're gonna be Beatles,
the only reason to be Beatles is to make music,
and not be in a circus.
And when we were finished,
I remember just being piled in the back of this meat wagon,
which was steel, and nothing else inside.
We were all in there, sorta sliding around as it went around the corners.
And we're all like really mad at the whole bloody thing.
John started like, you know, George...
"That's it, I've had enough, you know."
And we all agreed.
You know, we're just in the band, saying, "That's enough of that."
We all knew, I mean, to, like, survive,
we had to get back in the studio and get to know each other and play again.
Well, I'm not holding back, George.
I'm giving my all.
It used to make us laugh when we'd read people saying,
"The problem with The Beatles is
"that when we were all growing up, they were all on tour,
"and so they missed the growing up period."
But the truth to it was that we were snatched out of our youth.
We were forced grown,
like rhubarb when you grow it under hothouse conditions,
you make it grow much quicker than it would naturally.
Oh, God. Mal!
Broken another string?
I think it will probably be another day, singing it.
And what you could do, with the bits where you can't get it
- cos you haven't got enough breath... - Take over, yeah.
All right, let's go.
In one way it was good, because we went into the recording scene,
and really sort of expressed ourselves through the records then,
because we could no longer do it outside.
# Living is easy with eyes closed
# Misunderstanding all you see
# It's getting hard to be someone, but it all works out... #
I'd got this idea for us to all be someone else.
Because we were so fed up with being what we were.
We had to get out of it, one way or another.
- Righty-o! - How fast, John?
However you like, you know. Feel it.
Here we go, stand by.
One, two, three, four.
I just said to everyone, we're not The Beatles.
It was to liberate us.
We're gonna think up a new name for ourselves,
gonna think up a new way of being, a new way of recording, a new everything.
Just to be fresh.
# So may I introduce to you
# The act you've known for all these years
# Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band... #
I'll be overpowering this time.
Oh, good. I like it when you're brutal.
Quiet in the studio, please.
# Picture yourself in a boat on a... #
Just come right in with it now.
I think that was quicker.
# Cellophane flowers of yellow and green
# Yellow and green... #
- OK. - Anyway...
# Cellophane flowers of yellow and green
# Towering over your head
# Look for the girl with the sun in her eyes and she's gone
# Lucy in the sky with diamonds
# Lucy in the sky... #
It was the music that was interesting, that was important.
As long as we were going forward, and going somewhere, it didn't matter.
# I read the news today, oh boy
# About a lucky man who made the grade... #
There was a lot of faith involved in everything we did.
And the people around us had to share that faith
or it wouldn't have worked.
# Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall... #
Brian had to have faith in us.
George Martin had to have faith in us.
This is how it was for The Beatles.
You had to have faith.
We had to have faith in each other.
# Don't let me down
# Nobody ever loved me like she does
# Ooh, she does
# Yes, she does
# And if somebody loved me like she does
# Ooh, she does
# Yes, she does
# Don't let me down
# I'm in love for the first time
# Don't you know it's gonna last
# It's a love that lasts forever
# It's a love that has no past
# I've got a feeling
# That keeps me on my toes, oh yeah
- # Oh, yeah - # Oh, yeah
# I've got a feeling
# I think that everybody knows, oh yeah
- # Oh, yeah - # Oh, yeah
# Oh, yeah
# Yeah, yeah
# I've got a feeling, yeah
# Everybody had a hard year
# Everybody had a good time
# Everybody had a wet dream
# Everybody saw the sunshine
- # Oh, yeah - # Oh, yeah
# Oh, yeah, oh, yeah
- # Well... - # Everybody had a good year
# Everybody let their hair down
- # Everybody pulled their socks up - # Yeah
# Everybody put their foot down, oh, yeah
# Yeah
# Woo-hoo
- # I've got a feeling - # Everybody had a good year
- # A feeling deep inside, oh, yeah - # Everybody had a hard time
- # Everybody had a wet dream - # Oh, yeah
# Everybody saw the sunshine
- # I've got a feeling - # Everybody had a good year
- # A feeling I can't hide, oh, no - # Everybody let their hair down
- # Everybody pulled their socks up - # Oh, no, no
- # Everybody put their foot down - # Yeah
# Yeah...
# I've got a feeling
- # I've got a feeling - # Oh, yeah
# I've got a feeling
# Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah #
What a suitable ending, I think.
# Ooh, I need your love, babe
# Guess you know it's true
# Hope you need my love, babe
# Just like I need you
# Hold me
# Love me
# Hold me
# Love me
# I ain't got nothing but love, babe
# Eight days a week
# Love you every day, girl
# Always on my mind
# One thing I can say, girl
# Love you all the time
# Hold me
# Love me
# Hold me
# Love me
# I ain't got nothing but love, girl
# Eight days a week
# I love you
# Eight days a week
# Is not enough to show I care
# Ooh, I need your love, babe
# Guess you know it's true
# Hope you need my love, babe
# Just like I need you
# Oh, hold me
# Love me
# Hold me
# Love me
# I ain't got nothing but love, babe
# Eight days a week
# I love you
# Eight days a week
# Is not enough to show I care
# Love you every day, girl
# Always on my mind
# One thing I can say, girl
# Love you all the time
# Hold me
# Love me
# Hold me
# Love me
# I ain't got nothing but love, babe
# Eight days a week
# Eight days a week #
Hello, this is John speaking with his voice.
We're all very happy to be able to talk to you like this on this little bit of plastic.
This record reaches you at the end of a really gear year for us,
and it's all due to you.
When we made our first record on Parlophone towards the end of 1962,
we hoped everybody would like what had already been our type of music
for several years already.
But we had no idea of all the gear things in store for us
It all happened really when Please Please Me became a number one hit,
and after that, well, 'cor the blimeys, heave the mo'.
Our biggest thrill of the year, well,
I suppose it must have been topping the bill at the London Palladium
and then, only a couple of days later,
being invited to take part in the Royal Variety Show.
This time last year, we were all dead chuffed
because Love Me Do got into the Top Twenty,
and we can't believe, really, that so many things have happened in between already.
Just before I pass you over to Paul,
I'd like to say thank you to all the Beatle people
who have written to me during the year,
and everyone who sent me gifts and cards for my birthday,
which I'm trying to forget, in October.
I'd love to reply personally to everyone, but I just haven't enough pens.
- In the meantime... - This is Paul here.
Everything that John said goes for me too,
especially the bit about birthday cards and the parcels,
cos all our homes and offices got stacks of mail last June...
Ow!
...when it was my birthday.
Anyway, we're all dead pleased by the way you've treated us in 1963,
and we try to do everything we can to please you
with the type of songs we write and record next year.
Oh, yeah, lots of people asked us what we enjoy best, you see,
concerts and television or recording?
We like doing stage shows cos it's, you know,
it's great to hear an audience enjoying themselves.
But the thing we like best, I think so, anyway,
is going into the recording studio...
- Yes, we enjoy that very kindly! - ...to make new records,
which is what we've been doing all day
before we started on this special message.
Well, what we like to hear most is one of our songs, you know,
taking shape in a recording studio,
one of the ones that John and I have written,
and then listening to the tapes afterwards to hear how it all worked out, you see.
- Ja, Ringo! - Hello, Ringo here.
As you know, I was the last member to join The Beatles.
I started to play drums in the group 1962.
I've been in a couple of other groups...
Oh, just wish the people a merry, happy, go on, for Christmas, Christmas.
Merry, happy New Year,
and folks, happy Christmas, and may...
may everything you wish be granted.
Sing, sing us Wenceslas, King Wenceslas.
King Wenceslas.
- Well...! - Hurray, Paul!
Thank you, Ringo! Thank you, Ringo!
We'll phone you!
I'm George Harrison.
Nobody else has said anything yet about our fan club secretaries,
Ann Collingham and Bettina Rose,
not to mention Freda Kelly in Liverpool.
Good old Freda!
So on behalf of us all,
I'd just like to say a great, big thank you
to Ann, Bettina and Freda for all the hard work they've done,
and we just hope you can go on pleasing you for a long time,
cos it's gonna cause it to your reaction to our records that really matters,
and I'd just like to say...
# Brightly was the schon at night
# Though the winter cruel
# When a pork pie came inside
# Gathering winter cruel #
Merry Christmas, everybody!