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This programme contains some strong language. | 0:00:02 | 0:00:09 | |
You know, just go ahead, George, | 0:00:54 | 0:00:56 | |
go on and fly away, babe. | 0:00:56 | 0:00:59 | |
Just be free and go. And we'll see you down the line. | 0:00:59 | 0:01:02 | |
Erm... Just, leave. Go to some place nice. | 0:01:06 | 0:01:11 | |
We'll be all right here. | 0:01:11 | 0:01:14 | |
And then he went on out. That was it. | 0:01:14 | 0:01:20 | |
Is there anything you would say to George if he was around today? | 0:01:20 | 0:01:23 | |
Fancy a cup of tea? | 0:01:27 | 0:01:28 | |
Where have you been? I had a dream that I saw him. | 0:01:28 | 0:01:32 | |
And that was what I said to him in the dream. | 0:01:34 | 0:01:37 | |
So I guess that's what would be the question, wouldn't it? | 0:01:37 | 0:01:40 | |
Where've you been since I last saw you? | 0:01:40 | 0:01:43 | |
And he answered it, so I can tell you the answer as well, | 0:01:46 | 0:01:49 | |
which was, "Here the whole time". | 0:01:49 | 0:01:51 | |
Which doesn't really help me in any way, but... | 0:01:51 | 0:01:53 | |
There's George with cancer and he knows his life is limited. | 0:01:53 | 0:01:57 | |
And what he does is buys a house in Switzerland, | 0:01:57 | 0:01:59 | |
so he can avoid paying the taxman here. | 0:01:59 | 0:02:02 | |
The man who wrote the song Taxman, | 0:02:02 | 0:02:05 | |
even to his final hours, was determined to cheat the taxman. | 0:02:05 | 0:02:10 | |
And then I thought, "There's George." Grace and humour. | 0:02:10 | 0:02:14 | |
And a weird kind of angry bitterness about certain things in life. | 0:02:14 | 0:02:18 | |
It's still difficult to try and talk about him in a, kind of... | 0:02:23 | 0:02:27 | |
anecdotal, frivolous way. | 0:02:29 | 0:02:33 | |
It's, er, it's still too painful. | 0:02:33 | 0:02:35 | |
# Sunrise doesn't last all morning | 0:03:01 | 0:03:06 | |
# A cloudburst doesn't last all day | 0:03:11 | 0:03:15 | |
# Seems my love is up and has left you with no warning | 0:03:17 | 0:03:23 | |
# It's not always gonna be this grey. # | 0:03:25 | 0:03:32 | |
AIR RAID SIRENS | 0:03:32 | 0:03:34 | |
People in their gayest colours. | 0:03:36 | 0:03:38 | |
Red, white and blue rosettes. Red, white and blue hats... | 0:03:38 | 0:03:41 | |
That, in accordance with arrangements between the three great powers... | 0:03:41 | 0:03:45 | |
# Make the world rejoice | 0:03:45 | 0:03:49 | |
# While you're playing your part Keep a song in your heart | 0:03:49 | 0:03:54 | |
# Tra-la-la-la, la-la, la-la Count your blessings and smile | 0:03:54 | 0:03:59 | |
# Sing low, sing high, isn't it grand, beating the band? | 0:03:59 | 0:04:04 | |
# Who wants to die? Oh, what a happy land. | 0:04:04 | 0:04:09 | |
# All things must pass | 0:04:09 | 0:04:16 | |
# All things must pass away | 0:04:16 | 0:04:18 | |
# Sunset doesn't last all evening... # | 0:04:28 | 0:04:34 | |
OK. Do you want me to start? | 0:04:37 | 0:04:41 | |
OK. And then Pete can go. | 0:04:41 | 0:04:42 | |
Right. We lived in 12 Arnold Grove. | 0:04:42 | 0:04:46 | |
It was a two up and two down. | 0:04:46 | 0:04:47 | |
The only heating was a coal fire, so there was no electricity. | 0:04:47 | 0:04:51 | |
Small backyard. Toilet down the bottom of the yard. | 0:04:51 | 0:04:56 | |
It was a very cold place. | 0:04:56 | 0:04:58 | |
-What kind of a kid was George? -He was cocky. A cocky little guy. | 0:04:58 | 0:05:03 | |
He had a good sense of himself, he wasn't cowed by anything. | 0:05:03 | 0:05:11 | |
He had a great haircut. He had this long hair that he quiffed back. | 0:05:11 | 0:05:16 | |
We had a friend, Arthur. | 0:05:17 | 0:05:19 | |
And he used to describe it as "a fucking turban! | 0:05:19 | 0:05:23 | |
"Like a fucking turban!" | 0:05:23 | 0:05:24 | |
And it did. It looked like a great big marvellous thing. | 0:05:24 | 0:05:28 | |
Looking back now, you know, it was pre-fame. | 0:05:28 | 0:05:32 | |
So you were just an ordinary kid | 0:05:32 | 0:05:34 | |
who couldn't get in places, cos you weren't famous. | 0:05:34 | 0:05:38 | |
Teachers didn't like you. | 0:05:38 | 0:05:41 | |
You know, rock and roll hadn't arrived yet. | 0:05:41 | 0:05:44 | |
I always think of it as Dickensian. | 0:05:44 | 0:05:47 | |
And the school that I went to, with George, incidentally, | 0:05:47 | 0:05:50 | |
was a very Dickensian old place. | 0:05:50 | 0:05:52 | |
In fact, Dickens had taught there. That's how Dickensian it was. | 0:05:52 | 0:05:57 | |
You grew up wanting to go somewhere else. | 0:05:57 | 0:06:01 | |
It made you hungry. | 0:06:01 | 0:06:03 | |
So art was a great golden vision. | 0:06:03 | 0:06:07 | |
So for us, we wouldn't have called it art then, it'd be rock and roll. | 0:06:07 | 0:06:11 | |
We needed a good guitar player. | 0:06:24 | 0:06:27 | |
Both John and I played a bit of guitar, but we couldn't really solo. | 0:06:27 | 0:06:32 | |
We weren't that good. | 0:06:32 | 0:06:34 | |
And I said, "I know this guy. He's a bit young, but he's good." | 0:06:34 | 0:06:39 | |
John said, "Well, you know, let's meet him". | 0:06:39 | 0:06:41 | |
So I said to George, | 0:06:41 | 0:06:43 | |
"You want to meet these guys I'm in a group with?" | 0:06:43 | 0:06:46 | |
"Yeah." So he brought his guitar. | 0:06:46 | 0:06:48 | |
We were all on the top deck of a double-decker bus | 0:06:48 | 0:06:51 | |
in Liverpool, round where John lived, a place called Woolton, | 0:06:51 | 0:06:55 | |
and nobody was on the bus. It was late at night. | 0:06:55 | 0:06:58 | |
And John said, "Well, go on then. Let's see you play" to George. | 0:06:58 | 0:07:03 | |
I said, "Go on, go on, get your guitar out." | 0:07:03 | 0:07:05 | |
So George unpacked his guitar, got it out, | 0:07:05 | 0:07:07 | |
and he played the thing called Raunchy, which is... | 0:07:07 | 0:07:11 | |
MUSIC: "Raunchy" by The Beatles | 0:07:11 | 0:07:14 | |
Down, George, down! | 0:07:30 | 0:07:32 | |
Yeah. George, only a brief document or two left. | 0:07:39 | 0:07:43 | |
For the record, I'd like to say these are more papers | 0:07:43 | 0:07:46 | |
that I don't know what they say... | 0:07:46 | 0:07:48 | |
-Any of these? -..that I'm signing. | 0:07:48 | 0:07:50 | |
-Yes, all those. -Gentleman's name is Lennon. No, no, no. | 0:07:50 | 0:07:54 | |
Or Richard Starkey, or John Lennon, or George Harrison. | 0:07:54 | 0:07:57 | |
Krishna, Krishna, Krishna. | 0:07:57 | 0:07:59 | |
May the Lord help this to become final. | 0:08:02 | 0:08:07 | |
The small gathering on Savile Row was only the beginning. | 0:08:07 | 0:08:11 | |
The event is so momentous that historians | 0:08:11 | 0:08:14 | |
may one day view it as a landmark in the decline of the British Empire - | 0:08:14 | 0:08:19 | |
the Beatles are breaking up. | 0:08:19 | 0:08:21 | |
# It's funny how people just won't accept change | 0:08:21 | 0:08:29 | |
# As if nature itself | 0:08:29 | 0:08:32 | |
# They prefer rearranged. # | 0:08:32 | 0:08:38 | |
When I was still at school and I was really small, | 0:08:38 | 0:08:41 | |
I know John was really embarrassed, cos I was so tiny. | 0:08:41 | 0:08:45 | |
I only looked about ten years old. | 0:08:45 | 0:08:47 | |
When I met John, he had four strings on his guitar. | 0:08:55 | 0:08:59 | |
I mean, John didn't even know guitars had six strings. | 0:08:59 | 0:09:02 | |
And I said, "What are you doing? What's that?" | 0:09:02 | 0:09:05 | |
And he would say, "Well, why?" | 0:09:05 | 0:09:06 | |
You know, he thought that's what it was. | 0:09:06 | 0:09:09 | |
So we showed John the guitar chords, | 0:09:09 | 0:09:12 | |
E and A and all those. | 0:09:12 | 0:09:14 | |
My mother was a real big fan of music | 0:09:14 | 0:09:18 | |
and she was really happy about having the guys around. | 0:09:18 | 0:09:22 | |
You know, and John was always keen to get out of his house, | 0:09:22 | 0:09:27 | |
because his Aunt Mimi was, kind of, very stern and strict | 0:09:27 | 0:09:31 | |
and she embarrassed him. | 0:09:31 | 0:09:33 | |
I remember going to John's house once when I first had met him. | 0:09:33 | 0:09:37 | |
I was still at the Institute. | 0:09:37 | 0:09:40 | |
And we were trying to look like Teddy boys, which was like that style in those days. | 0:09:40 | 0:09:44 | |
And I must've looked good, cos she was like... | 0:09:44 | 0:09:47 | |
She didn't like me. She was shocked. | 0:09:47 | 0:09:49 | |
She said, "Look at him! Who is this? Bringing this boy to this house. | 0:09:49 | 0:09:52 | |
"Look at him. He looks dreadful, like a Teddy boy." | 0:09:52 | 0:09:54 | |
And he'd just say, "Shut up, Mary, shut up!" | 0:09:54 | 0:09:57 | |
# Don't you try to tame a wildcat | 0:10:06 | 0:10:10 | |
# You just don't understand | 0:10:10 | 0:10:14 | |
# The wildcat's what they name me No kitten's gonna tame me | 0:10:14 | 0:10:18 | |
# Oh, no. Not me. # | 0:10:18 | 0:10:22 | |
Our wedding was just one of those occasions where they thought | 0:10:22 | 0:10:26 | |
they would practise on people and see what happened. | 0:10:26 | 0:10:29 | |
They were not exactly what the majority of people there expected. | 0:10:29 | 0:10:36 | |
They had a tea break. | 0:10:36 | 0:10:40 | |
An elderly lady, who was one of the guests, | 0:10:40 | 0:10:42 | |
came along to play the piano, | 0:10:42 | 0:10:44 | |
who was a real pub player. | 0:10:44 | 0:10:48 | |
She could really hammer out tunes that everybody wanted to sing to. | 0:10:48 | 0:10:52 | |
The three lads reappeared from the bar, pints in hand, | 0:10:52 | 0:10:56 | |
and John just poured a pint over this lady's head, | 0:10:56 | 0:10:59 | |
just straight over the head, saying, "I anoint thee, David." | 0:10:59 | 0:11:03 | |
And just walked away. | 0:11:03 | 0:11:04 | |
And this lady surprised me, | 0:11:04 | 0:11:07 | |
because there was absolutely nothing. There was no reaction. | 0:11:07 | 0:11:11 | |
She just smiled and got up and went away and got dry again. | 0:11:11 | 0:11:15 | |
You know, it was... And I thought it was funny, | 0:11:15 | 0:11:17 | |
because in those days, people used to say, | 0:11:17 | 0:11:19 | |
"See you had a wedding in Liverpool. How many fights were there?" | 0:11:19 | 0:11:23 | |
But there wasn't even a fight. | 0:11:23 | 0:11:25 | |
The nearly fight was John Lennon pouring a pint on her head. | 0:11:25 | 0:11:28 | |
When I met John, he had a lot of power, really. | 0:11:30 | 0:11:34 | |
Sometimes they'd pick somebody to march behind | 0:11:34 | 0:11:38 | |
on the way to war. | 0:11:38 | 0:11:40 | |
Well, he was certainly out front. | 0:11:40 | 0:11:43 | |
When you thought you wanted to be a musician, | 0:11:43 | 0:11:46 | |
-where did you think you'd end up? -There's no justification for it. | 0:11:46 | 0:11:49 | |
We kind of had a feeling that that's what we were going to do. | 0:11:49 | 0:11:54 | |
And I always felt that something good was going to happen. | 0:11:54 | 0:11:58 | |
But then, in those days, something good would just be | 0:11:58 | 0:12:01 | |
getting to do a tour of Mecca ballrooms. | 0:12:01 | 0:12:05 | |
That was, like, a big deal. | 0:12:05 | 0:12:07 | |
# She's got a way that makes me act like a fool | 0:12:10 | 0:12:14 | |
# Spends my money then she plays me cool | 0:12:14 | 0:12:18 | |
# I'm begging for her kisses on a bended knee | 0:12:18 | 0:12:21 | |
# Oh, won't you give me some a-loving, baby? | 0:12:21 | 0:12:24 | |
# Please, please. # | 0:12:24 | 0:12:25 | |
# Watch out now | 0:12:29 | 0:12:31 | |
# Take care Beware of falling swingers | 0:12:31 | 0:12:37 | |
# Dropping all around you | 0:12:41 | 0:12:44 | |
# The pain that often mingles... # | 0:12:49 | 0:12:53 | |
After wartime, we still had lots of bombed houses. | 0:12:53 | 0:12:57 | |
Not poverty. I mean, the Germans were rich quite quick. | 0:12:57 | 0:13:02 | |
It didn't take them long to pick up on that one. | 0:13:02 | 0:13:05 | |
That particular day, I had an argument with Astrid. | 0:13:05 | 0:13:09 | |
I was really angry and I wanted to let steam off. | 0:13:09 | 0:13:12 | |
And I quite often went that direction, to the harbour. | 0:13:12 | 0:13:17 | |
The Reeperbahn is really for the sailors, | 0:13:29 | 0:13:33 | |
for the people getting drunk. | 0:13:33 | 0:13:35 | |
For people going to see naked women or having sex or whatever. | 0:13:35 | 0:13:39 | |
That's what this place is known for. | 0:13:39 | 0:13:41 | |
Klaus was always very laid back. | 0:14:04 | 0:14:09 | |
You know, you couldn't quite | 0:14:09 | 0:14:11 | |
impress him by things. | 0:14:11 | 0:14:14 | |
He always said, "Yeah, great. Fantastic." | 0:14:14 | 0:14:18 | |
But when he came home seeing the Beatles for the first time, | 0:14:18 | 0:14:22 | |
I've never seen him like that before. He just went crazy. | 0:14:22 | 0:14:27 | |
When I came down to the Kaiserkeller with Klaus, | 0:14:33 | 0:14:37 | |
after, he had to persuade me for three days. I just freaked out. | 0:14:37 | 0:14:44 | |
Seeing them onstage, faces I always dreamt of taking pictures of, | 0:14:44 | 0:14:50 | |
because they had so much personality and were still young, like I was. | 0:14:50 | 0:14:57 | |
# Gonna write a little letter, gonna mail it to my local DJ | 0:14:57 | 0:15:01 | |
# It's a rocking little record I want my jockey to play | 0:15:02 | 0:15:06 | |
# Roll over Beethoven, got to hear it again today. # | 0:15:08 | 0:15:12 | |
We didn't really have that much money. | 0:15:12 | 0:15:14 | |
We only just really had enough to feed ourselves, | 0:15:14 | 0:15:18 | |
so there was nothing really to show for it. | 0:15:18 | 0:15:21 | |
But everything else was such a buzz. | 0:15:21 | 0:15:23 | |
You know, being right in the middle of the naughtiest city in the world | 0:15:23 | 0:15:27 | |
at 17 years old. It was kind of exciting. | 0:15:27 | 0:15:30 | |
And learning, you know, about it all. | 0:15:30 | 0:15:33 | |
There's the gangsters and the transvestites. | 0:15:33 | 0:15:36 | |
And there's the... You know, it was like that. There's the hookers. | 0:15:36 | 0:15:40 | |
They looked real strange, teddy boy-like. | 0:15:40 | 0:15:43 | |
They didn't have the leather gear yet. | 0:15:43 | 0:15:45 | |
The leather thing came when they met Astrid and me | 0:15:45 | 0:15:48 | |
and the way we were walking around. | 0:15:48 | 0:15:50 | |
We loved this band. | 0:16:06 | 0:16:08 | |
We were knocked out. And we didn't realise how they lived. | 0:16:08 | 0:16:12 | |
The Bambi Kino was a porno cinema. | 0:16:14 | 0:16:17 | |
The room they stayed in first was a sort of place where | 0:16:17 | 0:16:21 | |
you'd normally put brooms and things. | 0:16:21 | 0:16:24 | |
There was no window, there was just a light bulb on the ceiling. | 0:16:24 | 0:16:27 | |
And they were sort of living in these little cupboards, | 0:16:27 | 0:16:31 | |
so to speak, right behind the screen of that cinema. | 0:16:31 | 0:16:34 | |
And it was terrible, because they were smelly, stinky. | 0:16:34 | 0:16:37 | |
They couldn't wash their clothes properly. | 0:16:37 | 0:16:40 | |
Klaus introduced me to them, and John did his, you know, | 0:16:40 | 0:16:44 | |
"I'm a man, I'm a man" thing. | 0:16:44 | 0:16:46 | |
And Paul was doing his, "I'm a good boy, good education" bit, you know. | 0:16:46 | 0:16:54 | |
Said hello and shook my hand. | 0:16:54 | 0:16:57 | |
And George was just, looked at me and said, "Oh, hello. | 0:16:57 | 0:17:03 | |
"And you are Klaus's girlfriend?" | 0:17:03 | 0:17:06 | |
But he was ever so sweet. | 0:17:06 | 0:17:09 | |
I came to know George then. | 0:17:09 | 0:17:12 | |
And he was interested in so many things, but let's say, on the quiet, | 0:17:12 | 0:17:19 | |
because Paul was the one who said, "Oh, who is that?" | 0:17:19 | 0:17:22 | |
And "who wrote this book?" And "who is that on that picture?" | 0:17:22 | 0:17:25 | |
George was just sitting there, looking at my room, which must | 0:17:25 | 0:17:29 | |
have been very strange to them, because it was completely black, | 0:17:29 | 0:17:34 | |
with leaves and branches hanging from the ceiling. | 0:17:34 | 0:17:37 | |
I think, at first, George thought I was a bit mad. | 0:17:37 | 0:17:41 | |
But that became very shortly a very lovely and nice friendship. | 0:17:42 | 0:17:48 | |
Astrid took them to her house | 0:17:48 | 0:17:52 | |
and she cooked for them. | 0:17:52 | 0:17:54 | |
Astrid's mother was cooking their favourite meals for them. | 0:17:54 | 0:17:57 | |
So they had their little home, suddenly, | 0:17:57 | 0:17:59 | |
which Astrid really took care of them really well. | 0:17:59 | 0:18:02 | |
GEORGE: Yeah, it was really good for us to meet them, too. | 0:18:02 | 0:18:05 | |
They, in themselves, were very artistic. | 0:18:05 | 0:18:09 | |
I mean, for us, we started hanging out with them | 0:18:09 | 0:18:12 | |
and Astrid was so loving. She really helped us a lot. | 0:18:12 | 0:18:16 | |
You may think it was sexually. | 0:18:21 | 0:18:23 | |
Of course, in a way, they all fancied me, | 0:18:23 | 0:18:26 | |
because I was quite good looking | 0:18:26 | 0:18:29 | |
and charming, in my own little way, with my funny English. | 0:18:29 | 0:18:33 | |
When I started falling in love with Stuart, | 0:18:33 | 0:18:37 | |
it was great that I was a photographer, | 0:18:37 | 0:18:40 | |
so I could just go up easily to him and ask him, | 0:18:40 | 0:18:45 | |
"Do you mind if I take pictures of you?", | 0:18:45 | 0:18:48 | |
because I felt so attracted to him. | 0:18:48 | 0:18:50 | |
# A taste of honey | 0:18:50 | 0:18:54 | |
# Tasting much sweeter than wine | 0:18:54 | 0:18:59 | |
# Do do-dem-do | 0:18:59 | 0:19:02 | |
# Do do-dem-do | 0:19:02 | 0:19:05 | |
# I dream of your first kiss and then | 0:19:05 | 0:19:10 | |
# I feel upon my lips again | 0:19:10 | 0:19:16 | |
-# A taste of honey -A taste of honey | 0:19:16 | 0:19:19 | |
# Tasting much sweeter than wine. # | 0:19:19 | 0:19:23 | |
I always had a vision that I want to take pictures of outstanding faces, | 0:19:28 | 0:19:35 | |
who can tell a story behind the mask. | 0:19:35 | 0:19:40 | |
Imagine what is behind this rough young man, John Lennon. | 0:19:40 | 0:19:45 | |
And what is behind the funny, joking Paul. | 0:19:45 | 0:19:50 | |
Or the lovely, sweet little George. | 0:19:50 | 0:19:55 | |
George was only 17 years of age, but he was calm, | 0:19:55 | 0:20:00 | |
he looked you straight in the face, | 0:20:00 | 0:20:02 | |
he was funny | 0:20:02 | 0:20:04 | |
and he was a catalyst in the band, you see? | 0:20:04 | 0:20:09 | |
Paul and John were so different. | 0:20:09 | 0:20:11 | |
And George was bringing a certain peace into this set-up. | 0:20:11 | 0:20:17 | |
I mean, Ringo wasn't with them at the time, because Pete Best was playing the drums. | 0:20:17 | 0:20:21 | |
And Stuart was more on the side, | 0:20:21 | 0:20:24 | |
but George was right in the middle, between those two characters. | 0:20:24 | 0:20:28 | |
After Stuart's death, John and George | 0:20:29 | 0:20:32 | |
really cared about me. | 0:20:32 | 0:20:34 | |
You know, they used to come and see me in my home. | 0:20:34 | 0:20:38 | |
And so... It was actually John's suggestion. | 0:20:38 | 0:20:44 | |
John said, "Can I see where he used to paint?" | 0:20:46 | 0:20:50 | |
So I said, "Of course, you can." In that moment, | 0:20:50 | 0:20:53 | |
I had to take a picture of them. | 0:20:53 | 0:20:55 | |
And I just grabbed this old chair and put it there. | 0:20:55 | 0:20:59 | |
And John was so full of emotion, being in the same room | 0:20:59 | 0:21:05 | |
where his friend was just painting, | 0:21:05 | 0:21:08 | |
that he nearly burst out in tears. | 0:21:08 | 0:21:13 | |
And George was all...a bit worried. | 0:21:13 | 0:21:17 | |
So I just said to George, "Well, stand behind him." | 0:21:17 | 0:21:21 | |
You could see how quickly | 0:21:21 | 0:21:26 | |
George understood what it was all about - | 0:21:26 | 0:21:30 | |
death and being alive. | 0:21:30 | 0:21:35 | |
He was only just turned 18. | 0:21:35 | 0:21:36 | |
And when you look at the picture and see his eyes, | 0:21:36 | 0:21:40 | |
they're so full of protection for John. | 0:21:40 | 0:21:45 | |
And John was just falling to bits, sitting there. | 0:21:45 | 0:21:48 | |
And you could see that in his face. | 0:21:48 | 0:21:50 | |
I gave that guitar away. Ah, that's the one. | 0:21:56 | 0:22:00 | |
# That boy | 0:22:00 | 0:22:02 | |
# Took my love away | 0:22:04 | 0:22:09 | |
-# He'll regret it some day -# Doo-da-doo | 0:22:09 | 0:22:16 | |
# This boy wants you back again | 0:22:16 | 0:22:22 | |
# That boy isn't good | 0:22:26 | 0:22:32 | |
# For you | 0:22:32 | 0:22:35 | |
# Though he may want you, too... # | 0:22:36 | 0:22:41 | |
Good song, though. Good sad song. | 0:22:41 | 0:22:44 | |
# This boy wants you back again... # | 0:22:44 | 0:22:47 | |
John was as blind as a bat and he'd never wear his glasses, | 0:22:47 | 0:22:50 | |
so he couldn't see a thing. | 0:22:50 | 0:22:52 | |
# Oh, and this boy | 0:22:52 | 0:22:53 | |
# Would be happy just to love you... # | 0:22:53 | 0:23:00 | |
Double track. | 0:23:00 | 0:23:02 | |
# But oh my-hi-hi-hi | 0:23:02 | 0:23:05 | |
# That boy won't be happy | 0:23:05 | 0:23:10 | |
# Till he's seen you cry-hi-hi-hi. # | 0:23:10 | 0:23:18 | |
FRENZIED SCREAMING | 0:23:18 | 0:23:21 | |
AIRCRAFT ENGINE ROARS | 0:23:26 | 0:23:31 | |
It was almost like we were waiting to get going. | 0:23:33 | 0:23:37 | |
We couldn't go until all the Beatles were in the frame. | 0:23:37 | 0:23:40 | |
Ringo was a member of the band. | 0:23:40 | 0:23:44 | |
It's just that he didn't enter the film | 0:23:44 | 0:23:46 | |
until that particular scene, you know. | 0:23:46 | 0:23:49 | |
We were always, kinda, you know, a little nervous before each step | 0:23:51 | 0:23:56 | |
we went up the ladder. | 0:23:56 | 0:23:57 | |
And that was the good thing about being four together. | 0:23:57 | 0:24:00 | |
We all shared the experience. | 0:24:00 | 0:24:02 | |
How many Beatles does it take to change a light bulb? | 0:24:02 | 0:24:07 | |
CREW LAUGH | 0:24:07 | 0:24:09 | |
Four! | 0:24:09 | 0:24:11 | |
# Well, she was just seventeen You know what I mean | 0:24:11 | 0:24:18 | |
# And the way she looked was way beyond compare | 0:24:18 | 0:24:24 | |
# So how could I dance with another | 0:24:24 | 0:24:28 | |
# Oh, since I saw her standing there? # | 0:24:28 | 0:24:33 | |
We just went in. We were punks, really, you know what I mean? | 0:24:35 | 0:24:39 | |
We were like just these punks. | 0:24:39 | 0:24:41 | |
We went in. We're all incredibly grateful to be on vinyl. | 0:24:41 | 0:24:45 | |
You know, the idea of getting a record. | 0:24:45 | 0:24:46 | |
Then, when it was going up the charts in England, we'd stop the car, | 0:24:46 | 0:24:50 | |
cos you'd know when it was coming on. BBC at, uh, 4.19. | 0:24:50 | 0:24:55 | |
"Stop the car!" And then we'd listen to the record | 0:24:55 | 0:24:58 | |
and then drive on up to the gig. | 0:24:58 | 0:25:00 | |
# Now I'll never dance with another | 0:25:00 | 0:25:05 | |
# Ooh, since I saw her standing there | 0:25:05 | 0:25:11 | |
# Waaah! # | 0:25:11 | 0:25:13 | |
SCREAMING | 0:25:13 | 0:25:16 | |
Does the continuous living and working together impose any temperamental stress upon you? | 0:25:32 | 0:25:37 | |
No, actually, it's quite lucky, cos we've been... | 0:25:37 | 0:25:40 | |
# We've been together now for 40 years. # | 0:25:40 | 0:25:44 | |
You know, we have all been mates for quite a long time, | 0:25:44 | 0:25:47 | |
so we don't get on each other's nerves as much as we could. | 0:25:47 | 0:25:51 | |
I think I saw you being greeted by somebody outside. | 0:25:53 | 0:25:56 | |
-No, no, that was George. -That was me. That was me. -Uh-huh. | 0:25:56 | 0:26:00 | |
Well, actually, it was, um, my mother. | 0:26:00 | 0:26:02 | |
-Your mother has to come to Ireland to see you? -Yeah! | 0:26:03 | 0:26:06 | |
# Well, we danced through the night | 0:26:17 | 0:26:19 | |
# And we held each other tight | 0:26:19 | 0:26:24 | |
# And before too long I fell in love with her | 0:26:24 | 0:26:29 | |
# Now, I'll never dance with another, ooh. # | 0:26:29 | 0:26:35 | |
Do you find any difficulty in keeping up your public image? | 0:26:35 | 0:26:38 | |
-No. -What image? | 0:26:38 | 0:26:40 | |
Our image is just us, you know, as we were. | 0:26:40 | 0:26:44 | |
We didn't try and, uh, make an image. It just happened. | 0:26:44 | 0:26:48 | |
And so we don't have to keep it up. | 0:26:48 | 0:26:50 | |
We just remain ourselves, don't we, Ringo? | 0:26:50 | 0:26:54 | |
Well, we do. It's the other two we're worried about! | 0:26:54 | 0:26:58 | |
RINGO: The general atmosphere, we all loved it. | 0:26:59 | 0:27:02 | |
We all dug it, but you know, still in the band, | 0:27:02 | 0:27:05 | |
we all had personalities and attitudes. | 0:27:05 | 0:27:08 | |
We stopped at a motorway cafe, you know, | 0:27:08 | 0:27:12 | |
eat some grease. | 0:27:12 | 0:27:15 | |
Paul had the keys and George | 0:27:15 | 0:27:18 | |
was sitting behind the wheel, as we came up. | 0:27:18 | 0:27:22 | |
And so an argument went on for at least an hour and a half. | 0:27:22 | 0:27:27 | |
"I've got the keys." "Well, I'm sittin' behind the wheel." | 0:27:27 | 0:27:30 | |
And it was like, we had to sit there and go through this, | 0:27:30 | 0:27:33 | |
cos no-one was going give up. | 0:27:33 | 0:27:36 | |
"I got the keys." "I've got the wheel." | 0:27:36 | 0:27:38 | |
# So please listen to me if you wanna stay mine | 0:27:38 | 0:27:41 | |
# I can't help my feelings I'll go out of my mind | 0:27:41 | 0:27:45 | |
-# I'm gonna let you down -Let you down | 0:27:45 | 0:27:48 | |
# And leave you flat | 0:27:48 | 0:27:49 | |
# Gonna let you down and leave you flat | 0:27:49 | 0:27:52 | |
# Because I've told you before Oh, you can't do that | 0:27:52 | 0:27:56 | |
# O-o-o-o-oh! | 0:27:57 | 0:27:58 | |
# You can't do that... # | 0:28:01 | 0:28:02 | |
"Dear Mum and Dad, | 0:28:13 | 0:28:14 | |
"The shows have been going great, with everybody going potty. | 0:28:14 | 0:28:18 | |
"And everywhere we go, we have about 20 police on motorbikes escorting us. | 0:28:18 | 0:28:21 | |
"We have had two Cadillacs every place, but tonight, when we finished the show and ran out, | 0:28:21 | 0:28:25 | |
"the cars weren't there and had gone to another door. | 0:28:25 | 0:28:29 | |
"So we went back inside until we could get out. | 0:28:29 | 0:28:31 | |
"All the kids came out of the show and saw the two cars around the side | 0:28:31 | 0:28:35 | |
"and stormed them and jumped all over them." | 0:28:35 | 0:28:37 | |
"The drivers had to get out and both cars were completely wrecked - the roofs were right down on the seats. | 0:28:37 | 0:28:43 | |
"Some girl fell through a skylight from the roof of a building and 45 more were put in hospital. | 0:28:43 | 0:28:48 | |
"In the end, we escaped in an ambulance, | 0:28:48 | 0:28:51 | |
"but don't worry, because no-one can get near us, for all the police and security." | 0:28:51 | 0:28:54 | |
# I got something to say that might cause you pain | 0:28:54 | 0:28:58 | |
# If I catch you talking to that boy again | 0:28:58 | 0:29:01 | |
# I'm gonna let you down | 0:29:01 | 0:29:04 | |
# And leave you flat | 0:29:04 | 0:29:07 | |
# Because I told you before Oh, you can't do that. # | 0:29:08 | 0:29:14 | |
What actors would you like to meet in Hollywood? | 0:29:14 | 0:29:16 | |
-Paul Newman. -What actresses? | 0:29:16 | 0:29:19 | |
Jayne Mansfield. | 0:29:19 | 0:29:21 | |
RINGO: We were all in our early twenties, so were just going with it. | 0:29:21 | 0:29:25 | |
The good side of it was that | 0:29:25 | 0:29:27 | |
you could really go shopping! | 0:29:27 | 0:29:29 | |
You know, there's the great line | 0:29:31 | 0:29:33 | |
that the Beatles, they had one day off a month. | 0:29:33 | 0:29:37 | |
And on the day off, Paul would judge a beauty pageant. | 0:29:37 | 0:29:40 | |
# Everybody's green | 0:29:40 | 0:29:44 | |
# Cos I'm the one who won your love | 0:29:44 | 0:29:48 | |
# But if they'd seen you're talking that way | 0:29:48 | 0:29:53 | |
# They'd laugh in my face | 0:29:53 | 0:29:55 | |
# So please listen to me if you wanna stay mine | 0:29:55 | 0:29:58 | |
# I can't help my feelings I'll go out of my mind | 0:29:58 | 0:30:02 | |
# I'm gonna let you down | 0:30:02 | 0:30:04 | |
-# Let you down -And leave you flat | 0:30:04 | 0:30:06 | |
# Gonna let you down and leave you flat. # | 0:30:06 | 0:30:08 | |
The Beatles only ever had one car | 0:30:08 | 0:30:11 | |
and two rooms, in any hotel, between them. | 0:30:11 | 0:30:13 | |
We got closer together. The bigger it got, | 0:30:13 | 0:30:18 | |
the closer we became, because from the minute you sort of left | 0:30:18 | 0:30:21 | |
the security of your apartment, the heat was on. | 0:30:21 | 0:30:25 | |
People wanted a piece, wanted to talk, wanted their photo. | 0:30:25 | 0:30:29 | |
And so we sort of, you know, kept each other company. | 0:30:29 | 0:30:33 | |
FANS SHOUT BEATLES' NAMES | 0:30:33 | 0:30:37 | |
When we first came to New York, it's a great story | 0:30:37 | 0:30:41 | |
because we had the whole floor in the Plaza | 0:30:41 | 0:30:45 | |
and the four of us ended up in the bathroom. | 0:30:45 | 0:30:49 | |
We were just sitting in there, | 0:30:49 | 0:30:51 | |
"Hey, how you doin'? What's goin' on?" | 0:30:51 | 0:30:53 | |
just to get a break from, you know, the incredible pressure. | 0:30:53 | 0:30:57 | |
# Money don't get everything it's true | 0:30:57 | 0:31:01 | |
# What it don't get, I can't use # Now give me money | 0:31:01 | 0:31:05 | |
-# -That's what I want -That's what I want | 0:31:05 | 0:31:09 | |
# That's what I want. # | 0:31:09 | 0:31:11 | |
The next song I'd like to sing... | 0:31:11 | 0:31:13 | |
..is our latest record... | 0:31:20 | 0:31:25 | |
..or our latest electronic noise, depending on whose side you're on. | 0:31:25 | 0:31:29 | |
-# That's what I want -That's what I want | 0:31:29 | 0:31:33 | |
# That's what I want | 0:31:33 | 0:31:35 | |
# That's what I want, yeah. # | 0:31:36 | 0:31:38 | |
Are you individually millionaires yet? | 0:31:38 | 0:31:42 | |
JOHN: No, that's another lousy rumour. I wish we were. | 0:31:42 | 0:31:45 | |
All right then, where does all the money go? | 0:31:45 | 0:31:47 | |
Well, a lot of it goes to Her Majesty. | 0:31:47 | 0:31:50 | |
She's a millionaire. | 0:31:51 | 0:31:53 | |
# That's what I want | 0:31:56 | 0:31:57 | |
# A lot of money | 0:31:57 | 0:31:58 | |
# That's what I want | 0:31:58 | 0:32:01 | |
-# That's what I want -A lot of money | 0:32:01 | 0:32:06 | |
# That's what I want. # | 0:32:06 | 0:32:08 | |
"This morning, we're off to Wellington. | 0:32:11 | 0:32:15 | |
"We've been and played here in Sydney | 0:32:15 | 0:32:17 | |
"and it was the biggest drag of all time. | 0:32:17 | 0:32:19 | |
"The stage revolves every three minutes and we have to walk right down the aisles, | 0:32:19 | 0:32:23 | |
"like boxers, to get to the stage. At the first house, I punched a policeman, | 0:32:23 | 0:32:27 | |
"because he was shoving me. And some kids had a hold of me when I was trying to get off the stage. | 0:32:27 | 0:32:32 | |
"I was swearing my head off at one policeman. Sorry. | 0:32:32 | 0:32:35 | |
"Later, the chief apologised to me. | 0:32:35 | 0:32:37 | |
"After the show, there was a party in the hotel for Paul's birthday." | 0:32:37 | 0:32:41 | |
It's great at the beginning, | 0:32:41 | 0:32:43 | |
You know, where, you know, you're recognised, | 0:32:43 | 0:32:45 | |
you get a great seat in a restaurant and, you know, | 0:32:45 | 0:32:49 | |
things are bigger and things come to you faster. | 0:32:49 | 0:32:52 | |
Um, you know, all that is great. | 0:32:52 | 0:32:55 | |
And then you really want that to end. | 0:32:55 | 0:32:59 | |
Thank you very much, ta. | 0:32:59 | 0:33:02 | |
Erm, this... | 0:33:02 | 0:33:04 | |
This number... Shush. | 0:33:04 | 0:33:07 | |
Shush. | 0:33:07 | 0:33:09 | |
This number we'd like to sing now... | 0:33:09 | 0:33:11 | |
You fight for it, and then when you get it, | 0:33:11 | 0:33:13 | |
you want it to end, but it never ends. | 0:33:13 | 0:33:15 | |
That's the deal. | 0:33:15 | 0:33:16 | |
We do like the fans and enjoy reading the publicity about us, | 0:33:16 | 0:33:22 | |
but from time to time, you don't realise that | 0:33:22 | 0:33:25 | |
it's actually about yourself. | 0:33:25 | 0:33:27 | |
You see your pictures and read articles about, | 0:33:27 | 0:33:31 | |
you know, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Paul and John, but you don't | 0:33:31 | 0:33:35 | |
actually think, "Oh, that's me. There I am in the paper." | 0:33:35 | 0:33:39 | |
It's funny. It's just as though it's a different person. | 0:33:39 | 0:33:42 | |
# Well, gonna write a little letter | 0:33:42 | 0:33:45 | |
# Gonna mail it to my local DJ | 0:33:45 | 0:33:47 | |
# Well, it's a rocking little record I want my jockey to play | 0:33:49 | 0:33:53 | |
# Roll over, Beethoven | 0:33:54 | 0:33:56 | |
# I gotta hear it again today | 0:33:56 | 0:34:00 | |
# You know my temperature's rising | 0:34:00 | 0:34:02 | |
# And the jukebox's blowing a fuse. # | 0:34:02 | 0:34:05 | |
Do you know where you were this time last week? | 0:34:05 | 0:34:07 | |
-No. I haven't a clue. -I don't even know what day it is. | 0:34:07 | 0:34:10 | |
-You don't know what day it is? -No. What is it? | 0:34:10 | 0:34:13 | |
"We've been to the Hollywood Bowl and done the show, which was great. | 0:34:26 | 0:34:29 | |
"And the place was marvellous. | 0:34:29 | 0:34:31 | |
"The seats go right up the side of big hills. | 0:34:31 | 0:34:35 | |
"Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis's manager, came to see us, | 0:34:35 | 0:34:38 | |
"and gave us all real leather belts and holster sets. Cowboy things. | 0:34:38 | 0:34:41 | |
"And little covered wagons, which are television lamps. | 0:34:41 | 0:34:44 | |
"He was good too and said that Elvis wants to meet us | 0:34:44 | 0:34:47 | |
"and has invited us to his house in Memphis, Tennessee. | 0:34:47 | 0:34:49 | |
"Tonight, we were invited to Burt Lancaster's house and he made us very welcome. | 0:34:49 | 0:34:54 | |
"His house was a knockout and cost him a million dollars. | 0:34:54 | 0:34:57 | |
"I had a swim in his pool, which was great - and as hot as a bath almost. | 0:34:57 | 0:35:02 | |
"After that, the men organising the tour wanted us to go to | 0:35:02 | 0:35:05 | |
"this place called Whiskey A Go-Go, on Sunset Strip. | 0:35:05 | 0:35:08 | |
"They said we wouldn't be bothered. | 0:35:08 | 0:35:10 | |
"We got there and went in and fought our way, with Mal and a few big hard men, to a table | 0:35:10 | 0:35:16 | |
"where John and Derek were. And Jayne Mansfield." | 0:35:16 | 0:35:18 | |
"By this time, after fighting through the crowd, | 0:35:18 | 0:35:21 | |
"I was annoyed and threw some Coke on a cameraman. | 0:35:21 | 0:35:24 | |
"We all fought our way back out and jumped in the car and went home. | 0:35:24 | 0:35:27 | |
"It was a drag and we were there for about ten minutes altogether. | 0:35:27 | 0:35:30 | |
"You see why we don't usually bother going out now." | 0:35:30 | 0:35:33 | |
How did George deal with it? | 0:35:33 | 0:35:35 | |
George, you know, George had two incredible separate personalities. | 0:35:35 | 0:35:39 | |
He had the lovebag of beads personality and the bag of anger. | 0:35:39 | 0:35:45 | |
He was very black and white. | 0:35:45 | 0:35:49 | |
-Whether you will go along with any change in taste. -Er, no. | 0:35:49 | 0:35:53 | |
Well, you never know, because we have. | 0:35:53 | 0:35:56 | |
-We change anyway, don't we? -Yeah. | 0:35:56 | 0:35:59 | |
We hope you've enjoyed the show tonight. Have you enjoyed it? | 0:35:59 | 0:36:03 | |
CHEERING | 0:36:03 | 0:36:04 | |
# There's a fog upon LA | 0:36:07 | 0:36:11 | |
# And my friends have lost their way | 0:36:13 | 0:36:19 | |
# We'll be over soon, they say | 0:36:19 | 0:36:24 | |
# Now they've lost themselves instead | 0:36:26 | 0:36:31 | |
# Please don't be long... # | 0:36:34 | 0:36:38 | |
I was boss of Parlophone Records | 0:36:38 | 0:36:40 | |
and I'd made it my business, over the previous years, | 0:36:40 | 0:36:43 | |
to develop Parlophone as a comedy label. And, in fact, | 0:36:43 | 0:36:47 | |
when Brian Epstein desperately took us on, or hoped we would take him on, | 0:36:47 | 0:36:53 | |
he felt he'd hit rock bottom, cos he'd been everywhere else | 0:36:53 | 0:36:56 | |
and now he was ending up on a comedy label. | 0:36:56 | 0:36:59 | |
I first met The Beatles in 1962. | 0:36:59 | 0:37:02 | |
I wasn't terribly impressed with the first stuff they did. | 0:37:02 | 0:37:05 | |
I couldn't make out the sound. You know, it was something I hadn't heard before. | 0:37:05 | 0:37:09 | |
So I looked at these four guys, and thought, | 0:37:09 | 0:37:12 | |
"Well, none of them shines as being above all the others." | 0:37:12 | 0:37:16 | |
And I had to make up my mind, | 0:37:16 | 0:37:18 | |
in my silly mind, who the lead singer was going to be. | 0:37:18 | 0:37:21 | |
Suddenly, I realised I would take them as they were, as a group. | 0:37:21 | 0:37:25 | |
The hell with a lead singer. They would be singing together. | 0:37:25 | 0:37:29 | |
So we were struggling with the sound a bit. | 0:37:29 | 0:37:32 | |
And I said to the boys, after we'd done a few takes of rather nondescript songs, | 0:37:32 | 0:37:38 | |
"Come into the control room and have a listen | 0:37:38 | 0:37:41 | |
"and see what we've been doing. | 0:37:41 | 0:37:43 | |
"And if there's anything you don't like, tell us." | 0:37:43 | 0:37:47 | |
And George was the one who took the leap. | 0:37:47 | 0:37:51 | |
And he said, "Well, I don't like your tie for a start." | 0:37:51 | 0:37:55 | |
And the others were horrified. They thought, "God, he's blown it." | 0:37:55 | 0:37:59 | |
But, of course, I fell around laughing. | 0:37:59 | 0:38:02 | |
I thought it was so cheeky and so funny that I... | 0:38:02 | 0:38:06 | |
You know, he endeared himself to me at that point. | 0:38:06 | 0:38:09 | |
# I give her all my love | 0:38:20 | 0:38:23 | |
# That's all I do | 0:38:23 | 0:38:27 | |
# And if you saw my love | 0:38:27 | 0:38:31 | |
# You'd love her, too | 0:38:31 | 0:38:35 | |
# I love her... # | 0:38:35 | 0:38:38 | |
John and I would write the songs the week before the studio. Brian Epstein would ring us up and say, | 0:38:38 | 0:38:43 | |
"You're in the studio next week. You've got a week off." We'd go, "Yes!" | 0:38:43 | 0:38:47 | |
He'd say, "But you've got to write the album." We'd go, "Yes!" | 0:38:47 | 0:38:51 | |
So we'd just, you know... Each day we'd write a song, | 0:38:51 | 0:38:53 | |
so we can have seven or so songs to go in with, | 0:38:53 | 0:38:57 | |
which was enough to start with. | 0:38:57 | 0:39:00 | |
And we'd go in the studio, ten in the morning, | 0:39:00 | 0:39:04 | |
and this was the first time George and Ringo had heard any of the songs. | 0:39:04 | 0:39:08 | |
So this is how good they were. John and I would go, "It goes like this." | 0:39:08 | 0:39:12 | |
# She loves you, yeah... # Or whatever it was. | 0:39:12 | 0:39:16 | |
And they'd go, "Mmm-hmm." | 0:39:16 | 0:39:17 | |
George would cop the chords. He'd go, "Uh-huh," not writing them down. | 0:39:17 | 0:39:21 | |
It was just like, "Yeah, I can see what you're doing. Cos I'm one of you. | 0:39:21 | 0:39:25 | |
"I didn't write it, but I see what you did." | 0:39:25 | 0:39:29 | |
And Ringo would just stand around with his sticks and do a little thing. | 0:39:29 | 0:39:32 | |
I was just thinking actually about my song And I Love Her. | 0:39:48 | 0:39:51 | |
# And I give her all my love... # I had that, | 0:39:51 | 0:39:55 | |
but then George comes in with... # Do-do-do-do. # | 0:39:55 | 0:39:58 | |
Now, you think about that. That's the song. | 0:39:58 | 0:40:01 | |
But he made that up on the session. Cos knew the chords, and we said, | 0:40:01 | 0:40:05 | |
"It needs a riff." I didn't write that. | 0:40:05 | 0:40:07 | |
When we got together in the studio, whoever had written the song | 0:40:07 | 0:40:12 | |
would be the kind of boss in leading the other guys through it. | 0:40:12 | 0:40:15 | |
Paul and John, being the songwriters - | 0:40:15 | 0:40:19 | |
and at that stage, George wasn't showing himself to be a songwriter - | 0:40:19 | 0:40:22 | |
they were the dominant forces. | 0:40:22 | 0:40:24 | |
George and Ringo were slightly behind Paul and John, | 0:40:24 | 0:40:29 | |
because Paul and John were the writers and the lead singers. | 0:40:29 | 0:40:32 | |
I guess George was kind of a loner, really, | 0:40:32 | 0:40:37 | |
because he was outside the team that were providing the hits. | 0:40:37 | 0:40:43 | |
John and Paul had each other to play against. | 0:40:43 | 0:40:47 | |
And their collaboration was much more of a competition than a collaboration, really. | 0:40:47 | 0:40:51 | |
One would do something, and the other one would say, "Gosh, I think I can do better than that," | 0:40:51 | 0:40:56 | |
and try and make something better. | 0:40:56 | 0:40:58 | |
George was the sole guy. He had no-one to work with. | 0:40:58 | 0:41:02 | |
GUITAR STRUMMING | 0:41:03 | 0:41:05 | |
The funny position I was in was that, in many ways, you know, | 0:41:09 | 0:41:13 | |
this whole focus of attention was on The Beatles, | 0:41:13 | 0:41:16 | |
so in that respect, I was part of it. | 0:41:16 | 0:41:19 | |
But from being in them... | 0:41:19 | 0:41:21 | |
..an attitude came over, which was John and Paul. | 0:41:23 | 0:41:27 | |
"OK, you know, we're the grooves and you two just watch it." | 0:41:27 | 0:41:33 | |
I mean, don't forget, I spent ten years in the back of the limousine with them. | 0:41:33 | 0:41:37 | |
-GUITAR STRUMMING -That speed. | 0:41:37 | 0:41:38 | |
Don't Bother Me. This is remake recording, take ten. | 0:41:38 | 0:41:43 | |
'Don't Bother Me was the first song. It was written basically as an exercise | 0:41:43 | 0:41:48 | |
'to see if I could write a song, cos I thought, | 0:41:48 | 0:41:52 | |
'"Well, if John and Paul can write, everybody must be able to."' | 0:41:52 | 0:41:56 | |
Two, three, four. | 0:41:56 | 0:41:58 | |
# Since she's been gone I want no-one to talk to me... # | 0:42:03 | 0:42:07 | |
-Hang on, it's going too fast. -Take 12. -One, two... | 0:42:09 | 0:42:13 | |
'I wrote that in the hotel in Bournemouth. | 0:42:13 | 0:42:16 | |
'We were doing the summer season, and I was sick in bed. | 0:42:16 | 0:42:19 | |
'Maybe that's why it turned out Don't Bother Me. | 0:42:19 | 0:42:21 | |
-'Yeah. -It's not a particularly good song, | 0:42:21 | 0:42:24 | |
'but it at least showed me that, you know, all I needed to do was keep on writing | 0:42:24 | 0:42:29 | |
'and maybe some day I'd... | 0:42:29 | 0:42:33 | |
'write something good. | 0:42:33 | 0:42:35 | |
'I still feel, right at this point, | 0:42:35 | 0:42:37 | |
'I still keep thinking, "I wish I could write something good."' | 0:42:37 | 0:42:40 | |
# Since she's been gone I want no-one to talk to me | 0:42:40 | 0:42:46 | |
# It's not the same but I'm to blame | 0:42:46 | 0:42:48 | |
# It's plain to see | 0:42:48 | 0:42:52 | |
# So go away, leave me alone, don't bother me | 0:42:52 | 0:42:56 | |
# I can't believe that she would leave me on my own | 0:42:56 | 0:43:02 | |
# It's just not right when every night I'm all alone | 0:43:02 | 0:43:08 | |
# I've got no time for you right now, don't bother me | 0:43:08 | 0:43:15 | |
# I know I'll never be the same | 0:43:15 | 0:43:19 | |
# If I don't get her back again | 0:43:19 | 0:43:25 | |
# Because I know she'll always be | 0:43:25 | 0:43:31 | |
# The only girl for me. # | 0:43:31 | 0:43:36 | |
When I saw George and Pattie together, | 0:43:36 | 0:43:41 | |
the way they fit into The Beatles thing, all of their domesticity | 0:43:41 | 0:43:46 | |
seemed to be like Camelot, you know. It was like... | 0:43:46 | 0:43:51 | |
And I was the Lancelot, in a way. | 0:43:51 | 0:43:53 | |
I was kind of this lone wolf | 0:43:53 | 0:43:56 | |
without really any direction. | 0:43:56 | 0:44:00 | |
I saw The Beatles | 0:44:14 | 0:44:16 | |
play at the Hammersmith Odeon | 0:44:16 | 0:44:17 | |
when I was bottom of the bill in The Yardbirds. | 0:44:17 | 0:44:20 | |
This band was like... They were like a single person. | 0:44:20 | 0:44:24 | |
It was an odd phenomenon, in fact, that they seemed to move together and think together. | 0:44:24 | 0:44:29 | |
It was almost like a little family unit. | 0:44:29 | 0:44:31 | |
I was very, very suspicious about what they were up to. | 0:44:31 | 0:44:35 | |
But when I saw them play, I mean, I was overwhelmed by their gift. | 0:44:35 | 0:44:39 | |
Each one of them seemed to be very well-endowed with their own musical capacity. | 0:44:39 | 0:44:45 | |
But the sad part was | 0:44:45 | 0:44:47 | |
that no-one listened to them, and that their audience, | 0:44:47 | 0:44:51 | |
which they had cultivated, I suppose, | 0:44:51 | 0:44:54 | |
they were 12-year-old girls. | 0:44:54 | 0:44:57 | |
He was clearly an innovator. | 0:44:57 | 0:45:00 | |
George, to me, was taking certain elements | 0:45:00 | 0:45:04 | |
of R&B and rock and rockabilly | 0:45:04 | 0:45:09 | |
and creating something unique. | 0:45:09 | 0:45:11 | |
They were very generous to everybody. They took time to come and talk to everybody. | 0:45:11 | 0:45:16 | |
I didn't feel threatened at all, because I had quite a lot | 0:45:16 | 0:45:20 | |
of self-confidence going in my concept of myself | 0:45:20 | 0:45:23 | |
as being this sort of blues missionary, as it were. | 0:45:23 | 0:45:27 | |
And I wasn't looking for any favours from anybody. | 0:45:27 | 0:45:32 | |
And George recognised me as an equal, because I had a level of proficiency even then | 0:45:32 | 0:45:38 | |
that he saw as being fairly unique too, you know. | 0:45:38 | 0:45:41 | |
George chose to move into a house in Esher. | 0:45:41 | 0:45:45 | |
And Esher is maybe eight miles north of where I was born. | 0:45:45 | 0:45:49 | |
And we became friends and I would go and visit them there. | 0:45:49 | 0:45:53 | |
Something grew out of the music and the kind of people we were. | 0:45:53 | 0:45:57 | |
I think we shared a lot of tastes, too. | 0:45:57 | 0:46:00 | |
You know, superficial things - cars or clothes, but... | 0:46:00 | 0:46:04 | |
And women, obviously. | 0:46:04 | 0:46:06 | |
But I think what George might have liked about me | 0:46:06 | 0:46:11 | |
was the fact that I was a kind of free agent. | 0:46:11 | 0:46:14 | |
And I think, if anything, | 0:46:14 | 0:46:16 | |
he may have already been wondering about whether he was in the right place being in a group, | 0:46:16 | 0:46:21 | |
cos the group politic is a tricky one. You know, there was a lot about | 0:46:21 | 0:46:26 | |
what he had going which I envied, | 0:46:26 | 0:46:28 | |
and there was a lot about what I had going that he envied. | 0:46:28 | 0:46:32 | |
What did he have going that you envied? | 0:46:32 | 0:46:35 | |
Well, I suppose, money, status. | 0:46:35 | 0:46:39 | |
You know, the classic things. | 0:46:39 | 0:46:41 | |
The Beatles, man, come on. | 0:46:41 | 0:46:44 | |
In the beginning, in the early days, | 0:46:46 | 0:46:49 | |
what was good about being George's friend | 0:46:49 | 0:46:52 | |
was that it was kind of like basking in the sunshine | 0:46:52 | 0:46:55 | |
of this immense creativity. | 0:46:55 | 0:46:58 | |
-CHEERING -We'd like to carry on with a song | 0:46:58 | 0:47:02 | |
which is off our last LP. | 0:47:02 | 0:47:04 | |
The LP's called Rubber Soul, and the song, | 0:47:06 | 0:47:09 | |
which is sung by our guitarist George, | 0:47:09 | 0:47:11 | |
is called If I Needed Someone. | 0:47:11 | 0:47:15 | |
# If I needed someone to love | 0:47:23 | 0:47:27 | |
# You're the one that I'd be thinking of | 0:47:27 | 0:47:32 | |
# If I needed someone | 0:47:33 | 0:47:36 | |
# If I had some more time to spend | 0:47:39 | 0:47:43 | |
# I guess I'd be with you, my friend | 0:47:43 | 0:47:48 | |
# If I needed someone. # | 0:47:49 | 0:47:52 | |
This is largely an appeal to the feminine heart, | 0:47:55 | 0:47:59 | |
the heart of the young girl who worships love | 0:47:59 | 0:48:03 | |
and the goddess of love | 0:48:03 | 0:48:05 | |
and the heroes of love. | 0:48:05 | 0:48:08 | |
And this plays the dominant part in her life. | 0:48:08 | 0:48:12 | |
So the vast majority of the fans are girls, | 0:48:12 | 0:48:16 | |
who come there to worship at the shrine of the goddess | 0:48:16 | 0:48:19 | |
or the young god hero, as they did in the ancient past. | 0:48:19 | 0:48:23 | |
I've seen this with the most dramatic intensity | 0:48:23 | 0:48:26 | |
with The Beatles playing to 2,000 or 3,000 young girls in Manchester. | 0:48:26 | 0:48:30 | |
Apart from another journalist, I was the only male in the audience. | 0:48:30 | 0:48:35 | |
And I've never experienced anything like it myself. | 0:48:35 | 0:48:38 | |
If I were confronted with 10,000 Loch Ness monsters, | 0:48:38 | 0:48:43 | |
I wouldn't be so impressed by this whistling and wailing | 0:48:43 | 0:48:47 | |
and possession of the soul of these young girls. | 0:48:47 | 0:48:50 | |
Would you say it's true that the devotion your group attracts | 0:48:50 | 0:48:54 | |
-is essentially religious in nature? -No. | 0:48:54 | 0:48:57 | |
-In what way is it not? -Well, in what ways do you think it is? | 0:48:57 | 0:49:02 | |
The fervour, the excitement that it inspires in young people. | 0:49:02 | 0:49:05 | |
Would you say football crowds are any more religious, | 0:49:05 | 0:49:07 | |
or football fanatics have any more religion in them than Beatle fanatics? I don't think so. | 0:49:07 | 0:49:12 | |
CHEERING | 0:49:12 | 0:49:15 | |
One value divides the generations more sharply than any other - | 0:49:15 | 0:49:19 | |
religion. The gap is greatest between college students | 0:49:19 | 0:49:22 | |
and their parents. | 0:49:22 | 0:49:24 | |
The question was whether belonging to some organised religion | 0:49:24 | 0:49:28 | |
is important in a person's life. | 0:49:28 | 0:49:30 | |
Nine out of ten parents say it is. | 0:49:30 | 0:49:34 | |
Only four out of ten college students say religion is important. | 0:49:34 | 0:49:38 | |
And the more radical the youth, politically, | 0:49:38 | 0:49:41 | |
the more likely he is to reject the religious values of adult society. | 0:49:41 | 0:49:46 | |
Still, the gap is there, whatever the politics. | 0:49:46 | 0:49:50 | |
Well, some of the remarks attributed to you in some of the newspapers, the press here, | 0:49:50 | 0:49:54 | |
concerning the remark you made comparing the relative popularity of The Beatles with Jesus Christ, | 0:49:54 | 0:50:00 | |
and that The Beatles were more popular - created quite a controversy and furore here. | 0:50:00 | 0:50:06 | |
Would you clarify the remark? | 0:50:06 | 0:50:08 | |
Well, I've clarified it about 800 times. | 0:50:08 | 0:50:10 | |
I could have said TV, or something else, you know. | 0:50:10 | 0:50:13 | |
And that's as clear as it can be. | 0:50:13 | 0:50:15 | |
There were other evidences that that ol' time religion was under attack. | 0:50:15 | 0:50:19 | |
Evangelist Billy Graham went to London, | 0:50:19 | 0:50:22 | |
hoping he could stop England from swinging. | 0:50:22 | 0:50:24 | |
In the process, he was almost engulfed by sin on a Soho street. | 0:50:24 | 0:50:28 | |
And I think a great deal of what we see among young people today | 0:50:28 | 0:50:31 | |
is actually a spiritual search. These young people are searching for a creed to believe in, | 0:50:31 | 0:50:36 | |
a song to sing and a cause to follow. | 0:50:36 | 0:50:39 | |
# Carve your number on my wall | 0:50:39 | 0:50:43 | |
# And maybe you will get a call from me | 0:50:43 | 0:50:48 | |
# If I needed someone | 0:50:48 | 0:50:51 | |
# Ah | 0:50:54 | 0:50:58 | |
# Ah | 0:50:58 | 0:51:01 | |
# Ah | 0:51:01 | 0:51:05 | |
# Ah. # | 0:51:05 | 0:51:09 | |
Before we sort of made it, as they say, | 0:51:09 | 0:51:12 | |
money was part of the goal, but it still wasn't a sort of, "Let's get some money." | 0:51:12 | 0:51:18 | |
But we sort of got... We suddenly had money, and then it wasn't all that good. | 0:51:18 | 0:51:23 | |
By having the money, we found that money wasn't the answer, | 0:51:23 | 0:51:26 | |
because we had lots of material things | 0:51:26 | 0:51:30 | |
that people sort of spend their whole life to try to get. | 0:51:30 | 0:51:34 | |
And we managed to get them at quite an early age. | 0:51:34 | 0:51:38 | |
And it was good, really, because we learned that that wasn't it. | 0:51:38 | 0:51:41 | |
We still lacked something. And that something is the thing that religion | 0:51:41 | 0:51:45 | |
is trying to give to people. | 0:51:45 | 0:51:46 | |
Have they changed because of all this? | 0:51:46 | 0:51:50 | |
Altered....developed, perhaps, but not...um... | 0:51:50 | 0:51:53 | |
not changed too much. They're not in any way contaminated by it. | 0:51:53 | 0:51:57 | |
Not nearly as seriously contaminated as many of the people who... | 0:51:57 | 0:52:00 | |
um...occasionally surround us. | 0:52:00 | 0:52:05 | |
They remain very calm and bland and simple. | 0:52:05 | 0:52:10 | |
And they don't know what it's all about. | 0:52:10 | 0:52:13 | |
They simply want to play their music and write it. | 0:52:13 | 0:52:16 | |
They're very normal. Thank goodness. | 0:52:16 | 0:52:19 | |
I came home one day with the kids and Derek said, "Brian's just phoned." | 0:52:20 | 0:52:25 | |
Brian Epstein. "And he's having a housewarming in Sussex, | 0:52:25 | 0:52:30 | |
"and he wants us to go. He wants all his friends to be there." | 0:52:30 | 0:52:33 | |
So we rallied all our babysitters together | 0:52:33 | 0:52:37 | |
and we found ourselves on a plane. | 0:52:37 | 0:52:41 | |
And we arrived at Heathrow, | 0:52:41 | 0:52:44 | |
and waiting for us was John and George. | 0:52:44 | 0:52:48 | |
And they were dressed in this exotic way. | 0:52:48 | 0:52:52 | |
They had silk shirts, and they were this incredible colour. | 0:52:52 | 0:52:55 | |
And they hugged us and they kissed us, and they... | 0:52:55 | 0:52:58 | |
All of a sudden, it's like there are no barriers. No handshakes, it's... | 0:52:58 | 0:53:03 | |
.."What's happening?" And we were swept out to this... | 0:53:05 | 0:53:10 | |
to outside Heathrow Airport, where John's Rolls-Royce, | 0:53:10 | 0:53:14 | |
like a Romany caravan, was waiting for us. | 0:53:14 | 0:53:18 | |
George, in his Mini, | 0:53:18 | 0:53:20 | |
and us in the Rolls-Royce, with Procol Harum playing Whiter Shade Of Pale, | 0:53:20 | 0:53:25 | |
driving along the English country roads | 0:53:25 | 0:53:28 | |
from Surrey to Sussex. And Brian was waiting for us. | 0:53:28 | 0:53:32 | |
And there were all sorts of his friends, famous and not-so-famous. | 0:53:32 | 0:53:37 | |
And George gave Derek acid | 0:53:37 | 0:53:40 | |
and John gave me acid. | 0:53:40 | 0:53:43 | |
And then John gave Derek acid. | 0:53:43 | 0:53:45 | |
So Derek had a double dose. | 0:53:45 | 0:53:48 | |
And we spent the whole night with them... | 0:53:48 | 0:53:54 | |
on this mind adventure, | 0:53:54 | 0:53:56 | |
which Paul had described to us as "controlled weirdness". | 0:53:56 | 0:54:01 | |
I'm not quite sure how controlled it was, but it was weird. | 0:54:02 | 0:54:06 | |
But it was wonderful, and it bonded us, because they were so kind to us. | 0:54:06 | 0:54:10 | |
And we came through it | 0:54:10 | 0:54:12 | |
and we walked out into this English country garden | 0:54:12 | 0:54:17 | |
with the night receding | 0:54:17 | 0:54:19 | |
and the sun coming. | 0:54:19 | 0:54:21 | |
Sitting in an English garden waiting for the sun - well, | 0:54:21 | 0:54:24 | |
that was what happened, literally, what happened. | 0:54:24 | 0:54:27 | |
When we took the notorious wonder drug LSD... | 0:54:28 | 0:54:32 | |
Yes. | 0:54:32 | 0:54:34 | |
..it was... We didn't know we were having it. | 0:54:34 | 0:54:36 | |
John and I had this drug and it was given... | 0:54:36 | 0:54:40 | |
We were having dinner with our dentist... | 0:54:40 | 0:54:43 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:54:43 | 0:54:45 | |
..and he put it in our coffee and never told us. And we'd we never heard of it. | 0:54:45 | 0:54:49 | |
I mean, it's a good job we hadn't heard of it, because there's been so much paranoia | 0:54:49 | 0:54:53 | |
created around the drug, that people now, if they take it, | 0:54:53 | 0:54:57 | |
they're already on a bad trip before they start. | 0:54:57 | 0:54:59 | |
Whereas for us, we didn't know anything. We were so naive. | 0:54:59 | 0:55:03 | |
So we had it and we went out to a club and it was incredible. | 0:55:03 | 0:55:07 | |
It was really incredible. | 0:55:07 | 0:55:10 | |
Something like a very concentrated version | 0:55:13 | 0:55:16 | |
of the best feeling I'd ever had in my life. | 0:55:16 | 0:55:20 | |
It was just, like, fantastic. | 0:55:20 | 0:55:23 | |
I just felt, like, in love. | 0:55:23 | 0:55:27 | |
But not with anything in particular, or anybody, just with everything. | 0:55:27 | 0:55:32 | |
Just everything was perfect. | 0:55:32 | 0:55:34 | |
And we walked and things weren't the same that night as they'd been. | 0:55:34 | 0:55:40 | |
It was... All this Alice In Wonderland stuff was going on, | 0:55:40 | 0:55:43 | |
but strange things. | 0:55:43 | 0:55:45 | |
I remember Pattie was, you know, half playfully, | 0:55:45 | 0:55:50 | |
but half kind of crazy, | 0:55:50 | 0:55:53 | |
was trying to smash a shop window. | 0:55:53 | 0:55:57 | |
And I was kind of being like, "Come on now, don't be silly. | 0:55:57 | 0:56:00 | |
"This way." And we got round this corner | 0:56:00 | 0:56:06 | |
and there were all these lights and taxis. | 0:56:06 | 0:56:09 | |
It looked like there was a big film premiere going on. It was probably just the doorway to the nightclub. | 0:56:09 | 0:56:15 | |
It seemed like, you know, it looked very bright. | 0:56:15 | 0:56:18 | |
And all these people with makeup that was like, this thick on their faces. | 0:56:18 | 0:56:24 | |
You know, like masks. | 0:56:24 | 0:56:26 | |
I had this lingering thought | 0:56:26 | 0:56:28 | |
that just stayed with me after that. | 0:56:28 | 0:56:34 | |
And this thought was the Yogis of the Himalayas. | 0:56:34 | 0:56:38 | |
I don't know why. It just... I'd never thought about them for the rest of my life. | 0:56:38 | 0:56:42 | |
But suddenly this thought was in the back of my consciousness. | 0:56:42 | 0:56:46 | |
It was like somebody was whispering to me, you know. | 0:56:46 | 0:56:50 | |
"The Yogis of the Himalayas." | 0:56:50 | 0:56:52 | |
# Prabhujee | 0:56:57 | 0:56:59 | |
# Dayaa karo | 0:57:01 | 0:57:06 | |
# Prabhujee dayaa karo | 0:57:06 | 0:57:14 | |
# Maname aana baso | 0:57:14 | 0:57:21 | |
# Maname aana baso | 0:57:23 | 0:57:30 | |
# Prabhujee. # | 0:57:30 | 0:57:33 | |
Interview du Mister George Harrison et Ravi Shankar par Michel Guillard. | 0:57:33 | 0:57:37 | |
Sound is God. | 0:57:41 | 0:57:43 | |
And through sound, or that is true good music, | 0:57:43 | 0:57:48 | |
there can be also music which can be devil. | 0:57:48 | 0:57:52 | |
I don't want to name which music. | 0:57:52 | 0:57:54 | |
But music can excite you and make you, ahh, and go mad. | 0:57:56 | 0:58:00 | |
People go, you know, crazy. That is also music. | 0:58:00 | 0:58:03 | |
But it didn't...doesn't lead you | 0:58:03 | 0:58:06 | |
spiritually towards God. But music has this power, | 0:58:06 | 0:58:11 | |
whether it is through the Gregorian chants | 0:58:11 | 0:58:14 | |
or beautiful Baroque music, | 0:58:14 | 0:58:15 | |
or Indian music, or even folk songs, | 0:58:15 | 0:58:18 | |
beautifully sung by people with beautiful voices. | 0:58:18 | 0:58:22 | |
Our music has been handed down from person to person. | 0:58:22 | 0:58:26 | |
It's an oral tradition. It's not a written-down music. | 0:58:26 | 0:58:30 | |
And the guru passes not just the technique, | 0:58:30 | 0:58:32 | |
but the whole spiritual, uh, aspect. | 0:58:32 | 0:58:35 | |
All the meaning of life, philosophy, | 0:58:35 | 0:58:39 | |
everything is passed along with the music. | 0:58:39 | 0:58:41 | |
FURIOUS SITAR MUSIC | 0:58:41 | 0:58:44 | |
The fact that I met so many people, I can meet anybody, you know. | 0:59:18 | 0:59:22 | |
You could go in all the film stars' houses and Elvis and everybody. | 0:59:22 | 0:59:26 | |
And we met a lot of really good people, but we didn't...I never met one person who really impressed me. | 0:59:26 | 0:59:32 | |
The first person who ever impressed me in my life | 0:59:32 | 0:59:35 | |
was Ravi Shankar and he was the only person who didn't try to impress me. | 0:59:35 | 0:59:38 | |
-Why did he impress you? -Because it was by his being. | 0:59:38 | 0:59:42 | |
He taught me so much without actually saying a word. | 0:59:42 | 0:59:46 | |
It's by example. | 0:59:46 | 0:59:47 | |
-Now try to count five, five and six. Five, five makes ten. -Yeah. | 0:59:47 | 0:59:53 | |
And six makes 16. | 0:59:53 | 0:59:55 | |
Nine, ten, 11, 12, 13, 14. | 0:59:55 | 0:59:57 | |
One, two, three, four, five. | 0:59:57 | 0:59:59 | |
-One, two, three, four, five. -One two, three, four, five. One, two. | 0:59:59 | 1:00:03 | |
Five. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. | 1:00:03 | 1:00:05 | |
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. | 1:00:05 | 1:00:07 | |
One, two, three, four, five, six. | 1:00:07 | 1:00:09 | |
What you can do, if it is difficult for you to touch, | 1:00:09 | 1:00:12 | |
one, two, three, four. Just... | 1:00:12 | 1:00:15 | |
THEY LAUGH | 1:00:15 | 1:00:17 | |
It's very difficult. | 1:00:17 | 1:00:18 | |
Two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, | 1:00:18 | 1:00:22 | |
-one, two... -No, one. -One, two, three... | 1:00:22 | 1:00:24 | |
If you're trying to find something, | 1:00:24 | 1:00:26 | |
to find the source of that thing is very difficult, | 1:00:26 | 1:00:32 | |
but my blessing was to be able to have Ravi as my, uh, patchcord. | 1:00:32 | 1:00:39 | |
He could plug me in to the real thing, | 1:00:39 | 1:00:42 | |
so my experience of it was always the best quality. | 1:00:42 | 1:00:46 | |
# Each day just goes so fast | 1:01:25 | 1:01:29 | |
# I turn around, it's past | 1:01:29 | 1:01:32 | |
# You don't get time to hang a sign on me | 1:01:32 | 1:01:40 | |
# Love me while you can | 1:01:44 | 1:01:49 | |
# Before I'm a dead old man... # | 1:01:49 | 1:01:51 | |
Ravi and the sitar was kind of like an excuse to try and find | 1:01:54 | 1:01:59 | |
this spiritual connection. | 1:01:59 | 1:02:01 | |
I read stuff by various holy men and Swamis | 1:02:01 | 1:02:05 | |
and mystics and I went around and looked for them. | 1:02:05 | 1:02:09 | |
Ravi and his brother gave me a lot of books by some wise men. | 1:02:09 | 1:02:14 | |
One of the books, which was by a Swami Vivekananda, who said, | 1:02:14 | 1:02:18 | |
"If there's a God you must see Him | 1:02:18 | 1:02:20 | |
"and if there's a soul, we must perceive it. | 1:02:20 | 1:02:23 | |
"Otherwise it's better not to believe. | 1:02:23 | 1:02:25 | |
"It's better to be an outspoken atheist than a hypocrite." | 1:02:25 | 1:02:29 | |
And after all my life I've been brought up, well, they tried to bring me up as a Catholic. | 1:02:29 | 1:02:35 | |
They had told you to just believe what they're telling you, | 1:02:35 | 1:02:39 | |
and, you know, not to have the direct experience. | 1:02:39 | 1:02:43 | |
And this, for me, going to India | 1:02:43 | 1:02:45 | |
and hearing somebody saying, you know, | 1:02:45 | 1:02:48 | |
"No, you can't believe anything until you have direct perception of it". | 1:02:48 | 1:02:53 | |
And I thought, "Wow, you know, fantastic! At last, you know, | 1:02:53 | 1:02:56 | |
"found somebody who... makes some sense." | 1:02:56 | 1:03:00 | |
And so I wanted to go deeper and deeper into that. | 1:03:00 | 1:03:04 | |
I think that George's experiences of expanding his mind with acid... | 1:03:04 | 1:03:10 | |
led him to looking for something that didn't need chemicals. | 1:03:10 | 1:03:17 | |
He knew that there was a point where you couldn't keep on doing that. | 1:03:17 | 1:03:22 | |
And it wouldn't be good for you, if you did keep on using chemicals. | 1:03:22 | 1:03:27 | |
So he was looking for... | 1:03:27 | 1:03:30 | |
He was always looking for the truth | 1:03:32 | 1:03:34 | |
and he was also looking for peace of mind... | 1:03:34 | 1:03:37 | |
..because it was... it was pretty crazy. | 1:03:39 | 1:03:43 | |
John would pick us up in this big Rolls Royce with blacked-out windows, | 1:03:43 | 1:03:47 | |
and Ringo, John and I all moved out of town to Surrey. | 1:03:47 | 1:03:51 | |
And then he'd pick up Ringo and then pick me up | 1:03:51 | 1:03:54 | |
and then we'd head into town and, by the time we got to Hammersmith, we were just loaded | 1:03:54 | 1:03:59 | |
and feeling ill, cos, you know, a Rolls Royce doesn't have the proper springs. | 1:03:59 | 1:04:03 | |
They just roll around. And the black windows, | 1:04:03 | 1:04:06 | |
you couldn't see anything out and the windows would be shut | 1:04:06 | 1:04:10 | |
and so you'd just be getting double doses of these reefers. | 1:04:10 | 1:04:15 | |
And then we'd pull up at Abbey Road Studio and just be, like, fall out of the car. | 1:04:15 | 1:04:20 | |
We have to thank Paul that we made as many records as we did because, | 1:04:20 | 1:04:24 | |
you know, John and I, cos we lived in the same area, | 1:04:24 | 1:04:27 | |
would be hanging out. | 1:04:27 | 1:04:29 | |
It's like a beautiful day in the garden in England | 1:04:29 | 1:04:32 | |
and the phone'd ring and we'd always know it was him. | 1:04:32 | 1:04:35 | |
"He wants us to work!" | 1:04:35 | 1:04:36 | |
I mean, everywhere we went, people were smiling and, | 1:04:36 | 1:04:41 | |
you know, sitting on lawns, drinking tea. | 1:04:41 | 1:04:44 | |
I went to Haight-Ashbury, expecting it to be this brilliant place, | 1:04:44 | 1:04:49 | |
I thought it was going to be all these groovy | 1:04:49 | 1:04:53 | |
kind of gypsy kind of people, with little shops making works of art | 1:04:53 | 1:04:57 | |
and paintings and carvings. | 1:04:57 | 1:05:00 | |
But, instead, it turned out to be just a lot of bums. | 1:05:00 | 1:05:04 | |
And many of them, they were just very young kids | 1:05:04 | 1:05:07 | |
who'd come from all over America | 1:05:07 | 1:05:09 | |
and dropped acid and gone to this Mecca of LSD. | 1:05:09 | 1:05:14 | |
We'd walk down the street | 1:05:14 | 1:05:15 | |
and I was, like, being treated like the Messiah or something. | 1:05:15 | 1:05:19 | |
I was really afraid, because I could see all these spotty youths and they were... | 1:05:19 | 1:05:25 | |
still an undercurrent of Beatlemania, | 1:05:25 | 1:05:30 | |
but from a, kind of, twisted angle. | 1:05:30 | 1:05:34 | |
And they were... People were handing me things, | 1:05:34 | 1:05:37 | |
like there was this big pipe, | 1:05:37 | 1:05:40 | |
like a big Indian pipe with feathers on it | 1:05:40 | 1:05:43 | |
and books and incense and, you know, all kinds of stuff. | 1:05:43 | 1:05:47 | |
And trying to give me drugs and, | 1:05:47 | 1:05:50 | |
you know, I'd say "No, thanks, I don't want it." | 1:05:50 | 1:05:52 | |
We were walking quicker and quicker. We went through the park | 1:05:52 | 1:05:55 | |
and back out of the park, and in the end, we just said, | 1:05:55 | 1:05:58 | |
"Let's get out of here." | 1:05:58 | 1:06:00 | |
And we drove back to the airport, got on the jet, and as it took off, | 1:06:00 | 1:06:04 | |
the plane went into a stall, and the whole dashboard lit up, | 1:06:04 | 1:06:08 | |
saying "Unsafe" right across. | 1:06:08 | 1:06:10 | |
It certainly showed me what was really happening in the drug cult. | 1:06:10 | 1:06:15 | |
It wasn't what I thought of all these groovy people getting... | 1:06:15 | 1:06:18 | |
having spiritual awakenings and being artistic. | 1:06:18 | 1:06:22 | |
It was like any addiction. | 1:06:22 | 1:06:25 | |
So, at that point, I stopped taking it, actually, | 1:06:25 | 1:06:29 | |
the dreaded Lysergic. | 1:06:29 | 1:06:32 | |
That's where I really went for the meditation. | 1:06:32 | 1:06:35 | |
CRASHING WAVES | 1:06:35 | 1:06:40 | |
# Let me take you down | 1:07:14 | 1:07:17 | |
# Cos I'm going to Strawberry Fields | 1:07:17 | 1:07:23 | |
# Nothing is real | 1:07:25 | 1:07:28 | |
# And nothing to get hung about | 1:07:29 | 1:07:32 | |
# Strawberry Fields forever | 1:07:33 | 1:07:37 | |
# Living is easy with eyes closed | 1:07:38 | 1:07:43 | |
# Misunderstanding all you see... # | 1:07:43 | 1:07:47 | |
We'd stopped touring. We were now in the mid-60s. | 1:07:50 | 1:07:54 | |
We were partying | 1:07:54 | 1:07:56 | |
and I think we, kind of, lost, sort of, our spiritual direction. | 1:07:56 | 1:08:02 | |
Not that we ever had one, but we lost it. | 1:08:02 | 1:08:05 | |
So we were, kind of, experimenting in anything. | 1:08:05 | 1:08:09 | |
It was the time of Sgt Pepper, | 1:08:09 | 1:08:12 | |
and I'd written a song, the title song, | 1:08:12 | 1:08:15 | |
and I put it to the guys that what we should do, | 1:08:15 | 1:08:19 | |
we could make this record now under another persona. | 1:08:19 | 1:08:22 | |
We'll be this other band. And it will free us. | 1:08:22 | 1:08:26 | |
The idea was we could bring anything we wanted, | 1:08:26 | 1:08:30 | |
because now, you know, there was no lid on what we could do. | 1:08:30 | 1:08:34 | |
When we were doing Sgt Pepper, he presented us with a song which I thought was boring. | 1:08:34 | 1:08:41 | |
And I had to tell him so. And I said, | 1:08:42 | 1:08:44 | |
"George, honestly, I think we could do...you could do something better for this record, | 1:08:44 | 1:08:49 | |
"because it's going to be an astonishing record. | 1:08:49 | 1:08:51 | |
"There's so many great moments in it. | 1:08:51 | 1:08:54 | |
"And do you mind going away and thinking about it and coming up with something else?" | 1:08:54 | 1:08:59 | |
# We were talking | 1:09:08 | 1:09:12 | |
# About the space between us all | 1:09:12 | 1:09:19 | |
# And the people | 1:09:19 | 1:09:24 | |
# Who hide themselves behind | 1:09:24 | 1:09:30 | |
# A wall of illusion | 1:09:30 | 1:09:34 | |
# Never glimpse the truth | 1:09:36 | 1:09:39 | |
# Then it's far too late | 1:09:39 | 1:09:42 | |
# When they pass away-ay-ay... # | 1:09:42 | 1:09:48 | |
He came up with Within You Without You. | 1:09:51 | 1:09:54 | |
Now, Within You Without You | 1:09:54 | 1:09:56 | |
was not a commercial song, by any means. | 1:09:56 | 1:09:59 | |
But it was very interesting. | 1:09:59 | 1:10:01 | |
He had the way of communicating music by the Indian system | 1:10:01 | 1:10:06 | |
of, kind of, a separate language, like, tiki-tiki-ta-ta-ta, | 1:10:06 | 1:10:11 | |
tiki-tik, tika-da - the kind of things that would be the rhythms suggested | 1:10:11 | 1:10:16 | |
by the tabla player. And you had to get inside that to find out | 1:10:16 | 1:10:21 | |
what it was about. So it was like working out a puzzle with George. | 1:10:21 | 1:10:25 | |
He had Ravi play at his house once. And we all went. | 1:10:25 | 1:10:29 | |
And we're sitting on the floor and Ravi made the announcement, | 1:10:29 | 1:10:33 | |
"Please don't smoke while I'm playing." | 1:10:33 | 1:10:36 | |
And, uh, anyway, there was like a crowd of us and a crowd of Ravi's friends just sitting around | 1:10:36 | 1:10:41 | |
and Ravi's playing away and this is how little we understood at the time, | 1:10:41 | 1:10:45 | |
that Ravi's pals are all like going... | 1:10:45 | 1:10:50 | |
"Aw! | 1:10:50 | 1:10:52 | |
"Aw!" | 1:10:52 | 1:10:54 | |
Which it sounded like to us they were saying, "Aw, God, crap!" | 1:10:54 | 1:10:58 | |
But they were really going, "Ohhhh. Ohhhh." | 1:10:58 | 1:11:03 | |
We were like, "Keep the noise down"! | 1:11:03 | 1:11:05 | |
# When you've seen beyond yourself | 1:11:08 | 1:11:11 | |
# Then you may find peace of mind is waiting there | 1:11:11 | 1:11:17 | |
# And the time will come | 1:11:19 | 1:11:22 | |
# When you see we're all one | 1:11:22 | 1:11:25 | |
# And life flows on within you and without you. # | 1:11:25 | 1:11:30 | |
When you get a sort of typical westernized Englishman coming to you, | 1:11:30 | 1:11:37 | |
what is the most important thing you have to teach? Concentration? | 1:11:37 | 1:11:41 | |
No. Just allowing the mind to take its natural course. | 1:11:41 | 1:11:47 | |
Just that. | 1:11:47 | 1:11:48 | |
Say, it was surprising someone one day, uh, | 1:11:48 | 1:11:51 | |
started to meditate. Next day he came for checking and he said, | 1:11:51 | 1:11:55 | |
"I feel wonderful. I slept very deep | 1:11:55 | 1:11:59 | |
"and the whole thing is good, but tell me what you have taught me." | 1:11:59 | 1:12:02 | |
THEY LAUGH | 1:12:02 | 1:12:04 | |
I said, "Nothing." | 1:12:04 | 1:12:06 | |
LAUGHTER | 1:12:06 | 1:12:08 | |
Because the process of thinking has not to be learned. | 1:12:08 | 1:12:13 | |
We are used to think. We know how to think from birth. | 1:12:13 | 1:12:16 | |
CROWD SCREAMS | 1:12:16 | 1:12:19 | |
I got a message from John and a message from George, saying, | 1:12:22 | 1:12:25 | |
"We're going to Wales. We've met this guy. | 1:12:25 | 1:12:27 | |
"We listened to him. He's great. Come." | 1:12:27 | 1:12:29 | |
We'd seen this giggly little Indian guy with a beard coming on TV, and we liked him. | 1:12:29 | 1:12:35 | |
He was a funny little character, who was going to save the world. | 1:12:35 | 1:12:39 | |
So he came around and we were ripe for saving. | 1:12:39 | 1:12:42 | |
You know, I wanted to get into meditation. | 1:12:42 | 1:12:45 | |
But it's one thing reading about it and the other thing of how do you do it? | 1:12:45 | 1:12:49 | |
So I got myself to the point where, "OK, I need a mantra." | 1:12:49 | 1:12:52 | |
You know, where do you go? | 1:12:52 | 1:12:54 | |
You know, do you go to Harrods and get a mantra? | 1:12:54 | 1:12:57 | |
But then David Wynn showed me this picture and said, | 1:12:57 | 1:12:59 | |
"Oh, he's coming to do a lecture at the Hilton. | 1:12:59 | 1:13:02 | |
"He's called Maharishi." | 1:13:02 | 1:13:04 | |
-You give each person a sound, don't you? -Yes. | 1:13:04 | 1:13:07 | |
Is that the same sound that you give to each person? | 1:13:07 | 1:13:10 | |
-No. Each person gets different. -How many sounds are there? | 1:13:10 | 1:13:15 | |
-Oh, there are lots of them. -I mean, hundreds or thousands or...? | 1:13:15 | 1:13:19 | |
We could say thousands. | 1:13:19 | 1:13:21 | |
And when a person has been given their own particular sound, | 1:13:21 | 1:13:24 | |
how do they use it? I mean, when they're meditating, | 1:13:24 | 1:13:27 | |
how do they use the sound you've given them. Why is that sound useful to them? | 1:13:27 | 1:13:32 | |
Ah! | 1:13:32 | 1:13:33 | |
See, every man has his own impulse of individuality, yes? | 1:13:33 | 1:13:39 | |
Some man goes by and you feel attracted towards him. | 1:13:40 | 1:13:43 | |
Other man goes and you feel repulsed. Something exchanged | 1:13:43 | 1:13:47 | |
in the rhythm of the individual. Like, everyone has his own rhythm. | 1:13:47 | 1:13:51 | |
Now, the rhythm of a sound which will resonate to the existing rhythm of the individual. | 1:13:51 | 1:13:59 | |
-And that will be the sound suitable to him. -Got it. | 1:14:00 | 1:14:03 | |
So that you try to find, give the person the sound | 1:14:03 | 1:14:06 | |
-that fits in with the rhythm of their own lives and being? -Right. | 1:14:06 | 1:14:10 | |
We were at Maharishi's meditation camp | 1:14:10 | 1:14:13 | |
when the news came through about Brian. | 1:14:13 | 1:14:16 | |
And it was horrifying, because we'd experienced loss, | 1:14:16 | 1:14:20 | |
but with Brian dying, | 1:14:20 | 1:14:22 | |
it was like one of us dying. | 1:14:22 | 1:14:23 | |
Uh, and you can kind of come to terms with your parent dying, | 1:14:23 | 1:14:27 | |
because you know they'll probably die before you. | 1:14:27 | 1:14:30 | |
But Brian, it was, "Woah!" | 1:14:30 | 1:14:32 | |
He was such a big part of the equation. People used to call him "the fifth Beatle". | 1:14:32 | 1:14:37 | |
So it was like, "Oh, my God, now we're on our own." | 1:14:37 | 1:14:40 | |
It was very strange for it to happen at that precise moment. | 1:14:40 | 1:14:45 | |
We'd just got involved with this meditation. | 1:14:45 | 1:14:48 | |
You know, I mean, that may not sound like a big deal, | 1:14:48 | 1:14:51 | |
but it actually was. It was... It's a big change in your life | 1:14:51 | 1:14:55 | |
when, you know, when you start making the journey inward. | 1:14:55 | 1:15:02 | |
And for Brian to, like, kick the bucket that particular day, | 1:15:02 | 1:15:06 | |
it was pretty far out. | 1:15:06 | 1:15:08 | |
Is the mantra something you use to get back to the subject | 1:15:08 | 1:15:14 | |
if you find earthly or irrelevant thoughts intruding? | 1:15:14 | 1:15:18 | |
-Yes, sort of. -Or is it more than that? | 1:15:18 | 1:15:20 | |
You know, you just sort of sit there and you let your mind go, | 1:15:20 | 1:15:23 | |
whatever it's going, no matter what you're thinking about. | 1:15:23 | 1:15:26 | |
Just let it go. Then you just introduce the mantra or vibration | 1:15:26 | 1:15:31 | |
just to take over from a thought. | 1:15:31 | 1:15:33 | |
You don't will it or use your willpower. | 1:15:33 | 1:15:35 | |
If you find yourself thinking | 1:15:35 | 1:15:38 | |
then the moment you realise you've been thinking about things again, | 1:15:38 | 1:15:41 | |
then you replace that thought with the mantra again. | 1:15:41 | 1:15:46 | |
Sometimes you can go on | 1:15:46 | 1:15:48 | |
and you find that you haven't even had the mantra in your mind. | 1:15:48 | 1:15:51 | |
There's just been a complete blank. But when you reach that point, | 1:15:51 | 1:15:55 | |
because it's beyond all experience, | 1:15:55 | 1:15:57 | |
then it's down there and that level is timeless, | 1:15:57 | 1:16:01 | |
spaceless, so you can be there for five minutes and come out. | 1:16:01 | 1:16:05 | |
You don't know how long you've been there. | 1:16:05 | 1:16:07 | |
Then the aim, as opposed to sitting and thinking, or anything | 1:16:07 | 1:16:12 | |
is to reach a part of the sense where you have no thoughts? | 1:16:12 | 1:16:14 | |
JOHN CHANTS MUMBO-JUMBO, LAUGHTER | 1:16:14 | 1:16:19 | |
# Without going out of my door | 1:16:19 | 1:16:24 | |
# I can know all things on Earth | 1:16:24 | 1:16:29 | |
# Without looking out of my window | 1:16:29 | 1:16:34 | |
# I could know the ways of heaven | 1:16:34 | 1:16:40 | |
# The farther one travels | 1:16:40 | 1:16:44 | |
# The less one knows | 1:16:44 | 1:16:48 | |
# The less one really knows. # | 1:16:50 | 1:16:55 | |
The word, for instance, the word "God", I mean has... | 1:17:02 | 1:17:06 | |
Does it mean something different to you now | 1:17:06 | 1:17:09 | |
than it did before the Maharishi? | 1:17:09 | 1:17:11 | |
-It could be. -It means all sorts of things to me. | 1:17:11 | 1:17:14 | |
It means... I mean, the first concept of a man in the sky, | 1:17:14 | 1:17:18 | |
well, I kicked that one a few years ago. | 1:17:18 | 1:17:20 | |
But I've got back to that now, | 1:17:20 | 1:17:21 | |
because it's a man in the sky as well, if you like. | 1:17:21 | 1:17:24 | |
It's just everything. The whole thing that... | 1:17:24 | 1:17:27 | |
It's just everything. | 1:17:27 | 1:17:28 | |
Every aspect of creation is part of God. | 1:17:28 | 1:17:33 | |
I think that perhaps we should try and get it a little clearer | 1:17:33 | 1:17:36 | |
what we're talking about. | 1:17:36 | 1:17:38 | |
If we're talking about a mystical religious belief, | 1:17:38 | 1:17:42 | |
which I think that George is, | 1:17:42 | 1:17:43 | |
but are we really talking about mysticism | 1:17:43 | 1:17:46 | |
or are we talking about a technique of improving yourself | 1:17:46 | 1:17:49 | |
-which is totally scientific and rational? -You can take it either way. | 1:17:49 | 1:17:53 | |
You can take it either way. | 1:17:53 | 1:17:55 | |
This is because it is a perceptual method. | 1:17:55 | 1:17:57 | |
If a man has got a great conceptual apparatus and he meditates, | 1:17:57 | 1:18:00 | |
he will begin to understand the nature of a conceptual apparatus and if he's wrong about it, | 1:18:00 | 1:18:05 | |
he'll begin to understand where he's wrong about it. | 1:18:05 | 1:18:08 | |
If he's got no conceptual apparatus, he simply perceives an abstract experience. | 1:18:08 | 1:18:14 | |
Now, when he's had an abstract experience, | 1:18:14 | 1:18:16 | |
he may wish then to give himself explanations of it. | 1:18:16 | 1:18:19 | |
But it's primarily a perceptual method. | 1:18:19 | 1:18:23 | |
-And so what this offers is an experience? -Yes. | 1:18:23 | 1:18:26 | |
Why should this abstract experience be any more valuable than any other experiences? | 1:18:26 | 1:18:30 | |
George talks about a bliss experience. | 1:18:30 | 1:18:32 | |
You can have a bliss experience by drinking a bottle of whisky. | 1:18:32 | 1:18:35 | |
MURMURS OF DISAGREEMENT | 1:18:35 | 1:18:37 | |
-Speak for yourself. -Now, why is a bliss experience... | 1:18:37 | 1:18:42 | |
You'd have a non-bliss experience the next morning. | 1:18:42 | 1:18:44 | |
..more valuable than anybody else's experience? Or are we talking about a universe | 1:18:44 | 1:18:49 | |
which has some hidden laws | 1:18:49 | 1:18:52 | |
and a hidden creator, who manifests himself only to people like | 1:18:52 | 1:18:56 | |
Mr Harrison and the Maharishi, when they get into a state of trance? That's what I want to know. | 1:18:56 | 1:19:00 | |
Well, let's face it. | 1:19:00 | 1:19:01 | |
These laws that you say - hidden laws - they are hidden. | 1:19:01 | 1:19:04 | |
But they're only hidden by our own ignorance. | 1:19:04 | 1:19:07 | |
And the word mysticism is just being arrived at | 1:19:07 | 1:19:11 | |
through people's ignorance. | 1:19:11 | 1:19:12 | |
There's nothing mystical about it, | 1:19:12 | 1:19:14 | |
only that you're ignorant of what that entails. | 1:19:14 | 1:19:17 | |
# Arrive without travelling | 1:19:19 | 1:19:21 | |
# See all without looking | 1:19:26 | 1:19:28 | |
# Do all without doing. # | 1:19:28 | 1:19:31 | |
He wanted to be a spiritual being, more than anything, | 1:19:38 | 1:19:42 | |
but he couldn't, because he had to deal with this life. | 1:19:42 | 1:19:45 | |
So he could be loving, because that was really his true nature, | 1:19:46 | 1:19:49 | |
and sweet and kind and gentle. | 1:19:49 | 1:19:53 | |
But then the anger came from the frustration | 1:19:53 | 1:19:56 | |
that he had - | 1:19:56 | 1:19:58 | |
when you glimpse something that you understand, | 1:19:58 | 1:20:02 | |
but you can't be there, | 1:20:02 | 1:20:04 | |
because there's something earthly holding you back. | 1:20:04 | 1:20:08 | |
And he was very aware of that. | 1:20:08 | 1:20:11 | |
What were the earthly things that pulled on him the most? | 1:20:11 | 1:20:16 | |
Well, the other three Beatles | 1:20:18 | 1:20:22 | |
and what they were creating and were continuing to create - | 1:20:22 | 1:20:26 | |
this huge empire, Apple. | 1:20:26 | 1:20:30 | |
I think he felt that he'd found | 1:20:30 | 1:20:33 | |
something that he totally understood and wanted to just be there. | 1:20:33 | 1:20:38 | |
Be in it. He became | 1:20:38 | 1:20:40 | |
totally absorbed with meditation. | 1:20:40 | 1:20:44 | |
"Dear Mum, Thanks for your letter last week | 1:20:44 | 1:20:47 | |
"and if it's any comfort to you, don't worry about me | 1:20:47 | 1:20:50 | |
"or don't think anything negative about Maharishi, because he's not phoney. | 1:20:50 | 1:20:54 | |
"It's only the bullshit that's written about him that's phoney. He's not taking any of our money. | 1:20:54 | 1:20:59 | |
"All he's doing is teaching us how to contact God | 1:20:59 | 1:21:02 | |
"and as God isn't divided into different sects, | 1:21:02 | 1:21:04 | |
"as religious leaders here make out, | 1:21:04 | 1:21:06 | |
"then it doesn't affect my dedication to Sacred Heart in any way. It only strengthens it. | 1:21:06 | 1:21:11 | |
"But we will help to spread his teachings, | 1:21:11 | 1:21:13 | |
"so that everybody can attain this and new generations | 1:21:13 | 1:21:16 | |
"will grow up and have this right from the start, | 1:21:16 | 1:21:19 | |
"instead of going through the ignorance that seems to dominate | 1:21:19 | 1:21:22 | |
"everything and everyone at the moment, causing them to feel that it's mysticism or black magic. | 1:21:22 | 1:21:28 | |
"Don't think that I've gone off my rocker, because I haven't. | 1:21:28 | 1:21:31 | |
"I now love you and everybody else much more than ever. | 1:21:31 | 1:21:34 | |
"So it's not that bad, is it?" | 1:21:34 | 1:21:35 | |
# Creme tangerine and Montlimar | 1:21:41 | 1:21:45 | |
# A ginger sling with a pineapple heart | 1:21:50 | 1:21:53 | |
# A coffee dessert, yes | 1:21:57 | 1:21:59 | |
# You know it's good news | 1:21:59 | 1:22:01 | |
# But you'll have to have them all pulled out | 1:22:04 | 1:22:07 | |
# After the Savoy truffle. # | 1:22:07 | 1:22:12 | |
Whenever we were together, in the public, | 1:22:12 | 1:22:17 | |
say, for instance, I would turn... I mean, for all of the amount | 1:22:17 | 1:22:21 | |
of weight that I thought I carried, would turn to nobody. | 1:22:21 | 1:22:25 | |
If we were going into a restaurant or a club, | 1:22:25 | 1:22:28 | |
the way people would behave around their aura, you know. | 1:22:28 | 1:22:33 | |
I mean, by "their", I mean, the Beatles, was beyond belief. | 1:22:33 | 1:22:37 | |
George had two sides to his character. | 1:22:37 | 1:22:40 | |
I mean, you know, I'm his mate, so I can't tell too much, but he was a guy. | 1:22:40 | 1:22:45 | |
You know what I'm talking about. | 1:22:45 | 1:22:49 | |
He was a red-blooded man, you know. | 1:22:49 | 1:22:53 | |
So he would like, you know, the things guys like. | 1:22:53 | 1:22:56 | |
# But you'll have to have them all pulled out | 1:23:20 | 1:23:23 | |
# After the Savoy truffle. # | 1:23:23 | 1:23:27 | |
I distinctly remember putting the saxes on and I got | 1:23:27 | 1:23:33 | |
what I considered to be a good sax sound. They blended well. | 1:23:33 | 1:23:40 | |
It was very nice and George comes up, after teaching the parts, | 1:23:40 | 1:23:44 | |
and says "Yeah, they sound great. | 1:23:44 | 1:23:46 | |
"Now distort them." | 1:23:46 | 1:23:47 | |
It was, "What?!" "Yeah, they're too clean, they're too nice. | 1:23:47 | 1:23:51 | |
"Distort them." "OK." | 1:23:51 | 1:23:53 | |
So I had to, one way or another, mess them up. | 1:23:53 | 1:23:56 | |
When we were mixing it, George Martin walks into the control room. | 1:23:56 | 1:24:00 | |
He says, "Uh isn't it a bit bright? | 1:24:00 | 1:24:03 | |
"Isn't it a bit toppy?" And George turned around to him | 1:24:03 | 1:24:06 | |
and said, "Yeah. And I like it." | 1:24:06 | 1:24:09 | |
And he just turns around and we carry on working. | 1:24:09 | 1:24:11 | |
And George Martin just upped and walked out, went to a studio where they were doing other work. | 1:24:11 | 1:24:17 | |
They were like the kids that just left home, | 1:24:17 | 1:24:19 | |
whose parents aren't looking after them anymore. | 1:24:19 | 1:24:22 | |
A guy called Joe Massot was making this film | 1:24:36 | 1:24:38 | |
and he'd asked George to do the soundtrack. | 1:24:38 | 1:24:41 | |
It was really just, um. | 1:24:41 | 1:24:42 | |
I showed up, you know. | 1:24:42 | 1:24:43 | |
George told me he'd like me to play on something | 1:24:43 | 1:24:46 | |
and we'd write as we went along. | 1:24:46 | 1:24:48 | |
We put down this thing and George then put backwards guitar on top | 1:24:48 | 1:24:53 | |
and was, you know, it was very experimental and it was good fun. | 1:24:53 | 1:24:56 | |
MUSIC: "Wonderwall" score by George Harrison | 1:24:56 | 1:25:00 | |
I think that, in England, there was a sort of cultural revolution | 1:25:10 | 1:25:14 | |
in the '60s | 1:25:14 | 1:25:15 | |
which touched on every branch of life. | 1:25:15 | 1:25:18 | |
Wake up! | 1:25:18 | 1:25:19 | |
CAMERA CLICKS | 1:25:19 | 1:25:22 | |
You can thank your lucky stars you're working with me. | 1:25:22 | 1:25:25 | |
CAMERA CLICKS | 1:25:25 | 1:25:26 | |
And a smile now. Come on. | 1:25:26 | 1:25:28 | |
CAMERA CLICKS | 1:25:28 | 1:25:29 | |
Smile... Smile! | 1:25:29 | 1:25:33 | |
CAMERA CLICKS | 1:25:33 | 1:25:38 | |
God. | 1:25:38 | 1:25:39 | |
'That's why Antonioni decided to do Blow-Up in England | 1:25:39 | 1:25:43 | |
because of it being the spot where everything was going on. | 1:25:43 | 1:25:47 | |
What do they call you in bed? | 1:25:48 | 1:25:51 | |
I only go to bed to sleep. | 1:25:52 | 1:25:54 | |
'I remember the mystery that was around' | 1:26:03 | 1:26:05 | |
George Harrison. | 1:26:05 | 1:26:07 | |
I wouldn't have asked him a question. | 1:26:07 | 1:26:10 | |
I wouldn't have dared, because of feeling | 1:26:10 | 1:26:14 | |
he was onto something else. | 1:26:14 | 1:26:18 | |
There was a lot of energy around. | 1:26:18 | 1:26:20 | |
Everybody was inspiring everybody else. | 1:26:20 | 1:26:23 | |
We'd go to David Hockney's studio and watch him paint. | 1:26:23 | 1:26:27 | |
"Oh, David, can I just have that little sketch?" | 1:26:29 | 1:26:32 | |
And he'd say, "No, you can't." | 1:26:32 | 1:26:33 | |
And then we'd go off and he'd say, | 1:26:33 | 1:26:37 | |
"Oh, let's go and see the Stones. | 1:26:37 | 1:26:38 | |
"They're recording at so and so." | 1:26:38 | 1:26:40 | |
Then off we'd go there. | 1:26:40 | 1:26:41 | |
So we could just do anything. Nobody minded. | 1:26:41 | 1:26:44 | |
Everybody was flying around like that. | 1:26:44 | 1:26:46 | |
It was all so possible and so easy and we didn't think twice about it. | 1:26:46 | 1:26:50 | |
LAYERED VOICES | 1:26:50 | 1:26:54 | |
I was in New York and some people came and said, | 1:27:05 | 1:27:09 | |
"Aren't you coming to London? | 1:27:09 | 1:27:11 | |
"London is swinging. London's great!" And I think, "Well, I don't know." | 1:27:11 | 1:27:15 | |
I was so New York, you know, | 1:27:15 | 1:27:18 | |
I didn't want to, sort of, leave New York. | 1:27:18 | 1:27:20 | |
But then things happened and I went to London and it was great. | 1:27:20 | 1:27:23 | |
There was a, kind of, feeling of freedom | 1:27:23 | 1:27:27 | |
and I felt that it's almost like the air was, kind of, | 1:27:27 | 1:27:31 | |
had an intelligent smell about it, yeah? | 1:27:31 | 1:27:36 | |
George and John and I made...Number Nine. | 1:27:36 | 1:27:42 | |
And that was actually George who, sort of, instigated it. | 1:27:42 | 1:27:46 | |
He said, "Let's do it, let's do it". | 1:27:46 | 1:27:48 | |
And he didn't have that feeling of, | 1:27:48 | 1:27:51 | |
"Well, Yoko is a separate thing and, you know, we shouldn't | 1:27:51 | 1:27:55 | |
"be nice to her or anything like that." | 1:27:55 | 1:27:58 | |
He was just very nice. | 1:27:58 | 1:27:59 | |
I thought it's very interesting | 1:27:59 | 1:28:04 | |
to know about what the Beatles do, | 1:28:04 | 1:28:06 | |
because, you know, I come from an avant-garde background | 1:28:06 | 1:28:09 | |
and all that and here they were making music in a way | 1:28:09 | 1:28:13 | |
that was very different from what we used to do. | 1:28:13 | 1:28:16 | |
It had power of its own. | 1:28:16 | 1:28:18 | |
And I thought, "Well, this is what you can do." | 1:28:18 | 1:28:21 | |
George had two sides, like we all do, you know. | 1:28:38 | 1:28:41 | |
Sometimes he was very nice and sometimes he was | 1:28:41 | 1:28:45 | |
just being too honest or something - | 1:28:45 | 1:28:47 | |
frank about things, yeah? | 1:28:47 | 1:28:49 | |
He would say something right away, before he's thinking. | 1:28:49 | 1:28:53 | |
So he didn't, uh, mince words. | 1:28:53 | 1:28:55 | |
And sometimes it's, you know, "Oh, dear, you think that?" or something. | 1:28:55 | 1:28:59 | |
He'd just hurt me, maybe. | 1:28:59 | 1:29:02 | |
But John said, "Oh, that's George, you know." | 1:29:02 | 1:29:05 | |
And I got used to that, too. It was very nice. | 1:29:05 | 1:29:08 | |
I remember a particular occasion, when I'd written Hey, Jude, | 1:29:08 | 1:29:12 | |
and I brought it in. | 1:29:12 | 1:29:14 | |
And I'd go, # Hey, Jude, don't make it bad. # | 1:29:14 | 1:29:16 | |
And George was playing, # Hey, Jude... # | 1:29:16 | 1:29:18 | |
# Don't make it bad... # | 1:29:19 | 1:29:21 | |
And I had to sort of say, "No, George, look, I really don't think | 1:29:22 | 1:29:25 | |
"you can put a guitar riff after every line, you know." | 1:29:25 | 1:29:30 | |
And it was like a real, "Oh, OK, then." | 1:29:30 | 1:29:33 | |
But, you know, I knew he couldn't do it. | 1:29:33 | 1:29:37 | |
Maybe he knew he couldn't do it. | 1:29:37 | 1:29:39 | |
But it created tension, you know. And it was like... | 1:29:39 | 1:29:41 | |
Then this feeling that I was just dictating things | 1:29:43 | 1:29:46 | |
started to grow, you know. | 1:29:46 | 1:29:47 | |
And I was dictating things, cos I knew how I wanted my song to go. | 1:29:47 | 1:29:51 | |
Similarly, John would say how he wanted his song to go | 1:29:51 | 1:29:54 | |
or George would say how he wanted his to go. | 1:29:54 | 1:29:56 | |
The intensity that they had together must have had its limits | 1:29:56 | 1:30:01 | |
and it had to explode at some point. | 1:30:01 | 1:30:03 | |
Now they were out in London, travelling a lot and getting... | 1:30:03 | 1:30:09 | |
having different people influence them. | 1:30:09 | 1:30:13 | |
So coming back together, it didn't work as well. | 1:30:13 | 1:30:15 | |
I quit the band in '67, on the White Album, | 1:30:15 | 1:30:19 | |
because...I was just in, | 1:30:19 | 1:30:24 | |
I don't know, in some emotional state | 1:30:24 | 1:30:27 | |
where I honestly felt that I wasn't playing well. | 1:30:27 | 1:30:30 | |
For some reason, I felt I just wasn't playing good. | 1:30:30 | 1:30:35 | |
And those three were really close. | 1:30:35 | 1:30:37 | |
And I thought, "Well, I've got to deal with this, anyway." | 1:30:39 | 1:30:42 | |
So, I went over to John's - he was staying with Yoko in my apartment - | 1:30:42 | 1:30:46 | |
and I said, "Look, man," I said, | 1:30:46 | 1:30:49 | |
"You know, I have to say, look, I feel I'm not playing really good. | 1:30:49 | 1:30:53 | |
"And you three are really close." | 1:30:53 | 1:30:55 | |
And he goes, "I thought it was you three." | 1:30:55 | 1:30:57 | |
And I went to Paul's and knocked on his door and I said the same thing. | 1:30:58 | 1:31:02 | |
I said, "You know, you three are really close." | 1:31:02 | 1:31:05 | |
"I thought it was you three!" | 1:31:05 | 1:31:07 | |
And I thought, "Oh, shit, I'm goin' on holiday. | 1:31:07 | 1:31:10 | |
I'm off. And I went to Sardinia. | 1:31:10 | 1:31:12 | |
When I got back, it was, "Oh, come on back. | 1:31:12 | 1:31:15 | |
"We love you", blah, blah, blah." | 1:31:15 | 1:31:17 | |
George had decorated the whole studio with flowers, you know. | 1:31:17 | 1:31:21 | |
And, you know, that was a beautiful moment for me. | 1:31:21 | 1:31:26 | |
# I look at you all | 1:31:42 | 1:31:46 | |
# See the love there that's sleeping | 1:31:46 | 1:31:51 | |
# While my guitar gently weeps | 1:31:51 | 1:31:56 | |
# I look at the floor | 1:32:00 | 1:32:02 | |
# And I see it needs sweeping | 1:32:02 | 1:32:07 | |
# Still my guitar | 1:32:08 | 1:32:11 | |
# Gently weeps | 1:32:11 | 1:32:13 | |
# I don't know why | 1:32:17 | 1:32:20 | |
# Nobody told you | 1:32:20 | 1:32:23 | |
# How to unfold your love. # | 1:32:26 | 1:32:30 | |
It was crap, you know. | 1:32:33 | 1:32:35 | |
We were trying to do the song and it wasn't happening. | 1:32:35 | 1:32:37 | |
You know, they weren't taking it serious. | 1:32:37 | 1:32:40 | |
And, uh, I don't think they were even all playing on it. | 1:32:40 | 1:32:43 | |
And so, I went home that night and I just thought, | 1:32:43 | 1:32:46 | |
"Well, that's a shame, cos I know this song is pretty good." | 1:32:46 | 1:32:49 | |
And then the next day, I was driving into London with Eric, | 1:32:49 | 1:32:53 | |
and I said, "Hey, what're you doing? | 1:32:53 | 1:32:56 | |
"Why don't you come to the studio | 1:32:56 | 1:32:58 | |
"and play on this song for me?" | 1:32:58 | 1:33:01 | |
And he says, "Oh, no, I can't do that. | 1:33:01 | 1:33:04 | |
"Nobody's ever played on a Beatles' record. | 1:33:04 | 1:33:06 | |
"And the others wouldn't like that." | 1:33:06 | 1:33:09 | |
And I said, "Well, you know, look, it's my song | 1:33:09 | 1:33:12 | |
"and I'd like you to play on it." | 1:33:12 | 1:33:13 | |
We'd all learned to grow together and, you know, | 1:33:13 | 1:33:17 | |
some days one'd grow a little taller, and the next day | 1:33:17 | 1:33:20 | |
someone else'd grow a little taller, you know? It's how we were. | 1:33:20 | 1:33:24 | |
It had been a few years since I'd seen them and they had changed. | 1:33:24 | 1:33:29 | |
And this particular song | 1:33:29 | 1:33:31 | |
was a strong view of... It was coming very much from where George had found himself, | 1:33:31 | 1:33:37 | |
as a result of becoming involved with, um, mysticism. | 1:33:37 | 1:33:41 | |
And seeing John and George and Paul sing together, | 1:33:41 | 1:33:46 | |
when they were doing harmonies and things, and Paul playing, I mean, it was fantastic. | 1:33:46 | 1:33:51 | |
# I look at you all | 1:33:51 | 1:33:53 | |
# Still my guitar | 1:34:00 | 1:34:02 | |
# Gently weeps. # | 1:34:02 | 1:34:10 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 1:34:15 | 1:34:18 | |
E-mail [email protected] | 1:34:18 | 1:34:21 |