February 7, 2024 • 25 mins
Countless decisions, large and small, aided The Beatles’ ascent to the top of popular culture. The release of their debut single, “Love Me Do,” in the UK in the fall of 1962 was one of those decisions. Their debut on American television was another. In this first episode of season two, Paul McCartney and Paul Muldoon discuss the early evolution of The Beatles.
“McCartney: A Life in Lyrics” is a co-production between iHeart Media, MPL and Pushkin Industries.
The series was produced by Pejk Malinovski and Sara McCrea; written by Sara McCrea; edited by Dan O’Donnell and Sophie Crane; mastered by Jason Gambrell with assistance from Jake Gorski and sound design by Pejk Malinovski. The series is executive produced by Leital Molad, Justin Richmond, Lee Eastman and Scott Rodger.
Thanks to Lee Eastman, Richard Ewbank, Scott Rodger, Aoife Corbett and Steve Ithell.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Pushkin Hi, everyone, it's Paul Moldoin. Before we get to
this episode, I wanted to let you know that you
can binge all twelve episodes of McCartney A Life and
Lyrics right now, add free by becoming a Pushkin Plus subscriber.
(00:35):
Find Pushkin Plus on the McCartney A Life and Lyrics Show,
pedge in Apple Podcasts, or at pushkin dot fm, slash Plus.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
We admired a singer at that time called Bruce Chanelle
I think his name was, who had a song called
Hey Baby. Whether there was a harmonica roof, so we
started doing Hey Baby. I sang it. John played the harmonica.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
I think that was one of.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
The contributory factors for when we're going to write something
that's a good idea, This harmonica thing's a good idea.
John could play it well. We could write something that
would feature a harmonica. You know, instruments come in sort
(01:41):
of vogues. I mean you think of skiffle guitar was
like a Harmonica's what everyone got for Christmas is what
everyone got and that then spawned the sixties revolution.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Will do it. And I've been fortunate to spend time
with one of the greatest songs right of our era
and will.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
You look at me? I'm going on to it. I'm
actually a performer.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
That is Sir Paul McCartney. We worked together on a
book looking at the lyrics of more than one hundred
and fifty of his songs, and we recorded many hours
of our conversations.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
It was like going back to an old snapshot album
looking back on work I hadn't ever analyzed.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
This is McCartney, a life in lyrics, a masterclass, a memoir,
and an improvised journey with one of the most iconic
figures in popular music. In this episode, love Me Too.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
A lovely do you know I love you? Always be true?
So love me.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
For a group like the Beatles to come into existence,
you need quite a few planets to align, but you
also need prodigious talent, clever strategy, and insesitiable drive. In
this episode, we trace the origins of one of the
(03:29):
earliest Beatles songs. These days, it's difficult to remember a
time before the Beatles, But back when Paul McCartney and
John Lennon wrote Love Me Doo, there were merely school
boys trying to make a hit.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
In the afternoons. I sometimes had a rather kind of
light class that I could get out of, and so
I would say I had a dentist appointment or something,
and they didn't check too heavily, so I would be
able to get on the bus, go back home and
arrange to meet John, who ran about that time, was
(04:06):
going to the art college next door of my school.
So we'd meet up at my house is now National
Trust Establishment twenty fourth in the road, and we would
meet there because that was the most convenient place, and
my mom and dad wouldn't be there, so we would
(04:26):
go there and start just knocking around, showing each other
stuff that we'd written already, and then writing new stuff together.
And this involved a couple of songs that have never
been published or never been heard, songs like just Fun
(04:50):
was one of them, and they were very rough little things,
but you know it was the start.
Speaker 4 (04:54):
Right now?
Speaker 3 (04:55):
You still have copies of those? Are there still copies
of it?
Speaker 2 (04:58):
You know? I do? I say, or did have an
old school exercise book. It's a nice little blue book, hardback,
and in that I wrote just Fun, Just Fun. They
said that our love was just fun the day that
our friendship begun. There's no bloom woon that I can
(05:21):
see there's never been in history, because our love was
just fun, kind of country mesponic cunticney. And then Too
Bad about Sorrows was sort of too bad about Sartrose
Woa waa wow ooh to do do do do? I
think it's a little too opy thing. This was the start.
(05:43):
And then I'd written in Angel Voices.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
In that little blure notebook where the two school boys
had scribbled their very first lyrics, there was evidence Lennon
and McCartney envisioned themselves following in the footsteps of other
songwriting giants.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
And at the top of the page, I've written another
Lennon McCartney original.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
So you read you had a sense, even though you
were what sixteen, a little older perhaps that you would
have a future?
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Yeah, did you? I mean I think it was more
a sort of wish than a sense. It was more
you know, this thing, if you visualize it, it might
come true. And you know, when you think of Lena McCartney,
was because we'd heard of Gilbert Sullivan, Rogers and Hammstein.
Lena McCartney as good. There's two of us, and we
could we can make it one of those type names.
(06:40):
Liber and Stoller, Goffin and King, but these were magic
names to us. We didn't realize Goffin and King was
Carol King, didn't realize it was a girl.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
And an amazingly young woman.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
I was very young, yes, yeah, but you know, it
was thrilling to know that there were these people out
there and this is what we wanted to be. And
Love Me Do game around that period, One After nine
or nine Love Me Doing One After nine or nine
actually got published and actually got recorded on APPE or
(07:20):
the others didn't get recorded. And the school exercise Book
I found it probably about ten fifteen years ago, put
it in my bookcase and I've since lost it. I
don't know where it is. I think it might show
up somewhere, but it's the first ever so Lenna McCarney manuscript. Anyway. Yeah, well,
(07:43):
oh dear is right, but you know, you have to
let these things go right.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Maybe do.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
Another duo which had a profound influence on young Lennon
and McCartney was the Everly Brothers.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
There are certain people that you can credit for pretty
much everything we did, because I think that's I think
that's true of everyone. I think everyone's got a hero
that forms them. Yeah they like this, and yet oh
(08:34):
did I exist and like cha? So as John and
I were two male vocalists who sang in harmony. Our
biggest influence was the Elder Brothers, who we loved adored
to this day. I just think they're the greatest. And
(08:55):
it was different. You'd have barbershop quartets. You'd heard the
Beverly Sisters, the Three Girls, you'd heard all that, but
just two guys, good lucking guys. This is good.
Speaker 5 (09:09):
Oh yeah, you're gotta.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
So. Yeah, we love them and idolize them and wanted
to be like themis oh yeah. It's like when people
later would see the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
But even ladies and gentlemen live from New York.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
I mean trillion people who say that, I knew that's
what I wanted to be.
Speaker 5 (09:47):
Last on our show in New York, the Beatles played
to the greatest TV audience it's ever been assembled in
the history of American TV.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
When I saw you foreheaded monster on the Telly and
you I've got to be part of this. Our current
manager of Beatles Apple Records, says that Bruce Springsteen says
that David Eleeman says that they all formed on that night,
that formed this future for themselves. And there we were
(10:17):
in Liverpool form in this future and the same kind
of deal the day when you think goodbye.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Lennon and McCartney were working in the wake of all
these great songwriting duoes who wrote songs for others to sing,
and singers like the Everly Brothers who sang other people's songs.
But there were also people like Buddy Holly who could
do it all. You know you love me baby, You
(10:53):
tell me baby that someday.
Speaker 5 (10:57):
You will be when you think goodbye.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
But he Holly to us was amazing for a number
of reasons. He sang and played guitar. Elvis just sang
and Scottie Moore played guitar. He normally played guitar. He
played the solos. Normally, if you played guitar, there was
another guy in the group was a league guitar he
(11:22):
played the sols. But Buddy sang played the guitar and
played the sols. He also wrote the stuff. So this
was like all inclusive, one man band, and we really
thought that was great. So this is what we have
to do.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Buddy Holly inspired the youngsters to explore their full musical potential.
And he also helped John Lennon overcome his embarrassment about
wearing glasses.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
He also wore these big horn room glasses, and as
did John. And if ever there would be a girl
coming up, John with witness glasses off and put him
in his pocket and squint as she went by, and
looked pretty good the glasses. But when Buddy get along,
the glasses stayed on. It was like Harry Potter with
(12:16):
all the kids.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Like Buddy Holly had more than just the musical chops
and the suave image that John Lennon and Paul McCartney
covered it for themselves. The name of his group, Buddy
Holly and the Crickets, had a certain entomological ring to it.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
The name the Crickets. You know, we wanted something with
a dual meaning, and it turned out they didn't know
they had the dual meaning.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
The crickets.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
They didn't know about the game cricket. Oh, I see,
and they just thought it was grasshoppers. So we said
to them ice I met them years later, fantastic man.
The Beatles. We loved cricket, Chirpy little things and the
great game of cricket are a brilliant name for a group,
and they went, you know, oh no, we just heard
(13:08):
a supper in the studio wall.
Speaker 6 (13:10):
You know, did you do you remember sitting around thinking,
Buddy Holly and the Crickets, the Beatles will be a
great name for us.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Oh yeah. My memory of it was that we were
striving to find something with a dual meaning because of
the Crickets. This is the idea. Now the actual origin
of it is clouded in mystery. You know, I missed you.
It was just a club split up. I missed you.
Because there are all sorts of theories about this. The
(13:43):
Wild Ones with Marlon Brando and at one point Lee
Marvin says he Johnny, Johnny or Johnny, I think he's cool.
Come on, Johnny, we all missed you. Miss Johnny. We
love you, you know, coming back to the gang or something
like that. Johnny, we love you. The Beatles love.
Speaker 5 (14:00):
You, Beatles mischief, the Beatles, mister.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
It turns out the males the girls in the motorcycle Gang.
Will O Beatles says, the Beatles love you for all times.
And I know John and Stuart his art school friends,
Stuart Suckliffe loved that film, as we all did I
think they had seen it. I think we just loved
(14:25):
it and hadn't seen it anyway. So that's one of
the theories.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Today it's easy to forget how the creation of the
Beatles required thousands of small choices. Songs which are now
canonized were once simple phrases. Two boys having fun when
no parents were home, one of them with a notebook
in hand, the other playing a harmonica.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
At one of those writing sessions, twenty fourth in the
road to a little garden path past my dad's lif
happened the hedge, you know, we would write, let me
do and John come up with this little harmonica riof
it's so simple. I mean you look at it now here. Yes,
there's nothing to it. It's a will have a wisp
(15:22):
little song lovely.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
So what do you think made it become such a
potent part.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
I think our image and our energy as the four
Beatles was what was potent. And it had a very
fresh sound. That's the sort of thing that people noticed.
And we had a very fresh image. Nobody looked like us.
And we've been working at it a long time in Liverpool,
(15:59):
originally as really a bunch of rockers, you know, the
cliffs and everything gone over to Hamburg as the rockers
had got a little bit leatherified there, and then it
moved from leather to suits at the request of Brian Epstein.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Brian Epstein, an entrepreneurial young man from a family of
successful retailers in Liverpool, had stumbled upon the Beatles at
a nineteen sixty one lunchtime concert. He had no experience
managing artists, but he did have lots of confidence, so
in short order he signed a contract to manage the
(16:40):
band and told them to get suited.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Up, and so we all went over to ben O Dawn,
who was in the Wirral bacn Head Taylor. We'd never
been to a Taylor really, you know, so certainly not
on maps. We all went over and got suits. So
we had this image. We had all the experienced musical
experience of Hamburg of playing a lot your ten thousand hours,
(17:04):
mister Gladwell's right, ten thousand hours. So we kind of
then came on the scene and was seen on television.
We had a freshness, complete simplicity. Let me do it's
got a slightly sort of bluesy thing. I mean, it's
not a blues but it's got a simplicity, like a
(17:30):
little sort of down home on the porch with a
couple of guitars and harmonica.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
At the heart of these simple lyrics is a familiar story,
a young man yearning for a woman to love someone.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
It's a funny thing. You try and recreate that stuff now,
and it's almost impossible. Why Because you were sixteen. That's
why you were looking at the world, and the world
was good, and there was this marvelous rock and roll
future unfolding itself and you were about to become part
(18:22):
of it. So your longings for a girl, which was
impossible to achieve, you know, nobody had that little, perfect
high school sweetheart, you know. So there was this great
longing for your career is you didn't know what you
(18:43):
were going to do, and it was a dread of
all dreads. I was about to go to teachers training
college and I was trying to put that off forever.
I did not want to go into that mold. So
there was all these different kinds of longings. John and
I's mothers had both died, which was this amazing bond
(19:03):
between us. We both understood the anguish of that, and
at that age it's largely unspoken. You just said, oh,
your mother, Yes, so didn't I We knew. I knew
the circumstances of his mother, he knew the circus in mine,
(19:24):
and we would talk about it a little bit, but
being young boys, you didn't talk about it much. So
all this was rolled up into this package, this longing,
and its spilled out, which is the best way to write.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Some of this longing for their mothers for love. For
artistry was fairly abstract, but they also had more concrete ambitions.
They had met other songwriting teams who turned out hits
and made good money.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
John and I look, I thought, they're right, we could
do that. What a good idea. If we get hits
that will then get money and it may not buy
us love, but it will buy us a car. I
must admit, you know, we were young guys without any money,
coming from Liverpool with dreams, and once we realized that
(20:29):
to write a hit song would get you some money,
it was very attractive, very attractive thought. And it wasn't
just the money. It was then the joy of pulling
our song out of a hat, being able to play
it with our band, which needed songs. So we were
sort of feeding the machine.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
Take one.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Later, when the Fab four moved from writing in the
parlor room to writing in the studio, they learned to
crank out hits at an impressive piece four.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
On a one hour recording hours. Well what now classical
people do. It's it's the norm for recording. You normally
go in ten o'clock, you get yourself together, you start
at ten thirty. You then will work three hours. You
(21:31):
then have an hour break and you work two thirty
to five thirty, and that's it. And in those two
periods of three hours, it was expected that we would
be able to finish two songs. So so we did.
And that's that was the output and the great the
flow of just having to come up with two complete things.
(21:53):
But the great thing about this was you were finished
by five thirty.
Speaker 5 (22:00):
Win a harmonica like the Beatles, playing not a toy,
but a genuine marine band harmonica, just like those played
by the Beatles.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Maybe what the Beatles to come together was the force
of their benging. Maybe it was the long studio days,
the churning out of albums, the carefully crafted image. Whatever
the case, they went from looking at other artists dreaming
of becoming them, to being the artists others would dream
(22:30):
of becoming play along.
Speaker 5 (22:31):
With the Beatles with your own genuine honor marine vand
harmonica from Klim.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
When what the Beatles would become was beyond what any
of its members could have dreamt of when they were
sixteen and playing harmonica in their living rooms.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
There were all sorts of things that I say that
you instinctively knew. Don't try too hard, don't work too
hard at reaching for it, because the more you reach,
the more it will receive. Just kid on that you
(23:13):
don't even want it right, something will happen where everyone
else around us be worrying, no more over than I
was gonna. Oh my god, am I going? We always
related back to this accident we'd had on the motorway
going from running up to Liverpool, where we'd skid it
off in the snow down the bank with our van
(23:34):
and at the bottom of the van were this, how
the hell are we ever going to get home? It's snowing,
we're freezing. Had someone in the group said something will happen,
and it was like that became a mantra, and you know,
as I say, it's actually a very good one. It's this.
It's not reaching for it, it's letting it go.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
No me.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
Love me?
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Do you know?
Speaker 1 (24:27):
I love you?
Speaker 4 (24:29):
Oh wall be true?
Speaker 2 (24:32):
So please love me, love me?
Speaker 6 (24:43):
Yeah, love me, love.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Me, Love me do from the Beatles nineteen sixty three
album Please Please Meet.
Speaker 4 (24:58):
In the next.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Episode, McCartney starts over with a ragtag band on the run.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
I just thought we would just start something that feels good.
I'm we'll build it up like the Beatlestead.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
McCartney. A Life in Lyrics is a co production between
iHeartMedia NPL and Pushkin Industries.
Pushkin Hi, everyone, it's Paul Moldoin. Before we get to
this episode, I wanted to let you know that you
can binge all twelve episodes of McCartney A Life and
Lyrics right now, add free by becoming a Pushkin Plus subscriber.
(00:35):
Find Pushkin Plus on the McCartney A Life and Lyrics Show,
pedge in Apple Podcasts, or at pushkin dot fm, slash Plus.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
We admired a singer at that time called Bruce Chanelle
I think his name was, who had a song called
Hey Baby. Whether there was a harmonica roof, so we
started doing Hey Baby. I sang it. John played the harmonica.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
I think that was one of.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
The contributory factors for when we're going to write something
that's a good idea, This harmonica thing's a good idea.
John could play it well. We could write something that
would feature a harmonica. You know, instruments come in sort
(01:41):
of vogues. I mean you think of skiffle guitar was
like a Harmonica's what everyone got for Christmas is what
everyone got and that then spawned the sixties revolution.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Will do it. And I've been fortunate to spend time
with one of the greatest songs right of our era
and will.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
You look at me? I'm going on to it. I'm
actually a performer.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
That is Sir Paul McCartney. We worked together on a
book looking at the lyrics of more than one hundred
and fifty of his songs, and we recorded many hours
of our conversations.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
It was like going back to an old snapshot album
looking back on work I hadn't ever analyzed.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
This is McCartney, a life in lyrics, a masterclass, a memoir,
and an improvised journey with one of the most iconic
figures in popular music. In this episode, love Me Too.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
A lovely do you know I love you? Always be true?
So love me.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
For a group like the Beatles to come into existence,
you need quite a few planets to align, but you
also need prodigious talent, clever strategy, and insesitiable drive. In
this episode, we trace the origins of one of the
(03:29):
earliest Beatles songs. These days, it's difficult to remember a
time before the Beatles, But back when Paul McCartney and
John Lennon wrote Love Me Doo, there were merely school
boys trying to make a hit.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
In the afternoons. I sometimes had a rather kind of
light class that I could get out of, and so
I would say I had a dentist appointment or something,
and they didn't check too heavily, so I would be
able to get on the bus, go back home and
arrange to meet John, who ran about that time, was
(04:06):
going to the art college next door of my school.
So we'd meet up at my house is now National
Trust Establishment twenty fourth in the road, and we would
meet there because that was the most convenient place, and
my mom and dad wouldn't be there, so we would
(04:26):
go there and start just knocking around, showing each other
stuff that we'd written already, and then writing new stuff together.
And this involved a couple of songs that have never
been published or never been heard, songs like just Fun
(04:50):
was one of them, and they were very rough little things,
but you know it was the start.
Speaker 4 (04:54):
Right now?
Speaker 3 (04:55):
You still have copies of those? Are there still copies
of it?
Speaker 2 (04:58):
You know? I do? I say, or did have an
old school exercise book. It's a nice little blue book, hardback,
and in that I wrote just Fun, Just Fun. They
said that our love was just fun the day that
our friendship begun. There's no bloom woon that I can
(05:21):
see there's never been in history, because our love was
just fun, kind of country mesponic cunticney. And then Too
Bad about Sorrows was sort of too bad about Sartrose
Woa waa wow ooh to do do do do? I
think it's a little too opy thing. This was the start.
(05:43):
And then I'd written in Angel Voices.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
In that little blure notebook where the two school boys
had scribbled their very first lyrics, there was evidence Lennon
and McCartney envisioned themselves following in the footsteps of other
songwriting giants.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
And at the top of the page, I've written another
Lennon McCartney original.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
So you read you had a sense, even though you
were what sixteen, a little older perhaps that you would
have a future?
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Yeah, did you? I mean I think it was more
a sort of wish than a sense. It was more
you know, this thing, if you visualize it, it might
come true. And you know, when you think of Lena McCartney,
was because we'd heard of Gilbert Sullivan, Rogers and Hammstein.
Lena McCartney as good. There's two of us, and we
could we can make it one of those type names.
(06:40):
Liber and Stoller, Goffin and King, but these were magic
names to us. We didn't realize Goffin and King was
Carol King, didn't realize it was a girl.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
And an amazingly young woman.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
I was very young, yes, yeah, but you know, it
was thrilling to know that there were these people out
there and this is what we wanted to be. And
Love Me Do game around that period, One After nine
or nine Love Me Doing One After nine or nine
actually got published and actually got recorded on APPE or
(07:20):
the others didn't get recorded. And the school exercise Book
I found it probably about ten fifteen years ago, put
it in my bookcase and I've since lost it. I
don't know where it is. I think it might show
up somewhere, but it's the first ever so Lenna McCarney manuscript. Anyway. Yeah, well,
(07:43):
oh dear is right, but you know, you have to
let these things go right.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Maybe do.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
Another duo which had a profound influence on young Lennon
and McCartney was the Everly Brothers.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
There are certain people that you can credit for pretty
much everything we did, because I think that's I think
that's true of everyone. I think everyone's got a hero
that forms them. Yeah they like this, and yet oh
(08:34):
did I exist and like cha? So as John and
I were two male vocalists who sang in harmony. Our
biggest influence was the Elder Brothers, who we loved adored
to this day. I just think they're the greatest. And
(08:55):
it was different. You'd have barbershop quartets. You'd heard the
Beverly Sisters, the Three Girls, you'd heard all that, but
just two guys, good lucking guys. This is good.
Speaker 5 (09:09):
Oh yeah, you're gotta.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
So. Yeah, we love them and idolize them and wanted
to be like themis oh yeah. It's like when people
later would see the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
But even ladies and gentlemen live from New York.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
I mean trillion people who say that, I knew that's
what I wanted to be.
Speaker 5 (09:47):
Last on our show in New York, the Beatles played
to the greatest TV audience it's ever been assembled in
the history of American TV.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
When I saw you foreheaded monster on the Telly and
you I've got to be part of this. Our current
manager of Beatles Apple Records, says that Bruce Springsteen says
that David Eleeman says that they all formed on that night,
that formed this future for themselves. And there we were
(10:17):
in Liverpool form in this future and the same kind
of deal the day when you think goodbye.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Lennon and McCartney were working in the wake of all
these great songwriting duoes who wrote songs for others to sing,
and singers like the Everly Brothers who sang other people's songs.
But there were also people like Buddy Holly who could
do it all. You know you love me baby, You
(10:53):
tell me baby that someday.
Speaker 5 (10:57):
You will be when you think goodbye.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
But he Holly to us was amazing for a number
of reasons. He sang and played guitar. Elvis just sang
and Scottie Moore played guitar. He normally played guitar. He
played the solos. Normally, if you played guitar, there was
another guy in the group was a league guitar he
(11:22):
played the sols. But Buddy sang played the guitar and
played the sols. He also wrote the stuff. So this
was like all inclusive, one man band, and we really
thought that was great. So this is what we have
to do.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Buddy Holly inspired the youngsters to explore their full musical potential.
And he also helped John Lennon overcome his embarrassment about
wearing glasses.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
He also wore these big horn room glasses, and as
did John. And if ever there would be a girl
coming up, John with witness glasses off and put him
in his pocket and squint as she went by, and
looked pretty good the glasses. But when Buddy get along,
the glasses stayed on. It was like Harry Potter with
(12:16):
all the kids.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Like Buddy Holly had more than just the musical chops
and the suave image that John Lennon and Paul McCartney
covered it for themselves. The name of his group, Buddy
Holly and the Crickets, had a certain entomological ring to it.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
The name the Crickets. You know, we wanted something with
a dual meaning, and it turned out they didn't know
they had the dual meaning.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
The crickets.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
They didn't know about the game cricket. Oh, I see,
and they just thought it was grasshoppers. So we said
to them ice I met them years later, fantastic man.
The Beatles. We loved cricket, Chirpy little things and the
great game of cricket are a brilliant name for a group,
and they went, you know, oh no, we just heard
(13:08):
a supper in the studio wall.
Speaker 6 (13:10):
You know, did you do you remember sitting around thinking,
Buddy Holly and the Crickets, the Beatles will be a
great name for us.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Oh yeah. My memory of it was that we were
striving to find something with a dual meaning because of
the Crickets. This is the idea. Now the actual origin
of it is clouded in mystery. You know, I missed you.
It was just a club split up. I missed you.
Because there are all sorts of theories about this. The
(13:43):
Wild Ones with Marlon Brando and at one point Lee
Marvin says he Johnny, Johnny or Johnny, I think he's cool.
Come on, Johnny, we all missed you. Miss Johnny. We
love you, you know, coming back to the gang or something
like that. Johnny, we love you. The Beatles love.
Speaker 5 (14:00):
You, Beatles mischief, the Beatles, mister.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
It turns out the males the girls in the motorcycle Gang.
Will O Beatles says, the Beatles love you for all times.
And I know John and Stuart his art school friends,
Stuart Suckliffe loved that film, as we all did I
think they had seen it. I think we just loved
(14:25):
it and hadn't seen it anyway. So that's one of
the theories.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Today it's easy to forget how the creation of the
Beatles required thousands of small choices. Songs which are now
canonized were once simple phrases. Two boys having fun when
no parents were home, one of them with a notebook
in hand, the other playing a harmonica.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
At one of those writing sessions, twenty fourth in the
road to a little garden path past my dad's lif
happened the hedge, you know, we would write, let me
do and John come up with this little harmonica riof
it's so simple. I mean you look at it now here. Yes,
there's nothing to it. It's a will have a wisp
(15:22):
little song lovely.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
So what do you think made it become such a
potent part.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
I think our image and our energy as the four
Beatles was what was potent. And it had a very
fresh sound. That's the sort of thing that people noticed.
And we had a very fresh image. Nobody looked like us.
And we've been working at it a long time in Liverpool,
(15:59):
originally as really a bunch of rockers, you know, the
cliffs and everything gone over to Hamburg as the rockers
had got a little bit leatherified there, and then it
moved from leather to suits at the request of Brian Epstein.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Brian Epstein, an entrepreneurial young man from a family of
successful retailers in Liverpool, had stumbled upon the Beatles at
a nineteen sixty one lunchtime concert. He had no experience
managing artists, but he did have lots of confidence, so
in short order he signed a contract to manage the
(16:40):
band and told them to get suited.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Up, and so we all went over to ben O Dawn,
who was in the Wirral bacn Head Taylor. We'd never
been to a Taylor really, you know, so certainly not
on maps. We all went over and got suits. So
we had this image. We had all the experienced musical
experience of Hamburg of playing a lot your ten thousand hours,
(17:04):
mister Gladwell's right, ten thousand hours. So we kind of
then came on the scene and was seen on television.
We had a freshness, complete simplicity. Let me do it's
got a slightly sort of bluesy thing. I mean, it's
not a blues but it's got a simplicity, like a
(17:30):
little sort of down home on the porch with a
couple of guitars and harmonica.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
At the heart of these simple lyrics is a familiar story,
a young man yearning for a woman to love someone.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
It's a funny thing. You try and recreate that stuff now,
and it's almost impossible. Why Because you were sixteen. That's
why you were looking at the world, and the world
was good, and there was this marvelous rock and roll
future unfolding itself and you were about to become part
(18:22):
of it. So your longings for a girl, which was
impossible to achieve, you know, nobody had that little, perfect
high school sweetheart, you know. So there was this great
longing for your career is you didn't know what you
(18:43):
were going to do, and it was a dread of
all dreads. I was about to go to teachers training
college and I was trying to put that off forever.
I did not want to go into that mold. So
there was all these different kinds of longings. John and
I's mothers had both died, which was this amazing bond
(19:03):
between us. We both understood the anguish of that, and
at that age it's largely unspoken. You just said, oh,
your mother, Yes, so didn't I We knew. I knew
the circumstances of his mother, he knew the circus in mine,
(19:24):
and we would talk about it a little bit, but
being young boys, you didn't talk about it much. So
all this was rolled up into this package, this longing,
and its spilled out, which is the best way to write.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Some of this longing for their mothers for love. For
artistry was fairly abstract, but they also had more concrete ambitions.
They had met other songwriting teams who turned out hits
and made good money.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
John and I look, I thought, they're right, we could
do that. What a good idea. If we get hits
that will then get money and it may not buy
us love, but it will buy us a car. I
must admit, you know, we were young guys without any money,
coming from Liverpool with dreams, and once we realized that
(20:29):
to write a hit song would get you some money,
it was very attractive, very attractive thought. And it wasn't
just the money. It was then the joy of pulling
our song out of a hat, being able to play
it with our band, which needed songs. So we were
sort of feeding the machine.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
Take one.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Later, when the Fab four moved from writing in the
parlor room to writing in the studio, they learned to
crank out hits at an impressive piece four.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
On a one hour recording hours. Well what now classical
people do. It's it's the norm for recording. You normally
go in ten o'clock, you get yourself together, you start
at ten thirty. You then will work three hours. You
(21:31):
then have an hour break and you work two thirty
to five thirty, and that's it. And in those two
periods of three hours, it was expected that we would
be able to finish two songs. So so we did.
And that's that was the output and the great the
flow of just having to come up with two complete things.
(21:53):
But the great thing about this was you were finished
by five thirty.
Speaker 5 (22:00):
Win a harmonica like the Beatles, playing not a toy,
but a genuine marine band harmonica, just like those played
by the Beatles.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Maybe what the Beatles to come together was the force
of their benging. Maybe it was the long studio days,
the churning out of albums, the carefully crafted image. Whatever
the case, they went from looking at other artists dreaming
of becoming them, to being the artists others would dream
(22:30):
of becoming play along.
Speaker 5 (22:31):
With the Beatles with your own genuine honor marine vand
harmonica from Klim.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
When what the Beatles would become was beyond what any
of its members could have dreamt of when they were
sixteen and playing harmonica in their living rooms.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
There were all sorts of things that I say that
you instinctively knew. Don't try too hard, don't work too
hard at reaching for it, because the more you reach,
the more it will receive. Just kid on that you
(23:13):
don't even want it right, something will happen where everyone
else around us be worrying, no more over than I
was gonna. Oh my god, am I going? We always
related back to this accident we'd had on the motorway
going from running up to Liverpool, where we'd skid it
off in the snow down the bank with our van
(23:34):
and at the bottom of the van were this, how
the hell are we ever going to get home? It's snowing,
we're freezing. Had someone in the group said something will happen,
and it was like that became a mantra, and you know,
as I say, it's actually a very good one. It's this.
It's not reaching for it, it's letting it go.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
No me.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
Love me?
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Do you know?
Speaker 1 (24:27):
I love you?
Speaker 4 (24:29):
Oh wall be true?
Speaker 2 (24:32):
So please love me, love me?
Speaker 6 (24:43):
Yeah, love me, love.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Me, Love me do from the Beatles nineteen sixty three
album Please Please Meet.
Speaker 4 (24:58):
In the next.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Episode, McCartney starts over with a ragtag band on the run.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
I just thought we would just start something that feels good.
I'm we'll build it up like the Beatlestead.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
McCartney. A Life in Lyrics is a co production between
iHeartMedia NPL and Pushkin Industries.
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