February 7, 2024 • 24 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 episode from McCartney: A Life in Lyrics, Paul McCartney and Paul Muldoon discuss the early evolution of The Beatles. Listen to the new season now.
“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 (00:15):
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
We admired a singer at that time called Bruce Chanelle
I think his name was, who had a song called
Hey Baby where there was a harmonica riff. So we
started doing Hey Baby. I sang it. John played the harmonica.
(00:50):
I think that was one of the contributory factors. 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,
(01:11):
instruments come in sort of vogues. I mean you think
of skiffle. Guitar was like a harmonic. It's what everyone
got for Christmas, is what everyone got, and that then
spawned the sixties revolutions.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
And Paul won't do it. And I've been fortunate to
spend time with one of the greatest songwriters of our era.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
And will you look at me, I'm going on to it.
I'm actually a performer.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
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 (01:59):
It was like going back to an old snapshot album
looking back on work I hadn't ever analyzed.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
This is my Cartney, 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 1 (02:24):
Love Me Do you Know? I Love you? Always be
true so lovely.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
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 insessiable drive. In
this episode, we trace the origins of one of the
(03:00):
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, they were merely school
boys trying to make a hit.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
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's 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
(03:37):
going to the art college next door in 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
(03:57):
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
(04:21):
was one of them, and they were very rough little things,
but you know, it was.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
The start, right now? You still have copies of those?
Are there still copies of it?
Speaker 2 (04:29):
You know?
Speaker 1 (04:32):
I do?
Speaker 2 (04:33):
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 blue woon that I can see. There's never
(04:53):
been in history, because our love was just fun, kind
of countrys ponicdic and then too Bad about Sorrows was
sort of too bad about sartose Wow, wow wow, ooh,
do I think it's a little too opy thing? This
was the start. And then I'd written in angel voices.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
In that little blue 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 (05:34):
And at the top of the page, I'd written another
Lennon McCartney original.
Speaker 4 (05:39):
So you already had a sense, even though you were
what sixteen, a little older perhaps that you would have
a future.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
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 Ghilbert Sullivan, Rogers and Hanstein,
that Lenna McCartney as good as two of us, and
we can make it one. That was type names Lib
(06:11):
and Star, Goffin and King, but these were magic names
to us. We didn't realize Goffin and King was Carol King.
I didn't realize it was a girl and an amazingly
young woman. 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
(06:35):
after nine or nine lobbed me doing One after nine
or nine actually got published and actually got recorded.
Speaker 5 (06:43):
My baby did on One after nine or nine I.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Did, 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 McConney manuscript. Anyway. Yeah, well,
(07:14):
oh dear is right, But you know you have to
let these things go right.
Speaker 5 (07:18):
Maybe being.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
A one app and.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Another duo which had a profound influence on young Lennon
and McCartney was the Everly Brothers.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
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.
Speaker 6 (07:49):
Forms them like this and Likesta, Oh did I exist?
Speaker 1 (08:06):
And Likesta?
Speaker 2 (08:08):
It's 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 the greatest. And it was different. You'd have barbershop quartets.
(08:29):
You'd heard the Beverly sisters, the three girls. You'd heard
all that, but just two guys, good lucking guys.
Speaker 4 (08:38):
This is good.
Speaker 5 (08:40):
Oh yeah, you're not about.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
So yeah. We loved them and idolized them and wanted
to be like them.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
It's like when people later would see the Beatles on
the Ed Sullivan Show.
Speaker 7 (09:02):
But even ladies and gentlemen like Live brom New York
and San John.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
I mean trillion people who say that I knew that's
what I wanted to be.
Speaker 7 (09:18):
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 (09:26):
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 Lehnerman says that they all formed on that night,
formed this this future for themselves, and there we were
(09:48):
in Liverpool form in this future and the same kind
of deal.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
When you say good.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Lennon and McCartney were working in the wake of all
these great songwriting dues 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.
Speaker 8 (10:22):
You know, you know me baby, you tell me baby
that songday we love you real loudly, lad when you
sing goodbye.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
It is Buddy Holly to us was amazing for a
number of reasons. He sang and played guitar. Elvis just
sang and Scotty Moore played guitar. He normally played guitar,
he played the solos. Normally, if you played guitar, there
was another guy in the group was the lead guitar,
(10:53):
he played the solos. But Buddy sang played the guitar
and played the solos. He also wrote the stuff. So
this was like all inclusive, one man band, and we
really thought that was correct. So this is what we
have to do.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
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 (11:26):
He also wore these big horn room glasses, as did John.
And if ever there would be a girl coming up
John with witness glasses off and put them in his
pocket and squint as she went by, and you look
pretty good the glasses, but when Buddy came along, the
glasses stayed on. It was like Harry Potter with all
(11:47):
the kids.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Like Buddy Holly had more than just the musical chops
and the suave image that John Lennon and Paul McCartney
covet it for themselves. The name of his group, Buddy
Holly and the Crickets, had a certain entomological ring.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
To the name the Crickets. You know, we wanted something
with a dual meaning, and it turned out they didn't
know how the dual meaning the crickets. They didn't know
about the game cricket. Oh, I say, They just thought
it was grasshoppers. So we said to them. Ice met
them years later, I said, fantastic, man, the Beatles. We
(12:29):
loved crickets, chirpy little things and the great game of cricket.
A brilliant name for a group. And they went, you know, oh, no,
we just heard a grasshopper in the studio wall.
Speaker 9 (12:41):
You know, did you do you remember setting around thinking
Buddy Holly and the Crickets the Beatles will be a
great name for us.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
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.
Speaker 4 (13:08):
You know I missed you.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
It was just a club split up.
Speaker 6 (13:11):
I missed you.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Because there are all sorts of theories about this, says
The 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 8 (13:31):
You, Beatles, mischief, the Beatles, mister.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
It turns out the Malls, the girls in the Motorcycle
Gang were called Beatles, says The Beatles love you, joy
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
(13:55):
we just loved it and hadn't seen it anyway, So
that's one of the theories.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
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 (14:28):
At one of those writing sessions, twenty fourth in road,
a little garden path past my dad's lavender hedge. You know,
we would write, let me do and John come up
with this little harmonica roof. It's so simple, I mean here, yes,
(14:49):
there's nothing to it. It's a will have a wisp
little song lovely.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
So what do you think made it became such a
potent part.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
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'd been working at it a long time in Liverpool.
(15:30):
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 3 (15:49):
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 the contract to manage the
(16:11):
band and told them to get suited up.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
And so we all went over to Beno Dawn who
was in the Wirral baking head a Taylor. We'd never
been to a tailor 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,
(16:35):
mister Gladwell's ten thousand hours. So when we kind of
then came on the scene and was seen on television,
we had a freshness, complete simplicity. Lot me do is
it's got a slightly sort of bluesy thing. I mean,
it's not a blues but it's got a simplicity, like
(17:01):
a little sort of down home on the porch with
a couple of guitars on harmonica.
Speaker 7 (17:09):
At the heart of these simple lyrics is a familiar
story a young man yearning for a woman to love Salama.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
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
(17:53):
part 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 long for your career is you didn't know what
(18:13):
you were going to do, and it was a dread
of all dreads. I was about to go to teacher's
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
(18:34):
between us. We both understood the anguish of that, and
at that age it's largely unspoken. You just said, oh,
your mother died, Yes, so did I. We knew. I
knew the circumstances of his mother. Says he knew. The
circusan in mind, and we would talk about it a
(18:56):
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 it's spilled out which is the best
way to write.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
Some of this longie 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 (19:39):
John and I looked at thought the 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
(20:00):
to write a hit song would get you some money,
but very attractive, very attractive thought. And it wasn't just
the money. It was then the joy of pulling that
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 1 (20:21):
Take one, It's slow No.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
Later, when the Fab four removed from writing in the
parlor room to writing in the studio, they learned to
crank out hits at an impressive piece.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Take four one.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Our 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 don't have an
hour break, and you work two thirty to five thirty,
(21:06):
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 we did. And that was the output
and the great the flow of just having to come
up with two complete things. But the great thing about
this was you were finished by five point thirty.
Speaker 5 (21:31):
When a harmonica like the Beatles playing not a toy
but a genuine Hooner marine bend harmonica, just like Girls
Way by the Beatles.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
Maybe what allowed the Beatles to come together was the
force of their belonging. 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
(22:01):
of becoming, way along.
Speaker 7 (22:02):
With the Beatles with your own genuine Honer marine bend
harmonica from Klim.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
When what the Beatles would become was beyond what any
of its members could have dreamt off when there were
sixteen and playing harmonica in their living rooms.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
There were all sorts of things. As 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 recede. Just kid on that you
(22:44):
don't even want it right, something will happen where everyone
else around us be worrying. No more. Other thing I
was going to, Oh my god, Oh my god, my god.
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 and at the bottom of the van were this,
(23:07):
how the hell are we ever going? We go home,
it's snowing, we're freezing, and someone in the group, so
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 1 (23:27):
Love me, love me, Love me? Do you know I
(23:58):
love you? Oh? Be true?
Speaker 5 (24:03):
So please love me.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
Love Me Do from the Beatles nineteen sixty three album
Please Please Me. In the next episode, McCartney starts over
with a ragtag band on the run.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
I just thought we would just start something that feels
good and we'll build it up like the Beatles did.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
The McCartney A Life in Lyrics is a co production
between iHeartMedia NPL and Pushkin Industries
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
We admired a singer at that time called Bruce Chanelle
I think his name was, who had a song called
Hey Baby where there was a harmonica riff. So we
started doing Hey Baby. I sang it. John played the harmonica.
(00:50):
I think that was one of the contributory factors. 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,
(01:11):
instruments come in sort of vogues. I mean you think
of skiffle. Guitar was like a harmonic. It's what everyone
got for Christmas, is what everyone got, and that then
spawned the sixties revolutions.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
And Paul won't do it. And I've been fortunate to
spend time with one of the greatest songwriters of our era.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
And will you look at me, I'm going on to it.
I'm actually a performer.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
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 (01:59):
It was like going back to an old snapshot album
looking back on work I hadn't ever analyzed.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
This is my Cartney, 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 1 (02:24):
Love Me Do you Know? I Love you? Always be
true so lovely.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
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 insessiable drive. In
this episode, we trace the origins of one of the
(03:00):
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, they were merely school
boys trying to make a hit.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
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's 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
(03:37):
going to the art college next door in 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
(03:57):
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
(04:21):
was one of them, and they were very rough little things,
but you know, it was.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
The start, right now? You still have copies of those?
Are there still copies of it?
Speaker 2 (04:29):
You know?
Speaker 1 (04:32):
I do?
Speaker 2 (04:33):
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 blue woon that I can see. There's never
(04:53):
been in history, because our love was just fun, kind
of countrys ponicdic and then too Bad about Sorrows was
sort of too bad about sartose Wow, wow wow, ooh,
do I think it's a little too opy thing? This
was the start. And then I'd written in angel voices.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
In that little blue 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 (05:34):
And at the top of the page, I'd written another
Lennon McCartney original.
Speaker 4 (05:39):
So you already had a sense, even though you were
what sixteen, a little older perhaps that you would have
a future.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
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 Ghilbert Sullivan, Rogers and Hanstein,
that Lenna McCartney as good as two of us, and
we can make it one. That was type names Lib
(06:11):
and Star, Goffin and King, but these were magic names
to us. We didn't realize Goffin and King was Carol King.
I didn't realize it was a girl and an amazingly
young woman. 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
(06:35):
after nine or nine lobbed me doing One after nine
or nine actually got published and actually got recorded.
Speaker 5 (06:43):
My baby did on One after nine or nine I.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Did, 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 McConney manuscript. Anyway. Yeah, well,
(07:14):
oh dear is right, But you know you have to
let these things go right.
Speaker 5 (07:18):
Maybe being.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
A one app and.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Another duo which had a profound influence on young Lennon
and McCartney was the Everly Brothers.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
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.
Speaker 6 (07:49):
Forms them like this and Likesta, Oh did I exist?
Speaker 1 (08:06):
And Likesta?
Speaker 2 (08:08):
It's 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 the greatest. And it was different. You'd have barbershop quartets.
(08:29):
You'd heard the Beverly sisters, the three girls. You'd heard
all that, but just two guys, good lucking guys.
Speaker 4 (08:38):
This is good.
Speaker 5 (08:40):
Oh yeah, you're not about.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
So yeah. We loved them and idolized them and wanted
to be like them.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
It's like when people later would see the Beatles on
the Ed Sullivan Show.
Speaker 7 (09:02):
But even ladies and gentlemen like Live brom New York
and San John.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
I mean trillion people who say that I knew that's
what I wanted to be.
Speaker 7 (09:18):
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 (09:26):
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 Lehnerman says that they all formed on that night,
formed this this future for themselves, and there we were
(09:48):
in Liverpool form in this future and the same kind
of deal.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
When you say good.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Lennon and McCartney were working in the wake of all
these great songwriting dues 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.
Speaker 8 (10:22):
You know, you know me baby, you tell me baby
that songday we love you real loudly, lad when you
sing goodbye.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
It is Buddy Holly to us was amazing for a
number of reasons. He sang and played guitar. Elvis just
sang and Scotty Moore played guitar. He normally played guitar,
he played the solos. Normally, if you played guitar, there
was another guy in the group was the lead guitar,
(10:53):
he played the solos. But Buddy sang played the guitar
and played the solos. He also wrote the stuff. So
this was like all inclusive, one man band, and we
really thought that was correct. So this is what we
have to do.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
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 (11:26):
He also wore these big horn room glasses, as did John.
And if ever there would be a girl coming up
John with witness glasses off and put them in his
pocket and squint as she went by, and you look
pretty good the glasses, but when Buddy came along, the
glasses stayed on. It was like Harry Potter with all
(11:47):
the kids.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Like Buddy Holly had more than just the musical chops
and the suave image that John Lennon and Paul McCartney
covet it for themselves. The name of his group, Buddy
Holly and the Crickets, had a certain entomological ring.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
To the name the Crickets. You know, we wanted something
with a dual meaning, and it turned out they didn't
know how the dual meaning the crickets. They didn't know
about the game cricket. Oh, I say, They just thought
it was grasshoppers. So we said to them. Ice met
them years later, I said, fantastic, man, the Beatles. We
(12:29):
loved crickets, chirpy little things and the great game of cricket.
A brilliant name for a group. And they went, you know, oh, no,
we just heard a grasshopper in the studio wall.
Speaker 9 (12:41):
You know, did you do you remember setting around thinking
Buddy Holly and the Crickets the Beatles will be a
great name for us.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
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.
Speaker 4 (13:08):
You know I missed you.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
It was just a club split up.
Speaker 6 (13:11):
I missed you.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Because there are all sorts of theories about this, says
The 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 8 (13:31):
You, Beatles, mischief, the Beatles, mister.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
It turns out the Malls, the girls in the Motorcycle
Gang were called Beatles, says The Beatles love you, joy
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
(13:55):
we just loved it and hadn't seen it anyway, So
that's one of the theories.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
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 (14:28):
At one of those writing sessions, twenty fourth in road,
a little garden path past my dad's lavender hedge. You know,
we would write, let me do and John come up
with this little harmonica roof. It's so simple, I mean here, yes,
(14:49):
there's nothing to it. It's a will have a wisp
little song lovely.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
So what do you think made it became such a
potent part.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
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'd been working at it a long time in Liverpool.
(15:30):
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 3 (15:49):
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 the contract to manage the
(16:11):
band and told them to get suited up.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
And so we all went over to Beno Dawn who
was in the Wirral baking head a Taylor. We'd never
been to a tailor 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,
(16:35):
mister Gladwell's ten thousand hours. So when we kind of
then came on the scene and was seen on television,
we had a freshness, complete simplicity. Lot me do is
it's got a slightly sort of bluesy thing. I mean,
it's not a blues but it's got a simplicity, like
(17:01):
a little sort of down home on the porch with
a couple of guitars on harmonica.
Speaker 7 (17:09):
At the heart of these simple lyrics is a familiar
story a young man yearning for a woman to love Salama.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
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
(17:53):
part 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 long for your career is you didn't know what
(18:13):
you were going to do, and it was a dread
of all dreads. I was about to go to teacher's
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
(18:34):
between us. We both understood the anguish of that, and
at that age it's largely unspoken. You just said, oh,
your mother died, Yes, so did I. We knew. I
knew the circumstances of his mother. Says he knew. The
circusan in mind, and we would talk about it a
(18:56):
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 it's spilled out which is the best
way to write.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
Some of this longie 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 (19:39):
John and I looked at thought the 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
(20:00):
to write a hit song would get you some money,
but very attractive, very attractive thought. And it wasn't just
the money. It was then the joy of pulling that
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 1 (20:21):
Take one, It's slow No.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
Later, when the Fab four removed from writing in the
parlor room to writing in the studio, they learned to
crank out hits at an impressive piece.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Take four one.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Our 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 don't have an
hour break, and you work two thirty to five thirty,
(21:06):
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 we did. And that was the output
and the great the flow of just having to come
up with two complete things. But the great thing about
this was you were finished by five point thirty.
Speaker 5 (21:31):
When a harmonica like the Beatles playing not a toy
but a genuine Hooner marine bend harmonica, just like Girls
Way by the Beatles.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
Maybe what allowed the Beatles to come together was the
force of their belonging. 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
(22:01):
of becoming, way along.
Speaker 7 (22:02):
With the Beatles with your own genuine Honer marine bend
harmonica from Klim.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
When what the Beatles would become was beyond what any
of its members could have dreamt off when there were
sixteen and playing harmonica in their living rooms.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
There were all sorts of things. As 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 recede. Just kid on that you
(22:44):
don't even want it right, something will happen where everyone
else around us be worrying. No more. Other thing I
was going to, Oh my god, Oh my god, my god.
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 and at the bottom of the van were this,
(23:07):
how the hell are we ever going? We go home,
it's snowing, we're freezing, and someone in the group, so
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 1 (23:27):
Love me, love me, Love me? Do you know I
(23:58):
love you? Oh? Be true?
Speaker 5 (24:03):
So please love me.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
Love Me Do from the Beatles nineteen sixty three album
Please Please Me. In the next episode, McCartney starts over
with a ragtag band on the run.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
I just thought we would just start something that feels
good and we'll build it up like the Beatles did.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
The McCartney A Life in Lyrics is a co production
between iHeartMedia NPL and Pushkin Industries
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