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Stuart was going to stay in Hamburg, cos he’d fallen in love with this girl Astrid [Kirchherr], who was part of a little set who called themselves the Exi’s, existentialists. They were very cool in black, tight trousers, little high-heeled boots. She was blonde, she had a short Peter Pan pageboy haircut, she looked dead cool. We’d never seen a chick like it. She dressed like a boy, a very slim little boy, so it was all, Fuckin’ hell, look at her!  I think we all fancied her but she fancied Stuart, who’d been the one guy who’d never been able to pull anything in our band. We’d always pulled before old Stu, but he got these great shades and struck a James Dean pose, got his hair going groovy like James Dean, so she went mad for him. And their group used to really like Stuart. I think it went: Stuart, John, George, me, Pete Best. That was their order of preference. They took some great photos of us. 

- Paul McCartney interview in Paul Du Noyer, Conversations with McCartney (2015) pp.34-35

You know, these people like Eastman and Dick James and people like that, think that I’m an idiot. They really can’t see me; they think I’m some kind of guy who got struck lucky, a pal of Paul’s or something…

(John Lennon, December 1970, interview with Jann Wenner for Rolling Stone)

Don't want your love anymore Don't want your kiss, that's for sure I die each time I hear your name Here she comes, Cathy's clown

“A body of work was produced that I don't believe he alone could have produced, or I alone could have produced. It was only me that sat in those hotel rooms, in his house in the attic; it wasn't Yoko, it wasn't Sean, it wasn't Julian, it wasn't George, it wasn't Mimi, it wasn't Ringo, it wasn't Miles. It was me that sat in those rooms, seeing him in all his moods and all his little things, seeing him not being able to write a song, and having me help, seeing me not able to write a song and him help me.”

Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now by Barry Miles

“He’s great and I love him but at the same time he’s such a bastard”

In The Beatles, we’d always had this running joke: “What are we going to do when the bubble bursts?” Then it did burst and I went up to my farm in Scotland, wondering what the hell I was going to do next. I seriously thought about giving up music altogether.

(Paul McCartney, July 2004, interview with Jon Wilde for UNCUT)

PLAYBOY: But in the last ten years you’ve never wondered if it [music] might not come as easily, as naturally again as it once did? LENNON: Sure I have. I thought, Maybe that’s it. Maybe music’s over. I mean, I was preparing not to make any music again…

(John Lennon, 1980, All We Are Saying, David Sheff)

edited some of William's facial expressions for. reasons.

THE BEATLES at a hotel in Weston Super Mare, Somerset, by Bruce Leak, an 11 year old boy who was on a family holiday with his parents and sister. 1963.

Paul & Linda McCartney photographed by Robert Rosen, April 22nd, 1982.

❝ There was a Music Awards Party at Abbey Road, the famous recording studio. It was 1982 and I crashed it. Paparazzi were outside, it was snowing and they were there freezing with their zoom lenses. My snappy was in my pocket, the security guy saw me and because I always liked to dress well must have mistaken me for a pop star. He said, "Hurry up inside the awards are starting," and whisked me through the doors. Next thing I know I am inside standing next to Paul and Linda McCartney. We began a conversation and I asked to take a shot, they were in a joyous mood and most accommodating as you can see. On the third click they kissed - I got it! That photo went worldwide and I sent them a print to say thank you. Six months later I bumped into them again, but didn't assume they would remember me; however Linda called to me, "Darling are you ignoring us? Come on, give me a hug." It meant so much to me, maybe more than anything, that she loved that photograph. ❞

— Robert Rosen

Now and Then handwritten lyrics

that last part (never included in the demo)

"Remember when

we thought our life had ended

the gods had been offended

then we started again as friends

now we start again as friends

somehow we start again as friends"

(the doodle) (the phone number)

“Jeff Lynne, George Harrison, Eric Clapton and Elton John at a Worcester match to watch Ian Botham. Photo: Graham Morris” - The Times, 2018

“[George is] 44 now, his stubble-beard shows flecks of gray, and after George Harrison laughs — which he does often — the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes don’t completely uncrinkle. ‘I think, in one way, it’s good getting old,’ says Harrison. ‘When you do things when you’re young, you just don’t think about it. You’re crazy, like the Beatles. We were crazy, but if you went on being like that, you’d be put away. So there’s a time to mellow out.’ He is mellow enough, nowadays, to view the past with a pleasant nostalgia and the future with bemused curiosity. 'You know, we’re all going to be 60 now,’ he says of the next major chronological hurdle facing his friends. 'In another 20 years, I’m going to be 64’ — a thought that sets him to singing, just under his breath, the chorus to the Beatles hit When I’m Sixty-Four. […] [E]asing into middle age, he savors 'hanging out with some of my friends, just having dinner and a bottle of wine.’ And for a wild time, there’s always… cricket?! 'Eric and Elton, they’re really into it,’ says Harrison. 'Now, I’ve hated cricket all my life. But they’ve got me going to the matches in this nice little English town, drinking beer, laughing. All the guys on the album are getting even nicer now, the older they get. I think we’ve all had similar times and experiences, and because of that, in each other’s company, we can just make fun and have a real laugh.’ All things considered, he says, 'you can’t ask for much more than that, really.’” - People, 19 Oct 1987 (x)

gay beatles slash fanfiction has existed since beatlemania, unsurprisingly. so here's some stuff on that topic

"The most visible rock based BandFic community during this era is The Beatles.   On August 18, 1960, The Beatles started playing under that name for the first time at an event in Hamburg, Germany. (Whelan)  It would be four more long years before the band would make their American debut, an event that occurred on February 7, 1964 when they arrived in New York City for their first American tour. (Whelan)  According to Barbara Ehrenreich, Elizabeth Hess, and Gloria Jacobs in their essay "Beatlemania: Girls Just Want to Have Fun," this event marked "the first mass outburst of the sixties to feature women – in this case girls, who would not reach full adulthood until the seventies and the emergence of a genuinely political movement for women’s liberation."  This group, composed primarily of middle class, white teenagers, would form one of the core groups in the nascent bandfic community.  In their adulation of the band, they would create many of their own fan related products including stories, zines and art. The fannish oral tradition that is alive today is implicit in the existence and circulation of fictional stories about band members during the early years of the band's history. Because the audience was young and not connected into a professional or underground movement, much of the material created by this group of fan girls never was published.  The production, in most cases, likely consisted of one to five copies of a story being circulated only among the fan’s immediate peer group. The emergence of The Beatles, their popularity and their fans dedication to creating fan works was helped because of the era in which they appeared. The Beatles were at the forefront for many white, middle class teenage girls in helping them redefine their own definition of sexuality and their own definitions of what it meant to be female. (Ehrenreich)  This was taking place in an era where there was that increased debate on subjects like "birth, a woman's obligation to society, and conception, bringing with it all of the bitterness and acrimony that have long surrounded these issues, beginning with perhaps the most obvious one of them all -- Sexism." (Rowland) Legal gender differences between men and women were beginning to fall. (Rowland) For young, white, middle class female Beatles fans, writing stories about the band was an opportunity to challenge their parents, to revel in the new ideas regarding male sexuality, to explore their own and more.  They could write about marrying Ringo or having children with Paul McCartney.  They could write about being noticed by the George Harrison at a concert and all that followed afterward.  Most fans knew that none of those scenarios were likely to happen. Some deeply resented the idea of a member of the band becoming involved with any woman because it destroyed their own fantasies.  They did not want to see that happen. It is highly probable, that given this and the fact that they were writing fictional stories featuring the Beatles, that some of the Beatles were written as homosexual if only as a way to ensure that the object of the fan's lust, since they could not be hers, would never belong to another female fan.  The idea of writing male on male pairings to cut out other female fans is one that would reappear again and again during the next forty years as new bands were discovered and attracted new groups of young female fans." (X)

George Harrison interviewed for Good Morning Australia in 1982.

“A very sincere gentleman. He’s got a great philosophy, a wonderful sense of humor. And I didn’t find him the quiet one.” - Kerri-Anne Kennerley, Good Morning Australia, 1982

“Ex-pop star, peace-seeker, gardener, ex-celeb, until now.” - George Harrison (on how he would describe himself in 1982), Good Morning Australia, 1982

Kerri-Anne Kennerley: “Do you think life is all predetermined?” George Harrison: “In some respects it is, although we do have control over our actions right at this moment. I think that what we are now is the result of our past actions. What we’re going to be is going to be the result of our present actions. As again, they said in the Bible, ‘God is not mocked, whatsoever man soweth that shall he also reap.’ That means the law of karma — action/reaction. There’s certain things that maybe there’s no way out, like, there’s no way I wasn’t going to be in The Beatles, even though I didn’t know it. In retrospect I can see that’s what it was — it was a set-up. At the same time, I do have control over my actions and I can do good actions or bad actions or I could try being a pop star forever and going on TV and do concerts and be a celebrity, or I can be a gardener.” - Good Morning Australia, 1982 (x)

There is the video of the Beatles dissolution where George is running.

and the comments are often like this:

But what I've never seen people talking about how the actual reason why George is running in the video is because he was avoiding Klein's lawyers.

Loiacono went back to the Plaza at around 10 p.m. to wait for Harrison, this time reinforced by three additional private investigators. Two of them took up watch outside the hotel, while the third stood near the elevators at the Plaza’s 58th Street entrance. Loiacono positioned himself at the main elevator bank near the Plaza’s 59th Street entrance.

Within an hour, Harrison’s entourage arrived from Madison Square Garden. Imhoff immediately spotted Loiacono. To distract the process server, Imhoff began following him around the hotel lobby, asking questions while a cameraman and lighting assistant who happened to be with the Harrison group recorded the scene. This allowed Harrison the opportunity to bolt from his car and scurry through the hotel lobby into the safety of the hotel’s kitchen elevator.

They wanted to serve him Klein's lawsuit over the ownership of Harrisongs.

In May Pang book “Loving John”.

Linda: “Don’t you miss england?”

John: “frankly.” “I miss Paris”

I wish I could’ve seen the look on paul face when john said he “missed paris” I know he probably would’ve been starstruck im guessing,

also John said he wanted to name his second son,Sean “Paris” ……..

but i dunno maybe he just really like Paris,I’m not gonna let my theories in the way of these, take them as you please,

Paul McCartney discusses the design for Sgt Pepper with Mike Read in an interview for BBC Radio 1 (broadcast 1989)

PAUL: See I always hark back, when I'm making a record, in my mind, to me - in Liverpool I used to get on the bus, Saturday morning, go down to this big department store called Lewis's, go in the record department, get my record, that was a big favourite I'd been saving up for, get on the bus, upstairs on the bus, and unwrap it. And then I had a half hour to look at it. I couldn't play it, but I could look at it, and read the sleeve note and look at the pictures and everything. So I knew that other people would be doing that kind of thing so we designed Pepper with that in mind, you know, the person who's just been to his version of Lewis's, he's got that half hour to go home. So we'll give him masses, he could look at this one for months, you know, because after all its only cardboard and it really doesn't cost more to put a complicated picture on than it does just to put a picture of an orange, or something. READ: Of course Brian Epstein's idea was it being brown paper bags. PAUL: Well Brian was very keen on the album, we'd played it [for] him once it was all finished out at George's house. He was very sort of flamboyant [Brian impression] 'Oh! It's wonderful.' He really loved it, you know, he did this big, theatrical [Brian impression] 'Oh it's a wonderful album!' And we said 'Well we're still thinking about the cover, you know, we can't quite decide how to do the cover.' He said [Brian impression] 'Put a brown paper bag on it, it doesn't matter. It's so wonderful.'

" we sort of conned my way out of hospital so i didn't have to be there for my 15th birthday. we went down to romford, where my stepdad's family lived. his dad was great, and he knew london like the back of his hand. we went walking all over london and saw the sights, the british museum and the searchlight tattoo.

it was a great day out, but it was a bit long for someone who'd just come out of hospital. "

- ringo starr, PHOTOGRAPH (2013)

"John tried to smooth the way for George by telling Mimi what a great guy he was before she ever met him, but once Mimi got a look at his pink shirt, she threw him out the door," reads TLYM.

The Beatles interviewed for East at Six Ten, ahead of their concert at the Regal Cinema in Cambridge, 26th November 1963

Paul and Ringo on Larry King Live, June 2007

Rare photos

May 23, 1957. The Liverpool band Eric Clayton's Skiffle Band performs. This is the first shot of Ringo playing the drums (far left).

The photo on July 6, 1957 (the day John met Paul), where Lennon sings standing on an open truck, has become a textbook and is found in many books and websites. And this picture, taken a little later in the day, is not well known to many people.

The bassist and an important member of the early line-up of the band was Stuart Sutcliffe, who unfortunately passed away early. In all his short life, only one color shot of him was taken, this one, where he is captured with singer Tony Sheridan. Stewart is on the right.

Most likely, you don't know who it is. Meanwhile, this man turned the history of world music around. This is Kurt Raymond Jones, the same customer who came into the store and asked for the Beatles record My Bonnie, which is why Brian Epstein first heard about the band, began looking for them and eventually turned into a manager. For a long time it was believed that there was no Raymond Jones. Like, it's just a character invented for the convenience of telling a story. However, here he is!

The only shot where you can see drummer Pete Best, who will later be fired, and Ringo Starr, who will take his place, together.

The Beatles are on the verge of fame performing in Liverpool. As you can see, they have someone else's drum kit, left on stage after the previous band.

Have you ever seen John's mother-in-law? Here she is, the mother of his first wife, Cynthia, next to him.

The only picture where Brian Epstein holds a musical instrument in his hands and seems to extract sounds from it.

This is a giant shoe from the movie "Help!", which was needed to shoot a scene where the Floor shrank in size. As the photo shows, this piece of props later became a decoration in the garden near Lennon's house.

The Beatles in a hippie look ride in an ordinary subway car, and no one recognizes them? How can this be? This is 1967, the picture was taken in Greece, where a harsh political regime reigned at that time and the group was not so well known.

Clip from The Today Show, 1986; interview conducted by Rona Elliot.

Rona Elliot: “How have you managed not to be stuck in time, to just keep your life going?” George Harrison: “I don’t know… there’s no other thing to do except, as the man said, The only thing I knew how to do was to keep on keeping on like a bird that flew. Anyway, you just keep going and past, you know, the past is gone — that’s another thing this guy that built my house [Friar Park] said: 'Past is gone, thou canst not that recall, future is not, may not be at all. Present is, improve the flying hour, present only is within thy power.' So I mean, that’s all there is to it, there isn’t anything — nothing exists except now. You know, the past is gone and the future doesn’t exist until you get to it and it’s the now. So you just have to be here now, and do your best.” -The Today Show, 1986 “‘One of [George’s] favorite things to say was, “Be here now,”’ [Olivia] says. His song by that title, from his 1973 album ‘Living in the Material World,’ remains one of her favorites, and it’s one she plays any time she feels in need of a booster shot of moral support. ‘Sometimes he and Dhani would be talking and Dhani would ask, “Well what if this happens?” or “What if that happens?”’ she says. ‘George would say, “Be here now. Be here now.”’” - The Los Angeles Times, March 9, 2005 “‘Be here now because it’s not like it was before.’ Occasionally it’s nice to have somebody tell you that. He offered advice about living. He didn’t preach, he would just say, Oh don’t let that get to you. Be here now, the past is gone. I listen to that on purpose so I can remind myself.” - Olivia Harrison, The Times, September 24, 2014

When my uncle told Lennon that I was born near Frankfurt, the son of a Jewish-American father and a German-Protestant mother, John quipped that I was lucky to belong to both the Chosen People and the Master Race. He then began peppering me with German phrases he remembered from his early days in the red-light district of Hamburg with the Beatles, for instance: “Um zweiundzwanzig Uhr müssen alle Jugendliche den Saal verlassen” – At 10:00 p.m. all minors must leave the premises – and “Ficken, lecken, blasen!” – fuck, suck, blow.

John Lennon: Living on Borrowed Time, Frederic Seaman (1991)

Paul and George aren't married because Ringo and John WOULDN'T have them.

Get Back Rewatch 55 Years On: Day 17

George is so sweet to put so much effort into helping Ringo write his song and to not ask for any kind of writing credit. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, right? But also, I’d do that for Ringo too if I were him. Ringo deserves it for everything he’s given to that band and the little credit he’s received. 

“What am I playing, Richie?” “You’ll be on drooms.” If the Beatles know how to do one thing, it’s be cute. 

John, stop talking about Paul’s strong arms, you're embarrassing yourself. 

I do have to just include this here. From my Get Back book. I never heard, “was it sexually oriented?” on the nagra reels, but apparently that’s what Peter Jackson’s cleaned-up version gave him, and again, he was like, “hmm. Too gay.” 

He’s known Heather for how long? Less than a year, right? But if somebody had showed me just this footage and told me he’d raised her from a newborn, I would not blink an eye. That kind of tired but fond interaction is exactly how a dad plays with his kid. And she’s climbing all over him and bossing him around like he’s never not been in her life. It’s beautiful. 

And John, with his “are you going to eat them?” is the perfect sort of bad-example favorite uncle. The kind that would check her out of school when she’s older and go get her ears pierced when her dad had said she was too young. 

Sorry, I promise I’m not just going to be thirsting over dad Paul this whole time. I have to just make one thing clear, and this is the only thing I’ll say on the subject and then I’m done. If a man is a 3 and a good dad, he’s a 10. Paul was already an 11, so I’m literally just done-for. Okay, I’ll shut up. 

John and Paul doing their usual thing, only paying attention to each other. Talking about an Elvis gospel ending for Let it Be. George, smirking, stands up: and we’ll all kneel as you do it. If John had said it, Paul would be in stitches. But George said it, and he might as well have never opened his mouth for all the notice he gets. And it’s honestly heartbreaking, if you can take your eyes off of the insanity of John and Paul’s weird eye-contact, to watch George’s face go from excited at his own wit and hopeful for a laugh to just completely downcast. Twelve years of that. Twelve years. 

Ringo, you’re an absolute saint. He’s being so sweet to Heather, even letting her mess with his symbols, and then Paul has the audacity to tell him to “keep it lighter.” Like. Paul. Do you think that maybe the fact that he’s got a five-year-old over there “helping” him might have anything to do with how the drums are coming out? Just a thought. Anyone else would at least have something to say about it. Ringo just sort of nods along but he looks SO tired.

TFW you’re inspiring the next generation of women to be loud and free and take up space.

“Dig it” is actually insane to me. I know I’m crazy, but remember those twin dreams they had about buried treasure when they first met? “If you want it, you can dig it up.” ???

When George and Paul just jump into harmonizing together when they’re talking about The Long and Winding Road arrangement? Their voices are like magic together. I wish they would’ve had George sing that part in the final thing, actually.  

Hey everyone! Here is the link to my comprehensive Beatles photo archive. I'm always editing and adding new photos when I find them. I've been working on it since 2022.

RINGO & PAUL: A MINI COMPILATION

McCartney offers a further, more emotional reminiscence: “I probably bore him by telling him the moment when the three of us realised he was The Guy. In my recollection it’s at the Cavern and there’s me, John and George — which, right there, is pretty cool — standing at the front doing our thing, facing out on the mics. And then behind us there’s this new guy depping, who we knew we liked — we’d seen him in another band. But now he was playing with us. And it just felt so different. It felt so amazing, and it just locked in with what we were all about. And I have this very vivid recollection of kind of looking at John and him looking at me and looking at George and him looking at me, and the three of us are going, ‘What the fuck, this is fucking amazing!” As McCartney describes this, he wipes his eye. “And as you can see, it gets emotional. There was a moment.”

Keith Smith, Assistant Engineer: All I can say about Ringo is that you just have to listen and watch him playing drums with Paul on bass, it’s pure synergy. I can’t think of any other way to describe it. He is a completely unique drummer and when they play together it’s as near to perfect and natural as I have ever witnessed. It is something that still to this day hasn’t changed.

McCartney digresses for a moment to describe the most recent example of getting-together-with-Ringo, nine days before this conversation, at the end of his show at Dodger Stadium: “Just the other night we finished our tour in Los Angeles and Ringo got up and we were doing ‘Helter Skelter’ together, and when I wasn’t on the mic, in the solo breaks and stuff, I really made a point of turning round and watching this guy drum. And thinking, ‘My God, you know, the memories across this ten-yard gap here,’ with him on the drums and me on the bass. The lifetime that’s going on here, and here he is! And I was just listening to him during that song. I was doing my performance but basically [he sings] When I get to the bottom I go back to the top — as I’m doing that bit, there’s normally just the guitars sort of playing, but Ringo did what’s on the record” — McCartney sings the drum part to demonstrate — “building. So I’m going, 'Oh yeah, great.’ So you know it’s a sort of magic.”

“It’s always a special experience to play with Paul,” says Ringo now. “I love Paul and I love his playing and, you know, we spent a lot of time together in the sixties.”

Do with this what you will. I’ve been busy lately and went on a trip so a large majority of this was done while waiting in airport/museum bathrooms. It was very entertaining to read about these stories though.

Marvel Super Special #4: The Beatles Story Part TWO by George Perez and Klaus Janson