Hello To Berlin

I don't know how Ray thought this story makes him look like a good journalist. "It was the most important story of my career" what, because one of the subjects was so flattered by it that they flattered you in turn and got you to be (one of) their court stenographers for a time? He's better than most Beatles writers but this story makes him sound easily bought and bad at his job, idk why he'd tell it.

Cultivating journalists was one of John’s best PR skills. He was very good at building relationships, encouraging loyalties, creating a dynamic where his interests became the journalist’s interests.

Ray Connolly is a good example. He met Paul first, reporting on the filming of Magical Mystery Tour. He was new to the job, and remembers “sitting meekly outside the crowd in the bar in the hotel, wondering how I was ever going to get to know anyone, when suddenly someone sat in the empty chair next to mine. It was Paul McCartney.” From this start, Connolly builds a working relationship with Paul and the other Beatles. But over time, he becomes closer to John and Yoko - because they put the work in. Paul is friendly to a shy journalist, and vaguely supportive afterwards. But John rings him up, pays attention to his writing, rewards him when he (and Yoko) like what Connolly’s doing.

Here’s the big turning point. On 27 November 1969, Connolly published an article headlined “1969: The day the Beatles died”. “In writing this article, I was, in journalistic parlance, flying a kite,” Connolly explains - writing up his own guess about what was happening. “In terms of my career, it turned out to be probably the most important piece I ever wrote – and at least one of the Beatles was delighted when he read it.” And here’s how he expressed that delight:

The day after this piece was published a white rose in a see-through plastic box was delivered to my desk at the Evening Standard. An attached card read ‘To Ray with love from John and Yoko’. The unwritten message couldn’t have been clearer. From that moment I was to have my own ‘Deep Throat’ in the Beatles organisation, leaking me a steady flow of information - John Lennon.

I laughed out loud when I first read that, because it’s just so perfect. The white rose turns 1960s flower power into the new, stripped-back, all-white JohnandYoko aesthetic. It keeps the imagery of peace and flowers, but moves them into the art gallery. The rose comes encased in plastic, another trademark (think of Plastic Ono Band, or John’s enthusiasm for the idea of performing in a giant plastic bubble in Get Back.) And the written message doesn’t say anything concrete: no specific praise, no comment on the piece. Instead of committing themselves, they leave Ray to join the dots.

Which he did. More than that, just look at how he reads the situation: he sees John as his source, rather seeing himself as John’s journalist. Within a month, John and Yoko are paying Ray’s first-class fare so he can fly to Canada to report on their peace campaign. Ray Connolly strikes me as one of the brighter Beatle-adjacent journalists - he kept his independence, and managed to stay on good terms with Paul as well as John - but he fell for that one hook, line and sinker.

mclennon truthers 🤝 john was killed by cia truthers

(wrongly) believing that when Yoko dies It'll All Come Out.

Swinging through the ivories

Last Saturday saw the 100th anniversary of the birth of Mary Lou Williams, jazz pianist, composer, arranger and, in later life, founder of an organisation devoted to help jazz musicians suffering from drug addiction. Williams, like the blues singer Memphis Minnie, was a person whose personality and talent helped her rise above the strictures imposed by gender and race at the time.

She cut her teeth in the 30s writing and arranging for Benny Goodman’s and Duke Ellington’s bands, and in the 40s she mentored Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonius Monk, among others. She wasn’t restricted to playing in bands either – her large-scale compositions include the Zodiac Suite, a series of musical sketches, the long hymn called Black Christ of the Andes and several masses (following her conversion to Catholicism in the 50s).

As pianist Billy Taylor remembers, when Williams was mentoring Thelonius Monk she helped him refine his playing style – basically, she stopped him battering the holy shit out of the keyboard! Monk’s style needed to be toned down a bit, and the end result was still characteristically muscular but infused with greater feeling. No doubt Monk had many different mentors. but Taylor’s story shows that Williams was not an insignificant one.

Crates from every port.

On Instagram

paul's most relatable characteristic (to me) is being a complete weirdo and obsessively secretive about it

an important part of any feud is ruining your enemy’s whimsical schemes

I was looking through editions of my local newspaper for mentions of The Beatles and I thought this piece in the Bristol Evening Post was so interesting that I typed the whole thing out. I'm such a sucker for these early-ish interviews when they're all still so chatty and relatively excited by the fame and money.

Source: The Bristol Evening Post, 10 November 1964 (they played a concert in the city that day).

Transcript below the cut...

A distant volley of screams penetrated the quiet upstairs foyer of the theatre.  

“Oops, here we go,” said a middle-aged reporter.  “They’re here.  Can somebody tell me which one is which?”

The television men switched on their lights, the photographers squinted through their viewfinders and the journalists juggled with notebooks and pencils.

“I know one of them’s called Ringo,” said the middle aged reporter.  “Could somebody point him out?”

There was a clatter of feet on the stairs, and the Beatles appeared in single file through a doorway, grinning all over their faces, and made straight for the bar.

Everybody instantly forgot all their pungent, searching questions they had been thinking up for weeks, and started firing away with fairly idiotic queries like: “How do you feel?” and “What are you doing these days?”

The television people grabbed John and Paul, who happened to be in the front, and I grabbed George, who started telling me about his new airgun.

“I spend my spare time shooting potatoes off trees in the garden,” said George. “I started with bits of cardboard on the clothesline, but cardboard doesn’t do anything very spectacular when you hit it.  So now I balance spuds on the trees and blast them to bits.”

A television man sneaked up behind me and shoved a microphone in between me and George. George clinked his glass on it and shouted “Cheers” down the mike.

“What are you going to do when the Beatles finish?” asked the television man.

“I’m going to be an engine driver,” said George.  “If they won’t let me have a train, I’ll drive a fire engine.”

Ringo, meanwhile, had retired to a corner for a quiet smoke.

The middle-aged journalist was busy interviewing Paul, whom he thought was Ringo. 

 “Press conferences can be quite a laugh,” said Ringo.  “Have a ciggie.”

We lit our ciggies and talked about Ringo’s New Image.

“Since the film, people seem to notice me a bit more,” said Ringo.  “They used to talk to the others and leave me out because I was supposed to be the quiet one.  Actually I can be quite noisy.  I used to feel rather out of it, but I feel like a proper Beatle now.  It’s amazing though how many people still can’t tell us apart.  Reporters still ask me, “How are you, John?”

The Beatles’ road manager, Neil Aspinall, came over and led Ringo off to have his picture taken.  The Aspinall rescued Paul from a bunch of reporters and the Beatles wandered off to inspect the stage in the A.B.C. theatre.

On stage, Paul was doodling on an electronic organ, and Ringo was doing a violent drum duet with the drummer of one of their supporting groups.

Neil Aspinall had promised me half an hour in the Beatles’ dressing room - the pop equivalent of a pass to the Kremlin.

“I can’t disturb the others for a minute,” he said, “but John’s upstairs.  You can start with him.”

John was chatting with two old school friends from Liverpool.  In the corner of the dressing room a TV set was showing a children’s programme with the sound turned off.

John jumped up, shook hands, and insisted on me taking his armchair. “You look as if you need it, Rog,” he said.

We talked about the allegations that the Beatles are slipping.

“Last year,” said John. “Beatlemania was news. Now No Beatlemania is news. The press have gone to town on the places where there have only been a couple of hundred kids outside of theatres instead of a couple of thousand.  They haven’t bothered to report things like Leeds, where there were 15 of the kids on the stage at one point.”

“Last year that would have been news.  It doesn’t bother us.  We’re sold out pretty well everywhere.  Can you think of another group that is filling halls at the moment? The Stones aren’t.  Maybe we should have done this tour earlier.  We all wanted to do England again before America this year. But Brian said no. And what Eppy says goes. He literally plans our careers.”

“I think we’re better organised now, anyway.  The police are marvellous.  They get us stowed away in the theatres before the kids come out of school, so obviously there aren’t so many riotous scenes.”

The idea of the Beatles breaking up still seems unthinkable. But I asked John if they ever considered adding any extra musicians.

“We’ve thought about it — yes,” said John. “We were once a five-strong group, before Stuart Sutcliffe died.  We’ve toyed with the idea of adding a piano or organ in the past. And for our last disc, we did think of bringing in an orchestra.  But we always rejected the idea in the end.  You see, for the kind of music we play, any more musicians would be superfluous.  I suppose we might have a couple of guest people on the odd occasion, but they wouldn’t be real Beatles.  I’d turn round at the end and say: “Ta very much to Arthur on the organ and Harry on the flute” and that would be that.  I just don’t think anyone else could fit in with us now. We’re a sort of closed shop, the four of us.  An outsider just wouldn’t be accepted, if you see what I mean.”

Before the Beatles’ Christmas show in London and the shooting of their next film — “which is going to be a bit madder than the last one” said John — they are taking a fortnight’s break.

“I’ll just stay home with the wife, Cynthia, and play records,” said John.

Home is his £20,000 Surrey country house, purchased in July as a retreat from the fans.

“Cyn and I are living on the second floor with the cooks and people,” said John. “The rest of the place is like a battlefield.  It’s swarming with electricians and plumbers and odd job men, all trying to get it straight for us before Christmas. I keep on bumping into these strange blokes on the stairs.  I haven’t a clue who they are, but Cyn seems to have them organised.  I’m not sticking my nose into that side of things, except to say vaguely how I want the house to look. Can’t even put a plug on myself.”

“The gardens? Well, there are an awful lot of them, I’ve seen a bloke sort of digging around the place. He smiles and waves, and I smile and wave back. I suppose he must be the gardener. His name is probably Fred.”

John said occasionally Beatle fans manage to find the house.

“They’re usually so exhausted by that time that they haven’t got the strength to actually battle their way in and pull my hair.  Though, the other morning when I was asleep, Cyn found some of them crawling up the stairs.”

Paul and George came in.  Paul sat on the windowsill and George read out an interview with P.J. Proby in a pop paper, in which Proby claimed to have been the first to introduce a certain sound to pop.

“He’s fantastic, isn’t he?” said Paul. “He really believes he’s the greatest. We must tell him some time.”

I asked Paul if he could think of anything which the Beatles hadn’t already been asked.

“There isn’t anything,” said Paul. “But we don’t mind answering the same questions all over again. We like talking to people.”

He enthused about his new Aston Martin. “I did 120 up the M1 and died of fright.”

And he talked about the Beatles futures.

“Whatever happens, I think John and I will carry on writing songs. And I think George, Ringo and I will all get married eventually. But not yet. We haven’t got time.”

Ringo came in with a musical paper carrying a feature article about Paul.

“Don’t like the picture,” said Paul. “They had a much better one of John last week.”

“It made me look like a fat idiot,” said John.

“Exactly,” said George.

A picture of the Beatles suddenly flashed on to the television screen.  

“Quick, turn up the sound, Rog,” said John.

“Don’t bother,” said George. “It’s only that ugly old Beatle lot. I thought they were all dead.”

I enjoy your blog and opinion especially father and son McCartney. I don't mean anything bad with this post. I just try to understand Paul a bit more. Can you give some opinion about Paul's relationship with his Mother Mary, the aunts, and the stepmother and sister Ruth. I've seen some posts and read a few biographs but it doesn"t really seem to fit. Do you think his Mother would have allowed Paul to become a part if the band? And this is just a personal question to you. Do you think that Paul's father might have thought about the queer posibilty with Paul and John?

Hahaha you're like "you do know he has other family members too, right?"

And you are so correct! Thanks for asking this, I'm really excited to get into my thoughts on these extremely niche, rare Beatles characters lol.

Long rambling road under the cut

Mary:

Born to an Irish immigrant father and a Liverpool-Irish mother in Liverpool.

When her mother died when she was very young, her father lost everything in a horse racing bet and moved them back to a tiny farm in Ireland where she was expected to become the new mother to her younger siblings

When her father remarried, his new wife basically acted like Cinderella's step mother to Mary, so she found shelter with some aunts in Liverpool.

At 14, she started working full time as a nurse, while continuing to train to expand her skill set.

By the time WWII came around, she was a state registered nurse and midwife.

She was 31 when she met Jim. At that age at that time, she was considered a spinster. Secondary sources say she was too career-driven to have thought of marriage, and that's possible. But my theory is she just wasn't interested in the whole husband and kids thing after her childhood experiences. Whatever the case, Jim won her over easily, according to sources.

Jim also won her over when it came to religious studies. Apparently, before Jim Mary was a somewhat faithful Catholic, and though it mattered enough to her to have her boys baptized (or christened or whatever it is they do to babies) and taught the basics of the religion at home, she agreed they would not go to Catholic school or attend mass. My theory is this was a class climbing thing.

Because they were part of the war effort, Jim and Mary were allowed to live in government housing, and they continued doing so after the war because Mary continued working for the government.

Paul and Mike always say it was her choice to constantly be moving to slightly nicer apartments in slightly nicer areas. I don't know if she earned that choice through just being really dedicated to her job or through diplomacy with whoever was in charge of that or both, but I would love to know. We know Paul got his diplomacy skills from Jim and trauma, but could be also have some from Mary's side?

Mary was apparently quite strict with her children, had extremely high expectations for academics, behavior, cleanliness, and even accent. She must have approved at least to some degree of Jim's corporal punishment, because she would threaten to call him in when she was very upset with her sons (for example, when Paul drew a nude woman at school). She was the more affectionate parent, but neither Paul nor Mike describe her as notably cuddly or doting, and if she only managed to say to her husband that she loved him on her death bed, it's not entirely out of the realm of possibilities that she did the same to her children.

When Paul has been asked about his earliest memory, he has mentioned three things that I'm aware of. 1. Waiting to hit some bully over the head with a crow bar (sounds too crazy to be true but also too crazy to be a lie) 2. A neighbor gifting his mother a porcelain doll in gratitude for her work to bring their baby into the world (he says people would bring gifts often) 3. His mother bicycling to work in the snow (she continued to ride her bicycle to work even doubled over in pain during her struggle with breast cancer, and she was on call at all hours of the night and day)

Although Mary worked very hard outside the home and always made more money than Jim, it seems she also took on the majority, if not the entirely, of the housework. Before her death, Paul remembers her heaping piles of pancakes on shrove Tuesday, sugar butties, scouse, and yorkshire pudding with golden syrup. After Mary's death, Mike remembers eating bread fried in lard, fighting over it with Paul, and ending up throwing it at the wall, leaving a stain, and getting in trouble. Paul also took on cooking responsibility after Mary's death. Mary kept the house immaculately clean. She refused to own a clothes washer, saying it was immoral. When she was literally about to die from tumors in her breasts and brain, Mary deep the whole house and laid out her children's clothes, so everything would be ready if she didn't come back. (Which is insane on multiple levels. 1. That poor woman. Why did she feel like she had to do all that? 2. As a mom, I'd rather spend that time doing some activity my children enjoyed or talking with them or writing them letters or something, but for whatever reason, either Mary just didn't have that in her, or she genuinely thought the house was more important)

Paul definitely has (or had) a lot of strong feelings about Mary. Two of his biggest regrets as far as things he wishes he hadn't said had to do with her. The first was while she was alive. She, as mentioned before, was very big on the Received Pronunciation accent because she was very big on giving her sons a better life than she'd been given and at the time that was a major key to the class ladder. Anyway, once, when they had company over, Mary was trying to talk posh, and Paul corrected her in front of the company and she was clearly very embarrassed and he immediately regretted it and continued to regret it for decades. Then there's the infamous (VALID!) "what are we going to do without her money?" quote, which has been talked about. I bring it up here to point out that pre-teen Paul very much depended on his mother financially. Speaking of memories of his mother, though, Paul said, in the early 2000s I believe, that if he could go back in time for any reason, it would be to spend more time with his mother.

The family didn't have money for a marked grave at the time (I assume) and her grave remains unmarked to this day, probably for privacy and respect, but someone on the Mohin side of the family made a big stink about it on the internet because Paul was apparently stingy with that side of the family. Whatever.

My I guess nutshell take on Mary is this. Paul didn't really think his mom was cool like he thought his dad was, but he understood that she was the parent he needed to model himself after if he was going to be successful, so he tried to be practical, hard working, perfectionistic, ambitious, stoic, dependable, gentle, strong, etc like she was.

Mike:

I really think this quote sort of defines the complication and depth of love in their relationship.

Everybody was quite confident that Paul would pass the eleven-plus – for Mum and Dad thought of him as the brains of the family. And of course, he didn’t let us down, because he was a natural at exams. When I passed in my turn, it was so unexpected, apparently, that Mum burst out crying – I think the idea that she had two “intelligent” sons was too much for her! They say sensitivity often goes with intelligence and certainly I’d say this was true of Paul. Although on the surface he tried to give the impression that he was a fairly tough, swashbuckling, mildly-tearaway character, underneath there was a great deal of thoughtfulness and real tenderness.” – Mike McCartney, 1965

They also did all the normal sibling stuff like dangerous dares, rough housing embarrassment, stupid shenanigans, etc, and there are stories of Paul coming to Mike's aid when it came to bullies at school and their dad. There's all the great pictures Mike took of Paul with the camera Paul got him, the McGear album, and Paul being Mike's best man.

My take is that they were and are very close and loving and protective of each other despite being sort of accidentally pitted against each other by the toxic family roles they fell into.

Aunts:

Just on Jim's side there were six aunts, and on Mary's there were potentially three, though I'm not sure how close they were with that side of the family.

btw very weird naming going on. There's an Ann and an Annie as well as having an auntie Jin, Jim's older sister.

Jim's side actually started having these "family sing songs" when he was very young for the purpose of making money for the family the minute they were gifted that piano Paul learned on. They'd advertise and charge for admission to these things. They kept them up, just for a family bonding experience, long after they'd all got grown up jobs and spouses and kids. Paul remembers these events extremely fondly, credits them for much of his success as a composer, and brings them up any time anyone asks about his family life growing up. The drunken singing aunties generally feature prominently. Paul also kept up the tradition at least into the late seventies.

Paul and Mike were sent to live with a few different aunties for a few months after Mary's death while the family tried to get Jim's suicidal ideation etc under control. Accounts vary, but I believe it was once of these aunts who told them the news about their mother and sent them to school that very day.

Some of the aunts would take turns coming on about a biweekly basis to help Jim Paul and Mike around the house after Mary's death. We don't know if this continued indefinitely or just until they could get their feet under them again. Either way, they definitely get points for doing that.

Auntie Jin once told Mike and Paul off for looking unhappy soon after their mother's death and reminded them to think of their father and stop acting so sad. Well meaning, I'm sure, since she was probably terrified for them that one little thing could result in their losing a second parent in the most horrible way. But. Definitely scaring.

Auntie Jin was known as "control" and was very much the Queen Bea of the family.

Once Paul got money, he began paying for extended family expenses, like phone bills, hospital stays, or new furniture. This obviously includes the aunties.

When the extended family heard he was getting into weed, they sent Auntie Jin to go talk some sense into him, but he converted her and she went home and converted the whole family.

My general take on the aunties is this. They all seem to be doing their very very best with very very little. I don't even begrudge the emotional abuse because they genuinely didn't have a better option. I do wince at the financial exploitation, but only slightly. It's one of those things where you would hope they'd have a little more empathy for their nephew holding up the family like Louisa from Encanto, but nobody is perfect.

Angie:

Married a man almost 30 years her senior after meeting him five times to make sure he had full access to his millionaire son's bank account.

Enabled, or at least did nothing to stop, her husband's crippling gambling addiction, instead allowing her stepson to cover the damages.

Resented when said unlimited bank account turned into an allowance upon said son's marriage and fatherhood.

Panicked when her ancient husband kicked it and immediately sold off the famous son's personal childhood mementos while he was conveniently in another country for work.

Got pissed and went to the press when stepson cut her off.

Calls herself Mrs McCartney to this day for marketing purposes and milks that dead relationship like an abused dairy cow.

Do I blame her for getting that bag? Not really. Am I a fan? Not really.

Ruth:

Remembers thinking Jim's new mansion and the nice things inside it were impossibly huge and fantastic when she first met him.

Remembers Jim as kind, gentle, and stoic.

Remembers Paul's time with Jane Asher very fondly and seems almost to credit her for her positive early memories of Paul, such as them (she also remembers John) teaching her how to ride a bike or taking her shopping. Paul bought her a dog and they'd play in the backyard and experiment when being parents on her and she loved it.

Her remembrances shift dramatically with the arrival of Linda. The shared bank account closed, Paul was focused on his actual children, and she has a few memories of Paul verbally taking out his pain on her similar to the apple employees.

Then, she gets almost Francie Schwartz levels of bitter after Paul cut her and her mother off. She was almost seventeen, and Paul had paid for her to go to all the best schools all her life and set her up with every possible advantage, not to mention the famous connection she'd go on to drag into the next century. I don't feel bad at all.

My basic take on her is this. Spoiled brat. Excellent source on Paul and his dad.

Did Jim think John and Paul might've been gay for each other?

My gut tells me yes, but there's really no way of knowing. Jim might've hated John because he was worried about Paul's sexuality, or he might've just hated John for being a positive presence in his son's life who encouraged independence. Who knows?