by Bob Spitz
“So I walked one, two flight, three flight, four
five, six, seven flight, eight flight more,
Up on the twelfth I’m starting to sag,
fifteenth before I’m ready to drag,
Get to the top—I’m too tired to rock.”
“Right off, I could see John was checking this kid out,” says Pete Shotton, who was standing behind John, off to the side. “Paul came on as very attractive, very loose, very easy, very confident—wildly confident. He played the guitar well. I could see that John was very impressed.”
Paul must have picked up on it, too. He seemed to zero right in on John, whom he recognized as the band’s legitimate front man. Not wanting to lose the edge, he launched into his own rendition of “Be-Bop-A-Lula.” It impressed John that Paul knew all the words; John could never remember them, preferring to make up his own as the rhyme scheme required. Paul’s version of the song drove harder, was sharper, bringing the tonic fifth in on cue, which the band had simply ignored. And he sang it with all the stops pulled out, belting it with complete abandon, as if he were standing in front of his bedroom mirror, without anyone else in the room. The fact that a local band and a dozen Scouts were crowded in there didn’t seem to faze Paul. Conversely, the onlookers were riveted by his performance.
“It was uncanny. He could play and sing in a way that none of us could, including John,” Eric Griffiths recalls. “He had such confidence, he gave a performance. It was so natural. We couldn’t get enough of it. It was a real eye-opener.”
But Paul wasn’t finished yet. Knowing even then how to work an audience, he tore through a medley of Little Richard numbers—“Tutti Frutti,” “Good Golly, Miss Molly,” and “Long Tall Sally”—really cutting loose, howling the lyrics like a madman, scaling those treacherous vocal Alps that served as the coup de grâce.
“Afterwards,” Colin Hanton says, “John and Paul circled each other like cats.” Their interest in each other was deeper and more complex than it appeared to anyone watching the encounter. There was instant recognition, a chemical connection made between two boys who sensed in the other the same heartfelt commitment to this music, the same do-or-die. For all the circling, posturing, and checking out that went on, what it all came down to was love at first sight.
After listening to Paul play, John recalled, “I half thought to myself, ‘He’s as good as me.’ Now, I thought, if I take him on, what will happen? It went through my head that I’d have to keep him in line if I let him join [the band]. But he was good, so he was worth having. He also looked like Elvis. I dug him.”
Paul and Ivan left before the Quarry Men’s evening “dance concert” in the church hall, playing between sets of an old-fashioned dance band. Aside from a brief electrical storm, which knocked out the lights for a while, the later show came off without a hitch. The Quarry Men packed up their gear afterward and hopped onto various buses home, except for John and Pete, who decided to walk. It was a beautiful night. The storm had drained the humidity from the air, and the boys took a shortcut along a piece of land they called “the style,” a “slither of rock only as wide as a passageway” that led across the quarry into Linkstor Road.
They walked without talking most of the way. At some point during their stroll, John glanced sideways at his friend and asked, “What did you think of that kid, Paul?” Shotton was crestfallen at what he interpreted as “a danger signal,” a warning that their friendship was about to face a serious challenge. “I’d watched his reaction. In his question ‘What did you think of him?’ he was talking about personally, not musically.” Pete answered John honestly. “I liked him, actually,” he said. “I thought he was really good.”
Shotton realized then and there that Paul’s infiltration was “a fait accompli.” Even when John immediately inquired, “What do you think about him joining the band?” he knew the decision had already been made.
[II]
That summer, everything changed—the friendship, the band, and especially their lives.
At the end of July, postcards were returned containing the test scores of the General Certificate of Education Ordinary level exams that fifth formers had taken before school let out. The O levels were crucial to a student’s destiny: they determined whether a sixteen-year-old was eligible to return for a sixth year, go on to higher education, or be unloaded into the workforce. “The whole point of a grammar school was to get students to do well on this examination and hopefully go on to university,” says Rod Davis, who had passed his subjects with flying colors, thus designating him for Cambridge. It didn’t seem to faze John that he had failed every one of them, most by just a few points below the 45 percent cutoff. He was “disappointed” in not passing art, a course that by all accounts he should have aced, but as he was to admit, “I’d given up.” John refused all Mimi’s suggestions for apprenticeships and jobs in the family domain.
Instead, John turned all his attention and energy to the pursuit of music. He was haunted by Paul McCartney’s display of skill at the garden fete, the way he’d wielded the guitar so smoothly and with such panache, the way he’d sung all the correct words to the rock ’n roll songs. “Paul had made a huge impression on John,” says Pete Shotton. “In a way, his ability underscored all John’s [musical] shortcomings.”
Retreating to his bedroom, John practiced the guitar for hours each day in an effort to broaden his repertoire. Painstakingly, he transposed the banjo chords he’d learned into proper guitar positions. He waited patiently for certain songs to play over Radio Luxembourg, then copied a line or two of lyrics into a notebook, satisfied that he’d made some progress until the next opportunity arose. He cherished these transcripts as though they were the Dead Sea Scrolls, he told later interviewers.
None of this, however, satisfied his desire to streamline the band. As it was, the Quarry Men were as ragtag a bunch of musicians as anyone could put together. Of the core group, only Rod Davis showed any promise, and he was committed to playing skiffle, which John was growing to detest. The rest of the lads—Griff, Len, and Colin—had no spark, as far as he was concerned. They’d served a purpose, but they’d outlived their usefulness.
John spent much time debating what to do about the situation—and Paul. “Was it better to have a guy who was better than the guy I had in?” he wondered. “To make the group stronger, or to let me be stronger?”
Ivan Vaughan solved part of the problem by simply inviting Paul McCartney to join the Quarry Men. He and Len Garry, who were classmates of Paul’s, had independently courted their friend during the last week school was in session. “John was very laid-back about it,” recalls Shotton, offering no real enthusiasm other than saying, “Oh. Great.” But Pete could tell that “he seemed relieved” by the development. The only foreseeable problem was that Paul was leaving immediately for Scout camp, followed by a spell at Butlins Holiday Camp in Yorkshire with his father and brother, and wasn’t expected back until school started in September.
In fact, in the interim John had time to polish his technique and attend to other matters that necessitated his attention. One had to do with the gridlock on guitar that would be caused by Paul’s joining the band. It was impractical for the Quarry Men to carry four guitarists, especially in light of Paul’s ability. That meant either Rod or Griff would have to be sacked. “Rod took everything too seriously,” says an observer who often accompanied the band and considered Davis “a bit snobbish, too concerned with doing things by the book.” On several occasions John had reprimanded him for appearing “too flash,” which, in Davis’s opinion, signaled that “he didn’t want it to look as though I could play better than him.” There had always been some friction between the boys, be it their attitude toward school or their regard of propriety in general. In any case, the choice was simple and relatively painless. Davis had gone on summer vacation to Annecy, France, and was eased out of the band by his very absence.
In the following years, while at Cambridge, Rod played banjo in a similar
band that succeeded, however superficially, in making a record for Decca.* Rod mentioned this rather blithely to John when they bumped into each other crossing Clayton Square in Liverpool center in the spring of 1960. An actual record—the taste of it must have made John salivate with envy. “He asked me if I could [learn to] play drums and wanted to go to Hamburg,” Rod recalls with a pang of wistfulness. As preposterous as the idea sounded at the time, it nevertheless intrigued him, even if his parents strictly forbade it. He was preparing to enter his final year at university—and besides, the band, as it was described, sounded like another of John’s flaky deals. The name told Rod everything he needed to know: they were now calling themselves the Beatles.
Mimi had resigned herself to the fact that John would not, as she had hoped, return to Quarry Bank for the prestigious sixth form; John’s O level results put that squarely out of consideration. And yet, she was not convinced that his situation was hopeless. He wasn’t beyond redemption; he wasn’t like his father. One thing was certain: Mimi wouldn’t allow John to waste away in his bedroom with that guitar. Whatever the consequences of his indifference toward school, the responsibility fell to Mimi alone. She’d have to make some crucial decisions for him.
Mimi’s mission was precipitated by an event that had nearly rendered her apoplectic. The first week in August, John and Nigel Walley procured railway passes to Hampshire, where they intended to enroll at a catering college. John discussed his plan with Mimi, who put her foot down. No nephew of hers was going to be a ship’s steward, especially considering the deplorable precedent: Freddie Lennon wasn’t her idea of a role model, not of any kind. Mortified by such a scheme, she accosted John’s headmaster, William Pobjoy, and demanded that he sort something out for the boy he let slip through the cracks.
Pobjoy recommended that they reapply to Liverpool College of Art. John had gone there for an interview before receiving the O levels results but failed to impress the proper authorities. But Pobjoy’s letter appealing to Headmaster Stephenson won John a reprieve. This time Mimi picked out his wardrobe and accompanied him to the school, a fortresslike building on Hope Street, next door to the Liverpool Institute. He was interviewed by Arthur Ballard, who taught painting. Even before John met him, Ballard’s name struck an appropriate chord of awe. There were marvelous stories about Ballard’s exploits—as a former heavyweight boxer, drinker, womanizer, vulgarian, rebel, aesthete, “soft-core” communist, and all-around provocateur at a conservative institution where the emphasis was on making art as opposed to waves. His status as a legendary teacher was due in no small part to an irresistible personality, a gritty, vaunted machismo that galvanized his lectures. And he was extraordinarily talented. No one outside of the other Beatles would take more of an interest in John’s welfare until, three years later, Brian Epstein materialized.
Be that as it may, there was no immediate bond formed between John and Ballard—far from it, in fact. From that first meeting there was palpable friction between them. Ballard’s brusque demeanor intimidated John, who reacted defensively. Conversely, the cheekiness and defiance that provided for John at Quarry Bank didn’t cut it with Ballard; he didn’t for a moment buy into the boy’s indulgent attitude. “Arthur could see right through John,” says a classmate who knew Ballard socially. And yet, on a deeper level, he recognized budding potential that had escaped other educators. Whether there was an artistic empathy in the haphazard line drawings or merely some dim intuition he tapped into, Ballard felt John deserved a chance and endorsed his entrance application.
Good news aside, it was no cause for celebration. When Mimi received the art college acceptance letter, John acknowledged it grudgingly. School was for grinds. “I was [going] there instead of going to work,” he would admit. There was nothing anyone could teach him that wasn’t better served by his wits. That much he’d learned from experience.
Through the summer, John grappled with adolescent longings. He had taken notice of Barbara Baker, a pretty, valentine-faced girl with a thick, slightly wild array of mauve-colored hair, flirtatious eyes, and a way of looking at him that suggested she had his number, which she did. In fact, she had had it from when they were both nine, at which time she pegged him as “a rather nasty little boy” who fired rubber-tipped arrows at her from a treehouse perch on Menlove Avenue. Though he saw Barbara daily, often listening to records in the parlor of Mendips, John was reluctant to introduce her as his girlfriend. “With Mimi, I was always just one of the gang,” said Barbara, who sensed in John’s aunt “an air of foreboding.” It was evident from the way he acted that John preferred that Mimi not interfere in this new grown-up area of his life. Barb’s status was more aboveboard at Julia’s, where she received his mother’s enthusiastic approval and felt, if not one of the family, at least “completely comfortable” in the role of girlfriend.
It wasn’t just romance that had him dizzy. He was moving on to college and away from the old gang; breaching the bounds between Aunt Mimi’s and Julia’s house; changing his appearance to suit a restless soul; and experiencing an intense emotional awakening. In the midst of all this was the crucible of his consuming passion—music. Rock ’n roll—what precious little there was of it in Liverpool—became his dependable touchstone. The execution itself was still primitive—John had barely five chords under his belt—but its effectiveness was dead-on. It was only a matter of time before someone or something provided the proper tools.
In a manner of speaking, he could have held his breath. The last week in August, Paul McCartney returned to Liverpool, tanned and noticeably slimmer. In addition to starting school, he came back to begin a relationship he seemed destined for: hooking up with John Lennon. Their first official practice together, a Saturday afternoon get-together in Colin Hanton’s living room, was more revealing than productive. Paul blew in, full of enthusiasm, ready to rock. He knew “more than a dozen songs” that the boys had been eager but unable to pull off: “Party Doll,” “Honeycomb,” and “Bye Bye Love,” among them. John had been working on “All Shook Up,” but Paul had it down cold, with all the vocal trimmings. Such an extravagant outpouring did not go unappreciated. For perhaps the first time in his life, John ceded the spotlight without putting up a struggle. In another situation, he might have misread this spectacle as a blatant power grab; anxious about losing control, sarcasm would have surfaced to mask his envy and inexperience. But he was enamored of Paul’s prodigious talent, so much so that all previous reservations disappeared. Transfixed, John squatted on his haunches, squinting, close enough to study Paul’s elastic hands. Despite the convoluted right-handed chording (Paul was left-handed), which gave a reverse “mirror image” to his patterns, the mechanics made perfect sense to John. “Paul taught me how to play properly,” John recalled. “So I learned [the chords] upside down, and I’d go home and reverse them.” Paul, he discovered, had the necessary tools to build a sturdy musical foundation. Hanton and Eric Griffiths did their best to keep up during this and subsequent sessions, but next to Paul’s stylish craftsmanship, their best proved inadequate.* An instinctive musician only served to highlight their shortcomings. And in Paul, John saw something that he’d never before consciously considered, something essential that couldn’t be taught or absorbed. More than his ability or his singing voice, both of which were first-rate, John admired Paul’s knack for performing, his seemingly innate power to excite, to shade the music with personality. It seemed to define everything John was thinking about rock ’n roll and a way to perform.
“From the beginning, Paul was a showman,” says Pete Shotton. “He’d probably been a showman all his life.”
It was rough and it was raw, but it was also one of those moments when invisible pieces of an invisible jigsaw puzzle snap together. Never in the realm of pop music would there be a more perfect or productive match—all the more timely, because individually Paul McCartney and John Lennon were headed for trouble.
[III]
On a cool September day in 1957, between classes
at the Liverpool College of Art, Bill Harry was relaxing in a corner of the canteen with two friends from the school’s new graphic design department. The three artistes, as they referred to themselves, were critiquing students at the other tables, conferring in urgent whispers, and growing more depressed—and scornful—by the minute. “To us, they were all dilettantes, dabblers,” recalls Harry, a poor boy from a tough dockside neighborhood who believed that art students by their nature ought to be practicing bohemians. These classmates disgusted him for their anemic conformity: every one of them dressed alike, in either fawn, gray, or bottle green turtleneck sweaters and corduroy pants beneath either fawn, gray, or bottle green duffel coats. A postwar squirearchy of provincial underachievers gone back on their birthright.
Suddenly his gaze rotated toward the dark streak of a figure weaving through the tables with a violent grace. “Bloody hell!” Harry shouted, startling his friends from their funk. “That’s a teddy boy there!”
All eyes noticed. John Lennon stuck out “like a sore thumb,” in a baby-blue Edwardian jacket and frilly shirt with a string tie, black pegged jeans, and the kind of crepe-soled orthopedic shoes such as Frankenstein would wear. With his hair ducktailed down behind his neck and jaw-length sideburns, the jarring “ted” image emanated heat. Bill Harry wondered how a character like that had managed to slip into a toothless enclave like the art college.
It had been easy, of course—and irresistible. Unlike the procrustean law enforced at Quarry Bank, the art college had no dress code, no nervous courtesies. There were no masters prowling the halls like bounty hunters, pouncing on offenders, no detention handed out for minor infractions. All gallant pretenses were abandoned. “There was total and utter freedom,” recalls a student who was enrolled in John’s class, “and everyone thought it was fantastic.”