Beatles vs. Stones

by John McMillian

  “It was an attack from the North”: As quoted in Davis, Old Gods, 33.

  “They had long hair, scruffy clothes”: Of course the Beatles were not, at that point, known for wearing “scruffy clothes.”

  “That’s when I told them”: As quoted in Dalton, The First Twenty Years, 26.

  Gomelsky continues: “The club used to open”: As quoted in Dalton, The First Twenty Years, 26.

  “Shit, that’s the Beatles!”: Wyman, as quoted in Pritchard and Lysaght, An Oral History, 122; Wyman, Stone Alone, 127.

  “We were playing a pub”: YouTube clip, “Keith Richards—Friends with the Beatles.”

  “I didn’t want to look at them”: As quoted in Yoko Ono, ed., Memories of John Lennon (New York: HarperCollins, 2005), 105.

  “an intentionally intimidating image”: Barry Miles, The Beatles Diary, Volume One: The Beatles Years (London and New York: Omnibus Press, 2001), 93.

  he said their long leather jackets: Chris Hutchins, Elvis Meets the Beatles (London: Smith Gryphon, 1994), 66.

  they exuded a kind of “Fuck You”: Oldham, Stoned, 171.

  “almost frightening-looking young men”: Boyfriend magazine, 1963, n.d, n.p.

  “four-headed monster”: As quoted in MOJO’s The Beatles: Ten Years That Shook the World, 67.

  “They could do their stuff”: As quoted in The Beatles Anthology, 101.

  “I remember standing in some sweaty room”: As quoted in The Beatles Anthology, 101.

  “It was a real rave,” he reminisced: As quoted in Wyman, Stone Alone, 127.

  “carried themselves with the air”: Phelge, Nankering with the Stones, 105.

  “Everyone was trying to find out”: Phelge, Nankering with the Stones, 106.

  “John was really nice”: As quoted in Ono, Memories of John, 105.

  “A harmonica with a button”: As quoted in The Beatles Anthology, 101. Apparently under Jones’s influence, Lennon came around to this point of view as well. Six weeks later, on June 1, 1963, the Beatles performed Chuck Berry’s “I Got to Find My Baby” for the BBC show Pop Goes the Beatles, and this was the first time Lennon was recorded using a harp. What’s more, when disc jockey Lee Peters tried introducing the song by mentioning that Lennon would be playing a “harmonica” on it, Lennon abruptly cut him off.

  “Harp! It’s a harp,” he said pedantically.

  “What’s a harp?”

  “The harp. I’m playing a harp on this one.”

  “You’re playing a harp?”

  “Harmonica I play in ‘Love Me Do.’ Harp in this one [unintelligible].”

  Not understanding the difference, Peters said to Lennon (in mock frustration): “Do you want to do these announcements?” and then pretended to storm out of the studio. In all likelihood, Lennon had quickly absorbed Jones’s predilection for playing a harp (and later, he would conclude that the harmonica he’d played on “Love Me Do” hadn’t been “funky-blues enough” for his taste). Still, the distinction is rather silly, since all harps are also harmonicas.

  “Mick says [that meeting] is what made”: As quoted in Barry Miles, Many Years from Now, 101.

  Only later would they discover: Still, the Beatles’ success was totally unprecedented. By 1964, they were making so much money (on an 83 percent tax rate) that Board of Trade president (later Prime Minister) Edward Heath quipped that they were propping up the entire national economy. (The Beatles responded in 1966 with George Harrison’s song “Taxman.”)

  Brian Jones asked them to autograph a magazine photo: This is according to biographer Stephen Davis in his book Old Gods Almost Dead. But the story about Brian asking for an autograph and taping it to the wall does not seem to appear in any of the extant primary sources.

  “They were very cool guys”: As quoted in According to the Stones, 55.

  “Brian read it again aloud”: Phelge, Nankering with the Stones, 104.

  For months afterward, Wyman said: Wyman, Stone Alone, 126.

  “We looked like this before”: As quoted in Davis, Old Gods, 45. Emphasis added.

  “Mick was made up”: Davis, Old Gods, 43. I have not been able to find this anecdote mentioned in any primary sources, or in any secondary literature that was published prior to Davis’s book in 2001. When I sent a note to Davis through his publisher, he failed to reply.

  “In the end I just gestured into”: George Melly, Revolt into Style: The Pop Arts (New York: Anchor Books, 1971), 73.

  “reached the threshold of pain”: “POPS for Everyone,” Radio Times (May 2, 1963), 39. Incidentally, a posed photo accompanying the Radio Times piece showed a delicately featured blonde teenager clenching her fists and screaming feverishly. It was Jane Asher, the beautiful London debutante and Juke Box Jury panelist to whom Paul McCartney would later become engaged but never marry. She was just seventeen.

  “And there’s a bunch of girls”: As quoted in Strausbaugh, Rock Til You Drop, 45.

  “This is what we like”: As quoted in Wyman, Stone Alone,128.

  According to a rumor, for years: See MOJO’s The Beatles, 32.

  “Nobody had ever played the Philharmonic”: Harrison was correct to say that the Philharmonic wasn’t in the business of hosting rock acts. But he was mistaken when he said that no rock act ever played there. Buddy Holly and the Crickets had performed at the Royal Albert Hall on March 20, 1958, when George was just fifteen. Though none of the future Beatles attended, biographer Jonathan Gould says Lennon and McCartney both “became completely caught up in the enthusiasm generated by Holly’s appearance.”

  “At the height of ’Pool mania”: Melly, Revolt into Style, 82.

  The Liverpool scene had been: Performers at the Lancashire and Cheshire Beat Group Contest played under the apprehension that the winner would receive a Decca recording contract. After it was over, though, the winners—a group called the Escorts—were informed that the prize was merely a Decca audition. The Escorts never made a proper album during their four-year career, though in 1983 (supposedly at the behest of Elvis Costello), Edsel Records reissued the twelve songs the group recorded as singles before they split up in 1967, on the LP From the Blue Angel. On one of the tracks, Paul McCartney played tambourine.

  “I’d really had my backside”: Dick Rowe, audio recording, “The Rolling Stones Past and Present,” Mutual Broadcast System, Broadcast dates: September 30–October 3, 1988. Hour one.

  “When George turned around”: Norman, The Stones, 95.

  “He took the next train to London”: Spitz, The Beatles, 407.

  “drove all day to be at the”: Davis, Old Gods, 56. Emphasis added.

  “Upon his return [from Liverpool]”: Email to author, 2/14/2011.

  “When we arrived”: Email to author, 2/14/2011.

  “There wasn’t a girl to be seen”: Dick Rowe, audio recording, “The Rolling Stones Past and Present,” Mutual Broadcast System, Broadcast dates: September 30–October 3, 1988. Hour one.

  “crowds of boys, rising”: Norman, The Stones, 207.

  “the most logical place”: Oldham, Stoned, 210.

  “I remember taking [the Stones’ audition tape]”: Rowe, audio recording, “The Rolling Stones Past and Present,” Mutual Broadcast System, Broadcast dates: September 30–October 3, 1988. Hour one.

  “He had us totally beaten there”: As quoted in Oldham, Stoned, 212.

  “Who has been most helpful”: As quoted in Rolling Stones Book, No. 1, June 1964, 11.

  “Giorgio, Giorgio, that’s what I want”: Strausbaugh, Rock Til You Drop, 45.

  “In these hectic days of Liverpool”: As quoted in George Tremlett, The Rolling Stones Story (London: Futura Publications, 1974), 61.

  “It’s good, punchy, and commercial”: As quoted in Nicholas Schaffner, The British Invasion: From the First Wave to the New Wave (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1982), 60.

  “would sit for hours composing letters”: As quoted in According to the Rolling Stones, 43.

  “When we left the club scene”: As quoted in W
yman, Stone Alone, 171.

  “was the most uneasy of all”: Wyman, Stone Alone, 171.

  “From the moment I joined”: Wyman, Stone Alone, 172.

  “You’re on the road 350 days”: As quoted in According to the Rolling Stones, 101. Richards was of course exaggerating about the extent of the Stones’ touring schedule.

  “Brian could be sweet—he was intelligent”: Rob Chapman, “Brian Jones,” MOJO (July 1999).

  Sometimes when the Stones performed: “For Charlie I think that was the most frustrating time,” Keith remarked. “He was a serious musician, a jazz drummer, and all of a sudden he’s playing to a load of thirteen-year-old girls wetting themselves and Brian’s doing ‘Popeye the Sailor Man.’ ”

  “Brian embarrassed himself first”: As quoted in David Robson, “As Soon As I Saw the Stones, A Wave Came Over, My Life Was Fulfilled,” The Express (May 30, 2000).

  “Rubbing shoulders with the Beatles”: Wyman, Stone Alone, 128.

  “idolized the Beatles”: Wyman, Stone Alone, 173.

  Dick Rowe called them “ghastly”: Rowe, audio recording, “The Rolling Stones Past and Present,” Mutual Broadcast System, Broadcast dates: September 30–October 3, 1988. Hour two.

  “The dialogue,” Oldham said: As quoted in Norman, The Stones, 90.

  “I remember teaching it to them”: It was a kind gesture, but not quite an altruistic one. At the time, Lennon and McCartney had more songs than they knew what to do with, and in addition to receiving royalties from each song they donated to other artists—people like Cilla Black, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, and Tommy Quickly—they both received a bit of pleasure from seeing their compositions touted in music magazine record advertisements: “Another Smash Hit from the Sensational Song Writing Team John Lennon and Paul McCartney.” (Of course, whoever recorded John and Paul’s material likewise got to wallow in some prestige.)

  “So Paul and I went off to”: The Beatles Anthology, 101.

  “We liked the song”: Richards, audio recording, “The Rolling Stones Past and Present,” Mutual Broadcast System, Broadcast dates: September 30–October 3, 1988. Hour two.

  “that John and Paul would be”: As quoted in Wyman, Stone Alone, 151.

  “We weren’t going to give them”: As quoted in Keith Badman, ed., The Beatles: Off the Record (London: Omnibus Press, 2008), 66.

  “Instead of patting myself”: Oldham, 2Stoned (New York: Vintage, 2003), 66.

  “A songwriter, as far as”: As quoted in Oldham, Stoned, 250–251.

  “Look at the other boys”: According to the Rolling Stones, 84.

  “The Beatles had set this trend”: As quoted in Oldham, Stoned, 249–250.

  “We spent the whole night”: Richards, Life, 142.

  “Keith likes to tell the story”: According to the Rolling Stones, 84.

  “I saw an angel”: As quoted in Davis, Old Gods, 80.

  Had Jagger and Richards: Arguably, the best Jagger-Richards composition from this period was “So Much in Love.” As recorded by the Mighty Avengers, a Coventry band that Oldham also managed, it was a catchy, twangy pop song, but lyrically it was quite caustic, and in that way it presaged some of what the Stones would do later. It was a very minor hit in the UK.

  Jagger-Richards composition: Two more original songs appear on the record, however. One is “Now I’ve Got a Witness,” an instrumental that is credited to the group under the pseudonym “Nanker Phelge.” The other, “Little by Little,” was credited to Nanker Phelge and Phil Spector.

  “Even though people”: Dalton, The First Twenty Years, 31.

  Others remember him toiling: http://www.earcandymag.com/rrcase-brianjones.htm.

  “but out of hand”: Wyman, Stone Alone, 177.

  “quite upset, almost crying”: http://www.earcandymag.com/rrcase-brianjones.htm.

  “Now there was no distance”: Oldham, Stoned, 245.

  “Until that time Brian”: As quoted in Wyman, Stone Alone, 179.

  “Brian wasn’t really a writer”: As quoted in According to the Rolling Stones, 86.

  “all in our smart new clothes”: As quoted in Miles, Paul McCartney, 120.

  3: A PARTICULAR FORM OF SNOBBERY

  Andrew Oldham recalls puckishly: “Would You Let Your Sister Go with A Rolling Stone?” Melody Maker, March 14, 1964. See also “But Would You Let Your Daughter Marry One?” Evening Standard (April 1964).

  “I’ve made sure the Stones”: As quoted in Wyman, Stone Alone, 192.

  “Don’t for heaven’s sake say”: As quoted in Braun, Love Me Do, 14.

  At the time, the group’s popularity: People sometimes forget just how young the Beatles’ core audience was. In November 1963, the knowledgeable British critic George Melly said “the average age of the fanatic Beatles fan today is about twelve.” In 1964, a disc jockey who was master of ceremonies at a Beatles concert in Vancouver estimated that 80 percent of the audience was between the ages of thirteen and sixteen.

  By the time they ventured: The Beatles are thought to have performed 150 different songs, at least once, before they released Please Please Me in March 1963. Although American rock ’n’ roll songs always dominated their ever-expanding repertoire, the multiformity of their approach is impressive. One scholar broke it down this way: Lennon-McCartney (26 songs), Chuck Berry (14 songs), Eddie Cochran (2 songs), Everly Brothers (6 songs), Buddy Holly (11 songs), Little Richard (12 songs), Carl Perkins (11 songs), Elvis Presley (8 songs), Larry Williams (6 songs), Other rock and roll artists (15 songs), R&B and Motown (18 songs), US pop (15 songs), US girl groups (9 songs), Pre-1945 vaudeville and pop (10 songs), Stage and film musicals (5 songs), UK pop (1 song), “Others” (8 songs).

  “I thought of the Beatles”: According to the Rolling Stones, 78.

  “Like a lot of my friends”: As quoted in Stark, Meet the Beatles, 203.

  “The Beatles were richer”: Tony Sanchez, Up and Down, 1.

  “Even in 1965 we Stones fans”: As quoted in Oldham, 2Stoned, 284.

  “idolizing the authentic legend”: Kelefa Sanneh, “The Rap Against Rockism,” New York Times (October 31, 2004).

  On more than a few occasions: The Beatles’ press officer, Derek Taylor, described one such spectacle when the group was touring in Australia in 1964: “The routes were lined solid, cripples threw away their sticks, sick people rushed up to the car as if a touch from one of the boys would make them well again. . . . The only thing left for the Beatles is to go on a healing tour.” Naturally, the Beatles hated all of this. Eventually they began referring to undesirable hangers-on as “crips.” If any of the Beatles were ever annoyed with “outsiders” who were crowding their space—perhaps in a dressing room or a hotel suite—they only had to mutter the word “crips” to one of their aides, and the room would promptly be cleared.

  “immature lungs produced a sound”: As quoted in Spitz, The Beatles, 577.

  When the band we now know: Thankfully, they never went with another name that was supposedly bruited about: “Long John and the Silver Beetles.” Had they done so, history might not have been the same.

  “I had a group”: As quoted in Jann Wenner, ed., Lennon Remembers: The Full Rolling Stone Interviews from 1970 (London and New York: Verso, 2000 c. 1972), 133.

  (Presumably, this is where): This remarkable agreement, which was never legally binding, endured until 1976, when Paul reversed the authors’ credits on the Beatles’ songs that are featured on his live album Wings Over America, so the read “McCartney-Lennon.” It did not cause much controversy (and Lennon may not even have known about it).

  “He used to follow me”: As quoted in Geoffrey Giuliano, Two of Us: John Lennon and Paul McCartney Behind the Myth (New York: Penguin, 1999), 8.

  “that spark [that] we all”: “Interview,” Playboy (January 1981).

  “had that quality that”: As quoted in Stark, Meet the Beatles, 128.

  John was typecast as: “None of us would’ve made it alone,” Lennon said later, perceptively. “Paul wa
sn’t quite strong enough, I didn’t have enough girl-appeal, George was too quiet, and Ringo was the drummer. But we thought that everyone would be able to dig at least one of us, and that’s how it turned out.”

  “We really looked out”: As quoted in The Beatles Anthology, back jacket flap.

  “Had those reporters been women”: Devin McKinney, Magic Circle: The Beatles in Dream and History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), 51.

  For reasons that even psychologists: The most famous psychologist who was asked to explain the Beatles’ unusual appeal was Dr. Joyce Brothers, the American syndicated advice columnist. She observed that the group displayed “a few of the mannerisms which almost seem on the feminine side, such as tossing of their long manes of hair. These are exactly the mannerisms which very young female fans (in the 10-to-14 age group) appear to go wildest over. . . . Girls in very early adolescence still in truth find ‘soft’ or ‘girlish’ characteristics more attractive than ruggedly masculine ones.” And why? “I think the explanation may be that these very young ‘women’ are still a little frightened of sex,” Dr. Brothers continued. “Therefore they feel safer worshipping idols who don’t seem to masculine, or too much the he-man.”

  “We were actually named after chicks”: As quoted in David Laing, “Six Boys, Six Beatles: The Formative Years, 1950–1962,” in Kenneth Womack, ed., The Cambridge Companion to the Beatles (New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 23. Also see Miles, Beatles Diary, 52–53. Many claims have been made about the origins of “the Beatles.” In a 1961 article for Mersey Beat, Lennon joked that that the group’s name “came in a vision—a man appeared on a flaming pie and said unto them, ‘From this day on you are Beatles with a A.’ ” (Amusingly, Yoko Ono has long insisted that Lennon meant for this quip to be taken literally; she thinks that he really had a hallucination like the one he described.) “The Beatles” may also have been an homage to Buddy Holly’s group, the Crickets. After Harrison suggested The Wild One might have been the inspiration for the name, Derek Taylor (the Beatles’ former press agent, and a good friend of Harrison’s) echoed the claim. It was surely Lennon, however, who cleverly proposed the group’s name should be spelled “Beatles” instead of “Beetles.” “When you said it,” he said, “people thought of crawly things; and when you read it, it was beat music.”