Once There Was a Way

by Bryce Zabel

  Even when they were all in the same studio, George, John, Paul, and Ringo were often working in different rooms. No one involved in the sessions could see what was really happening: a collection of individuals seemed to be pursuing their own ambitions—the antithesis of a cohesive band.

  The title was Lennon’s idea, borrowed from the 1879 Henrik Ibsen play about marriage inequality. John may have been channeling some idealized statement Yoko Ono had made by leaving her husband Tony Cox for him. The dissolution of his own marriage with Cynthia Lennon was hardly the stuff of heroism.

  Everyone else who heard the actual words felt that it must have been more wry commentary by the band about themselves. Having lived through Beatlemania, the Beatles still felt like they were living in a doll’s house where they were the dolls.

  The title probably wouldn’t have stuck around much longer had it not been for the red carpet walk at the Yellow Submarine premiere.

  As he often did while living in the moment, John had tossed off A Doll’s House as the title of the new Beatles album. The news bounced quickly around the world, even one where the internet was still a long way off. “The Beatles have a new album,” said every disc jockey on every station. “It’s going to be called A Doll’s House.”

  “That,” said Paul later, “was it. We didn’t want to disappoint anyone.”

  One band was disappointed, however—an alternative UK band called Family. The group had an album due out in July that was to be called Music in a Doll’s House. But if they released it with that title now, it would look as though they were trying to jump on the bandwagon with the Beatles.

  Even so, the entirety of Family protested to Apple’s leader, Neil Aspinall, who knew a member of the band through a mutual friend. Aspinall made them sign a release of all lifetime rights to any title remotely resembling A Doll’s House for the tidy sum of £5000. He told the Beatles that Family had volunteered to back off because they were fans. Aspinall only confessed the truth about the payment to McCartney some two months after A Doll’s House had been released, and only then after a newspaper reporter asked Derek Taylor about it.

  Paul, more than all the others, had taken the challenge of Apple seriously. He had worked tirelessly with designer Gene Mahon and, at the end of the process, a shiny green Granny Smith apple against a black background became the symbol of the new company.

  Apple relocated to new, roomier offices at 3 Savile Row in the next to last week of July. Complete with bright green carpets, the idealistic company was now open for business. In addition to publicly welcoming struggling artists, Apple had taken out ads encouraging those with good ideas for music, film, or other forms of art to write them up and send them over. An avalanche of submissions was being carted into the building every day.

  [Ringo] “It wasn’t just the mailmen who came like clockwork. There were days where Apple looked like the bargain basement at Harrod’s. Hippies, street people, underground artists—they all started hanging around like they owned the place. They all thought we’d see their brilliance and start showering them with cash. This might not have been the best idea that John and Paul had ever had.”

  The company released its first two singles on August 26: “Hey Jude/Revolution” by the Beatles and “Those Were the Days/Turn, Turn, Turn” by new artist Mary Hopkin. The company soon followed with singles by both Jackie Lomax and the Black Dyke Mills Band, two artists lucky enough to be among the first to be signed by Apple. There were many others to come, with names like the Iveys, Doris Troy, Bill (later, Billy) Preston, Bamboo, Contact, the Pebbles, and the Modern Jazz Quartet. The roster also included the folksy American musician James Taylor. It was expected that this was only the beginning.

  While the company was changing, so, too, were the four men who stood at its top as equal partners.

  No one knew better than his fellow bandmates that John Lennon was a man undergoing radical transformation. They had seen firsthand that Rishikesh, rather than mellowing John out, had seemed to make him angrier. Plus, Lennon and Ono were using heroin now, and John seemed equally addicted to both his new girlfriend and to the drug itself.

  In a year that had already seen assassinations, police riots, and the probable election of Richard Nixon, Lennon was becoming more politically outspoken as well. He not only felt the continuing escalation of the Vietnam War to be wrong, but also felt it impossible to forgive the entire system that had let it happen in the first place.

  Lennon embraced the times with the new Beatles single’s B-side—a fast, angry version of “Revolution.” Clearly, the same man who told the world that all they needed was love had now found himself wrestling with the thornier issues of political struggle. When it came to destruction, he tried to split the difference—the lyrics of his song asked to be counted “out,” then to be counted “in.” That equivocation was coupled with the assurance that “it’s gonna be all right.”

  The album also featured a slower, bluesier version of “Revolution.” Ironically, the ubiquitous song made Lennon—the most politically extreme of all the Beatles—a target of disappointment and anger from radicals worldwide, who now began to question his commitment to seeking a new world. Those same radicals had yet another controversial prism through which they could view the Beatles—as capitalists with something to sell: themselves.

  Like the “Hello, Goodbye/I Am the Walrus” split, this new discord also made Lennon suspicious that he was in danger of being eclipsed by what he saw as the overly commercial instincts of his partner.

  On August 22, Ringo cracked under all the friction in the recording sessions and quit the band, convinced that they all thought he was not playing well enough and that the others didn’t really like him. He took his wife and family to Sardinia to escape the pressure he was feeling.

  John, Paul, and George felt his absence immediately. All three of them tried to add drums to Paul’s rocker “Back in the U.S.S.R.” and failed miserably. They begged Ringo to return by both phone and telegram and, when he did after a two-week exile, he found his drum set decorated with flowers.

  The artwork for the album cover was eventually done by Scottish artist John Patrick Byrne, who portrayed the four Beatles in a jungle-like setting. If the album’s artwork was intended to compete with the colorful and provocative Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band cover, it could only be judged as a runner-up. It was also completely at odds with the album title. A jungle is not a doll’s house. It remains a testament to the chaos emerging at Apple that no one seemed to notice, or if they did, no one cared. The cover just emerged.

  The greatest friction in the band came over Lennon’s eight-minute plus version of experimental sound called “Revolution 9.” The sound collage began its life as an extended ending to the album version of “Revolution.” Lennon, working with his new love Yoko Ono, had taken the discarded coda, buried it underneath overdubbed vocals and speech, tape loops, and random sound effects, and had reversed the music. This sonic stew was then distorted further by using just about any audio effect that the equipment could create. “It’s a painting,” said Lennon, “of pure revolution in a society that’s blowing itself apart.” Through it all was Lennon’s drone voice repeating “Number nine, number nine, number nine.”

  It was not the first time that the Beatles had experimented this way. Just a year earlier, McCartney had made his own avant-garde recording titled “Carnival of Light.” Though it amused him to make it, he immediately deposited it in the EMI vaults and left it there. While Paul was interested in experimentation, he still instinctively knew this material was not for public consumption.

  Lennon, in contrast, felt no such prohibition. He was adamant that the “song” be included on the double album. This left everyone at Apple—particularly George Martin and Paul McCartney—aghast that such a non-commercial deviation be included on a Beatles album.

  Illustrative of a dynamic that would plague the Beatles in the years ahead, both George Harrison and Ringo Starr felt that “Revolution 9” sh
ould not be on the album, but neither of them wanted to confront the increasingly volatile Lennon. They left that to McCartney, the one voice that Lennon was least inclined to hear and accept.

  McCartney soldiered forward, arguing with his creative partner against using the track on A Doll’s House. Ultimately, however, all four Beatles were drawn into the ugly debate. Ringo tried to lighten the mood, pointing out that the best part of featuring the song would be that it would “make my singing sound better than ever.”

  In the end, Paul, George, and Ringo threatened to outvote John on “Revolution 9.” Such a three-to-one vote would have broken their previous unanimous agreements. “So now the three of you are telling me what’s art and what’s not,” accused Lennon. “Have you listened to some of the shit you’ve put on this album yourselves?”

  Paul thought about it overnight. More than the others, it was he who had a keen sense of John’s personality. He could see his partner moving toward Yoko and away from himself. This new dynamic could, he thought, end the band completely, something he was loath to see happen.

  In the studio the next day, almost as an afterthought, McCartney turned to Lennon. “Listen, John, since you feel so strongly about it and all, if you really want it on the album, I suppose that’s where it’s got to go.” Nothing more was said, and they continued to work on overdubs for other songs.

  The day after, it was Lennon’s turn. He arrived at the studio early, which was unusual for him, and laid down a track for a new song he called “What’s the New Mary Jane.” After he played it for the others, he shrugged. “Put this in instead. I’ll use Number Nine with Yoko.”

  He was talking about the Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins album he and his new love were making. Already experimental in a decidedly non-Beatles way, “Revolution 9” fit right in with material that fans were likely to find inexplicable anyway. In actual fact, the other Beatles felt that “What’s the New Mary Jane” was only incrementally less musical, but it did open up another opportunity.

  As it turned out, it took more than “What’s the New Mary Jane” to replace the lengthy “Revolution 9” and fill out the album’s final side. Paul’s new hit single “Hey Jude” had to be added as well, a decision that outside observers and fans would all agree made the album, particularly the side where “Revolution 9” was set to be included, a great deal more listenable. Traditionally, the Beatles did not like to include singles on albums, but “Hey Jude” was considered such a winner that they made the exception. For the album, they mixed a version that was two minutes shorter than the lengthy single version, defying the album tradition that singles were short and album versions could be longer.

  In the end, John stood resolute that his song had to be included, and Paul caved. Paul’s acquiescence gave John room for magnanimity. A sonic disaster had been averted, or, as George Martin noted, “I can sleep again without hearing that strangeness rumbling about in my head.”

  In September 1968, having tasted the relaxed vibe of a television performance on The Tonight Show, John and Paul wanted to give their bandmates a chance to experience it for themselves. The Beatles appeared on the popular The David Frost Show and played their now monster hit “Hey Jude” before a live audience. It was also, everyone agreed, a great promotion for the release of A Doll’s House.

  Even so, signs of stress were clear to those who would see them. On November 1, George Harrison became the first Beatle to release a solo album (also the first from Apple Records), the soundtrack to the 1968 film Wonderwall. The songs were mostly instrumental pieces that promoted Indian classical music and introduced instruments little known in the West, like the shehnai, sarod, and santoor. A little of this instrumentation had gone a long way in previous Beatle offerings, and now Harrison was putting forth something that felt spiritual and mystical but not commercial or melodic.

  Lennon wasn’t far behind. Just ten days later, Apple was compelled to release Two Virgins, Lennon’s own solo effort (with Yoko). Ever more frustrated by his role with the Beatles, Lennon, with Ono, wanted the chance to explore avant-garde film, art, and now, music. The album’s experimental sound had originally been the result of an all-night session between John and Yoko in John’s home studio at Kenwood and had ended in the morning with their first lovemaking. The only piece that did not originate from that seminal night was “Revolution 9,” now included since its banishment from the A Doll’s House album.

  Lennon and Ono’s insistence that the album feature, as its cover, a nude photo of the new lovers who were hardly, despite the title, two virgins, caused an uproar within Apple and among fans. Using an automatic camera, they had posed for the photos while Lennon’s wife Cynthia was conveniently on vacation in Greece. By the time she returned, Lennon’s new relationship with Ono was established fact, and his marriage was essentially doomed.

  Neither Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins nor Wonderwall Music sold many copies. Both albums, in fact, perplexed and alienated a fair share of Beatles fans. Both albums suffered mightily in comparison to the first double album from the Beatles, A Doll’s House, released on November 22, 1968, the five-year anniversary of the death of President Kennedy.

  A Doll’s House was an instant hit, and the fact that it cost so much more than a normal album turned out to be no impediment to sales at all. Every fan had to own it.

  Although today the double album is seen as an unchallenged success, when it was released, there were naysayers. Rockstar’s own music critic, David Swanson, found it a sad harbinger of breakup, adding: “The Beatles aren’t the Beatles anymore. They are now exactly the sum of their parts, and it shows.”

  The Bus to Liverpool

  George spent the 1968 holidays in Woodstock, New York, with his friend Bob Dylan. Earlier, while he was in Los Angeles, producing tracks for Jackie Lomax’s debut LP, he had met a number of Hells Angels. Now, on December 4, he sent the following telegram to Apple headquarters:

  “Hells Angels will be in London within the next week, on the way to straighten out Czechoslovakia. I have heard they may try to make full use of Apple’s facilities. They may look as though they are going to do you in but are very straight and do good things, so don’t fear them or up-tight them. Try to assist them without neglecting your Apple business and without letting them take control of Savile Row.”

  Richard DiLello, the self-proclaimed “House Hippie” at Apple, was dispatched to procure copies of journalist Hunter S. Thompson’s Hell’s Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs. The books were brought into Apple to help the staff and the Beatles understand their new guests and to calm everyone’s nerves. In actual fact, Thompson’s searing nonfiction novel about the nearly two years he spent living and working among the notorious bikers frightened every single person far beyond what they would have felt had they remained ignorant. The section where Thompson suffers a brutal beatdown by gang members was particularly unnerving.

  Before anyone could act on this sense of impending dread, two gleaming Harley-Davidson motorcycles arrived at the airport, requiring Apple to shell out £250 of shipping costs to get them through customs.

  Paul and Linda McCartney, accompanied by their children, were working in the Apple studios on a Christmas song, when two Hells Angels bikers, Billy Tumbleweed and Frisco Pete, along with another sixteen stoned California freaks—all part of the “Pleasure Crew”—showed up at Apple. The Angels had brought the infamous writer and hippie Ken Kesey along for this ride, too. Everyone seemed to be wearing headbands, ripped Levis, boots, cowboy hats, you name it. The halls of Apple reeked of patchouli oil, sweaty leather, and marijuana—all joined together in a single potent fragrance.

  Upon seeing the Pleasure Crew descend onto Apple, Paul left Linda and the kids in the recording studio, telling them to stay put.

  Suddenly, with George missing in action, Paul and the Apple employees were faced with the insane chaos of Hells Angels gang members roaming the hallways, crashing on the sofas, and eating the food. Di
Lello called it “the mescaline icing on the hashish cake.”

  Paul called John. “Our kindhearted young George has bollixed it up good this time,” he informed him. “We’ve got to get his friends out of here.”

  John agreed and had an idea, a way to turn a past defeat into a present victory.

  Two hours later, the wildly painted bus that had been used for the Magical Mystery Tour film pulled up in front of Apple. Inside were Ringo and Maureen, and John and Yoko. Mal Evans, the driver, had pulled the bus out of storage at John’s request.

  Peter Brown arranged for the song to be played inside Apple over loudspeakers: “Roll up, roll up, for the Mystery Tour.” It was explained to the entire Pleasure Crew that the Beatles had prepared the bus to give their guests a tour of London and Liverpool.

  Ken Kesey would write about what happened next for Esquire. Kesey found himself chronicling his adventure with the Beatles in the same way that Tom Wolfe has written about his adventures with Kesey and the Merry Pranksters in 1968’s nonfiction novel sensation The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test:

  “The Hells Angels and the Pleasure Crew were just tourists looking for a ride on the streets of London. They filed onto that bus missing only a Nikon hanging around their necks. It was everything that Magical Mystery Tour wasn’t. Authentic, dangerous, and actual fun. The whole crew, guided by three honest-to-God Beatles and their women, took off for Liverpool with an escort of two-wheeled marvels, front and back, in the heart of London’s West End. Monkey bars, chrome work, erotic curves to the gas tanks, and outsized twin exhaust pipes. Passers-by stopped and gawked, sure that whatever they were seeing would never pass that way again. The Beasts sitting on their Beauties were out of place and out of time.”