Once There Was a Way

by Bryce Zabel

  McCartney was more stoic. “These people in Los Angeles just blew John’s mind with their primal bip-bop or whatever you want to call it. I don’t know if telling John Lennon that it’s a good thing to yell at people is great advice, but they never asked my opinion.”

  By Saturday noon, nearly three dozen people were on the property. “Part couples retreat and part primal scream therapy” is how PR man Derek Taylor put it for members of the press who were, for the most part, excluded from the party on the basis of the band’s need for privacy.

  When Rockstar’s own Booth Hill found out about the weekend, he confronted Derek Taylor, who demanded as a condition of attending that he write directly and for attribution only if all four of the Beatles allowed it. Both Hill and Taylor knew that this was both impractical and unenforceable but pretended otherwise, feeling that if the event turned out to be a significant one in the life of the band, a trained journalist should be there to observe it.

  To great fanfare, Mick Jagger showed up shortly after noon with a giraffe that he had rented from a traveling zoo. Jagger arrived by limo, drinking champagne, while the truck with the giraffe followed behind. He’d been wearing a pith helmet, but it fit so loose that he quickly lost it.

  That afternoon, Jagger, whose band, the Rolling Stones, was no longer represented by Allen Klein, told Lennon frankly that McCartney was smart in wanting to hire his entertainment lawyer father-in-law Lee Eastman to manage the Beatles. “Oh, bugger off” was Lennon’s reply.

  By this time, an informal jam session had begun on the makeshift stage and continued on into the night. At one point, more people were playing instruments or singing on the stage than were actually in the audience.

  That same night, Lennon and Klein tangled verbally in a drunken exchange. By the next morning, John realized Paul’s, and now Jagger’s, disdain for Klein was probably justified, although he remained staunchly opposed to Eastman. “I’m not asking Paul to sign off on my mother-in-law’s hairdresser to comb his hair, and he shouldn’t ask me to sign off on his father-in-law to watch my money,” said John.

  • • •

  The official business meeting of the Beatles was scheduled for Sunday after lunch in the dining hall of the Manor, around a grand table that was capable of serving thirty people.

  “The vibe I got was that everything was going to be on the table,” said Neil Aspinall, looking back in an ’80s-era interview with Rockstar. “Considering the size of that table, it meant anything goes.”

  Richard DiLello and Mal Evans were set up at the entrance door. Their hand-scrawled list included all four of the Beatles, their spouses, Apple Management, Allen Klein, Lee and John Eastman, and Lord Beeching. Everyone else had to be evaluated before entering. One person who actually came in from the kitchen and took up position without permission was Rockstar’s Booth Hill.

  Lord Beeching called the session to order. He noted that he was appearing for the second time in the capacity of a consultant, and that while he was happy to do so, it would also be the last time he would take on such a tenuous role. He addressed his first remarks to the Beatles themselves.

  [Lord Beeching] “You have created something extraordinary, and despite any negative emotions you may be feeling at this moment, you have every right to take pride in your accomplishment. Only the four of you can decide whether or not you should continue. It is our goal here today to give you the facts you need to assist you in your decision. Our first and only real order of business is you.”

  Beeching asked all the Beatles to postpone plans for their solo albums. He then asked them to blend their work on one more joint Beatles release in order to buy Apple time to set the house in order out of the glare of the media’s spotlight. There were the fine points of implementing a new royalty deal to be worked out, and Apple needed to come at them from a position of strength.

  Klein ventured his opinion that “Kubrick’s damn movie” and all the powerful and rich people behind it would take an extremely dim view of the Beatles breaking up before they could help market the project. “These are Hollywood money people. They want the Beatles, but they won’t be afraid to sue us, and they have a lot of legal talent on their team.”

  Eastman ventured his rather cautious analysis of the contracts that had been signed with United Artists. While the contract was ambiguous on this point, he also felt that if the Beatles were not an active group during the film’s release, UA would potentially seek damages.

  The bleak assessment triggered immediate bickering. John accused Paul of setting up the entire weekend in some pathetic attempt to postpone the inevitable. “You should have just come to us, Paul, and we could have settled it among ourselves. We have settled it among ourselves. I have, anyway.”

  “Good for you, John,” Paul said, “but the rest of us should be able to leave with our money, not without it.” He noted that George, not he, had planned the party, and sat down with a huff.

  The team eventually called a break so that John Eastman could meet with McCartney and Klein could meet with Lennon and Ono. Eastman and Klein told Harrison and Starkey that they were welcome to be a part of either discussion. They both alternated sitting in with the two groups and found themselves not liking Klein as much as John did and not liking the Eastmans as much as Paul did. However, both George and Ringo had one highly unexpected revelation—they both found Lord Beeching to be, as George expressed it, “highly tolerable.”

  After this had gone on for an hour, Ringo poured himself a stiff cognac from George’s bar, placed the glass down, and started banging out a rhythm with his bare hands on the wood table. As people stopped talking and started listening, he wrapped up his percussive display with a flourish, took a drink, and said, “Let’s hammer out this Grand Bargain then.”

  • • •

  That’s all that Rockstar can say with certainty. Booth Hill, the only journalist in the room, had been trying to appear as invisible as possible in the corner, but, despite his strong protests, was evicted when Lord Beeching learned that he was a reporter.

  What we know from later interviews is that the tension in the room had not dissipated when they returned to full session. As Beeching began, Yoko whispered in John’s ear. Eventually, Beeching’s voice trailed off as all eyes fixed on the Lennons, waiting for Yoko to finish. Everyone knew that her opinion would likely settle the argument for John.

  Finally, John leaned back in his chair and sighed. “What’s it look like to be a Beatle for another year? Or five years?” he asked the men and women at the table. “That’s what we want to know. Show us that, and maybe we’ll dance on your string a while longer.”

  For the next two hours, Lennon stubbornly fought the room in a pitched battle to secure his artistic freedom to abandon the Beatles altogether. The pushback was strong. Not yet.

  When they took their next break, however, Lennon sang a different tune. As he and Ono went outside to smoke, they ran into Mick Jagger, who asked how it was going.

  “Looks like you may get your ass kicked by us a while longer, Mick,” answered Lennon.

  After three and a half hours of more discussion, everyone went home or back to their rooms and cottages on the Friar Park estate. Most party guests had already gone, but a few stragglers had stayed outside, smoking and drinking in the tents, curious to see how it would turn out.

  The truth is that most of the participants in the Grand Bargain negotiations left that night or the next morning with slightly different memories of what exactly had been agreed to. Fortunately, John Eastman had a strong constitution and superior penmanship. He sat in the middle of Harrison’s long, imposing table, and he filled two yellow legal pads with notes. They included details of the agreement, doodles that were bad impressions of John Lennon’s artwork, and some dead-on observations about the relative strengths and weaknesses of the people he shared the table with.

  Beatles scholars have gone through these legal pads at length. Their favorite notation involves Eastman’s description of the rel
ationship between Lord Beeching and Allen Klein.

  “Barking Klein dog so far up Beeching’s ass,” wrote Eastman in block letters, “that he can see light coming from the hole in his head.”

  Eastman took his legal pads and his son’s near-photographic memory and translated them into a private memo from the offices of Lee Eastman. The memo has been quoted at length among historical documents but, given its usefulness in the central purpose of this article, we present it here in full.

  • • •

  TO: Lord Richard Beeching, Allen Klein

  FROM: Lee Eastman, John Eastman

  DATE: June 23, 1970

  SUBJECT: The Beatles - Conference Notes

  This is a summary of our understanding of the elements of agreement reached in the sessions held at Friar Park Estate over the weekend of June 19 to June 21. It has been constructed from our contemporaneous notes and follow-up conversations with several of the participants, notably yourselves.

  Please do submit your questions, clarifications, and additions, and this office will release a revised version. A summary of this weekend’s discussion and agreement now follows:

  Apple Management

  The company will formalize its current corporate management structure. Lord Richard Beeching will assume authority for the company, effective immediately. Allen Klein will maintain responsibility for Management and Marketing functions. This office, and specifically Lee and John Eastman, both individually and collectively, will provide all Legal services. In matters where Klein or Eastman are in disagreement, the matter will be referred to Beeching for a final decision. Current Apple employees will be reevaluated by this management team, acting in concert to implement the decisions.

  Apple/Beatles Understanding

  The Beatles agree to promote the upcoming Lord of the Rings film and soundtrack as a unified band in all their public pronouncements through a period of at least three months after the film’s public release.

  The Beatles agree on an annual basis to provide Apple with at least one original studio recorded album and one studio recorded single with an A-side and a B-side. Live performance albums are not included in this understanding.

  Solo albums are not to be encouraged and should not affect the delivery in a timely manner of a yearly Beatles album.

  The rules of the Lennon/McCartney songwriting credit will be changed. If the song is primarily a John Lennon song, the credit will be “Lennon/McCartney.” If the song is primarily a Paul McCartney song, the credit will be “McCartney/Lennon.” If the song has significant creative input from both, the credit will be “Lennon/McCartney.”

  Internal Band Issues

  Each member of the Beatles spoke at length about their vision of the band’s future, should they continue on together into the 1970s.

  Paul McCartney states that he would like the Beatles to play live as a band and to even consider touring again, albeit with smaller venues. He cites the Roundhouse performance as a prime example. McCartney expects other band members to bring more energy to future recording sessions, although he did believe they were moving in the right direction with the recent Everest album.

  John Lennon states that his sole attachment to the Beatles is that its financial success allows him to support more causes dedicated to social change. He will be contributing political material to all future albums and does not expect this material to be blocked by the others. He believes that the Beatles and Apple itself should align on the side of the protest movement in the Vietnam War debate.

  George Harrison states that he expects to operate with creative equality to both McCartney and Lennon in all future albums. He is reticent to tour and play large crowds, citing the unfortunate events that occurred in upper New York state in the summer of 1969 at the so-called “Woodstock Concert.”

  Richard Starkey states that he is looking for a more stable band environment. He expects his three bandmates to accept their responsibility in making that happen.

  There appears to be deep and genuine disagreement about the role of wives and girlfriends as they relate to the creative process. However, the Beatles state that they will work this out between themselves and that our assistance is not needed.

  First brought up by Harrison but strongly endorsed by Lennon is the belief that there should be at least six months out of every year where they have no obligations whatsoever to the Beatles. They believe that all recording, marketing, and/or touring duties can be confined to a six-month period. They agree that a decision on the dates will be made by mutual agreement and our assistance is not needed unless asked for.

  Summary

  The significant legal changes appear to be:

  1) the management clarification,

  2) the agreement by the Beatles to remain an operating group through the release of the current Lord of the Rings film,

  3) and their agreement to supply Apple with a minimum yearly album and single, ideally for a period of five years.

  We believe a brief memo, from Lord Beeching, stating these three developments and expectations should be sent to John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Richard Starkey. With your sign-off, we will draft one for signature.

  As Harrison, Lennon, McCartney, and Starkey all wish their internal band dynamics to be an oral agreement held between them, there will be no need of signature copies and we will prepare none on those issues.

  On the subject of the actual agreement between ourselves, however, a formal signature agreement will be available next week.

  (Dictated/LVE)

  • • •

  So, there it was, laid out in a lawyer’s dispassionate language. The so-called Grand Bargain.

  It was a fragile peace, the equivalent of a temporary halting of the bombing raids that were then taking place over North Vietnam. Would it last? No one knew.

  London music journalist Ray Connolly talked to Lennon shortly after the Weekend at George’s and asked him about the process. “We all said some things we needed to say,” said Lennon. “You have to be good and trashed sometimes to give peace a chance. World should take a fuckin’ lesson now, you know?”

  House Band on the Titanic

  As it was, Paul McCartney gave each of his bandmates a week and, when he had heard from none of them, decided to ring them up himself.

  He called Ringo first. The Apple studio was available next Tuesday for recording. “See you then,” said Ringo. He liked being a Beatle—it was an all-access pass to a world that the solo Ringo could never inhabit, and he wasn’t keen to start over.

  Armed with his 2–0 status, Paul called George next. He laughed bitterly when he heard Paul’s summons. “I wondered how long you’d give us.” But George could hardly be the one to pull his support now, given that he had allowed his own home to produce the Grand Bargain.

  That left only John. Paul found himself sitting at his dining room table looking at a phone that he could not bring himself to use to call Lennon. So he called George back and told him that he would have to be the one to call John.

  [Paul] “If I’d rung him, it’s anybody’s guess, isn’t it then? But with George, it felt more business-like because John already knew that George would just as soon call it a day and go home, but that he’d bought into the whole rationale. That there must be a Beatles because Apple needs cash.”

  George made the call. “Hello, John.”

  “Oh, God no,” said John. “Paul’s gotten you to do this.”

  Invoking Paul’s name made the conversation seem a bit less onerous to John and George alike, who talked briefly with one another to sort out the details. Tuesday morning, George suggested, looked good.

  “I’ll be in by four in the afternoon,” said John, and then he hung up.

  “I showed up at noon the first day,” remembers Ringo. “Paul came by at one, George dropped in at two, and John made an appearance with Yoko at three, which we took as a good sign, as it was an hour earlier than when he said he would be there.”

  Each
one of them had been preparing an album to release if the Beatles broke up, and Paul and George were well along in that regard, followed by Ringo and John. This meant that they all brought in songs to demo for the group.

  What they found out, almost immediately, was that all of them had already cross-pollinated many of their creative thoughts during those long months they spent in Ireland trying to survive under Kubrick’s heel. There were George songs he did with John, Paul songs he did with Ringo, a few with just Paul, and several George songs; even Paul and John songs that had riffs from one to other conveyed through George acting as a third party.

  As the sheer amount of material became apparent, they briefly considered doing another double album in the style of A Doll’s House. After some discussion, they came to the mutual agreement that they would prune what they had to a single album.

  Still, the Grand Bargain had left one huge controversy unspoken and unresolved. Who, besides the Beatles themselves, should be allowed in a recording session?

  To the irritation of three-fourths of the Beatles, Yoko Ono was back in the studio, as she had been for Everest, and A Doll’s House before that.

  [Yoko] “John and I wanted to be together all the time so why shouldn’t we? I knew how they felt about me but we knew that the only way Beatles could be saved was when they accept me.”

  [John] “After Everest, I was done. I’d held it all in, been all nice and spicy, but I was on my best behavior because it was finally over. But now everyone says it has to go on or we’re all going to be broke, you know. We figured if I couldn’t get out right away, at least Yoko could come in so it wouldn’t be so horrible.”

  There it was. It was John’s decision that Yoko was going to be there for every single moment of this new album, whatever it ended up being called. Paul, George, and Ringo would just have to deal with it.