by Bryce Zabel
PAUL: So I threw the caution to the wind and showed up at yours.
BOOTH HILL: Which reminds me…John, in some of your more impassioned interviews, you said that Paul and Linda just followed what you and Yoko did and did it later themselves.
JOHN: Did we say that?
BOOTH HILL: Often. But Linda and Paul got married, and then you and Yoko got married a week later.
JOHN: That’s how it seemed to me. Maybe I wasn’t in my right mind. Or maybe I was then and I’m not now. It’s impossible to say.
BOOTH HILL: You wrote a song together about showing up.
PAUL: That’s mostly John’s song.
JOHN: Don’t say that. Everyone will think I was an old softie. Paul put some sugar on it, and that’s why it works, I think.
BOOTH HILL: So, Paul, showing up. That’s it?
PAUL: No, no, no. A thousand other tiny things. But going back to Linda and Yoko. I think that gets overlooked. Both of them were very strong women…
RINGO: Peace and love to Linda.
JOHN: Love to Linda.
PAUL: So both of the ladies were outsiders to the Beatles. I resented Yoko first and John resented Linda later. And, if they wanted to, they could have torn us apart because we were so into them. We put them above the group. I don’t remember now how it happened, but they both decided together to not be threatened by the Beatles and to let the Beatles be. Then the Beatles were free to let them into our world a bit more. The same was true for Richie’s women and George’s, but their situations were more complicated.
RINGO: Like all the divorces maybe?
PAUL: Not to slag anyone off, but I suppose the Grand Bargain laid out the road map for staying together.
JOHN: My head was very anti-Beatles for a few years. But that didn’t mean I was anti-Apple. So when Beeching got on his soapbox, I didn’t think he was crazy. I didn’t want to tour, but the idea of one album a year seemed practical. It doesn’t take a year to make an album, especially when you don’t have to write it all yourself, so that left each of us with enough time for a private life.
BOOTH HILL: You mentioned Lord Beeching. What part did the management compromise play?
JOHN: Paul wanted his father-in-law which, sorry, Paul, seemed like something only a selfish prick would want. But then I wanted Allen Klein, who was a selfish prick himself, and so was I.
PAUL: If we’d stuck to those positions, there would have been no way out. The Beatles would have been finished.
RINGO: I never liked any of them. I liked the fact that Klein wasn’t related to Paul—that was his big strength. Beeching was the tie-breaker.
PAUL: We figured if he could fix Britain’s railroads then he could fix the Beatles.
JOHN: Except he never really fixed the railroads. But he was so square, the way he talked, the way he looked, you just figured that he must know something about money, since he would never have gotten where he did on looks.
BOOTH HILL: The argument still gets made that if the Beatles had split in 1970 that they would have gotten out at the top of their game and would be a mythical rock story today. By playing on, that theory goes, the Beatles were revealed to be merely human.
JOHN: But we are human, aren’t we? That’s just the truth. We didn’t want to hide it, or make something of it that it wasn’t. We were, we still are, just a rock and roll band, although we’re a good one, better than most.
PAUL: If that had happened, that we broke up at the end of the ’60s, we would have lived over four decades as a myth. That’s not living. Living is living. This is better.
BOOTH HILL: What role has friendship played?
RINGO: Who said we were friends? (Laughter)
The Sources of Speculation
Alternative history is about what might have happened. So, yes, this book is full of speculation.
In what follows, the goal is to explain the moments of Beatles trivia that you may not be aware of that are included in the book and to discuss the plausibility of the larger story points.
Album Titles
Album titles changed frequently under the Beatles, and the narrative uses this fact to give a sense that the alternate history in this book unfolds not just after they broke up, but before as well. In three distinct cases, the working titles of the real timeline became the actual titles in my alternative story.
The White Album began as A Doll’s House.
Abbey Road began as Everest.
Let It Be began as Get Back.
In other cases, the assumption has been that certain titles and songs created in our actual reality might have been adapted into a universe where the Beatles stayed together. That explains Band on the Run as an eventual Beatles title in both the real and the imagined universes.
Songs and Solo Albums
It is impossible to assemble consensus albums constructed out of the Beatles’ solo albums we’re familiar with as well as songs that never were from our alternate world. This book takes a crack at it in service of the larger storyline, but the permutations have almost infinite interpretations by fans. Readers won’t agree with all of the choices here, nor should they.
The subject of what songs might have appeared on solo albums put out by individual Beatles in a world where the group itself stayed together is a valid one. This book simply avoids it to spend more time and space on the characters and their lives as members of the Beatles and because even fewer people would agree on these choices than they would about potential songs on the Beatles albums. Please assume that significant solo work was recorded even in this alternative timeline as is alluded to multiple times throughout the book.
The Lord of the Rings
The actual truth of the matter is that, yes, there was talk in Hollywood about having the Beatles star in a The Lord of the Rings movie that could be directed by Stanley Kubrick. Additionally, it was John Lennon who first seemed to have become attached to the idea.
There are multiple sources for this. The greatest is Paul McCartney himself, who has confirmed it as fact on several occasions, going back to a conversation with Peter Jackson in 2002, when Jackson’s film version was first being talked about.
There is also a reference to the film in Steven Bach’s Final Cut: Art, Money, and Ego in the Making of Heaven’s Gate, the Film that Sank United Artists.
The Tonight Show Appearance
John Lennon and Paul McCartney actually did go to New York, as described in this novel, to promote their new company, Apple Records. They did appear on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson but were subjected to the cluelessness of guest host Joe Garagiola, magnified by the probable alcohol-inspired abusiveness of Tallulah Bankhead. Bottom line, it was not a fun night. The change in this alternate history is Johnny’s coming back to the city to do the special show and demanding as his condition that the Beatles play a song or two. This could easily have happened.
Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon did, in fact, often retreat to Danny’s Hideaway for drinks after recording their show. The advice of McMahon to McCartney about “showing up” is purely my invention in the service of the book’s narrative.
Hells Angels
Crazy as it seems, George Harrison honestly did invite the Hells Angels to come visit Apple at Christmastime. They came, as described, accompanied by both the Pleasure Crew and Ken Kesey.
Harrison wasn’t even in London when they showed up, leaving the hosting duties to his bandmates. John and Yoko had the most direct and potentially dangerous confrontation with them. The Lennons had shown up dressed as Father and Mother Christmas for the holiday party and ended up on the receiving end of a Hells Angels rampage over not being served turkey when they wanted it.
In the real life of our history’s timeline, the Angels, the Pleasure Crew, and Kesey all stayed through the holidays and into the New Year, trashing the Apple offices as only they could. It was up to Harrison, when he returned from his own vacation to New York, to tell them it was time to leave. They wanted to know if George didn’t like them. “Yin and Yang, yes
and no,” was his answer. They accepted and moved on.
Getting the Magical Mystery Tour bus out of mothballs and using it to lure the Hells Angels out of Apple is a creative invention, nothing more.
Playing at Woodstock
The Beatles were certainly invited to play at Woodstock. That seems to be an established fact, but not much else beyond it has been. There have been three theories about this:
The first is that John could not get a visa to come to the U.S. because of his drug arrests. This seems more than possible, given the trouble he encountered when he did move here later.
Secondly, other than their rooftop concert in January 1969, the Beatles had not played a show together since 1966. They might have been intimidated.
The final theory is that John Lennon did agree to play only if Yoko was allowed on the same stage with the Beatles and the Plastic Ono Band also got an invite. It doesn’t appear that such an invitation was made, and it seems unlikely the Beatles would have welcomed this attachment.
For his part, Ringo has claimed that none of these theories hold water. He says that the Beatles didn’t go to Woodstock because they were “busy doing other things.” He makes the point that it was hardly like they had a plane standing by.
There may be another possibility. During the research phase for any book or film project that is based on historical facts, it can be instructive to look at the timeline to see the relationships between news and professional and personal events. In reality, John and Yoko had their car accident just a couple of weeks before Woodstock. They were shook up and, again, not likely in the mood for Woodstock.
Could Paul McCartney, by showing up at the hospital and helping out, have changed that mood? That’s why they call this work alternate history.
Nixon’s Harassment
There are mountains of emerging information about this topic, based on released documents from the FBI. John Lennon and Yoko Ono spoke often about the reality of their harassment by the agency. Finally, all aspects of their INS immigration action are now on the table.
Books have been written and documentaries filmed about the unsavory focus of the Nixon Administration on John Lennon. If the Beatles were still a force, they would likely have been tarred by the same brush.
The Nixon Administration had indeed created an “enemies list,” and John Lennon was on at least one version of it. Our alternate history only adds the names of Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Richard Starkey because they, too, would almost certainly have been included had the Beatles continued as a musical force during those dark days.
In real life, George Harrison actually did go to the White House when Gerald Ford assumed the presidency after Nixon’s resignation. If the Beatles had still been recording, it would have been a group invitation.
Recording in Nigeria
Paul McCartney did take his band, Wings, to Lagos, Nigeria, in 1973 to record Band on the Run. He was also robbed at knifepoint one night with his wife Linda and lost all of the demos and lyrics the band had worked on so far.
The invention in this book is that the Beatles, not Wings, had taken the trip to Nigeria.
Life in Los Angeles
John Lennon called it his “Lost Weekend.” By any name, the eighteen-month banishment to LA by his wife really happened. So did his awful behavior in the club circuit where he did, in fact, harass the Smothers Brothers and put a Kotex on his head. It got that bad.
He did not live in Laurel Canyon, nor did he date Linda Ronstadt. That part is an invention of this literary work. However, if the Beatles had gone to Los Angeles during the 1972 election period, much would have changed as a result. They would have met other people, and some of those people might have been part of the Laurel Canyon scene. As it was in our timeline, some of those people, notably James Taylor, did record for Apple, and other, like Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, almost did.
And, yes, John Lennon and his son Julian did spend the day on the set of Happy Days. There are pictures to prove it. All the nice things the cast and crew said about John Lennon in this book were as described, including the much-appreciated doodles he did for everyone. If you want a nice memory of John Lennon, imagine him with Julian on the set of Happy Days having a great time.
Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs did not meet George Harrison in India. On the other hand, Jobs was in India on his life-altering trip as described by Walter Isaacson in his biography, Steve Jobs, at the same time as the Lennon kidnapping happens in our alternative timeline.
It could have happened, had George gone to India when John was taken, and that license is what makes alternate history work.
Kidnapped
The Lennon kidnapping of this book is based, loosely, on the massively publicized celebrity kidnapping of Patricia Hearst by the Symbionese Liberation Army that took place in 1974. Like John Lennon in this book, Hearst was simply going about her life when she was plucked from it and thrust into a radical politics drama that captivated the entire world.
The Lennon kidnapping is also informed by research into the path of the Weather Underground by this point in time. Leaders of the group—like Bernardine Dohrn and William Ayers—were desperate and looking for a big play, something to stoke the fires of revolution that they saw burning down into barely glimmering embers. Ayers went on to become Barack Obama’s friend and their relationship was used to try to block his march to the presidency because of his friend’s radical past.
Concert in Central Park
Simon and Garfunkel are best remembered for their big Central Park Concert in 1981. Others preceded it, but it was the biggest and most widely publicized concert.
It is true, also, that there was interest from the city of New York to stage a concert in Central Park throughout the 1970s. Numerous mentions of a feasibility study are in the literature.
Acknowledgments
There would be no book, of course, without George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and Richard Starkey. Thank you.
My older brother, Alan Zabel, brought the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album back home to Oregon from MIT and changed my life. My college friends, Karta Purkh Singh Khalsa, Ralph Kolby, and Taylor Welsh, continued my Beatles education.
Special thanks for early encouragement to Lauren Zabel, Jonathan Zabel, Eric Estrin, Rick Porras, Evan Kent, Steve Elzer, Howard Karel, Daniaile Jarry, Randall Klein, and Don Most.
Diversion Books editor Lia Ottaviano gave my original manuscript a fresh read, fired back some great comments, and helped to build the book more solidly. Sheelonee Banerjee gave it a fine edit that found and fixed all the inconsistencies. Sarah Masterson Hally produced a beautiful looking novel from this work.
Our graphics team includes Diversion’s talented cover artist, Scotland’s Kit Foster, and my brilliant Los Angeles friend and Movie Smackdown partner, Lynda Karr (who created a collection of albums that never were), with other graphics contributions from Ireland’s Georgina Flood, Argentina’s Pablo Lobato, Miami’s PhoJoe, and USC’s Nate Gualtieri.
The book’s personal rock star is Brian Bringelson, who took the book’s storyline about showing up and turned it into “Show Up,” performing, singing, and arranging his terrific version with his band, Anchor & Bear, with Katy Pearson and Eric White. Directing and editing, Jared Zabel turned the performance into an evocative 1971 music video that shows the Beatles still having fun together. Thanks and appreciation to Kc Staples for mixing this song and letting us shoot at his amazing vintage studio. Final thanks to Edward Kaspar, Anthony Abbas, Clinton Staples, Theo Kokiousis, and Danny Carter for being a part of the shoot.
Beatles fans, of course, get the final shout-out. Without their persistent love and interest over the years, there would be no reason to have written the book in the first place.
About the Author
CNN correspondent-turned-screenwriter BRYCE ZABEL has created five primetime network television series (i.e., Dark Skies, The Crow) and written and produced on a dozen TV writing staffs
(i.e., Lois and Clark, L.A. Law, Steven Spielberg Presents Taken).
Bryce is a produced feature writer in both live-action (Mortal Kombat: Annihilation) and animation (Atlantis: The Lost Empire). His latest big-budget feature is The Last Battle, based on a New York Times bestseller, being produced with Europe’s STUDIOCANAL in the spring of 2018.
Bryce and his wife, writer/producer Jackie Zabel, won the Writers Guild of America (WGA) Award for writing Pandemic, his third four-hour Hallmark mini-series (the first two being The Poseidon Adventure and Blackbeard). Bryce and Jackie’s Stellar Productions has produced for nearly all major Hollywood networks and studios.
Bryce served as the elected chairman/CEO of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (now, The Television Academy), the first writer in that position since Rod Serling. He has taught graduate-level screenwriting at the USC School of Cinematic Arts. Bryce’s debut novel, Surrounded by Enemies: What if Kennedy Survived Dallas?, won the coveted Sidewise Award for Alternate History.
For more information and additional material, please visit www.WhatIfBeatles.com.
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