Beatles Biography by Mark Lewisohn (fifth edition)

One thing I'm curious about is how the Let It Be sessions will be handled. Listening to the tapes it becomes very clear that The Beatles and Yoko have either tried to rewrite history or had the completely wrong idea of what was going on since they were so paranoid. Making it seem like Paul was why George left, for instance, and keeping George's fight with John as quiet as they could. I believe George Martin even had the recording of it destroyed.

 

Well Tune In!

 

Does anybody know which book is the one pointed by an arrow in this picture of Lewishon's library :

View attachment 309782

 

Prelude:
The phrase "drugs, divorce, and a slipping image" was first copyrighted in a report by Michael Housego in the Daily Sketch that took a critical look at the closeness of the band members. George, John, and Yoko were heard discussing Housego's story on Nagra roll 400A made at Apple's studio on January 21st of 1969. Ringo is present and later in the day's recordings it's evident that Paul is familiar with Housego's article as well.

What's not as well known is that five days earlier Housego had already broken the story of a "row" between John and George at Twickenham studios.

Note: Boldface type within the two stories below was assigned by the Daily Sketch editor(s).

The Offending Story:
The story, as shared below, was published on the same day as their conversation

The Audible Reaction:
As tape from January 21st begins, the following dialog is heard. Someone's tuning a piano. Most conversations occur simultaneously and there are unintelligible phrases. If anyone can suss out missing words or phrases, feel free to comment.

While Michael Housego may not have ferreted out all the facts and he might indeed have been a weasel, I'd opine that his observations - which appear to outrage the speakers - are close to the mark.

Now...back to THE book!

 

I guess Mark will have to go through the entirety of the Get Back tapes (yikes). Maybe he'll have access to other sources to enable him to hear more.

There were numerous tiffs going around the fabs in '69. Very much like brothers would. The Lennon Rolling Stone interview (available for free on iTunes btw) is fascinating listening and gives the best recorded perspective from John as it was so close to the time. John claimed that each of the other three did not like Yoko, and made it very evident on some occasions. He said it's one of the things that pushed both of them onto H. Speculating - but if there was a fight between George and John I'm guessing it was likely to do with something said to/about Yoko.

 

Exactly. Especially given the hideous font used on the cover. This book is spectacular EXCEPT for the crap cover. For such an important and landmark book, that cover is a massive disappointment, especially given how much better the US standard edition cover is.

 

It's hard to believe this is an alternate take - if so, why would it be on an EMI acetate? I can see Kim Bennett getting an acetate made to present to EMI as he wanted the copyright on the song and wanted someone to produce the record, or possibly Brian Epstein getting an acetate made. But those would be of the Decca tape performance. If at the time of the Decca audition an acetate was made of an alternate take, wouldn't it have been a Decca acetate?

 

I thought it was established that the fight was with John and it was because John wouldn't engage in conversation or answer questions but was letting Yoko talk for him. That put George over the edge. Doug Sulpy sussed this out from the Get Back tapes and published it in his book.

 

Unless it's a demo done by McCartney alone (that no one's ever heard about) it can't be anything BUT the Decca version. It's all very well the seller saying it's an alternate take/version, but how do they know?. Of you're making a claim like that, you have to back it up with some rather impressive facts.

 

This is exactly correct.

 

The other missing piece to the story is George's affair with Maureen (Starkey) - reportedly John and Paul (and obviously Ringo) were unhappy with George for breaking a pretty obvious yet unwritten rule - don't sleep with each other's wives(!)

 

If I'm not mistaken, George's affair with Mo wasn't until after the breakup...their trysts took place at Friar Park, where George didn't move until late 1969/early 1970.

 

Sulpy's is one of the books I've still not read. I'll have to get that one.

The Lennon Rolling Stone interview definitly conveys an extremely anti-Yoko stance from George and Paul though. Apparantly George 'gave it to them straight' about what Dylan and others had told him about her. Insulting someones girlfriend to their face, you can see how that'd lead to a fight.

Though obviously there's a million underlying reasons for fall out in this period. George had his own issues with the group too.

 

They went to lunch that day, it seems John had more than one drink, and announced that he was bringing Yoko into the band. When they returned to Twickenham (and the audio tape resumes) you hear the aftermath of that and George saying "that's it, I'm no longer a Beatle". George tells of his wak-out in an interview with Elliot Mintz for "Earth News" that aired in the earlier 1970s.

 

There is a rather weird moment on January 6th when George sings a song called "Maureen", and relates that it is a song of Dylan's. While this may be true (since George could have learned it directly from the source), there is of course no record of any kind that Dylan wrote such a song. I've theorized that George wrote it himself and simply couldn't sing it in front of the other 3 without cooking up a story better than "here's a song I wrote about your wife".

 

Gee, as years go by I feel more and more like the Roebuck of the "Get Back" world

It has not been established with absolute certainty that what drove George away on January 10th is what KEPT George away on January 13th. His continued unhappiness on the 13th certainly related to the meeting held at Ringo's house on the evening of the 12th, when the 4 Beatles tried to meet to resolve the fate of on-the-rocks TV special, and George was irritated that there were FIVE people at the meeting table. George walked out of that meeting after comments passed between John and Yoko.

 

Since we have a very lengthy discussion with Paul at the center of it on January 13th (when George was "on strike" and John was sitting at home because he assumed with George gone there was no need to show up), that centers on John and Yoko's relationship being a problem for George and the rest of the band, and that discussion never touches on Yoko being "in the band", I can't put much faith in this story. Perhaps George (or someone else) conflated the events of the day (George walking out, Yoko screaming over the top of Threetles jam a short time later).

 

It makes perfect sense that John would want Yoko in the band - as his new best friend, isn't it a repeat of John putting Stu in the band, which was resisted by Paul? He even treated Stu very badly, out of jealousy of his relationship with John. This time Paul was much more accepting of Yoko, perhaps knowing John and that he couldn't be "pushed" out of his relationship with Yoko, than was George.

 

John said in several interviews that he tried to bring Yoko into the band, the first mention of that was the 1970 Rolling Stone interview, published in book form as "Lennon Remembers".

 

A hundred hours or so of "Get Back" reels don't reveal this, or anything near it. There are two instances where Yoko takes "center stage" during what John called "freaksouts". But Yoko IN the band? No chance.

 

I think Heather had about as much time.

 

And a better grasp of pitch.

 

I get it. Very funny! Some of us old timers remember that there were two names on that book!

 

I actually thinks she was worse.

 

Perhaps you didn't get what I said, I said that John announced he was bringing Yoko into the group while they were at lunch, which was not filmed. We do hear them coming back from that lunch and George leaving, then the filming gets abruptly stopped. Have you read Doug Sulpy's book? He also lays out the chain of events that day. Also, George said in the Elliot Mintz "Earth News" interview that reason he walked out that day was that John said that Yoko was now a member of the band, one quote I remember precisely was George saying "there was no way I was going to stay in the Beatles, not if it included Yoko Ono".
This topic has come up so many times before, I now only try to clear it up maybe every third time, I don't even know why the hell I come here any more.