George, Paul and Ringo jamming in 1995 video footage- Can someone fill me in?

In some ways it seems like the quintessential George idea.

 

Yep.

 

I'm chasing you around tonight Murdock.

One other thought, as I process these things as I see them.

One thing (or maybe its two or three) that gets forgotten about in the whole George felt disrespected speculation: it had to be fairly embarrassing and humiliating for George when he :

A. Threw his support behind John regarding the Allen Klein situation and ultimately Paul was proven right. That kind of "I told you so" doesn't really go away IMO and possibly Paul would throw a little bit of that around on occasion. That kind of sting and resentment can last a lifetime.
B. John was the one that apparently promised George he would help him out after the breakup and in George's mind John didn't, hence the blowout where George blew up and told John off.
C. George had asked Paul to play the Concert for Bangladesh ( John also) but they BOTH declined.

These kind of things probably didn't endear George to Paul and possibly John , besides all the other issues.

I don't put much stock in the Eric had to teach Paul "All Things Must Pass"idea though. I've learned and played a million songs over the years that I've promptly forgotten six months later, and I in no way have had the incredible um, "mass" of music flowing through my life that Paul has dealt with. Just because Paul ran through the song in 1970 doesn't mean he had anything but a vague memory of the song 30+ years later . That's not a slight at all to have to be shown the chords.

 

Always good to chat with you, Glenn!

All good points, especially "A." Do we know that John promised George to help him out after the breakup? I'd never heard that before, and George seemed pretty content to go it alone in 1970 (with the help of Phil Spector), and by 1971 he wasn't looking back. I don't think he NEEDED John's help. But I do think that John had initially accepted the Bangla Desh offer -- but only on the condition that Yoko be invited too. George said no, and THAT led to some rocky times between them. Paul -- quite understandably -- turned down the Bangla Desh gig flat, thinking it was insane that he would get on stage with the others after all the bitterness of the breakup. Within the next year or two, it was obvious to all concerned that John was very wrong about Allen Klein, and that probably didn't endear him any to the "Money Beatle."

You're right, of course, and I don't want to make too much of it. I wasn't looking to find some deep psychological insight in that anecdote, but I do think it's interesting. But it's just a tiny piece of my larger impression that Paul, while often outwardly supportive of George, only had a very "surface" understanding of him, and that it was that lack of genuine interest in George the person and musician that often rankled his "baby brother."

 

I think it's the other way 'round

 

Getting back to the OPs original thread. I just watched the last half hour of Scorseses Material World documentary. I ran across the most amazing section. About 10 or 15 minutes before the end Paul is showing Geotge a,book of early Beatles photos from Hamburg. Then it cuts to George and Paul doing the Beatle reunion harmonies. Priceless, this exact footage was not in Beatles,anthology. They are,singing Capella, George is singing the low part, Paul high part. Their appearance looks kind of like the Real love footage. But the hair and clothes is,not quite,right. So that begs the question. Whatsession is it from. I don't even hear the bit,sounding like Real Love, but what else could it be. Anybody know about this clip

 

I think the Carl Perkins performance was a unique situation though. Olivia even said to Carl that it had been a long time since she last saw George look that happy. Don't forget he was famous for his serious face ever since the early days of The Beatles.

That being said, Paul was at the top of the hierarchy in The Beatles, so of course he was happy to jump back into being Beatle Paul. George on the other hand had to go back to being Paul's little brother after being a leader in the Traveling Wilburys. With John not being there and having to play Beatles songs with the cameras rolling, I can see why George would feel uncomfortable. It may well have brought back some memories which he was trying to forget. I'm generally of the opinion though that people have blown the whole thing out of proportion. I've seen people say that George was mean to Paul, and maybe at times he was, but it seems to me like Paul always appreciated George being the way he was. They really did have a brotherly relationship:

"George was always the one who brought John and me back down to earth when we were about to get too big-headed. Without George I wouldn’t be who I am today." - Paul in a German magazine (2001)

"I think if you have a relationship with somebody else, you have to be able to trust each other, and to do that you have to be able to talk to each other straight. The thing with Paul is one minute he says one thing and he’s really charming, and the next minute, you know, he’s all uptight. Now we all go through that, good and bad stuff, but I think by now we’ve got to find somewhere in the centre. Anyway, he’s getting better. 'Broad Street', I think, that humbled him a bit. You know, he’s going to be okay."
- George Harrison (1988)

"Says ex-colleague McCartney, fondly: ‘George is so straight and so ordinary and so real, and he happens to believe in God. That’s what’s wrong with George to most people’s minds.’" - People (1976)

"Thing is, there’s a lot about me and George that the public don’t know about, and I like it better that way. That night was very personal, and very special to me. It’s one of my favourite memories."
- Paul McCartney [on his last night with George]

 

I completely get what you mean. Paul's treatment of George tends to go unnoticed because of his diplomatic nature, but there are so many instances where he unintentionally/intentionally insults him. And it annoys me a little how he insisted on referring to George as his "little brother" even after George made it clear that it bothered him. This kind of thing would drive me nuts if I was George:

"'He's [George] not just a crazy recluse who lives up in some place and guards himself from the world… he likes gardening more than music these days. If that’s what his bag is, you’ve got to allow him. You can’t say, "You’re a musician, you shall not garden." You’ve got to let him do what he wants,' Paul says, before getting to a very revealing choice of words: '[He’s] a big boy now.' Once the youngest Beatle, forever the youngest Beatle." - Radio.com Minimation [x]

I think what made the difference with John was that for all his nastiness he did show genuine interest in what George had to offer as a human being, at least for a period.

 

In the reunion songs documentary George says "we work well together". George was always serious looking when playing. I think this often is mistaken for grumpiness. And let's not forget the numerous times he has referred to Paul as friend. He did not have to do that. I think he genuinly meant it.

 

He was also saying, "I never listen to the Beatles" during the 1970s, all the while accumulating various Beatle outtakes and bootlegs and live concerts. I think choosing "Double Fantasy" for the album title was very apt, as John seemed to live in a fantasy world ("What have I been doing? Baking bread...") during that period, at least as far as what he wanted the public to believe.

 

For me that's the definitive reading of the complex relationship between Paul and George. The relationship in which George during one of the first interview-snippets in the Anthology-series mentions:"By then he was 9 months older than me, which was a big deal when you're 15. And even now he STILL is 9 months older!" A friendship from when you're 15 or 16 until you're about 28 is pretty much ''formative''. If a camera had been there in 1963 or 1966 the image might have been largely the same.

 

Just because John says he's been "baking bread", it should not be mis-perceived that he's suggesting he was in the kitchen 24/7, for 365 per year.
Nor should it be thought that just because he had sources go and locate Beatles bootlegs for him that he was in fact listening to The Beatles constantly. John was truly out of the music business for a while, and did not seriously make real music aside from his tinkering about on his own tape recorder for his own amusement during the lulls. That's probably all he meant by "not taking the guitar down".

Putting the spin aside -- the original observation here was simply that Paul will not dare allow the world to see any of his warts or emotional outbursts, while John allowed himself to be seen as imperfect.

 

IMO, George looks like he's having some fun. You dont really know, never will, but I think George and Paul still loved each other, but George was unlikely to ever play a lot of music again with Paul. He disliked the direction that Paul was going in. Got to remember that George died in a house that was owned by Paul. (I'm pretty sure)

Last thought: Dont you wish Ringo played drums more?

 

It's all spin....John and Paul. Paul admitted he screwed up trying to smuggle pot into Japan. John tried to make it seem like all he did was bake bread and dote on his 2nd son, after ignoring his first son. I don't believe for a second that good-old-honest-John image was anything more than an image, just as Paul's happy-go-lucky-nice-Beatle act was an image too.

 

That is exactly what he stated in the 1980 Playboy Interview. No wink or anything of the like was ever implied.

 

It doesn't require a wink or anything; it's obvious that it's not meant to presume that people go around baking bread 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and do literally nothing else for a full five years.

As I said also -- this is way off the track from the original point: that being about Paul always being "on" when the cameras are rolling, and never "off" .

 

Paul admitted he screwed up bringing pot into Japan? Well, it was pretty hard to deny that. He does look very "amused" and "on" during all the arrest footage while on camera , though! (again, getting back to my original observation).

 

Nobody suggested he was doing it 24/7/365, but he didn't say he was doing anything else, either, beyond eating macrobiotic food and doting on Sean.

It's pretty interesting how some folks want to take some things John Lennon said literally, while discarding other things he said literally as being some kind of code or something else entirely....picking and choosing whatever they want to believe to fit their preconceived notion of the man.

 

I wonder if he slept, and used the restroom? He didn't mention those either.
But I think that's a pretty fair summary of where John's mind was at in those 5 years for the most part. It's also backed up by those who knew him in those years.

That goes for some folks regarding Paul McCartney, too.

 

I can kind of see his point, but at the same time it would have been such a fitting and appropriate title. Anthology is just very...bland.

 

It's mainly just longer interview segments without cuts or edits. I haven't watched it in a while but IIRC there isn't anything too relevatory in it that we don't already know. But it's still kind of cool. Very difficult to find these days, though.

 

I have to laugh at that because somewhere in the middle of the Playboy interview he DOES! He says something on the order of "I have to go pee...talk to Yoko until then."

 

Yes, I think we do have some evidence of that Sean. I'll post it later tonight.

 

First of all, allowing himself to be seen as imperfect doesn't mean he didn't construct an image for the press, or misrepresent things...

Will not 'dare'? John and Paul see/saw their roles very differently. John believed his life was art and he SOLD it hard. Paul has tried to keep a barrier between his private and personal self. I mean, Paul does open up and does tell new stories - it just doesn't happen for the big media or for the same ol' questions. He talked in that conversation with Hunter Davies about how John would just jump, whereas Paul over-considered everything. He wished he could be more like John, and he admired that quality that he doesn't have. It's a personality thing. And I think how Paul has managed what he 'gives' to fans and the media has worked extremely well for him, in terms of keeping him sane and as normal as he can be. I mean, look at how they reacted to their respective mothers' deaths. Mike McCartney wrote an article in maybe 1965 or 1966 where he described Paul's character fundamentally changing when Mary passed, that he basically was rude, surly, lost interest in work, just BURIED himself in his guitar, every day and every night, in the bath, in bed, whatever. Paul comforts himself and gets therapy through listening and making music. John, however, reacted differently. He lashed out and he used words to express himself. I remember reading a mate of his from that time saying that basically the rest of them all gave up on him because he was being SO angry and so destructive and it just went on and on. Apparently, Paul was the only one who remained patient with him, if I recall what he said correctly. Anyway, it's all very in character for Paul. He's self-contained and John wasn't. That isn't a good or a bad thing, in and of itself.

PLAYBOY: But getting back to you and your flipness over John's death, isn't that characteristic of you--to show little emotion on the outside, to keep it all internalized?​

LINDA: You're right. That's true.​

PAUL: True. My mum died when I was 14. That is a kind of strange age to lose a mother. "Cause, you know, you're dealing with puberty--​

LINDA: Gosh, we've got a 14-year-old right now!​

PAUL: Yes, and for a boy to lose a mother--​

LINDA: To have been through so many other growing pains, how can a body take all that and still continue?​

PAUL: It's not easy.​

I'm actually curious what makes John's 1970 Rolling Stone interview any more 'honest' or 'real' than any of Paul's interviews, say. Why ought Paul to be expected to show off his 'warts'? He already seems to have plenty of people out there willing to do it for him, to be honest... If he DOES say something negative or admits a fault then he gets criticised for it. If he doesn't, people assume he's not being honest and he's just being smooth and 'PR', whatever the hell that's meant to mean.

PLAYBOY: When you say something like that, people wonder if you're being insincere. You're a multimillionaire and world-famous, yet you work so hard at being ordinary, at preaching normalcy.​

PAUL: No, I don't work at being ordinary. People do say that: "Oh, he's down to earth, he's too good to be true. It can't be true!" And yet the fact is that being ordinary is very important to me. I see it in millions of other people. There's a new motorcycle champion who was just on the telly. He's the same. He's not ordinary, he's a champion; but he has ordinary values, he keeps those values. There's an appreciation of common sense. It's really quite rational, my ordinariness. It's not contrived at all. It is actually my answer to the question, What is the best way to be? I think ordinary.​

Paul has discussed his bad reaction to his mother and John's deaths, he's admitted to bossiness and controlling in the studio, he's discussed being overly cocky, he's admitted to having an imperfect marriage and not being that easy to live with, he's mentioned that his McCartney Q&A does come across as cold and calculating.

I think it's very interesting when he talks about 'warts', actually.

Q: "You recently told an interviewer, 'I'd always thought that, in order to be liked you had to be unwarty... I've only just realized, after all this time, that people like to see the warts.' Thinking of John Lennon's candor about himself, I wonder... What are some of Paul McCartney's warts?"​

PAUL: "Some of my warts? Oh boy... I don't particularly want to reveal them. I've got plenty. What I meant was that John could show how human he was by vocalizing all that. It's just my character not to vocalize that kind of stuff."

Q: "After John's death, Yoko said that people mistook your real feelings because you couldn't express them very easily."​

PAUL: "That's one of the things I often don't like about the way I come off. Like when John died, a reporter stuck a mic in my face and said, 'What do you think?' And I said, 'It's a drag' which of course seemed a really flippant thing to say. But later that night, I was weepin' and-a-wailin' and it all came out. I've given up excusing myself, saying, 'I'm awfully sorry, I'm not very good at this.' Sod it. I'm not going to thrash myself. You've got to think positive."​

 

Ironically, for all of Paul's leeriness, the slide guitar ends up making the track great, along with the other elements, of course. Did Paul not hear 'Gimme Some Truth' when it came out? It's not so different. John loved George's guitar playing - that's what got him in the band in the first place. The Beatles would have evolved musically as individuals since the break-up, and slide became a signature Harrison sound, so why shouldn't he bring that sound and talent to a Beatles track? It's called progress. If they were pretending that they were making a Beatles track with John on vacation as the scenario, George was usually free (as a bird) to do what he wanted on John's tracks. It was either the slide or a Coral electric sitar.