The Beatles' First Pet: George Harrison's Vomit. ㅡ From The Book "One, Two, Three, Four: The Beatles

A style selection, 1956-1969.

A continuation of sorts from this post.

“[George’s] idea, which he ordered [in Liverpool in the 1950s], was a four-button jacket with cloth-covered buttons. Two breast pockets which were slitted (jetted) and in the shape of a bird in flight, the two side pockets corresponded. The cuffs had to be folded back with a cloth-covered button. His trousers had no pleats in the front, not normal in those days, and he was by far the very first person to have two slits at the bottom side seam of the trouser and he wanted them folded back with cloth covered buttons to match the cuffs on his jacket. The workshop queried the order when they received thinking we had gone bonkers. George got his suit and was pleased with the outcome. Later lots of guys were walking about town with cut back cuffs and side seams on their trousers, but George was the first.” - Rollo Torpey, The Beatles and Me (2015)

“At Iris’s 14th birthday party, I remember George turned up in a brand-new, Italian-style stuff with covered buttons. He looked very grown-up.” - Violet Caldwell (mother of Iris, and Alan, a.k.a. Rory Storm), The Beatles Monthly September 1965

“[George’s mother Louise] took an unusually benign view of George’s luminous pink shirts, yellow waistcoat, and drainpipe trousers.” - Pete Shotton, The Beatles, Lennon, And Me (1984)

“Going in for flash clothes, or at least trying to be a bit different, as I hadn’t any money, was part of the rebelling. I never cared for authority. They can’t teach you experience; you’ve got to go through it, by trial and error.” - George Harrison, The Beatles: The Authorized Biography (1968)

“At the Institute, George was known from the beginning as a way-out dresser. Michael McCartney, Paul’s brother, was a year below him. He remembers George always having long hair — years before anybody else did. […] ‘George used to go to school with his school cap sitting high on top of his hair,‘ says Mrs. Harrison. ‘And very tight trousers. Unknown to me, he’d run them up on my machine to make them even tighter. I bought him a brand-new pair once and the first thing he did was tighten them. When his dad found out, he told him to unpick them at once. “I can’t, Dad,” he said. “I’ve cut the pieces off.”’” - The Beatles: The Authorized Biography (1968)

“I’d started to develop my own version of the school uniform. I had some cast-offs from my brother. One was a dog-toothed check-patterned sports coat, which I’d dyed black to use as my school blazer. The color hadn’t quite taken, so it still had a slight check design to it. I had a shirt I’d bought in Lime Street, that I thought was so cool. It was white with pleats down the front. and it had embroidery along the corners of the pleats. I had a waistcoat that John had given me, which he’d got from his ‘uncle’ Dykins (his mother’s boyfriend), Mr. Twitchy Dykins. It was like an evening-suit waistcoat — black, double-breasted, with lapels. The trousers John also gave me, soon after we first met — powder-blue drainpipes with turn-ups. I dyed them black as well. And I had black suede shoes from my brother. […] That outfit of mine was very risky, and it felt like all day, every day, for the last couple of years I was going to get busted. In those days we used Vaseline on our hair to get the rock n’ roll greased-back hairstyle. Also, you were supposed to wear a cap and a tie, and a badge on your blazer. I didn’t have my badge stitched on, I had it loose. It was held in place by a pen clipped over it in my top pocket, so I could remove it easily, and the tie.” - George Harrison, The Beatles Anthology (2000)

“He was always a pretty snappy dresser, and he did always like that waistcoat look. And he used to wear a V-neck Fair Isle jumper. Sometimes he’d be a little too outrageous, like purple trousers with bright green, but it was fine. Everything seemed to be fine then.” - Pattie Boyd, interview for the British Beatles Fan Club

“The boys are wearing all sorts of fantastic clothes for their film and introduce a very new, unusual gimmick. If they’re wearing corduroy, for example, then they have corduroy boots to match. If they’re seen in velveteen suits, then they’re coupled with velveteen boots. George first thought of the idea two years ago, but when he put the idea to a local bootmaker, he told him it couldn’t be done. Well, that’s one cobbler that’s been proved wrong.” - The Beatles Monthly, June 1965 (x)

“A body of work was produced that I don't believe he alone could have produced, or I alone could have produced. It was only me that sat in those hotel rooms, in his house in the attic; it wasn't Yoko, it wasn't Sean, it wasn't Julian, it wasn't George, it wasn't Mimi, it wasn't Ringo, it wasn't Miles. It was me that sat in those rooms, seeing him in all his moods and all his little things, seeing him not being able to write a song, and having me help, seeing me not able to write a song and him help me.”

Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now by Barry Miles

Get Back Rewatch 55 Years On: Day 17

George is so sweet to put so much effort into helping Ringo write his song and to not ask for any kind of writing credit. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, right? But also, I’d do that for Ringo too if I were him. Ringo deserves it for everything he’s given to that band and the little credit he’s received. 

“What am I playing, Richie?” “You’ll be on drooms.” If the Beatles know how to do one thing, it’s be cute. 

John, stop talking about Paul’s strong arms, you're embarrassing yourself. 

I do have to just include this here. From my Get Back book. I never heard, “was it sexually oriented?” on the nagra reels, but apparently that’s what Peter Jackson’s cleaned-up version gave him, and again, he was like, “hmm. Too gay.” 

He’s known Heather for how long? Less than a year, right? But if somebody had showed me just this footage and told me he’d raised her from a newborn, I would not blink an eye. That kind of tired but fond interaction is exactly how a dad plays with his kid. And she’s climbing all over him and bossing him around like he’s never not been in her life. It’s beautiful. 

And John, with his “are you going to eat them?” is the perfect sort of bad-example favorite uncle. The kind that would check her out of school when she’s older and go get her ears pierced when her dad had said she was too young. 

Sorry, I promise I’m not just going to be thirsting over dad Paul this whole time. I have to just make one thing clear, and this is the only thing I’ll say on the subject and then I’m done. If a man is a 3 and a good dad, he’s a 10. Paul was already an 11, so I’m literally just done-for. Okay, I’ll shut up. 

John and Paul doing their usual thing, only paying attention to each other. Talking about an Elvis gospel ending for Let it Be. George, smirking, stands up: and we’ll all kneel as you do it. If John had said it, Paul would be in stitches. But George said it, and he might as well have never opened his mouth for all the notice he gets. And it’s honestly heartbreaking, if you can take your eyes off of the insanity of John and Paul’s weird eye-contact, to watch George’s face go from excited at his own wit and hopeful for a laugh to just completely downcast. Twelve years of that. Twelve years. 

Ringo, you’re an absolute saint. He’s being so sweet to Heather, even letting her mess with his symbols, and then Paul has the audacity to tell him to “keep it lighter.” Like. Paul. Do you think that maybe the fact that he’s got a five-year-old over there “helping” him might have anything to do with how the drums are coming out? Just a thought. Anyone else would at least have something to say about it. Ringo just sort of nods along but he looks SO tired.

TFW you’re inspiring the next generation of women to be loud and free and take up space.

“Dig it” is actually insane to me. I know I’m crazy, but remember those twin dreams they had about buried treasure when they first met? “If you want it, you can dig it up.” ???

When George and Paul just jump into harmonizing together when they’re talking about The Long and Winding Road arrangement? Their voices are like magic together. I wish they would’ve had George sing that part in the final thing, actually.  

what if I just jump off a bridge

Clip from The Today Show, 1986; interview conducted by Rona Elliot.

Rona Elliot: “How have you managed not to be stuck in time, to just keep your life going?” George Harrison: “I don’t know… there’s no other thing to do except, as the man said, The only thing I knew how to do was to keep on keeping on like a bird that flew. Anyway, you just keep going and past, you know, the past is gone — that’s another thing this guy that built my house [Friar Park] said: 'Past is gone, thou canst not that recall, future is not, may not be at all. Present is, improve the flying hour, present only is within thy power.' So I mean, that’s all there is to it, there isn’t anything — nothing exists except now. You know, the past is gone and the future doesn’t exist until you get to it and it’s the now. So you just have to be here now, and do your best.” -The Today Show, 1986 “‘One of [George’s] favorite things to say was, “Be here now,”’ [Olivia] says. His song by that title, from his 1973 album ‘Living in the Material World,’ remains one of her favorites, and it’s one she plays any time she feels in need of a booster shot of moral support. ‘Sometimes he and Dhani would be talking and Dhani would ask, “Well what if this happens?” or “What if that happens?”’ she says. ‘George would say, “Be here now. Be here now.”’” - The Los Angeles Times, March 9, 2005 “‘Be here now because it’s not like it was before.’ Occasionally it’s nice to have somebody tell you that. He offered advice about living. He didn’t preach, he would just say, Oh don’t let that get to you. Be here now, the past is gone. I listen to that on purpose so I can remind myself.” - Olivia Harrison, The Times, September 24, 2014

edited some of William's facial expressions for. reasons.

When my uncle told Lennon that I was born near Frankfurt, the son of a Jewish-American father and a German-Protestant mother, John quipped that I was lucky to belong to both the Chosen People and the Master Race. He then began peppering me with German phrases he remembered from his early days in the red-light district of Hamburg with the Beatles, for instance: “Um zweiundzwanzig Uhr müssen alle Jugendliche den Saal verlassen” – At 10:00 p.m. all minors must leave the premises – and “Ficken, lecken, blasen!” – fuck, suck, blow.

John Lennon: Living on Borrowed Time, Frederic Seaman (1991)

" we sort of conned my way out of hospital so i didn't have to be there for my 15th birthday. we went down to romford, where my stepdad's family lived. his dad was great, and he knew london like the back of his hand. we went walking all over london and saw the sights, the british museum and the searchlight tattoo.

it was a great day out, but it was a bit long for someone who'd just come out of hospital. "

- ringo starr, PHOTOGRAPH (2013)

The Beatles by Klaus Voormann

How George and Paul met Being childhood friends George and Paul knew each other the longest. Meeting when they were 12 and 13. They met on the bus. They would take the same bus route into town, they both went to Liverpool Institute of High School, it wasn't common to have younger or older friends, you would stick to your own year, but on the outside it was different. This is where they’re paths would cross.

George says Paul struck him as odd. When George was getting on the bus, he thought Paul was laughing at him, but then realized Paul wasn’t laughing at anyone around him, he was giggling at his own reflection.

“Q: How did you first meet Paul?

A: On a bus coming home from school. He was sitting by himself and laughing! thought we had a real nut on our hands!”