John Was A Nail-biter Too: A Study

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

Beatles 1960s Letter To Cinthia From John Lennon in Hamburg Germany Twitter Reblogged

Wikipedia Cynthia Powell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynthia_Lennon

TAG of BEATLES in my Tumblr https://kichisaburo3.tumblr.com/tagged/BEATLES

それでも付き合いたての蜜月期はハンブルクからジョンは度々手紙を送り、それは目にしたミミが卑猥だと激怒するほど明け透けにラブラブなものだった。その手紙や、ジョンと愛し合ったという事実は永遠にシンシアだけのもの。ジョンの妻という重責、それでもそれはかけがえのない日々だったろうな pic.twitter.com/XWB9VftkVW

— Emmie Bead (@emmie_bead) September 10, 2024

11 SEP 2024 Wednesday

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.  

“and you don’t stroke hands with guys”

“not unless you’re secure..”

—

ringo is so tired

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!”

HE WHAT

RINGO & PAUL: A MINI COMPILATION

McCartney offers a further, more emotional reminiscence: “I probably bore him by telling him the moment when the three of us realised he was The Guy. In my recollection it’s at the Cavern and there’s me, John and George — which, right there, is pretty cool — standing at the front doing our thing, facing out on the mics. And then behind us there’s this new guy depping, who we knew we liked — we’d seen him in another band. But now he was playing with us. And it just felt so different. It felt so amazing, and it just locked in with what we were all about. And I have this very vivid recollection of kind of looking at John and him looking at me and looking at George and him looking at me, and the three of us are going, ‘What the fuck, this is fucking amazing!” As McCartney describes this, he wipes his eye. “And as you can see, it gets emotional. There was a moment.”

Keith Smith, Assistant Engineer: All I can say about Ringo is that you just have to listen and watch him playing drums with Paul on bass, it’s pure synergy. I can’t think of any other way to describe it. He is a completely unique drummer and when they play together it’s as near to perfect and natural as I have ever witnessed. It is something that still to this day hasn’t changed.

McCartney digresses for a moment to describe the most recent example of getting-together-with-Ringo, nine days before this conversation, at the end of his show at Dodger Stadium: “Just the other night we finished our tour in Los Angeles and Ringo got up and we were doing ‘Helter Skelter’ together, and when I wasn’t on the mic, in the solo breaks and stuff, I really made a point of turning round and watching this guy drum. And thinking, ‘My God, you know, the memories across this ten-yard gap here,’ with him on the drums and me on the bass. The lifetime that’s going on here, and here he is! And I was just listening to him during that song. I was doing my performance but basically [he sings] When I get to the bottom I go back to the top — as I’m doing that bit, there’s normally just the guitars sort of playing, but Ringo did what’s on the record” — McCartney sings the drum part to demonstrate — “building. So I’m going, 'Oh yeah, great.’ So you know it’s a sort of magic.”

“It’s always a special experience to play with Paul,” says Ringo now. “I love Paul and I love his playing and, you know, we spent a lot of time together in the sixties.”

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The Beatles by Klaus Voormann