They’re Sooo HOT ♥

The Beatles, photographed by Jean-Marie Perier

“This band was like… They were like a single person. It was an odd phenomena, in fact, that they seemed to move together and think together. It was almost like a little family unit.” - Eric Clapton, Living in the Material World

The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller

“I just saw a girl who said she saw John Lennon walking down the street in New York wearing a button that said, "I love Paul.” she asked him, “Why are you wearing an ‘I love Paul’ button?” and he said, “Because I love Paul." - Harry Nilsson

When John and Paul met each other

           “That was the day, the day that I met Paul, that it started moving.” –John Lennon.

The Quarry Men was the Skiffle group featuring John Lennon, Pete Shotton, Eric Griffiths, Colin Hanton, Rod Davies, and Len Garry. They performed on the afternoon of 6th July 1957 at St Peter’s Church Fete, Woolton, Liverpool.

‘I remember coming into the fete and seeing all the sideshows. And also hearing all this great music wafting in from this little Tannoy system. It was John and the band.

I remember I was amazed and thought, ‘Oh great’, because I was obviously into the music. I remember John singing a song called Come Go With Me. He’d heard it on the radio. He didn’t really know the verses, but he knew the chorus. The rest he just made up himself.

I just thought, ‘Well, he looks good, he’s singing well and he seems like a great lead singer to me.’ Of course, he had his glasses off, so he really looked suave. I remember John was good. He was really the only outstanding member, all the rest kind of slipped away.’ –Paul McCartney, 1995.

It looks like a love at first sight story.

That evening, Ivan Vaughan (the Quarrymen’s sometime tea-chest bass player and John’s friend) introduced the band to one of his classmates from Liverpool Institute, that 15 little boy called Paul McCartney! So the magic happened… John Lennon and Paul McCartney met each other. Macca came wearing a white jacket with silver flecks to John, who wore a checked shirt. 

The pair chatted for a few minutes, and McCartney showed Lennon how to tune a guitar - the instruments owned by Lennon and Griffiths were in G banjo tuning. McCartney then sang Twenty Flight Rock.

 ‘Right off, I could see John was checking this kid out,’ says Pete Shotton (The Quarry Men), who was standing behind John, off to the side. ‘Paul came on as very attractive, very loose, very easy, very confident. – wildly confident. He played the guitar well. I could see that John was very impressed’. 

When I visited Liverpool, I had the chance to go at the St Peter’s church hall. And I saw this message that Paul sent to Church:

Ah yes, I remember it well.

I do, actually. My memory of meeting John for the first time is very clear. My mate Ivan Vaughan took me along to Woolton here and there were The Quarry Men, playing on a little platform.

I can still see John – checked shirt, slightly curly hair, singing Come Go With Me by The Del Vikings. He didn’t know all the words, so he was putting in stuff about penitentiaries – and making a good job of it.

I remember thinking ‘He looks good – I wouldn’t mind being in a group with him’.

A bit later we met up; I played him Twenty Flight Rock and he seemed pretty impressed – maybe because I DID know the words.

Then, as all you know, he asked me to join the group, and so we began our trip together. We wrote our first songs together, we grew up together and we lived our lives together. And when we’d do it together, something special would happen. There’d be that little magic spark.

I still remember his beery old breath when I met him here that day. But I soon came to love that beery old breath. And I loved John. I always was and still am a great fan of John’s. We had a lot of fun together and I treasure all those beautiful memories.

 So I send you all in Woolton and Liddipool my best wishes today.

And thanks for remembering – there’s no way that when we met here we had any idea of what we’d be starting. But I’m very proud of what we did. And I’m very glad that I did it with John.

I hope you all have a wonderful day and God bless all who sail in you.

Paul McCartney

Thanks Lennon and McCartney. Thanks for everything you gave to the world.

           “The most important day in his life was the day he met me” – Paul McCartney. 

1965 Beatles Interview

Source: YouTube

“John didn’t look at anyone the way he looked at Paul.” — Cynthia Lennon

Q: ‘How many more years do you think it will go on?’ Paul McCartney: 'Don’t know. We’re not…’ John Lennon: 'We’re not taking bets.’ Q: 'Have you got any idea? Will it be three? Four? What do you think?’ George Harrison: 'Till death do us part.’ (laughter)

The Beatles’ Seattle press conference, 21 August 1964 (via justfourpartsoftheone)