February 7, 2024 • 24 mins
Countless decisions, large and small, aided The Beatles’ ascent to the top of popular culture. The release of their debut single, “Love Me Do,” in the UK in the fall of 1962 was one of those decisions. Their debut on American television was another. In this episode from McCartney: A Life in Lyrics, Paul McCartney and Paul Muldoon discuss the early evolution of The Beatles. Listen to the new season now.
“McCartney: A Life in Lyrics” is a co-production between iHeart Media, MPL and Pushkin Industries.
The series was produced by Pejk Malinovski and Sara McCrea; written by Sara McCrea; edited by Dan O’Donnell and Sophie Crane; mastered by Jason Gambrell with assistance from Jake Gorski and sound design by Pejk Malinovski. The series is executive produced by Leital Molad, Justin Richmond, Lee Eastman and Scott Rodger.
Thanks to Lee Eastman, Richard Ewbank, Scott Rodger, Aoife Corbett and Steve Ithell.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
We admired a singer at that time called Bruce Chanelle
I think his name was, who had a song called
Hey Baby where there was a harmonica riff. So we
started doing Hey Baby. I sang it. John played the harmonica.
(00:50):
I think that was one of the contributory factors for
when we're going to write something that's a good idea,
This harmonica thing's a good idea. John could play it well.
We could write something that would feature a harmonica. You know,
(01:11):
instruments come in sort of vogues. I mean you think
of skiffle. Guitar was like a harmmonic. It's what everyone
got for Christmas, is what everyone got, and that then
spawned the sixties revolutions.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
I'm Paul will do and I've been fortunate to spend
time with one of the greatest songwriters of our era.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
And will you look at me, I'm going on to it.
I'm actually a performer.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
That is Sir Paul McCartney. We worked together on a
book looking at the lyrics of more than one hundred
and fifty of his songs, and we recorded many hours
of our conversations.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
It was like going back to an old snapshot album
looking back on work I hadn't ever analyzed.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
This is mc cartney, a life in lyrics, a master class,
a memoir, and an improvised journey with one of the
most iconic figures in popular music. In this episode, love Me.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Too, BA love Me Do you know?
Speaker 2 (02:27):
I love you?
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Always be true so lovely.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
For a group like the Beatles to come into existence,
you need quite a few planets to align, but you
also need prodigious talent, clever strategy, and instiable drive. In
this episode, we trace the origins of one of the
(03:00):
earliest Beatles songs. These days, it's difficult to remember a
time before the Beatles, but back when Paul McCartney and
John Lennon wrote Love Me Doo, there were merely school
boys trying to make a hit.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
In the afternoons, I sometimes had a rather kind of
light class that I could get out of, and so
I would say I had a dentist's appointment or something,
and they didn't check too heavily, so I would be
able to get on the bus, go back home and
arrange to meet John, who ran about that time, was
(03:37):
going to the art college next door in my school,
so we'd meet up at my house. Is now National
Trust Establishment twenty fourth in the road, and we would
meet there because that was the most convenient place, and
my mom and dad wouldn't be there, so we would
(03:57):
go there and start just knocking around, showing each other
stuff that we'd written already, and then writing new stuff together.
And this's involved a couple of songs that have never
been published or never been heard, songs like just Fun
(04:21):
was one of them, and they were very rough little things,
but you know, it was the start.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
Right now? You still have copies of those? Are there
still copies of it?
Speaker 2 (04:29):
You know? I do? I say, or did have an
old school exercise book. It's a nice little blue book, hardback,
and in that I wrote just fun, Just fun. They
said that our love was just fun the day that
our friendship begun. There's no blueboon that I can see.
(04:52):
There's never been in history, because our love was just fun,
kind of country pond. And then Too Bad about Sorrows
was sort of too bad about Sartrouse. Wow, Wow wow, ooh,
Do do I think it's a little too opy thing?
This was the start. And then I'd written in angel voices.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
In that little blue notebook where the two school boys
had scribbled their very first lyrics. There was evidence Lennon
and McCartney envisioned themselves following in the footsteps of other
songwriting giants.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
And at the top of the page, I've written another
Lennon McCartney original.
Speaker 4 (05:39):
So you already had a sense, even though you were
what sixteen, a little older perhaps that you would have
a future.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Yeah, did you? I mean I think it was more
a sort of wish than a sense. It was more
you know, this thing, if you visualize it, it might
come true. And you know, when you think of Lena McCartney,
was because we'd heard of Gilbert Sullivan, Rogers and Hamstein.
Lenna McCartney as good as two of us, and we
(06:08):
can make it one. That was type names liber and Starer,
Coffin and King, well, these were magic names to us.
We didn't realize Coffin King was Carol King. I didn't
realize it was a girl.
Speaker 4 (06:21):
And an amazingly young woman.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
I was very young, yes, yeah, but you know it
was thrilling to know that there were these people out
there and this is what we wanted to be and
love me do game Around that period, One after nine
or nine robbed me doing one after nine or nine
actually got published and actually got recorded.
Speaker 5 (06:43):
My baby did on one Affter nine or nine.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
I did, the others didn't get recorded. And the school
exercise book. I found it probably about ten fifteen years ago,
put it in my bookcase and I've since lost it time.
I don't know where it is. I think it might
show up somewhere, but it's the first ever so Lenna
(07:10):
McCarney manuscript anyway. Yeah, well, oh dear is right, but
you know you have to let these things go right,
maybe down on one Apple.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Another duo which had a profound influence on young Lennon
and McCartney was the Everly Brothers.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
There are certain people that you can credit for pretty
much everything we did, because I think that's I think
that's true of everyone. I think everyone's got a hero that.
Speaker 5 (07:49):
Forms them, like Thista. How did I exist? Alista?
Speaker 2 (08:08):
So so as John and I were two male vocalists
who sang in harmony, our biggest influence was the Evely Brothers,
who we loved adored to this day. I just think
they the greatest, And it was different. You'd have barbershop quartets,
(08:29):
you'd heard the Beverly Sisters, the Three Girls, you'd heard
all that, but just two guys, good lucking guys. This
is good.
Speaker 6 (08:40):
Oh yeah, you gotta weelbou.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
So. Yeah, we love them and idolized them and wanted
to be like them.
Speaker 5 (08:57):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
It's like when people later would see the Beatles on
the Ed Sullivan Show.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
But even ladies and gentlemen like Live from New York.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
I mean trillion people who say that I knew that's
what I wanted to be.
Speaker 5 (09:19):
On our show in New York, the Beatles played to
the greatest TV audience it's ever been assembled in the
history of American TV.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
When I saw you foreheaded monster on the Telly and
you I've got to be part of this. Our current
manager of Beatles Apple Records, says that Bruce Springsteen says
that David Lehnerman says that they all formed on that night,
formed this future for themselves. And there we were in
(09:48):
Liverpool form in this future and the same kind of deal.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
When you say goodbye.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Lennon and McCartney were working in the wake of all
these great songwriting dues who wrote songs for others to sing,
and singers like the Everly Brothers who sang other people's songs.
But there were also people like Buddy Holly who could
do it all.
Speaker 6 (10:22):
You know, you know me, baby dude, you tell me
baby that someday, well you real loudly, lad, would you
sing goodbye?
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Buddy Holly to us was amazing for a number of reasons.
He sang and played guitar. Elvis just sang and Scotty
Moore played guitar. He normally played guitar, he played the solos. Normally,
if you played guitar, there was another guy in the
group was the lead guitar played the solos. But Buddy
(10:55):
sang and played the guitar and played the solos. He
also wrote the stuff. So this was like all inclusive,
one man band, and we really thought that was great.
So this is what we have to do.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Buddy Holly inspired the youngsters to explore their full musical potential,
and he also helped John Lennon overcome his embarrassment about
wearing glasses.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
He also wore these big horn room glasses, as did John.
And if ever there would be a girl coming up,
John with witness glasses off and put them in his
pocket and squint as she went by, and you look
pretty good the glasses. But when Buddy get along, the
glasses stayed on. It was like Harry Potter with all
(11:47):
the kids.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Like Buddy Holly had more than just the musical chops
and the suave image that John Lennon and Paul McCartney
covet it for themselves. The name of his group, Buddy
Holly and the Crickets, had a certain entomological ring to it.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
The name the Crickets. You know, we wanted something with
a dual meaning, and it turned out they didn't know
how the dual meaning the crickets. They didn't know about
the game cricket. Oh, I say, They just thought it
was grasshoppers. So we said to them. I met them
years later, said, fantastic man, the Beatles. We loved crickets,
(12:31):
chirpy little things and the great game of cricket. A
brilliant name for a group. And they went, you know,
oh no, we just heard a grasshopper in the studio wall.
Speaker 7 (12:41):
You know, did you do you remember setting around thinking
Buddy Holly and the Crickets the Beatles will be a
great name for us.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
My memory of it was that we were striving to
find something with a dual meaning because of the Crickets.
This is the idea. Now the actual origin of it
is clouded in mystery. You know I missed you. It
was just a club split up. I missed you. Because
there are all sorts of theories about this, says The
(13:14):
Wild Ones with Marlon Brando, and at one point Lee
Marvin says, he Johnny, Johnny or Johnny, I think he's cool.
Come on, Johnny, we all missed you. Miss Johnny. We
love you, you know, coming back to the gang or something
like that. Johnny, we love you. The Beatles love.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
You, Beatles, Mister Beatles, Mister.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
It turns out the Malls, the girls in the Motorcycle
Gang were called Beatles, says The Beatles love you, Johnny
for all times. And I know John and Stuart his
art school friends. Stuart Sucliffe loved that film, as we
all did. I think they had seen it. I think
(13:55):
we just loved it and hadn't seen it anyway, So
that's one of the theories.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
Today it's easy to forget how the creation of the
Beatles required thousands of small choices. Songs which are now
canonized were once simple phrases. Two boys having fun when
no parents were home, one of them with a notebook
in hand the other playing a harmonica.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
At one of those writing sessions, twenty fourth in road
a little garden path past my dad's lavender hedge. You know,
we would write, let me doing John come up with
this little harmonica roof. It's so simple, I mean, are yes,
there's nothing to it. It's a will have a wisp
(14:53):
little song, lovely.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
So what do you think made it become such a
potent powerful.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
I think our image and our energy as the four
Beatles was what was potent. And it had a very
fresh sound. That's the sort of thing that people noticed.
And we had a very fresh image. Nobody looked like us.
And we'd been working at it a long time in Liverpool.
(15:30):
Originally as really a bunch of rockers, you know, the
cliffs and everything. Gone over to Hamburg as the rockers
had got a little bit leatherified there, and then it
moved from leather to suits at the request of Brian Epstein.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
Brian Epstein, an entrepreneurial young man from a family of
successful retailers in Liverpool, had stumbled upon the Beatles at
a nineteen sixty one lunchtime concert. He had no experience
managing artists, but he did have lots of confidence. So
in short order he signed the contract to manage the
(16:11):
band and told them to get suited up.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Yeah, so we all went over to Beno Dawn, who
was in the Wirral backing haired a tailor. We'd never
been to a tailor really, you know, so certainly not
on maps. We all went over and got suits. So
we had this image. We had all the experienced musical
experience of Hamburg of playing a lot your ten thousand hours,
(16:35):
mister Gladwell's ten thousand hours. So when we kind of
then came on the scene and was seen on television,
we had a freshness, complete simplicity. Let me do it's
got a slightly sort of bluesy thing. I mean, it's
not a blues but it's got a simplicity, like a
(17:01):
little sort of down home on the porch with a
couple of guitars on harmonica.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
At the heart of these simple lyrics is a familiar story,
a young man yearning for a woman to.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Love Salmon Salma.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
It's a funny thing. You try and recreate that stuff
now and it's almost impossible. But why Because you were sixteen,
That's why you were looking at the world and the
world was good, and there was this marvelous rock and
roll future unfolding itself, and you were about to become
(17:53):
part of it. So your longings for a girl which
was impossible to achieve, you know, nobody had that little,
perfect high school sweetheart, you know. So there was this
great long for your career is you didn't know what
(18:13):
you were going to do, and it was a dread
of all dreads. I was about to go to teachers
training college and I was trying to put that off forever.
I did not want to go into that mold. So
there was all these different kinds of longings. John and
I's mothers had both died, which was this amazing bond
(18:34):
between us. We both understood the anguish of that, and
at that age it's largely unspoken. You just said, oh,
your mother died, Yes, so did I. We knew. I
knew the circumstances of his mother. He knew the circusan
in mind, and we would talk about it a little bit,
(18:57):
but being young boys, you didn't talk about it much.
So all this was rolled up into this package, this longing,
and it's spilled out, which is the best way to
write me.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
Some of this longie for their mothers for love. For
artistry was fairly abstract, but they also had more concrete ambitions.
They had met other songwriting teams who turned out hits
and made good money.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
John and I looked at thought, there, right, we could
do that. What a good idea. If we get hits,
that will then get money and it may not buy
us love, but it will buy us a car. I
must admit, you know, we were young guys without any money,
coming from Liverpool with dreams, and once we realized that
(20:00):
to write a hit song would get you some money,
it was very attractive, very attractive thought. And it wasn't
just the money. It is then the joy of pulling
our song out of a hat, being able to play
it with our band, which needed songs. So we were
sort of feeding the machine.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Take one No.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
Later, when the Fab four removed from writing in the
parlor room to writing in the studio, they learned to
crank out hits at an impressive piece.
Speaker 5 (20:37):
Take four.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
One are recording hours? Well, what now classical people do?
It's it's the norm for recording. You normally go in
ten o'clock, you get yourself together, you start at ten thirty.
You then will work three hours. You don't have an
(21:02):
hour break, and you work two thirty to five thirty
and that's it. And in those two periods of three hours,
it was expected that we would be able to finish
two songs. So we did. And that was the output
and the great the flow of just having to come
up with two complete things. But the great thing about
(21:26):
this was you were finished by five point thirty.
Speaker 5 (21:31):
When a harmonica like the Beatles playing not a toy,
but a Genuinehoner marine band harmonica, just like those played
by the Beatles.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
Maybe what allowed the Beatles to come together was the
force of their longing. Maybe it was the long studio days,
the churning out of albums, the carefully crafted image. Whatever
the case. They went from looking at other artists dreaming
of becoming them, to being the artists others would dream
(22:01):
of becoming.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Play along with the Beatles with your own genuine Honer
marine bend harmonica from Klim.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
When what the Beatles would become was beyond what any
of its members could have dreamt off when they were
sixteen and playing harmonica in their living rooms.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
There were all sorts of things. As I say that
you instinctively knew don't try too hard, don't work too
hard at reaching for it, because the more you reach,
the more it will receive. Just kid on that you
(22:44):
don't even want it right, something will happen where everyone
else around us be worrying no more other thing. I
was going to, Oh my god, am I going We
always related back to this accident we'd had on the
motorway going from running up to Liverpool, where we'd skid
it off in the snow down the bank with our
van and at the bottom of the van were this,
(23:07):
how the hell are we ever going to I get home,
it's snowing, we're freezing, and someone in the group said
something will happen, and it was like that became a mantra,
and you know, as I say, it's actually a very
good one. It's this. It's not reaching for it, it's
letting it go.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Love me, Love me, Love me? Do you know I
(23:58):
love you? Oh?
Speaker 5 (24:01):
Be true?
Speaker 4 (24:03):
So please love.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
Me, Love me Do from the Beatles nineteen sixty three
album Please Please Me. In the next episode, McCartney starts
(24:32):
over with a ragtag band on the run.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
I just thought we would just start something that feels
good and we'll build it up like the Beatles did.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
McCartney. A Life in Lyrics is a co production between
iHeartMedia NPL and Pushkin Industries.
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
We admired a singer at that time called Bruce Chanelle
I think his name was, who had a song called
Hey Baby where there was a harmonica riff. So we
started doing Hey Baby. I sang it. John played the harmonica.
(00:50):
I think that was one of the contributory factors for
when we're going to write something that's a good idea,
This harmonica thing's a good idea. John could play it well.
We could write something that would feature a harmonica. You know,
(01:11):
instruments come in sort of vogues. I mean you think
of skiffle. Guitar was like a harmmonic. It's what everyone
got for Christmas, is what everyone got, and that then
spawned the sixties revolutions.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
I'm Paul will do and I've been fortunate to spend
time with one of the greatest songwriters of our era.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
And will you look at me, I'm going on to it.
I'm actually a performer.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
That is Sir Paul McCartney. We worked together on a
book looking at the lyrics of more than one hundred
and fifty of his songs, and we recorded many hours
of our conversations.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
It was like going back to an old snapshot album
looking back on work I hadn't ever analyzed.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
This is mc cartney, a life in lyrics, a master class,
a memoir, and an improvised journey with one of the
most iconic figures in popular music. In this episode, love Me.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Too, BA love Me Do you know?
Speaker 2 (02:27):
I love you?
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Always be true so lovely.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
For a group like the Beatles to come into existence,
you need quite a few planets to align, but you
also need prodigious talent, clever strategy, and instiable drive. In
this episode, we trace the origins of one of the
(03:00):
earliest Beatles songs. These days, it's difficult to remember a
time before the Beatles, but back when Paul McCartney and
John Lennon wrote Love Me Doo, there were merely school
boys trying to make a hit.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
In the afternoons, I sometimes had a rather kind of
light class that I could get out of, and so
I would say I had a dentist's appointment or something,
and they didn't check too heavily, so I would be
able to get on the bus, go back home and
arrange to meet John, who ran about that time, was
(03:37):
going to the art college next door in my school,
so we'd meet up at my house. Is now National
Trust Establishment twenty fourth in the road, and we would
meet there because that was the most convenient place, and
my mom and dad wouldn't be there, so we would
(03:57):
go there and start just knocking around, showing each other
stuff that we'd written already, and then writing new stuff together.
And this's involved a couple of songs that have never
been published or never been heard, songs like just Fun
(04:21):
was one of them, and they were very rough little things,
but you know, it was the start.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
Right now? You still have copies of those? Are there
still copies of it?
Speaker 2 (04:29):
You know? I do? I say, or did have an
old school exercise book. It's a nice little blue book, hardback,
and in that I wrote just fun, Just fun. They
said that our love was just fun the day that
our friendship begun. There's no blueboon that I can see.
(04:52):
There's never been in history, because our love was just fun,
kind of country pond. And then Too Bad about Sorrows
was sort of too bad about Sartrouse. Wow, Wow wow, ooh,
Do do I think it's a little too opy thing?
This was the start. And then I'd written in angel voices.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
In that little blue notebook where the two school boys
had scribbled their very first lyrics. There was evidence Lennon
and McCartney envisioned themselves following in the footsteps of other
songwriting giants.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
And at the top of the page, I've written another
Lennon McCartney original.
Speaker 4 (05:39):
So you already had a sense, even though you were
what sixteen, a little older perhaps that you would have
a future.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Yeah, did you? I mean I think it was more
a sort of wish than a sense. It was more
you know, this thing, if you visualize it, it might
come true. And you know, when you think of Lena McCartney,
was because we'd heard of Gilbert Sullivan, Rogers and Hamstein.
Lenna McCartney as good as two of us, and we
(06:08):
can make it one. That was type names liber and Starer,
Coffin and King, well, these were magic names to us.
We didn't realize Coffin King was Carol King. I didn't
realize it was a girl.
Speaker 4 (06:21):
And an amazingly young woman.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
I was very young, yes, yeah, but you know it
was thrilling to know that there were these people out
there and this is what we wanted to be and
love me do game Around that period, One after nine
or nine robbed me doing one after nine or nine
actually got published and actually got recorded.
Speaker 5 (06:43):
My baby did on one Affter nine or nine.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
I did, the others didn't get recorded. And the school
exercise book. I found it probably about ten fifteen years ago,
put it in my bookcase and I've since lost it time.
I don't know where it is. I think it might
show up somewhere, but it's the first ever so Lenna
(07:10):
McCarney manuscript anyway. Yeah, well, oh dear is right, but
you know you have to let these things go right,
maybe down on one Apple.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Another duo which had a profound influence on young Lennon
and McCartney was the Everly Brothers.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
There are certain people that you can credit for pretty
much everything we did, because I think that's I think
that's true of everyone. I think everyone's got a hero that.
Speaker 5 (07:49):
Forms them, like Thista. How did I exist? Alista?
Speaker 2 (08:08):
So so as John and I were two male vocalists
who sang in harmony, our biggest influence was the Evely Brothers,
who we loved adored to this day. I just think
they the greatest, And it was different. You'd have barbershop quartets,
(08:29):
you'd heard the Beverly Sisters, the Three Girls, you'd heard
all that, but just two guys, good lucking guys. This
is good.
Speaker 6 (08:40):
Oh yeah, you gotta weelbou.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
So. Yeah, we love them and idolized them and wanted
to be like them.
Speaker 5 (08:57):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
It's like when people later would see the Beatles on
the Ed Sullivan Show.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
But even ladies and gentlemen like Live from New York.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
I mean trillion people who say that I knew that's
what I wanted to be.
Speaker 5 (09:19):
On our show in New York, the Beatles played to
the greatest TV audience it's ever been assembled in the
history of American TV.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
When I saw you foreheaded monster on the Telly and
you I've got to be part of this. Our current
manager of Beatles Apple Records, says that Bruce Springsteen says
that David Lehnerman says that they all formed on that night,
formed this future for themselves. And there we were in
(09:48):
Liverpool form in this future and the same kind of deal.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
When you say goodbye.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Lennon and McCartney were working in the wake of all
these great songwriting dues who wrote songs for others to sing,
and singers like the Everly Brothers who sang other people's songs.
But there were also people like Buddy Holly who could
do it all.
Speaker 6 (10:22):
You know, you know me, baby dude, you tell me
baby that someday, well you real loudly, lad, would you
sing goodbye?
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Buddy Holly to us was amazing for a number of reasons.
He sang and played guitar. Elvis just sang and Scotty
Moore played guitar. He normally played guitar, he played the solos. Normally,
if you played guitar, there was another guy in the
group was the lead guitar played the solos. But Buddy
(10:55):
sang and played the guitar and played the solos. He
also wrote the stuff. So this was like all inclusive,
one man band, and we really thought that was great.
So this is what we have to do.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Buddy Holly inspired the youngsters to explore their full musical potential,
and he also helped John Lennon overcome his embarrassment about
wearing glasses.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
He also wore these big horn room glasses, as did John.
And if ever there would be a girl coming up,
John with witness glasses off and put them in his
pocket and squint as she went by, and you look
pretty good the glasses. But when Buddy get along, the
glasses stayed on. It was like Harry Potter with all
(11:47):
the kids.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Like Buddy Holly had more than just the musical chops
and the suave image that John Lennon and Paul McCartney
covet it for themselves. The name of his group, Buddy
Holly and the Crickets, had a certain entomological ring to it.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
The name the Crickets. You know, we wanted something with
a dual meaning, and it turned out they didn't know
how the dual meaning the crickets. They didn't know about
the game cricket. Oh, I say, They just thought it
was grasshoppers. So we said to them. I met them
years later, said, fantastic man, the Beatles. We loved crickets,
(12:31):
chirpy little things and the great game of cricket. A
brilliant name for a group. And they went, you know,
oh no, we just heard a grasshopper in the studio wall.
Speaker 7 (12:41):
You know, did you do you remember setting around thinking
Buddy Holly and the Crickets the Beatles will be a
great name for us.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
My memory of it was that we were striving to
find something with a dual meaning because of the Crickets.
This is the idea. Now the actual origin of it
is clouded in mystery. You know I missed you. It
was just a club split up. I missed you. Because
there are all sorts of theories about this, says The
(13:14):
Wild Ones with Marlon Brando, and at one point Lee
Marvin says, he Johnny, Johnny or Johnny, I think he's cool.
Come on, Johnny, we all missed you. Miss Johnny. We
love you, you know, coming back to the gang or something
like that. Johnny, we love you. The Beatles love.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
You, Beatles, Mister Beatles, Mister.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
It turns out the Malls, the girls in the Motorcycle
Gang were called Beatles, says The Beatles love you, Johnny
for all times. And I know John and Stuart his
art school friends. Stuart Sucliffe loved that film, as we
all did. I think they had seen it. I think
(13:55):
we just loved it and hadn't seen it anyway, So
that's one of the theories.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
Today it's easy to forget how the creation of the
Beatles required thousands of small choices. Songs which are now
canonized were once simple phrases. Two boys having fun when
no parents were home, one of them with a notebook
in hand the other playing a harmonica.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
At one of those writing sessions, twenty fourth in road
a little garden path past my dad's lavender hedge. You know,
we would write, let me doing John come up with
this little harmonica roof. It's so simple, I mean, are yes,
there's nothing to it. It's a will have a wisp
(14:53):
little song, lovely.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
So what do you think made it become such a
potent powerful.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
I think our image and our energy as the four
Beatles was what was potent. And it had a very
fresh sound. That's the sort of thing that people noticed.
And we had a very fresh image. Nobody looked like us.
And we'd been working at it a long time in Liverpool.
(15:30):
Originally as really a bunch of rockers, you know, the
cliffs and everything. Gone over to Hamburg as the rockers
had got a little bit leatherified there, and then it
moved from leather to suits at the request of Brian Epstein.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
Brian Epstein, an entrepreneurial young man from a family of
successful retailers in Liverpool, had stumbled upon the Beatles at
a nineteen sixty one lunchtime concert. He had no experience
managing artists, but he did have lots of confidence. So
in short order he signed the contract to manage the
(16:11):
band and told them to get suited up.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Yeah, so we all went over to Beno Dawn, who
was in the Wirral backing haired a tailor. We'd never
been to a tailor really, you know, so certainly not
on maps. We all went over and got suits. So
we had this image. We had all the experienced musical
experience of Hamburg of playing a lot your ten thousand hours,
(16:35):
mister Gladwell's ten thousand hours. So when we kind of
then came on the scene and was seen on television,
we had a freshness, complete simplicity. Let me do it's
got a slightly sort of bluesy thing. I mean, it's
not a blues but it's got a simplicity, like a
(17:01):
little sort of down home on the porch with a
couple of guitars on harmonica.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
At the heart of these simple lyrics is a familiar story,
a young man yearning for a woman to.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Love Salmon Salma.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
It's a funny thing. You try and recreate that stuff
now and it's almost impossible. But why Because you were sixteen,
That's why you were looking at the world and the
world was good, and there was this marvelous rock and
roll future unfolding itself, and you were about to become
(17:53):
part of it. So your longings for a girl which
was impossible to achieve, you know, nobody had that little,
perfect high school sweetheart, you know. So there was this
great long for your career is you didn't know what
(18:13):
you were going to do, and it was a dread
of all dreads. I was about to go to teachers
training college and I was trying to put that off forever.
I did not want to go into that mold. So
there was all these different kinds of longings. John and
I's mothers had both died, which was this amazing bond
(18:34):
between us. We both understood the anguish of that, and
at that age it's largely unspoken. You just said, oh,
your mother died, Yes, so did I. We knew. I
knew the circumstances of his mother. He knew the circusan
in mind, and we would talk about it a little bit,
(18:57):
but being young boys, you didn't talk about it much.
So all this was rolled up into this package, this longing,
and it's spilled out, which is the best way to
write me.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
Some of this longie for their mothers for love. For
artistry was fairly abstract, but they also had more concrete ambitions.
They had met other songwriting teams who turned out hits
and made good money.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
John and I looked at thought, there, right, we could
do that. What a good idea. If we get hits,
that will then get money and it may not buy
us love, but it will buy us a car. I
must admit, you know, we were young guys without any money,
coming from Liverpool with dreams, and once we realized that
(20:00):
to write a hit song would get you some money,
it was very attractive, very attractive thought. And it wasn't
just the money. It is then the joy of pulling
our song out of a hat, being able to play
it with our band, which needed songs. So we were
sort of feeding the machine.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Take one No.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
Later, when the Fab four removed from writing in the
parlor room to writing in the studio, they learned to
crank out hits at an impressive piece.
Speaker 5 (20:37):
Take four.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
One are recording hours? Well, what now classical people do?
It's it's the norm for recording. You normally go in
ten o'clock, you get yourself together, you start at ten thirty.
You then will work three hours. You don't have an
(21:02):
hour break, and you work two thirty to five thirty
and that's it. And in those two periods of three hours,
it was expected that we would be able to finish
two songs. So we did. And that was the output
and the great the flow of just having to come
up with two complete things. But the great thing about
(21:26):
this was you were finished by five point thirty.
Speaker 5 (21:31):
When a harmonica like the Beatles playing not a toy,
but a Genuinehoner marine band harmonica, just like those played
by the Beatles.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
Maybe what allowed the Beatles to come together was the
force of their longing. Maybe it was the long studio days,
the churning out of albums, the carefully crafted image. Whatever
the case. They went from looking at other artists dreaming
of becoming them, to being the artists others would dream
(22:01):
of becoming.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Play along with the Beatles with your own genuine Honer
marine bend harmonica from Klim.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
When what the Beatles would become was beyond what any
of its members could have dreamt off when they were
sixteen and playing harmonica in their living rooms.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
There were all sorts of things. As I say that
you instinctively knew don't try too hard, don't work too
hard at reaching for it, because the more you reach,
the more it will receive. Just kid on that you
(22:44):
don't even want it right, something will happen where everyone
else around us be worrying no more other thing. I
was going to, Oh my god, am I going We
always related back to this accident we'd had on the
motorway going from running up to Liverpool, where we'd skid
it off in the snow down the bank with our
van and at the bottom of the van were this,
(23:07):
how the hell are we ever going to I get home,
it's snowing, we're freezing, and someone in the group said
something will happen, and it was like that became a mantra,
and you know, as I say, it's actually a very
good one. It's this. It's not reaching for it, it's
letting it go.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Love me, Love me, Love me? Do you know I
(23:58):
love you? Oh?
Speaker 5 (24:01):
Be true?
Speaker 4 (24:03):
So please love.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
Me, Love me Do from the Beatles nineteen sixty three
album Please Please Me. In the next episode, McCartney starts
(24:32):
over with a ragtag band on the run.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
I just thought we would just start something that feels
good and we'll build it up like the Beatles did.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
McCartney. A Life in Lyrics is a co production between
iHeartMedia NPL and Pushkin Industries.
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