John Lennon & The Rise of Beatlemania [Episode 309]

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
We're totally boomed rock and roll.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
I mean, I'll leave you. You're reading little hands this,
It's time to rock and roll, Roll up.

Speaker 1 (00:09):
I totally booked. This is Booked on Rock, the podcast
for those about to read and rock Americ Senitch, listen
and subscribe wherever you get your favorite podcasts, and watch
the episodes on YouTube at booked on Rock. Also make
sure you visit the website at bookedonrock dot com. Back

(00:31):
for her second appearance on the podcast is Jude Sutherland Kessler,
the author of the John Lennon series. It's the only
historical narrative on the life of John Winston Lennon. Her
latest volume is titled Some Forever Shades of Life, Part two.
Some Forever captures the whirlwind that was late nineteen sixty
five and the first half of nineteen sixty six. Jude,

(00:55):
it's great to have you back on.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
Thank you, Eric. Thank you so much for having me
back again. We had a great time last time I
was on the show, and I'm really looking forward.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
To this well. Another phenomenal job on the book. But
also thank you for including I saw my name in
the book. Thank you. I was like, okay, I wasn't
expecting that. Thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Well, thank you. I mean, here's the deal. If you
just write the book, what is the point you have
to sell the book? And so that part no author
because most authors are very reclusive. You know. I dreamed
that being an author was having a steaming cup of
coffee with the sunlight streaming through the winter. You know,

(01:38):
you're writing. It's not that it's standing at conventions like
the fest for Beatles fans that's coming up at the
end of March. It's standing long days and talking to strangers,
and that's something most authors really are shy about doing.
And going on podcasts and telling people about the book.
That's where the meets the road. That's the difference. Most

(02:02):
self published authors sell eighty copies of their books. It's
because you got you got to get out here and
do this, you know.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
I remember we talked about that last time. And it's
if you do self published, if you have the type
of personality that you have and you you go out
there and you talk to people, that's great. Now. The
other the other side of that is, yes, some people
don't want to do that, and because it is, it
isn't fun. So I try to make it fun, try
to make it enjoyable for those who come on.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
You do. I watched so many of your podcasts, and
I must say it was rather daunting coming on the
show after Alan Cosen. I was like, oh my god.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
Oh yes, Alan, Yeah. So many amazing Beatles authors, so
many of them out there, so and so many books
on the Beatles, but this one really gets dives deep
into John's life. How many volumes do you think you
will have by the time you're done.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
I'm supposed to do nine, but to do that, I'm
probably gonna have to do more to parters because with
this book with nineteen sixty five, the first book, Shades
of Life Part one was yay thick, and it was
half of the year, and so this new book, which
is eight hundred pages so it's the same size, a

(03:16):
little bit larger than this book is the end of
the year. Well, there's no way I'm going to make
nine books because we're only up to nineteen sixty six.
But I really wanted to stick with number nine, number nine,
So I'm probably going to have to do more Part
one in part two. But this is the cover of
the new book, and my husband did the artwork again

(03:39):
once again. Job it just you know, nineteen sixty five.
We call it some Forever because it's a year of
memories that all of the Beatles will have forever. This
book is loaded. I mean it's Shase Stadium sixty five.
George Harrisay goes, do we go to say Stadium in
sixty six? You know it was sixty five. It was

(04:01):
the year they remember that very first time in that
gigantic fifty five thousand, six hundred person stadium, sold out packed,
and they're recording a movie, a color movie of what
they're doing, which was big stuff in nineteen sixty five.
They leave there, they go on to Houston, where fans

(04:23):
are almost killed on the runway. It's the fans break
free of the police charged the plane with those rotors spinning,
and then the pilot is savvy enough to just stop
the engine and he throws the Beatles in, everyone out
of their seats, but he's gonna kill fans if he doesn't.
They proceed to climb on the wings, smoking cigarettes near

(04:46):
that hot gasoline, and the Beatles are trapped inside for
forty minutes and scared to death. But that's not as
bad or as riotous as San Francisco stop on the
sixty five North American tour, where literally they have to
stop the show, both the matinee and the evening show

(05:08):
because the fans have crawled over one another. I mean
shades of the tragedy in Liverpool, the football tragedy. They
are crushing people to crawl over them, to crawl on
the stage. People are severely injured, and the ones that
can't crawl up are throwing folding chairs onto the stage.

Speaker 1 (05:27):
This would be would you say this is the height
of Beatlemania this time period, It.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
Is without a doubt. Now for the press, the press,
we're in love of the Beatles in sixty four. And
then when they made that decision midway through the sixty
four tour to land in a remote location, not to
land where the fans are. That was not the Beatles' decision.
They were very unhappy, in fact furious about it. But

(05:53):
the police said it's too dangerous. What's going on. It's
too dangerous, so you're going to When they did that,
the press turned against them.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
Yeah, And that I didn't realize until reading a book
which I want to get to. As well as far
as John's concerned, I'm curious did he take to New
York right away or was it a bit intimidating at
first because you were talking without the Rainbow Room as
a place he didn't like. That made him feel small,
So I was curious about that.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
He liked the vibe of New York. I mean, he
says later to David Chef, I'm a water person and
I grew up, you know, in Liverpool on the water.
I like port cities, and I like activity, and I
like diversity, and I like what's happening on the street.
New York spoke to him as the city that as

(06:40):
much as he got to see. You know, when they
first came in February of sixty four, they were a
little bit freer, so they got to walk around Central
Park and they got to really see more of the
city then. But he did in places like the Rainbow Room,
where you have very sophisticated people with refined tastes and
food is refined, that's not John.

Speaker 1 (07:02):
He felt in place in New York City, at least
I remember when towards the end they're in the late seventies.
He loved New York in the sense that he will
go for a walk with Yoko and people pretty much
treated him just like an everyday guy there. I think
that's what he liked about it. New Yorkers are that way.

Speaker 2 (07:17):
Yeah. I'm just reading this enchanting book that Elliot Mince did.
Have you read it yet?

Speaker 1 (07:23):
No?

Speaker 2 (07:24):
Go and me. It just came out. Okay, She's so
good and it's about, you know, their experience in California,
and John and Yoko are getting ready to get out
in San Francisco en route to San Francisco to eat
in a very populated place, and they're chanting something in
the back of the automobile and Elliott Mance can't figure

(07:45):
out what they're chanting, but they're chanting something like Fred
and Ava Gerkin, Fred and Avon Girkin, Fred and Avon Gerkin.
And he's like, what is wrong with them? Well, when
they step outside, that's their person, son, And as long
as they believe that their friend and Ava Gerkin, no
one bothers them a minute. They sit down in the

(08:07):
restaurant and John speaks to order food. The veil is
lifted and everybody goes. It's John and Yoko, you know.
But we love mixing with people and being on the
street and being able to be normal. I don't think
the Beatles realize that toppermost of the proper most meant isolation.
You're not going to do the things you used to do.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
Book on Rock podcasts will be back after this.

Speaker 2 (08:32):
I think I need a break, a little break. Okay.

Speaker 1 (08:37):
You mentioned the press. They're beginning to sour on the Beatles,
and they're looking for as you roll chinks in the
Beatles armor talk about cousin Bruce, what he had to
say about that, because he met with the band privately
after the press conference. When they arrive in New.

Speaker 2 (08:50):
York, they travel down that very long underground pathway from
the umpire's dressing room where they've been waiting, to the
dug out where they can see the field. It's a
long walk. It reminds me a lot of the Rocky
movies where Rocky's walking in. He's got his uniform on,
his entourages behind him. You know, you get this this

(09:12):
chill bought feel of what it's like to be going
to the biggest stadium concert, the first time they've ever
had a gigantic stadium concert. And you know, Eric, you
think about back up two years, two years, that's it.
Twenty four months. What are they doing. They're playing their
last gig at the Cavern Club, you know, in August

(09:33):
of sixty three. They're winding up the they're still Cavern
Boys now they're getting ready to step on to this stage.
And the security is outnumbered by the fans forty to one,
forty to one, so had they decided to charge the stage,
nothing could have stopped them. They get to the edge

(09:54):
of the dugout, they look out, and what do they see.
Not only are the fans jumping in, pounding and you
can feel whole stadium vibrating, but they are throwing their
empty glass coat bottles, which at that time were about
the size of a water bottle, a little bit bigger
and heavy. They're glass coat bottles onto the field and

(10:17):
coat bottles hit the ground and bands and hit the
ground again. And John says to cousin Bruci Cunsen Gunsen,
is this dangerous? And Bruce Borrow says, oh no, John,
the fans are here out of love for you and
they just want to share this place with you. And

(10:37):
John says, are you sure, He goes no, You're fine, Yes,
you'll be fine. So Ed Sullivan leans over and says
to Bruce Morrow, seriously, is this dangerous? And cousin Brucey says,
pray ed, pray, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:56):
But he did reassure them to you right though, because
he was I think he was listening in on some
of the questions that the media was asking the Beatles too.
They're just peppering them with questions.

Speaker 2 (11:05):
Yeah, and he's sanity.

Speaker 1 (11:06):
Yeah. They were like like, do you think your run
is over? How much longer do you think you'll be around?
And things like that.

Speaker 2 (11:11):
The first line of the book is everything dependent on
the press, because you know from today, if you have
the press behind you, you are golden no matter what
I mean, you can do just about anything, and the
press is going to support you. And if the press
doesn't like you, oh my goodness, it is a hard

(11:32):
row to hoe. So the Beatles were beloved until that
horrible decision to have them start landing remotely, and then
the press is after them and they're saying things like
and I think you and I may have talked about
this last time. They say, look, you should be able
to manage getting off a plane with our taxpayer dollars

(11:53):
paying for security to get you off the plane. And
Paul's like, well, you know, we're really out numbered. I
mean there's a there's only four of us and there's
a lot of them. And then the another reporter says, yes,
but I don't see why we should have to pay
to take care of you. I mean, you're young, and
you're strapping and blah blah blah. George Harrison says, well,

(12:14):
maybe you could handle it because you're a fat We're not.

Speaker 1 (12:19):
Well. I love the answers that they give you quote,
the back and forth between the questions from the media
and then the responses from the Beatles, and it was
just this rhythm to it, like they just knew what
the questions were already, or I'm not sure, or they
just had it. They just had answers always ready to go.
Very the cheeky humor. I don't know is that the
way you would call but they just had that that
great way of responding to to every question. Some of

(12:41):
the questions are just so silly that they just had
to make a joke about it.

Speaker 2 (12:45):
How do you slick with that long hair attached to
your head? George says, how do you slick with your
arms and legs attached? I think the two things about
the Beatles. Of course, their music is brilliant. I mean,
let's put the music in a box and move it
to the side the thing, because there are other I mean,

(13:05):
there are other groups that have beautiful music and a change.
I mean, I love John Sebastian and the Love and Spoonful,
I love Daydream and Younger Girl, and so many of
the songs of Love and Spoonful are great. So put
the music aside. To me, the two things that make
that push the Beatles to the top romost of the

(13:26):
barnmost or number one their humor. They're so smart, they're
so brilliant off the top of their head. And they
didn't know what they were going to be asked. They
didn't have time to see what they were going to
be asked, because they do a concert, they do a
press conference, they do a concert, they run to the
next city. There's no time. But they're just smart, and
they're just funny, and they're bold, and like you say,

(13:48):
they're cheeky, you know. And the other thing is, and
I hear this repeated. I heard someone say it two
days ago about the Ringo concert. Dana Klosner, who wrote
bigle Maia Lives On and said she was sitting on
the front row at Ringo at Ryman and she said,
he looked straight at me. He was singing to me.

(14:09):
This is repeated over and over and over. He looked
at me, He looked at me. They're girls from Shay
Stadium that say Paul was singing right to me. They
made a connection.

Speaker 1 (14:21):
Yeah. Another interesting question was posing the book. Did an
animosity exist between John Lennon and Bob Dylan, which I
always thought the two had great respect for each other.
What did you learn about that?

Speaker 2 (14:32):
Absolutely, they really liked each other, and they get together
many times. In fact, when Bob doesn't show up on
the first night that they're in New York, he comes
the next day. John is like, where's Bob, where's Dylan?
Where is he? You know, why isn't he here? They

(14:52):
liked each other very much. I don't know who started
that rumor that they didn't like each other. I'm sure
that John was a little bit jealous of Bob Dylan
because Bob Dylan could get on a stage, sit on
a stool with an acoustic guitar or on some occasions,
an electric guitar, and he could perform and you could

(15:14):
hear a pin drop. People were respectful and they listened,
and that happened very rarely to the Beatles. In nineteen
sixty four, in the book Before Shades of Life Should
Have Known Better, the Beatles are doing the nineteen sixty
four North American tour and they go to Indiana and
they start to sing if I Fell at the evening concert.

(15:37):
And not only are the fans they're screaming in between songs,
but during the songs, the fans are very polite and
they sit in their chairs. When they start singing if
I Fell. It's hard to say this without getting teared up.
The fans start singing the song along with them. You
can hear it. There's a video on YouTube Indiana Evening
Concert nineteen sixty four, and they're singing if I Fell,

(16:00):
and Don and Paul are very out of tune because
they're not anyone listening to them, and they don't rehearse
in between these shows, and they're very weak and at
first and wildly, and then these fans start to sing,
they hit their stride and it is just a magical thing.

(16:20):
But by sixty five, nobody's listening right.

Speaker 1 (16:24):
But you see the music changing with the Beatles, and
I would think a big influence was Dylan. I know
Lennon there was at least a song or two maybe
on Rubber Soul or Revolver, but you know this better
than me. But the songs were influenced really Dylan esque
type songs. I'm trying to remember which one.

Speaker 2 (16:40):
But they're two sides to that coin side number one.
Free Wheeling influenced all of the Beatles, all of them.
They had it in their hotel room in January of
nineteen sixty four before they come to America. Those three
weeks that they spend in Paris, they have Wheeling and
they're listening to it. They've got a record player and

(17:03):
they're playing it over and over and over and over,
and so it influences all of them. But John Lennon
was writing autobiographical songs from day one, and even before.
He says to David Chef in the Playboy Interviews in
nineteen eighty David Chef says, tell me about Hello, Little Girl.

(17:24):
And he says, Hello little Girl. That was me. That
was my first song. It was about my mother. It's
all very Freudian. I was saying to her, Hello, little girl.
I was fascinated with her and he goes into this
whole thing about hello, little girl. He's a teenager, he's
in the quarryman. He is young.

Speaker 1 (17:44):
It's sixteen years old.

Speaker 2 (17:45):
Yeah, he's writing songs, and he says another thing he
says to David Chef, Paul writes songs about other things.
Drive my car. I write songs about myself in my life, Girl,
It's only love. He's always telling you the same story.
He tells you that story in I'll Cry Instead, not

(18:09):
a second time. Nowhere a man, I'm a loser, over
and over and over and over. There was a girl.
I loved her his mother. She didn't love me, she
didn't want me. I wanted her, she didn't want me.
He keeps telling you that story to different rhythms and
different beats. Sure, he writes other things. He writes songs
for Cynthia, like when I Get home Wait, It's only

(18:33):
love is for Cynthia. He writes songs for her, And
he writes commercial songs. And I'm not trying to denigrate
them by saying that they're great songs, but they're written
to sell. She loves you, I want to hold your hand.
There's some songs that are just written to sell. But
the bulk of his songs. He tells you. Half of

(18:53):
what I say is meaningless, but I say it just
to reach you. Julie.

Speaker 1 (19:00):
One more question on Shae. There are a myriad of
historical discrepancies in the Shea Stadium story. Many sources say
the Beatles left in an armored van. What's the real story?

Speaker 2 (19:10):
They left in a white station wagon. And you can
see it in the video if you watch the color
movie that they made of Shehase Stadium is very accessible.
It's all over the place and you can get copies
of it. You can watch them get off the stage
and get into that Mets white station wagon and they're

(19:31):
driven off the field in the station wagon. They come
in in the armored van. They enter in the armored van. Eric,
can you just imagine you're inside that van. You can't see,
but you hear the screams and the pounding, and then
those doors open into thousands of flash bulbs and the

(19:53):
hectic war of that crowd. What that must have been
like to step out of.

Speaker 1 (19:58):
The van madness? And now at the San Francisco show,
they left in an armored vehicle, right, Wasn't that the
story on that one?

Speaker 2 (20:05):
Yeah? But you can actually if the Beatles at Shaye Stadium,
you can see them go get into that white station wagon.
I mean, it's it's right there.

Speaker 1 (20:14):
Book Down Rock Podcasts. We'll be back after this.

Speaker 2 (20:17):
Can we go now? Please? People? A good plan today
is better than the perfect plan tomorrow.

Speaker 1 (20:24):
Jude Southerland Cassler the author of the John Lennon series,
the only historical narrative on the life of John Lennon,
and her latest volume is titled Some Forever Shades of Life,
Part Two. We'll let you know where you can get
to get a copy. The Beatles head out on their
nineteen sixty five North American tour and they got to
meet the ryd O levels Presley in Los Angeles, but
Elvis stalled the meeting. Talk about why that was and

(20:46):
then how the meeting ultimately went.

Speaker 2 (20:48):
Ivory Davis was one of two reporters who was actually there.
It was Chris Hutchins and Ivory Davis and that's it.
No other reporter, no cameras, nothing, No cameras are allowed.
And know these are the only two reporters. And so
Iver and I talked many, many times about this, and
he said the entrance was so awkward. Because no one

(21:10):
introduced Hey, Elvis, the Beatles, John Lennon and Paul McCarty.
Where he goes start tersen and here is Elvis Presley.
No one did that. They're issued into the room and
I have a graph of what everyone says Elvis is wearing.
Everyone has a different outfit. I spent three months doing
the research. So I wrote to Mark Lewison and said, Mark,

(21:31):
have you gotten to Elvis yet? And he said not yet?
And I said, you research far better than I. You
know far more than I. But why reinvent the will?
Do you want me to send you have seventy seven
pages of notes on the Elvis meeting? He said, sure,
send it along. I mean, I'm sure he did this
on research. He didn't need me. He's you know, Mark Lewison.

(21:53):
But he when he read my notes, he said, I
don't know whether to laugh or cry. There's so many
just reponcy's in this story. It just everybody tells the
story differently. But they come into that room and Elvis
is sitting on the couch playing a bass guitar. That
much we know, and no one talks. They're in awe

(22:14):
of him. John is beside himself with fear. He is
beside himself with fear. In fact, he's put on this
Fostbender persona from What's New pussy Cat Peter Sellers. He's
speaking a What's Long, Losing King and all this stuff
that he's doing because he's so nervous. So they just

(22:34):
kind of sit there, and finally Elvis says, well, if
you boys aren't gonna talk, I'm going to bed. And
then that breaks the ice and they start to play
some music. Now, George says they didn't jam with Elvis.
Ringo says, well, we didn't really jam with Elvis. Paul
and John both say they jam with Elvis, and there's
an explanation for that. They play one song and John

(22:56):
and Paul bo say it's Silla Black's hit song that
she is just song on the Ed Sullivan Show like
a week earlier, You're My World. And then after they
do the first song, Elvis apologizes to Ringo says, I'm
so sorry we don't have any drums for you to
play because they're back in Memphis. Ringo says, that's okay,
I'm gonna go play snooker and he leaves. George gets

(23:18):
up and goes out to try to find a reefer,
so they're not in the room as John and Paul
continue to play songs with Elvis. So yeah, that's the explanation.
But what an awkward meeting. They're never comfortable with each other.
They start sharing some stories about things that happen on
tour that were dangerous. Elvis almost crashed. They talked about

(23:42):
their plane catching on fire. At what's been going on
on this dangerous North American tour. That's about it. That's
about all they have in common.

Speaker 1 (23:50):
But he was reticent because his fame was starting to decline,
so he was looking at the Beatles as this up
and coming band. Did he feel threatened by them? Or
why was he delaying it?

Speaker 2 (24:02):
Well, Number one, I don't know how much Elvis knew.
I don't know how much Colonel Parker really shared with him,
And they don't know it was Colonel Parker who was
really delaying the meeting. It was Elvis. But Elvis definitely
fell upstage. And it's really not Elvis's fault because Colonel
Parker had signed him to this thirty whatever it was

(24:23):
movie deal contract where he is to keep making girls, Girls, Girls,
Viva Las Vegas and all of these movies, and when
John says to him, are you working on a movie
right now? And Elvis says I am. And he said, well,
what's the plot of it? And Elvis says, hmm, I
am a rock and roll singer and I find a

(24:44):
girl and she falls in love with me, and I
fall in love with her. In other words, that's the
plot of all the movies. It's the same thing over
and over. He goes, one time they let me DEVI
eight from that plot and the movie failed, So I'm
right back to that plot. It's really not Elvis's fault,
but he has lost his thorny crown and the jesters,

(25:06):
you know, have taken it, and it's it had to
be a difficult situation. Then, to top it all off,
one of them, and Chris Hutchins says it was John,
but Paul says it was Paul. One of them says
to him, why don't you make songs like he used

(25:26):
to make the old rock and roll songs? And Elvis says, yeah,
well I might think about doing that, and that's the
end of the meeting. He pretty much ends it because
I'm sure he's offended.

Speaker 1 (25:37):
Yeah, you know, why don't you why.

Speaker 2 (25:38):
Don't you make good songs like he used to make.
You know, John wanted to say it. I know he did.
I don't know if he's the wonder of Paul's in one,
but someone said it and that was that kind of
was the end of the night.

Speaker 1 (25:50):
Yeah, it was like a role reversal for Elvis because
he had been in that position the Beatles were in.
When was it Sinatra? Didn't Sinatra have him on a
TV show? And it was the moment of like Elvis
is taking over, like the Crooners or Yesterday's News, and
here's this new kid coming up and now here's Elvis
in that position that guys like Sinatra and Dean Martin

(26:10):
were in. Yeah, but he was such a huge influence
on the Beatles. It was like skiffle music and Elvis.
You know, those were the two huge influences. And you
go back to like late fifties, right when they were
growing up in Liverpool.

Speaker 2 (26:23):
Yeah, I mean John said before Elvis there was nothing,
and Maybe used to say to him, you know, mister Presley,
you'll never be because that's all he wanted to be.
His early look. Let's see if I have a copy
of it, his earliest look was Elvis. He's trying to

(26:44):
look like Elvis.

Speaker 1 (26:45):
Yeah, there's a picture, that famous picture when they're in
Hamburg with this is when Stuart Suckliffe and Pete Bester
and the band, they have an Elvis kind of look
about him, almost like a almost like a more like
maybe Marlon Brando slash Elvis Presley look to.

Speaker 2 (27:00):
Them, the high hair piled you know, and kind of
grees back in the da in the back. And when
John's at Liverpool College of Art, he's styling himself just
like Elvis Presley. That's who he wants to be.

Speaker 1 (27:14):
They also hung out with Peter Fonda and the Birds,
and that's where we get to an interesting story behind
a song that would end up on Revolver, which is
she said, She said? And John wrote it after an
acid trip in LA during a break on the tour
while hanging out with the Birds and Peter Fonda. What
was it that Peter told John that inspired this song.

Speaker 2 (27:33):
At this point, George and John are very much into
LSD and they have survived some pretty hectic experiences like
that Houston Ordeal and Shay and you know they are
by the time they get to La they just want
to relax, take some LSD, walk around the pool and chill.

(27:55):
And in comes Peter Fonda. Wasn't invited. I don't know
how he got there, but he's at the party and
he starts saying, you know, man, I know what it's
like to be dead, because he had been shot. And yeah, hey,
I know what it's like to be then and John says,
no one cares. He keeps saying, I know what it's

(28:16):
like to be dead. Well, you're talking to the wrong person,
because John Lennon does not want to discuss being dead,
because his whole life is at almost fifteen years old,
losing his uncle Jorge, who is his dad essentially, and
he's sent away for two weeks to Scotland, and when

(28:36):
he gets home, his uncle's dead. I mean he's gone,
and they've already buried him. They didn't even let him
say goodbye. And he goes hysterical, utterly hysterical, and they
can't stop him, and so they bring his mother in.
She becomes the new uncle George, his very best friend,
his soul mate. They are almost never a part of
what happens. She's killed by a drunk driver and he

(28:59):
thinks at this point, okay, I have no responsibility to
anyone because I have no one that really loves me.
Mini is decorum and do your homework and do what
you're supposed to do. He doesn't feel like she really
loves him. I have no one who loves me. And
then he meets Su and Stu becomes his Julia becomes
his uncle, Jorge becomes his soulmate, becomes his brother, and

(29:21):
Stu dies of aneurysm with he's only twenty years old,
and he's gone, and John's lost him again, and he
doesn't want to talk to Peter Fonda about what it's
like to be dead. He doesn't want to talk about death.
In fact, on the way to Hamburg, Alan Williams is
driving them to Hamburg the very first time, and they

(29:42):
stop at the Arnhelm Cemetery World War two cemetery. At
all of the Beatles get outside of the van to
go eat lunch out, sitting on the steps right in
front of a sign a memorial to the Arnhem soldiers
that says their names liveth Forever. John's not in that

(30:03):
photo because he won't get off the bus. He is
not going to eat lunch in a cemetery. He does
not want to have any association with death. Here's Peter
Finda trying to tell him what it's like to be dead,
but it sticks with him, and as he begins to
explore the writings of Timothy Leary the Tibetian Book of

(30:25):
the Dead and explore meditation and metaphysical experience, John was
always searching. He was always searching for meaning in his life.
You know, oh, I know what. Life will mean something
to me if I get to the toppermost of the
pippermost Okay, Well, life will mean something to me if
I take this new drug. Okay, life will mean something

(30:47):
to me. If I get a new wife. Then it's
hard holding me back. I'll be happy if I get
a new wife. Oh well, I'll be happy if I
have a hit song, a solo hit song. After calls
after calls, after belief, after belief, after belief. He's looking
for meaning and so in she said, she said, he's

(31:09):
using Peter found this phrase that obviously haunted him and
stuck with him, but he's reframing it to talk about
a different kind of existence and the search for significance.

Speaker 1 (31:22):
Book on rock podcasts. We'll be back after this.

Speaker 2 (31:25):
I listening now don'tkaway, ladies and gentlemen, We'll soon be
with you.

Speaker 1 (31:35):
Let's get to the Rubber Soul album, which was released
in early December sixty five. He was recorded in October November,
and you take readers through those sessions. In this book,
John seemed to be inspired by the Birds. He saw
them as contenders and felt the Beatles should be doing more.
He's ready to put the poppy Beetles sound behind him, right.

Speaker 2 (31:53):
Yeah, they all are, they all are. I mean, I
think George more than anyone. George became close friends with
the Birds when they were out in La And in fact,
they are given a party by Alan Livingston, the head
of Capitol Records in America, and it's a cocktail party
and it's very lovely and all that, and George's I'm
not going. I'm flatly not going because the Birds have

(32:15):
invited me to go to a recording session and that's
where I'm going. And he does, He doesn't go to
the party. Paul goes andn't stay very long, and he
joins in over with the Birds, and then finally John leaves,
Ringo hangs out at the party. But the rest of
them want to hear this new sound. The Birds admittedly
they say they were influenced by the Beatles. They tell

(32:37):
you that, and the Beatles are influenced by the Birds,
And for the first time, the Beatles aren't necessarily leading
the way. They're being influenced and then they're taking those
influences and they're doing something new with them, something totally
new to me. Rubber Soul is the turning point. It

(32:58):
is not revolver, which of people say. I mean, by
the time you get to Rubber Soul, you've got the
sitar on Norwegian wood, You've got the sound of world music.
You have songs about complicated relationships no longer is it Moonspoon,
June kroon people falling in love and batting their eyes
and sign you've got people who are struggling in their relationships.

(33:22):
Many of those songs are very serious. You've got a
song about what's the real Where can I find meaning
in life? In the word? And the word is love.
It's the precursor to all you need is love. It is.
They are becoming the new Beatles, the studio Beatles that
they're going to be. And imagine this. They start recording

(33:45):
on the twelfth of October nineteen sixty five, and they
are finished on the twelfth of November. Who besides the
Beatles could do Rubber Soul in a month. And it's
really not a month because when they have the MBE.
On the twenty fifth, they're off for rehearsals for the
MBE and I'm sure getting their clothes together and Brian

(34:07):
gives a sore ray for them that night. And then
the next day, October twenty sixth, the whole day is
spent receiving the NB, doing many, many, many many interviews afterwards.
So those two days are out, and then they spend
November I believe it was the second and the third, Yes,

(34:28):
the second and the third going to Manchester to record
the music of Lennon and McCartney. So they don't even
have a full month.

Speaker 1 (34:36):
Did they write these songs on the road.

Speaker 2 (34:38):
No, they were so busy during the North American tour
that they did very little writing on the road. They
return home and they start writing immediately at driving out
to Kenwood. And I heard someone say the other day, oh, well,
why John is so lazy, Why didn't he drive into London. Well,
there's a simple reason, Paul tail you and the lyrics

(35:01):
he enjoyed going out to Kenwood. He is about an
hour's drive. It's twenty seven miles, but it was not
on a super highway. It's almost an hour's drive. He
gets out there, it's quiet, it's peaceful. You're in the countryside.
They sit out on that back patio and it's a
gorgeous view from where they are. Cynthia makes them tea

(35:23):
and they have biscuits and they have something to eat later,
and they work and they're not interrupted by city noise
or people calling them or what. It's very quiet and peaceful.
Paul always comes out early. And let me say that
he knows full well that John Lennon does not get
up until two o'clock. Everyone knows that that's when he

(35:46):
gets up. Yet he persists in coming out at eleven o'clock.
And I just heard someone snarkily say on a podcast, well,
he has to come and wake John up because John
is so lazy. That is not true. John wrote the
bulk of both Hard Day's Night and Help. He writes
some of his greatest songs on Rubber Soul, and he

(36:11):
co writes. If you count the songs that he co writes,
I mean, let's just let's just look at it. Norwegian
Wood nowhere man the word he helps with Michelle. In fact,
it's his idea. He says, what about that old party
song that you used to do when we were at
Liverpool College of Art, or John was at Liverpool College
of Art when we go to parties, you would do

(36:33):
that song? How about that one? Once you resurrect that?
He co writes, what goes on? He writes Girl, He
writes in My Life one of his greatest songs ever,
Co writes Weight, which is recorded in June. They thought
they were going to put that on help, but they
don't and run for your life. So I don't think
that's a lazy person. I think that very bestials person.

Speaker 1 (36:57):
The word. I love the word. It's one of their
best deep tracts.

Speaker 2 (37:02):
Yes, yes, John had been reading this book. It's the
Passover plot and it is about it. It's written by
a very learned gentleman named doctor Hugh Schanfeld, who, it says,
imminent translator of the New Testament, author of the Secrets
of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Jesus biography. Seanfell has

(37:25):
a very different philosophy about Jesus. He thinks that he
he intentionally set himself up to be killed to fulfill
all of the claims about the Messiah. That's his theory.
But in writing that, he also talks about how miraculous
what he was teaching was, and how this philosophy of love,

(37:49):
loving everyone, loving the people that hate you, loving the
people that say bad things about you, loving the people
that despise you was unbelievable in a whirl of eye
for an eye and tooth for a tooth, and it
was radical, and John's very attached to that. He writes
the word based on that. Unfortunately, he quotes Sean fell

(38:12):
in a January nineteen sixty six interview with Moreen Cleeve
call how does a beetle live? And when he quotes
Sean Fell, as you know that's lifted out by date
book and put into date book, and it causes the
summer of nineteen sixty six. He's trying to put love
into the world, and what happens He ends up inadvertently

(38:33):
putting more hatred and controversy into the world because that
becomes the beatle bands and the beetle burns.

Speaker 1 (38:39):
And ah, that's the word bigger than Jesus. Yeah, that's
where that comes from.

Speaker 2 (38:44):
Yeah, the disciples are thick and ordinary. It's them, that's
all that. Sean Fell says, the disciples never understood what
Jesus was trying to say. They were rather ordinary. They
were rather and John thinks he's being so cool to
quote this best selling book. And just before Maureen had
interviewed George and I have what George said. He said, well,

(39:07):
we are all agnostic. We don't really believe in anything.
We always have been. He goes, I think I'm probably atheist.
This is before he really goes into his Middle Eastern period,
and no one cares about that. No one gets upset
that he says that. It's you know, John always gets
in trouble. They expect that anyone says anything smart. He's like,

(39:31):
oh no, it's gonna be me, and they always blame
him for it. So it was just the way of
his life.

Speaker 1 (39:40):
Norwegian Wood was about an affair John was having.

Speaker 2 (39:44):
Yeah, he sings it for the very first time for
George Martin when they're on this skiing trip in early
January of nineteen sixty five, early in the year he's
already written Norwegian Wood by that point, the lyrics to it.
Now he owns it. He changes it. He works with
George and they work on the melody and how it's
going to be presented, but he sings those lyrics. George

(40:06):
Martin was trying to outdo John. John had been clowning
around wearing a silly costume and dancing around the hotel
room and entertaining Cynthia and Judy, and so George Martin
goes in and puts on a crazy outfit and comes
dancing out. And when he does, he steps on something,
falls and breaks his foot, so he's not going to

(40:27):
be skiing. He's stuck in the hotel room. And to
cheer him up, John says, hey, let me sing to
you this new song I've written, thinking George Martin's going
to be very cheered by it. Well, he isn't very
cheered by it because it's obviously a song about an affair.
And Cynthia is sitting right there and George Martin feels
sorry for and she pretends not to notice. She goes

(40:49):
on talking like she doesn't notice, but she notices. She
always knew. And he says to John, that's a bitter
little song. And like the fact that he in front
of Cynthia No one knows for sure, but it was
probably about Sonny Drain Sonny Freeman, who is Bob Freeman's wife.
The Freeman's lived in Emperor's Gate when the Lennon's lived

(41:12):
in Emperor's Gate, and John visited with her a lot.
She was one of those smart, independent bowl women that
he liked, much like Astrid, very much like Yoko, and
so you know that's probably who it's written about, but
we have no proof.

Speaker 1 (41:28):
Drive my Car. We see that songwriting partnership of John
and Paul here, Paul originally saying it you can buy
me diamond rings. John didn't like it, and then he
came up with baby, you can drive my car.

Speaker 2 (41:39):
He said, you just did that. We've used the diamond
ring things over and over and over. It's trite, and
so Paul's like, yeah, yeah, okay, well what can we
get up with. This is another one of those magical
days at Knwood where they're putting their heads together and
they're really working in unison on rubber Soul. They do

(41:59):
this rubbers Soul probably more than any other LP prior
to that. It's a lot of competitive work where John
is trying to outdo Paul and write a song that's
better than the one that he just did, and they're
trying to top each other. But Rubber Soul, they don't
have very long to compose. They already have weight in

(42:19):
the can because you know, they've recorded that, I think
on the seventeenth of June, and it's ready. So they've
got that. He's got the words to Norwegian Wood, but
it still needs to be worked out. But pretty much
they've got to come up with ten songs in just
a few weeks. And they meet and collaborate and listen
to one another, tweak what the other one has written,

(42:42):
and look at the result, one of the most beautiful
LPs that they ever wrote in such a short time.

Speaker 1 (42:49):
I just can't help with thinking this every time I
talk about the Beatles, think about the Beatles, how many
bands and artists would kill just to have one of
these songs? And how many? How many of the songs
did the Beatles write that are absolutely mind blowing?

Speaker 2 (43:03):
John under duress, you know, they did whatever they were
told they had to do. When George Martin says to John,
we have to have a title song for help, and
we've got to have it by tomorrow, and he does,
and he writes a beautiful ballad that if you ever

(43:25):
hear Teena Turner sing it, it's a gorgeous ballad. Oh
it's beautiful, And George Martin says, John, they ca'd be
the title song for the We've got to speed this up,
I mean, he and so they do. But if you
ever hear the demo song that John did, it's lovely

(43:45):
and had he been able to record it the way
that he had written it, it would have been his yesterday.
It was a gorgeous Yeah. They tell Ringo, okay, in
this scene you have to jump off the yacht in
the film of Help. You are going to jump into
the water. And Ringo does it and he can't swim.
He totally can't swim. So they, you know, say okay,

(44:09):
well that was pretty good. Let's do it again. Oh gosh.
So he does it again the third time. They say,
can we do it again? He said, I can't. I
can't swim. I'm terrified, And they say, okay, well those,
why don't you say something the first two takes or fine,
will go with those. Whatever they told them to do,
they did it, and it's amazing.

Speaker 1 (44:29):
I didn't realize George had a fear of flying, and
he was in all those helicopters and it was torture
for him.

Speaker 2 (44:36):
Horrible, horrible, and John was scared too.

Speaker 1 (44:38):
They were buzzy, yeah, flying over Shade.

Speaker 2 (44:40):
And I love it where they say we're gonna tour
around and look at buildings before we get there, and
George says, forget the buildings.

Speaker 1 (44:50):
Yeah, thanks, but no thanks. I'm good, Yes, thank you.

Speaker 2 (44:56):
He said something funny like, I don't want to get
him paled on the the I don't know one of
the buildings that they're flying by. I don't want to
do it. Go to Shay and every time they want
to dip down and look at things, He's like, no,
thank you, it is very He's terrified. They're terrified.

Speaker 1 (45:16):
Nowhere man talk about what led to John writing the
lyrics and what his mindset was at that time, because
there's a question asked in the book as to whether
or not he was expressing his battle with depression. Here.

Speaker 2 (45:27):
There is a great book, The Making of John Lennon
by Francis Kenny, that really talks a lot about the
fact that if John were around today, he would have
probably been a different person, because he probably would have
been prescribed antidepressants, which would have changed you know, what
he was dealing with. But he tells you straight out

(45:48):
in the anthology that after his mother died, he was
not sober one single day after that. He was either
getting ale somewhere at some pub in Liverpool or going
to a place that he knew would sell it to
him underage, or he was taking some kind of drug.

(46:08):
He just could not handle it. It was you know,
she had already left him at his aunt and uncle's
house when he was four and a half years old
for them to raise him instead of her. Then he
finds out, oh, she's living with someone else, and she
has two children, and she kept those cute little girls,
but she didn't keep me. So it's not children she

(46:31):
doesn't want, it's me. So he's been dealing with quite
a lot all of his life, and then to have
her reunite with him and become such an integral part
of his life and then have her just completely torn
away again, he's dealing with depression. He never feels he

(46:51):
doesn't know why she didn't want him, and so he
keeps saying, I'm going to prove to you that I'm
smart enough and I'm popular enough, and I'm respected enough,
and people out there love me, and you should have
loved me. And this he bases his whole life on this.
It probably would have been different someone if he had
gone to counseling, you know, or if he had taken

(47:14):
medication or something. But he doesn't, and so he's telling
you a nowhere man. He tries and tries to write
a song. He can't. He lies down and takes a
little nap, and the song starts coming to him, and
he starts thinking about the fact that here he is
in this palace with suits of armor and a huge

(47:39):
one of the largest beds I've ever heard of in
my life, old books, a gorilla head, beautiful collectible antiques.
He has everything, but he has nothing because he is
the emperor of nothing. He is a nowhere man, living
in a nowhere man, making nowhere plans for nobody. And

(48:00):
this goes on and on and on and on and
on and song after song, until finally, on the White album,
he SAIDs down and pens Julia, and he tells Julia
in that song, all my life, everything I've said, you know,
has been for you. It's been meaningless, but I've said
it for you. But now Ocean Child calls me and
I'm singing this is my goodbye song to you, This

(48:22):
is the goodbye. And after he writes Julia doesn't write
another song for Julia. He is able to supplant Yoko
for Julia and begin writing songs for Yoko and living
for Yoko and performing for Yoko. And watch Me Mother,
Watch Me Mother. But it's a new mother. What a
complicated life. I'm a loser. They all tell us the

(48:45):
same story and LSD.

Speaker 1 (48:48):
Cynthia Lennon felt that because they're starting to drift apart
at this time while they're recording these songs, she felt
the LSD was the cause.

Speaker 2 (48:56):
At the end of March in sixty five, which is
in the first part of Shades of Life and Shades
of Life Part one, George's dentist invites them to dinner
and puts a sugar cube into their coffee with LSD.
It doesn't ask them. Can you imagine the gall of
someone giving you a serious drug and not asking you?

(49:19):
It was horrible and John is livid. He's furious that
it's been given to Cynthia more than anything. And they
get in their car and leave. They're driving. They end
up going to several of the hot clubs in London,
like the Bag of Nails, and I mean everything is
distorted and out of whack. For Cynthia, it is a

(49:40):
night of terror. It's horrible. She tries to throw up
and get rid of it. She can't. It's just horrible.
But for John it's magical. He sees himself commandeering this
great ship and bringing people to safety in this ship
and he has his feeling of being in charge for

(50:01):
probably the first time ever, and he loves it. He
begs Cynthia to try it again, and she does, and
it's just as bad as the time before, and she
just says, I can't do this, This isn't for me.
You can take it if that's what you want to do,
And from that moment on they're drifting apart. He goes
into London, he's taking he's hanging out with a group

(50:22):
that takes LSD. He brings them back to the house
and they stay for like two and three days. He
doesn't even know their names and finally has to kick
him out. Yeah, wasn't.

Speaker 1 (50:33):
George was turned on to it as well.

Speaker 2 (50:35):
Right, George was George? I don't know. George seemed to
be able to temper it better than John, because George
grows up in a stable home with a mother and
father who love him and a sister who loves him,
and he doesn't have a need to use it to
make him happy. You know. It's an experience and he

(50:56):
enjoys it, but it's not his lifeline. And it becomes
a lifeline for John.

Speaker 1 (51:02):
Booked on rock podcasts We'll be back after.

Speaker 2 (51:04):
This, now you waiting, I'll be right back.

Speaker 1 (51:09):
Day Tripper was recorded during those sessions, ends up as
the B side to Week and Working Out. John wrote it,
but he wasn't over the moon with it. Why didn't
he think much of it?

Speaker 2 (51:18):
Well, you know, they ended up making them double A sides.
He liked it, I mean he thought it was a
very hard rocking song which harkened back to their early songs,
and he enjoyed it. He didn't like it as much
as George Harrison did. George Harrison adored it and thought
for it to be the A side period end of story.

(51:40):
But George was always taken up for his big brother anyway.
I mean, whatever John did, he would say, that's the
best song you've ever done. And John said, you said
that about the last one. No no, I said, the
last one was my favorite, but this one is your
best song. So I think he liked it, he just
didn't see it on par with In My Wife.

Speaker 1 (52:01):
We can work it out as a great example of
and you pointed out the book about how John is
a perfect compliment to Paul. Paul wrote the song, wrote
it about his frustrations with Jane asher he comes up
with the try to see it my way lyric, but
then John comes up with the middle eight part, life
is short and there's no time. And you follow with
the question, is this a clear illustration of Paul's optimistic

(52:25):
nature and John's pessimistic personality? And what is the conclusion?

Speaker 2 (52:30):
They're both pessimistic. Both of them are saying they're both
in a horrible mood, and they're both saying things are
not great. So Paul is you know, Paul's in a
fight with Jane. And he doesn't say I'll try to
see things your way, or let's compromise, or let's talk
about this. He says, try to see it my way.

(52:51):
Do I have to keep on talking till I can't
go on? You know, he's not a very upbeat, happy uplifting,
positive mood. I don't know where people get that. And
then John comes in and says, look, you want to
know the truth. Life is short and there's no time
for fussing and fighting. My friend, they're equally optimistic, they're

(53:13):
equally pessimistic. John isn't the bad guy in this. The
way this all got started was that John said, well,
Paul wrote this song, and then I wrote the pessimistic
part of it. I wrote the part that kind of
was down. It's not true. You can't listen to anything
John tells you about his own songs, especially if he

(53:33):
tells you the song is no good. If he says
the song is no good, you'd better go listen to
that song because that song is very vulnerable and very transparent,
and it's telling you about John Lennon's life. And he
doesn't want.

Speaker 1 (53:46):
You to listen to h Okay.

Speaker 2 (53:48):
It's only love. It's a horrible song. That song is terrible.
Don't listen to it. Yeah, well, because it's embarrassing because
his marriage is splitting up, and his wife still he
still gets high when he sees her. Go by my
own mind, he still loves her. He's still in trance
with her, but they're fighting every night, even though the
sight of her makes nighttime bright very bright. I mean,

(54:11):
he don't listen to him. We can work it out.
Both of them are equally pessimistic. Life short cut out fighting.
It's not gonna last very long. You better get right
instant karma, Paul, Why can't you do what I want
you to do? I've told you over and over.

Speaker 1 (54:30):
But this is interesting. You made the common of aout Paul.
I always saw Paul as the upbeat, happy, go lucky guy.
That wasn't really the case. I mean, was that more
his uge.

Speaker 2 (54:40):
I think in real life, Paul is always the pr
guy for the band, Like when they are in Scotland
and they run into the back of two little old ladies.
This is way back on the Johnny Genial tour that
hit these two ladies at the stop sign. I guess
the driver must have fallen asleep, but they run right

(55:01):
into them. They say, Paul, well get out there and
make this right. And sure enough Paul is out there
and he oh, We're so very sorry, you know, and
everything is fine. On tour both sixty four and sixty five.
If someone says something in a press conference and it's
a little bit gruff. Paul immediately steps in and says, oh, well,

(55:26):
for example, in San Francisco, they don't have very much
police protection. San Francisco has pulled their protection pretty much.
In nineteen sixty five. It's difficult getting into the cow Palace.
I told you about them throwing folding chairs on the stage.
It's San Francisco is dangerous. And in between the matinee
and the evening show they do a press conference and

(55:47):
they and a female reporter says to Ringo, what do
you think about the police protection in San Francisco? And
Ringo goes, what police Paul? You can see him. He goes, oh, well,
you know they're good. It's good. It's all good. It's
just there could be a few more, you know. I

(56:07):
mean he's always the one to soften the comments of
the others. But is he always upbeat? Go back and
listen to the songs that he writes for Jane Asher.
He is constantly saying, I am tired of fighting with you. You're
not paying attention to me, you're not giving me any time.
I'm looking through you. You're not the same. If you

(56:29):
don't cut this out, love is a nasty habit of
disappearing overnight. He is pretty much mad at her all
the time because she's not going to give up her
acting career. She is off doing her thing and that's
not what he wants. And they have a very rocky road,
and so no one's optimistic all the time, right, you.

Speaker 1 (56:49):
Can't be I think about I think Linda McCartney one
said he could have a temper, you know, he could
get ticked off, you know, which, he's human. It's just
he has such a way about him which I love,
I just love. I don't know. It just seems like
the reason he's still doing so great as Ringo is
with Ringo, they just have a great attitude about life.
They find the good in life, and they gravitate towards that.

(57:12):
They don't get too caught up in the negative. I
think maybe that's more of a fair assessment.

Speaker 2 (57:17):
I do. I agree with that completely. But the thing
is that Paul once again, Mary McCartney dies of breast cancer.
But she loved her boys and they have a very
close family and Paul always felt loved and his father
adored him and he was very supportive, and Paul came

(57:39):
from nurturing John came from chaos. Why did my mother
leave me here to be raised by this aunt? And
he says to his aunt, why are you there every
day after school waiting for me? Why are you there
every day for me, Aunt Amy? And she says, because
it's my duty to do so. And he asked her
that every day, and the answer is always the same.

(58:00):
If just once she had said because I love you,
things might have been different. But that wasn't her answer.
So John is more abrupt and more hostile. He's going
to be rude to you when he first meets you
because he's going to keep you at arm's length. He
doesn't you're not going to hurt him. He's not going
to let you get into his life because he's been

(58:21):
hurt before and he's not going to do it. And
he says to Tony Barrow, well, if you're not I
think he said, a fag, and you're not Jewish, then
why are you working for Brian? Will hurt Tony's feelings.
But then Tony gets to know the Beatles and John
and he are closer than any of the others. He says,
I love John Lennon like a brother. You got to

(58:42):
get to know him. At first he's going to push
you away. He just is abrupt and hostile and mad,
and you have to get past that. So they come
from different backgrounds.

Speaker 1 (58:59):
Right, we'll be back after this.

Speaker 2 (59:02):
We'll be back with the Magic Tons for the Armador
Rooms to our disco swing party after this short break.
Till then don't you go change him?

Speaker 1 (59:10):
Well, it's interesting the way this book ends, and there's
so much more covered in the book. But as we
get towards the end, you write quote. It was January first,
nineteen sixty six, and John resolved that from here on
out he would tell his mother and his father figures
about the non conformity in his heart. He would speak up,
voice his feelings. John Winston Lennon had plenty to say,

(59:32):
and in the months ahead he intended to say it. He's,
I believe, twenty five years old, right, seems to be
at a turning point in his life as we start
the year in nineteen sixty six. So what can we
expect to read about John in the next volume, which
will be volume seven? She said? She said, is that he.

Speaker 2 (59:51):
Will actually be volume six, because Tomb Forever is the
second half of Shades of Life, Bud, We're at.

Speaker 1 (59:58):
A real pivotal point in his life.

Speaker 2 (01:00:00):
Now, sixty six is going to be a difficult year.
I mean, sixty six starts off with the Mooring Cleeve
interview right off the Bang in January, and it doesn't
there's no reaction until months later, but you know that's
going to be one of the first things. And then
the making of Revolver. They're going to be in studio
working on Revolver for quite a long time. And the

(01:00:21):
songs that John writes a Revolver are nothing like the
songs he's written on the other LPs. And then you
have that world tour, which is nothing short of tragic.
I mean, they go to the Buddhakan and the people
don't feel that it's appropriate that they're playing in this
place that has been quiet and has been a sanctuary

(01:00:43):
and has been considered reverent, and they're singing rock and
roll in the budh Kan, and there's a lot of
revolt about that. Go to the Philippines and you know
what happens there. They're almost killed in the Philippines because
they don't go to Amelda Marcus's soiree, and it just
got the Beatlemans of Beatle burns, the fear that they're

(01:01:03):
going to be killed. On the nineteen sixty six North
American Tour, the statement by George Harrison at Candlestick Park,
I'm not a beatle anymore. Everything in sixty six seems
to be falling apart, and it's going to be a
very difficult year. But John is going to speak out,
Paul is going to speak out. They are going to
start talking about their political views. They are going to

(01:01:25):
start talking about Vietnam. They've never been able to speak out.
Brian has not let them be controversial, and in sixty
six they definitely are going to be controversial.

Speaker 1 (01:01:36):
By the way, is it Brian Epstein, Well, this is
what this is the debate.

Speaker 2 (01:01:42):
It is a debate. But this is what I've always
heard that he was in the family name was Epstein.
But then when he went to New York the very
first time to try to plan their February nineteen sixty
four visit to America, he was told that in America
it was pronounced Epstein. And he comes back and meets

(01:02:05):
in the White Star with Bob Wooler and says to Bob,
according to Bob, from now on, I want to be
called Epstein because that's the way they say it in America.

Speaker 1 (01:02:15):
Okay, there we have it until I'm always afraid to
say it now because I've heard it said so many
different both ways, in so many different So some Forever
Shades of Life Part two it's out now. So where
can people get a copy?

Speaker 2 (01:02:29):
John Lennonseeries dot com. And we only printed five hundred
books this time. We ordinarily do a thousand because look,
everybody now is e book and it's so cool with
the e book because if you see a link in
the e book, like let's say, there are thousands and thousands,
four thousand footnotes. If you touch a footnote, it will

(01:02:51):
come up, and there's a link to the press conference
that you just read about. You just touch that link
and watch the press conference. So the e book ebooks
are really sweeping the world. So we did do five
hundred copies and we've sold just about half of them.

Speaker 1 (01:03:08):
So the next volume, whenk and fans expect that, I
mean it takes I mean it takes a while feed
to put together, another couple of years.

Speaker 2 (01:03:16):
Maybe it takes three years for every book. And the
thing that slows it down, without a doubt is that
the books are written as if you're reading a narrative.
It looks like it looks like a novel. But because
I didn't want people to think that it was fan fiction,
I do which you've alluded to. I list all of

(01:03:37):
the sources, and then I have at the end of
every single chapter footnotes, tons and tons of footnotes. So
basically I type a sentence, put in a footnote, drop
in all of the sources Womack, page this, Lewis and
page this, Davies, page this, then write the next sentence,

(01:04:00):
footnote type in all of the sourses. It is a slow,
laborious process, so it takes about three years to put
it all together. My husband, like I said, does all
the beautiful artwork for the cover, and A named him
Colter does the arrangement of the cover and gets all
everything lined up and looking so good and gets the

(01:04:20):
back done. And he said, this is what you do.
Take tech type, tak tak tak type. Then take take
tech tak type. I've already started the next book, so
I have to keep pushing.

Speaker 1 (01:04:32):
Jude Sutherland Cassler, thank you so much for coming back
on and we will hopefully see you again in three years.

Speaker 2 (01:04:38):
I hope so thank you, thank you for having me back.
I truly appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:04:50):
That's it, it's in the books.

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