Free Beatles by Hunter Davies Page B

too used to be asked which Beatle I liked most. And I used to reply by saying my favourite Beatle was the one I was last with. That was how Neil and Mal always used to reply, which was why I wanted to carry on observing them for ever, rather than getting on with the more mundane task of putting it all down on paper.
    By the beginning of 1968, I was still interviewing away and had amassed about 150,000 words of notes. That book about British universities had almost gone from my mind. I thought about changing the title yet again, to the Class of ’68 , then decided now to scrap the whole thing. There had been student revolutions and demonstrations, and the whole nature of university life had changed.
    I was concentrating completely on the Beatles, though I was putting off actually starting to write the book. Sergeant Pepper had come out, to enormous acclaim, and that really changed the image of the Beatles in the eyes of those people who still tended to regard them as a passing fancy. Things were still changing and I didn’t want to miss any new stages, yet I knew I must soon call a halt and knock it all into shape. Every Beatle record, from 1963 to 1969, contained something new and different. Would I miss a dramatic new musical development by stopping now?
    The most enjoyable part of doing the whole book was being present at Abbey Road. John’s doziness at home left him when he came into the studio. Working with Paul seemed to make himmore alive. If he couldn’t finish a song, then Paul would help him out. They remained themselves, producing their own sort of music, but each other’s presence seemed to bring out the best in each of them. And if they did get completely stuck, ending up with two bits of tunes that did not appear to gel, as in ‘A Day in the Life’, then George Martin was there to solve the problem of melding them together.
    They usually assembled at Paul’s house in Cavendish Avenue, St John’s Wood, in the afternoon, going up to the top floor where John and Paul would try out any new little ideas they had had on their own. It was all fairly informal, with close friends and relations coming in, hanging about, and they would all break for fried eggs and toast and tea. By the time they got into the studio in the evening, just round the corner in Abbey Road, and George and Ringo had then turned up, it would become more serious. Outsiders would not be allowed in the studio when they were working.
    John and Paul would write out on the backs of envelopes or scraps of paper the latest words or versions of the songs they were working on, then give them to Ringo on the drums, so he would know what was happening. Bits would be altered as they went along, and new parts added.
    At the end of the sessions, in the small hours of the mornings, I would often pick up scraps lying around, asking first if I could have them, as they obviously didn’t want them any more. They always said yes. A great deal of stuff was simply chucked out, or left for the cleaners to get rid of. They themselves never kept any memorabilia or cuttings or scraps about themselves. For years, life had moved on so quickly that they had no interest in collecting or keeping that sort of clutter.
    I know that Paul and George later regretted this and made an attempt to collect their own past, once they started getting into their middle age. I gave George back the original of ‘Blue Jay Way’, written on the back of someone else’s letter when he was in California. He thought it had been lost for ever. And Igave Paul his master plan for Magical Mystery Tour , which he had written out for me in 1968 for the purpose of this book, to explain what his idea had been, but which I never had space for in the end. My own collection, bits they had given me as presents, was severely depleted some years ago when our house was burgled and I lost my Beatle records, copies they had personally signed to me. I’m sure their value was not realized. I often wonder