Three Memoirs, Three Reviews
More leftover from my Brückenau days: book reviews. One of the books in question I’d browsed through before but hadn’t read it properly, the other two were new to me. What the three have in common is, aren’t you surprised, a Beatles connection; otherwise they’re widely different, though each struggling with the opening sentence ofDavid
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In the Doug Sulpy book, when George comes back, he mentions John being extra-nice to George, even going so far as to compliment some photos of George in a current magazine or something.
Two more thoughts about all the above: Pattie as a London model would have been the perfect girlfriend for Beatle George, but would she have been the perfect girlfriend for working-class-origin George, which always lurked beneath the Beatle veneer. Again, the class differences.
And, along with what Jay said about Maureen insisting things with her and George were never sexual, interestingly Krissy Wood said the same thing about her time with George. Whether they're being truthful or not, that's just odd they would both come out with that.
Still loving Keith's book, he doesn't come across as all rock-god, he mentions changing diapers (he didn't think he was too good for that). In spite of his problems, he tried to take the best care of his kids he could. He seemed nicer than most to the women they met on tour. Again, this is Keith talking, so I have nothing to compare his accounts with, but he seems really cool. And when younger he was nearly as handsome as George.
There's an account on youtube where Keith describes always calling Dhani 'George', tells Dhani, "You'll get used to it!" LOL!
Selena, do you feel like sharing your theories about Paul/George? Do you think John came between them somehow?
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Good God, whether one cares for Yoko's music or not, how could anyone think with all that going on, I could barely hear the background conversations!
Quite. This is why I understand everyone in this situation. Were the other three sexist towards Yoko? Sure, but this would have tried the patience of the most equal-minded saint. (And they were far from saintly.)
Pattie as a London model would have been the perfect girlfriend for Beatle George, but would she have been the perfect girlfriend for working-class-origin George, which always lurked beneath the Beatle veneer. Again, the class differences.
It's interesting that the Ringo/Maureen marriage is the only one a Beatle made (during the 60s) that wasn't "upwards". Even Cynthia was slightly - not much, but slightly - higher on the social scale than John was, and John was the most middle class Beatle anyway. And of course both Yoko and Linda came from very rich background, though I suppose the fact neither of them was English removed them from the class system; whereas Pattie and Jane Asher were part of the system and indeed from completely different worlds than George and Paul came from. Jonathan Gould in his Beatles biography makes the interesting point that if Astrid, Klaus and the other Hamburg students had been English instead of German it's questionable whether the Beatles at that point of their lives would befriended them as intensely and opened up to them as quickly as they did, because the class issues and resentments could have kicked in with a vengeance (and at that point, they didn't have success of their own to make them more relaxed) - all the Exis came from upper class wealthy families, incredibly posh, but because they were German, not English, the class barrier wasn't there.
Paul and George (and John): I think it's often forgotten that they knew each other longest, and before John arrived on the scene, they must have been each other's closest musical friends. I think the older/younger factor was there before John already, though not as pronounced. If you think about it, nine months really isn't a lot, but being in different grades is at that age, and also the fact George was the baby in his own family whereas Paul was the big brother in his probably ensured they brought these attitudes into their early friendship. (Having been a big sister, I know a bit of what this is like, and how it colours your behaviour.) Still, given that they did all that teenage hiking together (and there is that hilarous story of George head-butting one of Paul's friends declaring "he's not worthy of your friendship") I'd say we can say early on that worked out for them, and they must have been pretty close.
Then when John showed up a few things changed. For starters, everyone's default attitude to John seems to have been to hero-worship him (and George did that for years; honestly, I don't think he ever stopped, though later in his life he wouldn't have admitted to it so openly anymore), but Paul (who wasn't immune to that at age 15 but was better at hiding it than George) was the only one who also challenged him and that ensured an equal (or almost equal) status despite the two years age difference whereas George remained the kid - for both of them. Not that Paul dumped George (on the contrary, he pestered John into letting George into the group - btw, the whole tale of George joining the Quarrymen is an interesting contrast to how things later went with Stu, because despite Paul and George having been friends no biographer ever doubted he campaigned for George because he was (correctly) convinced George would be a musical asset, wheras nobody doubted John making Stu join was simply because Stu was his friend, not for any other qualifications of Stuart).
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Mind you: I don't think young George spelled this out to himself. But I think it lurked somewhere in the back of his head and came to the front much, much later. As for Paul, I don't think he was conscious of any of it. It's telling that in that Anthology bit where he goes "one and a half year younger" and we cut to George saying, unamused, "still nine months younger", the (wrong) number he picks is in fact the age gap between him and his real younger brother, Mike. (Who reminds me of George often, in his sense of humour and also in the way he talks, if you've ever heard him.) In the Bob Spitz Beatles biography I was amused but not surprised to read: "He'd watch over George in school - Paul an effusively outgoing bloke, and George, barely fourteen and slow-stalking, nipping alongside like a fawn; at lunch, Paul doled out double helpings from his outpost behind the cafeteria line." (One look at photos of George at any given age and you'd understand the urge to feed him.) Basically bossing George around (as he did later in the studio) and taking care of George was all part of the same thing (this is why Ray Connolly who knew the Beatles in their later years characterized them as the archetypical somewhat dysfunctional family, with John as the irresponsible yet cool dad, Paul as the hard-working mum holding everything together (but also irritating everyone with the nagging without which however nothing would get done), George as the rebellious teenager and Ringo as the toddler whom everyone in the family adores.
Anyway. George in the Anthology interviews so often brings up the LSD dentist experience and the fact he and John shared this and for one and a half years (i.e. as long as Paul held out against LSD) had the LSD bond and that this meant they were equals now, sharing something John and Paul did not, that it's as good as a confession that this is what he wanted - being an equal with John, sharing something with him that John didn't share with Paul. (BTW, I don't think John ever saw George as an equal. There are too many quotes to the contrary. But I'll get to that.) And yet. During that same era you have George marrying, and asking Paul to be his best man. Not Ringo, who undoubtedly was the Beatle he was closest to, not his own brothers, and not John, but Paul. My own speculation is that George might have been at different points resentful of Paul's bossiness (and Paul's not-taking George's music seriously), jealous of Paul's relationship with John, and annoyed by Paul's PR side, but one thing he didn't doubt throughout was Paul liked him. Whereas I don't think George was ever completely sure of John's affection. All the "but we shared LSD!" and "I had a special bond with John, too!" contrasted with the "when were you ever there for me?" outburst in May's presence convince me of it, and the fact he felt comfortable critisizing Paul in public any number of times, but not John. (Who felt no such compunction. True, John critisized everyone in public, but you'd think that, say, in 1971, at the height of the Lennon/McCartney feud, after George played on How Do You Sleep? for him and supported him throughout the divorce, he'd have been a bit more grateful instead of coming up with this during the St. Regis Hotel interview:
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John: There's no telling George. He always has a point of view about that wide, you know. [John places his hands a few inches apart.] You can't tell him anything.
Yoko: George is sophisticated, fashionwise. . . .
John: He's very trendy, and he has the right clothes, and all of that. . . .
Yoko: But he's not sophisticated, intellectually.
John: No. He's very narrow-minded and he doesn't really have a broader view. Paul is far more aware than George.
Triple ouch. Basically I think John regarded George as the ideal Trusted Lieutenant (not an equal), used him asa weapon against Paul in the divorce (hence his extremely weird court deposition in the law suit where he's supposed to give a statement about the horrible financial state of Apple and instead says how he and George understand "underground music" and Paul does not, which has nothing to do with any legalities and very obviously is an attempt to make Paul jealous), and was very irritated that ticked off as George was at Paul it didn't mean George liked stepmum Yoko one bit (see: George standing his ground re: Yoko's presence on stage during the Bangladesh concert), not to mention by the fact George's All Things Must Pass album outselling everyone else's solo albums, so he said the cruellest thing he could think of, which was an unfavourable comparison to Paul just after George backed him up against Paul.
Not to be unfair: yes, John helped George with composing Taxman and Paul did not (instead, he showed poor George up by delivering the central guitar solo on demand for George Martin). But by the time the group ended, during the last two years, John couldn't be bothered to show up for the recording of any George song (and George's songs were at their best in those very years) whereas Paul was far too professional (and too emotionally invested in the group) not to be there and give his best. (I'm thinking especially of his bass line for Something and the fact he showed up to re-record I Me Mine in 1970 at a point where relations were at an all time low between them and they hardly managed to get through a single conversation without fighting. As I said, John couldn't be bothered so that last recording of the Beatles as a group just has George, Paul and Ringo on it.) It's one of the reasons why I always felt baffled that George seemed to have had a far easier time forgiving John than forgiving Paul as far as public utterances go at least, because to my mind, John treated him worse. But then the combination of John dying and John being in general the type to get forgiven for practically anything makes a difference, plus as I said, I eventually concluded George felt more comfortable about critisizing Paul in public because he knew that wouldn't end the relationship, whereas critisizing John might have, with John being entirely capable of cutting you off for good if he perceived you as disloyal.
As for Paul: given he according to pretty much everyone had/has a hard time accepting and listening to criticism from anyone but John, I think when hearing it from George during the end phase of the Beatles and the early 70s he either ignored it or wrote it off as being part of the feud, but it's harder to say because Paul hasn't gone on record with criticism about George. (Which may have additionally frustrated George. John rants about Paul or writes HDYS?, Paul immediately replies via press or songs of his own; George writes songs that are at least in part about Paul like I Me Mine, Not Guilty or Wah-Wah, and tells the press he wouldn't play in a band with Paul again, Paul's reaction as far as biographers have been able to detect amounts to an absent-minded "That's nice, George", or "that's just George being George". What does a guy have to do to be taken seriously enough to feud with?) But Paul has an interesting habit of saying "George and I" or projecting on George when he's actually making a statement about his own feelings. Choice examples:
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versus George's: Stuart was cool. He was great looking and had a great vibe about him, and was a very friendly bloke.
And:
Yoko used to sit in on the photos, and we didn’t really know how to tell her to get out because she was John’s bird. You couldn’t really say, “excuse me, John, can you get her out?” George wasn’t too happy about it, but then none of us were.
and of course the amazing rambling on how his song This One is about GEORGE's feelings for John in his interview with Dan Rather:
DR: Let me ask you about one of your new songs. "This One". About a marriage?
Paul: About a relationship, yeah.
DR: And about not expressing emotions or feelings?
Paul: Well, you get those moments. And you always think well, I'm saving it up. I'll tell them one day. And you know what happens with a lot of people, with something like John for instance, he died. I was lucky, the last few months that he was alive, we'd manage to get our relationship back on track and we were talking, we were having real good conversations, we were really nice and friendly. But George actually didn't - I don't think got his relationship right. I think they were arguing right until the end which I'm sure is a source of great sadness to him and I'm sure, you know, in the feeling of this song, that George was always planning to tell John he loved him. But time ran out. And so that's what the song is about, you know. There never could be a better moment than this one. Now. Take this moment to say - I love you.
I always imagine George listening to this on tv and going *headdesk*, groaning "he does it again!" to Olivia. Speaking of whom, she wrote this great letter to the Guardian after Geoffrey Guiliano's George biography was published in which she not only tears into Giuliano and makes mincemeat out of him but also delivers a fiery defense of, wait for it, Paul. I doubt she'd have done that if her husband had told her Paul was being nothing but a bastard towards him, so I imagine in private George when reminiscing was talking about the good times as well as the bossing around. Thankfully, George and Paul as opposed to John and Paul had the time to say goodbye, and do so lovingly, according to everyone who was there. Paul's statement after George death sums up inadvertendly I think both the great and the infuriating about the relationship: "He was my baby brother and a loved him." The "baby" part was what drove George crazy about Paul and the "brother" part ensured they did come back to each other time and again.
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Yes, Paul in the 1990s still getting the age difference wrong; you would think he would know how old George was, you would think he'd know his birthdate and year! Interesting here how you indicated he kind of supplanted Mike with George in his mind, or combines the 2 of them.
I am glad Paul took such good care of George at school. Yes, I can understand the urge to want to feed George. The doorman at the Cavern said that George was very scruffy and hungry-looking in those days. He said when he first laid eyes on George, he thought he was the youngest tramp he'd ever seen, before he realized George was one of the musicians.
But re: Paul later in the studio---George is considered one of the Top 15-20 guitarists ever, it's pretty arrogant Paul thought he was going to tell George how to play. Norman Smith said nothing George ever did was good enough for Paul, the he could not believe the way Paul spoke to George. Norman Smith gave George a lot of credit for all the years he quietly swallowed his rage and resentment. Dylan and Clapton and others respected George's work, when his own bandmates wouldn't.
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Class issues: always found it interesting that Paul when marrying and founding a family deliberately went for comperatively small houses (both the Scottish and the Sussex farm) and sent all his children to state schools instead of private ones; it seems partly because he could see how the other three fared with the big mansions and castles and the nannies. As he said to Chrissie Hynde in the interview she did with him: We'd seen a lot of people go through the expensive schooling route with their kids, and we understood why they did it, because they wanted the best for their children -- that's normally the reason people say. But we'd seen a lot of heartache happen, when the kids would be devastated to leave, for instance, Mummy at the age of eight. Whenever we saw anything like that, Linda and I instinctively would look at each other and register the fact that that wasn't how we were going to do it.
The other thing was nannies -- and [what] put us off that was when one of our friends' kids ran to the nanny and said, "Mummy!" The kid had forgotten who the mummy was, and it shocked us. So we decided not to go that route. The nice thing was that because Linda was from money, she knew that it wasn't the be-all and end-all. She used to talk to me about a lot of loneliness she'd seen in a lot of these big houses and a lot of unpleasantness in families, because they weren't close, they weren't truthful, they weren't honest, because they didn't spend much time together.
So even though people would say, "You've got to send your son to Eton," we just said, "No way, they'll end up being like a different race from us, and we won't just won't relate to them." We decided that even if we were going on tour we'd take them with us. People thought we were mad, they used to be after us about "dragging our children around the world." But we said, "Well, they are close to us and if ever they get the flu, then we're not in Australia and they're not in England, desperately worrying." Instead, Linda would be there, with the medicine. Or I would be there to tuck them into bed. We just decided that that was more important to us.
Interesting here how you indicated he kind of supplanted Mike with George in his mind, or combines the 2 of them.
I suspect he did and does that for most of his life, i.e. mixes them up in his head and heart and feels about the two of them pretty much the same way. He had his ups and downs with Mike as well (who as I said always reminds me of George when I hear his voice or read a quote), but thankfully more ups than downs.
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Well, yes, of course it is, but then, this is the boy who at age 15 when being accepted by John into his band reacted not by being shyly grateful (which 95% of teenagers would have done when asked by the cool kid of the neighbourhood to join their band) but by a) immediately giving the Quarrymen a make-over in terms of looks, presentation and line up (note that post-Paul suddenly they're wearing jackets like the professional bands at the time, those mates of John's who only were there to have a laugh and not because of any talent drop out, George is brought in), when he's not telling drummer Colin Hanton how to play drums (yes, he did) and giving John guitar lessons (which John admitted he needed - remember, he only knew banjo chords). What I'm getting at here is: depending on your pov, that was very gutsy or infuriatingly arrogant or both, but either way, the Quarrymen would never have become more than any other band of schoolboys if Paul hadn't done it, and it's, imo, why John saw Paul as an equal despite Paul being only nine months older than George.
What Paul later did in the studio wasn't that dissimilar. And again: it was arrogant (and poor George, etc.), but - would the Beatles have had the incredibly high standard they did if Paul hadn't been such an infuriatingly bossy perfectionist workoholic? He didn't ask anything of George he wasn't willing to do himself. (He played endless take after take after take of his own bass lines, too, until he was content; Geoff Emerick reports sometimes his fingers were bloody because of that.) He didn't single George out - there's the story of Paul telling the soloist they hired for the piccolo trumpet piece from Penny Lane to do it again because it didn't sound quite the way he had imagined it, and this wasn't one of his oldest friends, it was one of the most famous classical musicians of the world. It's arrogant, but it also springs from the same source of talent that makes him such a great musician - as George Martin says about him: Paul McCartney can’t read or write music but he’s probably the best musician I know, because he has this innate sense of what music is about and the way that it’s structured. Emerick says the same thing, that Paul had this very clear idea of how something should sound like, should be played like, and he could hear in his head how all the different instruments should be no matter how complex the arrangement and can see that vision through. Not many people can but the flipside of that advantage is that getting from reality what you're hearing in your imagination can and maybe must mean you're telling everyone else what to do.
Also: I know what Norman Smith said, but I also know what George Martin and Geoff Emerick said, and they both said George in the early days did flub a lot of solos. Maybe he just needed longer to be comfortable in a studio environment (as opposed to the live one they were then accustomed to), there's no shame in that. And let's face it, Paul has let-me-play-the-lion-too syndrome. (I always thought whoever cast him as Pyramus in that Midsummer Night's Dream sketch the Beatles did was inspired, because if anyone ever was like Nick Bottom in real life...) Again, arrogant, but was the arrogance without foundation? Because that solo he played for Taxman was great. The nice, comradely thing would have been to wait till George was able to deliver a great solo after the first flubbed time instead of offering as soon as George Martin said, Paul, could you, but annoying as it must have been for George - Paul could deliver the solo on command, and when you're under time pressure (which they were in all records pre-Pepper), that's really useful.
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Speaking of family dynamics: I have read about Paul being cast in the role of middle brother, the one who is perceived an impediment keeping the baby from connecting and interacting with the cherished oldest brother, there may be some truth that George subconsciously saw him like that.
From Part III that you wrote:I read somewhere that apparently George had said to John, "I'm just as intelligent as you, you know!" And George was brilliant, considering he hadn't much schooling, he had an amazing vocabulary, he was able to write well, any interest he had was pretty much self-taught. George did read extensively, I don't know why Pattie said he didn't, there are so many other sources which state he was very much an avid reader. But it's a shame if John didn't think he was very bright.
And this relates to earlier but I wanted to mention before I forgot: in Chris O'Dell's book she writes Pattie and Maureen both feared George and Ringo had done so much cocaine that it had permanently altered their personalities---maybe cocaine was one factor in the change in George during their marriage, though I think the '70s were a bigger cocaine era for G & R than the '60s.
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I can think of a couple of incidents where Paul did criticize George in public, in the early days. Bruce Morrow recalls a radio interview, trying to draw George into participating, as soon as George begins to answer Paul interrupted with "Hey, John, tell him who you were sleeping with last night!" Bruce Morrow says first of all in those days you weren't supposed to make references like that on the air, and he also thought it very rude of Paul to butt in on George like that.
Another reporter was asking George if any of his songs were going to be on an album, and Paul cut in and claimed, "His songs are daft!" Paul then went on to talk at length about how his OWN compositions could be compared to abstract paintings. I've always thought if George was treated like this in public, he must have been treated far worse in private.
That's interesting Paul said This One was George's feelings for John. I've heard where many think it is about Paul's feelings for George.
Yes, Olivia did take up for Paul, and yes Paul and George and Ringo did get together many times over the years behind the scenes. They were even getting along and socializing in the days leading up to R&R Hall of Fame, which made Paul's non-appearance that much more surprising.
I know people think my ambivalence about Paul stems from his treatment of George, but that's only a small part of it. As you say, John often treated George worse. I figure that was between George and Paul, they were friends, and George could take care of himself. It's other things besides that.
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Have you see the two sketches they did of each other? (I.e. George's of Paul and Paul's of George?) I thought they captured the feelings they must have had for each other pretty well, because while there is some ribbing (George's unibrow, Paul's eyelashes), it's done in an affectionate way and with a smile:
I know people think my ambivalence about Paul stems from his treatment of George, but that's only a small part of it.
Oh, Paul is my favourite Beatle and I'm the first to admit he has enough flaws to turn people off without even touching on anything related to George. (All four do, even Ringo has his share of faults.) I never saw liking someone as mutually exclusive with admitting he (or she!) was/is far from perfect and sometimes did pretty crappy stuff.
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I have read about Paul being cast in the role of middle brother, the one who is perceived an impediment keeping the baby from connecting and interacting with the cherished oldest brother, there may be some truth that George subconsciously saw him like that.
Quite possible, but if so, that particular balloon must have been pricked in the 70s, because obviously, without Paul George wasn't any closer to John than with Paul, on the contrary. (Though I suppose he blamed Yoko for that.) (The interesting thing is that Yoko saw Paul as emotional competition but not George, and that George's hostility towards her - insert famous cookie incident here - left her indifferent. I don't know whether you ever read the transcript of the stream-of-consciousness monologue she taped in June 1968, but the relevant part is: I feel like (Paul)’s my younger brother or something like that. I’m sure that if he had been a woman or something, he would have been a great threat, because there’s something definitely very strong with me, John, and Paul. (...) You know, ‘cause Ringo and George, I just can’t communicate. I mean, I’m sure that George and Ringo, they’re very nice people. That’s not the point.)
in Chris O'Dell's book she writes Pattie and Maureen both feared George and Ringo had done so much cocaine that it had permanently altered their personalities---maybe cocaine was one factor in the change in George during their marriage, though I think the '70s were a bigger cocaine era for G & R than the '60s.
As far as I know, it was, but never underestimate the influence of drugs on people's behaviour. Goes for John and Paul as well during the later Beatles years. I don't think anyone disputes that heroin brought out the absolute worst in John (it increased his paranoia to the nth degree, and made a naturally lazy man even more lazy, passive and cutting himself of from other people), but let's not forget Paul did take cocaine during Sgt. Pepper and into the White Album (he stopped in later 1968, hence the suddenly bloated look, and in 1969 during his depression took up drinking instead). (You can be sourly amused about his drug of choice - apparantly he thought he wasn't enough of a hyperactive workoholic, no, he needed cocaine as well. No wonder he drove everyone crazy during the White Album.)
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