Ray Connolly: The Beatles Archive

[selenak]

If memoirs and biographies are written with the benefit of hindsight and quite often with one particular, unifying agenda (scores to settle, or defenses to make), letters and diaries are the perfect counterpoint in terms of research because they can't offer big pictures, they offer glimpses of the here and now, and the agenda in them keeps changing

Comments

[blackbirdfan]

As usual, I really enjoyed your reviews. So much so that you inspired me to finally buy a Kindle!! Seriously. I've been thinking about it for a long time and I realized how many e-books like this that I don't have access to. So I finally took the plunge after mulling this purchase for a year. And one of the e-books I'm going to get after my Kindle arrives is this Ray Connolly book. :) So thanks!!!!

Since Paul was being blamed for wrecking the world's most favourite entertainment it seemed a perverse argument to me, but that was how John saw it. 'Why didn't you write it when I told you in Canada I'd left the Beatles?' he snapped down the phone.
'You asked me not to,' I replied. His reply was withering. 'You're the journalist, Connolly, not me.' Paul has always been accused of being the PR king and master manipulator but the truth is sometimes he was really good at it and sometimes he was horrible at it. But this quote from John is a perfect of example of how John was EVERY BIT the master manipulator of journalists as Paul was. That

[blackbirdfan]

CONTINUED:

As for John's appalling inaction as those security guards were essentially gang-raping that woman -- the truly disturbing thing is that I doubt Paul, George, or Ringo would have acted any differently than John did. I'm not sure any of them would have stepped in. They were so used to "groupies" getting "used" that way. I imagine that that scene -- a woman trying to get close to the Beatles who ends up have sex with multiple members of the band's entourage in her quest to get to the fab four -- happened all the time. I suppose you could argue that some of the women knew what they were getting into. They hoped sex with the band's entourage would open doors to get to the Beatles but I bet most of those women never intended things to go that far, and ended up drunk and half conscious as they were being used as sex toys, and none of the men cared enough to do anything about it. It's pretty appalling all around. But John was the one who claimed to be a feminist, and his "Don't Tell Yoko" was really not his finest hour, was it?

[abromeds]

I doubt Paul, George, or Ringo would have acted any differently than John did. I'm not sure any of them would have stepped in. They were so used to "groupies" getting "used" that way. I imagine that that scene -- a woman trying to get close to the Beatles who ends up have sex with multiple members of the band's entourage in her quest to get to the fab four -- happened all the time. I suppose you could argue that some of the women knew what they were getting into. They hoped sex with the band's entourage would open doors to get to the Beatles but I bet most of those women never intended things to go that far, and ended up drunk and half conscious as they were being used as sex toys, and none of the men cared enough to do anything about it. It's pretty appalling all around.

Absolutely. I started to make this point in a recent JHP discussion, but didn't want to get drawn into a discussion of rape culture on a fan site.

[abromeds]

It's odd that people always characterize John as "mercurial" when it seems like Paul was always that way, too. But journalists never seem to describe Paul as moody, so that when he acts moody, they accuse him of having a false front, hiding his moodiness behind a positive image. But I've read countless articles from the Beatles years and post-Beatles years where Paul is clearly as moody and mercurial as John.

Hmm, I dunno. I mean, I agree that Paul rarely gets called moody when he clearly is, but I don't think he's mercurial the way John was in terms of his opinions/decisions/expectations. John seemed to see things in black and white quite often, and to jump back and forth (suddenly and with both feet) between the two, whereas I think Paul is capable of more objectivity and very much sees shades of grey.

[itsnotmymind]

Brilliant review. I mean it, really brilliant. I've read some of those interviews and articles, but not all of them.

I didn't know that Connolly wrote RPF. Sounds like pretty good RPF, at that.

Yoko smiles, amused at all this, as though humouring a teenage boy. Contrary to popular belief, they are, in fact, rarely that serious with each other. Rather it's the reverse as John chides Yoko, poking fun at her and enjoying a teasing relationship.

There are so many photos of the two of them together where they aren't smiling that it's not a surprise that they were perceived as serious. But given their respective personalities, it's not a surprise to found out that they weren't.

it accidentally fell to me to tell Paul that John had made a film of his penis in slow motion, before, during and after erection.

Does Ray explain how to came to be his responsibility to inform Paul of this?

"Paul and I might be all right," John told me one afternoon. "But I don't want to see Ringo having to tour the northern clubs in twenty years time in order

[selenak]

Mal or Paul? You could argue both ways. On the one hand, John provided Mal's widow with some money, and had Mal with him during his own time in Los Angeles. On the other, there is this priceless 1980 rant on the subject of what he had to put up with from Paul in their marriage, or, as I think John subtitled it, "Paul was such a slut":

We were sitting around with Mal Evans and Neil Aspinall, so he said to us, 'Hey, you guys, finish up the lyrics.'
Now I was there with Mal, a telephone installer who was our road manager, and Neil, who was a student accountant, and I was insulted and hurt that Paul had just thrown it out in the aid. He actually meant he wanted me to do it, and of course there isn't a line of theirs in the song because I finally went off to a room with Paul and we finished the song. But that's how... that's the kind of insensitivity he would have, which upset me in later years. That's the kind of person he is. 'Here, finish these lyrics up,' like to anybody who was around.The Evans family would definitely have been

[itsnotmymind]

That is such a great quote from John. I wish I could hear the audio for that, because he could not possibly have said that in a serious tone of voice. Could he?

In John Lennon's last interview, he says that building a relationship with Yoko was difficult for for him because he was used to groupies, not a "real woman". The interviewer asks about Cynthia, but doesn't question the idea that groupies aren't "real women". That also made me think of how vehement Danny Fields is in his book about Linda in insisting that she may have slept with rockstars, but she wasn't a groupie. You find yourself wondering what, exactly, is so terrible about being a groupie.

And once you start dehumanizing someone, it's easier to treat them in inhumane ways.

[selenak]

I wish I could hear the audio for that, because he could not possibly have said that in a serious tone of voice. Could he?

Honestly, I think both that he was exaggarating for comic effect and that he was serious is entirely possible. Either way, "Mal, a telephone installer who was our road manager, and Neil, who was a student accountant" are pretty revealing of Aunt Mimi's nephew the solid middle class boy, certain song titles notwithstanding. :) But considering this is the same interview in which he says elsewhere, re: "Why don't we do it in the road": I can't speak for George, but I was always hurt when Paul knocked off something without involving us (note: apparantly Ringo had no claim to being hurt?), my guess is he absolutely meant it. Mind you, while at the same time and in the same interviewing accusing Paul of subconsciously sabotaging Strawberry Fields Forever and declaring he utterly lost interest in working with him the moment Yoko showed up. Though not the same interview wherein he complains about how Paul and George

[agent_bob]

Once again, you do such a marvelous job with these write ups. I don't know how you manage to get all that you do from these books. I seem to read some of them and get the same old things out of them, but you always have extra to add to all the good bits

[agent_bob]

continued

[selenak]

I think John was generally invested and interested in social injustice pre Yoko - see, for example, the Beatles refusing to play to a segregated audience in the American south - but not beyond what was usual for a left leaning musician at the time. (For a muscian with more than run of the mill engagement and willingness to go above and beyond at the same time, just look at Joan Baez.) So yes, the peace activism and theoretical feminism are undoubtedly due to Yoko, who has been consistent and active in this regard from the get go to the present.

Re: John's kindness that tends to get overshadowed by his darker sides - in addition to his consistent protectiveness about Ringo, Connolly gives another good example, of John helping Mal Evans' widow out financially.

[agent_bob]

I agree with the social justice part, but I don't think he would have ever devoted himself to a politically outspoken life, I guess, without Yoko.

I just downloaded the book, and I'll try to finish it. I usually only make it about halfway through most of my Beatles books! I know how most of them end, and they always make me sad.

[ponygirl2000]

The RPF bit at the end is very sweet.

As always your posts are a treat!

[selenak]

I thought so, too.

Glad to hear it!

[beatlegirl70]

Wow. Your reviews always blow me away.

Thank you so much for posting/sharing.

[selenak]

You're very welcome.