I’m watching the ‘Get Back’ series about The Beatles and in my opinion…

sorry I posted it twice, my phone froze and I assumed the post was lost.

R1

That would never have happened to Paul, OP.

Is it on Netflix?

The filming is great. Looks like it was shot last week. Could only get through half of the first episode due to boredom.

it’s on Disney +

I agree. Paul would never have gone off the rails with drugs the way Lennon did. He was too driven, and was all about the music. I think he was more intelligent musically than Lennon was too. Lennon's sense of humor is kind of an acquired taste, and I think the fame and celebrity really affected him in a big way.

He was Alpha at that particular time.

The beatles are dead.

From the clip I've seen, Paul's leadership (musically) was apparent. And come to think of it, he's the only one who led a band for many years. I know the others did so for a few years here and there, but nothing like Wings or with Wing's success.

Paul was certainly the most careerist, and dedicated to the band's success.

But towards the end, he was the *only* one still dedicated to the band's success, as the others were all unhappy with something or another, including McCartney's bossing everyone around.

They were all a bunch of overrated pussies with music that doesn’t appeal to anyone but white olds.

[quote]based on how John and George looked during the sessions, the most hygienic.

NONE of them looks as if they'd washed their hair in a week. Paul's is better, I'd say he hadn't washed it in 5 days.

I can't get over how young they look, esp Paul, his skin looks so soft with zero wrinkles.

Ringo is so useless, never utters a word.

So John was the bottom in that relationship? Or was Paul a power bottom?

OP John and George's hair were a Disneyland for bacteria!

Who was the Omicron?

[quote]So John was the bottom in that relationship? Or was Paul a power bottom?

A scene from Get Back:

Lennon to Paul: "It's like you and me are lovers"

How many songs did they write during this time, when they filmed the documentary? Is there a list?

The worst thing in this is yoko Ono's horid shrieking, if you want people to fuck off at the end of the party, play that.

Was Linda really a good photographer? Her pictures were mediocre at best. Seems she used her camera as a way to meet hot rock stars.

I read she went to England trying to hook up with Jimmy Page, he wasn't having any of that. Then, she zoned in on Paul. Ironically, both Linda and Yoko came from upper middle class backgrounds.

In the scenes showing Linda in this documentary, she's shown shooting the band as they were practicing their songs for the concert, Linda didn't even know how to take a picture! I was laughing at the way she held her Nikon! No wonder her shots were not in focus, they showed too much movement. Guess she knew little about existing light photography. She needed a higher speed film, a faster shutter speed and a smaller aperture. Duh.

Then there was that scene with Yoko talking to Linda, Linda was looking at the camera settings information sheet which was always included with a role of 35mm film. A real photographer wouldn't have needed to look at what settings they'd need to use with a specific type of film, they should already know the basics of 35mm film photography.

[quote]I can't get over how young they look, esp Paul, his skin looks so soft with zero wrinkles.

How young they look? Wrinkles?

The Get Back documentary was filmed FIFTY TWO years ago! Paul was only 27. George was 26.

i've only watched 2 episodes and now I've got that fucking "get back" song in my head. Can't get rid of it! ughhhh

Hmmmph. The Beatles were, are, and remain the standard by which all other musicians are judged.

R21 Yes Linda was a good photographer. Her photographs sold well for magazines, etc. I've got her book Linda McCartney's 60's and she had a knack for knowing "when to click" and ability to put her subjects at ease to catch off the cuff non-posed moments of them. The reason she was in England was because she literally had been HIRED to take photos for a book called Rock and other 4 Letter Words. This was before she was knew Paul. So she was successful at what she was doing based on her own ability.

I mean the reason she was in England when she met Paul originally in 1967 at the Sgt Pepper release, was because she'd been hired to do the photos for that book.

Paul was 26 and George was 25 when they were filming this. But I think the person meant Paul just has nice smooth skin, he always did. Neither Lennon nor Harrison had particularly nice skin though John's was pretty nice before he got hooked on drugs and not eating right. George's always seemed a bit rough looking.

But Paul did have a heavy beard, and when they were doing Beatles appearances constantly during the days of Beatlemania, he often shaved more than once a day because dark hair, fair skin showed the 5 o'clock shadow around Noon. LOL

[quote]The reason she was in England was because she literally had been HIRED to take photos for a book called Rock and other 4 Letter Words. This was before she was knew Paul. So she was successful at what she was doing based on her own ability.

I have that book, it's terrible. I guess you are a Linda fan?

Obviously, the best photographer to come out of that era was Annie Leibovitz, as far as portraiture. Annie also shot for Rolling Stone.

There is a huge difference between portrait photography and concert photography. Watch the PBS documentary series on music photographers through the past 50+ years. It's an eye opener, especially for people into music who want to know how music photography became an art form.

Photography in general was much different back then, there were no auto focus lenses, no digital photography, you actually had to know what you were doing, as there was little room for mistakes, especially as the photographer was working with film.

Unfortunately, some of the photographers in the PBS documentary series have died, such as the great Baron Wolman, he took some amazing shoots of Jimi Hendrix, Jerry Garcia, Janis Joplin, The Who and many other rock music greats of that era. Baron also shot most of the photos for the infamous Rolling Stone Groupie issue. He was equally talented with both portraiture and live music photography. Baron worked for Rolling Stone.

When comparing Linda's photography with these professionals, she was awful. Sorry, but that's the truth. Linda having easy access to famous people to photograph them didn't make her a good photographer.

Music photographers had better know "when to click", especially when shooting concerts. Concert photography is very much like sports photography, the photographers must absolutely know what moments to capture. One of the best concert photographers working today is Kevin Mazur, he's amazing.

Baron's 1968 shot of George in London, taken during a RS interview.

The director of the original film, Michael Lindsay-Hogg, is supposedly Orson Welles son. In this film, he does resemble a young Orson Welles.

Why were both Yoko and Linda there during these sessions?

Didn't both these women actually have careers? Linda was supposedly a working photographer and Yoko was a known artist at that point, her work was already in galleries, she had already been working in Soho, in NYC, before she met John.

Yoko had a loft on Bond Street in NYC, she was working with both visual artists and avant-garde jazz musicians. Yoko worked with musician Beck's artist grandfather, Al Hansen. Al was an important member of the Fluxus movement. Fluxus were a group of avant-garde artists.

[QUOTE] Ringo is so useless, never utters a word.

I think Ringo felt useless too. He was the least musical out of the four, and was treated as a hired hand. But at least he got two cute singles towards the end. Supposedly John (or was it Paul) was asked if Ringo was the best drummer in rock and roll, to which he answered “Rock and roll? He wasn’t even the best drummer in The Beatles!”

They had nice skin partly because they were so young. It seemed they all smoked like chimneys, which is really bad for the skin.

If Ringo was so bad, why was Pete Best fired from the band and replaced by Ringo?

Ringo wasn't useless and he sure isn't a bad drummer.

Lots of clueless people in this thread.

Since Linda was such a fab in-demand photographer, you have to wonder why Ethan Russell, an American living in London, was hired to shoot the Get Back recording sessions as well as the roof concert.

[Quote]Paul was the Alpha.

But was it Paul Paul, or Faul?

George Harrison was the only one of the that was remotely good looking, and even then there’s 4 bad pictures for every 1.

[quote]Hmmmph. The Beatles were, are, and remain the standard by which all other musicians are judged.

You don't say, R24?

you are the clueless one R33.

Anybody can play Ringo's parts, they are basic beats. nothing complicated. he ain't Keith moon.

I think Paul was the better drummer, judging by this documentary...

I thought that conversation where the mic was hidden in the flower pot was very good and telling!

Wow nice Linda hatred, she wasn't sitting on Paul's lap 24/7 right in the middle of the sessions, she hung out on the sidelines when she was there which was NOT all the time.

She had other commitments when they doing the rooftop concert, she wasn't even there that day. AND really? HIRE Paul's girlfriend to take pictures? You really think that is something they would do, no matter how talented she was?

And really? Somehow that picture by Baron is supposed to prove how untalented Linda is in comparison? She took plenty of better pictures than that of other rock stars, heck she took better pictures than that of the Beatles.

In 1967, she named Female Photographer of the Year in the US. She was also the first female photographer to get Rolling Stone Magazine cover(featuring Eric Clapton). But go ahead tell us more about how she sucked. Her work appeared in magazines. She was the house photographer for the Fillmore East, she was hired by Life Magazine to photo Jim Morrison for their cover ,unfortunately(for much greater reasons than Linda's work) Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated so the feature never happened. She had a successful career as a photographer so clearly there were actual professional people whose job it is to do these things who liked her work.

[quote]She needed a higher speed film, a faster shutter speed and a smaller aperture.

Dunno about the rest of that shit, but my aperture was FUCKING TINY! TEENTSY!

Seems I offended Linda's Eastman's biggest fan with my music photography insight and actual knowledge. loool

Linda Eastman was a terrible photographer, her main claim to fame was bagging a BEATLE. Back in the 1960s, Linda was hired because rock photography was in its infancy, there were few people to pick from. This is a valid point and the truth. There's no point beating a dead horse., especially when you don't come armed with many facts.

While Linda was chasing after Paul, other far more superior and talented photographers were hired to work for Rolling Stone, both portrait photographers and photographers who mainly shot concerts..

In case you want to venture out of your safe Linda zone, you might want to check out Baron Wolman's amazing work, Google is your friend.

You should also check out some other talented music photographers, especially the people featured in the PBS series, they were and are some of the best music photographers in the world. Most were from the UK and the US. Let's not forget Anton Corbijn, Lynn Goldsmith, Jim Marshall, Gered Mankowitz, the late David Redfern and the late Mick Rock who recently passed away, they were also featured in the series.

There were, and are, tons of music photographers whose work far surpasses anything Linda had ever done, but you just keep claiming Linda had some kind of special talent..

btw, awards are usually never a true barometer of actual talent.

The endless boomer obsession with the Beatles is so fucking boring.

I think it's incredibly shitty that Peter Jackson has taken all this footage and re-edited it when the original director is still alive and working. I'd be ashamed to put my name on someone else's work.

You never heard of Reader's Digest Condensed Version?

Paul has always been my favorite, even as a kid when it wasn't cool to favor him. Lennon seemed like such an insufferable, pretentious jackass. The combination of these two--one comfortable in his own skin and one unmoored--created true art/innovation. Apart, McCarthy maintained an extraordinary ability to entertain the masses, but without the artistry and innovation.

[quote] Was Linda really a good photographer? Her pictures were mediocre at best. Seems she used her camera as a way to meet hot rock stars.

Her father was an entertainment lawyer. She had industry contacts. No doubt that’s how she got her photography jobs. It also was a thing for rich white girls to work for magazines back then. They were often editors, fact checkers, writers. It was considered a de rigeur thing for graduates of Swarthmore to head to NYC and stay at the Barbizon while job hunting. Linda wasn’t Seven Sisters, but her father was influential enough to get a job for her photographing celebrities.

I always thought John Lennon was the MACHO one of the Beatles- at least before he met Yoko.

He was the most masculine yet he was the not so straight Beatle.

Abbey Road was really a production of Paul and George Martin. They strung together some song fragments into a madly orchestral melange. Critics hailed it as a masterpiece. But George & Paul pulled those fragments together because they had to do it. They had a contract to fill and the others were squabbling, tripping out, groovin to Indian religion & music. They stopped coming to the studio because Paul was the leader and they didn’t like it. You’ll notice he didn’t lose any money to Allen Klein. The other Beatles cut their noses off to spite their faces.

[quote]AND really? HIRE Paul's girlfriend to take pictures? You really think that is something they would do, no matter how talented she was?

Did you actually READ what you posted? A Beatle GF wouldn't be hired to take photos? Why not, especially if she was as good as you claim. Nothing wrong with good old fashion nepotism, especially if the person has talent.

So it wasn't cool for a GF, or a wife, to work for The Beatles? Yet, Paul had the audacity to have Linda in his band Wings! As a backing singer no less! 😂 🤣😂 🤣

Have you heard the tapes of Linda singing? The tapes of her singing which were separated from the musical backing tracks. Linda was not a singer.

Paul only put Linda in Wings because John was being dragged around everywhere by Yoko. Paul & John were competitive. If John was going to be part of a devoted couple who couldn’t bear to be apart from each other, then dammit, so was Paul.

yes, also I suppose they could then be together, go everywhere and do everything together and have the band pay the expenses...win/win.

[quote]The Beatles were, are, and remain the standard by which all other musicians are judged.

Are you kidding? None of the Beatles could read music, Paul said recently that he's not good enough at any instrument to even be a session musician. The most complicated arrangement of early Beatles records were done by George Martin, and real session musicians played them.

The Beatles deserve all of the admiration they get for pop songwriting, good singing, great records for six years. But by no means, even in rock, were they "the standard" by which all other musicians are judged. That's just dumb talk.

[quote]Paul only put Linda in Wings because John was being dragged around everywhere by Yoko.

Paul wanted to keep his family together - that's why Linda was in Wings. It had nothing to do with Yoko and John. The reason she was at the Let it Be sessions is because they were a fairly new couple and wanted to be together. Linda was also pregnant or had just given birth to their first child. Paul was a real family guy, he wanted a wife and children in the normal sense, not the way John saw it.

[quote]Why were both Yoko and Linda there during these sessions? Didn't both these women actually have careers?

They were there because John and Paul wanted them to be. Nothing particularly strange or scandalous about it. They were more into their wives than each other at that point. One of the many reasons the band broke up.

People get so strange and possessive about the Beatles.

^ Add in, people LOVE to think Paul McCartney wrote "The Two of Us" about his never ending affection for and comradery with John Lennon. Paul actually wrote the song about Linda and himself - not John. It's hard for Beatles fans - and those who make money off them - to accept.

[quote] Paul was a real family guy, he wanted a wife and children in the normal sense,

Yeah normal in the sense your job.takes you all over the world, you take your wife with you and leave the kids with the nannies. Totally normal family life.

Sounds like heaven on earth to me r57!

The children went with them, smartass R57.

Not year round, honey. You can’t pack kids up to go with you to Philly, then Montreal the next day, then Chicago, then LA.

They’re on vacation. Zithers.

Those kids were educated in local schools

R43 You sound like a limited dolt who only cares to pay mind to what happened post-internet. And yes, the culturally rich and artistic 2000s are so historically relevant! #freeBritney

[quote]Yeah normal in the sense your job.takes you all over the world, you take your wife with you and leave the kids with the nannies. Totally normal family life.

Paul and Linda weren't on the road that much with Wings. Except for one world tour, the others were about 20 shows and limited to England and countries close by.

As a solo artist, he didn't start touring until 1989.

They were pretty much settled in England until the kids were teenagers/in college.

Paul was more complex than OP makes out. (And this “Alpha” stuff is total bullshit, anyway.) He was the only Beatle with a head for business, he had straight-forward ambition and wanted smashing success, not just acclaim. This put him at odds with the more pretentious and idealistic John and George. (I don’t think Ringo has ever been at odds with anyone.) But Paul was also jealous of John being thought of as an artistic genius, a dreamer idealist. Paul is not an easily satisfied or content man, which is one of the reasons for his great achievement. John was resentful of Paul’s attempts to be professional and his desire for mainstream success, because John wanted to be an artiste, not a pop star. George was over in the corner waving his hands around trying to convey that he had talent too, hello! (And he did!)

It’s a crime John was killed before Paul mellowed out a bit, but who knows if he would if John had lived. John was an uncompromising person and I imagine was awful to be around at times, but for me he is still THE Beatle—that voice is what I think of (and growing up I thought that was Paul!).

Paul is a boring guy but I never was a fan of John's "cool" reputation. Let's face it: he was a jerk. Lousy bandmate, husband, father. Julian said Paul was his father figure.

Paul wrote "silly love songs" but seemed (as the song indicates) fine with that. Ironically, his light pop reputation showed how comfortable he was being different and not needing to succumb to a cool rock star image.

While he was driven by money, I think John was as well but was more keen on hiding the fact he liked living well.

After a these years, I still am shocked he was murdered.

[quote] After a these years, I still am shocked he was murdered.

Me too, and very sad. For all his irritations, he was a defiantly live wire of a person, it is so deeply wrong what happened.

I'm trying to watch Part 1, have made it about two thirds of the way through. And I'm left saying, "okay, Peter Jackson, what the hell is the narrative thread here?" It seems to be a meandering mess that shows the tedium of the creative process. This must be of interest to baby boomers who love the Beatles ... I don't think it's for me.

I was born in 1980, the year Lennon was murdered, so as a Beatles fan who experienced the band/ solo careers after the zeitgeist, I think the argument of John vs Paul and Paul is best Beatle etc….is lame because it always comes down to personal preferences.

For starters, from their works to their contemporaries’ recollections, it’s clear that John and Paul were a great partnership as well as different artists individually. Paul’s songs tended to have a music hall quality with lyrics that tell a story. His best songs are superb because they tell enriched stories of shared human experiences, like nostalgia for childhood for instance.

John’s best songs, on the other hand, are more like poems or Impressionist paintings, in that they make you the listener THINK about the content/ its meanings. In other words, John’s best works don’t just describe personal emotions such as love or nostalgia, instead they have the ability to convey complex and bigger concepts. They make us ponder not just what’s literally said but on possibilities and tangents. What’s more, John didn’t use clever plays on words in these songs, I mean he wasn’t Michael Stipes trying to impress us by dropping college lit/ history class “knowledge” or words in his songs. The song ‘Imagine’ is such a great song because the simplicity of words meshed with lofty concept against backdrop of a lullaby-like piano, it’s poetry instead of a story.

This isn’t to say that John couldn’t write emotionally personal songs. The songs In My Life and Mother are great examples. The latter is as sad and painful yet revealing song as any that you’ll ever hear. Remember that John’s childhood, while materially middle-class compared to Paul, George, and Ringo’s, was a sadder one. Paul’s mother died in his teens, but John’s family backstory was more fucked up. It’s possible (though we’ll never know) that John’s mother had mental health issues and perhaps it passed on to John. Also, his abandonment issues and mother’s untimely death as they were getting closer no doubt contributed to his substance abuse later in life.

Both John and Paul were great together and apart, but for me personally, Paul’s best songs had never touched me and made me think in the ways that John’s best songs did and still do.

R67 if you were born the year lennon was shotyou have no clue what the beatles were like

[quote] Supposedly John (or was it Paul) was asked if Ringo was the best drummer in rock and roll, to which he answered “Rock and roll? He wasn’t even the best drummer in The Beatles!”

Um, no. No matter how many times this bogus story gets debunked, somebody comes around to resurrect it.

R68 you think great music that is universal must only be appreciated or understood by people who lived in the same time that great music was made? By your thinking, we all shouldn’t know, love, or appreciate the greatness of say, Tchaikovsky or Mozart because we weren’t alive back then.

A list of all the songs that John Lennon wrote for the Beatles. He was, as the article mentions, the main song writer for the group when it started. So for the OP to claim that Paul was the “alpha” responsible for the Beatles’ success is asinine. The Beatles were great because the stars aligned and the four talented members got together.

Anyway, I guess OP thinks a hack like John Lennon should’ve been grateful that Paul let him write all these songs. In my opinion, I think a song writer is talented AF if he can write If I Fell and Hard Day’s Night followed by Come Together and Across the Universe.

R68, music can be listened to anytime, 100 years after it was made. What someone born in 1980 does is strip away all context, so it becomes very different from what it was originally. What I absolutely HATE is when people born 20 years after music was made try to fill in the context based on what they've read, and/or hear via the internet because then it becomes contrived and ridiculous.

Lennon wrote the classic Imagine post Beatles.

Watching it now. It does need narrative, it’s a meandering mess. But it does look like it was filmed recently

I wrote this on another thread, but I’m waiting for Yoko to say “Beatles Stop”

[quote]I'm trying to watch Part 1, have made it about two thirds of the way through. And I'm left saying, "okay, Peter Jackson, what the hell is the narrative thread here?" It seems to be a meandering mess that shows the tedium of the creative process. This must be of interest to baby boomers who love the Beatles ... I don't think it's for me.

As a life long Beatle fan I can confirm that practically NOTHING "The Beatles" have put out since the '60s has been any good. I mean official Beatle product, I'm not referring to solo work. That Anthology thing was TERRIBLE. As was the Free As A Bird abomination....and on and on...

It's almost peculiar. The magic went when they broke up.

The magic went when George Martin - the 1960s George Martin - stopped producing them.

Look at the record. Paul shows up with three stone-classics: "Let It Be", "Get Back" and "The Long and Winding Road."

Between them, bitchy George and Junkie John come up with a bunch of garbage (though "Across the Universe" is good) and Paul has to sit there and pretend to be excited about it.

[quote]Paul wrote "silly love songs" but seemed (as the song indicates) fine with that. Ironically, his light pop reputation showed how comfortable he was being different and not needing to succumb to a cool rock star image.

I don't agree but I see what you mean. His live shows are all about him as THE ROCK STAR. His greatest songs were his ballads which he seems almost ashamed of. "Anyone" can do Rock'n'Roll, but how many can sit at the piano and write and sing something of the calibre of "Fool On The Hill"?

There’s moments where you can see the magic between McCarthy and Lennon.

It’s still heart-breaking that John was murdered.

LET IT BE has always been acknowledged as a fraught project, never as highly regarded as ABBEY ROAD (their true final album/session). On that one the real stinker is "Maxwell's Silver Hammer," Paul at his most insufferably twee ("granny music," as John called it). John and especially George made solid contributions there.

"Abbey Road" happens to be the *only record the Beatles did where George wrote a song every bit as good as the others'. "Taxman" was good, but whiny, and all the rest of his stuff was meandering garbage sung in his terrible voice.

John could be great but his drug use got the best of him and he never produced anything after the beatles that wasn't a meandering, self-involved mess. Imagine is terrible. "Jealous Guy" is fucking offensive (the song about beating your wife with a whistle solo), and his comeback record is cute but it's like he stopped listening to music in 1955.

R72 Context isn’t just understood by virtue of living through that time as a contemporary. Context is not time-dependent. Context has to do with nuanced understanding of situation (which does include time) and intent. But passage of time and proper research could be used to appreciate and recognize context in its totality. It’s essentially what historians do, and I don’t mean reading as in believing all the shit one reads on the internet; there are materials on the band that aren’t shitty opinions or rumors of fans. One can get a pretty good idea of what they were like without having lived through the ‘60-70s. The element of time does come into play, but not in the narrow consideration suggested. Not every fan born after the Beatles zeitgeist is about changing contexts to suit current or own sensibilities.

[quote]Lennon wrote the classic Imagine post Beatles

I've tried to like that song for 50 years, but I still find it stiff and pretentious.

The problem with Paul is that he is truly an absolute asshole. I've had only minimal dealings with him but friends have had more ... and no matter what the issue was, Paul made everything worse. And always, no matter what the issue was, Paul made it about him.

I met Paul and Linda in an elevator in NYC in the mid 90s and they were sweet and kind and down-to-earth and lovely.

R3, you're dreaming

R83, you're dreaming, and you have a big fucking agenda

I enjoyed jerking him off

[quote]Paul only put Linda in Wings because John was being dragged around everywhere by Yoko. Paul & John were competitive. If John was going to be part of a devoted couple who couldn’t bear to be apart from each other, then dammit, so was Paul.

Wow, what an incredibly dumb statement based on zero facts. What did John & Yoko’s bizarre relationship have to do with Paul wanting Linda to join Wings? By the time Paul formed Wings The Beatles had already split up!

I swear the the level of stupidity in this thread is absolutely astounding.

Once again, if Paul wanted Linda to tour with him, to not be away from her and whatever kids they had at the time Paul formed Wings, he could have hired Linda as the tour photographer. Wasn't photography the area she supposedly had a modicum of talent? Surely not as any sort of singer or musician.

Paul shouldn’t have had his wife, who couldn’t sing for shit, to actually join his band.

At the time, Beatle die-hards were sure angry about that, lots of fans mocked Paul and Linda, especially as the rest of Wings were top-notch musicians.

No musician should force their partner on the public, especially as a member of their band. Unless their partner has musical talent, they have no business being in their partner's band.

Wings wasn't the hit version of Fleetwood Mac, were four members of the band were in romantic relationships (The married McVies and Lindsey & Stevie), these people were all actual musicians, they all had every right to be in FM.

Linda had little talent in any area. Linda was basically a groupie. Due to her father's connections, it gave her easy access to meet most of the musicians she was trying to pursue. People need to stop re-writing Linda's history. Its remarkable how so many here are defending this dull spoiled American woman. Her haughty accent was so off putting, then there was her fake British accent which she seemed to acquire overnight.

Didn't Linda play keyboard?

That's relative, R90 Paul created her role in the group.

Linda was all right in Wings. She didn't do much, she was just kind of there, singing backup and noodling little two-finger runs on the keyboard.

Paul produced the hell out of those Wings records and managed to make the blend of her and Denny Laine's voices on backing vocals part of the band's signature sound.

She could sound OK in small doses...she's very audible on "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey", and nobody seemed to mind, it became Paul's first post-Beatles #1. Ditto on "Silly Love Songs", you can clearly her voice on that one, and it's fine.

On the other hand, there is a song on the "Ram" album called "Long Haired Lady" that she absolutely ruins with her obnoxious singing. And her only lead vocal on a Wings record, "Cook of the House", is pretty bad.

As for the live backing vocals, I'm sure the audience didn't notice, or couldn't hear her. They probably put her way, way down in the mix.

I don't know enough about photography to know whether or not she was technically any good at it, but she did manage to take some iconic shots of the band, and of Paul.

People tend to over-praise Linda for the simple fact that she's not Yoko.

Why does the director of the original film, Lyndsey-Hogg, keep inserting himself into shots?

Also, why does he use the term "we" when referring to the Beatles?

Also, what's with his womenly hips?

R80 "Wheels" was pretty good.

R93 ugh agreed. Couldn’t stand his obnoxious sycophantic ass. He seemed like the biggest queen to me. Do your fucking job, which is directing.

R92 agreed. When you reach that level of fame that McCartney did, you write your own ticket. Wings were hugely successful in the 70s. Linda didn’t exactly hurt anything by being in the group.

I think the narrative in the documentary is very clear. Not sure how anybody would miss it.

The original "Let it Be" film REALLY lacks a narrative. Michael Lindsay-Hogg failed to pull together a coherent movie, and I think the Beatles themselves didn't give a shit at that point, but the new doc really tells the story of the project:

The Beatles have agreed to film the rehearsal and recording sessions for their next album for a TV special, the finale of which will be a live performance of the new material at an as-yet-undecided location. The album is conceived as a "back-to-basics" affair...just them playing, without overdubs or any of the studio wizardry they'd been using since "Revolver". Because Ringo is set to begin filming "The Magic Christian" with Peter Sellers on a certain date, they only have something like 2 1/2 or 3 weeks to make it happen...which looking back, seems really ill-advised and borderline insane.

They hadn't played a live gig on 3 years, and hadn't played a live gig where the audience could actually hear them in 6 years, so to say they had rust to shake off would be the understatement of the decade. They need to learn about 14 new songs, most of which haven't even been written yet, figure out the arrangements, rehearse the hell out of them so they're able to play them all perfectly from beginning to end, not to mention figure out a place to hold the live gig that will work for the TV special.

Jackson shows us everything in a linear fashion, with a calendar graphic indicating each day that goes by, so you actually feel the tension and the pressure they've put themselves under, as each day passes and it's looking more and more like they're not going to be able to pull it off and it's going to be a big disaster. In the end, most of it does kind of go to shit (they 86 the TV special, the eventual album only has 10 songs and not 14, and John brings in Phil Spector to sweeten up the production, so the "back-to-basics" concept isn't really adhered to), they do manage to come up with a bit of magic by giving their last ever concert performance, which becomes an iconic moment in rock history.

Having said that, it's really a doc for hardcore Beatles fans. I can see how the general public would find much of it tedious. Personally, I loved it, and wished it were longer.

"No musician should force their partner on the public, especially as a member of their band."

No one forced you to listen to any band

My thoughts after binging the 3 parts:

Other than those horrible screaming vocals she did, Yoko said next to nothing and doted on John, almost like a mother figure. Linda was in almost as many shots as Yoko.

John Lennon was an absolute delight. Funny, talented and very cute. It was truly a tragedy he was murdered by that asshole.

Paul was the most talented with lyrics and was surprised he played so many instruments. Him and John, when in sync, were genius

George seemed talented enough and seemed to really get along with John

Ringo looked wasted in almost every shot. Definitely high on something and contributed next to nothing

I don’t know if the film was remastered, but the quality felt very fresh and current

I shed a few tears at the end, seeing them all so young and full of life and talent. This was filmed in January 1969. A lot of stuff was yet to come in 1969.

[quote]Why does the director of the original film, Lyndsey-Hogg, keep inserting himself into shots? Also, why does he use the term "we" when referring to the Beatles? Also, what's with his womenly hips?

Director Michael Lindsey-Hogg is supposedly the son of actress Geraldine Fitzgerald and Orson Welles,

Read up on MLH, he's an interesting character. In the 1970s, MLH was in a 10 year relationship with actress Jean Marsh, who was the co-creator of the original "Upstairs Downstairs" series. He also dated Gloria Vanderbilt, who was considerably older. In fact, Gloria was the person who revealed he was Orson Welles son, a fact his mother kept denying.

Michael Lindsey-Hogg certainly does resemble the young Orson Welles. especially facially and his dumpy body/big hips do look very 'Orson-ish'. Don't forget Michael's incessant puffing on those smelly cigars.

[quote] Ringo looked wasted in almost every shot. Definitely high on something

Both John and Yoko were junkies at the time this was filmed.

I don't think Ringo looks wasted at all. There is this one scene where he's sitting there with his eyes closed, and they keep cutting to him. But he's probably just sleeping, or bored. Ringo was a big drunk in the 70's, but wasn't known to be a big druggie in the 60's.

I thought he came off like his usual affable self, for the most part. He's trying to stay out of all the tension between the other 3, so when they're butting heads, or trying to work something out, he's just quietly off to the side, usually at his drum kit, waiting to for something to happen so he can play.

Despite the comments about the band having dirty greasy hair, they all, save for John, had great hair, thick and wavy. Paul's hair looked great and George always had fabulous hair.

Even the others in the documentary seemed to have thick healthy hair. Glyn John, the famous recording engineer, looked very hip throughout, I liked his fashion sense. I can see where Oasis singer Liam Gallagher got his look from. Someone at another forum commented Glyn looked like actor Cillian Murphy.

Besides genetics being a factor re having good hair, back then, people weren't eating such garbage food, food wasn't as processed and unhealthy as it is today. Sure, I know everyone was smoking and drinking alcohol, but somehow they all looked healthier than today's young people of similar ages.

Ringo didn't look wasted, just exhausted. He was also likely tired of all the whining and squabbling.

[quote]He was the most masculine yet he was the not so straight Beatle.

John looks fem and camp in many scenes of Get Back, very different to his macho image from the early days.

Just like lead singer Diana Ross of The Supremes who were the next highest-charting and most successful (albeit different genre type of) musical act of the 1960s seemed best to embody and recall what The Supremes would have sounded with her had she not left that group likewise in 1970, I always felt for some reason that Paul and his post-1970 solo and Wings work most represented what The Beatles would've sounded like had they stayed together into the 1970s.

[quote]I met Paul and Linda in an elevator in NYC in the mid 90s and they were sweet and kind and down-to-earth and lovely.

One elevator ride and you got all that? Must have been a very tall building.

"Why were both Yoko and Linda there during these sessions?"

At 1.5 episodes in, Linda has dropped in a couple of times, and appeared to enjoy herself while she's there. Yoko is there a lot, particularly in the early sessions when they're finding their way and noodling around, and she doesn't say a word and seems to be bored out of her skull. In fact, seeing her go through her mail and pay no attention to the top band in the world surrounding her has been my favorite single shot so far!

The fact is, her sitting there silently is all kinds of weird, and if I ever saw a co-worker bring there spouse to their job to sit silently and do nothing, just sit next to them, I'd assume the spouse being silently sat next to was the worst kind of controlling psycho. Well, I think both John and Yoko were major nutcases and it's great that they found each other, because nobody else could have tolerated either of them for long. If Lennon wanted a spouse who was willing to do nothing but sit next to him for hours and hours, well, it's a great demonstration of the old adage "Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it". No sane woman would just sit silently that long, until her husband looked up from his guitar and paid some attention to her for a while, so Lennon got Yoko instead of a sane woman.

Yeah, Ringo looks over it all, except when he's playing, but as he has a reputation for being about the nicest human who ever lived, of course he's too nice to say how he feels about all this bullshit.

His contributions to the band's success were huge, IMHO his charm made it possible for everyone on Earth to like the band, his presence took the edge off Lennon's sharpness, McCartney's overweening ambition, and Harrison's grouchiness. So what if he wasn't in the same league as the others as a musician, he was a good drummer, and the band needed him. I think might have split up a lot sooner if they didn't have Ringo around, he was the one band member who got along with all the other band members. Notice how the meetings that brought George back were at Ringo's house? That was neutral territory.

R109 and he aged the best (being alive helps there, but compared to Paul “the cute one,”) married a gorgeous woman, and stayed married - 40+ Years! He kind of had the last laugh.

I always thought George was the most attractive, or at least, the one who was most my type.

Beautiful long-lashed dark eyes, best bone structure in the group, but he always looked much older than his age, and he sure doesn't look 25 in this documentary. He had one of those angular, craggy faces that look out of place on a young person. Some faces have to be grown into, you know?

R107 - no, it wasn't like we became best friends or anything, but I was just some random stranger in an elevator and they were fucking Paul and Linda McCartney and yet they took the time to be chatty and funny and normal. They even invited me to the party they were going to.

[quote]John Lennon was an absolute delight. Funny, talented and very cute.

He is rather laid back more than usual, isn't he? That's what I thought when I saw Let it Be in 1970. I didn't know at the time that John was out of his mind high. Ringo not being a druggie didn't prevent him from smoking weed, or having drinks at noon.

[quote]I always thought George was the most attractive, or at least,

I agree. But in the late 1960s he lost a lot of weight and had skin issues, acne or whatever, and look quite horrible. Here he's almost anorexic -

R38 You're an idiot. Don't talk about what you do not know. Ringo is considered to be one of the greatest drummers of our times. The most respected drummers are on record saying as much. Playing simple things but making them feel good is the hardest thing to do in drumming. All drummers know this. That's why the same was said for Charlie Watts.

It's funny - Quincy Jones, who knows maybe a thing or two about music, called Ringo one of the worst drummers he's ever heard.

R114, you've drunk quite a bit of Kool Aid, haven't you? Ringo was perfunctory, Ringo could be replaced, Ringo was not hired as a drummer by anyone and stopped drumming after the Beatles' break-up. That says a lot.

Paul shares a lot of qualities with Lindsey Buckingham in terms of his relationship with the band in the recording studio. Both were very controlling and polarizing during the recording of Very Big albums.

He had to be, R117, the others were wasted.

Any Beatles fan should thank God that Paul was a controlling hall monitor because someone had to herd lazy junkies like George and John into the studio to actually fucking work.

Without him and that maybe unpleasant personality flaw, there'd be nothing after Brian died.

[quote]They even invited me to the party they were going to.

Sure Jan! Paul McCartney would absolutely invite a stranger, he just met and briefly chatted with in an elevator, to a party he was attending.

We were both going to the same floor in the building, which had 2 apartments on it. He was going to Elie Tahari's place. I was going to his neighbor's. Don't believe me? Aww. I'll cry myself to sleep.

Linda McCartney was indispensable.

"He [McCartney and also L. Buckingham] had to be, [R117], the others were wasted."

Yes, every work group needs that person who's the most responsible, who keeps their mind on budgets and deadline, but if we're talking a group of equals like a band, then that person has to remember they're not the boss, or everything devolves into fights and drama. This is doubly true if the group is made up of world-class experts like the Beatles or Mac, where everyone knows what they're worth and has major egos, and if anyone in a group of egos acts like a fucking middle manager than everything will go to hell a la Episode 1.

Yeah, McCartney was trying to act like a middle manager in episode 1, and seems to have learned his lesson in episode 2. Episode 3 is playing now, and still no recurrence of the officiousness, but they've relaxed the deadlines. As the new deadline approaches, I'm sure he'll ramp up again.

Actually, Ringo quit the band during the White Album sessions, a year or so before Let it Be.

I find it interesting that Yoko was there so much, Linda popped in occasionally and was taking pics now and then to make it a working visit... and I haven't seen Maureen and Patti until now, when they're setting up for the rooftop concert.

Great, R124, EVERYTHING is better without Ringo, especially his fog horn vocals.

Paul was Carrie

John was Samantha

George was Miranda

Ringo was Charlotte

[quote]Linda McCartney was indispensable.

OMG!!!!

Linda couldn't keep in tune to save her life. But not at all surprised.

In the documentary, I would have actually enjoyed seeing more of Maureen Starkey and Pattie Boyd, instead we get stuck with Linda and Yoko, the newer interlopers.

After Jane Asher, Paul had terrible taste in women, that Heather Mills fiasco was a real mess. It seems, in many instances, money and fame sure don't give a person the ability to weed out the grifters. One would think Paul would have been a bit more savvy, especially after years of success and fame. At that point most successful people should easily be able to see a grifter a mile away. Guess not.

I'm actually a Yoko fan, but her constantly being with John while he was technically 'at work' was absurd. I didn't know their togetherness was so extreme that Yoko was also at the Beatles recording sessions and, well, everywhere.

[quote]We were both going to the same floor in the building, which had 2 apartments on it. He was going to Elie Tahari's place. I was going to his neighbor's. Don't believe me? Aww. I'll cry myself to sleep.

Who really cares, why even name drop whose party Paul was going to?

I work in a field where I meet a lot of famous people, I deal with them through my work, beyond their talent, few impress me. It’s usually best to simply appreciate their art, not fawn over them and not invade their personal space. The famous have enough hangers-on, the types who want to be around fame and get reflected glory. The crazy 'super fans' are a whole other story.

I sure wouldn’t accept an invitation from a famous peorson to attend a stranger’s party. It wouldn’t matter if I was a fan of theirs or a fan of the person throwing the party.

If I were famous I know I sure wouldn’t be inviting a stranger to a private party, especially not knowing if the person throwing the party would frown upon me bringing an extra guest. Even a non-famous person wouldn’t invite a stranger to a friend's party. Could be Paul was stoned when he invited you. He is a pothead after all.

[quote] Could be Paul was stoned when he invited you.

Smoking pot doesn't make you run around inviting strangers to someone else's party.

[quote]He is a pothead after all.

You just thought you'd get that sneer in and about something you clearly know absolutely nothing about.

R114, you know shit. Charlie Watts was a million times better than Ringo. Ringo plays basic shit any 10 year old can play.

Charlie Watts was more than just a rock n roll drummer, he played in his own jazz band as well. He was wayyyy more talented than Ringo.

Ringo is the luckiest drummer in the world. He looked so sleepy in many parts of the documentary.

they were so polite when they disagreed with each other. they were really very well mannered. I mean, I don't know how they could keep their cool or even show no reaction when Yoko shrieks like a fucking dying animal. omg, she was awful.

I did point out that Paul and Linda were super high.

R127 ok now do Golden Girls.

R132 & R116 This is for you two fucking asshats

Ringo is the richest drummer in the world.

That makes him the best.

[quote]Smoking pot doesn't make you run around inviting strangers to someone else's party. You just thought you'd get that sneer in and about something you clearly know absolutely nothing about.

Being high, or drunk, sure, a person certainly might invite a stranger to someone's party. Have you ever been high or drunk? You seem rather naive.

Who the hell is invading DL these days? Some very strange people indeed.

And YOU know certain things about Paul? Years ago, Paul was busted in Japan for pot possession, he had nearly half a pound on him, this is something a Beatle and/or Paul fan should already know. Paul spent 9 days in a Tokyo detention center.

"Paul McCartney’s arrival at Tokyo’s Narita International Airport on January 16, 1980, marked his first visit to Japan since the Beatles tour of 1966. The occasion was a planned 11-city concert tour by his band Wings. Instead, Paul’s visit was limited to a nine-day stint in the Tokyo Narcotics Detention Center, which ended on January 25, 1980."

Read the statement below, I would say Paul certainly likes to indulge.

"Twenty years after his 1980 arrest, Paul would opine that his psychological motivation may have been to find an excuse to disband Wings, which he in fact did immediately following his return to England. In another interview, however, Sir Paul offered an explanation that may be the more compelling for its simplicity: “We were about to fly to Japan and I knew I wouldn’t be able to get anything to smoke over there,” McCartney said in 2004. “This stuff was too good to flush down the toilet, so I thought I’d take it with me.”

Paul as Dorothy

John as Blanche

George as Sophia

Ringo as Rose

R43 You are the one saying I'm saying she's the greatest ever. I never said that, I said she was talented and gave evidence. You are the one with irrational hatred and misogynistic attitude. Gee how terrible she slept around with people she met while working! I mean it's A-OK all the men did it right, but she's a groupie and slut.

And yes she was working for Town and Country but she had taken photography classes at University in AZ while married to her first husband. Yes she was working as an Editorial assistant having moved back home to NY with her daughter.

However, she became a professional photographer by her own "gumption" so to speak. The invitation for the Stones on some yacht in NY Harbor had come in 1965 and she I think convinced her editor, or maybe just got herself over to the dock with her camera, they did only chose a limited number of photographers to go on board, they choose her probably because she was a pretty blonde girl rather than an old guy as most of them were.

In fact her father hated that she was a photographer and put her down often for it, he did it while Paul was there when they were "meeting the family" and Paul told him off.

But anyway after the Stone thing it kind of gave her an "in" - she had those pictures as the start of a portfolio and that in turn got her more work.

As for her being in Wings, that was Paul and basically they did it keep their family together. Their tours during the first few years were all in England or nearby in Europe, the kids were still pre-school age anyway except for Heather. In 1974 They started a world tour that last about 2 years and yes the kids all came with them the whole time. I believe they did the next tour 3 years later in 1979 but it wasn't nearly as big. Besides I know it's shocking but not everyone is cowed by the school system which now keeps kids chained to schools and no one can be absent for like, anything. They certainly had the means to not need that, because they could make sure the kids kept up their studies in other ways than sitting in a school room. Even in the 70's when I was a kid it was different, it wasn't nearly so....controlling as it is nowadays.

Plus before Linda, Paul was, as John once said, "a sexual gladiator". LOL He couldn't figure out where Paul got the energy to screw that many women. So Linda, being a smart woman, was like "well this is a good way to make sure he has no opportunities to stray" and Paul, knowing himself, was like "this is the only way I am not going to get on with someone else while on tour". And it worked for them. They liked being together, they liked traveling, they wanted to cut down on opportunities for things to go wrong with their marriage. Paul wanted to have a real family life and was serious about making his marriage but not stupid enough to not know his own weaknesses. Also after the Japan drug bust in 1980 they didn't tour again until 1989, by which time most of the kids were grown anyway and they took James who was the youngest with them. And they were married until Linda sadly died of cancer 28 years later. She would most likely have been his only wife if she had not died. So unlike the other Beatles his first marriage did not end in divorce.

John on the other hand was known to loudly screw other women with Yoko sitting in the next room(happened the night McGovern lost to Nixon when they were watching election results at a friends place with a bunch of other people).

Wow, I didn't realize Linda has such rabid over-the-top fans.

I don't think she was a very good photographer, sue me. Certainly not compared with the amazing music photographers who hit the scene over the years. Have you spent any time looking at actual music photographers work, not just Linda's books?

My years of art training, and working in a creative field, gave me a very discerning eye, especially as my father was a working photographer. Linda wasn't very good.

Not that all creative people need extensive training in the field they might want to pursue, but it helps to know the basics. Linda barely knew how to hold a camera. Many famous fashion designers can't even sketch their designs or sew, yet have become extremely successful. However, Linda's photos are not very memorable or iconic, let alone, technically proficient.

In Get Back, as she took some shots of the band, she wasn't even holding the lens steady on her Nikon. She held her camera in very unorthodox manner, with her hand focusing the lens while on the top of the lens. The stills were shown from the shoot, they weren't even clear. Anyone who shoots action photography, especially with a hand held camera, knows it's extremely important to steady the lens as you shoot movement, to focus and steady the lens from the underside of the lens, not on top.

Over the years I've known many music photographers and magazine photo editors, none of the editors would have hired Linda based solely on her photos. Once she became 'Mrs. Paul McCartney', the doors opened even wider for her to put out photo books and get other work.

Will the Linda McCartney Appreciation Troll please stop trying to hijack this thread?

I didn't think Linda was anything special.

Paul is obviously a fucking fool, he never even signed a pre-nup when he married that one-legged whore.

What drugs was lennon and yoko on during this time (in the documentary)?

As to whether Linda was a good photographer? All I know is she took my favorite Jimi Hendrix photo.

And some of my favorite photos of the Beatles.

And...

You decide...

Hi Stella!

Does the world really need another documentary about the Beatles? I mean, really? They've been done to death ten times over already. No one cares about them anymore.

Paul is definitely the Elphaba.

R138, if you think being high is the same thing as being drunk, YOU are the naive one.

[quote]After Jane Asher, Paul had terrible taste in women

Paul likes Jewish women, especially New York Jewish women. He's commented on it. I have no problem with that and don't understand why you would.

If it was twice as long I'd still watch all of it.

"I don't know how they could keep their cool or even show no reaction when Yoko shrieks like a fucking dying animal. omg, she was awful."

I was quite surprised to see the band accompanying Yoko, after all I'd heard about them hating her and resenting her presence in the recording studio, but the fact is... the documentary showed the band accompanying Yoko several times, and looking like they were really enjoying themselves! Every time!

Okay, maybe they were enjoying the utter absurdity of it all or relaxing by taking a break from being good, or laughing to themselves at the ridiculousness of the best band in the world playing for the worst singer, but the fact is, they were smiling big smiles and jamming away. Not the slightest hint of resentment on any of their mugs, and that really surprised me.

WHAT EVIL MOTHERFUCKING JEALOUS BITCH OF A DATALOUNGER KEEPS RAGGING ON RINGO??? WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU, BITCH?!?!?!????

Because Ringo Starr is by all accounts the nicest human being who ever lived, and if he was unbelievably lucky, then it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy! I have no opinion on whether his drumming was good or not, but the fact is, he was the right drummer for the band, and made huge contributions other than drumming. Like I said above, his personal charm was a huge part of the band becoming a worldwide phenomenon, and as he was the only one who got along with all the other band members, he probably kept the band functioning far longer than they would have with any other drummer.

Ringo (R154) have you fallen off the wagon again?

[quote] Paul was the Alpha out of all The Beatles.

Yoko was.

Speaking of which...I'm only 26 so I just recently decided to check out their albums (I knew a lot of their hit songs like Here Comes the Sun, Hey Jude, Yesterday etc.) but I never heard a full album and I must say:

Abbey Road sucks and is completely overrated

Revolver is their best followed by Sgt Peppers and Rubber Soul

A Day in the Life and Tomorrow Never Knows are masterpieces and their best songs. I had never heard those songs before and they're amazing!

^Try "I'm Only Sleeping" and "And Your Bird Can Sing," sonny; although, if you can't see that "Abbey Road" is a masterpiece from beginning to end, you really don't know anything about music at all, and so you might as well go home.

All four of them seem like pricks, but then so were lots of other great artists.

Music of all the arts is so totally subjective. Sometimes masterpieces aren't necessarily lovable

I also prefer Rubber Soul to Abbey Road. And the Fab Four and I were young together.

Michael Lindsay Hogg wasn’t Orson Welles’ son. He did a DNA test with Welles’ daughter and claimed it was “inconclusive.” Nope. If he was Welles’ son the DNA would’ve been there. It wasn’t. Geraldine Paige was in Ireland when she conceived MLH and Welles wasn’t.

R158 I'll check those out. Abbey Road has a lot of duds, the singles are good and so was the medley near the end but stuff like "Oh Darling" and "Octopus's Garden" is pure dreck. It sold the most but cannot be considered their best album at all.

In that Scorcese doc about ten years ago, George came off as absolutely miserable. Curmudgeonly, short tempered, and generally unpleasant.

People forget that the Beatles (and Paul especially) were quite tuned into the avant-garde music and art and theater and film scene in London. They loved Stockhausen and all them along with Little Richard. People forget that they were magpies. They did versions of other peoples' songs. They freely admitted they did "Helter Skelter" in response to The Who, "Sgt Pepper" in response to "Pet Sounds." "Lady Madonna" is a Fats Domino homage. "Sun King" is a Fleetwood Mac homage. "Ob La Di Ob La Da" is their (perhaps clumsy) attempt at ska, which was quite new in 1968 in London.

Yoko's screaming was familiar to them in avante-garde music circles.

[quote]Paul likes Jewish women, especially New York Jewish women. He's commented on it. I have no problem with that and don't understand why you would.

Who ever brought up that Paul liked Jewish women? I simply stated all the women after Jane were nothing special. I NEVER brought up their nationalities or religions.

All the women after Jane were obvious clout chasers and starfuckers.

So Paul prefers Jewish women? Who cares. Was Heather Mills Jewish? He married her. What an odd fetish.

IIRC, his current wife, Nancy, a socialite from NYC, comes from wealth, she has her own money.

IMHO, the best Beatle albums, are Revolver, Rubber Soul , Magical Mystery Tour and Beatles 65. These albums all sound different, yet, you still know, it's The Beatles. With each new album, could easily hear their musical progression.

I prefer the mid to late period Beatles, you could see they wanted to be much more than a 60s version of a boy band.

The amount of music they produced in their short span as a band is absolutely astounding. Of course, George Martin should get a lot of credit too.

Linda had access to some of the biggest celebrities in the 60s/onward.

Even if she was the worst photographer, she’d get good photos just from the sheer volume of pictures taken.

In the 60s it took a lot of gumption to break into a typical man’s career. So, I give her some credit for that. Although, being a pretty blonde from a wealthy background probably made it a much easier.

OH! DARLING! is a vocal tour de force from Paul McCartney - John could never delivered a vocal like that, much less George Harrison.

The Beatles loved Elvis and 50s rock and roll, and this is a fitting tribute.

*never could have delivered a vocal like that -

Great bass line and backup harmony on this number too -

R165, thanks for bringing up Magical Mystery Tour. It's never mentioned as one of The Beatles best, I even like it better than Sgt Pepper.

[quote]In that Scorcese doc about ten years ago, George came off as absolutely miserable. Curmudgeonly, short tempered, and generally unpleasant.

That because he was, George was an old guy and entitled to be curmudgeonly. Best Harrison quote:

"The world used us as an excuse to go crazy."

George was a junkie who also didn't let the little matter of fucking his wife interrupt his friendship with noted kook Eric Clapton.

Paul said even in their glory days, whenever they had to turn up for a press junket, or for a show where the fans were going insane before they even appeared, George would always say glumly, "Why are we doing this?" or "Do we have to be here?" The others found it funny, and came to welcome it as the moment that pulled them together before whatever it was they were about to attempt.

[quote] George would always say glumly, "Why are we doing this?" or "Do we have to be here?"

Kin mood honestly. I’m defo a George bitch

“And this was, I think, probably the biggest shock other than how engaged John was, was just that extraordinary love and connection between Paul and John. And you saw it every second with them looking in each other’s eyes. It really was like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

-Joe Scarborough on Morning Joe, Nov 30

Several people on the "McLennon" thread noticed that Richard Lester never showed eye contact between Paul and John during A Hard Day's Night. It was so absent you started looking for it.

In Sam Taylor’s NOWHERE BOY, Paul (played by Thomas Brodie-Sangster) is portrayed as a quiet, serene and physically-slight boy who nonetheless has a paradoxical strength and firmness and determination. He is the only character with guts enough to stand up to John (played by Aaron Johnson) and childish fuckboy anticking, telling him to get a grip.

And yes, there is a heavy homoromantic/homoerotic connotation in this portrayal of Paul & John’s relationship.

George was a curmudgeon but his solo album All Things Must Pass is absurdly great and the best music any of the Beatles made after the group broke apart.

I pored through a book of Linda Eastman's photos. They were mediocre, at best. She was a groupie with a camera "to protect her pride", as Janis Joplin's biographer Myra Friedman said.

Speaking of Janis Joplin...Linda McCartney took some extremely unflattering casual photos of her, ones where she's wearing a awful fur hat and looks like like hell, her face ravaged, her skin all pitted and scarred. In one of the photos she has a glob of something on her lip (spittle?) She looks like she's in no mood to be photographed. But I guess that didn't stop McCartney from taking her picture. In addition to taking the unflattering pictures she spoke condescendingly and dismissively about Joplin. She said:

"Janis and I became friends but were never close. We were very different people. She was a pretty tough broad (actually Janis Joplin was VERY sensitive) and I was a pretty sensitive broad. The chemistry wasn’t there. I was much more friendly with the guys in the band (I bet she was!)-Sam Andrew, Dave Getz, Peter Albin and Jim Gurley. They had a great social life, whereas I felt Janis had no real friends. You could tell just by being around her that she felt insecure. She didn’t think she was attractive, and after gigs the boys were always going off with girls and she was left alone. I felt sorry for her. She would probably have liked a man to take her out to dinner.

When I was asked by Mademoiselle to take a picture of Big Brother & the Holding Co. together with a model, Janis wouldn’t do it. She didn’t want to be photographed beside a model because she thought it would accentuate her plainness. In order to boost her confidence, she would drink a lot before she went on stage. I took one picture of her brandishing a bottle of Southern Comfort in L.A, and I remember she drank it all before she did the concert.

When she got on stage she became an incredible blues belter. She would stomp all over the place and put a lot of Texas energy into it. She desperately wanted to please the crowd and their approval gave her the confidence that didn’t come to her naturally. It was as if the whole band had suddenly found themselves on the up escalator. Everything was happening for them without fully realizing why. But as soon as Janis was off stage, the energy level dropped. She needed people around her to give her praise. You could see in her face the tension she was experiencing.

But feeling insecure didn’t make her demure. She was a real Texas girl with coarse language who made no attempt at being glamorous. When we first met, she was into L.S.D, but after a while you could tell she was taking heroin because her skin was starting to get terrible. People change when they start taking heroin.”

One big dividing line between great and good photographers is great photographers can capture the beauty of even the ugliest situation. Linda sounds too shallow to be a skilled artist.

"All four of them seem like pricks, but then so were lots of other great artists."

R159, where the hell are you getting prick vibes from Ringo? He's mostly sitting there looking a bit sad and being quiet, drumming dutifully when needed, occasionally goofing around a little and being very charming.

Like I said, I think his greatest value to the band is that he's the one member who wasn't a prick.

Nobody ever said Linda was a *great* photographer, R178, she was a *working* photographer. She was working because people in the music industry liked her stuff, but if she gave up her career to marry well then the music journalism industry didn't mourn the loss of a great talent.

No, the bizarre thing was Yoko giving up her career to sit silently by John's side while he worked, sitting there hour after hour with nothing to do, just patiently waiting for the few small moments when he stopped playing and paid a bit of attention to her. She'd been a highly respected artist before she met John, temporary Queen of the Avant Garde, and here she is not doing any art, just sitting there patiently until Lennon wants her. For years the fans have said she took over his life and ruined everything for him, but from what I'm seeing here he's the one who took over HER life. She's not making art, she's not pursuing her own interests or expressing her own feelings, I'm seeing a woman who's given up everything to be part of a man's life, and who's found that in return, he's only given her a small part of his life.

Linda's photography skills, her photographs, her singing ability, and just about everything else about her you might want to name are really pretty fucking insignificant at this point.

[quote]Paul said even in their glory days, whenever they had to turn up for a press junket, or for a show where the fans were going insane before they even appeared,

You don't understand, dear. Harrison's comment, "The world used us as an excuse to go crazy," referred to the hippie junkies of Haight Ashbury and the like, those who "turned on, tuned in and dropped out of society," not the screaming Beatles fans. Many of those vagrants of hippiedom sited The Beatles and their song "messages" for their actions.

Well, it's not like the Beatles weren't egging them on. Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds? A coincidence? VERY funny...And of course there is much, MUCH more.

R180 so glad you said that. I’ve always thought the same.

Yoko was actually a fine postmodernist poet as well as a conceptual artist, when she put her mind to it. Sadly ironic that she married an over-rated über-famous and wealthy lyricist...

Her ‘Grapefruit’ is a seminal work in the genre.

What awful comments about Janis Joplin from groupie-with-a-Nikon Linda Eastman. Just horrible.

Linda probably wished she had one quarter of the talent Janis possessed. Her camera was nothing but a prop to with meet famous rockers.

The story about how she pursued Jimmy Page was hilarious! Jimmy was fucking actual working models, he didn't want any part of Linda's bullshit. His eldest daughter's mother, Charlotte Martin, was a model.

I don’t understand how someone as lucky in life as Linda—born rich and beautiful and married the biggest Beatle—could be so ungracious to Janis. The woman felt unloved all her life and died at 27, all she had was that voice, why cut her to shreds after she’s gone like that?

[quote]In the 60s it took a lot of gumption to break into a typical man’s career. So, I give her some credit for that. Although, being a pretty blonde from a wealthy background probably made it a much easier.

It wasn’t about “gumption”, it was about Linda's father’s connections as an entertainment lawyer, then Paul’s connections. Who is going to say no to a Beatle?

I respect women who earn careers based on their talent and by working hard. Linda did neither, she came across as smug and entitled. Her comments abut Janis were uncalled for. Besides, who the hell needed to hear Linda Nobody's commentary about a famous female rock singer.

Linda was not pretty, she was very plain and basic looking, actually her face was kind of androgynous. Back then, in NYC, you could see natural beauties just going about their lives. Some famous models were discovered walking down the street and taking the NYC subway.

Believe me, Linda didn’t turn any heads. I couldn’t stop looking at that blue eyeshadow she was wearing in the documentary. Linda was a mess. Apart from Jane Asher, Paul had terrible taste in GFs. I could only imagine the beauty level of all the anonymous women he fucked. It's not about quantity, it's about quality. (The Linda Ronstadt fans here must know, Jane's brother music producer Peter Asher, from the singing duo Peter and Gordon, went on to work with Linda.)

There must be one of Linda’s family posting here or one of her children, because the praise she’s getting at DL, of all places, is ridiculous. Linda was merely lucky, nothing more. Connections and she was in the right place/right time to meet a Beatle who took the bait.

Stella McCartney is not even a good fashion designer. It’s laughable that she also gets so much praise, her clothes are nothing special. Stella is selling VINYL shoes and handbags for over $1000.

[quote] Linda—born rich and beautiful and married the biggest Beatle—could be so ungracious to Janis. The woman felt unloved all her life and died at 27, all she had was that voice, why cut her to shreds after she’s gone like that?

You answered your own question in the first few words.

Born-rich women are usually the enemy of a collective uplifting feminism, and this is usually because they got where they are thanks to Hubby’s/Daddy’s/Grandad’s money.

""The world used us as an excuse to go crazy," referred to the hippie junkies of Haight Ashbury and the like, those who "turned on, tuned in and dropped out of society," not the screaming Beatles fans."

IMHO it was both, the screaming hysteria of their early years and the whole hippie turn-on-tune-in-drop-out thing that developed after a couple of years. The shrieking crowds were a mid-century phenomenon that died out when the sexual revolution hit big time, IMHO it was teenaged hormones run amok when girls weren't allowed to express them any other way, and the shrieking drove the band insane and away from live performing. It really was girls using performances as an excuse to go crazy, much more directly than the hippies.

One of the things this documentary has forcibly brought home is how incredibly short and dramatic the band's career was. From the British Invasion in 1964 to "Abbey Road" in 1969... the band had five years at the top. FIVE YEARS and we're still arguing about them! But in five years, they changed from a simple boy band to sophisticated mods to psychedelic hippies to the kings of the music industry. It's like they completely changed their image every year, and their sound.

This is "beautiful"?

Paul looked hot with the beard.

I loved how you could tell when they washed their hair. It’s a great way to spend 8 hours but it felt like the McCartney show to me. John was surprisingly cute and George in his fedora was serving Yves Saint Laurent.

If Linda was a crap photographer, she was a glowing success as a wife!

How many rock star wives manage to keep their husbands until they die of natural causes? She's probably the only one.

Paul and George had the best hair, so refreshing and real, especially in light what was to come with the ridiculous hair bands, with their disgusting bleached-out teased thin rats nest hair.

Paul and George had thick naturally wavy hair. Ringo also had good hair.

R194 in general, it seems as if everyone’s hair was healthier back then. Is it diet? Less depleted/more mineral rich soils for food? Cleaner air and water? Exercise? Or were the haircare products less/more intense?

[quote] No, the bizarre thing was Yoko giving up her career to sit silently by John's side while he worked, sitting there hour after hour with nothing to do, just patiently waiting for the few small moments when he stopped playing and paid a bit of attention to her. She'd been a highly respected artist before she met John, temporary Queen of the Avant Garde, and here she is not doing any art, just sitting there patiently until Lennon wants her. For years the fans have said she took over his life and ruined everything for him, but from what I'm seeing here he's the one who took over HER life. She's not making art, she's not pursuing her own interests or expressing her own feelings, I'm seeing a woman who's given up everything to be part of a man's life, and who's found that in return, he's only given her a small part of his life.

Are you fucking kidding? Yoko Ono was NOTHING before she got her hooks into Lennon. She became famous and well known only after she glommed onto him. Without him no one would have ever known she existed except for some in the "art world", I suppose.

Here's something Andy Warhol said about her when somebody asked him about her (they were both at some art event). Warhol said "Oh, she's always around. She's always copying somebody's art."

[quote]If Linda was a crap photographer, she was a glowing success as a wife! How many rock star wives manage to keep their husbands until they die of natural causes? She's probably the only one.

WTF are you going on about? Ringo and Barbara Bach have remained married longer than Ringo was married to Maureen Cox. Ringo was married to Maureen for about 10 years, he's been married to Barbara since 1981, that would be 40 years this past April..!!!!

You assume Paul never cheated on Linda?! Most musicians cheat.

Most men cheat.

All men do is cheat, lie, and be 5”10–the Beatles no exception.

Watch the movie Nowhere Boy to see how teenagers Paul and John and their lives growing up. John had an awful life. No father and his real mother lived down the street from him but didn't know it was his mother. He lived with his aunt. His mother died after being hit by a car. John's father divorced his mother and remarried later and had 2 sons who are still living.

Of course I don't assume that Paul never cheated on Linda, but they actually did stay together until death did them part, and by all accounts it was a happy marriage. I wouldn't have thought Paul would have a happy marriage that lasted as long as possible, usually hugely ambitious straight men like him end up changing out their wives and families a few times, as their wives get fed up, or he decides to invest in an upgrade.

Gawd, I hate to find myself in the position of defending Linda Eastman McCartney, of all the insignificant people who ever lived, but some jealous bitch won't stop bitching about her, to the point where any normal person feels the urge to slap him into place. She was a terrible musician, wasn't missed as a photographer, but nobody can say she wasn't a success as a wife.

[quote]Are you fucking kidding? Yoko Ono was NOTHING before she got her hooks into Lennon. She became famous and well known only after she glommed onto him. Without him no one would have ever known she existed except for some in the "art world", I suppose.

Another person who is making up shit to fit their "Yoke caused The Beatles to split" narrative.

Yoko was part of the downtown NYC avant-garde art scene, that was BEFORE she met John. Yoko had a loft on Bond Street (same area where Mapplethorpe later had his studio) and she was part of the Fluxus movement. Yoko also worked with composer John Cage and many other avant-garde and free jazz musicians.

A few years ago, NYC's MOMA gave Yoko a massive retrospective, her involvement in the avant-garde art world goes back waaaay before meeting John. Just because you know so little about Yoko's background doesn't mean others don't.

Get you damn facts straight especially before you start spitting verbal diarrhea all over this thread.

Also Yoko came from a well off family. She was far from piss poor. But it does seem she used Lennon to further her, ahem, career.

Paul had the absurd ambition, given his fame, of living fairly normally and raising his children as normal people. He felt deeply anchored by the normality of his own extended family and realised the value of that. (I mean, he only had to look sideways to see John.) He needed a wife who wasn't going to be all about mansions and red carpets and Givenchy. That would have been pretty hard to achieve, but he did find it in LInda. She did like hanging round rock people, but she wasn't reverent about fame, and she didn't care about glamour or Society or spending fistfuls of the neverending dosh.

It meant Paul pretty much succeeded. His kids seem incredibly normal and self-motivating compared to those of far less famous celebrities, much less those of other rock stars.

I'm reading The Lyrics. One of the things I really like about him is that when some legendary person of a previous generation expresses interest in meeting The Beatles, Paul accepts the invitation. The others don't GAF about Noel Coward or Marlene Dietrich, etc, but he always goes because (a) he can see the legend would feel slighted by a refusal and doesn't want to be rude, and (b) he expects he might learn new things from each encounter and sometimes does. I think this attitude is an aspect of his normality.

[quote]Gawd, I hate to find myself in the position of defending Linda Eastman McCartney, of all the insignificant people who ever lived, but some jealous bitch won't stop bitching about her, to the point where any normal person feels the urge to slap him into place. She was a terrible musician, wasn't missed as a photographer, but nobody can say she wasn't a success as a wife.

I'm sure not jealous of Linda, WHY is that sort of response the first place people go when a person states some famous person wasn't that good at whatever they do/did? Why is is always "jealousy"? How fucking lame and predictable!

Paul was not my fave Beatle, George was. To me George was extremely talented (his solo work was very successful as was his Traveling Wilburys band), he was handsome, intense and interesting. I sure wasn't jealous of Pattie Boyd or his last wife Olivia. Why would I be jealous? I'm a gay man, George was straight, he liked women and, by all accounts, George cheated on both wives. As a gay man, I wouldn't have had a chance with George, I was too young anyway, lmao

I simply find the praise of Linda absurd, especially as her photography was quite bad, she was not impressive at all. Then, to hear how she put down Janis Joplin! How gauche. Linda seemed to forget, these musicians were allowing her into THEIR world. Who the hell was she to comment? Linda was not on their level.

My father was a successful photographer, I come from a family of artists and working musicians. One family member was actually a concert photographer, they shot some amazing photos which were published in major publications. I know what good photography is, Linda's photos were not it.

Just because Linda had unlimited access to famous people didn't automatically make her photos any good. This isn't all that difficult to comprehend.

[quote] few years ago, NYC's MOMA gave Yoko a massive retrospective, her involvement in the avant-garde art world goes back waaaay before meeting John. Just because you know so little about Yoko's background doesn't mean others don't.

Get you damn facts straight especially before you start spitting verbal diarrhea all over this thread.

You are a Yoko One worshipping moron. She became a "respected artist" and got her ass kissed by the art world AFTER the assassination of John Lennon. Before that nobody was swooning over the crazy shit she did that was supposed to be art. After her first meeting with Lennon she "laid siege" to him according to Peter Brown, constantly trying to contact him and even threatening suicide if he didn't "support" her efforts. Does a successful, respected artist do anything like THAT? What an ass you are.

"I'm sure not jealous of Linda, WHY is that sort of response the first place people go when a person states some famous person wasn't that good at whatever they do/did?"

Because someone on this thread keeps going on and on about how horrible Linda was. I mean a post or two is fine, but it's gotten ridiculous, as if someone was obsessed or a dedicated Hater.

[quote]And yes, there is a heavy homoromantic/homoerotic connotation in this portrayal of Paul & John’s relationship.

The same happens in the movie "Two of Us" directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, who appears in many scenes of "Get Back".

He lived with The Beatles while directing Let It Be, and when he got the chance to re-visit their dynamic, he jumped at the chance to do a Lennon & McCartney film in which he made them kiss.

With this thread, The Beatles obsessives are sure coming out of the woodwork.

The minute details of what went on between Yoko and John and Linda and Paul, it's downright hilarious.

I simply enjoy their music. No one really needs the details of their personal lives.

The Beatles music is what made them important, not their personal lives. The Beatles were a huge part of the 1960s 'youthquake' movement, yet, if the music wasn't their most important aspect, they would have simply been yet another disposable forgettable pop band, which they sure weren't!

Now that we've ripped the group members to shreds, as only DL can, and we've trashed their wives and girlfriends, and gotten into knock-down, drag-out fights over all of it...what's next?

Should we start shitting on and fighting about their kids?

How about that little Beatrice McCartney? She's turning into a right little cuntess, isn't she? How could she not, with that one-legged WHORE raising her?

And that Sean Lennon...you know DAMN WELL he got cornholed by Wacko Jacko!

And that Julian, pushing 60 and never married...we all know what THAT means!

Some, but not many, rock stars stay with their wives for the duration.

Iman and David Bowie stayed together until death did them part. I think they really did have a good relationship based on mutual respect and love.

Bono and Ali Hewson have been together since high school. I think their marriage is more of a working arrangement than a happy marriage. I've heard the secret to the success of their marriage is that they frequently spend long periods of time away from each other. Bono has had plenty of affairs with other women (Winona Ryder, Andrea Corr, Christy Turlington) but I suppose she considers that part of the package and accepts it. I've heard rumors that she likes to step out on Bono...with other women. Who knows? Anyway, their marriage has lasted. They have an image to protect, you know. They make a big show of their great "love" for each other.

Roger Daltrey of The Who has been married since 1971 to Heather Daltrey. She too accepts the fact that her husband couldn't keep his dick in his pants. But I guess if they've come this far they'll stay married.

Stella McCartney: you can sell ad space on her forehead.

Stella, cashing in on her dad's band, while charging $625 for this.

Are people here suggesting that if Yoko had never met John she'd have been REALLY successful?

"Alpha".... in several places they talk about how John used to be the "boss".... the period of this unraveling both John and Yoko were shooting heroin. I don't think he was "there" for these sessions. No question that John was the lead in the beginning, and by the end Paul was the only Beatle left.

Relative talent? John's first solo album was infinitely better than anything solo Paul ever did. George's All Things Must Pass was the surprise... he really should have had more of a songwriting role in the Beatles and Paul probably should have not bullied him.

And to the comment from the poster about how tired he is of all this Boomer nostalgia. Understandable. Go away. Don't watch. I am bored to tears with the anti-Boomer grumbling by folks that are now laughed at by Gen Z.

[quote] When I was asked by Mademoiselle to take a picture of Big Brother & the Holding Co. together with a model, Janis wouldn’t do it. She didn’t want to be photographed beside a model because she thought it would accentuate her plainness.

What the HELL would a "model" be doing in photo of Big Brother and the Holding Company? That sounds too stupid to believe. But if it's true it's perfectly understandable that Janis would not want to have a model in a photo with her and Big Brother. A model would have stuck out like a sore thumb. At any rate, when speaking of Janis Joplin Linda Eastman sounds like quite a cunt.

"Are people here suggesting that if Yoko had never met John she'd have been REALLY successful?"

I referred to her above as the "temporary queen of the Avant-Garde scene", because nobody is ever tops of the avant-garde for long... or avant-garde for long. Nobody can sustain a position on that fashionable edge of the art world, either they tip over into being more mainstream, and more successful, or they fall away from the art world entirely. I'd guess that it's difficult to turn Yoko's kind of art fame into a sustained career, especially as her life with Lennon seemed to have her falling off the edge, what with the "bagism" and bed-ins and drugs.

Well who knows, because she didn't value her own work highly enough to attempt a long-term career as an artist, she chucked it all for the hyper-needy Lennon, and I hope she was happy with the choice she made.

Anyone wondering why the girlfriends were there obviously didn't notice the plethora of guys buzzing about the studio all doing essential tasks no doubt. lol

Men can be groupies too and all big stars/bands have them. Their 'offerings' may be different but they are groupies nonetheless.

R217 oh I’m sure Yoko is happy with the choice she made *checks stock portfolio*

[quote]Me too, and very sad. For all his irritations, he was a defiantly live wire of a person, it is so deeply wrong what happened.

It is wrong that he was killed, but based on what we know about him now, he was destined for a long life. Not that it minimizes the tragedy, just that it negates the idea that John would've lived to be a rich old rock icon the way Paul is.

While it's also kind of tedious in parts, the documentary on George Harrison made a couple of years ago was actually quite good. For all his talent, he really was a difficult guy. Maybe not an out & out asshole the way Clapton was, but difficult to be around & *never* satisfied

*not* destined for a long life (eating disorder, drug addiction, poor hygiene, etc)

R221 was it an eating disorder? I thought it was the heroin.

"Anyone wondering why the girlfriends were there obviously didn't notice the plethora of guys buzzing about the studio all doing essential tasks no doubt"

Some of them were sound guys and electronic engineers or record company suits or gofers who brought coffee and wine, employees who were presumably paid to be there... and then there was the Hare Krishna guy just sitting on the floor doing nothing. You know, the one labeled as "Friend of George Harrison"?

But he only sat down around doing nothing for a day or two, and Yoko did it for weeks. Months! Years! She and John had SUCH a strange relationship...

No, John had pretty bad anorexia. There's a reason he was always so scary thin, despite all the drinking.

I love how angry Yoko makes people, still. She does, too, it keeps her young and buying up more of the Dakota.

Out of the original four Beatle wives, three died of cancer and two of those were breast cancer.

Cynthia Lennon I think struggled to regain individual identity after the divorce but I think never quite got past being the ex-Mrs John Lennon. Asher had 100 times the integrity and talent of Linda McCartney and a very success life and career. She was lucky to get shot of Paul early on. Boyd cobbled things together pretty well once she got past Harrison and Clapton.

They were the envy of girls across the globe. My poor sister wanted to look like Boyd so much that her entire adolescence was blighted.

Funny, innit, to look back on all that.

[quote]They were the envy of girls across the globe. My poor sister wanted to look like Boyd so much that her entire adolescence was blighted.

Well, there's a lesson for the Insta-hos; today's glamorous starlet of dubious talent is tomorrow's 40+ frau hustling to just make a living

[quote]Context is not time-dependent.

Oh, it absolutely IS time-dependent, no question. Someone who didn't live through the ascendancy of The Beatles can't understand the full impact they had on society at the time, as it was happening.

I was born in 1971 and I can look back at their songs and see that there was an enormous amount of growth between "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" and "The Long and Winding Road." I can look it up and see that the songs were recorded less than six years apart (Oct 1963 vs Jan 1969) and be floored by the changes the band went through personally, professionally and emotionally in such a short amount of time. I can look at photos of them in '63 and compare them with the rooftop session and see, visually, just how much society, time, and these boys, all still young, had changed.

But I wasn't there and I will never fully understand what it was like to actually LIVE through it.

[quote]I'm reading The Lyrics. One of the things I really like about him is that when some legendary person of a previous generation expresses interest in meeting The Beatles, Paul accepts the invitation. The others don't GAF about Noel Coward or Marlene Dietrich, etc, but he always goes because (a) he can see the legend would feel slighted by a refusal and doesn't want to be rude, and (b) he expects he might learn new things from each encounter and sometimes does.

Coward had seen the Beatles early in their stardom and met John and Paul briefly, and later mentioned to David Lewin of the Daily Mail that they were pleasant and fun but "totally devoid of talent," and the Daily Mail printed his comments. Later, Epstein wanted Coward to meet the Beatles a second time and the band gave him the run-around, then eventually by the end of the evening refused to meet him outright, because of his comments. Coward appears to have made a bit of a stink about it, so Paul eventually came out to meet with him briefly.

I'm not entirely sold on the idea that Paul did it because he respected the legend and knew he could learn from him. Maybe that was behind his first meeting with Coward, but by the second, it really sounds like he met with him just to assuage him and calm everything down.

[quote]Linda was not pretty, she was very plain and basic looking, actually her face was kind of androgynous

Leave it to a gay male not to understand that a straight male chooses a female because of a connection beyond looks. Obviously Paul and Linda clicked, he wasn't looking for a trophy.

[quote]in general, it seems as if everyone’s hair was healthier back then. Is it diet? Or were the haircare products less/more intense?

Haircare? Did you say haircare products? There were few haircare products for men in 1969 other than shampoo. There was gooey control creams/lotions like Vitalis and Brylcreem. For real control there was hair wax and pomade. I guarantee none of the Beatles were using these products. They could use a daily shampoo.

If you think hair was healthier then, it's probably because people DIDN'T use haircare products.

[quote]Are people here suggesting that if Yoko had never met John she'd have been REALLY successful?

Are people here suggesting that if Yoko had never met John, the Beatles would never have split up?

Creepy fact: both Lennon and their tour manager (Mal Evans, the big blond guy with the glasses) died by gunshot. Evans was shot by the police in 1976.

(And both were shot in the US)

Where else r234?

That was my point. It should be pointed out, though, that Evans WAS pointing a rifle (toy) at LA police officers, and refused to put it down, when they killed him (not knowing that it was a fake weapon)... -R234

R208 those are some of the most egregious attempts at a Scouse accent I’ve ever heard. Those lads sound pure Irish.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

"Are people here suggesting that if Yoko had never met John, the Beatles would never have split up?"

Oh, they probably would have. Harrison probably would have left before long even without Yoko around, Ringo would have slowly drifted into acting, and eventually John and Paul would have had one argument too many, and people would have spent the last fifty years blaming Linda for breaking up the band.

So the show is listed as "Season 1" on Disney Plus? What's in Season 2, more of the "Let It Be" sessions?

The band didn't actually break up until John and Paul fell out, and so far, they're still lovey-dovey partners who obviously adore making music together, and who discuss their difficulties like reasonable adults. But within a year or so they'd be on the outs, and John would be asking Paul for a "divorce". I wonder if the series covers that time period?

I read somewhere that the band was over in the fall of 1969. But, because of some business reason, it was only officially announced in 1970.

The rooftop concert was their last live performance together.

[quote]Leave it to a gay male not to understand that a straight male chooses a female because of a connection beyond looks. Obviously Paul and Linda clicked, he wasn't looking for a trophy.

Well, more bullshit from the Linda Lover here.

Upon first meeting them, what does a person looking for a romantic relationship initially know about another person? They look at them, usually because they are physically attracted to that person. Everyone has a type, why would Paul be any different?

Didn't Paul say he was attracted to NYC Jewish women? That's exactly what Linda was, a Jewish woman from NYC. Linda sure wasn't as attractive and bubbly as Fran Drescher.

Most people, gay or straight, are attracted to a certain look, usually it's the person's face and or a certain body type. Your argument is absurd. We all have a physical type, for instance, not every gay man looks directly at what man has in his pants! I'm partnered for years, when I was dating, I looked at the man's face, his hair and if the man had nice hands. Of course, then you get to know the person, you talk. George Harrison was handsome, had great hair and he had nice hands, my perfect physical type. How George treated his wives was awful, I would have run the other way.

Most people are initially attracted to whatever physical aspects turn you on, then, when you get to know the person, if they have a terrible personality or are racist, xenophobic, a ReThug, evil etc, you run. I know I would. This applies to friendships to. We are judged by the people we associate with.

Linda seemed so incredibly dull and smug, her whiny voice was excruciating. She definitely had that fake NYC socialite voice and vibe. As I said upthread, after Jane Asher, Paul had terrible taste in women.

Could be Linda was really wild in bed and that's all Paul cared about? If Paul was such a 'sexual gladiator', or whatever John called him, he sure wouldn't have settled for a women who was boring in bed.

To hear the terrible things Linda said about Janis Joplin, Linda didn't seem like a decent person. I can imagine who else Linda put down. She should have spent more time learning how to take photos. I can see why her daughter Stella is so smug and acts so superior, Stella has her mom's personality.

Despite Linda's very plain face, sad sack droopy eyes and boring personality, she somehow managed to bag a very famous rockstar, that seemed to be her main goal in life.

R241, have you read THIS THREAD?

[quote]Linda sure wasn't as attractive and bubbly as Fran Drescher.

FRAN DRESCHER?

R242, you have more issues than meet the eye.

FRAN DRESCHER? [R242], you have more issues than meet the eye

I have issues? You are the person championing the extremely dull and untalented Linda Eastman. No one would have given two shits about this woman if she wasn't married to a Beatle.

Why do I have "issues', because I think Fran is an attractive woman who also happens to be Jewish? I cannot imagine Paul being attracted to Fran's personality, but she's much better looking than hangdog-faced Linda.

Yes, asshole, Fran Drescher is a very attractive woman, she has a nice face and seems like a good decent person. Despite her idiot doctors misdiagnosing her symptoms for years, Fran managed to survive cancer.

Forget Fran's crazy voice. Fran is a millions times better looking that Droopy Dog Linda.

The Beatles as Fleetwood Mac:

Paul- Lindsey

John- Stevie

George- Christine

Ringo- John

R245, shut up, just stop and shut up. You get more hysterical and dumb with every post.

PS: I am not your nemesis the Linda defender

[quote][R245], shut up, just stop and shut up. You get more hysterical and dumb with every post. PS: I am not your nemesis the Linda defender

Why are YOU so invested in this? Why don't you stay in your fucking lane, esp as you claim to NOT be the Linda Defender.

Don't gang up on me because I cannot stand talent-free Linda and her awful photos.

Linda Eastman was one big nothing, she was an uninteresting person Paul forced on his fans. Please don't bring up Yoko in this either, I'm not discussing her.

OH SHUT UP, LINDA HATER!!!

You're the only one who keeps going on and on and on about her, nobody else gives a rat's ass about her. Just shut your trap.

I don’t think anyone on earth has expressed as strong feeling about Linda as the posters in this thread.

R248 needs some major meds, any recommendations?

"Don't gang up on me because I cannot stand talent-free Linda and her awful photos."

We aren't ganging up on you because you can't stand the talent-free Linda, we're ganging up on you because you won't shut up about how much you hate her.

Now, is there any plan for a Season 2? Disney+ lists this as "Season 1" in the episode guide. Is that their default, or is there going to be more?

[quote] was it an eating disorder? I thought it was the heroin.

At some point John and Yoko, wallowing in their hippiedom, decided that a "macrobiotic" diet was the way to go. It supposedly consisted of mostly rice and bean sprouts. They thought that was very healthy; and in the meantime they both smoked like chimneys and were junkies. Over time John became what was called "a wealthy victim of malnutrition." He considered sugar to be "poison" and refused to have his son Sean eat anything with sugar in it. He considered sugar a health hazard, but not cigarettes, pot, hashish, cocaine or heroin. Pictures of him near the end of his life show him looking distinctly withered and unwell. He had a hole in his nose from the constant coke snorting and it was scheduled to be it repaired. The medical technicians who worked on him after he was shot were amazed at his "wretched" physical condition. I guess he would have been in bad physical condition. He was a hard core drug addict right up to the end.

[quote]Don't gang up on me because I cannot stand talent-free Linda and her awful photos.

You really have an agenda. Fran didn't have a chance no matter how delightful you find her. And YOU don't have a chance with McCartney either, so lose that thought.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

[quote]You really have an agenda. Fran didn't have a chance no matter how delightful you find her. And YOU don't have a chance with McCartney either, so lose that thought.

Reading comprehension doesn't seem to be your forte, huh? Never said Fran was after Paul, where the hell did you read that? I simply said, if Paul was into Jewish women from NYC, Fran was a more attractive choice than hangdog snoozy Linda and much more talented too.

I already posted upthread, Paul wasn't my favorite Beatle. Despite his 'beauty', Paul did absolutely nothing for me. Chance with Paul or any famous person? I never even thought about ever pursuing any famous person. Stop projecting.

Not to mention, despite the fantasies of so many gay men here, Paul was not gay. There is always a mention in Beatle threads that Paul and John were lovers. Give that a rest!

I'm also not one of those gay men who thinks straight men actually want to have sex with men, that seems to be the weird dynamic going on here at DL. There are so many threads with gay men lusting after straight men. How tedious.

I love the Linda Eastman trolls.

Let's face it, both Linda Eastman and Yoko Ono were awful. Paul had a relationship with Jane Asher, a beautiful, talented, nice (the fans loved her) woman but she caught him cheating and that was the end of that. John had his sweet wife Cynthia (the fans also loved her) but she was really too nice for him. Then they both get involved with unlikable, not very attractive women and they marry them, dismaying the fans. Oh well, I guess it was their lives. But it just goes to show how fucked up Lennon and McCartney were. Of all the women in the world to choose from they end up with the likes of Linda Eastman and Yoko Ono.

[quote]But it just goes to show how fucked up Lennon and McCartney were.

How did this thread devolve into their women? It's the least interesting thing about Lennon and McCartney.

Can we please 'get back' to Get BacK?

Some of these rockers were so lazy, they seemed to pick from a small pool of women who moved in their circle. Jimmy Page's eldest daughter's mother, a French model named Charlotte Martin (Page never married her), had been an ex-GF of Eric Clapton.

The story goes, when Charlotte broke up with Clapton, for some reason, she moved in with George and his wife Pattie. George then proceeded to fuck Charlotte while Pattie was in the house!

As many fans know, Clapton was in love with Pattie for many years, after Pattie divorced George, then married Clapton, he eventually dumped her when she couldn't get pregnant. Clapton was a real piece of shit, he physically abused and raped Pattie. Clapton did get some great songs out of their disastrous and doomed relationship.

In the documentary about George his second wife Olivia admitted George always cheated.

Slate weighs in...

[quote]...using every modern technique of digital restoration, Get Back becomes an act of necromancy, bringing the Beatles back to life out of those dusty cinematic tombs; in its rich color and sound, it seems almost like it could have been filmed yesterday. Jackson makes these four young men look, for the first time, both contemporary and fully human to me. (Except George Harrison’s pink pinstriped suit, which remains fully superhuman.)

[quote]What Get Back lets the viewer experience is the invisible work that may not seem like work, as it slowly transforms even the faintest inspirations into art....Get Back’s heart lies within these iterative evolutions, and the creative relationships they help to make and unmake. It is about growing up, as these people are all still doing, and what you gain and lose along the way. And certainly, like most of the songs and symbols the Beatles are most famous for, it is about love.

Beatles as Led Zeppelin

Paul as Jimmy Page

John as Robert Plant

George as John Page Jones

Ringo as dead John Bonham

There will not be a season 2, for those asking.

The purpose of the series was to finally tell the story of the "Get Back/Let it Be" project. Peter Jackson accomplished that with this series. There is basically nothing else to say about it.

The only reason it took on a "mini-series" format was because of COVID. It was originally going to be just a 2-hour-ish theatrical release...basically a re-telling/re-editing of the original "Let it Be" movie. The pandemic delayed the project, and since Jackson and his team were stuck in New Zealand with nothing else to work on, they wound up going with an 8-hour TV series.

There MAY be additional footage released as bonus material, if they decide to do a physical DVD release. Many fans are wishing they would clean up and release all of the "Get Back" footage in the vaults, which is nearly 60 hours of film. I don't see that happening, but tomorrow never knows.

[quote]There MAY be additional footage released as bonus material, if they decide to do a physical DVD release. Many fans are wishing they would clean up and release all of the "Get Back" footage in the vaults, which is nearly 60 hours of film. I don't see that happening, but tomorrow never knows.

60 hours of the original Get Back footage would warrant an actual limited-run cable TV series.

Why was this series shown on Disney+? The series seemed more suited to HBO or Showtime. Silly how there was a disclaimer at the beginning about the 'adult' language or however they worded the the 'mature' language.

[quote]How did this thread devolve into their women?

I suspect the intrusion of fraus into the thread.

Nah, it's just our long-time Linda McCartney hater. I'm surprised the "John and Paul were lovers" troll didn't also show up. Both of them usually ruin Beatles threads.

But John and Paul WERE lovers.

Yes, thank you for getting back to the subject at hand, Get Back.

R265, no, it's more like deranged old queens like R256.

Fact:

Most of the unreleased footage is of them blowing and fucking each other in Twickenham studios, while Yoko wails and Linda snaps pictures.

George wrote "Isn't it a Pity" about Paul's reluctance to orally reciprocate, and Ringo wrote "It Don't Come Easy" after a particularly grueling pounding session by the other three.

"Uncle Albert" was Paul's pet name for John's hole, and John's initial solo hit was originally titled "Give Pee a Chance", inspired by a particularly voluminous golden shower he gave Paul.

It would be nice if we got additional footage on something other than Paul’s songs. I’d love to see Across The Universe being made, as well as Something. I was sick of Paul by the end of the series.

If there's more footage, I'd tune in. I liked the focus on close-ups and the intimacy it created. I also gained new respect for McCartney but Lennon stole the show. He just had "it."

[quote]but Lennon stole the show. He just had "it."

I thought it was astonishing how these off-the-wall witticisms just constantly poured out of him. He was just SO funny, but not in a way that could (or should) have been corralled into a conventional comedy career or anything like that. He didn't even seem to be particularly trying to be funny much of the time, he just was.

It gave me a greater understanding of why Yoko appealed to him so much. They were both people whose minds just worked a bit differently than most of the rest of the world's, so when they met, they must have seen each other as kindred spirits.

I think it's around the midpoint of the series when Billy Preston appears. It's a key moment in the arc of the story. Preston not only injects a much-needed levity but he owns the keyboard. Lennon pounces on it and invites him to jam with them. For all the negative comments about Lennon being on drugs or bewitched by his loony girlfriend, he's no slouch. He really is "the boss" (as McCartney says during the hidden microphone conversation) and makes key decisions. Immediately, Preston elevates their sound and it becomes evident that he's the glue that was needed. Lennon says simply, "You're in the group."

WARNING: Significant other comments ahead. Not music.

I lived through the Beatles, and how they "erased the face of popular music and made a new world" in just a very few years... is still misunderstood by those who grew conscious after the 60s. I also was a Yoko defender, at the time, through the 70s, and after John's death. I read her whimsical and off-the-wall tweets, even now. Somewhere in the basement in the collection of vinyl there are Yoko Ono records, really.

But in this series, seeing her sit two inches from John at all times, having her hold papers to her face reading, or moving in rhythm to the music as though she were part of the band, AND how everyone just ignores the fact there is this Other Human who is sitting in the midst of the band as they are trying to make new songs.... is just fucking weird, and not in a good way. 60s valued "weird" but this looked borderline psychotic

^There is a bootleg out there of the Beatles rehearsing one of the longer tunes on The White Album, and they are in the background while the recording is focusing on a longish phone call that Yoko is having somewhere in the studio. She natters on inconsequentially about how she and John have been shopping for a new apartment, and then she says, matter of factly, "Oh, Andy Warhol got shot today!...blah, blah, blah." It must have been 6/3/68...

Yes, Ono probably had NPD and lacked empathy. Now, can we please move on from the fookin' girlfriends?

A pretty good review of the movie:

Has anybody noticed that the venerable Atlantic has become seriously morose and suicide-inducing? They really need to dial back their latest click-baity "everything's going to hell" trend.

Interesting that so many here are complaining about discussing The Beatle GFs and wives.

What do you think most of The Beatles songs were about? The band mostly wrote about their private lives, basically about love. Few Beatle songs were outright political. Dig A Pony seemed to be about John's heroin addiction.

Most of the songs on Rubber Soul were about their relationships and their sex lives!

The Beatles music is art, it's not about "girlfriends", at least not by the time of Revolver. "Martha, My Dear" about the dog, "Sexy Sadie" originally about the Maharishi, "Julia" about Lennon's mother but dressed up as a love song to a girl. Is "Strawberry Fields" about a girl? "Glass Onion"? "Revolutions 1 or 9" ?? "Back in the USSR"? "Let It Be?" "Happiness is a Warm Gun"? No, and the list could go on, and on, and on, and on. It WASN'T 'silly love songs.'

I agree with the poster up thread who said John Lennon had “it”. Even with the grubby hair and not conventionally handsome, he was extremely attractive in a weird way. Charm I guess? Wit? The 60’s? Who knows what it was but I could have watched him for hours.

Many years ago, Paul said the words of Yesterday were about his mother who died when he was a young teen. He seems to have forgotten he said that and now says, "could be!" Mother Mary in Let it Be is also his mother, her name was Mary.

From Rolling Stone no less! —>

[quote]“Paul is such a Beatle fan, he writes his own fan fiction. While playing “Two of Us,” he notes how these songs add up to a concept album. “It’s like, after ‘Get Back,’ we’re ‘on our way home.’ There’s a story! And there’s another one, ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ — ‘Oh darling, I’ll never let you down.’”John: “Yeah, it’s like you and me are lovers.”Paul: “Yeah.”Aaaah, yeah. As they say this, John and Paul do a bit of flirty mirroring — they both nervously push their hair out of their face. George and Ringo do a terrible job of pretending not to notice this chat, but at least they try.I will think about this scene more than now and then for the rest of my life.”

R53, very few rock musicians are studio level musical talents. How silly to think great songwriting must be done by a virtuoso players only. Hell, most virtuosos aren't great songwriters. They're technically proficient, but have no soul or heart.

[quote]The Beatles music is art, it's not about "girlfriends", at least not by the time of Revolver. "Martha, My Dear" about the dog, "Sexy Sadie" originally about the Maharishi, "Julia" about Lennon's mother but dressed up as a love song to a girl. Is "Strawberry Fields" about a girl? "Glass Onion"? "Revolutions 1 or 9" ?? "Back in the USSR"? "Let It Be?" "Happiness is a Warm Gun"? No, and the list could go on, and on, and on, and on. It WASN'T 'silly love songs.'

C'mon, what do most musicians write about? Love and sex.

Are you actually saying art cannot be about peoples lovers or partners, about the musicians relationships? WTF are you talking about? Most of the world's most famous male painters, painted their specific muse at the time. Their art was either based on their lovers, wives or in the case of gay artists, their partners. Silly Love Songs had nothing to do with The Beatles. it was Paul writing a crap song.

The Beatles were no different from other famous musical artists, most of their songs were about relationships, whether it was a lover, a family member or people who wronged them.

You don't need to give me a list of Beatle songs which weren't about love, sex and relationships with others in their lives. I'm quite aware not all their songs were about those subjects. I don't need a history lesson about The Beatles catalog. My parents were avid Beatle fans, I grew up listening to their music.

All the great rock singers and bands wrote about their relationships. The US/UK version of Fleetwood Mac made a career and millions out of their relationship problems. Dylan, Joni Mitchell and so many other famous musicians wrote about love and sex.

Seems you simply don't want to hear anything about The Beatles private lives, we are all affected by our private lives, it's no different for creative people, especially musicians and fine artists. Someone here keeps going on about how important Linda was to Paul's life, especially as he wanted to settle down and have a family. Paul's private life sure must have affected his songwriting, how could it not?! Same with John and Yoko's intense bizarre relationship.

One of Eric Clapton's most important and famous albums was about his, then, unrequited love for Pattie Boyd, 'Layla'. But you just keep insisting musicians don't write about love and sex. 😂 🤣😂 🤣

Yes, Beatle fans know "Martha My Dear"was about Martha the dog, don't forget "Penny Lane" etc...blah, blah, blah. However, a large percentage of their catalog were songs which were definitely about love and sexual relationships. "Norwegian Wood" anyone?

Lyrically and musically their fans sure thought most of the Beatle songs were love songs, mostly because certain non-love songs were presented that way. Much in the same way that creepy Police song about a stalker, "Every Breath You Take", ended up being performed at weddings, some morons thought it was a love song! Sting said in interviews, he wrapped up the stalker lyrics in romantic music because he wanted to prove a point, that fans would assume it was a love song, well, many sure took the bait.

That's true, 284, but R53 was responding to a post about how The Beatles are still the standard for all musicians. NOT.

It's my theory that the surprising degree of friendliness we see between Yoko and everyone but John isn't so much friendliness, as a state of truce.

She and John had been together for about two years at that point, and yeah, earlier there had been some conflict, which I think had been largely settled by that point. Everyone but John had accepted that they couldn't stop John from keeping her at his side all the time, and she seems to have accepted that she shouldn't interrupt their work or get on their tits. Of course she did seriously overstep her bounds by "speaking for John" during the first peace talk with George, so it's not like everything was 100% copacetic, but I guess they'd all got used to each other by then.

"Not the slightest hint of resentment on any of their mugs, and that really surprised me."

I think they were amused at the situation. After all, it revealed that Yoko Ono didn't have a musical bone in her body and was embarrassing herself. I think they got a kick out of that.

R131 no one said Paul was 'running around inviting people to a party'. The incident took place in an elevator and Paul didn't invite people but,1 person. Exaggerate much! And pot can affect people differently.

Ringo was a very good drummer and that ‘quote’ about him not even being the best drummer in the Beatles was made by English unfunny comedian Jasper Carrott.

Hey Ringo! Nice to earn you're on Datalounge, R290

Fuck Ringo. He doesn't even sign autographs for fans. I don't like it when these cunts think they are super special. You ain't nothing without fans. If you see Al Pacino in a restaurant, he doesn't mind that you go up to him for a photo or say hi. He doesn't mind it and has said so, that he would be nowhere without his fans.

R228 I know what you mean. I was born in 1970, and became a fan in 1982. I read everything I could get my hands on about The Beatles. They become popular in America in January of 1964, and are over by the Fall of 1969. To me at age 12, reading about those years, and all the things the Beatles did during them, seemed like a long stretch of time.

But when I think of it now- That's like 2015 to now. 2015 seems like yesterday to me. In my head, I haven't changed at all. In my head, nothing has really changed. It must have seemed so lighting quick that the Beatles went from being the well dressed mop tops to how they looked on the rooftop. It must have shocked people.

I was a child at the height of the Beatles and I can still remember how gobsmacked I was when I went to a screening of Help! and couldn't hear the movie for the screaming in my own audience. Those fans were batshit crazy. I thought it at seven and I still think it. Given how poor security personnel were at their jobs in those days, especially outside the US, no wonder the Beatles were often scared.

The Beatles were geniuses at being just ahead of the Zeitgeist. They adopted hippiedom and the Indian spiritualism thing quite early, and they got into drugs just as their generation were starting to do the same en masse. Drugs were a big part of the Beat Generation in the 50s, so it's not as if the Beatles were cutting edge, but that was the whole thing. They weren't where you wanted to be if you were a cool kid, they were where the great mass was about to want to be. That was what made them the most famous band of the Boomer generation. I don't think it was calculation, and I don't think everyone did it just because they did it. I think they did what was right for them and it happened that masses of people of their generation thought, Yeah, that's what I want too.

That's my impression, anyway, from having lived through the era old enough to watch intelligently but too young to take an active part in it.

Finally got to the end of the series... and seeing the live performance on the roof (after seeing many versions of those same songs in the days before in the studio).... damn, they were a good rock and roll band. (Something historic revisionism obscures... In the generational assessments, the Stones, Zep, Cream, Hendrix were great live, but the Beatles were just a pop band, studio band - meaning perhaps they didn't even play their instruments). Seeing John just step up to sing with such passion... seeing Paul do his rock n roll shouting and twisting... George's solos.... glad the boys had this one last time playing together in real time, in public...

R293, most of The Beatles' fans were teens and pre-teens (me). So the five years between the Ed Sullivan Show and the rooftop concert were an eternity for us at the time. Our parents and grandparents, for who five years were "nothing," were only casual fans if at all. Most they weren't.

Interesting analysis, R294. However, it must be pointed out that unlike a lot of rock acts, especially Elvis, The Beatles represented "clean" music. In the beginning, even the end imho, they never came across as horny boys out to corrupt your daughter. It didn't matter what they sang, it was just them. John Lennon even commented on this, and the fact that they were English was a major factor. The screaming girls phenomenon was crush stuff more than sex stuff, like when pre-adolescent girls crush on a young androgenous teen idol.

^ Oops, R297 = R296, not 286

[quote]Fuck Ringo. He doesn't even sign autographs for fans.

There's a documentary called "Good Ol' Freda" about Freda Kelly, who was the Beatles' secretary for their entire career, it's very good and makes it clear she was instrumental in keeping the band and their fan clubs running smoothly. At the end of the movie just before credits, Paul and Ringo are recorded giving a little shout-out to Freda, and you can tell Ringo has no clue who she is, and hasn't even asked anyone to find out, he just says a few disinterested words and it's almost insulting.

That's interesting r296, I hadn't thought of it like that, but you have a really good point.

I saw a clip yesterday of Elvis' 1968 comeback special and I realized that the thin hottie in head-to-toe leather of 1968 was already a bloated mess by 1972 if not 1971, and dead by 1977, and that also seems to have happened really quickly, but I had an aunt who was obsessed with Elvis and a teen in the 60s, and to hear her tell it, it was a long, excruciating, endless slide to the bottom.

Sounds awesome! Sign us up.

Nowadays it’s an eternity between albums for artists and then they act like it’s the second coming *looking at you Adele*.

How true, R302! In the 1960s, EVERY recording artist, even those like Sinatra, had at least two LPs released a year.

The Beatles were the ones to change that, or at least, they were on the leading edge of the change.

When they started out, albums could be recorded in a day or a week, artists just played and sang. But the Beatles invented or popularized a huge change in the recording techniques of popular music, they brought complex layers of sound and brought non-traditional instruments into the studio, and mechanical sound effects. "Sgt. Pepper" wasn't just on the leading edge of the zeitgeist, it was on the leading edge of technology and recording techniques, and revolutionized the music industry in more ways than one.

For one thing, it meant that it took a LOT longer to record an album...

R304, in the 1960s, "albums" were a compilations of singles with pop/rock acts, as were The Beatles LPs before Rubber Soul. The album artist in rock started for The Beatles with that album, two years before Sgt Pepper.

[quote]damn, they were a good rock and roll band

R295 Indeed, and it would have been nice to see their last performance without interruption. I get that Jackson wanted to show the melieux of the onlookers at street level and the bobbies trying to break in, and he used a split screen rather than intercutting as much as possible but it was still an annoying distraction from the actual music.

Well really, the final concert was a bit of a cluster, with songs repeated and no proper arrangements made, and no interaction with the audience.

I mean they playing was great and they sang wonderfully live, better than they had in all those weeks of noodling around in the studio, but really... George was right to be down on the idea of a great big splashy heavily publicized internationally televised concert. If they'd even tried, they've have had to have put it back, and made a mess of it after delays. Maybe they could have carried it off if they'd had enough time, but they didn't allow themselves enough time and that was that.

Only five years? That's an immense amount of creativity in five years. It's like a nuclear explosion. Has any other band matched that?

R308 Outside of the 60s you'd find it hard to match anything like that - Bowie in the early 70s maybe.

The Stones in the 60s partly mirrored the Beatles productivity/popularity:

!2 x 5 – 1964

Rolling Stones, Now! – 1965

Out of Our Heads – 1965

December’s Child – 1965

Afermath – 1966

Between the Buttons – 1967

Their Satanic Majesties Request – 1967

Beggar’s Banquet – 1968

Let I Bleed - 1969

[quote] Fuck Ringo. He doesn't even sign autographs for fans.

People were sending him all kinds of stuff to sign, he'd sign it and mail it back, and they'd put it up on EBay. So he said, "that's it, fuck it, no more". He gave a deadline, so anybody who really wanted his autograph for personal reasons could get it, and then he cut the shit off.

Not his job to support a bunch of freeloaders pretending to be fans.

Good for him.

Only on DL does “Get Back” turn into a never-ending argument about 2 women.

George comes off as a dumb, jealous asshole. Paul and John ARE the Beatles. Yoko sitting around like a garden gnome is creepy.

I feel for George. Although he sounds miserable to have as a spouse, friend, or business partner, neither John nor Paul believed in his songwriting talent and shut him out for the most part. Then he went and wrote All Things Must Pass (sitting there with his gnomes) and it turned out he was right, he really could bring something to the table. That album got me through the pre-vaccine Covid times.

R313, the majority of George's early post-Beatles work were songs that didn't make it to Bealtes albums. I think George was a passive person. If he had fought harder to get more of his songs on Beatles albums they would have been. He had all of these songs, why hang around all sullen? Be a solo act, join a different band, START a new band.

George definitely seems like he lacked confidence and then blamed other people for it.

R313, "Something" is my favorite Beatles song of all time!

The two best George Harrison songs were produced by George Martin & Harrison never produced anything like those songs again.

R317 Have you actually listened to All Things Must Pass?

My Sweet Lord

Isn't It a Pity

All Things Must Pass

Beware of Darkness

What is Life

All as good as anything Harrison did w/Georg Martin/Beatles

Late songs:

Living in the Material World

Give Me Love

All Those Years Ago

Remember Harrison was 17 when he became a Beatle, and Martin and McCartney never really changed their idea that he was a young kid who could play guitar ok.

I’d add Wah-Wah (like some forgotten Beatles gem) and Run of the Mill to R318’s list

My Sweet Lord was plagiarized from The Chiffons' He's So Fine.

And 68% of all songs were copped from other songs. C-F-G-C forevah!

I'd take All Those Years Ago OFF R318's list

R322 I didn't like it, but it was an equal to most of Paul's "granny music" songs (which I also wasn't that fond of).

I've been a casual fan of The Beatles since maybe age 17 or 18, after a girl in my speech class played Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds during one of her speeches. Until then, I looked at The Beatles as my mom's music, and thought they were just Twist And Shout/Can't Buy Me Love 60s pop. I thought Lucy was unusual but very intriguing, so I went and bought the red and blue greatest hits CDs and really enjoyed a lot of the blue disc, especially John's songs. I never really delved much into them beyond that.

I watched the documentary over the last few days (inspired by comments in this thread), and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Even got a little teary eyed during the concert scenes, and street interviews. No idea why. I thought the whole thing was fascinating, seeing them pull classics out of thin air, and then honing them, watching the band dynamics, especially the affection between John and Paul, and the footage of 60s London is just incredible. As much as it's changed over the years, there really is a lot that has been preserved .

Anyway, I can't wait to delve more into The Beatles catalogue after watching the doc, as I fell in love with nearly all of the songs they were working on. I guess I'll be starting with Let It Be.

A Day in the Life is the best pop song ever.

My favorite: the full, 8-minute version of “It’s All Too Much.”

Way ahead of its time. What an amazing, apocalyptic, psychedelic, catchy number that one is!

WEHT the Beatles Anthology documentary series from the ‘90s? It doesn’t seem to be streaming anywhere

R326 heartily agree! Everybody sleeps on this song but it is mind blowing.

I just went and listened to It’s All Too Much for the first time thanks to this thread - holy SHIT! So the Beatles invented shoegaze?

R326 That one's really cool. I hadn't heard it before. It reminds me of of some of the 90s alternative bands.

R326 R330 And it was written by, fun, huh? R329 well, one of the prime and first examples of British Acid Rock, and shoegaze traces influences to that, for sure.

And it was produced by the band, not George Martin (for those who assert that the Beatles were nothing without Martin).

^^ written by Harrison.

Sorry.

After all these posts and no one has mentioned what an amazing contribution Billy Preston made to the sound of those songs and how John Lennon was serious about adding Billy to the group. I wonder if he would've continued to record with the others if they had agreed to add Billy. George was all for it and Ringo was the go-along-kid. Paul may have been right when he said it's bad enough with just the four, but still...

Billy Preston was one of a handful of musicians signed to Apple, his title single from the album "That's the Way God Planned It" was a big hit in the UK.

Mary Hopkin had one hit, "Those Were the Days", then went on to marry producer Tony Visconti and appeared on albums by David Bowie, Bert Jansch, The Radiators from Space, Thin Lizzy, Osibisa, Sparks and Elaine Paige doing backing vocals.

Not sure what happened to Jackie Lomax, he was another solo act signed to Apple, the only other solo musician I remember on Apple was James Taylor, his debut LP was Apples first release.

Badfinger were also signed to Apple.

[quote]Mary Hopkin had one hit, "Those Were the Days"

I remember hearing a record of hers called "Goodbye Goodbye Goodbyyyyyye" or something.

R331, has anyone here said the Beatles were "nothing" without George Martin? In the first few years Martin was instrumental in tuning and fine tuning their sound on records. Why this info threatens some people is unexplainable.

R335 nobody here had to say it. Rock snobs have said it for years. It’s just understood.

There was an article by some dingbat in the NY Times about how Yoko Ono showed her 'genius' through her performance art sitting around like a garden gnome during the Beatles' sessions. For fuck's sake.

R271 Huge Beatles fan here, so I love all their personalities but yes, John definitely had “it”" I was very much charmed by how funny he and Paul were together. It was the intimacy and humor of friends who had been through thick and thin together for years.

Off topic, if I hear another non-drummer mock Ringo for being a mediocre drummer…

A nice write up of Yoko’s career before John. Yes, she was considered important in the avant-garde art world.

r339 "she was considered important in the avant-garde art world"

That isn't saying much.

She gave up her career as an artist, and he later gave up his career for who knows what... leaving the two of them sitting around the Dakota together with nothing to do except obsess over the baby.

I hope they were happy with the choices they made.

R340 the avant garde art world was a big deal back then.

Behold Paul’s trans daughter.

R340, what was that kooky avant garde thing Yoko did about butt cheeks? WlLD!

Paul's daughter Beatrice, with that loon Heather Mills, is trans?

Since when?

[quote] She gave up her career as an artist, and he later gave up his career for who knows what... leaving the two of them sitting around the Dakota together with nothing to do except obsess over the baby.

Ono never "gave up" her art career. After hooking up with Lennon she and he did some stupid "art" projects together (like making a film of Lennon's penis struggling to get an erection and "dribbling" at the end), then realized it would get them more publicity to be peace activists (neither Ono nor Lennon gave a shit about the Vietnam War). They moved from England to NY (Lennon would never see England again) because she knew that was where all the action was. They separated for a while; during that time Lennon was very productive musically and reestablishing relationships with musician friends. Whatever Ono was doing during that time (I think one of the things she did was try to make an album) didn't amount to much. They reunited and John holed up in the Dakota, doing not much more than stay stoned, and Yoko tended to "business." They finally had a rug rat but neither of them "obsessed" over him. Sean Lennon, although paraded in photos with John cuddling him, was cared for by nannies. His mother had little to do with him. Of course that would be the case, Yoko said publicly that her daughter Kyoko was "not very important to me." She supposedly told John "I'll carry it for nine months and after that you're responsible for him." God, they were both awful parents.

[quote]After all these posts and no one has mentioned what an amazing contribution Billy Preston made

R333 Not quite. See R273.

[quote] It’s still heart-breaking that John was murdered.

Eh.

Not so much.

Regarding Mary Hopkin, Paul says in The Lyrics that she came from folk music and after a couple of hits decided she wanted to return to folk - and did. The other hit you're forgetting was Temma Harbour.

Paul the Alpha dumped this huge, stinking pile of dog shit.

"Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" was basically Ska, you do know what Ska is don't you R350?

The Beatles were presenting Ska to the world. Then again, Millie Small was doing Ska long before The Beatles, she had a big hit with 'My Boy Lollipop", that was years before The White Album.

I would not have ever considered that song Ska in style but I admittedly only have a passing knowledge about that genre.

It's ska.. and would be a great song, but the "Ob-la-di" nonsense lyrics make it seem like a "novelty" hit... or in the neighborhood of Pau's English Music Hall granny songs. It isn't. Later punk/ska built upon this...

All McCartney’s songs are novelty songs.

r354 Would rather listen to Paul's song about writing paperback books instead of listening to John drone on about capitalism, classism, racism, Maoism, love, sex, war, or peace.

R354 I am completely Team John... and mostly abhor the silly Music Hall crap. but that's unfair.

Silly little love songs indeed.

How did it become a win-lose/John vs. Paul argument? There's room for both.

R357 Ha. I guess the last 50 years are lost to you...

R358 I was around for some of it. The point is, why do we need to keep flogging the tired old "feud" angle perpetuated by Michael Lindsay-Hogg? Get Back swings a wrecking ball through it and shines light into their creative process. Both Lennon and McCartney were brilliant. Why not appreciate them for their unique contributions?

R359 maybe because Sir Paul still flings disparaging comments about John, tried to get the songwriting name credits changed, called the Stones a ‘pub band’. Maybe he should be a little more gracious?

I don’t mind Paul’s sometimes pettiness because it makes clear he’s a human and not some otherworldly music god. Not even his level of fame rid him of his insecurities.

R361 Exactly. They were flawed, like everyone else. The film is a revelation. Jackson said there were 60 hours worth of 16mm film footage shot and 150 hours worth of audio. Imagine what it took for Jackson to winnow it down to 8 hours. I hope he gives us more.

[quote]The point is, why do we need to keep flogging the tired old "feud" angle perpetuated by Michael Lindsay-Hogg?

Because to many, including everyone at the Datalounge, Paul and John were either competitors or lovers...or BOTH.

I think they were friendly competitors - that's what fueled their individual work. Rarely did they co-write songs side by side, there were the Paul songs (All My Loving) and the John songs (I'm a loser), and so on.

Friendly competition happens among artists, and can lead to a very high level of creativity. People working at a high level trying to outdo someone else working at an equally high level, but within a friendly relationship where there's no feeling of being threatened, can be a great motivator and an inspiration.

However, I'm not seeing any competitive feelings between Paul and John in this series. They're extremely friendly and collaborative, they don't seem to be trying to outdo each other, and if they're doing different things they aren't getting on each other's tits. Amazing they'd have fallen out within the year, they seem super close as friends and work partners.

^^ I see that too. Makes me wonder if they broke up not because of a falling out but just out of boredom maybe. John seemed bored at times, Ringo checked out, George a powder keg of resentment. Seems a myriad of reasons.

[quote]Makes me wonder if they broke up not because of a falling out but just out of boredom maybe.

R365 Or, that it was fueled by the media and the Beatles bought into the hype like everybody else. Like Jackson said in his interview, McCartney was pleasantly surprised to hear that it wasn't the way Lindsay-Hogg portrayed it.

[quote]Makes me wonder if they broke up not because of a falling out but just out of boredom maybe.

I suspect people tend to overlook the role heroin played in the story. Those on heroin are not exactly thrilling to be around, whether or not they come as a boxed set with Yoko. Paul says they were all weed-heads from early on and they all experimented plenty with a range of other drugs, but the other three all drew the line at heroin (basically, at injectables) and were shocked and uncomfortable when John didn't.

[quote]However, I'm not seeing any competitive feelings between Paul and John in this series

R364, have you read this thread??? JOHN WAS HIGH as a kite in this documentary. "Get Back" is far from representative of the Lennon-McCartney collaboration.

"Makes me wonder if they broke up not because of a falling out but just out of boredom maybe."

They don't seem bored with each other at this point, in fact when they're playing and singing together they seem utterly delighted to be with each other, literally and figuratively in perfect harmony. God, John seems like such a happy man, working in perfect harmony with Paul, and dancing and going home with Yoko who's trying to achieve another kind of perfect harmony with him. At that moment in time, Lennon really does seem like a man with two loves.

Which can never last, of course, two such loves never really want to share, even if they may spend time in a state of truce. Maybe John and Paul broke up when John finally had to choose between Paul and Yoko, who knows. Maybe it was Allan Klein, maybe it was the heroin, maybe it was Paul's clumsy attempts to run the ban, maybe it was something else entirely. I don't know, and neither does anyone else here.

R367 For the record, John and Yoko were snorting heroin in this period. Not injecting. Does it make a difference? A little.

John may have been high on heroin but we’re not talking Brian Jones out cold high. Heroin addicts don’t have the energy to dance around or barely stand up. I doubt the drug use was a factor.

Lennon is obviously functional and present. Can we stop with the drugs, already?

Great interview with Grammy winning engineer Glyn Johns in this past Sunday's NY Times Sunday Styles section. The focus was on Glyn's fashionable clothing he wore throughout Get Back.

Glyn thought he looked awful, but many fashionistas are talking about Glyn and The Beatles clothing worn in the film and where people can find those styles today.

Glyn was only 26 during the filming, he was already an in-demand recording engineer. At the time of the filming, Glyn worked with The Rolling Stones, The Beatles and later on, Led Zeppelin, to name a few very famous bands.

"...and how John Lennon was serious about adding Billy to the group. I wonder if he would've continued to record with the others if they had agreed to add Billy. "

Lennon told Preston "You're in the band" in the documentary, but he wouldn't have been a real member of the group until the contracts were signed and he was getting royalties for album sales.

As I said in another thread, the difference between a band member and a studio musician who is employed by the band is entirely a matter of contracts, not of how much they contribute to the music.

R373 Thanks for the heads up. Here's the link...

R360

maybe because Sir Paul still flings disparaging comments about John, tried to get the songwriting name credits changed, called the Stones a ‘pub band’. Maybe he should be a little more gracious?

So? John being dead doesn't mean Paul needs to treat him like a saint. He also constantly says very nice things about John as well. Paul only tried to switch around names on one song, Yesterday and a) when John and Brian forced the Lennon/McCartney name change on him in 63(prior to that the agreement was whoever wrote most of the song would have their name go first but when they were on vacation in Spain John talked Brian into making it permanently Lennon/McCartney - and yes there are actual business letters referring to the former agreement, so this was a change, but John was probably just pissed off that the first album someone at the printers mixed it up and made it all "McCartney/Lennon" so their first album had the song credits as McCartney/Lennon, not Lennon/McCartney, so John used a mistake that Paul had nothing to do with to screw him over and used Brian to do it) they said he could switch them around if he wanted and b) in 1976 Paul DID SWITCH THEM on the Wings Over America live album and John didn't give a damn, it didn't bother him at all.

As for the Stones, eh they've always had a competition, Paul was probably just in the mood to give them a bit of a nudge. Dude's one of the most successful song writers of all time, hell he and John wrote one of the Stones first hits "I Wanna Be Your Man", and in fact it was one of the things that encouraged the Jagger and Richards to write their own.

[quote]Paul was the Alpha out of all The Beatles

And he had a great ass

Was Ringo really sad, or does his face just look naturally sad at rest, with his downslanted eyes and eyebrows?

Because he really stays in the background here, hardly talks, the only time when he seems to talk to the others is when George left and they were in crisis mode. And the only time any of the band members talked to him as one musician to another was when he played "Octopus's Garden", and then it was only George (who was probably trying to make a point about his own treatment).

Maybe there was a reason that Ringo didn't want to join another band, if that's how drummers in bands get treated.

[QUOTE] was cared for by nannies

well to be fair, Yoko comes from an aristocratic Japanese family and having babies raised by servants would be normal custom for her.

I’ve finally gotten around to watching this and just can’t believe how moving it is and how modern it feels. Just priceless, I could watch it 1000 times.

[quote]how modern it feels

I think that's certainly a takeaway. On one level it's stupid (of course people are just people like any era of history in the last couple centuries) but so many documentaries about the 60s (or WWII, or the Depression, or the Roaring 20s or or or...) make it seem like the past is such a foreign country. But here it seemed like John and Paul were musicians in the studio down the street this afternoon.

I suppose it's like those colorized turn of the century films that make Gibson Girls and Stanley Steamers seem contemporary.

It's good to know that in the color-adjusted, brilliantly edited documentary our there in the virtual world... John and Paul are forever young, arguing, creating, loving each other.

They really were so much sweeter to each other even after all those years than I imagined, even George who was a bit like the sullen teenager of the family. I loved the shot in the second episode when the title read “Only one Beatle showed up that morning on time” and of course it was Ringo, who came across as a truly good-hearted person. But Paul was much more antic and creative than his image and John more truly gentle and thoughtful than his. Some of the dialogue hit hard knowing the loss to come and so did watching Paul and Ringo together, thinking that’s what’s left now. I didn’t know much about Billy Preston and was also sad to read about his difficult life when he looks like such a sunny character onscreen.

Overall I’m just sitting here marveling at what a gift they all were, like some kind of miracle. They had messed up equipment, a chaotic process, far less than perfect voices, but it all added up to magic.

George had the coolest hats.

George should have been an actor. He was really handsome.

George was handsome, yes, but Paul was positively gorgeous, nicely dressed. Ringo was even cute here with the full lips and big blue eyes. John was very thin. In shots of him from the back, his shoulders are bony. I think he wore the same clothes 3 days in a row in the first episode But when they finally got set up in Apple studios, they were happier and finally started jamming and creating songs, which is a joy to watch.

I'm still making my way through this, but one thing that's so striking to me is how courteous and considerate they are to each other, so different from how people, even friends, today relate and communicate.

John was the boss, absolutely, but Paul was the driving force that kept the project moving forward.

John struggled with eating disorders after being called “the fat Beatle” (which seems insane now). On top of the heroin use.

George’s pink suit was glorious! I’m now reading Tune In, the first book in a planned three-volume biography of the Beatles, and it says that in school, George was well-known for wearing stylish clothes and quiffing his hair larger than anyone else.

I dunno about how 'handsome' George was supposed to be. He was always too skinny, bad hair, bad skin, bad teeth.

I want to know where he got that big black hat he would be wearing when he arrived at Apple.

George was always thin and at times his skin would look bad, but his teeth were fine. The haircut he had during Get Back was not his best look, but it was thick and full and could look great with the right styling.

[quote]...one thing that's so striking to me is how courteous and considerate they are to each other

R385 I think everyone (including McCartney, when Jackson showed him a few scenes) was prepared for nastiness and it was the opposite

[quote]John was the boss, absolutely, but Paul was the driving force that kept the project moving forward.

Yes, and their styles complemented each other.

[quote]queef NOUN an audible release of air from the vagina, typically during or after sex.VERB (of a woman) release air audibly from the vagina.

R386 Given that definition, you've suggested quite a visual image..

[quote]George was well-known for wearing stylish clothes and quiffing his hair larger than anyone else.

R389 - his ORIGINAL TEETH. And they look pretty good here although crooked.

I was thinking this version of George.

[quote]I dunno about how 'handsome' George was supposed to be. He was always too skinny, bad hair, bad skin, bad teeth.

BAD HAIR? 🤔 🤯

You clearly know nothing about what constitutes great hair and George had it. George had the thickest, waviest and most luxurious hair of all The Beatles. he had better hair than most women.

Of course, you posted a photo of George's hair looking thin and dirty. 🙄

Here's Georgie Boy getting his amazing locks cut.

Even as George aged, he still had an amazing head of hair.

If THIS is "bad hair", give me some!

In a tv movie about the Beatles entitled "Birth of the Beatles (I saw it. It was interesting)" there's a scene where Brian Epstein tells John that he's the "mind" of the Beatles and that Paul is the heart and George is the soul. John says "Ringo?" and Brian says "the flesh and blood." I don't know if Brian Epstein actually said that but it made perfect sense.

Corny, but after watching Get Back, they were really all the heart.

"They really were so much sweeter to each other even after all those years than I imagined, even George who was a bit like the sullen teenager of the family."

Well, the drama of the first episode came from a definite lack of sweetness. George came in open and ready to be more involved, Paul was very down on him and was giving a death glare when George talked about being really were so much sweeter to each other even after all those years than I imagined, even George who was a bit like the sullen teenager of the family. involved on the last album... and then they began to squabble and George walked out.

Which has happened in every band that every was, I'm sure, but the amazing thing about the Beatles was...

McCartney changed his tune! After the blowup and peace talks and George's return, McCartney was friendly and open, and there didn't seem to be any tension between them at all. And that's something that loads of people don't want to do, admit that what they're doing isn't working, and change. Frankly, most young musicians in top bands would have too much ego to do that, but McCartney was and is smart enough to think things out and find a path that would keep the band together. At least for a while.

I did think George was still a bit irritated when the other three were chatting about the India trip and how they had found it odd. I loved that little conversation, though.

McCartney had a set of values that he could always pit against his ego.

He could ask himself, "Is the result you're getting what you really want? If not, what will get that, since it is the most important thing?" Whereas the average spoiled rock god wouldn't even form the question: it would just be "I'm right and you can go to hell." I mean, imagine Madonna asking herself that question.

Lennon was a bit checked out at first but when he re-engaged you saw McCartney relax. He became overbearing only when it seemed he had to fill Lennon's void.

[quote]McCartney: 'You have always been boss. Now, I’ve been sort of secondary boss.”

[quote]Lennon: “Not always.”

[quote]McCartney: “No, listen. Listen. No, always.”

I think all the actors did a great job. They nailed the costumes. But was that really the Beatles singing?

I wonder why Julian Lennon never came out? He just did a CBS News interview...No wife. No girlfriend. No kids.

[quote]I wonder why Julian Lennon never came out? He just did a CBS News interview...No wife. No girlfriend. No kids.

All single unmarried people are gay? What universe do you live in?

Ever think some straight people don't want to get married because they observed their parents awful relationship?

John left Julian's mother, Cynthia, then John hooked up with Yoko, then had an affair with May Pang. Need I go on?

Julian is probably also a bit paranoid about someone just wanting to be with him for his money or his Beatles connection. Did Sean get married?

R404 = Oh my. Aren't you a good little Hetero Enthusiast!! You must love Pete!!

R405 = Sean has a girlfriend. They record lousy music together--no joke. It's some reggae slop. No kids. And of course Sean was at Neverland with Michael Jackson (video link)..

Julian may not have been able to get a GF to stay with him. He looks drugged most of the time, anti-social, and I don't think there's much money there.

[quote][R405] = Sean has a girlfriend. They record lousy music together--no joke. It's some reggae slop. No kids. And of course Sean was at Neverland with Michael Jackson (video link)..

Sean and his GF live next door to Marisa Tomei's parents, on a brownstone street in Greenwich Village.

A few years ago, Tomei's parents sued Sean because he wouldn't uproot a tree whose roots did some major damage to the Tomei's home. The Tomei's asked for $10 million in damages!

The Tomeis stated in court papers, the tree had "compromised the basement wall and interior, it was causing irreparable damage to the structural integrity of the building."

The properties are below, this was before the tree was removed. A private settlement was reached and the offending tree was removed.

Wonder when the Tomeis purchased that brownstone.

What is the address? Look it up on Zillow.

Sean never married but in a long term relationship. Wasn’t he the one who put out ad for a girlfriend?

Shame neither got John’s good looks.

[quote]What is the address? Look it up on Zillow.

How the hell would I know that?!

Marisa Tomei grew up in Midwood Brooklyn, guess her parents later moved to the Village.

Marisa's father was a lawyer, her mother a school teacher. Her parents likely didn't pay much when they moved to the Village. The Village and the surrounding neighborhoods weren't as ridiculously priced as today. In the mid 1970s, a relative paid $10,000 for a huge Soho loft!

Considering how wretched his childhood was and how fucked up his parent's marriage was it's understandable why Julian Lennon would have a hard time sustaining relationships. It easy to see why he would be hesitant to marry or have have kids. I think, all things considered, he's done quite well. After a dissolute period in his youth he turned himself around and now seems well adjusted and grounded.

The Daily Mail did one of their ruthless photo-stalking pieces on Paul’s son a few weeks back, he seems similar to Julian and Sean. It’s probably more of a head trip for the sons than the daughters to have a Beatle dad. Although Dhani Harrison and one of Ringo’s sons seemed to turn out ok.

James McCartney was/is a drug addict. I don't blame troubles on his father or the "head trip." GROW UP!

How can someone look like Paul McCartney and be so ugly?

John: "Yeah. It's like you and me are lovers"

Paul: (Gay panic) "Yeah"

John and Paul touching their hair like a couple of school girls....

R418, Paul immediately mirrors John's action with the hair. I suspect there are other indications of this. They had been associating since their teenage years. I suspect it was unconsciously done and perhaps even compulsive by that point. They had a very strange relationship.

No, it was John and Yoko who had the strange relationship, Spending 24/7 with your spouse because they're too insecure or jealous to ever be out of your sight just isn't normal, or healthy.

John and Paul obviously loved each other deeply, although of course none of us know exactly how they expressed that love, but it was a healthy relationship by Lennon's standards. They at least allowed each other separate private lives and separate interests.

I liked the story Paul tells that John (being the neurotic he was) often used to give him a hard time, but when Paul seemed hurt he would take off his glasses and say, "Hey. It's just me."

It's still asshole behaviour, but at least he was saying "It's not you."

I think we have this image of John as strident and harsh because of his public statements and positions, but if you read bios of them, John seems like much more of a softy who had a flashy, quick temper. Paul was the one who could hold a grudge and wasn’t as willing to say sorry, but also didn’t lash out the way John did—he kept his thoughts to himself more.

R427 Well, we know Lennon became a mean and violent drunk on several famous occasions, like beating Bob Wooler almost to death at Paul's 21st birthday party, trying to strangle May Pang, etc.

Lennon probably had one of the nastier personality orders, probably something on the Cluster B spectrum - narcissistic, histrionic, borderline, anti-social... but which one?

Odd that Lennon could beat men up, he was not a tall or burly guy.

He was burlier at that time (he later lost weight and maybe even developed an eating disorder after people called him the Fat Beatle) and was blind drunk at the time, plus the guy he attacked was pretty slight too. The guy had teased Lennon about his trip to Spain with Brian Epstein, implying Lennon was gay. In his later self-reflective years, Lennon talked about his temper and regrets. But in the Get Back documentary, he teases George Martin not to make him angry and references this incident!

A person doesn't have to be big or burly, if they're batshit crazy and go into a berserker rage, however temporarily.

They also don't have to be big or burly, if their victim is afraid to fight back for fear of retaliation or make a enemy of the attacker, and that explains a lot of what we've been hearing about showbiz for the last few years.

R426, the ONLY thing Lennon had going for him was that he was insanely drunk.

[Quote]R89 [Paul] could have hired Linda as the tour photographer. Wasn't photography the area she supposedly had a modicum of talent? Surely not as any sort of singer or musician….Paul shouldn’t have had his wife, who couldn’t sing for shit, to actually join his band.

Linda joining the band was probably just a grab for additional royalties.

Maybe, R429, or maybe Paul was like John and just wanted to be totally joined at the hip with his wife.

John Lenon and Yoko Ono's hair look like a Disneyland for bacteria

Paul wanted his wife near him so he could hold on to his new marriage,

THE END

[quote] [Paul] could have hired Linda as the tour photographer. Wasn't photography the area she supposedly had a modicum of talent?

I've seen her photos. She didn't have much talent as a photographer. She carried a camera around with her to make it seem like she wasn't a groupie. But that's exactly what she was.

Speaking of the wives.....

[quote]John married Yoko just a couple of WEEKS After Paul married Linda. Their weddings were like anger weddings.

[quote]George Martin said Paul got Linda as revenge of sorts for John getting Yoko. So John did the initial leaving at that point, and Paul was the one who acted like a spurned lover.

[quote]What always surprised me was the fact neither showed up for each other's weddings. I mean, after being close for so much years, and yet not show up for each other's 'happiest day of their lives' was really strange to me.

[quote]Why would either show? Paul hated Yoko and John hated Linda...