Club Random with Bill Maher - Martin Lewis | Club Random with Bill Maher

Episode Date: August 3, 2026

Bill Maher welcomes Beatles historian Martin Lewis for a lively, opinionated conversation celebrating the music, myths, and enduring legacy of the greatest band in rock history. Together, they unpack how John Lennon and Paul McCartney built one of history's greatest creative partnerships, challenge the stories fans have been repeating for decades, and revisit the moments that changed music forever. Martin shares behind-the-scenes stories from his years working with Paul McCartney, explains why The Beatles continue to captivate each new generation, and gleefully busts some of the band's most persistent myths. Bill and Martin debate Get Back, A Hard Day's Night, Brian Epstein's influence, John Lennon's songwriting, Paul McCartney's genius, the breakup, and why, sixty years later, everyone still thinks they're the Beatles expert. Support our Advertisers: -Try ZipRecruiter for free at https://www.ziprecruiter.com/random -Connect with quality therapists and mental health experts who specialize in you at https://www.rula.com/RANDOM #rulapod #ad Subscribe to the Club Random YouTube channel: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/c/clubrandompodcast?sub_confirmation=1⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Watch episodes ad-free – subscribe to Bill Maher’s Substack: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://billmaher.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe to the podcast for free wherever you listen: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/ClubRandom⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Buy Club Random Merch: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://clubrandom.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices ABOUT CLUB RANDOM Bill Maher rewrites the rules of podcasting the way he did in television in this series of one on one, hour long conversations with a wide variety of unexpected guests in the undisclosed location called Club Random. There’s a whole big world out there that isn’t about politics and Bill and his guests—from Bill Burr and Jerry Seinfeld to Jordan Peterson, Quentin Tarantino and Neil DeGrasse Tyson—talk about all of it.  For advertising opportunities please email: [e-mail] ABOUT BILL MAHER Bill Maher was the host of “Politically Incorrect” (Comedy Central, ABC) from 1993-2002, and for the last fourteen years on HBO’s “Real Time,” Maher’s combination of unflinching honesty and big laughs have garnered him 40 Emmy nominations. Maher won his first Emmy in 2014 as executive producer for the HBO series, “VICE.” In October of 2008, this same combination was on display in Maher’s uproarious and unprecedented swipe at organized religion, “Religulous.” Maher has written five bestsellers: “True Story,” “Does Anybody Have a Problem with That? Politically Incorrect’s Greatest Hits,” “When You Ride Alone, You Ride with Bin Laden,” “New Rules: Polite Musings from a Timid Observer,” and most recently, “The New New Rules: A Funny Look at How Everybody But Me Has Their Head Up Their Ass.” FOLLOW CLUB RANDOM https://www.clubrandom.com https://www.facebook.com/Club-Random-101776489118185 https://twitter.com/clubrandom_ https://www.instagram.com/clubrandompodcast https://www.tiktok.com/@clubrandompodcast FOLLOW BILL MAHER https://www.billmaher.com https://twitter.com/billmaher https://www.instagram.com/billmaher Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This back-to-school season, spend less on your kids with Amazon. Hi, I'm Laura Clary, mom, chaos coordinator, and someone who has learned the hard way that back-to-school season is basically a second mortgage. Last year, my daughter decided she absolutely needed this very specific backpack, not just any backpack, the backpack. I found it, I bought it, I sent her off on the first day of school. She lost it by week two, gone forever. So remember, with Amazon's low back-to-school prices, just spend less on your kids because every dollar you don't spend on them is a dollar you haven't spent on them.

Breaking news, our merch just got a full revamp with all new designs and items. So if you want a little more random in your life, head over to clubrandom.com and check out the store. We've got premium hoodies, including our brand new quad hoodies. With the updated logo, super soft t-shirt, super soft for men and women, and even tie-dye shirts. All merch is available exclusively at clubrandom.com. While you're there, catch up on recent episodes, and grab some swag, and bring a little random home. Once again, that's clubrandom.com. When McCartney tells you all, you get really upset.

Why? Because he told you off? You did. Oh, about what? Club. No more live, no more concerts, no more nothing. And then when he didn't do it, they killed him, right? Well, I'm not pretty much. What?

Martin. That is me. Finally, it's happening. Finally, the Beatles show is happening. Four years we were talking about doing this. Really? That's good. Yeah, no, that's fine.

Oh, wow. Great to see you. Longed to see you again. You look well. You look like Martin Lewis always looked. Not too bad for an old man. Yeah. I was at the beach. You know, bodybuilding contest. They want me to come. No, and I've had this beach. I saw this. I'm getting it for you. With those who are not watching this, it's a t-shirt that says the Beatles, but it's Beet, you're beetles like the bug. And then it's four Volkswagen bugs crossing Abbey Road, as if, you know, like different colored. It's so funny. Well, I'm very touched.

And the first time I actually got involved with Her Majesty, the Queen, on a Beatles thing, she sent a royal proclamation about something to do with the Beatles, and she misspelled it like this, B-E-E-T-L-E-S. Great. That's so funny. That's my retirement fund. You British people, I had a British person here last week. You take that queen shit so seriously.

Like I noticed when you said her royal, whatever you said, it was like, come on, man. Yes, that's true. You know what? I'm all for, you know, things like that, that, I mean, not really a monarchy, but like something that could make people feel good about their country and united, something that's like non-political, but then everything becomes political. That's the problem. Hey, McCartney wrote a song, Her Majesty, so it's not entirely bad.

So, you don't get back. I mean, I keep reading, like, because, look, I don't know what was in people's minds, but they keep saying there was some anti-immigration stuff going on in Britain at the time, and this was Paul's protest against the anti-edict. But he sounds a little more like you would be pro. He was just gooping around, and yeah, there was an anti-immigration thing, so he was locking that, and so he was locking that. And so he did Get Back, he was ripping around with Get Back, and he turned it into that. But, of course, nobody in those days ever expected loose rehearsal tapes to come out. So it was just gooping around. It only came out because it was a bootleg, became as a bootleg.

Well, it's in the movie that any Beatle person, probably anyone listening to this, saw the Peter Jackson. Sure. You know, it's in there, right? It is, but I don't think anybody took it. No, but you see him, you see, that's one of the, maybe it's the only time where you see Paul McCartney's like, take a song from literally the moment of just finding it. He's waiting for the others to show up,

or maybe just John was laid, it's probably. So he's there, and he's writing it on the bass. Remember that? Yes. And it's just, and then the lyrics were, I mean, look, I love the Beatles, as you know, but, I mean, they have, you know, some lyrics are just gobbledygook because the song is so good,

and you don't care, and that's one of them. Like, what the fuck is that song about? It just came from somewhere, okay, maybe about immigration. Maybe it was like, hey, we want you here on our shores, which is why I'm calling the song Get Back. Okay, and possibly could be. I will say this, he also wrote a song called Too Many People. Do you remember that one?

I did. The thing is, the stream of, no, sometimes in those things, it's a stream of consciousness. It's interesting, the number of musicians who they say they would, write the song, they write the music first, and then they look for lyrics to fit, which is always seemed crazy to me. Surely you want a song about something.

But no, musicians often write a tune, and then they're searching for words. Absolutely, or they completely change it. John Lennon's, one of my favorite of his solo body of work, which is, you know, less than the other two writers, because he didn't

live that long, and, you know, but jealous guy. is a great ballad. And I know probably something you wrote or somebody like you, maybe the poor man's Martin Lewis, what he wrote, but that started out as a completely different lyric.

But like a Blue Jay, the way I work in comedy also, when you find something good, a little nugget that's good, a little seed that's good, you bring it home to the nest. Maybe you'll have it later. And he's like, no, this melody is great.

the lyric was completely different. It's about nature or something. That's right, Charles of Nature. This is the thing, though, use the word Blue Jay. It's a bird native to America as well, but in England we always thought the magpie. And that's what the Beatles were.

They were magbyes. They were constantly picking up shards of different types of music, different genres, lyrics, plucking them out of everywhere, and it became like a patchwork quilt. I think every musician does that. They just did it better. Way better.

Yeah. Way better. And also. And also. To our ears. I mean, come on. You know, I don't, you can't be that dogmatic about the people, different generations have just different tastes. And who's to say?

I mean, I don't get Taylor Swift, but she's as big as they were. And, you know, that's maybe something that can't happen across these years. I don't know. Listen, I agree. It's dangerous to get into a. better than and all of that nonsense. However, there is something that was different. There was

a renaissance in the 60s of music. A lot from Britain, but some also from America. But what was unique about the Beatles was it has transcended time in that there are generations that are enjoying the Beatles that you

wouldn't have normally attracted. The normal arc of celebrity physics is you go up and you go down, you might come back, have a little revival. The Beatles have been evergreen. And I think, and this is a theory I have, is that it's to do with our attitudes are, we don't encourage racism or ageism or any kind of isom music.

There's another ism that never gets talked about, that is datism. When the stuff was made. And I think that's the most irrelevant thing. Saying that the Beatles is, oh, it's so 60s. We don't say Shakespeare's so 16th century long, the Marx brothers are so 1930s. You don't, and I don't, but plenty of people do exactly that.

I mean, and I kind of don't blame them. Shakespeare, and I read Macbeth and knew it pretty well in high school, high school, not even college, I think. I think we did Macbeth, and I was trying to watch. They made a movie of it with, I think, Michael Fastbender, who I was a great actor, and, like, I don't know what these people are talking about, even though I know the basics of the play, and Lady Macbeth, I know she was not to be trusted. I'm with you, I can't stay in Shakespeare. Really?

But all right, no, no, I use a bad analogy. The Marx Brothers is a better analogy, because the humor of the Marx Brothers is not dependent on you having lived in or being familiar with the 30s. You either like it or you don't like it. The point is it's stuck as either good or it's bad. It's not really, it doesn't really matter when it was made, sure. I did really like Hamlet.

I read it in college, and I feel like emotionally, hit me because I was a brooding loser, you know. No. Yeah, smart, but yeah, brooding and a loser. I'm sorry, but that's a brooding loser. At college at Cornell, there was no girls, I didn't know how to get them if I could. It just, you know what, it just wasn't good. And academia pressure and cold.

It just... So when the help album came out, I'm a loser, that was your favorite song? Uh... No. I was never that crazy about I'm a loser, and I feel like he did it like three times, and it got bettery. I'm a loser and help and Nowhere Man. To me are a trilogy, because they're all basically the same theme. I'm a loser.

I'm Nowhere Man, you know, help me. It's like, you know, you could combine the lyrics and make it really into a dramatic. That all interesting. That all comes out of one of what I think was the crucial turning point, the Lennon, and that was meeting Elvis. In 1956, there's nothing John Lennon and indeed Paul and want to be more than Elvis. He's cool. He's the antithesis of everything. I still want to be Elvis.

Okay. But, you know, that's the old thing. He's pictured around here somewhere. I like that. It's always ghost. But the point is, everyone, you know, wanting to, we know this old adage. I don't meet your heroes. Right.

For the Beatles, they really loved Elvis. They worshipped him. He was the reason they started going. And the others, Chuck Berry and others, but Elvis was the king. They finally meet him in the summer of 65 at his house. And John Lennon resolves, I want to be not Elvis.

He wanted to be the opposite. And all the great material that comes from Lennon after that meeting is because he doesn't want to be a fact guy, sat around with a bunch of sycophiles, sycophants just wasting away and doing cheesy movies and being controlled by his manager. He wants to do something. Hold on. He wasn't doing cheesy movies, but he was just lying around, wasting away. By his own admission, he was quoted once as saying, complaining that, like, with Sergeant Pepper,

that, oh, Paul calls me him, he says he's written 10 new songs and, fuck, now I've got to write 10. And, you know, so he kind of was admitting that, you know, he was, it was like on acid for a year. I mean, it was, he was out to lunch there for, you know, not obviously very functional, especially musically. But when there was no touring and no, nothing to get up in the morning for and drugs all night and, you know, Yoko, new love. Right, but the point I'm making is that he didn't want to become just a rich pop star sitting around. and he may have done it for a little bit, but ultimately he was motivated. All the songs that come out of there

and then the political and all the other stuff is he doesn't want to be Elvis. As all of us, he was both. We're all both. What we all are are people who do one thing for a while and then we go to the other thing because we're just tired of that, but we're going to go back to it.

You're single, I can't stand being in a relationship, then you're in a relationship, I've got to be saying, you know, that kind of back and forth. And I think this is what he's, was doing but in a sort of musical personal way I became aware of how much of a big Beatles fan you were when we first met I don't know if you remember that we started out bonding over the Beatles that's how we first got friendly we were in a boy band correct yeah and we were we didn't admit that we were doing the

Beatles stuff you know we weren't like a Beatles tribute band but plainly you know you had the harmonica. By the way, I was so happy when the harmonica era ended with the Beatles. I mean, how many songs do you think do they have a harmonic? It's about three or four. Not three or four.

It's probably 10 or seven. For me to you, they went to you. They were on tour with Bruce Chanel and they heard him. And Delbert McClinton was the guy who was playing harmonica. It was a fad.

They were always going through those fads. I just have never liked the harmonica as an instrument. I feel like any idiot kind of do it. I mean, is there really a skill to it? It was a phase. They went through that.

No, I know. But I remember when we got first talking about the Beatles, and you picked up on something, the Beatles Live at the BBC album had come out, and you picked up that John had picked up on lonesome tis of my eyes or something like that. He picked up the... He nicked the riff.

He nicked the riff. The sample, they call it, these kids, these days. He nicked the riff from, I think it was Lonesome... Tears him. I learned some tears my... It sounds like an old Western song they were doing. That certainly wasn't one of there. No, no, it was a rockabilly thing.

Because we're talking about early days, like the 50s, like late 50s. It was a song from 1957, and this was in 1969. And it wasn't their song. It was a song. It was a... No, it was a... Yeah, it was a... And that guitar riff is in the Valada John and Yoko.

I mean, it's right. And it works great. But it was a... It was in the era where John... knocking off a song really fast. He came up with an idea for the song. Paul was around. George and Ringo were on vacation.

So John and Paul go into the studio. This is a time when they're supposedly feuding. They like old friends, they go in, they knock it out in six hours. I've always made that same point to some people, and I don't understand why they take this tack that they were hating each other and fighting because of just what you said. There's the proof. It was May of 69.

Easily, if they were fighting so much, John wouldn't have had the, you know, attitude, would have had the attitude of, I'm not going to give him a chance, I don't need him at all. Or he could have called up Paul McCartney and said, I need help on this song, and Paul could have said, you know, you've been acting like an asshole, like, go make it yourself.

They didn't. They got together. One, John called Paul George, he called the other one, Ringo because he was playing the drums and the other one. It was completely congenial, as is the entire Peter Jackson movie. How can you not look at that? I mean, how can you look at that and not see this love affair between two guys? I know the other two guys are important and they are, but I'm sorry.

You can't hide it on camera. They're always making eye contact, joking with each other, sitting across from each other. It's a love affair and it's on film. And I remember we talked about it when it first came out. And I said that was the whole thing. I'd always hated this nonsense. Oh, Yoko broke up the Beatles. She was intruded in the studio.

John's completely ignoring her. She's just there. He's the girlfriend. His real girlfriend is Paul. And they're having a blast. Exactly. You're right. And listen, I saw this, the thing that used to go on.

that we know about as fans, the rivalry, the sibling rivalry, the healthy sibling rivalry between the two of them, who was going to have the A side of the next single? That's my theory that I put out there, and lots of the press people have picked that up now. I think people are, it's a very important thing in my life to get this going, and I'm like Darwin with the theory of evolution. It may take years, but people are going to come around to my theory

that John just did not like always coming in. in number two in this writing competition and after a certain point you can't name where he got the A side of the single and it was like losing with great songs, revolution losing to Hey Jude, perfect example. But there's like eight other examples. And I just think that for somebody loves singles and it was a competition, you know, tap out. It wasn't John's first brave decision at the age of 17, inviting Paul into the band. Paul plays guitar better than him

at that little demonstration. The band. He himself, John Lennon himself, had only played guitar once before that. Yeah, he was, so there was no band.

Well, there was the choir man. No, there was the choir man. They were playing gigs. Do you own a watchboard? You're in. I mean, come on. The smooth. No, but they...

Was it still one of the instruments? Washboard, you're absolutely right in T-chest bass. But the point is, he doesn't, He's got his mates. He's the alpha. He's the one in charge.

It's his group. He doesn't even need to invite this kid who's better looking, plays the guitar properly, knows the lyrics. He invites him in because this is a musical blood, brother. He gets it. And that was a smart thing to do. And he probably regretted it a little bit later on. No.

In the sense that, you know, he didn't compete it. I don't think he regretted it, but you have to know when you're beat. And Paul McCartney was just in such a zone. And it's not like Lenin wasn't, but again, I love I Am the Waris, but it wasn't the A side. And again, commercial success doesn't mean it's a better record. I Am the Waris was a much better record than Hello Goodbye, and I love Hello Goodbye. But another example of we don't have any lyrics and you will not care. We're just going to read the phone book and the song is going to be so good that you're going to go, sure, hello, goodbye, very deep.

Well, Paul rationalized it because it was a demonstration to Alastair Taylor, who was Brian Epstein's assistant, how to write a song. It's just a bunch of opposites. But meanwhile, John is just taking nonsense to create a stream of consciousness. Okay. Speaking of that, what do you think of this? Riddle me this, Riddler. I think this song across the universe has a poetry to it that I don't find in any other John Lennon song. I mean, when you read those words, as we listen to them, it's on a level of poetry that makes me always say, why couldn't he do that more? He wrote songs that were interesting like I am the warrants, but again, it's just gobbled you. He was having fun with that one.

But no, across the universe, the muse hid him. The music, he wrote five verses for that song. Normally he does two verses and repeat. He wrote five. He was just inspired on that. Yeah, that lightning only hit once. On that level, when you read those lines, words are flowing out like in this paper cup.

The whole thing inside the letter box, it's just like, it's just on a whole other level that, yeah, It's a shame, but not that he wrote bad lyrics, but I would have loved to have seen more of that. But that was when that particular aspect of the music hit him, but then the John Lennon Placono band's solo album, which is only about feeling. That's not about words at all. That's after he went through the crime and screen therapy with Arthur Yanot. That album, for me, is probably the best Beatle solo album. Which one?

Placono band, the first solo album. Because it... Does that have God on it? Yeah, it's God. And it's... Isolation? Yeah, it's all about mother. It has mother.

It's just about emotion. It's about emotion. Yeah, you're right, because they had been that primary scream therapy, and, you know, he let it out. And as songs go, I don't know if I love the whole album, but God, awesome. I mean, what a... When you think about it. about the journey from, I want to hold your hand, or from me to you, to God is a concept by which we measure our pain.

Okay, that's called taking your audience with you, because like there's nothing a 13-year-old could care less about than that kind of line. And yet the audience was not 13 any. Now the audience was 19, and that was, oh, that makes sense to me. But they took people all the time. It's astonishing to think that they went from, I want to hold your hand to I'd love to turn your

on in three and a half years. That's that gap from boy band, for lack of a better word, to breaking the horizon, changing the horizon here. And they just did that in such a short space time. And my theory is very simple. Up until the Beatles in popular music, what artists did was they just got better at doing the same thing. You play guitar better, you sang better.

The Beatles wanted to change things. In a bit wasn't some manifesto they sat down and rode down. It just happened. And I was, do you remember, Dennis Miller had a lovely gag he used to do once, that Michael Jackson and George Hamilton had crossed over on the international tan. Great joke. I do. Yes.

And I'm thinking that the Beatles, who were never braggots about this, they were proud of what they did. They grew up loving Chuck Berry and Little Richard and the Everly brothers. But there's a certain point in 1965 when they cross over, where they're doing material that were beyond the wildest imagination of Elgination of Elfell. this or Chapley. They could never have written yesterday or in my life. They couldn't have written things like that. And they didn't brag about it. But then they were always

self-depicating, oh, we're just a little fan, you know. Cole Porter did. Sure. And that was before, you know. Yeah, but in popular, in the world of popular music. Yeah, that's not my era. I mean, I came into the rock and roll era and they were, I mean, I was

for the majority of their career that they were together, I was not interested. I was too young. I only got on board, like, in 1968. So for the end of the... I was aware of them. But, like, I was... My life centered around dirt and baseball.

It was not about the Beatles. That's what my sister is interested in, so I knew it sucked. I'm getting a flashback to when we first talked in-depth about the Beatles, for which I'd owe you an apology. I had a radio show, and I brought to on my radio show to talk about the Beatles. and you were incredibly eloquent,

and you knew much more than I imagined somebody younger than me would know. That's where you reference the John borrowing from an earlier song. And we talked about that then, and we talked about how weird was it for a kid who hears Abbey Road first, and then here she loves you, and you say, hang on, what's going on here? How did it go backwards?

And I think you suggested that there should be a course to teach kids about this traumatic thing and hearing the Beatles out of chronological sequence. So it is July of 2026. Yeah. Correct? I believe so. So that means it is 70 years since almost to the day, maybe two weeks away. Yeah, like a week away from when John Lennon met Paul McCartney.

It's six years. It was July 57. No, 56. No, by the way, and I know if you've got that, I know where you got it from. You got it from John Lennon. Who got it wrong? In the official biography of the Beatles.

See, that's why you have on the foremost beetle. That's why you do. And I'm telling you, somewhere there's a poor man's Martin Lowe. Who is he? Well, I'm fairly poor myself. My mother used to say that. to love that. I love that generation, and they don't give it shit. I loved meeting your mum. She was the coolest one of your parties.

She was always saying that about people would come on TV. Oh, he's a poor man's Dean Martin. Well, I'm a poor man's Martin and Lewis, so there you go. The thing is, John, when he gave his interview, they had no memories. They're not just dope. They just, every day in the Beatles' lives in the 60s was like a month or a year and everybody else so much happened. So when they were interviewed during 1967 for the Hunter Damies biography, he just blithely said, oh, we met in July 56, because that was his memory. He was wrong. And Hunter Davis had to go back and we put an errata in the book.

It was July 57, and that was, that was, I call it, it was like a big bang, when Paul and John met. And so much happened. And that was the occasion when I got the queen to send a message, where she misspelled the Beatles' name. So obviously she didn't get the telegram. terrible for the show because we spent our whole monthly budget on happy 70th decorations that we're supposed to come down. And now I hear it's 69.

We could change it. Your favorite number. It doesn't matter. However, it is the 70th anniversary of something of, oh, it's the 70th anniversary of when John Fulner's The Quarryman, which you say is a completely unimportant band. But that is, it did, that happened in 56. It was an important because everything, you know. I take your point.

Yeah. But his, wasn't this, I mean, if you were writing a screenplay or a novel, and you put in your story that these two teenage kids who have, were nobody's, meet up. And 10 years to the day, almost to the day later, and when they meet up, they're playing, John's playing in front of 400 people in a church courtyard. And almost 10 years to the day later, John and Paul plus George and Ringer are playing to 400 million people simultaneously when they premiere all you need is love

on what was the first ever satellite hookup, which I've now learned means something different to today's kids. But that was... No, no, it was... Yeah, it was a different... But if you put that in a movie or a book, your editor would say,

are you crazy? That's just too... too unlikely implausible to happen. But that was the story. Boy, you really never get over it, do you? I mean, I like them, but, you know, I got out of that. No wonder you're the foremost. We could talk about the monkeys, if you'd prefer.

But, you know, Elvis did a satellite thing, like in 73. Aloha from Hawaii or something. Yes, it was a, that was a similar thing. Yeah, it wasn't 400 million people, and it wasn't the first. Well, it was something, or it was something, It was some early version of the kind of technology we have now where you could get a worldwide audience. I mean, at some point, the Oscars were,

they would always had to get up there and spill their bullshit about the Oscars. For what it's worth, that particular event, it wasn't started by the Beatles, it happened because the executive decided because there's all this new technology, why don't we link the world? That was some kind of Kumbaya moment,

technology, let's link up the world. And each country that was participating had to contribute something. thing. And the BBC wanted the Beatles badly, and they were completely disinterested. They just finished doing Sergeant Pepper. The last thing they wanted to do is a live TV show. They just told Brian Epstein, no more live, no more concerts, no more nothing. And then when he didn't do it, they killed him, right? Well, I'm not limited to saying, no. No? I thought. Again, he knows more about the Beatles than me.

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please contact connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2,600 to speak to an advisor, free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming, Ontario. Epstein does not get enough credit. Ryan was the one who tagged them and said, this is an opportunity, this is a platform. A is the first ever satellite connection, but it's a platform. You can do a song. just any old song, do a song that resonates. And that's when

John comes up with all you need himself. I love that period in late in 1967 when they were for the first time not because Brian Epstein died and they were just so rudderless that they made magical mystery tour and they were so

late see that you see the pictures they're still in those kind of sergeant peppery uniforms that they had like that album came out like just the last the year before but they were Like, I just get the ones we didn't use, the satin. But really, look at the film, look at the video of Hello Goodbye. They're in the...

The pop brand, yeah, but you absolutely might. But there was, listen, that was, I mean, the famous footage of John and George with the newsreel cameras there after being told that Brian Epstein's dead. And they'd see him, shot stunned, and everything like that. They were rudeness. John said it afterwards. He said, when Brian died, I knew that was it. I knew we were fucked. And that was...

Well, they weren't fucked. They went on to make a bunch of more fucking awesome albums. Well, fucked in terms of their internal dynamic. He knew that Brian was the cement bored of them. Yeah, but that cement would have wilted to at some point. Look, you know, they've said it themselves, and it's really kind of boring because it's so obvious. But it is like a marriage.

I'm sorry. Or anything where you're seeing the same person all the time, becomes a real challenge. You either go into a sort of codependency or it chafes. And, you know, when you don't have the bond of male, female, or whatever your sexuality is, yeah, little things get on your nerves

and you want different things and go in different directions and are challenging each other and all the resentments that weren't brought up at the time. You just kind of buried them. I mean, George Harrison is like such a mix of love and bitterness about John Lennon,

like he didn't mention him in his biography, which is amazing. But then, like, he did a tribute song to him when he died. Olden's his ago. And I love that song.

It's a great song. But even in the song, he says, living with good and bad, I always looked up to you. And it was like, wow, even in the tribute song, you can't quite let it go.

I'd just like to put it out there, that I was living with both good and bad. So obviously there was some bad, which is like what humans do. It's family, it's sibling by the world, it's all of that stuff. Interestingly, I used to

being a tad older than you, when the Beatles broke up, it was really traumatic. It was like mum and dad are getting divorced, especially when John and Peter. I can see you're not over it yet. But this is what got me over it. My first boss was the great Derek Taylor. And I used to say,

The Beatles Publisher. The Beatles Publisher. The Newsteadian wasn't appalling when they broke up and they all that stuff. And he said, come on, step back a little bit and just see, no, it was time. They'd done it. They'd all got new loves. They were off. They'd been together 13 years.

Are you best friends with the guy you knew when you were 16? Yes, but I never slept on top of him in a van. Okay. That's all what they say. We just didn't. We weren't. When I was a young comedian at the clubs in New York, yes, you would see the same people just about every night

because you went to the club every night and they went to the club every night. But it still wasn't the same as being in a band. And we weren't like working together as a team. We were in some ways competitive. I want to get stage time. You want to get stage time. We're both hanging out.

But we also have a lot in common. And I don't remember there being a lot of beef about it. We're all thinking, oh, my God, he made him the MC. I plainly could have been a better choice. Right, because you're soloists, you're individual solos, you're not an ensemble. But the point that Derrick made was, look, just think they, it's the old thing about lying, dying early and leaving a perfect body. We never got the embarrassment of the Beatles going disco. I mean, you know, I...

No, we never got the embarrassment. I think I was a little high because I was at the pot store. Woody Harrelson will be very happy that I'm plugging the pot store. because it's somewhat my money too. The Woods, great store here in Los Angeles, if you're looking for that legal product here, the Woods on Santa Monica Boulevard. There, Woody, I did it.

But he did have a great party there one night with, and Paul was there, Paul McGartney. And I think I seem to remember telling him, if I didn't, I've thought it a million times, that besides the music, the best thing about the Beatles the Beatles is that they did John a couple of weird little things but never did anything that made the fans go ugh yuck oh man I like them so much and I'll still a great song but you know nothing like that I mean the weird John Gunn Hook done

heroin okay people do and it didn't hurt anybody else and there's just nothing that was an ick they never gave us the ick and a lot of artists give the ick and I'm a full believer and still listening no matter what the ick is I understand well the thing though that happened

I think with the Beatles when they there was an interesting thing a suspension of the usual attitudes of the British media the British media before the Beatles were snarky

I mean the British tabloid media there's always been a kind of nasty bunch and the Beatles, when the Beatles came along, suddenly they were enchanted by the beads because Britain had been in the doldrums. It wasn't even black and white. We were in grey and grey.

You needed somebody for national pride, like, oh my God, we Britain, we finally produced something. We had nothing since Churchill winning the war. So all that British typical negativity went out of the window and they adored the Beatles. And that was all the way through to, Christmas 67, then they laid a magical mystery tour, which was a hippie

home movie, and on top of that, it premiered. It was the BBC expected some kind of fancy nature or Bing Crosby Christmas special, and they got a bunch of four guys stoned out of their head. And worse than that, it's a colour film, and they showed it on the network that was only black and white. So the media went crazy, the Beatles have lost it. I love this period, because, you know, like, I love

You see John Lennon, like, doing stuff, like, you know he didn't want to do. But kind of he did. It's like, oh, Paul's going to make us get into these 1930s with suits, with tails, like Fred Astaire, with a top hat and a cane and dance down the stairs. John enjoyed it also. Exactly. I have to pretend I'm not liking this, but it's kind of fun, and what would I be doing otherwise? And they also, later at certain points, John said,

oh, Brian Epstein made us wear suits. Paul said, nobody forced us. We all did it. We were happy. It got us on TV. So there was a lot of revisionism, but that happened. But the second thing that happened

that took the bloom off the British media attitude towards the Beatles was when John leaves his English rose wife, Cynthia, and takes up with an older woman, Asian, from Japan, the country, that only 20 years ago we were at Woolworth. And as Lenin, as he said, he went from being John to being Lenin.

And that was how he's referred to in the media. That says it all. And that was the whole turning point. And since then, a lot of people, Americans are surprised when you go to Britain, there isn't the same love in Britain as there is in America for the Beatles.

I know that same feeling, not nearly, of course, on the scale that he did. I know that same feeling, Exactly. When you see the subtle little things writers can do to indicate that they're not on your side, they don't like you, they don't get you. And it's okay, but it's tedious and it's unprofessional.

Yeah. McCartney was always attuned to this. I was working with McCartney on something, and they never forget the first time Paul McCartney tells you off. You really don't because you're in that. I'm saying this. When McCartney tells you off, you get really upset. Why? Because he told you off?

You did. Oh, shit. About what? It turned out. He was right. I was working with him on one of his projects. And around that time, I'd recently produced the DVD edition of a Hard Day's Night. So I thought, wouldn't it be cool on the exact 40th anniversary to have a cast and crew reunion and get together all the people, because I'd got all the actors, the director, everybody together. And Paul came along. I thought, this is going to be great.

And it was a private viewing theater. And Paul comes in, and he does that thing that people at that level always do, which I might not stay there. You know, because he wants an out in case it's a disaster. Can't blame him. He was the last person to leave. He's there six hours. Oh.

Because everybody that was there were people he hadn't seen for 40 years. I love that story. Not just because it's great and you tell it great and it's, you know, again, makes us kind of love them in that way. I was talking about it's not just the music of the kind of people that are don't give you the ick and you know I've heard snob stories about him

but the snob part is not that it's what I might have to the thing he said to you at the beginning people will like who want to be negative will concentrate on that as opposed to like the other part what was the most important person

to the Beatles on the set of a hard day's night the Indian dude who's Ringo steals the ring off of because that's the friggin' plot of the movie. Woody's stuff is really potent because that's help. Which movie now were we talking? Our day's night. I would say the most important person on the set was Betty Glazer.

Who's that, you say? She was the hairdresser. They didn't care about the director. Betty was the woman who did their hair. I managed to find her. And Paul was blown away. He hadn't seen her for 40 years. So that was, it was a cool party.

But I made one error at that party. I'd invited two journalists from the top end, the broadsheets, the equivalent of the New York Times, Washington Post, the fancy ones. And Paul said to me, who are those people? I said, oh, that's all right. There's just a couple of journalists from...

I don't know. And I said, really? They'll knock it. I said, really? Because I was thinking I was doing a good favour, then it would be, you know, this great anniversary of... Yeah, I could... But he was right.

I agree. And I, at the time, at the time, I thought, he's crazy. A week later, out came to think, what a boring film. It's in black and white, the Beatles can't act. The songs are terrible. And I went to Paul, I said, you're right, I apologize. He accepted to the apology. But he instinctively knew that zeitgeist, olme, that he has,

that, yeah, the British media had not finished trashing the Beatles. They're so regretful what they were. It's not like the Beatles have not gotten some. good press. No, no, no. I think the Beatles have gotten some good press. And then there are haters.

There always are for everybody. They just prove that there is literally no one too big. And as fact, when you are big, that's exactly when you're a bigger and better target for them. Better to take down a whale. And they do.

But, I mean, first of all, it's, again, what are you saying? 69 years on... Yes. I mean, it's settled law. It's settled science. They're popular. They will be forever.

And the songs, you know, the music is great, even for people who are not like us, who have this sort of emotional attachment because of this idea of how they conducted themselves and never made us regret admiring them. Fairly normal when you consider how big stars they were. I mean, yes, divorce. They all got divorced, not Paul. had second and third wives because he was a widower. But fairly normal, and the marriages, the second marriages lasted.

You know, they never sort of had it in their head that they were better, even though they were way better than us. Certainly at music. The acid test, I don't know if it's an acid test for you. The acid test for me is how people at that level behave when they're not being watched, when there's no media, when there's nothing in it for them to be. be nice. Paul hired me to do a film. He made a

documentary called the Will Buddy Holly story. Before or after you pissed him off? Before. I got to figure that. And he said, we made a book. With the real Buddy Holly story, he made a great documentary about Buddy Holly because he bought the publishing catalogue.

And he asked me to make a little promotional film about Buddy Holly and his passion trip. And I did that and I left the room at one point. I came back in the room. He was chatting. to the most junior person on micro. He didn't have to. He was asking him serious questions about it.

He didn't have to. He didn't know why he's... He's got a humanity. Look at all the songs he wrote that are about... Checks he feels bad for. Like he has a plethora of songs that are just like,

oh, this is Lady Madonna and what she's going through. And remember the first single? What was the first single after he was solo? Oh, another day. Correct. Another day in the morning she wets her hair. It's just another day.

And then she meets a guy at work and looks like it's going to be something, but he doesn't know it's not. That is another day. He's not going to be a great love affair. It's, I mean, Eleanor Rigby, lovely Rita, the Desmond's wife, and when she's going through with the band, Like it never fucking ends with this guy. He's just always like channeling women.

And it wasn't just women, though. It was interesting. It raised the things. Now we're moving out of the 60s. So slightly into the early 70s for those who think we're just stuck in the 60s. No, there's another. He did one in 95. Do you know the song, Mistress and Maid?

Go ahead, no. Oh, look, I win one point. Yes, certainly do. Okay, the judges have to mark that. in round six, I actually scored. Mistristen Made is on the 1995 album Off the Ground. I feel like there are three terrific songs on it.

I'm not going to say every song at all in the solo career, but a crazy amount of good songs in the solo career. But you've got to pick like three off each album, and then they're awesome. And one of them is Mistristen Made, and that's another one. Like she's, you know, I'm not just, your mistress and maid. It's

very channely of women more than most male songwriters. The thing that calls part of the divide in the family, in the Beatles fan family in the early 70s, was this notion totally wrong and totally unfair that Paul

was somehow middle of the road and John was some wonderful theater. And partly, I realized I looked back on it, I understand what it was. John took the path of autobiographical songs. He And that whole singer-songwriter movement came up at that time. And that was considered authentic.

And Paul was writing story songs. And that was somehow seen as less important. And I look at it this way. John was a diarist. Paul was a dramatist. He told the interesting stories about people's life. The fool on the hill. That's right.

What's it going on with them? I always thought that was a creepy song because it's like they know what he wants to do. Really? What do people say that about? What does the fool on the hell want to do? Because, you know, he knows, what does he know? He knows when they're looking. But you know what? The words rhymed. That was probably the deep significance of it. They had a number of lyrics that, of course, in today's oversensitive world and the way they do not very often want to just understand. that people were different in the past,

and if you lived then, you would have been just like them. You're not morally superior. You can't look at it through today's prison. It's so silly, but they have some lyrics that would totally be problematic, including, you can't do that, which is like right on the, when you go to the Taliban Hotel, it's like on the towel. You can't do that. One real life, I'd rather see you dead little girl than see you with another man.

That is not going to win you the now. A man of the year award, correct. Right. I'd rather see you dead than to be with another man. To save way for a moment. But that was 1962. Well, 65. Well, whatever it was.

I always say, you know what, if it's so horrible, then you also have to indict every single person who lived back then, who was listening to it, never thought twice about it, didn't do anything about it, liberal, conservative. They just, it's what the world was. Here's something, you... We got better, be happy about it. I remember you had...

On my beautiful radio show, the reason I have to apologize for you was it was at 9 in the morning, on a Saturday morning, and I'd forgotten to tell you that's how early it was that you had to show up at the studio. You did show up, and you were very cool about it.

You were not happy to show up at 9 a.m. That sure sounds like me, but I have to tell you, boy, there's lots of stuff I've done in the past like this. Don't be offended. No, I'm not to think. I had to look at, had to, or yeah, had to, I had to, and kind of wanted to, look at this 2008 Mark Twain Award. I was a guest speaker on it, George Carlin.

I had no memory of doing it. It's amazing what, you know, disc fall sometimes. It's amazing what your mind. What your mind. But let me remind you then of something you said that was really interesting. we were talking about we were talking we were talking

oh we're talking about we got to talk about that song okay we will come to that in a second on the show what I was talking about was how the Beatles dealt with the media and I played you an audio clock

of Paul talking about taking LSD and it's 1967 and he's doorstep by a journalist and asked point blank have you taken LSD and he has a split second he could lie or he could say, you know what, I'm not going to lie to you.

I'm going to tell you the truth. I mean, you don't need to play this. You don't need to spread this. It's not world-shattering news. I'm just going to be honest with you, which I'm sure he regretted doing that, because they then emblazoned it everywhere. McCartney takes drugs and the Beatles and all that. McCartney did take drugs.

He was a huge pothead, and I love him for it. It wasn't known. In April 67, that was front-page news in Britain. No, but there was Rolling, Stone did an article a couple years ago. Now it was one of those, this is the narrative we want to get you to believe, which is how to, it was not a stupid theory. I think they overplayed it because they wanted us to believe the narrative, which was

that LSD was actually a huge factor in their breakup because George and John did it together for the first time. Dentist party. Yeah, the dentists party. the famous dentist party, and forever were kind of locked in together. Now, which is, again, so strange that George, you know, living with good and bad, and I'm not going to even mention your biography. But at one point, apparently he, and maybe it's because they were so locked in then,

and then it changed that there was this later bitterness, but that, and Paul wouldn't do it. Initially, initially. He did it right. But, I mean, I can see how. a drug that powerful, which everyone who's done it will always say the same thing, and it's always true. Any drug, really, is it. You have to do it.

You can't explain it. If you haven't done it, you just don't get it, and that's not your fault. You just, it's one of those things. And so when Paul didn't, it sort of was a rift, which, you know, again, trying to make the story fit, manifested later on when three of them had the same manager, and he had a different manager, which was his father-in-law. Yes. Listen, that was such an insane period.

I still think the biggest, the reason why, you know, I love the Beatles equally, but I love John a little more, I guess. And for me, the reason for that was that John Lennon was created such fear in the most powerful man in the world at that time, Richard Nixon, that they tried to deport it. and the fact that they thought that he might do well,

which I doubt think would have had any impact. I don't think he struck fear into Nixon. I don't think Nixon thought it was John Lennon who was going to take him down, but it didn't help that this guy who had the ear of the younger generation was talking shit about him because he was Nixon and a sneaky guy. He'd set the organs of government that he could sick on John Lennon, but I doubt if he was getting a report on that every day. It wasn't a day anything.

The point was that they thought... Watergate, that was a big deal in his life. Sure, but I don't think it would have made it any difference, but Lenin was talking about going on tour before the... In 1979-2 election, but I don't think it would have affected that election. I love John Lennon, too, but he also is a real myth-maker of his own myth. Is there a better time? Well, but he sort of purported to be the working-class hero,

We all know. Like, no, he, among the four Beatles, the other three were lower class. He was the only one with a little more of a nice house. Yes, he lived with the aunt instead of the mother. But like it was, you know, we know neighborhoods. Like I lived in middle, middle class. There were houses that were nicer. It was just like that.

He wasn't really a working class hero. Of course, their early days were rough and tumble for everybody. but and then the materialism. You know the Elvis Costello song, the other side of summer? Sure. One of my favorite, oh man, I love that Elvis Costello.

But is there a, was it a millionaire who said, imagine no possessions? A poor little schoolboy who said, we don't need no lessons. That's Pink Floyd, he said. So he got John Lennon and Pink Floyd in the same line. Well, boom. Boom.

Okay, I would say this. first of all, it's a minutia of class stratum, but funnily enough, there was a hierarchy within the Beatles. George and Ringo

are not working class. Paul wasn't working class. He was lower middle class. I mean, that's the kind of craziness of the British class system. But John, yeah, he was middle class. He grew up in a beautiful, comfortable home and had books.

But what he wanted to do, the biggest thing he wanted to do was to become working. because it was seen as more creed, more authentic. We're saying the same thing. Yeah, sure. Yeah, I'm saying it's a little kind of being a bullshit artist. Do you think Jagger is working class?

Certainly not now. Wasn't it? Let me tell you what he was. No, he never was. He was Mike Jagger. Mick is a working class name. He was Mike Jagger, and he went to the London School of Economics. But you know people take elocution lessons.

Mick Jagger's deal of you sure. He just wanted to say, if you spoke to Mick Jagger, or Mike Jagger, he was, oh, hello, well, listen, I'd rather like this blues music, you know. He's just for it, because that was what you did in the 60s.

It reminds me that great SNL sketch where I think it was Fred Armisen, played the Queen, and when it was in public, and they had visitors, she spoke the perfect English, and as soon as they left, the room and she was alone with Prince Philip.

She was in talk with the scouse, with the heavy, you know, and vulgar. That's great. The British, I mean, so much of the British stuff is written, and the Beatles of it is written with all that class stuff. It's written with it. I always have thought of the Sergeant Pepper album

more than anything. I mean, I've heard it was a drug album. Yeah, they were on drugs at the time, that's why it's good. Lots of things. I always saw it as a tribute to English. more than other albums. I mean, English, of course,

seeps into all their music. They're English. I feel like in that one, some of it is deliberate and some of it, I just think it turned into that. It was supposed to be a thing about their childhood,

but their childhood was in England. So, like Strawberry Fields, Penny Lane, very English, the details in all of it. You really understand what it's like to live in England. Lovely Rita,

the meter made, that Victorian soul, opera of she's leaving home everything just seems to point to this love letter to England not of course within you without you that's a love letter to India okay actually actually is talk about that and all the musicians were in the British Indians who he met at curry houses in big man going to have good go but you are I'm going to give you ten points for that because you're spot on here's the interesting the Beatles the Beatles in their own lyrics

there was a few references to America in their earlier records, but they're all covers songs like Kansas City. But there's no references to geography. They don't talk about geography in their early songs. Sarton Pepper is exactly what you say. It's their last English album. It's very Edwardian. It's all about the parts.

It's right. It's just English. Right. And the next year. I love it. When you get to Magical Mystery Tour, which is late 6'7, there's a fork up on L.A.

Right. There's bungalow bill, there's... Right. They'd been to India. Yeah, and there's India and there's Hollywood and, you know, honey pie. But you're right, it's about England. Except for the opening of side, too.

Of course, that was the days when we turned the record over. There's the Raj. That's the Raj, the British own India at that time. I'm not going to slam that song within you without you. I'm just going to say two things. One, I feel that as opening songs of Side 2 go, here comes the sun definitely beats within you without you. And also, what was my other important thing about that song?

Oh, I noticed that when it came time for George Harrison to do his solo album, suddenly there was none of that within you without you, inner light bullshit on that record. It was just great rock songs. I'm not saying that he kind of like... There were a few philosophical, but a point taken. No, no, that was that... I mean, that's an amazing album.

All Things Most Pounder. Well, there's a few philosophical things about the art of dying. Philosophical, but not the music. Okay, he wasn't... He went through phases they borrowed from... Well, he went through one big phase early on, which was spiritual. I mean, a lot of his songs,

not my favorite lyrics. Sometimes the song was worth... of forgetting the lyrics. I don't care about lyrics. If they're good, it's better, but if they're not, I don't give a shit. My sweet Lord, not exactly how I see the world. Don't care.

Love the song. Phil Spector, great job, crazy person, shot a girl, okay, that's all bad. I should not listen to this song. Because you shot an actor. When Paul did that thing, what was it, you know, the Let It Be Naked thing? Yeah.

And he went back, because he really hated what Phil Specter did. I could not disagree more. No, because you told me how. much you like the original let it be. I like them both, but what Phil Spector did to let it be was what should have been done to let it be. This is pop music, okay?

This is for people like me, I'm just the young man in the 22nd row, okay, I just want to be entertained in as elegant a way as you can. Okay, I'm going to step in on that briefly only because George Martin

put orchestrations. He was not findable orchestrations, but they weren't schlocky. These aren't schlocky either. I'll let it be, it's over the two. The long and winding road is awesome because of the production. It calls for it. It makes it better. It's not schlocky.

And, you know, first of all, this is the kind of thing. It's like when somebody says to me, why do you hate mustard? What do you hate any food? Who the fuck knows? I like this. Somebody else doesn't. It's like how our ears here. There's no right or wrong.

Can I say for the record, I hate cilantro. By the way, you probably confuse all the young folks. Side two. What the hell sighed to? People are swinging. They know what the young guy. You kidding? They're buying LPs again. LPs are very hip now. The thing is, when Paul did that let it be naked?

I mean, that's like, you know, George Lucas gave back and revisiting a film, and some people, fans get upset that you revisit and change Star Wars. Because, like, I love the Beatles, but I, you know, I'm not idolatrous because I don't think they would want it. And also because they have a higher percentage of everything than other bands, I think. But still, like, I don't have every, in my collection of Beatles songs, it's not every one. What do you think would happen if you put out an album, I swear to God, Apple put out something called Word? Worst of the Beatles. I bet you would still go to number one.

Worst of the Beatles. Here's the thing about... What could be on it? Right. Revolution number nine, of course. I mean, you can't... You'd have to be in a very special mood to listen to the Black Trash. Excuse me.

What are you a fucking hagiographer? Hello. Worst of the Beatles. Worst of the Beatles. What are the 12 tracks on this album? Revolution number nine. It's not a... What goes on.

Not a great song. Absolutely. Tip of my tongue, which they finally put on anthology. Don't even know it. I know you don't. No, I'm talking about just... Yeah, but there were a few...

Not anthology. I'm talking about stuff they actually put out. Honey, don't? I didn't... I'm not a big fan of their covers. They did them very well. Some were great. Yeah, Twisted...

Please, Mr. Postman. Yeah. Twist and Sha. I was so happy when they got to... Hard Day Tonight is the first real album when they wrote... They did 18 covers. Right.

I like some of them that were B-sides like Mr. Moonlight, I love, because it's just a virtuoso sort of singing performance. John Lennon did have an emotional quality in his voice. That came about those selections of those songs in their early days. They were competitive with all the other groups, and they were always trying to find obscurities that no one else knew. So Mr. Moonlight was the B-side of a song, and they discovered it and then all the other groups in Liverpool started copying

that's just the way it went but still I still think that when they found their muse as writers to me that's that's probably the best contribution and I think it's the part that engages with people most and they I can't stress too much I don't think there was ever any manifest there was no game plan they never sat down to come to the world or anything like that Is anybody in their life? Life isn't what John Lennon himself, who said life is what happens when you're busy making other plans? Sadly. I mean, I love philosophy songs like that.

Like, some songs are about, you know, just a love story, I love you, or you left me and my heart's breaking. And then there's just like philosophy songs that, you know, like Barado, you know. Here's the other thing. The queen of heart. The queen of diamonds. Here's the difference. And people talk about this thing about, you know, at that time, there was the Beatles. There was the Beatles Stones thing that was a big thing at that time, you know.

Rivaling between them. They still report in the tabloids when Mick or Paul says something snarky and snipey about each other. I love it. They're both 84, I think. And like Paul said something about, and it wasn't untrue a few years ago, like they were really just a blues cover band or something. And it's true.

Their range is more limited. Not that the Rolling Stones didn't put out some great ballads. They could do it all, especially when they had Brian Jones in there. It was very creative back then. The Stone's 60s singles are nothing to sneeze about. They are awesome. But the interesting thing

in that rivalry was that some of it it was class and geography. When the stones first meet the Beatles, the Beatles are from the north, which is we look down in the south. You look at a holiday's like Ringo's on the towpath and the policeman, he's angry with the policeman

and Ringo yells Southerner because of that thing of the difference. The one with the ring. Take away that one point again. But the stone, The help is an Elvis movie. It is. It's an Elvis movie.

It's a cartoon. You travel to an exotic location. It's just the difference is that with one guy doing that kind of movie, you always can have a love interest. With four, what's the love interest? Too many girls. Here's the interesting point was the Beatles, when you think, we have to understand,

the difference in the Stones was the sense of humor of the Beatles. You look at how many photos of the Stones with a big smile, on the face. They had to be serious. No doubt about it. The Beatles were the good boys and the stones were bad boys and that is exactly what their appeal was. It was like to the

40% of teenagers who are looking for a snarling face to put on how they feel about how shitty life is with adults ruling everything. The stones were perfect. You're 100% correct and wrong at the same time

because that was the brilliance of their manager, Andrew Lou Golden, who was actually younger than all the stones. He had just done some PR work on the Beatles in early 63. He happened upon the stones, and he... That's light bulb goes off, and he thinks, oh, there needs to be anti-beetles. They're too cuddly.

Mums and dads like the Beatles. And he fashioned the stones to be the anti-beatles. The irony, as Lennon claimed, was that the stones were actually rather nice, decent, middle-class boys, who were roughed up by their manager to look snarling. The Beatles... John Lennon's line was, we were the biggest bastards of the wall.

So they were actually... It is astounding the way the media not only often get it wrong. They get it diametrically wrong. Absolutely. The absolute... Same thing happened to Elvis. When he was first on the scene, they thought he was the devil.

They wouldn't shoot him above the hips, remember? Because he was just such a bad influence. That's when he was actually a sweet young boy who was overwhelmed by success. but was really kind and loved his mother who was still alive, he wasn't on drugs, he wasn't involved with teenagers. That's when they said he was the devil. Later on, when

he was doing things like having a 14-year-old live at his house and on drugs, that's when he was sort of exalted as like, because you know, if you're hanging around long enough, you've become an institution. So they had it exactly wrong.

But what I love, with the Beatles in their films, the Beatles, not just their films were also their Christmas records for the fan club. They were influenced by the Goon Show. Now, the Goon Show was the British radio predecessor of Monty Python. It was the comedy of Peter Sellers and others. And that was what inspired Monty Python and inspired the Beatles. This is that first famous thing with George Martin.

George Martin had never produced a rock and roll record. He didn't know anything about it. Why did they respect him? He was 12 or 13 years older, which is a big age gap when you're 20, This old guy... Because he was the only one who wanted them. Not just that. But they liked...

Well, that's big. That is part... No, why they liked him... ...was that he produced things. Yeah. And Peter... ...and people... They loved that he'd done comedy.

I mean, you cannot overestimate how much the cheekiness of the Beatles on their first trip to this country. I mean, that is something, even as an eight-year-old I got, was that, oh, these guys... It's not just the music, which I again don't care about because baseball. But they kind of, they're like, of course,

as many people have compared them to, that Mark's brothers quality. And just cheeky, funny, witty, the kind of thing that comes through the blood of my people, Celtic people, you know, like the British Isles, the Irish Isles. We embrace you as almost one of us. Yes, poetic people and funny people, usually witty people, and they were in that.

You know, they were more, I mean, like John certainly was, he saw himself as a Celtic. He did that album, a horrible album, horrible, called Sometime in New York City. And there was a song on it called, If you had the luck of the Irish. You'd be sorry and wish you were dead. Okay. You know, it was, it was, that was, see again, they never did anything that makes me feel icky. But they did missteps.

It was 1972. He and Yoko had, you know, finally got free of that horrible island, England, and got into New York, and they're living in New York on the west side, in a big fucking bomb of an apartment with a whole floor that they owned just to put shit that they didn't, this is Elvis. They weren't in there. That was later in the Dakota. They were in the village.

They were in the village. Oh, yeah, that's right. But they're getting infatuated with Abby Huffman and Joey Wood. Infituated with the revolutionary spirit. Nixon was president. and Batman was going. Okay, I get it. We were there.

And so they put out this protest record. I mean, he obviously thought he was Dylan, but the songs were just... Minds even that movie, Walk Hard, where they're doing that Dylan sequence, and he's singing a song for midgets in their rights. It's very funny. But he bounced back.

And he did Walls and Bridges. He did Mind Games. Moles and Bridges and Mind Games are not great solo album. They're not great songs on them. There are some songs on them. There are some good songs, but I only have 15 Lennon songs. Now, again, that's because he took five years off. But, you know, the ones that are good are amazing.

It's nice to know that his last one is maybe my favorite of all time, starting over. Again, Phil Spector, got to give you props on that one. Should not have shot that girl. May you say that again. Except that was shot. You should not have shot that girl, but the wall of sound reverb on that, The production on that is so immaculate.

Yeah, it was Jack Douglas who produced it, but no matter. No. Yes, sadly it was, yes. That's not Phil Speck. Well, they learned it from Phil Specter. You could say homage to Phil Specter. This guy sounds like the poor man's Phil Specter. It has that picture.

Who's produced that? Jack Douglas, who was a terrific guy who worked with Arrowsmith and he'd actually, he passed recently. But he bought some of that album. there were some beautiful songs. Woman. Is there anything, woman? Here's the line when you were talking about jealous guy. First of all, jealous guy and woman.

Right, right. In jealous guy, how many macho men didn't say things like, I didn't mean to hurt you, I'm just a jealous guy. You didn't own up to jealousy and help, help saying. Plainly, he didn't because we talked about it. He had a song that says, I'd rather see you dead little girl. But he also had a song that said, Every now and then I'd feel so insecure.

Grown men did not, macho guys did not admit to insecurity. It's a great arc to go, if you were writing a screenplay or looking for character arcs and development, to go from, I'd rather see you dead, to the lyrics of jealous guy, which are very self-aware and talking about who he is, I'm just a jealous guy. And isn't the essence of him in that song, Woman, where he says, I know you understand the little child. Yeah, that's it. He's starting to get, you start to understand. No doubt that Yoko had a hold on him. I'm not a Yoko basher, and I'm sure that there was elements of that that were completely real.

And then there's some stuff that I didn't know that, I mean, I did the review of that book, 150 glimpses of the Beatles. I was one of the, I loved doing that. It was during the pandemic. I had the time, and I wrote a book review for the New York Times. that book and I mean at least in that book he says I did not realize until I read it Yoko sent him letters every day when he was in India and would jump in the car and then he like deadpan something like you know perseverance was her secret weapon this is and I didn't know that

like the fact that she went after him so hard and that Linda that that Linda and that Linda and went first went after the other one. Linda went after John and she went after... Is that right, right? There's an element of that for sure. Interestingly, I mean, I think that they were fortunate in the people around them, fortunate in the romantic partners they had. Look at this.

If the Beatles had been in the clutches of Colonel Tom Parker, we would never have had what they evolved to do because he'd have made them continue to do the same. I disagree because Elvis was a sad hillbilly and they're smart, savvy guys and they would never put up with a Colonel Tom Parker. Well, okay, but that's true. They're just not Elvis-e. I love Elvis, but he was like pure talent, and I'm not surprised. I wasn't surprised now that he only lived to 42.

How did you feel about him going to Nixon and saying the Beatles are un-American, which the Beatles were most amused by? I fucking love it. I fucking love this drug addict getting on the plane to the guy who invented the drug enforcement administration, All Stone, wearing the sunglasses, left the house with no money. What is the form of currency, sir? I'm Elvis Presley, is my form of currency. Don't you see the cape? And gets to the White House, like, without an appointment, wearing a cape.

He was like, sir, Elvis is at the front gate. Damn, we almost had the Vietnam War, so send them in. Henry, I'll get back to the later. Elvis, and then like, you're right. It's all just because it's very Trumpian. You know, it's like, I can get away with this. I'm going to do it. It's a bar fight.

I'm going to pick this up and use it. And, man, he wanted to get the Beatles. And, you know, you can't blame them. when somebody eat your lunch as bad as they did his. Not that he wasn't old news by the time they came along. Right, but it was his own. But it was an irony there. Here's the thing.

Paul forgave him. He just said, you know, disappointed it happened, but didn't stop loving the music. They'd great. He didn't say, you know, I hate Elvis or anything like that. John was acerbic when Elvis died. Elvis died when he went in the archly. Yeah.

It was his line. Not true. That's true. Elvis died in a lot of ways for a long time. The voice never left him. There's not a lot of great stuff from the eight or nine years when he did movie musicals, those 30 travelogs he did. They were all the same movie.

It was not, but, you know, wise men say, what's that one? That came from. Probably fools Russia. Oh yeah, I mean, he still did that in concert. It's a good ballad. It's not the greatest thing ever. But no, the thing was he, at the point, listen, Elvis couldn't have rebelled against Colonel Tom Park in the early years. By the time of 66, 67, 68, there were artists who did rebel against their man, just sought a lawyer and got out of the deal.

Yeah. And Elvis, he was just sad hillbilly who, like, couldn't figure out how to, like, break free of his father figure. Weird, because what he was always doing was mourning his mother. He needed a mother figure. He had a father. It seemed like a nice guy who kind of went along with everything. How could he not? I mean, you know.

Listen, he had the talent. He inspired at the time when that hit in Britain, it made the act. If there's no Elvis, there's no vehicles. And Elvis had an amazing period when he fined that got out of the movie contract when he was a 35-year-old grown-ass man and he wasn't singing about fucking hound dog and all that bullshit. I don't like that music at all. But the music he did from like 1969, Suspicious Minds, through almost...

In the ghetto, I mean... Yes, great songs. Oh, no, that's right. I don't think before that song Elvis really cared that much about what was going on in the ghetto. I never took those lyrics terribly to heart. You're like, oh, Elvis is... You know, something that... It also reminds you that thing where Paul has sometimes been accused of...

of embellishing or revisiting history. That happens with people. Your memories aren't perfect and you revisit and you tell a story. But there was a famous thing that happened when the song Blackbird was being re-examined and being talked about. And Paul gave an interview somewhere

where he was talking about Blackbird and said that, you know, Angela Davis was something I was thinking about. And he got pounced on because... Really? Yeah, because Angela Davis wasn't known in America or Britain in 1970. She wasn't known until after he wrote that song.

So for a year or so, people were piling on Paul and saying, what a bloody hypocrite. He's making it up. And I thought, that's not right. I know it's not right. And I did some delving in the archives, and I found a rare audio tape that proved that Paul was telling the truth. In 1968, he produced an album with Mary Hopkins.

You remember she did the song called Worse with the Days. And he was... You went to number one. Yeah. And he was strange with... The old Russian folks on. by Gene Raskin. And she,

Paul was very friendly at that time with Donovan who'd been to the, with them to the India, to the Maori sheep. What was the follow-up single? Those were the days off that, Temah Harbour, no, a goodbye. Correct for ten points.

And then Temer Harbour. And that's a better song. Yes. And those were to do. But with that thing, so Donovan is, he's, Paul's asked Donovan, can he come up with a song for Mary?

So Donovan had written a song, a couple of songs. And they're in the studio I found the audio tape. They're rehearsing. And as they do, when they warm up, they're playing each other songs.

So Donaldson's Sunshine Superman. Paul sings Blackbird. And Donovan said, oh, that's the one you were writing in India. And then, he said, yeah, I got into trouble with that last night. What did you do you do now?

And Paul said, I ran into Diana Ross, at a club in London. And she started giving him grief about writing a song and using the word bird, which is an English term. for a girl about black women.

And so there's Paul talking about it that it was, and then Paul says, oh, I saw some news footage on TV about these black women protesting in America. So there it was from 1968. Paul did write the song based on that, but he'd been tripped up

because he misremembered and threw in Angela Davis's name and that was somehow he was thrown against it. Well, that's what I call. bad faith, which is a lot of that in the media. Bad faith means when you know what the truth is, but you know you can get these dummies to believe this worst thing, and they will, because when people just want to believe, people have shitty lives,

and they want to believe bad things about celebrities. People who have good lives, they're not really rooting for that. It's a lot more helpful if you're going through some sort of horrible divorce or a drug addiction or Britney Spears or whatever you're doing. that's like sad and terrible. It's like, oh, well, you know, that's what happens when you become a famous pop star, so good on me that I didn't.

I mean, part of my Beatles' fashion is not just the Beatles and that era. It's the answering things, the things they did afterwards, and in particular, I know this first time from a couple of perspectives. George Harrison is, you know, people used to mock some of the spirituality,

and got a little bit pompous sometimes on the spiritual act. He was sincere, but, you know, he got a little bit of blown. He did two things that are really crucial. One, the concept of Bangladesh. Before then, they had never been a pulling together. Brown-breaking. August 1st, 1971, kids, look it up.

You did, absolutely. And when I got involved with John Cleese and Monty Python, we did the Secret Polar thing. What were we were looking at? We were looking at concept of Bangladesh. Could we do with comedy what he'd done with rock and roll? I was 15. It was on the front page of the New York Times.

Of course, there was no color back then in newspapers. But he was wearing an orange shirt with a white suit. You know, he just looked cool, a beard, hot backup singers behind him, who I'm sure were in love with them. I mean, it was just like, and it was Madison Square Garden, and Ringo was behind him playing drums. It was just for a 15-year-old, it was like one of the, and good cause.

And, you know, back then they really, We have raised $3 million. Oh, my God, what an ungodly sum. Yeah, Alan Klein find it hard to live on that. Let's talk about solo careers. Sorry, you know, I'll face one small point, and then draw the same of the career. The other thing he did was he single-handedly almost revived the British film industry in the 1980s.

It was going to shit. And he financed Monty Python's Life of Brian. The backers had pulled out. He financed the film. He financed all these other films. with Bob Hoskins, Longer's quite a bit. This was great. Beatle fans know all this.

No, no, I'm saying... It's talking about what they don't know. Okay, all right. They know these stories. But, Will, your following is way more than just Beatles fans. Yeah, but I bet you you have to kind of be... Beatle... Maybe you're right.

Maybe that's not true. I don't think everybody knows everything. Yeah, I've just heard these stories. There is lore. I mean, it almost... You could see how things like this could become a religion. And same thing with Elvis, you know, is very similar to Jesus, the refulgent life giver, the white silk thing. I mean, it was just, and people worship him.

Some think he's still alive. He was resurrected. So there is all that. But I want to ask, come on, like, if you had to pick or put in order, solo career output, one, two, three. Well, it's unequal. Yeah, of course. We understand John is going to be third because he died. That's just what happened.

But, okay, I'll go. Jesus Christ. Are you their fucking publicist? I'm not their fucking publicist. I would put Paul first because he just has the most, I think, songs, but I don't know. George also has, like, I don't know, I'm guessing 50 ones that I just loved. ones that I just love. And I only keep the ones I like.

Now, it's uneven. All things must pass. Every song? No, but, like, boy, there's six or eight that are just great. Most of the uptempo ones, although beware of darkness. I mean, boy, talk about a lugubrious toe-tapper, but an amazing song. Like, I mean, I live my life by one rule. Beware of Maya.

I don't know what it is, but I'm always on the lookout for it. But it's a great album. And to your point, like just a lot of spirituality. shoved down your throat. I just accept it. It's fine. I don't care. I will say this.

His last album, I feel, he finally wrote a spiritual song that didn't hit you over the head like the other ones did, and I thought it was his best one probably. People don't know it because it's done the last album, and it's called The Rising Sun. Do you know it?

I do know it's a little bit, yes. It's one of, I just think it's so beautiful, and it's not like all this, you know, right on the table. Remember the one John and Paul in the material world, living in the material? John and Paul in the material world, like you're not.

Like George Arison, living in his castle, wasn't part of the material world in that fucking awesome place he had. Listen, it was awful for all of them having that wretched, tall shadow of the Beatles. I mean, you have to admire

how McCartney got on with a solo career after the Beatles. It was so wretched. It was such a big, daunting thing to deal with. And forming wings, which, let's face it, it was really Paul McCartney and his band. But it was the way he chose to deal with. They all dealt with it in different ways. Did you know that Ringo was the most, initially in the first two years,

was the most successful solo Beatle? He had more hits. Yeah, he had a lot of hit singles. Again, the thing that makes me so emotional about them, the way the other Beatles helped him. George gave him photograph. Right? Or was it, it don't come easy?

It don't come easy, and they worked on together on the back off movie. I mean, he wrote, there's a Georgehausen version of It Don't Come Easy. It's a great song. To give away a great song is a great act of kindness. I know John suggested some songs that he did like, you're 16. And he wrote, I'm the greatest. Okay, that's not my thing. And our mutual friend Richard Perry produced that album, The Ringo.

Yeah. Which was just terrific. I don't know about that. Oh, no, it was great part. It was, it was, it was, I, I, look, I can only tell you what I, I mean, there was a good song at the end that I liked, had for a long time for you and me, babe, the end is down here, and he thanks everybody at the end. It's a lot of talking on the record, so it kind of had to go. But, no, he's got some, I mean, there's a song, he did a tribute song for John, for George. called Never Without You?

Never Without. That song is a killer. Make you cry. And it's interesting. He did a tribute song to George. George did a tribute song to John. Paul did a tribute song to John, but who didn't?

And Ringo did a tribute song to George, but not to John. it's interesting that by the tribute songs, we can read between the lines. You seem to be quite a Beatles band there. You really know your stuff. Well, the Paul McCartney tribute song is called Here Today. Here Today is one of McCartney's finest songs. It's pure emotion.

The essence of it, the way that he wrote it, the construction of it. He did one of those little pop-up things, Amoe Records. and he did that. I was invited along to it, and it was absolutely stunning. He breaks up in the middle of the song, and it just suddenly hits it. Really?

And he did this little vocal trick, because he's starting to lose it. And he does this vocal trick, we go, like a little way to reboot his voice, so he won't break up. It was astonishing. Wow. And there's a clip of it online, but I remember watching it at the time, and you were so moved by it. But it was uncharacteristic for Paul to be that emotional.

By the way, do you remember all the shit he was given when he said, when he was asked how he felt about John being shot? Yeah, yeah. You know, it's a drag. And he was saying, oh, how inconsiderate. That's just, you know, you're being doorstep back out. What do you think? That's the world, it's haters.

It's like the world is just for haters and their job is to however you handle something, hate it. I always say it's like relationship breakups. When you break up, however you do it, the other person just wants to hate that. If you're honest, you should have spared my feelings. If you spared my feelings, you should have been honest. Because they just want to hate you. And it's okay.

We've all been there. That's homo sapiens. And like, they just, people just want to find something to bitch at and hate. And there was no thing he could have said that would have satisfied them, but they weren't. Because when there's no... Why should he have to share his innermost grief to a TV camera crew at that split second the day after? And in the movie Daniel, there's a great line

where the daughter of the Rosenberg's as depicted is really very sad. And somebody says, well, why can't you get over it? And the line is, do you ever occur to she might just be inconsolable? I thought, what a word, inconsolable. Yeah, I think that's probably how Paul felt at that moment. And why... I mean, also, he said it's a drag.

It's not like he said, oh, good. You know, he's dead. You know what? I never liked the guy. I said, man, there's argument about who wrote in my life. I say I did it. And I'm glad he said, that didn't happen. He said, it's a drag, which it was.

It was. And it continues to be. I mean, I can't believe it's like coming up on 50 years. Fuck are we old. I mean, 50, 1980, so it's been, 46 years since John Lennon. That's, I mean, when you think about 70 years, okay, say the Beatles were certainly right in the middle

of being the biggest stars in the world 60 years ago. It's like in 1966. When I was 10, what had been a song from 1906, no, from 1896, it would be 60 years before, when I was listening to the Beatles, that's what kids must think about us talking about a song from 1966, except for the fact that the Beatles music

definitely endured in the culture. It's in commercials. Kids do know it. Whereas at 1896, what would be a song I would know from there? Maybe you could, oh, okay, you know, I don't know, Mary Row Your Boat or some ancient song. and Alexander's ragtime band or some shit, but those songs died out.

Beatles songs didn't die out, yes, more than when in their heyday, of course, but they didn't die out nearly to the same degree as something from 1896 what I did for me. Right, and you're right, and I think that's partly because I think it was also, it was like almost a perfect storm of the way media developed and the transistor radio and everything,

that would never happen again today. What happened with the Beatles on that level could never happen because it was just a confluence. The technology helped. The technology and the times, it just happened. It was meant to be, if you believe in that sort of thing. But certainly, no, I don't think that can ever regret. The fact that they were playing stadium concerts

through the PA system of the stadium. None of their own equipment. They just came in there and they used the same speaker that the team used. The hot dog announcement. Number seven, batting number seven, Mickey Mantle, number seven. That's the speaker that they were,

and playing to, but, you know, nobody was listening. And they couldn't hear themselves. No wonder they stopped. Now, it is the 60th anniversary of, the 6th anniversary of the Beatles quitting live performance, which was the breakthrough point, a candlestick part, end of August 960s, they said that we're done, we're over.

And Brian Epstein thought that was the end for them. He didn't understand. But they wanted out. It wasn't that they started, oh, it would be better in the studio. They just wanted to stop them. I don't believe in the universe, although I know it's up there. But if I did, I would say, like, 1966, 6,6, I never was a big fan of 6's, you know, the devil thing. I'm sure it's bullshit.

So, like, that year, and then it was just like everything conspired. against them. Like they just had ugliness all year. Well, if you want to make it 666, it's June 66. Yeah. That's when the bigger than, we're bigger than Jesus. Right. Blows up out of, out of, that one, plus getting roughed up in Manila.

In Asia. The Japanese, they were, you know, I think they didn't rough them up, but I think they don't like make noise during a concert. You know, it was like shit like that, like, oh, wow. Yeah, because in Maldemachus, they turned down an invitation. That's the Philippines, not Japan. Yeah, it's right. Yeah, it's right.

Manila. They were like having the time of their life and going. It's different audience reactions. No, Manila was actually scary because they seemed to be the, I mean, now we would say they were symbolizers, symbolizing colonization and colonizers, because here are these white guys. coming in to the Philippines and insulting the First Lady. Like, would they do that to a white first lady? Would they do it to the Queen?

No, but to our Queen, they can't be bothered to show up. You know, you know, that was the subtext. And, you know, the British certainly earned that. I mean, for the kids today who don't know what colonization is, that's some actual colonization. When you go into a place that's nothing like you, and you make it, I mean, you know, India is very British colonized. It's for the good.

That's the great scene in the Monty Python movie, but what are the Romans ever done for you? Apart from this, about from that, the wine, the water, the baby, the alcohol, the wine, sanitation. Yeah, but apart from that, what else have you done? Safety, aqueducts, agriculture, what have they? And thank God George Harrison Finance. I thought, me, you remember his line when they said,

why did you put up five minutes? I wanted to see the film. That's nothing more baller than that. They did have that kind of. I remember with... Let's go through his great songs. Okay. All Things Must Pass, a bunch of great songs on that.

Never crazy about the title song, a little lugubrious and slow. Some of them were. But the up-tempo ones, the Lord is a Waiting on You All. You know, just wah-wah. You know, just really... It's funny. When he wanted a rock, it didn't matter if the lyrics matched. All those years ago, which the tribute song, it's like a very upbeat song about...

It wasn't written as a John tribute. It was a melody he got. The lyrics don't match. That's right. The melody had been written the previous year and he repurposes. The Beatles are very economical. They repurpose. But the interesting thing is, do you remember the track one of...

Side One of that album is. What album? Of The All Things Must Pass, because it's very significant. What is it? It's... I'd have you any time. Oh, yeah. the Dylan. Yes, it's a Dylan

Harrison composition. Yes, it is. And you know why it's track one, side one? Why? It's George's fuck you to John and Paul. You don't rape me as a writer, but I'm writing with Bob Diller. Wow. And that's serious. I know that's that. I didn't know that. That's great. And

he understandably felt pissed off. He was struggling to get his off. In any other band. There's a video very soon after that it's early 70s and George is at John's house. and they're around the breakfast table. And they're like joking and like, I'm Beetle Ed.

That's because that's when they're doing the imagine. And they're doing, how? So obviously, again, these feelings are mixed. There is, there is hate and there is love. And they are living side by side, as they are for many people. But what they never stop doing is the little sniping at the stones.

Who they love? On the Spartan pepper caliber, it says, rolling stones, good guys. They're like the Jews. It's like the Shiites and the Zunis hate each other but we'll all work together. And everybody hates the Jews.

We can get the Jews. That with Tom Lila. But no, the Stones, remember that when Andrew Alden bumps into them on the street, they just, John and Paul just come from an industry awards lunch. And Andrew, who had been PR

from six months earlier, has now signed the Stones and he's taken the Beatles and stones to see each other, and he says, the guys need a single, but needs a song. Because at that time they put out their first single, The Stones,

it was Come On, the Chuck Berry's song, it had failed. And at that time, the Beatles had John and Paul had given songs to other artists that had hits. So Andrews, can you give them a song? Give them a song. And so they go in to meet the Stones, and they say, we'll knock up a song for you. They go to the pub.

They give them, I want to be your man. I hate that song. I know, but here's the thing. So did they. Terrible when they did it. Terrible when the Beatles did it. That's on the worst of the Beatles out. But here's the point.

There's the point. Mick and the Stones are so grateful because a Beatles song was a ticket to success. They put it out. What John and Paul omitted to say was, it's one we're giving to Ringo. So they did it. And that's the little chip on Mick's shoulder that these stones broke with that. Oh, I think it went past that. He does, Mick Jagger just pops up a lot in a Beatles biography.

You know, like he's at the, all you need is love sing along. He's just, obviously it was a small group of, just like here in Hollywood now, the A-Lister's, it wasn't like the Beatles didn't like being Beatles and going out to like the hot club. They want clubs. They took full advantage of that. To me, the fact that Paul McCartney, the biggest pop star in the world in the mid-60s, was living in a garret in his girlfriend, family house speaks a lot to the man's desire for family because he really craved that, I think. And you see that he could have lived anywhere, and he lived in his girlfriend's attic because

he kind of lived with the family. He was on the road a lot, so obviously, and I think he was certainly not like a, I don't think a relationship was even built around monogamy. and probably in later years that became an issue because there's at least three songs that seem like they're shots at her. One is maybe yesterday, I'm looking through you,

and there's another one that's for no one. There's some bleak, romantic songs while at the time he was with Jane Asher. And Jane was a very fiercely independent, working professional actress. So there was a little bit of tension, but Paul was going up. She was upper middle class. Paul was lower middle class.

There was a class thing going on there. But Paul enriched himself. That was why Paul was so upset about all that eulogizing of John as being the only avant-garde one. When it was Paul who was living in central London while the others were living in Serbia. And it was Paul who was going and listening to Stockhausen, and when Paul got to the avant-garde stuff. I'm just saying on the family level, I think he wanted, he loved having a family. even it meant living in the garret because coming down to breakfast when they're all there and hearing about what the kids are doing and You know the Pat are familiar at the head of the table. I think that was all very comforting him and it didn't stop him from what I've read I think this is the Barry Miles book that

You know he was still living the pop star life And you know sure they went on the road Yes Lennon said it was like felini satirical He did And Lenin said on the road of that was like for Lini Satiricon. They had girls being brought up to the street.

That was it. Right. It was very hard to turn them down. Of course. I'm glad you mentioned the Barry Miles book, because when that was an authorized biography, because Barry was a close friend of John, and he was a poor especially,

and they put together the Indica Gallery, which is where John and Yoko meet. But when the book comes out, it's called Many Years from Now, And in it, McCartney reveals that he gave, he was the first person to give a joint to Mick Jagger. Now, when the book was published, when that was announcing...

Dylan gave him the joint, he gave it to Mick Jagger. But the way, it gets better. He gave it to Bowie. The Stones... While he was blowing him. The Stones were on tour. From Australia, just before a gig, Mick gets a press release out,

denying that Paul Evergate him. something as uncool as Paul McCartney gave in his first joint. He's on the road. It's 50 years earlier. And Mick was so pissed off that he is oppressive. He's to deny that he got a joint from. Why would that be uncool? I can't think of a cooler thing to happen to me than Paul McCartney giving me my first joint.

Because it was from the North. Oh, come on. There's just rivalry between those. Listen, when Paul and John did a TV special called The Songs of Lennon McCartney, where they had a bunch of different artists performing, their songs. And John and Paul were roped in to be the MCs. And there's some great people there and great musicians

and George Martin and Silla Black and Marianne Faithful, who's, of course, Mick Jagger's girlfriend. And right at the beginning, they're playing some different audio of different tracks and written by John and Paul, because by 1965, they were being covered by everybody. Ella Fitzgerald, everybody's covering the Beatles. And they play the stone.

I want to be your man. And Paul turns to John and says, I don't remember, did we write that? And John, mindful that Mary Ann Faithel, said, oh yeah, we wrote that one, we were about that high. You know, it's just a slide-dick. And what's the line in,

and your bird can sing? Your bird can sing. Tell me your bird can sing, and your bird can sing. Marianne Faithel, a bird. John is having a go at Mick. Oh, tell me that you've seen those seven wonders, and your bird can sing.

But you don't get me. Oh, that's awesome. You don't get me because John is pissed. That's so great. I love learning something after all these years that I didn't know. And your bird can sing, right. It's like when you get the crossword puzzle answer, it's like, oh, that's what they were meaning. Oh, I see.

And she's a bird, right? She's a bird. That's a thing. Yeah. I mean, the Eagles did it with Steely Dan. Stab them with their steely knives, and they just, That was a deliberate. When you're on that level, you both have a rivalry,

but only sort of know that there's a very limited number of people who know what you went through, what you're going through. Not that it's worst. We're not Marines here. We're not in war. But we all go through things, and it would be nice to know that you can just talk to somebody who you feel like, oh, you kind of must know.

It's like doing the acid. You know what it's like to do this job. I mean, I have it with talk show hosts. just do. It's a small group. It's a very small group. I mean, cops. You know, cops sees another cop at a diner in three in the morning. They don't have to say anything. They both know how they're feeling and what they go through. Right. And, you know, same with the hookers who were in the booth eating. Well, beautifully. Well, cops and hookers are sometimes in the same diner at 3 a.m. Sometimes after they had sex with each other. But when I'm

I did the Hard Days Night DVD. I was interviewing all these people. And I wasn't allowed to interview Paul or George or Ringo because at that time Apple had a very strict policy. We don't own the film. We don't deal with anything we don't know because the film was made

before the Beatles had the power to own it. So I was interviewing everybody else. And I found that some of those people, for them it was the biggest thing. A Hard Days Night was the biggest thing in their life. Whereas for the Beatles, it was just one, you know, it was a few weeks in a busy year. And one of the guys told me

a fascinating thing. I was talking about the scene in the disco and the Beatles are all dancing in a club. And I said,

what was that Swinging London thing like? I was too young to be in those. He said, Swinging London was 400 people.

That's all it ever was. The Time magazine blew it up into this huge thing. It was just the same 400 people. A few actors, a few musicians,

a few artists. It's probably always that. It's all it was. It was just a little clique. Always that. And from the outside, it seemed like this monstrously huge thing, but it was, like, you know, that was the inner side of it. I'm sure it was. Well, is there anything that we should wrap up here that would be like great viral, new information, you know, like, I don't know, they've discovered some age-defying medicine and the Beatles will be re-adminated for a concert on.

Where were they going to do, let it be on a Greek island? They were talking about an ocean voyage. They were going to do it on an ocean. I love that part in the anthology where George goes, you know, there's some of that period, 68, 6970, when they had the boutique, the store, and film ideas, and started the company Apple, and all sorts of Charlottons and Magic Alex,

all that kind of shit. And he said, you know, but at the end of the day, we found out we could only really write songs and sing songs. And it's okay. Like, that's enough. And sometimes people in showbuses get greedy, I feel. Like, if you do one thing really great,

no, there are actors and people who can sing amazing and, you know, direct, there are hyphenates for sure. But in general, like, yeah, I never understood the film part. Like, why they did, they were the first to do what we would call music videos. But they did them like in 1967, the ones I know, we've all seen them, strawberry fields, right, I am the walrus. These are music videos exactly as we then saw in 1980 when, or 82.

82 went out and to D. Okay. So why the 15-year lapse? Why did no one in the 70s pick up on Beatles make these music videos? why that whole decade went by without them. They kept doing performance clips. Nobody understood what the Beatles were doing. But they showed them.

They made them. They did the exact... And they did them originally, just they didn't have to go to the trouble of having to go appear on a TV show. But it's exactly what then was on in 1982. Quick cutting. You show the band, singing the song,

sometimes in different setups when they look different doing it, but they're doing it. They're also doing other things. They're falling down on skis. They're tumbling down a mountain. when they're climbing a tree. Just things go back.

Yeah, it's a music video. And for some reason, they just fucking left it lying on the table for 15 years. I find it baffling. It is baffling. When I interviewed Richard Lester, who did Hard Days 9 help, and was very invented, and it worked also with B.S. Ellens. And he said MTV had sent him a diploma saying that he was the father of music video. And he said he wrote back to them saying,

I demanded a paternity test. That's awesome. He was pissed off. Listen, we've only scratched the surface, but it's amazing how long you could do this. But I'm sure that there are like, you know, radio stations that do it every Sunday are there. Oh, they're not just that. There's on, there are all the... But they're not as good as this one, one.

No, of course not. They're all just poor man's version of this Beatles discussion. We got down to the knitting committee about them. And you're right. We have all these scratch. Now, for example, of obscure Beatle songs, the Holy Grail, the one that nobody hears, have you ever heard colliding circles? No.

Pink lip-lipers paper shirt. No. Left is right and right is wrong. No. Deck chair? No. Who are these? What are these?

But, because, like I must say, when they go into the vault, sometimes they still come out with the gold. I love the two songs on the anthology album. that were stuff Yoko had lying around, you know, on the kitchen floor. I love Free as a Bird. I know it could have been better if John was alive when they made it. They still made a great record. I love that. And I really love.

Real love. Yeah. It's one of their best. I don't know why that didn't. He still had the muse. Yeah. So I don't mind when they do that. But like these ones, but I've also heard some real shit.

And I don't know, what I'm saying is, if we've been digging in this barrel for 50 years, I can't imagine anything down there is like, wouldn't have come up by now. I don't think it's going to be better than real love. Those four are being the most sought after. What are they? Lennon tapes?

No. Sadly, they were song titles that I threw into an article in 1972 when I needed to pad out the article new Beatle songs. You made it up? I padded an article. I was commissioned to write an article for an English week. That's not padding.

That's making it up. Yeah, but I was short of titles. I needed to put in unreleased Beatles songs, and there weren't that many. Because I got all the... Is this a scandal? Only when I fessed up to it later. I did it in 1970.

What was your punishment? George Martin said if he'd had a penny that every time somebody had asked him about these, four non-existent songs, he'd have been really wealthy. It was, there was no... It was only a throwaway. I was just, the article, I was short of songs. So I threw it...

I knew that Apple routinely denied the existence of songs that we Beatle bands knew existed. Like, why is the new Mary Jane? We knew that existed. And I didn't think that Apple would say, none of those songs exist. And by the way, these four definitely don't exist. So I got away with it.

It just padded the article. It never occurred to me, but 20, 30 years later, Beatle, serious Beatles historians had written, seen that everything else in the article was legit, and just assumed that these were real. So they took them a myth, and everyone was saying, oh, John plays saxophone on this,

or George plays Maracas. It just was nonsense. It made me understand how mythology is created. And when I fessed up, I did a one-man show, and I made a thing about, you know, these four songs I wrote for the Beatles. And people said, oh, that's nonsense.

I like the way you did it, but I've heard those songs. So people were saying that some of the doubtings. That's awesome. That's such a great story indicating something timeless and sad about human nature. It's so true.

There's an old story. I remember John Chancellor told it on The Tonight Show when they were talking about like an Israeli peace deal in the 70s or something. It wasn't going well. He said the story is there's an old man. in Damascus and he's trying to get to sleep in the afternoon, but the kids are in the courtyard playing and making a lot of noise.

So he, I get these kids to show us. He goes up to the window and he yells out, hey, they're giving away oranges in the marketplace. And the kids run off. Oh, they're giving away. Goes back to sleep. Five minutes 30, he gets up. He goes, what am I doing sleeping?

They're giving away oranges in the market. All right. I got to go to the bathroom. Bill. I'm going to leave you with George's face. famous exit line. What is it? See you around the clubs.

Yeah. That was their sardonic humor. See around the clubs. That's all he could say to them when he walked out. It was forgiven. Right. There you go. That's a great line.

It is. Okay. All right. Well, we'll have to scratch more of the surface. Anytime. You know, retentive, so I like how far. No, no kidding. Clubrandom