Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly - Nashville Songwriter Gary Burr Pens A Novel About A Fictional Beatles Reunion

Episode Date: October 2, 2025

The Beatlology Interviews (Season 2, Episode 1)What if John Lennon had never died in 1980. What if George Harrison was still with us? What would it have taken to convince the Beatles to give one more major concert? In “Reunion: A Rock ’N Roll Fairy Tale” author Gary Burr tackles all those questions in a very entertaining novel. By the way, Gary has also played on nine Ringo Starr albums. He’s got some great inside stories. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Find out how much at Airbnb.ca slash host. Beatleology Gary Burr is one of Nashville's most successful songwriters. He has written 32 top 40 hits, 24 top tens, and 14. number one songs, including one of Juice Newton's biggest hits that you may remember, Love's been a little bit hard on me. His songs have been recorded by everyone from Christina Aguilera, Garth Brooks, Kenny Rogers, Joe Cocker, Leonard Skinner, Tim McGrath, Faith Hill, and many others.

Gary was inducted into the Nashville Songwriter Hall of Fame in 2005. He was also the lead singer with Pure Prairie League for a number of years, and has toured with Carol King. On top of all that, he co-founded Blue Sky Riders with his wife, Georgia Middleton, and Kenny Loggins. He has also recorded nine albums with Ringo's Star and has performed with Ringo's All-Star Band. But the reason I wanted to talk to Gary today

is because he's written a new fiction novel. And I was intrigued by the subject matter. The title is, Reunion, a roll. Rock and Roll Fairy Tale. And it's a story about the Beatles finally agreeing to do a reunion concert. Now, in order for that to happen, something big has to not happen, and something even bigger has to entice the band to put aside their past problems and sing together one more time.

But can they put their past problems behind them? A lot of time has passed since 1970. Do they still have it? can Lennon and McCartney still write together? Do they even like each other after all this time? How do they keep this reunion a secret until they feel ready to tell the world? And how and where do you announce a Beatle reunion to the world?

How much money would it take or make? And where do you hold a historic concert like this? These are the fascinating questions that Gary Burr answers in his rock and roll fairy tale. And it's a good one. So Gary, before we talk about your wonderful book, which I really enjoyed, let's talk a little bit about you. Let's begin at the beginning. So where were you born and where did you grow up? Same place. Meriden, Connecticut, born there, grew up there. Right up until I went to college,

I was in Meriden, Connecticut. Were your parents musical? No, they weren't. They enjoyed singing along to the radio. Well, neither one of the played an instrument. The family legend was that we had a great-grandfather that played the piano at a silent movie house. Oh, really? Yeah, and I actually have a booklet of all these songs that he, I don't know whether he wrote them or just, you know, were someone else's songs that he played for the movies, but I have that here tucked away. So if your parents didn't play, So what were some of your early musical influences? My older siblings, you know, I actually remember with my sister down in the basement

playing along to who was the guy that was a one and a two and... Lawrence Welk. Lawrence Welk. The Lawrence Welk band would play. My sister and I would jump on the couch and pretend to play the instruments. So I knew that even all the way back then, music moved me. And then I had an older brother that got into the folk scene and had an acoustic guitar leaning against the wall. And he was into like Peter Paul and Mary, people like that, Buffy St. Marie,

things like that. And then my sister was three years older than me. So she got into the Beatles quicker than I did. And so most of that music came from, you know, listening outside her door and then stealing the records after she went to college. can't tell you how many people we've interviewed, Gary, where an older sister has been the gateway to the Beatles. Yeah, we all had the records with, you know, the scrawled things that the sister wrote on the records. I love Paul. I love Joe. All that stuff. Yeah, I had all that. When did you pick up a guitar? I was in the summer of my senior year of high school. I had just gone to Woodstock. You were there. Yeah. Wow. And I came back from Woodstock. And I

And I was on my high school soccer team. And during the last game before the first semester of my senior year started, I got my leg broken. And I was in a body cast from, as I like to say, from nipple to toe. I was in a body cast, flat on my back. So my parents set up a stereo that I can reach from leaning over the outside the bed. And I grabbed my brother's guitar because he was in college. and the Mel Bay Big Notes songbook, and I taught myself how to play the guitar.

While you were a convalescing. Yeah, while I was flat on my back. I didn't need a guitar strap. Let's jump to 1974. You're working in an auto parts store. How did you make the jump from auto parts to a music career? Well, once I got decent on the guitar, the guy that I went to Woodstock with was a,

drummer and he knew some other musicians so we started what was for me my first band and like every kid that age I went from band to band to band when I was working at the auto parts store I had just come back from being in California for two years with a band trying to make it big in California it was the first band I was ever in that did original material and that's what made me start writing to compete with the other guy in the band who wrote the songs. And I wanted to be represented. So I started writing as well as him. We were supposed to go to L.A. and rule the troubadour. But we made a quick two-week stop at Santa Cruz in Northern California that turned into a two-year stop. And we never did make it down to L.A. until finally, everybody in the band

kind of stopped caring, or at least they shifted their allegiance from music to drugs. Right. And I got an offer from a guy back in my hometown. If you come back, I got a band waiting for you. So I packed up and I came back when I started work at the... I worked at the auto parts store because I didn't want to work in the family business. Which was... My dad was an electrical contractor.

He had Burr Electric. And my brother had just gotten out of the Navy, and he started... an alarm security division of Borough Electric. And the door was always open for me to come back and work either for my dad or my brother. But I had a feeling that if I did that, I would never get out of it. I would be in the family business and they would just assume that I was going to be next in line to pass down the business. So I tried getting any other job I could to keep from doing that. And that's why I was working in the auto parts and playing in a band and writing songs at night. So that's early 70s.

That's 74, 75, 76. Is that what we're talking? Yeah. So how did you become the lead singer of Pure Prairie League? Was that 1980? Yes. How did that happen? I was writing songs for the band I was in. And at one point, one of the guys in the band said to me,

you got two of these songs that could be on the radio. You should try to get a record deal. So I borrowed some money from my brother and went to a studio. and recorded the two songs. Then I went to our local record store and I wrote down all the addresses of 11 different record companies and made a reel-to-reel tape

and sent 11 reel-to-reel tapes to 11 different A&R departments. You know, just A-N-R department, Sony Records, A-N-R department, Capital Records. And I got 10 rejection letters and one note from a guy at CBS saying, there's something here. give me a call. And he became my mentor and my pathway into the real music business.

Every time I'd write a song, I would send it to him, and he would tell me if I'm on the right path, on the wrong path. And I actually wrote a bunch of songs that he liked, and he got me a record deal at Life Song Records, Tommy West and Terry Cashman. And Tommy West ended up running MTM records for Mary Tyler Moore, for her company. So I got to deal with them. They had a band called Crack the Sky and Henry Gross, and I think they had Jim Crouchy's catalog. And I made a record with my mentor producing under an assumed name because he was producing for another label where we worked for CBS. So I think he called himself Frank Palomino or something like that. And so we the record. And like a month after the record came out, this was in 78, the record label

shut down, which also happens a lot. So my mentor's name was Harold, Harold Kleiner. And so we both said, well, I'll keep writing. You keep looking for a record deal. And in the meantime, if I write something that you think we can get recorded by somebody, do your damnedist. what genre are you writing at that point country rock you know very eagles you know birds kind of stuff so that first record was called matters of the heart and it's not very good but in every song i think you hear a little something that obviously gave herald hope so during 78 to 81 i'm writing songs in the basement trying to get a new record deal

and somewhere along the line Harold called me up and said my friend is producing Pure Prairie League. Do you know them? I said, oh my God, I love Pure Prairie League. They were one of the records that I learned guitar to. Funny thing is, I learned guitar to a Pure Prairie League album,

Tapestry, and a Beatle album. And I ended up working with all three of those acts. Wow. So he said, well, they need a new lead singer because Vince Gill just left. Are you interested? interested and I said, absolutely. I'd never toured before. So I went to Cincinnati and I auditioned and I got the gig. And I played with Pure Prairie League for four or five years. And while I was doing that, one night at home, I wrote a song that got me on the charts and made me a professional songwriter.

What song was that? Juice Newton, Love's been a little bit hard on me in 1982. That's a big song. That was a big song. It was life-changing. By the way, love's been a little bit hard on me was a huge hit in 1982. Juice Newton was nominated for a Grammy for that song, and the very funny MTV video was awarded Video of the Year by the American Video Association.

The song reached number seven on the Billboard 100 and went to number three in Canada. Speaking of Nashville, did you land in Nashville? Well, my first cut was the Juice Newton song. Herald sent that down to someone he knew in Nashville, a guy named Bob Montgomery, who ran House of Gold Music, Bobby Goldsboro's publishing company. And I'm sure he sent it to a hundred other people, but Bob Montgomery said, this is a hit. Call me up saying, hey, somebody's cutting your song, but I never knew who. and then I get the phone call that it's not only, you know, cut,

but it's going to be the first single off of her new album, which is a pretty prime spot. So we were really excited about it. But he was in Nashville, and obviously the next thing is, what else you got? So I had a song that I had written to try to pitch it to Barry Manilow, a big synthesizer string, sappy song. And they took that one.

and gave it to the Oak Ridge Boys. And I said, Oak Ridge Boys can't do this song. This isn't a country song. And they said, well, it is now. And that was my first number one country song. Second song I ever had cut after Love's Been was number one country Oak Ridge Boys. Wow. By the way, that song was titled Make My Life With You, released in November of 1984.

It went to number one on the country charts in the U.S. and here in Canada and stayed on the charts for 14 weeks. So Harold suggested, you know, let's go down and start rubbing elbows so people start putting a piece to the name. And we went down in Nashville, stayed with Bob Montgomery, went to a couple of big industry functions. I sat at some function next to Gene Autry, things like that, Chad Atkins, way back then. And I really liked it down there. And then there was this thing called co-writing. I'd never co-written before because I'm in Meriden, Connecticut.

Who am I going to co-write with? So they set me up with my first co-write, and it's with Vince Gill. Ah. So I'm in a motel room at Shoney's with Vince trying to figure out what co-writing needs. And I started to go down once every two or three months for a few days. And then it was once every two months for a week. Then it was once a month for a week. Then it was my wife at the time coming.

down with me to check out schools and look for houses and neighborhoods and came back. And when the time came to pull the trigger, she said, I don't want to go. I'm going to stay here. You go. Let's get divorced. I got divorced and was down in Nashville. And that was actually a plus career-wise because it really kept me focused. Because my career was costing me my time with my kids. So I was going to make it worthwhile. So I was writing three times a day, seven days a week. And I was able to start playing places like the Bluebird immediately on the good shows because I hit town with two or three hit records. Right. So I wasn't having to explain who I was to anybody. They had already heard of me. And I was considered this weird writer because all my songs were kind of beatily

and nobody else was doing that down here. So that really helped me that I was just kind of ripping off the Beatles for this song and that song and this song. That's how I ended up in Nashville. Like so many of the people we interview on this show, his older sister was his gateway to the Beatles. But Gary's biggest memory of the Fab Four was that historic night on the Ed Sullivan show and a certain drive-in experience.

It was my sister. It was the Ed Sullivan show, but my biggest memory was my parents, threw my sister and I in the back of the station wagon and drove us to a drive in and backed into the slot so we could look out the back window and put on the speaker and it was winter and we were all closed up and we were looking and it was hard day's night and that first chord hit and I could hear 300 muffled girls screaming in the back of station wagons and I never will forget that sound. And it made me go, this is something brand new. And then I remember riding in the car with my mom and a song came on and I had heard kids talking about it. And I went, oh, this is that new

band, the Beatles. And it wasn't their first song. It was the second song. So it was probably she loves you. But those were the things that made me intrigued by them. And obviously when I started playing in bands, 60% of the set list was Beatles songs. First Beatle album or record you bought with your own money? First one I bought with my own money, I was standing on the sidewalk in front of our music store, the music box in Maryland, Connecticut, on Colony Street. And the truck pulls up and rolls up the back, and it's all the plastic wrap, brand new delivery, the album just got there. And about five of us were standing on the

street and the owner came out and we gave him money and he cut the plastic and we got like the first ones right off of the stack they were still steaming from the oven and i brought home sergeant pepper wow and then i remember very vivid stuff i remember hey june was out and i wanted to get it and i just got my license and i begged my parents it was night time to let me drive down to the store down to the mall and buy Hey Jude They let me do it I'm driving down

While I'm in their shop And this fog rolls in By the time I'm getting home You can't see And I'm terrified I'm a brand new driver But I got that Hey Jude sitting next to me

And I pull in the driveway And I hit my dad's car With my mother's car So smash both of them And had to walk in And say You know those two cars you have? Well, they're kind of like one now. I'm going upstairs and I'm going to go play

Hey, Jude, because I figure I'm grounded for the next year, but I've got something to listen to. Too funny. Too funny. Before we talk about your wonderful book, you have a long relationship with Ringo. How did that start? Mark Hudson and I wrote for the same publishing company. So we were put together at various times and got to be really good friends, really enjoyed each other's company, had a lot of laughs. When Ringo came out of recovery, he wanted to work. He needed somebody to write with and produce him, and he and Hudson had the same lawyer. So he told his lawyer, and his lawyer says, I got just a guy. So Hudson does the Vertical Man album with Ringo. And at some point in the process calls me up. He actually called me up

and left the message on my machine and said, you know, I'm putting a band together. We're going to go to London. We're going to do a video. We're going to rehearse. We're going to come back to America and do VH1 storytellers. And you're going to be gone for about two and a half weeks. And I don't remember the amount, but he said, and it's going to be $3,000. So I called him back and I said, will Ringo take a check? Yes, you're going to pay. I'll pay $3,000 to do all that with Ringo. So I flew to London and it was this great band with Jack Blades from Night Ranger on bass

and Simon Kirk playing drums and Joe Walsh on guitar and Jim Cox on keyboards and Hudson playing and me playing. And it was terrifying. You know, first time I ever talked to him, I'm actually up on stage, and he'd even talk to him. And we're playing Octopus's Guard for the first time he'd ever done it since they recorded it. And we stop and Hudson goes, Gary, in the bridge, what are you singing? I said, well, the first two lines, I'm singing a third above. And then the last two lines of the bridge, I'm doubling ring.

And Ringo walks up to the mic, goes, I've known him for two minutes, and I'm, Ring. And I thought, oh, I'm so fired. I'm so going on. But Hudson took me aside and said, no, no, no. He only gives you shit if he likes you. And I said, man, I hope he doesn't like me too much because I'm going to have a fucking heart attack. Well, Gary survived that near heart attack and went on to playing in Ringgo's All-Star Band

and performed with Ringo and Mark Hudson on VH1 Storytellers. that was really really a lot of fun so we played a bunch of things promoting that record then he did the Santa Claus record and I'm all over that doing stuff and then when it came time to write a new

album they invited me to come over to England about an hour and a half outside of London and Ringo had a big manor in a studio and for 10 years or so every couple of years or every year and a half we'd go over there and write and record a new

album. Wow. Yeah, write a song in the morning, record it in the afternoon, overdubs at night, a couple of meals thrown in between. Next day, brand new song, let's go. Wow. Tremendous. It was a tremendous experience. How many albums have you done with Ringo now to date? Nine. I go out to L.A. and go to his house and we write a song and we go into the studio and I play the guitar and I sing a scratch vocal and gets rid of the vocal and keeps the guitar. So, I always get a credit for playing. And, yeah, I've been doing that probably nine records. The reason I wanted to talk to Gary is because he has a new book out titled Reunion,

a rock and roll fairy tale. It's a fictional book about the Beatles getting back together. I wondered if in all the time Gary spent with Ringo, did Ringo ever mention that there was a time when the Beatles were seriously considering getting back? together. We'll be right back. Trivia question. How many years has Ringo and his All-Star band been touring now?

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That's bombus, B-O-M-B-A-S dot-C-A-slash influence and use the code influence at checkout so they know we sent you. Answer. Ringo's All-Star Band has been touring for 36 years. Almost four times as long as the Beatles were together. Considering that Gary's book is always about a fictional Beatles reunion, I wondered if Ringo ever told Gary that the Beatles had once seriously considered getting back together again. Yes, he once told us that in the late 70s, they were all talking about it, doing something. And the holdout at that point,

surprisingly, was George. But Ringo thought that he'll probably come around. And then 1980 happened and that all went. But according to Ringo, that one time, you know, that one conversation about it, yeah, he did mention that. Let's talk about your book. Have you ever written a book before? No, no. A few years ago, I was in a band with my wife, Georgia Middleman, and Kenny Loggins, called Blue Skywriters. We did two albums. And when we were on tour, you know, everything these days is content, content, content. So every night after the show, I would write a blog. about the show, about the trip, about the bus ride, and I tried to make it funny,

and the people that were following us loved them. And everybody, you should write a book, you should write a book. So at one point, I tried putting all those together to see if it was a book, and there wasn't. And then people said, well, you should write an autobiography because you've had an interesting life. And guys like me, we live in the parentheses on the records. And that's not a great draw.

Hey, you want to read a book about the guy in the parentheses that you never heard of? You know, but if I do my job right, you don't hear about me. So that fell by the wayside. But when I was five years old, my grandmother bought me a typewriter. And I started writing my own fairy tales. And when I was in grade school, I used to walk to school. Sound like Abraham Lincoln. I used to walk to school with my buddies and read them my latest composition.

So I always had that creative literary spark in me. But really what happened was the pandemic hit, and everybody was writing songs over Zoom. I tried it a few times and I didn't care for it. So I was looking around going, what do I do? This idea had been percolating in my head for a while. So that's when I, in earnest, thought. after a couple of different ideas of writing a book. This is the first one that actually sounded like he could go somewhere.

So you had that idea, that general idea for this book, just before the pandemic. Right. Yeah, I was in New York walking around. I always go to Strawberry Field and I was looking and I loved the movies and things about, you know, the what ifs. You know, the sliding door, the, you miss the train and everything is different. And I was just walking past the Dakota thinking, what would it have taken for them to have missed each other that night? And what if that was the only night he had the nerve to do it? And what if John had stayed in the studio for an extra couple of playbacks?

Let me hear that again. He gave up because he had the pee. It would have taken nothing, but everything would have been different. And then I started thinking, God, you could really like create a whole new world. You know, they would have done different albums. they would have this, they would have done that. Hell, they might have all gotten back together. And that's when I had the spark of what would be something

that would have made them even talk about. And that's why, you know, you have to come up with two things. The reason why John and the killer miss each other and the reason why he picked up the phone after all those years. Gary's book reunion begins with Mark David's, Chapman jumping into a cab to murder John Lennon, but something unexpected happens, and he never makes it to the Dakota. And what happens to him, by the way, will have a full-circle moment at the end of the book. I was interested to know if Gary had mapped out all the beats of the story

before he started writing, or did he just have the basic idea, start writing, and let the story reveal itself? Yes, the second. I knew about writing the beats and things. Over the years, I've had people approach me to write a musical, so everything in the musical is the beats. This has to happen. You need a song that does this at this time of the night, so I knew about the beats, but I also was amazed at how much the story wrote itself. Because I had been in so many bands that broke up and got back together and this and that, I just kind of imagine what the next thing would be. And while I was writing each chapter, any chance I had to throw in little Easter eggs and things

or some little things that I knew that nobody else knew, like that story about what George is getting gray. Yeah, he is. We're all getting gray hair. No, no, not his hair is skin. Well, you know why, why? He drinks his own urine. And that was an actual conversation they had that Hudson, witnessed. And he told me. He said, he drinks his own urine.

From that point on, anytime, excuse me, I have to rid myself of some urine. So that's the other joke. You know, those little magic things that, you know, the time that Ringo pulled out George's guitar, and when he played on, Ed Sullivan, handed it to me, go, check this out. He's like, oh, my God. You know, had a pick in the strings. still. It was gorgeous. The pick alone I would have grabbed and run out the door if I knew how to drive on the wrong side of the road. So I didn't have the beats and a lot of real critical things were three in the morning when I woke up going, what's going to happen when I did

oh, you know what could happen. And those were a lot of writing next to my bed going in the morning, you know, make do this, do that, do this. In Gary's book, the year is 1998. All four Beatles are still alive. They're in their 50s. And a certain event in Paul's life instigates the possibility of a reunion. And a Beatles reunion raises all sorts of story questions. I was interested to know how Gary plotted the story.

The basic storyline is a twist of fate makes John and his assassin. and never meet. So John is alive into the late 90s. Linda McCartney passes away, and Paul is so distraught that his daughters start to worry about his mental health. And they suggest, how about a benefit concert? You can put on a big concert like Bangladesh, give all the money to breast cancer research. And one of the daughter says, you know, we don't need a hundred different musicians. Maybe it's time just to get the right four musicians together. So that means Paul has to pick up the phone and see if the guys would be interested.

Now, I've been in enough bands to know what that would be like. If I had to try to put a band back together that had broken up 20 years before, it would have been a tough phone call. But the rest of the book is, where do they even meet to talk about this? Because four Beatles in the same room together and, you know, the world would go nuts. If they're going to play, where are they going to do? Where is a venue important enough for a Beatle reunion? And what songs are they going to play?

Are they going to play My Sweet Lord? Well, if they play My Sweet Lord, you might not have time to do She Loves You. Do you do solo stuff? Do you do Beatles stuff? Who remembers the songs? When's the last time they even played guitars? Are there calluses on their fingers still there? And along the way, you got people that would like nothing more than to get the scoop on this and spoil it for everybody.

So you got somebody sneaking around trying to be the one that throws a monkey wrench in. And the other person that might throw the monkey wrench is the head monkey is Yoko, you know, because she wasn't real conducive to a good working environment the first time. And now whose side is she going to be on? John's side, the Beatles side, her side, all the way to the inevitable, is the concert going to happen? And if it does happen, what does that sound like? What does that feel like? What does it feel like to the people out in the audience? What does it feel like to the people looking out the windows listening to the music? And that's the book in a nutshell. There are so many beetle goodies tucked inside that story. For example, you knew that

that Lennon had a favorite cafe in New York called La Fortuna. And you know that David Geffen landed double fantasy because he was smart enough to approach a Yoko before John. And you knew that Spector had fired a gun in one of Lennon's recording sessions. That tells me

you are not just a Beatles fan. You are a big Beatles fan. And I see John Lennon over your shoulder there on the wall of your room. So you're a big beetle fan. Yeah, I always joke with my friends that if I could make a living out of either Seinfeld trivia or Beatle trivia, I would be a very wealthy man, but you can't unless you do something with it like this. You know, I'm sure it's you too. It's in our DNA. And it's the

little things like those little things that when we hear them, we store them up because it makes us feel a little bit like we're on a little bit more of the inside than just anybody else. And I loved doing that. I loved every opportunity to put in a little Easter egg or something that, you know, that I heard. I'd love nothing more than somebody to go, well, that wouldn't have happened. And I go, no, it did happen. Well, how do you know? Well, because the guy that didn't told me, you know? Right. That makes it a lot of fun. Because John lived in your story, there are some interesting decisions you had to make. For example, you say that double-famous. fantasy was a modest hit.

Yeah. I mean, without his death, that's just another album. It helped the arc of the story because if John was firing on all cylinders, he would be less inclined to reach out for the rope that Paul was throwing him. But in the book, he's starting to get a little nervous. He likes walking around and being John Lennon. And the longer it goes before, there's a reason. for people to go, oh, look, it's John Lennon, the less he likes it. And I just feel that way.

If you ever could listen to that record and take away the emotional impact of knowing what was happening when the record came out and just listen to it as a record, you'd go, yeah, it's one of his better ones, but it's no plastic ono band. You also in your story say that both John and Paul were knighted. That's an interesting decision you make, because Lennon was so am. anti-establishment. I wonder if he would, in real life, have accepted a knighthood. It's interesting. Like Keith Richards wouldn't, right? Well, I remember that we wrote a song on one of Ringo's albums. I think Ringo-Rama may be called Elizabeth Raines. And it's about the royal family. And he was just going on and on about not being much of a fan. And yet when the time came, He recognized it for the honor it was

and what it meant to his family and he dressed in the top hat and the tails and he showed up and he got knighted. Could have had him do anything, but I had him take it. You know, also the competition. If Paul was getting it, he'd won it. When we come back, George Harrison is not sure he wants the band to get back together.

When you're writing about a potential Beatles reunion, almost 30 years after the band broke up, you have to keep in mind that the Beatles would be very different people in 1998 than they were in 1970. They have each had solo success and solo failures. They have said things about each other in the press, and there is a lot of water under the bridge. I was keen to know how Gary handled that imaginary scenario.

For example, in the book, as in real life, it's George Harrison who is the holdout when they talk about reuniting. He wasn't given much space on Beatles' records as a rule, but since then he'd had a lot of success. In the novel, Lennon and McCartney decide to write a new song for the reunion concert, but Harrison is miffed he wasn't asked to contribute. Yeah, yeah. I like that, you know, when his wife says, well, did you want to write it?

No. Those bastards. You know, how dare they make you do something you don't want to do? But for me, what I found interesting in the force of getting back together is there's no way it could be the same dynamic that it used to be. Right. You know, Ringo can't be his one song and George can't be the token little brother. So, yeah, when time came, I just found it interesting that they were. would have never even considered asking him to do it.

He just wanted to be asked to be on equal footing after all these years. There is an antagonist in the novel. It is a reporter who is sniffing around while the Beatles are trying to keep this possible reunion a secret while they work everything out. And if the word gets out too early, or if they're not ready, or if they decide not to reunite, it poses a big problem. And Yoko plays a surprising and critical role in this story. Yeah, I mean, I think it would be the obvious thing for everybody

when they decide whether or not they're going to do this. The first thing that would cross Yoko's mind would be, and where do I stand? Where are you going to Mike my Kangadra? So that's going to be a conflict right there when John goes home and has to say it isn't going to happen. But it's a famous story that he was asked to do Bangladesh. And George was adamant that it's you, not you and Yoko.

And John said, no Yoko, no me. And so he wasn't at Bangladesh. You know, if it was that, then why wouldn't it be this? Okay, Yoko and I will come to the first rehearsal. No, no, just you. No Yoko, no me. So that set up so much of a fun dynamic of will, they, won't they, that I had to do it. Clearly, there are a lot of issues and hurdles the Beatles have to face on the way to a possible reunion.

And I won't tell you if the reunion succeeds. You'll have to read the book to find out. And there was one more big surprise waiting in the epilogue of this story. And I won't give that away either, but it's maybe the best surprise in the book. I was interested to know if Gary had that in mind before he put pen to paper, or if it came to him as part of the evolution of the story. It was not only part of the evolution, but the whole book was written and ready to go when I bolted up in the middle of the night and went,

oh, wait a minute. And I came downstairs and wrote the epilogue, put it in, moved at the end, three pages farther down, and went, now it's done. Wow. That's one of those moments that just jolt you out of a chair. I think that was one of the best moments in the book. interesting to hear that it came to you so late in the process. Yeah, yeah.

I wasn't really looking for something. I didn't feel that there was anything missing. I thought I had a really good ending. You know, I've had that happen with songwriting, too. I've had lines and songs that people come up and go, oh my God, where did you come up with that line? And I'm going, when I wrote that line down, I looked at it and went, where the hell did that come from?

And that's just what happens when you're lucky enough to have the antenna go up at just the right time. Do you know if Ringo's read the book? I know he has the book. I was with Greg Bissonette the other day. And he said, I asked Ringo if he read Gary's book. And Ringo said, I've got it. I haven't read.

Have you read it? I said, yeah, man, it's great. You really ought to read it. And Ringo just kind of went, huh. But when I told Ringo that I was writing this, because I wanted to clear it with him. Oh, so he knew. Okay. Yeah.

Way back at the beginning of the pandemic, I said, this is what I've started, but I don't want it to mess with us. because I don't have to do this. I have a day job. So he said, Gary, long ago we lost the right to tell people what they can and can't write about us. And I certainly would never tell you what you can or can't do with your art. So you write the book. I don't want to read the book.

I'm just going to wait until it comes out and I'm going to shit all over it. There you go. Which is perfect. Rolling Stones came out about the same time, roughly as the Beatles, the British invasion. They've lasted. They still tour. They have a deep song catalog like the Beatles. Mick and Keith are characters like John and Paul were.

But not nearly the intense fan interest in the Stones as there is in the Beatles. Why do you think that is? I don't know. You think maybe it's because they didn't break up? Is it just the familiarity of it? I always make the observation that I could go a month and not hear anybody mention the Stones or Led Zeppelin or Linda Ronstadt or see a t-shirt of the stones. But not one day goes by where I don't see somebody wearing a beetle t-shirt,

hear it playing on the grocery store, hear it on the radio. Not a day goes by that something Beatles doesn't hit me. I can go a month and never hear the Pope mentioned. True. But you can't go a day and not hear the Beatles or about the Beatles. There's so much going on in the Beatle world right now, too, Gary. There's the new film, Beatle 64, is on Disney Plus. We interviewed director David Tedeschi about it.

It's fantastic. Produced by Martin Scorsese. There's a Brian Epstein biopic in the works. There's new Beatle solo box sets coming out. still such an ongoing intense fascination with this band all these years later. I think it also has to do with, in a really dark period in American history, they were the light. The stones weren't. The stones were, fight your way out of the streets,

but the Beatles were appealing always to our better angels. And I don't think we ever don't. owe them for that. And I think that might be a reason why when you think of the stones, you think of rock and roll, you think of aggression, you think of a beat, you think of dancing. When you think of the Beatles, you think of peace and love. Name me. Who else? Who else? So very true. By the way, this Beatles film is all about how they were a light in the darkness, Gary. Just as a side note, the interviewer, and he has this great line. He says, you know, I don't think parents, ever got over the assassination of JFK, but kids did.

I thought that was such a great line because he was talking about the joy that the Beatles brought in that darkness of grieving in that. It was only a couple of months. JFK died in November. They arrived in February. It's just a couple of months, right? Yeah, that's a really good way to look at it. It's kind of a shame.

We did have them to lift us out of the gloom and the parents didn't. Yeah, I like that. I like that a lot. In Gary's book, as we've mentioned, John and Paul write a new song for the reunion. Gary has recorded a song with the same title, and it features a very special guest musician. Right. At the end of the book, there's a QR code where you can get the song, and the song is called Peace and Love, and I wrote it to be as beatily as I could make it. And it actually has Ringo playing the drums.

So that doesn't make it a Beatles song, but it's kind of fun. to listen to it because he's a very distinctive drummer and it just kind of closed the circle for the book. Yeah, it's such a great thing at the end of the book to discover that. We shout about peace and love No one seems to hear Or the noise we make Seems to be falling on deaf ears We shout about no more war

But the bombs still fall And the ones we need to listen don't seem to listen at all we might be shouting about a dream that won't come true we might be shouting till our faces all turn some shade of blue

but if the world don't want to listen here's what we're gonna do we'll all shout a little louder We'll just shout a little louder You shouted for 50 years It might take 50 more I don't know how a righteous crowd This loud can be ignored

We're not going to go away We're not going to change the song because when it comes to peace and love we're right and they're all wrong we might be shouting loud a dream that won't come true we might be shouting till our faces

all turn some shade of blue but if the world don't want to listen here's what we're gonna do we'll all shout a little I'll walk out a little louder. Walk out a little louder. We might be shouting about a dream that won't come true We might be shouting till our faces

I'll turn some shade of blue But if the world don't want to listen Here's what we're going to do We'll all shout a little louder We'll all shout a little louder We'll all shout a little louder A shout a little louder Oh I shout a little louder

We say it's louder Oh, sound a little louder We'll sound a little louder You know, it's great to not know what I'm doing. So what's up next for Gary Burr? What are you working on? What's going on? Well, I'm actually turning the book into a screenplay. Ah, excellent.

Because there's always room for another Beatles movie. Yes. And that's a whole new craft to learn. I've actually written a second book and on about the third draft. After that, got a song on Tenney Chesney's new album that I'm really, really proud of that I wrote with Mike Reed, guy who wrote, I Can't Make You Love Me for Bonnie Wright, and been busy traveling, traveling, traveling, and next year, me and Mark Hudson and our friend Mark Miranda have a Crosby Stills and Nash tribute band, and we travel all over the country playing

Crosby Stills and Nash. The Laurel Canyon Band? Laurel Canyon Band, so that's a lot of fun. We do that two or three times a month. We get together and play Sweet Judy Blue Eyes, and it's really fun. And just trying to stay busy into the cocktail hours of my life. That was my interview with Gary Burr, and a big thank you goes out to Gary. You can find his book and audiobook on Amazon and on Gary's website, Garyburr.com, and that's spelled B-U-R-R-R. and he'll happily sign copies for you there.

By the way, he even includes an imaginary Beatles reunion set list on the last page of the book. And thanks to Gary for the permission to play Peace and Love in this podcast. Keep your eye out for Gary Burr he performs in various cities throughout the year. And keep your eye open for a possible film version of Reunion, a rock and roll fairy tale, coming to a screen hopefully near you one day. I'm Terry O'Reilly. This episode was recorded in the Terestream Mobile Recording Studio. Director Callie O'Reilly, producer Debbie O'Reilly, Chief Sound Engineer Jeff Devine.

Tunes provided by APM Music, follow me on social at Terry O'Influence. This podcast is powered by ACAST. If you enjoyed this episode, listen to my interview with actor Mark Hamill. Mark is not only a Beatles memorabilia collector, he is a collectible. It's a fun conversation. And stay tuned for more Beatilology interviews coming up. Here's a question. How can you support Canada while you sleep?

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