Repsch - 2000;2008;

F ebruary 2 1967. Evening. 304 Holloway Road. Meeks final hours, described by his office assistant, Patrick Pink: He looked clearly sort of sick. He wasnt talking writing things down. In the evening we watched some TV and had something to eat. That would be about 7 oclock. I think I cooked it. He was writing on bits of paper; he was afraid the place was bugged and that he was being listened in to. He suddenly asked me after dinner, Lets go up, lets make your record. Youre more or less up to standards now. Id only recorded demos before but this particular one was promised to come out in March, my own. I have a feeling he had it planned. That was the night. After all those years Id been with him and Id stayed sometimes the night and that particular night: Come on, lets see if we can get a record out of you now.

About 9 oclock we went up into the studio. He had some tracks already made up: the backing tracks. I just did a couple of old ones he had stored away and Id learnt the words from the acetates very quick attempts: about an hour. Then I did another one which Id learnt. It was a backing that was laid down for Heinz; he had already voiced it and the voice had been taken off of it. Heinz had sung it years ago: There goes my baby look at the way she walks. Joe wrote it. Went on the radio once Heinz did it live. Nothing had been put out on record, and Joe said I could have it and get it released.

Then all of a sudden he went really weird and told me to start miming to my own recording said, Just stand there and mime theyre watching us through the walls. Theyre watching and listening . Ive no idea who these people were. Possibly EMI, because days previously hed pointed out to me people in cars sitting down the road, possibly with listening devices, had his place bugged, and they were watching him every time he came in and out and following him everywhere. He got worse then and it started to play on his mind. It might well have been true and he wasnt nuts completely . I genuinely believe, even though he was going off his rocker, that there were people bugging his place. I genuinely believe it now; or whether it was the police watching his place, Ive no idea. Maybe the police had it bugged; might have been the Drug Squad.

I was recording the same song over and over and over and over again. I dont think he knew what he was doing at all. He was putting on a show basically for the benefit of earholes, people listening in. On the bits of paper he was writing: Sing it again, More coffee. I had to keep going down to make coffee. The session would have been about three hours. I went to bed at midnight absolutely shagged out.

I was in bed when he came up to get the gun. It was a single-barrel shotgun. He kept it under the bed for protection. He said, Im taking this downstairs. I never gave it a thought.

At 8 oclock in the morning he was still working, running tapes and things. I got up. 9 oclock I made toast for breakfast and called him down from the studio: Breakfast. He came down, drank the coffee. I dont think he ate the toast pretty sure he didnt eat at all. He wouldnt talk at all. He wrote little notes, passed them over and burnt them after hed wrote them. After hed drunk his coffee he went out in the kitchen and had a burn-up. First of all he was burning a lot of documents, letters and things in the kitchen; it was in a small tin dustbin. He had a bonfire in that. Angry about something no idea what; he was very angry. The previous day he had just been dazed. Now hed changed. I think he had his senses Im bloody sure he had. He was absolutely paranoid but tense and angry. He wrote two or three messages: Theyre not getting this. Theyre not getting these. He went mad and he wrote: They arent going to f get this, and he started to burn that painting on the wall: the one with the little black boys dancing naked round a fire. He put the painting on top of a fire the two-bar fire which scorched it all up. I thought it was strange but I didnt think it was coming to what happened . I thought at the time he was going out of his head and I was going to call Dr. Crispe and he stopped me. He was down for about half an hour. Then he disappeared upstairs to the studio for a little while. I thought, Crikey, Ill be safer to stay down here. So I stayed downstairs. And he came back down to the living room. I think it was about quarter to ten. Give me a little note saying: Im going now. Goodbye. And I didnt know what it meant. I laughed. I thought, Where? The note got burnt and upstairs he went. I thought,Well everythings OK then. Cause he was upstairs playing tapes my stuff from the night before. That went on for ten to fifteen minutes.