JUNE SKINNER SAWYERS - Read the Beatles

Table of Contents

PENGUIN BOOKS

READ THE BEATLES

Born in Glasgow, Scotland, June Skinner Sawyers has written extensively about music, travel, history, and popular culture. She contributes regularly to the Chicago Tribune and the San Francisco Chronicle and is an adjunct lecturer at the Newberry Library in Chicago. She is the author of numerous books, including Celtic Music: A Complete Guide and Tougher Than the Rest: The 100 Best Bruce Springsteen Songs, and has edited several literary and music anthologies, including Racing in the Street: The Bruce Springsteen Reader; Dreams of Elsewhere: The Selected Travel Writings of Robert Louis Stevenson; The Greenwich Village Reader; and The Road North: 300 Years of Classic Scottish Travel Writing. She lives in Chicago.

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First published in Penguin Books 2006

Copyright June Skinner Sawyers, 2006

All rights reserved

Maps by Amelia Janes

Pages 353-56 constitute an extension of this copyright page.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Read the Beatles : classic and new writings on the Beatles, their legacy, and
why they still matter / edited by June Skinner Sawyers ; foreword by Astrid Kirchherr.
p. cm.
Includes index.

eISBN : 978-1-440-64925-7

1. Beatles. 2. Rock musiciansEnglandBiography.
I. Sawyers, June Skinner, 1957
ML421.B4R42 2006
782.421660922dc22
[B] 2006043799

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the authors rights is appreciated.

To the people of Liverpool
past, present, and future

Lord Byron after the publication of Childe Harolds Pilgrimage, 1812

When I first met the Beatles in the Kaiserkeller in Hamburg, it was immediately clear to me that they were something very special. I had no idea, however, that in just a few years they would become the most successful band of all time.

Their unbelievable stage presence struck me with tremendous power. Their musicality, their good looks, and their spot-on humorI had never experienced anything like it. We went to hear John, Paul, George, Stu, and Pete every time we couldfirst in the Kaiserkeller, and later at the Top Ten Club on the Reeperbahn and the legendary Star-Club. They attracted us like human magnets.

As we got to know each other better and spent most of our free time together, I became deeply impressed by their intelligence, their civility, their charm, and their immense curiosity and open-mindedness.

Stuart and I fell in love with each other, and he left the band to study art in Hamburg. Paul took over on bass. And we all continued to spend endless hours contemplating the meaning of life.

We were all very similar: We had, on the one hand, our group of French-influenced German friends in Hamburg, the so-called Existentialists, and, on the other, the American-influenced Beatles. Because it was a relatively short time after the end of the Second World War and because we were citizens of two nations that had recently been enemies, we faced each other at first with a few prejudices and misconceptions. John, Paul, George, Stu, and Pete, for example, would have been more likely to expect a strapping, red-cheeked young maiden with straw-blond braids and a dirndl dress than mea self-assured, short-haired young photographer wearing a leather suit and driving my own convertible. We, on the other hand, remembered the TommiesBritish soldierswho had occupied Hamburg in 1945.

These prejudices soon evaporated and led to a give-and-take that was as intense as it gets. We had so many common interestsmusic, literature, film, and art; we talked heatedly about God and the world.

Of course, the Beatles wanted to hit it big, and they did everything they could by practicing and honing their repertoire as much as possible. George dreamed of being as famous as the Shadows, who were popular in Europe at the time, so that he could buy his father, a bus driver, his own bus. John wanted to be bigger than Elvis.

As the Beatles eclipsed their own idols, the world itself began to change under their influence, even beyond the realm of pop culture, which they themselves had shaped so significantly. They gave young people more confidence and showed them, by example, how to be more critical and more individual. With their wonderful, distinctive personalities, they taught youth how to be different, how to stand apart from the crowd, and how to dare, to experiment, and to assert themselves with humor, intelligence, and tolerancethis and much more. At the high point of their careers, with Ringo on drums, they summed up the spirit of an entire generation in their simple, incisive, and direct way: All you need is love.

It is an honor for me to be able to write the foreword for this book. I am happy to have experienced all of the positive things my friends have brought about. I am also happy that new generations turn to them again and again. Their music has long been classical music; it has become folk music in the best possible sense.

And I am sad that Stu, John, and George left us so early. They had so much more to give to the world.

Any book about the Beatles involves the assistance of many people. In particular, I wish to thank the following: Amelia Janes for her excellent maps of Liverpool; my eagle-eyed editor David Cashion and his resourceful assistant, Karen M. Anderson, who made the often time-consuming process of hunting down permissions and dealing with the subsequent paperwork less arduous; to Lynn Tews, project manager, at the Permissions Group, Inc., who helped with last-minute legal wrangles; my agent Scott Mendel; Elizabeth M. Solaro for the translation of Astrid Kirchherrs foreword, originally written in German; Anthony DeCurtis for his kindness and spirit above and beyond the call of official duty; David Schmitt at Playboy magazine who made it possible to reprint an excerpt from the seminal John Lennon-Yoko Ono interview when I had given up hope; Colin Hall for showing this former Glaswegian parts of Liverpool that I never would have seen without him; and to the people of Liverpool itself, especially Mara Salami at Mersey Partnership; Dave Jones at Cavern City Tours; guide extraordinaire and native Liverpudlian Jackie Spencer at Live@pool Tours; the staff of the Beatles Story museum at Albert Dock, especially Jerry Goldman; and Graham Paisley and Dave Peters at St. Peters Church in Woolton, where it all began those many years ago in 1957. Theresa Albini accompanied me on my journey to Liverpool and was equally impressed with the city and its friendly people. Malcolm Caldwell, poet Dana Gioia, musician Jon Langford, Beatles chronicler Mark Lewisohn, Andrew OHagan, and Luc Sante were asked to contribute original pieces but, alas, time and other commitments got in the wayI thank them nevertheless. A special nod as well to Ulf Krger, Astrid Kirchherrs manager, for his gracious assistance. Anyone interested in the Beatles and the Hamburg connection should consider Ms. Kirchherrs Web site, www.center-of-beat.com.