- 1 day ago
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Short filmTranscript
00:00:00I'm a gem of mine, I'll open up the doors
00:00:09Help me if you can, I'm feeling mine
00:00:30I'm a gem of mine, I'm a gem of mine
00:01:00There are places I remember all my life
00:01:10Though some have changed, some forever not for better
00:01:15Some have gone and some remain
00:01:21All these places had their moments
00:01:25With lovers and friends, I still can recall
00:01:30Some are dead and some are living
00:01:34In my life, I've loved them all
00:01:40But of all these friends and lovers
00:01:48There is no one who compares with you
00:01:53And these memories lose their meaning
00:01:58When I think of love as something new
00:02:03Though I know I'll never lose affection
00:02:07For people and things that went before
00:02:12I know I'll often stop and think about them
00:02:16In my life, I'll love you more
00:02:22Oh, I know I'll never lose affection
00:02:44For people and things that went before
00:02:49I know I'll often stop and think about them
00:02:53In my life, I'll love you more
00:02:59In my life, I'll love you more
00:03:09Help, I need somebody
00:03:21Help, not just anybody
00:03:23Help, you know I need someone
00:03:26Help!
00:03:29Let's go back and get them, eh?
00:03:30I'm going?
00:03:31Yeah, let's smash them
00:03:32Let's find that temple, eh?
00:03:33Right, to the temple
00:03:34A man's got to do what he's got to do
00:03:37I don't wreck all this running away
00:03:38Let's go back
00:03:39Don't know where
00:03:57Don't know when
00:04:00My mother used to say that because I was born, the Second World War started.
00:04:12I spent some time with my mother up till about four.
00:04:15Then my father split. He was a merchant seaman, you know, you can imagine.
00:04:18And it was 1940s in the war and all that.
00:04:30My mom was a Catholic. Dad was a Protestant.
00:04:34They got married quite late.
00:04:36I think they had me when they were like 40 or something.
00:04:39It was quite so late.
00:04:50My father was driving a bus at the time I was born.
00:04:54And I lived in two up and two down, 12 Arnold Grove.
00:05:00We were all roughly the same age and we were like the first group of people who didn't go in the army.
00:05:22My mom was a nurse.
00:05:25She was a midwife as well.
00:05:28And my dad was a cotton salesman.
00:05:32I was raised by my auntie.
00:05:33My father and my mother split when I was about four.
00:05:36But I spent some time with my mother up till about four.
00:05:38Then I was brought up by an auntie.
00:05:41Dad was a, he made cakes.
00:05:44So we always had sugar through the war.
00:05:48Mom.
00:05:48She ended up doing a lot of jobs because he left when I was three.
00:05:52He decided that was enough of that.
00:05:54And so she did any down home job she could get to feed and clothe me.
00:05:59My mother was from an Irish family called French.
00:06:04And she had lots of brothers and sisters, uncles who had bald heads who used to say they got their bald heads by knocking pub doors open.
00:06:15I was terrible at school because I didn't spend much time there because I was also very sick as a kid.
00:06:20And I had peritonitis when I was six and a half, which just means burst appendix and you're going to die.
00:06:28And they said to my mother, you'll be dead three times.
00:06:30But there we are, we're still here.
00:06:32My dad was a musician, amateur musician.
00:06:35And he would play piano around the house.
00:06:38We always had a piano.
00:06:39And I've got some lovely childhood memories of sort of lying on the floor and hearing him play.
00:06:44In those days, they had those radios like crystal sets.
00:06:49You used to have to take the battery down to some shop on the corner and then leave it with them for about three days to charge it up.
00:06:56Everybody has their party piece in Liverpool.
00:06:59You have to sing a song.
00:07:01And my mother's was a little drummer boy she would sing to me.
00:07:05And I would sing Nobody's Child to her and she'd always cry.
00:07:09I am nobody's child, mom.
00:07:12John really loved his mother.
00:07:14Because she was great.
00:07:15I loved her too.
00:07:16And she played a little ukulele.
00:07:18And then unfortunately she was run over by an off-duty policeman who was drunk at the time.
00:07:24My mom had died actually at this point.
00:07:26My mom died when I was 14, which is the big shock in my teenage years.
00:07:31She died of cancer.
00:07:33And John's mom having died, this was always a very big bond between John and I.
00:07:44Rock and roll was real.
00:07:46Everything else was unreal.
00:07:48To me it got through was the only thing to get through to me out of all the things that were happening when I was 15, you know.
00:07:54You women have heard of Jalop and you've heard the noise they make.
00:07:57But let me introduce my new rocket 88.
00:08:00There was no such thing as an English record, you know.
00:08:03I think the first English record that was anywhere near anything was Move It by Cliff Richard.
00:08:08And before that there'd been nothing.
00:08:09But the fact was that there hadn't been a history of making that kind of music.
00:08:13Whereas there had in America.
00:08:15You made me cry when you said goodbye.
00:08:22You can't imagine a time when rock and roll was only one of the musics.
00:08:28No other love ever.
00:08:31Whatever record was being played you'd try and listen to it.
00:08:35You know you couldn't even get a cup of sugar let alone a rock and roll record.
00:08:38When I went to art school, I was at art school for five years.
00:08:41When I went to, this is a sort of college, I went in there.
00:08:44They would only allow jazz to be played.
00:08:46You know they wouldn't allow rock and roll in.
00:08:47It was frowned upon those days.
00:08:48So we had to con them into letting us play rock and roll there on the record player by calling it blues.
00:08:53Well that's alright mama.
00:08:56That's alright for you.
00:08:58That's alright mama.
00:09:00Just any way you do that's alright.
00:09:03I remember being in school when I was a kid.
00:09:05And somebody had a picture in one of the musical papers of Elvis.
00:09:12And I just looked at it and I just thought he's just so good looking.
00:09:15He just looked perfect.
00:09:17When I was 16, Elvis is what was happening.
00:09:20A guy with long greasy hair, wiggling his ass and singing Hound Dog and That's Alright Mama.
00:09:27And those early son records which I think are his great period.
00:09:30That's him.
00:09:31That is the guru we have been waiting for.
00:09:34The messiah has arrived.
00:09:35You ain't nothing but a hound dog, hound dog, hound dog, crying all the time.
00:09:50Well you ain't never gonna rather.
00:09:56You ain't no friend of mine.
00:10:03Yes it's me and I'm in love again.
00:10:07Had no lovin' say you know when.
00:10:10When I was about 12 or 13 when I first heard Fats Domino, I'm in love again.
00:10:16That was what I would call the first rock and roll record I ever heard.
00:10:21And then later on, you know, Elvis, Little Richard and Buddy Holly.
00:10:24There were lots of people coming up then.
00:10:38One of them was Buddy Holly.
00:10:40We loved his vocal sound and we loved his guitar playing.
00:10:44But most of all, I think, was the fact that he actually wrote the stuff himself.
00:10:49That's what turned us on.
00:10:50We got to hear people like Big Bill Brunzey.
00:10:56I think he might have even done a tour of England.
00:10:59Just for these everything.
00:11:06Why did you lose your little hello?
00:11:13Baby, why'd you drop your wings?
00:11:17I was a big fan of his and actually Frankie Lane.
00:11:22Never a pair of eyes.
00:11:25Rabbit's paradise.
00:11:28Receiving me, grieving me, leaving.
00:11:31I was listening to a lot of country and western then.
00:11:35Skiffle was coming through.
00:11:37You know, all those train songs and, you know, Rock Island Line and all that stuff.
00:11:41Well, the rock on the line is a mighty good road.
00:11:44Well, the rock on the line is a road to ride.
00:11:47Yeah, the rock on the line is a mighty good road.
00:11:49And if you want to ride, you gotta ride it like a fanny.
00:11:51Get your cheeky back to station on the rock on the line.
00:11:54I think the first music I can remember hearing as guitar-oriented music
00:12:00was this record my dad brought from New York.
00:12:03It's a guy called Jimmy Rodgers, the singing brakeman.
00:12:09Tea for Texas, tea for Tennessee.
00:12:14Tea for Delma.
00:12:17That gal that made a wreck out of me.
00:12:20I went to see Rock Around the Clock in the Isle of Man.
00:12:25My grandparents took me there after I came out of hospital.
00:12:27And it was just sensational because they riffed up the cinema.
00:12:33And this was good for me to see.
00:12:35When the chimes ring five, six and seven.
00:12:38In those days, you know, they say beggars can't be choosers.
00:12:41And we were just desperate.
00:12:43You'd just get anything.
00:12:44Whatever film came, you'd just try and see it.
00:12:47Rock around the clock tonight.
00:12:49Going to the corner, pick up my sweetie pie.
00:12:51She's my rock and roll, baby.
00:12:52She's the apple of my eye.
00:12:54So when Girl Can't Help It came along,
00:12:58instead of us looking at these old black and white movies,
00:13:00suddenly this was in color and this was in widescreen.
00:13:04And there's a famous bit at the beginning of Girl Can't Help It
00:13:06where Tom Ewell comes on and he sort of says,
00:13:09OK, now.
00:13:11Widescreen.
00:13:20Color.
00:13:24Gorgeous, life-like color by Deluxe.
00:13:37Sometimes you wonder who's mining the store.
00:13:42And you cut to Jane Mansfield.
00:13:44And that's it.
00:13:45The game's over.
00:13:46You know, you went to see those movies with Elvis or somebody in it
00:14:00when we were still in Liverpool.
00:14:02And you'd see everybody waiting to see him, right?
00:14:04And I'd be waiting there, too.
00:14:06And they'd all scream when he came on the screen.
00:14:08So we thought, that's a good job.
00:14:10When I was a kid, I was a fan of Elvis Presley and Little Richard and Chuck Berry.
00:14:17I was just interested in the music and how to do it.
00:14:20How can I do that?
00:14:21And I studied the record.
00:14:23What are they saying?
00:14:24How are they doing it?
00:14:25How do they make this music?
00:14:27What is it that they're doing that excites me that I want to do it?
00:14:30When I was 16, I reestablished a relationship with my mother for about four years.
00:14:34She taught me music.
00:14:35She first of all taught me the banjo, and from that I progressed to guitar.
00:14:39The first song I learned was Ain't That a Shame, an old rock hit, Fat Domino.
00:14:43It's a joke in the family.
00:14:44Guitar's all right for a hobby, but it won't earn you any money.
00:14:48My dad used to be a trumpet player himself.
00:14:50And for my birthday, he once bought me a trumpet from Rushworth and Draper's,
00:14:55one of the music stores in Liverpool.
00:14:59But I suddenly figured out that I wouldn't be able to sing with this thing stuck in my mouth.
00:15:04So I went back to the shop and traded it in for a guitar.
00:15:09So that was a Zenith, the first guitar I ever had.
00:15:12I think hearing a little bit of guitar music made me want a guitar.
00:15:19I used to be at the back of the class drawing, trying to draw guitars.
00:15:23Big, cello, cutaway guitars with F-holes, and little solid ones with pointy cutaways and rounded cutaways.
00:15:31And, you know, I was totally into guitars.
00:15:34And I heard about this kid who had a guitar, and it was £3.10.
00:15:38It was just a little acoustic, round, hall-type guitar.
00:15:42And I got the £3.10 off my mother.
00:15:45That was a lot of money in those days.
00:15:47I used to look in shops and see drums.
00:15:49That's all I looked at.
00:15:50I never looked at guitars or anything.
00:15:51I bought a 30-bob bass drum, 30 shillings.
00:15:56Huge mother.
00:15:57Just a huge one-sided bass drum.
00:16:00And in our area, there used to be lots and lots of parties.
00:16:05You know, your uncle would play banjo or harmonica.
00:16:08My grandparents played mandolin and banjo.
00:16:12So there was always someone playing something.
00:16:14And so I would play my big drum and drive them mad.
00:16:17But because I was a kid, they'd let me do it.
00:16:21George and I lived very near each other in Liverpool.
00:16:23So, in fact, we were just a bus stop away from each other.
00:16:27I'd get on the bus, and then the stop afterwards, George would get on.
00:16:31So being quite close in age, we'd sit together and we'd talk about stuff and that.
00:16:35So, I suppose I used to talk down to him a little bit.
00:16:38Might have been a failing of mine to tend to talk down to him because I'd known him as a younger kid.
00:16:43He was always nine months older than I.
00:16:47Even now, he's still nine months older than me.
00:16:50Paul and I used to just kind of get together, play it a bit.
00:16:54But we were just schoolboys then.
00:16:56There was no groups involved until a little bit later.
00:16:59Oh, baby, now.
00:17:03Shake it up, baby.
00:17:05Twist and shout.
00:17:07Twist and shout.
00:17:08Come on, come on, come on, come on, baby, now.
00:17:11Come on, baby.
00:17:12Come on and work it all out.
00:17:14Work it all out.
00:17:16Paul met me the first day I did Bebopalula live on stage.
00:17:21And a mutual friend brought him to see my group called the Quarrymen.
00:17:26I had a mate at school who was called Ivan, Ivan Vaughan.
00:17:30And we were born on exactly the same day in Liverpool.
00:17:32So we were great mates.
00:17:34And one day he said, do you want to come to the Wilton Village Fate?
00:17:38So I said, yeah, all right.
00:17:40So we went along one Saturday afternoon.
00:17:41And I remember coming into the field where they had the fate and just a bit over there,
00:17:48there was a wagon.
00:17:49And on the back of this, or a little stage or something, on this stage, there was a few
00:17:53lads around.
00:17:54And there was one particular guy I noticed at the front.
00:17:57Had a sort of checked shirt, sort of blondish kind of hair, a little bit curly, sideboards,
00:18:03looking pretty cool.
00:18:04And he was playing sort of one of these guitars, guaranteed not to crack.
00:18:08You know, not a very good one.
00:18:09But he was making a very good job of it.
00:18:12You know, I remember being quite impressed.
00:18:14And he was doing a song by the Del Vikings called Come Go With Me.
00:18:18And the thing about it was he obviously didn't know the words.
00:18:21But he was pulling in lyrics from blues songs.
00:18:24So instead of going, come little darling, come go with me, which is right, he'd then go,
00:18:31down, down, down to the penitentiary.
00:18:34And he'd be doing sort of stuff he'd heard on big Bill Bruinsy records and stuff.
00:18:38So I thought, that's clever.
00:18:39That's the, he's pretty good.
00:18:41That was John.
00:18:43And we met and we talked after the show.
00:18:46And I saw he had talent and he was playing guitar backstage and doing 20 Flight Rock by
00:18:51Eddie Cochran.
00:18:51But the thing I think impressed him most was I knew all the words.
00:19:11So I walk one, five, three, five, four, five, six, seven, fly, eight, fly, more.
00:19:16On 12th I'm starting to drag, 15 before I'm ready to sag.
00:19:20Get to the top, I'm too tired to rock.
00:19:25Well, caught me up on the telephone, said, coming over, baby, because I'm all alone.
00:19:31Said, baby, you're mighty sweet.
00:19:33But I'm in bed with aching feet.
00:19:36This went on for a couple of days.
00:19:38But I couldn't stay away.
00:19:40So I walk one, two, five, five, four, five, six, seven, fly, more.
00:19:46On 12th I'm starting to sag.
00:19:4815 before I'm ready to drag.
00:19:51I get to the top, I'm too tired to rock.
00:19:55I was the singer and the leader.
00:19:58Well, I made the decision whether to have him in the group or not.
00:20:01Was it better to have a guy who was better than the people I had in?
00:20:05Obviously.
00:20:07Or not.
00:20:08And that decision was to let Paul in to make the group stronger.
00:20:12And I turned around to him right then on first meeting and said,
00:20:14do you want to join the group?
00:20:16And I think he said yes the next day.
00:20:18Now, George came through Paul.
00:20:25I said, well, I've got this friend who's really good, you know.
00:20:28And they said, well, yeah, like what?
00:20:30I said, well, he can play raunchy.
00:20:33Perfectly.
00:20:34Down, down, down.
00:20:37And we all love that song.
00:20:39So we said, well, got to try him out.
00:20:42Remember, we ended up on the top deck of a bus.
00:20:45Empty, late night bus kind of thing.
00:20:47And just us.
00:20:48There.
00:20:49And he said, go on, George, get your guitar out.
00:20:50Go on, you sure, man.
00:20:51I thought, you know.
00:20:52And he got it out.
00:20:54Down, down, down.
00:20:55Sure enough.
00:20:56Note perfect.
00:20:57Raunchy.
00:20:58You're in.
00:20:58We were together much longer than the public knew us.
00:21:17You know, it wasn't just from 64.
00:21:19You know, it wasn't just from 64.
00:21:20I was 24 in 64.
00:21:22And I've been playing with Paul since I was 15.
00:21:25And he's very nice.
00:21:26And George, and George, about a year later or something.
00:21:30So it's a long time we spent together in all the most extraordinary circumstances.
00:21:36Well, that'll be the day when you sail the fire.
00:21:43Yeah, that'll be the day when you make me cry.
00:21:46You said you're gonna leave.
00:21:49You know it's a lie.
00:21:50Cause that'll be the day when I die.
00:21:53First thing we ever recorded was That'll Be The Day, Buddy Holly's song.
00:21:59And one of Paul's called In Spite Of All The Danger.
00:22:03And somewhere, it might be around, it's in Liverpool, somewhere, that record.
00:22:07That's the actual first recording we ever made.
00:22:09I think it was starting to dawn on us that it would be a good idea if we could to write our own stuff.
00:22:15Cause there's so many people doing cover versions.
00:22:18And then I sang In Spite Of All The Danger, which is a little self-penned thing,
00:22:22which is very influenced by Elvis.
00:22:27In spite of all the danger, in spite of all everything is,
00:22:36I'll do anything for you, anything you want me to do.
00:22:44In spite of all everything is, I'll do anything for you.
00:22:47Everybody hung around in this club in Liverpool called the Jacaranda,
00:22:53which is near the art school, near Paul and George's school, in the centre of Liverpool.
00:22:58And so we started hanging around there before we really formed a band,
00:23:01you know, when there was just me, Paul and George.
00:23:03In the early days, we used to show up at gigs with just three of us, me, George and John, with guitars.
00:23:11And the fellow who booked us would say, where's the drummer?
00:23:14We'd say, the rhythm's in the guitars.
00:23:16We once tried to do this audition for Carol Levis.
00:23:22There was this guy, Carol Levis, Discoveries.
00:23:24And the scam, what it was, was that, you know, everybody would go on an audition
00:23:29and then they'd pick out somebody for, you know, out of the auditions.
00:23:34You'd say, okay, you, you, and you.
00:23:36And they'd pick out about probably 20 different acts to go on.
00:23:40And they'd have an audience and then they'd have the clapometer.
00:23:42And whoever won would go on into the final or come back next week.
00:23:47And it was just something that kept on going.
00:23:49We went in for one of those.
00:23:51So we were going up on the train from Liverpool to Manchester,
00:23:54rehearsing what we were going to do.
00:23:55And only me and George had our guitars.
00:23:57I think John must have sold his or busted or something.
00:24:00He didn't have his with him.
00:24:01Okay, there's just the two of us with guitars.
00:24:04And as it happened, it looked good because Paul was, like, left-handed
00:24:08and I was right-handed and still am.
00:24:12And John was in the middle.
00:24:14And, like, John stood there with a hand on each shoulder, you know.
00:24:17Think it over what you just said.
00:24:20Me and George, John would do the lead.
00:24:23And we were also going to do Rave On.
00:24:25So we went, we did it.
00:24:26He put his arms around us and stuff and it was okay.
00:24:28We didn't win, as usual.
00:24:30But I believe that day some unfortunate person in that theater
00:24:35was relieved of his guitar.
00:24:37Stuart was John's friend, mainly, from art college.
00:24:46Stuart was a very good painter.
00:24:48We were all slightly jealous of John's friendship.
00:24:51So when Stuart came in, it was a little bit of a sort of,
00:24:53he was sort of taking a little bit of that position away from us.
00:24:56We had to take a little bit of a back seat.
00:24:59The famous stories were he sold his painting
00:25:02to John Moore Exhibition or something like that.
00:25:06So the question was, what do you do with 75 quid?
00:25:09So we said, you know, that happens to be the exact amount it takes
00:25:13to buy a Hofner bass and that'd be a great thing to spend the money.
00:25:17I said, no, no, I'm a painter.
00:25:18I've got to spend on paints and such like, you know.
00:25:21We said, no, Stuart, really.
00:25:23And John and I kind of gave him quite sort of persuasive argument
00:25:27that the best thing to do, obviously, was to buy this Hofner bass,
00:25:30which he did.
00:25:31He went and did that.
00:25:33And only trouble was, he couldn't play it.
00:25:36But it was better to have a bass player who couldn't play
00:25:41than to not have a bass player at all.
00:25:43We said, no, we don't need to be alone
00:25:50My dear
00:25:52I'm very
00:25:54And wanna be my dear
00:25:58We said, yeah, you know what I can act about
00:26:02We can move all the way we're trying to hold my life
00:26:07We can move all the way we're trying to hold my life
00:26:11Come on, baby, don't weep over his eyes
00:26:13It's coming on while I'm trying to run
00:26:16Instead of going to school, I'd go down to his place.
00:26:22He had a piano.
00:26:23And if I'd started something, or he'd started something,
00:26:27we'd say, here, I've got this, and he'd say, I've got this,
00:26:29and we'd start helping each other write our own songs like that.
00:26:32So any combination of the two of us writing, that's how we wrote.
00:26:35John and Stuart had this flat
00:26:42in a place called Gambia Terrace,
00:26:44right near the Liverpool Institute and the College of Art.
00:26:48And I remember one day they came up,
00:26:52John was all excited, saying,
00:26:54Oh, I've thought of this name, the Beatles.
00:26:56John thought of the name Beatles, and he'll tell you about it now.
00:26:59Well, I had a vision when I was 12,
00:27:03and I saw a man on a flaming pie,
00:27:04and he said, you are Beatles with an A, and we are.
00:27:08John put this thing in Merseybeat, right,
00:27:12which was also started by Bill Harry,
00:27:14who went to art college with John,
00:27:17just saying that this little guy appeared on a flaming pie,
00:27:22you know, in the sky,
00:27:23and said, let there be Beatles with an A.
00:27:26I was looking for a name like the crickets that meant two things,
00:27:30and from crickets I got to Beatles.
00:27:32When you said it, people, the little crawly things,
00:27:34and when you read it, it was beat music.
00:27:37You know, I realized by watching The Wild One
00:27:40that the gang was all called the Beatles,
00:27:45and here it is now.
00:27:49You know, I miss you.
00:27:51Ever since the club split up, I missed you.
00:27:54We all missed you.
00:27:55Did you miss them?
00:27:56Yeah, sure.
00:27:56Yeah, the Beatles missed you.
00:27:58All the Beatles missed you.
00:28:02And we are.
00:28:04When we started off,
00:28:06we had a manager in Liverpool called Alan Williams,
00:28:09who was a small bloke,
00:28:11a little sort of high voice,
00:28:14a little Welsh accent.
00:28:15Yeah, all right, Lance?
00:28:16He was a great bloke, a real good motivator.
00:28:18He was very good for us at the time, you know.
00:28:21And we did a tour of Scotland.
00:28:23It was a pretty pathetic tour.
00:28:25By the end of it, we were broke.
00:28:27We had no money.
00:28:28We were all cold and freezing
00:28:30and, you know, just miserable,
00:28:33and that was it.
00:28:34You know, we all came back to Liverpool,
00:28:36and nothing happened, really.
00:28:39We didn't really know.
00:28:40I felt really sad
00:28:41because we were like orphans or something.
00:28:43We didn't have it.
00:28:44Our shoes were all full of holes,
00:28:46and our trousers were a mess.
00:28:48I would say to the others,
00:28:49when they were depressed,
00:28:50or we were all depressed, you know,
00:28:52and thinking that the group was going nowhere,
00:28:54and this is a shitty deal,
00:28:55and we're in a shitty dressing room,
00:28:57I'd say,
00:28:57Where are we going, fellas?
00:28:59And they'd go,
00:29:00To the pop county in pseudo-American voices.
00:29:03And I'd say,
00:29:03Where's that, fellas?
00:29:05And they'd say,
00:29:05To the top-ermost, the pop-ermost.
00:29:07And I'd say, Right.
00:29:08Then we'd all sort of cheer up.
00:29:11And then later,
00:29:12Alan came to us and said,
00:29:14Okay, lads,
00:29:15you can have this job in Germany.
00:29:16The only problem is,
00:29:17you've got to be five people.
00:29:19He's asked for a five-piece band.
00:29:22At that point,
00:29:23Paul was the drummer
00:29:24because all the drummers didn't show up.
00:29:26And so,
00:29:27that's where I said,
00:29:28Okay, I remember this guy
00:29:30who went up to this club,
00:29:32and they were going to be best,
00:29:34and he had this drum kit for Christmas.
00:29:36He was known on Merseyside
00:29:38as mean, moody, and magnificent.
00:29:41Pete Best.
00:29:42People who owned drum kits
00:29:44were far and few between.
00:29:45It was an expensive item.
00:29:47And they were usually idiots, you know.
00:29:49We'd got Pete Best
00:29:50just because we needed a drummer
00:29:52the next day to go to Hamburg.
00:29:53He came down to the Jacaranda Club.
00:29:58We did a quick audition with him
00:30:00and jumped in the van
00:30:02and went to Hamburg.
00:30:03We're going to write a little letter,
00:30:22going to mail it to my local DJ.
00:30:24We ended up in Hamburg
00:30:40at very late one night.
00:30:42We got the timing wrong.
00:30:44There was no one there to meet us,
00:30:45but we could find Hamburg off the map.
00:30:48But then trying to find St. Pauli,
00:30:50the little district,
00:30:51and Rippa-Bahn,
00:30:52but everyone knew.
00:30:53Rippa-Bahn, yeah, it's best there.
00:30:54You're going to miss it.
00:30:55I'll keep it to our house.
00:30:57Oh, okay.
00:30:58So we went down.
00:30:59We found the street and the club,
00:31:01but it was all closed.
00:31:02But we were there with no hotel or anything,
00:31:04and it was now bedtime, yeah.
00:31:07So we managed to shake up someone
00:31:09from a neighboring club or something.
00:31:10They found the guy,
00:31:12and he opened the club,
00:31:12and we slept the first night
00:31:14in the alcoves
00:31:14on the little red leather seats.
00:31:17Second night, we moved in the Bambi Kino,
00:31:19and then we were there for ages,
00:31:20like two months, three months.
00:31:22Everything else was such a buzz,
00:31:24you know, being right in the middle
00:31:26of the naughtiest city in the world
00:31:28at 17 years old.
00:31:30It was kind of exciting.
00:31:32And learning, you know,
00:31:34about, well, there's all the gangsters,
00:31:36and there's the transvestites,
00:31:38and there's the, you know,
00:31:39it was like that.
00:31:40There's the hookers.
00:31:41At that time, we were just kids
00:31:43let off the leash, really,
00:31:45come straight from Liverpool to Hamburg.
00:31:47And we were used to these
00:31:48little Liverpool girls,
00:31:50but by the time you got to Hamburg,
00:31:51if you got a girlfriend there,
00:31:53she was likely to be a stripper.
00:31:54She was the only kind of people
00:31:55who were around at the time
00:31:56we were around late at night there.
00:31:58So, I mean, you'd,
00:32:01for someone who'd not really
00:32:02had much sex in their lives before,
00:32:04which none of us really had,
00:32:06to be suddenly involved
00:32:07with a sort of hardcore
00:32:08striptease artist,
00:32:10who obviously knew a thing or two
00:32:12about sex,
00:32:14was quite an eye-opener.
00:32:17The best things in life are free
00:32:20But you can keep them
00:32:22for the best and please
00:32:23Now give me more
00:32:24That's what I want
00:32:27That's what I want
00:32:28That's what I want
00:32:31That's what I want
00:32:32That's what I want
00:32:34That's what I want
00:32:37In Hamburg, because we had to work
00:32:40six or seven hours a night
00:32:42on stage with no rest,
00:32:47the waiters always had
00:32:49these pills called prelidin.
00:32:51And so the waiters,
00:32:52when they'd see the musicians
00:32:53falling over with tiredness
00:32:55or with drink,
00:32:57they'd give you the pill.
00:32:58You'd take the pill,
00:32:59you'd be talking,
00:33:00you'd sober up.
00:33:02You know,
00:33:02you could work
00:33:03almost endlessly
00:33:04until the pill wore off
00:33:05and you'd have to have another.
00:33:06We used to just be
00:33:07at the frothing,
00:33:09you know,
00:33:09at the mouth,
00:33:10just foaming,
00:33:11just stomping away,
00:33:12doing this.
00:33:13Those were the days.
00:33:16And we had to play
00:33:17all the tunes for hours and hours
00:33:19on end, you know.
00:33:20That's why every song lasted
00:33:2120 minutes
00:33:22and had 20 solos in it.
00:33:23But we'd be playing
00:33:24about eight or 10 hours
00:33:26a night or something.
00:33:27And that's what
00:33:28improved the playing,
00:33:29you know.
00:33:29We thought we were the best
00:33:30in Hamburg,
00:33:31at Liverpool,
00:33:32before anybody else
00:33:32had heard us.
00:33:33We thought we were the best,
00:33:35just a matter of time
00:33:36before everybody else
00:33:37caught on.
00:33:38And believing that
00:33:39is what made us
00:33:39what we were.
00:33:41By the time
00:33:41we all met up in Germany,
00:33:43they were playing one club,
00:33:44we were playing another.
00:33:45Um, they were just
00:33:47great by then.
00:33:48Ringo was a professional
00:33:49drummer who sang
00:33:51and performed
00:33:51and had Ringo's start time
00:33:53and he was in the,
00:33:54one of the top groups
00:33:55in Liverpool
00:33:55before we even
00:33:56had a drummer.
00:33:57Because we used
00:33:58to do long hours,
00:33:59we used to do 12 hours
00:34:00at a weekend
00:34:00between two bands.
00:34:02Uh, when we ended
00:34:03up on the same club
00:34:04and so,
00:34:05if they had the last set,
00:34:06I'd sort of be
00:34:07semi-drunk
00:34:08and demanding
00:34:10they play slow songs.
00:34:12We made friends
00:34:13with a lot of people,
00:34:14the ones who became
00:34:15our real friends
00:34:16were Klaus Bormann,
00:34:19Jürgen Vollmer,
00:34:21and Astrid,
00:34:22who took all the famous
00:34:23photographs of us
00:34:24at that period.
00:34:26Well, she was the one
00:34:27who made us look good.
00:34:29You know,
00:34:29those early
00:34:30Beatle photographs,
00:34:31they looked fantastic,
00:34:32the Beatles looked great.
00:34:34She was dressed like that,
00:34:35the leather gex.
00:34:37You know,
00:34:38and the hair,
00:34:38like the Beatle haircuts,
00:34:40and so they gave us
00:34:41confidence to, like,
00:34:42leave it that way.
00:34:43They weren't really
00:34:43rockers or mods.
00:34:45They were something
00:34:46in the middle.
00:34:46They called themselves
00:34:47exes,
00:34:48existentialists.
00:34:51They were art students,
00:34:52really.
00:34:53I was 17,
00:35:05and when we first went out,
00:35:20they had this kind of situation
00:35:22in Germany,
00:35:24which I'd never come across before,
00:35:26which was a curfew.
00:35:28And after 10 o'clock at night,
00:35:31anybody who was under 18
00:35:32had to get out.
00:35:34And I was only 17.
00:35:35I was sitting in the band,
00:35:36and I kept getting worried.
00:35:39And eventually,
00:35:40somebody found out
00:35:41we didn't have any work permits
00:35:43or pieces.
00:35:45So they started closing in on us,
00:35:47and the police came one day,
00:35:49and then they just booted me out.
00:35:52So the second time we went back,
00:35:53when I was 18,
00:35:55this fellow came into the club
00:35:56who was,
00:35:57they said,
00:35:58oh, he's this famous record producer
00:36:00and musician.
00:36:02He was called Bert Kemfert.
00:36:03He came in the club,
00:36:04and remember,
00:36:05this buzz went around,
00:36:06we've got to be good,
00:36:07play really good,
00:36:08we may get a chance to record,
00:36:10which we did,
00:36:11and we got all pleased with ourselves,
00:36:13and then we got to the studio,
00:36:15and he just wanted us to, like,
00:36:16back up Tony Sheridan.
00:36:18I remember feeling a little depressed,
00:36:19but we did, nevertheless,
00:36:21get to do that My Bonnie.
00:36:24My Bonnie lies over the ocean
00:36:28My Bonnie lies over the sea
00:36:34Well, my Bonnie lies over the ocean
00:36:39Yeah,
00:36:41bring back my Bonnie to me
00:36:44Yeah,
00:36:44bring back my Bonnie to me
00:36:47While we were out there,
00:36:48we started to see other groups and stuff,
00:36:50and started to get a little bit dissatisfied with Pete,
00:36:52not massively,
00:36:53but just a little bit of dissatisfaction
00:36:55started to creep in.
00:36:56I seem to remember him,
00:36:58you know,
00:36:58starting to not turn up for gigs,
00:37:00and then we kept getting Ringo in.
00:37:02Every time Ringo sat in with the band,
00:37:04it just seemed like this was it.
00:37:06And this happened three or four times,
00:37:07and then that was the end,
00:37:08you know, we were just pals,
00:37:09and we'd have a drink after it,
00:37:11and then I'd be back with Rory.
00:37:14And around about this time,
00:37:15Stuart and I got a little bit fraught too.
00:37:18See, because I claim
00:37:19that what I was trying to do
00:37:21was make sure we were musically very good,
00:37:23but this did create a couple of rifts,
00:37:25and I can see now
00:37:27how I could have been more sensitive to it.
00:37:29But who's sensitive at that age?
00:37:30Certainly not me.
00:37:32Well, when we first met him,
00:37:33he couldn't play at all.
00:37:35And he learned a few tunes.
00:37:38Occasionally it was a bit embarrassing.
00:37:40He didn't, you know,
00:37:41if he had a lot of changes to it,
00:37:42he was...
00:37:44But he knew that too.
00:37:45That's why, you know,
00:37:46he was never really that at ease being in the band,
00:37:49and that's why he decided
00:37:50to go back to art college.
00:37:52At that point,
00:37:53Paul was still playing a guitar,
00:37:55and I remember saying,
00:37:58well, one of us is going to be the bass player.
00:38:00I remember saying,
00:38:01and it's not me,
00:38:01I'm not doing it,
00:38:02and John said,
00:38:03I'm not doing it either.
00:38:04I got lumbered with it, really.
00:38:05I didn't want to be the bass player,
00:38:07but there was no one left.
00:38:08So I went and got...
00:38:09I went, before we left Hamburg,
00:38:11I went and got my Hofner bass
00:38:13down in the city center.
00:38:16He went for it.
00:38:18You tell lies,
00:38:19thinking I can't see
00:38:21You can't cry,
00:38:22because you're laughing at me
00:38:23I'm down, I'm really down
00:38:26I'm down, down on the ground
00:38:29I'm down, I'm really down
00:38:32How can you laugh
00:38:34when you know I'm down
00:38:35How can you laugh
00:38:37when you know I'm down
00:38:38And then we went back to Liverpool
00:38:40and got quite a few bookings,
00:38:42you know,
00:38:42they all thought we were German.
00:38:44You know,
00:38:44we were builders from Hamburg,
00:38:45and they all said,
00:38:45you speak good English,
00:38:46you know,
00:38:47things like that.
00:38:48So we went back to Germany,
00:38:49and we had a bit more money
00:38:50the second time.
00:38:51So we bought leather pants,
00:38:52and we looked like
00:38:53four Gene Vincents,
00:38:54only a bit younger,
00:38:55I think.
00:38:57Anyway,
00:38:57we got back to Liverpool
00:38:58and all the groups
00:38:59that were doing
00:39:00this sort of
00:39:01Shadows type of stuff.
00:39:04That's why, you know,
00:39:12we became popular,
00:39:13because they couldn't believe it.
00:39:15There was all these
00:39:15dum-de-dum-de-dum-de-dum-de-dum-de-dum-dee-dum.
00:39:18And then suddenly,
00:39:20me come on,
00:39:21wild men in leather suits.
00:39:23i think it was pete best said to them that uh you know i would uh drive them uh to the gigs
00:39:33and stuff and uh i got i think i got a pound a night or a pound a gig you know five bob off each
00:39:40of them you know they needed transport to get them to the cabin and whatever because they were using
00:39:44cabs at the time i mean on the street in liverpool and unless you're in the suburbs yeah i mean you
00:39:52had to walk close to the wall you know to get to the cabin you know for those of you who remember
00:39:56all that it was no easy matter even at lunchtime sometimes you know it's a tense place we played
00:40:02the cabin before we ever went to hamburg i believe in the days when it was a jazz and folk club i
00:40:11seem to remember playing there and them handing us these notes saying stop playing this music
00:40:19this is a jazz club had a couple requests to do tune gold kansas city so let's do
00:40:31so anyway we did well at the cabin and uh attracted some big audiences and the word got around what
00:40:38had happened was a kid had gone into brian epstein's record store and had asked for my bonnie the many
00:40:44found out that the beatles was supposed to be a liverpool band and they were playing the cavern so
00:40:49he went down the street and and checked us out because i remember bob waller the disc jockey saying
00:40:57and we have a mr epstein who owns them's enterprises in here and everybody's oh wow you know big big deal
00:41:05this was quite a new world really for me uh i was amazed by this sort of dark smoky dank atmosphere
00:41:20this beat music playing away and um the beatles were then just four lads on that rather dimly lit stage
00:41:31uh somewhat ill-clad and the presentation was well left a little to be desired as far as i was concerned
00:41:39because i've been interested in the theater and acting a long time but amongst all that something
00:41:47tremendous came over and i was immediately struck by their their music their beat and uh their sense
00:41:54of humor actually on stage and even afterwards when i met them i was struck again by their personal charm
00:42:01and uh it was there that really it all started brian had this shop and you know it was good we used
00:42:08to get pick up the records and he had this big zephyr zodiac and he wanted to manage us and we weren't
00:42:13going anywhere anyway so you know he said yes you might as well straight away he got us some jobs got
00:42:19us a bit more money and um then started getting us radio shows and things like that and then you know
00:42:26as we go ahead we got into our suits you know he talked us out of the leather suits it was a bit sort
00:42:33of old hat anyway all wearing leather gear and we decided we didn't want to look sort of ridiculous
00:42:40just going on because you more often than not so people too many people would laugh it was just
00:42:45stupid we didn't want to appear as a gang of idiots and brian suggested that we just sort of
00:42:51wore ordinary suits i mean we cleaned up a bit brian cleaned us up a bit when he discovered us we
00:42:57discovered him as paul says it was later put around that i betrayed our heavy leather image that we had
00:43:04at the time and i wanted us to get suits but i seem to recall that we uh all went quite happily i didn't
00:43:11have to drag anyone there to the tailors they all went quite happily you know brian put us in suits and
00:43:17all that and we made it very very big but we sold out you know so you know we gladly switched into suits
00:43:23you know if it was if we were going to get some more money get some more gigs brian was a beautiful guy
00:43:30brian epstein and he was a an intuitive theatrical guy and he knew we had something he presented us
00:43:37well so brian contributed as much as us in the early days although we were the talent and he was the
00:43:42hustler i remember we had to drive down to london on uh new year's eve because we did a a session for
00:43:52decker you know an audition for decker well i popped that first cool cat he said man look at that man
00:43:58do you see what i see well now i want that middle chick i want that little chick hey man they want
00:44:06three cool chicks and when you hear the tape it's pretty good you know it's not great but it's good
00:44:25and it's certainly good for them dick rowe the man who didn't sign us the head of decker he said
00:44:32guitar groups are on the way out mr epstein
00:44:53so brian then had this tape which he hawked around if he hadn't gone around london on foot with the
00:44:59tapes under his arm and gone from place to place to place to place and finally to george martin
00:45:05we would never have made it because we didn't have the push to do it on our own
00:45:09and i think it was somebody in the hmv shop on oxford street knew george martin and told brian to go
00:45:18and play the tape to george martin and then he gave us the audition at abbey road and they came down
00:45:25here and i spent some time with them went through all their stuff and tried to make up my mind which
00:45:32was the cliff richard of the group you know one get one was focused in those days on a lead singer
00:45:38and a backing group and uh suddenly realized at the end of it all and it was nonsense it was a group
00:45:43that i had to take as it was george had done little of no rock and roll when we met him and we'd never
00:45:50been in the studio so we did a lot of learning together he had a very great musical knowledge
00:45:57and background even though they had nothing really behind them they were still fairly irreverent even
00:46:03in those days which i which i loved you know i i i like a little bit of rebel in people and i like
00:46:08their sense of humor after all that was my main stock in trade too and i guess they quite liked
00:46:14what i've been doing with peter sellers and the goons that kind of thing um no i thought they had
00:46:20tremendous charisma i knew that that alone would sell them and we did a reasonable audition not very
00:46:27good but the thing he didn't like was our drummer we really started to think we um needed the great
00:46:39drummer in liverpool there was a wednesday and brian called would you join the band
00:46:48i mean i said what do you mean he said no really join the band and i said sure yeah when and he said
00:46:55now and i said no i can't do that because we've got these older four guys here we've got a gig for
00:47:02months and you know i can't just pull out now and it'd all end so i said i'll join you saturday
00:47:08because we used to have saturday off because that's when they used to change the campus
00:47:13and so i gave rory thursday friday saturday to bring someone in because two open again on sunday
00:47:18which i thought was giving them a hell of a lot of time and uh and that was it historically it may look
00:47:25like we did something nasty to peace and it may it may have been that we could have done it better
00:47:30but the thing was as history also shows ringo was the the member of the band it's just that he didn't
00:47:38enter the the film until that particular scene you know i met paul said do you want to join me band
00:47:46you know and then george joined and then ringo joined we were just a band who made it very very big that's
00:47:53all at this midday session at the calen we proudly present the people
00:48:08so
00:48:13so
00:48:19so
00:49:59We played the cavern. There was a lot of fighting and shouting. Half of them hated me. Half of them loved me. There was a few people there who were shouting, Ringo never, Pete best forever. And after about half an hour I said, oh bugger off or something.
00:51:15Brian Epstein was going to do this. I said, I just want the three others and that's fine. We're going to have Andy White, thank you very much. And I then had to find a hit song for them. The best I could find from them was Love Me Do.
00:51:55It was something so great I couldn't copy when we did the album.
00:51:57Oh, Ringo to this day bears those scars. He says, you know, you didn't let me play, did you?
00:52:02Well, Love Me Do was one of the first ones we wrote ourselves, you know, and Paul started writing that when he must have been about 15. It was the first one we'd sort of dared do of our own.
00:52:16Love, love, love me do. You know I love you. I'll always be true. So please, love me do.
00:52:33Actually, our first record did very well. It sold 100,000 copies. That was Love Me Do.
00:52:39The best thing was, it came to the charts in two days. And everybody thought it was a fiddle because our managers, stores, send in these, what is it, record things, returns, returns.
00:52:51And everybody down south thought, oh, he's blinding himself or he's just a fiddle in the charts. And he wasn't.
00:52:58It was bought by the kids. I mean, we had a big following. And who'd had a record? You know, Arthur Askey was the last one, I think, out of Liverpool.
00:53:07Someone to love, someone like you. Love, love me do. You know I love you. I'll always be true. So please, love me do.
00:53:30Love, love me do.
00:54:00I love you. I love you. I'll always be true. So please, love me do.
00:54:12Oh, love me do. Yeah, love me do. Oh, love me do.
00:54:23We made the record of Love Me Do. Went to number 17, probably based upon the sales in Liverpool. AMI was kind of happy to have us back. Welcome back, lads.
00:54:36We were starting to be this group that had done its own material. But normally, you'd be offered a number of songs by a publisher and they'd say, get your boys to do this one. This is a hit.
00:54:45When we first got in the studio, they tried to give us other people's songs they didn't like ours.
00:54:50Well, it was quite normal in those days to find material for artists by going to Tim Pennelly and listening to all the publishers' wares. I mean, that was a regular part of my life. I spent long time looking for songs.
00:55:03And the songs I was looking for for the Beatles was really a hit song. It didn't matter, so long as it suited their group. And Love Me Do, as I say, was the best one they were able to offer. The kind of song I was looking for, I did actually find. And that was a song by Mitch Murray called How Do You Do It. And I was convinced this was a hit song.
00:55:23It forced us to do a version of How Do You Do What You Do To Me. I wish I knew. You know, like that.
00:55:32And we did record it. John took the lead.
00:55:35How do you do what you do to me? I wish I knew. If I knew how you do it to me, I'd do it to you.
00:55:46George said, well, it's a number one song. You want a number one. This is it. We said, yeah, but we cannot go back up to Liverpool singing that. We cannot be seen with that song.
00:55:58So we didn't never issue How Do You Do It. But I did later give it to Jerry and the Pacemakers. And it did become number one.
00:56:05How do you do what you do to me? I wish I knew. If I knew how you'd do it to me, I'd do it to you.
00:56:16So George Martin says, well, have you got anything you'd like to do? We said, we've got a song called Please Please Me. This is one John had just written. And it was kind of slow Roy Orbison kind of thing.
00:56:28Come on, come on, please, please me. Big note at the end, just like Orbison.
00:56:33And I'd heard Roy Orbison doing Only the Lonely or Something. And I was trying to please me. That's where that came from. And also, I was always intrigued by the words of please lend your little ears to my please, Bing Crosby's song.
00:56:48I was always intrigued by the double use of the word please. And I said, OK, well, give it a whirl. Let's try your song. Let's see if it works. And we did. And at the end of that session, I was able to say to them, you've got your first number one.
00:57:02You've got your first number one. Great.
00:57:04Last night I said these words to my girl. I know you'll never even try, girl. Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, please, please, please, oh yeah, like I please you.
00:57:29You don't need me to show the way, love. You don't need me to show the way, love. Why do I always have to say love? Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, please, please, please, oh yeah, like I please you.
00:57:56I don't want to stop complaining, but you know there's always raining in my heart, in my heart. I don't want a reason with you, it's so hard to reason with you. Oh yeah, why do you make me blue?
00:58:13Last night I said these words to my girl. I know you'll never even try, girl. Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on.
00:58:35Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on.
00:58:37Oh yeah, like I please do
00:58:40Oh yeah, like I please do
00:58:43Oh yeah, like I please do
00:58:54And Bob will look off on the stage, telegramming his hand
00:58:58I've got news for you, the Beatles record pleased me
00:59:02It's reached number one in the national charts
00:59:05And the lads themselves just stopped and looked at him
00:59:09They thought he was joking, he must have been
00:59:11You know, that was Paul, he must be joking
00:59:14And there were a lot of people who didn't know the Beatles
00:59:17And they all started cheering and clapping
00:59:19And there were about three rows of girls at the front
00:59:22And every one of us started crying
00:59:24It was a terrible night
00:59:26You know, we knew them
00:59:27They get famous and they'll go away and they'll belong to us no more
00:59:35You better leave
00:59:39My getting all alone
00:59:45You better leave
00:59:49My getting all alone
00:59:55You better leave
00:59:57My getting all alone
00:59:59You better leave
01:00:01My getting all alone
01:00:05You better leave
01:00:07My getting all alone
01:00:09You better leave
01:00:11My getting all alone
01:00:13You better leave
01:00:17My guitar alone
01:00:22This dog is gonna get you
01:00:27If you don't leave her alone
01:00:30Well, Mr. Dog, I'm gonna get you
01:00:37On the top of your head
01:00:39The chalice gonna miss you
01:00:41You're gonna wish that you was dead
01:00:44You better leave
01:00:46My guitar all alone
01:00:50Well, I told you, big black bulldog
01:00:56You better leave her alone
01:00:59And I rock!
01:01:11Hey, hey, hey
01:01:20Hey, hey, hey
01:01:24Hey, hey
01:01:28Hey, hey, hey
01:01:30Hey, hey, hey
01:01:31This dog I'm gonna hit you
01:01:34On the top of your head
01:01:36Now they're gonna miss you
01:01:39The other way that you were dead
01:01:41You know me
01:01:43My kids were all alone
01:01:48Oh yeah
01:01:49Well I told you
01:01:52Big bad bulldog
01:01:53You better leave her alone
01:01:57Hey
01:01:59You better leave
01:02:02You better leave
01:02:04You better leave
01:02:07Yeah
01:02:10You better leave
01:02:11You better leave
01:02:14Oh you gotta leave
01:02:16Yeah
01:02:18Well I told you
01:02:21Big bad bulldog
01:02:22You better leave her alone
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