Podcast appearances and mentions of Hunter Davies

In which we pedal the conversational tandem uphill and down dale, like a rabbit through the pea-vine or a turkey through the corn, stopping for moments of reflection which include … … “If someone wants to steal your music, it means your music's worth stealing.” … cats, birdsong: spot the ‘silent track' by Kate Bush.   … when Gene Hackman smiles, be very afraid. … what was written on Walter Matthau's funeral card. … “Home-Taping Is Killing Music!” and other threats that failed to sink the business.  … double albums: never mind the quality, feel the width. … how Exile On Main St became a symbol of peak-Stones grimy decadence. … Hunter Davies, Mark Lewisohn, Ian Leslie, Richard DiLello?: the best Beatles book ever written? … “is genius worth the collateral damage?”: homelife in Frank Zappa's house. … things we never say on the Word podcast. … when rock critics get it wrong. Plus birthday guest Nick Foreman flies the flag for Hunter Davies.Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In which we pedal the conversational tandem uphill and down dale, like a rabbit through the pea-vine or a turkey through the corn, stopping for moments of reflection which include … … “If someone wants to steal your music, it means your music's worth stealing.” … cats, birdsong: spot the ‘silent track' by Kate Bush.   … when Gene Hackman smiles, be very afraid. … what was written on Walter Matthau's funeral card. … “Home-Taping Is Killing Music!” and other threats that failed to sink the business.  … double albums: never mind the quality, feel the width. … how Exile On Main St became a symbol of peak-Stones grimy decadence. … Hunter Davies, Mark Lewisohn, Ian Leslie, Richard DiLello?: the best Beatles book ever written? … “is genius worth the collateral damage?”: homelife in Frank Zappa's house. … things we never say on the Word podcast. … when rock critics get it wrong. Plus birthday guest Nick Foreman flies the flag for Hunter Davies.Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In which we pedal the conversational tandem uphill and down dale, like a rabbit through the pea-vine or a turkey through the corn, stopping for moments of reflection which include … … “If someone wants to steal your music, it means your music's worth stealing.” … cats, birdsong: spot the ‘silent track' by Kate Bush.   … when Gene Hackman smiles, be very afraid. … what was written on Walter Matthau's funeral card. … “Home-Taping Is Killing Music!” and other threats that failed to sink the business.  … double albums: never mind the quality, feel the width. … how Exile On Main St became a symbol of peak-Stones grimy decadence. … Hunter Davies, Mark Lewisohn, Ian Leslie, Richard DiLello?: the best Beatles book ever written? … “is genius worth the collateral damage?”: homelife in Frank Zappa's house. … things we never say on the Word podcast. … when rock critics get it wrong. Plus birthday guest Nick Foreman flies the flag for Hunter Davies.Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hunter Davies – Letters to Margaret: confessions to my late wife...with TRE's Selina MacKenzie

SUMMARY Unseen Paul builds on our earlier episodes by sharing even more quotes, stories, and insights about young Paul McCartney, who deserves a nuanced and dynamic portrait in any Beatles biography. We explore some of his more overlooked character traits: his quirks and gifts; his stressors and anxieties; his unusual interests and values. These features reveal him as a fascinatingly dualistic artist and person. SOURCES Paul McCartney: the Definitive Biography by Chris Salewicz (1986) The Beatles by Bob Spitz (2005) “Portrait of Paul” Women Magazine by Mike McCartney (1965) Magical Mystery Tours: My Time with the Beatles by Tony Bramwell (2006) Many Years From Now by Barry Miles (1997) Thank U Very Much by Mike McCartney Paul McCartney on Howard Stern (2021) “A Political Paul” Interview w/ Jonathan Powers for Prospect Magazine (Jan 17, 2009) Paul McCartney interview w/ Hot Press magazine (2002) Maureen Cleave “Intelligent Beatle” “Mockers” Interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9e6zHA6eOY&t=116s The Beatles Authorized Biography by Hunter Davies (1968) The Beatles diary: Volume 1 by Barry Miles (2001) BBC Interview “dyslexia”  (October 4, 1997) https://www.effinghamradio.com/2023/06/15/happy-birthday-paul-mccartney-2 Angie McCartney Interview w/ Geoffrey Guiliano (1984) https://www.tumblr.com/pleasantlyinsincere/697307027602571264/angie-and-ruth-mccartney-on-saying-i-love-you-in?source=share Mike McCartney; Beatles Book Monthly Magazine (1992) Paul McCartney for New York Times Magazine (2020) THE LYRICS by Paul McCartney and Paul Muldoon (2021) Icke, Evelyn Hamann und die Beatles: Eine Art Biografie by Hans “Icke” Braun (2019) A Cellar Full of Noise by Brian Epstein (1964) Allan Williams quote from Music Legends The Beatles Special Edition by The Rock Review Music Legends Library (Sept 2, 2019) https://issuu.com/codarecordsltd/docs/music_legends_beatles_special_edition Interview w/ Horst Fascher for Deutschlandfunk Kultur (2006) Astrid Kirchherr Interviewed by Colin Hall for Get Rhythm (August 2001) PLAYLIST Stairway to Paradise SARAH VAUGHAN 4 Pointers 1 TREVOR DUNCAN Fine and Mellow ETTA JONES Welcome to My World JIM REEVES El Paso MARTY ROBBINS You Go To My Head BILLIE HOLIDAY Nature Boy NAT KING COLE Black and White EARL ROBINSON My Bucket's Got a Hole in it HANK WILLIAMS Spoonful HOWLIN WOLF Since I Don't Have You THE SKYLINERS Perhaps DORIS DAY Lonesome Town RICKY NELSON Love to Love NINA SIMONE

Episode 171 looks at "Hey Jude", the White Album, and the career of the Beatles from August 1967 through November 1968. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a fifty-seven-minute bonus episode available, on "I Love You" by People!. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Errata Not really an error, but at one point I refer to Ornette Coleman as a saxophonist. While he was, he plays trumpet on the track that is excerpted after that. Resources No Mixcloud this week due to the number of songs by the Beatles. I have read literally dozens of books on the Beatles, and used bits of information from many of them. All my Beatles episodes refer to: The Complete Beatles Chronicle by Mark Lewisohn, All The Songs: The Stories Behind Every Beatles Release by Jean-Michel Guesdon, And The Band Begins To Play: The Definitive Guide To The Songs of The Beatles by Steve Lambley, The Beatles By Ear by Kevin Moore, Revolution in the Head by Ian MacDonald, and The Beatles Anthology. For this episode, I also referred to Last Interview by David Sheff, a longform interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono from shortly before Lennon's death; Many Years From Now by Barry Miles, an authorised biography of Paul McCartney; and Here, There, and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles by Geoff Emerick and Howard Massey. This time I also used Steve Turner's The Beatles: The Stories Behind the Songs 1967-1970. I referred to Philip Norman's biographies of John Lennon, George Harrison, and Paul McCartney, to Graeme Thomson's biography of George Harrison, Take a Sad Song by James Campion, Yoko Ono: An Artful Life by Donald Brackett, Those Were the Days 2.0 by Stephan Granados, and Sound Pictures by Kenneth Womack. Sadly the only way to get the single mix of “Hey Jude” is on this ludicrously-expensive out-of-print box set, but a remixed stereo mix is easily available on the new reissue of the 1967-70 compilation. The original mixes of the White Album are also, shockingly, out of print, but this 2018 remix is available for the moment. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Before I start, a quick note -- this episode deals, among other topics, with child abandonment, spousal neglect, suicide attempts, miscarriage, rape accusations, and heroin addiction. If any of those topics are likely to upset you, you might want to check the transcript rather than listening to this episode. It also, for once, contains a short excerpt of an expletive, but given that that expletive in that context has been regularly played on daytime radio without complaint for over fifty years, I suspect it can be excused. The use of mantra meditation is something that exists across religions, and which appears to have been independently invented multiple times, in multiple cultures. In the Western culture to which most of my listeners belong, it is now best known as an aspect of what is known as "mindfulness", a secularised version of Buddhism which aims to provide adherents with the benefits of the teachings of the Buddha but without the cosmology to which they are attached. But it turns up in almost every religious tradition I know of in one form or another. The idea of mantra meditation is a very simple one, and one that even has some basis in science. There is a mathematical principle in neurology and information science called the free energy principle which says our brains are wired to try to minimise how surprised we are --  our brain is constantly making predictions about the world, and then looking at the results from our senses to see if they match. If they do, that's great, and the brain will happily move on to its next prediction. If they don't, the brain has to update its model of the world to match the new information, make new predictions, and see if those new predictions are a better match. Every person has a different mental model of the world, and none of them match reality, but every brain tries to get as close as possible. This updating of the model to match the new information is called "thinking", and it uses up energy, and our bodies and brains have evolved to conserve energy as much as possible. This means that for many people, most of the time, thinking is unpleasant, and indeed much of the time that people have spent thinking, they've been thinking about how to stop themselves having to do it at all, and when they have managed to stop thinking, however briefly, they've experienced great bliss. Many more or less effective technologies have been created to bring about a more minimal-energy state, including alcohol, heroin, and barbituates, but many of these have unwanted side-effects, such as death, which people also tend to want to avoid, and so people have often turned to another technology. It turns out that for many people, they can avoid thinking by simply thinking about something that is utterly predictable. If they minimise the amount of sensory input, and concentrate on something that they can predict exactly, eventually they can turn off their mind, relax, and float downstream, without dying. One easy way to do this is to close your eyes, so you can't see anything, make your breath as regular as possible, and then concentrate on a sound that repeats over and over.  If you repeat a single phrase or word a few hundred times, that regular repetition eventually causes your mind to stop having to keep track of the world, and experience a peace that is, by all accounts, unlike any other experience. What word or phrase that is can depend very much on the tradition. In Transcendental Meditation, each person has their own individual phrase. In the Catholicism in which George Harrison and Paul McCartney were raised, popular phrases for this are "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner" or "Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen." In some branches of Buddhism, a popular mantra is "_NAMU MYŌHŌ RENGE KYŌ_". In the Hinduism to which George Harrison later converted, you can use "Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama Hare Hare", "Om Namo Bhagavate Vāsudevāya" or "Om Gam Ganapataye Namaha". Those last two start with the syllable "Om", and indeed some people prefer to just use that syllable, repeating a single syllable over and over again until they reach a state of transcendence. [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Hey Jude" ("na na na na na na na")] We don't know much about how the Beatles first discovered Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, except that it was thanks to Pattie Boyd, George Harrison's then-wife. Unfortunately, her memory of how she first became involved in the Maharishi's Spiritual Regeneration Movement, as described in her autobiography, doesn't fully line up with other known facts. She talks about reading about the Maharishi in the paper with her friend Marie-Lise while George was away on tour, but she also places the date that this happened in February 1967, several months after the Beatles had stopped touring forever. We'll be seeing a lot more of these timing discrepancies as this story progresses, and people's memories increasingly don't match the events that happened to them. Either way, it's clear that Pattie became involved in the Spiritual Regeneration Movement a good length of time before her husband did. She got him to go along with her to one of the Maharishi's lectures, after she had already been converted to the practice of Transcendental Meditation, and they brought along John, Paul, and their partners (Ringo's wife Maureen had just given birth, so they didn't come). As we heard back in episode one hundred and fifty, that lecture was impressive enough that the group, plus their wives and girlfriends (with the exception of Maureen Starkey) and Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull, all went on a meditation retreat with the Maharishi at a holiday camp in Bangor, and it was there that they learned that Brian Epstein had been found dead. The death of the man who had guided the group's career could not have come at a worse time for the band's stability.  The group had only recorded one song in the preceding two months -- Paul's "Your Mother Should Know" -- and had basically been running on fumes since completing recording of Sgt Pepper many months earlier. John's drug intake had increased to the point that he was barely functional -- although with the enthusiasm of the newly converted he had decided to swear off LSD at the Maharishi's urging -- and his marriage was falling apart. Similarly, Paul McCartney's relationship with Jane Asher was in a bad state, though both men were trying to repair their damaged relationships, while both George and Ringo were having doubts about the band that had made them famous. In George's case, he was feeling marginalised by John and Paul, his songs ignored or paid cursory attention, and there was less for him to do on the records as the group moved away from making guitar-based rock and roll music into the stranger areas of psychedelia. And Ringo, whose main memory of the recording of Sgt Pepper was of learning to play chess while the others went through the extensive overdubs that characterised that album, was starting to feel like his playing was deteriorating, and that as the only non-writer in the band he was on the outside to an extent. On top of that, the group were in the middle of a major plan to restructure their business. As part of their contract renegotiations with EMI at the beginning of 1967, it had been agreed that they would receive two million pounds -- roughly fifteen million pounds in today's money -- in unpaid royalties as a lump sum. If that had been paid to them as individuals, or through the company they owned, the Beatles Ltd, they would have had to pay the full top rate of tax on it, which as George had complained the previous year was over ninety-five percent. (In fact, he'd been slightly exaggerating the generosity of the UK tax system to the rich, as at that point the top rate of income tax was somewhere around ninety-seven and a half percent). But happily for them, a couple of years earlier the UK had restructured its tax laws and introduced a corporation tax, which meant that the profits of corporations were no longer taxed at the same high rate as income. So a new company had been set up, The Beatles & Co, and all the group's non-songwriting income was paid into the company. Each Beatle owned five percent of the company, and the other eighty percent was owned by a new partnership, a corporation that was soon renamed Apple Corps -- a name inspired by a painting that McCartney had liked by the artist Rene Magritte. In the early stages of Apple, it was very entangled with Nems, the company that was owned by Brian and Clive Epstein, and which was in the process of being sold to Robert Stigwood, though that sale fell through after Brian's death. The first part of Apple, Apple Publishing, had been set up in the summer of 1967, and was run by Terry Doran, a friend of Epstein's who ran a motor dealership -- most of the Apple divisions would be run by friends of the group rather than by people with experience in the industries in question. As Apple was set up during the point that Stigwood was getting involved with NEMS, Apple Publishing's initial offices were in the same building with, and shared staff with, two publishing companies that Stigwood owned, Dratleaf Music, who published Cream's songs, and Abigail Music, the Bee Gees' publishers. And indeed the first two songs published by Apple were copyrights that were gifted to the company by Stigwood -- "Listen to the Sky", a B-side by an obscure band called Sands: [Excerpt: Sands, "Listen to the Sky"] And "Outside Woman Blues", an arrangement by Eric Clapton of an old blues song by Blind Joe Reynolds, which Cream had copyrighted separately and released on Disraeli Gears: [Excerpt: Cream, "Outside Woman Blues"] But Apple soon started signing outside songwriters -- once Mike Berry, a member of Apple Publishing's staff, had sat McCartney down and explained to him what music publishing actually was, something he had never actually understood even though he'd been a songwriter for five years. Those songwriters, given that this was 1967, were often also performers, and as Apple Records had not yet been set up, Apple would try to arrange recording contracts for them with other labels. They started with a group called Focal Point, who got signed by badgering Paul McCartney to listen to their songs until he gave them Doran's phone number to shut them up: [Excerpt: Focal Point, "Sycamore Sid"] But the big early hope for Apple Publishing was a songwriter called George Alexander. Alexander's birth name had been Alexander Young, and he was the brother of George Young, who was a member of the Australian beat group The Easybeats, who'd had a hit with "Friday on My Mind": [Excerpt: The Easybeats, "Friday on My Mind"] His younger brothers Malcolm and Angus would go on to have a few hits themselves, but AC/DC wouldn't be formed for another five years. Terry Doran thought that Alexander should be a member of a band, because bands were more popular than solo artists at the time, and so he was placed with three former members of Tony Rivers and the Castaways, a Beach Boys soundalike group that had had some minor success. John Lennon suggested that the group be named Grapefruit, after a book he was reading by a conceptual artist of his acquaintance named Yoko Ono, and as Doran was making arrangements with Terry Melcher for a reciprocal publishing deal by which Melcher's American company would publish Apple songs in the US while Apple published songs from Melcher's company in the UK, it made sense for Melcher to also produce Grapefruit's first single, "Dear Delilah": [Excerpt: Grapefruit, "Dear Delilah"] That made number twenty-one in the UK when it came out in early 1968, on the back of publicity about Grapefruit's connection with the Beatles, but future singles by the band were much less successful, and like several other acts involved with Apple, they found that they were more hampered by the Beatles connection than helped. A few other people were signed to Apple Publishing early on, of whom the most notable was Jackie Lomax. Lomax had been a member of a minor Merseybeat group, the Undertakers, and after they had split up, he'd been signed by Brian Epstein with a new group, the Lomax Alliance, who had released one single, "Try as You May": [Excerpt: The Lomax Alliance, "Try As You May"] After Epstein's death, Lomax had plans to join another band, being formed by another Merseybeat musician, Chris Curtis, the former drummer of the Searchers. But after going to the Beatles to talk with them about them helping the new group financially, Lomax was persuaded by John Lennon to go solo instead. He may later have regretted that decision, as by early 1968 the people that Curtis had recruited for his new band had ditched him and were making a name for themselves as Deep Purple. Lomax recorded one solo single with funding from Stigwood, a cover version of a song by an obscure singer-songwriter, Jake Holmes, "Genuine Imitation Life": [Excerpt: Jackie Lomax, "Genuine Imitation Life"] But he was also signed to Apple Publishing as a songwriter. The Beatles had only just started laying out plans for Apple when Epstein died, and other than the publishing company one of the few things they'd agreed on was that they were going to have a film company, which was to be run by Denis O'Dell, who had been an associate producer on A Hard Day's Night and on How I Won The War, the Richard Lester film Lennon had recently starred in. A few days after Epstein's death, they had a meeting, in which they agreed that the band needed to move forward quickly if they were going to recover from Epstein's death. They had originally been planning on going to India with the Maharishi to study meditation, but they decided to put that off until the new year, and to press forward with a film project Paul had been talking about, to be titled Magical Mystery Tour. And so, on the fifth of September 1967, they went back into the recording studio and started work on a song of John's that was earmarked for the film, "I am the Walrus": [Excerpt: The Beatles, "I am the Walrus"] Magical Mystery Tour, the film, has a mixed reputation which we will talk about shortly, but one defence that Paul McCartney has always made of it is that it's the only place where you can see the Beatles performing "I am the Walrus". While the song was eventually relegated to a B-side, it's possibly the finest B-side of the Beatles' career, and one of the best tracks the group ever made. As with many of Lennon's songs from this period, the song was a collage of many different elements pulled from his environment and surroundings, and turned into something that was rather more than the sum of its parts. For its musical inspiration, Lennon pulled from, of all things, a police siren going past his house. (For those who are unfamiliar with what old British police sirens sounded like, as opposed to the ones in use for most of my lifetime or in other countries, here's a recording of one): [Excerpt: British police siren ca 1968] That inspired Lennon to write a snatch of lyric to go with the sound of the siren, starting "Mister city policeman sitting pretty". He had two other song fragments, one about sitting in the garden, and one about sitting on a cornflake, and he told Hunter Davies, who was doing interviews for his authorised biography of the group, “I don't know how it will all end up. Perhaps they'll turn out to be different parts of the same song.” But the final element that made these three disparate sections into a song was a letter that came from Stephen Bayley, a pupil at Lennon's old school Quarry Bank, who told him that the teachers at the school -- who Lennon always thought of as having suppressed his creativity -- were now analysing Beatles lyrics in their lessons. Lennon decided to come up with some nonsense that they couldn't analyse -- though as nonsensical as the finished song is, there's an underlying anger to a lot of it that possibly comes from Lennon thinking of his school experiences. And so Lennon asked his old schoolfriend Pete Shotton to remind him of a disgusting playground chant that kids used to sing in schools in the North West of England (and which they still sang with very minor variations at my own school decades later -- childhood folklore has a remarkably long life). That rhyme went: Yellow matter custard, green snot pie All mixed up with a dead dog's eye Slap it on a butty, nice and thick, And drink it down with a cup of cold sick Lennon combined some parts of this with half-remembered fragments of Lewis Carrol's The Walrus and the Carpenter, and with some punning references to things that were going on in his own life and those of his friends -- though it's difficult to know exactly which of the stories attached to some of the more incomprehensible bits of the lyrics are accurate. The story that the line "I am the eggman" is about a sexual proclivity of Eric Burdon of the Animals seems plausible, while the contention by some that the phrase "semolina pilchard" is a reference to Sgt Pilcher, the corrupt policeman who had arrested three of the Rolling Stones, and would later arrest Lennon, on drugs charges, seems less likely. The track is a masterpiece of production, but the release of the basic take on Anthology 2 in 1996 showed that the underlying performance, before George Martin worked his magic with the overdubs, is still a remarkable piece of work: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "I am the Walrus (Anthology 2 version)"] But Martin's arrangement and production turned the track from a merely very good track into a masterpiece. The string arrangement, very much in the same mould as that for "Strawberry Fields Forever" but giving a very different effect with its harsh cello glissandi, is the kind of thing one expects from Martin, but there's also the chanting of the Mike Sammes Singers, who were more normally booked for sessions like Englebert Humperdinck's "The Last Waltz": [Excerpt: Engelbert Humperdinck, "The Last Waltz"] But here were instead asked to imitate the sound of the strings, make grunting noises, and generally go very far out of their normal comfort zone: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "I am the Walrus"] But the most fascinating piece of production in the entire track is an idea that seems to have been inspired by people like John Cage -- a live feed of a radio being tuned was played into the mono mix from about the halfway point, and whatever was on the radio at the time was captured: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "I am the Walrus"] This is also why for many decades it was impossible to have a true stereo mix of the track -- the radio part was mixed directly into the mono mix, and it wasn't until the 1990s that someone thought to track down a copy of the original radio broadcasts and recreate the process. In one of those bits of synchronicity that happen more often than you would think when you're creating aleatory art, and which are why that kind of process can be so appealing, one bit of dialogue from the broadcast of King Lear that was on the radio as the mixing was happening was *perfectly* timed: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "I am the Walrus"] After completing work on the basic track for "I am the Walrus", the group worked on two more songs for the film, George's "Blue Jay Way" and a group-composed twelve-bar blues instrumental called "Flying", before starting production. Magical Mystery Tour, as an idea, was inspired in equal parts by Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters, the collective of people we talked about in the episode on the Grateful Dead who travelled across the US extolling the virtues of psychedelic drugs, and by mystery tours, a British working-class tradition that has rather fallen out of fashion in the intervening decades. A mystery tour would generally be put on by a coach-hire company, and would be a day trip to an unannounced location -- though the location would in fact be very predictable, and would be a seaside town within a couple of hours' drive of its starting point. In the case of the ones the Beatles remembered from their own childhoods, this would be to a coastal town in Lancashire or Wales, like Blackpool, Rhyl, or Prestatyn. A coachload of people would pay to be driven to this random location, get very drunk and have a singsong on the bus, and spend a day wherever they were taken. McCartney's plan was simple -- they would gather a group of passengers and replicate this experience over the course of several days, and film whatever went on, but intersperse that with more planned out sketches and musical numbers. For this reason, along with the Beatles and their associates, the cast included some actors found through Spotlight and some of the group's favourite performers, like the comedian Nat Jackley (whose comedy sequence directed by John was cut from the final film) and the surrealist poet/singer/comedian Ivor Cutler: [Excerpt: Ivor Cutler, "I'm Going in a Field"] The film also featured an appearance by a new band who would go on to have great success over the next year, the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. They had recorded their first single in Abbey Road at the same time as the Beatles were recording Revolver, but rather than being progressive psychedelic rock, it had been a remake of a 1920s novelty song: [Excerpt: The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, "My Brother Makes the Noises For the Talkies"] Their performance in Magical Mystery Tour was very different though -- they played a fifties rock pastiche written by band leaders Vivian Stanshall and Neil Innes while a stripper took off her clothes. While several other musical sequences were recorded for the film, including one by the band Traffic and one by Cutler, other than the Beatles tracks only the Bonzos' song made it into the finished film: [Excerpt: The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, "Death Cab for Cutie"] That song, thirty years later, would give its name to a prominent American alternative rock band. Incidentally the same night that Magical Mystery Tour was first broadcast was also the night that the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band first appeared on a TV show, Do Not Adjust Your Set, which featured three future members of the Monty Python troupe -- Eric Idle, Michael Palin, and Terry Jones. Over the years the careers of the Bonzos, the Pythons, and the Beatles would become increasingly intertwined, with George Harrison in particular striking up strong friendships and working relationships with Bonzos Neil Innes and "Legs" Larry Smith. The filming of Magical Mystery Tour went about as well as one might expect from a film made by four directors, none of whom had any previous filmmaking experience, and none of whom had any business knowledge. The Beatles were used to just turning up and having things magically done for them by other people, and had no real idea of the infrastructure challenges that making a film, even a low-budget one, actually presents, and ended up causing a great deal of stress to almost everyone involved. The completed film was shown on TV on Boxing Day 1967 to general confusion and bemusement. It didn't help that it was originally broadcast in black and white, and so for example the scene showing shifting landscapes (outtake footage from Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, tinted various psychedelic colours) over the "Flying" music, just looked like grey fuzz. But also, it just wasn't what people were expecting from a Beatles film. This was a ramshackle, plotless, thing more inspired by Andy Warhol's underground films than by the kind of thing the group had previously appeared in, and it was being presented as Christmas entertainment for all the family. And to be honest, it's not even a particularly good example of underground filmmaking -- though it looks like a masterpiece when placed next to something like the Bee Gees' similar effort, Cucumber Castle. But there are enough interesting sequences in there for the project not to be a complete failure -- and the deleted scenes on the DVD release, including the performances by Cutler and Traffic, and the fact that the film was edited down from ten hours to fifty-two minutes, makes one wonder if there's a better film that could be constructed from the original footage. Either way, the reaction to the film was so bad that McCartney actually appeared on David Frost's TV show the next day to defend it and, essentially, apologise. While they were editing the film, the group were also continuing to work in the studio, including on two new McCartney songs, "The Fool on the Hill", which was included in Magical Mystery Tour, and "Hello Goodbye", which wasn't included on the film's soundtrack but was released as the next single, with "I Am the Walrus" as the B-side: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Hello Goodbye"] Incidentally, in the UK the soundtrack to Magical Mystery Tour was released as a double-EP rather than as an album (in the US, the group's recent singles and B-sides were added to turn it into a full-length album, which is how it's now generally available). "I Am the Walrus" was on the double-EP as well as being on the single's B-side, and the double-EP got to number two on the singles charts, meaning "I am the Walrus" was on the records at number one and number two at the same time. Before it became obvious that the film, if not the soundtrack, was a disaster, the group held a launch party on the twenty-first of December, 1967. The band members went along in fancy dress, as did many of the cast and crew -- the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band performed at the party. Mike Love and Bruce Johnston of the Beach Boys also turned up at the party, and apparently at one point jammed with the Bonzos, and according to some, but not all, reports, a couple of the Beatles joined in as well. Love and Johnston had both just met the Maharishi for the first time a couple of days earlier, and Love had been as impressed as the Beatles were, and it may have been at this party that the group mentioned to Love that they would soon be going on a retreat in India with the guru -- a retreat that was normally meant for training TM instructors, but this time seemed to be more about getting celebrities involved. Love would also end up going with them. That party was also the first time that Cynthia Lennon had an inkling that John might not be as faithful to her as she previously supposed. John had always "joked" about being attracted to George Harrison's wife, Patti, but this time he got a little more blatant about his attraction than he ever had previously, to the point that he made Cynthia cry, and Cynthia's friend, the pop star Lulu, decided to give Lennon a very public dressing-down for his cruelty to his wife, a dressing-down that must have been a sight to behold, as Lennon was dressed as a Teddy boy while Lulu was in a Shirley Temple costume. It's a sign of how bad the Lennons' marriage was at this point that this was the second time in a two-month period where Cynthia had ended up crying because of John at a film launch party and been comforted by a female pop star. In October, Cilla Black had held a party to celebrate the belated release of John's film How I Won the War, and during the party Georgie Fame had come up to Black and said, confused, "Cynthia Lennon is hiding in your wardrobe". Black went and had a look, and Cynthia explained to her “I'm waiting to see how long it is before John misses me and comes looking for me.” Black's response had been “You'd better face it, kid—he's never gonna come.” Also at the Magical Mystery Tour party was Lennon's father, now known as Freddie Lennon, and his new nineteen-year-old fiancee. While Hunter Davis had been researching the Beatles' biography, he'd come across some evidence that the version of Freddie's attitude towards John that his mother's side of the family had always told him -- that Freddie had been a cruel and uncaring husband who had not actually wanted to be around his son -- might not be the whole of the truth, and that the mother who he had thought of as saintly might also have had some part to play in their marriage breaking down and Freddie not seeing his son for twenty years. The two had made some tentative attempts at reconciliation, and indeed Freddie would even come and live with John for a while, though within a couple of years the younger Lennon's heart would fully harden against his father again. Of course, the things that John always resented his father for were pretty much exactly the kind of things that Lennon himself was about to do. It was around this time as well that Derek Taylor gave the Beatles copies of the debut album by a young singer/songwriter named Harry Nilsson. Nilsson will be getting his own episode down the line, but not for a couple of years at my current rates, so it's worth bringing that up here, because that album became a favourite of all the Beatles, and would have a huge influence on their songwriting for the next couple of years, and because one song on the album, "1941", must have resonated particularly deeply with Lennon right at this moment -- an autobiographical song by Nilsson about how his father had left him and his mother when he was a small boy, and about his own fear that, as his first marriage broke down, he was repeating the pattern with his stepson Scott: [Excerpt: Nilsson, "1941"] The other major event of December 1967, rather overshadowed by the Magical Mystery Tour disaster the next day, was that on Christmas Day Paul McCartney and Jane Asher announced their engagement. A few days later, George Harrison flew to India. After John and Paul had had their outside film projects -- John starring in How I Won The War and Paul doing the soundtrack for The Family Way -- the other two Beatles more or less simultaneously did their own side project films, and again one acted while the other did a soundtrack. Both of these projects were in the rather odd subgenre of psychedelic shambolic comedy film that sprang up in the mid sixties, a subgenre that produced a lot of fascinating films, though rather fewer good ones. Indeed, both of them were in the subsubgenre of shambolic psychedelic *sex* comedies. In Ringo's case, he had a small role in the film Candy, which was based on the novel we mentioned in the last episode, co-written by Terry Southern, which was in itself a loose modern rewriting of Voltaire's Candide. Unfortunately, like such other classics of this subgenre as Anthony Newley's Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness?, Candy has dated *extremely* badly, and unless you find repeated scenes of sexual assault and rape, ethnic stereotypes, and jokes about deformity and disfigurement to be an absolute laugh riot, it's not a film that's worth seeking out, and Starr's part in it is not a major one. Harrison's film was of the same basic genre -- a film called Wonderwall about a mad scientist who discovers a way to see through the walls of his apartment, and gets to see a photographer taking sexy photographs of a young woman named Penny Lane, played by Jane Birkin: [Excerpt: Some Wonderwall film dialogue ripped from the Blu-Ray] Wonderwall would, of course, later inspire the title of a song by Oasis, and that's what the film is now best known for, but it's a less-unwatchable film than Candy, and while still problematic it's less so. Which is something. Harrison had been the Beatle with least involvement in Magical Mystery Tour -- McCartney had been the de facto director, Starr had been the lead character and the only one with much in the way of any acting to do, and Lennon had written the film's standout scene and its best song, and had done a little voiceover narration. Harrison, by contrast, barely has anything to do in the film apart from the one song he contributed, "Blue Jay Way", and he said of the project “I had no idea what was happening and maybe I didn't pay enough attention because my problem, basically, was that I was in another world, I didn't really belong; I was just an appendage.” He'd expressed his discomfort to his friend Joe Massot, who was about to make his first feature film. Massot had got to know Harrison during the making of his previous film, Reflections on Love, a mostly-silent short which had starred Harrison's sister-in-law Jenny Boyd, and which had been photographed by Robert Freeman, who had been the photographer for the Beatles' album covers from With the Beatles through Rubber Soul, and who had taken most of the photos that Klaus Voorman incorporated into the cover of Revolver (and whose professional association with the Beatles seemed to come to an end around the same time he discovered that Lennon had been having an affair with his wife). Massot asked Harrison to write the music for the film, and told Harrison he would have complete free rein to make whatever music he wanted, so long as it fit the timing of the film, and so Harrison decided to create a mixture of Western rock music and the Indian music he loved. Harrison started recording the music at the tail end of 1967, with sessions with several London-based Indian musicians and John Barham, an orchestrator who had worked with Ravi Shankar on Shankar's collaborations with Western musicians, including the Alice in Wonderland soundtrack we talked about in the "All You Need is Love" episode. For the Western music, he used the Remo Four, a Merseybeat group who had been on the scene even before the Beatles, and which contained a couple of classmates of Paul McCartney, but who had mostly acted as backing musicians for other artists. They'd backed Johnny Sandon, the former singer with the Searchers, on a couple of singles, before becoming the backing band for Tommy Quickly, a NEMS artist who was unsuccessful despite starting his career with a Lennon/McCartney song, "Tip of My Tongue": [Excerpt: Tommy Quickly, "Tip of My Tongue"] The Remo Four would later, after a lineup change, become Ashton, Gardner and Dyke, who would become one-hit wonders in the seventies, and during the Wonderwall sessions they recorded a song that went unreleased at the time, and which would later go on to be rerecorded by Ashton, Gardner, and Dyke. "In the First Place" also features Harrison on backing vocals and possibly guitar, and was not submitted for the film because Harrison didn't believe that Massot wanted any vocal tracks, but the recording was later discovered and used in a revised director's cut of the film in the nineties: [Excerpt: The Remo Four, "In the First Place"] But for the most part the Remo Four were performing instrumentals written by Harrison. They weren't the only Western musicians performing on the sessions though -- Peter Tork of the Monkees dropped by these sessions and recorded several short banjo solos, which were used in the film soundtrack but not in the soundtrack album (presumably because Tork was contracted to another label): [Excerpt: Peter Tork, "Wonderwall banjo solo"] Another musician who was under contract to another label was Eric Clapton, who at the time was playing with The Cream, and who vaguely knew Harrison and so joined in for the track "Ski-ing", playing lead guitar under the cunning, impenetrable, pseudonym "Eddie Clayton", with Harrison on sitar, Starr on drums, and session guitarist Big Jim Sullivan on bass: [Excerpt: George Harrison, "Ski-ing"] But the bulk of the album was recorded in EMI's studios in the city that is now known as Mumbai but at the time was called Bombay. The studio facilities in India had up to that point only had a mono tape recorder, and Bhaskar Menon, one of the top executives at EMI's Indian division and later the head of EMI music worldwide, personally brought the first stereo tape recorder to the studio to aid in Harrison's recording. The music was all composed by Harrison and performed by the Indian musicians, and while Harrison was composing in an Indian mode, the musicians were apparently fascinated by how Western it sounded to them: [Excerpt: George Harrison, "Microbes"] While he was there, Harrison also got the instrumentalists to record another instrumental track, which wasn't to be used for the film: [Excerpt: George Harrison, "The Inner Light (instrumental)"] That track would, instead, become part of what was to be Harrison's first composition to make a side of a Beatles single. After John and George had appeared on the David Frost show talking about the Maharishi, in September 1967, George had met a lecturer in Sanskrit named Juan Mascaró, who wrote to Harrison enclosing a book he'd compiled of translations of religious texts, telling him he'd admired "Within You Without You" and thought it would be interesting if Harrison set something from the Tao Te Ching to music. He suggested a text that, in his translation, read: "Without going out of my door I can know all things on Earth Without looking out of my window I can know the ways of heaven For the farther one travels, the less one knows The sage, therefore Arrives without travelling Sees all without looking Does all without doing" Harrison took that text almost verbatim, though he created a second verse by repeating the first few lines with "you" replacing "I" -- concerned that listeners might think he was just talking about himself, and wouldn't realise it was a more general statement -- and he removed the "the sage, therefore" and turned the last few lines into imperative commands rather than declarative statements: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "The Inner Light"] The song has come in for some criticism over the years as being a little Orientalist, because in critics' eyes it combines Chinese philosophy with Indian music, as if all these things are equally "Eastern" and so all the same really. On the other hand there's a good argument that an English songwriter taking a piece of writing written in Chinese and translated into English by a Spanish man and setting it to music inspired by Indian musical modes is a wonderful example of cultural cross-pollination. As someone who's neither Chinese nor Indian I wouldn't want to take a stance on it, but clearly the other Beatles were impressed by it -- they put it out as the B-side to their next single, even though the only Beatles on it are Harrison and McCartney, with the latter adding a small amount of harmony vocal: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "The Inner Light"] And it wasn't because the group were out of material. They were planning on going to Rishikesh to study with the Maharishi, and wanted to get a single out for release while they were away, and so in one week they completed the vocal overdubs on "The Inner Light" and recorded three other songs, two by John and one by Paul. All three of the group's songwriters brought in songs that were among their best. John's first contribution was a song whose lyrics he later described as possibly the best he ever wrote, "Across the Universe". He said the lyrics were “purely inspirational and were given to me as boom! I don't own it, you know; it came through like that … Such an extraordinary meter and I can never repeat it! It's not a matter of craftsmanship, it wrote itself. It drove me out of bed. I didn't want to write it … It's like being possessed, like a psychic or a medium.” But while Lennon liked the song, he was never happy with the recording of it. They tried all sorts of things to get the sound he heard in his head, including bringing in some fans who were hanging around outside to sing backing vocals. He said of the track "I was singing out of tune and instead of getting a decent choir, we got fans from outside, Apple Scruffs or whatever you call them. They came in and were singing all off-key. Nobody was interested in doing the tune originally.” [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Across the Universe"] The "jai guru deva" chorus there is the first reference to the teachings of the Maharishi in one of the Beatles' records -- Guru Dev was the Maharishi's teacher, and the phrase "Jai guru dev" is a Sanskrit one which I've seen variously translated as "victory to the great teacher", and "hail to the greatness within you". Lennon would say shortly before his death “The Beatles didn't make a good record out of it. I think subconsciously sometimes we – I say ‘we' though I think Paul did it more than the rest of us – Paul would sort of subconsciously try and destroy a great song … Usually we'd spend hours doing little detailed cleaning-ups of Paul's songs, when it came to mine, especially if it was a great song like ‘Strawberry Fields' or ‘Across The Universe', somehow this atmosphere of looseness and casualness and experimentation would creep in … It was a _lousy_ track of a great song and I was so disappointed by it …The guitars are out of tune and I'm singing out of tune because I'm psychologically destroyed and nobody's supporting me or helping me with it, and the song was never done properly.” Of course, this is only Lennon's perception, and it's one that the other participants would disagree with. George Martin, in particular, was always rather hurt by the implication that Lennon's songs had less attention paid to them, and he would always say that the problem was that Lennon in the studio would always say "yes, that's great", and only later complain that it hadn't been what he wanted. No doubt McCartney did put in more effort on his own songs than on Lennon's -- everyone has a bias towards their own work, and McCartney's only human -- but personally I suspect that a lot of the problem comes down to the two men having very different personalities. McCartney had very strong ideas about his own work and would drive the others insane with his nitpicky attention to detail. Lennon had similarly strong ideas, but didn't have the attention span to put the time and effort in to force his vision on others, and didn't have the technical knowledge to express his ideas in words they'd understand. He expected Martin and the other Beatles to work miracles, and they did -- but not the miracles he would have worked. That track was, rather than being chosen for the next single, given to Spike Milligan, who happened to be visiting the studio and was putting together an album for the environmental charity the World Wildlife Fund. The album was titled "No One's Gonna Change Our World": [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Across the Universe"] That track is historic in another way -- it would be the last time that George Harrison would play sitar on a Beatles record, and it effectively marks the end of the period of psychedelia and Indian influence that had started with "Norwegian Wood" three years earlier, and which many fans consider their most creative period. Indeed, shortly after the recording, Harrison would give up the sitar altogether and stop playing it. He loved sitar music as much as he ever had, and he still thought that Indian classical music spoke to him in ways he couldn't express, and he continued to be friends with Ravi Shankar for the rest of his life, and would only become more interested in Indian religious thought. But as he spent time with Shankar he realised he would never be as good on the sitar as he hoped. He said later "I thought, 'Well, maybe I'm better off being a pop singer-guitar-player-songwriter – whatever-I'm-supposed-to-be' because I've seen a thousand sitar-players in India who are twice as better as I'll ever be. And only one of them Ravi thought was going to be a good player." We don't have a precise date for when it happened -- I suspect it was in June 1968, so a few months after the "Across the Universe" recording -- but Shankar told Harrison that rather than try to become a master of a music that he hadn't encountered until his twenties, perhaps he should be making the music that was his own background. And as Harrison put it "I realised that was riding my bike down a street in Liverpool and hearing 'Heartbreak Hotel' coming out of someone's house.": [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, "Heartbreak Hotel"] In early 1968 a lot of people seemed to be thinking along the same lines, as if Christmas 1967 had been the flick of a switch and instead of whimsy and ornamentation, the thing to do was to make music that was influenced by early rock and roll. In the US the Band and Bob Dylan were making music that was consciously shorn of all studio experimentation, while in the UK there was a revival of fifties rock and roll. In April 1968 both "Peggy Sue" and "Rock Around the Clock" reentered the top forty in the UK, and the Who were regularly including "Summertime Blues" in their sets. Fifties nostalgia, which would make occasional comebacks for at least the next forty years, was in its first height, and so it's not surprising that Paul McCartney's song, "Lady Madonna", which became the A-side of the next single, has more than a little of the fifties about it. Of course, the track isn't *completely* fifties in its origins -- one of the inspirations for the track seems to have been the Rolling Stones' then-recent hit "Let's Spend The Night Together": [Excerpt: The Rolling Stones, "Let's Spend the Night Together"] But the main source for the song's music -- and for the sound of the finished record -- seems to have been Johnny Parker's piano part on Humphrey Lyttleton's "Bad Penny Blues", a hit single engineered by Joe Meek in the fifties: [Excerpt: Humphrey Lyttleton, "Bad Penny Blues"] That song seems to have been on the group's mind for a while, as a working title for "With a Little Help From My Friends" had at one point been "Bad Finger Blues" -- a title that would later give the name to a band on Apple. McCartney took Parker's piano part as his inspiration, and as he later put it “‘Lady Madonna' was me sitting down at the piano trying to write a bluesy boogie-woogie thing. I got my left hand doing an arpeggio thing with the chord, an ascending boogie-woogie left hand, then a descending right hand. I always liked that, the  juxtaposition of a line going down meeting a line going up." [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Lady Madonna"] That idea, incidentally, is an interesting reversal of what McCartney had done on "Hello, Goodbye", where the bass line goes down while the guitar moves up -- the two lines moving away from each other: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Hello Goodbye"] Though that isn't to say there's no descending bass in "Lady Madonna" -- the bridge has a wonderful sequence where the bass just *keeps* *descending*: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Lady Madonna"] Lyrically, McCartney was inspired by a photo in National Geographic of a woman in Malaysia, captioned “Mountain Madonna: with one child at her breast and another laughing into her face, sees her quality of life threatened.” But as he put it “The people I was brought up amongst were often Catholic; there are lots of Catholics in Liverpool because of the Irish connection and they are often religious. When they have a baby I think they see a big connection between themselves and the Virgin Mary with her baby. So the original concept was the Virgin Mary but it quickly became symbolic of every woman; the Madonna image but as applied to ordinary working class woman. It's really a tribute to the mother figure, it's a tribute to women.” Musically though, the song was more a tribute to the fifties -- while the inspiration had been a skiffle hit by Humphrey Lyttleton, as soon as McCartney started playing it he'd thought of Fats Domino, and the lyric reflects that to an extent -- just as Domino's "Blue Monday" details the days of the week for a weary working man who only gets to enjoy himself on Saturday night, "Lady Madonna"'s lyrics similarly look at the work a mother has to do every day -- though as McCartney later noted  "I was writing the words out to learn it for an American TV show and I realised I missed out Saturday ... So I figured it must have been a real night out." The vocal was very much McCartney doing a Domino impression -- something that wasn't lost on Fats, who cut his own version of the track later that year: [Excerpt: Fats Domino, "Lady Madonna"] The group were so productive at this point, right before the journey to India, that they actually cut another song *while they were making a video for "Lady Madonna"*. They were booked into Abbey Road to film themselves performing the song so it could be played on Top of the Pops while they were away, but instead they decided to use the time to cut a new song -- John had a partially-written song, "Hey Bullfrog", which was roughly the same tempo as "Lady Madonna", so they could finish that up and then re-edit the footage to match the record. The song was quickly finished and became "Hey Bulldog": [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Hey Bulldog"] One of Lennon's best songs from this period, "Hey Bulldog" was oddly chosen only to go on the soundtrack of Yellow Submarine. Either the band didn't think much of it because it had come so easily, or it was just assigned to the film because they were planning on being away for several months and didn't have any other projects they were working on. The extent of the group's contribution to the film was minimal – they were not very hands-on, and the film, which was mostly done as an attempt to provide a third feature film for their United Artists contract without them having to do any work, was made by the team that had done the Beatles cartoon on American TV. There's some evidence that they had a small amount of input in the early story stages, but in general they saw the cartoon as an irrelevance to them -- the only things they contributed were the four songs "All Together Now", "It's All Too Much", "Hey Bulldog" and "Only a Northern Song", and a brief filmed appearance for the very end of the film, recorded in January: [Excerpt: Yellow Submarine film end] McCartney also took part in yet another session in early February 1968, one produced by Peter Asher, his fiancee's brother, and former singer with Peter and Gordon. Asher had given up on being a pop star and was trying to get into the business side of music, and he was starting out as a producer, producing a single by Paul Jones, the former lead singer of Manfred Mann. The A-side of the single, "And the Sun Will Shine", was written by the Bee Gees, the band that Robert Stigwood was managing: [Excerpt: Paul Jones, "And the Sun Will Shine"] While the B-side was an original by Jones, "The Dog Presides": [Excerpt: Paul Jones, "The Dog Presides"] Those tracks featured two former members of the Yardbirds, Jeff Beck and Paul Samwell-Smith, on guitar and bass, and Nicky Hopkins on piano. Asher asked McCartney to play drums on both sides of the single, saying later "I always thought he was a great, underrated drummer." McCartney was impressed by Asher's production, and asked him to get involved with the new Apple Records label that would be set up when the group returned from India. Asher eventually became head of A&R for the label. And even before "Lady Madonna" was mixed, the Beatles were off to India. Mal Evans, their roadie, went ahead with all their luggage on the fourteenth of February, so he could sort out transport for them on the other end, and then John and George followed on the fifteenth, with their wives Pattie and Cynthia and Pattie's sister Jenny (John and Cynthia's son Julian had been left with his grandmother while they went -- normally Cynthia wouldn't abandon Julian for an extended period of time, but she saw the trip as a way to repair their strained marriage). Paul and Ringo followed four days later, with Ringo's wife Maureen and Paul's fiancee Jane Asher. The retreat in Rishikesh was to become something of a celebrity affair. Along with the Beatles came their friend the singer-songwriter Donovan, and Donovan's friend and songwriting partner, whose name I'm not going to say here because it's a slur for Romani people, but will be known to any Donovan fans. Donovan at this point was also going through changes. Like the Beatles, he was largely turning away from drug use and towards meditation, and had recently written his hit single "There is a Mountain" based around a saying from Zen Buddhism: [Excerpt: Donovan, "There is a Mountain"] That was from his double-album A Gift From a Flower to a Garden, which had come out in December 1967. But also like John and Paul he was in the middle of the breakdown of a long-term relationship, and while he would remain with his then-partner until 1970, and even have another child with her, he was secretly in love with another woman. In fact he was secretly in love with two other women. One of them, Brian Jones' ex-girlfriend Linda, had moved to LA, become the partner of the singer Gram Parsons, and had appeared in the documentary You Are What You Eat with the Band and Tiny Tim. She had fallen out of touch with Donovan, though she would later become his wife. Incidentally, she had a son to Brian Jones who had been abandoned by his rock-star father -- the son's name is Julian. The other woman with whom Donovan was in love was Jenny Boyd, the sister of George Harrison's wife Pattie.  Jenny at the time was in a relationship with Alexis Mardas, a TV repairman and huckster who presented himself as an electronics genius to the Beatles, who nicknamed him Magic Alex, and so she was unavailable, but Donovan had written a song about her, released as a single just before they all went to Rishikesh: [Excerpt: Donovan, "Jennifer Juniper"] Donovan considered himself and George Harrison to be on similar spiritual paths and called Harrison his "spirit-brother", though Donovan was more interested in Buddhism, which Harrison considered a corruption of the more ancient Hinduism, and Harrison encouraged Donovan to read Autobiography of a Yogi. It's perhaps worth noting that Donovan's father had a different take on the subject though, saying "You're not going to study meditation in India, son, you're following that wee lassie Jenny" Donovan and his friend weren't the only other celebrities to come to Rishikesh. The actor Mia Farrow, who had just been through a painful divorce from Frank Sinatra, and had just made Rosemary's Baby, a horror film directed by Roman Polanski with exteriors shot at the Dakota building in New York, arrived with her sister Prudence. Also on the trip was Paul Horn, a jazz saxophonist who had played with many of the greats of jazz, not least of them Duke Ellington, whose Sweet Thursday Horn had played alto sax on: [Excerpt: Duke Ellington, "Zweet Zursday"] Horn was another musician who had been inspired to investigate Indian spirituality and music simultaneously, and the previous year he had recorded an album, "In India," of adaptations of ragas, with Ravi Shankar and Alauddin Khan: [Excerpt: Paul Horn, "Raga Vibhas"] Horn would go on to become one of the pioneers of what would later be termed "New Age" music, combining jazz with music from various non-Western traditions. Horn had also worked as a session musician, and one of the tracks he'd played on was "I Know There's an Answer" from the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds album: [Excerpt: The Beach Boys, "I Know There's an Answer"] Mike Love, who co-wrote that track and is one of the lead singers on it, was also in Rishikesh. While as we'll see not all of the celebrities on the trip would remain practitioners of Transcendental Meditation, Love would be profoundly affected by the trip, and remains a vocal proponent of TM to this day. Indeed, his whole band at the time were heavily into TM. While Love was in India, the other Beach Boys were working on the Friends album without him -- Love only appears on four tracks on that album -- and one of the tracks they recorded in his absence was titled "Transcendental Meditation": [Excerpt: The Beach Boys, "Transcendental Meditation"] But the trip would affect Love's songwriting, as it would affect all of the musicians there. One of the few songs on the Friends album on which Love appears is "Anna Lee, the Healer", a song which is lyrically inspired by the trip in the most literal sense, as it's about a masseuse Love met in Rishikesh: [Excerpt: The Beach Boys, "Anna Lee, the Healer"] The musicians in the group all influenced and inspired each other as is likely to happen in such circumstances. Sometimes, it would be a matter of trivial joking, as when the Beatles decided to perform an off-the-cuff song about Guru Dev, and did it in the Beach Boys style: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Spiritual Regeneration"] And that turned partway through into a celebration of Love for his birthday: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Spiritual Regeneration"] Decades later, Love would return the favour, writing a song about Harrison and their time together in Rishikesh. Like Donovan, Love seems to have considered Harrison his "spiritual brother", and he titled the song "Pisces Brothers": [Excerpt: Mike Love, "Pisces Brothers"] The musicians on the trip were also often making suggestions to each other about songs that would become famous for them. The musicians had all brought acoustic guitars, apart obviously from Ringo, who got a set of tabla drums when George ordered some Indian instruments to be delivered. George got a sitar, as at this point he hadn't quite given up on the instrument, and he gave Donovan a tamboura. Donovan started playing a melody on the tamboura, which is normally a drone instrument, inspired by the Scottish folk music he had grown up with, and that became his "Hurdy-Gurdy Man": [Excerpt: Donovan, "Hurdy Gurdy Man"] Harrison actually helped him with the song, writing a final verse inspired by the Maharishi's teachings, but in the studio Donovan's producer Mickie Most told him to cut the verse because the song was overlong, which apparently annoyed Harrison. Donovan includes that verse in his live performances of the song though -- usually while doing a fairly terrible impersonation of Harrison: [Excerpt: Donovan, "Hurdy Gurdy Man (live)"] And similarly, while McCartney was working on a song pastiching Chuck Berry and the Beach Boys, but singing about the USSR rather than the USA, Love suggested to him that for a middle-eight he might want to sing about the girls in the various Soviet regions: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Back in the USSR"] As all the guitarists on the retreat only had acoustic instruments, they were very keen to improve their acoustic playing, and they turned to Donovan, who unlike the rest of them was primarily an acoustic player, and one from a folk background. Donovan taught them the rudiments of Travis picking, the guitar style we talked about way back in the episodes on the Everly Brothers, as well as some of the tunings that had been introduced to British folk music by Davey Graham, giving them a basic grounding in the principles of English folk-baroque guitar, a style that had developed over the previous few years. Donovan has said in his autobiography that Lennon picked the technique up quickly (and that Harrison had already learned Travis picking from Chet Atkins records) but that McCartney didn't have the application to learn the style, though he picked up bits. That seems very unlike anything else I've read anywhere about Lennon and McCartney -- no-one has ever accused Lennon of having a surfeit of application -- and reading Donovan's book he seems to dislike McCartney and like Lennon and Harrison, so possibly that enters into it. But also, it may just be that Lennon was more receptive to Donovan's style at the time. According to McCartney, even before going to Rishikesh Lennon had been in a vaguely folk-music and country mode, and the small number of tapes he'd brought with him to Rishikesh included Buddy Holly, Dylan, and the progressive folk band The Incredible String Band, whose music would be a big influence on both Lennon and McCartney for the next year: [Excerpt: The Incredible String Band, "First Girl I Loved"] According to McCartney Lennon also brought "a tape the singer Jake Thackray had done for him... He was one of the people we bumped into at Abbey Road. John liked his stuff, which he'd heard on television. Lots of wordplay and very suggestive, so very much up John's alley. I was fascinated by his unusual guitar style. John did ‘Happiness Is A Warm Gun' as a Jake Thackray thing at one point, as I recall.” Thackray was a British chansonnier, who sang sweetly poignant but also often filthy songs about Yorkshire life, and his humour in particular will have appealed to Lennon. There's a story of Lennon meeting Thackray in Abbey Road and singing the whole of Thackray's song "The Statues", about two drunk men fighting a male statue to defend the honour of a female statue, to him: [Excerpt: Jake Thackray, "The Statues"] Given this was the music that Lennon was listening to, it's unsurprising that he was more receptive to Donovan's lessons, and the new guitar style he learned allowed him to expand his songwriting, at precisely the same time he was largely clean of drugs for the first time in several years, and he started writing some of the best songs he would ever write, often using these new styles: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Julia"] That song is about Lennon's dead mother -- the first time he ever addressed her directly in a song, though  it would be far from the last -- but it's also about someone else. That phrase "Ocean child" is a direct translation of the Japanese name "Yoko". We've talked about Yoko Ono a bit in recent episodes, and even briefly in a previous Beatles episode, but it's here that she really enters the story of the Beatles. Unfortunately, exactly *how* her relationship with John Lennon, which was to become one of the great legendary love stories in rock and roll history, actually started is the subject of some debate. Both of them were married when they first got together, and there have also been suggestions that Ono was more interested in McCartney than in Lennon at first -- suggestions which everyone involved has denied, and those denials have the ring of truth about them, but if that was the case it would also explain some of Lennon's more perplexing behaviour over the next year. By all accounts there was a certain amount of finessing of the story th

SYNOPSIS: No Greater Buddy examines how Tune In handles the naughty behavior of its resident Bad Boy, John Lennon. This is a study of Lewisohn's coverage of John's bad behavior (rather than the behavior itself). PLAYLIST Bad Boy LARRY WILLIAMS Let the Good Times Roll LOUIS JORDAN Jim Dandy LAVERN BAKER Handful of Keys FATS WALLER Undecided ELLA FITZGERALD Angel Baby ROSIE & THE ORIGINALS Night Train DAVID ROSE Devil or Angel THE CLOVERS I'll Be on My Way THE BEATLES SOURCES The Beatles by Hunter Davies (1968) The Other Side of John Lennon By Sandra Shevey (1990) Beatles Anthology (1995) Living in the Material World by Martin Scorcese (2011)

In this podcast, Erin and Karen review the the only authorized biography of The Beatles, written by Hunter Davies and published in 1968. We examine Davies' defense of his work throughout the decades, his continued support for and promotion of the work's key interpretations up through the present day, and The Authorized Biography's unique status in Beatles historiography as the last major work in which all four Beatles spoke with one voice.  (Note: Davies met McCartney in 1966, not 1996).

SYNOPSIS: In A Prolonged Jealousy, we tackle one of Tune In's main talking points: that Paul McCartney is a fundamentally jealous person whose obsessive, one-sided jealousy of and over John Lennon was brought to a boil by the presence of Stuart Sutcliffe in the band.  Is Tune In's unforgiving portrayal of Paul's jealousy fair? Or is it over the top? We'll discuss! PLAYLIST Frenzy SCREAMIN' JAY HAWKINS Woo-Hoo ROCK*A*TEENS Raunchy BILL JUSTICE What'd I Say RAY CHARLES Lucille LITTLE RICHARD Flamenco Sketches MILES DAVIS Sleepwalk SANTO AND JOHNNY Let it Be Me THE EVERLY BROTHERS Just Walking in the Rain THE PRISONAIRES Go! Go! Go! ROY ORBISON Duck Tail JOE CLAY I'll Be On My Way THE BEATLES SOURCES The Beatles by Hunter Davies (1968) The Beatles by Bob Spitz (2005) “The Beatles' Shadow: Stuart Sutcliffe” by Pauline Sutcliffe (2002) “The Lost Beatle: The Stuart Sutcliffe Story” BBC (2005) Paul McCartney The Life by Philip Norman (2016) Beatles Book Monthly Magazine (May 1994) Beatles Anthology (1995)

SUMMARY: Leader Lennon examines Tune In's major thesis, that John Lennon was and is the leader and implicit owner of The Beatles forever.  We take a hard look at Tune In's obvious affection for hierarchy and dominance and how this pervades its storytelling. We'll discuss the deficiencies of this framework, why it is a problem, and how it distorts the Beatles' story. PLAYLIST Tiger Man RUFUS THOMAS Lovin' Machine WYNONIE HARRIS Honey Don't CARL PERKINS Besame Mucho TRIO LOS PANCHOS Crying, Waiting, Hoping BUDDY HOLLY C'mon Everybody EDDIE COCHRAN Soldier of Love THE BEATLES Rip it Up ELVIS PRESLEY I'll Be On My Way THE BEATLES SOURCES The Beatles by Hunter Davies (1968) Pre-Fab by Colin Hanton (2018) The Beatles by Bob Spitz (2005) John by Cynthia Lennon (2005) Alan Williams from Stuart Sutcliffe: The Lost Beatle, BBC (2005) Lennon Remember Interview w/ Jann Wenner (1971)

SYNOPSIS: This is a look at Tune In's most positive descriptions of John and Paul respectively. All examined passages will be from the text, i.e. the author's own depictions of John and Paul. By comparing how Lewisohn chooses to describe John versus Paul, we will reveal many undeniable discrepancies in word choice, enthusiasm, depth, and tone.  What do these discrepancies mean? We'll discuss! SOURCES Beatles Anthology (2000) Beatles Authorized Biography by Hunter Davies (1968) John, Paul and Me: Before the Beatles by Len Garry (1997) PLAYLIST Side By Side RAY CHARLES and BETTY CARTER Personality JOHNNY MERCER Deed I Do PEGGY LEE Young at Heart FRANK SINATRA Clarabella THE BEATLES In Spite of All the Danger THE BEATLES Twenty Flight Rock EDDIE COCHRAN Crazy Man Crazy BILL HALEY & THE COMETS Lawdy Miss Clawdy ELVIS PRESLEY They Can't Take That Away From Me ELLA FITZGERALD & LOUIS ARMSTRONG I'll Be On My Way THE BEATLES Visit our website for more: anotherkindofmind.com  

It's time for a very, very special episode of Fans On The Run. Special guest co-host, Piers Hemmingsen, joins me in sitting down for a rare podcast interview with the celebrated, bestselling author behind the 1968 authorized biography of The Beatles, Hunter Davies OBE. This episode is not one you'll want to miss! This episode is available to stream wherever good podcasts can be heard!   Keep up with Piers: http://www.thebeatlesincanada.com/ https://twitter.com/beatlesincanada   Follow us elsewhere: https://linktr.ee/fansontherun   Contact fansontherunpodcast@gmail.com

“There seems to be a feeling of sustainability continuously now. People are wising up and not buying new anymore.” Andrea and Toni from Arsenic & Tea.  On this week's episode of ‘Show Me The Way', I am joined by Andrea and Toni, the founders of vintage fashion company ‘Arsenic & Tea'.   Born out of a mutual love of fashion, Arsenic & Tea sells its hand selected, high-quality pieces via Depop and Instagram Live to its community of loyal customers. Be it pre-loved, vintage or simply just the unique and unusual, Arsenic & Tea supports sustainable fashion all the way, ensuring their carefully selected, unique pieces receive love and avoid landfill. In this episode, Andrea and Toni discuss the world of vintage clothing, tips for buying vintage and finding the confidence to say: “this is me, and I look fantastic.”  Tune in to hear them expand on the challenges of women starting a business, sustainable shopping, as well as their experience in the supportive industry of empowering women. For Emmeline's bookshelf: Toni recommends ‘Flossy Teacake's Fur Coat' by Hunter Davies: a magical book which explores the imaginative desires and impatience of young girls to grow up and discover jobs, boys, parties and more…  Andrea recommends ‘Catcher in the Rye' by J.D Salinger: which is about a teenage boy's quest for truth in the adult world. It explores the struggle against growing up and the protection of childish innocence.

This week's Songbook guest, music journalist and author Paul Du Noyer, has interviewed some of the most famous musicians of all time, including Madonna, Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Amy Winehouse and Paul McCartney. He chats to Jude about Nik Cohn's groundbreaking and thrilling history of 1960s rock, Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: Pop from the Beginning.The discussion also takes in Paul's Liverpool childhood and the huge impact of The Beatles, his storied career in the music press, interviewing the iconic Amy Winehouse, and much more.Books mentioned in the podcast:Conversations With McCartney by Paul Du Noyer Conversations with McCartney a book by Paul Du Noyer. (bookshop.org)John by Cynthia Lennon John a book by Cynthia Lennon. (bookshop.org)Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom by Nik Cohn Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: Pop from the Beginning a book by Nik Cohn. (bookshop.org)The Beatles: The Authorised Biography by Hunter Davies The Beatles: The Authorised Biography a book by Hunter Davies. (bookshop.org)I'm Coming To Take You To Lunch: A fantastic tale of boys, booze and how Wham! were sold to China by Simon Napier-Bell I'm Coming To Take You To Lunch: A fantastic tale of boys, booze and how Wham! were sold to China a book by Simon Napier-Bell. (bookshop.org)Black Vinyl White Powder by Simon Napier-Bell Black Vinyl White Powder by Simon Napier-Bell | WaterstonesUp The Junction by Nell Dunn Up The Junction: A Virago Modern Classic a book by Nell Dunn. (bookshop.org)You can buy Jude's The Sound of Being Human: How Music Shapes Our Lives here:The Sound of Being Human by Jude Rogers - Audiobook - Audible.co.ukThe Sound of Being Human: How Music Shapes Our Lives a book by Jude Rogers. (bookshop.org)Finally, White Rabbit's Spotify Playlist of 'booksongs' - songs inspired by books loved by our guests - is here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7chuHOeTs9jpyKpmgXV6uo Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

SUMMARY Welcome to STRANGE BEDFELLOWS, an AKOM series about Yoko Ono and Paul McCartney after John Lennon's death. Episode 1 delves deep into the 1980s! Discussed in this episode: Paul's grief and Yoko's peculiar comments in the aftermath of John's death, Yoko's kindness towards Paul and his efforts to reciprocate, Paul's failed attempt to recover the Lennon/McCartney catalog, the McCartney/Ono origin story, the burgeoning Lennon Industry, a lawsuit, an award, a tribute concert and more. It all culminates in a pivotal transition in Paul's public tone about John moving into the 90s. SOURCES Paul McCartney The Life, Philip Norman (2016) Yoko Ono, interview w/ Philip Norman for Sunday Times: Life after John. (May 25, 1981) Yoko Ono, Rolling Stone: Yoko: An intimate conversation. (October 1, 1981) Joe Hagan, Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner & Rolling Stone Magazine. (2017) Hunter Davies, THE BEATLES (originally published 1968; afterword printed 1985) Paul McCartney, interview w/ Ray Bonici for Music Express. (May, 1982) McCartney Today, The Sunday Express Magazine (October 21, 1984) Paul McCartney Interview: Playboy magazine (December, 1984) Paul McCartney Interview for The Magazine (January 20, 1985) Paul McCartney Interview 1984 (sound clip) Paul McCartney, interview w/ Chris Salewicz for Musician: Tug of war – Paul McCartney wants to lay his demons to rest. (October, 1986) Paul McCartney, interview w/ Anthony DeCurtis for Rolling Stone: The Paul McCartney interview. (November 5, 1987) Imagine, film by Andrew Solt (1988) Andrew Solt (filmmaker), Chicago Sun-Times: Director focuses on man & music, not the myth. (October 9, 1988) Paul McCartney interview with DJ Mike Reed (1989) Paul McCartney w/ Kurt Loder “Famous Last Words” MTV (October 19, 1990) Interview w/ Yoko Ono, BBC Radio #6 (1990) John Lennon Tribute Concert (1990): https://youtu.be/f3MSBKg74F4 PLAYLIST Every Man Has a Woman Who Loves Him YOKO ONO (1980) Tug of War PAUL McCARTNEY (1982) Just Like Starting Over JOHN LENNON (1980) No More Lonely Nights PAUL McCARTNEY (1984) The Honorary Consul PAUL McCARTNEY (1984) Say Say Say PAUL McCARTNEY & MICHAEL JACKSON (1983) Simple as That PAUL McCARTNEY (1983) Move Over Busker PAUL McCARTNEY (1986) However Absurd PAUL McCARTNEY (1986) I'm Moving On YOKO ONO (1980) Imagine JOHN LENNON (1971) I Saw Her Standing There (live) THE ANGLO-AMERICAN ROCK FRATERNITY (1988) Imagine ELTON JOHN (1990) This One PAUL McCARTNEY (1989)

Book review time. Today's title - "The Glory Game" by Hunter Davies. Now, before you click away, realize, without any pause or procrastination, that this is the very best ever book written about a professional sports team. There are others that have come close, but this is the essential look behind-the-curtain at the inner workings of a professional outfit. Yes, it makes the Cup of Tea because it's soccer; what's not for question is its quality.

The Today programme has asked some well-known faces to talk about the walks they do and why they're so important to them as part of a winter walks series. Author Hunter Davies, best known for the only authorised biography of the Beatles, describes his favourite walk along Ryde Sands on the Isle of Wight. (Image Credit: Laura Palmer/BBC)

SUMMARY In the final (2 part) episode of our series, we'll address the final event in the Breakup drama of April 1970: the battle of Phil Spector's production of The Long and Winding Road.  We'll also take an in-depth look at Paul's revelatory interview in The Evening Standard. Candid, comprehensive and intriguing, this interview is an important piece of history we have dubbed “McCartney Remembers.” We'll examine some of the recurring issues highlighted by Paul in the interview and address the ultimate question: Could John and Paul Have Turned Things Around? SOURCES Conversations with McCartney by Paul DuNoyer (2015) You Never Give Me Your Money by Peter Doggett (2009) Paul McCartney: The Life by Philip Norman (2016) “Why The Beatles Broke Up” by Mikal Gilmore, Rolling Stone (Sept 3, 2009) “Why The Beatles Broke Up; The Story Behind our Cover” by Mikael Gilmore, Rolling Stone (Aug 18, 2009) The Beatles Anthology (1995) “Lennon Remembers” w/ Jann Wenner for Rolling Stone (1970) “The Ex Beatles Tells His Story” Paul McCartney Interview: Life Magazine (April 16th 1971) Paul McCartney Interview w/ Chrissie Hynde for USA Weekend (1998) St. Regis Interview, Peter McCabe and Robert Schonfeld (1971) Q & A from McCartney LP (1970) “Magical Mystery Tours: My Life with the Beatles“ by Tony Bramwell (2014) The Beatles: The Biography by Bob Spitz (2005) Paul McCartney Interview By Ray Connolly for Evening Standard (April 21-22, 1970) https://www.the-paulmccartney-project.com/interview/interview-for-the-evening-standard “The Party's Over for the Beatles” by Derek Taylor for Sunday Magazine, (July 26, 1970) http://www.meetthebeatlesforreal.com/2017/03/the-partys-over-for-beatles-written-by.html The Beatles Authorized Biography by Hunter Davies (1968) The Beatles Anthology (1995) Cellarful of Noise by Brian Epstein (1964) PLAYLIST You Never Give Me Your Money THE BEATLES (1969) Long and Winding Road THE BEATLES (1970) When the Wind is Blowing WINGS (1971) Rupert PAUL MCCARTNEY (1977) Let it Be THE BEATLES (1970) I Know (I Know) JOHN LENNON (1973)

SUMMARY In the final (2 part) episode of our series, we'll address the final event in the Breakup drama of April 1970: the battle of Phil Spector's production of The Long and Winding Road.  We'll also take an in-depth look at Paul's revelatory interview in The Evening Standard. Candid, comprehensive and intriguing, this interview is an important piece of history we have dubbed “McCartney Remembers.” We'll examine some of the recurring issues highlighted by Paul in the interview and address the ultimate question: Could John and Paul Have Turned Things Around? SOURCES Conversations with McCartney by Paul DuNoyer (2015) You Never Give Me Your Money by Peter Doggett (2009) Paul McCartney: The Life by Philip Norman (2016) “Why The Beatles Broke Up” by Mikal Gilmore, Rolling Stone (Sept 3, 2009) “Why The Beatles Broke Up; The Story Behind our Cover” by Mikael Gilmore, Rolling Stone (Aug 18, 2009) The Beatles Anthology (1995) “Lennon Remembers” w/ Jann Wenner for Rolling Stone (1970) “The Ex Beatles Tells His Story” Paul McCartney Interview: Life Magazine (April 16th 1971) Paul McCartney Interview w/ Chrissie Hynde for USA Weekend (1998) St. Regis Interview, Peter McCabe and Robert Schonfeld (1971) Q & A from McCartney LP (1970) “Magical Mystery Tours: My Life with the Beatles“ by Tony Bramwell (2014) The Beatles: The Biography by Bob Spitz (2005) Paul McCartney Interview By Ray Connolly for Evening Standard (April 21-22, 1970) https://www.the-paulmccartney-project.com/interview/interview-for-the-evening-standard “The Party's Over for the Beatles” by Derek Taylor for Sunday Magazine, (July 26, 1970) http://www.meetthebeatlesforreal.com/2017/03/the-partys-over-for-beatles-written-by.html The Beatles Authorized Biography by Hunter Davies (1968) The Beatles Anthology (1995) Cellarful of Noise by Brian Epstein (1964) PLAYLIST You Never Give Me Your Money THE BEATLES (1969) Long and Winding Road THE BEATLES (1970) When the Wind is Blowing WINGS (1971) Rupert PAUL MCCARTNEY (1977) Let it Be THE BEATLES (1970) I Know (I Know) JOHN LENNON (1973)

Phoebe and Thalia talk with Rolling Stone contributing editor and writer Rob Sheffield about “In My Life.” Topics include: the backstory, inspiration and notable elements of the song; band dynamics of the mid-60s Beatles; Paul McCartney's influence and impact on In My Life; George Harrison's 1974 concert tour; John Lennon's social media presence. PLAYLIST: In My Life BEATLES (1965) My Girl Has Gone SMOKEY ROBINSON AND THE MIRACLES (1965) Girl THE BEATLES (1965) HELP! (1965) And Your Bird Can Sing THE BEATLES (1966) In My Life (live) GEORGE HARRISON Long Beach, CA (Nov 10, 1974)    SOURCES: Dreaming the Beatles, Rob Sheffield 2017 'McCartney 3, 2, 1': The Beatle, the Producer and Oh, That Magic Feeling by Rob Sheffield July 13, 2021 24 Reasons We'll Keep Watching the Beatles' ‘Get Back' Forever by Rob Sheffield Nov 29, 2021 Morning Joe, MSNBC Nov 30, 2021 Lennon Remembers, by Jann Wenner for Rolling Stone (1970) Paul McCartney in His Own Words (1976) by Paul Gambaccini John Lennon to Playboy Magazine, (1980) reprinted in All We Are Saying by David Sheff, 2000 The Beatles Afterword (1985) by Hunter Davies (originally published 1968) “AI used to solve disputed songwriting credits of Beatles hits” by Alex Matthews-King INDEPENDENT July 6, 2019 George Harrison: Lumbering in the Material World by Ben Fong-Torres Dec 19, 1974 John Lennon Instagram, June 18 2022

Hoy, en Tiempo de Beatles: Eduardo Rivero comenta los libros de Hunter Davies, Geoff Emerick y la Antología. El de Davies fue publicado originalmente en 1968, con la banda todavía en funcionamiento, y se titula La biografía autorizada (el autor luego publicó ediciones revisadas). Emerick es el ingeniero de grabación que trabajó en los discos Revolver, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band, el Álbum Blanco (un proceso que abandonó por los problemas internos de la banda) y Abbey Road. Su libro se llama Here, There, and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of The Beatles, traducido como El sonido de los Beatles: Memorias de su ingeniero de grabación. En tanto, The Beatles Anthology fue un proyecto de varias puntas que McCartney, Starr y Harrison desarrollaron en los años 90, y que incluyó un enorme libro a modo de autobiografía, con la voz de Lennon contada a través de entrevistas de archivo.

Making a Scene Presents Gerry Casey's Interview with Colin Hanton of The Quarrymen!Colin played drums with the Quarrymen from 1956 until 1959, appearing with John, Paul and George and he has been playing with the revived Quarrymen since 1997. For Colin's full story see Hunter Davies' biography of the Quarrymen.“I was born in Walton Hospital on 12 December 1938 and lived in Bootle during the war years. The family moved to Woolton in 1946 when I was about seven or eight, together with my elder brother, Brian. This was where I first got to know Rod Davis, who lived in a nearby street and used to come and play football with the lads in my road.My sister Jacqueline was born in Woolton and then a not long after my mother went into hospital with tuberculosis where she eventually died. Meanwhile we had gone to live in Bootle with my grandparents.

‘Pizza and Fairytales' is John Lennon's phrase— a brilliant one—and he conjured it to describe one man: Paul McCartney.  John in the 70s is fairly well documented. But what about the less communicative, less examined half of Lennon/McCartney? In this episode, Phoebe and Daphne give McCartney two things he doesn't often get: detailed lyrical analysis and recognition of his atypical self-expression. Extending this basic respect serves to shine a brighter, warmer light on the Lennon/McCartney relationship—not just in the 70s but up to present day and beyond.  Lennon and McCartney will be joined forever; they deserve to have their true story told. PLAYLIST Some People Never Know WINGS (1971) Big Barn Bed WINGS (1973) Band on the Run PAUL McCARTNEY & WINGS (1973) Dear Friend WINGS (1971) Little Lamb Dragonfly WINGS (1973) Isolation JOHN LENNON (1970) Ram On PAUL & LINDA McCARTNEY (1971) Too Many People PAUL & LINDA McCARTNEY (1971) Best Friend WINGS (1972) Let Me Roll It PAUL McCARTNEY & WINGS (1973) Beef Jerky JOHN LENNON (1974) #9 Dream JOHN LENNON (1974) Bless You JOHN LENNON (1974) Whatever Gets You Through the Night JOHN LENNON (1974) Venus and Mars WINGS (1975) Call Me Back Again WINGS (1975) Silly Love Songs WINGS (1976) Let's Love PAUL McCARTNEY (1975) Howling at the Moon JOHN LENNON (1979) SOURCES Paul McCartney, interview w/ Ray Connolly, Evening Standard: Paul on ‘Why the Beatles broke up'. (April 21st, 1970) The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present, Paul McCartney & Paul Muldoon (2021) Paul and Linda McCartney w/ Joan Goodman, Playboy (1984) Paul McCartney in Venice (September 1976) Paul McCartney w/ Scott Osbourne (March 1974) George Harrison in Sounds Magazine (Nov 9, 1974) Paul McCartney to Melody Maker (November 1971) Paul McCartney on Day by Day (July 10, 1980) John & Yoko interview, w/ McCabe and Schonfeld at St. Regis Hotel (Sept 9, 1971)  Lennon Remembers w/ Jann Wenner, Rolling Stone (1970) John Lennon: The Life by Philip Norman (2008) Loving John, May Pang (1983) Paul McCartney to Club Sandwich (1994) Paul McCartney to Billboard interview (2001) Peter Doggett talks to Mike McCartney (Beatles Book Monthly No. 199, Nov 1992) The Beatles (afterword) by Hunter Davies (re-issued version from 1985) Fresh Air w/ Terry Gross (2021) Howard Stern Show (Nov 10, 2021) Howard Stern Show (2013) Paul McCartney w/ Anthony DeCurtis for Rolling Stone: The Paul McCartney interview. (November 5th, 1987) Paul McCartney, from Beatles Monthly Book, N°256 (August 1997)

What happened between Paul and John that forever altered their relationship and created the emotional stalemate John dubbed “Pizza and Fairytales?” In episode four, we evaluate four likely scenarios based on a comprehensive study of the available evidence. Join Phoebe and Daphne on a deep exploration into the inspiration behind and meaning of Pizza and Fairytales. SOURCES  Many Years From Now, Barry Miles (1997) Man on the Run, Tom Doyle (2015) Playboy Interview w/ John and Yoko (1980) John Lennon, “Lennon Remembers” w/ Jann Wenner (1970) Here, There and Everywhere, Geoff Emerick (2011) Dakota Days, John Green (1983) Last Days of John Lennon, Fred Seaman (1983) Body Count, Francie Schwartz (1973) Paul McCartney: the Definitive Biography by Chris Salewicz (1985) Dave Sholin from The Day John Lennon Died (2009) Allen Klein, Playboy: A candid conversation with the embattled manager of the Beatles. (November, 1971) The Beatles Authorized Biography by Hunter Davies, Afterword (1985) Paul McCartney letter to Brian Epstein — The Scotsman: Sad record of designs on a career which could never be. (March 27th, 2000) John Lennon, interview w/ Barry Miles, (partially) unpublished. (September 23rd, 1969) Alistair Taylor, With the Beatles. (2003) Bridesmaids, director Paul Feig (2011) Paul McCartney, interview w/ Ray Connolly, Evening Standard: Paul on ‘Why the Beatles broke up'. (April 21st, 1970) John Lennon: the Life, Philip Norman (2008) Derek Taylor, Lennon Revealed (2007) Paul McCartney on German TV Exclusiv (1985) Victor Spinetti Up Front . . .: His Strictly Confidential Autobiography (October 1, 2006) Sir Paul McCartney Interview, Evening Standard (December 14, 2018) The Untold Stories of Paul McCartney, GQ (Sept 11, 2018) John Lennon: A Journey in the Life BBC special (December 6, 1985) Mark Lewisohn Tune In Extended Edition (2013) In My Life, Pete Shotton (1983) McCartney by Christopher Sandford (2007) Loving John, May Pang (1983) Bob Spitz, The Beatles: The Biography (2005) Lennon & McCartney Interview w/ Larry Kane (May 13, 1968) John Lennon Interview w/ McCabe & Schonfeld at St. Regis Hotel (Sept 9, 1971) Harry Nilsson Interview w/ Geoffrey Guiliano (Feb 17, 1984) Derek Taylor, Lennon Revealed (2007) Paul McCartney, The Adam Buxton Podcast, episode 144 (2020) Sandra Shevey Interview w/ John & Yoko (1972) Amoralto.tumblr.com “I'm Still Standing” John Harris, The Guardian (June 11, 2004) The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present, Paul McCartney & Paul Muldoon (2021) Paul McCartney, interview w/ Ray Bonici for Music Express. (May, 1982) Paul McCartney and Mike McCartney, by Mark Rowland, Playgirl (June, 1982) MarijkeKogerArt.com Lennon & McCartney Interview w/ Keith Fordyce BBC (August 1966) Yoko Ono, interview w/ Paul Trynka for MOJO. (May, 2003) John & Yoko Interview w/ Laurie Kaye (December 8, 1980) John & Yoko Interview w/ Dave Sholin (December 8, 1980) Yoko Interview BBC Radio 6 “06: Two of Us” (1990) John Lennon w/ Elliot Mintz (January 1976) John Lennon to David Sheff (September 1980) Paul McCartney, interview w/ Mark Binelli for Rolling Stone: Sir Paul rides again. (October 20th, 2005) Crossing Over: The Stories Behind the Stories, John Edward (2002) BBC documentary Mr. Blue Sky (2012) “Paul McCartney Doesn't Really Want to Stop the Show” by David Remnick, The New Yorker (October 18, 2021) PLAYLIST Now and Then, JOHN LENNON (1977) I'm So Tired, THE BEATLES (1968) Across the Universe, THE BEATLES (1968) Fool on the Hill, THE BEATLES (1967) Look At Me (demo) JOHN LENNON (1968) Hey Bulldog THE BEATLES (1968) I Don't Know PAUL McCARTNEY (2018) Real Love JOHN LENNON (1980) Some People Never Know WINGS (1971)

Episode Three is a deep exploration of John's inner conflicts—his lasting trauma over the Beatles breakup, his susceptibility to Yoko's continuing mind games, and potentially lingering aftereffects of his nightmarish therapy at the hands of Arthur Janov.  Primal Scream Therapy is a topic which usually slides under the radar of Beatles discourse—until now.  AKOM believes it was catastrophic to John's psyche and the Lennon/McCartney relationship.  Ultimately, John chooses not to revive his partnership with Paul McCartney in New Orleans. How does this alter the course of their renewed relationship?  And how does John's eventual descent into paranoia and superstition alter both his feelings for and perception of Paul? TW: Psychological abuse, homophobia --- SOURCES Loving John, MAY PANG (1983) John Lennon interview w/ Alan Freeman (January, 1975) May Pang, The Beatles' Biggest Secrets BBC doc (2004) Linda McCartney: A Portrait DANNY FIELDS (2001) “Arthur Janov, 93, Dies; Psychologist Caught World's Attention With ‘Primal Scream'” by Margalit Fox, NEW YORK TIMES (Oct 2, 2017) “On Homosexuality as a Normal Variant of Human Sexuality” (Sunday, January 8, 2012) “On Becoming Homosexual. Is it Becoming?” (Saturday, May 23, 2009) John & Yoko interview, w/ McCabe and Schonfeld (Sept 9, 1971)  John & Yoko Interview w/ Howard Smith, (January 23, 1972) Robert Christgau, Village Voice: Living without The Beatles. (September, 1971) Art Garfunkel, Beatles Stories doc (2011) Francis Schoenberger, SPIN MAGAZINE (1975) Letter 204 to Rick Sklar dated July 1975, The John Lennon Letters (2012) Home cassette, recorded for Vin Scelsa at WNEW-FM (Autumn, 1975) Interview w/ Elliot Mintz (January 1, 1976)  Klaus Voormann, c/o Memories of John Lennon. (2005) The Beatles (afterword) by Hunter Davies (re-issued version from 1985) John Lennon: The Life by Philip Norman (2008) Man on the Run TOM DOYLE (2013) John Lennon w/ Bob Harris for The Old Grey Whistle Test BBC, (April 18, 1975) Paul McCartney w/ Jay Cocks for Time: McCartney comes back. (May 31st, 1976) Lennon Remembers, Rolling Stone (1970) The Primal Center for Treatment, Training and Research “About John Lennon” (2008) Last Days of John Lennon, FRED SEAMAN (1990) John Lennon interview w/ Barbara Graustark, NEWSWEEK (September 1980) Dakota Days, JOHN GREEN (1983) Paul McCartney, The Adam Buxton Podcast, episode 144 (2020) The Love You Make, Peter Brown (1983) The Beatles Roundup Interview, Theatre Royal, Glasgow, (April 30, 1964)  Paul McCartney Reddit chat (December 2020) Jack Douglas to Ben Yakas, Gothamist (July 19, 2016) John Lennon, Interview for Playboy (1980) Jimmy Carter on The Late Show w/ Stephen Colbert (March 31, 2018) PLAYLIST Helen Wheels WINGS Tennessee (demo) JOHN LENNON Letting Go WINGS Bridge on the River Suite WINGS San Ferry Ann WINGS Let Em In WINGS Love JOHN LENNON Beware My Love WINGS Call Me Back Again (live) WINGS

Analysis: How rising hospitalisation rates panicked the Prime Minister | 'Extreme caution': Boris Johnson urges use of vaccine passports | Official guidance: The Covid lockdown rules that will change from July 19 | Liveblog: MPs who accept foreign aid double lock are being 'hoodwinked' | Euro 2020: England star accuses Priti Patel of 'stoking racism fire' | Hunter Davies: 11 ways heartbroken England fans can get over the loss | Cricket: Umpires to call 'five' instead of 'over' in The Hundred | Mission to Mars: Who will be ultimate winner of new billionaire space race? | Read all these articles and stay expertly informed anywhere, anytime with a digital subscription. Start your free one-month trial today to gain unlimited website and app access. Cancel anytime. Sign up here.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Diana and Historian Erin Torkelson Weber discuss the Fab 4 Myth: How it was constructed, its accuracy, and how the Beatles tried to break free of it. They explore the importance of Cleave interviews and the Hunter Davies official biography as attempts to escape the constraints of their image. This conversation is based on the ideas contained in Erin Torkelson Weber's book: Beatles and the Historians: An Analysis of Writings about the Fab Four.Please check out Erin's book and her blog:https://beatlebioreview.wordpress.com/reviews-for-the-beatles-and-the-historians/

Was Jealous Guy written for Paul McCartney? Listen to our essay and decide for yourself. — SOURCES: John Lennon Interview w/ David Sheff for Playboy. (September, 1980)  Interview with John Lennon & Yoko Ono, (May 28th, 1971) “The Beatles” by Hunter Davies (1968) “The Beatles and the Historians” Erin Torkelson (2016) Neil McCormick for Telegraph UK (1998) “John, Paul, George, Ringo & Me: The Real Beatles Story” by Tony Barrow (2005) The Best of the Beatles Book (ed. Johnny Dean). (2005) JL Interview w/ Peter McCabe and Robert Schonfeld at St. Regis Hotel (September, 1971) “What’s It All About” Cilla Black (2003) “Q: Paul McCartney: An Innocent Man?” By Chris Salewicz (October, 1986) Robert Rosen interview w/ Maria Spain (2010) Lunchtime dialogue, Twickenham Film Studios, London (January 13th, 1969) Paul McCartney, interview w/ Ray Connolly, Evening Standard: Paul on 'why the Beatles broke up' (April 21st, 1970) “Meet Paul Saltzman, the Canadian who hung out with The Beatles at the Rishikesh Ashram” Nikhila Natarajan for FirstPost (December 14, 2015) Paul McCartney, interview w/ Diane de Dubovay for Playgirl (February, 1985) “Later with Bob Costas” (1991) Derek Taylor, interview w/ Peter Doggett for Record Collector. (August, 1988) “With the Beatles: A Stunning Insight by The Man who was with the Band Every Step of the Way” Alistair Taylor (2011) PLAYLIST: Jealous Guy by John Lennon (1971) Cayenne by the Beatles (1960) Besame Mucho by the Beatles (1962) It’s For You Cilla Black (1965) Let it Be by the Beatles (1969) All Together Now by the Beatles (1967) Child of Nature (Esher Demo) by the Beatles (1968) Say Say Say by Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson (1983) Jealous Guy by YouTube user pablohoneymp3 (2016)

Dr. Glenn Gass is a provost professor emeritus at The Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BEST TRANSCRIPT: ZAK: This is Dr. Glenn Gass. GLENN: I'm a provost professor emeritus at The Indiana University Jacobs School of Music and just retired this past May. ZAK: When I was Professor Gass' student in his History of The Beatles class. Yes, that's a real class and yes it was most the beloved class on campus and one night in class, professor Gass told us this Beatles story which remains one of my favorite Beatle's stories. And I think the essence of this story has a jewel of wisdom that I've been thinking about a lot, which we'll get to. But first, let's go back to the spring of 1966 when The Beatles were recording the song, Yellow Submarine. GLENN: And they had a bunch of friends over. Marianne Faithful, Brian Jones, Hunter Davies, Alf Bicknell. They just said, come on in. They just wanted normal voices singing the chorus, so it didn't sound like The Beatles singing in perfect harmony. They had Mal Evans with a parade bass drum and they had the cocktail party. That's actually Patty Boyd, George's wife that has the big shrieking, high life in the middle of that and the glasses clinking and all the sound effects. So, anyway they did this and they did the overdubs singing, we all live in a Yellow Submarine and everyone was having a great time. Who knows, it's 1966, so they're probably having a really great time. The engineer, Geoff Emerick went to lock up the tapes and turn off the lights and he came back out to turn out the lights in the studio. He walked in the control room and looked down to Studio 2 and saw everyone was still there. They were there with Big Mal Evans and that parade drum in the front of this conga line with everyone on the person in-front of them's shoulders, swaying back and forth singing, we all live in a yellow submarine. I mean there's no tape running. The song is done. They're having so much fun, they didn't want it to end. That's so beautiful on so many levels. The Beatles just want to be together. They want to sing and have fun together. You wouldn't likely do that on a George, Paul or John song but for Ringo, lets all gather round our friend and just have a good, old sing-a-long. ZAK: I love it so much. I love thinking about how, the song in this instance, maybe not with all their output, but maybe in this case, the song was just a by-product of their friendship. GLENN: Yes. ZAK: The song wasn't even the point. The point was them being together and having fun and, awesome, this amazing song came out of it. GLENN: The point was being together, having fun and the song expresses that. My friends are all aboard. Many more of them live next door. The whole song was about being together with your friends and the fact that Paul wrote it not for himself but for his friend. So, it not only is about friendship, it sort of embodies friendship. ZAK: We have these really loud baseboards cause we have a boiler with hot water heat and in our bedroom it sounds like we're in a submarine right now and I've been thinking about the song and thinking about how, all of us, are in our own...if we're lucky to have our own proverbial submarines with the people in our lives we love. Like, we're just kind of very insulated in our own yellow submarines right now. GLENN: Yeah and everyone's submarine is so different. ZAK: At the beginning of the pandemic, parents with young families were talking about how they would have impromptu dance parties. It's like finding fun where they can because we don't have access to all these old ways of having fun outside our houses. So, I feel like that's another thing that this song makes me think of. It's just like, make meaning amid the isolation. GLENN: Create the world you want to be in. Create the atmosphere you want. And damn the torpedoes we're gonna do this submarine song and we're gonna have fun with it.

For this episode, I'm incredibly lucky to be joined by the writer Andy Miller to discuss Hunter Davies' 1968 authorised biography. Still the only official Beatles biography ever published, Hunter's book is an essential read - he had unparalleled access not only to The Beatles but to family, friends and colleagues - some of whom would never be interviewed again. Andy and I look at how this book was created, why it still matters in 2021 and what it tells us about what readers wanted in 1968 and beyond.Andy Miller is a reader, editor and author of books including 'The Year of Reading Dangerously' and the '33 1/3' volume on The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society. He is also co host of Backlisted, a podcast that gives new life to old books.

 At 85, Hunter Davies, buoyed by his younger girlfriend Clare, has received his covid jabs and is raring to go. The writer and Fleet Street legend tells Harry Bucknall what fuels him in this month's podcast. The key ingredient is boredom, Hunter confesses that if he has even thirty minutes between projects, he goes mad. He's also not too mad about England's prospects in the World Cup! 

Surely the only podcast on God's Earth that covers Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera, Pulp's Disco 2000, Zulu, voter fraud in Citizen Kane, Mother's club in Birmingham, Prudence Farrow, the Alan Parsons Project, Get Cape Wear Cape Fly!, the Maharishi, ‘Lennon Remembers', Gothmog (lieutenant of Morgul) and ‘Is it a craft beer or a Mercury Prize Nominee?' The Beatles recording of ‘There You Go Eddy', a song about Hunter Davies …https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=beatles+there+you+are+eddy+youtube&docid=608013219034040298&mid=427E49A4B90193F58E80427E49A4B90193F58E80&view=detail&FORM=VIRE Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Surely the only podcast on God’s Earth that covers Elmer Gantry’s Velvet Opera, Pulp’s Disco 2000, Zulu, voter fraud in Citizen Kane, Mother’s club in Birmingham, Prudence Farrow, the Alan Parsons Project, Get Cape Wear Cape Fly!, the Maharishi, ‘Lennon Remembers’, Gothmog (lieutenant of Morgul) and ‘Is it a craft beer or a Mercury Prize Nominee?’ The Beatles recording of ‘There You Go Eddy’, a song about Hunter Davies …https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=beatles+there+you+are+eddy+youtube&docid=608013219034040298&mid=427E49A4B90193F58E80427E49A4B90193F58E80&view=detail&FORM=VIRE Access extra content and benefits on Patreon! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Surely the only podcast on God's Earth that covers Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera, Pulp's Disco 2000, Zulu, voter fraud in Citizen Kane, Mother's club in Birmingham, Prudence Farrow, the Alan Parsons Project, Get Cape Wear Cape Fly!, the Maharishi, ‘Lennon Remembers', Gothmog (lieutenant of Morgul) and ‘Is it a craft beer or a Mercury Prize Nominee?' The Beatles recording of ‘There You Go Eddy', a song about Hunter Davies …https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=beatles+there+you+are+eddy+youtube&docid=608013219034040298&mid=427E49A4B90193F58E80427E49A4B90193F58E80&view=detail&FORM=VIRE Get bonus content on Patreon See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Mike Leigh is joined by ex Spurs defender Phil Beal and the authors Hunter Davies and Rob White to crow about being top of the league and to discuss the huge game v Chelsea at the weekend. Come and support us and join our #SpursShowLIVE events (when we're allowed again!) for just £10 a month! Grab your season ticket now from season.spursshow.net For more exclusive daily Spurs Show podcasts from 5p a day, check out Patreon.com/spursshow spursshow.net @spursshow Support us at season.spursshow.net Produced by Paul Myers and Mike Leigh Engineered by Leon Gorman A Playback Media Production playbackmedia.co.uk Copyright 2020 Playback Media Ltd - playbackmedia.co.uk/copyright

Mike Leigh is joined by ex Spurs defender Phil Beal and the authors Hunter Davies and Rob White to crow about being top of the league and to discuss the huge game v Chelsea at the weekend. Come and join us at our #SpursShowLIVE events for just £10 a month! Grab your season ticket now from season.spursshow.net For more exclusive daily Spurs Show podcasts check out Patreon.com/spursshow  spursshow.net  @spursshow  Support us at season.spursshow.net  Produced by Paul Myers and Mike Leigh  Engineered by Leon Gorman  A Playback Media Production  playbackmedia.co.uk  Copyright 2020 Playback Media Ltd - playbackmedia.co.uk/copyright  Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1972, Hunter Davies released a book that documented his experiences spending a whole season behind the scenes with Bill Nicholson’s Spurs. Davies's book - The Glory Game - offers an eye-opening account of football in the 70s with a level of intimacy that gave the book a real edge as a piece of football history. Nearly 50 years later, global mega-company Amazon are offering a comparative experience. But where Hunter Davies went in armed with a notepad and pencil, Amazon takes us behind-the-scenes with video cameras and microphones. In this episode, we ask: what did we learn from All or Nothing, Amazon’s television docu-series about Spurs? Guests: Jack Pitt-Brook (@JackPittBrooke) covers Tottenham and England for the Athletic and hosts the View from the Lane podcast. Chris Miller (@WindyCOYS) is the host of the Extra Inch podcast 15 Minutes (With Flav And Windy) a podcast in which Flav and Windy devote 15 minutes to a random topic. Support Us: https://www.patreon.com/FootballToday Follow Us: @FT_Podcast_ www.FootballTodayPodcast.com Music: The music for this episode was provided under the Creative Commons license by Blue Dot Sessions. Cicle Clavis Textile - Cicle Kadde Waterbourne - Algae Fields Three Stories - Skittle Entrance Shaft 11 - The Depot Topslides - The Cabinetmaker Scalloped - Crab Shack

Author, writer, editor and old pal from the Word, Nige Tassell on Dexys, Hunter Davies, buying ELO when he wanted ELP, the Pillows & Prayers sampler, "rubber-faced irritant" Phil Cool, Kenny Dalgleish cameos and being at Burnley on transfer deadline day.@nigetassell Nige Tassell books …https://www.amazon.co.uk/Books-Nige-Tassell/s?rh=n%3A266239%2Cp_27%3ANige+Tassell Get bonus content on Patreon See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Mike Bubbins, Elis James and Steff Garrero chat about Francesco Totti, the 1984 Milk Cup Final, Dick Butkus, Bobby Davro and Lionel Blair...Get involved on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @distantpod and claim your 8 free beers at www.beer52.com/distantLeave us a five star review and a guess at who The Secret Guitarist is on here.You can find us on YouTube too https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdPg-dFSGVMfzeE6ITe8ZAwHere's the links to the clips from the episode.Round 1 of clipsMike: Dick Butkushttps://youtu.be/lsWqX2LgXN4Elis: Derek Redmond being helped over the line at Barcelona ‘92 by his dadhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4S3q6v8nBISteff: 1987 English Football League XI v Rest of the World https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ywifamQPis&t=28sDocumentaryElis' choice of Home & Away the 1984 Milk Cup Final, Everton v LiverpoolIt's in 5 parts, so here's the link to part one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onUuVNUXqRo Round 2 of clipsSteff: Sam Burgess playing in the NRL Grand Final 2014https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-qfb96Cue4https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xH98y7RNNKcMike: West Brom in China 1978https://youtu.be/HCvLrMQHLJ8Elis: Francesco Totti playing 8 a side with his mates.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbvSCmRb0hwBooksSteff: Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football by David Winner https://amzn.to/2ZsNYW8 Mike: Bobby Dazzler: My Story by Bobby George https://amzn.to/36l48lS Elis: The Glory Game by Hunter Davies https://amzn.to/2LRiVLK

John, Paul, George e Ringo são quatro nomes conhecidos em todo o mundo. Os garotos de Liverpool são até hoje relembrados por conta de suas canções, seus discos e todo o impacto cultural causado pelo surgimento dos Beatles. No nono episódio do Hertz, Gabriel Bergamascki (@_bergamascki) e Guilherme Souza (@GuigoPSouza) recebem Levi Bergamascki (@bergalevi) para um bate-papo sobre a maior banda de todos os tempos. Dê o play e confira a discussão baseada em cinco questões que não saem da cabeças dos Beatlemaniacos. Citamos no episódio:- Filmes: Yesterday e Across The Universe - Artistas: Ronnie Von; Frank Sinatra - YouTube: The Beatles School - Livros: As letras dos Beatles: A história por trás das canções (Hunter Davies) e O jovem Lennon (Jordi Sierra I Fabra) - Álbuns: Beatles For Sale (1964), Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), The Beatles (1968), Abbey Road (1969) Let It Be (1970), Everyday Chemistry* (2009) Siga o Hertz no Instagram em @hertzpodcast!Edição por: @bergalevi --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/hertzpodcast/message

Enjoy the second free audio extract of Hunter Davies's charming, funny and moving memoir as he sets out on a quest for love after the death of his wife (and along the way learns where the salad dressing is kept, and how to operate a microwave). Mail+Audio Book club offers free audio versions of the book extracts in the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday to listen to anywhere via your favourite podcast apps or via the Mail + website. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Enjoy this free audio extract of Hunter Davies's charming, funny and moving memoir as he sets out on a  quest for love after the death of his wife (and along the way is turned down by Jilly Cooper who seemed more interested in her dogs!) Mail+Audio Book club offers free audio versions of the book extracts in the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday to listen to anywhere via your favourite podcast apps or via the Mail + website. Come back for Part Two next week… See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Caitlin Davies and her father Hunter Davies let us eavesdrop on a conversation about their respective writing careers, being compulsive writers in a family of writers and generational changes in the publishing industry. The post Caitlin Davies & Hunter Davies appeared first on The Royal Literary Fund.

Welcome to the Oldie's October podcast. 50 years ago, on the 26th September, The Beatles's Abbey Road album was first released. Today, we are joined by veteran-journalist and the Beatles's only authorised biographer, Hunter Davies, who shadowed the Beatles as they wrote and recorded what many consider to be their best studio album.

Looks Unfamiliar is a podcast in which writer and occasional broadcaster Tim Worthington talks to a guest about some of the things that they remember that nobody else ever seems to. Joining Tim this time is juggler Gillian Kirby, who doesn't want your money honey but does want your memories of an unidentified episode of Dramarama about two youngsters trying to walk around the outside of England via the coast, Teletext After Hours, misunderstanding references in Transvision Vamp lyrics, Lava Lamp-esque soft drink Orbitz, Seattle Coffee Company, early social media site bolt.com and the S.T.A.R.S. novels by Hunter Davies. Along the way we’ll be finding out how much vomiting was involved in the average episode of Children's Ward, shouting sexist heckles at the male members of The Mock Turtles, saying a big hello to Fourth Bloke from Transvision Vamp, trying not to get too excited by the adventures of 'Turner The Screw', and exploring the little-known friendship between Kate Middleton and Honey Monster (Puffs). Whether this has any bearing on Gillian's choice of new National Anthem we're not saying...

Original Quarrymen member Rod Davis takes us to the place where Paul McCartney and John Lennon first met - St Peter's Church in Woolton.He's joined with his brother Bernie Davis and the pair exclusively paint a detailed picture of what life was like in the village of Woolton when John and Paul met.Rod also debunks some widely-speculated myths about the Beatles and how the band came to be including a very interesting story about how there's a mistake on the plaque outside St Peter's Church Hall where the pair famously met.Rod played banjo with the Quarrymen from 1956 to mid 1957, he was replaced in the band by Paul. Since 1997 he has been playing guitar for the revived Quarrymen and sharing vocals with Len Garry. For Rod’s story see Hunter Davies’ biography of the Quarrymen. For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

En este primer episodio de 'Próxima página', el columnista de EL TIEMPO y politólogo Fernando Posada te hablará de dos libros que marcaron profundamente su relación con la música: Crónicas I (2004) del músico Bob Dylan (quien ganó el Premio Nobel de Literatura en el 2016) y Las cartas de John Lennon (2012), recopiladas por el periodista Hunter Davies. ¡Que lo disfrutes!

Ever wonder what the lives of those screaming legions of fans were like? Wonder no more: today, I speak with award-winning cartoonist, Carol Tyler, whose memoir of her Beatles adoration, Fab 4 Mania: A Beatles Obsession and the Concert of a Lifetime, has just been published. The book builds on the diary that she kept as 13-year old, vividly chronicling her devotion with the art and journals she kept from back in the day. Her journey articulates the fan experience of someone who grew up with The Beatles, while also serving as a love letter to the city of her birth (and mine): Chicago, and how local top 40 radio (WLS, WCFL, WVON) impacted young lives while shaping tastes. Carol’s richly illustrated book transports readers back in time, capturing the immediacy of anticipating and witnessing a Beatles concert during those all-too-brief touring years. It features an Introduction written by Beatles biographer Hunter Davies. The post 146: Fab 4 Mania with Carol Tyler appeared first on Something About The Beatles.

Ever wonder what the lives of those screaming legions of fans were like? Wonder no more: today, I speak with award-winning cartoonist, Carol Tyler, whose memoir of her Beatles adoration, Fab 4 Mania: A Beatles Obsession and the Concert of a Lifetime, has just been published. The book builds on the diary that she kept as 13-year old, vividly chronicling her devotion with the art and journals she kept from back in the day. Her journey articulates the fan experience of someone who grew up with The Beatles, while also serving as a love letter to the city of her birth (and mine): Chicago, and how local top 40 radio (WLS, WCFL, WVON) impacted young lives while shaping tastes. Carol’s richly illustrated book transports readers back in time, capturing the immediacy of anticipating and witnessing a Beatles concert during those all-too-brief touring years. It features an Introduction written by Beatles biographer Hunter Davies. The post 146: Fab 4 Mania with Carol Tyler appeared first on Something About The Beatles.

From September 2017, here is our very first intimate podcast for Spurs Show Season Ticket holders again. For £10 a month, the SSST family were witness to a very special night of entertainment (three podcasts!) and an insight into Tottenham history from the man who invented football journalism and lived with Spurs greatest. We followed this event by including 16 tickets over the season with live podcasts (and selfies!) with Hoddle, Mullery, Chivers, Davro (yup), Roberts, Miller, Galvin and of course the end of season show with Ryan Mason for just £100 or £10 a month. And this season, will be bigger and better! To be on the inside of the 2018-19 season of events, get yourself signed up at season.spursshow.net now, before we sell out! No one doubts that Hunter Davies is the author of the greatest book about football ever written so what an honour it was to have the legendary Tottenham Hotspur biographer on the podcast after a decade of trying! In this podcast we look back at our last victory at the weekend, forward to the upcoming games and of course Hunter's many opinions and anecdotes on all things Spurs including Kane, Dier and Dele's finger. Being The Beatles only official biographer and the ghost writer of dozens of sports biographies including that of Wayne Rooney, we get yet another intelligent aspect on the team we love. Bants? We're better than that. This is the first part of our evening with Hunter Davies and the second episode following - which includes a Paul Gascoigne anecdote that you'll never forget! The Spurs Show is backed for the season by Ladbrokes. Get the latest offers and odds at bet.spursshow.net @spursshow season.spursshow.net spursshow.net Produced by Paul Myers and Mike Leigh Engineered by Dave Nattriss A Playback Media Production playbackmedia.co.uk Copyright 2017 Playback Media Ltd - playbackmedia.co.uk/copyright

The second part of our #SpursShowLIVE special with Hunter Davies looks back on the making of 'the best book about soccer ever written' - 'The Glory Game'. The access he had and even the role he played in the squad will surprise you even if you've the book. (And if you still haven't read it, grab a copy now from The Spurs Show Book Shop astore.amazon.co.uk/spursshow-21/detail/1840182423 ). This podcast contains a particularly disgusting story about our Gazza. If you don't have a strong stomach, please hit the forward button when this comes up! Spurs Show Season Ticket holders got two free tickets to this event and SIXTEEN tickets to #SpursShowLIVE events over the season! Don't miss out on these very special events. Get yourself one now at Season.SpursShow.net The Spurs Show is backed for the season by Ladbrokes. Get the latest offers and odds at bet.spursshow.net @spursshow spursshow.net Produced by Paul Myers and Mike Leigh Engineered by Dave Nattriss A Playback Media Production playbackmedia.co.uk Copyright 2017 Playback Media Ltd - playbackmedia.co.uk/copyright

September 16, 1968 through October 11, 1968With Ringo back in the group and Hey Jude continuing its domination on the charts, The Beatles made one last push to wrap their ambitious double album project in time for a holiday release. A hallmark of the sessions was the diversity of song style, with the band recording tender ballads like I Will, raucous rockers like Birthday, haunting epics like Happiness Is A Warm Gun and Long Long Long, to borderline novelty tracks like Honey Pie and The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill. While this diversity reigned, the double album did find itself dominated by "stripped­-down" acoustic tracks that would be a shocking departure for fans who had grown accustomed to the lavish studio creations of 1967. The fall of 1968 also saw the publication of The Beatles authorized biography by Hunter Davies ­ perhaps the last vestige of influence by the band's late manager Brian Epstein. If Brian's influence was finally dissipating, the influence of John's new girlfriend Yoko Ono was expanding by the day, and by October the couple would proclaim themselves inseparable... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

A selection of Christmas literary gifts, Hunter Davies and crowd funding for books.

The second part of our #SpursShowLIVE special with Hunter Davies looks back on the making of 'the best book about soccer ever written' - 'The Glory Game'. The access he had and even the role he played in the squad will surprise you even if you've the book. (And if you still haven't read it, grab a copy now from The Spurs Show Book Shop astore.amazon.co.uk/spursshow-21/detail/1840182423 ).This podcast contains a particularly disgusting story about our Gazza. If you don't have a strong stomach, please hit the forward button when this comes up!Spurs Show Season Ticket holders got two free tickets to this event and for the next one too (The Davro and Whitehouse Show!) which will be exclusive to Season Ticket holders only. Don't miss out on these very special #SpursShowLIVE events. More details of upcoming live podcasts at season.spursshow.net The Spurs Show is backed for the season by Ladbrokes. 'Bet £5 Get £20'. If you deposit £5, Ladbrokes will add another £20 to your account. You can get this offer by following the link at bet.spursshow.net @spursshowspursshow.netProduced by Paul Myers and Mike LeighEngineered by Dave NattrissA Playback Media Productionplaybackmedia.co.ukCopyright 2017 Playback Media Ltd playbackmedia.co.uk/copyright Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The second part of our #SpursShowLIVE special with Hunter Davies looks back on the making of 'the best book about soccer ever written' - 'The Glory Game'. The access he had and even the role he played in the squad will surprise you even if you've the book. (And if you still haven't read it, grab a copy now from The Spurs Show Book Shop astore.amazon.co.uk/spursshow-21/detail/1840182423 ). This podcast contains a particularly disgusting story about our Gazza. If you don't have a strong stomach, please hit the forward button when this comes up! Spurs Show Season Ticket holders got two free tickets to this event and for the next one too (The Davro and Whitehouse Show!) which will be exclusive to Season Ticket holders only. Don't miss out on these very special #SpursShowLIVE events. More details of upcoming live podcasts at season.spursshow.net The Spurs Show is backed for the season by Ladbrokes. 'Bet £5 Get £20'. If you deposit £5, Ladbrokes will add another £20 to your account. You can get this offer by following the link at bet.spursshow.net @spursshow spursshow.net Produced by Paul Myers and Mike Leigh Engineered by Dave Nattriss A Playback Media Production playbackmedia.co.uk Copyright 2017 Playback Media Ltd playbackmedia.co.uk/copyright

More On The Film & Alan G Parker  From the Emmy nominated director of Monty Python: Almost The Truth , Alan G. Parker (Rebel Truce: The Story of The Clash, Hello Quo, Never Mind the Sex Pistols, Who Killed Nancy) and produced by Reynold D'Silva and Alexa Morris , the film features incredible rare archival footage unseen since the 1960s. The film also features rare interviews with The Beatles' original drummer Pete Best , John Lennon's sister Julia Baird , Beatles' manager Brian Epstein's secretary Barbara O'Donnell, Steve Diggle of the Buzzcocks, Beatles associate Tony Bramwell, Pattie Boyd's sister Jenny Boyd , Hunter Davies, Simon Napier-Bell, Ray Connolly, Bill Harry, Philip Norman, Steve Turner, Andy Peebles, Freda Kelly and The Merseybeats . IT WAS FIFTY YEARS AGO TODAY! THE BEATLES: SGT. PEPPER & BEYOND examines the year 1967, the year that would arguably be the most crucial in the band's career, a year in which they stopped being the world's number one touring band and instead became the world's most innovative recording artists, pushing the boundaries of what could be achieved in the studio. Unable to hear themselves perform and mired by controversy, the band decided to stop touring in August 1966. What followed was a period of extreme creativity and rebirth during which they embraced Swinging London, the ‘avant-garde', LSD and the advent of the Summer Of Love. The result was the creation of their new alter ego, Sgt. Pepper, with the desire to create a pop music first, the concept album. A devoted fan since the age of nine, the film's director Alan G. Parker has set out to explore this period by filming interviews with former employees, fellow musicians, family member and journalists, all of whom were there at the time. These stories are in turn supported by a vast array of impressive archival footage, much of it not seen since first transmission. The result is a detailed examination of why the band stopped touring, how the album was conceived and its recording at EMI's Abbey Road Studios, its lyrics, the creation of its sleeve and finally its release. All this is set against a background of the band's changing relationship with their manager, Brian Epstein and the tragedy of his death, the creation of Apple and the powerful influence of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Trailer: https://www.youtube.c om/watch?v=n2uUckwL6oo IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/titl e/tt6440916 Alan G. Parker (Director IMDb): http://www.imdb.com/nam e/nm2569672 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Here is a special #SpursShowLIVE, recorded in an intimate setting and the first of many more. No one doubts that Hunter Davies is the author of the greatest book about football ever written so what an honour it was to have the legendary Tottenham Hotspur biographer on the podcast after a decade of trying! In this podcast we look back at our last victory at the weekend, forward to the upcoming games and of course Hunter's many opinions and anecdotes on all things Spurs including Kane, Dier and Dele's finger. Being The Beatles only official biographer and the ghost writer of dozens of sports biographies including that of Wayne Rooney, we get yet another intelligent aspect on the team we love. Bants? We're better than that. This is the first part of our evening with Hunter Davies and the second episode will be coming up soon (and includes a Paul Gascoigne anecdote that you'll never forget! Spurs Show Season Ticket holders got two free tickets to this event and the next one (The Bobby Davro and Paul Whitehouse Show!) will be exclusive to Season Ticket holders only, so don't miss out on these very special #SpursShowLIVE events. More details of upcoming live podcasts at season.spursshow.net The Spurs Show is backed for the season by Ladbrokes. 'Bet £5 Get £20'. If you deposit £5, Ladbrokes will add another £20 to your account. You can get this offer by following the link at bet.spursshow.net @spursshow spursshow.net Produced by Paul Myers and Mike Leigh Engineered by Dave Nattriss A Playback Media Production playbackmedia.co.uk Copyright 2017 Playback Media Ltd - playbackmedia.co.uk/copyright

Here is a special #SpursShowLIVE, recorded in an intimate setting and the first of many more. No one doubts that Hunter Davies is the author of the greatest book about football ever written so what an honour it was to have the legendary Tottenham Hotspur biographer on the podcast after a decade of trying!In this podcast we look back at our last victory at the weekend, forward to the upcoming games and of course Hunter's many opinions and anecdotes on all things Spurs including Kane, Dier and Dele's finger. Being The Beatles only official biographer and the ghost writer of dozens of sports biographies including that of Wayne Rooney, we get yet another intelligent aspect on the team we love. Bants? We're better than that. This is the first part of our evening with Hunter Davies and the second episode will be coming up soon (and includes a Paul Gascoigne anecdote that you'll never forget! Spurs Show Season Ticket holders got two free tickets to this event and the next one (The Bobby Davro and Paul Whitehouse Show!) will be exclusive to Season Ticket holders only, so don't miss out on these very special #SpursShowLIVE events. More details of upcoming live podcasts at season.spursshow.netThe Spurs Show is backed for the season by Ladbrokes. 'Bet £5 Get £20'. If you deposit £5, Ladbrokes will add another £20 to your account. You can get this offer by following the link at bet.spursshow.net @spursshow spursshow.net Produced by Paul Myers and Mike Leigh Engineered by Dave Nattriss A Playback Media Production playbackmedia.co.uk Copyright 2017 Playback Media Ltd - playbackmedia.co.uk/copyright Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When a renowned writer or artist dies, those left behind can find themselves in an ethical quandary - should work that is unfinished or incomplete be kept private or is there a public interest in revealing it to the world? Hunter Davies's wife, the author Margaret Forster, passed away last year, and left behind a substantial amount of unpublished writing. Hunter shares his story with us in the studio, and Virginia Woolf's great-niece and advisor to the Woolf estate, Virginia Nicholson, also joins us to discuss the issue.TV writer and part-time emergency room doctor Dan Sefton talks about his latest TV drama Trust Me, starring the future Doctor Who, Jodie Whittaker. A psychological thriller about a nurse who takes drastic measures after losing her job, the four-part BBC series examines the many facets and layers of telling lies.The new Charlize Theron action spy thriller Atomic Blonde is not for the faint-hearted. Set in Berlin in the final days of the Cold War, the film features numerous very physical fight sequences - its director is a former stuntman and it shows. But does this approach offer more style than substance, threatening a good storyline? And with more and more of these movies fronted by women, are female action heroes becoming as bankable as their male counterparts? Film critic Anna Smith joins us to discuss.For Front Row's Queer Icons series, the Irish writer Colm Toibin nominates The Married Man by Edmund White.Presenter John Wilson Producer Rebecca Armstrong.

A show on Beatle books is a fine idea but at the same time a little too broad: without some sort of focus, the confines of a single episode will not allow for a thorough examination. But with the arrival of this recent work by Erin Torkelson Weber, Richard and Robert are able to narrow the discussion to some key works, selected for their power in shaping public perceptions of the Beatles’ story. Applying a strict historiographic methodology, Erin’s book examines where various authors have succeeded or (mostly) failed in presenting accurate and essential tellings of their history. Authors discussed include Mark Lewisohn, Philip Norman, Albert Goldman, Bob Spitz, Hunter Davies, Barry Miles and Jann Wenner. About Erin’s book: https://www.mcfarlandbooks.com/2016/04/newly-published-beatles-historians/ Find Robert’s books here. Find Richard’s books here. The post 116: The Beatles and the Historians appeared first on Something About The Beatles.

A show on Beatle books is a fine idea but at the same time a little too broad: without some sort of focus, the confines of a single episode will not allow for a thorough examination. But with the arrival of this recent work by Erin Torkelson Weber, Richard and Robert are able to narrow the discussion to some key works, selected for their power in shaping public perceptions of the Beatles’ story. Applying a strict historiographic methodology, Erin’s book examines where various authors have succeeded or (mostly) failed in presenting accurate and essential tellings of their history. Authors discussed include Mark Lewisohn, Philip Norman, Albert Goldman, Bob Spitz, Hunter Davies, Barry Miles and Jann Wenner. About Erin’s book: https://www.mcfarlandbooks.com/2016/04/newly-published-beatles-historians/ Find Robert’s books here. Find Richard’s books here. The post 116: The Beatles and the Historians appeared first on Something About The Beatles.

Alex wants Iain opinion on Brexit, Daisy’s son burns stuff and Iain interviews Hunter Davies

In which David Hepworth talks to legendary journalist and author Hunter Davies about his time as a fly on the wall with the Beatles in the middle sixties and his newly-published Beatles Book. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In which David Hepworth talks to legendary journalist and author Hunter Davies about his time as a fly on the wall with the Beatles in the middle sixties and his newly-published Beatles Book.

In which David Hepworth talks to legendary journalist and author Hunter Davies about his time as a fly on the wall with the Beatles in the middle sixties and his newly-published Beatles Book. Get bonus content on Patreon See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Olympic silver medallist, super heavyweight boxer Joe Joyce describes his love of art and how painting one of his massive canvases takes as much energy as several rounds in the boxing ring.Conductor Marin Alsop, who made history as the first woman to conduct the last night of the Proms in 2012, talks about bringing a touch of Brazil to the Royal Albert Hall as she conducts the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra in two South American themed Proms this week.Hunter Davies is known as "the man who really knew the Beatles". As the band's only authorised biographer, he sat in on recordings of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, witnessed John and Paul collaborate on songs, and collected millions of pounds worth of memorabilia (which is now in the British Museum). His latest book is an encyclopaedia full of facts and (unusually) opinions which may please and irritate fans equally . He explains why.Author, TV critic, and broadcaster Clive James, as well as writing poems and translating Dante, continues to watch television with a critical eye. He discusses his passion for box sets and the benefits that this longer television format offers actors and viewers alike.Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Angie Nehring.

This week the Saturday Live road trip continues to Morecambe in Lancashire, where the Catch The Wind Kite Festival is taking place this weekend, with beautiful views across Morecambe Bay and plenty of fresh sea air. The programme comes live from The Platform, where Aasmah Mir and the Reverend Richard Coles celebrate the great day out, nostalgia, kites and space. Morecambe-born designer Wayne Hemingway recalls his childhood in the resort, and tells us why Morecambe's seafront provides the perfect backdrop to his Vintage by the Sea Festival, attracting crowds of up to 40,000. With a spectacular display of kites across the bay, Dave Holt describes his life-long passion for making and flying soft kites, purely inflated by the wind. Cedric Robinson MBE has been on the notoriously dangerous sands all his life. As Queen's Guide for more than 50 years, he walks up to 500 people across at a time, walking the equivalent of twice round the world in the process! The writer and comedian, Helen Keen's first stand up show It Is Rocket Science has won awards and been picked up by Radio 4 for three critically acclaimed series. She describes why her subject matter tends towards the unusual and esoteric, when her fascination for rockets began and why she's so enthusiastic about space. The world's fastest one man band, Peter Moser, provides the music. He demonstrates his kit with bells and whistles on, and explains its appeal and relevance today. JP meets the actress Margaret James, for a Brief Encounter. Hunter Davies shares his Inheritance Tracks - Georgy Girl by The Seekers and And I Love Her, by the Beatles; and there are live Thank Yous from the audience. Helen Keen will be appearing at the bluedot Festival at Jodrell Bank, from 22-24 July. The Co-op's Got Bananas, by Hunter Davies, is out now. Producer: Louise Corley Editor: Karen Dalziel.

Does your Beatles bookshelf look like this?    Ours certainly does.     With Philip Norman's high profile biography of Paul McCartney grabbing headlines, we decided to spend this week and next going through some of the Beatles books that have inspired and informed us and made us the sort of guys who would do a show like this one!

Joe Pope, how do you do it?   You got the story correct when both George Martin and Hunter Davies were still telling tales!  "George Martin wanted the Beatles to release "How Do You Do It" as their first single, but the Beatles chose to go with "Love Me Do" primarily because they wanted to release one of their own compositions."    The story of this song and record is investigated in this episode!   

Libby Purves meets writer Hunter Davies; artistic director Daniel Evans; poet Henry Normal and forager and cook Fiona Bird. Fiona Bird is a forager, writer and cook. A former finalist on Masterchef, her new book Let Your Kids Go Wild Outside is full of enthusiasm for the natural world and aims to encourage children to get off the sofa and explore the great outdoors. Fiona lives on the Isle of South Uist where she forages for seaweed which she features in a range of dishes from casseroles and soups to bread and biscuits. Let Your Kids Go Wild Outside is published by CICO Books. Hunter Davies OBE is an author, journalist and broadcaster. He is the author of over 50 books, including biographies, novels, children's fiction and several books about the Lake District.. He wrote the only official biography of the Beatles. In his memoir, The Co-Op's Got Bananas! he reflects on his childhood and coming of age in post-war Britain. The Co-Op's Got Bananas! is published by Simon and Schuster. Daniel Evans is the outgoing artistic director of Sheffield Theatres who is taking on the same role at Chichester Festival Theatre. As a director at Sheffield Theatres his productions include The Effect, The Full Monty and An Enemy of the People. As an actor, his work for the company includes Company, The Pride, Cloud Nine and The Tempest. His performance in Sunday in the Park with George won him his second Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical and a Tony Award nomination. His production of Show Boat is at the New London Theatre. Henry Normal - whose real name is Peter Carroll - is a comedian, producer and poet. As a writer and producer he has won awards for his work on The Royle Family, Gavin and Stacey and the Mrs Merton Show. He also wrote and produced the Oscar-nominated film Philomena. He is performing his poetry at the Stratford-Upon-Avon Literary Festival and his programme A Normal Family, about his son who has autism, returns to BBC Radio 4 later this year. The Stratford-Upon-Avon Literary Festival is at the Stratford Artshouse. Producer: Paula McGinley.

Pulitzer prizewinning author Michael Chabon talks to Mariella about his latest novel Telegraph Avenue. Hunter Davies and Artemis Cooper discuss when the best time is to write a biography about someone - when the subject is alive or decreased? And on the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens, Professor John Bowen shows how considering the ways Dickens didn't always make the grade can reveal the key to his genius.

Hunter Davies talks to James Naughtie and readers about his biography of The Beatles, first published in 1968. Recorded at the Cavern, Liverpool. In 1966-68 Hunter Davies spent eighteen months with the Beatles at the peak of their powers. As their only ever authorised biographer he had unparalleled access - not just to John, Paul, George and Ringo but to their friends, family and colleagues. He hung out in Abbey Road studios whilst they recorded Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. At the end of sessions the Beatles happily let him pick up scraps of paper with half written lyrics on them, before the cleaners could tidy up. In the early 1980s he realised they were worth more than his house, and he gave them to the nation; the lyrics to Yesterday he saved now sit alongside the Magna Carta in the British Library. All four Beatles were committed to the book, and Hunter was able to spend time with their families, John's Aunt Mimi, and Ringo's mother and stepfather as they settled into their swanky new bungalows far from the screaming fans in Liverpool. He even found John Lennon's estranged father, Freddie Lennon, who was washing dishes in a hotel not far from John's new home in Surrey - and Hunter introduced John to him after many years. Looking back at the book some forty years later, Hunter regrets not writing more about witnessing the Lennon and McCartney song writing process; he saw the genesis of songs like Getting Better and Across the Universe. And although the book was first written and published before the group's acrimonious split, Hunter says that George was already fed up of being a Beatle, and John was listless and bored. Bookclub with Hunter Davies is a fascinating account of the heady days of the Beatles' success. At the time he thought the bubble would burst and that they would be replaced in people's affections - though not his own. Producer : Dymphna Flynn February's Bookclub : Maus by Art Spiegelman.

December's Bookclub author is Sebastian Barry. Well known as a successful dramatist and novelist, his literary career became stellar when he won the 2008 Costa Book of the Year Award with this month's chosen book, The Secret Scripture; and he is considered one of Ireland's greatest living writers. The novel is told by Roseanne, who is uncertain of her age; she thinks she is now one hundred. She's been incarcerated in asylums in Ireland for over sixty years, and is writing the story of her life, on pieces of paper that she hides under the floor boards of her room. This is the Secret Scripture of the title; which comes from a poem by an Irish nationalist poet, Thomas Kettle, who fought for the British in World War I. As the book unfolds, we discover the why and the how of her incarceration. The second narrator of the novel is Roseanne's psychiatrist Dr William Grene, who must judge whether Roseanne can be released into society as the hospital is about to close. As he comes to know her, he becomes fascinated by her and the history - which is the history of twentieth century Ireland - that she represents. Sebastian Barry tells readers how he uses his own family in his fiction and how the character of Roseanne came from hearing about a great aunt who had been shunned by the rest of the family - the only thing known about her was her great beauty. His was a family beset with secrets, and his mother, Joan O'Hara (a famous actress of her day), was a "consummate un-coverer of secrets". January's Bookclub choice : 'The Beatles' by Hunter Davies. Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the writer Margaret Forster. Her second novel - Georgy Girl - was published in the 1960s and made into a popular film; another 20 books - both fiction and non-fiction - followed and her recent biography of Daphne du Maurier attracted much critical acclaim. She'll be talking to Sue Lawley about her early life in Carlisle, the stresses of working motherhood and the problems of having her husband, Hunter Davies, formerly confined to a newspaper office, now working at home.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: In The Bleak Midwinter by Gustav Holst/Rossetti Book: A House For Mr Biswas by V S Naipaul Luxury: Unlimited supply of A4 white paper & cartridges for fountain pen

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the writer Margaret Forster. Her second novel - Georgy Girl - was published in the 1960s and made into a popular film; another 20 books - both fiction and non-fiction - followed and her recent biography of Daphne du Maurier attracted much critical acclaim. She'll be talking to Sue Lawley about her early life in Carlisle, the stresses of working motherhood and the problems of having her husband, Hunter Davies, formerly confined to a newspaper office, now working at home. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: In The Bleak Midwinter by Gustav Holst/Rossetti Book: A House For Mr Biswas by V S Naipaul Luxury: Unlimited supply of A4 white paper & cartridges for fountain pen