The Beatles – Detta händer den 22 juli 1967
John Lennon och Paul McCartney reser till Grekland
Den här lördagen flög resten av Beatlessällskapet till Aten i Grekland efter det att Ringo Starr och George Harrison redan var på plats. Dagens flygpassagerare bestod av John och Cynthia Lennon, Paul McCartney, Jane Asher, Pattie Harrisons 16-åriga syster Paula Boyd, Mal Evans, och Alistair Taylor.
Paul McCartney om skälet till resan till Grekland:
Alex invited John on a boat holiday in Greece, and we were all then invited. There was some story of buying a Greek island or something. It was all so sort of abstract but the first thing we had to do is go to Greece and see if we even liked it out there. The idea was get an island where you can just do what you want, a sort of hippie commune where nobody’d interfere with your lifestyle. I suppose the main motivation for that would probably be no one could stop you smoking. Drugs was probably the main reason for getting some island, and then all the other community things that were around then – ‘Oh, we’ll paint together. We’ll do this. I’ll chop wood.
I think that if you’re going to write a great symphony or you’re going to rehearse the greatest string quartet in the world, it’s fair enough to cut yourself off. It’s just a practical matter; give yourself lots of time and if you’re going to do that, then why shouldn’t it be in Greece? It was a drug-induced ambition, we’d just be sitting around: ‘Wouldn’t it be great? The lapping water, sunshine, we’d be playing. We’d get a studio there. Well, it’s possible these days with mobiles and …’ We had lots of ideas like that. The whole Apple enterprise was the result of those ideas.
The Beatles hade hyrt en stor lyxjakt, The MV Arvi, som skulle ta sällskapet ut för att titta på lite olika öar. Men på grund av en storm utanför ön Kreta, fick de vänta med båtturen till den 25 juli 1967. Under tiden de väntade på att stormen skulle dra förbi bodde de hos Alexis ’Magic Alex’ Mardas familjehus i Papagos, en förort öster om Aten.
Här har Jane Asher, Paula Boyd, Paul McCartney,
Julian Lennon och John Lennon lämnat flygplanet och
är på väg till ankomsthallen på Atens flygplats.
Här har man lämnat flygplatsen och är klar för att åka med bilar till Alexis Mardas
familjehus. John Lennon tar täten med Julian Lennon i släptåg, följd av Alistair
Taylor, Cynthia Lennon, Jane Asher, Paul McCartney och Mal Evans längst bak i bilden.
The Beatles toppar listorna i USA och i UK
Även under den veckan som slutade med den 22 juli 1967, var det Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band som toppade LP-listan i USA.
Och i UK gick singeln All You Need Is Love upp på förstaplatsen efter att ha petat ner The Monkees låt Alternate Title från tronen.
Mike Hennessey med en intervju med Brian Epstein.
I dagens nummer av musiktidningen Melody Maker intervjuade Mike Hennessey The Beatles manager Brian Epstein.
Den engelska musiktidningen ’Melody Maker’ från den 22 juli 1967
med artiklar om The Beatles och Paul McCartney.
Tidningsklipp från ’Melody Maker’ den 22 juli 1967.
Artikeltexten i ovanstående tidningsklipp, kan kanske vara lite svårläst. Men den lyder som följer:
Love from the Beatles
ALL you need is John, Paul, George and Ringo to become the world’s most contented pop manager. As the Beatles’ new single rocketed into the charts, Brian Epstein jubilantly agreed that this really had been a very good week. “It began,” he said, “last weekend when all the Beatles stayed at my house in Sussex. Then I went to Knokke to see the NEMS team score top marks in the European Cup. And now ’All You Need Is Love’ is in the top three.”
After less than half-a-dozen bars of ’All You Need Is Love’ “in the world’s TV preview three weeks ago it seemed quite certain that the Beatles were bound head-long for the number one spot yet again.
The capacity of Lennon and McCartney to go on producing run-away chart busters is fairly astonishing. But it is no surprise to Brian Epstein.
“I’ve never had a moment’s worry that they wouldn’t come up with something marvellous. The commitment for the TV programme was arranged some months ago. The time got nearer and nearer and they still hadn’t written anything. Then about three weeks before the programme they sat down to write. The record was completed in 10 days.
“For me, ’All You Need Is Love’ is the best thing they’ve done — at the moment. But I’m not surprised that it is such a huge success because I have such great faith in the Beatles.
“This is an inspired song because they wrote it for a world-wide programme and they really wanted to give the world a better message. It could hardly have been a better message.
“It is a wonderful, beautiful, spine-chilling record.”
It’s also a record which seems to be a musical microcosm of the entire Beatle output from “She Loves You” to “Sgt Pepper.”
Epstein agreed with this. “The nice thing about the record too is that it cannot be misinterpreted. It is a clear message saying that love is everything. When you say ’All You Need Is Love’ you are saying everything.”
Brian Epstein agreed that the Beatles have an unerring gift for distinguishing between singles and LP material and was emphatic that, despite rumours to the contrary, the Beatles are still very much in control when it comes to making records.
“I would say they are even more involved now than before. I think the new single is a bit more John than Paul, but of course they worked very closely together. There were 13 other musicians on the record including violins, cellos and trumpets and Ringo played drums throughout. There were no other percussion.
“The record is exactly the same as the TV performance — except for a re-mix when John’s voice was put on again.
“I think it is certain to be a number one in Britain and America,” he added. “I’ve just heard today that it is being played to death in the States. And the Sgt Pepper LP has sold more than 400,000 in Britain and well over a million in America—it’s really fantastic.”
I asked Epstein whether the Beatles would be making any more concert appearances.
“No, not in the usual form.
“What they are doing now is working towards a TV programme for world-wide distribution and they also want to make a film — but they want complete freedom to do it their way. They want to create all of it — with a little help from their friends.
“They feel they can manage the sound, so why not the visual side as well? We all know about visual things and there are good people in NEMS capable of helping with this.”
