I wish I had kept better notes, especially during Sergeant Pepper. When I was interviewing them alone, in their homes, I would sit with a notebook and write down everything, there and then. But in the studios, or when they were all together, or when we were having meals, I tried to be more of a fly on the wall, quietly observing, hoping I would be accepted as someone who just happened always to be around, rather than a writer, prying on them. Afterwards, I would rush straight home (which was, luckily, only ten minutes from Abbey Road) and quickly type out in note form everything that had happened that evening. I still have piles of these notes and, looking at them now, all badly typed and misspelled, there are bits I can’t understand.
I also wish now that I’d used a tape recorder. I never have done, which is silly. I did use one once, back in the early Sixties, a massive Grundig, about the size of a house, when I interviewed W H Auden. The interview was useless, and never appeared, and I always blamed the tape recorder and decided to stick to notebooks from then on. It seemed to me that taping an interview doubles the work, as you have to listen to it all again to transcribe it, and, as we know, a lot of what we all say is hardly worth listening to once, never mind twice. With a notebook, I am editing as I go, only writing down what I think I am going to use, so I save time, but I also jot notes on surroundings, how people look, their mannerisms, speech traits, which of course you don’t catch with a tape recorder. That’s my theory, which I’ve stuck to. Alas. Oh if only I’d used a tape recording during those 18 months with the Beatles, and their parents and friends, what a treasure trove that would be today.
Memories do play tricks. I was lunching with Neil Aspinall one day and reminiscing about the night of the Sergeant Pepper photo session. I remembered the costumes arriving at Paul’s house, as I still had a clear picture of the Beatles trying them on. Neil said no, the costumes were delivered direct to the photographer’s in Flood Street. I rushed to my notes, but they didn’t include this minor piece of information.
The discussions about the Sergeant Pepper cover had gone on for weeks. George wanted lots of the figures to be gurus. Paul wanted arty people like Stockhausen. John wanted rebels and baddies, such as Hitler, but, as my notes show, he was talked out of Hitler at the last moment. Hitler’s cardboard cutout figure stood to attention during the whole of the photographic session.
I had suggested to them that their list of heroes should include some footballers. Most boys, especially those coming from Liverpool, are aware of footballing stars. I had always been slightly disappointed that none of the Beatles was interested in sport at all, least of all football. In the end, John stuck in Albert Stubbins, a folk name from his childhood in Liverpool, but I think simply because he thought the name was funny, rather than for his footballing prowess.
I do remember that we left Paul’s house in a rush, and he told me to collect up any ornaments lying around his house, just to fill up the tableau. That ornament in the foreground of the Sergeant Pepper cover picture, a sort of statuette of what looks like a bullet on a little plinth, was placed there by me, to fill up the gap. I’ve told my children this, several times, but they are not at all interested.
Who thought of Sergeant Pepper? I had always assumed the basic idea came from Paul, as he was the first of them I heard talking about it, though I didn’t go into this in the book. I should have paid more attention, as it was a milestone for them, the pinnacle of their recording career. It was also a minor historic moment in popular music, as it has become known as the first ‘concept album’. Artistically, it was an enormous achievement, thanks partly to the creative work of Peter Blake. Whole studies have been produced since on what was in that famous cover and what it all meant.
Mal used to say that the phrase ‘Sergeant Pepper’ came from him, his overheard mistake for ‘Salt and Pepper’. Neil told me he was the first to suggest to Paul that the whole album should be in the form of Sergeant Pepper’s actual show, and that Paul jumped at the idea. Who can tell now? It’s like the origin of the name Beatles. George thought it came from Marlon Brando’s film, The Wild One. There is a group of motorcyclists in the film, all in black leather, called the Beetles, though they are only referred to as such in passing. Stu Sutclife saw this film, heard the remark, and came back and suggested it to John as the new name for their group, John said yeh, but we’ll spell it Beatles, as we’re a beat group. Well, that’s one theory. No doubt, in the years to come, there will be new suggestions.
In my book, I was trying to keep off the theories. I still like to think it was all true, though there were things I could not tell at the time. It was simply the truth about what had happened to them up to that time, based on their own memories, and the memories of those closest to them, as well as my own investigations and observations.
By early 1968, I eventually decided it was time to stop talking, quit researching, and settle down and get all the material into some sort of shape. I had so much that I did not really know where to begin, or what was important and what would turn out to be utterly trivial.
The first version came to two volumes, then I hacked it down by about 50 per cent to get it to a reasonable size, leaving out lots of interesting material, photographs and documents. My next job, as I had lumbered myself with the title of ‘authorized’ biographer, was to get agreement from all the main characters in the story. That was when my problems really began.
First, I had to let the Beatles read what I had written. I had carefully worded the contract with them so that they could change any ‘factual’ mistakes. This always causes great trouble for any writer working with the cooperation of living people. You can never tell which bits might upset people. Usually, it is something minor, a remark in passing which hurts for some reason, not the bits you most expect to have problems with. At first, they don’t usually tell you what has caused offence, going on generally about the ‘tone’ not being right, or it being not as ‘deep’ as they had expected. Then when you get out of them precisely what they don’t like, it is usually fairly easy to put right.
I had naturally not given full details of what precisely had happened in the dressing rooms on tours, about the girls queuing up, begging for their favours. I think any reader over the age of 15, even in 1968, must have been well aware of what really happened, but no one spelled it out in those days. Groupies are a cliché today, and we know all about their excesses. The Beatles were no different from any other group. They just had more to pick from. It was the job of the road managers to say you, you and you, and you five minutes later. In 1968, three of the four Beatles were happily married, as far as the outside world was aware, and the other had a regular girlfriend. The wives, naturally, did not want such things mentioned, nor did the Beatles.