The Beatles

by Bob Spitz

  Before anyone had a chance to object, Clapton was already in Studio Two, strapping on his Les Paul guitar and listening to the rhythm track mixed down from their work on the sixteenth. The song was pretty much there, creating an effortless, affecting groove, but it lacked a dramatic device to liberate the emotional tension that is never far from George’s caged expression. Clapton’s poignant guitar riff provided everything it needed. The way it weeps and moans, held in check by Eric’s incisive phrasing, creates the longing that gives the song its emotional center. George’s vocal couldn’t have been more enchanting as he squeezes the mournful lyric of all its desperation, until by the end, he seems to be just barely hanging on, just riding atop the surging guitar as it works to strangle his overlapping cries.

  “I was recording not a band of four, but three fellows who had three accompanists each time,” recalled George Martin. Martin was an artist in his own right, a diligent arranger and a perfectionist whose new job description, as babysitter to the Beatles, held no real attraction. There was no longer much “producing” involved, at least not in the traditional sense, nothing that offered any artistic challenge. Martin wasn’t even enamored of the material they’d chosen to record, feeling the songs themselves needed a good pruning, “because some of them weren’t great.” Finally, he took his assistant, Chris Thomas, aside and said, “I’m going on holiday. You take over the Beatles for a little while.”

  If George Martin’s departure was an admission of redundancy, Geoff Emerick’s was an omen of darkness. The rising tide of tension among the Beatles had taken its toll on Emerick, a gentle, affable man who worked the sound board as diligently and precisely as a surgeon. Their sniping, however, had worn him down to a nub. The whole caustic opera, with new installments every day, was playing clearly through his headphones. And despite a stellar cast, it was no treat. They were “really arguing amongst themselves and swearing at each other,” Emerick recalled. “The expletives were really flying.” Besides, trying to keep up with them in any practical sense was exhausting. He’d no sooner adjust a level or balance before being summoned to another studio for some other task. There was no continuity to his work, no way to get a handle on the music.

  Emerick’s patience finally ran out during the recording of “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,” which had turned into a technical nightmare, taking more than ten days to complete. Everything the Beatles played sounded too tight, too ungovernable. It seemed impossible to capture the playfulness of the lyric. As such, the arrangement collapsed into a mishmash of styles. Key signatures were changed routinely, effects were layered on—then removed. Paul continuously wiped the tape of his vocal to try another approach. None of the Beatles were happy with the song, and as their frustration mounted, so, too, did their tempers, erupting in blistering arguments that caused collateral damage. On July 15, during a remix of several takes, Emerick recalled, “Paul was re-recording the vocal again and George Martin made some remark about how he should be lilting into the half-beat,” when Paul, building up a rage all afternoon long, snapped his head toward the booth and sneered: “Well, you come down and sing it.”

  Emerick was disgusted. He idolized George Martin and, like everyone else at Abbey Road, deferred to his level judgment with great, unflagging respect. Talking to him as Paul had done was unacceptable, even from one of the Beatles. The next day, while John was laying down the rhythm track for “Cry Baby Cry,” Emerick leaned toward Martin and said, “Look, I’ve had enough. I want to leave. I don’t want to know anymore.”

  Incidents like their in-fighting and Geoff Emerick’s sudden exit signaled the most disheartening development of all: even in the midst of such creative accomplishment, the Beatles’ rock-solid support structure was crumbling.

  While in the studio, preoccupied with making music, the Beatles tended to block out the outside world; the process of grinding out an album, song by song, track by track, was intense enough. But with the cumulative buildup of tension and the cracks in their personal lives, it was all they could do to concentrate, leaving their business affairs largely in the hands of an inexperienced Apple staff. Without a strong manager at the helm, an enterprise that once ran smoothly now ran amok. There were no checks or balances imposed at Apple, nothing that answered the question, Who is in control?

  The Savile Row office was nothing more than an asylum, with the inmates running the works. “None of us had any experience,” recalls Alistair Taylor, “so we were basically making it up as we went along.” For a while the company’s destiny was determined solely by the way Caleb threw the I Ching. Eventually one of the Beatles came to his senses and sacked the Apple oracle, at which point everyone on staff just did as he or she pleased.

  The offices were decorated indiscriminately and at extraordinary expense. Antiques, designer furniture, imported tapestries, chandeliers, state-of-the-art equipment and gadgets—all sorts of fabulous perks—were delivered at the whim of an employee. Two attractive young women with some Cordon Bleu training were hired as in-house chefs, with the larder stocked to rival a two-star French restaurant. “We invited people to Apple for business lunches,” recalls Peter Brown, whose vast, well-appointed office doubled as the corporate dining room, thus necessitating his presence at every meal. Sumptuous four-course feasts would be laid out on his octagonal rosewood desk, accompanied by vintage wines unearthed from the company’s private cellar. The liquor bill alone could endow a small university.

  Derek Taylor accounted for half of that bill. Taylor had set himself up on the third floor of the town house in what was ostensibly the Apple Press Office. A born raconteur, wonderfully eccentric and with an irresistible, ingratiating demeanor, Derek welcomed any and all to his sanctum with effusive Cyrenaic hospitality. Since returning to London, he had undergone an extreme personality makeover that left his former colleagues scratching their heads. A suave, companionable gentleman had become the apostle of intemperance. Since being dosed by George Harrison, Derek had acquired a sweet tooth for drugs that knew no limits. Acid, hash, grass, peyote, cannabis resin, speed, cocaine—whatever he could get his hands on was devoured with rapacious glee. Not since Robert Fraser had London encountered a more epicurean figure.

  The extent of the fun, however, was in the eye of the beholder. One day, the Beatles might revel in the debauchery—“John wouldn’t rest until every last kid on the staff was happily stoned,” according to Tony Bramwell; another day, they would explode over the misconduct of a squint-eyed secretary. One day, Paul would face the press to explain that Apple’s benevolence extended far and wide, saying, “We really want to help people,” while eight weeks later he’d exclude cripples who were “not necessarily having a hard time of it, and even if they were having a hard time of it—it’s their hard time.” One day, Paul ordered partitions to be erected to make the secretaries more productive; another day, George grabbed a hammer and “smashed down an entire eight-by-three-foot panel, showering Sylvia,” a part-time secretary, “with plaster and wood and nails.” One day, the Beatles “were a mother’s dream,” recalls Alistair Taylor, “stopping by everyone’s desk, being fun-loving lads, and firing up spirits, in general”; another day, “they’d be at everyone’s throats, creating fear and mistrust.” Gone was the communal spirit that had sparked the original inspiration for Apple. Gone was the concept “to make business fun.” In its place was the slow, steady buildup of pressures and creative tensions inherent in an earnest, but extremely hip, million-pound corporation.

  The company was still riddled by “chaos,” Paul acknowledged in an interview given later that summer, but he wrote it off to the cost of starting up a revolutionary new business venture that would ultimately give them total artistic freedom. All the missteps, all the expense and confusion, even the “foolish disregard,” as Derek Taylor called it in an open letter to his bosses, could be attributed to their inexperience as businessmen, but he remained convinced, as did the other Beatles, that they’d “get it together” and succeed. “I mean, all that can happen
is that we lose all our money, which I don’t mind one bit,” Paul explained, in a tone that strained for sincerity. Except that he did mind it—a lot. And so did John, George, and Ringo.

  [IV]

  On Saturday, July 27, the Beatles, along with Yoko Ono, met in the offices at Wigmore Street and decided they’d had enough; it was time to close the Apple Boutique.

  But how could they do it and manage to save face? A big going-out-of-business sale? That was too tacky, they argued. It wasn’t in the spirit of Apple’s hippie manifesto. Besides, as George bluntly put it, they didn’t want to be “mistaken for little Jewish businessmen, getting £5,000 out of closing down.” To preserve the edge of philanthropy that was germane to Apple, a more radical scheme was plotted. According to John, “Yoko came up with the idea of giving all the Apple stuff away”* ; however, others who attended the meeting insist it originated with John and Paul. No matter, everyone aside from Derek Taylor loved the idea. A giveaway! There was only about £10,000 worth of stuff left in the shop. That seemed like a small price to pay for what John considered such “a good happening.”

  Paul immediately sat down with Derek and fired off a press release explaining the closing. “Originally, the shops were intended to be something else,” he admitted, “but they just became like all the boutiques in London…. Our main business is entertainment…. Apple is mainly concerned with fun, not frocks…. Well, the answer is that it was much funnier to give things away.”

  Once the decision was made, the course of action was clear. On Wednesday, July 30, the store would open punctually at 9:00 A.M. and everything inside would be free. But to be fair, the Beatles called first dibs on the leftover merchandise. “The night before, we all went in and took what we wanted,” John recalled, having grabbed a few tasty T-shirts for himself off a lopsided rack. Paul claimed “a smashing raincoat,” while Ringo and Maureen took “loads of shirts and jackets.” “It was great,” John gloated, “it was like robbing.” In all, the boys proved to be pretty considerate, choosing only a handful of items they could use. It was Yoko, however, who scored the biggest haul.

  “Yoko revealed a greedy side we hadn’t seen,” recalls Peter Brown, who watched from the sidelines throughout the giveaway. “The night before, without telling John, she came along in the Rolls and filled vast garbage bags full of the clothes before the sale—and before even the Beatles made their selections.”

  The official opening touched off, predictably, what one observer called a “semi-riot.” “Hundreds of people” stampeded the shop, climbing over displays and one another’s backs to grab anything they could get their hands on. “It reminded me of the running of the bulls at Pamplona,” recalls Alistair Taylor, who stood off to the side, bristling at how the Beatles regarded the scene as “just a bloody giggle.” The shop was an all-out disaster area. “Once the news got around,” reported the Daily Mail, “hundreds [more] people flocked to the shop, not only teenagers, but middle-aged women and taxi drivers.” Ringo remembered seeing “people… coming with wheelbarrows,” although this was certainly an exaggeration. Nevertheless, “it brought out the worst in people,” recalled Derek Taylor. “I thought it was one of the ugliest things I had ever heard of…. It was awful and vulgar.”

  Once Apple Retail* was dissolved, the Beatles could turn their attention back to music. There was much on the agenda besides the new album, which still needed tending to, the most noteworthy being Apple Records’ first official release on August 16. The label itself was a hive of activity, with its dynamic staff—as well as the Beatles—assembling the makings of a diverse roster. Since April, Ron Kass and Peter Asher had worked hard, aggressively signing the kind of artists who would bring the label instant cachet. Asher, displaying an extremely talented ear that would sound out hits for the next several decades, had already produced James Taylor’s debut single, “Carolina on My Mind,” which warranted a full album treatment. Another promising single, “Maybe Tomorrow,” by the Iveys—later to be renamed Badfinger—was in the can. George was far enough along in his session with Jackie Lomax to devote time to working on a single for soul favorite Doris Troy. It was all humming along with proficiency.

  For the first official release, however, the Beatles had selected four singles—“Our First Four”—they earmarked to make the biggest splash. One in particular, on which Paul seemed to have struck gold, was his project with Welsh talent-discovery Mary Hopkin, “Those Were the Days.” He’d been carrying the tune around in his head for several years, having heard an amateur cabaret act sing it on stage at the Blue Angel in Berkeley Square. It was a nostalgic tune of Russian Gypsy origin, far from the archetypical rock ’n roll formula, with a catchy, addictive melody that smacked of a crossover hit. The name of the act eluded him, but a call to the club led Paul to Gene Raskin, an American architect who had written the lyric with his wife, Francesca.

  Paul was a perfect fit for “Those Were the Days.” It resonated with all the rinky-tink pub and music hall kitsch he’d flirted with for years, in songs such as “When I’m Sixty-four,” “Your Mother Should Know,” and, later, “Honey Pie.” There was a corny familiarity about it, something that made it suitable for wedding parties, sandwiched between “That’s Amore” and “Hava Nagila.” Paul knew a hit when he heard one, and he knew exactly what to do with it. Convinced that it was a smash, Paul originally tried to persuade the Moody Blues to record it, without luck. Then in India he went to work on Donovan, who had nearly given it a whirl, but ultimately Hopkin got it.

  The version Paul cut with Mary Hopkin would go on to sell 3 million copies in its first few months in release. Later that summer Paul produced a second single for Apple’s “First Four,” conducting the Black Dyke Mills Band, a famous northern brass ensemble, in the performance of a “jaunty martial” piece called “Thingumybob,”* which NME deemed “ideal material for half-time music at football marches.” Once again Paul had the framework for it already worked out in his head. “I wanted a really different sound,” he recalled, “so we went out[side] and played it on the street,” giving the production a “lovely [effect], with very dead, trumpety-sounding coronets.”

  Even though “Thingumybob” wasn’t an obvious pop hit, it brought a nice balance to Apple’s roster. George contributed the Jackie Lomax single, “Sour Milk Sea,” to flesh out the “First Four,” but the showcase of the label’s launch was strictly all Beatles. Despite the nicely conceived, eclectic mix of songs on the debut roster, neither Mary Hopkin, Jackie Lomax, nor the Black Dyke Mills Band could match the impact of “Hey Jude.” Its melody is a gorgeous collage of genuinely stirring rhythmic passages woven around an inlay of heartwarming emotions: hope, optimism, faith, strength, encouragement, affection. The lyric is loaded with empathy, and Paul’s soulful performance establishes a mood of haunting tenderness that swells at the top of each successive line.

  As a three-minute song, “Hey Jude” is a tour de force. But while recording the song, something strange happened. Instead of cruising into the standard fade, as the last verse drew to an end, Paul locked onto the word better and, riding it up the register, launched a full-throttle chorale that transforms the buildup into an anthemlike extravaganza. Four minutes later, the Beatles are still going strong, with the vocals shrieking and leaping about to the accompaniment of a thirty-six-piece orchestra. “It wasn’t intended to go on that long at the end,” Paul recalled in a memoir, “but I was having such fun ad-libbing.”

  The feeling was contagious. “It felt good recording it,” Ringo recalled. The Beatles took it into Trident Studios, where sessions with James Taylor, Jackie Lomax, and Mary Hopkin were ongoing, and a party spirit spilled into the icy atmosphere. “We put it down a couple of times—trying to get it right—and it just clicked.” It was a dazzling, remarkable recording and, at seven minutes, eleven seconds, the longest pop single ever released. There were plenty of other songs that equaled “Hey Jude” in melody and inventiveness: “A Day in the Life,” with its forceful, orchestrated turbulen
ce embroidered around a commentary of modern-day despair—one of the incomparable highlights of the Beatles’ career; the surrealistic “Strawberry Fields Forever” with its fathomless layers of riddles and wordplay; “Eleanor Rigby,” tragic and lushly dramatic, with its elaborate string quartet sawing through the suds. But nothing was as ravishing or instantly accessible as “Hey Jude,” and it enchanted listeners, who made it the largest-selling Beatles record of all time, with a reign of nine weeks at the top of the charts.

  For Beatles fans everywhere, “Hey Jude” was further proof that the band was still in top form. Far from dwindling into caricature or esoterica, far from sounding tired or monotonous, they were pushing into exciting new dimensions, evolving but remaining accessible to their audience. But the fans wanted more—and soon. Too much time had passed between the ambrosial Sgt. Pepper’s and a serious follow-up. Even George Martin, usually tight-lipped on such matters, expressed his impatience with the Beatles’ progress, accusing them of taking “all the time in the world” when it came to the ongoing album sessions. They seemed unfocused to him, even undisciplined. Nor was there much cohesion. Paul recorded “Mother Nature’s Son” one night after the other Beatles had gone home, not even bothering to run through it for John, as had always been the custom; George’s “Not Guilty” was scrapped after more than a hundred futile takes; a discordant, impromptu number of John’s (cowritten, he said, with Magic Alex, although more likely Yoko) called “What’s the New Mary Jane” so offended Paul that he refused to play on it; George was absent when they recorded “I Will.” There was none of the camaraderie or team spirit that contributed to their earlier successes. During the bleakest days, engineers and technicians found themselves abruptly dismissed, told to “go for a walk” or to “go have a cup of tea” while the Beatles attempted to resolve their differences.