Lennon: The Man, the Myth, the Music - the Definitive Life

by Tim Riley

  Only Decca showed interest at first, but an EMI contact offered to have the Polydor contract translated from German so Epstein could decipher its terms. This may have been a delay tactic to politely put off a retailer with stars in his eyes, but it did send Epstein to the Polydor offices to contact Bert Kaempfert. Kaempfert replied by letter in very gentlemanly terms, allowing the Beatles the freedom to sign in their home country as long as he was able to rebook them for recording when they returned to Hamburg in the spring. This was both expedient and revealing: Kaempfert was expressing faith in the band without trying to monopolize the product; he was anxious to record follow-up hits for his own market, but happy to let Epstein do the heavy lifting in the UK.

  Once Smith returned to London, it took ages for Epstein to hear whether Decca might sign, so he simply carried on shopping “My Bonnie” around. Polydor agreed to market the disc in England (probably based on NEMS’s own sales figures), and Epstein kept pounding. Finally, after weeks that seemed like years, Smith recommended a second “audition,” which would be taped in a studio in London, and a date was set for January 1, 1962. This was fairly quick by modern standards: mere weeks after Smith trekked up to Liverpool, he had enough pull to schedule a studio session to convince his manager, Dick Rowe, that the live act would translate onto tape. It must have gotten the band’s hopes up, which is exactly what Epstein wanted to do after Allan Williams had told him not to touch them “with a fucking barge pole.”27

  Training down to London with high hopes on the last day of 1961, the Beatles felt the northerner’s self-consciousness arriving in the staid capital. Unlike their adopted second home in Hamburg, which taught them there were places even rougher than Liverpool, London loomed in their imaginations as the seat of national government, home to the Royals and the British Broadcasting Corporation, where celebrities walked more exalted ground than seaport docks. In Britain’s highly segregated class system, Scousers roaming London streets were like Memphis rubes set loose in New York City. The class distinctions were foremost, but regional chauvinism gave them at least as much to prove.

  This first London session, on the heady New Year’s Day of 1962, was called an “audition,” but it’s gone down in history as a tape that proves how oblivious the labels were to the volcano they were sitting on. Epstein, suspecting the “audition” was probably as much a chance for him to get a better demo tape tracing the group’s repertoire, helped select the set list. The material invites speculation: this was certainly not the kind of set the band played at the Cavern, and not the kind of bombast they went for in Hamburg. It’s tempting to read Epstein’s hand in the song choices, as well as that of Bob Wooler, whose fondness for Tin Pan Alley standards encouraged McCartney’s shtick. But stacked up next to a club gig in Manchester a month later, whose set list Epstein typed out, those arguments shrivel.

  DECCA AUDITION TAPE, LONDON, JANUARY 1, 1962

  “Like Dreamers Do” (Lennon-McCartney)

  “Money” (Gordy-Bradford)

  “To Know Her Is to Love Her” (Spector)

  “Memphis, Tennessee” (Berry)

  “Till There Was You” (Wilson)

  “Sure to Fall” (Perkins)

  “Bésame Mucho” (Velázquez)

  “Love of the Loved”

  (Lennon-McCartney)

  “Hello Little Girl”

  (Lennon-McCartney)

  “Three Cool Cats” (Leiber-Stoller)

  “September in the Rain” (Warren-Dubin)

  “Take Good Care of My Baby” (Goffin-King)

  “Crying, Waiting, Hoping” (Holly)

  “The Sheik of Araby” (Smith-Wheeler-Snyder)

  “Searchin’ ” (Leiber-Stoller)

  OASIS CLUB, MANCHESTER, FEBRUARY 2, 1962

  “Hippy Hippy Shake” (Romero)

  “Sweet Little Sixteen” (Berry)

  “The Sheik of Araby” (Smith-Wheeler-Snyder)

  “September in the Rain” (Warren-Dubin)

  “Dizzy Miss Lizzie” (Williams)

  “Take Good Care of My Baby” (Goffin-King)

  “Till There Was You” (Willson)

  “Memphis, Tennessee” (Berry)

  “What a Crazy World We Live In” (Klein)

  “Like Dreamers Do” (Lennon-McCartney)

  “Money” (Gordy-Bradford)

  “Young Blood” (Leiber-Stoller)

  “Honeymoon Song” (Theodorakis-Sansom)

  “Hello Little Girl” (Lennon-McCartney)

  “So How Come” (Bryant)

  “Ooh! My Soul” (Penniman)

  “To Know Her Is to Love Her” (Spector) or “Hully Gully” (Smith-Goldsmith)

  “Roll Over Beethoven” (Berry)

  “Love of the Loved” (Lennon-McCartney)

  “Dance/Twist in the Streets” (Medley, possibly “Twist and Shout” with another unknown number)

  “Dream” (Mercer)

  “Searchin’ ” (Leiber-Stoller)

  Much later, Lennon went on record as being very put out that they softened up their sound for Decca instead of thumping those clueless men in suits into submission. He was firmly of the mind that his was a rock ’n’ roll band, and felt humiliated whenever they pretended to be something else, or producers pointed them in the direction of Cliff Richard or the Shadows, who for Lennon personified pop phoniness. And yet immediately after McCartney sang an original, “Like Dreamers Do,” Lennon became a human firehouse for “Money,” which would slam their second album shut like a frying pan to the head. This set up a classic dialectic: the creative impulse vs. the corporate need to package, which Lennon could only acknowledge with irony or contempt. His vocal on “Money” pinned necessity down with ambition.

  Arguments thrive over this selection of material, and how it distorted or defined the way the Beatles were seeing themselves as a band. What the Decca session dramatizes most conclusively, however, is how Pete Best’s flat beat compares with Ringo Starr’s livelier kicks: on “Money,” Best lays low on the tom-toms, but the last two refrains don’t go anywhere; in Ringo’s version from the following year, he jacks each refrain up, higher and higher, until the band is playing chicken in a hot-rod race with Lennon’s vocal. This audition version of “Money” never gets danger in its sights. Still, Lennon probably overworried the “middle-of-the-road” slant of this material: for full-bore rock ’n’ roll, you can count the Chuck Berry (“Memphis, Tennessee”), two Coasters numbers (“Three Cool Cats” and “Searchin’ ”), a hilarious, lickety-split novelty for George (“The Sheik of Araby”), and three originals (“Dreamers,” “Love of the Loved,” and “Hello Little Girl”), although the softer side of McCartney leads the original numbers, and the set boasts a respectable balance of slick and ballast.

  Was Lennon’s insecurity about the softer numbers just so much McCartney envy? Since the audition didn’t lead to the contract the band so desired, it must have been easy in retrospect for Lennon to blame Eppy or Paulie for the failure. It’s the kind of second-guessing that goes on all the time with auditions and can never really be quantified. At this level, it’s a subjective game; if a listener wasn’t hip to this band’s range, he didn’t deserve to be signing bands.

  Legend has it that Rowe passed on this audition, which he heard only on tape, with the quote “Guitar bands are on their way out,” which shows you how easy it is to sneak fiction into a myth: instead, he signed another “guitar band,” the bland mayonnaise Brian Poole and the Tremeloes, chiefly because they lived in a London suburb and would be easier to book for studio time. Even more revealing is the way George Harrison, at least, remembered Rowe when he met up with him at a Rolling Stones concert in 1963 and urged him to sign the band, bearing no resentment about the Beatles being passed over. Lennon was not so generous. McCartney is said to have remarked, “He must be kicking himself about now.” Lennon’s response: “I hope he kicks himself to death!”29

  The leading perplexity for the label producers at this stage, stuck in prepackaged mode and resistant to i
nnovation, seems to have been the alternating vocalists: this was a completely different model than the traditional lead singer with backing, and at first it befuddled rather than impressed the A&R dweebs. Even George Martin, the squarest open mind in music at the time, picked McCartney as the lead singer at first; perhaps Lennon’s attack was still too forceful, too threatening, for how these suits thought of mainstream pop.

  Within two months after his trip to the Cavern, the band’s Decca audition gave Epstein a whole new reel of songs to peddle. Moreover, Polydor released “My Bonnie” in the United Kingdom, correcting the label from “the Beat Brothers” to “the Beatles”; and on January 4 Mersey Beat released the results of its first annual contest, proclaiming BEATLES TOP POLL! (McCartney remembered filling out scads of ballots voting for the band.)

  This was lightning-fast work, though short of a recording contract, and it kept “the boys” upbeat during the next six months of disappointment. Epstein increased their booking fees and crammed their calendar while he himself made frequent treks down to London. John and Paul often met him at the train station for coffee upon his return. Epstein found these meetings grueling, dealing face-to-face with the talent he had promised so much to. At one point he even sought counsel from Bob Wooler:

  Following a Cavern midday session, he would invite me for lunch to the Peacock in nearby Hackins Hey, and he would say, “What am I doing wrong? Why aren’t the record companies responding?” All I could say was, “I can’t believe it, Brian. They should come and see what the Beatles are doing to audiences.” In those days, the A&R men didn’t hurry to a provincial town to see a group. . . . Brian was so disappointed but he was persistent and determined to make a breakthrough.30

  In February 1962, Epstein returned to Dick Rowe’s Decca office only to be politely rebuffed with more finality. He took his two reel-to-reel Decca audition tapes, fifteen songs, for more disappointment at Pye, and then Oriole. In early February, he called Bob Boast, the manager of EMI’s HMV retail shop on Oxford Street in London, whom he had met the previous year at the Deutsche Grammophon Convention in Hamburg. Here the Beatles story merges coincidence with fate. Boast listened to the tapes and suggested Epstein go upstairs to cut a few discs, or vinyl acetates, which would be easier to share with producers than his worn reel-to-reel tapes. Upstairs at the lacquer machine, the material caught the ear of engineer Brian Foy, who was impressed to learn that three of the numbers (“Like Dreamers Do,” “Love of the Loved,” and “Hello Little Girl”) were original. Foy suggested Epstein contact a publisher, the back door into the business through which writers gain a foothold by selling songs instead of performances. It’s curious that Epstein hadn’t already thought of this. Foy called upstairs to Sid Coleman’s office at Ardmore & Beechwood, and Coleman came down, gave a listen, and invited Epstein upstairs. From his office, Coleman gave his friend Parlophone’s George Martin a ring; his secretary made an appointment with Epstein for the following Tuesday. Thus in one morning did Epstein get the final no from Decca only to get a good start on some new yesses from both a major publishing and a major recording firm.

  Epstein’s pitch was polished at that Tuesday meeting, and Martin remembers being more charmed by the band’s manager than persuaded by his samples. Still, he suggested a meeting with the group, intrigued by something in the sound he couldn’t articulate. That was enough for Brian, who returned to Liverpool to ready the band for more Hamburg dates.

  In the meantime, the Beatles’ bookings grew in number and reputation. On February 15 at the Night Tower Ballroom in New Brighton, Wallasey, an extraordinary crowd of thirty-five hundred showed up to hear them. In early March, another gear in Epstein’s strategy kicked in: they made their first radio appearance on the BBC Light Programme show Teenager’s Turn—Here We Go, taping “Dream Baby,” “Memphis, Tennessee,” and “Please Mister Postman.” Once the broadcasts became more frequent, fan letters kept return visits flowing; a year later they launched their own show, Pop Go the Beatles! Eventually, through 1965, they would perform more than 275 numbers on the air. BBC exposure vaulted their considerable Hamburg repertoire onto the airwaves, since their songwriting hadn’t yet fully kicked in: playing the numbers they had developed at the Indra and the Top Ten, the Beatles filled BBC airtime with numbers like Buddy Holly’s “Crying, Waiting, Hoping” and Little Eva’s “Keep Your Hands Off My Baby.” Finally, the band was reaching listeners, who found their way to live shows once they came to town, solidifying their reputation.31

  Now that they had a manager, this time they flew into Hamburg looking to show off all their good fortune. They knew the scene, had a bucketful of songs, and strutted with new confidence. John, Paul, and Pete arrived at the airport on April 11, 1962, full of high expectations and higher spirits, eager to reclaim their title as titans of the Reeperbahn. But their first priority was to catch up with Stuart. (George Harrison would join them there the next day.)

  Ever since Stuart’s Liverpool visit with Astrid over Christmas of 1961, the Sutcliffe family had been receiving disturbing letters. A letter of Astrid’s to Pauline spoke of Stuart’s recurring headaches and pale skin, and told of a fainting spell in Paolozzi’s master class. His headaches came as fierce attacks and had taken on epic proportions—the pain intensified until he blacked out, and he began to fear he was going mad. Astrid and her mother shuttled him around to Hamburg doctors, but nothing helped. Stuart would camp out for days in the attic, painting ferociously without sleep or food. Another fainting episode at school forced the Kirchherr family to move him into a private bedroom and hire a nurse. They commissioned X-rays, which seemed to disprove the theory that a tumor had appeared. For days at a stretch he felt completely normal. Then the headaches returned, and his condition worsened, with periods of blindness, throughout March.

  The day before the Beatles landed, Astrid’s mother called her at her studio and beckoned her home. She returned to find Stuart suffering yet another wrenching headache, and she called the hospital. An ambulance arrived, and Astrid jumped in next to him. The headache attacks seemed doubly unlucky to Astrid since Sutcliffe’s painting had recently blossomed onto scads of canvases in the attic, sprawling oils that roared darkness and chaos, as if he could somehow push back against the pain through paint. Within a matter of months, Astrid’s devotion to Stuart had turned from idyllic romance into dreadful consolation; the force of his headaches had reduced him to a suffering child, mocking all the ferocity that flowed through his brush.

  When he’d last seen Stuart, Lennon’s envy had been palpable: his best friend had left the band, choosing art over music, moving in with Hamburg’s classiest, artiest scenester in the process. The news about his “headaches” hadn’t seemed serious. Now Astrid met the band at the Hamburg airport with news she could barely deliver, never mind bear herself: Stuart, only twenty-one years old, had died next to her in the ambulance only the day before. Instead of their returning to Hamburg as conquering heroes, the ground suddenly opened up beneath them. McCartney and Best burst out crying; Lennon went silent.

  It’s hard to imagine the depths Sutcliffe’s death sent Lennon into. He already had lost his best friend to painting and a hip fiancée, whom Lennon both admired and envied—he could only express his knot of emotions with his fists, and perhaps neither he nor Stuart could explain their friendship after that drunken blast. There is testimony to Lennon’s stony refusal to admit his feelings; but by now he must have felt an awful intimacy with loss. It was as if premature death grafted itself as a bar code onto his life story. To him, life must have seemed terribly precarious—he had to act fast, for tragedy could appear at any turn. The Blackpool scene at age five had frozen inside him as insoluble unbelonging; his stepfather, the kindly George Toogood Smith, died when he was fourteen, leaving him alone in the house with an unforgiving Aunt Mimi; his adoring mother, Julia, had died just three years later. Now, just as his career began to get some traction, his best friend had been snatched from him before they could reconnect. He alrea
dy had lost his mother twice; now he lost his best friend for a second time, too.

  “I had a lot of people die on me,” Lennon would say later. To him people didn’t just die, they died on him. And with so many people he had trusted piled up cold, how else could he have taken it? He must have felt as though steeling himself sane was the only coping mechanism for losses he could barely comprehend. “Processing” all this grief was barely a psychological concept on some distant, more “evolved” horizon.

  “I looked up to Stu. I depended on him to tell me the truth,” Lennon later reflected. “Stu would tell me something was good and I’d believe him.”

  The Beatles hit the stage in front of yet another loud, drunken Hamburg throng at the brand-new Star-Club on Friday the thirteenth, contracted to do the impossible: play upbeat music from inside a black hole. From ambitious teenagers, they had to transform themselves into pros, especially since this booking paired them with their god Gene Vincent for two out of seven weeks. The day after John, Paul, and Pete flew in, Epstein arrived with George Harrison, joined by Millie Sutcliffe, who came to return her son’s body to Liverpool. McCartney, once Sutcliffe’s rival for Lennon’s intimacy, was wracked with guilt about his musical disputes with Stu. “We ended up good friends, but we’d had a few ding-dongs, partly out of jealousy for John’s friendship,” he remembered. “We all rather competed for John’s friendship, and Stuart, being his mate from art school, had a lot of his time and we were jealous of that.”32

  Many biographers dote on the fierce quiet that descended on Lennon after Sutcliffe’s death, but that only fits his atypical grieving style: he beat himself constantly for “laughing hysterically” after George and Julia died; if he “showed no emotion” in Hamburg at this scene, there are a variety of complications that might have led to this response. For starters, he had envied Sutcliffe’s attachment to Astrid. With Stu gone, he may have felt that keeping it together when the others were falling apart was part of his job as a band’s leader. There was also the macho persona to prop up: there is no talk of him crying in front of McCartney or Sutcliffe, his two best friends, when his mother died. There are more descriptions of him “disappearing” for a couple of weeks. That was more the gruff, manly way of coping.