by Bryce Zabel
McCartney mentioned this to his own father in a call later that day. Two days after that, James and Angie McCartney had a room at the Glendalough Hotel, courtesy of the production team. Whether this was a typical Paul quid pro quo or an act of wonderful empathy mattered not to John, who destroyed his own hotel room in a rage.
That afternoon, James McCartney and Freddie Lennon shared a pint in the bar at the Glendalough, a fine dark wood affair with darts and pool and a piano. When Paul and John returned from a long day of shooting in bad weather, they found their fathers singing tunes with some local Irish around the out-of-tune piano. The next night, Paul joined them. The day after that, the production had a tuner show up to set the piano back to health.
John could not quite make peace with this turn of events. He raged to Yoko against Freddie, and the fact that he couldn’t throw him out without everyone hating him. He asked Yoko to do the deed and she refused. They decided that the only thing they could control was their own exit.
Under the evolving plan, John would strike a deal with Kubrick that he would stay three more weeks if the director would ban all family members from the set, providing a pretext to dismiss Freddie. It was at that point in the conversation that the phone rang. Kubrick’s assistant was on the line, wondering ever so politely if John would be available to meet with Mr. Kubrick the next morning. Yoko ascribed this convergence to John’s emerging psychic powers. In her mind, her husband had literally willed Kubrick into calling him by imagining the conversation.
Whether true or not, it was fact that three months into the production, Kubrick was ready to fire Lennon for insubordinate behavior, a charge that might have stuck better in the army than on a film set. The conversation took place during a scene break at 9:17 a.m. (so precise was the director that he noted the time in his diary), a time that Lennon felt was too early, although Kubrick had been on set for well over three hours at this point.
“I told him that he was a disruptive influence on the set,” explained Kubrick to his biographer. “The fact that he had such a strong leadership personality but was so unwilling to work for the greater good meant that he had to go.”
Stanley Kubrick told John Lennon that there were essentially two choices: either he could be fired and sued for damages to the production or he could drop the attitude long enough for the production to shoot a succession of three critical scenes. If Lennon played ball, then he could be on his way in ten days.
“We’ve got a deal then,” John told his exacting director.
The next day, John tried to bid farewell to Freddie Lennon but ended up yelling threats so loudly at his father that the hotel staff wrote them down and gave them to Freddie in case he needed their testimony for a future legal case. Still, John Lennon got what he wanted—his father was on the next bus out, and, soon after, John and Yoko were in a limo on the way to Dublin, and a flight to Los Angeles.
Makes Me Want to Scream
While killing time on the set in the early days of the production, John read The Primal Scream by California therapist Dr. Arthur Janov. He believed nearly all neurotic behavior could be traced to traumas endured in childhood. Given the scars inflicted upon Lennon by his own parents, he hoped that he had found the cure he’d always been looking for.
Janov’s therapy took the patient back to childhood to confront the pain by screaming it out, like a newborn just emerged from the womb. Lennon’s troubled past began at age six when he was forced to choose between his separated parents. He selected his mother and then was abandoned by her anyway. And, of course, recent memory included screaming his pain at Freddie, then fleeing the film set.
As a direct result of primal therapy, Lennon’s newest songs were exposed and vulnerable, presenting him as an angry rebel, a devoted soul mate, and even a questing artist trying to free himself from the shackles of Beatledom.
“As it turned out, I knew I had to find a way to express my feelings. I could scream or I could write songs or both,” declared Lennon. “What seemed impossible was writing songs to be performed by the Beatles for even one minute longer.”
Seeing his patient’s torment, Janov confronted Lennon about his feelings toward the Beatles. He felt that John was not in a good place to make such a significant decision as to whether or not he was leaving the group for good. He should not break something that important until he had finished therapy. “These men, and they were all clearly men by this point, had gone through a special experience together,” said Janov. “In my view, it was possible that the most meaningful way for John Lennon to cope with his feelings was to share them with his bandmates and the world.”
Lennon commiserated about how Janov was making him feel “all wishy-washy” about the Beatles to one of the few men who could understand his feelings—Ringo Starr. The drummer had come to Los Angeles for more film auditions now that there was buzz over his performance in the Beatles-Kubrick collaboration.
Ringo read John the highlights of an interview Stanley Kubrick had just granted Daily Variety: “Asked about how the Beatles had turned out as actors, particularly John Lennon, Stanley Kubrick replied, ‘Better than expected.’”
“Story of my life,” concluded Lennon. “Let’s hear it for low expectations.”
The two men briefly discussed the group’s future. It was simple, said Ringo. If the Beatles existed, then they needed to make an album. As strictly a business matter, Everest had been their best-selling album ever, and the soundtrack from The Lord of the Rings would hardly count as a full album to fans any more than Yellow Submarine did. If the Beatles did not exist, however, then they probably needed to break the bad news to the fans. Which way, he wondered, did John want to go?
There was some pressure to decide. Along with the Daily Variety, Ringo also had a copy of the month’s Rolling Stone article that asked, “What Now Beatles?” That month, even our own Rockstar succumbed to doubt with the cover story “Are the Beatles Dead?”
Not creatively, they weren’t. In the same way that the adventure in Rishikesh had generated its share of songs that the band recorded in their A Doll’s House album, the time spent in Ireland making The Lord of the Rings had birthed a backlog of material from all four musicians. It would have to find an outlet as Beatles material, solo material, or a combination, but it wasn’t going to remain unrecorded forever.
The Grand Bargain
Apple was still hemorrhaging money due to its pervading ethic of idealistic hippie chaos, expressed on the most petty level by rampant employee theft. It was so bad that several company cars had gone missing and were completely unaccounted for. Already the Apple Boutique clothing store had shuttered, and other divisions were looking like candidates for similar treatment. Apple Records was the only viable division, and with all the business troubles, even that designation seemed tentative.
The management situation remained unresolved, allowed to continue as such by deferred decisions and indirect lines of communication and authority. Informally on retainer as a consultant, Lord Beeching had been coordinating between Allen Klein, on financial and accounting issues, and Lee and John Eastman, on legal and contractual issues. Yoko acted as a buffer for John, and Paul acted on his own behalf, with George and Ringo reporting to Klein. The arrangement was fraying nerves all around.
The Eastmans subscribed to the theory that being a part of the Beatles team was better than losing a fight and ending up in exile. What else could they do? What else could be done?
In a 1974 Playboy interview, Klein said, “Did I like this Rube Goldberg set-up? Of course not. Was I going to let it screw me out of the Beatles? No fucking way. I said yes so I could be around the next time the pieces had to be picked up.”
• • •
Shortly before filming began on The Lord of the Rings, George Harrison took possession of his new property, the infamous Friar Park estate. The former residence of eccentric lawyer Sir Frank Crisp, it featured a massive garden system that included caves, grottoes, underground passages, a multitude of gno
mes, and even a huge Alpine rock garden resembling the Matterhorn. The garden was in disrepair, but the home itself, a 120-room Victorian neo-Gothic mansion in Henley-on-Thames, was in even worse shape. A collection of cottages dotted the grounds, and most were equally in need of repair.
Yet the run-down Friar Park became the scene of perhaps the most important two days in the life of the Beatles as a rock group. After principal photography on The Lord of the Rings wrapped in Ireland on May 17, George was eager to spend some time at his home, which he had seen only in passing for the past four months. He and his wife Pattie strolled the grounds and the residence and realized that it would cost huge amounts of time and money to bring the property up to its full potential.
Pattie noticed that George was smiling. “We need to throw a party,” he explained. “Our friends can’t make it much worse, can they?”
With Peter Brown’s help, the Harrisons produced an invite and list for a get-together that would begin on Friday night, May 29, and continue over the weekend, May 30 and 31. With more rooms than most hotels, even out-of-towners and expats could find a place to bed down. Furniture was rented and arrived in large trucks over the next week.
All three of Harrison’s bandmates were going to be in London at that time for a Friday morning business meeting with Apple management. After they all agreed to come by George’s at some point over the weekend, the meeting was moved to Friar Park and scheduled for Sunday afternoon. To this day, no one takes credit for the dubious idea to place a business meeting after a blowout party, but no one seems to have objected to its casual fusion, either.
Suddenly, however, what was being called “Weekend at George’s” morphed into an event exponentially larger than its origin. George had visualized a dozen people when he first thought of bringing a group together to celebrate the fact that he and Pattie had moved into Friar Park. That group hadn’t even included the other Beatles. Now, suddenly, it seemed like everybody was coming, and the guest list kept expanding.
Everyone working for Apple had been invited, and no one wanted to miss it. Allen Klein, Lee Eastman, John Eastman, Peter Brown, George Martin, Neil Aspinall, Mal Evans, and Derek Taylor. At least a dozen others. Many showed up with a family member or a plus-one for rock history.
Each Beatle was bringing a spouse, so Pattie Harrison was tasked with welcoming Yoko Ono, Maureen Starkey, and Linda McCartney to the house. She called each one of them to personally invite them and had rooms designated for each Beatle with decorations selected by the women in their lives.
Word spread throughout the music community. Elton John, Billy Preston, Eric Clapton, Mick Jagger, Keith Moon, Harry Nilsson, Mary Hopkin, and James Taylor all said they’d drop by. Music producer Phil Spector heard about it and even though he had no plans to be in London, he told everyone that he was going to be in town on business and would definitely come by to see the place. Producer Glyn Johns would be there, and so, too, would Peter Sellers, Ringo’s new actor friend from The Magic Christian.
Meanwhile, with the scale inflating by the moment, Harrison reached out not to Stanley Kubrick (whom he was not inviting) but to some of the key grips and other crew members he had met while filming The Lord of the Rings. Before long he had electricians laying soccer field quantities of electrical cable, powering temporary lights on the grounds and in most of the main meeting rooms inside. Several carpenters were on the job almost immediately, beefing up floors and walls as needed, while craft services swarmed the unique, wonderful, and horribly run-down kitchen.
Three large tents were rented and placed on the property in case it rained (which was likely), or in case leaky ceilings forced everyone outside (which was considered nearly as likely). Mostly the tents were there to accommodate any last-minute entertainment or to serve the food if the kitchen was deemed unusable.
Originally, the weekend had been pitched to potential attendees as an opportunity to enjoy some debauchery among friends, a kind of group urban camping adventure where guests could celebrate the relief of wrapping up their grueling film experience. That is certainly how the Beatles themselves viewed the gathering. To this day, however, no one is certain who first had the notion that people should show up to support George, Ringo, Paul, and John in working it out and keeping the Beatles alive. Nonetheless, the solidarity concept circulated rapidly.
“It might be better for the Stones if the Beatles left the scene,” admitted Mick Jagger, “but they push us, and we can’t be as good as we want to be without them. So, being selfish bastards as we are, we want them around.”
George Harrison’s Friar Park estate, in such sad disrepair, became the central nexus where the fate of the world’s greatest rock band was likely to be decided. The venue seemed to embody the spirit of the group at the time—something once great and majestic, now falling apart, with secrets hidden in shadows.
On Friday night, the guests began to arrive. The Harrisons had hired Richard Eagleton, a professional planner, to coordinate with Apple and their friends. Eagleton had planned four Apple events over the past two years. Even Eagleton had to admit that this one had the potential to be epic, whether epically good or epically bad.
Eagleton had a list, four assistants, and four beefy security guys who bounced for local clubs. Everyone getting paid for their work had already passed the discretion test and could be counted on to keep quiet.
When Neil Aspinall arrived several hours early, it was decided that since George and Pattie were in the Manor (as they called it) and thus unavailable to be with the other Beatles, the Lennon, McCartney, and Starkey parties would be hosted in the individual cottages. This allowed all the Beatles and their spouses to either socialize or spend private time together and offered them the greatest respect for their privacy. Furthermore, they could feel free to come and go at different and overlapping junctures.
The only problem was that the cottages could be hard to find, especially in the dark, and George had no map to offer, so new was he to his own property. On the first night, John Lennon led Yoko Ono in the wrong direction, and the two of them wandered the grounds in a large circle for hours.
At the point when they were nearly ready to sleep in one of the caves they had stumbled onto, they ran into the McCartneys making what the Americans called “s’mores” with their daughter Heather and their baby, Mary. John and Paul had not seen each other since a mid-March argument in a torrential Irish rainstorm.
McCartney’s parting words were, “Nice chatting with you, Sir Winston. Send us a post from the colonies.”
Now, months later, in the glimmering outdoor fire pit outside their cottage, Linda offered to make something for their guests to eat, but Yoko begged off for them, saying they were suffering from jet lag and primal scream therapy.
“What do you scream about?” asked Paul. “If you don’t mind me asking.”
“We scream about all the fucking idiots who have thrown shit at us all our lives. You ought to know something about that.” Lennon was spoiling for a fight.
McCartney looked over at his wife and kids. “Lin, baby, why don’t you take the kids inside and put ’em in bed?” Linda understood it would be better for her children not to watch whatever might be next. In they went.
Not happy about being described as just another obstruction to John’s brilliance, Paul hit back. “You’re spending too much time inside your own head, John,” he said and then turning to Yoko he added, “And you’re not helping him.”
“I’m the only one who is,” Yoko replied.
With that, John and Yoko stormed off to find their own cottage. The enraged Paul followed them and was soon joined by Linda, who had put the kids down for the night.
By this point, the passion and profanity of the shouted attacks had attracted the attention of others who were at the party, including Apple “House Hippie” (formally, Client Liaison Officer) Richard DiLello, who was close to all the Beatles and their wives, plus the Apple Polishers, that inner circle of agents, managers, and others who worked f
or and with the company. DiLello had heard from enough of them that the potential breakup of the Beatles would be an event of such high magnitude that it should be documented, if possible.
DiLello had talked to documentary director Michael Lindsay-Hogg that very afternoon. Lindsay-Hogg, the man who documented the entire Kubrick-Beatles confrontation at Twickenham, was still working on a short promotional film to support The Lord of the Rings when it was released, and the confrontation was the centerpiece, including Lennon in Middle-earth costume relieving himself on the cardboard cutouts of the band members.
DiLello found Lindsay-Hogg unpacking his gear in the Manor and told him to grab his camera and some film. Together, the men ran across the property.
They set up the camera far enough away that neither the Lennons nor the McCartneys were aware of their presence. The microphone was a top-of-the-line directional style, and it managed to pick up the greatest open mic audio in pop culture history. It began:
[John] “Your petty little lives aren’t making you happy, man. Not that I personally give a fuck if you are or if you aren’t. It’s just an observation.”
[Paul] “Being a Beatle doesn’t make your life petty. Thinking that it does, that’s what does that.”
As the battle raged, the documentarian snagged clean audio of John Lennon and Yoko Ono unleashing primal scream therapy at Paul McCartney and Linda McCartney, who managed to rage quite primally back at them.
For over an hour, the McCartneys and the Lennon-Onos stood among the trees of Friar Park, under a near full moon, screaming and cursing at each other. Eventually, having lost their voices, both couples retreated to their respective cottages.
“I said to Yoko after that, ‘Well, now you see what I’m dealing with,’” said John with a shrug. “We wanted to leave then, but we were quite fucking exhausted, we were, so we crashed in the little fucking Hobbit cottage that George was so proud of and dreamed about ways that Paul could die for real this time.”
