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In one passage written by Entwistle he told of a night in Blackpool, England, in 1964 when the Who opened for the Beatles. While the crowd were making too much noise to hear what the Fab Four were singing, the Who had a direct feed from the stage into their dressing room. "It became apparent that the Beatles had figured that since the screaming couldn’t be stopped and no one out front in the audience could possibly hear a thing, then they might as well have some fun," he wrote. "Soon the four of us were crying with laughter at the words they were singing and which only we were able to pick up on. 'It’s been a hard day’s c–k... I wanna hold your c–t...' They struck a last chord, and they were gone. And we got on with the task of packing out own gear away."

The Ox: The Last of the Great Rock Stars: The Authorised Biography of The Who's John Entwistle, Paul Rees (2020)

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This ‘quote’ from Yoko is certainly something

"It's a pity, really. I like Paul! I think of him as a friend. John is the one who doesn't like Paul. Paul was always the cute one and John was jealous of that. When I first met Paul I was attracted to him. I'm like that when I really like someone. I try to get close to the guy who's close to the guy I like. That's why I was getting close to John, so I would be near Paul if he wanted to make a move. And Paul was attracted to me, I could see that. But he couldn't handle the idea of being attracted to somebody John was with because that would be a violation of the fraternity rules. I was someone else's property; that's how men think, you know. So then Paul was very frustrated because he wanted me and felt that he couldn't have me. That's why he always acted so mean to me. Men always think like that, you know. If they can't have a woman they want to punish her. But I think that he was always a little interested because of the way he looked at me. Even when he used to come here with Linda, he was always looking at me funny when he knew Linda and John couldn't see him doing it. There were other things too, like he got married because John and I did."

"I thought that he got married to Linda before you married John."

"Well he did, but he knew that John and I were planning to, so right away he married Linda so he would get the headlines first. He's like John that way, very competitive. I think that if it wasn't for me, he never would have married Linda at all. She was just a groupie, you know. I don't think they ever would have married if it wasn't for the competitive pressure between John and Paul and Paul's frustration about me. He just married her to prove that I didn't mean anything to him. I think he does still feel something about me though. Do you want to read on that and see how he's feeling about me?"

I did and it didn't look like love. Disdain, maybe, contempt certainly, but definitely not love.

"He seems to have gotten over his infatuation with you."

"Are you sure? That's very funny. Well, he hasn't seen me in such a long time, so maybe that's it… I don't know why men think that I'm so attractive. But they all seem to. I can tell from the way they look at me—Do you think if Paul were to see me that he would be attracted again? I still like him, you know."

Excerpt from ‘Dakota Days’ by John Green

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they're so real...

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we as a collective do Not talk enough about how crazy the lyric "I've seen religion from jesus to paul" was

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Just thinking about Paul in the 70s talking to John about music as a way to reconnect with him and reaffirm how important John was to him, because music IS a key part of who he is, and after everything they went through together, John was an inextricable part of that... and John hearing Paul talk about music and thinking that Paul was just taunting him with how much more productive and successful he was. They're so at cross-purposes that it would be funny if it was a rom-com, but it wasn't a rom-com and they never actually worked it out and argheilhgleihgwlihgilewhgli.

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After lunch, we all returned to the Dakota, where I hoped the repartee might become somewhat more sparkling. Yoko and Linda paired off for a bit and chatted amiably—the two of them got along famously, bonded by the shared experience, perhaps, of being married to a Beatle—while John and Paul stood by the windows overlooking Central Park, watching as the afternoon sky turned a whiter shade of pale over Manhattan. They remained silent for long stretches, until awkwardness forced one of them to take a stab at conversation.

“Are you making any music?” Paul asked at one point.

“Well, you know, I play some stuff for me, but I’m not working on anything. Music isn’t what’s driving me at this point. It’s all about the baby. What about you?”

“Oh, I’m always recording,” Paul said. “I couldn’t live without the music in me life.”

Then, for a spell, they fell back into silence.

It seemed that these two rock ’n’ roll behemoths, men who in their youth had all but defined the zeitgeist of the ’60s—who had inspired an entire generation and redirected music’s very destiny—were now, a mere decade later, struggling to find things to say to each other.

A part of me found it sad. But then, what was I expecting? Even the best of childhood friends eventually slip into separate lives. It’s called growing up. Now they were just two old chums who no longer had all that much in common. It was unreasonable of me to presume that merely being in the same room together would somehow ignite the genius and energy of John and Paul’s initial creative partnership.

Still, on the walk back from the Dakota to the Plaza that evening, as I passed all the glimmering Christmas lights and heard snippets of holiday melodies wafting out of the few restaurants and bars that were still open and serving, I couldn’t help but think that history might have been made on this day.

“Are you making any music?” Paul had asked John.

What if John had said something like “No, but me guitar is in the next room. Let’s sit down and make some…”

God only knows what classic Lennon-McCartney creation might have been born that afternoon.

Excerpt From ‘We All Shine On’, Elliot Mintz

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George Harrison backstage at the Hippodrome Theatre in Brighton, England | 25 October 1964 © Leslie Bryce

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I started a whole essay about this one that I probably never finished, but my crack theory is that it's about Brian. (And not just because his mother's name was Queenie. But maybe also a little bit because of that.)

There were rules you never told me, never came up with a plan All the stories that you sold me didn't help me understand But I had to get it worked out, had nobody who could help So then in the end it turned out that I had to do it by myself

IMO, this sounds like someone talking to an authority figure: you didn't tell me the rules, and I had to figure things out for myself. "All the stories that you sold me" = in the context of the song, this sounds like something that he'd say to someone who was selling him on the dream of fame. And that's not a super long list. In theory, the intro could be about a romantic partner who refused to tell him the rules of their relationship, but I don't know if you'd then talk about coming up with a plan or having to do it by yourself. It seems more like he was looking for guidance in a larger sense and didn't get it.

I actually looked up the Queenie Eye game at one point, and its purpose is basically to teach children how to get better at lying and hiding things. One kid's trying to guess which of the others have the ball, and the person who has it has to convince them that they don't. And if they're not a good liar, then they're out.

Now, famous people have to hide a lot of things, so we could consider that part of the game in general, but obviously some people have to hide more than others, and if they couldn't, in the 60s, then they were out... in many senses of the word. Is that too on the nose?

Also: "Never blame circumstances / If romances seldom came" - who seldom had romances? Not Paul and not most of his friends or girlfriends. And "It's a long way to the finish / When you've never been before" evokes youth/inexperience, as does the general conceit of the song. It's reflecting back both on Liverpool and on their rise to fame.

So that's my theory.

anyone wanna tell me what they think Queenie Eye is about

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It's also based on a painting of his from 1988, which is used on the album cover:

"My original inspiration was similar to a picture we were talking about the other day, with Egyptian symbols and shapes I got from looking at a reference book on Egypt. I was interested in the way they drew sunflowers, so two appear on the left and on the right. It was a nice shape, so I took that and then I also love the way they symbolize trees. I like the way they reduce a tree to just some very simple symbols."

30 years later, I suppose he was thinking about it again and got the idea to make an album with a journey as a sort of connective tissue between songs.

Regarding meaning, from the McCartney website:

Of the forthcoming album’s enigmatic title, Paul says, “I liked the words ‘Egypt Station.’ It reminded me of the ‘album’ albums we used to make... 'Egypt Station' starts off at the station on the first song and then each song is like a different station. So it gave us some idea to base all the songs around that. I think of it as a dream location that the music emanates from.”

huh okay thank you! I'll try to think about it more when I relisten

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so one of JohnandYoko's number 9 proofs was that 'McCartney' has 9 letters??? lol

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Oh, John...

'Lots of love, you all of you, I'm sure we'll see each other v. soon - somehow or other - I'm almost scared to go to England, 'cos I know it would be the last time I saw Mimi - I'm a coward about goodbyes...'

John Lennon's letter to his cousin Leila Birch, January 1979 (link)

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I know I post about this literally once a fortnight but the mclennon meet-cute is the funniest shit ever. Imagine being a 15 year old boy (one who will grow up to be the most notorious perfectionist control freak on planet earth btw) and you watch this older boy playing his guitar like it's a damn banjo and he can't even fucking remember the words to the song he's singing so he's making shit up and you go meet him and he reeks of beer and you have to tune his guitar and you're just like. now THIS is the guy I'm gonna be obsessed with for the next 60+ years 😍🥰

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he's so embarrassing

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At Laudate in Newdigate I decided that Saturday to take a very modest 250 milligrams of LSD in a final cup of tea with Joan before setting off for St John’s Wood to pick up Paul McCartney and Peter Asher and Tony Bramwell, the Apple team due next day at Bradford. <…> Paul seemed very positive and played us some rare recordings; ‘dubs’ he had made of songs, written by him for others, dubs on which he was singing for the first and last time. Maybe one day they will make an album of them, but maybe it will have to be over his dead body for I don’t see him wishing to complete that particular symphony in his lifetime. I said I had taken a dollop of the dreaded heaven-and-hell, and Paul said it should be an interesting journey, and it was. We stopped at a pub on the way up and I astonished myself by coping remarkably well up until the point where I asked the barman if I could buy a filthy table which stood in a corner covered in cigarette burns and the stains of long dead pints. <…> ‘Drink up,’ said Paul, seeing the signs and playing Dad. ‘Write your name here please, Paul,’ said the barman and we left.

We arrived in Bradford after dark. Some disabled people were operating rowing machines in a charity marathon in a local showroom. We wandered in and looked, leaving some silver in the collecting boxes, neither the first nor the last of the small spenders. It was midnight as we checked into the hotel. There wasn’t a soul or a sound except for the red-nosed night porter, as old as Moses. Paul had brought Martha (My Dear) with him – the sheepdog of the same name. ‘Can you shampoo her?’ he asked the porter who recoiled in terror. ‘It’s her arse,’ said Paul, and he put his fingers in the thick curls around Martha’s back passage and pulled off a cluster of clinkers. ‘Look!’ I nearly fainted. ‘I’m afraid not,’ said the porter. It was very late after all. Next morning, another lovely day. I felt very nice and clean around the brain, always have a lovely morning after acid. A few months earlier Paul and I had gone shopping for suits; he had told me navy blue pinstripe was already on the way back (meaning that he wore it) and I fell for it – and ordered one. I had taken it with me to Bradford; just right for Bradford I said. I wore it down to breakfast and then we went off to the Victoria Hall where the Black Dyke Mills Band were waiting on hard wooden chairs, looking bloody marvellous and real and solid and honourable and stocky and lots of other words like that. Paul had on a magenta shirt and a white jacket, double breasted, with black trousers (no one had ever told him they were on the way back), and the Black Dyke Mills Band was quite stunned by his charm and by the way he handled the music. Marvellous recordings were made, indoors and later in the street, of both ‘Thingumybob’ and ‘Yellow Submarine’. It was a good morning for everyone because the portable recording unit worked, the band and McCartney worked, and the press worked out beautifully – I saw dozens of old friends and we had a few pints and then lunch. At around three o’clock, as we filmed the last TV interview (‘How do you like Bradford?’ ‘It’s great …’; fast-moving stuff like that) I decided to off the suit and black shoes, put on a pair of red corduroys and a white Mexican cotton shirt from Olvera Street, Los Angeles, a couple of beads, an Indian scarf and down my throat went another 250 milligrams of the dreaded heaven-and-hell drug. What a day for a daydream. ‘Should be an interesting journey,’ said Paul. The chauffeur said: ‘Back to London?’ and we said ‘yes’, not sure that it was the right answer.

<…> As we rolled away from the South Midlands and approached the Northern Home Counties the acid really started to bounce. It was late afternoon and if there was a heaven to be found on this soil, then I reckoned it would be found this evening, in the green and gold of this divine countryside. ‘Would you like to swing on a star, carry moonbeams home in a jar?’ ‘Yes,’ said Peter Asher. ‘Where would you like to go?’ I asked. ‘AA Book,’ said Paul. ‘Pick the most beautiful name in Bedfordshire,’ I said, ‘that’s where we should go.’ Peter looked at the map for what seemed like two hours or more. ‘Harrold,’ he said, after fifteen seconds. ‘Harrold?’ said the driver, naturally knocked out with delight to leave the M1 and crawl down B, C and D roads to a village no one in the car, including himself, had ever heard of. We wound through Bedfordshire checking off the signs steadily until we reached the village sign: Harrold. Oh, it was a joyful Sunday sight. It was the village we were supposed to have fought the world wars to defend, for which we would be expected to fight the third when told to, but won’t. It was a Miniver hamlet on the Ouse and there were notices telling of the fete next Saturday, and a war memorial which made me weep. Thrushes and blackbirds sang and swallows dived into thatches and a little old mower wheezed as we walked down the only street there was past the inn which was closed, past the church which was open, nodding to a sandy man with a 1930s moustache and khaki shorts as he clipped his hedge and stared at these city people with funny hair and clothes. It was seven o’clock and acid or no acid, it was opening time and I steered us into the most beautiful village inn the world has ever known and there were three or four people in there, or more or less; magical antique villagers with smocks and shepherd’s crooks and also there was a fruit machine offering Jolly Joker tokens. Through the dancing lights, past the sparkle of the green and tawny bottles, I saw the sandy man with the khaki shorts. <…> ‘Welcome to Harrold, Paul,’ said the sandy man, the local dentist, downing the rich gold beer he had earned with his shears. ‘I can hardly believe it, in fact I think I’m dreaming.’ We next found ourselves in his house, below dipping oak beams, a banquet provided for us, hams and pies and multi-jewelled salads, new bread and cakes, chicken and fruit and wine; and the dentist’s wife, a jolly lady, still young beyond her maddest fantasies, bringing out her finest fare. Paul McCartney was at her table in the village of Harrold.

Hiding at a turn on the crooked staircase stood a little girl, shy and disbelieving. But she had brought a right-handed guitar and landed it in Paul’s (left-handed) hands but the wizards were producing this play by now and floating with the splendour of this, the strangest Happening since Harrold was born, the dentist and his wife, and the neighbours as they crowded the windows and the parlour, and the children, all caught their breath as Paul McCartney began to play the song he had written that week: ‘Hey Jude,’ it began. I sat peacefully, full of the goodness you can find within yourself when goodness is all around and the dentist’s wife picked up on it and asked why life couldn’t always be like this and I told her there was nothing to fear, nothing at all and the dentist brought out the wine he had been saving for the raffle at the fete next Saturday and we drank that to celebrate the death of fear and the coming of music to Harrold and then, and gradually, the dentist was freaking and he asked me what I thought I was talking about and for a moment it was very tough, very. Ah, but Dr Leary’s medicine was good that day and we came back to a good position again, but I didn’t feel quite right about the dentist after that, and I don’t think he felt quite right about me, but how was he to know and what was I to do? You don’t just tell strangers you’ve been taking that naughty old heaven’n’hell drug. It was now eleven o’clock and we were still in the house and the inn was closed but a winged messenger came to say that as this was the night of nights, never to return, the inn was to be re-opened. ‘In your honour, Paul.’ It was 11 p.m. Paul had The Look on his face, the ‘do we don’t we?’ I nodded: tonight we should. The pub was absolutely full. The whole village was here. Paul played the piano until at three o’clock a woman stood and sang ‘The Fool on the Hill’ and he left the piano to dance with her and kiss her on the cheek and then I went and sat in the little garden and cried for joy that we had come to Harrold. It was a most beautiful garden, with hundreds of old-fashioned flowers, lupins, foxgloves – that sort of thing, and Alan Smith came out, pissed as a newt and said, ‘Why so sad, old friend, why so sad on such a night?’ ‘Not sad,’ I said, ‘not sad, old pal, just happy to be alive.’ We left then, waved away by the Harrolds, by all of them, and we never went back and I never looked at the map again, not even to see if Harrold was there.

(As Time Goes by Derek Taylor)

(Part I, II, III)

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The disorientation when your hyper fixations collide. Paul next please, Jack.

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this is so much more important than mclennon its not even funny

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The Beatles | 7 October 1964 © Bill Francis