A Beatles Story
[I wrote this a few years ago. With so much Beatle stuff in the air, seems a good time to put it up here. It was originally commissioned by, and published in, the Times newspaper, 2009. The original title, which I sort of prefer, was ‘Four Blind Mice’.]
PAUL
Paul rips up the drive in his Mini Cooper, so Dot-the-housekeeper puts the kettle on, like always, then trogs upstairs to wake John – who arrives in the Sunroom fifteen minutes later, wearing white T-shirt, skinny faded-pink jeans and house slippers. And Paul, who has been riding four year-old Jules on his knee whilst chatting with Cyn, says, ‘Alright?’
‘I’ve got The Song,’ says John. They both know what The Song is; they both want to be the one to write The Song – because in a couple of weeks the band will be performing it to a very large television audience, almost certainly the largest television audience ever: The Our World special.
‘Really?’ Paul asks, mildly.
‘Yes,’ says John. ‘Come on.’
With a wink, Paul hands Jules over to Cyn – he feels overdressed in comparison to John. He’s in a pinstripe jacket and blue shirt. They climb up through the house. Paul slips off his jacket, hoping John won’t be sarcastic about it.
When they get to Daddy’s Room, where John does his writing, Paul stands and waits to see what John will play – piano or guitar?
Piano, so Paul moves his chair close to the bass notes, sits.
‘It goes,’ says John, ‘like this…’ And he plays three descending chords, bom-bom-bom, bom-bom-bom. Paul expects it to change, but it doesn’t. Bom-bom-bom. John stops for a second, coughs into his fist, then starts again with the same chords. Paul has it now – Three Blind Mice! John has composed Three Blind Mice! But the mice-words have only just entered Paul’s head when John starts to sing Love, love, love. There’s a pause, no chord. Love-bom, love-bom, love-bom again.
John glances at Paul for half a moment – not enough time for Paul to respond but enough to scare him. Paul knows he didn’t have the proper expression on; he was probably, he thinks, looking a bit superior. This isn’t The Song. Three Blind Mice isn’t The Song.
The bom-bom-bom continues, unvarying, but now John starts singing from some lyrics propped up in front of him. There’s nothing… Paul hears, then loses it in John’s dumble-di-di dumble-dum. And then Nothing… Nowhere… It’s easy. And at last the chords change, going not up but sideways. Unless there’s a chorus later, this monotone is the chorus. All you need is love. All you need is love. All you need is and the voice goes up, thank God, love love. Where does he go now? Love is all you need. Oh.
Then it’s back to the verse again, and Paul is already adding harmonies around bom-bom-bom. It needs something. It needs a lot. On the lyric sheet are a list of verbs, from which John seems to be picking at random. Show/shown, know/known, blow/blown. It’s easy, John sings. All you need. Paul nods along. He’s getting it now – and just as he is, John stops.
‘No middle eight, like,’ says John, and reaches for his cigarettes.
‘Yeah. I like it,’ Paul says.
‘Love,’ says John, taking a drag. He plays the bom-bom-bom again, faster, as a comic rhumba. This is more what Paul had had in mind. Something upbeat. Not another John-dirge. John-dirges aren’t as bad as George-dirges, of course. Nothing’s as bad as them. Smoke from John’s nostrils cascades down the lyric sheet and spreads across the yellowed ivory of the keyboard. Without realising it, Paul too has lit up.
‘Play it again,’ Paul says. And when John comes to the end of the verse, Paul plays a jolly upwards riff on the bass notes – dum-di-dum, tum-ti-tum – taking the song back to the start, lifting it a little.
John accepts this, keeps on playing, round and round, bom-bom-bom.
‘How about…?’ Paul asks, and they start to work.
After half an hour, John stops, looks at Paul and says, ‘So, that’s The Song, isn’t it?’
Paul nods. It’s The Song.
RINGO
And when Ringo arrives at Olympic Studios a couple of days later, he has some ideas. He’s going to keep it really simple with the drums – just stay out of everyone’s way.
They start recording, and it’s different from normal. Because the song’s no great shakes to play, Paul’s suggested they all swap instruments. Ringo, though, can’t play anything else. So Ringo happily sticks to his drums. But so Paul is holding up a double bass, John’s sitting at a harpsichord and George – Ringo can’t quite believe it – George is trying his hand at the violin.
‘Okay, boys, let’s try one,’ says George Martin.
They do, and to Ringo it sounds ropey. Catchy but ropey. Ringo is still relieved the song John came up with is so simple. Less chance for them to cock it up in front of the whole world.
Love, love, love, Ringo sings along, not into a microphone.
Take seven.
Ringo looks over at George. He seems to be going at this one really serious, like, despite sounding like fingernails on a blackboard.
Take ten.
John counts them in, bom bom bom, and Ringo – all of a sudden – feels immensely proud. They are so good, his friends. They just come out with this stuff, and then more of this stuff. And we play it, Ringo thinks, and it goes round the world. Everywhere. Places I’ve never heard of. And this one’s gonner go round the world even quicker. This one’s gonner be the biggest yet.
Ringo hits the drums hard, but not too hard, and feels very happy.
JOHN
John is chewing gum. They’ve done two days of rehearsals, and he hasn’t messed up yet. The first words are There’s nothing you can do… How could he forget them? He wrote the bloody things. Yesterday they lined up for the press in four sandwich-boards, each with a word of the title on – everything but Is. Ringo was All, Paul was You, John was Need and George was Love. Yeah, that was about right. That was spot bloody on. John was Need. John is chewing chewing gum. He’s already had Paul mime spitting it out, but he’s keeping it in. It makes him feel secure. Two minutes, says the floor manager. They finish their run-through – just the band, not the orchestra. Paul mimes spitting again. It looks like he’s gobbing on Marianne – Marianne Faithfull – who’s down by John’s left leg. John knows Jagger is close behind him, all dressed up in a butterfly coat. And Keith. And Eric. Forget the millions at home – if he cocks up in front of this lot, it’ll be hell for weeks. John wants to say something. Should he make the old joke? Should he say toppermost poppermost? John says, ‘I’m ready to sing for the world, George, if you can just give me the backing…’ John looks around. There’s bloody balloons all over the place – and some idiot’s brought along a sign saying ‘Come Back Milly!’. Paul’s wearing a smock that makes him look like some art teacher from Bootle. One minute. John’s head feels like it belongs to someone else. Only his jaw, chewing, is John – and if the jaw is his then hopefully the throat will be, too. When he opens his mouth, resting on the jaw, a sound will come out which won’t be jibberish or a scream. The first words are There’s nothing you can do… It feels like his jaw is a piece of straight, hard metal – but it’s still him. Three. Two. Green light. They start to play over the backing track. Bom-bom-bom. Simple. John chews his gum. He’s on – he’s being watched. Marianne is almost touching his leg. She better not touch his bloody leg. Mick is listening. Then George Martin’s voice interrupts. ‘I think that will do for the vocal backing very nicely. We’ll get the musicians in now…’ John says, Oh great, great. Sounding like a phoney. He’s getting too nervous to sing, so he sings – She loves you yeah yeah yeah! It gets a laugh from the heads around his knees, which makes him feel less jagged inside. George Martin asks, ‘Are you ready?’ And Paul says, ‘Ready when you are, Uncle George.’ That’s my line, thinks John. Paul’s pretending he’s not nervous. He plays a little skiffly shuffle on the bass and Ringo joins in. George doesn’t. They’re all cacking themselves. It takes something big to get through to them, these days – after the Royal Variety, after Ed Sullivan – but this has got through. All the way. Too soon a recorded voice says ‘One, two, three…’ and the horns start with that French tune. He’s sung the first line, and he can’t remember singing the first line, but he must have sung the first line because he’s singing now and he knows he hasn’t just started singing. And now he starts watching himself singing, which is dangerous because he needs to be in himself in the singing to make the singing real. So he opens his eyes, just a slit, and sees a red pulse, the colour on Paul’s white and red shoes, keeping time. It’s enough. He’s himself again, singing over his jaw, through his mouth, he’s come back and knows he can stay back for the rest of the song. And afterwards he’ll know it was really him who sang it. It’s easy. Suddenly John feels comfortable, and opens his eyes. Paul is smirking, but he’s smirking – John knows – for all four of them. They’re getting away with it. John decides to sing She loves you, yeah yeah yeah.
GEORGE
George, ecstatic, is sitting in the Studio One Control Room with the others – all apart from John. The crowd of friends has gone home. Perhaps they’ll meet up with them later, in the Bag O’ Nails or somewhere. Celebrate. John wasn’t happy with his vocals, though, when he listened back to them – so he’s in there now, on his own, singing the song again, and none of them are really watching.
When John finishes, everyone applauds. They have all been drinking red wine. George feels incredibly heavy – as if his body were made of something other than flesh.
‘Well done,’ says George Martin, the weariest of them all. ‘I think we’ve got it with that last one – if you’re happy.’
John comes slowly into the Control Room as the tape glinky-glinky-glink rewinds. He slumps down, and they listen back to the thing one more time.
Afterwards, Ringo says he’d like to replace the tambourine at the start with a drum roll.
‘Tomorrow,’ says George Martin, ‘please. We can do it tomorrow.’
He looks awful, the other George. His father died a few days ago. His wife is pregnant.
‘You can go home,’ says Paul.
The other George shakes hands with each of them before he leaves the room.
It’s just the four of them, now, within earshot – Mal, the others, the drivers, they’re a shout away, waiting. George tries to breathe meditatively.
‘Phew,’ says Ringo. ‘Nice job, lads.’ He keeps talking. ‘And positive. Love. Something everyone can agree on.’
‘Yes,’ says George, exhaling. ‘It was amazing.’
‘Yeah, says Paul.
‘No,’ says John. ‘I had something very specific in mind, when I wrote the song. Love, not all these wars and death. But I’ve sung it that many times now I’m just not sure about anything any more. I don’t know what love means. I’d like to. I mean, I’d like someone to just come along and give me the answer. But they’re not going to, are they?’
‘They think we know,’ says George, upset. ‘Those people watching us. We maybe changed their minds.’
‘Love,’ says Paul, ‘is trying to help things along. It’s looking on the universe and wanting positive things to happen.’
‘Love,’ says George, ‘is a universal force that holds everything in balance, including love.’
‘Yeah,’ says Ringo. ‘I agree with Paul and George.’
‘But George and Paul don’t agree,’ says John. ‘Do you?’
‘I think we do,’ says Paul. ‘Sort of.’
‘My kind of love contains his kind of love,’ says George.
‘I want that love,’ John says. ‘I want it, because right now I’m further away from it than ever.’
‘Love’s a big warm feeling deep inside you,’ says Ringo. ‘A bit like cognac, only better.’
‘I mean, how can I go on and on, singing about love,’ John asks, ‘when I can’t even love you lot? And I can’t. There’s too much there.’
tobylitt 