#Is this what you meant or did you mean The Beatles live ??

[imthebentley]

the beatles or live beetles?

Oh man! You let Crowley choose Queen and I get this!

Ok. Live beetles.

One time there was one on my bonnet mascot, just hanging on. We went faster and faster until it pinged off and it was absolutely hilarious.

I'm sure it was fine.

#Is this what you meant or did you mean The Beatles live ?? #Can i still choose queen? #Ask the bentley #Good omens #The bentley #beetle and deer saga

[gardenschedule]

just insane mclennon things

John playing his and Yoko's sex tape in a band meeting

As the meeting was drawing to a weary close, John, not this day with Yoko, who hadn’t seemed particularly connected with what was going on, said he wanted to play us a tape he and Yoko had made. He got up and put the cassette into the tape machine and stood beside it as we listened. The soft murmuring voices did not at first signal their purpose. It was a man and a woman but hard to hear, the microphone having been at a distance. I wondered if the lack of clarity was the point. Were we even meant to understand what was going on, was it a kind of artwork where we would not be able to put the voices into a context, and was context important? I felt perhaps this was something John and Yoko were examining. But then, after a few minutes, it became clear. John and Yoko were making love, with endearments, giggles, heavy breathing, both real and satirical, and the occasional more direct sounds of pleasure reaching for climax, all recorded by the faraway microphone. But there was something innocent about it too, as though they were engaged in a sweet serious game. John clicked the off button and turned again to look toward the table, his eyebrows quizzical above his round glasses, seemingly genuinely curious about what reaction his little tape would elicit. However often they’d shared small rooms in Hamburg, whatever they knew of each other’s love and sex lives, this tape seemed to have stopped the other three cold. Perhaps it touched a reserve of residual Northern reticence. After a palpable silence, Paul said, “Well, that’s an interesting one.” The others muttered something and the meeting was over. It occured to me as I was walking down the stairs that what we’d heard could have been an expression of 1960s freedom and openness but was it more likely that it was as if a gauntlet had been thrown down? “You need to understand that this is where she and I are now. I don’t want to hold your hand anymore.”

Paul putting beetles fucking on his album artwork

John hiring a pig and posing with it solely to mock Ram even though he was scared of it

At the end of the day a farmer delivered a huge hog to the mansion [Tittenhurst Park]. It was John’s notion to parody the album jacket photograph of Paul McCartney’s Ram, which showed Paul wrestling with a ram; John would wrestle with a pig. We all went outside and stared at the large surly animal. It was much bigger than any of us had expected. John circled the animal warily. He liked the idea, but he didn’t like the hog. Dan stood poised to snap the picture. “Climb on its back, John, and grab its ears,” he said. John looked doubtful. He stepped closer to the animal. It let out a shrill, strange, sound. John stepped back, but we all urged him on. “You can do it, John,” I said. John approached the animal once again. “I can’t hold the friggin’ pig for too long. You get one shot and one shot alone,” he told Dan.

Loving John: The Untold Story, May Pang

John & Yoko attempting to get revenge married in Paris 2 days after Paul & Linda

“On March 12, Paul married Linda Eastman at Marylebone Register Office in London, amid scenes of hysterical grief from his female fans. None of the other Beatles was present. The news reached John as he and Yoko were driving down to visit Aunt Mimi in Poole. Yoko’s divorce decree had become final a few weeks earlier, and, in a resurgence of Beatle copycat, John told her they, too, must get married as soon as possible”

Philip Norman, John Lennon: The life

We chose Gibraltar because it is quiet, British and friendly. We tried everywhere else first. I set out to get married on the car ferry and we would have arrived in France married, but they wouldn’t do it. We were no more successful with cruise ships. We tried embassies, but three weeks’ residence in Germany or two weeks’ in France were required.

John Lennon

SALEWICZ: Well, I always found it interesting the fact that he got – I mean, it seemed too much like coincidence to me, the fact that he got married a week or month after you. You know what I mean? PAUL: Yeah. I think we spurred each other into marriage. I mean, you know. They were very strong together, which left me out of the picture. So I got together with Linda and then we got strong with our own kind of thing. And I used to listen to a lot of what they said. I remember him saying to me, “You’ve got to work at marriage,” which is something I still remember as a bit of advice. I still remember that. Um… And then yeah, I think they were a little bit peeved that we got married first. Probably. In a little way, you know, just minor jealousies. And so they got married. I don’t know if that’s – I mean, who knows… [inaudible] making it up, anyway.

September, 1986 (MPL Communications, London): journalist Chris Salewicz

Their belief in telepathy & shared dreams

NEIL: I’d just rather not say anything. It’s one of those situations. PAUL: Yeah. [pause] Well, that’s – that’s the trouble you see, there, ‘cause that’s it. It’s like, with our – heightened awareness, the answer is not to say anything, you know. But it isn’t. ‘Cause I mean, we screw each other up totally if we don’t do that. ‘Cause we’re not ready for your heightened… vows of silence. [laughs; hapless] We’re really not! Like, we don’t know what the fuck each other’s talking about, when that – we all just sort of get— NEIL: I think it’s just between the four of you, that get it. That’s what I’d pretend. PAUL: Oh yeah, right, yeah. But you see, that’s it, that’s why John doesn’t say anything. ‘Cause he, you know, he just… There was something the other day, when I said, “Well, what do you think?” And he just stood there and didn’t say anything. And then – and I know exactly why, you know. I mean, I wouldn’t, if… [long pause] Somehow. You know, there’s nothing really much to be said about it. You just – we all just have to do it, and all that, instead of like talking about it. But – but if one of us is talking about it, it’s a drag if the other three aren’t. Because then it sort of throws you off. [inaudible; voice marking tape slate] I mean, we’ve just been talking about it now for a few years, you know. Like this…

From the Get Back sessions (13 January 1969).

HINDLE: What do you think about language? JOHN: I think it’s a bit crummy, you know? It is a drag form of communication, really. We’ll get – we’ll get telepathy. I believe that. HINDLE: You believe that? JOHN: Yeah, sure. Sure. Sure as anything I believe. It’s too… Because now we need it so much. [...] There are – there’s people everywhere of the same mind and it’s just… even amongst ourselves we can’t communicate. Which is the hard bit, you know. HINDLE: Yeah. JOHN: Amongst the people that sort of really agree. HINDLE: Just ’cause of words? JOHN: Just ’cause of words, and upbringing, and attitude, and how you express your… Well, it’s just some – you’ve got to find a mutual sort of language to express yourself, you know? And my language is that— HINDLE: Unless you fall in love it’s impossible to communicate like that. JOHN: I mean, I wasn’t in love last year, but I was communicating quite well with people. Not as well, or maybe not as powerfully. ’Cause now there’s two of us, doing that, brrmmm, whatever it is. Sending out a vibration or whatever. But before it was me and… or me and George, alright, or whatever it was; we weren’t in love, but. You know. There’s enough in you to shove it out. It is just that bit. If you – if somebody comes in a room and he’s uptight and that, he can make the whole room uptight.

John Lennon, interviewed by Maurice Hindle (December 1968).

PAUL: I remember when John and I were first hanging out together, I had a dream about digging in the garden with my hands. I’d dreamt that before but I’d never found anything other than an old tin can. But in this dream I found a gold coin. I kept digging and I found another. And another. The next day I told John about this amazing dream I’d had and he said, ‘That’s funny, I had the same dream’. So both of us had this dream of finding this treasure. And I suppose you could say it came true. I remember years later talking about it – ‘Remember that dream we had?’; ‘Yeah, that was far out’. So the message of that dream was: keep digging lads.

PAUL MCCARTNEY TO THE BIG ISSUE. FEBRUARY 2012.

John climbing the wall to Paul's house because Paul skipped a session for his & Linda's anniversary

(Not confirmed but supposedly)

Paul being utterly convinced that John can't be gay because he didn't try it on when they slept in the same bed

I mean, if John was–the trouble is, see, is he’s not here to fend for himself, and we can’t ask him, “‘Scuse me, John, are you–have you ever been gay?” I mean, he’s the kind— I remember people used to ask that. There were lots of people asking cheeky questions, and they were always saying, “Well, why–have you ever tried homosexuality, John?” You know, they always used to ask all that kind of stuff. I remember John saying to them, “No, I’ve never met a fella I fancy enough.” And that was his kind of opinion. You know, “I may go–I may be gay one day, if some fella really turns me on.” He was–he was that open about it. But as far as I was concerned, I slept in a million hotel rooms–as we all did–slept in a million places with John, and there was never any hint of it.

December 24th, 1983: interview with DJ Roger Scott

“And I say, if he’s homosexual, I thought he’d have made a pass at me in 20 years, darling.”

Paul McCartney talking about John Lennon.

“Brian Epstein, the Beatles’ manager, was a known homosexual. Epstein was always polite and charming. It has been insinuated that John was drawn to Epstein. I believe there was no such relationship between them. John was macho. But if John was a homosexual, it would have made no difference to me. I’ve asked Paul McCartney, who laughed and said: ‘Why not me? I’m handsome.’ Then he said: ‘I was holed up with John in hotel rooms everywhere. There was never a suggestion of anything like that.’ I believe him.”

Julia Baird, in Boston Globe: Lennon’s half-sister remembers… (2 October 1988).

“All I can ever say about it is that I slept with John a lot because you had to, you didn’t have more than one bed - and to my knowledge John was never gay.”

Paul McCartney, The Brian Epstein Story

And maybe he's right to be offended?

Did Lennon have sex with other men? “I think he had a desire to, but I think he was too inhibited,” says Ono. “No, not inhibited. He said, ‘I don’t mind if there’s an incredibly attractive guy.’ It’s very difficult: They would have to be not just physically attractive, but mentally very advanced too. And you can’t find people like that.” So did Lennon ever have sex with men? “No, I don’t think so,” says Ono. “The beginning of the year he was killed, he said to me, ‘I could have done it, but I can’t because I just never found somebody that was that attractive.’ Both John and I were into attractiveness—you know—beauty.”

Yoko Ono: I Still Fear John’s Killer by Tim Teeman for the Daily Beast (13 October 2015).

There was even some discussion, albeit not very serious, of whether he should stick to his own gender. “John said ‘It would hurt you like crazy if I made it with a girl. With a guy, maybe you wouldn’t be hurt, because that’s not competition. But I can’t make it with a guy because I love women too much, and I’d have to fall in love with the guy and I don’t think I can.’”

Yoko on her and John discussing the terms of an open marriage in 1973 (John Lennon: The Life)

On that note, Paul's obsession with sleeping in the same bed as John

Paul McCartney answers questions for Q magazine, 1998

John and I used to hitch-hike places together, it was something that we did together quite a lot; cementing our friendship, getting to know our feelings, our dreams, our ambitions together. It was a very wonderful period. I look back on it with great fondness. I particularly remember John and I would be squeezed in our little single bed, and Mike Robbins, who was a real nice guy, would come in late at night to say good night to us, switching off the lights as we were all going to bed.

Many Years From Now

John and I always liked wordplay. So, the phrase ‘She’s got a ticket to ride’ of course referred to riding on a bus or train, but – if you really want to know – it also referred to Ryde on the Isle of Wight, where my cousin Betty and her husband Mike were running a pub. That’s what they did; they ran pubs. He ended up as an entertainment manager at a Butlin’s holiday resort. Betty and Mike were very showbiz. It was great fun to visit them, so John and I hitchhiked down to Ryde, and when we wrote the song we were referring to the memory of this trip. It’s very cute now to think of me and John in a little single bed, top and tail, and Betty and Mike coming to tuck us in.

Paul McCartney, on ‘Ticket To Ride’. In The Lyrics (2021).

“John and I grew up like twins although he was a year and a half older than me. We grew up literally in the same bed because when we were on holiday, hitchhiking or whatever, we would share a bed. Or when we were writing songs as kids he’d be in my bedroom or I’d be in his. Or he’d be in my front parlour or I’d be in his, although his Aunt Mimi sometimes kicked us out into the vestibule!”

New Statesman, “Paul McCartney - Meet The Beatle,” September 26, 1997

“I wrote all those songs with him so…. what can I say to people?? We were kids! I mean… we slept together, topped and tailed in beds and hitch-hiking and stuff, so,…. I mean, we were just totally you know,….. mates.”

Paul McCartney

John taking matters into his own hand to start rumours about him and Paul

The consensus among John, Paul and Yoko that if J&P could have been together, they would have

“. . . I mean, I think really what it was, really all that happened was that John fell in love. With Yoko. And so, with such a powerful alliance like that, it was difficult for him to still be seeing me. It was as if I was another girlfriend, almost. Our relationship was a strong relationship. And if he was to start a new relationship, he had to put this other one away. And I understood that. I mean, I couldn’t stand in the way of someone who’d fallen in love. You can’t say, “Who’s this?” You can’t really do that. If I was a girl, maybe I could go out and… But you know I mean in this case I just sort of said, right – I mean, I didn’t say anything, but I could see that was the way it was going to go, and that Yoko would be very sort of powerful for him. So um, we all had to get out the way.”

Paul McCartney, interview with German tv program Exclusiv, April 1985.

JOHN: It’s a plus, it’s not a minus. The plus is that your best friend, also, can hold you without… I mean, I’m not a homosexual, or we could have had a homosexual relationship and maybe that would have satisfied it, with working with other male artists. [faltering] An artist – it’s more – it’s much better to be working with another artist of the same energy, and that’s why there’s always been Beatles or Marx Brothers or men, together. Because it’s alright for them to work together or whatever it is. It’s the same except that we sleep together, you know? I mean, not counting love and all the things on the side, just as a working relationship with her, it has all the benefits of working with another male artist and all the joint inspiration, and then we can hold hands too, right?

John Lennon, interview w/ Sandra Shevey. (Mid-June?, 1972)

Y: After the initial embarrassment, that how Paul is being very nice to me, he’s nice and a very, str- on the level, straight, sense, like wherever there’s something like happening at the Apple, he explains to me, as if I should know. And also whenever there’s something like they need a light man, or something like that he asks me if I know of anybody, things like that. And like I can see that he’s just now suddenly changing his attitude, like his being, he’s treating me with respect, not because it’s me, but because I belong to John. I hope that’s what it is because that would be nice. And I feel like he’s my younger brother or something like that. I’m sure that if he had been a woman or something, he would have been a great threat, because there’s something definitely very strong with me, John, and Paul.

Yoko Ono, Revolution Tape, June 4th 1968

"We thought we'd do a number of an old estranged fiancé of mine called Paul.""

As a second choice from the Lennon- McCartney songbook, Elton suggested 'I Saw Her Standing There'. This appealed to John for its antiquity, and because its lead vocal always was sung by Paul. (...) There was a whisper of Royal Variety Show mischief when he announced "a number by an old estranged fiancé of mine called Paul" - no one yet knowing the estranged fiancés were long reconciled.

John Lennon: The Life, Philip Norman

You know, John loved Paul. No doubt about it. I remember once he said to me, “I’m the only person who’s allowed to say things like that about Paul. I don’t like it when other people do.” He didn’t like if other people said nasty things about Paul. And he always referred to Paul as his estranged fiancé and things like that, like he did on that [live] record ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ with Elton in Madison Square Garden.

1990: Former Beatles publicist Tony King

Married couple signatures

(and the reverse of that postcard...)

John publicly predicting Paul & Linda's divorce

You were right about New York! I do love it; it's the ONLY PLACE TO BE. (Apart from anything else, they leave you alone too!) I see you prefer Scotland! (MM) -- I'll bet you your piece of Apple you'll be living in New York by 1974 (two years is the usual time it takes you right?)

John's letter to Paul in Melody Maker, 1971 Finally, about not telling anyone that I left the Beatles—PAUL and Klein both spent the day persuading me it was better not to say anything—asking me not to say anything because it would 'hurt the Beatles'—and 'let's just let it petre out'—remember? So get that into your petty little perversion of a mind, Mrs. McCartney—the cunts asked me to keep quiet about it. Of course, the money angle is important—to all of us—especially after all the petty shit that came from your insane family/in laws—and GOD HELP YOU OUT, PAUL—see you in two years—I reckon you'll be out then—inspite of it all, love to you both, from us two.

John's personal letter to Linda & Paul, 1971

JOHN: Oh, [Klein]’d love it if Paul would come back. I think he was hoping he would for years and years. He thought that if he did something, to show Paul that he could do it, Paul would come around. But no chance. I mean, I want him to come out of it, too, you know. He will one day. I give him five years, I’ve said that. In five years he’ll wake up. YOKO: And people don’t understand, you know. There’s so many groups that constantly announce they’re going to split, they’re going to split, and they can announce it every year, and it doesn’t mean they’re going to split. But people don’t understand what an extraordinary position the Beatles are in, you know. In every way. They’re in such an extraordinary position that they’re more insecure than other people. And so Klein thinks he’ll give Paul two years Linda-wise, you know. And John said, “No, Paul treasures things like children, things like that. It will be longer.” And of course, John was right.

John Lennon and Yoko Ono, interview w/ Peter McCabe and Robert Schonfeld. (September, 1971)

#the beatles #paul mccartney #john lennon #mclennon #only a tiny fraction of insane things #they have such chaotic lore

[harrisonarchive]

Photo by John Pratt/Keystone Features/Getty Images.

Rest in peace, radio and television presenter Annie Nightingale. Condolences to her family and friends. Annie Nightingale: “Well, he [George] was both — I mean have Hare Krishna people come in the office, into Apple, chanting, and, yeah, he was very genuinely involved in [spirituality] and believed in it. And Transcendental Meditation. Obviously his whole connection with the Maharishi and the whole experience with the Eastern — and looking for other cultures to be inspired by was very clear, but George was a very complex guy [laughs], you know. He’d give as good as he got. I mean he wasn’t… some sort of ethereal creature. He’d tell you what he thought of you. Yeah, and if he didn’t want to do something, he’d say so in you know… in very strong language [laughs] as well. I mean not that — he was always very brilliant to me. In fact, once he said to me — it must’ve been after The Beatles broke up — at a party. He said, ‘You were very good to us,’ and I went, ‘What are you talking about?! Me? You’ve changed my life! You’ve changed the lives of millions of people!’ I mean, maybe I just didn’t slag them off is what he meant, you know. Because the press turned on The Beatles a lot, you know. People don’t realize that now, but they were fighting quite a losing battle a lot of the time. Even early ‘60s, people going, ‘Oh, that “yeah yeah yeah” stuff, it’s all over.’ People were writing them off even after a year or two, and once they made Pepper and gone psychedelic then that really got the media completely riled up. ‘What was that all about?’ And growing their hair, like they looked weird now. They did not look like the mop tops in their nice Cardin jackets.” - BBC Radio 2, September 2019 (x)

#Annie Nightingale #George Harrison #The Beatles #quote #quotes about George #Harrison spirituality #George and fame #1960s #1970s #1980s #1990s #2000s #2010s #harrisonarchive in memoriam #fits queue like a glove

[pomegrnteseed]

Come Together

Prompt: "I want you" made me think perhaps H is a Beatles girlie cause her parents, and I've never seen Sirius as a Beatles Guy in fic before

Thank you to Beatificbean for this prompt, I really enjoyed piecing this together

“I want you.”

She shrieks, heart in her throat, not just because she’d been sure she was home alone, but because he’s uttering the words that haunt her nightly.

Hermione turns to the doorway and sees Sirius leaning oh-so-casually against the wooden frame, arms crossed as he looks at her. She’s in an ACDC t-shirt of his that she’d stolen from the washing basket and a pair of red jersey shorts. Perfectly acceptable loungewear for baking in the kitchen.

“That’s the song, you’re humming, right? I Want You, by The Beatles? Merlin, Hermione, you’re practically the perfect woman, knowing music like that.”

He laughs and she tries to copy him, but it’s hollow.

Of course he didn’t mean it.

She was more than 20 years his junior. She was the final stray haunting his home; Harry and Ron having moved out and moved on two years earlier. She rattled around the house like a ghost, hardly straying from her bedroom, the kitchen, or the small office they’d transformed into a potions lab for her to mess around in while she figured out what she did next with her life.

Funny how ambition quickly dries up when it’s a reality instead of a child’s dream to survive long enough to live.

“I didn’t know you knew The Beatles,” he continues on, unaware of her internal monologue, stepping towards the oven where she’s finished pouring batter into a loaf tin.

“Don’t you dare stick a finger in there, there’s raw egg! And yes, of course I know The Beatles. My father worshipped them,” she informs him with a wry smile. “Makes me think of home, of learning to bake breads and pastries on Sunday afternoons with him. Mum was useless at the sweet stuff, but Dad was a whizz at baking, you know. Ironic, given his professional quest to save every tooth he met. He’d stick a cassette in and-”

The tears overwhelm her and he pulls her in for a hug. It doesn’t soothe her like he intends, just twists the knife of loneliness harder, but she swallows it all down, pushes and pushes until she doesn’t feel it anymore.

“I have the vinyl in my room, if you want to listen over banana loaf and chai?” he offers.

The only way he knows how to offer comfort is through company and hot drinks. It’s kind of adorable, though she’d never tell him as much.

Forty minutes later, she’s at his bedroom door with chai and a plate with sliced banana loaf, hovering, knows crossing this threshold changes nothing - it’s Sirius, the man who sees her as his ward - but nonetheless the trepidation tangles in her tummy.

The door opens and he’s lounging on his bed, vinyl cover in hand, patting the mattress beside him.

The opening chords of Come Together fill the room. She perches on the edge, pushes a plate in his direction, and busies her hands with her own.

“Did you add cinnamon?”

She nods, not meeting his gaze.

He hums.

“My favourite.”

She knows.

They listen to the entire album in silence, only moving to turn the disk over in its player. She lets the songs surround her in a nostalgic blanket, wistful for the easy, breezy carelessness of childhood.

“Oh darling,” Sirius breaks the silence when the final song ends and the record player clicks off.

She peers up at him, questioning.

“My favourite song on the album is probably Oh! Darling.”

She smiles, it’s weak and thin but that’s as sincere as she can muster. Wishes those words meant something more.

“Because is mine. You know it’s inspired by Moonlight Sonata? The complexity of the harmonies is unbelievable, it’s so layered. And yet, the sound is almost deceptively simple. A real conundrum of a track.”

His mouth twists, not a smile or a grimace, but something pained nonetheless.

“I was sure you’d say Here Comes the Sun,” he murmurs. When she quirks a sardonic brow he grins fully. “Y’know, because you’re so hopeful and full of light. Always looking for the silver lining.”

She’s not sure she is, but she takes the mischaracterisation as a compliment with a snicker.

“Sure, Sirius, whatever you say.”

A beat.

“I best go clear up my mess,” she says, moving to stand.

“I Want You.”

“What about it?” she asks, stacking empty plates and mugs.

“I’m serious.”

She blinks, confused and feeling as though he’s making fun of her. The vulnerability rolls her shoulders in anticipatory defense.

“Hermione. I want you. It would be a literal crime to let you walk out of this room now I finally have you in it. Wearing my fucking clothes, no less.”

She must surely have entered an alternate dimension. Or she’s having a stroke. Because there’s no way in hell this is actually happening.

His tattooed hand shoots out to grab her wrist, pulls on it, forcing her to look him in the eye.

What she sees knocks the wind out of her.

His expression is open, vulnerable, eyes gleaming. Hermione is baffled, completely unprepared.

“Unless, of course, you’re not interested. And- well, why would you be. Ignore me darli- Hermione. Just, forget it. Call it a senior moment, let me get the door for you.”

He leaps from the bed, jostling her as he passes, opens the door, head bowed.

“You- you want me? Seriously?”

“I’m always Sirius.”

“I will smack you, Sirius Black.”

He chuckles but it quickly morphs into a weary sigh.

“You don’t understand how incredible you look when you’re lost in the music, Hermione. Transcendental. You’re a vision. I mean, you always are. But you’re sitting there in my fucking t-shirt, listening to my favourite album, and you have this dreamy little grin. You’re hardly in the room, but it doesn’t matter. You’re comfortable enough to let yourself fully feel the music around me. And that’s no small thing. I know it isn’t. So, yes, I’m struck by an epiphany listening to my favourite band with my favourite witch who’s added my favourite spice to my favourite fruit loaf. Is it really so surprising?”

She laughs and it’s melodic. She’s euphoric.

“Yes, you dolt. It’s utterly baffling. Completely bewildering. Now kiss me.”

And he does.

#sirmione #Sirius Black #Hermione Granger #hp fanfic #harry potter fanfiction #hp fandom #Beatificbean gave me this prompt

[strangermarvelss]

this is music!

Pairing: Eddie Munson x Reader

Summary: you and eddie discover just how different your music choices are

Warnings: fluff, angst if you squint, eddie being a child

Request?: No

Word Count: 1.1k

A/N: here’s a quick little fic about eddie being a diva over his music. that pretty much sums it up. - sava

“I mean, what are you even looking for?” Eddie asks Robin, carrying over a handful of his cassette tapes.

Nancy and Steve were still in the upside down, Nancy showing the signs that Max did when in the trace caused by Vecna. Robin, Eddie, and yourself managed to get out right before and seeing Steve on the other side shaking Nancy furiously was not how you were expecting the rest of the night to go. You were worried, along with everyone else. We couldn’t afford to lose anyone else in Hawkins, it was taking a toll on the town and you were scared what could happen to Vecna if he killed more and more kids.

“Madonna, Blondie, Bowie, Beatles. Music! We need music!” Robin exclaims, holding up his Iron Maiden cassette. Uh oh. You knew this wasn’t going to be taken well by Ed-

“THIS. IS. MUSIC!” He yells, snatching the cassette from her hands and waving it as he spoke. Eddie was passionate about music, whether it’s playing it himself or listening. He was in the minority with his love of metal in the town of Hawkins, one of many things they used to throw the word “freak” in his face, which was just cruel. The way his eyes would light up as he listened to the latest Metallica album was one of your favorite recent memories…before Hawkins had yet another threat on its hands. So when people bad mouthed one of the few things he loved most, it was like a stab through the heart for him.

“Eds, you know that’s not what she meant. Now here, maybe there’s something here she’d be interested in,” you say throwing a pile on the bed. Eddie looks over your shoulder as you and Robin look through the pile, his face scrunched. The day would come sooner or later where you’d reveal the secret stash of tapes you kept at Eddie’s trailer, and, considering the circumstances, now was as good a time as any.

“What about Queen, do you think she likes them? Oooh, wait, I found a Blondie tape!” You say, holding both tapes up in Robin’s view. She nods and you both jump from the bed and rush towards the opened gate that sat upon the ceiling of Eddie’s living room.

“Steve! We have some music that doesn’t suck!” Robin shouts at him.

“Robin! Be nice!” You scold her. She holds her hands up in a surrender pose, and you hear and fall coming from the ceiling. You both look up to see Nancy laying in Steve’s arms on the floor of Eddie’s trailer in the Upside Down. Steve looks at your guys and gives you a thumbs up, with you letting out a sigh of relief. She was okay.

For now.

You walk back into Eddie’s room and he’s sitting on his bed with his arms crossed. You nod at Dustin and the rest of his freshmen friends to head out, silently asking for time alone with your boyfriend. Slowly, you approach the bed and sit on the edge, looking at him with a guilt face.

“Are you okay Eddie?” You ask, placing your hand on his leg, which he shakes off. You let out a slightly annoyed sigh and turn your body more towards him so you can see him. You watch as he grabs at the tapes you had placed on his bed with a huff. Even in world-ending circumstances, Eddie could be as dramatic as ever and find a way to throw a fit. Most of the time you found it to be cute, watching his features contort as he passionately went on and on about whatever got him into a tangent. However, now was not that time.

“These tapes are not mine, Y/N,” he says, looking up to you again.

“Yeah, I know.”

“So…why are they here?” He asks you, putting them back down in the pile you had made. You give him an “are you serious” look, not being able to tell if he genuinely thinks they just appeared in his trailer. He only gives you a waiting expression in return, confused as to why you haven’t spoken yet.

“I brought them over here for when I’m hanging out at the trailer when you’re not around. No big deal,” you explain calmly. You practically lived with Eddie at the trailer he shared with his Uncle Wayne, not really wanting to spend much time away from the man you loved most, given your history and status throughout the town.

“No big deal? Y/N, what about my music? Do you not like it?” He asks, standing from the bed. You let out a small sigh and hang your head.

“Yes but sometimes I want to listen to the music I like most. Metal and rock are great and all, but I do like pop music too, Eddie,” you admit. You hear him scoff.

“And why didn’t you tell me this?” He turns suddenly, this eccentric dramatics coming out in full swing. You stand from his bed and get closer to him, softly cupping his face. He begins to look away from you, but you gently tilt him back to look at you.

“Eds, I promise it’s not the end of the world that I like a different music genre. We don’t have to be the exact same, because that’s what makes it nice to be with one another. Can you honestly tell me that you’d like being with me if I was exactly like you?” You ask him, your nose touching his. He lets out a quiet huff and meets your gaze. You watch the mess of curls slowly nod in understanding, feeling his soft lips press to your cheek. You bring your hand up to cup his cheek for a moment and brush his dirty face with the pad of your thumb. After being in the upside down for so low, both of you needed a shower and a change of clothes.

“C’mon, everyone’s probably in the living room waiting on us. Plus we should get this back there so Steve and Nancy can make it back into our normal dimension without breaking anything,” you tell him as you rise from his stain-filled mattress. He rises as well and the two of you are closer, him pressing another kiss to your cheek.

“Okay, let’s go sweetheart. Oh and please don’t make me listen to Rapture. Like ever. I hate that song.”

#eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson angst #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson fanfiction #dustin henderson #steve harrington #nancy wheeler #robin buckley

[ncisfranchise-source]

Brian Dietzen had a tall order when it came to the latest NCIS episode he cowrote with Scott Williams: the tribute to Dr. Donald “Ducky” Mallard and the actor who played him, the late David McCallum. But it’s one the two were more than ready to take on.

“When you lose someone very close, you can fall into just crying and mourning continually, and while we wanted to pay homage to him, we didn’t want that to be it,” Dietzen tells TV Insider ahead of the February 19 episode. “We wanted to celebrate the fun times as well, and we wanted to celebrate the amazing work that this great actor did on our show and also honor the character that he created. And I think both those people, the character and the actor, would love to see us continuing on and honoring him through continuing to do good work.”

The Season 21 premiere ended with Dietzen’s Dr. Jimmy Palmer calling Alden Parker (Gary Cole) to tell him of Ducky’s death. Now, the focus will turn to celebrating him—and solving the case he was working on before he died. Below, Dietzen talks about writing the episode and shares memories with McCallum, going back to their first scene together.

Talk about how you co-writing this episode came about because it is so fitting that you did so.

Brian Dietzen: We had the work stoppage this last year because of the [writers’ and actors] strikes, so we have a 10-episode order this season instead of our normal 22, sometimes 24 episodes. I’ve been cowriting with Scott Williams just about once a year, the last couple years, and so this year, I let my showrunners, David North and Steven Binder, know that I wasn’t going to request a script because we have a wonderful writing staff and I felt like, oh, there’s no need for me to step in there because we only have 10 episodes. Then David passed away, and I think that Scott really wanted to write his farewell episode and he thought it would be fitting if it would be a co-written with me. David and Steve said, that’s super appropriate. We all think that’s a really good thing, and you two obviously work well together, so go off and do your thing. I was really honored to be asked to do so, and I just wanted to make him proud.

What was your approach to this episode? Because you have to balance honoring David, honoring Ducky, but then also the case and the team’s grief.

Yeah, I think it’s really important that this remains an NCIS episode. It cannot just be some series of flashbacks to prior Ducky Mallard scenes. It was really important for us that we still have a case to solve. You’re living in a legacy of this person that you’ve lost, being Ducky, so we decided to craft a case where there would be something that would thematically link the case to the team’s loss, and those two don’t necessarily have to go hand in glove. They don’t have to be related. It’s not as though the case has to be related to Ducky in any way, but thematically speaking, it really should be.

Michael Yarish/CBS

What can you say about any characters returning or the acknowledgement of them and what Ducky meant to them?

What we tried to do with this episode was we tried honor the team that he worked with, and when I say the team, I mean the greater team, not just this team that we have right now that involves Parker, Torres [Wilmer Valderrama], Knight [Katrina Law], McGee [Sean Murray], Palmer, Kasie [Diona Reasonover], and Vance [Rocky Carroll]. The greater team is all of the different teams he’s worked with, many of which involved Gibbs [Mark Harmon], and then of course there’s Tony [Michael Weatherly] and Ziva [Cote de Pablo], and there’s Bishop [Emily Wickersham], Abby [Pauley Perrette], of course, and everyone in between.

And so when we wrote this thing, while it’s certainly not a show that’s just all about clips or anything like that, there are these remembrances of Ducky and we wanted to see him interacting with people that are on our current team and also people that are on our iterations of our team, too. I think we did a pretty good job with that, and I think that people like to see that they’re getting to see their Ducky many years past as well as the more recent.

What moments working with David came to mind while you were writing the episode then filming it?

Oh, about 6,000, if I’m being honest. I was going through, and I was looking up my first scene with him with a tape recorder at the end of Season 1. I was looking at “The Meat Puzzle” in Season 2. I was looking at “Detour,” a Steven Binder classic where we’re being chased through the woods directed by Mario Van Peebles. That was actually a really cool episode to look back on because David, if I look at it now, I thought, oh man, he was 80 years old, 81 years old when we shot that episode. And it’s Jimmy and Ducky running through a wooded forest at night in the snow, and obviously asking an 80-something-year old man to do that for continual night shoots, that’s not okay. So they ended up building a whole forest on our set and made it snow [and] we shot it during the day.

Monty Brinton/CBS

Some of those things hit me and memories hit me. And so as I’m watching all these old shows as we’re writing this new show, I can’t tell you how many just good times that we had together, and I don’t want to try to summarize it in just a couple of quotes here because it’s tough to summarize 20 years of friendship and 20 years of camaraderie and mentorship and great scenes together being shared. But what I will say is that the thing that I’ll always remember and that hit me so hard when I was watching all of these things is just what a terrific worker David McCallum was continually. He always showed up prepared. He knew his things. He did every scene with the absolute best of his ability. And that’s something that I watched him do for years and tried to adopt for myself as well. So yeah, it’s been an honor.

How do you remember Jimmy and Ducky’s relationship?

I see it as a partnership and somewhat of a mentorship. I remember there’s one point at which some writer on our staff years ago—I can’t remember who the person was exactly—started wanting to get into this, oh, he’s like a son to Ducky, this is like his father figure, and had some lines about that. And David said, “Oh, no, no, no, no, no. They’re partners, and they’re work colleagues. The second we start getting into a hierarchy of, he’s my son or I’m his father sort of thing, there’ll be a power dynamic that I don’t want to explore too much. I want it to be that Jimmy can speak his mind when he needs to and so can Ducky.” And that’s the way he treated it. It was really about, we’re in this thing together.

I think that was what was really, really great about those two characters is that they both lifted each other up. Jimmy had this reverence for Ducky that was so easy to see, and Ducky, the moment that he found out that Jimmy had passed his medical examiner’s license test, he was a doctor, the first thing he says is “Dr. Palmer” with all this pride in his voice. And I’d be lying if I didn’t say it made me teary to think about because David treated me that way as well in my personal life. He was very kind, very proud when I started to take over more of the load of the M.E. at NCIS. He’d call me and say, “I love the scene you did. I love this and that. I’m so proud you’re doing this in my stead.” And so yeah, art imitated life here and there.

What do you recall about your first and last scenes together?

Our first scene together, I remember I booked this episode. It was a one day guest star, and so I was just going to go and do one scene for NCIS, and it was a spinoff of JAG, and I think I’d seen one episode of it at the time, and I’ll be honest, I didn’t know who David McCallum was, and I’d never seen The Man from U.N.C.L.E.. At the time, I’d never seen The Great Escape. So I was pretty uncultured. I walked in, and I did this scene with this really terrific actor. That’s all I knew. I just knew, well, he’s really good, he’s really fantastic. And so I went home and I looked up, who is this guy? What has he been in before? Only to find out that he was like one of film and TV’s Beatles from the 1960s. [Laughs] He was a living legend, and that was pretty great.

And what was wonderful is that we got along well and the producer at the time, Don Bellisario, saw, oh, those two work really well together. Let’s have Brian come back next week and then the next week and then the next week. It’s because the two of us worked well together and we worked well on our scenes that I got to keep working. So that was really, really wonderful.

I’ll say one of the last scenes that I remember doing with David in person—because over the last few years, David was shooting most of his scenes in New York and we would have him on a screen or an iPad or something like that—was Ducky and Jimmy at a diner just eating together. There was no case that we were talking about, there was no red herring or anything like that. It was just two guys sitting there talking about a girl that Jimmy likes, and it was a friend listening to another friend over a sandwich. I thought, looking back on it, that’s really wonderful. Because we did that so often within our autopsy scenes where the scene is about this body before us and all of the evidence that we have to deliver to the rest of the team, but the dialogue could be about just about anything. We could be joking about things. He could be going off on some diatribe about something that was seemingly unrelated but it really came through historically in this situation. And so yeah, it was a cool scene to go back and reflect on.

#ncis #interview

[minkshame]

I did want to reshare the SPARE CHANGES PLAYLIST complete with tracklist and key lyrics... under the cut

SECTION 1 (TORD):

Half a World Away (R.E.M.) - My hand's tired, my heart aches / I'm half a world away

Leaving New York (R.E.M.) - You might have laughed if I told you (it's pulling me apart)

Dirty Imbecile (The Happy Fits) - When my heart starts beating, lungs stop breathing / All my fibers say to run away

Don't be Seen with Me (Oppenheimer Analysis) - I kept things under strict control / Resisted all diversion

How to Disappear Completely (Radiohead) - That there, that's not me

You've Got to Hide Your Love Away (The Beatles) - I can see them laugh at me, and I hear them say / Hey, you've got to hide your love away

Heart in a Cage (The Strokes) - See I'm stuck in a city, but I belong in a field

Back to the Old House (The Smiths) - Cause I never even told you / Oh and I meant to

Promise (Laufey) - And I should get a cigarette / For how much restraint

No Time to Explain (Good Kid) - It's been a while I've been out on my own / I'm in denial about living life alone

SECTION 2 (EDD):

I Guess He'd Rather be in Colorado (John Denver) - I guess he'd rather work / Out where the only thing you earn is what you spend

Give you My Lovin (Mazzy Star) - Cause you see, rain reminds me of you / And everything has turned to you

Hopelessly Devoted to You (Olivia Newton-John) - I know I'm just a fool who's willing / To sit around and wait for you

I Don't Wanna Be Okay Without You (Charlie Burg) - And I can hear so clearly all the words I wish I'd said / You're stuck in my head

Mamma Mia (Austin Weber) - Yeah, I've been brokenhearted / Blue since the day we parted / Why why did I ever let you go?

Livin' With a Heartache (The Beach Boys) - I'm no good alone, you know-a everyone sees / That you left me alone with nothin' but a heartache

Oh Love (Delaney Bailey) - And I don't want to turn back time anymore / But I do miss when I thought that I was loved

Duvet (bôa) - But you know that it means so much / And you don't even feel a thing

I want you (Mitski) - We're starting over / And I love you darling

SECTION 3 (GENERAL):

The Less I Know The Better (Tame Impala) - I was doing fine without ya / til I saw your eyes turn away from mine

Spare Hearts (Exit Mouse) - I know you’re afraid / Of making a big mistake / But you’re just what I need / Spare me the fear

Les maudits mots d'amour (Le rouge et le Noir) - Mais dans l'ivresse de tes bras / Tout le reste vole en éclat, / Vole en éclat.

SECTION 4 (LOW POINT):

If I can't be yours (Loren & Mash) - I realize / We're not the same / And it's making me sad / Cause we can't fulfill our dreams in this life

Memento Mori (Red Vox) - Could it be, the presence of memory / Is all we are, all we'll ever be?

I Know It’s Over (The Smiths) - And it never really began / But in my heart it was so real

Sparks (Coldplay) - My Heart is yours / It's you that I hold on to

Turtles All The Way Down (Sammy Copley)- And I’m aware / That it’s not fair / To bring you here then send you on your way / You had so much to say / And to ask

Door (I DONT KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME) - If I'm out of line / Just show me the door / I promise you I / Won't come here no more

SECTION 5 (HAPPY ENDING):

Scary Love (The Neighborhood) - No one has ever cared for me / as much a you do

It's Been a Long Long Time (Harry James) - You'll never know how many dreams I've dreamed about you / Or how empty they all seemed without you

Those Eyes (New West) - I close my eyes and all I see is you / And the small things you do

Heart to Heart (Mac Demarco) - To all the days we were together / To all the time we played apart / In each other's lives

Another Believer (Rufus Wainwright) - And give me just one more chance, one more glance

Home (Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros) - Man oh man you're my best friend / I scream it to the nothingness

Genesis (Jourma Kaukonen) - And there I found myself with you / When breathing felt like something new, new / Along with you

#spare changes #tp

[90363462]

This Moment to Arise: The Revisionary Genius of Beyoncé’s ‘Blackbird’

By Rob SheffieldMarch 29, 2024

'Cowboy Carter' highlight brings the White Album classic full circle

Beyoncé has so many audacious culture-clash triumphs all over Cowboy Carter. But one of the most stunning moments is also one of the simplest: her version of the Beatles classic “Blackbird.” Paul McCartney wrote the song in the summer of 1968, inspired by the American civil rights movement. All that history is right there in Beyoncé’s version. She keeps the folkie Paul guitar, complete with the squeaks, but adds her heavenly gospel-soul harmonies. What she does with the word “arise” is incredible in itself.

It’s a stroke of Beyoncé’s revisionary genius that brings the story of “Blackbird” full circle. She claims the song as if Paul McCartney wrote it for her. Because, in so many ways, he did.

Paul tells the story of writing it in his 2021 book The Lyrics. “At the time in 1968 when I was writing ‘Blackbird,’” he recalls, “I was very conscious of the terrible racial tensions in the U.S. The year before, 1967, had been a particularly bad year, but 1968 was even worse. The song was written only a few weeks after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. That imagery of the broken wings and the sunken eyes and the general longing for freedom is very much of its moment.”

Paul wrote this song as a dialogue with Black America; Bey’s “Blackbird” is part of that call-and-response, proof that the song always meant exactly what McCartney hoped it would mean. It’s one of the most profound and powerful Beatles covers ever, right up there with Aretha Franklin’s “The Long and Winding Road.” 

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“I had in mind a Black woman, rather than a bird,” Paul says of the song in the 1997 book Many Years From Now, by Barry Miles. “Those were the days of the civil rights movement, which all of us cared passionately about, so this was really a song from me to a Black woman, experiencing these problems in the States: ‘Let me encourage you to keep trying, to keep your faith, there is hope.’”

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Paul was especially moved by the Little Rock Nine — a group of teenagers, the same age as so many Beatlemaniac fans, who caused a nationwide racist outrage in 1957 when they tried to enroll in an all-white high school in Little Rock, Arkansas. Gov. Orval Faubus called out the National Guard to block the kids from setting foot in the school. Writing “Blackbird” in the summer of 1968, with high-profile anti-Black violence in both the U.S. and the U.K., he turned that into the song. “As is often the case with my things, a veiling took place so rather than say ‘Black woman living in Little Rock’ and be very specific, she became a bird, became symbolic, so you could apply it to your particular problem.”

“Blackbird” is a song with a long history in Black music, from reggae (the Paragons’ gorgeous version from 1973) to jazz legends including Ramsey Lewis, Sarah Vaughn, and Cassandra Wilson. No song has a deeper dialogue between the Beatles and the Black America that gave them their voices. Anderson .Paak put his spin on “Blackbird” in 2013, years before he ended up contributing to Paul’s album McCartney 3 Imagined, with his funk remix of “When Winter Comes.” The Beatles’ sidekick Billy Preston, who plays with them all over the Get Back movie, gospelized it in 1972, as the flip side of his Number One hit “Will It Go Round in Circles.” His version is on the superb Ace Records anthology Come Together: Black America Sings the Beatles.

Beyoncé brings all that history to her version. There’s also a Paul-like playful humor in the way she makes a horse the star of her album cover. (Could Chardonneigh be the new Martha?) In other words, she is Macca Fierce.

But most of all, Bey’s version ties in mostdirectly to Sylvester’s disco version of “Blackbird” from 1979, the most outrageous and radical version ever. She evokes this song’s history in queer Black disco culture— connecting it to her whole Renaissance project. Sylvester was the first gay Black pop star who was out of the closet, as far as the public knew. Tragically, he also become one of the first stars to pass in the Eighties AIDs epidemic. But in 1979 he was back in San Francisco as a hometown hero, after breaking big nationwide. “Blackbird” is his falsetto-disco celebration from Living Proof, one of the Seventies’ greatest live albums. He was on top of the world: There was an official “Sylvester Day” in San Francisco, where he received the key to the city from the mayor, who happened to be Diane Feinstein. That night he headlined the War Memorial Opera House, and did the most beautiful “Blackbird” ever heard — until now.

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Sylvester claims “Blackbird” for himself and his community. He trades call-and-response vocals (“Y’all ready, girls?”) with his backup singers, eternal disco legends Martha Wash and Izora Rhodes, the Two Tons o’ Fun. (They later blew up as the Weather Girls, belting their classic “It’s Raining Men.”) When they sing “You were only waiting for this moment to arise,” you can feel the whole crowd rise to join them. They’re not hiding out in the shadows anymore. They’re spreading their wings. It’s their night to fly. This is their song, and their moment.

Hearing Beyoncé sing this song now evokes her Uncle Johnny, a member of the queer Black dance culture that Sylvester epitomized, and the guiding spirit of her love letter to that culture, Renaissance. (He died tragically in the same epidemic as Sylvester, 10 years later.) You can hear her “arise” connect with Sylvester’s “arise.” And you can hear her Uncle Johnny in both of them.

Beyoncé has always loved reclaiming rock & roll as Black female performance. It’s one of her artistic passions — check her mind-blowing versions of the Doors’ “Five to One,” Alanis Morissette’s “You Oughta Know,” and even Kings of Leon’s “Sex on Fire.” She turned the Yeah Yeah Yeahs into “Hold Up.” Long before Stevie Nicks had her grand 2010s comeback, Destiny’s Child got her back on MTV with “Bootylicious.” Most spectacularly, the Lemonade classic “Don’t Hurt Yourself” is Beyoncé channeling Memphis Minnie’s “When the Levee Breaks” through Led Zeppelin, with Jack White wailing on guitar. But “Blackbird” is different, because McCartney wrote the song explicitly about Southern Black women and their struggle through American racism in the 1960s.

The Bey/Paul connections go deep. Bey and Paul were spotted hanging out at Coachella a decade ago; they also worked out together at an L.A. gym. He was visibly having a great time at her 2011 New York residency. He saw the Renaissance World Tour in London last summer — a clip of his dancing went viral — and posed for a memorable photo with Jay-Z, lifting their champagne glasses to toast the Queen. On tour, Bey wore a custom Stella McCartney silver dress and leggings. As Stella said, “It is a life moment to dress someone as iconic and inspiring as Beyoncé — a visionary pioneer, disruptor, and artist who has worked tirelessly to make the world a better place.”

Paul haters might have questioned his sincerity about “Blackbird,” but that just means they weren’t listening. Because this song didn’t happen in a vacuum — it’s part of his lifelong engagement with Black music and Black culture. “Blackbird” was hardly his the only explicitly anti-racist statement on the White Album. “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La Da” is a ska ode to West Indian immigrant family life in England (“Desmond is a very Caribbean name,” he says in the Anthology book) at a time when the right-wing politician Enoch Powell was whipping up racist and anti-immigrant hysteria with his notorious “Rivers of Blood” speech in April 1968. That summer, with high-profile anti-Black violence in both the U.S. and the U.K., “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La Da” was a consciously provocative statement.

He lashed out at Powell even more directly months later in “Commonwealth Song,” which turned into “Get Back.” But in “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,” he made these Caribbean immigrants his embodiment of family values — and turned it into an unimpeachably wholesome kiddie singalong. The title phrase came from a Nigerian musician friend in London, the conga player Jimmy Scott. (He later died in suspicious circumstances after being imprisoned by U.K. customs officials.) 

When Paul performed in Little Rock in 2016, he met for the first time with Thelma Mothershed Wair and Elizabeth Eckford, two of the Black women who incited so much racist controversy by trying to enter an all-white high school. Meeting these two heroes had a profound impact on him. “Incredible to meet two prisoners of the civil rights movement and inspiration for ‘Blackbird,’” Paul said at the time. “Way back in the Sixties, there was a lot of trouble going on over civil rights, particularly in Little Rock,” he told the crowd that night, introducing the song. “We would notice this on the news back in England. So it’s a really important place for us, because to me, this is where civil rights started.”

But “Blackbird” is also in the tradition of his songs about everyday women and their unseen struggles— “Eleanor Rigby” and “Lady Madonna” with the Beatles, “Another Day” and “Jennie Wren” and “Little Willow” solo. (His empathy for his female characters was always radically different from other male songwriters of his generation, to say the least.) 

Bettye LaVette did one of the most emotionally cathartic versions in 2020, a gritty old-school R&B performance at 74, singing the lyrics in the first person. She felt a deep connection as soon as she heard it, saying, ‘‘I wonder if people know he’s talking about a Black woman?’” She made it the centerpiece of her 2020 album, Blackbirds,where all the other songs were popularized by Black women singers — Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, Ruth Brown. “It is about the road that I came across on,” she told the crowd at Farm Aid 2021. “This song was written by Mr. Paul McCartney. But it is about me, and them.”

The whole Cowboy Carter is Beyoncé using music as a map of American pop culture, from Willie and Dolly and Linda Martell to the Nancy Sinatra bass line, right up to the great moment when she starts singing the Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations.” Since she knows absolutely everything, she might even be consciously evoking the short-lived 1970s sitcomCarter Country, about a Black sheriff coming to a redneck small town in Georgia, from the creators of “What’s Happening!!” and “Sanford & Son.” Never put anything past her. She takes the details seriously.

But as Bey knows full well, the Beatles’ biggest inspiration was always American R&B. As kids in Liverpool, they heard the blues and soul records brought over by U.S. sailors. As John said, “We’d been hearing funky Black music all our lives, while people across Britain and Europe had never heard of it.” But Liverpool had its own racist history. “I was very conscious Liverpool was a slave port,” Paul says in The Lyrics. “And also that it had the first Carribean community in England. So we met a lot of Black guys, particularly in the music world.” 

From their earliest days, they played songs by Ray Charles, Smokey Robinson, the Shirelles, Little Willie John, the Marvelettes — always aspiring to live up to that spirit. On their early U.S. tours, they refused to allow segregation at their shows in the South. (McCartney, 1964: “There’s no segregation at concerts at England, and in fact if there was, we wouldn’t play ‘em, you know?”) “Rock & roll is Black,” John told Jet magazine in 1972. “I’ll never stop acknowledging it: Black music is my life.” For both Paul and Ringo, that connection remains at the heart of their music. When Ringo turned 80 a few years ago, he hosted his Big Birthday Special livestream to raise funds for Black Lives Matter. He sat at his drums and told the worldwide audience, “Let’s say it again: Black lives matter! Stand up and make your voice heard!”

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That’s why it meant so much to McCartney — more than any of them — to hear how his African American peers responded. Aretha’s versions of his songs always meant the most to him, because she heard that same Black history in these songs. When he wrote “Let It Be,” he sent her a demo in hopes she’d record it, even though he knew she would sing rings around him. (Her “Let It Be” came out in January 1970 — months before the Beatles version.) She did “The Fool on the Hill,” another song inspired by the civil rights struggle — for years, when Paul did it live, he added a sample of Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Most of all, Aretha claimed “The Long and Winding Road,” leaving all other versions (including McCartney’s) in the dust.

For Paul, as with the other Beatles, the connection to Black American music was deep, but it was especially important for him that it to be a two-way dialogue. Beyoncé’s “Blackbird” is one that really completes the song — a profound moment in her history, the Beatles’ history, and this timeless song’s history. In so many ways, “Blackbird” has always been waiting for this moment to arise. And Beyoncé makes the song rise higher than ever before.

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#Spotify #Me thinking about #how this album #was created because #the CMAs treated #Beyonce like crap…. #lemons into #the finest of lemonade. #😭🫶🏾✨ #COWBOYCARTER #Cowboy carter #queen bey #act ii #act ii cowboy carter #beyonce #beyhive #renaissance world tour #16 carriages #cowboy carter #Beyonce #country music #cuntry #texas holdem #Youtube #Black music #black musicians #country #blackbird #the beatles #beatles

[betterbooktitles]

Standing in a kitchen in Vermont, I spun the wheel on my black iPod and pressed down the fat, metallic button to select The Beatles’ Revolver from my long list of albums. “Taxman” came through the living room speakers. NPR had been echoing through the house for days in the TV-less room. The song’s opening guitar riff felt like watching fireworks.

My girlfriend’s dad, taking a break from DIY weatherproofing his home, a large open-concept cabin heated by a single wood-burning stove, said the words that always make me jealous: “I remember the day this came out.” 

He had run home from the record store after school with the album in tow, sat alone in his bedroom, and along with a bunch of kids his age in their respective rooms, heard Revolver for the first time. 

“Wow. What a day.” He said wistfully. 

“I remember it too.” My girlfriend said and tried to join in the reminiscing.

Her dad raised an eyebrow and looked at me.

“You mean you remember the first time you heard it?” I asked. 

“No I-” and her forehead wrinkled, and in her acid-addled brain, she tried to sort out for maybe 30 seconds how it was possible that she wasn’t alive in 1966 nor had she genetically inherited a memory from her parents of hearing Revolver the day it came out. “Yeah, I meant I can remember hearing it in this room for the first time, I guess.”

We listened to the rest of the album in classic Vermont style. That is, talking about how good the music is over the music you are currently listening to.

I don’t begrudge anyone wishing so hard they had been somewhere when they weren’t that they form an imaginary memory for something they never experienced. Only about 450,000 people were at Woodstock but millions claim they were there. Gen Z kids have mall nostalgia thanks to shows like Stranger Things showing them what a mall once was through rose-tinted glasses. I felt it most recently when my dad described using a reel-to-reel at the library and recording tapes of new albums before anyone else could borrow them.

As jealous as I feel toward every boomer or Gen Xer whose day revolved around getting out of school, buying a record, and hearing the needle drop the same day everyone else did, I know there is no equivalent for music for me, even though I can remember having nearly the same experiences with the radio and CDs. For instance, I remember our neighbor Kristen walking over to meet me and a big group of neighborhood kids at sunset one summer evening on our tree lawn (Cleveland suburbs term, the strip of grass between the street and the sidewalk outside your actual lawn that was technically the town’s responsibility but you still mowed). She had brought her battery-powered black boombox and (I swear) The Cranberries’ “Dreams” was playing. In my mind, I can see the final crane shot of a movie set in the 90s, the credits rolling as Dolores O’Riordan softly sings “Oh, my life…” It was the first of a million times I heard the song. This image is so on the nose, I can’t tell if it’s a real memory or a false one that’s been implanted in my brain like a replicant in Blade Runner.

Another music memory is attached to Kristen. A group of us were playing rummy in her basement, complete with an unused bar, the side of which was made of those thick borderline-opaque glass cubes. A light from behind behind the glass cast a greenish hue on the linoleum floor. I stared at it while she turned up a radio that looked like it was made in the ‘70s and said “I love this song!” She forced us all to pause the game and hear the 70s-style guitar tone of a 90s song complaining about “what the hell happened to the peace and love we knew so well in the 60s?” I was hearing a pre-Shrek-soundtrack Smash Mouth. I was spellbound. Surely, that was my ‘90s version of hearing Revolver the day it came out.

I have been forcing a feeling of nostalgia for times in which I did not exist my whole life, likely because the 60s/70s weren’t all that different from the 90s. Chuck Klosterman in his book The Nineties explores the topic in a chapter about That 70s Show:

“The kids on That ’70s Show hung out in basements and killed time by driving the family car around in circles, but those pastimes were not bygone pursuits—teenagers in the nineties were still hanging out in basements and still aimlessly cruising around. This was not some portal into an alien unknown. That ’70s Show could have instantly been remade as That ’80s Show or That ’90s Show if the references were changed and the fashions were updated. The characters and the conflicts were not entrenched in the seventies but ubiquitous to the entire last quarter of the twentieth century.”  -Klosterman, Chuck. The Nineties (p. 105). Penguin Publishing Group.

Klosterman is correct. The gap between my generation and my parents’ seems smaller than the one that exists between mine and a generation born after the iPhone, but I’ve always felt there was one big separation, one my parents’ generation never understood. I could pretend that sitting in the basement practicing drum solos and driving around town was as fun as it seemed on That 70s Show, but there was something else that haunted every hour of my adolescence and now pervades my adulthood. I could act like I’ve always been hip and young enough to understand each social media app as they entered the world, that the defining feature of my existence was LiveJournal, then Myspace, then Facebook…but no. The media that defines my life (besides 24-hour cable news incessantly reporting on terrorism and school shootings) is video games.

Read the rest here

#writing #reading #essay #lit #personal essay #gaming #video games #final fantasy #final fantasy vii #final fantasy vii remake #addiction #funny #memoir #better book titles #literature #books #dan wilbur

[paperlovesadness]

Ah... I feel a bit strange doing this. Might just stay in the drafts forever. We'll see. But my hands itch to do it every single time I listen to the song so... So here's a lyric analysis of "Star Treatment" and how... it might?... be? A song... About... Miles Kane?? Maybe??? 🫣 (no executions please. I'm really not trying to push this narrative. These things just kind of jumped out at me & I felt an urge to write it down somewhere. And perhaps see if anyone agrees? Comments encouraged! If anyone ever stumbles upon this silly thing) This will get long... Cause that's who I am. And also it references other songs.

Disclaimer 1: I did see someone attempt this on reddit. It was a bit out there though... And maybe ironic? I do share a thought or two with them though.

Disclaimer 2, an Important one: this does rely on an implication that there was something more between the two sometime around/ between 2015-2017ish? I don't want to put any labels and try to stay away from any too specific guesses. But well, I suppose I do kind of personally believe there was something there. If you're not a fan of theories about private lives of real people... I'm sorry. This one's not for you. I really do try to do it as respectfully as possible though. At the end of the day - it's just a theory. And not a mean one. I understand it's all just something that fits together in my head and may be very far from any truth. Disclaimer 3: I know this album is a concept album centered around characters. But I'm analyzing the second, potential autobiogrophical hidden layer beneath the obvious first meaning

Okay, let us have a whack at it now:

I just wanted to be one of The Strokes Now look at the mess you made me make Hitchhiking with a monogrammed suitcase Miles away from any half-useful imaginary highway

This one is very on the nose. But quite literally sneaking in his name in the lyrics -- maybe? we know Alex loves playing with many meanings/hidden messages & double entendres. + the being away from any half-useful imaginary highway makes me think of when he spoke about the fact that he couldn't write any more love-related matarial after EYCTE. And someone encouraged him to just go a different route. That's how TBHC was born. But also implies some trouble in the love-related ascpects of his life around the time. Could've just been trouble around Taylor - who he broke up with soon after the album's release. There's theories about how that happened [current girlfriend invloved] - but maybe there was even more confusion & heartbreak in the mix (ending a tour with someone with whom the lovey-dovey jokes may have gone a bit too far/serious?)

I'm a big name in deep space, ask your mates But golden boy's in bad shape

this is just implying any sort of broken-heartedness.

I found out the hard way that Here ain't no place for dolls like you and me Everybody's on a barge Floating down the endless stream of great TV 1984, 2019

dolls = puppets. And how the industry / society isn't a good place for relationships like this. (People wouldn't understand the type of bond they share?)

Maybe I was a little too wild in the '70s Rocket-ship grease down the cracks of my knuckles Karate bandana, warp speed chic Hair down to there, impressive moustache

Miles and Alex have spoken many times about how their first album was heavily 60s inspired - Scott Walker, The Beatles, 60s Morricone.

What may be less obvious and spoken about is how EYCTE was sort of meant to take their work into the 70s. He spoke about it in an interview when asked about the album cover. It's a 1969 photo of Tina Turner - which Alex commented on by saying: "The idea was to move the artwork on from the ’60s feel of the first Last Shadow Puppets album artwork, so here is Tina on the very cusp of the 1970s" (They also chose to sing covers like Moonage Daydream and Is This What You Wanted during that tour. Both 70s songs from artists that defined the era). So this could be him reflecting on the EYCTE era and how things may have gotten a bit too far during the time. Going in to deep, crossing some boundries and definitions?

Love came in a bottle with a twist-off cap Let's all have a swig and do a hot lap

alcohol? pills? alcohol & or drugs clouding some judgement/helping loosen up and causing the crossing of certain [friendship] boundries?

So who you gonna call? The Martini Police Baby, that isn't how they look tonight, oh no It took the light forever to get to your eyes

It's not a particularly meaningful line in terms of this narrative - but I wanted to talk about it because I find it so beautiful but also so fuck*ng sad. Like - one of he saddest lines I've read. It just hit me in the heart straight away when I heard it. I feel like my personal interpretation is dead wrong. But still choose to see it that way. I also know of the story of how it's inspired by Alex's dad telling him about how we see the light of the stars the way it was in the past bc of how long it takes to reach us. The way I hear this line though is: seeing the bottomless sadness in the eyes of someone who had their heart broken. Someone whose eyes used to be full of happiness - and now it takes forever for any touch of happiness to show up in their gaze. Now a possible interpratation for a second meaning to this whole section could be: calling the martini police = grabbing a drink to help with hearbreak, when there's no other solutions left. Miles has sang in his breakup album Coup de Grace about how he drowned the sadness after hearbreak in alcohol and pills. Mixing stuff together like a mad scientist etc. (Also if you ever saw the interview he did with [the one and only] Martin on his CDG album... Oof... Yeah. There was no light in that man's eyes. Even Martin saw that pain and commented on it. It's a tough one to watch)

I just wanted to be one of those ghosts You thought that you could forget And then I haunt you via the rear view mirror On a long drive from the back seat

This is one of these sections that hits me the most. Cause to me it can be seens as: Alex being aware of how much pain he caused - all he could wish is that he was just another lover whom the hearbroken person [Miles?] could forget. But alas - he still haunts him. Here it gets interesting (or batshit crazy. Cause I might be). Beacause the use of "ghost" just absolutely sends me to Miles' song "Shavambacu" - where he describes the eyes/thoughts of an ex lover still being focused on him after the breakup (this song though could have a whole seperate post of it's own) While "haunting via a rear view mirror" made me jump up and recall lyrics from Miles' song "Dont let it get you down". I saw your reflection, in The backseat of a Chevrolet from Hollywood to East LA NOW - don't shout at me. I know timelines are important. Because Shavambacu and Star Treatment came out around a similar time period. But Shavambacu came out a little bit later. While DLIGYD came out completely after all of hits - this year. So first off - I'm considering the fact that Miles and Alex are clearly still friends and in contact. So could have shown each other songs earlier. But more plausible theory: if these songs are perhaps maybe inspired by one another - they clearly are gonna recall events and/or inside lingo and jokes they both used. Possible situation: post Miles-Alex hearbreak Miles stumbled upon Alex going somewhere in a car. They spotted each other. this also makes me recall the whole:

Swear I saw you smile You try to hide it well 3:15 on the wrong side Columbia Street line from "Killing the Joke". Which many think references the area that Alex lives in. They lived a few minutes away from each other around 2016-2017. So would obviously run into one another often. Even if they were going through something and taking a break/trying not to.

But it's alright, 'cause you love me And you recognise that it ain't how it should be Your eyes are heavy and the weather's getting ugly

This one is also way to sad if you place it in a relationshippy context. There's a few ways I see it: 1) it's alright - no matter what happens, because A. knows M. loves him and will understand why things ended like they did. It shouldn't be this way - but it has to be, because there's things standing in the way. He believes he'll understand despite the grief. 2) dramatic, sad version - the "it ain't how it should be" actually references the "love me part". So M. should understand that things ended because they shouldn't love each other this way. It's just now how it should be and A. believes M. recognises that.

So pull over, I know the place Don't you know an apparition is a cheap date? What exactly is it you've been drinking these days?

once again referencing bumping into each other randomly? And going with it - going some place; talking. Maybe about how Miles' is doing, the heartbreak, how he deals with it - the alcohol (once again - just referencing what he himself sang about in lyrics on his breakup album)

Jukebox in the corner, "Long Hot Summer" They've got a film up on the wall and it's dark enough to dance

"Long Hot Summer" - by The Style Council is actually a song Alex cited to be one of the main references/inspirations used when working on the EYCTE album. So is definitely a nostalgic/meaninful song between the two. They go to a place after bumping into one another - there's a jukebox with a nostalgic song. They can dance together - because it's an incognito, dark place.

What do you mean you've never seen Blade Runner?

Now the Blade Runner line is so clearly Taylor Bagley (the woman is a huge, huge fan of it, apparently) it did have me stumped for a while. But then - maybe it's a clarifying line? Like - if this were about Taylor he would definitely not say that to her. It's obvious she's seen it a million times. Maybe this is here to sort of clarify this?

Oh, maybe I was a little too wild in the '70s Back down to earth with a lounge singer shimmer Elevator down to my make-believe residency From the honeymoon suite Two shows a day, four nights a week Easy money

70s again - EYCTE era But after the tour ended it was time to go back to earth, back to being non-TLSP Alex. Running away from reality into writing music - writing about a make-believe residency (Tranquility Base) Time to leave the honeymoon era = the tour and shows TLSP had together. (also AM may be easy money? Their reputation [very well deserved] makes it so that it's easy - bc anything they come out with will be bought)

So who you gonna call? The Martini Police So who you gonna call? The Martini Police Oh, baby, that isn't how they look tonight It took the light absolutely forever to get to your eyes

...

And as we gaze skyward, ain't it dark early?It's the star treatment Yeah, and as we gaze skyward, ain't it dark early? It's the star treatment It's the star treatment The star treatment

a sad ending. It got dark. A bit too early. It's sad that it all ended. But that's how it has to be - in show buisness, in the industry. They're well known people and it could hurt their careers - also it would just get out easily, so there's no room for self-discovery and just trying it out. That's the star treatment. (This is also a theme I am seeing in Mr. Schwartz lyrics. But that's for another time) Am I crazy? Probably! Is this just accidental elaborate fan fiction? Maybe! But still...I don't know. Song theories are fun. I get that morally it's a gray / or maybe even red area - talking out loud, publicly about theories invloving specific names and relationships. But like... Sue me! Let's call it a guilty pleasure. If anyone ever reads through this wall of text... Hi! Thanks and sorry. And please share some thoughts! (Eh. May just delete this soon anyway) Peace and love

#artic monkeys song theory #arctic monkeys lyric analysis #star treatment lyric analysis #arctic monkeys #tranquility base hotel and casino #alex turner miles kane #everything that you've come to expect #the last shadow puppets #miles kane and alex turner #alex turner and miles kane #song analysis #i may be batshit crazy i'm sorry #but it's harmless #milex #? #i suppose #my posts

[okwritingandpain]

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da: The Beatles x Reader

Chapter 4

It had only been a couple of days since Paul had taken Y/N out for lunch. They had plans for a second date, but George had other ideas. The next time Y/N went to watch the Beatles perform he asked her what she would like to do at 2 the next day.

"I don't know, George. A restaurant would be great--"

"Gardening!" George cheered, clapping his hands together.

"Gardening?" She asked, a little confused.

"Exactly!" He chirped, packing up his guitar. John was out in the crowd signing autographs and hitting on the young girls. Paul watched the two chat, but he kept his distance, wanting George to be happy. The two had been friends for a long time and he hoped George would find the right person for him. Since George was the baby brother of the group, he always felt he had to protect him. He was a mother hen protecting his baby chick. To him that saying was weird and he hated it and anyways...Ringo patted George on the back.

"You said she wasn't your bird, Georgie." Ringo laughed, putting his arm around George's shoulder.

"She-She I mean..." Geroge stuttered, his face turning red like his fast-beating heart.

"I think what George meant to say was that he just asked me out." Y/N cut in. Ringo raised an eyebrow at her.

"Seems you got a good one, George," Ringo smirked, looking at Y/N. "She speaks up when you can't!"

"Ringo!" Geroge snapped as their shorter bandmate ran over to Paul. George huffed but looked happily at Y/N.

"Pick me up at 2 tomorrow?" She asked with a grin. He nodded and walked back to the rest of the group. After waving his goodbye to the ladies, John looked at Y/N. John decided to walked up to her.

"How's it going, Y/N." He smirked, as the girls screamed behind him.

"Are both you and Paul using me as a jealousy plea or something?" She asked, with her hands on her hips.

"Maybe. It's fun either way." He laughed, looking at the girls.

"As long as you're own broad isn't getting jealous." She remarked, giving him a sly grin. John's face turned red.

"Who says I have one." He said, crossing his arms. "Does anybody have a fag?" (In Britain they call smokes "fags")

"I do, but you have to earn them," Y/N said.

"George did find a good one now didn't he," John remarked, turning to head towards the band. He was so lively, just like their films and videos suggested. It still was weird to see him this young. Before everything, but this was her job. Stop the Beatles from breaking up. Their early career didn't have much issue, so she could rest easy for awhile.

"I'll see you later." She said, waving as he walked away. She needed to get to know them all. That would be the only way...to save them

The next day, she was prepared for the date. She touched up her hair, put on a little makeup, and a lime green dress. She wasn't going to have her first date all over again. After what felt like an hour, George knocked on the door. Y/N rushed downstairs to greet him. Opening the door she saw the tall man standing in the doorway. He wore an elegant suit and tie, as black as night. His brown hair glistened in the light.

"Hiya!" George smirked. His goofy grin made her cheeks turn red.

"Hi." She said, quietly. "We're gardening in a dress and suit?" He laughed.

"It's the best way." He remarked. He bowed and extended his hand. She took it, even more flustered. As they walked outside of her apartment building. George walked with Y/N down the busy streets. Everyone watched the young happy, "couple" prance around. It had been at least an hour's walk when they arrived at a small greenhouse. George led the way, picking up any supplies they needed as he went. The place must have been located on a farm or something. The place was beautiful, everything was so lush.

"Wow, George." She gasped at the scenery. George had his head buried deep in a barrel of seed packets. He suddenly poked his head up with two packets in his hands.

"Are you ready to plant?" He asked, walking up to the greenhouse door. She nodded, her heart rate increasing with excitement. He opened the door revealing the plants and flowers that grew in the greenhouse. Colors danced across the tinted windows and vegetation over took the floor with its vines. Getting on his knees, George put on his work gloves. Y/N did the same, trying to sneak a glance at the seed packets George had picked out. He purposely tried to hide them.

"What are we planting, Georgie?" Y/N teased, making George blushed.

"Ringo, I swear if you dressed up as a girl..." George began to laugh. Taking out a small shovel, George dug a small hole. He handed Y/N a seed packet.

"Tomatoes?" She asked, looking at the packet. George nodded.

"My mum needs some. Mr. Benson let's me use his greenhouse for planting, which I where I plant...well, plants." He giggled. Tearing the packet open, George helped Y/N figure out how many they needed to plant. Dropping seeds into the dirt holes, they covered them up. George got a watering can and he poured a little on each section. They opened the next packet which were some flowers. Sunflower packets to be specific. They repeated their process from earlier and finally they sat on the dirt and relaxed.

"You know I like to eat these. I used to order them..." Y/N trailed off. They didn't have online delivery services yet, they didn't even have the online part.

"Sunflower seeds?" George asked, a look of surprise on his face. He ignored the last part of her statement.

"Yeah?" She raised an eyebrow.

"Strange. I've never eaten sun flower seeds before." He explained, looking at the sunflowers he had planted.

"You should try it sometime." She smirked, George smiled back at her. He paused for a moment thinking.

"Here comes the sun..." He murmured, looking at the sunflower seed packet.

"Is that a song you wrote?" Y/N asked. He shook his head.

"Could be a good starting point though." He said, closing his eyes. "Hopefully I can remember it."

"I can help with that." She mused, as his eyes fluttered open.

"Thanks." He said, as they sat quietly. The two began a staring contest that felt like it went on for hours.

"Just give it up, George. I have eyes that can last forever." She said, with an intense stare.

"I think maybe you should." He shrugged, his stare relaxed. Finally, after sometime Y/N blinked.

"How'd you beat me?" She asked, confused.

"All I had to do was not tire my eyes through your fancy intense staring." He laughed, as Y/N punched him in the arm. "We should head back, probably."

"Not until you play me a song." She smirked. He raised an eyebrow at her.

"Do I look like I have my guitar?" He asked, motioning to the empty space.

"You can sing, can't you?" She asked.

"Not in the band." He said, fiddling his thumbs.

"I don't care about the band. I care about you." She said, putting a hand on his. George's face turned bright pink.

"I mean I had this idea..." He trailed off, clearing his throat.

"Let me tell you how it will be

There's one for you, nineteen for me 'Cause I'm the taxman Yeah, I'm the taxman..."

He sang about taxes which made Y/N laugh. George probably hadn't even had to worry about taxes until the beginning of last year or so.

"So it seems you like it." He laughed, giving her dreamy faced look.

"What no! I loved it!" She giggled, leaning over to give him a hug. He embraced her friendliness.

"Are we going now?" He asked, the two still laughing.

"Sure, Georgie." She said. This time George didn't object to the nickname. He walked her back to her apartment and they held hands. Any girl that happened to recognize George looked at Y/N in disbelief. That's right, she had gone on a date with George Harrison and Paul McCartney! No one even knew that she wasn't even from the 60s but rather the 2000s and beyond. It was crazy to think after only being here a few days and everything had already blown out of proportion. George waved goodbye, as she closed the door to her apartment. Maybe, it wouldn't be too hard to keep them together if she just dated all of them. The thought made her laugh. Suddenly, a knock came on the door. She went to open it and in the doorway was...

John Lennon

#paul mccartney #paul mccartney x reader #george harrison #george harrison x reader #john lennon #john lennon x reader #ringo starkey #ringo starkey x reader #ringo starr #ringo starr x reader #the beatles #beatles fic #fanfic #beatles fanfiction #beatles fandom #time travel #cross posted on ao3 #wattpad

[gardenschedule]

A collection of Beatles quotes about the breakup

I know I'm preaching to the choir on tumblr.com because people here examine the breakup with empathy, nuance and critical thought. BUT these quotes are convenient if you ever get caught up in frustrating arguments online with male boomer beatle fans who think John and George hated the band and couldn't wait to escape while Paul was desperate to get back together. Sorted by band member and chronological order.

Quotes from/about Ringo:

1969:

People really have tried to typecast us. They think we are still little moptops, and we are not. I don’t want to play in public again. I don’t miss being a Beatle anymore. You can’t get those days back. It’s no good living in the past.

Ringo Starr, 24 March 1969 while filming The Magic Christian in New York

1970:

Ringo?  He was the peacemaker for John, George and himself to Paul and was shaken to find Paul intransigent to the point of saying some pretty blunt things.  But none of the Beatles is vindictive, and pettiness is their natural enemy, and when Paul released his album, Ringo sent a telegram congratulation him on “Maybe I’m Amazed” (one of the tracks) and meant it.  Ringo has a lot of heart and more soul than most and since he knows he will be a Beatles to the grave, he will cooperate should it all come together again.

The Party's Over for the Beatles - written by Derek Taylor

“The Beatles have not split up. We are waiting for John to get back and then we will have a friendly Beatle chat and see what we are going to do. I keep looking around and thinking, ‘Where are they? What are they doing? When will they come and talk to me?’ This is supposed to be a press conference to promote my new film. The other Beatles aren’t here, so I don’t want to be answering questions for them. I hope to see Elvis in Las Vegas before I return to England. But, I will not be in the States for very long.”

The Beatles Off the Record (Keith Badman)

1971:

The Beatles might yet stay together as a group. Paul is the greatest bass player in the world. He is also determined. He goes on and on to see if he can get his own way. While that may be a virtue, it did mean that musical disagreements inevitably rose from time to time. But such disagreements contributed to really great products. […] I was shocked and dismayed, after Mr. McCartney’s promises about a meeting of all four Beatles in London in January, that a writ should have been issued on December 31. I trust Paul and I know he would not lightly disregard his promise. Something serious, about which I have no knowledge, must have happened between Paul’s meeting with George in New York at the end of December. […] My own view is that all four of us together could even yet work out everything satisfactorily.

Ringo Starr’s affidavit – From “The Beatles Diary Volume 2: After The Break-Up 1970-2001” by Keith Badman

No one doubted that Starkey would go along with the majority.

You Never Give Me Your Money – Peter Doggett

Later/unknown year:

RS: But that’s only Imagine. You know what I’m saying? Paul with his Band on the Run. We all started on a bus and small clubs and things like that, but Paul is that type of person. Paul wanted to do it all over again, and he did. And he went through hell. He went through hell. I mean, now he’s not talking to me and that’s too bad, but he started again from the bottom to do the Paul McCartney show. I don’t wanna do it anymore. I did it once.

All You Need Is Love – Peter Brown & Steven Gaines

Quotes from/about George:

1969:

“Yeah, quite definitely, but I’d like to do it with the Beatles but not on the old scale, that’s the only drag. With the Ono Band and me playing with Delaney and Bonnie there’s no expectations because it’s really quite anonymous, you just go and do whatever you can do. Once the Beatles are advertised and all the crowds come along they expect too much. I’d like to do the Beatles thing, but more like Delaney and Bonnie with us augmented with a few more singers, and a few trumpets, saxes, organs, and all that"

Interview conducted by Roy Carr, NME, 20 December 1969

1970:

George was greatly disappointed that Paul should come off like he was injured by Klein (business manager) whom George believes to have greatly eased the effects of the present and insured the safety of the future. George view is “Did you have to be so nasty. You can go so far but you can never get back, and you can say things which get in the way forever. For me, I would be glad to play with all of us again.”

The Party's Over for the Beatles - written by Derek Taylor

Q: “You think the Beatles will get together again, then?”

George: “Well, I don’t… I couldn’t tell, you know, if they do or not. I’ll certainly try my best to do something with them again, you know. I mean, it’s only a matter of accepting that the situation is a compromise. In a way it’s a compromise, and it’s a sacrifice, you know, because we all have to sacrifice a little in order to gain something really big. And there is a big gain by recording together – I think musically, and financially, and also spiritually. And for the rest of the world, you know, I think that Beatle music is such a big sort of scene – that I think it’s the least we could do is to sacrifice three months of the year at least, you know, just to do an album or two. I think it’s very selfish if the Beatles don’t record together.”

WABC-FM, May 1, 1970

The Harrison quote that went around the world that spring was purely optimistic: 'Everyone is trying to do his own album, and I am too. But after that I'm ready to go back with the others.'

You Never Give Me Your Money – Peter Doggett

1971:

The only serious row was between Paul and me. In 1968 I went to the United States and had a very easy co-operation with many leading musicians. This contrasted with the superior attitude which, for years past, Paul has shown towards me musically. In January 1969, we were making a film in a studio at Twickenham, which was dismal and cold, and we were all getting a bit fed up with our surroundings. In front of the cameras, as we were actually being filmed, Paul started to ‘get at’ me about the way I was playing. I decided I had had enough and told the others I was leaving. This was because I was musically dissatisfied. After a few days, the others asked me to return and since I did not wish to leave them in the lurch in the middle of filming and recording, and since Paul agreed that he would not try to interfere or teach me how to play, I went back. Since the row, Paul has treated me more as a musical equal. I think this whole episode shows how a disagreement could be worked out so that we all benefited. I just could not believe it when, just before Christmas, I received a letter from Paul’s lawyers. I still cannot understand why Paul acted as he did.

George Harrison’s affidavit – From “The Beatles Diary Volume 2: After The Break-Up 1970-2001” by Keith Badman

“In a “Come back Paul, all is forgiven” mood, George Harrison said this week: “I wish we could all be friends again. It’s a drag that things are as they are, because Apple is now becoming much more what we originally wanted it to be. “Personally I’d like to see Paul back at Apple and let him do what he wants to do. After all the new studio is his studio, too, and I’d like to see it all happening for us all.”

October 1971 Record Mirror

When John finally hinted that he would be willing to play with George when he appeared at Madison Square Garden. “Well, maybe I can come and help ya,” he said. “That’d be nice.” George glowered at John. Then George’s anger really burst forth. “Where were you when I needed you!” he snapped. It was the first of a series of explosions, each of them followed by moments of tense silence. “I did everything you said. But you weren’t there,” he repeated. “You always knew how to reach me,” John would reply evenly to each of these outbursts. There was no doubt in my mind, watching those two, that George’s anger with John had been accumulating for years. It was exactly the kind of situation that John usually ran from. But I could see in that moment that he loved George enough to remain calm and still as George drilled away at him. George said that repeatedly in the past he had sung what John wanted him to sing, said what John wanted him to say. Because John wanted it, George had gone along with the decision to go with Allen Klein. In the nearly four years since, John had virtually ignored him, a fact that pained George deeply. George’s voice grew even more harsh as he blasted John for his sudden appearance, as if out of nowhere, to offer an evening’s worth of help. Yet again George said furiously, I did everything you said, but you weren’t there.”

May Pang, Loving John

1973:

"George came into the office and said, 'I wanted you to know before anyone else. We're leaving Allen.' I said, 'Why?' And he said, 'We'll never get together again with Allen managing us.' And that was it. They left. George always had that distant hope."

Allan Stecker, Mojo interview 2023 (on Monday April 2 1973)

"[Allen Klein] made [John, George and Ringo] feel financially and artistically secure,” Steckler reckoned. So why did they decide that Klein had to go? Steckler believed he knew the answer. “George called me and said, ‘We’re not re-signing with Klein,’” he recalled. “I asked him why, and he said, 'The only way The Beatles can get together again is if Allen isn’t there. I’m ready to do it, so is Ringo, and I think we can persuade John to go along with it. But if we’re going to work with Paul, we need to get rid of Klein.’"

Peter Doggett, You Never Give Me Your Money

1978:

Personally, I’m not opposed to the idea, if it’s done through mutual agreement. But the pressure seems to be bigger than any of us, and when they talk of sums like $50 or $60 million, it’s almost a farce. I know Paul’s booked for the next few years, and John may have lost interest in the idea. Ringo and I are closest on it; we both feel it’s not impossible, but it’s highly unlikely, if only because of the legal and business maze that would have to be resolved before the four of us set foot on stage together.

M. George Haddad interview with George Harrison for Men Only magazine (Nov. 1978 issue)

Quotes from/about Paul:

1970:

On the eve of the release of the Beatles new movie and album “Let it Be,” Paul McCartney said, “I quit,” or “I think I quit,” which is roughly the same thing. As a publicity stunt, it’s as good or bad as any stunt they ever appeared to pull. But like every stunt they never did pull, this isn’t one either. McCartney’s declaration of independence was entirely impromptu, spontaneous and personal and so far had the group’s lines of communication become crossed that none of the Beatles really knew when the album would be out, or whether, nor did they greatly care.

...

I guess the way it stacks up now and the way it was around the time when Paul dropped the big on is that he wants right out of it all and they don’t.

The Party's Over for the Beatles - written by Derek Taylor

"John's reply was that I was daft!" He then said he wanted to leave the Beatles and wanted an immediate divorce. None of us really knew what to do about the situation, but we decided to wait until our film 'Let it Be' came out in April. I got bored and made 'McCartney' instead!"

Paul McCartney, in his first magazine interview since the split, tells FLIP's Keith Altham... "THE BEATLES ARE FINISHED!"

When we had to go to the studios, Linda would make the booking and we’d take some sandwiches and a bottle of grape juice and put the baby on the floor and it was all like a a holiday. So as a natural turn of events from looking for something to do, I found that I was enjoying working alone as much as I’d enjoyed the early days of the Beatles. I haven’t really enjoyed the Beatles for the last two years.

Paul, Interview for Evening Standard • Tuesday, April 21-22, 1970

Klein tells George he will get him more money and he tells Ringo the same. He tells them all that there are four first-class Beatles, not two and John doesn’t mind being told this. Paul doesn’t like any of it, none of it. He has a father-in-law who is also from New York and his name is Lee Eastman. Lee Eastman is also a toughie, but his manners are more formal than Klein’s and some people like him. Paul would like Eastman to be the Mr Big Apple needs. John wants Mr Klein to be Mr Big. A year passes. It is 1970. Paul still doesn’t like Klein but John digs him more than ever and George digs him more than that and Ringo doesn’t mind him. Paul? He is so uptight about Klein he only leaves the Beatles, that’s all.

As Time Goes By - Derek Taylor

1971:

Klein: “If Paul McCartney doesn’t get his way, he bitches. He may have a choirboy image in the press and with fans, but I’m here to tell you its bullshit. If anybody broke up the Beatles, it was him.”

Allen Klein, Playboy: A candid conversation with the embattled manager of the Beatles. (November, 1971) (note: obviously we should not trust a word Klein says, but at this point why isn't he repeating John's party line that he wanted a divorce?)

I think John thought I was using this press release for publicity-as I suppose, in a way, it was. So it all looked very weird, and it ruffled a few feathers. The good thing about it was that we all had to finally own up to the fact that we'd broken up three or four months before. We'd been ringing each other quite constantly, sort of saying, 'Let's get it back together.' And I think me, George and Ringo did want to save things. But I think John was, at that point, too heavily into his new life-which you can't blame him.

You Never Give Me Your Money – Peter Doggett

1972:

“We planned a big festival for one afternoon in Central Park, and ‘Imagine’ was the theme. Each retarded person from an institution would be paired with one able-bodied volunteer – twenty-five thousand people in the park. The issue arose whether the retarded should come to the matinee concert at Madison Square Garden. Obviously it would be a huge revenue loss. So Allen Klein and John just bought $50,000 worth of tickets and gave them to the retarded kids and volunteers.” Suddenly John got cold feet, after the concert had been sold out for weeks. “John said he didn’t want to do it,” Rivera recalled. “He said he hadn’t played in public for years, he hadn’t rehearsed with a band, he was just too nervous. …When they had that rush of insecurity, Yoko told me that she and John called Paul and Linda. They said, ‘Let’s bury the hatchet and appear together at the concert.’ Why Paul said ‘No’ I’ll never know.” Rivera and others managed to calm John’s fears and get him to start rehearsing with Elephant’s Memory.

Jon Wiener, Come Together: John Lennon in His Time. (1984)

“A few months ago, John asked us to do a concert with him at Madison Square Garden (note: same concert as the above quote) and it’s a pity now that we didn’t do it. I didn’t want to do it at the time but we will do things, I’m sure. I don’t see any reason why all four Beatles shouldn’t be on stage at some time all playing together and having a good time. I don’t think you’ll ever get the Beatles reforming, because that’s all gone. The Beatles were a special thing in a special era and I really couldn’t see it all coming together again. But I think it’s daft to assume that just because we had a couple of business upsets we won’t ever see each other again, or that if John has a concert some time we won’t go up and play on it.”

Paul McCartney, interview with Ray Connolly in The Evening Standard, December 2, 1972 (source: The Ray Connolly Beatles Archive)

“Don’t ever call me ex-Beatle McCartney again. That was one band I was with. Now I’m not with them. I’ve got another band. We won’t do things the same way any more. We’re not so bothered in trying to please other people all the time even though we obviously don’t try to displease them. All we want, in Wings, is to please ourselves with our music, That’s all.

“If people start fan clubs for us, do that kind of thing from the past, well, fine. But we won’t start one. I just get irritated by people constantly harping on the past, about the days when I was with that other band, the Beatles.

“The other Beatles get together and that is fine, but I’m almost always in another part of the world. The Beatles was my old job. We’re not like friends – we just know each other. But we don’t work together. so there’s no point keeping up old relationships.”

“All I know for sure is that I’ll never be conned again. I’m 30 now and, after what I’ve been through. I should know my way around. I get angry with fans, who interrupt my life, even now. I get fed up with the feeling that I was losing my identity, becoming some kind of legend, not a person. And I’m downright angry with the people who keep trying to get me back with the others again.

1976:

“The truth is very ordinary. The truth is just that since we split up, we’ve not seen much of each other. We visit occasionally, we’re still friends, but we don’t feel like getting up and playing again. You can’t tell that to people. You say that and they say, ‘How about this money, then?’ ‘Or how about this?’ And you end up having to think of reasons why you don’t feel like it. And, of course, any one of them taken on its own isn’t really true, but I was just stuck for an answer, so I said I wouldn’t do it just for the money anyway. And I saw John last time, he says, ‘I agreed with that.’ But there’s a million other points in there. A whole million angles. “I tell you, before this tour, I was tempted to ring everyone up and say, ‘Look, is it true we’re not going to get back together, ‘cause we all pretty much feel like we’re not. And as long as I could get everyone to say, ‘No, we’re definitely not,’ then I could say ‘It’s a definite no-no.’ But I know my feeling, and I think the others’ feeling, in a way, is we don’t want to close the door to anything in the future. We might like it someday.

Paul McCartney, Rolling Stone: Yesterday, Today, and Paul. (June 17th, 1976)

Later/unknown year:

“John phoned me once to try and get the Beatles back together again, after we’d broken up. And I wasn’t for it, because I thought that we’d come too far and I was too deeply hurt by it all. I thought, “Nah, what’ll happen is that we’ll get together for another three days and all hell will break loose again. Maybe we just should leave it alone.”

Paul, November 1995 Club Sandwich interview

“ELLEN: So was there ever a time when both you and John Lennon wanted to reform the Beatles? PAUL: There was a time… let’s put it this way: there was never a time when all four of us wanted to do it. And each time it was always someone different who didn’t fancy it And I’m actually glad of that now. Because the Beatles’ work is a body of work. There’s nothing to be ashamed of there. In the end we decided we should leave well enough alone. The potential disappointment of coming on and not being as good as the Beatles had been… that was a risk we shouldn’t take

Paul McCartney, interview w/ Mark Ellen for Radio Times. (October 20th-26th, 2007)

Quotes from/about John:

1969:

JOHN: The point is, if George leaves, do we want to carry on The Beatles? I do. [inaudible; drowned out by mic feedback] And I’d just get another member of the group and carry on. But if The Beatles split, well, I’ll get another group. [to Paul and Yoko?] I’m a singer not a dancer, baby! Woo-hoo!

January 10th, 1969 (Twickenham Film Studios, London)

Friday, 21 March, John: “Everything we do, we shall be doing together. I don’t mean I shall break up The Beatles, or anything, but we want to share everything.”

The Beatles Off the Record (Keith Badman)

MICHAEL: But funny enough, the other day, when we were talking, he said that he really did not want not to be a Beatle. He said he really looked forward – not, you know. Meaning he didn’t want that screwed up.

[T]he Beatles are always discussing, “Should we go on or shouldn’t we? Why are we together for now?” And what it gets down to is I like playing rock n’ roll and I like making rock n’ roll records. Now, I’ve got either the choice— if I want the whole LP to myself — is to get a few musicians together. Now, I know that— I’ve played with other musicians — just very rarely, but occasionally I’ve played with them — and it needs some work together to get anything going. I don’t like session men, so I try not to use them. I don’t like violinists or anything these days. I try not to use anybody but the Beatles. And if I wanted to make a record I’d chose the Beatles! I can say, “Give me a ‘Be Bop A Lula’”. So therefore, we’ve got that going. And even from a commercial point, when we discuss it, “What’s the biggest selling name? Beatles or John Lennon and The Fabs? Or George Harrison and The Fabs?” Which— Where’s our biggest market? It’s Beatles! Who are our closest friends? Beatles! Who do we have the most arguments with? Beatles. So Beatles is it!

John Lennon and Yoko Ono give a series of interviews at the Apple Corps building at 3 Savile Row, London (Friday, 12 September 1969).

JOHN: See they’re growing up too, you know. And uh, we all want Beatles still cause it’s, it’s a big power and it’s good power, you know. And we’ve no intention of splitting it, you know. Any of us. I can’t be specific about it, you know. But obviously, I’m deeply involved with Yoko, it has some…you know, maybe less reliant on the others but so it goes for the others too, you know. That as we’re all sort of branching out. Which we were occasionally all the time, you know. Like I did How I Won The War, I wrote In His Own Write and Paul wrote the music for Family Way, etc. and George went off to India with sitars and that. So it’s only, you know. We nip off and come back and do some work then nip off again, you know.

John and Yoko gave several interviews on September 12, 1969

[Will] The Beatles split up? It just depends how much we all want to record together. I don’t know if I want to record together again. I go off and on it. I really do.”

John Lennon, interview w/ Alan Smith for NME. (December 13th, 1969)

JOHN: I was really losing interest in just doing the Beatles’ bit – and I think we all were – but Paul did a good job in holding us together for a few years while we were sort of undecided about what to do, you know. And I found out what to do, and it didn’t really have to be with the Beatles. It could have been, if they wanted… But uh, it got that I couldn’t wait for them to make up their minds about peace or whatever. About committing themselves. It’s the same as the songs. So I’ve gone ahead – and I’d have liked them to have come along.

YORKE: Did you ever try to get them into the peace scene?

JOHN: I did a little at first, but I think it was too much like Yoko and me and what we’re doing and trying to get them to come along; and I think they reacted. I hassled them too much, so I’m really leaving them alone. Maybe they’ll come along, wagging their tails behind them, and if not, good luck to them.

John Lennon, interview w/ Ritchie Yorke. (December 23rd, 1969)

“This is why I’ve started with the Plastic Ono and working with Yoko . . . to have more outlet. There isn’t enough outlet for me in the Beatles. The Ono Band is my escape valve. And how important that gets, as compared to the Beatles for me, I’ll have to wait and see.

NEW MUSICAL EXPRESS DECEMBER 13, 1969

1970:

Why do you think he [Paul] has lost interest in Apple?

That’s what I want to ask him! We had a heavy scene last year as far as business was concerned and Paul got a bit fed-up with all the effort of business. I think that’s all it is. I hope so.

John Lennon interviewed by Roy Shipston for Disc and Music Echo (February 28, 1970)

John’s view is: “Okay. If this is it, this is it. We’ve all left the Beatles anyway.” If Paul were to approach him and say, “Let’s do it together again,” he probably would; with no more words, he probably would do it.

The Party's Over for the Beatles - written by Derek Taylor

Now even Lennon was prepared to hint at a positive outcome: 'I've no idea if the Beatles will work together again, or not. I never really have. It was always open. If somebody didn't feel like it, that's it! It could be a rebirth or a death. We'll see what it is. It'll probably be a rebirth.'

You Never Give Me Your Money – Peter Doggett

'Eventually,' McCartney recalled, 'I went and said, "I want to leave. You can all get on with Klein and everything, just let me out." Having not spoken to Lennon for several weeks, he sent him a letter that summer, pleading that the former partners 'let each other out of the trap'. As McCartney testified, Lennon 'replied with a photograph of himself and Yoko, with a balloon coming out of his mouth in which was written, "How and Why?" I replied by letter saying, "How by signing a paper which says we hereby dissolve our partnership. Why because there is no partnership." John replied on a card which said, "Get well soon. Get the other signatures and I will think about it.” Communication was at an end. Yet the press continued to believe, fired by hope more than evidence, that it was only a matter of days before the four men healed their wounds. The stories taunted McCartney, who fired off a letter to the prime offender, Melody Maker: 'Dear Mailbag, In order to put out of its misery the limping dog of a news story which has been dragging itself across your pages for the past year, my answer to the question, "Will the Beatles get together again?"...is no.' He had finally pronounced the verdict that was missing from his self-interview in April: the Beatles were no more.

You Never Give Me Your Money – Peter Doggett (note: John is stalling)

For McCartney, and maybe Harrison and Starkey as well, this signified hope. ‘For about three or four months,' he recalled years later, 'George, Ringo and I rang each other to ask, "Well, is this it, then?" It wasn't that the record company had dumped us. It was just a case of: we might get back together again. Nobody quite knew if it was one of John's little flings, and that maybe he was going to feel the pinch in a week's time and say, “I was only kidding.” I think John did kind of leave the door open. He'd said, “I'm pretty much leaving the group, but...” McCartney testified in 1971, ‘I think all of us (except possibly John) expected we would come together again one day.

You Never Give Me Your Money – Peter Doggett

John: George was on the session for Instant Karma, Ringo’s away and Paul’s – I dunno what he’s doing at the moment, I haven’t a clue.

Interviewer: When did you last see him?

John: Uh, before Toronto. I’ll see him this week actually. If you’re listening, I’m coming round. (Note: as AKOM point out, Toronto was before the divorce meeting. Why is he pretending it never happened?)

Feb 6th 1970 (audio snippet approx 1:14:00)

Interviewer: What about the Beatles all together as a group?

John: As soon as they’re ready, you know, we had half the Beatles on again at the Lyceum Ballroom. Uh it was George and me but we also had Delaney and Bonney and 17 piece band we had on, it was a great experience. Uh it should be like that you know, if we were doing that and all the Beatles wanted to come it would be great, and it would be no great thing about ‘oh the Beatles are coming back on stage’ like they expect, sorta of, Buddha and Mohammad to come on and play. I keep saying that, but that’s the fear the Beatles have, including me as a Beatle, about performing. It’s such a great – so much expected of us, you know, but you see George has been on tour with Bonnie and Delaney playing and I’ve been drifting around playing, it’s just playing isn’t the hang up. It’s going on as the Beatles that’s the problem for us.

1970 (audio snippet approx 1:23:00)

Interviewer: Do you care about making another Beatles album?

John: I think Beatles is a good communication media you know, and I wouldn’t destroy it out of hand or dissolve it out of hand. So that’s what I think about Beatles.

1970 (audio snippet approx 1:41:00)

Interviewer: Why do you think rumours like this start?

John: Because there was a lot of tension around the Allen Klein coming in days and the ATV thing going on, and the Beatles were under a lot of pressure and we had to be together all the time, fighting and arguing and listening to all the different business things. And so we’re taking a break from each other like we always did after a tour end. The business thing is like a heavy tour, in it we may get back in abbey road and a couple of singles and under a great strain you know, doing that business. And so now we’re just taking a break from each other.

1970 (audio snippet approx 1:41:00)

You can’t pin me down because I haven’t got- there’s no- it’s completely open, whether we do it or not. Life is like that, whether I make another Plastic Ono album or Lennon album or anything is open you know, I don’t like to prejudge it. And I have no idea if the Beatles are working together again or not, I never did have, it was always open. If someone didn’t feel like it, that’s it. And maybe if one of us starts it off, the others will all come round and make an album you know.

1970 (audio snippet approx 1:43:00)

In 1964 I produced a book, they were asking me that then, and why should I not write a book? The Beatles wanted me to do it, they wanted me to do these LPs, you know, they have nothing against it – I want George to produce and record any records he wants to. It doesn’t interfere with Beatle time, I use my own time to do other things and so do they. The Beatles will remain, there’s no doubt about that. And we’ve been saying it since She Loves You, we’re together and that’s it.

1970 (audio snippet approx 1:45:00)

I just uh I wanted to do it [announce the breakup] you know, should’ve done it. I think damn, shit, what a fool I was. But there were many pressures at that time, I think Northern Songs and all that was going on, it would’ve upset the whole thing. (Note: again as AKOM point out, the Northern Songs fight ended the day before the divorce meeting. Why would the pressure of Northern Songs impact John's decision not to announce the breakup?)

Lennon Remembers

1971:

INT: I asked Lee Eastman for his view of the split, and what it was that prompted Paul to file suit to dissolve the Beatles' partnership, and he said it was because John asked for a divorce.

JOHN: Because I asked for a divorce? That's a childish reason for going into court, isn't it?

John Lennon interviewed by Peter McCabe and Robert Schonfeld at the St. Regis Hotel, September 5, 1971

Well, there was this Japanese monk, and it happened in the last 20 years. He was in love with this big golden temple, y’know, he really dug it, like—and you know he was so in love with it, he burnt it down so that it would never deteriorate. That’s what I did with the Beatles.

John Lennon, interview w/ Alan Smith for NME: At home with the Lennons. (August 7th, 1971)

MCCABE: Let’s talk a bit about Paul’s aversion to Klein. From what we’ve read it seemed as if this wasn’t there in the beginning, even though Paul wanted the Eastmans to run things. But it came on later as things progressed. And yet despite this, we gather that Klein was still hoping that Paul would return to the group.

JOHN: Oh, he’d love it if Paul would come back. I think he was hoping he would for years and years. He thought that if he did something, to show Paul that he could do it, Paul would come around. But no chance. I mean, I want him to come out of it, too, you know. He will one day. I give him five years, I’ve said that. In five years he’ll wake up.

MCCABE: But Klein is still hoping?

JOHN: He said to me, “Would you do it, if we got your immigration thing fixed? Or if we could get rid of the drug conviction?”

YOKO: And people don’t understand, you know. There’s so many groups that constantly announce they’re going to split, they’re going to split, and they can announce it every year, and it doesn’t mean they’re going to split. But people don’t understand what an extraordinary position the Beatles are in, you know. In every way. They’re in such an extraordinary position that they’re more insecure than other people. And so Klein thinks he’ll give Paul two years Linda-wise, you know. And John said, “No, Paul treasures things like children, things like that. It will be longer.” And of course, John was right.

John Lennon and Yoko Ono, interview w/ Peter McCabe and Robert Schonfeld. (September, 1971)

It was true, that when the group was touring, their work and social relationships were close, but there had been a lot of arguing, mainly about musical and artistic matters. I suppose Paul and George were the main offenders in this respect, but from time to time we all gave displays of temperament and threatened to ‘walk out’. Of necessity, we developed a pattern for sorting out our differences, by doing what any three of us decided. It sometimes took a long time and sometimes there was deadlock and nothing was done, but generally that was the rule we followed and, until recent events, it worked quite well. Even when we stopped touring, we frequently visited each other’s houses in or near London and personally we were on terms as close as we had ever been. If anything, Paul was the most sociable of us. From our earliest days in Liverpool, George and I, on the one hand, and Paul, on the other, had different musical tastes. Paul preferred ‘pop-type’ music and we preferred what is now called ‘underground’. This may have led to arguments, particularly between Paul and George, but the contrast in our tastes, I am sure, did more good than harm, musically speaking, and contributed to our success.

If Paul is trying to break us up because of anything that happened before the Klein–Eastman power struggle, his reasoning does not make sense to me.

John Lennon’s affidavit – From “The Beatles Diary Volume 2: After The Break-Up 1970-2001” by Keith Badman

JOHN: Yeah, Gilbert and Sullivan. I always remember watching the film with Robert Morley and thinking, “We’ll never get to that.” [pause] And we did, which really upset me. But I never really thought we’d be so stupid. But we did.

WIGG: What, like splitting like they did?

JOHN: Like splitting and arguing, you know, and then they come back, and one’s in a wheelchair twenty years later—

YOKO: [laughs] Yes, yes.

JOHN: —and all that. [laughs; bleak] I never thought we’d come to that, because I didn’t think we were that stupid. But we were naive enough to let people come between us. And I think that’s what happened. [pause] But it was happening anyway. I don’t mean Yoko, I mean businessmen, you know. All of them.

October, 1971 (St Regis Hotel, New York)

Q: "Did Klein hope to get Paul back into the group?"

JOHN: (laughs) "He came up with this plan. He said, "Just ring Paul and say, 'We're recording next Friday, are you coming?' So it nearly happened. Then Paul would have forfeited his right to split by joining us again. But Paul would never, never do it, for anything, and now I would never do it."

St Regis Hotel Interview, September 5th, 1971.

John would say things like, ‘It was rubbish. The Beatles were crap.’ Also, ‘I don’t believe in The Beatles, I don’t believe in Jesus, I don’t believe in God.’ Those were quite hurtful barbs to be flinging around, and I was the person they were being flung at, and it hurt. So, I’m having to read all this stuff, and on the one hand I’m thinking, ‘Oh fuck off, you fucking idiot,’ but on the other hand I’m thinking, ‘Why would you say that? Are you annoyed at me or are you jealous or what?’ And thinking back fifty years later, I still wonder how he must have felt. He’d gone through a lot. His dad disappeared, and then he lost his Uncle George, who was a father figure; his mother; Stuart Sutcliffe; Brian Epstein, another father figure; and now his band. But John had all of those emotions wrapped up in a ball of Lennon. That’s who he was. That was the fascination.

I tried. I was sort of answering him here, asking, ‘Does it need to be this hurtful?’ I think this is a good line: ‘Are you afraid, or is it true?’ – meaning, ‘Why is this argument going on? Is it because you’re afraid of something? Are you afraid of the split-up? Are you afraid of my doing something without you? Are you afraid of the consequences of your actions?’ And the little rhyme, ‘Or is it true?’ Are all these hurtful allegations true? This song came out in that kind of mood. It could have been called ‘What the Fuck, Man?’ but I’m not sure we could have gotten away with that then.

Paul McCartney, on “Dear Friend”. In The Lyrics (2021).

Q: “If you got, I don’t know what the right phrase is… ‘back together’ now, what would be the nature of it?” JOHN: “Well, it’s like saying, if you were back in your mother’s womb… I don’t fucking know. What can I answer? It will never happen, so there’s no use contemplating it. Even if I became friends with Paul again, I’d never write with him again. There’s no point. I write with Yoko because she’s in the same room with me.” YOKO: “And we’re living together.” JOHN: “So it’s natural. I was living with Paul then, so I wrote with him. It’s whoever you’re living with. He writes with Linda. He’s living with her. It’s just natural.””

St. Regis Hotel Interview, September 5, 1971

1973:

My last question was inevitable… Any chance of us seeing the four Beatles on a stage or record together again? “There’s always a chance,” grinned John. “As far as I can gather from talking to them all, nobody would mind doing some work together again. There’s no law that says we’re not going to do something together, and no law that says we are. If we did do something I’m sure it wouldn’t be permanent. We’d do it just for that moment. I think we’re closer now than we have been for a long time. I call the split the divorce period and none of us ever thought there’d be a divorce like that. “That’s the way things turned out. We know each other well enough to talk about it.””

John Lennon, interview w/ Chris Charlesworth for Melody Maker. (November 3rd, 1973)

MINTZ: Would you want to initiate that happening?

JOHN: Uh… Well, I couldn’t say. [long pause]

MINTZ: If you could, I mean is it something you would like to see yourself doing?

JOHN: If I could… I don’t know, Elliot, because you know me, I go on instinct. And if the idea hit me tomorrow, you know, I might call them and say, “Come on, let’s do something.” And so I couldn’t really tell you. If it happens, it’ll happen.

MINTZ: So it’s not something that you would totally rule out as never taking place again?

JOHN: No, no. My memories are now all fond and the wounds are healed. And if we do it, we do it, if we record, we record. I don’t know. As long as we make music.

November 1st/10th, 1973 (Malibu, Los Angeles): For Eyewitness News on KABC TV Los Angeles, Elliot Mintz

1974:

“No, no, no,” he answered and he meant it. “I’m going to be an ex-Beatle for the rest of my life so I might as well enjoy it, and I’m just getting around to being able to stand back and see what happened. A couple of years ago I might have given everybody the impression I hate it all, but that was then. I was talking when I was straight out of therapy and I’d been mentally stripped bare and I just wanted to shoot my mouth off to clear it all away. Now it’s different.

“When I slagged off the Beatle thing in the papers, it was like divorce pangs, and me being me it was blast this and fuck that, and it was just like the old days in the Melody Maker, you know, ‘Lennon Blasts Hollies’ on the back page. You know, I’ve always had a bit of a mouth and I’ve got to live up to it. Daily Mirror: ‘Lennon beats up local DJ at Paul’s 21st birthday party’. Then we had that fight Paul and me had through the Melody Maker, but it was a period I had to go through.

John Lennon, interview w/ Ray Coleman for Melody Maker: Lennon – a night in the life. (September 14th, 1974)

John seemed to be in a very strange state of mind about the dissolution. From the hints he had dropped since we had been together, I had learned that John’s departure from the Beatles had essentially been Yoko’s idea. Without Yoko to drive him forward, he felt strangely ambivalent about officially ending the Beatles at that moment. By nature, also, he felt inclined to take a position opposite from that of Paul McCartney. Paul desperately wanted that agreement signed. Whether or not it was the best thing for him to do, John, on principle, was inclined not to want to sign it.

May Pang, Loving John. (1983)

I’ll tell you exactly why I said that. We had a business meeting to break up The Beatles, one of the famous ones that we’d been having — we’re still having them 17 years later, actually. We all flew in to New York specially. George came off his disastrous tour, Ring of flew in and we were at the Plaza for the big final settlement meeting. John was half a mile away at the Dakota and he sent a balloon over with a note that said ‘Listen to this balloon.’ I mean, you’ve got to be pretty cool to handle that kind of stuff.

George blew his cool and rang him up: ’You fucking maniac!! You take your fucking dark glasses off and come and look at us, man!!’ and gave him a whole load of that shit. Around the same time at another meeting we had it all settled, and John asked for an extra million pounds at the last minute. So of course that meeting blew up in disarray. Later, when we got a bit friendlier — and from time to time there would be these little stepping-stones of friendship in the Apple sea — I asked him why he’d actually wanted that million and he said, I just wanted cards to play with. It’s absolutely standard business practice. He wanted a couple of jacks to up your pair of nines. He was one great guy, but part of his greatness was that he wasn’t a saint.

Paul McCartney: An Innocent Man? (October, 1986) (note: John is STILL stalling)

At that moment, John was at his most unpredictable. Suddenly his fears that his money was going to be taken away from him, that he was going to be cheated, that he had to have as much money as possible, had all come into play. This was also John’s way of resisting the reality that the Beatles were officially about to come to end, and that Paul was about to prevail.

Loving John, MAY PANG (1983)

1975:

“At the time I was thinking that I didn’t want to do all that Beatles—but now I feel differently. I’ve lost all that negativity about the past and I’d be happy as Larry to do ‘Help’. I’ve just changed completely in two years. I’d do ‘Hey Jude’ and the whole damn show, and I think George will eventually see that. If he doesn’t, that’s cool. That’s the way he wants to be.”

John Lennon, interview w/ Chris Charlesworth for Melody Maker: Rock on! (March 8th, 1975)

1976:

“I’ve always felt that splitting up was a mistake in many ways” John Lennon has said, and he believes a Beatles revival “would undoubtedly produce some great music.”

Australian Woman’s Weekly, 1976

1980:

“I and the other three former Beatles have plans to stage a reunion concert…” (Part of a statement in the legal disposition brought by Apple Corps against the ‘Beatlemania’ stage musical for trademark infringement. John was referring to an event that was to be filmed for a documentary being put together by Neil Aspinall. It was abandoned/shelved after John’s death, but ultimately became the Anthology project)

John Lennon, 1980

“Just days before his brutal death, John was making plans to go to England for a triumphant Beatles reunion. His greatest dream was to recreate the musical magic of the early years with Paul, George and Ringo … (he) felt that they had traveled different paths for long enough. He felt they had grown up and were mature enough to try writing and recording new songs.”

Yoko Ono, quoted in The Beatles: The Dream Is Over - Off The Record 2 by Keith Badman

#the beatles #john lennon #paul mccartney #george harrison #ringo starr #there are absolutely quotes that contradict these (ie paul not wanting the breakup and the others wanting it) but we see those constantly #mclennon #almost forgot to tag them but lbr it's all about them

[damonjuicyscock]

Playlist-Chapter 1 (90s Noel Gallagher X Reader)

Pairing: 70s Noel Gallagher X Reader

Warnings: nothing really, maybe just a bit language and maybe a few spelling mistakes

Words: 1111

Summary: This is the beginning. How everything started for Y/N and Noel. How they met, how they were at 5 and 10 years old.

A/N: Heya everyone, here it is, the first chapter of the fan fic you've all been waiting for ! This is a short chapter, it's only a beginning and corresponds to Y/N and Noel's childhood. Chapter 2 out next week ! Enjoy !

(He was so cute back then OMG)

“Television man is crazy Saying we're juvenile delinquent wrecks Oh, man, I need TV when I got T-Rex Oh, brother, you've guessed, I'm a dude, dad

All the young dudes (hey, dudes!) Carry the news (where are you?) Boogaloo dudes (stand up, come on!) Carry the news

All the young dudes (I want to hear you!) Carry the news (I want to see you!) Boogaloo dudes (and I want to talk to you! All of you!) Carry the news

Now Lucy looks sweet 'cause he dresses like a queen But he can kick like a mule, it's a real mean team But we can love Oh yes, we can love

And my brother's back at home with his Beatles and his Stones We never got it off on that revolution stuff What a drag Too many snags”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How and when do you know when you’ve met your soulmate? The love of your life? When you’re 5? 15? 25?

When you’re 5, you’re a princess who believes she has a prince out there. You get kisses on the cheeks by a little boy who likes you.

At 15, you’re an outsider, believing love might come one day, but you’re too busy to care about that and instead, you spend your time worrying about your best friend who’s being beaten up by his father.

At 25, you think you found love but you’re wrong. Your boyfriend is violent, beats you, almost kills you, and you never forgot about your first love, your soulmate, who decides to come back in your life.

That’s my story. Mine and my soulmate’s. Mine and Noel’s.

And everything has a beginning.

I was born in 1967 in London, but I lived in New York, Los Angeles, and Sydney, which I don’t remember because I was too little to care. When I was 5, we moved to Manchester. My grandfather had just died, and my uncle needed help with my grandpa’s company.

That’s when I was put in the same school and class as a cute little boy called Noel Gallagher.

He was often alone and didn’t talk much. And when he talked, he was mocked by others because he stammered. On my side, I also was mocked because I was the new one in school.

What didn’t help Noel and I didn’t know yet, was that he was beaten up by father and the arrival of his newly born brother William also known as Liam. I didn’t discover it until 5 years later.

Approximatively a week after my arrival, I decided Noel would become my friend.

During recess, I decided to sit next to him on the bench. He looked at me with an interrogative look, saying nothing.

1972:

Hi Noel! I said to start the conversation

Huh h-h-hello Y/N.

What are you doing?

Just looking at t-t-the others.

You’re always alone.

Ye too!

We could be buddies!

W-W-Why do ye want to be m-me buddy?

I mean… just like that.

The little boy thought in silence for a few minutes, which I thought meant a “no”.

And when the bell rang, while I was almost crying because I had no buddy, the young boy stood up and handed me his hand.

Yer coming buddy? He asked

I was stunned. It finally was a yes in the end. I stood up and gave him my hand, a big smile on my face.

Noel discretely asked our teacher if he could come and sit next to me. She smiled and kindly approved. She had been worried about Noel being and staying all alone before I asked him to be my friend. Did I do well and right? Fuck yes.

At the end of the afternoon, hand in hand, we walked home together.

Would you believe me if I told you we were neighbours, our houses next to each other’s without knowing it yet?

Well, it was the case.

Yer leaving t-there? He asked, surprised

Yes, why?

This is my house just next to y-yers!

We are neighbours? I asked

Yes we are! He answered

This is so cool! Come play with me!

To w-what? Dolls?

No, ball!

Got t-t-to ask me mam first!

Go, I’ll be asking mine and I’ll wait you here!

Noel’s mum, Peggy, agreed, we played football together until 7pm before she came to pick him with baby Liam in her arms. What I wasn’t waiting for was for my mum and Peggy to become the best of friends.

*

1977:

Noel and I were now 10 years old, and he just had joined the neighbourhood football team. Not being interested in another sport, I wanted to join the team as well.

One day, after school, Noel took me to his training so I could meet the coach. What I didn’t plan was his and the other children’s reaction. They laughed at me, which made me angry.

Noel, the lassies don’t play football! The coach laughed

And why so? I answered, with my fists balled up

Because ye can’t play football, it’s a dude sport!

Oh you bet? Noel, we’ll show him.

I took the ball the coach was holding, and Noel and I we started playing. The coach still wasn’t impressed.

Okay, ye can play with yer buddies, but what about a whole team lassie?

Try me!

As ye wish.

The coach blew his whistle, and the other kids places themselves on the football pitch. I also placed myself while Noel took his jacket off, and that was the first time I saw theses. The bruises. But I didn’t ask any question, maybe he fell during training.  The coach whistled again.

The boys passed the ball back and forth between them, pretending I wasn’t there, but I made up for it by catching the ball in my turn, and scored a goal.

This time, I convinced everyone. They all stopped moving and talking. Noel, him, was smiling.

I approached the coach, proud.

And now? You’re convinced?

Aye. Welcome to our team.

I smiled.

By the way, my name is Y/N, not Lassie.

I’ll make sure to remember it kid.

So, when are the days of training and what do I have to buy?

Yes, when I was a child, I was sassy. It got worse when I was a teen, but I calmed down when becoming an adult.

Besides being my neighbour, Noel was also my best friend. And oh, as we got older, I was more and more worried about him…

#noel gallagher fluff #noel gallagher smut #noel gallagher fanfic #noel gallagher x reader #liam and noel #noel gallagher oneshot #noel gallagher #oasis #oasis band #Spotify

[mydaroga]

Hiii, I really like your blog. I don’t know if you reply to your asks, and im sorry if im bothering you. You seem very knowledgeable about the beatles, so I wanted to ask if you know whether Paul was a bit of a possessive jealous type of boyfriend. Because most of the things I’ve read only paint him in a good light, it almost seems pr-ey lmao. Thanks so much and sorry! (I know im a bit nosy sorry again)

Hullo anon! Thank you! I'm flattered you'd ask me, thanks for thinking I have something to say on the subject. I'm a little curious why you're asking, but I will try to answer as best I can. This is NOT meant as a slam on McCartney though it may not be flattering; I was asked, and I'm trying to answer with the knowledge I have.

There are some caveats, though. I think it's dangerous to make broad statements about a real person's private behavior. I also don't know any more than I've read, and don't have any special insight. I also think people are complicated and even what's reported isn't going to give a full picture. So the following isn't meant to be a full portrait, or an indictment. It's just what comes to mind on this topic. Also keep in mind that Paul is an 81 year old man who has a dating/marriage history of like 65+ years at this point. People do change.

What we can pull together, in my opinion, paints Paul as someone I wouldn't necessarily want to date, though he's hardly the worst. For example, his steady Liverpool girlfriend, Dot Rhone, has some things to say that may be alarming. In Dot's telling (with some of this confirmed by himself) he could be controlling of her appearance and what she did and who she interacted with. Then again, it was the 50s and he was basically a teenager, so I don't think it's entirely fair to pin one's entire character reading on that.

We also know that while dating Jane Asher for six years, he continued to see many other women on both a casual and ongoing basis. However, while we know he did get jealous at least once of her other romances, we actually have no idea what, if any, arrangement was between them or whether that incident indicates he didn't like her seeing other men, or just, that one got too serious. Asher has never broken her silence about her relationship with Paul, after announcing their split on live television, which is a baller move.

We know that while Linda Eastman was very interested in Paul, she wasn't initially jazzed about marrying anyone again, and had a career as a photographer and was living a single life. This isn't strictly to your question of jealousy, but it's complicated and up in the air whether Linda would have, in another relationship, chosen to keep working or fulfill her own creative ambitions rather than raising a family and joining Paul's band, by most accounts with some initial reluctance. I'm by no means saying Paul 'forced' her into marriage, Wings, or being at home with him every evening, but I am saying that knowing what Paul was looking for, she chose to marry someone who was definitely looking for those things. And there are accounts from people like Peter Cox who claims Paul could be very controlling (wanting her to himself, making sure she was home every evening, needing to be the center of attention, etc); I won't link it here because I have no idea how much he's to be trusted, but it should be easy to google.

But I also think that the good parts of Paul's relationships are also real, so for my money, the picture I get is of someone who is fairly controlling, wants a "traditional" type of marriage for someone raised in the 50s, and also genuinely loves his family. He's also one of the most powerful people in the world, and that is inherently going to warp the power dynamics around him. He's also been able to, at least in some quarters, curate his image and possibly create a more idyllic picture than you'd see if you were there. In fact, many journalists in the 70s took potshots at his "perfect marriage" image, though I think a lot of that is their problem. So your sense that there's some PR around him I think is valid. But there's also accounts you can find (Francie Schwartz, Dot Rhone, Peter Cox, to name a few) to get another side. Both are biased, but put together I think a reasonable person can draw some conclusions.

#paul mccartney #kris talks a lot #anon ask

[greensparty]

My Hot Take on Jann Wenner

Over the last few days, Jann Wenner did an interview with New York Times about his new book of interviews The Masters: Conversations with Dylan, Lennon, Jagger, Townshend, Garcia, Bono, and Springsteen. As a result of his comments, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which he co-founded, removed him from their board of directors. The comments he made when NYT asked why there were no black artists or female artists in the book, included:

“The people had to meet a couple criteria, but it was just kind of my personal interest and love of them. Insofar as the women, just none of them were as articulate enough on this intellectual level.”

He continued, “Stevie Wonder, genius, right? I suppose when you use a word as broad as ‘masters,’ the fault is using that word. Maybe Marvin Gaye, or Curtis Mayfield? I mean, they just didn’t articulate at that level.”

The next day he issued an apology:

“‘The Masters’ is a collection of interviews I’ve done over the years,” he continued, “that seemed to me to best represent an idea of rock ’n’ roll’s impact on my world; they were not meant to represent the whole of music and its diverse and important originators but to reflect the high points of my career and interviews I felt illustrated the breadth and experience in that career. They don’t reflect my appreciation and admiration for myriad totemic, world-changing artists whose music and ideas I revere and will celebrate and promote as long as I live. I totally understand the inflammatory nature of badly chosen words and deeply apologize and accept the consequences.”

Let me begin my response to this by stating that from a young age of about 9, I was a big fan of Rolling Stone magazine. Over the years many readers have complained and said it's not what it once was, they are stuck in the 60s, yada yada yada. I always enjoyed reading it and I am still a subscriber of their print and digital magazine to this day. Which is why Wenner's interview is so disappointing, anger-inducing, and frustrating.

If Wenner just wanted to release a book of his personal favorite rock stars, just say that. But to call it The Masters and for one of the leaders of music journalism to call it that, it's implying that these musicians are the high standard of rock history. For him to respond to why there were no black or female musicians in his book by saying that they "don't articulate at that level" is false, racist, sexist, vile and ignorant for countless reasons. Off the top of my head:

Rock music as a genre was based on blues music, which was invented by black musicians. Therefore there would be no Rolling Stones, Beatles, etc without blues music and those musicians in his book would easily attest to that.

No black musicians could articulate at that level? Really? Did you really just say that Jann Wenner? Because Rolling Stone has often emphasized black musicians who were the architects of rock music like Chuck Berry, Bo Didley, Little Richard, Ray Charles, Fats Domino, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker and more, which is why I'm shocked you'd say that. To completely dismiss black musicians like Curtis Mayfield, Jimi Hendrix, Marvin Gaye, James Brown, Prince, Stevie Wonder, Al Green, George Clinton, Otis Redding, Sly and the Family Stone, Michael Jackson, Smokey Robinson, Sam Cooke, Bob Marley, Run D.M.C., Public Enemy, Living Colour, and the Bad Brains is denying rock history.

Female musicians were often in the background of the early days of rock music, i.e. songwriters, singing in a vocal group, or a back-up singer. But again, Rolling Stone often emphasized female musicians with their frequent Women In Rock issues, most notably their 1997 issue with Tina Turner, Madonna and Courtney Love on the cover. But to deny female musicians like Tina Turner, Dusty Springfield, Ronnie Spector, Aretha Franklin, Janis Joplin, Diana Ross, Joni Mitchell, Debbie Harry, Patti Smith, Stevie Nicks, Madonna, The Go-Go's, The Bangles, Courtney Love, Fiona Apple, Grace Slick, Kim Deal of The Pixies and The Breeders, The Runways, Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Aimee Mann, Liz Phair, Sinead O'Connor, Annie Lennox, Siouxsie Sioux, Beyonce, P.J. Harvey, Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth, Exene Cervenka of X, Tina Weymouth of Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club, Moe Tucker and Nico of The Velvet Underground, The Donnas, and their contribution to rock is irresponsible.

If he is just kissing up to his famous friends and trying to show off the people he's known in his life then that is separate from illustrating the "master of rock music." His apology was just plain egotistical, i.e. 'look at me, I've hung out with Lennon and Bono and I was trying to show that.'

In the last few years it actually seemed like Rolling Stone was trying really hard to prove they were not just covering white males and their coverage / artists on the cover has been very diverse.

In 2020 when they revised Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list, The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper was de-throned at #1 and replaced by Marvin Gaye's What's Going On. Whether you agree with this or not, it definitely seemed like RS was trying to prove it wasn't just a list of white males and the list as a whole emphasized many more hip hop and female artists than the previous iteration.

RS itself has been a very progressive publication in music history. A place where they report rock music and the culture around it, i.e. politics, film, art, TV, comedy, etc. They have brought in extremely talented writers like Kurt Loder, Lester Bangs, Ben Fong-Torres, Cameron Crowe, David Fricke, Rob Sheffield, Jancee Dunn, Kim Neely and more. And the magazine itself was a lifeline for music fans everywhere to get the chance to read about music news and musicians you might not be learning about in your regional press and radio (pre-internet era that is). It's too bad that Wenner, who founded this publication is unaware of how out-of-touch his statements are in contrast with what the magazine represents. It does need to be stated that Wenner has not been involved with RS since 2019 and the magazine tried to distance itself from him after his statements. As for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, there is a lot to criticize about it, but at its core they are an institution that celebrates the history of rock music and have inducted numerous black and female musicians. Personally, I am appreciative of the fact that they added my documentary Life on the V: The Story of V66 to their Library and Archives' Permanent Collection last year. But I digress. Wenner's opinions do not align with what the Rock Hall is and should be about. This is a clear example of someone who founded a magazine and co-founded a Hall of Fame that is about celebrating music past, present and future and all that encompasses, but yet the founder is completely misguided and ignorant.

In the end, we are all entitled to our own opinions and we can say whoever we want is the best. And yes, this could be a case of a grumpy old boomer looking at rock history through his very narrow tunnel vision. But I just expected way more out of him and less offensive rhetoric.

#jann wenner #rolling stone magazine #music journalism #in the news #rock and roll hall of fame #music nerd

[invisibleraven]

Secret secret 48 rulie bc I live for the drama

"What's the worst teacher you've ever had?"

The question takes Reggie by surprise, making up glance up at Julie from the papers strewn before her. "Why?"

"Humour me."

He hums, thinking. "In middle school, we had this music teacher. Told us we had to sing to pass, as well as play an instrument. I was on clarinet-and awful at it. But I loved to sing."

"Still do," Julie pipes up with a smirk, and Reggie grins.

"Well yeah. Anyways, we were doing Beatles songs one week, and I fell in love. Shot my hand up every time to sing, because I wanted to pass, as well as sing these songs that had captured me. But I got skipped over every time," Reggie said. "I still passed of course. I think he forgot that caveat the second he said it, or maybe he just didn't like my voice. Either way, it turned me off that class for a long time."

"He sounds like a douche," Julie remarks.

"He was," Reggie agreed. "What about you?"

"Middle school as well, but for math," she replied. "It's never been my strong suit, but I tried you know? This lady... I don't know if she just lost the love of teaching-if she ever had it-or she just didn't like our class. But she was cruel and mean all the time. She made Flynn cry once, and I went and complained. The administrators ignored it, or gave her a warning. She only got nastier in class, especially to me. Called me some choice words."

"Geez, what a piece of work. You never tried to get a different teacher?"

Julie shook her head. "I couldn't leave Flynn. I got my parents to tutor me, and passed the course, but I asked they ensure I was never in her class again. Ironically, she went on to become a guidance counsellor. I refused to go see her after my mom got sick, even when the principal tried to insist. I told him why, but of course they didn't believe me."

"Woof. Yeah, I think you win." Reggie looked back down at the papers, then back at Julie. "Where did this question come from anyways?"

Julie glanced at the window, the increasing darkness, her walls covered with degrees and diplomas. "Am I a bad teacher?"

"What?" Reggie shot up, going over to her side, taking her hand. "No! All your students love you! They love the class, and they're doing well because of how well you teach. What ever gave you that idea?"

"Reggie," Julie looked right at him. "You know why."

Reggie slumped, letting his forehead rest against her hands, then pressed kisses against her knuckles before meeting her eyes once more. "Julie, you haven't been my teacher in a long time."

"But you're still a student. If the university found out... I can't lose you, but if anyone found out about us..." Julie couldn't finish the thought, letting the tears fall.

"Hey, yes, I am a student, but only for one more semester. You're not my professor or supervisor, and before I finally asked you out, believe me, I looked over every single university regulation," Reggie assured her. "It's frowned upon, sure, but not illegal or punishable." He sucked in a breath then, and thumbed away a streak of tears. "But if you don't want to chance it... we can call a halt to this whole thing until I graduate. It's only three more months, we can just be colleagues... friends until then."

"No," Julie said, shaking her head violently. "I meant it when I said I can't lose you. You're keeping me sane during this last few months. We just... have to be careful."

"Did someone say something?"

"No, not really. Just gossip about the other teachers checking out the new doctorate candidates, and someone said something about them drooling over me. Carrie... she said I only had eyes for cute TAs. I brushed it off, but then she said she saw how Luke and Nick looked at me, and I laughed. Told her they weren't my type."

"Yeah?" Reggie drawled. "What is your type?"

"You," Julie said, pulling him up for a tiny kiss. "God, April can't come soon enough."

"I know darlin'," Reggie said, their lips still brushing together as they talked. "Then I'll have my stupid Masters and we can just... be. Without hiding, or secrecy."

"We're still not having sex on my desk," Julie replied.

"How about home in your enormous bed?" Reggie asked.

"Did you finish grading those quizzes for Trevor?"

Reggie gave a sheepish grin as he glanced back to his abandoned paperwork and red pen. "Not quite?"

"Go get those done and then we can go, I have an essay to finish editing anyways," Julie said, pushing him away. "And no giving them all B's to make it go faster!"

"Yes ma'am," Reggie said, going back to his work. Thankfully he had been almost done earlier, so it didn't take him long. There were still a few B's, but all of them were earned, so Reggie was happy enough. He was all packed up as Julie closed her laptop, and slid it into her bag. "Meet you at home?" she asked.

"I'll grab a pizza for afterwards." Reggie then blew her a kiss and went to her door, peering out to see abandoned hallways and snuck out, whistling to himself as he went on his way. Held the elevator as he heard the click of her heels. "Professor Molina," he said with a nod.

"Mr. Peters," she replied, stepping to the other side as the janitor approached with his mop bucket, standing between them. They shared a quick glance, then looked away, biting back smiles and then going their separate ways.

But later, sated and munching on pizza in Julie's bed, Reggie smirked down at her. "So teach, how'd I do?"

"A plus cariño, A plus."

#filled prompts #ficlet #rulie #julie and the phantoms