Author Mark Lewisohn — Serious Jibber-Jabber with Conan O'Brien | CONAN on TBS

hey there welcome to serious jibber-jabber I'm Conan O'Brien Mark Lewisohn is widely recognized as the world's foremost authority on the Beatles his uh books which have chronicled in great detail the band's activities on stage in the studio and everywhere in between are considered indispensable by Beatle fans and music historians his latest project is an extraordinary three-part biography of the band the first volume of which is entitled tune in and it is fantastic Mark Lewisohn thank you so much for being here pleasure thank you um alright we should start with my belief when this book came out that there's no way I could read anything about the Beatles that I did I mean I'm a huge Beatles fan uh and I've friends that I can talk with for hours on end about the Beatles and really get into the minutiae and I thought I knew everything your book comes along and I realized I knew nothing and I was blown away by it it's a real achievement thank you thank you it's the first of three and I the reason I'm writing is because I knew that in biographical terms in history terms the biggest story had never really been told properly at least not what I consider properly which is real with depth and with authority and with painstaking attention to detail and accuracy based on real research and it's surprising what you find because most of the books that you have read on which you based your knowledge in terms of our biography they skim the surface you know the writers will take a year or two and in that time they'll maybe do six nine months of research six nine months of interviews and then they'll write and I felt always this was a subject that would merit much deeper research than their and and it's showing because I found so many people who have never been in a book before who tell completely new and different stories right and in particular the documents the documents tell a radically different story here's the you know the Beatles when I go to the bookstore and you see there's certain sections JFK assassination will be 800 books The Beatles there'll be many books but and so one can think I know this subject I've we've seen it all and we've heard it all and one of the problems that I encountered and I saw it a little bit in the Beatles Anthology is that there are a lot of anecdotes you can tell that the band has told a million times yes and I started to realize at some point that the Beatles the surviving Beatles may at this point be the worst authority on on what the Beatles were all about because they have talked about it so much yeah it's almost biology they've worn neural grooves and they have stories that they want to be true where ways they want to see it I sometimes think Paul is too you know we were just a band that made it big and you know that it's a that was it what it was we weren't really they're just a bunch of lads and and you didn't know they were Irish yeah they were there that's my if you've heard my Irish accent you'd be really horrified but there is they almost became the worst authorities on things Beatles because they've talked about it so much and their perspective is a little skewed I know you had an interaction with George Harrison once when he confronted you and said how can you write about us isn't that right yeah he said how can you write about us because he weren't there and I see his point completely because I wasn't there but on the other hand how many books will be written if it was if only the direct observers or witnesses to something we're actually writing it so I take what he said on board I wasn't there and at no point do I claim that I was there but you can find people who were there I mean they talk about the pure essence of the Beatles is the four of them together and very often it was just the four of them maybe therefore a Neil who's their assistant maybe a driver but actually really in the back of the car was four maybe five but sometimes there were other people there's a wonderful anecdote in the book told by a guy called Bernie Boyle who was a young kid in in Liverpool that the Beatles kind of allowed to go around with them you know I'll carry a guitar in and getting for nothing kind of thing because they were playing dates every night of the week playing geeks but they weren't really geeks they were dances really and Bernie was in the van when they went and did a big gig in the South of England he was with them all day long in the van and he told me of the banter in the van and how John was winding Paul up the hallway and just that immediacy of that anecdote means that other people were present and you can get inside even the most private of places because they were so accepting of other people being around them obviously because they've told their story so many times certain elements of it certain stories will be told too many times I know some people who used to look at Paul McCartney interviews and say he's told story 103 89 and 602 B because you could actually name which ones he was gonna shoot Fox he said I'm gonna push the button and then the yeah this this story comes out but is it their problem is it their fault that they get asked the same questions all the time I mean I interviewed Paul a lot and I always asked him dare I say good questions informed questions and he responded perfectly yeah so I think actually if they were ask better questions we would have more from them but they've been interviewed more times than anybody I could possibly imagine you know and part of my job for this research is to find every interview they've ever given in any medium at any time to anyone and the material if you if you look at it all in in total is extraordinary they have said so much they have been inquiry revealing in their interviews what I I would say my gonna say my favorite aspect of this book is that it does not treat the Beatles as an inevitability it does not treat the Beatles as their this is the story of the famous Beatles we all knew no had to be you are approaching it like a true historian and you are taking it a day at a time and what's clear when you read the book and it's really stunning and counterintuitive for a lot of people is that the Beatles almost didn't happen a million different ways yes it almost went off the rails so many times and I'm talking way before you know the Beatle mania in 63 in in London or the Sullivan in 64 in America there are so many times when this maybe even shouldn't have happened that that's what makes the story so yes miraculous the story is miraculous there are as you say there are so many moments when it could come unstuck and they - in order for it to happen there are incredible amount of occurrences of good fortune and you would think well that's unlikely but the the sheer number of them makes you realize that actually this was kind of meant to be I I don't necessarily believe that there was a guiding hand on this one but you look at it and you think well hang on a minute this was meant to be because they broke up once nearly twice they they had severe but when you turn broke up well yes you're talking about what year waitwhat years would they all break up there was a kind of break up in 64 a few days 1960 60 there was there was a break up on paper in 62 when the Beatles fired Pete best and they got Ringo in in order to void the contract they actually in legal terms they claimed that they've broken the the group up and reformed a minute later there were just moments when you think well if this hadn't have happened it none of this would happen and it always happened but they always had the knack of attracting the right people to them it's just something about them that that made it work it's the sheer force of their personalities I think they you know I always think about the songwriting yeah people have this concept that John and Paul were writing songs constantly from the time they're about 16 until right up until their first recording contract and that it's just a fluid line that is not the case there was a period of time right along three-year period yeah that was a surprise to me because I too thought that that was the way they started writing together the end of 50 seven beginning of 58 and they just carried on but no they stopped after a year or more because they actually they done it it was either that we've written some songs and we put them behind us and and they didn't ever really play them they were embarrassed of them and when eventually well Brian Epstein became their manager and that's why they started to play them again because he recognized that it gave them what today we call a USP you know he gave them something but they already had much that nobody else had but this gave them something else again not only are they dynamic not only are they original not only are they just incredibly charismatic but also did you know two of them write their own songs and it became something that Brian sold them on if you like so he he encouraged them to start performing them and they were a bit embarrassed in the early days in the cavern it was like well you know they really this audience knows us for our well not just rock and roll but principally rock and roll but they they they tried it on the cavern audience first because they felt they would be more forgiving mm-hm and then eventually of course within a year or more that's all they can do because then the shows have contracted to half an hour and they've got to do their hits the Malcom Gladwell couple of years ago wrote this famous essay in one of his books about 10,000 hours and claimed avidly Dalls the outliers and it the Beatles had their 10,000 hours and that's what made them great but a lot of people have their 10,000 hours and never become anything close to the Beatles so something else is at work there something happens they are what's clear when you read this book and I've had the honor to talk to to talk to Ringo mostly and some to Paul and what comes across especially in talking to Ringo not that long ago as he made it clear there were a lot of bands in Liverpool yeah there were ton of bands in Liverpool yeah they were not considered by many people to be one of the premier bands in Liverpool and then they go off to Hamburg and something happens give you any sense of what it was and I think it was more than 10,000 hours something happened that changed the equation yeah well first of all though there were many groups in Liverpool they were in a sense in the second flush because the the true rock and roll began in liver point 56 57 like you did in most places and they were really just school boys like George was 13 14 and the skiffle skiffle was the music that they were blinded on again exactly so Ringo was in the biggest group Ringo was always in the biggest group in Liverpool he was in the biggest skiffle group the Eddie Clayton group he was in the biggest rock group before the Beatles which was Rory storm but the Beatles watched all this so they didn't really have the experience to join in they were just watching from the sidelines the difference between them and the others to begin with anyway was the fact that most of the other guys were Factory guys you know they would leave school and go and work in the factory the Beatles had this kind of art school element to them that was crucial to their development because John and Stuart both went to art school Stuart Sutcliffe that is and Paul and George we're next door and they were very arty as well not in the art school but they were arty - so the Beatles thought differently just calling themselves Beatles was different to anybody else because the others were all Rory storm and the Hurricanes and Cass and the Cass that's it that's a difference - is there the Beatles and a lot of this again people now because the Beatles changed so much yeah people become inured or dulled to what a revolution it was what a revelation it was - they were different because most bands were built around the front usually the front guy so it was unusual yeah for a band to have really just be a unit of equals yeah very unusual they had they had no recognizable leader John actually was the leader within the group psychologically he was the leader he started he was the oldest but he exercised a democracy whereby everyone got a say and there was no obvious frontman and that was a strength that they had so they go off to Hamburg in Germany in August 1960 as pretty much beginners still they haven't really had a lot of stage experience they've got a new drummer who they've never played with and a bass guitarist who's learning his instrument they're all learning really because they haven't had much time onstage but straightaway when they go there and they're confronted with the notion of having to play six seven or eight hours a night they come up with this incredible idea unlike anybody else of let's not repeat ourselves let's make sure that if anyone happens to be in this bar at eight o'clock in the evening and then comes back a half past one that he won't hear us do the same song as if anyone would have noticed but it was a challenge for themselves and so what we're looking at here is guys who call themselves by a different kind of name who have different origins and who when they get to Hamburg present themselves with challenges and the combination of these things plus of course the extraordinary talent that they have they flower hugely hugely so many groups went to Hamburg and came back pretty much the same the Beatles went to Hamburg and came back completely refashioned yeah fans who had known them in Liverpool before they went and then saw them afterwards were blown away you would be right but for the fact that no one had really seen them in Liverpool before they went they were really so much on the fringes of what was happening that no one had seen them so when they came back and they were billed as being the Beatles from Germany the some of the kids who saw them and actually saying speak good English and so we only lived down the road right people thought they were German they thought they assumed they had to be German the Beatles from Hamburg the and they and they knocked everybody over there completely because everyone else is in nice little suits and they're doing the big trend that year was a group called the shadows a bit like the American group the ventures and everything kind of twangy guitar solos posted through an echo box also they remember the shadows would that that thing that looks ridiculous now but yeah people you know five guys playing their instruments and doing little stance steps yeah in unison cars they choreographed which the Beatles thought was absolute were they just they were lucky to have missed that trend while they were away it all happen and they came back and when what's everybody doing yeah and are we going to do that of course we're not they always the thing about the Beatles is and it's true you tend to think of this being true for Rubber Soul or revolver or the White Album or Abbey Road that they were original and always trying to find some new sound but in fact that evolution of always wanting to be different from everybody else never abiding by the common rules and always feeling that we'll do it our way no matter what people think would do a howl way that begins well it begins when the schoolboys but it equally begins when they get back from Hamburg because they they have a name like nobody else they're playing music like nobody else they look like nobody else and they are extraordinarily magnetic on stage I've got so many eyewitness accounts in this book of their impact on the audience so what happens in the world from 64-56 say happens in microcosm in liverpool in 61 - and it's a magical story the yeah there you've done an incredible amount of work where you go to primary sources like you decided that you needed to read every issue of the Liverpool Echo and you started what year 55 55 what checks first earlier stuff but 55 for a solid week and we're talking about something that is not a veil can't zip through it on your computer you have to go to the library where did you go to find every episode every issue of the Liverpool Echo so the British Library in London where they have everything yeah but it's it's a slow old job because it was a broadsheet newspaper of 16 to 20 pages a day packed with news I mean it's in these days it's not a shadow like any no newspaper now is a shadow of what it used to be but I needed to immerse myself in Liverpool I wasn't there in fact at that point I wasn't even alive 55 so though it's a world that I recognize because I grew up in Britain in the 60s I needed to put myself so that I could put the reader in Liverpool and I think that's what makes this works upsets this work apart I think a lot of people can start with you know every Beatle book I know starts with the Blitz yeah and you to the point where you just know the story so well about they grew up there are war babies and then you know John's the brash one and Paul's the the cute quiet one and George you know and you said what yeah and yeah exactly or he I mean he's a cute one and then George is the quiet one and it to the point where it's like it deadens you and I think the fact that you went back and you're actually looking at the primary sources like an archaeologist yeah I have to get to what is it like to live in Liverpool in 1958 in March I'm reading something that they would have read yeah so you can get to stuff that they will probably not even room what some of the cinemas and the theaters who's what what musicians are visiting and where they're playing and when so because sometimes they went to shows the whole book is sequential and there's no hindsight thinking in it so I don't hint of the future because it's not known that's not the feeling you get when you read it is yeah it's going to happen to these guys yeah it will judge them which is actually it's fascinating cuz it does suck you in you think I wonder if these guys are going to pull it together because as I said earlier you know they they are not they're very creative they're very talented they're not always disciplined no they they don't they're not people pleasers always they are when it they really have to be but there are a lot of times when they're screwing up early on yeah putting the band together and trying to keep it afloat and that's what I keep going back to is this sense that this could easily not have happened these guys could have messed it up and yeah I'm very keen not to write a book about legends you know the two words that drive me mad these days more than any other legends and I call ya iconic everybody's iconic I won't let people use those terms with me yeah because I find I don't know why you're laughing uh the one of the things that you talk about these miracles say so one of them that's absolutely miraculous I mean Lenin meets McCartney and we all know that that's that's fairly miraculous yeah George just the right chemistry John has a personality trait where he can be brash he can be of a bit of a bully but he lets he tolerates younger kids if they show deference and if they have something to offer so people forget George was much younger than John in you know a few years is a massive gap back then so George is this kid who doesn't seem very impressive at all but John lets him into the fold it's it's almost seems crucial that John has this trait where he wants to dominate but at the same time he lets people in who other kids may not have let in yes that makes sense yeah there's a the guy who introduced John to Paul Ivan Vaughan was a childhood for you went to school with Paul but he was a childhood friend of John John had a gang he always had a gang around him and he was always the leader just by natural order and instead of it being John Paul George Ringo was John Pete Nige and Ivan and Ivan Ivan's remar because unfortunately is not with us anymore but one of the remarks he made about John was that he was in extraordinarily accepting of him though he was younger and and and didn't have as much about him as John did John was accepting yes you can come and play and bring your cars and we'll play cars whatever they were like fighting seven years old so it was - when he was a teenager he was seventeen and a half when he met George for the first time and John was quite an old seventeen and a half you know he had he had burns he was a Teddy Boy which was you know the British style that was kind of something like Elvis but seemingly from external appearances at least aggressive you would cross the road to avoid people like that and George is just turning 15 he's in fact he's not yet 15 and he's a small boy still he's not yet adolescent so there is a world of difference between them and not many seventeen and a half year olds are interested in having a 15 year old kid taken around now John did do an interview in 1970 with Rolling Stone in which he talked about how remembered George being this kid who was always hanging around all the bloody time and you know always he here again I think he's speaking of one or two particular instance when he was going out with his girlfriend Cynthia and Georgia was bunking off school and he would tag along to the pictures with him in the afternoon but generally speaking George was there because John allowed him to be there that is a very special trait to have and it meant that he was open to whatever George could bring and you mentioned deference earlier I'm not sure that John particularly wanted people to defer to him they had he had to have the last word that's unusual but what he most valued was people who stood up to him mm-hmm because if you were a pushover he'd push you over right but if you stood up to him fine you can stay and George did stand up to him because George though only not yet 15 always had a kind of a wisdom and a quiet strength about him that John that John obviously recognized the would talk about miraculous events fryin Epstein shows up and now looking back he is a gift from the heavens for these guys because he sees their talent he's the only one who sees them in 62 and says they're going to be the biggest thing ever I found them I am NOT a manager but I'm going to be one I'm that they are it they are going to be it he saw the whole thing and he also had taste and you think about how many people how many bands get the wrong manager early on almost everyone yes he had taste and he cared about them and he put them ahead of you know what business concerns I would say that in fact there are quotes from Bryan in which he says this that he devoted himself to them yeah and he was a man of tremendous energy when he was fired by a new passion he would pour everything into it he would just consume himself with whatever it was that was interesting him and the Beatles were miraculous to him they came along at just the right time in his life matters he came along at just the right time in their lives it was the perfect marriage if you like of manager and artists he not only cared he was honest how many Rock managers have been honest you know in through the history of rock and roll yeah they but again it's another example of them finding the right person at the right time which was a happy that they happen to them so often that you can't help but think well yeah of course yeah it was going to happen wasn't it but in fact one of the questions I mean people often ask me what if so-and-so what if so-and-so hadn't happened I'm not very good on what-if questions because it didn't happen so what's there to talk about yeah also I don't know who does with probably one exception and that is what if Brian Epstein hadn't come along would the Beatles still have made it people asked what I found with this book is that had he not come along they would have broken up because they went to Hamburg the second time in the spring of 1961 they came back at the end of June or the beginning of July and they started playing again on Merseyside they were commanding about five times the nightly fee of any other group they were packing them in so promoters paid this high fee through gritted teeth but look at the business they brought in for everybody there was a newspaper called mercy beat by this point and they wrote about the Beatles more than any other and when the opinion poll the popularity poll ran the Beatles want it they were far and away the biggest group in Liverpool so this is typical of them they got bored there were no challenges for them from July into August into September they're beginning to go well we're next because it was called a circuit you would play the circuit so-and-so hall on a Monday night so-and-so Hall on the Tuesday night and literally it was a circuit they were just going round and round and round and round and round and that might be enough for most but for Lennon and McCartney and Harrison and Pete best was there as well it was just like what next what next you know where's the challenge and Bob Willa who was some bear confidants at that time he was the guy who was they saw him virtually every night at the different halls he was the DJ and the emcee and one of them kind of like the Alan Freed of Liverpool but not as wild he he is category Gore was categoric that they were going to break up unless something happened for them some breakthrough happened they were going to break up and John and Paul go off to Paris in October 61 and they leave George and Pete behind and they break the bookings with a few promoters which burns even more bridges one by one they were pissing off every promoter that they were who was paying them so they John and Paul face the prospect of returning to Liverpool and virtually no bookings anymore because they've annoyed everybody one time too many yeah and Brian comes along yeah and Brian comes along and he makes a promise to them to double their income which is really hard considering that he can't book them into any of the places they've been playing because the promoters don't want them anymore but they're going to he's going to double their income and he's going to get them onto the radio and hopefully television and he will do all he can to get them a record contract that's the that's the Holy Grail that is the Holy Grail make a record yeah I've seen I know you've seen these but I've seen Brian Epstein would make these sheets you know these booking sheets that you're okay lads you're gonna go and play and I've seen them actually typed out and I think Ringo Ringo's mother kept everything and he put out a book not too long ago and he has you can actually look at them yes and what's really interesting about them I don't know the names of you know rural towns around London but you'll know which places I'm talking about but there'll be a sheet that you're supposed to go to Oxfordshire and play a gig at this hall and it will say in it it's typed out supposedly pretty good audience you know but they are they're very Protestants so some of your shenanigans won't go over too well so maybe you want to pull it back there details about what he's done his research and he's found out I mean this is when they're you know these these gigs may not even be that consequential but he's telling them this is how you this is the advanced stuff you need to know about playing yes that small hall and it's important that you remember these things yeah Brian's attention to detail was extraordinary and he presented them with two pieces of paper every week one was the coming weeks engagements as you've described it Monday here Jesse they're two half-hour slots one 45 minute slot give him a good show it's the first first show for such-and-such a promoter do your best to impress him because we'll get more and so on and the the second sheet was the last week's accounts down to the penny yeah and they would actually go to the office on a Friday and pick up their money which in a little wage packet with the the top sealed over and the slip inside the explaining how much it was but it was cashed people they didn't have bank accounts yeah and we're talking here of a completely different age if you like no bank accounts as well as no mobile phones so Brian was incredible for them because it gave them a level of organization that they'd never had they were always a bit a bit haphazard on their own whenever they had to organize themselves they would usually turn up late ragged in some way and their amplifiers were was shockingly poor and piece by piece he actually got them up to scratch the main one of course is he got them to tidy up their appearance mm-hmm which meant that the myth was they didn't like being put you know they had these leather suits and they didn't like these new these new outfits but that's been disproven yeah mankind being what it is authors do like to have someone to pick on or the public do as well and I always filled with this story you can't really pick on John Paul George or ringo so you pick on some of the people around them and give them a bit of a kickin mm-hmm and brian has been he suffered a bit of a kicking from many authors who who wished to portray a particular element of his life when out without necessarily looking at it in balance and I'm only interested in the truth I'm not interested in agendas or more bias of any kind whatsoever so I look at what Brian did for them in totality and the business with the suits actually turns out on close inspection to be a completely different way to the way it's been projected which is that he said to them if you stay dressed as you are all in leather leather trousers leather usually wore black t-shirts leather jackets leather trousers and something like cowboy boots or just human heel boots of some kind that's fine but I can't book you in two places outside Liverpool because they don't know you they don't know of your reputation on image alone they would say well we're not having them because they look like trouble they look like you know they dressed on stage as the kind of person you wouldn't want to have in the hall from an audience point of view I mean even in the cavern it was meant to be no jeans and they're on stage playing in jeans so there was you know the management always had to wrestle with something when the Beatles were around so he said you know if you carry on dressed like that I your optic opportunities will be more limited than you would wish them to be so you've got a choice you can either change you can either stay as you are and and stay pretty much playing the same places or you can change your appearance into something else something more presentable in the in the mode of the day and that'll be problem solved so with that information they decided that they would get suits and in fact I found the tailor a guy could Walter Smith who is 80 something now who was a young 20 30-something then who fitted them up for their suits and he told me how particular they were about the particular narrowness of the lapels and the the narrowness of the trousers the child is kept going back for alteration the the narrow ties are they had they were basically going for a kind of Italian mud look now no other group in Liverpool who wore suit or anything like those suits they were still different they still maintained they're in individuality they just got out of the leather but it was their decision mmm and this was what Brian did time and again now one of the reasons why it's laughably untrue that he could have forced them into suit is because there is no way that he could have forced Lennon McCartney Harrison and ultimately Starr to do anything if they didn't want to do it because we're talking here about some of the world's most opinionated young men they always had an opinion they were never shy to air it it goes on to this day and if they were being told to do something that they didn't want to do they would usually tell you where to get off I Brian learned the hard way that you very quickly in fact that you know if he tried saying boys do this F Brian in that uh watch the language uh I'm kidding it really doesn't matter um in the in that vein Paul pretty quickly butts heads with Brian Epstein which is interesting because you always think of him uh it's that's the moment in Yellow Submarine you know he's that where he's thrown the bouquet and he's the diplomat he's the darling he's going to make he's going to make you know that Lennon's the troublemaker and that Paul is the you know lubricating the situation making it all move but Paul had a side to him that was difficult and he was a real problem for Brian Epstein at some point they won't have their difficult sides but Paul was the one that Brian had the most trouble with for sure because Paul was the most conspicuously ambitious for the Beatles John and George were both ambitious too no doubt about it but but they would be more laid back he wouldn't quite see it he wouldn't say quite so openly as you would with Paul and again I wasn't there but I spoke to so many people who were and you get to see the personality through all the years anyway Paul has never liked anyone telling him what to do there are quotes from him in this book the go right back to his earlier school days at the age of five where he didn't like the teachers because they told him what to do he had a job in a factory for a couple of which is a nice little tail that's in the book didn't like the boss because it kept telling him what to do so Brian comes along and says boys you you should be here on Friday you should be there on Saturday we should should I'll be there if I want to be there but don't tell me I should so he and Brian did kind of lock horns and it was a relationship that never really was very brilliant even in Brian's 1964 water biography a cellar full of noise which is fairly anodyne in the way that it approached most of the subjects he openly reveals that Paul is his biggest problem he said I've read that book and was remembered at the time being struck that it's this very cheerful oh the boys and the lads and it's this supposed to feel like it could be a puff piece and then there is a part where he's very revealing about yeah Paul being a bit of a prima donna there's actually a time that stands out it's in your book where Paul refuses to show up for a gig and it costs them the gig and they go to his house and he says I'm not going yeah well in fact it manifested itself in the very first meeting the first constructive business meeting they had with Brian Epstein beginning of December 1961 his visa he he's only known them a few days he's already been down to London to see if he can get them a recording contract in fact they all do they kind of have one already and they've signed the contract and it's all in German and they've got no idea what they've signed they signed anything until Brian came along so they have this meeting at which they're going to discuss how things evolve from here and Paul doesn't show up and they wait for him and wait for him and eventually George goes and phones him and turns out that um Paul is in the bath he's just got up and he's in the bath and and Brian is livid because you know he the risk at this point is all Brian's you know there was no risk for the Beatles in taking Brian as their manager there was considerable risk for Brian because the Beatles reputation was was quite poor at that point amongst the people who you know were meant to employ them and you know he faced the prospect of being embarrassed of losing money and having them walk out on him and all those things there was no contract yet so where was Paul and Paul's I'll get there when I'm ready is essentially what he was doing and then a couple of months later there's this three dates that brian has arranged for them with the Liverpool University different kind of audience again as I said because he couldn't book them where they had been playing he was having to be imaginative in how they would find work and Paul just I'm not coming to say I'm not coming you know he always felt that he was the one who was always trying to make things happen and he kind of went tonight huh but I can't be bothered and it was a great embarrassment to Brian and annoying for the others but we're talking about young guys here we're not talking about mature men we're talking here about kids adolescence and and this is what happens I mean groups notoriously fight bands they're called now but in these days they call groups you hear incredible stories of bands on the road fighting I mean really really fighting get guys who hate each other they go on stage and play with that absolutely hate each other the Beatles were not like that the Beatles were great friends of one another genuinely close friends strong friends and this is another reason why they were able to make it and make it so big and stay sane through what in volumes two and three years which are just beyond but beyond belief in the sense that they'd never happen to anybody else ever so that what they're experiencing they experienced with the first time and they cope with it incredibly well and that's because they are so tight they're so they say always felt they had an advantage over Elvis that Elvis was yes you know Elvis was the one guy and then he had you know he has Memphis mafia but they're not going to tell him no but there are there lip-service yeah and the Beatles always recognized they were fortunate that they had each other any one of them started to yeah get a little inflated ego they would they would feel you know they kept each other and she kept each other and Shagga and they go through the sixties with a very coterie of people around them it's really small you know it really is shocking when you look at you think about its Neil Aspinall and mal Evans mal Evans when you think about a band of that caliber the biggest band biggest show business act possibly in the history of the world yeah and they've got one guy schlepping there yeah guitars drums around and setting them up and it's unheard of yeah it's insane that it didn't multiply to 1520 pedia they never had a heavy they never had an employee of theirs hit anybody I mean Neil could take care of himself but he wasn't violent he would make sure that they were unns they were unscathed and that was it that was his job you know in in you know he would just say get out of the way but he wouldn't actually knock anybody out and mal was a big guy but he wouldn't hit anybody either so they when they came to America in 64 65 66 with it with extremely small retinue like five people yeah you know Brian mal Neil who else was there and then relying on in local police driving yeah or something yeah yeah which of course was was problematic because in the states particularly in 64 65 and not less in 66 I would say the police always felt that the local police wherever they arrived they would handle it and of course they would always be caught out I mean compare the sheer scope of the the mania that was going on around them and they'd go into some really dangerous situations but they always got through and they always got through those guys didn't suck up to them either you know they were they spoke straight to them The Beatles were straight talkers who appreciate people talking straight to them the you know half the crux adult probably the whole story of the Beatles is the songwriting yeah which we touched on it before but you have these guys no one had done this before they write their writing their own songs yeah and I've always thought the prelude to talking about that is their selection of covers that they did as a and we're very unlike what other people were doing at the time yeah before they were performing their own songs for people they were playing covers like everyone played covers but they were playing different kinds of music they intentionally wanted to play music that other people weren't playing yes they played music by girl groups they loved the girl groups of this American girl groups of the 60s yes and they thought those are terrific songs so I used to remember it dawning on me that you know boys you know Ringo singing it's a great song we listened to it and it for a while remembered long before I knew when I first heard it I thought that's an odd song yeah why is Ringo singing about boys you know it's got a homoerotic quality to it which I rather enjoy now but uh but it but I found later on that they just loved that song and they decided we could change it to girls but we're not going to do that which who cares just yet play it that way that they were consistently trying to find different kinds of material that probably expanded them greatly as musicians yeah well Liverpool as we said earlier had a rock and roll scene before the Beatles came along in an embryonic form if you like it was the Beatles return from Hamburg and their extraordinary popularity immediately that opened up the scene for everyone and suddenly in the wake of the Beatles they are the top now and in the wake of the because loads of other groups form loads of different venues open and there is suddenly a lot of competition mm-hmm they're the headlining act but the headlining act didn't necessarily play the last on the bill which would you get these days because in those days most very few kids had a car so the prime spot will be the one kind of nine o'clock in the evening because after that the last buses go in fact if you watch some of the Beatles concert films from like Shea Stadium for example Paul does this thing of you know it's going to be this one's gonna have to be our last song and it taps his watch as if it's like you know you've got to go and catch the last bus and he does this thing with this with his hand you know as if you know it's time to go to go home and go to bed now yeah that's because they played mid-evening in Liverpool rather than the end but the point is there were so many other groups on the bill sometimes as many as 10 acts on one bill great Rock promotions in Liverpool there wasn't anything like this happening anywhere else in the world they would be in the dressing room and they'd hear the other groups who were on before them doing their songs so you know Gerry and the Pacemakers just on long tall Sally what should we do we'll cross it out then or whatever so they realized that it would be to their advantage if they developed a repertoire that was unlike anybody else's and so they started digging around the b-sides of records they were a professional group The Beatles that is they didn't have when they came back from Hamburg the second time particularly they didn't have to go and look for any other jobs they could earn a living and a very good living and that more than their parents were earning just by playing rock and roll at night that liberated their daytime sort of working in the factory or wherever they could be in the record shops and they spent a lot of time in the record shop squeezed into the little listening booths called browser is asking the assistants usually the the girls to put on anything American the myth that they got everything from the sailors who sailed the Atlantic between New York and Liverpool is is just that it's a myth it's they got their repertoire from records because most of the American record labels had a licensing deal with the UK label and they would be issued in Britain so in the shop they'd be listening to anything American and they'd listen to the b-side as well as the a side and they found so much music that nobody else had the opportunity to hear and so they they did these songs that nobody else knew and they also arranged them because often rock and roll songs would have a piano or a saxophone or horn section they just had three guitars and drums so they would do an instant rearrangement and they played like that night that night and probably it was a little bit rough because they hadn't played it before but they were playing so often they were playing typically at 61 they play 350 dates in one year in 365 days 62 was only a few less so they're rehearsing on stage if you like and and they are dynamic and what they love is rhythm and blues they love American rhythm and blues and rhythm and blues then we had two definitions it could mean the kind of Willie Dixon Howlin wolf rhythm and blues like the stones got into or it could mean the other rhythm and blues the Billboard R&B chart which is what became Sol which is you know the Shirelles the Isley Brothers and so on that Smokey Robinson Smokey Robinson and the miracles that other POC that was their passion so it's I've always had this theory that people say how do people how to songwriters like that come along yeah and you think okay well they obviously had this incredible genius aptitude but which certainly helps is that they had big years they they listened to everything and they sucked it in and when you say that they had to arraign rearrange the songs themselves and you also remember that today if I want to I play some guitar if I want to learn a song it's instantaneous yeah I can go and hit an app and type in the song that I want to learn and it will tell me exactly what the chords are when they come in if I want to play the lead I can find out how to play the lead I can find out what chord with key it's in I can watch video of 55,000 people doing it with close-ups of the hands they had none of that so they had to absorb the essence of songwriting by listening and playing all these great cover tunes that they loved which I think must sink in at some point yeah where their education was playing so many different kinds of music yeah George Harrison had this great quote of you know in nineteen the late 50s you could barely get a cup of sugar let alone a rock and roll record yeah and because it was so scarce because the the thing that they most sought after was so scarce they went looking for it deep you know Paul tells fantastic anecdote of how he and George got on a bus to go to the other side of Liverpool for someone who would show them accord the B 7 B 7 chord here and that that hunger that desire is um is a very good driver if you've got everything so easy and laid out for you yes they had if they had apps where they could get everything they'd become bored and as he said the the thing the lethal thing for the Beals was boredom yes also they wouldn't have anything that nobody else didn't have even you know what was going to make them unique the effort of going and finding something was making them unique they had big ears as you say and they did absorb everything and that's what creative the best creative talent will do suck it all in add your own original mix to it and then put it back out again in a different form and at the time that they get their record contract the Beatles major influences the music of Gerry Goffin and Carole King the scenes of Goffin and King all those wonderful songs by the Shirelles and little ever and so on the crickets and so when they began recording Lennon and McCartney were writing in that vogue the songs on their first LP Please Please Me are all their own songs I kind of like Goffin and King songs where the somehow or other there's this wonderful mix of an upbeat melody with a downbeat lyric it was a wonderful nap that Goffin and King managed and particularly appealed to John and Paul so without any of these influences from America you wouldn't have had the Beatles there's a great story in the book of a guy called Tony karriker who went to art school with John now passed away but I got a fantastic interview with him spent a day with him and he was an ardent record collector and he discovered in the late 1950s that you could send away to the American Embassy in London in Grosvenor Square in London and they would send you Library of Congress recordings made by Alan Lomax down in the field somewhere in Tennessee or wherever all those great original early blues of Sleepy John STS and all these fantastic American blues artists that no one really had ever heard of and the American Embassy he would send post free well return postage paid in fact records on loan anyone to anyone who asked and so John got access to all these American blues records courtesy of the American government which i think is pretty cool and he didn't necessarily inform his musical style but he knew it from that point on he knew it and he could speak about it with some authority because of the American government I think you there's this moment and I'll back up a second I had the great opportunity to hang out with you a little bit in London and you gave me a fantastic tour of Abbey Road studio which you know was a dream come true for me cuz I had read everything you had written about the Abbey Road and the studio sessions and I had had a idea in my head of what it was going to be like but then to actually see the place it was the it was the most I've ever known about a place and not having not have seen it and then I saw it and you showed me around you're very generous with your time and then afterwards we were walking along and we were going to go get a cup of coffee and you pointed out to me you said that right there is the place where which is a few blocks from heavy Road that's where Brian sent the telegram to the boys tell them just secured a recording contract I think he said need new need new songs yes which they misinterpreted is that right yeah what did try to remember what the telegram said now please rehearse new material I think it said new material right yeah and and in Hamburg perhaps it just fed the way they were thinking anyway John and Paul took that as a sign to actually resume some writing rather they had actually both recently written in spring 62 a song each Paul did one called pinwheel twist which we've never heard which was a twist record opens and and John did ask me why which eventually came out but they took it as a sign to you know come up with something new and they didn't want to when they recorded they didn't want to do anybody else's songs they the shift was here we will do our own see that's that's a doesn't sound like a leap to anybody today that sounds natural at the time that was here are these guys they shouldn't have made it this far as we've said 10,000 ways it could have gone wrong she should have gone wrong and now they're getting a recording contract and nobody has a recording contract yeah and this is where if you're smart you play it safe and you do some of the covers it's going to sound great we know how to do this and they say it's our own songs or nothing yeah that's absolutely stunning yeah it is it is and it's absolute indicative of who they have always been by this point and who they will always be through all the years to come what they don't know is that they're being given a song to record a song called how do you do it which they don't like but actually rearranged to record it and at the end of recording it when it looks like the thing that they least want to happen is bound to happen they are going to have to come out with a song that isn't theirs John goes and talks to George Martin whenever there was a heavy moment in the Beatles though there was a democracy there the others would all the other three would always just keep quiet and look at John and John would have to go and say whatever needed to be said and at that point it was clear that he was the leader and he went up and said to George Martin we really really really don't want you to release that song that we've just recorded please please use our own song and George said no actually no but in the course of the seven days art that followed other pressures came to bear that the Beatles knew nothing about and George Martin did drop how do you do it and the Beatles always assumed that it was George who had listened to their requests and and thought as a result of that what a fantastic guy he was which of course he was they liked him anyway but this was this was it you know George Gray told George ease listen to what pal requesting her but it wasn't quite like that but it looked that way and so their first record was their record love me do and their second mom was there record please please me and then it never stopped there was no question then of them covering anybody else's though they covered four albums they didn't cover four singles they always wrote their own and John and Paul had a particular view of what made a single and what made an album tray and that being something about energy and speed they never quite defined what it was themselves but it's clear when you look at what their choices were that that's they knew that song like I wanna hold your hand is a single yeah for example this boy is a b-side but but what a b-side yeah they had some b-sides oh yeah what's you also discovered in your research you debunk another myth and this was really stunning because most people the story that I've always heard is that nobody wants the Beatles no record company wants the Beatles and they can't get a recording contract George Martin sees something he's produced The Goon The Goon Show he's he's not sure about them his musicians but he thinks they've got something and he takes a chance that's not quite true is that right no no it's not you said debunk myths i I didn't set out to debunk any yes yeah but I don't even set out it's a myth for me that's right they what happens is that they just kind of fall away because when you actually tell the real story you think we're hang on wasn't it well obviously this is what happened the reality is that I I too like everybody else when I wrote the recording sessions book I assumed that the Beatles first visit to Abbey Road was an audition of some kind of test an artist test or a commercial test that would have been the phrase of the time until in 1991 I was rooting around in the archives at EMI I love paperwork paperwork ease is what I searched the world for and I found all sorts of pieces of paper which pointed very clearly to the fact that when the Beatles first came to Abbey Road they were actually already under contract that there was not a test at all they were already signed so is all why would they be signed when George Martin hasn't even met them yet so I was working with George on a TV special the making of Sergeant Pepper and I spread out all the I photocopied everything and I spread them all out in front of George on the kind of edit suite desk and I said I don't understand what's happening here can you please explain to me the documents had his signature on them from 62 and he looked at them and and and I could hide he had no answer he couldn't actually explain what it was he was baffled by it and I could see he was genuinely baffled he kind of them talked himself into believing that the other story yes of how they were signed and therefore when confronted with this genuinely no longer remembered it that way that was okay for the time it liberal left me unsatisfied but I knew that you know there was something there that was unsolved well when I came to write these books I knew I had to get to the bottom of that one I couldn't just have a conundrum in the book of such magnitude so it all fell into place when I lucked into well I've been looking for him for years but in the end I lucked into finding a guy called Kim Bennett Kim mail Kim who was he worked at an EMI Music Publishing firm called Ardmore beechwood and he had liked to Lennon and McCartney song that he had heard on the Decca tape the failed audition for Decca um and wanted to publish it and through his interest the Beatles Brian Epstein found himself with George Martin in May 1962 discussing a contract now why was George Martin offering them a contract well it's a convoluted and and quite multifaceted combination of reasons but the reality is that he was given them as a chore he had his arm twist was in the side so it was an assignment they was in effect they were signed by EMI and then it was like well who shall we give them to EMI had four in house producers at that time and for various reasons George was given that job so they were signed he had never met them the only bit of their music he had heard he didn't like didn't rate at all highly so why on earth would he assign them when he met them and this is what so tremendous about George Martin being the right guy when he met them he recognized immediately that these guys were original that they had attitude that they had opinions that they spoke up that they were funny that they were charismatic and that they were the something who else was called something he was himself a maverick in everything he did he didn't like abiding by the rules he was always trying to subvert the rules in the best way possible in the creative sense and when he met them he recognized that they were the same so he knew that they were good guys and that something might come of this but what would they record and it was at that point that he decided he would find them a song which was the role of a producer he wasn't even called a producer then he was an A&R man and A&R people at record companies wore tent these days was scout the talent but they won't necessarily take them into the studio but his job was to find the artists and artists and repertoire so he found the artist then he went looking for the repertoire which was how do you do it and then he said come down boys you're going to make a record the great strength of the relationship between the Beatles and George Martin manifests itself very fast by November of 62 still within the realm of this book he is completely tuned into who they are he realizes how original they are he wants to do an album with them he talks about going to the cavern and making their first album a live album which is what Please Please Me would have been and he's he's fully tuned in and when they make the police Please Me single he presses the button to say congratulations boys you've just made your first number one and he meant it he wasn't bull he wasn't speaking Pulgas George didn't do that he was straight we talked about how lucky the Beatles were to have Bryan George Martin was the only producer in London who could possibly have coped with their attitude mm-hmm the only producer Hill in London who would have allowed them to start breaking the rules as quickly as they did because with in 1963 they get very comfortable in the studio and start trying things and most producers would have said well you do it my way boys or not at all but he was receptive to their ideas probably knew it was unwise to stop them because they were so strong in their opinions but but he was receptive he also didn't insert his name as the co composer on the b-side or the a site even like some of his colleagues did and which was a fairly well known trick in the business in order to earn a little bit of money on the side he was straight so they had the best manager and they had the best producer and and this has just kind of happened to them like the because you've let my George Martin to this day Ringo has a grudge yeah against the recently departed George Martin to this day can't let it go that he was asked to sit on the sidelines yeah well Andy white is he white the session drummer sits in yeah and ringo's never forgotten it and is mad about it and it just made me think Ringo has always been the you know people will agree it's Lennon McCartney and then of course Harrison's brilliant and then I'm a big defender of Ringo's because it's easy for people if they're looking for yeah who do we make a joke about yeah I talked to many drummers the drummer in my band who's a brilliant drummer Ringo is one of his favorites it's just but he's always he has an interesting spot and and sometimes he's underappreciated but it feels does feel to me like he was crucial to the whole thing coming together in the end yeah he was yeah he was I like the fact that we know that he still has a problem with George Martin having replaced him 54 years ago yeah we know that because he said it and what that says is that he's a grudge keeper yeah yeah he got over it I mean he and George went on to have a fantastic relationship mutually respectful and Ringo never ever let him down as a drummer after that first session but the fact that Ringo kept the grudge tells us something about ringers personality that we need to know and because they always remember who did them down not many have big but in the very early days when they were told you will never make it from Liverpool just don't well we will you know and there's a great anecdote a few pages in the book where I described the first trip to London to promote a record and everybody's telling them you'll never make it from Liverpool and you'll never make it with the name Beatles what a stupid name change it and they just thought yes we will and we'll show you you mentioned defending Ringo I think we don't need to defend Ringo anymore because it's time for the attacks on Ringo to stop hmm you know again I said earlier that people like to have a victim figure that they can they can beat Brian Epstein being a notable one Magic Alex the Maharishi would like to make fun of all these people without actually looking at their role in things properly Ringo has been something of a laughingstock since 63 as soon as they broke through because he sat at the back because it was a bit smaller than then because he had a bigger nose because he didn't sing so many songs because he appeared to be the spare part but within that group there were four of them and they all recognized the absolute fundamental necessity of having each other there Ringo is he was they picked him he's the chosen one if you like he's the guy they went we want you they went to a lot of trouble to get Ringo they did at a very difficult time yeah when it would have been easier to just stick with Pete best oh you they were never going to do that yeah never I mean the thing about Pete was he lasted much longer than then they wanted him to because of their own lethargy really and their own as John called it cowardice because they didn't want to face sacking him because they thought he might hit them but Ringo was the guy they actually went out got they did have one or two other drummers temporarily but all had people in there are people who can claim that they want he want they really wanted me but now they really did want Ringo and and the beauty of that is what Neil Aspinall explained to me is the chain which is the name order John Paul George Ringo John started it he brings in Paul Paul brings in George George brings in Ringo they all wanted Ringo but George was the one who really made the move to bring him to make sure that they landed him so that meant the Ringo's relationship with George was always that bit closer because he knew that he was there because of George hmm but the reason why they wanted him is because he was they loved playing with him I mean when you're in a band and you're on the front line and the drummer is not the right guy for whatever reason you know it and similarly when the chemistry is right you know and every time they play with Ringo before he joined it felt great yeah they play with him numerous times yes they would always switch off and if their drummer was they didn't have a drummer they were in and they were playing the same venue as Rory storm yeah and there's great pictures Ringo has of him hanging out with John and Paul and George when he's not even in the Beatles yes they they're they're hanging out after a show they really knew him from 1960 in Hamburg because his group Rory storm and hurricanes and the Beatles shared 12 hours then seven nights six nights a week in a Kaiser Color Club at the bar in Hamburg so why did they want Ringo they wanted him because first of all his what character and personality it was a fit secondly temper rock-solid temper unwavering beat metronomic perfect for guitarists and singers the guy before Pete they always felt that he wavered on his beat you know he was erratic he speeded up he slowed down you know the jokes about drummers um Ringo wasn't you know rock solid he's also rock solid through every outtake yeah he sees y'ever there's never it's never Ringo it's the problem and all styles I mean if they play honey it's a kind of nineteen twenties down span shuffle there's ringo if they're playing hell helter-skelter it's heavy rock there's ringo if they're playing or whatever it was you know you name it yeah all the incredible variety of styles of the beatles music I mean the Beatles music catalogue is breathtaking in its breadth and depth of musical innovation and style one drummer yeah all the way through except for a couple of tracks on the way album when he walked out for a while I love the fact that Ringo was the first people to quit yeah by the way because it just shows the main strength of mind yeah and that was the strength of mine that they all needed you know that the Pete I'm not trying to be anti Pete here but for the Beatles the contrast with Pete was dramatic yeah because Pete was quiet very very quiet wouldn't say anything and when they when when they finished playing and they'd go out to a bar Pete will go home it was only over the three of them with Ringo they became a foursome for the first time it's the four headed monster yeah that's what yeah when the Beatles would go and check out the stones yeah stones would see these four guys and leather coats come in and say it's the four headed master they did everything together I love the fact that the Beatles enjoyed each other's company so much that whenever any one of them got an enthusiasm for something which they always did because they were enthusiastic guys and very receptive is there anything around them a fashion for example or a gimmick a toy or all of them will get or a mustache yeah be ready I'll get them yeah they did these things in unison and it wasn't as something as as ordained as you know next week we will all do this they just turned each other on with their interests and their ideas and their habits so they were they were an extraordinary group I mean a group unlike any other before or since not just if for the way they for what they did but also the way they went about it being original the whole time for example and and also getting out you know I've talked about this with my friend Jeff Martin who's here sitting off to the side and a huge Beatle fan like myself but very rarely never in show business to people to part the stage at the perfect time and you know people sometimes more and well the Beatles had gone on that the Beatles had continued they it started perfectly and it ended perfectly yes and and that was ads I think a lot to the beauty of it all it ends in some pain for them yes but there was one they were all prepared to go through yeah I actually think one of the people say to me what when do you think the Beatles began to break up and I think honestly they began to break up the day they got together because they were never going to do it forever yeah because it wasn't that the personalities within that group were the kind who would develop other interests and to follow them and in particular since the Beatles were kind of formed in John Lennon's mold he was never going to do any one thing forever mm-hmm he was always going to want to move on and try something else so I think that the Beatles came to an end at the right time I mean at the time itself I was upset about it I was disappointed I was you know sorry that I wouldn't be able to buy any more Beatle records in 1970 but looking at it now I was kind of hopefully more mature adults I can see the strength of purpose that they had in order to break up you've got the biggest act in the world who voluntarily break up because it isn't working for them anymore yeah that is incredibly courageous in their last album is Abbey Road yeah and the last - it is the end yeah it's if you if Hollywood wrote it it would just be completely unbelievable yeah um the we could talk about this for days obviously and we'd just be urine-soaked at the end and dehydrated so that's not going to happen um I already am yeah I know trust me I I heard and detected it some 20 minutes ago um I keep thinking about Robert Caro because Robert Caro Lyndon Johnson used to be a caricature to me yes and I'm very interested in American history and American presidents and then Robert Caro wrote this amazing series of about Lyndon Johnson that turned him from a caricature into this incredible multifaceted and he's still going yes and you are the Robert Caro what Robert Caro is - Lyndon Johnson I think you are the Beatles you have taken them on and no one's going to do a better job than you at this this is I mean we're all very thankful that you've that you've taken this on there's some concern that how long did vol 1 take you vol 1 took 10 years ok yeah so how's your health I mean we want I want to see this line through I went I want to I want you to finish this collection of books Robert Caro said in an interview he cannot write the portion about Vietnam with Lyndon Johnson until he goes and lives in a hut in North Vietnam for a year yes I think that's extreme I want him to finish this you know his series where are you and in process thankfully I'm about 30 years younger than Robert kara good yes yeah where am i I'm researching I'm in Los Angeles to research volumes 2 and 3 John I will go anywhere where there's something I can learn something that I don't already know and I'm looking for and anyone watching this I'm looking for any piece of paper any document or recording or photograph that someone watching this might think I don't know and I'm willing obviously to see a great deal of material that I have seen in order for the one in a hundred that might so anyone watching shouldn't edit themselves don't be shy if you have something that you a be of interest to you something I can learn from that I can put into this history because I don't want to hang on to anything I'm just doing this to put it out there yeah because it is the most extraordinary story the most wonderfully beautiful story of humanity actually I find yes that's good I want to jump in it is a human story I want to jump in there because I have been accused I'm in of being because I'm such a Beatle fan and because I and my friends and I we know this music and we like to play and we like to think about it and I have and II Babiak books on the gear that they used and I and I I have the exact replica of John's Epiphone you know casino that he stripped down and plays on the rooftop he plays it on the White Album and he plays it on let it be down to the serial number recreated I showed that to Elvis Costello once thinking it was Costello will think this is cool and also looked at me and said that's sick looks like but yeah there's a oh you're a nerd if you like this much about the Beatles and I've always thought I defend it I think I don't I don't that doesn't sit well with me because I think this is a story about so much more than this amazing rock band it is yeah there's something that keeps pulling us back to this story because it's about something much bigger I can't quite explain what that is but it to me this is about so much more than this great rock band of the six they have the central story of post-war culture I would say they have the central story and I am attempting to tell not just their story but the entire context of everything that was going on around them because they didn't exist in a vacuum they the bigger some they plugged into everything and everyone plugged into them so in order to tell their story and put them in proper context I have to tell a much broader deeper story I told the whole story of the music business so in the whole story of rock and roll and all the other acts volumes two and three will cover the 60s from a deep cultural perspective not just the Beatles but legitimately you can go there with by telling the beatles story you can spread out it takes you to so many other players take you everywhere you have the story of emigration we were emigration from Ireland to yeah Liverpool people who probably should have gone you know to Boston yeah it didn't get there yeah and stayed and stayed in Liverpool and yeah ed Sullivan's family came on to New York with The Beatles family stayin in yeah in Liverpool it's a story that you know if since they did change everything I have to demonstrate what things were like before they changed them yeah the world in which the Beatles appeared and and the way in which everything very rapidly revolutionizes you look at America from 1963 the American youth say in 1963 and American youth in 1970 as a phenomenal change there now it isn't due entirely to the Beatles without doubt there's a lot of things happening but they are the accelerants of everything and they they show everyone that there are other ways of doing things and they're so positive and they're so original in what they do but they spark and inspire people everywhere to be original and different and a whole cultural revolution takes place not just because of the Beatles but very much in their image if you like other people are have the opportunity to go and do whatever they want to do so I have to tell all that story so volumes two and three will cover only about eight years over the two books something like 63 to 70 but within that period of time the whole world is changing and I have to show that in proper detail and the detail is the story the detail is not to bog it down the detail is to let it sing and this story has to sing well I'll give you six months yeah I didn't answer your question so I'm working on volumes - no just finish just keep working yeah I've taken it'll take an over an hour of your time yeah this has been worthwhile when this book is held up folks readers viewers it's my fault it's your fingers I wasted your time this was a this was a big thrill for me and I absolutely adore this book and and recommend that everyone read it and like I say it's about so much more than the Beatles and you've done a great job thank you good and I'll turn to my friends quickly is there anything I've missed that you have a question that I've got literally got I've got fans here of yours who are good friends of mine so like you who and I've sold them if you have a question you can ask a question so do you put you on the spot yeah I mean you're a herman's hermits guy I know yeah more of a Jeff Martin and I wrote on The Simpsons together and yes and with every time we would take a break from writing a Simpson script we would go into one of our offices and just talk about the teacher I think pretty much not but unfailingly I know and we'll do that after this that's what we'll do after this is we will leave this this you know our 10-minute long or whatever it's been interview and we will go to a restaurant around the corner and talk about the Beatles war yeah and you're welcome to join us thank like I mean that is the beauty of this subject is that it's got so many angles of approach you can you can like the Beatles for anyone of thousands of different reasons yeah and they they they they're genuine reasons as well you don't have to go looking for them there yeah when you when you're in a gathering of people who like the Beatles you'll find that everyone likes something different yes this book is something the same everyone who's liked it says their favorite bit is whatever it might be and it's never the same because they're just such interesting people and now an LLL end with restating what is most remarkable about this book is it is a thriller in a way I don't know that I know that sounds like an odd thing to say but your approach is the correct one this didn't have to happen this probably shouldn't have happened and there are many steps along the way when it easily couldn't have happened yeah and the fact that it happened is is almost like a religious experience it's so many perfect things happen at the right time yeah and the idea that these four guys from a town that no one had ever in especially the United States had ever even heard of yeah would come together if you had told anybody in 1959 or 1960 yeah the biggest thing in the next decade in music is going to be for guys from Liverpool England you'd have been laughed if you'd said that in England you would have been you've been laughed out of England yeah yeah so I wish you the best of luck keep working tune in Mark Lewisohn this is volume one there's also an extended special edition which I have at home I have both lift it up oh there we go it's both yes it is absolutely I mean it's like you're writing about Winston Churchill but it works it's beautiful there's two volumes in there and man and still this is just scratching the surface so well it covers up to 62 pretty thoroughly yeah the next few years I mean such a lot is happening right I think we can expect something similar very good and well thank you so much this is gonna reel yeah it's been a real honor thanks very much thank you very much that's it that's our audience we have four people clapping thank you yeah thank you for the clap

Channel: Team Coco

Views: 368,551

Keywords: Brian Epstein, Conan, Conan O'brien, George Martin, Music, Serious Jibber-Jabber, Team Coco, The Beatles, andy richter, best moments of conan, coco, comedy, conan best, conan best moments, conan brien, conan classic, conan funniest moments, conan funny interviews, conan funny moments, conan obrien interview, conan obrien podcast, conan on tbs, conan remotes, funny moments on conan, late night show, mark lewisohn, official, sketch, talk show, talk show hosts, tbs, top 10 conan

Id: Fs6Vynwcxfc

Length: 83min 3sec (4983 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 04 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/pm_me_jk_dont]

This is absolutely fantastic. The fact that John and Paul would take a bus to the other end of Liverpool just to learn a new guitar chord shows that they had that different attitude and hunger.

Definitely getting this book.

[u/1HopHead]

WOW! I watched the whole video and loved it! I must get the book. It's great that he goes deep into the truth and not just repeat old tales that may not have happened.

[u/KillJoy4Fun]

Why have I never heard of this book - 3 years old now.

[u/[deleted]]

When is the next one gonna be released? I heard it's in three parts?

[u/Anto_IRL]

any more vids like this