Paul McCartney inducts John Lennon into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

it's a privilege for me to be able to do this tonight and come here so I've got some random memories in the form of a letter to John Dear John I remember when we first met in Walton at the village fete it was a beautiful summer day and I walked in there and I saw you on the stage and you were singing come go with me by the Dell Vikings but you didn't know the words so you made them up come go with me to the penitentiary it's not in the lyrics remember writing our first songs together we used to go to my house a dad's house and we used to smoke Typhoo tea with this pipe my dad kept in a drawer didn't do much for us but got us on the road we wanted to be famous I remember the visits to your mom's house Julia was a very handsome woman very beautiful woman she had long red hair and she played a ukulele I'd never seen a woman who could do that I remember having to tell you the guitar chords because he used to play the ukulele chords and then on your 21st birthday he got a hundred pounds of one of your rich relatives up in Edinburgh yeah so we decided we go to Spain so we hitchhiked out of Liverpool and we got as far as Paris we decided to stop there for a week and eventually got our hair cut my father called Jurgen and that ended up being the Beatle haircut remember introducing you to my mate George my schoolmate and him getting into the group by playing raunchy on the top deck of the bus you were impressed and when we met Ringo been working a whole season at Butlins holiday camp he was a seasoned professional but the beard had to go and it did later on we we got a gig at the Cavern Club in Liverpool which was officially a blues club and we didn't really know any blues members we love the Blues we didn't know any blues numbers so we had to do announcements like ladies gentlemen this is a great Big Bill Broonzy number called wake up little Susie they kept passing up little notes this is not the blues this is not the blue no Sun this is fun we kept going and then we we ended up touring and the block called Larry pons who gave us our first tour Thank You Larry and remember we all changed our names for that tour and I changed mine to Paul Rommel George became Karl Harrison and although people think John didn't really change his name I seem to remember he was Long John Silver for the duration of that tour bang goes another myth um and we'd be on the van touring later and we'd have the kind of night with a windscreen would break we'd be on the motorway going up back up to Liverpool it was freezing so we'd have to lie on top of each other in the back of the van creating a Beatle sandwich we got to know each other these are the ways we got to know each other we got to Hamburg and met the likes of Little Richard Gene Vincent yeah I remember Little Richard inviting us back to his hotel you're looking at Ringo's ring said I love that ring said I've got a ring like there I could give you a ring like that so we all went back to the hotel with him and we never got a ring yeah we went back with Gene Vincent to his hotel once and he was all going fine till he reached in his bedside drawer and he pulled out a gun we simple we got a go gene we've got to go we got out quick and then came the USA New York City where we met up with Phil Spector the Ronettes Supremes our heroes our heroines and then later in out in LA we met up with Elvis Presley for one great evening we saw the boy you know we saw him on his home territory and was the first person I ever saw with a remote control on a TV he was a hero man and then later Ed Sullivan by now we wanted to be famous now we were getting really famous I mean I mean imagine meeting mitzi gaynor in Miami and later after that recording at Abbey Road I still remember doing love me do who's John officially had the vocal love me do but because he played the harmonica George Martin in the middle of the session suddenly said will you sing the line love me do like a crucial line I said okay I can still hear it to this day like let me do nervous man I remember doing the vocal to Kansas City but I couldn't quite get it because it's hard to do all that stuff you know screaming at the top of your head and John come down from the control room he say he took me to one side he said he said you can do it you know you're just got to scream out I could believe the top of your head you know you but you can do it so thank you thank you for that I did it remember writing day-in-the-life with him and the little look we gave each other as we wrote the line I'd love to turn you on we kind of knew what we were doing you know sneaky little look boy and after that there was this girl called Yoko Yoko Ono he showed up at my house one day and it was John Cage's birthday and she said she wanted to get hold of a manuscript to give to John Cage of various composers and she wanted one from me and John so I said well it's okay with me but you'll you'll have to go and see John she did after that I set up a couple of machines we used to have these Brunel recording machines that I set up a couple of them they stayed up all night and they recorded two virgins on that but you took the cover yourselves nothing to do with me and then after that there were the phone calls to you the joy for me of after all our business that we'd gone through actually getting back together and communicating once again and the joy as you told me about how you were baking bread now and how you were playing with your little baby Sean I was great for me because it gave me something to hold on to so now he is on here we are all these people here we are assembled to thank you for everything that you mean to all of us this letter comes with love from your friend Paul John Lennon you made it tonight you're in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame god bless you

Channel: Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Views: 6,171,367

Rating: 4.9015079 out of 5

Keywords: John, Lennon, Paul, McCartney, Rock, And, Roll, Hall, Of, Fame, induction, 1994, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, The Beatles, Beatles, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Rock and Roll, Hall of Fame, Rock & Roll, Rock Hall, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Rock and Roll inductions 1994, Yoko Ono

Id: YDChVcLWpGc

Length: 8min 15sec (495 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 22 2011

Reddit Comments

[u/ShlodoDobbins]

Beautiful