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- [00:00]
Tom Holland
If you want more from the show, join the rest is History Club. And with Christmas coming, you can also gift a whole year of access to the history lover in your life. Just head to therestishistory.com and click Gifts.
- [00:16]
This episode is brought to you by US Bank. They don't just cheer you on, they help every move count. With US Bank's smartly checking and savings account to help you track your spending and grow your savings, your finances can go free further, because when you have the right partner on your side, there's no limit to what you can achieve. That's the power of us. Visit usbank.com today to learn more. Member FDIC Copyright 2025 U.S. bank.
- [00:48]
This episode is brought to you by Mint Mobile. You don't have to let overpriced phone bills suck the joy out of the holidays because Right now Mint Mobile's Unlimited plans are off. You can get 3, 6 or 12 months of Unlimited Premium Wireless for 15 bucks a month. It's the best deal of the year. Shop Mint unlimited plans@mintmobile.com history terms and conditions apply. See mintmobile.com.
- [01:25]
This episode is brought to you by TikTok. Believe it or not, history isn't just in textbooks. It comes to life every day. On TikTok. Millions of people are exploring the history of music, fashion, food and art and discovering new facts about the things they love. One scroll could take you from the roots of jazz to the flavours of ancient kitchens, and the next might reveal a quirky fact about how modern traditions came to be. Discover the past in new ways on TikTok, where curiosity never gets old.
- [02:06]
This episode is sponsored by hive. Britain revolutionized the future with the might of industrial power, but now you can transform your own energy future and take control with the power of Hive. Hive makes the most of the sun with solar panels, turning sunlight into greener electricity electricity and enabling you to sell excess back to the grid. And Hive's thermostats make it possible for you to heat your home without lifting anything more than a thumb and an impressed brow. Their heat pumps draw warmth from the air, and they keep it exactly where you want it. No smoke, no waste. Hyve's EV Charger lets your car charge quietly overnight recharging while you do too. Hive brings it all heating, charging and solar managed from one simple app in a quiet revolution in the long history of power, Hive helps you finally know yours. Head to hivehome.com to find out more. Subject to survey and suitability Hive app compatible with selected technology paid for surplus requires seg Tariff.
- [03:34]
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to a Rest Is History Beatles themed special. And this is part two. It's the Blue album to the Red Album of Part one. We left you on an absolute cliffhanger. John Lennon has made unwise comments about Jesus and provoked outrage in the Bible Belt in the United States. And the problem for him is that the Beatles are due to go on a tour to the United States. So Conan o', Brien, who has replaced Dominic on this show because Dominic refuses to talk about the Beatles because Conan, what we didn't perhaps go into in great detail in the first episode was the actual music. And before the Beatles go on the tour that will bring them to America and all the Jesus kerfuffle, they have recorded an album that many now see as their greatest album, Revolver.
- [04:35]
Are you a particular fan of Revolver?
- [04:37]
Dominic Sandbrook
Huge fan of Revolver. Revolver is very interesting because the Beatles are now recording music that would be very difficult to perform live. And live performance is a huge part of the Beatles engine. Eleanor Rigby, Tomorrow never knows Tomorrow never.
- [04:54]
Tom Holland
Knows she's kind of playing things backwards.
- [04:56]
Conan O'Brien
Yeah. Turn up your mind Relax and float downstream.
- [05:03]
It is not dying.
- [05:07]
It is not dying.
- [05:12]
Dominic Sandbrook
These are all very difficult, if not impossible. Now, it could be done with modern technology, but they've become real recording geniuses and artists and it's taking them in this other direction. So they finish Revolver and enough time has gone by because I think people used to say, well, sergeant Pepper or Abbey Road is their greatest, and those are obviously fantastic. But Revolver, I think if you asked one of the Beatles, they might have the greatest fondness for Revolver.
- [05:45]
Tom Holland
And there's a kind of tension between now what they can do in a studio but not reproduce on a stage, and the fact that they are starting to get a bit fed up with touring. Because it's not only that they can't reproduce the musical effects that they've got on Revolver on stage, it's also the fact that they can't barely hear themselves play. And they know that most people in their audience, because they're all screaming, they can't really hear them either. So that's frustrating.
- [06:09]
Dominic Sandbrook
We just became like lip syncing, you know, miming.
- [06:12]
Tom Holland
And we didn't. We almost. Sometimes things would break down and nobody'd know. And so it wasn't doing the music any good. And then after they finished Revolver, they go on a world tour and they go to Japan and then they go to the Philippines and they have a kind of awful run in with Imelda Marcos, famous for her shoe collection.
- [06:33]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yes. I was just there. I was just in the Philippines, and I went to the Manila Hotel, which is where the Beatles stayed.
- [06:40]
Tom Holland
But you didn't turn down an invitation to tea with the head of the Philippines and get in trouble.
- [06:45]
Dominic Sandbrook
I did. And I was bullied at the airport.
- [06:47]
Tom Holland
Like the Beatles were.
- [06:48]
Dominic Sandbrook
Like the Beatles were. No, that was totally not the Beatles fault. The Marcoses announced that the Beatles will be appearing at the palace and having tea and then greeting a bunch of children. But no one asked the Beatles. And they're, as you guys would say, knackered.
- [07:04]
Tom Holland
Yeah, they were knackered.
- [07:05]
Dominic Sandbrook
They were knackered.
- [07:06]
Tom Holland
Yeah.
- [07:06]
Dominic Sandbrook
They just wanted to use the loo and then take a lift. I'll never be invited again. But they were tired. They didn't want to do that. They said, no, we're not gonna do that. And then, of course, the Marcos family said, this is a terrible snub. And they were in their hotel room watching this all unfold. And then they were hated throughout the.
- [07:27]
Tom Holland
Philippines, and there was a kind of real physical threat of.
- [07:32]
And they kind of. You know, they made it out to their flight, and it was all really traumatic. And they left the Philippines, said, we're never going back. And I don't think they ever did, actually. But kind of, in a sense, worse was to come because we now come to the way that John Lennon's comments on Christianity was playing out in America, and there's kind of escalating outrage in the Bible Belt. DJs there are inviting people to bring their records and their Beatles wigs and to kind of burn them.
- [07:58]
Dominic Sandbrook
Don't forget to take your Beatle records and your Beatle paraphernalia to anyone. One of our 14 pickup points in.
- [08:04]
Tom Holland
Birmingham, Alabama, and lots of people are kind of carrying around placards saying, you know, Jesus died for your sins. John Lennon and the Ku Klux Klan are getting in on the act. And it's a pretty menacing environment, isn't it? And when the Beatles land in America and they are asked about this, you can see when John is speaking at the press conference. I mean, he looks traumatized.
- [08:25]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, well, apparently he's a tough guy and he speaks his mind, and he's not afraid to back down. But this was traumatic for him, and he realizes that he's put the whole thing in jeopardy. And at one point, he cries, apparently breaks down crying just with the group and Bryan and says, I'll do what I have to do to fix this.
- [08:50]
Tom Holland
And he does.
- [08:51]
Dominic Sandbrook
He does. He gives an apology. It's A bit of a non apology apology.
- [08:57]
Conan O'Brien
I'm not saying that we're bad, better or greater, or comparing us with Jesus.
- [09:01]
Tom Holland
Christ as a person or God as.
- [09:03]
Conan O'Brien
A thing or whatever it is. You know, I just said what I said and it was wrong or was.
- [09:07]
Tom Holland
Taken wrong, and now it's all this.
- [09:09]
Dominic Sandbrook
But he clarifies his remarks. And of course, people that don't like the Beatles won't be satisfied. But it feels like it's enough for them to get to move on.
- [09:19]
Tom Holland
And so they decide after this that they have had enough of touring. And so from this point on, they essentially are going to be meeting in the studio and developing albums of increasing complexity, technological and musical. But there is also a sense, isn't there, I think, that what that embroglio in America in 1966 had kind of revealed was the scale of the cultural rupture that is going on in the 60s between an increasingly kind of countercultural take on religion and the Vietnam War and a kind of host of issues and a kind of a conservatism that is still very much there. And there is a real kind of cultural divide starting to widen. And as you go from 1966 into 1967, this will become very apparent because 1967 will be famous for the Summer of Love. And it is the Beatles who provide, in a sense, the soundtrack for that. With two massive, massive kind of musical monuments. The first, double A side, Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane.
- [10:39]
Conan O'Brien
Penny Lane There is a barber Showing photographs Of every head he's had the pleasure to know and all the people that come and go Stop and say hello.
- [10:56]
On the corner is a banker with a motor car the little children having him behind his back and the banker never wears a Mac in the pouring rain Very strange. Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes.
- [11:22]
Back beneath the blue suburban skies I sit and meanwhile, back in Penny Lane.
- [11:31]
Tom Holland
And then their album, Sergeant Pepper.
- [11:34]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, I mean, it's important to remember that 66 were just two years away from Nixon being elected president. And what Nixon reveals and his campaign is that there is a huge part of the United States that isn't down with the kids and wants no part of it. And through the Beatles, we're starting to see this showing up. And we're gonna see it very clearly in two years. But it's one of the reasons they stop touring. They can't hear themselves. The technology for touring on the Beatles scale was terrible. They're still using these relatively small VOX amps. When they play giant stadiums, they're piping it through the public announce address system. So they can't hear themselves. People can't hear them. And I think. I mean, John Lennon always said they were a terrific live band and they got something from that. But now there's no communicating with an audience that size. There's no give and take. So they've gotta move on. They take a break.
- [12:36]
After they stop touring. John goes off and makes How I Won the War.
- [12:41]
Conan O'Brien
Yeah.
- [12:41]
Tom Holland
That's where he starts wearing his round glasses.
- [12:44]
Dominic Sandbrook
His. I guess it was a government issue granny. Glasses.
- [12:47]
Tom Holland
Glasses, yeah.
- [12:48]
Dominic Sandbrook
And then Paul does the score for the Family Way. I think everyone takes a little bit of.
- [12:54]
Conan O'Brien
A.
- [12:54]
Tom Holland
Bit of a breather.
- [12:55]
Dominic Sandbrook
A little bit of a breather. And then they get back together. Paul has an idea and they start working on sergeant Pepper. But you mentioned that they have this incredible single. They put out an A side and a B side, which is Strawberry Fields Forever and then Penny Lane. They were meant to be part of the new album, but because of this demand that there always be new singles and two of the greatest songs the Beatles would ever make are put on an A and a B side and put out and now can't be on the album, which today people would say, well, that's silly. Put it on the album too. But they were very strict about that.
- [13:36]
Tom Holland
You mentioned how Nixon in America is lurking in the wings. And it would be remiss of me at this point not to ventriloquize Dominic, whose great point is that sergeant Pepper will be outsold by the Sound of Music in 1967. Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields, which lots of critics have said is the kind of cultural pinnacle of post war British achievement. I think without a doubt, the greatest single the Beatles ever released. It's their first one for eons not to become number one and kept off the top spot by Engelbert Humperdinck. So they're not having it all their way. But it is a transcendent achievement, isn't it? And it takes them back to Liverpool. So both Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields are locations in Liverpool?
- [14:24]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah. I think Strawberry Fields Forever might be my favorite Beatles song.
- [14:31]
Tom Holland
Penny Lane, for me with the trumpet. But they're both so incredible.
- [14:36]
Dominic Sandbrook
They also show you both sides of this incredible songwriting team and their perfection.
- [14:41]
Conan O'Brien
Living is easy with eyes closed.
- [14:47]
Misunderstanding all you see.
- [14:52]
It'S getting hard to be someone but it all works out it doesn't matter much to me.
- [15:03]
Let me take you down. Cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields.
- [15:14]
Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about.
- [15:21]
Strawberry feels forever.
- [15:26]
Dominic Sandbrook
And so this is how good the Beatles have become. You take these two songs and you don't even put them on the watershed album, sergeant Pepper. You take them off and issue them as a single. That would be unheard of today.
- [15:38]
Tom Holland
I mean, the only track I think, that transcends it is A Day in the Life, which is the last song on Sgt. Pepper, and perfectly fuses the best of John and Paul and is designed to be a kind of overwhelming symphonic experience. Here we are in Abbey Road. They invited vast orchestra to come in and play all kinds of mad tunes. And, you know, it crashes out and you're left with this incredible silence which continues on the album. And it's all very groovy and it's all very countercultural. And you do get the sense with Sgt. Pepper that the Beatles are starting to, as the Queen put it, go a bit odd. So it's not just that the music is more radical and edgy and kind of exploring new ways of developing, but they're all, you know, the facial hair is starting to develop and the hair is getting even longer.
- [16:35]
Dominic Sandbrook
I know that you and Dominic have beard obsessions, and the beards start to show up, the mustaches and soon beards. But it's a concept album. It really isn't. Paul had this idea that it would be a whole album done by a fictional band called sergeant Peppers. But they stick with that idea for maybe one or two songs, and then they give up, and then they give up, but it doesn't matter. It's really about that amazing cut cover. It's called the first concept album.
- [17:04]
Conan O'Brien
It doesn't go anywhere. Mr. Kite, all my contributions have absolutely nothing to do with this idea of.
- [17:10]
Tom Holland
Sergeant Peer and his band. But it works because we said it worked and that's how it appeared.
- [17:28]
Conan O'Brien
Sergeant Pepper taught the band to play. They've been going in and out of style, but they're guaranteed to raise a smile. So may I introduce to you the active number of years, sergeant Pepper's Lonely Heart Pepper.
- [17:46]
Dominic Sandbrook
They're dealing now with their work as real art. To own that album is to own a piece of art.
- [17:53]
Tom Holland
And it's seen as exemplifying the summer of love and this kind of. This radical developments that are taking place in San Francisco, particularly Haight Ashbury, as well as in kind of Carnaby street and Swinging London. And there is a track on sergeant Pepper called Lucy in the sky with Diamonds, which people point out, well, the initials of that song, lsd. And this is the time when the Beatles, even Paul, who's Been very reluctant to take it starts taking lsd. I mean, they always deny that it was, but it's kind of hovering in the atmosphere. And that sense of drugs is opening the mind. You know, you can tune in and discover new things about yourself. That is also part of the excitement for people who are listening to sergeant Pepper of what is going on, isn't it? The sense that new opportunities are. Are opening up.
- [18:47]
Dominic Sandbrook
There's this new idea that drugs can provide all these positive benefits.
- [18:52]
Tom Holland
Yeah.
- [18:52]
Dominic Sandbrook
And this is, you know, a number of years before we start losing people to drugs. And John tends to overdo things.
- [19:01]
Tom Holland
So he goes, he's all in.
- [19:02]
Dominic Sandbrook
He's all in on LSD to the point where he's positively green from it.
- [19:08]
Conan O'Brien
Lucy in sky with Diamond I was aware of them smoking pot. I wasn't aware that they did anything really serious.
- [19:19]
Dominic Sandbrook
In fact, I was so innocent that.
- [19:22]
Tom Holland
I actually took John up onto the.
- [19:23]
Conan O'Brien
Roof when he was having an LSD.
- [19:26]
Dominic Sandbrook
Trip, not knowing what it was.
- [19:27]
Tom Holland
Paul takes LSD because John is out off his face and he wants to kind of accompany John in his terrible kind of experience. So I was finding. Very touching. Moving illustration of their.
- [19:42]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, he felt the need to. I've gotta do this too, so that I can know what he knows. But he never goes as far as Jon. But this opens up a lot in their music. And of course, John is so influenced already by Alice in Wonderland imagery.
- [19:57]
Tom Holland
So that's the other thing, isn't it, that even as they are kind of pushing at the limits in a kind of Timothy Leary kind of way, they are still drawing on the. The traditions of their childhood. So you meant Alice in Wonderland, but even sergeant Pepper. I mean, they're kind of dressing up in Edwardian style uniforms. And there's the fairground noises in the benefit of Mr. Kite, which was a kind of fairground poster. There's a kind of Edwardian vibe there even as the hippies are crowding in.
- [20:22]
Dominic Sandbrook
I have a theory that many artists get lost in the 60s because you start to think, if I think of it and I do it, it must be good. There are many terrible songs written in the 60s, and there are many terrible movies made in the 60s. Especially in the later 60s, people can tend to lose their way because there's this concept that we just made it. It's wacky. It's what happened. It doesn't make sense, but it doesn't have to. I think the Beatles survive it really well because they're rooted in this discipline, the music hall music structure, production. Fine production they're rooted in all these things that help give them ballast. Even though, yes, they're taking lsd, they've been smoking a lot of pot. They always have that ballast of there's work to be done and it needs to be good.
- [21:12]
Tom Holland
And I think also they consistently have a sense of the ridiculous. They can recognize when people are making idiots of themselves. So it's interesting that George goes to San Francisco and he hangs out in Haight Ashbury and he wants to see the flower power revolution and hang out with the hippies and stuff. And actually he's, you know, he thinks there's quite a lot of casualties here and decides it's not really for him. I mean, everywhere we went people were.
- [21:41]
Smiling and, you know, sitting on lawns, drinking tea, you know, festivals of music and stuff. I mean, you know, that summer of a lot of that was bullshit, really. It was all what the press was saying. And so he wants to explore alternative ways of attaining enlightenment. And by great good fortune, he is put in touch with a guy called the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who has just turned up in London. And George persuades the other Beatles and Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull to get on a train with the Maharishi and go to Bangor in Wales. So what's your take on the Maharishi?
- [22:21]
Dominic Sandbrook
Well, I think the Beatles are very curious people and they always want to advance to the next level and learn more. And so when they hear about this Maharishi, they think, let's give it a try, let's hear him out. So that's what the trip, I think, to Bangor's about. It's a getaway, it's a happening. They all go together. Of course, Cynthia misses the train, which is very symbolic.
- [22:47]
Tom Holland
And also symbolic is the fact that while they're in Bangor, they get terrible news, which is that Brian Epstein, their manager, the guy who had shaped their career and kind of kept them on track, has died of an overdose back in London.
- [23:01]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, and there's footage right after they hear, they walk out. They're in Wales, they've listened to the Maharishi, they get the news that Brian's died. And bright, bright lights and a camera and you can watch this footage. They are completely traumatized.
- [23:17]
Conan O'Brien
Well, I don't know what to say, you know, we've only just heard and it's hard to think of things to say, but he was just abusable and fella, you know, and it's terrible.
- [23:26]
Tom Holland
What are your plans now?
- [23:28]
Conan O'Brien
Well, we haven't made any. I mean, it's only just. We only just heard. Yeah.
- [23:32]
Tom Holland
That was kind of stunning because we.
- [23:33]
Dominic Sandbrook
Were off on this sort of finding.
- [23:34]
Tom Holland
The man and there he was, dead.
- [23:37]
Dominic Sandbrook
And much later, John said, I knew then we'd had it, that this was the guy who kept everything together and he's gone. And particularly traumatic, I think, for John and probably Paul, too, because they had both lost key figures of their life as kids. They had lost their moms. You can see in that footage that they are dumbstruck.
- [24:02]
Tom Holland
The interviewer says to them, you know, what did the Maharishi say? And John's way, he basically gave us these platitudes. And John at this level isn't point, isn't saying their platitudes.
- [24:13]
Conan O'Brien
I understand that this afternoon Maharishi conferred with you all. Could I ask you what he, what.
- [24:20]
Tom Holland
Advice he offered you?
- [24:21]
Conan O'Brien
He told us.
- [24:24]
Not to get overwhelmed by Greece and to whatever thoughts we have of Brian to keep them happy, because any thoughts we have of him will travel to him, wherever he is.
- [24:34]
Tom Holland
But you can see that already Jon is not the kind of person probably who's going to think that the Maharishi is the guy to replace Brian in his life. I mean, you said that John will ultimately say, this is where it all ends. Let's explore that a bit further after a break.
- [24:53]
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- [26:02]
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- [26:34]
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- [27:08]
Hello everyone and welcome back to the Rest Is History, our Beatles themed extravaganza with Conan o' Brien and Conan. We left the Beatles traumatized by the loss of Brian Epstein, their manager, for so long, and kind of asking themselves, well, what does the future hold?
- [27:27]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, they're at a crossroads now. And it's funny, there'd always been probably some chafing against Brian in his suits and they had probably at times chafed, you know, at some of his ideas and concepts. But then when he's gone, I think they probably realized how much he had held them all together.
- [27:48]
Tom Holland
And you said in the first half that the Beatles are very good at not going off on kind of mad lunatic journeys that turn out to be disasters. Yeah, but actually that is what they do in the wake of Brian's death. Yes, because Paul, who almost by default is kind of stepping up to play the managerial role, says, well, why don't we go on a kind of groovy road trip round Britain? It could be a magical mystery tour.
- [28:13]
Conan O'Brien
Magical mystery tour is waiting to take you away Waiting to take you away.
- [28:39]
Tom Holland
And again, it's this kind of idea of traditional British culture that you get on a bus and you go off to Blackpool or something, combined with people claiming to be walruses and such like. So it's a kind of fusion of the psychedelic and the kind of seaside. But it's an absolute disaster, isn't it?
- [28:57]
Dominic Sandbrook
Well, I think one of the problems is that the Beatles are very confident people because when they've had to try things and do things, they. They're extremely highly competent, they haven't had a failure. But now they extend it to how hard could it be to direct and make a cohesive film? And I think Paul gets on the floor and he has a giant sheet of paper and he draws a circle. And then his way of creating the movie is, I think, to just section off parts of the circle. And arrows.
- [29:26]
Tom Holland
I mean, I like it. Yeah.
- [29:27]
Dominic Sandbrook
He would say it has great moments in it. He would say, look, it was shot in color. It was aired by the BBC on Boxing Day and in black and white on little screens. That's not the way it was meant to be seen. And it holds up if you really look at it. And there are a bunch of good things in it, but at the time, it's seen as a disaster. It gets panned by the critics. People think the Beatles have lost their minds.
- [30:10]
It's another big bump in the road for them. But I shouldn't say that it's in their way, terminal. Not. Not at all.
- [30:16]
Tom Holland
I think the I Am Auroras sequence, one of John's great songs, kind of ends up with King Lear muttering in the background. And they're all goo goo goo jooing in the background. And it's, I think, one of their great moments.
- [30:29]
Dominic Sandbrook
I love the video they in Magical Mystery Tour for I Am the Walrus. They seem to be at some kind of military complex. And it looks like they spent all of seven minutes setting up the scene with a piano and impromptu goofy masks and bald cap wigs that are just applied with no glue. But it's fun and it's them having fun and goofing around, which is infectious. So.
- [30:54]
Tom Holland
So the goofing around, that's been fundamental to the Beatles right from the very beginning, right back to the days of the Quarrymen or whatever. What is slightly newer is the idea of very earnestly going off and getting enlightenment in the Himalayas. Which is what then happens early in 1968, isn't it? And the Maharishi reappears because he's got a kind of a big place out in Rishikesh. And he says, come on, you know, come on out and. And sit at my feet. Learn wisdom.
- [31:24]
Dominic Sandbrook
When the Maharishi died several years ago, someone wrote a really thoughtful piece which said he's an important part of the Beatles story. Because after Brian's death, they've all had it, they're fraying, their lives are chaotic. And they do a very unusual thing for the biggest stars on Earth. They go to a retreat. They don't bring electric guitars, they bring these acoustic guitars, these Martin guitars. And they sit around and there's quiet and peace and there's nothing to do except chant. And they start writing songs. And essentially most of the White Album was written during that period. Like anything else, they take a moment and they make it work to their advantage. So even though they didn't find enlightenment and spirituality, they Wrote a ton of songs they might not have written otherwise.
- [32:16]
Tom Holland
Well, they kind of respond in different ways, don't they? So Ringo has gone out with baked beans.
- [32:20]
Dominic Sandbrook
He has a suitcase filled with Heinz baked beans. Because of his stomach.
- [32:23]
Tom Holland
He's worried about his stomach. Yeah, Paul is. I mean, he's kind of into it and kind of not really. John has a massive bust up, I feel, you know, and he writes an excoriation of the Maharishi, which he titles Sexy Sadie because he's worried about whether the Maharishi will be too cross with him or whatever. For George, Indian spirituality opens up entire, you know, portals through which he goes and will never come back. I mean, it's a massive, massive experience for him. A life changing experience.
- [32:55]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, yeah. A lot of people don't know Sexy Sadie. The original title was Maharishi. They made it a song. It's almost as if lawyers showed up and said, you have to change that.
- [33:03]
Tom Holland
You'll get yours yet.
- [33:04]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, originally it was Maharishi, you'll get yours yet. And it was the other Beatles saying, think of another title. Yeah. He didn't want to look like anyone had made a fool of him, so he's very angry and rejects it completely.
- [33:17]
Tom Holland
Yet another of the many songs that emerges from that period. And as you say, it goes on to the White Album. And I suppose two things to say about the White Album. First is it's white. I mean, it's not actually called the White Album, is it? It's called the Beatles. But it's such a deliberate contrast with the kind of Technicolor of sergeant Pepper, just this White Album. And the other thing is that it's a double album because they kind of feel we've got so many songs we want to put it all on. I know that George Martin later regretted that. What do you think? Do you think it should have been just a brilliant single album or do you have room for Revolution 9?
- [33:56]
Dominic Sandbrook
I say let the Beatles be the Beatles. And so I know George Martin thought, oh, it should just be one perfectly produced album, not a double album. But I'm on the Paul side of that. He says this in the Anthology. He says, you know, people say maybe it could have been this or it could have been that, and maybe there's some songs in there that are too many. And he said, oh, come on, it's the Beatles, it's the White Album. You know, I'm not a great one for that.
- [34:21]
Tom Holland
You know, maybe it was too many of that.
- [34:23]
Conan O'Brien
What do you mean?
- [34:23]
Tom Holland
It was great.
- [34:24]
Dominic Sandbrook
It's Sold.
- [34:24]
Tom Holland
It's the bloody Beatles white Album. Shut up. The Beatles still have so many great songs left in them. And particularly, I guess, Paul does, because by this point, John is starting to become increasingly disenchanted with his identity as a Beatle. And it's kind of fueled, I guess, by a couple of things. One is that he's starting to get seriously into heroin, which is obviously quite a drag on one's creativity. But the other thing is that he's got a new woman in his life, hasn't he? So he was married to cynthia, but by 1968, no longer.
- [35:01]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, John has met this artist, Yoko Ono, and he's infatuated with her. And this is. Obviously, many people say, well, this is what ended up breaking up the Beatles. But I think that's not true. People always want to blame somebody for something that I think would have happened anyway. And so, no, I don't think Yoko broke up the Beatles. She certainly creates strain in some of the recording sessions.
- [35:27]
Tom Holland
So I've actually been in a bag. The Tate Modern here in London did a show of Yoko's art two or three years ago. There's an opportunity to get in a bag. And we went in a bag and did a happening.
- [35:38]
Dominic Sandbrook
Okay, I hate to top you, I've been in a bag with Yoko. Yoko came on the show and she surprised me with a bag and she thought that I'd be too uptight to get into it with her. But of course, being a. A terrible ham, I said, absolutely. We both got in the bag and you're quite tall.
- [35:55]
Tom Holland
Was the bag big enough?
- [35:57]
Dominic Sandbrook
It was big enough. It was an extra large bag. I take an XXL in a bag. But I got into the bag with Yoko and then we were inside when there's a live studio audience, and she said, what do we do now? She said, well, that's it. Now we just get out of the bag and go to commercial. And I said, no, Yoko, we have to do something, because that's the comedy rule. So I start handing my clothes out. And then we emerged from the bag. I didn't take everything off, but I took, I think her. I think I took up an article of her clothing and put it on, which looked absurd because Yoko had a.
- [36:28]
Tom Holland
Thing where people would cut her clothing off, didn't she?
- [36:30]
Conan O'Brien
Yeah.
- [36:30]
Tom Holland
I mean, it's quite something to have been in a bag with Yoko. I mean, do you feel one of the great moments of your life or.
- [36:38]
Dominic Sandbrook
It's the greatest moment of my life. And I have been at the birth of both. Of my children. So I'm a sociopath.
- [36:45]
Tom Holland
No, you're a big. You're a fan of Yoko's art.
- [36:47]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah. The saddest thing to me about this period are the clips I see where you can tell John is impaired, he's on heroin or trying to come off heroin. And it makes me sad.
- [37:00]
Tom Holland
There'd kind of been, I think, a kind of gentleman's agreement among the police that it was fine to arrest the Rolling Stones for drug offenses, but you leave the Beatles alone. That sense is starting to fade by now. And John and Yoko are arrested and George is arrested. So there's a sense that the Beatles are becoming fair game now.
- [37:22]
Dominic Sandbrook
There was a hierarchy in the pop world.
- [37:24]
Tom Holland
Yeah.
- [37:24]
Dominic Sandbrook
Beatles are on top. Then the Rolling Stones, then the who, Kinks way at the bottom. Hermits. Hermits. But now things are changing. You can arrest a Beatle, you can arrest a Beatle and charge them.
- [37:35]
Tom Holland
So Paul, meanwhile, he's still very keen on being a Beatle, keeping the Beatles on track. And his response to John's breakup with Cynthia is to drive down to Weybridge from London to see Cynthia and John and Cynthia's son Julian, and he writes one of the great Beatles singles. Yeah, hey Jude Hey Jude yeah. They play it live on David Frost's show, and it's their kind of first live performance for a very long while.
- [38:08]
Conan O'Brien
It's my pleasure to introduce now, in.
- [38:09]
Tom Holland
Their first live appearance, for goodness knows how long, in front of an audience the Beatles.
- [38:17]
Hate you.
- [38:19]
Conan O'Brien
Don't make it bad.
- [38:23]
Take a sad song and make it better.
- [38:30]
Remember to let her into your heart Then you can start to make it get better.
- [38:42]
Hey, you.
- [38:45]
Don'T be afraid.
- [38:49]
You were made to go out again.
- [38:56]
The minute you let her under your skin Then you begin to make it.
- [39:07]
Tom Holland
And also, it's inordinately long, isn't it? So that's another kind of Beatles first.
- [39:11]
Dominic Sandbrook
It breaks all these rules. No track has been that long. And at the time, someone said by that point, people thought, well, the Beatles have had it. And then hey Jude comes out and it's a massive, massive hit.
- [39:26]
Tom Holland
And there's this amazing account of how Paul has the tapes and he's kind of driving through the English countryside and they're going back to London. They want to have, you know, take a break. And they arrive in this picture perfect village, and there's a pub, and the pub is open, and Paul goes in there and he plays hey Jude on the piano for people there, and then he plays the track and people will always remember It. It was one of the kind of examples of Beatles magic that you're just sitting in a pub and suddenly Paul McCartney walks in and plays hey Jude for you. That sense that that magic is still there is obviously a kind of powerful motivator for Paul, but also for the other Beatles as well. And so they are prepared to listen to him when he proposes that they get back. That they get back to kind of doing live shows. The footage that got taken of those sessions, which were kind of often seen as being very difficult and troubled. Peter Jackson kind of took the footage, didn't he, and made it into this incredible film where you can actually witness the process of sonic being made.
- [40:32]
Dominic Sandbrook
A lot of things I loved about Get Back, just. I'm a geek, so getting to see all the equipment, how it really worked, is fascinating. But basically the greatest thing is seeing these guys together and they're still making each other laugh. You get glimpses of the process.
- [40:51]
Tom Holland
There are so many bits in it I loved. But I loved the bit where, say, Paul by now is with Linda, who he will end up marrying the most eligible bachelor in the world. We'll get hitched to Linda, and Linda and Yoko are talking, and in the background, Paul is composing. Get Back. And it's like kind of watching. I don't know. Michelangelo think, oh, I don't know, should I have Adam and God and their fingers tight, maybe. I don't know.
- [41:14]
Dominic Sandbrook
He's in the background.
- [41:15]
Tom Holland
It's so brilliant. But also it's the fact that all of them look so cool. I mean, George. George just looks brilliantly cool in it.
- [41:23]
Dominic Sandbrook
They're also just little. Little fun things. I don't know what time of day it is, but Mal will say, does anyone want anything? And they'll all want some wine or.
- [41:32]
Tom Holland
Beer, cup of tea.
- [41:34]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, there's always a lot of toast. You're like, this is the biggest band in the world. And they've got. You know, there's not a bowl of cocaine, it's toast. Yeah, it's all very British, although you.
- [41:43]
Tom Holland
Can see that Jon is really not well. Of the four of them, John is the one who's most kind of faded at that point. Although they were very keen to have a kind of spectacular climax to this process of filming. And so there was talk about doing them on a cruise ship or doing it in a Roman amphitheater in Africa. But then they haven't really got the energy for any of this. And so they decide that they will have a rooftop concert on the Apple Building in Savile Row.
- [42:09]
Dominic Sandbrook
But there's hemming and hawing up until the moment. This is where Peter Jackson's documentary is so great. He lets you know that they're still in a back room. As the equipment's all set up and they're ready to go on the rooftop. They're still deciding whether or not they're gonna come out.
- [42:24]
Tom Holland
Yeah.
- [42:24]
Dominic Sandbrook
Because at this point, they have so many wounds from traveling and knowing what the spectacle was all about. They've been just living in a hobbit hole, engineering these great sounds. Why go out there and expose ourselves? So it's amazing when they come out.
- [42:40]
Conan O'Brien
Don't let me down.
- [42:47]
Don't let me down.
- [42:52]
Don't let me down.
- [42:58]
Don't let me down.
- [43:03]
Nobody ever loved me like she does.
- [43:09]
She does.
- [43:12]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yes.
- [43:12]
Conan O'Brien
She does.
- [43:16]
And if somebody love me like she does.
- [43:21]
Yes, she does.
- [43:24]
Yes, she does.
- [43:30]
Don't let me down.
- [43:35]
Don't let me down Me down.
- [43:41]
Don't let me down.
- [43:47]
Don't let me down.
- [43:54]
Tom Holland
And, you know, all of London gathers on the streets below. And then the police come and stop the fun. And actually, that's kind of, you know, perfect way for. Way for the film.
- [44:03]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, there was some disappointment. I think Paul really wanted them or George or Ringo. They really wanted the police to grab them and physically roll them off. Because that would be a better ending to the film. There's a part in it that's very sad to me, which is they're all. They're sitting in four chairs and Peter Sellers comes in. Do you remember this part? Peter Sellers comes in and says, hello, fellas. Five years before, they had met Peter Sellers. And it was one of the biggest thrills of their life. And they're young and they're excited. Now it's the number of years later and John's on heroin and they're tired and they're all sitting in four chairs, like mannequins, separate for some reason, that segment. And I think John makes a joke about. Watch out for the needles on the floor. He makes a heroin joke to Peter Sellers. And it's just starting to. The milk is starting to curdle a little.
- [44:56]
Tom Holland
Yeah. And adding to the stress is the fact that they're now supposed to be a business. So I mentioned the Apple Building in Savile Row. This is the headquarters for a groovy new company that the Beatles have set up as a kind of tax dodge. And they've set it up in a very 1960s hope that you get rid of the pigs and the man and the capitalists and Just let groovy people like Magic Alex, a Greek engineer, come up with lunatic schemes and everything will be great.
- [45:26]
Dominic Sandbrook
He could make a studio that levitates.
- [45:28]
Tom Holland
Yeah.
- [45:30]
Conan O'Brien
Hello, I'm Alexis from Apple Electronics. I would like to say hello to all my brothers around the world and to all the girls around the world and to all the electronic people around the world.
- [45:44]
Tom Holland
Apple, basically, they're saying, come in and rip us off. And so loads of people do come and rip them off. And so they've got money problems as well as all the other issues that are going on. Tensions over music, tensions over drugs, tension over, you know, their respective spouses and now money. And money's probably the kind of the biggest thing, because Paul wants his father in law, so Linda's father, to run their finances for them. And the other three want a guy called Alan Klein. I mean, he seems quite a kind of New York figure. Quite a New York character.
- [46:19]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah. I think thuggish is one word people might use. I think the Rolling Stones felt they had had a good experience with him. John hears about this tough guy who can come in and get you a better royalty rate. He's all down. It's actually in get back. John's had a meeting with him, and he goes and he says to George, I mean, I feel. I think he knows me as well as you do, or better, George. I mean, can you imagine George hearing this? He's been with John since 1957, 58. And now John's had one meeting.
- [46:50]
Tom Holland
Yeah. Well, no wonder George walks out.
- [46:52]
Dominic Sandbrook
I'll see you in the clubs. And he walks out. They get him back in, but there's a lot of bad feeling now and again. This is all part and parcel of Magical Mystery Tour. Hey, how hard could it be to make a movie? You know, the Apple Boutique? How hard could it be to make a shop and sell groovy clothes? Apple music. How hard could it be to just get rid of the obstacles and let groovy people be groovy?
- [47:16]
Tom Holland
Stick it to the man.
- [47:17]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah. And without accepting that maybe what made the Beatles great were hurdles and obstacles or added to their greatness. So there's a lot of naivete at this point. Yeah, it all seems kind of fun now, but I think they're pretty miserable.
- [47:33]
Tom Holland
So John has gone off and he's got married to Yoko in Gibraltar, near Spain.
- [47:44]
Conan O'Brien
Christ, you know it ain't easy.
- [47:48]
You know how hard it can be.
- [47:52]
The way things are going.
- [47:55]
They're gonna crucify me.
- [47:59]
Tom Holland
He's recorded Give Peace A Chance with the Plastic Ono Band. So there's a sense there of John looking to a musical future after the Beatles.
- [48:10]
Dominic Sandbrook
An off ramp.
- [48:11]
Tom Holland
And with Yoko, he is now very into taking kind of radical positions on Vietnam. Because I think he had recorded a track called Revolution and he'd sung two versions of it. And he said, you can count me out or you can count me in. And he decided to go with you can count me out. And felt embarrassed about that. And so he. Political activism is something that he's getting increasingly into. You can see kind of a new career direction for him with Yoko. And they've got all these money issues and arguments. And so it looks as if it's all over. But then there is one last glorious hurrah, isn't there? And we are sat here in Abbey Road. I embarrassed you, but I also embarrassed myself by getting you to pose on the zebra crossing outside. Which, of course, is the COVID of the album Abbey Road. Yeah.
- [49:05]
Dominic Sandbrook
I only objected cause I'm the last person alive to not pose. And now you made me do it.
- [49:10]
Tom Holland
I'm so sorry. I'm so sor. But Abbey Road. Are you a fan of Abbey Road?
- [49:15]
Dominic Sandbrook
Of course, yeah. Abbey Road is fantastic. And again, I don't think Let It Be should have been the last album.
- [49:22]
Tom Holland
No, it's such a downer, isn't it, compared to what we wrote.
- [49:26]
Dominic Sandbrook
There's great songs on Let It Be. And Let It Be was again, the Beatles being part of something that was really happening. Which is there was music like the Band and Creedence Clearwater Revival. That were stripping it all back, stripping it down, going the other way. So that's what they're doing. They're playing very stripped down.
- [49:44]
Tom Holland
Well, they're getting back, aren't they?
- [49:45]
Dominic Sandbrook
They're getting back, yeah, they're getting back. And so that's great, but it's not the heroic ending.
- [49:51]
Tom Holland
They should have water, doesn't it? Because the songs on Get Back are recorded during the Get Back sessions. And it's then released as their final album. But actually, the last time that they're in the studio creating an album is with Abbey Road. I think the moment on Abbey Road that I find the most moving. And, well, it's sad, but it's also triumphantly moving, is you never give me your money. Which is Paul singing about, you only give me your funny papers. It's this sense I'm bogged down in paperwork and arguments over finance and cash. And you see there the kind of the horror of the Beatles breakup. And then it's such a kind of classic Paul moment where he suddenly, you know, oh, hang this. We're off. And the kind of music soars. And they're off on a kind of journey.
- [50:37]
Conan O'Brien
Boy, you're gonna carry that weight. Carry that weight.
- [50:46]
Tom Holland
It's a move that Paul does again and again in his songs where you're down and then you free yourself. That, for me, is the moment in Abbey Road that it's an album that is taking wing after you thought that the feathers were tarred forever.
- [51:02]
Dominic Sandbrook
I was lucky enough to be in the audience for the Saturday Night Live 50th, and I had seats that were way off to the side. So for all the live sketches, I had a pretty good view, but not the best. And then I realized, oh, wait a minute, Here comes Paul McCartney to close the show with the final track on Abbey Road. And I'm sitting right there. I'm in the perfect spot.
- [51:30]
Tom Holland
Her Majesty.
- [51:31]
Dominic Sandbrook
No, not Her Majesty. Yes. Not them.
- [51:33]
Tom Holland
Yeah.
- [51:34]
Dominic Sandbrook
Okay, you're literal. Where they're trading guitar solos. And I got to watch Paul McCartney do that.
- [51:42]
Tom Holland
Yeah.
- [51:42]
Dominic Sandbrook
Out of body experience to see him do that. And also know that they ended on a perfect note. And I think there are people that moan about how the Beatles could have gone on instead of the 70s, but I think one of the things that makes them a true rarity in show business is their timing was impeccable always. And they ended on this beautiful note and then never came back. And that's one of the reasons that we are still talking about them today. I intend to hang around show business. I already have, long after I've served my purpose to an embarrassing degree. They timed it perfectly.
- [52:22]
Tom Holland
Do you think also that the news that the Beatles are breaking up comes out in 1970. So in a sense, the association of the Beatles with the 1960s is absolutely cemented by the fact that they don't survive into the next decade. And do you think that's kind of important part in framing the memory of them, the understanding of them, that they're associated so indelibly with everything that made the 60s kind of vivid and Technicolor?
- [52:53]
Dominic Sandbrook
I brought up this concept of luck early on. None of this is planned. Think about how short a decade is to us now. At this stage of my life, a decade is so quick. They are in 1960, 61, just really getting started. And in 1969, at the end of the year, they're finishing it up. And that wasn't planned. But like so many things with them, it's what happened, and it was perfect. Yes. In history books, 500 years from now there'll be. If there's a section on the 60s and there are only three photographs, one of them is gonna be of the Beatles.
- [53:33]
Tom Holland
So do you think that people will still be listening to the Beatles in 500 years?
- [53:38]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, I do. You know, this is with the caveat that we're all still here in 500 years. Hate to be a downer, but one never knows.
- [53:46]
Tom Holland
So unless we're destroyed in a nuclear holocaust, people probably will.
- [53:49]
Dominic Sandbrook
Or I'm tending more towards alien invasion. Oh, the aliens will love the music, but we won't be there anymore. Yeah, well, ship us off to a colony on Ryzaak 7.
- [53:58]
Tom Holland
So this episode is spiraling off in a direction that I hadn't anticipated.
- [54:02]
Dominic Sandbrook
No, that's my favorite thing, is to take something unlike the Beatles, I like to take something that is pretty perfect and then ruin it with my mad babblings.
- [54:12]
Tom Holland
It's starting to go a bit Plastic Ono Band. Yeah, so that can be good too. That is, I think, the perfect way to end this episode. The 60s are over. The 70s are dawning. Plastic Ono Band is waiting. Wings are waiting. All things must pass are waiting. Photograph Ringo's great hit is waiting. So it's certainly not over for the constituent parts of the Beatles, but the Beatles as a band are over. And I think on that note, Conan, I should thank you very, very much for joining me here in Abbey Road to talk about the Beatles.
- [54:47]
Dominic Sandbrook
Well, I think I've made it clear. Rest Is History is my favorite podcast. So when I got the call, would you be on Rest Is History at the studio where your favorite band and your obsession recorded their songs? That's a trip I had to make.
- [55:00]
Tom Holland
And you said that you were quite keen to be on the Rest Is History, but only with one of us. Cause you wanted to make the other one jealous.
- [55:08]
Dominic Sandbrook
Well, next time it'll be just Domin and we'll be doing beards of the Civil War and you will have to stew alone on your estate while we two yuck it up.
- [55:19]
Tom Holland
Dominic is left to reflect on the error of his ways. If only he'd been a little more enthusiastic about the Beatles, he could have been here too.
- [55:26]
Dominic Sandbrook
Or if he had understood anything about music.
- [55:28]
Tom Holland
Yeah, that's true. And on that tremendous Dominic oriented note, thank you everyone for watching or for listening. Goodbye.
- [55:38]
Dominic Sandbrook
Goodbye.
- [56:25]
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