Sunday, May 8, 2011

Somnambulent Adventures or Bringing The Boys Down

As I talked about in my June 4 and April 30, 2010 posts, The Beatles in 1966 worked the subject of sleeping into songs and interviews with a regularity that suggested that it was a strong element in one of The Beatles' lives. 

It was a theme that photographer Bob Whitaker picked up on in his series of four photographs of the Beatles that he labeled Somnambulent Adventure.  He gave varying explanations for the series that also included the Butcher cover photo.

I was reading The Kinks The Official Biography by Jon Savage (Faber and Faber, Ltd, 1984) and I found an interesting account of The Kink's Ray Davies' 1977 interview in New Musical Express where he described his "nervous breakdown" [my quotation marks]:
     "' I was a zombie.  I'd been on the go from when we first made it till then, and I was completely out
        of my mind.  I went to sleep and I woke up a week later with a moustache.  I don't know what
        happened to me.  I'd run into the West End with my money stuffed in my socks, I'd tried to punch
        my press agent, I was chased down Denmark Street by the police, hustled into a taxi by a
        psychiatrist, and driven off somewhere.
        I remember Robert [Wace, one of The Kinks' managers] came and picked me up with a doctor.
        I supposed it was all a bit near the mark. . . .  And all I remember is that Dave [Davies, his brother
        and fellow band member] brought a tape in, some people who were auditioning, and I fell asleep.
        I woke up, I swear, five days later, and they'd gone on tour.'"

A similar scenario is what I think also happened to Paul.