Friday, April 20, 2018

The Origins Of Paul (And John)'s Little War, Part Two

Between the time of the announcement of the MBE's and the actual presenting of them--June 12, 1965 to October 26, 1965--The Beatles were invited to play before Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip in the annual Royal Variety show.  This is the same format that doomed real Paul and real John in 1963.

I want you to notice the date of the 1965 event:  November 8th.  Remember the Sgt. Pepper drumskin clue (see photo below), where people speculated whether Paul had died on September 11th., 1966 OR November 9th., 1966?
                                                       
What is NOT widely reported [try Googling it] is that The Beatles
turned down the invitation to the Royal Variety Program of 1965.

I found three mentions of The Beatles' refusal:
1.)  New Musical Express of October 22, 1965 with the headline:
      "Beatles Said No to Royal Show."
2.)  New Musical Express of October 29, 1965:  "Were The Beatles
      Right to Refuse Royal Show?"
3.)  KRLABeat of November 20, 1965 that quotes Paul as saying,
      "'If we went on and those people didn't like us everyone would say "Ha, ha, The Beatles failed,
       they're on the slide.'"   But if you look at a British Movietone summary of The Beatles getting
       the MBE's on October 26, 1965, you can see Beatlemania was still rampant in England.  (See
       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo0WNrhyho4  )  Paul. I am sure, was aware of this and he
       made that excuse to royalty with wide-eyed insincerity.
      
So, The Beatles REFUSED to play on the Royal Variety Show.

The only video I could find on the internet of the November 8, 1965 Royal Variety Program was a comedy routine by the British comedy duo of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore.  See the video at:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQCleTuRzSo .  From 5:47-10:46 in the skit, they humorously discuss the artificiality of show business and how celebrities often use stand-ins and have their looks manipulated by camera trickery.  "Everything's so artificial and false . . ." Pete says at 5:44-5:46.  Was this skit a commentary on the Pauls and Johns that were in and out of The Beatles?

Where were The Beatles on the night of November 8, 1965?  They were at the Abbey Road studio working on, 1.) George Harrison's song, "Think For Yourself" and, 2.)  The group's third Christmas fan club record.

Their recording session lasted from 9PM on Monday, November 8th., 1965 to 3AM on Tuesday, NOVEMBER 9th., 1965.

Producer George Martin recorded the entire session, ostensibly because he hoped The Beatles might say humorous bits that could be used on the fan club record.

Listen to the "Think For Yourself" session on Youtube at:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQdcpmFQOZs .

At 5:17-5:53 in the recording, John does a mini-"religious sermon" declaring at 5:26-5:30:  "And I tell you, brethren, there's more of them than there are of us."  If you couple John's "sermon" with an interview with The Beatles on October 28, 1964 that appeared in the February, 1965 issue of Playboy
magazine, you can see the origin of John's March, 1966 "Beatles bigger than Jesus" statement.

In the Playboy interview, The Beatles were declaring themselves to be agnostics "but we're not anti-Christ," according to Paul.  Paul said in that interview that "In America, they're fanatical about God."  So The Beatles were well aware that Americans took religion seriously--and, if you believe Paul--some Americans took their religion more than seriously.

If our Paul and our John felt they were next in line to be ousted from The Beatles, they, I surmise, wanted to take the group's popularity down with them.  How better than to target and destroy the loyalty of The Beatles' biggest fan base?

The other half of "Project Beatles-Undoing" was the butcher cover. 

The Beatles worked on their Christmas fan club record in two sessions:  the Abbey Road session around 2AM on November 9th., 1965 and the other session at Marquee studio in London on October 19, 1965.  At the Marquee studio session, Tony Barrow, their publicist at the time, wrote a script for them.  That session fell apart but the outtakes from the session are very interesting.  Listen to them on Youtube at:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrMJTFzQUr8 .

At 1:21-2:32 on the tape, there's an EXTREMELY sick dialog about a baby being cut up.

The person who posted the video has a photo of the butcher cover during that segment and I absolutely agree that this was the beginning of the butcher cover idea.

So let's review the timeline of Paul and John's little war:
  • Sometime in October, 1965, The Beatles refuse the invitation to appear at the Royal Variety Show.
  • October 19, 1965, the butcher cover idea is hatched.
  • November 9, 1965, the "bigger than Jesus" idea is hinted at.
  • March 4, 1966, the London Evening Standard publishes Maureen Cleave's interview of John complete with the "Beatles bigger than Jesus" statement.
  • March 25, 1966, The Beatles do the butcher cover photo session.
The war was on.  The question is:  Did Paul lose the war on November 9, 1966 that was kicked off in earnest on November 9, 1965?

















 

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