زندگی و مرگ

Life and Death

Not long after Sergeant Pepper, the Beatles were invited to play in a live television programme called Our World. Different countries had to make different parts of the show, and the makers of the programme wanted the Beatles to play for Britain’s part. John wrote the song and on 25 June 1967, about 350 million people all around the world watched the programme.

The Beatles weren’t alone in the television studio. A lot of other musicians played and it was like a big party. Eric Clapton and Mick Jagger were both there. John’s song was perfect for the programme: ‘All You Need Is Love’ was a mirror for the dreams and hopes of young people around the world in 1967.

STORY BEHIND THE SONG

At the end of ‘All You Need Is Love’, the Beatles joked about two of their old songs. John sang ‘Yesterday’ and Paul sang a line from ‘She Loves You’.

Around this time, George was continuing to learn more about Eastern ideas. He asked John and Paul to listen to a talk by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in London. The Maharishi was an Indian who taught Eastern ways of thinking.

The Beatles wanted to know more. In August, all four of them took a train to Bangor in North Wales. They wanted to spend a few days studying with the Maharishi.

A sad sign

Cynthia Lennon wanted to go too, but the usual Beatles crowds were at the train station and Cynthia missed the train. She watched as her husband left without her. For her, this was a sign of the end of their marriage.

While the Beatles were searching for the meaning of life, sad news reached them from London. Brian Epstein was dead. ‘He was one of us,’ John told a reporter.

On the Bus

Epstein’s death brought another problem. The Beatles knew nothing about business. ‘We were in trouble then,’ said John. Ringo has described the band as ‘chickens without heads’ at that time. In the middle of this difficult time, Paul had an idea. He wanted to make a television film. He was trying to help the band, but in John and George’s opinion, Paul was trying to lead them.

The idea for the film was simple. Forty-three people - with the Beatles - drove around the country in a bus. This time, they didn’t have a story to act. They just filmed what happened. There was one problem - nothing really did happen.

Magical Mystery Tour was shown on television in Britain just after Christmas, 1967. Almost fifteen million people watched. They loved the songs, like Paul’s ‘The Fool on the Hill’ and John’s ‘I Am the Walrus’. But not many people liked the film. The colour film was shown in black and white on television. But this wasn’t the reason why it wasn’t popular. For some people it was boring, for others it was too strange. For the first time, the Beatles really failed.

STORY BEHIND THE SONG

The idea for ‘I Am The Walrus’ came from Lewis Carroll’s book Alice in Wonderland. John said, ‘The words don’t say a lot…’

In February 1968, the Beatles travelled to India to study again with the Maharishi. The trip had a different meaning for each of them. Ringo went with two suitcases - one of clothes and one of English food in tins! He didn’t stay long. Paul says that he enjoyed this time in India. But John and George stayed longer. George continued to defend the Maharishi, but John soon became angry at their old teacher. A song on the band’s next album was an angry attack on him.

Back in Britain, there were no simple answers in business for the Beatles. They opened the Apple shop in London. Paul called it ‘a beautiful place where you can buy beautiful things’. The shop lost money almost immediately. But Apple was more than a shop. It was a big company that produced music and films. The Beatles began to produce other musicians. Paul was most interested in Apple’s business. He was there more because he lived in London. But the others felt that Paul was trying to lead the band again.

Yellow Submarine

In July 1968, there was another Beatles film in cinemas.

The band recorded a few new songs for Yellow Submarine, but they didn’t even do the voices in the film. In the story, the band saved a strange place called Pepper land with their music.

A New Album and a New Love

In 1968, Cynthia and John Lennon’s marriage ended. John was with Yoko Ono now. He first met the Japanese-American artist at an art show in 1966 and they slowly fell in love.

STORY BEHIND THE SONG

Paul felt sorry for Cynthia and Julian Lennon. The boy was only five. Paul wrote a song for him. He later changed the words from ‘Hey Jules’ to ‘Hey Jude’.

Everything changed for John with Yoko. He often spoke of her as his teacher. Together they explored new ideas. These were called crazy by many people, but John and Yoko weren’t worried. They made their first record together in one night. It was an exploration of sounds. But the biggest news was the cover. It showed John and Yoko without any clothes. ‘We just wanted to be together all the time,’ remembered John.

John and Yoko were together in the studio, too, as the Beatles started their next album. This soon became a problem for the other Beatles. Ringo asked him, ‘What’s this all about?’ The other two and George Martin were angrier. When Yoko was ill, John even brought a bed into the studio for her!

In 1968 the Beatles’ White Album had other problems. Ringo left the band for a time. (The band recorded a few songs without him.) In his opinion, the other Beatles didn’t need him. When they all asked him back, the drummer returned happily. ‘I loved the White Album’, he remembers now.

But not everyone had this opinion. John spoke about the start of the band’s ‘slow death ‘at this time. The musical interests in the band were more and more different. The Beatles were less and less a real group. Sometimes the album was recorded in three different studios at the same time, as John, Paul and George worked on their own songs.

The double album mixed many different kinds of music. ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’ was a happy pop song, while ‘Revolution 9’ was a strange piece of ‘sound art’. In ‘Back in the USSR’ the band cleverly sounded like the Beach Boys. George’s best song on the album was probably ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’. His friend Eric Clapton joined the band to play on this song.