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We're sorry, but plenty of people in England haven't seen us
For everybody to see us at once, we'd have to do a world satellite TV show
It was supposedly the very first satellite hook-up around the world
I don't know how many millions of people but some phenomenal amount
It was probably the very earliest technology
that enabled that kind of satellite link
George Martin Record Producer John wrote All You Need is Love specially for the television show
It was a commission. Brian suddenly whirled in and said:
"We are to represent Britain in this round the world hook-up. Write a song"
Because of the mood of the time, it seemed a great idea to do that song
Everybody else was showing people knitting in Canada
and Irish clog dancers in Venezuela. We'll just sing All You Need is Love
It's a kind of subtle bit of PR
for God, basically
I don't know if the song was written before that
We were making an album at the time so lots of songs were in circulation
Paul may know more about that. Over to you, Paul
I'm not sure... it was John's song, mainly
I don't think it was written specially for it
but it was one of the songs we had. George Martin might have a better idea
It was certainly tailored to it, once we had it
But I've a feeling it was just one of John's songs
We went down to Olympic Studios in Barnes and recorded it
It became 'the song we should use'. I don't think it was written for it
Yeah, they wrote it specifically for that, and we all dressed up again
We were getting to love dressing up!
And we had another suit but mine was so bloody heavy
Simon and Marijke from The Fool - that was the company -
had all this beading on - as we'll cut to right now
It just weighed a ton
It was a fabulous time, musically and spiritually
We'd prepared a basic track for the recording, for the TV show
but we were going to do a lot live
The orchestra was live, and the singing and the audience and so on
We knew it was to be a live television show
There was also a camera in the control room, on us doing our bit
About 30 seconds to go on the air, there was a phone call
The producer of the show, saying "I've lost contact with the studio"
"You'll have to relay instructions to them as we'll be on air any moment now"
And I thought if you're going to make a fool of yourself...
do it in front of 200 million people!
The man upstairs pointed his finger and we did it, one take
Our World Global Satellite Broadcast 25th June 1967
I still believe all you need is love
but I don't believe that just saying it is going to do it
I still believe that love is what we all need
And it was for love
It was for love and bloody peace again. It was a fabulous time
Even now, I'm still excited when I realise that's what it was for
People putting flowers in guns, San Francisco was just exploding
Here was fabulous California, where we are, L.A.
It was just exciting times. And all for this loving feeling
And music. The whole rest of it was just music
There were psychedelic posters coming in from San Francisco. Great!
The summer of love's a little bit too easy, but some sort of golden summer
Everywhere we went, people were smiling
and sitting on lawns, drinking tea
Festivals of music and stuff
That summer of love, a lot was bullshit, just what the press were saying
But there was definitely a vibe
In America, we could feel what's going on, even though we were miles away
You could just pick up the vibes
I was all for going there and living on the Haight
In my head I thought acid is it, this is the answer, let's go
I'll go there and make music, but of course it didn't come true
In the end George went over
I went to Haight Ashbury expecting it to be this brilliant place
and it was full of horrible spotty drop-out kids on drugs
It certainly showed me what was really happening in the drug cult
It wasn't what I thought - of all these groovy people
having spiritual awakenings and being artistic
It was just like the Bowery, it was like alcoholism
It was like any addiction
So at that point I stopped taking it
the dreaded lysergic
I had some in a little bottle, it was liquid
I put it under a microscope and it looked like old rope
I thought, I'm not going to put that in my brain any more
I was influenced by acid and got psychedelic like the whole generation
but really I like rock'n'roll
It was one of those things that happened as life went on
We'd been into drugs and the next step is to try to find a meaning
That's where I really went for the meditation
There's this thing called a mantra
And a mantra is...
Through the mantra, you can follow a technique that helps you to transcend
To go beyond the waking, sleeping, dreaming state
So OK, I need a mantra - where do you go?
You can't go to Harrods and get a mantra
Then I met David Wynne, who showed me a picture and said he's coming to lecture
He's called Maharishi. So I got some tickets
Then I thought, I'll get some in case the others want to go
Oh yeah! So we went along and I thought he made a lot of sense
He basically said that with a simple system of meditation
20 minutes, morning and evening
no big crazy thing, you can improve the quality of your life
and find some sort of meaning in doing so
After the lecture-because the Beatles could get in anywhere -
so we got backstage, met Maharishi
I said to him "Got any mantras? Give us a mantra!"
He said "We're in Bangor tomorrow, you should come and get initiated"
At that time Maureen was in hospital having Jason
I was visiting
I came home and put on the answerphone
Even in those days we had answerphones
A message from John: "We've seen this guy and we're all going to Wales"
And from George: "Wow man, we've seen this guy, Maharishi. He's great!"
We're all going to Wales on Saturday. You've got to come
The Beatles seem to be among your supporters. How do you feel about that?
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi I feel a great fondness for the younger generation
If the Beatles take up this transcendental meditation
they are the ideal of energy and intelligence in the younger generation
That will bring youth to a very good level of understanding and intelligence
I am very happy that they heard my lecture last evening
We talked after the lecture. They seem to be very intelligent and alert
We'd rung our mates: "He's great this guy, you ought to come and see him"
It was like a good book you'd read. "Hey, try it, I'll send you a copy"
That kind of thing. "Come, he'll be there, come with us"
We got up there and there was a crowd to meet us
We all wandered through in our psychedelic gear
25th August 1967 It was like a summer camp
You sit around and he tells you how to do it
You go to your room and try to do it, and of course you can't
You sit there and you've got a mantra to meditate on
You think, bloody hell, that train journey was a bit much-sorry, mantra
Bloody hell, I wonder what our next record's going to be... oh stop, stop!
You spend all your first few days just trying to stop your mind...
dealing with your social calendar, whatever's coming up
God, he's a funny bloke, that Mah... oop, no, but it was good
I was really impressed with the Maharishi. He was always laughing
So we listened to his lectures and we started meditating
We were given our mantras
It was another point of view. We were getting into Eastern philosophies now
You just sit and let your mind go. It doesn't matter what you think about
Then you introduce the mantra, the vibration, to take over from a thought
You don't will it, or use your will-power
I seem to recall it was a phone call
Somebody came to us at Bangor and said...
...that he'd died. We were off finding the meaning of life, and he was dead
Neil Aspinall Tour Manager I heard it on the car radio that he'd died
The local shopkeeper said "Sorry about the news"
"What news?" He said "Your friend's died"
Our friend has gone
I don't know what to say, we've only just heard
27th August 1967 He was a beautiful fellow and it's terrible
What are your plans now?
We haven't made any, we've only just heard
It's as much news to us as it is to everybody else
I spoke to him Wednesday evening
The evening before we first saw Maharishi's lecture
He was in great spirits
I understand that this afternoon Maharishi conferred with you all
Could I ask what advice he offered you?
He told us not to get overwhelmed by grief
and whatever thoughts we have of Brian, to keep them happy
because any thoughts we have of him will travel to him, wherever he is
We were all gutted, you know. It was a huge shock
He was one of the people we had known longest
A huge confidant of ours
When anyone dies like that, it's the shock that you won't see them again
The blood drained from the face, you know - Brian's dead
There was very little we knew, other than that he'd been found dead
We just knew... well, that's it
It was very strange for it to happen at that precise moment
We'd just got involved with this meditation
Your belief system gets suspended because you don't want to hear it
You don't know what to do with it, anyway
If you look at our faces in the film, all a bit like...
What is it? What does it mean? Our friend has gone
More our friend than anything else. Brian was a friend of ours
I don't think there was anything sinister
Rumours came out that it was very sinister circumstances
But those are easy to do after the event
I went round a couple of days later - Brian had a butler working for him
and he didn't seem to feel there was anything suspicious
He felt that he wasn't in any sort of black mood
He could have been. I don't know. But my feeling was that it was an accident
I don't believe he committed suicide. I believe it was an accident
In those days, everybody was topping themselves accidentally
by taking uppers andlor amphetemine and alcohol
That happens, you know
I feel that happened with Keith Moon, one too many... I can deal with it
Jimi whatever... Jim, Mama, all those people
I don't think any of them set out to die
Have you a tribute you'd like to pay to Mr Epstein?
We don't know what to say. He was one of us, so you can't...
We can't pay tribute in words
I knew that we were in trouble then
I didn't have any misconceptions about our abilities other than to play music
I was scared. I thought we've fucking had it now
Brian Epstein 1934- 1967
There was a huge void, we didn't know anything about...
our personal business and finances
He had taken care of everything
I suppose it was chaos after that
We were kind of managing ourselves
It was very sad to lose an old mate under those circumstances
But I don't think the major worry was what next, not having a manager
We'd been moving away from that
We decided we had to keep on trucking
They'd always discussed whatever they were doing with Brian
Now there was nobody. There was Brian's organisation
but we hadn't related to that, we'd only ever related to Brian
We were suddenly like headless chickens. What are we going to do?
That's when Neil stepped in and tried to figure out what was happening
As far as I was concerned, we had to get it together
But the other people out there, Brian's associates if you like
accountants, lawyers, all that sort of stuff
I think maybe the lunatics had now got hold of the asylum
What were the Beatles going to do?
And so there was a lot of...
different advice coming in about what they should do
We decided we needed an office and organisation of our own
and that's really why we expanded Apple, 'cos Apple already existed
I think it was a publishing company in an office on Baker Street
Paul made an attempt to carry on as if Brian hadn't died
I think Paul had an impression we should be thankful for what he did
For keeping the Beatles going
At some point John got a bit annoyed, saying...
Paul's trying to be the leader of the group and stuff
It's possible that I was there more than anyone
When we did Magical Mystery Tour, I ended up kind of directing it
even though we said the Beatles have directed at the end
Just 'cos I was there most of the time
and the late night chats about the next day's work would tend to be with me
It was Paul's idea
It was basically a charabanc trip
which people used to go on from Liverpool to see the Blackpool lights
They'd get crates of beer and an accordion player and all get pissed
and just go... pissed in the English sense, meaning drunk...
and just go to see the Blackpool lights
It was a very flimsy kind of thing
I think it was Paul's idea. He and John sat down...
I think in Paul's place in St John's Wood, and they just drew a circle
Then marked it off like spokes on a wheel
"We can have a song here
"We can have this here, we can have this dream sequence there"
They mapped it out, but it was a bit rough
Then he came and showed me what his idea was
How it went round like this, the story and the production
He said here's the segment, you write a little piece for that
It was Paul who came with a piece of paper, the way we used to work
I'm not sure, it could have been mine
I'm not sure whether I want to take the blame for it
We were all in on it but a lot of that stuff could have been my ideas
I was coming up with a lot of concepts, like in Sgt Pepper
We all worked on all the stuff but I was coming up with a lot of ideas
We looked through the actors' book, The Spotlight or whatever
Oh, we need someone like that and someone like that
And we needed the large lady as my auntie
I was going to play this person with this auntie
We weren't doing a regular film, it was a crazy '60s film - I am the egg man
and I just wandered off to France and did that Fool on the Hill stuff
Just one morning with a couple of mates. It wasn't quite union
I remember quite a bit of it really, in a big hangar down in Kent
We were driving round this airfield in a Mini Cooper
Your Mother Should Know
That was quite interesting, I enjoyed that
There were always good songs
A couple of good songs and a few funny scenes
The scene to me that stands out
is the one of John shovelling the spaghetti on to the fat woman's plate
That was the best bit of the movie for me
That was an actual dream he'd had
He'd come in and say "Hey, I had this wild dream last night. I'd like to do it"
We'd just put them in. It was very haphazard
Looking back on it, you learn by your mistakes
It's quite interesting now, looking back on it as a period piece
People like Spielberg... I've read that people like him have said:
"When I was in film school, that was a film we really took notice of"
Like an art film, rather than a proper film
But of course we then released it
Got it shown on the BBC on Boxing Day
They showed it in black and white, and so... It was hated
They all had their chance then to say they've gone too far
Who do they think they are? What does it mean?
If you look to your left, ladies and gentlemen, the view is not very inspiring
Ah, but if you look to your right...
So that was really slated but when people started seeing it in colour
they realised that it was a lot of fun
Especially that aerial 'ballet' shot
We went all over Iceland, sent a guy out filming
In reality we hadn't done it...
as professionally as it could have been done
But it was our first go at that sort of stuff
It was in a very traumatic period of everybody's career, if you like
We did the best we could
I think under all the circumstances it really turned out very well
I think we thought it was OK, we were quite pleased with it
At the time it was all right, not the greatest thing we'd ever done
I defend it because nowhere else do you see a performance of I Am The Walrus
The only performance ever
so that's enough to make it an interesting film
And now we're going to play a track from Magical Mystery Tour
which is one of my favourite albums because it was so weird
I Am The Walrus is also one of my favourite tracks-because I did it
It has enough little bitties going to keep you interested 100 years later
We brought the Beatles to America in 1963
They can't be with us in person on our show, December 10th
when CBS and Mayor Lindsay will be naming this theatre after our show
But they sent this cablegram from London:
"Winter has come again to Great Britain and we sit by our fires, warming our feet
"We send all love to you and everyone looking in
"We are happy to be on your show, you too... too
"Have a beautiful Christmas and a sincere New Year. Love, The Beatles"
Signed by John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison
But tonight, although they can't be here, here are the Beatles on film
That was very thoughtful of the guys who prepared that for us
Incidentally, Hello, Goodbye is their latest hit record
In London, when the Beatles open a shop, everything slows down
A rolling stone's throw from Orchard St - Apple, the Beatles' new boutique
To mark the opening, the proud owners gave an apple-juice party
John Lennon and George Harrison were the hosts, the other two were out of town
Paul's in Liverpool and Ringo's in Rome
Disc jockey Alan Freeman talking to Cilla Black
Opening of the Apple Shop London 5th December 1967 Richard Lester, director of the Beatles films, among the 'in' crowd
On sale will be books, jewellery, paintings, hippy clothes and furniture
Apart from the loony clothes
and the hippy flower power stuff
There was supposed to be different music they now call World Music on sale
That's what we're supposed to do
and sell all these books about various things we were into
Various art or spiritual things, incense and whatever
All that kind of stuff. It looked quite good
The building was very nice-the painting was gorgeous. The Fool did that
A group of artists from Holland put this beautiful big mural on the wall
The Council got their knickers in a twist and said paint it white again
We said it's beautiful. Everyone loves it. Some residents probably objected
So then we were going to paint it white and project it from opposite
You know we were full of that. They were good ideas
Some you didn't get round to doing but it was a great ideas time
Far from the noise and pace of city life in the clear air of Rishikesh, North India
Pathe News reports from the meditation retreat of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
The man who through transcendental meditation
is currently bringing peace of mind to the Beatles
Rishikesh is an incredible place
99o/o of the population are all renunciants
It's right in the foothills of the Himalayas
It's where the Ganges flows out of the Himalayas
into the plains of Kurekchetra between Delhi and the Himalayas
We were away from everything. It was like a recluse holiday camp
right at the foot of the Himalayas
It's like a mountain, but it's the foothills, hanging over the Ganges
It was pretty exciting, we were in this really spiritual place
We were meditating a lot
We were having seminars by Maharishi
It was pretty far out
It was very much like a summer camp
You would get up in the morning, go down to a communal breakfast
The food was veggie, which is good for me now, but thinking back...
I was still meat-eating then, so it was all right, it was curries and stuff
The food was impossible for me
I'm allergic to so many things
I took two suitcases, one of clothes and one of Heinz beans!
We sat in the mountains eating lousy vegetarian food
and writing all those songs - we wrote tons of songs in India
Dear Prudence certainly got written there. Mia Farrow's sister was...
She sort of hibernated and meditated
We saw her I think twice in the two weeks I was there
Everyone would be banging on the door, "You still alive?"
Donovan was there and I remember I had a song called I Will
Do you remember a film show in the village?
What was that? - Did you write anything, George?
Obviously not - I wrote Sour Milk Sea
I wrote a number of songs which I never recorded. I wrote Dera Dhun
Why don't you play it for us, George?
I don't know if I know it
Something like that
There were lots of things the Maharishi had said-like that song C'mon c'mon -
C'mon it's such a joy
Everybody's got something to hide except for me and my monkey
Apart from the bit about the monkey, that was just what Maharishi used to say
A helicopter landed by the banks of the Ganges in Rishikesh
"One of you can go up for a ride with Maharishi, who's it going to be?"
"Me sir, me sir, sir, sir" and of course it was John
John was good at that, so it got to be him anyway
Later I asked "Why were you so keen to get up with Maharishi?"
"To tell you the truth, I thought he might slip me the answer." Very John!
I gave myself a set period, then if it was something we had to go back for
I was thinking of going back
But at the end of my month I thought, this'll do me
If I want to get into it heavy, I can do it anywhere-you don't need a church
I didn't come back with the others, anyway - I don't recall
Ringo probably came back quickly
He went for a couple of weeks to put his toe in the water and see what it was like
And Paul just came and went
George and I were there four months. We lost 13 pounds and looked a day older
Do you think this man's on the level? - I don't know what level he's on
But we had a holiday in India and have come back rested to play businessmen
Whose idea was Apple? I don't know
It was around, I think, before Brian died
I think Apple was the accountants' idea
"You must diversify"
The big theory was to put all our affairs into one bundle
We'd have our own company Apple, a record label, all we'd ever wanted to do
They all rang from England one morning
and said we're starting this company, Apple
so we upped and went to live in Surrey
and I became Apple Press Officer
The sole purpose of Apple
was so people didn't have to beg any more-artistes
If they had a valid idea we would front them
We had a publishing company, a record company
We should have had a big sign: You don't have to beg
The idea was we'd go to America and we'd say:
"Apple is starting - send us your huddled talent...
"we're interested." So we wanted a nice big launch
I had a strange feeling, I was very nervous
I had a real sort of personal paranoia on me
I don't know if it was what I was smoking then, but it was very strange
I remember being interviewed and John was doing great
He was wearing a bus driver or prefect badge
"What's that mean?"
Mr Lennon, can you tell us what it is you're wearing?
It's just a white button and that's 'bus prefect'
And that's what? - Bus prefect
He's in charge of a bus
They went on the Johnny Carson Show but Johnny Carson wasn't there
Joe di Maggio, I think, was the guy
Because Johnny was on holiday
It was one of the things that John said on that show:
"We'll just spin it like a top and see where it goes"
What do you see in the years ahead?
Apple... we'll try and set it up and then see where it goes
It's like a top. We'll set it going and hope for the best
That was pretty much what happened actually
We had some ideas... Wouldn't it be nice if...
because we got screwed in business all the time
You know how you have to go down on your knees. John famously said:
"We don't want people to have to go down on their knees"
It's a business concerning records, films and electronics...
Apple Press Conference New York 14th May 1968
But we want to set up a system whereby people who want to make a film
don't have to go on their knees in somebody's office-probably yours
Well, we did this mad thing
Maybe put an ad in the paper, saying:
"Send us your tapes and they will not be thrown away. We will answer"
We were just inundated with tapes and poetry and scripts
I don't think we got any bands or any artistes by that method
We never really got much from the tapes sent in
but people knew we were interested - Peter Asher brought along James Taylor
Derek Taylor Apple Press Officer When I started at Apple in April '68, James Taylor was already there
He was in the office with Paul and Peter Asher
Mary Hopkin was the main thing, you know
I didn't bring her, she was on a talent show
Mary Hopkin came from the Hughie Green... whatever his show was called
Opportunity Knocks!
I think Mal Evans found Badfinger, who were called the lveys at the time
Badfinger I thought came through Paul
And I produced Doris Troy and a record by Jackie Lomax
Jackie Lomax
James Taylor
The lveys
Badfinger
Mary Hopkin
Anyone was welcome to show up and produce as much as he wanted
But people didn't do the same amount of work
I lived in London, I was there more
so I probably did a bit more production than Ringo
I'm not sure what Ringo did
I wasn't as involved as the others
It was fun. We'd go in
A lot of what it did related to the four of us
John wanted to do stuff like Zapple
He wanted a funky label that he'd do crazy stuff on
so that became his area, which was quite nice
Maybe it was exciting for everybody else and for people from outside
For me, it was a lot of hard work setting it up and a lot of chaos
I was still in India when it started
I think it was basically John and Paul's...
madness, ego running away with themselves or with each other
It's just trying to mix business with enjoyment
We find ourselves in business
Are you the directors of this?
Yeah, but all the profits won't go into our pockets
They'll go to help people but not like a charity
We were just guys goofing off, having a lot of fun
Trying to get things under our control, which a lot of people do now
They have their own companies, take lawyers to meetings, get good deals
It was the start of all that but a pretty haphazard start
We had a lot of ideas of we could do this and we could do that
But when it came down to it really
all we could do was write songs, make records and be Beatles -
successfully
or maybe twice
there was an unearthly paradise called Pepper Land
The first thing when we heard they were going to do a cartoon
about a man who sailed to sea and went to the land of submarines...
Go down under the water, see these things, meet all the people living there
But we were into psychedelic stuff with Pepper
and they wanted more of that kind of stuff
It was up to them and we went along with that and they had the 'sea of holes'...
I think seeing it now it's pretty good, quite interesting really
Yeah, I liked the film. I think it's a classic film
We never did our own voices but probably the actors were better
You needed to be more cartoon-like, our voices were pretty cartoon-like anyway
But the exaggeration with the actors' voices
I think it suits it
That's where all of that stuff came from... that terrible fake Liverpool accent
They do look very nice, don't they? - Yes, they do
They do though, don't they? - Yes, they do
What's the matter fellas? Blue meanies?
The thing with that film that still blows me away...
was all the kids coming up to me, saying "Why did you press the button?"
As you know, I pressed that button to get shot out
Kids from all over the bloody world shouting "Why did you press the button?"
Don't touch that button - Which button?
That was the panic button
The film does go for every generation
Every four-year-old goes through Yellow Submarine
Hey! Look at John, will yer - What's the matter? Blue meanies?
Newer and bluer meanies have been sighted. There's only one way out
How's that? - Singing!
One... two... three... four...
Yoko was having an art show in London at the Indica Gallery
I heard this was going to be a happening so I went the night before the opening
The first thing as you went into the gallery was a white step-ladder
and a painting on the ceiling and a spy-glass hanging down
I went up the ladder, picked up the spy-glass. In teeny writing it said YES
If it had said NO or something nasty...
like rip-off or whatever, I would have left the gallery
Because it said YES, I thought it's the first show that said something warm to me
So I decided to see the rest of the show and that's when we met
The naked album cover was less general than that
Meaning that was one of the first things we did
We felt like two virgins, that's what the album was called
We were in love, just met and we were trying to make something
He showed me this cover
and I pointed to The Times
"Oh, you've even got The Times in it," like his dick wasn't out, you know
I said "Come on, John, you're doing all this stuff
"It may be cool for you but you know we have to answer
"It doesn't matter which one of us does something, we all have to answer for it"
He says "You only have to answer the phone" so "OK, fine"
From that point on
they were never to be seen without each other
for the next few years at least
The trouble was for us it encroached on our framework that we had going
Basically it had only ever been the four of us in the studio
maybe with Neil and Mal as the two roadies
or George Martin up in the control room or an engineer to fix a mike
But in our whole recording career that had been the setup
I used to ask John, "What's this about?
"What is happening here? Yoko's at all the sessions"
He told me straight: "When you go home to Maureen
"and tell her how your day was, it's 'Well, we had a good day in the studio"'
And he says, "Well, we know exactly what's going on"
That's how they started to live - every moment together
Everybody seemed paranoid except for us two in the glow of love
Everything's clear when you're in love and everybody was tense around us
What is she doing here at the session, or why is she with him?
All this madness because we wanted to be together all the time
Subtitles: Screentext
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