1965
January 1
Hammersmith Odeon, London: Another Beatles' Christmas Show.
Radio Luxembourg began a regular weekly show entirely devoted to The Beatles' music, introduced by Chris Denning.
January 2
Hammersmith Odeon, London: Another Beatles' Christmas Show.
January 4
Hammersmith Odeon, London: Another Beatles' Christmas Show.
Paul attended a special luncheon at the Cafe Royal in London's Regent Street, in honour of music publisher Dick James. At the event, James revealed that John and Paul had earned more than £1 million as songwriters alone during 1964.
January 5
Hammersmith Odeon, London: Another Beatles' Christmas Show.
January 6
Hammersmith Odeon, London: Another Beatles' Christmas Show.
January 7
Hammersmith Odeon, London: Another Beatles' Christmas Show.
January 8
Hammersmith Odeon, London: Another Beatles' Christmas Show.
After this evening's performance, The Beatles were given a private view of the Boat Show at the nearby Earl's Court Exhibition Hall. By midnight they were paddling around an artificial lake in a rubber dinghy and trying out the radio-controlled mini-powerboats.
January 9
Hammersmith Odeon, London: Another Beatles' Christmas Show.
The album Beatles '65 reached number one in the US charts.
John read from In His Own Write on Dudley Moore's BBC2 programme Not Only . . . But Also.
January 11
Hammersmith Odeon, London: Another Beatles' Christmas Show.
January 12
Hammersmith Odeon, London: Another Beatles' Christmas Show.
January 13
Hammersmith Odeon, London: Another Beatles' Christmas Show.
January 14
Hammersmith Odeon, London: Another Beatles' Christmas Show.
January 15
Hammersmith Odeon, London: Another Beatles' Christmas Show.
After that evening's performance, Ringo and George spent the evening at a party given by Melody Maker journalist Bob Dawbarn.
January 16
Hammersmith Odeon, London: Another Beatles' Christmas Show. Final performance.
January 20
Ringo Starr proposed to Maureen Cox at the Ad-Lib Club in London. Maureen accepted.
January 21
The US Music Publishers Association names John and Paul "Top Songwriters Of 1964".
January 25
John and Cynthia flew to the Alps to join George Martin and his future wife Judy Lockhart-Smith on a skiing holiday.
January 26
George Martin was injured during his skiing holiday with the Lennons. To ease his recuperation, John played him the bare bones of a new song he was writing during the holiday, provisionally entitled 'This Bird Has Flown'.
January 27
The music publishing company Maclen Limited was formed with John, Paul and Brian Epstein as directors.
Brian Epstein held a press conference in London to announce The Beatles' plans for 1965. These included a European tour in July, at the centre of which would be a live TV broadcast from Paris, seen all over Europe (although not in Britain). Also on the agenda was an American tour in August, which was set to include at least one concert in Mexico.
Epstein also confirmed that The Beatles hoped to begin work on a third feature film project before the end of 1965.
January 28
George and Patti flew to Europe on holiday.
January 29
The European-only pressing of the single 'If I Fell'/'Tell Me Why' was released in the UK as Parlophone DP 562 to a few record stores by accident. The single was pressed by EMI for foreign export only but these copies were sold by sales reps in error.
February 1
The EP 4 By The Beatles was released in the US as Capitol R 5365. Side A: 'Honey Don't', 'I'm A Loser'; Side B: 'Mr. Moonlight', 'Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby'.
February 3
Ringo and Maureen attended a special lunch function for the millionaire, Paul Getty Jr.
February 4
Paul and Jane flew to Hammamet, Tunisia, for a holiday, staying at a free villa provided by the British Embassy.
February 7
John and Cynthia, George Martin and Judy returned to England from their holiday. George Martin was hobbling because he had broken a toe on the ski slopes on his first day.
February 8
Music publisher Dick James was reported to have taken out £500,000 worth of life insurance on his two most lucrative clients, John and Paul.
The Beatles' accountant Walter Hofer, informed the press that both the UK and US tax authorities were seeking payment from the group. "We are not at all resisting the tax," Hofer explained, "but we don't want to have to pay it twice."
February 10
Brian Epstein named the third Beatles' feature film project as A Talent For Loving, based on a novel by Richard Condon. He announced that the movie would be financed by his own newly formed company. Pickfair Films.
February 11
Ringo married Maureen Cox at Caxton Hall Register Office, London; registrar Mr D.A. Boreham. John, George and Brian Epstein attended but Paul was still in North Africa.
MAUREEN
Ringo had known Maureen, a hairdresser, since the Cavern days and they had been going out together virtually ever since. "This means two married and two unmarried Beatles - two down and two to go," commented George. They drove to Hove, Sussex, for a brief honeymoon at the home of their solicitor David Jacobs on Princes Crescent. Maureen would have three children by Ringo, Zak, Jason and Lee.
February 12
Ringo and Maureen gave a press conference in David Jacobs' back garden.
February 14
Ringo and Maureen returned to London from their honeymoon. Paul and Jane returned to London from Tunisia.
February 15
That morning John passed his driving test in Weybridge.
Abbey Road. The group arrived at 2.30 and spent the afternoon recording John's 'Ticket To Ride'. The evening session from 7 until 10.30 was spent recording Paul's 'Another Girl' and George's 'I Need You'.
The single 'Eight Days A Week'/'I Don't Want To Spoil The Party' was released in the US as Capitol 5371.
February 16
Abbey Road. An afternoon session completing 'I Need You' and 'Another Girl'. From 5 until 10pm they recorded John's 'Yes It Is' but the session did not go well. John was unhappy with the results and swore a lot.
During a break in recording, The Beatles collected various awards from EMI, presented by Sir Joseph Lockwood. Among them was the Carl Alan Award, given to the "Best Group Of 1964". The group were also given a set of traditional Japanese dolls, gifts from the Japanese arm of the EMI empire.
February 17
Abbey Road. An afternoon session from 2 until 7 was spent recording Paul's 'The Night Before', after which they worked until 11pm on George's 'You Like Me Too Much'.
February 18
Abbey Road. The Beatles arrived at 10am and spent the morning mixing. John's 'You've Got To Hide Your Love Away' was recorded during the afternoon session. John: "This was written in my Dylan days for the film Help! When I was a teenager I used to write poetry, but was always trying to hide my real feelings." Ringo recorded 'If You've Got Trouble' during the evening session but John and Paul, who wrote the song specifically for Ringo, were not happy with the results and the track was not used. The remainder of the evening session was spent recording Paul's 'Tell Me What You See'.
The rest of the evening was spent in the clubs.
Northern Songs was launched on the stock exchange. Two million of the company's five million shares were made available to the public, at seven shillings and ninepence apiece (39p). The share price immediately dropped to below six shillings (30p), but soon recovered to fourteen shillings (70p).
February 19
Abbey Road. The group made a late start. John's 'You're Going To Lose That Girl' was recorded in a three-hour afternoon session beginning at 3.30.
That evening The Beatles attended a private party given in their honour at The Connaught Hotel, Carlos Place, by the chairman of EMI, Sir Joseph Lockwood.
February 20
Abbey Road. The group arrived around midday and recorded the unreleased 'That Means A Lot'. Work finished at 6pm to allow them to pack for the flight to the Bahamas.
February 21
The Beatles' baggage was collected, ready for the flight.
February 22
The Beatles flew to the Bahamas from Heathrow in a chartered Boeing 707 to begin filming Help!; 1,400 fans waved goodbye. Actress Eleanor Bron, the female lead in their movie, travelled with the group. There was a refuelling stopover in New York en route but The Beatles did not leave the aircraft, despite US Customs and Immigration insisting that they should pass through US Customs. They lit up immediately after take-off and didn't stop giggling until the plane landed. In the Bahamas they stayed in a house in the grounds of the Balmoral Club near Cable Beach. The hotel consisted of several large houses set in luxurious gardens, complete with an Olympic-sized swimming pool.
The Beatles' arrival in Nassau was watched by thousands of local fans, while media interest meant that a press conference had to be hastily arranged at the airport. Having checked in to their suites at the Balmoral Club, the group went for a midnight swim in the ocean.
February 23
Filming on New Providence Island, Bahamas.
February 24
Filming on New Providence Island, Bahamas. The Beatles usually began work at 8.30 to get in a full day's shooting.
February 25
Filming on New Providence Island, Bahamas.
February 26
Filming on New Providence Island, Bahamas.
February 27
Filming on New Providence Island, Bahamas.
February 28
Filming on New Providence Island, Bahamas.
March 1-9
Filming on New Providence Island, Bahamas. The Beatles worked solidly during their stay in the Bahamas with no days off.
John: "The most humiliating experiences were like sitting with the Mayor of the Bahamas, when we were making Help! and being insulted by these fuckin' junked up middle-class bitches and bastards who would be commenting on our work and commenting on our manners. I was always drunk, insulting them. I couldn't take it. It would hurt me. I would go insane, swearing at them."
Among their visitors in the Bahamas was their former press officer Derek Taylor, who had been given the unenviable task of exploiting his friendship with The Beatles to obtain exclusive interviews for Los Angeles radio station KRLA.
March 3
George Martin's contribution to The Beatles' remarkable success was finally acknowledged by his EMI superiors; he received a promotion, and a small pay increase.
March 6
Brian Epstein announced that plans for The Beatles'July concert in Paris to be televised across Europe had been cancelled. Instead, a camera team would be filming their performance at Shea Stadium in New York during August.
Epstein also confirmed that the plan for John to release a spoken-word album of extracts from In His Own Write had now been abandoned.
March 10
The Beatles began the journey back to London.
March 11
The Beatles arrived at Heathrow Airport at 7.05am from the Bahamas.
March 13
The Beatles took the 11am flight to Salzburg, Austria to continue filming Help!. At Salzburg Airport, 4,000 fans were waiting to greet them, as well as the press. They gave a press conference in a nearby hotel before checking into the Hotel Edelweiss in Obertauern where all the filming took place.
Paul turned out to be very good on skis and was said by their instructor to have the makings of a professional. John had spent a couple of weeks trying to learn before they went to Austria but never really got the hang of it. Many of the people on the set had legs in plaster which The Beatles naturally had to sign.
'Eight Days A Week' reached number one in the US charts.
March 14-17
Filming at Obertauern.
Eight Arms To Hold You was announced as the working title for The Beatles' new film. The Grammy Awards committee in New York nominated The Beatles for six awards: "Record Of The Year" (for 'I Want To Hold Your Hand'); "Best Rock'N'Roll Recording Of The Year" (also 'I Want To Hold Your Hand'); "Best New Artist Of 1964"; "Song Of The Year" (for 'A Hard Day's Night'); "Best Original Score Written For A Motion Picture Or TV Show" (for A Hard Day's Night); and "Best Performance By A Vocal Group" ('A Hard Day's Night' once again).
In addition, three other acts - The Chipmunks, The Boston Pops Orchestra and The Hollyridge Strings - were nominated for their albums of Beatles compositions.
March 18
Filming at Obertauern.
Hayling Supermarkets Limited was incorporated to control a supermarket on Hayling Island, Hampshire, run by John's old school friend Pete Shotton. The directors were Shotton, John and George Harrison.
Drummer Jimmy Nicol made a vain attempt to cash in on his brief membership of The Beatles the previous summer, by issuing a single, 'Clementine'.
March 19
Filming at Obertauern.
The Beatles gave a party for the cast after the day's filming.
Brian Matthew interviewed the group for the BBC Light Programme's Saturday Club by telephone from their hotel at 8pm.
March 20
Final day's shooting at Obertauern.
BBC Light Programme's Saturday Club broadcast Brian Matthew's interview recorded the previous evening.
John and Ringo were interviewed on the telephone by Chris Denning for his weekly Radio Luxembourg show, The Beatles.
March 22
The Beatles flew back to London from Austria.
The album The Early Beatles was released in the US as Capitol T-2309 (mono) and ST-2309 (stereo). Side A: 'Love Me Do', 'Twist And Shout', 'Anna (Go To Him)', 'Chains', 'Boys', 'Ask Me Why'; Side B: 'Please Please Me', 'P.S. I Love You', 'Baby, It's You', 'A Taste Of Honey', 'Do You Want To Know A Secret'.
March 24
With the location shooting completed, The Beatles continued to film Help! at Twickenham film studios.
March 25
Filming at Twickenham.
March 26
Filming at Twickenham.
Brian Epstein's office revealed that the proposed soundtrack album from the Eight Arms To Hold You movie would follow the style of the US edition of the A Hard Day's Night soundtrack, by mixing Beatles recordings with specially recorded orchestral material.
March 27
Around this date, John and Cynthia were introduced to the chemical stimulus of LSD by their dentist, who spiked their late-night cups of coffee with impregnated sugar cubes. The now hallucinating party made their way from the dentist's home to The Pickwick Club in central London, where John interpreted a red light bulb as being the site of a raging inferno of fire, and then on to George's house. There John drew his first psychedelic cartoons, portraying The Beatles as a hydra-like creature, with each head pronouncing: "We all agree with you". Thereafter Lennon became a keen ambassador for the mind-expanding virtues of the drug, while his wife vowed never to experiment with the chemical again.
March 28
The Beatles were driven to the Alpha Studios at Aston in Birmingham, where they recorded their final ever appearance on the ABC TV show Thank Your Lucky Stars. They were interviewed by Brian Matthew and mimed to 'Eight Days A Week', 'Yes It Is' and 'Ticket To Ride'.
March 29
Filming at Twickenham.
March 30
Filming at Twickenham during the day.
Abbey Road in the evening where they did five more takes of Paul's 'That Means A Lot' but Paul was not happy with the results and at 10pm they called it a day.
March 31
Filming at Twickenham.
April
Ringo bought a newly built bungalow in Liverpool, fully fitted and furnished, for his parents.
An offer from American playwright Wolf Mankowitz for John and Paul to collaborate with him on a project was politely refused.
April 1
Brian Epstein took a lease on the Saville Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue to use as a showcase for his many showbusiness interests, even opening it as a rock venue on Sunday evenings when the theatre was normally dark.
The Beatles filmed at Twickenham.
Before John left for the film studio, he received an unexpected visit from his long estranged father, Freddie Lennon. Rather than displaying the delight for which his father had been hoping, John exhibited immediate hostility, asking: "Where have you been for the last twenty years?" Freddie was allowed to stay in the Lennon household for three days, until John and Cynthia became convinced that he had contacted his son for financial, rather than sentimental, reasons.
April 2
Filming at Twickenham.
April 3
ABC TV transmitted the edition of Thank Your Lucky Stars recorded on March 28.
April 5
The Beatles filmed the "Rajahama" Indian restaurant sequence at Twickenham.
George: "We were waiting to shoot the scene in the restaurant when the guy gets thrown in the soup and there were a few Indian musicians playing in the background. I remember picking up the sitar and trying to hold it and thinking, 'This is a funny sound.' It was an incidental thing, but somewhere down the line I began to hear Ravi Shankar's name. The third time I heard it, I thought, 'This is an odd coincidence.' And then I talked with David Crosby of The Byrds and he mentioned the name. I went and bought a Ravi record; I put it on and it hit a certain spot in me that I can't explain, but it seemed very familiar to me. The only way I could describe it was: my intellect didn't know what was going on and yet this other part of me identified with it. It just called on me ... a few months elapsed and then I met this guy from the Asian Music Circle organisation who said, 'Oh, Ravi Shankar's gonna come to my house for dinner. Do you want to come too?' "
April 6
At a break in filming at the Twickenham studios, TV talk show host Simon Dee presented the group with the Radio Caroline Bell Award for "Most Consistent and Best Recording Artistes of the Past Year". The Beatles managed to disrupt the inevitable speeches by ringing the bell at appropriate moments throughout the proceedings.
The EP Beatles For Sale was released in the UK as Parlophone GEP 8931 (mono only): Side A: 'No Reply', 'I'm A Loser'; Side B: 'Rock And Roll Music', 'Eight Days A Week'.
April 7
Filming at Twickenham.
The Beatles' office announced that Maureen Starkey was already expecting the couple's first child.
April 8
Filming at Twickenham.
The Beatles all attended the opening night of Downstairs At The Pickwick, a new London nightclub. Michael Crawford was among the other guests.
April 9
The single 'Ticket To Ride'/'Yes It Is' was released in the UK as Parlophone R 5265. Filming at Twickenham.
TICKET TO RIDE
John Lennon once described this song, The Beatles'first single of 1965, as the precursor to heavy metal. "It was pretty fucking heavy for then" he boasted, "if you go and look at what other people were making. It doesn't sound too bad." Indeed not: from Lennon's brilliantly deadpan vocal to Ringo's cross-beat drumming and McCartney's lead guitar flourishes, 'Ticket To Ride' was musically the strongest record The Beatles had made up to that point.
YES IT IS
George Harrison made the most of his first tone-pedal (alias 'wah-wah') in February 1965, using it on every possible song he could. It was one of several striking factors to this 1965 B-side, a successor to 'This Boy' as a vehicle for three-part harmony. In retrospect, it might have been better if they'd junked this initial attempt at the song and spent the time on rehearsals instead, as the beauty of the melody is rather undercut by the flat vocals on several lines.
April 10
A promotional film of the group performing 'Ticket To Ride' and 'Yes It Is' was filmed at Riverside Studios for use on Top Of The Pops.
April 11
The Beatles topped the bill at the Empire Pool, Wembley, at the New Musical Express Poll Winners Show. They played 'I Feel Fine', 'She's A Woman', 'Baby's In Black', 'Ticket To Ride' and 'Long Tall Sally' to an audience of 10,000 people, and received their award from Tony Bennett.
Afterwards they drove to the ABC Television studios at Teddington where they appeared on The Eamonn Andrews Show to promote their new single.
April 12
Filming at Twickenham.
April 13
At Twickenham where they were filming The Beatles did a live interview for BBC Light Programme's Pop Inn to promote 'Ticket To Ride'. This was followed by a late-night session at Abbey Road to record the title song to Help/John's original acoustic version was slow, but George Martin thought the fans would prefer a faster number. John went along with the idea but later said,"I don't like the recording that much; we did it too fast trying to be commercial."
Paul bought a three-storey Regency house at 7 Cavendish Avenue in St Johns Wood, London, for £40,000.
April 14
Location filming for Help! in Ailsa Avenue, not far from the Old Deer Park in Twickenham.
Help! was announced as the title of the new film, replacing Eight Arms To Hold You, Among the rejected suggestions for the title were Who's Been Sleeping In My Porridge (by George), and The Day The Clowns Collapsed (the film's producer, Walter Shenson).
April 15
The Top Of The Pops session recorded on the 10th was broadcast by BBC TV.
April 16
George and John were interviewed live by Cathy McGowan on Ready, Steady, Go! at the Rediffusion Television Studios in Wembley.
April 17
Paul spent the day in disguise - cloth peaked cap, glasses, moustache and a big overcoat - in order to go furniture shopping in the Harrow Road and Portobello Road for his new house. A bartender in Ladbroke Grove was not fooled and recognised Paul when he asked for "A drop o' the hard stuff", in an Irish accent.
April 18
A part of their recorded appearance at the New Musical Express Poll Winners Show was broadcast on the Big Beat '65 television special.
The movie Pop Gear went on limited release in the UK, featuring clips of The Beatles performing 'Twist And Shout' and 'She Loves You', shot in late 1963.
April 19
The single 'Ticket to Ride'/'Yes It Is' was released in the US as Capitol 5407.
April 20
Filming at Twickenham.
April 21
Brian Epstein sent a telegram to Elvis Presley in The Beatles' names to congratulate him on his first decade in the music business. Filming at Twickenham.
April 22
Filming at Twickenham.
April 23
Filming at Twickenham.
April 24
Filming in Chiswick.
April 27
Filming at Twickenham.
April 28
Filming at Twickenham.
Peter Sellers arrived on set to present the group with a Grammy Award, issued by the US National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. A Hard Day's Night had won the award in the "Best Vocal Performance by a Group" category. The Beatles were pipped to the award for "Best Rock'N'Roll Recording" by Petula Clark's 'Downtown'.
April 29
Filming at Twickenham.
Chris Denning interviewed all four Beatles for his weekly Radio Luxembourg show, The Beatles.
Jimmy Nicol, the drummer who stood in briefly for Ringo during the Australian tour of 1964, appeared in the London Bankruptcy Court with debts of £4,066 and assets of a nominal £50.
April 30
Filming at Twickenham.
May 2
Plans were announced for The Beatles' 1965 Christmas Show to be broadcast to cinemas across Britain by closed-circuit TV.
Brian Epstein's office also confirmed that the premiere of the group's new movie would be held at the London Pavilion cinema on July 29.
Paul denied US press reports that he had been dating a former Miss Ireland, Marlene McKeown, for several months. "Rubbish!", he told a journalist. "I don't even know her."
May 3
The Beatles spent the day filming on Salisbury Plain with the assistance of the British Army's Third Tank Division. The Beatles, Eleanor Bron (with whom John had already struck up a strong rapport), Victor Spinetti, Roy Kinnear, Leo McKern and the other actors and film crew all stayed at the Antrobus Arms in Amesbury.
May 4
Filming on Salisbury Plain. They spent the night at the Antrobus Arms.
May 5
Filming on Salisbury Plain. Another night at the Antrobus Arms.
May 6
Filming at Twickenham.
May 7
Filming at Twickenham.
John gave instructions for a television set to be fitted in the back of his Rolls Royce car.
May 9
Filming in New Bond Street. John and Ringo filming at Twickenham.
Quizzed about their plans for the 1965 Christmas Show, John, George and Paul angrily denied that they would be taking part in any such event. "That just leaves Ringo," John added sarcastically. "Perhaps he and Brian Epstein could do a Christmas show together."
BOB DYLAN
That evening The Beatles went to see Bob Dylan play the Royal Festival Hall. Afterwards they visited Dylan in his suite at the Savoy Hotel. The four Beatles filed into his reception room, accompanied by keen Dylan fan Alma Cogan, but the atmosphere remained tense until Allen Ginsberg broke the ice by falling off the arm of a settee into John Lennon's lap and asking him if he knew William Blake. "Never heard of him," snapped John but Cynthia spoke up, "Oh John, you liar, of course you have!" and everyone laughed. The rest of the evening was spent nightclubbing.
May 10
Filming at Cliveden House, near Maidenhead in Berkshire.
Abbey Road. The Beatles recorded two old rock'n'roll numbers, 'Dizzy Miss Lizzy' and 'Bad Boy', aimed at the American market.
May 11
Filming at Cliveden House, for the 'Buckingham Palace' scenes in the movie.
May 16
John attended a party given for Johnny Mathis by Norman Newell.
May 18
Twickenham for post-synchronisation work on the soundtrack to Help!
NBC-TV in the USA showed a pre-recorded interview with The Beatles by Peter Sellers in their Grammy Awards show The Best On Record. The programme also showed a clip of The Beatles playing 'I'm Happy Just To Dance With You' from A Hard Day's Night.
Paul and Jane saw Gene Barry play the Talk Of The Town and visited him after the show. Afterwards they went on to Downstairs at the Pickwick Club.
May 21
George and Patti spent the day shopping.
May 22
'Ticket To Ride' reached number one in the US charts.
Abrief clip of The Beatles singing 'Ticket To Ride' appeared in an episode of Doctor Who on BBC TV.
May 25
John and Cynthia returned to London from Cannes, where they had attended the Film Festival. That afternoon, before leaving, John recorded an interview with Martin Ogronsky for the CBS-TV Merv Griffin Show.
The publishers of the US edition of the reference book Who's Who revealed that The Beatles would be included in the next printing of the book, for the first time.
May 26
The Beatles drove to the BBC's Piccadilly Studios where they recorded their last radio show for the BBC, a bank holiday special. They insisted that the name be changed from the usual From Us To You, to The Beatles (Invite You To Take A Ticket To Ride) which they thought was more suitable for their maturing image. They recorded live versions of 'Ticket To Ride', 'Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby', 'I'm A Loser', 'The Night Before', 'Honey Don't', 'Dizzy Miss Lizzy' and 'She's A Woman'.
May 27
All The Beatles flew off on their holidays. Paul and Jane went to Portugal where they stayed in Bruce Welch's villa in Albufera. Paul wrote the lyrics to 'Yesterday' in the car on the way from the airport and completed them over the next two weeks. Paul: "I fell out of bed. I had a piano by my bedside and I must have dreamed it because I tumbled out of bed and put my hands on the piano keys and I had a tune in my head. It was just all there, a complete thing. I couldn't believe it, it came too easy. In fact I didn't believe I'd written it. I thought maybe I'd heard it before, it was some other tune, and I went round for weeks playing the chords of the song for people, asking them, 'Is this like something? I think I've written it.' And people would say, 'No, it's not like anything else. But it's good ..."
John: "That was a good 'un."
June 1
The interview with John recorded at the Cannes Film Festival was shown on the CBS-TV Merv Griffin Show.
June 2
John, George and Ringo were among the celebrities who attended the premiere of Dick Lester's new film, The Knack (And How To Get It), at the London Pavilion cinema.
June 3
John and George, accompanied by Cynthia and Patti, attended Alien Ginsberg's 39th birthday party held in a basement flat in Chester Square, London. When they arrived, Ginsberg was wearing nothing but his birthday suit. The two Beatles looked around anxiously in case any photographers were present then quickly departed. "You don't do that in front of the birds!" hissed John to one of the organisers. Ginsberg and John later became quite good friends and John himself was to appear naked on his Two Virgins album sleeve.
June 4
The EP Beatles For Sale 2 was released in the UK as Parlophone GEP 8938 (mono only). Side A: 'I'll Follow The Sun', 'Baby's In Black'; Side B: 'Words Of Love', 'I Don't Want To Spoil The Party'.
June 7
The Beatles (Invite You To Take A Ticket To Ride) was broadcast by the BBC Light Programme as a Whit Monday special.
June 11
Paul and Jane flew back from their holiday a day early at Brian Epstein's request in order to be in Britain when it was announced that The Beatles had been awarded the Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE).
The embargo on the news was lifted that evening and Paul was interviewed by telephone by Ronald Burns for the BBC Radio Late Night News Extra which also included an interview with Brian Epstein.
Ringo: "There's a proper medal as well as the letters, isn't there? I will keep it to wear when I'm old. It's the sort of thing you want to keep."
John: "I thought you had to drive tanks and win wars to win the MBE."
George: "I didn't think you got this sort of thing for playing rock'n'roll."
Paul: "I think it's marvellous. What does this make my dad?"
June 12
THE MBE FURORE
Prime Minister Harold Wilson's decision to include The Beatles on his list of MBEs for the Queen to approve caused many outraged previous recipients to return their medals in protest. One of them was Hector Dupuis, a member of the Canadian House of Commons who claimed that he had been placed on "the same level as vulgar nincompoops". Dupuis received his medal for running the Canadian Selective Service, calling up young men for the armed services.
George: "If Dupuis doesn't want the medal, he had better give it to us. Then we can give it to our manager, Brian Epstein. MBE really stands for 'Mister Brian Epstein'."
The Beatles gave a press conference at Twickenham Film Studios, which was used in news bulletins around the world. John was 70 minutes late, to the annoyance of Brian Epstein, who had to fetch him personally by car to make him attend. John: "I set the alarm for eight o'clock and then just lay there. I thought, well, if anyone wants me they'll phone me. The phone went lots of times, but that's the one I never answer. My own phone didn't go at all. So I just lay there."
John was always uneasy about accepting the award. John: "We had to do a lot of selling out then. Taking the MBE was a sellout for me. You know, before you get an MBE the Palace writes to you to ask if you're going to accept it, because you're not supposed to reject it publicly and they sound you out first. I chucked the letter in with all the fan-mail, until Brian asked me if I had it. He and a few other people persuaded me that it was in our interests to take it, and it was hypocritical of me to accept it. But I'm glad, really, that I did accept it - because it meant that four years later I could use it to make a gesture. When my envelope arrived marked OHMS I thought I was being called up ... I shall stick it on the wall or make it into a bell." In fact, he gave it to his Aunt Mimi who kept it on top of her television until he asked for it back in order to return it as a protest against Britain's involvement in the Biafra War.
June 13
Holders of MBE medals began to return their awards in protest at the honour being given to The Beatles.
June 14
Abbey Road. Paul recorded 'Yesterday' entirely solo on his acoustic guitar, followed the gentle ballad with the up-tempo rocker, 'I'm Down' and finished the session with 'I've Just Seen A Face'.
Afterwards Paul and Jane went to the Cromwellian Club.
The album Beatles VI was released in the US as Capitol T-2358 (mono) and ST-2358 (stereo). Side A: 'Kansas City'/'Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey', 'Eight Days A Week', 'You Like Me Too Much', 'Bad Boy', 'I Don't Want To Spoil The Party', 'Words Of Love'; Side B: 'What You're Doing', 'Yes It Is', 'Dizzy Miss Lizzy', 'Tell Me What You See', 'Every Little Thing'.
June 15
Abbey Road. John's 'It's Only Love' was recorded during an afternoon session. Afterwards they spent a night in the clubs.
June 16
John and Ringo spent the day at John's house, sorting out songs for Ringo to sing. They were unhappy with the way that 'Troubles' had turned out and were thinking of changing it. They decided that Ringo should record Act Naturally'.
The band did more post-synchronisation work at Twickenham for the film and later, at the Argyll Street office of NEMS, John did an interview and read "The Fat Budgie" section from A Spaniard In The Works to promote his new book on the BBC Radio show The World Of Books. He was also interviewed by Tim Matthews for the BBC Home Service news magazine Today, during which he also read the section of the book called "The National Health Cow".
Brian Epstein shelved plans for The Beatles to begin filming their third movie, A Talent For Loving, in October, after learning that the climate in Spain at that time of the year might jeopardise the location work.
June 17
Abbey Road. Ringo recorded 'Act Naturally'. This was followed by the group recording 'Waif. That night they were driven round the nightclubs.
During this session, George Martin also recorded a string quartet playing the accompaniment to Paul's bare version of 'Yesterday'. Paul later revealed that he had also made a tentative approach to The BBC Radiophonic Workshop, with the suggestion that they might be able to produce an electronic backing for the song, but that he never followed the idea through.
George's sister, Louise Harrison, who lived in the US and had only had occasional contact with him in recent years, released a bizarre spoken-word album about her brother's success, All About The Beatles (Recar 2012).
June 18
The Beatles were interviewed at the NEMS offices by the Italian-language section of the BBC World Service to coincide with their upcoming Italian dates.
Later, at the BBC's Lime Grove Studios, John appeared on BBC l's Tonight programme where he was interviewed by Kenneth Allsop and read two extracts from his book, 'The Wumberlog' and 'We Must Not Forget The General Erection'.
June 20
The Beatles' European Tour opened in Paris. The venture began controversially, when the authorities at London Airport turned away Beatles fans who were arriving to wave the group goodbye, claiming that The Beatles themselves had asked them not to attend. This was angrily denied by both the group and manager Brian Epstein.
The Beatles arrived at Paris-Orly at 10am and checked in to the George Cinq. Their reception was quiet by Beatles standards with only about 50 fans waiting outside their hotel. This pattern was repeated throughout the tour, as the group regularly played to less than capacity audiences.
In Paris, they played two concerts to 6,000 people each at the Palais des Sports, topping a bill which also featured The Yardbirds. The second show was broadcast on both French radio and television.
Afterwards Franchise Hardy visited them at the George Cinq. The night was spent at Castell's nightclub, where they stayed until dawn. The Beatles' set during the European tour consisted of: 'Twist And Shout', 'She's A Woman', 'I'm A Loser', 'Can't Buy Me Love', 'Baby's In Black', 'I Wanna Be Your Man', 'A Hard Day's Night', 'Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby', 'Rock And Roll Music', 'I Feel Fine', 'Ticket To Ride' and 'Long Tall Sally'.
June 21
Another night spent in Castell's.
John's interview and reading from "The National Health Cow" was broadcast on the BBC Home Service Today programme.
June 22
The Beatles and their entourage flew to Lyons in the afternoon and played two shows at the Palais d'Hiver.
June 23
The Beatles took the train to Milan.
June 24
The Beatles played their first Italian show in Milan at the Velodromo Vigorelli, a 22,000-seater open-air arena. Brian Epstein was not pleased at all the empty seats, particularly during the afternoon show when many of the fans were at school or work and only 7,000 people attended. The press suggested that a combination of high prices and a heat wave had kept the fans away.
John's book A Spaniard In The Works was published in the UK by Jonathan Cape at 10s 6d.
June 25
The Alfa Romeo Racing Team drove the group to Genoa in four cars. There they played the Palazzo dello Sport, a 25,000 seater arena where, once again, there were many empty seats. The afternoon show attracted only 5,000 fans.
June 26
The group travelled to Rome by special train from Genoa.
June 27
Two shows in Rome at the Teatro Adriano. While The Beatles were playing 'I Wanna Be Your Man,' which Ringo always sang, Paul for some reason or other was laughing so hard he had to leave the stage. George was not amused and his displeasure was obvious. When Paul returned to the stage the microphone fell over and he continued laughing. This made John start laughing as well but George remained irritated by it all. At the end of the shows, Paul thanked the audience in Italian.
After the evening show, Paul met playwright Noel Coward, who had attended the concert, at their hotel.
Noel Coward: "The noise was deafening throughout and I couldn't hear a word they sang or a note they played. I went backstage and was met by Brian Epstein, who told me they had gone back to the hotel and would I go there. I was told The Beatles refused to see me. I thought this graceless in the extreme, but decided to play it with firmness and dignity. I told Wendy [Hanson, Epstein's personal assistant] to go and fetch one of them, and she finally reappeared with Paul McCartney. The poor boy was quite amiable and I sent messages of congratulation to his colleagues, although the message I would have liked to have sent them was that they were bad-mannered little shits."
June 28
Beatles producer George Martin began work on an album of comic interpretations of their songs by actor Peter Sellers.
June 29
Two more shows at the Teatro Adriano, Rome, though none of the shows there was more than half full.
June 30
The group arrived in Nice where they stayed at the Gresta Hotel and played at the Palais des Expositions.
After the show they spent the evening at La Fiesta nightclub. At 2am The Beatles were still racing each other and members of their crew on the club's own go-kart track.
July 1
The Beatles flew to Madrid where they visited the Jerez de la Frontera vineyard, while Brian Epstein saw a bullfight in the same arena in Madrid that the group were to play the next night. John's A Spaniard In The Works was published in the USA
July 2
Plaza de Toros de Las Ventas, Madrid. The Beatles were growing increasingly worried by the level of violence shown to the fans by the police and security in Italy and particularly in Spain.
July 3
The group flew to Barcelona in the afternoon to play the Plaza de Toros Monumental at 10.30 that evening. This was followed by nightclubbing. John's interview for The World of Books was transmitted on the BBC Home Service.
July 4
When the group arrived home at London Heathrow at midday, 1,000 fans were waiting to greet them.
July 5
A pre-recorded interview with John was broadcast on the BBC Light Programme's Teen Scene.
The single 'That Means A Lot' by P.J. Proby, written by Lennon & McCartney, was released in the US as Liberty 55806.
July 7
Paul and Jane, George and Patti went to a party given by The Moody Blues in Roehampton.
July 9
Klaus Voormann, a close friend of The Beatles while they were in Hamburg, released his first UK single as a member of the beat group Paddy, Klaus & Gibson, 'I Wanna Know'. The group were managed by Brian Epstein, who was encouraged to sign them by John and Paul.
July 11
The album Beatles VI reached number one in the US album charts.
July 13
Paul accepted five Ivor Novello Awards, presented by David Frost, on behalf of John and himself at a luncheon at the Savoy. John refused to attend. He had been upset by the press comments about their receiving the MBE and did not want to put himself on show again. Paul was 40 minutes late because he had forgotten about the engagement. On receiving the award he quipped, "Thanks. I hope nobody sends theirs back now."
July 14
John, Cynthia, George, Patti, Ringo and Maureen spent the evening at the Bastille Night party at the Scotch St James's.
Paul watched Jane in a repertory performance at the Palace Theatre, Watford.
July 15
A film of Paul receiving the Ivor Novello Awards on the 13th was shown on Rediffusion Television's Pick Of The Songs, illustrated by clips of the various winners playing Ready Steady Go!
July 17
ABC TV's Lucky Stars Anniversary Show showed a film clip of The Beatles playing 'Help!'
July 19
Ringo and Maureen bought "Sunny Heights" in Weybridge for £37,000. They moved in just before Christmas.
The single 'Help!'/'I'm Down' was released in the US as Capitol 5476.
July 21
500,000 copies of Al Hine's paperback novelisation of Help! were distributed to American bookstores. The book featured several scenes which were cut from the final edit of the film.
July 23
The single 'HelpI'/'I'm Down' was released in the UK as Parlophone R 5305.
John: "When 'Help!' came out in '65, I was actually crying out for help. Most people think it's just a fast rock'n'roll song. I didn't realise it at the time; I just wrote the song because I was commissioned to write it for the movie. But later, I knew I really was crying out for help. It was my fat Elvis period. You see the movie: he - I - is very fat, very insecure, and he's completely lost himself. And I am singing about when I was so much younger and all the rest, looking back at how easy it was. Now I may be very positive - yes, yes - but I also go through deep depressions where I would like to jump out the window... Anyway I was fat and depressed and I was crying out for help."
HELP!
"The only true songs I ever wrote were 'Help!' and 'Strawberry Fields', "John Lennon claimed in December 1970. "They were the ones I really wrote from experience and not projecting myself into a situation and writing a nice story about it, which I always found phoney. The lyric is as good now as it was then. It makes me feel secure to know that I was that sensible, aware of myself back then. But I don't like the recording that much, we did it too fast, to try to be commercial." In the same week he gave that interview, Lennon actually attempted to re-record the song, slowing it to funereal pace as a piano ballad. His efforts merely exposed what a smooth and powerful piece of work The Beatles' rendition was - to the point that the surface sheen and production expertise successfully disguised any hint of authentic anguish in Lennon's vocal. The record turned out nothing more or less than a Perfect Beatles single, and an ideal theme tune for their movie.
Trivia note: the single and LP versions of this song feature slightly different Lennon vocals.
I'M DOWN
On the same day that McCartney recorded the folk-rocker I've Just Seen A Face' and the gentle ballad 'Yesterday', he also cut this raucous rock'n'roll song - the flipside of'Help!' and a blatant attempt to write his own 'Long Tall Sally'. Indeed, 'I'm Down' replaced 'Long Tall Sally' as The Beatles' final song at almost every show they played in their last year as a live band. Despite having all the required ingredients, from Paul's raw vocal to George's stinging guitar solo, it never quite gelled as well as the Little Richard blueprint, and the lyrics seem rather misogynistic from the standpoint of the Nineties. But it's a powerful piece of work nonetheless.
July 25
The Beatles staged a day of rehearsals in London for their forthcoming US tour.
July 26
Television Wales and West screened a clip from the film Help! on Discs A Gogo.
July 29
Ten thousand fans gathered in Piccadilly Circus outside the London Pavilion on a humid summer evening for the royal premiere of Help! The Beatles arrived in a black Rolls Royce and were presented to Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon (who had delayed their summer holiday so they could attend the premiere). Jane Asher wore a pure white Edwardian-style evening dress. There was a party afterwards at the Orchid Room of the Dorchester Hotel.
John: "The best stuff is on the cutting room floor, with us breaking up and falling about all over the place."
Paul: "Filming Help! stretched us a bit, giving us more than one line at a time to say."
John: "Help! was too Disneyland. Later there was a rash of films similar to Help! and I could see what Richard Lester, the director, was doing. But he didn't really utilise us in that film. He forgot about who and what we were, and that's why the film didn't work. It was like having clowns in a movie about frogs."
Simultaneous with the premiere in London, Help! also went on general release in a selection of English seaside towns, including Barnstaple, Brighton, Canterbury, Clacton, Lowestoft, Plymouth, Ramsgate, Weymouth and Worthing.
United Artists revealed that they had manufactured more prints of Help! than of any previous colour film, anticipating unprecedented demand from countries all over the world.
BBC's Top Of The Pops showed a film clip from Help!
July 30
The Beatles spent the day rehearsing on stage at Brian Epstein's Saville Theatre. They did two BBC interviews: one with Dibbs Mather for the British Information Service and the other with Lance Percival for his Lance A Gogo show on the BBC Light Programme.
Later John, Paul and George drove to Blackpool in John's black-glass Rolls Royce. Ringo and Brian Epstein took the plane. The car was parked in the police station car park to keep it safe from fans but in the morning the windows were all cracked. John was angry, but it turned out that the windows had been fitted too tightly and had cracked with the movement of the car, not because they had been tampered with.
July 31
Rehearsals for ABC TV's Blackpool Night Out and the upcoming American tour were held in Blackpool.
Singer Suzy Cope issued her debut single, 'You Can't Say I Never Told You'. By mistake, the music sheet for the song, released to the trade on the same day, credited John and Paul as its composers, although they had no connection with the song, the record or Cope.
August 1
The Beatles appeared on ABC TV's Blackpool Night Out along with Pearl Carr and Teddy Johnson, Mike and Bernie Winters, and Lionel Blair and his dancers. They performed 'I Feel Fine', 'I'm Down', 'Act Naturally', 'Ticket To Ride'. Paul sang 'Yesterday' and they closed with 'Help!'
That evening Ringo and Brian flew back to London while the others followed in the Rolls Royce.
Much press criticism ensued from Brian Epstein's decision that The Beatles should make only this one TV appearance to promote their new single.
August 2
Brian Epstein announced that The Beatles would not be doing a British tour this year. (They did play a nine-date tour in November/December.)
Paul and Jane, Marianne Faithfull and several other friends spent an evening on the town in London using The Beatles' Austin Princess to get around. They first met up with The Byrds at their hotel then continued to the Scotch St James's club in Mason's Yard.
The BBC2 TV show Music International broadcast a pre-recorded interview with John.
August 3
John took his Aunt Mimi down to Poole, in Dorset, to choose a bungalow overlooking Poole Harbour.
August 5
United Artists announced that takings at UK cinemas screening Help! during its first week of release were 37% higher than those for A Hard Day's Night the previous year.
August 6
The album Help! was released in the UK as Parlophone PMC 1255 (mono) and PCS 3071 (stereo). Side A: 'Help!', 'The Night Before', 'You've Got To Hide Your Love Away', 'I Need You', 'Another Girl', 'You're Going To Lose That Girl', 'Ticket To Ride'; Side B:
'Act Naturally', 'It's Only Love', 'You Like Me Too Much', 'Tell Me What You See', 'I've Just Seen A Face', 'Yesterday', 'Dizzy Miss Lizzy'.
HELP!
A vastly increased budget, colour stock, exotic overseas locations, and a lavish publicity campaign - The Beatles' second feature film had everything except the one quality which had made its predecessor so successful, realism. John Lennon later dismissed Help! as "bullshit", which was unjustly harsh. But though its script crackled with jokes and The Beatles wisecracked their way through the full 100 minutes, complete with striking musical interludes. Help! didn't have the magic of A Hard Day's Night.
That's not to say it wasn't a successful movie by its own lights. It grossed an impressive figure, in Britain and around the world, and it stands up today as a glossy, semi-satirical period piece, perfectly in keeping with the wacky Beatles image that the world initially mistook for the real thing. By 1965, though. The Beatles were losing interest in refuelling their image. Through the use of soft drugs, they were beginning to glimpse an artistic purpose beyond Beatlemania and the production line of hit records. John Lennon, in particular, managed in 1965 to find his own lyrical voice, and started to use The Beatles as a vehicle to express his increasingly confused feelings about his role in the group, and his personal relationships.
In one important respect, the preparations for Help! were identical to those for the previous year's movie. The decision was made in advance to divide the 'soundtrack' album between one side of songs that would appear in the film, and another of non-movie tunes. And as before, the film songs had to be completed before the shooting began. The Beatles' flight for the Bahamas left on February 22: just seven days earlier, the group arrived for their first movie session at Abbey Road. By the time their plane set off for their film location, they had recorded no fewer than 11 songs - although two of these, 'If You've Got Trouble' and 'That Means A Lot', were destined to remain unreleased until the Nineties.
At that stage, the film was still untitied, and it wasn't until The Beatles had returned to Britain at the end of March that they were informed that it would be called Help! A title song was commissioned and delivered almost overnight, while the soundtrack album was eventually completed during breaks in the filming, just six weeks before its release date. Tracks unreleased on singles are as follows:
THE NIGHT BEFORE
Studio finesse was second nature to The Beatles by February 1965 - and so too was commercial songwriting. John Lennon's first flirtation with electric piano (which was a constant feature on this album) was the only novel moment on this fluent and ultra-appealing McCartney pop song.
YOU'VE GOT TO HIDE YOUR LOVE AWAY
After the tentative Dylan-isms of 'I'm A Loser', John Lennon made his debt to the American singer-songwriter entirely clear on this song. Too self-pitying for Dylan himself, it was nonetheless a piece of personal expression for its composer, who still automatically equated writing from the heart with songs about romantic disappointment.
For two musical reasons, this track stood out from earlier Beatles recordings. First of all, it was an entirely acoustic performance from an electric rock'n'roll band. Secondly, it featured a guest musician from outside The Beatles' circle. George Martin had been adding keyboards to the group's records from the start, but this song featured a flute solo by arranger John Scott, though his contribution wasn't noted on the sleeve.
I NEED YOU
For only the second time, The Beatles recorded a George Harrison composition - earlier efforts like 'You'll Know What To Do' having been rejected by Lennon/McCartney. An otherwise unexceptional song was punctuated by brief, slightly hesitant bursts of guitar noise, controlled by a foot pedal soon to become famous as the wah-wah.
ANOTHER GIRL
Though the songs themselves broke few boundaries, the recording sessions for the Help! album found The Beatles gradually exploring new techniques and instrumental combinations. On his own 'Another Girl', for instance, Paul played the twisting lead guitar line - as he did on 'Ticket To Ride', recorded at the same session. George Harrison's misgivings about his diminished role on these tracks were presumably dampened by the fact that the third song taped that day was one of his own.
YOU'RE GONNA LOSE THAT GIRL
A beautifully compact piece of songwriting, 'You're Gonna Lose That Girl' illustrated that Lennon was every bit McCartney's match when it came to producing quality pop tunes to order. Tempted though he must have been, Paul let George play lead guitar this time around, contenting himself with adding piano to the basic track.
ACT NATURALLY
Ringo's usual vocal appearance on this album was originally supposed to be 'If You've Got Trouble', a dire Lennon/McCartney composition which The Beatles attempted twice before recognising its canine qualities. By way of compensation for being saddled with such a loser, Ringo was allowed to record an American country hit, co-written by comedian Johnny Russell, and recently debuted by one of the giants of the Bakersfield sound, Buck Owens. With its "they're gonna put me in the movies" lyric, the song fitted the bill perfectly. More than two decades later, Ringo and Buck combined forces to re-record the number.
IT'S ONLY LOVE
Asked to select his least favourite Beatles songs, John Lennon went unerringly for 'Run For Your Life' and this mawkish number - which was still considered strong enough to qualify for heartfelt cover versions by vocalists as diverse as Bryan Ferry and Gary 'US' Bonds. Listen out again for George Harrison on wah-wah guitar, this song being one of the least likely candidates for such an effect in the entire Beatles catalogue.
YOU LIKE ME TOO MUCH
American rock critic Lester Bangs noted that this George Harrison composition was "probably the first song in rock history whose lyrics admitted that neither party loved the other but neither had the guts to call it quits". Harrison 's unsentimental attitude to love resurfaced on the next album with 'If I Needed Someone'. At the time, though, more attention was paid to George's increasing confidence as a vocalist, and to the two-men-at-one-piano trick of Paul and George Martin.
TELL ME WHAT YOU SEE
More electric piano, and another McCartney pop tune, slightly more laboured than its contemporaries on this record. The Help! album was the last occasion on which The Beatles felt able to indulge themselves in a set of entirely fictional teen-romance songwriting. By the time they reconvened for the Rubber Soul sessions at the end of 1965, the concept of lyric-writing as a form of intimate confession had taken hold.
I'VE JUST SEEN A FACE
A folk song taken at bluegrass tempo, 'I've Just Seen A Face' was a McCartney gem, given an entirely satisfactory acoustic arrangement. The fact that it was taped during the same three-hour session as Paul's screaming rocker, Tm Down', makes its discreet assurance even more remarkable. Paul resurrected this song during the Wings' tours of the mid-Seventies.
YESTERDAY
"I really reckon 'Yesterday' is probably my best song," said Paul McCartney in 1980. "I like it not only because it was a big success, but because it was one of the most instinctive songs I've ever written. I was so proud of it. I felt it was an original tune - the most complete thing I've ever written. It's very catchy without being sickly."
Despite his initial misgivings about the song's sentimentality, John Lennon eventually agreed, picking 'Yesterday' as one of Paul's strongest compositions. Its origins have passed into the realms of legend: McCartney awoke one morning with the melody in his head, set some nonsense words to the tune to make sure he remembered it (working title: 'Scrambled Egg') and then played it to all and sundry, convinced that a song which had come so easily must have been stolen from something else. No one could identify the source, and Paul was eventually convinced that 'Yesterday' had sprung fully formed from his own imagination.
In 1965, the song evoked some controversy, when it was revealed to the press that Paul had recorded it without any help from the rest of the group, the only instrumental support coming from his own acoustic guitar and a string quartet arranged by George Martin. American magazines listed the song as a McCartney solo release, and when it topped the US singles charts there was speculation that Paul would soon opt for a career outside the group. So he did, but not for another five years.
DIZZY MISS LIZZY
Larry Williams emerged from the same Specialty Records stable as Little Richard, and his best records shared Richard's frenetic marriage of rock'n'roll and R&B. McCartney handled the Little Richard covers in The Beatles, while the Larry Williams songs became Lennon's responsibility. The group had been performing 'Dizzy Miss Lizzy' on stage since their first trip to Hamburg in 1960, though Harrison's slightly erratic guitar fills showed that they hadn't played it for a while before this session. But Lennon cruised through the vocal like the natural rock'n'roller he was.
He illustrated his love for the song by reviving it at his first major post-Beatles concert appearance in Toronto four years later. Meanwhile, 'Dizzy Miss Lizzy' became the last cover version that The Beatles ever released.
John and George attended The Byrds' late night show at Blaises' nightclub in London, and then spent several hours after the gig with the group.
August 8
John, Cynthia, George and Patti made a secretive trip to the Richmond Jazz Festival to see Eric Burdon and The Animals. They were unable to stay for long because they were recognised by fans and almost mobbed.
The album Help! reached number one in the UK charts.
August 9
Brian Epstein's new signing, The Silkie, recorded John's "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away' under John's supervision. Paul played guitar and George the tambourine during the six-hour session.
August 11
The film Help! was premiered in New York, without any of The Beatles being present.
August 13
The Beatles arrived at JFK Airport to begin their third US tour. Their TWA flight touched down at 2.30pm and was met by a huge battery of press, radio and TV reporters, but the police had the plane parked two miles from the main terminal so the thousands of waiting fans were unable to see them. They went straight to the Warwick Hotel at 6th Ave and 54th Street where they gave the obligatory press conference to about 250 reporters, fielded by their press officer Tony Barrow. The Beatles had the whole 33rd floor to themselves, with guards at all entrances to keep out unwanted visitors.
The album Help! was released in the US as Capitol MAS-2386 (mono) and SMAS-2386 (stereo). It contained fewer songs and included music from Ken Thorne's film score. Side A: 'The James Bond Theme' (The George Martin Orchestra), 'Help!', 'The Night Before', 'From Me To You Fantasy' (The George Martin Orchestra), 'You've Got To Hide Your Love Away', 'I Need You', 'In The Tyrol' (The George Martin Orchestra); Side B: 'Another Girl', 'Another Hard Day's Night' (The George Martin Orchestra), 'Ticket To Ride', 'The Bitter End'/'You Can't Do That' (The George Martin Orchestra), 'You're Going To Lose That Girl', 'The Chase' (The George Martin Orchestra).
August 14
The police cleared the streets for a convoy of limousines to take The Beatles to rehearsals for The Ed Sullivan Show at CBS Studio 50 where they began work at llam. The group did not like the sound balance and continued rehearsals through the afternoon, watching playbacks until they were satisfied it was right. The final tape was made at 8.30 that evening. They performed 'I Feel Fine', Paul did 'I'm Down', then Ringo introduced himself and sang 'Act Naturally'. 'Ticket To Ride' was followed by Paul singing 'Yesterday' to a string quartet from the Ed Sullivan orchestra, and they ended with 'Help!', during which John forgot some of the words. Paul: "I had to sing 'Yesterday' live in front of all those people. It was pretty nerve-wracking but it was very exciting. I know I was nervous. We'd recorded 'Yesterday' but I'd never really had to perform it anywhere."
August 15
The Beatles played Shea Stadium.
SHEA STADIUM
The police feared that fans would jam the tunnels in and out of Manhattan so the group was first escorted by limousine to the Manhattan East River Heliport and from there they flew to the World Fair site in Queens - taking in a sightseeing tour of Manhattan's skyscrapers, to provide some spectacular introductory footage for the film crew. There they transferred from the helicopter to a Wells Fargo armoured van where they were each given a Wells Fargo agent badge. As usual for those days, there was a full bill, and 55,600 fans sat through the King Curds Band, Cannibal and The Headhunters, Brenda Holloway, The Young Rascals and Sounds Incorporated before Ed Sullivan finally walked on stage to announce The Beatles: "Now, ladies and gentlemen, honoured by their country, decorated by their Queen, loved here in America, here are The Beatles!" They did their standard 30-minute set of a dozen numbers then jumped straight back into the Wells Fargo van, $160,000 richer - amounting to $100 per second of their performance.
The usual set for this tour was: 'Twist And Shout', 'She's A Woman', 'I Feel Fine', 'Dizzy Miss Lizzy', 'Ticket To Ride', 'Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby', 'Can't Buy Me Love', 'Baby's In Black', 'I Wanna Be Your Man', 'A Hard Day's Nigh', 'Help!' and 'I'm Down'. Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Andrew Loog Oldham were in the audience.
The concert was filmed by Brian Epstein's Subafilms organisation, and released as a documentary film called The Beatles At Shea Stadium.
That evening Bob Dylan visited their hotel.
August 16
This day had been left open as a rain check for Shea Stadium. They stayed in their hotel where visitors included The Supremes, The Exciters, The Ronettes, Del Shannon and Bob Dylan. They also taped a few interviews with DJs.
August 17
The Beatles flew to Toronto, Canada, in the Lockheed Electra hired by Brian Epstein from American Flyers for the tour. Years later, George was on a flight from New York to Los Angeles and met the pilot. He said, "George, you don't remember me, I'm the pilot from the American Flyers Electra plane that you did the tours on. You'd never believe that plane! It was just full of bullet holes, the tail, the wings, everything - just full of bullet holes. Jealous fellows who would be waiting around, knowing that The Beatles were arriving at such-and-such a time. They'd all be there trying to shoot the plane!"
Maple Leaf Gardens, two shows to an audience of 35,000 fans each. News had leaked that the group were staying at the King Edward Sheraton and dozens of fans had booked themselves in, causing a difficult security problem.
August 18
The Beatles flew in to Atlanta that morning and did just one concert, to 35,000 people at the Atlanta Stadium. The new baseball stadium had a very fine sound system which the group talked about for days after, since at most venues they could rarely hear themselves play. Their plane arrived at Houston airport at 2am, having left Atlanta immediately after the gig. Local police had made no arrangements and fans swarmed out onto the runway as the plane taxied in to the terminal. Fans began climbing over the plane before it had even stopped moving, some of them smoking cigarettes next to the plane's fuel tanks. The group and Brian Epstein were unable to leave the plane until a forklift truck arrived for them.
August 19
The Beatles played two sets to a total of 25,000 fans at the Sam Houston Coliseum. They were restrained performances in very hot weather with complete chaos backstage and no dressing room facilities. The group travelled to and from the show by armoured van. BBC's Top Of The Pops showed a film clip from Help!
August 20
The Beatles and entourage flew through the night from Texas, arriving in Chicago at three in the morning at Midway Airport. The police had heard of the trouble in Houston and had forbidden them to land at O'Hare because of the disruption it would cause. They put up at the O'Hare Sahara which had foolishly announced that The Beatles were to stay there, so the place was swarming with fans who made so much noise that no one was able to get any sleep that night. Nonetheless their two sets at the huge White Sox Park Stadium before a total of 50,000 fans went very well.
August 21
In the afternoon The Beatles flew from Chicago to Minneapolis, Minnesota, for one show before 22,000 people at the Twin Cities Metropolitan Stadium. Parts of the show were almost drowned out by a press helicopter circling above the crowd which particularly annoyed John. They stayed at the Leamington Motor Inn, which, like the hotel in Chicago, had announced that The Beatles were staying there. George had the best time in Minneapolis because someone gave him a new guitar. Brian Matthew arrived at the BBC straight from the airport to give the Saturday Club radio audience a first-hand report on the opening dates of The Beatles' American tour.
John revealed that he had been approached to write a film script around the contents of his two books. In His Own Write and A Spaniard In The Works, and that he would be starting work on the project after the US tour.
August 22
The Beatles held a press conference at Minneapolis airport, before leaving for the next stop of their tour. The usual round of media questions was interrupted by a teenage fan, who had managed to gatecrash the event. He asked Ringo for advice on how to play the drums. "You'll never get anywhere listening to me," Ringo replied. "And he's been playing drums for thirty years," John added.
Flying to Portland from Minneapolis, the group's Lockheed Electra flew through a deep gorge and, shortly before landing, one of the plane's four engines caught fire and they arrived belching black smoke and flames. The incident was serious enough for John to scrawl a quick self-obituary on a piece of paper, which he then folded inside a small film canister to ensure that it would survive any crash. The local press had a field day with this story, blowing it up out of all proportion, though it could undoubtedly have proved dangerous had it occurred earlier.
NME reporter Chris Hutchins, who travelled with The Beatles, reported that during the crisis, George quipped: "Now perhaps people will stop joking about how long we're going to last." When the plane landed, John shouted: "Beatles, women and children first!"
The Beatles played two shows at the Portland Memorial Coliseum. Carl Wilson and Mike Love of The Beach Boys visited them backstage. Allen Ginsberg was in the audience and was greeted by John Lennon from the stage. He wrote a poem about the concert called "Portland Coliseum": "A single whistling sound / often thousand children's / larynxes a singing / pierce the ears ...".
August 23
The Beatles left Portland after their concert. With the Electra out of commission, they flew in a Constellation which lengthened the flight so they did not arrive in Los Angeles until a few hours before dawn. They rented a house at 2850 Benedict Canyon, Beverly Hills, but in fewer than ten hours the press and radio stations were giving out the supposedly secret address over the air. While The Beatles relaxed by the pool, the Beverly Hills police force had their work cut out keeping fans from invading their privacy. A dozen police were on duty plus a group of Burns Agency security men.
August 24
Eleanor Bron, who had starred with the group in Help!, and The Byrds both visited The Beatles. Peter Fonda also came by when John was on an acid trip.
John: " 'She Said She Said' was written after an acid trip in LA during a break in The Beatles' tour, where we were having fun with The Byrds and lots of girls ... Peter Fonda came in when we were on acid and he kept coming up to me and sitting next to me and whispering, 'I know what it's like to be dead.' He was describing an acid trip he'd been on."
That evening, the head of Capitol Records, Alan Livingstone, threw a party for the group during which they were presented with various awards. The guests included Edward G. Robinson, Jack Benny, Vince Edwards, Gene Barry, Richard Chamberlain, Jane Fonda, Rock Hudson, Groucho Marx, Dean Martin, Hayley and Juliet Mills and James Stewart. The party ended with a screening of What's New Pussycat but Paul and George left before the end to attend a Byrds recording session in the early hours. The Byrds were recording 'The Times They Are A Changin' '.
The routine at Benedict Canyon consisted of breakfast at around 2pm, sunbathing and swimming during the afternoon, then dinner followed by a private screening of the latest films. The house had a magnificent view across the canyon and was the perfect place for them to unwind.
Perhaps emotionally weakened by his regular consumption of drugs during this period, John wrote an anguished letter home to his wife, expressing his disillusionment with his life.
John: "I spend hours in dressing rooms and things, thinking about the times I've wasted not being with Julian - and playing with him - you know I keep thinking of those stupid bastard times when I keep reading bloody newspapers and other shit whilst he's in the room with us and I've decided it's ALL WRONG!... I'll go now because I'm bringing myself down thinking what a thoughtless bastard I seem to be -1 really feel like crying - it's so stupid - and I'm choking up now as I'm writing -1 don't know what's the matter with me. I'm having lots of laughs, but in between the laughs there is such a drop."
August 25
Two girl fans hired a helicopter to fly over the Benedict Canyon mansion and jumped from it into the swimming pool. Brian complained to the police and no further helicopters came to bother them.
August 27
The group remained trapped in their house but Paul put on his disguise and accompanied by Alf Bicknell, managed to do a bit of sightseeing.
MEETING ELVIS
That evening they met Elvis Presley at his home on Perugia Way in Bel Air next to the Country Club. They arrived at 11pm to find Elvis waiting on the doorstep. He took them through a huge circular lobby lit with his favourite red and blue lights into an enormous living room dominated by a giant colour television set with the sound turned off. Brian Epstein and Colonel Tom Parker stood together at the side and watched the meeting.
The atmosphere was stilted at first, with no one saying anything until Elvis blurted out, "If you damn guys are gonna sit here and stare at me all night I'm gonna go to bed."
This broke the ice. Elvis produced guitars and he and The Beatles played along to rock records from Elvis' collection. Paul played piano and guitar while Elvis played bass. They found they had things in common, discussing incidents with fans and problems of being on the road. George told Elvis how their plane caught fire while landing in Portland and Elvis remembered a similar episode when his aircraft engine failed in Atlanta.
He said that it normally took him about 28 days to shoot one of his films which amazed The Beatles who thought their six-week shooting schedule had been rushed. John made a terrible gaffe by asking Elvis, "Why don't you go back to making rock'n'roll records?" To Elvis this implied that his career had been all downhill but rather than argue the case, he blamed his film career:
"Ifs my movie schedule. Ifs so tight! I might just do one soon, though."
"Then we'll buy that!" John told him. It seemed to The Beatles later that Elvis had been stoned on something throughout the meeting. The visit lasted three hours and they left shortly after two in the morning. As Elvis waved them goodbye he called out, "Don't forget to come and see us again in Memphis if you're ever in Tennessee." As The Beatles' limo pulled away, John turned to the others and asked, "Where's Elvis?" He later said: "It was like meeting Engelbert Humperdinck."
Mal, Neil and Alf, their road managers, were also present during the visit and were amazed to find that Elvis had ten road managers, complete with their wives, living with him in the house, whereas The Beatles made do with three roadies for the four of them.
The Beatles were each given a complete set of Elvis albums, gun holsters with gold leather belts and a table lamp shaped like a wagon.
August 28
The Beatles travelled from Beverly Hills to San Diego in a luxury touring coach with ten seats, a fridge, bathroom, shower and plenty of food and drink. They took the coast highway for the two-hour journey. The Balboa Stadium was filled with 20,000 fans. The bus broke down on the way back to LA and they had to stop at a mortuary to transfer to limousines for the remainder of the journey. Fans caught up with them and jumped all over the cars, ruining them.
American folk singer Joan Baez, a former girlfriend of Bob Dylan's, had now joined The Beatles' entourage, and was apparently enjoying a close friendship with John.
August 29
In the afternoon there was a large press conference at the Capitol Tower at Hollywood and Vine, during which Alan Livingstone presented The Beatles with gold discs for Help!
An armoured truck took them from there to the Hollywood Bowl for the first of their concerts. The show was watched by 18,000 fans and one of them gave birth to a boy in the car park outside.
August 30
The last night of their nine days in Beverly Hills. Their second concert at the Bowl was a success and was (like its predecessor) taped by Capitol Records for a possible future live record. The group gave a pool-side party for the dozen or so press men and women who had accompanied them on the tour.
BBC Radio broadcast The Beatles Abroad, a 45-minute programme of interviews recorded by Brian Matthew during the early days of the US tour.
August 31
A total of 30,000 people saw the two shows at the San Francisco Cow Palace. The Beatles did their standard 12-number set and the show made news around the world because scores of fans fainted when loose seating allowed fans to push forward and rush the stage. The crowd got so out of hand at one point that the group had to leave the stage and wait in their backstage caravan until the situation had calmed down before returning to play. Johnny Cash and Joan Baez visited backstage. George played 'Greensleeves' and they both joined in the vocals.
September 1
The Beatles flew back to London from the US.
September 2
The Beatles arrived at London Airport.
September 4
The single 'Help!' reached number one in the US charts.
September 6
Paul and Jane went to see the play The Killing Of Sister George starring Beryl Reid at the Duke of York's Theatre. They were driven by Alf Bicknell whom they invited in to watch with them. Paul enjoyed it, Jane was critical. Afterwards they cruised a few nightclubs.
September 10
The single 'You've Got To Hide Your Love Away' by The Silkie, written by Lennon & McCartney, was released in the UK as Fontana TF 603.
September 11
John, Paul and George returned to Liverpool to visit relatives for a few days.
September 12
The album Help! reached number one in the US charts. The Beatles' August 14 recording for The Ed Sullivan Show was transmitted.
September 13
Maureen gave birth to Zak Starkey at Queen Charlotte's Hospital, Hammersmith, London.
John, Paul and George returned from Liverpool.
The single 'Yesterday'/'Act Naturally' was released in the US as Capitol 5498. 'Yesterday' was not released as a single in the UK until long after The Beatles split up.
September 17
The single 'That Means A Lot' by P.J. Proby, written by Lennon & McCartney, was released in the UK as Liberty 10215.
September 20
The single 'You've Got To Hide Your Love Away' by The Silkie, produced and written by Lennon & McCartney, was released in the US as Fontana 1525.
September 23
The charity Oxfam announced that, for the second year running, they would be printing a special Christmas card featuring a John Lennon cartoon - this time the drawing which accompanied 'The Fat Budgie' in his book, A Spaniard In The Works.
September 25
The Beatles cartoon series, The Beatles, made by King Features began broadcasting in the US. The series featured genuine Beatles songs and cartoon characters with voices by Paul Frees (John and George) and Lance Percival (Paul and Ringo). The series was produced by Al Brodax who later produced the cartoon film Yellow Submarine. The series was not screened at the time in the UK.
September 27
John jolted the promotional campaign for the Help! movie by revealing to a journalist that the film had been "a mistake".
EMI revealed that recording sessions for The Beatles' next album, due for release before Christmas, would begin in late October.
October 1
The single 'Yesterday' reached number one in the US. It remained unreleased in the UK because the group did not want their image as a rock'n'roll band damaged by the release of a solo ballad.
A 'YESTERDAY' TALE
In Eric Burdon's autobiography, he says that Paul originally offered Chris Farlowe the song:
"One day he phoned me at my Duke Street pad. 'Hey Eric, how ya doin', it's Chris Farlowe here,' he said in his hoarse voice. I asked how he was getting on. 'Oh, I'm OK. 'Ere listen, you'll never guess what happened. Paul McCartney - you know Paul out of The Beatles?' Yes, I had heard of him. Well he came round to our house in the middle of the night. I was out doing a show, but me mum was in and he left her a demo disc for me to listen to.' This was wonderful news. When was Chris going into the studio to cut this gift from the gods? 'Ah,' he growled. 'I don't like it. It's not for me. Ifs too soft. I need a good rocker, you know, a shuffle or something.' 'Yeah, but Chris,' I said. 'Anything to give you a start, man, I mean even if ifs a ballad, you should go ahead and record it.'
" 'No, I don't like it,' he insisted. 'Too soft.'
" 'So what are you gonna do with the song?'
" 'Well, I sent it back, didn't 1?'
" 'What was the title of the song?'
" ' "Yesterday",' he retorted."
October 3
Paul and Jane Asher attended a London cabaret performance by Frances Faye at The Talk Of The Town.
October 4
Paul and John visited the recording studio to watch Alma Cogan record 'Eight Days A Week'.
October 7
Former Beatles drummer Pete Best was reported to have taken a legal action for libel against his successor, Ringo Starr, over comments attributed to Ringo in a recent Playboy magazine interview with The Beatles.
October 9
All four Beatles attended a party given to celebrate the London opening of Lionel Bart's new musical Twang.
Afterwards they celebrated John's birthday.
October 11
Paul visited Decca Records Studios to watch Marianne Faithfull record Yesterday'. Marianne's version charted in the UK but came second to that by Matt Monro.
The single 'Twist And Shout'/'There's A Place' was released in the US as Capitol Starline 6061.
The single 'Love Me Do'/'P.S. I Love You' was released in the US as Capitol Starline 6062.
The single 'Please Please Me'/'From Me To You' was released in the US as Capitol Starline 6063.
The single 'Do You Want To Know A Secret?'/'Thank You Girl' was released in the US as Capitol Starline 6064.
The single 'Roll Over Beethoven'/'Misery' was released in the US as Capitol Starline 6065.
The single 'Boys'/'Kansas City'/'Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey' was released m the US as Capitol Starline 6066. This was the only one of these six 'reissue' singles to reach the US chart, albeit no higher than No. 102.
October 12
Abbey Road. John's 'Run For Your Life' was recorded in an afternoon session, leading straight into 'Norwegian Wood', then still known as 'This Bird Has Flown'. George played sitar for the first time on a Beatles' recording; a cheap model bought at Indiacraft. John: "I was trying to write about an affair without letting my wife know I was writing about an affair."
October 13
Abbey Road. The recording of 'Drive My Car' was the first time that The Beatles had recorded past midnight - something which would soon become the norm.
October 14
John and Paul had a songwriting session at Kenwood.
Paul: "We've written some funny songs - songs with jokes in. We think that comedy numbers are the next thing after protest songs. We don't like protest songs, because we're not the preaching sort, and we leave it to others to deliver messages of that kind.'
October 15
Paul and Jane saw Ben E. King play at the Scotch St James's. George, Patti, John and Cynthia arrived at the Scotch too late and missed the show.
October 16
Abbey Road. 'Day Tripper' was recorded during an afternoon and evening session, followed by work on George's 'If I Needed Someone'.
October 18
Abbey Road for the afternoon only, during which they completed 'If I Needed Someone' and worked on John's 'In My Life'.
October 20
Abbey Road. Two extended sessions produced 'We Can Work It Out'.
October 21
Abbey Road. The Beatles were in the studio from 2.30 until after midnight working on 'Norwegian Wood' and 'Nowhere Man'.
October 22
Abbey Road. The Beatles were driven to Abbey Road at 10am where they stayed until midnight working on 'Nowhere Man'.
The Beatles refused the invitation to repeat their 1963 performance at the Royal Variety Show next month, despite being promised that they would headline the event. Brian Epstein denied that this was a snub to the Royal Family, insisting that the group's tight recording schedule made it impossible for them to attend.
Paul: "We're not trying to dodge doing something for charity - we're making a contribution with a show of our own soon. But it's just not our audience. If we went on and people didn't like us, everyone would say, 'Ha, ha, The Beatles failed, they're on the slide.' As it is, they'll fill the theatre without any help from us, and at the same time we shan't suffer."
October 24
Abbey Road. The Beatles began work at 2.30pm, working on Paul's 'I'm Looking Through You' and stayed until midnight. Afterwards all of them except John continued to the Scotch St James's where Brian was holding a party.
October 26
The Beatles were invested with their MBEs.
MBE DAY
The Beatles arrived at Buckingham Palace in John's black glass Rolls Royce in time for the 11am honours ceremony in the Great Throne Room. Wearing dark suits and ties, they stood in a row while the Queen pinned the medals to the narrow lapels of their jackets. "How long have you been together now?" she asked.
"Oh, for many years," said Paul.
"Forty years," said Ringo, and everyone laughed.
"Are you the one that started it all?" the Queen asked Ringo.
He told her that the others started it. "I'm the little one," he said.
The Queen wore a pale gold gown. The room in Buckingham Palace was decorated in cream and gold, with six chandeliers overhead and an organ at one end. The band of the Coldstream Guards quietly played tunes from 'Humoresque' and 'Bitter Sweet'. Paul later described it as "a keen pad".
The Lord Chamberlain, Lord Cobbold, read out The Beatles' names. They stepped forward and bowed. The Queen shook hands, spoke to each, and pinned on the medals. They then stepped back into place and bowed again.
Paul described the Queen as, "Lovely. Great! She was very friendly. She was just like a mum to us."
At the investiture 189 people received awards, including six who were knighted. The Beatles were awarded the MBE, the lowest of the five divisions of the order, for service to their country. It ranks 120th of the 126 titles of precedence and is the most widely given honour.
Outside, 4,000 Beatles fans chanted "Yeah, yeah, yeah" and jostled with police who managed to hold them back, but could not prevent them climbing the gates and lamp-posts outside the palace.
Immediately afterwards there was a press conference arranged in the downstairs bar of the Saville Theatre for The Beatles to discuss their MBEs and give their reaction to the protests.
October 27
A recording session booked for this date was cancelled because John and Paul had not yet written sufficient new material.
George Martin: "We hope to resume next week. We are not waxing songs by other composers. We want this to be an all Lennon/McCartney album."
October 28
Abbey Road. Mixing session for 'We Can Work It Out'.
John Lennon arrived at the Ad-Lib with a crowd of friends, driven in his Rolls Royce by The Beatles' chauffeur Alf Bicknell. When he learned that it was Alf's birthday he insisted on giving him a night out on the town. One of the entourage, John's friend Terry Doran, took charge of the car and after the Ad-Lib, John took the whole party to dinner at the Savoy where Francoise Hardy was in cabaret.
October 29
Abbey Road. A new vocal track was added to 'We Can Work It Out'.
October 31
Box offices at cinemas and theatres across Britain opened, selling tickets for The Beatles' December tour.
November 1
The Beatles drove to Manchester to record The Music Of Lennon And McCartney, a special for Granada Television. Paul began 'Yesterday' and after 22 seconds the cameras cut away to a pregnant Marianne Faithfull performing her version. The group mimed to 'We Can Work It Out' and 'Day Tripper'. Other artists performed their own versions of Beatles songs.
John became a director of Drutsown Limited, a company set up to control his literary income.
November 2
The Beatles finished recording at Granada and returned to London.
November 3
Abbey Road. An afternoon and an evening session ending at midnight recording Paul's 'Michelle'.
November 4
Abbey Road. A 7pm until 3am session recording Ringo's 'What Goes On'.
November 6
Abbey Road. A 7pm until 3am session working on Paul's 'I'm Looking Through You', but no one was satisfied with the results.
November 7
Capitol Records withdrew promotional support for their US Beatles single, 'Boys', after being advised by the group that they no longer thought it was representative of their sound.
November 8
Abbey Road. The group rehearsed George's 'Think For Yourself and at about 3am recorded The Beatles Third Christmas Record, a flexi-disc issued free to fan club members only.
November 10
Abbey Road. A 9pm to 3am session for John's 'The Word' and more work on 'I'm Looking Through You'.
November 11
Abbey Road. A late-night session beginning at 6pm and ending at 7am working on 'Wait', recording Paul's 'You Won't See Me' and John's 'Girl'. They put the finishing touches to 'I'm Looking Through You' and their new album, Rubber Soul was finished.
November 12
Parlophone's Italian office released an album entitled The Beatles In Italy - not, as its title suggested, a live recording from their recent European tour, but a collection of previously released studio tracks.
November 15
The afternoon was spent sequencing songs for the new album with George Martin.
EMI announced that 'We Can Work It Out' would be the A-side of The Beatles' next single.
November 16
Paul saw Gene Pitney play in Slough and acted as MC, making the announcements from behind the stage curtains so that no one in the audience knew it was him: "And to start the show in swinging style: The Mike Cotton Sound!" He was there because Peter Asher's group, Peter & Gordon, were on the bill. Between houses, when the curtain was down, Paul played drums on stage.
November 17
George and Patti spent the day shopping.
John contradicted EMI's announcement two days earlier by insisting that, as far as he was concerned, 'Day Tripper' was the A-side of the next single. He also revealed that he had been approached by film director Tony Richardson to write the script for a proposed movie adaptation of the book, In The Words Of The Hornet.
November 18
John and Cynthia spent the day shopping.
November 23
The Beatles filmed their own promotional film clips to promote the new album. This way they would be able to appear on television in the US, Japan and the rest of the world instead of being restricted to just a few British TV shows. They filmed all day at Twickenham Film Studios. Film versions were made of 'We Can Work It Out', 'Day Tripper', 'Help!', 'Ticket To Ride' and 'I Feel Fine' which were shown all over the world during the Christmas period.
Press agent Tony Barrow: "The boys would normally have appeared on television themselves to plug their new single, but they have been busy preparing an entirely new stage act, featuring all new numbers from their forthcoming album, for the tour which begins in Glasgow."
November 25
Harrods opened for three hours in the evening to enable The Beatles to do late-night Christmas shopping in private. Both Ringo and George purchased items of furniture, while John bought a giant slide for his son Julian to use in the garden.
November 27
Paul saw his brother Michael in his group The Scaffold perform at the Granada, East Ham where they were on the bill of a Manfred Mann/Yardbirds concert, and attended the party after the show.
November 29
The Beatles taped an interview with Brian Matthew at the BBC Aeolian Hall for use on the Christmas Day edition of the BBC Light Programme's Saturday Club.
November 30
Brian Matthew interviewed George and John separately at NEMS Argyll Street office for the BBC Overseas Service.
December 1
The Beatles spent the day practising at Mal and Neil's apartment in order to be on form for their upcoming British tour.
An art exhibition at the Nell Gwynne Club, London included some of John's drawings. The December issue of the US magazine McCall's included a short story by John called 'The Toy Boy'. The piece had been written for the proposed follow-up to In His Own Write and A Spaniard In The Works. John had already signed a contract with Jonathan Cape for a third book, but abandoned the idea in 1966, feeling that this form of expression was no longer necessary now that The Beatles had expanded the range of their lyric writing.
December 2
The Beatles drove to Berwick-on-Tweed. One of George's guitars fell off the back of the car en route and was smashed to pieces by following traffic.
BBC TV's Top Of The Pops premiered the new promo films for 'Day Tripper' and 'We Can Work It Out'.
John's company, Drutsown Limited, changed its name to Lennon Books Limited.
December 3
The single 'Day Tripper'/'We Can Work It Out' was released in the UK as Parlophone R 5389. 'We Can Work It Out' was originally intended as the A-side of the single, but at John's insistence, both sides were given equal prominence in the press and on the radio.
The album Rubber Soul was released in the UK as Parlophone PMC 1267 (mono) and PCS 3075 (stereo). Side A: 'Drive My Car', 'Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)', 'You Won't See Me', 'Nowhere Man', 'Think For Yourself', 'The Word', 'Michelle'; Side B: 'What Goes On', 'Girl', 'I'm Looking Through You', 'In My Life', 'Wait', 'If I Needed Someone', 'Run For Your Life'.
EMI made an initial pressing of 750,000 copies to cope with the expected demand. The Beatles began their last UK tour in Glasgow, playing two sets at the Odeon Cinema. Also on the bill were their friends The Moody Blues. The Beatles' set consisted of: 'Dizzy Miss Lizzy', 'I Feel Fine', 'She's A Woman', 'If I Needed Someone', 'Ticket To Ride', 'Act Naturally', 'Nowhere Man', 'Baby's In Black', 'Help!', 'We Can Work It Out', 'Day Tripper' and 'I'm Down'.
Bad weather made Brian Epstein change their hotel from a small one just out of town to a grand hotel in the centre of Glasgow which posed a security problem.
DAY TRIPPER
For once, the guiding rule that you can tell which Beatle wrote a song by the identity of the lead vocalist breaks down with this song, originally issued as a double A-sided single in December 1965. 'Day Tripper' was a Lennon composition - the title apparently meant "a weekend hippie" - but it was McCartney who sang the verses, while Lennon handled the chorus. Like 'I Feel Fine' and 'Ticket To Ride', the song was built around a rock-solid guitar riff, which suggested that Lennon was responding to the inspiration of The Rolling Stones, who'd strung a series of singles around similar instrumental hook-lines since the middle of 1964.
WE CAN WORK IT OUT
Supporting 'Day Tripper' was this collaboration of two unfinished songs, taken by The Beatles themselves as revealing the diverse approaches of Lennon and McCartney to music and to life. EMI immediately tried to push this as the A-side of the single, only for John Lennon to intervene and insist that the rockier 'Day Tripper' be given equal, if not superior, status. Not that Lennon wanted to denigrate 'We Can Work It Out', to which he made a vital instrumental contribution on harmonium; he simply didn't wish to see the softer side of the group's music exposed at the expense of their rock'n'roll roots.
RUBBER SOUL
"I think Rubber Soul was the first of The Beatles' albums which presented a new Beatles to the world," reckons George Martin, who was close enough to the proceedings to know. "Up till then, we had been making albums rather like a collection of singles. Now we were really beginning to think about albums as a bit of art on their own. And Rubber Soul was the first to emerge that way."
John Lennon concurred: 'We were just getting better, technically and musically, that's all. We finally took over the studio. On Rubber Soul, we were sort of more precise about making the album, and we took over the cover and everything. It was Paul's album tide, just a pun. There is no great mysterious meaning behind all this, it was just four boys, working out what to call a new album."
There's no real disagreement, among fans, musicians and critics alike. Sgt. Pepper may have been The Beatles' production extravaganza, and Revolver their first post-acid celebration, but Rubber Soul was the record on which they revealed clear signs of fresh thinking - not just in musical or lyrical terms, but also philosophically. If Beatles For Sale marked the pinnacle of British beat, and Help! a consolidation of the past. Rubber Soul was a step into the future.
Ifs important to remember that The Beatles weren't pioneers in their quest for new artistic experiences. Bob Dylan had already recorded and released Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited by the time the group began work on Rubber Soul. But The Beatles were the first to introduce Dylan's free-form wordplay into the tight constraints of the three-minute pop song. Weeks before The Byrds discovered the joys of being 'Eight Miles High', the Liverpudlians announced that "the word is love".
Equally important to remember is that, unlike Pepper or The White Album, Rubber Soul wasn't a carefully considered studio creation. As they had been the previous autumn, The Beatles were trapped on a deadline-powered treadmill. When they arrived at Abbey Road studios on October 12, they knew that their next single, and album, had to be ready for release at the start of December. In the event, they cut it right to the bone: the final songs weren't written or recorded until mid-November. Just 18 days after the album was mixed, copies were on sale in the shops.
Despite the determinedly trend-setting approach of the album, one thing hadn't changed: The Beatles still intended Rubber Soul to be heard in mono, rather than stereo. In order to make both this record and Help! acceptable for modem digital audiences, George Martin remixed them both into 'proper' stereo for the CD releases.
DRIVE MY CAR
For all John Lennon's reputation as a rock'n'roller, it was Paul McCartney who wrote The Beatles' most raucous songs of 1965 - 'I'm Down' (the flipside of the 'Help!' single) and then this sly piece of sexual innuendo. What's most noticeable about the song at this distance, though, is the sparseness of the production. At a time when their nearest rivals, The Rolling Stones, were experimenting with dense, murky soundscapes, The Beatles cut this album with the maximum of separation between individual instruments, creating a feeling of space rather than tension.
NORWEGIAN WOOD (THIS BIRD HAS FLOWN)
At the time it was released, Paul McCartney described this Lennon composition as "a comedy song". In the same debunking spirit, George Harrison admitted that the arrangement was "an accident as far as the sitar part was concerned". And not until 1970 did John Lennon explain: 7 was trying to write about an affair without letting my wife know I was writing about an affair."
The sitar wasn't an accident, as George had played the instrument on the first still-unreleased version of the song on October 12. And the lyrics certainly weren't comedy, though they had their moments of humour. In oblique, memorable imagery, Lennon conjured up a romantic encounter that rapidly moved beyond his control - a theme that would soon become an obsession in his work.
YOU WON'T SEE ME
From reality to fantasy, in one fell swoop: no one would claim McCartney's 'You Won't See Me' as a piece of self-revelation. But it was a supreme piece of commercial songwriting, recorded during the last, frantic day of sessions to complete the album. Note the superb falsetto harmonies, and McCartney's confident piano playing.
NOWHERE MAN
Sitting bored in his Surrey home suffering writer's block, John Lennon suddenly envisaged himself as the "nowhere man, thinking all his nowhere plans for nobody". As the composer, Lennon wrote himself a message of hope: "nowhere man, the world is at your command". The Beatles translated the song into gorgeous Byrdsian 1965 pop, showing off another set of delicious vocal harmonies.
THINK FOR YOURSELF
George Harrison's spiritual investigations would soon initiate an entire genre of songwriting. 'Think For Yourself was the first sign that he had a voice of his own, every bit as cynical as Lennon's about the trappings of everyday life, but holding out the study of the mind and the universe as a panacea. "Try thinking more, if just for your own sake," he sang, in a line which summed up his philosophy for the next few years.
THE WORD
Meanwhile, John and Paul considered that "the word is love" - their first tentative step into the shimmering waters of drug-enhanced freedom and meditation. At the time, McCartney was more impressed by the song's simple musical form: "To write a good song with just one note in it - like 'Long Tall Sally' - is really very hard. It's the kind ofthing we've wanted to do for some time. We get near it in 'The Word'.
MICHELLE
Songs become standards when they sound as if they've been around forever the first time you hear them. 1965 saw Paul McCartney unveiling the two songs that have been more covered than anything else he has ever written - first 'Yesterday' and then this romantic Gallic ballad, complete with in-built French translation. Every bit as much a hook as the chorus was the descending bass-line, as Paul explained to Mark Lewisohn: "I'll never forget putting the bass line in because it was a kind of Bizet thing. It really turned the song around.
WHAT GOES ON?
"That was a very early song of mine," John Lennon explained, "but Ringo and Paul wrote a new middle eight together when we recorded it," That gave Ringo his first ever composing credit, the group having turned down his solitary composition up to that point, 'Don't Pass Me By'. On Rubber Soul, 'What Goes On' performed exactly the same function as 'Act Naturally' had on Help! - opening the second side of the LP with a lightweight, country song in preparation for the meatier fare to follow.
GIRL
Written overnight for the last session of the album, 'Girl' was the song that illustrated just how far John Lennon had travelled since 'I Feel Fine' a year earlier. " 'Girl' is real," he explained in 1970. "It was about that girl, who happened to be Yoko in the end, the one that a lot of us were looking for. And I was trying to say something about Christianity, which I was opposed to at the time." With its biting attack on Catholic values, and its thinly veiled mixture of lust and disgust, 'Girl' was Lennon's most personal statement of disillusionment to date.
I'M LOOKING THROUGH YOU
For almost the first time, Paul McCartney used this song as a vehicle for a personal message, rather than an attempt to write a hit single. He'd fallen out with his girlfriend of the time, Jane Asher, and 'I'm Looking Through You' was his response - half apology, half accusation. The Beatles first recorded the song without its melodic middle section, substituting a harsh guitar solo. Ever the tunesmith, Paul had written the missing lines by the time they finally recorded the released version.
IN MY LIFE
"In the early days, George Martin would translate for us," Lennon remembered in 1970. "In 'In My Life', there's an Elizabethan piano solo. He would do things like that." In musical terms, that was the most striking thing about 'In My Life'. But it acquired a new resonance in the wake of Lennon's death in 1980, when it took on the role of a personal epitaph, a warm-hearted salutation to friends and lovers down the years. That's the way it was intended in 1965, as well, with John feeling sufficiently removed from his upbringing to be able to feel nostalgic about the world he'd left behind.
WAIT
Desperate needs require desperate remedies, and for the second time ('Hold Me Tight' being the first) The Beatles plugged a gap on a new album by returning to a reject from a previous session. At least 'Hold Me Tight' had been re-recorded, though: for 'Wait', the group called up the tape of a song which they'd attempted during the sessions for 'Help!', and decided wasn't up to scratch. With more vocal harmonies, percussion and vocals, they salvaged it, though the song's naive enthusiasm still sounds out-of-place amid the more worldly lyrics of other Rubber Soul songs.
IF I NEEDED SOMEONE
By far the best song George Harrison had written up to that point, 'If I Needed Someone' left its mark for several reasons. It boasted stunning three-part harmonies, the tightest they'd yet achieved on record; it had a jingle-jangle guitar sound obviously borrowed from The Byrds, in exactly the same way as The Byrds had developed their sound from listening to The Beatles; and it featured lyrics that were not so much anti-romantic as totally realistic. 'If I Needed Someone' may be the first pop song written from the jaded, though not quite exhausted, viewpoint of a man who had women lined up outside his hotel door in every city of the world.
RUN FOR YOUR LIFE
The first song to be recorded for Rubber Soul appeared last on the album - and on its composer's list of preferences. "I always hated that one," John Lennon admitted in later years. "It was one I knocked off just to write a song, and it was phoney." It was also a mildly nasty rocker with a central threat stolen from an Elvis Presley classic. The line, "I'd rather see you dead little girl than to be with another man", first surfaced on Elvis' revolutionary revamp of the blues standard 'Baby, Let's Play House' back in 1955. Lennon never sought to disguise the theft; but in 1965, most reviewers and fans hadn't been schooled in Elvis' Sun sessions, which were then available only scattered across long-deleted albums, and the lyrical debt went unnoticed.
December 4
The group had a bad journey through snow to Newcastle for a concert at the City Hall (British Tour).
December 5
Liverpool Empire (British Tour).
All their friends and relatives attended the concert which turned out to be the last time The Beatles played their home town. During the second show, Paul joined support act The Koobas on stage to play drums on 'Dizzy Miss Lizzy'.
The double A-side single, 'We Can Work It Out'/'Day Tripper', reached No. 1 in the UK charts.
The album Rubber Soul reached number one in the UK album charts.
George savagely criticised The Hollies' rendition of his song, 'If I Needed Someone', which was released today, describing it as "rubbish" and complaining: "They've spoilt it. The Hollies are alright musically, but the way they do their records, they sound like session men who've just got together in a studio without ever seeing each other before."
Hollies leader Graham Nash responded: "Not only do these comments disappoint and hurt us, but we are sick of everything The Beatles say or do being taken as law. The thing that hurts us most is George Harrison's knock at us as musicians. And I would like to ask this. If we have made such a disgusting mess of his brainchild song, will he give all the royalties from our record to charity?"
December 6
The Beatles spent the day with friends and family in Liverpool.
The album Rubber Soul was released in the US as Capitol T-2442 (mono) and ST-2442 (stereo). As usual it contained fewer tracks than the UK original: Side A: 'I've Just Seen A Face', 'Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)', 'You Won't See Me', 'Think For Yourself, 'The Word', 'Michelle'; Side B: 'It's Only Love', 'Girl', 'I'm Looking Through You', 'In My Life', 'Wait', 'Run For Your Life'.
The single 'Day Tripper'/'We Can Work It Out' was released in the US as Capitol 5555.
The EP The Beatles Million Sellers was released in the UK as Parlophone GEP 8946. (mono only). Side A: 'She Loves You', 'I Want To Hold Your Hand'; Side B: 'Can't Buy Me Love', 'I Feel Fine'.
December 7
The group drove to Manchester with no trouble but the city was covered in thick fog and it took them four hours to find the venue, arriving at the ABC Cinema, Ardwick, after they should have been on stage. Walter Shenson visited them backstage to discuss their third film.
Paul: "We've had a few ideas for writing our own film scripts, like the one about Jesus Christ coming back to earth as an ordinary person. But I think we're now resigned to the fact that we will just not have the time to work on a full-scale musical until The Beatles as a group are finished.
"We have always wanted to write a number about the places in Liverpool where we were born. Places like Penny Lane and The Docker's Umbrella have a nice musical sound, but when we strung them all together in a composition, they sounded so contrived, we gave up."
December 8
Gaumont Cinema, Sheffield (British Tour). After the show, The Moody Blues joined them for dinner at their hotel.
December 9
The band drove to Birmingham through torrential rain and played the Odeon Cinema (British Tour).
December 10
The Beatles returned to London and played the Hammersmith Odeon (British Tour).
Britain's best-selling music paper, the New Musical Express, printed the results of its annual Readers Poll. The Beatles won the "Best British Group" and "Best World Group" categories, while John deposed Cliff Richard as "British Vocal Personality".
December 11
The band played the Finsbury Park Astoria (British Tour) to a tremendous London audience.
George: "This is one of the most incredible shows we've done. Not just because of the audience, but because they're Londoners. This is the funny thing. It's always been the other way round - fantastic in the North but just that little bit cool in London. It's incredible. It seems like the Beatlemania thing is happening all over again."
December 12
The UK tour ended with a concert at the Cardiff Capitol Cinema. Ringo drove back to London after the show in order to go to the Scotch St James's Christmas party.
December 13
John, Paul and George returned to London. They met with Brian to discuss their projected third film. The meeting ended in disagreement with the group turning down the script for Richard Condon's A Talent For Loving for which Brian had already bought the rights.
December 14
John and Cynthia did Christmas shopping.
December 16
Granada Television screened the Songs OfLennon And McCartney special in London;
viewers across the rest of Britain saw the show the following day.
John: "There are only about 100 people in the world who really understand what our music is all about. Ringo, George, and a few others scattered around the globe. That's all. The reason so many people use our numbers and add nothing at all to them is that they do not understand the music. Consequently they make a mess of it.
"We try and find a truth for ourselves, a real feeling. You can never communicate your complete emotion to other people, but if we can convey just a little of what we feel, then we've achieved something."
December 17
The Beatles Third Christmas Record flexi-disc was sent to 65,000 members of The Beatles fan club.
December 18
John spent the night in the clubs.
December 19
Paul and Jane saw a performance of Lionel Bart's musical Twang at the Shaftesbury Theatre.
December 23
Paul did last-minute Christmas shopping. Among his Christmas gifts to the other Beatles were acetates of a special record called Paul's Christmas Album made in an edition of four copies only. On it Paul acted as a DJ playing his favourite tracks.
December 25
BBC Light Programme's Saturday Club broadcast clips from a specially recorded interview.
The pirate ship Radio Caroline broadcast a specially recorded Christmas message by the group who had always given their support to pirate stations.
BBC TVs Top Of The Pops showed film clips of the group performing 'I Feel Fine', 'Help!', 'Ticket to Ride' and 'Day Tripper'.
December 26
George was driven to Liverpool to pay a surprise visit to his mother and family in their new bungalow on Boxing Day. George and chauffeur Alt Bicknell had to sleep on camp beds in the attic.
Radio Caroline broadcast a pre-recorded interview with Paul on its Pop's Happening programme.
Paul was also in Liverpool to see his family, bringing his friend, Guinness heir, Tara Browne, with him. While they were out for a ride in country lanes in the Wirral, Paul fell off his moped and cut his lip badly enough to require several stitches.
December 31
Paul, Jane, George and Patti attended a big New Year's party with EMI executives. John and Cynthia spent the evening at a party given by Norman Newell.
John's father, Freddie Lennon, released a single, 'That's My Life (My Love And My Home) ' on Pye Records. This desperate piece of self-promotion did little to reconcile Freddie with his estranged son.
FREDDIE LENNON
John: "I never saw him until I made a lot of money and he came back. I opened the Daily Express and there he was, washing dishes in a small hotel or something very near where I was living in the stockbroker belt outside London. He had been writing to me to try and get into contact. I didn't want to see him. I was too upset about what he'd done to me and to my mother and that he would turn up when I was rich and famous and not bother turning up before. So I wasn't going to see him at all, but he sort of blackmailed me in the press by saying all this about being a poor man washing dishes while I was living in luxury. I fell for it and saw him and we had some kind of relationship. He died a few years later of cancer. But at 65 he married a secretary who had been working for The Beatles, age 22, and they had a child, which I thought was hopeful for a man who had lived his life as a drunk and almost a Bowery bum."
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