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   CLUB SANDWICH 76

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It's exciting, it's shocking, it's frightening, it's sad, it's happy, and it's

THE BEATLES STORY

Paul recently invited Geoff Baker and Mark Lewisohn to ask him questions about The Beatles Anthology. Here's the result, exclusive to Club Sandwich Club Sandwich 76

            What do you think would have appealed to John Lennon about the Anthology?

            That we'd finally put something together, that we'd finally got it out of the way. John was a great do-er, he didn't like to hang around and think about things, he just liked to get them done. Obviously I'm guessing, but I suspect that he would have been glad it was done. And that we'd had our say.
            I think it might have been, in fact I'm sure it would have been different if John had been alive to have his say. Strangely enough, I think there wouldn't have been quite as many compromises. But because John is not around to give his opinion, we had to err on the side of compromise. There were certain little stories that were removed from the Anthology because, one, they might offend people or give the wrong idea, and, two, we wondered, "Is it absolutely necessary to have the warts and all version?"

            Was the original intention to tell the full story, unexpurgated? Club Sandwich 76

            We started off speaking as much truth as we could remember and it was first assembled straight, with no compromises. And then each one of us was asked if there was anything that bothered us. And there were little things that wouldn't have bothered me but bothered other people. For instance, Ringo now has given up booze and is very much happier for it. Like anyone in rehab, he's trying to stay sober one day at a time and doesn't remember his booze days with great pleasure. So he wanted to take out a reference to where, before he joined the Beatles, he used to a come into our Hamburg club late at night and a little the worse for drink and ask for a song called 'Three-Thirty Blues'. He just didn't want that in. It wasn't so much "removing the truth" as "not putting in something unnecessary". We don't need to know that Ringo was slurring his speech: the joke of the story, the body of it, is that he asked for 'Three-Thirty Blues' late at night. We don't really need to know what he did after it or before it. It's interesting if you want to know but it's not necessary.
            I don't think there was a whitewash, although I was concerned that there would be - mainly because I thought there were certain people who would really feel it was me whitewashing. Strangely enough, I'm probably the only person who didn't. But it's not a heavy whitewash. I pretty much let all my stuff go through, all the stuff I said go through.
            I was slightly dreading looking at the last episode because that's sort of "Who broke up the Beatles?" territory, and actually I'm glad that we didn't deal with it that way. The director, I think, has done a much more clever thing, where he says it happened - we came full cycle, there were problems - but we don't go surgically into them and expose the blood and gore. We just mention them and then we lean on the affectionate stuff, the kind of stuff I love, where Ringo just says, "It was just about four guys who loved each other" and he slightly chokes up when he says, "Pretty sensational." In the end I think that's more important. It's how I want to remember it. There were lots of hard moments but generally I'm just very proud and happy that I was in the Beatles and I have very fond memories, so you've got to reflect that as well.
            Obviously "the truth and nothing but the truth" is not what you get in the Anthology: you get the truth and some compromises. But I don't think that's bad, although there will be people who will be dismayed that the truth isn't there in every single detail, with every "t" crossed.
            There were some bad moments, but even after all the crap we went through, and all the stuff John laid on me, all that "How do you sleep at night" and the real bitter stuff that he came out with in the press, we were able to end up, thank God, chatting about putting the cat out and baking bread and raising Sean. It says something for our relationship that we were able to go through all of that and yet come back and still be friends.

            And make Tree As A Bird'

            And then for the three of us to make 'Free As A Bird', yes. There was some comment I read in the press recently where someone wrote "In the mood Lennon was in when he wrote this he certainly wouldn't have wanted McCartney to get his mitts all over it", you know, the old chestnut. In actual fact, the journalist has got his history wrong. What he means is, "In the mood John was in a couple of years before he wrote it, he might not have wanted McCartney to get his hands on it...". Which brings me to something I remembered when reading that: John phoned me once to try and get the Beatles back together again, after we'd broken up. And I wasn't for it, because I thought that we'd come too far and I was too deeply hurt by it all. I thought, "Nah, what'll happen is that we'll get together for another three days and all hell will break loose again. Maybe we just should leave it alone."