Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hi, everyone, it's Paul muldoon. Before we get to
Speaker 1: this episode, I wanted to let you know that you
Speaker 1: can binge all twelve episodes of McCartney A Life and
Speaker 1: Lyrics right now, add free by becoming a Pushkin Plus subscriber.
Speaker 1: Find Pushkin Plus on the McCartney A Life and Lyrics Show,
Speaker 1: pedge in Apple Podcasts, or at pushkin dot fm, slash Plus.
Speaker 2: We admired a singer at that time called Bruce Chanelle
Speaker 2: I think his name was, who had a song called
Speaker 2: hey Baby. Whether there was a harmonica roof, so we
Speaker 2: started doing Hey Baby. I sang it. John played the harmonica.
Speaker 2: I think that was one of the contributory factors for
Speaker 2: when we're going to write something that's a good idea.
Speaker 2: This harmonica thing's a good idea. John could play it well.
Speaker 2: We could write something that would feature harmonica. You know,
Speaker 2: instruments come in sort of vogues. I mean you think
Speaker 2: of skiffle guitar was was like a harmonic. It's what
Speaker 2: everyone got for Christmas, is what everyone got, and that
Speaker 2: then spawned the sixties revolution and do it.
Speaker 1: And I've been fortunate to spend time with one of
Speaker 1: the greatest songwriter of our era and.
Speaker 2: Will you look at me? I'm going on to it.
Speaker 2: I'm actually a performer.
Speaker 1: That is Sir Paul McCartney. We worked together on a
Speaker 1: book looking at the lyrics of more than one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty of his songs, and we recorded many hours
Speaker 1: of our conversations.
Speaker 2: It was like going back to an old snapshot album
Speaker 2: looking back on work I hadn't ever analyzed.
Speaker 1: This is McCartney, a life in lyrics, a masterclass, a memoir,
Speaker 1: and an improvised journey with one of the most iconic
Speaker 1: figures in popular music. In this episode, love Me Too.
Speaker 2: BA, love Me Do you Know? I Love you? Balways
Speaker 2: be true, so love Me Do.
Speaker 1: For a group like the Beatles to come into existence,
Speaker 1: you need quite a few planets to align, but you
Speaker 1: also need prodigious talent, clever strategy, and insatiable drive. In
Speaker 1: this episode, we trace the origins of one of the
Speaker 1: earliest Beatles songs. These days, it's difficult to remember a
Speaker 1: time before the Beatles, But back when Paul McCartney and
Speaker 1: John Lennon wrote Love Me Doo, there were merely school
Speaker 1: boys trying to make a hit in the afternoons.
Speaker 2: I sometimes had a rather kind of light class that
Speaker 2: I could get out of, and so I would say
Speaker 2: I had a dentist's appointment or something, and they didn't
Speaker 2: check too heavily, so I would be able to get
Speaker 2: on the bus, go back home and arrange to meet John,
Speaker 2: who right about that time was going to the art
Speaker 2: college next door my school. So we'd meet up at
Speaker 2: my house is now National Trust Establishment twenty fourth in
Speaker 2: the road, and we would meet there because that was
Speaker 2: the most convenient place, and my mom and dad wouldn't
Speaker 2: be there, so we would go there and start just
Speaker 2: knocking around, showing each other stuff that we'd written already,
Speaker 2: and then writing new stuff together. And this involved a
Speaker 2: couple of songs that have never been published or never
Speaker 2: been heard, songs like just Fun was one of them,
Speaker 2: and they were very rough little things, but you know
Speaker 2: it was the start.
Speaker 3: Right now? You still have copies of those? Are there
Speaker 3: still copies of it?
Speaker 2: You know? I do? I say, or did have an
Speaker 2: old school exercise book. It's a nice little blue book,
Speaker 2: the hard pack, and in that I wrote just fun,
Speaker 2: Just Fun. They said that our love was just fun
Speaker 2: the day that our friendship begun. There's no bloom woon
Speaker 2: that I can see there's never been in history, because
Speaker 2: our love was just fun, kind of country masponicuticuney. And
Speaker 2: then too Bad about Sorrows was sort of too bad
Speaker 2: about Sarrose Waa waa wow ooh do do do do?
Speaker 2: I think it's a little too opy thing. This was
Speaker 2: the start. And then I'd written in Angel Voices.
Speaker 1: In that little blue notebook where the two school boys
Speaker 1: had scribbled their very first lyrics, there was evidence Lennon
Speaker 1: and McCartney envisioned themselves following in the footsteps of other
Speaker 1: songwriting giants.
Speaker 2: And at the top of the page, I'd written another
Speaker 2: Lennon McCartney original.
Speaker 3: So you read you had a sense, even though you
Speaker 3: were what sixteen, a little older perhaps that you would
Speaker 3: have a future?
Speaker 2: Yeah, did you? I mean I think it was more
Speaker 2: a sort of wish than a sense. It was more,
Speaker 2: you know, this thing, if you visualize it, it might
Speaker 2: come true. And you know, when you think of Lena McCartney,
Speaker 2: was because we'd heard of Gilbert Sullivan, Rogers and Hamstein.
Speaker 2: If Lena McCartney as good as two of us, and
Speaker 2: we could, we can make it one of those type names.
Speaker 2: Liber and Stoller, Goffin and King, but these were magic
Speaker 2: names to us. We didn't realize Goffin and King was
Speaker 2: Carol King. Didn't realize it was a girl.
Speaker 3: And an amazingly young woman.
Speaker 2: I was very young, yes, yeah, but you know it
Speaker 2: was thrilling to know that there were these people out
Speaker 2: there and this is what we wanted to be. And
Speaker 2: Love Me Do game around that period, One After nine
Speaker 2: or nine Love Me Doing One After nine or nine
Speaker 2: actually got published and actually got recorded.
Speaker 4: An orney.
Speaker 2: The others didn't get recorded. And the school exercise Book.
Speaker 2: I found it probably about ten fifteen years ago, put
Speaker 2: it in my bookcase and I've since lost it all.
Speaker 2: I don't know where it is. I think it might
Speaker 2: show up somewhere, but it's the first ever so Lenna
Speaker 2: McCartney manuscript. Anyway. Yeah, well, oh dear is right, but
Speaker 2: you know you have to let these things go.
Speaker 3: Right, maybe do.
Speaker 1: App Another duo which had a profound influence on young
Speaker 1: Lennon and McCartney was the Everly Brothers.
Speaker 2: There are certain people that you can credit for pretty
Speaker 2: much everything he did, because I think that's I think
Speaker 2: that's true of everyone. I think everyone's got a hero
Speaker 2: that forms them. Yeah, like this, like.
Speaker 5: Ah did I exist?
Speaker 2: And like so as John and I were two male
Speaker 2: vocalists who sang in harmony. Our biggest influence was the
Speaker 2: Evely Brothers, who we loved adored to this day. I
Speaker 2: just think they're the greatest. And it was different. You'd
Speaker 2: hear barbershop quartets, you'd heard the Beverly Sisters, the Three Girls,
Speaker 2: You'd heard all that, but just two guys, good lucking guys.
Speaker 2: This is good.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, you gotta wheel.
Speaker 2: So yeah, we loved them and idolized them and wanted
Speaker 2: to be like them. That Oh yeah. It's like when
Speaker 2: people later would see the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show.
Speaker 4: But even ladies and gentlemen, you live from New York,
Speaker 4: the head Snovan Joe.
Speaker 2: I mean trillion people who say that I knew that's
Speaker 2: what I wanted to be.
Speaker 4: Last on our show in New York, the Beatles played
Speaker 4: to the greatest TV audience it's ever been assembled in
Speaker 4: the history of American TV.
Speaker 2: When I saw you foreheaded monster on the Telly and
Speaker 2: you I've got to be part of this. Our current
Speaker 2: manager of Beatles Apple Records, says that Bruce Springsteen says
Speaker 2: that David Eleeman says that they all formed on that night,
Speaker 2: that formed this this future for themselves, and there we
Speaker 2: were in Liverpool form in this future and the same
Speaker 2: kind of deal the day when you think goodbye.
Speaker 1: Lennon and McCartney were working in the wake of all
Speaker 1: these great songwriting dues who wrote songs for others to sing,
Speaker 1: and singers like the Everly Brothers who sang other people's songs.
Speaker 1: But there were also people like Buddy Holly who could
Speaker 1: do it all.
Speaker 4: You know you love me baby, You tell me baby,
Speaker 4: that's someday.
Speaker 2: You will be. The day when you think goodbye. Buddy
Speaker 2: Holly to us was amazing for a number of reasons.
Speaker 2: He sang and played guitar. Elvis just sang and Scotty
Speaker 2: Moore played guitar. He normally played guitar, he played the solos. Normally,
Speaker 2: if you played guitar, there was another guy in the
Speaker 2: group was a league guitar he played the sols. But
Speaker 2: Buddy sang and played the guitar and played the sols.
Speaker 2: He also wrote the stuff. So this was like all inclusive,
Speaker 2: one man band, and we really thought that was great.
Speaker 2: So this is what we have to.
Speaker 1: Do Buddy Holly inspired the youngsters to explore their full
Speaker 1: musical potential, and he also helped John Lennon overcome his
Speaker 1: embarrassment about wearing glasses.
Speaker 2: He also wore these big horn room glasses, and as
Speaker 2: did John. And if ever there would be a girl
Speaker 2: coming up, John with witness glasses off and put them
Speaker 2: in his pocket and squint as she went by, and
Speaker 2: pretty good the glasses. But when Buddy get them along,
Speaker 2: the glasses stayed. Or it was like Harry Potter with
Speaker 2: all the kids.
Speaker 1: Like Buddy Holly had more than just the musical chops
Speaker 1: and the suave image that John Lennon and Paul McCartney
Speaker 1: covered it for themselves. The name of his group, Buddy
Speaker 1: Holly and the Crickets, had a certain entomological ring to it.
Speaker 2: The name the Crickets. You know, we wanted something with
Speaker 2: a dual meaning, and it turned out they didn't know
Speaker 2: how the dual meaning the crickets. They didn't know about
Speaker 2: the game cricket, oh, I say, and they just thought
Speaker 2: it was grasshoppers. So we said to them. Ice met
Speaker 2: them years later, fantastic man, the Beatles. We loved cricket,
Speaker 2: chirpy little things and the Great Game of Cricket are
Speaker 2: a brilliant name for a group, and they went, you know,
Speaker 2: oh no, we just heard a grass upper in the
Speaker 2: studio wall.
Speaker 5: You know, did you do you remember sitting around thinking,
Speaker 5: Buddy Holly and the Crickets, the Beatles will be a
Speaker 5: great name for us. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2: My memory of it was that we were striving to
Speaker 2: find something with a dual meanings because of the Crickets.
Speaker 2: This is the idea. Now the actual origin of it
Speaker 2: is clouded in mystery.
Speaker 1: You know, I missed you.
Speaker 4: It was just a club split up.
Speaker 2: I missed you. Because there are all sorts of theories
Speaker 2: about this. There's the Wild Ones with Marlon Brando and
Speaker 2: at one point Lee Marvin says he Johnny, Johnny or Johnny,
Speaker 2: I think he's cool.
Speaker 4: Come on, Johnny, we all missed you.
Speaker 2: Miss h Johnny, we love you, you know, coming back
Speaker 2: to the gang or something like that. Johnny, we love you.
Speaker 2: The Beatles love.
Speaker 4: You, Beatles, mischief, the Beatles, mister.
Speaker 2: It turns out the Malls, the girls in the motorcycle
Speaker 2: gang will Beatles. So the Beatles love you for all times.
Speaker 2: And I know John and Stuart his art school friends.
Speaker 2: Stuart Suckliffe loved that film as we all did. I
Speaker 2: think they had seen it. I think we just loved
Speaker 2: it and hadn't seen it anyway. So that's one of
Speaker 2: the theories.
Speaker 1: Today it's easy to forget how the creation of the
Speaker 1: Beatles required thousands of small choices. Songs which are now
Speaker 1: canonized were once simple phrases. Two boys having fun when
Speaker 1: no parents were home, one of them with a notebook
Speaker 1: in hand, the other playing a harmonica.
Speaker 2: At one of those writing sessions twenty fourth in road,
Speaker 2: a little garden path past my dad's lif happened the hedge,
Speaker 2: you know, we would write, let me do and John
Speaker 2: come up with this little harmonica roof. It's so simple.
Speaker 2: I mean you look at it now here, there's nothing
Speaker 2: to it. It's a will have a wisp little song lovely.
Speaker 1: So what do you think made it become such a
Speaker 1: potent part.
Speaker 2: I think our image and our energy as the four
Speaker 2: Beatles was what was potent. And it had a very
Speaker 2: fresh sound. That's the sort of thing that people noticed.
Speaker 2: And we had a very fresh image. Nobody looked like
Speaker 2: us and we've been working at it a long time
Speaker 2: in Liverpool, originally as really a bunch of rockers, you know,
Speaker 2: the cliffs and everything gone over to Hamburg as the
Speaker 2: rockers had got a little bit leatherified there, and then
Speaker 2: it moved from leather to suits at the request of
Speaker 2: Brian Epstein.
Speaker 1: Brian Epstein, an entrepreneurial young man from a family of
Speaker 1: successful retailers in Liverpool, had stumbled upon the Beatles at
Speaker 1: a nineteen sixty one lunchtime concert. He had no experience
Speaker 1: managing artists, but he did have lots of confidence, so
Speaker 1: in short order he signed the contract to manage the
Speaker 1: band and told them to get suited up, and.
Speaker 2: So we all went over to ben O Dawn, who
Speaker 2: was in the wirral back and head a Taylor. We'd
Speaker 2: never been to a Taylor really, you know, so certainly
Speaker 2: not on maps. We all went over and got suits,
Speaker 2: so we had this image. We had all the experienced
Speaker 2: musical experience of Hamburg of playing a lot your ten
Speaker 2: thousand hours, mister Gladwell's right, ten thousand hours. So we
Speaker 2: kind of then came on the scene and was seen
Speaker 2: on television. We had a freshness, complete simplicity. Let me
Speaker 2: do it's got a slightly sort of bluesy thing, I mean,
Speaker 2: it's not a blues but it's got a simplicity, like
Speaker 2: a little sort of down home on the porch with
Speaker 2: a couple of guitars on harmonica.
Speaker 1: At the heart of these simple lyrics is a familiar story,
Speaker 1: a young man yearning for a woman to love.
Speaker 2: It's a funny thing. You try and recreate that stuff now,
Speaker 2: and it's almost impossible. Why Because you were sixteen. That's
Speaker 2: why you were looking at the world, and the world
Speaker 2: was good, and there was this marvelous rock and roll
Speaker 2: future unfolding itself and you were about to become part
Speaker 2: of it. So your longings for a girl, which was
Speaker 2: impossible to achieve. You know, nobody had that little, perfect
Speaker 2: high school sweetheart, you know. So there was this great
Speaker 2: longing for your career is you didn't know what you
Speaker 2: were going to do, and it was a dread of
Speaker 2: all dreads. I was about to go to teacher's training
Speaker 2: college and I was trying to put that off forever.
Speaker 2: I did not want to go into that mold. So
Speaker 2: there was all these different kinds of longings. John and
Speaker 2: I's mothers had both died, which was this amazing bond
Speaker 2: between us. We both understood the guish of that, and
Speaker 2: at that age it's largely unspoken. You just said, oh
Speaker 2: your mother, Yes, so did I. We knew I knew
Speaker 2: the circumstances of his mother, he knew the circus in mine,
Speaker 2: and we would talk about it a little bit, but
Speaker 2: being young boys, you didn't talk about it much. So
Speaker 2: all this was rolled up into this package, this longing,
Speaker 2: and its spilled out, which is the best way to write.
Speaker 1: Some of this longing for their mothers for love. For
Speaker 1: artistry was fairly abstract, but they also had more concrete ambitions.
Speaker 1: They had met other songwriting teams who turned out hits
Speaker 1: and made good money.
Speaker 2: John and I looked. I thought, they're right, we could
Speaker 2: do that. What a good idea. If we get hits,
Speaker 2: that will then get money and it may not buy
Speaker 2: us love, but it will buy us a car. I
Speaker 2: must admit, you know, we were young guys without any money,
Speaker 2: coming from Liverpool with dreams, and once we realized that
Speaker 2: to write a hit song would get you some money,
Speaker 2: it was very attractive, very attractive thought. And it wasn't
Speaker 2: just the money. It was then the joy of pulling
Speaker 2: our song out of a hat, being able to play
Speaker 2: it with our band, which needed songs, So we were
Speaker 2: sort of feeding the machine.
Speaker 3: Take one.
Speaker 1: Later, when the Fab four removed from writing in the
Speaker 1: parlor room to writing in the studio, they learned to
Speaker 1: crank out hits at an impressive piece. The one half.
Speaker 2: Our recording hours. Well what now classical people do. It's
Speaker 2: it's the norm for recording. You normally go in ten o'clock,
Speaker 2: you get yourself together, you start at ten thirty. You
Speaker 2: then will work three hours. You then have an hour
Speaker 2: break and you work two thirty to five thirty, and
Speaker 2: that's it. And in those two periods of three hours,
Speaker 2: it was expected that we would be able to finish
Speaker 2: two songs. So so we did. And that's that was
Speaker 2: the output and the great the flow of just having
Speaker 2: to come up with two complete things. But the great
Speaker 2: thing about this was you were finished by five thirty.
Speaker 4: Win a harmonica like the Beatles, playing not a toy
Speaker 4: but a genuine a marine band harmonica, just like those
Speaker 4: played by the Evil.
Speaker 1: Maybe the Beatles to come together was the force of
Speaker 1: their benging. Maybe it was the long studio days, the
Speaker 1: churning out of albums, the carefully crafted image. Whatever the case,
Speaker 1: They went from looking at other artists dreaming of becoming them,
Speaker 1: to being the artists. Others would dream of becoming way along.
Speaker 4: With the Beatles with your own genuine honer marine band
Speaker 4: harmonica from KLi Am, when.
Speaker 1: What the Beatles would become was beyond what any of
Speaker 1: its members could have dreamt of when they were sixteen
Speaker 1: and playing harmonica in their living rooms.
Speaker 2: There were all sorts of things. As I say that
Speaker 2: you instinctively knew, don't try too hard, don't work too
Speaker 2: hard at reaching for it, because the more you reach,
Speaker 2: the more it will receive. Just kid on that you
Speaker 2: don't even want it right, something will happen where everyone
Speaker 2: else around us be worrying or more other than I
Speaker 2: was gonna Oh my god, am I going go? We
Speaker 2: always related back to this accident we'd had on the
Speaker 2: motorway going from running up to Liverpool, where we'd skid
Speaker 2: it off in the snow down the bank with our
Speaker 2: van and at the bottom of the van were this,
Speaker 2: how the hell are we ever going to get home?
Speaker 2: It's snowing, we're freezing, and someone in the group something
Speaker 2: will happen, and it was like that became a mantra,
Speaker 2: and you know, as I say, it's actually a very
Speaker 2: good one. It's this. It's not reaching for it, it's
Speaker 2: letting it go. No me.
Speaker 3: Love me?
Speaker 2: Do you know?
Speaker 4: I love you?
Speaker 1: Ah way be through.
Speaker 3: So please.
Speaker 4: Love me, love me?
Speaker 2: Yeah, love me, love.
Speaker 1: Me, Love me. Doe from the Beatles nineteen sixty three
Speaker 1: album Please Please Meet. In the next episode, McCartney starts
Speaker 1: over with a ragtag band on the run.
Speaker 2: I just thought it would just start something that feels good.
Speaker 2: I'm we will build it up like the Beatlestead.
Speaker 1: McCartney. A Life in Lyrics is a co production between
Speaker 1: iHeartMedia NPL and Pushkin Industries.