Dreaming the Beatles: The Love Story of One Band and the Whole World

by Rob Sheffield

The “Paul is dead” craze didn’t begin gradually or on a grass-roots level. It started in October 1969, when Detroit DJ Russ Gibb got a mysterious phone call giving him clues to investigate. Gibb played the “number nine, number nine” bit from “Revolution 9” backwards on the air—and like his WKNR-FM listeners, clearly heard, “Turn me on, dead man.” The mumbles on Side Two of the White Album, between “I’m So Tired” and “Blackbird,” when spun backward, revealed the message, “Paul is dead, man, miss him, miss him.” And there’s John at the end of “Strawberry Fields,” announcing “I buried Paul.” The word spread fast.

hard to tell how seriously anyone ever bought it, but the rumor remained wildly popular all through the Seventies, when literally nobody believed Paul was dead,

Nicholas Schaffner’s The Beatles Forever gave a handy rundown: Paul died on the number-ninth of November 1966, when he blew his mind out in a late-night car crash, after getting behind the wheel in the final hours of “stupid bloody Tuesday.” (As Ringo the undertaker sang, “You were in a car crash and you lost your hair.”) He died there in the road, waiting for the van to come. George’s finger points to the words “Wednesday morning at five o’clock” on the Pepper cover, because that’s when Paul was Officially Pronounced Dead. (On the front cover, Paul wears an “OPD” patch, right in front of the freshly dug grave.) Instead of announcing this tragedy, the Beatles decided (as ever) to do things their own way, and replaced Paul with an imposter, while dropping labyrinthine hints to their devoted fans in the “Beatle code” John used to talk about. As Schaffner said, the rumor was “a genuine folk tale of the mass communications era.”

never believed Paul was dead, though I admit I did sincerely think Jim Morrison was alive, and I’ve at least wondered about Stevie. (Nobody ever saw the body, you know. Jim’s, I mean. Only Pamela and the French doctor who signed a fake name on the death certificate, and Pamela was dead a year later.)

Sentimentally, Abbey Road has the edge, but in cold chronological terms it’s debatable. The case for Abbey Road: (1) almost all of Let It Be was in the can before the Abbey Road sessions began; (2) Abbey Road feels more like a classic Beatles record; (3) “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” was the last time all four played in the studio together; (4) the last song on Abbey Road is called “The End”; (5) except for “Her Majesty”; (6) rebounding from the Let It Be debacle was the main reason the lads summoned up their old solidarity for Abbey Road; (7) “Her Majesty” is awesome; (8) in the end the love you take is equal to the love; (9) you make. The case for Let It Be: (1) It came out in 1970, which was after 1969; (2) all four Beatles kept working on Let It Be long after Abbey Road came out. Ringo was recording drum tracks as late as April 1970—barely a month before Let It Be was released. So alas, it can’t be written off as a pre–Abbey Road slopfest that the heartless record company dumped out there as a posthumous cash grab. The Beatles wanted this album to come out, and worked hard to make sure it did.

Let It Be (then titled Get Back) was recorded in January 1969. The tapes gathered dust while

remains an oddity in their discography, comparable to Hey Jude, a U.S.-only hodgepodge from early 1970; the band had nothing to do with assembling it, but it was presented as a new album, collecting random songs like “Paperback Writer,” “Rain,” and “Don’t Let Me Down.” (Wait—why wasn’t that on Let It Be?)

And then the Beatles broke up. Paul announced the news first. George’s official response was genius: “It looks like we need a new bass player.”

are your plans now? A holiday? A musical? A movie? Retirement? A: My only plan is to grow up.

he ditched the Beatles for this? It would have been one thing if he’d attached his press kit to an imitation Abbey Road, or a song cycle as ambitious as Ram.

sold millions of copies to fans still giddy from Abbey Road, but it might be the most catastrophic multi-platinum success in history; every copy was another heart hardened against him for years to come. It made him the villain in the breakup.

“Cold Turkey” was as trivial as the Macca album, except more self-important; John addresses the topic of heroin, which probably struck him as edgy, but the habit he was trying to kick was the Beatles. If you compare “Cold Turkey” to “Yer Blues” or “I Want You (She’s So Heavy),” it just sounds corny—tailoring his hard-rock sound for the Beatles inspired John in a way this song didn’t. The irony is that Paul’s parody of this song in “Let Me Roll It” was not only superior but more John-sounding (as was John’s parody of Paul’s parody, “I’m Losing You”).

The others resented how Paul jumped the gun—John fumed, “I put four albums out last year and I didn’t say a fucking word about quitting.” But there was no way to keep up the absurd official denial.

For his next album, Ram, he buffed his image as a pastoral hippie, groping his livestock on the cover—in the words of Wings dude Denny Laine, “a farmer who plays guitar.” But Ram was mostly recorded in NYC, in a top-dollar studio during nine-to-five business hours, with two sidemen he’d never met before. It was a professional approach to music designed to sound unprofessional. It worked, too, with Hugh McCracken playing that great guitar break in “Too Many People.” (My favorite McCracken solo, except maybe Steely Dan’s “Hey Nineteen.”)

Despite all the idiotic things people said and still say about Paul not feeling things deeply enough for their taste, Paul’s loyalty to Linda was the real deal. “It was just I liked being with her, quite frankly,” he said years after her death. “I always think of Linda still as my girlfriend. That’s how we started out in the Sixties, just as friends.”

But for John, falling out of love with being a Beatle meant giving up on everything he thought was true.

He wrote a bitter ballad about what a phony the Maharishi was, but changed the name from “Maharishi” to “Sexy Sadie,” which made it a much stronger song. Sexy Sadie is an adversary who moves John in ways the real-life guru never did.

The sarcasm dripping out of John’s voice is the meanest and funniest recorded evidence of his nasty streak. If religion could make John this mad, it must be good for something.

Paul is the most Beatlesque of the Beatles. If you dislike the Beatles, it’s because you dislike Paul. If you love them despite their flaws, you mean Paul’s flaws. If they’re overrated, it’s because Paul is overrated. Whatever problem you have with the Beatles, it’s Paul’s fault. That’s fine—it’s the essence of Paul-ness, and nobody’s trying to change that, not even me. But it’s a huge reason I’m obsessed with him. You can’t really love Paul without facing the question of why people have such toxic feelings about him. Paul is the only Beatle anyone bothers to hate. He’s the one to bring up if you’re looking to start an argument. He’s the most mysterious and disturbing figure in the story. Tell me your Paul McCartney and I will tell you who you are.

He was the only one who never quit, right up until 1970. And then, of course, he was the one who had to quit in a big hissy fit, whereas

Lots of rock stars have more obtrusive egos than Paul McCartney, and none of them wrote “Here, There and Everywhere.” As Chris Rock said when asked about Lorne Michaels’s arrogance, “Hey, man, I know arrogant cabdrivers.”

THESE DAYS, PEOPLE LIKE TO COMPLAIN ABOUT DAVE GROHL the way they complain about Paul McCartney. Both got famous in bands where they played with a tortured genius who died young, and both moved on to long careers where they were almost freakishly untortured. You can count on them to say kind words about whoever just died or whoever’s getting a lifetime-achievement award. Paul jammed with Grohl (and the other surviving Nirvana members) at the 2012 Hurricane Sandy benefit, playing the new song they’d written together (“Cut Me Some Slack”) along with a fantastic set of Beatle oldies. They won a Grammy, and it was so strange seeing them smile up on the podium together. Both pride themselves on being bandleaders, going to ridiculous lengths to pretend there are other people in their groups. (It’s easier to think of a third Wing than a second Foo Fighter.) They’re not haunted by whatever tormented their edgier (but not as nice) (and definitely dead) bandmates. We hold it against them.

He hit the stage with “A Hard Day’s Night” and didn’t let up. He did “Love Me Do” as a tribute to the just-departed George Martin. He sang “Here Today” for John, “Something” for George,” “Maybe I’m Amazed” for Linda, “Foxy Lady” for Jimi. That’s some serious baggage—playing your songs every night is hard work, but it must be even tougher when you carry the weight of so many dead friends with you. Especially when your taste in friends is pushy bastards who give you no peace, not even when they’re gone. He sang “My Valentine” for his wife Nancy (who was there) and “4-5 Seconds” for Rihanna and Kanye (who weren’t). He worked so much harder than he had to, it was slightly scary.

Every night, he turned over stage time to Preston (who sang his own solo hits) and Shankar (who took over for long orchestral interludes). He complained bitterly about the audience, who got restless during the Shankar sets, and gave stern antidrug lectures. “I didn’t force you or anybody at gunpoint to come to see me,” he snapped in one press conference. “And I don’t care if nobody comes to see me, nobody ever buys another record of me. I don’t give a shit.” It was the first night of the tour.

It was a terrible time to be George. Patti finally left him for Clapton, a messy split in public. (“In public” doesn’t cover it—there’s public and then there’s “Layla.”) He’d sought consolation by having an affair with (of all people) (really, of all people, instead of the billions of other people on earth) Ringo’s wife, Maureen.

Did you know John directed a movie? He directed several, actually. John was one of the world’s most famous people when he made a film called Self Portrait, which is nothing but a fifteen-minute close-up of his semierect penis. “My prick, that’s all you saw for a long time,” John said, summarizing the plot.

In a heart-shredder scene from Richard Linklater’s Boyhood, divorced dad Ethan Hawke makes a mixtape for his son, culling the best songs from the solo records into The Black Album, to explain how divorce works and how love will tear you apart. “Basically I’ve put the band back together for you,” Ethan Hawke tells his son. “They were just twenty-five-year-old boys with a gaggle of babes outside their hotel room door and as much champagne as a young lad could stand. How did they set their minds to such substantive artistic goals? They did it because they were in pain. They knew that love does not last. They knew it as extremely young men.”

Part of Beatles fandom is living with these fragments and dreaming up ways to fit them together—even though their brokenness is what gives them meaning.

They never made an “is this sloppy Seventies burnout crap or is it great?” album like Tonight’s the Night or Desire or Black and Blue. They never made an “is this overproduced Eighties synth crap or is it great?” album like Trans or Infidels or Undercover. They never did a divorce saga like Blood on the Tracks or Some Girls or On the Beach. They never tried a cheese-pop sellout move as comical as “She Was Hot” or “Tight Connection to My Heart” or “Kinda Fonda Wanda.” They never did a grizzled resurgence like Ragged Glory or Tattoo You or Love and Theft. We’ll never know what it would have been like to see a new Beatle album in the racks—pastel suits on the cover, recorded in the Bahamas—and think, “Good Lord, another one?” We missed out on a lot.

“Please allow me, if I may, to address myself to just four very special people: John, Paul, George and Ringo, the Beatles. Lately there have been a lot of rumors to the effect that the four of you might be getting back together. That would be great.” To lure them onto the show, Michaels presented a check. “If it’s money you want, there’s no problem here. The National Broadcasting Company has authorized me to offer you this check to be on our show. A certified check for $3,000. Here it is, right here. Dave, can we get a close-up on this?” The check was made out to the Beatles. “You divide it up any way you want. If you want to give Ringo less, it’s up to you. I’d rather not get involved.” Lorne went back on the air a few weeks later to sweeten NBC’s offer to $3,200. Don Pardo chimed in to offer the band free hotel accommodations at the Crosstown Motor Inn. “They’ll be treated like royalty as pitchers of ice water are hand-delivered to their rooms, and they can drink that water from glasses sanitized for their convenience!” As everybody found out years later, John and Paul were watching together that first night, at the Dakota, with Yoko and Linda. For a minute they talked about grabbing their guitars and heading downtown to join the fun. “We nearly got into a cab,” John said. “But we were actually too tired.”

The meeting with all four Beatles never happened, but the lawsuit did (and eventually won). John Lennon met with Apple’s lawyers in New York at the end of November 1980, a few days after Thanksgiving, to give his sworn affidavit. His statement was curious indeed. Lennon testified that Beatlemania would hurt him financially because “I and the three other former Beatles have plans to stage a reunion concert, to be recorded, filmed and marketed around the world.” Was this mere loose talk, albeit under oath? The world will never know. A few days later, Lennon was dead, murdered by a psychopathic stranger with a legally purchased handgun who’d just a few hours earlier asked him to autograph a copy of Double Fantasy.

There’s a great scene in Hot Tub Time Machine—well, there are about a hundred great scenes in Hot Tub Time Machine. John Cusack, Rob Corddry, and Craig Robinson go back in time to the Eighties, to figure out how their lives went so wrong. Corddry climbs up on the roof late at night, drunk and depressed in his old Iron Maiden T-shirt. He takes a swig from a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. He hates what a joke his adult life will turn out to be. He hates the Eighties teens whooping it up on the lawn below. He wants to spoil the party, so he yells at them. “Heeeey! John Lennon gets shot!” Then he blinks. “Wait, did that already happen?” It happened.

1 saved the business from a disastrous Christmas—though it turned out the music ecosystem was collapsing, and would never see a nondisastrous Christmas again. In a winter that was terrible for both the industry and the world (both about to get worse), 1 proved that three things never change: (1) people love the Beatles, (2) it’s a little weird and scary how much people love the Beatles, and (3) even people who love the Beatles keep underestimating how much people love the Beatles.

With Pride and Prejudice, I felt the way a DJ must feel about a surefire floor-filler—a mixture of gratitude (whew, they’re finally dancing) with resentment (why wouldn’t they go for my personal micro-grime

It’s touching for a number of reasons—40 was the age when John was killed, shortly after writing Ringo a song called “Life Begins at 40”—but mainly for the way Paul predicts he and John will outlast the Beatles as a team. When they’re done performing, he and John will hover behind the scenes, giving their music away to younger people. In so many ways, this is exactly what happened.

The field is forever.