All the Photos I Couldn't Use For JOHN & PAUL
Part I of an Occasional Series
Catch-up service:
Why Writers Should Use AI More
Pod: Cass Sunstein on the politics of the Beatles
Pain Is a Mind Game
Who The Hell Is Wesley Streeting?
Thinking By Hand
How To Save Centrism
The Ruffian is running a limited service today, as I’ve been on holiday this week, in Madrid. (Great to get away from rainy old England.)
I recently wrote a short piece for the Guardian on the Beatles; a commentary on some photographs of the group’s last official gig, in 1966. Writing it got me thinking about all the pictures of John and Paul I wasn’t able to use for John & Paul, for reasons I’ll explain. In lieu of a full-fat Ruffian what follows is the first in an occasional series on this theme.
The picture above is one of a small group of photos taken on the night of March 18, 1965. The Beatles were staying at the Marietta Hotel, in Obertauern, Austria, where they were shooting skiing scenes for the movie Help! After dinner, John and Paul went for a drink in the bar (George and Ringo seem to have been elsewhere) and persuaded the house act - a group called Jacky and the Strangers - to let them take over for a while. And they just jammed. (Btw this post was written without notes to hand so if there are any mistakes I apologise, will correct later).
It’s a beautiful moment. The two of them were in the middle of a global maelstrom of fame and already tiring of the stress and boredom it imposed on them. And here they found this little escape hatch - a place where they could sing and play together for the sheer sweaty joy of it, just like they used to.
We don’t know exactly what they played, but apparently it was covers of old rock’n roll songs - the kinds of songs they played when they first became friends. They look drunk or stoned or both and I imagine it was pretty sloppy, but what fun.
After a few numbers, the manager restored order. After all, he pointed out, he had hired Jacky and the Strangers, not the Beatles.
I love this picture and the others taken on the same night - see below. In fact, I originally wanted to use one of the pics below for the cover of John & Paul. That proved impossible, for reasons I’ll say more about.
But first, I want to give some background on the process of selecting photos for my book, and indeed for any book. This was the first book I’ve written in which photos were involved. I’m pleased with the selection we ended up with but my God what a hassle it was. Along with getting the Notes section in order it was one of the less enjoyable parts of putting the book together and certainly the most expensive.
Photos were often an important source of evidence for the story I was telling, or the argument I was making. With the Marietta pics, and in several other places in the book, I had to describe photos that I couldn’t include, in the knowledge that readers could, if they wished, easily look them up online. This is one of the odd aspects of this business - a photo can be all over the internet but if you want to use it in a book, you have to pay. And it really is you, the writer.
