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yes_2dayTHIS IS FICTIONAL. Reality was much different.
WARNINGS: slash/type situations, but nothing too sexual.
Chapter 6A
CHAPTER SIX
EIGHT DAYS A WEEK
(1964)
HELL BREAKS LOOSE
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“I Want to Hold Your Hand” not only went to number one in Britain – to our astonishment it also went to number one in America! This had never happened before. No British rock singer or pop group had ever had a top ten hit in America. At first, we wondered whether Brian had somehow “fixed” the charts by buying a bunch of copies of American records for his record store. Turns out he hadn’t – the sales were legit! We could hardly believe it. We were like a political candidate who won the race and then demanded a recount. It was just that we didn’t want to believe something only to find out that it wasn’t true, so we didn’t dare believe in it. We kept asking for proof that it was true, and not a mistake, until Brian became impatient with us and brought us over a dozen American newspapers and magazines, all of which had news about the Beatles, and reflected the number one status of our song, ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand.’
We found out about our number one hit in America in January 1964, while we were performing in Paris for a few weeks. The day before, Paul and I had spent an afternoon wandering around our old stomping grounds taking pictures of each other with our brand new Nikon cameras, Christmas gifts from Brian. Oh yeah – George and Ringo were there, too. We were – much to our bemused surprise, and for the first time – followed closely by the international press corps, and we didn’t quite know what to do about it. This hadn’t happened to us before. While the English crowds had gathered and screamed after us, there hadn’t been the crowd following us around at a respectful distance angle until Paris. So there are a whole slew of photographs of the Beatles taking pictures of each other while photographers were taking pictures of us. It was ridiculous, really.
Paul and I decided to stop at a café and have a few coca colas, while George and Ringo went off to shop. As soon as we sat down, we were surrounded by a crowd of onlookers, photographers, and reporters. They were all talking at us full stop the whole time. I remember just staring in wonder at Paul, who stared back in wonder at me. Because every second of that brief stroll down the boulevard was photographed, there is a picture of the exact moment when Paul and I were looking at each other in amazement and you can see in that photo the instant we recognized what it meant to be famous. Neither of us found it scary; we found it embarrassing and awkward. Like Paul said later, when we were safely back in our room, “I felt as though I should do or say something entertaining, because they were all watching us, like an audience.”
We were staying at the King Georges V Hotel, which was – to that date – the most fancy and luxurious place any of us had ever stayed. In the room that Paul and I shared, there were two huge beds, floor to ceiling satin drapes, intricate gilded furniture with satin upholstery, and a huge gilt-edged mirror. The bathroom looked like a roman bathhouse, with pink marble everywhere, and a huge bathtub with gold taps. When we first checked in, we just wandered around staring at it all for about 5 minutes, afraid to touch anything, and pointing out the more over-the-top luxuries. I remember Paul puzzling over a little wooden box attached to the wall. He was (and still is) fascinated by weird objects. He opened it up, and looked into it, and it appeared to be an empty box. He asked me, “What do you suppose this is for?” I had no idea. Later Paul asked Brian about it and was told that the box opened up into the hall of the hotel, and the valet could open it with a little key. You were supposed to put your shoes in there, and the valet would polish them for you and then put them back! I still remember Paul’s awed reaction to this explanation: “Well, I never!”
One night we were all in a private dining room at the hotel, and Brian came in and announced that ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ was number one in America as well as Great Britain! He popped the champagne and we all partied hard that night. George Martin had come along to share in the fun, and Brian even put a chamber pot on his head. (He had said that if the song went to number one in the U.S. he would put a chamber pot on his head, and of course we held him to it! Paul remembered to pick up the chamber pot from our room on our way down to dinner.) That was one of the most exhilarating experiences in my life. We were young and had no idea of what the downsides to fame were; we had just accomplished the goal we’d been chasing for almost seven years!
On another level, Paris was a special place for me. This was the magical place where Paul and I had become lovers. So it seemed fitting somehow that we should celebrate our first international success in Paris. That night, Paul and I certainly celebrated our success in that massive suite. The only hard part was figuring out which of the two beds to use. But first we had fun in that decadent bathtub.
The morning after this no-holds-barred celebration, Paul and I overslept. We woke up to the sound of someone pounding on the door. We were both naked of course, so we jumped out of bed and raced around, bumping into each other, trying to find some clothes. Paul got my pants, and they were falling off of him. I couldn’t even get my first leg into his tight pants. We started giggling and hushing each other, and after about 2 minutes I at least – having retrieved my pants from Paul - looked halfway decent. I shooed the naked Paul into the bathroom, throwing his clothes at him as I did so, and then I opened the door. Brian Epstein was standing there, scowling.
“You’re late!” he declared angrily, “We’re all downstairs having breakfast!” Breakfast. My stomach turned at the thought. Paul and I had had a lot to drink the night before. I tried to keep him out in the hallway, but he insisted upon coming in. He looked around the room and then looked at me. I probably looked guilty. His eyes were filled with suspicion. “Where’s Paul?” he asked.
“In the bathroom,” I said. Brian looked skeptical.
“He didn’t slip out for extracurricular activities last night, did he? I don’t want the press after us…”
I just stared at him in confusion.
“Are you covering for him, John?” Before I could say anything the bathroom door opened, and Paul came out, looking fresh and neat, as if he had just stepped out of a bandbox. No one and no thing cleans up like that man!
“Hello, Brian, good morning,” he said, cheerfully, as he bustled around collecting his items and neatly folding them into his suitcase. Brian had a hard time maintaining his anger in the face of so much potent male beauty. I could see him arguing with himself to maintain his stern expression, and losing the argument. Brian always softened when Paul turned the charm on. I smiled to myself, and decided to take a page out of Paul’s book. I said, in as sweet a voice as I could muster,
“Brian, I’ve got to get cleaned up now, and finish packing. Paul and I don’t want breakfast, so you all go ahead and we’ll meet you down in the lobby after breakfast.” I walked to the door and held it open. He still had a suspicious look in his eyes, and as he left he swept the room with his eyes and gave me a very sharp look. He knew we were up to something, he just couldn’t figure out what it was! After I closed the door behind him, Paul and I started laughing and cutting up. I went to take a shower and get dressed and Paul started packing my suitcase for me. When I came out, the suitcases were both expertly packed, and Paul was sitting on a bed, one elegantly clothed leg neatly crossed over the other, smoking a cigarette, with a bouncing foot and a worried look on his face. “What?” I asked him, not liking the look on his face.
“John, I just saw what Brian saw.”
“What’s that?” I asked. Paul gestured with his thumb - pointing backward over his shoulder without turning his head to the top of the bed he was sitting on, which was neatly made. “So?” I asked.
“Only one bed, John; only one bed. That’s probably why he thought I had snuck out. How long do you think it will take before…”
“Oh crap!” I shouted.
“Precisely,” Paul said. He got up, smudged his cigarette out in an ashtray on the rococo bureau, and put his jacket on, staring with a critical eye in the huge gilded mirror as he adjusted his tie and collar. “We’ll just have to boldface our way through it,” he added.
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Fortunately, the weeks following the ‘Event’ (as Paul and I both called it) the Beatles were very busy, and so was Brian. He seemed to have put the weird encounter out of his mind as we moved from one sold out concert to the next, dogged all the while by screaming fans, paparazzi, and police. And we had the big tour ahead of us: America.
By this time we had three number one hits in England, but only the one in America. The American branch of EMI, Capital Records, decided to release our earlier album and singles immediately, to take advantage of the hoopla over ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand.’ Soon, ‘She Loves You’, ‘Please Please Me’ and ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ were all on the charts too – all of them in the top ten at once, taking turns in chart placement. This also had never happened. No other recording artist in England or America had ever had more than one record in the top ten at the same time, much less four. Capital Records pushed EMI to push Brian into booking us as soon as possible in America, before we had shot our wad, I guess.
Brian was only too pleased to do so. After consultations with the A & R folks at Capital in America, Brian booked us on Ed Sullivan’s TV show for one night – February 9th 1964. Brian had met Sullivan a few months earlier, when Sullivan was in England, and had suggested that we come to America and be on his show. Brian had begun the negotiations, but was waiting to see how our first American single fared on the charts before making a final commitment. So, after the Sullivan show performance on February 9th, Brian had booked us for another performance on February 11th; we were to go on a train to Washington D.C. and play a date at the Washington Coliseum. We would then go back to New York the next day to play a concert at Madison Square Garden the night of the 12th, before returning home. In the end, after the success of the first night stint on Ed Sullivan, he invited us to do a second show the following Sunday the 16th in Miami. So we ended up with a fourth gig, with the days between - the 13th through the 15th - as a well-earned vacation in the Florida sun.
But before we left for America, Brian Epstein took Paul and me aside to have a heart to heart talk. He obviously wasn’t looking forward to it. He hemmed and hawed a lot while we sat in the easy chairs in his office.
“Spit it out, Brian,” I finally snapped, having finally gotten over the “Mr. Epstein” days.
“John, I want you to bring your wife to America with you. I want you to share a suite with her.”
“You what?” I shouted. “We don’t bring women on tour with us!” I shouted loudly. “And you don’t get to tell us what to do about such things!”
Paul was the first one to wonder where Brian was going with this. “Why am I here, Brian?” Paul asked calmly, interrupting my shouting with his quiet but firm voice.
Brian adjusted his sights, and looked levelly at Paul. “Because the two of you must not room together while you are in America.”
A dead silence fell over us. We both were – surprisingly enough – speechless. That hardly ever happens. Brian cleared his throat and spoke again.
“You have no idea what America is like,” he said quietly. “They are far more punitive about such things and it would be an end of the band if rumors were to start.”
We kept staring at him heavily, trying to understand what this all meant. We weren’t sure what to say. Brian persevered.
“I think it will be necessary for your wife to accompany you just this one time,” Brian said, looking at me again. “After that, I think we will have impressed on the Americans that you are married, and it will put an end to any rumors.”
“What ‘rumors’ are these, Brian?” I asked sarcastically.
“There aren’t any rumors yet, John, but I am anticipating that there might be. There are many reactionary people in America, and what with your haircuts and your clothes, there will be some who will claim that you are, er…”
“Queers?” Paul asked bluntly.
“Yes, well, you’ve got the idea. In any case, the two of you will not be sharing rooms while you are in America. You must do as I say in this regard. We must make it crystal clear that there is nothing going on between you.”
“Who says there is?” I challenged.
“No one. I just want to make sure there is no – misunderstanding. Clearly, it would be a misunderstanding, but you have to understand that Americans are very literal minded, and it is best to get the correct message in their heads right from the start.”
Paul and I walked out of the office absolutely stumped. We retired to a pub, and sat in a back booth, drinking ale, and staring blankly into our glasses. “Well, that was…interesting…” Paul finally said.
“I am not going to bring Cynthia on tour, and I will room with you!”
Paul pondered this for a bit and finally said, “I think we should follow Brian’s advice.” I gave him a double take. He didn’t need me to say it – he knew I was dumbfounded at what he had said. “Listen, John,” he said. “Brian has spent his life dealing with this kind of prejudice. We’d be stupid to ignore his advice. If it wasn’t - like that - then maybe we could challenge him. But, since it is, honestly, I think we’re better off doing what he says.”
“I can’t do it without you!” I cried out. “I won’t be able to handle it without you! I’ll be nervous and scared at night by myself!”
“Don’t be silly, John. If you need me, I’ll be there. There are bound to be connecting doors, yeah?”
“You’re a fooking genius, Paul!” I declared.
“I didn’t pass me one A level for nothin’, mate!” he laughed.
So that is why Cynthia went on the first American tour, and never went on any other Beatles tours. And it worked a treat. They even put ‘Sorry girls, he’s married’ under my name on the television screen at the Ed Sullivan show.
We didn’t expect much on our way to America for that first tour, in early February 1964, although we brought along a contingent of British reporters with us. We still didn’t believe in the popularity of the Beatles in America. You would have thought we were on a funeral plane, the way we behaved. Brian Epstein and his minions were all wrapped up in serious talks near the front of the plane. George was sitting in a corner seat, mumbling about getting in over our heads, and letting “the suits” push us too far out ahead of ourselves. I finally shouted at him to “shurrup!” Ringo was sitting near the back completely focused in on his own thoughts. Paul was doing his usual routine when he was nervous – deep in thought, staring out into space, with the tip of his index finger in his mouth. He was always chewing on his index finger when he was worried. That didn’t make me feel too good; if he was nervous, and he was my “rock”, I was screwed. Usually, at a time like this, I would be the one to get up and do something crazy to lift everyone’s morale. I couldn’t find it in me to be the cheerleader this time ’round. I was scared shitless. So it was a real depressing flight.
We felt we were approaching our execution when the captain announced we were about to land in New York.
Suddenly, the captain said over the intercom, “It looks like you have a greeting party, gentlemen.” We rushed to the windows and saw a huge crowd at the airport. Paul asked,
“Is the President landing too?”
Then we could see the signs, as we taxied toward the gate. “We love you Beatles!” one of the signs shouted. We only needed the one sign - that told us all we needed to know. You never saw a more relieved party of people than the passengers on that plane! We came off it to be surrounded by complete pandemonium. Screaming crowds, ranks of photographers and reporters, cameras from all the television stations, people shouting, screaming, waving signs. It was chaos. Later we learned there were more than 4000 people there to greet us. We were all thrilled and were waving and laughing like maniacs. I only remember the noise, the flashes from cameras, and Paul’s face as we shared victorious glances with each other. I really don’t remember anything else after coming down the ramp onto the tarmac. Some writers have recently taken to saying that this display was all carefully manufactured by the record company P.R. department. If so, all I can say is: thanks guys and gals! You have no idea how much scarier the whole thing would have been if we hadn’t been greeted so warmly.
From there we were swept into the terminal, and down a long hall into a large conference room filled with reporters. There was a huge Pan Am sign behind us as we stood in front of a phalanx of microphones and reporters. We had never been confronted with such Big Time press antics before, but somehow, together, we managed to keep our bottle. There were over 200 reporters there! And what I know for sure is that (a) the Beatles had no idea they were going to face a press conference until moments before, and (b) no one told us what the questions would be, and no one suggested any answers to the questions. How we handled the craziness was entirely genuine, even if it is true (and I’m not saying it is, because I don’t know either way) that the craziness that day was in part manufactured.
Here is the transcript from our first American press conference:
Q: "What do you think of Beethoven?"
Ringo: "Great. Especially his poems."
(laughter)
M.C (our press agent, Derek Taylor): "There's a question here."
Q: (reporter yelling over the crowd noise) "Would you tell Murray the K to cut that crap out?" [Murray the K was a very popular disc jockey who was leading the Beatlemania charge in New York; he was not allowed in the press room because he didn’t have press credentials, and was standing in the hallway door shouting out questions.]
Beatles: (yelling, jokingly, all at once) "Cut that crap out!"
Paul: "Hey, Murray!" (He waves at Murray, with a friendly smile.)
(Laughter)
Murray the K shouts out something indecipherable from the hallway.
Reporter: "Is that a question?"
M.C: (attempting to calm the chaos, and addressing Murray the K) "Will you be quiet, please?"
Q: "In Detroit, there's people handing out car stickers saying, 'Stamp Out The Beatles.'"
Paul: "Yeah well, we're bringing out a Stamp Out Detroit campaign."
[Crowd noise in the room increases as reporters start jostling with Murray the K and some fans.]
Q: "What about the ‘Stamp Out The Beatles’ campaign?"
John: "What about it?"
Ringo: "How big are they?"
Q: "What do you think of the comment that you're nothing but a bunch of British Elvis Presleys?"
John: "He must be blind." (I actually said this as an aside to Ringo, he was standing beside me, but the microphone picked it up.)
Ringo: (shaking like Elvis) "It's not true!! It's not true!!"
John: (dances like Elvis)
(Laughter)
Female fan: "Would you please sing something?"
Beatles: "No!" (All together)
(Laughter)
Ringo: "Sorry."
M.C: "Next question."
Q: "There's some doubt that you can sing."
John: "No, we need money first."
(Laughter)
Q: "Does all that hair help you sing?"
Paul: "What?" (Translation: He heard, but he didn’t believe what he heard.)
Q: "Does all that hair help you sing?"
John: "Definitely. Yeah." (Translation: I heard both times and thought it was dumb.)
Q: "You feel like Sampson? If you lost your hair, you'd lose what you have - 'It'?"
John: "Don't know. I don't know." (Translation: Do I really have to respond to questions like that?)
Paul: "Don't know." (Translation: What the hell is he going on about now? And boy was Brian right about our haircuts…)
M.C: "There's a question here."
Q: "How many of you are bald, that you have to wear those wigs?"
Ringo: "All of us."
Paul: "I'm bald."
Q: "You're bald?"
John: "Oh, we're all bald, yeah."
Paul: "Don't tell anyone, please."
John: "And deaf and dumb, too."
[Laughter]
M.C: "Quiet, please."
Q: "Are you for real?"
Paul: "For real?" (Obviously unfamiliar with the term.)
John: "Come and have a feel."
Ringo: (Laughs)
(Paul and I exchanged glances: ‘Oops! Oh no you didn’t just say that!’ and smothered giggles.)
John: Sorry ‘bout that.
Q: "Listen, I got a question here. Are you going to get a haircut at all while you're here?"
John and George together: "No!"
Ringo: "Nope."
Paul: "No, thanks." (Translation: Still with the haircuts?)
George: "I had one yesterday."
(Laughter)
Ringo: "And that's no lie, it's the truth."
Paul: "It's the truth." (Pointing at George’s head.)
Q: "You know, I think he missed some."
John: "Nope." (Translation: You’re missing your mind, mister!)
George: "No, he didn't. No."
Ringo: "You should have seen him the day before."
Q: "What do you think your music does for these people?"
Paul: "Uhh..." (Translation: I guess I can’t say it makes them want to have sex.)
John: "Hmmm, well..." (Translation: I think I should say that it makes them want to have sex, but before I can Ringo interrupts):
Ringo: "I don't know. It pleases them, I think. Well, it must do, 'cuz they're buying it."
Q: "Why does it excite them so much?"
Paul: "We don't know. Really." (Translation: you’ve got to be kidding! I’m not going to say anything about sex on television!)
John: "If we knew, we'd form another group and be managers." (Translation: That’ll shut ‘em up.)
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Not too bad for our first time in the big leagues, eh? It was all over in less than 15 minutes, and we were being shoved into four separate limousines – the likes of which we’d never seen – and we were being rushed off to the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan. As we settled into our respective limos, we were each feeling the shiny new black leather on the seats and checking out the little fridges and poking around. The back windows were blacked out, which was not legal in England except for political figures. It made us feel very important. We found the whole thing very disorienting, but in a good way.
While in the car, Paul pulled out his transistor radio, and was listening to Murray the K’s radio show in stereo, where it was “All Beatles, All the Time.” Ringo did much the same in his car. We were all absolutely thrilled. There is really no other word for it. I kept thinking I’d wake up from the dream and find myself back in my bedroom at Mimi’s house in Liverpool.
One thing that was new for us - as we listened endlessly to the radio as the station relentlessly played our music - was the endless cycle of product commercials. Paul quickly picked up the patter and was fascinated by the insinuating voices and lavish praise of the products, imitating the voices until he had them down pat. I understood his sense of humor, so I knew that he thought the whole advertisement style in America was deliciously camp, and he couldn’t help but play around with it in his head, if only just to amuse himself. He was also fascinated with the American accents, and was inclined to mimic the sounds wherever we went. I was hoping the Americans wouldn’t be insulted by it; Paul just loves sounds, especially new sounds, and he figuratively bathes in them when he first hears new ones.
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The set up for us at the Plaza Hotel was great. They had given us a huge suite (the “Presidential Suite”), which had four separate bedrooms with en suite bathrooms. Two of the bedrooms had a king size bed, and the other two each had 2 queen beds. Brian never stayed with us – he always took a private room. (We suspected he did this for his own “extracurricular activities” as he was fond of saying, rather than saying “one night stands”.) Mal and Neil shared one of the double rooms, and George and Ringo shared the other. Cynthia and I had one of the single rooms, and Paul took the other. All of these rooms converged on a centrally placed lounge, that featured a bar area in one of the corners. There were interlocking doors between the two single rooms on one side of the lounge, and interlocking doors between the two double rooms on the other side of the lounge.
In other words – this was the best possible set up for Paul and me. If we’d planned it ourselves, we couldn’t have done a better job! So Cynthia and I would go in one room, and Paul would go into the other, and yet I had full access to Paul’s room through the interlocking door. (Rather like that scene in the movie ‘Help!’ where we all went in to separate doors, and ended up in one large room.) You may wonder what the hell Cynthia was doing while I was with Paul. Well, Cynthia was sleeping in her bed by herself when I was with Paul. I would tell her that Paul and I had to work late, writing songs (which we were actually doing, at least some of the time), and rather than disturb her, I would explain sweetly, I would stay in his room all night. I always snuck back to her bed at first light. We were in the States about 10 nights on the first trip, and I spent more than half of those nights with Paul. Cyn found nothing strange in this arrangement since Paul and I had shared rooms all the time since before I even met her. When I interviewed Cynthia for this book, I asked her if she had ever been suspicious about what Paul and I were doing in the bedroom, and she told me in all honesty:
“No, odd as it sounds, I just took your relationship with Paul on face value. You may remember that Paul’s first serious girlfriend, Dot, was my best friend for a while – we actually roomed together - and she had told me in great detail about Paul’s insatiable sex drive and, shall I say, prowess, and of course I could hear them going at it, too, when he was over at the flat. And then there were all the other girls I knew about, and the paternity claims. Also, I knew that you enjoyed sex with women, too – I certainly never had a complaint - so it never occurred to me that anything like that was going on.”
It hadn’t occurred to George, Ringo, Mal or Neil either, by the way. None of them ever assumed there was any hanky-panky going on between Paul and me, although they did think we were freakishly close, but like “brothers”. As Ringo told me on more than one occasion, “George and I would just look at each other as if to say, ‘there they go again.’” I might also point out here that after I moved back to England in 1984 and before Paul and I released our first duo album together in 1987, there had been rumors about us circulating in the rock press and the music industry, but no one had really come out and said anything. Ringo actually said to us sometime in the mid-eighties that he and George were incensed over the rumors about Paul and me, and that they were willing to let the reporters know that it wasn’t true! Paul and I looked at each other in total surprise. I recorded this conversation in my journal that night:
Paul: You mean you don’t know?
Ringo: Know what?
Paul: That it’s true!
Ringo: What’s true?
John: That Paul and I are lovers.
Ringo: PAUL!????!! [He literally shrieked this. And you will note he didn’t seem at all surprised about ME.]
So don’t feel foolish if you didn’t figure it out: this is what Paul and I did all throughout the sixties. As Paul might say, we “hid in plain sight”. We weren’t even trying that hard to hide it, when you get right down to it. It was a different time, and people did not talk about such things very much, and if they did the overriding presumption was that all people were straight until fully proven otherwise.
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Before we arrived in America, a couple of film makers named Al and David Maysles (a pair of brothers) contacted Brian Epstein and said they wanted to do a documentary about our first trip to America. Brian put the idea to us, and we all shrugged and told Brian we’d go along with whatever he thought best. While Brian was not the best manager from a financial or legal standpoint, he was a very inspired manager when it came to being innovative with publicity approaches, and allowing the “talent” to make the important decisions about career choices. A handheld camera-like documentary film of music stars behind the scenes had never been done before. In addition, our first American tour might have been a disaster, in which case the documentary would have been very embarrassing. (I’m channeling “Spinal Tap” as I write this.) But Brian took the chance and agreed to allow the Maysles to follow us around on the tour for an hour or so each day for several days, and he gave them carte blanche to film whatever they wanted to film during those narrow time periods.
We met Al Maysles for the first time right after our rehearsal for the first Sullivan show. He was sitting in the front seat of our car with his camera in one hand and a hanging boom in the other. We all got in the car with him and he introduced himself and he filmed us in the car on our way back to the hotel. We had informed Brian we didn’t want to be filmed while rehearsing, so Brian had carved out little bits of time when the Maysles could film, and usually we were in some kind of conveyance or waiting around in hotel rooms, when Al was filming. (David was rarely there; he was the editor, I think.)
(By the way, years later, in 2001, Al Maysles filmed Paul and me again for a documentary about the making of the 9/11 Concert for New York City.)
Every so often I look at the Maysles’ “Beatles First Visit to America” film and I wonder at how casually the four of us took this invasive use of cameras. Oh, there are moments where each of us is obviously aware of the camera and appears to freeze up or act up in response, but for the most part we all appear to be amazingly at ease. (My favorite moment of the whole film, by the way, is when we are all on the train going to Washington D.C., and George and Ringo are doing hijinks with the reporters and photographers, and I’m being a smartass with them, and then the cameras go to Paul waiting for him to perform as well, but he says grumpily, “I’m not in a laughin’ mood even.” I love that moment because it might be the only moment on film where Paul is being himself as opposed to his public alter ego. He just didn’t want to be pretending to be Beatle Paul at that moment, and he wasn’t going to, damn it!)