The Beatles: The Band that Changed the World, with Conan O’Brien (Part 1)

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1:27revolution. Hello everyone and welcome to Abbey Road Studios for a Rest is History Beatles special. Now I am afraid that Dominic isn't here because as regular listeners will know he disgraces himself by not liking John Lennon and also being fed up with talking about the Beatles and we were recently the pair of us on Conan O 'Brien's podcast and Conan asked us were we Beatles or Stones I I, of course, said Beatles. Dominic said Stones. And then said, I am never going to talk about the Beatles again. So when I got the opportunity to do a Beatles podcast here in Abbey Road, I thought, well, who can I get to replace Dominic?

2:13Who can be Denny Lane to my Paul McCartney? And so I thought, well, Conan O 'Brien. And Conan, here you are in Abbey Road. I just flew 35 ,000 miles to be called Denny Lane to your Paul McCartney. And I accept it. It's a high honor. Thank you so much for joining us. Because when we met in LA, you were talking about how you two are a massive Beatles fan. But more than that, you talked about how you've actually met George and Paul and Ringo. Yeah. Yeah. I was lucky enough to meet three of the four Beatles. John died when I was in high school. but I was a Beatles fan in the 70s to the exclusion of music that was coming out at the time.

2:58I was stubbornly just listening to Beatles records throughout the 70s. But later on, once I had a TV show and became known, I was lucky to meet three of them, which was really special. I met George when I was a writer at Saturday Night Live and he was meeting with Lorne Michaels, who's a producer. They had gone out for drinks. And then there's a writer's room at Saturday Night Live. And George came in. I'll never forget. He apologized initially because he had been drinking some quantity of liquor. So he said, I'm sorry, I'm pissed as a newt. And he was kind of bobbing from shoe to shoe. He asked why we were all staring at him.

3:44uh me being a beatles geek i had in my office the same make model year country gentleman that george played uh in the 64 tour and i thought about going and getting it and showing it to him but i thought no he's not in a condition to appreciate that so he'll probably hit me with it and then uh george sat down at a piano and started to play which was lovely and what was he playing he was just playing around chords he wasn't playing a song yeah he was not my guitar gently weeps no it wasn't what you think in your Hollywood would make it a full rendition of while my guitar gently weeps it was not so you were listening to a beetle play I was listening to a beetle play the piano and I've also been lucky enough to be uh in a room where Paul was playing guitar and it was just a guitar that uh was in the room so he's left-handed he was just playing it upside down and backwards and i said i said how do you do that where did you learn to do that and he said to me back in the day when we were starting out um i had to because the only other way to play it would be to retune john's guitar and he would have crippled me i can't believe that you've you've you've had these experiences because the closest that i have come to meeting beatles via my wife sadie when she was three was in a queue with her parents for a visa to america yeah and paul was standing behind her and picked her up i was in that queue as well so i've got you beat at every turn god so you're a huge beatles fan yeah as am i but there are of course skeptics out there dominic being one of them yes so i guess the question we're a history podcaster rather than a music podcast.

5:33And so we need to make the case that the Beatles are historically significant. Yes. Is that a case you think that can be made? Easily. The Beatles are a complete break with what happened before. They are singer-songwriters. They wrote their own music. There are so many ways that they depart. So many groups at the time, you know, there's the lead and then there's the rest of the group. It's, you know, Dion and the Belmonts there was a lot of pressure for them to have a leader I think briefly they were Johnny and the Moondogs very briefly but they always knew no it's it's we're a group it's this kind of synergy of it yeah and that was unusual at the time so they're a break with pretty much everything that comes before them and they're as relevant today as they were in 1964 because Because obviously there have been acts that have been massive in their own time and then slightly have started to fade.

6:31But I guess you could say that the Beatles have endured long enough and remain massive enough that you can say that people will probably be listening to them in decades times, maybe in centuries time. Yeah, there's a great clip. I think it's in the anthology where they're talking to a young guy, basically a teenager, a kid at Shea Stadium. And they're trying to kind of, the interviewer's trying to run them down a little bit. Yeah, that's right. And this kid says - I love them. Yeah. And he just says they're incredible musicians. And he more or less makes the case there in 1965 or six that we're going to be listening to their music forever.

7:14They are, I think, the best-selling musical act of all time. Every statistic that they generate is off the scale. I guess the case I would make and why I think they're historically significant is because in a way they are lightning rods for so much that makes the 60s a revolutionary decade. And I think that in all kinds of ways in the 21st century, we're living in the aftermath of what happened in the 60s. Right. Rather like people in the 16th century were living in the aftermath of what had happened in the 1520s. I think the transformation, the cultural, the ethical transformation is on that scale.

7:53Yes. And the Beatles are both kind of symbols of it, but they're also vectors of it. Yeah. I mean, the Beatles themselves knew that they weren't creating all this change. Sometimes they were just the avatar that could represent the change. And I think they were pretty sane. I mean, another group with that kind of fame would have said, we did all this. We changed humankind forever. They knew that, of course, that wasn't the case, but they were the perfect representation of what was happening. And they did drive and give credence to a lot of amazing changes that were happening. And I think also, I mean, just to begin, they do have their roots in kind of quite the decades before they were born, which would include the war years, but going back into the 30s and even back into the 20s.

8:45So John was a big fan of Just William. I don't know if that's a thing in America, probably not, but it's kind of stories of this kind of raggedy schoolboy and he has a gang of outlaws and John was obsessed by it. And Paul's dad, he kind of played all kinds of old traditional English music. And the influence of that on the Beatles tracks is kind of really evident. And also, I think it's interesting that they meet, John and Paul meet at a church fete. Neither of them were in any way religious. But it's a reminder that the world of England in the 50s is still one where, you know, you want to be a skiffle band.

9:25you still have to go and do it at a church fake because there isn't really anywhere else to have that kind of fun that's the only gig that's the only gig in town really yeah so no they come from a friend of mine said once uh jimmy vivino my my my band leader said the beatles single-handedly brought us from black and white to color which i thought was an interesting way to look at it which is they come from this very old tradition yeah and they're well schooled in english music hall big band there yeah swing and all that they have big ears they're listening and hearing everything and soaking it all up and um later on it all comes out in the music but obviously one of the things that they are listening to and are able to listen to perhaps in a way that lots of people elsewhere in England can't is the sounds of America.

10:19Yeah. Because Liverpool is a port that is open to the Atlantic and ships are still transport. Records are being brought over in ships. And so they come to the port and the Beatles can access them. Yeah. They can get Elvis, Gene Vincent, Buddy Holly. And Black Music. Yeah. Which is all, you know, they love all that. Yes. So when John and Paul meet at this church fate. The Walton Fett. The Walton Fett. John is singing a D-WOP song, Come Go With Me. Yeah. And he doesn't know the lyrics. And Paul doesn't know the lyrics either, but he knows the lyrics well enough to know that John can't remember them.

11:02Yeah. But the fact that they both know the song is like a kind of Masonic handshake between them. It's a sign that they have access to a kind of secret information. they are familiar with american music and so the kind of the potential the excitement the drama of what is happening in america you know you said that um the beatles introduced color but i think for the future beatles 1950s england is a monochrome country yes and america is vibrant technicolor well also the war has been a very different experience i don't need to tell you for people living in England. They've been bombed. They've seen their cities destroyed.

11:43They've paid a terrible price. They're still rationing. They're still war rationing. So they're growing up in a world where people are coming out of a daze. And there's been a lot of privation. There's been a lot of difficulty. I also got into the Beatles in the 70s. And when I look back at the 60s, the 60s seemed an impossible distance from the Second World War. But now you think, I mean, it's only 20 years. I mean, it's so close. And when the Beatles are growing up, they are in a city that is cratered with kind of bomb damage. And as you say, the Beatles are born in the war years. John is born during the Blitz.

12:24During a Blitz, yeah. On Liverpool. So George joins John and Paul and they get joined by Stu Sutherland. Paul's the one who knows George. Introduces George, doesn't he? introduces him and he plays raunchy yeah on the top of a double decker bus yeah and that's enough that's enough you're in yeah and then um john's art school friend stew sutcliffe um wins a prize for his art and spends it on a guitar well john bullies him yeah into i don't know what he was 80 pounds or 100 pounds or something he bullies him into buying a bass which stew never really learns to play but he's a cool looking guy he is and i think that's an early sign that yes the music's important but the image is who we are yeah what we represent and stew is an artist and paul doesn't love this he really doesn't like stew coming in and because he can't play and and i think he's very close to john which may have been a problem for paul yes and also there's pete best yeah a top hairdresser in later life, but at the time the drummer.

13:31And so they all go off to Hamburg. And Hamburg equally, I mean, maybe even more than Liverpool, is obviously a city marked by the experience of the Second World War. The British had flattened it. And of course, there were people there who had lived through the Nazi period. And it's always struck me that one of the things that is interesting about Hamburg in the Nazi period is that it's kind of notorious among the Nazi leadership for the enthusiasm of the young people who live there for American and English jazz and swing. Yeah. And it's a kind of rebellion against the ideals of the Hitler Youth and all of that.

14:10And they grow their hair and they listen to jazz and they're particularly into black music. And this is a kind, you know, obviously, I mean, it's the anathema to everything that Nazism represents. And when the Beatles meet Astrid Kircher and Klaus Forman, who are kind of middle class intellectual Germans who are ashamed of the Nazi legacy and therefore are heirs to that tradition of seeing British and American music as something that is expressive of freedom and of opposition to Nazism. That's kind of one of the reasons why they all end up getting on so well. Well, they're also, they're bohemians.

14:56They're artists and outsiders looking in. And I think that's very attractive to John and Paul and George. They really like these people. They become good friends and they're very much influenced by them. John calls them exes, doesn't he? Existentialists and kind of France is the great influence. And in due course, it's Astrid Kirscher who will give the Beatles their signature mop-top cuts, which is influenced by these kind of European bohemian ideals. But just to reiterate, this is ultimately a reaction against what the Nazis had represented and that kind of tradition. So there is a case for saying that the mop-top is a kind of anti-Nazi haircut.

15:43Do you think that's maybe going too far? I think you've pushed it way too far. now i'm listening to all the early beatles hits as uh anti-hitler anthems i do agree with you that there is clearly and john said this uh hamburg made them you know going to hamburg made them because as malcolm gladwell pointed out they had to do their 100 000 hours it always changes i need a billion hours myself but it changes them the volume of work they have to do is incredible they also need to entertain those crowds and they get very good at that they get very good at winning getting people from peeking in the door to coming in to buying drinks they do it all yeah muck show they do it with the strength of their personalities and with their music and they they get honed into a diamond and they're absolutely off their faces on amphetamines Prellies.

16:40Yeah. Yeah. They're on these pills that enable them to play and play and play and play.

17:05They're living in, I think they share a wall with the theater so they're they're living in conditions that aren't safe isn't that where George loses his virginity and all the Beatles are kind of on bunks watching him or whatever I mean it's all very yeah um yeah quite squalid but kind of quite but properly rock and roll at a time when in America and England still more so the music is kind of stopping being quite so rock and roll yeah i mean there's this period you know i think chuck berry uh is is uh violates the man act and uh has to be i think he goes to jail or is it's a scandal yeah uh jerry lee lewis has yeah he definitely has a scandal buddy holly dies and then you have the big bopper and um and richie valens you but elvis gets drafted of course elvis gets drafted which the beatles very narrowly avoid because national service which is a thing here in england in the 50s and it gets stopped just before they you know they would have become eligible for it and we would all agree that the beatles would not have done well in national service who would not have been good.

18:19Well, because it's kind of interesting that when they're driving out to Ambo for the first time, they go past Arnhem, which is a bridge too far, kind of disastrous. The British lose lots of people there. And the story is that John refuses to get out of the van and go and look at the graves. And already perhaps a sense there that war in its totality is something to be rejected. And that of course will become a massive of theme for John's music and ideals later in life. And I mean, it might be there right from the beginning. Although apparently when he's on the stage in Hamburg, he's always shouting out in English, Krauts, we beat you in the war kind of stuff.

19:01So as always with the Beatles, it's never, there's always a kind of creative tension. Yeah, John even then is walking that line between, he's goading thugs in a Hamburg crowd to attack him, and then relying on security to handle it or a bouncer or someone walking that line between I dare you to hit me and yeah. I think quite a few of the bouncers only kind of had one arm or one leg or whatever because they were kind of maimed in the war. So yeah, quite a crucible, I guess, and explains a lot about the kind of band that the Beatles in due course became. You know, come back from Hamburg, they go back to Hamburg, then they come back to Liverpool again.

19:47And by this point, so 1961, 1962, they're starting to establish themselves as the biggest name in Liverpool. When they come back to Liverpool, there are people who think that they're a German band because they hear that they've come from Hamburg. So, and they're so polished. I mean, they're a completely different act. I think on the scene in Liverpool there were bands that didn't take them seriously then they come back from Hamburg and they've had this education and they've been transmuted they call their leather and they're down in the cavern and the the ceiling is dripping sweat from excited girls who were there in their lunch hour and it's very fetid and exciting and rock and roll and it is on the 9th of November 1961 that a key figure in the story of the Beatles finds his way down the steps into the cavern and that of course is Brian Epstein.

20:50Yeah you know when the colonel finds Elvis the colonel is very well established as a guy who could take over Elvis's contract. It should be pointed out that Brian Epstein is not that figure he's working at I believe his family's record store record shop he's never managed anybody no um and he sees this group that really just fascinates him and particularly John particularly John because Brian is gay yep and he definitely I think has a thing for John doesn't he yeah but he kind of immediately picks up on the fact that this band is amazing yeah and decides that he is going to try and get them a record contract and although he's never managed anyone he does kind of have links with the music industry and he's middle class as opposed to the Beatles so working class and in England in the early 60s that is massively important and it means that he can make contact with other middle class people among whom is a producer here in Abbey Road called George Martin.

22:03And so famously, Brian Epstein hawks the Beatles around all kinds of record companies and they turn him down. Decker famously, guitar groups are on their way out. But George Martin basically is the last port of calls, Parlophone, EMI. And he says, yeah, okay, I'll give them a go. but George Martin is still not entirely convinced, is he? No, he's not. One point I would make, I think should be made, is that in addition to all of their amazing qualities, the Beatles have insane luck. They have incredible luck because many people might have approached them and said, I think I could represent you. Brian Epstein is unusual.

22:50He's someone who really loves them for them. He's someone who really respects them as artists and he wants to take care of them. Now, remember, this is the music business. That doesn't happen. Then who does he take them to? Who do they hook up with? George Martin. The people they meet early on are the essential people. And it's some kind of hobbit tale where they meet the exact right person at the exact right time. It's all hotting up and I don't think I can take the tension right now. I need a bit of a breather. So let's have a quick break.

23:33Hello, welcome back to The Rest is History. I am with Conan O 'Brien and we are talking Beatles. So George Martin hadn't really been a music producer. He'd been a producer of comedy shows. The Goon Show. And the Beatles really appreciate that, but it also means that George Martin can appreciate their zany mop-top humour. So George Harrison famously saying he didn't like George Martin's tie and George Martin not being unduly offended by that. And so he decides actually that the Beatles have got something, that they've got personality as well as musical ability. But there is one member of the Beatles he doesn't rate and Stu Suckediff by this point has died of a brain hemorrhage, but Pete Best is still on the scene.

24:18And George Martin says to Brian, he's got to go. And so the final piece in the jigsaw puzzle now slots into place, namely Ringo, who you've also met. And you said that you gave him a hug once and his body is now made of teak. Yes. I've met Ringo a number of times. And one time I gave him a hug and I thought he's carved out of a very dense tropical wood. This man works out, I think, obsessively. He just hit his 85th birthday and I think he could take both of us in a fight. He's in incredible shape. Which is amazing because Ringo was born in absolutely the poorest part, the most bomb damaged part of Liverpool and grew up repeatedly being ill.

25:08He was always in hospital, kind of missed out on school and all kinds of things. But by the time the Beatles approach him, has established himself as the best drummer in Liverpool. And again, it's the kind of, it's the humor and the personality. Ringo completely gels with them. And George Martin has actually brought a session drummer in to record their first single. And his name is? Andy White. Andy White, yes. What's interesting is that people have always wondered or theorized that Pete Best is too good looking and maybe Paul is jealous and they edge him out. But it's been pretty much conclusively proved that he was not a good timekeeper.

25:51He couldn't really keep time. And Ringo could play all these different beats, these Latin beats that later on show up in so many Beatles records. So he was the right guy at the right time. And so how would you rate Ringo as a drummer? Oh, I think he's spectacular.

26:15And a lot of top drummers now give it up to Ringo. His feel, he's minimal. And there's a great thing you can see on YouTube, which is if Keith Moon had been the Beatles drummer, if John Bonham had been the Beatles drummer, and you listen to them and you're like, yeah, that wouldn't be the same. It wouldn't work. So is he Gene Krupa or Buddy Rich? No, he's not. He's the best possible drummer for the Beatles. Yeah. And actually, so there's the footage that you can see in the background is from a new version of the anthology documentary series out on Disney. And in these episodes, there's amazing footage of Ringo drumming.

26:57You can completely see what he is giving the Beatles. So, as I say, the final piece in the jigsaw puzzle is there. And so their first single, Love Me Do, comes out in Britain, which is 17.

27:25Brian's shop has bought in box loads of it, crates of the stuff, flogged it across Liverpool. but it's not it's still not obvious that they are going to completely change everything yeah and it's when they then turn up to record their first album please please me

28:12George Martin famously says, gentlemen you just made your first number one yeah the sense that this is something special and one of the key things is that they're they're not just recording covers so we should probably just talk about that yeah because you you said earlier this is something that marks them out as distinctive yeah it is really unusual isn't it it's revolutionary uh it's unheard of so what john and paul were always interested in almost the brill building tradition of being songwriters and and paul used to think about being a songwriter even if it meant he wasn't the one performing the song they just thought about songwriting they were working on it for a long time um they're writing things but not of the quality that they'd later have but then this moment comes when they've done love me do it's so so it's so so you listen to it now and you think i don't know with all the excitement was.

29:13And the truth is it was number 17. Yeah. Brian probably helped them, boost them up the charts by buying records himself. So they really need to make it. John has a song that's in the vein of, he's thinking of a Roy Orbison song. And it's written, it's a very slow kind of Roy Orbison ballad. Come on, come on, come on, come on. Come on, please, please, please. Oh yeah.

29:45And they're working on it. It's not coming together. And then they decide, let's pick up the tempo. And they have it. And that's their first number one. The Stones, Dominic's not here, but I wish I could say this to his face. The Stones are doing covers down in London. They hear that there's this group up in Liverpool that's making records, which the Stones are not doing. and they're writing them themselves. And they're flabbergasted. And I think skeptical. And inspired in the long run. In the long run. In the long run. Yeah, it took them a while, Dominic. It took them a while. But they don't do badly either.

30:25No, they do just fine. But the quickening up the pace, the harmonies, the shaking of the hair, the twisting and the shouting. When the album goes out and then She Loves You and a succession of singles and the live performances. And girls start screaming. Yeah. And they start kind of pushing at cordons of policemen. And the Beatles have mentioned they like jelly beans. And so they start hurling jelly beans. Yeah, George had said in an interview, I like these, whatever they're called, jelly beans. And from then on, he's pelted with them. And so quite dangerous because they could take out an eye or two.

31:07George should have mentioned a softer treat, maybe a marshmallow. Jelly babies, perhaps. But this is a kind of explosion of public teenage female joy of a kind that no one has ever seen before. And I guess it's explained in part by the charisma and the music of the Beatles, but it's also explained by, to put it in Marxist terms, the fact that for the first time, teenage girls have spending money and leisure time. And so you see there, again, you talked about how lucky the Beatles are, that they are riding this crest of this wave of growing material prosperity that is kind of giving birth to the idea of the teenager as a consumer.

31:56Yeah. So another way in which they get incredibly lucky, the timing is spectacular because as you say, if this had been 10 years earlier, I don't think this maybe could have happened, but they're at the right time. Perfect time where a whole group of teenagers can express a different opinion than their parents, which teenagers want to do. They want to make something theirs. And here are these four perfect people with great music, and they can elect to spend their money on these records, and they can have their favorite Beatle, and it starts to fuel this mania. And do you think the fact that all the bands and the singers that we've talked about up till now who influenced the Beatles have been male, but actually the Beatles are really, really into female groups as well?