GROWING UP
EARLY MUSIC
MEETING PAUL
HAMBURG AND THE WORK ETHIC
TEENAGE URGES
BEATLE CAMARADERIE
BEATLEMANIA
MYTHS
THE END OF THE BEATLES
"I had a happy childhood, with lots of relatives around. I was always waking up in the night, coming out of the bedroom, looking down the stairs and seeing lots of people having a party. It was probably only my parents and an uncle or two."
"In those days the radios were like crystal sets. Well, not quite. The radios had funny batteries with acid in them. You had to take the battery down to a shop on the corner and leave it with them for about three days to charge up. We'd listen to anything that was played on the radio: Irish tenors like Josef Locke, dance band music, Bing Crosby, people like that."
"So Paul and I used to be on the same bus, in the same school uniform, travelling home from the Liverpool Institute. I discovered that he had a trumpet and he found out that I had a guitar and we got together. I was about 13. He was probably late 13 or 14. He was always nine months older than me. Even now, after all these years, he is still nine months older!"
"We had to learn millions of songs. We had to play so long, we just played everything... By two in the morning it would be the hardened drunks and other club owners who'd come around and hang out with our club owner. They'd all be sitting at a big table getting thrashed."
"In the late '50s in England, it wasn't that easy to get it. The girls would all wear brassieres and corsets which seemed like reinforced steel... You'd always be breaking your hand trying to undo everything."
"As a band, we were tight. That was one thing to be said about us; we were really tight as friends. We could argue a lot among ourselves, but we were very, very close to each other."
"With the concerts and the Beatlemania, after a while the novelty wore off and then it was very boring. It wasn't just the noise on stage, not hearing the music and playing the same old songs; it was too much everywhere we went. Even when we got away from the screaming fans, there were all the screaming policemen and the lord mayors and their wives and the hotel managers and their entourages."
"We never smoked marijuana at the (MBE) investiture. What happened was, we were waiting to go through, standing in an enormous line with hundreds of people and we were so nervous that we went to the toilet. And in there we smoked a cigarette - we were all smokers in those years. Years later, I'm sure John was thinking back and remembering, 'Oh, yes, we went in the toilet and smoked', and it turned into a reefer. Because what could be the worst thing you could do before you meet the Queen? Smoke a reefer! But we never did."
"The Beatles had started out being something that gave us a vehicle to be able to do so much when we were younger, but it had now got to a point where it was stifling us... I could see a much better time ahead being by myself away from the band. It had ceased to be fun... It was like a straightjacket."