#though they write a lot of their own music the way the beatles did

[flamingo-writes]

Hi flamingo how are you? How are you with your leg pain since the move? Have you been resting? I hope so!

Well as always I leave you a mini request before starting the week ;)

What do you think that, reader is a not so well known singer ,who is starting out in the world of music and meets Hobie in one of their own performances when they are singing on stage.

hope you have a wonderful week tysm <3!

I’m not going to lie to you, I’ve had a bit of a writer’s block. I powered through it though. I thought of a million ways this could’ve played out and went for the one I liked the most. I hope you like it too, and I’m sorry for the late reply 😢 I rewrote this like three times help 😭 whenever I wanted to sit and write I ended up doing a lot of other things.

With A Little Help — Hobie x Reader

Title inspired by the song by the Beatles With A Little Help From My Friends. The bicycle thing is inspired after a real accident I had once, except I don’t play the guitar and but I did get hit on a freshly made tattoo 🥲

Warnings: cursing,

The moment you decided to start a band with your friends, you knew from the beginning it would go one of two ways.

You could either sign with a producer and basically sell yourself like whores. Somehow gaining a debt just by signing a piece of paper, and working an ungodly amount of hours just to pay your debt, and hope the fame you’ve gained actually helps you make money after the percentage the producing house gets. Becoming puppets for the producer to move around the way they want.

Or you could do everything yourself working with what you had. Recording wherever you found available –sometimes that place being your own room–, asking friends if you could borrow equipment or instruments. Asking for favours. Gathering coins your couch has been swallowing and hoarding for years to print a few hundred copies of posters announcing your next gig.

And out of the two, you knew perfectly well which one you wanted. One of them helped you maintain your freedom, which was exactly what your music spoke about. Gathering a small and loyal fanbase was relatively easy in the low underground bars. The punk scene, the alternatives, and the rock fans soon spread the word around their friends. Eventually, these same people started offering their help with equipment, a few bills for copies, even instruments. It was still a small fanbase, but it was more than enough and they were all somehow more helpful than most people

One day in particular, your guitar player gave you a call. To your nerves, you picked up your phone, furious.

“Where the hell are you?! You’re so late! We’re supposed to start playing in ten minutes!” You barked.

“Ye-yeah…About that…” Your guitar player said with an awkward chuckle. “You see, it’s a funny story…”

“Oh god, no…” You groaned.

“Listen. First of all I’m fine–”

“What the fuck does that even mean? Wait, shit, bruv, did something happen to you?”

“You see, this is where the story gets funny…” They said with an awkward giggle. “I was minding my own business, on my way to the bar. I was on my bike. Riding it, you know. When an old lady and a tiny ass dog appeared out of nowhere, from the corner. In an attempt to not run over either of them, I turned and there was a tree–”

“You can’t be serious…” You gasped, “you alright?”

“In the greater scheme of things, yes I am…But…I kinda hurt my wrist very badly…”

“God, I’m scared to ask…how badly…?”

“Uh, I don’t think my skin is supposed to look purple…And the lady I almost ran over is offering to drive me to the emergency room?”

“Shit. What do we do? Do we cancel—“

“No! Don’t! I don’t know. Improvise?”

“How? You’re our guitar player!”

“Go wild on the bass?”

“Fuck off!” You groaned, annoyed.

Hobie Brown was not far from there, hearing to actually both sides of the conversation through his enhanced hearing. Helping your drummer setting everything up.

“I think something happened to your guitar player, mate?”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m hearing…” Your drummer said nervously.

“If you guys need help, I know how to play the guitar…I can sight read too, but if you give me a couple of minutes to look through your songs, it would be better…” Hobie said as your drummer’s face widened in surprise.

“Dude, seriously?”

“Yeah,” Hobie said, smirking confidently.

“The motherfucker broke–”

“We found a guitar player!” Your drummer interrupted, raising both arms in the air happily.

Hobie giggled and looked over at you. Your eyes remained wide and confused, wondering when the roller coaster of emotions was going to end. You knew him. You didn’t really, but you’d seen him around enough to recognize his face.

“Seriously?”

“Sure, why not?” He said, shrugging.

“Oh god, thank you! Thank you so much, mate!” You said happily, running your hands through your hair in relief, making Hobie chuckle.

“Call me Hobie,” He said with a cheeky smirk.

You introduced yourself, as well the rest of your band. As you discussed what t do for the set list, you insisted Hobie didn’t improve and sight read all of your songs, and instead settled for a set list made out of mostly covers from famous songs, and just leaving a few of your original songs distributed for Hobie to take a break from a hyper concentrated state.

As the anxiety was rising in your belly, about to make you puke a minute away from starting your gig, Hobie grabbed your shoulder, catching your attention.

“Hey, it’s going to be alright,” He said, trying to comfort you. “And if it blows, then what the hell? It’s not going to be the last time you play. That way you could always make a dramatic comeback and look even cooler,”

His words while making you feel less scared about it all, it did nothing for your nerves.

Although as soon as you started playing, the music consumed you. Playing with Hobie instead of your guitar player was simply different. Not that any of them was better or worse than the other, but the dynamics changed drastically. Despite not really knowing Hobie that well, the interactions on stage were fun, spontaneous, even comfortable, like you’d known him for way longer than just the last hour.

Hobie not only exchanged glances with you and walked over to you while playing his guitar, he also went over to your drummer. Sometimes jointing you for the choruses of the covers, or adding spontaneous riffs to guitar solos.

By the end of the gig, people were crazy, screaming, jumping around. As you grabbed the mic, covered in sweat and breathless you thanked them.

“We’d love to stay, but we actually have to go check out on our friend…” You chuckled. “Our guitar player had Ana vidente earlier today, and couldn’t play. We had the magnificent Hobie, here, helping us out!” You sighed. “Let me hear it for Hobie for being a real one!” The crown screamed and clapped, as Hobie smiled at you.

“Thank you for letting me help,” Hobie said, walking over to the mic and grabbing it. “Thank you guys as well!”

“Oh yeah. You guys made this very fun!” You said going back to the mic, your face bearing Hobie’s as he glanced at you with a smirk, “Have a good night, everybody!”

As you walked behind the stage, you grabbed a towel you had nearby and dried your face and hair.

“Good job out there,” Hobie said walking behind you.

“Thank you! It was all possible thanks to you!” You said looking up from your towel. “I’d love to stay and talk but…”

“Yeah, go check on your friend. You can buy me a beer some other time to return the favour,” He said with a cheeky smirk.

“Just one? An entire gig for just one beer?” You joked.

“Well, at least three,”

“Sounds like a deal,” you sighed, meeting his stare and biting your lower lip softly. Seriously, thank you…”

“My pleasure,” He said confidently, meeting your stare, as you noticed something in them sparking.

“See you around?”

“I hang out here an awful lot so, yeah,” He shrugged, putting his hands in the pockets of his vest.

[johns-prince]

What breaks my heart (though a lot breaks my heart about these two) is that, whatever had transpired between John and Paul during the escape-hopefully-this-fixes-it trip to India, it's that neither had wanted the outcome of it to be what ended up happening.

I mean even with John clearly spiraling out of control of his mind and emotions, trying to deal with it all from childhood to then and now with drugs and alcohol and sex—I can't bring myself to believe he wanted to have the falling out, the divorce, the interpreted separation of connection from the soul, from Paul.

All complicated and dramatic and bluffing and lying to himself evidently points to no, he didn't.

He burned down the temple he loved so much because he loved it so much. He burned down the Beatles—and with it, he burned down what he and Paul essentially created together (as George said, it was in 1967 that John and Paul became a duo... That is, not super on the nose dig at apparently the innate dynamics of the Beatles George was privy too... Or at least believed he'd witnessed become the inevitable outcome of his band in 1967. Remember, 1967 was like, peak John and Paul attached-at-the-hip proximity probably similar to that of when they were just teenagers in Liverpool together)

Not to exclude the other two, because John was so desperate and in need of his friends, the people he had grown up with, he'd wanted them to buy an island and live together on it, just them, houses connected through tunnels.

But, as harsh as it sounds, John could live not working with or necessarily having George and Ringo... But Paul.

Now Paul and him, in many interviews, confidently proclaiming once The Beatles went bust, then that's alright—it'd be John and Paul, Paul and John, still writing music together, still creating together. Paul helping John with his books, John and Paul writing music together as old farts to so graciously hand off for younger musicians to play; John and Paul even having the audacity to mention maybe dabbling in creating a musical play, even when John apparently had no interest in musicals whatsoever.

It was John and Paul, JohnandPaul, and it was since 1957. George was just speaking the truth of it all out loud:

HADDAD: Then, your musical ambitions didn’t really begin to take form until the two of you joined with John Lennon?

GEORGE: Paul and John were the spark that ignited The Beatles. Of course, we weren’t The Beatles then, and we didn’t have Ringo, but that was the start. The air was filled with excitement, and even though we went through silly names like The Quarrymen Skiffle Group, The Moondogs, The Moonshiners, and The Silver Beatles, before evolving into that group everyone grew to know and love, the crucible was in 1967 [sic; 1957] when John and Paul became a duo.”

— George Harrison, interview w/ M. George Haddad for Men Only. (November, 1978) [X]

John and Paul were the spark that ignited The Beatles. The Beatles were John and Paul's, and George was simply aware of it. By 1967, John and Paul were a duo, at least in George's viewpoint: the inevitable happened, what George suspected to be, anyway.

So to tell me that John had actually wanted to burn it all down and destroy this Thing that was in fact his and Paul's, essentially burning Paul (and himself) in the proces, because he loved them, it, him, too much. He wanted that.

I refuse to believe it.

I refuse to believe it because even John couldn't buy in to his own lies about why he had actually been the one to finally bring an end to Lennon-McCartney. Yoko's validation of his lies and encouragement of letting go of the past and all those that hurt him (Paul) might've enabled him, but it didn't make the lies of it all stick. He couldn't justify it in the end, he couldn't let go.

It's heartbreaking to think how neither of them wanted it to go the way it did.

Paul probably didn't even fathom it. He's gotten into enough rows with John, and while this one could've definitely been different, been worse, been something that even stable and strong and level headed and perfectly centered Paul McCartney couldn't even withstand, he couldn't control, he couldn't neatly deal with. What he couldn't do for John. What he might not have been able to understand, for John, for whatever reason.

But they've had fights, they've had their trials and tribulations together... What's another one? Why wouldn't they be able to climb over it or sweep it under the rug? Or even come to a compromise, at some later date.

Paul certainly didn't want what ended up happening, with The Beatles, with John.

It damn near tore him up and left him a pitiful, pathetic, alcoholic of a man. He agonized over this impending doom of another loss he couldn't stop.

Of course the main strain between John and Paul after the India excursion was only made worse and exacerbated by other outside forces and John's dwindling psyche and general stability.

No matter how hard he tried, truly fought for it all, it was set up for failure by the inside out.

Ringo was the only one trying at points and Linda was literally his saving grace.

Paul felt he had to divorce The Beatles (divorce John) because he felt he had no choice. John tapped out. George was angry. John wasn't even trying, after all Paul did was try and try and try.

What I'm trying to say is, and not just beat this potential dead horse: what is truly heartbreaking, is that John and Paul since the time of their boundless partnership, friendship, collaboration, and essentially finding their soulmate in each other (Paul's word, not mine) they had it set it would be them, together, forever, creating and inspiring and being together, during and after The Beatles.

You could say it was unrealistic, that it was just the faulty and frivolous daydreaming boyish promises young men barely in their twenties make in the heat of the hour of that day and week and month and year.

But they meant it. You can tell they meant it, you can tell, especially from Paul, that he meant it truly and earnestly and with shameless affection and fondness for his relationship with John, that he wanted to continue whatever this was with him, after The Beatles and on.

It's heartbreaking, because whatever was transpiring between John and Paul and which came to a head in India, whatever happened in India, they didn't want it to turn out and end in the way that it had.

John and Paul loved each other, indescribably so.

It's so heartbreaking when two people who clearly loved each other and are like soulmates, can't end up staying together, have a falling out or life finds a way to tear them apart because life isn't fair.

It's tragic.

There's an extra heaviness to it when you come to fully realize "Nobody wanted what happened to happen."

Neither John or Paul planned for it, for that kind of falling out, for a divorce. By all accounts and records, it hit like an agonizing and sudden septic natural disaster.

[shinygoku]

With the Beatles (1963)

Time for part 2 of CutCat Reviews Beatles Albums now it's February!

An iconic picture to be sure, but I'm not wild on it. Maybe it reminds me too much of trying to fit pictures into a small MS Paint Canvas? lol

Like with Please Please Me, I think there's some songs that slipped under the osmosis radar and that I ain't heard in full. Though I think the only albums I've listened to from start to finish all in order are the 1 CD, Revolver and Sgt Pepper, so I'll stop mentioning it on these early and the later ones... We're also still in "a fair few Covers" country, so will I be as mild on them as I was on the Non-Boys of PPM?

SIDE ONE

It Won't Be Long: I first heard this fairly recently, on the radio that was playing in another room. My thoughts weren't that strong, other than that "She Loves You" does the Yeah! repetition better lmao. Having been able to it properly since, though, I'm a lot warmer to it! It's optimistic and energetic, and the even higher amount of Yeahs is funny (though I maintain that SLY easily wins the Yeah Battle... but more on that when I reach it~). Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah!!

All I've Got To Do: This one seems to get slept on a lot... it's pretty solid, but it doesn't really offer any particular Iconic moments. The chorus shakes things up in a nice way but it seems Sticking Power ain't something it has. It's one of many songs that go to show how amazing this band was, as this isn't bad, but it's been left far behind by the other songs they've blessed us with, innit?

All My Loving: Now THIS is a memorable song! Such a jaunty guitar with the direct words! A real narrative is being laid out, albeit as an assertion of future things being promised~ Ah nuts, it blasted my memory of the previous song outta my head... XD - Seems this is the only one that got Red Album'd in this list? Wild that it's only the 1, but I think the right choice was made.

Don't Bother Me: George time! I'm not clear on if the narrative here is a post-breakup or if he's being dramatic about a spell away from the GF, but the main crux is that he doesn't want non-GF contact at that point in time. It's much moodier than most'a their stuff from this time, and there's more damn nice instrumental work.

Little Child: The title on it's own has me somewhat 8(, and the lyrics unfortunately confirm this [albeit Dancing on it's own ain't that bad, but one knows Dancing is often a euphemism in songs like this, or a precursor to more]... I'm sorry for such a negative, potentially pearl-clutching response. But also the music isn't charming me enough to coax me into softening my view. The first real Dud of this album, imo.

Till There Was You: Now THIS, I like! I was baffled why this seems to fly under the radar of Iconic Beatles Songs, but I since found out it's a cover, so that's probably the explanation. The lyrics are decent but the real appeal is that absolutely gorgeous guitar work and bongos, they provide such a warm feel~ It's also giving me strong "Anime Ending Credits Sequence" vibes, which I'm quite partial to ^w^ ...Issit just me or does Paul gain a slight Irish accent when he says "no, I never heard (them/it) at all" :0c

Please Mr. Postman: This I DID know was a cover from the start, haha! It's a very catchy song, but even with my sizable Beatle Bias, I can't really commit to declaring this one as the best... it's very good and very listen-able, but it may be that the definitive Mr Postman is somewhere else...

SIDE TWO

Roll Over Beethoven: Again, it's a cover, but I've not heard Chuck Berry's OG take at the time of writing. The song is pretty groovy, George's vocals ring nicely. I'm not dazzled, but I like it well enough :>

Hold Me Tight: Another Beatles original, another one that tends to get omitted from Mentions...! It's nice, but a lot plainer than most'a the stuff, lacks a certain Pizazz

You Really Got a Hold on Me: Another cover, one I've prolly heard before by a non-Beatles act, while this one is another Fine, Inoffensive romp that I lack strong feelings for lol

I Wanna Be Your Man: Now I know this one was somewhat famously given to The Rolling Stones, and I even heard that played on the radio too. When it was their version, I wasn't impressed. Sung by Ringo, as it had been intended initially? ....I'm still not that impressed. Mostly in the lyrics, it's real repetitive! But my Ringo bias keeps it afloat, and it's odd Mid-ness makes it more memorable than others on this album.

Devil In Her Heart: A good cover, this! George doing nice vocals and the candance to the title is catchy, and ooooh the instruments in the background are also fun, are those maracas I hear? It gets bonus points for the harmonies disagreeing with the lead too, hehe

Not A Second Time: The last original of this album, and it's not really doing it for me. Something about it kinda blurs into itself. Their later betrayal type numbers are more my bag, baby

Money (That's What I Want): And we're closing the experience with one more cover. I dig the instruments, most notably the piano, but the song itself is just, like, whatever lmao, Maybe it's too overtly materialistic and a bit listless? Man oh man does the Pink Floyd Money blow this outta the water lmaooo

CONCLUSION

Best 3: It Won't Be Long, All My Loving, Till There Was You

Blurst 3: Little Child, Not A Second Time, Money (That's What I Want)

Overall Quality?: An improvement over Please Please Me, though in a way it's more level quality makes it a bit harder to pick the best at least best songs in it. Most of the covers are again decent but not amazing, and the originals are hit and miss. Unfortunately it seems side 1 got the Lion's Share of memorable, fun numbers, leaving side 2 with also-rans, though in that is Devil in Her Heart at least!

🪲🪲🪲🪲

On the next part, it shall have been (?) A Hard Day's Night and its all-original song lineup! Just the Album though, if I'm looking at the Film it'll be another, separate instalment ^w^;

[suugrbunz]

Hellooooo I love your writing so much and would like to do a BoB ship request if you’re still up for those ! Please take your time, I have a bunch of stuff down so it could be hard to get through <33

My pronouns are she/her. I have straight, dark black hair that grows a little over my shoulder and dark brown eyes that only shines under really bright light.

I’m an INFP 9w1– though on topics of interest I could become analytical and slightly more willing to engage in debates.

Initially when talking to new people I’ll usually express curiosity and be soft-spoken to the extreme level, cuz I sorta have anxiety 😭

I pretty much have a (chaotic) golden retriever energy and am really fond of joking around once I get to know someone, though. My sense of humour is beyond repair: a mix of dad jokes, bad puns, and sometimes lighthearted sarcasm. I also ramble about things I’m interested in sometimes.

If someone is able to put up with my weird I’m also really supportive + try my best to help them in any ways I can, since I enjoy helping people.

Sometimes I get closed off after getting to know someone mainly because I have a lot of self-doubt and scared of getting hurt esp if I find them likeable? It’s a weird thing.

My love language are words of affirmation and physical touch mainly, the lateral only reserved for people whom I’m really close to. It takes a while to get close to me but once I love you I am an absolute mess, completely smitten.

My hobbies are drawing, watching films, and listening to relaxing music! My favourite season is probably autumn. I’m bilingual (English + Vietnamese) and am learning French and German fundamentals.

Currently I am gearing towards biochemistry/chemical engineering in general.

Thank you for your patience! I sort of went off on my own there for a bit there, sorry about that…

oh don't worry about how much you put. The more information the better. I hope you love it!!

꒰ I ship you with . . . Joseph Liebgott ৎ୭ ꒱

You two meet by accident. He runs into you and immediately apologises. However, he decides to continue speaking to you and getting to the point of asking for your number. Smooth.

He is pretty forward with his feelings and when he is smitten with you; He will tell you. Probably in person whilst hanging out.

I think you two would end up planning a first date together. A picnic seems lovely and fitting for the both of you.

He definitely drops food during the picnic but then plays it off as, “I am trying to make you laugh”

After a date, he's dropping you off and just decides to kiss you because, why not? You looked beautiful, so did your lips. He was staring at them all night. It was only right that he finally gave them a kiss.

he's very gentle especially since he assumes the kiss will catch you a bit offguard.

I think for a song, I'm giving you two; ps I love you by the Beatles !!

Joe makes it clear if he does or doesn't like someone. That's the great thing about him. So you needn't worry about if he likes you or not.

He brags about you... A lot

it's just how he is, he brags about you and treats you like a queen

He plans movie nights at the end of each week.

Joe isn't artistic... However, he is highly impressed by your artistic talents. He is the type of person to be baffled by people's talents. Even if he doesn't outwardly express his shock.

[orifu]

good evening my beloved chatters. its time for another episode of orifu v doccy who. this time we're tackling those first two episodes of season 1

yes, i missed wild blue yonder, the giggle and the church on ruby road. maybe ill get back to them.

anyway. to address what i said last time about the new tardis interior, i was entirely wrong. the new interior only sucks when its in apple store mode. they put in the colour and it can look gorgeous, even if its a single colour. love seeing it change.

now, in a moment for the show that i will only call "unique" the first two episodes were dropped at midnight today. im not gonna point fingers at who did what here nor am i going to speculate about disney or whatever. this is about the content of the episodes, not the whatever else. personally im ok staying up til 2am for the stuff.

space babies. that sure was an episode. i think the plot was a very interesting concept, even if its execution felt a little lackluster. the babies themselves looked fine but sounded mostly... off... but that's not really a problem.

i recognise im a mega genius but it feels like the whole thing with the bogeyman was just trying to delay the reveal of it all being mucus. it was pretty obvious pretty early on. i do like the idea of the rogue machine trying to raise the babies through bringing stories to life.

overall i think the episode was really solid. not the best but what you'd expect from doctor who. the visuals were a whole other story though -- you can really tell where the budget is going. i think this episode to me is like a 7/10. its for sure the prelude to something greater.

the devil's chord. jinkx's character is so good. i just love the camp and the whole attitude and it just works so well idk. the way she plays maestro is incredible and i love their whole character. they really carry the episode.

i dont know anything about the beatles so i cant speak to that aspect of the episode. the plot is interesting, leaning more into the fantasy aspect that neo who seeks to explore. maestro being part of the toymaker's legions is a great explanation for their presence. and, of course, more rtd foreshadowing.

i know this is gonna be controversial but being meta with the music is a really cool idea i think. the doctor who theme being played in universe like 3 times or something, ruby playing her own theme (i think) and the doctor breaking the fourth wall (the incidental music!) were executed well imo.

it's a bit of a weird contradiction how maestro destroying earth before ruby was born not affecting her while the butterfly did (is that what that tardis setting thing did?) but whatev. the whole music video at the end of the episode was unexpected but honestly just really cool. i did appreciate maestro's singing too and i feel it worked better than the doctor singing in the church on ruby road.

honestly i love how wlw is like mentioned twice in the episode but just as a normal thing. somehow to me that makes maestro mentioning the sad lesbian music just funnier that itd otherwise be. i think rep that doesnt go "wow look at me" works best as it does here. and yes, as a girl in red head, i do love lesbian heartbreak music.

even if this episode's plot was really simple in concept it doesnt feel dragged out like space babies and is overall a lot more entertaining. and, of course, more building up of whatever russell's cooking up. i think this episode is like an 8/10 for me. excited for more!

conclusion? ig? next week is moffat's episode boom. ive heard this is doctor lite (but im not sure) and apparently the whole episode is about the doctor stepping on a mine and not being able to move. i would be entirely unexcited if it werent moffat writing this episode.

doctor who clearly has a lot of threads at play between mrs flood, the whole toymaker stuff, the 14th doctor, the one who waits, the master, etc, etc, etc. i hope we manage to get a satisfying ending instead of a classic rtd deus ex machina.

i presumably have a lot more thoughts i have already forgotten or havent thunk yet. if you want to know more of my opinions, watch harbo wholmes' eventual review. we tend to agree a lot. until next week, i guess that's it. how do i end one of these posts again

[ncwhereman]

hello, hi, good day, greetings. it’s me again, your favourite anonymous spammer 🎅 again i'm really sorry this is a late one.

ok so my favourite albums by any artists would have to be the ones which the songs i recommended are from! this commentary is unnecessary, but still:

are you experienced (the jimi hendrix experience). the quintessential late 60s psychedelic rock album! a lot of classics on here as well as less overplayed gems

led zeppelin 1. a great example of a concept album. every time i listen it’s like i’m hearing it all over again for the first time. i have this one on vinyl and it’s one of my most precious records :)

now this one wasn’t in my initial recommendations but i’m also gonna recommend the album deep purple in rock by deep purple :^) to me, it sounds like a musical marriage between zep and hendrix. how about you? apart from the beatles' albums, what are your top 3 albums atm?

records: sadly i don’t buy records as much as i'd like to but i’m working on growing my collection slowly atm 😭 your help record sounds rly cool, i like the more unusual ones more bc they have small histories behind them. how did a dutch vinyl end up in a german jacket, and then made its way to you - i always wonder who owned the record before me? where are they now? do they still love the same music? ok i’m rambling, but to answer ur question: my ideal collection would have all beatles studio albums, as well as the rolling stones albums (up until the end of the 70s, bc my music taste kinda ends there) bc they’re classics + i love every album. but beatles records are hard to find and expensive here :( i’d also like some coloured vinyl, which i don’t have, like red or blue or something funky. how about you - any goals for your collection?

thanks so much for the film recommendations! i have time off after my finals so i’ll be sure to watch them :D i’m more into comedies so i think i’ll start with the apartment and paper moon. and the hours and times too, i’ve heard a lot about it so if you recommend it i’ll give it a watch. every year i try and watch a few holiday films, but i always end up watching the same ones, mainly home alone 1/2, and it’s a wonderful life (this is one that my parents always make us watch). i’m definitely gonna watch white christmas this year too!

sorry i always write too much here :D and sorry to put you through the stress of choosing a fav beatle. but i’ve always vibed more w george and john too! 

good luck on yr finals, and if they're finished, then congrats :D -srs

hi! sorry for late reply too, i have flu and the first days weren't nice 🤧 i'm getting better though!

thank you for recs, i'll def give them a listen!! i've been meaning to listen to more of these artists for such a long time and finally have a place to start now!

i can't mention my top 3 atm without beatles, sorry 😭 bc not so long ago i finally gave the new revolver mixes a listen and i'm starting to appreciate it much more as a whole body of work. i'm still very into john's walls&bridges and POB, and since i rewatched my fair lady yesterday i'm really digging the soundtrack.

yep, my collection is growing very slowly too! my main concern is how the record sounds bc i listen to them pretty often but usually i aim for the earliest pressings i can find. too bad it's practically impossible to find original beatles editions. i still remember seeing a uk mono copy of meet the beatles in a local shop, meaning it was the original press probably, and it wasn't even crazily expensive but i still didn't have enough money and eventually someone bought it before me. i'm still so salty about it lmao

and yes i love colored vinyl too! if only i could get my hands on those modern fancy pressings ugh. so far i only have two colored records, a red 1962-1966 and a blue abbey road. i kinda regretted getting AR since it's obviously a modern bootleg but it doesn't sound too bad (for a bootleg at least) and the shade is almost exactly like the blue 1967-1970 i wanted to get. it was another case of someone buying it before me 😭 tbh that shade was the deciding factor for me lmao

by the way, if you want something kinda similar to colored vinyl: some original uk copies of elton john albums from 1969 to 1975 are black but appear translucent red when held up to light! and there were a lot of them pressed so they shouldn't be too expensive or hard to find. it was a very cool discovery i accidentally made

i hope you'll enjoy the films, i love both of them! and as for th&t.... well like i said it's in no way perfect but definitely not bad! esp given the circumstances in which it was made. there are so many themes, dynamics and emotions they could explore deeper and further but i suppose they just did the best they could. so if you're interested in the relationship between john and brian i think you should give it a try for at least one point of view on the spanish holiday that in my opinion could very well be pretty close to reality.

oh i completely forgot about it's a wonderful life lmao. thanks for reminding me bc i'll def watch it for christmas, i love it too! and i enjoyed white christmas so much, i adore 50-60s musicals!

the stress of choosing a fav beatle hsksksks it's okay 😭😭 i'm afraid it might be the last anon ask before the big reveal but i'll ask anyway, what are your favorite john and george solo albums??

[sothisispeerpressure]

I’m watching Get Back and here are some of my thoughts:

- if I was George, I would get irritated with Paul too

- Paul looks so good though

- Yoko really did kinda stay out of the way and just observe

- Mal Evans content I didn’t know I needed

- Could you Imagine Gimme Some Truth or All Things Must Pass on the Let It Be album????

- the way they poked fun at their irritation with Ob-La-Di was funny

- George complimenting Paul’s beard. So sweet

- Ringo playing a song on the piano was so sweet too

- I like how they played I’m So Tired (and still just break into their harmonies like it’s not biggie???) and Every Little Thing (but they always came back to the songs they were singing 😭🤚🏻)

- Apple had a truck and I just never thought of that concept

- you really get to see how much the smoked. Wow they smoked a lot.

- how many songs did they write that we just never get to hear???

- Ringo’s sweater on day 3. That is all.

- wow Paul is annoying. I love him but he’s so annoying, who does he have to take control of everyone else’s songs

- George’s fit day 3, boy take me away from this place somewhere far away 😍

- at first I didn’t like the background vocals Paul and George did on Don’t Let Me Down but it grew on me and now I wish it was kept

- Paul is a pick me

- y’all don’t get to make fun of John for forgetting his own lyrics anymore they had 2 weeks for 14 songs

- George won the argument

-“I’m not trying to put you down George, let’s just work it out” “ok you work your part out first and then I’ll work mine out” “………..I’m not trying to put you down George-“

- “Lennon’s late again. Thinking of getting rid of him” and then when John leaves Paul has a whole breakdown 😂

- George’s hair is so cute

- Ringo looks like he needs a hug

- John has been wearing the same shirt for like 4 days is he ok

- Mal looks so happy to just be part of the group during Silver Hammer🥺

- Across The Universe is making me happy

- “nothings gonna change my world” “I wish it focken wood”

- Paul loves to hear himself doesn’t he

- the flashback to their touring days during Rock and Roll Music 🥺

- George singing I Me Mine with his head down Bc he shy and then getting more confidence after the boys compliment his lyrics

- tag yourself I’m the guitar fell over Paul a guitar fell over-

- John’s skin is so fair awh

- I’m going to choose to believe that the short sleeve shirt Paul is wearing is the same one from Help!

- Beatle banter

- LINDA APPEARANCE

- PAUL PLAYING ANOTHER DAY MY LORD HOW OLD ARE THESE SONGS

- Linda is so pretty 😍

- Long And Winding Road by Lennon/McCartney? No. Long And Winding Road by Evans/McCartney.

- George: “I’m never late” George, 3 days later: “I had to be late just to finish me breakfast 😪”

- The Castle of The King of The Birds feat. George Harrison on drums

- Get Back (Politically Controversial Version) (From The Vault)

- THE WAY JOHN AND PAUL ARE SMILING AT EACH OTHER DURING SCITTBW 😍😍🥰

- seriously why is John wearing the exact same thing every day

- all these songs we’re never heard is making me think that the possibility of Everyday Chemistry being a real thing is highly possible

- George’s voice is so pretty I love him he’s my favorite

- Across The Universe (Circus Clown Version) (From The Vault)

- Paul sings let it be and George almost drops his guitar

- the way they match up Linda’s photos with the footage is so cool to me

- George is so cute I wanna kiss his face

- after a whole week of the purple shirt John finally has a different shirt on

- Why is John just 👁👄👁 at Paul when they get face to face while playing

- this documentary just proves that Two Of Us is a mclennon song

- “I think I’ll leave the band now.” “When?” “Now.” The silence, sheesh.

- *angry rock and roll sounds proceed*

- OH NO THEY GOT YOKO ON THE MIC

- I think they’re ok with it because of being angry at George though

- George was the only thing keeping Yoko from going ham on that mic. The mic needs therapy. Therapy with George. George abandoned the poor mic.

- oh that Yoko recording was from THESE sessions??? It’s on VIDEO video???

- did I spot Mo!?!?

- Paul is the real jealous guy

- Isn’t It A Pity 😭😭😭

- Ringo looked like he was crying in that huddle :(

Come back tomorrow for part 2!!!!!!

[mirclealignr]

Regulus Black Fluff Alphabet

regulus x gn! reader

requested by anon

warnings; brief mentions of food and anxiety

from this alphabet

A - Affection; how they like to show their love.

Regulus does a lot through touch and reassuring looks/smiles. He finds it hard sometimes to express just how he feels about you, especially considering expressions of love were severely lacking in his life. But when he holds your hand or caresses your face, he feels as if he's spilling all his secrets, and hopes that you understand them.

B - Beauty; what do they especially admire about you?

Your warmth. At first it was practically disarming, but overtime he learned to embrace it and miss it when it was absent, when you were absent. It would be so different to what he was used to, especially with the people closest to him. But he would adore the change that was you.

C - Cuddles; how they like to cuddle you.

Most of the time he likes to have his arms around you, sitting up slightly while you lay against his chest. There's a sense of safety he finds in knowing that you can hear his heartbeat and that it doesn't scare you off. But sometimes, he likes it when you take him in your arms and he can nuzzle in the crook of your neck.

D - Dancing; their favourite place to dance with you.

He is simply a hopeless romantic, and loves to dance with you when it's dark and raining outside, when the two of you are almost completely alone. He loves watching you smile as the rain seeps into your clothes and dampens your hair, and when you rest your head on his chest for some shelter.

E - Excitement; do they get excited with you about things?

Regulus likes to understand things before he gets excited about them with you. If you come running to him with an elated expression and start rambling about whatever brought you this pleasure, he'd want to know why. He'd want to understand you and relate to you. Almost always, he'd become just as excited as you.

F - First Date; your first date together.

The Astronomy Tower. Regulus would want to be alone with you, without prying or judging eyes. It wouldn't be much, maybe some snacks and a drink he brought for you, but he would want to hear you talk and laugh and to see you smile. He'd want to know your likes and dislikes, the memories you cherished, and things you looked back on and laughed at.

G - Goals; do they have things they want to achieve? Do they include you in these things?

For Regulus, his future goals remain largely unclear. Before you, he thought it was simple, but afterwards it would become far more complicated. With the weight of his family, and Sirius' abandonment making it heavier, he would often try to avoid the thought. But if you ever brought it up, he'd tell you that wherever you were, he would be.

H - Honesty; how open are they with you?

Very. Trust is something extremely important to him. While he may not tell you everything the second it happens, he does have every intention of letting you see every side of him, even the parts he wished would vanish from existence. Upon getting to know you, the trials of his family would be revealed slowly, rather than all at once, so he didn't overwhelm you. Of course, he'd be terrified, but he knew it was better that way, and he knew that you would love him all the same.

I - I Love You; do they say it a lot? did they say it first?

Regulus does not say it first, though he'd be sure he felt it first. He confesses straight after you, though, and gradually says it more and more over time. Expressing his feelings would not come easy, and sometimes, rather than tell you how much he appreciated you for listening or how beautiful he thought you were, he simply said 'I love you' in replacement, hoping that it would be enough.

J - Jealousy; do they get jealous?

Not necessarily jealous, but rather insecure. When he sees you laughing with someone else, he'd wonder whether they were better suited to you--they were warmer, more free, happier. Perhaps he brought you down, perhaps he weighed you down, and though he didn't express these insecurities out loud, he'd always seem to be easily read by you. And you'd always be there to reassure him when you needed to.

K - Kiss; their favourite place to kiss you.

Your hands. For Regulus, hands mean so much, represent so much, and yours are his to kiss and hold as much as he pleases. To him it would feel incredibly intimate, despite the fact that your hands can touch others, but that they're only his to kiss and hold. People can always get close, but never as close as he can.

L - Little Spoon; who’s the little spoon?

The majority of the time, you are the little spoon. He likes the idea that he is able to protect you, actually make you feel safe and wanted; it's one of the things he prides himself on. But, there woulds be times when he needed to feel that, and revelled in the warmth of your embrace tightening around him, holding him close.

M - Melody; what’s your song together?

I think your song together would be 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' by The Beatles.

N - Nicknames; do they use nicknames for you?

Yes a few. Some of them would include 'treasure' and/or 'my treasure' because he adores you and could not think of anything better than you. For him, you are what people search for their whole lives, sometimes without ever finding it. And, because he speaks French, ‘mon chéri /ma chérie' for definite.

O - Open Book; how hard was it to get to know them?

It wasn't necessarily hard, just gradual. However, you would have always suspected that Regulus did not have it easy and were content with him going at his own pace, and appreciating that he was brave enough to reveal it all to you. It never seemed too slow, rushed, or overwhelming--he picked his timings well and never let things become too heavy. He'd also be very conscious that everyone had their own burdens, and would make sure he always left time and room for you to air anything you wanted or needed.

P - PDA; how affectionate they are in public.

Not very much at all. He prefers to show you his love when it's just the two of you. But he isn't afraid to let other people know that you're in a relationship, and will often intertwine his fingers with yours, whisper things in your ear, and kiss your temple.

Q - Quirk: a weird but loveable trait of theirs.

He never signs his name, he always signs R.A.B. Even when it's small notes to you, little love letters, or ordinary letters, he will never sign it as Regulus, but with his full initials.

R - Romance; how romantic are they?

So much. He loves leaving you love notes, writing love letters to you, slow dancing with you, playing music for you, watching the stars with you, whispering sweet nothings in your ear, snuggling up in bed with you with a good book. He loves to do it all.

S - Secrets; do they keep secrets from you?

Not really. Perhaps only ones he thinks would unnecessarily hurt you, like what his family says about you. He doesn't tell you because he doesn't think it matters, they don't matter to him, only you do, and he wants their words to mean nothing.

T - Thrill; do they like to keep the relationship new and exciting?

He likes to, and he tries. He certainly likes surprising you, even if only to see that smile. He likes taking you places, learning your favourite songs on the piano simply because you like hearing them, taking you on spontaneous trips or dates. He's not on for grand, public gestures, but he still keeps excitement in the relationship his own way. But he also knows when things need to be slow and calm, and doesn't mind it either way.

U - Understanding; how they comfort/support when you’re upset or anxious.

He knows that most things said would be wrong, even if they were intended to be reassuring and understanding. Even when you talk about what's bothering you or don't, it can be hard to say the right thing. So instead, he takes you in his arms, rubs your back, kisses your cheek and gets you any comfort foods that you wish for. Sometimes, words speak far less than actions.

V - Vexed; how easily they lose their temper.

With his family, and even with Sirius, Regulus can lose his temper very quickly, but you understand that their relationship has not been easy, nor do you care for his family. With you, it's rare that he loses his temper or raises his voice at you. When he does, there are usually other factors that have contributed to his mood, and he is quick to apologise afterwards.

W - Weakness; what’s their weakness what it comes to you?

Your smile. So easily it can make him feel like he's falling from the stars, watching the constellations become smaller and smaller as he slips into the earth's atmosphere, burning and smiling and falling completely in love with you every time he sees it.

X - Xtra; random hc about them.

Regulus likes to speak in French to you when there are things he is too afraid to say or things he thinks sound more romantic when said in another language. Even if you can understand him, there's something less nerve-racking about saying it in French, it's almost like he's playing himself in another world, but still hopelessly in love with you.

Y - Years to Come; how they imagine your future together.

He doesn't like to think about the future often because he knows how easily it can change and fail to meet your expectations. He only hopes that he is with you, facing whatever is to come. He prefers to focus on the present, where he already is with you.

Z - Zzz; how they are when they sleep.

Incredibly still, almost scarily still. The only time he moves is to be closer to you, closer to your exuding warmth. It almost frightens you to move in case it wakes him or disturbs him, but if it does, he never lets on. - - - fill in this form or send an ask to be added to a tag list <3 forever friends; @myalupinblack / @selenes-sun / @vixxiann /@queen-asteria04 / @lillict / @savingpluto /@theincredibledeadlyviper / @pad-foots / @fizzleberries / @willowbleedsonpaper / @kinkyduuh harry potter; @fuckingbloodyhello / @catching-the-train-to-hogwarts / @scvrllet / @dreamerinthesun / @crazy-beautiful / @chaoticgirl04 /@cupids-crystals / @fandom-life-12 / @mypainistemporary-blog /@oliverwoodmarrymepls / @eunoniaa / @missryerye marauders era; @spxllcxstxr / @natashxromanovfreads / @ch /@sereinegemini / @helen-with-an-a / @sweeter-than-strawberries /@spxncervibes regulus black; @jackys-stuff-blog / @with-love-anu / @yinrose98 /@tarorootboba / @lyaseille / @bloodblossom73

[lonelyasawhisper]

The Queen Tapes Part 1: Brian May

Mick Houghton, Circus, 28 February 1977

Stargazing Guitarist Brian May Turns the Telescope on Himself and Talks About What He Sees

IT'S STRANGE, because the people who were in the Others at school then, were kind of rebels who weren't interested in the academic side and were disapproved of by the establishment. I admired them because they got on with what they wanted to do, which was play music. [The Others was Brian May's first rock group; they made a single in 1964, 'Oh Yeah']

I was very much the academic then, partly through inclination and partly through upbringing, so, while I played in various groups, none of them ever got anywhere because we never actually played any real gigs or took it that seriously. I was envious of those people at the time for making the break, yet now they've all gone back to respectable jobs or studying – computers, dentistry, one of them was working for EMI – whereas I did it the other way round after completing my studies.

In a way, their experience, although they were really messed around by their managers, made me want to commit myself more because it was a world I wanted and knew I had to deny myself at the time. It was two or three years after that before Smile, my first serious group, got going, but by then I was equally involved academically and felt it was a waste of time not to see it through, having come that far (in astronomy – on the movements of interplanetary dust). As you know, even now, my PhD is virtually complete, but there's no way I can finish that, given the pressures and commitments of Queen. The fruits of that endeavor have come out, though. The papers have been published and are available to the scientific world, so it isn't wasted. The only reason to complete it would be to get a piece of paper saying that I'm a Doctor. That's not very crucial, is it? Whereas with Queen, I'm still in the position where I've got to pursue it to its conclusion, if there is a conclusion.

It's hard to see what that could be. There's the concrete terms like measuring it by success but those aren't the reference points to choose. I guess there will come a point when I feel we, or I, or both aren't progressing. Then I'll have to think seriously about what I'm doing. It's like my progress as a guitar player has slowed down considerably in terms of actual technique, but where I'm advancing is in the ideas and general feel for what I'm doing. And then there's the sense of an audience which grows up on you, which is something you never bargain for at first when you are just playing for yourself from some internal drive. Once you discover people are actually listening, it becomes a completely different world. Playing to people becomes worthwhile in its own sense, so the fact that my music still gives other people pleasure has become a major factor in my continuing.

I suppose it seems like there's a rule that Freddie (Mercury) and I divide up most of the albums in terms of writing and give John (Deacon) and Roger (Taylor) one song each, the way Beatles' albums seemed to be planned, as some suggest. John is probably the slowest writer, he's newer to it, but at the same time he's written a hit in America, which I haven't and that's great. Roger has more material than the group's done but it's just a question of choosing material to give albums the right balance. There are no hard and fast rules.

The creative balance has shifted to become more of a group thing. With the enormous time that we spend in the studio it's inevitable that a lot of the time all the group aren't there together, so the contributions that we make have become more complementary. I think this is a very important time for the group, where it would be easy for us to go off and do each's separate thing but our strength, and of any group, is that we realize how to use each other in a complementary fashion. That's the most important thing we have.

It's a very delicate balance, though, very precarious like a marriage, because knowing people that well you could be destructive as well as constructive. I'm very conscious that the balance could be easily upset even by something from the outside which threatens the band internally. That's why it worries me if the media concentrates on me or Freddie to the exclusion of the others.

John and Roger are so crucial to everything we do, they are not only a rhythm section. Nothing is farther from the truth. It's like John is the quiet one, all the press releases and so on always say that, and it's true, but in many areas he's the leader more and more these days. I visualize that the balance will change further internally as time goes by...adjust to individual changes. It probably comes across to our hard core followers, but the danger is with our mass audience who, say, only buy the singles, and don't understand the group. I'd like everyone to be aware of the group as a whole.

Queen were very late developers. Like, I was contemporary with the people in the Others, that we were talking about, who had a recording contract in 1964. We started late in the big world of music. We were not let loose on the public until a lot later. We were playing pretty interesting material in the late Sixties. I could play you tapes of Smile which have the same general structures to what we're doing now. There was no way to take it any further at the time. It was hard to get an in without fully committing yourself. I'll say one thing for punk rock at the moment: it is creating a way that groups can get a start, which in itself is very healthy. I think maybe people are being pushed into the limelight too soon, and there's a tendency to concentrate on image to the exclusion of the musical area.

We never had that trouble because we were just totally ignored for so long, and then, completely slagged off and slated by everyone. In a way that was a very good start for us. There's no kind of abuse that wasn't thrown at us. It was only around the time of Sheer Heart Attack that it began to change, but we still got slagged off a fair bit even then. I'm always affected by criticism. I think most artists are even if they say they're not. It doesn't matter how far you get, if somebody says you're a load of shit it hurts. But that was just press response, because for the rest it was building up very steadily. Queen II sold really well over a longish period and coincided with us breaking ground concert-wise.

It's hard to think what could give us the same sort of buzz as that initial recognition by people who would come to see us regularly around the time of our first album, when they had no reason to come to gigs other than something "special" they saw or got from the band. Recently, Hyde Park was a high...the occasion rather than the gig. You know, the tradition of Hyde Park. I went to see the first one with the Floyd and Jethro Tull – great atmosphere and the feeling that it was free. We felt it would be nice to revive that but it was fraught with heartbreak in a way 'cause there were so many problems. Trying to get the place for the evening was so hard, trying to get it at all was hard enough. We had to make compromises which we don't like and it got very political. The whole day ran to schedule but for a half hour, which was remarkable considering the hassles at every stage, but that half hour meant we couldn't do the encore. It sounds trivial I know, but that's the part of the show where we feel most at home. We've got the approval and can really enjoy ourselves and to be denied that, having worked up to such a pitch, was very hard to take. I was very depressed. The encore isn't just a set piece, it's a bonus thing for us as well as the audience. It doesn't matter how tense the gig has been – the sense of release is always welcome.

I hate to think of music as a competition, but that element is there and only a limited number of people can draw big audiences, so I suppose music is competitive in that sense. Whenever I meet a group on the road, though, I don't feel that. You just usually want to get close to one another. Competition can be good in some ways. As you know, we're taking Thin Lizzy as a support, and Lizzy as a support band is a real challenge. Obviously they will want to blow us off the stage, and that can be a very healthy thing. You feed off the energy of others and I know that if they go down a storm we're gonna go on feeling that much higher. It makes for good concerts. We've had it the other way round, we gave Mott the Hoople a hard time on our first tours here and in America.

Then, there's the "we're the biggest" kind of rivalry between groups, which is largely a media thing, but it does mean more 'cause it's easy to get a buzz out of success. You need new things to get excited about, so we're doing New York's Madison Square this tour. It's a thrill and a challenge, but after that I suppose we'll want to do something bigger and better. We're aware of the dangers, because obviously you can lose something along the way if you start doing really big places where you can't really project. To say something for us I think we've done it gradually. We haven't tried to run before we could walk. The last tour we could have done bigger places, but we chose to play smaller places for a few nights instead, with one or two large venues only, to get the feel of it. Now we feel we can really cope with a tour like the current one. Everything will be that much better. We'll be that much better – larger than life.

Retrieved from rocksbackpages.com

[terrainofheartfelt]

"It's been more like a 'Choose Your Own Adventure'!" A Rufly Playlist

Finally, a use for my Dad(™) music taste! I threw in a few live recordings/rough sessions because that’s rock and roll, babey. YouTube link here

image sources: (x) (x) (x)

American Girl - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

If you think this isn’t a rufly song, then idk what to tell you.

And for one desperate moment there / He crept back in her memory / God, it's so painful when something that is so close / Is still so far out of reach

Light My Fire - The Doors

Making this playlist was fun because I got to imagine a lot of precanon Rufus/Lily, and how they came to be. And like, I can see Rufus covering a LOT of these, yk?

The time to hesitate is through / No time to wallow in the mire

Funny Feelin’ - Langhorne Slim

I can also see Rufus actually writing some of these. Like this one!

Well, I got my eye on you, baby / And I know I ain't the only one / But if you just say maybe / My lonely days would be done

Superstar - tswift

If you don’t project onto at least one tswift song can you even call it a ship playlist?

And I knew from the first note played / I'd be breaking all my rules to see you / You smile that beautiful smile and all the girls in the front row / Scream your name

Lay, Lady, Lay - Bob Dylan

Tour life vibes

His clothes are dirty but his, his hands are clean / And you’re the best thing that he’s ever seen

Fire - Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band

Your kisses they burn / But your heart stays cool

Fooled Around and Fell in Love - as performed by Morgan James

Because Lily Rhodes really did fuck around and find out.

Free, on my own is the way I used to be / Ah, but since I met you baby, love's got a hold on me

Don’t Let Me Down - The Beatles

Nothing says Lily & Rufus like a Beatles deep cut.

I'm in love for the first time / Don't you know it's gonna last

Shadows of the Night - Pat Benatar

80s rock vibes, babe!

You can cry tough baby, it's all right / You can let me down easy, but not tonight

She - as performed by She & Him

She may be the love that cannot hope to last / May come to me from shadows of the past

Can’t Buy Me Love - The Beatles

Tell me that you want the kind of things / That money just can't buy / I don't care too much for money / Money can't buy me love

Second Hand News - Fleetwood Mac

It’s breakup chapter time, y’all

I know there's nothing to say / Someone has taken my place

Hungry Heart - Bruce Springsteen

I met her in a Kingstown bar / We fell in love I knew it had to end / We took what we had and we ripped it apart / Now here I am down in Kingstown again

Piece of My Heart - as performed by Big Brother and the Holding Company

Have another little piece of my heart now, baby / Well, you know you got it, child, if it makes you feel good

Love Really Hurts Without You - Billy Ocean

In my head, this is the “Lily and her cavalcade of failed relationships post-Rufus” montage song

You walk like a dream and you make like you're queen of the action

Halls - Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness

This is the “Rufus touring post-Lily” montage song

Thought a broken heart could write a perfect song / And it did and I was right so now you're gone

Mulholland Drive - The Gaslight Anthem

Okay so we all know about the Dair & Rufly parallels, and this song nearly ended up on that playlist, but the vibe didn’t quite fit. And I think, in my heart of hearts, that this song (though probs more punk than Lincoln Hawk sounds) reads like Rufus could have written it. And there are lines that are so evocative of both Dair & Rufly like I still remember holding you, just out of sight of her - like! That’s Valentine’s day 2012 amirite??? And: But it scared you, love, to need someone, so you killed it all instead. And the imagery of Mulholland Drive with Lily being from LA...Anyways this song is one of my all time favorites.

Would you miss me if I was gone and all the simple things were lost? / Would you ever wait on me to say / Oh that I’d just die if you ever took your love away

Malibu 1922 - COIN

You're some old man's new trophy / Locked up in some house in New Jersey / Now money's not a problem / But 20 years it seems you've forgotten

How’s the World Treating You - Elvis Presley

Pilot Rufly vibes, but sad!

Every sweet thing that mattered / Has been broken in two / And I'm asking you, darling / How's the world treating you?

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues - The Gaslight Anthem

Pilot Rufly vibes, but sexy!

Can I get a witness, pretty baby? / I still love Tom Petty songs and drivin' old men crazy

It Ain’t Me Babe - Bob Dylan

“You made a choice to be Lily Bass, and we both need you to go do that.”

Go lightly from the ledge, babe / Go lightly on the ground / I’m not the one you want, babe / I will only let you down

Harvest Moon - Neil Young

It’s about the lovers to strangers to hostile acquaintances to friends to lovers again.

When we were strangers / I watched you from afar / When we were lovers / I loved you with all my heart

Home From Home - Roo Panes

“Well, it’s Thanksgiving, and I couldn’t think of another place that felt more like home.”

Because I'm starting to realise the question worth asking is, who? / I'm starting to realize the question worth answering is you

You Got Lucky - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

I mean. I mean they do fight a lot.

If you don't feel complete / If I don't take you all the way / Then go

Are We Free? - Mick Flannery and Susan O’Neill

I like how this whole song is a dialogue, but always comes together at the chorus

Are we free to understand / or bound to repeat again / all the wars of before?

The Bones feat. Hozier - Maren Morris

“The king and queen of reconciliation” - Dan Humphrey

No, it won't always go the way we planned it / But the wolves came and went and we're still standing

Songbird - Fleetwood Mac

They didn’t break up, what are you talking about?

And I love you, I love you, I love you / Like never before

Beginning to Feel the Years - Brandi Carlile

And I'm beginning to feel the years / But I'm going to be okay / As long as you're beside me--along the way

Call on Me - Big Brother and the Holding Company

Baby, when you're down and feel so blue / Well, no, you won't drown, honey, I'll be there too

Lily - Benjamin Gibbard

It was too perfect. I had no choice.

Lily is a big brass band who fills the air with song / Lily is a destination and she's where my arms belong

Hard Feelings - Brian Fallon

And the time used to stop in her hands / I could feel it go hesitant / When it rained in Manhattan / We took shelter in the spare room at the Grand

[classicrocker2000]

for meta asks: 1, 6 and 10 :p

1. Tell us about your current project(s)  – what’s it about, how’s progress, what do you love most about it?

Oh god I have way too many (15 WIPs), so I'll limit it to six:

- Blood From a Stone: My friend Gizmo and I got the idea for this while we were planning a different AU based on this comic book mockup:

Some pretty fun Marvel silliness, right? Well... we ended up making it our own horror story. Which is where one of my favorite aspects of this story comes in, and that's writing classic horror vampires- the kind that burn in daylight and are just... dramatic (or maybe I just realized that I just like writing campy horror). And I also loved writing the dynamics between the six Rolling Stones member (six because Brian Jones is here too because the writers said so). The thing that really sucks though is that we wrote this way too quickly. Almost eleven chapters in four days and now there's just an epilogue left ;_; It's honestly the kind of story that doesn't need a sequel, and yet I want to write one anyway, just so I can have a bit more fun with the vampires here.

It's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it's definitely the story I've had the most fun writing.

-Power to the People: Gizmo and I have been working on this story since May 2020. The gist of the story is that a supernatural event causes most of London to gain superpowers, though not everyone stays sane. This is also a massive crossover fic, considering we've had the Beatles, the Stones, and the Who among many, many others. We're almost thirty chapters in, and I have no idea how long this will take us to complete (partly because it spans at least two or three years of in-universe time and we're kind of breaking this up into little arcs). That and frequent writer's block doesn't help on my end. The parts I have the most fun writing are Eppy's journey of self-actualization. It can be tough at times, but knowing that the end result is Eppy being mostly at peace with himself makes everything worth it.

-Beatletopia: This is a bit different than my usual style, because it's more of a comedy that I write with Gizmo and @lennon-cuddlywump. This started because two of us absolutely loved playing Miitopia and all three of us are mutuals. What I like most about this fic is just that it's a chance for me to write with both of my frequent collab partners and it's a lot more lighthearted than the stuff I usually tend towards (vampires, explorations of mortality, etc.). We're currently working on chapter 16.

-If I Needed Someone: This is a fic I'm writing with @sky0fblue where Brian survives the overdose and goes on to face life and all it's challenges. My favorite part of writing this fic is that not only am I working with someone whose skill level maybe even surpasses my own, but I also finally found a fic idea for Eppy surviving that didn't involve him becoming a vampire in the process (unlike Fly By Night, in which he did become a vampire). We're three chapters in, and though it's been a while, I'm hoping to get some more work done on that as summer approaches.

- Of Magic and Music: This I started developing in September 2020 and it ended up turning into another collab with Gizmo. The gist here is that in a world where magic is struggling to survive, John finds out he can do magic and things get progressively crazier from there. With this fic, I once again have the most fun writing character dynamics, especially between John, Eppy, and Martin. This one is 14 chapters in and will probably be another long runner. (I'd say we need to learn how to keep our fics concise, but then again, the existence of Blood From a Stone, To the Beat of an Angel's Wing, and In the Heart of Madness exist, which are all on the shorter side- if unfinished- with a clear throughline planned.)

-That Time I Sold My Soul (title shortened for simplicity's sake): This one is also one I started a long time ago- June 2019 specifically- and then when I told Gizmo about this, she was instantly onboard. So here, the plot is that Mick and Keith are vampires, Brian's a witch (with a chip on his shoulder considering he sold his soul), Charlie's a werewolf, and Bill the creep is an incubus (he was originally a vampire before I decided I didn't want the group to be flooded with vampires). Honestly, the most fun I have here is by trying to imagine how Stones history would have gone had they all been supernatural creatures, as well as the unique challenges they face (such as creep being sensitive to sunlight and Charlie dealing with the whole full moon thing). We're writing chapter six now, though I currently have no idea how long this is going to last.

6. What character do you have the most fun writing?

Well... honestly, I have fun writing for almost everyone! But if I had to narrow it down, it'd probably be Eppy when I'm writing Beatles fic and Keith when I'm writing Rolling Stones fic. He's a nervous gay bean that I absolutely vibe with, and honestly, some of my most fulfilling moments as a RPF writer have been having Eppy just... catch the break he didn't really get when he was alive. Namely by having the boys be supportive. And with Keith, the best part is taking someone with a "devil may care" attitude and throwing him in the most random/bizarre situations imaginable (it probably isn't obvious that I'm slightly bitter the original Stones lineup didn't make movies, but what can you do?)

10. How would you describe your writing process?

-Honestly, I'm not sure how to describe my writing process, which boils down to just writing something down when I have some free time or whenever my friends are online. I most often write collab fics because I find it 10x easier to write when I'm working with a friend. Bouncing ideas with someone really gets the creative juices flowing.

[sgt-paul]

Paul McCartney Is Still Trying to Figure Out Love – The New York Times Magazine

By David Marchese, Nov. 29, 2020

Paul McCartney, like the rest of us, this year found himself with an unexpected amount of time stuck indoors. Unlike the rest of us — or most of us, anyway — he used that time to record a new album. The pandemic-induced circumstances of its creation may mark “McCartney III” as an outlier in the former Beatle’s catalog, but as its title suggests, it does have precedents: Like “McCartney” (1970) and “McCartney II” (1980), the album, out Dec. 18, was primarily recorded by McCartney alone, with him playing nearly all the instruments and handling all the production. “At no point,” McCartney said, “did I think: I’m making an album. I’d better be serious. This was more like: You’re locked down. You can do whatever the hell you want.” Which was a gas, as always. “What I’m amazed with,” McCartney explained, “is that I’m not fed up with music. Because, strictly speaking, I should have gotten bored years ago.”

It seems to me that working on music by yourself, as you did on the new album, might allow for some insights about what you do and how you do it. So are there aspects of “McCartney III” that represent creative growth to you? 

The idea of growing and adding more arrows to your bow is nice, but I’m not sure if I’m interested in it. The thing is, when I look back to “Yesterday,” which was written when I was 21 or something, there’s me talking like a 90-year-old: “Suddenly I’m not half the man I used to be.” Things like that and “Eleanor Rigby” have a kind of wisdom. You would naturally think, OK, as I get older I’m going to get deeper, but I’m not sure that’s true. I think it’s a fact of life that personalities don’t change much. Throughout your life, there you are.

Is there anything different about the nature of your musical gift today at 78 than in 1980 or 1970 or when you first started writing songs? 

It’s the story that you’re telling. That changes. When I first said to John, “I’ve written a few songs,” they were simple. My first song was called “I Lost My Little Girl” — four chords. Then we went into the next phase of songwriting, which was talking to our fans. Those were songs like “Thank You Girl,” “Love Me Do,” “Please Please Me.” Then came a rich vein as we got more mature, with things like “Let It Be,” “The Long and Winding Road.” But basically I think it’s all the same, and you get lucky sometimes. Like, “Let It Be” came from a dream where my mother had said that phrase. “Yesterday” came from a dream of a melody. I’m a great believer in dreams. I’m a great rememberer of dreams.

What’s the last interesting dream you had? 

Last night’s was pretty good.

What was it? 

It was of a sexual nature, so I’m not sure it’s good for the Kids section. Pretty cool, though. Very interesting, dreams of a sexual nature when you’re married. Because your married head is in the dream saying: “Don’t do this. Don’t go here.” And just to let you know, I didn’t. It was still a good dream.

You know, I was conscious of not mentioning the Beatles early in this interview, and you’ve already mentioned them a few times. So let me ask you: The band broke up 50 years ago. You were in it for roughly 10 years. When you’re not doing interviews or playing concerts, how central to your own story of your life are those 10 years from half a century ago? 

Very. It was a great group. That’s commonly acknowledged.

Generally speaking. 

[Laughs.] It’s like your high school memories — those are my Beatles memories. This is the danger: At a dinner party, I am liable to tell stories about my life, and people already know them. I can see everyone stifling a yawn. But the Beatles are inescapable. My daughter Mary will send me a photo or a text a few times a week: “There you were on an advert” or “I heard you on the radio.” The thing that amazes me now, because of my venerable age, is that I will be with, like, one of New York’s finest dermatologists, and he will be a rabid Beatles fan. All of that amazes me. We were trying to get known, we were trying to do good work and we did it. So to me, it’s all happy memories.

“McCartney III” will come out very close to the 40th anniversary of John Lennon’s death. Has your processing of what happened to him changed over the years? 

It’s difficult for me to think about. I rerun the scenario in my head. Very emotional. So much so that I can’t really think about it. It kind of implodes. What can you think about that besides anger, sorrow? Like any bereavement, the only way out is to remember how good it was with John. Because I can’t get over the senseless act. I can’t think about it. I’m sure it’s some form of denial. But denial is the only way that I can deal with it. Having said that, of course I do think about it, and it’s horrible. You do things to help yourself out of it. I did an interview with Sean, his son. That was nice — to talk about how cool John was and fill in little gaps in his knowledge. So it’s little things that I am able to do, but I know that none of them can get over the hill and make it OK. But you know, after he was killed, he was taken to Frank Campbell’s funeral parlor in New York. I’m often passing that. I never pass it without saying: “All right, John. Hi, John.”

And how about your perspective on the work you did together? Has that changed? 

I always thought it was good. I still think it’s good. Sometimes I had to reassure him that it was good. I remember one time he said to me: “What are they going to think of me when I’m dead? Am I going to be remembered?” I felt like the older brother, even though he was older than me. I said: “John, listen to me. You are going to be so remembered. You are so [expletive] great that there’s no way that this disappears.” I guess that was a moment of insecurity on his part. He straightened me up on other occasions. It was a great collaboration. I can’t think of any better collaboration, and there have been millions. I feel very lucky. We happened upon each other in Liverpool through a friend of mine, Ivan Vaughan. Ivan said, “I think you’d like this mate of mine.” Everyone’s lives have magic, but that guy putting me and John together and then George getting on a bus — an awful lot of coincidences had to happen to make the Beatles.

People always ask you about John. I’ve noticed they rarely ask about George, who of course also died relatively young. 

John is probably the one in the group you would remember, but the circumstances of his death were particularly harrowing. When you die horrifically, you’re remembered more. But I like your point, which is: What about George? I often think of George because he was my little buddy. I was thinking the other day of my hitchhiking bursts. This was before the Beatles. I suddenly was keen on hitchhiking, so I sold this idea to George and then John.

I know this memory. You and George hitchhiked to Paignton.

Yeah, Exeter and Paignton. We did that, and then I also hitchhiked with John. He and I got as far as Paris. What I was thinking about was — it’s interesting how I was the instigator. Neither of them came to me and said, “Should we go hitchhiking?” It was me, like, “I’ve got this great idea.”

Why is that interesting? 

My theory is that attitude followed us into our recording career. Everyone was hanging out in the sticks, and I used to ring them up and say, “Guys, it’s time for an album.” Then we’d all come in, and they’d all be grumbling. “He’s making us work.” We used to laugh about it. So the same way I instigated the hitchhiking holidays, I would put forward ideas like, “It’s time to make an album.” I don’t remember Ringo, George or John ever ringing me up and saying that.

How strange is it to share an idle recollection from your youth, as you just did with that hitchhiking story, and then have the person to whom you’re sharing it — in this case, me — know the memory? It seems as though it would be weird. 

It’s quite annoying, David. It’s like people at dinner yawning when I’m telling stories. This keeps happening to me.

I even know the details. You and George slept on the beach. 

That’s right.

Some Salvation Army girls kept you warm. 

Yes.

Then at some point you sat on a car battery and zapped your ass? 

That was George who did that! I have a very clear recollection. He showed me the scar. Let’s set the record straight: It was George’s ass, and it was a burn the exact shape of a zip from his jeans.

Do you remember the last thing George said to you? 

We said silly things. We were in New York before he went to Los Angeles to die, and they were silly but important to me. And, I think, important to him. We were sitting there, and I was holding his hand, and it occurred to me — I’ve never told this — I don’t want to hold George’s hand. You don’t hold your mate’s hands. I mean, we didn’t anyway. And I remember he was getting a bit annoyed at having to travel all the time — chasing a cure. He’d gone to Geneva to see what they could do. Then he came to a special clinic in New York to see what they could do. Then the thought was to go to L.A. and see what they could do. He was sort of getting a bit, “Can’t we just stay in one place?” And I said: “Yes, Speke Hall. Let’s go to Speke Hall.” That was one of the last things we said to each other, knowing that he would be the only person in the room who would know what Speke Hall was. You probably know what the hell it is.

Yep.

I can’t amaze you with anything! Anyway, the nice thing for me when I was holding George’s hands, he looked at me, and there was a smile.

How many good Beatles stories are there left to tell that haven’t been told? 

There are millions. Sometimes the reason is that they’re too private, and I don’t want to go gossiping. But the main stories do get told and told again.

Can you think of one now that you haven’t told before? 

Hmm. I will rake through the embers. Oh, I’ll tell you one! I thought of one this morning. It’s pretty good. I don’t think I’ve told it. You’re going to have to say in the article, “I forced this out of him,” because it’s a bit telling-out-of-school.

I am hereby twisting your arm. 

So when we did the album “Abbey Road,” the photographer was set up and taking the pictures that ended up as the album cover. Linda was also there taking incidental pictures. She has some that are of us — I think it was all four of us — sitting on the steps of Abbey Road studios, taking a break from the session, and I’m in quite earnest conversation with John. This morning I thought, I remember why. John’s accountants had rung my accountants and said: “Someone’s got to tell John he’s got to fill in his tax returns. He’s not doing it.” So I was trying to say to him, “Listen, man, you’ve got to do this.” I was trying to give him the sensible advice on not getting busted for not doing your taxes. That’s why I looked so earnest. I don’t think I’ve told that story before.

Tax filings — that’s some deep arcana. 

I have dredged the barrel.

I know that your goal with making music is to do something that pleases yourself. What’s most pleasing to you on the new album? 

I’m very happy with “Women and Wives.” I’ve been reading a book about Lead Belly. I was looking at his life and thinking about the blues scene of that day. I love that tone of voice and energy and style. So I was sitting at my piano, and I’m thinking about Huddie Ledbetter, and I started noodling around in the key of D minor, and this thing came to me. “Hear me women and wives” — in a vocal tone like what I imagine a blues singer might make. I was taking clues from Lead Belly, from the universe, from blues. And why I’m pleased with it is because the lyrics are pretty good advice. It’s advice I wouldn’t mind getting myself.

There’s a song on “McCartney III,” “Pretty Boys,” that is kind of unusual for you in how the music is sort of unassuming but the lyrics have an almost sinister edge. What inspired that one? 

I’ll tell you exactly. I’ve been photographed by many photographers through the years. And when you get down to London, doing sessions with people like David Bailey, they can get pretty energetic in the studio. It’s like “Blow-Up,” [the director Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 film thriller about a fashion photographer, thought to be loosely based on David Bailey] you know? “Give it to me! [Expletive] the lens!” And it’s like: “What? No, I’m not going to.” But I understand why they’re doing that. They’re that kind of artist. So you allow it. Certain photographers — they tend to be very good photographers, by the way — can be totally out of line in the studio. So “Pretty Boys” is about male models. And going around New York or London, you see the lines of bicycles for hire. It struck me that they’re like models, there to be used. It’s most unfortunate.

“Lavatory Lil” is another song I was curious about. That’s quite a title. 

“Lavatory Lil” is a parody of someone I didn’t like. Someone I was working with who turned out to be a bit of a baddie. I thought things were great; it turned nasty. So I made up the character Lavatory Lil and remembered some of the things that had gone on and put them in the song. I don’t need to be more specific than that. I will never divulge who it was.

I have another bigger-picture question. In your experience, how is the love in a marriage different at different stages of your life and in different marriages?

I don’t think it’s different. It’s always a splendid puzzle. Even though I write love songs, I don’t think I know what’s going on. It would be great if it was smooth and wonderful all the time, but you get pockets of that, and sometimes it’s — you could be annoying. To Nancy I’m pretty complex, with everything I’ve been through.

In what ways? 

I’m some poor working-class kid from Liverpool. I’ve done music all my life. I’ve had huge success, and people often try to do what I want, so you get a false feeling of omnipotence. All that together makes a complex person. We’re all complex. Well, maybe I’m more complex than other people because of coming from poverty.

And how do you think about money these days? 

It has obviously changed. What has stayed the same is the central core. When I was in Liverpool as a kid, I used to listen to people’s conversations. I remember a couple of women going on about money: “Ah, me and my husband, we’re always arguing about money.” And I remember thinking very consciously, “OK, I’ll solve that; I will try to get money.” That set me off on the “Let’s not have too many problems with money” trail. What happened also was, not having much money, when anything came into the house, it was important. It was important when my weekly comic was delivered. Or my penpal — I had a penpal in Spain, Rodrigo — when his letter came through, that was a big event. When they had giveaways in comics with little trinkets, I kept them all. Some people would say that’s a hoarding instinct, but not having anything when I was a kid has stuck with me as far as money. You know, I’m kind of crazy. My wife is not. She knows you can get rid of things you don’t need.

You’re a hoarder? 

I’m a keeper. If I go somewhere and I get whatever I bought in a nice bag, I will want to keep the bag. My rationale is that I might want to put my sandwiches in it tomorrow. Whereas Nancy says, “We’ll get another bag.” In that way, my attitude toward money hasn’t changed that much. It’s the same instinct to preserve. One of the great things now about money is what you can do with it. Family and friends, if they have any medical problem, I can just say, “I’ll help.” The nicest thing about having money is you can help people with it.

Something that has been a constant for you musically is your ability to keep coming up with melodies. It’s there on the new album — the melodies all flow. Is your facility for writing a catchy melody ever an obstacle to getting the songs to be more than just catchy? Because a good tune by itself is not always enough to make a good song. “Bip Bop” would be an example of that. Do you know what I’m saying? 

No, I know. “Bip Bop” is not lyrically stunning. I was always embarrassed about that song. Literally, it goes, “Bip Bop / take your bottom dollar.” It’s inconsequential. But I mentioned that to a friend, a producer, a few years ago, and he said, “That’s my favorite song of yours.” So you don’t know what people like. It’s enough if I like it and enjoyed putting it on record and don’t particularly want to think of any more lyrics. I don’t want to sweat it. Sometimes maybe it would be better if I sweated it. Once or twice I tried to sweat it, and I hated it. It’s like, What are you doing this for?

Sixty-something years into writing songs, do you feel any closer to knowing where melodies come from? 

No. There is something with my ability to write music that I don’t think I’m necessarily responsible for. It just seems to come easier to me — touch wood — than it does to some people. That’s it. I’m a fortunate man.

[catinsatintrousers]

Question: Not sure if you'll have an answer but who was better for Pattie Boyd, George Harrison or Eric Clapton?

Oh my. You're right, I don't know if I have a real answer but I'll still attempt it. Its hard to compare, but despite George and Eric being completely different people, there were many similarities in their relationship with Pattie. Is it a coincidence that if you take the 'm' off the word muse you're left with use?

I will say that despite both George and Eric being consistently unfaithful to her, her relationship with Eric is explained to be far more tumultuous, what with his alcoholism, drug abuse, jealousy, and the birth of his son Conor with Lori del Santo while he was still married to Pattie. She touches on the differences a lot in her book.

"What I had felt for George was a great, deep love. What Eric and I had was an intoxicating, over-powering passion." - Wonderful Tonight, Pattie Boyd

Even Eric says in his autobiography that

"Rather being a mature, grounded relationship, it was built on drunken forays into the unknown" and "was not the incredibly romantic affair it has been portrayed as being." - Clapton: The Autobiography, Eric Clapton

Well yeah. Duh. I mean, jesus, it wasn't even Eric who initiated their marriage. He did it after his friend Roger put in the Daily Mail that he and Pattie were to be married as a gag, and then he proposed to her over the phone. This was immediately following his affair with Jenny McLean, which Pattie walked in on at their own home. Literally, the gall of these men, both George and Eric, to conduct affairs with other women in the homes they shared with Pattie. Wtf.

"In India George had become fascinated with the god Krishna, who was always surrounded by young maidens, and came back wanting to be some kind of Krishna figure, a spiritual being with lots of concubines. He actually said so. And no woman was out of bounds." - Wonderful Tonight, Pattie Boyd

George was unfaithful to Pattie on many occasions. Not only did he have an affair with Maureen, Ringo's wife, he got it on with Krissie Wood (Ronnie Wood's wife) as well as a French woman (name unknown to me) who had dated Clapton prior and came to stay with George and Pattie at Kinfauns. What irks me most is that when Pattie questioned George about it, he told her she was paranoid. At least Eric was honest about his many affairs, screaming at her that he was in love with Jenny McLean and to "just fuck off" and then openly gushing about Lori del Santo and their expecting baby to Pattie. "I really think, in a funny way, he expected me to be pleased."

Pattie was subject to many of the unfortunate side-effects of rock-star wifedom in a time where women were viewed as side-pieces to their men. Her professional career was stunted during both of her marriages, as she was expected to 'be the wife' and let the men do the work. But neither George nor Eric even brought her along on their extended music tours. Although George along with the other Beatles were subject to the same no-wife rule encouraged by Brian, Eric placed a ban on all women coming on tour himself, preferring an environment of excess and access to girls whom they would take home after the shows.

"Although I found touring difficult, Eric's ban meant I didn't see him for weeks on end... He didn't phone or write as George had done when he was away. While I was still with George, Eric had written passionate and compelling letters that arrived most daily, but now that I was installed in his home and life, he didn't bother." - Wonderful Tonight, Pattie Boyd.

That's the thing! Once these men had her, they gave up trying! George's obsessive preoccupation with meditation along with his intense depressive states following his spiritual awakening surely didn't help in his relationship with Pattie. While Pattie felt alone and neglected by George, Eric played to her romanticism, seducing her (and guilt-tripping her) into leaving George for him. The fact that Eric threatened heroin-use if she did not come away with him and then followed through with it when she didn't is just sickening to me. Eric's constant struggle with addiction throughout his marriage to Pattie was just bad news from the start, although it probably had a lot to do with his shitty actions towards her throughout. (This does not excuse it though!)

"However much I might have thought I loved Pattie at the time, the truth is that the only thing that I couldn't live without was alcohol." - Clapton: The Autobiography, Eric Clapton

I don't want to say that either of her marriages were 'better' than the other but I have to admit I am partial to her relationship with George. She does mention many times in her book about how she should have fought harder for her marriage with George. I'll leave off with this excerpt from her epilogue.

"I regret allowing myself to be seduced by Eric and wish I had been stronger. I believed that marriage is forever, and when things were going wrong between George and me I should have gritted my teeth and resolved that we could come out smiling in the end. And I wish I'd known I didn't have to be a doormat and allow both husbands to be so flagrantly faithless. But if I had resisted Eric, I would never have known that incredible passion, and such intensity is rare. I accept that I paid a high price, but it was in proportion to the depth of the love that he and I shared. I loved George very deeply, too, but we were younger and it was a softer, gentler love." - Wonderful Tonight, Pattie Boyd

Its hard to think about these things, especially regarding our beloved Beatle George, but no idol is perfect, and can at times be pretty shitty, especially to their wives. There are many other factors that made her marriages less than ideal, but there were many good things as well, even though I didn't touch on them here. (Wow, maybe I should have gone a more optimistic route with this 🤔 Next time.)

I'm glad she got out of both relationships. They just weren't right for her. And both George and Eric were able to grow tf up and learn from their experiences and find happiness after Pattie as well. (Shout out to Olivia and Melia!) As for Pattie, I hope she's found peace and happiness in her marriage with Rod Weston. She really truly deserves it.

[binderclipdocs]

Hello! I’m wondering what your take is on Dear Friend (and especially “I’m in love with a friend of mine”?) I find the song a little confusing, and I’ve read a lot of different interpretations. I really love your films and I know you’ve done a lot of research, would love to know what you think. Thanks!

Thanks for your appreciation, anon!  I love Dear Friend and am happy to share my thoughts on this haunting, mournful, mysterious song!

I’ll be the first to admit the lyrics are confusing (like so many McCartney songs!), mostly by virtue of the fact that Paul uses “friend” twice in a row.  Are there two friends, or only one?  By using the word “friend” on top of each other as he does, it suggests either a single friend (the titular “Dear Friend”) in two situations OR two friends, in separate/competing situations.

Dear Friend, throw the wine 

I’m in love with a friend of mine 

Really, truly, young and newlywed

Of course, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, interpretation, fantasy, etc.  and no one but McCartney himself can definitively declare precisely what he meant with this song.  But it’s my opinion that Paul was saying the latter; that he is in love with his friend and new wife, Linda.  This is my conclusion after having deeply researched this period extensively for TWO documentary series (McCartney (2020) and Understanding Lennon/McCartney), an opinion that obviously no one is required to entertain and anyone is free to discard.  But for those who are interested, I’ll share my reasoning below.

Firstly, this is NOT an attempt to disprove that Paul was ever in love with John or vice verse.  They both used this term publicly and therefore probably/possibly did privately with each other as well.  But Paul’s statements in April, 1970 pretty clearly spell out the situation:

“Personally, I don’t think John could do the Beatles thing now. I don’t think it would be good for him.

John’s in love with Yoko, and he’s no longer in love with the other three of us. And let’s face it, we were in love with the Beatles as much as anyone.”

So John and Paul were “in love” (with each other as people, or the Beatles as a concept, or Lennon/McCartney as a team, etc) for a long time.  But by 1970, they both have new spouses and new lives and are following different paths.  Here’s a brief recap of the events that led to this statement:

In a now-famous meeting in September 1969, John told Paul that he was leaving the Beatles and wanted a divorce.  Whether this was an idle threat designed to scare/hurt Paul, or a real desire on John’s part is open to interpretation, but Paul, for his part, took it seriously.  

Allen Klein asked John not to go public with his decision to leave the group and John happily and uncharacteristically agreed to sit on this “news” indefinitely.  Paul subsequently disappeared for 6-8 weeks, mourned the loss of the band privately in Scotland, and then began working on his first solo album. Communication between John and Paul fell apart at that point, and John began a campaign of maneuvers - possibly engineered or facilitated by Klein - to bring Paul back into the Beatles’ fold and force him to submit to Klein’s management and John’s leadership. Backed into a proverbial corner by John, George, Ringo, Yoko and Klein, Paul played the last card he had: he quit.

In April 1970, Paul made the split official (deliberately or accidentally? YMMV) with the release of his first solo LP, and attempted to finalize the divorce with an uncooperative John for the remainder of the year. As is pretty well-documented, Paul tried for a quick and amicable split, requesting a release from the Beatles’ contract. But after John was unresponsive and Allen Klein advised him to set duplicitous legal traps that would prevent Paul from separating from the Beatles, Paul (as advised by his lawyers) decided to sue for divorce by the end of 1970.

By 2020, even the most casual Beatles fans know two basic truisms: 1) that Paul loved John always and 2) that Paul didn’t want the band to break up. Of course there’s more to the story than just that. We have also been told repeatedly that John “left Paul,” but this is not the whole truth either.

Essentially what John did was yell “I’m breaking up with you!” and then block the door every time Paul tried to leave.

As late as September, 1971 John is still saying publicly that he hopes Paul will return.  

Int.: Let's talk a bit about Paul's aversion to Klein. From what we've read it seemed as if this wasn't there in the beginning, even though Paul wanted the Eastmans to run things. But it came on later as things progressed. And yet despite this, we gather that Klein was still hoping that Paul would return to the group.

John: Oh, he'd love it if Paul would come back. I think he was hoping he would for years and years. He thought that if he did something, to show Paul that he could do it, Paul would come around. But no chance. I mean, I want him to come out of it, too, you know. He will one day. I give him five years, I've said that. In five years he'll wake up.

[Narrator voice: Paul did not came back.]

Yes, Paul loved John.  No, Paul didn’t want the Beatles to break up.  

But when John said he wanted out, Paul took him seriously, respected his decision, never made a single attempt to woo John back and showed up 6 months later with a moving van and divorce papers.

When you hear Dear Friend out of context -knowing only that Paul loved John and was sad after the breakup- it’s not wholly unreasonable to think maybe Paul was declaring his eternal love for John here:

I’m in love with a friend of mine really, truly, young and newlywed

But when you experience Dear Friend in the proper context, that interpretation sounds less and less likely.  Here’s Paul:

April 21, 1970

“I’m not blaming her. I’m blaming me. You can’t blame John for falling in love with Yoko any more than you can blame me for falling in love with Linda.

We tried writing together a few more times, but I think we both decided it would be easier to work separately.  I told John on the phone the other day that at the beginning of last year I was annoyed with him. I was jealous because of Yoko, and afraid about the break-up of a great musical partnership. It’s taken me a year to realise that they were in love. Just like Linda and me."

Summer 1970

Paul writes John a 12-page letter requesting that they “let each other out of the trap.” John’s response was a picture of himself and Yoko with a balloon drawn above his head saying “How and Why?”

Paul responded: “How? By singing a paper that says we hereby dissolve our partnership. Why? Because there is no partnership.”

April 16, 1971

PAUL:  “We used to get asked at press conferences, 'What are you going to do when the bubble bursts?' When I talked to John just the other day, he said something about, 'Well, the bubble's going to burst.' And I said, 'It has burst. That's the point. That's why I've had to do this, why l had to apply to the court. You don't think I really enjoy doing that kind of stuff. I had to do it because the bubble has burst-- everywhere but on paper.' That's the only place we're tied now.”

Nov 11, 1971

MM: But John said to me that what you’d done in bringing the [court] trials up and everything was what they all wanted, that you’d just done it a lot earlier than they would have done.

PAUL: Well if that’s true, well… well, come on! That’s – see, I’ve told you… The joke is, though, that we don’t have to do trials. It’s not necessary. If the four Beatles signed a bit of paper, or even ripped the old contract up and said, “This contract is no longer valid, we all hereby said it, we all legally direct the shareholders…” the whole thing, to wind it all up, we could do it. And if that’s really what he wants, he could do it this minute. [snaps fingers]

Furthermore, Paul was deeply in love with Linda during this period, as reflected by: the songs on both McCartney and RAM, the testimony of those around them at the time and by Paul’s own recollections.  The first few years of Paul and Linda’s marriage was their honeymoon period, their era as newlyweds.  It was certainly an awful time for Paul in many respects:  the business battles of the Beatles were excruciating and extremely stressful and the loss of his three best friends was heartbreaking. Furthermore, the rock press had largely turned against him (sometimes viciously so), and John & Yoko (and Allen Klein) were painting him as a traitor to the counterculture and a villain for destroying the Beatles with his granny music, giant ego and overbearing personality.  Paul and Linda were extremely isolated, partially by choice and partially by force.  

But even though this was a terrible time for Paul in many respects, he was extremely happy with his new family.  He later described this period with Linda as one of the happiest periods of their life. Paul has said numerous times Linda (along with nature and horse-riding) brought him out of depression after the Beatles ended and gave him the strength to push forward with his solo career, at a time when many were rooting against him (and a literal cult was forming that claimed he was DEAD and had been replaced by an inferior imposter- let that sink in for a moment!).  He has been consistent about it over the years, and reiterated it as recently as 2020:

UNCUT: Tell me about the guy in the photo n the McCartney sleeve.  He looks happy. 

PAUL:  I was really happy, yeah.  The Beatles had become such a business machine, and with the arrival of Allen Klein the whole thing, every day was very unpleasant. 

UNCUT: So there you were on the farm, finding solace in a new family... 

PAUL: Yes. I had a little place in Scotland.  So we just went out there. “It’s so remote, no one can be bothered trekking all the way up here for a meeting.” It was a good period. We grabbed our freedom- you know what, we seized the day! Also, I had a new baby; I’d not been a father before, so I was very happy.

In December of 1970, John gave his infamous Lennon Remembers interview to Rolling Stone.  According to the liner notes of the Wildlife reissue from 2018 (and confirmed by the timing of the demo), Paul composed Dear Friend in reaction to John’s comments in that interview (not How Do You Sleep, as is commonly believed).  But he sat on the song for awhile and didn’t record it until late 1971 (for inclusion on Wildlife).  Judging from the tone of Too Many People and other songs on RAM, Paul’s initial sadness, confusion and disappointment gradually morphed into (or perhaps swung back and forth between) anger and defiance, accompanied by a taunting and/or gloating tone.  Having gotten Dear Friend out of his system, it seems it simply didn’t fit thematically on RAM. Perhaps after the release of HDYS, Paul was deflated and despondent enough to return to Dear Friend?  Perhaps Jealous Guy tempered or calmed Paul’s anger?   

Or maybe it was just a genuine attempt to turn the heat down.  We know that immediately following its release, John and Paul agreed (seemingly at Paul’s insistence) to quit bickering in public.

In any case, Dear Friend is a complex songs with a spectrum of emotions. Unlike Jealous Guy it is not apologetic; it’s mournful but also incredulous and slightly accusatory.  Paul appears to be calling John’s bluff:  Do you really believe all the bullshit you’re spewing?

Are you a fool, or is it true?

The John Lennon of Lennon Remembers is without hope or faith, denouncing everything he ever believed in and everyone he ever trusted -with the notable exceptions of Allen Klein, Phil Spector and Yoko.  Paul clearly loves John and hopes to salvage their relationship, but Dear Friend was written at a time when John was being manipulated and exploited by people he later admitted were misplaced “daddy figures.” While Klein and Spector turned out to not be the most reliable friends to John, Paul certainly seems to know and understand John’s vulnerabilities and motivations better than most.  As he sings in the demo:

Are you afraid?  Or are you blue?

So why does Paul mention that he’s newlywed and in love with Linda? Firstly, because he is, and he wants to celebrate with his best friend. We know Paul’s desire was for the two couples to make peace and be friends.  Pour the Wine.  Clink glasses and celebrate their new marriages together.

PAUL: Dear Friend was to do with John, a bit of longing about John. Let’s have a glass of wine and forget about it. A making up song. (July 2001).

This is precisely what the two couples did in December of 1971, immediately following the release of Wildlife.  

JOHN: We were both nervous, the four of us were nervous. I hadn’t seen him for a long time. I’d spoken on the phone [with him]. Uh, it was alright, you know. It was alright.

This is precisely what happened again throughout 1974 (with John & May Pang this time around), which John affectionately called their “Beaujolais evenings.”   

Admittedly, It may seem odd for Paul to mention that he is happily married (and in love with another “friend”) in a make up song to John.  Until you think about the romantic tension between John and Paul and Paul’s bold public recognition of it with this statement:  “It’s taken me a year to realise that they were in love. Just like Linda and me.” Paul acknowledges here that John is in love with Yoko and wants John to acknowledge his love for Linda as well.  

In Dear Friend he’s communicating that there is nothing to fear; they are secure in their respective marriages, there is no need to be hurt or angry or jealous anymore.  We’re no longer partners, but we can still be friends.  “Let’s have a glass of wine and forget about it.”  A softer, gentler version of: Wake up, John. It’s over. Sign the fucking papers already.

So I think of Dear Friend as an olive branch, but not the groveling type some apparently do.  And I most definitely do not think it was a signal to John that Paul was still in love with him, despite being newlywed to Linda. 

I suppose it might seem a bit brutal for Paul to be singing about loving someone else in a song to John (although he’s done it before and I think John has done the same).  But I honestly think it is something Paul believes John needs to hear and accept at this point; that he is “really, truly” in love with Linda and that he’s not about to divorce her or run after the first “blonde with big tits” as Allen Klein so charmingly suggested. 

By September 1971, John still hasn’t seemed to accept Linda, or Paul’s relationship with her:

John: Paul always wanted the home life, you see. [... long, rambling story about being terrified when Paul got a job in 1961 and for a second looked as if he might abandon John and the group] 

 All the other girls were just groupies mainly. And with Linda not only did he have a ready-made family, but she knows what he wants, obviously, and has given it to him. The complete family life. He's in Scotland. He told me he doesn't like English cities anymore. So that's how it is.

Int.: So you think with Linda he's found what he wanted? 

John: I guess so. I guess so. I just don't understand . . . I never knew what he wanted in a woman because I never knew what I wanted.

With comments like this John seems (IMO) to be twisting himself into knots trying to rationalize Paul’s choice of Linda, practically wondering aloud what could she give him that I couldn’t?  He still seems unwilling to face or accept what Paul begrudgingly accepted and admitted years before: that his partner fell in love with someone else.

Here’s 76 year old Paul reminiscing about this tender, bittersweet time in his life, happy and in love with his wife and young family and simultaneously in deep pain over losing his dearly beloved best friend:

I remember when I heard the song recently, listening to the roughs  in the car. And I thought, ‘Oh God’. That lyric: ‘Really truly, young and newly wed’. Listening to that was like, ‘Oh my God, it’s true!’ I’m trying to say to John, ‘Look, you know, it’s all cool. Have a glass of wine. Let’s be cool.’

“Let’s be cool.”  Not “Please take me back,” not “Ignore my just-for-show marriage, I’m still in love with YOU.” To me, Paul is saying “I’m really, truly in love with my friend and new wife, can we please just be happy for each other? It’s all cool.” And for the record, I don’t find this sentiment any less loving on Paul’s part because I don’t think Paul being in love with his own wife (which he was), detracts from his love for John in any way. Again, I agree that the lyrics are slightly ambiguous, and perhaps this is meaningful too.  It could be that the lack of hard boundary between the two friends (John and Linda) reflects how much Paul loves them both; they certainly aren’t positioned as opposites (i.e. I love her but I hate you). Instead they’re both part of the imagined celebration; Paul wants them all to share the wine together- and he wants them to tolerate (love) each other. 

I think the traditional narrative doesn’t account for all of this because the traditional narrative does not acknowledge that John has any feelings for Paul in the first place. How in the world could Paul be asking John to “be cool” and accept the new situation when John didn’t even care about Paul in the first place and had been trying to get rid of him for years?  This perception - of John gleefully blasting Paul with HDYS and Paul replying that he’s in love with John - has taken hold in many minds and has picked up a lot of steam in recent years with so-called “jean jackets” because they fundamentally believe that Paul’s love for John was one-sided. They cannot comprehend that Paul would ever tell John to “cool it” or back off in any way (even in 70-71) because they take the surface story at face value:  John dumped Paul for Yoko and heartbroken Paul spent the rest of his life desperately trying to win John back. This is the narrative depicted in virtually every book I’ve read. My analysis is based on my own research, not this narrative.

I would invite readers of this post to watch (or re-watch) ULM (particularly volume 3 ) for a more comprehensive study of John and Paul’s relationship.  

Lastly, after doing my own independent research for McCartney (2020), I found that the Paul McCartney described by the musicians and collaborators in Paul’s life was dramatically different from the person depicted in books like Man on the Run. My films are free from narration and commentary; I rely on first-hand interviews and information from the people involved, and in my opinion there is a great deal to be learned about Paul from the way he relates to others, especially through music. And although the McCartney series is about his solo career as opposed to his Beatle career, I would definitely recommend it to anyone who is interested in Lennon/McCartney for the insights they could gain. 

Thank you very much for this ask- hopefully there aren’t too many typos!

[if-tomorrow-never-comes]

https://fms-mag.com/carl-barat-blood-sugar-sex-magic/

CARL BARÂT: BLOOD, SUGAR, SEX, MAGIC

Terror. Disbelief. Elation. That’s what Carl Barât felt when he found out he had a baby on the way. And then the longest nine months of his life went by in a flash. They’re feelings most of us have felt during the last decade watching The Libertines traverse from the toilet venues of north London to some of the world’s biggest stages, via the crack dens of East London and with the British tabloid media in tow. Make no mistake, Barât remains an icon to millions and is looking better than ever. He’s on the straight and narrow now and won’t be falling off the sides. He tells FMS about near-death experiences, writing a new record with Peter Doherty and why he’s been watching a lot of Come Dine With Me.

The Queen’s Golden Jubilee at the start of June 2002 saw a memorable weekend of partying across London. Paul McCartney stormed the Buckingham Palace on Bank Holiday Monday and one suspects Liz had more than a couple of gins. But down the road, something far more important to the fabric of Great Britain was happening. The Sonic Mook festival at the Institute of Contemporary Arts was showcasing the future of rock’n’roll. And most of the bands present have now returned to the obscurity from which they briefly climbed, The Libertines came of age that night. What followed was a decade of decadence, confusion, tabloid fall-outs and some magical times.

It seems like a whole lifetime ago. Guitar-based music was still hunched around the periphery of mainstream culture and apart from the maelstrom of public interest around Blur and Oasis that had begun to fade; people were quite content to leave the indie boys alone to the backstreet record stores and basement clubs littering Soho. The Libertines changed all that, despite not having a fraction of the Gallaghers’ record sales.

Yet it didn’t matter that The Libertines never troubled the Top Ten. Their sassy combination of Jam-esq storytelling, boundless energy and gritty pursuit of romanticism gave the British music magazines their new cover stars, while fashion retailers revelled in a healthy boost too. This was long before anyone could have contemplated seeing an Allsaints store smack bang in the middle of Camden Market, let’s not forget. With former Clash man Mick Jones producing their material (along with former Suede star Bernard Butler, who Doherty famously disliked); the band had their fingers literally dipped into the past.

Though never the most consistent of bands, they captured a mood. It was as much down to the band’s look as to the music, of course and Barât and his songwriting partner (and “brother”) Pete Doherty became the great unwashed pin-ups for an entire young generation. But the wider world took them seriously too. Barât recalls Hedi Slimane, one of Christian Dior’s designers coming along after a gig (“he was all Dior and French and charming”) to take photos of everything they were wearing. “I wore mostly charity shop stuff,” Barât says, “like leather jackets, skinniest jeans, and some sort of Beatle boots, like Cuban heel and zip. The next thing you know Dior have got their own range of all these clothes.”

What did they give you for this? “A shit load of free clothes. They basically gave us our own clothes but well-made and not from a charity shop. So it’s kind of a winner really. Is that then selling out? They’re going to do it anyway.”

The other key accessory for any Libertine was the customary Burberry scarf – the result of Barât and Doherty picking up five euro knock-offs in Paris. “They sold them at the tourist stands over there. Suddenly it became part of the uniform. Now you just see total chavs wearing them.” And just as Liam Gallagher and Damon Albarn had ushered in a resurgence of parkas and Adidas tracksuits a decade before, so The Libertines helped fire up an industrial strength demand for battered old leather jackets and red neck ties. Topshop and co had a field day selling people the same clobber their uncles probably took to Oxfam the week before. But while they never compromised artistically, there’s little debate over the fact that last summer’s festival reunion with Doherty was a nice little earner, helping Reading sell-out quickly.

“I’d like to write some stuff again with Peter,” Barât muses, swishing around those age-old phrases like ‘it just depends on the right time’ and ‘if he’s up for it’ and that old classic ‘I just don’t have the time right now’. We’re perched discretely in a darkened bar in Camden on one of those cold, rainy, wintry nights that London does so well. Barât complains about his memory a lot. He seems a bit uneasy about being probed deeply but opens up, and gives a lot of way. With a newborn baby Barât does have other priorities. And one week on from the birth of his firstborn son Eli, Barât is positively gleaming, despite clearly being knackered. He doesn’t quite want to admit that his whole world changed, but let’s slip that he’s been watching a lot of Come Dine With Me and Four In A Bed, crossing the road more carefully and learning to be less clumsy.

“I don’t want to be drunk right now; I want to be in control of my faculties,” he says. “I feel blessed to still be here really. And from changing nappies to crossing the road more carefully, it’s like the paternal instinct just grabs hold of you. When it’s someone else’s baby you feel awkward holding it but when it’s your baby, you just pick it up and it’s just instinct. I suppose if you could explain it then it wouldn’t be such a shock when it happens.”

Barât, 32, was born in Basingstoke into a working class family and grew up with three brothers and three sisters. “My dad worked in a factory and my mum left and lived in a hippie commune and I remember the difference between the two,” he remarks, recalling how he was closest to his sister Lucie, who appeared in 2004’s Troy.

As with the majority of today’s Brit School trained pop stars, Barât’s early years were spent chasing the stage, although he says that it was more a penchant for laziness that drove him in this direction. “In my head, drama was the only thing where I didn’t have to do anything because I was so lazy. But then you just enjoy it, so it feels like a blag. It started at school but I was always too scared to audition at a proper drama school, so I’d sneak in through the back door.”

Studying drama at Brunel University, where he was “a bit quiet and a bit chubby”, Barât was a bit of a loner, describing the experience as “horrific”. He left the course after a couple of years to move in with Doherty after sharing a flat with Doherty’s older sister, Ellie. “No one I was on the course with is doing drama now,” he points out with a wry smile. “It was literally like being in big brother. It was horrific.” But the experience was to prove a positive one. “Feeling like an outcast is going to propel anyone in a certain direction – anybody.”

And the direction of his solo album has certainly taken a few people by surprise – not just for its lack of guitars, but for the sumptuous, bruising and quite fantastical arrangements. “It was a lot about catharsis. I’ve only ever written from a point of escape before, whereas with this record the floodgates were open and I was drowning in material.”

Carving his name on the livers of lovers, Barât shines most when at his darkest (such as the splendid ‘Carve My Name’). The haunting piano led numbers veer gloomily into Tim Burton territory (‘The Fall’), tangoing around relationships break-ups without any fear of embracing some rather pretentious and quite often wonderful orchestration. There are still jaunty, Morrissey-brushing guitar tours round the north London districts of Haringey and Holloway (‘Run With The Boys’).

And there’s a clutch of wonderful ballads, like the Kinks-tinged ‘So Long, My Love’. But the record opens up a whole side of Barât that no one’s seen. ‘Shadows Fall’, a song written for his son, is one of the many highlights, and it’s no wonder he’s itching to get back into the studio. “There’s only so much Come Dine with Me I can watch,” he quips. “I have a routine. I get my morning hour. That’s when I’m at my most creative. I’m more domesticated yes, but I’m back where I should be as an artist. The night world is something I’m moving away from.”

Of course, there can be no greater escapism from the darkened realms of tabloid junkies than a beautiful week-old son. “I’ve got to take my baby seriously,” he says, “and I want to take my records seriously as well. But I’m guessing, in my heart, that I will write another record with Peter. But that won’t be until the end of the year.” In the meantime he wants to go off and live ‘like a writer’: engaging with literature, being receptive and even, he says, listening to opera with the curtains closed for prolonged periods of time. “It’s a kind of madness, but at the end of it all when you’ve got reams of paper, some of them are going to be gold dust.”

It’s a world away from the madness of The Libertines’ heyday. (Rumour has it that when Doherty gave up heroin the street price massively increased in London.) “I learned that drugs, addiction and womanising were urges you can never feed to repeation. These monsters will never be satisfied and I don’t have to bother with them. It’s nice to shake hands with them every now and again but I don’t want to get into a relationship with them.”

As the evening continues, Barât trades shandies for whiskeys and stops the tape occasionally for a cigarette. As you’d expect, he talks fondly of Doherty and their “impenetrable bond” and seems focused, with most of his personal problems vanquished. While he denies ever doing crack or heroine, Barât admits being just as consumed as Doherty was at certain points. “The things I tended to do never had much of a hold on me, so I’d be able to go without,” he admits, “but I don’t have the option to have problems when I’ve got a baby, you know? Now I know why I didn’t die at 27.”

And with that, he launches into something even deeper. “Just when everything’s bleak at the end of a wilderness when you’re wondering why you’re not dead yet, when you’ve done everything you could possibly do and exhausted every possible option open to you, suddenly a door opens and there’s a ray of light, a ray of sunshine and a pastoral beautiful scene out there awaiting you. You’ve got the other world; you just start a whole other vista. It doesn’t change who I was, it just means I’m going forward. I think I was just going four or five years waiting to die.”

He wearily recalls several near-death ‘incidents’, one of which included a week without sleep around Glastonbury in 2009 when Blur reformed. “All kinds of ludicrousness happened that week. I was climbing around on the roof of a hotel in Italy despite being petrified of heights. It just all sort of became a game to me really, just asking the universe if it wanted me dead.”

Despite bemoaning the state of the music industry (“no one wants to invest in you”) and not being massively impressed by Biffy Clyro’s X-Factor sell-off (“well done lads, get it where you can”), Barât is resolutely upbeat about his life, even if he’s not into any new music personally.

“The national mood is really dour at the minute. They say normally there has to be a World Cup or a war or,” he says, pausing briefly, “a massive recession to make everyone think ‘fuck the government’, which apparently seems to be happening right now. That creates the black and the white, as opposed to just grey, which is what we’ve had for a number of years.” It’s a point people keep making, but thus far the only breakthrough act to make it out of the recession is Tinie Tempah – not exactly angsty, recession beating rock’n’roll.

“I keep using the phrase ‘bleak wasteland’, but there are a lot of bleak wastelands to talk about and nothing I’ve seen yet really captures it. You get all these bands like The XX and all that, I’m sure they’re great, but it’s not something I need in my life right now. I’m looking for someone to take the ol’ crown –someone needs to get hold of it.” He doesn’t think Kasabian are that band and doesn’t like the office worker crowds they get.

Barât is of course a romanticist at heart. He talks fondly about his old science teacher Mr Williams who gave him his first Velvet Underground tape. He loved Tokyo and gleefully shows photos of the 24 hour puppy shops. “Isn’t that mental? The concept was just beyond me. It’s four in the morning, I need a dog.” He misses buying singles and the thrill of hearing the B-sides and wants to stop losing his temper. “I just get lairy. It’s just like drones who work in big companies who care more about the company than the company does for them,” he says – a rant brewing. “I turn down Grumpy Old Men and now I’m doing it to you!”

“The thing about that world,” he points out, “is that it’s right here before us. It’s just part of English culture to shoot someone down for doing something lofty. To take the piss out of someone for being ‘wanky’ I suppose is how you put that in day to day terminology. But er, yeah you have to romanticise things. Everything that’s fantastical and romanticised in song and film and literature is right there in front of us.” He believes everyone gets stuck sometimes in a prison of their own design but that what needs to come through will come through. “That’s the nature of the universe,” Barât says, reclining. “That’s the human spirit. That’s evolution. It’s what I was talking about. That’s instinct.”

Words: Andrew Future Photos: Michael Robert Williams Art Editor: Elliott Webb

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

This feature was first published in Issue 08 of FASHION.MUSIC.STYLE, February/March 2011.

[natromanxoff]

An Exclusive Interview With Queen!

Music Life September 1975 issue

By Kaoruko Togo and Keiko Miyasaka

[Original text in Japanese, translation by deathtoming]

Around noon on July 14th, we left the hotel by car, and around two hours later we arrived at the beautiful Ridge Farm, surrounded by trees. We were blessed with clear skies on this day, and the blue sky and the greenery of the farm were almost blindingly beautiful. It was a bit past 2 o’clock. When we arrived in the main building, we were first greeted by a large dog, followed by a familiar voice from a room in the back. It was a large food hall, with Freddie, Brian, Roger, and John present.

When they see us, the four of them say, “Hello! You’re from Music Life, right? Welcome!” and greet us with handshakes. The four of them rented this Ridge Farm to focus solely on rehearsing for their next album. “We’re about to have lunch. Want to join us?” We knew we couldn’t work while hungry, so we accepted their offer with thanks. When the meal finished, we could begin our interview at last….

Music Life (ML): Are you in the middle of recording now?

Roger: No, we’re not recording yet. We’re all practising our new songs together. Once we practise them, we get an idea of how we should record them, I think.

ML: When do you think you’ll start recording?

Roger Maybe in about 3 weeks…

John: We might use Rockfield Studios in Wales.

ML: Do you always record there?

Roger: No, not really, although we did a bit of recording there for our third album, Sheer Heart Attack.

Freddie. We used around five studios to record that one. We’ll probably use several studios this time around, too.

ML: You’ll do a bit of recording in London, too, right?

Roger: Probably a little bit, yeah. We usually do our mixing in London.

Brian: But when we first record the backing track, it’s better to do it somewhere where we’re nice and settled, so it’s good to do it while we’re holed out in the studio. By doing that, we’re able to relax and do the recording.

ML: Can you tell us something about your upcoming album?

Freddie: Yeah, well we only have the rough framework at this point, but I think it will be our best work so far. We’re in the middle of creating the songs now.

Roger: Nothing has really come together yet, so it’s difficult to explain.

John: When we first came here we presented what songs we had written so far to each other, and we had about two albums’ worth, haha.

ML: I hear you’re heading to the US on tour soon.

John: Probably. Our manager is in the US now, and he’s apparently in talks with a bunch of people.

Freddie: We have to decide whether to record the album or go on tour in the US like we had decided during our previous tour.

ML: How long have you been working with your producer?

Freddie: His name is Roy Thomas Baker, and he’s been with us since our debut album.

Roger: We’re co-producing the album with him. Our next album will be with him, too.

ML: This Ridge Farm is such a beautiful place. How did you find it?

Roger: Our mixer, John Harris, found it. The owner often rents out this place to rock groups, apparently.

<At this point, an airplane flies overhead, making an extremely loud noise! Everyone shouts “Quiet!”>

ML: When you write your songs, do you do it individually?

Freddie: Yes, that’s right. Everyone writes their own songs in their own homes, and then brings it to places like this and we all work on it.

ML: How many songs will be on this album?

Freddie: I don’t know yet. Maybe around 12.

ML: When will it be released?

Freddie: That depends on a lot of things. But I want it out some time this year. It will probably be by the end of this year.

ML: What have you been up to since you came back from Japan?

Freddie: For several weeks, we kept on talking about our time in Japan, haha. We’d unwrap the presents we got from Japan. Please pass along our thanks to our fans in Japan, because we were really treated so kindly.

<An airplane makes another appearance. The four look up and protest again.>

ML: Is there anything that stands out in particular from your time in Japan?

Roger: Aside from the people we met, probably our final show in Tokyo. Something felt special. It was also our final show in Japan. The atmosphere was wonderful.

John: I also remember appearing in a kimono on stage for the first time in that concert.

ML: What about Japanese food?

Freddie: Like, tempura, haha. We went to a Japanese restaurant with our bodyguards in Japan. Oh that’s right, please send our regards to those bodyguards; we owe them a lot.

ML: What do you want to do the most the next time you’re in Japan?

Roger: I’m going to go shopping for sure, haha! Things like tape recorders and other things. Last time, Freddie bought lots of ceramics, and Brian and John bought cameras.

ML: Brian, you like cameras, don’t you?

Brian: Yeah, I do photography sometimes, and I have lots of other hobbies. Right now I’m really into audio.

ML: Since when have you been taking pictures?

Brian: Since quite a long time ago. But I only recently got a good camera. In England, cameras are so expensive.

ML: This is especially the case in Japan, but you have a lot of young girls for fans. What do you think about that?

Roger: It’s outstanding, haha! Japanese fans in particular give us lots of presents. We don’t get too many gifts from other countries, but it seems to be a part of the Japanese tradition.

ML: Among your young, female Japanese fans, there are some who say that Queen is their first encounter with rock music.

Roger: Great!

Freddie: That’s a good thing. It was really exciting when we were in Japan, and I think it was probably the same kind of atmosphere as it was for the Beatles in the ‘60s.

<The others chime in with comments like, “That’s really good!”>

ML: Were there any interesting gifts from Japan?

Brian: I received a lot of birthday gifts, so thank you very much to all of you for those presents. I received many works of art, and also things like dolls and traditional balls wrapped with beautiful string. We got lots of toys, too.

Roger: That ball with the string was hand-made, right? I got one, too.

<The plane flies by again, distressing the band.>

ML: In your free time, what kind of music do you listen to?

Roger: I’ve been listening to Led Zeppelin's first album.

Freddie: Lately, classical. Like, Chopin. Also things like Led Zeppelin and John Lennon.

ML: Freddie, you have a broad range of interests.

Freddie: Of course. I’ll listen to anything that I like. That said, there’s no artist whose album I’d buy as soon as it was released.

ML: Brian, what about you?

Brian: Pretty much the same as everyone else. I often listen to Led Zeppelin.

ML: There’s a place called “Rhye” in the lyrics for Lily of the Valley, but is that a real place in England?

Freddie: No, it’s a land from my imagination. It’s also mentioned in Seven Seas of Rhye, and I guess it’s like a fairy tale.

Roger: There is a place called “Rye” in England, although the spelling is different.

ML: Your songs’ lyrics seem to be influenced by classical poets.

Freddie: You’re referring to lyric poetry. I don’t think we’re influenced by that too much. Truthfully, I don’t have time to read. I just like expressing myself in that way. Those kinds of expressions are easier.

ML: Do the really passionate lyrics for love songs come from your personal experiences?

Roger: Ahhhh--!! Haha, yeah right! But I guess there’s, uh, a little bit of something in there.<Grinning> But Brian sometimes writes really passionate ones.

ML: She Makes Me is quite the song, isn’t it?

Brian: No, it’s not like that at all. <Acting quite bashfully> Although there are times when my personal experiences are expressed in song lyrics.

<The rest of the band hoot and holler at this!>

ML: The band does a good job recreating the sound from your records live on stage, don’t you?

Roger: We’re not trying to reproduce what you hear on the record exactly, though. Of course we want to produce a good sound, but on stage we also need to add an exciting mood to the quality of the sound. So that’s why it needs to be a little different from the album.

ML: Which do you like better, recording or performing live?

Freddie: I like both. They’re both interesting in their own ways.

ML: Do you use any special equipment on stage?

Roger: No, although Brian uses echo machines and such.

ML: Do you have a lighting technician?

Freddie: We do have one, but the band comes up with the idea, and our lighting guy -- his name is James Dann -- takes care of the rest. We’ve already come up with our next stage design and it’s going to be interesting.

<The plane flies by again. Everyone looks defeated.>

ML: Killer Queen was a big hit single; are hit singles important to you?

Roger: It’s not absolutely necessary. But we’ll keep on releasing singles. Of course we’ll only release ones we like, though.

ML: Which do you like better, singles or albums?

Freddie: Definitely albums! I think our music is geared more towards albums rather than singles.

Roger: Rather than releasing single after single, it’s better if there happens to be a song in the album that works well as a single, and we release it if the timing is right. It’s not good if we start thinking we need to release a single every 3 months.

John: On this upcoming album as well, we will record everything first, and then release something if it works well as a single. But we don’t particularly record only songs that would work as singles.

ML: Does it seem like you’ll have another song like Killer Queen?

Freddie: No, when Seven Seas of Rhye became a hit in England, the people at the record company wanted our next song to be like that, but we couldn’t do it. We go in the studio and record what we’re feeling at that time, and only after everything is finished do we decide as a group what to release as a single.

ML: So, you’re always looking for a new sound?

Freddie: It’s more interesting that way.

Roger: That’s why we come to places like this, and while we’re rehearsing we make a bunch of noise and form songs from that.

ML: Did someone serve as an inspiration for Killer Queen?

Roger: Freddie’s mom.

<Everyone bursts out laughing>

ML: Do you have plans for a British tour?

Roger: Yeah. Probably by the end of this year.

John: But first we need to record our album, and we don’t know what will come after.

ML: Which country’s fans do you like?

John: Japan’s, of course, haha!

Brian: <Speaking seriously> We were really surprised by the reaction of our Japanese fans. Honestly speaking, we didn’t realize it was at that level.

Roger: We thought there would be difficulties because of the language difference, but rock fans are the same around the world, in the end.

ML: Did you have a break after you came back from Japan?

John: Just a little. But we had lots of preparation to do, so it’s like we didn’t have a break.

ML: And uhh… now I’d like to ask about things outside of the music. It’s something Japanese fans want to know: when did you fall in love for the first time? What kind of person were they?

<Everyone reacts in horror, and they point at each other, with no one answering the question. Finally, Freddie speaks for the group.>

Freddie: Err… our first love is, of course, music, haha.

ML: Do you have any memories from when you were going to school?

Roger: I haaaaated school!

ML: What about you, Brian?

Brian: I went to an all boys school. I had no idea what girls were like, right up to when I graduated when I was 18. It was really a shock when I first got to know girls. But that’s the British school system for you. I was raised away from girls for so long that I was afraid to meet them.

Freddie: You’re still afraid of them, aren’t you? Haha. <This was a tough joke>

ML: Freddie, what subjects did you like in school?

Roger Oh, I know! ”Needlework”! <Everyone bursts out laughing>

Freddie: Art. I studied graphics and illustration at an art school for 3 years.

ML: What about sports?

Freddie: I did everything. Cricket, tennis…

ML: Do you still meet up with your friends from school?

Freddie: I often meet with around two of them.

ML: And, finally, are you married?

Roger: Japanese fans often want to know things like that, but I won’t say. <Roger winks mischievously.>

Freddie: We’re all single! But the Japanese girls have to find that out for themselves.

ML: Let’s get a message from each one of you to our readers…

And with that, the friendly interview came to an end. We were fortunate that the band talked to us in a relaxed mood while bathing in the bright sun.