[George Martin] Okay?
Can the other boys put their headphones on too, Paul?
John, can you put your cans on?
-[♪ guitar strumming] -[George] Hello? Is this mic on?
[Paul] George?
[John] Just throw 'em in somewhere, you know.
[George] No, I think it should start...
-[John] Okay, shall we go? -[Paul] Will you just shout in, you know.
-[engineer] Rolling. -[George Martin] Right. Here we go.
[Paul] And build up the beginning.
[George Martin] Well, you do the count-in then.
[George] The beginning's different now. Okay?
-[Ringo] Yeah. -[George] Ready?
[Ringo] I'll lower the mic accordingly.
-[♪ guitar strumming] -[Paul] Shh. Shh. Right? Clean beginning.
[George] One, two, three, four.
[♪ "A Hard Day's Night" opening chord]
-[clapper] -[♪ Paul plays beat on drums]
Are you rolling?
What have I told you?
-Thank you. -[pretends to cry]
Buggers, you can't keep 'em off.
-[continues crying] -Hi.
[♪ "Free As A Bird" playing]
♪ Free ♪
♪ As a bird ♪
♪ It's the next best thing to be ♪
♪ Free as a bird ♪
-[♪ music concludes] -[audience cheers, applauds]
[Mal Evans whistles]
[Bob Smeaton] So do you think that the Anthology...
-[♪ "Original Score" playing] -...could've been made in, say, 1975?
Oh no. It couldn't have been done then.
-No. It could only have been done now. -We were...
-We were at war then. -We weren't talking much.
And also, even if we had have done it then,
it wouldn't have been as interesting
as leaving it for twenty years.
-Twenty-five. -Oh, yeah.
A while ago, when we got over our business troubles,
we sort of decided that we might try and do,
like, the definitive story of the Beatles,
seeing as other people had had a go at it.
We thought it might be good from the inside out
rather than from the outside in.
[Ringo] We've heard it from everybody else,
now you can hear it from us.
Paul, George and myself, old footage of John, of course,
telling how we felt it was like to be a Beatle.
[Geoff Wonfor] Okay?
It became a project that, uh, we did bits of work on
over the years, and then the last few years now,
we started doing interviews.
-[Geoff Wonfor] Okay? Turn over. -[Eugene O'Connor] Yeah, I'm running.
And then building the story around our recollections.
So where were we? Ask me the question again.
The original cut of this was 1970.
[chuckles] That's how long it's been around.
And then it got broke down. And Neil was involved.
Neil Aspinall was involved from the start.
He put it together.
Then we couldn't deal with it, you know?
It's like everything comes round when it should.
I just called them all, you know,
and said that, uh, you know, everybody else and his uncle
seems to have written or talked about the Beatles.
And that maybe, you know, just for ourselves,
they should tell their own story, right?
We'd put some film around it,
and we'd all have a whole movie.
I think it was the early '70s, '70, '71.
I collected, uh, all the footage
that I could find from around the world,
and we put a documentary together, or a film together,
without the Beatles being interviewed
or anything like that. Then I put it on the shelf.
Neil had strung together basically all the footage
we'd, um, filmed of ourselves, or we owned of ourselves,
and whatever footage he could get hold of,
and he put it in a chronological order,
and that was tentatively titled The Long And Winding Road,
but that was back in '71
when we'd had enough of all that.
-[laughs, speaks indistinctly] -[George] And I'm glad it didn't
get made until now. I think it's been nice for us
and the public just to forget about the Beatles for a while,
-let the dust settle... -[indistinct chatter]
[George] ...and now come back to it
-with a fresh point of view. -[♪ music concludes]
[George] There was this one that went...
[♪ "Thinking Of Linking" playing]
[laughs] Oh no.
♪ I've been thinking of linking ♪
-♪ My love with you ♪ -♪ My life with you ♪
♪ Thinking of linking our love so true ♪
♪ Thinking of linking can only be done by two ♪
[♪ music concludes]
[laughs] Yeah.
[Ringo] Over the last four years,
'cause we've been working on it
for the last four years, really...
-[♪ "Original Score" playing] -...uh, it just seems to be getting
okay, you know.
We went through the stage of the three of us
saying hello in different situations,
restaurants, offices.
And then we started working together.
And then, of course, it ends up with us recording together.
[George] Twenty-one minutes late already.
[Ringo] Oh, what do you wanna do? Take it out me wages?
-[George laughs] -[Ringo] What's that?
-[George] Hello. -[Paul] Hello, George.
-[Ringo] Hi, man. -[Neil Aspinall] Hi, Paul.
-Hello, Neil. -[George] How are you?
Hello, George. Very well, thank you.
[George] Nice to see you. Very nice.
Oh, hello, vegetarian leather jacket?
-[Ringo laughs] -Yeah. Yes. Yes, it is.
Yeah. Yes, it is.
And boots are vegetarian leather boots.
-Hello, darling. -[Ringo] Hi, sweetie.
[Paul] Do you want me to kiss you?
[Ringo] Yeah. I always like a little peck.
-[Paul] Yes, okay. -[Ringo] How are you doing?
[indistinct chatter]
-Linda: Oh, no! -[Paul] Hi.
-[Barbara] Hi. -[Paul] Lovely, thanks, yeah.
-[Ringo] Hi. -[George] Barbara, how are you?
-How're you? -[Paul] Hiya. Not bad. Good.
Hello, darling.
[Ringo] Oh, so we've got all the girls now.
[Neil] Hello. -[Olivia] Kisses. Kisses. Hello.
[Ringo] ♪ Candy kiss for you ♪
-And I can be on it, too. Paul? -[♪ guitar strumming]
-[Paul] There you are. -There we are. How's the light?
[Paul] It's wonderful.
Could you do something exciting, please?
One, two... Huh!
-[♪ "Raunchy" playing] -[Ringo] It brought back
a lot of good memories,
and it also gave me a chance to hang out with, uh,
Paul and George again.
The best thing was the three of us sitting around.
I don't think we did it right.
It wasn't like that, though, was it?
We could kick in with each other. "What?"
"Oh, do you remember that?" "No." "Oh, that's..."
"Yeah, I remember now."
-[George] Who is this? -[Paul] That's John.
-[George] Oh, is it? -[♪ music concludes]
-["Original Score" playing] -[Paul] John Lennon of the Beatles
[Paul] The good thing about the Anthology
is that it's four of us.
You know, even though John's not here, he's here.
He's represented. He talks.
Okay, it's old interviews and stuff.
It doesn't matter. It's still he's there.
You know, his point of view comes over.
People demand that you think, "How long are you gonna last?"
Well, you can't say, you know. You can be big-headed and say,
"Yeah, we're going to last ten years."
But as soon as you've said that, you think, you know,
"We're lucky if we last three months."
It was interesting to actually get back together.
You know, in some way I feel sorry for John because,
you know, the Beatles went through
a lot of good times,
but also went through some turbulent times.
And as everybody knows, you know, when we split up,
kind of, everybody was a bit fed up with each other, but...
for Ringo, Paul and I, we've had the opportunity
to, like, have all that go down the river
and under the bridge and to get together again
in a new light.
And I feel a bit sorry that John wasn't able to do that.
I think he would have really enjoyed this opportunity
to be with us again.
We'd all had enough time to breathe,
and I think it's much easier to...
to look at it now from a distance.
We started off trying to make the definitive story
of the Beatles and ended up realizing
that it's almost impossible to get the definitive story
because people look at things from different points of view.
The Beatles Anthology is as much of the history of the Beatles
that we can possibly get.
If I was doing my anthology, it would be different.
You know, I'd have different things in.
Uh, George the same, Paul the same.
And, you know, that's how it works.
[George] This is the thing, you see, everybody sees life
as it's happening through their own eyes.
Certainly, when you get a situation
like the Beatles' story,
everybody had their own idea of what happened.
[Paul] I mean, I found out more than I ever knew
about the other guys from the Anthology.
It's like memoirs, you know, there it all suddenly is.
There they are, the hippest group in history.
[♪ "A Day In The Life" orchestral crescendo playing]
[camera shutter clicks]
[Ringo] At the beginning,
-when I joined... -[♪ music concludes]
...Paul was the only one who would sleep with me.
[George] Well, there was actually a little bit...
-[laughter] -...of a thing to that.
-I was never very prejudiced. -[George] No.
-[George] No, I thought... -What was it?
...that was the best move, really, because when you joined,
and you were, like, the new fella...
-[Ringo] Sure. -...and nobody...
And I thought, well, if I hang out with you,
then they'll all be like, you know...
So I thought it'd be good to, you know...
[Paul] Put Paul with him.
-Yeah. Just because... -[Ringo laughs]
[George] Because then--
[Paul] It would be all right then.
[George] Yeah, it would 'cause then--
[Ringo] Well, anyway... But then it changed, it would be with anybody.
I mean, for a while it'd be us. For a while it'd be us.
-It'd be John and I. We didn't ... -[George strums ukulele]
[Paul] It was great. You're sort of staying in a room
with a friend and that, and seeing his habits.
I mean, you... you stayed up late, didn't you?
-Yeah. -You couldn't sleep.
So you'd always have to-- He'd have to have the light on,
so it'd be like you ...
[Ringo chuckles] 'Cause I was frightened of the dark.
Aw, poor lad. So you'd have to, you know,
he'd have the light over there,
and you'd have to sleep this way,
you couldn't, like, ask him to turn it off.
No, it was good, though.
You know, you get to know each other a bit that way.
[♪ "Original Score" playing]
[interviewer] Well, it seems to me that after your show,
your real problems really begin. Do you deliberately try
and create this sort of screaming reaction?
No, we just, you know, arrive at the theater
and they're always there, waiting. [laughs]
And whenever we're doing a show, the police always come and say,
"Don't look out the window, you know, 'cause you excite them."
-[interviewer laughs] What? -[chuckles]
[crowd clamoring]
[George] You know, we were so stressed out.
We'd been through every riot and jam.
Every city we went to,
there was some kind of a jam going on,
and the noise, people yelling at us all the time,
and being confined to a little room
-or a plane or a car. -[crowd clamoring]
[John] But we never thought about it too much
because it was an ongoing thing.
It was happening to us and it was hard to see,
you know. We were just in the middle,
being ushered from room to room.
[Ringo] I mean, it was just crazy times, but great times.
I mean, you know, I had a really good time,
-but it was crazy. -[screaming]
You know, we were lucky that there were four of us
-to take that pressure. -[♪ "Original Score" playing]
The four of us held each other together,
and at certain times, you know, each one of us went mad,
but the other three could bring us back.
I was an only child,
and suddenly I had, uh, three brothers.
We were all really close. We looked out for each other,
you know, and this was just brilliant for me.
We all had each other to dilute the stress.
And being born in Liverpool, the sense of humor
was very important, and so we always had a laugh as well.
But there was a point where, you know, enough was enough,
and I think that really was the major contributor
to the Beatles splitting up, was stress.
We all just wanted out, you know?
Give us a bit of peace.
When they broke up, John said, "Hey, you know, it's like,
what do you want? We gave our whole lives to this thing,"
you know, to-- almost to the exclusion
of everything else,
right the way through their youth.
-Get back. -[Neil Aspinall] It's over.
Let's get on with doing something else.
And then you look back on it afterwards and think,
"Phwoah, how did I do that?"
You know, "How did I get through that?"
Everything we did, I feel we did for good,
and that still relates to today.
It always goes back to the music,
to the personalities. All you need is love!
[♪ "All You Need Is Love" playing]
♪ All you need is love ♪
♪ All you need is love, love ♪
♪ Love is all you need ♪
-[♪ music concludes] -Yes, kill it. Right. Ours was very good.
Thank you, John. That's fine. I think that will do
for the vocal backing very nicely.
-We'll get the musicians in now. -[Paul] Thanks, George.
[George Martin] And we'll get another take.
-[John] Great. Oh, great, great. -[George Martin] Okay.
Run back the tape, please, Richard.
[tape rewinds]
[♪ "Love Me Do" playing]
[George] Certainly, I felt that we had
something totally different,
even if it was just our attitude.
It's just some little magic
that when you get certain people together,
-it makes fire or it makes dynamite. -[♪ music concludes]
-[♪ "Helter Skelter" playing] -♪ Tell me, tell me, tell me ♪
♪ Come on, tell me the answer ♪
♪ Well, you may... ♪
♪ ...be a lover, but you ain't no dancer ♪
♪ Look out! Helter Skelter Du du du du du du ♪
♪ Helter Skelter Du du du du du du ♪
[vocalizing]
It was all accident, really.
You know, those funny haircuts, and then the funny jackets,
and the funny boots.
I think we were just very simple and, um... naive.
-[♪ music concludes] -[reporter 1] I got a question.
[♪ "Leave My Kitten Alone" playing]
Do you plan to get a haircut at all?
-No. No. No, thanks. -Nope. Nope.
I had one yesterday.
-[crowd laughs] -[Paul] I remember when John,
he had his 21st, and he got a hundred quid off his uncle
who was a dentist in Edinburgh. Um...
[chuckles] Kind of-- You know, very, very elevated stuff, that.
We'd never known the likes of,
like, anyone who had a relative as a dentist.
-Or anybody who had a hundred quid! -Or a hundred quid.
-[laughs] -Ah, well, to this day I say,
no one's ever given me a hundred quid on my birthday.
Smack! A hundred smackers! Whoa!
But John got these-- this hundred quid, so he said,
"Oh, you know, well, what shall we do?"
'Cause we were hanging out. So we decided to go to Spain,
spend this hundred quid. We got as far as Paris.
We hitchhiked.
Anyway, we bumped into Jürgen, who was our friend from Astrid
and Jürgen and Klaus.
Bumped into Jürgen and said, "Your hair's nice."
You know, "Could you do ours like that?"
-[George laughs] -So he said, "Are you sure
you want this? You know, maybe..." [mutters indistinctly]
-[George] Hello, sailor! -Yeah, go on, you know,
we're on holiday, Paris, go on, and all that.
And so he did it. And then we arrived back in Liverpool,
me and John with this sort of funny hair forward,
like you were saying,
and everyone was a bit dubious about it,
but we sort of kept it forward.
-Sounds good to me. -And you brushed yours forward.
Ringo always had a big gray shock under there
-from when he was a kid. -[Ringo] It's still there.
[George] Well, he had to have his done to join the band then.
But it was cool, 'cause when it came forward,
-you didn't see his gray bit. -And he had a beard too.
-[Paul] Beard's gotta go. -[Ringo] Shave off the beard.
-It's the only way I could join. -[Paul] And he had to...
-[♪ music concludes] -You know, we wanna see these faces.
[♪ "Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand" playing]
We actually saw a London band in Hamburg.
And one of these London bands had this boot
with a big chiselly pointy toe and a Cuban heel,
and we thought, "Hmm, they're good."
-[Ringo] Hmm. -"Where did you get those?"
And he said, "Anello and Davide's."
And we went to Anello and Davide's
and bought those boots, and then later we thought,
"Hey, they make 'em. Well, we'll get our own made."
[Paul] It was a ballet shop, wannit?
[George] And so the one that became the Beatle boot
was like ones we had made, but the original one,
do you remember, it had that elastic down the side and...
[Paul] Yeah. It was a ballet shop, wasn't it?
Anello and Davide was ballet,
made ballet stuff and tutus and shoes. You could...
It's where all the little girls went.
So we were getting our, um, Beatle boots made,
-and there'd be little... -[George] We'd be getting our tutus made.
-...ladies with their children, you know. -[♪ music concludes]
[♪ "Raunchy" playing]
♪ Uh-huh-huh, yeah ♪
♪ Ah-ha-ha, yeah ♪
[vocalizing]
♪ Wow! Woo, hee-hee-hah! ♪
♪ Yeah, ah-ha-ha ♪
♪ Ah-ha-ha ♪
Here are four of the nicest young kids we've ever had on our stage.
-[♪ music concludes] -The Beatles! Bring 'em on out!
-[crowd cheers, applauds] -[♪ "This Boy" playing]
-♪ That boy ♪ -♪ This boy ♪
♪ Took my love away ♪
[♪ "I Want To Hold Your Hand" playing]
♪ Oh yeah, I'll tell you something ♪
♪ I think you'll understand ♪
♪ When I say that something ♪
♪ I wanna hold your hand ♪
[♪ "Roll Over Beethoven" playing]
♪ Move on up ♪
♪ Just a trifle further and reel and rock it ♪
♪ Roll it over Roll over Beethoven ♪
-♪ Dig these rhythm and blues ♪ -[♪ music concludes]
These things disappear into history, obviously...
-[♪ "Original Score" playing] -...and it being 30 years ago,
it's get-- it's all getting fairly legendary,
a bit too legendary for our liking, you know,
'cause we're still living it. But it is lovely,
particularly with the young folks,
for them to say, "Wow, you're good live, man."
You know, 'cause they know how hard it is to get up
and be live and sing good.
[♪ "She Loves You" playing]
♪ You think you've lost your love ♪
♪ Well, I saw her yesterday ♪
♪ It's you she's thinking of ♪
-[♪ music fades] -[George] All I wanted to do
was be in a band.
I didn't want a proper job, and I had no idea
what I would have done had I not done this.
-[♪ music concludes] -But at the age of 17, I was in Hamburg,
and by the time I was 23, we'd done Sgt. Pepper.
[♪ "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" playing]
You know, we were always playing.
That was what we wanted to do.
That was the dream when we were kids.
The dream to be, like, so famous was never my criteria.
Mine was just to really play with really good people.
And the rest just came along with it.
[♪ "Long Tall Sally" playing]
♪ We're gonna have some fun tonight ♪
♪ Have some fun tonight ♪
[♪ "I Saw Her Standing There" playing]
♪ Since I saw her standing there ♪
[♪ "Twist And Shout" playing]
♪ Ah, ah, yeah ♪
-[♪ music concludes] -[crowd cheers, applauds]
[helicopter blades flutter]
[♪ "Baby, What You Want Me To Do" playing]
-♪ Yeah, yeah, yes ♪ -♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪
♪ You got me doin' what you want me ♪
♪ Baby, why d'you wanna let me go? ♪
Take it, bro. Yeah.
♪ Ah ha ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
-Yeah. [chuckles] -Oh dear.
♪ Hee-hee, hee-hee, yeah ♪
♪ Ah ha, yeah ♪
[camera shutter clicks]
♪ Oh, yeah! ♪
-Hey. Can I have a word? -[♪ music concludes]
[Paul] When we come to our first album,
we'd played so much that we could just
record it here in a day, you know?
This is where we did that,
10:30 in the morning till 10:30 at night.
But we'd done our first album, you know, in a day.
Once we could get in the control room,
once we had a little bit of power,
it was really quite exciting to come in here.
It was like a big toy playground or something.
What are we gonna listen to, George?
[George Martin] Yeah, he's just getting the tape.
[♪ "Tomorrow Never Knows" playing]
♪ It is believing ♪
[♪ music concludes]
-[George] All of them. -Which take?
-All of them. -[George Martin] Um ...
-All of them. First take. -There's only three.
Well, the first take is very weird.
-Oh, well, play the weird take. -Yeah, listen,
listen to this on...
it's like the drums and a guitar that's going at half speed.
You know, it became easier to do experiments
'cause we'd had a few hits. You know, that was the key.
-[Ringo chuckles] -[Paul] It's true.
The key was that we'd had success.
And then it was, "Oh great, come in, lads."
-Yeah. -"Nice to see you back again."
And as we got more and more success,
we were more and more able to,
you know, try some far-out ideas.
[♪ "Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite!" playing]
And George would be, you know, really quite keen to try.
"Well, what other ideas have you got?"
There's only two basic track takes...
[Ringo] Mm-hmm.
...which is 1 and 3.
[♪ "Tomorrow Never Knows" playing]
-[Ringo chuckles] -[George] That's great.
[George] All that underwater stuff.
We should speed that up and see what it was,
-listen to the drum part. -Sounds great.
-[imitates cymbal noise] -Totally different.
[speaks indistinctly]
♪ Lay down your mind, exist... ♪
Here's the bagpipe.
And there is 2. There's nothing...
nothing on 2 and 3.
[George] Hear that guitar, slowed-down guitar.
-[mimicking guitar sound] -♪ Lay down... ♪
[George Martin] It's been a fairly traumatic time
listening to all the takes again. And for them too,
'cause it's been reliving their lives, you know.
Paul actually said to me, "Hearing ourselves as we were,
30 years ago, 25 years ago, and hearing ch--
us chatting away, um, it... it's a strange experience.
It's like looking into an old scrapbook,
but it's coming to life most vividly."
[Paul] One, two, three, four.
[♪ "What You're Doing" playing]
[♪ music concludes]
[Paul] George? What did it sound like
with the bass doing a funny thing?
Did it sound any good or did it sound just like utterly crap?
[George Martin] There's ten years' of recording.
It's been a kind of voyage back in time.
We've been listening to every take of every song
we've done and going back over those times,
and we've discovered some interesting stuff.
Some of the very early takes of most numbers are interesting.
Seeing how the song developed, how they changed, in fact.
In some instances, they started quite differently
to the masters that we-- everybody knows.
So we're kind of lifting the lid a bit on the Beatles,
the way they made their records.
[♪ "Tomorrow Never Knows" playing]
-Oh, that was the breakdown. -Ah, now we're talking.
Now we're talking serious music now.
What did you say this is now... 3?
Got the tambulis in!
[imitates tambuli playing]
♪ Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream ♪
So what have we got there then, George?
-Well, we've got-- -This is the real one now.
You've got all your rhythm on 1.
-Yeah. -Got the voice on 3.
♪ It is not dying ♪
With the tambura.
♪ Lay down... ♪
And on tracks 2 and 3,
you've got your various tape loops
and your guitar and tambura.
♪ It is shining ♪
[both chuckle]
♪ That you may see the meaning of within ♪
So I remember coming in with a little bag of loops,
and we set 'em all up around the studio on the machines.
But don't you remember?
This-- This is the basic 4-track.
But then we got the bit where we had,
-did all the mixing. -[George] See that?
That wasn't used, was it, that?
[mimics instrument playing]
[George] At that point.
-[seagulls on playback] -[all laugh]
[Paul] I think one of the great things about this studio
and the way EMI was set up, was they always had
these millions of instruments, like they've still got now,
grand pianos, odd little pianos, and harpsichords.
All the ones that you have got at your studio.
And I've, well, they've ended up at my studio now
because they were all trying to get rid of them here.
-[George] Yeah. -[Paul] And, you know, I'll have 'em.
And I think that was one of the reasons
we had such interesting instrumentation
on the Beatles records.
If it hadn't have been here, it would all have been guitars,
bass and drums.
[♪ "Carry That Weight" playing]
-A bit cheesy that... -Guitar solo...
on the same track as the vocals.
Drop in.
♪ I never give you my pillow ♪
-Don't remember that harmony either. -Yeah.
♪ I only send you my invitations ♪
-[♪ music concludes] -Some of the people here,
the engineer, for instance,
would always be, like, trying to go home at 5:30.
And we'd all be, you know, try--
well, you know, trying to make history or whatever.
And Mal, our roadie, would have this big teapot,
it was a big aluminum teapot, and he'd go out, and...
I remember one specific incident where he made a pot of tea,
and we doused the tea with uppers.
And then he was up there with George Martin...
[♪ "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" playing]
...and I think it was Geoff Emerick giving them this tea.
'Cause they were, you know, "Can we go home now?" you know.
"No, you can't, you bastard. Have a cup of tea!"
And-- [laughs]
And, uh, you know, until they were up there,
you know, like, till 11 o'clock at night.
And then they didn't wanna go home.
-Yeah. -[Ringo] They wouldn't let us leave.
[Paul laughs] They don't know to this day
till they see this program.
George hasn't come down yet, George Martin.
[Paul laughs] Yeah. He's still up there, yeah.
There was a bloke upstairs
who could cut an acetate for you.
-Or they'd give you... -Oh, it's like a reel.
-a little mix. -A reel-to-reel.
-Yeah. -On a small reel like that,
or on a pencil, wrapped around a pencil. [laughs]
And then when cassettes came out,
we had little Philips cassettes,
and you used to just stick 'em on the mixing desk,
and just, they would listen to the speakers.
-Like, not good quality. -Yeah.
But it was enough. I remember going home
in the van and playing, "Please Mister Postman".
[♪ "Please Mister Postman" playing]
♪ Wait! Oh, yes ♪
♪ Wait a minute, Mister Postman ♪
-♪ Wait! ♪ -♪ Wait, Mister Postman ♪
-♪ Mister Postman... ♪ -[♪ music concludes]
So we're like, "Yeah, that's fantastic!"
[♪ "Blackbird" playing]
A-one, two, a-one, two, three, four.
♪ Blackbird singing in the dead of night... ♪
[Ringo] We'd always come in here when Paul called us.
[Paul chuckles]
-He was always phoning us. -[Paul] And they always used to think
I was, like, the work fiend. I remember, like,
on Let It Be, some meeting we had,
we were all sitting around, and we hadn't worked
for, like, a couple of months, and I'm saying, "Great!"
You ran out of beauty competitions to judge.
Well, there-- [laughs]
You know, I judged a lot of competitions
-that... that year. You know. -[laughs]
And uh, I remember being at Apple and saying...
-[♪ music concludes] -...you know, "Well,
we should, like, maybe do something like a film.
That'd be a great idea," and everyone, like,
-being puzzled, like, "Why?" -[Ringo chuckles]
[Paul] And in the end, I think John sort of said,
"I get it. He wants a job."
-[♪ "Blackbird" playing] -I said, "Yeah, that's it.
We-- It'd be good if we worked."
[Paul] It looks about right.
♪ Blackbird singing in the dead of night... ♪
-Mm. So-- -Well, it is true. We could sit
-in the garden longer than you. -Yeah, I know.
I liked the Beatles. I liked to work with the Beatles.
-I... I've-- Not ashamed of that. -[♪ music concludes]
It's what I love in life, that, all that making music.
[♪ "Blue Moon Of Kentucky" playing]
♪ Well, I said blue moon of Kentucky ♪
♪ Just a-keep on shining ♪
♪ Shine on the one that's gone and left me blue ♪
♪ Well, blue moon of Kentucky, just a-keep on shining ♪
♪ Shine on the one that's gone and left me blue ♪
♪ Well, it was on that moonlight night ♪
♪ With the stars shining bright, wind blowing high ♪
♪ My love said goodbye ♪
♪ Blue moon of Kentucky, just a-keep on shining ♪
♪ Shine on the one that's gone and left me blue ♪
♪ Ah-ha-ha... ♪
[♪ music concludes]
[♪ guitar strums]
-[Ringo] Next round. -[chair scrapes]
[Paul] That's it. That's your lot.
[♪ "Original Score" playing]
[Paul] I was going round the world,
and a... a journalist would say,
"Is it true the Beatles are gonna get back together?"
Or... [in foreign accent] "Is it true the Beatles are gonna get..."
And, uh, I had to have an answer,
some kind of answer for that.
So the answer became, "Yeah, well, it may be
that the three of us will get in and do some incidental music,
maybe an instrumental, for this, uh,
new Beatles thing we're doing, this Anthology documentary."
So that became what I thought we were gonna do.
[George] Different ideas had been talked about,
that we could do the background music
or even write a new song.
We always had a, you know, a thing between the three of us,
or the four of us at that time,
that if any one of us wasn't in it,
we weren't gonna go out as The Beatles.
If we were to do something, the three of us,
as interesting as it may be,
and as nice as we could sure make it,
to have John in it is the obvious thing.
So, um, in thinking about that, the natural next thought was,
"Well, what if there is a cassette of John's?"
[cassette clicks]
[Ringo] Paul, I believe it was Paul
who asked Yoko, was there anything of John's
that never came out? Maybe we could work with it.
And, uh, she sent us these tapes,
and that's how it came about.
My recollection, now this, again, you'll probably have three
or four different versions of this...
-[♪ "Handle With Care" playing] -...but Jeff Lynne and myself,
we had this band called the Traveling Wilburys.
And we had Roy Orbison in it.
♪ I'm so tired of being lonely... ♪
And then Roy Orbison died. Nobody can replace Roy as Roy,
but maybe we should have some other person.
And then we thought of Elvis,
and somebody had talked to the Elvis estate,
and they loved the idea of Elvis being in the Wilburys.
The idea was that we put Elvis onto a multi-track machine,
and then we redo the entire backing,
change the chords, change the tune, whatever,
and even the lyrics,
and we'll then all sing this song,
and then when it comes to the chorus,
we bring up the other fader,
and there's Elvis singing the chorus!
We never did it because, I don't know, at that point...
-[♪ music concludes] -...I thought it seemed
a bit too gimmicky.
But I was talking to Yoko and telling her this idea,
and she said, "Ah, I think I've got a tape of John."
[♪ "Free As A Bird" piano solo playing]
[Paul] I sort of became the messenger,
picked up the tape and talked to Yoko
about what we hoped to do, you know, and asked her
to give us a lot of freedom...
-[♪ music concludes] -...and not impose too many rules on us.
Just let us have a go. If you hate it, we'll nix it.
So that was now the new deal,
and I got much more excited about that,
'cause it was really now like,
"Wow, you know, this is impossible,
John's dead, but we're actually gonna be able
-to play with him again." -[♪ "Free As A Bird" piano solo playing]
[Ringo] The idea that we were gonna do it together
was very, very strange, 'cause we'd been meeting
and chatting, and doing the camera stuff...
-[♪ music concludes] -...but now, we were gonna actually play.
And, you know, that was a huge move
for the three of us, you know,
because there were four in that band...
[♪ "Free As A Bird" piano solo playing]
...and, you know, in a way, we had to get over that hurdle
that though John's coming out the speaker,
he's not here anymore. So... it was a very heavy time for me.
I'd said to the guys that,
let's pretend that John's just gone on holiday...
-[♪ music concludes] -...and he's rung up, and he's said,
"We've nearly finished the album. You know, look,
here's-- but here's a song I kinda like,
but I haven't finished it.
Will you finish it up for me? I trust you."
That was the kinda key word
in the scenario we were, like, inventing for ourselves.
"I trust you. Just go and do your thing on it.
Don't mess about. Just do it."
So, with that in mind, we went in the studio.
[Ringo] Got it. [chuckles]
-Nice day. -Ah.
Fabulous day, let's go to work.
Nice, quick arrival.
[Paul] We had this cassette of "Free As A Bird".
It was very bad quality, and it was just a mono cassette
with John and the piano locked in on one track,
uh, which nobody would normally deal with.
You know, you just think, "Oh, I can't deal with this."
But the song was so strong
that we overcame those technical difficulties,
or rather Jeff Lynne did, who was producing.
-[indistinct chatter] -[Paul] How many producers
did it take to change a light bulb?
-[♪ guitar strumming] -Uh, 18?
I don't know, what do you think?
[laughs] I don't know. What do you think?
[Jeff Lynne] George suggested that, uh,
maybe I should work on these new songs
-for the Anthology. -[indistinct chatter]
[Jeff Lynne] And I was absolutely thrilled.
Technically, it was virtually impossible to do it.
I had to spend a couple of weeks
just trying to clean them up, digitally.
It was very difficult because when somebody does
a little performance on a piano and just singing,
playing a new song they've just written,
for instance, it's virtually,
um, impossible to have it perfectly in time.
-[♪ "Free As A Bird" playing] -[♪ piano playing]
[John over cassette] ♪ Free as a bird ♪
-[♪ piano playing] -[♪ guitar strumming]
It took hours and hours of tidying it up
because it was on a cassette with no time at all, you know,
'cause they stretch, and that,
and a lot of, uh, hiss and... and noise
that, uh, Jeff had to really work hard.
He did a brilliant job.
Then we could put it on a, uh, you know, on the 24-track
with a click track to keep it real,
so that we could play with it, 'cause it wasn't like
the four of us are in there doing it.
-[♪ "Free As A Bird" playing] -[George] ♪ Free... ♪
[Paul] Whoo!
♪ As a bird ♪
It was emotional listening to the tape for the first time.
And... And obviously, you had to study it a lot...
-[♪ music concludes] -...to know what to do with it.
And that was emotional. I said to Ringo, I warned him,
I said, "You've gotta have your hanky ready, you know,
when you listen to this."
'Cause it's quite emotional hearing our old mate
sing this little song, you know?
[♪ "Free As A Bird" playing]
[John over cassette] ♪ Free ♪
[Ringo] Just hearing the tape that was sent
-was pretty emotional. -[both sing indistinctly]
[Ringo] And then we got to the studio,
and it was... it was difficult for a while.
You know, "He's not here. We're all here. Where's John?"
But we had to get over that.
We got over that by feeling that he'd gone for lunch,
or he's gone for a cup of tea.
-[Ringo] John? -[indistinct chatter]
[Ringo] Do you wanna put the kettle on?
It's like there's an empty
-chair in the place, you know... -There's a space, yeah.
-...where he used to be. -[indistinct chatter]
I must be one of the people who knew John the best
out of his life, you know. I must be in the top three.
And I knew how he liked to work. I knew what excited him.
I knew what excited him about music,
certainly for the period I worked with him,
and he would have been dead chuffed with this.
[John over cassette] ♪ Du-dn-du-dn-du ♪
"Free As A Bird" was, uh, half a song,
you know, the... the tape we got from Yoko.
Jeff and the three of us,
we did like a basic track with all these gaps in it.
And then we had to fill in the song.
So, it... it's really written by everybody.
[♪ music rises]
[♪ music concludes]
John never completed the middle. If you hear the original demo,
John plays much different chord changes in it as well.
In normal circumstances,
if somebody comes in the studio and says,
"I've got this song. It's not quite finished yet.
What do you think?" and then you start playing it...
-[♪ "Free As A Bird" playing] -...well, historically, what we'd do,
we'd say, "Well, hang on, I don't-- I'm not sure about that chord there.
Why don't we try this chord here?"
And so we took the liberty of doing that.
And then as we finished the lyrics
and, um, you know, we actually produced that song
and put John into it.
-♪ Free as a bird ♪ -♪ Free as a... free ♪
It's cool if we end up doing that.
♪ Free as a little mockingbird ♪
-[whistles] -[indistinct chatter]
-[♪ music concludes] -[Paul] Most days I remember John,
or have some thoughts of John,
'cause he was such a big part of my life.
And I'm so sort of proud to have known him
and to have been a big part of his life, you know,
so most days I will think of him in one way or another.
But obviously, doing the Anthology,
making the record,
he was actually in the headphones
while I was singing. Now it's been a long time
since I've actually done that, you know.
-[♪ "Free As A Bird" playing] -You know, it was like the old days.
[both] ♪ I'm ♪
♪ Free ♪
Keep it going!
♪ Like a little birdie ♪
-Have you tracked that one? -[♪ music rises]
♪ Free ♪
♪ As a bird ♪
♪ It's the next best thing to be ♪
♪ Free as a bird ♪
It's an amazing Beatle track. And for me, being away from it
for so long...
I listened to it, and I thought,
"It sounds just like them."
You know, I'd taken myself away from it for so long that it,
you know, it was like listening to it like an outsider.
And it sounds just like them. It's brilliant.
[George] I think it's the four in conjunction with each other,
like a pot of soup. It kind of makes it
with that mix of the four people.
Take one of the ingredients out, it can be very similar,
but it just doesn't quite taste the same.
♪ Free as a bird ♪
[Paul] The first choice was "Free As A Bird"...
-[♪ music concludes] -...and we did that in February '94.
And then kinda really didn't do much,
except put together the Anthology, till February '95.
[Ringo] Okay.
[Paul] We went back to my studio with "Real Love".
Yeah, I missed it.
-[John Hammel] Very talented, Paul. -[Paul] ...and be
fairly ready for action now.
[tuning guitars]
Give us an E, John.
-[♪ "Real Love" playing] -♪ All the little girls and boys ♪
♪ Playing with their little toys ♪
♪ Seems like all I really was doing ♪
♪ Was waiting for you ♪
♪ No need to be alone... ♪
Do you know the-- what solo I used to love...
-[♪ music concludes] -...the, uh, harmonies on?
On "Come Together".
-[vocalizes] That sorta-- -Oh, yeah.
-It's a little... little bit-- -That kind of sounded like,
-yeah, it could be a bit... -Little bit...
-...like that. -...that range, you know.
[♪ "Real Love" guitar harmonies]
[whistles] Except high up an octave.
But... But whatever that part could be played on, like,
another thing, going up, uh, while these...
[♪ playing melody]
...you know, just keep going.
[vocalizes]
And then there's those "Real love" harmonies.
-[♪ music concludes] -They get together, and they're...
doing their banter and...
you know, bouncing off each other.
♪ Just like little girls and boys ♪
It's great, that.
And they strike up singing, and it's The Beatles.
There it is. That's that sound.
-[♪ "Paperback Writer" playing] -♪ Paperback writer ♪
-[harmonizing] -♪ Paperback writer... ♪
There is a certain harmony.
-[♪ music concludes] -We do lock in together very easily.
♪ Lo-o-o-ve ♪
You know, it kind of sounds like The Beatles...
[chuckles] ...you know, without much effort.
[over headphones] ♪ Lo-o-o-ve ♪
When George and I were doing the harmonies,
and that was what Ringo said
when we got back in the controls, he said,
"It just sounds just like The Beatles," you know.
And there was a kind of crazy moment
thinking, "Oh, yeah," 'cause, you know,
having not done it for so long, you become an ex-Beatle.
But, of course, getting back in the band
and working on this Anthology, you're in the band again.
-There's no two ways about it. -[indistinct chatter]
-[vocalizes] -Show 'em the chords, Jeff.
Let's get this ball rolling.
♪ Wah-wah-wah-wah ♪
Paul, do you wanna go down on the... [speaks indistinctly].
[Paul] One, two, three.
[♪ "Real Love" playing]
♪ All my little plans and schemes ♪
Four!
[♪ music stops abruptly]
[Jeff Lynne] Okay. I think that worked.
Now, you want that with the whole...
[drums playing]
...or do we have that?
It's all right. The tone of my voice was a little--
It doesn't match John's, does it?
It's too sort of-- [vocalizes]
Yeah. But I can also try and get into his style
-a little bit more, you know. -[♪ "Real Love" continues]
[♪ plays solo]
Paul, maybe just do the first one again as well, would you?
♪ No need to be alone ♪
♪ It's real love ♪
♪ Yes, it's real ♪
♪ It's real love ♪
♪ It's real ♪
♪ Yes, it's real love ♪
♪ It's real ♪
♪ It's real love ♪
♪ It's real ♪
♪ Yes, it's real love ♪
♪ It's real ♪
♪ It's real love ♪
♪ It's real ♪
♪ Yes, it's real love ♪
-♪ It's real ♪ -[♪ music fades]
-[indistinct chatter] -I thought that was great!
-Have a listen. -Yeah!
[♪ "Original Score" playing]
♪ Oh, yeah, yeah ♪ [imitates gunshot]
Ahr, it sounds just like 'em.
Is it sounding like them fucking Beatles again?
[chuckles] It does, aye.
Now, what would be good is if we had a third song,
-which we actually have. -[♪ "Now And Then" playing]
[John over cassette] ♪ And if I make it through ♪
♪ It's all because of you ♪
-Yeah? -[Jeff Lynne] Yeah.
That was another thought, you know, is to come in with the drums--
[Jeff Lynne] The other thing is about John's vocal,
-if we can cover it over enough-- -Yes.
There was one we kind of had our eye on called,
-uh, "Now And Then". -[♪ "Now And Then" playing]
[John over cassette] ♪ I know it's true... ♪
-[indistinct chatter] -[Jeff Lynne] Just a straight E?
Would've needed a lot of rewriting.
People would've had to be very patient with us.
And Yoko, for instance,
would've had to allow us to chop it all up a bit.
Yeah. You have a D chord after that.
Instead of going back for the rest of the chorus,
we come out into the middle.
But it needs so much work that we're a bit...
-terrified to get round to it. -[♪ music concludes]
-A moving blockage? -[yawns]
Oh, when are we ever gonna get to sleep?
[Paul] Now, there's a good question, George.
[George] No rest for the wicked.
Come on then. Back it up a bit.
And then we'll hear it, but with everything
that's on that tape in at the same time.
It was a time problem,
'cause we were gonna do three at first,
but then it just didn't work out for everybody
to be in the same place for so long a period.
And so we decided to finish off the one
-that was more completed. -[indistinct chatter]
Yeah, and we're just gonna, like, finish that one.
-[♪ "Now And Then" playing] -Work on that one, and, you know, then--
[indistinct chatter]
Get that one done
and sort of go back to the other one next time.
[♪ music continues]
[vocalizes] Possibly.
-Third verse. -[♪ "Original Score" playing]
With anyone else, this would definitely be the end.
[birds chirping]
But... [chuckling] ...with the Beatles,
you... you've gotta watch out, you know. They-- It's--
They could do it. There's always a surprise
somewhere along the line. It might not go away, that one.
It's a very special thing
when you find someone you can talk to,
it's a special thing. When you find someone
you can play music with, it's really something, you know?
I think most musicians search their whole lives
looking for the perfect drummer, the perfect bass player,
the perfect guitarist, you know, the perfect vocalist
to sing along with, to match with.
So I felt kind of privileged.
-Yeah, okay. -[Paul] That's the real speed, isn't it?
-Yeah. -[Paul plays piano trill]
♪ It's the real speed, the real speed ♪
[♪ "Real Love" banjo and piano playing]
[Paul] This is certainly a culmination of something.
I mean, we've put together our story.
I don't know whether that means it's an end. I wouldn't think
there are too many John tracks left to play with,
so that's possibly an end to that little thread.
I don't really think the three of us are interested
in going out playing together,
because there'd be a hole on stage, um,
-that you can't fill. -Seeing as we're not getting
-back together-- -Oh, Paul and I are gonna do
some stadiums next year...
-Mud wrestling. -...together.
[laughter]
Mud wrestling. I think we could pull it off, too.
I'll be the ref.
We'll probably have the fella who wrote "The Green Door",
you know, turning up, saying, "Hoi!"
-[♪ music concludes] -[Paul] Yeah, "That's my riff."
-[♪ "Original Score" playing] -There's three Beatles still around
but, you know, the band isn't here anymore.
We could go out as, uh, Paul, George and Ringo,
but not as The Beatles.
-Here are The Beatles! -[audience cheering, applauding]
The Beatles are just-- you know, will go on and on,
on those records and films and videos and books,
and in people's memories or minds.
The Beatles has just become its own thing now,
and The Beatles, I think, exist without us.
"Play the game 'Existence' till the end of the beginning."
"Tomorrow Never Knows".
-[♪ "Ain't She Sweet" playing] -♪ Well, ain't she sweet? ♪
[Paul vocalizes]
♪ I ask you very confidentially, ain't she sweet? ♪
♪ Cast an eye in her direction ♪
-♪ Oh me, oh my ♪ -♪ Oh me, oh my ♪
♪ Ain't that perfection? ♪
♪ Voh-dee-oh-doh ♪
♪ I repeat, don't you think she's kinda sweet? ♪
-♪ Neat ♪ -♪ Now, I ask you very confidentially ♪
♪ Ain't she sweet? ♪
♪ Ain't she... ♪
-[♪ ukelele riff plays] -♪ ...sweet? ♪
-[Ringo] Let's go. -[♪ music concludes]
-[Paul] Mm. -Well, this has really been a...
a really nice day for me, chaps, but I'm afraid I've gotta leave now.
It's been a pleasure for me too, Rich, yeah. Have you?
Cor! We won't have to see you for the next 40 years.
-[laughs] -Yeah.
[Paul] Well, you could end on this note then, and uh--
No, it's been a very nice day. Thanks for having us, George.
Thank you.
It's been really beautiful and moving for me, you know.
I like hanging out with you two guys.
[♪ music concludes]
[♪ "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)" playing]
-♪ One, two, three, four ♪ -♪ Bye! ♪
♪ Wooh! ♪
♪ We're Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band ♪
♪ We hope you have enjoyed ♪
♪ The show ♪
♪ Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts ♪
♪ Club Band ♪
♪ We're sorry but it's time ♪
♪ To go ♪
♪ Sergeant Pepper's Lonely ♪
♪ Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts ♪
♪ Club Band ♪
♪ We'd like to thank you ♪
♪ Once again ♪
♪ Sergeant Pepper's one and only ♪
♪ Lonely Hearts Club Band ♪
♪ It's getting very near ♪
♪ The end ♪
♪ Sergeant Pepper's Lonely ♪
♪ Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts ♪
♪ Club Band ♪
♪ Whoo! ♪