I Don't Know How Ray Thought This Story Makes Him Look Like A Good Journalist. "It Was The Most Important

I don't know how Ray thought this story makes him look like a good journalist. "It was the most important story of my career" what, because one of the subjects was so flattered by it that they flattered you in turn and got you to be (one of) their court stenographers for a time? He's better than most Beatles writers but this story makes him sound easily bought and bad at his job, idk why he'd tell it.

Cultivating journalists was one of John’s best PR skills. He was very good at building relationships, encouraging loyalties, creating a dynamic where his interests became the journalist’s interests.

Ray Connolly is a good example. He met Paul first, reporting on the filming of Magical Mystery Tour. He was new to the job, and remembers “sitting meekly outside the crowd in the bar in the hotel, wondering how I was ever going to get to know anyone, when suddenly someone sat in the empty chair next to mine. It was Paul McCartney.” From this start, Connolly builds a working relationship with Paul and the other Beatles. But over time, he becomes closer to John and Yoko - because they put the work in. Paul is friendly to a shy journalist, and vaguely supportive afterwards. But John rings him up, pays attention to his writing, rewards him when he (and Yoko) like what Connolly’s doing.

Here’s the big turning point. On 27 November 1969, Connolly published an article headlined “1969: The day the Beatles died”. “In writing this article, I was, in journalistic parlance, flying a kite,” Connolly explains - writing up his own guess about what was happening. “In terms of my career, it turned out to be probably the most important piece I ever wrote – and at least one of the Beatles was delighted when he read it.” And here’s how he expressed that delight:

The day after this piece was published a white rose in a see-through plastic box was delivered to my desk at the Evening Standard. An attached card read ‘To Ray with love from John and Yoko’. The unwritten message couldn’t have been clearer. From that moment I was to have my own ‘Deep Throat’ in the Beatles organisation, leaking me a steady flow of information - John Lennon.

I laughed out loud when I first read that, because it’s just so perfect. The white rose turns 1960s flower power into the new, stripped-back, all-white JohnandYoko aesthetic. It keeps the imagery of peace and flowers, but moves them into the art gallery. The rose comes encased in plastic, another trademark (think of Plastic Ono Band, or John’s enthusiasm for the idea of performing in a giant plastic bubble in Get Back.) And the written message doesn’t say anything concrete: no specific praise, no comment on the piece. Instead of committing themselves, they leave Ray to join the dots.

Which he did. More than that, just look at how he reads the situation: he sees John as his source, rather seeing himself as John’s journalist. Within a month, John and Yoko are paying Ray’s first-class fare so he can fly to Canada to report on their peace campaign. Ray Connolly strikes me as one of the brighter Beatle-adjacent journalists - he kept his independence, and managed to stay on good terms with Paul as well as John - but he fell for that one hook, line and sinker.

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Edited to add: him and Linda's mealymouthed explanation "It's not fair on the children! the bosses and workers should just work it out rationally!" is easily explained when you remember that this is a person who never had a real job and therefore doesn't have a CLUE. Not that he didn't work hard, but that he never had the experience of being an ordinary person with a boss (a few weeks winding coils doesn't count). All the sending-your-kids-to-state schools in the world won't change that fact: it makes you out of touch with most people. Not a crime, but it leads to nonsense like this.

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The dash of Beatles magic comes as they reach the end of the verse and bounce together on the strung-out “pleeeeeeease . . .” answered by Paul’s solo “ . . . love me do.” The spirit in the harmony and the expectant silence that follows heightens the sense of anticipation...

<...>

In the drawn-out “plee-ee-ease” of “Love Me Do” the lilting harmonies yearn politely—in “Please Please Me” it’s dirty and polite all at the same time. John and Paul’s verse duet gains on the Everly formula: Paul stays on the initial high note as John pulls away beneath him (“Last night I said these words to my girl”), putting the Everlys’ “Cathy’s Clown” lilt to a brighter beat. The rasp in Lennon’s voice on the repeated “come on”s is far from innocent—he wants this woman to do more than just hold his hand. As they hit the second “please,” Paul and John leap away from the pleasantry of the first, soaring up to convey a real adolescent sexual frustration. Even the sound of the band has more rough edges than the thunking bass of “Love Me Do.” Where the first single is genuinely coy, the second makes a “polite” demand on the female, and Lennon deliberately tries to stir up a reaction.

<...>

Although John and Paul can be worlds apart (as this album [“Please Please Me”] demonstrates), when they harmonize the common brilliance they achieve is breathtaking. The two share a space of musical effervescence that only they know how to reach for, and they hit it with uncommon grace.

<...>

The first and last songs on the album, “I Saw Her Standing There” and “Twist and Shout,” are its bookends: both revolve around the idea of falling in love on the dance floor. But where Paul gets the dance floor jumping, Lennon makes the earth move. It’s as raunchy as anything the Beatles ever recorded, and it stands up beautifully to records with raunchier reputations (like the Stones’ “Satisfaction”). Where the opening tune suggests an adolescent sexuality, “Twist and Shout” conveys a loss of innocence; where Paul’s singing is charged but charming, Lennon’s delivery is nothing short of lustful.

<...>

Throughout rock, and throughout the history of music—from Bach’s French Suites to Ravel’s La Valse—the image of the dance in music has been linked to the act of sex.

<...>

After two verses [“Twist and Shout”], the singers—John with Paul and George in support— back off to play their guitars for a verse, as if resting for the final round. When the voices come back in, the personalities we’ve heard throughout the record stack up one by one for the rave-up, building the chord with mounting excitement. At the top of the ladder, they spill over the edge with hysterical screams, the musical dam breaks, and before we know it they’re into the last verse. It’s the musical equivalent of an orgasm, and it counts among the most exciting moments in all their music.

<...>

It’s not that they’re telling teenagers to dance or have sex: they’re simply enjoying life so much that they can’t contain themselves—they want the beat to seduce the whole world into having fun.

(Tell Me Why by Tim Riley, 1998/2002)


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The Beatles Rehearse For The BBC Radio Show Teenager's Turn (Here We Go) In Manchester, England | 11

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John Not Into Chicks In This January 1966 Issue Of Fabulous Magazine.

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slenderfire-blog - a slender fire
a slender fire

Some writing and Beatlemania. The phrase 'slender fire' is a translation of a line in Fragment 31, the remains of a poem by the ancient Greek poet Sappho

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