On Saturday, July 6, 1957, St Peter’s — a parish church in Woolton, England — held a garden fete. There were games for children and a 25-piece military band. A “Rose Queen” was crowned. Oh, and to keep the teenagers interested, there was also one of those “skiffle groups,” a British take on an American jug band that performed an amalgam of folk, country, and blues. Ivan Vaughn, who played bass, invited along a friend and introduced him to the group’s leader. Ivan’s friend was Paul McCartney. The leader of the group, then known as the Quarrymen, was John Lennon.
According to Phillip Norman’s recent biography of McCartney, he had actually seen Lennon on prior occasions in their Liverpool neighborhood. But Lennon looked to him like a “Teddy boy” — one of those young men who responded to the advent of rock and roll by donning “Edwardian-stype velvet-collared jackets” and narrow trousers “with accessories often including switchblade knives, razors, brass knuckles and bicycle chains.” McCartney recalled that when Lennon got on the bus, “I wouldn’t stare at him too hard in case he hit me.” This time, McCartney had the chance to audition. Lennon invited him to join the Quarrymen and the rest is history.
Although McCartney did not play that day, the Quarrymen’s performance happened to be captured on a reel-to-reel recorder by a man in the audience named Bob Molyneau. Thirty-seven years later, he found the tape. While the quality is poor, you can listen to it here:
In the interest of celebrating this special anniversary, I’ll also share another exceptional clip. This may not be one of the Beatles’ best songs, but the energy and audience enthusiasm are irresistible. And it illustrates a side of Lennon’s character that is often overlooked.
“You Can’t Do That” was originally recorded in February, 1964 and released as the “B-side” of the single, “Can’t Buy Me Love.” Lennon wrote it for the Hard Day’s Night movie, but it was not used in the film. In it, he threatens to abandon his girlfriend if she so much as talks to another man. Lennon took the same theme to an extreme in “Run For Your Life,” which appeared on the “Rubber Soul” album the following year (at a time when, ironically, he was cheating on his wife Cynthia). In it, he essentially threatens that if he catches his girlfriend with another man, he will murder her. In the book, All the Songs, Jean-Michael Guesdon and Phillippe Margotin observe that “the macho, threatening tone” of the lyrics “is still astonishing” and remark: “What pushed John, the future advocate of peace, to write such verses? A mystery.”
By the time of “Getting Better,” which was released on the Sgt. Pepper album in 1967, Lennon was writing, “I used to be cruel to my woman./ Beat her and kept her apart from the things that she loved./ Man I was mean but I’m changing my scene./ And I’m doing the best that I can.” Three months before his death, Lennon told an interviewer for Playboy Magazine that the song was “a diary form of writing…. [P]hysically — any woman. I was a hitter…. It is the most violent people who go for love and peace. Everything’s the opposite. But I sincerely believe in love and peace. I am … [a] man who has learned not to be violent and regrets his violence.”
A cynic might view all of this as an exercise in hypocrisy. I prefer to see it as a sign of change and growth. And in that is a message of hope.
I agree that Lennon developed considerably in his ideas toward woman and violence over the years. Amazing to hear that early clip of the Quanrymen!