| Worship the Beatles? Then here’s a must-do pilgrimage for you. |
Memories of yesterday: The Beatles in 1965.
Sitting next to me now, tour-guiding us through Liverpool, Sylvia is close to being 64 herself. Though listening to her giggle over an anecdote about her brother and his close pal John (Yes. We’re speaking of John Lennon here!) you’d think Sylvia is 18 still, with a massive crush for her brother’s phenomenally talented friend.
We were in luck. Not only were we right here in this Mecca of music, we had the best tour guide in town: an authentic Beatles fan from the 1960s. The type that cops would carry away as they screamed and fainted hearing “Love Me Do” for the first time at a concert. We felt we were devotees on a pilgrimage — being certified Beatle-worshippers in the 1960s and 70s (who’d spend all pocket money buying 45 rpm records of Beatles hits, in Brigade Road in Bangalore). And to think we would soon stand on the same street corners where the Fab Four met up after school, visit each pub they played their first songs in, and even walk through the houses they grew up in…
But even before our tryst with our charming guide Sylvia, the goose bumps had set in. Within minutes of checking into our Thistle Hotel overlooking the great Mersy Riverside, we had raced to board the Magical Mystery Tour coach, singing “She’s Got A Ticket To Ride” along with a busload of Beatle-struck tourists that included Japanese, Bolivians, Croatians, and even a girl from Brunei. “You also like so much the Beatles, ya?”she asked me in some surprise. (She is, in all likelihood, telling her pals back home “Even Indians sing Beatles songs!”).
Busing along the incredibly beautiful Liverpool, we were thrilled that so many people smiled and waved to us from the roads. “It’s not you, it’s your bus!” laughed Neil, our bus operator. Obviously this psychedelic painted bus and what it stood for was the pride of every Liverpudlian — and certainly their most popular tourist attraction (though a football fan would definitely have first headed out to see their famous club on arrival).
LandmarksSuddenly the signage “Penny Lane” came up on us — probably Liverpool’s most photographed street corner ever since Paul McCartney immortalised it in a song. Driving towards a busy market place ahead, we eagerly looked for phrases from that picturesque song. Where was the “shelter in the middle of the roundabout”? Or “pretty Ness selling poppies from a tray”? So also at the next stopover. Taking pictures of the old iron gate near a thickly wooded area, and its “Strawberry Fields” signage, we wondered: did John stand right here when he thought of the line “Living is easy with eyes closed…?”
Well, for real answers, we had our Sylvia, waiting to take us out again in her Ford Focus for a more personalised discovery of Liverpool. Every stopover had an anecdote — amazing everyday accounts that delighted our touristy curiosity as much as our craze for the Beatles. We stopped outside the house of Brian Epstein, their maverick manager. This is where John and Cynthia briefly lived before getting married, when Cynthia found herself pregnant. And only Brian knew their secret. Guess which song John wrote then? quizzed our guide. “Listen, do you wanna know a secret?” I sang. Right!
Sylvia’s interesting insights also made us think about the lyrics of the Beatles — and their incredible transition over the years. “Look at the naïve simplicity of their first big chart-buster ‘Love Me Do’. Or the almost school boy rhyme of ‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand’. That’s because they really had had no life experiences to write about at all… Just a couple of fun-loving ‘Quarrymen’ who met at a school fete (John and Paul), looked around for second-hand guitars and started scribbling words sitting at coffee shops!” Later George and Ringo completed their quartet; and then came the charisma of Brian Epstein, older and more worldly-wise. That began to shape their transition to grown-up lyric writing.
We walked through John’s childhood home, “Mendips”, thrilled to see where the young musical genius slept, ate and played; raised from the age of five by his Aunt. Sylvia told us about Aunt Mimi’s famous quote: “The guitar’s all very well John, but you’ll never make a living out of it.” Years later, John had these very words framed as a present for his beloved aunt!
Sylvia had lost count of the number of times she’d personally encountered John, but blushed prettily when we teased her for more information about her teenage crush, as we sat at John Lennon’s favourite Casbah Coffee Club — the place where it all began. It’s the only Beatles venue that’s totally unchanged, with the original mike and amps still preserved. The ceiling, personally painted with stars by the Beatles themselves, is exactly the same today. Here, we heard of John’s incredible aura and sex appeal, his “bad boy” language that curiously made him more attractive, his rebellious streak and roguish sense of humour. “Well, I had a crush on Paul!” I told Sylvia — and so it was certainly worth the £12 entrance fee to visit Paul McCartney’s childhood home on Forthlin Road.
It was here that the foursome met most often to write their songs and hold practice sessions. We saw the house restored to its original look — the exact wall paper, sofa sets, the very window they must have looked out of as Paul and John sat writing “I Saw Her Standing There”.
Soon we too headed off to the ultimate sacred Beatles spot in Liverpool: The Cavern. Right here, at a basement in Mathew Street, was where The Beatles had performed the most; to an ecstatic home audience. Though once closed down to make way for a train route, a huge public outcry from Beatles fans had the entire pub reconstructed, to exactly the way it was when the Beatles performed almost 300 times here, between 1961 and 1963.
After seeing a gallery of pictures of other famous names who have played at The Cavern (Elton John, Eric Clapton, and even our Woodstock-generation favourite — The Who) we found a place to inscribe our names on the walls, alongside the names of about a million fans who must have visited The Cavern before us.
Authentic recreation
And then it was time to ‘summarise’ our entire visit: at the Beatles Story Museum back at Liverpools’ historic Albert Dock. Put together with the Brits’ amazing ability to recreate authenticity, this museum is the ultimate shrine for the Beatles-obsessed.
Walking through with our headsets, a lucid audio narration by John Lennon’s sister Julia began our journey at the Woolton Village Fair, where Paul’s voice told us how he first met John Lennon. Then we were listening to actual wild screams at the Cavern Club —playing through the speakers…Then the famous Royal Command Performance in 1963 which included Royals like the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret in the audience. We heard John’s impudent wit, and working-class sauciness: “Will the people in the cheaper seats, please clap your hands. All the rest of you, if you’ll just rattle your jewellery”!
Moving on, the colourful madness of the psychedelic era and Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band. The recorded voice of Brian Epstein on his first impressions of the Beatles. The break-up of the Beatles. The Yoko Ono era. And an emotional look through John Lennon’s iconic round spectacles…
Walking back to our hotel, we caught a snatch of “Yesterday” being played at a bar. Automatically, we sang along, with words learnt by heart so many years ago in our teenage Beatles-dominated times.
A wave of indescribable nostalgia washed over me. Liverpool, like the words of Paul McCartney’s best known song — has a way of making you wish “…how I long for yes-ter-day…yesterday.”
2 comments:
the article was gr8. i luv Beatles
lovely piece of writing :)
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