THE BEATLES - A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM! 1964 and watching 'GET BACK'!

 A Mid-Summmer Night's Dream

&

GET BACK

The Beatles at Twickenham Film Stage Studios by Linda McCartney (damn she was good!)

Pretty sure that's Trevor Peacock (Jim Trott from Vicar of Dibley and Shakespearean actor) introducing the play and Long John Baldry heckling from the audience amongst others . . . . . . . . . 

Sounds of 71 says

The Beatles in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, 1964

This is one of the best f****** things you will ever see: The Beatles performing Shakespeare more or less as written. 

Specifically, the play within a play from Act 5, Scene 1 of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with John and Paul as lovers Pyramus and Thisbe, George as The Man in the Moon, and Ringo as a lion. Plus a goat, playing itself.

This was part of a British TV special Around The Beatles, recorded April 28, 1964, when celebrations of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth were in full swing. These boys (all in their early 20s) were up for anything, and here’s a prime example. 

You’ve seen a million photos of this on tumblr, and a few gifs, but when I found this clip, I knew you needed to see it too!

 

Just finished watching Get Back thanks to my daughter and her wonderful fellah for sorting that out for me (!) and what an emotional roller coaster that was, (SPOILER: Episode One made me actually weep! as George leaves . . . . . . ) although obviously I wouldn't let people know quite how much it affected me!!    ? . . . . . . . . . . . ..  !

Could conceivably have done with a final edit  (there IS a lot of throw away jamming during episode two and three but hey . . . I am not really complaining) 7 and half hours of bliss!

check these quotes out from various other sources and always check out The Beatles Bible too

INT: Who are some contemporary artists you admire most? 

George: There are so many, I’m madly in love with Smokey Robinson, from the old Miracles. When the Beatles first came here everybody was amazed that we all liked Tamla/Motown which was at that time a relatively new company. I like Smokey but just to try and pick one or two, Smokey Robinson is my favorite. I like Dickey Betts, there are a lot of guitar players – Ry Cooder I think is sensational and I hope Warner Bros. will try and sell a few more of his albums.

—
George interviewed by Steven Rosen at Warner Bros. Records offices in Burbank, California (1974)

~

“Pure Smokey started out with nice chord changes. I’ve always liked Smokey Robinson and he’s probably one of the best songwriters around. He writes great lyrics and great melodies, and he is fantastic to see in concert, because one tends to forget how many good tunes he has written. He brought out an album called Pure Smokey, and I’ve met him once or twice.

Sometimes you get an idea and write a specific song, but other times – often – it turns itself into whatever it’s going to be – with the effort put into it – and it turned into Pure Smokey.

I’m trying to make the point – if I like someone I want to say ‘I like you’. I don’t want to die and then to think ‘Oh I forgot to tell them I liked them’.

Throughout my lifetime I’d hesitate I’d feel some joy But before I showed my thanks It became too late

So this song turned into an all purpose thing of generally trying to show appreciation, and then to focus on my appreciation of Smokey.”

— George Harrison, I, Me, Mine (1980)

~

“Of all Tamla-Motown acts, George listened hardest to The Miracles, whose leader, Smokey Robinson had an ‘effortless butterfly of a voice**’ that he would never bring himself to criticize.”

— Alan Clayson, George Harrison (2001)

** “It’s hard to see the greats go, and I’m a big fan of so many kinds of rock and popular music, from Bob Marley to Cole Porter to Smokey Robinson to Hoagy Carmichael. I mean, I wrote ‘Pure Smokey’ on 33 1/3 as my little tribute to his brilliant songwriting and his effortless butterfly of a voice. The Beatles did Smokey’s ‘You Really Got A Hold On Me,’ and there was a song John did that was very much influenced by Smokey - ‘This Boy.’ If you listen to the middle eight of ‘This Boy,’ it was John trying to do Smokey. It suddenly occurs to me that there’s even a line on ‘When We Was Fab’ where I sing, ‘And you really got a hold on me.’”

— George Harrison interviewed for Musician Magazine (November 1987 Edition)

“And this was one of the main faults of John and Paul. They were so busy being John and Paul, they failed to realize who else was around at the time.”

- George Harrison, West 57th Street interview with Selina Scott (1987)

“If anything happened to one of us we wouldn’t go on,” Paul told me. He was standing beside me in the kitchen of my London flat while I fixed some scrambled eggs, Paul’s favourite meal, for a very late breakfast. I nearly upset the pan as I looked up at him.


“It’s true,” Paul said. “When Ringo was ill we didn’t want to do the tour of Holland and Australia. It’d be a drag without him, we thought. If it hadn’t been a temporary illness, then that would have been it. We’d all have packed in.


“If one of us dropped out the group would break up. We definitely wouldn’t perform as three Beatles. I hate that idea. It’d be—well, like the son of somebody famous trying to get by on his father’s name.”


I ladled out the food. “But I thought Jimmy Nicol did a good job for those twelve days,” I said.


“Oh sure,” Paul said. “We got along all right. Jimmy was fine. But he wasn’t Ringo. And it was Ringo we missed.”

— Paul interviewed by Alan Freeman for Rave Magazine, No. 8 (September 1964)

 

“As soon as he dropped Paul at the entrance, Bill Corbett [Beatles Chauffeur] headed back into town on an errand—to pick up a couple of dozen shirts and casuals which were being specially made up from Paul’s drawings.


Between them, Paul and John Lennon are the creative side of the group. And apart from songwriting, one of Paul’s big interests is designing gear for himself and the others.


He has been painting since he was twelve—in fact, he won his school’s art prize. As you’d expect from a Beatle, his preference was for action painting.”

 

Paul interviewed by Alan Freeman for Rave Magazine, No. 8 (September 1964)

There was a knock at my door. Paul sat up and grinned a welcome to Bill the chauffeur as he came in carrying a pile of boxes. “I got the shirts, Paul,” he said.


“Let’s see them” Paul said, eagerly tearing off the string as if he was opening a birthday present.


He took out one shirt after another, all very sharp. A white one with a black velvet collar, a few in deep reds and blues with the latest big buttons, three open-weave casuals tailored in sackcloth and silk.


“Want to try one?” Paul said. In five minutes the flat was like Carnaby Street on a Saturday morning as we tried on Paul’s designs.


Listen. A certain Brian Epstein knows a little about clothes. If anything ever splits the Beatles, he and Paul could make a No 1 living in the rag trade!


Paul’s a keen eye for price, too! What he paid to have that gear made up would make some big clothing names blink. It was less than half what you’d expect to shell out in a good shop.

— Paul interviewed by Alan Freeman for Rave Magazine, No. 8 (September 1964)