Original subtitles

We're sorry, but plenty of people in England haven't seen us

For everybody to see us at once, we'd have to do a world satellite TV show

It was supposedly the very first satellite hook-up around the world

I don't know how many millions of people but some phenomenal amount

It was probably the very earliest technology

that enabled that kind of satellite link

George Martin Record Producer John wrote All You Need is Love specially for the television show

It was a commission. Brian suddenly whirled in and said:

"We are to represent Britain in this round the world hook-up. Write a song"

Because of the mood of the time, it seemed a great idea to do that song

Everybody else was showing people knitting in Canada

and Irish clog dancers in Venezuela. We'll just sing All You Need is Love

It's a kind of subtle bit of PR

for God, basically

I don't know if the song was written before that

We were making an album at the time so lots of songs were in circulation

Paul may know more about that. Over to you, Paul

I'm not sure... it was John's song, mainly

I don't think it was written specially for it

but it was one of the songs we had. George Martin might have a better idea

It was certainly tailored to it, once we had it

But I've a feeling it was just one of John's songs

We went down to Olympic Studios in Barnes and recorded it

It became 'the song we should use'. I don't think it was written for it

Yeah, they wrote it specifically for that, and we all dressed up again

We were getting to love dressing up!

And we had another suit but mine was so bloody heavy

Simon and Marijke from The Fool - that was the company -

had all this beading on - as we'll cut to right now

It just weighed a ton

It was a fabulous time, musically and spiritually

We'd prepared a basic track for the recording, for the TV show

but we were going to do a lot live

The orchestra was live, and the singing and the audience and so on

We knew it was to be a live television show

There was also a camera in the control room, on us doing our bit

About 30 seconds to go on the air, there was a phone call

The producer of the show, saying "I've lost contact with the studio"

"You'll have to relay instructions to them as we'll be on air any moment now"

And I thought if you're going to make a fool of yourself...

do it in front of 200 million people!

The man upstairs pointed his finger and we did it, one take

Our World Global Satellite Broadcast 25th June 1967

I still believe all you need is love

but I don't believe that just saying it is going to do it

I still believe that love is what we all need

And it was for love

It was for love and bloody peace again. It was a fabulous time

Even now, I'm still excited when I realise that's what it was for

People putting flowers in guns, San Francisco was just exploding

Here was fabulous California, where we are, L.A.

It was just exciting times. And all for this loving feeling

And music. The whole rest of it was just music

There were psychedelic posters coming in from San Francisco. Great!

The summer of love's a little bit too easy, but some sort of golden summer

Everywhere we went, people were smiling

and sitting on lawns, drinking tea

Festivals of music and stuff

That summer of love, a lot was bullshit, just what the press were saying

But there was definitely a vibe

In America, we could feel what's going on, even though we were miles away

You could just pick up the vibes

I was all for going there and living on the Haight

In my head I thought acid is it, this is the answer, let's go

I'll go there and make music, but of course it didn't come true

In the end George went over

I went to Haight Ashbury expecting it to be this brilliant place

and it was full of horrible spotty drop-out kids on drugs

It certainly showed me what was really happening in the drug cult

It wasn't what I thought - of all these groovy people

having spiritual awakenings and being artistic

It was just like the Bowery, it was like alcoholism

It was like any addiction

So at that point I stopped taking it

the dreaded lysergic

I had some in a little bottle, it was liquid

I put it under a microscope and it looked like old rope

I thought, I'm not going to put that in my brain any more

I was influenced by acid and got psychedelic like the whole generation

but really I like rock'n'roll

It was one of those things that happened as life went on

We'd been into drugs and the next step is to try to find a meaning

That's where I really went for the meditation

There's this thing called a mantra

And a mantra is...

Through the mantra, you can follow a technique that helps you to transcend

To go beyond the waking, sleeping, dreaming state

So OK, I need a mantra - where do you go?

You can't go to Harrods and get a mantra

Then I met David Wynne, who showed me a picture and said he's coming to lecture

He's called Maharishi. So I got some tickets

Then I thought, I'll get some in case the others want to go

Oh yeah! So we went along and I thought he made a lot of sense

He basically said that with a simple system of meditation

20 minutes, morning and evening

no big crazy thing, you can improve the quality of your life

and find some sort of meaning in doing so

After the lecture-because the Beatles could get in anywhere -

so we got backstage, met Maharishi

I said to him "Got any mantras? Give us a mantra!"

He said "We're in Bangor tomorrow, you should come and get initiated"

At that time Maureen was in hospital having Jason

I was visiting

I came home and put on the answerphone

Even in those days we had answerphones

A message from John: "We've seen this guy and we're all going to Wales"

And from George: "Wow man, we've seen this guy, Maharishi. He's great!"

We're all going to Wales on Saturday. You've got to come

The Beatles seem to be among your supporters. How do you feel about that?

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi I feel a great fondness for the younger generation

If the Beatles take up this transcendental meditation

they are the ideal of energy and intelligence in the younger generation

That will bring youth to a very good level of understanding and intelligence

I am very happy that they heard my lecture last evening

We talked after the lecture. They seem to be very intelligent and alert

We'd rung our mates: "He's great this guy, you ought to come and see him"

It was like a good book you'd read. "Hey, try it, I'll send you a copy"

That kind of thing. "Come, he'll be there, come with us"

We got up there and there was a crowd to meet us

We all wandered through in our psychedelic gear

25th August 1967 It was like a summer camp

You sit around and he tells you how to do it

You go to your room and try to do it, and of course you can't

You sit there and you've got a mantra to meditate on

You think, bloody hell, that train journey was a bit much-sorry, mantra

Bloody hell, I wonder what our next record's going to be... oh stop, stop!

You spend all your first few days just trying to stop your mind...

dealing with your social calendar, whatever's coming up

God, he's a funny bloke, that Mah... oop, no, but it was good

I was really impressed with the Maharishi. He was always laughing

So we listened to his lectures and we started meditating

We were given our mantras

It was another point of view. We were getting into Eastern philosophies now

You just sit and let your mind go. It doesn't matter what you think about

Then you introduce the mantra, the vibration, to take over from a thought

You don't will it, or use your will-power

I seem to recall it was a phone call

Somebody came to us at Bangor and said...

...that he'd died. We were off finding the meaning of life, and he was dead

Neil Aspinall Tour Manager I heard it on the car radio that he'd died

The local shopkeeper said "Sorry about the news"

"What news?" He said "Your friend's died"

Our friend has gone

I don't know what to say, we've only just heard

27th August 1967 He was a beautiful fellow and it's terrible

What are your plans now?

We haven't made any, we've only just heard

It's as much news to us as it is to everybody else

I spoke to him Wednesday evening

The evening before we first saw Maharishi's lecture

He was in great spirits

I understand that this afternoon Maharishi conferred with you all

Could I ask what advice he offered you?

He told us not to get overwhelmed by grief

and whatever thoughts we have of Brian, to keep them happy

because any thoughts we have of him will travel to him, wherever he is

We were all gutted, you know. It was a huge shock

He was one of the people we had known longest

A huge confidant of ours

When anyone dies like that, it's the shock that you won't see them again

The blood drained from the face, you know - Brian's dead

There was very little we knew, other than that he'd been found dead

We just knew... well, that's it

It was very strange for it to happen at that precise moment

We'd just got involved with this meditation

Your belief system gets suspended because you don't want to hear it

You don't know what to do with it, anyway

If you look at our faces in the film, all a bit like...

What is it? What does it mean? Our friend has gone

More our friend than anything else. Brian was a friend of ours

I don't think there was anything sinister

Rumours came out that it was very sinister circumstances

But those are easy to do after the event

I went round a couple of days later - Brian had a butler working for him

and he didn't seem to feel there was anything suspicious

He felt that he wasn't in any sort of black mood

He could have been. I don't know. But my feeling was that it was an accident

I don't believe he committed suicide. I believe it was an accident

In those days, everybody was topping themselves accidentally

by taking uppers andlor amphetemine and alcohol

That happens, you know

I feel that happened with Keith Moon, one too many... I can deal with it

Jimi whatever... Jim, Mama, all those people

I don't think any of them set out to die

Have you a tribute you'd like to pay to Mr Epstein?

We don't know what to say. He was one of us, so you can't...

We can't pay tribute in words

I knew that we were in trouble then

I didn't have any misconceptions about our abilities other than to play music

I was scared. I thought we've fucking had it now

Brian Epstein 1934- 1967

There was a huge void, we didn't know anything about...

our personal business and finances

He had taken care of everything

I suppose it was chaos after that

We were kind of managing ourselves

It was very sad to lose an old mate under those circumstances

But I don't think the major worry was what next, not having a manager

We'd been moving away from that

We decided we had to keep on trucking

They'd always discussed whatever they were doing with Brian

Now there was nobody. There was Brian's organisation

but we hadn't related to that, we'd only ever related to Brian

We were suddenly like headless chickens. What are we going to do?

That's when Neil stepped in and tried to figure out what was happening

As far as I was concerned, we had to get it together

But the other people out there, Brian's associates if you like

accountants, lawyers, all that sort of stuff

I think maybe the lunatics had now got hold of the asylum

What were the Beatles going to do?

And so there was a lot of...

different advice coming in about what they should do

We decided we needed an office and organisation of our own

and that's really why we expanded Apple, 'cos Apple already existed

I think it was a publishing company in an office on Baker Street

Paul made an attempt to carry on as if Brian hadn't died

I think Paul had an impression we should be thankful for what he did

For keeping the Beatles going

At some point John got a bit annoyed, saying...

Paul's trying to be the leader of the group and stuff

It's possible that I was there more than anyone

When we did Magical Mystery Tour, I ended up kind of directing it

even though we said the Beatles have directed at the end

Just 'cos I was there most of the time

and the late night chats about the next day's work would tend to be with me

It was Paul's idea

It was basically a charabanc trip

which people used to go on from Liverpool to see the Blackpool lights

They'd get crates of beer and an accordion player and all get pissed

and just go... pissed in the English sense, meaning drunk...

and just go to see the Blackpool lights

It was a very flimsy kind of thing

I think it was Paul's idea. He and John sat down...

I think in Paul's place in St John's Wood, and they just drew a circle

Then marked it off like spokes on a wheel

"We can have a song here

"We can have this here, we can have this dream sequence there"

They mapped it out, but it was a bit rough

Then he came and showed me what his idea was

How it went round like this, the story and the production

He said here's the segment, you write a little piece for that

It was Paul who came with a piece of paper, the way we used to work

I'm not sure, it could have been mine

I'm not sure whether I want to take the blame for it

We were all in on it but a lot of that stuff could have been my ideas

I was coming up with a lot of concepts, like in Sgt Pepper

We all worked on all the stuff but I was coming up with a lot of ideas

We looked through the actors' book, The Spotlight or whatever

Oh, we need someone like that and someone like that

And we needed the large lady as my auntie

I was going to play this person with this auntie

We weren't doing a regular film, it was a crazy '60s film - I am the egg man

and I just wandered off to France and did that Fool on the Hill stuff

Just one morning with a couple of mates. It wasn't quite union

I remember quite a bit of it really, in a big hangar down in Kent

We were driving round this airfield in a Mini Cooper

Your Mother Should Know

That was quite interesting, I enjoyed that

There were always good songs

A couple of good songs and a few funny scenes

The scene to me that stands out

is the one of John shovelling the spaghetti on to the fat woman's plate

That was the best bit of the movie for me

That was an actual dream he'd had

He'd come in and say "Hey, I had this wild dream last night. I'd like to do it"

We'd just put them in. It was very haphazard

Looking back on it, you learn by your mistakes

It's quite interesting now, looking back on it as a period piece

People like Spielberg... I've read that people like him have said:

"When I was in film school, that was a film we really took notice of"

Like an art film, rather than a proper film

But of course we then released it

Got it shown on the BBC on Boxing Day

They showed it in black and white, and so... It was hated

They all had their chance then to say they've gone too far

Who do they think they are? What does it mean?

If you look to your left, ladies and gentlemen, the view is not very inspiring

Ah, but if you look to your right...

So that was really slated but when people started seeing it in colour

they realised that it was a lot of fun

Especially that aerial 'ballet' shot

We went all over Iceland, sent a guy out filming

In reality we hadn't done it...

as professionally as it could have been done

But it was our first go at that sort of stuff

It was in a very traumatic period of everybody's career, if you like

We did the best we could

I think under all the circumstances it really turned out very well

I think we thought it was OK, we were quite pleased with it

At the time it was all right, not the greatest thing we'd ever done

I defend it because nowhere else do you see a performance of I Am The Walrus

The only performance ever

so that's enough to make it an interesting film

And now we're going to play a track from Magical Mystery Tour

which is one of my favourite albums because it was so weird

I Am The Walrus is also one of my favourite tracks-because I did it

It has enough little bitties going to keep you interested 100 years later

We brought the Beatles to America in 1963

They can't be with us in person on our show, December 10th

when CBS and Mayor Lindsay will be naming this theatre after our show

But they sent this cablegram from London:

"Winter has come again to Great Britain and we sit by our fires, warming our feet

"We send all love to you and everyone looking in

"We are happy to be on your show, you too... too

"Have a beautiful Christmas and a sincere New Year. Love, The Beatles"

Signed by John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison

But tonight, although they can't be here, here are the Beatles on film

That was very thoughtful of the guys who prepared that for us

Incidentally, Hello, Goodbye is their latest hit record

In London, when the Beatles open a shop, everything slows down

A rolling stone's throw from Orchard St - Apple, the Beatles' new boutique

To mark the opening, the proud owners gave an apple-juice party

John Lennon and George Harrison were the hosts, the other two were out of town

Paul's in Liverpool and Ringo's in Rome

Disc jockey Alan Freeman talking to Cilla Black

Opening of the Apple Shop London 5th December 1967 Richard Lester, director of the Beatles films, among the 'in' crowd

On sale will be books, jewellery, paintings, hippy clothes and furniture

Apart from the loony clothes

and the hippy flower power stuff

There was supposed to be different music they now call World Music on sale

That's what we're supposed to do

and sell all these books about various things we were into

Various art or spiritual things, incense and whatever

All that kind of stuff. It looked quite good

The building was very nice-the painting was gorgeous. The Fool did that

A group of artists from Holland put this beautiful big mural on the wall

The Council got their knickers in a twist and said paint it white again

We said it's beautiful. Everyone loves it. Some residents probably objected

So then we were going to paint it white and project it from opposite

You know we were full of that. They were good ideas

Some you didn't get round to doing but it was a great ideas time

Far from the noise and pace of city life in the clear air of Rishikesh, North India

Pathe News reports from the meditation retreat of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

The man who through transcendental meditation

is currently bringing peace of mind to the Beatles

Rishikesh is an incredible place

99o/o of the population are all renunciants

It's right in the foothills of the Himalayas

It's where the Ganges flows out of the Himalayas

into the plains of Kurekchetra between Delhi and the Himalayas

We were away from everything. It was like a recluse holiday camp

right at the foot of the Himalayas

It's like a mountain, but it's the foothills, hanging over the Ganges

It was pretty exciting, we were in this really spiritual place

We were meditating a lot

We were having seminars by Maharishi

It was pretty far out

It was very much like a summer camp

You would get up in the morning, go down to a communal breakfast

The food was veggie, which is good for me now, but thinking back...

I was still meat-eating then, so it was all right, it was curries and stuff

The food was impossible for me

I'm allergic to so many things

I took two suitcases, one of clothes and one of Heinz beans!

We sat in the mountains eating lousy vegetarian food

and writing all those songs - we wrote tons of songs in India

Dear Prudence certainly got written there. Mia Farrow's sister was...

She sort of hibernated and meditated

We saw her I think twice in the two weeks I was there

Everyone would be banging on the door, "You still alive?"

Donovan was there and I remember I had a song called I Will

Do you remember a film show in the village?

What was that? - Did you write anything, George?

Obviously not - I wrote Sour Milk Sea

I wrote a number of songs which I never recorded. I wrote Dera Dhun

Why don't you play it for us, George?

I don't know if I know it

Something like that

There were lots of things the Maharishi had said-like that song C'mon c'mon -

C'mon it's such a joy

Everybody's got something to hide except for me and my monkey

Apart from the bit about the monkey, that was just what Maharishi used to say

A helicopter landed by the banks of the Ganges in Rishikesh

"One of you can go up for a ride with Maharishi, who's it going to be?"

"Me sir, me sir, sir, sir" and of course it was John

John was good at that, so it got to be him anyway

Later I asked "Why were you so keen to get up with Maharishi?"

"To tell you the truth, I thought he might slip me the answer." Very John!

I gave myself a set period, then if it was something we had to go back for

I was thinking of going back

But at the end of my month I thought, this'll do me

If I want to get into it heavy, I can do it anywhere-you don't need a church

I didn't come back with the others, anyway - I don't recall

Ringo probably came back quickly

He went for a couple of weeks to put his toe in the water and see what it was like

And Paul just came and went

George and I were there four months. We lost 13 pounds and looked a day older

Do you think this man's on the level? - I don't know what level he's on

But we had a holiday in India and have come back rested to play businessmen

Whose idea was Apple? I don't know

It was around, I think, before Brian died

I think Apple was the accountants' idea

"You must diversify"

The big theory was to put all our affairs into one bundle

We'd have our own company Apple, a record label, all we'd ever wanted to do

They all rang from England one morning

and said we're starting this company, Apple

so we upped and went to live in Surrey

and I became Apple Press Officer

The sole purpose of Apple

was so people didn't have to beg any more-artistes

If they had a valid idea we would front them

We had a publishing company, a record company

We should have had a big sign: You don't have to beg

The idea was we'd go to America and we'd say:

"Apple is starting - send us your huddled talent...

"we're interested." So we wanted a nice big launch

I had a strange feeling, I was very nervous

I had a real sort of personal paranoia on me

I don't know if it was what I was smoking then, but it was very strange

I remember being interviewed and John was doing great

He was wearing a bus driver or prefect badge

"What's that mean?"

Mr Lennon, can you tell us what it is you're wearing?

It's just a white button and that's 'bus prefect'

And that's what? - Bus prefect

He's in charge of a bus

They went on the Johnny Carson Show but Johnny Carson wasn't there

Joe di Maggio, I think, was the guy

Because Johnny was on holiday

It was one of the things that John said on that show:

"We'll just spin it like a top and see where it goes"

What do you see in the years ahead?

Apple... we'll try and set it up and then see where it goes

It's like a top. We'll set it going and hope for the best

That was pretty much what happened actually

We had some ideas... Wouldn't it be nice if...

because we got screwed in business all the time

You know how you have to go down on your knees. John famously said:

"We don't want people to have to go down on their knees"

It's a business concerning records, films and electronics...

Apple Press Conference New York 14th May 1968

But we want to set up a system whereby people who want to make a film

don't have to go on their knees in somebody's office-probably yours

Well, we did this mad thing

Maybe put an ad in the paper, saying:

"Send us your tapes and they will not be thrown away. We will answer"

We were just inundated with tapes and poetry and scripts

I don't think we got any bands or any artistes by that method

We never really got much from the tapes sent in

but people knew we were interested - Peter Asher brought along James Taylor

Derek Taylor Apple Press Officer When I started at Apple in April '68, James Taylor was already there

He was in the office with Paul and Peter Asher

Mary Hopkin was the main thing, you know

I didn't bring her, she was on a talent show

Mary Hopkin came from the Hughie Green... whatever his show was called

Opportunity Knocks!

I think Mal Evans found Badfinger, who were called the lveys at the time

Badfinger I thought came through Paul

And I produced Doris Troy and a record by Jackie Lomax

Jackie Lomax

James Taylor

The lveys

Badfinger

Mary Hopkin

Anyone was welcome to show up and produce as much as he wanted

But people didn't do the same amount of work

I lived in London, I was there more

so I probably did a bit more production than Ringo

I'm not sure what Ringo did

I wasn't as involved as the others

It was fun. We'd go in

A lot of what it did related to the four of us

John wanted to do stuff like Zapple

He wanted a funky label that he'd do crazy stuff on

so that became his area, which was quite nice

Maybe it was exciting for everybody else and for people from outside

For me, it was a lot of hard work setting it up and a lot of chaos

I was still in India when it started

I think it was basically John and Paul's...

madness, ego running away with themselves or with each other

It's just trying to mix business with enjoyment

We find ourselves in business

Are you the directors of this?

Yeah, but all the profits won't go into our pockets

They'll go to help people but not like a charity

We were just guys goofing off, having a lot of fun

Trying to get things under our control, which a lot of people do now

They have their own companies, take lawyers to meetings, get good deals

It was the start of all that but a pretty haphazard start

We had a lot of ideas of we could do this and we could do that

But when it came down to it really

all we could do was write songs, make records and be Beatles -

successfully

or maybe twice

there was an unearthly paradise called Pepper Land

The first thing when we heard they were going to do a cartoon

about a man who sailed to sea and went to the land of submarines...

Go down under the water, see these things, meet all the people living there

But we were into psychedelic stuff with Pepper

and they wanted more of that kind of stuff

It was up to them and we went along with that and they had the 'sea of holes'...

I think seeing it now it's pretty good, quite interesting really

Yeah, I liked the film. I think it's a classic film

We never did our own voices but probably the actors were better

You needed to be more cartoon-like, our voices were pretty cartoon-like anyway

But the exaggeration with the actors' voices

I think it suits it

That's where all of that stuff came from... that terrible fake Liverpool accent

They do look very nice, don't they? - Yes, they do

They do though, don't they? - Yes, they do

What's the matter fellas? Blue meanies?

The thing with that film that still blows me away...

was all the kids coming up to me, saying "Why did you press the button?"

As you know, I pressed that button to get shot out

Kids from all over the bloody world shouting "Why did you press the button?"

Don't touch that button - Which button?

That was the panic button

The film does go for every generation

Every four-year-old goes through Yellow Submarine

Hey! Look at John, will yer - What's the matter? Blue meanies?

Newer and bluer meanies have been sighted. There's only one way out

How's that? - Singing!

One... two... three... four...

Yoko was having an art show in London at the Indica Gallery

I heard this was going to be a happening so I went the night before the opening

The first thing as you went into the gallery was a white step-ladder

and a painting on the ceiling and a spy-glass hanging down

I went up the ladder, picked up the spy-glass. In teeny writing it said YES

If it had said NO or something nasty...

like rip-off or whatever, I would have left the gallery

Because it said YES, I thought it's the first show that said something warm to me

So I decided to see the rest of the show and that's when we met

The naked album cover was less general than that

Meaning that was one of the first things we did

We felt like two virgins, that's what the album was called

We were in love, just met and we were trying to make something

He showed me this cover

and I pointed to The Times

"Oh, you've even got The Times in it," like his dick wasn't out, you know

I said "Come on, John, you're doing all this stuff

"It may be cool for you but you know we have to answer

"It doesn't matter which one of us does something, we all have to answer for it"

He says "You only have to answer the phone" so "OK, fine"

From that point on

they were never to be seen without each other

for the next few years at least

The trouble was for us it encroached on our framework that we had going

Basically it had only ever been the four of us in the studio

maybe with Neil and Mal as the two roadies

or George Martin up in the control room or an engineer to fix a mike

But in our whole recording career that had been the setup

I used to ask John, "What's this about?

"What is happening here? Yoko's at all the sessions"

He told me straight: "When you go home to Maureen

"and tell her how your day was, it's 'Well, we had a good day in the studio"'

And he says, "Well, we know exactly what's going on"

That's how they started to live - every moment together

Everybody seemed paranoid except for us two in the glow of love

Everything's clear when you're in love and everybody was tense around us

What is she doing here at the session, or why is she with him?

All this madness because we wanted to be together all the time

Subtitles: Screentext