When my uncle told Lennon that I was born near Frankfurt, the son of a Jewish-American father and a German-Protestant mother, John quipped that I was lucky to belong to both the Chosen People and the Master Race. He then began peppering me with German phrases he remembered from his early days in the red-light district of Hamburg with the Beatles, for instance: “Um zweiundzwanzig Uhr müssen alle Jugendliche den Saal verlassen” – At 10:00 p.m. all minors must leave the premises – and “Ficken, lecken, blasen!” – fuck, suck, blow.
John Lennon: Living on Borrowed Time, Frederic Seaman (1991)
Wikipedia Cynthia Powell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynthia_Lennon
TAG of BEATLES in my Tumblr https://kichisaburo3.tumblr.com/tagged/BEATLES
それでも付き合いたての蜜月期はハンブルクからジョンは度々手紙を送り、それは目にしたミミが卑猥だと激怒するほど明け透けにラブラブなものだった。その手紙や、ジョンと愛し合ったという事実は永遠にシンシアだけのもの。ジョンの妻という重責、それでもそれはかけがえのない日々だったろうな pic.twitter.com/XWB9VftkVW
— Emmie Bead (@emmie_bead) September 10, 2024
11 SEP 2024 Wednesday
Drawings of George Harrison by Klaus Voormann
A style selection, 1956-1969.
A continuation of sorts from this post.
“[George’s] idea, which he ordered [in Liverpool in the 1950s], was a four-button jacket with cloth-covered buttons. Two breast pockets which were slitted (jetted) and in the shape of a bird in flight, the two side pockets corresponded. The cuffs had to be folded back with a cloth-covered button. His trousers had no pleats in the front, not normal in those days, and he was by far the very first person to have two slits at the bottom side seam of the trouser and he wanted them folded back with cloth covered buttons to match the cuffs on his jacket. The workshop queried the order when they received thinking we had gone bonkers. George got his suit and was pleased with the outcome. Later lots of guys were walking about town with cut back cuffs and side seams on their trousers, but George was the first.” - Rollo Torpey, The Beatles and Me (2015)
“At Iris’s 14th birthday party, I remember George turned up in a brand-new, Italian-style stuff with covered buttons. He looked very grown-up.” - Violet Caldwell (mother of Iris, and Alan, a.k.a. Rory Storm), The Beatles Monthly September 1965
“[George’s mother Louise] took an unusually benign view of George’s luminous pink shirts, yellow waistcoat, and drainpipe trousers.” - Pete Shotton, The Beatles, Lennon, And Me (1984)
“Going in for flash clothes, or at least trying to be a bit different, as I hadn’t any money, was part of the rebelling. I never cared for authority. They can’t teach you experience; you’ve got to go through it, by trial and error.” - George Harrison, The Beatles: The Authorized Biography (1968)
“At the Institute, George was known from the beginning as a way-out dresser. Michael McCartney, Paul’s brother, was a year below him. He remembers George always having long hair — years before anybody else did. […] ‘George used to go to school with his school cap sitting high on top of his hair,‘ says Mrs. Harrison. ‘And very tight trousers. Unknown to me, he’d run them up on my machine to make them even tighter. I bought him a brand-new pair once and the first thing he did was tighten them. When his dad found out, he told him to unpick them at once. “I can’t, Dad,” he said. “I’ve cut the pieces off.”’” - The Beatles: The Authorized Biography (1968)
“I’d started to develop my own version of the school uniform. I had some cast-offs from my brother. One was a dog-toothed check-patterned sports coat, which I’d dyed black to use as my school blazer. The color hadn’t quite taken, so it still had a slight check design to it. I had a shirt I’d bought in Lime Street, that I thought was so cool. It was white with pleats down the front. and it had embroidery along the corners of the pleats. I had a waistcoat that John had given me, which he’d got from his ‘uncle’ Dykins (his mother’s boyfriend), Mr. Twitchy Dykins. It was like an evening-suit waistcoat — black, double-breasted, with lapels. The trousers John also gave me, soon after we first met — powder-blue drainpipes with turn-ups. I dyed them black as well. And I had black suede shoes from my brother. […] That outfit of mine was very risky, and it felt like all day, every day, for the last couple of years I was going to get busted. In those days we used Vaseline on our hair to get the rock n’ roll greased-back hairstyle. Also, you were supposed to wear a cap and a tie, and a badge on your blazer. I didn’t have my badge stitched on, I had it loose. It was held in place by a pen clipped over it in my top pocket, so I could remove it easily, and the tie.” - George Harrison, The Beatles Anthology (2000)
“He was always a pretty snappy dresser, and he did always like that waistcoat look. And he used to wear a V-neck Fair Isle jumper. Sometimes he’d be a little too outrageous, like purple trousers with bright green, but it was fine. Everything seemed to be fine then.” - Pattie Boyd, interview for the British Beatles Fan Club
“The boys are wearing all sorts of fantastic clothes for their film and introduce a very new, unusual gimmick. If they’re wearing corduroy, for example, then they have corduroy boots to match. If they’re seen in velveteen suits, then they’re coupled with velveteen boots. George first thought of the idea two years ago, but when he put the idea to a local bootmaker, he told him it couldn’t be done. Well, that’s one cobbler that’s been proved wrong.” - The Beatles Monthly, June 1965 (x)
"On the subject of coloured landscapes, I was the last in the group to take LSD. John and George had urged me to do it so that I could be on the same level as them. I was very reluctant because I'm actually quite straitlaced, and I'd heard that if you took LSD you would never be the same again. I wasn't sure I wanted that. I wasn't sure that was such a terrific idea. So I was very resistant. In the end I did give in and take LSD one night with John. I was pretty lucky on the LSD front, in that it didn't screw things up too badly. There was a scary element to it, of course. The really scary element was that when you wanted it to stop, it wouldn't. You'd say, 'Okay, that's enough, party's over,' and it would say, 'No it isn't.' So you would have to go to bed seeing things." - Paul McCartney, The Lyrics, 2021
George Harrison interviewed for Good Morning Australia in 1982.
“A very sincere gentleman. He’s got a great philosophy, a wonderful sense of humor. And I didn’t find him the quiet one.” - Kerri-Anne Kennerley, Good Morning Australia, 1982
“Ex-pop star, peace-seeker, gardener, ex-celeb, until now.” - George Harrison (on how he would describe himself in 1982), Good Morning Australia, 1982
Kerri-Anne Kennerley: “Do you think life is all predetermined?” George Harrison: “In some respects it is, although we do have control over our actions right at this moment. I think that what we are now is the result of our past actions. What we’re going to be is going to be the result of our present actions. As again, they said in the Bible, ‘God is not mocked, whatsoever man soweth that shall he also reap.’ That means the law of karma — action/reaction. There’s certain things that maybe there’s no way out, like, there’s no way I wasn’t going to be in The Beatles, even though I didn’t know it. In retrospect I can see that’s what it was — it was a set-up. At the same time, I do have control over my actions and I can do good actions or bad actions or I could try being a pop star forever and going on TV and do concerts and be a celebrity, or I can be a gardener.” - Good Morning Australia, 1982 (x)
JAY LENO: Who was the best cuddler?
RINGO: Ohhh. Georgie loved a hug.
“We’d walk down Lilly Lane which was like a lovers’ lane and kiss and cuddle.” - Iris Caldwell
“He was just standing there. Little George, all lost. I gave him a big bag of sweets and some apples. He threw his arms around me and Stu, which was the sort of demonstrative thing they never did.’" - Astrid Kirchherr
“George giving me a bear hugggg. My first time in London and…what a welcome!!! ‘It’s Klaus!’ George Harrison called, setting his guitar aside and walking toward me to give me a firm hug.” - Klaus Voormann
“I was surprised to see how affectionate he was with Olivia, holding hands, heads touching as they talked, snuggling up next to her at every opportunity…” - Chris O’Dell
“Olivia was in the room and asked Madeleine her name. The next thing [Madeleine] knew, George was walking across the room directly to her, and as if they were old friends, put his arms around her! She was so overwhelmed and she automatically put her arms around him and hugged him back.” - A fan
“Even hugging George was a psychedelic experience, what a gem of a man. Love him forever.” - Dave Stewart
“George was the kind of guy who wasn’t going to leave until he hugged you for five minutes and told you how much he loved you.” - Tom Petty
“Just a few months after his death, I was in Bungalow 8, a New York club that Paul Shaffer dragged me to, when I noticed a skinny fellow who was the spitting image of George - only young George - coming right toward me. Before I could say anything this young man embraced me in a tender hug and then pulled back to explain himself. ‘I’m Dhani Harrison,’ he said. ‘One of the last things my father told me was that if I ever come across people who were important to him, I should give them a hug.’” - Martin Short
Ed Sullivan gives The Beatles a message from Richard Rodgers on The Ed Sullivan Show in Miami, 16th February 1964
“I could draw naked ladies. I could do them on folded paper so that when it was closed up the lady had her clothes on and then when you opened it up…wey-hey! The only trouble was before she did the washing my mum used to go through my pockets for school dinner tickets and, of course, one day she found one of my naked ladies. I came home and my dad said, I want a word with you. Did you do this? It was like death. Anguish. Tears.”
— Paul McCartney on his claim to fame in school, from The Paul McCartney World Tour concert program, 1989 (via theoldpaulband)
“George was younger, the little one. He was very sweet, with his little tooth and the cocky songs he was singing. He was really cute, and was an essential part of the team. When all of them were harmonising together was incredible!”
— Klaus Voormann, “Hamburg Days” (1999)
“When he has that funny grin on his face, so that his little Dracula-tooth was showing — that was it! There he was, this little cocky underage boy singing cocky little songs like “C[‘mon] every body” or Joe Brown’s “I’m [Hen]ery the eight[h], I am” and then he played his little guitar solos, unmistakable George, nearly breaking his fingers on this cheap guitar, he hated so much. He couldn’t wait to earn enough money, to at long last be able to buy an expensive guitar. So when he got his first Grets[c]h, he proudly showed it to everybody. 1971 George let me have this Guitar. I loved it. Finally I had to give it back to him, which I think is perfectly right. He gave me a beautiful tel[e]caster as a replacement. Ain’t that great?”
— Klaus Voormann, “Hamburg Days” (1999)
“…George grinned his cheeky, crooked boyish grin beneath his thick brown head of hair. He was irresistible, and not just for the girls.”
— Klaus Voormann, on the first time he saw The Beatles; translated from “Warum spielst du Imagine nicht auf dem weißen Klavier, John?” (2003)