January 13th, 1969 (Twickenham Studios, London): As Paul Encourages An Unconfident Ringo To Go Ahead

January 13th, 1969 (Twickenham Studios, London): As Paul encourages an unconfident Ringo to go ahead with his plans to record a solo LP, John hedgingly brings up his own apprehensions about following his instincts (especially when he’s not even sure what he really wants to do). In their inimitable and emotionally non-committal fashion, John and Paul engage in metaphors about intentions, conveying these intentions in actions, and how these actions may be conveyed by those who see it. (Basically: what John and Paul talk about when they talk about love.)

PAUL: [to Ringo] The great thing is that you singing like how you really sing – will be it. It will be!

RINGO: Yes, but the only way is to do it on your own.

PAUL: Until then – yeah, sure. Until then – until you reach how you really sing, you’ll sing your half-soul.

RINGO: Yeah.

PAUL: And it’s probably when we’re all very old, that we’ll all sing together.

RINGO: Yeah.

PAUL: And we’ll all really sing, and we’ll all show each other how good we are, and in fact we’ll die, then, I don’t know. [Linda laughs; diffident] Probably, you know, probably something sappy or soft like that… I don’t know, but really, I mean, i– it’s really down to all those sort of simple, silly things to me.

YOKO: But those are the important things, you know.

PAUL: It’s got to be simple. It’s got to be simple. It can’t be A plus B equals X plus Y plus Z, because that’s them, you know. And it couldn’t be—

JOHN: [quiet] Maybe that’s what’s evading me.

PAUL: Yes. [sincere] But it’s okay, that, you know.

JOHN: [hesitating] I just, uh… because I’m not really sure what or how I feel about it.

PAUL: No, but you’re—

JOHN: Because any time—

PAUL: You’re unsure because you’re not sure whether to go left or right on an issue. You’ve noticed the two ways open to us. You know the way we all want to go. And you know the way you want to go. Which is positive! ‘Cause you want to go – now, okay. So your positive thing might actually be to kick that telephone box in. It might occasionally be to do that. So you know that’s the way you’ve gotta go.

YOKO: Everybody would want to see that, actually.

PAUL: But you don’t want to actually look like you’re kicking the telephone box in. So you have to sort of say to everyone, “Look at that over there, everyone!” And while they’re not looking, you’ll kick the telephone box in, and sort of— [whistles innocently]

JOHN: I don’t think that’s a fair representation. [laughs]

PAUL: [conceding] Oh, well, it involves me, that’s me. I do that, too. And I think we all do that. But I think the answer is, that – while you’ve got us all looking at nothing over there, and you’ve thrown us for a minute, we would actually all have dug to see you kick that telephone box in. Because we wanna see you do it.

YOKO: But we’d have to say it too, though. That’s another thing.

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George Harrison visiting Bob Dylan in Woodstock, New York (Nov. 1968)

I heard someone walk into the room and, assuming it was Barry Imhoff or Gary Shafner, I kept pounding away at the keys of the electric typewriter.

“Hi,” Bob Dylan said, pulling a chair over to my desk and slumping into it. “So have you seen George lately?”

Startled by his voice, it took a few seconds for me to respond. “Not since his tour a year ago,” I said.

“I really like George,” he said, reaching into his jacket and pulling out a cigarette.

I nodded my head. I liked George, too.

“So, I was thinking about it. I remember you from the Isle of Wight.” He turned his head and smiled at me, sideways. “I can’t believe I forgot my harmonicas. That was cool when you flew in on the helicopter.”

“Yeah, that was pretty cool,” I agreed. I wasn’t really sure how to talk to Bob, so I just followed his lead.

“That was a weird show,” he said. “I hadn’t performed in a long time, and I was pretty nervous.”

“You didn’t seem nervous,” I said, hoping to reassure him.

“Yeah?” he turned his head to the side and looked at me, narrowing his eyes, measuring my honesty. Then he seemed to relax. “Well, that’s good. But I sure felt it.”

He laughed, then, almost shyly, and averted his eyes. “I’m glad you’re on the tour,” he said. “Any friend of George’s is a friend of mine.”

- Chris O’Dell, “Santana (September - October 1975)”, Miss O’Dell: My Hard Days and Long Nights with The Beatles, The Stones, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, and the Women They Loved

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