FEATURE:
Paul McCartney at Eighty
IN THIS PHOTO: John Lennon as part of The Quarrymen at a garden fete at St Peter’s Church, Woolton, Liverpool on 6th July, 1957
Six: 6th July, 1957: When Paul Met John
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THERE are two big anniversaries/birthdays…
IN THIS PHOTO: Paul McCartney in November 2021
this year relating to Paul McCartney. For one, he turns eighty on 18th June. As I have said, I am doing a series of features ahead of his birthday to celebrate his music and overall genius. There will be a fair few concerning with The Beatles. I thought, as it is sort of the start of the story, I would write about the time Paul McCartney met John Lennon. That discovery occurred in 1957 – this year, we mark sixty-five years of that historic event! It is hard to understate the significance of the meeting between McCartney and Lennon. Maybe they would have come across one another eventually, though there seems something romantic and fated about 6th July, 1957. Whilst there is a little debate whether the first conversation and meeting occurred at a fete or a local chip shop, we do know it was that warm July day in 1957. As McCartney was only fifteen, he was a blossoming musician - but it would be a few years before he started to write more prolifically (certainly songs that showed what he would be capable of with The Beatles). I often wonder what would have been had McCartney and Lennon not got on or connected. Would they each be in different bands or written completely different songs? It is a good thing that these geniuses did find one another! I find it staggering that two musicians with such incredible talents occupied the same space as teenagers in ’57! Those who were around McCartney and Lennon would not have known what would become and how these two would change the course of musical history.
So. How and where did Paul McCartney and John Lennon meet one another? It is quite quaint and modest how these two future world-class songwriters came to know one another. The Beatles Bible set the scene and reveal the course of events that magical day:
“6 July 1957 was a pivotal day for the history of modern music: it was the day that John Lennon met Paul McCartney for the first time.
In the afternoon the Quarrymen skiffle group played at the garden fete of St Peter’s Church, Woolton, Liverpool. The performance took place on a stage in a field behind the church. In the band were Lennon (vocals, guitar), Eric Griffiths (guitar), Colin Hanton (drums), Rod Davies (banjo), Pete Shotton (washboard) and Len Garry (tea chest bass).
The group arrived on the back of a lorry. As well as music, there were craft and cake stalls, games of hoop-la, police dog demonstrations and the traditional crowning of the Rose Queen. The fete was a highlight of the year for the residents of the sleepy Liverpool district.
The entertainment began at two p.m. with the opening procession, which entailed one or two wonderfully festooned lorries crawling at a snail’s pace through the village on their ceremonious way to the Church field. The first lorry carried the Rose Queen, seated on her throne, surrounded by her retinue, all dressed in pink and white satin, sporting long ribbons and hand-made roses in their hair. These girls had been chosen from the Sunday school groups, on the basis of age and good behaviour.
The following lorry carried various entertainers, including the Quarry Men. The boys were up there on the back of the moving lorry trying to stay upright and play their instruments at the same time. John gave up battling with balance and sat with his legs hanging over the edge, playing his guitar and singing. He continued all through the slow, slow journey as the lorry puttered its way along. Jackie and I leaped alongside the lorry, with our mother laughing and waving at John, making him laugh. He seemed to be the only one who was really trying to play and we were really trying to put him off!
That evening the group were due to play again, minus Colin Hanton, this time at the Grand Dance in the church hall on the other side of the road. They were due on stage at 8pm, and admission to the show, in which the Quarrymen alternated on stage with the George Edwards Band, was two shillings.
While setting up their equipment to play, the Quarrymen’s sometime tea-chest bass player, Ivan Vaughan, introduced the band to one of his classmates from Liverpool Institute, the 15-year-old Paul McCartney.
This historic occasion was the first time McCartney met John Lennon, one year his senior. McCartney wore a white jacket with silver flecks, and a pair of black drainpipe trousers.
The pair chatted for a few minutes, and McCartney showed Lennon how to tune a guitar – the instruments owned by Lennon and Griffiths were in G banjo tuning. McCartney then sang Eddie Cochran’s ‘Twenty Flight Rock’ and Gene Vincent’s ‘Be-Bop-A-Lula’, along with a medley of songs by Little Richard.
I remember coming into the fete and seeing all the sideshows. And also hearing all this great music wafting in from this little Tannoy system. It was John and the band.
I remember I was amazed and thought, ‘Oh great’, because I was obviously into the music. I remember John singing a song called ‘Come Go With Me’. He’d heard it on the radio. He didn’t really know the verses, but he knew the chorus. The rest he just made up himself.
I just thought, ‘Well, he looks good, he’s singing well and he seems like a great lead singer to me.’ Of course, he had his glasses off, so he really looked suave. I remember John was good. He was really the only outstanding member, all the rest kind of slipped away.
Paul McCartney, 1995
Record Collector”.
The two knew one another for just over twenty-four years. Although the relationship would go through some turbulence at the end of The Beatles’ career until shortly before Lennon’s death in 1980, they did reconcile and become friends. There was something brotherly about their bond. Being in the band forged this kinship. Whilst it faced challenges, it also led to some of the greatest music the world has ever heard! Less than a month after Paul McCartney’s birthday in June, he will get to think back sixty-five years and this day when he met someone who would become a great friend and writing partner. In the John Lennon at 80 celebrations from 2020, McCartney spoke with Lennon’s son, Sean, about the time the two met. NME quoted Paul’s recollections:
“In McCartney’s segment, he recalled when he first realised Lennon was special. He said he had first noticed him on the bus and thought he was “an interesting looking guy”, but had no idea he played music until their friend Ivan introduced them at the village fete where The Quarrymen were playing.
“I knew nothing about him except that he looked pretty cool,” he explained. “He had long sideboards and greased back hair and everything.”
McCartney continued to talk about the band’s musicianship, saying that their attitude was more important than sophistication. “My attitude would be, ‘This is what I want to do’ and then John would bring another edge to it,” he said. “What was the great thing was the combination of those two attitudes and I look back on it now like a fan.
“I think, ‘Wow, how lucky was I to meet this strange Teddy Boy off the bus who turned out to play music like I did, and we get together and, boy, we complemented each other’. They say with marriages opposites attract and we weren’t madly opposites, but I had some stuff that he didn’t have and he had some stuff I didn’t have so when you put them together it made something extra”.
As Paul of my Paul McCartney at Eighty series, I will explore more to do with him and The Beatles. From the debut album through to the final embers of Abbey Road, I am excited to discuss the cultural significance of Paul McCartney as part of the group. On his birthday on 18th June, the world will come together and celebrate a wonderful human. In this series, I simply had to discuss the time McCartney and Lennon met. It is such a monumental and important event; one that would go on to alter the course of music as we know it. Just think back to July 1957 when these two talented teens…
FIRST said ‘hi’.