A Magical Mystery Tour: Arcane Facts About the Fab Four

We know that they were the most famous band who ever existed.

We know they both defined an era, and re-defined the boundaries of popular music.

We know that the Lennon-McCartney partnership was one of the most prolific songwriting teams to ever grace the planet (and that Harrison's efforts were far from being shoddy themselves).

We know that Paul was 'the cute one', George 'the quiet one', Ringo 'the funny one', and John 'the smart (or witty) one.'

But did you know that a teenage Paul McCartney was deported from Germany - during The Beatles' first Hamburg club residency - for setting a condom on fire in his hotel room?

Or that John Lennon loved cats (at one point he owned 10)?

Or that without George Harrison's involvement, Monty Python's 'Life of Brian' would never have been made? For it was he who bank-rolled the film when the original financiers withdrew (for good measure, he also popped up as Mr. Papadopoulos, "owner of the Mount").

Or that Ringo Starr originally wanted to be a hairdresser?

The history of The Beatles, and the four men who stood in the middle of that cultural tsunami, is as interesting, as varied, and often as surreal, as their delightful discography. It's a long, and winding road, punctuated by the occasional detour into the downright bizarre. Sometimes very bizarre; Beatles' trivia is never trivial - they never did things by halves.

Here's some of the best (and strangest):

Jelly Babies versus Jelly Beans

In a 1963 TV interview, George Harrison told the host that his sweet of choice was Jelly Babies.

As a result, at every concert following the admission, his adoring fans would shower the stage with them.

The novelty quickly wore off, and George retracted his previously stated fondness for the item in question, as can clearly be seen in a reply he ACTUALLY wrote (and sent) to a fan:

"We don’t like Jelly Babies, or fruit gums for that matter, so think how we feel standing on stage trying to dodge the stuff, before you throw some more at us. …besides it is dangerous. I was hit in the eye once with a boiled sweet, and it’s not funny.”

As annoying as this was when the group were gigging in the UK, things got considerably worse when they played in the US.

For, across the Pond, the softer Jelly Babies weren’t available... So fans threw the slightly-less forgiving jelly beans instead.

Proving he wasn't 'the quiet one' after all, George had a bit to say this about as well:

"We were absolutely pelted by the f*****g things. They don’t have soft Jelly Babies there, they have hard jelly beans. To make matters worse, we were on a circular stage, so they hit us from all sides. Imagine waves of rock-hard little bullets raining down on you from the sky… Every now and again, one would hit a string on my guitar and plonk off a bad note as I was trying to play.”

On August 21, 1966, The Beatles decided to stop touring, citing a range of factors. Although having to take evasive action from a cavalcade of candy every-time they stepped on-stage wasn't mentioned, nevertheless, confectioners on both sides of the Atlantic cried, heartbroken at the loss of revenue.

1967: Acid and Peppers

There was never a dull year with The Beatles. Something was always happening. However, 1967 was a special one.

Even by their standards.

This was the year the band bought the Greek island of Leslo, surrounded by four smaller islands (one for each Beatle), for £95,000. They then sold it a few months later after they got bored with the idea.

It was also when Paul had his first acid trip. Apparently, he only did this to keep John company, after Lennon had ‘accidentally’ swallowed a tab of acid. Not sure I fully buy any of that...

(However, whilst we're on the subject of drugs...

Both Lennon and McCartney vehemently claimed it was pure coincidence that ‘Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds’ spelled L-S-D, and that the song was instead inspired by a picture Julian Lennon had drawn at school of a little girl.

Meanwhile, 'Fixing a Hole' was literally about DIY, and not about illegal substances - it detailed Paul's attempts to fix his rambling Scottish farmhouse.

However, Paul later admitted that ‘Got To Get You Into My Life’ was about pot, and 'Day Tripper’ was about acid. While John confessed that the pill-supplying medic in ‘Doctor Robert’ was actually him: "I was the one who carried all the pills on tour in the early days.” So that all evens out then.)

1967 was also the year the band's manager, Brian Epstein died.

After being told the sad news, Lennon gave the bewildering response, “Isn’t it exciting?” (However, in terms of strange reactions to bereavement, Paul outdid him when, upon speaking to the press following John's murder he uttered the words, “It’s a drag, isn’t it?”)

1967 was also the year Lennon wrote ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ while on the set of the British black comedy, ‘How I Won The War’, in which he had a cameo role. (He also once wrote a Dylan parody called ‘Stuck Inside Of Lexicon With The Roget’s Thesaurus Blues’ - arguably my favorite song title of all-time).

It was also the year of 'Sgt. Peppers...', the record that changed popular music.

And a landmark recording requires some excellent trivia.

Among the people on the cover of ‘Sgt. Pepper’s...' is former band-member Stuart Sutcliffe - the man who thought up the group's name. Although Lennon disagreed; John claimed he had named the band after a vision in a dream, saying a man appeared “on a flaming pie,” saying, “You will be Beatles with an ‘a’.”

There's also Shirley Temple who was the only celebrity who insisted on hearing the album before granting permission to use her image. Mae West originally declined, but changed her mind after each of the four Beatles sent her a begging letter.

There's also an army of trivia behind each track (but we'd be here all year sifting through that lot), so let's just focus on my favorite song off the album: 'Good Morning, Good Morning.'

The genesis of this song was annoyance: Lennon had not only been irritated by a harmless advertisement on television for Kellogs’ Cornflakes, McCartney's joyful, saccharine 'Good Day Sunshine' had also got under his skin, and this was his much darker riposte.

(Oh, and the animals at the end of the track? They feature in pecking order - the order in which the animal would eat the previous one. Told you it was dark.)

Paul is Dead

One of the weirdest ideas that swirled around The Fab Four was that Paul McCartney, one half of the songwriting duo at the group's heart, actually died at the height of Beatlemania, and was then replaced with a doppelganger.

The source of these rumors? In November 1966, Paul had a moped accident. And some early reports stated he'd been decapitated. (There was variation of this when it was - inaccurately - also reported he'd suffered a car crash.) However, the same people who believed Paul had - literally - lost his head, further believed that a McCartney-lookalike had then been inserted into the original line-up.

Why? EMI and Parlaphone, not wanting to lose The Beatles-shaped Golden Goose, were willing to do anything to keep the band going.

Thus, according to conspiracy theorists, that's not Paul on 'Sgt. Peppers' or 'Let It Be' - it's a double.

The idea rumbled on for the next few years, but blew-up with the release of 'Abbey Road', the cover of which was cited as irrefutable proof that Paul was dead.

Apparently, it's allegorical, and was an attempt by the three remaining Beatles to subtly tell their fans Paul was indeed deceased.

On the cover, John supposedly represents the preacher; Ringo the undertaker, Paul, the bare-foot corpse; George the gravedigger.

Also, Paul is out of step with the other Beatles. Why? Because he's dead, and they're all still alive.

Additionally, the last part of the car's registration plate by George's head ('28IF') indicates the age Paul would have been if alive - 28.

Sadly, it's all nonsense. Wonderful nonsense, but nonsense nonetheless.

Paul didn't die in that moped accident: He cut his lip, and chipped a tooth. Far from losing his head, he just grew a mustache to cover the scar.

Being barefoot? On the day the photo was taken, McCartney was wearing sandals. At some point he took them off. However, the shoot was rushed: The police would only stop the traffic on this busy London road for a short time, and - during one of the few times they did - everyone had to move quickly to get the image: Paul simply didn't have time to put the sandals back on.

Being out of step? He just was. That's it. In the other five photos taken that day, all of them are out of sync at some stage.

And the car? It was owned by a resident who lived on Abbey Road. It had been there the year before (when Paul was 27), and the year after (when he was 29). The '28' was just a bizarre co-incidence.

However, the biggest argument against the whole 'Abbey Road'-cover-proving-Paul-is-dead thing is the simple fact that the album was never originally called that.

To begin with, the working title of ‘Abbey Road' was ‘Everest’, after sound engineer Geoff Emerick’s favorite brand of cigarettes. When the record label suggested the Fab Four actually go to the Himalayas to shoot the cover, the band lost interest in the title, and the album's title changed to the name of the street the recording studio was on.

It wasn't about subliminal messaging; it was laziness.

Given that they were barely on speaking terms by this point, you can understand why a trip to Nepal held little appeal, and why they opted for expediency.

Ringo's Diet

Despite being the last 'official' member to join, and the least productive of the quartet in terms of songwriting, Ringo Starr (a.k.a Richard Starkey), pulled his weight in providing Beatles-related trivia.

It was Ringo who - indirectly - created the iconic drop-T Beatles logo. It was hastily drawn by a music shop owner, Ivor Arbiter, when Ringo bought a new drum-kit from his London shop in 1963.

As well as considering a pre-fame career in hairdressing, at one point Ringo got so fed up with the whole Beatlemania-thing, he seriously contemplated leaving the group for good, and emigrating to Texas to become a country musician.

However, Lennon and McCartney were glad he didn't as Ringo was predisposed to dropping the odd malapropism (or Ringo-ism, as John liked to call them), which - in turn - inspired the others;

"We went to do a job, and we'd worked all day and we happened to work all night. I came up still thinking it was day I suppose, and I said, 'It's been a hard day …' and I looked around and saw it was dark so I said, '… night!"

Like many Ringo-isms, 'a hard day's night' seeped its way into collective consciousness thanks to Lennon and McCartney.

However, none of that compares to Ringo's strange relationship with food.

Starr didn't write many songs, and the few he did may not be perfect, but they're certainly memorable. Exhibit A: 1969's 'Octopus’s Garden.’

He got the idea for the song during a boat trip whilst on holiday in Sardinia. Whilst on-board, the ship's captain regaled him with tales about the eight-legged sea-creature; Ringo was especially taken with the idea that octopuses collect shiny objects from the seabed to build gardens. It may be apocryphal, but it's alleged that later that day he was offered octopus for tea: He declined.

Which begs the question just what did he eat? Because the Beatles drummer is a bit of a fussy eater.

Why? To put it mildly, poor Ringo suffered with ill health as a boy. When he was 6, he fell into a coma after his appendix burst. At the age of 13, he spent a year in hospital recovering rom tuberculosis. Partly due to his poor health, Ringo developed a range of allergies.

“I’m highly allergic to onions and garlic and spices. I’ve never had a pizza, never had a curry.”

Nowadays, it appears he lives on broccoli, and blueberries.

The 3 childhood years he lost to hospitalization is also the reason why he's a germaphobe: He prefers to bump elbows instead of shaking people's hands.

Ringo Starr: Legendary drummer; non-hand-shaker; vegetable-lover; and the octopus' best-friend.

And in the end...

This could easily be Part One of almost infinite series; I've barely scratched the surface.

I mean, I haven't even mentioned that The Beatles auditioned for Decca in January 1962, but were rejected on the grounds that “Guitar groups are on the way out." A sentiment echoed by John's guardian, Aunt Mimi, who told him, “The guitar’s all right as a hobby, but it won’t earn you any money.” (Years later, John gave her a silver plaque with that quote engraved upon it.)

There's a ridiculous amount.

For, as many wonderful songs they gave us, The Beatles also left behind a exhaustive catalogue of arcane, often surreal, trivia.

Today we've only covered Jelly Babies, decapitation, doppelgangers, drugs, and octopuses. It'd probably be more than enough for most bands: For The Beatles, it's not even the smallest fraction.

There's lots (lots) more where that all came from...

Like the time George Harrison had a major falling out with Yoko Ono over... a biscuit.

Or the unfinished play John and Paul begun called 'Pilchard' about a man who thought he was God.

Or...

Next time. I'll save all of that for next time.

Until then, you can find me watching 'Life of Brian', whilst munching on Jelly Babies, and broccoli, and trying not to hum 'Octopus's Garden.'

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If you've liked what you've read, please check out my other articles about The Beatles:

I also write about film, theatre, and mental health: The story of my admission to a psychiatric ward, and my attempts to rebuild my life following my discharge, starts with 'Flow: The Psychiatric Ward' -

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