Ecstasy in Liverpool

42

CSTASY IN LIVERPOOL Shrine-hopping in the Holy Land of rock-and-roll,

by David Owen

COUPLE of years ago, Charles F. Rosenay Rosenay!!!'s, and was overwhelmed by the response. decided that his surname just wasn't getting The group he put together for his first tour rep- the job done anymore. So he did what logic resented a substantial slice of American life. There A demanded and had three exclamation marks was a music teacher and a Mississippi River tug- legally appended to it. Rosenay!!! (as his driver's li- boat crewman, a plumber and a data processor, a cense now identifies him) is twenty-five years old travel agent and a newspaper copy editor, a hair- and lives with his parents in New Haven, Connec- dresser and a man who sells cement. There were ticut. He is the editor and publisher of Good Day also half a dozen, secretaries, a man who works on Sunshine, a Beatles fan magazine that appearsirreg- Wall Street, two single parents accompanying teen- ularly and contains, among other things, letters like age daughters, a man who makes his living putting this one: "Your magazine is much better and over- wristwatches into packages, two Filipino girls who rules all other Beatles newsletters, which come as won their trips in a contest, and a young woman cheap-copied paper just thrown together. Yours is who decided to forgo a new' car in order to come. like a magazine right off the newsstand!" Rosenay!!! Not all of these people love the Beatles better than also puts on an annual Beatles convention and does money or oxygen. Some signed up because they a modest trade in Beatles memorabilia. wanted to take an inexpensive trip to England. But Rosenay!!!'s exclamation marks are like a private more than a few of them-including one woman Lennon-McCartney refrain (Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!). who tried to kill herself (twice) after John Lennon He so cherishes the memory of his favorite musi- was murdered-s-entertain feelings about the Fab cians that he would rather spend four nights in the Four that cannot honestly be described as normal. Liverpool Holiday Inn than, say, an entire week in Most of the group were also new to England. Buckingham Palace. (A book called The Beatles' Some had never flown on an airplane before, much England, a copy of which Rosenay!!! owns, dismisses less posed for a passport photo. This occasionally the palace as a tedious old pile that "finally made a produced confusion. Shortly before the tour depart- name for itself in 1965 when the Beatles were in- ed, Tony Raine received an urgent late-night tele- vited by Queen Elizabeth II to become Members of phone call from someonelll's mother. She had been the British Empire, which allowed them discounts studying her son's itinerary and had made the fatal in many of London's theatres.") Not long ago he misstep of failing to consider the difference in time got the chance to make the pilgrimage of his dreams. zones. Along with sixty-six other Americans, he paid $895 "Why does it take twelve hours to get there," she and traveled 3,000 miles in order to spend eight demanded, "and only two hours to come back?" days tramping around London and Liverpool, fol- lowing in the footsteps of the Beatles. I went, too. In fact, Rosenay!!! and I were room- HORTL Y AFTER sunrise on our first full day mates. The tour that Rosenay!!! and I joined was in England, the members of the Rock Apple organized by Tony Raine, a British expatriate .who Tour sat down to a hearty breakfast in the now runs a country inn in Maine. Last year he S_dining room of our London hotel. While we decided there might be a future in showing Amer- ate, a dark-eyed tour member with a 1964 BeatIe ican tourists the very sidewalk where Ringo Starr haircut walked slowly through the room recording once trod. He formed a company called Rock Apple the event on movie film. Enormous cardboard iden- Tours, placed a few discreet ads in publications like tification tags dangled from every sector of his per-

HARPER'S/DECEMBER 1983 43 son. American tourists are often faulted for not be- The Beatles' debut at Abbey Road twenty years ing interested in other people's countries. But the ago was not entirely auspicious: having flunked an Rock Apple Tourists were microscopically attentive audition at Decca, they won a modest contract from to detail. The previous afternoon, some six hours EMI and spent two agonizing weeks recording their after our arrival at Heathrow, a young man from (agonizing) first single, "Love Me Do." The studios New Orleans had told me that he'd just taken his arc usually closed to the public, but the group's old 108th photograph of the trip. quarters were being modernized, so EMI decided, After breakfast we boarded a pair of touring buses for the first time ever, to let people in. and set out for EMI's Abbey Road Studios, where When we actually set foot in the sanctum sane- the Beatles recorded most of their songs. Along the torum, the music lifting from the public address sys- way our guide, the celebrated Beatles scholar Mark tem was a choir of anonymous violins making sym- Lewisohn, pointed out historic landmarks. "On phonic soup of "I Want to Hold Your Hand"- your right you see the Royal Albert Hall," he said, Beatles Muzak, and at Abbey Road of all places. "made famous in the Beatles: song 'A Day in the The effect was jarring, all the more so because the Life.''' Camera shutters whirred, making a sound very ground was littered with genuine and nearly like locusts descending on genuine Beatles artifacts: the autumn harvest. The ~: a left-handed bass 'with driver steered cautiously ', ?}Jti~cl Paul's signature on the down a narrow street. "On _ back, an old microphone the left is George Har- once bathed by the breath <~"fJ;;'1.P...... ~~:~II' of John Lennon, some rison's business office," " e: ", ~ W' (,0P- Lewisohn noted, adding t;, d+<" !:'"~ ./ recording equipment used cruelly, "and there's quite Let It Be" and "Imagine." Beatie conceivably inside Self-consciousness evapo- it is a relic on a level with rated in the face of so the shroud of Turin. But much touchable stuff. the traffic was too heavy. Someone put on a pair of George's office, perhaps headphones and pretended even George himself, grew to sing into one of the small behind us. A sad mikes. A young man at voice cried out: "I want the back of the room, mo- to go back!" mentarily insensate, took The buses moved on inexorably. Lewisohn called a photograph of a photograph. our attention to a street "where Brian Epstein had Then the lights dimmed and we settled down to a flat." By now the Beatles pilgrims had whipped watch an excellent film called The Beatles at Abbey themselves into such. a lather of devotion that it did Road. Woven into the sound track were several un- not occur to some of them that he was talking about released recordings, including an early song called an apartment and not a punctured tire. They aimed "Leave My Kitten Alone" and a beautiful acoustic- their cameras at the ground. . guitar version of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." Many thousands of photographs later, we arrived (Hey, the Beatles were really good, you know?) at Abbey Road, a difficult thoroughfare to find since There were also many funny moments, including signs identifying it are usually stolen the instant they a series of failed attempts at the wrenching guitar are put up. The surrounding area is quiet and most- chord that opens the song "A Hard Day's Night." ly residential. Trees line the streets. You could live The British commercial instinct nowadays is al- ~ there for years without realizing you were on sacred most vestigial. When I asked a studio executive ~ ground-if it weren't for all those intense-looking whether there was any thought of introducing the lXl:s Americans wandering around with crowbars. Abbey Road show to a wider market, he sniffed, ~

HARPER's/DECEMBER 1983 44

"Our prime business is recording, actually." Part of period. Rosenay!l! clearly understands the differ- this was studied snobbery, put on specially for the ence between himself and his idol, and yet you can Yanks. But it's also true that Britons are embar- tell by the way he makes his eyelids droop at the rassed by the ardor of American Beatles fans. You . corners that he sometimes permits himself to be- have to admire them for being so reluctant to ex- lieve he knows what it is to be Paul McCartney. ploit the Lads, but sometimes you just want to grab Being a Beatles fan always involves choosing a them by the cheeks and shake them around. No one favorite. "I would say that about 70 percent are would wish on England a monstrosity like Elvis's Paul fans," a young woman told me on the bus one Graceland. But would it really be too tasteless for day. She was a partisan, of course, and not above EMI to air its Beatles relics more frequently than inflating her statistics. John, after all, retains great once every twenty years? You don't have to be a drawing power even from beyond the grave. When Beatlemaniac to get a kick out of seeing footage of I was in grade school, liking John best was thought an impossibly youthful George Harrison wearing a to reflect a certain depth of intellect. George fans STAMP OUT THE BEATLES sweatshirt. have never been nearly as numerous, although there Outside we made innumerable crossings of the is a fan club called the Harrison Alliance. "The road itself, just like you-know-who on their fa- Harrison Alliance has not only its fine quality print- mous album cover. Furious motorists screeched and ing going for it, but also features fabulous exclusive swerved as all sixty-seven Rock Apple Tourists photographs (which is one of the things that [it] is strode repeatedly from curb to curb. A handful of famous for)," according to a reviewer. The tricky skeptics then determined, after careful scrutiny of thing about favoring one Beatle is that you have to the cover photo, that the historic traverse had ac- push your man without running down the others. tually been made some dozen feet down the road. Actually hating one of the Fab Four would be un- Sextants and astrolabes were consulted; an authen- thinkable. Fans who find'themselves entertaining tic crossing was made. negative thoughts usually vent them by hating Pete Then it was on to Paul's house, less than a mile Best, the original drummer, or Paul McCartney's away. Charles F. Rosenay!!!-who, with nine Bea- wife. Yoko Ono used to be despised, but since John's tIes T-shirts and only eight days in which to wear murder her stock has risen dramatically. them, had spent the early morning hours in the grip "I wish I wasn't so into them," a temporary sec- of an existential crisis-led a small flanking action retary told me. "I wish I wasn't so analytical. For over a low wall and occupied soil actually owned me it isn't enough to like them. I've got to know by a former Beatle. At the high front gate, boys why they mean so much to me." She was a few days lifted girls onto their shoulders so they could snap shy of her twenty-ninth birthday. Over the previous pictures of the house. A small shrub, its branches decade she had watched her old friends drift away- lush with souvenirs, was quickly defoliated. A cou- to husbands, families, careers. "A lot of my friends ple of doctors from a local hospital good-naturedly don't understand," she said. But she had stayed true hid their faces in their lab coats, pretending that to Paul, her favorite. Remaining true to a man she's they were the objects of all the attention. When it never met can take a lot out of a girl-like going was time to leave, Rosenay! !!'s marauders reluc- into a convent. Still, she said, "I'm pleased for Paul. tantly stormed back over the wall, taking a casualty I think he's handled his life well, considering." in the process: a young woman lost her footing and Considering? Considering that he's never dropped banged her leg on the stone. A rivulet of blood by to say hello? "He's usually accessible;" she said appeared. "I skinned my knee on Paul's wall;" she with a certain resignation. "That's what they say. moaned, in ecstasy. Although I haven't seen him yet." The night before, she and another woman on the tour had stayed up till dawn discussing what the Beatles meant to them. HE MOST remarkable of the Beatles' many She described them as "four parts of one being." remarkable achievements was making them- She said her love for them had grown and become selves seem so familiar. Most people even sublime as she had, well, matured. "I'm experienc- Tremotely of their era know John, Paul, ing things that they experienced." The songs affect- George, and Ringo in a way that goes beyond any ed her more profoundly now than they had when actual knowledge of biographical detail. They have she was young, because now she understood them. the fleshed-out heft of well-made characters in fic- I asked her what she would say to McCartney tion. This is no small accomplishment. It isn't every if she ever had the good luck to meet him. She had personality that can burrow itself into the conscious- several possible scripts, arrived at after many years ness of strangers and dwell there year after year. of careful consideration. "What the heck can I say For true Beatles fanatics-some of whom have. to you," one of them began, "that hasn't been said thought about little else for twenty years-the illu- a thousand times before?" (Not that, probably.) sion of intimacy has long since ceased to feel any- Another possibility: "Excuse me, I'm waiting for thing like an illusion. Charles F. Rosenay!!! wears Paul McCartney. Do you know where he 1S?" Humor his hair like Paul McCartney of the "Let It Be" is known to appeal to him. Screaming and fainting

HARPER's/DECEMBER 1983 45 are no longer advised. "Just act natural," she said. her true identity (she was his wife). "Killed an- Of course, each and everyone of the (undoubt- other roll of film," a tour member told me when he edly) millions of women around the world who climbed back on the bus. For the remainder of the dream of meeting Paul McCartney is convinced that tour, Stratford lingered vaguely in the group's col- she would be more natural, more offhand, more ir- lective memory, where it was known as Stafford, resistibly authentic than any of the others-if the Stanford, or Stratton. opportunity to prove it would only ever arise. Let's As the afternoon wore on, the Rock Apple Tour see: Paul steps into the elevator one day, you ca- hit spiritual low tide. The day was hot, the highway sually deliver the line you've been polishing for the was crowded, the Coca-Cola at the rest stop was last couple of decades, and before you can say an- warm. The bus ride dragged on for hours. At one other word he's forgotten all about dumpy old point we were stalled for many minutes in an area Linda Eastman and gotten off at your floor instead where the principal crop seemed to be cow manure. of his. "I wouldn't Jive in London for anything," a woman It's like praying, really, all this imaginary chatting said, the drive having soured her on the entire coun- with the Beatles. "I've always used it as a crutch try. "It's too dirty and there's no ice." Some grum- when things are really bled about the delay in bad." Times may be tough, Stratford, others about the but Paul is out there some- lack of air-conditioning. where just being Paul and One tour member, perspi- caring, although in a nec- ration streaming down his essarily general sort of face, tried to explain the way, about what happens superiority of American to you. weather to an uncompre- "It's frustrating that I hending British photog- get this close. I'd just like rapher: "You see, down the chance to find out my- .. _.;> .•. in New Orleans, the hu- self what I would say." midity is so hot ... " Else- where on the bus, a brood- ing young man muttered HARLES F. Rose- to himself under cover of nay!!! strolled the tape player, pausing across a parking now and then to lick his C lot in Stratford- fingers and moisten the on-Avon eating a Popsicle, end of his nose. "I Want carrying a shoulder bag, -, to Hold Your Hand" came and wearing high-top bas- on and he sang along, sub- ketball shoes, white knee stituting "ass" for "hand." socks, shorts, a Beatles Then, magic: Liverpool. wristwatch, a blue Paul The city's smokestacks McCartney T-shirt, and a loomed like the spires of bobby's helmet. In the Oz. The sulfuric haze background was all ad-· above the skyline parted vertisement for soft ice 4IMZ' like a curtain. We had ar- cream, a pub called (ap- <~ rived at the birthplace of parently) GOOD PUB FOOD, the Beatles. The day's or- an elaborate souvenir stand, throngs of international deal was forgotten and the bus came alive. vacationers. Stratford is a nice place, although in "There is the 'shelter in the middle of the round- tourist season it tends a little in the direction of about,'" our excellent guide, a pretty young woman Disneyland. Surrounded by camera-toting travelers, named Vivienne Greenwood, said as we drove past its authentically. ancient architecture looks bizarrely Penny Lane. like a clever reproduction. "Where? Where? Where?" We had stopped in Stratford for lunch on our way We passed a park bench with three girls sitting to Liverpool. There was some confusion in the ranks on it. "There's some birds hanging out!" a boy be- as to why a BeatIe-free location had been selected hind me cried. By now half a dozen tour members for this honor. William Shakespeare was mentioned, had begun to sound suspiciously like Beatles. When producing nods of recognition. On our way out of the tape player on one of the buses had faltered town, we pulled in at Anne Hathaway's cottage for earlier in the day, a thirtyish man with curly hair .!! a quick look. A debate developed as to whether hollered, "What happened to the bleedin' myoosic?" ~ Hathaway had been Shakespeare's mother or his Vivienne explained that Liverpool was a city with ~ mistress, two erring guesses that neatly bracketed serious problems. She pointed out a block of run- ~

HARPER's/DECEMBER 1983 46 down houses and the shell of a bank destroyed in Epstein know what he was doing? "Brian turned race riots. But the Rock Apple Tourists were not down an Ed Sullivan show because we didn't have easily depressed. the right number." ("No!" gasped the moderator.) "Hey, row houses!" Would the Beatles have stayed together longer if "I expected worse." Brian Epstein hadn't died? "The Beatles started "An American restaurant!" breaking up about the second year we were hap- "It's better than New York." pening." Funny, I don't remember a Beatie named "It's still pretty clean." Alistair. I must be getting old. "This is Rodney Street," Vivienne said. "It's One of the most popular convention speakers was known for its many doctors and surgeries. Glad- an American teacher of remedial reading named stone was born in Rodney Street." Joel Glazier. "Joel also lectures in a course on 'The "Burger Bar!" Beatles' at Delaware University," said the conven- "A space needle or something." tion program, "-we wish they had some courses "I expected it to be a lot worse." like that in Britain, imagine majoring in 'The Bea- Cheers erupted when we stopped in front of an tIes'!!!!!" (Rosenay!ll swears he didn't write this.) honest-to-god Holiday Inn and the driver turned "My lecture was' on 'Paul is dead,'" Professor Gla- off the engine. The day had been long and hot, but zier told me after I had wandered in too late to hear now everything seemed worthwhile. any of it. "I'm trying to write a book, but no one wants it. They all want Lennon books." Just his luck to have a Beatie actually die-there goes the .T HE BIG ATTRACTION in Liverpool was the market. Glazier was wearing a shirt that said TURN 1983 Mersey BeatIe Extravaganza, a three- ME ON IlEAD MAN backward. Who made the shirt? day convention and souvenir sale held in a "My mother." quietly shabby hotel near the center of town. After his speech, Glazier peddled three-dollar In the main selling area Beatles underpants were go- Xeroxes of a five-year-old article on his favorite ing for a pound a pair (about a dollar and a half). subject ("Whether it was to draw attention to him- A "certified' copy" of John's birth certificate was self by resembling a corpse is conjecture ... but sixty pence, marked down from seventy-five. Color [Paul's] explanation of being barefoot all day does snapshots of various Beatles, mostly Paul, were not hold up"). When demand slackened, he re- available for about a dollar each. Also Beatles book- tired to his booth and solicited donations for the marks, Beatles pocket mirrors, BeatIes scissors, Bea- John Lennon Peace Forest, which is in Israel. "John tIes combs, BeatIes nail files (Beatles hygiene is ap- is the most famous BeatIe in Israel," an Israeli Bea- parently big in Britain), Beatles patches, Beatles key ties collector proudly told me later. Did I have any rings, Beatles pens. For ampler budgets there were idea how many Beatles collectors there were in aU records, T'-shirts, books, magazines, coffee mugs, of Israel? No. "Five." and imitation BeatIes jackets (about $35). I bought On the last day of the convention, Victor Spinetti, some postcards, a little pin, and a. skinny black tie an actor who played characters in several Beatles that says THE BEATLES on it and that I now realize movies, was brought in to "personally authenticate" I will probably never wear. . a truckload of bricks from the old Cavern Club, All in all, I thought, the prices were reasonable- where the BeatIes started out. The bricks were £5 surprisingly so. I've never been to a Beatles conven- each. The Cavern Club had been torn down several tion in the United States, but I'm told the atmo- years before to make way for a parking lot; an ex- sphere is very different. Herds of high-rolling teen- clusive condominium was now abuilding on the site, agers surge from booth to booth buying forged which wasn't far from our hotel. "I hope you'll autographs with hundred-dollar bills stolen from •come forward and buy the bricks," Spinetti said. their parents, etc. An American dealer named Scott Many people did. One tour member bought five. A showed me a poster that he said usually sold for long line snaked around the room. Spinetti was sud- about ten dollars in the United States; the price in denly overcome with emotion. "Strawberry Fields Liverpool was thirty pence, less than half a dollar. forever!" he cried. "Buy the bricks, luvs!" Even at these prices, though, British attendees seemed content to leave most of the buying to Amer- icans. (The Rock Apple Tour's aggregate luggage VERALL, the Mersey Beatie Extravaganza volume approximately doubled during the course of was pleasantly uneventful. The only dra- the Extravaganza.) Attendance, I was told, was down matic moment came during Joel Glazier's significantly from the year before. Olecture, when an agitated, middle-aged Li- Later in the afternoon I went to a question-and- verpudlian loudly demanded to know what the Bea- answer session with Alistair Taylor, who was at one tIes had ever done for his city and then made such time the Beatles' "office manager and chief fixer." a scene he had to be physically removed. Liverpool Why did the Beatles get rid of Pete Best? "I just certainly has wounds no BeatIe will ever heal, but felt that the drum sound wasn't right." Did Brian the protester had chosen the wrong crowd on which

HARPER'S!DECEMBER 1983 47 to vent his rage. Beatles fans are probably the only obsession and I ought to get rid of it," she confided. people left in the world who have any genuine faith He may have been right. But the guy she went out in Liverpool's future as a place to live. "It's an in- with was also a John Lennon lookalike who played dustrial. city but not an industrious one," I had been guitar in a band called the BeatIes Forever. told by an Englishman who found the idea of spend- Celeste bought more than enough BeatIes stuff to ing a holiday there hilarious. cover both double beds in her hotel room. She To the Rock Apple Tourists, though, Merseyside bought a brick and got it signed by the surviving looked like the Kingdom of God. In moments stolen members of the Quarrymen, John's old group. "They from the extravaganza, they' paid penitent visits to were sitting there and treating me just like every- Strawberry Field, the Cavern Club construction site, body else, and they' were telling me about John and Aunt Mimi's old house, Penny Lane (where a pret- what he used to do. I thought, why are they stand- ty girl cried real tears when her camera ran out of ing here telling me this?" In Penny Lane one day film), countless pubs, a memorabilia-filled restau- she ran into Charlie Lennon, a distant uncle of rant called McCartney's Bistro, many other shrines. John's, and talked to him about "fishing and the People who had ordered tequila sunrises and shifted war." On the telephone later she told her mother nervously from foot to she felt like a celebrity. foot in London pubs now Never again, for Celeste happily downed pints of Sabatini, will America bitter and traded slang seem like home. She may words and obscenities with spend the rest of her life local barflies. The noisy in Moline, but her heart conventioneer excepted, will always be in Liver- Liverpudlians seemed pool. "When we were in touched-if a little' con- Penny Lane," she said at fused-by all the atten- the end, of the trip, "I tion: they don't get many started to get a tear in tourists up that way. my eye, because I don't One tour member, a want to leave." plumber, made so many But, of course, the Rock friends in Liverpool that Apple Tourists eventual- he abandoned the tour ly did have to leave. For group altogether in the eve- one thing, Charles F. Rose- nings. The tugboat crew- nay!!! was beginning to man pitched in backstage get hungry. During his at the convention. A girl week in England he sub- who had struck me earlier sisted almost entirely on as being terminally shy Rice Krispies, chocolate- walked right up to a stran- covered raisins, cookies, ger in a pub and started and 7-Up. Even so, like a conversation. Beatles fa- virtually everyone else on natics who didn't have the trip, he had the time many friends at home sud- of his life. When he got denly found themselves back to the United States, surrounded by people with it took him a full week to whom they actually shared get used to living on the an interest. On the third night in Liverpool, several earth again. Then he sat down and invited all his tour members tentatively paired off and disappeared; new friends to a big reunion at his next Beatles con- the next morning there were even a few surviving vention. Tony Raine, the tour director, offered to couples eating breakfast together. provide a bus. The biggest Liverpool fan on the tour was Celeste Raine also went to work on Rock Apple Tour II. Simone Sabatini. Celeste was born in 1957. She lives Abbey Road will be closed to the public again by in Moline and works as a secretary in her mother's the time the new group arrives, but Raine isn't over- private-nursing business. Her father left home when ly concerned. If Britain still isn't ready to worship she 'was two, returned briefly when she was twenty- the Beatles properly, he'll take his pilgrims else- two, then disappeared. "So it was kind of like what where. The Fab Four, after all, were Fab all over John had," she said, almost proud. She's been a Bea- the world, and Jerusalem is where you find it. The tIes fan since she was six-a babysitter gave her the first stop on the new tour, Raine says, will probably group's first album. Needless to say, her favorite be Austria. That's where you have to go if you want Beatle is John, although over the years she's loved to learn to snowplow from the actual person who them all. "The guy I went out with said it was an once taught the BeatIes how to ski. •

HARPER'S!DECEMBER 1983