Meet The Beatles: One Two Three Four | EXTRACT

Winner of the  Baillie Gifford Prize 2020, One Two Three Four traces the chance fusion of the four key elements that made up The Beatles: fire (John), water (Paul), air (George) and earth (Ringo). It also tells the bizarre and often unfortunate tales of the disparate and colourful people within their orbit, among them Fred Lennon, Yoko Ono, and more! Read on to find out more about the iconic band that defined the 1960s:

 

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

In their neat black suits and ties, Brian Epstein and his personal assistant Alistair Taylor make their way down the eighteen steep steps into the sweaty basement on Mathew Street. Brian finds it ‘as black as a deep grave, dank and damp and smelly’. He wishes he hadn’t come. Both he and Taylor would prefer to be attending a classical concert at the Philharmonic, but curiosity got the better of them. Four young musicians saunter onto the stage. Brian recognises them from the family record shop he manages: they are the ones who lounge around in the booths, listening to the latest discs and chatting to the girls, with absolutely no intention whatsoever of buying a record.

Between songs, the three yobs with guitars start yelling and swearing, turning their backs on the audience and pretending to hit one another. Taylor notices Brian’s eyes widen with amazement. Taylor himself is undergoing one of the most shocking experiences of his life – ‘like someone thumping you’ – and he is pretty sure Brian feels the same.

After the show, Taylor says, ‘They’re just AWFUL.’

‘They ARE awful,’ agrees Brian. ‘But I also think they’re fabulous. Let’s just go and say hello.’

George is the first of the Beatles to spot the man from the record shop approaching.

‘Hello there,’ he says. ‘What brings Mr Epstein here?’

———

Other groups had a front man; your favourite was pre-selected for you. No one would ever pick Hank Marvin over Cliff Richard, say, or Mike Smith over Dave Clark.

But with the Beatles there was a choice, so you had to pick a favourite, and the one you picked said a lot about who you were. For their American fan Carolyn See, there was ‘Paul, for those who preferred androgynous beauty; John, for those who prized intellect and wit; George because he possessed that ineffable something we would later recognize as spiritual life; and Ringo, patron saint of fuckups the world over.’

In Liverpool, the twelve-year-old Linda Grant favoured Ringo ‘for reasons that are beyond me’. There was, she recalls, ‘a real goody-two-shoes at school who liked Paul. George seemed a bit nothing. John seemed off-limits, too intimidating.’

Ringo was the Beatle for girls who lacked ambition. Picking him as your favourite suggested a touch of realism. It went without saying that the others were already taken, but you might just stand an outside chance with the drummer. ‘If someone asked who my favorite was I always said, “Oh, I like Ringo,”’ remembered Fran Lebowitz, who grew up in New Jersey. ‘I liked the personality of Ringo Starr. I still do. He was not, of course, the favorite in my school among the girls. Paul McCartney was far and away the favorite. He was the cute Beatle. So it was probably just a contrarian position to choose Ringo Starr.’

Helen Shapiro was only sixteen but already a major star when the Beatles toured as one of her supporting acts at the start of 1963. Like any other girl, she had her favourite. ‘John was married but nobody knew about it at the time so along with a few thousand other girls I had a crush on him … George was the most serious. He would occasionally talk about what he was going to do when he was rich, and try to pick my brains about the financial side of things. I couldn’t have been a lot of help. I still wasn’t interested in the money. Paul remained the spokesman. Ringo was the quiet one.’

Pattie Boyd met the four Beatles after being chosen to play one of the schoolgirls in Hard Day’s Night. ‘On first impressions, John seemed more cynical and brash than the others, Ringo the most endearing. Paul was cute, and George, with velvet brown eyes and dark chestnut hair, was the best-looking man I’d ever seen.’ Unlike millions of other fans, Pattie was able to take her choice a stage further. Reader, she married him.

There was a Beatle to suit every taste. As a fan, you expressed yourself by picking one over the others. Each personified a different element: John fire, Paul water, George air, Ringo earth.

 

To read more from Craig Brown’s extraordinary book, order your copy of One Two Three Four today!