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   CLUB SANDWICH 72

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            Have you written any songs to express thoughts or feelings that you could not verbalise in any other way?
            from EKse Pinnas, Boston, MA, USA
            Yes, 'Here Today', which was written for John. It was always a very difficult question, after John died, to deal with the finality of it. He had been making digs at me, in 'How Do You Sleep' and all of that stuff, and I'd not really addressed any of those comments. But we had settled our differences before he died, we enjoyed good fun phone conversations.
            So I addressed them in 'Here Today', saying, in effect, "If you were here today you might say that such and such a thing is a load of bullshit but you and I both know that it isn't".

            Would you ever consider releasing a compilation of your promotional videos?
            from Joyce Meyer, Independence, MO, USA; Pat Meisner, Copenhagen, Denmark; Pat Sudds, Hillsdale, MI, USA; Pam Barrett, Waterlooville, Hants, England; Derek Wells, Horsham, West Sussex, England; Al James Meldonian, Warwick, RI, USA; S Sammons, Stafford, England

            Yes. We've been planning it for years but it's the sort of thing we hold back for when nothing else is happening. Next year, for example, there'll be The Beatles' Anthology, last year there was Paul Is Live, this year we've left it too late. So it won't be for a couple of years yet but, yes, we do have definite plans to do it. Club Sandwich 72

            Is there one song by someone else you wished you had written?
            from Carol Price, Coventry, England; Kate Graham, Weybridge, England; and Adrian Rider, St Ives, England

            I don't really want to have written anyone else's songs, but, as a fantasy question, I love 'Star Dust', by Hoagy Carmichael and Mitchell Parish. It's a beautiful song. And I remember thinking that Billy Joel's first hit, 'Just The Way You Are', was a nice song, I'd like to have written that one too. 'Star Dust' first, though.
            But when it comes down to it, the truth is that I feel so lucky at what I've done... if I ever start listing them: 'The Long And Winding Road', 'The Fool On The Hill'...it's difficult to take it all in.

            Whatever happened to the Cold Cuts album project?
            from Stephen Chastelle, London, England; Chris Rowsell, Shepperton, England; Karl-Gustaf Ryderup, Lidkoping, Sweden; BJ0rn Barstad, Trofors, Norway

            It became a bootleg, which put me off the idea.
            The project originally started out as Hot Hitz And Kold Kutz, with two k's and two z's, but then someone at the record company said "Why have cold cuts on a hot hits album?" as a result of which it became simply Cold Cuts. So it went on the back-burner and cooled off, to mix a few metaphors, and then went even cooler when I discovered that it had become a bootleg.
            I still have a lovely unused cover the for the album, drawn for me by Saul Steinberg, best known by the public for his New Yorker drawings. I got to know him and for many years was asking him to draw me a cover, and eventually he came up with something. This is probably the most compelling reason to issue the album, actually: just to use his cover!
            Like the promo video compilation, though, these things can get in the way of other projects. I mean, if you've got a "real" album already out then to issue another one can be confusing. I'd love to release millions of things but it would mean issuing about 12 albums a year, and the powers that be don't like that because you spread yourself too thin.

            What piece of music moves you the most?
            from Michele Allen, Santa Cruz, CA, USA

            Quite a wide range of music moves me and can make me cry, but what comes immediately to my mind is not actually a piece of music but a musical situation. We were in Africa once, listening to Fela Ransome Kuti, and when he and his band eventually began to play, after a long, crazy build-up, I just couldn't stop weeping with joy. It was such a fantastic sound, to hear this African band playing right up your nose, because we were sitting right by them. The rhythm section was so hot, so unusual, that it was a very moving experience for me.
            Hearing the Oratorio done for the first time in public, at the Liverpool premiere, was another moving moment, especially the a capella 'Mother And Father' section at the end of War, the first movement. Club Sandwich 72

            You are rumoured to have recorded a special album at home one Christmas in the 1960s in which you sang, acted and performed sketches, only three copies of which were said to have been pressed - for John, George and Ringo. Is this true?
            from Benito Ricordi, Torino, Italy

            Yes, it's true. I had two Brenell tape recorders set up at home, on which I used to make experimental recordings and tape loops, like the ones in 'Tomorrow Never Knows'. And I once put together something crazy, something left-field, just for the other Beatles, a fun thing which they could play late in the evening. It was something for the mates, basically.
            It was called Unforgettable and it started with Nat 'King' Cole singing 'Unforgettable', then I came in over the top as the announcer - "Yes, Unforgettable, that's what you are! And today in Unforgettable..!' It was like a magazine programme: full of weird interviews, experimental music, tape loops, some tracks I knew the others hadn't heard, it was just a compilation of odd things.
            I took the tape to Dick James's studio and they cut me three acetate discs. Unfortunately, the quality of the discs was such that they wore out as you played them. I gave them to the fellas and I guess they would have played them for a couple of weeks, but then they must have worn out. There's probably a tape somewhere, though.