CLUB SANDWICH 76

wanted to anchor the piece. I did one or two little tricks but they're very subtle, like I used my five-string bass, which has got a very low string on it, and saved the low string till the tune does a big key change in the solo, and it really lifts off there. So instead of doing the same bass note I went right down to my second lowest note on the instrument.
            Then Ringo did some great drumming on it, and Jeff Lynne - being very, very precise - made sure that every single snare was exactly correct and he and the engineer Geoff Emerick got a really great sound. And then George and I did harmonies, -which was finally when Ringo was chortling with glee in the control room saying, "It sounds like a Beatle record!". It finally did, really, sound like a Beatle record, and we were becoming more and more convinced that we were doing the right thing.
            Then George started to work on his guitar parts, and he did a secondary guitar part, between a lead and a rhythm, sort of arpeggio rhythm you'd have to call it. He came up with some nice little phrases there which are very subtle on the record: I tend to hear them about the third time through. And then finally he came up with his slide guitar. I told Jeff Lynne that I was slightly worried about this because I thought it might get to sound a little bit like 'My Sweet Lord' or one of George's signature things. I felt that the song shouldn't be pulled in any way, it should stay very Beatles, it shouldn't get to sound like me solo or George solo, or Ringo for that matter. It should sound like a Beatles song. So the suggestion was made that George might play a very simple bluesy lick rather than get too melodic. And he did: what he played was almost like a Muddy Waters riff. And that really sealed the project. I thought - I still think - that George played an absolute blinder, because it's difficult to play something very simple, you're so exposed. But it was fantastic and Jeff Lynne and Geoff Emerick got a great sound on him.
            And so that was it. We did the end bit, put little extra vocal things on that, and then the ukuleles, which was a tip of the hat to George Formby, whom George [Harrison] is particularly enamoured of. And I like George Formby a lot too, he's a great British tradition - and John's mum, Julia, used to play the ukulele so I suppose there was a point of contact there too. And then we got the phrase of John's to turn backwards, laid it into the mix and thought, "That's it, it really sounds like a Beatles record." I'd said to Yoko and Sean that if they didn't like it we wouldn't put it out, but it was great, it all worked.

Have you any idea what it must be like to organise press coverage for The Beatles Anthology? Geoff Baker has, for it is his job. Here's a snapshot of a typical day in the life

            Let me take... RING RING... you through a norm... RING RING... a normal few minutes working... RING RING... in the publicity... RING RING department of The Beat... RING RING... Beatles Anthology.
            It's crazy. Not for nothing did they call it Beatlemon/o. It is. It's insane...Nobody told me there'd be days like these.
            Actually, he did. He did warn me. "It'll be a little crazy," he said, one night back awhile, when I got home late and the message said: "Paul rang. He wants you to call him."
            But it's almost eleven at night.
            He said to call him.
            People here say I was white after that call. With shock. A far greater Geoff, the Anthology's director Geoff Wonfor, actually burst into tears when he took a similar call. But then you would too, if Paul McCartney hired you to work for the Beatles.
            But that was then and this is now, and a few months into it I'm beginning to question Paul's meaning of the term "little" as in "a little crazy". I'm beginning to understand that nothing has changed, the media now is the same as it was in the Sixties, and the media's attitude to the Beatles is best summed up in three words "gimme, gimme, gimme".
            Every newspaper, TV show and radio station on the planet wants the Beatles. They want to talk to them, be photographed with them, get a soundbite from them. They want to know how long their hair is, how did they feel recording 'Free As A Bird', will there be a press conference and, if so, will they be going to it, where do they stand on Jelly Babies these days, are they happy, are they not happy, where do they buy their guitars, why have they made this series, how long is it, when is it screened, who's in it, what does 'Free As A Bird' sound like, how do you spell Jeff as in Jeff Lynne, is George Martin involved, are they really all vegetarians (yes), are they going out on tour (no), how many songs are on the CD, what are they, what's your fax number, how tall is Paul, was it filmed in Liverpool and can they come and switch on our Christmas lights?
            I am not kidding.
            This is true also. In the past hour I have taken calls - asking for interviews with Paul about the Anthology - from the New Musical Express, The Big Breakfast TV programme, BBC Radio I, BBC Radio 5 Live, People magazine, VG newspaper in Norway, some bloke from Russian television and Channel 9 in Australia.
            And, get this, from Peacock magazine.
            Sorry? What magazine?
            "Peacock."
            I almost daren't ask...er, what's that then?
            "It's a magazine here in New York dedicated to people who have peacocks."
            (I am not making this up.) Peacocks?
            "Yeah, does Mr. McCartney have a peacock? I've heard there's a peacock involved in this Beatles Anthology."
            Actually, weird as all this is, there is. When Linda did the photo-shoot with Paul, George and Ringo, a peacock did walk into the shot, unplanned and doubtless symbolically.
            And, God, didn't that start another rush of calls as every picture desk I'd ever heard of scrambled to put Linda's pictures on their pages. "Gimme, gimme, gimme."
            Sorry, I know I'm not making a very good job of this. I'm meant to be telling you what it's like doing PR for The Beatles Anthology but it's difficult to explain because it's like nothing anyone has ever known. It's bizarre. It's all bets are off. It's like, hey, when was war declared here? It's like being on tour with Paul but not moving. John Lennon said that being in the Beatles was like "living in the eye of the hurricane". Fine, well we here in publicity are out on the edge of it and the wind is howling.
            I say "we" because this publicity game (a game of no rules) is not really down to me here. It's down to a very wonderful sage of a man called Derek Taylor. Derek wears two hats. His first (which he's worn on and off since 1968) is Press Officer to the Beatles and (on and on since 1964) as friend to the Beatles. In this capacity, I've just discovered, he has given 60 Press interviews this past month alone to promote The Beatles Anthology. For these, he also wears his second hat - The Nicest And Most Astute Journalist There Has Ever Been hat - and foxes cynical reporters with remarks like, "I do so much agree with whatever you are about to say next."
            If there's been good Press on The Beatles Anthology then all of that is down to Derek and his calm understanding of the fact that, with the media, if you give them an inch of the Beatles, they'll want to take a mile. Or, as he better puts it, "people behave very badly when they've had enough to eat".
            Personally, I don't know how Derek does it. I mean, what do you say when a very famous American magazine insists, "We want an exclusive interview with Paul and we mean, exclusive. We don't want to read any similar stuff anywhere else."
            But you're asking the same questions as everyone else.
            "Yeah, but we want different answers."
            But how does he give a different answer to "what's the title of the first single?"
            As I say, it's crazy. It's a feeding frenzy. The calls for interviews, pictures, information, explanation, interpretation come all day, at weekends, at five in the morning, at twelve at night. They come with pleas, promises, guile, tears, even nervous rashes for all I know. Most of the guys are very nice about it - if a little stressed - but there has been the odd anonymous threat.
            So what can I tell you? It's World War Three meets the Moon Landing, this. It's media Sodom and Gomorrah, and sometimes sod 'em till tomorra. It's media obsession on a level that I have never seen in 19 years of journalism, and that's fitting because John was right - theirs is the greatest story ever told and the best we can do is to learn from it.