Happiness Is A Warm Rolls

Picture by LAWRENCE BOGLE

Yes... that's me with John Lennon's psychedelic Rolls-Royce. I had the unexpected pleasure of checking it out on its brief visit to London a few days ago when it was part of a display of famous Rollers at Bonhams in central London.

It normally resides at a museum in Canada, but it was here to help R-R promote a new model – along with cars belonging to Fred Astaire and the Queen.

Lennon took the car to the States in 1970, and ended up donating it to a New York museum to ease a tricky tax situation. It is now reckoned to be the most valuable automobile in the world

Even today, it is still a work of outrageous art. Chums such as Paul, George and Ringo, not to mention Brian Epstein, Bob Dylan and Keith Moon, all seemed to have had a jolly time in the back of the car – which was said to have an extensive supply of drugs and alcohol.

But the exterior was perhaps the trippiest thing of all – a collision of psychedelia with gypsy caravan-style art that defies you not to smile at the irreverence of it.

I thought of it again today when I was in rehearsal with my old band, the Shark Dentists, working on the infernally difficult-to-play Lennon song 'Happiness Is A Warm Gun'. With a little more work, it – and its combination of 4/4, 3/4, 6/4 and 2/4 – should be ready for performing at a little festival in the Midlands next month.

Pretty Shocking

I have a lot  of time for Drumhead magazine and its editor, Jonathan Mover – it's basically the best magazine that I know of for drummers. It has high standards and its content carries a lot of weight.

In its latest issue it carries an interview with the legendary Bernard 'Pretty' Purdie and eventually gets to his legendary claims about the fact that he played on quite a lot of Beatles tracks. Or 'fixed' them, to use his phrase.

But his claims become even more shocking here when he suggests that Ringo Starr's drumming did not appear on a single one of the Beatles' studio tracks. He claims there were three other drummers (including him, and excluding Andy White and Pete Best) who 'fixed' the drumming for the Beatles.

His only concession to Ringo Starr is that Purdie says Ringo played 'live' with the band (which seems beyond debate).

If this remarkable claim about the Beatles recordings is true, isn't it the most shocking revelation? If it is false, why is Drumhead printing it? And why aren't lawyers knocking at Purdie's door?

All sorts of rumours re Beatles drumming continue to circulate. Paul McCartney is said to have played drums on a number of songs (although Purdie claims McCartney wasn't a good enough drummer to do that – or even a good enough bassist) and there have been stories too of ace session drummer Hal Blaine doing some 'fixing' for the Beatles.

Whatever the truth, all of this seems to highlight a grim reality – that many hit records made by bands back in the day (and also today) probably often don't feature the bands themselves, but session musicians who could be relied on to get it right first or second time, rather than 47th time. Those unsung session musicians tend to keep their stories to themselves, but sometimes they play and tell, and maybe sometimes they don't tell it quite like it was but how they hazily recall it.

A Medal For Morrissey

He may be a little crazy, but Morrissey provided a highlight of the Olympics with his declaration that "the spirit of 1939 Germany now pervades throughout media-brand Britain".

Isn't Morrissey's attack on mindless jingoism what you expect from rock stars? Well, it used to be. From Jim Morrison through to Johnny Rotten, it used to be part of the job description to attack and upset the establishment.

John Lennon did a pretty good stint in the job... only to be resurrected without his knowledge and appropriated for the Olympics (courtesy of Yoko Ono).

Paul McCartney... er, we know how that worked out. And even Pete Townshend, one-time angry young mod and subverter of the Union Jack, agreed to take part in the Olympics finale...

There was speculation about why Kate Bush didn't appear live (leaving one of her songs to be used completely out of context). Is it possible that she has too much artistic integrity?

Lennon alive (rather than Lennon dead) would surely not have allowed himself to be subsumed by the establishment. He might even have said something to leave Morrissey in the shade.

A Pauline Conversion

Michael Gove comes up with some interesting stuff, doesn't he? In the House of Commons this week he paid an 80th birthday tribute to the Oxford Professor of Poetry, Professor Sir Geoffrey Hill, "our greatest living poet". 


Labour MP Stephen Pound swiftly responded with: "I do not wish to distract the House in celebration of today’s birthday of one of our greatest living poets — Sir Paul McCartney..."


So is Macca a poet? He doesn't seem to be up there with Shakespeare or Dylan, or even Lennon.  But maybe he has, on occasion, been more than just a brilliant melodist. And whether you like it or not, the words of the 2,000-plus cover versions of his song "Yesterday" may well have touched more people more deeply than the collected works of all of the above.