All You Need Is To Take The Words Seriously (An Alternate Beatles History)
There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done
Nothing you can sing that can’t be sung
Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game
And it’s easy.
So goes the opening verse of The Beatles’ “All You Need Is Love,” presented live via worldwide television from London on June 25, 1967. More than two decades after the conclusion of the destructive Second World War and in the midst of the Vietnam War, one of the numerous conflicts between nations over the previous 22 years, the most popular act in show business speaks up for peace by encouraging people across the globe to love one another.
The Beatles were hardly the first artists, societal leaders, or religious figures to advocate loving thy neighbor, that being any and every person in our presence.
Jesus Christ, still right up there in popularity with The Beatles nearly 2,000 years after His last earthly appearance, was most emphatic about loving our brothers and sisters. In the Gospel of John, Jesus tells his followers, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”
In the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 22, verses 36-40, when Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment in the law was, he responded, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul and with all thy mind.” He follows up with another law He deems incredibly vital, “And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”
Christ would spend 33 years walking among the common people of the earth, while also taking in the motivations of the supposedly noble, and it had to make him weary. Sadness filled his heart. He and His Father created a beautiful world so all people could enjoy its beauty, resources, and inspiration, but some were only interested in fighting and killing each other to gain bigger shares. He spent time with people from every walk of life and He would look at them with love and mercy, yet He mourned their mindset. They didn’t care about their neighbors, be they just a half mile away in the valley or in another country. It didn’t matter even if their neighbors were starving, not a finger would be lifted. It’s a tough audience to work when teaching the nature of love.
Now and then, love and mercy exceed the usual boundaries. The great sitar player, Ravi Shankar, a Hindu born in India, learned of the human suffering in the new nation of Bangla Desh, formerly East Pakistan, where the vast majority of people were Muslim. Responding humanely just as the Samaritan did in rescuing the Jewish traveler left for dead in one of Jesus’s twelve parables, Shankar gave little thought to the antipathy between Hindus and Muslims on the Indian Subcontinent. Instead he focused on the human tragedy imposed on Bangla Desh after declaring its independence from West Pakistan in the early spring of ‘71. Pakistani forces attacked the new nation in a reign of terror lasting over nine months, which led, according to the government of Bangladesh,* to a death toll of over three million by the usual atrocities of war and starvation. Over ten million Bengali sought refuge in neighboring India. More people —by the millions — starving in a nation long- challenged to feed its own people. This was a tragedy multiplying upon itself. Ravi Shankar had friends in the western world, wealthy, well-placed, and influential. He would go to them for help.
A friendship that began in ‘66 with The Beatles’ lead guitarist George Harrison, who wanted to learn more about playing the sitar, led to Shankar making the music world aware of the misery in Bangla Desh. The first step was giving his most famous friend a full account. Harrison had a cursory knowledge of the war and its disastrous aftermath, but after listening to his friend and reading the newspaper clippings Shankar gathered, he was shocked. Less than six months after the Bhola cyclone, the deadliest tropical cyclone ever recorded, which struck then-East Pakistan, the Pakistani military began its attacks. The depths of the squalor and anguish from the cyclone and genocide compelled Harrison to take action. “Something should be done,” said Harrison, and he would follow through as no performer had ever done before.
It’s June ‘71 and barely 14 months after Paul McCartney announced the breakup of The Beatles, the former Beatle who most riveted the rock world as a solo act was George Harrison. Though no one expected Harrison to fall on his face, his first solo rock album, All Things Must Pass, released in late November ‘70, surprised critics and fans alike, climbing to number one on the album charts in the U.S., the U.K., Canada, and other countries throughout the world. A three-record set with two hit singles, “My Sweet Lord” and “What Is Life,” All Things Must Pass provided at least as much insight to the artistry of George Harrison as revealed in his years as a Beatle. McCartney and John Lennon were also enjoying great success as former Beatles, but that was expected. Few, if any, anticipated Harrison, the quiet Beatle, to ride the top of the charts, or to engage in a crisis brought on by war. But George was just finding his voice.
He used that voice to work the phones nonstop from a house he rented in Malibu, making sure something was done to relieve the people of Bangla Desh. When Shankar approached Harrison about raising awareness and funds for those victims of war, he thought of something modest, yet Harrison was thinking big. A benefit concert at New York’s Madison Square Garden, one of America’s most acclaimed arenas. He would lead a group announced as George Harrison and Friends. For the better part of a month, he called musicians, counting on their friendship and the weight of his own name, asking they appear for free at The Concert for Bangla Desh. In doing so, they could help to save the millions suffering, all the while giving rock music’s image a facelift, creating what Harrison biographer Simon Leng called “the high point of countercultural altruism.” The world would take notice that rock artists could actually rise above their own indulgences.
More artists were willing to play at the two Bangla Desh concerts on August 1, 1971 than time or room on the stage could allow. Harrison was joined by Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, Leon Russell, Jim Keltner, Billy Preston, and other A-list musicians, with Bob Dylan serving as the special guest attraction. The performances were moving, as was the effort Harrison put into making the concerts happen. He followed through on an idea that served as an example for the world, all the while doing yeoman’s work as promoter, organizer, bandleader, and preeminent artist. Only one other development in the celebratory occasion would have made it a red-letter day for the musical world — and the world at large — the on-stage reunion of Harrison, Starr, and their erstwhile mates, John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
Neither Lennon nor McCartney could say they weren’t invited. Harrison extended personal invitations to each. Both had their reasons, not necessarily solid ones, for avoiding Madison Square Garden that day. Lennon said he would appear if Yoko Ono could perform. Harrison nixed that idea, regarding Ono’s repertoire as hardly being on a level of the musicians he had gathered from the U.S., the U.K., and India. So Lennon did not perform that day, either as a solo artist or with any of the other former Beatles that day.
Back in ‘71, I didn’t appreciate Ono’s vocal stylings, nor did I recognize the greatness of Ravi Shankar, who performed with his own ensemble at the Madison Square Garden concerts. Given the amount of people I saw head to the concession stands at theatres showing The Concert for Bangla Desh when Shankar performed, it was obvious they would not have sat through Ono’s set either. But so be it, sitting in rapt attention as Ono sang “Don’t Worry, Kyoko (Mummy’s Only Looking For Her Hand in the Snow)” would have been a righteous duty had Lennon also appeared on the stage that day.
McCartney responded that he would perform if George, Ringo, and John would drop their countersuit they had brought against him after he filed suit the previous year to dissolve The Beatles’ partnership. Rightly, Harrison did not think the issues should be mixed. The call for a dissolution was a silly thing indeed and could have been dealt with sooner than later. Remember: All You Need is Love! Getting food and shelter to millions of starving and unhoused refugees, all victims of war and a historic weather calamity, was something to be dealt with right now.
No doubt, McCartney was right in being more than dubious of Allen Klein, who assumed management of The Beatles in ‘69 and would be fired by Lennon, Harrison and Starr by the end of ‘73. Klein would also stumble in managing The Concert for Bangla Desh, neglecting to abide by U.S. tax laws, which Harrison estimated cost the relief effort between eight and ten million dollars.
Yet the other three could be justified in thinking McCartney a swine. He announced The Beatles’ breakup, with his own departure and upcoming solo album, several months after Lennon had privately told the band he was leaving. The snippiness among these friends of a lifetime was captured easily in Lennon’s posthumously released “I Don’t Wanna Face It.”
Say you’re looking for some peace and love
Leader of a big old band
You wanna save humanity
But it’s people that you just can’t stand
In a period of less than two months, George Harrison was doing all he could to save a big slice of humanity. And perhaps more could have been done for humanity — in the summer of ‘71 and ongoing if that “big old band” John Lennon sang of had set aside their differences and taken the Madison Square Garden stage together. Each could have led the band in a song with which they were closely associated: Harrison with “Something,” Lennon with “Come Together,” McCartney with “Get Back” and Starr engaging the arena with a rollicking “Yellow Submarine.” Then they could have closed with Harrison’s song about the cause that so moved him, “Bangla Desh.” The “good little band,” as McCartney called The Beatles, would have put a charge into Harrison’s plea. Think of how they raised the bar on “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey” and “Old Brown Shoe.” They’d go up one level and then another.
And from there, could they have kept it going? The solo albums would have continued. In those years, they were still quite prolific. Much of their material would have been more suitable for solo efforts, but some would have jumped out as Beatles songs. Solo gems that often get overlooked, like “Harrison’s “Don’t Make Me Wait So Long,” Lennon’s “New York City,” McCartney’s “Hi Hi Hi,” and Starr’s “Back Off Boogaloo” would have sounded very “Beatlely,” in the hands of the right people, that is. All four had great respect for the band as an institution, and perhaps, once every five years or so, they would have shared some songs that would have been perfect if they did them together.
Or perhaps a few more years would pass before they’d realize a genuine spark could take place if they reunited. By the mid to late ‘70s, each of the former Beatles found it harder to deliver an album’s worth of tunes that matched the quality of their previous work. The idea that Lennon had proposed in ‘69 to McCartney and Harrison in which the three of them would contribute four songs per album with Ringo chipping in a pair, if he so desired, would’ve been perfect with the decade coming to an end. It’s likely they could have even breathed life into some of the material that ended up on McCartney’s London Town album — songs that fell short. And then there were the songs Lennon recorded in his apartment at The Dakota. There were several more besides “Free As A Bird,” “Real Love,” and “Now and Then” that could have thrived with that Beatlesque touch. The sprightly “She’s A Friend of Dorothy” comes to mind. That would have given the guys a chance to jam. And face it, “Blow Away” and “Your Love is Forever” are great Harrison songs, well done on his eponymous album of ‘79, but they would have been classic Beatles tracks.
And, yes, we know that at least John Lennon thought the fans should have set aside dreams of The Beatles getting back together. We all had lives to get on with, right? Well, yes, but few things in life are as nearly perfect as most of The Beatles’ body of work. A desire for more was hard to set aside.
In the Playboy interview published just days before his assassination, John Lennon scoffed at the clamor for a Beatles reunion. Rhetorically, he asked, “What’s this game of doing things because other people want it?” But when asked in 1974 by Howard Cosell on a Monday Night Football interview if The Beatles would ever reunite, Lennon wasn’t so dismissive. “You never know, you never know,” Lennon said. “I mean it’s always in the wind.” Taken by the sold-out crowd for the NFL game, he declared, “If it looked like this, it might be worth doing, right?”
A year later, Cosell presented Lennon with the idea of The Beatles staging a reunion on his short-lived variety show, named —seriously — Saturday Night Live, produced at the old Ed Sullivan Theatre. Lennon didn’t cop an attitude about peoples’ expectations, but according to Dave Kindred’s book about the friendship of Cosell and Muhammad Ali, Sound and Fury, Lennon ended up laying it out in terms of dollars, cents, legalities, and maybe just the way the four guys were feeling about things at the time.
“John,” he said, “I want you guys on my show.”
Lennon said, “What do you mean, ‘you guys’?”
“You, George, Paul, Ringo.”
“ I don’t know. I don’t know. After what’s gone down, I don’t know . . . I thought you wanted me.”
Of course, I want you,” Cosell said. “But let’s be realistic. This is bigger than both of us.”
It was time to speak practically. Lennon said any Beatles reunion would not happen on free home television. It would be in a stadium with closed-circuit television around the world. There would be a motion picture and an album. But even with that promised, a reunion was as unlikely as ever.
Cosell persisted. “Think of it, John. Imagine restaging the most electrifying moment in American television.”
Lennon finally said a flat no. Before leaving the table, however, he did shake Cosell’s hand and say he would be pleased to be a (Monday Night Football) guest again.
Cosell’s pitch falls flat, but he treats John Lennon to lunch at 21 Club and his guest says he’d love to make another Monday Night Football appearance. All in all, not bad, even for a media legend used to getting his way. And like millions of other Beatles fans, Cosell could only wonder what a Beatles reunion would bring.
Recently a friend and I were freewheeling on the subject. Wouldn’t Paul McCartney’s left-of-center masterpiece, Ram, been even better if John, George, and Ringo had been working with him on every track? And a few years later, George Harrison could have benefited from suggestions and contributions on what became the Dark Horse and Extra Texture albums. One suggestion would have been for George to wait until his throat healed, with another being that he had enough material there for one great album. They could worry about the next record the next year.
The minds of Beatles fans ramble on when it comes to things that might have happened a half-century ago. There are a lot of what-ifs and rearranged scenarios. Unless it’s an esteemed guest like Billy Preston, Nicky Hopkins, or Eric Clapton, no other musicians could participate in a reunited-Beatles recording. No spousal units. No Denny Laine. No Vini Poncia. George Martin should be on hand as producer, offering suggestions and encouragement. Richard Perry shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the studio. (Sorry, Ringo.) If we’re going to have an alternate history, it ought to be just the way we want it.
*current official spelling of the nation’s name