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ABOUT THIS INTERVIEW:
On November 29th 1963, the Beatles were in Huddersfield as part of their 'Autumn Tour' of Britain with a performance at the
ABC Cinema in Huddersfield. The group was interviewed backstage by Gordon Kaye. Things were changing quickly for the Beatles. It was in August of 1963 that they had given their final performance at the Cavern Club,
the local Liverpool band hall they had played so regularly before their fame. October would bring their most important
engagement to date -- a televised performance on Vic Parnell's Saturday Night At The London Palladium, Britain's equivalent to the
Ed Sullivan show at the time. Topping themselves again just one month later, the Beatles gave
their Royal Command Performance before the Queen Mother in November. This interview finds the Beatles at a critical point in their career.
Joking and casual as ever, the Fab Four had conquered Britain. Still, at a time when no British Rock groups had found global fame,
any reasonable person in
November 1963 would have thought the next steps in their career to be impossible -- to successfully conquer America in less than three months time, erupting
in full-tilt worldwide Beatlemania.
- Jay Spangler, www.beatlesinterviews.org
Q: "What do you think of (the fans) coming in and then screaming..?"
GEORGE: "Well, they've payed the money so they can scream, can't they. I mean, if they haven't payed and they were screaming, it'd
be a liberty, wouldn't it!"
(Beatles laugh)
PAUL: "Oh aye, oh aye."
RINGO: "Would, that, Georgie."
Q: "What is your, sort of, 'perfect touch' in music? Beethoven, for instance?"
GEORGE: "No. I like trad jazz, you know, Kenny Ball and all that."
PAUL: (to George) "You don't... you told me you didn't."
GEORGE: "I do. I changed. Washington Square, got it."
Q: "Now then, let's know a little bit about your personal life. What do you like to do in your spare time when you get it?"
PAUL: "Spare time? Ehh, Go to the pictures or watch telly, or umm read. (laughs) Read comics, you know."
(Beatles giggle)
Q: "What sort of films do you like?"
PAUL: "What sort of films... uhh, just ordinary films like 'The Trial,' 'The Servants.'"
(Beatles laugh)
PAUL: (laughing, jokingly) "Just ordinary, you know... Love Walt Disney. You know, 'The Trial' by Walt Disney."
Q: "Mmm."
PAUL: "It's great."
Q: "What sort of music do you like personally?"
PAUL: "Just, I like everybody else. Stravinsky, Beethoven, all that."
(Beatles laugh)
PAUL: (laughs) "No, American groups actually, I listen to."
Q: "Female groups..?"
PAUL: "But mainly American records generally."
Q: "Now then George, what do YOU like to do on your spare time?"
GEORGE: "Umm. (pause) Well, I umm, uhh. (to the others) What do I do?"
PAUL: "What does he do? I'll tell ya what George does. He goes to the pictures."
GEORGE: "I go to the pictures, yeah."
PAUL: "He reads Tolstoy."
GEORGE: "I read Telstar."
PAUL: "Tolstoy."
GEORGE: "And umm..."
RINGO: "Beethoven's poems."
(Beatles laugh)
GEORGE: "And play records and play the banjo!"
PAUL: "Beethoven's poems."
Q: (laughs) "What have you got ambitions in, George?
GEORGE: "Umm, to join the Navy."
JOHN: (laughs)
GEORGE: "I want to join the Navy and be a lieutenant commander on HMS Queen Victoria."
Q: (to the group, regarding their upcoming TV appearance in December) "You've never been on
'Juke Box Jury' before?"
RINGO: "Oh no. John's been on."
JOHN: (yelling, from a distance) "I'VE been ON! I was ON!"
Q: "How long?"
JOHN: "For twenty minutes!!"
(laughter)
Source: Transcribed by www.beatlesinterviews.org from audio copy of the interview
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