Disclaimer: This story is fictional, historical fiction, and the author values Paul McCartney’s genius so much they/them have thus far purchased ‘Wings at the Speed of Sound’ on four occasions. The story is purely another demonstration of the human being’s ability to rewrite history.
I want to tell you By Connie Spires
On my way home, and London is not paved with gold. London is paved with carbon based entities purged of rudimental joy and cursed with an inability to willingly offer other carbon based entities directions. London’s most redeemable feature is its excellent travel links to anywhere and everywhere else. #tisgrimmerdownsouth. #Englandflatlines shortlyafterLeeds.
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It was almost eleven pm, and the final four train carriages were empty; Blair was delighted by this emptiness and desperate for it to remain unblemished by further humanity. Blair Richards had gone to great effort to walk the entire length of this last train of the night, driven by the intense hope that no one else would. After a disconcerting, treacherous, claustrophobic, and unsettling stay in London, England (Lung-done-in-gland’), all Blair ached for was quiet …solitude and the alleviation of his anticipation of cleaner, less populated air. He felt glad to be getting away from a capital of stoic corruption. Mostly Blair wanted a lifetime reprieve from germ ridden, overcrowded tube trains, awkward eye contact and a sense of constant paranoia.
It was finally just him, the late hours, and an empty carriage. He took the last table seat and spread out his belongings on it. He was claiming the space for himself. With the recent big town paranoia still far from receding he put his earphones in his ears. Blair picked his book up and felt for his place. He was in a kind of nirvana and in that moment, he sighed a long-contented sigh as the train jolted and finally departed.
As the journey commenced Blair began to read.
An hour later after a second stop, a robust, short, rotund, white-haired man, with an oily rockabilly sharks head quiff, joined the train and strolled briskly through the train’s empty carriages seeking company. The old man carried a battered guitar case and two old, brown and worn suitcases. When the brylcreemedfigure reached the last carriage, he advanced to the only occupied table and promptly forced his luggage into the overhead rack and placed a battered case on the empty seat behind him.
Blair looked up. The old man’s arrival was like a storm cloud: plunging Blair’s expression under a dark shadow. As the old man settled into the seat opposite, Blair turned his music player up too maximum, in an act of passive defiance. A tinny sound of the Beatles ‘I want to tell you’ became audible above the hum and churn of the train’s hypnotic engines.
A few seconds later the older man spoke to Blair in a loud, musical Liverpudlian tone.
“You alright, Son?”
The younger man ignored the uninvited intrusion and slowly pulled his book closer to his face.
The older man, unperturbed, leaned forward and intrusively waved his hand, stiffly, left and then right like a pendulum, invading a very personal space between Blair’s eyes and his book. Blair flinched and reeled back sharply as the old hand almost touched his nose. As odour of stale nicotine invaded his solitude, Blair instinctively removed an earphone.
The man was grinning at him.
“Pop quiz, who do you think was the most talented Beatle, Son?”
The old man asked Blair, while expelling a warm odour of drink on his warm, moist breath.
“Excuse me!” Blair said.
“I couldn’t help but overhear the Beatles are playing on your music player, Son ; I was asking who you think the most talented Beatle was”.
Blair paused before answering.
“I think it was John.”
“Wrong, Son!”
The old man said with thinly disguised delight.
“It is subjective though isn’t it,” Blair replied instinctively, “I could have said John, Paul or George.”
“Not in the slightest, Son. was a genius behind the Beatles, but it wasn’t McCartney or Lennon. No word of a ‘Lucy in the sky’.”
Blair had never been good at ending conversations. Failed attempts to get away from garrulous speakers often left him feeling like a helpless child trying to loosen a parents gripped fingers from their arm.
” I really would like to return to my book and music, that’s if you don’t mind, I…”
“I have facts, Son”.
Blair’s lips tightened. The old man looked at Blair, expectantly!
“You will have to excuse me…”
”Are you implying, that I’m lying or talking a load of ‘Mr Moonlight’, Son?”
”No, no sir, I am simply saying I have had a long week and I would like to…”.
“I am telling you the gospel truth, the total 3 Saville Row Roof, Son. I knew the Beatles.”
Blair looked at the old drunk. The truth was Blair was a little intrigued by any account of stranger knowing the Beatles.
”How well did you know the Beatles?”
The old man lent a little closer.
“I was on a train to Liverpool in 1970, and there was a giant, broken-looking fella sat across from me in the carriage. Striking looking fella, almost a giant, longish hair with thick-rimmed dark-framed eyeglasses. His giant palms, the size of pudding bowls, clutching a bottle of something that was half hidden by a brown paper bag. He was looking down at the train’s floor, all brooding, all bitter and all broken. The big fella hadn’t look up for an hour. Now, I’m not backward coming forward Son, and after a time I just tapped his foot and said, ‘It can’t be that bad can it, Lad?’”
The older man paused, and the carriage was briefly filled with the comforting, rhythmical sound of the train moving further away from streets paved with fool’s gold and homelessness.
Blair could not help himself.
”And what?”
The older man leaned in a little closer again and lowered his voice slightly.
“And That gentle giant of a man said to me, with steely eyes, six words I will never forget. He said ‘The Beatles have broken up’s , and with that, he put his head down again like this.”
The old man slumped his shoulders and head, theatrically mimicking despair.
”I swear it is as true as I am.”
Blair said nothing.
”Do you want to know who I was talking to on that train?” the man paused for effect then continued, “…it was big Malcolm Evans, Son!”
Blair searched his mind for the name, but it wasn’t there.
”Who?”
”Big Mal Evans son, Big Mal.”
“Who is Malcolm Evanson?”
“Malcolm Evans, big Mal, I thought you said you liked the Beatles!”
Blair shrugged his shoulders.
“Mal was a comrade, companion and close confidant of the Beatles, Son.”
“Oh I see…, I just never heard of…”
“Christ almighty, Son! He was practically the fifth Beatle.”
“Sorry.”
”He was with the Beatles from the Cavern cellar to the stadium sell-outs. He was there when they met Elvis, there when they needed clapping sounds and silver hammers. He played the trumpet on Helter Skelter, and he sang along on Yellow Submarine, that is just too name but a few, Son. I don’t know if I want to go on.”
There was an uncomfortable pause.
Blairs hand began to move towards his book when the older man decided to go on with his story.
”OK, Son, I am on a train, the ‘Come Together’ is, proper wintery. The rain’s lashing down against the windows. This broken legend is sitting slumped in front of me, clutching that bottle, deep in thought and disagreeing with a voice inside his head. He has not looked up for an hour, and instinctively I just know he wants to talk. So I say to him, ‘how do you know so much about the Beatles then…’, and he looks up at me with red-eyes and says, ‘I work for them, Lad.’ Then he slumps in his chair like this.’”
The old man let his head fall forwards and dropped his shoulders. The train had briefly slowed down to pass through a station. The young man looked up and out at the passing platform’s clock—it wasn’t working.
Blair looked back at the older man and waited.
”In Liverpool, many people say they knew a Beatle, but this was different, I can spot a liar, or when someone is speaking a load of ‘Mr Kite’.
The older man paused for effect before continuing.
“Big Mal looks me in the eye and says ‘Ever since I met the Beatles at the Cavern it’s been one ‘Tell me Why’ after another.’ The old man changed his posture as if too imply a bigger physique, then in a lowered voice continued.
‘You’ve read and heard, stories about Lennon and McCartney’s signwriting. Lyrics on napkins and all that, it’s all ‘Honey Pies’. The great Beatle songs were written by a Beatle, but it wasn’t John, Paul or George. Ringo wrote the songs.”
In that instant, Blair sat back in his chair with a grin. “I’ve readthat Ringo could hardly play the drums!”
Blair said.
The old man shook his head.
“A calculated marketing ruse that discredits a musician of the highest magnitude. After all, the record company wants to preserve a myth.”
“Clearly true,” Blair said quietly.
“Ringo is an exceptional drummer who provided a wide array of complex yet captivating and melodic drum and percussion accompaniments to near-flawless compositions. What do you say to that, Son?”
”I would say you are winding me up.”
“Not at all Son, Ringo was responsible for composing and crafting the Beatles incredible musical output.”
Blair looked away and thinned his lips as he contemplated whether to go on or not. The older man took this as an opportunity to open a plastic bag and pull out Four cans of strong lager. “Drink, Son?”
”Oh, no thank you.”
“ Your choice, Son, Malcolm Evans says…” The old man changed his stance and lowered his voice.
‘I’ve known the Beatles since the cavern, Lad. The Beatles were the best rock n roll covers band in Liverpool, but The Beatles were not talented songwriters.’ The old man cleared his throat, “I must of looked doubtful because Big M goes.” ‘Of course, you believe the ‘Lucy in the Sky.’ The old man took a long gulp of his can and continued in his loud voice. “I found it as hard to believe as you, but I have studied it for years now, and I have accepted, after sustained research, that Ringo wrote the songs.”
Blair shook his head. “It would have come out years ago, they couldn’t keep that secret, and why would they care about who wrote the songs now?”
The old man adapted an incredulous expression. “I want to tell you how, Son, all you have to do is Listen and not be a ‘Penny Lane’ in the ‘All things Must Pass’.” There was a slight pause as the train rocked gently and the rain beat a little harder against the midnight blackened windows.
The Old Man took three increasingly longer and louder gulps from his drink, as the train hurtled, unflinchingly through a narrow tunnel. For a brief second, it was the only sound in the carriage, then the old man put his drink down and lent forward.
“Big Mal was looking at me through drunk and desperate eyes. He says to me, ‘it started out as a small lie, a “Tell me Why, in a band that didn’t matter’. The older man changed his body position once more to re-enact Mal talking, this time holding an imaginary bottle and feigning a drunker voice. ‘Brian thought of everything: Paul and John would copy out Ringo’s lyrics on scraps of paper and napkins and leave them in dressing rooms, planes or restaurants. Sometimes Ringo taught them songs that they would pretend to compose in front of friends and girlfriends. Brian’s genius was theatre and details. The screams kept growing louder and louder. Brian had staged the greatest show on Earth, and it was all for show!”
”Mal said a lot on that train.”
Blair said.
The old man stopped mimicking the big Man and said, “Anyway a few weeks after that train trip the Beatles break up was made public. I was not surprised to hear that news at the time. The Beatles had been going a long time, and all changed dramatically. Beatle mania had faded to the
final dimming smirk of a crescent ‘Rocky Racoon’. at the teeny boppers had become young mothers. The summer of love had become a winter of loathing. And so on, Son, life went on.”
“It was five years later when I stumbled upon Mal Evans again. Not in person this time, I saw his picture in an abandoned newspaper on an ash covered cafe table: that giant head, those thick glasses, the familiar eye’s staring at me out of a newspaper column. I reached for the paper and then my insides turned to ice, Son. It was him. I read the story; Mal Evans shot dead in LA. I stared at his face in disbelief, it couldn’t be, but it was, Son, the article was brief, a matter of fact-ish. It read ex-Beatleassociate Mal Evans shot in the street after a domestic dispute. The LA Police believed him to be armed and dangerous. He wasn’t armed of course, and there is no way of knowing if he was dangerous, but he was shot definitely dead in LA.
I researched and researched what Mal told me after that. That is why I can tell you that Ringo was the Beatle’s songwriter. Do you know how many songs the Beatles had written in the 5 years before Ringo joined, Son?”
”A hundred”.
”Lower son, guess again.”
”Fifty”
”None!” In books, there are stories of them writing together as schoolboys, but none of these songs were played in Hamburg or Liverpool. None, Son.” No original songs with any promise were recorded by the Beatles before Ringo joined them. The facts we have been told just don’t add up. In 1961 The Beatles backed Tony Sheridan in a studio in Hamburg. In return, they got free studio time with Pete Best on drums. Did they record an original song to demonstrate their undisputed greatness son? Well, did they Son?
”I don’t suppose they did.”
“They didn’t, they recorded a version of ‘Ain’t She Sweet’. They were as raw as a spring lamb. And yet, without any previous demonstration of song writing talent, the Beatles created a succession of critically acclaimed musical masterpieces. Listen to any song the Beatles wrote before Ringo joined and compare them with any song they wrote after Ringo, the differences are startling. Count how many songs the `Beatles wrote before Ringo joined and how many they wrote after he joined it is unfathomable. By 1962 after 6 years of professional playing the Beatles recorded 15 songs for Decca. Of these three were original songs and do you know what they show, Son?
“No.”
”Three songs that are formulaic, trite and demonstrate no idiosyncratic genius, nor lyrical gift. They are further proof that Lennon and McCartney wrote some songs. They also prove they were not prolific. Then I found out Lennon and Macca performed those same songs as early as 1958. So Son, how did two individuals, with no new material available for the biggest demo of their life, miraculously turn into a song writing machine the day they changed drummers?”
”That is still circumstantial evidence as opposed to proof?”
“Son, It’s sixty years since the fab-four furore , and there are hundreds of accounts of the Beatle story, and they are all different. If they were all the same people would have no reason to write them or read them. There is no proof of anything.”
“And there is no motive, there is no reason to keep the lie going.”
“The Beatles is an industry, Son, they are almost a genre all of their own. The Beatles industry continues to grow in value. The Beatle’s albums have held their value for sixty years. Every time the format changes, they are repurchased in their millions. Remastered, mono and stereo, digitalised, coloured vinyl, no matter what they do, people will repurchase the albums. The thing you have to remember it is not just in England, it is all over the world, from Korea to California and everywhere in between. A money-making myth of pop perfection is worth protecting. People love the legend, it is passed on from generation to generation, Mother to daughter, Father to Son. The myth becomes increasingly idolised, it becomes the truth.” The old man belched and crushed his empty can.
“Anyway, there you have it Son.” The old man sat back and looked at his watch.
“It is my stop next.” The old man started to get up and gather his bags from the overhead locker.
”You’re not going?”
”My stop, Son, I will let you get back to that book of yours now.”
”And that is the whole story.”
”Everything, Son. Not that you believe a word of it.” The older man stood and continued purposefully gathering his belongings while the young man watched him. Blair had narrowed his eyes and was biting his upper lip.
“I expect you frequently tell this story.”
”No, Son. Too many strange things about it. I have never told a sole before. If you do find one day that you have tell someone, you never heard this from me.”
The old man winked and began walking away. The train was slowing down ready to stop at the next station.
Blair watched as the carriage doors hissed open and the old man departed.
As the train started again Blair felt suddenly alone.
He wrote a post about mad men on trains but then stopped before posting it. Blair suddenly thought about the already long list of conspiracies that existed. They surrounded Beatles and every other aspect of history. He suddenly pondered if it might be better not to risk adding to them.
Blair was about to update his status with a heading ‘Ringo wrote Beatle songs’ #whataloadofharddaysnight.
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Blair stopped for a moment, in his earphones the first chord of ‘Do you want to know a Secret, and then he pressed…
D Rudd-Mitchell (David) is a recent English graduate, future teaching assistant, aspiring writer and occasional poet. He has had flash fiction published in Plastic Brain Zine and the Projectionists Playground.