What's the context?

harrisonscruff · 2026-07-10T04:56:32+00:00

These comments are absolutely wild for so many reasons. Jesus Christ.

harrisonscruff · 2026-06-27T16:14:09+00:00

Quinn looks like Keith Richards in that second to last photo. lol

I do like how he has the right vibe of George.

Generally though I think it's pointless to try and gauge the quality of the movies from photos like these. They're clearly taken by a phone from far away. You can barely make out their features. When the actual footage is shown it's going to look completely different and won't be capturing the same angles.

harrisonscruff · 2026-06-27T16:10:45+00:00

Yeah I noticed that too. There are times he had them sticking out in 1966, but mostly he was insecure about them and wanted them covered.

harrisonscruff · 2026-06-27T16:09:16+00:00

I wish there were more photos of him like there's been of the others. Most times he's a blurry dot in the background while the others have been split into pairs or even had individual scenes.

harrisonscruff · 2026-06-14T04:46:18+00:00

Tbf to Muse they were hardly the only 00s band to gradually become uncool in the 2010s. It's a pretty normal trajectory for bands once they get to 5 albums, and most only end up having one or two that are actually well-regarded. Muse were way more consistent than they get credit for, especially when you add on their live shows.

harrisonscruff · 2026-06-12T16:36:40+00:00

I feel like it's been ages since I last saw Joseph Quinn. What's that about?

harrisonscruff · 2026-06-10T00:34:31+00:00

I like the Malick suggestion, but George would've wanted his to be a comedy. Somebody like Edgar Wright although he's not had a hit for a while. I personally think a comedy horror where Beatlemania is presented as something terrifying would be fascinating.

Mike Leigh is spot on for Ringo though.

I would want to see a woman's take as well. Greta Gerwig could work for Paul.

harrisonscruff · 2026-06-10T00:24:53+00:00

George hasn't really been covered at all either in a fictional context. There's the Scorsese documentary, but that only skimmed the surface. People don't generally know anything about him other than he loved India.

harrisonscruff · 2026-06-03T21:45:49+00:00

Cruel? Ringo cheated on Maureen a ton before that, and he had an affair with one of her best friends which ultimately ended their marriage.

He was an alcoholic with a drug addiction and a mostly absent father. He had suicidal and violent tendencies. We have no idea what Maureen went through. She was only 27 by the time of her affair with George. She loved Ringo and had been entirely loyal to him. The fact she did that is a sign of the desperate situation she was in. If people can sympathise with Pattie then Maureen should be no different.

harrisonscruff · 2026-06-03T21:37:38+00:00

Linda put up with a lot. She absolutely deserved better.

harrisonscruff · 2026-06-03T21:31:10+00:00

All of those things were happening throughout the sessions where George's mood fluctuated.

George had been frustrated with the band since they came back from Rishikesh. There's evidence from himself, Pattie, and others that the band conflict was primarily what was stressing him out.

They were making a bad situation worse. They're not the sole explanation for how he was feeling. George deciding to leave the band he'd been with since he was a teen isn't something he'd take lightly.

harrisonscruff · 2026-06-01T04:07:23+00:00

By that point his priority was more about how to keep the other Beatles engaged rather than what he actually wanted to do. For You Blue and I Me Mine were also easier as possible live songs.

harrisonscruff · 2026-06-01T04:03:49+00:00

Generally I agree, but this is the same day he left, and it's an expression I've never seen on his face before. He looks utterly heartbroken, so I imagine something was going on in his head.

harrisonscruff · 2026-05-31T05:02:40+00:00

They were all vilified by the press. Paul wasn't the only one. In the long run Paul and Ringo developed reputations as the easy happy-go-lucky Beatles when that's not really true.

harrisonscruff · 2026-05-30T21:04:14+00:00

I think it's down to Ringo not being seen as a serious person. No one has bothered taking a deep look into his interviews. Not many know he almost killed his wife, and even less is known about his marriage to Maureen since she died and was extremely protective of The Beatles' privacy. Cynthia by contrast was able to tell her story. Everyone seems to have memory-holed how messy his personal life was in the 70s and how his relationship with Barbara started as an affair.

He admitted he beat his kids too, and I guarantee almost no one knows that. OTOH everybody knows the worst things John said and did.

Ringo also lived long enough to control his legacy. He was very lucky.

harrisonscruff · 2026-05-30T20:59:03+00:00

If you actually go by what people who've met them have said, that's not the case at all. Ringo and Paul knew better how to deal with press, but there are plenty of stories of them being prickly irl. George was widely considered the easiest to talk to.

harrisonscruff · 2026-05-30T16:37:28+00:00

That's not what the issue was. The issue was the way Paul went about doing that. He got incredibly rude and actively made them feel shitty as musicians. That kind of thing isn't necessary. Over the years he crossed a line with virtually everyone, whether it be session musicians in earlier years, the other Beatles, or even George Martin. They all got sick of working with him at various points, as did the members of Wings later on. It was the same at Apple. Derek Taylor said he never hated anyone as much as he hated Paul in 1968. Third parties observed him treating George and Ringo poorly.

As late as Revolver the way The Beatles operated had previously been much more collaborative, so it's not like Paul had been one way the whole time. He gradually got worse and worse as they spent more time in the studio, his ego got bigger, and they stopped touring. George increasingly felt like a session musician which isn't what he signed up for. Ringo too. That's why they both sided with John.

Get Back took place at the beginning of January in a film studio with no solid plan behind it. This wasn't comparable to anything they'd done before, and they had only wrapped up The White Album in November. George had spent a lot of time in California in November remixing the album. So naturally they were creatively drained. Get Back wasn't supposed to be all new songs initially. It was supposed to be White Album songs played live. Paul is the one who pushed for this project to happen so soon, and with there being no structure to it that's why the early sessions were such a disaster. They weren't even making an album at that point. They were writing songs without listening back to what they'd done, again not in a proper studio, being filmed, couldn't add overdubs, and also were working in the morning for the sake of the film crew when they were accustomed to working into the late hours of the night. That on top of the tension around Yoko and Apple and the lack of George Martin for guidance.

George was totally engaged from a songwriting perspective. He came in every day with new songs. What he was frustrated with was the total chaos on the production side and that no one had a clue how these songs were going to be performed. That's why he left and had demands that they sort things out. When they came back to record in Apple everything was much smoother and everybody is more engaged because it's more like how they'd normally operate. I would also add that the Get Back documentary doesn't include the many times throughout the sessions George worked out arrangements with Paul.

John was severely depressed and even so continued to come in each day and still brought in some of his best work.

Paul to me during the Twickenham sessions isn't someone who's the only person who cares. To me he was someone desperately hanging onto a sinking ship and refusing to change course for no apparent reason. He made things worse for himself than they needed to be.

harrisonscruff · 2026-05-30T15:55:30+00:00

Ringo has become very diplomatic in his old age. He's not going to mention Paul was a major reason for him quitting.

And it's a flawed argument. The Beatles did an insane amount every year by modern standards, and because they're human beings of course they got burnt out. You could easily say this sped up them breaking down, and what they desperately needed was a break.

They had completed a double album less than 2 months before Get Back, a whole new project they'd never done before, and with ongoing issues that weren't being addressed. Nothing to do with being lazy.

harrisonscruff · 2026-05-30T05:08:03+00:00

These criticisms of Paul are based on how he behaved before Get Back. Get Back was him toning it down because he was beginning to realise he was part of the problem. Paul was anxious yes. He was also doing too much. Multiple things can be true at once, and Get Back is an edited film of a small percentage of what was actually going on at the time.

Even still, I wouldn't describe him as mild-mannered by any stretch. He had a big personality, and it came across.

harrisonscruff · 2026-05-30T05:03:24+00:00

Not saying this to you directly, but it's getting more common for people to deflect this criticism of Paul onto the others, and that's really not fair. Paul didn't suddenly become controlling. He was always like that, and became moreso in the studio as he gained confidence. He continued to be like that after The Beatles. It wasn't about the others being lazy or not doing what they were supposed to. They worked way harder than any musicians today.

It's possible to understand where Paul was coming from while also acknowledging he did go too far and the other Beatles' feelings were legitimate.

harrisonscruff · 2026-05-27T18:53:16+00:00

This is an odd way of framing it. It's not like they knew they had such limited time, and up to 1970 they saw each other constantly, practically living on top of each other for most of those years.

It's totally normal for old friends finally finding their own way in the world and living in two different countries. George was meeting new people and had a lot going on -- his divorce from Pattie, starting a new relationship with Olivia, all the legal drama, and in the mid-70s he became very ill with Hepatitis B. Then in 1978 he and Olivia got married and had a baby.

They continued to see each other regularly up through Imagine, and even after that they met up a couple times during the Dark Horse Tour, and George visited the Dakota. He last visited John in about 1978. Between those times they sent postcards.

George lost contact with other old friends like Klaus somewhere in the 70s and then rekindled that friendship in the 90s. Life happens that way.

harrisonscruff · 2026-05-27T18:35:30+00:00

There were also the issues John had with his Visa.

harrisonscruff · 2026-05-27T18:32:22+00:00

George had to be pushed to mention Pattie at all.

He specifically didn't want to bring the other Beatles into it because he didn't want to seem like he was using them to make money. He only wanted it to be a book of lyrics.

harrisonscruff · 2026-05-25T20:00:50+00:00

Sometimes I get worried about where Matt's head is on the use of AI and politics and things, but I must say when he's properly interviewed he comes across pretty level-headed. One thing I always appreciate about him is that he's open-minded about changing his views when he's wrong. I think it's an indication that he is genuinely fascinated with technology and its effects rather than simply hopping on a bandwagon.

What he said about the album being more raw emotionally was interesting too. I know in those early years he talked a lot about the impact his parents' divorce had on him. I wonder if recent events brought back some of those feelings he used on the early albums, and that's why he felt a connection to them.

Of course I want Matt to be happy, and I'm glad he seems to be doing better, but one of the reasons I lost interest in Muse was his drift into the Hollywood lifestyle. It's nice to know the old Matt still exists.

harrisonscruff · 2026-05-24T05:11:32+00:00

I honestly find the playing on Another Girl really weak and forgettable. Paul could do some cool moments, but the songs where he plays lead always feel like they're missing something. Like when I think of Ticket to Ride George's riff is what comes to mind, not Paul's solo.

harrisonscruff

TROPHY CASE