Interview: John Lennon and Paul McCartney, London - March 20, 1967

Date: 20 March 1967
Time: 7:00 pm
Location: Studio Two, EMI Studios, London
Interviewer: Brian Matthew
Broadcast: BBC's Transcription Service
Top Of The Pops

BRIAN MATTHEW: And right now we're going to say hello to John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

JOHN+PAUL: Look out, look out!

BRIAN MATTHEW: Now that number "Penny Lane," failed to make number one in Britain fellows, did you feel at all put out by that?

PAUL: No, it's . . . I don't know, the main thing is, it's fine if you're kept sort of from being number one by sort of a record like "Release Me," because you're not trying to do the same kind of thing as "Release Me" is trying to do, you know. So, that's a complete different scene altogether, that kind of thing. So, it doesn't really matter anyway, you know.

BRIAN MATTHEW: No, but you have in the past said or at least been reported as having said that in the event of a record not going to number one, you'd seriously think about packing it all in. Do you feel like that?

PAUL: Well, John packed it in actually, you know.

BRIAN MATTHEW: Yeah.

PAUL: But I mean we're trying to persuade him to stay with the group at the moment. I don't want to start any rumours, over in the States or anything, but. . .

BRIAN MATTHEW: A pity. The thing is, I mean you've obviously reached a stage where you don't have to write any more songs for any reason at all other than that you like doing it. So. . .

PAUL: But it's always been like that, that's the good thing. That's the . . . you know, because it has been a hobby. And it still is, you know. Mind you, it gets . . . around about the time when you're doing an LP and you've got to start working, it gets like a job. But, you know, you do it in your time off anyway, so it is a hobby. So, it'll go on forever, probably.

BRIAN MATTHEW: Good. Can you, without giving away any trade secrets, tell us anything about the numbers that you're engaged on at the moment for this new album that you're working on?

JOHN: We've done about nine or ten, and I think we've done about nine or ten, and there's a couple of strange ones, a couple of happy-go-lucky Northern songs, and. . .

PAUL: A couple of whimsical, you know, folk. . .

JOHN: Medieval. . .

PAUL: Folk-rock, a couple of. . .

BRIAN MATTHEW: Have you this time augmented again, used any strange line-ups at all?

PAUL: Yeah, well we've used sort of things that aren't us, you know. Quite a bit, because. . .

JOHN: We used the Monkees on a few of the tracks.

PAUL: Yeah, right. But they wouldn't go along with the TV series that we had planned for them.

BRIAN MATTHEW: Has George written anything this time?

PAUL: Oh yeah, he's done a great one. Great one.

JOHN: A great Indian one. We came along one night, he had about four hundred Indian fellows playing here and it was a great swinging evening, as they say.

PAUL: Yeah, so there's a few things going on.

BRIAN MATTHEW: Yeah. Is there going to be another Beatles film?

JOHN: Yes.

PAUL: Oh yeah.

JOHN: As soon as we finish this LP, we'll be starting on this mythical film that we've been on about for the last year.

PAUL: We want to do a TV show and a film, you know, so the next. . .

BRIAN MATTHEW: And is touring now completely out everywhere?

JOHN: I reckon so, yeah.

PAUL: Well, the thing is, we're working on an act where we run on in brightly-coloured suits and switch on five tapes, and then we do a juggling act at the front of the stage while these tapes play Beatle melodies.

BRIAN MATTHEW: Yeah. Why is it . . . I don't know why this microphone sends you barmy, because when I was talking to John earlier he was quite serious and said, "no, no more tours."

PAUL: Well that's the only possibility, you never know, you know.

JOHN: No more tours, no more "She Loves You"s, you know. But I mean, going on with a million tape recorders and a brightly coloured suit, well that's not . . . that's something else, you know.

BRIAN MATTHEW: No more big tours of America or around the world or. . .?

PAUL: Well. . .

JOHN: No.

PAUL: I don't think so, not in the same kind of pattern, as we've been doing so far anyway. But, you never know.

BRIAN MATTHEW: You never know.

PAUL: Exactly.

BRIAN MATTHEW: I see, right. And on one final bit then, there have been reports in the last week or two about you writing this musical we've been hearing about for years, true or false?

PAUL: False, I think.

JOHN: False, I think.

PAUL: False?

JOHN: False?

PAUL: False.

JOHN: False.

BRIAN MATTHEW: You're not going to do it?

PAUL: I don't think so.

JOHN: I see it as a musical with a thousand tape recorders and brightly coloured costumes, something like that.

BRIAN MATTHEW: "Window and Mirror," then, this projected musical. . .

JOHN: No, we're not going to write. . .

PAUL: All of those kind of things though, you know, we might do in the next few years, you know, but this is the idea, to give us a chance to do, try other things, you know, but we don't know what they're going to be yet.

BRIAN MATTHEW: But you are going to go on writing?

PAUL: There's going to be a lot more other things, you know. But we want to make them sort of different, you know. You know Brian.

BRIAN MATTHEW: Well, thanks for giving us the facts.

JOHN: It's a pleasure.

PAUL: Thank you.