I shall never forget the first time I saw The Beatles. They were playing in the basement of the Cavern Club in Liverpool, and I arrived just as they were packing up their instruments. I had never heard a sound like it all that clanging and crashing and zipping. They all looked so German, and after chewing my nails off I dared go and tell them. Yeah, weve been in Hamburg like, they all said, in harmony. We practically are German, are German, aaaaaahhhhhhhh German.
That night I had my first drink a vodka and loganberry spritzer. It was bought for me by Brian Epstein, who kindly drove me home. I had never tasted anything like it and probably never will. In the car, Epstein said to me, So, what do you think? When? I said, and he made a note of it, nodding and saying, Youre right, youre right. Its Ringo, isnt it?
The next summer I saw them play at Shea stadium in New York. That year I had bought seven thousand copies of Love me Do and eight thousand of I Wanna Hold Your Hand, all of which were scratched. By now the band were stratospherically huge, and like a nose on the face of the earth. As luck would have it, Brian Epstein let me fly to America on the Beatles plane, selling me the ticket at a reasonable price considering the eminence of my fellow passengers. I tried complaining about my records, but Epstein just smiled at me, and offered me a bonbon.
The plane was spectacular like all the others, except with the Beatles in it. I remember how John would run up and down the aisles pretending to be a plane crash, and how we would all laugh, except Paul who would say, Oh, sit down you prat. At Shea I screamed and screamed until the girl next to me got off my foot. The lads were marvelous, and remembered all the lyrics to their songs and only missed the occasional chord change. What do you think? I asked some woman who had swooned into my arms. About what? she said, before the ambulance men took her away. I reported her comment to Brian Epstein who took a note of it, saying, Shes right, too much symbol.
The next summer I had my second drink. I was giving the band a lift to Abbey Road studios when someone tapped on my shoulder and handed me a flask. Whats this? I asked. Cream soda, John said, and everyone laughed, except Paul who called John a prat. I took a swig and immediately crashed the car. I was trapped under the steering wheel, and thinking only of the band, I told them to make a run for it, but they already had, across a zebra crossing. I was discovered only two days later, and after a few months in hospital, I re-acquainted myself with the Fab Four at one of Epsteins notorious fondue parties. (That was Brian, always ahead of the game.) Youre still alive? they asked as we traded anecdotes. After the After Eights had done the rounds, I told them about a friend of mine, Eleanor Rigby, who kept her face in a jar. I had no idea what I meant, but it sounded deep and I was understandably nervous.
Over the next year, my relationship with the band grew steadily. They began to invite me into the studio and even offered to pay when I scored for them. They were so like that: kind and down to earth. I recall one time when I handed Paul a fifty kilo bag of marijuana and he said to me, Got any skins? I hadnt, so I went out and bought a lorry load, just like that. They always inspired that kind of loyalty. True, I was arrested and spent the next twelve months in Wormwood Scrubs, but I presume Paul got his skins from someone else.
The next summer The Beatles were set to become the biggest thing since Jesus, when John complained, and Jesus never got a look in. We hooked up in India, where, by pure coincidence, I had been sent as a government spy. We were all sitting cross-legged on the floor, except me who sat on my crossed arms, when I suggested to George that instead of his idea of going into the tea business, he should consider learning to play the sitar. Hey, thats a great idea, he said, as I pulled the rickshaw over to Ravi Shankars place in the hills. We sat for hours as George perfected the right way round to hold the instrument, and jammed over tea and toast until the moon sat full in the sky, and my head began to ache.
That summer I had my first experience with LSD when Paul filled my 500mg jar of Zinc and Vitamin C tablets with acid tabs. It was like nothing I had ever known and for three months I had a series of nasty trips in which I was convinced I was Donovan. I began to paint kaleidoscopic landscapes onto the walls of public lavatories, and enjoyed a period of limited fame as a guru for three teenage girls, until they gave me up and joined a Swiss convent. But I am the eggman! I insisted, Alright then, the Walrus! But they looked at me as if I was mad, and I went into rehab where the scores were great.
It was a productive period for me, and I burnt more holes in sofas than there were in Blackburn, Lancashire.
That spring we shot the cover of Sgt. Pepper. It was my first incident with a firearm, and the record was shattered over the room. The police turned up, but John just told them it was me and I was carried away, saving the reputation of the band. I had been angered by the bands incessant teasing of me after I discovered I had somehow stood just out of the camera frame in the photograph. Im to the right of the guy who is top right, and missed my place in history by a couple of inches. I served my time, and prison was a mecca for cheap smack, which I sent home to mother to give to the band.
That next summer I went on my first protest march. It was a powerful experience and apart from me spraining my ankle I really felt the winds of change blowing through my beard. Finally, I was part of a herd, all travelling for the sake of it. We sang the Marseillaise, until some fools ruined it by turning it into some song about how all we need is love. The Beatles, bless them, were furious, but still managed to make some money out of it. They were full of nous those boys. Im not ashamed to say I loved them.
The year after that, my ankle fully recovered, I was lounging in the studio with Yoko and Linda when we all recorded the White Album and I wrote Helter Skelter, the name of which they enthusiastically adopted for one of their songs. They had all these plans for a really crazy album cover when I suggested we give up and go home. And thanks to my timely request, the White album was born. The rest, of course, is legend.
Later that decade, as the LSD slowly began to wear off and I learned to speak again, we all collectivised at Johns nine thousand acre mansion a commune that he shared with Yoko and the servants. By now, we were going in and out of style, although, as ever, we were guaranteed to raise a smile, particularly when we wore those velvet suits and heeled boots. We started to argue about the meaning of possessions. John and Yoko said they meant nothing as we took a turn around the grounds in one of the deeper yellow Rolls Royces. George agreed, saying it was your inner spiritual health that meant everything and he would gladly give up his seventeen castles if somebody just proposed a better way to house his cats. I was about to mention a sanctuary I knew when Paul jumped in arguing that material possessions had nothing to do with happiness. What about fun? I asked, and he conceded to my astute observation. Linda insisted that meat was the only possession worth having, until Paul reminded her that it was the other way round meat was not worth having. Oh yeah, she said, and we all laughed at how suckers would some day buy frozen vegetarian meals shaped like meat.
But the developing rifts were unavoidable. John and Paul were not talking, especially after I told them both that the other hated their wives, and still nobody was talking to Ringo. Eventually things just petered out and I moved to the Orkney islands for some recuperation. The band, wealthier than in the Fifties, entered a new decade with fresh ideas about God, Yoko, Frog Choruses and Yogic flying. I knew things were over when John wrote How Do You Sleep? about my insomnia, an unforgivable and vicious attack on a part of my life I had tried to keep a secret. Now, older and wiser, I know valium is the only answer.
