Interview for RTE • Thursday, November 7, 1963

Interview

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Q: “Tell me first of all, is the haircut an act by accident or design?”

JOHN: “Accident.”

Q: “You didn’t have time to get your hair cut in the first place?”

JOHN: “No, it just happened, you know. Ringo’s was by design because he joined later.”

RINGO: “Yeah, I designed it.”

(laughter)

Q: “How often do you get your hair cut, by the way?”

JOHN: “Uhh, well we don’t — we try not to mention that.”

PAUL: “It’s a dirty word.”

Q: “This new breed that’s coming up — the Liverpool Sound — It’s a bit of a puzzle to some of us older people especially in Ireland. Could you define it for me?”

GEORGE: “It’s a puzzle to us, too.”

PAUL: “It’s not really a Liverpool Sound, you know.”

JOHN: “There’s no such thing.”

PAUL: “It just so happens that the new groups that have come out all happen to have come from Liverpool, so people sort of generalize a bit and say, ‘Aha! The Liverpool Sound!’ but really, you know, if you listen to the groups they’re all quite different. It’s not all one big sound that’s coming out.”

Q: “Well, it’s no use saying, ‘Are you surprised by your success,’ because quite clearly you’re not a bit surprised.”

PAUL: “We are!”

JOHN: “Oh, we are surprised, but you’re just sort of, you know, so surprised that it doesn’t even register.”

PAUL: “I mean, you can’t… If we look surprised everyday, we’d look off our heads!”

Q: (laughs) “About your Irish backgrounds…”

PAUL: “Yeah, I think we’ve all got a bit.”

(screaming airplane engine drowns out the interview. John comically plugs his ears and grins. Paul yells “Cut!!” Everyone waits several moments for the noise to pass. Paul nods and smiles at the camera man and asks, “Still going?”)

Q: (laughs)

JOHN: “Irish backgrounds, we were on.”

Q: (to john) “I think I saw you being greeted by somebody outside.”

JOHN: “No, no, that was George.”

GEORGE: “That was me, that was me. Yeah. Well actually, it was my mother.”

(Beatles laugh)

GEORGE: (laughs) “She came over here, you know, because she’s got hundreds of cousins and relatives over here, and then she hadn’t seen us for weeks anyway ‘cuz we’ve been away. So she’s come to see the show and to see her cousins. And one of the cousins was here with her.”

Q: (jokingly) “Your mother has to come to Ireland to see you?”

GEORGE: “Yeah.” (laughs)

Q: “Well, this in a way kind of typifies the kind of extraordinary upset that must occur in your private lives. Do you get home at all?”

GEORGE: “Uhh, yeah. Sometimes you get home for a whole week. But sometimes you don’t get home for months on end.”

PAUL: “It’s normally about one day in, say, three weeks.”

GEORGE: (jokingly) “Mind you, a new idea — telephones — help a bit, you know.”

Q: “Oh, I’m sure. God bless Graham Bell.”

PAUL: “Yeah.”

GEORGE: “Freddie Bell.”

(laughter)

Q: “Does the continuous living together and working together cause any tempermental stress on you?”

PAUL: “No, actually it’s quite lucky because we’ve been…”

BEATLES: (singing together) “‘We’ve Been Together Now For Forty Yeeeears!'”

PAUL: “You know, we’ve all been mates for quite a long time so we don’t get on each other’s nerves as much as we could.”

(mock fighting breaks out between them)

PAUL: “We’re quite friendly.”

Q: (laughing) “Yeah, so I see. So far as I can see, the greater portion of your public seems to be female. To what do you attribute this extraordinary success? Alot of people here would be very interested to know this.”

RINGO: “You can’t make it out, you know.”

JOHN: “We’re male, aren’t we!!”

(laughter)

JOHN: “It’d be a bit funny if they were all fellas. (effeminate voice) ‘Oh! get away!'”

(John, Paul and George share a private joke quietly, ignoring Ringo’s response)

RINGO: “It’s very nice, you know. We don’t know why. If we knew we’d be ‘made’ more or less. You’d just go and get about six groups like us who are attractive to women…”

(Realizing he is rattling on and no one is listening anymore, Ringo comically begins straying from the topic completely.)

RINGO: “I forgot my mac, and so I said to John, ‘If you don’t fetch yours, it’s gonna rain,’ you see. And he said…”

(Beatles crack up at Ringo’s gibberish)

PAUL: “What are you talking about?!”

Q: “We’re talking about your appeal to the feminine sex. I’ve come to the conclusion that whatever it is, it’s bigger than the four of you.”

PAUL: “Oh aye! That’s right.”