Barbarella, 1969 Dir. Roger Vadim

MOLLY MELDRUM: Any chance of coming down to the Land of Oz again?

PAUL McCARTNEY: Yeah. We’re thinking about it -

LINDA McCARTNEY: Oh yes, definitely!

PAUL McCARTNEY: What we’re doing this year though is, we’re kind of taking a little bit easier ‘cause we’re pregnant. I’m pregnant too, you know! I’ll have to take it easy!

not to be horny on main but I really want to travel with the love of my life

Around midday on April 1 [1974], Paul and Linda returned to the beach house that had hosted the previous night’s revelries with their children, Heather, Mary and Stella. John was still in bed when McCartney arrived, and his new lifestyle seemed to cause a bemused Paul some slight alarm. “He was a teenager again,” McCartney reflected. “He was just being his old Liverpool self, just a wild, wild boy. Linda and I had kids so we’d be up early. We wouldn’t be just lying in bed until three in the afternoon, which is what John was doing. It was everything he’d always wanted to do in Liverpool…” Once Lennon had eventually risen, McCartney recalled taking John into one of the rooms at the back of the beach house. The two men exchanged pleasantries, and were happy to see each other. Paul found John in a mellow mood due to his docile routine. Having surfaced from his noonday slumber, Lennon eventually joined them at the poolside, where McCartney was enjoying the company of familiar faces. Keith Moon complimented him on his drumming work on Band On The Run following the last-minute departure of Denny Seiwell in September. Nilsson attempted to entice McCartney into sampling some angel dust, who politely (and wisely) declining his offer. “He seemed to understand,” Paul recalled. “But that’s how it was there.” Meanwhile, Moon assistant Peter ‘Dougal’ Butler and Pang took photos of Ringo and Paul relaxing together. McCartney positioned himself at the piano for most of the afternoon, playing a medley of Beatles songs and some standards. Ringo seated himself besides McCartney, enjoying the moment and offering vocal support. Pang also took a photo of Lennon and Starr together, but no photo has surfaced of all three former Beatles together. Knowing the beneficial and pleasurable effect it would have on John, Pang had regularly encouraged him to hook up with Paul and Ringo. “The four guys were brothers. Whenever they would meet, it was like no time had gone by.”

Richard White, Come Together – Lennon and McCartney In The Seventies

Bonham behind the wheel. 

He is regarded by many of today’s drummers as one of the greatest ever to play. “John didn’t practice or sit around in his room thinking about drumming,” Plant says in the book. “He just did it and was magnificent.”

✧ him ✧ 

Me: talks about band members as if they’re personal friends of mine

wish someone would re-pot me like a plant

David Bowie and Band (1973) by Mick Rock

Brian Jones at George Harrison's swimming pool in Esher, Surrey, March 1967.