Press conference: Warwick Hotel, New York City

Q: Do you think that with the new miniskirts and wild fashions that young women are exposing too much these days?

All: No!

John Lennon: You get quite used to it. It’s not as wild as you think it is, when it’s sort of, everybody’s wearing clothes like that. It just looks sort of normal and you get used to it, the same as people got used to long hair.

Q: When you go to San Francisco then, will you visit some of the topless restaurants?

George Harrison: No, we’ll only be there long enough to do the concert and then fly back to Los Angeles.

Lennon: Well, they could come to the show. We’ll get ’em a couple of tickets.

Harrison: Yeah. They could dance on stage while we do our act.

Lennon: Nah, we wouldn’t be able to do it.

Q: What music do you listen to for relaxation?

Ringo Starr: All sorts, you know.

Paul McCartney: All kinds of music. I don’t think any one of us has got…

Lennon: Except for him.

McCartney: Well, George is mainly interested in Indian music, and we all share the interest, and like all other kinds of music as well. Good music, you know.

Q: Here’s a question for the entire group. I noticed that Brian Epstein is sitting up on the platform with you gentlemen. After all these years how are the Beatles and Brian getting along, aside from the financial considerations?

Lennon: We get on just fine.

McCartney: Good friends.

Harrison: He wouldn’t be sitting on the stage with us now if we didn’t.

Lennon: He’d be sitting on his fat wallet somewhere.

Q: If it could be arranged would you like to include, in your ’67 or ’68 European concert itinerary, concerts in the satellite capital countries such as Warsaw, Moscow and Budapest? Can you answer that, please?

Lennon: We can’t, you know. We’d like…

Harrison: Personally, I wouldn’t like to play there because I just don’t fancy going there at the moment. There’s lots of other places I’d rather see first. But that’s a personal whim, you know.

Tony Barrow: These are now the last three questions.

Q: I got a tough question for Ringo. Your boy is a year old next month, right? September?

Starr: Yeah.

Q: What kind of gifts does he want for his birthday?

Starr: Well, how do I know? He’s not talking yet.

Q: Do you feel responsible for the mod fashion revolution in the United States?

All: No.

Lennon: We haven’t noticed it.

Harrison: We’re not responsible for ourselves, never mind fashions.

Lennon: Mental as well, eh?

Q: A couple of years ago, you said that you were most influenced by people such as Chuck Berry, LaVern Baker etcetera. Now that they’re more or less over the hill as far as pop music is concerned…

Lennon: They were then.

Q: …who do you admire now? You mentioned Indian music. Are there any pop stars in the United States today that still influence you?

Lennon: We like a lot of American groups, still, you know.

Harrison: Elvis.

Lennon: We still like Chuck Berry. I haven’t burned his records or anything. The Lovin’ Spoonful are nice.

McCartney: Beach Boys are great.

Starr: Mamas And The Papas.

Lennon: We like a lot of things, and are influenced by everything that’s going on.

McCartney: Especially Bill Haley.

Q: What about the downfall?

McCartney: What about it?

Harrison: Well, the downfall won’t be a downfall for us because we won’t really…

Lennon: …feel down.

Harrison: If we’ll have a downfall it will only be for all those people who think, Hee hee, the Beatles aren’t making hit records anymore. We won’t particularly be worried. So it won’t be a downfall.

Q: You’re looking forward to it? Getting out of all this?

McCartney: No, we’re not.

Lennon: We don’t sort of dread it. It’s just something that’ll happen.

Harrison: When it happens, we’ll accept it.

Q: Ringo, do you have any comment on fatherhood?

Starr: Ah, it’s OK! You know, that’s about all. I like it.

Tony Barrow: This must be the last question, I’m afraid, time-wise.

Q: One of the disc jockeys in the local area said that one of the songs, I believe it was ‘Rain’, was recorded backwards. Is this true?

Lennon: It is true. After we’d done the session on that particular song – it ended at about four or five in the morning – I went home with a tape to see what else you could do with it. And I was sort of very tired, you know, not knowing what I was doing, and I just happened to put it on my own tape recorder and it came out backwards. And I liked it better. So that’s how it happened.

Last updated: 11 November 2010
The Beatles live: Busch Stadium, St Louis
Junior press conference: Warwick Hotel, New York City
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  1. Wayne Dent Wednesday 14 December 2016

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