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You Never Give Me Your Money by Peter Doggett
3 February 2010
10.13pm
SceatasRob
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Some surprise anyone didn't mention this book! (Or didn't I look in the right places?) Considering the fact that (I think) most people are from English-speaking countries, and that it takes a while for English books to reach Holland, and was surprised this very new book (October 2009, I think?) wasn't discussed. Not that I want to, I just wanted to mention its existence. Only read it once, just before Christmas. In the near future, I'm willing to review it, but just want to read it one more time before doing so.

3 February 2010
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Joe
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It was mentioned before, but before we had a books section in the forum. It’s here: https://www.beatlesbible.com/f…..r-doggett/

Unfortunately I can’t move threads around; otherwise I’d bring it over here or combine the threads into one. Anyway, do let us know what you think of the book – I’ve heard good things about it.

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3 February 2010
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Well, certainly it's a big read, in every aspect. It's thoroughly researched, that's for sure. But to me, essentially, it was a very gripping tale of all the character flaws all humans might have – demonstrated by people who were consired heroes and pioneers, the Beatles. It just shows that everybody's human, and to me, that's one valuable lesson for sure. Less metapsychically, the book provided me with a lot of information about a period in the Beatles history I heard a lot about, but never ventured into: the last two and a half years of their coorperation as the Beatles. 

Edit: Of course, there's way more to the book. It deals with every legal, financial, and creative aspect of the Beatles after they stopped being Beatles. At first, I didn't think that would make a great subject, but funny enough it does. It just shows how defenseless real art is. When reading this book, I remembered some Dutch phrase that's on top of a building in Rotterdam, near my hometown: “Alles van waarde is weerloos,” which roughly translates to: “Everything of value is defenseless” – it just shows that commerce is not easily compatible with talent and art. 

4 February 2010
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I made reference to this late last year as I'd not long finished it.  I thought it was good as Doggett gave an honest view that didn't smack of “kiss ass” to the Beatles. It goes into a lot of detail regarding the finances and the almighty calamity that Apple was, but I found it very interesting.

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16 July 2010
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Best book on the post-Beatles years I've ever read. This is a must read as it combines their personal lives, their interpersonal relationships with each other, and their finances all into one compelling story.

 

Get it.

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12 January 2015
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ewe2
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Yeah it’s a harrowing read, I found it diffcult to keep going because the catalogue of disaster was exhausting. And this is just the best compiled overview: the story of My Sweet Lord alone would be enough (the lawsuit that took 30 years, I think it set some kind of record.).

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25 March 2015
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Sun King
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I finished reading this the other day, great book. 

But I must say, I thought George and John came across as a bit dickish the book. I still love them, I can’t separate them and Paul as I love all three equally, but I thought they acted really unfairly and rudely towards Paul. Not just on business stuff, but they seemed to like hurting him personally.  

25 March 2015
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Just finished it a few days ago, and I’m about to start on a second read-through. I echo the sentiment posted above: this is easily the best book out there on the post-Beatles era, running from 1967/68 right up to 2009. Yeah, it’s a bit of a depressing book to read, but that’s the nature of the story: the band breaks up in the end, and they never get back together.

Quick question for anyone who knows more about Liverpudlian ways than I do: recounting how Derek Taylor talked George Harrison into rejoining the band after he’d left in 1969, Doggett says

Taylor’s reward was a postcard in McCartney’s handwriting, with the stamp carefully torn in half and the simple Northern injunction, ‘Up yer.’

What does “up yer” mean? It sounds like the start of an insult, y’know, “up yer arse” or something, but that doesn’t seem to fit the context. It sounds more like Paul was saying something akin to “good on yer,” but I just can’t imagine what “up yer” is shorthand for in this context.

Not a bit like Cagney.

30 March 2015
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Joe
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I think your first interpretation is correct. I’ve never heard “Up yer” before, but “Up yours” is a fairly well-known UK insult. But if it was aimed at Derek Taylor I’d imagine McCartney meant it in jest.

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30 March 2015
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parlance
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I remember, though, that Taylor didn’t take it as a joke. In the broader context, it seems like Paul was having a mental breakdown that partly manifested itself in passive-aggressive anonymous postcards to a few people, including Taylor and Taylor’s wife.

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30 March 2015
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parlance said

I remember, though, that Taylor didn’t take it as a joke. In the broader context, it seems like Paul was having a mental breakdown that partly manifested itself in passive-aggressive anonymous postcards to a few people, including Taylor and Taylor’s wife.

Really? That’s odd, any more detail on that, parlance? Was Paul seeing all the minions as taking sides by this time? DiLello hints broadly at this kind of thing in The Longest Cocktail Party, it was very much the office politics to keep clear of such taints anyway, as being career-limiting.

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30 March 2015
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parlance
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This is one of those stories about Paul that fascinates me, so here’s what I’ve found (copying from a thread I’d started in another forum):

From Doggett’s book (pp 48-49):

In the midst of this turmoil McCartney invited Lennon and Ono to live with him and Schwartz in his home close to Abbey Road Studios while the Lennons’ divorce was finalised. “When John came over,” Schwartz recounted, “all he could talk about was how much he loved Yoko. That disturbed Paul. In spite of John’s obvious happiness, Paul stifled his jealousy with not-very-cute bursts of crap.” Schwartz remembered Lennon and Ono discovering an envelope on the mantelpiece one morning, addressed to them but not bearing a postmark. Inside was a single typewritten sentence: “You and your Jap tart think you’re hot shit.” While they stood there in shock, McCartney entered the room and said, “Oh, I just did that for a lark,” and smiled. As Schwartz recalled, “That was the moment when John looked at Paul as if to say, “Do I know you?” It was over, it was completely and totally over at that moment. They may have been able to work together, but it was never the same.” Soon afterwards Lennon and Ono moved into a central London flat that was being rented by Starkey.

The same story from Howard Sounes’ bio on Paul – page 220:

One morning, when John was going through his mail at Cavendish, he found a postcard addressed to him with the message, “You and your Jap tart think you’re hot shit.” Paul admitted he’d sent the card for a joke. He had a strange habit of sending anonymous postcards, another of his victims being Derek Taylor, who ran the Apple press office with more profligacy than Paul liked. The card to John and Yoko may have been meant as a joke, but it made for an awkward atmosphere in the house. “It was embarrassing. The three of us swivelled around, staring at him. You could feel the pain in John,” Schwartz wrote of the moment Paul admitted to sending it.

Also, I have a pdf of Francie’s book, and the postcard is mentioned at p. 86 of Body Count. Regarding John and Yoko staying at Paul’s house:

But Paul was treating them like shit too. He even sent them a hate letter once, unsigned, typed. I brought it in with the morning mail. Paul put most of the fan mail in a big basket, and let it sit for weeks, but John and Yoko opened every piece. When they got to the anonymous note, they sat puzzled, looking at each other with genuine pain in their eyes.

“You and your jap tart think you’re hot shit,” it said. John put it on the mantle, and in the afternoon, Paul bopped in, prancing much the same self-conscious way he did when we met.

“Oh I just did that for a lark…” he said, in his most sugar-coated accent.

It was embarrassing. The three of us swiveled around, staring at him. You could see the pain in John. Yoko simply rose above it, feeling only empathy for John.

 

The story PeterWeatherby referenced – page 62 of Doggett’s book:

Harrison was persuaded by Derek Taylor to meet the other Beatles at Apple on Wednesday. “Brian Epstein, I knew would have fought and fought to keep them together,” he explained, “and so I was bolder than I had ever been or ever would be again, and demanded passionately and at length that George not let Paul carry the weight of keeping the film and the Beatles going. I felt that George’s sense of decency could be touched, and it was.” Taylor’s reward was a postcard in McCartney’s handwriting, with the stamp carefully torn in half and the simple Northern injunction, “Up yer.”

 

A quote at p.254 of the Sounes bio, during Allen Klein-era of shake-ups at Apple, which Sounes attributes to Derek Taylor’s Fifty Years Adrift (which will run you a few thousand dollars if you ever find it):

As mentioned, [Derek] Taylor believed Paul was the sender of anonymous postcards the PR man received at home, some weird and “some outright nasty ones” as Taylor recalled, with stamps torn in half and cryptic messages, one of which, addressed to Derek’s wife, read: “Tell your boy to obey the schoolmasters.” Derek was in no doubt these were from Paul, though the star didn’t admit sending them.

Someone else who has Taylor’s book, As Times Goes By: Living in the Sixties, quoted it (I don’t have the page number, sorry):

 I don’t think I ever hated anyone as much as I hated Paul in the summer of ’68. Postcards would arrive at my house from America or Scotland or wherever, some outright nasty ones, some with no meaning that I could see, one with a postage stamp torn in half and pasted neatly showing the gap between the two halves. Joan received one bearing the words, ‘Tell your boy to obey the schoolmaster,’ and signed, ‘Patron.’ Far out.

 

On a side, note, I have Ringo’s Postcards from the Boys , and on pp. 28-29, there is one postcard with a torn stamp in there. The postcard has a postmark from St. John’s Wood and a photo by Guy Withers of a Siamese cat playing with a ball captioned “Eye on the Ball.” It reads:

COINTREAU?
CARIDU
NOTFUFF?

And it is addressed to:

ANYONE?
APPLE?
BROOKFIELDS?
CUT MILL LANE?
ELSTEAD?
SORRY.

Ringo’s commentary: “From Paul, I think. Nothing to say but it’s okay.”

 

The torn stamps remind me of that story Paul told of how he’d quietly rebel against his parents as a child by making tiny tears in one of the curtains.

parlance

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30 March 2015
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Just…wow. I’m going to have to reread Doggett, that moment with the postcard is just…wow. That’s real fruitcake territory, just physically unable to express emotions directly like that. The one to Ringo puts me in mind of Paul’s period of drinking the days away, the ones to Taylor are incredible. The ego and immaturity of it is a little frightening, like a schoolboy given unexpected power over his peers and can only think of snide paybacks. Not something you’d expect from someone rich famous and enormously talented. But there you go. What’s the deal with the torn stamps? Forcing the receiver to pay for the postcard?

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30 March 2015
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Oh wow, thanks for such a detailed response! I knew Paul went a bit crazy around the time of McCartney/Ram , and I’d heard the ‘jap tart’ story before, but I didn’t know he was in the habit of sending cards like those.

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30 March 2015
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I have empathy for everyone involved. I think it was probably frightening to receive those postcards, and yes, a lot of pain could have been prevented had The Beatles learned to talk to each other (didn’t Mick Jagger say something similar?). But it seemed it was unusually fraught time for Paul, and I get the impression it was particularly scary because it wasn’t normal behavior for him. Remember, he was still in his 20s when all of this went down. I don’t know how many people could have gone through what The Beatles did at that age and be expected to behave maturely. Also, I’m pretty sure Paul and Taylor patched up things after that.

Oh, I just saw your edit about the torn stamps, ewe2. I don’t know if the person had to pay for that as long as the entire stamp was present. Like I said, it reminded me of the torn curtain story – a quiet, pissy rebellion.

parlance

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30 March 2015
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Yeah I’m just thinking about why Taylor might have been a target for such revenge. Possibly Paul blaming Taylor for a public perception out of his control? It’s mean behaviour to an employee (and really dumb to attack a publicist), imagine if that had happened in today’s media climate! To do it to a friend and claim it was a joke to his face…Paul was still an emotional teenager I guess.

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30 March 2015
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parlance
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ewe2 said
Paul was still an emotional teenager I guess.

I hear you. After I read Doggett’s book a couple of years ago, I had to contend with the realization that the Beatles weren’t the mature, fully in-control, zen adults I envisioned when I was a child.

One of the reasons why the postcards story fascinates me is that it does remind me that Paul is human and fallible, and I like him for that.

parlance

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30 March 2015
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Makes you wonder what kind of postcards John was getting. And maybe casts a different light on “Two of us sending postcards…”

Was the fact that this –
imagine-postcard-insert.jpgImage Enlarger


– was a postcard a message in itself?

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3 April 2015
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I don’t approve of The Beatles’ immature behaviour by any means, but in a way finding out that they weren’t these all-knowing perfect men made me like them more because they became so much more relatable and interesting. Another example is the way Paul treated Stuart. He was awful, but at the same time, reading about how Paul felt in those Hamburg days made me empathise with him in a way that I never had before. 

I think it’s important for people to realise how complex and sad the whole thing could be, and the toll being a Beatle took on all of them.

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3 April 2015
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You know, I wonder if George ever received nasty postcards from Paul. He never mentioned it, but if he didn’t, he would’ve been the only one. If he did, then it might help explain some of the comments he made about Paul over the years. Either way it’s interesting to think about.

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