You could probably build a tower to the moon with all the books that have been published about the Beatles over the years. But the man who published the first and only authorised biography of the band – Hunter Davies – is still with us and still working at the age of 90.
And Davies has another Beatles book out. His fourth in total about the band, Get Back: The Boys Who Became The Beatles focuses on the lives of the four members up to 1962 and the author has given an interview to the Telegraph about his long career and his relationship with the band.
You’d think that Davies has used up all his good Beatles stories. But not so. When he was researching the original biography in 1968, Ringo visited his house and asked for some vegetarian food. “Margaret (Davies’s wife) did a very poncey Delia Smith aubergine dish,” he recalls. “Ringo went, ‘What’s this?’ By veggie, he meant beans on toast.”
And he drops a bombshell, of sorts, about Yoko Ono: “I believe she was in love with Paul first. But Yoko’s still alive, so I’ll say no more.”
Davies was in close contact with the band during the latter half of the career, and can remember Paul McCartney presenting Getting Better to John Lennon for the first time in early 1967. “They loved each other, but they really were competitive,” he says of the two friends. “Each one wanted the other’s appreciation.”
“I remember when Paul and I came back from a walk in Primrose Hill. Paul played the basic tune of It’s Getting Better, which he’d just written while I was with him. I can still see John’s face, National Health specs on, absolutely blank, betraying no emotion. Paul was waiting for him to say, ‘That’s great.’
“But he said, ‘That’s good. I’ll try to think of a second verse.’ And he came up with a very cruel one about beating his woman. That’s why it’s a brilliant song, because it turns dark. And that’s why they were the best combination.”
When Davies published the original Beatles biog he assumed they’d be forgotten about in ten years’ time. “But nobody else has come close to the Beatles in influence, or the creativity of their lyrics and music,” he reflects. “ The farther away we get from the Beatles, the bigger they become. Until the last syllable of recorded time, someone will be humming a Beatles song.”
