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Even if it was not perceived as such at the time
in 1966/67, these first steps as solo artists
were dramatic events. For the first time in four
years, John, Paul, George and Ringo were no
longer a unity, the Beatles had no record deal,
McCartney after all, half of the songwriters
duo, as perceived by the public now wrote
movie soundtracks without the help of his
partner who starred in a movie without his
three Beatle friends. Visually, the Beatles had
changed. John's long hair was trimmed for his
role in How I Won The War (done on
September 6, 1966, at 8:30 am at the Onkel
Nickel pub in Essel), he now wore his now
famous National Health glasses and all four
Beatles had begun to grow moustaches. The
Mop Tops were now definitely passé and the
Beatles themselves would soon be too, as John
Lennon realized during the filming: "I was
always waiting for a reason to get out of The
Beatles from the day I made How I Won The
War in 1966.10“ A reason, but not the reason
(we have grown past that, haven't we?),
Lennon finally met on 7 November 1966 at the
Indica Gallery. In September 1965, John
Dunbar, Peter Asher and Barry Miles had
opened the Indica Bookshop in Mason's Yard.
In the basement of the building there was a
gallery where counter culture exhibitions were
regularly held. Peter Asher, part of the pop duo
Peter and Gordon, was McCartney's then
girlfriend Jane’s brother. From the beginning,
Paul had helped the company, donated a box
office to the store and both designed a flyer for
the opening of the shop and the wrapping
paper. Basically it was McCartney, not Lennon,
who was active at this time in London's
cultural scene. That Lennon visited the Indica
Gallery at all had less to do with his interest in
art, but more with the boredom of his
suburban existence. On 8 November 1966 an
exhibition was due at the Indica by a Japanese
artist named Yoko Ono. Dunbar invited Lennon
to watch the displayed exhibits the night
before, as the latter recalled three years later:
"Yoko had been invited to London by some
group of artists called Destruction in Art
Symposium. They had some big thing going on
in London. She had an exhibition put on by
Indica Gallery, by John Dunbar Marianne
Faithfull's exhusband. I use to go down
occasionally to see things like Takis, who'd
make flashing lights and sold them for a
fortune. It would be garbage. But they sent me
this pamphlet, or he called me I don't know
which about this Japanese girl from New
York, who was going to be in a bag, doing this
event or happening in a bag. I thought, 'Hmm,'
you know, 'sex'. So I went down.11“ Finally,
John Lennon and Yoko Ono met and while
John struck an imaginary nail "we locked eyes
and she got it and I got it and that was it,12" as
the two told time and again over the years.
They did not make their relationship public
10 Beatles, page 231
11 Beatles, page 235
12 Ibd.
An advertisement for Yoko Ono's
Unfinished Paintings exhibition at
Indica Gallery
until May 1968. Until then, this may seem a
little timid, but not as much as John and Yoko
claimed afterwards. Even before Lennon Brian
Epstein made acquaintance with Ono as she
appeared with artists such as Gustav Metzger
in the Destruction in Art Symposium in London
in September and at the Edinburgh Festival of
that year.14 Although he found her appearance
boring, according to his assistant Tony
Bramwell, he booked her for a performance at
his Saville Theatre.15 McCartney also knew
Ono already after she had asked him for a
music score as a birthday present for John
Cage on 5 September 1966. Paul explained
that John and he did not write scores and
instead gave her the most beautifully executed
manuscript of the song The Word.
On 24 November 1966 (interestingly, still
without a record deal), together for the first
time in five months, the Beatles returned to the
EMI studios in Abbey Road to start recording a
song John had written during the filming of
How I Won The War in Spain: Strawberry Fields
Forever. Three days later, John Lennon again
appeared in front of a camera as an actor. In
the comedy show Not Only ... But Also he
played a bouncer outside a nightclub toilet.
Of course, it had not escaped the media that
there had been no new Beatles record in
months (instead a retrospective called A
Collection Of Beatles Oldies had been issued in
time for Christmas), that Lennon and
McCartney had solo projects going and that no
concerts had been scheduled. In a report with
the significant title "Reporting '66: End of
Beatlemania" on 20 December 1966, ITV
reporter John Edwards raised the question
whether the Beatles had split up. Edwards
interviewed each Fab on the stairs of the EMI
studios where a session for When I'm SixtyFour
was about to take place. Lennon said there
would be no more concerts and that he and
Paul would be writing songs forever, but also
that there would possibly be other solo projects
in 1967. Ringo also spoke of solo projects.
However, all four Beatles agreed that they
would not split up.16 On the contrary, they had
two new songs ready, intended for a new
album, which had not yet been given any great
thought, but which were very innovative (even
if McCartney’s When I'm SixtyFour had been
written ten years earlier17) and once again –
were so different from what the Beatles had
recorded until then. Even if no one outside
Abbey Road had heard the songs, they pointed
to greater things. Besides plans for a new
album that would ultimately become Sgt
Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the Beatles
13 see www.christies.com/lotfinder/LotDetailsPrintable.aspx?intObjectID=3734572 (as per 18 August 2013)
14 Interestingly also Jane Asher appeared at that festival for a theatre production called A Winter's Tale
15 see Bramwell, Tony & Kingsland, Rosemary, Magical Mystery Tours – My Life With The Beatles, New York City 2005, page 172f
16 RediffusionTV, 29 December 1966
17 see Lewisohn, Mark, All These Years Volume 1: Tune In Extended Special Edition, London 213, page 262
UK: Mono A Collection Of Beatles Oldies (Parlophone PMC 7016) signed by Paul on 29 July
2011 and a cover proof for the same album. A Collection marked the first time the Beatles
had an outside artist design one of their album covers (discounting Klaus Voormann who
belonged to the "family"). David Christian not only did that artwork but also a draft for
their 1966 Christmas message which was utilised as an advertisement instead.13