Sacred And Most Holy Relics

John Lennon's acoustic guitar, used on early recordings and missing for more than fifty years, has been located and is being offered for auction. The Gibson, purchased in 1962 at Brian Epstein's insistence after the boys were mocked at their Decca audition for having substandard equipment, was used on recordings such as Love Me Do and P.S. I Love You. The guitar mysteriously disappeared during The Beatles 1963 Christmas Show at Finsbury Park before surfacing in San Diego where it was bought by an American in the early 70s for a few hundred dollars. Apparently it's only recently he has realised what he has, and is now expected to earn around $800,000 from its sale.

So if it was stolen, why isn't it being returned to its rightful owner? Surely Yoko, or Sean, or Julian should have it.

Of course, that's not to say I'd love to own this guitar.

Memorabilia fascinates me. The extent to which fans will go to possess artifacts, souvenirs, and other items with some connection to their idols. It's as if they're holy relics, as though ownership will endow enlightenment, a kind of Beatles nirvana. For me, mortgages and grown-up priorities (food, insurance, car, etc.) limit my abilities to collect. I have some inexpensive items; mostly recent merchandise and a few old Beatles Monthly magazines. But there are some collectors who will go to great expense to possess rarities. And the closer to the boys, and the rarer it is, the better.

Studio tapes are missing from the archives. There are rumours of collectors holding these for themselves in private collections, not willing to return them, not willing to share them. Instruments, gold records and awards, clothes, notes and song lyrics; all stolen at opportune moments and secreted away. She Came In Through The Bathroom Window.

And from there we cross to the completely sick and twisted side of collecting. A copy of The White Album, signed by Charles Manson and members of his family, is currently offered for sale at $50,000. There's definitely something wrong with that.

McCartney had some fun at the expense of memorabilia collectors in his 1989 video for My Brave Face in which a Japanese collector goes to extraordinary lengths to steal items such as a Sgt. Pepper suit. But for my money one of the funniest moments was a Saturday Night Live skit from the 80s where Ringo Starr (playing himself) is offered up for auction as a piece of memorabilia.

I love reading about this stuff. Books with information and images on collectibles, instruments, and every variation in record releases from a round the world fascinate me no end.

Now, if I ever won the lottery I'd be in serious trouble. My wife would kill me. The money wouldn't last. I understand collectors. I understand their passion. And I'd love to possess my own pieces of Beatles history.

The Beatles' Progress

I recently discovered Love Me Do: The Beatles' Progress by Michael Braun. Written during 1963 and 1964 while on tour with the band, his book is surprisingly daring and honest for the time. Braun describes the boys drinking, smoking, swearing and talking about women - everything a good Beatle didn't do.

At the time it seemed as though the press had a moratorium on publishing accounts of their behaviour on tour. I've read tales of journalists being extremely aware of the band's indiscretions (and sometimes involved) but opting not to write about them. And although Braun doesn't go into too many specifics, he gives a fascinating insight on what they were really like.

Hunter Davies' biography from only a few years later was authorised, and as such was heavily sanitised. John Lennon recognised this, and in an interview with Jann Wenner in the early 70s pretty much described the book as being a work of fiction. Braun's book, on the other hand, rips the curtain open and portrays the boys as real humans, real personalities who are more than their caricatured personas.

"That was a true book," Lennon said. "He wrote about how we were, which was bastards … You have to be a bastard to make it, man. That's a fact, and the Beatles were the biggest bastards on earth."

While there's little doubt The Beatles behaved exactly like suddenly rich young men with incredible fame (and dare I suggest, while shouldering the burden of  being the coolest four guys on the planet), there's little evidence they were as ruthless as Lennon seems to think. The above quote was said at a time when Lennon loved savaging the Beatles myth. He took delight in tearing down their reputation. But more than that, he was an unreliable witness. He was prone to hyperbole, or even making up stories. He longed to be the rebel to Epstein's image-creating guidance, the non-conformist while everyone else remembers him willingly going along with their plans for musical world domination. His assertions the boys smoked dope at Buckingham Palace have been pretty much refuted by everyone. He described the 1964 Australian tour as Satyricon. And while I've no doubt they had veracious appetites, none of it would have compared with Led Zeppelin or Vanilla Fudge in the 70s.

Edgewater Inn, anyone?

But Lennon was on the right track. Braun's book certainly goes further than the others. Music papers generally ignored the existence of this book. The 1995 reprint with a foreword by Mark Lewisohn was the first time many fans even became aware of it. Me? I accidentally stumbled across the 1964 edition only a few months ago. I'm embarrassed I'd never sought it out before.

A Hard Day's Night was a loving, photoshop of a day in the life of a Beatle. On the other hand, Love Me Do: The Beatles' Progress is a raw, grainy polaroid of the same moment in time.