Derek Burrell-Davis - Memo To BBC (May 67): “I Had A Satisfactory Two-hour Meeting With All Four Members

Derek Burrell-Davis - memo to BBC (May 67): “I had a satisfactory two-hour meeting with all four members of the Beatles Group this evening…..I don’t think it is over-stating it to say that they are enthusiastic about their participation in the ‘Our World’ programme and fully aware of the responsibilities they carry. Their approach is extremely professional and they are in complete agreement with the basic idea, which is that they are undertaking a recording session in the Number One Studio at E.M.I., Abbey Road. They cannot yet forecast what they will be doing in any great detail, but they propose writing a new number. Since this number will be heard in 30 countries, they are going to write the lyric in basic English. They suggest that they should use such words as “Hello, love, you, me, us, them, together, we”. They are wondering if it might be possible to use some of those words in different languages and are receptive to the idea that words such as “love”, “together”, etc. might be shown on large cards at appropriate moments in several languages”.

The BBC/broadcasters briefing meeting on 4 June 1967 to co-ordinate the international co-operation for the Our World Broadcast

The lyrics sheet given to the cameramen before broadcast. They were not impressed. On being told the Beatles wrote the music, they only asked "did they write the words as well?"

“...the day before, the doors were thrown open for a free-for-all picture session, at which I managed to have a quick word with — PAUL: Someone’s just asked if I’m leaving the group. And there seems to be another rumour I’m moving. Both are very wrong. I’ve just finished my house and like it a lot. No, I haven’t bought a kilt yet. GEORGE: We will do a TV show before we do a film. Nothing new to tell you about the film project. No script yet. RINGO: My garden is looking great now. Got some of my building men to help the gardening contractor and everything’s okay. JOHN: This song will be our next single. This TV show will give it a nice send-off.

Indeed, with some 6,500 TV workers and 1,000,000 miles of telephone wire working for the disc, it couldn’t be bad!” - - Andy Gray, NME

“When the musicians and TV crew took a meal break the Beatles tried out the musical instruments left lying around [...] Ringo and George try the trumpets, whilst Paul has a go at the trombone and John plays Jack Emblow’s accordion. In the background, in the left side far corner, the large weight box on the back of the Mole Crane is visible, with one of the white painted Murphy TV monitors on its trolley over on the right of the picture.” - - David Taylor, Postfade

“The BBC want a live trail”, Derek told me suddenly over my intercom. No one knew this had been planned, in fact to this day few people seem to know that such a promotion ever took place. [...]

“I had a few words with each of them in turn. What was the song called? Whose idea had it been? (“His”, they said, pointing to each other). And then I put the question to John that was intriguing me. Ninety-five percent of all popular music is in 4-time, but there was more than a hint of unfamiliar 7-time in “All You Need ls Love“.

“Did you know your song was in 7-time?” I asked. I still remember the cool, serious look he gave me as he replied, “Yes, I know”. Then he indicated Paul, adding “- but blame him”.

“Paul himself, alert as ever, noticed how, against my own instincts, I was trying to inject some breezy gaiety into the proceedings. He spoke encouragingly in my ear. “Yock it up, Steve ! ” he said. He knew that it was my preference to be in the narrator’s box doing a technical job, rather than “yocking it up”. I duly yocked.”

“This was the biggest group in the world, but when they went to the canteen, it was just four guys having a cup of tea. Underneath it all, these were ordinary guys who were in a band.” - - David Magnus (photographer)

“There was a real party atmosphere, similar to what we had witnessed during previous real ‘happenings’, but Richard and I were struck by how visibly nervous John was, which was quite unusual for him: we’d never seen him wound up so tightly.” - - Geoff Emerick

“I did sense that John in particular felt rather apprehensive the nearer to transmission we got. However George seemed to be enjoying the moment, while Ringo and Paul showed no apprehension whatsoever.” - - David Magnus

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Almost this entire post is stolen from postfade.co.uk, written by David Taylor. It's a wonderful write up because it's only actually interested in the cameras used and the technical setup, but it's so interested in those that it covers every moment in glorious detail and pulls together lots of quotes. If you're interested in the ins and outs of outside broadcasting, oh my. There's a cut out diagram of the OB scanner van, and they've taken the video of the entire broadcast and marked up up to show the different camera shots and cuts and equipment used. There's a bit where they read in a book that some of the broadcast wasn't live, and so the author tracks down who wrote that and he says he copied it from Mark Lewisohn, so they track down ML and ask him why he wrote that and ML can't remember but says 'I wouldn't have written it down if there wasn't evidence for it', which they think is a bit weak, so they decide not to believe it. It's nice to see them belittling ML's lifework because they want to believe in the magic of live outside broadcasting, the same way we do when we want to believe in love.