The rest of the Beatles grab their equipment and bring everything over to the Top Ten. As a parting gift, Paul and Pete hang a few condoms from nails on the walls of their rooms and try to light them on fire. It causes a bit of smoke damage on the concrete, but mainly just stinks up the place.

The next day, John, Paul, and Pete are arrested by the German Polizei for “attempted arson.”

Stuart finds out what’s going on and comes into the station to sign a statement written in German that says he didn’t know about the fire. After some individual interrogations, the police let them all go—only for Paul and Pete to again be picked up by the police at the Top Ten Club the next morning, taken directly to the airport in handcuffs, handed their passports, and put on a plane—their first flight ever!—back to London. Stu stays behind with Astrid, but John follows on his own shortly after.

Slinking home this way, under such ignominious circumstances, doesn’t inspire confidence in anyone.

Is this what I want to do? Is this it? John’s left to wonder. Should I continue doing this? The Beatles, he’s thinking, may be finished.

Chapter 10

Chapter 10

So you wanna be a rock ’n’ roll star?

—“So You Wanna Be a Rock ’n’ Roll Star”

John’s fears are premature.

Once George turns eighteen, at the end of February in 1961, he, Paul, John, and Pete all head back to Hamburg, performing at the Top Ten alongside higher-caliber acts like Tony Sheridan.

They even record seven songs with Sheridan that June under the name Tony Sheridan and the Beat Brothers. They include five covers that Sheridan sings—“My Bonnie,” “The Saints,” “Why,” “Nobody’s Child,” and “Take Out Some Insurance”—plus the Tin Pan Alley standard “Ain’t She Sweet,” sung by John, and an instrumental, “Cry for a Shadow,” cowritten by George and John. Aunt Mimi later would proudly play the “My Bonnie” single for her lodgers, viewing it as the first evidence that John might have a future in music.

With Stuart’s defection from the band, Paul’s been “lumbered” with playing the bass, but he refuses to take Stu’s cast-off instrument and instead gets himself a left-handed Hofner 500/1. Klaus takes Stu’s old bass instead.

It’s progress…yet John can’t escape the feeling of time passing. “I wasn’t too keen on reaching twenty-one,” he admits, feeling I’m too old. I’ve missed the boat. You’ve got to be seventeen. As he says later, “A lot of stars were kids, much younger than I was.”

John continues to feel I’m gonna make it, but when and how remain elusive. He just knows they have something.