The Beatles need saving from the ordeal of this American tour. But first, a memento. Moments before the band takes the stage, Paul makes a first-ever request of press man Tony Barrow: “Tape it, will you? Tape the show.”

Following the closing notes of “Paperback Writer,” Paul steps to the microphone. “We’d like to ask you to join in and, er, clap, sing, talk, do anything. Anyway, the song is…good night.”

They play “Long Tall Sally.” Back in December of 1960, the song was their opening number at Litherland Town Hall. Barrow’s tape ends before the band finishes the song.

John is the last to leave the stage. He stares at the crowd, taking it all in for one final time. Then he joins the others in their rush for the armored car that will take them to the airport.

On board their London-bound flight, George raises a glass. “Right—that’s it, I’m not a Beatle anymore!”

Three years earlier, when the Beatles’ popularity was first exploding, John had been sanguine when asked by a journalist about his future plans. “I’ll just develop what I’m doing at the moment, although whatever I say now I’ll change my mind next week,” he’d stated. “This isn’t show business. It’s something else. This is different from anything that anybody imagines. You don’t go on from this. You do this and then you finish.”

By the time Revolver tops the American charts, on September 10, the Beatles are back in England.

For good.

Chapter 32

Chapter 32

Love and hope and sex and dreams…

—“Shattered”

If you wanted to, John, you could be a very interesting actor,” director Richard Lester says, offering him the role of the musketeer Gripweed in How I Won the War, Lester’s black farce about World War II.

John signs on. But when shooting gets under way in Almeria, Spain, in September of 1966, he has trouble on set, struggling to remember his lines and fighting boredom in between scenes.

He drives around in his Rolls-Royce and trips on acid nearly every day.

Gets nostalgic and daydreams about his childhood in Liverpool.

What about Brian? John hasn’t seen much of him since Los Angeles, where an opportunistic ex of Brian’s stole his briefcase, filled with cash and incriminating details about his sexuality. The thorny situation kept Brian from witnessing the Beatles’ final concert.

John keeps music in his head—the brass band from the orphanage at Strawberry Field. He nostalgically recalls his forbidden (by Mimi) youthful forays to the old Gothic mansion, with its overgrown garden and trees made for climbing.

“I have visions of Strawberry Fields,” he says, telling Rolling Stone in 1968 that “Strawberry Fields is just anywhere you want to go.” But unlike the 1965 ballad “In My Life,” which was also inspired by memories of Liverpool, this new song is penned by a hippie sage.