ray connolly
and the beatles

by mia hadjigeorgiou

From following the world’s most famous band for the London Evening Standard to forging a close-knit friendship with the dynamic and mysterious John Lennon, journalist and writer Ray Connolly paints a much clearer picture of The Beatles than most…
A young journalist fresh out of the London School of Economics, Connolly was tasked by the London Evening Standard to follow The Beatles on their Magical Mystery Tour by way of trailing the band’s tour-bus in his car. After a fair amount of perseverance, Ray was fortunate enough to be taken up on his offer of an interview by one of the Beatles- Paul McCartney- mainly due to family connections and his true passion for Beatles music.

He said: “The first big interview with Paul I did I went round to his house, and he had his big dog Martha- Martha My Dear (1968) – and Jane Asher was still there, and it was because I knew his father and his brother, and I knew the music.”
“That’s the important thing, I knew the music. In those days, most journalists covering that were older- like 50- and they weren’t Rock and Roll aficionados like I was- I could talk to any of [The Beatles] about their subject and I knew as much as they did, I just couldn’t play anything”.
From there, a wonderful working friendship was born, and over the next two decades, Ray Connolly would become, in many ways, a valued member of The Beatles family. Though originally introduced to the group through Paul, from their first meeting Ray and John Lennon became fast friends, regularly chatting about their mutual love of Rock and Roll, and singers they admired like Ronnie Hawkins.
“John was good company, he was very entertaining, I mean he was a funny, funny guy…”, Ray chuckled, before adding, “people say he was abrasive but they were all jokes, if he could see a joke coming, he’d have to say it even if it might hurt you”.
Over the years, Lennon and Connolly’s friendship grew, and John even brought Ray to America a number of times with him and then-wife Yoko Ono.

Admittedly, at times, Ray’s own relationship with Yoko was complicated, largely due to what he perceived as John’s unwavering commitment to make Yoko famous, which really just stemmed from John’s love and infatuation with her at the time.
Ray said, “I know that a lot of my attractiveness for [Yoko] was that I was publicity and I was very aware of it, but I mean it was fair enough; we both knew the game.”

“But John became obsessed with actually making her famous… and well he did- he’d have been so thrilled to see this”.
For years, millions of Beatles fans have thus blamed Yoko Ono for The Beatles break-up, and while Ray admits that Yoko’s vocal disinterest in the band definitely played a role in creating tension, ultimately it was the repeated arguments about various creative differences which caused the band to break up.

Sadly, due to John’s untimely death in 1980, the band never got back together again, but even in the years they spent apart, the brotherly love which had developed between the bandmates never quite faded.
Ray then recalled a time that he was out with John Lennon following the band’s breakup, and after hearing some fans criticise Paul McCartney, John interjected: “I noticed once we were somewhere, some sort of John groupie was criticising Paul and John wouldn’t have it, John was saying you know I can criticise Paul but you sure can’t”.

He continued, “The awful thing is Paul must’ve broken his heart, I mean for years I know he did, thinking ‘one day we’ll get back together’… and then John got shot and it never happened, and that must’ve been very tough on Paul because no matter how famous he was and all he had in the world, what he really wanted was to be able to sit down with John again and say what should we do next”.
Ray also discussed feeling personally caught in the middle and slightly used during the band’s breakup, having been close with both Paul and John throughout the years, and not wanting to publish just one side of the argument.
At Paul’s request, Ray met with him at a fish restaurant in Soho to conduct an interview, eager fans sat around at different tables, each trying to eavesdrop on the conversation.

When the interview was published, Ray recalls John turning to him and saying things like, “oh well he’s wrong there” and “that’s not true”, but admitted that “they were falling out- they didn’t really mean it”.
After John’s death, Ray still tried to maintain contact with the band and John’s family, even visiting Yoko in New York 6 months after John had died, and meeting her new partner Sam (whom Ray humorously mistook for Sean Lennon’s babysitter at first).
He joked about being karate-kicked from behind by a then 6- or 7-year-old Sean upon entering the house, and recalled talking to Yoko privately that night about her need for companionship after losing John, something Ray said he could understand at the time but deliberately chose not to print to protect Yoko from the wrath of Beatles fans around the world.

“You protect your sources”, Connolly added, before mentioning how over the years, Yoko and other members of The Beatles’ close circle had shared intimate details with him in interviews about their lives and previous relationships, but that he was always cautious about printing things his interviewees may regret saying later on.

“I thought [Yoko’s] the most hated woman in the world at the moment by Beatles fans, if I print this you know it’s too much”.
All in all, though the band may have ended on a somewhat sad note, Ray said that when The Beatles were working together, there were simply no bad times, and once Lennon and McCartney were on the same page, they were incredible: “They were so great together because there was no ego involved- well rarely not massively- and they could help each other”.

When asked why he thought The Beatles were, and remain, perhaps the most beloved band ever across the world, Ray couldn’t praise their music enough, likening the band’s songs to “picture-postcards”, which “weren’t sort of distant things”, but rather “very personal songs about themselves and about their generation”.

His favourite album was, and remains as Rubber Soul (1965), and Ray also couldn’t have been more complimentary about The Beatles slower and more personal songs like Let It Be and In My Life.
He said, “In my Life, I mean it’s everything we’ve been saying about the Beatles… actually it could be your life or my life or his life- that’s the point about it- it’s all our lives”, before continuing to reveal the true inspiration behind one of my personal favourites, Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite! from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967).
All the words included in Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite! came from a poster on John Lennon’s wall, a poster which he’d acquired by chance in a “junk shop”.
“He got it in a junk shop and it’s a poster and it’s all there, I mean everything. That was amazing and I thought bloody hell he is clever because I wouldn’t have written a song from that”, Ray laughed.

Though he wasn’t as close to Ringo Starr or George Harrison, Ray didn’t really have a bad word to say about either, finishing the interview by remembering the humour shared by all four bandmates and reflecting on what Lennon would be up to today had he still been alive.
Ray said, “They were funny, people don’t ever get it I mean, especially in America”, but “certainly John and Ringo they were natural comedians and that’s all the way through their songs, all the little hidden jokes through it”.
“Hopefully [John would] have been writing a book”, he said, pausing before revealing that while John’s sudden death was of course devastating, his memory has thankfully been preserved as a result.

Ray commended the fans who continue to ask questions about what John would be doing today, adding that the discourse around John’s unfinished potential helps to preserve him in the public’s memory as a smart, talented, and enigmatic musical legend whose legacy remains untainted.
Of course, as all people, John was fallible, and Ray did admit that John maintained a “distant relationship” with his son Julian, so “can understand that Julian must be really hurt, all his life, to see the lavish way that Sean was treated”.
Nevertheless, Ray’s time with John Lennon and The Beatles still remain fond memories close to his heart, and despite it being over 4 decades since John’s passing, Ray can still recall their friendship as clearly as if he’d seen John yesterday.
He took a pause, looking up to the ceiling before saying in a happy and nostalgic tone, “They were brilliant, I mean they were just… brilliant”.

pictures by ash hussain