The Sgt Pepper sessions started on 24 November 1966 with a song that was destined not to appear on the album – ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’. The group had not been together in the studio for over five months, largely as a result of individual projects such as John filming for Richard Lester’s How I Won The War and George travelling to India to study music and philosophy, and not least because of a world tour. Events on this tour were to alter the course of the Beatles’ career and to ensure Revolver’s place as a watershed in the group’s musical progression. For this was the tour on which Imelda Marcos was snubbed, Americans burned their LPs, and the Beatles played in front of an audience for the last time.
The Imelda Marcos incident was born of misunderstanding and not a little audacity on the part of the Philippine authorities. Bearing in mind the pressures put on the group to appear before dignitaries, ambassadors and the like, it is surprising that a similar diplomatic incident had not already taken place. Before the first of two concerts in Manila on the afternoon of 4 July, it had been suggested to Brian Epstein that the group might pay a courtesy visit to the Philippine First Lady and her children. This had not been confirmed, but nevertheless Mrs Marcos had, unbeknown to Brian or the group, arranged a reception for 200 of the island’s aristocracy to meet the Beatles. Officials arrived at the Beatles’ hotel at 11.30 am to escort the four to Malacañang, the Presidential palace, but as the group were still sleeping and no engagement was on their itinerary anyway, Brian sent the escorts away and gave the matter no further thought. The concerts went ahead as planned, but the reports that followed on the television and in the newspapers were not of the music, but of the snubbing of the President’s wife. News footage showed place-cards being removed from tables and a disheartened Mrs Marcos wandering through the palace.
The following day, when the tour was due to leave for home via India, the extent of the Filipino fury at this slight of the national heroine by a group of unprincipled foreigners was clear. The staff at the hotel refused to touch the group’s baggage and their limousine was made unavailable to them, compelling them to take taxis to the airport, some of which took tortuously long routes. When they finally reached the airport, all security had been withdrawn, and escalators, lifts and flight information boards had been switched off. The entourage, and the Beatles themselves, had to run the gauntlet of staff and an ugly crowd, some having guns; they were kicked and punched – Brian in particular being hit in the face and ribs. Having boarded the plane several hours late and with the KLM pilot threatening to take off at any moment because of the enormous delay and fuel supply problems, Tony Barrow and Mal Evans were recalled by customs to sort out a “passport query”. The plane eventually took off with everyone on board, to the intense relief of all concerned. On his arrival in London a couple of days later, George was asked by a reporter what was next on the agenda. “We’re going to have a couple of weeks to recuperate before we go and get beaten up by the Americans.”
Which is exactly what happened, because the group flew headlong into the “bigger than Jesus” storm. Some five months previously, John had given an interview to a journalist friend from the London Evening Standard, Maureen Cleave. In the full-page article, a soberly written piece in which he was characteristically outspoken on many of his usual preoccupations (“Sex is the only physical thing I can be bothered with any more”, “I feel sorry for [Julian]. I couldn’t stand ugly people even when I was five”, “I want the money just to be rich”), John said:
“Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue about that; I’m right and I will be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first – rock ’n’ roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It’s them twisting it that ruins it for me.”
Given the stature of the group at the time, the observation that they were more popular than Jesus could be seen as fair comment, and in the UK it didn’t generate any commotion. But shortly before the Beatles’ US tour, the article was reprinted in America and the comments taken out of context by the press and radio stations in places such as Birmingham, Alabama and Nashville, Tennessee. Things got to such a pitch, with mass LP-burning, the involvement of the Ku Klux Klan, and even assassination threats, that Brian, who was meant to be in North Wales recovering from glandular fever that had been exacerbated by the Marcos incident, was forced to fly to the US to try to calm the situation. There he discussed with the New York theatrical agent Nat Weiss the possibility of cutting their losses and cancelling the tour. Once in America, John tried to explain. He was greatly upset by the reaction and was concerned with the effect it was having on the other Beatles, with the threat to his own safety, and with the fact that people disagreed so violently with what he said. Prior to facing the press conference in Chicago on 12 August, he reportedly broke down and cried. But once in front of the cameras, his attitude was somewhat defiant. John saw apology as a sign of weakness, and his behaviour in the press conference reflected this.
“I wasn’t knocking it, or putting it down, I was just saying it as a fact, and it’s true, more for England than here. I’m not saying that we’re better or greater or comparing us with Jesus Christ as a person or God as a thing or whatever it is. I just said what I said and it was wrong, or it was taken wrong, and now there’s all this.”
After being asked twice if he was prepared to apologise, John said
“I never meant it to be a lousy anti-religious thing. I apologise if that will make you happy. I still don’t know quite what I’ve done. I’ve tried to tell you what I did do, but if you want me to apologise, if that’ll make you happy, then OK, I’m sorry.”
But the damage had been done and the tour degenerated into further torment, lumbering chaotically to 29 August and Candlestick Park, San Francisco, where 25,000 fans witnessed the Beatles’ last ever appearance on stage. It was a typically half-hearted live show where any music coming from the stage was inaudible behind a wall of screams.
John and George particularly had had enough. George told Hunter Davies “there was no satisfaction in it. Nobody could hear. It was just a bloody big row. We got worse as musicians, playing the same old junk every day.” John added “We’ve had enough of performing for ever. I can’t imagine any reason which would make us do any sort of tour ever again.”
The meteoric development of the Beatles’ music had left the screaming fans standing. No Revolver tracks had been played on the tour, and from now on, the way was clear for musical experimentation. To the relief of at least half of the group, the touring years were about to become the studio years.