By Hans Ebert
“It’s time to get back, lads. Yesterday needs to happen again, because tomorrow never knows. We can’t just turn off our minds and float downstream. We’re not dying.”
As always, it was Paul rallying the troops together- wanting to get out on the road and play and bring their caravan of gypsies along for another Magical Mystery Tour. John wasn’t sure at all about the idea of taking everybody and those who had missed it earlier down to where he came from whereas George and Ringo still believed that all things would pass and nothing comes easy.
“I’m so tired, man”, yawned John lying down on a nearby rug and strumming his guitar with Yoko, as always, by his side.
“I am you and you are me and we’re altogether and all that, but I’m pretty happy right now just watching the wheels roll by with me and my monkey.” Paul, however, wasn’t ready to accept any of that. He wasn’t ready to sing “When I’m 64” and be that fool on the hill. He wanted to Ram On.
“When I get to the bottom, I go back to the top of the slide, where I stop and I turn and I go for a ride till I get to the bottom and I see you again, where I stop and I turn and I go for a ride till I get to the bottom and I see us back together agaaaain!” he screamed. It was like he was back in Hamburg with the Silver Beatles or at the Cavern begging for Long Tall Sally.
John just puffed on a cigarette while continuing to strum his guitar with George joining in. Along with Ringo, they’d seen this side of Paul before. Their time when they went their separate ways hadn’t changed him. Once he got an idea in his head, he wanted it to happen: Here were the Beatles who had done it all, but with their music being timeless, they had somehow found themselves in the Now. But why?
Why they had gone down that the long and winding road and come in through the bathroom window by crossing Abbey Road wasn’t clear to any of them. But instead of saying, let it be, Paul wanted to get back where they belonged. He wanted them to make a difference again. He felt someone was asking them to come together and make their music heard again across the universe.
They’d made a difference the first time they popped up out of almost nowhere and saw her standing there, and now wanted to make a difference again. But how and why and where?
“The Blue Meanies are back, you know,” said Ringo to which John added with some resignation, “Yeah, I read the news today, oh boy. Now I know how many holes it takes to fill a slice of cheddar cheese. Maybe the On switch needs to be turned back on.”
Something seemed to click and he thought about what he had said for a beat. “Remember when I said that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus and how I had to apologise? Today, everyone can say whatever they want and call each other names, tell lies, and it’s okay! How has this been allowed to happen? Is it because people have so much that nothing is a priority?”
“Maybe the world needs some sunshine of inspiration and imagination and positivity,” added George. “A cloudburst doesn’t last all evening.” George, as always was philosophical. John, as always, cryptic. And Ringo happy to go along for the ride.
Paul smiled. He knew he’d got the others thinking, and that like always, they had inspired each other. He wondered to himself if the world was going through the Revolution 9 that John- and Yoko- had kept repeating about all those years ago. He didn’t have to wait long for an answer.
“Nowhere Man has multiplied by even more than Number 9,” said John before singing, “Nowhere people are everywhere making all their nowhere plans for nobody.” He stopped singing to add, “There’s too much nothing that’s becoming something and which is numbing people into accepting everything and anything which becomes nothing and goes nowhere, man. But they can’t see it. They’re not listening to the hollowness of it all. They can’t hear there’s no melody to anything at all.”
George, who had been strumming his guitar and listening to what was being said, played back the conversation as part of a song. “Something like this, John?”. “Yeah,” said John, “and with a line running through just repeating, ‘Wake up, wake up, don’t just sit there dying, don’t just sit there lying to yourself.” Before long, John and George had put all those words into song. Paul was adding harmonies.
It was like old new times, and Paul knew what they had to do next…”We’re here to show the Nowhere People that there’s always somewhere to go and something positive to do! They need to re-learn to imagine again. John, you’d agree with that. There are just so many distractions that they’re just doing what the Blues Meanies tell them to do! It’s like the Pied Piper of Hamlyn has returned singing a song of bullshit and no one can see through it. We can try and give them the inspiration they don’t realise they need to free themselves from second hand news and moving in packs but going nowhere. There’s no music to show them not to believe everything they read. It’s why someone has brought us back, lads.”
Joining them on their journey to paint the world with positivity and the gift of inspiration and imagination as they sailed down that river with the girl with kaleidoscope eyes were their old friends- Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Lady Madonna, Lovely Rita, Polythene Pam, Eleanor Rigby, Dear Prudence, Bungalow Bill, Mother Nature’s Son and everyone else they brought to life in their songs and had been secretly living in harmony in Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane.
Apart from giving the world rainbows that showed them how Nowhere can be replaced with Somewhere, John, Paul, Ringo and George and their band of musical friends were determined to delete the Blue Meanies, Sexy Sadie, Doctor Roberts, the new Mean Mister Mustard in the White House surrounded with his Piggies.
The journey wasn’t going to be easy. The journey was going to take time. It was going to take them down that long and winding road and on a journey where they would meet new characters and give the world new songs- songs to inspire and bring the world together by simplifying everything.
For John, Paul, George and Ringo, it was something they felt they owed the world- a world that had once welcomed them and their music without asking questions and finding answers in their songs. And now they were back.
They believed they had the answers, except for one thing: Who had brought them back?
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