Picture This
Dec. 16th, 2010 01:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakYour daily dose of pre-Christmas sentimentality comes in the form of a pic spam around the theme of Beatles, children and an adorable dog (because Martha witnessed it all).
Firstly, other than the final rooftop concert, the one sequence in Let it Be which is decidedly on a light note instead of falling apart gloom is when Paul's soon-to-be-adopted daughter Heather shows up one day during the sessions and has adorable interaction with all four Beatles.
Heather with George:
And here she is with Ringo, who plays along beautifully. We love Ringo, yes we do, precious.
Even John during his heroin phase wasn't immune to her charm:
As for future!Dad:
Heather would grow up to be the shyest of the McCartneys, but in one of the very few interviews she gave as an adult, in 1999, to promote her pottery work at a trade fair in Atlanta, George, she said about that time when she suddenly became a part of the Beatles' world, just when it ended:
"I haven't known whether I can take my dog out each day, let alone stand there in front of all those people. But it had to be done," she says.
"And having my father there helped. I knew that if I felt overwhelmed, he would say, 'We've got to go now. Bye,' and he would get me out. He has always guided me like that. Protected me."
My blood father has had a lifelong influence on me. He trained as a geologist and now, as an artist, I'm very interested in crystals, quartz and turquoise. Mel's a lovely man, but I don't phone him and say "Hi, Dad." That's what I say to Paul. He adopted me and took responsibility for me.
When she met Paul, mum was suddenly the most accepted person in the world. Can you imagine what that was like? It was so extreme. A seven-year-old can't comprehend fame and I had no concept of Paul's world.
I was overwhelmed. Nobody had noticed me for seven years. It had just been me and my mum. At school I didn't really fit in; I wanted to do my own thing and I didn't have a big group of friends. Suddenly all the people at school who had shunned me wanted to be my best friend. From a child's point of view it was hard to understand.
Paul took me on and treated me like his own child. In my adolescence, when I was going through all my greatest traumas, he really was there for me. He never said: "I'm working; you've got 10 minutes." Nor would he just appear for a few minutes at home, then rush off to be a celebrity. Paul was there with mum at the dinner table for normal family life.
I was the most chaotic, clumsy teenager, who did everything wrong. I would walk into stores and things would fall off shelves and alarms would go off. I'm still clumsy. Now I try to incorporate it into a personal eccentricity and my work. But Paul did everything he could to help me grow in confidence."
Secondly, there's the White-Album-immortalized Martha. Who other than inspiring a song also is the only pet to keep showing up in group shots of the Beatles, from the highlights Sgt. Pepper to the very last one in the summer of 1969 at John's estate, Tittenhurst Park. Given that Virginia Woolf once wrote from Elizabeth Barret-Browning's dog's pov, and Marilyn Monroe's pet Maf has now his very own novel, I'm surprised nobody ever got the scoop from Martha.
To reintroduce our heroine, first two solo shots with her Beatle:
And now for the group pics. Which are also a good way to show how things went down in the second half of the 60s.
Celebrating Sgt. Pepper:
Mad Day Out, aka photoshoot during the White Album. Does Martha look as if she's in conversation with John or what?
Pillow!Martha:
And the last time they did a photosession as a group, on August 22nd 1969. Martha does not approve of all this not talking to each other:
To round it off, one of the last sightings of Martha as an old lady many years later, with the rest of the McCartney clan:
And none other than Art Hirschfeld immortalizing her:
And now for random awww-inducing pics.
While the Beatles were an extremely touchy-feely group in any combinations, for some reason the two you're likely to see actually to see (brotherly) lip action from are Ringo and Paul through the decades. Cases in point:
And now for a group shot from Beatlemania days:
A shot taken by Paul's brother Mike of two songwriters in action. Goes well with John's description, even though that's from a slighly later time than than the photo (which was taken in Liverpool in the McCartney living room):
We wrote a lot of stuff together, one on one, eyeball to eyeball. Like in 'I Want to Hold Your Hand', I remember when we got the chord that made the song. We were in Jane Asher's house, downstairs in the cellar playing on the piano at the same time. And we had 'oh, you-u-u ... got that something ...' And Paul hits this chord and I turn to him and say, 'That's it!’ I said 'Do that again!' In those days we really used to absolutely write like that - both playing into each other's noses.
And lastly, let's return to the animal theme. Back when George, Paul and Ringo did Anthology, there was, naturally, a group shot. At which point a white peacock wandered by and into the shot. The guys immediately declared this had to be John. (John = peacock works, definitely.) Behold:
Firstly, other than the final rooftop concert, the one sequence in Let it Be which is decidedly on a light note instead of falling apart gloom is when Paul's soon-to-be-adopted daughter Heather shows up one day during the sessions and has adorable interaction with all four Beatles.
Heather with George:
And here she is with Ringo, who plays along beautifully. We love Ringo, yes we do, precious.
Even John during his heroin phase wasn't immune to her charm:
As for future!Dad:
Heather would grow up to be the shyest of the McCartneys, but in one of the very few interviews she gave as an adult, in 1999, to promote her pottery work at a trade fair in Atlanta, George, she said about that time when she suddenly became a part of the Beatles' world, just when it ended:
"I haven't known whether I can take my dog out each day, let alone stand there in front of all those people. But it had to be done," she says.
"And having my father there helped. I knew that if I felt overwhelmed, he would say, 'We've got to go now. Bye,' and he would get me out. He has always guided me like that. Protected me."
My blood father has had a lifelong influence on me. He trained as a geologist and now, as an artist, I'm very interested in crystals, quartz and turquoise. Mel's a lovely man, but I don't phone him and say "Hi, Dad." That's what I say to Paul. He adopted me and took responsibility for me.
When she met Paul, mum was suddenly the most accepted person in the world. Can you imagine what that was like? It was so extreme. A seven-year-old can't comprehend fame and I had no concept of Paul's world.
I was overwhelmed. Nobody had noticed me for seven years. It had just been me and my mum. At school I didn't really fit in; I wanted to do my own thing and I didn't have a big group of friends. Suddenly all the people at school who had shunned me wanted to be my best friend. From a child's point of view it was hard to understand.
Paul took me on and treated me like his own child. In my adolescence, when I was going through all my greatest traumas, he really was there for me. He never said: "I'm working; you've got 10 minutes." Nor would he just appear for a few minutes at home, then rush off to be a celebrity. Paul was there with mum at the dinner table for normal family life.
I was the most chaotic, clumsy teenager, who did everything wrong. I would walk into stores and things would fall off shelves and alarms would go off. I'm still clumsy. Now I try to incorporate it into a personal eccentricity and my work. But Paul did everything he could to help me grow in confidence."
Secondly, there's the White-Album-immortalized Martha. Who other than inspiring a song also is the only pet to keep showing up in group shots of the Beatles, from the highlights Sgt. Pepper to the very last one in the summer of 1969 at John's estate, Tittenhurst Park. Given that Virginia Woolf once wrote from Elizabeth Barret-Browning's dog's pov, and Marilyn Monroe's pet Maf has now his very own novel, I'm surprised nobody ever got the scoop from Martha.
To reintroduce our heroine, first two solo shots with her Beatle:
And now for the group pics. Which are also a good way to show how things went down in the second half of the 60s.
Celebrating Sgt. Pepper:
Mad Day Out, aka photoshoot during the White Album. Does Martha look as if she's in conversation with John or what?
Pillow!Martha:
And the last time they did a photosession as a group, on August 22nd 1969. Martha does not approve of all this not talking to each other:
To round it off, one of the last sightings of Martha as an old lady many years later, with the rest of the McCartney clan:
And none other than Art Hirschfeld immortalizing her:
And now for random awww-inducing pics.
While the Beatles were an extremely touchy-feely group in any combinations, for some reason the two you're likely to see actually to see (brotherly) lip action from are Ringo and Paul through the decades. Cases in point:
And now for a group shot from Beatlemania days:
A shot taken by Paul's brother Mike of two songwriters in action. Goes well with John's description, even though that's from a slighly later time than than the photo (which was taken in Liverpool in the McCartney living room):
We wrote a lot of stuff together, one on one, eyeball to eyeball. Like in 'I Want to Hold Your Hand', I remember when we got the chord that made the song. We were in Jane Asher's house, downstairs in the cellar playing on the piano at the same time. And we had 'oh, you-u-u ... got that something ...' And Paul hits this chord and I turn to him and say, 'That's it!’ I said 'Do that again!' In those days we really used to absolutely write like that - both playing into each other's noses.
And lastly, let's return to the animal theme. Back when George, Paul and Ringo did Anthology, there was, naturally, a group shot. At which point a white peacock wandered by and into the shot. The guys immediately declared this had to be John. (John = peacock works, definitely.) Behold:
no subject
Date: 2010-12-16 01:52 pm (UTC)It was the poop-scoop... (does that translate?)
no subject
Date: 2010-12-16 03:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-16 05:27 pm (UTC)All those Martha photos are just fantastic, especially the astonishing one of Paul hoisting her onto his hip. She must have been a very placid dog for him to be able to do that, heh!
no subject
Date: 2010-12-16 05:47 pm (UTC)Martha: must have been extremely good-natured, yes! More evidence of the Martha and Paul love: