Yeah Yeah Yeah (Beatles/Paul McCartney)

Interlude: A View from Weybridge

March 1967
London

John

The dream was tinted technicolor orange with slightly blurred edges, which made everything seem a bit off-kilter. It wasn't quite like a trip, but it wasn't too far off. Especially if one were tripping in George's living room with its groovy cantaloupe-colored carpeting. A pleasant humming noise filled the soundscape, marred only by a harsh jangling in the distance. What a fucking buzzkill, dream-John said aloud, his dream-voice sounding like he was in the EMI echo chamber.

"John."

Consciousness slowly seeped into his brain, and he reached blindly for his spectacles, only to realize that he'd fallen asleep with them on his face.

"John."

Cynthia's voice was quiet and hesitant from the doorway. He mumbled something incoherent and swiped a hand over his face.

"It's Geoff," his wife said, her voice a bit louder. "He said the studio time's been moved up by an hour."

John opened his eyes and immediately reversed course, one arm reaching for a pillow to dampen the light streaming into the room. He opened them again, feeling his eyelashes brushing against the cotton of the pillowcase.

"John?"

He realized he hadn't yet spoken.

"It's not starting an hour earlier if I'm not there an hour earlier."

His voice was raspy and muffled, but Cynthia had years of experience deciphering his mumbles.

"Well, get up and tell him yourself, then."

The feeling of inertia was so strong that it was difficult to decide if it would be easier to get up and row with Geoff or just go to the studio early. John mumbled something else, not entirely sure what he was even saying, which Cynthia must've interpreted as him agreeing to go in early because, a moment later, he heard her tell Geoff that he'd be there at 6.

"Are you going to Paul's this afternoon?" she asked, reappearing at the door.

The two had fallen into a comfortable routine whilst recording this LP. John would go round Cavendish most afternoons to work on songs and share a joint. Then they'd meet the others at the studio around 7 and work until 4 or 5 in the morning.

"No," he finally replied, the pillow still over his eyes. His eyes had adjusted and the world looked shadowy and amber. "He has an appointment today."

He heard the sound of Cynthia walking away and Julian's voice drifted down the hallway, little pow pow pows as he played with his plastic figures. If he was still home, that meant that nursery hadn't started. And if nursery hadn't started and Cynthia wasn't yet running around like a madwoman trying to get them out the door on time, then that meant it couldn't be later than half-eight.

Eight thirty in the fucking morning. What was the point of going into the music business if not to avoid early mornings? What was the point of not touring, if not to have a proper lie-in most days? He wasn't a bloody robot. They weren't still in Hamburg. What was Geoff thinking phoning him up so early?

John removed the pillow from his face and squinted in the early morning light. He reached for the glass of water on the bedside table, his hand brushing against the square paperback that the Japanese artist had sent him. Grapefruit. It was one of 500 copies published by her imprint in Tokyo. Inside the cover, she'd scrawled "1966, autumn / Yoko Ono."

It was a curious little thing, that book. It intrigued him. She intrigued him, and practically no one intrigued him aside from Paul and, sometimes, Ringo and George. He'd never admit it to anyone, but he couldn't quite figure out what the poems were about. Nonetheless, he appreciated their quirkiness and defiance and he instinctively wanted to know more about the person who wrote them.