Mad Day Out!

They don't look good, any of them. Their clothes are atrocious. George Harrison might be wearing a leather shirt- perhaps it's a jacket. Ringo Starr is in full-on Austin Powers gear. John Lennon can be seen in a HORRIBLE brown fur coat/pet bear thingy only to be switched out for an, if possible, even uglier oversized camouflage coat. Paul McCartney's wearing a pink suit and a lace shirt. Then comes a point where neither Lennon or McCartney are wearing shirts at all- and they're arm wrestling. And it's ugly. And you know it's cold, Ringo and George are bundled up and shivering.

It was July 28, 1968. The most well-known Beatle Photoshoot.

A Mad Day Out.

1968 was a weird time in Beatledom. In some sort of order, probably not the one below, they did the India thing in February in which Ringo and Paul left the ashram to return back to London, leaving John and George behind. (I believe that to be the straw that broke the Beatles' back, quite honestly.)  They swore off drugs, John became infatuated with Yoko, John and Yoko move in with Paul, Paul leaves nasty, passive-aggressive notes around the house about Yoko,  John and Paul fight, John and Yoko move out.  The group starts Apple. Paul and John went to New York to promote Apple Corps. and while there, Paul gets all tangled up with Linda Eastman (later McCartney) much to the surprise and annoyance of John. They record the White Album through all of this, during which Ringo quits for 3 weeks, Paul becomes obsessed with perfection, John brings Yoko into the sacred, Beatle-only recording studios, all the while still mourning the death of their beloved manager Brian Epstein who passed away in August of the previous year. All kinds of soap opera! They weren't exactly BFFs at this time. So I think that's what makes the Mad Day Out photo shoot so neat. They look so... at peace. Ugly, but at peace.

Rumor tells that Francie Schwartz, Paul's transitional (or same time as, or whatevs) lady between Jane Asher and Linda Eastman had the ideas for the locations. Anyway, I heart the photos very very much. Even though or, perhaps because they include... this.

So here are some of them, even though there are many, many more. I can't get enough!

Some Links!!

A blog I follow called Child Of Nature has some more on this here.

Another blog that I follow, In The Life of... The Beatles has an interesting paragraph/quote from Mal Evans. He says, well this on it.

Ian Kenny Limited - Some info on photographer Tom Murray and the shoot.