What’s most interesting in this period is how hip London (it-international times/Indica bookstore and gallery, UFO Club, Roundhouse) was shaping them and yet they’re looking back at the past that they’re shedding as 1966 closed and 1967 began. They must have perceived that the in-crowd (beautiful people) thought the Mersey moptop thing was mainstream and vapid. Fabs would internalize that and see themselves as underground London Beatle butterflies emerging from their cocoons. Part of accomplishing the transformation would be to art up their quaint Liverpool origins.





There has been ongoing debate about the meaning of the lyrics to “Baby You’re A Rich Man.” The two theories in particular are repeated most often. One is that the song was about Brian finally turning on to LSD. The other is that the song was about John’s experience at underground London’s biggest ever happening a month before. The evidence for the former theory is that on the first pressing of the single, you can hear John doing his wordplay thing as the refrain at the end of the song was fading out: “baby you’re a rich fag Jew.” (It’s possible that he sang that. It’s his typical lyric-twisting style, and it wouldn’t have sounded as offensive to 1967 ears as it does to us in 2020.) But, this whole theory is ridiculous. The refrain lyrics were added by Paul. The song isn’t about rich men (or babies, for that matter). The latter theory makes much more sense. We have to look to the verses, not the chorus. Those were John. And we know that John was very directly and plainly singing about himself and his experience in many of his songs.





Google “14-Hour Technicolour Dream” to find stories, pictures and videos of the huge event he attended the month before. All the beautiful people were there. Pink Floyd was the main band, but there were all sorts of performance art pieces and participatory mini-happenings going on all over the huge space. In the clip below, John keeps glancing over at a young woman having her clothing cut off her. The art piece was put together by Yoko Ono (though you don’t see her in this clip and John wouldn’t first meet her until later at Indica).





This would have been John’s initial flutter out of his suburban cocoon. The verses sound to me like they’re about the effect that the event had on him, sort of like Joe Strummer would write in ’White Man In Hammersmith’ Palais about ten years later.





This period was the first time that the Fabs would have extended leisure time, hanging out in like-minded communities, transforming. They began to see themselves as part of a real counterculture and regarded their moptop past as having been too entwined with the establishment. In fact, all four started using the word “moptop” as shorthand to distinguish their genuine selves from that packaged past.





Beatles’ Trippy London playlist

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLp__pbToHukw_YV-4WUD_ZPEfBFJV8Vh2





Beatles “Baby, You’re a Rich Man” (InFiction Dance Remix)

https://infiction2theremixreturns.bandcamp.com/track/beatles-baby-youre-a-rich-man-infiction-dance-remix