Perhaps it was this early life, so destructive both emotionally and physically that created the necessity for John to imagine a realm of play, a world where no event is truly consequential, where nothing is real, nothing to get hung about and nothing can hurt you.
CERTAINLY John was much more involved with games than the average child is, and they played a large part in his life. "I used to live Alice (In Wonderland) and Just William. I wrote my own William stories, with me doing all the things... After I'd read a book I'd relive it all again...I wanted to be gang leader at school. I'd want them all to play the games that I wanted them to play...childhood...was all imagining I was Just William really."
His relations to the adult world that more and more impinged on his imaginary creations were marked by the same childhood sense of play. John was constantly manipulating the world, around him, playing pranks, playing with words, putting people on. Even his famous Teddy-boy (juvenile delinquent) phrase was a bit of a put-on: "I was imitating Teds, pretending to be one...If I'd met a proper Ted I'd have been shit scared."
When, as an adolescent, he was forced to meet the outside world, his attitude was always ironic, bitterly, playful. "He was outrageous and said things people would be scared to say. He could be very cruel...he would go Boo in front of old people. And if he saw anyone who was crippled or deformed, he'd make loud remarks, like 'Some people will do anything to get out of the army.'"
This cruelty was manifest whenever John was forced to confront his own emotions. "I suppose it was a way of hiding your emotions or covering it up. I would never hurt a cripple." Play can also be a way of manipulating the elements of the world that can hurt you, a way of neutralizing them, a way of keeping them at a distance, so you don't have to deal with them directly. John, for example, is, according to Davies' book, deathly afraid of growing old. And one can only imagine of what those who are extremely crippled may represent to him.
Play was and is vital for John. The emotional problems of his childhood remain. He is still moody, and, according to his aunt, still never shows emotion. John most of all needs the other Beatles to preserve his mental equilibrium. A constant complaint of his wife was the importance of the other Beatles in his life. He will not even consider a vacation without his "mates," his "Beatle buddies." When they momentarily parted ways, after the touring period was over, John was desperately unhappy. "I did try to go my own way...I had a few good laughs and games of monopoly on my film, but it didn't work...I was never so glad to see the others. Seeing them made me feel normal again."
This emotional need for the others is true for all the Beatles, but most of all for John (and then perhaps for Paul whose mother also died during his childhood). "There was always something between Paul and the other Beatles which Jane (Paul's fiancee) found it hard to come to terms with. 'I want to feel that it is the two of us going through life together. I don't want to be part of the gang."
But the gang is what makes life bearable. "'...we're all really the same person.'" Paul said, "'We're just four parts of the one...we make up together The Mates.'" The boys composing or recording seem at one level to be the boys just larking about, but larking with an infinite devotion to their games, and a sure sense of which part of the playing to preserve for others.
VI.
ON THE occasion of their first visit to America, "Billy Graham said he'd broken his strict rule and watched television on the Sabbath just to see them. 'They're a passing phase,' he said. 'All are symptoms of the uncertaintly of the times and the confusion about us.' "Oddly prophetic on Graham's part, for the rock and roll army was just about to be born, and the Beatles (touring phase) were to be the midwives. A generation of kids was about to be turned on to their own youth, their beauty and their energy. And they were going to notice the deadness around them and be truly and woefully confused.
The Beatles, the beat, were the agony by which an entire generation was to be turned on to the energy of their bodies, the energy of their long repressed desires and fantasies. The Beatles were a catalvst that released a tremendous amount of wild exuberant joyous energy. The young girls that dreamed about them learned something about themselves. But there had always been teen idols. Far more important was the sheer joy their music and their larking about communicated to anyone who would listen and watch. That energy, that joy was in all of us. And all it took was the beat to release it.
The music provided a momentary transcendence, a feeling of liberation. But the Beatles gave us more than that. The Beatles created the first music that reached almost all while teenagers. They were our communion. They provided the sense of unity that created the rock and roll army. The Beatles reached everyone on whatever level they were. They were kids themselves. So they were ours and they were us. A certain pride in being young--they were the first real bloom of the sub-culture of youth--a sense of community, a feeling of joy and liberation. All were, in part, the gift of the Beatles.