On the Beatles’ “1” DVD the Hey Jude clip from the David Frost Show appears to run quite a bit longer than usual and right at the end it features a strange bespectacled character who I don’t recall seeing in the clip before. He is clearly much older than the assembled crowd of youngsters and dressed in a curious fashion.
His name is Billy and Macca speaks at length about him in the DVD commentary, but allow me to add a few memories of my own.
Billy was an eccentric vagrant street singer who frequented the streets of Soho performing in his own inimitable fashion. His raison d’être was roughly as follows: he had a red carnation permanently stuck behind each ear and wedged beneath the arms of his horn-rimmed glasses. Winter or summer he wore a long black overcoat with Chaplin-style baggy trousers and outsized dress shoes several sizes too big.
He would stand in the middle of the street and looking up to the heavens, he’d balance a wine bottle on his forehead and without a tooth in his head, drunkenly deliver his repertoire of pre-war hits at high volume. The traffic would stop and sometimes the police would arrive to move him along. This palaver was repeated several times a day.
During 1967 I worked at a music publisher at 30 Old Compton Street in Soho (it’s the location of the G-A-Y Nightclub now, but that’s another story) and just a few yards further along at number 78 was Norman’s Film Productions (upstairs, above a newsagents, I think). This is where for 11 weeks in late 1967 The Beatles worked editing the Magical Mystery Tour movie.
We’d see them coming and going most days, but it was McCartney who showed up the most often (natch). He’d arrive in the morning in his blue Aston Martin DB6 and leave it parked on one of the side streets all day, accumulating parking tickets (no tow-away zones in those days). But various combinations of the four Beatle could regularly be seen and one memorable day I stepped out for a sandwich to see all four of them walking together down Old Compton Street, unmolested and almost unrecognised.
The Fabs could hardly fail to notice Billy as he performed his bizarre act on the Soho streets and on at least one occasion they brought him upstairs to Norman’s editing suite. This presumably lead to the invitation to appear in the Hey Jude film clip.
http://i.imgur.com/Isslzmv.jpg
And another picture from Norman’s Film Productions:
http://i.imgur.com/hIBsV0E.jpg
I remember Billy, though I didn’t know that was his name.
Somebody commenting under the Hey Jude vid on YouTube claims that Billy was his grandfather.
He’s obviously a clean old man
Mike, what are your memories of Billy?
You still haven’t convinced me to buy the 1 DVD!
There’s not much editing going on in those photos, is there? They’re all skiving.
No wonder MMT was such a mess.
Another fine tale from the Concheroo Vaults.
Four Beatles walking down the street unrecognised? How wonderful.
They were different times.
Thanks KFD. One small detail I left out. On that day the Fabs were walking down Old Compton Street towards Charing Cross Road. On the corner of OCS and Greek Street at that time stood a brasserie (not, I must emphasise, a brassiere) amusingly named The Yodelling Sausage. This seemed to tickle Lennon who kept on repeating the name “The Yodelling Sausage” over and over while chuckling to himself.
And when I say “unrecognised” that’s probably not entirely true (I was frozen to the spot, for one). But famous people are an everyday sight in the heart of Soho, so there was less fuss than if they’d been walking around elsewhere.
There’s two versions of that video on the bluray set. One with Billy, one without. I thought it was two completely different audiences (without going back to check) but did my eyes deceive me and it’s just an edit?
When I first saw, I did think “Wonder who the old boy is?” as he does look out of place, though going for it in a commendable way. I was delighted to get the answer in the commentary. I don’t usually bother with them but, well, it is The Beatles. Delighted also to find out more about him here.
Thanks Lando, the two different versions of the film clip explains why I’ve never noticed Billy before.
You know, is it possible that he was very specifically edited out? A shame if so.
Nope, at the recent BUG Beatles Special at the NFT Mr Lindsay Hogg was interviewed by that Skype thing they have from NYC and said that he did two edits to focus on different ages, sexes, races etc as possible. It was the same audience for both just footage from the multiple takes. He knew the Fabs fondness for Billy which is why he features heavily in one edit raising a bottle of booze.
It is a kind of early version of those awful political events where David Cameron or somesuch is evangelising in his shirtsleeves with strategically placed young BAME people behind him looking like they endorse his message of, “You’ll be working for peanuts until you’re 85, fucknuts”
The Beatles invented EVERYTHING.
Well that’s somewhat cheering then. Thanks!
Great memories, JC. There seemed to be a lot of eccentric characters on the streets of London around that time. I used to work in Holborn and there was a dishevelled and distinctly whiffy ‘person of restricted growth’ who wore outsize wellington boots regardless of the season, a bit like a miniature version of JP Gumby. His speciality was walking out into a busy Grays Inn Road and directing the traffic, accompanied by a stream of colourful profanities.
Is the don’t eat meat sandwich board man still in post, Oxford street?
Not since 1993 according to Wiki.
The don’t eat meat sandwich board man would have been, ironically, kind of a big meat sandwich.
It’s certainly ironic that he’s now potted*.
*Embra rhyming slang – potted heid/deid
It wasn’t just meat – it was all sorts of protein, with ‘sitting’ added as an afterthought. I always used to look out for him on my earliest visits to London.
http://i474.photobucket.com/albums/rr107/Gatz_photos/Protein%20man.jpg
That free booklet had gone up to 15p by my day. I think he added further ‘protein wisdom’ to the sign over the years as well.
In fact, here’s Stanley again. The book’s now 12p and he’s ditched the voluntary donation. He’s re-ordered his League of Protein Evil as well, although his use of colons remains enigmatic. Sitting is no longer an afterthought.
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d125/botlblonds/11008286_962102357157979_653711461_n.jpg
“use of colons enigmatic” – hurrr, that’ll be the lack of protein
The protein guy’s patch was always in and around Oxford Circus, the tube station can be seen on the right in that picture
I never bought the leaflet (I remember it when it was priced in old money) but I often wondered what the “And Sitting” was all about.
It’s pretty straightforward. The guy was philosophically opposed to sitting down. Hence standing around holding a sign for several years.
Eeee, ‘appen it teks all sorts thy knows.
Apparently sitting around encouraged the accumulation of protein engendered lusts, leading to the danger of ‘married love’ in single people.
Protein -> lust.
They don’t call it ham shandy for nothing.
You mean Morrissey?
One minute this place is talking about Hearing Aids, the next we are right back when the world seemed magical and there was this weird geezer with a sign that changed, of this I am certain, every Thursday. Make mine a Lagavulin – I’m off for a widdle.
I found this 1967 NME interview with McCartney:
As we walked back through Soho, Paul suddenly spotted Billy, an old friend of the boys. Billy is about sixty and wanders around Soho with a bottle on his head and a carnation behind each ear. “We’d have loved him for the film,” whispered Paul as he, John, Ringo and Billy broke into a chorus of ‘Singing The Blues.’
“Long Live the Beatles,” shouted Billy as they continued down the street, “and the Stones.”
http://www.beatlesinterviews.org/db1967.1125.beatles.html
About sixty…. wow, really old!
I thought that too. 60 back then would be like 80 now.
Via Youtube, a comparison of the different edits of the clip
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSw0riQovOA
Great stuff! Thank for that Sniff.
I caught a quick glimpse of Billy in the PV Version there, but not the others. That means the new “1” version (which has several long shots of Billy) is a different edit again, making 5 versions.
The first guy’s comments from 2 months ago on the you tube site are interesting. Many many takes of them rushing onto the stage .
Against my better judgment I tried to read the YouTube comments, but quickly lost the will to live.
I reckon YouTube comments are proof that the human race needs to be wiped out and the earth repopulated with a new, less stupid, species.
I’m sure the comments you speak of are great, but getting to them is like sifting through a lake of raw sewage to find one shiny object.
In the David Frost version the guy in the orange jumper behind Ringo is Jeremy Sinden who played Boy Mulcaster in Brideshead Revisited.
And Donald Sinden’s son, it seems.
According to Wiki: (He was) an English actor who specialised in playing eccentric military men and overgrown schoolboys
Just remember this daffy old geezer singing his head off on a street corner. Tea for Two or some such. Never saw any Beatles though.
Looking back, I went through a phase of befriending eccentric geezers like Billy in pubs. On a good day, they can be a laugh but on a bad day you found yourself unable to get away and listening to hours of incomprehensible bollocks. Age brings uncharitable thoughts – so when I come across such characters these days, I feel like I have paid my dues and have no problems in being polite and respectful but get into a conversation? No.
It was the top one JC !
Oh, we must be looking at different versions of the clip.
The top one on my version is the devastatingly witty “Noel Gallagher is older than we thought”
This bloke says he was there for the recording at landslide.
I looked again at the multi screen version and the guy who says he was there (Nigel Green) has dropped down the list a little.
There’s also someone called “DoctorBohr” who I presume is talking about Billy when he says, erroneously, “The old bloke was a regular barfly there having a drink and simply followed the crowd across to the studio when they all left the pub.”
I’d love to see Adam Buxton get hold of these YouTube comments. Look him up as “Adam Buxton YouTube Comments” Junior, it’s the funniest thing.
Or, better still, watch this: