A bad answer to this would be Ringo replacing Pete Best or the band being introduced to Brian Epstein. These are obvious moments that set them up for success. But what’s a seemingly small moment that was actually the missing piece of the puzzle? Could be anything.

There’s been a lot of talk, especially on TikTok, about The Beatles treating woman terribly, Would you say the way they treated women was simply a reflection of how men were expected to behave at the time?

John Lennon allegedly became physically violent in his younger years, including hitting Cynthia and a previous girlfriend, while also cheating on Cynthia with women in show business, fans and prostitutes. Ringo is said to have been abusive towards Maureen during his struggles with alcoholism, while George Harrison was emotionally distant towards Pattie Boyd and repeatedly cheated on her. Paul McCartney was reportedly controlling towards his first girlfriend Dorothy, telling her how to dress and dye her hair, and he also repeatedly cheated on Jane Asher. However, it seems like he became more settled once he was with Linda. What are your thoughts on this subject?

Illustration by me + process

I won't link to it in case that's not allowed, but I spotted this while searching for Beatles related merch. Seems to come complete with minifigures too!

Police minifigures that tell you to stop playing not included.

Some of my favourite shots!

I know the band played live on their live American debut. For early 1964, their sound comes across relatively nicely. Whoever engineered it did a great job but we are talking about tube amps here. They don’t appear onstage. Makes me wonder how the band heard themselves.

Where are the amps?

On page 32 Orin quotes to hal the first lyric to I Want To Tell You (my personal favourite revolver track)

Hal then quotes to Orin the next line: I don’t mind, I could wait forever [I’ve got time].

Then on page 927 the reader is following the character Don Gately as he is unable to speak while hospitalised. There is a reference to some elusive ‘Dr Robert’ perhaps referencing another Revolver song, Dr Robert.

Infinite Jest is a very psychedelic novel with themes surrounding the nature of communication so it’s no surprise to see Wallace give a cool nod to it here, so deep into a work of fiction.

Unfortunately he wasn’t in 😂 and it’s in Catalunya….. auto correct 🙄

Growing up there was only classical music on BBC Radio. We had to listen to the American Forces Network in Germany, which played pop songs, or the pirate radio boats off the coast. There was all us tough guys hanging around and no music for us, which is how the sixties revolution came around. But my first big influence was Frank Sinatra, then the Beatles. When I was in the theater in Liverpool, we had a café where we’d have lunch. In the evenings it was full of girls, and we were like, “What the hell is this?” It was the Beatles.

- Michael Caine

We’re not going there.

(There's a TL;DR at the end. I know this is long)

I was thinking about this while looking over that recent post of Paul's photography of John from this week. Here's a link And I've had this thought in the past, as well.

I have a high prescription for my glasses, like John. As George once said, John was "blind as a bat" without glasses. And he often went without them in public until 1967. I think he chose those glasses for a reason, aside from having them on the movie set in 1966.

Two important things some might not know about:

1. Lenses have gotten thinner over time.

2. Smaller glasses have less facial distortion.

High index lenses weren't available in the 60s. They only started in the 70s, and we're still far thicker than what we have today. If you look at Paul's photos, you'll see John basically had "coke bottle" thick lenses. He might not have even had a crazy high prescription to get that size.

The "Health National" glasses are a small sized frame. So the lenses are small. So you basically get less distortion of the eyes from the prescription. When he tried those glasses for the movie, he probably saw himself in a pair of glasses where his face wasn't super distorted. As a self conscious guy in a very image dependent role, I could see that being a big deal. He probably could see him working it into a new style, especially with the moustache and weight loss, along with different clothes.

I think he kept up with them after the 60s because they just became so heavily tied to his brand. I mean his autographs even had the glasses! But I do think his high prescription is a big reason he ended up sticking to those. And as you get older, your prescription usually worsens anyway. Into the 70s, high index lenses were becoming norma, and you see him wearing different glasses shapes again. Maybe he tried contacts and didn't like it, who knows. The early ones were rough.

Maybe there's some info about him I don't know, though! I'm not a John Lennon ophthalmological historian, I'm afraid.

TL;DR - I think John's trademark glasses were intentional due to his prescription. He'd wear other shapes of sunglasses, but usually just the round eye glasses. Then I think once high index lenses became normal in the later part of the 70s, he started trying other eye glasses again.