Her Majesty – Chris Shaw

Tim is joined by award-winning 'I Am the EggPod' producer and host Chris Shaw to explore Her Majesty. They examine the song’s strange place in Abbey Road, its accidental journey to becoming the Beatles’ hidden closing track, and what its humour, brevity and missing final note say about the Beatles’ love of happy accidents and undercutting grand endings.

Guest links

• Chris Shaw's Patreon: https://patreon.com/eggpod
• I Am The Egg Pod website: https://www.iamtheeggpod.com

Follow My Favourite Beatles Song

• Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/myfavebeatles.bsky.social
• X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/myfavebeatles
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MyFavouriteBeatlesSong
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/myfavouritebeatlessong

Original music by Joe Kane

Logo design by Mark Cunningham

Transcript

unknown 0:01

Um beating.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Welcome to my favourite Beatles Song, the podcast where we celebrate the music of the Beatles with a distinguished guest. I'm Tim Tucker, and with me today is award-winning podcast producer and host Chris Shaw. Welcome, Chris.

SPEAKER_09 0:44

Hello. Has been.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

Because you're best known to our listeners as the the host of the amazing globally successful I Am the Egg Pod, um, which concluded in 2024. You haven't been uh resting on your laurels since then, have you? Because we're about to hear more from you.

SPEAKER_09 1:11

Yeah, it's basically I've been doing nothing, but from doing nothing, I've acquired lots of uh information, just doing lots of reading of old 60s magazines, really.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Well, yeah, and we'll we'll talk more about the substance of your new show, Egg Pod Express, later. I'm sure a lot of Beatles-related stuff came in for you as a result doing both the research and the discussions for your new podcast. Did they? Did you get fresh angles on the Beatles or new insights?

SPEAKER_09 1:40

Oh, Blimey, yes. I mean well, I'm talking about the past, um, but think there was an auction years ago. I did an episode um where I was interviewing someone from Amiga Auctions, um, who at the time they had this obscure cassette tape of Ringo Star during the 1966 tour, and it was just basically him recording like a diary. So I contacted them and I said, Can I interview you about this? And he said, Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was just fascinating. So it's Ringo, you know, tomorrow we're off to Japan. I hope that's gonna be okay, you know, and all this kind of stuff. And um, after I did the interview, I thought, Oh, I'd have a look on the auction house, whatever day the auction was. So you obviously you have to register to go on this website. Uh, and I was just curious to see how much these tapes went for. I forget how much they went for, but of course, while I was there, I thought, oh, I'll see what other other job job lots are you know going up for auction. And there was all these um 60s magazines and books, and I thought, oh, I'd love to have those. It's it's um didn't go down very well, but anyway, I put a bid in and I got it, and I've never used an auction before. I I had no idea how that and then of course you've got to pay all the commission on top, which was like so it was like an absolute fortune I paid for these things, but also one of the other uh items for sale was a load of Mersey beats, uh, full scans of Mersey beats, and I thought, well, I can't afford those, they went they went for ridiculous money. But I had put higher's PDFs up online, so I downloaded them all, and then I got printed up onto A3 loads of issues of Mersey Beat. Oh, it's astonishing. This is the uh Beatles top polls.

SPEAKER_00 3:37

Yes, which is you're discussing in your first episode, aren't you? Yeah. With Mark Lewison, yeah.

SPEAKER_09 3:42

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, who else really? But he goes through every every advert, every column, every letters page, and there's I can promise you there's brand new stuff that I've never heard of before that Mark he just throws it out there. Oh, by the way, did you know?

SPEAKER_00 4:00

Is that where the idea for the new podcast came from? Mark's.

SPEAKER_09 4:03

Yeah, well as well as that, yeah, and also these magazines I bought, and then I started buying other 60s magazines, and I just started getting really into it. And uh it's so much more exciting because th these magazines got no hindsight. They they don't know what's you know what's gonna happen. You know, Brian Brian Paul's left the Tremolos and he's go, Oh, I'm gonna make it big, and then of course Tremolos go on to have number ones, you know, they're far more successful with that. It's all this kind of stuff, and the letters page is I love it, and it's so more exciting than what's happening in the Beatles world these days.

SPEAKER_00 4:38

The the episodes I listened to, there were there was no Beatles releases, but there was it was just prior to Paperback Writer and uh Revolver coming out.

SPEAKER_09 4:47

So um that's David David Quantick was talking about Record Mirror, and it is that interim period just before uh Paperback Writer. They they obviously released the previous December um day trip that we can work it out. And there's no he's saying, Imagine the uh Richard Curtis movie, you know, Imagine a World with No Beatles, and we have it in this issue of Record Mirror. There's no Beatles, but they're everywhere, they're permeating everywhere. And and it's the in the the same week that Bob Dylan released Rainy Day Women, The Birds released Eight Miles High, Mamas and Papas, you know, this whole new world is emerging without the Beatles, and it's the first time in their career that they've they're not missed, and it's really bizarre.

SPEAKER_00 5:34

Although they are being talked about, and I I thought it was funny that um you brought up that a couple of writers were sick of sitars on records, and uh Yeah, one of them was Jonathan King, so I wouldn't take much notice.

SPEAKER_09 5:45

Well, there's an interview with um Brian Matthew on um the BBC one of the shows from '67 with John and Paul, and they're talking about um the new album Sgt. Pepper. And uh Brian says something like, Oh, there's not gonna be more sitar on this one, is there? And uh John's like, Well, yeah, yeah. So it's like a few people were quite bored of it by then. But I think that that's the one where John's describing um uh Within You Without You. There's a you know we went out clubbing or whatever, and then came back to EMI, and there was about three thousand Indian musicians. Where the hell the fuck these people come from? But so yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:29

Great stuff. But there's not a hint of acetar on the song you've chosen.

SPEAKER_06 6:45

I wanna tell her that I love her a lot, but I gotta get a belly full of wine.

SPEAKER_00 6:57

The song you've chosen to discuss today is Her Majesty. Her Majesty was recorded on July the second, nineteen sixty-nine at EMI studios, studio two, Abbey Road. It appeared on the the album Abbey Road, although uncredited, a hidden track at the end of the album after 14 seconds of silence at the end of side two, which was released in the UK on September the 26th, 1969, and in the US on October 1st, 1969. And of course it went to another one in both those territories and many more worldwide. So those are the facts. But let's talk about um why you chose this one, Chris.

SPEAKER_09 7:34

Uh probably because no one else would. It's partly for the reason. But I think it's m less about I mean it's not exactly the highlight of their career, but it's less about what the song uh is, but more what it represents. And it's uh happy accidents and silliness. And they're two of the things that basically permeate every core element of the piece of story. From from when they met, how they met, to all the fellow travellers they met along the way, being in the right place at the right time. Um one which is a massive part of the story, how they all just missed conscription. And it's you know, it's throughout their career, and I love the fact that it's gone on throughout their career, and the very last thing we hear on their very last album is exactly that.

SPEAKER_00 8:25

As you say, it's a happy accident. It was intended to be part of the the long one, the suite at the end of Abbey Road, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_09 8:32

Well, we can hear it now, can't we, in full context on the box set? But it was, yeah, basically Paul originally wanted it between me and Mr. Mustard and Polytheme Pam in the melody and um midley, sorry.

SPEAKER_07 8:46

Take some other look at the queen.

SPEAKER_06 8:56

Oh shit, something Majesty's a pretty nice girl, but she doesn't have a lot to say.

SPEAKER_09 9:14

But engineer John Curlinder, he was one of those whatever you do, never throw any Beatles stuff away, whatever they tell you. And Paul was saying, Yeah, just take it out and chuck it. And he like cut it out, and he was terrified because he thought, Oh, I can't throw you know it's Beatles recordings. So he just taped it, he just glued it right on the end uh of the tape, and uh when they played it back, it was like oh yeah, I really like that, yeah. We'll keep that at the end, and that was it. But it it's all the uh mystery, it's Beatles fans being what they are, they just suddenly build in all the mystery. Why is the last note missing? And yeah, I mean, very briefly, we all know don't we the first note is the end of me, Mr. Mustard. The last note goes straight into polytheme pan. But uh the fact it's missing adds to um you know, it's like it it it's kind of poignant because it's like it's the end of the Beatles, but it's not a full ending because uh there's a there's a bit missing, and they will live on forever. Um with hindsight we can look at it like that.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

And uh it is um it's a it's a very obvious missing note because rhythmically it's a sort of upbeat before the next downbeat, and also it's the A before a D, which wants to resolve. Yeah. Um well just before we leave its original place, so it was originally written um by Paul. It's estimated by some sources to be in sort of around November 1968, actually, because he'd he played it to a DJ. Um he never broadcast, but he played it to a DJ around that time. Um, and and we do hear him tinkering with it, and even a sort of semi-full band performance in the Let It Be Get Back sessions with Ringo on drums and John on the slide guitar that he was gonna play on um, the Hawaiian guitar that he was gonna play on the For You Blue.

SPEAKER_04 11:36

I wanna tell her that I love her a lot.

SPEAKER_00 11:42

So it's one of those songs that was around, wasn't it? First of all.

SPEAKER_09 11:45

Oh, very much so. And it's if you hear the get back sessions, it's just Paul doing what Paul does, he just plays it over and over and over and over again. I once interviewed uh Kate Robbins. Oh no, I tell her lie, I did. I wasn't I was on the phone to her, I was asking her um about I forget what it was, I was asking her a bit of information I needed that only she would know. But she was saying, Oh Paul, every time there's a bloody piano in the room, you just can't get him off it. And it's very much this on the uh on the get back sessions, it's just over and you can imagine what the Maxwell Silverhammer sessions were like, just relentless. But it's how he write, it's how he works, he just gets it again and again and again until it's totally infused in you. And I guess George needed to learn that way, didn't he? Like to keep repeating things, but it's not a song that you know it is what it is, it's a throwaway song.

SPEAKER_00 12:41

Yeah, he wasn't gonna build on it, was he? You get he seems quite clear about that, it was self-contained. By the way, while we talk about that, it's a 23-second song, it's the shortest song in the Beatles repertoire by quite a long way. Um yeah, so at that point it wasn't clear what was gonna happen with it. I think it there's accepted wisdom, is that it it might have fitted there because in Me Mr. Mustard, he's it is the line it takes him out to look at the Queen. And then lyrically it follows that they sing about the Queen, I guess.

SPEAKER_09 13:11

Yeah, that makes sense. I think it's um but it also points the way to Paul's uh you know the countless little throwaway songs he throws on his albums. There's always one there somewhere, and he loves them. And uh it's a little pointer towards his solo career, right at the end of a Beatles album. It's like a little promo. This is what you're gonna get next for the next forty years.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

Well, and and the suite is kind of made up of of snippets of songs, isn't it? Um that whole suite at the end of Abbey Road, so yeah, you've got all of that going on.

SPEAKER_09 13:48

But that's another happy accident as well, isn't it? Because they just fit so well together. I mean, some of them jump out like me, Mr. Martstead suddenly bursts out from nowhere, but it works all the better for it. There's uh on the long one, I think the original fade outs and fade in to Sun King was just like a an organ note, which I really love. I wish they kept that. Yeah, they they they got it right.

SPEAKER_00 14:40

They did, and and and actually when you listen to it, it does sort of it changes the pace too abruptly, doesn't it? Going from me, Mr. Mustard to Her Majesty to it. It just breaks it down, and it they they quickly decided that wouldn't work and were right to do that.

SPEAKER_09 14:55

Yeah, I love I love though hearing that with it in there, because you can hear you can hear them thinking, oh no, we've got to take that out. You're hearing what they they heard and you know the reason why it had to come out. It's beautiful, though. I love stuff like that.

SPEAKER_06 15:08

Someday I'm gonna make a mine. Oh yeah. Someday I'm gonna make a mine.

SPEAKER_05 15:16

Oh thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

Have you heard Their Red Hot by Robert Johnson? Which I was gonna say, yes. Yeah, it's got it's got a lot of that vibe in it, hasn't it?

SPEAKER_09 15:25

Very much so, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

He's never mentioned it, so it may be um an inadvertent borrow or just just something he absorbed.

SPEAKER_09 15:34

Oh, there's hundreds of them. Going um sorry to talk about my new podcast, uh Egg Pod Express, but um there's uh certain songs that you know well from the 60s, and when you hear them again in the context that the Beatles would have heard them, there's a couple in there that are unbelievable, but you'll find out more in the episodes.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

When you played, I'd forgotten how similar whole lot of love was to that Small Faces cover of um You need loving.

SPEAKER_09 16:21

Yeah, Steve Marriott's version is obviously um I mean that's a cover anyway, but the original version is uh gonna give you my love uh from my heart. You know, it mentions the heart, but obviously when Robert Plant changes it, it's every inch of my love. Okay, calm down, boy.

SPEAKER_00 16:40

But yeah, there's a lot of borrowing going on in the 60s, and always has been, I suppose, in in rock and pop music. It's it's the it's more than anything, it's the sort of structure of it that uh their red hot um yeah, is borrow is borrowing from.

SPEAKER_09 16:53

Let's hear a bit now, Tim.

SPEAKER_01 16:55

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 17:18

And then um of course the other thing is that it's a lot of chords in it. Thirteen chords in 20 seconds. Um it's got a really fast sort of harmonic pace, I think they would call it, harmonic rhythm, which I love. It just cracks along, doesn't it? In terms of musical interest.

SPEAKER_09 17:35

I think another thing I love about it is it depends how you look at it. There's been so many different endings of the Beatles recording output. Because at the time you think obviously this came out before Let It Be and uh and the single Let It Be came out after this as well. But the very last you know, noise of that is John's grunting on You Know My Name. So that's the end of their musical career. But I love the end this is the end of their album's career in the sixties. So uh it's just even though like since anthology came out, uh that's another ending, and then now and then you know the uh all the Beatles recorded output has been even more grandeur and it ca it's the way this time in the sixties uh it concluded with humour and throwaway music. But like now and then w it was totally you know cited as the final Beatles single with all the emotional drama that you know Apple could conjure. But what I love they gave Jacko the video and he got it he got it, he got exactly the put the humour in with this very sad song, but very moving, poignant song last words John said to Paul and all of that. But Peter Jackson is just made the Ali and Chuck is them goofing around in the Hello Kobe video, which in so in itself made it more moving because that was more authentic. So what the Beatles were, you know, the humour.

SPEAKER_00 19:04

It is um interesting how they like to I say like to, they undermine endings, don't they? And I I wonder if I was trying to dig out a quote because I'm sure I've heard a quote, you may have it, uh, from Paul about this, where he he says that if they do anything sort of profound, they can't just let it linger. They have to undermine it with a joke or a snappy one-liner. And that's what this is, isn't it? It's the snappy one-liner at the end of the poignancy.

SPEAKER_09 19:29

Yeah, it's very much the sequel to the end of a day and the life, and then all the gibberish at the end, and th throw in a little dog whistle, you know. Yeah, it's this poignant, life-changing song, and then oh, hey, by the way, cheeky week thumbs up at the end. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:48

Well, I I made a little list of what I call trick endings, so these aren't exactly parallels, but there are songs and albums where they they end differently. So Tickets Arrive was perhaps the first where they go out with She Don't Care. She Says She Said ends on a cycle that isn't part of the song. Strawberry Fields Forever, obviously. Hello, goodbye, and then Maori chant at the end. Um Day in the Life, followed by the run-out groove and all that. Hey Jude ends with Nananas, Hell to Skelter ends with a new section. This one, and I'm sure this there's more in Paul's catalogue because I think this is a Paul McCartney thing rather than any other Beatles. But is his album Memory Almost Full is a song should end with the song The End of the End, right? Which is even more poignant in many ways. I brings a tear to my eye every time I hear it. But he has to thrust in nod your head after that, doesn't he? To uh to undermine it.

SPEAKER_09 20:44

Turn around. Yeah, he does it all the time. And on um Beautiful Nights after that, you know, that's the the most beatly sounding song ever on Flaming Pie. And then he's just always, oh great day, you know, it's uh chicken. But although Great Day is a lovely song, but it's always I always find a lot of his solo albums, it's the pen alternate track that should be the closer. Yeah. But he can't help himself, he's just gonna throw in a okay, here we are, you know.

SPEAKER_00 21:14

I wonder it's it's almost I read it, I don't know how you read it, I read it as almost being uncomfortable with being too self-consciously profound.

SPEAKER_09 21:22

Well, I guess that's part of Liverpool, isn't it? It's that um don't take yourselves too seriously. Especially when you're surrounded by John George and Ringo.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

But um yeah, so it's a this is a classic example of that sort of undermining a profound moment, of course.

SPEAKER_04 21:38

Um

SPEAKER_00 22:08

I'd love to talk a bit about the Queen herself. So he's he in his book, he he's been quoted in lyrics as saying it's it's like a kind of love song to the Queen, a cheeky love song to the Queen. The first thing that makes me it makes me think of is that wonderful interview from I think it must be 1964 where there um somebody says to them, You must be millionaires by now, and they all have a good laugh at that.

SPEAKER_02 22:30

Are you individually millionaires yet? Where does all the money go? Well a lot of it goes to her majesty. She's a millionaire.

SPEAKER_09 22:46

Oh, I love George. But it's also uh I think Nikki Campbell was on before and he was talking about you know, back in the day at the end of a well you know, that when radio closed down, um at the end of a film you get the national anthem. It was like the at the end of everything and how stand for the national anthem. It was you know, and it the fact that they're doing this here it's might be pointing towards well, I know it's pure coincidence, but it it lends itself to that meaning. But it's just that rather than God save our gracious queen, sounds weird singing that now, doesn't it? Gosh, fly me. And uh but you go, she's a pretty nice girl. It's uh it's all that.

SPEAKER_00 23:30

Well, he he talks a lot about fancying her, doesn't he? As as kids um and Margaret, Princess Margaret.

SPEAKER_09 23:37

Well, they were gorgeous when they were young.

SPEAKER_00 23:38

They were, yeah, very glamorous, yeah. Yeah, and so that's there's that in there, is a sort of genuine, I think, crush that he's referring to. But it's also quite it's flippant to the point of being almost disrespectful, isn't it? And the fact that he sung it to her at the Golden Jubilee concert in 2002, I thought I I I imagine his crew going, Don't do that, Paul. Because she does the look on her face is thunderous, isn't it? When he sings this little ditty about one day I'm gonna make you mine, you know.

SPEAKER_09 24:35

Well, it also points to, you know, the beginning and the ending of their career, the big beginning of the Royal Command performance, just rattle your jew jewellery.

SPEAKER_00 24:43

Yeah, the class thing, yeah.

SPEAKER_09 24:45

Yeah, and then all the way to the end, I mean the class Samira Ahmed's new book covers this brilliantly, you know, this lack of uh respect for class. You know, the profumo affair had a big effect, the way people viewed the establishment, Peter Cook was coming around at the same time. And uh by the end of the 60s they were like, it's just taking the piss, really.

SPEAKER_00 25:08

Yeah, yeah. Like this track, yeah. Um Samira Ami's book. Um, she tells that reminded me of that story at the premiere where they're um they're waiting for Princess Margaret to go, so they can have some sandwiches. And George just goes up to her and says, Can you can you head can you get out? Because we're hungry. That says something about their kind of attitude to royalty. It was both some kind of reverence, but also, you know, a new attitude to to um class and um yeah, royalty, I think.

SPEAKER_09 25:38

Well, they were the establishment, you know, they've been hanging around with the royalty since the 63. And you know, by the end of their career they were, you know, establishment didn't matter because they were it, even a more s subversive version of it.

SPEAKER_00 25:55

Yeah. But I don't think I get the feeling that Paul is quite genuine when he says that he was a bit of a fan of the Queen. He c he actually admires her, he says. Um, I don't think he meant to undermine her with this, but um it's it's not disrespectful. No, it's just cheeky. Cheeky, yeah. And um Chumbawamba did a cover of this where they sort of extend it into a full song, don't they? Have you heard that?

SPEAKER_09 26:20

Yeah, that's I don't think that's pro-Qeen.

SPEAKER_00 26:23

No, that's definitely not.

SPEAKER_09 26:24

Don't get me started on Chumbawumba rubber.

SPEAKER_00 26:26

I couldn't find any other covers apart from Chumbawombas, but um, it adds a few more verses that get increasingly less respectful.

SPEAKER_09 26:33

Yeah. Oh well, they have they had their their moments. No, I sound like a royal royalist, is it? It's nothing to do with that, I just can't stand Chumberwumber. Sorry, Chumberwumber.

SPEAKER_03 26:50

Her Majesty's a pretty nice girl, but I hope she's the end of the line. Oh yeah. I hope she's the end of the line. Her Majesty's living in a land of cutsis. A world of bluish blood and nutsis, yeah.

SPEAKER_09 27:08

I do love the fact that um as I said about a love Beatles endings. But um I guess you could say, like, probably the last Beatles recording is uh women 3rd of January 70 with George Paul and Ringerd and I Me Mine. And there's a it's online somewhere, but they do this jam and uh during the session. But in this jam you can hear Paul playing um Little Woman Love, the little dun dun did he'd later do as the B side of Mary Had Little Lamb. It's you know the last Beatles session was a B side to Mary Had Little Lamb. And um also there's a bit in there I don't know if you can find it, Tim, but if you can pop it in. It's only a few seconds long, where Paul plays the chords to Maybe I'm Amazed just literally one time over. Bloody hell! That's that's there.

SPEAKER_00 28:28

This is must be the first secret track, isn't it? Um, in rock history. I don't know if you're as old as me, Chris, but in the in the CD era, the early CD era, there were lots of these. And to make up for the fact that you didn't have a run-out groove, I I I distinctly remember Stone Roses album had to have 99 tracks so that you could get to the last one.

SPEAKER_09 28:48

Second coming, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_00 28:50

That's it, yeah, yeah. But there was a lot of that then, wasn't there?

SPEAKER_09 28:53

I remember after the this one, there was a lot of hidden tracks and yeah, on CDs especially, you'd see a track uh th that lasted about 20 minutes and it finished by about three, and then oh, here we go again. But I think, yeah, there's well I suppose um the inner groove on Sgt. Pepper's the first true one.

SPEAKER_00 29:12

It's not really a song, I suppose, but yeah.

SPEAKER_09 29:14

No.

SPEAKER_00 29:16

Unless it's a piece, maybe.

SPEAKER_09 29:18

Yeah, but it was listed on later editions, wasn't it, of Abbey Roads. Um the initial ones.

SPEAKER_00 29:24

When I was a kid, I used to listen to my brother, elder brother's copy of Abbey Road, and it was the original. And I always thought he was saying, Imagine she's a pretty nice girl. I didn't hear Her Majesty, I heard Imagine She's a Pretty Nice Girl. Like he was seeing a girl from across the school playground or something in my mind, because I was at school and that he fancied her. So I was for years I thought it was called I Imagine She's a Pretty Nice Girl, yeah.

SPEAKER_09 29:48

Which is actually a really nice song title.

SPEAKER_00 29:51

Um I think I've covered almost everything I can say about it. Is there anything you wanted to add to that?

SPEAKER_09 29:56

Well, how long have we been talking? Yeah, for a 23-second song, I think we've we've done pretty well.

SPEAKER_00 30:04

I always ask guests because forcing one song out of people is ridiculous. Uh the whole premise of the show is uh is that you'll pick one favourite song, and of course you can't do that. But any others that are particularly on your playlist at the moment of Beatles songs that you love?

SPEAKER_09 30:20

Um really the best stuff I'm hearing at the moment is um fan-made mixes on YouTube, and there's a lot of good stuff coming out. There's um some guys I d I can't read it because I think it's in Japanese, so I don't really know, but I've followed them and they seem to be doing loads of work on the Star Club tapes. Um so I don't I don't know who they are or w how to point you towards them. But I think if you search Star Club and they've been using similar mal type technology, and they're getting really good at it. It's it's the vocals I think are the issue because there's so much reverb. Um but there's you know you're getting stereo versions with really it depends on the songs because each recording's uh so different it's hard to uh have a reliable sound all the way through. But yeah, that that yeah so I think they did a as as one song I'd say that they did a really good uh one of uh Is it Red Hot? I think my girl is Red Hot, they've done but yeah, they're all out there.

SPEAKER_00 31:28

There's a lot of good fan mixes. Um I had Adam S. Leslie on again to talk about Blue Jay Way, and we we both agreed that the best mix of Blue Jay Way is actually a fan-made mix and not not an officially released one.

SPEAKER_09 31:40

Yeah, I was listening to that episode before we started, actually. I really like how he's one of the nicest people in the world, Adam. Yes. Hello Adam.

SPEAKER_00 31:49

He is lovely and he has lots of interesting things to say as well. Yeah, so let's talk about your new podcast because that is tremendously exciting. I've been privileged you sent me the two episodes with David Quantic. But yeah, t tell us more about what was happening, how it came about, and when it's gonna be available.

SPEAKER_09 32:07

Yeah, well, like I say at the beginning, it's just something I've been really enjoying reading. I was going through all these magazines and I thought, oh, there must be a podcast on this. I'll go and have a listen to that. And there was there was none out there. And I thought, well, that's a huge part of history, especially going through those old Mersey beat magazines. Mark Lewison's brain is just unbelievable. We all know the cover, but he's going through an advert, right, Crane's top left corner, and he'll tell you all about the history of that. NEMS, obviously Whitechapel, Ivermar promotions, not sure if the beat was played there or not, Jim Gretty, who uh taught The Gretti Chords. The Gretti Chords, where John bought his guitar, and it's before we even get onto the photo of you know this legendary uh cover, and then we go through the whole what I love doing this because we go through the top poll and we go through everybody every band and what they the when them went on to do. And you've also got Brian Epstein's got an article in here talking about his favourite songs of the year, John and Paul does a Paul does an article, I'm bylined, but we know it's him, and he's talking about all sorts in there, so that's episode one. And I love also the way you know you look at reviews of records now, and there's a certain well, there's definite reverence with Beatles, but you know, anyone from the 60s says it's held in such high regard. But at the time they're like nah scrap and famously um is it Ray Davis slagging off uh revolver?

SPEAKER_00 33:46

That's a classic, isn't it? Yeah, you you do an episode on on that issue, do you?

SPEAKER_09 33:50

I haven't recorded that one yet. Basically, Andy Miller, get back to me, you swine. But there's loads of 'em. And I've tried to make it sound as much like a an old sixties pirate radio show as possible.

SPEAKER_00 34:04

Oh, it's beautiful. Yeah, I love all that.

SPEAKER_09 34:06

Yeah, you've got all sorts of people. There's Pete Paffides, David Quantix, Samira Ahmed, Gail Reynard does a brilliant one. Cause she grew up in the you'd never believe it, but she grew up in the six. She was the one that ended up um on Give Peace a Chance, holding up writing out the boards uh for the lyrics. And uh all sorts of people, more Maureen O'Grady and Ron Geeson, who did uh Atom Heart Mother. I know that's I'm I have to say I've gone off format a couple of times on this. It's a great one, probably the my favourite one of all, is nothing to do with anything, it's just we do the front cover and then we we talk about something else. Is um Andy Baume from The Herd and also Latterly status quo. But it's just such a silly silly uh thing, and it's completely at odds with you know, I'm launching this brand new podcast and oh sod the format. But generally speaking, it will have a format, and I'm really excited about it. I I I enjoy listening to it because uh if somebody else is making it, I'd be their big fan of it. But no, I hardly endorse that.

SPEAKER_00 35:15

It's it's riveting listen, very um entertaining and informative. I was wondering how um because did the did the guests choose the issues?

SPEAKER_09 35:24

Did they know or did you give them yeah Yeah well some yeah Andy Bown didn't. I just found one with a herd on. And um but yeah, the rest did. There's uh just gave them a list. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:36

And to They're quite hard to find, aren't they? But are you gonna put them up on the website or Patreon?

SPEAKER_09 35:42

Yeah. Um probably Patreon, to be fair. Um actually no, and no, I'll put them everywhere. It's just it's gonna eat into I've uploaded Merseybeats and already my uh provider's saying, right, time to up your bill. Only a few people have downloaded it. But it's uh but yeah, I'll put them all online. And then for Patreon, patreon.com forward slash eggport, you'll be getting early access and loads of bones. And I'm gonna I've done playlists for every episode, so I've done the top 30 charts of that week in history. And it's just fascinating, so all the so the social history uh ever every element, it's living it at the time. But it's something you don't get with Beatles um music really. You do you don't realise just how far ahead when you read who else is in that chart or who else is doing something at that time, they weren't just ahead of the curve, they were two, three years ahead of everybody. And it's Samira made a lovely point saying it's so lovely knowing that you know they didn't let us down. We we got it right picking this band, that's why they've endured, and uh so many of the other others haven't, such as uh, for example, from 1964 the Billy Fury movie I Want a Horse, which uh didn't endure, but that was released at the same time as A Hard Day's Night and Things We Said Today single, you know, these these monumental pieces of art, and uh yeah, it's just a fascinating world. I love it.

SPEAKER_00 37:15

Oh, I love it. I love all that context, and um you know you cover mostly music but also TV shows, movies, things like that that are happening.

SPEAKER_09 37:23

Whatever's in the magazine, yeah. The letters pages are particularly hilarious. There's one with David Quantic that I I might cut it out. It's basically me loving it.

SPEAKER_00 37:33

Don't cut it out. It's it's it kept me chuckling all the way through your don't don't say any more then.

SPEAKER_09 37:38

It's the best letters ever written to a letters page, ever, ever.

SPEAKER_00 37:43

So you've you've already mentioned patreon.com forward slash eggpod, right, as um a place to go. Any anywhere else that people can hear more from you and or about you?

SPEAKER_09 37:54

Uh well I'm on Blue Sky at oh gosh, I don't know what I am now. I n I can never remember the blue sky. Just put eggpod in blue sky.

SPEAKER_00 38:05

We'll find you.

SPEAKER_09 38:05

And the magazine will be online at IamTheEggPod.com, which I'm keeping going, so you can read the mag.

SPEAKER_00 38:11

That's the word first two episodes coming uh May the third.

SPEAKER_09 38:15

It's gonna be 3rd of May 2026. Reason being it's my favourite Bible quote, which is Proverbs 3, verses 5 to 6, so th 3, 5, 26. Which trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not rely on your own insights or understanding. Which I have to, because I have none.

SPEAKER_00 38:35

I know the listeners will lap that up, so yeah, good luck with that.

SPEAKER_09 38:38

And they're coming out every what is it weekly or every week, every Sunday morning you'll hear me and someone just immersing ourselves in the 60s. Which is nicer than immersing yourself in 2026, I find.

SPEAKER_00 38:54

It's lovely to hear your voice again and and to look forward to hearing it even more on your new podcast. But to thanks so much for spending time with me today to talk about the Beatles and specifically Her Majesty, it's been great.

SPEAKER_09 39:05

Thank you very much, Tim. It's really kind of you. Cheers.

SPEAKER_00 39:12

Thanks for listening to my favourite Beatles song. If you like the podcast, please consider giving it a rating or review on your favourite podcast platform. This helps me to reach new listeners. You can follow the podcast on x.com, Instagram, and Facebook. Look for the links in the show notes. Thanks to Joe Kane for the fantastic music and Mark Cunningham for the logo design. I'll see you next time.