Above Us Only Sky (Paul McCartney/Beatles Fan Fiction)

Chapter 42 - All You Need Is Love

On 25 June, 1967, an estimated 360 million television viewers in 27 countries tuned in to a program called Our World. The first ever global satellite hook-up would culminate with a clip of the Beatles sitting on stools and surrounded by beaded and fringed friends singing along with Lennon's song "All You Need Is Love," live from the Abbey Road studio.

The Beatles almost didn't agree to represent the United Kingdom, since they were still smarting from the BBC ban on "A Day In the Life,"on the grounds that it could be considered to have drug taking implications. Surprisingly, so soon after completing six months of work on Sgt Pepper, the Beatles were once again in the studio preparing a new song for the event.

Once they'd gotten involved, it became necessary to stage a spectacular event befitting their spectacular mystique. Heaven forbid the public should envision a Beatles recording session as routine. On the evening of the program, Tony Barrow was dispatched to the London night clubs to bring back any flower waving Beautiful People willing to "drop in" on the scene. The studio was crammed with such famous friends as Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Marianne Faithful, Graham Nash and Eric Clapton. To Marisol's delight, Keith Moon showed up with Kim, and for once he wasn't dressed like Queen Victoria or Hitler.

Presiding over the happening was George Martin, in a crisp white linen suit. The Beatles seemed to be trying his patience to the utmost. Although Paul and George would be lip syncing the backing vocals, John had insisted on doing his vocals live. Consequently Paul decided his bass must be live. At one point George Harrison expressed his deep desire to play the violin on the backing track, although he didn't know how. At Mr. Martin's insistence, he agreed to play lead guitar as usual, but insisted on playing the four measure guitar solo live. Ringo was informed his drums couldn't be live, as they would drown out the rest of the recording. Ringo shrugged and went back to his chess game with Neil.

An ensemble of professional session musicians were hired to perform the introduction to the song and a hodgepodge of opening numbers.

As the backing track played, George Martin was trying to write a score, because somebody wanted it in sheet music, which of course the Beatles never required. They just read each other.

"What is that note, that chord, John, right there. Is it the 7th?"

John said, "Oh no, it's not that."

"Well is it the 6th?"

"No."

"Well it must be somewhere in between then," George persisted.

John said, "Yeah, man. Write that down."

The audience members, made up of Beatles friends and insiders and a contingent of McCartney relatives, paraded around wearing sandwich boards declaring All You Need Is Love in several languages. For the recording, they would gather at the Beatles' feet.

Marisol had never seen John Lennon so nervous. She walked by and heard him mumble to himself, "Fuckin' Ada, I hope I can remember the bloody words." Because of the camera and microphone placement, his ever present lyric sheet had to be down and off to the side, and if John turned his head to look at it he would be singing away from the mic.

Although Paul claimed he wasn't nervous, he wore a strange frozen smile that Marisol had never seen before.

At one point, shortly before they were to go live, the BBC van parked outside lost the connection. It went back up in the nick of time and the cameras went live forty seconds earlier than planned, causing everyone a few seconds of panic.

The whole thing seemed so complex that it was bound to go wrong, yet somehow it went without a hitch.

The Beatles looked as cool as only they could under such hot house circumstances.