Who's kept Beatles jottings safe? Yeah, it's the taxman
Many years ago, when the world was young and vinyl ruled, I used to sit in the Abbey Road studio, watching the Beatles at work.
At the end of a session, I would pick up their odd scraps of paper - the lyrics of a song they had been working on, scribbled on the back of an envelope or a telephone bill. I would ask if I could have it, as it might be useful to me in writing the band's biography (the only one they would ever authorise, as it turned out). They always said yes, as the cleaners would just burn the scraps along with the other bits of rubbish left on the floor.
The Beatles showed little interest in their own jottings because their only concern was the recorded song. Don't forget that this was between 1966 and 1968 - from Revolver to the White Album - and John, Paul, George and Ringo were still in their 20s. You tend not to think ahead at that age, and certainly not about phoney concepts such as posterity.
Source: WA Today
