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Another milestone in Beatles history today: their first British recording session to take place away from the familiar confines of EMI/Abbey Road studios. Apparently all the rooms there were booked by other artists, and rather than boot someone to make space for their best-selling act, EMI bought The Beatles time at Regent Sound Studio.
The session was dedicated to the first try at Paul’s new song,“Fixing a Hole.” They made pretty good progress despite the presence in the studio of a potentially distracting special guest: one Jesus H. Christ.
Says Paul:
I brought a guy who was Jesus. A guy arrived at my front gate and I said “Yes? Hello” because I always used to answer it to everyone. If they were boring I would say, “Sorry, no,” and they generally went away. This guy said, “I’m Jesus Christ.” I said, “Oop,” slightly shocked. I said, “Well, you’d better come in then.” I thought, Well, it probably isn’t. But if he is, I’m not going to be the one to turn him away. So I gave him a cup of tea and we just chatted and I asked, “Why do you think you are Jesus?” There were a lot of casualties about then. We used to get a lot of people who were maybe insecure or going through emotional break downs or whatever. So I said, “I’ve got to go to a session but if you promise to be very quiet and just sit in a corner, you can come.” So he did, he came to the session and he did sit very quietly and I never saw him after that. I introduced him to the guys. They said, “Who’s this?” I said, “He’s Jesus Christ.” We had a bit of a giggle over that.
Knowing what we know now, it’s hard to believe that Paul would invite an obviously mentally ill person into his home, then bring him to the studio. It seems very nice but not especially smart. But those were more innocent times, I guess, still two years pre-Manson.
I don’t know if Jesus and The Beatles discussed who was more popular; probably they politely avoided the subject.