Love was in the air this week.
Both John Lennon and Paul McCartney turned up at Decca Studios today to contribute (uncredited) backing vocals to the Rolling Stones’ “We Love You”:
This song, says Wikipedia,
is a droning Moroccan-influenced anthem of defiance. Outwardly, it was a message from the band to its fans, expressing appreciation for support in the wake of their recent drug busts. It was also an ironic, tongue in cheek slap in the faces of the police harassing them and the Stones’ true feelings about it, putting on a cooperative and friendly face while inside they were seething with anger and indignation.
In addition to the two Beatles, Allen Ginsburg was there,
waving his Shiva beads and a Tibetan oracle ring, conduct[ing] the singers from the other side of the studio glass to the tempo of the stuttering Mellotron track. “They looked like little angels,” he wrote later of the Stones and Beatles, “like Botticelli Graces singing together for the first time.”
Also today, the soundtrack album for a movie called The Family Way – for which Paul and George Martin had composed the music — was released. Unlike most Beatles music, it is actually on YouTube, herewith:
Meanwhile, The Beatles still needed a song for the live satellite broadcast they’d agreed to do on June 25. Both John and Paul had been working on ideas, but John ended up being the winner. More on that soon.