The Beatles arrive in Hong Kong

Q: I want to know, how do your mothers feel about the business that you’re in?

John Lennon: Leave it to your dad.

Paul McCartney: Correct.

Q: Could you tell us, John, please, out of all the records that you’ve made, which one you are most satisfied with?

John: Well I always like, and I think the others do, the one we’ve just made, you know. ’cause you get a bit tired of the others. So whenever we make a new one, we like that best.

Q: Which one is your latest?

John: Well, at the moment it’s ‘Long Tall Sally’ although we’ve been singing it for eight years.

George Harrison: And the one from the film.

John: All right, all right. We’ll get a plug here. And there’s a couple in the film.

Q: How do you feel about Ella Fitzgerald recording ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’?

John: Honoured. Flattered.

Paul: Yeah.

John: Flattened.

Q: What are the causes of these cults – Mods and Rockers?

John: It’s something to do, you know.

Paul: It’s just that people like new fashions, anyway. You always get some people who don’t, but it just happens to have developed into a cult. The one’s who do like the new fashions have gone mad about it.

Q: Don’t you think the Mods especially are going a bit too far when they wear pink shirts and high-heeled shoes?

Paul: Well, what’s wrong… there’s nothing wrong with…

John: They’ve got to get away from the in-betweens, haven’t they. What else can they do, you know. They’re fine.

Paul: I mean, I’ll tell you, that’s nothing.

George: Pink shirts.

Paul: And they wear handbags and eye make-up. That’s a bit far.

John: I think he’s a bit old to wear a handbag.

Q: Would you tell us something about your act while you’re in Hong Kong? Are you going to play anything special?

All: No.

John: Just sing.

George: Sing and tap our toes.

John: You play them what they want to hear. You know, the ones they bought.

Q: John, you’ve written quite a few songs. Will you be writing a song with a Chinese flavour, do you think?

All: No.

Q: What do you think of Tuesday Wells?

Paul: Very nice. Yes.

George: Miss Saturday Night’s much better.

Q: The youngsters here and everywhere nowadays are being infected by so-called Beatlemania. What do you think about it?

George: It’s very good.

Q: Very good.

George: It’s good for the business, and it’s good for the teenagers ’cause it…

Q: Good or no good?

George: It’s good.

John: Good.

Q: Mr Nicol, when Ringo Starr joins the group in Australia, what will you do?

Jimmie Nicol: Then I go back to London, and things seem to be jumping in London, so you know… I’ve got a couple of television shows and a band’s being formed and everything. So it looks as though things might happen for me, you know.

Q: George, you admire Segovia. Have you learned anything about guitar playing from him?

George: I haven’t ever met him, and I haven’t learned anything from him. I’ve learned a little bit, not very much, from his records.

Q: Mr Lennon, what do you think Mrs Lennon thinks of the Beatles?

John: She rather likes them.

Q: Is Cynthia Lennon jealous of all your female fans?

John: No, because I don’t have a go at them.