Press conference: Warwick Hotel, New York City

The Beatles’ flight from Cincinnati to New York arrived at 3.50am on this morning. They were taken to the Warwick Hotel, where during the day they gave the first of two press conferences.

Q: Would any of you care to comment on any aspect of the war in Vietnam?

John Lennon: We don’t like it.

Q: Could you elaborate any?

Lennon: No. I’ve elaborated enough, you know. We just don’t like it. We don’t like war.

George Harrison: It’s, you know… It’s just war is wrong, and it’s obvious it’s wrong. And that’s all that needs to be said about it.

Paul McCartney: We can elaborate in England.

Q: I have a question for Paul. I don’t know if you know about it yet, but two young ladies threatened to jump to their death from the 22nd floor of the hotel here in Manhattan if they could see you. How do you feel about young girls acting this way?

McCartney: If they could see me?

Q: They wanted to see you – If you would come over they wouldn’t jump. The police finally rescued them. They threatened to jump unless you came over.

McCartney: Good God, you know. Phew! I don’t understand it. I don’t know. Erm, silly, that. I’ll see ’em, you know.

Q: Will the Beatles be inactive when John goes on movie location for the motion picture [How I Won The War]?

Ringo Starr: Yes.

Lennon: I’m only doing it because we’ve got a holiday, you know. I wouldn’t do it if we had any work. We’re not out of work, mind you.

Q: When you arrived at the airport and there were only nine girls waiting to meet you, were you disappointed, and do you think that’s a reflection of a loss of popularity in this country?

JOHN: Yeah, we’re real brought down by it.

McCartney: Really disappointed! Three o’clock in the morning they expected millions.

Q: Now that Paul is the only bachelor Beatle, do you find that the girls gravitate more to him than they do to the rest of you fellas? How do you feel about that?

Lennon: They always did!

Starr: Yeah.

McCartney: Well, the thing that we found, we found after all this business, of all the buttons that say ‘I love Ringo’, ‘I love John’, John’s were outselling everyone’s.

Lennon: A rather distinctive Beatle.

McCartney: A distinctive Beatle.

Q: This is for Paul and John. Do you think that happiness is really egg-shaped, or is it just a rumor from the egg marketing magazine?

McCartney: Hoo hoo hoo.

Lennon: Ho, ho.

Q: Do you think happiness is real, or just a fantasy?

Lennon: It’s real, all right.

RINGO: Depends how the eggs are cooked.

PAUL: That was about as good as anything.

Q: Ringo, now that George has joined John and Paul in writing songs are you going to start writing your own songs?

Starr: Erm, no.

Q: Why not?

Starr: I can’t write them. I try, you know, but… a lot of rubbish.

Q: On your new album, Revolver, I noticed a lot of violins and even trumpets.

Harrison: Very observant.

Q: How come you decided to use violins and trumpets?

McCartney: There were, er, I think there were three violins on the whole album, and three trumpets. So we’re not exactly going overboard on ’em, you know. We don’t use them all that much, but it was just that those tracks sounded better with violins and with trumpets than with us, you know. That’s the only reason we use them.

Q: This one to John, please. Any remarks whatsoever on some of the recent remarks attributed to you and the Beatles concerning religion?

Lennon: Well, I think I’ve said enough about that. I can’t say anymore, and just sort of going over the same thing over again. You know, a lot of it just is a lot of rubbish and a lot of hysteria.

Q: To John and Paul: it’s been said that Lennon and McCartney may some day replace the names Rogers and Hammerstein. Have you ever considered discontinuing performing and instead just keep on writing?

Lennon: No.

Q: Would you rather perform, then?

McCartney: I mean, you know, when we’re 80 we won’t be performing. We may be writing.

Lennon: And we don’t want to be Rogers and Hart, either.

Q: This is to all of you. You seem to be doing a Bob Dylan in reverse. That is, you became popular playing rock and roll and now you seem to be doing a lot more folk rock. Would you care to comment on that?

Starr: Folk rock.

McCartney: It’s not folk rock. Honest. Yeah, somebody said that the other day.

Q: Songs like ‘Eleanor Rigby’ and…

McCartney: No, the thing is that – that thing about Bob Dylan is probably right, in reverse, because we’re getting more interested now in the content of the songs, whereas Bob Dylan is getting more interested in rock and roll. It’s just, we’re both going towards the same thing, I think.