Between February 9, 1961 and August 3, 1963, The Beatles played The Cavern Club in Liverpool 292 times. When they first played there, they were a group of three teenagers (Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Pete Best) with a 20 year old John Lennon who had already spent months in Hamburg, Germany playing gigs at all hours of the night in the red light district and refining their craft. By the time they were done at The Cavern, they were an international sensation with a number one album (Please Please Me) and two number one singles ("From Me To You" and "She Loves You"). They had also replaced Pete Best with Richard Starkey. You might know him better as Ringo Starr.
The Cavern Club is still standing today. Sort of. The original Club opened on Liverpool's Mathew Street in 1957 and was closed in 1973 to make way for the Merseyrail underground railway. As it was below ground, it was not knocked down but instead filled in, which as it turned out was pretty fortunate. In the early 1980s, the original Cavern Club was excavated with the intent of restoring the Club to its original site. For the most part in spirit, this was accomplished, with funds raised from the sale of the original bricks which made up the Cavern's arched ceilings. It's not exactly where it used to stand but it does overlap the original site.
The block of Mathew Street where the new Cavern Club is located today is just a quick walk from the Liverpool docks and then a couple of flights down to an underground series of brick vaults with a stage at one end of the center vault. It's hot and stuffy and I imagine it's full of people all day and every day visiting just to say that they have stood where The Beatles started out. In early September of this year I found myself at corner table of the Cavern listening to Jonny Parry bang out Beatles hits for 45 minutes in the middle of the afternoon from the Cavern stage.
The Club still operates today as a legit live music venue (I'm not knocking Jonny Parry but look, there wasn't even a cover) mostly trading on its reputation as the place where The Beatles started out. It's not all just free Beatles tributes to lure tourists in to buy drinks. Wait late enough and you'll have to pay. There are display cases containing framed and signed memorabilia from all sorts of group from Queen to Adele to the Arctic Monkeys to Paul McCartney and a pretty good sized souvenir shop with all sorts of Cavern Club swag. The beer is cold and good but man, was it stuffy and hot down there.
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| Jonny Parry in the middle of "Here Comes The Sun" or some other Beatles cover. Essential stuff. |
If you are a Beatles fan determined to visit sites that are instrumental to the group's history, you have to visit London and Liverpool. London for the obligatory posed picture in the zebra crossing outside the Abbey Road Studios where all the Beatles' songs were recorded and Liverpool for pretty much everything else. Four years ago, we made the pilgrimage to Abbey Road; this year we went to Liverpool.
Before we cover our Liverpool experience let me just say that Abbey Road is a complete circus. The number of people in that crosswalk posing in what I am sure they feel is just like John, Paul, George and Ringo on the cover of the band's best album (my opinion) is both absurd and comical. And most of them don't come close to a reasonable facsimile of that famous picture whether they are alone or in a group of four or more. I will say, however, from my own efforts, that it's about impossible to pose in the perfect walking form demonstrated by The Beatles. I tried several times and failed. And I was alone and didn't have to coordinate with three other people in the exact same body position. And no, I will not be posting those pictures here or anywhere else. I look as ridiculous as every other person there.
For all the time that The Beatles spent in Liverpool, there are precious few real pilgrimage sites. You would think that in 20 plus years of time that there would be a slew of must sees but remember we are talking about people's childhoods in a city that had been bombed heavily during the Second World War. The place had enough issues just recovering life back to normalcy. Permanence likely had a little bit different meaning back then. People were busy just trying to survive and weren't keeping track of events that seemed meaningless at the time.
Having said that, The Cavern Club should probably be on every Beatles fan's must see list. So should the statue of John Lennon pretty much right across from the entrance to the Club and the bench with Eleanor Rigby at the east end of Mathew Street if for no other reason than they are right there. Lennon's statue is pretty much life sized. By "pretty much" I mean my shoulders are mostly at the same height as Lennon's shoulders but my head is nowhere near the size of his (what I assume is a deliberately larger than life) melon. I don't know how many people get their picture taken with this statue but I wasn't going to let this opportunity pass me by. I'm a tourist after all.
Nor was I going to miss out on sitting on the total opposite end of the bench from Eleanor Rigby. I am deliberately not staring or engaging with Mrs. Rigby in any way in the photograph above. Far be it from me to be the one who invalidated the "all the lonely people" line from McCartney's lyrics. I appreciate the cabbie who moved on the bench so I could get this completely self absorbed tourist picture.
Want more Beatles-related statues? Head back down to the docks from The Cavern Club and you'll find John, Paul, George and Ringo (not in that order) taking a stroll down towards the Mersey. This one is definitely larger than life-sized with each figure probably about seven feet tall. There will be tons of tourists in all likelihood around this statue also. Be patient and you can get a decent picture.
There are other Beatles worshipping spots you can get to in Liverpool. These include Penny Lane, which is an actual street in Liverpool, not a made up name just for the song or even a metaphor for something else. There's also Strawberry Field which was a Salvation Army boys' home and inspiration for the John Lennon tune "Strawberry Fields Forever" which was part of the double A side 1967 single along with McCartney's "Penny Lane".
We skipped both. We were on a day trip from London (more than one person said we were crazy to take such a day trip but it worked) and neither site is exactly easy or quick to get to unless you take a taxi, which we elected not to do. And in the end, visiting both Strawberry Field and Penny Lane wouldn't enrich our Beatles trip other than I'd be able to post a picture of both signs on this blog. Beyond the signs, though, there's nothing there. It's not like I'd get a lot out of watching a banker in a motorcar who never wears a mac in the pouring rain or a pretty nurse selling poppies from a tray feeling like she's in a play even if these folks were to be seen anyway on the day we were there. Got all that? :)
And by the way we didn't go up and back to Liverpool in a single day just so we could call ourselves Day Trippers. Although I guess we weren't really. After all, we didn't have a one way ticket, yeah?
So what can a Beatles fan do to get the most out of his or her A Day In The Life in Liverpool other than The Cavern Club? Well, based on our experience, I'd recommend you take a trip to the childhood homes of John Lennon and Paul McCartney. I'm sure there are lots of bus and van trips around the city which will take you by these places to get a look at the outside and tell you stories about the boyhood of the two primary Fab Four songwriters. I'd suggest you skip all those and find a way to get inside each property. And there's only one way to do that and that's with the National Trust.
We disembarked from the train from London at Liverpool's Lime Street station and faced with about a mile walk through a maze of streets in the rain and about 40 minutes to get there, we sprung for a cab to the Jurys Inn where we were set to get picked up for our half day Ticket To Ride to see where Lennon and McCartney started out. On the surface of things, this might not be a terribly exciting tour. I mean it's a bus trip to a semi-detached 1930s house in suburban Liverpool followed by a stop at a council house in a neighborhood that still looks pretty much exactly the same as when it was built in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Lennon's house, named Mendips, was the semi-detached house; McCartney's home, at 20 Forthlin Road, was the council house.
Maybe a primer on council houses is in order. These are typically local government-owned properties which are rented to tenants through an application process. Rules differ from council to council but there is usually some right to stay in the properties at the tenants' sole option and sometimes options to buy after minimum stays (of years). Some properties are desirable and are heavily sought after. Others can be habitual waystops for individuals, couples or families on their way to someplace they consider better. These are not publicly provided houses handed to people for free but instead a way to provide housing for people who cannot typically afford to purchase their own property.
Today both McCartney's former home and Mendips, which was owned by John Lennon's Auntie Mimi and Uncle George (John's mother Julia was unmarried and agreed that it was probably best for John to be raised by her sister and husband), are owned by the National Trust and that's the only way to get inside. They acquired 20 Forthlin Road in 1995 at the suggestion of John Birt, the Director-General of the BBC and a Liverpool-born contemporary of The Beatles who noticed the property was for sale. Seven years later, they added Mendips at 251 Menlove Avenue to their portfolio when Yoko Ono bought the house and donated to the Trust (the house, not a soap impression of his wife which he ate).
The house tours are run by husband and wife team Colin and Sylvia. Colin takes visitors around Mendips and has been doing so for 15 years; Sylvia is over on Forthlin Road where she's been hosting for seven years. Both guides are fantastic and clearly devoted to their work. It shows in their knowledge and the care they take in explaining small details which might seem unimportant but which provide a vivid description of what life in the houses are like.
As works of architecture or buildings or whatever you want to call it, both properties are restored to about the condition they were in during the 1950s when Lennon and McCartney were living at home and attending school in Liverpool. There has been some restoration from photographs and some objects like the sink in the McCartney's kitchen were reinstalled when found in storage elsewhere on the property (which is really lucky I think).
The most major reconstruction work done seemed to be the replacement of the front windows at Forthlin Road. The owners after the McCartneys had replaced the windows in the house to make the place more energy efficient. In a effort towards authenticity, the National Trust noted that other properties on the street had not been upgraded in this way and offered to swap out the more energy efficient windows at number 20 for the original set elsewhere in the neighborhood for free. Apparently the other people went for the free upgrade.
The furniture in the places is generally speaking not original. Both Lennon and McCartney bought new furniture for the places when they made it big and the old stuff was tossed. This makes sense, right? I mean it's not like Aunt Mimi or Paul's dad Jim were looking to hang on to the old tables and chairs in the event their houses one day became museums. Makes sense that this stuff is gone. Wth the exception of a couple of pieces of furniture Mimi hung on to and the reproduction of the kitchen clock at Mendips (Yoko still owns the original), you are looking at furniture in the style of what was there at the time. It's good enough.
There's something about being in places where significant historical events have happened. This is the real value for me of visiting these two homes. At Mendips it was the notion that John Lennon and Paul McCartney had hung out in John's tiny second floor bedroom and worked on songs together while Aunt Mimi (Uncle George was dead at this point) stayed as far away as possible. Just standing in that small room and imagining Lennon and McCartney working on playing songs together and talking about rock and roll music was pretty amazing.
We were also told that the entire band (assuming pre-Ringo here) used to rehearse in the front room of the house. I swear there's not enough room for two people to rehearse on guitars in that room. They must have completely moved everything to the walls to get a drum set in the room. We were where it happened. Also pretty amazing.
But the goosebumps moment (and there didn't have to be one but there genuinely was) happened for me at Forthlin Road. First of all, I've never been an enormous John Lennon fan so I was inherently less interested in Mendips; I would put Lennon third on my "favorite Beatles list" after Harrison and McCartney (and yes, in that order). Second, the only tale of any song written at Mendips told by Colin was "Please Please Me". That song is OK and I understand the place it has in The Beatles' catalog but it's not in like my top 40 or 50 Beatles songs. Not close.
Forthlin Road had more magic. Sylvia told us what was written where. "I Lost My Little Girl"? Written in McCartney's bedroom in the front of the house after he moved out of the shared back room with brother Mike. "She Loves You"? Back room, ground floor. "I Saw Her Standing There"? Front room, ground floor. "When I'm 64"? Played on the piano by Paul before he moved out in the early 1960s (the song finally appeared on Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967). "I'll Follow The Sun"? Also front room, ground floor.
That last one did it. Are you kidding me? "I'll Follow The Sun", one of my favorite Beatles songs of all time was written feet from where I was standing in early September? Wow! I'm not kidding here but this was the moment that I appreciated this tour. It seems silly. I mean all we are talking about here is a relatively simple, less than two minute long song but it's an incredible song. And I was standing right where it was created. Goosebumps! I'm telling you. Worth the price of admittance and indeed the whole trip to Liverpool just for that moment. You never know when this stuff is going to hit you and you have to travel to get these moments. You can't do this stuff remote.
Mendips and 20 Forthlin Road are about 1.3 miles apart by car. Cut across the fields between the two properties like McCartney and Lennon used to do and I'm sure you can shave off the 0.3 miles. I often think about how coincidence plays a part in greatness, particularly in songwriting because I love music so much. It's not like Lennon and McCartney are the only two kids in the history of rock and roll to live near to each other or meet by chance but it doesn't get really much better than these two, does it?
I'm not trying to give The Beatles all the credit for transforming music history but honestly without these two where would music be? Would some other group have done what The Beatles did eventually or would we be somewhere completely different? Would we have figured out what Sgt Pepper or Abbey Road or Revolver or Rubber Soul achieved in the mid and late 1960s ever? Would we have something resembling "Hey Jude" or "Let It Be" or "Being For The Benefit of Mr. Kite!" or "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" or "A Hard Day's Night" or "Yesterday" or "All You Need Is Love" or anything else like these two wrote? Would we have "I'll Follow The Sun"? I'm thinking no. And I'm thinking the world would be a poorer place. For all this and for the one mile as the bike rides between where these two lived, Liverpool was worth it.
For all the time that The Beatles spent in Liverpool, there are precious few real pilgrimage sites. You would think that in 20 plus years of time that there would be a slew of must sees but remember we are talking about people's childhoods in a city that had been bombed heavily during the Second World War. The place had enough issues just recovering life back to normalcy. Permanence likely had a little bit different meaning back then. People were busy just trying to survive and weren't keeping track of events that seemed meaningless at the time.
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| Eleanor Rigby. Bench. Me. |
Nor was I going to miss out on sitting on the total opposite end of the bench from Eleanor Rigby. I am deliberately not staring or engaging with Mrs. Rigby in any way in the photograph above. Far be it from me to be the one who invalidated the "all the lonely people" line from McCartney's lyrics. I appreciate the cabbie who moved on the bench so I could get this completely self absorbed tourist picture.
Want more Beatles-related statues? Head back down to the docks from The Cavern Club and you'll find John, Paul, George and Ringo (not in that order) taking a stroll down towards the Mersey. This one is definitely larger than life-sized with each figure probably about seven feet tall. There will be tons of tourists in all likelihood around this statue also. Be patient and you can get a decent picture.
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| The graffitied brick ceiling of the current Cavern Club. |
We skipped both. We were on a day trip from London (more than one person said we were crazy to take such a day trip but it worked) and neither site is exactly easy or quick to get to unless you take a taxi, which we elected not to do. And in the end, visiting both Strawberry Field and Penny Lane wouldn't enrich our Beatles trip other than I'd be able to post a picture of both signs on this blog. Beyond the signs, though, there's nothing there. It's not like I'd get a lot out of watching a banker in a motorcar who never wears a mac in the pouring rain or a pretty nurse selling poppies from a tray feeling like she's in a play even if these folks were to be seen anyway on the day we were there. Got all that? :)
And by the way we didn't go up and back to Liverpool in a single day just so we could call ourselves Day Trippers. Although I guess we weren't really. After all, we didn't have a one way ticket, yeah?
So what can a Beatles fan do to get the most out of his or her A Day In The Life in Liverpool other than The Cavern Club? Well, based on our experience, I'd recommend you take a trip to the childhood homes of John Lennon and Paul McCartney. I'm sure there are lots of bus and van trips around the city which will take you by these places to get a look at the outside and tell you stories about the boyhood of the two primary Fab Four songwriters. I'd suggest you skip all those and find a way to get inside each property. And there's only one way to do that and that's with the National Trust.
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| On our way through the streets of Liverpool to Lennon's and McCartney's childhood homes. |
Maybe a primer on council houses is in order. These are typically local government-owned properties which are rented to tenants through an application process. Rules differ from council to council but there is usually some right to stay in the properties at the tenants' sole option and sometimes options to buy after minimum stays (of years). Some properties are desirable and are heavily sought after. Others can be habitual waystops for individuals, couples or families on their way to someplace they consider better. These are not publicly provided houses handed to people for free but instead a way to provide housing for people who cannot typically afford to purchase their own property.
Today both McCartney's former home and Mendips, which was owned by John Lennon's Auntie Mimi and Uncle George (John's mother Julia was unmarried and agreed that it was probably best for John to be raised by her sister and husband), are owned by the National Trust and that's the only way to get inside. They acquired 20 Forthlin Road in 1995 at the suggestion of John Birt, the Director-General of the BBC and a Liverpool-born contemporary of The Beatles who noticed the property was for sale. Seven years later, they added Mendips at 251 Menlove Avenue to their portfolio when Yoko Ono bought the house and donated to the Trust (the house, not a soap impression of his wife which he ate).
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| Mendips, 251 Menlove Avenue, Liverpool. John's bedroom is the small bay window at the second floor left. |
As works of architecture or buildings or whatever you want to call it, both properties are restored to about the condition they were in during the 1950s when Lennon and McCartney were living at home and attending school in Liverpool. There has been some restoration from photographs and some objects like the sink in the McCartney's kitchen were reinstalled when found in storage elsewhere on the property (which is really lucky I think).
The most major reconstruction work done seemed to be the replacement of the front windows at Forthlin Road. The owners after the McCartneys had replaced the windows in the house to make the place more energy efficient. In a effort towards authenticity, the National Trust noted that other properties on the street had not been upgraded in this way and offered to swap out the more energy efficient windows at number 20 for the original set elsewhere in the neighborhood for free. Apparently the other people went for the free upgrade.
The furniture in the places is generally speaking not original. Both Lennon and McCartney bought new furniture for the places when they made it big and the old stuff was tossed. This makes sense, right? I mean it's not like Aunt Mimi or Paul's dad Jim were looking to hang on to the old tables and chairs in the event their houses one day became museums. Makes sense that this stuff is gone. Wth the exception of a couple of pieces of furniture Mimi hung on to and the reproduction of the kitchen clock at Mendips (Yoko still owns the original), you are looking at furniture in the style of what was there at the time. It's good enough.
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| The relatively nondescript 20 Forthlin Road with the red door. Paul's bedroom is right above the front door. |
We were also told that the entire band (assuming pre-Ringo here) used to rehearse in the front room of the house. I swear there's not enough room for two people to rehearse on guitars in that room. They must have completely moved everything to the walls to get a drum set in the room. We were where it happened. Also pretty amazing.
But the goosebumps moment (and there didn't have to be one but there genuinely was) happened for me at Forthlin Road. First of all, I've never been an enormous John Lennon fan so I was inherently less interested in Mendips; I would put Lennon third on my "favorite Beatles list" after Harrison and McCartney (and yes, in that order). Second, the only tale of any song written at Mendips told by Colin was "Please Please Me". That song is OK and I understand the place it has in The Beatles' catalog but it's not in like my top 40 or 50 Beatles songs. Not close.
Forthlin Road had more magic. Sylvia told us what was written where. "I Lost My Little Girl"? Written in McCartney's bedroom in the front of the house after he moved out of the shared back room with brother Mike. "She Loves You"? Back room, ground floor. "I Saw Her Standing There"? Front room, ground floor. "When I'm 64"? Played on the piano by Paul before he moved out in the early 1960s (the song finally appeared on Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967). "I'll Follow The Sun"? Also front room, ground floor.
That last one did it. Are you kidding me? "I'll Follow The Sun", one of my favorite Beatles songs of all time was written feet from where I was standing in early September? Wow! I'm not kidding here but this was the moment that I appreciated this tour. It seems silly. I mean all we are talking about here is a relatively simple, less than two minute long song but it's an incredible song. And I was standing right where it was created. Goosebumps! I'm telling you. Worth the price of admittance and indeed the whole trip to Liverpool just for that moment. You never know when this stuff is going to hit you and you have to travel to get these moments. You can't do this stuff remote.
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| So, John, who exactly was the walrus, again? And is Abbey Road or Sgt Pepper better? |
I'm not trying to give The Beatles all the credit for transforming music history but honestly without these two where would music be? Would some other group have done what The Beatles did eventually or would we be somewhere completely different? Would we have figured out what Sgt Pepper or Abbey Road or Revolver or Rubber Soul achieved in the mid and late 1960s ever? Would we have something resembling "Hey Jude" or "Let It Be" or "Being For The Benefit of Mr. Kite!" or "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" or "A Hard Day's Night" or "Yesterday" or "All You Need Is Love" or anything else like these two wrote? Would we have "I'll Follow The Sun"? I'm thinking no. And I'm thinking the world would be a poorer place. For all this and for the one mile as the bike rides between where these two lived, Liverpool was worth it.
How We Did It
Our day trip from London to Liverpool started early and got us back to London late. You don't have to do what we did but it can be done. Easily. Virgin Trains runs service that takes between two to two and a half hours. There are other ways to get there. You can Drive My Car (or your car) or Run For Your Life but the train worked for us. It's not like it's Across The Universe or anything.
We started our day with the National Trust tour of Mendips and 20 Forthlin Road. The Trust runs either three or four tours daily depending on the day starting at 10 am. Check their website for times and pickup locations. Most, but not all, tours depart from the Jurys Inn Hotel on the Liverpool docks. Tour size is limited to 15; I'd always advise booking as early as you can commit to tours like this. Delay at your own peril or remain flexible in your plans. There is an option to purchase guidebooks for each property with your ticket purchase; these guidebooks which are each 16 pages long were also available for purchase on our tour. I bought both; there are good and inexpensive souvenirs.
The Cavern Club is located at 10 Mathew Street is open at 9:30 am Monday through Thursday and 10 am Friday through Sunday. Closing time is midnight Sunday through Wednesday, 1:30 am on Thursday and 2 am Friday and Saturday. During the day, admission is free; check the website for details later in the day.
There are many many other Beatles experiences available in Liverpool. I can't comment on the value of those because we didn't participate. We valued places where The Beatles had actually been rather than seeking out general information about the band. That's not to say that those experiences are not valuable, just that in the interest of time in one day, we chose not to participate.
Our day trip from London to Liverpool started early and got us back to London late. You don't have to do what we did but it can be done. Easily. Virgin Trains runs service that takes between two to two and a half hours. There are other ways to get there. You can Drive My Car (or your car) or Run For Your Life but the train worked for us. It's not like it's Across The Universe or anything.
We started our day with the National Trust tour of Mendips and 20 Forthlin Road. The Trust runs either three or four tours daily depending on the day starting at 10 am. Check their website for times and pickup locations. Most, but not all, tours depart from the Jurys Inn Hotel on the Liverpool docks. Tour size is limited to 15; I'd always advise booking as early as you can commit to tours like this. Delay at your own peril or remain flexible in your plans. There is an option to purchase guidebooks for each property with your ticket purchase; these guidebooks which are each 16 pages long were also available for purchase on our tour. I bought both; there are good and inexpensive souvenirs.
The Cavern Club is located at 10 Mathew Street is open at 9:30 am Monday through Thursday and 10 am Friday through Sunday. Closing time is midnight Sunday through Wednesday, 1:30 am on Thursday and 2 am Friday and Saturday. During the day, admission is free; check the website for details later in the day.
There are many many other Beatles experiences available in Liverpool. I can't comment on the value of those because we didn't participate. We valued places where The Beatles had actually been rather than seeking out general information about the band. That's not to say that those experiences are not valuable, just that in the interest of time in one day, we chose not to participate.
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