John Lennon Shared Why The Beatles Said ‘Stuff It’ to Requests to Play for the Royal Family
In 1963, John Lennon cracked jokes onstage when The Beatles performed in the Royal Variety Performance. The band nervously took the stage and played for their large, wealthy audience. According to Lennon, they received multiple other requests to play the same show over the years. He shared why they turned all of them down.
John Lennon said The Beatles often turned down requests to play for the royal family
After several years of working together, The Beatles’ popularity took off in 1963. Their fanbase was growing exponentially and, soon, they were performing for the Queen Mother.
“The fame really started from when we played the Palladium,” Paul McCartney said in The Beatles Anthology. “Then we were asked to do the Royal Command Performance and we met the Queen Mother, and she was clapping.”
Lennon said that in the years after their performance, they continued to receive requests to play the show. They refused each time.
“We managed to refuse all sorts of things that people don’t know about,” he said. “We did the Royal Variety Show, and we were asked discreetly to do it every year after that, but we always said ‘Stuff it.’ So every year there was a story in the newspapers: ‘WHY NO BEATLES FOR THE QUEEN?’ which was pretty funny, because they didn’t know we’d refused.”
Lennon explained that the show was always unpleasant for the performers.
“That show’s a bad gig, anyway,” he said. “Everybody’s very nervous and uptight and nobody performs well. The time we did do it, I cracked a joke on stage. I was fantastically nervous, but I wanted to say something to rebel a bit, and that was the best I could do.”
Another Beatle said John Lennon ‘overdid’ it onstage
Ahead of The Beatles’ last song in the Royal Variety Show, Lennon addressed the audience.
“For our last number, I’d like to ask your help,” he said. “The people in the cheaper seats clap your hands, and the rest of you, if you’d just rattle your jewelry. We’d like to sing a song called ‘Twist and Shout.’”
George Harrison believed Lennon spent more time thinking about that joke than it seemed. He rolled his eyes a bit at Lennon’s behavior during the show.
“John did the line about ‘rattle your jewelry’ because the audience were all supposedly rich,” Harrison said. “I think he’d spent a bit of time thinking of what he could say. I don’t think it was spontaneous. John also overdid the bowing as a joke, because we never used to like the idea of bowing; such a ‘showbiz’ thing.”
They eventually met the queen
Though Lennon said The Beatles avoided the Royal Variety Show, they didn’t stay away from the royal family altogether. In 1965, they received their MBEs from Queen Elizabeth II.
“Some equerry to the Queen, a Guards officer, took us to one side and showed us what we had to do,” McCartney said. “‘Approach Her Majesty like this and never turn your back on her, and don’t talk to her unless she talks to you.’ All of those things. For four Liverpool lads it was, ‘Wow, hey man!’ It was quite funny. But she was sweet. I think she seemed a bit mumsy to us, because we were young boys and she was a bit older.”
McCartney and Ringo Starr have since been knighted.
