Paul McCartney Said The Beatles Were ‘Worried’ and ‘Put Off’ When No One Recognized Them on Vacation
After forming in 1960, The Beatles saw the beginnings of mass fame in 1963. While they were not yet at the international levels of stardom they would achieve by 1964, the release of “She Loves You” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand” built them a large and dedicated fan base. In the spring of 1963, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and George Harrison took a vacation together. They were surprised and a bit disappointed that nobody seemed to recognize them.
Three of the Beatles took a vacation to Spain
In April 1963, McCartney, Starr, and Harrison went to Tenerife, the largest island of the Canary Islands.
“[Artist] Klaus Voormann’s parents had a house there,” Starr said in The Beatles Anthology. “They didn’t have electricity, so we really felt we were Bohemians. That was the first time I had been anywhere where there was black sand. I’d never seen the like of that before. It was a real good holiday. Paul has some great photos of us hanging out in Spanish hats, looking dramatic.”
Harrison also remembered the island’s black sand beaches, but he said that spending too much time on them resulted in brutal sunburns.
“I remember black beaches,” he said. “We stayed in the sun too long and got incredibly sunburnt, typical British. Ringo and I both had sunstroke the first or second day and I remember shivering all night.”
Paul McCartney said the three Beatles were concerned when no one recognized them
A month before their vacation, The Beatles released their debut studio album, Please Please Me. At that point, they had already had success with the release of “Love Me Do” and “Please Please Me.” They were well on their way to the center of Beatlemania. Still, the vacation was very normal, which they didn’t necessarily like.
“We went out there and stayed for a bit, but we got worried because nobody knew us in the Canaries and we were a bit put off,” McCartney said. “‘You know us? The Beatles?’ And they were saying, ‘No, no … don’t know you.'”
McCartney said that his disappointment was compounded by an uncomfortable sunburn and a frightening moment where he was caught in a riptide.
Paul McCartney and the other Beatles later liked it when they could go out unrecognized
In later years, after the chaos of Beatlemania, McCartney and the other Beatles were grateful when they could walk around unrecognized. Per the book Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now by Barry Miles, he appreciated the time he spent in New York because he was able to take public transportation and go to clubs without much interference. Harrison felt similarly.
“I spent years avoiding interviews and going on TV to get to a point where I could go out, walk down the street and go in a shop and just do regular little things that ordinary people do,” he told Creem Magazine in 1987. “Everything’s cool and it’s quite enjoyable. And now, if somebody comes up and says, ‘Alright, George,’ and they just congratulate you and thank you for all the music you did in the past and what you’ve been doing — that’s nice. It’s the concentrated mania that would make anybody go crazy. It had its low point around the end of the ’60s and it did have a hangover period into the ’70s, but I’m cool now.”
