The night Eric Clapton and Pete Townshend were blown away by two brand-new Beatles songs
Belgravia was dusted with an icing sugar sprinkle of frost as Pete Townshend and Eric Clapton made their way to Brian Epstein’s Chapel Street residence.
They weren’t too sure what was in store for them, but given that it was the early days of 1967 and it involved The Beatles, they could have happily put a shilling on it being world-changing.
Stereo-sound had only really become commonplace a matter of years ago, and yet the Fab Four, who had also only become a band a matter of years ago, were reinventing pop music in a blur of radical invention.
Over half a century later, it is not necessarily that music has stalled – there’ll be a song of such quality that could happily be slipped onto Revolver released by the end of the year – but the giant leap for music-kind that occurred in the 1960s means that there’s not much new under the sun left to be explored.
There’s before The Beatles and there’s after The Beatles, that’s the way it goes, everything is relative to that Promethean pivot point. Little did Clapton and Townshend know, they were being invited around to hear this pivot’s high waterpoint be played to them.
In an instance that also illuminates just how close-knit and collaborative the creative circles were back then, Townshend recalled in a 1995 Time interview, “I remember Eric Clapton and me being summoned to Brian Epstein’s house to listen to ‘Strawberry Fields’ and ‘Penny Lane’. We heard it and I remember thinking ‘God, what was that?’”
The layers, the multi-track textures, the mingling of old British big band styled music with riveting psychedelia, and the gorgeous pop hooks all combined to confront two of the greatest guitarists of the era with something that startled them. Both Clapton and his Who compatriot recalled being so stupified by the brilliance that they didn’t know what to do.
It can’t have helped that it was presented so casually to the makeshift clan in attendance. What was even Epstein’s aim? I suppose he was simply so excited that being in possession of this golden single and not sharing it would’ve been like knowing where your parents have stashed your Christmas presents when you’re eight years old and not having at least the slightest peek.
So, there they stood in the living room, blown away by one of the greatest double singles ever released, in silence. Thankfully, Clapton came to his senses. “I remember Eric came up with a great idea, he said, ‘Could I hear it again, please?’ Then we heard it again.”
This was no grand recital in Carnegie Hall or even a drug-fuelled unveiling at The Speakeasy Club, but it irrevocably changed the way both artists in attendance saw pop music. In time, it would do the same for the world when it was released a few weeks later.
Amazingly, the double A-side was kept off the top spot of the charts in the UK by Engelbert Humperdinck’s corny ‘Release Me’. I suppose all you can say to that is that it was too ahead of its time… the alternative would entail accepting that the proletariat has trashy taste, and this piece is too celebratory for that.
