For as glamorous as playing rock ‘n’ roll to screaming swarms of adoring fans might sound, Beatles founder and firsthand witness to Beatlemania, Paul McCartney, would be the first to admit the experience isn’t necessarily all its cracked up to pee, er, be. At the height of the Beatles’ live performance career in the mid-1960s, rumors began circulating about “lakes of wee” at their concerts.
Videos by American Songwriter
Yes, you read that right. Lakes of wee, as in pee, as in attendees urinating on themselves where they stood. Decades later, Paul McCartney had a hilarious response to the alleged rumors.
Paul McCartney Responds To Beatlemania Urine Rumors
Beatlemania was a phenomenon unlike the world had ever seen. As the Beatles rose to fame in the mid-1960s, they amassed a frenzied throng of fans that would spend the entirety of the Fab Four’s performance jumping, clapping, and screaming. According to some attendees’ accounts, you could also add “peeing” to the list. Multiple reports described a strong smell of urine during the Beatles’ live performances, due to the female attendees either peeing from excitement or simply because they didn’t want to miss any of the show by leaving to go to the restroom.
“The Beatles was a case of watching females in excelsis,” singer-songwriter Bob Geldof told Q Magazine, per HuffPost. “It’s the old cliché, but you couldn’t hear [the band] for all the screaming. I remember looking down at the cinema floor and seeing these rivulets of p*** in the aisles. The girls were literally p***ing themselves with excitement. So, what I associate most with the Beatles is the smell of girls’ urine.”
In a later interview with Alexa Chung, McCartney had a hilariously cheeky response to these “lakes of wee” rumors. Addressing the camera in a typically campy way, McCartney joked that he had heard about the rumors but never witnessed the “rivulets” of urine with his own eyes. “We can answer this,” McCartney joked. “I must admit, I never saw that. But I did hear the screaming, and I heard the rumors. But I never saw that, your honor.”
The Screaming Wasn’t All That Great, Either
As a performer, you typically look for some sort of audience reaction to affirm that you’re doing a good job. Whether applause, screams, whistles, or, in some cases, tears, an emotional response from a crowd member can be a reassuring sign that the performance is going well. However, Paul McCartney admitted in his interview with Alexa Chung that the Beatlemania screaming became more irksome than inspiring toward the end of their career together. “You don’t miss it,” he said. “It was very cute at the time because we were young guys, and they were young girls.”
“As we sort of grew a bit more musical and more interested in actually what we were playing,” McCartney continued, “we actually wanted people to hear it. So, we got a bit fed up with the screaming.” Despite the band’s frustrations with the constant screaming, it seemed like an unavoidable element to their live performances. At least, that’s how it felt to people like Linda Ihle, who was 13 years old when she saw the Beatles’ first Shea Stadium concert in 1965. Speaking to the Guardian, Ihle said the screaming was an almost mandatory communal element.
“The screaming never stopped. We could barely hear the music because the sound systems weren’t very good back then. There were police everywhere trying to keep fans from jumping onto the field. It was a happening, to use a word from the time. It was the event itself; it was being there.”
“You soaked up energy from the crowd,” she recalled. Hopefully, that’s the only thing people were soaking up at live shows.
Photo by Nick Zonna/ipa-agency.net/Shutterstock
Leave a Reply
Only members can comment. Become a member. Already a member? Log in.