A Trumpet and a Guitar
There is no real doubt that Paul played the trumpet before beginning to play the guitar. The only disagreements are on tiny little details that most people will likely find pretty insignificant. For example, depending on which source you believe, Paul borrowed the trumpet from his uncle…or his uncle gave him the trumpet…or his Dad got him the trumpet for his birthday…or there just happened to be a trumpet in the McCartney house. But no matter which of those, if any, is true, Paul traded the trumpet for a guitar…or his Dad bought him a guitar. Sigh… Let’s take a look at what Paul said about it,
“…my Dad gave me a trumpet for my birthday. I went through trying to learn that, but my mouth used to get too sore…I suddenly realized that I wouldn’t be able to sing if I played trumpet. So I figured a guitar would be better…I went and swapped my trumpet for a guitar…”1
Paul went on to imply that this all happened before he met John. He said that he had never thought about being in a band. John, though, had a somewhat different memory. He said:
“Paul had bought a trumpet and had this wild theory that he’d actually learned how to play the oldie, “When the Saints Go Marching In.” He just blew away as hard as he could drowning out everything we were trying to do. He thought he was doing a great job on the tune, but we didn’t recognize any of it!”2
So, wait. Paul played trumpet in The Quarrymen? Ah, the frustration of trying to sort out primary sources. Ha! You can let me know if you have any other ideas or know of other sources that go into this. Whattaya think?
A Lefty With a Right-Handed Guitar
Apparently the story didn’t end quite there. There was actually a problem with the guitar. Or possibly with the player. Hunter Davies wrote in his authorized biography:
“His guitar cost £15 and Paul couldn’t get a thing out of it. Then he realized it was because he was left-handed. He took it back and got it altered.”3
Paul himself would corroborate this story in an interview with Paul Gambaccini in 1973, which appeared in The McCartney Interviews: After the Break-Up in 1976:
“So I went and swapped my trumpet for a guitar and I got that home and couldn’t figure out what was wrong and I suddenly decided to turn the strings around and that made a difference and I realized I was left-handed.”4
Quite the run-on sentence, Paul! Ha! But the story continues. In Philip Norman’s Shout!, there is somewhat more detail. Norman wrote that Paul actually had an instruction book and that he couldn’t get his hands to make the proper chord shapes with his left hand and that he had a hard time strumming with his right. It was far easier the other way around, you know, playing “left-handed.”
Okay, Let’s Get to the Point
That’s probably enough stifling detail about a little, fairly unimportant story. But I like the example very much because it shows a typical way in which the telling of The Beatles’ story progressed over the years. In this case, you have two very different stories from two primary sources, Paul and John. I’ve heard it said repeatedly that primary sources, eyewitnesses in this case, are the ones that have the most value in terms of accuracy. But how do you reconcile when those sources don’t even agree with each other? This type of disagreement among sources is rampant in the study of the history of The Beatles.
Next, there is the fact that as time goes by, more information somehow becomes available. I believe that there is more than one reason for that. For example, with so many books written about the subject, authors of Beatles books often try to include things that have not been written before, even if the “new information” is not really all that significant. And then, in some cases (not necessarily this particular one), more people have emerged to tell their stories and memories, so there is more to say for the sake of completeness.
Rest assured, as we continue on this little historical journey, there will be some issues to get through that are significantly more complicated than “hey, isn’t it funny how Paul had to figure out how to correctly play his guitar!” This is going to be a lot of fun!
As always, thanks for being here and reading. I really do appreciate it. Please leave comments to let me know what you think and to add any relevant information to the discussion. Please follow or subscribe to
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Next week the subject will be other early instruments of The Beatles. Looking forward to that!
- Adamson
Photo: Nick Newbery, 2nd November 1964, Public Domain, https://picryl.com/media/paul-mccartney-kings-hall-belfast-1964-18225760308-5d1ba8
Quotes:
1) Beatles in Their Own Words, compiled by Miles (Omnibus, New York, 1978), p. 9.
2) John Lennon in His Own Words, compiled by Miles (Omnibus, New York, 1994 ed.), p. 22.
3) The Beatles, by Hunter Davies (W.W. Norton, New York, 2009 ed.), p. 30.
4) The McCartney Interviews, by Paul Gambaccini (Omnibus, London, 1976), p. 10.