The 7th Beatle

  The Beatles...John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr...probably the most famous musical group of the twentieth century.  Much is written about this fab four from their humble beginnings in Liverpool, their time in Hamburg, their music that seemed to spread like wildfire throughout Great Britain, their monumental invasion into America and all over the world. Their music, in its own way, changed the direction of the music industry, and the destiny of the entire world. But so little is written of the others...the so called "lost Beatles". What impact did their presence in this group cause to occur? When discussing these some will mention Pete Best and Stuart Sutcliffe.  And yet one other name previously thought to mean very little is suddenly being brought into the forefront. In fact, it is possible that this one person is the connecting piece to questions Beatle's fans have been asking for decades. And his name is ...Barry Pork. 
   Barry Pork.  He was a would-be drummer. From the beginning he wanted to be a part of the group, and although they made it very clear to Barry that he was not needed or wanted, they would spot him either following them several paces back, sitting at a nearby table at restaurants,  or perhaps sleeping on their doorstep. Paul summed up Barry's presence best in his statement, "We were sort of frightened of him in some sort of average indescribable way. I think George may have had nightmares." And yet he persisted to shadow them, hoping they would give him even the slightest consideration, the slightest crumb from the banquet they were feasting on. It was during a performance at the famed "Cavern Club" in Liverpool that Barry finally got his big break. Ringo had already replaced Pete Best as drummer to Barry's disappointment. On this one particular night Ringo had felt especially feverish with a bout of some illness. He attempted to perform for over two hours. Then delirium set in and he dropped backwards onto the stage. The other three hustled him off to the back and managed to get him into the dressing room to lie down. Meanwhile the crowd was in a fury for more. As John put it. "Well we were not quite sure what to do. Poor Ringo was just lying there... mumbling under his breath about motor boats or something. And Barry came in. We all sort of shuddered,of course. The crowd was screaming so loud for us to return and we were supposed to play several more hours. Some of the local girls were trying to push into the room and several of the bigger bouncer types were holding them back. Our manager, Brian Epstein, was there and he told us to just 'go back on...go!' so we went. I picked up my guitar and when I looked back to see if the others were ready I noticed Barry at the drums. But Brian was in the audience by then shouting at us to 'just play...play anything!.' So we did. Fortunately Barry could actually play the drums. Unfortunately he didn't have a very quick beat. Consequently we spent about 8 or 10 minutes singing 'Love me Do' alone. By the 3rd song George, who clearly was the least fond of Barry, of all of us, literally picked him up and threw him out of the club. We did the rest of the night without any drummer.  There is a bootleg version of that night and you can hear George in the background knocking over the drumset and shouting at him, hitting him with the drumsticks, even above the noise of the crowd. Its quite fascinating." 
   This, of course, did not deter Barry. Instead a taste of the limelight only fueled his desire to be a part of the group. Unbeknownst to them he arrived in New York then managed to sneak backstage of The Ed Sullivan Show just before they went on the air. At this point George realized what was going on. "I would have this feeling when he was about. Like a psychic thing. And this was before I ever met the Marharishi, too. But I just knew he was somewhere nearby. Although we only had maybe 10 minutes before going on I had to find him and get rid of him, somehow. So I started running up and down those low basement corridors, looking behind doors for him. I even banged my head pretty hard on a pipe sticking out, but that didn't stop me. Then I saw him. He was at the opposite side of the stage by the curtains eyeing the drumset which was ready to be pushed out. The curtains were opened and some comedy group duo was doing their routine. I couldn't find my way back through all those corridors in time to get to him.  Yet I couldn't help myself. He spotted me and waved. So I coyly waved back. Then I started motioning for him to come over to me. Yes, I actually wanted him to cross the stage during their act. It was my hope that if he started across some stagehand would grab him and escort him out of the theater. Instead he stood there confused, waving at me, so pleased at my attention to him. By now I was using both arms motioning wildly to him to come over to me!  Then suddenly I caught the eye of Mr. Sullivan, standing off to the side, glaring at me. It was very apparent that he thought I was up to some prank...some upstart youngster trying to ruin his show. He made an obscene threatening arm motion at me and I was stunned. Very fortunately the duo ended their routine and the cameras were suddenly on him and his demure quickly changed. Our instruments were rushed onstage and he was left with no time to do anything but introduce us. The songs went smoothly. We were an instant hit. Later when we went to our dressing rooms there sat Barry having eaten half the food they left for us. It was then I could finally beat him to satisfaction."
    And yet Barry persisted. There seemed to be no stopping his passion for becoming a member of the group. He dressed and wore his hair in classic Beatle fashion hoping to confuse fans into signing autographs.  Several songs, "I'm a Loser", "Nowhere Man", "Eleanor Rigby", "Here, There, and Everywhere", "Fool on the Hill", "Help", (etc) were all inspired by Barry. Ringo explains, "The entire film 'Help' stemmed from our constantly dodging Barry. He was out to get me, you know. Wanted to replace me. And one night we were just sitting around and  I said..'this is like a film. No matter where we go he's chasing us trying to get rid of me or something.' And everyone thought it was a great idea...us making a movie. The idea just sort of developed. Then they brought in writers and they wanted some international intrigue and action and all. So the plot sort of changed. But whenever we did any of the chase scenes we used Barry as our motivation. The director would say like, 'Pretend that tiger is Barry! Barry is right there with his growling teeth!' And we'd really feel the fear and it helped immensely with our acting. Cause we weren't actors you know."
     Still there were times when Barry slipped past their strong efforts to keep him out. Somehow he managed to get chosen as one of the passengers in the Magical Mystery Tour film although the Beatles were not aware of his presence on the set until the album was released. It was then they spotted him waving in the top left hand corner of the final page of the booklet included with the album. "I've torn his picture out of thousands of albums," says George. "No matter where I am, who I'm with, if they have a 'Magical Mystery Tour' album I'll grab it and rip out Barry's picture. I've gone through hundreds of record shops, too. I won't be stopped. Ever." During that same time, Barry also snuck into the recording studio during the taping of "Strawberry Fields". Although some critics will argue that at the end of the song someone  is saying  either, "I buried Paul", part of the whole "Paul is dead" controversy,  or "I'm very bored", or even "cranberry sauce" as thought to be heard on one of  the takes, it has now been confirmed that it was infact Barry saying, "I'm Barry Pork".  Unfortunately this would be the turning point.
     By now Barry was having a profound effect on their individual lives. "Well we basically got into the whole drug scene to escape in sorts from Barry. It was very stressful." says Ringo. "George was now consumed with Barry and was trying to find solace in the whole eastern religion thing in India. He felt he had ESP. We were worried about him because he had always been such a gentle person. Then George, who apparently had been working on elaborate plans to rid our lives of Barry divulged them to us. We would all go to India to supposedly spend time with the Marharishi. Barry would of course follow. That was all he could tell us at the time. We weren't sure about George's state of mind at the time and felt it best to just go along with him. Somewhere halfway to India George got a big grin on his face in the plane and simply said. 'He's coming.' I was a bit spooked myself. When we landed we were greeted by the press, of course, and the Marharishi and his entourage. We then drove for an hour or two until we were at the Marharishi's palace. We were exhausted and went directly to bed. The following morning we were awoken for meditation lessons.  I was very uneasy the whole time about the way George was acting. Paul and John were concerned also, but we said nothing to him. He would just say little things to us like, 'trust me', and 'it'll all soon be over', and 'freedom awaits us'.  We didn't know what to think. And we hadn't actually seen Barry. Then to my great shock he showed up at our next meal and was given a seat right among us! And George acted very pleased to see him. He chatted with him, began raving about Barry's drumming abilities to his good friend Ravi Shanker. Ravi acted extremely interested in all this and insisted that Barry play something on the "tabla", the traditional Indian drums. Barry was eager to attempt his hand at it and picked up the drums. He played rather clumsily, but George and Ravi seemed delighted and egged him on. Ravi grabbed his sitar and together they played. It was really, really terrible.  Barry was holding the drums improperly and was also very much off beat. Yet they played for nearly 45minutes. I could barely stand it myself and was feeling a bit queasy when Ravi stopped and made an announcement. He was in need of a drummer for a group he was developing to do small concerts at local fairs and was going to hire Barry! Barry was flattered beyond words. Ravi grabbed the phone and made a few calls. Barry needed to join the newly formed band immediately or miss out. There was a village fair on the other side of India and he needed to be there or he would be replaced. Barry was too overwhelmed not to go. Ravi sent his car to whisk him to the airport. They literally threw his bags in the car and sped off leaving huge tire marks. And just like that he was gone. Gone and out of our lives. George was overcome with emotion and wept for hours. Occasionally we would get reports about him. Ravi dropped him within a few months, but Barry was so in love with the tabla he continued to hire new members. He spent nearly 15 years playing across India although none of his bands lasted longer than 3 weeks once they rehearsed with him. Yet somehow he persevered until one very disappointed village, who had hired him for their biggest festival of the decade, smashed his tabla over his head and forcibly put him on a plane back to England. Later I heard, as luck would have it,  he opened up a string of Tandoori's Indian Restaurants in and around the London area and eventually made millions."

© 1998 - 2007 SWeber
Please note: Content of this story is fictional and meant only as a light-hearted look at what could have occurred had their ever really been a Barry Pork who was desperate to be a Beatle. This of course still doesn't explain the "I'm Barry Pork" thing at the end of "Strawberry Fields". What's that all about? Too weird...-Suz :)
 
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