31 Mike in Liverpoolland
Paul's brother and the 1960s surrealist poets
Mike ‘McGear’ McCartney’s always been a bit of a mystery to me.
We don’t hear that much about him. Some of the records are out of print, and his involvement in The Scaffold and GRIMMS (Gorman-Roberts-Innes-McGear-McGough-Stanshall) seems to be something to be explained in interviews rather than taken-for-granted.
Yet ‘Thank you very much’ (yes, that one!) – a song so ubiquitous I had no idea it was written by a McCartney - was inspired by a phone call in which Mike thanked Paul for sending him a top of the range Nikon camera for his birthday.
He’s perhaps better known as a photographer, because of his limited edition series, and for capturing some of the era’s epoch-defining shots.
Here’s John & Paul at Forthlin Road, writing ‘I Saw Her Standing There’, in the famous left-hand / right-hand ‘mirror’ position that allowed the two budding songwriters to gel so quickly.
I’ve learned this one recently, and totally recognise those B7 chords.
Mike had access and trust, and that totally explains some of the more unguarded, intimate moments he was able to capture, like this backstage shot of the Beatles with Pete Best.
So let’s take the path less travelled, through the life of the other McCartney. And, of course, some of the Alice-ry woven into that fabric of music, word and song.
A major piece of the puzzle that I’d really not spent enough time on until this week, is Mike’s involvement in the Liverpool poetry scene, with figures like Adrian Henri, Brian Patten and Roger McGough.
These artists tend not to reference Lewis Carroll directly, since there are nearer-in-time influences, from Dada to Lear. But if Carroll isn’t mentioned by name, it’s because he’s part of the cultural soup, a dissolved ingredient (this isn’t onion soup, even though it contains onion in other words). And that soup is English nonsense, surrealism, and performance poetry.
Carroll is something of a performance poet himself. He wrote poems to be read aloud, like The Mad Gardener’s Song:
He thought he saw an Elephant,
That practised on a fife:
He looked again, and found it was
A letter from his wife.
"At length I realise," he said,
"The bitterness of Life!-Lewis Carroll, “The Mad Gardener’s Song” from Sylvie and Bruno (1889)
The Liverpool poets were performers too: McGough with The Scaffold, Adrian Henri with poetry-and-rock-band Liverpool Scene. Their work was meant to be heard as much as read—echoing the oral tradition of nonsense verse Carroll helped popularise.
I’m also fascinated about the ways in which other key figures in this vein, like Ivor Cutler, John Gorman, Roger McGough, as well as their Southern contemporaries Viv Stanshall and Neil Innes were intertwined in the Beatles story. For example Paul McCartney would produce Neil Innes’ 1968 track ‘I’m the Urban Spaceman’ which contains a wonderfully Carrollian paradox: ““I'm the Urban Spaceman, baby, here comes the twist \ I don't exist”.
The year before in Magical Mystery Tour, Ivor Cutler played ‘Buster Bloodvessel’ and The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band - featuring Viv Stanshall and Neil Innes - play ‘Death Cab For Cutie’. The choice isn’t coincidental. They’re the most prominent absurdists of their era and add extra layers of tomfoolery and nonsense to an already convoluted road-trip.
In 1977 Terry Gilliam made a film adaptation of Jabberwocky. Look closely at the cast list and you’ll see John Gorman as “2nd peasant” and Neil Innes as “2nd herald”. It’s well known that Harrison funded The Life of Brian when others failed to stump up the cash. Because he wanted to see it!
But back to Mike. In 1966 when Paul moved into his refurbished house on Cavendish Avenue, Mike gifted him a set of Alice in Wonderland statues. We’ve talked about these statues a lot I feel, but they’re central to the mystery in my eyes. Here’s Paul photographed by Barry Lategan, and the Beatle News item about the gift:
When I say ‘central to the mystery’ I’m wondering why Mike chose these statues in particular, and what the gift would have meant to Paul. If nothing else it implies to me a deep and shared understanding of Alice.
This is speculation on my part; I’ve found no record of the conversations and playful looking-glass moments I’m assuming took place, though Jem Roberts, in his Fab Fools, seems to have some insider knowledge: when he says that “many of John’s early comic inspirations were shared by his bandmates, with Paul and little brother Mike just as bedazzled by Alice”.1
I imagine that Mike would have been pleased with the name Scaffold bandmate John Gorman chose for his Liverpool fashion boutique, which was opened by Cathy McGowan of Ready Steady Go! fame:
It was a lovely surprise to get the tip off about this additional link from Mark Lewisohn, together with “deep archive” materials - the opening flyer above and this Radio Caroline ad sheet:
So there we have it: the early shared love of Alice, the Cavendish Avenue Alice statues, the ‘Through the Looking-Glass’ boutique, and the playful Carrollian spirit behind many of the poets and artists he collaborated with.
And then there’s his own output, like this:
McGough’s lyrics are parodic, surreal, playful. Here are a few choice examples that are steeped in the nonsense tradition, not to mention Carrollian anthropo-morphism:
“A pig with a wig and a dancing bear / A parrot in a pullover” (Little Bit of Heaven)
“He invented a type of bath that licked you clean” (Frink, A Life)
“Do you remember the cheese with wings? / And the bicycle that cried?” (Do You Remember?)
Mike’s second solo album McGear - a collab with Paul (and Wings as backing band) - has a Gulliver’s Travels-inspired cover, a reminder if nothing else, that the English classics are alive and kicking in this period and a consistent reference point, just as Lewis Carroll was. Let’s take a moment to remind ourselves: like Alice’s adventures, Gulliver’s travels are a heavy satire on contemporary society, its institutions, politics, beliefs and more. Like Alice, Gulliver changes sizes (in both directions).
I’ll leave the image for you to peruse.
Is that all? Well, not quite… I managed to pick up a signed copy of a Mike McCartney photo of Alice Cooper a few years back. The title? Alice in Liverpoolland.
One day a McCartney will agree to an interview and we’ll get to hear the backstory on some of these images.
See you next time.
Fab Fools: The Beatles, The Rutles and Rock’n’Roll Comedy! (Candy Jar Books, 2021), p6.