Carry That Weight
by Ernst Schultze
Category: Fiction

CARRY THAT WEIGHT THE PSYCHEDELIC ROLLER COASTER THE BEATLES FROM THE INSIDE THE DEATH AND REPLACEMENT OF PAUL "Look -- if you weren't there you can't begin to understand the pressures they were under and their way of life. I don't give a damn how many books you've read or how many people you interview, even I can't convey to you what it was like! I was very close to them, and I was under a lot of pressure. But I was not even remotely in their league." (A quote from Allistar Taylor from: The Beatles, A Celebration) The Beatle story is one of the twentieth century's greatest tragedies in the literary sense of Oedipus Rex or Hamlet. There is a tragic inevitability about the events of the Beatles' rise and fall that places the story in the realm of great literature. Consider the Breakup: what the public knows -- the Official Version -- is not even in the same universe as what actually happened. The Beatles themselves confirm this and none of the biographies written about them go much deeper than old clippings. "Carry That Weight" is the story of what likely occurred among the Beatles. It is a weave of highly researched truth and fictitious dialogue. What was really going on during "Beatlemania?" No one really knows but the Beatles and they have kept the full truth under wraps. This is fiction offering the reader a look inside the enormously successful group. The story structure was researched to follow reality as based on accounts that are more credible. A rumor that began in the late 1960s regarding the death of Paul is part of the story adding to the dramatic element. No biographer fails to mention it and it is well known that the music of the Beatles contains many clues about his death. Examples in the music are numerous and spell-binding; especially when linked to the abundance of circumstantial evidence. Nevertheless, the book is not an attempt to prove that he died and was replaced even though readers may be convinced at the end of the read but that is not our purpose. The novel begins with the death of John Lennon as its prolog. The story traces development of the Band members on their way to "Beatlemania." The young Beatles grow up in a tumultuous environment of tough clubs, then fame and fortune. The struggle then grows to try to live normal lives and futile attempts are made among them to keep the global frenzy concerning them in perspective. Like Oedipus the Beatles had within them, even at the very beginning of their rise, the elements that would eventually lead to their downfall: their intelligence and willingness to puncture artifice -- the very characteristics that made them such carefree, brazen, and therefore appealing figures. The problems associated with enormous fame led Lennon to deep and angry disillusionment and our first and second McCartney to the edge of sanity. This resulted in Lennon's depression that finally found pause in the arms of Yoko, who the media characterizes as the Celestial Witch. McCartney's anomie and his solution for it drove a wedge between the Beatles that became their undoing. McCartney was unwilling to end the play-acting and the myth making. Attempts to shed the illusions gracefully failed miserably. After a swan song LP that glossed over the myth, they went their separate ways. The early days have the group playing in the tough clubs of Europe with the savage crowds and death following them to super stardom. The hell and orgies of the tours are described, Brian is the somewhat competent manager who is always being blackmailed and the Band forces him to quit signing them up for more tours. A disagreement as to what path the music should take and a change in life styles come to a drunken climax in the now famous Studio number 2 at Abbey Road. Paul runs outsi