Stuart Sutcliffe

OK, so there's an article.

There's an article, and I think I'm going to have to develop a section called, fuck no, because apparently Arsenal are open to Dalman loan in the right circumstances, right? According to the BBC, Stuart Sutcliffe, he was either, who was Stuart Sutcliffe? Was he the guy in the Beatles that died before they made it famous? Or was he a serial killer? Oh, God.

Steve Sutcliffe.

Anyway, don't mix your Sutcliffs, Eddie.

Yes.

Which was, was it Pete Best or Stuart Sutcliffe who came to Australia because Ringo, uh, was unwell at the time? Uh, anyway, it wasn't required.

No, I think that was, I think that was Stuart Sutcliffe.

I'm not sure though.

Oh, it was Stuart Sutcliffe, was it?

Yeah.

And, uh, there was this devastating picture.

It was just up the road from where I grew up.

Yeah, that's a great movie

... a great movie, and you played Stuart Sutcliffe, who was-

Yeah

...

Mm-hmm

... 'cause they were going with some unknowns out of Liverpool.

And it was such a beautiful, uh, script, and I didn't know about Stuart Sutcliffe.

I mean, I was a, I knew about John Lennon and The Beatles 'cause my dad was a huge fan, and he still is.

and I've left Penny Lane after nearly 37 years.

I'm on the edge of a place called Hyton, and I'm five minutes away from where Stuart Sutcliffe, the Beatles bass player, first Beatles bass player, where he grew up.

So even when I'm looking unintentionally, the intention was never to move to Penny Lane.

That was just where we saw the house, so that'll do.

His mum teaches him music, encourages music, buys him his first guitar, teaches him to play it, comes along to the gigs, and then she's knocked down and killed by a car when he's 17, when he goes into really, really deep depression.

No surprise.

And then at art college, he's met Stuart Sutcliffe, who he really looks up to.

John admires Stuart.

It's hilarious.

And then you add Stuart Sutcliffe into the mix.

Stewart was a brooding visual artist playing bass.

And while he was really struggling with the instrument.

And one night, he gets into a heated argument with his girlfriend, the photographer Astrid Kirscher.

So he stomps off to clear his head, wandering around the Reeperbahn district, and purely by chance, he stumbles down the stairs into the basement of the Kaiserkeller.

He hears this absolute racket, walks in, and sees John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Stuart Sutcliffe, and Pete Best tearing the roof off the place.

He was mesmerized.

He lost his mother Julia in a sudden tragic accident.

And he lost his best friend, Stuart Sutcliffe.

That's, I mean, by 22, that is a lot of tragedy.

How does that kind of relentless trauma actually manifest in a person's writing? Does grief literally fragment the way they use language?

Kind of cool.

Stu Sutcliffe is there, too.

You knew that, no?

Yes.

His name was Pete Sutcliffe.

He was brother of Stuart Sutcliffe, who was in the Beatles or almost in the Beatles.

No, I just made all that up.

I'm sorry.