Video will appear as you scroll through the story
The Beatles · S2 E6
Allan Williams
A Liverpool club owner who books the Beatles into Hamburg. 'The man who gave the Beatles away,' as he'll later call himself. The door to Germany opens
August 16, 1960. Eight people climb into an overloaded van in Liverpool, pointed at the English Channel, bound for Hamburg. Allan Williams is at the wheel.
A song about the push and pull of every relationship that matters. Allan Williams said hello to the Beatles when nobody else would, gave them their first real break, then watched them say goodbye forever. The melody is pure Paul McCartney, cheerful on the surface, bittersweet underneath.
Hello, Goodbye (1967)
Paul wrote this using a simple game: Alistair Taylor, Brian Epstein's assistant, sat at a harmonium calling out words while Paul answered with their opposites. Yes, no. Stop, go. Hello, goodbye. The backing vocals layer and shift, the coda goes on longer than expected, and the "hela heba helloa" outro was filmed with the band in their Sgt. Pepper uniforms. John dismissed it as a throwaway. It went to number one in both the UK and the US.
“I was the man who gave the Beatles away. I had them, and I let them go.”
— Allan Williams, title and opening line of his memoir, 1975
TAP TO REVEAL: Who else was crammed into the van to Hamburg?
The Deal
Williams has a contact: Bruno Koschmider, a former circus clown who now owns clubs on Hamburg's Reeperbahn. The deal is simple. The Beatles play Koschmider's Indra Club for 30 marks a night each (about £2.50), with accommodation provided. The "accommodation" turns out to be two windowless rooms behind a cinema screen.
I'll Be Back (The Beatles)
From A Hard Day's Night (1964). "I'll be back again," John sings, and it's a promise the Beatles kept to Hamburg over and over. They returned three more times after that first trip. But they never came back to Allan Williams.
The Jacaranda Coffee Bar
23 Slater Street, Liverpool. Allan Williams' basement club where the Beatles hung out, played early gigs, and first heard about Hamburg. The building still stands and has been restored as a Beatles heritage site.
The van arrives in Hamburg. The Beatles step out onto the Reeperbahn, the most notorious street in Europe, and nothing will ever be the same. Coming soon: Season 3, Hamburg, where five boys from Liverpool become a band.
0 XP earned this session