The Mal Evans Diaries
- Mal Evans: The Fifth Beatle?
- The Mal Evans Diaries
- The Decline and Death of Mal Evans
One would have thought that like other posthumous works, Mal’s memoirs would have been published soon after his death. This had the potential to be the mother of all Beatles biographies: A member of the Beatles’ inner circle – one that was honest to a fault – giving the real scoop on the Fab Four.
But the diaries vanished.
No one knew of their whereabouts; a briefcase was once found in Sydney, Australia that allegedly contained the lost diaries, but further inspection revealed it to be a fraud. Three years ago, however, the London Sunday Times Magazine revealed the truth. The diaries had been with Mal’s widow, Lily Evans, ever since the mid 1980s, when Yoko Ono saved them from the basement of a New York publisher.
While a book has yet to be published containing the full story, the Times published excerpts of the diaries that are tantalizing at times, but reveal little about the Beatles. It does, however, give us a great deal of insight into Mal’s life and his devotion to the Fab Four.
‘Socks, Mal’
Only Mal Evans could (or would) chronicle his time with the Beatles with recollections such as, “Late afternoon went over to the McCartney’s in Wirral, and had dinner with them. Paul and Jane [Asher, McCartney’s then girlfriend] had traveled up for the New Year – also Martha. Fan belt broke.” He writes of these times nonchalantly, but he was there when the Beatles let their guards down.
He gives us insight into possible alternatives to the name for Abbey Road, mentioning Four in the Bar, All Good Children Go to Heaven, Turn Ups and Inclinations as possible titles (none seem to fit in retrospect, do they?). He played on several Beatle songs; in a hilarious prelude to the Saturday Night Live “cowbell” skit, Mal played one on “With a Little Help From My Friends,” prompting Paul to ask, tongue-in-cheek, “Who played that great cow bell?”
At times, though, Mal felt he was being taken for granted. Being paid a pittance for his devotion and work – less than £40 per week – he was often broke, having to support a wife and two children while spending most of his time with the Beatles. He was the main go-fer boy: “”I would get requests from the four of them to do six different things at one time and it was always a case of relying on instinct and experience in awarding priorities.” Often, John would be in a stupor, only to snap out of it and mutter, “Socks, Mal,” and off Mal would go to the local department store to get several pairs of socks. Once, the Beatles had no cups to drink milk with their sandwiches; Mal pulled out four plastic cups from his pocket.
Mal Evans realized his role within the Beatles, and it bothered him, but he was doing what he truly loved. In perhaps the most poignant moment of the diaries, he confesses:
I feel very hurt and sad inside – only big boys don’t cry. Why I should feel hurt and reason for writing this is ego… I thought I was different from other people in my relationship with the Beatles and being loved by them and treated so nice, I felt like one of the family. Seems I fetch and carry… I always tell myself – look, everybody wants to take from, be satisfied, try to give and you will receive. After all this time I have about £70 to my name, but was content and happy. Loving them as I do, nothing is too much trouble, because I want to serve them.
Here, There and Everywhere (London Sunday Times)
Did Yoko really save the diaries, or did she prevent them from being published? There are still rumors that John engaged in various homosexual encounters. If true, those revelations would probably be accepted today, but would not have gone over as well shortly after John’s death.
@Don: Interesting point. There may have been some sensitive information in there; since we’re not sure how The Times got possession of the diaries, there’s no way of knowing what, if anything, was suppressed. I’d love to read them unedited from beginning to end.
I would like to see the UN-edited version of the diaries also.There is a considerable gap in time for the pages released-leaves off in 1963 and then jumps to 1967.Very weird-Mal was holding onto these diaries because he knew they had value because of what was inside.He was broke and knew he could use them for leverage with Apple to get some of the songwriting credits corrected and a possible small payday for his years with the group-someone decided that the world should not be able to view the complete diaries-for whatever reasons-otherwise,they would have come out in the 1980s….makes you think…
Alright… Anyone else on this page has probably done some research on this. I always thought the “Paul is Dead” thing was just a big hoax… But now i believe that those diaries… Contained factual information leading to the truth about Paul McCartney and The Beatles. Either that Paul had died and been replaced, which is very unlikely, but also terribly evident, or that The Beatles secretly staged these events because if you take a look at all of these clues and you tell me they are all coincidences, then you are very hard headed and you are missing what is right in front of you. The government wanted Paul’s death left alone. No one ever knew besides the ultimate insiders. Most insiders are either dead… Or are claimed to not be insiders because they are insane. Mal Evans was killed on purpose because he had that diary…. Just a theory. John Lennon was killed because days before he had contacted George Harrison claiming to ‘tell the truth’. George contacted Paul some years later threatening to have the truth released and what happened… George was stabbed five times by a looney. As John was shot 5 times by a looney. Yes… They were that famous. Famous enough to have deranged fans… But also peaceful enough to never have a soul want to hurt them… Really, who would kill those men? I never wanted to believe this hoax but every month as i sift through more and more evidence. As i go through each song and each clue. Through every year and every sad wimsical theory. It all ties in. Very well actually. This is where i started some time ago…
http://youtu.be/FsPCQ932vlU
Copy and paste this into your web bar and watch this very interesting movie and be amazed by all of the fact inside of the fiction, and vise versa. It is obviously being covered up. Ask Heather Mills…. She will tell you. I have loved the Beatles all of my life. I was born listening to them. I researched them all of my life. I have heard of the hoax all of my life. Everyone has heard of ‘paul is dead’ but no one takes the time to research and subsequentaly, those who do are all stuck here like me.
I have tried researching the reason why Mal Evans book entitled: Living the Beatles Legend or 200 Miles to go, hasn’t been published and I keep coming up against forums full of nutters who persist with stupid ‘Paul is dead’ stuff. This kind of infantile nonsense really should have been put to bed years ago and is just the product of a disturbed mind!
The real interest though is why Lily Evans, Mal’s ex wife hasn’t put the book out, as over the years it has been well publicised that she isn’t all that well off, selling Beatles items that Mal owned like lyrics and guitars. The Sunday Times newspaper did a piece on the source diaries in 2005, but it was about these very only brief note-like diaries not the manuscript of the unpublished book.
Logically I can only assume that the reason this book still hasn’t been published is the boring, but never the less compelling reason of copyright.
The book was co written, perhaps more ghosted by John Hoernie. Is he still alive? So obviously a book can’t be published without without his permission
. I’m sure Lily would have put this book out by now had she been able to get the permission of both the publisher and John Hoernie or someone from his estate, the more people involved, the more difficult the task to get everyones say so!
Listening to Mal on the full circle radio programme recorded just a month before he was shot in LA he sounds remarkably relaxed and down to earth, but this was before he found out that Lil had filed for divorce which she did in December 1975 and I think that finality of that sent poor Mal over the edge.
After mal’s death the reason why the publisher didn’t just put the book out is strange, it apparently went missing with other stuff that Mal owned, though Hoernie must have had a copy himself. So why was it was just shelved? Maybe the publisher felt it just wasn’t good enough to go out. This rather mundane reasons, rather than any conspiracy theories are much more likely to be the truth. Sorry Paul is dead fans, but you really do need top get a life!