#yellow lorry

(part 1 is here)

Translations provided by the wonderful @paulsrighthand and her Mum! (Thanks!)

Icke tells a story about Paul bringing a girl back to his (Icke's) place. Paul supposedly is looking for a place to shag her, but she falls asleep while Paul talks the night away with Icke.

At one point he wanted to sleep with a girl, a groupie who he met in the Top Ten. He didn’t want to meet in the little room that he shared with John, George and Pete, so there were very few other opportunities for inviting girls back. He asked me if he could take the girl back to mine. Although I didn’t have much space either, but I still said yes. So I invited both of them into my little Beatle car; Paul sat next to me on the passenger seat, and he had the girl on his lap. Even though she was small and dainty, it was a very tight squeeze. In a convivial mood we drove along the river at 4am in the morning, reciting tongue twisters. It was my job to say ‘red lorry yellow lorry’ three times. It was very difficult with my bad English…it was even more difficult because I was laughing so much. [Icke almost crashes the car. Description cut for length.] My little room suddenly became quite tight for three people; Paul, his girlfriend, and myself. Paul thought that there was even less space here than the room the group shared above the Top Ten. Because I was feeling hospitable (and because I had a bad conscience about the accident), I gave him my bed, and proceeded to make myself comfortable on the floor. Sleep however, did not come to mind, because the girl tried repeatedly to charm Paul and to pull him into her arms. Instead, he lay with his head supported by the headboard and told us stories about how he and his friends spent their nights in Hamburg. … Paul couldn’t stop telling these stories, and I felt very privileged and honoured that he trusted me to share so much. In the meantime, the girl had long since fallen asleep and was snoring loudly, whereas we two talked deep into the night, and our conversation didn’t find an end. Very late in the night, just as it got light outside, Paul suddenly stopped speaking mid-sentence, fell asleep and began snoring louder than the girl. I tried to find myself a bearable place on the floor, but I couldn’t fall sleep for a long time because of the snoring.

For starters, as far as the car crash is concerned, a few years later, Icke told his friend Thomas Struck, who apparently made a short film about the event. We've found his website, but it looks like if we're gonna find the film, we have to email him. We'll keep you all posted on if we get further with that.

We've emphasised 'yellow lorry' in the tongue-twister above because of the connection to You Never Give Me Your Money

Monday morning, turning back Yellow lorry slow, nowhere to go

Could that be a reference to this incident? It's possible that Paul associated Icke with escape from the somewhat peripheral position he had in the group during this period. (Which Icke references in this section in Tune In -- Paul was "orbiting around them".)

As for what happened at Icke's place,

This sounds to us like Paul was making excuses. There are other accounts that say he *did* bring girls back to the Beatles' shared accommodation. Maybe he thought he needed the excuse of a girl to be able to ask to stay over at Icke's? Whatever his reasoning, he certainly seems more interested in Icke than the unnamed girl.

We'll also mention that Icke goes into details in the stories. They're pretty much all about the first trip to Hamburg. It's not much different than all the stories we've been told except for one small section:

Then he reported Paul and Pete, accusing them of trying to burn down his cinema. In reality, they had only left their old boss two used condoms as a farewell present .

We've heard burned condom, never used. So that is a bit of a difference. It sounds like there was no burning of the condom at all. Wonder how that became the official story...

Anyway, that's all we got this time around.

Stay tuned for the next section!

Original German:

Das eine Mal wollte er mit einem Mädchen schlafen, einem Groupie, das er nach einem Auftritt im Top Ten aufgegabelt hatte. Allerdings wollte er es nicht über dem Lokal, in dem kleinen Raum tun, den er zusammen mit George Harrison, John Lennon und Pete Best be-wohnte. Auch wenn es mangels anderer Möglichkeiten immer mal wieder vorkam, dass der eine oder andere von ihnen ein Mädchen in ihre gemeinsame Bude hoch-brachte. Paul fragte mich, ob er die Kleine mit zu mir nehmen könnte, und ich erklärte ihm, dass ich auch nicht viel Platz bei mir zu Hause hätte, sagte aber ja. Also lud ich die beiden in meinen Käfer. um sie zu mir nach Rahlstedt zu bringen. Paul saß neben mir auf dem Beifahrersitz und hatte sein Mädchen auf dem Schoß. Ob. wohl sie klein und zierlich war, wurde es dadurch ganz schön eng vorne. In aufgekratzter Stimmung fuhren wir morgens um vier Uhr die Straße An der Alster ent-lang. Ich weiß noch, dass wir Zungenbrecher übten. Dreimal schnell hintereinander red lorry yellow lorry, sollte ich sagen.

…

Für drei Leute, Paul mit seinem Mädchen und mich, wurde mein Zimmer wirklich eng. Paul meinte, ich hätte hier ja noch weniger Platz als er mit seinen Kollegen über dem Top Ten. Aus purer Gastfreundschaft und weil ich ein schlechtes Gewissen wegen der Sache mit dem Auto hatte, überließ ich ihnen mein Bett, während ich es mir auf dem Fußboden gemütlich machte. An Schlaf war allerdings nicht zu denken, auch wenn das Mädchen ständig versuchte, Paul zu bezirzen und in ihre Arme zu ziehen. Er lag mit aufgestütztem Kopf an der Bettkante und erzählte davon, wie und wo er und seine Freunde in Hamburg die Nächte verbringen muss-ten.

….

Paul konnte gar nicht aufhören mit dem Erzählen, und ich fühlte mich total geschmeichelt, dass er mich so ins Vertrauen zog. Unterdessen war das Mädchen schon lange eingeschlafen und schnarchte vor sich hin, während wir beide mit unserem Gespräch kein Ende fanden. Spät in der Nacht bzw. früh am Morgen, draußen war es schon wieder hell geworden, brach Paul mitten im Satz ab und fing ebenfalls an zu schnarchen, aber wesentlich lauter als das Mädchen. Ich selbst versuchte mir meinen Platz auf dem Fußboden einigermaßen erträglich zu machen, konnte bei dem Geschnarche aber lange nicht einschlafen.   

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