To be sung to the tune of the Crash Test Dummies' 'Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm':
Oo-once there was this boy^1 who
Grew up with his Aunt and never knew his Mum^2
And wh-ee-en she finally came back
She got run over by a policeman^3
It really might explain why
The kid could be soooooo meeeaaann^4
Mmm mmm mmm mmm
Once there was this kid^5 who
Did quite well at school and was on track to be a teacher^6
But wh-ee-en his mother Mary passed away^7
He began to hang with the wrong crowd^8
He couldn't quite explain it
He just wanted to rooooock and rooooll
Mmm mmm mmm mmm
Mmm mmm mmm mmm
But both John and Paul were glad
Cos one kid had it worse than that
Cause then there was this boy^9 who
Grew up in the shittiest slum in Liverpool^10
And whe-en he was growing up
He spent years sick in hospital^11
He couldn't quite explain it^12
He just wanted to play the drums^13
Mmm mmm mmm mmm^14
Mmm mmm mmm mmm
...
Footnotes:
John Winston Lennon
Lennon's father was at sea in the merchant navy when he was born, and by the time Lennon was born, his mother Julia was 'living in sin' with someone else (John Dykins), and Lennon was sleeping in the same bed as Julia and John Dykins. After Julia's sister Mimi complained to Social Services about this situation, Julia gave up John to Mimi, who was childless, and not by choice.
Julia became more of a part of Lennon's life again when he was a teenager - to him she seemed almost like a cool older sister - but passed away when she was hit by a car in July 1958 driven by an off-duty policeman near Mimi's house.
Everyone in the Beatles' circle lived in fear of Lennon's mouth - it was almost certainly why Pete Best basically only turned up to gigs and left straight afterwards when he was in the band, for example.
Sir James Paul McCartney
Unlike Lennon, he passed the 11-Plus exam (designed to detect students destined for university), and attended the Liverpool Institute, a grammar school. His family expected him to become a teacher.
Mary McCartney, a nurse who actually was the primary breadwinner of the family, passed away in 1957, when Paul was 14. She and Paul's father had kept her illness something of a secret, and so it was a great shock to Paul when she passed away quite suddenly.
i.e., John Lennon, who was universally hated by his friends' parents
Richard Starkey, aka Ringo Starr
John grew up in Aunt Mimi and Uncle George's very solidly middle class house (when I visited as part of a Beatles tour in Liverpool, I was actually impressed by how nice it looked). Paul grew up in government housing, but then reasonably new and spacious government housing on what was then a fancy, country-ish council estate. Ringo - known as Ritchie as a kid - grew up in the Dingle, which was widely considered the worst slum in Liverpool. This is likely why he contracted tuberculosis as a teenager in the 1950s. Like John, he had very little contact with his father, who preferred to go drinking rather than bring up his son.
At age six, Ringo contracted a very serious case of peritonitis, and was in a coma for the best part of two weeks; his mother thought he was going to die. He was in hospital for a year recovering. In 1953 he came down with tuberculosis and was confined to a hospital sanatorium for months.
Ringo's sicknesses and the general desultory atmosphere of the Dingle, living with parents who he later said were basically alcoholics, meant that he was actually illiterate at age eight, and only became somewhat literate because a neighbour tutored him. After returning home from the sanatorium he didn't bother to go back to school
It was at the sanatorium that he discovered his great love for the drums, playing in a band of kids at the sanatorium.
Sorry, George fans, there's only three verses in 'Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm'.
For further reading: Bob Spitz's The Beatles and especially Mark Lewisohn's Tune In are the books that go into the most detail on their early lives; both books have a good sense of social context and Lewisohn especially is good at explaining their lives as they were rather than with their not-necessarily-destined future careers in mind.
To be sung to the tune of the Crash Test Dummies' 'Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm':
Oo-once there was this boy^1 who
Grew up with his Aunt and never knew his Mum^2
And wh-ee-en she finally came back
She got run over by a policeman^3
It really might explain why
The kid could be soooooo meeeaaann^4
Mmm mmm mmm mmm
Once there was this kid^5 who
Did quite well at school and was on track to be a teacher^6
But wh-ee-en his mother Mary passed away^7
He began to hang with the wrong crowd^8
He couldn't quite explain it
He just wanted to rooooock and rooooll
Mmm mmm mmm mmm
Mmm mmm mmm mmm
But both John and Paul were glad
Cos one kid had it worse than that
Cause then there was this boy^9 who
Grew up in the shittiest slum in Liverpool^10
And whe-en he was growing up
He spent years sick in hospital^11
He couldn't quite explain it^12
He just wanted to play the drums^13
Mmm mmm mmm mmm^14
Mmm mmm mmm mmm
...
Footnotes:
John Winston Lennon
Lennon's father was at sea in the merchant navy when he was born, and by the time Lennon was born, his mother Julia was 'living in sin' with someone else (John Dykins), and Lennon was sleeping in the same bed as Julia and John Dykins. After Julia's sister Mimi complained to Social Services about this situation, Julia gave up John to Mimi, who was childless, and not by choice.
Julia became more of a part of Lennon's life again when he was a teenager - to him she seemed almost like a cool older sister - but passed away when she was hit by a car in July 1958 driven by an off-duty policeman near Mimi's house.
Everyone in the Beatles' circle lived in fear of Lennon's mouth - it was almost certainly why Pete Best basically only turned up to gigs and left straight afterwards when he was in the band, for example.
Sir James Paul McCartney
Unlike Lennon, he passed the 11-Plus exam (designed to detect students destined for university), and attended the Liverpool Institute, a grammar school. His family expected him to become a teacher.
Mary McCartney, a nurse who actually was the primary breadwinner of the family, passed away in 1957, when Paul was 14. She and Paul's father had kept her illness something of a secret, and so it was a great shock to Paul when she passed away quite suddenly.
i.e., John Lennon, who was universally hated by his friends' parents
Richard Starkey, aka Ringo Starr
John grew up in Aunt Mimi and Uncle George's very solidly middle class house (when I visited as part of a Beatles tour in Liverpool, I was actually impressed by how nice it looked). Paul grew up in government housing, but then reasonably new and spacious government housing on what was then a fancy, country-ish council estate. Ringo - known as Ritchie as a kid - grew up in the Dingle, which was widely considered the worst slum in Liverpool. This is likely why he contracted tuberculosis as a teenager in the 1950s. Like John, he had very little contact with his father, who preferred to go drinking rather than bring up his son.
At age six, Ringo contracted a very serious case of peritonitis, and was in a coma for the best part of two weeks; his mother thought he was going to die. He was in hospital for a year recovering. In 1953 he came down with tuberculosis and was confined to a hospital sanatorium for months.
Ringo's sicknesses and the general desultory atmosphere of the Dingle, living with parents who he later said were basically alcoholics, meant that he was actually illiterate at age eight, and only became somewhat literate because a neighbour tutored him. After returning home from the sanatorium he didn't bother to go back to school
It was at the sanatorium that he discovered his great love for the drums, playing in a band of kids at the sanatorium.
Sorry, George fans, there's only three verses in 'Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm'.
For further reading: Bob Spitz's The Beatles and especially Mark Lewisohn's Tune In are the books that go into the most detail on their early lives; both books have a good sense of social context and Lewisohn especially is good at explaining their lives as they were rather than with their not-necessarily-destined future careers in mind.