McCartney Times

It’s rare that we find ourselves with some Beatles memorabilia that we’ve never seen before and even rarer that they offer such a keen insight into their growing iconography. You can imagine our delight when we found this gem from Rave magazine’s October 1965 issue.

In the vintage mag, three members of the Fab Four are roped in to take part in some personality quizzes and given character assessments at the end of their answers. Featuring Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, John Lennon misses out because apparently his answers were “unprintable!”—Typical.

The Beatles were at the height of their popstar status in 1965 as Beatlemania’s stranglehold on the youth of the 1960s tightened its grip with every new release. Not only were the band’s songs being devoured at record rates but the devotion of their fans meant they were guaranteed to sell papers and magazines whenever they appeared.

Alongside their growing repertoire of songs, which was beginning to move away from their previous boyband standards and was now heading in new directions, the intrigue into the characters of the Fab Four was near fever pitch. Each member of the band garnered their own set of fans and the question “who is your favourite Beatle?” rolled around the schoolyards of the entire world.

We can only imagine then the kind of joy those same kids would have got out of picking up the October 1965 issue of Rave magazine. Inside, the British mag grabs some time with McCartney, Harrison and Starr and, after a questionnaire, provides them with a somewhat accurate character assessment.

The magazine posed the same questions for all the band members, such as “what is for you the height of misery?”, to which Paul McCartney replied: “Being woken up after two hours sleep.” Another interesting question saw the magazine ask, “what is the present state of your mind?” to which Harrison dryly replies, “10% alcohol.” You can read all the questions and the handwritten answers below.

We think, however, the best piece of the spread comes from their assessments. Paul McCartney’s reads: “This person is a plainly spoken man. He has a great taste for hoaxing people. It is difficult for him to forget the laughing, happy child he once was, and now to be considered a serious man by other people.” It runs on from there to suggest he has a “practical mind,” and that he is “enthusiastic” and “ambitious.” All of which feels pretty appropriate.

Harrison’s is similarly well-targeted, “This person has an anxious and secret personality. He does not like to be questioned. He is vulnerable through affection. He needs security and stability. He is seeking a certain which frames his fancy and his sharp sensibility.”

Ringo’s isn’t too far from the truth either, “This person is more affectionate and poetic than he wants to admit, probably because he is too lazy to realise everything which is suggested by his good heart.” Each of the assessments offers a new view of The Beatles in their infancy.

You can read the full personality tests and their assessments below. It makes for some intriguing reading and allows us another crystalline image of the musical behemoth The Beatles were.

Source: Revisit a rare personality quiz The Beatles took in 1965