The Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder: John, Paul, Tom, & Ringo

The excellent excavation of historic, interesting interviews from The Tomorrow Show continues with a Beatles edition. It’s likely appropriate that "quiet one” George Harrison never sat down with the eccentric, domineering Tom Snyder, who wouldn’t have suffered the Dark Horse’s indifference. The late Snyder was brilliant at expressing oblivious fascination with the minutiae of his guests’ lives. In a 1979 appearance promoting Wings, a bored Paul McCartney actually cuts himself off when he realises Snyder has roped him and wife Linda into a prolonged discussion about the sheep on their farm. Though nurturing a budding (but ultimately unmemorable) film career in 1981, Ringo Starr proudly defends recent boasts that he’s the best rock drummer in the world and reflects upon how John Lennon’s murder devastated him a year earlier. The last official television interview Lennon conducted was with Snyder in 1975, while he was fighting a deportation plot. A Tomorrow fan, Lennon is patient with Snyder’s square queries and unfashionable appearance, which the host himself makes light of retrospectively when the original interview is re-aired the night after Lennon’s shocking death. Unsurprisingly, Lennon is the most open and interesting Beatle to chat with Snyder and their insightful interview alone is worth this thoughtful collection.