Beatles’ lost tweets uncovered
LIVERPOOL – Jimmy Sutton, Chief Support Engineer at Clean-IT Ltd in Liverpool, England, recently made a discovery that changed his life. Called in to repair damage after a networking company’s server crash, Mr. Sutton discovered a compressed file, apparently not accessed in decades, and containing hundreds – maybe thousands – of Twitter messages.
Upon further investigation, they turned out to have been sent by the members of the former pop supergroup, the Beatles.
“I was going through my routine crash checklist, securing surge protectors, reconfiguring data libraries, emptying garbage cans, defragmenting hard drives, and emptying cache,” Mr. Sutton says. “Just as I was ready to give the system a boot, I stumbled across these messages that were slightly fragmented, but mostly in an excellent shape.”
The “tweets” – messages that can only be 140 characters long and sent to people that have chosen to become “followers” of the sender – include pieces that may help us explain the genesis of some of the Fab Four’s biggest hits and group dynamics.
Mr. Sutton is in the process of preparing a major retweet later in the fall, but with his permission, we republish some of the tweets below.
Ringorilla: “It’s been a helluva night, bin workin’ like a dog. Just wanna get home to me girl.”
GeorgeH: “@Cavernpaul I spoke with her, it’s all good, she does love you. Hey, that can’t be bad, right, mate?”
TheWalrus: “Yeah, yeah, yeah”
TheRealWalrus: “Help! Can somebody help me with a thing? Oh man, if I only was a few years younger, I’d do it myself”
TheWalrus: “What does this mean: ‘Michelle, ma belle. Sont des mots qui vont tres bien ensemble.’ Thx. #French”
TheRealWalrus: “Hey, what was the name of the place where you could buy love? I need some.”
Ringorilla: “OK, if your girlfriend says that she met her ex and ob-la-di, ob-la-da, she’s really tired today, is that good?”
TheWalrus: “We need more followers than @elvisapresley by Saturday. Follow us now, and RT everybody!”
Because only the group’s own tweets were saved, it is, unfortunately, impossible to know how many followers they had, or how many other twitterers they were following, explains Mr. Sutton.
That said, their following seems to have been larger than just a small cult, if this tweet is to be believed:
TheRealWalrus: “We have more followers than Jesus!”
TheRealWalrus: “I meant on Twitter, peeps.”
Thanks to the recovered tweets, though, it is possible to see whom the Beatles replied to and retweeted – whose messages they forwarded – giving us a better understanding of who the people in their inner circle were, and who they, perhaps, looked up to, and considered worth retweeting.
GeorgeH: “RT @oneyogi I’m telling you all to study Sanskrit, you won’t regret it. One day we’ll all be speaking Sanskrit again”
GeorgeH: “RT @oneyogi Oh, and, in 2011 we will have flying cars.”
TheRealWalrus: “@Brianepsteinmanagement Yeah, right, we’re gonna let people just steal our music? No, we’ll never be on iTunes!”
Ringorilla: “RT @elvisapresley “Who are these Beetles?” LOL”
GeorgeH: “RT @oneyogi Om, but we won’t be needing them for long because in 2015, humans can fly like a bird. Omg.”
TheWalrus: “@Brianepsteinmanagement How much?”
Ringorilla: “RT @TheQueen The nerve of those lads from Liverpool, bloody mopheads, calling me old. I’ll outlive them all!”
The tweets also provide a glimpse into the inner workings of the band. The most revealing messages are the ones sent within the group.
Ringorilla: “Abbey Rd makes me think of a beard. I think I’ll grow one.
TheRealWalrus: “@Ringorilla Me, too
GeorgeH: @Ringorilla @TheRealWalrus Me, too.
TheWalrus: @ Ringorilla @ JohnLenin @GeorgeH I think I’ll go for a moustache.
TheRealWalrus: “@TheWalrus A moustache! Ha, you can’t grow a beard, that’s why. Hey, a man’s gotta do what a man can do.”
TheWalrus: “@TheRealWalrus I quit!”
TheRealWalrus: “@TheWalrus I already did.”
TheWalrus: “@TheRealWalrus But I quit first. You can go back to, I dunno, CCCP? And now I’m putting the band back together. Ha!”
TheRealWalrus: “@TheWalrus You can’t. You quit the band.”
TheWalrus: “@TheRealWalrus Oooooh, you think you’re so smart. But, I’ll be the bigger man, and I’ll let it be. Fine, you’re back in the band. “
Ringorilla: “@TheRealWalrus @TheWalrus @GeorgeH Am I still in the band? LOL! LOL? Lunch, anyone?”
Mr Sutton’s book, “Tweet and Shout: My Life with the Beatles”, with the entire collection of the Beatles tweets, will be published in November. You can follow his Twitter feed at twitter.com/TheTweetles.