{"id":362520,"date":"2025-12-21T21:24:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T21:24:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/362520\/"},"modified":"2025-12-21T21:24:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T21:24:14","slug":"remember-when-paul-mccartney-let-a-man-claiming-to-be-jesus-sit-in-on-a-beatles-recording-session","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/362520\/","title":{"rendered":"Remember When Paul McCartney Let a Man Claiming to Be Jesus Sit in on a Beatles Recording Session?"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Jesus is speaking to the condemned in Matthew 25:43<\/a>, saying things like, \u201cI was a stranger, and you did not invite me in,\u201d there wasn\u2019t a caveat at the end of the verse that said, \u201cBut that\u2019s okay, because I know you had a recording session booked that night.\u201d Thus, when Paul McCartney opened his front door to see a man claiming to be the Messiah himself, he thought he\u2019d better invite him in for a cup of tea. (And a few questions.)<\/p>\n

The strange encounter took place in the late winter of 1967, when The Beatles were recording Sgt. Pepper\u2019s Lonely Hearts Club Band. As McCartney recalled in Barry Miles\u2019 Many Years From Now<\/a>, he used to answer anyone who rang at his front gate. \u201cIf they were boring, I would say, \u2018Sorry, no,\u2019 and they generally went away. This guy said, \u2018I\u2019m Jesus Christ.\u2019 I said, \u2018Oop,\u2019 slightly shocked. I said, \u2018Well, you\u2019d better come in then.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

McCartney continued, \u201cI thought, \u2018Well, it probably isn\u2019t. But if he is, I\u2019m not going to be the one to turn him away. So, I gave him a cup of tea, and we just chatted.\u201d The musician told his visitor that he had a recording session booked that night, adding, \u201cIf you promise to be very quiet and just sit in a corner, you can come.\u201d That was an offer even Jesus couldn\u2019t refuse.<\/p>\n

Paul McCartney Facilitated a Full Circle \u201cJesus\u201d Moment for the Beatles<\/p>\n

The recording session at Regent Sound Studios in February 1967 wasn\u2019t the first run-in The Beatles had with Jesus Christ\u2014at least, in a public setting, anyway. The band had already been the subject of great controversy the previous year after John Lennon infamously said<\/a> that The Beatles were \u201cmore popular than Jesus.\u201d To be fair, the sentiment was valid, albeit hyperbolic. The Beatles were the biggest band in the world at the time. Still, conservative Christian critics of the American South took offense, sparking a wave of public burnings of Beatles records.<\/p>\n

Things were far tamer in the studio, where the band was in the process of recording \u201cFixing a Hole\u201d<\/a>. Speaking to Barry Miles, Paul McCartney recalled ushering the so-called Messiah into the studio at Tottenham Court Road. The musician said that, as he requested, Jesus did \u201csit very quietly, and I never saw him after that. I introduced him to the guys. They said, \u2018Who\u2019s this?\u2019 I said, \u2018He\u2019s Jesus Christ.\u2019 We had a bit of a giggle over that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photo by Keystone-France\/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Jesus is speaking to the condemned in Matthew 25:43, saying things like, \u201cI was a stranger, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":362521,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,216,13501,2156,13979],"class_list":{"0":"post-362520","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music","10":"tag-paul-mccartney","11":"tag-rock-music","12":"tag-the-beatles"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}