The Beatles, Rain & A Quiet London Suburb
A tour of the locations for the greatest B-side song in history
The problem with London is that when you rock up to see a specific location connected to The Beatles, you get sidetracked by something else that’s also interesting.
Maybe problem isn’t the right word, and I’m not saying anything is more interesting than The Beatles, but there are other interesting things around. Sometimes.
The place I was rocking on to with Mrs M was where The Beatles shot their promotional films for Paperback Writer and Rain in 1966 — Chiswick House & Gardens in West London.
Once we got to Chiswick House, I spotted a sign outside the main gates that pointed to Hogarth’s House, 400 yards away. I’m not a great appreciator of paintings, but William Hogarth holds a special place in the hearts of all Londoners.
This is because Hogarth painted a series of cartoon-like, comic book-style bawdy, satirical pictures that captured everyday life in London during the 18th century. Since they often also contained scenes of sex and drunkenness, you can see the attraction for us then and now.
Obviously, The Beatles were the main reason we rocked on to Chiswick, but before we go there to look at fab places, I think a small diversion is called for.
Hogarth and his traffic jams
Hogath’s name is mentioned every single day in London on the local news and TV traffic updates. That’s because Hogarth has the misfortune to have one of London’s busiest road junctions named after him — Hogarth Roundabout.
The house and gardens where he used to live look a picture of idyllic countryside living, much as they did in the 18th century.
However, this is 2025, not 1750, and London has engulfed the once sleepy village of Chiswick. By the early sixties, Hogarth’s roundabout and flyover had been constructed on the other side of the wall and right behind his house.
Trying to ignore the rumble of 21st-century traffic running past the side of the house, Mrs M and I had a look inside. It was free to enter, and the house has been reconstructed in the style of when Hogarth lived there.
Aside from being next door to somewhere The Beatles went for one day to make a promotional film, there is little to connect William Hogarth and the greatest band in history. Trying desperately to make another Beatles connection, I remembered Hogarth once painted The Enraged Musician.
The musician in the painting can’t work because there’s so much noise going on outside his London house, including a boy urinating up the wall. I doubt The Beatles suffered from this.
The other picture above is called Gin Lane, which isn’t a real lane but was set near to what is now the wealthy area of Covent Garden in London’s West End. In the 18th century, it was an area of high poverty, chronic alcoholism and general intemperance. One in six of all homes there was a place that made and sold gin.
They don’t call it London Gin for no good reason, you know.
Anyway, back to The Beatles, who never professed a great love of gin. In the Get Back film, they were drinking tea all the time. With lots of toast.
No Rain in the Rain
Rain is the greatest B-side in the history of rock and pop; full stop, period, punto final, arrêt complet and punkt.
Paperback Writer was revolutionary enough, but its B-side Rain was the musical tour de force that changed rock & pop and signposted the boys’ transformation into a new musical world and dragged the rest of the world with them.
In Rain we saw, the influence of Indian music in the melody and arrangement, one of rock’s greatest drum accompaniments, one of rock’s greatest counterpoint bass lines, the breaking of so-called music rules, Lennon’s unusual off-kilter vocal delivery that goes against the beat and the innovative studio techniques never before used in music.
So, onto the Rain promotion film locations.
Chiswick House and Twickenham Studios
On May 19th 1966, The Beatles recorded two promotional videos for Rain at Twickenham Studios, also in West London. The next day, they went to Chiswick House to record more promotional films for Rain and also for Paperback Writer.
The films were directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, who was the director of the later Let It Be film, of course.
I covered the Paperback Writer promotional film locations at Chiswick House here.
As well as the studio film of the boys playing Rain, they recorded some alternative promotional films in Chiswick House Gardens, which can also be seen in the Anthology documentary.
Here’s the video of the Rain promotional film from the non-studio takes I used for my tour, 59 years later. And to remind yourself of what genius sounds and looks like.
The first place we went to, once we got to Chiswick House, was the conservatory. They filmed some scenes for Paperback Writer here and some alternative scenes for Rain.
The Beatles played around in the conservatory area to the right of the photo for the Rain film. Since I couldn’t enter and pretend to be a cool Beatle because it was closed off, I took a photo through a window at the end.
Mrs M and I then wandered over to where I think they next played in the film. I say think because there’s no information I could find that showed exactly where this scene was filmed, but it looked like the right location to me.
One of the most famous scenes is where the boys play under a giant cedar tree while Ringo sits on a plinth. On the way there, we took another diversion for a walk by the river that flows through the gardens. Maybe Hogarth once strolled here while thinking about his next painting. Maybe he walked where The Beatles would walk 200 years later.
Or maybe not.
I recognised the cedar tree in the Gardens from the Rain video as soon as I saw it, diagonally opposite to where the boys shot the Paperback Writer scenes by the statues.
OK, maybe I manipulated the screenshot from the video a little, but I was there, albeit 59 years later.
I guess Beatles fanatics like me used to climb into the tree and do the Ringo sitting pose on the plinth, so it’s now roped off and they’ve put something on top of the plinth to stop people sitting there.
Mrs M was confused at the end of the photo shoot because I’d normally want a beer or glass of wine, but I insisted we go to the café in the Chiswick House grounds. I told her I wanted to sit outside under the giant awning and have lemonade.
She thought I was going crazy, so I explained: I want to slip into the shade and drink our lemonade, especially when the senihs nus.
That didn’t help her to understand, but I ask you, what else would you do after an afternoon following in the Beatles’ Rain footsteps?
PS, I explained to Mrs M why we had to have lemonade in the shade and what senihs nus means and why. I decided not to mention sdeah reiht edih dna nur yeht, semoc niar eht fi.
Excellent work, good sir!
Would love to cross-post on MusicVerse.