( Way source: beatlesebook.com) The primary reason being to attend Ravi Shankar’s Hollywood Bowl concert on August 4th. In order to help promote the event, George agreed to give a press conference with Ravi the day before. Also while there, Pattie’s sister Jenny Boyd, who was living in Haight-Ashbury, encouraged them to visit San Francisco to witness the hippie scene they had all heard about, an invitation they accepted which resulted in George’s condemnation of them as “bums.”
Accommodations were arranged for them in advance, these explained in Steve Turner’s book “A Hard Day’s Write”: “On arrival in Los Angeles on August 1st, they were driven to a small rented cottage with a pool on Blue Jay Way, a street high in the Hollywood Hills above Sunset Boulevard. It belonged to Robert Fitzpatrick, a music business lawyer who was on vacation in Hawaii. Derek Taylor, formerly the Beatles’ press officer and now a publicist working in Los Angeles, was due to visit them on their first night in town.”
Derek Taylor explains the events of that day. “They’d ring and say; ‘We’re here.’ So I asked them, ‘Where are you?’ ‘In Blue Jay Way,’ he replied. ‘Where’s that?’ I asked. ‘I don’t know,’ he replied, ‘somewhere up in the hills.’ So I said to him, ‘Never mind. I’ll ask a policeman. There are plenty of them around.’ So I set out to find them, and while he was waiting, with jet lag and Pattie, he sat down at an organ in the hall and started, ‘Please don’t be long…My friends have lost their way…There’s a fog upon LA…They’ll ask a policeman on the beat…There’s so many there to meet.’”
George himself explained in 1968: “Derek Taylor got held up. He rang to say he'd be late. I told him on the phone that the house was in Blue Jay Way. And he said he could find it okay...he could always ask a cop. So I waited and waited. I felt really knackered with the flight, but I didn't want to go to sleep until he came. There was a fog and it got later and later. To keep myself awake, just as a joke to pass the time while I waited, I wrote a song about waiting for him in Blue Jay Way. There was a little Hammond organ in the corner of this house which I hadn't noticed until then...so I messed around on it and the song came."
Derek continues: “By the time I had reached them, the song was virtually intact. Of course, at the time, I felt very bad because here were these two wretchedly jet-lagged people, and I was about two hours late to meet them. But here, indeed, was a song that would turn up on ‘Magical Mystery Tour.’”
Regarding the innocent inspiration for the song, Derek concludes: “I read somewhere that someone interpreted the line ‘Please don’t be long’ as an instruction to the young, saying, ‘Don’t belong, don’t belong to society as we know it. Drop out!’ In truth, ‘Blue Jay Way’ is just a simple little song.” In addition to this is George’s comment: “The mood is also slightly Indian."
Interestingly, George's original handwritten lyrics for the song, which were suitably written on stationary with the letterhead "Robert Fitzpatrick Associates...Los Angeles," include an additional verse omitted from the released song. The verse continues the story by saying, "When I see you at the door/ I know your (sp) worth waiting for/ for the moment when you speak/ I know I'd wait here all week." Also, the opening line of the song, according to this document, was "There's a fog on Blue Jay Way," the last four words being scribbled out and replaced with "upon L.A." Apparently, the song needed more work after this day. According to Hunter Davies' biography "The Beatles," he states: "When he came home to Esher, he bought himself a little Hammond organ, painted it white, and perfected the song."
