Sweden 1967

The Flower power year: Paul and George in Sweden.

On the 14th of October, 1967, George Harrison and Paul McCartney went to Sweden to visit the Maharishi at the hotel where he was staying in Falsterbo, a seaside resort in southern Sweden near Malmö. They made the trip to persuade the Maharishi to stop using The Beatles’ name as PR for himself. Swedish Television recently aired “Året var 1967” (“The Year Was 1967”), where they touched upon the subject and showed these photos.

Paul and George with the Maharishi in his hotel room.

A couple of Beatles in town of course caused quite a bit of commotion, fans would gather and Swedish Television sent a camera team to interview the two of them together with the Maharishi.

Interviewed by Swedish Television.

You can find some more photos here, and the TV programme “Året var 1967” is available on web TV. Of course, it’s all in Swedish except for the interview with the Englishmen.

In the section about the visit from the Maharishi, a Swedish woman who was a young girl at 22 in 1967 reveals that she fell in love, and became the Maharishi’s lover for two years. She accompanied him on his travels, but when she discovered that he also courted other young, sweet western girls, she decided that she didn’t want to be part of a harem, and left.

A young female freelance journalist with Paul and George in the Maharishi’s hotel room.

The girl depicted above is not the girl in the story. Peter Brown accompanied Paul and George on this trip to Sweden. According to Tony Bramwell’s biography, so did Denis O’Dell. A few more photos from the trip can be found on that eventuality. One story from the visit is that George and Paul were refused entry to a restaurant because they weren’t wearing ties. Which was great news for the Tunneln Restaurant, which is where they ended up.