Beatles News
Yoko Ono has long been blamed for “breaking up the Beatles.” The now-92-year-old artist has endured decades of sexist, racist abuse from still-bitter Beatles fans. Now, a recovered phone call featured in the new documentary One to One: John & Yoko—which will premiere on HBO and HBO Max at 8 p.m. tonight—reveals Ono felt abandoned by Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr at the height of this horrific harassment.
Directed by Kevin Macdonald, this documentary is an intimate look at the life of John Lennon and Yoko Ono during an 18-month period where they lived together in New York City in the early 1970s. In addition to restored footage of Lennon and Ono’s “One to One” concert at Madison Square Garden in New York City in 1972—Lennon’s only full-length concert after the Beatles and before his murder in 1980—the documentary also features never-before-heard phone calls from Ono and Lennon, who recorded all their calls at the time.
In a phone call between Ono and musician David Peel—a New York friend of the couple, who occasionally performed with Lennon at political rallies—Ono details the horrific verbal and physical abuse she faced from Beatles fans.
“I’m supposedly the person who broke up The Beatles, you know?,” Ono says in the phone call, recorded in the early 1970s. “When I was pregnant, many people wrote to me saying, ‘I wish you and your baby would die.'”
Ono continued, “I got a rubber doll has lots of needles in it, in the eyes, and the nose, and everything. When I was walking on the street with John, people came to me, saying things like I’m an ugly Jap. They pulled my hair, and hit my head. I was just about to faint.”
Ono goes on to say that during this period, she had three miscarriages. Then she expresses frustration that amidst this treatment from Beatles fans, none of the Beatles (save for Lennon) stood up for her.
Source: Anna Menta/decider.com
One of the key characteristics that defined The Beatles early in their career was that they were a single unit. It wasn’t John, Paul, George, and Ringo; it was just The Beatles. This was, of course, due to their tight-knit friendship, but as the years rolled by, external forces seemed to interfere with their friendship and professional partnership, ultimately ending the band. However, despite these forces, The Beatles stayed true to a pact they had made before their breakup.
For a moment, put aside the last three or so years of The Beatles’ career. Put aside Yoko Ono, creative control, the death of Brian Epstein, financial disputes, and just recall how close friends they were. As a matter of fact, Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones called them the “four-headed” monster because of their tight-knit bond. As a result of that tight-knit bond, The Beatles made an admirable promise to each other that both solidified the end of the iconic rock band, but also kept their historic legacy intact. The promise was that if one band member quit, then The Beatles would not go on without them.
Source: Peter Burditt/americansongwriter.com
It has been nearly 60 years since The Beatles’ The White Album was released, and it is widely considered to be one of their finest works to date. Containing huge hits such as the George Harrison-penned “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” the Paul McCartney solo “Blackbird”, and the Beach Boys and Chuck Berry’s controversial parody “Back In The U.S.S.R.”, the album is packed with quality songwriting and compositions. One of their most underrated songs from the album is “Don’t Pass Me By,” a song that not even the dynamic songwriting duo McCartney-Lennon can take credit for.
Around 1963-1964, Ringo Starr wrote “Don’t Pass Me By”, which is his first and one of his few solo compositions he had written for the band. However, it was released as part of The White Album, meaning that the band took between four to five years to record and release the song. The reasons why this is the case vary, but it soon came into fruition after the Fab Four’s iconic trip to India.
Ringo-Starr-Hard-Rock-Live Image via Robert Bell/INSTARimages
Even drummers with little songwriting experience, like Starr, have their stroke of songwriting genius. For Starr, it happened only a few years into The Beatles’ prime, as Starr stated that he wrote the song while sitting “round at home.” “I only play three chords on the guitar and three on the piano,” he remembered. “I was fiddling with the piano – I just bang away – and then if a melody comes and some words, I just have to keep going. That’s how it happened.
Source: Teguan Harris/collider.com
The only thing that could outshine the news of The Beatles breaking up was the swirling, speculative rumors of whether they would ever get back together—something that John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and George Harrison had to answer to often in the years that followed the Fab Four’s split. The public’s curiosity was understandable. They were the biggest rock band in the world in the latter half of the 1960s (bigger than Jesus, so they say). Their dissolution was the end of a movement, not just an era.
As one might expect from four distinct personalities, each of The Beatles had a different explanation for why the band was no more. During a 1981 Good Morning America interview, Harrison put it in familial terms. “The simplest way of saying it is like when you grow up in a family and everybody grows up, and they all leave home, and the brothers and sisters all go and get married and lead their own lives, you know. It’s like really asking them all to go back and live with their mom and dad again.”
He continued, “For us, as individuals, we all had our own lives to lead. We had a lot of experiences, other than being four people stuck in the same hotel room together, that we had to live out.”
Source: Melanie Davis/americansongwriter.com
Ringo Starr & His All Starr Band have announced the first of their 2026 tour dates.
The group concluded its 2025 concerts in September with a series of performances at the Venetian in Las Vegas. The new tour starts in late May and runs through mid-June. "I am happy to be touring again in the spring," Starr said in a press release announcing the shows. "See you all in June. Peace and love."
The All Starr Band currently includes Steve Lukather, Colin Hay, Warren Ham, Hamish Stuart, Gregg Bissonette and Buck Johnson.
Starr's latest album, Look Up, was released in January, marking his return to country music after a several-decade hiatus. He famously recorded Buck Owens' "Act Naturally" with the Beatles, and the 1970 solo LP, Beaucoups of Blues, was recorded in Nashville.
He and Look Up producer T Bone Burnett are now in the studio working on a follow-up album. Where Is Ringo Starr's All Starr Band Playing in 2026?
Starr and His All Starr Band will hit the road on May 28 for a date in Temecula, California. Over the next few weeks, they will perform dates in San Diego, Tucson, Denver and Phoenix.
The run is scheduled to conclude with a concert at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles on June 14.
You can see the 2026 tour dates for Ringo Starr and His All Starr Band below.
For more information about the shows and tickets, visit Starr's website.
Ringo Starr & His All Starr Band Tour 2026
May 28 Pechanga Resort Casino, Temecula, CA
May 29 Humphreys Concerts by the Bay, San Diego, CA
May 31 Findlay Toyota Center, Prescott, AZ
June 1 Eccles Theater, Salt Lake City, UT
June 3 Linda Ronstadt Music Hall, Tucson, AZ
June 5 Thunder Valley Casino, Lincoln, CA
June 6 Vina Robles Ampitheatre, Paso Robles, CA
June 8 Kiva Auditorium, Albuquerque, NM
June 9 Bellco Theatre, Denver, CO
June 11 San Jose Civic, San Jose, CA
June 12 Gammage Auditorium, Phoenix, AZ
June 14 The Greek Theatre, Los Angeles, CA
Source: Ultimate Classic
If you are a devout Beatles fan, then you know the history behind their iconic No. 1 hit song, “Come Together”. If you don’t, then long story short is that Chuck Berry’s song “You Can’t Catch Me” heavily influenced John Lennon during the writing process. As a matter of fact, the opening lines in both songs are nearly identical. Consequently, after the song’s release, Berry’s publishing company, Big Seven Music, accused Lennon of plagiarism.
Instead of settling the case in court, Lennon agreed to record three songs for Big Seven Music. Though it seems this concern was a concern from the start, as Paul McCartney voiced his perspective on the matter when John Lennon first showed him the song back in the late 1960s. Paul McCartney Loved the Song, but He Knew John Lennon Needed To Change It Up.
In an interview with Dana Carvey and David Spade on Fly On The Wall, Paul McCartney recalled the moment John Lennon showed him “Come Together”. Paul McCartney seemingly dug the song, but he knew that if they didn’t alter some things, Berry’s parties would meet the band with legal action.
“We’re in Abbey Road Studio number two, and John comes in, and he goes, ‘Listen to this one I got… Here come old flat top,’ and I go, ‘John, stop, that’s ‘You Can’t Catch Me’ by Chuck Berry,’” McCartney said. “And he goes, ‘Yeah, I know. But it’s good though, isn’t it?’ I said, ‘No, you gotta do something with it.’”
McCartney continued, “So, that was a case where we had to get it out of that Chuck Berry tempo. You couldn’t change that opening line. It’s just such a good opening line, and John had to pay Chuck Berry for using that later.”
Despite changing the tempo of the song, it seems that it still wasn’t enough to avoid a legal dispute. Nevertheless, this was seemingly no sweat off John Lennon and The Beatles’ backs, as the song was an enormous success.
Source: Peter Burditt/americansongwriter.com
On December 8, 1980, John Lennon passed away in front of The Dakota Hotel in New York City. 21 years later, George Harrison passed away on November 29, 2001, after a battle with lung cancer. A battle he’d fought for roughly four years after he received a cancer diagnosis in 1998. 17 days before his passing, Harrison met with his good friends Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney for the last time, which was on this day, November 12, 2001, at a hotel in New York City.
Harrison’s battle with cancer was both lengthy as well as diverse, as the man didn’t just have one type of cancer. Originally, in 1998, Harrison had a throat tumor. Subsequently, he was diagnosed with lung cancer, and in 2001, the thing that ultimately took his life was a brain tumor brought on by the cancer. The day he passed away, the news was reported across the globe, and other than leaving behind one of the greatest legacies in pop culture history, his death also became a warning against smoking.
Nevertheless, on this day, November 12, 2001, Harrison scored a little bit of peace before his death when his friends and former bandmates met with him at a hotel in Manhattan.
At the time of their meeting, George Harrison was receiving treatment for cancer. The meeting between the three former Beatles was a lunch, and luckily, there were no cameras or press there to document the event. Rather, it was just three very old friends reminiscing on the past, which certainly brought both laughter and tears to the conversation.
Given that there was no press present at the meeting, there is no way to know what the three friends discussed. And that is a good thing, as that conversation should only belong to them, and them alone. While the subject matter is unknown, the meeting was surely incredibly cathartic for the three friends. It’s unclear if Starr and McCartney knew they were saying goodbye to their friend in this moment. Regardless, they did, because this was the final time they saw Harrison, as he passed away 17 days later.
Source: Peter Burditt/americansongwriter.com
By the time George Harrison and Bob Dylan were in the Traveling Wilburys with Tom Petty, Roy Orbison, and Jeff Lynne in 1988, the two already had established a long friendship, and collaborations, from the early 1960s, first co-writing, Harrison’s All Things Must Pass opening track “I’d Have You Anytime,” during sessions in November 1968 at Dylan’s home in Woodstock, New York.
Both remained friends through Harrison’s death in 2001 and collaborated on several more songs including co-writing several songs for the Traveling Wilburys, including “End of the Line” and “Handle With Care,” along with “Nowhere to Go” (“When Everybody Comes to Town”), a song they co-wrote in the late ’60s and later recorded at Dylan’s home in Greenwich Village in New York in 1970.
“Bob Dylan is the most consistent artist there is,” said Harrison. “Even his stuff, which people loathe, I like. Every single thing he does represents something that’s him. He may write better songs tomorrow, sing high on this album and low on another, go electric or acoustic, go weird or whatever, but the basic thing that causes all this change is an incredible character named Bob Dylan.”
From All Things Pass to Harrison’s through the early ’90s, the former Beatle also covered several Dylan songs along the way.
George Harrison first recorded a solo performance of Dylan’s “If Not For You” for co-producer Phil Spector in London during the All Things Must Pass sessions. Along with his co-write with Dylan, “I’d Have You Anytime” opening the album, Harrison’s cover of his New Morning track “It’s Not for You” appeared on side two of All Things That Pass. Dylan and Harrison later recorded “If Not for You” for possible inclusion in the Concert for Bangladesh, which was released on the concert film in 1972 and again on DVD in 2005.
In 1971, Olivia Newton-John also recorded a version of “If Not For You” as the title track of her debut album; the single went to No. 7 on the UK chart.
Source: Tina Benitez-Eves/americansongwriter.com
True love can and often does manifest in strange, mysterious ways—like the time John Lennon wrote a particularly pining Beatles song that he would later come to realize was about Yoko Ono. At the time he wrote the song, he had yet to meet Ono at her avant-garde art exhibition at the Indica Gallery in London. That wouldn’t happen until early November 1966, almost one year to the date that Lennon and the rest of the band recorded the song that they would feature on Rubber Soul.
As Lennon explained in Anthology, he wrote the Rubber Soul track, “Girl”, with no particular girl in mind. “There is no such thing as the girl,” he clarified. “She was a dream. But the words are all right. It wasn’t just a song. And it was about that girl. That turned out to be Yoko, in the end. The one that a lot of us were looking for.”
From the intimate performance that captured every breath Lennon took before a vocal phrase to the dreamy instrumental arrangement, he certainly captured what it was like to wistfully imagine the partner of your dreams who has planted themselves firmly in your mind’s eye. “Is there anybody going to listen to my story all about the girl who came to stay? / She’s the kind of girl you want so much it makes you sorry / Still, you don’t regret a single day.”
John Lennon called on many sources of inspiration for his 1965 Beatles track, “Girl”. One, of course, was the imaginary and elusive woman he was pining after—the woman who would later reveal herself to be John Lennon’s second wife, Yoko Ono. But the other was a far less romantic critique of Christianity as a whole. Elaborating further on the song in Anthology, Lennon said, “It’s about, ‘Was she taught when she was young that pain would lead to pleasure? Did she understand it?’ SI was trying to say something or other about Christianity, which I was opposed to at the time because I was brought up in the Church.”
Source: Melanie Davis/americansongwriter.com
For the most part, who took the lead on each Beatles song made sense. No one else could’ve sung “Yellow Submarine” but Ringo Starr, and no one could’ve sung “Yesterday” but Paul McCartney. They had four vocalists with very different strengths, and they used them to their utmost advantage. There was one song, however, that John Lennon wished he had taken the lead on instead of his songwriting partner, McCartney. Find out which song Lennon thought his bandmate “didn’t sing too well” below.
McCartney’s voice works twofold. He can deliver intimate vocals that shine on his ballads. He can also roughen up his vocals a bit and better align them with his blues influences. Most fans don’t have any issues with McCartney’s lead vocals, but Lennon took issue with his performance on “Oh! Darling” from Abbey Road.
According to McCartney, he found the vocal part in that song difficult to get right. His voice needed to equal the passion in the lyrics, which is not an easy feat. According to the former Beatle, he tried to record the vocal several different ways before finding a take he was happy with.
“I mainly remember wanting to get the vocal right, wanting to get it good, and I ended up trying each morning as I came into the recording session,” McCartney once said. “I tried it with a hand mike, and I tried it with a standing mike, I tried it every which way, and finally got the vocal I was reasonably happy with. It’s a bit of a belter, and if it comes off a little bit lukewarm, then you’ve missed the whole point. It was unusual for me, I would normally try all the goes at a vocal in one day.”
Source: Alex Hopper/americansongwriter.com
