During its 11-season run, Happy Days featured a large list of guest stars, but one of the biggest star sightings took place behind the scenes. Fifty-two years ago, John Lennon showed up on the Happy Days set—totally unplanned. The Beatles legend’s son, Julian, was a huge fan of the ABC sitcom, so the two snuck over during a tour of the Paramount lot.

In an interview on the Still Here Hollywood podcast posted on Oct. 5, Happy Days star Anson Williams shared details on the singer’s visit to Happy Days. “It was the first year of Happy Days, 1974,” Williams told host Steve Kmetko. “And it was a very cold morning. We’re on the set, you know, bored out of our mind, like kitchen scenes or something at the time. It was before we went live audience, so it was like a movie. And it’s just it was a guest star and the four of us and Jerry, our director.”

Williams added that he went over to get a cup of coffee and saw Lennon standing to the side.

“And there’s this guy with kind of cool glasses and a young kid,” he recalled “Walk back, go to go up to Donny [Most]. ‘Hey, Donny. This guy looks just like John Lennon with a kid.’ And Donny’s going [sarcastically] ‘Oh, yeah. John Lennon is here to hang out with us.’ It was John Lennon there to hang out with us. And it was Julian’s favorite show and he saw the show. He loved the show.”

Williams revealed that Lennon “stuck around for hours” “And pretty soon it was like it was he was like, ‘Hey John,” he said. “I mean it was at first you’re like gaga, and then he becomes a friend. So shy, so nice, and he’s doing all these original doodles for the crew.’ They now could buy houses with them, right?”

“What happened was they were on a VIP tour, and they escaped, and no one knew where they were …’Oh, Happy Days is there,’ and they snuck on,” Williams explained. “So the PR department found out about it, and they brought a guy who shot a picture. There’s a picture. That’s all we got. We have a picture. But we didn’t get a signature or anything … but it’s fabulous. It was fabulous to have that opportunity with a legend like that.”

Williams isn’t the only Happy Days star to talk about that fateful day. In 2018, Henry Winkler (Fonzie on the show) appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and recalled the day that “John Lennon just came to visit and brought with him Julian.”

“He was so—he was so shy, and I didn’t know how to get into a conversation with John Lennon,” Winkler shared. “Then I just started talking about his Imagine solo album. There’s a cut on it called ‘Mother,’ which is like a primal scream. I started talking to him about that, and he opened like a flower. It was amazing.”

Source: parade.com/Victoria Miller

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Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr share a musical connection like none other. The two surviving Beatles have worked together for more than six decades across albums, breakups, animated appearances and various musical projects since the Beatles broke up.

Plus, you can usually count on Starr, 86, to show up and drum every so often with McCartney. But until this year, the two legendary British knights have never recorded a duet together.

'Home to Us' was inspired by Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney's working-class youths in Liverpool.

That changed this year with “Home to Us,” a McCartney/Starr duet on McCartney’s new album The Boys of Dungeon Lane, which dropped in May. The album leans heavily on looking back to McCartney’s early days, and the nostalgic song’s lyrics were inspired by their experiences growing up as working-class musicians in Liverpool.

On Jimmy Kimmel Live! on October 2, the 86-year-old McCartney explained the circuitous route that led to the new single, which never actually involved the two of them in the studio at the same time.

Ringo Starr laid down drumming tracks for producer Andrew Watt in hopes they'd be used in Paul McCartney's album.

“It came about because I’d been working with the producer of this, Andrew Watt,” McCartney told Jimmy Kimmel. “Ringo heard I’d worked with him, and after I’d left, Ringo went over to see him and did a bit of drumming with him. I talked to Ringo, and he said ‘Yeah, I’m hoping you’ll make a track out of it.’”

McCartney said the unusual proposal caught him off guard. “I said, I’m not sure that’s how it works! So anyway, Andrew didn’t make a track out of it, and Ringo was well p------."

Source: okmagazine.com/Paul F. P. Pogue

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It took George Harrison a few years into the Beatles’ recording career before he started to show a comfort level as a songwriter. Once he reached that point, his unique perspective on the world brought something indispensable to the group’s music.

It’s hard to imagine any of these four songs coming from any other member of the group besides George. His candor and point of view truly set these lyrics apart.
“Don’t Bother Me”

Partly because they got off to a much earlier start as writers, John Lennon and Paul McCartney did most of the composing on early Beatles records. In fact, from 1962 through 1964, Harrison managed just a single writing credit for the group. That came with “Don’t Bother Me”, released in 1963 on the group’s sophomore LP, With The Beatles. Harrison, under the weather one night in a hotel room, forced himself to write a song just to prove he could do it. “Don’t Bother Me” immediately established his fondness for somewhat unorthodox chord patterns. And its standoffish message represented a stark contrast from the typical Lennon/McCartney affability.
“You Like Me Too Much”

After “Don’t Bother Me”, Harrison retreated from his songwriting efforts for another year or so. When he returned to it on the Help! album in 1965, he came up with two originals. The lovely “I Need You” deserves credit as being the better song of the two. But its message is a tad on the conventional side. In terms of this list, the better choice is “You Like Me Too Much”. For all their massive success, The Beatles projected an air of humility. In their songs, McCartney and Lennon often presented themselves as the lovable underdogs. But Harrison tells it like it is in this song. He explains to the girl he’s addressing that he doesn’t believe she’d actually leave him. As a famous rock star, Harrison likely knew that feeling well.

Source: americansongwriter.com/Jim Beviglia

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Sixty-four years ago today, the Beatles released the record that started everything—and it hardly looked like the beginning of a global phenomenon. "Love Me Do," released in the U.K. on Oct. 5, 1962, was the band's first single, but it peaked at just No. 17, according to Official Charts.  That modest debut looks almost impossible in hindsight. The Beatles' official history of the song confirms that it eventually got a very different reception in America: "Love Me Do" reached No. 1 in the U.S. in 1964.

For the band, simply hearing their own record in public felt enormous. "First hearing 'Love Me Do' on the radio sent me shivery all over," George Harrison recalled, according to The Beatles Story. "It was the best buzz of all time."

Paul McCartney remembered its chart appearance as a dividing line. "If you want to know when we 'knew' we'd arrived, it was getting in the charts with 'Love Me Do'," he said. "That was the one. It gave us somewhere to go."

The breakthrough was particularly meaningful because the Beatles were still proving that audiences would accept their original material. "Love Me Do" was an early Lennon-McCartney composition, and the band had previously leaned heavily on covers.

Related: 58 Years Ago Today: One of the 'Greatest Songs of All Time' Was Released. The Beatles Recorded It With Three Drummers.

The strangest part of the story may be behind the drum kit. The Beatles recorded "Love Me Do" three times in 1962—with Pete Best, Ringo Starr and session musician Andy White each playing drums on a different recording, according to the Beatles' official Anthology history.

The original U.K. single featured Starr on drums. When the group returned to EMI Studios a week later, producer George Martin had brought in White, leaving the newly recruited Starr playing tambourine. The White recording later appeared on Please Please Me.

Source: yahoo.com/Lauren Harrison

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Phil Collins has let go of his decades-old grudge against Paul McCartney.

During an interview on Piers Morgan Uncensored on Friday, the famed musician detailed an encounter (one he’s told before) he had with the Beatle back in 2002 during the Queen’s Jubilee Concert at Buckingham Palace. During rehearsals the day before the show, Collins recalled, “I had a first edition Hunter Davis book [on The Beatles], which was a very, quite rare, first edition. I’d been given it by Jill, Lily’s mum.” He added, “And I took it to the rehearsal so Paul could sign it.”

While sitting on the side of the stage, Collins said that he asked McCartney to sign the book and he obliged. However, Collins added, that’s when McCartney remarked to his then-wife Heather Mills, “He’s a big Beatles fan, is our little Phil?'”

Collins said, “I thought, ‘You arsehole’. I couldn’t help it. That’s just what I thought. I probably made more of it than he meant, I did make more of it. But when I was writing the book, and I wanted to write how I felt about certain things.”

When promoting his memoir in 2016, Collins revealed his story to The Sunday Times. After McCartney emailed Collins to sort things out, the Genesis musician didn’t reply.

Source: rollingstone.com/Charisma Madarang

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Paul McCartney will release a Special Edition of The Boys of Dungeon Lane in October 2026, expanding the album with four additional recordings. The new edition includes a “flip mix” of “Home To Us,” his duet with Ringo Starr, plus three previously unreleased songs: “City Fox,” “One Night Stand” and “Chelsea Boots.” The original album arrived in May and was McCartney’s first new solo album in more than five years.

The revised version of “Home To Us” swaps McCartney and Starr’s original parts in the song, giving the track a new vocal arrangement while retaining the pairing of the two former Beatles. The three additional songs were created during the same album sessions. The Special Edition will also be issued physically with cover artwork adapted from a silkscreened collage by Kate Gibb, using more than 100 images from McCartney’s personal collection. Formats include a limited-edition 2LP orange-and-blue marble vinyl with a zoetrope etching, with physical editions available for pre-order.

The Boys of Dungeon Lane became McCartney’s 24th UK No. 1 album across his solo career, Wings and The Beatles, and debuted in the Top 5 in more than a dozen countries. In July, the record was shortlisted among the 12 Albums of the Year for the 2026 Mercury Prize, marking McCartney’s first nomination for the award.

The album looks back on McCartney’s early life in post-war Liverpool, including memories of his parents and his friendships with George Harrison and John Lennon before The Beatles became famous. Alongside the autobiographical material, it also includes newly written love songs. Its title comes from a lyric in “Days We Left Behind,” a stripped-back song that references Forthlin Road, Speke and nearby Dungeon Lane. Discussing the song, McCartney said: “This is very much a memory song for me.”

Source: udiscovermusic.com