The Beatles have a complicated history. Their time together was plagued by turmoil, which dampened their legacy. However, there are tender moments in the band’s collective history that remind us that they were once kids who forged a friendship with music as the groundwork. One such moment is Paul McCartney‘s “Little Willow.” 

Several decades after the Beatles broke up, McCartney decided to pen a song in honor of Ringo Starr’s late wife, Maureen Starkey. Attempting to comfort her children, “Little Willow” is a sonic explanation of life’s unpreparable changes. Wind’s going to blow you hard and cold tonight / Life, as it happens / Nobody warns you, willow, hold on tight, the lyrics read.

Though the band had been broken up (and ended on a sour note), McCartney thought a lot of Starkey and didn’t think twice about honoring her in this way.

“I wanted to somehow convey how much I thought of her,” McCartney once said. “For her and her kids…It certainly is heartfelt, and I hope it will help a bit.”

Even though Starkey inspired this song, McCartney did what he does best and “conjured” up a larger-than-life story to help him tell this emotional tale.

“I was very affected by Maureen’s death, and I remember just going into a room and putting those sentiments into that song,” he added elsewhere. “The sort of fragility of life is in that song. But it wasn’t called ‘Maureen,’ it was called ‘Little Willow.’ I always prefer to conjure up some story or tale or some bit of imagination around something, because then I can get my emotions out, but it’s not quite as raw.”

Source: americansongwriter.com/Alex Hopper

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Starr, who celebrated his 85th birthday on Monday, July 7, was in a reflective mood as he looked back on his 37 years of sobriety.

The former Beatle was speaking to reporters at his annual “Peace & Love” birthday celebration in Beverly Hills when he made the announcement and shared how his life changed after giving up alcohol.

Surrounded by his musician friends, including Jackson Browne, John Desmond of The Doors and Colin Hay (Men At Work), Starr shared his sobriety journey.

“Well, I ended up in a rehab because I was not treating myself or anyone around me with any respect,” he said, as reported in People magazine.

“It was all about me, and I came out, and I haven’t had a drink since. Thank the Lord.”

In 1986 both he and his second wife, former Bond girl and actress Barbara Bach, entered treatment together to deal with their substance and alcohol addictions.

Starr has previously discussed his difficulties with addiction before, and in 2015 told the Times of London, he could not remember much of the 1970s or 1980s.

“I look in the mirror and I’m 24. I never got older than 24.”

The Liverpool-born drummer continues to keep a tour schedule that would exhaust musicians half his age and will take his live act, Ringo Starr and His All-Starr Band, on tour through the United States later this year.

Source: startsat60.com/Nicole Keramos

Yoko Ono was not a factor in the break-up of The Beatles despite being blamed for decades, a ­historian claims. Martin Lewis points to Apple TV’s recent Get Back series as evidence her presence in the Beatles studio did not cause the tension between John Lennon and his ­bandmates many insist was behind the demise.

Yoko being at the 1969 Let it Be album recordings has gone down in music folklore as the beginning of the end for the Fab Four. But Martin, who has worked with both her and Paul McCartney in recent years, said: “The fans wanted a villain. The media likes a villain. We all do. That’s natural, but not reality.”

‌Speaking about the Apple TV series, he added: “They are in the studio. Yoko’s there, which was unusual. They didn’t normally have wives or girlfriends in the studio. Who does John relate to through the whole eight hours? He looks at Yoko once in a blue moon. His eyes are on Paul. He’s with his buddy of the last 13 years. It’s all about John and Paul.

‌“Yoko was there, she wants to be there. He’s not rude. He’s just not interested. He’s working with his mate and having fun. The whole film gives the lie to that nonsense. It’s John and Paul, but bonding, writing, having fun, reminiscing. He’s polite to Yoko.

"She didn’t break up the Beatles. John and Paul have been together since July 57, when they were 17 and 16 respectively. They were nearly 30. That’s a long time. So they were growing apart. She’s not the villain.”  ‌

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Martin also claimed racism played its part in the treatment of Yoko and her public perception. Speaking at the LA Jewish Film Festival’s opening night film Midas Man, about Beatles manager Brian Epstein, he said: “A lot of it was racist because John was dumping his English rose wife and going off with a Japanese and an Asian woman. John made a very interesting point… up until Yoko, he was [called in the media] John.

Source: mirror.co.uk/Tom Bryant

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I never really was familiar with the original Beatles US album releases. I just knew they were different. I had seen some of the covers and just assumed they were some weird compilation albums.

I started getting into music as a teen from junior high through college 1979-1989 and my first Beatles pruchases were the so called red and blue compilation albums. A great introduction that covered the big hits across their entire history. Later I got 1 and Past Masters and Anthology even later. But I never bothered with the original albums much.

Then I got streaming and just assumed the albums as presented on apple music was what everyone knew. It was only later that I found out that those were the UK versions of those albums (with the exception of Magical Mystery Tour). But anyway I learned what their catalogue was from those albums.

So this is kind of a shock to me to see graphically how those albums were compiled and I did a deep dive into some of why.

I'l follow up with more but basically:
- the Beatles first couple of singles flopped in the US and EMI licensed away the Beatles rights to the songs on their first UK record to Vee-Jay records which was struggling financially, faced bankruptcy and had their own internal fraud to deal with. Thus the first album never got released in mid 1963 like it was supposed to.
- instead following a surprising hit in December of 1963 Vee-Jay decided to rush out the album in January despite legal proceedings and restraints from EMI for their breech of contract.
- what resulted (not show here) was Introducing... the Beatles which had most of those tracks from the UK Please Please Me release. It had various packaging from different pressings as Vee-Jay rushed to get out any product they could so there are many versions with different audio quality and back covers (one blank, one with ads for other Vee-Jay records, and one with the track listing). Between injunctions they would print anything they could and rush it out.
- but the Beatles were about to release their second UK album called With The Beatles and EMI the parent company of Parlaphone who had the UK rights retained the rights to everything else and their US division Capitol records released Meet The Beatles 10 days later with most of the songs from this second album. This album went to #1 for 11 straight weeks and the Vee-Jay record was #2 for 9 of those weeks.

Source: texags.com

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The Beatles' vast back catalogue of songs came together in many different ways. The vast majority were written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon and in the early days they would sit together at Paul's childhood home on Forthlin Road in Allerton and write in tandem.

However, as artistic differences within the band emerged in the later years, John and Paul would increasingly do their own thing - writing alone before bringing a piece of work to the other for tweaks and changes. Every song the two wrote for the band had a joint writing composition credit - even through sometimes they were completely independent efforts.

‌And in some cases, the two would write their own full sections and combine them into one song. This was the case with 'A Day in the Life', which featured on the seminal 1967 album 'Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'.

‌John wrote the first half of the track in January 1967, inspired by a number of articles he had read in newspapers. He then played Paul the song and Paul then added the middle-eight section, which drew on his Liverpool upbringing.

Lyrically, John drew on the news of the death of the Guinness brewery heir Tara Brown and a Daily Mail report about potholes in Blackburn. Paul's section sees the narrator waking up, having a smoke and running for the bus - said to be inspired by taking the 82 bus to school from Speke.

A similar writing approach from Paul and John resulted in the song 'Baby, You're a Rich Man' - also released in 1967. The track was the B-side to the non-album single 'All You Need Is Love', which hit shelves on July 7, 1967.

Source: liverpoolecho.co.uk/Dan Haygarth

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A book of Beatles -era photographs taken by George Harrison, many of them never published, will be released next year.

Random House announced Thursday that ''The Third Eye,'' which includes more than 250 black and white and color images, is scheduled for Fall 2026. Harrison's widow, Olivia Harrison, compiled and curated the book, which covers the years 1963-69 and includes photos of the Beatles everywhere from their native Liverpool to India to Shea Stadium.

''I want to show people, from George's unique photographic perspective during the Beatles' early years, the moments when the whole of your life is ahead of you with unknowable possibilities," Olivia Harrison said of her late husband, who died in 2001, in a statement released by Random House.

"His images in ‘The Third Eye' capture that spirit.''

The Harrison book features essays by Olivia Harrison and by two celebrated literary authors: Irish novelist Colm Tóibín (a former chancellor of the University of Liverpool) wrote the introduction, and American short story writer George Saunders contributed an epilogue. ''The Third Eye'' also includes George Harrison's words alongside his pictures.

Fellow Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr also have released photo books. Starr's ''Photograph,'' also the title of a hit song written by Starr and Harrison, came out in 2015. In 2023, McCartney published ''1964: Eyes of the Storm.''

Source: startribune.com/HILLEL ITALIE