They were best friends since they were teenagers. Together they wrote some of the greatest songs the world has ever known. In 1971, they tried to destroy each other, one record at a time.

By the time Paul McCartney released Ram in May 1971, The Beatles had been done for just over a year. Those wounds were still very fresh. The lawyers had moved in and buried inside that new album was a line John Lennon just couldn't ignore.

"Too many people preaching practices / Don't let them tell you what you wanna be."

Those lyrics were a shot aimed directly at Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono, at their protests, their activism and the whole new life they'd built together. The insult was subtle enough to deny, yet sharp enough to hurt.

Lennon wasn't in the mood to ignore it or let it go. "It starts off with 'too many people going underground. That was your first mistake. You took your lucky break and broke it in two,'" Lennon said later. "Now, if that doesn't mean what it says, I don't know what."

So Lennon sat down and wrote back his reply.

"How Do You Sleep?" came out swinging. Lennon was hurt and went after everything, calling McCartney's solo work "muzak," suggesting the only song he wrote worth remembering was “Yesterday”, questioning how anyone, especially a star of that caliber, could live with themselves after falling so far. With George Harrison on slide guitar, Klaus Voorman on bass and the cameras rolling, Lennon recorded one of the most brutal take down songs one musician has ever aimed at another.

Source: yahoo.com.Deborah Cruz

Read More>>>

There was a time during the Beatles’ rise to fame that Paul McCartney thought he had found the one place he could roam without being spotted.

During an interview on The Zane Lowe Show to discuss his deeply nostalgic new album, The Boys of Dungeon Lane, the 83-year-old musician shared memories of navigating the early days of Beatlemania alongside John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. When looking back at that “very intense period of time” in the Sixties when the band shot to the top of the charts worldwide, Lowe asked McCartney how he managed to “remain relatable” and enjoy his life under the spotlight.

“I remember once in the early days of the Beatles, we were kind of recognized most places, but me and Ringo went on holiday with our girlfriends then to Greece and nobody knew us,” McCartney said, recalling thinking at the time: “This is great. Wow, we must come back here more often. Even when we get really famous, we can always come to Greece and they’re never going to know us.” He added, “But, of course, that didn’t work.” Soon, their music — and faces — reached Greece and beyond.

“I realized, ‘Oh, I’m going to be famous all my life, if I’m lucky,’ I thought, ‘Okay, big decision time.’ Now, you either stop and you just sort of think that was lovely. I had a great time with the music, and you do something else more anonymous or you carry on,” McCartney said. To handle the Beatles’ inescapable celebrity, the musician developed a “strategy.”

McCartney credited his family in Liverpool and being able to stay grounded thanks to the lessons they taught him growing up. “They are the kind of people who put people at ease,” he said, adding that he learned how to do the same by being around them.
Trending Stories

The Boys of Dungeon Lane released on Friday and Rolling Stone praised the record as MCartney’s latest “solo masterpiece.” “Overall, there’s the sense of a legend looking back on a life well spent,” Simon Vozick-Levinson writes in his review of the record. “This isn’t necessarily a new theme for McCartney, who’s been singing about what he once called his ever-present past for years now.” He adds: “the autumnal vibe is more pronounced than ever.

Source: rollingstone.com/Charisma Madarang

Fans of The Beatles may be aware of George Harrison's solo career, in which he quickly established himself as a successful artist in his own right. Shortly before and following the iconic group's breakup, the musician released a whopping 12 albums under his own name, with many of them enjoying critical acclaim, even more than five decades later.

In 1970, the Beatles' lead guitarist released All Things Must Pass, his third solo album and the first after the breakup of the legendary Liverpool four-piece. The record featured "My Sweet Lord," a song that has now taken the top spot on Grunge's list as the biggest No. 1 hit of 1970.

The track is arguably Harrison's most famous song after it left him in the middle of a huge music scandal that has gone down in history. In 1971, less than a year after the release of "My Sweet Lord," Harrison was accused of plagiarizing The Chiffons' 1963 song "He's So Fine."

Bright Tunes Music, the owners of "He's So Fine," sued the former member of The Fab Four, and the legal battle was dragged out for decades after his former manager, Allen Klein, purchased Bright Tunes and subsequently became the one to be suing his previous client.

Source: yahoo.com/Emma Kershaw

Read More>>>

It’s incredible to think that just six and a half years after the Beatles’ first single, Love Me Do, had peaked at a modest 17 in the UK chart, the band that went on to shake the foundations of popular culture were trying to find the right words to say goodbye.

The Fab Four’s final year had kicked off in a flurry of activity, with the writing and recording of the Let it Be LP documented in real-time by director Michael Lindsay-Hogg, throughout January 1969.

Beginning at Twickenham Studios before relocating to the Apple Corps studios at 3 Savile Row, the events of that frosty month would become the stuff of legend.

Although intended to be a quite innovative, fly-on-the-wall insight into the songwriting process of the world’s favourite band, which would culminate in a triumphant return to the stage, Lindsay-Hogg’s final edit of the film depicted the Beatles as a band fast running out of road. Their slow demise was seemingly inevitable, or so the footage that made up the spirit-crushing 1970 docu-movie, Let it Be, suggested.

But once the rushes and archive material were finally exhumed, examined and polished-up to produce Peter Jackson’s expansive, eight-hour labour of love, Get Back in 2021, it was clear the unbearable atmosphere of animosity had been heavily overstated.

The established perception of non-stop bickering through that timeframe was pretty wide of the mark. However, it wasn't all smiles and japes either. Yes, the signs of the band’s inevitable dissolution were absolutely there, but the tension was counter-balanced by an obvious mutual respect, which the original film omitted.

Source: musicradar.com/Andy Price

Read More>>>

Paul McCartney’s new album The Boys of Dungeon Lane is out now. Many of the songs were inspired by his childhood and experiences with former Beatles bandmates John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, who joins him for a duet on the song “Home to Us.” While Lennon and Harrison are gone, Paul said there’s one thing that gives him some comfort about that loss.

Speaking to The Guardian, McCartney said of Lennon, “My collaborator was probably one of the best writers of the century, so, yeah, you’re going to miss him. … But that’s life: you lose people.” He also recalled Beatles producer George Martin telling him about aging, “The terrible thing about it is all your mates start popping off.”

“Now I’m probably at that age, and I’m very conscious of that, having lost John and George – two big touchstones for anything we’re talking about [in this interview],” he continued. He adds “So, yeah, you do miss them. I start to get very sad, and I have to think, ‘Wow, wait a minute, everyone misses them.’ It’s not just me. So that makes me feel a bit better.”

“I think, ‘Well, sod it, it’s life, and it’s what we’ve got."”

Elsewhere in the interview, McCartney says that the sound of the Ringo duet – about their tough childhoods – was inspired by Oasis. After seeing the reunited band perform, he was impressed by how loud and massive they sounded.

“Forget about Spinal Tap’s 11, the amps are on 12,” he told producer Andrew Watt, aiming to get a similar feel on the track.

Source: everettpost.com/ABC News

Read More>>>

In 1963, The Beatles released “Twist And Shout”, a song that would become one of their biggest hits. Written by Phil Medley and Bert Russell, “Twist And Shout” is on both Introducing…The Beatles, their first record in the United States, and Please Please Me, The Beatles’ debut record released in the United Kingdom.

Before The Beatles recorded “Twist And Shout”, it was first released by R&B group, The Top Notes in 1961. One year later, The Isley Brothers released “Twist And Shout”, a version that inspired The Beatles to put their own spin on the song. Unfortunately, singer John Lennon was ill when they recorded “Twist And Shout”, making it a challenge for him in the studio.

Lennon was already suffering from a cold when The Beatles went in to record “Twist And Shout”. Struggling with a sore throat, The Beatles were at the end of a 12-hour studio session when they decided to record “Twist And Shout”.

“Someone suggested they do ‘Twist and Shout’ with John taking the lead vocal,” studio engineer Norman Smith recalls. “But by this time, all their throats were sore; it was 12 hours since we had started working. John’s, in particular, was almost completely gone so we really had to get it right the first time. The Beatles on the studio floor and us in the control room.

“John sucked a couple more Zubes,” he adds,” referring to a type of throat lozenges, “had a bit of a gargle with milk and away we went.”
What Happened After The Beatles Recorded “Twist And Shout”.  By the end of the recording session, Lennon was reportedly so sick that he sang without his shirt on. The Beatles did two takes of “Twist And Shout”, using the first one.

“Twist And Shout” became a No. 1 hit for The Beatles. But the song, although a massive hit for the group, wasn’t as big as some of their other hits. The Beatles dominated 16 consecutive weeks in the No. 1 spot on the charts in 1964. They spent eight weeks in the top spot with “I Want To Hold Your Hand”, followed by two weeks with “She Loves You”, one week of “Twist And Shout”, and five weeks with “Can’t Buy Me Love”.

Later in 1964, The Beatles returned to the top spot for one week, with “Love Me Do”, followed by three weeks with their “A Hard Day’s Night” single. At the end of 1964, The Beatles spent one week at No. 1, with “I Feel Fine”.

Source: americansongwriter.com/Gayle Thompson

Read More>>>