Biographies can be a tricky, difficult genre to pull off. The best are written from a distance and focus on a critical assessment of their subject. They’re not afraid to hold the person at the center of the story accountable for indiscretions in either personal or professional life choices. The key to a successful biography has always been objectivity, distance, and a willingness to take a stand. This is especially true when it comes to divisive artists whose legacies are rich but still questionable. In the matter of Yoko Ono, the multi-hyphenate visual/recording artist, poet, sculptor, pioneering performance artist, widow of Beatle John Lennon, any biographer who undertakes a manageable account of the nonagenarian's life and times has to make a choice. Should he cover the prolific output, the colorful life, or both?

Ono turned 93 in February, and has been retired for approximately the past 10 years. She’s living on a farm in upstate New York. She’s given over the family empire to her fifty year old son Sean Lennon, who oversees boxed set releases of work by his father (Mind Games) and both parents together (Sometime In New York City.) Early in the prologue of Yoko Ono: A Biography, Sheff discloses his access to the world of John and Yoko: It was the fall of 1980. They had been recording their comeback album, Double Fantasy, a release that alternated tracks as a sort of dialogue between each other. Sheff spent nearly three weeks with them that September, wrote the feature for Playboy, and was devastated like most of the world at Lennon’s December 8, 1980 murder:

Source: sampan.org/Christopher John Stephens

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Every closed door leaves another waiting to be opened. When The Beatles split for good in April 1970, drummer Ringo Starr was more than prepared to embark on a new musical journey. Starr may not have been part of the prolific John Lennon-Paul McCartney songwriting partnership, whose volatile yet productive collaboration yielded roughly 180 songs for the band. With only two Beatles songwriting credits (or four, if you could include his co-writes), Starr seems like the last Beatle who would pursue a solo career.

Yet, with fewer creative constraints and more time at his disposal, the "song-first" drummer learned to trust his instincts over perfection. When he followed his heart into experimenting with different genres, it led him to create one highly misunderstood song — one that, contrary to popular belief, was inspired more by frendship than by hatred.
Ringo Starr Embraced '70s Glam Rock Realness in "Back Off Boogaloo"

They say drummers aren't great songwriters, but Starr seems to enjoy proving that wrong — even if it took him some time to find his footing. Before The Beatles split in 1970, Starr wrote his first song for the band, "Don't Pass Me By," which he originally worked on around 1963-1964. It was his first, and one of the few solo compositions he contributed to the group. However, the song sat in the vault for years before finally appearing on the 1968 album, The White Album.

Source: collider.com/Dyah Ayu Larasati

The album included two hit singles, the title track and “Jet.” It went to #1 in the U.S. and the U.K. and remains McCartney’s most successful non-Beatles album.

The cover featured McCartney, his wife, Linda McCartney, and guitarist Denny Laine posing as escaped convicts alongside actors James Coburn and Christopher Lee, British boxer John Conteh, U.K. broadcasters Michael Parkinson and Clement Freud, and English entertainer Kenny Lynch.

McCartney celebrated the 50th anniversary of the album by reissuing it in February 2024.

A documentary about McCartney’s post-Beatles career, including the formation of Wings, debuted on Prime Video in February. He also looked back at his time in Wings in the book Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run, which came out in November.

Source: kslx.com

Because they arrived on the scene around the same time and sported two vastly different images, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones were often painted as enemies. In actuality, the two bands maintained a cordial relationship, occasionally indulging in friendly rivalry.

As a matter of fact, The Beatles provided The Stones with one of their earliest singles. But only after they first deemed that they didn’t want to put the song out there in that same way. 

The frenzy that started to greet The Beatles in late 1962 in Great Britain soon enveloped The Rolling Stones when they started their recording career a year later. Whereas The Fab Four came across as polite and happy-go-lucky, The Stones put forth more of a bad-boy image.

But both enjoyed dizzying levels of success. And even when some in the press tried to imagine some sort of animosity between the two groups, they actually harbored no ill will toward each other at all. They regularly interacted in London as the beat music craze rolled through England in 1963.

One area where The Beatles enjoyed a pretty good head start on The Stones was the songwriting department. The Stones mostly relied on cover songs for their early material. Meanwhile, John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote most of the stuff for The Beatles. And, in one case, they donated a single to The Stones. 

Lennon and McCartney wrote the song “I Wanna Be Your Man” for Ringo Starr to sing. Since Starr didn’t write his own material, The Beatles’ chief writers tried to make sure there was something for him to sing on each album. They planned it for their second UK album, which would be titled With The Beatles when released in late 1963.

How the song ended up in the hands of The Stones is somewhat debated. Paul McCartney remembered members of The Stones randomly driving by in a cab and picking up Lennon and him on the way to the studio. In this version of the story, Mick Jagger and company asked if the two Beatles had any songs they might want to hand over. That led to them offering “I Wanna Be Your Man”.

Other principals, including members of The Stones, remember Lennon and McCartney actively pushing the song to the band, with Stones’ manager Andrew Loog Oldham acting as intermediary. In any case, The Stones recorded their version and released it as their second UK single in November 1963. “I Wanna Be Your Man” hit No. 12 in the UK, their first Top 20 hit.

Source: americansongwriter.com/Jim Beviglia

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Every artist has songs they can’t stand, and for The Beatles, that song was “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”. Recorded at a time when the band was already struggling, the song appears on The Beatles’ Abbey Road album. It was a bit of a pain to make, according to drummer Ringo Starr.

Starr told Rolling Stone, “It was the worst track we ever had to record. It went on for f***ing weeks. I thought it was mad.”

The year was 1969, and Lennon had been in a car crash with his wife, Yoko Ono, weeks prior. She accompanied Lennon to the studio for some of the recording, which probably didn’t help matters. McCartney, who wrote the song, also kept having new ideas throughout recording, which annoyed Beatles like George Harrison.

Harrison even admitted, “After a while we did a good job on it, but when Paul got an idea or an arrangement in his head ….”

Other Beatles expressed a similar sentiment. Lennon said he “hated it,” and that the track was done “a hundred million times.”

It took The Beatles four lengthy sessions to complete “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”. The Story Behind the Song.

Even though the recording of “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” was incredibly difficult, it’s ironic once you learn the song’s meaning. When Paul McCartney set out to write “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”, he had become interested in the works of Alfred Jarry. After hearing his play “Ubu Cocu,” McCartney was inspired. He wanted to write a song about a character (Maxwell) who also lives in Jerry’s fictitious universe.

“I don’t know, to me, the silver hammer is like a medical thing, it’s a little bit ominous,” McCartney shares in his podcast A Life In Lyrics. Apparently, Maxwell was a medical student, and his silver hammer is kind of like a reflex hammer. You know, the kind the doctor uses to check your knees. However, this hammer works a little differently. Maxwell’s hammer comes up from behind and greets its victims (Joan, the teacher, and the judge) with an unhappy fate.

Source: americansongwriter.com/Kat Caudill

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The Beatles' timeless sound keeps pulling in 18-29-year-olds across North America through streaming, TikTok trends, and endless cultural pull. Here's why their catalog hits different in 2026.

The Beatles changed everything. For young fans in North America today, their music isn't just oldies—it's the blueprint for modern pop, sampled on TikTok, blasted in memes, and dominating Spotify playlists. Born in Liverpool in 1960, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr exploded onto the scene with raw energy that reshaped global culture. Decades later, their influence pulses through hip-hop beats, indie tracks, and viral challenges, making them essential for anyone scrolling streaming apps or hitting festivals.

Why does this matter now? In 2026, with algorithms pushing classics to Gen Z, The Beatles rack up billions of streams yearly. North American listeners, from LA clubs to Toronto dive bars, rediscover them via covers, remixes, and social buzz. Their story of friendship, fame, and innovation feels relatable amid today's creator economy chaos.
Why does this topic remain relevant?

Source: ad-hoc-news.de

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