“The Beatles” and “heavy metal” are largely regarded as residing on opposite ends of the musical spectrum. But every so often on a rogue 1960s track, the Venn diagram between these two phenomena became nearly circular. Songs like “Helter Skelter” and “Why Don’t We Do It In The Road” come to mind, and certainly post-Beatles songs from John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Plastic Ono Band could qualify.

What this writer wouldn’t expect is that the song Lennon once cited as the first heavy metal record would come from their 1965 album, Help! Smack dab in the middle of the decade, we were still years away from the heavy offerings of Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and Deep Purple. Not even The Beatles were that far into their experimental, psychedelic phase by that point. But they were getting close.

And according to Lennon, “Ticket To Ride” was the band’s first foray into heavy (or, perhaps more accurately, relatively heavier) rock ‘n’ roll. The song boasts Lennon and Paul McCartney’s signature harmonies and a syncopated rhythm section with accompanying drone notes that foreshadowed their later works. But was it actually heavy metal?
According to John Lennon (And the Times), That Answer Would Be Yes

As genres evolve and intensify, it’s only natural that the “first” versions of that style become paler by comparison. Sure, “Ticket To Ride” by The Beatles doesn’t seem like heavy metal now. But as John Lennon put it in Anthology, the song was “slightly a new sound at the time. It was pretty f***ing heavy for then, if you go and look in the charts for what other music people were making. You hear it now, and it doesn’t sound too bad. It’s a heavy record, and the drums are heavy, too. That’s why I like it.”

Source: americansongwriter.com/Melanie Davis

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Entertainment legend, global philanthropist and friend of Maya Angelou, Oprah Winfrey has achieved every dream she ever had — except for one.

In a Tuesday appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, Winfrey spoke about how she’s been fortunate to have every one of her wildest wishes come true. The only one that never came to fruition was ending up with her teenage crush.

“Everything I ever wanted or dreamed came true,” Winfrey said. “Except, I did not marry Paul McCartney.“

The media mogul goes on to share that, growing up, she was the only girl she knew who loved The Beatles as much as she did. She even collected Beatles trading cards. And of course, like every fangirl she had a favorite member of the band.

“Of course Paul was my favorite Beatle. And I used to try to make him think of me,” Winfrey says, clutching her fists and remembering. “I used to wake in the morning and I’d stand on the stairs and say, ‘Think of me, think of me, think of me.'”

Unlike most other fangirls, however, Winfrey actually got to know her childhood crush one day. She shares that, years later, when she got the chance to interview the rock legend, she took the opportunity to ask him the question that’s been burning in the back of her mind since childhood.

“My first question to him was, ‘All those years, I was 14, and I was thinking of you. Did you ever once think of me?'” she recounts. McCartney’s reply is one that every fan hopes to hear one day: “Every day, babe, every day.”

Though Winfrey never got the chance to marry her favorite Beatle, the two of them did participate in a very special ceremony together one day. In 2010, both entertainers were awarded with Kennedy Center Honors. One of Winfrey’s favorite memories of that big night occurred not when she received her honor, but when The Beatles’ Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 “Hey Jude” began playing.

“[McCartney] took my hand,” she said. “And that was the dream I had all those years!”

Source: billboard.com/Annie Harrigan

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Paul McCartney ranks as one of the most successful rock musicians of all time. He has earned that honor in several ways, as multiple acts he’s been a part of — The Beatles, Wings, and of course McCartney as a soloist — have enjoyed years-long runs as hitmakers and powerful sellers.

Later this spring, the celebrated rocker will deliver a new album titled The Boys of Dungeon Lane. The set, expected in late May, will mark his first solo release in more than half a decade, and it is bound to do great things on charts globally. The first single from the project, “The Days We Left Behind,” arrives on one Billboard tally this frame, and it earns the superstar one more American top 10.

“The Days We Left Behind” only manages to appear on a single list published by Billboard this frame, and while McCartney and his label were surely hoping for a more impressive response in America, the fact that the cut debuts inside the top 10 should be counted as a win. This frame, “The Days We Left Behind” opens at No. 7 on the Rock Digital Song Sales chart, which details the bestselling tunes classified by Billboard specifically as rock via platforms like iTunes and Amazon.

Source: forbes.com/Hugh McIntyre

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Farhan Akhtar has been tapped to play Ravi Shankar, legendary sitarist and composer, in Sam Mendes' four films based on The Beatles singers. Netizens have been buzzing with enthusiasm ever since Sony Pictures, the films' distributor, announced the news. Funnily enough, some even mistook Ravi Shankar for the spiritual leader of the same name, wondering how Farhan would fit into the role because he hardly looks like the spiritual guru. Now that the record has been set straight, the question still remains as to what role Ravi Shankar played in The Beatles.

What is Ravi Shankar's connection with The Beatles?

The legendary sitarist had a decades-long history with The Beatles' guitarist George Harrison. He taught Harrison how to play the sitar. Interestingly, Ravi Shankar once did not know anything about The Beatles, not even about its existence. Ravi asked Harrison whether he would like to accompany him to India and learn the instrument, and he gracefully obliged. When Harrison came to India, he changed his identity to Mr Sam Wells, but he could not sustain the disguise because people here recognised him. Due to the constant attention, Harrison cut off his hair and grew a moustache upon Ravi's advice and accompanied the latter to Srinagar.

Source: cinemaexpress.com/Cinema Express Desk

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What would an artist be without their first record? Although The Beatles would go on to have plenty of No. 1 albums throughout their career, it was Please Please Me that got them started and catapulted them into the spotlight forever. Here are three favorite tracks from the album that The Beatles put together while they were still figuring out what it even was to be “a Beatle.”

“There’s A Place”

“There’s A Place” is one of The Beatles’ more sing-alongy songs, in my opinion. The song actually draws inspiration from “Somewhere” in the musical West Side Story, where Tony meets Maria at her window after the Rumble, during which he kills her brother, Bernardo.

“Someday” sings, “Someday, somehow / We’ll find a new way of living / We’ll find there’s a way of forgiving / Somewhere / There’s a place for us / A time and a place for us /Hold my hand and we’re halfway there.”

“In our case, the place was in the mind, rather than round the back of the stairs for a kiss and a cuddle,” McCartney explains of “There’s A Place” in Many Years From Now.
“Baby It’s You”

“Baby It’s You” has this doo-wop groove that makes you feel like you’re listening to something straight from the jukebox. That’s probably because, before The Beatles did their own spin on it, “Baby It’s You” was first recorded by The Shirelles, a popular 60s girl group. The Beatles were big fans of that type of music, and so when they were finishing up Please Please Me, they chose to finish it off with a couple of covers. “Baby It’s You” made the cut.
“I Saw Her Standing There”

Source: americansongwriter.com/Kat Caudill

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One has to wonder: Did the Beatles know they were about to record one of the most influential songs in rock history when they stepped into the studio 60 years ago this week?

"Tomorrow Never Knows," the last track on Revolver, was actually the first song to be recorded for the album, according to the Beatles Bible, with sessions taking place on April 6, 7, and 22.

The title (which doesn't actually appear anywhere in the song) came from one of Ringo Starr's sayings, while the lyrics were inspired by the 1964 book The Psychedelic Experience by Harvard psychologists Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner, and Richard Alpert.

In Leary's introduction, John Lennon read the words, "turn off your mind, relax, float downstream" (which, of course, became the first line of "Tomorrow Never Knows").

As Paul McCartney recalled in Anthology, the song was "definitely John's."

"Round about this time people were starting to experiment with drugs, including LSD," he explained. "John had got hold of Timothy Leary’s adaptation of The Tibetan Book of the Dead, which is a pretty interesting book. For the first time we got the idea that, as with ancient Egyptian practice, when you die you lie in state for a few days, and then some of your handmaidens come and prepare you for a huge voyage. Rather than the British version, in which you just pop your clogs. With LSD, this theme was all the more interesting."
'Tomorrow Never Knows' helped shape the sound of modern music.

Source: yahoo.com/Jacqueline Burt Cote

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