When Carole King made the rounds introducing herself to all four of The Beatles at a party at the Warwick Hotel in New York City, the songwriter came face to face with each musician’s unique personalities (and reputations): Paul McCartney was affable and chatty, George Harrison was quiet but polite, Ringo Starr “was Ringo,” and John Lennon was snarky to the point of being downright rude.

I Can’t Believe That No One Remembers These 4 Hit Rock Songs From 1977

At the time, King didn’t press Lennon to see if his behavior was actually directed toward her or if she was an unfortunate but unintentional victim of one of his sulkier moods. She was hardly a nobody at the party, after all. Even McCartney stopped to tell her what a great influence she and her songwriting partner, Gerry Goffin, were to him. But at 23 years old, getting blown off by one of the biggest rockstars in the world was going to sting, no matter how many hits she had under her belt.

During a 2012 interview at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, King described the memorable moment. Lennon was the last Beatle she had to introduce herself to. “He’s standing with two women, neither of whom was Cynthia [Lennon, his first wife]. He looks high; he looks like he’s totally stoned, whacked out of his mind. I go over to him, ‘Hi, John. I’m Carole King. I’m really glad to meet you.’ Honestly, I cannot remember what he said, but he was so rude. It was like a smack. I’m like, ‘I’m getting out of here.’ I left.”

The moment stuck with her for years until finally, around a decade later, she was able to ask Lennon why he had treated her so coldly at the Warwick.

Source: Melanie Davis/americansongwriter.com

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For some people, an album is simply a collection of singles and a few fillers and nothing more. Paul McCartney, however, is an artist who typically considers his work more carefully. He and the Beatles helped define the modern album—work that seems to expand the bounds of what an album was in the decades before their rise to fame. Because of this, McCartney fans were shocked when he made an album full of what he called “throwaways.” Find out which album that was below.

McCartney’s writing always stood in stark contrast to his bandmates’. By the end of their tenure, the band had all but given up on McCartney’s whimsical songwriting voice. To pursue that creative ambition, he needed to shed the weight of the other Beatles.

Though he got his wish, it wasn’t as easy a road as he might have thought before the band broke up. Of course, changing gears might have seemed like heaven to McCartney in the middle of the Beatles’ tenuous relationship, but finding solo success was almost equally as hard.

Fans wanted more of the same, which they couldn’t have after the Beatles parted ways. In hindsight, it would’ve been impossible to please everyone with a debut solo effort, but McCartney made it even harder thanks to his daring introduction, McCartney.
The Risk of Releasing McCartney

McCartney’s debut album was a massive risk for the singer. McCartney swapped the Beatles’ polished perfection for something more akin to the DIY style we know today. He opted to rework older material and even improvise songs. This resulted in a work that was a far cry from what fans had come to know. Though it’s now looked on more favorably, McCartney was a hard pill to swallow upon its release.

McCartney once described this album as a collection of “throwaways.” But he didn’t mean it pejoratively. McCartney wanted to capture the energy of songs that don’t typically make the cut.

Source: Alex Hopper/americansongwriter.com

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There has never been a band comparable to the Beatles, so it stands to reason that capturing their music-altering run as a film would require an approach just as unprecedented.

That seems to be the logic behind Sony Pictures' The Beatles — A Four-Film Cinematic Event, the collection of biopics — each told from the perspective of an individual band member — officially unveiled at CinemaCon earlier this year.

The four interconnected films are currently casting up ahead of production and a planned 2028 release. In the meantime, here's everything you need to know about the ambitious project.
Who is playing the Beatles in the movies?

Sony understandably made a spectacle of their casting announcement, revealing the four leads for the "Cinematic Event" at CinemaCon, all of whom are actors on the rise from the British Isles.

Oscar nominee Paul Mescal will play Paul McCartney. Babygirl breakout Harris Dickinson will be John Lennon. The Banshees of Inisherin Best Supporting Actor nominee Barry Keoghan will play Ringo Starr. Stranger Things and The Fantastic Four: First Steps actor Joseph Quinn will be George Harrison.  Who else has been cast?

Casting outside of the Fab Four has picked up recently with Mendes adding actors to play romantic partners for each of the Beatles, as well as their manager.

Four-time Academy Award nominee Saoirse Ronan is on-board to play Linda McCartney. Deadline reported that Mia McKenna-Bruce (How to Have Sex) is playing Starr's first wife Maureen Starkey. Variety then claimed that Emmy-winning Shōgun star Anna Sawai and recent Emmy-nominated The White Lotus player Aimee Lou Wood are "circling" the roles of Yoko Ono and Harrison's first wife, Pattie Boyd, respectively.

Also joining the cast is James Norton (House of Guinness) as the man who helped shape the Beatles into the band that took over the world, manager Brian Epstein.  Who is writing and directing?

While Oscar winner and four-time nominee Sam Mendes is taking on directing duties for all four movies, a trio of writers are splitting up the scripts. Jez Butterworth (Ford v Ferrari), Oscar-winning Conclave scribe Peter Straughan, and recent Emmy winner for Adolescence Jack Thorne are all signed up for screenwriting duties, though it's unclear how the workload will be divided.

Source: Kevin P. Sullivan/goldderby.com

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An “impractical” song written before She Said, She Said is the first psychedelic song John Lennon ever wrote.

The Beatles member behind hits like Come Together and I Am the Walrus confirmed an earlier song was actually his first test of psychedelic-tinged songwriting. Lennon would confirm this two years after The Beatles had officially split up, giving an interview breaking down his writing style in the early years. Though the song proved “impractical” compared to the popular She Said, She Said, it would be the first time Lennon had written with a psychedelic intention in mind. A few candid reflections on the song in question were shared in 1972, where Lennon wished he had stuck to the “original idea” he had for Tomorrow Never Knows, a song which featured on Revolver.

He said: “This was my first psychedelic song. Tomorrow Never Knows… I didn’t know what I was saying, and you just find out later. I know that when there are some lyrics I dig, I know that somewhere people will be looking at them.

“Often the backing I think of early-on never comes off. With ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ I’d imagined in my head that in the background you would hear thousands of monks chanting. That was impractical, of course, and we did something different. It was a bit of a drag, and I didn’t really like it. I should have tried to get near my original idea, the monks singing. I realise now that was what I wanted.”

Source:  Ewan Gleadow/cultfollowing.co.uk

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Had he lived, Lennon would have celebrated his 85th birthday on October 9, 2025. Here are five songs written by John Lennon but recorded by other acts.

John Lennon’s body of work is staggeringly impressive. With The Beatles and as a solo artist, he created some of the most enduring music of the rock era. And though it represented a small fraction of his creative output, his work as a writer for (and in one case, with) other artists is worthy of note. In addition to his production credits (for wife Yoko Ono, The Silkie, David Peel and the Lower East Side, Mick Jagger and Harry Nilsson), Lennon composed songs expressly for other artists he admired. Nearly all of that activity took place between his leaving The Beatles in 1969 and the start of his retirement/hiatus in 1975. Had he lived, Lennon would have celebrated his 85th birthday on October 9. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the first of many compilations surveying his solo work – 1975’s Shaved Fish – here are five songs written by John Lennon but recorded by other acts.

“God Save Us” by Bill Elliot & the Elastic Oz Band (single, 1971)

In the years immediately following The Beatles’ breakup, Lennon championed a variety of political and/r social justice causes. One was the London-based underground magazine Oz. The publication had run afoul of obscenity laws in the U.K., and John and Yoko took up their cause. Lennon quickly penned this song with hopes of the single raising money for Oz’s defense. Phil Spector produced the quickie session, which has a flavor not unlike the material on Imagine, and enlisted Bill Elliott of George Harrison protégé band Splinter to record the lead vocal. Sadly, the ad budget to promote the release cost more than the single earned.

Source: Patrick Prince/goldminemag.com

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The Beatles had wanted to put on a final performance before they split up.

Though Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr would play out a show on the roof of Abbey Corps Headquarters, the four had spoken of playing a regular, attended show. Lennon would say it’s the reason he had agreed to a television special, which had been scrapped during the making of the band’s final two albums. Harrison would also say he “really wanted to play” but that the opportunity to do so had simply not occurred during their sessions together. McCartney would also suggest a live show was the right time to “light a rocket and really take off for the end” of the band. Plans for a show beyond the rooftop gig never came to be, though it seemed the band were keen on performing together in front of a planned, ticketed audience.

Lennon would say during the Get Back sessions in 1969 that he would have liked to play live with The Beatles again. He said: “I would dig to play onstage, you know? I mean, if it was all… everything was all right and there was no messing and we’re just gonna play onstage.

“You know, that’s why I said yes to the TV show. I didn’t want the hell of doing it, but nobody else wants to go on the stage or do a TV show. You know, that’s what it’s about. Nobody wants to get out there. You know?”

Harrison, Lennon, McCartney, and Glyn Johns would then speak on the possibility of doing the live set and even got as detailed as discussing an order for the songs. Johns would suggest the band needed to find a way to “change from the acoustic numbers to the electric numbers” and that the band would need a “run-through on each number to get the balance set for it”.

Harrison would then say: “No, really, you know, I mean. And also we’ve played… This is the most I’ve ever played by playing every day. And I can just feel myself getting… My fingers getting loose a bit. But really I just want to play. That’s what it was about.”

Even McCartney was up for a show and said it would be a way for The Beatles to “go and have fun with it.” He said: “I think all I wanna do is, like, uh… I probably, you know, having got it together, I probably just wanna go and have fun with it. Rather than just, sort of, finish off exactly as we started.

Source: Ewan Gleadow/cultfollowing.co.uk

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