Beatles News
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
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.
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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
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
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
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
For Paul McCartney, songwriting isn’t only a job, a craft and an emotional outlet. It’s a compulsion and a craving.
“People say, ‘Well, why do you still write songs?’ And it’s just because I love it. I’m addicted,” he said in an interview at Boulevard Carroll, a warren of recording and rehearsal studios on Manhattan’s Far West Side, where McCartney, 83, had just wrapped up an afternoon of band practice for the season finale of “Saturday Night Live.” “Out of a black hole comes forth milk and honey. And it’s so great, the feeling.”
Prolific as he has been — through the Beatles, Wings and solo albums — McCartney doesn’t follow any songwriting discipline or routine. “I’ll just be somewhere, and with some time to spare, and my guitar will be there, or I’ll be near a piano. And the urge will take me,” he said. “Whenever I’ve hit something, it’s just like, ooh, wow. It’s a great feeling. You know, the whole creative thing is a great thing. I say it beats working.”
Even for a rehearsal, McCartney was nattily dressed. He sported a blue jacket, a black shirt with pink pin dots, black pants, white-soled shoes like karate slippers and socks with a psychedelic design of blue bubbles below a bright yellow stripe.
A few days afterward, McCartney would perform on “S.N.L.," playing old and new songs, including “Days We Left Behind” from his new album, “The Boys of Dungeon Lane.” Then, five days later, McCartney was the surprise final guest on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” onstage at the Ed Sullivan Theater, where the Beatles made their North American debut in 1964. As a musical finale for Colbert, he sang the Beatles’ “Hello Goodbye.”
In person, McCartney carries his six decades of fame with extraordinary grace. He’s genial and unpretentious, proud but not arrogant and still amazed and delighted at his life as a musician. “I wonder these days at how I ended up as a songwriter,” he mused. “Because, you know, I’m just some kid who went to school, went to the careers master who said to me, you know, ‘You haven’t got qualifications and, there’s not … I don’t see a great future for you.’
“So I had to take that and just sort of think, ‘Sod you — I’m gonna do something.’ And it made me work for success harder, because I wasn’t supposed to be successful. So writing songs was one of the great things about my growing up.”
The first song he wrote was a rockabilly-flavored tune, “I Lost My Little Girl.” McCartney recalled, “Someone pointed out to me later, ‘That was about you losing your mum.’ I wrote it at about 14, 15 years old, and she had died quite recently.” Although the Beatles didn’t record the song, McCartney would later unveil it in the 1970s with Wings. “This is an interesting thing about songs,” he said. “Without knowing it, you’re delving into stuff that maybe would be difficult to talk about.”
Source: nytimes.com/Jon Pareles
Paul McCartney has finally made the admission all Beatles fans have been waiting for – that the quartet are the greatest band across the universe.
The musician, 83, has always modestly claimed that the best singer-songwriters of all time were crooning duo The Everly Brothers, whose songs included “Cathy’s Clown” and “All I Have to Do is Dream”.
However, in a TikTok Q&A interview ahead of his new record, McCartney revealed he feels fine saying The Beatles – made up of McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr – probably pip them to the post.
“It is phenomenal, it is really phenomenal,” he said of the band’s stratospheric success.
“When we started out, we were just kids, and rock and roll was just really coming in, and we thought, ‘If we’re lucky, we’ve got a couple of years’ – that’s how long people normally lasted. They couldn’t really sustain much more after that.“
He said he only expected their music would be played for “maybe five years max”, adding: “Then that became 10, and we were kind of still going and the scene’s still there. Then it became 20, then 30, and now it’s right up there. It’s great, it is a lovely feeling.”
McCartney said he enjoys hearing people tell him their kids love The Beatles.
“That’s something, you know, because you can’t indoctrinate [kids], they just either like it or they don’t. I think The Beatles were the greatest band ever. I’m a fan.”
McCartney once named Don and Phil Everly as the musicians who inspired him and Lennon the most, stating: “To this day, I just think they’re the greatest. And they were different.
Source: the-independent.com/Jacob Stolworthy
In the wake of his 2016 death, Prince left behind an enviable vault containing thousands of unreleased songs, most of which will likely never see the light of day. While the late musician’s estate has shared a few selections from the collection over the years, there’s one in particular that Paul McCartney is hoping they’ll come around to releasing: a cover Prince recorded of the Beatles‘ Let It Be single, “The Long and Winding Road.”
“I was with some guy couple of years ago, so it was after Prince had died, and this guy said, ‘Have you heard Prince do ‘Long and Winding Road?'” McCartney said on BBC Radio 2’s Tracks of My Years. “I said, ‘Well, no, that’s one of my songs. I don’t think he ever did it.’ He said, ‘Well, he did. He did it in rehearsal. He was rehearsing it for something.’ So, he said, ‘I’ll send it to you if you want.’ He sent it to me and it’s really great.”
The guy, McCartney believes, was a personal photographer for Prince. He described the recording as “kind of rocky,” adding, “He plays some really good guitar on it.” McCartney proposed the idea of asking the musician’s estate about what can be done with the hidden recording. “I could make it into something really good,” he said.
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While the pair didn’t know each other well, McCartney recognized an undeniable talent in Prince. “He took a lot from [Jimi] Hendrix, but he was a great player. If you watch him play, he’s got that sort of style. Bow! It’s just there’s something about it. You know he knows that instrument,” McCartney said, later adding, “He’s a special guy. It’s so sad these people, you know, suddenly he’s not here, and it always makes me wish that I’d known him better and that I could sort of say, ‘Hey, man, come on. What’s going on?’ It’s such a shame because there’s such talents.”
Source: rollingstone.com/Larisha Paul
With Paul McCartney releasing his first solo album in over five years, The Boys of Dungeon Lane, and the Beatles’ four-film biopic’s main cast already announced, it seems only natural that the actor who’s transforming into Macca – Paul Mescal – had a chat with the legend about his songwriting process. And luckily for the rest of us, it was captured on camera.
“I teach some kids up in my old school in Liverpool, and that's like the first thing [they ask]. I don't know how to do this, which is not very inspiring. I haven’t got a formula,” McCartney tells Mescal.
“They used to ask me and John [Lennon], ‘How’d you do it? Who writes the music, who writes the words?’ I don’t know. To me, I think any story or song you’re gonna do, it’s gotta involve memory. With the Beatles, we always tried to write something different.”
Lennon still serves as a source of inspiration for McCartney – especially considering his upcoming album turns a lens inward and revisits the formative years that not only shaped his own life but the very foundation of the Beatles.
“I ran into this guy called John Lennon, and he was kind of fighting life,” he reminisces of his collaborator., whose first single, Love Me Do, was released in 1962.
“He'd had a lot of trouble. His dad had left home, his mom had got run over… so he was putting up a shield, so he's very witty, very biting. And then when it came to writing, that kind of relationship stayed there.
Source: guitarworld.com/Janelle Borg
