Beatles News
Dolly Parton has never been one to shy away from a challenge, and when the country icon set out to make her first rock album, she knew exactly which song had to feature the two surviving Beatles.
Parton's 2023 album, Rockstar, features a rendition of "Let It Be" with Paul McCartney on piano and vocals and Ringo Starr on drums, joined by Peter Frampton on guitar and Mick Fleetwood on percussion. The pairing marked one of the rare instances of the two Beatles teaming up outside their own solo projects, following their 2020 collaboration on Starr's "Here's to the Nights" and Starr's surprise appearance at the close of McCartney's 2019 tour.
Parton's admiration for the Beatles stretches back decades. In 1979, she recorded a bluegrass-flavored version of "Help!" on her album Great Balls of Fire, an early sign of the crossover appeal she would later fully embrace with Rockstar.
Getting McCartney and Starr on board for "Let It Be" required a simple, personal touch. Parton explained that she reached out to both musicians through a love note sent via their managers, letting them know what she was working on.
"I've always loved that song. I recorded the song without them, and then I thought, 'Wow. Wouldn't it be great if Paul McCartney would agree to play piano and sing on it?!' And then I thought, 'wouldn't it even be greater to have Ringo Starr — because that's the last of The Beatles — play on that track?" the country icon shared in 2023. Despite being the living legend she is, the "Jolene" hitmaker admitted she was "very humbled" when both Beatles responded with an eager "yes."
Source: country1037fm.com/Jennifer Eggleston
With a songwriting catalogue that features some of the most important music ever created, there's no doubt that John Lennon changed the world. His partnership with Paul McCartney throughout their tenure with The Beatles spawned some special, revolutionary, and oftentimes musically complex songs.
With tracks like "Tomorrow Never Knows" and "Day in the Life," there's no shortage of musical experimentation across the band's catalog. In a new interview however, the legendary singer's son Sean Lennon spoke about the song that he finds "shockingly complex," and the story behind its composition. That song is "Because."
The story goes that Yoko Ono was playing Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" on the piano, and Lennon took notice and asked for her to write the chords down backwards. These chords became the basis for the chords in the song.
It's so interesting learning this and then listening to the two iconic songs next to each other. It's so obvious, I don't know how I didn't notice the similarities sooner. The song is a particularly interesting one in in The Beatles' discography as well, as it comes just before "The Long One," the nine song medley that completes "Abbey Road." As one of the last songs the band ever released, it occupies this interesting place as a statement that they're still innovating, still experimenting, and still pushing the envelope.
Source: aol.com/Rylan Fischer
The Beatles were always open about the artists who shaped them. But within that broad field of influence, there was a select few they spoke about in near-devotional terms – figures without whom they almost certainly would not have become the band that changed the world.
Like almost every forward-thinking musician of their generation, The Beatles were profoundly shaped by the American rock ‘n’ roll explosion of the late 1950s. Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly and Gene Vincent all fed into what the Fab Four would become. But for John Lennon in particular, one American figure loomed larger than most: Little Richard.
Arguably the most pioneering performer of that era, Little Richard brought a wildness and physicality to rock ‘n’ roll that nobody else had quite managed – and it was a quality The Beatles would absorb and carry into their own music.
In The Life and Times of Little Richard: The Authorised Biography, Lennon recalls the moment he first heard ‘Long Tall Sally’ in 1956 – and how it immediately complicated his absolute devotion to Elvis.
“Elvis was bigger than religion in my life,” he said. “Then this boy at school said he’d got this record by somebody called Little Richard who was better than Elvis – we used to go to this boy’s house after school and listen to Elvis on 78s: we’d buy five ciggies loose and some chips and go along.”
The new record stopped him in his tracks. “When I heard it, it was so great I couldn’t speak.”
‘Long Tall Sally’ – frenetic, bluesy, barely contained – can be heard as a direct precursor to early Beatles classics like ‘Twist and Shout’. Hearing it for the first time, Lennon found himself torn in a way he had never expected. “You know how you are torn,” he said. “I didn’t want to leave Elvis, but this was so much better. We all looked at each other, but I didn’t want to say anything against Elvis, even in my mind. How could they both be happening in my life?”
Source: whynow.co.uk
A book signed by Sir Paul McCartney has sold for nearly £1,000 after being donated to a charity shop.
The copy of Paul McCartney In His Own Words, a collection of interviews with the Beatles star, was given to an Oxfam shop in Aberystwyth, Ceredigion.
The book, donated as part of a wider collection of 1970s memorabilia, sat in the shop for several months before its inscription was discovered by manager Joan Randle.
It was subsequently sold at auction with Bonhams, raising £950 for the charity.
PA Media The inside front cover of a book. The pages are cream and on the inside there is a signed note from Sir Paul McCartney. On the other side there is a black and white image of Sir Paul McCartney and the headline text Paul McCartney In His Own WordsPA Media
The copy of Paul McCartney In His Own Words was given to an Oxfam shop in Aberystwyth
Randle said: "The book had actually been sitting on a shelf for a few months alongside lots of other 1970s memorabilia. "I'd been planning to use some of the items in a fun window display, so it wasn't something we'd paid particular attention to at first."
She added that one afternoon she found herself "with a bit of spare time" and decided to work her way through the pile.
"It was one of the very last things I looked at. "When I opened the book and saw Paul McCartney's signature, I could hardly believe it... it was one of the best moments of my 10 years working in the shop."
The book is signed on the inside front cover in black ballpoint pen by Sir Paul, reading: "All the best! to ye!" Oxfam staff have so far been unable to trace the donor.
Source: bbc.com/Miriam BarkerRead More<<<
Some of the best songs come from a difficult place. Here are a few Beatles songs that are already a bit sad but become absolutely devastating once you know the thought that went behind them.
“Julia”
“Julia” is a song inspired by Lennon’s mother, who died in a car accident when Lennon was just 17. In a 2020 interview, McCartney shared that this was his favorite Lennon song. It doesn’t really even sound that sad, even though there are elements of grief in it.
Videos by American Songwriter
“Half of what I say is meaningless / But I say it just to reach you, Julia, Julia / Julia, ocean child, calls me.”
“Julia was my mother,” Lennon told David Sheff. “But [the song] was sort of a combination of Yoko and my mother blended into one…”
“Blackbird”
If you’ve ever heard “Blackbird”, you’ve likely felt captivated by that guitar riff that plays at the beginning of the song or noticed the catchy melody that McCartney sings over top of it. While “Blackbird” basically sounds like a song about a raven, the idea behind the tune actually goes a lot deeper than that, as McCartney explained to Barry Miles.
“I had in mind a Black woman, rather than a bird,” he explained. “Those were the days of the civil rights movement, which all of us cared passionately about, so this was really a song from me to a Black woman, experiencing these problems in the States…”
Source: americansongwriter.com/Kat Caudill
With a songwriting catalogue that features some of the most important music ever created, there’s no doubt that John Lennon changed the world. His partnership with Paul McCartney throughout their tenure with The Beatles spawned some special, revolutionary, and oftentimes musically complex songs.
With tracks like “Tomorrow Never Knows” and “Day in the Life,” there’s no shortage of musical experimentation across the band’s catalog. In a new interview however, the legendary singer’s son Sean Lennon spoke about the song that he finds “shockingly complex,” and the story behind its composition. That song is “Because.”
The story goes that Yoko Ono was playing Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” on the piano, and Lennon took notice and asked for her to write the chords down backwards. These chords became the basis for the chords in the song.
It’s so interesting learning this and then listening to the two iconic songs next to each other. It’s so obvious, I don’t know how I didn’t notice the similarities sooner. The song is a particularly interesting one in in The Beatles’ discography as well, as it comes just before “The Long One,” the nine song medley that completes “Abbey Road.” As one of the last songs the band ever released, it occupies this interesting place as a statement that they’re still innovating, still experimenting, and still pushing the envelope.
Source: parade.com/Rylan Fischer
Mick Jagger has spoken to NME about the “very easy” experience of working with Paul McCartney on The Rolling Stones‘ new album ‘Foreign Tongues’.
The Beatles legend teamed up with the Stones for their latest full-length effort – released next Friday (July 10) – taking on bass duties for the song ‘Covered In You’.
The Wings star and solo icon also spoke to NME about his excitement to get involved in the record, explaining that he was “chuffed” to be asked to contribute.
“You could be a bit blasé and go, ‘Yeah, OK, so what?’ But for me, it wasn’t – it went the other way,” he said, going on to recall how he felt in the studio.
“It was like, ‘Wow, there’s Mick [Jagger]! Ooh, there’s Keith [Richards]! Woah, there’s Ronnie [Wood]!’ It was exciting. It was really good. A great thing is all I had to do was play bass and not make mistakes, so it was good.”
McCartney continued: “I went home that day, and I’m saying to everyone, ‘I just played with The Stones!’ I was glad I wasn’t blasé about it. It’s really exciting. Not everyone plays with The Stones!”
Now, in a new interview with NME, Stones frontman Jagger has opened up about what it was like to get the music legend in the studio with them, and revealed that he recorded his part in “the same session as he did ‘Bite My Head Off’” for their last album, 2023’s ‘Hackney Diamonds’.
“The new tune is more of a funk bass part,” Jagger explained, before going on to share what it was like to work alongside McCartney.
“It was very easy,” he told NME. “Obviously, I’ve known Paul for ages. He’s not a stranger, but he’s never played bass with us before. It’s a different thing, you know?
Source: nme.com/Liberty Dunworth
In 1966, The Beatles released “Yellow Submarine”. On their Revolver record, “Yellow Submarine” is written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Out in 1966, the song became one of The Beatles’ many No. 1 hits.
An uptempo, light-hearted tune, “Yellow Submarine” begins with, “In the town where I was born / Lived a man who sailed to sea / And he told us of his life / In the land of submarines / So we sailed up to the sun / ’Til we found the sea of green / And we lived beneath the waves / In our yellow submarine.”
The success of “Yellow Submarine” is surprising, since it was never written to be a mainstream hit. Instead, McCartney says it was originally supposed to be for their younger fans.
“‘Yellow Submarine’ is very simple but very different,” McCartney says. “It’s a fun song, a children’s song. Originally, we intended it to be Sparky, a children’s record. But now it’s the idea of a yellow submarine where all the kids went to have fun. I was just going to sleep one night and thinking if we had a children’s song, it would be nice to be on a yellow submarine where all your friends are with a band.”
What The Beatles Say About “Yellow Submarine”
It may have been written originally as a children’s song, but it quickly became not only a fan favorite but also a favorite of The Beatles.
“Paul came up with the concept of ‘Yellow Submarine’,” George Harrison later says. “All I know is just that every time we’d all get around the piano with guitars and start listening to it and arranging it into a record, we’d all fool about…John’s doing the voice that sounds like someone talking down a tube or ship’s funnel as they do in the merchant marine. And on the final track, there’s actually that very small party happening. As I seem to remember, there’s a few screams and what sounds like small crowd noises in the background.”
Drummer Ringo Starr did the lead vocals on “Yellow Submarine”, which is a rarity for The Beatles.
Source: americansongwriter.com/Gayle Thompson
When most people think of The Beatles, they likely think of songs like “I Want To Hold Your Hand” or “Here Comes The Sun”. While these are great songs, The Beatles experimented with lots of different sounds in their day. Here are a few Beatles songs that might surprise you.
“Helter Skelter”
“Helter Skelter”, which appears on the White Album, is a lot more rock ‘n roll than most Beatles’ songs. When Paul McCartney wrote this one, he was referring to a helter-skelter carnival slide, and not so much Charles Manson.
He told Barry Miles: “I was using the symbol of a helter skelter as a ride from the top to the bottom – the rise and fall of the Roman Empire – and this was the fall, the demise, the going down. You could have thought of it as a rather cute title but it’s since taken on all sorts of ominous overtones because Manson picked it up as an anthem, and since then quite a few punk bands have done it because it is a raunchy rocker.”
“Within You Without You”
This is actually one of many Beatles songs that have a lot of Indian musical influence. George Harrison wrote his first song in this style when he wrote “Love You To”, which appears on The Beatles’ Revolver album. “Within You Without You” was his only composition on Sgt. Pepper.
“‘Within You Without You’ came about after I had spent a bit of time in India and fallen under the spell of the country and its music,” he once shared. “I had brought back a lot of instruments. It was written at Klaus Voormann’s house in Hampstead after dinner one night. The song came to me when I was playing a pedal harmonium.”
“Why Don’t We Do It In The Road?”
This is a quirky one. In “Why Don’t We Do It In The Road?”, McCartney compares the sexual relations of animals to humans. This one was written after he witnessed two monkeys literally doing it in the road while in India.
Source: americansongwriter.com/Kat Caudill
By the mid-1960s, the Beatles had left behind their matching suits and clean-cut image in favor of something far more bohemian. Rubber Soul was famously dubbed the band’s “pot album” by John Lennon, while increasingly mind-altering substances helped shape the psychedelic sounds of Revolver and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
It was a period of constant experimentation, both musically and chemically. As Paul McCartney later told Howard Stern, “Things happened in the studio that you couldn’t always predict.”
Stern asked McCartney about one of the best-known stories from the making of Sgt. Pepper: the claim that Lennon was tripping on LSD while recording the album’s fourth track, “Getting Better.” “It was crazy, because he had a little pillbox,” McCartney recalled. “He’d have his little uppers and his little downers, and he thought he was taking a little upper, and we could get on with the session.
“[Then] he comes over to me and whispers, ‘I took the wrong pill.’
“‘What did you take?’
“‘Acid.’”
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A bandmate unexpectedly taking LSD isn’t the ideal recipe for a productive recording session, but McCartney remained remarkably unfazed.
“Okay,” he remembered thinking, “let’s work around that, then.”
The bigger challenge was keeping producer George Martin in the dark.
“At one point, George Martin comes in, who knew nothing about anything,” McCartney said. “He said, ‘John doesn’t look too well.’
“‘No, he’s not feeling a little under the weather,’ because we had to hide it all from George. He was a grown-up.”
Paul McCartney on the Time John Lennon Took Acid Before Recording The Beatles’ “Getting Better” -
Source: guitarplayer.com
