Beatles News
In 2028, the world will experience a musical and cinematic event that's never really happened before. Three years from now, in April, Sony Pictures will release four separate (but connected) movies about the Beatles, all directed by Sam Mendes. The four actors playing each Beatle have been revealed, but one person has some thoughts about the other historical figures in the movie. Namely, herself.
George Harrison's first wife, Pattie Boyd, recently took to X and fired off a tweet about how the movie would handle her role in the story of the biggest rock band of all time. "I wonder who will be cast to play me?" she said. "That's assuming that I get to feature in any of the movies..."
An international model in the 1960s, Boyd married Beatles guitarist George Harrison in 1966. They later divorced in 1977. Boyd then married famed guitarist Eric Clapton, a friend of Harrison's. In fact, the famous Clapton song, "Layla," was based on Clapton's romantic feelings for Boyd, while she was still married to Harrison. Clapton and Harrison remained friends, despite the fact that Boyd left Harrison for a different guitarist. To this day, Boyd points out that Harrison frequently cheated on her, which is why she formally left him in 1974. In a recent interview, she called Harrison's infidelities "blatant." Clearly plenty of material for a movie!
Source: yahoo.com/Ryan Britt
Over the past several years, Paul McCartney has been reintroducing music lovers to his former group, Wings. While the band may not be as iconic as The Beatles, or even quite as talked about as McCartney’s solo efforts, its discography is full of gems that fans have loved since they were new, decades ago.
Wings has been celebrated throughout the past several years with multiple re-releases, deluxe editions, and other special projects that highlight the great material it recorded. The band’s Venus and Mars is enjoying a brand new life across the pond as it returns to the charts, and even manages to debut on several tallies.
Venus and Mars shows up on three charts in the U.K. The album debuts on two of those rankings, marking a real comeback for a title that first dropped almost exactly 50 years ago.
The release opens at No. 6 on the Official Vinyl Albums chart, which ranks the bestselling vinyl releases in the country. The same collection also lands at No. 18 on the Official Albums Sales ranking. That tally measures the top-selling full-lengths across all formats, not just vinyl.
While Wings has appeared on the Official Vinyl Albums chart before, top 10 success is still somewhat new for the band. Venus and Mars gives the group just its second-ever top 10 on that tally. The first came last year when Band on the Run, credited to Paul McCartney and Wings, hit No. 3 and managed two weeks somewhere on the list.
Source: forbes.com/Hugh McIntyre
Mendes was nominated for four Academy Awards and won Best Director in 2000 for his work on American Beauty. More recently, he received critical acclaim for 1917, which earned him his other three Oscar nominations.
Of course, the Beatles are still considered one of the most influential bands in all of music history. They became one of the leading figures in the 1960s counterculture movement and pushed in the "British Invasion" of the US pop market. They racked up 25 Grammy nominations and won eight, including Best New Artist in 1964. From songs like "Here Comes the Sun" to "Come Together" to "Let It Be," the words "music" and "the Beatles" are practically synonymous.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, the films are being made with the blessings of Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and the families of John Lennon and George Harrison, who are all offering up the "full life stories and music rights" for the scripted films. Apple Corps, the group's notably selective label, also signed off on the movies.
Source: buzzfeed.com/Nora Dominick
Sam Mendes confirmed that his long-threatened Beatles biopic quadrilogy would be released in its entirety in April 2028. That’s right, all four Beatles movies want to hold their hands, so Sony is releasing them helter-skelter in theaters in the same month. Based on the logline (“Each man has his own story, but together they are legendary”), we believe the plan is still to do a movie for each Beatle to combine into an interlocking cinematic Voltron.
Sony also made its cast official, too, with Harris Dickinson as John Lennon, Paul Mescal as Paul McCartney, Barry Keoghan as Ringo Starr, and Joseph Quinn as George Harrison. All this raises more questions, such as who’s playing Brian Epstein and George Martin? How many years will it cover? Will the Blue Meanies be involved? We simply do not know. All we know is that each man has his own story, but together they are legendary.
Source: yahoo.com/Matt Schimkowitz
Paul McCartney and John Lennon were not only the dynamic duo behind The Beatles' hits, but they also penned tunes for other big names in the 60s, with McCartney also providing the inspiration for the name of an iconic rock band.
The ECHO has delved into how the pair - whose tense relationship is often cited as one of the reasons why the band split up - crafted The Rolling Stones' first smash 'I Wanna Be Your Man,' as well as supplying chart-toppers to groups like Badfinger with 'Come and Get It' and Peter and Gordon with 'A World Without Love.'
Beatles manager Brian Epstein was well aware of the goldmine he had in John and Paul's songwriting genius, with McCartney once writing 'a huge' song for the Beatles but then giving it to another band. He often tasked them with creating hits or passed on their compositions to other acts under his wing.
One such beneficiary was Bootle's own Billy J. Kramer and his band, The Dakotas. Billy soared to stardom in the swinging sixties, thanks to a series of chart-busters from the Lennon-McCartney team, including 'Bad to Me,' which hit the top spot in the UK charts in 1963, reports the Liverpool Echo.
The origins of 'Bad to Me' are somewhat muddled. Billy claimed in a 1964 interview that it was co-written with Paul in the back of a van.
Yet, John gave a different version in a 1980 Playboy interview, asserting that he wrote it solo while vacationing with Brian in Spain in April 1963. John shared with the magazine: "I was rather enjoying the experience, thinking like a writer all the time."
Source: irishstar.com/Dan Haygarth
Fans of the legendary songwriter Paul McCartney are calling his work on a movie soundtrack one of the most underrated albums in his discography.
Give My Regards to Broad Street, the film which stars McCartney, along with fellow Beatles member Ringo Starr, was praised by fans who say it is one of the best albums in the Wings frontman’s discography. Though the film did not do much at the box office or for critics at the time, fans of McCartney are suggesting it is one of his most underrated pieces of work and that there are several “great” songs on the album. One user took to the r/PaulMcCartney subreddit and wrote: “The most underrated Macca album is Give My Regards to Broad Street. And I’m not kidding.
“The album is usually maligned more than any other McCartney record (together with Driving Rain and Wild Life). Most songs/versions in Give My Regards to Broad Street are good, and several are just great.” Other users agreed with their assessment of the 1984 album and movie release, but also tipped the Fireman albums as the truly underrated pieces from McCartney’s backlog.
One user wrote: “Technically it’s a Fireman album, but Electric Arguments is greatly underrated.” Another added: “Electric Arguments is one of those albums where I like any given song heard in isolation but for whatever reason feels a bit of a slog to sit through in one listening session.”
Source: cultfollowing.co.uk/Ewan Gleadow
As the spring season blossoms across the northern hemisphere, music enthusiasts are revisiting legendary compositions, including an extraordinary Beatles gem. George Harrison, often dubbed “the quiet Beatle,” created musical magic with a song written in just three minutes that continues to captivate audiences even in spring 2025. The three-minute miracle: “It’s all too much”
While George Harrison crafted numerous masterpieces during his career, “It’s All Too Much” stands as the remarkable composition he reportedly wrote in just three minutes. This psychedelic anthem, released on the “Yellow Submarine” album, emerged from a moment of pure inspiration in 1967. Unlike his more celebrated works like Something or Here Comes The Sun, this rapid creation showcases Harrison’s ability to channel spontaneous creativity.
“George had this incredible ability to capture complex emotions in simple melodies. ‘It’s All Too Much’ came to him almost fully formed – a brilliant example of his songwriting efficiency,” notes Dr. Emily Richardson, Professor of Music History at Berkeley School of Music.
As we enjoy the refreshing changes of spring, it’s fitting to remember Harrison’s own musical rebirth. The late 1960s represented his creative spring – a period when he emerged from the shadow of Lennon-McCartney to establish his unique voice. This three-minute creation period symbolizes the spontaneous blooming of his artistic confidence.
Source: journee-mondiale.com
The music world lost a giant of a talent when George Harrison passed away at the age of 58 in 2001. Even then, Harrison wasn’t finished bestowing his musical grace upon us, thanks to the release of the posthumous Brainwashed album a year later.
For the most part, the album steers clear of details about the health problems that Harrison was enduring. “Stuck Inside A Cloud”, however, stands out as a brave and touching evocation of a man in physical, mental, and emotional distress.
George Harrison scrambled to put together his final album once he received a terminal diagnosis. Luckily, the record was in progress well before that time. Harrison had been compiling material for a while in preparation for a return to his solo career.
It became clear that he might not live to see the album completed. So, Harrison entrusted some musical confidants with a blueprint to finish whatever was still in progress. They included his son Dhani, longtime collaborator and former ELO mastermind Jeff Lynne, and session drummer Jim Keltner. Keltner had worked with Harrison all the way back to All Things Must Pass.
Because the song seems to refer to Harrison’s health issues, you might assume that “Stuck Inside A Cloud” came from the final months of his life. Keltner reported in an interview with Modern Drummer that the song was one Harrison had been kicking around for a while. And it floored Keltner every time he played it.
Source: americansongwriter.com/Jim Beviglia
Whenever a band breaks up, especially one as globally ubiquitous as the Beatles, everyone assumes the reason they broke up must be something salacious or contentious. Our parasocial connections to these groups make it difficult to imagine a reality in which the musicians wouldn’t want to keep going unless something awful happened between bandmates.
But sometimes it’s not that dramatic at all. Sometimes, as John Lennon explained in a 1975 interview on Tomorrow with Tom Snyder, the reason a band like the Beatles broke up was as simple as a case of ennui.
John Lennon Had Surprising Reason For Why The Beatles Broke Up
The Beatles were much of the world’s first interaction with a bona fide rock ‘n’ roll band. There was no distinct frontman and backing band lineup, and all four members shared the stage playing their respective instruments and singing harmonies with one another. So, when that seemingly unstoppable team force started to crumble in the late 1960s, people began scrambling for a reason to explain why the Beatles were breaking up. For most fans and critics, they assumed the band simply couldn’t get along anymore.
“We didn’t break up because we weren’t friends,” Lennon explained to Tomorrow host Tom Snyder. “We just broke up out of sheer boredom. Boredom creates tension. It was not going anywhere, you know. We’d stopped touring. We just sort of say [mimes picking up a telephone], ‘Time to make an album.’ Go in the studio, the same four of us would be looking at each other playing the same licks.
Source: americansongwriter.com/Melanie Davis
In a new biography out about Yoko Ono by David Sheff, there was insight into the Japanese artist taking her son she shared with John Lennon away in a black bag following John's murder.
Sean Ono Lennon was smuggled in a black bag following the death of his father John Lennon.
This revelation was spoken about in the new biography about Yoko Ono by David Sheff. David's biography is titled Yoko and he details the 92-year-old Japanese avant-garde artist's life through interviews with Yoko, her family, friends and peers. The journalist and Yoko have maintained a friendship since he interviewed her and John Lennon for Playboy in 1980.
He also ended up turning the complete interview and all the unpublished parts into a book in 1982 called The Playboy Interviews with John Lennon and Yoko Ono and in another called All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono in 2000. In his upcoming book, David shares how after The Beatles member's assassination, the son that he shares with Yoko, had to be smuggled in a black bag.
Source: themirror.com/Demetria Osei-Tutu
