Beatles News
John Lennon said a song from The Beatles' 'The White Album' has some social commentary. It’s not one of the more popular songs on the record.
John Lennon said a song from The Beatles’ The White Album has some social commentary. It’s also supposed to be a joke. Is it a funny joke? Well, that’s a dicey question to look at all these years later.
The book All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono features an interview from 1980. In it, John was asked about “The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill.”
“Oh, that was written about a guy in Maharishi’s meditation camp who took a short break to go shoot a few poor tigers, and then came back to commune with God,” John recalled.
“There used to be a character called Jungle Jim and I combined him with Buffalo Bill. It’s a sort of teenage social-comment song and a bit of a joke. Yoko’s on that one, I believe, singing along.”
If nothing else, “The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill” paved the way for future musical collaborations between John and Yoko.
‘The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill’ isn’t as beloved as another ‘White Album’ song
It’s obvious from listening to “The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill” that it’s supposed to be a joke. The cadence of the song is comic. However, is it really all that funny? Is the punchline — the death of a tiger — really that good? I suppose that all comes down to one’s feelings about animal rights.
Source: Matthew Trzcinski/cheatsheet.com
John Lennon's approach to a Beatles song makes it feel like it's from Narnia. The tune was a hit twice.
C.S. Lewis’ Narnia books and The Beatles’ songs are two of post-war England’s most valuable cultural exports. Paul McCartney said one of The Beatles’ songs is about a place that John Lennon felt was similar to Narnia. John did an incredible job of translating his feelings into music.
In the 1997 book Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now, Paul discussed Strawberry Field, the orphanage that inspired The Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields Forever.” “I’ve seen Strawberry Fields described as a dull, grimy place next door to him that John imagined to be a beautiful place, but in the summer it wasn’t dull and grimy at all: it was a secret garden,” Paul recalled.
“John’s memory of it wasn’t to do with the fact that it was a Salvation Army home; that was up at the house,” he added. “There was a wall you could bunk over and it was a rather wild garden, it wasn’t manicured at all, so it was easy to hide in. The bit he went into was a secret garden like in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and he thought of it like that, it was a little hideaway for him where he could maybe have a smoke, live in his dreams a little, so it was a get-away. It was an escape for John.”
John did an excellent job of capturing his escapes into his own little Narnia in “Strawberry Fields Forever.” The Beatles dabbled in Indian classical music, ska, pop, rock, blues, R&B, and baroque music. However, “Strawberry Fields Forever” feels more fantastical than anything else they released. Its psychedelic soundscape feels like it’s from another universe.
Today, it’s well-known that Strawberry Field was an orphanage. Back in the 1960s, fans might have had the impression that it was another world like Narnia, Oz, or Wonderland. Certainly, the song itself would not have dissuaded them from that notion.
Source: Matthew Trzcinski/cheatsheet.com
The Beatles refused to meet with someone who publicly insulted them. After a bit of pressure, though, Paul McCartney met with their critic.
In 1965, Paul McCartney was the only member of The Beatles to meet with esteemed playwright and composer Noel Coward. At this point, the band had grown used to politely greeting complete strangers, even when they were tired or irritable. They refused to meet with Coward, though. Here’s why McCartney was the only one to speak to Coward.
The Beatles were the biggest band in the world by the mid-1960s, but even they had their detractors. One of their critics was Coward, who described them as “totally devoid of talent. There is a great deal of noise. In my day, the young were taught to be seen but not heard” (per the Daily Mail).
Coward’s friend was a journalist for the Daily Mail and published his remarks. One year later, Coward saw The Beatles perform in Rome and described the concert as “just one long ear-splitting din.” Still, he felt he should congratulate the band after the concert. He met them at their hotel, where their manager, Brian Epstein, informed him that the band didn’t want to speak to him. They’d read his comments about them.
Source: Emma McKee/cheatsheet.com
The celebration is finally here — 60 years of Beatlemania! Or, more precisely, six decades since The Beatles conquered America, arriving on February 7, 1964, appearing to tremendous success on The Ed Sullivan Show two days later and being a part of our lives ever since.
Were you there? Did you scream when you saw them perform, or cut your hair to resemble their moptops? Maybe you heard the stories from your parents, watched the footage and have certainly heard the music. Whatever it was, you’ve undoubtedly felt the magic generated by the combination of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.
Their history is truly amazing and still going strong — from “I Want to Hold Your Hand” to last year’s “Now and Then” — but if you had to pick one year that truly captured Beatlemania in all its glory, it would have to be 1964.
In celebration of 60 years of Beatlemania, we’re taking a look back at 10 Fab highlights of 1964.
1. ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’/Meet the Beatles
60 years of Beatlemania really kicked off with the fact that The Beatles’ first single in America, “I Want to Hold Your Hand” (backed with “I Saw Her Standing There”), reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart on February 1, 1964, remaining there for seven weeks. The song that replaced it? The group’s “She Loves You.”
The album in America that the single came from, Meet The Beatles, was released on January 20, 1964 and became the number 1 album on February 15, remaining there for seven weeks until it was replaced by … The Beatles’ Second Album.
Source: Ed Gross/womansworld.com
The Beatles won the Best Music Video award at the 2024 Grammys Sunday night for the track “I’m Only Sleeping” — a song which was first released all the way back in 1966.
The song’s music video beat out other notable nominees such as Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For” and Kendrick Lamar’s “Count Me Out,” as mentioned on the Grammys website.
After many decades, a music video was then directed by artist Em Cooper and launched to The Beatles’ YouTube channel in November 2022. The video, according to The Beatles’ website, took over 1,300 individual oil paintings to create the “visual exploration of the space between dreaming and wakefulness.”
The last time The Beatles won any Grammy award, according to the Grammys website, was for the 1996 event, where they received three awards for various categories.
Despite the win, the living band members will not receive the award. As reported by Forbes, the award will actually go to the directors and producers of the music video because The Beatles, themselves, were not involved with the project.
Source: Paul Hoskin/deseret.com
Misunderstood genius or pretentious charlatan? Revolutionary artist or (frankly terrible) singer? Almost six decades after she became globally (in)famous, it’s still hard to find a cultural figure more polarising than 90-year-old Yoko Ono. Her relationship with John Lennon is cited as the blueprint of the meddling girlfriend, ruining her partner’s (superior) art, her work often derided and used as a punchline: no one really wants to hear themselves described as “a bit of a Yoko”.
But Peter Jackson’s seven-hour Beatles documentary Get Back, released in 2021, started to unpick the myths surrounding Ono and the break-up of the world’s biggest band. Yes, she’s practically omnipresent as The Beatles are at work, but she hardly seems like an obstacle to their creative process; most of the time she’s knitting or reading the newspaper. Now a new exhibition at Tate Modern, the UK’s largest ever showcase of Ono’s work, will further challenge what we think we know about her when it opens this month. It’s all part of an overdue reappraisal, forcing us to ask: how much do we really know about Yoko Ono? And is it time we started taking her work seriously?
Source: Katie Rosseinsky/independent.co.uk
The First Dramatic Minor Chord
The song starts with a slow introduction that doesn’t repeat later in the song. Lennon had picked up this staple from many of his favorite songs from the ’30s and ’40s.
You’ll never know how much I really love you
You’ll never know how much I really care
A Walt Disney Classic
Lennon’s mother Julia would often sing “I’m Wishing” from the 1937 animated film Snow White. Larry Morey and Frank Churchill wrote the song. The opening lines are: Want to know a secret? / Promise not to tell? / We are standing by a wishing well.
In All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Lennon told David Sheff, “My mother was always … a comedienne and a singer. Not professional, but, you know, she used to get up in pubs and things like that. She had a good voice. She could do Kay Starr. She used to do this little tune when I was just a 1- or 2-year-old. … Yeah, she was still living with me then. … The tune was from the Disney movie.”
Listen
Do you want to know a secret
Do you promise not to tell
Whoa, oh, oh
A Marriage Kept from Public Knowledge
As their manager, Brian Epstein was pursuing a recording contract for The Beatles, and Lennon was planning on marrying Cynthia Powell. Epstein urged Lennon to rethink his plans, as he had been selling the group as a quartet of young, lovable, single gentlemen. Lennon agreed to postpone the wedding, and The Beatles signed with EMI’s Parlophone label on February 13, 1962. Lennon and Powell were married on August 23, 1962, at the Mount Pleasant register office in Liverpool. Epstein was the best man.
Source: Jay McDowell/americansongwriter.com
John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr — appeared on "The Ed Sullivan Show" on Feb. 9, 1964. The 73 million viewers saw them perform five songs: "All My Loving," "Till There Was You," "She Loves You," "I Saw Her Standing There," and "I Want to Hold Your Hand."
Pandemonium that already had been labeled Beatlemania in Britain greeted them when they arrived at New York's Kennedy Airport on Feb. 7. There, they appeared for their first U.S. news conference.
"Will you sing something?" a reporter asked.
"No," they replied in unison, with Lennon then adding: "No, we need money first."
Hodo, his mom and two brothers watched The Ed Sullivan Show that Sunday in their living room in Doniphan. Hodo was 13 and overwhelmed by the experience, he said.
"It was life-changing," said Hodo, a local musician.
Within a short time, he and his brothers had guitars and drums, he said.
He had first heard "I Want to Hold Your Hand" in December. It had gone to No. 1 in the U.S.
"They were just having fun and making great music," said the 73-year-old Hodo. "It was the first time in my life I was struck by something."
Terry Smith, now a political science professor at Columbia College, was a student at Central Methodist University when the Beatles became big in the U.S. Someone in his dorm told him he had to hear this record, "Meet the Beatles," their first U.S. album.
"I knew I had never heard anything like it," Smith said.
And then, their appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show."
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Source: columbiatribune.com
The Beatles' ‘Rubber Soul’ is many things, but it's not an album about Paul McCartney's personal life. However, there are exceptions to every rule.
The Beatles‘ Rubber Soul is many things, but it’s not an album about Paul McCartney’s personal life. However, there are exceptions to every rule. One track from Rubber Soul is about Paul’s disillusionment with a 1960s movie star. Interestingly, Rubber Soul became a hit twice in the United Kingdom: once during the 1960s and once during the 1980s.
From 1963 to 1968, Paul dated actor Jane Asher. She was most known for her roles in movies like Alfie, The Masque of the Red Death, and Deep End. Similar to John Lennon’s relationship with Yoko Ono, Paul’s relationship with Asher left a big impact on The Beatles’ lyrics, including those for “I’m Looking Through You.” In the 1997 book Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now, Paul discussed butting heads with Asher. He didn’t like that Asher put her career before their love.
“As is one’s wont in relationships, you will from time to time argue or not see eye to eye on things, and a couple of the songs around this period were that kind of thing,” Paul said. “This one I remember particularly as me being disillusioned over her commitment. She went down to the Bristol Old Vic quite a lot around this time.” The Bristol Old Vic is a theatre company.
Source: Matthew Trzcinski/cheatsheet.com
George Harrison and John Lennon grew used to dealing with Beatles fans. During one early concert, though, they decided to leave in the middle of performing.
In The Beatles’ touring years, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr dealt with screaming fans, natural disasters, and political unrest. The band felt exhausted and worn out by 1966, when they agreed to stop touring. This exhaustion came through during one early show, though. Harrison and Lennon were so fed up that they tried to leave in the middle of their performance.
In 1963, The Beatles played a show at the Wimbledon Palais for their Southern Area Fan Club Convention. Beatlemania was not yet at its peak, but the band got a hint of how their future shows would go. They had mentioned liking the candy Jelly Babies, and fans began pelting them at the band during their performance. They felt boxed in, and Starr said they all began to get nervous.“I remember we were in a cage at that gig, because it got so crazy,” he said in The Beatles Anthology. “It was like being in a zoo, on stage! It felt dangerous. The kids were out of hand. It was the first time I felt that if they got near us we would be ripped apart.”
Midway through the performance, Harrison decided he’d had enough.
“Halfway through, George said, ‘I’m not doing this,’ and he packed up, went to the stage door and began looking for a cab,” road manager Neil Aspinall recalled. “I ran after him and said, ‘What are you doing? You can’t walk out, we’ve got to finish.’”
Source: Emma McKee/cheatsheet.com
