Beatles News
John Lennon said George Harrison and Paul McCartney resented his creativity. He bounced back after a period of a inactivity.
John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison wrote the majority of The Beatles’ songs. While Lennon and McCartney were the primary writers in The Beatles’ early years, Harrison made more contributions later on. They were all competitive with one another, which typically pushed their creative output. Still, Lennon claimed the competition between them led McCartney and Lennon to resent him.
In the mid-1960s, Lennon said he dealt with a creative slump. He pulled back his songwriting contributions, but he continued writing more in the later years of the decade. One of the songs he was excited about in 1968 was “Revolution.” Harrison and McCartney didn’t seem to share the sentiment.
“When George and Paul and all of them were on holiday, I made ‘Revolution’ which is on the LP,” Lennon said in The Beatles Anthology. “I wanted to put it out as a single, but they said it wasn’t good enough. We put out ‘Hey Jude’, which was worthy — but we could have had both.”
Lennon said he believed they were reacting to the band’s generally strained dynamic more than they were to the song itself.
Source: Emma McKee/cheatsheet.com
What makes a classic James Bond song? A sense of the epic, surely. Flaring brass, rippling strings. A melody-driven framework, an irresistible hook. Paul McCartney and Wings’ “Live and Let Die”, written for the eighth instalment of the film franchise, certainly ticks the right boxes. And yet when it was released ahead of the 1973 premiere, it must have puzzled. In the first 90 seconds alone we hear three disparate sound-worlds, each in a different tempo, juxtaposed with all the subtlety of a Walther PPK.
This mirrors, in part, the contributions of its three creators: McCartney, his wife Linda and former Beatles producer George Martin. In his book The Lyrics, McCartney recalls how it came together. He’d read Ian Fleming’s novel — the basis for the screenplay — in one afternoon and written the song the following day. The opening passage is pure McCartney: a searching tune over piano, wistfully sweet, reminiscent of his great ballad “Let It Be”.
Source: Timmy Fisher/ig.ft.com
While discussing his marriage, John Lennon once compared himself and Yoko Ono to Sonny & Cher. He also tried to distance himself from Sonny & Cher. Perhaps his mixed attitude about the “I Got You Babe” singers was justified! John and Yoko arguably put out more music as a pair than Sonny & Cher. John Lennon said he and Yoko Ono were as attached to each other as Sonny & Cher
During an interview recorded in PBS’ Blank on Blank, John discussed how he spent lots and lots of time with Yoko. “I lived alone,” he recalled. “I always tripped out on my own or in books or something like that, you know. But she had sisters and brothers, but she was in a different age group from them, so she was pretty lonely.”
“So we don’t have to be apart to get away from each other,” he said. “And we really like being together all the time. And what about Sonny & Cher and Liz [Taylor] and Richard [Burton]? I don’t think they’re ever apart, you know.”
The ‘Power to the People’ contrasted himself with 2 other groups.
The book All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono features an interview from 1980. In it, the “Imagine” singer distanced himself from Sonny & Cher when he recalled his early feelings about Yoko.
“I was still selfish enough and unaware enough to sort of take her contribution without acknowledging it,” he said. “I was still full of wanting my own space after being in a room with the guys all the time, having to share everything. So when Yoko would even wear the same color as me, I used to get madly upset: We are not The Beatles! We are not f***** Sonny & Cher!
Source:Matthew Trzcinski/cheatsheet.com
While discussing his marriage, John Lennon once compared himself and Yoko Ono to Sonny & Cher. He also tried to distance himself from Sonny & Cher. Perhaps his mixed attitude about the “I Got You Babe” singers was justified! John and Yoko arguably put out more music as a pair than Sonny & Cher. John Lennon said he and Yoko Ono were as attached to each other as Sonny & Cher
During an interview recorded in PBS’ Blank on Blank, John discussed how he spent lots and lots of time with Yoko. “I lived alone,” he recalled. “I always tripped out on my own or in books or something like that, you know. But she had sisters and brothers, but she was in a different age group from them, so she was pretty lonely.”
“So we don’t have to be apart to get away from each other,” he said. “And we really like being together all the time. And what about Sonny & Cher and Liz [Taylor] and Richard [Burton]? I don’t think they’re ever apart, you know.”
The ‘Power to the People’ contrasted himself with 2 other groups.
The book All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono features an interview from 1980. In it, the “Imagine” singer distanced himself from Sonny & Cher when he recalled his early feelings about Yoko.
“I was still selfish enough and unaware enough to sort of take her contribution without acknowledging it,” he said. “I was still full of wanting my own space after being in a room with the guys all the time, having to share everything. So when Yoko would even wear the same color as me, I used to get madly upset: We are not The Beatles! We are not f***** Sonny & Cher!
Source:Matthew Trzcinski/cheatsheet.com
A famous comedian targeted The Beatles at his show. George Harrison said the band could have turned on him if they wanted.
During The Beatles’ 1964 trip to America, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr went to a comedy show. Don Rickles was doing standup in Miami and the band stopped in to see him. They weren’t familiar with his comedy but quickly discovered that he liked poking fun at his audience. Harrison said that if they had been in their own element, they could have hit back at Rickles.
George Harrison said The Beatles could have ripped Don Rickles to shreds
The Beatles were some of the most famous people in the world in 1964, so, naturally, Rickles poked fun at them during his show.
“He went on, ‘It’s great. They just lie up there on the ninth floor, between satin sheets and every time they hear the girls screaming they “Oooohh”‘ McCartney recalled in The Beatles Anthology. “Very funny, we thought. We were not amused, as I recall. Very cutting. I like him now but at first he was a bit of a shock.”
Source: Emma McKee/cheatsheet.com
We all have that one person that brings a sense of comfort to us. That feeling is so universal that one of James Taylor‘s signature songs was written about that idea. Check out the meaning behind “Something in the Way She Moves,” below.
There’s something in the way she moves
Or looks my way, or calls my name
That seems to leave this troubled world behind
If I’m feeling down and blue
Or troubled by some foolish game
She always seems to make me change my mind
“The song is about an early girlfriend and the calm you feel in the presence of someone who knows you really well,” Taylor once said of this track.
Knowing that, the lyrics become fairly self-explanatory. Taylor has many songs that capture specific feelings using simple language. This is one such song.
And I feel fine anytime she’s around me now
She’s around me now
Almost all the time
And if I’m well you can tell she’s been with me now
She’s been with me now quite a long, long time
And I feel fine
In the chorus, Taylor sings about finding solace in that one special person and needing her presence around as much as possible. It’s a universal idea that Taylor develops plainly and poignantly in this song.
This Taylor track would go on to inspire George Harrison to write “Something.” That Beatles classic borrows the song title in its opening line.
“When I heard George Harrison used the title for the opening words of ‘Something,’ I was thrilled,” Taylor once said. “I didn’t feel like I was being poached at all — besides, ‘Something in the Way She Moves’ quotes the Beatles’ ‘I Feel Fine’: ‘She’s around me almost all the time/And I feel fine.'”
Source: Alex Hopper/americansongwriter.com
Philip Norman’s aptly titled biography called him ‘the reluctant Beatles’. Those who have watched Peter Jackson’s Netflix documentary Get Back would not have failed to see what years of living in the shadows of John Lennon and Paul McCartney had done to George Harrison’s ego. Despite his immense contribution to the group, he was always considered a minor Beatle, one whose talents were rarely acknowledged. Yet, Harrison composed masterpieces like ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ and ‘Here Comes the Sun’, and his solo debut album All Things Must Pass was the best-selling solo album by an ex-Beatle and appears on many lists of the 100 best rock albums ever.
But more than all this, what’s important to note is that without George Harrison, the Beatles might never have happened. As Ty Burr notes in his review of Norman’s book, ‘The band’s earliest iteration, the Quarrymen, had broken up until George reformed them for a key club date. Their initial 1962 meeting with EMI producer George Martin was going south until Harrison broke the ice by insulting Martin’s necktie.’
George Harrison was the one who goaded the Beatles to abandon live performances and work on their sound in the studio. He became the social conscience of the world of rock music, with his Concert for Bangladesh in 1971, the all-star charity event. And above all, he was the first musician in the West to explore eastern spirituality and played an important role in creating world music, with his discipleship with Pandit Ravi Shankar. He is the one responsible for the Indian sounds that we hear in some of the band’s iconic tracks.
Source: Shashwata Ray Chaudhuri/telegraphindia.com
When the Beatles first began, Paul McCartney and John Lennon wrote songs in close collaboration, often sitting face-to-face as they worked out ideas. They worked together so closely, in fact, that they each learned how to play guitar upside down.
It's common for left-handed guitarists to play right-handed instruments — but most people, like Jimi Hendrix, re-string the guitar so that it's properly configured for lefties.
Not the left-handed McCartney and the right-handed Lennon, however. On the latest episode of McCartney: A Life in Lyrics on iHeartPodcasts, the artist recalled how he and his collaborator would trade instruments during writing sessions: "I was used to turning [guitars] upside down because I worked with John a lot, so I had to grab his guitar. I could play upside down and so could he."
This came in handy during the writing of "Yesterday" (which is the subject of the podcast episode). When he wrote the lyrics (having already thought of the melody in a dream), he was travelling across Portugal en route to the apartment of his friend Bruce Welch (of the instrumental rock band the Shadows). When he arrived, he borrowed Welch's right-handed guitar and played him "Yesterday" — the first time he ever performed the song for another person.
Of course, that song went on to become the most-covered song ever — even though some famous singers were too "macho" for its vulnerable lyrics.
Source: exclaim.ca
Ringo Starr came to work on the set of 'A Hard Day's Night' feeling terrible. He shared how this actually helped him.
In 1964, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr acted for the first time in A Hard Day’s Night. While filming a new movie was an entirely new experience for The Beatles, they all jumped into their roles with excitement. Starr loved movies as kid and loved the experience of filming one. Still, some days on set were a challenge for him. He revealed how feeling terrible while shooting actually helped his performance. Ringo Starr had a rough day on the set of ‘A Hard Day’s Night’
While The Beatles were happy to make a movie, they found it difficult to wake up for the early call times.
“It was a very early start,” George Harrison said in The Beatles Anthology. “We’d have to arrive and get dressed and have our hair and faces done. While all this was going on they would set up with stand-ins. They wouldn’t call us until they were ready to rehearse us for a scene.”
Starr said that one of the early starts was a particular challenge for him. He’d come straight to work from the nightclub.
“I had come directly to work from a nightclub (very unprofessional) and was a little hungover, to say the least,” Starr said. “Dick Lester had all his people there, and the kid that I was supposed to be doing the scene with, but I had no brain. I’d gone.”
Though he felt unwell while filming the scene, he said this helped him give one of his better performances.
“We tried it several ways. They tried it with the kid doing his lines and someone off camera shouting mine. Then they had me doing the lines of the kid and the kid going ‘blah blah blah,’” Starr said. “Or me saying, ‘And another thing, little guy…’ I was so out of it, they said, ‘Well, let’s do anything.’ I said, ‘Let me just walk around and you film me,’ and that’s what we did. And why I look so cold and dejected is because I felt like s***. There’s no acting going on; I felt that bad.”
Source: Emma McKee/cheatsheet.com
The British film director Sam Mendes is creating four scripted Beatles films. The biopics will tell the Fab Four’s story from each band member’s point of view, planned for release in 2027.
In a press release, the Oscar-winning filmmaker said he’s honored “to be telling the story of the greatest rock band of all time.” He teased a unique rollout for the films, and following Peter Jackson’s Get Back documentary series, the appetite for more Beatles footage remains insatiable.
With The Beatles, once again, in the headlines, let’s look at the time Dolly Parton had to prove she could sign-of-the-horns rock and, in doing so, reunited the Fab Four’s two living members.
On her 49th studio album, Rockstar, Parton collaborated with rock’s biggest legends to make a star-studded karaoke-like collection. Her Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nomination in 2022 prompted the country star to make a rock album self-justifying the nomination—to mortals, she had nothing to prove.
Though honored, Parton initially declined and said she hadn’t earned the right. However, she reversed the decision—acknowledging her fans had voted—and appeared at the induction ceremony in Los Angeles.
Source: americansongwriter.com
