Beatles News
While the Beatles were certainly no strangers to alcohol, it appears that their backstage beverage of choice may not have had any booze in it. In a 1965 story for Playboy, journalist Jean Shepherd joined the Beatles for a stretch of shows in the UK, and often spent time with them in the dressing room. Every stop felt the same, he wrote, with the dressing rooms themselves having the same food items at every stop, including trays of French fries, steak, and pots of tea.
The lads were often seen enjoying a cuppa, so much so that there's even a zine, The Teatles, dedicated to compiling photos of them with tea. Comedian and Beatles historian Martin Lewis also found that tea just so happened to be the drink the Beatles mentioned the most in their lyrics. In fact, according to Lewis's study, the band wrote a total of five songs referencing tea in a span of just three months.
It makes a lot of sense that the Beatles would drink so much of it — they were as British as you could get, and tea is an integral part of their culture. While it isn't clear what specific tea they kept in their dressing rooms, odds are it was a type of black tea, since 71% of Brits prefer it over herbal or green teas (via World Tea News). Drinking black tea every day comes with numerous health benefits, so it's nice to know that the Fab Four likely always had access to it on the road.
As if needing pots of it backstage wasn't enough to prove the Beatles' appreciation for tea, Paul McCartney and John Lennon's friendship involved a fairly unusual experience with it. During an appearance on Aspen & Co. in 1984, McCartney shared a little about their oddball ritual of smoking tea leaves.
"We'd go to my house when my dad was out at work, and we'd just sit around in the front parlor of my house and smoke Typhoo tea in my dad's pipe," McCartney said. Typhoo is a British tea brand that's been around since 1903. "We were teenage fools, and we wanted to sit at home and do big grown-up things. So, I found my dad's pipe, and then we didn't have anything to load it with, so we got the Typhoo out."
Source: yahoo.com/Marco Sumayao
While Anna Sawai has been busy conquering TV and film, the Emmy-winning “ShÅgun” star first got her start in show business as a member of the J-pop band FAKY. Now, Sawai is going back to her musical roots in the role of Yoko Ono in Sam Mendes’ forthcoming “Beatles” biopics.
“It was my dream to tell her story and I didn’t think it would come this quick,” Sawai told Variety at the Los Angeles premiere of Apple TV’s “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters” Season 2 on Thursday night. “There’s a version of her I feel people still don’t understand. And in this film, I think we’re going to be able to tell that side of the story.”
To prepare, Sawai has been busy reading everything she can about the artist and musician. “So much reading, oh my gosh,” she said. “So many books, so many videos, so many articles…She has so much artwork that also shows her personality.”
While on set in London, Sawai teases it’s been fun to hear the cast — Paul Mescal as Paul McCartney, Harris Dickinson as John Lennon, Joseph Quinn as George Harrison and Barry Keoghan as Ringo Starr — play the iconic band’s music. “They’re not even looking at the sheet music anymore. They can just play it off and sing it, and it really sounds like the Beatles to me. It feels surreal.”
Source: variety.com/Payton Turkeltaub
The Irish actor opened up about the effect of the harsh comments. Barry Keoghan has said he ‘doesn’t want to go outside’ after remarks about his looks. The Irish actor, who will play Ringo Starr in the upcoming Beatles' biopic, has been faced with harsh comments about his looks over the past couple of years.
Keoghan has opened up about the harmful effects such comments has had on him personally, admitting it has made him 'shy away'. Keoghan firstly acknowledged the 'good side' of fame, highlighting his 'incredible fanbase', however he added that 'there is also a nasty side of it'. He said he has received 'a lot of abuse' over his looks and tried to remove himself from online.
"I think I removed myself from online, but I'm still a curious human being that wants to go on and, if I attend an event or if I go somewhere, you want to see how it was received. And it's not nice," he said. The Saltburn star continued: "There's a lot of hate online. It's a lot of abuse of how I look.
"It's made me really go inside myself, not want to attend places, not want to go outside. "And I say this being absolute pure and honest to you. It's becoming a problem."In 2024, following his split from pop superstar Sabrina Carpenter, Keoghan deleted his Instagram account due to what he dubbed 'disgusting commentary' about his appearance.
At the time, he wrote: "I need you to remember he has to read ALL of this about his father when he is older.
Please be respectful to all. Thank u x."
Source: joe.ie/Ava Keady
John Lennon's songwriting and Beatles legacy form the foundation of his cultural impact. "Strawberry Fields Forever" tops recent rankings, praised for its production and experimental sound. The song’s inspiration stems from Lennon’s Liverpool childhood and personal struggles.
John Lennon is famous for many reasons. His songwriting genius, his activism, his enduring cultural impact. But his rise to fame with The Beatles is the foundation on which everything was built.
In 1956, Lennon founded the Quarrymen, described as a skiffle group. Four years later, the band composed of Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, solidified their core, changed their name, and never looked back.
With Harrison contributing to the Fab Four‘s songwriting further into their meteoric career, and two songs coming from Starr, most of the writing was shared by Lennon and McCartney. But for our purposes here, we’re focused on the masterworks that sprung from the heart, mind, and soul of the bespectacled, shaggy-haired rock pioneer.
In a recent roundup published by Uncut, the team, including Paul Weller, guitarist and principal singer and songwriter of The Jam, picked 30 songs from the music legend’s discography, and the results range from “Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy),” “Dear Prudence,” and “Across the Universe,” to “Revolution,” “Imagine,” and “Give Peace a Chance.”
Source: parade.com/DeAnna Janes
Getting to the top of the charts is easy compared to the second challenge waiting just on the other side of this accomplishment: staying there. The Beatles were discovering how difficult this follow-up hurdle was in 1964, months after “I Want To Hold Your Hand” hit No. 1 in the States. Beatlemania might have been in full swing, but the band was responsible for keeping that fire going.
Eager to recreate their success and linger on the charts a little longer, The Beatles followed up with “Can’t Buy Me Love”. With George Harrison on a jangly twelve-string guitar, the song fit perfectly in the musical zeitgeist. And indeed, it was a hit. “Can’t Buy Me Love” topped charts worldwide, cementing itself among the most ubiquitous early Fab Four tunes.
Interestingly, producer George Martin played a significant role in the writing process, adding the intro and outro tag and essentially framing it as a 12-bar blues number. But lyrically, neither Martin nor anyone else involved thought to double-check the track for any double entendres. No, “Can’t Buy Me Love” Wasn’t About That.
The “my love is free” trope has become commonplace in modern pop music, but even a seemingly innocent idea like that could be taken the wrong way in the ultra-conservative world of 1964. Some critics accused The Beatles of singing about sex work in “Can’t Buy Me Love”, despite the very nature of the line “money can’t buy me love” directly negating that business model (but we digress).
Source: americansongwriter.com/Melanie Davis
While he will forever remain a music icon and part of the legendary Beatles, George Harrison is, perhaps, the most subtle of the quartet of musicians. While John Lennon and Paul McCartney were wailing on lead vocals and writing most of the band's songs, and Ringo Starr was jamming on the drums, Harrison played lead guitar and stood somewhat apart, often being referred to as "the quiet Beatle." But this didn't mean that he was any less talented than the others, in fact, it was Harrison who wrote the acclaimed "Here Comes the Sun" on the album "Abbey Road." And Beatles fans certainly didn't love him any less. In fact, when his American fans learned that Harrison loved the British sweet called Jelly Babies, they literally showered him with the confection...sort of.
Because they couldn't find actual Jelly Babies in America at the time, Beatles fans reached for what they thought was the next best thing: jelly beans. At concerts, they began to throw this popular candy on stage, pelting the band mates from all directions (and if you know how jelly beans are made, the hard-coated shell probably didn't feel great). Wouldn't one of these gummy bear brands have been a better choice? Of course, Harrison also received plenty of the Jelly Babies candies in the mail from fans, which was far less perilous for the Fab Four.
Source: yahoo.com/Erica Martinez
Paul McCartney says his late wife Linda encouraged him to embrace freedom and let go of being uptight
Linda’s phrase “It’s allowed” helped the former Beatle overcome self-imposed limitations and inspired him to take risks
The pair were married from 1969 to Linda's death in 1998
Paul McCartney had a lot to learn from his late wife Linda.
The legendary musician, 83, offered rare insight into the effect that Linda had on his life in a new clip from his Words + Music installment with Audible, which PEOPLE is exclusively premiering.
In the episode — which is an expansion of his recent documentary Man on the Run — McCartney says Linda was a “freeing influence” when they first got together in the 1960s.
“She had grown up in a posh bit of New York. She was on track to become the sort of company wife. But she didn’t like that. She liked rock ‘n’ roll,” McCartney says. “And she would do things like sneak out of the house late at night and drive into New York with a boyfriend. So there was a lot of freedom in her thinking. So I think that really was good for me.”
When Linda and Paul met, she was a divorcée with a 7-year-old daughter, Heather. The pair married in 1969, and went on to have three more children together: Mary, 56, Stella, 54, and James, 54. They remained together until Linda’s death from breast cancer in 1998 at age 56.
Source: people.com/Rachel DeSantis
One of Paul McCartney‘s all-time favourite songs was written by his Beatles bandmate, George Harrison.
The Wings frontman confirmed as much during a Reddit Ask Me Anything on the r/Music subreddit. McCartney was asked for his favourite songs by members of the public, with the Let It Be hitmaker going one step further and naming an album release by Harrison as one of his favourites. McCartney confirmed Brainwashed, Harrison’s posthumous release, which dropped in 2002, was among his favourite albums. In a Reddit AMA to promote his 2020 album, McCartney III, McCartney confirmed Here Comes the Sun was one of his favourite songs from Harrison.
He wrote: “It is a brilliant song and the kind of song that’s really good in times like these.” The “times like these” McCartney refers to in his comment is the lockdown the United Kingdom, and other countries across the world, experienced due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
A previous compilation release from McCartney saw the legendary songwriter name a Brainwashed track as another favourite from Harrison’s discography.
Source: cultfollowing.co.uk/ Ewan Gleadow
It sounds like something straight out of a 1960s dream. And for a lucky group of Beatles fans, it actually happened.
On this day in 1964, George Harrison stepped out for a rare public outing alongside Disney teen star Hayley Mills. The two attended a midnight charity screening of the film Charade at the Regal Cinema in Henley-on-Thames, England.
Mills, now 79 years old, was already a household name thanks to her roles in Disney classics like Pollyanna and The Parent Trap, arrived with her mother, Mary Hayley Bell. But it was her unexpected escort—Harrison, then at the height of Beatlemania—who turned the evening into a headline-making moment.
At the time, The Beatles were dominating the global music scene, with Harrison and his bandmates sparking a cultural phenomenon unlike anything seen before. Pairing one of the world’s biggest music stars with one of Disney’s most beloved young actresses created a rare crossover of two massive fan worlds.
The event itself was a charity benefit, adding a feel-good element to the already buzzworthy night. While details of their interaction remain relatively low-key, the image of Harrison escorting Mills to the screening captured the imagination of fans and still feels like a perfect snapshot of 1960s pop culture.
Moments like this highlight just how interconnected entertainment worlds can be. Long before celebrity "collabs" became a regular thing, a Beatle and a Disney star sharing a night out was enough to make history.
Source: yahoo.com/Lauren Anderson
There aren’t many bands that were formed more than half a century ago that stand even a shot at charting a hit song in the United Kingdom with any regularity. Of course, The Beatles are no typical group, and more often than not, the Fab Four appear on at least one singles ranking in their home country. Which tune British listeners favor changes from week to week, and there are occasions when no individual song can be found and The Beatles only appear on albums rosters. One non-single by the pop-rockers finds its way back to a pair of charts as it becomes a bestseller again.
The Beatles’ "Golden Slumbers" Returns to the U.K. Charts
"Golden Slumbers," taken from The Beatles’ masterpiece Abbey Road, is once again a top performer in the U.K. The track, which was never pushed as a single, but which remains a fan favorite, is back on the Official Singles Downloads list at No. 72. The track can also be found once more on the Official Singles Sales chart, where it makes a home at No. 77.
The Beatles’ "Golden Slumbers" Reaches New Peak Positions
"Golden Slumbers" debuted on the two tallies on which it currently appears in November 2017. The track launched at No. 46 on both rosters, and then quickly disappeared, and it wouldn’t be seen on either ranking for nearly a decade.
"Golden Slumbers" returned just last month, when it became a bestseller again. The cut hit new highs of No. 37 on the Official Singles Downloads chart and No. 41 on the Official Singles Sales list, where it narrowly failed to earn The Beatles another top 40 showing. The Abbey Road tune held on for two periods, then slipped away, and now, only a few weeks later, it is back.
Source: forbes.com/Hugh McIntyre
