Beatles News
Paul McCartney is the biggest living rock star today and arguably the greatest rock star of all time. And the general public knows every nook and cranny of his career. However, in his catalog of over 1,000 released songs, we believe these three singles of McCartney’s simply don’t get enough praise.
“Warm And Beautiful” by Paul McCartney & Wings
The most popular songs from Paul McCartney’s solo career and career with Wings are “Maybe I’m Amazed”, “Band On The Run”, “Live And Let Die”, “Jet”, and several others. Although amid all these songs is a romantic ballad that simply hasn’t received a staple status. That song is the 1976 single from Wings’ album, Wings at the Speed of Sound, “Warm And Beautiful”.
Given that it was not released as an official single, it didn’t chart on any significant charts. Regardless, it is a phenomenal track that shows McCartney’s emotionality at its finest. After listening to this song, you will surely look at your relationships with a little more romance than before. “Monkberry Moon Delight” by Paul & Linda McCartney
Arguably, the greatest solo album created by a Beatle is the 1971 record, Ram. In short, the album shows off McCartney’s diverse set of skills, and to us, one of the best tracks on the album is “Monkberry Moon Delight”.
Truly, there isn’t one genre you can pin this song to. Rock is a general category, yes, but it is so much more than that. In essence, if you want to hear Paul McCartney scream for five minutes straight, then you just have to listen to this underrated track. To further explain, this song is like “Helter Skelter” and “When I’m 64” were combined into one song.
“Junk” by Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney’s lyrics have always featured a romantic sensationalism about life’s simple pleasures. That is the case for his 1970 song “Junk”, as no one has ever made rubbish sound so pleasant and impactful. One could argue that McCartney’s lyrical powers are firing at full force in this simple and sweet little number.
Source: Peter Burditt/americansongwriter.com
Paul McCartney and John Lennon wrote some of their most iconic Beatles songs in the music room of 57 Wimpole Street, the home of McCartney’s girlfriend, Jane Asher. The home, described in Barry Miles’ Many Years From Now as a “Peter Pan house,” was a sprawling, six-story home with plenty of room for Asher’s parents and siblings to live and work comfortably. McCartney joined the fold after getting the fuzzy end of the lollipop in an apartment Brian Epstein rented for The Beatles after hotel staff began complaining of squealing fans running rampant down the halls, looking for the young lads from Liverpool during their stay.
That “fuzzy end” was the smallest room in the whole flat, which was the only one available after the rest of The Beatles called dibs on the room they wanted. (McCartney was late to arrive at the apartment, hence the smallest room.) After lamenting his living conditions for so long, Asher suggested that he move into her family’s house. Her mother already approved. He had a great relationship with the rest of the Asher family. And besides, how fun would it be to live with your girlfriend in a cushy London house that had all the homey atmosphere that The Beatles’ flat decidedly didn’t?
Source: Melanie Davis/americansongwriter.com
John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr of the Beatles started out in Liverpool, England, but it wasn’t long before the band took the entire world by storm. As the group ascended to superstardom, the famed foursome expanded their horizons and put down roots around the UK and beyond.
The group’s 1964 song “I’ll Follow the Sun” is “a ‘Leaving of Liverpool’ song,” McCartney explained in his 2021 book The Lyrics. “I’m leaving this rainy northern town for someplace where more is happening.” The Beatles’ rise to fame is explored in the 2024 documentary Beatles ’64 (streaming on Disney+), featuring never-before-seen footage of the group and its packs of fans during the frenzy of Beatlemania. Of course, it wasn’t all massive crowds and wild concerts; the four led quieter lives in their time at home, where they penned and practiced some of their greatest hits. To provide a peek behind the curtain into their private worlds, we’ve rounded up some domestic snapshots of the iconic musicians below.
Source: MSN
The Beatles' new biopics have hit a major stumbling block as filmmakers have reportedly been banned from shooting on the iconic Abbey Road. Earlier this year Sony confirmed the cast for the four Beatles projects following a sea of speculation, with all four films set to be released in April 2028.
Gladiator II hunk Paul Mescal will play Paul McCartney, Harris Dickinson will play John Lennon, Barry Keoghan will star as Ringo Starr and Joseph Quinn will play George Harrison in the films about The Fab Four. However, with production underway, it's now been claimed bosses have been blocked from filming at the iconic Abbey Road crossing.
Sam Mendes, who is directing the films, had wanted to recreate the Beatles' 1969 album cover on the crossing. Westminster Council have reportedly refused permission as filming at the legendary location would force result in the road being temporarily closed, causing traffic chaos.
Gladiator II hunk Paul Mescal will play Paul McCartney, Harris Dickinson will play John Lennon, Barry Keoghan will star as Ringo Starr and Joseph Quinn will play George Harrison in the films. However, with production underway, it's now been revealed bosses have been blocked from filming at the iconic Abbey Road crossing.
An insider told The Sun: 'It's believed they turned down the request on the basis that they'd have to shut down the road for filming to take place safely. 'The trouble is that the huge number of tourists who visit the area often cause disruption by having their picture taken recreating the scene.
'That would be magnified by having dozens of cast and crew present to do the same thing for the movie. Now the producers are facing the prospect of omitting the scene as they really don't want to rely on CGI because that would not look authentic.
'The hope is that they kind a road that looks similar enough that they can still make it happen in some form.' Daily Mail has contacted Westminster Council for comment. Earlier this month it was revealed the actresses who had been cast to play the Fab Four's wives in the biopics.
White Lotus star Aimee Lou Wood, 31, will play George Harrison’s wife Pattie Boyd, while Irish Oscar nominee Saoirse Ronan, 31, has been cast as Linda McCartney, the muse to many of Paul McCartney’s songs.
Anna Sawai, 33, who has made a name for herself in the US drama series Shogun, will appear as John Lennon’s wife Yoko Ono, and British actress Mia McKenna-Bruce, 28, will play Maureen Cox, the wife of Ringo Starr. Sam Mendes, who is directing the films, had wanted to recreate the Beatles' 1969 album cover on the crossing (pictured in March)
Entitled The Beatles: A Four-Film Cinematic Event, the project was announced last year.
The movies will each take the perspective of one member of The Beatles as they evolve from unknowns in Liverpool in the early 1960s to becoming the biggest band in the world and then breaking up in 1970.
It’s the first time that surviving Beatles McCartney and Starr, and the families of the late Lennon and Harrison, have given the rights to feature films about them.
Announcing the female foursome, Mendes said: ‘Maureen, Linda, Yoko and Pattie are four fascinating and unique figures in their own right, and I’m thrilled that we’ve managed to persuade four of the most talented women working in film today to join this amazing adventure.’
Source: Alex Doyle/dailymail.co.uk
In late December 1999, former Beatle and accomplished guitarist George Harrison endured what one can only describe as a nightmare. That night, one Michael Abram scaled the side of Harrison’s home, broke in, and confronted Harrison with a large knife.
The fact that the assailant even made it inside is nothing short of astonishing. After Harrison’s former bandmate, John Lennon, was violently murdered by a former fan in 1980, Harrison took extensive measures to make sure his estate in Liverpool, England, was as safe as possible. Harrison himself had dealt with stalking incidents in the 1990s, leading him to install searchlights, barbed wire, guard dogs, and private security. Somehow, Abram evaded it all, leading to a stand-off between himself and Harrison in the home’s main hall.
Harrison allegedly chanted the “Hare Krishna” mantra to distract the man and attempted to disarm him. Harrison was badly injured in the fight, suffering multiple stab wounds that included a punctured lung. The fight ended when his wife, Olivia, threw a lamp at the assailant and knocked him out. Police arrived shortly after, and Harrison was rushed to the hospital.
Fortunately, Harrison survived. A doctor even told him that he was “lucky to be alive” after recieving a shocking 40 stab wounds. He lost one of his lungs to the attack, but he would live another day. Michael Abram, a Liverpool local, suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. Many of this individual’s delusions were religious in nature and made worse by the consumption of drugs. At one point, Abram believed he was an incarnation of the Archangel Michael from the Bible, sent by God to murder Harrison.
After the attack, Abram was also hospitalized. When his trial began, he requested to send a letter of apology to the Harrison family. He claimed he did not know that he had schizophrenia. He was inevitably charged with attempted murder.
On this day in 2000, Abram was found not guilty by insanity and was ordered “indefinite confinement in a mental hospital.” Though, in 2002, just a few months after George Harrison passed away from cancer, Abram was discharged from the hospital and placed in a hostel. Harrison’s bereaved family found the release “upsetting and insulting.” The whole event was traumatizing for both Harrison and his family. And some believe that the attack “triggered” the resurgence of cancer that would claim his life in 2001. Even Harrison’s contemporary, The Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards, agreed with that sentiment.
“I think he probably would have beaten the cancer if it wasn’t for the blade,” said Richards in a Rolling Stone interview. “I mean, we know that he didn’t die from [the attack], but I’m sure that it sort of broke down his resistance to what he had to deal with.”
Source: Em Casalena/americansongwriter.com
Yoko Ono has long been blamed for “breaking up the Beatles.” The now-92-year-old artist has endured decades of sexist, racist abuse from still-bitter Beatles fans. Now, a recovered phone call featured in the new documentary One to One: John & Yoko—which will premiere on HBO and HBO Max at 8 p.m. tonight—reveals Ono felt abandoned by Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr at the height of this horrific harassment.
Directed by Kevin Macdonald, this documentary is an intimate look at the life of John Lennon and Yoko Ono during an 18-month period where they lived together in New York City in the early 1970s. In addition to restored footage of Lennon and Ono’s “One to One” concert at Madison Square Garden in New York City in 1972—Lennon’s only full-length concert after the Beatles and before his murder in 1980—the documentary also features never-before-heard phone calls from Ono and Lennon, who recorded all their calls at the time.
In a phone call between Ono and musician David Peel—a New York friend of the couple, who occasionally performed with Lennon at political rallies—Ono details the horrific verbal and physical abuse she faced from Beatles fans.
“I’m supposedly the person who broke up The Beatles, you know?,” Ono says in the phone call, recorded in the early 1970s. “When I was pregnant, many people wrote to me saying, ‘I wish you and your baby would die.'”
Ono continued, “I got a rubber doll has lots of needles in it, in the eyes, and the nose, and everything. When I was walking on the street with John, people came to me, saying things like I’m an ugly Jap. They pulled my hair, and hit my head. I was just about to faint.”
Ono goes on to say that during this period, she had three miscarriages. Then she expresses frustration that amidst this treatment from Beatles fans, none of the Beatles (save for Lennon) stood up for her.
Source: Anna Menta/decider.com
One of the key characteristics that defined The Beatles early in their career was that they were a single unit. It wasn’t John, Paul, George, and Ringo; it was just The Beatles. This was, of course, due to their tight-knit friendship, but as the years rolled by, external forces seemed to interfere with their friendship and professional partnership, ultimately ending the band. However, despite these forces, The Beatles stayed true to a pact they had made before their breakup.
For a moment, put aside the last three or so years of The Beatles’ career. Put aside Yoko Ono, creative control, the death of Brian Epstein, financial disputes, and just recall how close friends they were. As a matter of fact, Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones called them the “four-headed” monster because of their tight-knit bond. As a result of that tight-knit bond, The Beatles made an admirable promise to each other that both solidified the end of the iconic rock band, but also kept their historic legacy intact. The promise was that if one band member quit, then The Beatles would not go on without them.
Source: Peter Burditt/americansongwriter.com
It has been nearly 60 years since The Beatles’ The White Album was released, and it is widely considered to be one of their finest works to date. Containing huge hits such as the George Harrison-penned “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” the Paul McCartney solo “Blackbird”, and the Beach Boys and Chuck Berry’s controversial parody “Back In The U.S.S.R.”, the album is packed with quality songwriting and compositions. One of their most underrated songs from the album is “Don’t Pass Me By,” a song that not even the dynamic songwriting duo McCartney-Lennon can take credit for.
Around 1963-1964, Ringo Starr wrote “Don’t Pass Me By”, which is his first and one of his few solo compositions he had written for the band. However, it was released as part of The White Album, meaning that the band took between four to five years to record and release the song. The reasons why this is the case vary, but it soon came into fruition after the Fab Four’s iconic trip to India.
Ringo-Starr-Hard-Rock-Live Image via Robert Bell/INSTARimages
Even drummers with little songwriting experience, like Starr, have their stroke of songwriting genius. For Starr, it happened only a few years into The Beatles’ prime, as Starr stated that he wrote the song while sitting “round at home.” “I only play three chords on the guitar and three on the piano,” he remembered. “I was fiddling with the piano – I just bang away – and then if a melody comes and some words, I just have to keep going. That’s how it happened.
Source: Teguan Harris/collider.com
The only thing that could outshine the news of The Beatles breaking up was the swirling, speculative rumors of whether they would ever get back together—something that John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and George Harrison had to answer to often in the years that followed the Fab Four’s split. The public’s curiosity was understandable. They were the biggest rock band in the world in the latter half of the 1960s (bigger than Jesus, so they say). Their dissolution was the end of a movement, not just an era.
As one might expect from four distinct personalities, each of The Beatles had a different explanation for why the band was no more. During a 1981 Good Morning America interview, Harrison put it in familial terms. “The simplest way of saying it is like when you grow up in a family and everybody grows up, and they all leave home, and the brothers and sisters all go and get married and lead their own lives, you know. It’s like really asking them all to go back and live with their mom and dad again.”
He continued, “For us, as individuals, we all had our own lives to lead. We had a lot of experiences, other than being four people stuck in the same hotel room together, that we had to live out.”
Source: Melanie Davis/americansongwriter.com
Ringo Starr & His All Starr Band have announced the first of their 2026 tour dates.
The group concluded its 2025 concerts in September with a series of performances at the Venetian in Las Vegas. The new tour starts in late May and runs through mid-June. "I am happy to be touring again in the spring," Starr said in a press release announcing the shows. "See you all in June. Peace and love."
The All Starr Band currently includes Steve Lukather, Colin Hay, Warren Ham, Hamish Stuart, Gregg Bissonette and Buck Johnson.
Starr's latest album, Look Up, was released in January, marking his return to country music after a several-decade hiatus. He famously recorded Buck Owens' "Act Naturally" with the Beatles, and the 1970 solo LP, Beaucoups of Blues, was recorded in Nashville.
He and Look Up producer T Bone Burnett are now in the studio working on a follow-up album. Where Is Ringo Starr's All Starr Band Playing in 2026?
Starr and His All Starr Band will hit the road on May 28 for a date in Temecula, California. Over the next few weeks, they will perform dates in San Diego, Tucson, Denver and Phoenix.
The run is scheduled to conclude with a concert at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles on June 14.
You can see the 2026 tour dates for Ringo Starr and His All Starr Band below.
For more information about the shows and tickets, visit Starr's website.
Ringo Starr & His All Starr Band Tour 2026
May 28 Pechanga Resort Casino, Temecula, CA
May 29 Humphreys Concerts by the Bay, San Diego, CA
May 31 Findlay Toyota Center, Prescott, AZ
June 1 Eccles Theater, Salt Lake City, UT
June 3 Linda Ronstadt Music Hall, Tucson, AZ
June 5 Thunder Valley Casino, Lincoln, CA
June 6 Vina Robles Ampitheatre, Paso Robles, CA
June 8 Kiva Auditorium, Albuquerque, NM
June 9 Bellco Theatre, Denver, CO
June 11 San Jose Civic, San Jose, CA
June 12 Gammage Auditorium, Phoenix, AZ
June 14 The Greek Theatre, Los Angeles, CA
Source: Ultimate Classic
