Beatles News
Ringo Starr enjoys playing a cover more than any of The Beatles' original songs. Paul McCartney said the Fab Four never thought about the implications of the tune's lyrics.
Ringo Starr played a girl group song with a band that was a contemporary of The Beatles.
The Beatles put their own spin on the song.
That cover appeared on the group’s album, Please Please Me, which was a hit in the United Kingdom.
Many of The Beatles‘ songs were covers. Ringo Starr enjoys playing one of those covers more than any of The Beatles’ original songs. During an interview, Paul McCartney said the Fab Four never thought about the implications of the tune’s lyrics that much.
During a 2023 interview with Vulture, Ringo was asked which song he enjoyed performing live the most. “‘Boys,'” he said. “I’ve been doing it forever and it’s a girl’s song. A wonderful girl group called The Shirelles did the original.” The Shirelles were an American group most known for the Carole King-penned hit “Will You Love Me Tomorrow.”
Source: Matthew Trzcinski/cheatsheet.com
In the wake of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young‘s 1970 No. 1 album Déjà Vu, all the members were pursuing solo projects. Graham Nash released his debut, Songs for Beginners, by 1971, while Stephen Stills was on his third release, and Neil Young was in between After the Gold Rush and Harvest.David Crosby was also working on his 1971 solo debut, If I Could Only Remember My Name, which included singles “Music is Love” and “Orleans,” along with a song he wrote and recorded earlier called “Laughing.”
The idea around “Laughing” came after George Harrison told Crosby about the guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who The Beatles had spent time with while studying transcendental meditation in 1968. Though Harrison believed in the guru, the other Beatles were a bit skeptical of their newfound sage.
“I was very taken with George,” said Crosby in 2022. “I liked him a lot. He was very friendly to me. He invited me over to his house. We had dinner together. We talked a lot. Paul [McCartney] was very friendly to me, John [Lennon] was very friendly to me, Ringo [Starr] was very friendly to me, but the one that I had the relationship with was George.”
Source: Tina Benitez-Eves/americansongwriter.com
A unique, myth-busting outtake photo from The Beatles Sgt Pepper's cover shoot is set to fetch thousands when it goes up for auction this week.
The picture shows The Fab Four in their colourful outfits as they posed for the most famous album sleeve of all time in 1967.
But auctioneers claim it dispels a long-held rumour that McCartney didn't pose with the group on the day, due to a falling-out with the rest of the band.
The back of the album featured Macca with his back turned, prompting speculation among fans that it wasn't actually him.
Experts claimed he had fallen out with the band and did not want to join the others for the group photo for the front of Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
They said he may have posed alone and was later added in. However, auctioneers say this image proves he was there.
Source: Paul James/independent.co.uk
Paul McCartney’s 1970 solo debut marked the start of a nearly 30-year collaboration with his wife Linda. Shortly after the Beatles‘ demise, McCartney followed up McCartney, which featured Linda, with his second album Ram in 1971. That same year, they expanded their musical partnership into Wings with Linda on keyboards, former Moody Blues guitarist Denny Laine, drummer Denny Seiwell, and a collection of musicians.
Wings released seven albums from Wild Life in 1971 to Back to the Egg in 1979. Together, Paul and Linda co-wrote the majority of Wings tracks, including “Live and Let Die,” which would be used as the theme song of the 1973 James Bond film of the same name, along with more collaborations on Paul’s subsequent solo albums. They even co-penned “Six O’Clock” for Ringo Starr‘s 1973 solo album Ringo.
Following McCartney’s Thriller collaboration with Michael Jackson on “The Girl Is Mine,” Paul’s fourth solo album, Pipes of Peace, included two more collaborations with Jackson — “Say Say Say,” featuring Linda on backing vocals, and “The Man.”
Source: Tina Benitez-Eves/americansongwriter.com
Ringo Starr was "stoned" when he had the idea for The Beatles' "Octopus's Garden." He revealed he was on a famous comedian's boat when he thought up the track.
Ringo Starr said he was “stoned” when he had the idea for The Beatles’ “Octopus’s Garden.” He revealed he was on a famous comedian’s boat when he thought up the track. In addition, Ringo felt the tune could just as easily have been about “happy-go-lucky sharks.”
During a 2023 interview with Vulture, Ringo discussed the origin of “Octopus’s Garden.” “I’d actually left the band and gone to Sardinia for a holiday in 1968, and Peter Sellers’ boat just happened to be there,” he recalled. For context, Sellers was a comic actor most known for portraying Inspector Clouseau in the Pink Panther films from the 1960s and 1970s. “[Ringo’s then-wife] Maureen [Cox] and I and the kids went on his boat, and the captain was talking to me. I’m afraid we were smoking a bit of dope in those days — a bit of grass.
“So it was all so nice and beautiful, and he told me the story about how octopuses have their own special gardens under the sea,” he added. “When you’re stoned, how do you react? ‘Wow! Wow!'” Ringo was then asked if “Octopus’s Garden” was the best Beatles tune to listen to while stoned. He wasn’t sure, but listening to the song on drugs worked “fine” for him.
Source: Matthew Trzcinski/cheatsheet.com
In an inflammatory 1964 essay on the “menace of Beatlism”, the historian and commentator Paul Johnson described the fans who screamed themselves into hysteria as “the least fortunate of their generation, the dull, the idle, the failures”.
He wasn’t alone. A newly revealed letter from George Harrison’s mum shows that she was similarly horrified.
“Last Wednesday I went to Manchester and I was really disgusted at the way the so-called fans just screamed right through the whole of the Beatles act,” Louise Harrison wrote.
“Nobody with any sense would pay and queue for a ticket just to stand on a seat and scream and not hear one sound from the stage. I was really ashamed I was a female.”
Source: Mark Brown/theguardian.com
John Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance” includes a lot of unusual, disjointed lyrics. John worried that a single word in the lyrics would cause controversy. The tune was a bigger hit in the United Kingdom than it was in the United States.
John Lennon‘s “Give Peace a Chance” would not inspire controversy today. Despite this, John censored the tune’s lyric sheet. In addition, he worried one of The Beatles’ songs from the same era would cause an uproar. John Lennon’s ‘Give Peace a Chance’ had 1 risque word that he replaced on the lyric sheet
The chorus of “Give Peace a Chance” repeats the song’s title over and over. The rest of the song is mostly nonsense. The verses mention a bunch of random things, including rabbis, evolution, psychedelic guru Timothy Leary, and masturbation.
Source: Matthew Trzcinski/cheatsheet.com
During a recent appearance on QFM96's "Torg & Elliott" radio show, legendary rocker Alice Cooper, whose 1970s "Hollywood Vampires" celebrity drinking club included THE BEATLES members Ringo Starr and John Lennon, was asked if he thinks THE BEATLES would have reunited at some point for at least one concert had Lennon not been murdered back in 1980. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Absolutely. Here's the thing about them. When they were after each other's throats, when it came to the breakup and all that stuff, if anybody in the 'Vampires' back in those days — that was our drinking club — if anybody said anything bad about Paul [McCartney], John would take a swing at you. Because that was his best friend. If anybody said anything about John to Paul, Paul was not like that, but Paul would walk out of the room; he'd just walk out. Because you are not allowed to talk about their best friends. They were best friends no matter what was going on in the whole thing. One went one way and one went the other. I think John wanted to be more political; Paul was not into that that much. John was always trying to get me into politics, and I said, 'John, you're trying to save the world. I'm just trying to entertain them.'"
Source: blabbermouth.net
The Beatles are one of the greatest musical groups that have ever walked the earth, there is no doubt about that. Their music was at the tip of the 1960s counterculture and its timeless quality has made it as popular today as it has ever been.
Along with a few other bands, they were among the first to release songs with longer run times than people were used to. This was considered very risky, but of course, The Beatles did not allow anything to hold their creativity back.
With such exceptional songwriting and musical ability, you could listen to their albums over and over again, as most fans do.
Sometimes you just don’t want their songs to stop, which is why I put together the 10 longest Beatles songs!
1. Revolution 9 – 8:22
Album: The Beatles
Released: 1968
Source: Alex Kelly/tonestart.com
A song from The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour was inspired by a mishap from the band’s press officer. George Harrison received all credit for the song even though Paul McCartney helped create it. Paul revealed what he thought about the tune’s appearance in a famous film.
The Beatles‘ Magical Mystery Tour contains one of their most unusual songs. Sadly, the tune in question causes street signs in Los Angeles to get stolen. In addition, it’s the only song from a famous Beatles album that George Harrison wrote by himself.
According to a 2014 article from Iowa State University’s Institute for Transportation, signs are often stolen if they are perceived as containing a reference to something famous. For example, the signs for Abbey Road were stolen regularly. To deal with this problem, the city of London has Abbey Road signs painted onto curbsides or placed so high that nobody can reach them without a ladder.
Street signs for LA’s Blue Jay Way have also been repeatedly stolen, as the song is the inspiration for The Beatles’ track of the same title. While the song isn’t one of The Beatles’ most well-known pieces, it’s one of their most psychedelic. It also played during a surreal sequence from the film Magical Mystery Tour.
Source: Matthew Trzcinski/cheatsheet.com
