Beatles News
In Philip Larkin’s poem Annus Mirabilis, the English poet wrote famously of a significant year for him: “Sexual intercourse began/ In nineteen sixty-three/ (which was rather late for me) -/ Between the end of the Chatterley ban/ And the Beatles’ first LP ...”
It was also pretty momentous year for the four Scousers who released their first album, Please Please Me, in March of that year. According to Paul McCartney, “We were just four guys having fun and doing what we loved, which was playing music.”
And didn’t they have fun, and didn’t they play a load of music. As Britain left the staid and drab world of the 1950s behind, life was changing, art was changing, music was changing. The Beatles – McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, as if we didn’t know their names - stormed the charts there and around the world, and Beatlemania overwhelmed society.
Now we have Paul McCartney’s perspective on that time thanks to a collection of his contemporaneous photographs, preserved in his archives, but not seen for getting on 60 years.
Source: Jason Steger/smh.com.au
The Beatles' John Lennon said it's "best to go out when you're flying high." He also discussed the reaction to the band's dissolution.The Beatles‘ breakup might be the most famous breakup in all of rock history. John Lennon took a minute to imagine what might have happened if the Fab Four had stayed together. Subsequently, he explored the upsides and downsides of leaving the group.During a 1980 interview with the Los Angeles Times, John discussed what could have happened if The Beatles kept going. “I don’t know, it would have probably gone down the tubes and then been resurrected like everything else,” he opined. “I always thought it was best to go out when you’re flying high.”
Source: Matthew Trzcinski/cheatsheet.com
Paul has announced that his phenomenal GOT BACK Tour will be coming to Australia later this year, kicking off in Adelaide on October 18th. This marks a return to the city where The Beatles made history in 1964.
From there, the tour will travel across the country, making stops in Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane. For the first time, the tour will also include shows in Newcastle and the Gold Coast.
Source: thebeatles.com
John Lennon, born on October 9, 1940, in Liverpool, England, was a legendary singer, songwriter, and peace activist who co-founded the iconic rock band, The Beatles. He was a pivotal figure in the music industry and became one of the most influential and celebrated musicians of the 20th century.
In the early 1960s, along with Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, John Lennon formed The Beatles, a band that would revolutionize popular music and become a cultural phenomenon. As the primary songwriter and co-lead vocalist of the group, Lennon’s creative contributions were instrumental in shaping their sound and style.
The Beatles’ massive success and unprecedented fame brought Beatlemania to the world, influencing an entire generation and changing the landscape of popular music forever. Some of Lennon’s most iconic compositions for The Beatles include “Imagine,” “Strawberry Fields Forever,” “A Day in the Life,” and “Let It Be.”
Source: Edward Tomlin/singersroom.com
Some John Lennon songs from 'Double Fantasy' sound like the 1950s. This was because John heard Queen's "Crazy Little Thing Called Love."Queen’s “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” inspired John Lennon songs. The former Beatle explained why Queen inspired him to start making music again. Notably, Queen’s “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” was a bigger hit than John’s No. 1 song from that period.John released his final album, Double Fantasy, in 1980, five years after his previous album, Rock ‘n’ Roll. During a 1980 interview with the Los Angeles Times, John discussed new music. “I love the music of today,” he explained. “It’s the best period since the 1960s: The Pretenders, The B-52’s, Madness. Someone showed me a video of The Clash. They’re good.
Source: Matthew Trzcinski/cheatsheet.com
Paul McCartney can't help but sing the praises of his eight grandchildren, or "chillers," as he calls them.
The Beatles legend is known as "Grandude" to his grandkids, who include daughter Stella McCartney's four children and daughter Mary McCartney's four sons. "One of my grandkids — who used to call me 'Grandad' — just happened one day to say 'Grandude' and it kind of stuck," McCartney told the BBC in 2019. "So the other kids started calling me 'Grandude.' "
McCartney has written two picture books, Hey Grandude! and Grandude's Green Submarine. Both were inspired by his grandchildren, with whom he enjoys dancing, making music and watching soccer.
"I'm really happy with how Hey Grandude! was received, as this was a very personal story for me, celebrating Grandudes everywhere and their relationships and adventures with their grandchildren," he told PEOPLE in a statement. "I love that it has become a book read to grandkids at bedtime all around the world."
Source:people.com
John Lennon was not a fan of one of Paul McCartney's songs. According to a Beatles engineer, he made his hatred of the song very clear.By the end of the 1960s, Paul McCartney was beginning to get on John Lennon’s nerves. All The Beatles found him domineering in the studio, overly focused on perfecting his songs. One of the songs he spent an exceptionally long time on was “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da.” He was a perfectionist about the production, much to his bandmates’ irritation. It didn’t help that Lennon disliked the song and did not try to hide it.
McCartney dragged The Beatles through endless takes of “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” while working on the White Album.
“The previous week’s work was a typical study in frustration,” audio engineer Geoff Emerick wrote in his book Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles. “We’d worked endlessly on just two songs: Lennon’s ‘Revolution’ and McCartney’s ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,’ done over and over again until we were all sick to death of them. Nonetheless, here we were again, breathing in the same stale studio air, working on those same two tracks.”
Source: Emma McKee/cheatsheet.com
Yoko Ono said one of John Lennon‘s “(Just Like) Starting Over” was a message to all women. “(Just Like) Starting Over” made Yoko feel like crying. In addition, she said the tune had themes of renewal following the horrors of the 1970s.
John collaborated with Yoko on his final album, Double Fantasy. During a 1980 interview with the Los Angeles Times, she discussed the most successful track from that record. “I think John’s song, ‘Starting Over,’ is so beautiful,” she revealed. “It’s a personal message to me, but it’s also like all men saying to all women, ‘Let’s try again.’ It’s not going to be easy.”
Yoko gave her opinion on the state of gender relations. “In the ’60s, there was this sexual revolution which resulted in women waking up to the fact that it was a sexual revolution [only] for men and that women were really being used,” she said. “So, in the ’70s, women became very bitter, which was understandable. They didn’t want to just be ‘toys.’ So, there was this breakdown in relationships and the family.”
Source: Matthew Trzcinski/cheatsheet.com
In early 2018, Quincy Jones sat down with Vulture's David Marchese for a romp of an interview that would soon set the internet ablaze. In less than 1400 words, the then-84-year-old legendary producer claimed that a "greedy" Michael Jackson had stolen songs and that he knew who killed John F. Kennedy and called modern pop nothing more than "loops, beats, rhymes and hooks." He also shared some choice words about the Beatles, calling them "the worst musicians in the world." Read on for details on his assessment of Paul McCartney's bass playing, the embarrassing Ringo Starr story he shared, and what he said when he called McCartney after the interview went live.
Source: Andrew Miller/bestlifeonline.com
The members of the Beatles are known for various feats, but the late great George Harrison has the record for releasing the song with the longest gap between jumping to No. 1, according to Far Out Magazine. George Harrison released “My Sweet Lord” in 1970, and it reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart at the time of its release. The song was part of Harrison’s album, All Things Must Pass, which also topped the charts.After Harrison passed away from lung cancer in 2001, “My Sweet Lord” experienced a resurgence.
The song reached the top of Billboard‘s Hot 100 chart once again two months after Harrison’s death, making the gap between the song’s first and second chart-topping weeks 31 years.At the time of Harrison’s death and “My Sweet Lord’s” resurgence, a spokesperson for EMI Records released a statement regarding the song’s newfound success. “We are very happy that the reissue of My Sweet Lord continues to spread George Harrison’s music and message around the world,” the spokesperson said (quote via Far Out). “It’s especially appropriate that the Material World Charitable Foundation, a charity that George set up some time ago will benefit from the profits made from the single’s success, thus helping the needy all over the world.”
Source: Jon Mendelsohn/americansongwriter.com
