Beatles News
In the early days of The Beatles, the lineup was John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Stuart Sutcliffe. The group eventually brought Pete Best as the drummer, but the four musicians founded the band. Both McCartney and Harrison admitted that they didn’t think Sutcliffe was a very good musician, but they still felt jealous of him. McCartney shared why they couldn’t help but feel this way.
A black and white picture of Paul McCartney and Harrison playing guitars and singing into the same microphone.
McCartney and Harrison got to know Sutcliffe through Lennon. They went to art school together and formed a tight bond. Lennon had been working with McCartney and Harrison in The Quarry Men, and the group worked to convince Sutcliffe to join them. He didn’t have any musical background, but he did have enough money to buy a bass guitar after he sold a painting.
“It was a fortune in those days, like an inheritance,” McCartney said, per The Beatles Anthology. “He said he had to buy canvases or paint. We said, ‘Stu, see reason, love. A Hofner, a big ace group … fame!’ He gave in and bought this big Hofner bass that dwarfed him. The trouble was he couldn’t play well. This was a bit of a drawback, but it looked good, so it wasn’t too much of a problem.”
Source: Emma McKee/cheatsheet.com
The Beatles' final album, "Let It Be," included a song that was considered John Lennon's cry for help.
On May 8 53 years ago, The Beatles released its what-would-be last album, "Let It Be." The 13th album was dropped less than a month before the famous boy group members decided to call it quits after a decade of performing together.
The 1970 album ran for 35 minutes, with the original release presenting two sides of songs to fans. The next versions included "Two of Us," "Across the Universe," "The Long and Winding Road," "For You Blue," "Get Back," "Let It Be," and "Don't Let Me Down."
The latter track was part of the album as a primary release, and it was considered the late Beatle's emotional song.
According to Express UK, "Don't Let Me Down" was not officially included on the album. Still, it became one of the most popular songs released by the Fab Four. In fact, The Beatles' rooftop performance of the song remains the most-viewed video on the band's YouTube channel, with more than 435 million views.
Source: Angeline Sicily/musictimes.com
George Harrison and Bob Dylan were longtime friends who met through music. The two wound up becoming part of George Harrison’s popular post-Beatles band, The Traveling Wilburys. The two always had nice things to say about each other — and that friendship had to start somewhere. Still, Harrison once reflected in his memoir that the first time he actually got to know Dylan was a bit awkward.
Dylan and Harrison were just two guys trying to make it in the rock and roll industry, and their first encounter actually happened years before their friendship — and music partnership — started. Back in 1964, Harrison was in New York City playing concerts as a member of The Beatles. The band was staying at New York’s Delmonico Hotel, which is where they first spent time with Dylan — who offered them some marijuana.
Source: Julia Mullaney/cheatsheet.com
Paul McCartney was just one face of The Beatles — arguably the most popular band to ever exist. And while all four of them rose to fame together, many of the songs that took the world by storm were written by individual band members. Even after the band broke up, solo careers persisted, with John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr becoming quite successful in their own right.
In 1983, McCartney released his song “So Bad” — just one of many in his post-Beatles era. It turns out, though, that when performing it for his family, he actually changed the lyrics because he felt “so bad” for his son James.
For 10 years, The Beatles graced our ears with some of the biggest rock and roll songs of all time. McCartney, Lennon, and Harrison got together in 1958, but their rise to fame started in the early 1960s. After securing Ringo Starr as their lead drummer in 1962, the band found fame with their song “Love Me Do.” A life of peace and quiet was over for them from there; by 1964, they were huge. In 1970, after more than a decade of working with the band, Paul McCartney announced that he had left The Beatles.
Source: Julia Mullaney/cheatsheet.com
In Forrest Gump, the title character goes on The Dick Cavett Show and inspires John Lennon’s “Imagine.” The scene makes it so that “Imagine” is inspired by Forrest’s experiences in Red China. John said the song was inspired by Yoko Ono and his feelings about religion.
John Lennon‘s “Imagine” has a big place in popular culture. For example, the song appears in the movie Forrest Gump. The song’s appearance in the film simply isn’t funny and undermines Yoko Ono’s place in history.
In a famous sequence from the film Forrest Gump, Forrest makes an appearance on The Dick Cavett Show. During his appearance, Forrest tells John about China, He remarks that the people have very few possessions and don’t go to church. John says that the people in that country have “no possessions” and “no religion.” Cavett says he can’t imagine a world like that. John says “it’s easy if you try.”
Source: Matthew Trzcinski/cheatsheet.com
John Lennon and Paul McCartney first met while growing up in Liverpool. While Lennon was slightly older than McCartney, the pair bonded over their shared love of music, and McCartney eventually joined John and his band. Paul had to prove to John he had talent, and he still remembers the song he played for his future bandmate to impress him.
Before The Beatles were even an idea, John Lennon was a member of The Quarrymen Skiffle Group. On July 6, 1957, the Quarrymen performed at the garden fete of St. Peter’s Church in Woolton, Liverpool. Lennon was the lead vocalist and guitarist for the band. In attendance at the performance was a young Paul McCartney. McCartney was beginning to develop a love of rock n’ roll and was thrilled that there was a group around his age in his hometown.
In an interview with Record Collector, McCartney recalled Lennon performing an improvised version of “Come Go With Me”, where he only knew the chorus and made up the rest. He was the only “outstanding member,” as the rest seemed to blend in the background.
Source: Ross Tanenbaum/cheatsheet.com
George Harrison used a sitar on a song from The Beatles’ Rubber Soul. He said the sitar wasn’t good. A famous sitar played had mixed feelings on the song in question.
George Harrison took issue with an instrument he used in a song from The Beatles’ Rubber Soul. In addition, Indian musician Ravi Shankar had mixed feelings about the song. Despite these opinions, Rubber Soul became a big hit in the United States and the United Kingdom.The book George Harrison on George Harrison: Interviews and Encounters includes an interview with George and Shankar from 1997. In it, George discussed the origin of The Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown).” He said the Fab Four were open to taking influence from a variety of sources at the time, including avant-garde music. He revealed the other Beatles liked when George includes a sitar on “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown).”
Source: Matthew Trzcinski/cheatsheet.com
George Harrison did write several great songs for The Beatles, but “Something” was the most successful track he wrote for the band. Many listeners were awed by Harrison’s sweeping love ballad, and many musicians were impressed by Harrison’s work. The track has been covered hundreds of times, and Harrison once named his favorite cover of his Beatles hit.
Harrison didn’t contribute the same number of songs for The Beatles as Paul McCartney and John Lennon did, but he did have a few great tracks, such as “Here Comes the Sun” and “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”. However, “Something” is the biggest hit he wrote for The Beatles. Released as a double A-side single with “Come Together”, “Something” topped the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in 1969.
It was also included on Abbey Road, a massive chart success. Many other musicians loved the song and decided to record their own versions. Artists who covered it include Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, James Brown, Smokey Robinson, and Elvis Presley. Sinatra once declared it as “the greatest love song of the past 50 years.”
Source: Ross Tanenbaum/cheatsheet.com
The Beatles experimented with many different styles of music. “Yer Blues” was the band’s attempt at an American blues song, while songs like “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” saw the band capturing a more folkish sound. One Beatles song Paul McCartney said he and John Lennon wrote in a “waltz time.”
While many songs by The Beatles are credited to the Lennon-McCartney duo, the pair stopped collaborating as often in the band’s later years. The band started writing together on their earliest hits, like “I Saw Her Standing There” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” However, by 1964, the two were starting to work more independently.
“Baby’s in Black” is a song from 1964’s Beatles for Sale. It’s one of the last songs McCartney and Lennon worked on together. In Many Years From Now, McCartney told Barry Miles that the song was a collaborative effort between the two bandmates.
Source: Ross Tanenbaum/cheatsheet.com
Paul McCartney and George Harrison were the two youngest Beatles, and they formed a friendship before they were in a band together. By the time The Beatles broke up, their relationship had disintegrated. Harrison was tired of the way both McCartney and John Lennon treated him, but he reserved most of his ire for McCartney. This was because McCartney viewed Harrison as his younger brother.
McCartney and Harrison met on the bus to school. They were a year apart, but they bonded over their love of music.
“I knew George from the bus,” McCartney said, per The Beatles Anthology. “Before I went to live in Allerton, I lived in Speke. We lived on an estate which they used to call the Trading Estate. (I understand now that they were trying to move industry there to provide jobs, but then we didn’t ever consider why it was called a trading estate.) George was a bus stop away. I would get on the bus for school and he would get on the stop after.”
Source: Emma McKee/cheatsheet.com
