Beatles News
The Beatles had already won over music fans when they released their debut album, Please Please Me. The title song was the first of several Fab Four hits that didn’t surprisingly didn’t hit No. 1. When the album hit shelves in England on March 22, 1963, it started an incredible run of success. Let’s look at the five best Please Please Me songs, tunes that helped launch The Beatles’ legendary career.
Once Please Please Me made it on the charts in England, it locked down the top spot for an incredible 30 weeks, per the Official Charts Company. The debut album lasted for 70 weeks on the charts. Sgt. Pepper and Abbey Road are the only Beatles albums with longer tenures.
Perhaps most impressively, Please Please Me was the first of eight straight Beatles studio albums to reach No. 1. Magical Mystery Tour broke the streak in 1968. For a debut to leave such an impact underscores The Beatles’ mastery of their craft and music fans’ desire for a new sound in the early 1960s.
Source: Jason Rossi/cheatsheet.com
It's no surprise that Wings' synthy hit single "With a Little Luck" has a yacht-rock vibe or that Paul McCartney's group feels suddenly airy and wide open.
After all, Wings was recording on a boat – and guitarist Jimmy McCulloch was exiting the lineup. Drummer Joe English would soon follow him out, leaving Wings to complete 1978's London Town with the same core trio that fashioned their signature Band on the Run album.
This time, however, Wings had a far different, more stripped-down musical approach. "It just comes in phases," McCartney said in a 1978 promo interview with Capitol Records. "At one moment, you're listening to some records that are really produced and you think, 'Yeah, I want to do that kind of thing.' At another moment, you're listening to something that's very simple and you think, 'I really like very simple music.'"
Source: ultimateclassicrock.com
Ringo Starr took over The Beatles’ drum seat in 1962, but that wasn’t the only elite group he joined in his career. The English royal family knighted Ringo on March 20, 2018, after he had earned several artistic honors in his career. The drummer who complained about being ignored while making Rubber Soul couldn’t be overlooked when Prince William bestowed the title Sir Richard Starkey on him. Still, the royal family was a little slow to honor Ringo for his life’s work.
The Beatles received MBE honors from Queen Elizabeth II during the height of Beatlemania in 1965. John Lennon later returned his, and George Harrison rejected the royal family’s offer to be knighted.
Paul McCartney was one of few musicians to be knighted by the queen, in 1997. More than 20 years later, Prince William made Ringo a knight in a ceremony at Buckingham Palace on March 20, 2018.
Like his bandmate, the royal family honored Ringo for his contributions to music and the arts. Receiving the honor delighted the drummer. George and John didn’t care about knighthood, but Ringo was ecstatic.
Source: Jason Rossi/cheatsheet.com
Ringo Starr rarely hesitates to call it like he sees it, even if he’s the target. Yusuf / Cat Stevens cut his drumming from an album, and his reaction to the slight was pure class. So when Ringo complimented Brian Wilson’s work ethic, it was massive praise from The Beatles drummer to the Beach Boys frontman.
Ringo’s excessive drinking was such a problem in the mid-1980s that he played a concert with the Beach Boys and has no memory of it. Thankfully for him and music fans, he committed to a healthier lifestyle and continued making music. The drummer also inspired another legendary musician to get sober.
He was in a much better place in the early 1990s. In 1992, Ringo released his first solo album since 1981, Time Takes Time, with the help of several collaborators. Brian Wilson was one of them.
The Beach Boys’ star played on the song “Weight of the World” from that album, and he teamed up with Ringo again in 1998 on the Vertical Man album. In his book Postcards From the Boys, the drummer said watching Wilson work was an incredible experience:
Source: Jason Rossi/cheatsheet.com
On Dec. 8, 1980, John Lennon was assassinated outside his apartment building in New York City. The news shocked the world, and many musicians paid tribute to the former Beatle shortly after his death. For the remaining Beatles members, Ringo Starr, George Harrison, and Paul McCartney, it took some time for them to process John Lennon’s death fully. However, they each mourned their former bandmate and friend in the way they knew best: music.
George Harrison released “All Those Years Ago” as a single in 1981 for his album Somewhere in England. Initially, he wrote the song for Ringo Starr. However, Starr didn’t like the lyrics and felt the track was out of his range. Harrison took the song back and decided to change the lyrics after Lennon’s death.
The song is one of the few times the three remaining Beatles played a song together. Starr played the drums, while Paul McCartney and his wife, Linda, provided backing vocals. The song was a hit, peaking at No. 2 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. In a 1987 interview with Entertainment Tonight, Harrison recalled changing the lyrics after Lennon’s death and how singing it was tough.
Source: Ross Tanenbaum/cheatsheet.com
Paul McCartney said he couldn’t quite suppress his “weakness for naughtiness” when he wrote the ending of The Beatles‘ “Lovely Rita.” There was always an erotic aspect behind Paul’s lyrics.
In his book The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present, Paul wrote that nobody liked parking attendants or meter maids, as they were known in the 1960s. So, Paul thought it would be amusing to write a song about someone in love with one.
Paul based The Beatles’ “Lovely Rita” on a particular meter maid he saw in Portland Place. He recalls her looking slightly military-looking. It’s terrible, but Paul thinks those meter maids were never good-looking. “You never heard anybody say, ‘God, that’s one stunning parking attendant,'” he wrote.
Source: Hannah Wigandt/cheatsheet.com
Paul McCartney said he often does a “disappearing trick” when writing songs. He likes to pretend to be other artists when he doesn’t want to write a Paul McCartney song. Suddenly, there’s no pressure.
In his book The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present, Paul wrote that he often does a “bit of a disappearing trick” when writing a song. For example, he imagines it having been recorded by another artist. In the case of The Beatles’ “The Long and Winding Road,” Paul thought of Ray Charles.
Sometimes, Paul doesn’t feel like writing songs as Paul McCartney. He doesn’t want it to be a Paul McCartney song. So he imagines he’s another person writing a tune. “This is a strategy for keeping things fresh,” Paul wrote.
Source: Hannah Wigandt/cheatsheet.com
There are many things to watch if you love The Beatles, but what if you miss Beatlemania? The phenomenon started in 1963 when the band’s success started to mount in the U.K. and Europe. Then, “I Want to Hold Your Hand” became The Beatles’ first No. 1 single in the U.S., and their popularity worldwide skyrocketed.
Suddenly, they couldn’t go anywhere without having crowds of girls storm after them trying to pull locks of hair from their heads. Here’s what to watch if you miss the days when massive crowds showed their often rambunctious love and support for the band—even if that meant trying to climb the walls of Buckingham Palace.
The Beatles Anthology is always a great place to start for all Beatles-related things, including Beatlemania. The eight-part documentary was made by The Beatles and told by The Beatles. They created the massive project, including three double disc CDs and a book, because they wanted to tell their story in their own words.
Source: Hannah Wigandt/cheatsheet.com
George Harrison’s contributions to The Beatles were limited to his guitar playing, but when he could shine, he created many of the band’s most unique sounds and experimental tracks. One of Harrison’s most famous Beatles songs was based on a “30 or 40 minutes” piece by Ravi Shankar and had to be condensed dramatically.
During the 1960s, Harrison developed a passion for Indian classical music. He learned how to play the sitar and first incorporated it in a Beatles song on “Norwegian Wood” from 1965’s Rubber Soul.
In a 1992 interview with Billboard, Harrison said he was first exposed to the sitar while filming a scene for the movie Help!. There were Indian musicians in the background of a scene, and the singer-songwriter was captivated by the sound. Later, he heard the name Ravi Shankar and wanted to learn more about the famous sitarist.
Source: Ross Tanenbaum/cheatsheet.com
The Beatles were excellent at deciding when a single should be released as an A-side vs. a B-side. Sometimes it was hard to tell if a song was an A-side before it was played. John Lennon wrote one song for The Beatles that he felt was “lousy,” but the band’s version of it was good enough to make it an A-side single. “I Feel Fine” was written by John Lennon and released in 1964 by The Beatles. The track was considered revolutionary as it’s one of the earliest rock songs to include amplifier feedback in the recording. While The Beatles were innovators in discovering new recording techniques, this happened accidentally. In Barry Miles’ Many Years From Now, Paul McCartney admitted that the feedback happened after Lennon leaned his guitar against an amp.
Source: Ross Tanenbaum/cheatsheet.com
