Beatles News
Paul McCartney is considered one of the greatest musicians of all time due to his immense contribution to the music industry and his influence on popular culture. He came to world prominence as a member of The Beatles throughout the band’s active career from 1960 to 1970. Along with John Lennon, he co-wrote many of the band’s most celebrated songs for the band, such as Hey Jude, Yesterday, and Let It Be.
After The Beatles disbanded, Paul McCartney continued his successful music career as a solo artist. He released his first solo album, McCartney, in 1970, which featured him playing all the instruments himself. The album was a commercial success and included the hit single Maybe I’m Amazed. Throughout his solo career, McCartney continued to explore a wide range of genres, from rock and pop to classical and electronic music. He has released over twenty solo albums, including the critically acclaimed Flaming Pie and Chaos and Creation in the Backyard.
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By 1966, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr had grown tired of touring. The Beatles had dealt with several brushes with disaster, and noise from the crowd made it practically impossible to hear the music they were playing. Starr said that going on tour was wrecking the band’s ability to play music. Considering the music they put out after they stopped touring, he was right.
After several years of touring, it became too much for The Beatles. They had faced natural disasters, political unrest, and unruly fans. It was a relief for them when they decided to stop touring in 1966.
“There was a certain amount of relief after that Candlestick Park concert,” Harrison told Rolling Stone in 1987. “Before one of the last numbers, we actually set up this camera — I think it had a fisheye, a very wide-angle lens. We set it up on the amplifier, and Ringo came off the drums, and we stood with our backs to the audience and posed for a photograph, because we knew that was the last show.”
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There are many things to watch if you love singer-songwriter and musician George Harrison. Here’s a list of things to put in your queue—everything from the former Beatle’s favorite films to documentaries about his life. If you’re a George Harrison fan, bets are you’re also a Beatles fan. So, if you haven’t seen all of The Beatles’ films, put those at the top of your queue. There’s A Hard Day’s Night, Help!, Magical Mystery Tour, Yellow Submarine, and Let It Be. In A Hard Day’s Night, George has his “grotty” scene, which he didn’t want to do. Later, in Let It Be, we see his very-real tense fights with Paul McCartney. The Beatles Anthology was a massive project the remaining Beatles undertook in the mid-1990s. It comprises an eight-part television documentary, a three-volume set of double albums, and a book. Although it was The Beatles’ first chance at telling their story, George initially wanted no part in it. He claimed the documentary makers were trying to sensationalize some rougher bits of the band’s history. If they discussed rumors or certain stories, fans would believe them. Regardless, George partook in the project and performed with his former bandmates on two new Beatles songs, “Free As A Bird” and “Real Love.”
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It’s symbolic that The Beatles‘ final No. 1 single is “The Long and Winding Road.” The Fab Four had certainly traveled down a long and winding road to get to where they were when they recorded the tune.
Paul McCartney based ‘The Long and Winding Road’ on the road leading to town from his Scottish farm
In his book, The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present, Paul McCartney wrote that from the bedroom window of his farmhouse in Kintyre, Scotland, he could see a road that twisted away into the distance toward the main road. It was the road to town, Campbeltown.
Paul bought High Park Farm in 1966. It was a very remote retreat, and it was almost in ruin when he bought it. That is until his first wife, Linda, fixed it up and turned it into a private haven for them and their growing family in the late 1960s.
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The Beatles remain a popular band decades after they broke up. A few musicians hated the band, but millions of people loved them. They sent several singles and albums to the top of the Billboard charts throughout the 1960s, but three Beatles records peaked at No. 2 in the United States because other Beatles albums kept them from getting to No. 1.
The Fab Four released a steady stream of albums from 1963 to 1970. They existed for a short time but achieved incredible success as 14 of their studio albums raced to the top of the Billboard 200 albums chart. Still, the first Beatles album to debut at No. 1 was the first anthology compilation released in 1995.
Let’s look more closely at The Beatles albums that peaked at No. 2 because other Beatles albums held the top spot.
Note: We included studio albums only, not greatest hits packages, compilations, or reissues.
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Whether you were a fan or not, it is difficult to deny the impact the Beatles made on the last 60 years of music, and there would be no Fab Four without the group's founder, John Lennon. His name has been lifted among the lauded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time; his music has sold millions of copies well before streams ever existed. His legend loomed so large that there were portions of his life when John couldn't walk the street without being swarmed by a mob of screaming fans.
In less than 40 years of life, he claimed to be "more popular than Jesus" and added the term "bed-in" into the cultural zeitgeist—all before being murdered under the archway of his apartment building in New York City; his wife, Yoko Ono, by his side.
On the surface, his life story appeared to be a meteoric rise to the top of stardom worthy of envy or emulation. Underneath it all, however, John was a far more complex character than the sleek suits and mop-topped hairstyles of the early '60s portrayed. Many know who John Lennon is, but who was John Lennon, really?
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Ringo Starr saw his confidence grow as during his time in The Beatles. He started as a nervous newcomer but then grew into his role in the band. Ringo fully embraced boasting about his skill during the Abbey Road sessions, but he never wanted to sit at the mixing console working on Beatles albums for the most Ringo of reasons.
Being the last to join The Beatles and the only one who didn’t write songs had its perks for Ringo. Being the fourth Beatle was a positive since he faced less pressure than John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison.
That extended to making the records. As the primary songwriters, John, Paul, and George spent plenty of time at the mixing desk ensuring their songs on The Beatles’ albums sounded as close to what they heard in their heads as possible, especially when they became a studio band. That job wasn’t for Ringo, as he explained in his book Postcards From the Boys.
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There are some who simply assume that George Harrison’s love for Indian music dates from around the time he and the other Beatles went to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s lecture in London, on August 24, 1967. In fact, George’s interest was piqued in April 1965 when The Beatles were filming Help! in April 1965.
“We were waiting to shoot the scene in the restaurant when the guy gets thrown in the soup, and there were a few Indian musicians playing in the background,” Harrison recalled. “I remember picking up the sitar and trying to hold it and thinking, ‘This is a funny sound.’ It was an incidental thing, but somewhere down the line, I began to hear Ravi Shankar's name. The third time I heard it, I thought, ‘This is an odd coincidence.’ And then I talked with David Crosby of The Byrds, and he mentioned the name. I went and bought a Ravi record; I put it on and it hit a certain spot in me that I can't explain, but it seemed very familiar to me. The only way I could describe it was: my intellect didn't know what was going on and yet this other part of me identified with it. It just called on me… A few months elapsed and then I met this guy from the Asian Music Circle organization who said, ‘Oh, Ravi Shankar's gonna come to my house for dinner. Do you want to come too?’”
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Over the years, Beatles fans have enjoyed a wealth of programming that they can watch about the band. Documentaries have been made about each member of the band, and series like Peter Jackson’s The Beatles: Get Back follow the band through archival footage. Here are several films and series that fans of the Beatles should watch.
When The Beatles: Get Back aired on Disney+, fans had a chance to watch the band write, record, and perform classic songs. For the three-part documentary series, Jackson sifted through hours of footage originally captured for the 1970 documentary Let It Be.
While Let It Be provided audiences with a look into the band’s inevitable breakup, Get Back showed footage of the band enjoying their time together in spite of mounting tensions. Jackson said that he did not want to make the series if it was strictly about The Beatles’ break up.
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After leaving The Beatles, Paul McCartney had more freedom to do whatever he wanted musically. His solo career and time with Wings are filled with oddball songs that showed McCartney’s willingness to think outside the box and experiment with new sounds. One song from Wings was an intriguing choice for the singer-songwriter, and he labeled it as a “joke,” even though he enjoyed the track. Venus and Mars is the fourth studio album released by Paul McCartney and Wings. The album had massive expectations, following up on the critically acclaimed and commercially successful Band on the Run. While it didn’t receive the same acclaim, it still reached No. 1 on the charts and featured the No. 1 single “Listen to What the Man Said”.The album ends with an odd duo. The second to last track is “Treat Her Gently/Lonely Old People,” which is a track from the perspective of two lonely old people who are sitting at home alone as the day goes by. The last track is “Crossroads,” a cover of the theme song of British soap opera. The soap opera lasted from 1964 to 1988 and was a popular series amongst older viewers. The theme was composed by Tony Hatch and was widely recognizable to British audiences.
Source: Ross Tanenbaum/cheatsheet.com
