Beatles News
Paul McCartney had some simple and obvious inspiration for his 1971 song “Eat at Home.” However, he also had some not-so-simple and not-so-obvious inspiration. When he meshed it all together, it worked.
Shortly after The Beatles split, Paul retreated to his High Park Farm in Kintyre, Scotland, with his wife Linda and their kids. One day, Paul and Linda sat down to eat a meaty dinner and casually looked outside their window. There, they saw their lambs happily galloping away in the fields.
Suddenly, their roast dinner wasn’t appetizing. It was an awkward moment that ultimately turned them into vegetarians. Eventually, Linda started coming up with great meatless dishes and later wrote her own cookbook.
In The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present, Paul wrote that nobody was writing simple and easy-to-follow recipe books for meat-free home cooking. He added that he and his wife liked eating in bed. Living in comfortable domesticity, Paul wrote “Eat at Home.”
Source: Hannah Wigandt/cheatsheet.com
Paul McCartney and John Lennon‘s songwriting sessions were short. You’d think that they took their time pouring over lyrics or extracting The Beatles‘ early hits from their brains was hard work. However, their songwriting sessions only lasted about three hours. After that, they couldn’t think anymore.
In The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present, Paul wrote that he and John used to go to each other’s houses for songwriting sessions, which only lasted about three hours.
Paul wrote that it wasn’t that they set a strict time limit; “it was just that by three hours, we’d had enough, and we learnt that by then we could polish it off. That two to three hours is a kind of natural period. It’s why most classes or seminars and most recording sessions are two to three hours. After that your brain goes a bit.”
It’s also worth pointing out that The Beatles’ early songs were simple; they used the same chords. Although, one of their most simple songs, “Good Day Sunshine,” puzzled classical composers. It’s interesting because they didn’t know how to read or write music.
Source: Hannah Wigandt/cheatsheet.com
Dave Grohl has publicly expressed his love for The Beatles and the influence the band had on his career. He has worked with Paul McCartney a few times but never had the chance to interact with John Lennon. In a recent interview, Dave Grohl shared his admiration for John Lennon and revealed the song Lennon wrote that he is envious of.
Many artists know their favorite song by The Beatles, but for many, it’s hard to choose since the band released so many hits. Even with individual albums, it can be difficult to decide which track from the album is the best. In a 2019 BBC Radio 2 interview (shared by Far Out), Grohl was asked what his favorite Abbey Road song is, and he said, “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”.
“The one that stands out to me the most, and has always been my favorite from that record, is called ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’,” he shared. “I love heavy music, I love Black Sabbath, I love Motörhead, but I think that nothing is heavier, melodically darker, and deeper than the riff in this song.”
Source: Ross Tanenbaum/cheatsheet.com
George Harrison said people wouldn’t want to see “three old men hobbling around the stage pretending to be the Fab Four.” He was sick of people asking him if The Beatles would ever reunite.
The spiritual Beatle always appreciated the fans, but he didn’t understand why some of them never let go of The Beatles. He had a problem with the people who wanted the band to continue or reunite. During a 1974 press conference (per George Harrison on George Harrison: Interviews and Encounters), George said he realized The Beatles filled a space in the 1960s and that the group meant a lot to people.
However, he also knew that some people were too attached. “I can understand that the Beatles did nice things and it’s appreciated that people still like them,” George said. “The problem comes when they want to live in the past, when they want to hold on to something. People are afraid of change.”
Source: Hannah Wigandt/cheatsheet.com
George Harrison steered clear of approaching other famous people. He knew what it felt like when people confronted him. If George craved invisibity he rationalized that other celebrities did too.
After experiencing Beatlemania for about 10 years, George’s nerves were shot. He said he and the band came out of the 1960s “shell-shocked. They were lucky to have their sanity and humor intact.
For much of the 1960s and 1970s, George and The Beatles couldn’t go anywhere without being mobbed by people. “A good romp? That was fair in the films,” he wrote in his 1980 memoir, I Me Mine, “but in the real world . . . we didn’t have any space . . . like monkeys in a zoo.”
Eventually, George didn’t know whether his life was a blessing or a curse. During a 1975 interview with Dave Herman at WNEW-FM (per George Harrison on George Harrison: Interviews and Encounters), George said the blessing is that you’re rich and famous and “all this looks rosy.” On the other hand, the curse is that you’re never left alone and have to deal with people’s expectations.
George never escaped the watchful eye of the public and the hounding press. They analyzed and scrutinized his every move. George often wished he was invisible.
Source: Hannah Wigandt /cheatsheet.com
George Martin hated The Beatles’ “One After 909” and early John Lennon-Paul McCartney songs. He discussed why he had a positive view of the band in their early days anyways. The Beatles rediscovered “One After 909” sometime after and put the song on a classic album.
Producer George Martin hated The Beatles‘ “One After 909.” John Lennon revealed he wrote it when he was a teenager. Subsequently, The Beatles rediscovered the song when they were putting Let It Be together.
During a 2004 interview with Analog Planet, Martin discussed meeting The Beatles. “When I first met them in ’62, their material was terrible,” he said.
“Their songs were … I mean, ‘One after 909?'” he said. “What the hell was that? It was silly stuff. Not very good, really. But they had this potential, and they had this charisma.”
Source: Matthew Trzcinski/cheatsheet.com
George Harrison was the youngest Beatles member, performing with Paul McCartney and John Lennon at only 14 years old. During a self-interview, this guitarist commented on his role in the rock band — and why his age didn’t make “the slightest difference.”
The Beatles are the behind “Love Me Do,” “Here Comes the Sun,” and “Strawberry Fields Forever.” They first started writing and performing music as teenagers, with guitarist and songwriter Harrison as the youngest band member.
Harrison was only 14 years old when he started performing with the then-Quarrymen. According to Biography, it was McCartney that pushed for Harrison to join the band, despite the guitarist’s age. Eventually, the band changed their name to the Beatles, swapping their drummer for Ringo Starr. The rest is history.
Source: Julia Dzurillay/cheatsheet.com
Since the explosion of Beatlemania in 1964, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr began to have a difficult time going out in public. Everywhere they went, people approached them, demanding pictures, autographs, or just a chance at a conversation. While exciting at first, this level of attention quickly grew tiresome. The band began using disguises to go out in public, to varying degrees of success. According to Lennon, McCartney was always the best at disguises, even managing to fool the band’s manager.
After The Beatles found widespread popularity, the band could hardly go anywhere in public without fans approaching them. People would even turn up at their homes and parents’ homes, searching for them. Lennon’s first wife, Cynthia, recalled watching the band fight through the crowd to get to their car.
“Watching TV in Liverpool and looking at the photos in the papers of the crowd scenes I was a little alarmed — John and the others had almost been crushed by the mob as they tried to get to their car that night,” she wrote in her memoir, John. “What on earth was going on?”
Source: Emma McKee/cheatsheet.com
After The Beatles broke up, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr set off on separate careers. While they would work together sporadically over the years, they were now solo artists. This was uncharted territory for them, but they all found success. Starr said that his former bandmates were shocked when his music hit number one.
By the end of the 1960s, tensions within The Beatles were at an all-time high. After disagreements over the band’s creative direction and management, they decided to call it quits. Lennon said it was good that they were moving on.
“It’s far better music (we’re all making now) because we’re not suppressed,” he said in 1971, per Express. “In the Beatles, by the time the Beatles were at their peak we were cutting each other down to size. We were limiting our capacity to write and perform by fitting it into some kind of format and that’s why it caused trouble … I knew I wouldn’t be doing the same thing. It just doesn’t work like that. It’s like a rugby team. Sometimes you just have to get married and leave the boys on a Saturday night. That’s just how it is.”
After the band’s breakup, each former member dug into their solo career. Harrison became the first of the group to have a No. 1 hit with 1970’s “My Sweet Lord.” Soon, though, the other Beatles found similar success.
Source: Emma McKee/cheatsheet.com
John Lennon was often known for his surreal and psychedelic sayings. Some of them wouldn’t make any sense, while others were humorous quotes that made the other Beatles laugh. In the early days of The Beatles, Lennon shared a bizarre anecdote about the band’s origins that Paul McCartney later used as the basis for one of his solo albums.
McCartney released his 10th solo album Flaming Pie in 1997. The project debuted shortly after The Beatles Anthology, an extensive retrospective of The Beatles that included a book, a documentary, and a three-volume set of double albums. McCartney worked on the project with Ringo Starr and George Harrison and was inspired to create an album with a Beatles influence.
For Flaming Pie, McCartney worked with Electric Light Orchestra’s Jeff Lynne and former Beatles producer George Martin. He also brought in family and friends to help record songs, including Starr on drums and his son, James, on guitar. The album was a critical and commercial success, peaking at No. 2 on the U.K. album charts and the U.S. Billboard 200.
Source: Ross Tanenbaum/cheatsheet.com
