Beatles News
George Harrison wrote The Beatles’ “Within You Without You.” The Beatles’ producer, George Martin, was not a fan of the songs.
Martin said “Within You Without You” was inspired by an “obsession.”
The Beatles‘ producer, George Martin, was not a fan of every Beatles song. For example, he criticized The Beatles’ “Within You Without You.” Subsequently, the song’s writer, George Harrison, revealed his opinion of the tune.
The book The Beatles: Paperback Writer includes an interview with Martin from 1979. In it, he discussed the songs from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
“George’s contribution, ‘Within You Without You,’ was, with all deference to George, a rather dreary song, heavily influenced by his obsession with Indian music at that time,” he said. “I worked very closely with him on the scoring of it, using a string orchestra, and he brought in some friends from the Indian Music Association to play special instruments.”
Source: Matthew Trzcinski/cheatsheet.com
The Beatles didn’t stray away from controversial topics — even if that resulted in a death threat from a Ku Klux Klan member. Here’s what John Lennon said about people disliking the Beatles’ music and their message. How John Lennon added activism to the Beatles’ records (even if some listeners didn’t like it)
Some of the Beatles’ biggest hits were loaded with activism — from messages of peace (with “All You Need is Love”) to criticism of the United Kingdom. The satirical song, “Get Back,” detailed the UK’s attitude toward immigrants.
There were also songs like “Revolution” and “Taxman,” which received praise, and sometimes backlash, from listeners. In 1966, Lennon responded to those who severely opposed this rock band.
John Lennon commented on people ‘not liking’ the Beatles’ records
Not everyone agreed with the Beatles’ idealogy, with some band members commenting on their polarizing positions on current events. That includes Lennon being misquoted about the state of Christianity.
In 1966, that resulted in protests, record burning events hosted by Christian radio stations, and anonymous death threats. There was even a televised threat against the rock band from a Ku Klux Klan member.
Source: Julia Dzurillay/cheatsheet.com
Paul McCartney thinks it’s interesting singing The Beatles‘ “I Saw Her Standing There” because it has a “naïveté” that you “can’t invent.” The singer-songwriter recognizes that he was a completely different person when he wrote the song.
In The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present, Paul wrote that he’d include The Beates’ “I Saw Her Standing There” in the group of songs he considers his best work. He remembers playing the song for John Lennon for the first time. They smoked tea in Paul’s father’s pipe.
Despite his love for the tune, Paul explained that it had tough beginnings. There was an issue with one of the lyrics. Paul wrote, “I said, ‘She was just seventeen. She’d never been a beauty queen.’ And John said, ‘I’m not sure about that.’ So our main task was to get rid of the beauty queen. We struggled with it, but then it came.”
In The Lyrics, Paul wrote that singing “I Saw Her Standing There” now-and this happens to him with all The Beatles songs he sings, particularly from the early days-he realizes he’s “reviewing the work of an eighteen-to-twenty-year-old boy.”
Source: Hannah Wigandt/cheatsheet.com
The Beatles split up in 1970, but the members eventually rebuilt their bridges and became friends once again. Paul McCartney and John Lennon were the oldest friends in the band, having grown up together in Liverpool in the 1950s. So then, when Lennon was murdered in 1980, McCartney was utterly crushed. The former Fab Four star remembered his best pal fondly two years after Lennon's death in 1982 when he appeared on Desert Island Discs.
The BBC show invited artists to pick their favourite songs and records to take on a desert island with them. When McCartney attended, he included such massive hits as Chuck Berry's Sweet Little Sixteen, Gene Vincent's Be-Bop-A-Lula and Elvis Presley's Heartbreak Hotel.
However, the Hey Jude singer finished off his collection with a song from his friend, Lennon. Fighting back tears, he told host Roy Plomley: "Okay, well, this one... I haven't chosen any Beatles records. But if we had had more than eight, I probably would have. I haven't chosen any of my records."
Source: Callum Crumlish/express.co.uk
The Beatles ate in restaurants and John Lennon visited Disney World with his son. With such recognizable faces, Lennon commented on the group using disguises to go in public — which didn’t always work.
Even if they were typically touring, recording, and writing music, these artists found time to eat out at restaurants worldwide. Sometimes, listeners would approach and ask for an autograph.
“Usually it’s only Americans that’ll bother you,” George Harrison said (via Beatles Interviews). “If we go into a restaurant in London, there’s always going to be a couple of them eating there; you just tell the waiter to hold them off if they try to come over. If they come over anyway, you just sign.”
In the same interview, Starr added he wouldn’t frequent his typical restaurants if he wasn’t rich and famous, mentioning that “snobs” visited the same places as the Beatles. Beso in London, boasts the Beatles often dined there. (A picture of the Fab Four is visible on the wall.)
Source: Julia Dzurillay/cheatsheet.com
A popular nighttime DJ in Chicago first played the Beatles in February 1963, spinning a single version of "Please Please Me" that wasn't released through EMI, Parlophone or Capitol Records.
Instead, it was tiny Vee-Jay Records, a Black-owned label from Chicago's South Side founded by Vivian Carter and Jimmy Bracken. The Beatles were already surging in popularity back in their native England. Without Vee-Jay, however, they might never have broken in America. Capitol Records, EMI's American subsidiary, had initially turned them down.
Carter was also a radio personality and hosted a well-regarded gospel program in her Indiana hometown. She married Bracken, an entrepreneurial dreamer, four years before John Lennon and Paul McCartney first met in 1957. They started Vee-Jay, named after the first letters of their first names, with a $500 loan from a local pawnbroker. The first signed act was a doo-wop group, the Spaniels. Their debut single, "Baby It’s You," shot to No. 10 on the Billboard R&B chart, then the follow-up "Goodnite, Sweetheart, Goodnite" rose to No. 5. Vee-Jay was on its way.
They hired Ewart Abner as general manager. He'd later serve as label president at Vee-Jay before rising to the same position at Motown, Vee-Jay's successor as the most successful Black-operated record company. Previous experience at Chicago's Chance label had given Abner a wealth of insight into getting records made – and played.
Source: ultimateclassicrock.com
After The Beatles split up in 1970, George Harrison became perhaps the most successful member of the former band to build a solo career. In that same year, he released his third solo record, All Things Must Past, the album that would become his best-known and most successful. On November 23, 1970, Harrison dropped his first single from the record, My Sweet Lord, but four months later, he was hit was massive plagiarism charges.
By February 10, 1971, My Sweet Lord had become a smash hit, reaching the number one spot in singles charts around the world, and selling millions of copies in various countries. It was then claimed that My Sweet Lord was a rip-off of the 1963 song He's So Fine by American girlband The Chiffons.
Harrison admitted the songs were extremely similar in tone and structure, and - over the following ten years - battled to prove it was not an intentional display of plagiarism.
Source: Callum Crumlish/express.co.uk
Paul McCartney said all the “catchphrases” the press used to make up about The Beatles were “quite annoying.” First, the media gave the Fab Four tags that didn’t accurately describe their personalities. Then, they coined a term for their “distinct” sound.
In The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present, Paul wrote that with the press, “you need them and they need you.” However, some of the more annoying things the press said about The Beatles unfortunately stuck.
For instance, the press called what The Beatles did “Mersey Beat,” which took its name from a local entertainment paper. Paul wrote that when The Beatles heard the “catchphrase,” they thought, “Well, bloody hell. That’s so corny.”
Paul added, “We never thought of ourselves as Mersey, we thought of ourselves as Liverpool, and its an important difference if you come from there. But ‘Mersey Beat’ and ‘Mop Tops’-all these catchphrases stuck and were quite annoying.
“You’d do something you wouldn’t even think about, but then it would be a huge story.”
Source: Hannah Wigandt/cheatsheet.com
Phil Spector said critics hated his work on The Beatles’ “The Long and Winding Road.” He said it was fun to read critics say he “took all the guts out of” The Beatles. Spector gave fans insight into Paul McCartney’s role in recording the album Let It Be.
Phil Spector produced The Beatles‘ “The Long and Winding Road.” Subsequently, critics “destroyed” him for his contributions to the song. Critics took issue with one specific element of the ballad’s production.
The 2003 book Phil Spector: Out of His Head says The Beatles’ “The Long and Winding Road” received negative reviews from critics. Reviewers disliked the string section Spector added to the track, claiming it made the song sound too sentimental.
“Critically, I was destroyed,” Spector recalled. “They just panned the s*** out of me. It was fun to see people getting into it … ‘how Spector ruined The Beatles’ and how I took all the guts out of them.”
Spector discussed how people should think about “The Long and Winding Road” in retrospect. “Now that it’s sold 3 million, and it’s all over and done with, they should listen to what was there beforehand, I mean really listen to it,” he said.
Source: Matthew Trzcinski/
cheatsheet.com
Even Ringo Starr wasn’t spared in The Beatles’ bitter breakup. His drumming increasingly shone through in the music (he praised his work on “Get Back”) in the later years, but none of that mattered as the band dissolved. Paul McCartney threatened the drummer when he visited his house, and Ringo admitted he got very emotional about being attacked by his bandmate.
The Beatles were technically still together in 1970 when Paul’s debut solo album was set to hit shelves that April. The only trouble was it was scheduled to come out a week after the Fab Four’s Let It Be.
Ringo, John Lennon, and George Harrison didn’t think that was the wisest decision, so they wrote a letter pleading with Paul to change his release date. The drummer decided he should deliver it instead of a courier. Macca read the letter and erupted.
Paul threatened Ringo and threw the drummer out of his house. Things got so hostile that the meeting between longtime bandmates almost came to blows. Being verbally assaulted — Paul uttered an “I’ll finish you!” according to You Never Give Me Your Money author Peter Doggett — and nearly attacked made Ringo emotional.
Source: Jason Rossi/cheatsheet.com
