Beatles News
On March 6, 1970, The Beatles released “Let It Be” as a single. It was the group’s final single before Paul McCartney announced his departure. Here’s what Paul had to say about the hit in his book The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present.
In The Lyrics, Paul said that the context in which he wrote The Beatles’ “Let It Be” was “one of stress.” It was a difficult and tense time for The Beatles, who were heading toward breaking up. Suddenly, there was a lot of change, and no one wanted to work together.
John Lennon constantly wanted to be with Yoko Ono. George Harrison wanted to move to India and live like a yogi. Paul wanted to get back to the group’s roots, hoping it’d save them from breaking up. Ringo Starr was down for anything.
Source: Hannah Wigandt/cheatsheet.com
“I Am the Walrus” is one of The Beatles’ most bizarre and surreal tracks. The song was written by John Lennon, who, according to Paul McCartney, also provided many of the weirder moments that improved the track.
“I Am the Walrus” debuted in 1967 as a part of The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour movie and album. The song features some of the band’s more surreal and nonsensical lyrics. The track was inspired by the work of Lewis Carroll, specifically The Walrus and the Carpenter story from Through the Looking Glass. In the 1980 Playboy interview, John Lennon said the inspiration for “I Am the walrus” came to him during two acid trips.
“The first line was written on one acid trip one weekend. The second line was written on the next acid trip the next weekend, and it was filled in after I met Yoko,” Lennon shared. “Part of it was putting down Hare Krishna. All these people were going on about Hare Krishna, Allen Ginsberg in particular. The reference to ‘Element’ry penguin’ is the elementary, naive attitude of going around chanting, ‘Hare Krishna,’ or putting all your faith in any one idol.”
Source: Ross Tanenbaum/cheatsheet.com
Paul McCartney loved writing songs with John Lennon. However, if he had to choose one of the most exciting things about their time as songwriter partners, Paul said they came at songs from different angles. They were opposites most of the time but complimented each other.
In The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present, Paul wrote that no one was interested in his songs until he met John. In The Beatles’ early days, the songwriting pair wrote at least one song daily and only came close to a dry songwriting session once.
A dry songwriting session was rare for Paul and John because they knew how to work together. If one were stuck, the other would know how to help. “We could suggest the way out of the maze to each other, which was a very handy thing to have. We inspired each other,” Paul wrote.
Source: Hannah Wigandt/cheatsheet.com
Choosing 10 of the weirdest Beatles songs is challenging. The Fab Four produced many strange tunes that have left fans scratching their heads for decades.
Once The Beatles stopped touring, they spent more time in the recording studio and experimented. They’d also discovered LSD and liked smoking marijuana. Here are the top 10 weirdest Beatles songs.
10. ‘Mr. Moonlight’
“Mr. Moonlight” is a strange love song. The way John Lennon sings the verses is also a bit weird. The person in the tune is thanking the moon for giving them their love. It’s not an ordinary romantic song, and the melody is jarring. It’s also one of the most often-forgotten Beatles songs.
9. ‘Nowhere Man’
“Nowhere Man” could be about someone who doesn’t belong, but it’s still weird. The beginning verse paints a picture of someone out of a story like Alice in Wonderland. “He’s a real nowhere man/ Sitting in his nowhere land/ Making all his nowhere plans for nobody.” The song can be interpreted in many different ways. No wonder the song appeared in The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine cartoon.
Source: Hannah Wigandt/cheatsheet.com
Bob Dylan and John Lennon were friends, but they were complete opposites in their approach to the media. Lennon was very revealing in interviews, particularly in the immediate aftermath of The Beatles’ breakup. He spoke candidly about his relationship with Yoko Ono and his distaste for other artists. Dylan, on the other hand, remained enigmatic. While he has given hundreds of interviews in his career, he is much less willing to open his private life to media scrutiny than Lennon was. In some ways, though, this has increased speculation about him.
A black and white picture of Bob Dylan holding a cigarette by a window. John Lennon wears a white turtleneck and glasses.
Dylan first met The Beatles in 1964 and quickly gravitated toward Lennon. The Beatles’ road manager Neil Aspinall believed that Dylan recognized Lennon as the leader of the band. Lennon also took a great deal of musical inspiration from Dylan and enjoyed his friendship.
“And John was a very good friend of Dylan’s,” director D.A. Pennebaker said, per the book The Ballad of Bob Dylan: A Portrait by Daniel Mark Epstein. “John just loved him. And vice versa. They adored each other. And the rest of the Beatles? Paul would come in and play something and Dylan would get up and walk out of the room.”
Source: Emma McKee/cheatsheet.com
Paul McCartney has written many love songs about the woman in his life, and several are about his first wife, Linda. The two were married for almost 30 years before her death in 1998. During their time together, McCartney expressed his love in various ways, including writing songs about her.
“The Lovely Linda” is the opening track on McCartney’s first solo album, McCartney. He wrote the song in the early days of their relationship, and it features sounds of the pair hanging around the house. In an interview with Billboard, McCartney called the song a “direct diary.”
“That was when Linda and I first got together,” he said. “The record is me playing around the house. You hear her walking through the living room doorway out to the garden, and the door squeaks at the end of the tape. That’s one of the songs from my personal experience, with ‘the flowers in her hair.’ She often used to wear flowers in her hair, so it’s a direct diary.”
Source: Ross Tanenbaum/cheatsheet.com
Paul McCartney loved writing songs with John Lennon. However, if he had to choose one of the most exciting things about their time as songwriter partners, Paul said they came at songs from different angles. They were opposites most of the time but complimented each other.
In The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present, Paul wrote that no one was interested in his songs until he met John. In The Beatles’ early days, the songwriting pair wrote at least one song daily and only came close to a dry songwriting session once.
A dry songwriting session was rare for Paul and John because they knew how to work together. If one were stuck, the other would know how to help. “We could suggest the way out of the maze to each other, which was a very handy thing to have. We inspired each other,” Paul wrote.
Source: Hannah Wigandt/cheatsheet.com
Many actors have a hard time watching their movies, and The Beatles were no different regarding their first movie, A Hard Day’s Night. While attending a screening of A Hard Day’s Night, every member failed to sit through the screening, except George Harrison. Harrison sat through the whole thing, which could be because he was the only one who could stand his acting.
The Beatles acted in movies such as A Hard Day’s Night, Help!, and Magical Mystery Tour. Each film was a musical comedy that featured excellent soundtracks promoting The Beatles’ music. None of the fab four were trained actors, so this was a new experience for them.
In the book George Harrison on George Harrison, Paul McCartney admitted they weren’t the best actors. Part of it was that they were lazy and would learn their lines shortly before shooting each scene. However, they did enjoy the experience of making their first movie.
Source: Ross Tanenbaum/cheatsheet.com
Did you know that legendary Beatle Paul McCartney's first wife was a professional photographer? And a brilliant one at that! Linda McCartney (1941-1998), born Linda Eastman, was the first-ever female photographer to shoot a cover image for Rolling Stone magazine - with an image of Eric Clapton. She was a renowned music photographer in her own right covering the early New York doo-wop scene.
The Linda McCartney Retrospective is an exhibition opening this week at the University of Arizona’s Center for Creative Photography, and has been curated by Paul McCartney and their daughter Mary McCartney, who is now also a photographer and documentary filmmaker, to showcase Linda's entire career from 1965 to 1997.
Source: Beth Nicholls/digitalcameraworld.com
The Beatles and Pink Floyd were two of the world’s biggest bands in the 1960s and 1970s. And they hardly crossed paths while both bands were active, even though Floyd recorded their debut next door to The Beatles. Pink Floyd cut Paul McCartney’s contribution to their legendary 1973 album The Dark Side of the Moon, but The Beatles’ music made a surprise and nearly-hidden cameo on the record.
The Dark Side of the Moon features several voice cameos. Pink Floyd asked various Abbey Road Studios employees and others to answer questions (some simple, some existential) and included their responses on the album.
But not Paul’s.
Source: Jason Rossi/cheatsheet.com
