Beatles News
Paul McCartney wrote The Beatles’ “Let It Be” when his relationship with John Lennon was strained.
He was also dealing with drug issues around the time he wrote “Let It Be.”
He gets asked if the song bring backs negative memories for him.
Paul McCartney says he wrote The Beatles‘ “Let It Be” during a difficult time in his life. Fans asked him if the song triggers bad memories. In addition, Paul helped create a new version of the song with Boy George and Kate Bush.
In the 1997 book Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now, Paul discussed what he went through when The Beatles made Let It Be. “This was a very difficult period,” he recalled. “John was with Yoko full-time, and our relationship was beginning to crumble: John and I were going through a very tense period. The breakup of The Beatles was looming and I was very nervy.”
Paul’s issues extended beyond his relationship with John. “Personally, it was a very difficult time for me, I think the drugs, the stress, tiredness, and everything had really started to take its toll,” he added. “I somehow managed to miss a lot of the bad effects of all that, but looking back on this period, I think I was having troubles.”
Source: Matthew Trzcinski/cheatsheet.com
One Paul McCartney song might be about his father and it might be about God. He compared the song to The Beatles’ “Let It Be.”
Paul revealed his feelings about God and the devil.
One of Paul McCartney‘s songs might be about God. It might also be about his father. During an interview, Paul compared the track in question with one of The Beatles’ biggest hits.
In the 2015 book Conversations with Paul McCartney, Paul discussed his song “Motor of Love.” In the song, he sings “Heavenly father, look down from above.” Paul was asked if the line was supposed to be about his father, James McCartney, or God.
“Heavenly father … That’s either my dad, or God, you know?” he said. “When I’m dealing in that area I don’t want to be specific. I’m not really religious.”
Source: Matthew Trzcinski/cheatsheet.com
Paul McCartney and Jimi Hendrix were two rock legends born in different parts of the world. The two had tremendous respect for one another, and McCartney recalls witnessing a Hendrix moment that he declared one of the “great honors” of his career.
In 1967, The Beatles released the album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The album was tremendously successful, reaching No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard Charts and the official charts in the U.K. Apparently, the album immediately impacted Hendrix as he decided to cover the album’s title track.
The concert took place at the Savile Theatre, and Paul McCartney and George Harrison were in attendance to witness this new guitar god. Hendrix wasn’t aware they were in attendance, but he opened the concert with a performance of the title track just three days after Sgt. Pepper’s release.
In an interview with Stephen Colbert (shared by Far Out), McCartney reflected on the first time he witnessed the guitar wizardry of Hendrix. The former Beatle said he wasn’t expecting the guitarist to open with Sgt. Pepper’s since it had just been released. However, it was the “ultimate compliment” that it had already had an impact.
Source: Ross Tanenbaum/cheatsheet.com
Ringo Starr started a serious relationship around the time he joined The Beatles. The drummer said the sweetest words about his wife soon after they started dating, but the marriage came several years later. Still, Ringo’s wedding in 1965 proved how tight The Beatles’ relationships were before things went sour for the band.
Adding Ringo to the mix near the end of 1962 was a busy time for the fledging Beatles.
From a musical standpoint, adding the talented drummer was the spark they needed to achieve global fame. The Fab Four hit the British charts by the end of the year, released three No. 1 singles and a No. 2 in England in 1963, and conquered North America by early 1964.
Two of the Fab Four’s personal lives were quite busy. Ringo started dating Maureen Cox around the time he joined the band. John Lennon got married a few days after the drummer joined.
Source: Jason Rossi/cheatsheet.com
In 1958, John Lennon’s mother, Julia, died, and George Harrison’s mom wanted to ensure her son’s friend was OK. Though he put on a brave face in public, she overheard a conversation between Lennon and his friends in the months before his mother’s death. He said something that gave her cause for concern. Because of this, she forced Harrison to check up on Lennon. Lennon’s parents separated when he was young, and his Aunt Mimi called Social Services on his mother twice. As a result, Mimi took custody of Lennon, and he had lessened contact with her as a child. When Lennon grew older, though, he began reconnecting with his mother over music. Mimi wouldn’t let him play music in the house, but Julia encouraged him.
Source: Emma McKee/cheatsheet.com
George Harrison had many musical influences and often found ways to pay homage to those artists in his songs. Sometimes, he would unconsciously include a melody or riff he heard somewhere else. One song he wrote sounded too similar to another artist, and the consequences made him stop “listening to the radio.”
“My Sweet Lord” was released in 1970 on the triple album All Things Must Pass, but it was also released as a single. The song hit No. 1 on the charts worldwide, making Harrison the first Beatle to hit No. 1 after the band split. The song was produced by Phil Spector and also included musicians such as Ringo Starr and Eric Clapton on the recording. In a 1971 interview shared by loudersound.com, Harrison explained why he believed “My Sweet Lord” became a hit.
“As far as I’m concerned, My Sweet Lord was a hit because of the sound and its simplicity. The sound of that record, it sounds like one huge guitar. The way Phil Spector and I put that down was we had two drummers, a bass player, two pianos and about five acoustic guitars, a tambourine player, and we sequenced it in order.”
Source: Ross Tanenbaum/cheatsheet.com
Initially, George Harrison was hesitant about participating in The Beatles: Anthology. However, he realized this was his group’s first and only chance to tell their story how it truly happened. Still, George had problems with certain scenes that painted inaccurate pictures or sensationalized rumors of some of the band’s worst times.
In Here Comes The Sun: The Spiritual And Musical Journey Of George Harrison, Joshua M. Greene wrote that George was initially reluctant to participate in The Beatles: Anthology. The project became an eight-part documentary, album, and book.
In an interview about the documentary, George said it was difficult at first because all three of the remaining Beatles, including John Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, wanted to tell the story they wanted.
“It is difficult when four people are telling the story because it’s actually four different stories,” George said. “I mean, you must realize it’s got to be somewhat of a compromise when four people are involved. But we’re trying to just say how it felt to us.”
Source: Hannah Wigandt/cheatsheet.com
Paul McCartney and John Lennon were the gas that fueled The Beatles’ engine. The pair were awful to former bandmate Stuart Sutcliffe, and they didn’t necessarily end their relationship with drummer Pete Best on good terms. Still, John and Paul’s individual and combined songwriting talents helped propel the Fab Four to international fame. Their relationship soured by the time The Beatles broke up, but Paul praised John by saying he was like The Beatles’ “little Elvis” decades after they played their final note together. There might not have been any higher praise than that.
Source: Jason Rossi/cheatsheet.com
John Lennon helped put The Beatles on the map. His innate songwriting skills and competitive partnership with Paul McCartney led to dozens of hit songs for the Fab Four. Those enduring tunes are lucrative enough that John’s son lives off The Beatles’ money. Yet he was ready to leave it all behind as soon as he met Yoko Ono. Their relationship included several artistic collaborations, but Yoko criticized John’s contributions to their first work together.
John married his first wife, Cynthia, in 1962, around the time The Beatles first entered the British charts with “Love Me Do.” We all know what happened next. A stream of hit songs and groundbreaking albums followed, and the Fab Four rewrote the rulebook for popular music.
Yet everything changed when John met Yoko at an art exhibit in 1966. He almost instantly fell in love with the no-holds-barred artist. John’s passion for Yoko was so strong that he once said he had no interest in The Beatles after meeting her. They married in 1969, and the Fab Four soldiered on until 1970 despite John’s seeming disinterest.
Source: Jason Rossi/cheatsheet.com
John Lennon made fun of Paul McCartney‘s “Another Day” in his tune “How Do You Sleep?” He was responding to his former bandmate’s song “Too Many People.” In 1970, The Beatles split. Shortly after, Paul sued the others in London’s High Court of Justice. He sought to dissolve the band’s contractual partnership after his bandmates appointed Allen Klein to preside over The Beatles’ financial affairs.
Paul wanted his father-in-law and brother-in-law, Lee and John Eastman, to be the group’s managers. However, as George Harrison said, he, John, and Ringo Starr weren’t trying to do what was best for Paul’s in-laws.
After Paul opened the lawsuit, John gave a defamatory interview with Rolling Stone. Paul grew sick of all the drama and wrote “Too Many People,” which appeared on 1971’s Ram. In The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present, Paul wrote it was a time when “John was firing missiles at me with his songs, and one or two of them were quite cruel. I don’t know what he hoped to gain, other than punching me in the face. The whole thing really annoyed me.”
Source: Hannah Wigandt/cheatsheet.com
