Beatles News
Ringo Starr acted in several films over the course of his career. Ringo Starr was the first narrator of the children’s series Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends. In 1990, Ringo Starr returned to the Thomas the Tank Engine universe in Shining Time Station.
After The Beatles broke up, the former members embarked on their solo careers. For all of them, this meant working with new musicians and producing solo albums. For Ringo Starr, this also meant pursuing a number of acting roles. Though he decided to move away from movies in the 1980s, he took a role in television as the narrator of Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends. Starr later appeared in a spinoff series.
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Many songs by The Beatles were banned by the BBC for various reasons, such as possible allusions to drugs and sexual references. One song by Paul McCartney in his solo career received a BBC ban. However, the ban was primarily due to a misunderstood lyric.
While The Beatles kept their music relatively tame, the BBC commonly cracked down on any piece they deemed inappropriate. This ranged from explicit sexual references to light allusions to drugs. The Beatles were often associated with drugs due to some of their more psychedelic tracks. However, the BBC often made assumptions about the band’s lyrics without fully understanding them.
Several Beatles songs that received BBC bans include “A Day in the Life,” “I Am the Walrus,” “Happiness is a Warm Gun,” and “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds.” A few of these tracks were not alluding to drugs, even though many believed there were. Many believed “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” referenced LSD, but John Lennon claimed it was based on a drawing by his son.
Source: Ross Tanenbaum/cheatsheet.com
George Harrison‘s wife, Olivia, said her husband enjoyed making a good moment better. The former Beatle’s friends would’ve agreed.
In 1974, George met his wife during a terrible time. He was grieving the loss of his first marriage to Pattie Boyd.
“Well, I wasn’t ready to join Alcoholics Anonymous or anything – I don’t think I was that far gone – but I could put back a bottle of brandy occasionally, plus all the other naughty things that fly around,” George told Rolling Stone in 1979.
“I just went on a binge, went on the road . . . all that sort of thing, until it got to the point where I had no voice and almost no body at times. Then I met Olivia and it all worked out fine. There’s a song on the new album, ‘Dark Sweet Lady’: ‘You came and helped me through/ When I’d let go/ You came from out the blue/ Never have known what I’d done without you.’ That sums it up.”
Source: Hannah Wigandt/cheatsheet.com
George Harrison knew there was a problem with The Beatles‘ record label, Apple Records. Later, George was smart about artistic recruiting when he created his own record label, Dark Horse Records, and his film production company, HandMade Films. After their manager, Brian Epstein, died in 1967, The Beatles founded Apple Corps, an umbrella company for all their creative endeavors. Some sub-divisions included Apple Retail, Apple Publishing, and Apple Electronics.When The Beatles returned from India in 1968, they founded Apple Records. They set out to be unlike any record company and wanted to give struggling artists a chance to create freely. According to George, The Beatles got control of themselves by creating Apple Records.
Source: Hannah Wigandt/cheatsheet.com
John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote several of The Beatles’ biggest hits. A few songs were written in unique places that wouldn’t usually possess the best songwriting atmosphere. However, McCartney and Lennon often wrote songs whenever inspiration struck, and the two wrote one of their earliest hits while riding a tour bus.
The Beatles formed in 1960, but it took the band two years to get their first big hit with “Love Me Do.” Their second single, “Please Please Me,” reached No. 2 on the UK Singles Chart. The Beatles were on the rise following that song and later went on tour as the supporting act for singer Helen Shapiro. In Anthology, John Lennon said he and Paul McCartney wrote their third single, “From Me to You” on the tour bus.
Source: Ross Tanenbaum/cheatsheet.com
John Lennon was told some of The Beatles’ songs embodied him.
John named the band’s songs that really meant something to him.
He also named the tracks that reminded him of Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr.
A journalist told John Lennon some of The Beatles’ songs embodied the singer. John said he wasn’t sure if one of the songs mentioned meant anything to him. Subsequently, he named a handful of Fab Four songs that mattered to him.
The book The Beatles: Paperback Writer includes an interview with Jonathan Cott from 1968. In it, Cott discussed The Beatles’ music.
“I’ve listed a group of songs that I associate with you, in terms of what you are or what you were, songs that struck me as embodying you a little bit: ‘You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away,’ ‘Strawberry Fields [Forever],’ ‘It’s Only Love,’ ‘She Said She Said,’ ‘Lucy in the Sky [With Diamonds],’ ‘I’m Only Sleeping,’ ‘Run for Your Life,’ ‘I Am the Walrus,’ ‘All You Need Is Love,’ ‘Rain,’ ‘Girl,'” he said.
Source: Matthew Trzcinski/cheatsheet.com
John Lennon used his Beatles notoriety to promote causes of peace and love. His life was tragically cut short when he was murdered in 1980. According to historian David Bedford, Lennon had a fear of death since the ‘60s. It all started when friend and former bass player Stuart Sutcliffe died of a brain hemorrhage in 1962 at the age of 21.Bedford was a guest on the Beatles City podcast on Aug. 23, 2020 to discuss Sutcliffe. The author was then running the Sutcliffe fan club and revealed how Sutcliffe’s death impacted Lennon.Bedford has authored books on The Beatles such as Liddypool: Birthplace of the Beatles, Looking for Lennon, and The Beatles: Fab Four Cities. In his research and interviews, he discovered a consistent account of Lennon after Sutcliffe’s death. “John became a bit of a fatalist,” Bedford said on Beatles City. “He felt that anybody who got close to him was going to die. And he never really shook that off. He carried that with him because so many people got close to him and died. In a way, he was scared to form relationships.”
Source: Fred Topel/cheatsheet.com
George Harrison thought it was funny that people called 1987’s Cloud Nine his comeback album. He didn’t go anywhere. George still made music; he just didn’t release it because he was sick of the record company and fans’ demands for hits.
Besides, George couldn’t call Cloud Nine a comeback album because he didn’t see himself as a “fully-fledged showbiz star.”
George never pursued a solo career. He only released All Things Must Pass as a reaction to leaving The Beatles. He had to release his stockpile of songs to move forward. When the triple album did well, George continued releasing music. However, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, George realized the record companies wanted more from him.
They wanted music that all sounded the same, that followed the same formula. Once MTV arrived, they wanted music videos and lots of promotion. It was all a pointless competition for hits, and George had never been competitive.
Source: Hannah Wigandt/cheatsheet.com
Before becoming much better known for their original music, most bands start out doing their own versions of their favorite songs from other artists. The Beatles were no exception, as it would be way too much to assume they came out swinging with "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and magically transformed popular music as we know it with their brilliant compositions. As any Beatles fan worth their salt will tell you, the band, once they had fully evolved from John Lennon's skiffle band the Quarrymen, got their start by covering songs from American rock 'n' roll performers, of which there were many who would eventually reach legendary status. But which of these acts did they cover the most?
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The Beatles were not afraid to express their political views, especially Paul McCartney and John Lennon. They often expressed their opinions through their music in subtle and direct ways. One class Beatles song, written by McCartney, led to the bassist having a full circle moment years after the band disbanded. “It was in the era of civil rights, and I was watching the Little Rock episode where the kids were being booed and shouted at and as the black kids as they were going into the school,” McCartney shared. “And so this idea of ‘Blackbird’ became black girl in my mind.”
Source: Ross Tanenbaum/cheatsheet.com
