Beatles News
From 1963 to 1970, these were the 12 UK studios albums released by The Beatles: Please Please Me, With the Beatles, A Hard Day’s Night, Beatles for Sale, Help!, Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, The White Album, Yellow Submarine, Abbey Road and Let It Be. At various different points in their lives, the Fab Four revealed their individual personal favourites of the dozen. And here is what John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr said.
Source: George Simpson/express.co.uk
The Beatle's 12th and final studio album, Let It Be, was released in 1970. But Formidable magazine says there is actually a 13th studio album, or at least one can be compiled from post-Beatles songs that were written before the band broke up.
Beatles fans and music lovers in general, often fantasize about what the group might have produced had they stayed together and continued making music into the '70s. Well, the truth is, They did. There is the last Beatles album published during the 70s, we just need to look for it in the right places, because it´s out there, hidden in plain sight. So here is what we did. We look into Harrison, Lennon and McCartney recorded song demos for the Beatles rejected at the time, but ultimately released later on in their solo albums. If we keep in mind they had basically stopped collaborating on songs after 1967's Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, this material would have been the natural Beatles album to follow 1970 Let it Be. Magic occurs when you place and listen to these songs in the Beatles conceptual framework.
Source: Mark Frauenfelder/boingboing.net
"We did a lot of naughty, naughty things together" said Elton John about the Beatles legend. In a beautiful interview, Lennon's son later Sean told Elton his father "had a special love" for him.
On November 28, 1974, John Lennon made his last ever concert appearance, as a guest of Elton John at Madison Square Garden in New York. The two legends performed Whatever Gets You Thru the Night, Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, and I Saw Her Standing There. It was the culmination of an intense relationship but also marked the moment Elton would lose what they had together. Five decades later, Elton opened up about that extraordinary two-year period with his fellow music idol to Lennon's son Sean.
Source: Stefan Kyriazis/express.co.uk
Each Beatles album has several standout songs. Not only do fans have their favorites, but The Beatles had their own standouts from what they created. There are many great songs from Abbey Road, but Paul McCartney believes the album’s biggest hit is his favorite.
While Let it Be was the final album released by The Beatles, Abbey Road was the final record the band recorded together. Tensions were building between the band as each member was on the verge of going their separate ways. However, they still managed to create a successful album with Abbey Road with several iconic songs.
Shortly after Abbey Road debuted, Paul McCartney had an interview with the BBC (shared by Far Out ), revealing his favorite song from the album, one that was written by John Lennon.
Source: Ross Tanenbaum/cheatsheet.com
Despite all of the tours Paul McCartney has done in his long career, he has never spent a Christmas on the road. He’s always managed to be with family every year. That’s a Christmas miracle.
In 2015, Paul answered fans’ Christmas-related questions on his website. One fan asked, “Have you celebrated any Christmas’ on the road?”
Paul revealed that he’s never spent Christmas on the road. He said, “No! I have always tried to be off. We always kind of specified that we wanted to be home.”
The only time Paul came close to being on the road on Christmas was during his time with The Beatles, before he had a family. “We used to have a Christmas show,” Paul said. “We used to get dressed up! And actually it was really cool because it was a sort of like a panto, but with musical people. A musically packaged show but with all sorts of little Christmassy things.
Source: Hannah Wigandt/cheatsheet.com
Ringo Starr had a habit of always signing fan mail and sending it back to whoever wanted his autograph. However, he posted a video one day alerting his fans that any further fan mail would be ignored. Ringo didn’t tell his fans why he abruptly changed his mind but later explained why he no longer gave out his autograph.
The Beatles are an iconic band, and any piece of memorabilia containing their autograph has high value. Ringo Starr often gave out his signature but abruptly stopped in 2008. He shared a video with his fans and, in the nicest way possible, told them that all future fan mail would be ignored.
“Please, after the 20th of October, do not send fan mail to any address that you have,” Ringo stated. “Nothing will be signed after the 20th of October. If that has the date on the envelope, it’s going to be tossed. I’m warning you with peace and love. I have too much to do.”
Source: Ross Tanenbaum/cheatsheet.com
George Harrison didn’t think getting older was a reason to pack up and stop being a rock star. The former Beatle planned on going for decades, but, unfortunately, he didn’t get to.
During a 1987 interview with Entertainment Tonight, George explained that when he was a child, all he wanted to do was be in a band and play rock ‘n’ roll. Every kid wanted to do that when they were younger, but rock ‘n’ roll is for all ages.
“It’s a natural thing when you’re a kid, you want to get a guitar and be in a band,” George said. “I think rock ‘n’ roll will always go hand in hand with youth. But at the same time, and I recall John Lennon saying, ‘Don’t trust anybody over 30.’ We all get there and I don’t think it’s a reason to pack up just because you hit 40.”
Entertainment Tonight asked the former Beatle how much longer he’ll rock ‘n’ roll. “I don’t know,” he said. “Spose until I fall over.” He said if Chuck Berry could rock into his 60s, so could he.
Source: Hannah Wigandt/cheatsheet.com
George Harrison said releasing new music was complicated because he wasn’t competitive. How could he have competed against John Lennon and Paul McCartney in The Beatles? George didn’t want to be competitive in his solo career either. He didn’t want to promote his work like everyone else. In the early days of The Beatles, John and Paul appointed themselves the chief songwriters. Neither George nor Ringo Starr ever showed interest. However, that changed when George realized he could write a song just as good as any Lennon-McCartney tune. He wrote “Don’t Bother Me” in 1963. Eventually, George started writing more, but John and Paul gave him a two to three-tune quota per Beatles album. Despite receiving no encouragement from his bandmates, George didn’t stop writing songs, and they mounted up. He wasn’t releasing them fast enough but wasn’t confident to push.
Source: Hannah Wigandt/cheatsheet.com
After The Beatles broke up, John Lennon made it a point to include more political messaging in his music. He and Yoko Ono were antiwar advocates, and he wanted his songs to reflect this. He said he wanted to write something meaningful, unlike The Beatles’ music. Five years into his solo career, though, Lennon said that writing politics into his music had nearly ruined it.
After The Beatles broke up, the band’s former members began releasing solo albums. Lennon wanted to set himself apart from his bandmates, particularly Paul McCartney.
“John immediately went into his home recording studio, even though it was still under construction, to make a new solo album, Imagine, which he hoped would show the world where he stood in relation to the solo albums of Paul McCartney,” Lennon’s girlfriend May Pang wrote in the book Loving John.
Source: Emma McKee/cheatsheet.com
Paul McCartney and John Lennon created a fascinating narrative when they wrote “Eleanor Rigby.” The story revolves around two characters who live tragic lives filled with loneliness. While the story is fictional, the origin behind the track has some truth and a haunting connection that McCartney discovered years later.
“Eleanor Rigby’ is a depressing song by The Beatles, who typically write upbeat, optimistic music. In an interview with GQ, Paul McCartney said that the idea for the story of “Eleanor Rigby” was based on an old lady he knew in his hometown of Liverpool. He thought this idea of a lonely old woman would make for an intriguing character.
“When I was really little, I lived on what we call a housing estate, which is like a project. There were a lot of old ladies,” McCartney explained. “And I enjoyed sitting down with these older ladies because they had these great stories, and in this case, about World War II. One in particular who I used to visit, and I’d go shopping for her, she couldn’t get out. So, I remember her. So, I had that figure in my mind of a sort of lonely old lady.
Source: Ross Tanenbaum/cheatsheet.com
