Beatles News
John Lennon said one of The Beatles’ songs was “like an old-time ballad.” In addition, he felt the song was similar to The Beatles’ “Paperback Writer” and Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode.” John didn’t like the way the press reacted to the track.
According to the book Lennon on Lennon: Interviews and Encounters with John Lennon, John discussed “The Ballad of John and Yoko” in a 1969 interview. “It’s something I wrote, and it’s like an old-time ballad,” he said. “It’s the story of us going along, getting married, going to Paris, going to Amsterdam, all that. It’s ‘Johnny B. Paperback Writer.'”
John criticized the way the press reacted to “The Ballad of John and Yoko.” “The story came out that only Paul and I were on the record, but I wouldn’t have bothered publicizing that,” he said. “It doesn’t mean anything.”
Source: cheatsheet.com
George Harrison wrote one of his most famous songs, “Something,” about the one thing he loved most, Krishna. Many people thought the Beatle was singing about his wife, Pattie. However, George liked when people couldn’t figure out if he singing about God or a woman. They were interchangeable to him.
Although, George really was singing about Krishna this time. He just didn’t want to sing, “Something in the way he moves me” because he didn’t want fans to think he was gay.
George Harrison wearing black with members of the Hare Krishna temple in 1969.
Source: cheatsheet.com
During a dualistic time in his life, George Harrison recorded his first post-Beatles record, All Things Must Pass. After enduring years of Paul McCartney and John Lennon pushing him aside, George unleashed his mammoth triple album. It’s full of the songs he’d stockpiled. George had had the album mapped out before he even set foot in a recording studio. He even knew which track he wanted fans to hear first.
In a 2001 interview with Billboard, George talked about All Things Must Pass. The publication asked if it was a big decision to make “I’d Have You Anytime” the first track.
“It probably was, because it goes, ‘Let me in here…’ [laughs],” George said. “It just seemed like a good thing to do; it was a nice track, I liked that. And maybe subconsciously I needed a bit of support. I had Eric [Clapton] playing the solo, and Bob had helped write it, so it could have been something to do with that.”
Source: cheatsheet.com
The ”Lord of the Rings“ director spun a meeting with The Beatles’ business managers into a documentary pitch
The Beatles: Get Back” director Peter Jackson’s gargantuan feat of compiling 60 hours of never-before-seen footage of the Fab Four’s “Let It Be” recording sessions — as well as new interviews with Paul McCartney and others who were at the scene 52 years ago — actually began as a different project altogether.
In an interview with The Guardian last week, Jackson said he was sought out by Apple Corps – the company which has handled The Beatles’ business affairs since 1968 – because of his interest in virtual and augmented reality technology. There may have been a plan to create an interactive museum experience at some point.
Source: Harper Lambert/thewrap.com
George Harrison visited San Francisco’s famous neighborhood, Haight-Asbury, the hippie capital of the world, in 1967. It wasn’t what he expected. Then, a mob of hippies swarmed him like he was God who just descended on his people.
In Here Comes The Sun: The Spiritual And Musical Journey Of George Harrison, Joshua M. Greene wrote, “According to astrological calculation, by 1967 Earth was supposed to be emerging from a thousand years of confusion under the sign of Pisces—two fish swimming in opposite directions—and entering a golden age under the sign of Aquarius.
“Writers and poets prophesied that this new age would be one of harmony and understanding, and underground newspapers depicted San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district as its epicenter, the home of LSD consciousness, filled with beautiful people in colorful costumes, dancing to psychedelic music and living the dream of the Aquarian Age.”
Source: cheatsheet.com
George Harrison was hanging out with The Rolling Stones‘ Mick Jagger and Keith Richards the night of their notorious 1967 drug bust. Although, George left the place right before police raided Richards’ home, Redlands. That didn’t stop the newspapers from adding him to their story. The Rolling Stones had many run-ins with the law. However, their 1967 drug bust is the most infamous incident. Mick Jagger sued the English publication The News of the World for libel. He didn’t like that the newspaper published sensational stories and him and his then-girlfriend, Marianne Faithfull. However, the publication didn’t want to be sued.
Source: cheatsheet.com
George Harrison was not a fan of the 1974 musical John, Paul, George, Ringo, and Bert. He hated when people ripped The Beatles off. However, sometimes, Beatles musicals and films only happened because the band didn’t look after their interests following their split.
In a 1987 interview, Creem Magazine asked George what he thought of the musical John, Paul, George, Ringo, and Bert, which debuted in Liverpool in 1974 and then made its way to London. George didn’t have anything nice to say about the musical based on The Beatles.
“I saw it up until the intermission and then–I saw it with my friend Derek Taylor, who’s a writer who used to work for Warner Bros. and Apple–I said to him we either have to leave now or I’m gonna jump on that stage and throttle those people,” George said.
Source: cheatsheet.com
The tape was made by student John Hill in 1964 when he sneaked into a press conference to record the chat but it was never broadcast
John Lennon claimed The Beatles were not very good musicians in a lost interview that has now sold for £3,100 at auction.
The tape was made by a student in 1964 and never broadcast.
John Hill was 18 when he sneaked into a press conference to record the chat – and then forgot about it.
He found the tape in 2014, after it had been in a drawer for 50 years. On the recording, John, then 24, said he would “probably just have been a layabout” if he had not become a Beatle.
He admitted he had been failing at college and revealed: “Some other lads did my exams for me.”
Source: Stephen White/mirror.co.uk
Ringo Starr, the legendary drummer for the iconic band The Beatles,” has always had “peace and love” as his mantra. In a new interview, the 81 year-old spoke out to say that spreading this message is more important now than it ever has been before.
“Well it’s always been important – and I do spread the message,” Starr told Fox News. “I mean, you look at the photos in the ‘60s, we’re all doing this. We loved ’66 when flower power was coming in. It was such a change in those years – people with flowers and loving each other.”
There were a few bad moments, like Kent State and things like that, but we just went right for it,” Starr added, referring to the 1970 tragedy in which the Ohio National Guard opened fire on unarmed college students at a war protest at Kent State University, killing four students and injuring nine others.
“It was part of how we felt,” Starr said of sharing the message then and now. “And I keep doing it now. I do it, I can only have myself do it. I can’t force anybody to be peaceful and loving.”
Source James Conrad/themix.net
George Harrison rarely strayed from his guitar, but he did for “Old Brown Shoe” twice. He wrote the song on an instrument he barely knew how to play and then added bass to the track in the recording studio.
In his 1980 memoir, I Me Mine, George said he wrote “Old Brown Shoe” on the piano, an instrument he wasn’t very familiar with.
“‘Old Brown Shoe.’ I started the chord sequences on the piano (which I don’t really play) and then began writing ideas for the words from various opposites: ‘I want a love that’s right/ But right is only half of what’s wrong.” Again it’s the duality of things–yes-no, up-down, left-right, right-wrong, etc.”
During an interview with Creem Magazine, George said he liked playing the bass.
He said, “But I do: I think bass is a good instrument because, even without being clever, the part of the bass is really important in the way it holds it all down with the bass drum. I like a bass when it doesn’t get in the way of anything.
Source: cheatsheet.com
