Beatles News
Paul McCartney is credited with some of the most beloved Beatles songs of all time. His songwriting catalog while with the iconic group seems too vast to be true. His fellow musicians have taken note of that fact more than a few times. Check out four of the best covers of McCartney-penned Beatles songs, below.
4 of the Best Covers of Paul McCartney-Penned Beatles Songs
1. “Let It Be” (Bill Withers)
Bill Withers turned “Let It Be” from a somber ballad to a jaunting gospel track. The tempo is given a swing, which stands in stark contrast to McCartney’s straightforward piano chords. As always, Withers’ vocals stand supreme. Though we’re partial to the original, Withers did wonders with this Beatles hit.
And when the broken hearted people living in the world agree
There will be an answer, let it be
For though they may be parted, there is still a chance that they will see
There will be an answer, let it be
Source: americansongwriter.com/Alex Hopper
Released earlier this month Ringo Starr’s new album Look Up finds the former Beatle reconnecting with the country music that started it all for him, way back in a Liverpool cinema in the 1940s. As part of our extended interview with Starr in the latest issue of MOJO, Paul McCartney discussed his old bandmate’s “natural genius”, affinity for country music and why he was the perfect drummer for The Beatles...
Ringo’s new album Look Up is a collection of country songs. What is it about his personality – and singing voice – that is so perfectly suited to country music?
He always loved country from the first minute I met him. He liked the old country singers like George Jones and people like that, and he was a big fan of that. So I think, you know, maybe, it suits his personality. He’s a very sincere, straightforward guy, and I think that’s the sort of theme behind a lot of country music.
Ringo was the perfect drummer for The Beatles. But why?
Impossible to say why – he just was.
When you first hit America, why do you think Ringo was so particularly endearing to the fans? And could you get behind the Ringo For President campaign?
Ringo for President? Yeah, absolutely! He would do a great job. President of what is the question?
When The Beatles split, Ringo immediately launched a solo music career and pursued a parallel film career. Was it clear that he wouldn’t just join another band as a drummer, that he had more strings to his bow?
Like all of us, he wanted to continue in music. And besides country music, he’s a big fan of old standards, so that’s why he did Sentimental Journey as his first album.
On the rare occasions you get together on-stage these days, do you find you both lock back into some long-practised groove?
Yeah, it’s just amazing, actually. It’s just, yep, it’s like wearing a very comfortable pair of shoes, if that’s the right metaphor.
You once described Ringo to MOJO as “a natural genius”. In what ways?
Source: mojo4music.com
Magnolia Pictures has landed North American rights to “One to One: John & Yoko,” a documentary that offers an expansive and revealing look at the transformative 18 months of one of music’s most famous couples.
The sale went through before “One to One” is set to screen at Sundance Film Festival, which is taking place in Park City from Jan. 23-Feb. 2, 2025. The doc had its world premiere at Venice Film Festival and played at Telluride Film Festival before making the trek to Utah’s snowy mountain town.
Magnolia plans to release “One to One: John & Yoko” exclusively in Imax on April 11 before expanding to additional theaters. It will land on HBO and Max at a later date in 2025.
Kevin Macdonald (an Oscar winner for “One Day in September”) directed the documentary, which captures the time that Lennon and Ono spent living in New York City’s Greenwich Village in the early 1970s. The film includes never-before-seen material and newly restored footage of Lennon’s only full-length, post-Beatles concert, which includes audio that was remastered by the couple’s son, Sean Ono Lennon.
Source: Rebecca Rubin/variety.com
One morning in the mid-1970s, a solemn announcement came over the intercom at Friends Seminary: “Noted person John Lennon is now in the meetinghouse. Walk, don’t run.”
We didn’t run. But we wanted to.
I ended up perched with the rest of my second-grade class on a hard wooden pew in the balcony of our Quaker school’s meetinghouse on East 16th Street in Manhattan. Built in 1860, the meetinghouse was old, dignified and a little creaky; it had absorbed the echoes of abolitionist debates, suffragist meetings and restless kids failing to sit still. That morning, I wasn’t sitting still. We were children, but we knew the Beatles.
And then, suddenly, there he was: John Lennon.
I remember the hush — a collective inhale — and then the whispers. I’m pretty sure Lennon was dressed in black when he entered. That’s how I always remembered him. He soon stood onstage in his wire-rimmed glasses, looking exactly like the face I’d seen staring from album covers. He was right there.
A ripple of laughter broke the tension. I can still hear his voice, his dry jokes, the wry expression when one boy asked about the beautiful woman who’d accompanied him — not Yoko Ono, but someone else. But the words themselves? Gone. Did he talk about music? Politics? Did he sing? Why was he even there?
For years, I clung to the memory like a relic. It was one of those surreal childhood moments that made me wonder if I had imagined it. It was a story I could tell anywhere — When I was in second grade, John Lennon came to my school! My 22-year-old daughter had heard it so many times she could recite it. But recently, when I brought it up, she looked at me skeptically. “Did that happen?”
Source: nytimes.com/Laurie Gwen Shapiro
In February 1972, Paul McCartney‘s band Wings debuted with the single “Give Ireland Back To The Irish.” Written by McCartney and his wife, Linda, the song was a rare political statement from the ex-Beatle, and he was condemned in the U.K. upon its release for seemingly expressing support for the Irish Republican Army during the height of the Troubles.
Supporting the IRA at the time, especially as a citizen of the U.K., was a bold move. While the song was more of a general statement supporting the Irish people as a whole in their fight for independence, the press took it in a different direction. The single was banned from U.K. radio stations and largely ignored in the U.S. In addition to being condemned for the apparent IRA support, McCartney was also accused of leeching off of the Bogside Massacre in order to announce his new band.
However, “Give Ireland Back To The Irish” hit No. 1 on the Irish Singles Chart for a week in March. Lyrically, the song is simplistic, which was one of the larger criticisms. As a political statement, though, it does its job—”Give Ireland back to the Irish / Don’t make them have to take it away / Give Ireland back to the Irish / Make Ireland Irish today” is a simple yet effective chorus, and also featured Northern Irish guitarist Henry McCullough.
The Bogside Massacre—also known as Bloody Sunday, a moniker that inspired U2 to write their own song in 1983—was an unjustifiable murder by British soldiers of unarmed Irish protesters in Derry, Northern Ireland, in late January 1972. 13 men were killed, with a 14th succumbing to his wounds months later. According to an account compiled by the Conflict Archive on the Internet, many of the protesters were gunned down as they fled from the soldiers. Some others were beaten, and two were killed when they were run over by British Army vehicles.
Source: americansongwriter.com/Lauren Boisvert
George Harrison, The Beatles' legendary guitarist and songwriter of Here Comes the Sun and Taxman, had been opposed to playing in the group's final performance at Abbey Road studios
The Beatles' George Harrison had no interest in playing the group's final performance in 1969. Harrison, the often overlooked songwriter behind Here Comes the Sun, Something, and While My Guitar Gently Weeps, voiced his concerns about a rooftop performance at the Abbey Road studio just a short while before the Fab Four headed upstairs for what would be their final performance together. Harrison's opposition to the performance was seen in the 'Get Back' documentary from Peter Jackson, but it seems the legendary musician, who went on to form The Traveling Wilbury's with Bob Dylan and Electric Light Orchestra's Jeff Lynne, was convinced to take part.
His wavering on playing The Beatles' impromptu, final show, came just a short while after Harrison had briefly quit working with the band. A now infamous diary entry from the All Things Must Pass mastermind saw he had dropped out of the Fab Four. Growing tensions in the studio and frustrations around the making of Abbey Road and Let it Be saw Harrison suggest they put an advert in the New Musical Express to source another set of guitarists who could finish what he had written for the 1969 album. But he returned soon after, and eventually agreed to a rooftop performance.
An unconvinced Harrison can be seen in the clip of 'Get Back' where The Beatles' guitarist said he would "do it" but wanted to make it clear he did not want to be on the roof.
He said: "You know, whatever, I'll do it if we've got to go on the roof. But you know, I mean - but I don't wanna go on the roof. Of course I don't wanna go on the roof."
Source: liverpoolecho.co.uk/Ewan Gleadow
Beatle George Harrison married model Pattie Boyd, with his bandmate Paul McCartney serving as best man.
Harrison and Boyd met on the set of the 1964 movie A Hard Day’s Night.
The couple separated in 1974 and divorced in 1977, with Pattie blaming the split on Harrison’s infidelity.
During her marriage to Harrison, his good friend, Eric Clapton, actively pursued her. He even wrote the song “Layla” about his secret love for Pattie. Boyd and Clapton would eventually marry in 1979, although their tumultuous union ended in 1989.
Harrison would go on to marry Olivia Trinidad Arias in 1978 and they were married until his death in 2001.
Source: everettpost.com/ABC News
The Beatles and Bob Dylan were among the artists inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, in a ceremony held in New York.
The Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger inducted the band into the Rock Hall. George Harrison and Ringo Starr were on hand to accept the honor, along with Yoko Ono, Julian Lennon and Sean Lennon, accepting on behalf of John Lennon.
Paul McCartney did not attend, citing “still-existing business differences among The Beatles.”
Dylan’s induction was handled by Bruce Springsteen, and the night’s other inductees included The Beach Boys, The Drifters, The Supremes and Ben E. King.
The night ended with an all-star jam that featured such songs as “I Saw Her Standing There,” “All Along the Watchtower,” “Twist and Shout,” “Stand By Me,” “Stop! In the Name of Love,” “Barbara Ann,” “Blue Bayou,” “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” and more.
Source:
Bob Dylan had a big creative impact on John Lennon, particularly after The Beatles got to hear The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan for the first time in 1963. Lennon and Paul McCartney realized that pop music could be so much more than what was being manufactured at the time. Folk and poetry had their places in pop, and that notion led them to do a bit of creative soul-searching.
The result of that influence was “I’m A Loser” from the 1964 album Beatles For Sale, which was primarily written by Lennon.
“Instead of projecting myself into a situation, I would try to express what I felt about myself,” said Lennon of the writing process for the song. “I think it was [Bob] Dylan who helped me realize that.”
But was the relationship that one-sided? There’s some (tepid) evidence to support that Dylan was as influenced by The Beatles as Lennon was influenced by him. However, Dylan’s response to Lennon’s admiration of him wasn’t exactly… great. He would go on to write “Fourth Time Around” as a response to Lennon’s “Norwegian Wood”, and it was more or less an attempt to make fun of the Beatle.
Bob Dylan had a big creative impact on John Lennon, particularly after The Beatles got to hear The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan for the first time in 1963. Lennon and Paul McCartney realized that pop music could be so much more than what was being manufactured at the time. Folk and poetry had their places in pop, and that notion led them to do a bit of creative soul-searching.
The result of that influence was “I’m A Loser” from the 1964 album Beatles For Sale, which was primarily written by Lennon.
“Instead of projecting myself into a situation, I would try to express what I felt about myself,” said Lennon of the writing process for the song. “I think it was [Bob] Dylan who helped me realize that.”
Source: americansongwriter.com/Em Casalena
In 1997, Queen Elizabeth II knighted Paul McCartney. He became the first of two Beatles to receive a knighthood and has described the experience as an honor. Still, he admitted that he felt a bit embarrassed about it. He shared why he winced at some people’s reaction to the news.
He was already famous — and had been for decades — but people he knew began questioning if they should treat him differently.
“At first, the whole thing was a bit embarrassing, to be honest,” he told the LA Times in 2006. “Even the people on my farm went, ‘Do we have to call you Sir Paul?’”
Ultimately, though, he said most people he knew were happy for him.
Source:Emma McKee/Showbiz Cheat Sheet
