Beatles News
Choosing a best track from 'Abbey Road' is like selecting which limb you'd least like to lose.
Ranking anything — let alone a masterpiece of the magnitude of Abbey Road by The Beatles — is an exercise in futility.
There’s simply no objectivity to such ordering. All one really does when they say that they like ‘Because’ more than ‘Octopus’s Garden’ is reveal something about themselves; about their own complex and personal notion of the good. Ask 12 different people to name the best song off Abbey Road and one will get 12 different miniature diary entries; a dozen little snatches of taste.
But hey, there’s value in that, and there’s value in the conversations that such rankings inspire. A core component of loving music means discussing it, and working out where your opinion slots in amongst others — that’s all a ranking can ever hope to do.
So, don’t read the following list as anything like a definitive ranking of a classic album. Read it as a conversation-starter; as an opportunity to dive into one of the musical masterworks of the 20th century, track by track; and as a little snatch of the self being revealed.
Source: Joseph Earp/junkee.com
John Lennon wasn’t a superstitious man, however, he once had a premonition while recording one of his solo songs. Interestingly, the song in question was originally by someone else. Here’s a look at the time famous producer Phil Spector made John sing an old track.
John released an album called Rock ‘n’ Roll. It’s an album of covers of 1950s and 1960s songs representing the early days of rock ‘n’ roll. One of the tracks on the album was a cover of “Just Because” by Lloyd Price. While most of the songs on Rock ‘n’ Roll were hits, Price’s “Just Because” didn’t chart on the Billboard Hot 100.
During an interview with Rolling Stone, John discussed an interesting thing he did while recording “Just Because.” “[Phil] Spector had made me sing called ‘Just Because,’ which I didn’t really know – all the rest of the songs I’d done as a teenager, so I knew them backward – but I couldn’t really get the hang of it,” he said. “At the end of that record – I was mixing it just next door – I started spieling and saying, ‘And so we say farewell from the Record Plant,’ and a little thing in the back of my mind said, ‘Are you really saying farewell?’ I hadn’t thought of it then. I was still separated from Yoko and still hadn’t had the baby, but somewhere in the back was a voice that was saying, ‘Are you saying farewell to the whole game?’
Source: cheatsheet.com
Of all the albums released by The Beatles, Let It Be (1970) has to be the strangest of the bunch. It’s not strange in its musical approach (quite the opposite). But it has the feel of an LP patched together for a band that was no longer functioning (which it was). Hence the Phil Spector treatment on a few of the album’s most famous tracks.
That includes “The Long and Winding Road,” a song Spector really went to town on. Originally a subtle piano ballad by Paul McCartney, Spector added an orchestral part and a choir to the flawed backing track. And McCartney hated it when he first heard Spector’s finished product. Then it hit No. 1 in America anyway.
In all likelihood, it would have sounded quite different had McCartney given it to Tom Jones. According to the Welsh singer, that was a very real possibility. By Jones’ account, McCartney offered it to him prior to the Spector sessions that changed “The Long and Winding Road” forever.
Source: cheatsheet.com
egendary musician Paul McCartney has five kids. The former Beatle has four kids with his first wife, Linda. The rock-and-roll legend also has a daughter with his second wife, Heather Mills.
Paul and Linda were inseparable once they started dating in 1968, until Linda McCartney died in April 1998 from breast cancer. According to Rolling Stone, the McCartneys were married almost 30 years and only spent 10 nights apart during their marriage. Paul adopted Linda's daughter Heather from a previous marriage and the couple had children Mary, Stella, and James.
A year after Paul's beloved wife Linda died, he fell head over heels in love with Heather, a former model turned activist. The superstar married his second wife in 2002, but they separated in 2006, and Paul and Heather's divorce was final in 2008. The legendary musician forked over a $35 million settlement in the divorce, but it was worth it. Heather's supposed shady past and their public divorce were hard on the entire family.
Source: Callie McGuire/nickiswift.com
In early 1984 the songs and albums written, recorded and released by The Beatles were put up for sale by ATV Music. At the time, the band did not know too much about copyright, so could not do anything to stop their songs from being taken away. At the time, Paul McCartney and John Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, decided against purchasing the rights to the band's songs.
In 1985 Michael Jackson bought the rights to these songs for approximately $47.5 million (approximately £36.7 million).
This meant that he took the rights for songs such as Hey Jude, Let It Be and Yesterday.
Speaking about the unexpected turn of events in the 1980s, McCartney recalled what happened while he was on The Graham Norton Show in 2014.
He told the talk show host: "[We lost] the early Beatles stuff. It was a carve-up."
Source: Callum Crumlish/express.co.uk
In a new interview, Alice Cooper described the moment his manager Shep Gordon was asked to take on the Beatles – and why he refused.
In a new episode of Joe Bonamassa’s Live From Nerdville podcast, Cooper said he was in Gordon’s office, presumably during the period when the British band were attempting to rearrange their business concerns, when the potentially life-changing call came through. The episode is available below.
“He was managing Luther Vandross, Blondie, everybody… Gypsy Kings, Groucho Marx, Raquel Welch,” Cooper said. “He calls me into the office one day and he’s like, ‘Look, everybody’s driving me crazy, except you and Groucho… I want you to be here when I call and resign from everybody.’ I went, ‘Okay.’ I’m sitting there as he goes, ‘Yeah, I think I’ve done enough, I think you can move on…’ We open a bottle of champagne. He says, ‘It’s done – it’s me and you!’ I went, ‘Great!’”
Source: ultimateclassicrock.com
John Lennon had plenty of time to reunite The Beatles between the Fab Four’s breakup in 1970 and his untimely death in 1980. However, this never happened. During an interview from 1970, John explained why he thought recording with The Beatles again would be pointless — even if it made sense at one time.
In the book Lennon Remembers, which includes the transcript of a 1970 interview, Rolling Stone co-founder Jann S. Wenner and John discussed The Beatles at length. At one point, John revealed he was going to meet the other members of The Beatles soon to discuss financial matters. Subsequently, Wenner asked if John would record with them again.
“Not a chance,” John replied. “I wouldn’t record with anyone again. I record with Yoko, but I’m not going to record with another egomaniac. There’s only room for one on an album nowadays, and so there’s no point.”
Source: cheatsheet.com
A new movie, The Beatles And India, will, aims to shed light on The Beatles' infamous trip to Rishikesh, India, in 1968. Accompanied by Donovan, Beach Boy Mike Love and actress Mia Farrow the band, prompted by George Harrison, sought enlightenment in the meditation classes of famed spiritualist, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
Less committed to the cause than Harrison, John Lennon and Paul McCartney met clandestinely in each other’s rooms during the break to plot the next Beatles album, which turned into The White Album.
A statement released by the filmmakers says, "The Beatles And India is a unique historical chronicle of the enduring love affair between The Beatles and India that started more than half a century ago.
"Rare archival footage, recordings and photographs, eye-witness accounts and expert comments along with location shoots across India, bring alive the fascinating journey of George, John, Paul and Ringo from their high octane celebrity lives in the West to a remote Himalayan ashram in search of spiritual bliss that inspires an unprecedented burst of creative songwriting.
Source: Fraser Lewry/loudersound.com
Over the decades, former member of The Beatles, Sir Paul McCartney, met a huge amount of pop stars. While he built up relationships with some of them, he has not always been so successful with every artist he came across. One of these artists was Amy Winehouse.
Amy sadly lost her life on 23 July 2011 following a battle with addiction.
While the star had staved off drugs at the time, she died of alcohol poisoning at the age of 27.
Paul revealed how he met Amy just before she died, but he missed his chance to help her.
Speaking to GQ in 2018, Paul recalled the last interaction he had with her.
Source: Callum Crumlish/express.co.uk
The dusty blacktop road on Tucson's far east side doesn't look like it leads to a British nobleman's house.
But the 151-acre ranch near the foothills of the Rincon Mountains belongs to Sir Paul McCartney, whose wife Linda died there in 1998.
McCartney's company still pays taxes on the property; someone obviously maintains the place. But that's the backstory. What we have here is a yarn about a larger-than-life love affair.
Source: Jerry Wilkerson Special to the Arizona Daily Star
