Beatles News
The Beatles produced an iconic mix of cheery pop songs and psychedelic experiments. Although they never wrote as many macabre tunes as Alice Cooper, Rob Zombie, or Marilyn Manson, the Fab Four did give us a handful of eerie tracks. Here are the spookiest songs that the Beatles ever wrote.
“A Day in the Life” remains one of Beatles‘ most popular and critically acclaimed songs. The song’s popularity is a touch surprising given its horrifying undertones. The song sees John Lennon and Paul MCartney narrating four seemingly disconnected vignettes. One is about a man who died in a car accident, another is about a World War II movie, the third is about a man’s daily routine, and the fourth is about “four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire.”
None of these lyrics are scary unto themselves, however, they are each followed by a cacophonous instrumental break which sounds like the gates of hell being opened.
Source: cheatsheet.com
By the time The Beatles split, in 1970, Paul McCartney had already accomplished more than any musician could have hoped for. Having helped change the face of music on several occasions, he could have spent his post-Beatles life in semi-retirement, emerging solely to remind us of his past accomplishments. As a solo artist, however, McCartney continued to shape pop and rock music, whether with new collaborators (Wings, his wife Linda, Elvis Costello, producer Nigel Godrich) or simply following wherever his creative muse led. The best Paul McCartney songs, then, pay tribute to that relentless drive to keep finding new modes of expression.One of the interesting aspects of Paul’s 2013 album, NEW, is that the production credits feature Giles Martin and Ethan Johns, successful young producers, but – more significantly – the respective sons of George Martin and Glyn Johns, both of whom had produced The Beatles. From the sessions with Ethan Johns came ‘Early Days’, a song about Macca’s carefree teenage years back in Liverpool. “On the day I wrote the track ‘Early Days’ I was thinking about the past, particularly me and John in Liverpool in the early days, so I just ran with that,” Paul explained. “I started to get images of us in the record shop listening to early rock’n’roll and looking at the posters, and the joy that that gave me remembering all those moments.
Source: Paul McGuinness/udiscovermusic.com
When you watch the Let It Be documentary, a few things stand out. One is the famous ending, in which The Beatles give their last live performance on the roof of the Apple building. Also noteworthy is the energy Billy Preston brings after several uninspired rehearsals early in the film.
Clearly, the Fab Four (plus Yoko Ono) did not enjoy making the movie, especially in the beginning. The caught-on-camera argument between Paul McCartney and George Harrison led to George walking out on the band for a stretch in January 1969.
After George agreed to return, the band moved the recording dates (originally call the Get Back sessions) to Abbey Road. In the transition, they seemed to lose interest in a few of the songs they’d started.
One of those tracks was “The Long and Winding Road,” a ballad you can see Paul playing on piano at one point in Let It Be. While it ended up being the Beatles’ last No. 1 hit in America, Paul didn’t like what the song had become prior to its release.
Source: cheatsheet.com
The last album recorded by The Beatles featured several of their most loved – and most covered – songs. ‘Something’, ‘Come Together’ and ‘Here Comes The Sun’, for example, have been recorded by hundreds of artists, while fresh takes on songs from Abbey Road continue to emerge some 50 years on. Our our favourite Abbey Road cover versions take in recordings by soul, jazz and classical music icons.The swamp funk that The Beatles had been looking for on their own version of ‘Come Together’ came naturally to Ike And Tina Turner. Indeed, the rock’n’roll music that had first made the fledgling Beatles want to be stars owes a great debt to Ike Turner, whose 1951 recording ‘Rocket 88’ (credited to Jackie Brenston And The Delta Cats) is often cited as an candidate for being the first rock’n’roll recording. After touring in support of The Rolling Stones in late 1969, the husband-and-wife duo covered ‘Come Together’ as the title track of their first album of the 70s, released in May that year.
Source: udiscovermusic.com
Today we’re taking a look back at an iconic moment in pop music history, the time that Ravi Shankar, iconic Indian musician, taught The Beatles’ George Harrison how to play the traditional Indian instrument, the sitar.
What transpired was a rich and fruitful partnership between the pair which would not only see Harrison promote both Shankar and Indian music through his various channels with The Beatles. But it would also see Shankar become a deeply respected musician in the Western world on his own merit.
Shankar, the father of folk singer Norah Jones, became widely known for his collaborations with The Beatles, among other western musicians, and brought the intricacy and beauty of classical Indian music to the masses.
Source: faroutmagazine.co.uk
When The Beatles went their separate ways in 1970, fans couldn’t wait to see how their solo projects would turn out. In the case of Paul McCartney’s debut effort, they didn’t have to wait long. That’s because Paul released his record while simultaneously announcing he’d quit the Fab Four.
But McCartney didn’t exactly set the world on fire. Critics were underwhelmed, and Paul’s bandmates were, too. John Lennon described it as “rubbish,” while George Harrison simply called it “disappointing.”
John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band got almost the opposite reception. While it didn’t sell as well as Paul’s effort, critics raved about John’s songwriting and stunning vocal performance. But neither Paul nor John had come up with one of those trademark No. 1 singles.
George did the honors on that front when he released “My Sweet Lord” from his late ’70 All Things Must Pass album. (Both the single and record topped the charts.) But George had been very hesitant about releasing what became his most recognizable — and best-selling — song he’d ever record.
Source: cheatsheet.com
In a new q interview, Starr also talks about his photography, his All-Starr band, and how an illness inspired him to drum.
He was the drummer of what is arguably the most influential rock band of all time — and at 79, Beatles drummer Ringo Starr is still recording albums, touring and performing.
But Starr's story is anything but a fairytale: as a child he suffered from tuberculosis; he worked on boats and in factories before hitting the bigtime; and he suffered from alcoholism that was so severe, he ended up in rehab.
Still, his love of drums never wavered, and in a new q feature interview, he talked with host Tom Power about everything from his knighthood to how he first got introduced to drumming.
Source: cbc.ca
The Beatles‘ 1968 track ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’ has been declared the most perfect pop song ever written by researchers at the Max Planck Institute in Germany.
The scientists analysed 80,000 different chord progressions from 700 songs recorded between 1958 and 1991, using machine learning to give a score to each chord based on how “surprising” it was compared to the chord preceding it.
Chord sequences from 30 of the songs were then played to 39 volunteers, stripped of lyrics and melody to make the source track unrecognisable. The volunteers were asked to rate how enjoyable they felt each chord to be.
Source: nme.com
Paul McCartney remembered Robert Freeman as “imaginative and a true original thinker” in a tribute to the late photographer who shot some of the Beatles’ most memorable album covers.
Freeman’s photos of the Beatles ended up the covers of albums like With the Beatles, Rubber Soul, Help! and Beatles for Sale. In his tribute, McCartney recalled the shoot for With the Beatles, which he noted always had the aesthetic of “a carefully arranged studio shot” considering the way the band is so meticulously lit.
“In fact it was taken quite quickly by Robert in the corridor of a hotel we were staying in where natural light came from the windows at the end of the corridor,” McCartney remembered. “I think it took no more than half an hour to accomplish.”
McCartney also recalled how Freeman accidentally created the stretched effect on the Rubber Soul cover. To give the band a sense of what their covers would look like, Freeman regularly projected photos onto a piece of cardboard cut into the size of an LP sleeve. During the viewing session for the Rubber Soul photos, the picture fell backwards a bit in the slide projector, altering its dimensions.
Source: Rolling Stone
When Eric Clapton heard John Lennon suggested bringing him into The Beatles, Clapton weighed the pros and cons of such an unlikely gig. On the one hand, Clapton thought, it would be amazing to be part of such a close-knit family — one with unbounded artistic potential.
But on the other hand, he saw how familiarity had bred contempt among members of the Fab Four. “The cruelty and the viciousness were unparalleled,” Clapton said in Living in the Material World.
If you’ve ever heard any stories of the White Album sessions, you know what Clapton meant. Whether you know about Ringo’s walkout or Paul McCartney lashing out at producer George Martin, it’s not difficult to see why Paul called it “the tension album.”
Indeed, one of the wildest scenes of all came while the band was working through the umpteenth take of Paul’s “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da.” After leaving the studio in disgust, John returned a few hours talking about how wasted he’d gotten in the interim.
Source: cheatsheet.com
