Beatles News
While I tend to prefer The Beatles's more experimental sound in albums such as Abbey Road, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, or Magical Mystery Tour, I can't deny that I have jammed countless times to Hey Jude. But if you were to tell me that a song deemed one of the worst of its decade that talked about cake and rain was behind the release of "Hey Jude", then maybe I should reconsider my musical preferences.
Well, that song is "MacArthur Park", ranked as the third worst song of the '60s by Rolling Stone in 2011. Now, what does a folk song sung by Richard Harris have to do with the "Na-na-na-na's" of The Beatles single? Not the lyrics, not the chords, not the structure, but the length of the song itself.
"At first, we felt like the guys who'd created the A-bomb: we were a bit afraid of what we'd done," Jimmy Webb said in an interview with The Guardian. He was the one who wrote "MacArthur Park." "I didn't know I could write something like that," he continued. To be honest, I didn't know someone could write anything like that, actually.
The infamous song has a length of seven minutes and 21 seconds. Webb was surprised that radio stations began playing it in its entirety. "I was asked to do a shorter version as a single," he said. "I refused, so eventually they put out the full seven minutes 20 seconds. George Martin once told me The Beatles let 'Hey Jude' run to over seven minutes because of 'MacArthur Park."
If you are like me who suffers from an extreme case of the Mandela Effect, you would be surprised to learn that the Beatles single's length is seven minutes and 12 seconds. That's a lot of "Na-na-na-nas," and if Webb is right, then we owe him for every single one of them.
Source: Alejandro Josan/wideopencountry.com
By the mid to late-’60s, Paul McCartney became immersed in the underground scene in London, sparked by the British pop art movement, works coming from the Drury Lane Arts Lab—where John Lennon and Yoko Ono would premiere their joint work Four Thoughts (Build-Around) in 1968—Andy Warhol and David Morrissey’s Chelsea Girls, and other emerging collectives.
After connecting with the design group BEV (Binder, Edwards & Vaughan), McCartney was commissioned to produce a piece for their upcoming exhibition The Million Volt Light and Sound Rave in 1967 and jumped at the opportunity to showcase the Beatles‘ more avant-garde side.
Recorded on the morning of January 5, 1967, the near-14-minute piece, “Carnival of Light,” was a free-for-all, orchestrated by McCartney of loosely riffed guitars, distorted instrumentation, dense echos, and random phrases blurted: “Barcelona” and “Are you all right?”
“I said ‘All I want you to do is just wander around all the stuff, bang it, shout, play it, it doesn’t need to make any sense,’” recalled McCartney of his instructions to the band for the recording. “’Hit a drum, then wander on to the piano, hit a few notes. Just wander around.’ So that’s what we did and then put a bit of an echo on it. It’s very free.”
After creating a mess of noise for nearly 14 minutes, McCartney pulled the plug on “Carnival of Light” after 13 minutes and 48 seconds. “This is ridiculous,” said producer George Martin. “We’ve got to get our teeth into something a little more productive.” After wrapping up their experimental piece, the band recorded “Penny Lane,” which was initially intended for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Source: Tina Benitez-Eves/americansongwriter.com
Regrets that stem from inaction can be some of the most painful to reconcile, and that seemed to be the case for the one thing John Lennon always regretted about his time with the Beatles. Although he would admit in the same breath, he didn’t regret it enough to act on it.
So it often goes in life, after all. Hindsight is always 20/20, and when it comes to matters of creativity and ego, that type of clarity can reveal far more than we’re often comfortable seeing face-to-face.
John Lennon Regretted This About The Beatles
David Sheff’s All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono is as revealing as a conversation with that kind of pomp would suggest. In the massive interview spanning three weeks in August 1980, four months before Lennon’s death, the ex-Beatle talked about his life with his second wife, individual Beatles songs, and memories (and regrets) of his time in the Fab Four.
The last included one notable tinge of remorse Lennon always felt about George Harrison and Ringo Starr’s place in the Beatles’ songwriting compensation. As Lennon was discussing hurtful comments Harrison had made about him in his memoir, the “Imagine” singer said it was particularly painful because he had tried to ensure Harrison and Starr would get decent compensation from Beatles songs.
“It was because of me that Ringo and George got a piece of John and Paul’s songwriting,” Lennon argued to Sheff. “Under [manager] Allen Klein’s auspices, John and Paul own completely anything that [publishing company] Maclen published. I always felt bad that George and Ringo didn’t get a piece of the publishing. Not bad enough to do anything about it, but slightly guilty about it.”
Source: Melanie Davis/americansongwriter.com
As someone who has been a major part of the music industry since the 1960s, Paul McCartney has undoubtedly run into countless troubled musicians around the world, but one singer he never helped has always nagged him in hindsight. Of course, such is the way of regret. There would be no need for it if we had the ability to go back in time and change our actions.
But because that’s impossible and time keeps marching on, McCartney has held on to his remorse, especially after the troubled singer he wished he could have saved died in the summer of 2011.
From the initial waves of Beatlemania to the tragic killing of his bandmate, John Lennon, and everything before, after, and in between, Paul McCartney has certainly witnessed a lot in his lifetime. McCartney has been around to see every member of the infamous 27 Club die, but one of its unlucky members always stuck with him a bit more than the rest.
McCartney recalled meeting Amy Winehouse for the first time in passing in 2008. Winehouse was at the height of her fame and corresponding scandals around her relationships, mental health, and substance abuse. The two British icons passed each other at the European MTV Awards in Liverpool.
Source: Melanie Davis/americansongwriter.com
With a Scorsese-produced doc on the Fab Four just around the corner, cue up 10 other essential works which shine a light on the most important band in the history of pop.
Having professed his love for the Rolling Stones with numerous documentaries and concert films, Martin Scorsese switches his attention to their one-time fiercest rivals as the producer of Beatles '64.
Out. Nov. 29, the Disney+ original centers on the year when the Beatles replicated their UK success on the other side of the Atlantic, with their iconic performance in front of 73 million "The Ed Sullivan Show" viewers the undisputed catalyst.
Of course, Beatles '64 is far from the first doc on the Fab Four to boast such an Oscar-winning pedigree. Both Peter Jackson and Ron Howard have essentially bowed down and declared “We're not worthy” with screen displays of fandom in recent years. In fact, since the group dramatically went their separate ways in 1970, countless documentarians — some who lived through it, others who had to learn it — have tried to place the success of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Star in a wider context while finding new and interesting ways to tell their remarkable story.
So which are the documentary equivalents of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Abbey Road (or whichever entry in the Liverpudlian' unrivaled back catalog is your ultimate)? From behind-the-scenes snapshots and musical deep dives, to intimate character portraits and star-studded retrospectives, here's a look at 10 documentaries any Beatles obsessive should have on their must-watch list.
'Let It Be' (1970)
Eschewing the usual pop documentary conventions, the Oscar and GRAMMY-winnning Let It Be simply points the camera at the Beatles during the recording of their same-named final studio effort and lets the action naturally unfold. There are occasional glimpses of the tensions you'd expect from a band about to distintegrate; a fraught discussion about the guitar line on "Two of Us," for example, in which Harrison has to reassure McCartney that he's not being annoying (the guitarist's brief mid-sessions departure, however, is entirely omitted), and the moment which director Michael Lindsay-Hogg pithily described as Lennon dying of boredom.
Source: grammy.com
Love them, they did.
When The Beatles launched their US invasion in 1964 — complete with their historic debut appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show” — the mop-topped Brits were under siege by the screaming masses upon their arrival in New York.
“It was like being in the eye of a hurricane,” says John Lennon in “Beatles ’64,” the Martin Scorsese-produced documentary that premieres on Disney+ Nov. 29.
But as the Fab Four were taking refuge from the hysteria at Manhattan’s Plaza Hotel, the Ronettes came to their rescue.
“We were already friends with them from England. George [Harrison] was dating Estelle, my sister, so it was very simple,” says head Ronnie Spector — front woman of the “Be My Baby” girl group — in the doc.
“John called me at my house, and he said, ‘Ronnie, we’re prisoners. We can’t get out. The whole place is surrounded by girls around the whole Plaza building.’ ”
But Spector, along with the other two Ronettes, came to the hotel and orchestrated The Beatles’ great escape uptown to the home of the Apollo.
Source: Chuck Arnold/nypost.com
Beatles engineer, Geoff Emerick, recounted the experience of watching the Beatles record “I Am the Walrus.” He explained the situation in great detail, keying fans into the aftermath of a not-so-great moment for the Fab Four: the death of their longtime manager, Brian Epstein.
“I Am the Walrus” certainly doesn’t seem like the best song to grieve to. Nevertheless, there was a job to do–no matter the extenuating circumstances.
“There was a pallor across the session that day – we were all distracted, thinking about Brian – but there was a song to be recorded, too,” Emerick once said. “Everyone seemed bewildered. The melody [to ‘I Am the Walrus’] consisted largely of just two notes, and the lyrics were pretty much just nonsense – for some reason John appeared to be singing about a walrus and an eggman. There was a moment of silence when he finished, then Lennon looked up at George Martin expectantly.”
Sitting on a cornflake, waiting for the van to come
Corporation tee-shirt, stupid bloody Tuesday
Man, you been a naughty boy, you let your face grow long
Unsurprisingly, Martin had issues with this off-kilter track the first time he heard it.
“That one was called ‘I Am The Walrus,’ John said,” Emerick continued. “‘So…what do you think?’ George looked flummoxed; for once he was at a loss for words. ‘Well, John, to be honest, I have only one question: What the hell do you expect me to do with that?’”
Source:Alex Hopper/americansongwriter.com
He famously sang alongside his fellow Beatles in protest at the imposition of a ‘supertax’ under Harold Wilson’s Labour government.
Now, Sir Paul McCartney and his family face a fresh tax wrangle after Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves’ Labour budget put his Scottish farm at risk of an inheritance tax blow.
Sir Paul ‘begrudgingly’ purchased High Park Farm in Kintyre in June 1966 for around £35,000 after financial advisors suggested he invest in property amid rising tax charges for Britain’s wealthiest.
That same year – and at the peak of Beatlemania - the band’s hit Taxman was released - in a thinly veiled swipe at the government of the time. The song is said to have been written by George Harrison in response to the astonishing 95 per cent tax which The Beatles would have been subject to.
In the years since Macca bought High Park it’s value will have grown - helped in no small part by his purchase of five neighbouring farms.
However, Labour’s tax hike, which will come into force in April 2026, will see farmers slapped with a 20 per cent tax on inherited agricultural assets worth more than £1 million.
The move has had farmers up in arms with concerns it will force families that have been farming for generations to sell up.
Thousands of protestors swarmed outside Whitehall last week - including TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson - as many claimed the new move signalled ‘the end’ for farming.
Source: Ciaran Foreman/dailymail.co.uk
Ringo Starr always knew the Beatles were destined for success.
The 84-year-old musician was part of the world's best-selling band in the 1960s alongside John Lennon - who was shot dead in 1980 at the age of 40 - as well as the late George Harrison and Sir Paul McCartney and recalled that they were all like "four brothers" at the time who "worked very hard" with full intent of reaching superstardom.
He told 'Entertainment Tonight': "I miss them both, George and John. We were friends, we were like four brothers and we looked out for each other. When we made music, we went through moments where getting a little happy was good. So, we really worked very hard, we had a lot of cups of tea and we could just feel where it was going. For me, it was like psychic, we knew where it was going. No one had to look at you or stamp their foot or whatever.
"We did it together, that's what was great. We had two great songwriters. It was great.
"The Beatles are still doing like five billion streams a year, it's far out!"
The 'It Don't Come Easy' singer then spoke out on the notion that 'Anti-Hero' songstress Taylor Swift has reached a level of fame that is equivalent to that of Beatlemania and recalled meeting the pop star a lot earlier in her career prior to her global success.
He said: "I said she's really big and it's great because Paul and I did several Grammy shows. We met her there all the time, she was with her mum and look at her now. She's done very well."
Source: Bang Showbiz/uk.news.yahoo.com
The impact of The Beatles on the world in general and the United States in particular in 1964 really can’t be measured. “Beatlemania” is a nice way to sum it all up in a single word, yet it simply can’t capture everything that went on in those 12 months, ranging from the insanity of their appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show through the making and release of their film, A Hard Day’s Night, and their first tour of America and Canada.
While Disney+ will be debuting the Martin Scorsese-produced documentary Beatles ’64 on November 29, we look at that year in two distinct ways: a behind-the-scenes “tour diary” that chronicles all of the major events during their time on the road in 1964, followed by a breakdown of everything else that went on in between concert performances.
February 11: The Beatles travel from New York via train to perform at the Washington Coliseum. The original plan was for them to fly, but a snowstorm changed the mode of transport. WINS reporter Murray The K, who broadcast his radio show from The Beatles’ hotel suite at the Plaza Hotel in New York, is the one who alerted the group and manager Brian Epstein to the potential weather problems.
Source: Ed Gross/womansworld.com
