Beatles News
Listening to it now, Please Please Me, The Beatles‘ initial album release in the United Kingdom, sounds like one of the first times a rock and roll act properly took advantage of the long-playing format. That the group achieved that feat almost unconsciously testifies to their unmatched brilliance.
The Beatles recorded the bulk of Please Please Me in a single session at EMI’s Abbey Road studios in London. In the process, they inadvertently boosted the album as a format within the rock genre.
We now think of rock and roll as being an album-driven medium, as countless artists have attempted to make complete statements over the course of two sides (sometime more) of vinyl. In the early days of the genre, however, the rock album was an afterthought. Please Please Me helped to change that, even if the four lads that created it didn’t necessarily intend that to happen.
Circa 1963, which is when The Beatles recorded and released Please Please Me, rock albums were only granted to artists who’d already banked successful singles. Adding a few more songs of filler allowed them to milk more sales out of a popular song. Since the Fab Four had already delivered one modest hit (“Love Me Do”) and one massive hit (“Please Please Me”), EMI gave them this opportunity.
But they weren’t going to go overboard about it. The Beatles would get a single session to record this album. If it were any other artist, the album would have been filled with the two killer singles and a bunch of forgettable fluff. But these guys were too good for that.
Source: Jim Beviglia/americansongwriter.com
A new sneak peek at the upcoming documentary Beatles ’64 has been posted on the Fab Four’s YouTube channel. As previously reported, the movie, which premieres on Disney+ on Friday, November 29, focuses on The Beatles’ historic first visit to the U.S. in February 1964.
The clip features new interview footage of Paul McCartney sharing a humorous story about an interaction he and John Lennon had with his father, James, back in 1963. It appears that Paul’s dad had some reservations about the lyrics to one of the band’s most famous early songs.
“We’d written the song ‘She Loves You’ in the next room, and my dad was in the other room,” McCartney recalled. “So we came in to play it to him [for the] first time.” Paul said he and Lennon proceeded to sing the tune, including its famous chorus, “She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah.” As they sang, his dad listened and nodded along.
McCartney remembered with amusement that when they finished the song, his father said, “Boys … it’s very nice, but couldn’t you sing, ‘She loves you, yes, yes, yes’? … There’s enough of these Americanisms around.”
The Beatles released “She Loves You” in August 1963 in the U.K. and the following month in the U.S. In the British band’s home country, the song was an immediate smash, spending six non-consecutive weeks at No. 1 between September and early December 1963.
In the States, “She Loves You” didn’t catch on until after The Beatles’ historic appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. It spent two weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 in March of ’64. “She Loves You” also was included on the Fab Four’s third U.S. studio album, titled The Beatles’ Second Album. That record was released in April 1964. It followed Introducing … The Beatles and Meet The Beatles!, which both were issued in January 1964.
Source: Matt Friedlander/americansongwriter.com
When John Lennon released his song about heroin withdrawal, “Cold Turkey,” in 1969, radio stations refused to play it because of the lyrics and Lennon’s distorted guitar and screams. Years later, the Beatles also faced a new stream of bans. After 9/11, Clear Channel (later iHeartMedia) sent a memo to more than 1,100+ radio stations under its umbrella with a list of more than 160 songs they suggested pulling from the rotation for being “lyrically questionable” or insensitive to the events. On the list were four Beatles songs.
The Beatles’ songs that were temporarily banned in the U.S., or not played as much, followed the September 11 attacks, and included their 1968 White Album track “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da.”
Decades earlier, the band also faced some radio freezes around some of their other songs in the UK.
John Lennon passes his driving test in Weybridge Paul McCartney Ringo Starr and George Harrison are there to congratulate him 15 February 1965 (Photo by Eyles/Mirrorpix/Mirrorpix via Getty Images)
Shortly after its release, UK radio refused to play “I Am the Walrus” for its sexually suggestive lyrics—Boy, you’ve been a naughty girl, you let your knickers down. In 1967, “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” was banned by the BBC for its alleged references to drugs, and the title spelling out LSD.
The BBC also banned “A Day in the Life” for the lyric I’d love to turn you on and the band’s Abbey Road opener “Come Together” for its mention of the brand Coca-Cola.
Throughout their history, the Beatles had their fair share of bans. Here’s a look at three more of their songs that were banned in America following 9/11.
Source: Tina Benitez-Eves/americansongwriter.com
Let’s say you’re an American Beatles fan in the Sixties, Seventies, or Eighties. You chat with a British fan about your favorite albums. But you have no idea what they’re talking about — what is Beatles for Sale? Or With The Beatles? Meanwhile, they’ve never heard of U.S. classics like Meet the Beatles or Something New or Yesterday and Today. You both agree how great Rubber Soul is — but you’re discussing two different Rubber Souls. How can this be?
That’s because the Beatles albums were totally different in the States. The vinyl box set 1964 U.S. Albums In Mono collects the first 7 Capitol LPs rushed out in the first wave of the Beatlemania invasion. (That’s counting A Hard Day’s Night, officially a United Artists soundtrack.) Capitol did not regard the moptops as true artists expressing themselves on wax — the label just wanted to crank out product as fast as possible, before fickle fans fell out of love with these long-haired limey loverboys. So they chopped up the 14-song U.K. albums into 11 or 12-song quickies. The Beatles couldn’t get any of their original albums released intact in America until Sgt. Pepper in 1967. The U.S. version of Revolver left out “And Your Bird Can Sing,” “Doctor Robert,” and “I’m Only Sleeping.”
The 1964 U.S. Albums In Mono box finally gives these records a proper home. These editions have been forgotten by history, ever since the original U.K. versions came out on CD in 1987. But fans will never part with our cherished vinyl of Something New or Beatles ’65 — they remain evergreen classics, even though the Beatles never meant for them to exist.
Source: Rob Sheffield/yahoo.com
Comedian, actor and author Paul Reiser joined host Kenneth Womack to talk about sharing the Beatles with younger generations, his new comedy special “Life, Death & Rice Pudding” and much more on a special bonus episode of “Everything Fab Four,” a podcast co-produced by me and Womack (a music scholar who also writes about pop music for Salon) and distributed by Salon.
Reiser, the 11-time Emmy Award nominee known for such TV shows and movies as “Diner,” “Aliens,” “My Two Dads” and “Stranger Things,” told Womack he “always wanted to perform. I wanted to get the laughs.” And through co-creating, producing and starring in the hit show “Mad About You,” he got to do just that. Though comedy was always his professional focus, he said he is ultimately moved the most by music – and that all began with seeing the Beatles on “The Ed Sullivan Show” in February of 1964.
“My older sister was already into them,” said Reiser, “and I have a vivid recollection of being drawn to the TV. There was just this imprint of importance. You didn't know it was going to be the cultural touchstone that it is, but you knew to watch it.” And following that pivotal performance, “They made good on it with one album after another. Specific Beatles songs are imprinted on the moments of my life – of all our lives, really. The music is so good it seems silly to even give it an adjective.”
Source: yahoo.com
Sean Ono Lennon has offered a rare insight into what first inspired him to become a musician.
The US singer – the son of the late Beatles star John Lennon and his wife, artist Yoko Ono – has released a number of well-received solo records and collaborated with fellow musicians including the alt-rock band Cibo Matto. He has also composed several film scores.
In a new interview, Lennon reflected on how his father’s death in 1980 led to him pursuing music to fill a “void”.
“I never played music because I was good at it,” he told People. “I lost my father and I didn’t know how to fill that void. Learning how to play his songs on guitar was a way to process the loss with an activity that made me feel connected to him.
“When you’ve lost a parent, things like that motivate you – because you’re trying to find them. Making music always made me feel like I was getting to know him better.”
Lennon was recently nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Boxed of Special Limited Edition Package, thanks to a major reissue of his father’s 1973 album, Mind Games. The limited edition collection includes remixes produced by Lennon, along with maps, replica art pieces and a coffee table book.
“The whole album is about my mum,” he said of Mind Games. “My dad declared to the world that ‘John and Yoko’ were one word. I think he always had his heart set on her. He was so in love with her. They had a legendary love and I think that this album is infused with that love. You can hear it.”
The Beatles are also up for a Grammy at the 2025 ceremony for their final single, 2023’s “Now and Then”, which is up for Record of the Year. The nod – received 60 years after their first one for “I Want to Hold Your Hand” in 1965 – set a new record for the longest span between nominations, beating previous record-holder Tony Bennett.
Official rules state that although the majority of “Now and Then” qualifies as newly recorded, the archive elements featuring John Lennon, who died in 1980, and George Harrison, who died in 2001, do not meet the definition and are therefore not Grammy-eligible.
In a five-star review of “Now and Then,”The Independent’s Mark Beaumont wrote that the song provides “the rock’n’roll era cultural closure.”
Source: Roisin O'Connor/the-independent.com
Watching Sir Paul McCartney perform or speak in interviews, it's easy to momentarily forget that the legendary Beatles musician is now 82 years old. Despite his age, McCartney remains a dynamic force on stage, receiving high praise for his headlining performance at Glastonbury in 2022.
The prolific singer-songwriter has been captivating audiences for nearly seven decades, and his recent 'Got Back' tour saw him performing across various countries in 2022 and 2023. Remarkably, each show lasted almost three hours, showcasing his extraordinary stamina.
As a father-of-five, many wonder about the secret behind his enduring energy. Over time, McCartney has shared several of his methods for maintaining youthfulness, as reported by Express.co.uk.
One notable aspect of his lifestyle is his diet. McCartney became a vegetarian in the 1970s alongside his late wife Linda. In 1991, Linda launched her own range of vegetarian food products, which remain popular to this day.
Discussing his dietary choices, McCartney said in the 2021 cookbook "Linda McCartney’s Family Kitchen": "Now of course, it’s really not difficult at all. You just go down the shops and most places will have great veggie options. ".
He reflected on the decision to become vegetarian: "It was a joint decision and we never looked back. It was a great thing to do, and it turned out we became part of a vegetarian revolution."
Numerous studies over the years have highlighted the health benefits of a vegetarian diet. For instance, research published in the British Medical Journal in 2019 discovered that vegetarians had a 22 percent lower risk of heart disease compared to meat eaters.
Source: Fiona Callingham/getsurrey.co.uk
Ringo Starr will be releasing a new project on Jan. 10, 2025, and he’s got an all-star team of collaborators to make it the best it can possibly be. Here’s everything we know so far.
The Beatles star and former drummer is well on his way to gifting fans with a new country album featuring Alison Krauss. Titled ‘Thankful,’ the album is said to be a second preview of ‘Look Up,’ a collaborative project with T Bone Burnett.
Like its “thankful” name, Starr hopes to inspire and spread positivity with the songs on the album. Apart from producing and co-writing nine of the 11 tracks on the album, the 84-year-old also sings on it alongside Burnett and Kraus.
He previewed the album with the debut track “Time On My Hands,” saying of the song, “I love this track. I wrote it with my producer and engineer,...
Source: imdb.com
The Beatles had a great deal of magic to them, and that magic arose from the peculiar chemistry between four people. Remove even one of them, and it just couldn’t persist. Ringo Starr knew that, and that’s perhaps what made his decision to leave the band in 1968 all the more striking.
The group had lost manager Brian Epstein the year before, his death from an overdose accelerating a feeling of being adrift. Numerous projects – the Magical Mystery Tour film, a trip to India – would help to plug that gap, but a sense of inertia had set in.
During the sessions for what would become The White Album, Ringo Starr decided that he had simply had enough. Walking out of the band, he informed John Lennon he was leaving before going on holiday to Sardinia.
“I went to see John [Lennon], who had been living in my apartment in Montagu Square with Yoko [Ono] since he moved out of Kenwood,” Starr recalled, “I said, ‘I’m leaving the group because I’m not playing well and I feel unloved and out of it, and you three are really close.’”
He would tell the Anthology film makers: “I had definitely left. I couldn’t take it anymore. There was no magic and the relationships were terrible. I knew we were all in a messed-up stage. It wasn’t just me; the whole thing was going down.”
The holiday refreshed him, however – Ringo Starr wrote ‘Abbey Road’ classic ‘Octopus’s Garden’ while in the Mediterranean, and the band struggled to move on without his percussive nous.
Returning to a hero’s welcome, The Beatles adorned his drum kit with flowers – but his return couldn’t fully patch up the band’s emerging fissures.
Source: Robin Murray/clashmusic.com
As perhaps the most famous band of all time, the Beatles have been the subject of their fair share of conspiracy theories. However, among speculation about coded messages in “Helter Skelter” and urban legends about John Lennon meeting aliens, the idea that Paul McCartney died long ago and was replaced by somebody else has endured more than any other. This wild claim was said to have taken place at the height of the Beatles's fame, and it proposes that John, George, and Ringo somehow managed to find the perfect Paul replacement at the drop of a hat.
Not only does the notorious ‘Paul is Dead’ theory boggle the mind with its sheer ridiculousness, but McCartney has had an almost equally impressive career with his post-Beatles band, Wings, and as a solo artist, meaning that the new Paul was arguably even more talented than the original. Those who swear by this outlandish theory are not without their evidence, as some have pointed to clues in Beatles music and album artwork that hint the original McCartney may no longer be of this world.
The Paul Is Dead Theory Explained. Some claim McCartney died during the sessions for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
The urban legend that Paul McCartney died and was replaced with a lookalike started back in 1966 but gained widespread popularity in 1969 after it was discussed on American college radio. The story goes that a caller told the Detroit WKNR-FM DJ Russ Gibb about the rumor live on air (via Detroit News), and the host discussed the theory and its clues with more callers for the next hour. The idea behind it was that McCartney died in a car crash, and, to spare the public from grief, the Beatles, along with Britain’s MI5, quickly found a suitable replacement.
Source: Stephen Holland/screenrant.com
