Beatles News
The Beatles were great because all four of the band members were strong songwriters and the band is considered one of the greatest of all-time. Paul McCartney and John Lennon were the primary writers, but as time went on, George Harrison became a strong writer himself with songs like “Here Comes the Sun” and “Something.” Even Ringo Starr, the band’s drummer had a few songwriting credits as well like “Octopus’ Garden.” With the recently released 50th Anniversary edition of Abbey Road, let’s take a look at some helpful songwriting tips inspired by the fab four.
If you have a melody in your head but you’re not sure of the lyrics yet, you can always use gibberish. Paul McCartney has often said that when he was writing what would be known as “Yesterday,” the song was originally called “Scrambled Eggs” because the original lyrics were filled with breakfast rhymes.
Source: americansongwriter.com
If you’re a Beatles fan, you’re probably familiar with the turmoil surrounding the band from 1968 until the 1970 breakup. During that period, they recorded what Paul McCartney described as “the tension album” and had walkouts from two members of the group.
The checklist includes Ringo’s sudden departure during the White Album (1968) sessions. After losing confidence in his playing and getting fed up with Paul’s directions, Ringo decided he’d rather be on a boat in Italy than recording with the world’s biggest band.
While he was gone, The Beatles realized they wouldn’t be able to make do with Paul playing drums. So they telegraphed Ringo imploring him to come home (and he did). But the drama wasn’t over.
Source: cheatsheet.com
They probably didn’t realize it at the time, but The Beatles were churning out more material in the sixties than can be reasonably expected of a rock band. And despite releasing twelve studio albums in less than a decade as the Fab Four, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr were far from done writing and recording. After “Come Together,” “Let it Be,” “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” and “Yellow Submarine,” there were “Woman,” “Band on the Run,” “My Sweet Lord” and “You’re Sixteen.”
White all four Beatles enjoyed prolific solo careers – McCartney’s and Starr’s are still going – it was Lennon who arguably became the most experimental and thought-provoking of the group. He began his second chapter with free-flowing statements like “Give Peace a Chance,” which came after initial, even more avant-garde albums recorded with Yoko Ono.
Source: Bob Diehl/radio.com
Woody Harrelson is explaining how he ended up wearing the late George Harrison‘s suit to Wimbledon!
The 58-year-old actor stopped by The Ellen Show, where he opened up about his summer vacation when he visited George‘s widow Olivia.
“We were with Olivia Harrison. It’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen. She’s one of the greatest people,” Woody explained.
He continued, “And then she lent me a suit because I had to go to Wimbledon and I didn’t have a suit. So I wore this blue suit that was George Harrison‘s suit. Fit exactly!”
Source: Just Jared
Once upon a time, a couple of desperate English filmmakers embarked on a quest to find a champion, and to their everlasting surprise, discovered one where they might have least expected it.
It was the late-1970s, and producer John Goldstone and Monty Python’s Flying Circus founding member Eric Idle trekked across the Atlantic with caps in hand to scramble together the money to make “Monty Python’s Life of Brian.” EMI Films had summarily backed out of the project, leaving Goldstone, who also was executive producer of the troupe’s debut feature film, “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” and the Pythons flummoxed about what to do.
“Eric and I came to New York, and then we came out here and started going through everybody we knew,” Goldstone, 76, said this week from his home of more than a decade in Oxnard. “We went to Mike Medavoy, at United Artists at that time, and he said he would put up half the money, but that we’d have to get the other half from others.”
Source: Randy Lewis/latimes.com
The Beatles, Britain's top rock band, relax in London over tea in 1963. The group from left: John Lennon, Paul McCartney; George Harrison and Ringo Starr. (AP Photo)
Singer, songwriter and peace activist John Lennon, one of The Beatles, was born in England on Oct. 9, 1940.
According to biography.com, Lennon was raised by an aunt but saw his mother regularly. She taught him to play musical instruments and bought him his first guitar.
According to biography.com, Lennon was 16 when he created a “skiffle band called the Quarry Men.”
The Beatles rehearse for their forthcoming television show at Wembley studios in London, April 1964. In this skit, John Lennon plays a herald sounding a horn.
Lennon met Paul McCartney in 1957 and invited him to join his band.They eventually formed a successful music writing partnership that evolved into the British phenomena, The Beatles.
Source: pennlive.com
Abbey Road,” one of the Beatles’ most classic, career-defining records, celebrated its 50 year anniversary on Sept. 26. The record, featuring the then twenty-something-year-olds walking down the now-iconic London road, commemorated the milestone with a super deluxe edition release and new video for “Here Comes the Sun”—proving there’s still “something in the way” the British rock band moves us today.
“I think it was in a way the feeling that it might be our last, so let’s just show ’em what we can do, let’s show each other what we can do, and let’s try and have a good time doing it.” said Beatles member Paul McCartney in an interview about the project.
In the winter of 1969 and post “White Album” and “Let It Be,” Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr returned to the studio, hoping to reconnect and create music the way they’d done in the past. “Abbey Road” would be the last Beatles album to be recorded before their breakup in April 1970—ending their career with one of the most innovative, respected albums in music history.
Source: Crystal Lugo/nevadasagebrush.com
On the whole, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was an upbeat, positive record. Between the whimsical title track, “With a Little Help From My Friends,” and “Fixing a Hole,” the first side is heavy on Paul McCartney at his brightest and bounciest.
Paul keeps it going on the second side with “When I’m Sixty-Four,” “Lovely Rita,” and the “Sgt. Pepper’s” reprise. If you didn’t know any better, you might think the songwriter never saw a cloud in the sky and never had a dark thought in his life.
And we haven’t even gotten to “Getting Better.” From the ringing opening chords to the lyrics touting the improvements in life since the narrator met his girlfriend, Paul sings with his trademark determination to look at the sunny side of life. But things take a very dark turn in the third verse.
Source: cheatsheet.com
Abbey Road is not only among the Beatles’ most critically beloved albums —ranking 14th on Rolling Stone‘s list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time — it’s also one of their most lucrative. Despite being written as the band was on the verge of breaking up, the album was a commercial stronghold, spending 11 weeks at Number One on the Billboard 200 at after its release in September 1969.
And now, fifty years after its release, Abbey Road still sells. The album comes in at Number Three on this week’s Rolling Stone Top 200 Albums chart, which tracks music consumption via independent analytics company Alpha Data, thanks to a 40-track “super deluxe” reissue released by Apple Corps Ltd/Capitol/UMe to celebrate the album’s anniversary.
Source: Emily Blake/rollingstone.com
Almost 50 years ago, Sir Paul McCartney and his band Wings decided to decorate an open-top bus in psychedelic colours to take them on tour across Europe.
He converted the double-decker for his post-Beatles band and their families, with the seats on the upper deck replaced by mattresses and bean bags.
Now, after being found in Spain, the Wings Over Europe bus is back in the UK and is to be sold at auction.
Sir Paul made an appeal for the double-decker's whereabouts in 2017.
It is being sold by Omega Auctions in Merseyside on Tuesday with an estimated value of £15,000-£25,000.
The bus originally served local routes in Essex and Norfolk in the 1950s and 60s before being bought by McCartney, who didn't fancy being cooped up in a normal bus during the summer tour in 1972.
Source: Ian Youngs /bbc.com
