Beatles News
New documentaries about Elton John and The Beatles are part of the New York Film Festival’s Spotlight section, which showcases the most notable fall releases.
Elton John: Never Too Late, co-directed by R.J. Cutler and Elton’s husband, David Furnish, follows Elton during his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour, with the description noting it “offers keen insight into a life and career marked by soaring highs and crushing lows, and contemplates a legacy defined equally by advocacy and artistry.” Elton, Furnish and Cutler are expected to attend the premiere.
Also premiering at the festival is TWST / Things We Said Today, from Romanian director Andrei Ujica, about The Beatles’ 1965 trip to New York to headline Shea Stadium, and Pavements, a “rule-flouting sorta-documentary” about Stephen Malkmus and the band Pavement.
Elton’s doc is getting its U.S. premiere at the festival; it’s already set to premiere at the Toronto Film Festival, which runs from Sept. 5 to Sept. 15. Meanwhile, TWST / Things We Said Today and Pavements are getting their North American premieres, with both set to debut at the Venice Film Festival, which runs from Aug. 28 to Sept. 7.
The New York Film Festival takes place Sept 27. to Oct. 14.
Source: mikeeves@wxhc.com
When it comes to The Beatles, it was often Paul McCartney and John Lennon who got the most shine. After that duo, George Harrison was considered the next best artist and songwriter. And then there was Ringo Starr, the comic relief, the peace sign-waving, smiling drummer, who often felt like he was put over on the side on a riser and left to his own devices.
But once the former mop tops split up, music fans got to see more of Ringo as a bandleader, songwriter, recording artist, and performer, and much of what he put out into the world was appreciated on a new level. Here below, we wanted to explore three such songs. A trio of tracks from Starr that have since stood the test of time.
When they were with The Beatles, Ringo and George Harrison were known to write songs together, including the hit “Octopus’s Garden.” But here the two collaborated on this single from Starr’s self-titled 1973 LP Ringo. The Gold-selling track, which the two began writing in France in 1971, is about the value of a photograph and how it can sometimes be the last remaining element from an otherwise cherished relationship. Love is beautiful but is also fleeting. And Ringo sings of this fact on the track, offering,
Ev’ry time I see your face,
It reminds me of the places we used to go.
But all I got is a photograph
And I realize you’re not coming back anymore.
I thought I’d make it the day you went away,
But I can’t make it
Till you come home again to stay.
I can’t get used to living here,
While my heart is broke, my tears I cried for you.
I want you here to have and hold,
As the years go by and we grow old and grey.
“It Don’t Come Easy” from Ringo (1971)
Source: Jacob Uitti/americansongwriter.com
From uneven songwriting credits to incessant in-fighting, the tense interpersonal dynamics of the Fab Four manifested in plenty of ways, including the future George Harrison hit the Beatles ironically rejected. The song was one of countless Harrison suggestions the band ultimately turned down, opting instead to prioritize the creative songwriting partnership of John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
However, the charts spoke for themselves. The song would later become a No. 1 U.S. hit for the “Quiet Beatle.” This accolade bested his bandmate, John Lennon, by one chart-topping hit.
Five months before the Beatles would make their Ed Sullivan Show debut, sparking a wave of Beatlemania across the States, a still unknown George Harrison visited his sister in rural Illinois. (A roadside memorial marks the early 1960s occasion, one of several unique tributes built in Harrison’s honor.) While there, Harrison perused a local record shop. He picked up Presenting James Ray, which featured “I’ve Got My Mind Set On You” as the first track.
Harrison immediately took to the song and offered it to his bandmates as a potential cover. As the story goes, his bandmates rejected the idea because it wasn’t original material. This would’ve made sense had the band committed to recording and performing all original music at the onset of their career, but, of course, that wasn’t the case. Some of their most famous hits in their early career were covers, including “Twist and Shout” and “Please Mister Postman.”
Source: Melanie Davis/americansongwriter.com
Alan Parsons reflected on the time working as an engineer for The Beatles, revealing what this experience was really like.
Before making a name as an artist with The Alan Parsons Project, young Alan started his career as an engineer. During the 1960s and the 1970s, he had the chance to work with none other than The Beatles and Pink Floyd, two of the most influential rock bands of all time. The experience was, without a doubt, more than valuable for his career as Alan goes down in rock music history as one of the most important figures.
Of course, if you've worked with The Beatles, it's impossible to avoid questions about the experience. Speaking to Rick Beato in a recent interview, Alan Parsons opened up on the experience, confirming what most of us might have expected.
"It was The Beatles — of course it was historic," Alan said with a laugh when Rick asked about the matter (transcribed by Ultimate Guitar). "But no, I was enjoying every minute. And I said, 'Thank you. This is the this is the greatest experience I've ever had.'"
Source: Ultimate Guitar
The Beatles still stand as one of the most successful musical acts of all time in their home country of the U.K. Despite the fact that the band has only released a handful of tunes in the past half-century since they first split, they remain forces to be reckoned with on the weekly rankings, as fans in England continue to stream and buy everything the group released.
This week, The Beatles are present once again on a number of charts in the U.K. The Fab Four even manage to collect a pair of top 40 wins on the same ranking—at the same time.
On the Official Physical Singles chart–the U.K.’s list of the bestselling individual tunes released on a physical format–The Beatles claim a pair of spots. That’s an impressive showing for a group that many know as one from another era.
The Beatles’ highest-ranking hit on the Official Physical Singles chart this week is “From Us To You - 2 March 1964.” That project–which is actually an EP that features several songs, including the title track “From Us To You”—appears at No. 18 this frame. Last week, it was down at No. 29.
Further down on the same ranking comes another tune from the same beloved outfit. The Beatles’ “Now and Then” climbs this frame on the Official Physical Singles chart, shooting from No. 62 to No. 32.
“Now and Then” was released in late 2023, and it was heralded as a welcome return by the biggest band in the world. The single–their first in decades–reached No. 1 on this tally. “From Us To You - 2 March 1964,” meanwhile, has missed out on breaking into the top 10 by just a few spaces, as it’s climbed as high as No. 12.
Speaking of No. 12, that’s exactly where “From Us To You - 2 March 1964” lands on another chart in the U.K. The Beatles’ short studio effort rises to that position on the Official Vinyl Singles chart, lifting from No. 22.
Source: Hugh McIntyre/forbes.com
Every Beatles fan — and there are a lot of them, from casual to hardcore — has an opinion on when the Fab Four of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr were at their best, from their mainstream pop success to their psychedelic era. Narrowed down from more than 200 recorded songs, we agreed on these top timeless tunes.
Read on for the complete list of our favorites, from best to, well, 50th best.
1. "A Hard Day's Night" (1964, A Hard Day's Night)
The Beatles 'A Hard Day's Night' album cover.
Parlophone
More than 50 years after this single hit the top of the charts on both sides of the Atlantic, it's still nearly impossible to get any two people to agree on what chord that famous opening clang! actually is. But with one majestic, mysterious Rickenbacker distress call, the Beatles as we first met them on The Ed Sullivan Show four months earlier were gone. They'd grown up. The lads had become unwitting passengers on a speeding locomotive they'd never be able to disembark from, and the song's title hints at that weariness. It's right there in the opening scene of the 1964 film that bears the same name, as John, Paul, George, and Ringo are chased by a mob of screaming, ravenous fans. This isn't just a pop song, it's a cathartic cry for Help!
2. "A Day in the Life" (1967, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band)
The Beatles, 'Magical Mystery Tour' album cover.
Capitol
The Beatles' chief songsmiths were on increasingly divergent creative paths, a fact driven home by their collaboration on the grand finale of their most ambitious project. Both men are singing about the most average of daily activities — reading the morning paper, catching a bus — yet these rituals are full of existential pain in John's verses, while Paul's bridge is a whimsical daydream. In less expert hands, the contrast might have felt clumsy. Instead, it's the perfect lead-up to that wild crescendo and last piano chord: a studio trick that echoes in the listener's ears long after the song has ended.
Source: By EW Staff and Kevin Jacobsen
They were the biggest band in the world, but they certainly weren’t above criticism. In fact, you could argue that The Beatles invited more scrutiny than their rock band peers. Because of their track record, much was expected them with each new song and album.
John Lennon was always a bit sensitive to that criticism, especially when he believed it was unwarranted or unfair. Occasionally, he came out swinging in interviews to defend himself and the group. That certainly was the case when it came to the “I Want You (She’s So Heavy),” a song he penned that the band released in 1969 on their final studio album Abbey Road.
The Beatles did a ton to advance the art of lyric writing in pop and rock music. They were influenced by the early albums of Bob Dylan, an artist who proved the pop form could withstand adult themes and complex, personal writing. Because of their popularity, the Fab Four’s efforts to push their lyrical boundaries in turn influenced just about every other band and artist that competed with them in the ’60s.
John Lennon was responsible for much of this advancement. Songs like “In My Life,” “A Day in the Life,” and “Strawberry Fields Forever,” all of which are credited to Lennon/McCartney but were mostly composed by Lennon, proved how evocative and profound rock music verses and refrains could be, an effect only amplified by the incredible music around the words. (McCartney was no slouch himself in writing the stellar lyrics to songs like “Eleanor Rigby,” “She’s Leaving Home,” and “Blackbird.”)
But Lennon also began to feel that people were focusing a little bit too much on the words to his songs, to the point where he started writing purposely oblique lyrics to try to throw them off on tracks like “Glass Onion” and “I Am the Walrus.” It only proved his point when obsessive fans began finding “hidden meanings” in those songs and others like them that weren’t really there.
Source: Jim Beviglia/americansongwriter.com
When you think of John Lennon from The Beatles, you’re likely to picture him with his circular, wire-rimmed glasses.
But at times, he wore contact lenses, or at least he tried to. They kept pinging out of his eyes.
Why and what Lennon did to help his contacts stick is part history and part vision science.
As I propose in my paper, it also involved smoking a lot of pot.
Lennon didn’t like wearing glasses
Before 1967, Lennon was rarely seen in public wearing glasses. His reluctance to wear them started in childhood when he was found to be shortsighted at about the age of seven.
Nigel Walley was Lennon’s childhood friend and manager of The Quarrymen, the forerunner to The Beatles. Walley told the BBC,"He was as blind as a bat – he had glasses but he would never wear them. He was very vain about that."
In 1980, Lennon told Rolling Stone magazine,"I spent the whole of my childhood with […] me glasses off because glasses were sissy."
Even during extensive touring during Beatlemania (1963–66), Lennon never wore glasses during live performances, unlike his hero Buddy Holly.
Then Lennon tried contacts … ping! Roy Orbison’s guitarist Bobby Goldsboro introduced Lennon to contact lenses in 1963.
But Lennon’s foray into contact lenses was relatively short-lived. They kept on falling out – including while filming a comedy sketch, on stage (when a fan threw a jelly baby on stage that hit him in the eye) and in the pool.
Why? That’s likely a combination of the lenses available at the time and the shape of Lennon’s eye.
The soft, flexible contact lenses worn by millions today were not commercially available until 1971. In the 60s, there were only inflexible (rigid) contact lenses, of which there were two types. Large “scleral” lenses rested on the white of the eye (the sclera). These were partially covered by the eyelids and were rarely dislodged.
But smaller “corneal” lenses rested on the front surface of the cornea (the outermost clear layer of the eye). These were the type more likely to dislodge and the ones Lennon likely wore. Why did Lennon’s contact lenses regularly fall out? Based on the prescription for glasses he wore in 1971, Lennon was not only shortsighted, but had a moderate amount of astigmatism.
Astigmatism is an imperfection in the curvature of the cornea, in Lennon’s case like the curve of a rugby ball lying on its side. And it was Lennon’s astigmatism that most likely led to his frequent loss of contact lenses.
Source: deccanherald.com
The music world clamored for a Beatles reunion almost immediately following the group’s official breakup in 1970. When John Lennon died in 1980, that didn’t really slow the reunion fervor all that much, as folks hoped the three living members might once again play together on a live stage.
The Beatles Anthology project in 1995, which included studio recordings done by Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr in conjunction with old John Lennon demos, was as close as we’d ever come to witnessing a full-scale Beatles reunion. But eight years before, two of the three remaining members came together on a stage for a good cause, as Harrison and Starr performed together at the Prince’s Trust benefit concert in 1987. It almost didn’t happen, though, simply because of how wary the two men were of raising everyone’s expectations that a more substantial reunion might be in the offing.
In June 1986, a “birthday party” concert for the charity was held at Wembley Stadium, and it featured an all-star assortment of artists, including Paul McCartney. The event was such a success that another benefit concert was scheduled for the following year. In the wake of Live Aid just a few years earlier, rock and pop stars were certainly in the mood to participate in these types of events, since they could do a bit of philanthropy while also raising their profile.
Source: Jim Beviglia/americansongwriter.com
When you’re as prolific of recording artists as the Beatles, some sessions are bound to be less enjoyable than others, like the Beatles songs Ringo Starr said was the “worst track we ever had to record.” The divisive song was a Paul McCartney song he originally wrote for their eponymous ‘White Album.’ However, time constraints pushed it back to Abbey Road.
As difficult as the recording sessions were for Ringo, he could at least take solace in the fact that he wasn’t the only Beatle who felt that way. Ringo Starr Called This Song “The Worst Track”
“Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” is the third track off the Beatles’ iconic 1969 record Abbey Road. The jangly, jaunty tune about a hammer-wielding murderer named Maxwell Edison has become one of the most easily recognizable tracks in the Beatles’ discography. Still, that doesn’t mean it was anything close to a hit with a band.
Paul McCartney’s song proved to be rather vexing for the rest of the Fab Four. This included drummer Ringo Starr, who told Rolling Stone in 2008 that the time they spent cutting the song was “the worst session ever. It was the worst track we ever had to record. It went on for f***ing weeks. I thought it was mad.”
Source: Melanie Davis/americansongwriter.com
