Beatles News
At 92, Yoko Ono is finally finding an unlikely wave of support from Beatles fans who once blamed her for splitting up the band, with many now pointing to her lifelong pain over her abducted daughter as the reason they finally understand – and forgive – her.
OK! can reveal the renewed empathy follows the release of the HBO Max documentary One to One: John & Yoko, which revisits the 1971 abduction of Ono's daughter, Kyoko, now 61, by her former husband Anthony Cox and the decades-long search that consumed Ono and John Lennon over the "lost" girl.
The film, anchored around Lennon's 1972 benefit concert at Madison Square Garden, also reveals the emotional toll Kyoko's absence took on Ono's art, her public persona and – according to newly vocal Beatles fans – her treatment in pop history.
Much of the surge in sympathy stems from viewers who say the documentary reframes Ono's grief.
One longtime Beatles enthusiast said: "I think people underestimated just how much weight Yoko she was carrying. You can now see the pain of a mother who lost her child, and suddenly the jokes about her breaking up the band feel cruel. The revelations about Yoko's pain as a mom has changed the way many fans regard her role in the group's fractious final years."
Another fan added on a forum: "I grew up hearing Yoko ruined The Beatles, but the documentary makes clear she was living through something unimaginable. Her art, her intensity – it all makes sense when you see what was happening behind the scenes. Fans are now right to rally around Yoko and reassess her, as her personal loss puts the old accusations she 'broke up The Beatles' into a totally different light."
Harrowing documentary One to One sheds light on the painful abduction of Ono's daughter by the girl's father and the years the performer and Lennon spent trying to track her down. It reveals how the tumultuous and costly saga haunted Lennon and Ono for decades, chronicling Ono's relentless pursuit to reunite with her daughter, Kyoko, whom her first husband, Cox, abducted in 1971, resulting in a staggering $2 million spent on chasing the little girl down.
In a poignant reflection from a 2003 interview, Ono expressed the deep pain of loss, stating: "Losing my daughter was a very serious pain. There was always some empty space in my heart."
Ono married Cox in the summer of 1963 and welcomed Kyoko into the world just two months later. As she navigated the delicate balance of motherhood and her artistic endeavors, the couple's relationship evolved into a creative partnership.
Source: okmagazine.com/Aaron Tinney
For as much as karma can work in mysterious ways, it can also be glaringly obvious, which seemed to be the case for Paul McCartney when he had to field “awful” jokes about his wife, Linda McCartney, joining Wings. The band was McCartney’s first ensemble endeavor post-Beatles, the latter of which was famously overshadowed by a passive-aggressive feud between Yoko Ono and every member of the Fab Four besides John Lennon.
The theory that McCartney was looking directly at Ono while he sang “Get Back” in the studio (specifically, “Get back to where you once belonged”) was a manifestation of this divide. Years later, McCartney discussed this contentious time in Beatles history during an appearance on The Howard Stern Show. “Those were very paranoid times, you know,” the ex-Beatle said.
“And let’s face it, we didn’t welcome Yoko in the studio. I thought it was a guy thing. Even the guys’ wives and the girlfriends and stuff weren’t really welcome in the studio. Control room for a quick visit. But actually sit in the studio with us? It was like, ‘Uh, no. Excuse me? We’re working.’”
Not long after the infamous “Get Back” sessions, McCartney found himself in a somewhat similar situation. Except this time, he was the one fielding passive-aggressive remarks about his life partner.
Paul McCartney Later Learned to Empathize With John Lennon
During his interview with Howard Stern, Paul McCartney said that one of the most jarring things about Yoko Ono joining The Beatles in the studio was seeing her sitting on their amps instead of a stool—a sort of physical manifestation of the overcrowding they already felt internally. But, he added, “Later on, we suddenly sort of thought, ‘You know what? John’s in love with this girl. If he wants to bring her in the studio, we’ve got to cope with that.’ And you know, I now feel that he had the right to do that.”
In contrast, McCartney said he wished Lennon had approached the band before bringing Ono into the studio. But in hindsight, he didn’t actually have to—it would have just been a polite courtesy. Moreover, McCartney came to appreciate the creative guidance Ono offered Lennon, both as his second wife, mother to his second child, and his artistic muse.
We’d imagine that experiencing similar treatment with his own wife, Linda McCartney, helped refocus Paul’s perspective on the matter.
Source: Melanie Davis/americansongwriter.com
Many Beatles fans through the years have made a hobby out of picking apart the Fab Four’s lyrics to find some hidden message or meanings. That was commonplace when the band was still together. In fact, John Lennon even wrote “I Am The Walrus” to mess with listeners who were assigning way too much meaning to their songs. Still, The Beatles recorded many songs with hidden meanings that flew over the heads of many listeners back in the day. Let’s look at a few Beatles tunes with fascinating, deeper meanings that you might have missed.
“Got To Get You Into My Life”
Fans go back and forth on how drug-influenced or drug-referential certain songs from The Beatles are. “Got To Get You Into My Life” is one song that has been confirmed by Paul McCartney to be about p*t.
“[We] were on tour, so we were all together in the hotel suite,” said McCartney of the inspiration for the song. “We were having a drink, and then Bob [Dylan] arrived and disappeared into a backroom. Then Ringo went back to see him and after a couple of minutes Ringo came back into the suite looking a little dazed and confused. And we said, ‘What’s up?’ and he said, ‘Oh Bob’s smoking pot back there’, and we said, ‘Oh, well what’s it like?’ and Ringo said, ‘the ceiling feels like it’s coming down a bit.’”
“Run For Your Life”
If you danced to this tune without listening to the lyrics, you’re not alone. In retrospect, a lot of people don’t love this Beatles song, including John Lennon himself. Despite writing it, Lennon condemned the song shortly after it was released on Rubber Soul. Lennon is on record saying he “never liked” the tune. I can see why. The lyrics of this song are quite creepy, sung from the perspective of a man who threatens to kill his woman should she ever cheat on him. There’s no defending lyrics like “I’d rather see you dead, little girl, than to be with another man”.
Source:Em Casalena/americansongwriter.com
Ringo Starr’s most notable endeavor post-Beatles is his creation and career with his band, Ringo Starr & His All-Star Band. Founded in 1989 and still going strong to this day, Ringo Starr & His All-Star Band always includes Ringo, of course, as well as some of the finest rock ‘n’ roll musicians of all time. Minus the core members, Gregg Bissonette, Steve Lukather, and Colin Hay, a few of the musicians who have been a part of the group include Joe Walsh, Billy Preston, Levon Helm, Jeff Lynne, Todd Rundgren, and many more. One musician who had an invitation to join the band but never did was Starr’s old pal and bandmate, George Harrison.
Following the breakup of The Beatles, George Harrison went on to have an incredibly successful solo career. Arguably, the best solo career of a Beatle. Prior to his passing, George Harrison scored three No. 1 hits, two No. 1 albums, and several Top 10 songs and albums. Needless to say, Harrison was a hot commodity, and that is seemingly why he never joined Ringo Starr & His All-Star Band.
George Harrison Jokingly Stated That He Was Too Expensive
Per the list we just gave you, Ringo Starr didn’t toss invitations out willy-nilly. He chose the best of the best, and consequently, his band was not only great, but also a celebration of the sound and culture of the peak days of rock ‘n’ roll. Nevertheless, one high-caliber talent Ringo Starr could never book was his buddy, George Harrison.
Source: Peter Burditt/americansongwriter.com
Before George Harrison's death at 58, the Beatles’ lead guitarist delivered one final hit that carried deep personal meaning. In 2001, Harrison recorded the only song he's ever developed with his son, Dhani Harrison.
In his music career, Harrison had previously written a song in honor of his song after his birth in 1978. The song "Unknown Delight" was released on his 1982 album Gone Troppo. It took almost 20 years before Harrison could record a song with his son, and it unknowingly became his last.
The song "Horse to the Water" was recorded by Harrison on guitar and on lead vocals, while his son also played guitar. Instead of the song being released as their own, it became part of the 2001 album Small World, Big Band. It was performed by Jools Holland’s Rhythm and Blues Orchestra and Friends.
According to American Songwriter, Harrison and his son's parts were sent out to Holland in London, where his band finished the rest. All the while, Harrison sang the track while battling throat cancer.
"Horse in the Water" was recorded in early October 2001, with Harrison having died almost two months later on November 29, 2001. The song was later released shortly after his death in December.
In May of that year, Harrison had undergone surgery to remove a cancerous growth from one of his lungs, and in July underwent treatment for a brain tumor. The month of his death, he was in New York getting radiotherapy for non–small cell lung cancer that had spread to his brain.
The Beatles' guitarist died on a property belonging to Paul McCartney and was in the company of his wife, son, his daughter Olivia, and close family and friends present, including musician Ravi Shankar.
Fans have long seen the song as Harrison’s lighthearted reflection on his continued smoking habits, despite their risks and his cancer diagnosis. True to his wit, he listed the copyright under "R.I.P Music Ltd." instead of "Harrisongs."
Source: Gabriela Silva/yahoo.com
Liverpool's most notable quartet has no shortage of famous admirers. The English music industry would be unrecognizable without The Beatles, the band that helped lay the foundations for modern music. Whether it's the penmanship of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, paired with the musical sensibilities of George Harrison and Ringo Starr, the group pushed the limits of pop-rock, psychedelia, and even Indian music across their seven key albums. Although generations of musicians would embrace the band's spirit of innovation, a certain early fan took one of their songs for a spin. In fact, this song by The Beatles achieved even greater fame thanks to the reinterpretation of this fellow English singer. The Beatles Wrote It but Joe Cocker Turned It into a Bluesy Masterpiece
One notable fan of Sgt. Pepper's is none other than rocker Joe Cocker — specifically the track "With a Little Help from My Friends." A year after Sgt. Pepper's release, Cocker recorded the song for his debut album of the same name. The cover is unlike anything performed by The Beatles, which originally features drummer Starr on the vocals and was written as a light, peppy pop-rock tune with a simple 4/4 time signature. Cocker went the opposite direction, re-arranging the song into a slower, fuzzy guitar-soaked piece with a complex waltz-like 6/8 meter, lush orchestration, and a gospel-like choir. Joe Cocker Electrified Woodstock 1969 with "With a Little Help from My Friends"
Cocker's debut album caught the attention of the US charts, peaking at number 35 on the Billboard 200. However, it was his 1969 Woodstock performance of "With a Little Help from My Friends" that won the hearts of his American audiences. The hotbed of the hippie movement, Woodstock served as a critical turning point for rising musicians of that era, including Jimi Hendrix, Santana, and Cocker himself. Despite his album doing fairly well in the States, Cocker was considered a newcomer to the land.
Surrounded by press, The Beatles wave at fans as they arrive in New York City in 1964.
McCartney has sharp ears for talent, and he ensures they receive their due recognition. In early 2025, he issued a February 25-dated letter via his publicist, Bob Merlis, showing his full support for the late Cocker's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which took place on November 8 that year. This wasn't the first time McCartney voiced his support for fellow artists deserving of acknowledgment. In 2024, he urged the Hall of Fame to induct Foreigner. In the letter, he specifically pointed out Cocker's cover of his song.
Source: Dyah Ayu Larasati/collider.com
In 1980, Frank Veteran was a resident in surgery at Roosevelt Hospital on New York City’s west side. At 30 years old, he was in his fifth and final year of surgical training Between the pressures of medical school and his job, he’d had little time to keep up with current events, let alone the comings and goings of his childhood heroes.
“I was into the Beatles, and I followed them,” Veteran told me when we spoke in 2005 for a Guitar World Presents special issue. “But by the time I was the chief resident in surgery, I wasn’t listening to them anymore. I was too busy. I didn’t even realize John Lennon was living in New York.”
One of three chief residents at Roosevelt, Veteran was on call for emergencies every third night. There, he attended to the routine injuries of city life.
“Gunshot wounds, stab wounds. You wouldn’t have to be in the hospital all the time, but if anything happened, you’d have to come in and take one of the younger residents through the procedure,” he explained. “When you were chief resident, you were the primary head doctor. You ran the whole show.”
On the night of December 8, 1980, the show was unlike any Veteran had seen before.
He’d spent the evening at his girlfriend’s apartment, on 10th Avenue, across from the hospital. Around 11 o’clock, as they were getting ready for bed, his beeper went off.
“They said, ‘We have a gunshot wound to the chest,’” Veteran recalled. “I asked, ’What’s status of the patient?” They said, ’Well, Dr. Halloran’ — one of the younger residents — ‘is opening his chest.’ I said, ‘Well, if Halloran is opening his chest, you don’t need me.’”
All the latest guitar news, interviews, lessons, reviews, deals and more, direct to your inbox!
Opening the patient’s chest, Veteran explained, is a last resort, performed when the heart has stopped and the patient is unlikely to live. “But they said to me, ‘No, we need you now!’”
Source: guitarplayer.com
In the experimental, psychedelic operetta that was The Beatles’ 1967 album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, drummer Ringo Starr got to don the role of Billy Shears, singer of the affable, tongue-in-cheek second track, “With a Little Help from My Friends”. (Shears was a subtle reference to the man who allegedly replaced Paul McCartney in the infamous “Paul is dead” conspiracy.)
McCartney, along with John Lennon, wrote the song specifically for Starr. The track was a little dopey, which was both a friendly tease of their bandmate and, from a performance standpoint, a character that Starr could portray well. “We always liked to [write a song] for him. It had to be not too much like our style,” McCartney explained to Barry Miles in Many Years From Now. “I think that was probably the best of the songs we wrote for Ringo, actually.”
Starr had no qualms taking up the mantle for novelty songs like “With a Little Help from My Friends”, “Yellow Submarine” the previous year, or “Octopus’s Garden” two years later. But there was one lyric from the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band track that he refused to sing.
Source: Melanie Davis/americansongwriter.com
George Harrison fought a long and hard battle against cancer, but his full autopsy report is still a mystery 24 years later.
Harrison battled several different forms of cancer and sought treatment all over the world before he died at the age of 58 on November 29, 2001. Those who were present during his death said he left his body in the spiritual way he'd been practicing for decades. After the tragic event, which left Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr the last surviving Beatles, his loved ones gave him a send-off he would've loved.
However, more than two decades later, some mysteries still surround Harrison's death. His autopsy report was never released, and there were issues with the place of death that was initially added to his death certificate.
In 1997, after Harrison discovered a lump in his throat, doctors diagnosed him with throat cancer. They successfully removed the lump and Harrison underwent two radiation treatments at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London, one of the U.K.'s leading cancer centers, per Rolling Stone.
Harrison played down his illness by saying, "I am very lucky. I'm not going to die on you folks just yet." However, not long after becoming cancer-free, Harrison almost died in a home invasion in 1999. The former Beatle was left with multiple stab wounds and a collapsed lung.
Doctors at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota examined Harrison on an annual basis. In March 2001, they diagnosed him with lung cancer. That May, he underwent successful surgery to remove a growth. However, by the summer, he was told that his cancer had spread to his brain.
Harrison and his wife, Olivia, began a worldwide search for treatment. It was reported that he was recovering from his lung surgery in a villa in Luino, Italy. However, he was actually receiving "grueling" cobalt treatments for a brain tumor at the San Giovanni hospital in Bellinzona, Switzerland.
In November, the Harrisons' search for treatment led them to Staten Island University Hospital in New York City. However, the treatment didn't work, and as Harrison's health began failing him, he and his family began staying in Los Angeles.
Once there, Harrison used Olivia's maiden name to check into UCLA Medical Center as Jorge Arias. However, doctors couldn't do much but alleviate his pain. His wife and son, Dhani, made him comfortable in his final days. As a very spiritual person, Harrison was not afraid of death. He had been preparing to die for years and wanted to leave his body peacefully. Dhani even claimed he bore no scars on his body at the moment of his death, which was a special feat in itself.
Harrison died peacefully on Nov. 29, 2001, with many of his friends and family in attendance, while the Hare Krishna Temple chanted to God. When he left his body, Olivia said he lit the room. "There was a profound experience that happened when he left his body," she explained in Martin Scorsese's documentary, George Harrison: Living in the Material World. "It was visible. Let's just say you wouldn't need to light the room if you were trying to film it. You know, he just lit the room."
Harrison's official autopsy report was never released, but his cause of death was listed on his Los Angeles County death certificate as "metastatic non-small cell lung cancer." According to Beatles Bible, his body was wrapped in a shawl and covered with holy oils. Twenty minutes after he died, staff from the Hollywood Forever Cemetery collected his body. Harrison's family and friends said prayers.
Source: Hannah Furnell/irishstar.com
Sir Paul McCartney is locked in a battle with the European Union over its plans to ban the use of the words 'sausage' or 'burger' to describe plant-based products.
The Beatles legend's late wife Linda, who died of breast cancer in 1998, was a vocal vegetarian and launched her own best-selling chain of meat-free alternatives in 1991. However, her business's right to continue describing its products as vegetarian burgers and sausages is now under threat.
The EU could make a decision as early as Wednesday over whether the use of the two words will be outlawed if a food is plant-based.
Mr McCartney, 83, and other members of Linda's family have joined the campaign protesting against the move. He told The Sunday Times: 'To stipulate that burgers and sausages are "plant-based", "vegetarian" or "vegan" should be enough for sensible people to understand what they are eating.
'This also encourages attitudes essential to our health and that of the planet.' A group of cross-party MPs, including Jeremy Corbyn, have also called for the proposed ban to be scrapped in a letter written to the European commissioners.
Linda McCartney launches her range of vegetarian food in 1991. Paul McCartney, 83, and other members of Linda's family have joined the campaign protesting against the move. They have said that it could cause 'confusion' and 'undermine sustainability goals' put in place by the EU. In the letter, they added: 'Research consistently shows that consumers intentionally choose plant-based alternatives and do not confuse them with animal meat.'
Proposed by French lawmaker Céline Imart, the new naming restrictions were slipped in with a broad package of technical rule adjustments to farming contracts. Thanks to overwhelming support from the French livestock and meat industry, the bill was approved with a majority of 355 votes in favour and 247 against in October.
Source: Olivia Christie/dailymail.co.uk
