By 1966, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr had grown tired of touring. The Beatles had dealt with several brushes with disaster, and noise from the crowd made it practically impossible to hear the music they were playing. Starr said that going on tour was wrecking the band’s ability to play music. Considering the music they put out after they stopped touring, he was right.

After several years of touring, it became too much for The Beatles. They had faced natural disasters, political unrest, and unruly fans. It was a relief for them when they decided to stop touring in 1966.

“There was a certain amount of relief after that Candlestick Park concert,” Harrison told Rolling Stone in 1987. “Before one of the last numbers, we actually set up this camera — I think it had a fisheye, a very wide-angle lens. We set it up on the amplifier, and Ringo came off the drums, and we stood with our backs to the audience and posed for a photograph, because we knew that was the last show.”

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There are many things to watch if you love singer-songwriter and musician George Harrison. Here’s a list of things to put in your queue—everything from the former Beatle’s favorite films to documentaries about his life. If you’re a George Harrison fan, bets are you’re also a Beatles fan. So, if you haven’t seen all of The Beatles’ films, put those at the top of your queue. There’s A Hard Day’s Night, Help!, Magical Mystery Tour, Yellow Submarine, and Let It Be. In A Hard Day’s Night, George has his “grotty” scene, which he didn’t want to do. Later, in Let It Be, we see his very-real tense fights with Paul McCartney. The Beatles Anthology was a massive project the remaining Beatles undertook in the mid-1990s. It comprises an eight-part television documentary, a three-volume set of double albums, and a book. Although it was The Beatles’ first chance at telling their story, George initially wanted no part in it. He claimed the documentary makers were trying to sensationalize some rougher bits of the band’s history. If they discussed rumors or certain stories, fans would believe them. Regardless, George partook in the project and performed wit details

It’s symbolic that The Beatles‘ final No. 1 single is “The Long and Winding Road.” The Fab Four had certainly traveled down a long and winding road to get to where they were when they recorded the tune.
Paul McCartney based ‘The Long and Winding Road’ on the road leading to town from his Scottish farm

In his book, The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present, Paul McCartney wrote that from the bedroom window of his farmhouse in Kintyre, Scotland, he could see a road that twisted away into the distance toward the main road. It was the road to town, Campbeltown.

Paul bought High Park Farm in 1966. It was a very remote retreat, and it was almost in ruin when he bought it. That is until his first wife, Linda, fixed it up and turned it into a private haven for them and their growing family in the late 1960s.

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The Beatles remain a popular band decades after they broke up. A few musicians hated the band, but millions of people loved them. They sent several singles and albums to the top of the Billboard charts throughout the 1960s, but three Beatles records peaked at No. 2 in the United States because other Beatles albums kept them from getting to No. 1.

The Fab Four released a steady stream of albums from 1963 to 1970. They existed for a short time but achieved incredible success as 14 of their studio albums raced to the top of the Billboard 200 albums chart. Still, the first Beatles album to debut at No. 1 was the first anthology compilation released in 1995.

Let’s look more closely at The Beatles albums that peaked at No. 2 because other Beatles albums held the top spot.

Note: We included studio albums only, not greatest hits packages, compilations, or reissues.

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Whether you were a fan or not, it is difficult to deny the impact the Beatles made on the last 60 years of music, and there would be no Fab Four without the group's founder, John Lennon. His name has been lifted among the lauded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time; his music has sold millions of copies well before streams ever existed. His legend loomed so large that there were portions of his life when John couldn't walk the street without being swarmed by a mob of screaming fans.

In less than 40 years of life, he claimed to be "more popular than Jesus" and added the term "bed-in" into the cultural zeitgeist—all before being murdered under the archway of his apartment building in New York City; his wife, Yoko Ono, by his side.

On the surface, his life story appeared to be a meteoric rise to the top of stardom worthy of envy or emulation. Underneath it all, however, John was a far more complex character than the sleek suits and mop-topped hairstyles of the early '60s portrayed. Many know who John Lennon is, but who was John Lennon, really?

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Ringo Starr saw his confidence grow as during his time in The Beatles. He started as a nervous newcomer but then grew into his role in the band. Ringo fully embraced boasting about his skill during the Abbey Road sessions, but he never wanted to sit at the mixing console working on Beatles albums for the most Ringo of reasons.

Being the last to join The Beatles and the only one who didn’t write songs had its perks for Ringo. Being the fourth Beatle was a positive since he faced less pressure than John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison.

That extended to making the records. As the primary songwriters, John, Paul, and George spent plenty of time at the mixing desk ensuring their songs on The Beatles’ albums sounded as close to what they heard in their heads as possible, especially when they became a studio band. That job wasn’t for Ringo, as he explained in his book Postcards From the Boys.

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There are some who simply assume that George Harrison’s love for Indian music dates from around the time he and the other Beatles went to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s lecture in London, on August 24, 1967. In fact, George’s interest was piqued in April 1965 when The Beatles were filming Help! in April 1965.

“We were waiting to shoot the scene in the restaurant when the guy gets thrown in the soup, and there were a few Indian musicians playing in the background,” Harrison recalled. “I remember picking up the sitar and trying to hold it and thinking, ‘This is a funny sound.’ It was an incidental thing, but somewhere down the line, I began to hear Ravi Shankar's name. The third time I heard it, I thought, ‘This is an odd coincidence.’ And then I talked with David Crosby of The Byrds, and he mentioned the name. I went and bought a Ravi record; I put it on and it hit a certain spot in me that I can't explain, but it seemed very familiar to me. The only way I could describe it was: my intellect didn't know what was going on and yet this other part of me identified with it. It just called on me… A few months elapsed and then I met this guy from the Asian Music C details

Over the years, Beatles fans have enjoyed a wealth of programming that they can watch about the band. Documentaries have been made about each member of the band, and series like Peter Jackson’s The Beatles: Get Back follow the band through archival footage. Here are several films and series that fans of the Beatles should watch.

When The Beatles: Get Back aired on Disney+, fans had a chance to watch the band write, record, and perform classic songs. For the three-part documentary series, Jackson sifted through hours of footage originally captured for the 1970 documentary Let It Be.

While Let It Be provided audiences with a look into the band’s inevitable breakup, Get Back showed footage of the band enjoying their time together in spite of mounting tensions. Jackson said that he did not want to make the series if it was strictly about The Beatles’ break up.

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After leaving The Beatles, Paul McCartney had more freedom to do whatever he wanted musically. His solo career and time with Wings are filled with oddball songs that showed McCartney’s willingness to think outside the box and experiment with new sounds. One song from Wings was an intriguing choice for the singer-songwriter, and he labeled it as a “joke,” even though he enjoyed the track. Venus and Mars is the fourth studio album released by Paul McCartney and Wings. The album had massive expectations, following up on the critically acclaimed and commercially successful Band on the Run. While it didn’t receive the same acclaim, it still reached No. 1 on the charts and featured the No. 1 single “Listen to What the Man Said”.The album ends with an odd duo. The second to last track is “Treat Her Gently/Lonely Old People,” which is a track from the perspective of two lonely old people who are sitting at home alone as the day goes by. The last track is “Crossroads,” a cover of the theme song of British soap opera. The soap opera lasted from 1964 to 1988 and was a popular series amongst older viewers. The theme was composed by Tony Hatch and was widely recognizable to British details

The behind-the-scenes pictures were taken during the band's famous 1965 US tour by musician Alan Holmes, a member of Beatles' support act Sounds Inc.

They capture the Fab Four on stage, at press conferences as well as during the filming of the famous Ed Sullivan Show.

The collection will go under the hammer later this month and is expected to fetch £5,000.

Pictures of screaming fans at the 1965 Shea Stadium concert also feature in the collection

The lot of 38 original prints, 12 rolls of film and colour transparencies, all taken in 1964 and 1965, will be sold with full copyright.

Pictures from the 1965 Shea Stadium concert also feature in the lot, where the noise of some 55,000 fans was said to be so deafening neither the band nor the crowd could hear a note of what was being played on stage.

Mr Holmes never published the images in his lifetime and the collection was passed to a friend following his death.

Source: BBC News/bbc.com

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A reporter brought up The Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun” to John Lennon. John connected the song to George Harrison’s feelings regarding the weather.

“Here Comes the Sun” inspired covers by Booker T. & the M.G.’s, Nina Simone, Cat Stevens, and others.

John Lennon connected The Beatles‘ “Here Comes the Sun” to his own life. In addition, he contrasted it with George Harrison’s living situation. Notably, the song never hit the top 40 in the United States or the United Kingdom.During a 1980 interview with Rolling Stone, John discussed going to see an astrologer. “I remembered that astrologer in London telling me, ‘One day you’ll live abroad,'” he said. “Not because of taxes.

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Paul McCartney said his single favorite aspect of The Beatles‘ “Lady Madonna” is the dark recurring phrase, “See how they run.” The line is more complex than anyone can imagine and comes from a subconscious place inside Paul. The singer-songwriter has always known how to juxtapose light and dark, good and bad, in his songs with minimal effort.
Paul McCartney in the recording studio in 1968.

In The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present, Paul wrote that his mother’s death is something he never got over. He was only fourteen when Mary McCartney died of breast cancer. So, he knows that a song that depicts a “very present, nurturing mother” has got to be influenced by a similar sense of loss, just as “Lady Madonna” does.

“The question about how Lady Madonna manages ‘to feed the rest’ is particularly poignant to me, since you don’t have to be a psychoanalyst to figure out that I myself was one of ‘the rest,'” Paul wrote. He believes he must have felt left out, needing a mother’s love, at the time.

Source: Hannah Wigandt/cheatsheet.com

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Like so many of you, Clash sat down to watch Peter Jackson’s incredible Beatles documentary Get Back unsure what to expect – one prevailing factor, however, was the genius of Paul McCartney.

Sifting through the Clash archives, we-revisited a conversation founding editor Simon Harper had with the maestro back in 2009. The occasion was a Beatles re-issue, and the two chewed the fat over some classic Fab Four moments.

Appropriately, the conversation closes with ‘The End’ – the final moment on the final album The Beatles made together. The end point of the medley that climaxes ‘Abbey Road’, it seems to act as a message to the Fab Four themselves – “In the end the love you take / Is equal to the love you make…”

During our conversation with Paul McCartney, he notes that this is a couplet – the same way Shakespeare would tie together some of his most famous plays. “I just thought that was a nice line,” he said modestly. “Someone pointed out to me recently, ‘Ah, it’s a Shakespearean rhyming couplet, which Shakespeare ended all the acts of his plays on.’ But I did study Shakespeare, that was sort of my thi details

Mike Portnoy touched on The Beatles‘ classic Sergeant Pepper and named Ringo Starr his number-one drummer. He claimed The Beatles wouldn’t have made its releases without Ringo Starr‘s musical skills.

Ringo Starr gained international fame as a member of The Beatles. He joined the band in 1962, replacing their original drummer Pete Best. The drummer played with them until their breakup in 1970. Starr was known for his distinctive drumming style, which was often described as steady and reliable yet also inventive and playful. He contributed vocals on some of The Beatles‘ most beloved songs, such as With a Little Help from My Friends and Yellow Submarine.

On the other hand, released in 1967, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, is often cited as one of the greatest and most influential albums in the history of rock music. The album marked a significant departure from the band’s earlier work. It also features innovative production techniques, such as the use of sound effects, tape loops, and reversed recording.

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The Beatles recorded their first-ever song, “In Spite of All the Danger,” on July 14, 1958, a day before John Lennon‘s mother, Julia, died. She was struck by a car.
John Lennon and The Beatles performing around 1960.

In the summer of 1958, The Beatles were called The Quarry Men. The band consisted of John Lennon, Paul, George Harrison, drummer Colin Hanton, and Paul’s school friend, piano player John “Duff” Lowe. The Quarry Men decided they wanted to record their first-ever song.

In his book The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present, Paul wrote that he and the band went to a little recording studio owned by Percy Phillips in Kensington, Liverpool. Recording something on shellac cost only five pounds, and they split the money.

They rehearsed once and had only one shot recording the single. They chose a cover of Buddy Holly’s “That’ll Be the Day” as the A-side. Their “self-penned epic,” “In Spite of All the Danger,” was the B-side. Paul and John had a few songs by then, but Paul admits they weren’t very good. “In Spite of All Danger” was the best.

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Paul McCartney claims he almost got his bandmate John Lennon and his second wife, Yoko Ono, to meet before they met at the Indica Gallery. He knew the avant-garde artist before John.
Paul McCartney, John Lennon, and Yoko Ono at the premiere of The Beatles' 'Yellow Submarine' in 1968.

In his book The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present, Paul said he’d known Yoko since she’d arrived in London in the mid-1960s. Paul met her before John.

One day, Yoko knocked on Paul’s door and said, “We’re collecting manuscripts for John Cage’s birthday. Do you have a manuscript we can have?” Paul said, “We don’t really have manuscripts. We have sort of words on paper, a piece of paper with lyrics on it.” She said, “Yeah, well, that’d be good.”

Paul told Yoko that he didn’t have anything like that with him but added that John might. Paul directed Yoko to John. However, he’s unsure whether Yoko ever picked up on the invitation to see his bandmate. Whether or not she went to see the Beatle, Paul still had some role in how John and Yoko met.

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Paul McCartney has written hundreds, possibly thousands of songs in his immaculate career. However, not every song he’s written has entered the studio. One of the first songs he ever wrote was never recorded as it was involved in one of The Beatles’ failed auditions.

Paul McCartney wrote many of The Beatles’ most iconic songs, either by himself or with John Lennon. However, not every song he wrote made the cut. A few examples include “I’ll Be on My Way” and “A World Without Love,” which ended up being a hit for Peter & Gordon. A few of McCartney’s Beatles songs that didn’t make the cut were resurrected by the singer in his solo career.

His first solo album, McCartney, included a few rejected Beatles songs, such as “Teddy Boy.” In an interview for the book Wingspan: Paul McCartney’s Band on the Run, he explained why he decided to include the track on his first solo album.

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The Beatles‘ first-ever recording is one of the most valuable records on the planet, and Paul McCartney only got it back in 1981. The little shellac disc contains a cover of Buddy Holly’s “That’ll Be the Day” and their own “In Spite of All the Danger.” It doesn’t seem like much. However, it embodies The Beatles’ early days. The single recording was integral to their transformation into one of the best rock ‘n’ roll bands.

In the summer of 1958, The Beatles were called The Quarry Men. It was John Lennon, Paul, George Harrison, drummer Colin Hanton, and Paul’s school friend, piano player John “Duff” Lowe. The Quarry Men, who would become The Beatles in four years, wanted to make their first-ever recording.

In his book The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present, Paul wrote that he and the band found an ad for a little recording studio owned by Percy Phillips in Kensington, Liverpool. It cost only five pounds to record something on shellac. They split the price and set out to Phillips’ recording studio, which turned out to be a small room with a microphone.

Source: Hannah Wigandt/cheatsheet.com

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Before they were the Fab Four, there were five Beatles. The Beatles’ former bandmates, Stuart Sutcliffe and Pete Best, never saw the level of success the band enjoyed, only playing with them in the group’s earliest days. While they left for different reasons — Sutcliffe wanted a career change, and Best was fired — neither was treated particularly well by their former bandmates. Here are three ways that The Beatles treated their former bandmates poorly.

John Lennon was good friends with Sutcliffe, who played with The Beatles as a guitarist. Still, he often mistreated his friend.

“[Lennon] was a bit aggressive at first. If he found he could browbeat you then you were under his thumb,” a friend, Billy Harry, told The Guardian. “He used to treat Stuart [Sutcliffe] really badly at times, humiliate him in front of people.”

Still, Lennon said that he wasn’t the only one who was consistently rude to Sutcliffe. Lennon noted that everyone teased him, particularly Paul McCartney.

“We were awful to him sometimes,” Lennon said, per The Beatles: The Authorized Biography by Hunter Davies. “Especially Paul, always picking on him. I used to e details

George Harrison didn’t get the same opportunities to lead Beatles songs as Paul McCartney and John Lennon. He did write several hits, including “Something” and “Here Comes the Sun,” but many of the songs he wrote were rejected or saved for future projects. The Beatles almost used one of the biggest hits from his solo career, but Lennon and McCartney ultimately rejected it.

George Harrison became known as the “dark horse” of The Beatles due to his surprising success in his solo career. However, in 1982, Harrison took a five-year hiatus from music. He returned in 1987 with “Got My Mind Set on You,” the first single from his upcoming album, Cloud Nine. The song is a cover of a little-known song written by Rudy Clark and recorded by James Ray.

“I had a lot of demos,” he said. “I played them to [the Eclectic Light Orchestra’s] Jeff [Lynne]; he picked them out. I asked him to write me a song, too. Since I’ve been not making albums, I’ve done a lot of other people’s songs. Just as demos, some old tunes, I do a quick version. I like the idea of singing somebody else’s songs.”

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Paul McCartney said The Beatles watched Roy Orbison write “Oh, Pretty Woman.” The song’s co-writer had a different story to tell.
The track reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Paul McCartney said Roy Orbison’s “Oh, Pretty Woman” came together while The Beatles watched. However, one of the song’s co-writers had a story that completely contradicts Paul’s. Notably, the song had an impact on cinema.

In the 1997 book Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now, Paul discussed going on tour during The Beatles’ early days. “We were starting to meet other musicians then and we’d start to see other people writing,” he recalled.

“After that, on another tour bus with Roy Orbison, we saw Roy sitting in the back of the bus, writing ‘Pretty Woman,'” he said. “It was lovely. We could trade off with each other. This was our real start.”

Source: Matthew Trzcinski/cheatsheet.com

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There were many songs where George Harrison was venting his frustrations, starting with the first song he ever wrote. Here are the top 11 songs George used to vent.

11. ‘Don’t Bother Me’

“Don’t Bother Me” was the first song George ever wrote. He used it to experiment to see if he could write a tune, but he also vented in the lyrics. George was sick while The Beatles played a gig in Bournemouth, England, and the doctor treated his symptoms with morphine. He was exhausted and vented about wanting to be left alone in the song.

10. ‘Taxman’

George dared to call out the tax man on the Revolver track. He was so sick of how much money they took from him that he had to release “Taxman.” In The Beatles Anthology, George said he was so happy when he finally started making some money for doing what he loved. However, he discovered he had paid the taxman 19 shillings and sixpence out of every pound. “That was a big turn-off for Britain,” he said. “Anybody who ever made any money moved to America or somewhere else.”

Source: Hannah Wigandt/cheatsheet.com

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The Beatles‘ first-ever recording is one of the most valuable records on the planet, and Paul McCartney only got it back in 1981. The little shellac disc contains a cover of Buddy Holly’s “That’ll Be the Day” and their own “In Spite of All the Danger.” It doesn’t seem like much. However, it embodies The Beatles’ early days. The single recording was integral to their transformation into one of the best rock ‘n’ roll bands.

In the summer of 1958, The Beatles were called The Quarry Men. It was John Lennon, Paul, George Harrison, drummer Colin Hanton, and Paul’s school friend, piano player John “Duff” Lowe. The Quarry Men, who would become The Beatles in four years, wanted to make their first-ever recording.

In his book The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present, Paul wrote that he and the band found an ad for a little recording studio owned by Percy Phillips in Kensington, Liverpool. It cost only five pounds to record something on shellac. They split the price and set out to Phillips’ recording studio, which turned out to be a small room with a microphone.

Source: Hannah Wigandt/cheatsheet.com

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When a Beatles song appears in movies and television shows, it usually means that the production paid a good deal of money for the right to use it. The Beatles have maintained such a powerful influence on popular culture that the weighty price tag is typically worth it. Here are seven perfect uses of Beatles songs in movies and television.
1. ‘With a Little Help From My Friends’ in ‘The Wonder Years’

One of the most prominent examples of a Beatles song in popular culture is “With a Little Help From My Friends” in The Wonder Years. The show uses Joe Cocker’s version of the song over the opening credits. According to actor Dan Lauria, Paul McCartney pushed Apple Records to let the show use the song. They agreed, as long as it was Cocker’s version (via Mel Magazine).

The song was a perfect fit for The Wonder Years. Cocker’s version has the ideal amount of nostalgia for a show about friendship and growing up.
2. “Here, There and Everywhere’ in ‘Friends’

In the tenth season of Friends, “Here, There and Everywhere” plays in the episode “The One With Phoebe’s Wedding.” The rendition of the song details

Paul McCartney is surprised that not everyone knows the backstory of The Beatles’ “Yesterday.” “Yesterday” was released as a single many years apart in the United States and the United Kingdom.

The tune became far more popular in the U.S. than it was in the U.K.

The Beatles‘ “Yesterday” has an interesting backstory. Paul McCartney said he’s surprised he’s had to tell that story repeatedly. In addition, he said he’s had to tell one anecdote about John Lennon again and again.In a 2021 Rolling Stone article, Paul and producer Rick Rubin interviewed each other. Rubin is a major producer known for working with artists such as Aerosmith, the Beastie Boys, Kanye West, Lana Del Rey, Lady Gaga, and numerous others. In the interview, Rubin discussed watching the documentary The Beatles Anthology.

Rubin said it was incredible how much footage of The Beatles existed, especially since the band predated camera phones. “There’s so much stuff out there,” Paul said. “But I think that’s one of the reasons The Beatles keep going — because you keep discovering another little thing.”

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