Beatles News

A seminal track from arguably the best rock band – if not the best band period – of all time included just one of the four Hall of Fame members.

The Beatles released “Yesterday” on this day 61 years ago, but it featured only Paul McCartney and a string quartet. The song was the first of its kind for the band as a solo performance, but sparked the “most covered” song of all time.

Eva Cassidy, Marvin Gaye, Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra all covered the song, which the Guinness Book of World Records claims has been covered over 4,000 times.

McCartney revealed the Beatles were “a little embarrassed about” the song because of their rock roots. The track initially came to the Beatles star upon waking one morning and he hammered it out over the piano where he wondered where he’d heard the song before.

“It was like a jazz melody,” he said. “My dad used to know a lot of old jazz tunes. I thought maybe I’d just remembered it from the past.”

Yesterday’ Named One of the Greatest Songs of All Time

Rolling Stone named “Yesterday” as the No. 13 greatest song of all time, which was the second-hi details

Mr. Moonlight: Brian Epstein and the Making of the Beatles by Philip Norman

Phillip Norman captures the zeitgeist and provides a compelling portrait ... This illuminating work ... brings to life the turbulent and exciting times of the 1960s, when uncommonly inspired innovation seemed commonplace, and nothing felt totally outside the realm of possibility.

Mr. Moonlight: Brian Epstein and the Making of the Beatles is the brainchild of columnist Philip Norman, former rock music critic for The Times and noted biographer of numerous acclaimed musicians and other public figures. Lauded for his first book, Shout!: The Beatles in Their Generation, published in 1981, his current book is a comprehensive biography of the man often referred to as “the fifth Beatle” for discovering the rock band then known as The Quarrymen.

Playing a lunchtime gig on November 9, 1961, at Liverpool’s Cavern Club, a small subterranean venue, the band had returned to Liverpool from working club gigs in Hamburg. Spruced up and renamed The Beatles, they signed a five-year management contract with Brian Epstein in October 1962. His determination, discipline and positive influence transmuted the regional favorite — f details

During their time together, the Beatles released over 200 studio-recorded songs. Out of all of those, Ringo Starr was officially credited with helping to write just five of them.

"I started writing songs and I would, like, tell John [Lennon] and Paul [McCartney] and George [Harrison], 'I've got this song I've written,'" Starr recalled in a 2025 interview for SiriusXM. "And they'd be rolling on the floor laughing because — I didn't know I was doing it — I would just rewrite someone else's song."

That's not to say the others didn't want to include Starr at all — in fact, Lennon and McCartney wrote several songs over the years meant specifically for Starr to sing, and the drummer had at least one lead vocal on most of their albums.

“When you think about it, how many people in rock and roll can sing?" McCartney said to Rolling Stone in 2015. "But Ringo can deliver a song.”

Starr had to start somewhere as far as songwriting went. The very first Beatles song he landed a composition credit on was "What Goes On," which appeared on 1965's Rubber Soul.
The Earlier Origins of 'What Goes On'

"What Goes On" actually dated back a few years in the Beatles' recording ca details

John Lennon once called the Beatles' Ticket to Ride "one of the earliest heavy metal records made."

Try to imagine that song pumping through the house speakers before a Morbid Angel show, and you might conclude that Lennon's statement was a bit of a stretch. Still, the song's lumbering groove and droning riff were unusually heavy for 1965, especially within a pop landscape dominated by tracks like Wooly Bully and Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter.

Ticket to Ride was groundbreaking for another reason, though; It was the first Beatles record to feature Paul McCartney on lead guitar. He'd quietly slipped some gentle acoustic strumming into I'll Follow the Sun the previous year, but Ticket to Ride was different.

His electric leads enthusiastically leaped across the divides between the song's bridges and verses, then returned to playfully bob and weave throughout the outro, introducing listeners to a side of McCartney most fans barely realized existed.

"I guess I think of myself as a guitar player, really," he said in 1990. "If I couldn't have any other instrument, I would have to have an acoustic guitar.

"To the general public, McCartney is, of course, all about that bass. Publications details

On this day (September 11) in 1962, the Beatles recorded the third version of “Love Me Do.” It was their debut single in the United Kingdom, where it peaked at No. 17. The song was also originally meant to be their debut single in the United States. However, the label balked and refused to release it until 1964, when it became their fourth consecutive chart-topper.

The Beatles recorded the first version of “Love Me Do” in June 1962 with Pete Best on drums. This recording didn’t see the light of day until it was included on Anthology 1 in 1995. Then, on September 4, they recorded it again, with Ringo Starr on drums. They released this version as their debut UK single in October 1962. Finally, on September 11, 1962, they cut the song a third time. This time, session musician Andy White played drums, and Starr played tambourine. The tambourine is an easy way to tell the two popular versions apart.

According to Songfacts, Parlophone Records issued “Love Me Do” as a single in the United Kingdom. Sales, especially in the Liverpool area, were good enough to take the song to No. 17. Capitol Records, Parlophone’s US partner, refused to release the single, fearing it would f details

On 26 September 1969, The Beatles released their eleventh studio album Abbey Road. It was the last album the band recorded together and is widely regarded as a masterpiece.

Abbey Road was a triumphal swan song for The Beatles’ astonishing recording career. It also captured them still in their prime, capable of creating music that left most of their contemporaries standing.

Across its 47:03 running time, Abbey Road spans a dizzying array of styles, yet it is a stunningly cohesive work. It is also bold and innovative, as demonstrated by the song that opens the album, Come Together.

Come Together is a strikingly raw and direct song, written by John Lennon. It opens with one of the most iconic bass lines in rock and melds surreal stream-of-consciousness lyrics with a mean and gritty swamp-infused groove.

The initial idea for Come Together was reportedly sparked when American psychologist, writer and early advocate for psychedelic drugs, Dr Timothy Leary, asked John Lennon to write a song. This was to be used for Leary’s campaign to become Governor of California in 1969.

Source: musicradar.com/Neil Crossley

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One man's trash is another man's treasure, as the saying goes…or to put it in classic rock terms, a "throwaway" song for the Beatles was a breakthrough hit for the Rolling Stones.

"I Wanna Be Your Man" was originally released by the Stones as a single in 1963 and became the band's first Top 20 hit in the U.K., peaking at #12. But it was actually written for Ringo Starr to sing by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, who were walking down London's Charing Cross Road when Mick Jagger and Keith Richards passed them in a taxi.

"So they shouted from the taxi and we yelled, 'Hey, hey, give us a lift, give us a lift,' and we bummed a lift off them," McCartney recalled in Many Years From Now by Barry Miles.

"So there were the four of us sitting in a taxi and I think Mick said, 'Hey, we're recording. Got any songs?' And we said, 'Aaaah, yes, sure, we got one. How about Ringo's song? You could do it as a single,'" he added.

"We often used to say to people, the words don't really matter, people don't listen to words, it's the sound they listen to," McCartney continued.

"So 'I Wanna Be Your Man' was to try and give Ringo something like 'Boys'; an uptempo song he could sing from the drums. So again, details

The Beatles changed the face of popular music, releasing 13 studio albums and around 213 songs throughout their decade-long career. The prolific hitmakers also inspired entire subgenres of music, especially with their iconic 1966 record, Revolver. And on this day, 60 years ago, Revolver skyrocketed to No. 1 on the US Billboard 200 chart.
‘Revolver’ by the Beatles Hit No. 1 on Sept. 10, 1966

Released as the Beatles’ seventh studio album on Aug. 5, 1966, Revolver marked a musical shift for the four-piece rock outfit. They built on the artistry established on the preceding album, Rubber Soul, producing an innovative, genre-bending affair with influences from rock, pop, R&B, psychedelia, and Hindustani classical music, as heard in “Love You To.”

The Fab Four released a double A-sided single in promotion of the album: “Eleanor Rigby” and “Yellow Submarine.” The latter fared better than the former, chart-wise, peaking at No. 2 on the US Billboard Hot 100, while “Eleanor Rigby” climbed to the No. 11 spot on the same chart.

Revolver entered the Billboard 200 on Sept. 3, 1966, one week before taking the top spot. It reigned at No. 1 for si details

Filming for The Beatles biopics continued on Tuesday, as the four lead actors were spotted hotting the road in St John's Wood.

Harris Dickinson (John Lennon), Barry Keoghan (Ringo Starr), Paul Mescal (Paul McCartney) and Joseph Quinn (George Harrison) were seen filming the Sam Mendes-fronted films, which will be broken down into four instalments.

Paul, 30, and Barry, 33, were pictured in a Commer PB camper conversion, with the latter flashing two fingers at the camera before he was then seen in a Jaguar E-Type Series 1, during which he raised his middle finger.

The four biopics are due for release next year and are based on each of the members and set for simultaneous release. Last month, the foursome were seen recreating the famous zebra crossing moment at Abbey Road, for the album of the same name as the iconic venue.

The cover image was taken by Scottish photographer Iain Macmillan, a close friend of John, who balanced precariously on a ladder in the middle of the north London road. Filming for The Beatles biopics continued on Tuesday, as the four lead actors were spotted hotting the road in St John's Wood, led by Barry Keoghan making rude gestures

Paul Mescal is taking the r details

John Lennon released his second solo album, Imagine, on Sept. 9, 1971. It became his first solo album to reach No. 1.

By late October, the album had pulled off a rare transatlantic feat. It topped the charts in the U.S. and U.K. at the same time.

Billboard called Lennon "the real British Dylan" in its review, per uDiscover Music.  The title track became one of Lennon's most enduring songs. He later called it his best work.

"Imagine is the best song I've ever written," Lennon told writer David Sheff in 1980, per MusicRadar. "It's almost like a prayer."

The song's origins, though, involved more collaboration than Lennon first let on. The song's title traces back to a poem in Lennon's wife Yoko Ono's 1964 book, Grapefruit. The poem "Cloud Piece" included the line "imagine the clouds dripping."

Lennon borrowed that imagery directly for his own lyrics. For years, though, he never publicly credited Ono for the connection.

That changed in a 1980 interview with BBC Radio 1's Andy Peebles, per MusicRadar. Lennon admitted the song should carry both their names.

"A lot of it, the lyric and the concept, came from Yoko," he admitted.  "But in those days I was a details

Tensions between the four members of The Beatles were clear when it came time to record Abbey Road. George Harrison, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and John Lennon were pulling in different directions, and the Peter Jackson documentary, Get Back, shows it. But the final time the four were in the studio together proved fruitful despite the animosity in the studio.

Reflecting on the late 1960s and those career-best recordings, Harrison would single out McCartney as the problem in the studio. Contributions made by McCartney were seen by the other band members as far from his best, with Maxwell’s Silver Hammer singled out for scrutiny by Harrison.

He said in 1977: “And it was a good date. Paul would always help along when you’d done his ten songs – then when he got ’round to doing one of my songs, he would help. It was silly. It was very selfish, actually. Sometimes Paul would make us do these really fruity songs.

“I mean, my God, Maxwell’s Silver Hammer was so fruity. After a while, we did a good job on it, but when Paul got an idea or an arrangement in his head… But Paul’s really writing for a 14-year-old audience now anyhow. I missed his last tour, unfo details

George Harrison spent the last three decades of his life falling in love with a garden. The former Beatle purchased an old Victorian mansion known as Friar Park in January 1970. According to Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, which built an entire exhibition around Harrison’s love for gardening, he was only 27 years of age when he acquired this neglected property. This simple purchase grew into a restoration project that continues to thrive under the care of Harrison’s family.

A grand house that had fallen into disrepair

Friar Park was not built by Harrison. Records held by Historic England, the government body that protects the country's important sites, show the mansion was constructed in the late 1800s and was commissioned by Sir Frank Crisp, a lawyer, who designed the gardens that surround the property. By the time Harrison came looking for a new home, much of that splendor had long faded. Historic England's records, along with Selby Gardens' account, describe the magnificent Victorian mansion with its gardens as having run down, with yews having taken over the topiary.

A young Beatle finds his forever home

Harrison purchased Friar Park shortly after the Beatles disbanded, ending one details

We know that The Beatles had many admirers among other musicians. They were also huge music fans themselves. Once they secured their clout in the industry, some of those folks whom the Fab Four held up as idols started recording their songs.

We found four examples where artists that The Beatles greatly adored took on their material. And they did so with fascinating results.
“Something” by Ray Charles

In terms of the number of times that a Beatles song has been covered, “Something” ranks way up there. (“Yesterday”, of course, stands as the all-time leader in that department.) The famous story here is that when Frank Sinatra covered “Something” in concert, he would often credit it as a Lennon/McCartney song. In actuality, George Harrison wrote the track. He initially envisioned it as something that Ray Charles might sing. Two years after The Beatles’ own version appeared, Charles got around to recording the track on his 1971 album Volcanic Actions Of My Soul. The R&B legend used his clever phrasing to wring every last bit of emotional potency from the song.
“Lady Madonna” by Fats Domino

Fats Domino managed to stay true to the r details

In 1979, Paul McCartney and his wife Linda bought a secluded 151-acre ranch near Tucson, Arizona, creating a private family retreat away from the global spotlight surrounding one of music’s most recognisable figures.

Located near the foothills of the Rincon Mountains, the property offered the McCartney family something that was increasingly difficult to find — privacy. Rather than serving as a celebrity showpiece, the ranch provided a modest home, open desert surroundings and isolation where Paul, Linda and their children could spend time together away from cameras and crowds.

Over the years, the Arizona property became an important part of the family’s life, from everyday trips around Tucson to gatherings with friends and neighbours. It also remained deeply significant after Linda’s death in 1998. Decades later, the ranch continues to offer a glimpse into the quieter, more personal side of McCartney’s extraordinary life.

According to Architectural Digest, the main residence was a two-storey home with a tin roof and stucco exterior. Its secluded setting gave the family the peace and privacy they were looking for. The ranch was located on Tucson’s far north-eastern side details

A long-lost interview with George Harrison recorded at the height of Beatlemania has been heard publicly again for the first time in more than six decades.

The previously unavailable telephone interview with George Harrison was recorded in February 1964 and originally broadcast by WJPS radio in Evansville, Indiana, on 17 February, just one day after The Beatles made their second appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.

The recording captures George, then just 20 years old, at one of the most significant moments in The Beatles’ history as their phenomenal rise to fame in America was gathering pace.

The band’s first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on 9 February 1964 attracted an estimated 73 million viewers and became one of the defining moments in popular culture.

Their second appearance, broadcast live from Miami Beach on 16 February, confirmed the scale of Beatlemania sweeping across America.

The following day, George spoke by telephone from Florida to a teenage schoolgirl who had reportedly won a competition to interview one of The Beatles.

Source: theguideliverpool.com/Rachael Rhodes

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