Beatles News

With the news of four adjoining biopics, one for each member of The Beatles, announced this week, it seems clear that biographical films are fast becoming the new superhero movies in terms of quantity and share of Hollywood’s current offerings.

With Oppenheimer surprising film execs by making just shy of a billion dollars at the box office, as well as becoming the (perhaps more expected) hot favorite to win Best Picture at the 2024 Academy Awards, it’s clear that there’s a market for biopics that audiences are highly receptive to. Robert J. Oppenheimer wasn’t exactly a traditional celebrity before the Christopher Nolan biopic, but its success — and arguably, Barbie’s bigger financial success — has made it clear that there’s money to be made from films based on (somewhat) true stories, especially if the moviegoers have a lifelong familiarity with the subject.

Previous musician biopics, such as 2018’s Bohemian Rhapsody details

A New Book Featuring Unreleased Interviews With The Beatles Is Already No. 1 on Amazon

The tell-all book is available to preorder on Amazon -- and for 30% off.

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Countless books and merch have been created for fans of The Beatles, and now, a new book is looking to be added to the collection. Titled All You Need Is Love: The Beatles in Their Own Words, the book features unreleased interviews with the band members, as well as new interviews with people who were close to the group.

Written by Peter Brown and Steven Gaines — who have both worked with, and written about The Beatles for years — All You Need Is Love will officially be available to buy online on April 9, but Amazon has opened its preorders so that fans can ensure they have a copy by the day of release. As an added bonus, it’s currently on sale for 30% off, dropping the price from $32 to $22.

Source: Rylee Johnston/billboard.com

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Celebrities are just like us, and sometimes even Adam Sandler gets nervous talking to other famous people. That's exactly what happened recently when the Sandman saw Paul McCartney in a restaurant and was too scared to speak to him — especially when he saw Ringo Starr sitting at the same table.

The two surviving Beatles were eating dinner together at a restaurant owned by one of Sandler's friends.

"I was with my wife and her friends and my friends, and they were like, 'You've met McCartney — go and say hello,'" Sandler recalled on the podcast Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend. "I said, 'Yeah, yeah, absolutely.' I got up. I saw a side shot of his head. He was eating. I was like, 'Come on, man, just say hello.' And then I saw Ringo was at the table too! And he looked up and I went, 'I can't fuckin' handle it.' And I just kept going, and I ran past him."

Sandler went back to his table, where his wife convinced him to take another shot at speaking to McCartney.

Sandler recounted, "Went back in, saw the side shot, he was talking to his wife I think. I just fuckin' kept walking. Faked a hand wash in the bathroom. Then I was like, 'What are you doing, man? Go fuckin' do this — just say hell details

Ringo Starr has been a professional musician for years and has dedicated his life to creating and consuming rock music. In the early 1960s, when The Beatles rose to fame, they had the opportunity to see and meet many other bands. One night, they attended a concert in Miami for a band Starr loved. He was disgusted by the way other people were enjoying the music, though.

Ringo Starr was not happy to see people dancing to rock music

In 1964, The Beatles went to America. As they traveled around the country, they often crossed paths with the American band The Coasters.

“When we were in New York, The Coasters were on there, and then when we were in Florida, they were there, too,” George Harrison said in The Beatles Anthology. “Everywhere we went, even when we were in California, The Coasters were advertised.”

The Beatles went to see The Coasters in Miami.

Source: imdb.com

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Model and muse who married both men says she has blessing of guitar hero Clapton as she puts memorabilia from the era up for auction

Pattie Boyd is to auction the letters from her love triangle with Eric Clapton and George Harrison, saying that she still finds them heartbreaking to read.

Boyd, the 1960s model and muse who inspired Clapton to write Layla and Wonderful Tonight, and Harrison to write the Beatles ballad Something, says she has Clapton’s blessing for the auction of the letters and other memorabilia of the era.

She was married to Harrison but pursued by Clapton, his close friend, who poured out his feelings for her in a series of passionate letters.

Eventually, she left Harrison and went on to marry Clapton, although his alcoholism and infidelity put paid to the relationship several years later.

Source: Anita Singh, Arts and Entertainment Editor/telegraph.co.uk

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The Beatles announced their split in 1970. Their longtime producer George Martin shared why he thought they needed to break up.

Beatles fans have long debated the causes of the band’s breakup, but their longtime producer George Martin believed the split was relatively easy to explain. Martin worked with the band for years and watched as they drifted apart. While he recognized that many factors contributed to their breakup, he believed that they wanted an opportunity to live more normal, separate lives.

The Beatles’ touring and recording schedules, particularly in the first half of the 1960s, allowed them little time to spend with anyone but themselves. They made public appearances as a group and vacationed together. Martin believed that by the end of the decade, they were ready for some time apart.

“The split arose from many contributory things, mainly that each of the boys wanted to live his own life and had never been able to,” Martin said in The Beatles Anthology. “They’d always been having to consider the group; so they were always a prisoner of that — and I think they eventually got fed up with it.”

Source: Emma McKee/cheatsheet.com

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John Lennon gave one of the most renowned Playboy interviews of all time. The interview is partly famous because the “Imagine” singer died shortly after giving it and partly because it’s incredible. Of course, John often dismissed his great projects. Here’s a look at what he thought of the interview and why the interview continues to have relevance for Beatles fans and fans of rock ‘n’ roll in general.

John Lennon and Yoko Ono had the same reaction to John’s final Playboy interview

The book All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono features an interview from 1980 conducted by David Sheff. In the book’s epilogue, Sheff discusses talking with John after the interview. “I spoke to him once on the telephone after that,” he said. “I called a number within The Dakota when the main telephones were out. John never answered the telephone,...

Source: imdb.com

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John Lennon said George Harrison and Paul McCartney resented his creativity. He bounced back after a period of a inactivity.

John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison wrote the majority of The Beatles’ songs. While Lennon and McCartney were the primary writers in The Beatles’ early years, Harrison made more contributions later on. They were all competitive with one another, which typically pushed their creative output. Still, Lennon claimed the competition between them led McCartney and Lennon to resent him.

 In the mid-1960s, Lennon said he dealt with a creative slump. He pulled back his songwriting contributions, but he continued writing more in the later years of the decade. One of the songs he was excited about in 1968 was “Revolution.” Harrison and McCartney didn’t seem to share the sentiment.

“When George and Paul and all of them were on holiday, I made ‘Revolution’ which is on the LP,” Lennon said in The Beatles Anthology. “I wanted to put it out as a single, but they said it wasn’t good enough. We put out ‘Hey Jude’, which was worthy — but we could have had both.”

Lennon said he believed details

What makes a classic James Bond song? A sense of the epic, surely. Flaring brass, rippling strings. A melody-driven framework, an irresistible hook. Paul McCartney and Wings’ “Live and Let Die”, written for the eighth instalment of the film franchise, certainly ticks the right boxes. And yet when it was released ahead of the 1973 premiere, it must have puzzled. In the first 90 seconds alone we hear three disparate sound-worlds, each in a different tempo, juxtaposed with all the subtlety of a Walther PPK.

This mirrors, in part, the contributions of its three creators: McCartney, his wife Linda and former Beatles producer George Martin. In his book The Lyrics, McCartney recalls how it came together. He’d read Ian Fleming’s novel — the basis for the screenplay — in one afternoon and written the song the following day. The opening passage is pure McCartney: a searching tune over piano, wistfully sweet, reminiscent of his great ballad “Let It Be”.

Source: Timmy Fisher/ig.ft.com

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While discussing his marriage, John Lennon once compared himself and Yoko Ono to Sonny & Cher. He also tried to distance himself from Sonny & Cher. Perhaps his mixed attitude about the “I Got You Babe” singers was justified! John and Yoko arguably put out more music as a pair than Sonny & Cher. John Lennon said he and Yoko Ono were as attached to each other as Sonny & Cher

During an interview recorded in PBS’ Blank on Blank, John discussed how he spent lots and lots of time with Yoko. “I lived alone,” he recalled. “I always tripped out on my own or in books or something like that, you know. But she had sisters and brothers, but she was in a different age group from them, so she was pretty lonely.”

“So we don’t have to be apart to get away from each other,” he said. “And we really like being together all the time. And what about Sonny & Cher and Liz [Taylor] and Richard [Burton]? I don’t think they’re ever apart, you know.”

The ‘Power to the People’ contrasted himself with 2 other groups.

The book All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono features an i details

While discussing his marriage, John Lennon once compared himself and Yoko Ono to Sonny & Cher. He also tried to distance himself from Sonny & Cher. Perhaps his mixed attitude about the “I Got You Babe” singers was justified! John and Yoko arguably put out more music as a pair than Sonny & Cher. John Lennon said he and Yoko Ono were as attached to each other as Sonny & Cher

During an interview recorded in PBS’ Blank on Blank, John discussed how he spent lots and lots of time with Yoko. “I lived alone,” he recalled. “I always tripped out on my own or in books or something like that, you know. But she had sisters and brothers, but she was in a different age group from them, so she was pretty lonely.”

“So we don’t have to be apart to get away from each other,” he said. “And we really like being together all the time. And what about Sonny & Cher and Liz [Taylor] and Richard [Burton]? I don’t think they’re ever apart, you know.”

The ‘Power to the People’ contrasted himself with 2 other groups.

The book All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono features an i details

A famous comedian targeted The Beatles at his show. George Harrison said the band could have turned on him if they wanted.

During The Beatles’ 1964 trip to America, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr went to a comedy show. Don Rickles was doing standup in Miami and the band stopped in to see him. They weren’t familiar with his comedy but quickly discovered that he liked poking fun at his audience. Harrison said that if they had been in their own element, they could have hit back at Rickles.
George Harrison said The Beatles could have ripped Don Rickles to shreds

The Beatles were some of the most famous people in the world in 1964, so, naturally, Rickles poked fun at them during his show.

“He went on, ‘It’s great. They just lie up there on the ninth floor, between satin sheets and every time they hear the girls screaming they “Oooohh”‘ McCartney recalled in The Beatles Anthology. “Very funny, we thought. We were not amused, as I recall. Very cutting. I like him now but at first he was a bit of a shock.”

Source: Emma McKee/cheatsheet.com

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We all have that one person that brings a sense of comfort to us. That feeling is so universal that one of James Taylor‘s signature songs was written about that idea. Check out the meaning behind “Something in the Way She Moves,” below.

There’s something in the way she moves
Or looks my way, or calls my name
That seems to leave this troubled world behind
If I’m feeling down and blue
Or troubled by some foolish game
She always seems to make me change my mind

“The song is about an early girlfriend and the calm you feel in the presence of someone who knows you really well,” Taylor once said of this track.

Knowing that, the lyrics become fairly self-explanatory. Taylor has many songs that capture specific feelings using simple language. This is one such song.

And I feel fine anytime she’s around me now
She’s around me now
Almost all the time
And if I’m well you can tell she’s been with me now
She’s been with me now quite a long, long time
And I feel fine

In the chorus, Taylor sings about finding solace in that one special person and needing her presence around as much as p details

Philip Norman’s aptly titled biography called him ‘the reluctant Beatles’. Those who have watched Peter Jackson’s Netflix documentary Get Back would not have failed to see what years of living in the shadows of John Lennon and Paul McCartney had done to George Harrison’s ego. Despite his immense contribution to the group, he was always considered a minor Beatle, one whose talents were rarely acknowledged. Yet, Harrison composed masterpieces like ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ and ‘Here Comes the Sun’, and his solo debut album All Things Must Pass was the best-selling solo album by an ex-Beatle and appears on many lists of the 100 best rock albums ever.

But more than all this, what’s important to note is that without George Harrison, the Beatles might never have happened. As Ty Burr notes in his review of Norman’s book, ‘The band’s earliest iteration, the Quarrymen, had broken up until George reformed them for a key club date. Their initial 1962 meeting with EMI producer George Martin was going south until Harrison broke the ice by insulting Martin’s necktie.’

George Harrison was the one who goaded the Beatles to abandon liv details

When the Beatles first began, Paul McCartney and John Lennon wrote songs in close collaboration, often sitting face-to-face as they worked out ideas. They worked together so closely, in fact, that they each learned how to play guitar upside down.

It's common for left-handed guitarists to play right-handed instruments — but most people, like Jimi Hendrix, re-string the guitar so that it's properly configured for lefties.

Not the left-handed McCartney and the right-handed Lennon, however. On the latest episode of McCartney: A Life in Lyrics on iHeartPodcasts, the artist recalled how he and his collaborator would trade instruments during writing sessions: "I was used to turning [guitars] upside down because I worked with John a lot, so I had to grab his guitar. I could play upside down and so could he."

This came in handy during the writing of "Yesterday" (which is the subject of the podcast episode). When he wrote the lyrics (having already thought of the melody in a dream), he was travelling across Portugal en route to the apartment of his friend Bruce Welch (of the instrumental rock band the Shadows). When he arrived, he borrowed Welch's right-handed guitar and played him "Yesterday" — the fi details