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Beatles News
Even before John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr were known as the world’s biggest boy band, Lennon and McCartney were writing songs together after school. The Beatles revisited some of these unreleased songs during The Beatles: Get Back, even if McCartney thought they were “unsophisticated.”
Formed by teenage Lennon in the 1950s, the Quarrymen first emerged in Liverpool, eventually adding McCartney and then Harrison to their roster. According to All Music, they changed their name to The Silver Beetles, later becoming The Silver Beatles.
After adding Ringo Starr to their lineup and changing their name a final time to the Beatles, the group became one of the world’s biggest rock bands. The Beatles became international superstars, performing at The Ed Sullivan Show. Since their debut, the band released songs like “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” “Hey Jude,” and “In My Life.”
Source: cheatsheet.com
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The Beatles changed their songwriting styles and techniques a lot throughout the 1960s. But John Lennon once revealed how discovering the music of Bob Dylan in 1964 had a particular effect on his writing. He said in Anthology: "In Paris in 1964 was the first time I ever heard Dylan at all. Paul [McCartney] got the record [The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan] from a French DJ. For three weeks in Paris, we didn’t stop playing it. We all went potty about Dylan."
Dylan's poetic penmanship led Lennon to begin writing in a more emotional way, he recalled.
The following year, in 1965, Lennon released You've Got to Hide Your Love Away on The Beatles' fifth studio album, Help! Reminiscing about this track, he said: "It’s one of those that you sing a bit sadly to yourself. 'Here I stand, head in hand...' I’d started thinking about my own emotions." He added: "I don’t know when exactly it started, [songs] like I’m A Loser or Hide Your Love Away, those kind of things. Instead of projecting myself into a situation, I would try to express what I felt about myself, which I’d done in my books."
Source: Callum Crumlish/express.co.uk
Paul McCartney and John Lennon were living proof that opposites attract. They had different upbringings, which, of course, gave them dissimilar personalities. John sang “Help!” and Paul sang “We Can Work It Out.”
However, they did have a lot in common. Paul and John shared a deep love for music. They both wanted to make it to the top, but their work never satisfied them. They had one of the best songwriting partnerships in the world.
Yet when John died in 1980, fans started treating acting as if Paul was never part of it.
Looking back on his career and his time as a Beatle, Paul is just happy that he got to be the one who wrote songs with John. Being a Beatle wasn’t always a walk in the park, but at least he got to do that. He’s the only person on the planet who knows who got that pleasure.
Source: cheatsheet.com
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Dave Grohl said he’d kept his eyes on Ringo Starr while watching the recent Beatles documentary Get Back.
The Foo Fighters leader – who’s played drums with Nirvana, Queens of the Stone Age, Them Crooked Vultures and others – found himself in familiar territory as Starr sat in silence amid long conversations between Paul McCartney, John Lennon and George Harrison.
Asked by the Guardian to choose his favorite recent book, Grohl named McCartney’s title The Lyrics, saying: “I’m familiar with every one of Paul McCartney’s songs, and I could probably recite most of them off the top of my head, but to have this new perspective coming from the writer, explaining the songs himself, is really rewarding. It humanizes the whole process.”
Speaking of the Beatles he continued: “I did love the documentary Get Back too. I watched Ringo the entire time: I know what it’s like to sit on a drum stool and watch a bunch of people argue. All you want to do is play a beat. Come on, fuck it, no more words!”
Source: ultimateclassicrock.com
John Lennon‘s son, Sean Ono Lennon, has lots of thoughts about the former Beatle’s songs. For example, Sean said one of his father’s songs feels like a commentary on the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. He said John wrote the song to highlight how his true self differed from his public image.
John Lennon of The Beatles holding a guitar
During a 2020 interview with Rolling Stone, Sean discussed the former Beatle’s album John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. He felt it was a huge musical evolution from his father’s time as a pop star. Sean said John releasing John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band was akin to Elvis Presley joining a punk rock band. He said Yoko Ono was the catalyst for this sonic shift.
Sean had a lot of feelings about one of the tracks from the album, “Isolation.” “I grew up listening to it, but I couldn’t believe how spot-on the lyrics were,” Sean said. “I mean, it literally could be a song that was written about quarantine.”
Source: cheatsheet.com
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After 30 years of marriage, Paul McCartney lost his first wife, Linda McCartney, to breast cancer in 1998. Paul’s world completely collapsed, and he contemplated retiring and retreating from the public eye. Until Paul started getting signs from his late wife, telling him to move on.
Suddenly, Paul felt a little better and eventually married Heather Mills. Although, that didn’t exactly turn out great.
In 2001, Paul spoke to Rolling Stone about his eventful year. He’d spent the fall organizing the Concert for New York City after witnessing the attacks on the World Trade Center. Paul also had a new romance. He told Rolling Stone that his burst of energy “goes back to losing Linda,” which made Paul’s world collapse.
“Well, it all goes back to losing Linda [in 1998],” Paul explained. “When that happened, obviously, my world collapsed. We’d been fighting a battle [with Linda’s breast cancer] for about a year and a half. All our efforts, every single thing, had been to beat it.
Source: cheatsheet.com
George Harrison‘s loved ones, including his widow, Olivia Harrison, and his fellow Beatle, Paul McCartney, are leading celebrations on what would have been George’s 79th birthday.
The “My Sweet Lord” singer was a pretty humble person. So we don’t know how he would have felt about all the attention with birthday wishes. We’re not even sure about when George’s birthday really is. Records show that he was born on Feb. 25, but some fans think he was born just before midnight on Feb. 24.
Either way, George turns 79 this year and we hope he’s having a party wherever he is.
Source: cheatsheet.com
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George Harrison would have been 79 years old on Feb. 25. We don’t know how he would have celebrated the day. However, we know how George spent a milestone birthday. George received thousands of birthday cards from fans for his 21st birthday in 1964.
Later, George’s closest friends, and, of course, his fellow Beatles, joined him in celebration. It was definitely a memorable birthday.
According to Beatles Bible, George received 52 mail sacks containing around 30,000 birthday cards from fans for his 21st birthday in 1964. Two fans even sent him a door for the thousands of 21st birthday keys he also received. In the U.K., it’s tradition to receive a key to your home. It signifies adulthood.
Although, George was already adult-like, playing in one of the most famous bands in the world at the time.
Source: cheatsheet.com
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George Harrison and comedian Mike Myers never met, but they were fans of each other from afar. Myers is a huge Beatles fan, being the son of two Liverpudlian immigrants. However, Myers didn’t find out that George was just as much a fan of his work until the day George died in 2001.
Even more special, Myers read about George’s admiration of him in one of George’s last letters.
As the son of two Liverpudlian immigrants, Myers shares a connection with The Beatles. The actor is a huge fan, but Myers never expected to receive George’s last letter. The Canadian comedian explained the situation during an interview on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in 2018.
“Coming from Liverpool parents, George and The Beatles represented like the best of our gene pool,” Myers joked. “All I ever wanted was to just have a sense that The Beatles knew I existed. There’s six faces in Liverpool and I have one of them. You know what I mean? It’s true.
Source: cheatsheet.com
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It's one of the most iconic album covers of all time: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr strolling across a zebra-striped street called Abbey Road in St John's Wood, north London.
It is an image as memorable as the moon landing - and one copied by tourists on a daily basis. (Even a few bands have paid homage, most notably Booker T & The MGs.)
Ironically, the shot was a last-minute decision.
During the recording of what was to be their swan song, The Beatles toyed with several titles, and Everest, a reference to the brand of cigarettes their late chief engineer, Geoff Emerick, smoked, was the favourite.
"But the band decided they didn't want to trek to the top of Mount Everest to shoot the cover," Emerick told us, with a laugh whne we spoke to him in 2014. "So Ringo said, 'Why don't we just shoot the cover outside and call it Abbey Road?' Like many a Ringo suggestion, it won out."
Source: Joe Bosso/musicradar.com
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In February 1963, Dick Biondi, a popular nighttime disc jockey (DJ) at WLS-AM in Chicago, dropped the needle on “Please Please Me,” becoming the first person to play the Beatles on American radio. Black with rainbow trim, the label on the record misspelled the band’s name as the “Beattles.” The record company’s name—“Vee Jay,” the initials of co-founders Vivian Carter and Jimmy Bracken, a married Black couple who’d set up shop on Chicago’s South Side in the 1950s—appeared up top.
At the time, the Beatles were enjoying a surge of popularity in Britain but remained virtually unknown in the United States. Vee Jay took a chance on the Liverpool quartet, signing them after Capitol Records, the American subsidiary of the Beatles’ British label, EMI Records, declined to do so. (British artists fared poorly in the U.S.—or so the company believed.) Though Capitol eventually stepped forward to claim the Beatles, just as Beatlemania was poised to sweep America in late 1963, Vee Jay deserves credit for introducing the band to the U.S.
Source: Bryan Greene/smithsonianmag.com
It's one of the most iconic album covers of all time: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr strolling across a zebra-striped street called Abbey Road in St John's Wood, north London.
It is an image as memorable as the moon landing - and one copied by tourists on a daily basis. (Even a few bands have paid homage, most notably Booker T & The MGs.)
Ironically, the shot was a last-minute decision.
During the recording of what was to be their swan song, The Beatles toyed with several titles, and Everest, a reference to the brand of cigarettes their late chief engineer, Geoff Emerick, smoked, was the favourite.
So Ringo said, 'Why don't we just shoot the cover outside and call it Abbey Road?'
Source: musicradar.com
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The Empress pub in Toxteth is set to be transformed into Beatles themed hotel, complete with a mural of Beatles drummer Ringo Starr on the side of the building.
The pub, on High Park Street, is located close to the childhood home of Ringo Starr.
Liverpool artist John Culshaw, famous for the "For all Liverpool's Liver Birds" artwork in the Baltic Triangle, was commissioned to create the piece.
The pub is a destination for Beatles fans taking in the city, with tourists frequently visiting the L8 landmark.
This is due to The Empress appearing on the cover of Ringo's first solo album 'Sentimental Journey' which was released in March 1970.
Source: Chris Grundy/liverpoolecho.co.uk
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John Lennon‘s son, Sean Ono Lennon, opened up about some of his father’s solo songs. During an interview, he said his father might not have enjoyed the song “#9 Dream.” Notably, Sean compared the song to one of The Beatles’ most famous tunes.
During a 2020 interview with Rolling Stone, Sean discussed some of his favorite of John’s solo songs. He said “#9 Dream” was the best song on John’s album Walls and Bridges. Sean thought his father admitted he disliked the song. Sean wasn’t sure if he believed his father.
“‘#9 Dream’ is one of his best songs,” Sean opined. “I think he didn’t love it. Maybe because it wasn’t deep, heartfelt, raw emotion, and it wasn’t heavy-duty intellectual. It was a light song. But I think it’s gorgeous. As a composer, it’s a masterpiece.”
Source: cheatsheet.com
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Legendary sitarist Ravi Shankar and The Beatles had a meaningful relationship. Without Shankar’s influence, The Beatles might not have experimented with new sounds.
However, Shankar didn’t enjoy The Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)” off one of their first experimental albums, Rubber Soul. He loved that it brought eastern music to a new audience, but George Harrison had a lot to learn about the sitar.
Still, as he started teaching George how to play the right way, Shankar couldn’t reveal his real thoughts on “Norwegian Wood.”
George first heard Indian music in utero. His mother used to play Radio India while she was pregnant with him. However, George didn’t hear the mystical melodies fully until The Beatles filmed a scene of Help! in an Indian restaurant in 1965.
He couldn’t get the sound of sitars out of his head. So, George took some lessons and added the instrument to The Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood.”
Source: cheatsheet.com
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