Beatles News

When you’ve led a life as storied as Paul McCartney’s, it must be tempting to write every song about the experiences that you’ve had. Although Macca has occasionally dipped into nostalgia in his songs, he mostly keeps that tendency in check.

Interestingly enough, his occasional reminiscences in song often go flying right past his Beatles days. On his 2007 track, “That Was Me”, he looks back with incredulity to his pre-fame youth.  

Paul McCartney’s 2007 album Memory Almost Full took a while to reach fruition. McCartney started compiling the songs for it four years earlier, recording bits of it with his touring band. But he shelved the project for a bit to work with producer Nigel Godrich. Those sessions became the acclaimed 2005 album Chaos And Creation In The Backyard.

Coming off that success, McCartney didn’t take too long to dive back into Memory Almost Full. He touched up some of the songs that the band had finished. In addition, he wrote new material to fill out the running order.

Despite the disjointed creative process, he stumbled into one of his most thematically cohesive albums. As the title suggests, many of the songs look back and try details

TODAY is Global Beatles Day, and we’re remembering the band that changed the face of music forever.

The day, also known as World Beatles Day, honours and celebrates the ideals of The Beatles. The date, June 25, was chosen to commemorate the day the band participated in the BBC show Our World in 1967, performing “All You Need Is Love” for an international audience.

The event was inaugurated in 2009 by Beatles fan Faith Cohen, who calls it “a thank you or love letter to The Beatles”.

It is celebrated with music and a variety of events celebrating peace and harmony.
The Beatles were an English rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. The core lineup comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. (we know you know that Beatles Fans)

They are widely regarded as the most influential band in Western popular music and were integral to the development of 1960s counterculture and the recognition of popular music as an art form.

Rooted in skiffle, beat and 1950s rock ‘n’ roll, their sound incorporated elements of classical music and traditional pop in innovative ways. The band also explored music styles ranging from folk and India details

The Beatles turned the studio into a lethal weapon on their 1966 album Revolver. Producer George Martin and the four men in the group went to great lengths to create sounds that broke down the boundaries of pop music.

The music from Revolver is endlessly surprising and compelling. So too are some of the stories behind the making of this legendary LP by the Fab Four.

John Lennon gained a reputation as someone who loved his shuteye. He wrote about it on Revolver in the song “I’m Only Sleeping”, which defended his right to sleep away even his waking hours. His penchant for sawing logs also inadvertently led to one of the most momentous songs on the record. Paul McCartney arrived at Lennon’s abode one day to start a writing session. But he had to wait a bit for his pal, because Lennon was still sleeping in when Paul arrived. To make the most of the time, McCartney settled out near the swimming pool. By the time Lennon awoke, Macca had pretty much written the gorgeous ballad “Here, There And Everywhere” while waiting. 

We tend to think of “Yellow Submarine” as the ultimate kids’ song. The fact that it was turned into a well-regarded animated movie cer details

In October 1980, in one of his last interviews, John Lennon was asked what he thought about Paul McCartney‘s recent projects with Wings and whether he was ever surprised by his former bandmate’s creative output. His reply was telling. “No, he never surprised me. Like, can you be surprised by your brother? From aged 15 on?”

And he was right. Lennon and McCartney were so tight-knit that they were practically blood-related - and John recognized that their sibling-like relationship was still very much in existence, even a decade after The Beatles had split, with all four members going their separate ways. ll

From the thousands of books and biographies that have been written about them, Paul’s relationship with John was not especially complex - they admired each other, respected each other - despite the slight age difference, and having different personalities. In some ways they shared a similar background, growing up in the south end of post-war Liverpool just as an exciting new brand of music, rock ‘n’ roll, started seeping in from the United States. They both got the bug at the same time.

They had a mutual understanding - one glance, one raised eyebrow, a smil details

The Beatles used a performing trick to stand them apart from other acts.  Music icon Paul McCartney said The Beatles found ways to stand out from their peers, including using one performance trick that boosted their gigs.

‌For decades since The Beatles took music by storm in the early 1960s, fans, scholars, authors, journalists, scientists, religious leaders, and even haters have wondered what made the Fab Four special.

Everything about them has been documented repeatedly in virtually every single form of media, and while some have come close to encapsulating the reason for their greatness, no one other than them can truly explain their own phenomenon. McCartney, who has never shied away from talking about The Beatles' history, including what made them tick, once tried to explain what The Beatles did to distinguish themselves from their competition.

Along with their own specific skills in the recording studio, he revealed that the band was highly proficient when it came to performing for their fans. However, one trick truly set them above the bar: playing certain covers.

From their early days, McCartney explained, The Beatles made themselves unique by writing their own songs, but t details

The Beatles' rise to fame was as quick as it was dramatic. After becoming Liverpool's biggest band in 1962, they took the UK by storm in 1963, scoring their first official number one single with 'From Me to You' before their debut album 'Please Please Me' topped the charts after its March release.

By 1964 they were world famous. The Fab Four were on a 19-date concert residency in Paris on January 25, 1964 of that year when manager Brian Epstein told them they had achieved their first number one in America when 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' topped the US's Cashbox charts.

‌The song hit number one on the USA's main chart - the Billboard Hot 100 - by February 1 and stayed there for seven weeks. From that point, Brian decided they needed to make the most of international markets.

‌As The Beatles had been big hits in the clubs of Hamburg in their very early days, Berlin-based Odeon Records told Brian and producer George Martin that singing in German would allow the band to sell more records in West Germany. As such, The Beatles were sent into the Pathé Marconi studio in Paris on January 29 to sing in a foreign language.

Translations of 'She Loves You' and 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' were details

After the Fab Four called it quits for good in 1970, fans around the world were anxiously waiting for the announcement of a proper reunion. Before the sad passing of John Lennon in 1980 and George Harrison in 2001, fans were hoping that at least some semblance of a reunion would happen. It never really did.

However, in the 1970s, a Beatles reunion was apparently on the table. And we can thank George Harrison (not exclusively, but partially) for it not actually taking off. Whether that’s a good or a bad thing, I’ll leave up to the diehard fans. Still, it’s an interesting story if nothing else.

Shortly after The Beatles broke up in the early 1970s, the possibility of a reunion was not even considered. The Fab Four were beefing with each other, there were lawsuits being thrown around, and Paul McCartney and John Lennon had taken to writing a few beef tracks about each other. It was a mess.

Eventually, things died down, and each member of the former band went on to produce excellent solo works. As things settled further, rumors of a potential reunion began to circulate. However, they would never come to fruition. And guitarist George Harrison was pretty dead set on a reunion never happening details

When people think of the Beatles, the first thing that comes to mind is not their drug use, at least for most people. When compared to some of their wilder contemporaries, the Fabs feel somewhat innocent. But that certainly doesn’t mean the band didn’t partake from time to time.   

They famously entered into a psychedelic era in the mid-’60s, fueled by LSD and other hallucinogens. They were also not strangers to marijuana. The Beatles’ post-introduction to drugs was markedly more experimental in the studio. Like many of their contemporaries, drugs provided a creative spark. There was one studio session wherein John Lennon accidentally took drugs, luckily leading to one of the Beatles’ best psychedelic songs.

When we think of the Beatles and drugs, it’s hard for the mind not to immediately go to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Although we don’t have the statistics, this feels like the Beatles’ “highest” album. That’s likely due to the inclusion of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”–which Lennon swore up and down wasn’t about LSD…However, there is another song that rivals “Lucy” in details

“Yesterday” by The Beatles is a musical blank canvas, open to interpretation, reinvention, and—sometimes—utter reinvention in genres the Fab Four never saw coming. With over 2,000 known versions out there, here are 10 of the most genre-bending, mood-swinging, mind-tilting covers of “Yesterday” you never knew you needed… until now.

1. Marvin Gaye (1970)
Motown’s smoothest operator took “Yesterday” and wrapped it in satin. His version, from That’s the Way Love Is, lives in a warm, soulful haze—like heartbreak at sunset, with a bassline for a hug.

2. Molly Hatchet (2012)
Southern rock titans Molly Hatchet brought muscle and denim to “Yesterday” on Regrinding the Axes. Imagine a bar fight breaking out in the middle of a memory—that’s how hard this one hits.

3. En Vogue (1992)
If ’60s harmonies got a ’90s R&B glow-up, this is it. En Vogue’s a cappella spin on “Yesterday” doesn’t just cover it—it serenades it with perfect pitch and powerhouse soul.

4. La Lupe (1967)
Known as the Queen of Latin Soul, La Lupe’s fiery version on El Rey y Y details

When The Beatles broke up, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and Ringo Starr all seemed a bit adrift for their first few years as ex-members of The Fab Four. Only George Harrison seemed to be thriving on his own, at least in terms of his career choices.

Maybe that’s because Harrison no longer had to answer to his bandmates when it came down to the material he wanted to present. If he wanted to go the spiritual route, as he did on the 1970 track “Hear Me Lord”, there was no one to stop him. The final year or so of The Beatles as a group was a particularly unhappy time for the four members in terms of their interactions. In one notorious example, George Harrison clashed with Paul McCartney while cameras were rolling in January 1969 on a documentary about the group’s new record.

Earlier that fateful day, Harrison had tried to interest the other members in a new track of his called “Hear Me Lord”. Unfortunately, like so many other Harrison compositions of that era, The Beatles couldn’t be bothered to do much with it. Harrison added it to his stockpile of unrecorded songs. He would unleash that stockpile upon the world as part of the triple album All Things Must Pass in 1970. details

Beatles history is full of stories about Paul McCartney’s dual life as a bassist and guitarist. After getting saddled with the instrument when Stuart Sutcliffe left the group in July 1961, McCartney didn’t play guitar with the Beatles again until 1965’s Help! album. In addition to performing acoustic guitar on the album cut “Yesterday,” he took electric guitar solos on the songs “Another Girl,” “The Night Before” and “Ticket to Ride.” It was quite a shift for McCartney, considering he’d originally been put off playing lead guitar after his first attempt to do so onstage became a disaster.

In fact, it was that very episode of stage fright that resulted in George Harrison joining the group, at McCartney’s suggestion, seeing as neither he nor John Lennon had any facility for playing lead. Paul’s inability is ultimately what got him stuck playing bass, as Lennon had no ability to play the instrument and Harrison was too vital as a lead guitarist.

Of course, once McCartney began to solo, it was hard to stop him. He took solo sports on Harrison’s Revolver cut “Taxman,” when Harrison was unable to come up with anything details

Every so often, Paul McCartney and John Lennon would conjure up a Beatles song specifically for Ringo Starr to sing. And as one would expect from songs written for the least singing member of the band, some were better than others (both in chart performance and the general opinion of the rest of the band).

One of the first songs Lennon wrote for Starr was left on the cutting room floor, although the musicians would mention the song in later interviews. To Lennon, it was hilarious. To George Harrison, the throwaway song was just plain weird.
John Lennon Wrote This Beatles Song For Ringo Starr

Although the Beatles originally intended for Ringo Starr to sing John Lennon’s song, “If You’ve Got Trouble,” on the 1965 album Help!, the band decided to scrap the song. From the lyrics to the melody to Starr’s humble performance, the Beatles ultimately left the song in the EMI Studios vault. During a 1965 interview with Melody Maker, Lennon described the song as hilarious.

“It’s the funniest thing I’ve ever done,” Lennon laughed. “I didn’t expect anybody to want to record it.” Guitarist George Harrison had an even blunter take. “It&r details

“‘There’s a Place’ was my attempt at a sort of Motown, black thing.

It says the usual Lennon things: ‘In my mind there’s no sorrow…’ It’s all in your mind.”

“There’s A Place” – the very first song recorded during the 11 February 1963 Please Please Me EMI session – was exceptional for its day (and for ours). As Wilfrid Mellers later pointed out in Twilight of the Gods, it was the first Beatles song about self-reliance. It established songwriter John Lennon’s recurring theme of “finding comfort in his thoughts, dreams, and memories…[dealing] with life’s sorrow by retreating into the safety of his inner thoughts…”, a significant theme Lennon would repeat in “later songs such as ‘Strawberry Fields Forever,’ ‘Girl,’ ‘In My Life,’ ‘Rain,’ ‘I’m Only Sleeping,’ ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’.” No “moon, June, croon, spoon” song, “There’s a Place” introduces a more sophisticated scenario.

McCartney supplied the inspiration for this song: the Leonard Bernstein/Stephen Sondheim details

It felt like any other summer day in Liverpool, but a chance encounter turned into one of the most notable days in music history: the day John Lennon first met Paul McCartney. On July 6, 1957, St. Peter’s Church in Woolton Village was having a church party, where The Quarrymen — Lennon’s skiffle band at the time — played.

“Apparently, we were on stage playing the Del-Vikings doo-wop number 'Come Go With Me,’ and Paul arrived on his bicycle and saw us playing,” Rod Davis of The Quarrymen recalled to Billboard. “It was somebody we didn’t know, Paul, who met someone we did know. It wasn’t a big deal. You explain this to people, particularly Americans, and they expect there to be angels hiding behind clouds blowing trumpets. It’s all terribly, terribly a non-event — except in hindsight.”

During the meeting, mutual friend Ivan Vaughan introduced the two — and McCartney joined the band a few months later. While they eventually changed the direction of their sound to rock ‘n’ roll — and their name to The Beatles — what made their eventually success so sweet was the tight friendship between Lennon and McCartney, t details

Creator Phil Rosenthal remembered star Peter Boyle, who died in 2006. Rosenthal told the audience a little-known fact that John Lennon was the best man at Boyle’s wedding to his wife, Loraine Alterman, a journalist

Everybody Loves Raymond probably doesn’t make you think of The Beatles, but it just might now.

On Monday, June 16, at the Paley Center in New York City, Everybody Loves Raymond stars Ray Romano, Patricia Heaton and Maggie Wheeler, creator Phil Rosenthal and producer Tom Caltabiano reunited to celebrate 30 years of the hit sitcom. The comedy series, which also starred Brad Garrett and the late Peter Boyle and Doris Roberts, ran from 1996 to 2005 and continues to find new fans in syndication. Romano, 67, starred as sportswriter Ray Barone, and the characters around him were loosely based on his real family.

During the panel, the group took time to remember Boyle, who died in 2006 at 71. Boyle played Ray’s dad, Frank, who could be extremely stubborn and over-the-top with his sons. Coexecutive producer and writer Cindy Chupack remembered how she based a plotline for Frank on her own dad, who was a “terrible driver,” and she said Boyle was “so belligerent&rd details