Beatles News

“They basically declared war on him after these shows were broadcast”: When John Lennon alarmed the FBI after platforming radical political ideas in a week-long takeover of American TV.

It’s difficult to conceive of just how shocking it was for the Nixon-led US government of the early '70s, when John Lennon - erstwhile Beatle and now a counterculture firebrand - and his wife Yoko Ono, took over over one of America’s biggest daytime television shows. Recalibrating a family-friendly programming touchpoint into a showcase of progressive, left-wing ideology.

The week allowed many with then-radical ideas to reach millions more ears than ever before. But they were ideas that some saw as an existential threat to the nation.

John and Yoko's aim was to present middle-American viewers to counter-arguments against the government line on numerous social and political themes. Topics spanned feminism, race, the right to protest and government overreach.

Perhaps the most popular daytime television show in America at the time, The Mike Douglas Show reached upwards of 40 million viewers on a regular basis, many of whom lived in the heartlands of the US. Far from the more liberally-min details

When death and celebrity mix, it can make for an especially compelling narrative, as was the case for a story involving John Lennon’s ghost making itself known in the studio during The Beatles’ mid-1990s reunion. Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr (or the “Threetles”) met in February 1994 to work on an unreleased Lennon demo that would become part of the band’s Anthology 1 compilation album.

Some corners of the internet suggest Lennon’s ghost was there in the studio with the rest of his bandmates. But are we really to believe a dead rockstar was lurking in the shadows?
The Story of John Lennon’s Ghost in the Studio

In August 2025, The Mirror published a story that cited an unlinked interview with Paul McCartney conducted by OnHike.com. For whatever it’s worth, this writer was unable to track down the primary source of this interview. But for context purposes, we’ll repeat the narrative published in the British tabloid. In the alleged conversation, McCartney recalled a series of uncanny occurrences happening mid-recording sessions.

“There were a lot of strange goings-on in the studio,” he said of the sessions for Lennon&r details

A “lot of money” borrowed by George Harrison landed him his first musical instrument.

Even before he bought his first guitar, Harrison was obsessed with the instrument. His attention at school would suffer because he was “drawing guitars” and he eventually managed to convince his mother to purchase him his first guitar. It marked quite an expensive purchase too, with the £3.10 loaned to Harrison for a “little acoustic” instrument. The Beatles‘ Harrison said: “When I was thirteen or fourteen I used to be at the back of the class drawing guitars, big cello cutaway guitars with F holes, little solid ones with pointed cutaways and rounded cutaways.

“You know, I was totally into guitars. I heard about this kid who had a guitar and it was £3.10 it was just a little acoustic round guitar and I got the £3.10 off my mother, that was a lot of money in those days.” It was a similar story for McCartney, who shared early musical influences with Harrison and would end up trading his way to a guitar.

McCartney said as much on the Anthology documentary, and recalled his early years of musical influences. He said: “My dad bought me a trum details

George Martin had a natural flair for music. He was fascinated by orchestras from a young age and studied oboe at Guildhall before working in the BBC’s classical music department. After not long doing that job, Martin found his true calling at EMI in Abbey Road as a record producer. He was head of Parlophone at 29 and, in 1962, he met a band from Liverpool that had been rejected by pretty much every label in the country, one he remembered as "Not very in tune. They weren't very good." But they were special, they were the Beatles. Over the next eight years, Martin became the architect who made the ideas of the Beatles become a reality. He experimented endlessly and crafted a sound of depth for the band that would catapult them into global sensations.
George Martin Brought Class to the Beatles

Martin’s classical training was invaluable, but perhaps an initial shock to the pop system. Paul McCartney recalled the time he presented the classic “Yesterday,” and discussed the arrangements with Martin. In this talk, Martin calmly suggested putting a string quartet on the record, and McCartney responded, thinking it was a bad idea, as they were a rock and roll band. Ultimately, McCartney shared that details

The guitar featured on All My Loving was a “last-minute” idea, according to songwriter Paul McCartney.

The Beatles‘ hit would have a recognisable guitar line throughout the track, but it would be added at the very last moment. John Lennon would play the riff on the With The Beatles song, and McCartney would say this instrumental addition was a difference-maker. In his book, The Lyrics, McCartney shared the help Lennon offered to the song with the instrumental addition. While it’s difficult to pin down when the Wings frontman wrote the song (he has said he thought of the lyrics while shaving, and also wrote it on a tour bus), the song is one of the many great hits of The Beatles. It drew consistent wordplay and, released on November 22, 1963, became one of the Fab Four’s biggest, early hits. Though it has the Lennon-McCartney writing credit, it’s the latter name which is behind the song.

Lennon was full of praise for the song even after the band had broken up, saying All My Loving is a “damn good song” in an interview given months before his death. Speaking to Playboy in 1980, Lennon said: “[I]t’s a damn good piece of work … But I play a pretty me details

Individual Beatles members got together on several occasions after the band broke up. Though they were never all in the studio as a foursome again, different duos and trios broke off from the pack, creating pseudo reunions for fans to get excited about. The one pairing that never could work things out, at least musically, was Paul McCartney and John Lennon. The two took jabs at each other in their solo discographies, making it known that at least part of their breakup as a band was to do with this fracturing relationship. Lennon tapped George Harrison for one of his most cutting songs about McCartney. Harrison found it intensely “nerve-wracking” to work on this Lennon project. Find out why below.

The title track to Lennon’s 1971 album, Imagine, is his most famous work from his post-Beatles career. The rest of the album was similarly popular upon its release, but it may not be as widespread as Lennon’s magnum opus ballad.

Other than “Imagine,” the most interesting part of this album is “How Do You Sleep?” Lennon penned this song as a reaction to his broken partnership with McCartney. He certainly didn’t set out to spare McCartney’s feelings with this son details

In 1966, the Beatles famously stopped touring, despite being arguably the biggest musical act in the entire world with millions of fans who wanted nothing more than to see the Fab Four perform live.

The decision to quit touring was made for a multitude of reasons, as the members of the Beatles explained in subsequent years, but one thing was abundantly clear: the band felt far more comfortable in a studio setting than anywhere else. That was where the magic happened.

"We feel that only through recordings do people listen to us, so that is the most important form of communication," Paul McCartney said to Hit Parader in May of 1967. "Now we take time because we haven't any pressing engagements like tours to limit us. All we want is to make one track better than the last. We make all 'A' sides and never go into the studio thinking 'This will be our next single.' We just make tracks, then listen to them and decide from what we have what will be a single, what will go on to an LP."

This attitude worked out in the Beatles favor, to put it mildly, both in their native U.K. and across the big pond in the U.S. At the time of this writing, the Beatles have the most No. 1 hits on the American Billboard chart, with details

The influence that The Beatles' 1967 album 'Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' had on music cannot be overstated. The psychedelic masterpiece became the soundtrack to that year's 'summer of love' and reimagined what could be done with an album.

It was the brainchild of Paul McCartney, who came up with the idea of a song by a fictional Edwardian military band. This developed into an album concept, allowing the band to move away from their mop-top image and try something a bit more creative.  ‌

Having retired from touring in 1966, The Beatles wanted to focus on experimenting in the studio and advancing their sound. They also wanted to reinvent themselves, tired with the clean-cut and fresh faced image they had during the first half of the 1960s.  ‌

About that, Paul said: "We were fed up with being The Beatles. We really hated that f***ing four little mop-top approach. We were not boys, we were men ... and thought of ourselves as artists rather than just performers". The band's sound had evolved over the previous two studio albums. 1965's 'Rubber Soul' is widely viewed as starting that process, before the 1966 album 'Revolver' saw The Beatles really experiment and embra details

In 1974, David Bowie was fresh off his reign as the glam-rock’s biggest act. After his breakthrough success that began with Ziggy Stardust and continued through Diamond Dogs, he was about to make a turn toward soul and funk with his next album, Young Americans.

Despite his success, he could still be in awe of his idols. When the opportunity to meet John Lennon arose that year, Bowie was beside himself.  Like millions of teens in the 1960s, he had been a Beatles fan. His own career began to take off in the mid 1960s, during which time he flirted with influences ranging from the Rolling Stones to the Who to Syd Barrett’s Pink Floyd. But while Bowie never dabbled in the Beatles’ style of pop, but he was enamored of the group, and John Lennon in particular.

“Oh hell, he was one of the major influences on my musical life,” Bowie said in an interview recorded in the 1980s. “I mean, I just thought he was the very best of what could be done with rock and roll, and also ideas.  “I felt such kin to him in as much as that he would rifle the avant-garde and look for ideas that were so on the outside, on the periphery of what was the mainstream — and then ap details

Paul McCartney and John Lennon's songwriting skills didn't just benefit The Beatles. The dynamic duo penned numerous tracks that became hits for other artists during the 1960s. ‌

In the early part of the decade, The Beatles' manager Brian Epstein leveraged John and Paul's talent to boost other artists he managed. He would commission them to write songs or distribute songs they'd already written to other artists in his roster, such as Cilla Black and Bootle-born Billy J. Kramer and his band The Dakotas.

But it wasn't just Epstein's artists who benefited. John and Paul also wrote 'I Wanna Be Your Man', The Rolling Stones' first hit, and gifted songs to bands like Badfinger ('Come and Get It') and Peter and Gordon ('A World Without Love'), which turned into massive successes. Meanwhile, McCartney confirmed he was in floods of tears as he tried to write an 'emotional' song.

Peter and Gordon, in particular, reaped significant benefits from John and Paul's work. Paul had written 'A World Without Love' when he was just 16, reports the Liverpool Echo.  

When he moved in with then-girlfriend Jane Asher in 1963, her brother Peter Asher (of Peter and Gordon) heard the song and asked if h details

Paul McCartney has been accused, on several occasions, of being corny. He might be guilty, but is it a bad thing? As he famously said, Some people want to fill the world with silly love songs / And what’s wrong with that? In our opinion, nothing. Sometimes a song needs a little extra sentiment to be good. If you can let go of your corny-meter and enjoy what they have to offer, the three McCartney songs below are stunners.

“Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” is one of McCartney’s cheesiest Beatles offerings. The instrumentation is silly to say the least, but the earnestness with which McCartney delivers his story makes it work. The former Beatle delightfully tells a macabre tale, reveling in the dark humor of it all. Bang! Bang! Maxwell’s silver hammer / Came down upon her head, McCartney sings with a marked grin.

The juxtaposition between the lyrics and the melody of this song is mounting. It’s part of what could make listeners consider this song corny, and his bandmates reject this idea at first listen. In the end, McCartney believed enough in this song to get it a spot on Abbey Road. Not just any artist could’ve pulled off something so outlandish and gotten away with it. I details

Beatles fans were floored after discovering the staggering $400+ million budget that's been allocated to Sam Mendes' forthcoming four-installment biopic.‌

This year it was announced that a four-part movie franchise is in production with each film focusing on a different band member, including the lives of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. This ambitious project is the first authorized biopic of the band, with feedback given directly from The Beatles' families.

And now, fans are in disbelief as it has been confirmed that each movie will be given a budget of roughly $100 million apiece, with the total project costing an estimated $400+ million. In addition to this jaw-dropping budget, the movie has also released their star-studded lineup of actors leading the project including Paul Mescal, Harris Dickinson, Joseph Quinn, and Barry Keoghan.

According to reports by Screen Rant, this over $400+ million budget will make The Beatles biopics the fifth most expensive movies of all time. The budget follows Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker ($416 million), Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($447 million), Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom ($465 million), and Jurassic World Dominion ($465 mil details

 Celebrating his 85th birthday in July, Ringo Starr has likely uttered his signature phrase "Peace and Love" millions of times. Sept. 12 from the Miller High Life Theatre stage in Milwaukee with his supergroup the All Starr Band, he added three more to the tally.

That sentiment - and Starr's uplifting spirit - is something we all could really use right now. Milwaukee was especially lucky to get it. Starr and the band - including Steve Lukather from Toto, Colin Hay from Men at Work and Hamish Stuart from Average White Band - is performing in just six cities this month before heading off the road, the Miller High Life Theatre being the second stop. Naturally it was at capacity.

Source: jsonline.com/Piet Levy

A photo signed by all four Beatles for a Birmingham teenager is set to go under the hammer. The world-famous group from Liverpool signed the incredible piece of history roughly 62 years ago after they were told to stop playing by the teen's dad because they were being too noisy.  ‌

The picture of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr was signed by the group before a gig at the Coventry Theatre at the start of Beatlemania.

‌Chris Barrows, selling the photo, said his late brother Phil was at the gig with their father Ron who was Steinway’s chief piano tuner for the Midlands area at the time.  "My dad came home one day and said he was going to tune the piano ahead of The Beatles’ show and other performances,” said Chris, 74, who now lives in Atherstone, Warwickshire.

‌“I didn’t go as at that time I was more interested in football...but my brother had been playing guitar for six months and went along.”
Rob French, ephemera valuer at Richard Winterton Auctioneers, with the signed Beatles photograph(Image: Richard Winterton Auctioneers)

The Beatles were already there when the pair arrived - and the b details

Sixty years ago today, on September 13, 1965, The Beatles released “Yesterday” in the United States. It went straight to No. 1 and has since become the most recorded song in history, with over 2,200 cover versions.

But what fascinates me more than the stats is how the song came into the world.

Paul McCartney told Terry Gross in a 2001 Fresh Air interview that the melody came to him in a dream. He woke up with the tune running through his head, hurried to the piano by his bed, and played it before it slipped away.

At first, the words to the song running through McCartney’s head as he played the song were nonsense: “Scrambled eggs, oh my baby, how I love your legs.”

For months, he carried that melody around, convinced he must have stolen it.

Only later, while driving through France with Jane Asher, his long-time girlfriend, did the real words arrive: “Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away.”

That gap between melody and meaning has always stayed with me. Sometimes the music of what we feel is crystal clear, but the words fail us.

I know that from experience.

I once told a woman I loved for forty years tha details