Beatles News

"Early Days" is one of the highlights of Paul McCartney's most recent album, 2013's New, but its music video — which you can watch exclusively here — might never have happened if it was left up to McCartney. "When I've got a song, I don't think about the video," the singer says. "I'm sure some people do, but I don’t. I just think about the song, first writing it, then recording it."

Earlier this year, though, director Vincent Haycock sent over a video treatment for "Early Days" that caught his eye. "It's a memory song for me, about me and John in the early days," McCartney says. "But Vince came up with this great idea: Instead of having young lookalikes of me and John walking the streets of Liverpool, guitars slung over our backs, and literally acting out the song, what if it was any two aspiring musicians? I thought that was such a cool idea." Haycock spent a month scouting locations in Natchez, Mississipi, and Faraday, Louisiana, and casting local actors details

Brian Epstein, who managed The Beatles from 1962 until his death in 1967, was honored Sunday in London with a Blue Plaque, a historical marker linking notable figures of the past to the buildings where they lived and worked. London's Royal Society of Arts began erecting the memorial tablets in 1867, attaching the earliest to the birthplace ofLord Byron.

The Epstein plaque was placed on Sutherland House in Argyll Street in London's West End next to the London Pallad details

Over the next two months, more than five million foreigners will come to Canada on their summer vacation. For the rest of the summer, theNational Post presents this series on the revolutionaries, luminaries and criminals who have taken time out from shaping world events to pay us a visit — and how that visit shaped them. Today, how a Toronto rock concert killed the Beatles:

In August of 1966, the Beatles had just arrived in Toronto for a pair of appearances at Maple Leaf Gardens that, unbeknownst to the world, would be among their last. Prior to the shows, in a press conference at the arena’s Hot Stove Lounge, a reporter asked John Lennon if the band — who had failed to sell out the 16,00-seat venue — would ever split up. “We obviously are not going to go around holding hands forever,” he replied, eliciting laughter from the assembled press. Lennon added, more seriously, “we’ve got to split up or progress … it might happen. It’s quite possible.” The Toronto reporters could not have known, but by the details

It is unlikely that the artist intended drawing the popular fictional wizard after including the word 'Imagine' and a peace sign underneath the dubious portrait. A charitable Matt McFarlane said the image resembled 'a young John Lennon', although another user suggested Harry Potter would be able to 'magic all the spots away'.

Blue, manager of the Into You tattoo studio in Clerkenwell, London said: 'Obviously this is the work of a very bad tattoo artist. It is unforgivable for a client to go in looking for an image of John Lennon and go home with Harry Potter. 'Before getting any tattoo a client should fully research the studio beforehand. There are very good studios with excellent artists. They will have extensive portfolios in the studio and in many cases online so you can assess the quality of this work. 'In cases such as this, it is possible to get the tattoo removed by laser although that is incredibly expensive. Maybe it would be cheaper for the person involved to buy a few Harry Potter books and become details

A host of stars have had images of their houses blurred on the online mapping service. The popular feature allows internet users to view street-level photographs across the country. Ex-Beatle McCartney’s London home is blurred on the 3D map – although his street can be seen.

Disgraced former RBS bank boss Fred Goodwin’s £3.5million mansion in Edinburgh is also “lost”. The same blurring obscures the Surrey home of Welsh mezzo-soprano Katherine Jenkins, below, and Google has also obscured the £5million London town house of Tony Blair and his wife Cherie. The Cotswolds mansion owned by pop star Lily Allen and her husband, Sam Cooper, is also fogged. Google said: “We provide easily accessible tools allowing users to request further blurring of any image that features the user, their family, their car or their home.” The company has been dealing with a surge in requests to remove data from its s details

Director Richard Lester said he was given a strict deadline and low budget when making The Beatles' first film A Hard Day's Night, because the film's producers didn't think the band's popularity would last.

Speaking to NME before the premiere screening of the remastered 50th anniversary version of the film at London's BFI Southbank last night (July 3), he also assessed the acting skills of the four Beatles, saying George was the best in the band "because he didn't try to do too much, but always hit it right in the middle," and that Paul McCartney "was so enthusiastic he perhaps tried too hard." John Lennon, meanwhile, "had some cutting words for me at times" and said there were concerns beforehand over Ringo Starr's solo scene, filmed along the Thames near Kew Gardens, but Lester didn't doubt for a moment that the drummer could do what was asked of him. On the subject of the producers' projection for the future of the b details

Back by popular demand John Waters and Stewart D’Arrietta are going back to basics with their two-man concert, Looking Through A Glass Onion. Waters says the concert shows there is more than meets the eye when it comes to the ins and outs of John Lennon and the Beatles.

“Lennon had a tragic existence because he never dealt with his childhood traumas of being abandoned and that anger in him comes out a lot – there was repressed violence in the man and what I admire most is he knew that and worked on himself at being peaceful,” Waters says. “He became a better person because of it and what I respect most is he put his money where his mouth was.” Waters says the show started as a two-man show in 1992 on a small stage at the Tilbury Hotel in Sydney’s Woolloomooloo. “We’ve gone back to an unplugged, two-man format with an acoustic piano, guitar and stomp box,” he says. “We sound like a band, but it’s completely organic with beautiful 1960s vocal effects and d details

"I mean, we were in a movie, man. We were making a movie!" Starr recalls to Billboard. "Four guys from Liverpool making a movie — it was so great. I loved it, and as you can tell, I loved it because the next movie [Help!] was sort of based around me, based around the ring and Kaili.

" A Hard Day's Night returns to movie theaters for the holiday weekend, starting July 4 and continuing throughout the summer (a full schedule of screenings can be found here). This follows the June release of a Criterion Collection version of the film on DVD and Blu-ray, featuring a new digital restoration of the film approved by director Richard Lester, audio commentary, several documentaries about the movie and The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film, an Academy Award-nominated short directed by Lester, starring Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan.

Listen to the Audio Version of this News Story  details

TAKE a trip back in time to the rock 'n' roll days of the Merseybeat era on this weekend break to the home of the Beatles. You will visit the homes and schools of the iconic band, discover the places that inspired two of their most memorable songs, and explore the sounds and sights of vibrant Liverpool.

You'll head north on day one direct to Liverpool where you can browse the shops at the stunning Albert Dock Complex, take in an exhibition at the stylish Tate Liverpool Gallery, and find out how the sea shaped the city at the Merseyside Maritime Museum. For your first Beatles fix, you may like to visit the award-winning Beatles Story attraction (entrance payable locally), with its stunning recreation of the Cavern Club. The history tour reveals how four young lads from Liverpool were propelled to the dizzy heights of worldwide fame and fortune to become the greatest band of all time. The tour takes you from their Liverpool childhood, through the early days of the band, to world domination and their solo careers. The history tour reveals how four young lads from Li details

When the film A Hard Day’s Night premiered in London on July 6, 1964, it wasn’t the first time that its stars — the Beatles — saw the film, but it was definitely better than that earliest viewing. The movie is best remembered for its opening sequence of crazed fans chasing the Fab Four through the streets, but its stars also recall that seeing their own faces on the big screen wasn’t exactly a comfortable experience.

Even though they were already bona fide stars, they were still getting used to seeing their faces at such scale — and A Hard Day’s Night, which arrived just weeks after they had made a splash on the Ed Sullivan Show, was their first film. In this exclusive clip, the Beatles — minus John — describe what it was like to watch A Hard Day’s Night in early screenings versus with an audience, and their hopes that future Beatles movies woul details

The former Liverpool home of Beatle George Harrison is set to be sold at auction. The house, 25 Upton Green in Speke, was home to George during the early stages ofBeatlemania – and is believed to have been a popular hang-out for the band during their formative years.

David Coughlin, managing director of Homes Bought Fast – the company responsible for the sale of the house – said the firm had already received national and international enquiries. He added: “We are overwhelmed by the interest surrounding this property. When we heard it was a Beatle’s former house we implemented a lot of research which confirmed it was George’s house – and we still couldn’t believe it. “It’s part not only of Liverpool’s history, but of the world of music, and there’s something very special about being in the same place as the Beatles’ once were”. George was born on February 25, 1943 at his family’s previous home on Arnold Grove, a two-up, two-down terrace in Wavertree. But in 1949 his mum and details

John Lennon was a brilliant songwriter, but not much of a driver: He didn’t get his license until he was 24, and ended his time behind the wheel with a scary mishap that ended with a trip to the hospital for himself, his son Julian, Yoko Ono, and her daughter Kyoko.

The incident occurred on July 1, 1969, while Lennon and Ono were vacationing in the Scottish Highlands. Although he’d reportedly spent very little time driving since getting his license in early 1965, Lennon felt confident enough to try and navigate the region’s narrow roads in his Austin Maxi hatchback — at least until he lost control of the vehicle and wound up in a ditch. Although no one was seriously hurt, the quartet didn’t escape injury. They were taken to Lawson Memorial Hospital in Golspie, where Julian was treated for shock and Lennon, Ono, and Kyoko all received stitches to repair facial lacerations. Ono, who was pregnant at the time, also sustained back injuries. Lennon’s ex-wife Cynthia, who w details

Shortly after Dolly Parton finishes, another cult female legend takes to the Park stage, albeit one trickier to sing along with unless you’ve been having your vocal chords hand-stretched on a weekly basis

. “I’ve been tap-dancing in the mud!” yells Yoko, launching into an opening speech that attacks fracking, tries to get everyone to sexually accost the person next to them and ends with a characteristic sentiment: “AAAAAGGGHH-oo-wowowow-we have to save the beautiful country that our ancestors saved for us-AAAAGGHHH!” What follows is 40 minutes of experimental drum drone, bluesy riff rock, spoken word “affirmations” and singing that resembles, in turn, mini orgasms, primal scream therapy and simian territorial fighting. Unlike the artful interpretations of her songs this reviewer witnessed at Café Oto in Dalston earlier this year, Yoko’s Plastic Ono Band tap-dance muddily along the line between ludicrousness and lovability, toppling often on the side of the ludicrous. The 2 details

Fifty years ago US film distributors fancied making a quick buck exploiting a British band they dismissed as a passing fad. They wanted a low-budget film about The Beatles to be thrown together in a few weeks to cash in on “a brief craze”, reports the Sunday People.

But baffled by the Scouse accents, they demanded the Fab Four were dubbed with mid-Atlantic voices. Fortunately for all of us Paul McCartney refused, saying: “If we can understand f***ing cowboys talking Texas, they can understand us talking Liverpool.” The result was the Oscar-nominated box-office smash A Hard Day’s Night, made for just £200,000 using hand-held cameras and now considered the greatest rock’n’roll film ever made. And it is set to win a new generation of fans when a digitally remastered ­cinema ­version is released across Britain and America on Friday to mark its golden anniversary. Today the 87-minute black and white film is ranked in the world’s top 100. But in 1964 The Beatles were reckoned to be no more than nine- details

In some ways, growing up with John Lennon‘s for a dad must have been pretty cool — but in others, it could be fairly nerve-wracking, as Sean Lennon explained in a recent chat with Mojo. Chief among young Sean’s fears? Being kidnapped. “I was terrified of that scenario when I was young. We lived under the threat of kidnap and I had the whole bodyguard thing,” he admitted, explaining that one of the songs on his new ‘Midnight Sun’ album, ‘Poor Paul Getty,’ was partially inspired by that childhood trauma

. “It was the bogey-man story,” he nodded. “The song isn’t jokey at all…Being John’s boy was very intimidating. It’s taken me longer than other people to feel comfortable in my own shoes.” ‘Midnight Sun’ serves as a continuation of Lennon’s work with the Ghost Of A Saber Tooth Tiger, the duo he’s formed with multi-instrumentalist Charlotte Kemp Muhl — and although the two are dating, he stresses that their relationship should details