Beatles FAQ

' We started as little covers band' Paul McCartney

George Martin wanted The Beatles to release "How Do You Do It (Mitch Mitchell) for their first single. They insisted on their own composition (Love Me Do).

Until 1968, wives and girlfriends stayed away from Abbey Road whenever The Beatles were recording. 

"We all play on it; i t’s a genuine Beatles recording .  ” Paul McCartney via  Henry Grossman/Wikimedia Commons  and Apple Corps

The Beatles famously brought LSD to public attention. Less well known is that George Harrison became rapidly disillusioned with the drug.

  He was a terrible driver…with bad eyesight. John Lennon's cousin, Stan. John Lennon's Austin Maxi, the last car he ever drove

John Lennon was very short-sighted, but in his teens refused to wear spectacles in public.

The Beatles' record sales dwarfed those of Bob Dylan. In terms of musical influence, the relationship was inverse. 

  The two most influential pop acts of the 1960s were initially wary of each other. As the world was going Beatles-mad, Bob told pals he had no time for 'bubblegum music'. Paul, for his part, dismissed the 'folk crap' he had not actually heard. Meanwhile, the rivals were busy checking each other out.    The Beatles hear Bob In Paris in January 1964 was the first time I ever heard Dylan at all. Paul 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. John Lennon quoted in Anthology Bob, for his part, joined 70 million fellow Americans in watching that Ed Sullivan Show a few weeks later. And in August 1964, he pitched up at their hotel when they were next in New York. The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan  Released in May 1963, Dylan's second studio album marked his emergence as a major singer-songwriter. Several tracks ('Blowing in the Wind, Times They Are a-Changing, A Hard ...

"But that isn't my car!"  Lovely Rita meter maid Nothing can come between us There are two origin stories - three if you count a composite version.