Beatles FAQ

The collage on the cover of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band  shows a gathering of over 70 famous figures, cultural icons, and waxworks.  How were the people chosen? The organising principle is that The Beatles have chosen who will feature. Their choices are engagingly random. English comic Tommy Handley shares the stage with Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, for example. Very much alive, Fred Astaire is next to the long-dead nineteenth-century author, Edgar Allan Poe. Film star Sophia Loren is in the image - but you can't see her. She and fellow Italian   Marcello Mastroianni  are hidden behind the waxworks of The Beatles. Who missed out? Changes were made right up to the last moment. Some very unlikely options were considered.  A cardboard cut-out of Hitler was produced but (wisely) removed from the photoshoot at the last minute.  Brian Epstein rejected John Lennon's suggestion of Jesus. He did not wish to reignite  the controversy of the p...

Three female songwriters have co-credits on songs covered by The Beatles

Lennon and McCartney frequently named women in song titles - some real, some disguised, several invented.

The Beatles first played the Cavern on February 9, 1961: a lunchtime session for which they were paid £5. Despite lengthy absences in Hamburg, they would do over 290 more gigs there over the next two years. On Good Friday, 12 April, 1963, they gave their penultimate performance there, returning in triumph as national chart toppers. This was widely assumed to be their farewell to the tiny venue. But an obscure contractual obligation to a local promoter brought them back to do one more date down those cellar steps. Final Cavern Gig Their last performance was on Saturday, August 3rd, 1963. It would prove a chaotic swansong.  The crowds outside were going mad. By the time John Lennon had got through the cordon of girls, his mohair jacket had lost a sleeve. I grabbed it to stop a girl getting away with a souvenir. John stitched it back on. Read full story    Why did The Beatles Stop Performing Live ?

On the 22nd August 1969, The Beatles completed their final official engagement.  

​ Ringo never aspired to be a principal songwriter for The Beatles but he does have two  sole writing credits.

Freddie Lennon in the mid 1960s

The room above the Bambi Kino cinema George Harrison was seventeen when he first arrived in Hamburg in August 1960. Though the legal age limit for performers was eighteen, club  owner Bruno Koschmider was initially unconcerned.  It was when The Beatles jumped ship to work at the bigger Top Ten that Koschmider found his conscience stirred. He then informed the police of his shocking discovery. Those devious Englishmen had an underage performer in their ranks . pen & ink sketch of Hamburg club owner Bruno Koschmider (1926-2000) The police duly deported Harrison on November 21. The guitarist spent his last night teaching John Lennon his parts before reluctantly packing a " crappy suitcase and things in boxes, paper bags with my clothes in, and a guitar." Homeward bound The logistics of getting home proved challenging, as George related in Anthology: Astrid and Stuart dropped me at Hamburg station. It was a long journey on my own on the train to the Hook of Holland. From ...

Throughout his life, George celebrated his birthday on February 25th. But in the early 1990s, there were claims of a newly discovered 'hospital document'. 

Four years after his recording debut, David Bowie had still made little progress. Despite a name change and several changes of musical style, he remained a fringe figure. Convinced that Deram (Decca) was mismanaging his career, Bowie was looking for a new label. In the spring of 1968, The Beatles announced the formation of Apple Records, a new label for ‘creatives’. Bowie immediately instructed his then-manager, Kenneth Pitt, to submit an audition tape. Swamped As a signed artist with a major label, Bowie might have expected an automatic hearing. Unfortunately, however, Apple's offer had backfired. The new label was besieged by aspiring musicians, managers, agents, artists, and hucksters. All were clamouring for an audition.    A further complication was that the new label would only recruit new talent with the agreement of all four (endlessly squabbling) Beatles. The office was filled with a mountain of demo tapes. From an early stage, any attempt to listen to them wa...

 Outside the Southern Cross Hotel in Melbourne, June 1964. An estimated 300,000 greeted The Beatles in Melbourne in June 1964. The Queen had only attracted half that number the preceding year. Aussie Beatlemania was particularly intense for the Melbourne stop because it marked the return of Ringo.  The drummer had been hospitalised a few days before the start of the tour. This had caused consternation amongst Beatle fans, but now he was climbing off his sickbed in London to join his buddies down under. Down Under It proved a difficult journey.  The flight was horrendous... It’s... a hell of a long way. I remember the plane felt like a disaster area to me. Fans clearly thought the effort worthwhile. Replacement drummer, Jimmy Nichol was less thrilled. He was sent back to London and obscurity, after a few weeks in the celebrity sun - read more .

The best-known interpretation of a Beatles song was performed sensationally at Woodstock in 1969. On Sgt. Pepper With a Little Help From My Friends is a charming sing-along, ideally suited to Ringo's vocal range.  Joe Cocker takes it to a different place. Paul's opinion Paying tribute to the late Sheffield singer, Paul McCartney said:   I remember him and [producer]  Denny Cordell  coming round to the studio and  Saville Row  and playing me what they recorded. It was just mind-blowing. He totally turned the song into a soul anthem, and I was forever grateful to him for doing that."

Photo by Saubhagya gandharv on Unsplash George Harrison’s first serious attempt at an ‘Indian’ composition had the unpromising working title of “Granny Smith”. George revealed his 'difficulty with words' in an interview with Maureen Cleave for the London Evening Standard in February 1966. Beautiful Words? He wishes he could write fine songs like Lennon and McCartney do, but he has difficulty with the words. “Pattie keeps asking me to write more beautiful words,” he said. He played his newest composition… ’Love me while you can: before I’m a dead old man…’ George was aware that these words were not beautiful. Evening Standard readers may have had the impression that “Love You To” was a love song celebrating George’s recent marriage to new Pattie (Boyd). The couple had, after all, just returned from a honeymoon in the (then) impossibly glamorous Barbados. Perhaps more pertinent, however, was another Maureen Cleave’s observation from the same interview. Indian music and culture,...

Pete Best was The Beatles' drummer from August 1960 until August 1962. He was with them in Hamburg and at their first Abbey Road recording session.  Best also played an important role in establishing The Beatles' popularity in Hamburg and Liverpool, but had a slightly distant relationship with the others. By the summer of 1962, the other Beatles were plotting against him. Using the pretext that George Martin had rejected his drumming as substandard, they approached Ringo Starr, an old friend of the band from Hamburg. Read the full story behind the sacking of Best (free on Medium 6 mins)

  At Abbey Road, George Harrison had a reputation for taking a long time to write songs. The biggest issue was completing lyrics with 'beautiful words'.

The first meeting between The Beatles and Bob Dylan took place in a room at the Delmonico Hotel in New York on Friday, 28 August 1964.

  “We’ve just come across... the most weird song.  I’ve no recollection of ever recording it.” George Harrison Anthology

  I play guitar: A, D, E./  I don't play bass cause that's too hard for me./  I play the piano if it's in C .  From Early 1970

I could never see the difference between a beautiful melody and a cool rock ’n’ roll song. I learned to love all the ballady {sic} stuff through my dad and relatives,  Paul McCartney

Basically, it was our stage show, with some new [original] songs.  Paul McCartney

We couldn’t hear ourselves when we were live, as there was so much screaming going on.     Paul McCartney

The Beatles had started by playing church halls, coffee halls, and even private homes. Their Ed Sullivan appearance in February 1964 opened a huge new market. This was now only confined by the size of the concert venues available. 

First Ed Sullivan appearance - public domain The Beatles fly from London Heathrow to New York on 7 February 1964. More than 10,000 girls are waiting - a major news event.

In late September 1963, George Harrison becomes the first Beatle to visit America. Map artwork by Jane Samson

Warning! Not exactly to scale This is a surprisingly controversial question. The Beatles fan club and other 'official' sources stated that Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison as the same height: 5'11" (180cm), with Ringo Starr 5'8" (172cm) Early publicity photos emphasise a certain height uniformity. This harmonised with the identical suits and ‘Beatle’ hairstyles. It was as if you could walk over their heads without breaking step. Late 60s photos emphasised individual difference rather than collective branding. They revealed that Paul was/is fractionally taller than John, who in turn had the slightest of edges over George. Ringo was/is closer to  5'6"  (168cm) Great Hoax? A belief that the real (small) Paul was replaced by a taller 'fake Paul' or Faul is a key component of the (bonkers)  'Paul is Dead' conspiracy theory .   'Evidence' of an alleged height disparity  McCartney brazenly maintains that he is still very much aliv...

Before The Beatles broke up in 1970 ,  their singles  outsold their LPs . Photo by Mick Haupt on Unsplash This was the standard pattern of record sales at that time. LPs were considered a luxury item and priced beyond the reach of most teenagers.  The Beatles did have an unusual multi-generational appeal. And the kids who bought their singles would later come back to buy not just the studio albums but various compilations. From  Statista Studio Albums The Beatles officially released  13  studio  albums between 1962 and their breakup. Over time,  the biggest seller has been  Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band   ( 1967 ), with an estimated 32 million The first three Anthology albums have sold more than 13 million. Later acts, like Fleetwood Mac and Elton John , benefited from the increasing availability of affordable stereo systems . Older fans were now buying Beatles albums in large numbers, but these sales were dwarfed by those of...

  photo b y   Nick Fewings  on  Unsplash Worldwide sales of physical singles are difficult to estimate accurately, and the following are estimates based on available data.

The first British Beatles LP Please Please Me (1963) We didn’t sing our own songs in the early days — they weren’t good enough   John Lennon We started as a little covers band  Paul McCartney