Beatles FAQ

In August 1963 The Beatles returned to the Cavern to play what proved to be their last gig there. It proved a chaotic event with frequent power-cuts causing frequent interruptions.  During one of the forced intervals, Paul McCartney calmed the crowd by playing  impromptu acoustic version of an old favourite.

Lovely Rita meter maid Nothing can come between us

Wimpole Street  “I woke up with a lovely tune in my head.  I thought, ‘That’s great, I wonder what that is?’  There was an upright piano next to me, to the right of the bed by the window.    I got out of bed, sat at the piano, found G, found F sharp minor 7th – and that leads you through then to B to E minor, and finally back to E.  It all leads forward logically.  I liked the melody a lot but because I’d dreamed it I couldn’t believe I’d written it. 

Saturday. "Friday Night arrives without a suitcase/Sunday morning creeping like a nun." Perhaps its part of that eight-day-week the Beatles introduced. Lady Madonna was McCartney's 'come-back' single after critics savaged Magical Mystery Tour. Musically, it's an impressive response, the boogiewoogie piano and handclaps combining to create an infectious driving sound.  Lyrically, it is less successful. The title was inspired by a magazine photograph of an African mother and child captioned Mountain Madonna. This image immediately runs into trouble with a very British reference to paying the rent. Then it turns bizarrely accusatory ('Did you think that money was heaven sent?') before losing all coherence in what Ian MacDonald calls 'acid tinged unreality'.  Macdonald particularly disapproves of the 'pointless allusion to I Am the Walrus' suggesting that this 'wanton self-mythologising ... in the context of the developing 'Pa