Beatles FAQ

  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 ...

On July 4th 1966, The Beatles played two concerts in the Philippines as part of what would be their final world tour. These took place over a single afternoon and evening  at the Rizal Stadium, Manila. 

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

  Slim Whitman with his Gibson - the sound George aspired to.  George tried to teach himself [the guitar]. But he wasn’t making much headway. ‘I’ll never learn this,’ he used to say. I said, ‘You will, son, you will. Just keep at it.’  Louise Harrison, the mother of George

Paul & Mary McCartney Paul McCartney has recently suggested a ‘subconscious’ inspiration for the line I said something wrong/Now I long for yesterday  was his regret at once chiding his mother for ‘talking posh’:

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...

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

  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'.

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

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

Beatles go 'capo-crazy' on Rubber Soul What does a capo do? A capo raises the pitch of stringed instruments including guitars and ukuleles. They are generally used to either make a chord progression easier to play or to match the vocal range of a singer.  Did The Beatles use capos effectively? For themselves, yes. But they were not experienced in accommodating the vocal ranges of guest singers. Famously, Cilla Black failed her first audition for Brian Epstein because the The Beatles backed her in a lower key than she could manage. Who showed them how to use them? Musically they learned through instinct and imitation rather than the application of theory. They would effectively reverse engineer songs and then experiment. Buddy Holly was an early model and he often played with one.  Lennon's capo use on 'You've Got to Hide Your Love Away' on Beatles For Sale is an example of the influence of Bob Dylan. In an era without YouTube tutorials to encourage accurate copy...

The Beatles started by playing coffee bars, church halls and small family homes. By the time of their second US tour no standard music venue was large enough to meet the demand for tickets. So promoters like the legendary Sid Bernstein hired sports stadia.

  A special Christmas present

  In Glass Onion John Lennon writes 'Here's another clue for you all/The Walrus was Paul'. What did he mean?

The Beatles leave Candlestick Park On August 29, 1966 The Beatles played their last (official) live concert at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.  The Candlestick Park concert was on the surface the triumphant finale of another record-breaking tour. But as Paul McCartney has recently said, it also proved a crisis point: By then we were totally fed up and then they put us in the back of a stainless steel box { the armoured car they used to leave the Candlestick Park gig }...  Now this is like some weird sci-fi thing form 2001 or something. We’re suddenly sliding around in the back of the van...The guys, John [Lennon] and George [Harrison], had been a little {fed up} about touring and, finally, all of us, were like ‘Fuck this!’ So that was the moment. There was no public announcement and no definitive decision to stop all live performance at some point. But The Beatles would never play a scheduled concert again. Back to Abbey Road Liberated from their grueling tour...

Beatlemania  was the name given to the popular frenzy surrounding the Beatles … in 1963  Brittanica

John Lennon never showed much affection for The Beatles most celebrated album. Was this because the  Sergeant Pepper concept was Paul's?  Not according to what John says in this interview, recorded in 1971, at the height of his feud with his former song-writing partner: 

'We were cowards when we sacked him'  John Lennon

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. 

Graphic designer Viktor Hertz has created a remarkable tribute to The Beatles. Each pictogram represents a song.  How many Beatles songs can you identify?