Beatles FAQ

Pete Best was sacked from The Beatles in August 1962. Because he did not write any of their material, he has never received royalties. For thirty-three years, he  received no income for the recordings he made with The Beatles 

'We were cowards when we sacked him,'  John Lennon The  Beatles replaced their drummer,  Pete Best , with Ringo Starr in August 1962 . 

None of the Beatles could read or write music. And before the Internet, there were no YouTube videos to watch or chord sheets to print off.

The Beatles leave Candlestick Park The Beatles' last live performance was famously on a rooftop on Savile Row in early 1969. But their last (ticketed) concert came 3 months earlier on the other side of the Atlantic.

  The Beatles only visited Japan once, arriving in the early hours of June 1966 and departing three days later. They played five concerts at the Nippon Budokan Arena . The tour faced serious challenges.

   There are six non-original songs on the first Beatles' LP:  Please Please Me/Introducing the Beatles .

  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 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 Holly 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 co...

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