Beatles FAQ

Beatles final meeting? The last time we can be certain that all four Beatles met together was for the final recording sessions for  Abbey Road. This   took place between on Wednesday 20 August, when various tracks were finished, including 'Here Comes the Sun' and, fittingly 'The End'.  Two days later they completed their final final official engagement together - a photoshoot which was held at the new Lennon-Ono residence Tittenhurst Park in Ascot - see here .   At the end, they wandered away in different directions.  The Meeting With recording duties completed, they were pretty much done. Only a final round of business meetings forced them them to meet again.  The key one was on September 20. This was when Alan Klein, now representing John, Paul and Ringo presented the new contract he had negotiated with Capitol Records.  George was absent. Despite the smiling publicity shot, the atmosphere was tense. At one point John announced that he was leaving The Beatles.  The no

The Beatles famously brought LSD to public attention. Less well known is that George Harrison became rapidly disillusioned about the effects of the drug on young people exposed to it. His last LSD trip was in the late summer of 1967. In Anthology , George confirms Derek Taylor's earlier revelation it that was a trip of the legal type that  changed his perspective.  In August 1967 he made an impromptu personal visit to Haight Ashbury, San Francisco. This was the epicentre of the supposed cultural revolution but what greeted was sordid and threatening.  We were expecting Haight-Ashbury to be special, a creative and artistic place, filled with Beautiful People, but it was horrible - full of ghastly drop-outs, bums and spotty youths, all out of their brains .    Source With the crowd building, Taylor began to fear for their physical safety: Read full story - 3 minute free read on Medium

  Despite their local success in Liverpool and Hamburg — and Brian Epstein’s best efforts — The Beatles struggled to get their first recording contract.

The last time The Beatles played together for an audience was in the famous rooftop performance in January 1969. This was not, however, a concert in the conventional sense, with tickets available to the public.  August 29th, 1966 — Candlestick Park in San Francisco The Beatles’ last ever US date proved a downbeat occasion. It was held in the Giants stadium, a particularly unsuitable venue. A huge fence separated the crowd from the band and there were chaotic dressing room arrangements. Despite the continuing popularity of the band, only 25,000 of the 42,000 seats were sold — partly because of high prices. The disconnect between young fans and now forbiddingly remote idols is made apparent by concert’s compere ‘Emperor’ Gene Nelson: Candlestick Park in August, at night, was cold, foggy and windy. …The Beatles were taking their time to get out. I was trying to entertain a crowd that was shouting, ‘Beatles, Beatles, Beatles.’ The dressing room was chaos. There were loads of people there.

Nam Ngô Composition has always been  an instinctive process for Paul McCartney, with inspiration coming from unlikely sources:

  John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote a large number of songs in their teens - up to 200 according to some estimates. Many disappeared without trace - a Wimpole Street spring clean by Jane Asher put paid to a pile written on scrap paper.  Others, like Lennon's  'Hello Little Girl' f eatured in their live act but were then given to other artists to cover. These were generally off-cuts not deemed quite up to scratch, though arguably some like   'World Without Love ' and ' Love of the Loved'  deserved a seat at the top table.  Songs revived and recorded By  Beatles For Sale  Lennon & McCartney were exhausted and running out of new material. At this point Paul revisited  'I'll Follow the Sun'  which he had written in the year following his mother's death. “I wrote that in my front parlour in Forthlin Road,” McCartney told Mark Lewishon. “I remember standing in the parlour, with my guitar, looking out through the lace curtains of the window,

John Lennon teases clue seekers and his bandmate  Written days after the death of Brian Epstein, the lyrics of 'I am the Walrus' have confused everyone, including their author - read full story here In his 1971  Rolling Stone  interview, Lennon tries to explain the McCartney reference in Glass Onion:  Here's another clue for you all. The Walrus was Paul.  Is Lennon teasing his bandmate? Or having a pop at the rapidly growing army of conspiracy theorists? Interestingly, Glass Onion was a genuine collaboration between John and Paul. The theme (an attack on the 'pseuds' over-interpreting Beatles' lyrics) sounds typical of Lennon but in fact came from McCartney. Their relationship was fraying but here they come together in a howl of complaint about how Beatles' lyrics were avidly scoured for hidden messages.   Ian Macdonald disapproves. He suggests that the 'sour A minor melody' and snarling tone of the song express the intent of they lyric" - a 

Worldwide sales of physical singles are difficult estimate accurately but we can say the following

John's harmonica playing was a key feature of several early Beatles tracks - most notably on Love Me Do and Please Please Me. By 1964 however, he was becoming increasingly wary of using it as a lead instrument. “So we started using [the harmonica] on ‘Love Me Do’,’ just for arrangement, because we used to work out arrangements … And then we stuck it on ‘Please Please Me’ George Martin liked the distinctive element that the harmonica added. He encouraged The Beatles to use it in the following two single. They did so reluctantly. and then we stuck it on ‘From Me to You,’ like that. … It went on and on, it got into the gimmick, and then we dropped it. It got embarrassing.” Dylan  There was another reason why the harmonica was became personally embarrassing for John Lennon. This was that Bob Dylan was so closely associated with the instrument. Lennon's musical relationship with Dylan was always uneasy. The harmonica was never fully put away, however. It plays a striking role in dri

Gets you a nice car, though Candle in the Wind/Goodbye England's Rose by Elton John is the fastest ever selling single in the UK o date. Released on the 13 September 1997, a week after the funeral of Princess Diana, it sold 658,000 in a single day. Over the week this figure rose to 1.55 million, but then fell rapidly. Profits for  Candle in the Wind/Goodbye England's Rose were donated to charity. It was not a commercial release in this respect - and has been treated as a memorial subsequently.  Can't Buy Me Love In terms of worldwide sales,  Can't Buy Me Lov e holds the Guinness World Record for the fastest selling single. The first new release following The Beatles visit to America in February 1964, its advanced sales were an unprecedented 2.7 million. Released on March 21, 1964, it was No. 1 for five weeks on the Billboard Hot 100. It  stayed on the chart for a further 10 weeks.  In the U.K, “Can’t Buy Me Love” peaked at No. 1 for 3 weeks on the official charts. But

He blew his mind out in a car  He didn't notice that the lights had changed A crowd of people stood and stared. They'd seen his face before Nobody was really sure. If he was from the House of Lords  A Day in the Life (Lennon & McCartney) While John Lennon was composing his section(s) of A Day in The Life, he had a copy of   The Daily Mail of 17th January 1967 open at the piano. This directly inspired the opening line .  I read the news today, oh boy. About a lucky man...   Lennon had a particular interest in the news that day through a personal connection to one of the stories. This concerned the coroner’s report on the death of  an Irish socialite, Tara Browne.  The Beatles had all known the young Guinness heir socially. He was a friend of Paul's brother, Mick and very close to Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones. The barbed reference to his wealth and privilege ('luck man') hints at an ambivalent attitude on the writer's part. On December 18 1966  Browne die

The Walrus and the Carpenter  -  illustrator  John Tenniel Sexual suggestion is present in several early Beatles songs ( Please, Please Me, Norwegian Wood, I Wanna be Your Man, From Me to You). They liked to insert rude jokes (the tit, tit,tit  backing vocal on Girl being a blatant example) while leaving room for  plausible deniability. Two lines in  I Am the Walrus,  the first new song written after the death of Brian Epstein   stepped across the unacknowledged line. Crabalocker fishwife,  pornographic priestess Boy, you’ve been a naughty girl, you let your  knickers  down No knickers It was the precise form of words rather than the lewd overtones that caused problems. The Beatles might have got away with  pornographic priestess  as word play but   knickers  was strictly  verboten .  The  BBC had Victorian standards of prudery  when it came to that item of clothing. The 'ban' consisted of playing the alternate A-side, Hello Goodbye, which was shorter and more radio friendly. F

Happy bunnies? The Beatles last photoshoot 22 August, 1969 By unknown,  Fair use ,  Legally, The Beatles were an entity until the group was formally dissolved on 29 December 1974.  Until that point John, Paul, George and Ringo were still technically Beatles. That said, from the summer of 1968 three of the four clearly had one eye on the exit.  The unravelling The death of Brian Epstein in August 1967 intensified internal band tension -  see here . Within a year, The Beatles story became an Agatha Christie plot, with all four on manoeuvres. Ringo briefly walked out in 1968, George did an even shorter flounce in January, 1969. John announced to all and sundry he wanted out after his Plastic Ono Band gig in Toronto in 1969. John later claimed to have been persuaded to delay his departure by Paul, who was still desperate to keep the band together. But by this point, even Mr Beatle was lawyering up for the coming divorce. In fact, it was McCartney who would be thought of as the man who ende

On 29 September, I967, John Lennon worked with George Martin and the Abbey Road sound engineers on a potential new Beatles single.

  “I’m a quarter Irish or half Irish or something,”  John Lennon On arrival at Dublin Airport in 1963 John Lennon declared to reporters. “We’re all Irish!”. Lennon was half-joking, and referring primarily to the reputation Liverpool as an historic centre of Irish immigration. No Beatle was eligible for an Irish passport or even selection for Jack Charlton's famously flexible Republic of Ireland soccer team. That said, President Biden regularly describes himself as 'Irish', sometimes even omitting to add 'American'. If we apply what might be termed Biden Rules (ancestors going back a generation or five)  then at leastthree of the Fab Four can climb aboard.  Read more   4 minutes on Medium - free

Despite their local success in Liverpool and Hamburg — and Brian Epstein’s best efforts — The Beatles struggled to get their first recording deal. Columbia, HMV, Pye, Philips, and Oriole all turned them down. Dick Rowe at Decca signed Brian Poole and the Tremeloes in preference, famously added insult to injury ‘Guitar groups are on the way out, Mr Epstein’. After the failure of the Decca audition, Brian Epstein was running out of options. Early in 1962 he managed to get a meeting with George Martin, the manager of Parlaphone Records, an eclectic label owned by EMI. Martin was more charmed by the Beatles manager than their music. “I wasn’t too impressed with the tape Brian Epstein had played me,” Martin  told Desert Island Discs in 1996 . “There was something there but I couldn’t find out whether it was worthwhile or not.” Read full story here   5 minute free read

'a combination of Roy Orbison and Bing Crosby' with improvements via George Martin

Was Please Please Me The Beatles first UK Number One? At the end of the lengthy recording session for the single version of Please Please Me  George Martin turned to The Beatles and said, 'Gentlemen, you have your first Number One!' George was rarely wrong about anything but in this case the jury is still out. 

I n February 1964 The Beatles arrived at  Kennedy Airport on their first official visit. For three of the four member of the group their first experience of the USA was the sight and sound of thousands of screaming fan. Only George Harrison had crossed the Atlantic Ocean before, on a solo visit five months earlier. In September 1963, The Beatles were given a short break in their manic schedule. While the others holidayed in Europe, George Harrison travelled to rural Illinois to visit his older sister, Louise,. Accompanied by his brother, Peter, George flew to New York and then on to St Louis. Louise then drove her brothers to her new family home in Benton, Illinois (pop.7,000). George with his siblings and niece in Benton, Illinois On the day of his arrival in Benton, The Beatles reached Number One in the UK record charts with She Loves You. But in the USA they had not yet charted and were almost completely unknown in America. There were no fan awaiting him at either airport and this w

    The Beatles first flew into New York in February 1964. They had what to many American ears was a charmingly fresh approach to the  English language.  Interestingly, this came across more in their spoken interviews than their lyrics. Early Beatles songs consciously followed the established 'American' style: 'I Wanna Be Your Man'.  In fact 'I want to hold your hand' (sung wanna)  arose from a direct request from Brian Epstein for a single tailored to the US market.  Atlantic Crossing Success gave The Beatles to licence (or license!) to 'Act Naturally' as Ringo sings. By the mid-Sixties British cultural and linguistic references permeate their song lyrics. Here are a small selection:  '...crawled off to sleep in the bath' ( from Norwegian Wood). This refers directly to the bathtub rather than the room. the (UK)  National Health Service  (from ‘Dr Robert’)  '...the  News of the World  (newspaper notorious for sex scandal stories  from ‘Polyt