Beatles FAQ

 It’s a throwaway, a piece of garbage...from a Kellogg’s cereal commercial. I always had the TV on very low in the background when I was writing and it came over ...{ i n this } song .  During his Weybridge years, John Lennon was a British version of Benjamin Braddock in  The Graduate  (1967). Though extraordinarily privileged in material terms he felt alienated: a rich, successful young man angry at the suburban world he found himself in. This anger was largely expressed through petty acts of passive aggression against those surrounding him.   In the conventional Beatles narrative, John Lennon was the wild man, with an artistic bent and a taste for the avant garde.  Paul, in contrast, was the son-in-law choice: cute, sensible and with the common touch.  In reality, the roles were reversed. McCartney spent his Beatle downtime careering around  Swinging London in his Mini Cooper, the pop world's Toad of Toad Hall. He was a fixture of the hip c...

Indian restaurant scene from Help! (1965 The first time George Harrison saw a sitar was on the set of Help in April 1965. A group of Indian musicians had been recruited to add an authentic Indian ambience to the restaurant scene. They played a  a Beatles medley ('Another Hard Day’s Night')   using  sitar, flute, tabla, ghunghroo and tanpura.  These session musicians performing Beatles songs in an Indian style were also being employed for comic effect but to his surprise, Harrison found himself entranced by the sound. ‘George was fascinated by the instruments they used,’ John Lennon later reported. He wanted to hear more and over the next few months Harrison began researching traditional Indian music.  Ravi Shankar The Beatles guitarist discussed his new interest with David Crosby, who toured the UK with The Byrds in August 1965. Crosby told him about Ravi Shankar, then virtually unknown outside India. Crosby also lent Harrison a Shankar LP that he ‘carried in hi...

  Mount Pleasant Registry Office, Liverpool. August 23rd 1962

We were the best live band in the world before we were famous. Nobody could touch us  John Lennon.

  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' 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 their song put it.  They were influenced by Dylan's looser 'freewheeling' approach but could not draw on the same Americana heritage, even at one remove. We now know that Dylan was not a former f reight-train riding  hobo but he looked the part. Part of the appeal of The Beatles was that they loved America but clearly did not come from it. Made in Britain On occasion Paul McCartney did write in a directly A...

 

The B842, Kintyre, Scotland

Tamla Motown was a key influence on the early Beatles sound.  They covered Tamla tracks like PLEASE MR POSTMAN and wrote songs in a similar style. THIS BOY (1963) for example is what George Harrison called 'John doing Smokey'. GOT TO GET YOU INTO MY LIFE (1966) is a later homage, first released on Revolver. It is one  of Paul McCartney's most joyful and exuberant compositions, and perhaps The Beatles most danceable recordings. Even the hard-to-please Mr Lennon hailed it 'as on of Paul's best songs.  Early studio versions, however, lacked energy and punch.  It was the introduction of Memphis Stax-style horns that gave the song a new drive.  Earth, Wind and Fire pick up on this dynamism in their 1978 cover. They give it the song treatment, amplifying the horns and harmonies in an exhilarating arrangement. Memphis or Haight Ashbury Wisely, they do not draw attention to the writer's revelation that the 'she' in the lyric is marijuana. "It's actual...