Beatles FAQ

Julia Lennon  (née Stanley) gave birth to her first child, John Winston Lennon, at Liverpool Maternity Hospital during the early hours of 9 October, 1940.  

  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’:

Paul soon abandoned the trumpet

Tabla - traditional Indian instrument

  The name change from the original The Quarry Men to The Beatles went through many stages and spellings. Some ludicrous options were considered or even used on occasion. Johnny and the Moondogs, the Beatals, the Silver Beetles, and the Silver Beats are notorious examples.  None of these monikers was as bad as The Beat Brothers. Yet this was the name that appeared on the first records John, Paul, George (and Pete) recorded for Polydor in 1961.  Tony Sheridan German Polydor producer (and celebrated musician) Bert Kaempfert wanted to cash in on Tony Sheridan's (modest) fame.  Sheridan, very shrewd in most musical matters, had old-school preconceptions about showbiz names.  He dropped his own real surname (McGinnity) when first appearing on Ready Steady Go. The Beat Brothers, he argued, would have more market appeal than the weird-sounding The Beatles. Subsequent record sales spectacularly refuted this thesis.  Tony Sheridan and the Beat Boys  - Beat...

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...

Three female songwriters have co-credits on songs covered by The Beatles

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