Beatles FAQ

  Julia Stanley first met Alfred (aka Alf/Fred/Freddie) Lennon in 1929, when she was fifteen and he was two years older.   They met in Sefton Park, exchanging come banter from the start. Both worked in junior office jobs and superficially had similar temperaments. Julia was vivacious, fun loving, a natural rebel.  Alf was a popular with his peers, ‘a rascal. An  absolute  character’ said one pal. There was also a shared musicality. Julia loved singing and played banjo. Alf sang, specialising in comedy songs and comically mangling the words of standards. Like his brothers - and later his son - Alf played the harmonica - the 'mouth iron' as it was known in Liverpool. Too Common? The rebel meets rascal combination did not go down well with Julia’s family: the tight-knit Stanley clan. They saw Alf as ‘low’ - and they were not referring to his diminutive stature (he was 5.3”)   The Stanleys always believed they were several notches above the Lennons, claiming better breeding, educat

When I taught myself piano I liked to see how far I could go, and this started life almost as a piece you’d learn as a piano lesson. It’s quite hard for me to play, it’s a two-handed thing, like a little set piece .... I wrote it as that, something a bit more complex for me to play’    Paul McCartne y Many Years From Now, Barry Miles Paul dabbled with the piano since early childhood when he listened to his father play in the family living room. As with every other instrument, he did not use sheet music but learned by exploration  and experimentation. While he lodged with the Asher family,  (1964/66) he began devising his own exercises. One of these would end up on The Beatles - better known as the White Album Words The love object of Martha My Dear is in the photo Then while I was blocking out words – you just mouth out sounds and some things come – I found the words ‘Martha my dear’. Many assumed that 'Martha' was Jane Asher. Others suspected it was one of the other glamorous

 Outside the Southern Cross Hotel in Melbourne, June 1964. An estimated 300,000 greeted The Beatles in Melbourne in June 1964. The Queen had only attracted half that number the preceding year. Aussie Beatlemania was particularly intense for the Melbourne stop because it marked the return of Ringo.  The drummer had been hospitalised a few days before  the start of the tour. This had caused consternation amongst Beatle fans, but now he was climbing off his sickbed in London to join his buddies down under. It proved a difficult journey.  The flight was horrendous... It’s... a hell of a long way. I remember the plane felt like a disaster area to me. Fans  clearly thought the effort worthwhile. Replacement drummer, Jimmy Nichol was less thrilled. He was sent back to London and obscurity, after a few weeks in the celebrity sun - read more .

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash   This ghastly miscalculation ... represents by far {McCartney's} worst lapse of taste under the auspices of The Beatles.    Ian MacDonald The Revolution in the Head Maxwell’s Silver Hammer belongs to a very niche musical tradition: the cheerful murder sing-along. There is also speculation that the lyric was influenced by the murder of Joe Orton, who spent an evening with McCartney some months before his death.  Read More

Photo by  Daniel Cheung  on  Unsplash ‘I hate it!’ John Lennon. ‘The worst session ever’ Ringo Starr “If any single recording shows why The Beatles broke up, it’s ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’.” Ian MacDonald The Revolution in the Head  “They got annoyed because Maxwell’s Silver Hammer took three days to record. Big deal.” Paul McCartney.   Read More What inspired Maxwell's Silver Hammer? 

Even at the height of his fame, Paul McCartney enjoyed writing songs for other artists, especially female singers. Often, he did this unbidden, offering Cilla Black Step Inside Love for her first TV show, for example. He was also the most musically adventurous of The Beatles - and eclectic in his taste.  He first heard Those Were the Days in The Blue Angel club in London. The singer was Gene Raskin, a New York-based folk singer with Russian roots. McCartney liked the song and offered to produce a recording by Mary Hopkins, a young Welsh folk singer recently signed by the new Apple label.  Copyright McCartney assumed that  Those Were the Days  had been written by Raskin. In fact, the copyright situation was complex and would become the subject of a legal battle.  The tune is that of the  Russian romance song "Dorogoi dlinnoyu" [ ru ]("Дорогой длинною" Tr: "By the long road").  This may be considered tradtional, though it is sometimes credited to Boris Fom

Photo by  Fleur  on  Unsplash In March 1967 John and Paul were under pressure to produce the final tracks for Sergeant Pepper. They decided to have what would now be called a brainstorming session at John's house. According to Hunter Davies, this was a bewilderingly casual event in which they spent much of the time flicking through magazines. From time to time they would sing out phrases or pick out bits of tunes at the piano. Ian Macdonald speculates that there was some method at work in that 'both writers 'found inspiration in moments where their conscious minds had fallen into abeyance.' Whatever the strategy, it worked.  By the end of the day McCartney had a new song, 'The Fool on the Hill'. Lennon, meanwhile, plugged away at the chords to a tune with the working title Badfinger Boogie.  This reflection on on a minor injury would eventually became better known as 'With a Little Help From My Friends'