Beatles News
John Lennon’s first marriage to Cynthia Lennon lasted from 1962 to 1968. It ended quickly after she caught him cheating on her with his next wife, Yoko Ono. Even before that, their marriage still had problems, and one Beatles song written by John Lennon featured subliminal messages that their marriage was in trouble.
“Good Morning, Good Morning” debuted on 1967’s Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. While the album featured The Beatles being more experimental and surreal, John Lennon’s personal life still found life within his lyrics. Lennon got divorced one year after this song debuted, and his marital troubles were infused with his music.
In Barry Miles’ biography Many Years From Now, Paul McCartney said Lennon felt “trapped” in his relationship with Cynthia. He was bored with his life and found inspiration from a soap opera he watched called Meet the Wife.
“This is largely John’s song,” McCartney shared. “John was feeling trapped in suburbia and was going through some problems with Cynthia. It was about his boring life at the time, there’s reference in the lyrics to ‘nothing to do’ and ‘meet the wife;’ there was an afternoon TV soap called Meet the Wife that John watched, he was that bored, but I think he was also starting to get alarm bells and so ‘Good morning, good morning.’”
Source: Ross Tanenbaum/cheatsheet.com
Linda McCartney is most famously known as the first wife of The Beatles' Paul McCartney, and in a way, that's kind of sad. Before marrying, she had the kind of career that most people can only dream of, and as a photographer for rock's elite, she got up close and personal with groups like the Rolling Stones and the Who. She was so well-known in the photography and rock world that when rumors started circulating that she — originally Linda Eastman — was related to the famous Eastman-Kodak operation, everyone just kind of accepted it because that seemed to track. (She's not: Further rumor has it that she started the story herself.)
Source: DB Kelly/grunge.com
Paul McCartney dedicated many of his greatest love songs to his first wife, Linda. However, not every aspect of their relationship was perfect, and they did have their arguments, as every marriage does. One fight gave Paul McCartney the inspiration he needed to write one of his biggest hits.
“Ebony and Ivory” was released in 1982 as the lead single for McCartney’s Tug of War album. The song featured Stevie Wonder, and it quickly became one of the most successful tracks of the former Beatle’s solo career. However, its origin may come from an unexpected place.
In an interview with Record Collector, Paul McCartney discussed how writing songs works as a form of therapy for him. When he suffered from the “teenage blues,” he’d go off with his guitar and write a song. This method carried over into his adulthood, and “Ebony and Ivory” came from him blowing off steam after a fight with Linda.
Source: Ross Tanenbaum/cheatsheet.com
In 1967, The Beatles released Magical Mystery Tour, a film that George Harrison admittedly found confusing. He said that the movie was half-baked. They didn’t have a director, a script, or even a completely solid idea of what they wanted to make. Harrison said he never had any idea what he was doing on set. Still, he believed that the project ended up helping the band.
The Beatles released Magical Mystery Tour in 1967. The film follows a group of people on a bus tour. While the band understood the premise, they didn’t have a script. Harrison admitted that this made it difficult to understand what was happening.
“It was basically a charabanc trip, which people used to go on from Liverpool to see the Blackpool lights — they’d get loads of crates of beer and all get pissed (in the English sense),” he said in The Beatles Anthology. “It was very flimsy, and we had no idea what we were doing. At least, I didn’t. I had no idea what was happening, and maybe I didn’t pay enough attention because my problem, basically, was that I was in another world.”
Source:Emma McKee/cheatsheet.com
Though John Lennon’s mother wasn’t around for much of his childhood, they’d become close in his teen years. He was in a band called the Quarrymen (along with Paul McCartney) at the time of his mother’s death. Just months prior, he had told McCartney: “How can you sit there and act normal with your mother dead? If anything like that happened to me, I’d go off me head.” Then Julia Lennon was hit by a car driven by an off-duty police officer. After that, Lennon did all but lose his head. In 1958, Lennon was still living mostly with his Aunt Mimi, but staying at his mother’s house sometimes as well. One evening when John was out with a friend, Julia came over to her sister’s for dinner. She left to catch the bus around twilight. At the same time, John’s friend Nigel Whalley made his way over to Mimi’s to see if his friend was there. He ran into Julia just outside of Mimi’s and the two chatted for a bit. They said goodbye and Julia started for the bus again. When she was about 200 yards from her sister’s house, she was hit by a car.
Source: Kelsey Goeres/cheatsheet.com
Paul McCartney has taken a trip back to the early days of “Beatlemania,” with his first book of original Beatles photos, titled, 1964: Eyes Of The Storm. The tome, which will be published on June 13th, features 275-shots of long unseen “Macca” photographs spotlighting six city portfolios — Liverpool, London, Paris, New York, Washington, D.C. and Miami — along with McCartney's personal recollections of the photos.
Rolling Stone quoted McCartney talking about the book, which covers November 1963 to February 1964, as saying: “Looking at these photos now, decades after they were taken, I find there’s a sort of innocence about them. Everything was new to us at this point. But I like to think I wouldn’t take them any differently today. They now bring back so many stories, a flood of special memories, which is one of the many reasons I love them all, and know that they will always fire my imagination. The fact that these photographs have been taken by the National Portrait Gallery is humbling yet also astonishing — I’m looking forward to seeing them on the walls, 60 years on.”
Source: Music News/myradiolink.com
The Beatles’ “Please Please Me” was a collaboration between John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Paul said “Please Please Me” was an example of The Beatles stealing from American artists. “Please Please Me” was a bigger hit in the United Kingdom than it was in the United States.
Paul McCartney said The Beatles‘ “Please Please Me” was inspired by an American rock ‘n’ roll star. Paul said the song was originally slower to mimic that star’s style. Subsequently, The Beatles’ producer had a different vision for the track.In the 1997 book Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now, Paul revealed “Please Please Me” was inspired by Roy Orbison. “If you imagine it much slower, which is how John wrote it, it’s got everything, the big high notes, all the hallmarks of an Orbison song,” he said. “But in the session, George Martin suggested we lifted the tempo and suddenly there was that fast Beatles spirit.”
Source: Matthew Trzcinski/cheatsheet.com
The Beatles are often regarded as the greatest and most influential band in the history of music. They captured the hearts of millions with their incredible talent and creativity. Throughout their iconic discography, they showcased an expansive range of emotions and themes.
While the upbeat, feel-good songs may be the first to come to mind, there exists a poignant collection of melancholic masterpieces.
In this article, we will explore 10 of the saddest Beatles songs of all time. These touching tracks have become pillars of comfort for people throughout the years. And we hope to show you the emotionality and vulnerability embedded in each piece. On that note, let us go right into the list.
Source: hellomusictheory.com
It's been more than 60 years since the Beatles played the Coventry Theatre, their first live show in the city. Gwen Danks was 14 and would wait outside the venue on Sunday afternoons waiting for autographs.
Now 74 and known as Gwen Payne, she remembers waiting outside and suddenly seeing George Harrison in a car. She managed to snap black and white photographs on the 'cheap plastic camera' she had appropriated from brother Graham.
Now, these never-before-seen snapshots and autographs are going under the hammer at a Midlands auction.
Now a grandmother-of-one who has lived her whole life in Coventry, Gwen's autograph book is packed with the signatures of dozens more 1960s stars including Dusty Springfield, Cliff Richard, The Kinks, Helen Shapiro and Cilla Black. That book and the photos are estimated to fetch £3,000 to £4,000 with Richard Winterton Auctioneers on Tuesday, June 6.
1963 was a pivotal year for the Beatles as John, Paul, George and Ringo consolidated their position as the UK’s number one band.
Source: Rachel Stretton/coventrytelegraph.net
Ringo Starr is back touring and he wouldn’t have it any other wayRingo Starr is feeling 'ready to rock' ahead of his U.S. tour with his All-Starr BandThe two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee recently spoke to CNN about his current tour with his All-Starr Band.“We all have a lot of fun. I mean, I love to play, you know, as a drummer it’s pretty awkward to go out just on your stage on your own. You need a few guitars and I call up friends … I had to stop calling people, otherwise, we’d been like an orchestra.”The band is considered a rock supergroup, with a rotating lineup of Starr’s musician buddies that has featured everyone from its current members like Colin Hay to former members Joe Walsh and Billy Preston.Last year, Starr had to pause his North American tour after testing positive for COVID-19. The tour, which is primarily taking part on the West Coast with dates in states like California, Arizona and Nevada, will wrap up on June 17.
Source: Chloe Melas, CNN/kcra.com
