Beatles News
In Forrest Gump, the title character goes on The Dick Cavett Show and inspires John Lennon’s “Imagine.” The scene makes it so that “Imagine” is inspired by Forrest’s experiences in Red China. John said the song was inspired by Yoko Ono and his feelings about religion.
John Lennon‘s “Imagine” has a big place in popular culture. For example, the song appears in the movie Forrest Gump. The song’s appearance in the film simply isn’t funny and undermines Yoko Ono’s place in history.
In a famous sequence from the film Forrest Gump, Forrest makes an appearance on The Dick Cavett Show. During his appearance, Forrest tells John about China, He remarks that the people have very few possessions and don’t go to church. John says that the people in that country have “no possessions” and “no religion.” Cavett says he can’t imagine a world like that. John says “it’s easy if you try.”
Source: Matthew Trzcinski/cheatsheet.com
John Lennon and Paul McCartney first met while growing up in Liverpool. While Lennon was slightly older than McCartney, the pair bonded over their shared love of music, and McCartney eventually joined John and his band. Paul had to prove to John he had talent, and he still remembers the song he played for his future bandmate to impress him.
Before The Beatles were even an idea, John Lennon was a member of The Quarrymen Skiffle Group. On July 6, 1957, the Quarrymen performed at the garden fete of St. Peter’s Church in Woolton, Liverpool. Lennon was the lead vocalist and guitarist for the band. In attendance at the performance was a young Paul McCartney. McCartney was beginning to develop a love of rock n’ roll and was thrilled that there was a group around his age in his hometown.
In an interview with Record Collector, McCartney recalled Lennon performing an improvised version of “Come Go With Me”, where he only knew the chorus and made up the rest. He was the only “outstanding member,” as the rest seemed to blend in the background.
Source: Ross Tanenbaum/cheatsheet.com
George Harrison used a sitar on a song from The Beatles’ Rubber Soul. He said the sitar wasn’t good. A famous sitar played had mixed feelings on the song in question.
George Harrison took issue with an instrument he used in a song from The Beatles’ Rubber Soul. In addition, Indian musician Ravi Shankar had mixed feelings about the song. Despite these opinions, Rubber Soul became a big hit in the United States and the United Kingdom.The book George Harrison on George Harrison: Interviews and Encounters includes an interview with George and Shankar from 1997. In it, George discussed the origin of The Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown).” He said the Fab Four were open to taking influence from a variety of sources at the time, including avant-garde music. He revealed the other Beatles liked when George includes a sitar on “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown).”
Source: Matthew Trzcinski/cheatsheet.com
George Harrison did write several great songs for The Beatles, but “Something” was the most successful track he wrote for the band. Many listeners were awed by Harrison’s sweeping love ballad, and many musicians were impressed by Harrison’s work. The track has been covered hundreds of times, and Harrison once named his favorite cover of his Beatles hit.
Harrison didn’t contribute the same number of songs for The Beatles as Paul McCartney and John Lennon did, but he did have a few great tracks, such as “Here Comes the Sun” and “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”. However, “Something” is the biggest hit he wrote for The Beatles. Released as a double A-side single with “Come Together”, “Something” topped the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in 1969.
It was also included on Abbey Road, a massive chart success. Many other musicians loved the song and decided to record their own versions. Artists who covered it include Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, James Brown, Smokey Robinson, and Elvis Presley. Sinatra once declared it as “the greatest love song of the past 50 years.”
Source: Ross Tanenbaum/cheatsheet.com
The Beatles experimented with many different styles of music. “Yer Blues” was the band’s attempt at an American blues song, while songs like “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” saw the band capturing a more folkish sound. One Beatles song Paul McCartney said he and John Lennon wrote in a “waltz time.”
While many songs by The Beatles are credited to the Lennon-McCartney duo, the pair stopped collaborating as often in the band’s later years. The band started writing together on their earliest hits, like “I Saw Her Standing There” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” However, by 1964, the two were starting to work more independently.
“Baby’s in Black” is a song from 1964’s Beatles for Sale. It’s one of the last songs McCartney and Lennon worked on together. In Many Years From Now, McCartney told Barry Miles that the song was a collaborative effort between the two bandmates.
Source: Ross Tanenbaum/cheatsheet.com
Paul McCartney and George Harrison were the two youngest Beatles, and they formed a friendship before they were in a band together. By the time The Beatles broke up, their relationship had disintegrated. Harrison was tired of the way both McCartney and John Lennon treated him, but he reserved most of his ire for McCartney. This was because McCartney viewed Harrison as his younger brother.
McCartney and Harrison met on the bus to school. They were a year apart, but they bonded over their love of music.
“I knew George from the bus,” McCartney said, per The Beatles Anthology. “Before I went to live in Allerton, I lived in Speke. We lived on an estate which they used to call the Trading Estate. (I understand now that they were trying to move industry there to provide jobs, but then we didn’t ever consider why it was called a trading estate.) George was a bus stop away. I would get on the bus for school and he would get on the stop after.”
Source: Emma McKee/cheatsheet.com
Most of The Beatles’ hits came out in the 1960s. The group had a few hits in the 1970s, including the earlier song “Got to Get You Into My Life.” The band had one big hit in the 1980s and two big hits in the 1990s.
The Beatles released hits in the 1960s, the 1970s, the 1980s, and the 1990s. Some of those songs were hits during their initial run as a band. On the other hand, some Beatles songs were hits after the group disbanded.The Beatles were together from 1960 to 1970. Thus, the 1960s were undeniably their heydey as a group. During that decade, they released hits of every flavor. Their first No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 was “I Want to Hold Your Hand.”
Subsequently, they had 17 more No. 1 singles on the chart in the 1960s, the final one being “Come Together”/”Something.” Notably, Billboard counted those two songs as one single. In addition, many of their other songs became hits without reaching No. 1, including “Yellow Submarine,” “Day Tripper,” and “Strawberry Fields Forever.”
Source: Matthew Trzcinski/cheatsheet.com
On May 8, 1970, The Beatles released their iconic album Let It Be. To mark the occasion, we're revisiting Pat Carty's deep-dive into the album, following the release of the 2021 Super Deluxe Edition...Is there such a thing as a runt in The Beatles’ litter? A ridiculous notion really when we’re talking about perhaps the most perfect discography in music but I do remember a journalist – a noble breed against whom I won’t countenance an ill word – saying something along the lines of how Let It Be was often the first Beatles record people bought – because of the cover – and it’s the worst one. Spitting out this class of rot – that it’s the “worst one” – is a bit like grumbling about a Himalayan peak that isn’t quite as tall as the others; it’s still pretty impressive, it’s still The Beatles.
Source: Pat Carty/hotpress.com
Paul McCartney said he avoided solos after his first performance with John Lennon, and Ringo Starr avoided them for his entire time with The Beatles. Lengthy instrumental solos aren’t necessarily a fundamental part of The Beatles’ sound, perhaps because half the members didn’t like them. The reasons they wanted to avoid solos were different, though.
When McCartney joined Lennon’s band, the Quarry Men, he had a chance to play a guitar solo during his first-ever performance with the band. He nailed the part during rehearsals but couldn’t get through it onstage.
“For my first gig, I was given a guitar solo on ‘Guitar Boogie,'” McCartney said, per The Beatles Anthology. “I could play it easily in rehearsal, so they elected that I should do it as my solo. Things were going fine, but when the moment came in the performance, I got sticky fingers; I thought, ‘What am I doing here?’ I was just too frightened; it was too big a moment with everyone looking at the guitar player. I couldn’t do it. (I never played a solo again until a few years ago). That’s why George was brought in.”
Source: Emma McKee/cheatsheet.com
When the Beatles officially broke up in 1970, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr were changed for good. They’d all been part of the most famous band in the world. Now what? Lennon had creative plans with Yoko Ono. But what about the rest of the fab four? McCartney once admitted that he felt lost after the band parted ways. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to continue with music at all.
In March 2023, McCartney answered a question on his website from a fan about the biggest risk he’s taken in his career. One of the biggest risks McCartney took, he answered, was continuing on with music after The Beatles.
“The main question I had was whether to keep going after The Beatles,” he wrote, “because it was a hard act — some might say, an impossible act — to follow.”
The combination of Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and Starr was like catching lightning in a bottle. Together, they were something astoundingly special. There’s no way the next project could produce that kind of magic.
Source: Kelsey Goeres/cheatsheet.com
