Beatles News
The closest the Beatles ever got to reuniting in the studio during John Lennon's lifetime was on Ringo, Ringo Starr's third solo album. It was released in the U.K. on Nov. 23, 1973, and soared to the top of the charts and became the drummer's only platinum solo LP.
Starr, Lennon and George Harrison gathered in Los Angeles on March 12, 1973, along with longtime Beatle buddies Billy Preston (a sideman on 1970's Let It Be) and Klaus Voormann (who drew the cover art for 1966's Revolver), to record the Lennon-composed album track "I'm the Greatest."
"We were like big girls again," Starr told Bill Minkin in 1977. "We were all looking at each other smiling. We hadn’t played together in four years. We were just smiling while we were playing. It was nice."
Source: Nick DeRiso/ultimateclassicrock.com
This coming July 7, Ringo Starr will celebrate his 84th birthday — and as is his custom, the Beatles legend will do so with a series of global celebrations with fans all over the world.
It’s his annual Peace & Love birthday event, and will find Ringo gathering with friends and loved ones.
Per a news release, Ringo and his wife Barbara Starkey will be joined on his birthday by family and friends, including Joe and Marjorie Walsh, Fred Armisen, Ed Begley Jr, Gregg Bissonette, Ben Dickey, Steve Dudas, Ben Harper, Greg Leisz, Asa & Roy Orbison Jr, Matt Sorum, Stephen Stills, Nick Valensi, Diane Warren, Don Was, Willie Watson, Gabe Witcher and more.
They will gather together in Los Angeles for Ringo’s annual Peace & Love Birthday event, and at Noon give the traditional “Peace and Love” exclamation. NASA continues to support spreading the message to and from the universe, including messages of Peace & Love on their socials from across the solar system.
And here’s a list of all the countries expected to take part in the “Peace and Love” celebration at noon local time:
Source: rockcellarmagazine.com
It is perfectly fine that John Lennon’s 1973 album, Mind Games, will be released July 12, 2024, in six (count ’em—six) different mixes—including a “super deluxe box” priced at a mind-blowing $1,350 that is limited to 1,000 copies, but…
Why re-re-re-release a 50-year-old second-tier Lennon album (except for the title track, and “Intuition” and “Meat City,” in this writer’s opinion), when an album or two of entirely new Lennon songs could be issued instead?
What? New Lennon songs? Yes.
Artificial intelligence “demixing” technology now enables all of Lennon’s home tapes from the ’70s to be upgraded to studio quality, or close to it, as was demonstrated by “the last Beatles song,” as Paul McCartney dubbed the Lennon composition “Now and Then,” released in November 2023. The terrible quality home cassette of “Now and Then” (abandoned as the proposed third reunion Beatles track in 1995) was AI-stripped of electronic buzz, echoey piano and background TV noise, leaving Lennon’s vocal pristine and beautiful.
This is not to suggest that all the home tapes simply be AI-improved and released. It is to say that these demos, usually done with nothing more than a handheld recorder, now invite completion with full arrangements, musicians, harmony vocals, bells and whistles.
The cache of tapes, made mostly during Lennon’s so-called “house husband” years from 1975 to 1980, are legendary. Many were aired on The Lost Lennon Tapes radio series in the ’80s, and have turned up on bootlegs. There are complete songs, partial songs, early versions of works later finished very differently. There are ballads (“That’s the Way the World Is”), anthems (“Gone From This Place”), jokes (the biting “Serve Yourself” parody of Bob Dylan—released on the Lennon “Signature” boxed set), complete songs (“She’s a Friend of Dorothy,” “You Saved My Soul,” “One of the Boys,” many others).
Source: Rip Rense/bestclassicbands.com
We tend to think of George Harrison in terms of his spiritual questing. But Harrison wasn’t immune to the pressures of the “material world,” as he dubbed it. Those concerns came rising to the fore on his scathing 1973 song “Sue Me, Sue You Blues.”
What is the song about? And what events that were transpiring in his life inspired Harrison to write it? Here is the story about what caused George Harrison to sing the “Sue Me, Sue You Blues.”
Material Concerns
George Harrison went for the brass ring on his 1970 triple-album All Things Must Pass, and he achieved massive success on both critical and commercial levels. But by the time he was ready to follow it up in 1973, some of those good vibes had curdled in the wake of personal problems. To start, his marriage to first wife Olivia had deteriorated. (The pair would separate in 1974.)
It was also hard for Harrison to derive much joy from the musical triumph he had shared, in part because an excess of litigation tied to his profession swamped him. This was the time period when he was joined by John Lennon and Ringo Starr in opposition to Paul McCartney over how The Beatles’ affairs would be settled.
Source:Jim Beviglia/americansongwriter.com
For a song to last and survive the test of time, it must be relatable and relevant over generations. As technology evolves at an ever-increasing rate, things we are accustomed to change and become obsolete. Typewriters, newspapers, payphones, and fold-up maps fall into this category. To avoid becoming irrelevant, songs can be about the four basic elements: earth, water, fire, and air. Many songwriters have utilized these in metaphors or similes.
Writing about the sun will, hopefully, be timeless. “Sunshine of Your Love,” “Ain’t No Sunshine,” and “Here Comes the Sun” are just a few of the many popular songs that compare the hot glowing ball of hydrogen and helium with the happiness and contentment of a relationship. Let’s take a look at the story behind “Good Day Sunshine” by The Beatles.
The summer of 1966 was one of the hottest on record up to that time. U.S. States east of the Rocky Mountains were hit the hardest. The Beatles toured America in August. They had some famous visitors during their New York City appearance at Shea Stadium. Paul McCartney talked with author Paul Du Noyer in his 2015 book Conversations with McCartney: “Backstage there was a buzz. New York bands like the Young Rascals coming round, The Lovin’ Spoonful, the local guys, who we were fans of. That was the nice thing about the sixties. We all loved each other’s records. We were all starting out on this career, and we admired each other.”
Source: Jay McDowell/americansongwriter.com
The Beatles’ 1965 “double A-side” release of “We Can Work It Out” and “Day Tripper” might be a catchy testament to the band’s early years of jangly rock and roll, but it also served as a vinyl memento of one of the band’s most stressful songs they ever had to write.
Although “Day Tripper” is now undeniably in the list of the Fab Four’s most iconic, anthemic tracks, it didn’t come as easy as other ‘Rubber Soul’ tracks like “Nowhere Man” or “I’m Looking Through You.” As John Lennon later said in Anthology, the band wrote the song “under complete pressure.” The Band Wrote “Day Tripper” To Fulfill Label Requirements
The Beatles might’ve been a cohesive, artistic force of a band in the mid-1960s. But they were also a business—a highly profitable one at that—and the management team of that business expected the artists to meet deadlines and make sales quotes whenever necessary. Such was the case for the Fab Four ahead of the 1965 Christmas season.
One year after the band released the split featuring “We Can Work It Out” and “Day Tripper,” John Lennon and Paul McCartney admitted that the latter song was a “forced” composition (via The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions).
Source: Melanie Davis/americansongwriter.com
The Beatles usually appear on the Billboard 200 in America. The chart ranks the most-consumed albums in the country, and as one of the bestselling groups of all time with countless hits to their credit, the band can often find space for at least one of their top titles. Sometimes, the ranking is quiet enough, and the Fab Four’s catalog is popular enough, that they’re able to claim more than a single spot.
The British rockers own two spaces on this week’s Billboard 200. The Beatles double down as one of their most celebrated projects breaks back onto the competitive tally and a favorite continues.
Abbey Road is back on the Billboard 200 this frame. The rock classic settles in at No. 198 on the 200-rung tally, barely managing to re-enter the roster again after not being present on the list last time around.
In the past tracking week, Luminate reports that Abbey Road moved a little under 8,200 equivalent units in the U.S. That sum includes almost 2,000 pure purchases, which is a fairly huge number for a full-length that was released so long ago.
As Abbey Road returns to the Billboard 200, The Beatles’ 1 appears even higher on the list once again. That compilation of the band’s most beloved singles rises from No. 180 to No. 168 this frame.
Source: Hugh McIntyre/forbes.com
Not only was John Lennon in likely the greatest rock group of all time, The Beatles, but he participated in one of the greatest songwriting partnerships of all time, too, with his bandmate Paul McCartney. While they didn’t write every song together The Beatles put out, the two were always big influences on one another’s compositions.
But when the band broke up at the turn of the 1970s, the members went off on their own. And Lennon, with his pointed lyrics and often psychedelic style, put out solo songs that influenced the world and have since stood the test of time. Here below, we wanted to explore three such offerings. A trio of tracks that have remained indellible. Indeed, these are three eternal John Lennon solo songs.
The ultimate song of idealism, this classic track from Lennon asks the question: Could you live without ties? Whether that’s to religion, material things, a sense of country. So far, when it comes to the human race on the whole, the answer is a resounding no. But Lennon’s song continues to hang in the ether and his questions longer after his death in 1980 have continued to reach millions of ears. This song, which hit No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100, was written by Lennon with the help of his wife, artist Yoko Ono.
Source: Jacob Uitti/americansongwriter.com
Younger folks or casual Beatles fans who hear “All You Need is Love” on the radio or as part of a playlist might think it’s just another in a long line of hit songs by the group. And it is. But did you know it was the result of a kind of contract gig, as The Beatles were hired to deliver a song that would transmit a message to television audiences all over the world?
The Beatles wrote “All You Need is Love” for the sole purpose of performing it on the first ever worldwide satellite television broadcast. Here is how the band rose to the occasion with such an apropos message to go all over the globe.
“Love” All over the World
As satellite technology hit new heights in the 1960s, it became clear to television executives it would be possible for signals broadcast in one country to be beamed into other countries. Hence, it was decided the first-ever worldwide satellite program, entitled Our World, would take place on June 25, 1967, with 25 countries involved. The BBC asked The Beatles to be Great Britain’s representative on the show, and the group accepted.
Source: Jim Beviglia/americansongwriter.com
See John Lennon’s Rare Home Movie Footage in ‘Aisumasen (I’m Sorry)’ Video
A new music video for John Lennon‘s “Aisumasen (I’m Sorry)” features never-before-seen footage that Lennon took himself on a Sony Portapak in 1973. Different panels show how he saw the New York City apartment building he’d just moved into, the Dakota, and Central Park across the street. He also captured Yoko Ono giving a phone interview and imagery of himself, taken in a mirror. The recording that accompanies the footage is the new “ultimate mix” of the tune that will feature in the upcoming Mind Games box set when it comes out on July 12.
The new mix, like the ultimate mixes that came out on the 2018 Imagine box set, features a broader spectrum of sound. The original mix sounds almost claustrophobic with its tinny EQ and slap-back echo.
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The Mind Games box set includes “ultimate mixes” of all of the album’s songs as well as additional alternate mixes. There are “elemental mixes,” “elements mixes,” outtakes, raw mixes, and an “evolution documentary.” The documentary edition of the title song came out previously, and you can hear Lennon talking about his songwriting process.
Source: Kory Grow/rollingstone.com
