Beatles News
Paul McCartney is ready to share some more insights into the writing of his most famous works. The second season of the legendary singer’s podcast, McCartney: A Life in Lyrics, is set to debut February 7.
The podcast has The Beatles legend and his The Lyrics collaborator Paul Muldoon chatting about the creative process, with each episode focusing on a specific song from the two-time Rock & Roll Hall of Famer’s more than 60-year career. The audio is taken from the interviews the pair conducted for McCartney’s book The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present.
After delving into songs like “Let It Be,” “Eleanor Rigby” and “Penny Lane” in season 1, season 2 promises insights into classics like “Yesterday,” “Band on the Run,” “Here, There and Everywhere” and more.
McCartney: A Life in Lyrics will drop weekly wherever podcasts are available.
John Lennon clowns around with Ringo, Paul and George in never-before-seen footage of the Beatles while filming on Salisbury Plain.
The silent film of more than three minutes - of which only snippets were released to the public - was shot more than 59 years ago on Salisbury Plain, near Stonehenge, England, while the Beatles were on set of their film Help! in May 1965.
Image stills from the video show the band in a jovial mood during a break for the 'I Need You' sequence, with John Lennon clowning around with director Richard Lester as they engage with the cast and crew.
They play around with instruments and mime to a track in the 'makeshift' outdoor recording studio. The Beatles are surrounded by fake armed soldiers from the British Army's 3rd Royal Tank Regiment with their tanks and weapons.
In the quirky plot of Help!, a mysterious cult is attempting to kill Ringo Starr so the band performs under Royal Artillery protection, hence the group of soldiers in the film.
The rare behind-the-scenes film, which has not been released by auction house RR Auction in Boston, is coming up for sale for $10,000 (£8,000).
Source: Miriam Kuepper/dailymail.co.uk
The Beatles, with Billy Preston, gave their final live performance atop the Apple building at 3 Savile Row, London, on Thursday 30 January 1969, in what became the climax of their Let It Be film.
The Beatles' rooftop concert, Apple building, 30 January 1969
A total of 10 cameras were used to shoot the show. Five were on the Apple rooftop; one was positioned on a roof across the street; three were on ground level outside the building to capture the public reaction; and one was hidden in the reception lobby at 3 Savile Row.
We went on the roof in order to resolve the live concert idea, because it was much simpler than going anywhere else; also nobody had ever done that, so it would be interesting to see what happened when we started playing up there. It was a nice little social study.
We set up a camera in the Apple reception area, behind a window so nobody could see it, and we filmed people coming in. The police and everybody came in saying, ‘You can’t do that! You’ve got to stop.’
30 January 1969 in London was a cold day, and a bitter wind was blowing on the rooftop by midday. To cope with the weather, John Lennon borrowed Yoko Ono’s fur coat, and Ringo Starr wore his wife Maureen Starkey’s red mac.
There was a plan to play live somewhere. We were wondering where we could go – ‘Oh, the Palladium or the Sahara.’ But we would have had to take all the stuff, so we decided, ‘Let’s get up on the roof.’ We had Mal and Neil set the equipment up on the roof, and we did those tracks. I remember it was cold and windy and damp, but all the people looking out from offices were really enjoying it.
Source: beatlesbible.com
McCartney sets the record straight about Lennon's feelings towards "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" in a 2018 interview with Howard Stern.
Lennon's love for Yoko Ono played a role in the breakup of The Beatles, according to McCartney.
McCartney and Lennon reconciled after The Beatles' breakup, bonding over shared experiences and even discussing parenting.
John Lennon's history with The Beatles has been marred by various fan speculations and statements from the band members over the years. But what really divided their supporters was Paul McCartney's complicated relationship with the late musician.
In a 2018 interview with Howard Stern, McCartney set the record straight about how Lennon's love triangle romance with Yoko Ono affected The Beatles. But when the host insinuated something about Lennon "not liking" one of their hits, the richest Beatle went into defensive mode, for which fans commended him.
On September 5, 2018, McCartney went on The Howard Stern Show to promote his 17th studio album, Egypt Station. There, Stern played Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, and then asked his guest if Lennon "didn't like this song." The Say Say Say hitmaker replied, "Who says? No, John did like this song."
He then shared how they came up with the catchy track. "We went on vacation and we were in Rishikesh (in India) studying meditation with Maharishi [Mahesh Yogi, founder of Transcendental Meditation]," McCartney recalled. "There was a friend of mine, an African guy. He was called Jimmy Scott... And we would jive together... And he would say 'Ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on, brah. Yah, man, yah man.'"
Source: Gia Marcos/thethings.com
The latter years of The Beatles have become an arena for debate once more. Where fan lore previously held that 1969 to their dissolution was a fractured period, of endless in-group inter-fighting, Get Back has shown that actually, things weren’t so bad at times. Yet one song remains beyond the pale for Ringo Starr – ‘Abbey Road’ knockabout ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’.
A Paul McCartney endeavour that matches music hall aspects against then groundbreaking technology, it took a number of sessions before the songwriter was entirely happy with it. Sadly, the studio grind took its toll on the rest of the group.
Ringo Starr, for example, was left exhausted by his bandmate’s perfectionism. In a 2008 interview with Rolling Stone he said it was “the worst session ever” and “the worst track we ever had to record”, before adding: “it went on for fucking weeks”.
That’s perhaps a little strong. Kicked off in 1968, Paul McCartney initially wanted to include ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ on the White Album, before time constraints pushed it back. Rehearsed during the Get Back era, it was finally recorded six months later.
Source: Robin Murray/clashmusic.com
John Lennon, born on October 9, 1940, in Liverpool, England, was a legendary singer, songwriter, and peace activist who co-founded the iconic rock band, The Beatles. He was a pivotal figure in the music industry and became one of the most influential and celebrated musicians of the 20th century.
In the early 1960s, along with Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, John Lennon formed The Beatles, a band that would revolutionize popular music and become a cultural phenomenon. As the primary songwriter and co-lead vocalist of the group, Lennon’s creative contributions were instrumental in shaping their sound and style.
The Beatles’ massive success and unprecedented fame brought Beatlemania to the world, influencing an entire generation and changing the landscape of popular music forever. Some of Lennon’s most iconic compositions for The Beatles include “Imagine,” “Strawberry Fields Forever,” “A Day in the Life,” and “Let It Be.”
In 1969, John Lennon married artist and musician Yoko Ono, and the couple became known for their activism and advocacy for peace. Their “Bed-In” events, peace protests, and iconic song “Give Peace a Chance” demonstrated Lennon’s commitment to promoting non-violence and social harmony.
Source: Edward Tomlin/singersroom.com
Paul McCartney once freaked out that The Beatles' 'Revolver' was entirely out of tune. He explained how the other Beatles reacted to his feelings.
Paul McCartney isn’t always the most confident man. He once freaked out that The Beatles’ Revolver was entirely out of tune. He explained how the other Beatles reacted to his feelings. John Lennon had something interesting to say about Revolver in retrospect.
During a 2018 interview with 60 Minutes, Paul called Revolver “one of the early Beatles records.” That’s an odd statement. The Beatles bubblegum albums like Please Please Me are usually classified as their early records. Revolver came in the latter half of the band’s career and they’d already made the transition to psychedelic music by that point. Then again, Paul probably has a better understanding of The Beatles’ chronology than anyone else.
Paul wasn’t always a fan of Revolver. “I got the horrors one day,” he said. “I thought it was outta tune. I thought the whole album was outta tune. I listened to it and for some reason just, like, ‘Oh my God.'”
Paul went to his bandmates with the news. “I went to the guys, I said, ‘It’s outta tune. It’s outta — I don’t know what we’re gonna do,'” he recalled. “You know? And they said — and they got a bit worried and listened to it. They said, ‘No, it isn’t.’ I go, ‘Oh, OK.'”
Source: Matthew Trzcinski/cheatsheet.com
The Beatles' "Strawberry Fields Forever" originally had a country influence. Paul McCartney said the tune has a special connection to "Penny Lane."
The Beatles‘ “Strawberry Fields Forever” is John Lennon’s masterpiece. The Beatle had a hard time remembering the sequence of events that led him to write it. Fascinatingly, Paul McCartney said the tune came out of his rivalry with John — and that it had a special connection to “Penny Lane.”
The book All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono features an interview from 1980. In it, John said he wrote The Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields Forever” while he was filming the comedy film How I Won the War. The film was directed by Richard Lester, who also helmed A Hard Day’s Night and Help!, as well as Superman II and Superman III starring Christopher Reeve. Despite John and Lester’s involvement, How I Won the War is not one of The Beatles’ films.
Source: Matthew Trzcinski/cheatsheet.com
Paul McCartney has said that Johnny Cash inspired him to form Wings.
McCartney credited the late singer with inspiring him to form the band, having found himself at a crossroads after the Beatles split up.
With several other bandmembers drifting in and out of the band, Wings’ main three players were Paul McCartney, his wife Linda who was on keyboards, and Moody Blues guitarist Denny Laine.
Following two unsuccessful albums, Wings eventually released ‘Band On The Run’ in 1973, reaching number one in the UK charts by early 1974, thanks to the album’s title track and Jet. It also hit top spot in the US Billboard Chart.
McCartney previously announced that a special 50th anniversary edition of that album, would be out next month. More on that here.
Before this success was to happen, Paul McCartney admitted that he was in the midst of a musical crossroads, following the Beatles split.
“After the end of The Beatles I was faced with certain alternatives,” he explained. “One was to give up music entirely and do God knows what. Another was to start a super-band with very famous people, Eric Clapton and so on. I didn’t like either so I thought: How did The Beatles start?”.
He added, “It was a bunch of mates who didn’t know what they were doing,” he continued. “That’s when I realised maybe there is a third alternative: to get a band that isn’t massively famous, to not worry if we don’t know what we’re doing because we would form our character by learning along the way. It was a real act of faith. It was crazy, actually”.
Source: Dalton Mac Namee/nova.ie
Ringo Starr had a good relationship with John Lennon. Still, he was the last of The Beatles to learn that his bandmate had gotten married.
Ringo Starr joined The Beatles in 1962, several years into John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison’s musical collaboration. While he fit in with them well, he was still initially an outsider. This meant that he wasn’t always in on information the other Beatles had. When Lennon got married, for example, Starr had no idea.
In 1962, Lennon married his longtime girlfriend, Cynthia, when he learned she was pregnant. They tried to keep their union and child a secret from the public. They also kept the secret from Starr.
“George and I started out sharing an apartment in Green Street, Park Lane,” he said in The Beatles Anthology. “£45 a week it cost — a fortune! John was living with Cynthia.”
This was when they informed Starr that they were married. According to him, they worried he’d accidentally leak the news.
“That’s when they finally told me they were married — they’d kept it a secret in case I told somebody,” he said. “They didn’t really trust me, you know. Just joking!”
In fairness to Starr, though, the other Beatles knew little about the wedding.
“I don’t remember much about John’s wedding,” Harrison said. “It took place in August 1962. He just went in some office in Liverpool one afternoon, and in the evening we got in Brian [Epstein’s] car, went to the gig (we actually did a gig that night) and it was, ‘Well, we got married.’ It wasn’t hushed up, it just wasn’t mentioned to the press. There was no wedding — it was a five-minute thing in a Registry Office. It was different in those days. No time to lose.”
Source: Emma McKee/cheatsheet.com
