Beatles FAQ

John's harmonica playing was a key feature of several early Beatles tracks - most notably on Love Me Do and Please Please Me. By 1964 however, he was becoming increasingly wary of using it as a lead instrument. “So we started using [the harmonica] on ‘Love Me Do’,’ just for arrangement, because we used to work out arrangements … And then we stuck it on ‘Please Please Me’ George Martin liked the distinctive element that the harmonica added. He encouraged The Beatles to use it in the following two single. They did so reluctantly. and then we stuck it on ‘From Me to You,’ like that. … It went on and on, it got into the gimmick, and then we dropped it. It got embarrassing.” Dylan  There was another reason why the harmonica was became personally embarrassing for John Lennon. This was that Bob Dylan was so closely associated with the instrument. Lennon's musical relationship with Dylan was always uneasy. The harmonica was never fully put away, however. It plays a striking role in dri...

  “I’m a quarter Irish or half Irish or something,”  John Lennon On arrival at Dublin Airport in 1963 John Lennon declared to reporters. “We’re all Irish!”. Lennon was half-joking, and referring primarily to the reputation Liverpool as an historic centre of Irish immigration. No Beatle was eligible for an Irish passport or even selection for Jack Charlton's famously flexible Republic of Ireland soccer team. That said, President Biden regularly describes himself as 'Irish', sometimes even omitting to add 'American'. If we apply what might be termed Biden Rules (ancestors going back a generation or five)  then at leastthree of the Fab Four can climb aboard.  Read more   4 minutes on Medium - free

The songwriters in surprisingly small writing How did Lennon & McCartney end up writing I Wanna be your Man for the Rolling Stones? There are at least three different versions of what happened.

B eatlemania in the UK spread with astonishing rapidity.