Beatles FAQ

  Mount Pleasant Registry Office, Liverpool. August 23rd 1962

In the film Help  The Beatles living together in the ultimate bachelor pad. Four doors lead into a miraculous shared space, with all mod cons. No boring housework to worry about.  Unsurprisingly, this fun palace bore little resemblance to The Beatles own living arrangements, past or present. Before they were famous, the band had shared countless dingy rooms and transit vans. They had never, however, formally lived at the same address.  Paul McCartney, conscious of his local reputation, was still officially living in his childhood home when he returned from USA in February 1964. Like his bandmates, the  22 year-old millionaire  had always relied on 'home' for  bed & board, plus laundry and poste restante. Even after he left Liverpool, he moved in with another family: that of his then girlfriend, Jane Asher London Brian Epstein finally moved The Beatles base of operations to  London in the summer of 1963. He arranged for them to stay at the Hotel President, near the British

57 Wimpole Street where Paul lived with the Asher family

The original pressing was a song short

We were the best live band in the world before we were famous. Nobody could touch us  John Lennon.

 

The B842, Kintyre, Scotland

The Beatles first met Dylan during their second visit to the US in August 1964. He came to visit them  in their suite at the Delmonoco Hotel in New York, accompanied by his friend Al Aronowitz.  Eager to please their super-hip guests, The Beatles offered Dylan and champagne and amphetamines. Dylan said that he only drank cheap wine and suggested that they ‘smoke some grass’ Brian and the Beatles looked at each other apprehensively. “We’ve never smoked marijuana before,” Brian finally admitted. Dylan looked disbelievingly from face to face. “But what about your song?” he asked. The one about getting high?” The Beatles were stupefied. “Which song?” John managed to ask. Dylan said, “You know…” and then he sang, “and when I touch you I get high, I get high…” John flushed with embarrassment. “Those aren’t the words,” he admitted. “The words are, ‘I can’t hide, I can’t hide, I can’t hide…'”    From The Love You Make Peter Brown Let's not Twist again In fact,  according to George Harr

Tamla Motown was a key influence on the early Beatles sound.  They covered Tamla tracks like PLEASE MR POSTMAN and wrote songs in a similar style. THIS BOY (1963) for example is what George Harrison called 'John doing Smokey'. GOT TO GET YOU INTO MY LIFE (1966) is a later homage, first released on Revolver. It is one  of Paul McCartney's most joyful and exuberant compositions, and perhaps The Beatles most danceable recordings. Even the hard-to-please Mr Lennon hailed it 'as on of Paul's best songs.  Early studio versions, however, lacked energy and punch.  It was the introduction of Memphis Stax-style horns that gave the song a new drive.  Earth, Wind and Fire pick up on this dynamism in their 1978 cover. They give it the song treatment, amplifying the horns and harmonies in an exhilarating arrangement. Memphis or Haight Ashbury Wisely, they do not draw attention to the writer's revelation that the 'she' in the lyric is marijuana. "It's actual