Beatles FAQ

Beatles final meeting? The last time we can be certain that all four Beatles met together was for the final recording sessions for  Abbey Road. This   took place between on Wednesday 20 August, when various tracks were finished, including 'Here Comes the Sun' and, fittingly 'The End'.  Two days later they completed their final final official engagement together - a photoshoot which was held at the new Lennon-Ono residence Tittenhurst Park in Ascot - see here .   At the end, they wandered away in different directions.  The Meeting With recording duties completed, they were pretty much done. Only a final round of business meetings forced them them to meet again.  The key one was on September 20. This was when Alan Klein, now representing John, Paul and Ringo presented the new contract he had negotiated with Capitol Records.  George was absent. Despite the smiling publicity shot, the atmosphere was tense. At one point John announced that he was leaving The Beatles.  The no

The Beatles famously brought LSD to public attention. Less well known is that George Harrison became rapidly disillusioned about the effects of the drug on young people exposed to it. His last LSD trip was in the late summer of 1967. In Anthology , George confirms Derek Taylor's earlier revelation it that was a trip of the legal type that  changed his perspective.  In August 1967 he made an impromptu personal visit to Haight Ashbury, San Francisco. This was the epicentre of the supposed cultural revolution but what greeted was sordid and threatening.  We were expecting Haight-Ashbury to be special, a creative and artistic place, filled with Beautiful People, but it was horrible - full of ghastly drop-outs, bums and spotty youths, all out of their brains .    Source With the crowd building, Taylor began to fear for their physical safety: Read full story - 3 minute free read on Medium

  Despite their local success in Liverpool and Hamburg — and Brian Epstein’s best efforts — The Beatles struggled to get their first recording contract.

The last time The Beatles played together for an audience was in the famous rooftop performance in January 1969. This was not, however, a concert in the conventional sense, with tickets available to the public.  August 29th, 1966 — Candlestick Park in San Francisco The Beatles’ last ever US date proved a downbeat occasion. It was held in the Giants stadium, a particularly unsuitable venue. A huge fence separated the crowd from the band and there were chaotic dressing room arrangements. Despite the continuing popularity of the band, only 25,000 of the 42,000 seats were sold — partly because of high prices. The disconnect between young fans and now forbiddingly remote idols is made apparent by concert’s compere ‘Emperor’ Gene Nelson: Candlestick Park in August, at night, was cold, foggy and windy. …The Beatles were taking their time to get out. I was trying to entertain a crowd that was shouting, ‘Beatles, Beatles, Beatles.’ The dressing room was chaos. There were loads of people there.

Nam Ngô Composition has always been  an instinctive process for Paul McCartney, with inspiration coming from unlikely sources:

  John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote a large number of songs in their teens - up to 200 according to some estimates. Many disappeared without trace - a Wimpole Street spring clean by Jane Asher put paid to a pile written on scrap paper.  Others, like Lennon's  'Hello Little Girl' f eatured in their live act but were then given to other artists to cover. These were generally off-cuts not deemed quite up to scratch, though arguably some like   'World Without Love ' and ' Love of the Loved'  deserved a seat at the top table.  Songs revived and recorded By  Beatles For Sale  Lennon & McCartney were exhausted and running out of new material. At this point Paul revisited  'I'll Follow the Sun'  which he had written in the year following his mother's death. “I wrote that in my front parlour in Forthlin Road,” McCartney told Mark Lewishon. “I remember standing in the parlour, with my guitar, looking out through the lace curtains of the window,

John Lennon teases clue seekers and his bandmate  Written days after the death of Brian Epstein, the lyrics of 'I am the Walrus' have confused everyone, including their author - read full story here In his 1971  Rolling Stone  interview, Lennon tries to explain the McCartney reference in Glass Onion:  Here's another clue for you all. The Walrus was Paul.  Is Lennon teasing his bandmate? Or having a pop at the rapidly growing army of conspiracy theorists? Interestingly, Glass Onion was a genuine collaboration between John and Paul. The theme (an attack on the 'pseuds' over-interpreting Beatles' lyrics) sounds typical of Lennon but in fact came from McCartney. Their relationship was fraying but here they come together in a howl of complaint about how Beatles' lyrics were avidly scoured for hidden messages.   Ian Macdonald disapproves. He suggests that the 'sour A minor melody' and snarling tone of the song express the intent of they lyric" - a 

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

The Beatles had started by playing church halls, coffee halls and even private homes. Their Ed Sullivan appearance in February 1964 opened a huge new market had opened only  confined by size of concert venues available.