Beatles News

In his role as producer, Don Was has often had to play the diplomat, especially when he found himself caught in the crossfire of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. But they weren’t the only stars he had to mediate between.

In 1990, while behind the desk for Bob Dylan’s Under the Red Sky, he found himself at the center of disagreement over a guitar solo between the folk rock legend and one of his guest collaborators, George Harrison.

“I learned a lesson pretty early on,” Was says in conversation with Rock & Roll High School . What was the lesson? Well, as he puts it, it was “benign honesty.”

“George Harrison came in to overdub guitar in the song,” he explains. “I'd never met George Harrison before. The room was aglow with personality and charisma.

“And Bob, I guess, on a previous record, had only let George play an overdub one time, and then he cut him off. So, as we’re walking into the control room, George Harrison said to me, ‘Don't let him do that again. Give me a chance to play it a few times,’ which Bob overheard.”

Was plays the comment as being “jocular” and fun, rather than it coming fro details

The Beatles ripped up the rulebook in many ways.

One of these was that, after their first album was rushed together to cash in on their first couple of hits, they decided not to put singles on albums, or to issue album tracks as singles. The reason for this was simple: they felt it was unfair on fans to have to buy the same song twice.

They didn’t stick to the rule religiously – for example, both their movie soundtrack albums (1964's A Hard Day’s Night and Help! from the following year) feature singles, as they were put out to promote the films.

But had they wanted to, they could easily have doubled their total of number one hit singles. Here, we break down which songs they could have used – it’s hard to imagine any of them not hitting the top spot.

The Beatles themselves only really controlled what was released in their native UK. Other territories could issue their songs however they chose, so for the purposes of this article, we only focus on what was (and wasn’t) a single in their home country.

1. Twist & Shout (1963) 

Most people would be forgiven for thinking that ‘Twist & Shout’ was a Beatles original, but they&rs details

The collaborative spirit of the former Beatles shines through in the music they created together after the band's split.Los Angeles Today

After the Beatles broke up, John Lennon continued to write songs for his former bandmate Ringo Starr's solo albums. Lennon penned the opening track 'I'm the Greatest' on Ringo's 1973 album, as well as other songs like '(It's All Down to) Goodnight Vienna' and 'Cookin' (In the Kitchen of Love)' on later releases. These collaborations marked a reunion of sorts for the former Beatles members.
Why it matters

Ringo Starr's solo career allowed the former Beatles members to continue working together, even after the band's acrimonious split in 1970. Lennon's songwriting contributions to Ringo's albums show the enduring creative partnership between the two musicians, despite the tensions that had developed within the band.
The details

On Ringo's 1973 self-titled album, Lennon wrote the opening track 'I'm the Greatest,' which featured all three of Ringo's former bandmates - Lennon, George Harrison, and Paul McCartney. Lennon also wrote '(It's All Down to) Goodnight Vienna' for Ringo's 1974 album of the same name, and played piano on the track. For Ringo's 1976 album Ri details

In the early Beatles days, John Lennon—like so many young twenty-somethings trying to find themselves—often used humor and wit to deflect attention from his true feelings. As a ruffian cutting his teeth in Liverpool, Lennon certainly learned how to don a necessary layer of armor over his soft interior. It wasn’t until the mid-1960s, with songs like “Help!” and “Strawberry Fields Forever”, that Lennon started leaning into his truth.

But there were few Beatles tracks quite as heartbreakingly sincere as the late-era single, “Don’t Let Me Down”. Although credited to the Lennon-McCartney songwriting partnership, both Lennon and Paul McCartney would later clarify that it was earnestly Lennon’s.

“It was a very tense period,” McCartney later explained to Barry Miles. “John was with Yoko [Ono] and had escalated to heroin and all the accompanying paranoias, and he was putting himself out on a limb. I think that, as much as it excited and amused him, at the same time, it secretly terrified him. ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ was a genuine plea.”
“Don’t Let Me Down” Gains Even More Power Within the Greater details

“The Beatles” and “heavy metal” are largely regarded as residing on opposite ends of the musical spectrum. But every so often on a rogue 1960s track, the Venn diagram between these two phenomena became nearly circular. Songs like “Helter Skelter” and “Why Don’t We Do It In The Road” come to mind, and certainly post-Beatles songs from John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Plastic Ono Band could qualify.

What this writer wouldn’t expect is that the song Lennon once cited as the first heavy metal record would come from their 1965 album, Help! Smack dab in the middle of the decade, we were still years away from the heavy offerings of Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and Deep Purple. Not even The Beatles were that far into their experimental, psychedelic phase by that point. But they were getting close.

And according to Lennon, “Ticket To Ride” was the band’s first foray into heavy (or, perhaps more accurately, relatively heavier) rock ‘n’ roll. The song boasts Lennon and Paul McCartney’s signature harmonies and a syncopated rhythm section with accompanying drone notes that foreshadowed their later works. But was it actually heavy details

Entertainment legend, global philanthropist and friend of Maya Angelou, Oprah Winfrey has achieved every dream she ever had — except for one.

In a Tuesday appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, Winfrey spoke about how she’s been fortunate to have every one of her wildest wishes come true. The only one that never came to fruition was ending up with her teenage crush.

“Everything I ever wanted or dreamed came true,” Winfrey said. “Except, I did not marry Paul McCartney.“

The media mogul goes on to share that, growing up, she was the only girl she knew who loved The Beatles as much as she did. She even collected Beatles trading cards. And of course, like every fangirl she had a favorite member of the band.

“Of course Paul was my favorite Beatle. And I used to try to make him think of me,” Winfrey says, clutching her fists and remembering. “I used to wake in the morning and I’d stand on the stairs and say, ‘Think of me, think of me, think of me.'”

Unlike most other fangirls, however, Winfrey actually got to know her childhood crush one day. She shares that, years later, when she got the chance to interview the details

Paul McCartney ranks as one of the most successful rock musicians of all time. He has earned that honor in several ways, as multiple acts he’s been a part of — The Beatles, Wings, and of course McCartney as a soloist — have enjoyed years-long runs as hitmakers and powerful sellers.

Later this spring, the celebrated rocker will deliver a new album titled The Boys of Dungeon Lane. The set, expected in late May, will mark his first solo release in more than half a decade, and it is bound to do great things on charts globally. The first single from the project, “The Days We Left Behind,” arrives on one Billboard tally this frame, and it earns the superstar one more American top 10.

“The Days We Left Behind” only manages to appear on a single list published by Billboard this frame, and while McCartney and his label were surely hoping for a more impressive response in America, the fact that the cut debuts inside the top 10 should be counted as a win. This frame, “The Days We Left Behind” opens at No. 7 on the Rock Digital Song Sales chart, which details the bestselling tunes classified by Billboard specifically as rock via platforms like iTunes and Amaz details

Farhan Akhtar has been tapped to play Ravi Shankar, legendary sitarist and composer, in Sam Mendes' four films based on The Beatles singers. Netizens have been buzzing with enthusiasm ever since Sony Pictures, the films' distributor, announced the news. Funnily enough, some even mistook Ravi Shankar for the spiritual leader of the same name, wondering how Farhan would fit into the role because he hardly looks like the spiritual guru. Now that the record has been set straight, the question still remains as to what role Ravi Shankar played in The Beatles.

What is Ravi Shankar's connection with The Beatles?

The legendary sitarist had a decades-long history with The Beatles' guitarist George Harrison. He taught Harrison how to play the sitar. Interestingly, Ravi Shankar once did not know anything about The Beatles, not even about its existence. Ravi asked Harrison whether he would like to accompany him to India and learn the instrument, and he gracefully obliged. When Harrison came to India, he changed his identity to Mr Sam Wells, but he could not sustain the disguise because people here recognised him. Due to the constant attention, Harrison cut off his hair and grew a moustache upon Ravi's advice and accompanied details

What would an artist be without their first record? Although The Beatles would go on to have plenty of No. 1 albums throughout their career, it was Please Please Me that got them started and catapulted them into the spotlight forever. Here are three favorite tracks from the album that The Beatles put together while they were still figuring out what it even was to be “a Beatle.”

“There’s A Place”

“There’s A Place” is one of The Beatles’ more sing-alongy songs, in my opinion. The song actually draws inspiration from “Somewhere” in the musical West Side Story, where Tony meets Maria at her window after the Rumble, during which he kills her brother, Bernardo.

“Someday” sings, “Someday, somehow / We’ll find a new way of living / We’ll find there’s a way of forgiving / Somewhere / There’s a place for us / A time and a place for us /Hold my hand and we’re halfway there.”

“In our case, the place was in the mind, rather than round the back of the stairs for a kiss and a cuddle,” McCartney explains of “There’s A Place” in Many Years From Now.
“Baby details

One has to wonder: Did the Beatles know they were about to record one of the most influential songs in rock history when they stepped into the studio 60 years ago this week?

"Tomorrow Never Knows," the last track on Revolver, was actually the first song to be recorded for the album, according to the Beatles Bible, with sessions taking place on April 6, 7, and 22.

The title (which doesn't actually appear anywhere in the song) came from one of Ringo Starr's sayings, while the lyrics were inspired by the 1964 book The Psychedelic Experience by Harvard psychologists Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner, and Richard Alpert.

In Leary's introduction, John Lennon read the words, "turn off your mind, relax, float downstream" (which, of course, became the first line of "Tomorrow Never Knows").

As Paul McCartney recalled in Anthology, the song was "definitely John's."

"Round about this time people were starting to experiment with drugs, including LSD," he explained. "John had got hold of Timothy Leary’s adaptation of The Tibetan Book of the Dead, which is a pretty interesting book. For the first time we got the idea that, as with ancient Egyptian practice, when you die you lie in state for a few days, details

The venue that hosted The Beatles' only concerts in Japan has released long-forgotten photos of the legendary British band six decades after the gigs.

At the height of Beatlemania in 1966, when the quartet was the world's most famous pop group, the Beatles staged five summer performances in Tokyo in front of screaming fans.

Crowds reportedly thronged their hotel, where they stayed in the finest suite.

Then in 2009, more than 100 photos shot during the gigs "were discovered on a shelf" inside an office at the concert venue Nippon Budokan, the arena's operator told AFP.

But the 19 rolls of negative film -- reportedly wrapped in paper and labelled in such a way that it suggested they belonged to Japanese newspaper the Yomiuri Shimbun -- remained "stored as they were" until recently, the operator in a statement.

However, as the 60th anniversary of the Japan tour approached, the venue operator asked a Beatles expert to examine the negatives, and "his assessment revealed that the photos appear to have never been published" in newspapers or other media.

Among the photos released by the concert venue is a shot of John Lennon smiling beside a Japanese doll that resembles a figurine featuri details

 In a career of over 70 years, through bands and solo work, the five year gap in former Beatle, Paul McCartney’s discography is soon to be closed.

Word of the new album, "The Boys of Dungeon Lane," came on March 25 through a cryptic link texted to fans. The link taking them to a Google Maps page showing the album’s logo on a sign carried by a boy running on Dungeon Lane in Liverpool, England.

Tacked onto the announcement was the first single, "Days We Left Behind." Indicative of what’s to come with the 14-piece LP, the track is packed with nostalgia and introspection, as seen in the first line, "Looking back at white and black reminders of my past."

Having lived a life almost entirely in the spotlight, fans are able to speculate the meanings of McCartney’s songs in a personal manner.

"The first time I listened to it, I was trying to think of it in the perspective of The Beatles and the history of the band," political science freshman Henry Busse said. "Starting when they were like 15 and then becoming famous at like 20, Beatlemania and not having real life ever again. Obviously, that meant a whole lot coming from Paul, and that being the song chosen to release as a si details

The Beatles are one of the bestselling musical acts in United Kingdom history, and the group may, in fact, be the single most beloved name of all time when it comes to that nation's music industry. The rockers have scored dozens of top-performing albums, between traditional studio releases and many compilations, live recordings, and other specials that have become immediate bestsellers in the U.K. The outfit regularly claims at least one top-performing album in the home country of the four musicians – John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and George Harrison – but those winning efforts don't always stick around for long stretches.

For just the third time, a Beatles collection hits a longevity milestone on the Official Albums chart, which ranks the most consumed full-lengths and EPs throughout the U.K. The Beatles’ 1967–1970 Reaches Three Years as a Winner

As is often the case, 1967–1970, which is usually referred to as the Blue Album, is the most successful Beatles release in the U.K. This frame, it is the only project by the band to appear on the Official Albums chart, where it dips from No. 42 to No. 53. As it holds on once more, 1967–1970 makes it to 156 weeks on t details

The Beatles likely would have been extremely successful no matter who was producing their records. But there’s no doubt that George Martin, who got the producing gig, helped them elevate their music to heights they might not have otherwise have reached.

Martin’s stewardship while the band made Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was essential. But he was passed over by Paul McCartney for a role he normally would have filled on one of the album’s standout songs. And that turn of events caused hard feelings between the two men.  Who Has the Score?

When it came to making Sgt. Pepper’s in 1967, The Beatles wanted every possibility on the table in terms of how the songs would be rendered. Having ceased touring, they had nothing but studio time ahead of them. And they could take as much time as possible to make the sounds in their heads come to life.

True-life events inspired “She’s Leaving Home”. Paul McCartney picked up the newspaper one morning and saw an item about a teenage runaway. With John Lennon assisting, he wrote the song by imagining the inner lives of the girl and her parents and how this happy family had reached this point.

McCar details

Typically, there are a handful of event movies whose release dates and perhaps general characters and plot are known years before their release—your Marvel movies, your Avatars, your animated sequels that take years to properly produce. But it’s unusual for a group of dramas to call their shot four years in advance. That’s just what Sam Mendes and Sony did when they announced in 2024 that a quartet of Beatles biographies were in the works. Currently due out on April 7, 2028—at least two Avengers movies from now—the movies sound sort of like the cinematic equivalent of that mix CD that Ethan Hawke makes out of the band members’ solo songs in Boyhood. Individual films will assume the perspectives of Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, seemingly all during the band’s whirlwind decade together, from 1960-1970. Together, they’ll add up to a comprehensive biopic without favoring one band member in particular.

This could be an innovative and egalitarian approach to chronicling a seemingly impossible-to-define creative unit. Or, it could be the natural endpoint of the legal maneuvering that so obviously informs the final cut of so many musician-approved details