Beatles News
Whenever a band breaks up, especially one as globally ubiquitous as the Beatles, everyone assumes the reason they broke up must be something salacious or contentious. Our parasocial connections to these groups make it difficult to imagine a reality in which the musicians wouldn’t want to keep going unless something awful happened between bandmates.
But sometimes it’s not that dramatic at all. Sometimes, as John Lennon explained in a 1975 interview on Tomorrow with Tom Snyder, the reason a band like the Beatles broke up was as simple as a case of ennui.
John Lennon Had Surprising Reason For Why The Beatles Broke Up
The Beatles were much of the world’s first interaction with a bona fide rock ‘n’ roll band. There was no distinct frontman and backing band lineup, and all four members shared the stage playing their respective instruments and singing harmonies with one another. So, when that seemingly unstoppable team force started to crumble in the late 1960s, people began scrambling for a reason to explain why the Beatles were breaking up. For most fans and critics, they assumed the band simply couldn’t get along anymore.
“We didn’t break up because we weren’t friends,” Lennon explained to Tomorrow host Tom Snyder. “We just broke up out of sheer boredom. Boredom creates tension. It was not going anywhere, you know. We’d stopped touring. We just sort of say [mimes picking up a telephone], ‘Time to make an album.’ Go in the studio, the same four of us would be looking at each other playing the same licks.
Source: americansongwriter.com/Melanie Davis
In a new biography out about Yoko Ono by David Sheff, there was insight into the Japanese artist taking her son she shared with John Lennon away in a black bag following John's murder.
Sean Ono Lennon was smuggled in a black bag following the death of his father John Lennon.
This revelation was spoken about in the new biography about Yoko Ono by David Sheff. David's biography is titled Yoko and he details the 92-year-old Japanese avant-garde artist's life through interviews with Yoko, her family, friends and peers. The journalist and Yoko have maintained a friendship since he interviewed her and John Lennon for Playboy in 1980.
He also ended up turning the complete interview and all the unpublished parts into a book in 1982 called The Playboy Interviews with John Lennon and Yoko Ono and in another called All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono in 2000. In his upcoming book, David shares how after The Beatles member's assassination, the son that he shares with Yoko, had to be smuggled in a black bag.
Source: themirror.com/Demetria Osei-Tutu
One of the biggest highlights of Ringo Starr’s recent CBS special filmed at the famed Ryman Auditorium in Nashville was a star-studded grand-finale performance of the Beatles classic “With a Little Help from My Friends.” Now, a recording of that performance has been released as a digital charity single to aid people affected by the devastating wildfires that swept through the Los Angles area recently.
All proceeds raised by sales of the song through March 27, 2026, will be donated to the American Red Cross and the Habitat for Humanity ReBUILDLA initiative.
The performance of “With a Little Help from My Friends” saw Ringo joined by Emmylou Harris, Sheryl Crow, Jack White, Brenda Lee, Mickey Guyton, Billy Strings, Jamey Johnson, Rodney Crowell, Molly Tuttle, Sarah Jarosz, and Larkin Poe. All of the guest artists also had performed earlier in the show.
Starr’s concert special was filmed on January 14 and 15, while the wildfires still raged in the L.A. area. The decision was made then to release the “With a Little Help from My Friends” performance as a charity single.
“I love LA and have lived there for many years, and while we were recording this in Nashville, many of us had family and friends who were dealing with the wildfires in Los Angeles,” Starr explained in a statement. “It was so great performing this song with these incredible artists and we all wanted to do something to help. I think the song says it all really, ‘With a Little Help from My Friends’ and we send it to all those affected by the fires with Peace and Love.”
Source: americansongwriter.com/Matt Friedlander
Many celebrity relationships can seem fake and false, though that all comes down to fan speculation. However, one relationship we know didn’t fall under this category was between George Harrison and Paul Simon. Given their shared status, the two appeared publicly and played songs that generally satisfied the public. But that was just the surface of their friendship, and even if the two weren’t famous, they seemingly still would have gotten along swimmingly.
In February of 2023, Rolling Stone compiled numerous stories for a George Harrison birthday tribute article titled “Remembering George“. Many musicians contributed to the article, but Simon’s portion stood out in the sense that it pertained to not just music but also the admirable life George Harrison led before his passing in 2001.
Paul Simon Fondly Remembers George Harrison in His Own Words
In the heartwarming article, Simon wrote about his friendship with Harrison.
“The roots of my friendship with George Harrison go back to 1976 when we performed together on ‘Saturday Night Live’,” said Simon in the article. “Sitting on stools side by side with acoustic guitars, we sang ‘Here Comes The Sun’ and ‘Homeward Bound’. Though we’re in the same generation and weaned on Buddy Holly, Elvis, and the Everly Brothers, it must have seemed as strange to him to be harmonizing with someone other than Lennon or McCartney as it was for me to blend with someone other than Art Garfunkel. Nevertheless, it was an effortless collaboration.”
Source: americansongwriter.com/Peter Burditt
Elvis Presley and The Beatles are two of the biggest names in music history, often seen as representatives of different eras. The Beatles famously idolized Elvis, with Paul McCartney once saying, “When we were kids growing up in Liverpool, all we ever wanted was to be Elvis Presley.”
Elvis wasn’t always vocal about his thoughts on their success, but he did acknowledge their influence - sometimes by putting his own spin on their songs. Over the years, Presley covered several Beatles tracks, reworking them with his signature sound. Here are five of them, and how he made them his own in different ways:
‘Get Back’
Originally released as a single in April 1969, ‘Get Back’ was later included on Let It Be in 1970. The song was The Beatles’ return to a rawer, live-in-the-studio sound, featuring Billy Preston on keyboards.
Elvis incorporated ‘Get Back’ into a medley with his own song, ‘Little Sister’, during his 1970s Las Vegas residency. This medley was performed frequently during his live shows, with multiple recordings available from the era. Unlike The Beatles’ version, which maintains a steady, bouncing rhythm, Elvis’ take had a looser, more improvisational feel.
‘Yesterday’
‘Yesterday’ is one of the most covered songs in history, with over 2,000 recorded versions by various artists. The Beatles’ version is a simple, melancholic ballad accompanied by an acoustic guitar and a string quartet.
Elvis added it to his Las Vegas setlist in August 1969, performing it alongside ‘Hey Jude’. His version was more piano-driven than the original, with lush backing vocals enhancing the arrangement.
‘Hey Jude’
Source: express.co.uk/Maria Leticia Gomes
The stark monochrome sleeve and shit-tier recording quality of the Beatles’ most famous bootleg stands in for a whole era of the band’s history—their un-housebroken Hamburg years, when they wore jeans and leather jackets; when they ate, drank, smoked and swore onstage; when they were a band rather than a fact. George Harrison swears the band was never better than between 1960 and 1962, during the so-called “Hamburg crucible” that forged them into a force ready to take over the world. Yet he fought tooth and nail against the release of Live! at the Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany; 1962, eventually released in 1977.
The recordings were made by Star-Club stage manager Adrian Barber at the behest of Ted “Kingsize” Taylor, a fellow Liverpool musician who’d played a run of shows with the Beatles with his band the Dominoes in late 1962. The Beatles had a foot out the door at this point and were only contracted to play the Star-Club based on a deal made much earlier by their manager, Brian Epstein, who’d molded the boys into pros by the time they played the shows we hear here. They’d already put out “Love Me Do” in October of that year, so it’s not like this is a recording of a band you can’t find anywhere in better fidelity.
It’s exciting to hear them tear through a Dexedrine-tempo “Twist and Shout,” already in its final form, just waiting for a young John Hughes to have his mind blown by it. It’s a hoot to hear Star-Club co-owner Horst Fascher and his brother Fred as temporary Beatles, belting “Hallelujah, I Love Her So” and “Be-Bop-A-Lula” with the band in the boozy and low-key environment of a small club. As consistently good as their musicianship is, the performances may have been shakier than usual because the band was basically coasting at that point and ready to get back to England. The Star-Club is a container that cannot hold, and Live! plays like a rehearsal for the future, or a kiss-off to the past.
But the great lacuna of the Beatles catalog is the music they made before this show: the lineups with Tommy Moore, Norman Chapman, Stuart Sutcliffe, and the other youths who passed through the Beatles in their pre-Fab days; the alleged hour-long versions of “What’d I Say” they’d improvise to pass the time; a piss-drunk John Lennon imitating Hitler with a comb as a mustache and haranguing the “Krauts” in the audience.
Source: pitchfork.com/Daniel Bromfield
Eric Clapton wrote an album for Pattie Boyd while she was married to George Harrison. Here's how she reacted when she listened to it.
As George Harrison’s marriage to Pattie Boyd grew chillier, Eric Clapton’s feelings for her heated up. Harrison and Clapton were friends, but this did little to stop Clapton from pursuing his wife. While she was still with Harrison, Clapton wrote an album about her, and then invited her over to listen to it. He later admitted that this was not one of his best ideas.
Eric Clapton said his method of pursuing Pattie Boyd didn’t go over well
After Clapton and Harrison became friends, the former began to develop feelings for Boyd. The way he felt for her flamed into what he described as obsession, and he wrote the album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs about her. He hoped that when she heard it, she would admit to feeling the same way about him.
“I had convinced myself that when she heard the completed Layla album, with all its references to our situation, she would be so overcome by my cry of love that she would finally leave George and come away with me for good,” he wrote in Clapton: The Autobiography. “So I called her up one afternoon and asked her if she’d like to have tea and listen to the new record.
Source: cheatsheet.com/Emma McKee
The best creative inspiration often comes from observing the world around us, and these Beatles songs about real-life events are certainly no exception. And indeed, the Fab Four had plenty going on in their respective realities, personally and globally, from which they could draw inspiration for lyrics, song titles, and more. From the changes happening in their own lives to the tumultuous air of change that permeated the 1960s, the Beatles took these events and transformed them into great music.
Here’s some of the best.
“Hey Jude”
For most of the Beatles’ tenure, John Lennon was with his first wife, Cynthia Lennon, with whom he had his first son, Julian. By the late 1960s, John divorced Cynthia, married Yoko Ono in March 1969, and had his second son, Sean. Paul McCartney, who had been like an uncle to Julian, wrote “Hey Jude” while driving to visit Julian and Cynthia.
“I thought, as a friend of the family, I would motor out to Weybridge. Tell them that everything was all right,” McCartney recalled in Anthology. “To try and cheer them up, basically, and see how they were. I would always turn the radio off and try and make up songs, just in case. I started singing: ‘Hey Jules, don’t make it bad, take a sad song and make it better.’ It was optimistic, a hopeful message for Julian. ‘Come on, man, your parents got divorced. I know you’re not happy, but you’ll be okay.’”
“A Day in the Life”
“A Day in the Life” is the sprawling closer to the Beatles’ 1967
Source: americansongwriter.com/Melanie Davis
The death of John Lennon remains incomprehensible some 45 years after it occurred. You can imagine how dumbfounded people were in the immediate wake of that tragedy. Still, some artists were able to rise up from their sadness and deliver fitting tributes to him.
The four artists included on this list include two who were in the same band as Lennon and another who collaborated with him on a No. 1 single. As for the fourth, he, like everybody else, was just trying to make sense of it all.
Harrison was able to get his tribute to Lennon out the fastest of this bunch because he already had much of the framework of the song in place, right down to the title. He had written it originally for Ringo Starr to record, but Starr struggled with the vocals and decided against recording it. Upon Lennon’s death, Harrison adjusted the lyrics to pay tribute to his friend. Starr plays drums, while Paul and Linda McCartney sing backing vocals, making this a semi-reunion. But the observations of Harrison take center stage. His candor is balanced out by his genuine emotion: Living with good and bad / I always looked up to you. “All Those Years Ago” gave Harrison a comeback hit, although he’d quickly back away from the spotlight again after its release.
Source: Jim Beviglia/americansongwriter.com
After John Lennon left The Beatles, his life took a drastic turn to a dark place. One historically prominent period that displays how his behavior changed is when he went on an 18-month bender in Los Angeles. This is known as the “Lost Weekend,” and it transpired because he and Yoko had separated and started having an affair with their mutual assistant, Molly Pang.
This period is when he met Joni Mitchell for the first time. Lennon had always been a fan of the folk world, and he admired Bob Dylan in particular. However, he didn’t really admire his female counterparts such as Joan Baez and, ultimately, Joni Mitchell. Despite their many similarities, Joni Mitchell and John Lennon did not hit it off. Consequently, the two wouldn’t really go on to have much of a professional or friendly relationship. John Lennon Thought Mitchell’s Music Was Over-Educated
When Mitchell was recording and cutting her infamous album, Court and Spark, Lennon was right across the hall cutting and creating one of his own projects. That being so, Mitchell wanted to get Lennon’s opinion on her work. This decision would lead down a bad road and a not-so-kind conversation. A conversation that would lead Lennon to say that Mitchell’s album was a “product of over-education.”
Recalling the incident, Mitchell stated, “I was cutting Court and Spark; he was cutting across the hall, so I played him something from Court and Spark” and “[Lennon] said, ‘You want a hit, don’t you? Put some fiddles on it! Why do you always let other people have your hits for you, y’know,’” per Farout.
Source: americansongwriter.com/Peter Burditt
