Beatles News
Lady Gaga has revealed that the late John Lennon would be her dream collaborator.
To celebrate the release of her new album ‘Mayhem’, the pop icon hosted her own fan-led ‘Mayhem’ press conference. One of the questions asked by a fan was about her dream collaborator, dead or alive.
“I think it would have been John Lennon. I think he had such a beautiful heart and I think that’s one of my favourite things in like the history of music is when you don’t just remember an artist for their music but you remember them for their heart,” she said.
She also showed her peace sign tattoo that she has on her wrist and shared: “This peace sign was right outside 72nd street by the Dakota, where he was sadly taken from the world, but the peace sign was there every day and Yoko would put flowers outside, I got this tattoo because of that. I never forgot what he stood for and it’s what I stand for too.”
Gaga previously compared herself to the ‘Imagine’ hitmaker in an NME cover story back in 2011 by saying that she struggles to ever be completely happy with her songs.
“I am perpetually unhappy with what I create,” she said. “Even though I might tell you that ‘Edge Of Glory’ is a pop masterpiece, when it’s all said and finished there will be things I dread, and every time I listen to it I’ll hear them.”
Source: nme.com/Anagricel Duran
Ringo Starr is turning 85 this summer but he’s got fans in awe of his youthful looks – which is thanks to his strict, ultra healthy lifestyle that he’s followed to the letter for most of his adult life, a source exclusively tells Closer.
“Ringo loves his life, he feels like the luckiest guy in the world and he wakes up every morning grateful for his life,” the insider says. “He swears his positive outlook and daily gratitude practice help keep him young, he always says he still feels 24 years old in his head.”
“Of course, his vegetarian diet and the fact that he’s been sober since 1988 have helped a great deal.”
As the source notes, the octogenarian Beatle wasn’t always the picture of healthy living. Before cleaning up his act and going sober 37 years ago, Ringo claimed he lost entire years of his life to blackouts.
“It got progressively worse and the blackouts got worse and I didn’t know where I’d been, what I’d done,” he said of his addiction, adding, “I knew I had the problem for years. But it plays tricks with your head. Very cunning and baffling is alcohol.”
Source: yahoo.com/Nicholas Erickson
The so-called final song from The Beatles, Now and Then, makes modern music sound like “pure trash” according to fans of the band.
The Grammy-winning song left fans teary-eyed when it first released, but Now and Then, released in 2023, appears to have affected other genres of music for some fans. Rock and roll, according to one fan, looks like “pure trash” compared to the final song from The Beatles. Now and Then had initially been set for release around the time of the Anthology package, but George Harrison vetoed the song. Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney returned to it over two decades later, after getting John Lennon‘s vocal tape up to a point where they felt the quality was acceptable. Its release is still lauded by fans, who took to r/Beatles on Reddit to share their thoughts on the song.
One wrote: “To me, it makes me feel nostalgic and sad. Especially looking at them now, two of them are resting, and two of them are still living. Back then, they were young, energetic, and still together. John’s death was a massive loss for Rock’ n Roll.
They were the ones who made Rock n Roll popular worldwide. When I watch the official video, it’s honestly heartbreaking. Seeing John and George with Paul and Ringo was so good. Looking at today’s Rock n Roll, it’s pure trash.”
Source: cultfollowing.co.uk/Ewan Gleadow
The most-streamed Beatles song has over a billion streams
The Beatles are undoubtedly one of the most influential and successful bands in music history, dominating the 1960s and shaping the future of rock and pop music.
With over 600 million albums sold worldwide, they revolutionized the industry through their innovative songwriting, studio experimentation, and unmatched cultural impact. However, much of their success was built in an era before digital streaming. The Beatles were kings of vinyl records, cassette tapes, CDs, and radio airplay, long before Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube became the dominant ways of consuming music.
Despite this, The Beatles continue to thrive in the modern streaming age, with their songs racking up hundreds of millions - and in some cases, billions - of streams. Based on official Spotify streaming figures, here are The Beatles’ top 10 most streamed songs, ranked from 10 to 1.
10. ‘Help!’
With over 300 million streams on Spotify, ‘Help!’ was released in 1965 as the title track for both the Beatles' fifth studio album and second feature film, reflecting John Lennon’s growing stress under the pressures of fame. Lennon later admitted that ‘Help!’ was a genuine cry for assistance during a turbulent time in his life. Its upbeat tempo contrasts with the vulnerability in the lyrics, marking a pivotal moment in the band’s evolution.
Source: express.co.uk/Maria Leticia Gomes
An artist isn’t always the best indicator of which songs will be well-received. They have their own opinions about how a recording session goes that aren’t always indicative of success. That was the case with one Beatles song and John Lennon. Despite fans chalking “Across the Universe” up to being a masterpiece, Lennon thought it was badly recorded.
Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup
They slither wildly as they slip away across the universe
Pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my opened mind
Possessing and caressing me
Jai guru deva, om
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Nothing’s gonna change my world
“Across the Universe” was penned by Lennon and credited to the Lennon-McCartney partnership. Many fans consider this track one of the Beatles’ best compositions. It’s very Lennon, with its off-kilter lyrics and warbly instrumentation. Despite his high hopes for this track, Lennon felt it fell short. Though it’s not an opinion shared by many, Lennon made his feeling well known.
Source: americansongwriter.com/Alex Hopper
What do you do if you are John Lennon at the height of Beatlemania and you want to get away from it all? You go home.
But peace didn’t last long. The country house gave Lennon refuge, but it also brought boredom. So he did nothing. Until he wrote “Nowhere Man.”
Lennon had escaped to his home in Weybridge, England, in an attempt to hide away from the mass hysteria surrounding The Beatles. But the silence became too much to tolerate. After a while at home, he felt isolated.
He’s a real nowhere man
Sitting in his nowhere land
Making all his nowhere plans for nobody
He told author David Sheff, “I’d spent five hours that morning trying to write a song that was meaningful and good and I finally gave up and lay down. Then ‘Nowhere Man’ came, words and music, the whole damn thing, as I lay down.”
Sheff’s interviews with Lennon (and Yoko Ono) are compiled in his book All We Are Saying (2000). The interviews were first published in Playboy in November 1980. Lennon was murdered a month later.
Doesn’t have a point of view
Knows not where he’s going to
Isn’t he a bit like you and me?
Lazy Days
In 1966, Lennon told the Evening Standard he was “physically lazy.” He said, “I don’t mind writing or reading or watching or speaking, but sex is the only physical thing I can be bothered with anymore.”
However, writing “Nowhere Man” is doing something. The idea of sitting around with nothing to do created a temporary writer’s block. But once Lennon stopped thinking about anything, the song came to him. He quit trying to write. Gave up to sleep.
Source: americansongwriter.com/americansongwriter.com
You may think Ringo Starr is more Abbey Road than Music Row, but the iconic Beatles drummer says he's always had a soft spot for country music.
Starr will celebrate his longtime love for the genre alongside country greats like Emmylou Harris and Sheryl Crow at the world-famous Ryman Auditorium in Nashville in a new 2-hour concert special called "Ringo & Friends at the Ryman," airing Monday, March 10 at 8 p.m. ET on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.
"When I was a teenager with Hank Williams and people like that the name of the game was to get here," he told CBS News senior culture correspondent Anthony Mason in an interview for "CBS Mornings" while walking backstage at the Ryman, once home of the Grand Ole Opry. "Peace, love and country music"
Mason met up with Starr at the start of his 2-day country "tour" at the Ryman following the release of his new country music album, "Look Up," produced and co-written by T Bone Burnett.
Source: cbsnews.com/Anthony Mason, Jennifer Earl
Considering he was one of the most famous people on the planet, George Harrison probably didn’t need too much urging to sing about the damage that can be done by unfounded gossip. When he stumbled upon a clever phrase to represent this phenomenon, he was off and running.
“Devil’s Radio” turned out to be one of the high-energy highlights of Cloud Nine, the 1987 album that rocketed Harrison back to the top of the rock and roll world. His sharp wit is ever-present on the song, although it can’t quite hide his obvious disgust for loose talk.
To Beat the “Devil”
The credits list for “Devil’s Radio” gives you an idea of how many big names were itching to work with George Harrison as he reentered the pop music arena after years away. Eric Clapton plays lead guitar, Elton John adds piano, producer Jeff Lynne handles the bass, and Harrison’s Beatle buddy Ringo Starr lays down the beat on drums.
They combined to make a formidable noise on the song. But it’s Harrison at center stage, as he was throughout the Cloud Nine album, writing, singing, and playing with renewed vigor.
Source: americansongwriter.com/Jim Beviglia
Whenever you release music into the world, you’re no longer in control of how the public will interpret a song’s meaning—something Paul McCartney quickly learned once people started imbuing Beatles songs with extra messages and references the Fab Four didn’t intend to make. On the one hand, these different perceptions are what makes music such an interesting, universal experience.
But on the other hand, it’s rarely a pleasant experience to have someone put words in your mouth. In a 1967 interview with British artist and graphic designer Alan Aldridge, McCartney clarified what some Beatles lyrics actually meant and, perhaps more importantly, what they didn’t. “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” Wasn’t An Ode To LSD
The Beatles’ iconic track “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” is the third song on the A-side of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, a concept album that marked the height of the Fab Four’s psychedelic phase. Consequently, many people believed “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” was an ode to LSD, or lysergic acid diethylamide, a potent hallucinogen commonly referred to as acid. Paul McCartney told interviewer Alan Aldridge that the connection was “cunning” but that the band “never thought about it.”
“What happened was that John’s son, Julian, did a drawing at school and brought it home, and he has a schoolmate called Lucy, and John said, ‘What’s that?’ And he said, ‘Lucy in the sky with diamonds.’ So, we had a nice title. We did the whole thing like an Alice in Wonderland idea, being in a boat on the river, slowly drifting downstream. This Lucy was God, the big figure, the white rabbit. You can just write a song with imagination on words, and that’s what we did.” “Fixing a Hole” Wasn’t About Injectable Drugs.
Source: americansongwriter.com/Melanie Davis
John Lennon’s I Am the Walrus Beatles lyrics deciphered by music expert
One of John Lennon’s favourite of his Beatles songs is 1967’s I Am the Walrus. Arguably the most cryptic of the Fab Four’s tracks, fans have debated the meaning behind the lyrics’ surreal imagery for decades.
In fact, the late star wrote it to confuse people who were overanalysing the band’s songs, such as Strawberry Fields Forever. In reality, it was partially inspired by two of his LSD trips and Lewis Carroll’s famous 1971 poem The Walrus and the Carpenter.
Now, professional musician Margrét Juliana Sigurdardottir, founder of Moombix, an online platform specialising in adult music education, has shared her thoughts on the true meaning of Lennon’s I Am the Walrus lyrics.
“The song begins with a phrase that sounds philosophical but remains open to interpretation. It suggests a sense of togetherness and equality. We are all interconnected, sharing in the same human experience despite our apparent differences. This sense of interconnectedness may possibly be influenced by Lennon's interest in Eastern philosophy, which was blossoming in the late 1960s.
Source: express.co.uk/George Simpson
