Beatles News
John Lennon wasn’t known as a religious man during much of his life. He even pondered what the world would be like without religion in one of his most famous songs, “Imagine.” His apparent lack of enthusiasm about Christianity didn’t stop him from producing one of the biggest Christmas hits of all time.
“Happy Xmas (War is Over)” is a classic by this point, one that returns to prominence every December. The tune reappears on several charts in the United Kingdom as the big day nears.
Lennon is back on both the Official Streaming chart and the main ranking of the most-consumed songs in the U.K. with his tune. “Happy Xmas (War is Over)” blasts back onto the streaming roster at No. 67. It comes in much lower–at No. 92–on the general songs tally.
“Happy Xmas (War is Over)” has now spent at least one year on both of those charts throughout its lifetime. The tune reaches that milestone on the streaming ranking, as it’s now lived on the list for 52 turns–though not all in a row. The cut is up to 61 stints on the songs chart.
Lennon fronts “Happy Xmas (War is Over),” but the tune isn’t credited to the former Beatle alone. He’s joined on the cut by his then-wife, Yoko Ono. Their backing group, the Plastic Ono Band, is also named, so all three acts are back on the charts.
“Happy Xmas (War is Over)” is likely just beginning its jolly return, as Christmas cuts are on the way up. Throughout December, famous tracks, such as Lennon’s, enjoy huge gains in streams and sales, as well as radio airplay, as the world celebrates the happiest time of the year for so many. In the coming weeks, it’s likely that Lennon and company will ascend even higher.
Source: Hugh McIntyre/forbes.com
Beatles '64 promises a fan-pleasing look at the titular band's maiden trip to American shores, but the Disney+ documentary doesn't quite come together. Produced by Martin Scorsese and directed by David Tedeschi, Beatles '64 follows John, Paul, Ringo, and George from their United States touchdown in early 1964 to their triumphant return back home in Britain. Like great music documentaries of yore, Beatles '64 combines an awesome soundtrack with behind-the-scenes footage, all manner of live performances, talking head interviews, and unquestionably fascinating views of the legendary "British Invasion."
Reactions to Beatles '64 have been largely positive, albeit with some division. At the time of writing, the Disney+ documentary holds a 94% Tomatometer rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and plenty of reviews have been effusive in their praise. The Guardian hails the film as a "sublime snapshot," while Rolling Stone calls it a "a tribute to the fans as well as the band." On the other end of the spectrum, The Telegraph accuses Beatles '64 of achieving the impossible by making The Beatles "boring," whereas The Glass Onion takes the slightly more nuanced view of "compelling but slightly confused." Certainly, it is easy to see why opinion is conflicted.
Beatles '64 Is A Hyper-Specific Look Into A Short Period Of The Beatles' Timeline
The strangest aspect of Beatles '64 is how zoomed-in upon one specific point of the band's career the documentary really is, to the point where it really should have been called "Beatles February 7-22 '64." Any Beatles newcomer would be forgiven for thinking "She Loves You" and "I Want To Hold Your Hand" were the Fab Four's only two hits of note. The documentary, of course, made no secret of its missive to focus on The Beatles' debut U.S. visit, and covering the group's existence in its entirety would be far too big a job for any single sub-two-hour film.
Source: Craig Elvy/screenrant.com
I realize that what I’m about to say could have very easily been a trending story in 1965 (if they’d had blogs or, indeed, embraced the concept of “trending” back then), but I soldier on regardless: Amid all the commotion about the casting for Sam Mendes’s upcoming Beatles biopic, I worry that the most serious and least vapid issue of all—which Beatle was the hottest?—is getting lost. Yes, this is definitely something Mad Men’s Sally Draper and her friends could have argued about six decades ago, but what can I say? Crush-worthiness is eternal.
Of course, there’s a valid case to be made for each individual Beatle. George Harrison was probably the most empirically handsome (and arguably the best dressed); John Lennon was ephemerally sexy in a way I can’t really define (although I did recently learn he was kind of ripped, albeit in a skinny-Englishman way? Maybe that’s how he pulled Yoko Ono…); and Paul McCartney had that sweet moon face and big doe eyes. But there’s really only one Beatle that makes my tragic bisexual heart skip a beat, and it’s Ringo Starr. Was he traditionally attractive? No. Was he as symmetrically featured as his bandmates? No. But was he in possession of what the kids today might call undeniable, inexplicable rizz? Absolutely.
Source: Emma Specter/avogue.com
Long-lost notes relating to the acrimonious break-up of The Beatles will go under the hammer next week.
More than 300 pages of typed documents, compiled by the Fab Four's various advisors and legal representatives, were found in a cupboard where they had lain untouched since the 1970s.
Denise Kelly, from auctioneers Dawsons, said the "fascinating" papers were used by lawyers during an acrimonious High Court legal battle which resulted in the band's official split in 1974.
The papers will be auctioned on 12 December in Maidenhead and are expected to fetch between £5,000 and £8,000. Online bidders will be able to participate. Dawsons did not reveal where the notes had been found, only that they had been discovered within the last year.
"I just couldn’t put them down until I had read every page," said Ms Kelly. "As I read the minutes of meetings - notes which included discussions between the legal teams and accountants - I wondered how on earth they were going to sort everything out, and at times I could sense panic in the room as more and more complexities came to light.
"One of the lawyers even suggested during one meeting when they had gone round and round and round in circles: ‘Would it be easier if The Beatles just retired?’" She added: "It has crossed my mind that if I were a script writer, these documents would be all I'd need to tell the real story of what led to one of the best-selling bands in history splitting up and going their separate ways."
'We had to pretend' In 2021, Sir Paul McCartney told the BBC why he had felt compelled to "sue my mates".
Despite stepping away from The Beatles in early 1970, the band's final legal separation was not confirmed until December 1974.
McCartney said confusion over the break-up had festered because the band's new manager Allen Klein - with whom he refused to align - said he had needed time to tie up some financial loose ends.
Source: Paul Burnell/bbc.com
George Harrison was always known as the “quiet Beatle,” as he was the least gregarious and outgoing of the bunch. That nickname stuck even after the band broke up and all four men pursued solo careers. While he may have been fairly soft-spoken, his music did a lot of the talking for him, and it was plenty loud enough.
One of Harrison’s most famous albums, Living in the Material World, returns to the Billboard charts this week. The decades-old collection was recently re-released as a collectible vinyl, and fans of the late rocker and former Beatle musician bought the title in large numbers—ones that become especially impressive when compared to how the title was performing before it was reissued.
In the past tracking week, Living in the Material World sold another 6,800 copies throughout the U.S., according to Luminate. That’s up massively from the period before, when there were very few people in America who wanted to buy the classic.
Before it was re-released, Living in the Material World sold a little more than 50 copies in the United States in the prior tracking week. From one frame to the next, the title soared 12,550% in pure purchases.
Several versions of Living in the Material World were made available to celebrate the title’s fiftieth anniversary, and they were offered in limited quantities, which likely spurred the buying frenzy. All editions included the original full-length, as well as various other extras, like a book, a seven-inch vinyl of one single, and even previously unreleased tracks—the kind that would surely intrigue longtime lovers of Harrison’s work.
All those purchases help Living in the Material World debut on two Billboard charts. While the project was a quick top 10 smash on the Billboard 200 when it was first released in the ‘70s, it now lands on a pair of tallies that weren’t around at the time.
Source: Hugh McIntyre/forbes.com
In early 2024, it was announced that Sam Mendes would be producing four films about worldwide musical phenomenon The Beatles with Sony Pictures Entertainment and Mendes’s Neal Street Productions. At the time, Ringo Starr himself tweeted that the films were fully supported by himself and the families of Paul McCartney, John Lennon, and George Harrison.
This is the first time Apple Corps Ltd. and The Beatles have granted a scripted film expansive life story and music rights, so it’s a pretty big deal. Here’s what we know about the movie quartet so far.
What are The Beatles movies about?
Mendes hasn’t been too specific—the details of the band’s life and history together is pretty well-covered in myriad movies and documentaries anyway, so it is really a matter of style over substance. The Oscar-winning director indicated that the films will be interwoven and include one band member’s point of view per movie.
Mendes is directing all four films and producing with Pippa Harris and Julie Pastor, but they’re supposedly still searching for their screenwriters. Who is in the cast for the four movies?
Ringo Starr was interviewed by Entertainment Tonight and seemed to confirm that Irish actor Barry Keoghan had been cast as his youthful doppelgänger. When asked about Keoghan possibly being a match, Starr replied, “Well, I think he’s great, and I believe he’s somewhere taking drum lessons.”
Source: Aimée Lutkin/elle.com
While creative differences, the strain of stardom and John Lennon's girlfriend Yoko Ono have all been blamed for the Fab Four's break-up, the documents reveal the numerous convoluted legal battles that also weighed on the band.
The documents, which were discovered in a cupboard where they had been stored since the 1970s, include copies of The Beatles advisor's minutes of meetings, legal writs and a copy of the band's 1967 Original Deed of Partnership.
They show that after manager Brian Epstein died in 1967, the band realised that money was unaccounted for and that they were being pursued by tax authorities.
Another damaging legal battle erupted when Paul McCartney opposed the decision by other band members to hire Allen Klein as their new manager.
The uncovered stash of files document the subsequent 1970 High Court battle launched by McCartney against the band in London, which exposed Klein's mismanagement.
"It would be almost impossible to exaggerate the actual complexity of the various legal arrangements which have been entered into by Messrs. Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and Starkey (Ringo Starr)," said notes on one document.
Other legal difficulties besetting the band included deciding when Pete Best left the group and Ringo Starr joined, royalties for film and music rights and Klein's inability to produce accounts for the tax authorities.
"Even though John, Paul, George, and Ringo had grown tired of being The Beatles and wanted to record and perform as individual artists, this must have been a difficult time for each of them," said Denise Kelly, head of Dawsons Entertainment and Popular Culture department.
Source: france24.com
John Lennon and Yoko Ono were not just a power couple because of their undeniable impact on music history. The couple were also dedicated activists and key players in the anti-war movement during the Vietnam War. And this did not sit too well with the political powers at the time.
Their only son, Sean Ono Lennon, recently sat with PEOPLE to debut the reissue of his father’s album Mind Games, along with a multimedia box set that includes song remixes, reproductions of art pieces made by Lennon and Ono, posters, postcards, and much more. But Ono Lennon also took the time to share important details about his iconic parents’ relationship, including the trying moments where President Nixon wanted them deported. John Lennon and Yoko Ono had the State Department on edge.
Lennon and Ono used their honeymoon to stage a “bed-in” protest in the Netherlands. They also recorded their iconic anti-war anthem “Give Peace a Chance” during a similar protest held in Montreal. This, among other anti-war gems like “Merry Xmas (The War is Over)”, was evidently powerful enough to have then-President Nixon threatened, especially as both Lennon and Ono were relentless in their activism. Furthermore, the power couple had billboards put up all around the world that read: “War is Over! If You Want It!”
Following all of this, the Nixon administration began to attempt to get Lennon deported from the United States. The President decided to send the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) after one of The Beatles on a phony drug charge. Nixon’s administration’s petty justification for Lennon’s intended deportation was a marijuana-related misdemeanor charge the musician had gotten in England over five years prior.
Source: Demi Phillips/wegotthiscovered.com
John Lennon never pretended to have all the answers. While he put himself in the limelight at times for his political views, it was generally in the guise of someone who was posing opinions and beliefs that questioned the status quo, not as someone with definitive solutions.
He also displayed inquisitiveness when it came to his own life. From his 1971 album Imagine, the song “How?” finds him practically paralyzed by questions about his potential path forward that he can’t seem to answer.
If you just listened to the sound alone of John Lennon’s first two solo albums, you might think he’d undergone a drastic change in attitude in the year that separated their releases. But the different musical tone of the records had more to do with what Lennon wanted out of those two records.
John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, which he released in 1970, was extremely stark from a musical standpoint. He recorded most of the songs with a trio, and he often screamed out the lyrics. This was in response to the “primal scream” therapy he was undergoing at the time.
By contrast, Imagine, released in 1971, arrived sounding much lusher and more produced. The record was also full of sweet melodies. But that benign feel didn’t often translate to the lyrics. Songs like “Crippled Inside” and “Jealous Guy” were quite catchy, but the sentiment of the lyrics was often just as raw as what appeared on the first record.
Source: Jim Beviglia/americansongwriter.com
Paul McCartney has given fans insight into how he wrote many of his most famous songs. He said he wrote The Beatles’ “Yesterday” because of magic and a dream. The cute Beatle felt the tune could not be explained in purely natural terms.
Paul McCartney had no idea how he came up with the tune for The Beatles’ ‘Yesterday’
The Beatles wrote many songs that were innovative and inspired new genres of music. “Yesterday,” on the other hand, was pretty old-fashioned. It could have been a hit for Frank Sinatra in the 1940s or Elvis Presley in the 1950s — or for Michael Steven Bublé or Meghan Trainor today. It’s beloved not because it was novel but because it was such a well-written example of a traditional pop ballad.
Paul discussed the origin of “Yesterday.” “‘Yesterday’ came to me in a dream, but at this time it wasn’t just my mom saying a phrase,” he said. “This was a whole tune that was in my head. I had no idea where it came from.
“Best I can think is that my computer [in my head] through the years loaded all these things and finally printed out this song in a dream kind of thing,” the “Silly Love Songs” singer said. “I have to believe that that’s magical. I have no other rational explanation for it.”
Source: Matthew Trzcinski/cheatsheet.com
