Beatles News
It must’ve been disorienting, knowing that you could do pretty much anything and still hit #1. That’s basically what “Hello, Goodbye” is. The Beatles had been having a hell of a year. During the early summer, they’d released Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the album that more or less forced the entire culturally literate world to view them as high artists. But a few months after that, Brian Epstein, the manager who had discovered them and taught them how to be stars, died of an apparently accidental overdose of sleeping pills and alcohol. Epstein was just 32 when he died. “Hello, Goodbye” was the Beatles’ first release after Epstein’s death, and maybe its simplistic babbling was the only rational response imaginable to the members of this band, seeing that their public lives had spun out of control.
“Hello, Goodbye” came out of a word game. One night, Paul McCartney sat at a piano and sang a few words, asking Epstein’s assistant Alistair Taylor to call out the opposite of what he was saying. McCartney then turned it into a song. It wasn’t about anything, though that hasn’t stopped people from theorizing about it. It’s prettily orchestrated nothingness — a numb word-salad nothing with a maddeningly repetitive chorus and no real reason for existing beyond the idea that someone decided the Beatles needed to come out with another single.
Source: Tom Breihan @tombreihan /stereogum.com
Jane Asher, Paul McCartney’s girlfriend during much of the Beatles years, inspired many of his best compositions (“And I Love Her,” “Things We Said Today,” “You Won’t See Me,” and “Here, There and Everywhere,” to cite a few examples). “I’m Looking Through You” paints a vivid picture of the couple’s troubled relationship, but another muse may have inspired the Rubber Soul track: Bob Dylan.
As McCartney told Barry Miles in Many Years from Now, he wrote “I’m Looking Through You” while still living in the Asher family home. “I seem to remember [writing the song] after an argument with Jane,” McCartney said. He composed the track as well as songs like “Yesterday” in Peter Asher’s room, as he kept his instruments in the spacious area.
After penning the track, McCartney brought the song to Abbey Road Studios on October 24, 1965. They spent an astounding nine hours on the song, recording the rhythm track in a single take and overdubbing the lead and backing vocals, handclaps, maracas, organ, and electric guitar. Then they set the song aside for a few weeks. At this point, “I’m Looking Through You” featured a slightly slower tempo, significantly different percussion, no “why tell me why” bridge, an organ riff (courtesy of Ringo Starr), and a bluesy guitar solo from George Harrison. The extended instrumental sections resemble a Rolling Stones track through Harrison’s snarling guitar.
Source: Kit O'Toole/somethingelsereviews.com
Jean-Marc Vallee is set to direct a film about John Lennon and Yoko Ono.
Universal Pictures is in negotiations to option Anthony McCarten’s script with Michael De Luca Productions and Immersive Pictures producing. News first emerged in February that De Luca was collaborating with Yoko Ono for an untitled drama about Ono and her relationship with Lennon.
Vallee (“Dallas Buyers Club,” “Big Little Lies”) is attached to direct and edit. He will also rewrite the screenplay alongside McCarten. Ono will produce with De Luca, Immersive Pictures’ Josh Bratman, and McCarten. Vallee and his producing partner Nathan Ross will also produce through their production company, Crazyrose. Bruce Kaufman of Wood Hollow Pictures will executive produce.
Ono and Lennon met in 1966 at a London art gallery, where Ono was showing abstract art while the Beatles were four years into superstardom. Lennon asked Ono about her “Painting to Hammer a Nail In” piece, and if he could hammer a nail into the painting.
Source: Dave McNary/variety.com
As Paul McCartney and Wings performed in the early ‘70s, a family of mice got on with their lives underneath the stage. At least that was the concept behind The Bruce McMouse Show, a part-animated concert movie that was completed but never released.
It’s been so well hidden, in fact, that little else besides a handful of still drawings from the production had ever escaped from the McCartney vaults. Then the title appeared today as part of an upcoming expanded reissue of Wings' 1973 album Red Rose Speedway. That had many asking, "What was The Bruce McMouse Show?"
In the original hour-long presentation, Wings interacted with the pipe-smoking Bruce McMouse and his family, which included wife Yvonne and their children Soily, Swooney and Swat. Also featured was a blue walrus, harking back to the Beatles track “I Am the Walrus” and the assertion “the walrus was Paul” in “Glass Onion.”
Source: ultimateclassicrock.com
With the release of studio album Egypt Station via Capitol Records on Sept. 7, Paul McCartney reached his first number one debut in over 36 years. The number one spot was earned with 153,000 equivalent album units earned in the week ending Sept. 13 according to Nielsen Music.
The former Beatle was able to move a larger than expected 147,000 records through traditional album sales, which stands as an impressive feat in the era of streaming. Egypt Station also marks the Liverpool-native’s first solo album to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart.
In addition to the artist and the music itself, McCartney’s highest selling debut record in more than ten years stems from a galvanized team that hit all the right notes for the star’s marketing campaign.
Source: Taylor Mims/Billboard
Universal Music Group (UMG) has appointed Grammy-winning producer, composer and arranger Giles Martin – son of legendary Beatles producer Sir George Martin – to a new global role as head of audio and sound.
Based at Abbey Road Studios in London, his new role will be to lead UMG’s work with new audio formats and consumer technology to encourage UMG artists to experiment in the company’s studios, including Abbey Road and Capitol Studios in Los Angeles.
His career, which began working with Sir George as a runner at his AIR studios, has followed his father’s approach to new sounds and experimenting in the studio.
Martin said: “The landscape of the way people listen to music has changed dramatically. This is an exciting time.
Source: Velvet Winter/themusicnetwork.com
If we told you that The Beatles scored a top 20 single in 1964—the year that they broke in America—that’s been all but forgotten, you’d rightfully be skeptical. All of the Beatles’ hits are still loved and known inside out and upside down, you’d say to yourself. How could one have been “lost” to time?
But it’s true. A #19 hit in America, this song fared better on the Billboard singles chart than such memorable tunes as “From Me to You” and “I’ll Cry Instead,” yet it has received virtually no radio airplay in decades and is almost never mentioned in accounts of the band’s early days.
The tune in question was a cover, recorded in Germany all the way back in 1961, when Pete Best was still the band’s drummer. It hit the U.S. chart the very same day as the title song from A Hard Day’s Night, which of course rocketed to #1, but this particular song was considered a curiosity even as it climbed the charts.
Source: Jeff Tamarkin/bestclassicbands.com
The Beatles’ multi-million revival machine is set for another boost from the White Album’s 50th anniversary. Before the package is released on November 9, its new producer Giles Martin has revealed more discoveries he made while he worked on the remixed, remastered and expanded box set.
The album, which has the formal title The Beatles but is most commonly referred to by its minimalist white cover by the artist Richard Hamilton, is the successor to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, which was last year’s best-selling reissue and revived a form of lucrative Beatlemania. Martin, the son of the original producer, the late Sir George Martin, spoke about the new discoveries at a listening event in London.
Source: Mark Beech/
This list started when Alastair Campbell tried, via Twitter, to persuade Abba to object to Theresa May jiving on to the stage at the Conservative Party conference to “Dancing Queen”. The band had objected to the anti-immigration Danish People’s Party when it played “Mamma Mia” at rallies (changing the “Mia” to “Pia” after their leader, Pia Kjaersgaard, Robert Boston told me). But Björn Ulvaeus, asked by journalists, refused to comment on the British prime minister’s homage.
1. Abba: The band’s publishers also served John McCain with a cease and desist letter for using “Take a Chance on Me” in 2008. A somewhat un-reassuring political message, I thought, nominated by No Ordinary Cat.
Source: John Rentoul/independent.co.uk
He was the Dundee photographer who took the iconic image of one of music’s most famous albums.
Paul McCartney chose Iain MacMillan’s shot for the Abbey Road cover in 1969.
The street would eventually become as famous as the music itself thanks to the photograph Iain produced.
Mr MacMillan’s work with John Lennon and Yoko Ono also included working on record sleeves for Live Peace in Toronto, Give Peace a Chance and Happy Xmas (War is Over).
He also shot the album cover for Something’s Burning by Kenny Rogers and took portraits of various celebrities from the world of sport, acting and pop music including Stevie Wonder, Twiggy, Floyd Paterson and Maggie Smith.
Mr MacMillan’s rich legacy in print is now being fondly remembered by those who knew him best to mark what would have been his 80th birthday.
Source: thecourier.co.uk
